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(Reuters) - United Nations inspectors should be given time to determine whether forces have used chemical weapons in Syria's civil war, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in The Hague on Wednesday.

The recent article in the magazine Foreign policy ,Exclusive: CIA Files Prove America Helped Saddam as He Gassed Iran, both quotes me and attributes things to me that are inaccurate or taken out of context. While trying to correct already published articles in widely-read publications is akin to unringing a bell, I think it important to respond to correct and clarify words and actions attributed to me. While the article is technically truthful, it is nuanced and written to portray a cavalier attitude among the participants in several foreign policy initiative and intelligence operations during the last full year of...

Secretary of State John Kerry says the use of chemical weapons in Syria is "undeniable" and that the U.S. is considering how to respond:

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) – A pair of gunrunners smuggled firearms into New York City by hiding them in luggage they carried on discount buses offering cheap fares and lesser odds of getting caught, authorities said Monday. The men were captured in a police sting that netted 254 weapons in 45 transactions since last year – the largest total from a gun case in recent memory. The alleged smugglers, Walter Walker and Earl Campbell, were among 19 people arrested in New York, North Carolina and South Carolina as the result of a 10-month investigation.

As the [Japanese] government looks to keep its unprecedented stimulus on track, tensions between Tokyo and rival Beijing are heating up in the Pacific. Is the Pacific rivalry setting up the perfect storm for defense contractors in traditionally pacifist post-World War II Japan? Japan and China have rolled out the big guns recently -- or big ships, to be precise. The dispute between the two countries over the Senkaku Island chain has inflamed tensions between the governments and citizenries, resulting in an economic backlash. Auto giant Toyota has certainly felt the effects, with its sales falling 3.5% year over year...

The photo of the captured Georgian Bushmaster M4 Carbine was apparently taken in the Central Armed Forces Museum, Moscow, Russia. A reader emailed us photos be took of the many interesting firearms on display at the museum …

Audio at link. Have tin foil hat at the ready.

What kind of panic are we talking about here? Actual quote from agency “insider” communications obtained by CNN: “You don’t jeopardize yourself, you jeopardize your family as well.”The word of the day is “unprecedented.” Phony scandal no more: Since January, some CIA operatives involved in the agency’s missions in Libya, have been subjected to frequent, even monthly polygraph examinations, according to a source with deep inside knowledge of the agency’s workings…It is being described as pure intimidation, with the threat that any unauthorized CIA employee who leaks information could face the end of his or her career…Another [insider] says, “You...

New Delhi: With the United States all set to withdraw from Afghanistan, alarm bells have begun to ring in New Delhi as reports indicate that a lot of arms being used by the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) could end up with the Pakistani military. The last time Pakistan received advanced weapons from the Americans in the 1980s, it led to the eruption of a terrorism movement in Kashmir. It is understood that New Delhi’s concerns have been communicated to US vice president Joe Biden who was on a state visit here last month. India’s security establishment has been receiving...

A large amount of weapons and ammunition were seized in the northern border near Syria, the Jordanian Armed Forces said in an official statement aired on the country’s official TV Thursday. “Border guards on the northern frontier – near border city of Al-Ramtha – confiscated large quantities of weapons, ammunition and drugs,” the statement said. The Jordanian Armed Forces, meanwhile, didn’t give further details on the type of weapons that were confiscated. The people attempting to smuggle these weapons were also arrested but their identities were kept anonymous as well. In July, Jordan’s King Abdullah said the kingdom was ready...

President Ricardo Martinelli told local media that the ship, which was sailing from Cuba, contained suspected "sophisticated missile equipment". ... The ship was stopped near Manzanillo on the Atlantic side of the canal. Mr Martinelli said the authorities were checking the ship for drugs when they found the suspected weapons in containers of brown sugar. "We're going to keep unloading the ship and figure out exactly what was inside," he told local media. The 35-member crew have been detained, including the captain who the Panamanian president said tried to kill himself during the search. Security Minister Jose Raul Mulino said...

