War Preparations Around The World ('Wars And Rumors Of War')

As usual, today's news has a specific, dominant theme:

War's Darkening Shadows: Japan Girds For A Showdown With China

The shadows of war hang more menacingly over Northeast Asia at the opening of a brave new year than they have at any time since, well, since the last time the region was edging into armed conflict.

That might be since the Korean mini-crisis of nearly a year ago when North Korea was emitting a torrent of threats. Or it could be since the sinking of the Cheonan or any number of standoffs since the Korean War.

Only this time the shadows are lengthening for reasons that don’t have a lot to do with North or South Korea. The latest cause for hand-wringing and teeth-gnashing was Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s decision, in full knowledge of the sentiments of Koreans and Chinese, to visit the Yasukuni Shrine memorializing Japan’s millions of war dead.

The sense of crisis deepens, moreover, as the Chinese persist in flying reconnaissance aircraft near the cluster of islands in the East China Sea known as the Senkakus in Japan and the Diaoyu in China. While Chinese fishing boats dart in and out of waters around the islands, chances of an outbreak of war seem all too realistic. Given that fear, Abe’s Yasukuni Shrine visit was a reminder not only of the millions who died fighting for Japan but of those who would die in renewed conflict against historic enemies.

Inexorable moves toward confrontation in the East China Sea go along with Abe’s decision to thumb his nose at outcries from China, Japan’s huge competitor for regional domination, and South Korea, which should be Japan’s friend and ally in common cause against North Korea. The visit to the shrine provides one more reason for leaders of South Korea not to want to cooperate with Japan.

Counting on a groundswell of conservatism, nationalism and ethnocentrism, Abe is courting populist Japanese sentiment. The Japanese say the islands are part of Okinawa prefecture and are gearing up to defend them against any challenge from Beijing, which includes them in its newly declared Air Defense Identification Zone.

U.S. Officials: Hezbollah Upgrading Its Arsenal Against Israel

The Shiite Lebanese group Hezbollah is smuggling advanced guided-missile systems into Lebanon in preparation for a future conflict with Israel, according to US officials.

The group’s armament efforts have been hampered by at least five IDF air strikes against its smuggling routes and depots in Syria in 2013 alone. In response, the Lebanese group is attempting to smuggle weapons into Lebanon in pieces, believing that the piecemeal shipments, overseen by Iran’s Al-Quds force, are more difficult to spot and intercept, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.

The new strategy sees Israel and Hezbollah battling to shape the future war between them under cover of the conflict currently waging in neighboring Syria.

Parts of an advanced antiship missile system are already in Lebanon, the Journal reported, citing US officials and “previously undisclosed intelligence.” Additional systems meant to strike Israeli planes and ground targets are already en route in Syrian depots controlled by Hezbollah.

According to the officials, the systems would mark a significant upgrade in Hezbollah’s capabilities and its “ability to deter Israel” in a future conflict. If deployed, Hezbollah would gain the ability to shoot down Israeli aircraft in any aerial campaign over Lebanon or Syria, while also peppering Israeli cities with its estimated 100,000 “dumb” rockets, stored in villages and hidden silos throughout southern Lebanon.

Beirut Blast Takes Lebanon Another Step Closer To Civil War

Thursday’s horrific photos from Beirut, frighteningly similar to the scenes of major suicide bombings which took place in Israel so often a decade ago, strike a haunting, familiar chord. The multitude of people scrambling around the explosion point, some fleeing, others attempting to pull the injured and the dead bodies out of the way. Smoke everywhere, glass and flesh, and local security forces trying frantically to disperse the hundreds of onlookers who make the rescue work impossibly difficult.

The target this time was not Tel Aviv or Jerusalem, but the center of the Shiite district in Beirut, Hezbollah territory, only a few dozen meters away from the organization’s political council compound.

This is the heart of the Hezbollah stronghold, not far from the old building that is home to the Shiite group’s broadcasting station, al-Manar — an area which one would ostensibly expect to be under strict security of the organization’s armed wing.

But in the last two months Hezbollah has discovered, to its astonishment perhaps, how vulnerable it really is. Car bombs, suicide bombings, rockets and more have managed to shake the organization time and again. All the old tricks used years earlier by Hezbollah itself are now directed against the organization, by perpetrators likely affiliated with Sunni extremist terrorist organizations.

