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WASHINGTON — The final ground-based interceptor for the Ground-based Midcourse Defense system — designed to protect the homeland from intercontinental ballistic missiles threats from North Korea and Iran — is now in place at Fort Greely, Alaska, the U.S. Missile Defense Agency has confirmed.
“MDA and Boeing emplaced the 44th interceptor in its silo at the Missile Defense Complex at Ft. Greely on Thursday, Nov. 2,” the agency said in a statement sent to Defense News.
The agency planned to have all 44 required interceptors in the ground and ready to respond to threats by the end of 2017. The Pentagon and the MDA have indicated in recent months a serious move to build up beyond 44 interceptors. In September, the Pentagon proposed reprogramming $136 million in fiscal 2017 to start raising the number of ground-based interceptors from 44 to 64 in a new Missile Field 4 at Fort Greely. The boost was part of a $416 million reprogramming request targeting missile defense needs. And the White House submitted a supplemental budget request for FY18 on Nov. 6 that asked for further funding to increase the number of ground-based interceptors by 20 and to build an additional missile field at the Alaska base.
While the left is quick to blame President Trump on the matter of a nuclear North Korea, including Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard and those in Hollywood, Kim Jung Un has been collaborating and testing nuclear weapons and missiles long before Trump entered the White House. They omit the fact that in the last 8 years, Obama did nothing….NOTHING.
Americans can travel to North Korea, if they wish — but it may just be a death wish, the U.S. State Department cautioned.
The State Department last week issued a stark warning to people setting out for the Hermit Kingdom, cautioning that anyone heading to the dangerous dictatorship should prepare for the possibility of not returning.
“The U.S. government is unable to provide emergency services to U.S. citizens in North Korea as it does not have diplomatic or consular relations with North Korea,” the State Department published Wednesday on its website.
Those who wish to travel to North Korea must be approved for a special validation, which are handed out on “very limited circumstances.” U.S. travelers given the approval to experience Kim Jong Un’s regime should then prepare for the worst — including drafting a will and making funeral and property arrangements with family and friends.“Draft a will and designate appropriate insurance beneficiaries and/or power of attorney; discuss a plan with loved ones regarding care/custody of children, pets, property, belongings, non-liquid assets (collections, artwork, etc.), funeral wishes, etc.,” according to the recommendations. More here.
“On December 28, there was a large number of personnel (~100 to 120) observed in seven different formations whose purpose is unknown in the Southern Support Area,” it adds.
“It is rare to observe personnel in this area,” the report says.
The report concludes that such activities “underscore North Korea’s continued efforts to maintain the Punggye-ri site’s potential for future nuclear testing.”
News of apparent active nuclear test site comes just days after North Korean officials met with South Korean officials for the first time in more than two years. More here.
Meanwhile there is the matter of the false alarm in Hawaii….
Hawaii Gov. David Ige claimed Saturday that alert was the result of an official simply “[pressing] the wrong button” during an employee shift change, but broader questions remain. Why didn’t I get the notification here in San Diego, well within the range of intercontinental ballistic missiles that North Korea has tested in recent months? And assuming you weren’t lucky enough to be on a beach in Hawaii when the alert went out, why didn’t the average U.S. citizen receive one where they live?
To understand today’s scare, it’s important to understand how our national emergency alert system functions. The National Incident Management System (NIMS) is the systematic approach laid out by the federal government for departments and agencies at all levels of government, nongovernmental organizations, and the private sector to prevent, respond to, recover from, and mitigate any and all kinds of incidents, no matter the size or scope. NIMS dictates that the initial authority for disaster response resides at the county level, so that’s where most Mass Notification Systems that participate in the Emergency Alert System network reside.
The Emergency Alert System network is layered between federal, state, county, and local authorities through a system called the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS) and controlled through the IPAWS Program Management Office at FEMA. The IPAWS PMO encourages partners to regularly test public alert and warning systems; in fact, the IPAWS Modernization Act of 2015, ratified in April 2016, requires IPAWS PMO to test the system not less than once every three years.
