Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu couldn’t keep the smirk off his face.
And no wonder.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu couldn’t keep the smirk off his face.
And no wonder.
President Donald Trump on Tuesday proposed moving Gazans to a “good, fresh, beautiful piece of land” in another country, offering a vision of mass displacement that would likely inflame sentiments in the Arab world as he prepared to welcome Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the White House.
(November 8, 2024)
The Biden administration has lifted a de facto ban on American military contractors deploying to Ukraine to help the country’s military maintain and repair US-provided weapons systems, particularly F16 fighter jets and Patriot air defense systems, an official with direct knowledge of the plan told CNN.
(,,,)
It is not clear whether Donald Trump will keep the policy in place when he takes office in January. Trump has said he hopes to end the war between Ukraine and Russia “within 24 hours” of returning to power.
Wiles, the understated yet formidable force behind Trump’s third presidential bid, has operated in a sphere of discretion, wielding influence without the spotlight.
Wiles ist eine langjährige republikanische Strategin, die bereits Trumps Wahlkampf 2016 und 2020 in Florida leitete. Ihr wird ein großer Anteil am Erfolg der diesjährigen Wahlkampagne zugeschrieben. Dabei mied Wiles das Rampenlicht weitgehend und weigerte sich sogar, auf der Bühne von Trumps Wahlfeier zu sprechen, als dieser am Mittwoch seinen Sieg feierte.
Donald Trump announced that his campaign manager, Susie Wiles, will be named his White House chief of staff. She will make history by becoming the first woman to hold the position. CNN‘s chief national affairs correspondent Jeff Zeleny reports.
Former Michigan GOP gubernatorial candidate Tudor Dixon joined ‚Fox & Friends First‘ to discuss the reaction to President-elect selecting Susie Wiles as his next chief of staff and why she considers the pick the ‚best case scenario.‘
During the DNC in Chicago, we made our demand for an arms embargo on Israel clear. Time and time again, we heard politicians — including Sen. Tammy Duckworth who told us back in October that she would continue sending weapons to Israel — posing as advocates for women and reproductive rights while arming Israel. They can’t hide from one undeniable fact: Genocide is not feminist.
Send a letter to the women of the Senate below and tell them: We Need an Arms Embargo on Israel NOW!
The president’s announcement that he was prepared to condition American weaponry on Israel’s actions amounts to a turning point in the seven-month conflict between Israel and Hamas. And his acknowledgement that American bombs had been used to kill civilians in Gaza was a stark recognition of the United States’ role in the war.
The president has come under extraordinary pressure, including from members of his own party, to limit shipments of arms amid a humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
In dem CNN-Interview wurde Biden gefragt, ob mit dem Typ an US-Bomben, deren Lieferung vorerst auf Eis liege, Zivilisten in Gaza getötet worden seien. Biden sagte dazu: „Zivilisten wurden im Gazastreifen infolge dieser Bomben und anderer Methoden, mit denen sie Bevölkerungszentren angreifen, getötet.“
Biden machte zugleich deutlich, die US-Regierung werde weiter sicherstellen, dass Israel ausreichend militärische Ausrüstung zur eigenen Verteidigung habe, etwa das Raketenabwehrsystems Iron Dome.
(31.03.2024)
The arms packages included more than 1,800 MK84 2,000-pound bombs and 500 MK82 500-pound bombs, according to Pentagon and State Department officials.
This month, the State Department also authorized the transfer to Israel of 25 F-35A fighter jets and engines worth roughly $2.5 billion, U.S. officials said.
The White House last week paused a shipment of weapons to Israel, as Israeli leaders closed in on a decision to launch an operation in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, a senior administration official said Tuesday.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin confirmed Wednesday in testimony to Congress that „we paused one shipment of high payload munitions.„
(06.05.2024)
President Biden updated the Prime Minister on efforts to secure a hostage deal, including through ongoing talks today in Doha, Qatar. The Prime Minister agreed to ensure the Kerem Shalom crossing is open for humanitarian assistance for those in need. The President reiterated his clear position on Rafah.
(18.11.2021)
An exiled Iranian arms dealer named Manucher Ghorbanifar claimed to have contacts with a moderate faction inside Iran, and further alleged that weapons sales would improve that faction’s standing. Ghorbanifar collaborated with Israel, which proved to be an important intermediary. While Israel was no ally of Iran, it was also no ally of Iraq, and the ongoing war between the two countries kept them both distracted. Israel began selling U.S.-made weapons to Iran in 1981, even after the U.S. State Department began an effort to end arm sales, known as Operation Staunch, in 1983.
