North Korea recently conducted a test of an ejection launcher that U.S. intelligence agencies assess is part of Pyongyang’s recently discovered submarine-launched ballistic missile program.
A week ago, we penned “The Real Reason Why Germany Halted Its Gold Repatriation From The NY Fed [13]”, in which we got, for the first time ever, an admission by an official source, namely the bank that knows everything that takes place in Germany – Deutsche Bank – what the real reason was for Germany’s gold repatriation halt after obtaining a meager 5 tons from the NY Fed: … the gold community paid great attention to the decision of the German Bundesbank to “bring German gold home”.
Our northern neighbors not only excel at making maple syrup, they’re also very successful at educating their youngsters. A new test measured the computer competency of thousands of Canadian kids, who reached an above average score, reports Engadget. In Ontario, 60,000 eighth graders took the International Computer Literacy Study, which assesses their ability to use a computer effectively, the website reported.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has been awarded an eighth-degree black belt in the martial arts sport of Kyokushin karate, the Russian news agency ITAR-TASS reports. Kyokushin is a style of stand-up, full contact karate in which the participants wear no protective gear. The only restriction during fighting bans striking an opponent in the head with hands.
Authorities intercepted a massive shipment of tens of thousands of firecrackers, as well as knives, Tasers and other weapons Thursday that police say was en route to rioters in East Jerusalem. Intelligence information led police and customs officials to the shipping container in Afula, which had been marked as containing Christmas lights, police said. The container contained some 18,000 firecrackers, 5,200 knives, 4,300 Taser-flashlight devices, 5,000 electric shock devices and 1,000 swords, according to a police statement.
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to win a “battle for Jerusalem” after a deadly attack on a synagogue. Two Palestinians killed four rabbis in West Jerusalem before being shot dead. A policeman later died of his wounds.
The families of the two terrorists who killed four people in a brutal attack in a Jerusalem synagogue on Tuesday morning have hailed the two as heroes, as candies to celebrate the attack were handed out in the West Bank and Gaza. Alaa Abu Jamal, a cousin of the terrorists, said that Israeli policies were to blame for the attack at the synagogue, when the two entered the compound during morning prayers, armed with meat cleavers and a gun. “This occurred because of the pressures of the occupying Israeli government on the Palestinian people and in Jerusalem generally, and the ongoing harm to the al-Aqsa mosque; this act is something normal for any person who is connected to his people, to courage and to Islam.
The head of Iran’s Basij paramilitary force has claimed it is raising an army of “millions” to flood Gaza and Syria to support Tehran’s allies. Fars, Iran’s semi-official newspaper, reported that that Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Naqdi, Commander the Basij paramilitary force, as saying: “Millions of Basijis (volunteer forces) are ready in Iran to be dispatched to Syria and Gaza and they have come to us (for registration).
An unspecified amount of Mig-31s based at Perm have been deployed to Millerovo airfield, in the Rostov region, close to the border with Ukraine. This is a sign that Moscow may be preparing to actively control the airspace over Luhansk Oblast. The MiG-31 is a two-seater derivative of the MiG-25 in service since 1983.
A body tasked with policing the Internet in Iran laid down a two-month deadline Tuesday for Iran’s government to regularise the use of Instagram or access to the site would be blocked. The Iranian regime’s authorities regularly block Twitter, Facebook and other social networking sites while many officials of the regime use them. Mohammad Ali Asfani, a member of the committee for filtering the web, said the two months would allow authorities to contact Instagram over secure access to its contents.
Israel is to ease controls on carrying weapons for self-defence after a deadly Palestinian attack on a Jerusalem synagogue, Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch said on Tuesday. “In the coming hours, I will ease restrictions on carrying weapons,” he said in remarks broadcast on public radio, indicating it would apply to anyone with a licence to carry a gun, such as private security guards and off-duty army officers. Aharonovitch did not elaborate, but it is believed that under the planned changes security personnel would be allowed to carry their arms even when off duty.
Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko today said he is ready for ‘total war’ against Russia as he claimed the crisis in eastern Europe is more serious than the threat from Islamic State. Kiev is convinced that Moscow is strengthening its troop presence on its borders and inside rebel-held areas, which the Kremlin has repeatedly denied. As Putin returned from the G20 in Brisbane where he was under siege from Western leaders, Poroshenko claimed his army is now better prepared to fight to defend its territory than when the conflict began.
Russia has deported several Polish and one German diplomat in recent days, the latest in a series of tit-for-tat expulsions that have accompanied mounting tensions between Russia and European governments over the crisis in Ukraine. In an interview with German ARD television broadcast late Sunday, President Vladimir Putin of Russia said he still believes diplomacy can bring peace to eastern Ukraine, but he said Moscow would not allow the separatists there to be “annihilated.” The Russian Foreign Ministry said Monday that “a number of Polish diplomats” were being sent home in retaliation for the “unfriendly and unfounded” expulsion of Russian diplomats from Poland this month.
The people who killed the four worshipers at a Jerusalem synagogue “came with great hatred and … incitement against the Jewish people and its state,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday. He blamed the Palestinian Authority and others for spreading “libels against the state of Israel” and other incitements that he said have led to today’s killings and other recent deaths.
The European Union has distributed a confidential document to its 28 member states that contains the draft of a proposal for sanctions to be imposed on Israel if it takes action in the West Bank that could make the two-state solution impossible, European diplomatic sources and senior Israeli officials said. (Read the rest of the story here…)
Russian President Vladimir Putin warned he won’t allow rebels in eastern Ukraine to be defeated by government forces as European Union ministers met to consider imposing more sanctions on the separatists. “You want the Ukrainian central authorities to annihilate everyone there, all of their political foes and opponents,” Putin said in an interview yesterday with Germany’s ARD television. “Is that what you want?