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Influential Egyptian TV personality Tawfik Okasha has reportedly told Israel to bomb Iran. Addressing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a “dear friend,” Okasha said that Israel should bomb the Bushehr Nuclear Reactor, Breaking Christian News reports. "Put your trust in God and bomb it. We are with you and if you need fuel for the jets, we will give it to you,” Okasha said. Netanyahu said Okasha’s words are proof Egypt cannot be trusted. "In the last few days, Iran has shown again why it can't be trusted," Netanyahu said. According to Breaking Christian News, the Israeli Prime Minister...

TRIESTE, Italy, April 17 (UPI) -- Italian shipbuilder Orizzonte Sistemi Navali and DCNS of France have announced the construction of combat vessels for the navies of Italy and Egypt. Orizzonte Sistemi Navali S.p.A. said that OCCAR, the European Union agency in charge of multinational weapons procurement projects, had notified them that the Italian Navy was exercising a contract option to obtain two FREMM frigates. The frigates would be the ninth and tenth for Italy under the Italian-French FREMM, or Multi Mission European Frigates, program. The value of the option exercise carries a value of about $818.1 million. "Considering the effort...

About 300 US paratroopers have arrived in Ukraine to train the Ukrainian National Guard which is fighting pro-Russian rebels in the east, the US army said in a statement. The troops from the 173rd Airborne Brigade arrived on Tuesday and Wednesday in Yavoriv, western Ukraine, to spend six months training three battalions of Ukrainian troops, said the statement dated Thursday.

Moscow (AFP) - Armed police on Thursday raided the office of a Russian rights group led by exiled Vladimir Putin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky, during the president's marathon annual phone-in session. A group of police and special forces searched the Moscow office of Open Russia, a rights network led by Khodorkovsky, for protest flyers, Khodorkovsky's spokeswoman Kulle Pispanen wrote on her Facebook page. "As we're preparing for the phone-in, masked men came to the office," Pispanen wrote. "They are looking for posters and flyers for a protest on April 19 that we were not planning to participate in and which has...

In a car park outside a block of flats in Moscow, a dozen Russian teenagers in camouflage are practising army drills. A young lieutenant barks out orders. They form a wobbly line and march up and down on the spot. Inside another group of kids are learning how to handle weapons - firing blanks down an empty hall way to improve their aim. This after-school club is ostensibly part of a drugs prevention programme: a programme of evening activities with a patriotic military slant, aimed at keeping local kids away from drinking and shooting up. But for the club's organiser,...

Two videos uploaded to the Internet purportedly reveal RussiaÂ’s first truly new infantry fighting vehicles in decades and a new self-propelled howitzer. One of the videos even shows intriguing closeups of whatÂ’s probably RussiaÂ’s new Armata tank. If the videos are authentic, itÂ’s a sign that the KremlinÂ’s long-delayed rearmament plans are making progress. Unknown videographers captured the footage at the Alabino training grounds, a base about 29 miles southwest of Moscow where Russian forces rehearse for the annual May 9 Victory Day parade in Red Square. The parade celebrates the Soviet Union victory over Nazi Germany during World War...

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that Iran's willingness and flexibility in trying to find a solution with the West over its nuclear program had spurred his decision to lift a 2010 ban to deliver an S-300 missile defense system to Tehran, adding that the advanced Russian unit would not pose a threat to Israel. But the president, in his annual televised call-in show, said Russia would still work "as one" with its partners in the United Nations over Iran and that deliveries of the S-300 would work as a deterrent in the Middle East. "And now with the...

"By 2023, we plan to create our own national space station in orbit. This is something far-off in the future, but also necessary for us from the point of view of our national economy," Putin said. Russia and NASA recently agreed to keep operating and financing the International Space Station (ISS) at least until 2024, but future joint space projects remain in doubt, as relations between Russia and the United States have plunged to post-Cold War lows over the Ukraine conflict. The Kremlin strongman said that Russia needed its own space station to be able to view its own territory...

Top Russian officials accused the United States on Thursday of seeking political and military dominance and sought to put blame on the West for international security crises, including the conflict in east Ukraine. Evoking Cold War-style rhetoric, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said a drive by the United States and its allies to bring Kiev closer to the West was a threat to Moscow and had forced it to react.

On Monday, Israeli officials reported that Iran has upped its delivery of weapons to the Lebanese Shiite terror group Hezbollah in the past few weeks. Channel 2 stated that the shipments have been made to both Lebanon and the Syrian side of the Golan Heights. In addition, the report stated that Iran was sending weapons to Hamas chiefs in Gaza and arming Hamas members in Judea and Samaria. Channel 2 asserted that the ease in sanctions on Iran from the present nuclear negotiations would allow it to spend “billions of dollars” shipping weapons to Israel’s enemies. The increase in Iranian...

