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What is going on?? It appears that a fifth undersea communications cable has been damaged. The latest...an estimated 1.7 million Internet users in the UAE have been affected by the recent undersea cable damage. A total of five cables being operated by two submarine cable operators have been damaged with a fault in each. These are SeaMeWe-4 (South East Asia-Middle East-Western Europe-4) near Penang, Malaysia, the FLAG Europe-Asia near Alexandria, FLAG near the Dubai coast, FALCON near Bandar Abbas in Iran and SeaMeWe-4, also near Alexandria.

Russia could be sliding into dictatorship as Germany did soon after World War I, Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves has warned. "There is a mentality of being stabbed in the back that reminds me of the Weimar Republic," Mr Ilves told Russia's Moscow Times newspaper. The Weimar Republic is the name given to the German state in 1919-1933 - before Adolf Hitler's rise to power. Estonia-Russia ties have been tense since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Last year, Tallinn and Moscow had an all-out row over the relocation of a Soviet-era war memorial in the Estonian capital. Amnesty report...

It is quite possible that terror master Imad Mughniyeh was not killed Tuesday night in Damascus for his past crimes, but to prevent him from carrying out additional attacks in the future. On January 30, French security services raided a Paris apartment and arrested six Arab men. Three of the men - two Lebanese and one Syrian - were travelling on diplomatic passports. According to the Italian Libero newspaper, the six were members of a Hizbullah cell. Documents seized included tourist maps of Paris, London, Madrid, Berlin and Rome marked up with red highlighter to indicate routes, addresses, parking lots...

The leader of Hezbollah, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, has now called for revenge against Israelis and Jews around the world, for the assassination of Imad Mughniyeh, which he claims was done by Israel. It does not matter, of course, who actually pulled off the assassination. Israel and the Jews would be blamed by Hezbollah even if Syria had been responsible. Blame Israel and the Jews for everything is what Hezbollah always does. In the past, Hezbollah has taken revenge against what it claimed to be Israeli actions by murdering Jewish school children in Argentina. Once again it is threatening to attack...

DUBAI — An estimated 1.7 million Internet users in the UAE have been affected by the recent undersea cable damage, an expert said yesterday, quoting recent figures published by TeleGeography, an international research Web site. Internet data was majorly affected as it is the biggest capacity carried by the undersea cables. However, all voice calls, corporate data and video traffic were also affected. Two du experts yesterday briefed the media on the current methods being undertaken by the telecom provider to re-route the Internet traffic to provide normalcy to the users. Quoting TeleGeography and describing the effect the cuts had...

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — The Pentagon has dropped charges against a Saudi at Guantanamo who was alleged to have been the so-called "20th hijacker" in the Sept. 11 attacks, his U.S. military defense lawyer said Monday. Mohammed al-Qahtani was one of six men charged by the military in February with murder and war crimes for their alleged roles in the 2001 attacks. Authorities say al-Qahtani missed out on taking part in the attacks because he was denied entry to the U.S. by an immigration agent. But in reviewing the case, the convening authority for military commissions, Susan Crawford,...

The U.S. government has quietly withdrawn a $5 million reward it was offering for the killing or capture of Abu Ayyub al-Masri, named by Pentagon officials as the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq.

A California deputy attorney general pleaded not guilty to charges related to possession of child pornography, according to reports Thursday. Raymond Joseph Liddy was arrested Tuesday but was later released after posting a $100,000 bond. In January, an electronic service provider tipped off the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children about a user uploading an image appearing to be child porn. A similar tip was sent to the San Diego Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force about a month later and it the activity was traced to a house in Coronado in San Diego County. Federal authorities recovered 10...

Charges dropped against alleged 20th hijacker: Pentagon WASHINGTON (AFP) - The Pentagon has dropped charges against Mohammed al-Qahtani, the alleged "20th hijacker" in the September 11 attacks on the United States, a Pentagon spokesman said Tuesday. Susan Crawford, the convening authority for war crimes trials by special military commissions, gave no explanation in dropping the charges against al-Qahtani "without prejudice," said Commander Jeffrey Gordon. "They have been dismissed without prejudice, which means they can be reinstituted at any time," he said of the charges.

Howard Krongard worked his last day at the State Department recently, having learned a hard lesson in the ways of modern Congressional "oversight." To wit, if you don't follow Henry Waxman's orders, he'll try to ruin you. Comfortable after four successful decades in private life, Mr. Krongard thought he'd do a turn in public service by taking a job in 2005 as State's Inspector General, a supposedly "independent" role. Little did the political rookie realize that Congressional barons like Mr. Waxman think that the IGs work for them. In July, Mr. Krongard testified before Mr. Waxman's House oversight committee about...

