When British Queen Elizabeth II made a"historic" visit to Northern Ireland and even shook hands with former militant Martin McGuinness, who had allegedly killed her relative, it seemed that the IrishRepublican Army remained forever in the past. However, on the eve of the Olympic Games terrorists presented an unpleasant surprise to the Queen.
Three of the four terrorist organizations of Northern Ireland announced their merger in order to revive the Irish Republican Army (IRA). It will consist ofseveral hundreds of armed militants of the Real IRA, the Republican Action Against Drug movement (RAAD, operating in the city of Derry), the coalition of independent armed groups (so-called"Republican nonconformists") andsmall groups in Belfast and in the countryside. Only the Continuity IRA will remain independent.
This information, together with the statement of intention to intensifyterrorist attacks was delivered to a journalist of British newspaper The Guardian at a secret meeting, held at the Irish border. The members of the new association assert that they "act together and under the unified leadership." "In recent years the establishment of freeand independent Ireland was delayed and eventually failed due to refusal of the leaders of the nationalist movement to struggle," the statement said. Probably, it goes about the former leader of the "old" IRA, the above-mentioned Martin McGuinness, who chose a peaceful political process, established Sinn Fein party and was appointed deputy prime minister of Northern Ireland.
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Irish separatists stress out the need for armed struggle against the British Crown and Britain's military presence in Northern Ireland. Thenew old IRA plans to intensify attacks on security forces and other symbols of the British presence, suchas offices of Ulster Bank. There can be explosions in Derry in2013 - during the Days of British Culture, writes The Guardian . The organization will be subject to the Constitution of the Irish Republican Army from 1916, claimed the militants,whom the British newspaper shamefully called dissidents. Although when it comes to"dissidents" in other countries, the Anglo-Saxons do not hesitate to call them rebels and oppositionists. "The need for armed struggle will disappear only when the British military presence in our country ends, their armed militia is disbanded, and London, under international supervision, no longer interferes in political affairs of ourcountry," the separatists said.
Among the"Republicans," who joined the new organization, are the people responsible for the murder of Catholic constable Ronan Kerr, which took place in April 2011. In general, the above-mentioned groups have placed dozens of bombs in private cars belonging to police officers since 2007. The "Real IRA" exists since 1990. The organization assumed responsibility for the bombing in Omagh (County Tyrone), which killed 29 people. The British press expressed special concerns about the RAAD group joining the IRA. The group takes revenge on the drug dealers in Derry. The danger is explained with noble motives that hide other motives - separatist ones. The formation of the new structure became the first example of the unionof the adversaries of the British rule after the "Good Friday Agreement", signed on April 10, 1998 by British and Irish authorities. The agreement was ratified by the Parliament and approved in a referendum.
The government of the United Kingdom was relaxed in its reaction to the news - they were probably too busy with the provision of security at the Olympics. The army, the police and MI5 have been keeping the dissidents under strict control during the recent years; impressive amounts have been allocated from the budget for their containment.
Local authorities took the news of the re-establishment of the IRA with anxiety. Secretary of State of Northern Ireland, Owen Paterson, told lawmakers that the republican paramilitary groups continued to carry out cowardly and heinous attacks on the members of theircommunity. "RAAD conduct regular violent attacks against people in Londonderry, they attack police cars, throwing homemadebombs at them. In June, there were twosuch attacks," the Londonderry News quoted Paterson as saying.
The goal of the IRA is to achieve complete independence of Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom, and to reunite with the Republic of Ireland. In its work, the IRA relies on the support of the Catholic population. Its prime enemies are those who support the preservation of the province as a part of the United Kingdom.
The IRA is opposed toBritish security forcesand Protestant paramilitary groups. IRA's signature attackstarts with a telephone warning 90 minutes before exploding a car bomb. The warning reduces the number of victims, but still serves as a demonstration of force. According to Paterson's report, thenew IRA changes its signature.

A coalition of terrorist groups including the Real IRA, the Republican Action Against Drugs and a loose coalition of independent armed factions were said to be merging toform a “unified structure, under a single leadership”.
The union threatens to undermine progress made between Ireland and Britain in recent years, which culminated in a historic handshake between former IRA commander Martin McGuinness and the Queen last month.
The new paramilitarygroup includes hundreds of armed dissidents prepared to be “subservient to the constitution of the Irish Republican Army”, sources told the Guardian .
It was claimed the organisation, which excludes the Continuity IRA, wouldtarget British forces and services such as police stations and the regional headquarters of Ulster Bank.
The group told the newspaper in a statement: “In recentyears the establishment of a free and independent Ireland has suffered setbacksdue to the failure among the leadership of Irish nationalism and fractures within republicanism."
Referring to deputy first minister Mr McGuinness’s part in the power-sharing deal, the group added: “The Irish people have been sold a phoney peace, rubber-stamped by a token legislature in Stormont."
The dissidents said an “armed struggle” for Irish freedom could only be avoided by the withdrawal of Britishforces in Northern Ireland.
They called for an “internationally observed timescale that details the dismantling of Britishpolitical interference in our country.”
Among those believed to have joined the merged division were those behind the murder ofCatholic policeman Ronan Kerr in April last year as well as those who planted a bomb in the car of another Catholic officer, Peadar Heffron.
The statement will be monitored with interest by the security and intelligence services but is unlikely to change any threat assessment at this stage.
However, it is not thefirst time dissident groups have claimed to have joined forces only to fall apart again.
Despite claims they want to reclaim the banner of the Provisional IRA, thereis nothing like the groundswell support in the region that there was in previousdecades.
The Home Office refused to comment.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/northernireland/9430578/Dissident-groups-merge-to-form-new-IRA.html
http://m.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/jul/26/ira-northern-ireland-dissident-republican-groups?cat=uk&type=article
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-19014981
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/northern-ireland/newlymerged-dissident-republican-groups-in-terrorism-vow-16190435.html

