Author Archives: Kami Klein

Russia, Great Britain suspend flights to Sharm El-Sheikh

To say it is chaotic at the Sharm El-Sheikh airport is an understatement as Egyptian authorities said that only eight of the 29 rescue flights that were planned for today will be taking off.  Empty planes are being diverted as passengers that can only take their hand luggage with them are struggling to get home. As stranded passengers observe flight after flight being canceled the frustration is mounting.  

Sharm El-Sheikh is a tourist destination for many in Europe but inbound flights have all been canceled from Great Britain and now very few are being sent to pick up the thousands of British Tourists.  According to Reuters, about 20,000 are believed to be in the area.  

Russia has also just announced that until the results have come in regarding the cause of Metrojet Airbus A321 to break up and crash in Sinai all flights in to the region are suspended.  Putin has declared that this action is only prudent for Russian’s safety. He has also asked that all Russian tourists leave the area.  

There are currently 45,000 Russian tourists in Sharm el-Sheikh, one of the most popular destinations for holidaymakers, according to Oleg Safonov, the head of Russia’s state tourism agency quoted by the TASS news agency.

The numbers of Russian tourists currently in the Red Sea resort bring home how devastating Putin’s decision will be for the Egyptian economy. Up to a third of all visitors are Russian.

Some uninvestigated tweets that are coming by tourists stranded at the airport have spoken about how easy it has been to get around security at the airport citing that $35 would get you out of having your luggage searched.  

Number of Americans Applying for Unemployment Benefits Rises to Five Week High

There were more Americans applying for unemployment benefits last week.  Applications increased by 16,000 to 276,000 in the week ending October 31st.  

The Labor Department report showed the biggest advance since the end of February.  The four-week average of claims climbed from it’s lowest in four decades.  The total number of claims has not topped 300,000 since March.

Employers have been holding off on letting go of workers and attempting to adjust hiring plans instead in response to overseas economies.  

A jobs report from the labor department for the month of October is due to be released on  Friday and is projected to show job growth that’s a step down from the average so far this year.

According to Bloomberg the number of people continuing to receive jobless benefits increased by 17,000 to 2.16 million in the week ended Oct. 24.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Allegedly Behind Cyberattacks Targeting U.S.

Protesters in Iran celebrated the 36 year anniversary of the 52 Americans in the U.S. Embassy of Teyran that were took hostage for 444 days by supporters of the Iranian revolution, by chanting the familiar, “Death to America”.  The U.S. has continued to attempt proceeding towards a more constructive dialogue with Iran, only to be shown time and time again through rhetoric and violence that Iran has no intention of becoming an ally of America.

According to a report by the Wall Street Journal, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard has been behind a recent wave of cyberattacks on email and social media accounts of White House personnel.

Though the White House had hoped the recent nuclear deal would further cooperation between the two nations, the cyberattacks from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has shown that Iranian headliners have not toned down their hostility.

The Washington Post, citing unnamed US officials, said people working on Iran policy appeared to be the focus of the cyber attacks, with personnel in the State Department’s Office of Iranian Affairs and the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs among those hacked. Other targets included journalists and academics.

The  Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)  has developed a team of hackers, trained by Russia, to focus on different Wall Street banks and Saudi oil companies, U.S. officials say, adding that Iran’s cyber attacks have regularly been a test of U.S. defenses.

Reports are that these hacking attempts have increased since the arrest of Siamak Namazi in mid-October, head of strategic planning for Crescent Petroleum, an oil and gas company in the United Arab Emirates and has worked for think tanks in Washington. He had been detained and interrogated regularly by the Revolutionary Guards before his arrest.

US officials believe some of the more recent attacks may be linked to reports of detained dual citizens and others,” a source told the Journal.

28 Californians and Millions of Birds Killed by West Nile Virus

A study, released Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has found that the West Nile virus is annihilating the native bird population in the United States. The study looked at the impact of the virus on 49 species from information collected at over 500 bird banding stations across the U.S. from 1992 to 2007.
UCLA’s Ryan Harrigan and his colleagues found significant declines in survival rates associated with West Nile virus for 23 out of 49 of the species examined.

Millions of birds can die in a single year when West Nile hits species with large populations. Among the estimated 130 million red-eyed vireos in the United States, researchers believe the virus killed 29 percent, or more than 37 million.

West Nile, a mosquito-borne virus, was introduced in North America in 1989. It has drawn the most attention for its impact on humans, with 1 in 5 people who are infected developing a fever with other symptoms, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. In rare cases, people develop a serious, sometimes fatal, neurologic illness.