All systems compatible with IPAWS use the Common Alerting Protocol, an international standard, to send public alerts and warnings between systems and jurisdictions. State and local agencies, like Hawaii’s Emergency Management Agency (HI-EMA), have their own systems, produced by a variety of manufacturers, to alert the public when a natural or manmade disaster is occurring or imminent. These mass notification systems use a variety of mediums to communicate danger to wide (or very narrow) swaths of people: they’re capable of desktop alerts, text messaging, reverse 9-1-1, email, Wireless Emergency Alerts, announcement or siren over a loudspeaker, and more. All systems in use on bases, municipalities, and other agencies are IPAWS compatible but not all can send information two-way; most of the bases operate in a receive-only manner.
These systems, the modern version of the CONELRAD (Control of Electromagnetic Radiation) method of emergency broadcasting established in 1951 at the outset of the Cold War, are powerfully effective in their ubiquity and power. Mass notification systems happen to be excellent tools for public awareness, and required testing can take any form. On many military bases, for example, the systems are tested each morning and night by using loudspeakers to play colors. Pretty smart, eh?
The specific kind of alert that Hawaiians received while they slept in or ate breakfast this morning was a Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA). WEAs use a different technology than voice calls or text messages and can only be used in three situations: 1. Alerts issued by the President; 2: Alerts involving imminent threats to safety or life; or 3: Amber Alerts. Participating carriers may block all but Presidential alerts.
The good news about WEAs are that they are location specific: even if you happened to be a tourist visiting Hawaii this morning, you would’ve received the alert (so long as your carrier participates). Carriers who do not participate are required to notify consumers, but the major carriers have all opted in. But the big problem, obviously, is that they’re more subject to human error than their military counterparts.
Now, civilian agencies probably don’t have the capability to detect ballistic missile launches, so in a real-life incident that message would have to come from the military, likely U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM) headquartered right there in Hawaii. PACOM would notify their base Emergency Operations Center (EOC) who would pass it up to the Regional EOC. Of note, the bases usually don’t have control of the WEA tech and can notify only those registered in their systems (but can receive all IPAWS notifications). Because of that, the base or regional EOC would have to notify Hawaii EMA for transmission. That didn’t happen today because there wasn’t a ballistic missile inbound.
The governor of Hawaii claims that during a shift change, an operator simply hit the wrong button. Well, it doesn’t exactly work that way. These alerts are not actuated by physically pushed buttons because the number of buttons that would require, for all of the different types of alerts, would be unwieldy. An operator would either type in the desired alert (or select from canned messages), select which communications mediums they’d like to use and the populations they’d like to alert, and then hit “send” and then again confirm that they really want to send that message. The canned messages might be available as electronically selectable on a computer screen (like a Windows button) but a “confirm” dialogue would still be required.
Time will tell what really happened, but as a Certified Emergency Manager (CEM) who helped set up the Mass Notification System for a major military base, I know that what likely occurred was a serious breach in procedure at Hawaii EMA. The authority who issued today’s alert and then took 40 minutes to send a retraction on WEA. PACOM immediately released a message saying that there was no threat, so why didn’t Hawaii EMA immediately send a retraction via WEA? There are serious implications associated with false alerts. What happens when an alert about a tsunami, wildfire, or active shooter are real and people ignore them?
Maybe we were hacked, as some have alleged, but probably not. No matter what happened, someone must be held accountable for this egregious breach of professionalism — and that person is almost definitely sitting at HI-EMA. Let’s hope that this scare motivates agencies across the nation to take a look at their own procedures. And let’s hope Gov. Ige holds his team accountable. Hat tip.
Abu Hamza was once deeply affiliated with the Finsbury Park mosque including raising funds for jihad there. Born Mustafa Kamel Mustafa in Alexandria, Egypt, on 15 April 1958, Abu Hamza was the son of a naval officer and a primary school headmistress. He initially studied civil engineering before leaving for England in 1979. More here.
A trustee at one of London‘s best-known mosques is a senior member of ‘terrorist organisation’ Hamas’s political wing, it was reported.
