In the latest escalation of bellicose rhetoric over the territorial dispute involving the South China Sea, Chinese Defense Minister Chang Wanquan warned of "offshore security threats" and urged for a "substantial preparation for a people's war at sea" to safeguard sovereignty, China's Xinhua writes.
The warning comes a day after China launched a massive naval drill which is set to prepare China for a "sudden, cruel and short" war.
Chang was speaking during an inspection of national defence work in coastal regions of east China's Zhejiang Province. He called for recognition of the seriousness of the national security situation, especially the threat from the sea.
Chang said the military, police and people should prepare for mobilization to defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity. He also asked to promote national defense education among the public.
This latest escalation in war rhetoric comes amid unprecedented tensions over the disputed islands in the South China Sea, where Beijing has been building airstrips and military installations on reclaimed reefs and islands in waters also claimed by a number of other Asian states.
The US Navy has dispatched warships and military planes to the immediate proximity of the disputed islands, claiming it has done so to ensure the principles of freedom of navigation in international waters. Washington has been also involved in a number of military drills in the region. Beijing has slammed the naval and aerial displays by the US as provocations, and reinforced installation on the islands with anti-ship missile and air-defense complexes.
Today's unexpected escalation comes hot on the heels of another angry response from China, when its nationalistic Global China Times newspaper wrote an Op-Ed claiming that the "US would suffer more in war with China", in response to a Rand Corporation report which listed four hypothetical scenarios for a US-China war.
The Islamic State terror group has issued a specific call to leading activists to target air bases used by the US in Kuwait, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, an Israeli cyberintelligence company that claimed to have hacked the jihadist organization’s Telegram communication group warned on Wednesday.
Intsights, a Herzliya-based intelligence company, hacked into what it said is the Islamic State’s Telegram group on the dark web in which the organization’s operatives disseminate terror attack plans among 500 leading activists, according to a (Hebrew) report on Channel 10.
The Israeli company, which is run by former IDF intelligence officers, told the TV station the Islamic State uploads potential targets to the group, and in recent months some of the targets have been hit by individuals claiming allegiance to the terror organization.
One such target presaged in the Telegram group was the church in Normandy, France, where local priest Father Jacques Hamel, 85, was murdered by jihadists on July 26. The call to carry out the attack in Normandy was issued via the Telegram group a few months ago, said Intsights Alon Arvatz.
The team managed to infiltrate the covert group, and on Monday, said Arvatz, a list of “extremely specific targets” was published, “with a call to attack them.” The list features numerous air fields used by the US Air Force, but with a number of “priority targets” highlighted in Kuwait, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, he said.
Armed police prepare to deploy from Hyde Park, central London, after Scotland Yard announced Wednesday, Aug. 3 that the biggest police force in Britain is to put its first 600 additional armed officers on public patrols on the main streets and landmarks of London, as part of its anti-terrorism plans.
Metropolitan Police chief Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe said that, following the terror attacks in Europe, more marksmen were trained and operationally ready for public patrol up to a total of 1,500 firearms officers.
Although British cops are proud of traditionally not carrying firearms, the Met chief said "I think people understand that where you are going to have people as enemies who've got guns, we've got to have guns.”
The US is poised to initiate another airstrike in Libya, just five years after the NATO bombing campaign in that country that resulted in the overthrow of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's government.
Radio Sputnik’s Loud and Clear spoke with Zafar Bangash, director of the Institute of Contemporary Islamic Thought, about how Deash was able to rise to power in parts of Libya and the US’ true intentions in the country and region more broadly.
"Although I have no sympathy with these terrorist groups, the concern that I have is that the policy that is being adopted to confront them is not likely to yield any results as it hasn’t in any of the other places where the US and its so-called allies have been involved." He said, "The way the scenario is evolving, ISIS will simply go underground, they will also attract more people from other places and then they will penetrate into Tripoli itself and start carrying out bombing campaigns and even trying to carry out assassination attempts."
Loud and Clear host Brian Becker remarked, "The US has begun their campaign in Cert to dislodge ISIL. If the United States commits itself to the destruction or the bombing of ISIS and it doesn’t succeed, then the logic will be "Ok, we must dos something more." He pointed that one of the the current presidential candidates, Hillary Clinton, was the driving force behind the first airstrike in Libya.
The Soberanes wildfire, a massive blaze the size of San Francisco, between Monterey and Big Sur, California has been burning for 11 days to date. It burned about 17 563 hectares (43 400 acres) and was 18% contained, as of August 2, 2016, according to CalFire. Thousands of residents are still threatened as the fire continues to burn, fueled by favorable weather conditions. During the weekend, another fire, named the Goose fire, broke out in the Fresno County, causing hundreds of people and animals to evacuate the threatened areas.
The Soberanes fire sparked in the region along Soberanes Creek in Garrapata State Park on July 22 and had since spread into Los Padres National Forest. So far, 57 homes and 11 buildings have been destroyed while six state parks were forced to close down. As the blaze continues to threaten local communities, hundreds have been evacuated, and one person died.
