Category Archives: TEOTWAWKI

WWIII Watch: Syrian Jets Pound “Rebels” in Lebanon

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Some escalation that means will we soon see a much wider conflict including more civil war in Lebanon as Iranian backed Hezbollah joins the fray to counter the “Syrian rebels” who are clearly operating from Lebanese territory:

BEIRUT—Syrian warplanes fired missiles into Lebanese territory on Monday, heightening the potential for Syria’s neighbors to be pulled into its 18-month-old conflict.

Such spillover has rocked the delicate political balance in Lebanon, where rival sectarian political forces have thrown their support behind opposing sides in Syria’s civil war.

“As conditions deteriorate, we see dangerous implications for Syria’s neighbors,” Robert Serry, the United Nations special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, told the U.N. Security Council on Monday.

Hours after the strike, Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Lebanese Shiite political party and militant group Hezbollah, made a rare public appearance before tens of thousands of protesters in Beirut’s southern suburbs.

Hezbollah had called for demonstrations to protest a video mocking the Prophet Muhammad, but the gathering also served as a show of political force by the movement, which remains a supporter of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Hezbollah’s Sunni and Christian rivals in Lebanon have largely backed Syria’s rebel fighters.

The Lebanese government’s quiet response to the Syrian missile strikes underscored just how deep and fraught those divisions remain.

[…]

The turnout in support of Hezbollah dwarfed the crowds that came out on Sunday for Mass in downtown Beirut with Pope Benedict XVI, who wrapped up his three-day trip to Lebanon with a public plea for peace, reconciliation and interreligious harmony.

It was widely assumed that Hezbollah held off on joining the outpouring of anger across the region in response to the video until after the pope left, so as not to jeopardize the historic trip. The Shiite group has a powerful presence within the Lebanese government and walks a delicate road between hard-line militancy and the more pragmatic demands of governance and coexistence in the fractured country.

At Monday’s rally, protesters marched through the streets chanting “Death to America” and “America is the great Satan.”

I personally don’t see how America isn’t going to be a main target of multiple groups once this world war kicks off.

Did China Murder a Japanese Ambassador?

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As China makes moves to militarily seize Japanese territory and the Chi-Coms organize domestic protests to whip their population up into a frenzy for the coming war a Japanese ambassador to China has died of an unspecified” illness.

From Bloomberg:

Japan’s new ambassador to China died this morning following an unspecified illness, the Foreign Ministry said today, five days after his appointment amid an intensifying territorial dispute between the two countries.

Incoming envoy Shinichi Nishimiya, 60, was hospitalized on Sept. 13, the ministry said at the time. Nishimiya collapsed and lost consciousness near his Tokyo home, Kyodo News reported, without saying where it got the information.

Tensions between Asia’s two largest economies have risen over rights to uninhabited islands in the East China Sea known as Senkaku in Japanese and Diaoyu in Chinese. The Japanese government nationalized the islands last week and China dispatched six government vessels to nearby waters.

Japan announced on Sept. 11 that Nishimiya would replace Uichiro Niwa, the first private-sector appointee to become ambassador to China. Niwa’s car was blocked and the Japanese flag attached to it ripped off by assailants in Beijing last month.

Japan’s foreign minister and defense chief returned to Tokyo yesterday, cutting short a visit to Australia as anti- Japanese protests flared up across China.

Sounds suspicious to me. I’m betting China is waiting for things to blow up in the Middle East so they can start making moves on our allies in Asia.

h/t Once Upon the Time in the West

Superbug Kills Seven in Maryland

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I hadn’t heard of this:

BETHESDA, Md. (AP) — A deadly germ untreatable by most antibiotics has killed a seventh person at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center in Maryland.

The Washington Post reported the death Friday. NIH officials told the paper that the boy from Minnesota died Sept. 7. NIH says the boy arrived at the research hospital in Bethesda in April and was being treated for complications from a bone marrow transplant when he contracted the bug.

He was the 19th patient at the hospital to contract an antibiotic-resistant strain of KPC, or Klebsiella pneumoniae. The outbreak stemmed from a single patient carrying the superbug who arrived at the hospital last summer.

The paper reported the Minnesota boy’s case marked the first new infection of this superbug at NIH since January.

Time to break out the home remedies.

h/t Extinction Protocol

WW III Watch:China Moves to Seize Japanese Island

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This is the result of weak American leadership:

TOKYO (majirox news) — Tensions between China and Japan over the Senkaku Islands, known the Diayu Islands in China, located in the East China Sea escalated.

The Japanese media reported that China dispatched four maritime ships toward the islands after the Japanese government purchased three of the disputed islands on September 11 for approximately $26 million from a private Japanese owner. China says it is an attempt to “steal its property” and they are ready to “assert” the country’s sovereignty over the islands.
“I don’t believe it will grow into a military confrontation,” said Koichiro Yoshida, vice president of the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly and ruling Democratic Party of Japan member. “But if it does and the Chinese vessels enter the territorial waters around the Islands, Japan should take aggressive measures. We must protect the rights of our citizens and our sovereignty over the islands.”

The dispute is spilling over into Japan’s economy. For example, Nissan Motor’s sales in August fell and many joint events as well as Chinese tours to Japan have been canceled.

“But I don’t expect it to have a massive negative impact on our economic relations,” Yoshida said. “Japan is a major investor and China is our largest trading partner. Although Chinese consumers might not buy Japanese brands because of this. I suspect there is too much at risk for both countries, but it will be more damaging for China.”
The islands are near rich fishing grounds and believed to contain undersea natural gas and oil fields.

Japan can say what they want but the Chi-Coms need that oil more than they need Japanese electronics.

h/t The Extinction Protocol