The President affirmed the need to defeat Hamas in Gaza while also protecting the civilian population and facilitating the safe and unhindered delivery of assistance throughout Gaza. The President and Prime Minster agreed to have their teams meet soon in Washington to exchange views and discuss alternative approaches that would target key elements of Hamas and secure the Egypt-Gaza border without a major ground operation in Rafah.
The United States announced an emergency mission led by the U.S. military to establish a temporary pier in Gaza, in coordination with humanitarian partners and other countries, to enable the delivery of significant quantities of assistance by sea. These efforts will be closely coordinated with the Government of Israel.
The delivery of humanitarian assistance directly to Gaza by sea will be complex, and our nations will continue to assess and adjust our efforts to ensure we deliver aid as effectively as possible. This maritime corridor can—and must—be part of a sustained effort to increase the flow of humanitarian aid and commercial commodities into Gaza through all possible routes.
One Democratic member of the House responded to being told of the questions about age and memory raised in the report with a morbid laugh and sullen shake of the head. Another started anxiously asking for a sense of how others were responding, palpably feeling at wit’s end.
The spectacle — at times chaotic, at times emotional — echoed around the country among the networks of Democratic donors and strategists who have been struggling for weeks to contain their concern about the state and direction of Biden’s campaign.
The broad conclusion, both inside and outside Biden’s inner circle, is that a dangerous and misleading caricature of the president’s performance is at risk of setting in, pushed by the biting prose of a special prosecutor they suspected of seeking political revenge.
(19:49 GMT)
The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) and British maritime security firm Ambrey said they received reports of a ship being attacked near the port city of Aden.
The „vessel has been hit on port side by an uncrewed aerial system,“ the organisation said. It added that the vessel and crew are safe and are continuing the journey
Over the past months, Yemen-based Houthi militants have engaged in unprecedented attacks against United States military forces and international maritime vessels operating in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. These attacks fit the textbook definition of terrorism. They have endangered U.S. personnel, civilian mariners, and our partners, jeopardized global trade, and threatened freedom of navigation. The United States and the international community have been united in our response and in condemning these attacks in the strongest terms.
Today, in response to these continuing threats and attacks, the United States announced the designation of Ansarallah, also known as the Houthis, as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist.
„At every juncture, Netanyahu has given Biden the finger,“ Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), who has been in close contact with U.S. officials about the war, told Axios. „They are pleading with the Netanyahu coalition, but getting slapped in the face over and over again.“
Behind the scenes: Biden hasn‘t spoken to Netanyahu in the 20 days since a tense Dec. 23 call, which a frustrated Biden ended with the words: „This conversation is over.“
I first went to check on the mother, who was still buried under the rubble. I called her name and crawled beneath the concrete walls, but there was only silence.
We dug further only to find that she had passed away with her arms wrapped around the tiny bodies of her children.
Some days after returning to our neighbourhood, we noticed that a pack of stray dogs had come and taken shelter in one of the bombed-out houses next to us. Throughout the night, we heard them barking and howling loudly, as though they were fighting over something….
So far, two people from the administration have tendered their resignations – Josh Paul, who oversaw arms transfers at State, and Tariq Habash, who worked on education policy at the White House.
The morale of staff in the White House is so low that the chief of staff planned a party in the hopes of cheering up the employees, according to a report from Axios.
However, it‘s not clear if the senior staff members of the administration understand why morale is so low. After the report of the party for White House staff, another report stated that hundreds of federal employees across 22 government agencies are planning a walk-out to protest against Biden‘s handling of the war.
(04.01.2024)
A senior Biden education adviser on Wednesday became the second administration official to resign from his post over the White House’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war, the latest instance of internal turmoil over the war.
Let our message now be clear: we call for the immediate end of these illegal attacks and release of unlawfully detained vessels and crews. The Houthis will bear the responsibility of the consequences should they continue to threaten lives, the global economy, and free flow of commerce in the region’s critical waterways. We remain committed to the international rules-based order and are determined to hold malign actors accountable for unlawful seizures and attacks.
(13.12.2023)
More than three dozen people, including political appointees, administration staffers and civil service career staff, attended the early evening vigil in front of the White House. The participants wore sunglasses and masks to conceal their identities.