Netanyahu: Lebanese Government, Hezbollah Responsible For Rockets

Israel holds the Lebanese government and Hezbollah responsible for the Sunday morning rocket fire into Israeli territory, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday, and Israel will continue to respond “quickly and forcefully.”

“We hold the Lebanese government responsible for firing that is carried out from within its territory,” Netanyahu said ahead of the weekly cabinet meeting, and noted that Hezbollah, by ”stationing thousands of missiles and rockets in apartments… is thus perpetrating two war crimes simultaneously. It is organizing the firing at civilians, just as it did today, and it is hiding behind civilians as human shields.”

The prime minister spoke after two Katyusha rockets fired from Lebanon landed west of the northern Galilee town of Kiryat Shmona. No one was wounded and there was no damage reported from the attack.

The Lebanese government and army, Netanyahu said, “are not lifting a finger” to prevent such attacks, and “Iran, of course, is behind this arming by Hezbollah.”

The IDF “responded quickly and forcefully to the rocket fire from Lebanon,” Netanyahu said, adding, “This is our policy regarding Lebanon just as it is with the Gaza Strip. We will not allow a drizzle and we will respond strongly, and if need be, will carry out preventive action.”

Israel Faces Real Threats Today

The world’s largest fortified underground emergency hospital has been built on Rambam Health Care Campus in Haifa, and is designed to protect patients and staff against conventional and non-conventional warfare.

The Sammy Ofer Fortified Underground Emergency Hospital is a three-level, 60,000-square-meter facility that will function as a 1,500-vehicle parking lot during peacetime. The structure is fully fortified against conventional, chemical and biological warfare. It has 40-cm-thick reinforced concrete walls and ceilings. Tens of thousands of ventilation and air filtration units, equipped with carbon and HEPA filters that are 98% effective in filtering out biological and chemical agents, have been installed.

The ingenuity of the project is that in wartime, the parking lot can be transformed within a maximum of 72 hours into a sealed off, self-sufficient emergency hospital able to store enough breathable oxygen, drinking water, and medical-gas supplies for up to three days. The process for this transformation has been methodically planned—logistically and medically—by a team of experts, so that each and every detail is accounted for.

U.S., Japan Naval Deployments Are Concerning

China is concerned about naval deployments by the United States and Japan in the Asia Pacific region, according to a 2014 naval report issued by China through its military media.

The PLA Daily, the official newspaper of China's armed forces, published an article on its navy web portal predicting that the major powers in the world will put more emphasis on building up their navies in 2014.

The article said that US Navy chief of naval operations Admiral Jonathan Greenert recently released his Navigation Plan for the Navy for 2014 to 2018, which defines the course and speed the US Navy will follow to organize, train and equip over this period.

According to the article, the US Navy will continue its "rebalancing strategy" in Asia and the Pacific, and will deploy more vessels, submarines and planes in the region to realize the goal of deploying 60% of its navy in the region by 2020.

Military Drones Set To Get Stronger Chemical Weapons

A Dutch designer has penned the Drone Survival Guide, which like bird watching charts, shows the various shapes and sizes of flying objects by their silhouettes.
Ruben Pater’s guide, however, details the differing kinds of flying robots used at war, as well as survival tips of how to hide from them.
The majority of the drones selected for the chart are from NATO member countries, including the UK, France, Germany, U.S. and Canada.
This is because these countries have used drones in wars such as Afghanistan and are also more transparent than some other countries in disclosing information about the robots, such as their wingspan.
It uses a skull icon to show that a drone is used for attack and a little eye to denote a surveillance vehicle.
The chart, which Mr Pater describes as ‘21st century bird watching’ shows the vast array of flying war machines used today from the giant 130ft wingspan of the Global Hawk drone to the petite Parrot AC quadcopter, which measures just 23 inches.
He said: ‘Most drones are used today by military powers for remote-controlled surveillance and attack and their numbers are growing.
'The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) predicted in 2012 that within 20 years there could be as many as 30.000 drones flying over U.S. soil alone.
‘As robotic birds will become commonplace in the near future, we should be prepared to identify them. This survival guide is an attempt to familiarise ourselves and future generations, with a changing technological environment.’

