Yeah China is really a dodgy ally to have for North Korea. Ideologically they may have some similarities but China is too dependant on the US (its really a mutualistic relationship between the US/China). The US is much more important to China than North Korea is and thus you'd feel that as long as this is the case, China would continue a lukewarm relationship with North Korea whilst continuing to benefit from their US relationship.

A United Nations report has told Israel it must immediately start withdrawing its settlers from the Palestinian territories, saying Palestinians' human rights are being "violated on a daily basis".

"[Israel must] cease all settlement activities without preconditions [and] must immediately initiate a process of withdrawal of all settlers" from the occupied territories, said the report commissioned by the UN's Human Rights Council in March 2012.

Israel settling its population into occupied territory falls "into the provision of article eight of the ICC (International Criminal Court) statute [on war crimes]," said France's Christine Chanet, who chaired the mission.

She said it was unclear if the ICC could prosecute Israel for such crimes.

Israel immediately dismissed as "biased", ratcheting up tensions that this week saw the Jewish state become the first country to ever boycott a rights review by the UN body.

"The Human Rights Council has sadly distinguished itself by its systematically one-sided and biased approach towards Israel. This latest report is yet another unfortunate reminder of that," foreign ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said in a statement.

The experts, who will present their findings to the 47-member state council on March 18, also called on Israel to "ensure adequate, effective and prompt remedy to all Palestinian victims... of human rights violations that are a result of the settlements".

The council's decision to dispatch the fact-finding mission to determine what impact the settlements are having on the rights of Palestinians so enraged the Jewish state that it immediately cut all ties with the body.

Ms Chanet along with Asma Jahangir of Pakistan and Unity Dow of Botswana, published their findings just two days after Israel became the first nation to boycott a regular review by the UN rights council.

Israel has come under widespread international criticism for ramping up its construction of settlements in the Palestinian territories, notably in the occupied east Jerusalem, which the Palestinians want to establish as the capital of their future state but that Israel considers part of its "indivisible" capital.

All Israeli settlements on Palestinian land beyond the so-called 1949 Green Line are considered illegal under international law.

"Settlements are being maintained and developed through a system of total segregation between the settlers and the rest of the population" in the territories, the report found, adding that Israeli military and police helped maintain the segregation "to the detriment of the rights of the Palestinian people."

The report authors were not permitted to travel to Israel or the Palestinian territories for their mission but instead relied on a wide range of interviews.

Long list of breaches

Through these interviews, Ms Jahangir said the experts - who she stressed were "neutral" - had seen agony.

The report lists a long list of breaches, including to freedom of self-determination, non-discrimination, freedom of movement, equality, due process, fair trial, arbitrary detention, freedom to access places of worship, education, water and housing, which were "interrelated, forming part of an overall pattern."

For instance, the experts noted that different legal systems and standards apply to Palestinians and their settler neighbours.

Settlers who commit violent acts against Palestinians are seldom held accountable, the report said, with a study by the Israeli Yesh Din rights group showing that more than 91 per cent of such cases between 2005 and 2012, were closed without indictment.

In comparison, between 90 and 95 per cent of cases of violence committed by Palestinians against settlers were investigated and went to court.

Arbitrary arrests and detentions of Palestinians were also common, pointing out that last year some 4,100 Palestinians were held in Israeli military detention - 21 of them under the age of 16.

The report pointed out that since the 1967 Six Day War that saw Israel capture the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights, the West Bank and east Jerusalem, some 250 settlements had been built in the latter two and today are home to an estimated 520,000 settlers.

The settlements are "leading to a creeping annexation that prevents the establishment of a contiguous and viable Palestinian state," the report found.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-01-31/israel-must-pull-all-settlers-from-palestinian-land3a-un/4494736

French forces faster than expected: US

by: Dan De Luce From: AAP February 02, 2013 1:22PM

.."They have made tremendous progress. I give them a lot of credit," Panetta told AFP at the Pentagon on Friday.

"They have moved much faster than we had anticipated. They now control Timbuktu and Gao and have moved into the north to capture some of the cities in the far north as well.

"That's very good progress."

Despite the swift advance, the most difficult challenge lies ahead to ensure security does not unravel again, says Panetta, who is due to retire from his post later this month after decades in Washington.

"The challenge now is to make sure that you can maintain that security and that you are not overstretched and that, ultimately, as you begin to pull back, that the other African nations are prepared to move in and fill the gap of providing security," he said.

"And that's going to take some work."

French President Francois Hollande was to visit Mali on Saturday and appeal to African nations to take the lead from France in the fight against Islamist militants.

France is keen to hand over its military operation to nearly 8000 African troops slowly being deployed, which the United Nations is considering turning into a formal UN peacekeeping operation.

The French campaign, launched three weeks ago after a push south by rebel fighters raised fears the country could become a sanctuary for Al-Qaeda-linked extremists, has claimed a rapid succession of victories in key Islamist strongholds.

Panetta spoke as French troops were poised to secure the northeastern outpost of Kidal, the rebels' last bastion.

He said the US military would look to bolster its efforts in the region to counter Al-Qaeda affiliates and assist African armies against the militants.

"The United States has to take whatever steps are necessary to make sure that Al-Qaeda has no place to hide," said Panetta, who served as CIA director before taking over the Pentagon in 2011.

"It was always clear to me that AQIM (Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb) was an element of Al-Qaeda that we had to keep our eye on, and that has proven true," said Panetta, referring to the terror network's branch in Africa's Sahel region.