(03.12.2023)
“The intelligence community has indicated that they did not have access to this document,” Kirby said in an interview with NBC’s Kristen Welker on “Meet the Press” on Sunday.
(03.12.2023)
“Intelligence is a mosaic, and sometimes you know you can fashion things together and get a pretty good picture,” Kirby replied. “Other times, you know that there’s pieces of the puzzle that are missing.”
Kirby also declined to say whether Hamas’ incursion into Israel should be seen as a failure of Israeli intelligence.
(November 1, 2023)
And also just to be very clear, everything that I’ve been describing, all of these various mechanisms that the state has been using, are backed by Israeli courts, and backed by the Israeli legal system. This is not some random phenomena that is happening uniquely to a single unlucky community far from the eyes of the state. On the contrary, this is part of an ongoing Israeli state project of trying to push, to cleanse, as many Palestinians out of Area C, using all available state mechanisms in order to accomplish this goal. (…)
There are checkpoints. There are threats. And all this goes on for years. And yet somehow you managed to stay on the land and make a living and try to raise a family under these conditions. And that in and of itself is horrific and criminal and appalling, and also happens in broad daylight. Everything I’ve been talking about now and describing has been documented for years already by Palestinian, Israeli, and international human-rights organizations. But Israel never relented and never stopped because, as I said, it’s part of the state’s goal to accomplish that. What has escalated in recent weeks is that you have repeated reports of masked men showing up in the middle of the night. Armed, masked men.
Maybe they are settlers, maybe they’re soldiers, maybe they’re a mix. And they openly threaten the people in the community and tell them that they have twenty-four hours to leave, and if you say otherwise we would wipe you out.
(Nov. 28, 2023)
The statements are the Biden administration’s strongest warning to Israeli officials to date about the next phase of their military operation. For weeks, the White House has been careful to say it does not dictate how Israel conducts its military operations, but President Biden and senior members of his staff have grown more vocal as the humanitarian crisis has unfolded.
They also come as the administration officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic issues, said they were ramping up humanitarian aid during the cease-fire that took effect last week, and expressed optimism that aid could continue even when fighting resumed.
(November 25, 2023)
I’m not actually worried that a majority of Arab American or young voters will vote for Trump; I’m worried that they’ll stay home and not vote at all. The ultimate weakness in the “Trump would be worse” argument is that many voters will see two candidates they don’t like and simply avoid the polls or cast protest votes for a third-party candidate running for president.
(November 21, 2023)
More Democratic voters are expressing dissatisfaction with Biden’s handling of the larger Israeli-Palestinian conflict, young people are becoming more sympathetic to the Palestinians and older voters are giving more thought to people on both sides.
(Nov 27, 2023)
Our RootsAction.org team had no reason to avoid antagonizing the White House. Immediately after the 2022 election, we launched the Don’t Run Joe campaign. Last winter, it included TV ads in New Hampshire and other early primary states as well as in DC. We also placed full-page ads in print editions of The Hill newspaper, widely read on Capitol Hill; one depicted congressional Democrats as having their heads in the sand. A steady flow of news releases went out, citing data on Biden’s electoral vulnerabilities. A mobile Don’t Run Joe billboard circled the Capitol and White House when Congress reconvened in January.
But elected Democrats, loyal boosters and allied organizations stuck with the party line.
(25.11.2023)
Biden’s recent slide — and his political predicament some 11 months before Election Day — represent a confluence of slippage with reliable Democratic constituencies like young voters, the outbreak of war in the Middle East and the rise of independent and third-party candidates who could siphon votes from both Biden and Trump.
(November 24, 2023)
(yesterday)
President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. spoke today with Amir Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani and Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al Thani of Qatar on implementation of the hostage deal and humanitarian pause in Gaza. The leaders discussed hurdles to implementation of the deal and mechanisms for resolving those hurdles as soon as possible. They agreed to remain in close contact to ensure the deal is fully implemented according to its terms.
(6 hours ago)
President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. spoke today with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel to welcome the deal for the release of at least 50 hostages held by Hamas. The two leaders discussed the pause in the fighting, which will allow for surging in much needed humanitarian assistance into Gaza. The Prime Minister thanked the President for his tireless efforts, and those of his team, to help broker this deal.
“We understand what they’re trying to do. They’re trying to move civilians out of harm’s way,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told CNN.
“Now it’s a tall order. It’s a million people, and it’s very urban, dense environment. It’s already a combat zone. So I don’t think anybody’s underestimating the challenge here of effecting that evacuation.”
