As China Stalks Satellites, U.S. and Japan Prepare to Defend Them

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Photo Credit: Getty Images

Photo Credit: Getty Images

In May 2013 the Chinese government conducted what it called a science space mission from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest China. Half a world away, Brian Weeden, a former U.S. Air Force officer, wasn’t buying it. The liftoff took place at night and employed a powerful rocket as well as a truck-based launch vehicle—all quite unusual for a science project, he says.

In a subsequent report for the Secure World Foundation, the space policy think tank where he works, Weeden concluded that the Chinese launch was more likely a test of a mobile rocket booster for an antisatellite (ASAT) weapon that could reach targets in geostationary orbit about 22,236 miles above the equator. That’s the stomping grounds of expensive U.S. spacecraft that monitor battlefield movements, detect heat from the early stages of missile launches, and help orchestrate drone fleets. “This is the stuff the U.S. really cares about,” Weeden says.

The Pentagon never commented in detail on last year’s launch—and the Chinese have stuck to their story. U.S. and Japanese analysts say China has the most aggressive satellite attack program in the world. It has staged at least six ASAT missile tests over the past nine years, including the destruction of a defunct Chinese weather satellite in 2007. “It’s part of a Chinese bid for hegemony, which is not just about controlling the oceans but airspace and, as an extension of that, outer space,” says Minoru Terada, deputy secretary-general of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party.

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Don’t Be Fooled, Germany’s Outrage at U.S. Spying Is Just for Show

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Photo Credit: ADAM BERRY—AFP / Getty Images

Photo Credit: ADAM BERRY—AFP / Getty Images

It’s unlikely Germany didn’t know what the U.S. was up to, and kicking out a local CIA chief is largely political theatrics for a German citizenry still fuming over last year’s revelations of extensive NSA surveillance, says former CIA lawyer John Rizzo.

After serving more than three decades as a lawyer at the CIA, I retired from the Agency nearly five years ago. Since then, I’ve been like everyone else in the outside world—all I know about what the CIA is reportedly up to comes from the media. For someone who had been privy to the most sensitive national security secrets for so long, I’ve found my new existence at once liberating and frustrating. I no longer have to help manage the messy controversies in which the CIA seems to be constantly embroiled, but I also wonder whether all the spy “flaps” I read about now in the newspapers really tell the true, or at least the complete, story.

So it is with the latest crisis du jour, the German government’s announcement that it was expelling the alleged local CIA station chief in the wake of the Agency’s “recruitment” of maybe one or two Germans working inside the government in Berlin. Germany’s official reaction has been outrage and hurt – how could the U.S. do such a sneaky, underhanded thing like spying on one of its closest allies? Critics in both countries publicly fret that a crucial bilateral relationship may have suffered lasting harm. But amid all the ensuing sturm und drang, when I read the press accounts, my experience tells me that there’s more going on here than the headlines indicate.

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Special-Ops Chief Didn't Know of Benghazi Facility

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Photo Credit: WND

Photo Credit: WND

Rear Adm. Brian L. Losey, former commander of the U.S. Special Operations Command in Africa, conceded in congressional testimony that prior to the Sept. 11, 2012, attack, he was not aware of the existence of the U.S. special mission in Benghazi or the nearby CIA annex.

Losey was commander of SOCAFRICA during the attack. His position put him in charge of helping U.S. diplomatic facilities in Africa build an operational security plan and strengthen regional security. His unit is supposed to work closely with U.S. Embassy country teams.

His shock testimony of being unaware of the U.S. facilities in Benghazi was largely unreported and was included in a recently unclassified version of his March 14 statements to several security subcommittees of the U.S. House of Representatives.

The staggering detail raises the question of what was transpiring at the fated annex and nearby U.S. special mission and why key members of the Defense Department, including those responsible for responding to emergency situations, were not aware of it.

Losey was asked whether or not he was aware of the CIA annex in Benghazi before the attack.

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Netanyahu Says Israel Will Hit Hamas Hard

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Photo Credit: REUTERS / Ibraheem Abu MustafaIsrael’s leader says the country will exert “great force” against Gaza’s Hamas rulers after the Islamic militants rejected a truce agreement.

