China using students as spies

The 350,000 Chinese students in the U.S. “are here legitimately and doing great research and helping the global economy,” said Bill Evanina, director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, but others are used as tools to facilitate nefarious activity. (Associated Press/File)

 

A senior U.S. counterintelligence official recently said publicly what many officials and experts have been warning privately for years: China is using its large student population in the United States to spy.

Bill Evanina, director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, a DNI agency, said recently that China poses a broad-ranging foreign intelligence threat that includes the use of academics, students, cyberespionage and human agents to steal secrets from the government and private sectors.

“I look at the China threat from a counterintelligence perspective as a whole-of-government threat by China against us,” Mr. Evanina told a conference last week at The Aspen Institute.

“We allow 350,000 or so Chinese students here every year,” he said. “That’s a lot. We have a very liberal visa policy for them. Ninety-nine point nine percent of those students are here legitimately and doing great research and helping the global economy. But it is a tool that is used by the Chinese government to facilitate nefarious activity here in the U.S.”

Iran ‘Blackmailing’ U.S. for Greater Nuke Concessions

Experts: Obama admin going above and beyond nuke deal to aid Iran

The Obama administration is taking steps to aid and please Iran far beyond U.S. commitments under last summer’s nuclear accord, according to experts, who warned Tuesday during testimony on Capitol Hill that the White House is becoming “dangerously close to becoming Iran’s trade promotion and business development authority.”

The Obama administration’s efforts to boost Iran’s economy and resurrect its financial sector are not required under the comprehensive nuclear agreement, yet the White House is undertaking this role to soothe relations with the Islamic Republic, nuclear experts told the Senate Banking Committee.

North Korea says it has restarted all nuclear bomb fuel plants

Announcement comes day after Pyongyang said it is ready to launch ‘satellites’ on long-range rockets

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — A day after threatening rocket launches, North Korea declared Tuesday that it has revamped and restarted all its atomic bomb fuel production plants.

The back-to-back announcements, which many outside analysts consider threats designed to spur talks with the United States that could eventually provide impoverished North Korea with concessions, will push Pyongyang further toward a standoff with Washington and its allies.

With Europe behind it, Greece is being pushed into further peril

There is not the remotest prospect of that Athens can raise the money set out in the bailout terms, even with the enforced sale of national assets

Keynes never existed. The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money was never written. Economic history ended on the day Franklin Roosevelt replaced Herbert Hoover as president of the United States.

That’s the gist of the deal that keeps Greece in the euro, an agreement that will deepen the country’s recession, makes its debt position less sustainable and virtually guarantees that its problems come bubbling back to the surface before too long.

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At the insistence of Berlin, this sort of flexibility is not going to be open to Greece. Angela Merkel and Wolfgang Schäuble, her finance minister, have got everything they were seeking before Alexis Tsipras called the Greek referendum – and more.

Greece capitulates at EU summit

At the cost of national sovereignty and against the will of the Greek people, who just last week voted no in a referendum, the land where democracy was born capitulates and falls under dictatorship.

In politics, when two parties (or more) with starkly contrasting ideologies (i.e. Republicans and Democrats) agree on a deal, 99.9% of the time it’s the citizens who pay the price.

Don’t expect the Marxist Tsipras government to stay in power long.

 

A Greek exit from the eurozone has been avoided after a weekend of tough talks, but the political cost of arriving at a deal is likely to be felt for years to come.

After 18 hours of negotiations, culimnating six months of wider talks, euro leaders emerged bleary-eyed on Monday morning (13 July) to announce a deal that will, eventually, see Greece get a new bailout if it takes painful reforms and if it agrees to intense scrutiny at every step of the way.

The immediate result was summed up by European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker.

“There will be no Grexit”, he said.

Iran wants nukes to foster extremism, opposition leader tells US

Maryam Rajavi, president-elect of the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran, also said Tehran wants nuclear weapons to foster Islamic extremism.

“The ultimate solution to this problem is regime change,” Rajavi said.

A British Conference on Israel’s Right to Exist: Really?

The notion of Israel’s “right to exist” has been in the news twice in recent days.

First, the University of Southampton, in Britain, announced that due to “safety fears,” it was cancelling a conference, scheduled for later this month, to question Israel’s right to exist.

Were the “security concerns” related to the fact that the conference would promote the rising infestation of Jew-hatred in Britain? A recent U.K. parliamentary report shows that hate crimes against British Jews have doubled in the past decade, and has called upon the British government to take urgent action.

