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China is burning through its foreign-currency reserves at such a blistering pace that the country will run down its cushion in a few months, forcing the government to wave the white flag and float the yuan, says Societe Generale global strategist Albert Edwards. "The market remains content that massive firepower remains to support the renminbi. It does not," Edwards, a perma-bear with a propensity for doom-and gloom-prognoses, said in a report published Thursday. Societe Generale, using the International Monetary Fund's rule of thumb on reserve adequacy, estimates that China's foreign-currency reserves are at 118% of the recommended level. But that...

GO PUTIN!! Top Gun fighter jet to join Syria battle By Lucas Tomlinson, Jennifer Griffin Published February 04, 2016 FoxNews.com Facebook1626 Twitter0 livefyre Email Print NOW PLAYING Syrian peace talks derailed after Russia continues bombings Never autoplay videos Russia seemingly has ignored Secretary of State John Kerry’s appeals to stop bombing civilians and allow critical humanitarian aid to starving Syrians – and is instead escalating its military involvement, deploying four of its most capable fighter jets to Syria, two defense officials confirmed to Fox News. The decision to send the Su-35S jets poses yet another hurdle for Kerry’s efforts to...

Terror threat in Europe 'as high as it's ever been,' officials say By Barbara Starr, CNN Pentagon Correspondent Updated 1943 GMT (0343 HKT) February 3, 2016 Washington (CNN)-The terror threat in Europe is at as high a level as it's ever been, a U.S. official told CNN Wednesday, and nearly 2,000 foreign fighters who went to Iraq and Syria from Europe have returned home -- with some potentially plotting new attacks. The latest European and U.S. estimates show as many as 1,900 of those foreign fighters are back in Europe after stints in Iraq and Syria, the official said. The...

In a January 29 Friday sermon delivered on Al-Aqsa TV, Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniya admitted that Hamas was digging tunnels in preparation for a military conflict with Israel. "East of the city of Gaza, there are heroes underground, digging through rocks and building tunnels," he said and added that west of Gaza, Hamas was testing missiles on a daily basis. Meanwhile, Hamas’s military wing, the 'Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam Brigades, released a video celebrating their tunnel-digging endeavors (see MEMRI TV clip 5292). Ismail Haniya: "This weapon, the weapon of the tunnels, played a crucial role in bringing about our victory....

Five Twin Cities men accused of plotting to go to fight alongside ISIL in Syria are asking a federal judge to drop murder conspiracy charges on grounds that they have "combatant immunity" under both common and international law. They say combatants are immune from criminal prosecutions for acts of war, including murder, against military targets. The five -- Hamza Ahmed, brothers Adnan and Mohamed Farah, Abdirahman Daud and Guled Omar -- are scheduled to appear in federal court in Minneapolis next week for a hearing on that and other motions in the case, which is set to go to trial...

A very unusual case of smuggling took place on Thursday, as huge quantities of gold, steroids and smart phones were found in the car of a European Union (EU) representative in Israel, as he drove into the country from Jordan. Dozens of kilograms of gold, hundreds of smartphones and a full package of steroid drugs were discovered by customs inspectors in the car as it tried to pass through the Allenby Border Crossing from Jordan, reports Channel 2. The EU diplomat was detained and later released, and his driver - an Arab resident of the northern Atarot neighborhood of Jerusalem...

Congressional Republicans vowed Thursday to kill President Barack Obama's plan to add a $10-per-barrel tax on oil production to pay for "green" transportation projects, with House Speaker Paul Ryan calling it "dead on arrival" and "an election-year distraction." "The president expects hard-working consumers to pay for his out-of-touch climate agenda," the Wisconsin Republican said. "A $10 tax for every barrel of oil produced would raise energy prices -- hurting poor Americans the most." [...] President Obama will include the plan in his budget proposal that he will present to Congress on Tuesday. The fee will be phased in over five...

President Barack Obama will propose a $10 per barrel charge on oil to fund clean transportation projects as part of his final budget request next week, the White House said Thursday. The proposal would have difficulty clearing the Republican-controlled Congress. Oil companies would pay the fee, which would be gradually introduced over five years. The government would use the proceeds to fund high-speed railways, autonomous cars and other travel systems. "By placing a fee on oil, the President's plan creates a clear incentive for private sector innovation to reduce our reliance on oil and at the same time invests in...

In a blow to hopes that Ukraine will be able to overcome a decades-long struggle with corruption and mismanagement, the country’s Western-trained economy minister resigned Wednesday, saying he had been unable to beat back corruption. Economy Minister Aivaras Abromavicius said that he had come under pressure from senior allies of the country’s president to make patronage appointments in state-owned companies and to appoint unqualified deputies who would have overseen the most lucrative industries in Ukraine. The resignation fed growing concerns from Ukraine’s allies that the country remains stuck in unscrupulous dealmaking almost two years after pro-Western protesters overthrew President Viktor...