Asked about plans to use an air base in Niger under a new agreement, Panetta said the US military's Africa Command would do everything possible "to try to work with the countries in that region to make sure that AQIM is not only weakened but ultimately defeated there as well."

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/french-forces-faster-than-expected-us/story-e6frf7k6-1226567246529

Critics question changing face of Iran's space monkey

by: AAP From: Herald Sun February 03, 2013

..On January 28, official Iranian media published pictures of a monkey named Pishgam (Pioneer) prior to the launch.

The animal had light grey fur and a red mole above its right eye.

But later, the ISNA news agency released photos taken during presenting the monkey to the press after its landing which showed a darker fur and no mole.

These differences have been pointed out by Western media, which have questioned the success of the monkey space mission.

A previous attempt to send a primate into space failed in 2011.

On Facebook, a comment underneath the monkey's pictures reads: the monkey "went into space and met a doctor who removed its mole," an ironic reference to some Iranians passion for cosmetic surgery.

Iranian authorities did not directly responded to these questions on Saturday night.

Two websites close to the regime, Rajanews and Nasimonline, have said without citing sources that the monkey images available to the media before the launch were "archive" images of the doomed 2011 launch.

Instead, the monkey presented to the press after the sub-orbital flight was the one that successfully completed the mission.

Neither Iranian site gave any explanation why the reputed archive pictures were used by the media.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/critics-question-changing-face-of-irans-space-monkey/story-e6frf7jo-1226567635909

US intel officer warns China 'bully on high seas'

February 5, 2013 - 6:07PM

A top US navy intelligence officer has warned China is a bully on the high seas, with ambitions to sink American warships and seize control of waters from its neighbours.

Captain James Fanell also accused Beijing of ''fabricating'' history to claims disputed islands in the south and east China seas and described China as the ''principal threat''.

The marked escalation in rhetoric fuels a sense of a growing and dangerous rivalry between the US and China in the region - and is a headache for Australian defence planners seeking not to antagonise either country.

''They are taking control of maritime areas that have never before being administered or controlled in the last 5000 years by any regime called China,'' Captain Fanell told a conference in San Diego.

China's attitude was undoubtedly expansionist, he said – ''what's mine is mine, and we'll negotiate what is yours''.

Captain Fanell's blunt comments last week came in the wake of a warning from a senior Chinese military officer that the US was acting as ''the global tiger'', leading Japan, ''Asia's wolf'', in mauling China.

The Chinese officer warned Australia should not become a ''jackal for the tiger or dance with the wolf''.

The communist regime has increasingly given license for trusted military officers to speak out on regional affairs in what is widely interpreted as deliberate messages without being an official view.

The US now appears to be responding in kind.

''We need China to act like a great nation ... but that is not the China I've watched over the past decade,'' Captain Fanell said.

The deputy chief of staff for intelligence and information operations for US Pacific Fleet, covering oceans from

''Hollywood to Bollywood'', Captain Fanell said China was at the centre of virtually every dispute.

''My assessment is the [People's Liberation Army] Navy has become a very capable fighting force. Much of the intelligence record is classified beyond what we can discuss in this forum, but just to give you one example, in 2012 the PLA Navy sent seven surface action groups and the largest number of its submarines on deployment into the Philippines sea in its history,'' he said.

''I can tell you as the fleet intelligence officer, the PLA Navy is going to sea to learn how to do naval warfare ... Make no mistake – the [People's Republic of China] navy is focused on war at sea, and sinking an opposing fleet.''

Sam Roggeveen, from the Lowy Institute in Sydney, said the presentation did not represent the US government line and may yet be disowned.

''But such a brutally candid assessment from such a senior source is nevertheless bad news,'' Mr Roggoveen said.

''It indicates that China is throwing its weight around in exactly the way its neighbours fear, and that China has no appetite for cooperation or negotiation on its territorial claims.''

He also warned the US military's attempted to engage China were perhaps too pessimistic, calculating that China is a military adversary which the US must face down in concert with its friends and allies.

Captain Fanell said China's ''harassments'' on the high seas had expanded over time.

''In my opinion, China is knowingly, operationally and incrementally seizing maritime rights of its neighbours under the rubric of a maritime history that is not only contested in the international community but has largely been fabricated by Chinese government propaganda bureaus in order to 'educate' the populous about China's rich maritime history, clearly as a tool to sustain the Party's control.''



Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/political-news/us-intel-officer-warns--china-bully-on-high-seas-20130205-2dwb8.html#ixzz2K0g3mENT

Pope to resign on Feb 28: Vatican
DateFebruary 11, 2013 - 10:00PM

.Pope Benedict XVI has announced he will resign on February 28, a Vatican spokesman says, which will make him the first pope to do so in centuries.

"The Pope announced that he will leave his ministry at 8:00 pm on February 28 (0600 AEDT March 1)," said the spokesman, Federico Lombardi, on Monday.



Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/world/pope-to-resign-on-feb-28-vatican-20130211-2e95n.html#ixzz2KaZoDcTG

Pope just stepped down.

-PB

He knew what was coming to him, atheism etc.

First time in over 600 years a pope has resigned. When he was elected he wasn't expected to last long in his old age, so I guess it isn't such a shock. The big question is what direction will the church take from here? Another Vatican II like scenario is needed for the modernisation of Catholicism. Although serious talks of a Latin American Pope are growing. But as Bob Maguire said, no matter what happens "Jesus Christ runs the Catholic Church".

He'll just be the first pope not to die on the job.

