China and Russia Military Collaboration Against the West

Posted on April 2, 2018April 2, 2018 by Denise Simon

Imagine the conversations in meetings between respective military officers of these two countries. As the United States has very little in the way of remote espionage in China and due to the expulsion of U.S. diplomatic personnel from Russia, the U.S. has even less intelligence officers in and around Russia….so, what could be coming that we may soon miss?

CHINA’S EVOLVING OVERSEAS ACCESS

China is expanding its access to foreign ports to pre-position the necessary logistics support to regularize and sustain deployments in the “far seas,” waters as distant as the Indian Ocean, Mediterranean Sea, and Atlantic Ocean. In late November, China publicly confirmed its intention to build military supporting facilities in Djibouti “to help the navy and army further participate in United Nations peacekeeping operations (PKO), carry out escort missions in the waters near Somalia and the Gulf of Aden, and provide humanitarian assistance.” This Chinese initiative both reflects and amplifies China’s growing geopolitical clout, extending the reach of its influence and armed forces.

China’s expanding international economic interests are increasing demands for the PLAN to operate

in more distant seas to protect Chinese citizens, investments, and critical sea lines of communication

(SLOC).

China most likely will seek to establish additional naval logistics hubs in countries with which it has a

longstanding friendly relationship and similar strategic interests, such as Pakistan, and a precedent for hosting foreign militaries. China’s overseas naval logistics aspiration may be constrained

by the willingness of countries to support a PLAN presence in one of their ports.

So far, China has not constructed U.S. – style overseas military bases in the Indian Ocean. China’s leaders may judge instead that a mixture of preferred access to overseas commercial ports and a limited number of exclusive PLAN logistic facilities—probably collocated with commercial ports—

most closely aligns with China’s future overseas logistics needs to support its evolving naval requirements.

Preferred access would give the PLAN favored status in using a commercial port for resupply,

replenishment, and maintenance purposes. A logistics facility would represent an arrangement in

which China leases out portions of a commercial port solely for PLAN logistics operations.

Such a logistics presence may support both civilian and military operations. China’s current naval logistics footprint in the Indian Ocean is unable to support major combat operations in South Asia. A greater overseas naval logistics footprint would better position the PLAN to expand its participation in non-war military missions, such as non-combatant evacuation operations (NEO), search-and-rescue (SAR), humanitarian assistance/disaster relief (HA/DR), and sea lines of communication (SLOC) security. To some extent, a more robust overseas logistics presence may also enable China to expand its support to PKO, force protection missions, and counterterrorism initiatives.

For example, in 2015, the PLAN’s naval escort task forces performing counterpiracy escort duties in the Gulf of Aden were able to utilize Djibouti and Oman for basic resupply and replenishment. The 156 page report is here.

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Electronic attack J-16
A dedicated electronic warfare (EW) version of the Shenyang J-16 fighter completed its maiden flight on December 18 last year. The first images of the aircraft — sometimes described as the J-16D or even J-16G — reveal several changes compared to the standard J-16 fighter-bomber: most obviously, two large EW pods on the wingtips that are very similar in appearance to the AN/ALQ-218 tactical jamming receivers used by the Boeing EA-18G Growler. The aircraft also features a new, shorter radome and the standard 30mm cannon and the optical sensor in front of the starboard side of the windshield have been removed. In addition, several conformal dielectric EW arrays can be seen around the fuselage, front section (behind the radome), and intakes. Photo

In the wake of Russia’s demonstrations of advanced electromagnetic spectrum and communications jamming capabilities, most recently displayed in their incursion into Ukraine, China also is upping its game in this space, demonstrating similar capabilities in the Pacific.

The U.S. Department of Defense, in an annual report to Congress on China’s military and security developments, assessed that the country is placing greater importance upon EW, on par with traditional domains of warfare such as air, ground and maritime.

“The [People’s Liberation Army] sees EW as an important force multiplier, and would likely employ it in support of all combat arms and services during a conflict,” the 2016 report asserts. “The PLA’s EW units have conducted jamming and anti-jamming operations, testing the military’s understanding of EW weapons, equipment, and performance. This helped improve the military’s confidence in conducting force-on-force, real-equipment confrontation operations in simulated EW environments.”

According to the report, China’s EW weapons include “jamming equipment against multiple communication and radar systems and GPS satellite systems. EW systems are also being deployed with other sea- and air-based platforms intended for both offensive and defensive operations.”More here.