Mohammed Sawalha holds the role of trustee at Finsbury Park Mosque in north London, which was formerly linked to extremism but which insists it has since undergone an ‘complete overhaul’.
It emerged today that Mr Sawalha represented the militant Palestinian organisation Hamas at recent talks in Moscow.
Sawalha, who lives in London, was appointed a trustee of the mosque in 2010 and is legally responsible for overseeing the mosque’s management, The Times reported. More here.
He was one of five senior figures from the Islamist organisation who were sent to Moscow in September, where they met Russia’s deputy foreign minister Mikhail Bogdanov and other Kremlin officials.
ABU Hamza’s son, Sufyan Mustafa, has said he will fight to return to his life in Britain after the Government stripped him of his passport, leaving him in war-torn Syria. In 2012, Imran Mostafa, another of Hamza’s sons was jailed for his role in a jewellery heist in Norfolk.
Abu Hamza, Britain’s most notorious hate preacher, says militant contacts in Afghanistan called him four days before the 9/11 attacks to warn: “Something very big will happen very soon.”
The hook-handed cleric says he interpreted the message as being about an impending terrorist strike on America and believes the phone at his west London home was being “tapped” by police at the time.
His claim raises questions about whether British authorities were aware of the warning and failed to pass it on to their American counterparts before al-Qaeda operatives flew hijacked jets into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in September 2001.
Details of the phone call are revealed in American court papers, seen by The Sunday Times, which also reveal that Abu Hamza acted as an agent for MI5 and Special Branch under the code name “Damson Berry”. The former imam of Finsbury Park mosque in north London is appealing against his conviction for terrorist offences and his “inhuman” incarceration at an American“supermax” prison.
In a 124-page handwritten submission, Abu Hamza says he has been singled out and “punished” since 9/11. He writes in broken English: “What made pro-war governments and intelligence [agencies on] both sides of the Atlantic more furious about the defendant [Abu Hamza is] that defendant received a call from Afghanistan on Friday, Sept 7, 2001, from 2 of his old neighbours in his Pakistan time (1991-93) saying ‘Something very big will happen very soon’ (meaning USA).”
Abu Hamza denies the call came from al-Qaeda figures, but says he thought “this news is widely spread and everyone is phoning friends . . . the intelligence [agencies] of many countries must have had an earful about it”.
The preacher’s claim could not be independently corroborated this weekend, but his standing in extremist circles makes it plausible.
In 2016, it was Russia dropping the barrel bombs on Aleppo and Homs.
Warplanes from Russia’s lone aircraft carrier and a missile frigate struck targets in Syria on Tuesday, bombing areas southwest of the embattled city of Aleppo, as Syrian government aircraft renewed barrel bomb attacks on the city itself.
The first-ever Russian strikes from the Mediterranean-based carrier Admiral Kuznetsov were described by the Kremlin on Tuesday as targeting extremists in Idlib and Homs provinces. More here.
Now that Aleppo, Idlib and Homs are for the most part ghost towns, people that fled to Idlib and Ghouta are being killed by even more Russian barrel bombs.
The war in Syria is forgotten by the West and that is shameful. What the media is ignoring is reporting on the never ending war and suffering. Why is this an issue? Because the United States is still in Syria.
The U.S.-led coalition is working with its Syrian militia allies to set up a new border force of 30,000 personnel, the coalition said on Sunday, a move that has added to Turkish anger over U.S. support for Kurdish-dominated forces in Syria.
A senior Turkish official told Reuters the U.S. training of the new “Border Security Force” was the reason that the U.S. charge d‘affaires was summoned in Ankara last week, and President Tayyip Erdogan’s spokesman said the development was worrying and unacceptable.
The force, whose inaugural class is currently being trained, will be deployed at the borders of the area controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) – an alliance of militias in northern and eastern Syria dominated by the Kurdish YPG. More here.
