Defying Congress,
Trump sets $8 billion-plus in weapons sales to Saudi Arabia, UAE
By : Patricia Zengerle
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump, declaring a national emergency because of tensions with Iran, swept aside objections from Congress on Friday to complete the sale of over $8 billion worth of weapons to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan.
The Trump administration informed congressional committees that it will go ahead with 22 military sales to the Saudis, United Arab Emirates and Jordan, infuriating lawmakers by circumventing a long-standing precedent for congressional review of major weapons sales.
Members of Congress had been blocking sales of offensive military equipment to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates for months, angry about the huge civilian toll from their air campaign in Yemen, as well as human rights abuses such as the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at a Saudi consulate in Turkey.
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CIA’s Bizarre “Ninja Bomb” Crushes Enemies Like a “Speeding Anvil”
Secret U.S. Missile Aims to Kill Only Terrorists
By : Victor Tangermann
Slicing blades pop out of this outrageous missile, which was even considered as a “Plan B” to kill Osama bin Laden.
Ninja Bomb
The Wall Street Journal reports that the CIA and the Pentagon have developed a top-secret missile designed to assassinate a single terrorist by crushing them or slicing them up with sword-like protrusions instead of exploding. The weapon, which officials have dubbed a “Ninja Bomb,” can even target individuals in cars and inside buildings. The promise: reduced civilian deaths and a deadly new precision weapon in the military’s arsenal.
Speeding Anvil
The weapon is at its base a Hellfire missile a 100 pound, five-foot air-to-ground weapon used by U.S. armed forces. But rather than exploding, the R9X missile can smash its way through anything in its path “as if a speeding anvil fell from the sky,” officials told the Wall Street Journal.
Killer Precision
Things get even more outrageous: six blades deploy out of the sides of the Ninja Bomb just as it hits to maximize its destruction. The hidden blades even earned it a nickname: “the flying Ginsu,” a nod to popular kitchen knives sold on TV in the 80s.
The weapon, in development since at least 2011, was even considered as a “Plan B” to kill Osama bin Laden in his Pakistan compound, the Wall Street Journal reports. The R9X was also reportedly used to kill high-ranking al Qaeda operatives in Syria.
Both the CIA and Pentagon declined to comment on the weapon to the Wall Street Journal.
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Mena Mangal: journalist and political adviser shot dead in Kabul
Kabul ( 11 May ) A prominent Afghan journalist and political adviser has been gunned down in Kabul, just days after she warned on social media that she feared for her life. Mena Mangal was shot dead on Saturday morning in south-east Kabul. The attack, in broad daylight in a public place, prompted an outpouring of grief and anger from women’s rights activists, directed at authorities who had left her unprotected in the face of threats.
“This woman had already shared that her life was in danger; why did nothing happen? We need answers,” said Wazhma Frogh, an Afghan human rights lawyer and women’s rights campaigner. “Why is it so easy in this society [for men] to keep killing women they disagree with?”
Mangal had shared her fears in a defiant post on Facebook on 3 May. She said she was being sent threatening messages but declared that a strong woman wasn’t afraid of death, and that she loved her country.
Interior ministry spokesman Nasrat Rahimi said unknown attackers had shot Mangal, and a special police unit was now investigating. In a tearful video posted to Twitter, Mangal’s mother named a group of men as suspected killers, claiming they had previously kidnapped her daughter. The group were arrested for that abduction, she said, but later bribed their way out of detention. Mangal made her name as a presenter on the Pashto-language channel Tolo TV, the country’s largest private broadcaster, and later worked for one of its key competitors, Shamshad TV.
Off-screen she was a passionate advocate of women’s rights to education and work, and had recently become a cultural adviser to the lower chamber of Afghanistan’s national parliament. “Can’t stop my tears at the loss of this beautiful soul. She had a loud voice, and actively raised [that] voice for her people,” Frogh said. Such a public killing was an “absolute dishonour” on the police, intelligence services and national security council, said the political analyst Mariam Wardak.