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Collaboration on Satellites

….uh huh…. Joint military operation locations:

Before Russia and China began their recent series of bilateral exercises, the key tie between Moscow and Beijing was arms sales and military technology cooperation — totaling about $26 billion from 1992 to 2006 — according to estimates cited in the report.

Moscow sold Beijing, “export versions of the Su-27 and Su-30 fighter, the S-300 SAM defense system, Sovermennyy-class guided missile destroyer, and Kilo-class diesel-electric submarine,” the report said, citing data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
Fears of China copying Russian systems led to a drop off in arms sales between the two countries – especially higher end weapon systems. Chinese arms manufactures are notorious for taking, modifying and reproducing weapon designs. More here.

Russia and China are planning to merge their satellite tracking systems, RT.com is reporting.

The giant system will be able to cover most of an area including China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, India and Pakistan. according to RT, the Russian-funded news outlet.

The two nations will reportedly negotiate terms of the merger in May during a conference in China.

Russia and China will be able to share data on positions of navigation satellite groups and to improve efficiency in a real-time environment, RT reported.

The merger was initiated by Chinese officials.

“If the project is implemented, it will allow for an improvement in accuracy for both systems,” a spokesman for the Russian Federal Space Agency, Roscosmos was quoted.

Japan and India are getting set for their own regional navigation satellite systems, RT reported. The system is expected to be operational by the end of the year.

U.S. Caps Money at 25% of UN Peacekeeping

Posted on March 29, 2018March 29, 2018 by Denise Simon

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For the most part, peacekeepers do not achieve the standards of their home country for military or humanitarian positions, so they are dispatched to the United Nations.

Conflicts where peacekeepers are deployed are also near countries at the top of the list.

The UN’s peacekeepers currently have operations in Western Sahara, Central African Rebpublic, Mali, Haiti, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Darfur, Syria, Cyprus, Lebanon, Abyei, South Sudan, Ivory Coast, Kosovo, Liberia and India and Pakistan.

China’s peacekeepers will form part of the “Peacekeeping Capability Readiness System”, a rapid-deployment standby force.

Its move to become one of the largest forces in the UN’s peacekeepers indicates its growing presence on the world stage, while also saying that China is a responsible power.

The UN’s current peacekeeping budget stands at £5.25bn, and its force has been implemented in 69 missions over the past 68 years. Click here to see the personnel donations from listed countries.

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US: Won’t pay over 25 percent of UN peacekeeping anymore

UNITED NATIONS — The United States will no longer shoulder more than a quarter of the multibillion-dollar costs of the United Nations’ peacekeeping operations, Washington’s envoy said Wednesday.

“Peacekeeping is a shared responsibility,” U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley said at a Security Council debate on peacekeeping reform. “All of us have a role to play, and all of us must step up.”

The U.S. is the biggest contributor to the U.N.’s 15 peacekeeping missions worldwide. Washington is paying about 28.5 percent of this year’s $7.3 billion peacekeeping budget, though Haley said U.S. law is supposed to cap the contribution at 25 percent.

The second-biggest contributor, China, pays a bit over 10 percent.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has complained before that the budget and Washington’s share are too high and pressed to cut this year’s budget. It is $570 million below last year’s, a smaller decrease than the U.S. wanted.

“We’re only getting started,” Haley said when the cut was approved in June. It followed a $400 million trim the prior year, before Trump’s administration.

Haley said Wednesday that the U.S. will work to make sure cuts in its portion are done “in a fair and sensible manner that protects U.N. peacekeeping.”

The General Assembly sets the budget and respective contributions by vote. Spokesmen for Assembly President Miroslav Lajcak and U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres declined to comment on Haley’s remarks, noting that the 193 U.N. member states will decide the budget.

Drawing over 105,000 troops, police and other personnel from countries around the world, the peacekeeping missions operate in places from Haiti to parts of India and Pakistan. Most are in African countries. The biggest is in Congo, where the Security Council agreed just Tuesday to keep the 16,000-troop force in place for another year.

Some missions have been credited with helping to protect civilians and restore stability, but others have been criticized for corruption and ineffectiveness.

In Mali, where 13,000 peacekeepers have been deployed since 2013, residents in a northern region still “don’t feel safe and secure,” Malian women’s rights activist Fatimata Toure told the Security Council on Wednesday. She said violence remains pervasive in her section of a country that plunged into turmoil after a March 2012 coup created a security vacuum.

