China has developed a laser cannon to shoot down small, low-flying drones, according to China’s state-controlled news agency Xinhua. The weapon can zap targets within a radius of 1.2 miles.
A Christian couple accused of desecrating a Koran have been killed by a mob of Muslim vigilantes in Pakistan. The husband and wife, known only as Shama and Shehzad, were beaten to death. Their bodies were then burned in the brick kiln where they worked.
Europe has an estimated 421 million fewer birds than three decades ago, and current treatment of the environment is unsustainable for many common species, a study released on Monday said. The population crash is related to modern farming methods and the loss and damage of habitats, according to the study published in science journal Ecology Letters. “This is a warning from birds throughout Europe.
Swirling winds and heavy downpours probably did more than the massive Israeli police presence to dampen Palestinian protests in Jerusalem over the weekend. Dire predictions that a third intifada was about to erupt after the brief closure of the Temple Mount — known to Arabs as the Noble Sanctuary — came to nothing. But the weather could not sweep away the toxic atmosphere in the city.
While east Ukraine, aka the Donetsk Republic, was voting over the weekend in what the west pre-emptively classified as another sham vote as its outcome would merely push east Ukraine even closer to the Kremlin, Russia was busy conducting its most comprehensive Nuclear preparedness drill in recent history, one involving the entire “nuclear triad” consisting of strategic bombers; submarines and an the ICBM shown below on Saturday morning. As reported earlier by the Barents Observer, the silo-based Topol-M intercontinental ballistic missile was launched from Plesetsk in Arkhangelsk Oblast. A few minutes later, the dummy nuclear warhead hits its target on the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia’s far eastern corner, the Ministry of Defense reports.
Ongoing tensions in East Jerusalem and the West Bank cannot be separated from the larger reality that remains unresolved in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a senior United Nations official told the Security Council today. Briefing the Security Council on the situation in Jerusalem, Jeffrey Feltman, UN Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, acknowledged that recent heightened tensions over unilateral actions, provocations and access restrictions at holy sites in Jerusalem are contributing to a volatile situation, and stressed that further delay in negotiations and the pursuit of peace would only serve to deepen divisions and further exacerbate the conflict. “The status quo is not a viable option,” Mr.
When it comes to Israel, President Obama has been Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
Russia has successfully test-fired a Bulava submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) from the Borey-class Yury Dolgoruky nuclear-powered submarine, the Russian Defense Ministry said Wednesday. The missile was launched from the submerged submarine at a location in the Barents Sea and hit a designated target at the Kura test range on Russia’s Kamchatka peninsula, the ministry said in a statement. According to the statement, it was the first operational test launch of Bulava in line with the program of combat training.
Israel has recalled its ambassador to Sweden to protest Stockholm’s recognition of a Palestinian state. Foreign Ministry spokesman Paul Hirschson said Thursday the ambassador was being recalled for consultations, but declined to say how long he would remain in Israel. Hirschson said the move was made “because of the recognition of the Palestinian state.
One of the U.S. Navy’s top submarine officers was so impressed with Russia’s new Project 885 nuclear attack boats that he had a model of K-329 Severodvinsk built for his office.
North Korea now has the ability to produce a miniaturized nuclear warhead that can be mounted atop a ballistic missile. That is the assessment of Gen. Curtis M.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu authorized planning to advance 1,060 new housing units in neighborhoods in Jerusalem beyond the 1967 lines, officials in the Prime Minister’s Office said Monday. According to the officials, 660 of these units will be constructed in the northern neighborhood of Ramot Shlomo, and another 400 in Har Homa. Netanyahu has also given the green light to move forward infrastructure projects in the West Bank, including – the officials said – roads that will serve the Palestinians as well.
The Obama administration’s mass snubbing of Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon last week was designed to “humiliate” him, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported, adding that Obama officials would continue to “ostracize” him until Ya’alon further apologizes for off-the-record comments he made about Kerry more than nine months ago. Barak Ravid, the diplomatic correspondent for the newspaper, compared the Obama administration move to a “hazing.” The public reprisal for the long-standing grudge prompted one Twitter user to quip, “So Obama does know how to deal with enemies.
This morning some of the biggest financial news of the year made huge waves all over Asia. Yet in the Western press, this hugely important information has barely even been mentioned. (CNBC.
The London-based pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat reported on Thursday that the Palestinian Authority has agreed to delay by two months its plan to seek a Security Council resolution calling for an Israeli withdrawal to the pre-1967 lines within three years. The paper quoted Palestinian sources in Ramallah as saying that the PA leadership will give US Secretary of State John Kerry a two-month window to present his own plan for peace. The sources said that the PA leadership was nevertheless determined to proceed with the Security Council bid.
Canadian authorities have identified the shooter who killed a soldier in Ottawa Wednesday as Michael Zehaf-Bibeau — a recent convert to Islam. Zehaf-Bibeau shot a soldier, 24-year-old Corporal Nathan Cirillo, at Ottawa’s National War Memorial, then entered the Canadian Parliament and fired several more rounds before the House of Commons Sergeant-At-Arms, Kevin Vickers, shot and killed him. (Read the rest of the story here…)
Multiple gunmen stormed the Canadian Parliament complex Wednesday, killing a soldier guarding the National War Memorial and spraying as many as 30 shots inside the government building in Ottawa in a brazen assault that left the nation’s capital on virtual lockdown just two days after a terror attack in Quebec, officials said. The shots rang out just before 10 a.m.
The Islamic State’s bid to impose Dark Ages law on the women within its so-called caliphate depends on a merciless cadre of young women who roam the streets of Raqqa, terrorizing females who fall short of the standard of strict Shariah. Known as the Al-Khansa brigade, the group consists of about 60 armed women between the ages of 18 and 24 who patrol the Islamic State’s Syrian stronghold. Their job, which they are said to perform with cruel relish, is to arrest and beat women who commit such transgressions as allowing ankles or wrists to show or being seen without a male chaperone.
At least one bundle of U.S. weapons airdropped in Syria appears to have fallen into the hands of ISIS, a dangerous misfire in the American mission to speed aid to Kurdish forces making their stand in Kobani.
Experts warn Japan’s medical system is not ready for an invasion of potentially deadly redback spiders, with limited supplies of the anti-venom available to authorities. About a dozen of the venomous Australian spiders were found in a small park in a residential area of Mitaka in Tokyo, terrifying local parents. The redbacks were quickly captured and exterminated by authorities but government official Motosugu Tanaka said they would not be able to stop them from spreading.