Israel halted its fire for six hours Tuesday after accepting an Egyptian truce proposal. But with Hamas continuing to launch rockets into Israel, it resumed strikes in the afternoon.

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Jewish Human Rights Group Slams Twitter for Allowing Hamas Supporters to Broadcast ‘HitlerWasRight’ Hashtag

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Photo Credit: ScreenshotBy Joshua Levitt.

Jewish human rights group the Simon Wiesenthal Center on Monday demanded that social media platform Twitter do more to stem anti-Semitic hate from supporters of Hamas, after online magazine BuzzFeed reported on Sunday how the #HitlerWasRight hashtag was gaining widespread usage on the site.

“Twitter needs to articulate a coherent policy in dealing with hate and terrorism and live up to those standards,” SWC dean Rabbi Abraham Cooper told The Algemeiner. “The freedom of speech fig leaf doesn’t cover such hatred in the private domain.”

Cooper said that as part of the SWC’s Digital Terrorism and Hate Project, the organization grades social networking platforms for their responsiveness in dealing with digital terrorism and hate.

“Facebook usually earns A-, YouTube C,” Cooper said. “Last year, after meeting with senior Twitter officials in San Francisco, we upgraded Twitter to a D-. Previously it received an F.”

Cooper said SWC is scheduled to meet Twitter executives again later this month. But that “even without this pornographic anti-Semitic hate, Twitter was well on its way to another F as it remains the social networking platform of choice of terrorists and their supporters around the world.”

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Photo Credit: REUTERS / CHRISTIAN HARTMANNNeo-Nazis, Islamists declare ‘You Jews are beasts’ during protest of Israeli operation

By Benjamin Weinthal.

A demonstration in Frankfurt against Operation Protective Edge erupted into violence, with protesters tossing stones at the police.

According to the Frankfurter Rundschau paper, about 2,500 protesters appeared in downtown Frankfurt, screaming “God is great,” and slogans such as “freedom for Palestine” and “children-murderer Israel.”

Eight police officers were injured. One sign at the rally was titled, “You Jews are Beasts.”

German media reported that after the protests, groups sought to locate Jewish institutions. The Frankfurt police said Jewish institutions would be protected. It is unclear if the goal was to attack said institutions.

According to the Rundschau, student organization Left-SDS, Islamists and some members of the Neo-Nazi group National Socialists Rhein-Main attended the anti-Israel protest. Flags from Turkey, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Hamas were on display at the protest. Banners compared Prime Minister Netanyahu with Adolf Hitler.

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Clashes in Paris as Thousands March Against Israel Offensive

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Photo Credit: AFP / Kenzo TribouillardClashes erupted in Paris on Sunday as thousands of people protested against Israel and in support of residents in the Gaza Strip, where a six-day conflict has left 168 Palestinians dead.

Several thousand demonstrators walked calmly through the streets of Paris behind a large banner that read “Total Support for the Struggle of the Palestinian People”.

But clashes erupted at the end of the march on Bastille Square, with people throwing projectiles onto a cordon of police who responded with tear gas.

The unrest continued early Sunday evening as police announced six arrests had been made.

A small group tired to break into two synagogues in central Paris, a police source told AFP.

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Jailed Marine’s Attorney says Arrest ‘Tainted’ by Human Rights Violations

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Photo Credit: Fox News The attorney for the Marine being held in a Mexican prison on gun charges told Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren Thursday that the case is “tainted by several human rights violations.”

A Mexican federal judge sent Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi back to prison Wednesday after he made his first official courtroom appearance since being locked up more than three months ago for accidentally crossing the border with guns in his pickup truck.

Fernando Benitez, Tahmooressi’s lawyer, told Fox News Thursday he believes the entire case against his client has been tainted because of the way it was handled by Mexican authorities, and should be dismissed.

“Right now we have a lot of evidence that the arrest is tainted by several serious human rights violations,” Benitez said on “On the Record with Greta Van Susteren.” “The further we go into evidence, into that topic, the more clear it will become I believe.”

