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US Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Israel on Wednesday to put additional pressure on Israel to make more concessions in land and political rights to the PLO in Judea and Samaria. To advance his current effort, Kerry brought along retired US Marine General John Allen. According to media reports, Allen presented a proposal to address Israel's security concerns and so enable the talks about Israeli land giveaways to proceed apace. The proposal involved, among other things, American security guarantees, a pledge to deploy US forces along the Jordan River, and additional US military assistance to the IDF. >>SNIP<<...

China responded on Thursday to growing international defiance of its new air-defense zone in the East China Sea both by sending advanced fighter jets to the area and trying to play down any threat of military retaliation—underlining the confusion and escalated tension over the territorial dispute. The announcement by China's air force that it had sent fighters and an early-warning aircraft to patrol the zone came just a few hours after Japan and South Korea, following the U.S.'s lead, said their military aircraft had flown into the zone without notifying Beijing over the past few days, and would continue to...

In spite of the mess the Obama Administration has made of our lives today is still a day for pausing to remember how blessed we are to be here in America the greatest country under the watchful eye of God. Think of your advantages; love your family and let this day renew your resolve to fight to keep the blessings our Founding Fathers gave us. While things are as dark and dreary as they have been in our lifetime, there is room for gratitude to God for what we have. Our prayers for deliverance from the cabal that has taken...

It isn't surprising that the US and the other five powers signed a deal with Iran on Saturday. Over the past few weeks, US President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry made it clear that they were committed to signing a deal with Iran as quickly as possible. >>SNIP<< The negotiations with the Iranians that culminated in Saturday night's agreement went on for a year. And yet, the final deal reflects Iran's opening positions. That is, over the course of the entire year, American and European negotiators were not able to move Iran's positions one iota. So what...

Once in a while, Hollywood gets it right: for example, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. As Breitbart News has already noted, it’s a distinctly dystopian take on the future, seen from the perspective of year five of the Obama era. And as with its predecessor film from last year, The Hunger Games, this new film is a big hit. As a commentary on Obama’s America, that’s all the more revealing since movie audiences tilt young. In fact, Americans aged 12-24 represent only 10 percent of the US population, although they account for nearly a third of US moviegoers. So it’s the...

The United States warned Saturday that China's military claim to airspace over a disputed island chain creates the risk of "misunderstanding and miscalculation." The creation of an "Air Defense Identification Zone" by China, which its top defense official described as an early-warning system, comes amid rising tensions between China and Japan over claims to the islands that are believed to have large oil reserves. "This unilateral action constitutes an attempt to change the status quo in the East China Sea. Escalatory action will only increase tensions in the region and create risks of an incident," U.S. Secretary of State John...

Really, what could possibly go wrong? "U.S. to Train Libyan Military, Including Islamists," by Bill Gertz for the Washington Free Beacon, November 16 (thanks to Kenneth): Simi Valley, Calif. — The U.S. military is preparing to conduct military and special operations training for Libya’s military and the training will risk including Islamist terrorists among the trainees, according to the commander of the U.S. Special Operations Command. Adm. William McRaven, the commander who helped lead the covert raid to kill al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, said in a brief interview Saturday that the counterterrorism training operation has not begun. “We’re...

**SNIP** According to the US authorities, the arrested man hacked into systems of the US Army, Nasa and the Environmental Protection Agency, among others. **SNIP** The suspected hackers allegedly placed "back doors", or code, to allow them to get back into the systems later to steal confidential information.

The long-delayed $2.3-billion aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya (Admiral Gorshkov) will be inducted into the Indian Navy by defence minister AK Antony during his Russia visit slated between November 15 and 17. The 45,000-tonne Kiev class warship, rechristened by the Navy as Vikramaditya, sailed out of the Sevmash shipyard in northern Russia in July this year for trials. After ‘sustained full-power’ trials, it will now return to the shipyard for final polish and will be ready for handover to the Navy on November 15, when the defence minister visits Russia, MoD sources said. Antony will ‘accept’ the aircraft carrier on November...

...into separate cultures as settlers spread WestYou might think you live in a nation of 50 unified states, but according to author and journalist Colin Woodard, the U.S. is a lot less united than we like to think. According to Woodard, the country is divided not by state lines but is in fact separated into 11 neatly delineated nation states where dominant cultures are explained by who their early settlers were 'and the lasting cultural fissures they established.' Woodard writes in Tufts University's alumni magazine that the original North American cultures developed in isolation from each other in distinct regions...

