CHINFO CLIPS 11 JULY 14 Upload me CAPT Hernandez

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CHINFO NEWS CLIPS
Friday, July 11, 2014
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On This Day In The Navy:
1798: President John Adams signs an act that reestablishes the Marine Corps under the Constitution. The following day, Maj.
William W. Burrows is appointed Commandant of the Marine Corps.
TOP STORIES:
1. Kerry Assures China That The U.S. Can Have Many Allies In Asia
(NEW YORK TIMES 11 JUL 14) ... Jane Perlez
BEIJING – Seeking to put the best face on a difficult relationship with Beijing, Secretary of State John Kerry said Thursday that
the United States and China could find ways to manage their differences and had more in common than not.
2. Gaza Deaths Spike In 3rd Day Of Air Assaults While Rockets Hit Israel
(NEW YORK TIMES 11 JUL 14) ... Isabel Kershner
JERUSALEM – Palestinian deaths from Israel’s aerial attacks in Gaza rose sharply on Thursday, while militants there fired more
than 180 rockets into Israel, reaching new targets spread across a vast area of the country.
3. Kerry In Afghanistan To Try To Broker Election-Audit Deal
Deepening Crisis Threatens to Divide Country Along Ethnic Lines
(WALL STREET JOURNAL 11 JUL 14) ... Ian Talley and Nathan Hodge
KABUL – Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Afghanistan to try to broker an election-audit deal between presidential
candidates as a deepening crisis threatens to fragment the country along ethnic and regional lines.
CNO:
4. CNO At NNOA: Speaks On Navy Diversity And Gives Leadership Advice
(NAVY NEWS SERVICE 11 JUL 14) ... Chief of Naval Operations Public Affairs Staff
QUANTICO, Va. – Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Adm. Jonathan Greenert spoke to sea service officers at the 42nd National
Naval Officer Association (NNOA) Professional Development and Training Conference held in Quantico, Va., July 10.
ASIA – PACIFIC:
5. Chinese Hack Aims At Federal Workers’ Data
(WASHINGTON POST 11 JUL 14) ... Ellen Nakashima and Lisa Rein
Federal authorities are investigating a breach of the computer networks of the Office of Personnel Management, which stores
detailed data on up to 5 million U.S. government employees and contractors who hold sensitive security clearances.
6. How Not To Win Friends And Influence People
China's heavy-handed behavior is driving neighbors, especially Australia, farther away from its orbit.
(FOREIGN POLICY 10 JUL 14) ... Keith Johnson
Here's one way to gauge just how much China has shot itself in the foot by bullying neighbors and rattling sabers: It's making
what looked like a painful choice for Australia a whole lot easier.
MIDEAST:
7. Kurdish Government Calls On Maliki To Quit As Iraqi Premier
(NEW YORK TIMES 11 JUL 14) ... Alissa J. Rubin and Alan Cowell
BAGHDAD – The Kurdish regional government responded Thursday to harsh criticism from Iraq’s prime minister, Nuri Kamal
al-Maliki, announcing that its ministers would boycott cabinet meetings, demanding an apology to the Iraqi people and calling on Mr.
Maliki to step down.

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8. Israel's 'Iron Dome' Changes The Face Of Battle
(ASSOCIATED PRESS 10 JUL 14) ... Aron Heller
JERUSALEM – Israel's "Iron Dome" defense system has emerged as a game-changer in the current round of violence with
Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip, shooting down dozens of incoming rockets and being credited with preventing numerous civilian
casualties.
9. Kerry To Join Talks On Iran As Deadline Draws Near
(NEW YORK TIMES 11 JUL 14) ... David E. Sanger
VIENNA – With the Vienna negotiations over Iran’s nuclear activities making halting progress at best and a deadline looming,
the Obama administration announced Thursday that Secretary of State John Kerry would fly here this weekend to assess whether a
deal is possible – and perhaps to begin negotiating an extension in the talks that both sides said they had wanted to avoid.
AFGHANISTAN / PAKISTAN:
10. Nominee To Lead Troops In Afghanistan Sees ‘Good News’
(STARS AND STRIPES 10 JUL 14) ... Chris Carroll
WASHINGTON – Senators on Thursday pressed nominees to top military posts on how to avoid a repeat of the recent Iraq
debacle – where a U.S.-trained military collapsed in the face of a smaller insurgent force – in Afghanistan as the war there draws to a
close.
11. Pakistan Claims Win Against Militants Along Afghan Border, But Enemy Slips Away
(NEW YORK TIMES 11 JUL 14) ... Ismail Khan and Declan Walsh
MIRAM SHAH, Pakistan – A solitary donkey wandered through the deserted streets of this once-bustling tribal town of 100,000,
but no other inhabitants were to be found 10 days after Pakistani troops backed by tanks and helicopter gunships seized control.
EUROPE:
12. Pro-Russia Rebels Defiant As Ukraine Military Advances Toward Donetsk
Government Moves to Consolidate Gains, Rebel Leaders Make Rare Joint Appearance
(WALL STREET JOURNAL 11 JUL 14) ... Philip Shishkin and Lukas I. Alpert
Leaders of the pro-Russia separatists in eastern Ukraine vowed in a rare joint appearance Thursday to turn their biggest remaining
stronghold into a final battleground as government forces edged closer.
13. British Combatants Of A Different Religious War
(NEW YORK TIMES 11 JUL 14) ... Alan Cowell
LONDON – It was nine years ago on July 7, 2005, that four suicide bombers killed 52 people on the London transit system during
the morning rush hour, introducing Britons to a kind of terrorism that Americans had confronted on Sept. 11, 2001.
AFRICA:
14. Pirates V Economists
A new weapon against Somali bandits: free trade
(THE ECONOMIST 12 JUL 14)
Ships navigating the lawless seas of the Gulf of Aden must keep a constant lookout for Somali pirates. The roots of Somalia’s
maritime banditry lie in its desperately poor coastal villages, where the choice between fishing and piracy is an easy one for many. But
whereas plenty of attention has been given to pirates’ own economic motives, less has been paid to the question of why influential
local clans put up with the marauders in their midst. New research by economists at the University of Oxford and King’s College
London sheds some light on that issue – and suggests a way in which the pirates could be run aground for good.
CONGRESS / BUDGET:
15. House Panel Grills Navy On Cruiser Modernization Plan
Carrier refueling seems to be moving forward
(NAVY TIMES 10 JUL 14) ... Christopher P. Cavas
WASHINGTON – Sometimes it’s all about trust, and right now, the Navy is struggling to convince Congress it’s on the level
about a plan to take half the fleet’s 22 cruisers out of service and gradually return them to active duty.

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16. Stackley: Navy Plans To Refuel Carrier George Washington
(U.S. NAVAL INSTITUTE NEWS 10 JUL 14) ... Sam LaGrone
The U.S. Navy’s chief shipbuilder told Congress the service plans to reshuffle $7 billion in funds to refuel and maintain the
nuclear aircraft carrier USS George Washington (CVN-73). The fate of the carrier wash an open question at the start of the year due to
ongoing military funding pressures.
17. U.S. House, Senate Appropriators Not Yet 'Pre-Conferencing' A 2015 Defense Bill
Senate's Procedural Deep Freeze Shows No Sign of Thawing
(DEFENSE NEWS 10 JUL 14) ... John T. Bennett
WASHINGTON – Even as the U.S. Senate remains unable to pass agency spending bills, the two chambers’ Appropriations
committees have yet to begin work on a compromise bill to fund the military next year.
18. Fleet Forces Leader Warns Senate Panel Of Cyber Threat
(NORFOLK VIRGINIAN-PILOT 10 JUL 14) ... Bill Bartel
Adm. Bill Gortney, head of U.S. Fleet Forces Command in Norfolk, told a Senate panel Thursday morning that the greatest threat
to the United States' homeland security is cyber attacks.
19. Special Operations Commander Says Burden On Elite Troops Is Here To Stay
(DEFENSE ONE 10 JUL 14) ... Ben Watson
The incoming top commander of the United States military’s elite forces said that Pentagon officials and lawmakers need to ease
the burden on special operations troops and their families, who are bending under the compounded stresses of more than a dozen years
of war in the world’s most dangerous places.
LITTORAL COMBAT SHIP:
20. Under Fire
The vessel meant to be a mainstay of the Navy fleet faces questions about its firepower as well as financial
constraints
(HONOLULU STAR-ADVERTISER 10 JUL 14) ... William Cole
The "littoral combat ship" that was to make up one-sixth of the U.S. Navy fleet continues to be a work in progress as one of the
vessels heads out from Pearl Harbor to take part in a "sink exercise" off Kauai during Rim of the Pacific war games.
AVIATION:
21. Hagel Hails F-35 – But It’s Still Grounded
(POLITICO 10 JUL 14) ... Philip Ewing
EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. – Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel praised the F-35 Lightning II effusively on his visit Thursday
to its training hub here. The sleek gray fighters are going to deliver unmatched new capabilities, he said – they are “the future.” He is
absolutely confident in the fleet, its pilots and the troops who support them.
22. Kendall: F-35 Engine Failure Appears Unique, Not A Systemic Problem, Based On Early Evidence
(DEFENSE DAILY 10 JUL 14) ... Megan Eckstein and Pat Host
Pentagon acquisition chief Frank Kendall told lawmakers that early evidence suggests a recent F-35 engine failure was a single-
engine issue, not a systemic problem – but he made clear the Defense Department needs to go through its full investigation and safety
certification process before allowing the planes to fly again.
23. Lockheed, Partners Pledge To Pump $170 Million Into F-35
(FORT WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM 10 JUL 14) ... Steve Kaskovich and Yamil Berard
Lockheed Martin and its two main partners in the F-35 program have agreed to invest $170 million over the next three years to
help bring down the cost of the over-budget, next-generation fighter jet by the end of the decade.
ENERGY:
24. Navy Looks To Biofuels To Sail The Great Green Fleet In 2016
(BIOMASS MAGAZINE 09 JUL 14) ... Mark Matsunaga, U.S. Pacific Fleet Public Affairs
Ships and aircraft in the next Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) Exercise could be running on biofuels, and they won't even need to
know it, according to speakers at an Alternative Fuels Overview briefing for RIMPAC 2014 participants.

