49 Countries Have Violated Sanctions On North Korea

A new report from the Institute for Science and International Security has found that 49 countries violated sanctions on North Korea to varying degrees between March 2014 and September 2017.

You will find more statistics at Statista

13 governments including Cuba, Egypt, Iran and Syria were involved in military violations, which as Statista"s Martin Armstrong notes, includes either receiving military training from North Korea or being involved in the import and export of military equipment.

The range of nations involved in breaching non-military sanctions is much broader.

Those violations include importing and exporting sanctioned goods and minerals or aiding shipments by re-flagging vessels. Other instances include the involvement of front companies as well as other business activities like financial transactions. The list of nations violating sanctions non-militarily includes China, France, Germany and Japan.

13 other countries violated sanctions in a manner that seems completely inadvertent.

North Korea targeted countries including the Canada, Switzerland and the U.S. in an attempt to buy equipment which could potentially have military applications. This strategy has proven successful in the past, with the most famous example occurring in the 1980s when Pyongyang duped U.S. aerospace manufacturer McDonnell Douglas in order to illegally obtain 87 civilian MD-500 helicopters. The North Korean military later modified them to carry Susong-Po anti-tank missiles and these aircraft are still in active service today.

"Burn Them And Their Families": As ISIS Crumbles, Vigilantes Run Amok in Iraq

Authored by Daniel Lang via SHTFplan.com,

It’s hard to appreciate the effect ISIS has had on ordinary Iraqis and Syrians who wanted nothing to do with the terror group.

There are cities in these countries that have been ruled by these monsters for several years. Monsters whose cruelty and depravity knows no bounds. Most people in the West can’t imagine what that must be like, because the vast majority of us have never lived under those conditions.

So what does happens to people who have been living under ISIS for so long?

Well, try to imagine what you would do if a bunch of lunatics had been running your community for several years. Imagine if they had cut you off from the outside world, tortured and killed family members and neighbors, sold female relatives into sexual slavery, and indoctrinated your children.

Some people manage to move on with their lives after those conditions pass. Others do not. In Iraq for instance, there are now vigilante groups that have risen in the wake of the Islamic State’s collapse, and they’re targeting members of ISIS, as well as their families.

Eleven suspected jihadists who were recently found blindfolded, bound and shot to death on the side of the road 20 miles south of Mosul are some of the victims of the group, which on its Facebook page tells supporters to ‘burn’ the families and homes of ISIS members.

 

The vigilante group, which has dubbed themselves the Hammam al-Alil Revolution, created a Facebook group to launch revenge on ISIS members in May. It now has 650 members.

 

‘Soon we will start our operation, we are now locating Deash families,’ read the first post on the page from May 28. ‘We will make them regret joining. Good luck everyone,’ it signs off.

This is what happens when law and order breaks down. People don’t just mete out justice. They are free to go on bloody rampages.

‘Today we targeted Mohammad Atrash, we threw two grenades and attacked the family with gunfire, as they did to us,’ the post said.

 

The Facebook page posts the addresses of dead and imprisoned ISIS fighters, encouraging its members to go after them and their families.

 

The group told its followers last month to ‘burn them and their families’.

 

One member of the group told The Telegraph that it was carrying out attacks as revenge after his cousin was killed by ISIS militants.

 

The man, only identified as Omar, said: ‘It’s a reciprocity. They hurt my family, now we will hurt theirs.’

So these people, who have had their families shattered by ISIS, are now doing the same thing to the noncombatant families of ISIS fighters. It reminds me of a famous quote from Friedrich Nietzsche. “Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.”

New Generation Of Bombs Undetectable By Airport Scanners: What's The Solution?

Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

In response to Homeland Security Ponders Laptop Ban On All International Flights: Surefire Way to Stop Bombs on Planes reader Brindu sent a pair of interesting links discussing new bombs that airport scanners cannot detect.

Please consider U.S. Believes ISIS’ Bomb-Making Research Includes New Generation of Explosives.

Amid the bombed-out ruins of Mosul University, U.S. officials say they have uncovered evidence that the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) was developing a new type of bomb that could pass through an airport scanner undetected.

CBS News joined Iraqi Special Forces in Mosul just days after the hard-fought battle to recapture the University in January. It’s long been believed that Mosul University was the center of the militants’ bomb-making projects, using the school’s equipment and labs.

Now, U.S. officials believe that research includes a new generation of more powerful explosives that could be concealed in a computer.

When ISIS overran Mosul in 2014, they also captured the city’s international airport. And with it, all the modern security scanner and screening equipment necessary to test their new bombs.

Professional Pilots Discussion

The Professional Pilots Rumor Network, PPRuNE Website, has a discussion on undetectable bombs.

Dubaian: What’s to stop ISIS putting this clever new ‘undetectable’ stuff in pretty well anything a PAX might take on board. And it’d be easier than replumbing a laptop.

Peekay4: A working explosive is composed of several elements. These elements can be disguised within a laptop, large tablet, etc. Put them into a box of chocolates or a can of Pringles, they would be very easy to detect.

