Palantir is a company founded by Peter Thiel — of Paypal and Facebook renown — that has software which absolutely changes the game with intelligence.

It's one of the best programs at coordinating the vast databases accumulated by the U.S. intelligence apparatus. It's already in use in federal domestic security.

But it's also caused a massive fight inside the Army intelligence command. 

Palantir is one of the first Silicon Valley companies to view the government as a customer rather than an annoyance and — after stepping into a game dominated by top contractors like Lockheed Martin, IBM, and Raytheon — it's proven controversial in both what it does and if it should be used. 

What it does is assemble comprehensive dossiers on objects of interest, collated from the sprawling databases of intelligence agencies. 

If that sounds over-broad, it's intentional. 

The databases and dossiers in question are on everything from Afghan villages to crooked bankers. The can pull crime information and collate it with recent debit card purchases.

The software was developed with the idea that had it existed in 2001, 9/11 would have been obvious. Palantir would have been able to identify the pilots as people of interest from countries that harbor terrorists, connecting that with money wired around, and connecting that  with one-way airline tickets to create actionable intelligence. 

One controversy comes with the civil liberties issues that come with that particular business model.

The other controversy is much less philosophical: The Army intelligence community is full of infighting over this Valley competitor to defense contractor tech. 

The Army Intelligence community is split over software. The $2.3 Billion DCGS-A system, developed by the standard crowd of defense contractors, is either panned by some as complicated and slow or defensed by others as the future of military distributed intelligence. 

Likewise, the culty following of Palantir's alternative have been dismissed as on the take from the Silicon Valley firm. That tech has been deployed by data mining Wall Street banks interested in tracking down fraud, and an early investor in the company was the CIA. The Army, however, isn't sold. 

This fight could go on for a while, but Palantir the company will keep at what they're doing.

As it stands, they've dropped immense amounts of money on lobbying, so they probably trust their K-street friends to smooth the government over.

They're busy on applying the tech to more than finding broken bankers and busting bombers. They're applying their data mining engine toward health care to cut on fraud, pharmaceuticals law enforcement and more. 

Check out the 20 advanced government research projects that will change your life >

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A British photojournalist has spoken for the first time about his capture and wounding by Islamist militants in northern Syria last month.

John Cantlie and Dutchman Jeroen Oerlemans were held for a week before being rescued by a Free Syrian Army group, part of the opposition trying to overthrow Bashar al-Assad.

Cantlie said they were "constantly threatened with death" and both were shot and wounded during an abortive barefoot escape attempt.

"My feet, cut pretty badly when we attempted to escape over granite boulders and shrubs, are healing quickly, while the left hand is still problematic," said Cantlie, a troublespot veteran.

"We were both shot during our dash for freedom (it was doomed from the outset but we both wanted to give it a go) Jeroen in the hip and me in the arm. My ulna nerve was damaged and I've lost feeling in about 30% of my left hand."

But he had had surgery from "a great doctor called David Gately" on Wednesday and "we hope to get some of the feeling back", Cantlie wrote on his website.

Oerlemans, who was wounded in the thigh, spoke last week of the pair's experience. He said there was no Syrian in the group that captured them on 19 July. "They were all youngsters from other countries, African countries, Chechnya. They said they thought we were CIA agents. But then it quickly became apparent they wanted to trade us for ransom."

Cantlie, who said he would be writing about the capture in the Sunday Times this weekend, gave an early flavour of what happened, even if "what we went through was nothing". He continued: "People are kidnapped and held for ransom for months, even years. Our ordeal was just one week, but it was the most intense, fearful week of my life.

"Those bastards constantly threatened us with death, always cocking their weapons, getting us to stand as though we were being led out for execution, sharpening knives for a jihadist beheading and generally playing with our minds. When you're constantly handcuffed and blindfolded in a stinking tent in 35 degrees and covered in flies, the imagination can run riot."

Cantlie paid tribute to the "immense" support, unbeknown to the pair at the time, from family, friends, colleagues and the Foreign Office. "It was a week you would describe as less than ideal.

"It's not just the person who's kidnapped that suffers, either. It's their whole circle of friends, family and colleagues."

He added: "Right now I'm out of the game. Both Jeroen and I had all our kit taken, both of us had around £8,000-worth of equipment and I can't afford to replace mine.

"We'll see what happens, but this experience has only made me wiser. I'm desperate to get back into Syria and work alongside those gracious, hospitable people as they pursue their dreams of revolution. Lord knows they've earned it."

Cantlie did not describe their rescue but Oerlemans has said that the two men were in a tent, blindfolded, when they heard a group of men he assumed to be from the Free Syrian Army come in. "They were shouting at everyone, saying, 'How long has this been going on; this is outrageous,' yelling at the jihadis, and then they told us, 'You are free.' Our hearts leapt, of course."

This article originally appeared on guardian.co.uk

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Afghan national army and police units have started the slow process of shedding reliance on NATO coalition trainers as NATO leaders struggle to define what operating independent means for Afghan forces.

In July, Marine Maj. Gen. Charles Gurganus, commander of Regional Command-Southwest, was asked how many Afghan National Army units in Helmand province were capable of conducting operations on their own – no U.S. trainers, mentors, transport or logistics backup.