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PERSONNEL:
25. Career Intermission Program
5 Things You Need to Know
(ALL HANDS (NAVY.MIL) 10 JUL 14) ... Chief of Naval Personnel Public Affairs
Since the Navy's Career Intermission Program inception in 2009, 70 Sailors, men and women, officers and enlisted, across a
variety of communities have taken advantage of the program to pursue personal and professional goals.
26. Marine Corps Dilemma With Women Prompts Change At Infantry School
(CHECKPOINT (WASHINGTON POST BLOG) 10 JUL 14) ... Dan Lamothe
It has been more than two years since word first trickled out that the Marine Corps was planning to incorporate women on an
experimental basis into its arduous Infantry Officer Course at Quantico, Va. The idea was simple, if controversial: The Pentagon was
investigating which additional jobs should be opened in the military to women, and top Marine officers wanted as much research done
as possible before decisions were made. They gave themselves three years.
VETERANS AFFAIRS:
27. Retired Navy Doctor Named To Interim VA Post
(NAVY TIMES 10 JUL 14) ... Patricia Kime
The Veterans Affairs Department has named a career Navy doctor to serve as interim director of its Office of the Medical
Inspector.
28. Lawmakers Propose Bill To Improve VA Suicide Prevention Care
(NAVY TIMES 10 JUL 14) ... Patricia Kime
House lawmakers on Thursday introduced legislation they say would improve suicide prevention at the Veterans Affairs
Department and bring together former service members needing help.
OUTREACH:
29. Commanding Officer, Sailors From USS Louisville Submarine Visit Namesake City
(WDRB FOX LOUISVILLE 10 JUL 14)
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The city of Louisville is rolling out the red carpet for the crew of the USS Louisville (SSN 724). U.S. Navy
Commander Robert Figgs, the commanding officer of the submarine, and three of his Sailors are visiting namesake city of their ship
this week.
HISTORY:
30. USS Nevada: A Century Of Pride For The Silver State
(RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL 08 JUL 14) ... Guy Clifton
As Nevada celebrates its 150th year of statehood, one of her storied namesakes is marking an anniversary as well.
COMMENTARY:
31. Obama’s Counterterrorism Blueprint Looks Good, On Paper
(WASHINGTON POST 11 JUL 14) ... David Ignatius
In President Obama’s sometimes maddeningly cautious foreign policy, you can see him struggling to answer what may be the
hardest question of his presidency: How should the United States project power in a disorderly world without making the same
mistakes it did in Iraq and Afghanistan?
32. The U.S. Is Losing The Message War
The United States must advance a Mideast policy based on collaboration
(WASHINGTON POST 11 JUL 14) ... Jane Harman
What, exactly, does the United States stand for in the Middle East? More important, what would the average Iraqi, Syrian,
Egyptian or Yemeni say that it stands for? The suggestion that the United States is retrenching might seem absurd, given that Yemenis
can hear the buzz of drones overhead. The notion that the United States is in the business of supporting democratic pluralism might
clash with their reading of our Egypt strategy or our will-they-or-won’t-they waffling over whether to actively support Syrian
opposition fighters. Day by day, with chaos blossoming, it becomes clearer that if we do have a strategic narrative for the Middle East,
we certainly have not articulated it effectively. In marketing terms, we are not making the sale.

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33. How To Resolve The Iran Impasse
Ensuring nuclear fuel for Iran could put the country in a box
(WASHINGTON POST 11 JUL 14) ... George Perkovich
Uranium enrichment is the stickiest sticking point in the nuclear negotiations with Iran now underway in Vienna. The United
States and its five partners want Iran to scale back the number and output of the centrifuges it operates and deploys in reserve, thereby
extending the time it would take to “break out” and construct a bomb. Iran says it could delay expanding its enrichment capacity for a
few years but ultimately needs to scale up to produce replacement fuel for its Bushehr nuclear power reactor. Iranian negotiators
maintain that they can’t rely on Russia to continue supplying the fuel or give up Iran’s centrifuge capability, given the high price that
has been paid to acquire it – in sanctions and the assassination of its scientists.
34. China Plays The South Korea Card
President Xi's trip to Seoul was undoubtedly an attempt to isolate Japan. It won't work.
(WALL STREET JOURNAL 11 JUL 14) ... Michael Auslin
After Chinese President Xi Jinping's trip to South Korea last week, "Beijingology" is in full swing. Analysts are trying to interpret
the tea leaves of his visit. Is he showing anger toward North Korea? Driving a wedge between Japan and South Korea? Is he
responding to U.S. pressure?
35. Going It Alone
The U.S. should follow Ukraine’s lead and act unilaterally on Russia sanctions
(WASHINGTON POST 11 JUL 14) ... Editorial
Ukraine’s new leader is making progress in regaining control over eastern areas of the country that were seized by Russian-
backed insurgents, but he’s getting no help from the United States or the European Union. In fact, President Petro Poroshenko is
succeeding in large part because he is resisting pressure to make unacceptable concessions to Moscow and its surrogates.
36. How To Avert Afghanistan's Implosion
Election-fraud charges must be resolved by July 22. The U.S. should do all it can to make that happen.
(WALL STREET JOURNAL 11 JUL 14) ... Frederick W. Kagan
The Afghan electoral commission announced on Monday that preliminary results showed Ashraf Ghani a million votes ahead of
Abdullah Abdullah. Both camps immediately claimed victory.
37. In Defense Of Killer Robots
A ban-the-bots movement is growing, but first the military should find out what such autonomous systems
can do.
(WALL STREET JOURNAL 11 JUL 14) ... Erik Schechter
Weapons systems are getting smarter, and people are getting nervous. In May, Human Rights Watch called for the outlawing of
autonomous military machines with lethal capabilities. The group, which has organized an international "Campaign to Stop Killer
Robots," issued the statement as 87 member states of the United Nations Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons met in
Geneva to discuss the legal and ethical implications of autonomous military machines.
38. Sinking The Next-13-Navies Fallacy
(WAR ON THE ROCKS 10 JUL 14) ... James Holmes
The war against naval factoids is a quagmire! A primary theater in this whack-a-mole struggle is the notion that America’s navy is
“stronger” than the next X navies, and thus, we should rest easy about our republic’s strategic position in Eurasia. The usual figure
given for X is 13, although a reputable commentator recently inflated it to 16. The latest purveyor of this claim is David Axe, the
normally reliable proprietor of War Is Boring. On Tuesday, Axe contended, “By some measures, the U.S. Navy maintains a 13-navy
standard. In other words, it can deploy as much combat power as the next 13 largest fleets combined.”
39. A Plea From Parents To Congress: Do Something To Stop The Suicides Of Our Veterans
(WASHINGTON POST 11 JUL 14) ... Melinda Henneberger
Parents of military veterans who took their own lives after surviving combat told a congressional panel on Thursday how not to
prevent suicide:

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40. How To Fix The Government’s Security Clearance Mess
(DEFENSE ONE 10 JUL 14) ... Steve Nguyen
The federal government’s security clearance process has been under intense scrutiny since last year’s Washington Navy Yard
shooting by Aaron Alexis, a Marine Corp contractor with secret-level clearance and Edward Snowden’s unprecedented leak of
classified information. In March, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel pledged to correct “gaps or inadequacies in the department’s
security” that could facilitate these types of incidents. If the federal government applied the same sort of risk analysis tools that
insurance companies perform when they take on new clients, we could remove internal threats and maintain the safety of federal
employees and government contractors.

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TOP STORIES:
1. Kerry Assures China That The U.S. Can Have Many Allies In Asia
(NEW YORK TIMES 11 JUL 14) ... Jane Perlez
BEIJING – Seeking to put the best face on a difficult
relationship with Beijing, Secretary of State John Kerry said
Thursday that the United States and China could find ways to
manage their differences and had more in common than not.
Neither side wanted to fall into the “trap of zero sum
competition,” Mr. Kerry said at the conclusion of an annual
strategic and economic dialogue between top officials of the
two countries.
The array of topics with some areas of agreement –
climate change, Iran, North Korea and Afghanistan – attested
to the viability of the relationship, he said.
Still, Mr. Kerry used fairly blunt language in an effort to
persuade President Xi Jinping that the United States did not
intend its 60-year system of alliances in Asia to encircle and
contain China.
“We mean what we say when we emphasize that there’s
no U.S. strategy to try to push back against or be in conflict
with China,” he said, as Mr. Xi sat beside him during a
farewell session at the Great Hall of the People.
Mr. Kerry was indirectly replying to charges by Chinese
officials that President Obama had reinvigorated America’s
network of alliances in Asia with the idea of containing China
and its fast modernizing military. In response, Mr. Xi has
initiated a campaign that calls for a new security architecture
of Asia for the Asians.
New accusations that Chinese hackers had attacked highly
sensitive American material were brusquely dismissed by
China, even as the American delegation, headed by Mr. Kerry
and Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew, tried to press
cyberespionage as an important issue at the conference.
The Foreign Ministry dismissed assertions in an article in
The New York Times that Chinese hackers had infiltrated
United States government computer systems that house
personal information of federal employees.
A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said the article
was part of what he called an irresponsible anti-China smear
campaign.
The article, first published Wednesday on the
newspaper’s website, said the hackers had gained access to
some of the databases of the Office of Personnel Management
before authorities in the United States detected the breach and
thwarted further access. It remained unclear what kind of
information, if any, was compromised in the attack, which was
said to have happened in March.
Asked about the article at a regular Foreign Ministry press
briefing, a spokesman, Hong Lei, repeated China’s
longstanding position that it opposes cyberhacking.
“This is what we say and what we have been doing,” he
said. “Recently, some American media and Internet security
firms keep playing the card of China Internet Threat and
smear China’s image. They cannot produce tenable evidence.
Such reports and comments are irresponsible and are not
worth refuting.”
Asked about the article at a closing news conference, Mr.
Kerry said that he and Mr. Lew had been unaware of the
attack described in the article and did not raise it with Chinese
officials, although the broader subject of cybersecurity was
discussed.
“We were notified about this alleged incident minutes
before coming out here,” Mr. Kerry said.
He said the article was about attempted “intrusions” that
were still being investigated and it did not appear that
sensitive material had been compromised.
A senior American official who participated in sessions
with the Chinese on Thursday said the case of the hacking into
the Office of Personnel Management was not raised by either
side. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity in order
to talk about a delicate matter.
The Chinese, angered by the indictment by the Justice
Department in May of five members of the People’s
Liberation Army on charges of cyberespionage, refused a
request at the dialogue by the Americans to restart a joint
cyber working group.
China suspended the work of the group that brought
together American and Chinese negotiators to discuss cyber
issues and has complained that National Security Agency
documents made public by Edward J. Snowden showed the
United States had used cyberespionage to gain economic
advantage.
Mr. Xi, who invited the American and Chinese
delegations to meet him Thursday afternoon at a session that
was partly open to reporters, called on the two countries to
work on building a “new model of major country
relationship,” a phrase he frequently uses to imply an equal
status between the United States and China.
It is an expression that the Obama administration has been
reluctant to endorse for fear that it would confer legitimacy to
China’s various territorial claims, including in the East China
Sea and South China Sea.
The Obama administration sent senior officials to the
dialogue, including Janet L. Yellen, chairwoman of the
Federal Reserve; Michael Froman, the United States trade
representative; Ernest Moniz, secretary of energy; Penny
Pritzker, secretary of commerce, and John D. Podesta,
counselor to President Obama, who specializes in climate
change.
The Americans appeared pleased about what they called
serious discussions on how to reduce carbon emissions. The
presence of Mr. Podesta, who the Chinese know is close to
Mr. Obama and is committed to climate change policies,
added weight, they said.
A joint working group on climate change announced that
both countries would develop new greenhouse gas emissions
and fuel economy standards.
“This effort has to be mutual and has to be accompanied
by commitments which are defined by the actions we will
actually take,” Mr. Kerry said. “It’s not about one country
making a demand of the other.”
Even so, China’s chief climate official, Xie Zhenhua, said
China, which still considers itself a developing country,
should not be subject to the same rules for greenhouse gas
emissions as the United States, suggesting that Beijing will