Delaware Volunteer Guard shared America's Misled Patriots status. Tuesday Interesting take on events. Seventy-two killed resisting gun confiscation in Boston BOSTON National guard units seeking to confiscate a cache of recently banned assault weapons were ambushed on April 19th by elements of a Para-military extremist faction. Military and law enforcement sources estimate that 72 were killed and more than 200 injured before government forces were compelled to withdraw. Speaking after the clash, Massachusetts Governor Thomas Gage declared that the extremist faction, which was made up of local citizens, has links to the radical right-wing tax protest movement. Gage blamed the...

Muslim Waleed Aly, (w)academic and (token) ABC host, is angry that US soldiers are fighting in ways which makes it impossible for the Taliban to kill them: [Drones] so radically and fundamentally alter the nature of war that they risk making war seem far less grave, and far easier to wage. Each side confronts the other, with the risk of death and defeat. In short, war should come at a cost. That contract is shredded when you’re attacked by something that cannot itself be killed. It’s not remotely a fair fight. A word to Aly. There is no contract of...

The supplies of French and British weapons to Syrian rebels will not only lead to the expansion of the conflict all over the region. Sooner or later these weapons will fire at Europe. The lift of embargo on arms supplies to the Syrian opposition won’t make anyone happier. Even the Syrian rebels are disappointed. Louay Safi, a spokesman with the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces said the lift of embargo was a positive step but very insignificant and belated. In his turn, Russia’s permanent envoy to NATO Alexander Grushko said that the lift of embargo would only...

Chinese hackers gained access to some of the top weapons systems in the United States military, especially those that project American power in the Pacific, according to a Pentagon report prepared by a Defense Department advisory council, a topic that President Obama’s spokesman said would be discussed at his next meeting with Chinese leaders. “I’ve seen the report,” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said during the press gaggle today. “I would refer you to the Pentagon for specifics about the potential hacking of weapon systems.

High-tech weapons may be screaming through the skies at five times the speed of sound by the middle of the next decade, U.S. military officials say. That's the most optimistic timeline for the battlefied debut of a superfast new strike capability, officials said, and it depends on continued research into hypersonic vehicles like the Air Force's X-51A Waverider, which completed its final test flight earlier this month. The Air Force is "trying to get the technologies mature enough that in the 2020 timeframe we would like to be able to show the warfighter that we would be ready to start...

Israeli officials on Saturday reportedly confirmed the Israeli Air Force carried out a strike against Syria and say it targeted a shipment of advanced missiles. The officials said the shipment was not of chemical arms, but of “game changing” weapons bound for the terror group Hezbollah. One official said the target was a shipment of advanced, long-range ground-to-ground missiles.

WASHINGTON - In the midst of the Cold War on several occasions, nuclear missiles at US Air Force bases were mysteriously shut down, according to US servicemen who said they witnessed the failure of the heavily guarded missile systems. But they don't blame America's Cold War enemy, the Soviet Union; they say aliens from space did it. "This was something Russia could have developed, but it turns out they didn't develop this and we don't have it either - to be able to shut down nuclear weapons with a beam of light," David Scott, a former sergeant in the US...

President Obama today defended his administration’s slow response to reports of chemical weapon use in Syria, in spite of his earlier promises that the use of such weapons would be considered ‘crossing a red line’. The President said at a press conference on Tuesday that ‘there is a whole host of steps that we´ve been taking’ but he did not specifically say whether his administration would be prepared to take military action against Bashar al-Assad’s regime. He said the war-torn country is ‘a blemish on the international community.’‘Generally when you use these kinds of weapons, you have the potential

<p>WASHINGTON, April 25 (Reuters) - The U.S. intelligence community assesses with varying degrees of confidence that the Syrian regime used chemical weapons on a small scale, the White House said on Thursday, adding however that such assessments were not enough and that "credible and corroborated" facts were needed.</p>