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Two super-rich families Ended up on opposite sides of Easter attacks in Sri Lanka
By Jeffrey Gettleman, Kai Schultz, Mujib Mashal and Russell Goldman
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka A little before 9 a.m. on Easter Sunday, Anders Holch Povlsen, the richest man in Denmark, was having breakfast with his family at the Table One restaurant in the Shangri-La Hotel in Sri Lanka’s capital, Colombo.
The restaurant was decorated with crates of oranges, apples and large, uncut pineapples, and the Povlsens looked out on the ocean rollers crashing into a sea wall not far away.
At the same time, Ilham Ibrahim, the son of one of Sri Lanka’s wealthiest spice traders, was heading down to Table One in an elevator. Wearing a baseball cap and a large backpack, he stepped into the elevator with a friend wearing the same thing. Right before the doors opened, CCTV shows, Mr. Ibrahim’s friend flashed him a long, white smile.
The two families, the Povlsens and the Ibrahims, were about to intersect.
One was a billionaire in dollars. The other, a billionaire in rupees. One built a fortune through jeans, turtlenecks and all kinds of hip clothing. The other, through white pepper, black pepper and all kinds of spices.
They both were well-known and admired, part of wildly successful, close-knit business families from opposite ends of the world and perhaps opposite ends of the ideological spectrum.
In an instant, five of their children Ilham, Inshaf, Alma, Agnes and Alfred were blown to pieces, one side slaughtered by the other.
Two of the Ibrahim sons Ilham and his older brother, Inshaf were among the suicide bombers behind the series of devastating attacksaround the country. Sri Lanka’s Muslims have been painfully perplexed by the question of why two of their most privileged sons would do this.
“Everybody keeps asking me that question,” said Hilmy Ahmed, the vice president of the Muslim Council of Sri Lanka. “I don’t know if there ever will be an answer.”
A week after 250 people were killed in the attacks by Islamist extremists, Sri Lanka remains in shock. Fear is printed on so many faces. An unnatural quiet fills areas that should be busy, like Old Moor Street in Colombo where the Ibrahims ran their spice empire from behind an unassuming storefront with a gray gate.
Spice traders and truck drivers gathered next to Ishana, the Ibrahim family spice business, on Old Moor Street in Colombo.Credit Adam Dean for The New York Times
Investigators from half a dozen countries, including the United States, are still combing through the three hotels and three churches that were hit, searching for clues of how an obscure Islamist group with no history of serious violence could execute one of the deadliest attacks in the world in recent years.
Behind each of the little white funeral flags fluttering across Colombo is a story of almost unbearable grief of young couples who died together, of shrapnel piercing toddlers’ flesh, of people who will love no more.
Perhaps the most striking is how the paths of the Ibrahims and Povlsens, two powerful families with so much to live for, crossed that day.
World faces ‘clear and present danger’ from trade war escalation
William Schomberg
LONDON (Reuters) – It was a stark warning about the risks ahead for the global economy, even by the forthright standards of the boss of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
“The world economy is in a dangerous place,” Angel Gurria said as the OECD announced its latest, lower forecasts for growth on May 21.
The source of his worry: the mounting trade tensions between the United States and China, which could hit the rest of the world much harder than they have to date.
“Let’s avoid complacency at all costs,” Gurria said. “Clearly the biggest threat is through the escalation of trade restriction measures, and this is happening as we speak. This clear and present danger could easily have knock-on effects.”
With much of the world economy still recovering from the after-effects of the global financial crisis a decade ago, U.S. President Donald Trump caused alarm when he raised tariffs on $200 billion worth of goods from China on May 10, prompting Beijing to say it would hit back with its own higher duties.
Trade tensions are the main reason that growth in the global economy will weaken to 3.2 percent this year, the slowest pace in three years and down from rates of about 5 percent before the financial crisis a decade ago, the OECD said.
