In The News: Monday

'Troops In Sinai On High Alert After Gaza Strike'

Egyptian security forces were on high alert in the Sinai Peninsula on Monday, following an Israeli strike on the Gaza Strip that killed the commander of a Jihadi-Salafi terror group on Saturday, Palestinian news agency Ma'an reported.Egyptian security officials told Ma'an Sunday night that authorities in Cairo warned troops in northern Sinai of a possible retaliatory attack on Egyptian bases or attempted attacks on Israeli targets.

IAF Strikes Gaza Strip 3 Times In 24 Hours; 5 Killed

The IAF struck a rocket-launching cell in the central Gaza Strip on Sunday evening soon after it fired projectiles at an Israeli farming district, the IDF said.

Palestinian medical sources said the air strike killed two men and wounded two others.Israeli strikes killed a total of five global jihad members over the past 24 hours.“The terrorist cell which fired rockets into Israel a short while ago was targeted,” the IDF Spokesman’s Office said, confirming the strike. “An accurate strike was identified.”Following the attack, the Popular Resistance Committees confirmed that the dead belonged to their organization, and vowed retaliation against Israel, Palestinian news agency Ma'an reported.

EU To Tighten Screws On Iran

The European Union is set to respond to Iran’s lack of cooperation oninspections of its nuclear sites by tightening the economic screws with heavier sanctions on the severely damaged Iranian economy.
Foreign ministers from the 27 nations in the EU are meeting in Luxembourg Monday and are expected to approve new sanctions that were prepared by EU ambassadors on Friday. The new measures will ban dealing with Iran’sbanks above a pre-set “relatively low” threshold, except for some areas of medical and humanitarian aid, theEuropean Jewish Press reported.

EU Plans New Round Of Hard-Hitting Sanctions On Iran

The European Union is scheduled to introduce a new round of harsh sanctions against Iran Monday, marking a significant escalation in restrictions on the Islamic Republic.Foreign ministers were expected to approve the new sanctions, aimed at stopping Iran’s nuclear program, during a meeting in Luxembourg on Monday .The new sanctions will ban financial transactions and the export of metals and graphite used in the steel industry. European firms will also be banned from providing ship building and oil storage technologies, and Europe will cut off its supply of Iranian natural gas.

An Electromagnetic Pulse Attack - The 'Other' Iranian Nuclear Threat

While there is much speculation as to what exactly an EMP would do to electrical appliances and digital devices — scientists have differences of opinion over how badly they would be affected (the world hasn’t really experienced a direct EMP blast yet, so much of the speculation is based on educated guesses) — the far-greater concern is what an attack would do to the electrical infrastructure in a targeted area. If an EMP strike is large enough, or there are enough such strikes, the blasts could knock out power plants, electrical substations, and other sensitive equipment, causing a massive power failure that may take weeks or months to overcome. Data centers housing servers would likely be badly damaged as well, as would be communications systems.

Iran could very well be planning an EMP attack on Israel, based on statements the Iranian regime has made, and actions it has taken. And, she said, Iran would be capable of delivering an EMP attack if it acquired a nuclear weapon.

The impact would be devastating, the report said. “EMP is one of a small number of threats that can hold our society at risk of catastrophic consequences. EMP will cover the wide geographic region within line of sight to the nuclear weapon. It has the capability to produce significant damage to critical infrastructures and thus to the very fabric of US society, as well as to the ability of the United States and Western nations to project influence and military power,” it said.Dr. Peter Vincent Pry was lead staffer for the Congressional committee, and he, too, is worried that Iran could use a nuclear bomb to carry out an EMP attack — on Israel and/or the US.“Iran openly talks about using an EMP to attack Israel or the US,” said Pry, who is currently executive director of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security, a privately funded US group that seeks to educate the public and government leaders about the EMP threat to the US. According to Pry, Iran is actively preparing for an EMP attack. “Tehran has undertaken offshore exercises using Scud missiles fired and positioned in such a way that they exploded in the atmosphere — exactly the method you would use for an EMP attack,” he said.

Iran May Induce 'Environmentalal Disaster' In Strait Of Hormuz, Der Spiegel Reports

Iran is considering the option of artificially producing an enormous environmental disaster that would affect the entire region, in order to punish its enemies and force the West to decrease the sanctions against the regime, Der Spiegel reported on Sunday.