Israel accuses US of deceit on nuclear deal with Iran. Geneva signing drags out as Iran ups its price The interim nuclear accord negotiated directly between Washington and Tehran was already secretly in the bag before the two-day talks between Iran and the Six World powers took place in Geneva Thursday and Friday. The plan was for a ceremonial signing to take place Friday, Nov. 8, after US Secretary of State John Kerry flew in from Jerusalem and the Iranian Foreign Minister confirmed “the general outline of an agreement.” Half a dozen foreign ministers from across the globe flew into...

US Secretary of State John Kerry says the United States will provide an additional $75 million (£46 million) in aid to create Palestinian jobs and help them improve roads, schools and other infrastructure. US officials say the aid is designed to boost Palestinian public support for faltering peace talks with Israel by showing them tangible benefits from the process. Kerry announced the aid in Bethlehem, where he is meeting Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas. Kerry earlier met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem. The new aid brings the US contribution to a Palestinian infrastructure programme to $100 million (£62...

Boredom is becoming an insidious problem.Here is a re-post of an article I wrote back in 2001 or 2002 while sitting on our sailboat. She was lying at anchor and I was trying to overcome boredom. It pertains mainly to foreign places but, since the United States are coming increasingly to resemble foreign places, many of the suggestions are applicable there as well. In many places in the United States, it is necessary to learn enough of the local foreign language to get by and the article explains how to do so with ease. That will permit intimate exploration of...

President Barack Obama views lies as legitimate political tools. He uses lies strategically to accomplish through mendacity what he could never achieve through honest means. Obama lies in both domestic and foreign policy. On the domestic front, despite Obama's repeated promises that ObamaCare would not threaten anyone's existing health insurance policies, over the past two weeks, millions Americans have received notices from their health insurance companies that their policies have been cancelled because they don't abide by ObamaCare's requirements. >>SNIP<< As was the case with ObamaCare, the White House knows that most Americans won't support its policy of doing nothing...

What is Echelon? A global network of electronic spy stations that can eavesdrop on telephones, faxes and computers. It can even track bank accounts. This information is stored in Echelon computers, which can keep millions of records on individuals. Officially, however, Echelon doesn't exist. Although evidence of Echelon has been growing since the mid-1990s, America flatly denies that it exists, while the UK government's responses to questions about the system are evasive.

WASHINGTON – US State Department Spokesperson Jen Psaki responded Wednesday to Israel's announcement of building 1,500 units in east Jerusalem saying "We do not consider continued settlement activity or east Jerusalem construction to be steps that create a positive environment for the negotiations." At no time in the course of pursuing negotiations toward a two-state solution have we condoned settlement activity or east Jerusalem construction," she added. Psaki stressed the importance of the peace talks and the need to resolve the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. She added that releasing prisoners is a difficult but necessary step to guarantee an...

U.S. and Afghan politicians are in the middle of a heated debate over whether a small American and NATO force will remain in Afghanistan at the end of next year. But what's a political and strategic question at the negotiating table is an emotional question at bases around Afghanistan, where soldiers watch the discussions with one eye on their sacrifices over the past 12 years and the other on the American withdrawal from Vietnam four decades ago. In short, they don't want to go home without the win. After repeated combat tours, an untold number of divorces and nearly 2,300...

If you happen to be in Washington, DC, between now and January, you can see a piece of Jewish history that was never supposed to see the light of day. The National Archives is now exhibiting restored holy books and communal documents that belonged to the Jewish community of Iraq. In 1940, the Iraqi Jewish community numbered 137,000 people. Jews made up more than a quarter of the population of Baghdad. A 2,500-year-old community, Iraq had for centuries been a major center of Jewish learning. The Babylonian Talmud was written there. The rabbinical academies in Karbala and Baghdad were considered...

PARIS — France and Mexico have angrily demanded prompt explanations from the United States over new spying allegations leaked by former US security contractor Edward Snowden. French daily Le Monde and German weekly Der Spiegel said in separate reports published Monday that the US National Security Agency (NSA) secretly monitored tens of millions of phone communications in France and hacked into former Mexican president Felipe Calderon’s email account. The allegations come on top of revelations already leaked by Snowden and published in June that the US had a vast, secret program called PRISM to monitor Internet users, which French prosecutors...

LUXEMBOURG: France called in the US ambassador on Monday to protest at allegations in Le Monde newspaper about large-scale spying on French citizens by the US National Security Agency, French foreign minister Laurent Fabius said. "I have immediately summoned the US ambassador and he will be received this morning at the Quai d'Orsay (the French Foreign Ministry)," Fabius told reporters at a European Union foreign ministers' meeeting in Luxembourg.