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Russia’s ‘Hunter’ Flying Wing Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle Is A Big Beast
Reuters | Satellite imagery has confirmed The War Zone’s initial assessment of Russia’s S-70 Okhotnik-B, or Hunter-B, unmanned combat air vehicle is very large, with a wingspan greater than that of an Su-34 Fullback combat jet. The image, which appears to have been from around the date of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent trip to the 929th Chkalov State Flight-Test Center, also shows an array of stores on display next to the drone.
Putin visited Chkalov, which is situated in Russia’s southwestern Astrakhan region, on May 14, 2019, arriving with an escort of six Su-57advanced combat jets. The satellite image of the flight line at the test center subsequently appeared on social media, showing the unmanned combat air vehicle (UCAV) next to an Su-57 and other aircraft, including an Su-34, a MiG-29, and multiple Sukhoi Flanker variants. The new imagery does seem to show that the drone has a new paint scheme, which might indicate that it is a more refined design or a second prototype, but official Kremlin statements did confirm that the Russian President got a chance to see the Okhotnik-B.
Those other aircraft give a more accurate sense of the Okhotnik-B’s scale. Other images that emerged online in January 2019 had shown a large aircraft tug towing the drone at what appeared to be Sukhoi’s Novosibirsk Aircraft Production Association plant, which is in Russia’s Siberian province of the same name. At that time, The War Zone assessed that the UCAV appeared dimensionally similar to Northrop Grumman’s X-47B, which is 38 feet long and has a wingspan of 62 feet.
From the satellite imagery, seen at the top of this story and below, it is safe to say that the Okhotnik-B has a wingspan of more than 50 feet and a length of around between 34 and 36 feet. This certainly would put it in the same general size class as the X-47B.
The imagery also gives the first real top-down perspective on the Okhotnik-B, showing that its planform has a more pronounced wing sweep than X-47B. This could give the Russian drone a higher top speed and better efficiency and maneuverability at sustained high speeds.
It is also of note that the Okhotnik-B is the only aircraft visible on the flight line with an array of stores next to it. It is unclear whether these stores were actually meant to be associated with the drone or not. While the pictures of the unmanned aircraft that are available at present do not offer a clear view of its underside to determine whether or not it has any sort of internal payload bay or bays, it seems hard to see how it wouldn’t, especially given its overall size.
IAF gets its first Apache attack helicopter from Boeing
The Apache is widely acknowledged to be the world’s most lethal combat helicopter, having flown about a million mission hours in conflicts from the First Gulf War in 1991 to fighting in Afghanistan
By : Ajai Shukla | New Delhi | May 12, 2019
Boeing handed over to the Indian Air Force (IAF) on Friday the first of the 22 Apache attack helicopters that India had contracted to buy in September 2015 for about $3 billion at current prices.
Air Marshal A S Butola travelled to Boeing’s helicopter production facility at Mesa, Arizona, to attend the handing over ceremony, alongside US government officials.
The IAF is buying the latest version of the Apache, designated the AH-64E (I) Apache Guardian. The first batch of four-six helicopters will be shipped to India in July, said the defence ministry.
The Apaches are being acquired through a hybrid contract. The helicopter itself has been contracted through a “direct commercial sale” with Boeing.However, the radar and assortment of weaponry including missiles, rockets and cannon bullets, are being acquired directly from the Pentagon through a “foreign military sale”. The Apache is widely acknowledged to be the world’s most lethal combat helicopter, having flown about a million mission hours in conflicts from the First Gulf War in 1991 to the ongoing fighting in Afghanistan.
It can operate by day or night with equal effectiveness, flying just metres above the ground and sheltering behind trees and sand dunes. Its advanced Longbow radar picks up enemy armoured vehicles and then destroys them with anti-tank missiles, air-to-surface rockets or a chain gun that sends 625 rounds per minute ripping into the targets.
Designed to operate as the airborne component of a highly mobile, armour-heavy strike corps, the Apache has been dubbed the “flying tank”.