“Right now, we only have, really, one battalion-sized unit that I would tell you is completely independent,” Gurganus said in July from Camp Leatherneck in Helmand province in a video briefing to the Pentagon.

But Wednesday, in a video briefing to the Pentagon from Kabul, Canadian Brig. Gen. Thomas E. Putt, director of Afghan National Security Forces Development for the coalition, said that 40 percent of the ANA was acting independently, and then quickly hedged.

“They are fighting the Taliban with mentors,” he said.

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Through this past week and continuing into August 5,000 servicemembers and Department of Defense civilian personnel are converging on Muscatatuck Urban Training Center and various other locations throughout Indiana for a huge practice run on disaster relief operations.

Named “Vibrant Response 13,” the national-level field training exercise under the direction of U.S. Army North is designed to demonstrate response in the event of a CBRN incident: a chemical, biological, radiological / nuclear catastrophe. 

Responders are tasked with tasks including medical care and evacuation, communications, route clearing, decontamination, law enforcement and providing shelter to civilians.

The training grounds simulate conditions that members of the armed forces and first responders would encounter in the event of an unthinkable attack, with obvious implications towards terrorism but also large scale natural disasters.

Sets simulate burning rubble, crushed vehicles and collapsed structures, while mannequins and role-actors play the part of casualties and the injured (respectively).

At a soccer stadium on Muscatatuck, military police escorted the would-be survivors of a nuclear blast and assisted members of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Red Cross in handing out food, water and medical treatment as necessary.

More importantly, members of the VR exercise got a taste of the psychological impact of such a mass event.

The DoD has been concerned with fast response to CBRN events since the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993, and subsequent legislation has been enacted to organize elements from all four services -- including active, reserve and national guard.

 Vibrant Response, now in its thirteenth year, is one of three major training scenarios designed to maintain the military and the Department of Defense at the ready, the other two being Ardent Sentry (natural disaster) and Vigilant Shield (invasion of U.S. soil).

Captain Crispin Burke, a helicopter pilot currently observing some of these exercises, has posted some video from Muscatatuck here  and images are also available via the DVIDS website 

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American and Mexican law enforcement have been finding an increasing number of underground tunnels, used for drug trafficking, of late. Some have electricity and ventilation, while others are hidden beneath sinks.

Mexican drug cartels have always been creative and illusive in transporting drugs across borders and into the homes, and bodies, of users. In the past, catapults, submarines, and extremely small aircrafts have been used. But the tunnels, and subsequent discovery of them, is a rather new development, one small town in southern Arizona finding itself at ground zero of it all: Nogales, Arizona. 

Since 1995, nearly 100 tunnels have been discovered linking the small, quiet town to Sonora, Mexico, its larger, and dominantly cartel controlled border buddy. The number is rapidly rising too, 22 functioning tunnels being discovered in just the past three years, reports Adam Higginbotham of Businessweek.  

What's to blame for this uptick?

September 11th.

As border security was strengthened and inspection efforts made more thorough, cartels had to figure out a new route. Tunnels were the answer.

While the sophisticated one's make news, most are quite rudimentary, characterized by hand dug, dirt walled, oxygen deprived passageways often so small one must lay and crawl belly down. Aside from squiggling their bodies through entrance ways, crawling through the dirt, and the possibility of running into an armed cartel member on the way, law enforcement agents have to constantly worry about the passageways caving in on them. The work is tough, dangerous, and to some, it doesn't seem to be making much progress.

As Anthony Coulson, a former DEA agent, told Businessweek, in Nogales, a pound of marijuana at wholesale pricing currently goes for about $400 a pound.

“That’s never changed,” Coulson says, “in 30 years.”

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One of the more remarkable aspects of the human experience is our ability to adapt to change. Whether the ability to change nature to fit our needs or to change ourselves, we can get it done.

I have family that has a house on a mountain in southwest Virginia. The dirt road to the house is treacherous and the dirt roads behind the house are even more so. Well, like any good American family, they adapted to their situation by buying an old WWII jeep to get around.

That little jeep is tough.
 

Heck, not just count on, something to really enjoy. In the picture below, we are heading up the mountain to shoot.

We had exploding targets. Adapters that turned an SKS assault rifle into full auto and a bunch of rounds.

I'll never forget what my cousin said when he handed me the weapon.

"This bad boy is only good for one thing.....killing people"

I wanted to fire it all the more after that comment.

Constructive destruction, HOOAH.
 

About a year ago, while at my grandfathers funeral, several of these family members talked to me about the stress and physical pain they were feeling, which surprised me.

I got the impression that things were just wearing down and they were experiencing the consequences of a lifestyle that was full of being tough and badass, but lacking relaxation and peace.

I figure it's only logical to keep using something that keeps working. Think of the old cliche, if it ain't broke, don't fix it; however, there are certain characteristic that last and last and others that break down.

The jeep is a beautiful example of resilience and endurance. 

Sitting for one of the last times in my grandparents' living room, I asked one of the guys how the jeep was doing. He replied that it took regular maintenance and that they couldn't ride it as hard, but it still ran pretty good.

I think all of us would be in a better position to help our bodies transition to a civilian lifestyle if we treated out bodies similar to the way we have been trained to treat our gear. 