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oppose attempts to impose them at next year’s world climate
conference in Paris.
Rick Gladstone contributed reporting from New York.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/11/world/asia/china-
kerry-cyberspying.html
Return to Index
2. Gaza Deaths Spike In 3rd Day Of Air Assaults While Rockets Hit Israel
(NEW YORK TIMES 11 JUL 14) ... Isabel Kershner
JERUSALEM – Palestinian deaths from Israel’s aerial
attacks in Gaza rose sharply on Thursday, while militants
there fired more than 180 rockets into Israel, reaching new
targets spread across a vast area of the country.
The escalation appeared to increase the likelihood of a
ground invasion and prompted the United Nations secretary
general, Ban Ki-moon, to call urgently for a return to calm and
a cease-fire.
“Today, we face the risk of an all-out escalation in Israel
and Gaza, with the threat of a ground offensive still palpable –
and preventable only if Hamas stops rocket firing,” he told an
emergency meeting of the Security Council. There were no
signs that a cease-fire was imminent, and no signs that
diplomats representing the antagonists were heeding Mr.
Ban’s call for calm.
Ron Prosor, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations,
played an air-raid siren at the Council meeting to reflect what
his country’s citizens hear every day. He called his Palestinian
counterpart, Riyad Mansour, “a mouthpiece of Hamas.” Mr.
Mansour blamed the underlying Israeli occupation, exhorting
the Council to intervene and “salvage prospects for peace and
security.”
In a televised statement after a cabinet meeting, Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said, “While the
campaign has gone as planned, further stages yet await us,”
describing what was to come as “tough” and “complex.”
“We have struck hard at Hamas and the terrorists, and as
long as the campaign continues we will strike at them harder,”
he said.
President Obama spoke with Mr. Netanyahu by phone on
Thursday from Air Force One while returning to Washington
from a fund-raising trip to Colorado and Texas. A White
House statement said that Mr. Obama expressed concern about
further escalation of violence and told the Israeli leader that
the United States remained “prepared to facilitate a cessation
of hostilities” between Israel and the Palestinians. Aides said
Mr. Obama also expressed condolences about the murder of
three Israeli teenagers and concern about the beating of a
teenage American citizen.
A spokesman for the Israeli military said that about
20,000 reservists had been called up and that preparations for
a possible ground operation were being completed.
As the air campaign entered its third day, the Palestinian
death toll rose to at least 78, a majority of them civilians,
according to officials in Gaza. No Israelis have been reported
killed.
Airstrikes overnight on a house in Khan Younis and an
open-air beach cafe killed at least 15 Palestinians, and one
airstrike hit a car used by a local news agency bearing media
signs, killing the driver, Hamed Shehab, 27, the officials said.
The Israeli military said it had also hit at least eight operatives
from Hamas and Islamic Jihad in what it described as several
precision strikes. The military said all had been involved in
either the manufacture or firing of rockets.
The Palestine chapter of Defense for Children
International, an independent child-rights organization, said 14
children aged 15 and younger had been killed in the airstrikes
on Tuesday and Wednesday, including four toddlers. The
group issued a list with the names and ages of those killed,
saying its Gaza-based field worker had verified each death.
Ghazi Hamad, a Hamas leader, said on Palestinian radio,
“What we need is for the international community to pressure
the occupation to halt its aggression, which is unjustified.” He
was referring to Israel.
The rocket fire into Israel reached Mitzpeh Ramon, a
town deep in the Negev desert, and the Dead Sea area for the
first time. More rockets were intercepted by the Iron Dome
missile defense system or fell in open spaces in the Tel Aviv
area of central Israel. Sirens wailed in Jerusalem in the early
evening, and two rockets were intercepted above the city; two
more fell in open areas, one on the outskirts of the West Bank
city of Ramallah.
Southern cities that have been the targets of rocket fire for
years, like Ashdod and Beersheba, came under heavy rocket
attack. The rockets caused extensive property damage but no
serious injuries as Israelis ran for cover in shelters and
fortified rooms with each siren.
Mr. Ban, while repeating his condemnation of
indiscriminate rocket fire from Gaza into Israel, also warned
Israel, saying “the excessive use of force and endangering of
civilian lives are also intolerable.”
“Once again,” he said, “Palestinian civilians are caught
between Hamas’s irresponsibility and Israel’s tough
response.”
Israel says it is taking precautions in an effort to avoid
civilian casualties in Gaza. The military says it warns the
occupants of houses marked for destruction that airstrikes are
coming by phoning residents then firing a flare or a missile
without an explosive warhead onto the roof.
The Israeli military gave an initial explanation of what
happened in one case when seven people died and 25 were
wounded in the strike on the house of the Kaware family in
Khan Younis on Tuesday. Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, a spokesman
for the Israeli military, said Thursday that the warnings had
been given, and that the attack had commenced after the
Israelis had seen people vacating the premises. In the interval
between the last warning and the airstrike, people went back
in, Colonel Lerner told reporters, saying it was too late to
cancel the missile. “It is a tragedy indeed and not what we
intended,” he said. A member of the family said earlier that
neighbors had come to “form a human shield.”
The Israeli military said that the targeted houses belonged
to Hamas members involved in launching rockets or other
military activity, and that they had been used as operation
centers. If innocents are hit, Mr. Netanyahu said, “it is because
Hamas is maliciously hiding behind Palestinian civilians.”
In Gaza, the mood was somber but defiant. Abu Tamer
Ajour, 70, said the conflict had come at a bad time, with

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Hamas unable to pay full salaries to its 40,000 employees,
among other hardships. “This aggression makes matters
worse,” he said, “but victory will be for the Gaza people and
our resistance.”
Riad Fawzi, 48, who is jobless, said he did not expect the
clashes to last for long. “The Jews are not interested in more
escalation,” he said, referring to Israel. “We are used to this
thing, but they cannot endure the same way we endure,” he
said. “Allah is with us.”
Fares Akram contributed reporting from Gaza, Somini
Sengupta from the United Nations, and Michael D. Shear from
Washington.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/11/world/middleeast/isr
ael-gaza.html
Return to Index
3. Kerry In Afghanistan To Try To Broker Election-Audit Deal
Deepening Crisis Threatens to Divide Country Along Ethnic Lines
(WALL STREET JOURNAL 11 JUL 14) ... Ian Talley and Nathan Hodge
KABUL – Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in
Afghanistan to try to broker an election-audit deal between
presidential candidates as a deepening crisis threatens to
fragment the country along ethnic and regional lines.
Former Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani emerged as the
apparent winner, with 56.4% of the vote, in preliminary results
from a June 14 runoff. Former Foreign Minister Abdullah
Abdullah rejected the results, charging widespread fraud, and
declared himself the victor.
Followers of Mr. Abdullah have called for him to set up a
"parallel government," raising fears of a return to civil war.
President Barack Obama has urged Mr. Abdullah to wait for
an investigation of ballot-stuffing allegations.
"We are working very closely with all the stakeholders in
Afghanistan, with enormous concern, obviously, for the
restoration of credibility through the process," Mr. Kerry said
on Thursday in Beijing before flying to Kabul.
It is unclear how the Obama administration plans to
broker a compromise. Mr. Kerry said he has contacted both
candidates several times, encouraging them "not to raise
expectations for their supporters, [and] to publicly
demonstrate respect for the audit process."
Administration officials say the U.S. isn't trying pick a
winner, but rather to ensure that the election is seen as
legitimate so that the new government has a mandate for
power.
"While the U.S. does not support an individual candidate,
we do support a credible, transparent and inclusive process
that affirms the Afghan people's commitment to democracy
and that produces a president who can bring Afghanistan
together and govern effectively," said Jeff Rathke, a State
Department press officer.
Thijs Berman, chief of the European Union observer
mission in Afghanistan, on Thursday called for a full
investigation of fraud allegations. "At this stage of the analysis
of the preliminary results, and without an in-depth audit, the
final result is as yet uncertain and it is not possible to declare a
winner, given the very high number of votes yet to be
validated or annulled," Mr. Berman said.
Figures published by Afghanistan's Independent Election
Commission led EU observers to estimate that between 2
million and 4 million votes should get further scrutiny, he
said.
Mr. Abdullah claims that as many as 2 million fraudulent
ballots were cast on Mr. Ghani's behalf, out of an official tally
of 8.1 million – an accusation denied by his opponent. Mr.
Ghani says higher voter turnout in the second-round vote was
due to more effective voter mobilization by his campaign.
On the eve of Mr. Kerry's arrival, Afghan President
Hamid Karzai endorsed a plan presented by the United
Nations to audit 8,000 polling stations, the president's
spokesman said.
The president and top Afghan officials met late Thursday
with Ján Kubiš, the U.N. envoy in Afghanistan, to discuss the
U.N. proposal, said Aimal Faizi, Mr. Karzai's spokesman. Mr.
Karzai agreed to the plan, which would involve an audit
representing about 3.5 million votes, according to Mr. Faizi.
On the day of the June 14 runoff vote, a total of 6,172
polling centers, including 22,828 polling stations, were open,
according to the country's election commission.
"The president backs it, and asks the candidates to work
with the U.N. on this proposal," Mr. Faizi said. "It's up to the
U.N. and the two candidates and the [election] commission to
work together."
Mr. Faizi said the proposal would be presented in writing
to the candidates on Friday.
http://online.wsj.com/articles/kerry-voices-concern-over-
contested-afghan-election-1405001583
Return to Index
CNO:
4. CNO At NNOA: Speaks On Navy Diversity And Gives Leadership Advice
(NAVY NEWS SERVICE 11 JUL 14) ... Chief of Naval Operations Public Affairs Staff
QUANTICO, Va. – Chief of Naval Operations (CNO)
Adm. Jonathan Greenert spoke to sea service officers at the
42nd National Naval Officer Association (NNOA)
Professional Development and Training Conference held in
Quantico, Va., July 10.
During Greenert's remarks he highlighted how Sailors
underwrite what the Navy does, an update on how he sees
diversity in the different communities and leadership advice.
This is Greenert's third year addressing NNOA, an
organization which promotes diversity within the Navy,
Marine Corps and Coast Guard. The conference includes
educational and professional development workshops,
designed to enhance the professional awareness of attendees
on recruitment, mentorship and other issues affecting the sea
service. Greenert spoke twice during the conference, first to a
joint session and then after lunch to a Navy specific group.