“The ability of these helicopters to transmit and receive the battlefield picture to and from the weapon systems through data networking makes it a lethal acquisition,” said the defence ministry .
Ground combat experts said the Apache should have been a straightforward buy of a premier tank-killing platform for the Army’s three strike corps, instead of joining the IAF fleet. Former defence minister A K Antony, after deciding that the new “Army Aviation Corps” would fly the Army’s tactical support helicopters, succumbed to IAF pressure and allocated them the Apache.
Consequently, the 22 Apaches, distributed between two IAF squadrons, will have the wartime role of “suppression of enemy air defences (SEAD)”. This refers to the US doctrine of destroying enemy air defence radars and missile batteries near the border, allowing fighter aircraft to cross into enemy airspace undetected.
Army aviation specialists reject this notion, arguing that the relatively slow-flying Apaches would be quickly picked up by Chinese or Pakistani surveillance radars and then shot down by their dense defensive network of anti-air missiles, guns and fighter aircraft. They point out that the US Army could use Apaches for SEAD only in highly asymmetrical conflicts like Iraq, where the US enjoyed overwhelming air superiority.
Acknowledging the Army’s need for the Apache, the defence ministry has kicked-off a separate procurement of six Apache Guardians for the Army’s strike corps. Last June, the US Congress was notified about the proposed sale of six AH-64E Apache helicopters to India for about $930 million.
These are for the first of the three Apache units planned for the Army’s three strike corps. Each squadron will have 10 helicopters and a 30 per cent reserve in depots to replenish losses caused by accidents or casualties. Separately, the IAF and Army are acquiring the Light Combat Helicopter (LCH), designed and developed by Hindustan Aeronautics, which is now close to being operationally certified.
The lighter LCH is optimised for providing supporting fire to infantry soldiers in high altitude combat. The heavier, bigger Apache is more suited to mechanised warfare in plains terrain.
There is no “Make in India” component or transfer of technology in the Apache deal. The helicopter is to be built entirely in the US, then defence minister Manohar Parrikar informed the Lok Sabha on November 28, 2014. However, the US Army is providing training at Fort Rucker, Alabama, to the IAF pilots and maintenance personnel who will operate the Apache fleet.
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Indian Navy successfully test-fires MRSAM missile
18 May, 2019 : The Indian Navy has successfully tested a Medium Range Surface-to-Air Missile (MRSAM) developed by the national military research agency in cooperation with Israel Aerospace Industries. “The firing was undertaken on the Western Seaboard by Indian Naval Ships Kochi and Chennai, wherein the missiles of both ships were controlled by one ship to intercept different aerial targets at extended ranges,” the country’s maritime force said, praising the “maiden cooperative engagement” between the Indian Navy, Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO) and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI).
The medium-range anti-air missile, co-developed with Israel, where it’s known as Barak-8, was manufactured by Bharat Dynamics Limited, India. It is designed to tackle a wide array of airborne threats from up to 70 km away, including enemy aircraft and hostile drones as well as anti-ship and ballistic missiles.
“This capability will significantly enhance the combat effectiveness of the Indian Navy,” the maritime force boasted.
Indian Navy has become a part of a select group of navies that have this niche capability.
While the fleet currently has the missiles fitted on Kolkata Class Destroyers, the country plans to install the MRSAMs on “all future major warships.”
Last year, Israel’s major aerospace and aviation manufacturer signed a $777 million deal with India to provide New Delhi with long-range missile defense systems. A follow-up $93 million deal, signed in January, secured the Indian Navy’s access to IAI’s technology for medium-range missiles, including interceptors with modern radio frequency seekers and digital radar.
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Garden Reach Shipyard wins Rs. 6,311 crore contract
These anti-sub vessels will detect enemy
submarines in the unusually shallow Arabian Sea
Kolkata – based defence shipyard, Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers (GRSE) signed a Rs 6,311 crore contract with the defence ministry to build eight anti-submarine warfare shallow water craft” (ASWCs) for the Indian Navy. In parallel, Kerala state shipyard, Cochin Shipyard Ltd (CSL) will build another eight ASWCs for the same price. These 16 vessels are being built in two shipyard simultaneously to shorten the delivery period.