My family treats that old jeep with respect and patience now. No more hauling Junkers up to hill for .45 calibers of therapy, but regular maintenance and patience.

Pretty brilliant how they noticed the needs of that jeep and adapted so well to it as it changed.

HOOAH.

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A Republican senator released his hold on the Army’s next acquisitions chief’s confirmation Wednesday while chastising Army senior leaders on the Senate floor for making soldier rifles one of the service’s lowest spending priorities.

Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., had placed a hold on the Senate confirmation of Heidi Shyu, the nominee for the assistant secretary of the Army for Acquisitions, Logistics and Technology in early June. Coburn demanded the service explain why it will take two more years to decide whether it will replace the M4 carbine.

The senator released the hold after he said Shyu had been very responsive in trying to explain the Army’s small arms strategy.

“It’s an important position. She is in charge of $28 billion dollars in expenditures; my objection was due to the Army’s continued lack of urgency in modernizing and fielding new rifles, carbines, pistols, light machine guns and ammunition for our troops for combat,” he told his fellow Senators.

Coburn remains unsatisfied with the Army’s low priority on the individual weapons that soldiers rely on in battle.

“There is nothing more important to a soldier than his rifle or her rifle,” said Coburn, who questioned why more focus is not placed on the individual weapon when updating a soldier’s kit.

“I can tell you why. Because the guys that are responsible for making the decision on purchasing the rifles are not the guys that are out there on the line,” he said.

Army acquisitions and legislative-affairs officials were aware of Coburn’s speech, but chose not to offer reactions to the speech, an Army spokesman said.

Coburn has often stood alone since 2007 in his critique of the M4 carbine’s reliability. The senator used his right to issue a hold on Army Secretary Pete Geren’s nomination until the service took steps to consider replacing the M4.

Congressional nomination holds are commonplace in the highly-politicized world of senior military posts.

Shyu may be clear of Coburn's hurdle, but she still must deal with another hold placed on her nomination by Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas. He chose to stall Shyu’s nomination in June to shine a spotlight on a Defense Department contract with a Russian state-controlled arms export firm that has sold military equipment to Syria.

The U.S. Defense Department spent $171 million on a no-bid contract with Rosoboronexport to buy 30 Mi-17 helicopters for the Afghan Air Force. Cornyn said he wants to open up the competition for the U.S. to buy the helicopters from a company not selling arms to Syria.

“[Sen. Cornyn] asked for a full audit of the Pentagon’s contract with the Russian arms broker, emphasizing its importance in the context of the stalled nomination of Heidi Shyu to serve as the assistant secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology,” according to a statement issued by Cornyn’s office.

Shyu took over as the Army’s acting acquisitions chief when Malcolm O’Neill stepped down from the post in June 2011. She had served as his deputy and filled both roles for more than a year. She spent most of her career in the defense industry, primarily with Raytheon, before joining the Army’s acquisition team in 2010.

Shyu might not have much time shooting a rifle, but her specialty lies in advancing technology. She made the Army’s next generation network and communications system as a top priority since she took the reins as acting director. In October, the Army will deliver Capability Set 13 which includes smartphones and vehicles equipped with the latest Army radios and mapping programs.

During Coburn’s 14-minute speech, he questioned why such high-tech programs outweigh the need to equip soldiers with the most modern small arms available on today’s market.

“Over the past few years, we have spent $8,000 per soldier on new radios but we are still using a weapon that is 25 years old when it comes to their M4,” he said.

The Army first adopted the M4 carbine, made mostly by Colt Defense LLC, in 1994.

Coburn also pointed to the speed the U.S. military built and deployed the Mine Resistant Ambush Protective vehicles fleet.

In Afghanistan, “we determined that the MRAP was not suitable for the rocky terrain compared to what we used it for in Iraq,” he said. “In less than 16 months … a new MRAP all-terrain vehicle that was designed specifically for Afghanistan – a complicated piece of vital equipment costing a half a million dollars each – started arriving in Afghanistan,” Coburn said. “So it’s not that we can’t supply our soldiers with a new rifle. It’s not that it can’t be done; it’s that we refuse to do it.”

The Army is currently in the middle of its Improved Carbine Competition, an effort it launched in June 2011, four years after Geren assured Coburn that such a competition would take place.

“It’s all about acquisitions and culture rather than about doing the right thing,” Coburn said. “I don’t like giving this talk that’s critical of the leadership of the Army. But when it’s going to take seven years to field a new rifle and in 18 months we can build and design a completely new $500,000 piece of equipment, an MRAP for Afghanistan … there is no excuse for it. We should be embarrassed. We should be ashamed.”

By comparison, Coburn said it would cost $1,500 per soldier to equip the force with a new carbine. Army officials maintain that even if the carbine competition yields a winning design, the service will conduct a study to determine if it’s a worthy investment.

“There is something wrong with our system; our priorities are out of whack,” Coburn said. “If the Department of Defense had spent just 15 percent less on radios, they could give every soldier in the military a new, more capable modern weapon.”

Coburn directed his closing remarks at Army Secretary John McHugh and his fellow lawmakers.