10. 10
"We want to nurture people, to join and stay, which are
two very different goals," said Greenert. "We've got to have
role models, like Adm. Michelle Howard."
The first female four star admiral, Adm. Michelle Howard
assumed office as Greenert's Vice Chief of Naval Operations
last week. Greenert has long been an advocate of diversity in
the Navy. During his tenure as CNO there have been radical
changes to the opportunities for women.
Speaking about diversity across the Navy, Greenert said
the overall numbers are good but the Navy should not declare
victory. He highlighted how well the different occupational
communities are doing and also provided statistics to back up
progress.
"We're making progress but can do better to bring forward
a diverse officer corps that can lead and develop a diverse
Navy," said Greenert.
Greenert also highlighted that progress was uneven across
the different communities.
"We must ensure there are no barriers to career progress,"
said Greenert. "Communities must continuously assess
themselves."
Despite all the recent progress in promoting diversity and
inclusion, Greenert says there is work yet to do.
"It is our goal that every ship, work center, community
and rank is representative of our nation's diversity," said
Greenert. It is an incredibly powerful and strategic message
we send to the international community when we represent
ourselves as a diverse force, said Greenert.
Following the joint session, Greenert took questions and
engaged in a dialogue with Navy personnel attending the
conference at an All Hands Call. The discussion touched on
ethics, leadership, command climate and fitness.
"We all play a role in command climate – It sets a sense
of being," said Greenert to the officers in attendance.
Leadership is defining your group's sense of reality, he said.
"Be pragmatic and optimistic and your attitude will be
infectious."
http://www.navy.mil/submit/display.asp?story_id=82141
Return to Index
ASIA – PACIFIC:
5. Chinese Hack Aims At Federal Workers’ Data
(WASHINGTON POST 11 JUL 14) ... Ellen Nakashima and Lisa Rein
Federal authorities are investigating a breach of the
computer networks of the Office of Personnel Management,
which stores detailed data on up to 5 million U.S. government
employees and contractors who hold sensitive security
clearances.
Authorities have traced the intrusion to China, but it is not
clear whether the hackers worked for the government, said a
U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to
discuss an ongoing investigation.
So far, no personal data appears to have been stolen,
according to OPM spokeswoman Nathaly Arriola. A U.S.
official said the data is encrypted.
Arriola said that the OPM and the Department of
Homeland Security were alerted to the breach in mid-March
through an automated monitoring system. The intrusion
apparently was detected early enough that a DHS computer
emergency readiness team, working with the agency, was able
to block the intruder and minimize the harm.
The Chinese military has waged a persistent, more than
decade-long cyber-campaign to steal all manner of
information – from military weapons designs to proprietary
data on advanced technologies to insight into government
policies – from the computer networks of the U.S. government
and its contractors as well as other from other western
governments and companies.
News of the breach, first reported by the New York
Times, came as senior U.S. officials met in Beijing with their
counterparts for the annual Strategic and Economic Dialogue.
Secretary of State John F. Kerry said he had been notified of
the report only after the dialogue had finished, but he said he
had raised the general issue of Chinese targeting of U.S.
systems and been “very clear” that it was an area of concern.
Chinese officials steadfastly deny that their government
hacks U.S. computers and have pointed to reports based on
documents leaked by former National Security Agency
contractor Edward Snowden that the United States has
compromised the systems of a major Chinese
telecommunications equipment company, Huawei.
Former U.S. officials said that if the intruders were
successful in siphoning data from the OPM, they would have
gained access to a treasure trove of personal information that
could enable further attacks. Experts say there are ways
around encryption.
The agency operates a computerized program called e-
QIP, which processes applications for security clearances,
including top secret and higher. Stored in the system are
massive amounts of data, including applicants’ financial
histories and investment records, children’s and relatives’
names, foreign trips taken and contacts with foreign nationals,
past residences, and names of neighbors and close friends such
as college roommates and co-workers. Employees log in using
their Social Security numbers.
“If the Chinese government got access to that type of
data, it would be a significant breach because the data would
allow them to have very detailed information about people
who hold very sensitive clearances,” said Shawn Henry, a
former executive assistant director of the FBI’s Criminal,
Cyber, Response and Services Branch.
The data could enable a hacker to craft more sophisticated
efforts to send e-mails to government officials aimed at getting
them to download malware by posing as people who know
them – a technique known as “spearphishing,” said Henry,
who is now chief security officer at CrowdStrike, a
cybersecurity firm. It could help them gain access to sensitive
computer accounts and even potentially conduct a physical
attack or attempt extortion, he said.
The hacker could know virtually “every single person
who is cleared in the U.S,” said Jacob Olcott of Good Harbor
Consulting, a cyber-risk-management company, and a former
counsel for the Senate Commerce Committee. “So when they

11. 11
want access to the Energy Department program on such and
such, they’ll say, ‘Who do we know there? Let’s send a
spearphishing e-mail to get access to their computer.’“
U.S. government networks are assaulted daily by hackers
– including more than 100 foreign intelligence agencies –
trying to breach computer defenses, according to U.S.
officials.
The Chinese have had some success. In 2006, Chinese
hackers breached the system of a sensitive Commerce
Department bureau, forcing it to replace hundreds of
workstations and block employees from regular use of the
Internet for more than a month. A few months before that,
Chinese hackers broke into State Department computers.
In recent years, hackers have penetrated e-mail and other
systems at the Defense Department, the Navy and the
Environmental Protection Agency. Last year, hackers stole
personal data from more than 104,000 people from an Energy
Department system.
“This wasn’t the beginning or end of this particular
mission,” said Olcott, referring to the attempt on the OPM
system. “You have to think of this as another part of a long-
term effort to collect data on U.S. government initiatives.”
Simon Denyer from Beijing and Alice Crites contributed
to this report.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-
security/chinese-hackers-go-after-us-workers-personal-
data/2014/07/10/92db92e8-0846-11e4-8a6a-
19355c7e870a_story.html
Return to Index
6. How Not To Win Friends And Influence People
China's heavy-handed behavior is driving neighbors, especially Australia, farther away from its orbit.
(FOREIGN POLICY 10 JUL 14) ... Keith Johnson
Here's one way to gauge just how much China has shot
itself in the foot by bullying neighbors and rattling sabers: It's
making what looked like a painful choice for Australia a
whole lot easier.
For years, policymakers from Down Under have worried
about just how long the country could balance moving ever
closer to China in terms of economic interests with
maintaining deep defense ties with the United States as
tensions rise in the Asia-Pacific. With the U.S. "pivot to Asia"
– featuring a leading role for Australia – and growing concern
about China's heavy-handed diplomacy, those fears had been
intensifying.
"The question is not whether we want to choose between
them, but whether we might find ourselves forced to make
such a choice," Hugh White, professor of strategic studies at
the Australian National University, told Foreign Policy
recently.
China is doing its part by picking fights with Vietnam and
the Philippines, single-handedly pushing Japan to scuttle
decades of pacifism, and running roughshod over the
international rules and norms that underpinned the region's
decades of peace and prosperity. As a result, Australia has
taken giant strides toward the United States and its allies.
On Tuesday, just weeks after doubling down on security
ties with the United States, Australian Prime Minister Tony
Abbott and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe signed
sweeping economic and defense deals, reaffirming the two
countries' "special relationship." The deals, which include
plans for joint development of advanced submarines, indicate
Abbott's vocal support for Abe's more muscular military
posture – while also sending a clear message to China.
"For decades now, Japan has been an exemplary
international citizen. So Australia welcomes Japan's recent
decision to be a more capable strategic partner in our region,"
Abbot said, addressing Parliament with Abe. "I stress, ours is
not a partnership against anyone; it's a partnership for peace,
for prosperity and for the rule of law."
Coming right on the heels of Abbot's June trip to
Washington – in which he stressed that "Australia will be an
utterly dependable ally of the United States" – Abbott's stance
puts to rest worries that Australia might throw its old friends
under the bus to guarantee lucrative trade ties with Beijing,
some experts say.
"In a strategic and political sense, Australia has already
chosen: It is a firm U.S. ally, and the alliance has intensified,"
said Rory Medcalf, a director at the Lowy Institute for
International Policy, Australia's leading think tank. "In the
end, it is very difficult to see how Chinese economic leverage
could compel Australia to loosen or break the alliance."
Abbot himself underscored that point, telling Parliament,
"You don't win new friends by losing old ones."
For decades, countries such as Australia and New Zealand
never had to choose between economic growth and security.
The dominant economic power and the dominant military
power were one and the same: the United States. "So long as
one country ... was able to set the international security
agenda, there was no significant divergence between
economic aspirations and the desire for security," former New
Zealand Defense Minister Wayne Mapp noted in a paper
written this spring.
That has all changed with China's dramatic transformation
over the last 40 years from economic weakling to titan. China
is Australia's top trading partner, with bilateral exchange
worth more than $150 billion annually. China's voracious
appetite for raw materials and energy resources, in particular,
helped underwrite Australia's economic growth over the last
20 years; former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said in a speech
last year that such trade accounted for about half of Australia's
income gains from 2000 to 2010.
Even as China's double-digit economic growth slows,
accompanied by corresponding drops in its demand for
Australia's raw materials, Australia's prosperity remains
centered in Asia. That leaves policymakers in Canberra to
wrestle with how best to position Australia to take advantage
of the "Asian century."
Australian leaders spanning the political spectrum, from
conservatives such as John Howard and Abbott to liberals like
Rudd and Julia Gillard, have tried to chart "best of both
worlds" courses, seeking more affinity with everyone. Rudd
speaks Mandarin. Abbot offsets visits to Japan with stops in
China. And now Canberra is placing itself firmly under Uncle