Also see:

Exposed: UN Plans Genocide In Africa

The United Nations and its oftentimes barbaric population-control apparatus are under fire again after releasing a deeply controversial report claiming that the African population of Kenya is too large and growing too quickly. To deal with the supposed “challenge,” as the UN and its “partners” in the national government put it, international bureaucrats are demanding stepped up efforts to brainwash Kenyan women into wanting fewer children. Also on the agenda: more taxpayer-funded “family-planning” and “reproductive-health” schemes to reduce the number of Africans to levels considered “desirable” by the UN.

Critics promptly lambasted the plot as undisguised eugenics, with some experts calling it a true example of the “war on women.” Among other concerns, analysts outraged by the report noted that the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) and the establishment’s fiendish efforts to slash human populations — especially those considered “undesirable” by self-appointed guardians of the gene pool — have a long and sordid history going back decades. Today, the agenda marches on, as illustrated in the latest UN report calling for drastically reduced numbers of Kenyans.

Especially troubling is the eugenics component of the agenda, critics say. “This kind of eugenics by the United Nations and their population-control conspirators is not helping the black family but turning large poor families into small poor families,” explained Mark Crutcher, president of the U.S.-based pro-life group Life Dynamics. Crutcher is also the producer of the hard-hitting documentary Maafa21, which exposes what he calls the ongoing genocide of blacks worldwide by prominent establishment forces.

The controversial report, produced by the Kenyan government’s “population” minions and the UNFPA, claims that — despite dramatic declines in fertility over recent decades — authorities must do much more to bring the population down to “desirable” levels. Citing debunked claims about what the UN views as “too many” people supposedly resulting in a wide range of real and imagined problems, the radical document outlines numerous schemes to reduce the population. Among the suggested plots: more taxpayer-funded contraception, re-education, “empowering” women, reducing the “demand” for children, and more.

“One issue surrounds the realization of the policy objective of reducing total fertility rates from the current level of 4.6 to 2.6 children per woman by 2030,” observes the report, taking special aim at the poor. “This is because the demand for children is still high and is unlikely to change unless substantial changes in desired family sizes are achieved.” Incredibly, the document also states matter-of-factly that there is a “need for rapid decline in fertility.” Thus, the UN population-control zealots claimed, “the challenge is how to reduce the continued high demand for children.”

The more than 300-page report, dubbed “Kenya Population Situation Analysis,” does not explicitly call for abortion. However, experts say anyone versed in the UN’s deceptive bureaucratic language would see the real agenda clearly. For example, the document is packed with references to so-called “reproductive health” and “reproductive rights.” As then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton put it in a 2010 speech, “reproductive health includes contraception and family planning and access to legal, safe abortion.”

IMF's World Tax Is A Puzzling Ploy

International Monetary Fund Rolls Out Dangerous "Wealth Tax" Proposal ... The populist notion of taxing the rich once again turned up in the International Monetary Fund's Fiscal Monitor Report released in October, but scarcely anyone noticed.

In an arcane chart-laden 107-page-long report that was competing at the time with the government shutdown, the failing rollout of ObamaCare, and other concerns, crises, and disasters, why should they? Here's why. On page 49, the authors said, "The sharp deterioration of the public finances in many countries has revived interest in a 'capital levy' – a one-time tax on private wealth – as an exceptional measure to restore debt sustainability."

Let's be clear: That tax would apply to all private wealth on the planet. And it wouldn't balance budgets but would only bring them down to a slightly more manageable level so that government borrowing and spending could continue without interruption.

... Just how much would the IMF's "capital levy" be? Say the authors: The tax rates needed to bring down public debt to precrisis levels are sizable: reducing debt ratios to end-2007 levels would require ... a tax rate of about 10 percent on households with positive net worth.

After reading the entire 107 pages, Forbes' columnist Bill Frezza was livid: [The IMF proposal] means that all households with positive net worth – everyone with retirement savings or home equity – would have their assets plundered .... It would merely "restore debt sustainability," allowing free-spending sovereigns to keep tapping the bond markets until the next crisis comes along.

Economist: Europe's Politicians Need To Tame The 'Net Reformation'