The head of American intelligence said Tuesday that it is unclear whether Tehran has returned to its production of nuclear weapons in the past six months, and warned that Iran "would be technically capable of producing enough highly enriched uranium for a weapon" by the end of next year. Speaking two months after an American intelligence report cast doubt on Tehran's nuclear ambitions, National Intelligence Director John Michael McConnell made his remarks during an appearance before the Senate Intelligence Committee to present an annual report on threats to the U.S. A National Intelligence Estimate report released in December said that...

'El Chapo' and El Banco: What You Haven’t Been Told CRIME POLITICS-US media are celebrating the arrest of alleged Mexican drug kingpin Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán Loera, whose Sinaloa Cartel is thought to be the most powerful trafficker in the world and "a main combatant in a spasm of violence that has left tens of thousands dead in Mexico" (New York Times, 2/22/14). US Attorney General Eric Holder called the arrest a "landmark achievement": "The criminal activity Guzman allegedly directed contributed to the death and destruction of millions of lives across the globe through drug addiction, violence and corruption." But...

Bangladesh bank offers loans to US poor By Daniel Pimlott in New York Published: February 15 2008 Bangladesh’s Grameen Bank has made its first loans in New York in an attempt to bring its pioneering microfinance techniques to the tens of millions of people in the world’s richest country who have no bank account. The bank’s entry into the US, its first in a developed market, comes as mainstream banks’ credibility has been hit by the mortgage meltdown and many people are turning to fringe financial institutions offering loans at exorbitant interest rates.

Embattled Muslim aide to leave Pentagon job Hesham Islam's 'resume didn't add up,' official says WorldNetDaily February 11, 2008In a stunning turn of events, a high-level Muslim military aide blamed for costing an intelligence contractor his job will step down from his own Pentagon post, WND has learned. Meanwhile, his rival, Maj. Stephen Coughlin, a leading authority on Islamic war doctrine, may stay in the Pentagon, moving from the office of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the office of the secretary of defense. However, sources say a former U.S. ambassador to Turkey is trying to block...

It hasn't made much noise worldwide, but Iran's rapidly deteriorating relationships with several African countries is huge news across the continent. On February 16, the Nigerian Federal High Court in Lagos began the prosecution of an alleged member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), Azim Aghajani, and a Nigerian associate, Usman Abbas Jega. They are accused of arms smuggling. This video link is in Arabic, but is very self-explanatory. It is of the opening day of the court proceedings.The story is a classic, just one of many on the Dark Continent nowadays: In late October 2010, Nigerian intelligence officials...

Death of a ProsecutorPosted By Kenneth R. Timmerman On January 21, 2015 @ 12:35 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | 2 Comments Alberto Nisman, the Argentinean prosecutor who indicted top Iranian regime officials for the July 1994 AMIA Jewish Center bombing in Buenos Aires, was found dead by gunshot in his apartment on Sunday night, in what initially was called a suicide.Nisman was scheduled to address members of parliament the next day to reveal new information about alleged efforts by Argentinean President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner and her foreign minister, Hector Timerman, to cover up the responsibility of the Iranian regime...

Ships are not responsible for damaging undersea internet cables in the Mediterranean, Egypt's Government says. Two cables were damaged earlier this week in the Mediterranean sea and another off the coast of Dubai, causing widespread disruption to internet and international telephone services in Egypt, Gulf Arab states and South Asia. A fourth cable linking Qatar to the United Arab Emirates was damaged on Sunday causing yet more disruptions, telecommunication provider Qtel said. Egypt's transport ministry said footage recorded by onshore video cameras of the location of the cables showed no maritime traffic in the area when the cables were damaged....

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From our "eyes open" and be ready for the ME to go hot, not only are sources in Israel reporting that unofficially folks are being told to ready their safe rooms, but we now see that telecommunications cable breaks servicing that part of the world are now up to 5! "A total of five cables being operated by two submarine cable operators have been damaged with a fault in each. These are SeaMeWe-4 (South East Asia-Middle East-Western Europe-4) near Penang, Malaysia, the FLAG Europe-Asia near Alexandria, FLAG near the Dubai coast, FALCON near Bandar Abbas in Iran and SeaMeWe-4, also...

NEW DELHI (AFP) - - Another Middle East undersea Internet cable has been damaged, adding to disruption in Indian online services caused when several lines were cut earlier this week, a cable operating firm said Saturday. The Falcon cable was cut 56 kilometres (35 miles) from Dubai, between Oman and the United Arab Emirates, according to its owner FLAG Telecom, part of India's Reliance Communications. The company said on its website that a repair ship had been notified and was expected to arrive at the site in the next few days. The cause of the latest cable damage was not...