Claim: Classified Records Reveal US Tested ‘Tsunami Bomb’ Off New Zealand Coast During WWII

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The tests were carried out in waters around New Caledonia and Auckland during the Second World War and showed that the weapon was feasible and a series of 10 large offshore blasts could potentially create a 33-foot tsunami capable of inundating a small city.

The top secret operation, code-named “Project Seal”, tested the doomsday device as a possible rival to the nuclear bomb. About 3,700 bombs were exploded during the tests, first in New Caledonia and later at Whangaparaoa Peninsula, near Auckland.

The plans came to light during research by a New Zealand author and film-maker, Ray Waru, who examined military files buried in the national archives.

“Presumably if the atomic bomb had not worked as well as it did, we might have been tsunami-ing people,” said Mr Waru.

“It was absolutely astonishing. First that anyone would come up with the idea of developing a weapon of mass destruction based on a tsunami … and also that New Zealand seems to have successfully developed it to the degree that it might have worked.” The project was launched in June 1944 after a US naval officer, E A Gibson, noticed that blasting operations to clear coral reefs around Pacific islands sometimes produced a large wave, raising the possibility of creating a “tsunami bomb”.

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Iran Test-Fires Missiles Near Strait of Hormuz

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TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran’s navy said Monday it test-fired a range of weapons during ongoing maneuvers near the Strait of Hormuz, the passageway for one-fifth of the world’s oil supply.

IRNA quoted Adm. Amir Rastgari, spokesman for the exercise, as saying the Iranian-made air defense system Raad, or Thunder, was among the weapons tested, along with various torpedoes and underwater and surface-to-surface rockets as well as anti-ship missiles. The Islamic Republic said it also deployed domestically-made hovercraft during the operation.

The Raad system was on show during a military parade in Tehran in September for the first time. Iran says is more advanced than its Russian predecessor and is designed to confront fighter jets, cruise missiles, smart bombs, helicopters and drones. Iran said the system fires missiles with a range of 50 kilometers (30 miles), capable of hitting targets at 22,000 meters (75,000 feet).

Tehran has tried to build a self-sufficient military program since 1992. It frequently announces technological breakthroughs, most of which cannot be confirmed independently.

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Egypt Cements Ties with Hezbollah

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WASHINGTON – Reports from Beirut suggest Egypt will seek to increase ties with the Iranian-backed Hezbollah, Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin documents.

According to Egyptian ambassador to Lebanon, Ashraf Hamdy, the new Muslim Brotherhood-backed Egyptian government intends to build “tight” relations with the resistance group, which the United States, Israel and Canada regard as a terrorist organization.

Hamdy said the Egyptian government was “stretching out its hand” to its neighbors to further its influence in the region.

“You cannot discuss politics in Lebanon without having a relationship with Hezbollah,” Hamdy said. “It is a real force on the ground. It has a big political and military influence in Lebanon.”

This change in policy stands in stark contrast to the severe strain in relations between Hezbollah and the Egyptian government under ousted President Hosni Mubarak.

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Palestinian Arab Girl Who Attacked IDF Soldiers Eats Breakfast With Turkish PM Erdogan (+video)

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Awad Tamimi, a thirteen year old Palestinian Arab girl, found internet fame when a video of her cursing at and kicking IDF soldiers was posted on YouTube. Today, the Turkish news agency “Anatolia” reported that “the brave Palestinian girl” and her mother met Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey at a hotel in Istanbul, where they had a short conversation. Erdogan gave some gifts to her family, and the two posed for photographs , before eating a meal together. “I give thanks to Prime Minister Erdogan for his hospitality—and his support for Palestine” she said.

Tamimi came to Turkey last week to receive an award from the Istanbul City Council for “courage”. She said she waved her fist in the face of Israeli soldiers as a way to “liberate Palestine”.

See video below:

See original video:

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French Court Overturns 75 Percent Upper Tax Rate As Unconstitutional

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PARIS – France’s highest court on Saturday blocked President Francois Hollande’s plan to tax the ultrawealthy at a 75 percent rate, saying it was unfair.

In a stinging rebuke to one of Socialist Hollande’s flagship campaign promises, the constitutional council ruled Saturday that the way the highly contentious tax was designed was unconstitutional. It was intended to hit annual incomes of more than 1 million euros, or $1.3 million.

The largely symbolic measure would have only hit a tiny number of taxpayers and brought in an estimated 100 million euros to 300 million euros – an insignificant amount in the context of France’s multi-billion euro deficit.

Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault was quick to respond, saying in a statement following the decision the government would resubmit the measure to take the court’s concerns into account.

The court’s ruling took issue not with the size of the tax, but with the way it discriminated between households depending on how incomes were distributed among its members. A household with two earners each making under euro1 million would be exempt from the tax, while one with one earner making 1.2 million euros would have to pay.

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Christian Priests Imprisoned For Baptizing Islamic Convert

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Sudanese dictator Omar al-Bashir has tossed two priests into prison for baptizing a woman convert to Christianity.

Agence France Presse reports from say Sudan the convert was a woman of Arab origin and that the government leaped into action when Muslims threatened violence.

“A little-known group calling itself al-Qaida in the Nilien States sent a statement to Sudanese journalists on Tuesday threatening violence against Copts unless the woman who converted and was kidnapped by the Christians is returned,” reports said.

Christian Solidarity International USA President John Eibner says that the decision to jail the priest may be the result of party rivalries.

“What we do know, however, is that the various Islamist forces, including Bashir’s party are competing with each other to show that they adhere to Shariah norms,” he said.