“A lot of people do a lot of things for our country, but nobody does for our country what the soldier on the front line does. This is a moral question, Mr. Secretary of the Army … get the rifle competition going,” Coburn said. “Members of Congress; members of the Senate who are on the Armed Services Committee, don’t allow this to continue to happen.”

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At my hedge fund we usually short frauds. Stuff with dodgy accounts and dodgy prospects promoted by people who would be car salesmen if stock promotion were less lucrative. But sometimes, just sometimes we find ourselves aching to short a real company with fine management where business prospects are going south very fast.

Richemont - the mega-luxury good maker with a focus on watches and jewellery is the latest example. We are waiting for a highly valued high quality company producing spectacular goods to have a similarly spectacular earnings miss.

UPDATE: Hempton closed his short after Richemont reported strong earnings >

The company describes its brands as "Maisons" (French for houses) harking back to some long established tradition in a Swiss-French mountain chalet surrounded by snow where they produce fine (if somewhat pretentious) luxury goods. Still these brands have taken over the world - and now if you walk through Venice or Hong Kong or Shanghai or around the areas frequented by Asian tourists in Hawaii or Sydney you find the global standard set of luxury goods. The fact that they could make their product both ubiquitous and exclusive somewhat amazes me - but they have achieved that. These are amazing companies.

With amazing profits too. The Jewellery Maisons [Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels] in the (March ended) 2012 financial year produced €4.59 billion in sales with €1.51 in operating profit. The growth rate has been almost Apple-like. In 2007 sales were €2.68 billion, profits €742 million. In 2004 the Jewellery Maisons had only €367 million in profit. This stuff did unbelievably well out of the rising of a new plutocracy - but particularly out of a new kleptocratic Asian plutocracy.

Watches did similarly well. I find watches strangely redundant (a smart phone is both more accurate and more useful and you probably carry one anyway). However they have become the only really acceptable piece of male jewellery by which the elite can show their status. In these days of business casual (and the studied casual of Ralph Lauren) an Italian tailored suit does not do it.

An iPhone or a Galaxy IIIs shows status amongst the middle and upper middle income. A ten thousand dollar or five hundred thousand dollar watch will do a (far) worse job of telling the time - but screams in only the way stupid-money can. I am not (at all) interested in watches so I had to look up the Maisons. These are houses like Vacheron Constantin of Geneve and A. Lange and Söhne from Glashütte (Saxony, Germany). Sort of glad I don't fancy their products because looking around Vacheron Constantin sell relatively plain gold watches at fifty thousand a pop:

A. Lange and Söhne sells similarly plain watches at prices marginally lower - but also sell less plain watches at prices closer to half a million dollars:

Remember both these products are inferior for purpose to the smart phone already in your pocket. But they do say "look at me" the latter in a particularly Rococo fashion.

It is the Rococo stuff that is winning. The Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry publish export data from Switzerland (not sales to end consumers). June data shows a 4.1 percent reduction in volume, a 21.7 increase in value. The average price of a watch is going up sharply. This has been the case for years. The Federation published this graph which shows that (relatively accurate) electronic watches have been flat in value for years - but that mechanical movements (inaccurate but reassuringly expensive) have gone skyward:

Moreover a disproportionate amount of the volume - and an even more disproportionate amount of the value has gone to Hong Kong. Hong Kong is the destination for a quarter of Swiss watches by value and an even higher proportion of the most expensive stuff.

Why Hong Kong? Because the sales tax rate is lower than China. If you are buying a thousand dollar watch you can buy it in Shanghai. But if you want a half-million dollar watch (no, not kidding) then the sales tax differential makes it worthwhile to fly to Hong Kong, get a nice hotel room and go shopping. That is why the value is in Hong Kong. The Hong Kong market is it - it is the biggest pile of value and the biggest place for the super-pretentious stuff - the stuff with fat margins. This stuff is really Rococo - and Rococo is a style beloved only by rappers and kleptocrats.

The Chinese kleptocracy has been very good to Richemont. Indeed they famously love their watches. And it is not only watches. Van Cleef & Arpels is Rococo too. Try this ring:

Or this hair clip:

As I said - this is the stuff of rappers and kleptocrats. And there are far more kleptocrats in China than rich rappers anywhere.

Data sources

There are several data sources I watch to keep tabs on spending by Chinese elite. The Swiss Watch data is obvious.

Exports to Hong Kong in June were up 21.2 percent. It was about the same in May (but the monthly data has disappeared from the web). It was about the same every other month this year. They keep upping the exports to Hong Kong.

But Hong Kong also has sales tax data which comes from the sales tax receipts. There is in the data a series for "Jewellery, watches, clocks and valuable gifts" by both value and volume. The value series - relatively flattering, has monthly sales (versus previous corresponding period) for the last six months as:

1. +18.3%
2. +14.1%
3. +18.4%
4. +15.1%
5. +2.9%
6. +3.1%

The company has given a hint of this. Bernard Fornas - the chief executive of Cartier - gave an interview to the Wall Street Journal. To quote:

"After a phenomenal year last year, there's been a bit of a slowdown in mainland China," he explained. 

"Mainland China is still holding for us. One month is worse, one month is better. The curve is not yet clearly defined.” 

Fornas added that while Cartier’s watch sales are still increasing, it is not at the same rate as 2011. He declined to reveal figures or percentages, however.