Ratzinger was behind great Catholic cover-up

DateFebruary 12, 2013 - 4:06PM

Citing wavering strength of mind and body, Pope Benedict XVI announced his decision to resign from the papacy at the end of February. He will be the first Pope to abdicate in nearly six centuries. In 2010, as allegations of paedophilic priests continued to swirl, the late Christopher Hitchens decried individual and institutional corruption within the church's sacred walls. His original article is reprinted below.

On March 10 [2010], the chief exorcist of the Vatican, the Reverend Gabriele Amorth (who has held this demanding post for 25 years), was quoted as saying that "the Devil is at work inside the Vatican", and that "when one speaks of 'the smoke of Satan' in the holy rooms, it is all true – including these latest stories of violence and paedophilia". This can perhaps be taken as confirmation that something horrible has indeed been going on in the holy precincts, though most inquiries show it to have a perfectly good material explanation.

Concerning the most recent revelations about the steady complicity of the Vatican in the ongoing – indeed endless – scandal of child rape, a few days later a spokesman for the Holy See made a concession in the guise of a denial. It was clear, said the Reverend Federico Lombardi, that an attempt was being made "to find elements to involve the Holy Father personally in issues of abuse". He stupidly went on to say that "those efforts have failed".

He was wrong twice. In the first place, nobody has had to strive to find such evidence: It has surfaced, as it was bound to do. In the second place, this extension of the awful scandal to the topmost level of the Roman Catholic Church is a process that has only just begun. Yet it became in a sense inevitable when the College of Cardinals elected, as the vicar of Christ on Earth, the man chiefly responsible for the original cover-up. (One of the sanctified voters in that "election" was Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston, a man who had already found the jurisdiction of Massachusetts a bit too warm for his liking.)

There are two separate but related matters here: First, the individual responsibility of the Pope in one instance of this moral nightmare and, second, his more general and institutional responsibility for the wider lawbreaking and for the shame and disgrace that goes with it. The first story is easily told, and it is not denied by anybody. In 1979, an 11-year-old German boy identified as Wilfried F. was taken on a vacation trip to the mountains by a priest. After that, he was administered alcohol, locked in his bedroom, stripped naked, and forced to suck the penis of his confessor. (Why do we limit ourselves to calling this sort of thing "abuse"?) The offending cleric was transferred from Essen to Munich for "therapy" by a decision of then-Archbishop Joseph Ratzinger, and assurances were given that he would no longer have children in his care. But it took no time for Ratzinger's deputy, Vicar General Gerhard Gruber, to return him to "pastoral" work, where he soon enough resumed his career of sexual assault.

It is, of course, claimed, and it will no doubt later be partially un-claimed, that Ratzinger himself knew nothing of this second outrage. I quote, here, from the Reverend Thomas Doyle, a former employee of the Vatican embassy in Washington and an early critic of the Catholic Church's sloth in responding to child-rape allegations. "Nonsense," he says. "Pope Benedict is a micromanager. He's the old style. Anything like that would necessarily have been brought to his attention. Tell the vicar general to find a better line. What he's trying to do, obviously, is protect the Pope."

This is common or garden stuff, very familiar to American and Australian and Irish Catholics whose children's rape and torture, and the cover-up of same by the tactic of moving rapists and torturers from parish to parish, has been painstakingly and comprehensively exposed. It's on a level with the recent belated admission by the Pope's brother, Monsignor Georg Ratzinger, that while he knew nothing about sexual assault at the choir school he ran between 1964 and 1994, now that he remembers it, he is sorry for his practice of slapping the boys around.

Very much more serious is the role of Joseph Ratzinger, before the church decided to make him supreme leader, in obstructing justice on a global scale. After his promotion to cardinal, he was put in charge of the so-called "Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith" (formerly known as the Inquisition).

In 2001, Pope John Paul II placed this department in charge of the investigation of child rape and torture by Catholic priests. In May of that year, Ratzinger issued a confidential letter to every bishop. In it, he reminded them of the extreme gravity of a certain crime. But that crime was the reporting of the rape and torture. The accusations, intoned Ratzinger, were only treatable within the church's own exclusive jurisdiction. Any sharing of the evidence with legal authorities or the press was utterly forbidden. Charges were to be investigated "in the most secretive way ... restrained by a perpetual silence ... and everyone ... is to observe the strictest secret which is commonly regarded as a secret of the Holy Office ... under the penalty of excommunication." (My italics). Nobody has yet been excommunicated for the rape and torture of children, but exposing the offence could get you into serious trouble. And this is the church that warns us against moral relativism! (See, for more on this appalling document, two reports in the London Observer of April 24, 2005, by Jamie Doward.)

Not content with shielding its own priests from the law, Ratzinger's office even wrote its own private statute of limitations. The church's jurisdiction, claimed Ratzinger, "begins to run from the day when the minor has completed the 18th year of age" and then lasts for 10 more years. Daniel Shea, the attorney for two victims who sued Ratzinger and a church in Texas, correctly describes that latter stipulation as an obstruction of justice. "You can't investigate a case if you never find out about it. If you can manage to keep it secret for 18 years plus 10, the priest will get away with it."

The next item on this grisly docket will be the revival of the long-standing allegations against the Reverend Marcial Maciel, founder of the ultra-reactionary Legion of Christ, in which sexual assault seems to have been almost part of the liturgy. Senior ex-members of this secretive order found their complaints ignored and overridden by Ratzinger during the 1990s, if only because Father Maciel had been praised by the then-Pope John Paul II as an "efficacious guide to youth".

