Lightning Times

Morning Report: 2013-05-30

Syria says its shipment of Russian S-300 missiles (registration) has arrived.

Burmese changes: 'After 50 years of brutal military rule, Myanmar’s democratic opening has been swift and startling...'.

Over the past two years dramatic reforms introduced by a new president, Thein Sein, prompted by the country’s increasingly desperate economic straits, have started a rapid transition from secretive isolation to an open democracy of sorts. The mere fact of such a change taking place has surprised the world; its speed and breadth have caused widespread bewilderment.

China interested in the Azores?

"Hundreds of thousands" of AP phone records seized, says CEO Gary Pruitt.

Richard Fernandez examines the dangers of recruiting informants - if indeed that is the reason so many warnings about Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the Boston Bomber; Michael Adebolajo, the Woolwich beheader and Alexandre D. the Parisian neck-stabber were ignored.

The biggest cost to using informants is that they can in the meantime continue their life of crime. In fact, they are often expected to proceed as before in order to rise ever higher in the hierarchy of the target. The crimes they may naturally commit along the way often go unpunished. The price of catching the big fish is feeding it bait.

Morning Report: 2013-01-01

Pakistan: Gunmen kill seven charity workers. Fox: 'Gunmen killed five female teachers and two other people on Tuesday in an ambush on a van carrying workers home from their jobs at a community center in northwest Pakistan, officials said. The van was transporting teachers and aid workers from the center in conservative Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Two health workers, one man and one woman, were also killed and the driver was wounded.' BBC has more, with a map. Workers at the center say they suspect its vaccination program is the target of the attacks; last month nine health workers were killed during a national polio vaccination drive.

India: Delhi gangrape protests continue. Hindustan Times: 'The capital on Tuesday continued to witness protests against the Delhi gangrape, with a modest gathering at Jantar Mantar demanding strong law against sexual offences. Some people continued their fast demanding stringent punishment for the culprits involved in the gangrape of the 23-year-old paramedic student, who died last Saturday.' Via Rantburg, The cops stated that after throwing the victim out of the moving bus, the accused had tried to crush her under the bus.

Syria: Fighting continues near Aleppo airport, throughout country. Fierce clashes have erupted near the international airport in Syria's second city of Aleppo, officials say. Syrians woke on New Year's Day toc ountrywide aerial bombardment, while President Bashar al-Assad's forces and rebels fighting to topple him clashed on the outskirts of the capital.

Saudi Arabia: Women refuse to segregate. A group of conservative man who wanted to attend the “Saudi Elite and Alienation Issues” lecture this week at the Jeddah Literary Club protested against the presence of women in the same room as men and threatened to leave if they were not moved to another room. However, the women refused to move room and insisted on remaining in the main hall to listen to the lecture.

Azerbaijan: Rent hike prices Russian radar out. Strategy Page:

January 1, 2013: Russia has decided to shut down its Daryal type long range missile detection radar in Azerbaijan after the Azerbaijanis demanded that a new lease increase annual rent from $7 million to $300 million. Russia refused to pay and will shut down the Azerbaijan radar and dismantle it. The ten year lease ended on December 24, 2012. This radar went operational in 1983 and was supposed to be one of seven. But the end of the Cold War halted that project and only one other Daryal radar was built (on the north coast of Russia). That one detected missiles coming in over the North Pole from North America. The radar in Azerbaijan covered all of the Middle East and India. Its role will be assumed by a more recent radar design that recently went into service on the Black Sea coast. Russia had offered to upgrade the Azerbaijan radar and pay more rent, but not $293 million more a year more. In addition, Russia has always paid Azerbaijan $5 million a year for electricity and $10 million a year for other services. About 500 Azerbaijanis were employed at the radar station, in addition to 1,100 Russians.

Morning Report: 2012-07-11

More business with Burma, fewer brains on drugs.

USA / Burma: Washington eases sanctions. 'President Barack Obama on Wednesday eased sanctions against Myanmar to allow U.S. companies to invest there, calling the move a "strong signal" of support for political reform taking root in the southeast Asian country. But Obama said Washington remained concerned about the lack of investment transparency as well as the military's role in Myanmar's economy ...'

USA: New and improved War On Drugs, now with less intelligence. Via Fausta, Obama administration closes National Drug Intelligence Center.

Mexican cartel violence is at an all-time high along the increasingly porous southern border yet the Obama Administration has shut down a critical intelligence agency dedicated to identifying, tracking and severing the nexus between drug trafficking and terrorism.

It’s a senseless move, which is why it was done very quietly. The only real way to discover that the Justice Department’s 19-year-old National Drug Intelligence Center (NDIC) has been closed is by trying to visit its website. It simply says that on June 15, 2012, the National Drug Intelligence Center (NDIC) closed. The public is redirected to another website with “historical materials, an archived version of the NDIC.”

The move is baffling considering the agency’s crucial mission. Consider this; just a few years ago an NDIC task force uncovered that Mexican drug cartels are buying arms from radical Islamic terrorists and that they team up to distribute narcotics in Europe and the Middle East. The NDIC report that revealed this identifies terrorist groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah, the Palestine Liberation Front and the Palestine Liberation Organization as Arab associates of Mexican drug-trafficking cartels. All are officially designated as terrorist organizations by the U.S. Department of State. ...

Uzbekistan: Tashkent pulls out of CSTO. The Diplomat
: 'Uzbekistan’s withdrawal from the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) highlights the growing influence of this often overlooked Moscow-led military alliance in Eurasia. But it also underscores the limited ability of Russia to dominate the former Soviet republics of Central Asia. Even more, it indicates how the typical “great game competition” framework for analyzing great power competition in the region is misleading. ...'

Space: OK, but if it's not really a planet, how can it have moons? 'A fifth moon has been discovered orbiting former planet Pluto, scientists with the Hubble Space Telescope announced Wednesday ...'

Deposed Maldives President: "Another Pakistan"

The former president of the Maldives - an island chain to the south-west of India, which is nowhere near Argentina - warned of the rising influence of radical islamists in the nation:

During his term as president , Nasheed is credited with introducing a number of reforms in Maldives and being the face of moderate Islam - which are the reasons he says radical elements within the country turned against him.

"The strength of radical Islamists within Maldives is rising. In fact, the country has become another Pakistan right now. Look at the way the coup against me happened. There is a strong similarity with the way Nawaz Sharif, another democratically-elected leader was ousted. He sacked general Musharraf and Musharraf plotted against him. I asked a colonel and deputy chief of police to go and they staged a coup and removed me."

Now on a mission to sensitize the international community , Nasheed says the only way things can improve in his country is to have free and fair elections as early as possible. ...