But that quote is misleading. He says it is one month worse, one month better. But it is one month worse and the next month bad too. 

My guess: this company is not being entirely straight with market about how much tougher things are getting. The company will guide down and the stock will be singled out for "special treatment". I am short - just waiting for the bullet.

So why did the slowdown happen so sharply? 

The slowdown in Hong Kong (super) luxury goods is a faster decline than other Chinese data. Why so fast?

I have a theory given to me by a China watcher. The theory - it turned bad sharply with the ouster of Bo Xilai and now the murder charge on his wife Gu Kailai. Gu Kailai is going to have a hard time avoiding a mobile execution unit. This changes the stakes and it is structural. A half million dollar watch no longer says "look at me". It says "look at me, I am a kleptocrat". Thoughts of that beautiful Van Cleef and Arpels hair clip become the last thing that runs through your brain before the bullet.

The optimists - and there are many - think the super luxury good market in China will return when the political situation stabilizes. To quote Bernard Fornas in that WSJ article:

"When you talk to the people over there, they are all waiting for a new president to come in. That will fuel the economy with fresh money and lower interest rates."

But who said the new kleptocracy will love Rococo just as much as the old kleptocracy? Maybe party self-preservation will require less ostentatious displays of wealth. After all ostentatiously showing off wealth to an oppressed billion people does not seem like a way to preserve your power.

We know what a completely collapsed luxury good market looks like. Brazilians like a bit of bling. But in the late 1980s and into the 1990s the kidnapping rate in Brazil went skyward. (There is an horrific documentary about that called Manda Bala which translates "send a bullet".) After kidnapping became a major industry (particularly in São Paulo) carrying a $3000 handbag no longer said "look at me", it said "kidnap me".

A collapsed luxury good market in China may - if the Gu Kailai case is a guide - look different. Bling will mark you as an enemy of the people. This is a company about imagery - it sells a dream. Here is the nightmare:

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JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel is upgrading its Arrow II ballistic missile shield in a U.S.-backed "race" against Iran, Syria and other regional enemies, a senior Israeli defense official said on Sunday.

The new "Block 4" generation of guided interceptor rockets, radars and technologies for synchronizing Arrow with U.S. systems was being installed in deployed Israeli batteries, a process that would take several weeks, the official said.

"The accuracy and the reach will be greater," the official said of Arrow, which has been operational since 2000 and is designed to blow up incoming missiles at altitudes high enough for non-conventional warheads to disintegrate safely.

"It is part of the technological race in the region," added the official, who declined to be named given the sensitivity of the issue.

Long jittery about Iran's disputed nuclear program, Israel has more recently worried the Syrian insurgency could loosen Damascus's hold on its chemical weapons and Scud missiles.

Israel has threatened to attack preemptively in both countries, a prospect that could trigger wider war and clash with Washington's efforts to resolve the crises diplomatically.

The Pentagon and U.S. firm Boeing Co are partners in Arrow, an investment that the Obama administration hopes will help stay the Israelis' hand.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said last week that Arrow, like a similar Israeli interceptor for short-range guerrilla rockets, Iron Dome, were "designed to prevent wars".

ALLIES

Iran, which denies seeking nuclear weapons, has vowed reprisals for any Israeli attack, and on Saturday unveiled a new missile.

Syria, for its part, last month went public with its chemical arsenal, saying it was intended for last-resort use against "external aggression".

Tehran also has Islamist guerrilla allies in Lebanon and Gaza which could shell Israel during any regional conflict. Their short-range rocket arsenals have been expanding and improving as well, the senior Israeli defense official said.

Having helped underwrite Arrow, the Americans were free to draw on its technologies for their own uses, the official said.

"The policy of the (Israeli) Ministry of Defense is to provide all data to the U.S., for the security of the U.S., including on targets, interceptors, radars and command and control," the official said.

With Congress also lavishing cash on Iron Dome, some U.S. lawmakers have called on Israel to share that system, too.

The Israeli official said that though Iron Dome was different to Arrow as it was developed entirely by Israel, the current policy was to provide the Americans data upon request while a more permanent arrangement is negotiated.

In parallel to Arrow II, Israel is developing Arrow III, which is due to be operational in 2014 or 2015. Unlike previous generations of the interceptor, Arrow III will engage incoming missiles in space, using detachable warheads that, turning into "kamikaze" satellites, will seek out and slam into the target.

Israel is also working on a more powerful rocket interceptor than Iron Dome, known as David's Sling or Magic Wand, which is due out next year. Meshed together and with U.S. counterparts, the three Israeli systems would form a multi-tier shield providing several opportunities to intercept incoming missiles.

(Writing by Dan Williams; Editing by Anthony Boadle)

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The Chinese Foreign Ministry's over the weekend condemned a U.S. State Department statement that said Washington was closely monitoring territorial disputes in the South China Sea, and that China's establishment of a military garrison for the area risks "further escalating tensions in the region".

The mosaic of rival territorial claims in the South China Sea has become Asia's worst potential military flashpoint.

Beijing has said its disputes with Vietnam, the Philippines and other southeast Asian claimants should be settled one-on-one, and it has bristled at U.S. backing for a multilateral approach to solving the overlapping claims.

