Paris Arms Putin

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Photo Credit: National Review

Photo Credit: National Review

France has decided to ignore pleas from the U.S. and its other NATO allies and go forward with a $1.7 billion contract to sell two helicopter carriers to Vladimir Putin’s Russia. “The contract has been paid and there would be financial penalties for not delivering it,” a French official told Reuters on Monday. “It would be France that is penalized. It’s too easy to say France has to give up on the sale of the ships. We have done our part.”

The French decision makes a mockery of the attempt to impose sanctions on Russia for its illegal annexation of Crimea in March, the first forcible shifting of borders in Europe in more than 60 years.

It’s not hard to figure out why the Russians want the carriers. They purchased them just after invading Georgia in 2008. Russia’s lack of a mobile platform for delivering troops had hurt it badly during that brief conflict. In a 2011 report on the invasion, the Strategic Studies Institute, an arm of the U.S. Army War College, found that Russia had used helicopters to insert Spetsnaz commandos in black uniforms behind Georgian lines to conduct subversion and espionage. Putin used the same tactics in Crimea this month. But Russia’s experience in Georgia, in which aircraft had landed on the coast, had “highlighted the need for improvements in the area of amphibious landing platforms,” the SSI report noted. “The limitations in this capability exposed by the war were certainly part of the reason for Russia’s recent decision to buy Mistral-class ships from France. The Mistral, a multi-role ship capable of transporting and deploying 16 helicopters, 70 armored vehicles, and up to 450 personnel represents a significant improvement over current Russian helicopter carriers and landing craft.”

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Ukraine Gas Producer Appoints Biden’s Son to Board

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Photo Credit: David McNew | Getty Images

Photo Credit: David McNew | Getty Images

By Javier E. David.

Ukraine’s largest private gas producer announced on Tuesday that it added R. Hunter Biden—the son of U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden—to its board of directors.

In a statement on its website, Burisma Holdings said the younger Biden will be in charge of the company’s legal unit, while providing support “among international organizations.”

The release quoted Hunter Biden as saying that “my assistance in consulting the Company on matters of transparency, corporate governance and responsibility, international expansion and other priorities will contribute to the economy and benefit the people of Ukraine.”

Large corporations frequently appoint well-connected marquee names of both major U.S. political parties as directors. Yet corporate governance experts are critical of the process, which can be fraught with conflicts of interests and the appearance of favoritism.

The arrangement raised questions about the propriety of his appointment, given the tense political standoff between Russia and the West over the future status of Ukraine, where fighting has resulted in the deaths of dozens of soldiers and civilians. Natural gas has factored heavily in tensions between Russia and Ukraine, both of which have political leadership that’s intertwined with their respective energy industries.

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How Bad is Barack Obama’s Foreign Policy? Two Words: Joe Biden

By Joseph Curl.

How bad is President Obama’s foreign policy? So bad he sent Vice President Joe Biden to Kiev to handle the Russia-Ukraine mess.

Yes, Barack “Red Line” Obama dispatched the bumbling Biden, the foreign policy “expert” who once called for Iraq to be partitioned by ethnicity into three countries and, as a senator, opposed President Ronald Reagan’s military build-up that ended the Cold War.

Uncle Joe didn’t disappoint, saying in Kiev: “Thank you for making me feel relevant again.” He, of course, left empty-handed, and perhaps, again, feels irrelevant.

How bad is Obama’s foreign policy? He’s made Russian President Vladimir Putin look like a bleeding heart humanitarian — stepping in to save the day in Syria by agreeing to accept its chemical weapons, then lecturing the US President on everything from covert surveillance to international law.

Obama, 52, a former community organizer from Chicago who likes bike rides and golf, has been over his head from the beginning with Putin, 61, a former KGB spook who likes judo and snarling dogs. Putin has played him like a fiddle, most recently when he took a phone call from US whistleblower Edward Snowden during a televised press appearance.

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EU Court Says Google Must Delete ‘Irrelevant’ Links at the Request of Ordinary Individuals

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Photo Credit: Getty

Photo Credit: Getty

By The Independent.

The European Court of Justice struck a major blow against the right of internet companies to hold unlimited information on individuals when it ordered Google to remove links that are deemed “inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant”.

