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The Treasury Department announced today that it has added Myrna Mabanza, an Islamic State (ISIS) facilitator based in the Philippines, to the US government’s list of designated terrorists. Treasury identifies Mabanza as a woman in her mid-20s who has worked with some of the Islamic State’s most senior personnel in Southeast Asia. She has not only helped connect the Islamic State’s arms in the Philippines and Indonesia, but has also served as an “intermediary” to jihadists in Syria. Treasury’s announcement contains several details concerning Mabanza’s role in the Islamic State’s global network. She worked with Isnilon Hapilon, the former Abu Sayyaf leader who led Abu Bakr al Baghdadi’s loyalists in the Philippines before his demise last year. “In January 2016,” the US government says, “Mabanza was involved in the transfer of up to $107,000 with then-ISIS-P [Islamic State-Philippines] leader Isnilon Hapilon.” Hapilon, who was reportedly killed in Marawi in late 2017, “also instruct

  🇲🇾 Pos Malaysia issued a set of 3 stamps and 1 miniature sheet on 24 April 2018 on the subject of Malaysian citrus fruit. A colourful issue. Rating:- ***.   🇬🇧 In a previous Blog I mentioned the set of 10 stamps due to be released on 11 May 2018 on the subject of Owls. I now provide better quality illustrations of the 10 stamps. The issue is made up of 2 se-tenant strips - 1 including the 5 stamps depicting adult birds and the other including the 5 stamps which depict owlets. There seems to be no special reason for the issue of 10 stamps depicting owls at this particular time. Rating:- **.   🇮🇳 India Post issued a single stamp on 25 April 2018 to commemorate Hemvati Nandan Bahugana, a politician who was the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh. Not the most interesting of designs. Rating:- **.   A se-tenant pair was then issued on 27 April 2017 to commemorate the 70th anniversary of Safdarjung Hospital. A wholly uneninterex

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Source:- Mig-29 UPG:- India’s Lightweight Multi-Role Fighter Aircraft The MiG-29 is one of the IAF’s premier Air Defense fighters. Whilst always appreciated for its raw performance, the MiG-29 was not acquired in bulk or series produced in India. Among the primary reasons were the inability of MiG-MAPO to properly support the IAF during its initial service and their continued reluctance to share design data later (design data since the IAF intended to use for optimizing its operation in Indian conditions). Plus there were the spares parts issues caused by the fall of the Soviet Union. The IAF ultimately, both on its own and with HALs help, started making a lot of the spares locally, and also took over a lot of the maintenance actions. IAF BRDs and their MiG capabilities These helped raise the serviceability of the aircraft, IAF’s requirement of the MiG-29 fleet was to have each single seater aircraft fly at least 180 hrs/year, and 220-240 hours/year for the dual seaters. At the end

Two suicide bombers struck in the Kabul, Afghanistan earlier today. The attacks were quickly claimed by the Islamic State’s so-called Khorasan “province,” which released a picture of the jihadists responsible (seen above). The two “martyrs” were identified as Qa’qa’ al-Kurdi and Khalil al-Qurashi. The Islamic State claims that the bombers detonated themselves near the Afghan intelligence headquarters, killing or wounding 110 people. The first suicide jihadist reportedly blew himself up near a security checkpoint for the National Directorate of Security (NDS) in the Shash Darak district. The second bomber targeted journalists who were covering the aftermath of the first explosion. Jihadists have repeatedly employed this tactic through the years, waiting for first responders and others to arrive at the scene before launching a follow-on attack. Hashmat Stanikzai, a police spokesman, told AFP that the second terrorist “disguised himself as a journalist and detonated himself among th

The Annenberg Space for Photography, a cultural destination dedicated to exhibiting both digital and print photography, announced its next exhibition – Not an Ostrich: And Other Images from America’s Library.   The exhibition, running from  April 21 through September 9, 2018 , is a collection of nearly 500 images – discovered within a collection of more than 14  million  pictures – permanently housed in the world’s largest library at the  Library of Congress  in Washington, D.C. Put together by the distinguished photography curator Anne Wilkes Tucker, the exhibition features the image entitled “Not an Ostrich” and a large selection of rare and handpicked works from the vaults of the library, many never widely available to the public. Each picture documents a special moment in America’s culture and history. Tucker, named “America’s Best Curator” by  TIME , was granted special access to the photographic archives at the Library of Congress.   The images selected for  Not an Ostric

Source:- India must stick to its guns It has been reported that the Ministry of External Affairs is “lobbying hard” with the Trump administration to ensure Delhi does not “get caught in the crossfire” of the United States’ sanctions against Russia. The Indian diplomats are reportedly pleading with the Americans to grant India “exemption” from the US sanctions regime that also targets third countries doing business with Russia’s defence industry. According to “top Indian sources”, the government’s three-fold argument is that firstly, India’s dependence on Russian weaponry has been shrinking, as the statistics of the past decade testify. Secondly, Delhi pleads that if the US imposes punitive sanctions against India to stifle arms procurements from Russia, it would affect the existing reserves of the Indian armed forces and the overall defence preparedness. Thirdly, Delhi has assured Washington that its Russian arms purchases will not hurt the business interests of American vendors. Th