Es sei „zu früh“ zu sagen, ob der Iran direkt in die großangelegten Offensive eingebunden sei, erklärte ein Vertreter des Weißen Hauses. Dennoch gäbe es „keinen Zweifel“ daran, dass die Hamas unter anderem vom Iran „finanziert, ausgerüstet und bewaffnet werde“, betonte er.
(12.09.2022)
According to a diplomatic source, Prime Minister Yair Lapid presented the Germans with intelligence that ‚proves the Iranians are cheating as we speak,‘ claiming the Americans‘ hardened their stance in response to the information
(15 Feb 2011)
Since the fall of Baghdad, Curveball‘s identity had been sought throughout Iraq and Europe. He was finally outed in late 2007 as the main source for Powell‘s speech, but has tried to keep a low profile ever since, refusing — under the orders of the BND — the approaches of the few reporters who had tracked him downto Karlsruhe.
The only other time Curveball has agreed to be interviewed was in late 2007, when he told CNN that he had been set up as a fall guy by the BND and had never breathed a word to them about WMD.
(28.8.2011)
Diese bis heute verbreitete Darstellung ist unangenehm für die Bundesrepublik. Deutschland steht da als ein Land, das ein Doppelspiel betrieben hat: nach außen den Pazifisten geben – und hintenherum über seinen Geheimdienst einen entscheidenden Grund für die militärische Intervention liefern. Der Bundesnachrichtendienst nahm die Vorwürfe schweigend hin.
Biden offered his counterpart a warm, cordial welcome as he said they would discuss “some of the hard issues,” including “checks and balances,” a reference to the Israeli leader’s judicial reform efforts which have been a source of significant tensions between the countries.
“Today, we’re going to discuss some of the hard issues. And that is upholding democratic values that lie at the heart of our partnership, including checks and balances in our systems, and preserving the path to a negotiated two-state solution, and ensuring that Iran never, never acquires a nuclear weapon,” Biden said.
The five Iranians released as part of the deal were mostly imprisoned in the US on charges that they violated US sanctions.
In a statement on Monday, US President Joe Biden welcomed the prisoner swap and said that the Americans would be reunited with their loved one „after enduring years of agony, uncertainty, and suffering“.
Five Americans detained for years in Iran walked off a plane and into freedom Monday, most arm-in-arm, as part of a politically risky deal that saw President Joe Biden agree to the release of nearly $6 billion in frozen Iranian assets owed by a third country, South Korea.
The plaintiffs in the case, led by the states of Missouri and Louisiana, eminent doctors, and others alleged that under guise of combating „mis-, dis-, and mal-information,“ the Biden White House and nearly a dozen federal agencies have, alongside private-sector cutouts, cajoled and colluded with Big Tech platforms to silence millions of Americans. The topics social media platforms have censored at the government‘s direction, measuring likely hundreds of millions of posts, range from the Hunter Biden laptop story, to matters of election integrity, to virtually every aspect of the coronavirus pandemic.
(September 08, 2023)
The way this typically works is that groups claim to employ “disinformation experts” – a brand new and fake expertise they created overnight – and then produce studies that purport to document who is either circulating harmful disinformation or who is permitting it to be heard. This latter accusation, permitting dangerous disinformation to be heard, always means that one social media company or another is failing to censor in accordance with the demands of the group and its funders. They then get corporate media outlets who crave censorship to melodramatically trumpet their accusatory studies using flamboyant headlines that claim a disobedient technology platform has the blood on their hands, knowing that it will spread virally, but very few people actually read the study to determine if the accusations have any validity.
Just last week, Dick Cheney took to social media to condemn Donald Trump as a threat „to our republic.“ This video echoes a similar condemnation from George W. Bush in 2021.
In a more reasonable world, people like Cheney, Rice, Bolton, et al, would all be forgotten, shamed, disgraced politicians. They all would have been forced into retirement and shunned years ago after overseeing multiple disastrous wars abroad and the creation of a surveillance state at home. Many of them would just now be emerging from prison for their crimes against both international law and the US Constitution.
Unfortunately, we don‘t live in a more reasonable world.
In November 1995, Israel’s then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin organized an event in Tel Aviv in defense of the Oslo Accords he had reached two years earlier with the Palestinians. The objective was to try to regain the initiative in the face of the growing right-wing campaign against him.