The court’s decision will allow individuals the right to ask internet search engines to remove links to information about them that they do not want known – which could be seen either as an assertion of the right to privacy or an attack on free speech. Google and free speech activists reacted angrily to the court’s verdict which could guarantee individuals a “right to be forgotten” on the internet which is not currently available.

It is unclear exactly how the ruling will be implemented considering the sheer volume of online data and internet users. For individuals keen to erase embarrassing incidents from their past, it could prove a handy tool for re-shaping their digital footprint, while data protection advocates are calling it a victory against the all-powerful internet giants.

But for champions of free speech, the potential for misuse is deeply worrying.

“This is akin to marching into a library and forcing it to pulp books,” said Jodie Ginsberg, chief executive of Index on Censorship. “Although the ruling is intended for private individuals, it opens the door to anyone who wants to whitewash their personal history.”

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Europe’s top court: people have right to be forgotten on Internet

By Reuters.

People can ask Google to delete sensitive information from its Internet search results, Europe’s top court said on Tuesday.

The case underlines the battle between advocates of free expression and supporters of privacy rights, who say people should have the “right to be forgotten” meaning that they should be able to remove their digital traces from the Internet.

The ruling by the Luxembourg-based European Union Court of Justice (ECJ) came after a Spanish man complained to the Spanish data protection agency that an auction notice of his repossessed home on Google’s search results infringed his privacy.

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Over 200 Dead, Many Trapped in Turkish Coal Mine

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

An explosion and fire in a coal mine in western Turkey killed at least 201 workers and left some 200 more trapped deep inside, officials said Tuesday.

A massive rescue operation was underway at the mine in Soma, Turkey, about 150 miles south of Istanbul.

Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yildiz updated the death toll and number of missing after earlier saying 787 people were inside the coal mine at the time of the accident and 363 of of them had been rescued.

He said 80 mine workers were injured, at least four of them in serious condition.

He said most of the deaths were from carbon monoxide poisoning, and those trapped were nearly 500 yards underground..

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Jihadists Execute Seven in Syria, Two by Crucifixion

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Photo Credit: The Daily Star

Photo Credit: The Daily Star

The jihadist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant announced it had executed seven prisoners in its bastion in northeastern Syria on Tuesday, two of them by crucifixion.

ISIL, which has been disavowed even by Al-Qaeda, said it held the seven responsible for a grenade attack on one of its fighters earlier this month in the Euphrates Valley city of Raqa, which it rules with an iron fist.

“Ten days ago, attackers on a motorbike threw a grenade at an ISIL fighter at the Naim roundabout. A Muslim civilian had his leg blown off and a child was killed,” the group said on Twitter.

“Our fighters immediately set up a roadblock and succeeded in capturing them. They were then able to detain other members of the cell.”

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights posted a photograph of the two prisoners being crucified at the roundabout with passer-by walking past apparently unfazed.

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Boko Haram Video Showing Captured Schoolgirls Features al-Qaeda Banner (+video)

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Photo Credit: YouTube

Photo Credit: YouTube

A new Boko Haram propaganda video released Monday, showing some of the more than 200 Nigerian schoolgirls it abducted last month wearing Islamic garb and chanting the Islamic declaration of faith, also features an al-Qaeda banner.

The banner held up behind the reciting girls by two of their number, is the black-and-white one first used by al-Qaeda in Iraq about seven years ago but since displayed by al-Qaeda affiliates in Yemen, Somalia, Syria and Libya.

Bearing the Arabic script for the Islamic declaration of faith or shahada – “There is no god but Allah and Mohammed is his messenger” – it is the same flag that was hoisted at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo during an anti-U.S. protest on Sept. 11, 2012, after the American flag was destroyed.

Western security officials have long suspected that Boko Haram has links to al-Qaeda’s affiliated in North Africa and Somalia – al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and al-Shabaab.

As early as June 2012, then-U.S. Africa Command commander Gen. Carter Ham was voicing concern publicly about indications that Boko Haram, AQIM and al-Shabaab were “seeking to co-ordinate and synchronize their efforts.”

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A ‘Nightmare Becoming Reality’? Iran Unveils American Drone Replica

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Photo Credit: Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader / AP

Photo Credit: Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader / AP

Iran has unveiled its own copy of an American stealth drone it captured in late 2011, claiming to have cracked the “secrets” of the bat-wing craft and added weapons capabilities.