Benitez said the violations occurred during the time Tahmooressi was held at the customs point of entry, but said he was not at liberty to discuss them in detail.

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Germany Kicks Out Top US Spy Over Espionage Claims

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Photo Credit: TownHallGermany on Thursday demanded Washington’s top spy in Berlin leave the country as a new round of allegations of U.S. espionage worsened the friction between the two allies.

The immediate trigger was the emergence of two new cases of alleged American spying. They inflamed a furor that erupted last year when it was learned that the U.S. was intercepting Internet traffic in Germany and eavesdropping on Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cellphone calls.

More broadly, the move to kick out the CIA station chief appears to reflect a Germany out of patience with what it sees as a pattern of American disrespect and interference.

“The representative of the U.S. intelligence services at the United States Embassy has been asked to leave Germany,” German government spokesman Steffen Seibert said in a statement.

“The request occurred against the backdrop of the ongoing investigation by federal prosecutors as well as the questions that were posed months ago about the activities of U.S. intelligence agencies in Germany,” he added. “The government takes the matter very seriously.”

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APNewsBreak: Different Attackers in Benghazi?

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Photo Credit: TownHall Newly revealed testimony from top military commanders involved in the U.S. response to the Benghazi attacks suggests that the perpetrators of a second, dawn attack on a CIA complex probably were different from those who penetrated the U.S. diplomatic mission the evening before and set it ablaze, killing Ambassador Chris Stevens and another American.

The second attack, which killed two security contractors, showed clear military training, retired Gen. Carter Ham told Congress in closed-door testimony released late Wednesday. The assault probably was the work of a new team of militants, seizing on reports of violence at the diplomatic mission the night before and hitting the Americans while they were most vulnerable.

The testimony, which The Associated Press was able to read ahead of its release, could clarify for the first time the events of Sept. 11, 2012, that have stirred bitter recriminations in the U.S., including Republican-led congressional investigations and campaign-season denunciations of the Obama administration, which made inaccurate statements about the Libyan attacks. The testimony underscores a key detail that sometimes has been lost in the debate: that the attacks were two distinct events over two days on two different buildings, perhaps by unrelated groups.

The U.S. government still has not fully characterized the first attack in which, according to Ham and eight other military officers, men who seemed familiar with the lightly protected diplomatic compound breached it and set it on fire, killing Stevens and communications specialist Sean Smith. A disorganized mob of looters then overran the facility.

In testimony to two House panels earlier this year, the officers said that commanders didn’t have the information they needed to understand the nature of the attack, that they were unaware of the extent of the U.S. presence in Benghazi at the time and they were convinced erroneously for a time that they were facing a hostage crisis without the ability to move military assets into place that would be of any use.

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ISIS Destroys Shrines and Mosques, May Be Targeting Mecca

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Photo Credit: Fox News ISIS is leaving a path of destroyed churches, shrines and mosques in its wake as it storms across Syria and Iraq, and has even set its sights on Mecca — Islam’s holiest site.

The nihilistic jihadis, led by self-proclaimed descendant of Prophet Muhammad Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, have already bulldozed or blown up some of the most sacred places in Iraq, and seem bent on killing and destroying anyone or anything that does not measure up to their vision of Islam. Experts say the group, which originally stood for Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, but now simply calls itself “Islamic State,” has appointed itself the leading proponent of the Muslim faith.

“They see themselves as the last defenders of Islamic civilization and want to eradicate anything that they see as the enemy of Islam, and any Muslim they perceive as compromising with the West,” Yvonne Haddad, a professor at Georgetown University who specializes in the history of Islam and Christian-Muslim relations, told FoxNews.com.

Mostly comprised of Sunnis, ISIS surprised few when it vowed to destroy sites revered by the rival Shia sect. The two main blocs of Islam have been at odds for nearly 1,400 years because of a dispute over who was Prophet Muhammad’s successor. The destruction of at least 10 ancient Shia shrines in Iraq has enraged the Shia government in Baghdad, as well as the Iranian regime, also Shia.

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