Iran’s nuclear ambitions are clearly dangerous to the region. Iranian leaders operated a nuclear program in secret for two decades and continued to invest in it even after its discovery in 2002. The government is outspoken in its hatred of Israel. It supports President Bashar al-Assad of Syria and extremist groups like Hezbollah. If Iran gets a weapon, other countries in the region may want one, too.
Military action is no quick fix. Even a sustained air campaign would likely set Iran’s nuclear program back only by a few years and would rally tremendous sympathy for Iran both at home and abroad. The current international consensus for sanctions, and the punishments, would evaporate. It would shift international outrage against Mr. Assad’s brutality in Syria to Israel. Many former Israeli intelligence and military officials have spoken out against a military attack. And polls show that manyordinary Israelis oppose unilateral action.
Even so, Mr. Netanyahu’s hard-line government has never liked the idea of negotiating with Iran on the nuclear issue, and, at times, seems in a rush to end them altogether.On Sunday, the deputy foreign minister, Danny Ayalon, told Israel Radio that the United States and the other major powers should simply “ declare today that the talks have failed .”
Of course, it is disappointing that the negotiations have made so little progress. No one can be sure that any mix of diplomacy and sanctions will persuade Iran to giveup its ambitions. But the talks have been under way only since April, and the toughest sanctions just took effect in July.
There is still time for intensified diplomacy. It would be best served if the major powers stay united and Israeli leaders temper loose talk of war.

Lengthy Iran conflict likely to cost Israeli economy billions of shekels.
Former finance ministry director general says nuclear Iran involves considerable economic cost to Israel, adds that war with Iran would be much more expensive than Second Lebanon War.
In the heart of the Jerusalem hills is a"pit" which, like its twin in the Tel Aviv headquarters of the Defense Ministry, is intended for use by top government officials in the event of a national security emergency.
It's safe to assume that, in light of growing talks during the past few weeks about an Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear facilities, the pits have been getting thorough inspections and sprucing up.
Construction on the Jerusalem underground war room began in 2002, under Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, and it took a few years and somewhere betweenNIS 500 million and NIS 1 billion to complete.
In the event of an Israeli strike on Iran and an anticipated Iranian counterstrike,Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the core of government activities will likely move to the pit in the Jerusalem hills, while Defense Minister Ehud Barak and the top commanders of the Israel Defense Forces can be expected to go underground in Tel Aviv.
They aren't the only ones preparing for anemergency. The Bankof Israel, for example,has its own underground hideaway, more thanan hour's drive from Jerusalem, as does the Finance Ministry, while the Central Bureau of Statistics protects its precious data from nuclear attack with radiation-proof storage facilities.
Price for no war, too
While all governmentministries and top agencies have protocols in place in the event of war with Iran, including an Iranian counter-attack against Israel, most are tight-lippedabout the details. And while no one knows whether Israelwill attack Iran or how Iran would respond, what is known is that a war with Iran could cost Israel tens of billions of shekels.
Yarom Ariav, Finance Ministry director general from 2007-2009, is considered an expert in defense budgets.
"Before talking aboutthe implications of war with Iran, it must be said that thealternative carries a price, too. A nuclear Iran involves considerable economic cost to Israel, from its effect on our economic rating to large security outlays," Ariav points out.
He notes that after the Second Lebanon War of 2006 - which lasted 34 days, involved only one front and did not require full troop deployment - the treasury issued an NIS 8.2 billion extraordinary allocation to refill theIDF's emergency armories. In addition,the state paid out NIS 7 billion in compensation and rebuilding costs afterthe war.
"And that was beforethe expensive weapons systems we have now - the Arrow, Magic Wand and Iron Dome," Ariav notes, adding that a war with Iran would be much moreexpensive.
"There's also the collateral damage. Israel's daily domestic product is around NIS 3 billion per day. The questionis how many days theeconomy would be paralyzed if war breaks out. If 50% of the economy is paralyzed, that's a loss of NIS 1.5 billion a day, NIS 45 billion amonth," Ariav notes, adding that the long-term effects cannot be forgotten.
"Economists called the decade after the Yom Kippur War 'the lost decade.' There was a decline in the standard of living. Enormous amounts were diverted into restoring the militaryestablishment, at theexpense of civilian budgets," Ariav said, adding that a war would hurt Israel's credit rating, tourismand foreign trade.
In April, Fitch Ratings announced that Israel's credit rating would rise if the tension with Iran abated and noted that its decision to retain its Stable outlook for Israel"does not incorporate event risk in the shape of a possible attack on Iran's nuclear facilities."
An executive at an international investment bank, who maintains close contact with investors, said this week that foreign investors are very concerned about the situation with Iran, noting that foreign activity on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange is near zero these days, largely because of the Iran issue.
Gilad Alper, an analyst at Excellence Nessuah Investment House, disagrees, saying that for foreign investors, “Israel always has a dark cloud hovering above.”
Alper notes that credit default swaps on Israeli bonds − “a classic measurement of the risk the market assigns to a state” − have not risen. According to Alper, the possibility of Israel attacking Iran does not affect whether foreigners invest in the country. He even suggests that a brief, successful Israeli strike could benefit the local economy. “You remove the cloud hanging over the economy, Israel demonstrates its technological superiority − and a few articles go up on Bloomberg about how Israel achieved that superiority,” Alper says, adding that Iran is not the main problem with the Israeli economy.
Giora Eiland, a formerhead of the National Security Council who is now a senior research fellow at theNational Institute for Security Studies, also does not believe thata strike on Iran will critically damage the Israeli economy.
“The direct cost of the attack itself is negligible. What costs is preparing for a strike − the spending on intelligence and the relevant armaments − and most of that we’ve already paid. It’s part of the reasonfor the increase in the defense budget in the past few years,” Eiland says. The costs arising from an Iranian counterstrike, Eiland admits, cannot be estimated “without knowing the nature of the response − andI personally think it won’t be dramatic.”
http://www.haaretz.com/business/lengthy-iran-conflict-likely-to-cost-israeli-economy-billions-of-shekels-1.458060