12. 12
Sam's wing even as it pursues finalizing a new free trade pact
with Beijing by year's end.
"America has kept us safe while China has made us rich.
We would like that to last forever," Australian National
University's White said.
Indeed, Australians have a blurry view of just what's best
for the country. In the latest annual Lowy poll, Australians
said China was the country's best friend in Asia – ahead of
Japan or South Korea, its other big trading partners, which are
also democracies allied with the United States. Aussies
registered their warmest feelings toward China in 10 years of
Lowy polling. And the importance they placed on the military
alliance with America hit a five-year low, though 78 percent
of Aussies still favor it.
Yet nearly half of Australians believe China will become
a military threat in the next 20 years, a significant uptick from
last year's survey. That likely reflects unease with China's
recent regional aggression, such as dispatching an oil rig to
Vietnamese waters in May, constructing an airstrip on an
island claimed by the Philippines that same month, and
constantly sparring with Japan over disputed islands in the
East China Sea with both air and naval power.
Even as those actions pushed Vietnam, the Philippines,
Japan, and Australia closer to Washington, "they will not be
able to ignore China's expectations," Mapp, the former Kiwi
defense minister, told FP. "In short, the increased power of
China does change the calculus. And it means accommodating
at least some of China's expectations – not every one of them
can be rebuffed."
Top U.S. and Chinese officials are discussing the two
countries' impasse at the big strategic and economic talks in
Beijing this week. Pentagon planners are plotting ways to push
back against Chinese encroachments in the South China Sea.
If things turn ugly, Washington would expect Australian help,
including direct military assistance; that's likely to prompt
some serious soul-searching in Canberra.
"Joining the United States in military operations against
China would have immense consequences for our relations
with Beijing. If such a conflict escalated, which is not a
remote possibility, Australia would soon face a real 'us-or-
them' choice," White said.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/07/09/how_n
ot_to_win_friends_and_influence_people_china_australia_def
ense_japan_abe_abbott
Return to Index
MIDEAST:
7. Kurdish Government Calls On Maliki To Quit As Iraqi Premier
(NEW YORK TIMES 11 JUL 14) ... Alissa J. Rubin and Alan Cowell
BAGHDAD – The Kurdish regional government
responded Thursday to harsh criticism from Iraq’s prime
minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, announcing that its ministers
would boycott cabinet meetings, demanding an apology to the
Iraqi people and calling on Mr. Maliki to step down.
The political fissure was exacerbated after Mr. Maliki on
Wednesday accused the Kurds of turning their regional capital
into the headquarters of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, as
well as harboring members of the Baath Party of former
President Saddam Hussein and other opponents of the Iraqi
government.
The Iraqi government halted all cargo flights to Kurdistan
on Thursday, said Capt. Nasser al-Bandar, the head of civil
aviation in the Iraqi government. Kurdistan had responded by
halting its cargo flights to Baghdad, he said.
Iraq has also notified the United Nations that Sunni
militants from ISIS seized nuclear material from a university
in the northern city of Mosul last month as they advanced
toward Baghdad, the nuclear regulatory body of the United
Nations said Thursday.
Gill Tudor, a spokeswoman for the International Atomic
Energy Agency, which is based in Vienna, said in a statement
that the organization’s experts believed that the material –
thought to be uranium – was “low grade and would not present
a significant safety, security or nuclear proliferation risk.”
Word of the seizure first emerged in a letter to the United
Nations that was dated Tuesday and seen by reporters from
Reuters, which quoted it as saying that “terrorists” from ISIS
had taken control of the materials.
The letter said that almost 90 pounds of uranium
compounds had been kept at the university and that the
materials “can be used in manufacturing weapons of mass
destruction,” Reuters said.
But the theft has not caused alarm in the safeguards
division of the atomic energy agency in Vienna, said a
diplomat there who spoke on the condition of anonymity to
provide information that is considered sensitive.
“This seems to be a reagent used in teaching,” the
diplomat said, adding that it was a relatively small amount of
material that could “fit in a bucket.”
The mention of such weapons resonates in Iraq, where the
American-led invasion of 2003 was justified in Washington
and London by assertions that Saddam Hussein, the leader at
the time, had acquired weapons of mass destruction. None
were ever found by the invading forces.
In her statement on Thursday, Ms. Tudor said that the
atomic energy agency “is aware of the notification from Iraq
and is in contact to seek further details.”
She said experts did not believe that the material could be
fashioned into a weapon. “Nevertheless,” the statement said,
“any loss of regulatory control over nuclear and other
radioactive materials is a cause for concern.”
Mr. Maliki, the Iraqi leader, asked the Kurds on
Wednesday to “stop the operations room for ISIS” and implied
that the Kurds had assisted the Sunni militants who swept into
northern Iraq and seized territory in June, saying that the
government had “diagnosed the internal and external parties
who supported the conspiracy that took place in Iraq.”
Kurdistan is a semiautonomous region encompassing
three provinces in northern Iraq. The Kurds are represented in
the Iraqi Parliament and hold offices in the Shiite-led national
government, including president, foreign minister, trade
minister and health minister. However, they also have their
own Parliament and regional government, and have foreign
missions in several countries.

13. 13
“He has become hysterical and has lost his balance,” the
Kurdish president, Massoud Barzani, said in a statement,
referring to Mr. Maliki. “He is doing everything he can to
justify his failures and put the blame on others.”
Many Iraqis believe that the Kurds used the push by ISIS
– and the ensuing security vacuum after many Iraqi
government troops fled the fighting – to seize control of the
oil-rich Kirkuk region, as well as towns in the northern part of
Diyala Province and a number of border villages where there
are substantial Kurdish-speaking populations. The Kurds
believe that these areas are part of their domain.
The back and forth is also part of a risky political
calculation by Mr. Maliki and Mr. Barzani that each will
garner points with his own loyalists by criticizing the other.
Many Shiites feel betrayed by the Kurds after their seizure of
Kirkuk and other border areas, and support Mr. Maliki’s
accusations. For their part, the Kurds believe that they are part
of a movement to remove Mr. Maliki and that the tough talk
will rally his opponents as well as reinforce the Kurdish
position on Kirkuk.
Relations between the Iraqi central government and the
Kurdish region have been deteriorating for months, with the
central government refusing to pay salaries of Kurdish
government employees because the Kurds have been trying to
export oil independently.
In his statement, Mr. Barzani’s office noted that the
Kurdish region and its capital, Erbil, had once been a haven
for Mr. Maliki, and said it was Mr. Maliki who had ceded
ground to the ISIS militants, not the Kurds. However, many
opponents of the Maliki government have also found refuge in
Kurdistan, including many Sunnis who are insisting that Mr.
Maliki, a Shiite, step down.
“Kurdistan is proud that Erbil has always served as a
refuge for oppressed people, including yourself when you fled
the former dictatorship,” the statement said. “Now Erbil is a
refuge for people fleeing from your dictatorship.”
A former speaker for the Kurdish Parliament in Erbil,
Abdul Salam Barwari, expressed the long-held frustration of
Kurds and Sunnis with Mr. Maliki’s policies, which they
regard as discriminatory.
“We have sacrificed to hold Iraq together, while he breaks
it apart,” he said.
Alissa J. Rubin reported from Baghdad, and Alan Cowell
from London. Omar Al-Jawoshy contributed reporting from
Baghdad, and William J. Broad from New York.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/11/world/middleeast/ku
rdish-leader-calls-for-iraqi-premier-to-resign.html
Return to Index
8. Israel's 'Iron Dome' Changes The Face Of Battle
(ASSOCIATED PRESS 10 JUL 14) ... Aron Heller
JERUSALEM – Israel's "Iron Dome" defense system has
emerged as a game-changer in the current round of violence
with Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip, shooting down dozens
of incoming rockets and being credited with preventing
numerous civilian casualties.
By shooting down more than 90 percent of its targets, the
system is ensuring Israel's decisive technological edge that has
helped it operate virtually unhindered in Gaza.
At the same time, it's also providing a much-needed sense
of security on the home front.
Gaza militants have fired hundreds of rockets into Israel,
some more than 100 kilometers (60 miles) deep, covering an
area of about 5 million. But beyond some jitters and
discomfort, they haven't hurt Israelis much, causing no
casualties and very little damage.
"The Iron Dome system and its impressive success thus
far have had a strategic impact on managing the campaign. It
gives us wide options," said Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon.
"Having said that, we cannot become complacent."
Israel has deployed seven batteries across the country that
– coupled with a high-tech warning system – have given it its
best defensive capabilities ever.
Iron Dome quickly recognizes the trajectory of incoming
rockets and whether they are headed for major population
centers. Those are shot down, while others are allowed to fall
in empty fields to spare the hefty cost of firing the
sophisticated interceptors. Local reports say each launching
costs about $20,000.
So far, Hamas and other Gaza militants have fired more
than 420 rockets toward Israel in three days of fighting. The
military says it has shot down 90 of those, including several
over Tel Aviv and central Israel.
On Thursday afternoon, the system was deployed for the
first time in Jerusalem. Two puffs of smoke could be seen in
the sky – apparently after intercepting two incoming rockets.
Lt. Col. Levi Itach, head of the military's early warning
branch, said several high-tech measures along with a
disciplined public that has vigilantly followed instruction have
allowed Israel to keep its casualties from rockets to a
minimum.
He said the systems had improved significantly in the two
years since the last major exchange of airstrikes and rocket
fire between Israel and Hamas, in which six Israelis were
killed and several were injured by Gaza rocket fire in that
weeklong battle.
The system is still far from foolproof. On Thursday,
rockets struck a home in the southern city of Beersheba and a
car in Ashdod – incidents that easily could have resulted in
casualties.
Itach said no system could provide 100 percent
protection.
"If we keep up what we are doing, there is a good chance
that we will be able to lower the ratio to one death for every
10,000 rockets fired," he said.
Yossi Kuperwasser, a retired military general and current
director general of Israel's Ministry of Strategic Affairs, said
that Gaza's Hamas rulers and other militants have acquired
longer, more powerful weapons in the past two years, but
Israel had not been idle either. He said improvements to Iron
Dome have allowed it to hold off on a ground operation while
the home front was protected.
"It gives us much more room to maneuver. ... Now we
have the ability to hold our breath for some time," he said.
"And I'm sure that Hamas is feeling frustrated with this

