Politics
Thursday, February 25, 2016
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World
The Saudis are 'drawing lines in the sand' — and showing they are serious about confronting Iran
Saudi Arabia warned its citizens against traveling to Lebanon on Tuesday after one of its biggest allies, the United Arab Emirates, banned travel to Lebanon altogether.
The move, which followed the Kingdom's decision last week to halt $4 billion in fundingfor Lebanese security forces, shows that the Saudis "appear to have had enough," saidTony Badran, a researcher at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies specializing in the military and political affairs of the Levant.
"Saudi Arabia is signaling that they're not going to bankroll an effective Iranian satrapy that's actively aligned against them," Badran told Business Insider on Tuesday.
That satrapy is Hezbollah, a Lebanese militant organization sending fighters to Syria to support Iran-backed Shi'ite militias battling Saudi-backed Sunni rebel groups that oppose Syrian President Bashar Assad. One of Hezbollah's staunchest allies is the right-wing Christian Free Patriotic Movement, headed by Lebanon Foreign Minister Gibran Bassil.
Saudi Arabia cut diplomatic ties with Iran earlier this year, after the Saudi embassy in Tehran was attacked by protestors decrying Riyadh's decision to execute a prominent Shi'ite cleric.
Lebanon has long had a strong relationship with Saudi Arabia, but Bassil apparently took Iran's side in the most recent spat between Tehran and Riyadh.
Elie Fawaz, writing for the Lebanese news outlet NOW, notes that the Saudis have withdrawn aid because of how state institutions are, "one way or another, support[ing] Hezbollah's military effort in Syria."
The Saudis, then, are now "showing their seriousness about confronting Iran" and warning Lebanon that they won't underwrite an Iranian vassal, Badran said.
"The talk is that the GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council] might take tough action against Hezbollah's allies, especially the Christian ones, who support Hezbollah's domination of Lebanon," Badran said. "And some believe that these allies are the weakest link."
'Obama is a big hurdle'
The Saudis' determination to take on Iran and its proxies is clearly growing.
Earlier this month, the spokesman of the Saudi-led coalition force in Yemen told reporters that the Kingdom had made a "final" decision to send ground troops into Syria.
And last week, Saudi foreign minister Adel al-Jubeir called for sending surface-to-air missiles to rebel groups in Syria "to change the balance of power on the ground."
The Saudis have since walked back somewhat on both announcements. But they clearly have remained eager to counter Iran's expanding influence in the region.
"The question now for the Saudis is about how to align that determination with means and actual steps," Badran said. "Obama is a big hurdle."
The Saudis have shown no signs of abandoning their proxy war with Iran in Syria, especially since doing so would effectively guarantee Assad's indefinite hold on power and, by extension, a bridge to Hezbollah for Iran. Though it has softened its position on Assad's ouster, the White House has reiterated that it believes the war cannot end as long as Assad in power.
But the Kingdom is still waiting for reciprocity and readiness from the Obama administration to more aggressively support anti-Assad rebels, who are rapidly losing ground to pro-regime forces as Russian airstrikes clear the way for them to advance in the north.
Indeed, as the Saudis continue to balk at the US' decision to lift nuclear-related sanctions on Iran, Washington has shown few, if any, signs that it intends to prevent Syria from becoming a Russian-Iranian sphere of influence. And that may be intentional.
"The Iranians hold the Obama legacy in their hands,"Aaron David Miller, a former Middle East negotiator and now the vice president at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, said in a January interview with Bloomberg View."We are constrained and we are acquiescing to a certain degree to ensure we maintain a functional relationship with the Iranians."
Badran largely agreed.
"The Saudis are pressed for time given the situation in northern Syria," Badran said, referring to rebels' recent defeats around Syria's largest city, Aleppo. "But, as long as Obama is in office, I don't think the odds are good" that they'll significantly escalate the stakes there, he added.
"For now," he added, "the Saudis are drawing lines in the sand."