Mitt Romney ’s new running mate even trades stocks in his spare time. He’s a fan of the nation’s blue chips: among the stocks he owns are Apple , Exxon Mobil , General Electric , I.B.M. , Procter & Gamble , Wells Fargo , Google , McDonald’s , Nike and Berkshire Hathaway , accordingto his latest disclosure filing.
Mr. Ryan is a disciple of Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman , two figures long associated with free markets.
And he has the support of some powerful backers in finance: his top donors include employees of Wells Fargo, UBS , Goldman Sachs and Bank of America . For his 2012 Congressional race, he raised about$179,000 from securities professionals (not a large sum, but certainly the single largest sector that donated money to his campaign).
One of the biggest contributors to his political action committee is from Paul Singer’s hedge fund, Elliott Management. And Dan Senor, recently an investment adviser to Elliott Management, was just named Mr. Romney’s new adviser. But what does Mr. Ryan think about Wall Street? His views may surprise you.
Mr. Ryan, who voted in 1999 to repeal parts of the Glass-Steagall Act , allowing commercial and investment banks to merge, now appears to be in the same change-of-heart camp as Sandy Weill , the former chief executive of Citigroup , who recently declared that the banks should be broken up.
“We should make sure you can’t get too big where you’re going to become too big to fail and trigger a bailout,” Mr. Ryan said during a meeting with constituents in May in Wisconsin. “If you’re a bank and you want to operate like some nonbank entity like a hedge fund, then don’t be a bank. Don’t let bank suse their customers’ money to do anything other than traditional banking.”
With a view like that,Mr. Ryan faces a challenge winning the support of the likes of Jamie Dimon , the chairman of JPMorgan Chase and a vocal supporter of the big bank model. (Mr. Dimon, a onetime supporter of President Obama , had recently been hinting he could vote for Mr. Romney, regularly calling himself “barely a Democrat.”)
Mr. Ryan is also an ardent critic of the Dodd-Frank Act, the post crisis Wall Street legislation. But, oddly enough, the provision he dislikes the most is the one that has the greatest support of the industry: a tool known as resolution authority, which gives the government the authority to dismantle a failing bank without wreaking havoc on the rest of the system. It was a provision that was supported by the former Republican Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. “We would have loved to have something like this for Lehman Brothers . There’s no doubt about it,” Mr. Paulson told me two years ago. The provision was also supported almost universally by Wall Street as a way to end the “too big to fail” problem.
Mr. Ryan’s 2013 budget proposal sought to remove the resolution authority provision saying, “ While the authors of the Dodd-Frank Act went to great lengths to denounce bailouts, this law only sustains them.”
It is worth noting that Mr. Ryan voted in favor of the bank bailout in 2008, known as TARP or Troubled Asset ReliefProgram . Ahead of the vote, he encouraged his colleagues in the House to vote in favor of it to avoid “this Wall Street problem infecting Main Street.”
He added: “ This bill offends my principles , but I’m going to vote for this bill in order to preserve my principles, in order to preserve this free enterprise system. We’re in this moment and if we fail to do the right thing, heaven help us.”
While Mr. Ryan may appear to be a friend of business, he doesn’t agree with the industry’s biggest talking pointthese days, the Simpson-Bowles deficit reduction plan. He was a member of the commission and voted it down, arguing that it did not go far enough in overhauling health care entitlements.
He later criticized President Obama for not supporting it. That prompted Gene Sperling , director of the National Economic Council under President Obama, to retort on CNN:
“ Paul Ryan, talking about walking away from a balanced planlike Bowles-Simpson is, I don’t know, somewhere between laughable and a new definition for chutzpah.”
Oddly enough, Erskine Bowles , a Democrat, praised Mr. Ryan’s proposed budget in a speech in2011, saying, “I always thought that I was O.K. with arithmetic, but this guy can run circles around me.”
Mr. Ryan also bucked the conventional Wall Street wisdom on how to deal with the debt ceiling . Many investment managers are wringing their handsabout the uncertainty that the debate over the “fiscal cliff” is creating for markets.Last year, three months before the debt ceiling debate reached a peak, Mr. Ryan said that he was prepared to let the government default on its debt for at least several days if it would forceDemocrats to accept deeper cuts.
“They all say, ‘Whatever you do, make sure you get real spending cuts,’ ” Mr. Ryan told CNBC about the way investors, including the hedge fund manager Stanley Druckenmiller, wanted him to vote. “Because you want to make sure that the bondholder has the confidence that the government’s going to be able to pay them. You’re putting the government in a better position to pay them.”
James Pethokoukis, a columnist for the American Enterprise Institute , which has traditionally supported Mr. Ryan, sent this Twitter message in April . “I hear what G.O.P. support there was for Obama/Bowles/Simpson debt panel plan is collapsing thanks to Ryan Plan.”
So while financiers may cheer Mr. Ryan’s pro-market policies, they may want to reassess just what those policies mean for their businesses.

Oil prices rose to near $94 a barrel Monday as increased concerns about the possible escalation of the conflict between Israel and Iran helped crude claw back last week's losses triggered by the International Energy Agency's lower crude demand forecast.
By early afternoon in Europe, benchmark crude for September delivery was up 80 cents at $93.67 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell 49 cents to end at $92.87 on Friday.
In London, Brent crude was up $1.56 at $114.51 on the ICEFutures exchange.

