Reuters – A suicide bomber struck a rally in the Pakistani city of Quetta on Friday, killing at least 54 people in the second major attack this week and piling pressure on a U.S.-backed government overwhelmed by a flood crisis. Pakistan’s Taliban claimed responsibility for the blast and said it would launch attacks in the United States and Europe “very soon” — repeating a threat to strike Western targets in response to drone attacks that have targeted its leadership. Read Article
Daily Times – Former British premier Tony Blair warned in an interview on Wednesday that the international community may have ‘no alternative’ to taking military action against Iran if it develops a nuclear weapon. “I am saying that I think it is wholly unacceptable for Iran to have a nuclear weapons capability and I think we have got to be prepared to confront them, if necessary militarily,” he said in extracts pre-released by the BBC from an interview to publicise his memoirs. “I think there is no alternative to that if they continue to develop nuclear weapons. They need to get that message loud and clear.” Read Article
Digital Journal – US Army officials expect an increase of unmanned aircraft flights in Iraq despite the government’s decision to withdraw some of its American combat troops. The US Army is predicting flight hours for drones will increase as the mission in Iraq changes due to a much-publicized troop withdrawal, even as President Barack Obama announced on Saturday that “the war is ending.” Read Article
Hindustan Times – After a lull, a spike in US strikes within Pakistani territory since mid-August has meant that the number of unmanned drone attacks carried out by the Americans in the first eight months of 2010 has exceeded that for the whole of 2009. It also makes this year the most lethal since the drone strikes commenced in 2004. The latest strike was in the tribal agency of Kurram that targeted the Tehrik-e-Taliban or the Pakistan Taliban. That took the total for 2010 to 54 exceeding last year’s 53, according to figures from the Long War Journal, which tracks the strikes within Pakistan. Read Article
Reuters – North Korea would answer any attack on it with a nuclear “holy war,” the country’s ambassador to Cuba said, according to official Chinese media, while the North’s leader Kim Jong-il appeared to be visiting China. Read Article
BBC – Police in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh say they are investigating the disappearance of several hundred tonnes of explosives. About 164 truckloads, sent from the neighbouring state of Rajasthan, have failed to arrive since May. Read Article
Al Bawaba – There are growing fears in the Gulf region of an imminent clash with Iran following the launch of Bushehr nuclear facility. Although Western circles downplay the importance of the facility to Iran’s efforts to develop atomic bombs, the Arab states in the Gulf region believe the potential of military action against Iran exists. The ongoing threats towards Iran by Tel Aviv and Washington come with practical preparations for a possible war such as the deployment of Patriot missiles in Kuwait. Read Article
The Guardian – When the order came to evacuate the Totia high school, hundreds of girls ran from their desks clutching handkerchiefs and their headscarves over their mouths. School bags were abandoned as some leapt out of the ground floor windows of their dilapidated two-storey school block rather than trying to push their way through a melee of teenage girls all rushing to get out to fresh air. Teachers tried to organise an orderly departure but their efforts were in vain amid rising panic that the school had become the latest in Afghanistan to be hit by an apparent poison gas attack. Read article
Press TV – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spends the time he was supposed to meet with the visiting head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog, on vacation. Netanyahu’s office cancelled the meeting, saying “he would speak on the telephone to the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA] Yukiya Amano later this week,” Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz reported on Tuesday. The IAEA director general is on his first visit to Israel, having asked to hold talks with the premier months ago Read Article
Wall Street Journal – U.S. officials believe al Qaeda in Yemen is now collaborating more closely with allies in Pakistan and Somalia to plot attacks against the U.S., spurring the prospect that the administration will mount a more intense targeted killing program in Yemen..Such a move would give the Central Intelligence Agency a far larger role in what has until now been mainly a secret U.S. military campaign against militant targets in Yemen and across the Horn of Africa. It would likely be modeled after the CIA’s covert drone campaign in Pakistan. The U.S. military’s Special Operation Forces and the CIA have been positioning surveillance equipment, drones and personnel in Yemen, Djibouti, Kenya and Ethiopia Read Article
SIFY News – At least six militants were killed in a suspected US drone strike in restive North Waziristan’s Miranshah town, local officials said. According to reports, an unmanned US Predator drone fired four missiles at two vehicles at Anghara village, situated about four kilometres from Miranshah, killing all the six militants. Read Article
Rferl-As Muscovites suffer record high temperatures this summer, a Russian political scientist has claimed the United States may be using climate-change weapons to alter the temperatures and crop yields of Russia and other Central Asian countries. In a recent article, Andrei Areshev, deputy director of the Strategic Culture Foundation, wrote, “At the moment, climate weapons may be reaching their target capacity and may be used to provoke droughts, erase crops, and induce various anomalous phenomena in certain countries.” -Read Article
Economist Times – The worsening domestic security situation in the country has foreign defence contractors like Boeing, BAE Systems and EADS, rubbing their hands in anticipation. Stung by the glaring deficiencies in the country’s internal security apparatus, the government has announced plans of spending about $10 billion, over the next five to six years and completely overhaul and modernise the internal security arrangements. The vendors have already identified a gamut of opportunities in the space, ranging from cyber-security networks to precision munitions and urban-specific armoured transportation, all essential elements that are either depleted or missing from the country’s weapons arsenal. Read Article
