Russia says nuclear arms to keep military edge over NATO, United States

(Reuters) - Russia's top general said on Friday a strong nuclear arsenal will ensure military superiority over the West as Moscow forges ahead with a multi-billion dollar plan to modernize its forces by 2020.

Russia, facing a likely recession because of a fall in oil prices and sanctions over Ukraine, must deal with new forms of Western aggression, including economic confrontation, said Chief of the Armed Forces General Staff Gen. Valery Gerasimov.

But despite the deep economic woes, he said the Russian military would receive more than 50 new intercontinental nuclear missiles this year.

"Support for our strategic nuclear forces to ensure their high military capability combined with ... growth of the military potential of the general forces will assure that (the United States and NATO) do not gain military superiority over our country," said Gerasimov.

Tensions between Russia and the West have risen over the conflict in eastern Ukraine, where the United States and Europe say Moscow is fuelling an insurgency by sending in troops and weapons. Moscow denies this.

Russia has criticized NATO expansion in eastern Europe and President Vladimir Putin has accused the Ukrainian army, which is fighting pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine, of being puppets of NATO with a policy of "containing" Russia.

Russian war planes have increasingly been spotted over Europe in recent months. Britain summoned the Russian ambassador on Thursday to complain about two Russian long-range bombers that flew over the English Channel, forcing British authorities to reroute civil aircraft.

Russia promises to push through by 2020 a more than 20-trillion-rouble ($286.62 billion) military modernization plan conceived by Putin, and military expenditures will remain unchanged even in the face of a growing economic crisis that has cut the budgets of other ministries.

The modernization project aims to revamp Russia's weapons systems to assure that 70-100 percent of the armed forces weapons and equipment has been modernized by the end of the decade -- a plan confirmed by Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu.

"We plan to fulfill the government armament program and reach by 2020 the intended quantities of modern weapons systems," he said at the meeting.

Russia keeps its state nuclear capabilities shrouded in secrecy, but its military has approximately 8,500 warheads in total, including those non-deployed -- some 1,000 more than the United States possesses -- according to a study last year by the Center for Arms-Control and Non-Proliferation.

Speaking against a backdrop of rising prices brought on in part by a weaker rouble, Gerasimov said Russia had to deal with new kinds of Western aggression.

"Western countries are actively using new forms of aggression, combining military as well as non-military means. Political, economic and information methods are also being used," Interfax news agency cited him as saying.

UFO hunters: Asteroid moon is no moon; it's an alien spaceship

http://www.examiner.com/

UFO hunters and enthusiasts set their wishful thinking engines to full throttle this week, claiming that the tiny 230-feet wide piece of space rock gravitationally attached to the mountain-sized near-Earth asteroid 2004 BL86 is actually an alien spacecraft.

 As Yahoo News (UK and Ireland edition) reported Jan. 28, news from NASA that asteroid 2004 BL86 was not a lone traveler through space was not only met with excitement from astronomers but drew the interest of the world. Among those whose interest it drew were a contingent quick to question NASA's findings and provide an interpretation of the images taken by the Deep Space Network antenna in Goldstone, California, and the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. The giant asteroid had no moon, they said. What it had was a UFO, a diamond-shaped spacecraft, as a traveling companion.

"This asteroid has a UFO flying in orbit around it," Scott C. Waring of UFO Sightings Daily posited. "We can see from the detailed photo that the craft is diamond shaped and flat. NASA of course goes on to say that this flat object which does not flip over end is a moon. Wrong! Any moon this thin would be tumbling end over end. This object is keeping itself steady, flying like a ship would in space. Great catch by Streetcap1 of Youtube."

Streetcap1 of YouTube is a steady supplier of UFO footage to the internet, one often cited and posted by UFO Sightings Daily and other enthusiast websites. His findings include various anomalies picked up by NASA's cameras on the International Space Station as well as other strange sightings and detections gleaned from NASA photos and videos.

Still, to paraphrase an old Freudian adage, sometimes a moon is just a moon. Until asteroid 2004 BL86 could get close enough for telescopic devices to get a good fix on it, little was known about the near-Earth object other than its approximate size (the estimation of which was found to be 500 feet more than the actuality, the asteroid being only 1,100 feet in diameter) and the estimated distance from Earth it would reach on its fly-by. It was only then that the giant asteroid was found to have a moon.

Of course, this isn't the first time UFO enthusiasts have found one of the Solar System's spacefarers to be a spaceship. When Comet ISON made its inner Solar System appearance in 2013, conspiracy theorists were quick to counter scientific findings with their own ideas of how the comet was actually a spaceship. And in September 2014, when Comet 67P made its approach, making history as the first comet to ever be orbited by a manmade satellite and have a device landed upon its surface, the internet burned with the intriguing conspiracy theory that the comet was actually a alien warship. In an odd twist, another UFO enthusiast would later spot what looked like an alien "monastery" on the comet's surface.

‘You will discover hell on earth’: French govt launches campaign against jihadists

The French government has released a graphic video that “deciphers jihadist propaganda” in order to discourage young people from going to the Middle East to fight alongside extremists by saying they will find “hell on earth.” 

The video with the hashtag #StopJihadism was published in a bid to counter calls to join extremist groups in the Middle East, including the Islamic State militants who are rampaging through parts of Syria and Iraq.

The beginning of the video shows popular jihadist groups on social media and an anonymous invite to join the terrorists saying “the truth is out there and now is the time to go... if you want more info just give me your number..." It then goes on to explain the difference between what the jihadists say about joining them and what the reality is.

"They told you: "Sacrifice yourself by our side for a just cause," the message in French says."In reality, you'll find hell on earth and you'll die alone, far from home." The text is accompanied by footage of people killed and their bodies dumped.