In his speech in front of a crowd of about 100,000, the pragmatic Rabin — who ended up believing in a dialogue that began behind his back — said the word ‘peace’ 31 times. On average, once every 20 words. The event concluded with the Song for Peace (“Don’t say the day will come, make it come”). Minutes later, a Jewish right-wing extremist murdered him for “handing over his land and his people to the enemies,” as he would proudly admit at trial.
A viable Palestinian state seems even more improbable now than it may have been in 1993. In violation of international law, Israeli settlements have expanded throughout much of the West Bank, carving up Palestinian lands with new roads and jurisdictions maintained for Jewish settlers. Below ground, aquifers are being diverted to the settlements, imposing chronic water shortages on Palestinians. East Jerusalem, the putative capital of a future Palestinian state, became home to more than 200,000 Jewish settlers; many Palestinian residents there face a tacit campaign to evict them from neighborhoods where they’ve lived for generations. Israel’s entrenched military rule over millions of Palestinians shows little sign of abating, and has prompted the world’s leading human rights organizations in recent years to determine that conditions of apartheid prevail over the occupied West Bank.
(13. September 2014)
Am Morgen des 11. Septembers 2001 sind im Zuge der in Teil I beschriebenen Militärmanöver eine große Anzahl von Kampfflugzeugen der US-Luftwaffe nach Kanada und Alaska verlegt. Zur Verteidigung des gesamten Nordostens der Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika verbleiben vier Kampfflugzeuge. Während der Attentate bricht in NORAD Verwirrung darüber aus, ob eintreffende Meldungen tatsächliche Ereignisse oder die Manöver betreffen (“Is this real world or exercise?”). Kommunikation wird gejammed, “Phantom”-Flugzeuge tauchen auf den Bildschirmen auf, simulieren in bzw aus entgegengesetzten Richtungen fliegende Maschinen und verschwinden wieder (die Quelle dieser Simulationen wird nie öffentlich) und lenken die verbliebenen Verteidigungskräfte ab.
Wie in Teil III beschrieben, hatte die Luftfahrtbehörde FAA, in Zusammenarbeit mit dem Pentagon, den Kriegskonzern Raytheon in 1996 beauftragt zwecks der Modernisierung des Computersystems der Luftfahrtbehörde deren IT-Systeme auszutauschen. Das Luftraumkontrollsystem “Standard Terminal Automation Replacement System” (STARS) von Raytheon wurde nachfolgend auch vom US-Militär bzw der Air Force eingesetzt. Gleichzeitig war 1996 an Raytheon der Auftrag für ein stationäres Radarsystem zur Überwachung des Luftraums in der Nähe von Flughäfen namens “Digital Airport Surveillance Radars” (DASR) ergangen. In 2011 beschrieb der Kriegskonzern Raytheon in Werbeveröffentlichungen für sein von Militär und ziviler Luftfahrtbehörde verwendetes STARS Luftraumkontrollsystem die Möglichkeit “Geisterziele” (“ghost targets”) auf den Bildschirmen der Fluglotsen erscheinen zu lassen.
Am Morgen des 11. September 2001 werden nun lokale Militärkommandeure, die sich um Hilfe bemühen, von ihren Vorgesetzten hingehalten und von einem Luftwaffenstützpunkt an den nächsten verwiesen, bis hin zum Mittleren Westen. Zwei Militärjets, die schließlich von einem Stützpunkt in Langley aufsteigen (dort befindet sich auch das CIA Hauptquartier) um eine der als entführt gemeldete Passagiermaschine im Anflug auf Washington abzufangen, werden von einem Kommandoposten namens “Giant Killer” auf den Atlantischen Ozean hinaus gelotst.
Die Befehlskette und Abfolge der durch verantwortliche US-Stellen zu treffenden Maßnahmen im Falle im Falle einer Flugzeugentführung im Inland, die wie berichtet in den drei Jahren vor 9/11 im Rahmen der Flugzeugentführungs-Szenarien betreffenden 28 Militärmanöver sechsmal trainiert worden war, eingeschlossen die Simulation von Flugzeugabstürzen in “hochwertige Ziele” wie die New Yorker Freiheitsstatue und das Weiße Haus in Washington, lautete nun wie folgt:
1. eine Identifizierung des entsprechenden Vorgangs durch die Luftfahrtaufsichtsbehörde FAA (“Federal Aviation Administration”)
2. eine Meldung der FAA an NORAD
3. entsprechende Maßnahmen durch NORAD
Diese Kommandokette ist am 11. September während der Attentate durch eine ganze Reihe höchst ungewöhnlicher Umstände erschwert bzw. unterbrochen…
(02.05.2010)
Mineta’s Presidential Emergency Operations Center (PEOC) testimony was also edited out of the 9/11 Commission video archive.