"We are entirely entitled to shout at the United States, 'Shut up'. How can meddling by other countries be tolerated in matters that are within the scope of Chinese sovereignty?," said a commentary in the overseas edition of the People's Daily, an offshoot of the ruling Chinese Communist Party's top newspaper.

The main, domestic edition of the newspaper was equally harsh, and accused Washington of seeking to open up divisions between China and its Asian neighbours.

"Fanning the flames and provoking division, deliberately creating antagonism with China, is not a new game," said a commentary in the People's Daily domestic edition. "But of late Washington has been itching to use this trick."

The ire from Beijing shows the potential for tensions over the South China to fester into a wider diplomatic quarrel, even outright military confrontation remains unlikely.

Last week, the People's Daily said China's "core interests" were at stake in its territorial claims across the South China Sea – language that puts such claims on a similar footing with China's claims of indisputable sovereignty over Tibet and Xinjiang in its west.

On Saturday, China's Foreign Ministry said it summoned the Deputy Chief of Mission of the U.S. embassy in Beijing, Robert Wang, to make "serious representations" about the issue.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang also repeated that China had absolute sovereignty over much of the sea and its myriad islands, and had every right to set up a city for the region, which it did last month.

Source: Reuters

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Sources have told Fox News the man who allegedly opened fire on a Milwaukee-area Sikh temple yesterday is Wade Michael Page, an ex-Army soldier.

Police have yet to officially identify the suspect who killed at least six people yesterday when he allegedly began shooting at an Oak Creek, Wisc., Sikh temple. At least one police officer was injured in the melee.

Fox News is reporting that Page, the presume suspect, was a "heavily-tattooed, 40-year-old ex-Army soldier."

A woman who claims to be the suspect's neighbor told Fox News the man had a 9-11 tattoo.

While Fox News' sources failed to identify a motive for the shooting, the news outlet has learned Page was attached to the Fort Bragg Army installation in North Carolina at one time.

Yesterday we also learned the shooting suspect, who was killed by police during the incident, had recently broken up with his girlfriend, the mother of the man's landlord told Greendale Patch.

A press conference has been scheduled for 10 a.m. local time, where authorities are expected to officially release more details about the crime, which has been dubbed an act of domestic terrorism.

No photos of Page are yet available. We'll update you throughout the morning as we get more information.

DON'T MISS: Here's Everything We Know About Temple Shooting Suspect Wade Michael Page >

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The man suspected of killing at least six people yesterday at a Milwaukee-area Sikh temple has been unofficially identified as Wade Michael Page. The shooter was killed by police.

Here's everything we know about Page:

• Page is described as a "heavily-tattooed, 40-year-old ex-Army soldier." Neighbors told Fox News that he had a 9-11 tattoo.

• Sources told CBS News he was a 6-foot-tall bald white man who "seemed like he had a purpose and knew where he was going." NBC reports that he was said to be "wearing some sort of tactical-type pants but no bulletproof vest or protective gear."

• In 1994, Page was arrested for causing criminal damage to property between $20 and $200, according to BuzzFeed, which examined Texas court records. The crime, to which Page pleaded guilty, was a class B misdemeanor, BuzzFeed reported.

• Page was given a general discharge from the Army in 1998 after six years of service after serving from April 1992 through October 1998 as a sergeant and later a specialist, working as a Hawk missile system repairman before becoming a psychological operations (PSYOP) specialist.

• He was stationed at Ft. Bliss in Texas and at Ft. Bragg in North Carolina while originally being from Colorado. He was discharged from the Army for "patterns of misconduct," Reuters reported.

• Page was never stationed overseas and in 1998 he was disciplined for being drunk on duty. That disciplinary action resulted in his rank being reduced from sergeant to specialist, according to Reuters. Page was not eligible to re-enlist, sources told Reuters.

• The Southern Poverty Law Center, a group that has studied hate crimes for decades, reports that Page was "a frustrated neo-Nazi who had been the leader of a racist white-power band." They have a picture but we have not confirmed it. Here is End Apathy's MySpace page.

• Authorities told Reuters the suspect used a 9mm semi-automatic pistol in the shooting. The gun was recovered at the scene. Police are currently tracking the origin of the gun. 

• Law enforcement officials told CNN that Page legally owned the gun that was used in the temple shooting.

• Page moved to Milwaukee earlier this year, according to the Journal Sentinel, and hadn't lived at his apartment for very long before the shooting. Neighbors told CBS News he only lived there for about two weeks. "Nobody has really seen him," neighbor Alma Rayes told CBS News. "We heard here and there that they've been doing a lot of arguing, between him and another female, but I haven't seen him."

• The property Page rented was owned by Kurt L. Weins. Weins told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel he believed his tenant was from Chicago and did not have a record of violence in Wisconsin."I had him checked out and he definitely checked out," Weins told the Journal Sentinel. We attempted to contact Weins but his phone number is apparently no longer in service.

• Before his move to Milwaukee, Page lived in Littleton, Colo., from 2000 to 2007, 9News reported. A man bearing the same name was reportedly convicted of DUI in 1999 in Denver. Page was also ticketed for driving without a valid license in 1999, according to 9News.
  