EDLB: What can they detect in checked luggage but not in a carry-on?

Peekay4: Not going into specifics but part of the reason for requiring them in checked luggage is not only for detection but also isolation (containment).

Lomapaseo: Containment from what? If they go boom as baggage the damage is variable as hell based on location. If they go boom in the cabin the damage is predictable based on seat location and/or overhead storage which is specific by PNR (boarding pass). And then there is the fire hazard from a typical LI cheap battery in passenger luggage. In the overhead or cabin, it’s specific in location and ability to assess and contain.

Infrequentflyer789: If they go boom in the cabin the damage is predictable based on exactly where the attacker decides to set it off, which is nothing to do with a boarding pass. A small boom set by a clever attacker in the right place is going to be as big a threat as a large boom placed randomly, and that’s before we get onto stuff like shaped charges and really clever placement.

Edmundronald: This will make Chromebooks and other net-connected empty-shell computers the tool of choice for biz travelers. Rent one or buy a cheap one as soon as you touch down.

RTD1: Rather, this will result in a massive push towards video conferencing/telepresence in lieu of business travel. I’ve been a management/technology consultant flying weekly for 20 years now, and if this ban were extended to all domestic and international flights, I’d likely either find an alternative to in-person meetings or switch careers if it were not feasible. I haven’t checked a bag (save for gate checking carry-ons on puddle jumpers) in years. I keep my timelines from landing to meeting starts pretty tight, and I count on flying time for working. I’m not unique, such a rule would be devastating for business travel.

Pax Britanica: There is always an element of business travel that is not really necessary but its hard line to draw between beneficial and essential. There are also events like conferences where most of the attendees don’t’ actually attend but meet with peers from other companies and do business just because a lot of people from one industry are in the same place. Ie the conference itself isn’t really ‘necessary’ but it’s a good opportunity to meet clients and suppliers without doing separate trips. Video links are usually fine for inside the company work and some external stuff but many cultures like the physical presence bit.

Mickjoebill: What about camera crews and photographers who carry kilos of lumpy electronic gear onboard? It is trivial to provide enough power to activate a camera to make the battery appear unadulterated when the cells have been repacked with something deadly.Unless every item is sniffed, a laptop ban seems half arsed.

ISIS Knows What We Know About Them

The preceding comment by Mickjoebill gets to the heart of the matter. And that was the point of my satirical suggestion on a  Surefire Way to Stop Bombs on Planes.

ISIS knows, that we know, that they had been working on laptops. As a result, ISIS will likely shift to an electronic toy or camera equipment (as I suggested in my post).

FAA Traffic by the Numbers

In 2105, the FAA Traffic by Numbers website shows some interesting air traffic statistics.

• There were 8,727,691 commercial flights in 2015.


• There are 7,000 planes in the sky at any given time.


• There are 23,911 flights a day

Convenience vs Safety

Does it make sense to ban all laptops on all flights as they are discussing now?

Banning laptops alone is insufficient. It is impossible to eliminate all airplane risk without banning all flights.

Reader Maxx offered this pertinent thought:

At some point to unravel a knot, you have to start pulling on the other end of the string. Technology chasing technology only goes so far.

For all the time spent harassing a new mom about baby formula, we could be using those hours to interview a 20-year-old “quiet” male with no real friends and an extensive Facebook trail to a Pakistani ISP.

When are people going to wake up and realize politically correct bull&h!t is FATAL. This is costing our economy enormously.

Which Nation Do Americans See As Their Greatest Enemy (Spoiler Alert: It's Not Russia)

Back to work "deep state", neocons, and Clinton apologists, because America is not buying the narrative that Russia is their greatest enemy.

Americans have consistently identified ISIS as the biggest threat to their nation across multiple polls. Traditional foes, such as the countries making up George W. Bush"s infamous "Axis Of Evil", have been pushed into the background by the rise of non-state actors like Al-Qaeda and ISIS. In recent years however, Statista"s Niall McCarthy notes that the threat presented by some of America"s traditional enemies has started to manifest itself once again. Russia"s annexation of Crimea came as a reality check to the Obama administration while as recently as last Saturday, North Korea conducted a ballistic missile test.

YouGov conducted a poll to find out which countries Americans perceive as their nation"s biggest enemies. North Korea has continued to make headlines even after that missile launch with news emerging earlier this week that Kim-Jong-un"s half brother was allegedly poisoned in an airport in Malaysia. Both incidents have illustrated the unpredictability of the nuclear-armed regime in Pyongyang and it comes as little surprise that 57 percent of Americans consider North Korea their enemy.

Some of the entries on the upper portion of the infographic below are surprising. Iraq and Afghanistan were considered U.S. enemies by 29 and 23 percent of respondents respectively, despite their governments being key U.S. allies in the fight against Islamic extremism. Iran was labelled an enemy by 41 percent of Americans, even though a deal was signed last year to prevent Tehran developing nuclear weapons.

This chart shows the percentage of American adults considering these countries an enemy of the U.S.

You will find more statistics at Statista

Finally, we note that "Media" did not make it on the list (yet).