Meanwhile, as Russia has become a full time military occupier in Syria, Foreign Minister Lavrov is yelling squirrel and blaming the United States for destroying peace globally. Yup..imagine that. He has a full list of grievances against the United States.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has accused the United States of destabilizing the world, airing a list of grievances over the Trump administration’s foreign policy.
Lavrov dedicated the opening of his annual press conference Monday to castigating the US, which is expected to soon issue a fresh round of sanctions against Russia over its interference in the 2016 US election. Russia has long denied meddling in the vote.
Lavrov criticized the US for issuing regular “threats” in relation to events in North Korea and Iran, saying they had “further destabilized” the global situation.
He did not mention President Donald Trump by name, but the US President has issued stern threats to North Korea and Iran, sending a series of fiery Twitter posts attacking the leadership in both nations.
Trump has openly ridiculed North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Twitter over Pyongyang’s missile and nuclear testing and threatened military intervention. He recently lambasted the Iranian leadership for being repressive, “brutal and corrupt,” and supported anti-government protesters challenging the government in six days of rallies.
Lavrov accused the US of provoking tensions on the Korean peninsula.
“The United States quite plainly says that the military confrontation is inevitable, however, everyone understands the catastrophic consequences of such recklessness,” he said.
He also criticized the US for expanding its military exercises around North Korea, “which provoked a new escalation of tensions,” while others were working through diplomatic channels to resume talks with Pyongyang.
Lavrov warned the US not to back out of the Iran nuclear deal. Trump had vowed to tear up the 2015 agreement, brokered by the Obama administration, alongside several European allies, Russia and China. The deal obliges Iran to restrict its nuclear program in exchange for eased sanctions.
Trump signed a waiver on Iran sanctions Friday under the deal, but signaled that he would not do so again. He has been under pressure from foreign allies and, according to US officials, his own national security team to stick to the deal.
Lavrov said that US threats to walk away from the deal would undermine any future agreement with North Korea.
“It’s sad that United States once again gives a reason to doubt their ability to be reliable contract partners,” he said.
“And if this agreement is being taken aside and Iran is being told — you stay within the frame of agreements but we will return the sanctions — well, put yourself in place North Korea’s place. They are being promised that sanctions will be lifted if they say no to their nuclear program, what if they do it but sanctions are still there?”
Relations between Moscow and Washington deteriorated in 2017, as several US investigations into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 election got underway. The US tightened sanctions against Russia and closed several of its diplomatic compounds in the country, while Moscow forced the US to cut back on its diplomatic staff in Russia.
Lavrov laughed when CNN asked if he regretted Trump’s ascension to the presidency, given the diplomatic tumult, and whether he might now prefer it if Hillary Clinton had won the election.
“This is not what diplomats do — regret something that has happened. We work with facts, and facts are what we have today, so we just do what needs to be done to advance Russia’s interests under the current circumstances,” he responded.
US officials have not publicly responded to Lavrov’s comments.
Primer: December 15, 2015/Former Russian Nuclear Energy Official Sentenced to 48 Months in Prison for Money Laundering Conspiracy Involving Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Violations
Former President of Maryland-Based Transportation Company Indicted on 11 Counts Related to Foreign Bribery, Fraud and Money Laundering Scheme
Executive Allegedly Paid Bribes to a Russian Official So His Company Could Win Highly Sensitive Nuclear Fuel Transportation Contracts
An indictment against a former co-president of a Maryland-based transportation company that provides services for the transportation of nuclear materials to customers in the United States and abroad, was unsealed today for his alleged role in a scheme that involved the bribery of an official at a subsidiary of Russia’s State Atomic Energy Corporation.
Acting Assistant Attorney General John P. Cronan of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, Acting U.S. Attorney Stephen M. Schenning of the District of Maryland, Principal Deputy Inspector General April G. Stephenson of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Inspector General (DOE-OIG) and Assistant Director in Charge Andew W. Vale of the FBI’s Washington, D.C. Field Office made the announcement.