14. 14
situation because after launching hundreds of rockets, they
haven't managed to get Israeli casualties."
Newspapers have already crowned the U.S.-funded
system as the star of the campaign. The front page of Yediot
Ahronot carried the headline "Golden Dome," with a huge
spread of the system in action. The paper's top military
columnist, Alex Fishman, wrote that the Iron Dome has
"changed the face of the battle."
"If not for the Iron Dome system, the entire military
would have already been stuck in the Gaza Strip. It is already
possible to reflect on the main lesson of Operation Protective
Edge: we must not stop investing in the Iron Dome system,"
he wrote.
Iron Dome is just the first of a planned three-part defense
system that Israel hopes will be operational by the end of the
year.
It has successfully tested "Magic Wand," designed to
intercept projectiles with ranges between 70 kilometers (45
miles) and 300 kilometers (180 miles), and is aimed primarily
at countering the large arsenal of Hezbollah rockets in
Lebanon and those of President Bashar Assad's government in
Syria.
Together with the Arrow system for longer-range threats
from Iran, the three components will complete what Israel
calls its "multilayer missile defense."
The next generation of the Arrow, now in the
development stage, is set to be deployed in 2016. Called
Arrow 3, it is designed to intercept missiles at very high
altitudes, before they are on their downward path toward their
target. Together, the two Arrow systems would provide two
chances to strike down incoming missiles.
Just this week, President Barack Obama cited the systems
as proof of the U.S. commitment to Israel's security.
"Across the board, our unprecedented security
cooperation is making Israel safer and American investments
in Israel's cutting-edge defense systems like the Arrow
interceptor system and Iron Dome are saving lives," he wrote.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/ML_ISRAEL_IR
ON_DOME
Return to Index
9. Kerry To Join Talks On Iran As Deadline Draws Near
(NEW YORK TIMES 11 JUL 14) ... David E. Sanger
VIENNA – With the Vienna negotiations over Iran’s
nuclear activities making halting progress at best and a
deadline looming, the Obama administration announced
Thursday that Secretary of State John Kerry would fly here
this weekend to assess whether a deal is possible – and
perhaps to begin negotiating an extension in the talks that both
sides said they had wanted to avoid.
Mr. Kerry will be joined by the foreign ministers of
several, but probably not all, of the other nations engaged in
the talks, which include Germany, Britain, France, China and
Russia. Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, has
been here since July 2, as all sides have haggled over a deal
that can not only be agreed upon among themselves, but also
has a chance of satisfying Congress and the Iranian
Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Many in Congress have been so suspicious of the
negotiations that they have threatened not to lift sanctions on
Iran if they are not satisfied with the terms of the agreement.
The Revolutionary Guard commanders harbor considerable
suspicion that Mr. Zarif, who spent half his life in the United
States and was educated there, could trade away what they
view as the instruments of power that would restore Iran’s
influence in the region.
Mr. Kerry will come to Vienna from Kabul, where he
arrived Friday to meet with Afghanistan’s president, Hamid
Karzai, and the two candidates to succeed him, who are locked
in a bitter dispute about election results. But it is the Iran
negotiations that may well determine how Mr. Kerry’s
stewardship of American foreign policy is evaluated,
especially now that the other venture he invested in so heavily,
a Mideast peace accord, seems further away than at any other
time in recent memory.
Mr. Kerry has made no secret of his objective: to be
certain that Iran’s nuclear infrastructure is degraded enough
that it would take Tehran at least a year, and maybe
considerably longer, to race to build a nuclear weapon should
its leaders decide to do so. But assuring a significant warning
period, called “breakout time,” requires assembling many
pieces of a complex puzzle.
Chief among them is the country’s ability to enrich
uranium in centrifuges, machines that spin at supersonic
speed. While the negotiators are keeping the details of their
arguments secret, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei, gave a speech on Tuesday that, if reliable,
provided some insight into how far the West has moved.
He said that the West wanted to limit Iran’s enrichment
capacity to “10,000 separative work units, which is equivalent
to 10,000 centrifuges of the older type that we already have.”
Setting aside the oddity of having the country’s top religious
leader talk in the language of nuclear engineers, that number is
more than twice the production capability that American
officials suggested a year ago, in background interviews,
would be acceptable.
But Mr. Khamenei went further, insisting that eventually
Iran would “need 190,000 centrifuges,” to produce fuel for
future nuclear power plants. “Perhaps this is not a need this
year or in two years or five years, but this is the country’s
absolute need,” he said. That number could produce a bomb’s
worth of weapons-grade material in just a few weeks, but Iran
has nowhere near the ability to make that many centrifuges.
That is just one of the issues, but perhaps the toughest.
Mr. Kerry will have to evaluate whether the United States and
Iran can ever close the gap on what kind of capability will
satisfy all sides. But there are differences on other major
issues, including Iran’s willingness to limit other production
facilities and allow its top weapons scientists to be
interviewed, that officials say are highly unlikely to be
resolved by the July 20 deadline.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/11/world/middleeast/ke
rry-to-join-nuclear-talks-on-iran-as-deadline-draws-near.html
Return to Index

15. 15
AFGHANISTAN / PAKISTAN:
10. Nominee To Lead Troops In Afghanistan Sees ‘Good News’
(STARS AND STRIPES 10 JUL 14) ... Chris Carroll
WASHINGTON – Senators on Thursday pressed
nominees to top military posts on how to avoid a repeat of the
recent Iraq debacle – where a U.S.-trained military collapsed
in the face of a smaller insurgent force – in Afghanistan as the
war there draws to a close.
Army Gen. John Campbell, who likely will become the
final commander of U.S. and NATO combat troops in
Afghanistan, and Army Lt. Gen. Joseph L. Votel, tapped to
run U.S. Special Operations Command, both said Afghan
forces were gaining capability. That could be seen in their
effective security operations during Afghan presidential voting
earlier this year, Campbell said.
But both promised senators they’d speak up if President
Barack Obama administration’s timelines for removal of U.S.
troops from the country prove unworkable.
Obama announced earlier this year plans to maintain a
force of fewer than 10,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan after the
official end of combat operations in December. By the end of
2016, the only remaining troops would be those manning the
U.S. Embassy in Kabul.
Angus King, an independent senator from Maine,
questioned how the Obama administration can be sure that
Afghan forces will be ready.
“It strikes me that rather than an arbitrary date for leaving
Afghanistan, it should be based on conditions on the field,”
King said.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said both of Afghanistan’s
leading presidential candidates have told him they’re worried
about basing troop levels on dates rather than conditions.
McCain said Afghan forces are unlikely to gain necessary
capabilities in the areas of logistics, intelligence and aviation
by 2017. Inadequate support, he suggested, could lead to an
Iraqi-style collapse, where the Sunni insurgents last month
sent the Iraqi army scurrying across broad sections of Iraq.
“One would hope the president of the United States would
look at the nightmare in Iraq today and the ability that we
could have had to provide some stability there, and perhaps re-
evaluate his decision [in Afghanistan] – not for American
combat troops but for the much needed capabilities of support
and counterterrorism that we can provide, which they simply
do not have,” he said.
Campbell said counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan
were critical.
“I believe the CT piece, if you want to just boil it down to
simplistic terms, is it protects the homeland,” he said.
Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., questioned how the Obama
administration could announce plans for a normal embassy
military presence of perhaps 1,000 troops if counterterrorism
is crucial.
“How do we do that based on a Kabul operation only, and
how do we do that with 1,000 people, and which part of that
1,000 people will fulfil the important mission to protect the
homeland?” she said.
Campbell and Votel responded that military leaders
would have to assess the situation as it develops in coming
years, and potentially make recommendations on modified
force levels later.
“I don’t think I can answer that question accurately right
now,” Votel said. “I think it really depends on the situation as
it evolves.”
But Campbell praised the overall progress of Afghan
forces, and said the contenders to be the next Afghan president
are eager to work with the United States.
“Everything I see, sir, is good news,” he said of the
developing political situation in Afghanistan, in answer to a
question from Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga. “I’m looking
forward to getting over there, and I think we’re on a positive
path right now.”
Senators also questioned Adm. William E. Gortney,
nominated to command U.S. Northern Command and the
North American Aerospace Defense Command, on topics
including missile defense and cyberwar.
“I think the greatest threat that we have is the cyberthreat,
to our critical infrastructure, to our power grid, to our banking
system,” Gortney said. “And the job at NORTHCOM is to
handle the physical consequences of that particular threat.”
http://www.stripes.com/news/nominee-to-lead-troops-in-
afghanistan-sees-good-news-1.292775
Return to Index
11. Pakistan Claims Win Against Militants Along Afghan Border, But Enemy Slips Away
(NEW YORK TIMES 11 JUL 14) ... Ismail Khan and Declan Walsh
MIRAM SHAH, Pakistan – A solitary donkey wandered
through the deserted streets of this once-bustling tribal town of
100,000, but no other inhabitants were to be found 10 days
after Pakistani troops backed by tanks and helicopter gunships
seized control.
The front doors of houses had been left open and shops
were only half-shuttered. Some buildings had been destroyed
by military airstrikes and artillery barrages; others bore red
paint marks to show soldiers had searched there. On
Wednesday, military officials guided a small group of
journalists through their most dangerous discoveries: a bomb
factory, a school for suicide bombers, a private prison and a
network of underground tunnels.
But there was little sign of the fighters themselves.
“Yes, they did escape,” said Maj. Gen. Zafarullah Khan,
commander of the three-week-old military drive into North
Waziristan, the tribal district along the Afghan border that has
been Pakistan’s most notorious jihadi hub. “They had smelled
that the operation was about to be launched. Peace talks had
failed, the buildup for the operation had already begun. So the
leadership abandoned this place.”
General Khan dismissed suggestions by skeptical officials
in Afghanistan and the West that his forces had allowed
favored militants to flee. “We are colorblind,” he said. He
added that in a difficult environment like North Waziristan, “it

