North Korea Warns that Mainland US Now Within Range of its Missiles

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North Korea today warned that mainland America is now within range of its missiles as it accused the U.S. of conspiring with South Korea.

It comes after Seoul announced that it has reached a deal with Washington allowing it to nearly triple the range of its missiles to better cope with North Korean nuclear threats.

North Korea claims the move proves that the allies are plotting to invade the country – calling the deal a ‘product of another conspiracy of the master and the stooge’ to ‘ignite a war’ against the North.

In a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency, a spokesman at the powerful National Defence Commission said the North would bolster its military preparedness.

He said: ‘We do not hide… the strategic rocket forces are keeping within the scope of strike not only the bases of the puppet forces and the US imperialist aggression forces’ bases in the inviolable land of Korea but also Japan, Guam and the US mainland.’

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Overwhelming Numbers of Conservative British Oppose Gay Marriage

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British Prime Minister David Cameron should drop his proposals to redefine marriage, according to a poll of his grassroots Conservative Party members.

The ComRes poll was commissioned by the Coalition for Marriage and found that a massive 71 percent of Conservative constituency chairmen believe Cameron should abandon his aggressive push to amend the definition of marriage of between one man and one woman.

The poll has also found that 47 percent of those polled believed that Cameron’s liberal stance on gay marriage had come at a cost to the party.

Furthermore, more than 70 percent believed that Cameron’s push for same sex marriage regardless of what others felt had damaged the prime minister’s standing in the party. Only 11 percent believed that his liberal agenda had enhanced his reputation within the party.

When it came to the considering the affect on the electorate, six in 10 of those polled believed that legalizing gay marriage would cost the Conservative Party votes. In comparison only four percent believed that a push for gay marriage would attract more voters.

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75% of World’s Population Now Lacks Religious Freedom

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A new study highlights the growing global trend of religious restrictions, whether by means of government action or social trends- limiting regulations are currently affecting three out of every four individuals.

The study, conducted by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life, is titled “Rising Tide of Restrictions on Religion” and showed that the percentage of the world’s population that was affected by restrictions on religion increased to 75 percent. That’s up from 70 percent the previous year.

What is equally disturbing is the rise of various countries around the globe that have enacted stricter laws governing the observances of practices of faith. The study found that the percentage of countries who adopted such measures increased from 31 percent to 37 percent.

The study lists some government restrictions which include laws against “proselytism” or “blasphemy.” It also includes laws limiting some countries citizens’ choice of religious materials, such as Uzbekistan, which only recognizes religious materials produced by the state.

Social restrictions, on the other hand are not controlled by the state and can include ostracism, mob action, or other community-based action in response to the exercise of faith. These specific social occurrences are often able to manifest due to the inaction of local authorities.

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Iran Will Have Enough Weapons-Grade Uranium for Nuke Within Two to Four Months

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Iran could produce enough weapons-grade uranium to arm a nuclear bomb within two to four months but would still face serious “engineering challenges” – and much longer delays – before it succeeds in making the other components needed for a functioning warhead, a respected U.S. think tank said Monday.

While Iran denies any interest in possessing nuclear arms, the international community fears it may turn its peaceful uranium enrichment program toward weapons making – a concern that is growing as Tehran expands the number of machines it uses to enrich its stockpile of enriched uranium. As those fears grow, so does concern that Israel could carry out its threats to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities before that nation reaches the bomb-making threshold.

In a strident call for an internationally drawn “red line” on what he said is Iran’s move toward nuclear arms, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sept. 28 that the world has until next summer at the latest to stop Tehran before it can build an atomic bomb. Flashing a diagram of a cartoon-like bomb before the U.N. General Assembly, Netanyahu said Iran is ready to move to the “final stage” of making such a weapon by then.

For now, U.S. military and intelligence officials say they don’t believe Iran’s leadership has made the decision to build a bomb, while also warning that the country is moving closer to the ability to do so.

