ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

FILE IMAGE: dailystar.co.uk North Korea’s UN deputy ambassador Kim In-ryong has warned the situation on the Korean Peninsula “has reached the touch-and-go point and a nuclear war may break out any moment”. He  told  the UN General Assembly’s disarmament committee on October 16 that North Korea is the only country in the world that has been subjected to “such an extreme and direct nuclear threat” from the United States since the 1970s – and said the country has the right to possess nuclear weapons in self-defence. Kim said that North Korea completed its “state nuclear force and thus became the full-fledged nuclear power which possesses the delivery means of various ranges, including the atomic bomb, H-bomb and intercontinental ballistic rockets”. He claimed that the entire US mainland was within North Korea’s firing range and if the US dared to invade, it would not escape retaliation. His notes also  featured  the following statement: “As long as one does not take part in th

FILE IMAGE A senior leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) has warned that a possible political split may lead to a civil war in Kurdistan. Mala Bakhtiyar, executive head of the PUK politburo office,  said  “there is a grave danger” of the government splitting into two administrations, due to alleged cooperation of high-ranking members of PUK with the Iraqi military. Among the alleged cooperators are the family members of the late former Iraqi President Jalal Talabani. They denied the accusations. Bakhtiyar claimed his party is being controlled by one family who are making decisions outside the party’s organs. He said the PUK is also on the brink of a “big split.” He called on the Kurdistan parliament to open an independent investigation into what exactly happened in Kirkuk and other areas abandoned to the Iraqi forces. On October 16 Iraqi forces moved into Tuz Khurmatu and Kirkuk, as well as its airport and a military base. Kurdish party headquarters inside Kirkuk

The advancement of technology is truly bittersweet. One the one hand, technology has made our lives incredibly convenient and simple, but on the other hand, it has led to the emergence of more privacy concerns and security threats that didn’t exist just decades ago. Currently, law enforcement is having a difficult time keeping up with the rapid advancement of technology, and more specifically,  the development of drones , which today have the ability to do everything from capturing video footage to carrying customized weapons. As former Secret Service agent and author Dan Bongino put it, the Secret Service is mainly equipped and trained to stop attacks that happen on the ground, meaning that airborne threats, such as threats posed by a weaponized drone for instance, create “additional security complications.” Many Pentagon officials have issued similar warnings, arguing that the current drone-fighting technologies are “still immature” and require “further development.” In resp

Unveiled for the first time at Defense and Security Equipment International (DSEI),  a new unmanned ground vehicle (UGV)  features a robotic arm and a built-in machine gun for “target suppression.” The UGV is named the Ironclad. It is designed and equipped to take on tough military tasks, ranging from explosives ordinance disposal, casualty evacuation, and taking out the enemy. The Ironclad comes with four modular equipment packages: A robotic arm, stretcher mounts, advanced sensor modules, and gun installation. Its armored hull, made with ARMOX high hardness steel, protects against gunfire and small blasts. Its tank-like rubber asymmetric tracks carry the vehicle across rough terrain and up 45-degree gradients. It can carry up to a 550 pound loads and connect to additional units to create large stretchers. A larger version can carry 1100 pounds. The vehicle runs on battery power, making its operation quiet and stealthily. It can travel up to 31 miles on one charge and travel at c

The article is provided by  Islamic World News  exclusively for  SouthFront About 300 people killed and injured in the recent series of Taliban suicide attacks across Afghanistan. The attacks took place in the following areas: Paktia: 41 killed and 158 injured Ghazni: 30 killed and 55 injured Wardak:  2 killed and 2 injured Jalalabad: 1 killed and 2 injured Kabul: 1 killed and 5 injured Taliban-linked media outlets called the attack on Gardez city in Paktia province which resulted in the alleged death and injury of 200 Afghan soldiers and civilians a warning to the US and foreign troops and the government.

AP: Mark Schiefelbein Xi Jinping has heralded the dawn of a “new era” of Chinese politics and power at the start of a historic Communist party congress on celebrating the end of his first term in office. Listing China’s recent achievements in his three-hour speech at the start of the week-long 19th party congress on October 17, Xi said that “socialism with Chinese characteristics in this new era” meant China had now “become a great power in the world”, and had played “an important role in the history of humankind”. “This is a new historic juncture in China’s development,” China’s leader declared in his address outlining the party’s priorities for the next five years. “The Chinese nation … has stood up, grown rich, and become strong – and it now embraces the brilliant prospects of rejuvenation … It will be an era that sees China moving closer to centre stage and making greater contributions to mankind,” he  said . Xi also outlined China’s stance on tackling shared dangers su

This map provides a general look at the recent series of ISIS attacks in Egypt’s North Sinai that took place between October 10 an October 16. Click to see the full-size map

With the onset of winter and the increasing strain on Ukraine’s energy system, the threat of a new nuclear disaster in Central Europe is becoming more than just a theoretical danger. According to analysts from  Energy Research & Social Science  (ERSS),  there is  an 80% probability of a “serious accident” at one of Ukraine’s nuclear power plants before the year 2020.  This is due both to the increased burden on the nuclear plants caused by the widespread shutdowns of Ukraine’s thermal power plants (the raw material they consumed – coal from the Donbass – is in critically short supply) and also because of the severe physical deterioration of their Soviet-era nuclear equipment and the catastrophic underfunding of this industry. A sarcophagus covering the damaged fourth reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, Ukraine April 22, 2016. © Gleb Garanich / Reuters Should such an incident occur, the EU would not only be faced with the potential environmental consequences, but al