And now behold the harvest of this long campaign of obfuscation. The Roman Catholic Church is headed by a mediocre Bavarian bureaucrat once tasked with the concealment of the foulest iniquity, whose ineptitude in that job now shows him to us as a man personally and professionally responsible for enabling a filthy wave of crime. Ratzinger himself may be banal, but his whole career has the stench of evil – a clinging and systematic evil that is beyond the power of exorcism to dispel. What is needed is not medieval incantation but the application of justice – and speedily at that.

Slate.com



Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/ratzinger-was-behind-great-catholic-coverup-20130212-2e9jb.html#ixzz2Kg0spCin

Pope was not afraid to say sorry
DateFebruary 12, 2013 - 2:44PM (0)


Benedict XVI was a courageous pontiff who made a sincere attempt to restore the good name of the Catholic Church.

.When Joseph Ratzinger was chosen by his fellow cardinals to be Pope in April 2005, he was universally billed as the continuity candidate. He had spent 25 years doing John Paul II's bidding in charge of the old Holy Office, and most Catholics believed they knew exactly what Benedict XVI stood for. Few expected any surprises. Yet now he has pulled off the biggest surprise of all by becoming the first pope in 600 years to resign.

The flawless logic of his resignation letter demonstrates that there is nothing clouding Benedict's reason. "To steer the boat of St Peter ... both strength of mind and body are necessary," he explained, before stating that he simply didn't have the stamina for it any more.

Which isn't in the least surprising. In any other multinational organisation of 1.3 billion members, the idea that an 85-year-old could continue to exercise absolute authority on a daily basis would be regarded as untenable. For the Pope is not some figurehead, the religious equivalent of Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, abdicating on her 75th birthday to make way for "the next generation". He is an absolute monarch.

Logic, though, isn't the quality most often associated with the papacy. John Paul II and before him Paul VI carried on in office long after their bodies had failed them. They upheld the conviction in Catholicism that being elected pope is a divinely ordained duty, to be carried along a personal Via Dolorosa ("Way of grief") unto death.

But that is not what canon law stipulates. It explicitly sets out conditions for abdication, and so Benedict has invoked them. There is no mystery, or smoking gun, but rather just extraordinary courage and selflessness. Perhaps having watched John Paul II, a vigorous athlete of a man when he took office, decline into someone unable to move or to be understood, made Benedict's decision for him. He did not want to be a lame-duck pope; he knew that is not what the Catholic Church needs.

Yesterday's announcement inevitably prompts the question of how his eight years on St Peter's throne are to be viewed. As some kind of extended postscript to John Paul II's eye-catching, game-changing era? Or as a stand-alone epoch with distinctive policies and preoccupations?

The consensus leans heavily towards the former, but history could well judge Benedict more kindly. He may have lacked his predecessor's physical and spiritual charisma, and his unmissable presence on the world stage when major events were happening around him (the collapse of the Berlin Wall, two Gulf wars, September 11), but Benedict has nevertheless shown himself to be very much his own man. Two of his decisions as Pope illustrate what a break he made with his predecessor.

Just as they don't retire, popes also avoid at all costs admitting that they get things wrong, notwithstanding that they are infallible in certain matters of faith and morals. So few can have expected "God's Rottweiler", as he was known when he was carrying out John Paul's orders in relation to dissenters, to start breaking the mould as Pope by issuing mea culpas. But that is precisely what he did.

In January 2009, for instance, he wrote to every Catholic bishop in the world to confess to his own mishandling of the case of Bishop Richard Williamson. This self-styled English prelate, a member of the fundamentalist Lefebvrist group excommunicated by John Paul, had been readmitted to the Catholic Church on Benedict's watch. But days before, Williamson had given a TV interview in which he denied the Holocaust. The international outcry was huge – and magnified because of Benedict's own brief spell in the Hitler Youth. The Pope's response was a heartfelt and humble letter of apology.

His second volte-face came over the issue of paedophile priests. Under John Paul, the issue had been shamefully brushed under the carpet. The Polish pontiff, for example, declined to hand over to justice one of his great favourites, Father Marcial Maciel, the Mexican founder of the Legionaries of Christ, a traditionalist religious order. Despite well-documented allegations going back many years about Maciel's sexual abuse of youngsters in his seminaries, he was treated on papal orders as an honoured guest in the Vatican.

Yet within a month of taking office, Benedict moved to remove any protection and to discipline Maciel. He ordered the priest, then in his late 80s, never again to say mass or speak in public. And when Maciel died in 2008, his low-key funeral was followed by a rapid dismantling of the religious organisation he had built.

It was part of a concerted drive that made Benedict the first pope to sincerely attempt to address clerical abuse and restore the good name of the Catholic Church. In March 2009, for example, he sent another letter of apology, this time to Catholics in Ireland. "You have suffered grievously," he wrote to Irish victims of paedophile priests, "and I am truly sorry. I know that nothing can undo the wrong you have endured. It is understandable that you find it hard to forgive or be reconciled with the Church. In her name, I openly express the shame and remorse that we all feel."

That is quite a statement coming from a pope. It may be that his own past as a lieutenant of John Paul made him part of the problem, but he was unafraid to look this appalling betrayal of trust in the eye, not least in a series of meetings he arranged on his travels.

In fact Benedict wasn't much of a traveller. Global Catholicism and international leaders usually had to come to him in Rome rather than vice versa. Yet, though small of stature and delicate as bone china in demeanour, he grew slowly into the dignity of his office after it had initially threatened to swamp him.