U.S. naval forces deployed in the Persian Gulf are vulnerable to the military power of theIslamic Republic of Iran, as stated by the university professor and political analyst, Seyed Mohammad Marandi.
In an interview Sunday on the Iranian network, Press TV in English, Marandi said: "The U.S. Navy is very vulnerable to Iran's missile defense system, which has very advanced land and naval capabilities, and could react quickly, using them against any attack by U.S. forces."
The Persian analyst made these statements after the Israeli daily Haaretz announced that National Security Adviser of the U.S., Tom Donilon, had informed the Israeli regime on the"contingency plans" in Washington for a possible attack against Iran. According to the document, Donilon told the plan to Israeli Prime Minister,Benjamin Netanyahu,during his visit to Tel Aviv two weeks ago.
Similarly, Marandi criticized the war rhetoric against Iran in Washington. He said that the continued U.S. threats, "will create ahostile environment in Iran against the United States."
Meanwhile, the Iranian political analyst warned of the consequences of a possible military offensive against Iran, arguing that "incase of any conflict with the Persian country, the price of oil will actually reach the clouds, and the western countries are the first to be harmed and no doubt the international community would blame the U.S. for theaggression."
He added that Washington "knows very well that Iranianmilitary deterrence isvery powerful, very unlike what is usuallyshown in western media. Clearly, Americans have taken very seriously the Iranian military threat against its military forces deployed in the Persian Gulf region."
On a recent visit to the occupied Palestinian territories, the U.S. Republican presidential hopeful, Mitt Romney, said Sunday he would give support to the Israeli regime if it decided to launch a unilateral attack against the nuclear facilities in the Islamic Republic of Iran.
On the other hand, U.S. security adviser, Tom Donilon, has informed the Israeli regime that they can only attack Iran if talks between Tehran and the Group 5 +1 (U.S., France, China, United Kingdom, Russia and Germany) reach a dead end.
Washington and the Tel Aviv regime have threatened Iran on repeated occasions, to conduct a military option to stop Tehran's nuclear program for praceful civilian purposes.
Tehran strongly denies the allegations and threats of the west over nuclear weapons development and ensures that they willnot hesitate to respond to any military aggression against its territory.

Many are confused about the so-called"God Particle," the Higgs Boson. They think scientists have finally found a naturalistic explanation for the origin of the universe. That is not the case.
"The Higgs mechanism does not miraculously create mass out of"nothing." Rather, the mass is transferred to the particle from the Higgs field, which contained this mass in the form of energy. Thus, the Higgs mechanism does not account for the origin of mass in the ultimate sense ... So the possible discovery of the Higgs boson falls under operational science, not origins science" (Dr. Jake Hebert and Dr. Jason Lisle, "Have ScientistsFound the 'God' Particle?").
Einstein confirmed that space and time are just as physical asmatter. That's why space and time can be altered by gravity,and space produces particles. Space actually is something not nothing! Space can be stretched and manipulated. Einstein's equations shows that space, mass, and time are all various forms of energy. Einstein showed that the universe couldn't be eternal. It had a beginning. Einstein believed, because of science, in the existence of God behind the origin and order of the universe. He didn't believe in a personal God, but he did believe science pointed to the existence of an all-powerful and intelligent Creator.
Einstein said that the First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics in science would never be overthrown. Both laws control everything in science and point to a supernatural Creator.
The First Law of Thermodynamics teaches that mass/energy cannot come into existence from nothing or be destroyed into nothing by any natural process, and the Second Law of Thermodynamics teaches that, over time, all energy in the universe is irreversibly decaying (becoming more and more useless) until the universe becomes total chaos and useless energy, where no work of any kind can be accomplished. The energy itself isn't destroyed. It just becomes useless to do any work.
If the universe were eternal then all the energy in the universe would have become totally useless by now, and Iwouldn't be writing this article and neither would you bereading it. The fact that we haven't reached that stage is evidence that the universe had a beginning and that beginning had to be supernatural since, according to the First Law of Thermodynamics in science, natural laws and forces cannot bring mass/energy into existence from nothing.
But, isn't the Second Law of Thermodynamics merely an expressionof probability? Yes, but the probability is so high and certain that the odds of just one calorie of energy spontaneously defying the Second Law of Thermodynamics would be trillions times trillions to one,and the universe is made up of far more than just one calorie of energy!
The natural tendencyof matter is towards greater disorder and chaos, not towards greater order and complexity. The natural tendency of matter is to breakdown, not build-up. The only way that this tendency can be overcome, temporarily, as is the case when a seed becomes a tree, is if there already exists something to convertand direct energy towards greater complexity. A seed contains the energy converting mechanisms and genetic code to directthe development andgrowth of a tree. It's not enough just to have useful energy for greater order andcomplexity to develop. There also has to be an energy converting and directing mechanism.
Natural laws may be adequate to explain how the order in the universe operates and functions, but mere undirected natural laws cannot explain the origin of that order. Once you have a complete and living cell, for example, then the genetic code and mechanisms exist to direct the formation of more cells, but how could the cell have naturally originated when no directing code and mechanisms existed in nature? We have to look to an intelligent Cause outside of nature for life's origin. God was the first Genetic Engineer!
Only a minimal level of order is possible spontaneously (by chance). For example,amino acids can formby chance but not proteins, DNA, and RNA. The individual molecules forming proteins, DNA, and RNA require for themto be in a precise sequence, just like the letters in a sentence. This is not something that mereundirected laws of physics and chemistry can accomplish.
What about natural selection? Natural selection doesn't produce anything. It can only "select" fromwhat is produced. Natural selection is a figure of speech. Nature doesn't do any conscious selecting. If a biological variation isproduced in a speciesthat helps the speciesto survive then that survival is called being "selected." That's all. Natural selection is a passive,not creative, process in nature ensuring that the fit will survive, and natural selection only operates once there is life and reproduction, so it cannot be used to explain any process involving the origin of life. The real issue, anyway, is not natural selection but what biological variations are naturally possible.
Modern atheistic scientists (i.e. Stephen Hawking) realize that the universe cannot be eternal and that it requires a beginning,but they believe the beginning of the universe was from nothing by some natural process that is yet to be discovered. Their faith is futile according to Einstein.Also, to say that nothing created something would make the effect greater than the cause, a contradiction to science. An effect cannot be greater than its cause (if there's only one cause) or the sum of its causes (if there exists more than one cause). The universe requires a supernatural intelligent Cause and Creator - God.
Where, then, did God come from? God, being infinite, doesn't require a beginning. God is infinite and not under the dominion of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Therefore, although God does not require a beginning, the universe does.
Explaining from science how an airplane works doesn't mean there was no designer behind the airplane. Explaining from science how the universe works doesn't mean there was no Designer or Creator behind the universe. Science merely explains how God's universe works!
Science cannot prove God's existence, but, science, inescapably, points to God.
The author, Babu G. Ranganathan, has hisbachelor's degree with concentrations in theology and biology and has beenrecognized for his writings on religion and science in the 24th edition of Marquis "Who's Who In The East."