When questioned about this, representatives at the National Archive stated that the video may have been lost because of a ’snafu‘. Following is a brief summary of the scrubbed video along with links to recently obtained C-SPAN video.
Mineta responds to an opening question by Commissioner Hamilton about the events in the PEOC and an alleged shoot down order. He describes a conversation between Cheney and a young man:
Mineta: „During the time that the airplane was coming into the Pentagon, there was a young man who would come in and say to the Vice President…the plane is 50 miles out…the plane is 30 miles out….and when it got down to the plane is 10 miles out, the young man also said to the vice president „do the orders still stand?“ And the Vice President turned and whipped his neck around and said „Of course the orders still stand, have you heard anything to the contrary!??“
(September 12, 2011)
Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta was in the Presidential Emergency Operation Center with Vice President Cheney as Flight 77 approaced Washington, D.C. This plane was unidentified and flying in restricted airspace for over 45 mintues since the second tower was attacked and it was not intercepted by the Airforce. In fact, two fighters were launched but were sent out over the Atlantic searching for Russians.
On May 23, 2003 in front of the 9/11 Commission, Secretary Mineta testified:
„During the time that the airplane was coming in to the Pentagon, there was a young man who would come in and say to the Vice President, „The plane is 50 miles out.“ „The plane is 30 miles out.“ And when it got down to „the plane is 10 miles out,“ the young man also said to the Vice President, „Do the orders still stand?“ And the Vice President turned and whipped his neck around and said, „Of course the orders still stand. Have you heard anything to the contrary?“
Watch Mineta‘s Testimony To The 9/11 Commmission on CSPAN:
(13.10.1997)
Existing Information Sharing Efforts
(…) We also found a great deal of information sharing already underway. Trade associations, consortia, and other groups exchange information among their members and, in some cases, directly with government. Many federal, state and local government agencies have existing relationships with infrastructure owners and operators. Within all the infrastructure sectors, at least some portions are subject to regulatory control by government agencies, and information is shared, albeit sometimes within carefully defined constraints. Several federal agencies provide information to infrastructure owners and operators. The FBI’s Awareness of National Security Issues and Response (ANSIR) program gives over 25,000 industry members information that provides threat and vulnerability insights. More narrowly focused programs are the Department of Transportation’s terrorist threat notification to the civil aviation industry and the National Security Agency’s INFOSEC Vulnerability Assessment Program, which provides information systems-related data to private sector partners. The Comptroller of the Currency operates another system providing advisories on information integrity and security risks to financial institutions.
(…)
The third and least predictable threat to the infrastructure comes from deliberate attack. Depending on their objectives, attackers may seek to steal, modify, or destroy data stored in information systems or moving over networks, or to degrade the operation of the systems and net-works themselves, denying service to their users. Attackers include national intelligence organizations, information warriors, terrorists, criminals, industrial competitors, hackers, and aggrieved or disloyal insiders. While insiders constitute the single largest known security threat to information and information systems, controlled testing indicates that large numbers of computer based attacks go undetected, and that the unknown component of the threat may exceed the known component by orders of magnitude.
(…)
The air traffic control system of the FAA is based on decades old technology. The replacement system, while doubtless more efficient, will be more vulnerable unless special security measures are incorporated.
(…)
The Commission recommends the Secretary of Transportation:
1) Fully evaluate actual and potential sources of interference to, and vulnerabilities of, GPS before a final decision is reached to eliminate all other radiovnavigation and aircraft landing guidance systems.
2) Sponsor a risk assessment for GPS-based systems used by the civilian sector, projected from now through the year 2010.
3) Base decisions regarding the proper federal navigation systems mix and the final architecture of the NAS on the results of that assessment. The DOT and FAA must develop a better understanding of interference and other vulnerabilities of GPS before a final decision is reached concerning the status of all other radionavigation and landing guidance systems. A federally sponsored thorough, integrated risk assessment would lay a sound foundation for decisions on future courses of action.