So his 2010 trip to Britain did not, as had been widely predicted, pale beside the enduring and vivid memory of John Paul's barnstorming 1982 visit. Instead the crowds warmed to this serious man, with his nervous smile and understated humanity, as he kissed babies and waved from his Popemobile. Even sceptics responded positively to his determination to speak his mind about the marginalisation of religion.

There were, inevitably, notable failures in his reign. He was too much the career Vatican insider to shake up the curia, the Church's central bureaucracy. Its scheming and corruption was exposed for all to see in the "Vatileaks" scandal last year, with Benedict's own butler, Paolo Gabriele, convicted of stealing the Pope's private papers that revealed squabbling cardinals and unprincipled priests in the papal inner circle.

And Benedict's chosen "big tent" approach to leadership – which was to make him more German Shepherd than Rottweiler by welcoming dissidents back into the fold – also soon blew away. What remained was a willingness to make concessions to schismatic ultra-conservatives, but paper-thin patience with liberal theologians or grassroots movements such as that demanding genuine doctrinal change in Austria.

Patently more at home in a library or a theological college than on the world political stage, Benedict could be clumsy – as when in September 2006 his return to his alma mater, Regensburg University in Bavaria, was overshadowed by derogatory remarks about the prophet Mohammed which he quoted in his lecture. But he went out of his way to make amends on a trip to Turkey soon afterwards, joining Muslim clerics in prayer in the Blue Mosque in Istanbul. This was only the second time a pope had ever entered a mosque.

For every failure, there was a success. His inaugural encyclical, Deus Caritas Est ("God is Love"), in December 2005 broke new ground, first in being written in such a way that non-theologians could follow it, and second in celebrating human love without the standard Catholic exemptions for gays, the unmarried and those using contraception. "Sex please, we're Catholics" was the reaction of the influential Catholic weekly, the Tablet.

Though his decision to opt for retirement will mark out this papacy in history, Benedict's eight-year rule did not see the Catholic Church perform spectacular U-turns on any major doctrinal questions. Yet it was also so much more than a seamless continuation of what had gone before.

John Paul II may have left his cardinals with little choice other than to elect Joseph Ratzinger as a safe pair of hands. But Benedict XVI has, by the way he has stood down and by his record in office, made it more possible that a moderniser, in touch with the realities of life in the 21st century, will be chosen as the 266th successor to St Peter.

Peter Stanford is a former editor of the Catholic Herald.



Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/pope-was-not-afraid-to-say-sorry-20130212-2e9ke.html#ixzz2Kg4ZW36I

Iran's 'laughable' fighter jet caught out in Photoshop blunder

DateFebruary 13, 2013 - 9:21AM

Iran has been caught out in another Photoshop blunder in an effort to prove its purported stealth fighter jet is the real deal.

An Iranian state news agency released a new picture of the radar-dodging jet flying above snow-covered mountains.

But the picture was immediately suspected to be fake, with the lighting on the plane and its position similar to its appearance in pictures on the ground in Tehran at the unveiling earlier this month.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad described it as "among the most advanced fighter jets in the world", capable of hitting ground and air targets by stealth, but experts dismissed it as a "laughable fake" which looks like a toy or mock-up model.

Now the new picture has also been laughed off, after it was revealed by The Atlantic Wire that the background image of the mountain was taken from the stock image site PickyWallpapers.com.

Aviation experts have questioned whether the jet shown can even fly as it was too small to accommodate a real pilot and the controls and wiring looked too simple. It also lacked the bolts and rivets found on all aircraft and offered wonky aerodynamics.


Some claim the Iranian jet was Photoshopped onto this generic picture of Mount Damavand. Photo: PickyWallpapers.com

In 2008, news wire Agence France-Presse had to retract an official image of an Iran missile launch following revelations it was doctored to include an extra missile. The photo had appeared on the front pages of many media outlets including NYTimes.com and the front page of The Los Angeles Times.

In November last year Iran showed off a new drone design, but it was later revealed that the photographs it released were ripped off from a Japanese university and doctored.

Iran last month claimed to have successfully sent a monkey into space in a Pishgam rocket. That announcement was also accused of being faked as photographs of the monkey before and after showed two clearly different animals. Iran is sticking to its guns.



Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/irans-laughable-fighter-jet-caught-out-in-photoshop-blunder-20130213-2ebwb.html#ixzz2KjxwSs2M

Iran last month claimed to have successfully sent a monkey into space in a Pishgam rocket. That announcement was also accused of being faked as photographs of the monkey before and after showed two clearly different animals. Iran is sticking to its guns.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/irans-laughable-fighter-jet-caught-out-in-photoshop-blunder-20130213-2ebwb.html#ixzz2KjxwSs2M

China muscles US in Pacific

DateFebruary 16, 2013

.WITHIN two decades the United States will be forced out of the western Pacific, says a senior Chinese military officer, amid concerns that increasingly militarised great-power rivalry could lead to war.

Senior Colonel Liu Mingfu, at the People's Liberation Army's National Defence University, told Fairfax Media this week that American strategic influence would be confined ''east of the Pacific midline'' as it is displaced by Chinese power throughout east Asia, including Australia.

Colonel Liu's interpretation of one facet of what the new Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, calls ''a new type of great-power relationship'' adds to the uncertainty and anxiety surrounding China's strategic ambitions.

It clashes with comments days earlier by his university colleague, General Zhu Chenghu, who told a conference in the US: ''We have no intention of driving the US out of east Asia or the western Pacific.''