A Swedish teenager rescued from ISIS militants by special forces has given her first interview since being freed
China's blasting the US media for 2 huge stories
The Chinese government never has a problem getting its message across. Chinese Communist Party affiliated media dominate the country's landscape, and the government often writes direct messages to the populace using a pen name.
So we know the government is having a bit of a problem with US media right now, and that problem stems from two issues, one domestic to China, and one of international importance.
The international issue has been dominating media for days. On Tuesday the US sent fighter planes to the South China Sea, after reports indicated that China was continuing to develop military capabilities on islands it has built out into the sea.
China, naturally, was not pleased to learn that the US government was sending more weapons to the region, and "reaffirmed its right to self-defense."
That wasn't all, though.
The country also had some choice words for reporters covering the incident. In a message directly addressing CNN's report that fighter jets were on the way, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hua Chunying said the following:
"I would advise the media to not selectively exaggerate or ignore issues, as this will not help your audience understand the bigger picture."
She then asked CNN to consider what other countries were building in the region, and focus on that issue instead.
Noted.
The Chinese press also had choice words for Voice of America, which covered President Xi Jinping's recent speech about the importance of complete party control of the media.
This is from an op-ed un The People's Daily:
VOA, as a mouthpiece of the U.S., will also defend its government. From this point of view, each country does the same, but some may be better skilled at covering their true intentions.
Those who try to deny this fact are simply naive about politics.
However, those saying that Xi’s statements indicate a restriction on freedom ofspeech are making groundless accusations.
The op-ed went on to say that China is relatively weak on the world stage, and that the government was just trying "innovative" approaches to guiding its media.
China's ongoing reform calls for an urgent change in public opinion, ideology and intellectual support. All media should make efforts to implement the principle and direction set forth by the central government.
In the next few years, Chinese media will enter a promising future.
Sounds like it.
Technology
A meteor that exploded over the Atlantic on Feb. 6 had more force than the Hiroshima bomb
Earlier this month, folks detecting atmospheric explosions for the United States government noticed something a bit out of the ordinary off the coast of Brazil. At roughly 2 p.m. UTC on February 6, a wayward meteor measuring roughly the size of a small living room entered Earth’s atmosphere and — while traveling over 34,000 miles per hour — exploded with an incredible amount of force. How much force, you ask? Think 13,000 tons of exploding trinitrotoluene (TNT), or more energy than what was given off by the atomic bomb detonated over Hiroshima.
According to recent data released by NASA’s Near Earth Object Program, the meteor was located some 1,150 miles southeast of the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro, essentially in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. As it careened downwards, the object rapidly burned up and eventually exploded roughly 19 miles above the surface of the ocean. While the energy exerted will certainly raise eyebrows, rest assured, occurrences of this nature happen quite often and sometimes pack even more energy — e.g., theChelyabinsk fireball in February 2013 released roughly 500,000 tons of TNT.
An approximate location of where the meteor exploded
“The Earth is bombarded by debris from space to the tune of about 100 tons every day,”says Slate’s Phil Plait. “Most of the stuff is quite small, like the size of a grain of sand or smaller, and burns up 100 kilometers or so off the ground.”
Unfortunately for this latest event, the likelihood of anyone capturing the explosion on photo or video remains scarce considering it’s distant location off the coast of Brazil. Detection of the blast likely resulted from a combination of satellite imagery, atmospheric microphones, and seismic monitors, so even the people who initially stumbled upon this finding only had a series of data readings to work off of.
What’s maybe most chilling is the fact NASA (or any other agency, for that matter) has yet to perfect a method for detecting such meteors more than a few hours prior to impact. Though none have yet to pose a serious threat, the Chelyabinsk fireball did create a bit of a frenzy when it exploded in 2013, shattering a slew of windows which in turn caused injuries for more than 1,000 nearby civilians. NASA did recently open a facility whose sole purpose is to canvas space for asteroids bound for Earth, so perhaps it’s only a matter of time before events like these are known before they happen instead of weeks after.
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