Headlines:

• Russian Navy to Hold Biggest War Games in Decades
• 60,000 Killed in Syrian War, says UN
• Kissinger, US Intelligence Community Endorse "World without Israel"
• US, UK against Pak Nukes?
• US Arms Sales to Asia Set to Boom on Pacific ‘Pivot'

Details:

Russian Navy to Hold Biggest War Games in Decades:

The four major Russian Navy fleets will hold a joint exercise in late January in the Mediterranean and Black Seas. It will be the biggest such event in decades. Commands for the Northern, Baltic, Black Sea and Pacific fleets have been preparing for the exercises since December of last year, the Russian Defense Ministry has announced. Warships detached for the event are currently sailing to those regions. "The primary goal of the exercise is to train issues regarding formation of a battle group consisting of troops of different branches outside of the Russian Federation, planning of its deployment and managing a coordinated action of a joint Navy group in accordance with a common plan," the Ministry's Information Department explained. The exercise will include several scenarios, including the loading of amphibious troops from an unprepared coast in the Northern Caucasus onto transport vessels. The announcement comes days after the launch of the nuclear-powered submarine Vladimir Monomakh, the third Borei-class strategic submarine cruiser produced in Russia. The vessel, armed with Bulava ICBMs, will become part of the country's nuclear deterrence force after completing sea trials. The Russian Navy's five fleets each have their own headquarters. The strongest, the Northern fleet is based in Severomorsk in the north-west of the country. The Baltic fleet is based in Kaliningrad, the western Russian enclave on the coast of the Baltic Sea. The Black Sea fleet is based in Sevastopol, Ukraine, from which Russia rents a naval base. The Pacific fleet is based in Vladivostok in Russia's Far East. The Caspian flotilla is the smallest in the Russian Navy, but is the strongest naval force in the enclosed Caspian Sea.

60,000 Killed in Syrian War, says UN:

At least 60,000 people have died in Syria's conflict, the UN Human Rights Commissioner has said, citing an "exhaustive" study which has sharply increased the number of those believed killed. Before the latest UN-commissioned survey it had been estimated that up to 45,000 people had perished during the conflict; the up-to-date calculation increases the death toll by a third. The revised estimate came as it was reported that dozens had been killed on Wednesday after a government war plane bombed people queuing at a petrol station in a suburb of Damascus. According to the UN report, almost three-quarters of those listed as killed on both sides of the conflict were men. Estimating casualties is a notoriously difficult process in the midst of an ongoing war, but in this case the UN says it has established the name, place and date of death of each of those it says it has counted. The real death toll is likely to be greater because reports containing incomplete information were excluded and a significant number of killings may not have been documented at all. "There are many names not on the list for people who were quietly shot in the woods," said Rupert Colville, a spokesman for the Human Rights Commissioner, Navi Pillay.

Kissinger, US Intelligence Community Endorse "World without Israel":

According to news reports, Henry Kissinger and sixteen American intelligence agencies agree that in the near future, Israel will no longer exist. "The New York Post" quotes Kissinger "word for word," "In 10 years, there will be no more Israel." Kissinger's statement is flat and unqualified. He is not saying that Israel is in danger, but could be saved if we just gave it additional trillions of dollars and smashed enough of its enemies with our military. He is not saying that if we elect Netanyahu's old friend Mitt Romney, Israel could somehow be salvaged. He is not saying that if we bomb Iran, Israel might survive. He is not offering a way out. He is simply stating a fact: In 2022, Israel will no longer exist. The US Intelligence Community agrees, though perhaps not on the precise 2022 expiration date. Sixteen US intelligence agencies with a combined budget over USD70 billion have issued an 82-page analysis titled "Preparing for a Post-Israel Middle East." The US intelligence report observes that the 700,000 Israeli settlers illegally squatting on land stolen in 1967 - land that the entire world agrees belongs to Palestine, not Israel - are not going to pack up and leave peacefully. Since the world will never accept their ongoing presence on stolen land, Israel is like South Africa in the late 1980s. The extremist Likud coalition governing Israel, according to the US intelligence report, is increasingly condoning and supporting rampant violence and lawlessness by illegal settlers. The report states that the brutality and criminality of the settlers, and the growing apartheid-style infrastructure including the apartheid wall and the ever-more-draconian system of checkpoints, are indefensible, unsustainable, and out of synch with American values. The sixteen US intelligence agencies agree that Israel cannot withstand the coming pro-Palestinian juggernaut consisting of the Arab Spring and the Islamic Awakening.

US, UK against Pak Nukes?

Talking to media, Defence Secretary Lt General (R) Asif Yasin Malik on Friday said: "The United States and Britain are against Pakistan's nuclear programme and the CIA uses ‘foreign agencies' for its operations in Pakistan. He also claimed that they had ‘complete information' of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agents working in Pakistan, and US had provided a list of its spies. But the next day he retracted his earlier assertion. Moreover, he also purportedly stated that Washington's (toughened) tone and tenor towards Pakistan was ‘changing' and there were no Black Water marines here anymore. Regardless of what Yasin Malik said, the fact remains that the US in the past used every conceivable subterfuge to raise concerns over Pak nukes, and every imaginable trick to disgrace Pakistan military and its agencies. Anyhow, America's efforts to monitor Pakistan's nuclear program date back to the time when late Bhutto had expressed his determination to make nuclear device. Last year, declassified documents had revealed that the United States waged a secret diplomatic campaign as early as in late 1970s to prevent Pakistan from developing nuclear weapons.

US Arms Sales to Asia Set to Boom on Pacific ‘Pivot' :

US sales of warplanes, anti-missile systems and other costly weapons to China's and North Korea's neighbours appear set for significant growth amid regional security jitters. Strengthening treaty allies and other security partners is central to the White House's "pivot" toward a Pacific region jolted by maritime territorial disputes in China's case, and missile and nuclear programs, in North Korea's. The pivot "will result in growing opportunities for our industry to help equip our friends," said Fred Downey, vice president for national security at the Aerospace Industries Association, a trade group that includes top US arms makers. Demand for big-ticket US weapons is expected to stay strong for at least the next few years, the trade group said in a 2012 year-end review and forecast released in December. Fears resulting from China's growing military spending should lead to enough US sales in South and East Asia to more than offset a slowdown in European arms-buying, according to the forecast. The trade group, whose members include Pentagon suppliers Lockheed Martin Corp, Boeing Co and Northrop Grumman Corp, did not put numbers to its 2013 forecast. Nor did the Pentagon's Defense Security Cooperation Agency, which has overseen a boom in worldwide deals under President Barack Obama. The security agency, in response to a Reuters request, said sales agreements with countries in the US Pacific Command's area of activity rose to $13.7 billion in fiscal 2012, up 5.4 percent from a year before. Such pacts represent orders for future delivery. In 2012 there were about 65 notifications to Congress of proposed government-brokered foreign military sales with a combined potential value of more than $63 billion. In addition, the State Department office that regulates direct commercial sales was on track to receive more than 85,000 license requests in 2012, a new record. Overall, the United States reached arms transfer agreements in 2011 totalling $66.3 billion, or nearly 78 percent of all such worldwide pacts, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. The 2011 total was swollen by a record $33.4 billion deal with Saudi Arabia. India ranked second with $6.9 billion in such agreements. Rupert Hammond-Chambers, who consults for US arms makers through BowerGroupAsia, an advisory with 10 offices in the region, predicted Southeast Asian defense budgets would expand steadily as a hedge against Chinese assertiveness in disputes in the South China and East China seas.

Abu Hashim