Employees of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute asked the authorities to increase defense spending. They fear the rapid growth of Asian countries, and even though Australia is now friendly with them, it is time to think about defense. What is happening in the world, if one of the most non-conflict countries in the Southern Hemisphereis preparing for war?
Not that long ago, Australian strategists announced the results of the studies of Asian region. Why would they care about Asia it would seem? The experts were afraid of the conclusions they made, and now suggest that the authorities reconsider the policy of financing the armed forces.
The intensive development of the Asian countries will inevitably lead to the emergence of geopolitical problem sin whose solution the Australian army will have to participate, analysts say. Rod Lyons, a senior researcher, is confident that the state should allocate to the army at least two percent of GDP - and this is assuming that the relations with Asian countries remain peaceful and neighborly. If the situation is heated, the amount of funding should be increased to 2.5 percent of GDP.
This is quite interesting. Australia,perhaps one of the most peaceful and non-conflict countriesin the Southern Hemisphere, is seriously recommended to raise the defense andthe strategic power of the state with reference to the political situation in the Asian region. As early as in 2013, the"White Book" will be signed - a response to the recommendation of the analysts that will subsequently be provided to the Australian defense department for review.
Where did this interest in Asia and the fear of it come from? After all, Washington sets the rules in the region. The United States began playing in the Asian field long time ago, each year increasing their presence - placed their bases, unleashed wars, exported minerals fornothing, including energy, and bought the mining industry facilities,.
But now, says Dr. RodLyon, the political environment in the region is changing, and the U.S. influenceis significantly weakening. Japan and China that have been quite active in the economic sphere for now are ready to replace the U.S. Many experts argue that the Chinese army has long retrained from the defensive to the national liberation army. It can very wellgo and free less-developed Asian countries from the"yoke of capitalism."
Australia seems to not care about it. On the contrary, it is interested in the economic growth of Asia because it will form the basis for thedevelopment of a stable political situation in the region. But analysts do not recommend it to take other people's achievements lightly.Australians have to think about their own safety in the first place and maintain a certain level of defense. Meanwhile, the state budget is moving in the opposite direction - towards reduction on defensespending (it now accounts for 1.56 percent of GDP).
Australia finds itself between two fires: the last several decades it has been actively strengthening ties with the U.S., and recently started close and mutually beneficial cooperation with China, including through law enforcement agencies. But one cannot have their cake and eat it. In May of this year, Australia announced its intention to strengthen and develop relations with China, but at thesame time it obviously is not going to part with the U.S. military located on its territory. Such a disposition, to put it mildly, is not welcomed by the Chinese who have already entered the world arena in the latent competition with the United States. Could Canberra get out of this situation by persuading the"sworn" friends to forget enmity for the sake of profit?
It will not be easy, because the two powers - the United States and China - areconsidering the economy to be a fuel tank of the political machine and at any time may do something unpredictable. So far Beijing, in contrast toWashington, does not fight on anyone'sterritory, and therefore is offering a "peaceful" deal to its Australian partners. But there is no guarantee that things will change very soon. Asia in general is a cat in a bag: a heterogeneous, problematic, politically and economically unstable, with a huge black market. The recent events in Kyrgyzstan are a vivid example of a surprise the Central Asian states are able to present to their allies.
Australia is the exact opposite. Unlike other states constantly shaken by wars - European and Asian countries - it has remained a sort of "oasis" and for the first time was under attack only in 1942-43. When Australia begins to think about improving its defense, it means things are not going well in the world. Analysts, of course, may be overly cautious and think ofjust emerging trends that require confirmation as a real threat. But whenthe threat does arise,it will be too late to allocate money for the army.

