ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

On July 3, China launched two Type 055 guided missile destroyers from their dry docks in Dalian, Liaoning province, the Chinese media says. Type 055 class vessels are designed for long-range air defense, anti-surface warfare and anti-submarine warfare. This kind of warships could accompany future carrier strike groups of China,  which continues to expand its carrier program . The destroyers launched in July follow two others launched in May 2018 and June 2017 respectively. China has a total of six Type 055 guided missile destroyers in various stages of construction, which the lastest launched in March 2018. The People’s Liberation Army Navy is going to get at least Type 055 destroyers in the coming years. Photos: Click to see the full-size image Click to see the full-size image Click to see the full-size image Click to see the full-size image

Written by Caitlin Johnstone; Originally appeared at  her blog I’ve been noticing videos going viral the last few days,  some  with  millions of views , about Muslim women bravely fighting to free themselves from oppression in the Middle East. The videos, curiously, are being shared enthusiastically by many Republicans and  pro-Israel hawks , who aren’t traditionally the sort of crowd you see rallying to support the civil rights of Muslims. What’s up with that? Well, you may want to sit down for this shocker, but it turns out that they happen to be women from a nation that the US war machine is currently escalating operations against. They are Iranian. Whenever you see the sudden emergence of an attractive media campaign that is sympathetic to the plight of civilians in a resource-rich nation unaligned with the western empire, you are seeing propaganda. When that nation is surrounded by other nations with similar human rights transgressions and yet those transgressions are