Mark Lambert, 54, of Mount Airy, Maryland, was charged in an 11-count indictment with one count of conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and to commit wire fraud, seven counts of violating the FCPA, two counts of wire fraud and one count of international promotion money laundering. The charges stem from an alleged scheme to bribe Vadim Mikerin, a Russian official at JSC Techsnabexport (TENEX), a subsidiary of Russia’s State Atomic Energy Corporation and the sole supplier and exporter of Russian Federation uranium and uranium enrichment services to nuclear power companies worldwide, in order to secure contracts with TENEX.
The case against Lambert is assigned to U.S. District Court Judge Theodore D. Chuang of the District of Maryland.
According to the indictment, beginning at least as early as 2009 and continuing until October 2014, Lambert conspired with others at “Transportation Corporation A” to make corrupt and fraudulent bribery and kickback payments to offshore bank accounts associated with shell companies, at the direction of, and for the benefit of, a Russian official, Vadim Mikerin, in order to secure improper business advantages and obtain and retain business with TENEX. In order to effectuate and conceal the corrupt and fraudulent bribe payments, Lambert and others allegedly caused fake invoices to be prepared, purportedly from TENEX to Transportation Corporation A, that described services that were never provided, and then Lambert and others caused Transportation Corporation A to wire the corrupt payments for those purported services to shell companies in Latvia, Cyprus and Switzerland. Lambert and others also allegedly used code words like “lucky figures,” “LF,” “lucky numbers,” and “cake” to describe the payments in emails to the Russian official at his personal email account. The indictment also alleges that Lambert and others caused Transportation Corporation A to overbill TENEX by building the cost of the corrupt payments into their invoices, and TENEX thus overpaid for Transportation Corporation A’s services.
In June 2015, Lambert’s former co-president, Daren Condrey, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to violate the FCPA and commit wire fraud, and Vadim Mikerin pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering involving violations of the FCPA. Mikerin is currently serving a sentence of 48 months in prison and Condrey is awaiting sentencing. The indictment includes allegations against Lambert based on his role in effectuating the criminal scheme with Condrey, Mikerin, and others.
The charges in the indictment are merely allegations, and the defendant is presumed innocent unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.
The case is being investigated by DOE-OIG and the FBI. Assistant Chiefs Ephraim Wernick and Christopher J. Cestaro and Trial Attorney Derek J. Ettinger of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section, as well as Assistant U.S. Attorneys David I. Salem and Michael T. Packard of the District of Maryland, are prosecuting the case.
The Criminal Division’s Office of International Affairs has provided significant assistance in this matter. The Department also thanks its law enforcement colleagues in Switzerland, Latvia and Cyprus for providing valuable assistance with the investigation and prosecution of the case.
The Criminal Division’s Fraud Section is responsible for investigating and prosecuting all FCPA matters. Additional information about the Justice Department’s FCPA enforcement efforts can be found at www.justice.gov/criminal/fraud/fcpa.
“In addition, the Russian Government has impeded our diplomatic operations by, among other actions — forcing the closure of 28 American corners which hosted cultural programs and English-language teaching; blocking our efforts to begin the construction of a new, safer facility for our Consulate General in St Petersburg; and rejecting requests to improve perimeter security at the current, outdated facility in St Petersburg.” Some additional actions and those expelled include:
Two Russian intelligence agencies, the GRU and the FSB, four GRU officers and three companies “that provided material support to the GRU’s cyber operations”.
The White House named Igor Valentinovich Korobov, the current chief of the GRU; Sergey Aleksandrovich Gizunov, deputy chief of the GRU; Igor Olegovich Kostyukov, a first deputy chief of the GRU; and Vladimir Stepanovich Alexseyev, also a first deputy chief of the GRU. The Obama Executive Order is here.
Russia’s Oligarchs Brace for U.S. List of Putin Friends
(Bloomberg) — The U.S. Treasury Department is finishing its first official list of “oligarchs” close to President Vladimir Putin’s government, setting off a flurry of moves by wealthy Russians to shield their fortunes and reputations.
Some people who think they’re likely to land on the list have stress-tested the potential impact on their investments, two people with knowledge of the matter said. Others are liquidating holdings, according to their U.S. advisers.
