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Cambridge Analytica comes under Russia probe investigation

Betsy Woodruff, Spencer Ackerman
Daily Beast
Wed, 11 Oct 2017 03:30 UTC
trumpshake hand
© Business InsiderTrump campaign hires Cambridge Analytica.
A data firm backed by some of Donald Trump's closest allies is now facing scrutiny as part of an investigation into possible collusion between the president's team and Russian operatives, The Daily Beast has learned.

The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) is looking at Cambridge Analytica's work for President Donald Trump's campaign as part of its investigation into Russian efforts to meddle in the 2016 race, according to sources familiar with the probe.

The company is in the process of turning over documents to HPSCI, according to a source familiar with the committee's work. Another source close to the investigation said that the probe's focus on Cambridge Analytica is "fruitful."
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Rocket

With no problems purchasing S-400, Erdogan now hints at acquiring S-500


RT
Fri, 13 Oct 2017 19:09 UTC
S-400 missile launchers
© Ministry of Defence of the Russian FederationLaunchers for the anti-aircraft missile S-400 "Triumph" system complex.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said there was no problem with the purchase of Russian S-400 anti-aircraft systems, adding that Ankara also held talks on the S-500, a THAAD-type system, currently under development.

"In our talks with [Russia President Vladimir] Putin we are not thinking of stopping with the S-400s. We have had talks on the S-500s too," Erdogan said, speaking to reporters as he returned from a trip to Ukraine and Serbia, as cited by Habertürk newspaper and Reuters.

According to the Turkish president, there won't be any joint production in the first stage of S-400 purchases.

"...but in the second stage, God willing, we will take joint production steps," Erdogan said.

Earlier in October, Russia confirmed that it received an advance from Turkey for the state-of-the-art S-400.

Comment: Perhaps the lack of interoperability is precisely what Erdogan wants. Remember the Russian Su-24 incident from back in 2015?

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Magnify

Iranian general compares Trump to ISIS leader Baghdadi as his 'American twin'


RT
Wed, 11 Oct 2017 16:50 UTC
Baghdadi-Trump
© News.com.au/Politiscope/KJN
A senior Iranian general has called the US president the 'American twin' of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, responding to rumors that the Trump administration is considering designating the Iranian Revolutionary Guards as terrorists.

Both Trump and Al-Baghdadi display "lack of trust in all principles and regulations of diplomacy and sovereignty in today's world," Brigadier General Rasoul Sanayee Rad, deputy commander for political affairs of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), wrote in an opinion piece quoted by the IRGC outlet Basirat.

One is building a caliphate and the other is invading other countries, the Iranian general argued.

"Using the logic of threat and force in order to advance their objectives, and reliance on their bullying and tyrannical temperament" was another item on Rad's list.

"One of them is propped up by terrorists, and the other by extremist hawks, and both are being used as instruments to trigger chaos and instability," the general continued.

Rad also compared Trump's consideration of designating IRGC as a terrorist organization with Baghdadi's labelling of Iranians as "infidels and disbelievers."

"Trump's historic mistake, too, has prompted the IRGC commander to say that he will regard the US as a follower of ISIS in the region if Washington puts the IRGC on its terror list," Rad said.

Comment: The current global 'war of words' traces back to one particular source: Trump -- disturbing and not particularly productive.
See also:

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Laptop

Hacked: Sensitive data on Aussi F-35s and newest spy jets


RT
Thu, 12 Oct 2017 13:47 UTC
Aussi F-35
© AFPRoyal Australian Air Force F-35
Some 30 gigabytes of defense-related data covering fifth-generation F-35 fighter jets as well as Australia's newest warships and spy planes has been stolen by a mystery hacker, local media reports citing a top cyber intelligence official.

The hacker, nicknamed "Alf" after the 'Home and Away' character played by Ray Meagher, breached a defense contractor's database containing 30GB of files on some of the West's most secretive and modern military programs, an official of the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD), the government's main cyber intelligence agency, said on Wednesday, the Sydney Morning Herald reports.

The story was initially reported by a freelance journalist nicknamed Stilgherrian and published on the website zdnet.com.

Michael Clarke, an ASD incident response manager, told an information security conference in Sydney the perpetrators hacked into a small aerospace engineering company with about 50 employees, in July 2016. He said the company "had a significant amount of data stolen ... and most of that data was defense-related." Some of the files related to the US International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), which control the transfer of military-use technology and verify defense exports. Describing the breach, the official claimed it was "extensive and extreme," ABC reports.

Comment: The weak link...any small enterprise naive of protection with data of interest. Watch security protocols tighten forcing small businesses off the map.

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Nuke

Pelosi calls for no-first-use nuclear weapons law - existing policy out of date, dangerous

Lauretta Brown
Townhall
Fri, 13 Oct 2017 19:11 UTC
Pelosi
© Joshua Roberts / ReutersHouse Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) called for revisiting U.S. policy on nuclear weapons in her press briefing Thursday.

"There is interest in the U.S. establishing itself as no first use, no first nuclear use," she told reporters, saying it would be a bipartisan effort. She said the first use policy was established in 1946 when it was "a different world" and the idea of changing it has been around for a while.

"I put this in the category of urgent," she said. "We take an oath to protect and defend, and the law under which the president of the United States has authority to exercise first use is one that is ancient."

"There are all kinds of proposals out there, one saying, declaring the United States of America will not engage in first use of a nuclear weapon," she continued. "I like that one best."