Concern about China's strategic ambitions has grown since last year's Chinese occupation of islands administered by the Philippines in the South China Sea and, particularly, China's continuing brinkmanship with Japan and its security guarantor, the US, in the East China Sea.

Japanese leaders have accused China of locking weapons-guiding radars on Japanese targets - which China denies - while Western military sources say Chinese planes, ships and submarines have challenged Japanese-controlled waters and airspace around the Senkaku Islands.

Some security analysts say Australian political leaders are in public denial about the stakes involved and invidious choices the nation may have to face.

''It's the most dangerous strategic crisis that the US has faced - that the world has faced - since the end of the Cold War,'' said Hugh White, former deputy secretary of the Department of Defence.

China and Japan, he said, were drifting closer to a war that could draw in the US. ''This makes rather a nonsense of the mantra we hear both from Gillard and Abbott that 'we don't have to choose between the US and China','' he said.

An assertive, rising China has also triggered the formation of a regional latticework of new security linkages, partly pioneered by Australia and now championed by the new Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, who proposes a ''democratic security diamond'' involving India, the US and Australia.

Ely Ratner, a fellow at the Centre for a New American Security, said Australia should speak louder in favour of international laws, norms and institutions given its dependence on rules and institutions that enable the free flow of goods in east Asia.

As much as 57 per cent of Australian exports pass through sea lanes in the South China Sea, according to Australian government estimates.

''The overriding question is whether China is interested in a region based on rules and institutions that seek co-operative, non-coercive ways to deal with disagreements,'' said Mr Ratner, who previously worked at the China desk of the US State Department.

''Or is it going to deal with disagreements by using military, non-military and economic coercion, as we saw against the Philippines and Japan, and diplomatic coercion as we saw at the East Asia Summit,'' he said, referring to China's intervention at the summit to block discussion of maritime security issues.

Last month, James Fanell, intelligence chief for the US Pacific Fleet - which commands six aircraft carrier groups - told a San Diego conference that China's ''expansion into blue waters is largely about countering the Pacific Fleet''.

Even China's civilian maritime surveillance agency ''has no other mission but to harass other nations into submitting to China's expansive

claims,'' he said. Colonel Liu, who previously warned Australia not to support the Japanese ''wolf'' or American ''tiger'' in any military showdown, does not hold the rank of general or act as an official spokesman.

But his views have been taken more seriously since his fiercely nationalistic book The China Dream was allowed back onto the shelves after Mr Xi's elevation in November, when Mr Xi began talking about his own nationalistic ''China Dream''.

And they reflect a common assertion in some quarters of Beijing, and particularly the People's Liberation Army, that the Obama administration's ''pivot'' to Asia is an aberration in a story that will see the US Pacific Fleet eventually give up on its allies in the region.

But, said Robert Rubel, Dean of the US Naval War College's Centre for Naval Warfare Studies, China's military ambitions will face natural internal and external constraints as aggressive behaviour will cause its neighbours to rally together.

''Some guys here say they're xenophobic, they're hostile, and they're probably right, but if they're halfway rational there are limits to how much trouble they can cause without bringing their own house down,'' said Professor Rubel, who helped design the US National Maritime Strategy.



Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/world/china-muscles-us-in-pacific-20130215-2eiu3.html#ixzz2KxvuCisZ

'Armed helicopters' support whalers, claims Sea Shepherd

by:
JESSICA MARSZALEK From:
News Limited Network February 25, 2013
6:44PM

A JAPANESE military ship has joined its whaling fleet in the Southern Ocean, increasing tension between whalers and activists after collisions last week.

The 140m-long Shirase icebreaker, operated by the navy and described by activists as "intimidating", arrived near the Nisshin Maru whaling ship and Korean-flagged fuel tanker Sun Laurel in Australia's Antarctic territory early yesterday morning, Sea Shepherd Captain Paul Watson said.

Before daylight, it sent a helicopter into the sky above the Sun Laurel, which is being prevented from refuelling the Nisshin Maru by activists who believe it is illegally carrying heavy oil, he said.

"They're heavily armed helicopters," Mr Watson told News Limited from the Steve Irwin, one of three Sea Shepherd boats in the area.

"They carry three of these big helicopters.

. "It is intimidating, but we're going to hold our ground and make sure they don't kill any whales."

A spokesman at the Japanese Embassy said there were "no factual basis" to the reports and refused to comment on "statements made by Sea Shepherd", but Australian Environment Minister Tony Burke said he had questions.

"Japan has told the Government that the Shirase is not involved in supporting their so-called scientific whaling fleet," he said.

It was true the Shirase often had a genuine research role in the area, he said.

"But the reports today of helicopters flying from the Shirase to the South Korean tanker being used for the refuelling of the Japanese whaling fleet mean there is a further question to be answered," he said.

Mr Burke said he wanted to know whether there had been any link, support or transfer of Japanese personnel to the oil tanker.

"Let's face it, without fuel there is no whaling fleet," he said.

"The tanker is the life blood for the rest of this disgusting operation."

The move comes after violent collisions last week between the Nisshin Maru and smaller Sea Shepherd and Sun Laurel vessels that were captured on video.

Sea Shepherd has been scathing of the Nisshin Maru's captain, which it says put lives at risk when he "rammed" three other boats.

The Institute of Cetacean Research, representing the whalers, said Sea Shepherd "provoked" the collisions.