Amid intensifying Israeli news reports saying that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is close to ordering amilitary strike against Iran ’s nuclear program , hisdeputy foreign minister called Sunday for an international declaration that the diplomatic effort to halt Tehran’s enrichment of uranium is dead.
Referring to the Iran negotiations led by the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany, the minister, Danny Ayalon, told Israel Radio that those nations should “declare today that the talks have failed.” After such a declaration, if Iran does not halt its nuclear program, “it will be clear that all options are on the table,” Mr. Ayalon said, not only for Israel, but also for the United States and NATO.
Asked how long the Iranians should be given to cease all nuclear activity, Mr. Ayalon said “weeks, and not more than that.”
The comments came after a frenzy of newspaper articles and television reports over the weekend here suggesting that Mr. Netanyahu had all but made the decision to attack Iran unilaterally this fall. The reports contained little new information, but the tone was significantly sharper than it had been in recent weeks, with many of Israel’s leading columnists predicting a strike despite the opposition of the Obama administration and many military and security professionals within Israel. Articles in Sunday’s newspapers also examined home-front preparedness for what experts expect would be an aggressive response not just from Iran but also its allies, themilitant groups Hezbollah and Hamas.
“Lord help us, would you just do it alreadyand be done with it?” wrote Ben Caspit, a columnist for the newspaper Maariv, referring to the Israeli leadership. “When one looks around the impression received is that it isn’t only in Israel that they aren’t being taken seriously any longer, but the world refuses to get worked up over them either.”
“Maybe they’ll bomb Iran in the end just to prove that they’reserious,” Mr. Caspit added.
Mr. Netanyahu and his top ministers have been saying forweeks that while thesanctions against Iran have hurt its economy, they have not affected the nuclear program, which Iran’s leadership insists is for civilian purposes.On Sunday, Deputy Prime Minister SilvanShalom called on theUnited States to enact “even more extensive and even more comprehensivesanctions which could overwhelm theIranian regime and possibly even topple it, or bring it to make the decision toabandon the nuclearprogram.”
The mixed messagesfrom Mr. Shalom andMr. Ayalon came twodays after Mr. Netanyahu called Ban Ki-moon, the secretary general of the United Nations, and urged him not to go to Iran for a meeting scheduled for the end of this month of the so-called nonalignednations (countries that were not allies of either the United States or the Soviet Union during the cold war).
“Even if it is not yourintention, your visit will grant legitimacy to a regime that is the greatest threat to world peace and security,” Mr. Netanyahu told Mr. Ban, according to a statement released by his office Friday night. “Not only does it threaten countries throughout the Middle East, not only is it the greatest terrorism exporter inthe world, but it is impossible to exaggerate the danger it presents toIsrael.”
“Mr. Secretary General, your place isnot in Tehran,” Mr. Netanyahu added.
At a cabinet meetingon Sunday, Mr. Netanyahu seemed to be trying to rebut the Israeli newspaper articles questioning domestic preparedness as he bid farewell to the current home-front defense minister, who is becoming ambassador to China.
“There has been a significant improvement in our home-front defense capabilities,” Mr. Netanyahu said, according to a transcript released by his office. “One cannot say that there are no problems in this fieldbecause there always are, but all ofthe threats that are currently being directed against the Israeli home front pale against a particular threat, different in scope, different in substance, and therefore I reiterate that Iran cannot be allowed to have nuclear weapons .”

One big reason for this is that some conspiracy theorists are clever. They use psychology to make their theories sound more plausible. They appeal to certain psychological phenomena which make people to tend to believe them. However, these psychological tricks are nothing more than logical fallacies. They are simply so well disguised that many people can't see them for what they are.
"Argument from authority". "Shotgun argumentation".

Conspiracy theory logical fallacies?

World Report 2012 : Syria | Human Rights Watch
World Report 2012: Syria
Events of 2011
Downloadable Resources:
World Report Chapter: Syria 2012 (PDF)
http://www.hrw.org/world-report-2012/world-report-2012-syria
Syria | Amnesty International
http://www.amnesty.org/en/region/syria
All content on Syria | Doctors Without Borders
http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/news/allcontent.cfm?id=219