Today, Fars News Agency reported that while Iran’s duplicate of the US RQ-170 Sentinel drone was smaller, it also had a “bombing capability to attack the US warships in any possible battle.” The story in Persian was headlined: “America’s nightmare has become reality.” State television showed footage on Sunday it said was of a US aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf filmed by an Iranian drone.

The drone replica was unveiled at an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) exhibition on Sunday, where Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was briefed on how the drone, its systems, and structure had been reverse-engineered. He called it a “sweet day.”

The stealth replica would “soon take a test flight,” an IRGC officer said on Sunday. Aerospace chief Amir Ali Hajijadeh said today that they are working on two more models of the replica drone.

Proving its prowess

Engineers with the IRGC were ordered to reverse engineer the captured US drone, which was on a CIA mission to spy on nuclear and military sites in Iran when it was brought down in Iran largely intact. Iran reacted with euphoria, trumpeting the capture in an “electronic ambush” showed Iran’s technical prowess.

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Author Who Made Up Holocaust Memoir Told to Repay $22.5 MN

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Photo Credit: AFP / Olivier Laban-Mattei

Photo Credit: AFP / Olivier Laban-Mattei

The author of a global best-selling Holocaust memoir who later admitted it was pure fantasy has been ordered by a US court to repay $22.5 million to her publisher.

US-based Belgian writer Misha Defonseca’s “Misha: A Memoire of the Holocaust Years” told the supposedly true tale of a Jewish girl who was cared for by a pack of wolves and killed a Nazi soldier during World War II.

Published in 1997, it became an instant hit in Europe, was translated into 20 languages and made into the 2007 movie “Surviving With Wolves.”

But in February 2008 Defonseca, whose real name is Monique de Wael, admitted that most of the events were false, including that she was not Jewish, but Catholic, and that she was never forced to leave her home in Belgium during the war.

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Mexico to Legalize Vigilantes Fighting Drug Cartel

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Photo Credit: AP / Eduardo Verdugo

Photo Credit: AP / Eduardo Verdugo

Mexico’s government plans on Saturday to begin demobilizing a vigilante movement of assault rifle-wielding ranchers and farmers that formed in the western state of Michoacan and succeeded in largely expelling the Knights Templar cartel when state and local authorities couldn’t.

The ceremony in the town of Tepalcatepec, where the movement began in February 2013, will involve the registration of thousands of guns by the federal government and an agreement that the so-called “self-defense” groups will either join a new official rural police force or return to their normal lives and acts as voluntary reserves when called on.

The government will go town by town to organize and recruit the new rural forces.

“This is a process of giving legal standing to the self-defense forces,” said vigilante leader Estanislao Beltran.

But tension remained on Friday in the coastal part of the state outside the port of Lazaro Cardenas, where other “self-defense” groups plan to continue as they are, defending their territory without registering their arms. Vigilantes against the demobilization have set up roadblocks in the coastal town of Caleta.

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In High Seas, China Moves Unilaterally

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Photo Credit: Storm Crypt / Flickr

Photo Credit: Storm Crypt / Flickr

It is the pride of China’s state-run oil industry and the nation’s first deepwater drilling rig, a vessel as big as a football field and as tall as a 40-story building, with a $1 billion price tag. Last week, it crawled through the South China Sea, pulled by heavy-duty tugs, and parked in one of the most sensitive spots possible, about 17 miles off a speck of an island claimed by both China and Vietnam.

The Vietnamese, at times embraced in brotherly Communist Party fealty by China, were taken by surprise. Hanoi assumed the rig, known as HD-981, was just passing through, people close to the government said.

At least twice in recent years, China has sought to explore these waters and backed down after protests by Vietnam. Just six months ago, during a visit of the Chinese prime minister to Hanoi, the two sides announced that they would try to find ways to jointly develop oil and gas fields.

That good will evaporated this week when Beijing made clear the drilling rig was staying put. It set off four days of confrontation, with dozens of Chinese and Vietnamese naval vessels ramming one another and China using water cannons in a standoff that threatens to push a region known for its economic development toward military conflict.

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