EU to create intelligence service to counter NSA

The idea of “European Intelligence Service” was lifted after recent revelations of NSA’s activities abroad and alleged bugging of Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor’s mobile telephone.

Viviane Reding, the EU’s Justice Commissioner and vice president of the European Commission, has urged European leaders with an idea to create this agency within a decade as part of proposals for a new EU treaty next year.

An electromagnetic pulse attack — the ‘other’ Iranian nuclear threat

Just what might happen if the Iranians got their hands on a nuclear weapon? Would they fire it at an Israeli city, causing tens or hundreds of thousands of casualties? Or would they use it as a geopolitical weapon, seeking to dominate the Middle East and forcing the hand of Western powers, either subtly or by overtly threatening death and destruction to those who fail to heed their dictates?

While political scientists and world leaders have debated the likelihood of those two possibilities, there is a third plausible scenario: The use of a nuclear weapon by Iran to carry out an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack against Israel, the US, or Europe. Such an attack could cause severe damage to the electrical grid in the targeted nations, to the extent that the routines of daily life — centered around the use of electrical power — could be halted, for a short or even long period of time.