16. 16
is not possible to create a watertight compartment where
individuals cannot escape.”
The one-day tour of Miram Shah – a dusty, rugged town
about 10 miles from the Afghan border – offered a rare
ground-level perspective on a military operation that has been
largely hidden from view since it started on June 15. The
assault, precipitated by the collapse of peace talks and an
embarrassing militant attack on the Karachi airport, is the
military’s most determined effort yet to clear out a tribal
district that had become a thriving center of international
militancy.
Yet few doubt that the fight has barely begun. Militants
evaded the military bombardment in part by hiding among the
flood of roughly 800,000 refugees that fled the area into
neighboring districts or Afghanistan, according to officials and
witness accounts. And the opaque nature of the operation – the
army has tightly controlled information about the fighting and
discouraged local journalists from writing “negative” stories –
has stirred disquiet among Pakistanis who worry about the
offensive’s chances of success.
“One really doesn’t know what is happening,” said Khalid
Aziz, a former chief secretary of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa
Province, which borders the tribal belt. “Very little real
operational detail is coming out. The army says it has killed
hundreds of people, including Uzbeks. But who, exactly, are
they?”
The United States joined in the action on Thursday
morning, when a CIA drone fired several missiles at a house
and a car in Datta Khel, about 20 miles west of Miram Shah,
just before dawn, a Pakistani security official said on the
condition of anonymity.
The strike occurred in territory controlled by Hafiz Gul
Bahadur, a Pakistani militant commander who has played a
central role in mobilizing fighters to carry out attacks inside
Afghanistan. The American missiles killed three Uzbek
militants and three Afghans, the official said.
In Miram Shah, General Khan said that his troops had
established control over 80 percent of the town with relatively
modest casualties, with a few soldiers killed by rocket fire or
militant booby traps. In total, the military said, it had lost just
24 soldiers so far, while more than 400 militants are said to
have been killed, mostly in airstrikes against militant
compounds in the surrounding mountains.
Few of the dead militants have been identified, however,
and in contrast with a previous antimilitant offensive in the
Swat Valley in 2009, the Taliban themselves have been
largely quiet.
Now, General Khan said, Pakistani troops have begun an
advance toward Datta Khel, a village that has been a frequent
target of CIA airstrikes. They will move simultaneously
against militant havens in Mir Ali, the second biggest town of
North Waziristan, he said.
One question is where the army will go after that. With
North Waziristan’s main towns located on the plains, military
experts say that a more daunting challenge may lie in the
steep-backed valleys deep in the mountains, where tribal
fighters have a centuries-old record of defying conventional
militaries.
For the United States, a key question is whether the
Pakistani offensive will dent the capabilities of the Haqqani
network, a group that has deep roots in North Waziristan and,
equally, longstanding ties with Pakistani intelligence.
American officials have suggested that Pakistani fighters
tipped off Haqqani commanders in advance of the operation.
But the military spokesman, Maj. Gen. Asim Bajwa,
insisted that Pakistani soldiers had clear instructions to attack
all militants, regardless of their affiliation. “All militants will
have to be eliminated, whether they are local or foreign,
Haqqani network or Uzbeks,” he said.
Pakistani officers guiding the tour of Miram Shah pointed
out evidence that suggested the town’s role as a hub of both
the insurgency in Afghanistan and of the global jihadi
movement.
At a training center for suicide bombers, paperwork
headed “the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan” contained
registration details for young recruits. One such recruit, who
identified himself as Sharifullah, a 20-year-old from Khost in
Afghanistan, signed an agreement for a two-month training
period. During this time, he agreed to not use his mobile
phone or attempt to leave the facility, and would have no
contact with anyone except for his teachers and fellow suicide
bomber recruits.
Journalists were taken to a prison run by the Ittehad-e-
Mujahedeen Khorasan, a ruthless militant counterintelligence
group that has tortured and executed tribesmen accused of
spying on behalf of the United States.
And General Khan said his soldiers had discovered a
mile-long tunnel, which militants used to evade detection, that
stretched under Miram Shah. He said it would take some time
to clear the town entirely, given the large number of traps and
other explosive devices that it was believed to contain.
The operation has exacerbated tensions with Afghanistan.
Some 66,000 Pakistani refugees have fled across the border, in
a humiliating turn for Pakistan, which has hosted millions of
Afghan refugees from violence since 1979.
Pakistani military leaders have called on the Afghan
authorities to help capture Maulana Fazlullah, the leader of the
main Pakistani Taliban branch, who is widely believed to be
hiding in the Afghan provinces of Kunar and Nuristan. Afghan
officials have previously admitted supporting Mr. Fazlullah
against Pakistan.
“We have asked the Afghans and other forces to take
appropriate measures to interdict and capture him,” General
Bajwa, the military spokesman, said at a briefing.
Afghan leaders, in turn, have accused the Pakistani
military of stoking the Afghan Taliban insurgency inside their
own country, and of purposefully letting Afghan-focused
militants escape in the current offensive.
One striking aspect of the North Waziristan operation is
how the United States has been almost entirely absent from
the public debate. In previous offensives, conservative critics
have loudly blamed American pressure for forcing the
military’s hand.
“Now the U.S. isn’t mentioned at all,” said Mr. Aziz, the
former chief secretary. “We Pakistanis have learned that this is
our own internal problem. I hope it’s not too late to solve it.”
Ismail Khan reported from Miram Shah, and Declan
Walsh from London. Azam Ahmed contributed reporting from
Kabul, Afghanistan, and Kiran Nazish from New York.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/11/world/asia/pakistan-
claims-a-win-but-enemy-slips-away.html

17. 17
Return to Index
EUROPE:
12. Pro-Russia Rebels Defiant As Ukraine Military Advances Toward Donetsk
Government Moves to Consolidate Gains, Rebel Leaders Make Rare Joint Appearance
(WALL STREET JOURNAL 11 JUL 14) ... Philip Shishkin and Lukas I. Alpert
Leaders of the pro-Russia separatists in eastern Ukraine
vowed in a rare joint appearance Thursday to turn their biggest
remaining stronghold into a final battleground as government
forces edged closer.
Ukrainian officials said they had regained control of the
rebel-held town of Siversk, and were moving to consolidate
their position by funneling aid into recaptured areas and
repairing damaged infrastructure there.
Rebel leaders in the regional capital of Donetsk said that
they had decided to surrender Siversk to avoid being
surrounded there.
The government appeared to gain the upper hand in the
three-month-old fight when it forced rebels to retreat last
weekend to Donetsk from their former stronghold of
Slovyansk. Siversk, with about 10,000 people, was the last in
a ring of cities around Slovyansk to fall.
Civilians stuck in the conflict zones have had to cope with
increasing disruptions to basic services as the fighting
damaged infrastructure and cut off government services.
Speaking in the occupied government headquarters in
Donetsk, Alexander Borodai, the separatists' prime minister,
and their military commander, who goes by the name Igor
Strelkov, struck a defiant tone.
The two men, both Russian citizens, also said they were
counting on Russian help, and warned frightened residents of
the city of nearly 1 million of a looming evacuation.
"We can concentrate our forces in one place, and inflict
greater damages on the enemy, and we can seriously prepare
for the defense of this city, for an active defense, to put it
mildly," said Mr. Borodai, who had until recently worked as a
consultant in Moscow.
On Thursday, insurgents attacked Ukrainian forces
stationed near the closed Donetsk airport, but didn't seize
control.
The mayor of Donetsk, who has sought to keep the city
running by avoiding taking sides, confirmed the fighting near
the airport, which has been closed since a major clash there in
May.
Officials in the capital Kiev have said they are aiming to
surround Donetsk to force the rebels out, and would seek to
avoid street battles. Few Ukrainian troops have urban fighting
experience.
Around 100,000 residents have left since April, the mayor
has said. Mr. Borodai said they were planning the possible
evacuation of tens of thousands more.
Russia has so far ignored calls by the rebels to send in
troops, but Ukraine continues to accuse Moscow of funneling
arms and fighters to the separatists through the porous border.
The separatist movement here has been at pains to
position itself as a grass-roots campaign of local ethnic
Russians who fear a surge of Ukrainian nationalism in the
wake of the toppling of a pro-Russian government in Kiev last
February.
Yet the presence of two Muscovites at the movement's
helm has led to accusations from Kiev and Western capitals
that the Kremlin is pulling the strings behind the scenes.
Mr. Strelkov, a former Russian military officer whose real
name is Igor Girkin, and Mr. Borodai both played a role in
Russia's annexation of Crimea. But the two old friends said
they are merely volunteers in Donetsk.
The people of Donbas, as the wider region is known,
"rose up on their own," Mr. Borodai said. "The fact that
because of certain competences, qualities and capabilities, we
both happened to lead this movement, well, it just happened
that way."
Mr. Strelkov, wearing a vintage wooden holster on his
belt, said the retreat from Slovyansk and two other small
towns allowed the insurgents to conserve resources and
manpower for the battle of Donetsk.
"Unfortunately, we couldn't have kept those resources
otherwise," he said.
The government in Kiev said it was moving to restore
heavily damaged water and electricity supplies to Slovyansk,
which had a population of more than 100,000. It also said it
was sending nearly 25 tons of humanitarian aid and resuming
pension payments for residents immediately.
Local officials said they were moving to restore train
service between Slovyansk and the nearest major government-
held city, Kharkiv. Demolition experts were clearing roads
around the town and had neutralized a ton of explosives,
including a dozen improvised explosive devices and 20
antitank and anti-personnel mines, the defense ministry said.
The Ukrainian defense ministry reported several battles
overnight near Donetsk and Luhansk – the other main city
held by the rebels – as well as a around a handful of other
rebel strongholds.
The ministry said three soldiers were killed and 27
wounded, bringing the total on the government side to 173
killed and 446 wounded since the fighting began in April.
Officials in Luhansk reported that six civilians were injured in
fighting around that regional capital.
The State Border Service said the hotly contested border
checkpoint of Dozhansky had been hit by more than 200
mortar shells over two days, completely destroying it,
although it remained in government hands. The service said
three other border posts also came under fire overnight.
Mr. Borodai, just back from a trip to Moscow, said he'd
held "rather successful political consultations" there, though
he refused to say with whom.
He said the separatist movement is oriented toward
Russia, "spiritually even. And we await the arrival of Moscow,
in a good sense of the word, we crave it, and pray for it," he
said. "So any people from Moscow are welcomed here."
He then introduced a new internal-security chief:
Vladimir Antufeyev, a Russian citizen who had once held a
similar job in Transnistria, the self-styled breakaway republic