...he has allowed delivery of missiles to Iran...

HELSINKI (Reuters) - From closer NATO ties to rumors of Kremlin-backed land deals on its border, Finland's diplomatic balancing act with Russia has come under the spotlight before Sunday's parliamentary election as politicians debate how far to challenge the Kremlin.The vote sees centrist opposition front-runner Juha Sipila, who favors military non-alignment along with two other major parties, battling center-right incumbent Prime Minister Alexander Stubb, who advocates joining NATO. The debate was mirrored regionally after an unprecedented hawkish joint statement last week by Nordic countries - Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark and Iceland - that directly cited the Russian "challenge" as grounds...

Rosneft broke another world record Tuesday after drilling the world’s longest well at the Chayvo field off the coast of Russia’s Sakhalin Island. The O-14 production well was drilled to a record breaking depth of 44,291 feet with a horizontal reach of 39,478 feet. The well is part of the Sakhalin-1 project that includes the offshore Chayvo, Odoptu and Arkutun-Dagi fields. Since the start of drilling at Sakhalin-1 the company has broken nine world records including setting two consecutive records for measured depth in 2013. Russia’s Rosneft said the extended reach drilling was among the fastest ever thanks to ExxonMobil’s...

Here’s one way to win the adoration of the Internet: launch an entire agency dedicated to making you look good. This, according to a fascinating report in The Guardian, is a method that the pectoral stunt double and Russian President Vladimir Putin has adopted in an attempt to sway the hearts and minds of his countryfolk. The Kremlin allegedly runs a troll agency in a nondescript building in St. Petersburg, employing hundreds of paid bloggers and commenters to mock Western leaders like President Barack Obama and spread pro-Russian sentiment — especially regarding the country’s ongoing conflict in Ukraine. Per the...

The U.K. Ministry of Defense has released an accounting of all the aircraft in Royal Air Force, Royal Navy and British Army service — and the overall tally is tiny … and getting tinier. As of March this year, the air forces of the United Kingdom possessed no more than 362 combat-ready warplanes and drones plus 249 helicopters — a mere 611 military aircraft. Britain’s air force, navy and army together have another 93 planes and copters that are in deep maintenance or rework plus 18 that are in storage. None of these 111 aircraft are immediately available for combat. It’s worth noting that...

PM tells Russian leader that the move would only serve to increase Iran's aggression and put the security of the Middle East at risk. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Russian President Vladimir Putin that the sale of S-300 anti-missile systems to Iran would only strengthen its aggression and undermine the Middle. The two leaders spoke by telephone on Tuesday, just one day after Russia ended its five-year ban on the delivery of the anti-missile system, which would help strengthen Iran against a military attack. Russia that in light of the framework agreement between Iran and the six world powers to...

On Tuesday’s “Morning Joe” on MSNBC, co-host Mika Brzezinski offered her assessment of a potential match-up of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), to which Brzezinski gave the overwhelming advantage to Clinton.

On May 9, Russia is holding an enormous military parade to commemorate the end of World War II 70 years ago. With tensions between Russia and the West high, most European Union leaders are staying away from the event. […] Russia would have liked to showcase the Armata and a host of other military technology to the foreigners who were supposed to be sitting in the VIP stand on May 9. The Kremlin had invited 68 leaders of foreign countries to the victory celebration, including the most important politicians in the Western world. So far, only 25 have accepted Moscow’s...

For years, Team Obama crowed about keeping this advanced Russian missile out of Iran’s hands. Now the Kremlin suddenly seems eager to hand it over to Tehran. This nuke deal with Iran had better work. Because the Kremlin is lifting a ban on selling a powerful air defense system to Iran that would render an airstrike on Tehran’s nuclear weapons facilities nearly impossible. The delivery of the new weapon, called the Almaz-Antei S-300PMU-1—known as the SA-20 Gargoyle in NATO parlance—would effectively force the U.S. to rely on its small fleet of stealth aircraft to strike targets inside Iran in case...

For nearly two nights April 13th Battalion "Crimea" was a "fiery hell." Vengeful militants hurled White phosphorus, which the international community prohibit for use during the war, as causing the most severe injuries. "Separatist decided to avenge their failed attack by day and obviously a lot of dead on their side. Separatists shoot White phosphorus, burning all around, even brick walls of houses. Already hundreds of unexploded shells of napalm in the air and continue to burst," said in an official media page of the battalion "Crimea." Soldiers of the battalion did not give up and survived a brutal attack....