According to Western intelligence agencies quoted by the the German news weekly, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have developed a secret plan to intentionally cause an oil tanker to contaminate the strategically important Strait of Hormuz.

Dubbed “Murky Waters,” the plan is reportedly the brainchild of Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps head Mohammad Ali Jafari and Iranian Navy commander Admiral Ali Fadawi. The purpose of the environmental disaster would be to block the Strait of Hormuz to international oil tankers, and to “punish” states in the area that are hostile to Iran, according to the report. Furthermore, Western nations, forced to cooperate with Iran in efforts to clean the strait, would conceivably be forced to reduce the sanctions currently placed on the Islamic Republic.

The plan is currently in the hands of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who would be the one deciding about its implementation, the magazine said.

'Drone Infiltration Amounts To Declaration Of War'

The Hizbullah drone infiltration into Israel “amounts to a declaration of war,” worried former Lebanese Prime Minister Siniora has warned. Former Prime Minister Sa’ad Hariri also said he fears the drone incident could drag Lebanon into a war with Israel, theBeirut Daily Star reported.

“We find that Hizbullah is not only implicating Lebanon in the conflict in Syria, but also in the midst of regional and international struggles concerning Iran and Iran’s nuclear program and in its [Hizbullah’s] role in the developments in Syria.”Siniora's concerns reflect the fragile nature of the government, which has been in continual crisis during a creeping domination of Hizbullah over Lebanon’s affairs.Israel leaders have defined Hizbullah as being a “state within a state,” and IDF officershave noted that there often is no distinction between the Lebanese army and Hizbullah forces.

Signs That The Global Economic Collapse Is About To Go To A Whole New Level

The global debt crisis has reached a dangerous new phase.  Unfortunately, most Americans are not taking notice of it yet because most of the action is taking place overseas, and because U.S. financial markets are riding high.  But just because the global economic crisis is unfolding at the pace of a "slow-motion train wreck" right now does not mean that it isn't incredibly dangerous.  As I have written about previously, the economic collapse is not going to be a single event.  Yes, there will be days when the Dow drops by more than 500 points.  Yes, there will be days when the reporters on CNBC appear to be hyperventilating.  But mostly there will be days of quiet despair as the global economic system slides even further toward oblivion.  And right now things are clearly getting worse. 

Things in Greece are much worse than they were six months ago.  
Things in Spain are much worse than they were six months ago.  The same thing could be said for Italy, France, Japan, Argentina and a whole bunch of other nations.  The entire global economy is slowing down, and we are entering a time period that is going to be incredibly painful for everyone.  At the moment, the U.S. is still experiencing a "sugar high" from unprecedented fiscal and monetary stimulus, but when that "sugar high" wears off the hangover will be excruciating.  Reckless borrowing, spending and money printing has bought us a brief period of "economic stability", but our foolish financial decisions will also make our eventual collapse far worse than it might have been. 

Europe Could Be Plunged Into War If The Euro Collapses

Europe could be plunged into war if the euro collapses, Vince Cable warned last night.The Business Secretary said the consequences would be 'incalculable' for Europe and 'awful' for the UK but cautioned that there was 'no automatic guarantee' that Europe would not disintegrate into conflict.

UN Warns Of Looming Worldwide Food Crisis In 2013

World grain reserves are so dangerously low that severe weather in the United States or other food-exporting countries could trigger a major hunger crisis next year, the United Nations has warned.
Failing harvests in the US, Ukraine and other countries this year have eroded reserves to their lowest level since 1974. The US, which has experienced record heatwaves and droughts in 2012, now holds in reserve a historically low 6.5% of the maize that it expects to consume in the next year, says the UN.
"We've not been producing as much as we are consuming. That is why stocks are being run down. Supplies are now very tight across the world and reserves are at a very low level, leaving no room for unexpected events next year," said Abdolreza Abbassian, a senior economist with the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). With food consumption exceeding the amount grown for six of the past 11 years, countries have run down reserves from an average of 107 days of consumption 10 years ago to under 74 days recently.

Cyber Smoke Screen?