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Yasser Arafat’s Widow Admits Palestinian Terror Campaign in 2000 Was Premeditated (+video)

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Suha Arafat, the wife of the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, admitted in a TV interview earlier this month that the Palestinian terror campaign against Israel launched in 2000 was a premeditated act orchestrated by her husband, not a spontaneous “intifada,” or uprising, as many have claimed.

“Yasser Arafat had made a decision to launch the intifada,” she told Dubai TV on Dec. 16, according to a translation by the Middle East Media Research Institute.

“Immediately after the failure of the Camp David [negotiations], I met him in Paris upon his return. … Camp David has failed, and he said to me: ‘You should remain in Paris.’ I asked him why, and he said: ‘Because I am going to start an intifada. They want me to betray the Palestinian cause. They want me to give up on our principles, and I will not do so.’”

In a summit convened by President Bill Clinton at Camp David in July 2000, Arafat rejected an offer by then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barack to create a Palestinian state in the equivalent of roughly 97 percent of the West Bank, including land swaps, and all of the Gaza Strip, according to an account by America’s chief Middle East negotiator at the time, Dennis Ross. East Jerusalem was to be the Palestinian capital.

Though then-Saudi Ambassador to the United States Prince Bandar bin Sultan reportedly told Arafat that if he rejected the generous offer he would be committing a “crime” against the Palestinian people, Arafat did just that by walking away from the deal.

See interview:

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U.S. Taxpayers Will Continue to Pay More Than One-Fifth of U.N. Budget

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(CNSNews.com) – In one of its last actions of the year, the United Nations General Assembly on Christmas Eve agreed to extend for another three years the formula that has U.S. taxpayers contributing more than one-fifth of the world body’s regular budget.

No member-state called for a recorded vote, and the resolution confirming the contributions that each country will make for the 2013-2015 period was summarily adopted. The assembly also approved a two-year U.N. budget of $5.4 billion.

The U.S. has accounted for 22 percent of the total regular budget every year since 2000, and will now continue to do so for the next three years.

The U.S. representative for U.N. management and reform, Joseph Torsella, expressed satisfaction that the U.S. contribution had not been raised above that level.

“The United States is very pleased to have maintained the critical 22 percent ceiling for U.S. contributions to the U.N. regular budget, protecting U.S. taxpayers from the additional bills – estimated to be at least $300 million annually in both the regular and peacekeeping budgets – that would have resulted from an increase in the U.S. ceiling level,” he said.

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Russia’s Pravda: ‘Americans, Never Give Up Your Guns!’

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photo credit: gre.ceres

These days, there are few few things to admire about the socialist, bankrupt and culturally degenerating USA, but at least so far, one thing remains: the right to bare arms and use deadly force to defend one’s self and possessions.

This will probably come as a total shock to most of my Western readers, but at one point, Russia was one of the most heavily armed societies on earth. This was, of course, when we were free under the Tsar. Weapons, from swords and spears to pistols, rifles and shotguns were everywhere, common items. People carried them concealed, they carried them holstered. Fighting knives were a prominent part of many traditional attires and those little tubes criss crossing on the costumes of Cossacks and various Caucasian peoples? Well those are bullet holders for rifles.

Various armies, such as the Poles, during the Смута (Times of Troubles), or Napoleon, or the Germans even as the Tsarist state collapsed under the weight of WW1 and Wall Street monies, found that holding Russian lands was much much harder than taking them and taking was no easy walk in the park but a blood bath all its own. In holding, one faced an extremely well armed and aggressive population Hell bent on exterminating or driving out the aggressor.

This well armed population was what allowed the various White factions to rise up, no matter how disorganized politically and militarily they were in 1918 and wage a savage civil war against the Reds. It should be noted that many of these armies were armed peasants, villagers, farmers and merchants, protecting their own. If it had not been for Washington’s clandestine support of and for the Reds, history would have gone quite differently.

Moscow fell, for example, not from a lack of weapons to defend it, but from the lieing guile of the Reds. Ten thousand Reds took Moscow and were opposed only by some few hundreds of officer cadets and their instructors. Even then the battle was fierce and losses high. However, in the city alone, at that time, lived over 30,000 military officers (both active and retired), all with their own issued weapons and ammunition, plus tens of thousands of other citizens who were armed. The Soviets promised to leave them all alone if they did not intervene. They did not and for that were asked afterwards to come register themselves and their weapons: where they were promptly shot.

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Red Line? Your Move, Mr. President!

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The head of Syria’s military police defected to the opposition, accusing the Assad regime of systematic “murder” and claiming that reports of chemical weapons being used against rebels in the restive city of Homs were true.

Maj-Gen Abdul-Aziz Jassim al-Shallal became one of the highest ranking Syrian military officers to throw their support behind the rebels, accusing forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad of turning their weapons on innocent civilians in the now 22-month-long civil war.

“I declare my defection from the army because of its deviation from its fundamental mission to protect the nation and [its] transformation into gangs of murder and destruction,” he said in a video message posted online, reportedly from the Turkish border.

He accused the military of “destroying cities and villages and committing massacres against our innocent people who came out to demand freedom.” General Shallal suggested in his message that he had been working with the opposition for some time before he formally defected to the rebel cause.

He becomes the latest in a string of leading military advisers to abandon the government and join the disparate rebels. But it is his claim that chemical weapons were used in Homs during a deadly attack on Christmas Eve that is likely to be of greater interest to the Syrian opposition and their foreign backers.

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