Another fall Again: October 2016

Wednesday, October 26, 2016

World By Michelle Nichols,Reuters 1 hour 7 minutes ago

By Michelle Nichols

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United States on Wednesday abstained for the first time from a United Nations General Assembly vote on a resolution calling for an end to a U.S. economic embargo on Cuba, after opposing such measures every year for 24 years.

For the 25th time, the 193-member General Assembly adopted the resolution with 191 votes in favor. Israel, which opposed the resolution last year, also abstained on Wednesday. Such resolutions are non-binding, but can carry political weight.

Communist-run Cuba and the United States, former Cold War foes, began normalizing relations in 2014. U.S. President Barack Obama has taken steps to ease trade and travel restrictions on Cuba, but only the U.S. Congress can lift the full embargo.

The Republican-controlled Congress has resisted Obama's call to lift Washington's economic embargo after more than 50 years. Republican critics say Obama is making too many concessions to Cuba for too little in return, especially on human rights.

The U.N. General Assembly applauded when U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power announced prior to the vote that the United States would abstain.

"Abstaining on this resolution does not mean that the United States agrees with all of the policies and practices of the Cuban government. We do not," Power told the General Assembly.

"We are profoundly concerned by the serious human rights violations that the Cuban government continues to commit with impunity against its own people," she said.

Cuba's Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez described the abstention as a "positive step for the future of improving relations between the United States and Cuba."

Rodriguez said in September that damage from U.S. sanctions between April 2015 and March 2016 amounted to $4.6 billion and to $125.9 billion since the embargo's inception more than 50 years ago.

In March, Obama made the first visit to Havana by a U.S. president in 88 years. His trip was made possible by his breakthrough agreement with Cuban President Raul Castro in December 2014 to cast aside decades of hostility that began soon after Cuba's 1959 revolution.

Since the opening, Obama has repeatedly used his executive powers to relax trade and travel restrictions, while pushing Cuba to accelerate market-style reforms and boost political and economic freedoms.

The U.N. resolution adopted on Wednesday takes note of the steps taken by Obama as positive but "still limited in scope." It urges the United States to repeal or invalidate the embargo on Cuba as soon as possible.

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by James Dalgleish)

World By Andrew Osborn and Simon Johnson,Reuters 3 hours ago

By Andrew Osborn and Simon Johnson

MOSCOW/STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Russia is sharply upgrading the firepower of its Baltic Fleet by adding warships armed with long-range cruise missiles to counter NATO's build-up in the region, Russian media reported on Wednesday.

There was no official confirmation from Moscow, but the reports will raise tensions in the Baltic, already heightened since Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea, and cause particular alarm in Poland and Lithuania which border Russia's base there.

The reported deployment comes as NATO is planning its biggest military build-up on Russia's borders since the Cold War to deter possible Russian aggression.

Russia's daily Izvestia newspaper cited a military source as saying that the first two of five ships, the Serpukhov and the Zeleny Dol, had already entered the Baltic Sea and would soon become part of a newly formed division in Kaliningrad, Russia's European exclave sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania.

Another source familiar with the situation told the Interfax news agency that the two warships would be joining the Baltic Fleet in the coming days.

"With the appearance of two small missile ships armed with the Kalibr cruise missiles the Fleet's potential targeting range will be significantly expanded in the northern European military theater," the source told Interfax.

Russia's Defence Ministry, which said earlier this month the two ships were en route to the Mediterranean, did not respond to a request for comment, but NATO and the Swedish military confirmed the two warships had entered the Baltic.

"NATO navies are monitoring this activity near our borders," said Dylan White, the alliance's acting spokesman.

The Buyan-M class corvettes are armed with nuclear-capable Kalibr cruise missiles, known by the NATO code name Sizzler, which the Russian military says have a range of at least 1,500 km (930 miles).

Though variants of the missile are capable of carrying nuclear warheads, the ships are believed to be carrying conventional warheads.

"The addition of Kalibr missiles would increase the strike range not just of the Baltic Fleet, but of Russian forces in the Baltic region, fivefold," said Ben Nimmo, a defense analyst at the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab, who has been tracking the ships' progress.

"The two small corvettes, with their modern, nuclear-capable missiles, may yet have an impact out of proportion to their size in the Baltic."