The Greens called for Australia to send a Customs ship to cool the escalating situation.
But the Government maintained it would not, and that all its Antarctic interests were being monitored by the French under a cooperative treaty.


http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/national/armed-helicopters-support-whalers-claims-sea-shepherd/story-fncynkc6-1226585219218

YouTube video 'shows French family kidnapped in Cameroon'
Footage that seems to show the seven citizens taken last week in the northern part of the country is posted on the internet
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Afua Hirsch, west Africa correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Monday 25 February 2013 18.48 GMT

Link to video: Video of 'French citizens kidnapped in Cameroon' released
A video that appears to show seven French citizens, including four children, who were kidnapped in northern Cameroon last week has been posted on the internet.

The video, posted on YouTube, appears to show the Moulin-Fournier family – a couple, their children aged five, eight, 10 and 12, and an uncle – who were seized on 19 February after visiting the Waza national park, a wildlife sanctuary in northern Cameroon.

Three adults are seen sitting cross-legged with four children in front of them, guarded by two armed and camouflaged men. A male hostage reads in French from a written statement, saying the group was taken by the Nigerian Islamist group Boko Haram who demand the release of militants being held in Nigeria and Cameroon.

One of the guards speaks in Arabic in the video, claiming Boko Haram seized the group in retaliation for the French military intervention in Mali. He says the hostages will be killed if their demands are not met.

France's prime minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault, said experts were examining the video to determine whether it was authentic. "[We] have received information that the group Boko Haram is claiming to be holding the French family," Ayrault told reporters.

The film, if authentic, is the first time images of the family have been made public since they were kidnapped by six gunmen on three motorbikes close to the Nigerian border in northern Cameroon a week ago.

Last week, the French government was forced to retract a statement saying the family had been freed.

The family were visiting from Cameroon's capital, Yaounde, where the father, Tanguy Moulin-Fournier, worked as an executive with the French gas company GDF Suez.

The attack raised concerns that Boko Haram, whose name is often translated as "western education is sinful", is increasing activities in other west African countries. Witnesses in Mali described seeing Boko Haram members supporting al-Qaida-linked groups fighting there.

Over the weekend, the French government changed travel advice to Benin, which borders Nigeria to the west, in light of the possibility of Boko Haram attacks against tourists.

But Boko Haram, which declared a ceasefire five weeks ago, has denied involvement in the kidnapping.

At a press conference on Sunday in Maiduguri, a Boko Haram stronghold in northern Nigeria, spokesman Sheikh Abu Muhammad Ibn Abdulazeez said: "We have been hearing of late how people are linking us with the kidnap of the seven French nationals in Cameroon. We have nothing to do with the French people or their abductors."

The kidnapping is the latest of several affecting French citizens in recent years. In 2010 four French workers were kidnapped in Niger, and in 2011 two French businessmen were kidnapped in Mali.

Drinkers sue over watered-down beer
DateFebruary 27, 2013 - 1:15PM

Anheuser-Busch InBev NV, the world's biggest brewer, is being sued sued by two brothers for overstating the alcohol content in its Budweiser beer.

AB InBev routinely adds extra water to its finished products to produce malt beverages with significantly less alcohol than displayed on its labels, Thomas and Gerald Greenberg say in a complaint filed in the US federal court in Philadelphia.

The company's exaggeration of the alcohol content violates Pennsylvania's consumer protection statutes, according to the complaint.

"AB's customers are overcharged for watered-down beer and AB is unjustly enriched by the additional volume it can sell," according to the filing.

The complaint accuses Leuven, Belgian-based AB InBev of also mislabelling the amount of alcohol in Bud Ice, Bud Light Platinum, Michelob, King Cobra, Busch Ice, Black Crown, Bud Light Lime, Hurricane High Gravity Lager, Natural Ice and Michelob Ultra.

The men didn't say in the complaint how they determined the alcohol content of the beer.

The Greenbergs said they routinely bought as many as four cartons of Budweiser a month during the past four years, with the contents labelled as having an alcohol content of 5 per cent.

They claim that AB InBev keeps the alcohol amount for each batch of malt beverage at specifications above the desired final product at least initially, then adds water and carbon dioxide in the final stage of the brewing process.

The company began using in-line alcohol measuring instruments known as Anton Paar meters that can measure the alcohol content of malt beverages to within hundredths of a per cent, according to the complaint.

They say the brewer uses the precision technology to shave the alcohol content instead of providing a product based on the stated label.

"Even though AB knows the true alcohol content of its products, it intentionally and falsely overstates the alcohol content of its malt beverages," the Greenbergs say in their complaint.

They are seeking to represent everyone who bought products in Pennsylvania in their bid for damages exceeding $5 million and a court order requiring the company to alter its advertising.



Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/world/drinkers-sue-over-watereddown-beer-20130227-2f5fe.html#ixzz2M5RS3kon

North Korea threatens nuclear strike on US as UN votes for tough sanctions

From:
AP March 08, 2013
4:26PM

•UN votes for tough sanctions against rogue state
•Korean general says warheads are ready to be fired
•Threats becoming more common

North Korea threatens nuclear attack on U.S.

THE UN Security Council has voted unanimously for tough new sanctions to punish North Korea for its latest nuclear test.

The move sparked a furious Pyongyang to threaten a nuclear strike against the United States.
The vote by the UN's most powerful body on a resolution drafted by North Korea's closest ally, China, and the United States sends a powerful message that the international community condemns the ballistic missile and nuclear tests - and repeated violation of Security Council resolutions.

Immediately before the vote, an unidentified spokesman for Pyongyang's Foreign Ministry said the North will exercise its right for "a preemptive nuclear attack to destroy the strongholds of the aggressors'' because Washington is pushing to start a nuclear war against the North.