Irish Times – ISRAEL is to buy 20 F-35 stealth fighter jets from the US, in a move aimed at maintaining the country’s “qualitative edge” for years to come. Israel’s approval of the $2.75 billion (€2.15 billion) deal came after years of tough negotiations and American resistance to Israel installing its own systems in the aircraft. The Lockheed Martin F-35, considered the last word in aviation technology, is capable of penetrating air-defence systems and avoiding detection by radar. Read Article
AP – China’s drive to transform itself into a major military power is being pursued in a secretive manner that increases the potential for misunderstanding and military conflict with other nations, the Pentagon says in a new report. The Defense Department’s annual assessment, released Monday, says Beijing is upgrading its hefty arsenal of land-based missiles, modernizing its nuclear forces and expanding its fleet of attack submarines. Read Article
ABC – The Northern Territory coroner says it was “inappropriate and premature” for police to fire a Taser several times at an incoherent and agitated man who died shortly afterwards. But coroner Greg Cavanagh has dismissed a call by the deceased man’s family to ban the use of Tasers, saying “despite any inherent risks” they are preferable to the use of deadly force with guns. Read Article
CTV – In training material released earlier this year, Taser International quietly acknowledged that its conducted energy weapons can have a negative — even fatal — impact on humans. In stark contrast to the company’s stance in a petition filed in B.C. Supreme Court, the company training bulletin released May 1 warns that, “incapacitation involves risks that a person may get hurt or die.” Read Article
If I ever needed a reminder as to why all the team at Open Your Eyes News willingly and voluntarily give up so much their valuable time for this project, I got it last night on Australian SBS TV’s “Dateline”.
Probably one of the most hard hitting pieces I have seen on mainstream media for many a year regarding the use and effects of Depleted Uranium in Iraq – a topic which we have been publicising regularly since we launched the site 3 years ago. If you missed it, you can see it & read about it HERE
Of particular note was how the Doctors were so reticent to speak about the causes of the child defects after “instructions” from the Iraqi Health Ministry; George Negus’ reaction after the article (a veteran journalist who has seen a fair few horrible things in his 40 years of reporting); and the fact that the Hospital Director was shot dead soon after the filming (coincidence?)
There are far too few out there who are fighting against the tide of obfuscating, disinformation and ‘blissful’ ignorance, and whatever we do will be just a drop in the ocean, but this reminded me exactly why we must all keep trying.
James Fairbairn, Editor & Co-Founder, Open Your Eyes News
SBS – The number of babies born with severe deformities and children developing leukaemia is rising dramatically in parts of Iraq. US forces used Depleted Uranium weapons to attack the city, which locals say has left them with this devastating legacy. One report even says the number of such illnesses in Falluja is higher than that recorded after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Read Article
Daily Mail – British troops are to be issued with a new ’super-bullet’ to fight the Taliban as their current ammunition does not have the punch to kill the enemy at long range. The high-performance round will be fired from standard-issue SA80 assault rifles. Nicknamed the ‘Dirty Harry round’ after the powerful bullets used by Clint Eastwood in the 1971 movie, it is expected to be on the front line in Afghanistan by 2011. Its development by UK defence firms BAE Systems and QinetiQ follows Army concern in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, last year that the standard 5.56mm SA80 round was failing to hit its target at distances of more than 400 yards. Read Article
Xinhua – Some 61 trucks loaded with over 300 tons of explosives have gone missing in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, a senior police official said Friday. Read Article
Jerusalem Post – There is wide support in Congress for using all means to keep Iran from becoming a nuclear power, “through diplomatic and economic sanctions if we possibly can, through military actions if we must,” visiting US Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT) said Wednesday in Jerusalem. Lieberman, flanked at a Jerusalem press conference by his senate colleagues John McCain (R-AZ) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC), used very tough language, saying the words “military action” in regards to stopping Iran’s nuclear program. Most US officials opt to tiptoe around the subject, saying “no options are off the table.” Lieberman said that “a certain trumpet needs to sounded here for the Iranian regime to hear.” Read Article
BMI – You might wonder how the media – and, more to the point, the oil markets – have missed an important story like this. On Aug. 8, Iran announced over its state-run airwaves that four new submarines were added to its fleet. But very little has been said about the potential havoc this technological advance could allow the Iranians to play with the world oil markets. However, on CNBC’s Aug. 9 broadcast of “Street Signs,” CNBC contributor John Kilduff, vice president and co-head of MF Global, warned that with this new threat that could endanger the Strait of Hormuz – a major oil shipping point – $200-a-barrell oil is quite possible. Read Article
AFP – Russia announced Wednesday it had deployed a missile battery in Georgia’s pro-Moscow rebel region of Abkhazia, infuriating its arch foes in Tbilisi some two years after they fought a brief war. “We have deployed the S-300 system on the territory of Abkhazia,” air force commander-in-chief General Alexander Zelin said in a statement. Read Article
Haaretz – The Wall Street Journal said Monday that the United States had signed on to sell dozens of F-15 fighter jets to Saudi Arabia, but that details in the final deal had been negotiated to quell Israeli concerns over the possible exchange. Read Article
