At this time, we are watching the entire world preparing for the future wars that the book of Revelation (not to mention Ezekiel 38-39 and Isaiah 17) describes. We know that the tribulation period will involve such massive wars that the world will lose 1/4 of its population during one period of war and another 1/3 of the population a little later in the Tribulation. Those are some massive wars; we should expect to see the preparations ongoing at this time, and indeed we are. Even the so-called 'cyber-wars' that we see today are part of this effort:
Iran can break out to nuclear weapons "very quickly," and Israel must maintain operational readiness for any threat that may arise, Maj.-Gen. (res.) Amos Gilad, director of political-military affairs at the Defense Ministry, warned on Monday.
Speaking in Tel Aviv at a security conference organized by the Israel Defense publication and the Israel Artillery Association, Gilad said the security forecast was not sunny. "Today is a pleasant day. But there are clouds, and a storm, on the horizon," he said. "People don't believe it until it comes," he added.
Iran's nuclear weapons program remains the top threat to Israeli security, he said, describing the Islamic Republic as a "horrible regime" that threatens to exterminate Israel. He referred to a past statement by former Iranian president Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani, who said that one atomic bomb would be enough to destroy Israel.
"They're determined to reach nuclear weapons. They want to get to a situation where [Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah] Khamenei asks [Ali Akbar] Salehi, [head of the Atomic Energy Association of Iran], can we develop nuclear weapons? And the answer must be yes we can. Not in English, in Persian," Gilad continued.
Iran's strategy is based on the twin goals of getting rid of choking international sanctions, and keeping the option of breaking out to nuclear weapons within "a few months," he said.
It's like a runner who can't jump two meters, so he builds a 1.95 meter ramp, and later he can jump from it and get to two meters. This is the greatest danger. There is a possibility Iran will achieve this. It's a potential existential threat," Gilad said.
He noted that Iran has overseen the construction of Hezbollah's arsenal of 100,000 rockets, and spent billions of dollars to build up Hezbollah's firepower, which threatens all of Israel's territory.
"This is a military threat, not a terrorist one," he said, adding, Israel has "not been successful in preventing a buildup [of rockets] in Lebanon." Alleged Israeli action to prevent Hezbollah's armament program, as mentioned by foreign press reports, is the exception, Gilad said.
Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps has global command centers for terrorism that are located "everywhere," and planned to "slaughter dozen of Israelis over Passover in Thailand," the senior defense official said. These efforts are "mostly failing," he added.
A squadron of Russia’s Navy Pacific Fleet has arrived in Shanghai to participate in joint Russian-Chinese naval training dubbed ‘Joint Sea-2014’. The drills in the northern part of the East China Sea start on Tuesday and will go on until May 26.
The Russian squadron consists of six battleships and support vessels: the flagship of the Pacific Fleet, missile cruiser Varyag, anti-submarine destroyer Admiral Panteleyev, large landing ship Admiral Nevelskoy, anti-surface destroyer Bystry, tanker Ilim and ocean tug Kalar.
The Chinese Navy will be represented in the naval drills with six battleships.
All in all, during the active phase of the drills set for May 22-25, the maneuvers involve 14 ships, two submarines, nine warplanes, six shipboard helicopters and two operational detachments of marines from both sides.
All ships taking part in the training exercise are moored at the Usun naval military base in Shanghai.
A delegation of Russian Navy officers has already joined their Chinese colleagues to compare notes on the plan of the drills.
Chinese Vice Admiral Tian Zhong revealed to journalists that the major difference of the starting drills will be the increased difficulty of joint operations of battleships on both sides.
For the first time, Russian and Chinese sailors will operate within a mixed group of battleship from the two counties, holding joint missile and artillery strikes against sea targets at different ranges and performing anti-submarine activities.
“Accumulated experience of interaction will allow us to increase the possibility of conducting joint actions of the two fleets to perform a wide range of tasks,” the top brass Chinese naval officer said.