• We previously reported that prior to the shooting Page had broken up with his girlfriend. A woman claiming to be the suspect's neighbor told Fox News that last week she heard yelling coming from one of the apartments the FBI searched after the shooting. "She says he had returned to the old apartment and was banging on the door of his old apartment, demanding to be let in," Fox News reported.

• Police spent the night searching the suspect's apartment. At one point, the police, ATF, and FBI were at the apartment in the 3700 block of Holmes Avenue in Cudahy, Wisc., which is about six miles from the temple. Currently no information has been released about what may have been found during the search. But, according to the Journal Sentinel, authorities left the property around midnight "carrying large items."

• Wade's motive has not yet been identified. Sources told CBS News no links to extremist groups have been identified.

Police are saying that the gunman acted alone, despite witness reports of multiple shooters.

FBI Milwaukee Special Agent Teresa Carlson announced today that law enforcement is searching for a "person of interest."

DON'T MISS: Heartbreaking Photos from Wisconsin's Sikh Temple >

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Folks, there's a blatantly fake twitter account that has a grand total of 6 tweets that is spreading nonsense about Syrian President Assad and his family being killed.

The Twitter account's bio is: VLADIMIR KOLOKOLTSEV, Minister of Interior of Russian Federation.  Official Twitter Account, but that means nothing. There have been several similar fakes over the past year or so spewing fake news (usually about the mideast).

They accumulate followers each time, and then they switch names and handles (very easy to do) making it look like the account has a legacy and history of being real.

According to ZeroHedge, the tweets correlate to a mini-spike in crude, though we're not sure.

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It seems like the Pentagon was also glued to the television last week, watching the Olympics instead of buying more weapon systems. 

Even though the Department of Defense spent $7.5 billion in a week the last time we checked in on them, the Pentagon cut down on purchasing last week, spending only $3.6 billion.

That's not to say that they didn't buy anything. The Defense Department picked up more SM-3 missiles, billions worth of shipping, and much more during the first week of August.  

America — enjoy your recent purchases:

Up to $1.6 billion worth of international shipping

The Department of Defense has been buying up an unprecedented amount of international shipping lately, with number abnormally above the typical annual purchases. 

This batch of contracts is, however, not really unprecedented. With an international presence, the Military needs bulk international door-to-door and port-to-door shipping to move servicemembers' possessions around the world, and this contract is probably that. 

The firms that split up the pot are World Airways Inc., Liberty Global Logistics, Lake Success, American President Lines, and National Air Cargo Group. 

We've speculated before that these investments in cargo shipping have to do with the pullout of machinery from the Middle East, so of course that remains a possibility. The contract is for $365.7 million in the first year, then up to $1.6 billion over three years. 

$382 million for firetrucks

Well, it's a little bit more complex than that, but that's the gist of it. 

Kovatch Mobile Equipment Corp was awarded a $382.5 million contract for commercial fire and emergency vehicles. 

The military needs ambulances and fire trucks just as much if not more than civilian municipalities. As an international operator of massive airports, nuclear facilities and explosives, the military needs a way to put out fires fast. 

All the branches of the military — as well as federal civilian agencies — will benefit from the contract. 

$77.2 million for more of the SM-3 naval air defense missiles. 

The Missile Defense Agency just exercised another option on the Standard Missile 3 Block IB contract with Raytheon.

Last week, we showed you how this batch of missiles operates, in case you missed it. 

This contract buys nine containers of the still-in-development missiles, to be delivered in the middle of 2013. 

This contract brings the cumulative value of the SM-3 Block IB missile project to $1.7 billion. 

$28.1 million for almost a thousand Advanced Precision Kill Weapon Systems. 

The Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System (APKWS) is a laser guided missile which has semi-active laser homing and uses a Hydra 70 rocket. BAE Systems is the contractor in this case. 

Particularly interesting about this contract is the fact that, in addition to uses in the Marine Corps, the APKWS system is being integrated into the MQ-8 Fire Scout drone. This purchase — of 985 guidance sections — is contracted specifically by the Naval Air Systems Command at Patuxent River, Maryland. 

The Naval Air Systems command is the group that oversees the Naval drones. 

Now step aboard the Navy's prized next-generation submarine >  

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Iran has been threatening to close the Strait of Hormuz since last year and a new book out by David Crist offers insight into why those threats should to be taken seriously.

Tony Capaccio at Bloomberg reports Crist has little doubt the Iranians would mine the narrow strait through which nearly 40 percent of the world's oil passes, as a "last resort", when "all else fails."

Its inventory of mines, many of the type laid during the 1980s against Iraq and international shipping, has grown to more than 5,000, Crist wrote. Let’s just say they have enough resources and forces to do it if they set their mind to” attempt a disruption, Crist said. “That’s provided that there’s no international effort to stop it, which I think there would be,” he said.

Disrupting shipping has been on their minds for a long time, Crist said. During a September 1987 attack on the Iran Ajr vessel after it laid mines to disrupt shipping in the Gulf, U.S. Navy Seals discovered a war plan to close the Strait, approved in 1984 and called “Ghadir,” Crist writes in his book. A class of Iranian midget submarines -- another potential threat to shipping in the Gulf -- uses the same name, taken from Ghadir Khumm, an Islamic holy place in modern-day Saudi Arabia. 