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Lesson to the US: Social Welfare Costs Rapidly Sinking Europe

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At the British Conservative Party conference, Chancellor George Osborne unveiled an initiative to jump start the nation’s economy. He also targeted welfare and the problem it is creating for the western world.

Calling handouts bloated, unfair and sometimes corrupt, Osborne suggested they are simply unaffordable. He believes they are crushing Europe’s advanced economies.

The UK Telegraph reported that his speech to the Conservative Party was likely well received by the British who show “a high degree of public support for further cuts in welfare spending. Where once the Tories were regarded as cruel and heartless for wanting to slash benefits, it now seems that they can’t be tough enough. Politically, Osborne is therefore pushing at an open door when he says this is not just about saving money – it’s about fairness and enterprise.”

Osbornes’ attack on welfare took a populist tone:

How can we justify the incomes of those out of work rising faster than the incomes of those in work, he asks, or giving flats to young people who have never worked when working people twice their age still have to live with their parents because they cannot afford a separate home?

More emotively still, he asked how it was possible to justify a system where people in work have to consider the costs of having another child, while those who are out of work don’t. By raising these questions, Osborne gives voice to a strongly populist message, but he also speaks to an underlying, economic imperative – advanced economies are long past the stage of being able to afford such largesse.

But welfare is only part of Britain’s problem. It is also facing – along with the rest of Europe – a potential meltdown from pensions and healthcare costs. The Telegraph points out that “these forecasts point to destruction of the very foundations of the European social market economy.”

The European socialistic model has failed miserably. The United States should run far, far away from this dead-end model of government, embraced by Obama.

Another Nail in Obama’s Benghazi Coffin: Ambassador Stevens Himself Wanted More Security

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U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens wanted a Security Support Team, made up of 16 special operations soldiers, to stay with him in Libya after their deployment was scheduled to end in August, the commander of that security team told ABC News.

The embassy staff’s “first choice was for us to stay,” Lt. Col. Andrew Wood, 55, told ABC News in an interview. “That would have been the choice of the embassy people in Tripoli.”

But a senior State Department official told ABC News that the embassy’s Regional Security Officer never specifically requested that the SST’s tour be extended past August, and the official maintained there was no net loss of security personnel. The Regional Security Officer “asked for a number of U.S. shooters because of the pending SST redeployment and he was at that number,” said the senior State Department official, who asked not to be identified because of the ongoing internal investigation.

The State Department issued a statement Monday, saying, “The SST was enlisted to support the re-opening of Embassy Tripoli, to help ensure we had the security necessary as our diplomatic presence grew. They were based in Tripoli and operated almost exclusively there. When their rotation in Libya ended, Diplomatic Security Special Agents were deployed and maintained a constant level of security capability. So their departure had no impact whatsoever on the total number of fully trained American security personnel in Libya generally, or in Benghazi specifically.”

The U.S. Embassy in Tripoli had already asked for – and received – an extension of the SST earlier in the year. A February draft request for a 120-day extension, obtained by ABC News, stated that the team is “an integral part of our mobile and fixed site security functions,” augmenting the security escort work done by the Mobile Security Detachment, protecting the embassy, training local guards, serving as a Quick Reaction Force, providing “vital medical, communications, explosive ordnance disposal (EOD), as well as, command and control enablers that are critical to post’s security effort.”

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IDF Show of Force over Lebanon After Mysterious Craft Shot Down in Israel

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Israeli warplanes swooped low over Lebanese villages Sunday in a menacing show of force apparently aimed at the Hezbollah guerrilla group after a mysterious raid by an unmanned aircraft that was shot out of Israeli skies over the weekend.

Israel was still investigating Saturday’s incident, but Hezbollah quickly emerged as the leading suspect because it has an arsenal of sophisticated Iranian weapons and a history of trying to deploy similar aircraft.

The Israeli military said the drone approached Israel’s southern Mediterranean coast and flew deep into Israeli airspace before warplanes shot it down about 20 minutes later. Israeli news reports said the drone was not carrying explosives and appeared to be on a reconnaissance mission.

