Pentagon Conducting Urgent Assessment Of North Korean Mobile ICBM Threat

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Photo Credit: APThe Pentagon’s Joint Staff is conducting an urgent threat assessment of North Korea’s new road-mobile missile and the danger it poses to the United States.

The classified assessment is being done for Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on an expedited basis, said defense officials familiar with the effort.

“This is an expedited examination of the North Korean ICBM threat specifically for the chairman,” one official said. A Joint Staff spokesman declined to comment on the North Korean ICBM assessment.

Disclosure of the urgent threat assessment from nuclear-armed North Korea comes as President Barack Obama is expected to announce Tuesday night that he plans to cut an additional one-third of the warheads from the U.S. nuclear arsenal.

The Pentagon plans to cut its nuclear warheads to 1,550 warheads under the 2010 New START arms treaty with Russia. An additional cut of a third of those warheads would bring the U.S. warhead arsenal to around 1,000.

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Chicago-Style Diplomacy: Obama May Require Carbon Tax of Canada for Approval of Keystone Pipeline

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Photo Credit: Bloomberg Hello Canada! Are you ready — ready for a new national tax on carbon that will ding pocketbooks across the country? My bet is that a new carbon tax is coming, made almost inevitable by Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s full-bore push to secure Washington’s approval of the Keystone XL pipeline.

For early clues on the carbon tax/Keystone trade-off, tune in Tuesday night to President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address. As the president speaks, he will be alert to the chorus of Hollywood stars, environmental activists, editorial writers and industry leaders who are pushing for him to make the biggest climate-change decision he can possibly make: Impose a carbon tax.

It is time Canadians became aware of the giant trap being set in Washington over Keystone. The short version is this: The president approves Keystone, greatly expanding the flow of Canadian oil sands production into the United States. In return, however, Canada has no choice but to accept a carbon tax at home as part of a grand bargain.

I first mentioned the likely Obama pipelines-for-taxes strategy in comments at the annual Financial Post forecast luncheon at the New Year. “I see new taxes coming in the United States, including an energy or carbon tax, to try to cover the deficits. The new energy tax would serve as partial cover for President Obama’s approval of the Keystone XL pipeline.”

That Mr. Obama might offer some kind of carbon tax as a carrot to environmentalists and climate activists opposed to Keystone has since emerged as more than plausible. Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberley Strassel recently outlined how the president might demand a carbon tax in return for approval of energy projects, including Keystone. Getting a carbon tax through Congress looks tricky. But Ms. Strassel reported that California Senator Barbara Boxer outlined how a carbon tax could be imposed administratively through the Environmental Protection Agency.

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North Korea Prepares Troops for Combat

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Photo Credit: Sky NewsThe UN Security Council has opened emergency talks on North Korea’s nuclear test, as world powers made calls for swift action against Pyongyang. The 15-nation council passed a resolution last month threatening “significant action” against North Korea in the event of a new nuclear test or missile launch.

The meeting comes after North Korea confirmed on Tuesday that it carried out a third nuclear test. Monitoring agencies had earlier reported an “unusual seismic event”.

“A third nuclear test has been successfully staged,” the North’s state-run Korean Central News agency said.

“The nuclear test was conducted as part of measures to protect our national security and sovereignty against the reckless hostility of the United States that violated our republic’s right for a peaceful satellite launch.”

At just before midday local time, an earthquake with a magnitude of 4.9 was detected just north of a site where Pyongyang conducted earlier nuclear tests. The two previous tests, in 2006 and 2009, prompted quakes of 3.6 and 4.5 respectively.

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North Korea Conducts Third Nuclear Test, Drawing New Sanctions Threat

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North Korea conducted its third nuclear test on Tuesday in defiance of U.N. resolutions, angering the United States and Japan and likely to infuriate its only major ally, China, and increase penalties against Pyongyang.

The North said the test had “greater explosive force” than the 2006 and 2009 tests that were widely seen as small-scale. Its KCNA news agency said it had used a “miniaturized” and lighter nuclear device, indicating that it had again used plutonium which is more suitable for use as a missile warhead.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, the third of his line to rule the country, has now presided over two long-range rocket launches and a nuclear test during his first a year in power, pushing policies that have propelled his impoverished and malnourished country ever closer to becoming a nuclear weapons power.

U.S. President Barack Obama said the test was a “highly provocative act” that hurt stability in the region and called its nuclear program a threat to U.S. and international security.

“The danger posed by North Korea’s threatening activities warrants further swift and credible action by the international community. The United States will also continue to take steps necessary to defend ourselves and our allies,” Obama said in a statement.

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A Signal From Above? Lightning Hits St Peter’s Hours After Pope Benedict Stuns Cardinals With First Resignation In 600 Years

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Photo Credit: EPAThe Catholic church was thrown into turmoil today after Pope Benedict XVI made the shock decision to quit the papacy because of his deteriorating health.

In a decision that has surprised even his closest aides, the 85-year-old Pontiff said his strength was ‘no longer adequate to continue in office due to his advanced age’.

He announced his resignation in Latin to a meeting of Vatican cardinals this morning, saying he did not have the ‘strength of mind and body’ to continue leading more than a billion Roman Catholics worldwide.

