An AirAsia passenger jet carrying 162 people lost contact with Indonesian air traffic control early Sunday, gripping Southeast Asia with a second missing plane crisis in less than a year.
The search operation for the missing AirAsia Flight QZ8501 has been halted for the night, but big ships won't return to shore and will leave their searchlights on, according to the Indonesian Transportation Ministry.
Before communication was lost, one of the pilots asked to fly at a higher altitude because of bad weather, officials said.
The aircraft, flying from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore, went missing as it flew at 38,000 feet over the Java Sea between the islands of Belitung and Borneo -- a heavily traveled shipping channel with shallow waters, according to Indonesian authorities, who are leading the search and rescue operations.
Flight 8501 "was requesting deviation due to en route weather before communication with the aircraft was lost," the airline said.
The flight's captain asked permission to climb to a higher altitude, Murdjatmojo said, according to the national news agency.
According to flight tracking websites, almost the entire flight path of the plane was over the sea.
Bad weather gripped the region at the time, CNN meteorologist Derek Van Dam said.
If it comes to pass, and it cannot unfortunately be ruled out, recent media rumors say that naturalized US billionaire hedge fund speculator and philosopher, George Soros, a very weary-looking 84-year-old who continues to try to weaken the Russian economy as he did back in 1998, might become the head of the Ukrainian National Bank in Kiev. Soros as head of any central bank in my view is putting the old fox to guard the hen-house. That would complete a quartet of foreign technocrats that clearly would do no good to the shattered real economy of Ukraine nor to peace in the world
So far it is a report carried only by APA, the Azeri press agency in Baku. They cite a report carried Ukraine’s Channel 112. That report cited sources in the Ukraine parliament, the Verkhovna Rada and people around Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko
Billionaire speculator Soros is no stranger to Ukraine. In a personal interview with US TV propaganda channel CNN. Soros declared, “I set up a foundation in Ukraine before Ukraine became independent of Russia. And the foundation has been functioning ever since and played an important part in events now.” That interview was made after the US State Department February 21, 2014 coup d’Etat.
Whether the good Mr. Soros will bring his financial alchemy to Kiev and try to earn the new Finance Minister billions of euros for their strained budget is not at all clear. There is reportedly a list of five candidates including Soros. It reportedly includes former IMF head Dominique Straus-Kahn and at least one person from the US Federal Reserve
The naming of Soros or another foreign banker to head the central bank of Ukraine at this point would fit nicely into what emerges as Washington’s strategy to simply run the country–into the ground at that—by proxies. Earlier this month, US State Department favorite Ukraine President Petr Poroschenko engaged in constitutionally dubious manipulations, holding a secret ceremony hours before a Ukraine Parliament vote, to make three now Kiev government ministers from foreign countries into Ukrainian citizens.
The US President Obama just signed into law a new round of economic sanctions against Russia. The US President on December 18 signed into law HR 5859, euphemistically titled, Ukraine Freedom Support Act of 2014 113th Congress. A more honest title would be, An Act of 2014 to Provoke War with Russia.
The new law calls for “economic sanctions, diplomacy, assistance for the people of Ukraine, and the provision of military capabilities to the Government of Ukraine that will enhance the ability of that Government to defend itself and to restore its sovereignty and territorial integrity in the face of unlawful actions by the Government of the Russian Federation."
The new US law gives the US President a dangerous new weapon. If he deems Gazprom, the Russian state gas giant that supplies much of the EU as well as Ukraine, is “withholding” significant natural gas from NATO countries, or from Ukraine, Georgia, or Moldova, he can order draconian new sanctions on Gazprom, something carefully avoided by Washington until now. That means all the CIA or neo-cons running US State Department Ukraine policy need do is convince Kiev to claim Russia is withholding gas or refuse to pay Gazprom, a sword of Damocles over the Russian gas supplier.
Then the new US law, HR 5859, SEC. 9. SUPPORT FOR RUSSIAN DEMOCRACY AND CIVIL SOCIETY ORGANIZATIONS, specifies that the Secretary of State shall, “directly or through non-governmental or international organizations, such as the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the National Endowment for Democracy, and related organizations–(1) improve democratic governance, transparency, accountability, rule of law, and anti-corruption efforts in the Russian Federation; strengthen democratic institutions and political and civil society organizations in the Russian Federation; (3) expand uncensored Internet access in the Russian Federation…"
This remarkable part of the new law gives open support to a new attempt at a CIA-State Department Color Revolution to topple Putin, using the US Congress and Soros Foundation-financed National Endowment for Democracy, the same cast of suspects who ran the Euro-Maidan Color Revolution a year ago in Kiev. If it reads like a brazen attempt to trample Russian sovereignty and impose a Washington version of “democracy” in another country, one might ask, what bloody right do Washington Congressmen and Presidents have to impose anything on anyone, let alone its own citizens?
The propaganda unit of Hamas's "military wing", the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, kicked into overdrive recently with a new film, which attempted to portray the terrorist organization's Gazan fighting force as a modern Islamic army, exhibiting advanced weaponry training for a wide range of scenarios - and with its sights on Jerusalem.
In the video a large unit of terrorists are shown with all the equipment of a modern army, from combat vests to advanced assault rifles. Several are seen bearing a flag reading "the army of Al-Quds (Jerusalem)."
The Hamas "army" is seen conducting an array of operations modeled on attacks launched against Israel from Gaza - including several attacks in recent weeks that the terror group has denied responsibility for.
The Hamas "army" is seen conducting an array of operations modeled on attacks launched against Israel from Gaza - including several attacks in recent weeks that the terror group has denied responsibility for.
It appears to be an attempt to showcase a recently-announced "popular army", which the Islamist terror group said it formed following Operation Protective Edge to "liberate Palestine".
In one scene, the terrorists are seen raiding a model IDF post and kidnapping an Israeli soldier. In another, a sniper is seen shooting an IDF soldier; just last Wednesday an IDF soldier was critically wounded by sniper fire during repairs on the security barrier, although Hamas denied it was behind the attack from territory it controls. Tellingly, however, the head of Hamas's reconnaissance unit was killed by IDF return fire during the incident.
Rockets, including the domestically produced M75, are seen being fired on numerous occasions throughout the propaganda film, after just two weeks ago a rocket was fired on Israel from Gaza in a breach of the truce, marking at least the third such case of rocket fire since Operation Protective Edge.
In response to the latest rocket attack, the IAF struck Gaza concrete factories used to rebuild the terror tunnels leading into Israel and built to attack Israeli civilians. Over 30 such tunnels were destroyed in the operation, but since it ended Hamas has been busily rebuilding them.
Indeed, the propaganda film shows Hamas terrorists in terror tunnels, preparing for new attacks. Likewise naval commandos sporting diver equipment are shown firing from boats, before hopping off into the water and continuing to fire with assault rifles made for maritime usage.
Aside from attempts to model itself as a modern, conventional army of sorts, the video is equally a clear attempt to emphasize the group's jihadi credentials, at a time when other actors - from Islamic Jihad to Al Qaeda and most recently ISIS - have in many ways stolen its thunder.
The opening scene includes a commander riding a horse, a common prop utilized by jihadi groups to hark back to the early Islamic armies; equally the white flag of jihad its terrorists are waving - though not identical - bears a resemblance to the classic jihadi flag adapted by groups such as Al Qaeda and ISIS.
At the end of the film, the Hamas army is seen crossing a security barrier and approaching Jerusalem with the Dome of the Rock glittering on top of the Temple Mount, clearly advertising the terror group's aspirations of creating a Palestinian state on the ruins of Israel.
Also see:
No comments:
Post a Comment