In The News:

Russia Sends Navy Vessels, Marines To Syria Base

Mission unclear, but Moscow has said it was preparing to send marines in case it needs to protect, personnel, remove equipment.

Moscow is sending three large landing ships with marines aboard to a Russian naval facility in the Syrian port of Tartus, Russian news agencies quoted a source in the general staff as saying on Friday.

The source did not specify the goal of the mission, but Russia had earlier said it was preparing to send marines to Syria in case it needed to protect personnel and remove equipment from the naval maintenance facility.

Syria is Moscow's firmest foothold in the Middle East. It buys many of its arms from Russia. Tartus is the Russian navy's only permanent warm water port outside the former Soviet Union.

Russia and China have three times blocked Western-backed UN Security Council resolutions on Syria that were meant to put more pressure on Syrian President Bashar Assad to step down.

Israelis Warned To Leave Sinai Now

The National Security Council Counter-Terrorism Bureau (NSCCTBCTB) issued on Thursday a serious warning against travelling to the Sinai Peninsula, and called on Israelis vacationing in the area to leave immediately.

"From information at our disposal, it arises that terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip and additional elements are actively planning to perpetrate terrorist attacks, especially abductions, against Israeli tourists in Sinai in the immediate term," the NSCCTB's warning said.

"The NSCCTB reiterates its call to all Israelis in Sinai to leave the area immediately and return home. The families of Israelis in Sinai are requested to contact them and update them regarding this travel warning. The NSCCTB also emphatically recommends that all those planning to leave for Sinai refrain from doing so."

The latest travel warning comes in light of increased tension along Israel’s southern border. Last week, a branch of the Al-Qaeda terror group based in Sinai claimed responsibility for the repeated attacks on the pipeline carrying gas from Egypt to Jordan and Israel.

EMP Aftermath - Could This Happen?

Just think. A nuclear device carried aloft by an Iranian rocket somewhere near the Gulf of Mexico and a blinding flash in the skies

That’s the catastrophic threat from the resulting electromagnetic pulse signal, or EMP, that an upcoming conference will address.

The live-streamed event, hosted by Florida-based The United West, is scheduled for Friday, beginning at 11 a.m. Eastern Time.

Featured speakers are former CIA Director R. James Woolsey, CIA Covert Operative and WND contributor Reza Kahlili, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, “One Second After” author William Forstchen, former Director of Strategic Defense Initiative Organization Henry Cooper, former National Intelligence Council Chairman Fritz Erdmarth and William Graham, President Reagan’s science adviser and chairman of the EMP Commission.

It was Forstchen who described the impact of a nuclear bomb exploding somewhere in the skies over the U.S. Electronics would simply be disintegrated, he said.

Computers would cease functioning, and every system that relies on those components – food and fuel deliveries, communications, production, manufacturing, travel and everything associated – would halt.

Kahlili warns that Iran already has been practicing with missile launches from ships that simply put the payload straight up and high in the sky.

“That is the signature … of training for an EMP launch.”

Iran Prepares To Increase Uranium Enrichment

The months of negotiations with the six world powers were happily used by Iran for great strides toward bringing its nuclear weapon program to fruition. Tehran’s back-channel dialogue with Washington leading up to the negotiations served the same purpose. Since diplomacy ran aground, war has become inevitable and preparations for cutting short Iran’s rapid progress have accelerated.

The six powers are understandably reluctant to admit that in the time bought by negotiations, Iran was able to refine uranium up to 30-percent grade or even a higher and go into advanced preparations for 65 percent grade enrichment. Now the Iranians are well on the way to an 80-90 percent weapons grade.

The Gulf governments are therefore forced to accept that their plans to weaken Iran by toppling Assad have backfired in more ways than one.

UN, American and European sanctions have failed to drive Tehran into giving up its nuclear program, as even the White House admitted Wednesday, Aug. 1, or slowed down its development of ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear warheads.

US and Israeli intelligence experts agree that Iran will be able to produce dirty bomb within three months, ready to hand out to the terrorist networks run by the Revolutionary Guards external clandestine arm, the Al Quds Brigades. They are designed for use in time of war against Israelis abroad and Americans in the Persian Gulf and Middle East. Israel fears the radioactive bombs will find their way to Tehran’s surrogates, the Lebanese Hizballah or the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Those experts also agree that the Tehran-sponsored terrorist campaign against Israel has already begun. Launched by Hizballah or the Al Quds Brigades, it is expected to gain impetus. The July 18 attack in the Bulgarian town of Burgas, in which five Israelis and a Bulgarian were killed, is seen as the precursor of more attacks whose dimensions will expand in a way that forces Israel to retaliate.

"Worst" Drought Gets Worse In U.S. Farm Belt

The worst U.S. drought in 56 years intensified over the past week as above-normal temperatures and scant rainfall parched corn and soybean crops across the Midwest and central Plains, a report from climate experts said on Thursday.

The drought became more severe in the southern United States as well, just a year removed from a record-breaking dry spell that ruined crops and wilted grazing pastures across Texas and Oklahoma enough to force an unprecedented northward migration of cattle.

Nearly two-thirds of the contiguous United States was under some level of drought as of July 31, more than a fifth of it classified as extreme drought or worse, according to the Drought Monitor, a weekly report compiled by U.S. climate experts.

The drought intensified in most major farm states, including Illinois, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri and Iowa, the top U.S. corn and soybean producer, as temperatures were 5 to 10 degrees above normal and rains were largely scattered and light.