Firefighters have been facing difficulties due to steep, rugged terrain and limited road access. Prevailing high temperatures, low humidity and "an above average cured grass crop", according to CalFire, conditions, have played a major role in the incident. An unusual local weather pattern of, up to 5%, lower night humidity rates, caused the fire to grow after dark, according to meteorologists.
Mandatory evacuations were ordered in portions of the Carmel Valley, along the Cachagua and Nason Road, at the intersection of Cachagua and Tassajara Road, and at the Hot Springs Zen Center over the weekend.
A confidential intelligence email obtained by True Pundit provides proof that President Obama and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton created a secret and illegal alliance between the United States and a faction of the Al-Qaeda terrorist organization to ultimately assassinate Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi and distribute weapons to Middle Eastern terror groups, intelligence sources confirm.
The March 2011 email, sent to Clinton’s private email server from intelligence consultant and long-time confidant Sidney Blumenthal, provides devastating overt and covert revelations of how the United States, under Clinton’s Dept. of State, secretly violated a number of domestic and international laws by colluding with foreign governments and the terrorist organization and its leaders to conduct rogue foreign policy. The information in the email, coupled with corroboration and background from intelligence sources, highlight egregious political and legally questionable abuses including:
*Clinton directly aligned and allied with Al-Qaeda and its fanatics to overthrow, assassinate Gaddafi.
*Clinton directly armed and commissioned known terrorists and sworn foes with weapons in Libya, a direct violation of UN Security Council resolution 1973, which called for a complete arms embargo on Libya.
*Clinton and Obama together financed Al-Qaeda to overthrow Libyan government and stockpile weapons, including tanks and heavy artillery, which were ultimately shipped from Libya to terror factions in Syria and elsewhere.
*According to intelligence sources, many of the weapons supplied to Al-Qaeda factions were believed to have be used against Americans in the Sept. 11 2012 Benghazi attacks that killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens, Information Officer Sean Smith, and two CIA operatives, Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods, both former Navy SEALs. Stevens is the first U.S. ambassador killed in an attack since Adolph Dubs was killed in 1979.
But the United States didn’t act alone. Using the public guise of humanitarian intervention in Libya to prevent a massacre by the Gaddafi regime, Britain, France and Egypt acted with the U.S. to train and arm Al-Qaeda to assassinate Gaddafi and stockpile weapons to eventually ship to Syrian. Also, the United Nations and several key NATO countries, including the U.S., also assisted this rebel regime with air strikes. Gaddafi was eventually assassinated on Oct. 20, 2011 at the hands of the Libyan rebels, less than six months after Blumenthal’s email.
At a time when Muslims all around the world are terrorizing and slaughtering non-Muslims in the name of Islam, Pope Francis, the head of the Catholic Church, continues trying to distance Islam from violence.
Last Sunday a journalist asked him about the recent and “barbarous assassination of Fr. Jacques Hamel” in France, and how the priest was clearly “killed in the name of Islam.” To this Francis replied that he doesn’t like speaking about Islamic violence because there is plenty of Christian violence as well… [He] said that every day when he browses the newspapers, he sees violence in Italy perpetrated by Christians: “this one who has murdered his girlfriend, another who has murdered the mother-in-law… and these are baptized Catholics! There are violent Catholics! If I speak of Islamic violence, I must speak of Catholic violence. And no, not all Muslims are violent, not all Catholics are violent. It is like a fruit salad; there’s everything.”
Is the Pope really that dense? Is he incapable of distinguishing between violence committed in the name of a religion, and violence committed in contradiction of a religion?
Yes, Catholics—and people of all religions, sects, creeds—commit violence. That is because humans are prone to violence (or, to use Christian language that some—maybe not Francis—might understand, humans are fallen creatures). And yes, the Catholics that Francis cites do not commit crimes—murdering girlfriends and mother-in-laws—because of any teaching contained in Christianity or Catholicism; on the contrary, Christian teachings of mercy and forgiveness are meant to counter such impulses.
On the other hand, the violence that Muslims are committing around the world—the beheadings, the sex slavery, the church burnings—are indeed contained in and a product of Islam, and they have been from day one.
Francis continued offering half-truths in the interview. After he acknowledged that there are “violent persons of this religion [Islam],” he immediately added that “in pretty much every religion there is always a small group of fundamentalists. Fundamentalists. We have them.”
This is another sloppy generalization. Sure, “in pretty much every religion there is always a small group of fundamentalists,” but that which is “fundamental” to them widely differs. One may say that Muslim and Christian fundamentalists adhere to a literalist/strict reading of their scriptures. While that statement may be true, left unsaid by those who think the issue is settled right there is: what do the Bible and Koran actually teach?
The long and short of it is, the Christian fundamentalist will find himself compelled to pray for his persecutors, and, depending on the situation, maybe even turning the other cheek; conversely, the Muslim fundamentalist will find himself attacking, subjugating, plundering, raping, enslaving, and slaughtering non-Muslims. In both cases, the scriptures—Bible and Koran—say so.
Not for Francis. Poverty is supposedly the real reason behind all the Islamic violence plaguing the world:
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