TheLipTV | – “Malware in hard drive firmware is the latest, and most sophisticated spying tool the NSA is suspected of using, with Kaspersky Labs of Russia suggesting that the “Equation Group” of hackers have infiltrated the innermost workings of computers dating back to 2001. The “Equation Group,” have long been suspected of being intimately […]
Archives for February 2015
Today’s Top 7 Myths about Daesh/ ISIL
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) – The self-styled ‘Islamic State’ Group (ISIS or ISIL), the Arabic acronym for which is Daesh, is increasingly haunting the nightmares of Western journalists and security analysts. I keep seeing some assertions about it that strike me as exaggerated or as just incorrect. 1. It isn’t possible to determine […]
Hidden Dragon: China quietly becomes a Major Player in the Middle East
By Neil Thompson | (Informed Comment) – The era of Western neo-colonial dominance in the Middle East may finally be drawing to a bloody close. The Western monopoly ended almost unnoticed in 2013 when China replaced the European Union as the region’s foremost trading partner, pushing the US into third place, with India breathing at America’s heels […]
Elon Musk’s Battery for Solar Homes may Change Electric Utilities forever
TomoNews | – “Tesla is developing a battery that can power homes with stored solar energy so that users do not need to draw power from electricity grid.” TomoNews: “Elon Musk: Tesla to launch batteries that can power homes”
Iraq: Sunni Sheikh Killed trying to Mediate between Shiite, Sunni Extremists
By Erin Evers | (Human Rights Watch) In Latifiyya, a small town 20 miles south of Baghdad, fighting has been raging since long before the armed conflict that erupted when the Islamic State (also known as ISIS) took over Mosul. For at least two years state security forces and government-backed militias have been battling Sunni […]
2 1/2 yrs after US Consulate Attack, Libyan Nat’l Army advances in Benghazi against Radicals
CCTV Africa | – “Footage from Benghazi showed troops, equipped with tanks, gun-mounted trucks and automatic weapons, advancing through farmland.” CCTV Africa: “Libya’s Army Makes Gains In Fighting Against Militias” The Algerian Times also reported last week: The Libyan army retook Benghazi’s largest military base … in the East, from fundamentalist fighters who held the […]
Avenging its Christians, Egypt Bombs Libya in first formal Campaign since 1991
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) – The murder by Daesh (ISIS or ISIL) thugs in Sirte, Libya, of 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians this weekend provoked the first formal Egyptian military incursion into another state’s territory since the 1991 Gulf War. Egyptian fighter jets bombed warehouses, training camps and other assets of Daesh in Derna. […]
Israel’s Obsession for Monopoly on Middle East Nuclear Power
By Thalif Deen | — UNITED NATIONS, (IPS) – As the Iranian nuclear talks hurtle towards a Mar. 24 deadline, there is renewed debate among activists about the blatant Western double standards underlying the politically-heated issue, and more importantly, the resurrection of a longstanding proposal for a Middle East free from weapons of mass destruction […]
iSolar! Apple putting nearly $1 Bn into Solar Farm to Power Corporate Campus
Bloomberg Business | — “Apple is embracing renewable energy with an $848 million commitment to obtain electricity from a solar farm that’s big enough to power its offices in California, along with 52 retail stores and a data center. Bloomberg’s Michael di Capua and Bloomberg Businessweek’s Brad Stone speak on “Bloomberg West.”” Bloomberg Business: “Apple […]