#Russian #spetsnaz troops on top of a brand new BTR-82A armored personnel carrier in #Syria#RuAF pic.twitter.com/c1FqEjAWLO— khaled g.alkhateb (@KhaledgAlkhateb) January 29, 2016 #Russia special forces soldier in #Syria IDd as belonging to 45 #Spetsnaz Brigade recon unit https://t.co/ZNYJst2Wsc pic.twitter.com/3VlGDL7L2N— big el little ease (@elemcee69) January 30, 2016 Covert operations. Politeness wins. #russia #usa #airsoft #russianlivesmatter #evike #Spetsnaz pic.twitter.com/EesVHbYhTk— East Bloc-Восток Б (@East_Bloc) January 31, 2016Spetsnaz GRU forces with Arab prisoner

The ultra large container ship CSCL Indian Ocean grounded in Elbe river near Grunendeich. The ship was en route from Felixtowe to Hamburg at low water, while having draft of 11.50 m. The vessel got black out, losing propulsion power, which caused hitting a mud shallow and hardly grouding. The traffic on Elbe river is hampered, as large part of the shipping channel is closed by the container carrier. At the scene of the accident were dispatched 7 tugs, which should tow the ultra large container ship CSCL Indian Ocean to safe depth at high tide. The local authorities described...

PARIS (AP) -- The Belgian who led the Nov. 13 attacks on Paris bragged that he slipped into France with a group of 90 extremists from Europe and the Middle East, according to testimony from the woman who tipped police to his location. In an interview aired Thursday by RMC television and confirmed by her lawyer, the woman identified only as Sonia said Abdelhamid Abaaoud was proud of the attack that killed 130 people. ...She asked him whether he had come in with Syrian refugees and he told her he came in a group without any documents. "There are Syrians,...

Kingdom’s military campaign in Yemen also prompts all-party group to urge government to back international inquiry ___ An all-party group of MPs has called for an immediate suspension of UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia and an international independent inquiry into the kingdom’s military campaign in Yemen. The call from the international development select committee follows evidence from aid agencies to MPs warning that Saudi Arabia was involved in indiscriminate bombing of its neighbour

video surveillance

When the leaders of ISIS declared the caliphate of the Islamic State in June 2014, the world already had a strong idea of who they were: a jihadist group so violent, so barbaric, so extreme, that even al-Qaida, with whom they had once been affiliated, wanted nothing more to do with them. But as the world soon learned, it would get even worse. The founding of the Islamic State brought some of the most inhumane violence of modern civilization: captives held in cages and burned alive; beheadings captured on video and broadcast on the Internet; mass enslavement and rape of...

It is coming to light that the German government is directing journalists on what to report, and more so, what not to report, especially in light of the refugee crisis that has brought with it murder and sexual assasult. A former bureau chief of Germany's national public service broadcast said the news is to be reported to Chancellor Angela Merkel's "liking," according to Breitbart. Dr. Wolfgang Herles is the former chief at Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen and recently stated on Berlin radio that the freedom of the press in Germany is at best a "scandal" and described the closeness of the...

Russia Accuses Turkey of Preparing to Invade Syria By The Associated Press MOSCOW — Feb 4, 2016, 12:58 PM ET The Russian military said Thursday that it has "reasonable grounds" to suspect that Turkey is making intensive preparations for a military invasion of neighboring Syria. Images of a checkpoint on the border between the Turkish town of Reyhanli and the town of Sarmada in Syrian taken in late October and late January show a buildup of transportation infrastructure that could be used for moving in troops, ammunition and weapons, spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said in an English-language written statement....

A defector from China has revealed some of the innermost secrets of the Chinese government and military, including details of its nuclear command and control system, according to American intelligence officials. Businessman Ling Wancheng disappeared from public view in California last year shortly after his brother, Ling Jihua, a former high-ranking official in the Communist Party, was arrested in China on corruption charges. Ling Wancheng, the defector, has been undergoing a debrief by FBI, CIA, and other intelligence officials since last fall at a secret location in the United States, said officials familiar with details of the defection who spoke...

Sometimes a calamity is averted "by the skin of our teeth," and one just was. Last December, Congress returned to the American citizen a degree of long term security that, by some inexplicable twist, it had taken away in 2014. No, this is not about the awful Iran nuclear deal, which plainly opens up new vulnerabilities, or the stop-and-start mess surrounding Syria, Iraq and the Islamic State, so-called. This was a simpler, yet more immediate error - corrected, in the nick of time. In 2014, for reasons that remain enshrouded in mystery, possibly tied to longstanding personal antagonisms or personal...

Millions of pounds of provisions, stuffed into three-dozen 747 cargo planes, arrived here from countries around the world in recent months to service Venezuela's crippled economy. But instead of food and medicine, the planes carried another resource that often runs scarce here: bills of Venezuela's currency, the bolivar.