SWEDEN, POLAND WORRIED

Izvestia said Russia's Baltic Fleet would probably receive a further three such small warships armed with the same missiles by the end of 2020.

It said the Baltic Fleet's coastal defenses would also be beefed up with the Bastion and Bal land-based missile systems. The Bastion is a mobile defense system armed with two anti-ship missiles with a range of up to 300 km (188 miles). The Bal anti-ship missile has a similar range.

Sweden's Defence Minister said his country was worried by the presence of the warships in the Baltic Sea, complaining the move was likely to keep tension in the region high.

"This is ... worrying and is not something that helps to reduce tensions in our region," Defence Minister Peter Hultqvist told Sweden's national TT news agency. "This affects all the countries round the Baltic."

Swedish media said the Kalibr missiles had the range to hit targets across the Nordic region. The Russian Defence Ministry said in August that the two corvettes had been used to fire cruise missiles at militants in Syria.

Polish Defence Minister Antoni Macierewicz, in Brussels for a NATO meeting, called the deployment "an obvious cause for concern," the PAP news agency reported. "Moving such ships into the Baltic changes the balance of power," he said.

Earlier this month, Russia moved nuclear-capable Iskander-M missiles into Kaliningrad leading to protests from Lithuania and Poland.

(Additional reporting by Jack Stubbs in Moscow, Justyna Pawlak and Jakub Iglewski in Warsaw and Robin Emmott in Brussels; Editing by Alistair Scrutton and Andrew Heavens)

World The New York Observer 5 hours ago

This year, on Sailors Square in the town of Yevpatoria, Crimea—which Russia snatched from Ukraine more than two years ago—a small but sturdy red-bricked monument with a message to future generations of Russians was built. The monument is named “For the Edification of Posterity” and the inscription on it reads: “WE HAVE RETURNED CRIMEA, YOU ARE TO RETURN ALASKA.” Silhouettes of both Crimea and Alaska are engraved. The U.S. purchase of Alaska from Russia in 1867 has been engulfed by conspiracy theories since the days of Soviet history textbooks that blamed Russian czars for every inch of Russian land lost to hostile outsiders. Disregarding the facts, one popular belief is that the Alaska purchase was a top-secret, “under the table” deal between corrupt Russian officials and Washington. ...

Tuesday, October 25, 2016

World The National Interest Mon, Oct 24 1:00 AM PDT

Earlier this month, a Russian ballistic missile submarine (SSBN) called Podmoskovie slipped out of its pier at Severodvinsk for the first time in 16 years. Podmoskovie was photographed leaving the shipyard for contractor sea trials on Oct. 22 by Oleg Kuleshov, who writes for the BMPD blog—a product of the Moscow-based Centre for the Analysis of Strategies and Technologies. Podmoskovie and her sister BS-136 Orenburg—a former Delta III SSBN—are roughly analogous to the U.S. Navy’s secretive USS Jimmy Carter (SSN-23)—which is a highly modified Seawolf-class boat. Carter is roughly 100ft longer that her two Seawolf-class sisters with the addition of a Multi-Mission Platform (MMP), which allows the submarine to launch and recovery of various unmanned vehicles and support special operations forces. ...

World Newsweek 16 hours ago

This article first appeared on the American Enterprise Institute site. On at least two occasions and possibly a third, Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen have launched missiles at the USS Mason, a destroyer stationed near the Bab al-Mandab, one of the world’s most perilous maritime choke points. The USS San Antonio has also come under attack. Sign up to our daily newsletter for up to date global news and features. After the second incident, the USS Nitze fired Tomahawk missiles at three coastal radar sites. The Pentagon called them “limited self-defense strikes,” more a symbolic action than one designed to punish those responsible. It seems that there is a reluctance on the part of the White ...

The Huffington Post Mon, Oct 24 2:09 PM PDT

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said on Oct. 8 that the situation between the U.S. and Russia today is more dangerous than it was during the Cold War. As he put it, "It's a fallacy to think that this is like the Cold War. The current times are different and more dangerous." Since most of us think of the Cold War as by far the most dangerous time we have known, Steinmeier's view is startling. It is important to understand what he is saying, not simply because he is the foreign minister of an important country, but because he is a smart man. In the interview, Steinmeier discussed the Russian intervention in Syria, the standoff with the United States and the frozen but still dangerous confrontation ...