Military officials would not say where the drone originated or who produced it, but they ruled out the Gaza Strip, which is ruled by Hamas, a group not known to possess drones. That left Hezbollah as the most likely culprit and suggested the drone may have flown with the blessing of Iran. Tensions are high between Israel and Iran over Tehran’s suspect nuclear program.

“It is an Iranian drone that was launched by Hezbollah,” Israeli lawmaker Miri Regev, a former chief spokeswoman for the Israeli military, wrote on her Twitter feed. “Hezbollah and Iran continue to try to collect information in every possible way in order to harm Israel.”

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Vote Fraud in Venezuela: Exit Polling Shows Opponent Won but Chavez Declared the Winner

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According to the Associated Press, Venezuela’s electoral council has declared that Hugo Chavez beat Henriques Capriles in Sunday’s presidential election with about 54 percent of the vote, despite exit polls showing otherwise.

Venezuela Twitter users have claimed Chavez’s victory was wrought with election fraud, and that the socialist incumbent president sent tanks into the streets of his country as those exit poll reports showed him losing. A picture of the tanks surfaced on Twitter Sunday evening.

The British Guardian newspaper reported that Chavez also sent troops armed with AK-47s into Venezuela’s streets to fight against any protests in case unrest came as a result of the news.

A Spanish news outlet reported earlier on Sunday that exit polls showed Capriles defeated the socialist president by a narrow margin.

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House Intel Committee: China’s Largest Phone Equipment Maker Could Imperil US Telecommunications Infrastructure

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U.S. companies should avoid business with Huawei Technologies Co., China’s largest phone-equipment maker, to guard against intellectual-property theft and spying, the U.S. House Intelligence Committee chairman said.

U.S. companies considering purchases from Huawei should “find another vendor if you care about your intellectual property, if you care about your consumers’ privacy, and you care about the national security of the United States of America,” Representative Mike Rogers told CBS News’s “60 Minutes,” according to a CBS release about an interview set to air tomorrow.

Rogers, a Michigan Republican, and the committee’s top Democrat, Maryland Representative C.A. “Dutch” Ruppersberger, are preparing to issue a report Oct. 8 on their yearlong investigation of Huawei and ZTE Corp. (763), another Chinese phone- equipment maker. The lawmakers have been looking at whether the companies’ expansion in the U.S. market enables Chinese government espionage and imperils the U.S. telecommunications infrastructure.

“Huawei is a globally trusted and respected company doing business in almost 150 markets with over 500 operator customers, including nationwide carriers across every continent save Antarctica,” William Plummer, a Washington-based spokesman for Huawei, said in an e-mail. “The security and integrity of our products are world proven. Those are the facts today. Those will still be the facts next week, political agendas aside.”

Susan Phalen, a spokeswoman for the committee, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

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Syrian-Turkish Cross-Border Artillery Strikes Continue, Sparking Fears of Regional War

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Turkey and Syria traded artillery fire for the fourth day in a row Saturday as rebels clashed with Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces near the border, heightening fears that the crisis could erupt into a regional conflict.

Also Saturday, Syrian Defence Minister Gen. Fahd Jassem al-Freij vowed to crush the rebellion and bring the violence that has engulfed the country to an end.

The diplomatic crisis began on Wednesday, when a Syrian shell killed five civilians in a Turkish border town and triggered unprecedented artillery strikes by Turkey. Ankara has deployed more troops to its southern border with Syria and has responded to each shell that has struck Turkish soil with its own artillery barrage.

On Friday, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan cautioned Damascus not to test Turkey’s “limits and determination” and said Ankara was not bluffing in saying it won’t tolerate such acts.

Saturday’s cross-border exchange began when two mortar shells fired from Syria landed in rural areas near the Turkish village of Guvecci, prompting Turkish return fire, Turkey’s media reported.

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