The ASWCs will fill a worrying capability gap in the navy: the ability to detect enemy submarines in the Arabian Sea, where the unusually shallow sea bed reflects sonar signals emitted by submarine hunting vessels, masking the signals reflected off the enemy submarine, and making it difficult to detect. The ASWCs are equipped with sophisticated sonar, with an algorithm that differentiates the signals reflected off the enemy submarine from those bouncing off the sea bed.
These vessels will also have the ability to sprint fast for short bursts in order to maintain contact with a submarine it detects; as well as sophisticated data link networks for sharing information about the enemy submarine with friendly anti-submarine warships and aircraft. GRSE says these vessels can also be used for search and rescue operations and, in their secondary role, for laying and detecting underwater mines.
With the Pakistani navy already possessing three sophisticated French submarines and in the process of procuring four Chinese submarines, the navy has been pushing for ASWCs. Of even greater concern is Pakistan’s fleet of an estimated six miniature Italian submarines called the Chariot which can operate very effectively in shallow waters.
“It was a huge boost for team GRSE when the shipyard was declared successful in the competitive bid for design, construction and supply of eight ASWSWCs,” stated the shipyard on Monday, noting that this was a competitive procurement in which all public and private shipyards were permitted to complete.
After the ASWC tender was issued in April 2014, it has taken five years to sign a contract. The first vessel is to be delivered within 42 months from the contract that is by October 2022. After that, GRSE must deliver two more ASWCs annually, completing delivery by April 2026. GRSE is simultaneously building three stealth frigates for the navy under Project 17A, completing an order for four ASW corvettes under Project 28, while also building a range of other vessels landing craft, fast patrol vessels and survey vessels for the navy and coast guard. The ASWCs displace 750 tons, can sprint at 25 knots and are crewed by a complement of 57 sailors.
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Top IDF lawyer tells The Hague to back off,
says Israel can probe own alleged war crimes
The Israeli military wants the International Criminal Court to butt out of its affairs, its top military prosecutor has declared in response to efforts to hold it to account for its use of live fire against Palestinian protesters.
“Israel is a law-abiding country, with an independent and strong judicial system, and there is no reason for its actions to be scrutinized by the ICC,” Brig. Gen. Sharon Afek, Israel’s military advocate, declared at an international conference on warfare laws in Herzliya. “The position of Israel is that the International Criminal Court does not have jurisdiction to discuss the issue of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”
The ICC is weighing investigating Israel over its use of live ammunition against Palestinian protesters demonstrating at the Gaza border. Since March 2018, IDF soldiers have killed at least 251 people participating in the Great March of Return, a movement calling for Palestinians expelled from their land during the establishment of Israel to be allowed to return, and injured at least 26,797 more, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
But as of March, only 11 of the protesters’ deaths were being investigated as possible criminal acts. Israel has insisted that even the journalists and medics killed by snipers a war crime under any jurisdiction were actually working for Hamas and therefore fair game.
Israel’s judicial system has refused to pursue investigations of alleged war crimes committed by the IDF against Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza before, and the ICC has long sought to prosecute Israel for its treatment of the Palestinians. Before the Great March of Return began last year, the court was looking into whether Israel had committed war crimes during 2014’s Operation Protective Edge, the seven-week bombardment of Gaza that killed 2,000 Palestinians and injured over 10,000, deliberately targeting civilians and landmark buildings according to Amnesty International. Settlement-building and the eviction of Palestinians from West Bank and East Jerusalem were also scrutinized.
Saudi Arabia hosts OIC, GCC meets amid rising US-Iran tensions
OIC leaders are gathering in Saudi Arabia for several key summits as the kingdom hosts summits of the OIC, GCC and the Arab League. Saudi Arabia is holding a summit of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), the second-largest inter-government organisation after the United Nations, amid escalating tensions in the Gulf. In addition to the OIC meeting, the kingdom is also hosting the summits of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and the Arab League.