“We have still not felt (the peacekeeping mission) deliver on its protection-of-civilians mandate,” though it has helped in some other ways, Toure said. “We feel, as civilians, that we’ve been abandoned, left to our fate.”

Peacekeeping also has been clouded by allegations of sexual abuse and exploitation. An Associated Press investigative series last year uncovered roughly 2,000 claims of such conduct by peacekeepers and other U.N. personnel around the world during a 12-year period.

Maintaining peace has become increasingly deadly work. Some 59 peacekeepers were killed through “malicious acts” last year, compared to 34 in 2016, Guterres said Wednesday. A U.N. report in January blamed many of the deaths on inaction in the field and “a deficit of leadership” from the world body’s headquarters to remote locations.

Guterres said Wednesday that the U.N. is improving peacekeepers’ training, has appointed a victims’ rights advocate for victims of sexual abuse and is reviewing all peacekeeping operations.

Still, he said, more needs to be done to strengthen peacekeeping forces and ensure they are deployed in tandem with political efforts, not instead of them. They also shouldn’t be overloaded with unrealistic expectations, he said.

“Lives and credibility are being lost,” he said. “A peacekeeping operation is not an army or a counterterrorist force or a humanitarian agency.”

Representatives from many countries also stressed a need for more focused, better prepared peacekeeping missions and more robust political peace processes.

The U.N., its member states and countries that host peacekeeping missions all “need to shoulder our responsibilities,” said Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, whose country arranged the debate as this month’s Security Council president.

Assassinations of Russians, a Trend or Long Game?

Posted on March 20, 2018March 20, 2018 by Denise Simon

A registry of foreign agents to Russia, compiled by the Justice Department, includes many of Washington’s most powerful legal, communications and lobbying firms, including Sidley Austin, Venable, APCO and White & Case. A review of those records, by the Center for Responsive Politics, found 279 registrations of Russian agents in the United States. More here.

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“Putin’s inner circle is already subject to personal U.S. sanctions, imposed over Russia’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s’ Crimea region,” the Reuters news agency points out. … “But the so-called ‘oligarchs’ list’ that was released on Tuesday … covers many
people beyond Putin’s circle and reaches deep into Russia’s business elite.”

Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev is among the 114 senior political figures in Russia’s government who made the list, along with 42 of Putin’s aides, Cabinet ministers such as Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, and top officials in Russia’s leading spy agencies, the FSB and GRU. The CEOs of major state-owned companies, including energy giant Rosneft and Sberbank, are also on the list.

So are 96 wealthy Russians deemed “oligarchs” by the Treasury Department, which said each is believed to have assets totaling $1 billion or more. Some are the most famous of wealthy Russians, among them tycoons Roman Abramovich and Mikhail Prokhorov, who challenged Putin in the 2012 election. Aluminum magnate Oleg Deripaska, a figure in the Russia investigation over his ties to former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, is included.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich dismissed the list as simply a “who’s who” of Russian politics. He told Russian news agencies Tuesday he wasn’t surprised to find his name on the list, too, saying that it “looks like a ‘who’s who’ book.” Dvorkovich stopped short of saying how Russia would react to it, saying the Kremlin would “monitor the situation.” More here.

*** So when there are murder cases of Russian asylees in Britain, what are the agencies in the United States thinking?

Putin foe shot dead on Moscow street | New York Post photo

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Litvinenko: Not first Putin critic to end up dead - CNN.com photo

Well there was Mikhail Lesin, a former friend of Putin found dead in his hotel in Dupont Circle, Washington DC. Then there was Operation Ghost Stories, the massive spy swap.

Imagine what the context and case reference is for the FBI when it comes to Russian operations in the United States and in allied countries.Or how many planes have been shot out of the sky where clues and evidence point to Russia? More explained in video below.

Beyond the attempted assassination of Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury two weeks ago, there was yet another confirmed death.

Whoever is behind the murder of a prominent Russian exile, who believed he was on a Kremlin hit list, managed to get inside his home without breaking in, police believe.

Nikolai Glushkov, 68, was found dead at home last week at his home in southwest London, and officers are now hunting for the culprits. His official cause of death is “compression to the neck.”