Russian businessmen have approached former Treasury and State Department officials with experience in sanctions for help staying off the list, said Dan Fried, who previously worked at the State Department and said he turned down such offers.
Some Russians sent proxies to Washington in an attempt to avoid lobbying disclosures, according to one person that was contacted.
The report is expected to amount to a blacklist of Russia’s elite. It was mandated by a law President Donald Trump reluctantly signed in August intended to penalize the Kremlin for its alleged meddling in the 2016 election.
A rare piece of legislation passed with a bipartisan veto-proof margin, the law gave Treasury, the State Department and intelligence agencies 180 days to identify people by “their closeness to the Russian regime and their net worth.”
That deadline is Jan. 29.
Shamed Oligarchs
The list has also become a headache within Treasury, where some officials are concerned it will be conflated with sanctions, a person familiar with the matter said.
Treasury officials are considering keeping some portions of the report classified — which the law allows — and issuing it in the form of a letter from a senior official, Sigal Mandelker, instead of releasing it through the Office of Foreign Assets Control, which issues sanctions.
That would help distinguish it from separate lists of Russians subject to U.S. economic penalties, said the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
“You’re going to have people getting shamed. It’s a step below a sanction because it doesn’t actually block any assets, but has the same optics as sanctions — you’re on a list of people who are engaged in doing bad things,” said Erich Ferrari, who founded Ferrari & Associates in Washington and has helped people get removed from the sanctions designation list.
Corruption Index
The report must include “indices of corruption” with the oligarch’s names and list any foreign assets they may own. Lawmakers expect the list to provide a basis for future punitive actions against Russia.
“Because of the nervousness that the Russian business community is facing, a number of oligarchs are already beginning to wind back businesses, treating them as if they are already designated, to stay ahead of it,” said Daniel Tannebaum, head of Pricewaterhousecoopers LLP’s global financial sanctions unit.
He advises a handful of wealthy Russian individuals and some businesses who he declined to identify.
Treasury’s terrorism and financial intelligence unit is working with the State Department and Office of National Intelligence to complete the report, said a spokesman who declined to elaborate on the criteria for the list or whether it would be made public.
“It should be released in the near future,” Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said at a White House briefing. ‘It’s something we’re very focused on.”
‘Allows Mischief’
The list’s impact will depend on how it’s released, said Adam Smith, a former senior adviser in Treasury’s sanctions unit and now a partner at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP in Washington.
The law is “written in a way that it allows mischief if the administration wanted to go a different way,” Smith said. “If the president wanted to provide little or a lot and be very selective, he has the ability to do that.”
That discretion partly flows from the criteria used to assemble the list, which Congress left up to Treasury.
Senator Ben Cardin of Maryland, the ranking Democrat on the committee on foreign relations, said he would like to see “as much transparency as possible” from Treasury when it finishes the list.
Russia has sought to defend its elites. Putin warned of worsening U.S. sanctions last month and introduced a capital amnesty program to encourage wealthy nationals to repatriate some of their overseas assets.
He also approved a plan to issue special bonds designed to give the wealthy a way to hold their dollar assets out of reach of the U.S. Treasury.
‘Disgusting’ Relations
While compilation of the list doesn’t mean there’ll be a new round of tit-for-tat sanctions, Russia will react to any punitive measures against its business people, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a conference call Friday.
“The principle of reciprocity remains,” and it would be for Putin to decide on the best response, he said.
Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, a Putin lieutenant for two decades, called the state of the relationship “disgusting” in November.
Congress has also requested that Treasury submit an impact analysis of potential sanctions on Russian sovereign bonds. A Treasury spokesman said its international affairs office is working on the analysis.
U.S. sanctions on the bonds would deal a major blow to Russia’s finances, raising the prospect of a selloff in the bond market, posing a risk to the ruble and the potential for higher borrowing costs.
The Russian Finance Ministry relies on debt to cover budget shortfalls and is seeking to borrow $18 billion domestically in 2018.