Prime Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser Al Thani will represent Qatar in the OIC summit – titled Makkah Summit: Together for the Future.
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Iraq’s president calls on neighbours, allies for Iran’s stability
Iraq’s president Barham Salih has called upon neighbouring countries and allies to support Iran’s stability. Iraq has also refused to sign the final joint statement issued by the Arab League following its meeting in Saudi Arabia, which is also hosting talks with the leaders of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). Earlier, Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud accused Iran of interfering in the internal affairs of Arab states.
Iranians, Iraqis march to back Palestinians, reject Trump Mideast plan
DUBAI/BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Tens of thousands of Iranians marking the annual “Quds (Jerusalem) Day” in the Islamic Republic on Friday condemned a planned Middle East peace plan touted by U.S. President Donald Trump as the “deal of the century”. State television said state-sponsored marches were being held in 950 communities across Iran and showed demonstrators carrying banners with slogans such as “Jerusalem is the eternal capital of Palestine” and “Death to America” and “Death to Israel”.
Trump’s plan is to encourage investment in the West Bank and Gaza Strip by Arab donor countries before grappling with thorny political issues at the heart of the conflict. Palestinian officials have already spurned it, believing it will be heavily biased in favor of Israel. Iran said it would fail. “No to the deal of the century” read a banner splashed across the news screen on state TV, which also showed a Quds Day march in neighboring Iraq’s capital Baghdad, where thousands of fighters from powerful Shi’ite militias took to the streets.
“Al-Quds day in Baghdad, in other Iraqi provinces, and across the world, expresses rejection of the ‘deal of the century’, which is being planned by Trump in order to dissolve the Palestinian cause in own way,” said Mo’een al-Kathem, a member of Baghdad’s provincial council. The Iraqi militiamen marched in combat fatigues but were unarmed and did not showcase military vehicles and heavy weaponry, a contrast to previous years when they took the parade as an opportunity to showcase combat prowess.
Quds Day was launched by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution, and is held on the last Friday of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.
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More satellites than stars? SpaceX could ruin night sky as we know it, astronomers worry
A SpaceX launch of 60 highly-reflective satellites has focused astronomers’ concerns on the overpopulation of Earth’s orbit, with thousands of broadband-beaming devices due to launch in coming years, threatening celestial views.
While SpaceX didn’t cause the problem there are already 2,100 active satellites in Earth’s orbit, according to the Satellite Industry Association the launch this weekend did crystallize it. Footage shot by a Netherlands astronomer showed the 60 satellites far outshining the stars around them as they climbed toward their eventual position at 550km altitude. SpaceX hopes to one day have 12,000 satellites orbiting the planet, beaming all the high-speed internet humanity could ever want and it is only one of several companies eyeing the satellite internet sector.
“If many of the satellites in these new mega-constellations had that kind of steady brightness, then in 20 years or less, for a good part the night anywhere in the world, the human eye would see more satellites than stars,” Bill Keel, a University of Alabama astronomer, told AFP. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk argued that bringing super-fast connections to “billions of economically disadvantaged people” was “the greater good” and insisted his satellites would have “0% impact on advancements in astronomy.” Astronomers, he suggested, could simply move their telescopes into space if they had a problem seeing.
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Most Germans find AKK unfit to replace Angela Merkel, poll finds
While the transfer of power within the ruling CDU conservatives appears to have been well orchestrated, a new poll suggests few think Merkel’s heir apparent, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, is up to the job of chancellor.
The Forsa poll released on Wednesday 29 May, showed 70% of respondents considered that Christian Democratic Union (CDU) leader Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer was not suited to taking over as chancellor. Chancellor Angela Merkel should stay on until 2021 when her term ends, the poll found. Even among her own CDU party, 52% considered Kramp-Karrenbauer, or AKK as she is often called, was not up to the chancellor’s job.