According to the CDC, West Nile Virus which originated in birds, then spread to mammals and then humans killed 85 people last year with 2,122 cases reported. So far, 63 deaths have been reported, 28 in California alone, with 1,197 cases reported in the United States. The first deaths from West Nile Virus were reported in 1999.

The most deaths were reported in 2012 with 5674 cases reported and 286 deaths.

Tensions Rise Between U.S. and China Over South China Sea Disputes

Recently, on a visit to Stanford Center at Peking University in China, U.S. Pacific Command, Adm. Harry Harris Jr. clarified and defended decisions to sail a U.S. naval destroyer near a Chinese occupied island in the disputed water of South China Sea.

Harris, acknowledged the dispute but continued to stress the increasing cooperation between both the U.S. and Chinese militaries, giving the coordinated search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 as an example.

Despite these corporations, the U.S. and many other regional governments continue to express concern over the China’s building of artificial islands and then using those islands as landing strips with placed surveillance

According to Harris, last week’s action by the USS Lassen was designed to show that the United States would not tolerate any interference with freedom of navigation in nearby waters.

$5 trillion in global trade pass every year through the South China Sea. China claims most of it, though Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines and Taiwan have made rival claims.

China protested the Lassen patrol, calling it a “deliberate provocation,” and sent two warships to shadow the U.S. vessel and issue warnings. International law allows warships to transit other countries’ territorial seas under the principle of “innocent passage.”

Despite Beijing’s intense displeasure, the U.S. Government will continue to patrol those areas in the South China Sea. Admiral Harris said in a prepared statement, “These operations serve to protect the rights, freedoms and lawful uses of the sea and airspace guaranteed to all nations under international law.”

Latest Airport Inspections Find Some Security Layers “Simply Missing”

The TSA has been under the microscope for months after a report was leaked showing investigators were able to sneak banned items in airport security past the TSA officials in checkpoints on 96 percent of their attempts.

A federal watchdog told Congress on Tuesday that a recent convert audit of U.S. airports found layers of security were “simply missing.”

A report by the Inspector General for the Department of Homeland Security General John Roth shared information regarding the checkpoints that were monitored at eight undisclosed airports in September.The findings were revealed during a House hearing on TSA problems where new Administrator Peter Neffenger also testified on what he’s doing to fix them.

“The results were consistent across every airport. Our testing was designed to test airports across the country in real world conditions. The failures included failures in the technology, failures in TSA procedures, and human errors,” Roth testified.

Congress has expressed great concern on the problems in security at our nation’s airports.

“In looking at the number of times people got through with guns or bombs in these covert testing exercises it really was pathetic. When I say that I mean pitiful,” said Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.) “… Just thinking about the breaches there, it’s horrific.”

TSA Administrator Neffenger explained in the hearing that the challenges that have been created by more and more people carrying on their luggage instead of checking them due to large baggage fees make it difficult to try to spot potential security threats.

While many at the hearing wondered if the problems were unfixable, General Roth said new TSA leadership has promptly began addressing some of the issues in the reports and he is optimistic about airport security being improved.

Cyclone Chapala Dumps One Year of Rain Plus on War Torn Yemen

Yemen, a country that gets an average of 4 inches of rain per year has received that and more in just this one day as Cyclone Chapala crashed it’s way onto its coast. Some news reports in Yemen are reporting up to 48 inches of flooding rains. Thousands are fleeing something that they have never seen before!  This tropical storm is the first on record to make landfall in the impoverished Arab country.

The country has been plunged into chaos this year by a conflict between Houthi rebels and forces loyal to deposed President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi. A Saudi-led coalition in March began bombing the Houthis, who are aligned with Iran.

Yemen is already dealing with one of the largest humanitarian crises in the world, according to the United Nations. The widespread fighting has killed thousands of people, many of them civilians, and left millions more desperately short of food, water and medical supplies.

Now the Yemeni people are faced with 85 mph winds, incredible flash flooding, rock and mud slides and very little help.  According to news reports at least 6000 have fled to upper ground to escape the escalating flooding.  

According to news reports, Abdul-Jamil Mohammed, deputy director of the Environmental Protection Authority on the island of Socotra, a Yemeni island where Chapala has already passed reported strong winds, heavy rain and big waves overnight into Monday.

At least three people were killed and over 200 injured.  

