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Israel's mounting alarm at Hezbollah's reported acquisition of increasing numbers of long-range missiles stems in part from concern for the security of the country's emerging infrastructure. Jane's Intelligence Review reported the Israelis are concerned that their drive to develop an energy infrastructure built around the natural gas fields recently discovered in the Mediterranean off the northern port of Haifa would be put at risk by Hezbollah's swelling arsenal. The magazine, published in Britain, said the "relatively unsophisticated nature of Hezbollah's arsenal means that the militants' ability to successfully target individual critical energy sites in and around Haifa would be limited....

Russia and Syria plan to significantly expand strategic relations in 2010. Officials said the Kremlin was discussing strategic programs with Syria during a meeting between Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Syrian President Bashar Assad. "The Russian visit will mark a sign of support for isolated Syria, which Western countries accuse of supporting terrorism, although it mainly only supports Palestinian movements," Russian professor Yelena Melkumyan said. Ms. Melkumyan, professor at the Russian State University, said Syria marked an important regional partner for Russia. She said the Assad-Medvedev visit would result in strategic cooperation between Moscow and Damascus, both of which regard...

Israel's military has determined that Syria was producing its first solid-fuel rockets. Officials said the military and intelligence community said the regime of President Bashar Assad has been producing and deploying a variant of an Iranian long-range rocket. They identified the Iranian rocket as the Fateh-110, developed by Teheran nearly a decade ago and supplied to several countries as well as the Iranian-sponsored Hizbullah. "This certainly enhances the military capability of Syria from what it was even five years ago," an official said. Syria has taken the Fateh-110 and developed an enhanced variant. Officials said the upgraded weapon, termed M-600,...

An unnamed “senior aide” to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton left classified information unsecured and unattended in a hotel room during a 2010 trip to China, one of several overseas lapses by Clinton’s inner circle, Fox News has learned. Confirmation of the alarming violation comes as Clinton herself is under a renewed FBI probe for mishandling sensitive information on a private server and her longtime senior aide, Huma Abedin, also faces scrutiny as part of the investigation. It was not known which of Clinton’s aides left the information exposed.

FBI agents in April confronted Huma Abedin with an e-mail she received in 2010 warning her that her Yahoo e-mail account — where she’d “routinely” stored State Department messages, including ones containing classified information — may have been compromised. The revelation is contained in a summary of the FBI’s interview with Abedin, conducted on April 5. Abedin told agents “she was not sure that her e-mail account had ever been compromised,” according to notes of the interview, conducted as part of the FBI’s investigation of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s unsecured and unauthorized home e-mail server. Abedin served as...

While at best, Clinton’s clean cookstove campaign seems slimy, and may be illegal, one might cast a blind eye if the program achieved its aggrandizing goals. Hillary Clinton’s “trustworthiness” problem is fed by a long history of “varying credibility,” as a recent Politico story delineated, including cattle-futures trading, law firm billing records, muddled sniper fire recollections and e-mail use. While providing pertinent points, the Politico list is just a sampling. One missing item on the “mistrust” litany is a project she reportedly cooked up as Secretary of State, but that was shaped by her family foundation. State Department staff sent...

A UK trader accused of contributing to the 2010 Wall Street "flash crash" has protested his innocence in court, saying he did not "do anything wrong". Navinder Singh Sarao, 36, has been charged with wire fraud, commodities fraud and market manipulation by the US Justice Department (DOJ). Mr Sarao denies the charges but was remanded in custody for the third time after failing to raise £5.05m in bail. His lawyers' request that bail be lowered to £50,000 was refused.

While the media is busy focusing on the troubling story of the two American soldiers detained at Guantanamo Bay for alleged espionage, both of whom had Syrian connections, another Syria story has passed them by. The names of Ahmad al Halabi, an American of Syrian descent, and Captain James Yee, a convert to Islam who spent four years in Damascus before returning to active service, are now well known. But the name of Nizar Nayouf, a Syrian journalist and human rights activist that was detained last week by French police in Paris, will most probably stay anonymous.   Nayouf?s only...

In the last few months, Lebanese terror group Hezbollah appears to have received over a hundred M600 ballistic missiles from Syria. Now, after many people scoured Google Earth satellite photos of Syria and Lebanon, looking for the weapons, something particularly interesting was found in northern Syria, outside the town of Masyaf. Google Earth users noted five compounds, that appear to be closed to all but authorized personnel. Inside these compounds there appeared to be entrances to bunkers dug into adjacent hills. In 2003, Syrian sources reported that Iraqi chemical weapons were sent to Syria, and some were storied in bunkers...

Why did Canada and the EU abandon Chen Guangcheng? (Hint: Pandas ain't free.)In December 2010, a trio of Western diplomats stationed in China -- one each from Canada, Switzerland, and the European Union -- drove from Beijing to the village of Dongshigu, eight hours away in Shandong province, hoping to visit the detained dissident Chen Guangcheng. No one has spoken publicly about what happened next. They did not mention the excursion itself, and certainly not the rough reception they received from the hands of the guards who prevented them from seeing Chen. But one person with knowledge of the incident...