Before his death, Glushkov warned that a close friend of his had been murdered, and that he would be next.

In a Monday morning update on the investigation, the Metropolitan Police said they examined Glushkov’s house and found no signs of forced entry.

*** How bad is this trend?

Genocide of White Farmers in S. Africa

Posted on March 20, 2018March 20, 2018 by Denise Simon

A White Farmer Is Killed Every Five Days in South Africa and Authorities Do Nothing about It, Activists Say

Activists say South African authorities are tacitly approving attacks on the country’s white farmers, with one being murdered every five days, and the police turning a blind eye to the violence.

The white nationalist lobbying group AfriForum says that when lawmakers passed a motion last month which could see land being seized from farmers without compensation, it sent a message that landowners could be attacked with impunity.

It said there have been 109 recorded attacks so far in 2018 and 15 farm murders, meaning that this year, one white farmer has been killed every five days.

In a statement, Ian Cameron, AfriForum’s Head of Safety said: “Our rural areas are trapped in a crime war. Although the South African government denies that a violence crisis is staring rural areas in the face, the numbers prove that excessive violence plague these areas.”

Gabriel Stols, 35, told the Independent how his younger brother Kyle, 21, was shot dead by four people on a game reserve near Bloemfontein.

“What is happening to us is torture, it is slaughter, it is brutal, it is revenge. The world doesn’t know what is happening in South Africa,” he said.

Hannetjie Ludik, 56, from Pretoria, told the paper that three armed men broke into her family’s house, stole money and raped her.

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South Africa’s president Cyril Ramaphosa said the government did not condone attacks or the the seizure of white-owned farms and insisted there would be no repeat of what happened in Zimbabwe a generation ago.

But AfriForum says that the parliament’s bill has led to a culture of revenge among those spoiling for a redistribution of land in a country where some 80% of people describe themselves as black African, but only 1.2% of that community own the country’s rural land.

Julius Malema, the head of South Africa’s ultra-left Economic Freedom Fighters party (EFF), has called for land to be taken off white farmers. REUTERS/Siphiwe Sibeko

The policy was proposed by the leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), Julius Malema who says redistributing land can correct historical injustices.

While there is broader political support for the move, a more measured approach is being called for by Kenneth Meshoe, the head of the African Christian Democratic Party, who told The Independent he believes in land distribution, although he says it should not be taken without compensation

“People like Malema who are promoting hate speech should not be allowed,” he added.

Thousands of people have signed a petition asking Donald Trump to let white people in South Africa to migrate to the U.S.

Meanwhile, Australian Home Affairs Minister, Peter Dutton, said he would push for his country to grant visas to white farmers, should they be displaced.

He provocatively said that such people could be helped from “a civilized country like ours”, sparking anger from South Africa’s Foreign Ministry which called for a retraction.

The fact-checking website, Africa Check, concluded in May 2017 that getting an accurate statistic on the country’s farm murder rate, which it estimated at 0.4 murders per 100,000 people, was “near impossible”.

Gareth Newham from South Africa’s Institute for Security Studies, told the Guardian there was no evidence white farmers were targeted any more than anyone else.

*** The world is silent on this….question is why?

In 2017:

The couple, who had lived in the area for 20 years, were tied up, stabbed, and tortured with a blowtorch for several hours. The masked men stuffed a plastic bag down Mrs Howarth’s throat, and attempted to strangle her husband with a bag around his neck.

The couple were bundled into their own truck, still in their pyjamas, and driven to a roadside where they were shot. Mrs Howarth, 64, a former pharmaceutical company executive, was shot twice in the head. Mr Lynn, 66, was shot in the neck.

Miraculously he survived, and managed to flag down a passer-by early on Sunday morning. Mrs Howarth, who police said was “unrecognisable” from her injuries, had multiple skull fractures, gunshot wounds and “horrific” burns to her breasts.

“Sue was discovered amongst some trees, lying in a ditch,” writes Jana Boshoff, reporter for the local Middelburg Observer newspaper. “Her rescuers managed to find her by following her groans of pain and then noticing drag marks from the road into the field.

In any other country, such a crime would be almost unthinkable. But in South Africa, these kinds of farm attacks are happening nearly every day. This year so far, there have been more than 70 attacks and around 25 murders in similar attacks on white farmers.

Earlier this month, for example, 64-year-old Nicci Simpson was tortured with a power drill during an attack involving three men at her home on a farm in the Vaal area, about two hours drive from Johannesburg.