18. 18
carved out of Moldova with Russian support in the early
1990s.
Mr. Strelkov revealed a few more details about himself:
He said he had fought Transnistria, in the Serbian part of
Bosnia and in Chechnya. He said he resigned last year from
Russia's state-security service with the rank of colonel.
Ukrainian intelligence maintains he is still a serving
Russian military-intelligence officer, a claim denied by
Moscow.
The two Muscovites also said that Donetsk's popular,
three-term mayor should pledge allegiance to the rebel cause
or step down. The two men, who first met in 1996 in Moscow,
dismissed the idea of negotiations with Kiev and promised
there will be no retreat from Donetsk.
In Russia, a court extended until the end of August the
detention of a Ukrainian air force pilot charged with being an
accessory in the June deaths of two Russian journalists.
Russia's Investigative Committee has accused Lt.
Nadezhda Savchenko of transmitting the location of the
journalists and others to Ukrainian ground forces who then
fired mortars at their position, killing the reporters and two
others.
How Lt. Savchenko ended up in Russian hands is in
dispute. Russian officials say she was arrested after crossing
into Russia as a refugee with no documents. It was later
determined she was on a wanted list and she was arrested on
July 2, Russia says.
But Ukrainian officials say she was abducted from her
base and forcibly taken to Russia.
Russia's pro-Kremlin TV channel NTV reported on June
20 that she was captured by rebels and then handed over to
Russian authorities.
http://online.wsj.com/articles/ukraine-forces-take-another-
rebel-held-town-1404996939
Return to Index
13. British Combatants Of A Different Religious War
(NEW YORK TIMES 11 JUL 14) ... Alan Cowell
LONDON – It was nine years ago on July 7, 2005, that
four suicide bombers killed 52 people on the London transit
system during the morning rush hour, introducing Britons to a
kind of terrorism that Americans had confronted on Sept. 11,
2001.
This week, the memory conjured grief and defiance in
uneven measures: In Hyde Park, just hours before survivors
gathered on Monday to recall the bloodshed, the steel pillars
that form a monument to the dead were defaced with stenciled
slogans redolent of that era: Blair Lied, Thousands Died; 4
Innocent Muslims.
Britons probably did not need what one survivor called
this “immature act” to grasp that Islamic militancy has not
gone away, and may indeed have intensified, its focus
widened to the highways and deserts and battered cities of Iraq
and Syria, drawing ever more young Britons to the black
banner of far-flung jihad.
The police in the northern city of Manchester, for
instance, said that twin 16-year-old girls of Somali descent
who disappeared in June were probably en route to join a
brother fighting for the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria – the
fierce militants who have spilled from Syria into Iraq and
declared an Islamic state.
That disclosure came after intense news coverage of a
group of young British Muslims – three from Cardiff, Wales,
and one from Aberdeen, Scotland – said to have traveled to
Syria to join militants who now include an estimated 500
British Muslims.
In court this week, two women from London denied a
charge that they had tried to help finance terrorism. One of
them, the prosecution said, had been found carrying 20,000
euros, or $27,000, in high-denomination bank notes in her
underwear when she tried to board a plane to Turkey – the
conduit to Syria – in January.
Time has woven the July 7 bombings into the national
memory, dulling the shock that flowed from the realization
that the assailants were not citizens from some exotic, distant
society, but, mostly, British-born Muslims who had grown up
in a land that prided itself on tolerance and inclusion.
Since the so-called Arab Spring, however, a new
militancy has arisen, beckoning young Muslims in Britain and
many other parts of the West to join its ranks. It has become
axiomatic to conclude that some of them will return to wreak
havoc in their own lands.
Indeed, in an online posting showing what appeared to be
homemade bombs, one Briton in Syria, Nasser Muthana, 20,
declared: “So the U.K. is afraid I come back with the skills I
have learned.”
There is, however, a counternarrative, evoking the fine
balance between national security and civil liberties, and to the
ever-more strident calls for tighter security laws such as those
introduced in recent days by France and the United States. On
Thursday, Prime Minister David Cameron pledged to enforce
stricter electronic surveillance laws.
“It is a loud official drumbeat and it is getting ever
louder,” The Guardian newspaper said in an editorial.
On the anniversary of July 7, moreover, Sir Richard
Dearlove, former head of Britain’s MI6 secret intelligence
service, said that the latest fighting in the region was
“essentially a Muslim on Muslim affair” and that both the
government and the media were exaggerating the threat.
“It is time to move away from the distortion that 9/11
understandably created in our national security stance,” he
said. “We must continue to cover the Middle East as a
political requirement but without putting the incipient terrorist
threat to ourselves at the center of the picture.”
The view contradicted the Western orthodoxy.
“This is a global crisis in need of a global solution,” Eric
H. Holder Jr., the United States attorney general, told a
European audience this week. “If we wait for our nations’
citizens to travel to Syria or Iraq, to become radicalized, and to
return home, it may be too late to adequately protect our
national security.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/11/world/europe/british
-combatants-of-a-different-religious-war.html
Return to Index

19. 19
AFRICA:
14. Pirates V Economists
A new weapon against Somali bandits: free trade
(THE ECONOMIST 12 JUL 14)
Ships navigating the lawless seas of the Gulf of Aden
must keep a constant lookout for Somali pirates. The roots of
Somalia’s maritime banditry lie in its desperately poor coastal
villages, where the choice between fishing and piracy is an
easy one for many. But whereas plenty of attention has been
given to pirates’ own economic motives, less has been paid to
the question of why influential local clans put up with the
marauders in their midst. New research by economists at the
University of Oxford and King’s College London sheds some
light on that issue – and suggests a way in which the pirates
could be run aground for good.
Anja Shortland and Federico Varese mapped the locations
of hijacked ships between 2005 and 2012. They found that
hijacked vessels were always anchored far away from regional
trading routes, and that big ports were not prone to piracy.
There is a reason for that. Somali clans control local trade by
issuing licences and charging informal taxes. The researchers
reckon that communities which can tax imports and exports
refuse to protect pirates because trade is a safer and more
lucrative source of revenue than pirate earnings. Only clans
that have no other income offer the pirates protection, in return
for a share of their loot.
The theory seemed to hold up during a ban on Somali
livestock imports imposed by Saudi Arabia between 2000 and
2009. Most Somalis are farmers and Saudi Arabia is their
main livestock market, so the embargo hammered the
economy. Clan leaders in heavily hit cities such as Bosaso, in
the coastal state of Puntland, began offering refuge to pirates
instead. After the ban was lifted and customs duties began
flowing again, the pirates were promptly locked up.
The study’s authors think their findings offer a new way
to scuttle Somalia’s pirates. Hijackings off the Horn of Africa
have fallen sharply since shipping companies beefed up their
security and international navies upped their patrols. Only 15
incidents were reported off Somalia’s coast last year, down
from 75 in 2012 and 237 in 2011. But those security measures
are expensive, and do not tackle the underlying causes of the
problem. A more lasting solution would be to build new roads
and ports, which would allow remote areas to start trading.
With alternative sources of income, fewer communities would
be willing to harbour pirates.
Donors keen to advance shaky security gains pledged
around $1.5 billion to Somali reconstruction last year. Part of
that could be allocated to remote coastal areas, rather than big
cities like Mogadishu, which get the lion’s share. “The
demand is there,” says Ms. Shortland. A former president of
Puntland repeatedly requested a road be built to Eyl, a rough-
and-ready coastal town, as a quid pro quo for giving up piracy.
His request was turned down, and piracy continued. Time for
donors to rethink where they spend their pieces of eight.
http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-
africa/21606882-new-weapon-against-somali-bandits-free-
trade-pirates-v-economists
Return to Index
CONGRESS / BUDGET:
15. House Panel Grills Navy On Cruiser Modernization Plan
Carrier refueling seems to be moving forward
(NAVY TIMES 10 JUL 14) ... Christopher P. Cavas
WASHINGTON – Sometimes it’s all about trust, and
right now, the Navy is struggling to convince Congress it’s on
the level about a plan to take half the fleet’s 22 cruisers out of
service and gradually return them to active duty.
“Our main goal is to know that those cruisers are not
being euthanized, that they’re going to actually be
modernized,” Rep. Randy Forbes, R-Va., chairman of the
House Seapower subcommittee, said after a Thursday late-
afternoon hearing on the issue. “Don’t tell us we’re going to
have these cruisers if there’s no money to bring them out of
suspended animation.”
Navy officials want to take 11 cruisers out of service, then
gradually modernize and restore them in a phased plan to
replace the 11 that would continue running. The Navy claims
the plan is necessary to extend the lives of the ships into the
mid-2030s, the earliest time a replacement design could begin
to be fielded.
Without the plan, the Navy says, all its cruisers will be
worn out by the end of the 2020s.
“We can’t afford to get rid of the cruisers,” assured Sean
Stackley, the Navy’s top acquisition official, but he repeated
the Navy’s argument that the money isn’t there to upgrade all
the ships now.
Forbes and others on the committee were clearly
skeptical, repeatedly recalling that in 2013 the service asked to
get rid of seven of the ships purely for budgetary reasons, with
no plans to bring them back.
“I think a lot of people had some confidence issues that
this phased modernization was just decommissioning by
another name,” said Rep. Joe Courtney, D-Conn.
“Why would you suggest to us that we should have a
confidence level” after changing the plan, asked Forbes. “Give
me the comfort level of how you’re going to build those ships,
then modernize these ships and take them out of layup. You
don’t have the money to do that.”
About $3.5 billion is in the future years defense plan for
the modernizations, Stackley said – enough to last into 2019.
But another $5.3 billion would be needed beyond that.