She said there were other proposals requiring the president to get the advice of those in his cabinet before launching a nuclear first strike.

Comment: Pelosi's right about this one.

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Bomb

Flashback Israel's ecstatic dream: Bombing Iran into oblivion

Jacob Heilbrunn
The National Interest
Wed, 11 Aug 2010 19:02 UTC
Trump Iran deal
"Another question Israeli planners struggle with: how will they know if their attacks have actually destroyed a significant number of centrifuges and other hard-to-replace parts of the clandestine Iranian program? Two strategists told me that Israel will have to dispatch commandos to finish the job, if necessary, and bring back proof of the destruction. The commandos - who, according to intelligence sources, may be launched from the autonomous Kurdish territory in northern Iraq - would be facing a treacherous challenge, but one military planner I spoke with said the army would have no choice but to send them."
Yikes!

This comes from a sprawling, informative, must-read piece by Jeffrey Goldberg that appears in the Atlantic. Goldberg says he's been on the trail for seven years now. He provides a conspectus of the reasons that Israel might try to go solo in taking out Iran's nuclear capabilities. He deftly discusses the Israeli mindset (Auschwitz) and interviews Obama administration officials who emphasize that nothing is off the table. (Why would they say otherwise?)

Comment: Just remember that whenever Trump says anything about Iran, it's really Israel speaking. And even the Iran deal was created with ulterior motives. Iran has been in Israel's (and their American puppets') crosshairs for a generation. And they're likely to stay there for the foreseeable future.

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Calculator

The CDC, like the FBI, under-counts deaths at the hands of cops

Scott Shackford
Reason
Thu, 12 Oct 2017 13:50 UTC
Police killings
© Wiki Commons
Due to lack of information from death certificates, only half are properly recorded

The media do a better job at keeping track of who the government kills than the government does. Go figure.

By "who the government kills," I specifically mean who the police kill. A new study released this week shows that the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), which tracks stats on causes of death in the National Vital Statistics System, seriously under-counts how many people in the United States are killed during encounters with police.

The report was put together by researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health, who compared the CDC's numbers for 2015 to The Guardian's database of people killed in police encounters in the United States.
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Gear

Ongoing tensions linger on Korean peninsula as US nuke sub arrives in South Korean port


RT
Fri, 13 Oct 2017 20:30 UTC
USS ‘Michigan’
© U.S. NAVYUSS ‘Michigan’
The USS 'Michigan', a nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine, has arrived in the South Korean port of Busan, US military have said. The arrival one of the largest subs in the world comes amid growing tensions on the Korean peninsula.

"The Ohio-class guided-missile submarine USS 'Michigan' [SSGN 727] arrived in Busan, October 13, for a routine visit during a regularly scheduled deployment to the Western Pacific," the US Pacific Fleet said in a statement.

According to US military data, the Ohio-class submarines are armed with "tactical missiles and equipped with superior communications capabilities." These submarines are able to launch an "unprecedented strike" from a "stealthy, clandestine platform," it adds.
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Info

Russian General Staff: ISIS now controls less than 8% of Syrian territory


RT
Fri, 13 Oct 2017 20:11 UTC
Syrian army servicemen
© Press Service of the President of Syria / SputnikThe Syrian army servicemen broke the three-year siege of Deir ez-Zor, in the area of the 137th mechanized brigade in Syria
The area controlled by Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) in Syria has been reduced to less than 8 percent as Syrian government troops, backed by Russian Airspace Forces, continue their successful advance in Deir ez-Zor Province.

"Islamic State currently controls 14,800 square kilometers, which is less than 8 percent of the Syrian territory," said General Sergey Rudskoy, spokesman for the Russian General Staff.

According to Rudskoy, IS lost 5,841 square kilometers of territory during the last month alone, with 142 town and villages liberated from the terrorists.

Syrian government forces continue their successful advance near Deir ez-Zor, taking control of a large area on the right bank of the Euphrates River to the northwest and west of the city, he said.
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Bad Guys

Russian MoD reports over 1,000 terrorists have crossed Iraqi border to Syria


Sputnik
Fri, 13 Oct 2017 19:32 UTC
IS militants
© AFP 2017/ ALBARAKA NEWSIS militants
More than 1,000 terrorists have entered the territory of Syria from the two provinces of Iraq where the US-led coalition is carrying out its anti-Daesh operation, the Russian General Staff has said.

Chief of the Main Operational Directorate of the Russian General Staff Col. Gen. Sergey Rudskoy reported that terrorists have taken tanks, equipment and artillery rocket systems with them while coming to Syria from the provinces of Al Anbar and Nineveh.

They took part in a massive offensive with a goal of advancing deep into the Syrian territory as part of a group of 3,000 militants.

Comment: According to Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), 1,000 foreign members and commanders of the ISIL from Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan and Turkistan have arrived in Syria.
Reporting that the newly-arrived terrorists have taken the responsibility for military operations in the town of al-Mayadeen and the Eastern parts of Deir Ezzur under the name of 'al-Qaradish' group, the SOHR added that they don't trust the Syrian and Arab-origin ISIL members in Syria.

Meantime, military sources confirmed on Wednesday that the Syrian Army troops are getting ready to kick off the final phase of their operation to purge the entire neighborhoods in Eastern Deir Ezzur city of the ISIL terrorists.


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