Tokyo has reportedly made plans to create new military outposts on remote islands close to disputed territories in an apparent move to bolster Japan’s defense capabilities amid its ongoing territorial rows with China.
Some 350 Ground Self-Defense Forces could be stationed on the three islands near the disputed islands, known as Diaoyu in China and as Senkaku in Japan, Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun cited unnamed senior Japanese Ministry of Defense officials as saying.
The three uninhabited, disputed islets lie some 2,000 km southwest of Tokyo, and around 200 km north of Taiwan.
According to the report, Tokyo will be establishing three bases close to the strategic location – a base on Amami Oshima Island, Miyako Island (210 km southwest of the disputed islands), and Ishigaki Island (about 170 km south), each staffed by up to 150 soldiers.
Last month, Japan announced it was building a high-tech radar outpost on Yonaguni Island, due to become operational in 2016.
Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said earlier that Japan had already made decisions to develop its military presence in the southwest and that research had been conducted. However, he added that: “At the moment, however, we have not decided on specific, concrete locations, such as those reported.”
THE US has charged five members of a shadowy Chinese military unit for allegedly hacking US companies for trade secrets, infuriating Beijing which suspended cooperation on cyber issues.
Hacking has long been a major sticking point in relations between the world’s two largest economies, but Washington’s move marks a major escalation in the dispute.
In the first-ever prosecution of state actors over cyber-espionage, a federal grand jury overnight indicted the five on charges they broke into US computers to benefit Chinese state-owned companies, leading to job losses in the United States in steel, solar and other industries.
Attorney General Eric Holder called on China to hand over the five men for trial in the steel city of Pittsburgh and said the United States would use “all the means that are available to us” should Beijing refuse.
President Barack Obama’s administration “will not tolerate actions by any nation that seek to illegally sabotage American companies and undermine the integrity of fair competition,” Holder told reporters.
“This case should serve as a wake-up call to the seriousness of the ongoing cyber threat,” Holder told reporters.
The grand jury indicted each of the five — Wang Dong, Sun Kailiang, Wen Xinyu, Huang Zhenyu and Gu Chunhui — on 31 counts, which each carry penalties of up to 15 years in prison.
China swiftly responded, calling the US indictment “ungrounded and absurd” and saying it “grossly violates the basic norms governing international relations and jeopardises China-US cooperation and mutual trust.”
China has dismissed all US accusations of industrial cyber-espionage against five of its military officials and published proof that Washington is actually stealing data from China. Beijing also summoned the US ambassador for an explanation.
Beijing reacted to Washington’s recent round of industrial espionage accusations by publishing its latest data on US cyber-attacks against China.
China’s National Computer Network Emergency Response Technical Team Coordination Center of China (NCNERTTCC) reported that during just two months, from March 19 to May 18, the US directly controlled 1.18 million host computers in China using 2,077 Trojan horse networks or botnet servers.
According to the NCNERTTCC, over the last two months 135 host computers stationed in the US conducted 14,000 phishing operations against Chinese websites using for the attacks 563 phishing pages. The other hacking activities through the same period of time included 57,000 backdoor attacks, performed from 2,016 IP addresses in the US through backdoors implanted on 1,754 Chinese websites.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry summoned the American ambassador to China for an explanation, urging him to drop all charges against China’s military officers. The meeting between Chinese Assistant Foreign Minister Zheng Zeguang and US Ambassador Max Baucus took place on Monday night, reported Xinhua.
Depending on further developments, China “will take further action on the so-called charges by the United States,” Zheng told Baucus.
“The Chinese government and military and its associated personnel have never conducted or participated in the theft of trade secrets over the internet,” Zheng reportedly told Baucus as quoted by Xinhua.
America’s attitude to internet security is “overbearing and hypocritical,” Zheng told Baucus, urging the US to finally give a clear explanation on multiple reports that America’s National Security Agency is spying after Chinese government, businesses, universities and individuals.
On the other side of the Pacific, China's Ambassador to the US Cui Tiankai "made solemn representations" to the US State Department, China News Service reported on Tuesday.
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