Although officials said there had been no pressure for Benedict to resign, the internet is already awash with speculation that there was a more sinister reason behind his decision.

Speaking in one of the Vatican’s state rooms, the Pope today told cardinals: ‘After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths due to an advanced age are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry.

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Israel On Alert: Israel Appears To Be Readying For Conflict With Lebanon

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Photo Credit: APSenior Israeli officials have indicated that the Jewish state is gearing up for a major “war with Lebanon,” according to sources close to the Israeli government.

The Israeli military has reportedly deployed missile defense systems to the northern part of the country, which sits near Lebanon, and has ordered all civilian aircraft to evacuate Haifa airport, the Jewish state’s northernmost air hub.

Senior Israeli officials have warned of an impending conflict in closed-door meetings in Washington, D.C., sources said.

The “world needs to be prepared for the next war with Lebanon,” a senior military adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently said during a private meeting with representatives of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a D.C. think-tank.

“All of Lebanon is now South Lebanon,” the official reportedly said, referring to Israel’s ongoing attempts to prevent the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah from replenishing its weapons cache.

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Pope Benedict XVI to Resign at the End of February

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Pope Benedict XVI will resign at the end of February, the Vatican Press Office tells Fox News.

The 85-year-old pontiff made the announcement Monday, saying he no longer had the strength to carry out his papal duties.

“After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry,” the pope said according to a statement released by the Vatican.

He said he is aware of the “seriousness” of his resignation, but that he did so in “full freedom.”

The last pope to resign was Pope Gregory XII, who stepped down in 1415 in a deal to end the Great Western Schism among competing papal claimants. The sudden announcement sets the stage for the Vatican to hold a conclave to elect a new pope by mid-March, since the traditional mourning time that would follow the death of a pope doesn’t have to be observed. There are several papal contenders in the wings, but no obvious front-runner, according to Vatican watchers.

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Obama Admin Orchestrated The Arab Spring? (+video)

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photo credit: ak rockefellerBy most accounts, the Arab Spring went horribly wrong. The democratic elections that swept away dictators—for the most part friendly to the United States—have produced Islamic totalitarian government.

Mohammed Morsi, president of Egypt, is probably the example par excellence. He quickly nullified the constitution, neutered the judiciary, shut down any media that was critical of his government—branded as critical of Allah—and set up a macabre torture chamber.

Barack Obama, who championed this Arab Spring and even helped the Arab Spring along by arming and supporting the Libyan “rebels” (who were for the most part linked to Al Qaeda), apparently didn’t see this coming.

But Barack Obama is only human. He didn’t envision, like many others, that the people throughout the Middle East and North Africa would elect totalitarian Islamists that would become the Unites States’ enemy, right?

Although it is odd that Obama has embraced Mohammed Morsi with open arms. Mohammed Morsi is part of an organization—the Muslim Brotherhood—that has vowed to destroy the United States.

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China Eclipses U.S. as Biggest Trading Nation Measured in Goods

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China surpassed the U.S. to become the world’s biggest trading nation last year as measured by the sum of exports and imports of goods, official figures from both countries show.

U.S. exports and imports of goods last year totaled $3.82 trillion, the U.S. Commerce Department said last week. China’s customs administration reported last month that the country’s trade in goods in 2012 amounted to $3.87 trillion.

China’s growing influence in global commerce threatens to disrupt regional trading blocs as it becomes the most important commercial partner for some countries. Germany may export twice as much to China by the end of the decade as it does to France, estimated Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s Jim O’Neill.

“For so many countries around the world, China is becoming rapidly the most important bilateral trade partner,” O’Neill, chairman of Goldman Sachs’s asset management division and the economist who bound Brazil to Russia, India and China to form the BRIC investing strategy, said in a telephone interview. “At this kind of pace by the end of the decade many European countries will be doing more individual trade with China than with bilateral partners in Europe.”

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Putin Turns Black Gold Into Bullion As Russia Out-Buys World

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Photo Credit: Alexsey DruginynWhen Vladimir Putin says the U.S. is endangering the global economy by abusing its dollar monopoly, he’s not just talking. He’s betting on it.

Not only has Putin made Russia the world’s largest oil producer, he’s also made it the biggest gold buyer. His central bank has added 570 metric tons of the metal in the past decade, a quarter more than runner-up China, according to IMF data compiled by Bloomberg. The added gold is also almost triple the weight of the Statue of Liberty.

“The more gold a country has, the more sovereignty it will have if there’s a cataclysm with the dollar, the euro, the pound or any other reserve currency,” Evgeny Fedorov, a lawmaker for Putin’s United Russia party in the lower house of parliament, said in a telephone interview in Moscow.

Gold, coveted by Russian rulers including Tsar Nicholas II and the Bolshevik leader whose forces assassinated him, Vladimir Lenin, has soared almost 400 percent in the period of Putin’s purchases. Central banks around the world have printed money to escape the global financial crisis, sapping investor appetite for dollars and euros and setting off a scramble for safety.

In 1998, the year Russia defaulted on $40 billion of domestic debt, it took as many as 28 barrels of crude to buy an ounce of gold, Bloomberg data show. That ratio tumbled to 11.5 by the time Putin first came to power a year later and in 2005, after it touched 6.5 — less than half what it is now — the president told the central bank to buy.

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