A rising tide of civilians fleeing Syria’s violence is hitting four neighboring countries where almost 150,000 are being helped in camps run by the U.N. refugee agency and its partners, officials said Friday.
That figure counts only Syrians who have registered or are in the process of registering as refugees. Officials acknowledge the real number of Syrian refugees is likely above 200,000 since tens of thousands are believed to have not yet registered with authorities.
In late June, U.N. agencies estimated they would need$193 million to help 185,000 refugees from Syria by the end of 2012.
Spokesman Adrian Edwards told reporters Friday in Geneva that the U.N. refugee agency’s offices in Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan and Iraq have all reported big increases this week in the number of registrants.
As of Thursday night,the agency had taken note of 146,667 such people — 50,227 in Turkey, 45,869 in Jordan, 36,841 in Lebanon and 13,730 in Iraq.
“In several countries,we know there to be(additional) substantial refugee numbers, but these people have not yet registered,” Edwardssaid.
There were more than 6,000 new arrivals in Turkey this week alone, many from the besieged Syrian city of Aleppo and surrounding villages,while others came from Idlib and Latakia. “Where fighting happens, we tend to see the consequences,” he added.
Turkey has nine sites, including a new camp this week at Akcakale, for its fast-growing refugee population, of which 72 percent is women and children. It has notified U.N. and other aid officials that it intends to double its capacity by building enough camps to hold 100,000 refugees.
Jordan, meanwhile, is straining to build more camps to accommodate refugees from Syria’ssouth, where the uprising against President Bashar Assad’s government began in March 2011. An estimated 4,000 Syrians arrivedin Jordan on one recent night alone.
The International Organization for Migration said in a report Friday that more than 1,100 third-country nationals have sought its help to return home from Damascus and that 25 embassies — including those of Indonesia, Sudan and Yemen — have asked it to arrange travel out of Syria for another 3,011 people.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Syrian rebels on Thursday bombardeda military air base in Aleppo using a tank captured from government troops as activists reported the regime has launched new raids against opposition fighters near the capital Damascus, killing dozens.
http://www.newser.com/article/da0dard82/syrian-rebels-use-captured-regime-tank-in-aleppo-activists-report-regime-raids-near-damascus.html
“Some days we get around 30, 40 people, not includingthe bodies,” said a young medic in one clinic. “A few days ago we got 30 injured and maybe 20 corpses, but half of those bodies wereripped to pieces. We can’t figure out who they are.”
The opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 18 people were killed in the Aleppo area on Sunday out of more than 150 people, two thirds ofthem civilians, slain across Syria.
http://www.livemint.com/2012/07/30202156/Syrian-air-force-joins-battle.html
The guards pulled him from his cell before dawn on Monday, bound his hands, blindfolded him and drove him to an empty lot in the Syrian city of Aleppo.They sat him in a row with 10 other captives, he said, then cocked their guns and opened fire.
"They sprayed us," recalled 21-year-old Mahmoud, the lone survivor of the latestmass killing of Syria's civil war. "Thefirst bullet hit my chest, then one hit my foot, then my head. As soon as my head got hit, I thought, 'I'm dead.'"
Reports of such killings have surfaced frequently during the 17 months of deadly violence that activists seeking to topple President Bashar Assad say haskilled more than 19,000 people. But details are usually scarce - no more than activist reports or amateur videos ofbloodied bodies or mass graves posted on YouTube.
Mahmoud related hisgrisly ordeal to The Associated Press hours after it happened. Struggling to speak, he lay in a bed in a makeshift rebel-run field hospital set up in a wedding hall in this town 13 miles (20 kilometers) north of Aleppo. Bandages covered his foot, head and chest. Plastic vines and colored lights adorned the walls of the darkened building, and two red velvet chairs once used by brides and grooms sat on a small stage.
Mahmoud gave only his first name to protect his family who still live in the area.
While his story couldnot be independently confirmed, Mahmoud's wounds matched his story and residents who found him and his dead colleagues corroborated certaindetails.
Together, they painted a picture of the summary slayingof 10 men, at least some of whom had only loose links to the armed rebels seeking to topple the regime. That story jibes with activist claims of the increasingly brutal tactics regime forces are using to try to crush the rebellion that has spread to Aleppo, Syria's largest city.
Syria's uprising started in March 2011 with peaceful protests calling for political reforms thatwere met with a fierce regime crackdown. Government brutality grew as dissent spread, and many in the opposition took up arms as the conflict morphed into a civil war.
Aleppo has been a stronghold of government supportthroughout the uprising, with a wealthy business class and many minority communities who fear they'll suffer if Assad falls. Until recently, the city of some 4 million people had been spared the violence that has ravaged other Syrian cities.
But during the last two weeks, rebels have been pushing into Aleppo's neighborhoods, clashing with security forces and torching police stations in a push to"liberate" the city. Syrian media has vowed the army is gearing up for a"decisive battle," while anti-regime activists have reported swelling numbers of troops and tanks on the city's edges.
The Syrian government blames the uprising on armed gangs and terrorists backed by foreign powers that seek to weaken Syria.
It was amid these tensions that Mahmoud, a Palestinian resident of Aleppo, had his fateful brush with Syrian security. On Thursday, Mahmoud said, he and a friend went to collect their paychecks from the thread factory wherethey work and heardclashes nearby. Sooneight men in civilian clothes stopped them and asked for their IDs and cell phones.
On Mahmoud's phone they found videos of anti-government demonstrations and messages he sent to rebels from the Free Syrian Army, asking God to protect them and make them victorious. The men threw Mahmoud andhis friend in the trunk of a car and drove them to a trash dump, where they were blindfolded, bound and beaten with sticks and large rocks before being taken to a security office.
Mahmoud was locked in a crowded cell with about a dozen other men, hesaid. Each day, some were taken out and new ones brought in.
"We were there for four days and they only gave us water to drink once. They never fed us," he said. "They never asked us anything. Every day it was beating, beating, beating."
Before dawn on Monday, guards pulled Mahmoud and10 others from their cells and told they were going to see a judge. They were bound at the wrists, blindfolded and driven to Aleppo's Khaldiyeh neighborhood, where they were lined up on a patch of rocky soil.
"They sat us all down next to each other, 'You here, youhere, you here,'" Mahmoud said."Then each one cocked his weapon and the shooting started."
Mahmoud was shot three times. Bullets pierced his chest andfoot and one grazed his skull. Minutes later, silence returned, and he realized he was still alive.
"I breathed, I said the shehada," he said, referring to theMuslim declaration of faith meant to puthim right with God."I tried to get up then started screaming because blood was coming out of me."
He scraped his face on a rock to remove the blindfold and crawled to where some nearby residents found him.
Among them was a 22-year-old electrician who said he heard the gunfireearly Monday and worried that people were being killed because he had discovered six bodies in the same spot a day earlier. Heshowed videos of the victims on his cell phone, their bodies piled atop each other covered in blood, some bearing large bruisesthat appeared to be from beatings. He said all had been shot dead.
He and others asked not to have their names published because they have topass through government checkpoints to get home.
The killings shocked residents of Khaldiyeh, a working-class neighborhood on Aleppo's northwest side that has seen little violence until now. While many residents support the rebels, they havenot established a foothold in the area, and the relative quiet has drawn thousands of people fleeing violence in other Aleppo neighborhoods or nearby villages.
As Mahmoud spoke, a white pickup pulled up outside the field hospital with the bodies of nine of the men killed Monday. The body of the tenth victim had been taken away by his family. All still had their hands bound and two still wore blindfolds. Two had bullet wounds to their heads, and others had blood on their faces and chests or coming outof their ears. None wore shoes.
Those killings convinced one Khaldiyeh resident who helped collect the bodies that the neighborhood needsarms.
"We want the Free Army to come to our neighborhood to protect us," he said."If they can't come, then they need to give us weapons so we can defend ourselves."
The field hospital's doctor, Mohammed Ajaj, said he is no longer shocked when the dead and wounded pass through town on their way to burial innearby villages or fortreatment across thenorthern border in Turkey.
"We've gotten used to it," he said.
An 18-year-old activist who helped collect the bodies said none of them had IDs.
"We really know nothing about them," he said, adding that he would stop in neighboring villages to see if anyone recognized them before delivering them to a morgue further north.
"If nobody claims them, we'll take their photos and putthem on our Facebook page so their families can find out that they're dead," he said.

