Russia to build missile defence shield

Russia is to build new space and missile defence shields and put its armed forces on permanent combat alert, President Medvedev announced yesterday.

In a sharp escalation of military rhetoric, Mr Medvedev ordered a wholesale renovation of Russia’s nuclear deterrence and told military chiefs to draw up plans to reorganise the armed forces by December.

He said that Russia must modernise its nuclear defences within eight years, including the creation of a “system of air and space defence”.

The announcement puts Russia in a new arms race with the United States, which has infuriated the Kremlin by seeking to establish an anti-missile shield in eastern Europe. The US argues that the shield is aimed at rogue states such as Iran, but Russia is convinced that its own security is threatened.

add to that, that Medvedev and Chávez sign $1 billion military loan, and Russia has sent a warship to Somolia after another ship has been hijacked by Somali pirates, what's an Empire to do?

Russia to build missile defence shield

Islamabad in rebuke to US after shoot-out

THE first major shoot-out on the tense border with Afghanistan between anti-terrorism allies Pakistan and the US plunged their relations to a new low last night as President Asif Ali Zardari told Washington: "Friends can't be intruders."

In a dramatic escalation of the stand-off between the two nations over cross-border raids, conflicting accounts emerged of what military analysts regard as a serious encounter involving groundfire by Pakistani troops aimed at bringing down US helicopter gunships.

The US forces - part of the NATO coalition force fighting in Afghanistan - fired back at Pakistani positions from their helicopter gunships as well as from the ground in what is the biggest exchange of its kind.

"It is in the interests of both sides at this stage to try to play things down. But there can be no disguising the seriousness of this encounter, and what it means in terms of future co-operation. Things are going from bad to worse," a well-placed military source in Islamabad told The Weekend Australian last night.

Official Pakistani military spokesmen said the shooting started when the US helicopter gunships were spotted flying deep inside Pakistani territory in North Waziristan, a hotbed of jihadi militancy that is a stronghold for militants operating in Pakistan as well as Afghanistan.

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Islamabad in rebuke to US after shoot-out

Homeland Security Detects Terrorist Threats by Reading Your Mind

'Pre-crime' detector shows promise

However, last week, the DHS science unit gave an update on the project, now dubbed the less-hostile-sounding Future Attribute Screening Technologies (FAST) programme. And, if DHS claims are to be believed, the research appears to be getting somewhere.

At an equestrian centre in Maryland, 140 paid volunteers walked through a pair of trailers kitted out with a battery of FAST sensors, including cameras, infrared heat sensors and an eyesafe laser radar, called a Bio-Lidar, that measures pulse and breathing rate from a distance.

Some subjects were told to act shifty, be evasive, deceptive and hostile. And many were detected. "We're still very early on in this research, but it is looking very promising," says DHS science spokesman John Verrico. "We are running at about 78% accuracy on mal-intent detection, and 80% on deception."

Homeland Security Detects Terrorist Threats by Reading Your Mind

America and Al Qaeda

The first four parts of a two episode series by AlJazeera English Network, featuring Michael Scheuer, Chris Hedges, Asad Durrani, Fawaz Gerges.

America and Al Qaeda

AIPAC and the Dobson mob

A Lesson Before Lying

" Even though the anti-Jewish accusations against their bible- praising, hockey mom candidate were scurrilous and spurious, the McCain campaign thought that the best antidote against Palin’s burgeoning Jewish problem was immunization from a group of hastily assembled AIPAC directors, who, I assume, were in town for the Republican convention. The group met with Palin at her hotel. Ironically, she was chaperoned by the man she had replaced as John McCain’s choice for a running mate, Senator Lieberman (Ind., CT, Israel, CUFI). Apparently, it was decided that Lieberman was too liberal on social issues for the Republican base. Predictably, Palin’s appeal to the quickly assembled pro-Israel lobbyists was successful. After the meeting, Josh Block, a spokesman for AIPAC, announced, “We had a good productive discussion on the importance of the U.S./Israel relationship, and we were pleased that Gov. Palin expressed her deep, personal, and lifelong commitment to the safety and well-being of Israel…. Like Sen. McCain, the vice presidential nominee understands and believes in the special friendship between the two democracies and would work to expand and deepen the strategic partnership in a McCain/Palin Administration." Palin, who is reported to be a quick learner, found out in a most public lesson that genuflecting to the directors of AIPAC is an important part of what passes for foreign policy experience and acumen these days."

CNP Meets in Minneapolis to Vet Palin

" Well, this is the larger issue, which is, you know, what role Sarah Palin would play in a potential McCain administration? And last week in Minneapolis at the Radisson Hotel, without any media present, the most powerful power brokers of the Christian right met and essentially vetted Sarah Palin. They were there to watch her speech accepting her selection as the vice-presidential candidate. And they were delighted.

The only way I found out about this meeting is through a web video posted by the Christian right organization Focus on the Family, in which they discussed attending the meeting. One of James Dobson’s spokesmen discussed attending the meeting and being electrified by the selection of Sarah Palin. The Christian right absolutely loves this woman. And so—and what I wrote in my article is that the Council for National Policy is sort of the hidden hand behind the selection. "

what coercion?

AIPAC and the Dobson mob

undercover infiltrators

busted in March For Our Lives on 9/2

The two would not identify themselves as police nor name their employeeing agency. Another infiltrator who was confronted by activists, and not interviewed on camera, did admit he was a cop, but laughably he claimed he was not "undercover" but simply "plain clothes" — his purpose there being to keep the marchers safe (from themselves presumably). At least a half dozen "plain clothes" officers were spotted in the march, which was already lined with riot cops wearing gas masks for nearly the entire route.

undercover infiltrators