Business Insider 14 hours ago

Across Russia, forty million civilians and military personnel just finished up emergency drills aimed at preparing the general population for nuclear or chemical weapons attacks, the Wall Street Journal's Thomas Grove reports. But as troubling as the largest civil defense drills since the height of the Cold War have been, the steps Russia has taken to improve its offensive nuclear capabilities likely overshadow them. Since the breakdown of US-Russian talks on the fate of Syria, Russia has pulled out of a nuclear non-proliferation agreement with the US citing "unfriendly acts" by the US, it has moved nuclear-capable missiles to its European enclave of Kaliningrad, and it has threatened "asymmetrical" and "painful" actions against the US should it decide to impose sanctions on Russia over Syria. ...

The Seattle Times 15 hours ago

TOKYO (AP) — Japanese officials are wary ahead of the arrival of outspoken Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte. Their concern is not only about his foreign policy toward the U.S., but also about his informal style. They are paranoid about him chewing gum in front of the emperor. Duterte arrives in Tokyo later Tuesday for a three-day visit, his first as Philippine leader and as his recent remarks on foreign policy and freewheeling style have captured international attention. For diplomats and political leaders, the main issue is Duterte’s foreign policy toward Washington and how Japan can help mend those ties. Tokyo is a major ally of the United States, and has watched as Duterte increasingly ...

Wednesday, October 12, 2016

Fox News Tue, Oct 11 5:47 AM PDT

Areas from the Philippines to southern China and Vietnam should be on alert for another budding typhoon. While Typhoon Songda poses no threat to land in the western Pacific Ocean, another threat lies close behind. A disorganized area of showers and thunderstorms east of the Philippines is expected to organize into the next tropical storm, acquiring the name Sarika later this week. The brewing tropical system will target the Philippines on Friday into this weekend before taking aim at southern China and/or northern Vietnam next week. In the Philippines, AccuWeather Meteorologist Adam Douty expects the greatest impacts to unfold from Samar to Luzon. The system could strengthen into a typhoon prior ...

Business Insider 14 hours ago

A new country called Asgardia, named after Norse mythology's city in the skies, could be the first nation ever created in space. The hope is to embark on a mission to mine asteroids and defend Earth from dangerous meteorites, space debris, and other threats. The group behind the Asgardia project includes space experts based out of Canada, Romania, Russia, and the United States, and they announced their sovereign ambitions from a press conference in Paris on Wednesday. Their core concept is to launch a robotic satellite within the next 18 months (60 years after Russia launched Sputnik, the first artificial satellite), then eventually follow up with a permanent space station "where people can live, work, and have their own rules and regulations," one founding member told Business Insider. ...

CNN 9 hours ago

US-Russia relations have deteriorated sharply amid a barrage of accusations and disagreements, raising the stakes on issues ranging from the countries' competing military operations in Syria, disputes over Eastern European independence and escalating cyber breaches. "This is a conflict, there should be no doubt," said Matthew Rojansky, director of the Kennan Institute at the Wilson Center, on the US-Russia confrontation. On Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said the US was considering a "range" of "proportional" responses to alleged Russian hacking of US political groups. Meanwhile, Moscow abruptly left a nuclear security pact, citing US aggression, and moved nuclear-capable Iskandar missiles to the edge of NATO territory in Europe. ...

Wednesday, October 26, 2016

U.S. abstains for first time on U.N. call for end to Cuba embargo

Russia beefs up Baltic Fleet amid NATO tensions: reports

On Alaska Day, Russians Still Dream of Getting Alaska Back

Tuesday, October 25, 2016

Russia's Super Secret Spy Submarine Returns to Sea

Michael Rubin: Iran-backed rebels are attacking U.S. ships

Germany Warns of the Danger of War

ussia is preparing for nuclear war

Japan wary over Philippine leader's policy, manners

Wednesday, October 12, 2016

Philippines, southern China and Vietnam on alert for brewing typhoon into next week

A multinational group wants you to join 'Asgardia' — the first outer space nation with a mission to defend Earth

US and Russia now in unpredictable confrontation