The National Airspace System
The Commission recommends the FAA act immediately to develop, establish, fund, and implement a comprehensive National Airspace System Security Program to protect the modernized NAS from information-based and other disruptions, intrusions and attack. Program implementation should be guided by the recommendations found in the Vulnerability Assessment of the NAS Architecture, prepared for the Commission. The Vulnerability Assessment included the following recommendations: (…)
3) The FAA should consider the implementation of full “trusted” hardware and software security capabilities for only the FAA’s most vulnerable future subsystems, since the software cost for embedded applications, together with full audit, tracking, and monitoring, may be too great if applied to all subsystems. Relaxation of the full capabilities, such as less rapid revalidation (e.g., a slower fifteen minutes down time) and less constant vigilance of data integrity, should be considered on a case-by-case basis for less critical subsystems, particularly in situations where existing air traffic control recovery procedures exist.
4) The FAA should conduct a comprehensive investment analysis of NAS INFOSEC in order to determine the degree of security protection that is needed
(…)
Transportation: A critical infrastructure characterized by the physical distribution system critical to supporting the national security and economic well-being of this nation, including the national airspace system, airlines and aircraft, and airports; roads and highways,trucking and personal vehicles; ports and waterways and the vessels operating thereon; mass transit, both rail and bus; pipelines, including natural gas, petroleum, and other hazardous materials; freight and long haul passenger rail; and delivery services.
(video)
(June 2017)
For half a century, Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip has resulted in systematic human rights violations against Palestinians living there.
(06.09.2023)
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(Sept. 1, 2023)
The State Department said U.S. diplomats in Saudi Arabia had first heard reports of a dramatic increase in lethal violence against migrants and asylum seekers by that nation’s border forces in the summer of last year and had immediately asked officials at “high levels” of the Saudi government to investigate.
The department made the disclosure in a statement on Thursday night to The New York Times in response to questions posed early this week about the U.S. government’s knowledge of the reported violence and its working relationship with Saudi Arabia’s border forces.
(30 August 2023, 10:27 pm)
Earlier this month, Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer said in an interview that Israel does not necessarily have a problem with a Saudi civilian nuclear program. Netanyahu’s office later issued a statement downplaying the remark, although a source close to the premier was quoted by Hebrew media reiterating that Israel “doesn’t rule out” the idea of Riyadh enriching uranium.
“You have countries in the region that can have civilian nuclear power. That’s a different story than a nuclear weapons program,” Dermer said in an interview with PBS.
(Updated August 31, 2023 at 6:22 p.m.)
The United States has voiced public concern about the reports of violence against civilians, which circulated among diplomats and U.N. officials for more than a year before being thrust into wider public view, and called for a Saudi investigation.
U.S. officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic conversations, say they are also pushing the Saudis to identify the units who, according to eyewitnesses and victims, used mortars, small-arms fire and close-range executions to kill hundreds or possibly thousands of people, many of them women and children.
(Jan 13, 2022)
(May 31, 2016)
The basic framework was strikingly simple. The U.S. would buy oil from Saudi Arabia and provide the kingdom military aid and equipment. In return, the Saudis would plow billions of their petrodollar revenue back into Treasuries and finance America’s spending.
It took several discreet follow-up meetings to iron out all the details, Parsky said. But at the end of months of negotiations, there remained one small, yet crucial, catch: King Faisal bin Abdulaziz Al Saud demanded the country’s Treasury purchases stay “strictly secret,” according to a diplomatic cable obtained by Bloomberg from the National Archives database.
(April 1, 2023)
For years, Saudi Arabia has pressed the United States to help it develop a nuclear energy program, as Saudi leaders look beyond oil to power their country.
But talks about a nuclear partnership have dragged on, largely because the Saudi government refuses to agree to conditions that are intended to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons or helping other nations do so, according to officials with knowledge of the discussions.
Frustrated Saudi officials are now exploring options to work with other countries, including China, Russia or a U.S. ally.
Iran did not provide a reason for launching the drill, though such snap exercises have happened in the past.
Thousands of Marines backed by advanced U.S. fighter jets and warships are slowly building up a presence in the Persian Gulf. It’s a sign that while America’s wars in the region may be finished, its conflict with Iran over its advancing nuclear program continues to worsen, with no solutions in sight.
The dispatch of the troop-and-aircraft-carrying USS Bataan to the Gulf, alongside stealth F-35 fighters and other warplanes, comes as America wants to focus on China and Russia.
Washington has sent ships, planes and marines to boost security around Strait of Hormuz, where Tehran has resumed harassing and seizing ships trying to pass through vital waterway