When paramedics arrived, they found three dead dogs, and the woman lying in a pool of blood, spokesman Russel Meiring told News24. “They used a drill to torture her,” police spokesman Lungelo Dlamini said.

Read more here.

When Napalm, Christian Persecution and Genocide are Ignored

Posted on March 12, 2018March 12, 2018 by Denise Simon

There are several human rights groups operating in the Middle East reporting on civil war and military conflict casualties. Yes, the United Nations is reporting also, including being in theater…but reporting is just reporting while people die, become sick and are displaced such as living under ground for safety as best they can.

The Violations Documentation Center in Syria has filed with evidence to the United Nations Security Council that 59 reports of napalm attacks by the Syrian government and Russian forces, resulting in 6 fatalities. Yes….NAPALM

US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis has warned Syria it would be “very unwise” to use poison gas in Eastern Ghouta amid reports of chlorine attacks.

Mr Mattis did not say President Trump would take military action, but the US struck Syria last April after a suspected gas attack in northern Syria.

Fierce fighting is continuing and the Syrian army says it has surrounded a major town in the rebel-held enclave.

More than 1,000 civilians have been reported killed in recent weeks.

The Syrian military has been accused of targeting civilians, but it says it is trying to liberate the region – the last major opposition stronghold near the capital Damscus – from those it terms terrorists.

The statistical report on deaths and casualties in Syria up to February 2018 is here.

Newsweek reports Christian deaths this way:

The persecution and genocide of Christians across the world is worse today “than at any time in history,” and Western governments are failing to stop it, a report from a Catholic organization said.

The study by Aid to the Church in Need said the treatment of Christians has worsened substantially in the past two years compared with the two years prior, and has grown more violent than any other period in modern times.

“Not only are Christians more persecuted than any other faith group, but ever-increasing numbers are experiencing the very worst forms of persecution,” the report said.

The report examined the plight of Christians in China, Egypt, Eritrea, India, Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, North Korea, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria and Turkey over the period lasting from 2015 until 2017. The research showed that in that time, Christians suffered crimes against humanity, and some were hanged or crucified. The report found that Saudi Arabia was the only country where the situation for Christians did not get worse, and that was only because the situation couldn’t get any worse than it already was.

The authors criticized the administration of President Donald Trump for not holding Saudi Arabia accountable for its human rights violations and instead focusing on the trade relationship between the two nations. In May 2017, Trump signed a $110 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia during his first overseas trip in office.

The report put special focus on Middle Eastern countries like Iraq and Syria, where the authors argued Christians would have been entirely wiped out if it weren’t for military action and the assistance of Christian humanitarian organizations, like Aid to the Church in Need.

“The defeat of Daesh [the Islamic State militant group] and other Islamists in major strongholds of the Middle East offers the last hope of recovery for Christian groups threatened with extinction,” the report found. “Many would not survive another similar violent attack.”

Relatives of Coptic Christians who were killed during a bus attack surround their coffins during their funeral service, at Ava Samuel desert monastery, in Minya, Egypt. Getty Images

The report, which was released in November 2017 but received renewed attention this week, is based on research in the countries and testimony from victims. It detailed attacks against Coptic Christians in Egypt and monasteries burned in Syria.

In Africa, the report focused on countries like Sudan, where the government ordered that churches be destroyed, and Nigeria, where ISIS-affiliated groups like Boko Haram have led a surge in attacks on Christians. In Eritrea, hundreds of Christians have been rounded up and imprisoned over the past year because of their faith.

The report also documented numerous case studies in which Christians in countries such as India and Nigeria were murdered or beaten for practicing their faith.

Indian Christians gathers at St. Teresa’s Church for the midnight Christmas mass in Kolkata, India. Getty Images

“A Christian pastor in India was left in a coma after being beaten in a ‘planned’ attack apparently carried out by Hindutva extremists,” the report noted. “Before slipping into unconsciousness, the pastor told police that the attack was religiously motivated.”

“You must never come to our village to pray. You should never enter our village,” the men told the pastor, according to the report.

In late October, Vice President Mike Pence pledged that the Trump administration would redirect aid money formerly given to the United Nations to the U.S. Agency for International Development, a move that was meant to appease Christian organizations that say the U.N. isn’t doing enough for persecuted Christians.