Source:- Is India ready for Cyber War? Cyber warfare involves an attempted or actual cyber attack, but for some in the media it means defacing some websites of important organisations. This is not really the case. In fact, I would term such hackers as ‘novice hackers’ in some corner of the world, looking to earn some brownie points amongst their non-hacker peers by fear mongering. Cyber warfare is something quite different. As a researcher, I would argue that cyber warfare involves actions by a state or non-state actor to attack and attempt to damage another nation’s computers or information networks through, for example, computer viruses, denial-of-service attacks, physical attacks and sabotage. However, the main concern of cyber warfare is through attacking the physical backbone of the Internet — submarine cables. About 97 per cent of all international data is carried out on such cables, according to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum. Often, academicians and strategists f

Source:- Rising Power of India’s influence on China in regional politics Ancient civilizations, India and China have remained in close proximity since millennia. The relationship between these two states has been moving like a pendulum i.e. they swing irregularly from the stage of conflict to mutual cooperation. During past years countries in Asia whether on continental landmass or island off the Asian mainland have been influenced or affected by one or both the countries i.e. China or India at some stage. Geography is one of the important factor considered in International anarchic system which if used advantageously by the states can be considered constructive in acquiring the status of key factor in International system because by increasing alliances and adopting military capabilities and strategies a state has the possibility to grow its relative power and influence in the system. Geopolitics plays very important role in India’s quest to emerge as a regional and global power, ac

German defense minister Ursula van der Leyen with the Norwegian defense minister at the time, Ine Eriksen Søreide, announce their agreement to pool their submarine purchase. A contract is due to be awarded in 2019. (GE MoD photo) PARIS --- A direct confrontation has flared up between German Minister of Defense Ursula van der Leyen and Finance Minister Olaf Scholz, as the former wants significantly more money during this legislative term to fix the armed forces’ most urgent capability gaps, and threatens to pull out of two major international weapon programs if she doesn’t obtain it, Bild Am Sonntag reported on Sunday. The Defense Minister, a member of Merkel’s CDU party, wants to award 18 armaments contracts this year, each worth over 25 million – the threshold over which approval from the Bundestag is mandatory – as well as €12 billion in additional funding over the duration of the current legislature. However, this is opposed by the Federal Finance Minister Olaf Scholz, a member of

Finland has sent invitations to tender to five governments to compete for its H-X program to replace its F-18 Hornet fighters, which calls for 64 new fighters and has a tentative cost of about €10 billion. (FAF photo) On 27 April 2018, the Finnish Defence Forces' Logistics Command sent a Request for Quotation (RFQ) concerning the HX Fighter Programme to the governments of Great Britain, France, Sweden and the United States to be forwarded to the five companies who responded to the requests for information. They were requested to give a quotation on the following aircraft: Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornet (United States), Dassault Rafale (France), Eurofighter Typhoon (Great Britain), Lockheed Martin F-35 (United States) and Saab Gripen (Sweden). On 27 April 2018, the Finnish Defence Forces' Logistics Command sent a Request for Quotation (RFQ) concerning the HX Fighter Programme to the governments of Great Britain, France, Sweden and the United States to be forwarded to the five comp

Greece’s Council on Foreign Policy and Defense (KYSEA) unanimously approved the upgrade of 85 F-16 fighter jets by the US. According to an announcement by the prime minister’s office, the approval was given after Defense Minister Panos Kammenos informed KYSEA that the US has accepted a revised Greek proposal that takes into consideration Greece’s fiscal commitments and constraints in the coming years. Kammenos described the F-16 upgrade as a “great day for the air force.” A very big day for our @HAFspokesman and @Hellenic_MOD allies as the Greece F-16 upgrade moves ahead - building on Prime Minister @tsipras_eu visit to the White House last October. Congratulations Minister @PanosKammenos and team. pic.twitter.com/zRCzeRnYv1 — Geoffrey Pyatt (@USAmbGreece) April 28, 2018 In a tweet, US Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt hailed the approval as a “very big day,” adding that the upgrade will move ahead “building on Prime Minister Tsipras' visit to the White House last October.” New D

Source:- EU pushes India, Pakistan to back Afghanistan peace bid Europe is trying to move countries in this region to get the Taliban to accept a peace offer made by Afghan president Ashraf Ghani during the Kabul process in March this year. The Taliban have, since then, publicly rejected the election process, attacking voter registration centres etc. Last week they announced the start of their spring offensive, the season of intensive fighting. But they haven’t openly rejected the peace offer either, as they did last year when a similar offer was made. That is a ray of hope for EU’s special envoy Roland Kobia, who was in India this week to talk to Indian officials to support Ghani’s offer and make a push on that front. That’s a tough sell in India because New Delhi does not believe that the peace offer is the beginning of a peace process. Pakistan, India believes, continues to use the Taliban as its proxy to keep a control on Afghanistan, never having given up its quest for strategic

Source:- Why India wants more presence in Afghanistan? The enemy of an enemy is always a friend. In our field of study this can be termed as a strategic partner or an ally. That is the sort of relationship India is trying to build with Afghanistan. Our next door neighbour in the West is India’s dream ‘backdoor entrance’ into Pakistan. It’d be ideal for the Indians to manipulate the Afghan-Pakistan situation to their favour by buying the Afghan loyalty and using it against their one true enemy. However, unfortunately for India, we do not live in Narnia and things are not as magically easy as they would want them to be. The situation might seem to be in favour of the Indians at present since they have managed to build cordial relations with Afghanistan but it can’t be understated that an Afghanistan minus Pakistan is not possible. Let’s take a step back and discuss things objectively. There is no doubt about the fact that there is only one thing common amongst the otherwise divided Afg