It appeared to be the most specific open threat of a nuclear strike by any country against another.

. Although North Korea boasts of nuclear bombs and pre-emptive strikes, it is not thought to have mastered the ability to produce a warhead small enough to put on a missile capable of reaching the US It is believed to have enough nuclear fuel, however, for several crude nuclear devices.

The new sanctions are aimed at reining in North Korea's nuclear and missile programs by making it more difficult for Pyongyang to finance and obtain material for these programs, tracking illegal diplomatic activity and intensifying inspections of cargo to and from the country.

In a measure targeted at the reclusive nation's ruling elite, the resolution bans all nations from exporting expensive jewelry, yachts, luxury automobiles and racing cars to the North. After the 15-0 vote, US Ambassador Susan Rice told reporters that "taken together, these sanctions will bite and bite hard.''

Responding to Pyongyang's nuclear strike threat, she said, "North Korea will achieve nothing by continued threats and provocation.''

She urged North Korea's leaders to heed President Barack Obama's call to follow the path of peace. If it doesn't, she said, the Security Council is committed in the resolution to take further measures.

China's UN Ambassador Li Bao Dong said the top priority now is to "bring down the heat'' and focus on diplomacy and restarting the six-party talks aimed at denuclearising the Korean peninsula.

In North Korea, Army General Kang Pyo Yong told a crowd of tens of thousands that North Korea is ready to fire long-range nuclear-armed missiles at Washington.

"Intercontinental ballistic missiles and various other missiles, which have already set their striking targets, are now armed with lighter, smaller and diversified nuclear warheads and are placed on a standby status,'' Gen Kang said. "When we shell (the missiles), Washington, which is the stronghold of evils, .... will be engulfed in a sea of fire.''

The statement by the North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman was carried by the North's official Korean Central News Agency.

It accused the US of leading efforts to slap sanctions on North Korea. The statement said the new sanctions would only advance the timing for North Korea to fulfill previous vows to take "powerful second and third countermeasures'' against its enemies. It hasn't elaborated on those measures.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un and his generals ... the UN Security Council has imposed sanctions on North Korea for its nuclear test last month.

The statement said North Korea "strongly warns the UN Security Council not to make another big blunder like the one in the past when it earned the inveterate grudge of the Korean nation by acting as a war servant for the US in 1950.''

North Korea demanded the Security Council immediately dismantle the American-led UN Command that's based in Seoul and move to end the state of war that exists on the Korean Peninsula, which continues six decades after fighting stopped because an armistice, not a peace treaty, ended the war.

In anticipation of the resolution's adoption, North Korea earlier in the week threatened to cancel the 1953 cease-fire that ended the Korean War.

North Korean threats have become more common as tensions have escalated following a rocket launch by Pyongyang in December and its third nuclear test on February 12. Both acts defied three Security Council resolutions that bar North Korea from testing or using nuclear or ballistic missile technology and from importing or exporting material for these programs.
The United States and other nations worry that North Korea's third nuclear test pushed it closer to its goal of gaining nuclear missiles that can reach the US.

The international community has condemned the regime's nuclear and missile efforts as threats to regional security and a drain on the resources that could go to North Korea's largely destitute people.

The UN resolution identifies three individuals, one corporation and one organisation that will be added to the UN sanctions list. The targets include top officials at a company that is the country's primary arms dealer and main exporter of ballistic missile-related equipment, and a national organisation responsible for research and development of missiles and probably nuclear weapons.

The success of a new round of sanctions could depend on enforcement by China, where most of the companies and banks that North Korea is believed to work with are based.

The UN resolution condemns the latest nuclear test "in the strongest terms'' for violating and flagrantly disregarding council resolutions, bans further ballistic missile launches, nuclear tests "or any other provocation,'' and demands that North Korea return to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. It also condemns all of North Korea's ongoing nuclear activities, including its uranium enrichment.

But the resolution stresses the council's commitment "to a peaceful, diplomatic and political solution'' and urged a resumption of six-party talks.

According to the resolution, all countries would now be required to freeze financial transactions or services that could contribute to North Korea's nuclear or missile programs.
To get around financial sanctions, North Koreans have been carrying around large suitcases filled with cash to move illicit funds. The resolution expresses concern that these bulk cash transfers may be used to evade sanctions. It clarifies that the freeze on financial transactions and services that could violate sanctions applies to all cash transfers as well as the cash couriers.

The resolution also bans all countries from providing public financial support for trade deals, such as granting export credits, guarantees or insurance, if the assistance could contribute to the North's nuclear or missile programs.

It includes what a senior diplomat called unprecedented new travel sanctions that would require countries to expel agents working for sanctioned North Korean companies.

The resolution also requires states to inspect suspect cargo on their territory and prevent any vessel that refuses an inspection from entering their ports. And a new aviation measure calls on states to deny aircraft permission to take off, land or fly over their territory if illicit cargo is suspected to be aboard.

Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr said the Security Council had to impose tougher sanctions.

Senator Carr described North Korea as a "uniquely repressive regime with its uniquely belligerent foreign policy and defence stance'', saying Pyongyang was committed to no less than the "nuclearisation and intense militarisation'' of the Korean peninsula.

"The world had no alternative ... but to agree on terms for a Security Council resolution that gives effect to a new level of sanctions,'' he told ABC radio on Friday.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/world/north-korea-threatens-nuclear-strike-against-us/story-fnd134gw-1226592742931