The Syrian Rebels' Libyan Weapon.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/08/09/the_syrian_rebels_libyan_weapon
About the author
A defence consultant,Mr. Farwell is an expert in strategic communication, political and sovereignty issues in the Middle East, North Africa and southwest Asia, and in cyber. He is the author of The Pakistan Cauldron: Conspiracy, Assassination & Instability (Washington: Potomac Books, 2011), and the forthcoming Power &Persuasion (Washington: Georgetown University Press, 2012).
_______________________________________________________________________
The Syrian insurgency belies thefamiliar Arabic and Chinese proverb that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
A critical question must be addressed: Who might seek to acquire elements of Bashar al-Assad’s large, sophisticated arsenal of Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear and High Explosive (CBRNE) weapons? Furthermore, who is prepared to deal with that challenge or the threats posed by a regime that employs such weapons?
The rebellion has already killed 19,000 Syrians. What began as a peaceful protest in 2011 against Bashar al-Assad’s political repression has turned into a full-blown civil war. At a minimum, the conflict appears likelyto reduce Assad and the Alawites – who comprise 13% of Syria’s 23 million population – to a rump state on the Mediterranean basedin Latakia, which is the de facto capital ofthe Alawite heartland. Amid reports that half those residents oppose Assad, his ability to secure eventhis base is unclear.
Assad and his cohortshave stumbled badly in confronting political reality, flubbing any opportunity for reconciliation, even ifthey didn’t have any interest in it to beginwith. Now it’s up to the international community to take action and keep his formidable WMD arsenal from being used or falling into the wrong hands.
Full:
http://www.defenceiq.com/air-land-and-sea-defence-services/articles/7-solutions-to-the-syria-problem/

Federal authorities ended two investigations into the actions of Goldman Sachs during the financial crisis, handing a quiet victory to the bank after years of public scrutiny.
In a rare statement late Thursday, the Justice Department said there was “not aviable basis to bring a criminal prosecution” against Goldman or its employees after a Congressional committee asked prosecutors to investigate several mortgage deals at the bank. Federal prosecutors are typically loath to acknowledge the closing of a case, doing so publicly in only a handful of instances over the last several years.
The Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations had examined troubled mortgage securities that Goldman sold toinvestors, who later sustained steep losses during the crisis. The subcommittee also suggested prosecutors investigate whether the chief executive ofthe bank, Lloyd Blankfein , had misled lawmakers during public testimony.
Separately, Goldman Sachs announced early Thursday that the Securities and Exchange Commission had ended an investigation into a$1.3 billion subprimemortgage deal, taking no action. Themove was an about-face for the commission, which notified the bank in February that it planned to pursue a civil action.
“We are pleased thatthis matter is behind us,” a bank spokesman said Thursday.
The moves closed a difficult chapter for the bank, whose missteps became emblematic of Wall Street’s excess. But for all the public criticism of the bank,the only law enforcement case to have surfaced against Goldman wasa civil case that the bank settled for $550million in 2010 over a mortgage investment that investigators said had been intended to collapse.
The announcements were also the latest indication that federal investigations into the financial crisis were petering out asthe deadline to file cases approached. While the S.E.C. has brought more than 100 financial crisis-related cases, the agency was looking to take on a big case aimed at punishing Wall Street for its role in the crisis.
After President Obama announced the creation of a special task force in January to investigate the residential mortgagemess, the S.E.C. and other authorities vowed to hold the banks accountable. Wall Street packagedand sold subprime mortgages, includingto the government-owned mortgage finance giants FannieMae and Freddie Mac , that suffered billions of dollars in losses.
The subcommittee, led by Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, focused on a group of mortgage deals that Goldman had arranged and sold. Mr. Levin further suggested that Mr. Blankfein might havemisled lawmakers when testifying about the deals.
But in a statement on Thursday, the Justice Department said it “ultimately concluded that the burden of proof to bring a criminal case could not be met based on the law and facts as they exist at this time.” The agency said it would pursue the case again if new evidence emerged.

Multinational companies’ freedom to move their moneyacross borders, to wherever the return is highest, raises new issues. Corporations can relocate to escape taxes and regulation, setting up shop where the rules are easiest. Investment in machines and high-technology plants abroad erodesthe productivity edge that American workers hold over workers in China or Brazil.
The challenges call for a more sophisticated debateabout trade. American policy makers might consider global taxation treaties, to reduce the scope for tax competition. They could engage foreign countries in a debate on global standards — overcoming mistrustof American protectionism to develop rules protecting workers from abuse by footloose corporations seekingthe cheapest labor. And they could thinkabout the kind of safety net needed toprotect workers from the dislocationsthat the relentless onslaught of globalization is sure to bring.
The Obama administration has made some progressalong these lines. The Obama health care law is the singlemost important contribution to the nation’s social safetynet since the administration of Lyndon B. Johnson, ensuring that workers who lose their jobs in the future do not also lose their health insurance. But President Obama hasyet to move beyond blunt criticism of outsourcing to sketch out a strategyto embrace the inevitable march of globalization.
He could still criticizeMitt Romney. But themost useful critique of Mr. Romney’s stance is not that he favors outsourcing but that the rest of his economic platform — which proposes cuts in government spending on education, unemployment insurance and other social programs to pay for tax cuts for high-income Americans — would undercut the nation’s ability to cope in the globalized economy he appears to champion.
Hewing to the standard anti-outsourcing playbook may gain afew votes in November. But American workers need more. They need a set of policiesthat gives them a stake in the fruits of the more prosperousglobal economy that globalization can bring.