When you read this, sip slowly, dust off the way-back machine, and think about those who have surfaced visibly to support Hillary Clinton. Including “retired” U.S. General John Allen (retired in 2012), who was previously brought out of retirement to lead President Obama’s fight against ISIS in 2014. In order to understand the scope of the relationships it takes understanding the full back story. Stay with it…. general john allen The question posed to the Tree House back in 2014 was: Why is the White House selecting a retired General John Allen, instead of a current commanding officer to lead...

Note: Video included. "Bin Laden's Son Is Hospitalized After He Hears His Father's Voice Omar Bin Laden Is Treated for Schizophrenia, Wife Asks for Divorce" July 9, 2010 SNIPPET: ""It's true that he was put on medication but released himself early," said a spokesman for Zeina Al Sabah, Omar's wife. The spokesman confirmed that Omar had bipolar disorder and was on anti-depressants." SNIPPET: ""Omar loves and hates Osama at the same time," she said." SNIPPET: "Omar, 29, has denounced his father's terrorist tactics and ideology. But he still maintains an emotional bond..." SNIPPET: "Much of Osama Bin Laden's family, comprising...

Israel could have engineered the release of hundreds of thousands of confidential documents on WikiLeaks as a plot to corner Turkey on both domestic and foreign policy, according to a senior ruling party official. “One has to look at which countries are pleased with these. Israel is very pleased. Israel has been making statements for days, even before the release of these documents,” Hüseyin Çelik, deputy leader of the Justice and Development Party, or AKP, and the party’s spokesperson, told reporters at a press conference Wednesday. Following initial reaction to the leaked U.S. Embassy cables, which have revealed diplomatic secrets...

A statement from the Turkish government promises “unprecedented and incalculable reprisals” against Israel for the Israeli Navy’s seizure of the Marmora, a Turkish vessel, which was leading a fleet of ships through the Gaza blockade over the weekend. The statement has received the support of Hezbollah, an arm of the Iranian government, and Hamas, the Palestinian network. Such measures will not be confined to diplomatic censure. Reports from Ankara, the capital of Turkey, state that the government, which remains under the control of the Justice and Democratic Party (Adalet ve Kalkinma, AKP), is planning to continue pounding the Israeli blockade...

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan isn’t the only loser in last Sunday’s elections. President Obama had made Erdogan a focus of his policy. The voters in that troubled NATO country voted against Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) and in so doing, slapped President Obama. President Obama went to Ankara in April, 2009, for an early edition of his Apology Tours. He spoke to the Turkish Parliament assuring deputies there that “the United States is not and never will be at war with Islam.” Every challenge that we face is more easily met if we tend to our own democratic...

As a 2010 Census watchdog, I am extremely disturbed to learn that a man so deeply involved in the Blagojevich/Obama-Senate-seat-for-sale scandal is now employed in an upper level management position by the Census Bureau in Chicago.Even if the man, Joseph Aramanda, has not been convicted (yet) of a crime, his reputation for being involved in illegal activities seriously undermines the credibility of Census Bureau operations in Chicago. In a city with corruption linked to 2010 Census advertising, the public should not have to worry that upper management positions are being filled by individuals who are directly tied to government corruption...

The AP review of Clinton's calendar — her after-the-fact, official chronology of the events of her four-year term — identified at least 75 meetings with longtime political donors and loyalists, Clinton Foundation contributors and corporate and other outside interests that were either not recorded or listed with identifying details scrubbed. The AP found the omissions by comparing the 1,500-page document with separate planning schedules supplied to Clinton by aides in advance of each day's events. The names of at least 114 outsiders who met with Clinton were missing from her calendar, the records show...

The recent release of House Benghazi Committee interview transcripts includes one from a now-retired State Department official who appears to have given inconsistent statements about his knowledge of Hillary Clinton’s email practices. During an interview with the committee last year, John Bentel, the former director of the Executive Secretariat’s information resource management division, which manages records and communications for State Department’s leadership, claimed he had no knowledge of Clinton’s use of personal email account or private server. But emails recently released by Judicial Watch — as well as findings laid out in a recent State Department inspector general’s report —...

Google in 2012 sought to help insurgents overthrow Syrian President Bashar Assad, according to State Department emails receiving fresh scrutiny this week. Messages between former secretary of state Hillary Clinton's team and one of the company's executives detailed the plan for Google to get involved in the region. "Please keep close hold, but my team is planning to launch a tool ... that will publicly track and map the defections in Syria and which parts of the government they are coming from," Jared Cohen, the head of what was then the company's "Google Ideas" division, wrote in a July 2012...

Several weeks before he massacred 49 at an Orlando gay nightclub, Muslim terrorist Omar Seddique Mateen transferred over his interest in his Florida home to his older sister and Afghan brother-in-law, property records show — an indication the family possibly had some knowledge of his martyrdom plans. Authorities say the fatally shot Mateen clearly was prepared to die in a gun battle with police during the June 12 attack, the deadliest act of terrorism on U.S. soil since 9/11. On April 5, Mateen “quit-claimed” the deed on his Port St. Lucie, Fla., house, signing it over to his sister, Sabrina...