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Iran has not only been a long-time sponsor of terrorist groups that for years have targeted and killed Israeli civilians (as well as American servicemen in Africa and Lebanon); it has also repeatedly threatened Israel with genocide. The latest announcement came in late March, when Mohammad Reza Naqdi, commander of the Basij militia of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, said that “erasing Israel off the map” was “non-negotiable.”

Obama’s Iranian-nuclear strategy brings dividend: Rev Guards lead military assault on Tikrit

US President Barack Obama’s plans for Iran, which were spectacularly challenged by Binyamin Netanyahu in his Congress speech Tuesday, March 3, weres manifested 10,000 kilometers from Washington in the firestorm over Tikrit, the important Sunni town north of Baghdad. There, Iranian-led Iraqi troops are on the offensive against the Islamic State in the biggest ground battle fought in Iraq since the Iraqi army fell apart and scattered last June against the conquering Islamist march through western and central Iraq.

For four reasons, this battle is loaded with ramifications for Obama’s Iran policy and the Islamic Republic’s drive for recognition as the leading Middle East power:

Fmr. Obama Official: Iran Will Now ‘Reap the Benefits’ While Having to Make No Concessions

 

Former Obama official Jeremy Bash spoke on CNBC regarding the recent failed talks with Iran, and how Iran came out the winner with a deadline extension.

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Exclusive: Obama forewarns Netanyahu that sanctions against Iran will soon be partially lifted

President Barack Obama has notified Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu that his administration will soon start the partial and gradual easing of economic sanctions against Iran, DEBKAfile reports exclusively from its Washington and Jerusalem sources. The reduction would apply to “non-significant” yet “substantial” sanctions, the message said.

Israel is the only American ally to receive prior warning of this decision – and the only one to be briefed in detail of the understandings Washington has reached with Tehran, including Iran’s concessions on its nuclear program. Neither European, nor Persian Gulf leaders led by Saudi Arabia have been let in on the scale of reciprocal concessions approved by Obama and Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

What Happens When You Give In to the Kremlin?

Answer: Nuclear saber-rattling

Russian nuclear-capable Bear bombers flew inside America’s defense zone near northern Alaska on April 28 and 29, marking the fifth incident of Russian bombers flying against the United States in less than a year.

In June, two Bears were intercepted near Alaska during a Russian military drill involving practice strikes against U.S. missile defense facilities. On the significant date of July 4, two more Bears flew closer to the California coast than any Russian aircraft have since the era of the Soviet Union. Then in February, two Bears circled Guam, a U.S. military hub, and in April Russia flew simulated strikes against U.S. missile forces in Japan.

Analysts say the ramped-up belligerence is part of Moscow’s efforts to sway Washington’s missile defense plans.

Reset Claims Nunn-Luga

Russia pulls out of nuclear aid program in setback for Obama reset policies

Russia’s government announced on Wednesday it is pulling out of the multi-billion dollar Cooperative Threat Reduction program that since the early 1990s helped Moscow dismantle nuclear weapons and missiles, United States officials said.

By securing Assad and its alliance, Iran gains upper hand for nuclear talks

Bashar Assad’s victory over the 12-month uprising to unseat him is unquestioned. With massive Iranian and Russian intelligence and military support, the Syrian army was able to push the rebels out of the cities – barring isolated pockets in Homs and Idlib – and drive them to the rural periphery, where they can’t hold up for long.

One observer, describing their situation as “undergunned and overwhelmed,” reported that Syria’s rebels have to negotiate for hours for every box of bullets they haul across the border for their war against Assad. “And their frustration is starting to show.”

Tehran, Damascus and Hizballah are crowing over their success in derailing the Obama administration’s two-pronged policy for halting a nuclear Iran. It hinged on Tehran’s isolation by unraveling its alliance with Damascus and Hizballah and economic pressure through tough financial sanctions and an oil embargo.

Iran has come out of the woods firmly in position at the head of its bloc, now cemented by Assad’s defeat of his foes. Tehran’s hand is much strengthened for the coming nuclear talks between Iran and the Six Powers due to start in two weeks. Washington will have to pay for any Iranian concessions by starting the process of unwinding sanctions.

Full article: By securing Assad and its alliance, Iran gains upper hand for nuclear talks (DEBKAfile)