Mohammed said the storm damaged some homes and uprooted trees in Hadibo, the capital of Socotra. Contact has been lost with the northeastern part of the island since Sunday night, and floods have covered the roads leading there, he said.

“Our problem is we have no one to help us here,” he said, explaining the island has one hospital and four ambulances. A shortage of fuel has already caused great trouble for the island.

While numerous tropical systems have formed in the Arabian Sea, it is uncommon for a storm the strength of Chapala to occur so far south and west. Chapala was the equivalent of a low-end Category 4 hurricane as it passed by Socotra.

White House Prepares for Solar Flares and Other Space Weather Events

The U.S. Government has released its National Space Weather Strategy showing a multiagency plan that details how the U.S. will prepare for and deal with a massive EMP from Space Weather.  

An EMP or geomagnetic solar storm event has long been talked about in the media but steps are being taken now to show how serious this is to the government.

The six-step plan requires government agencies, schools, the media, the insurance industry, nonprofits, and more to work together.

“This is a real and present danger,” the White House’s assistant director for space weather told the Houston Post.   Back in 1859, a huge solar storm did impact Earth and caused some sparking telegraph lines. If a geomagnetic storm as strong as that one were to strike today it would likely cause $600 billion to $2.6 trillion worth of damage in the United States alone, according to a recent study.

NASA says that we had a scary near miss when we were nearly hit by two plasma clouds in 2012.  “If it had been hit, we would still be picking up the pieces,” one physicist says.

According to news reports, the White House’s new plan calls for the U.S. to get better at predicting space weather, shore up our infrastructure against EMPs and more. These plans, may truly be needed: The Post quotes NASA as stating there’s a 12% chance of a giant solar flare in the next 10 years.

In a  report released by the United Kingdom’s Department of Business Innovation and Skills said that the Earth can indeed experience a massive solar storm, with mankind having only 12 hours to prepare for such a potentially disastrous event.

To read the full plan you can go to: https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/final_nationalspaceweatherstrategy_20151028.pdf

Iran Begins Deactivating Centrifuges But Still Shouting “Death to America”

Iran has begun the process of deactivating and decommissioning the first of thousands of centrifuges.  The centrifuges are used for enriching uranium and this action is in response to Iran’s part of it’s commitment according to the nuclear deal reached with U.S. and other major world powers.  

The head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, Ali Akbar Salehi, told Kyodo News agency, during a visit to Japan, that the entire process will “take some time.”  

“We have already started to take our measures vis-a-vis the removal of the centrifuge machines — the extra centrifuge machines,” Ali Akbar Salehi told Japan’s public broadcaster NHK, according to the Reuters news agency.

Iran needs to take most of its centrifuges, spread over two facilities, out of service, reducing their numbers from 19,000 to around 6,000. Also under the agreement Iran has promised to reduce its enrichment capabilities.

According to Reuters, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has stated his approval of the nuclear deal, allowing the work to begin, but the lawmakers said that the pace at which the centrifuges are being decommissioned is in direct violation of the Ayatollah’s directives.  

On Tuesday,  Ayatollah Ali Khamenei spoke to Iranian students in Tehran about mistrust for U.S. policies and the nuclear deal and said that the slogan “Death to America,” was directed at the U.S. government and not its people.  

“Your ‘Death to America’ slogan, and the cries by the Iranian nation, have strong logical support behind them,” he told the students, “Obviously by ‘Death to America’, we don’t mean death to the American people. The American nation is just like the rest of the nations. It … means death to U.S. policies and its arrogance.”

Largest U.S. Banks $120 Billion Shortfall

A regulatory requirement proposed on Friday by the Federal Reserve will force six of the eight globally systemically important U.S. banks to raise an additional $120 billion in order to comply.  

Bank of America, Bank of New York Mellon, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs Group, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, State Street, and Wells Fargo are to follow the requirements aimed at ensuring the banks so they are able to recapitalize without disrupting markets or requiring a government bailout.  

The banks are expected to meet the $120 billion shortfall by issuing debt, a usually more cost-effective way than issuing equity, according to Federal Reserve officials speaking at a background press briefing Friday.

This proposal, along with others has been taken to avoid chaotic bank failures and according to Federal Chair, Janet Yellen, “would substantially reduce the risk to taxpayers and the threat to financial stability stemming from the failure of these firms.”

This requirement is one of a series of rules that have been aimed at reducing risk in the banking system by determining how much debt and equity banks should use to fund themselves.