Not just the Pentagon is taking the possibility of a mine ridden strait seriously, 19 other countries are lined up to join the U.S. for the International Mine Countermeasures Exercise 2012. An 11 day exercise beginning in mid-September that will use eight of the Navy's minesweeping ships and unmanned Seafox submarines to perform exercises identical to what they would if the strait were mined with live explosives.

Iranian mines damaged U.S. ships in both 1987 and 1988, so most at the Pentagon probably understand it could certainly happen again.

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Injured British soldiers working as volunteer archaeologists discovered the remains of warriors who died more than 1,400 years ago, Maev Kennedy of the Guardian reports. 

The discovery astonished archaeologists leading the excavation as earlier digs had turned up empty ration packs and spent ammunition. 

The soldiers – who are recovering from injuries suffered in the Afghan War – found shields, spear heads, hundreds of amber and glass beads, a Roman brooch and a silver ring among the remains of 27 individuals.

From the Guardian:

Mike Kelly, from 1 Rifles, found a skeleton with its head covered by a shield. He believes the position was a sign of respect to a fallen warrior. "I have been to war myself and I can imagine what the soldier would have felt as he went into battle. Knowing that as a modern-day warrior I have unearthed the remains of another fills me with an overwhelming sense of respect."

The excavation was part of Operation Nightingale, which Kennedy describes as "an award-winning project to give soldiers new skills and interests as part of their rehabilitation."

Eight of the soldiers are now going on to study archeology at Leicester University.

 SEE ALSO: This Tragic Story Sums Up The Position Many Veterans Face When Coming Home >

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On Aug. 6, 1945, the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. The blast killed around 140,000 people and ravaged 90 percent of the city. Three days later, a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. An estimated 40,000 more perished.

That was 67 years ago today. More than half a century later the threat of nuclear weapons remains a challenge.  

Jump straight to the pictures > 

In order "to keep the reality of our post-atomic era fresh and omnipresent," Los Angeles-based photographer Clay Lipsky created a series of photographs in which he imagines a world where people gather to watch atomic bomb explosions. Tourists flood the Internet with cell-phone images of close-up mushroom clouds, in turn, bringing "new levels of desensitization" to the threat of nuclear weapons.   

"I am not trying to be 'shocking' in fact I feel my series is more sarcastic than anything else," Lipsky told us in an email. "We live in an interesting time and our perceptions are very much influenced by visual media. Hopefully people will see deeper into 'Atomic Overlook' and not just take it for face value."

The composite photos use shots taken over the last eight years as the artist traveled around the world.

No tourists were harmed in the making of this series, Lipsky jokes.  

You can see Lipsky's full artist statement here and more of his work on his website. 

[via io9]

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Intelligence services from every foreign government in the world have likely mined the trove of diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks in 2010.

Accordingly, when foreign diplomats engage with their U.S. counterparts, they are very likely armed with insider information on what the U.S. State Department knows, and how it does business.

In other words, Bradley Manning — who's suspected of sharing the classified documents with Wikileaks — rearranged the chessboard.

For obvious reasons, it makes sense that State Department analysts and employees would study exactly what information was revealed in the cables. But they couldn't. In fact, they were explicitly forbidden from doing so on penalty of termination of employment. Why? Because the diplomatic cables are still officially classified, and it's illegal to access classified material unless you are on a "need to know" basis, or have the necessary clearance. So mindlessly enforced regulations put our diplomats at a needlessly foolish disadvantage.

This isn't a new phenomenon. No one has ever described the classification policies of the American government as nimble, effective, or even comprehensible. During World War II, for example, the government classified a certain "silent flashless weapon" a secret. To discuss this weapon with anyone without clearance would be a felony. Today we know what that secret weapon was: A bow and arrow.

In what you can't help but describe as Orwellian, the government has even re-classified things already in the public domain. Quite literally, something you know today might be illegal for someone else to know tomorrow. The New York Times reported in 2006 that, as part of a reclassification program, intelligence agencies were rifling through the National Archives and removing things from the public record. (Among items too hot for the 21st century: A 1950 intelligence assessment suggesting that Chinese involvement in the Korean War was not probable.) The program was seven years old, which means it predated Sept. 11, and even the Bush administration. It's unlikely that the program has stopped under President Obama, but who knows? The reclassification program is itself a secret.

And they haven't confined themselves to the National Archives. Even Barnes & Noble has been known to pose a security threat. In 2010, every copy of Operation Dark Heart — a memoir of one soldier's work in Afghanistan — was purchased by the Department of Defense, on the grounds that it contained sensitive material, even though the U.S. Army had already read the book and cleared it for release. It gets worse: The Pentagon set all 9,500 copies on fire, then scrubbed the text and reprinted it, so anyone curious about what the government was so keen to protect could simply compare the original book and the revised one. (Take heart, though, the United States is not unique in this form of existential stupidity. In 2011, the British government did the same thing to a book called Dead Men Risen, about Welsh guards in Afghanistan.)

The cost of protecting all of these "secrets"? According to the Information Security Oversight Office: $11 billion dollars. That's double what we spent in 2001, and doesn't even include key spy operations. Since President Obama took office, there has been a 25% increase in spending on classifying things as secrets, and what has it gotten us? The most porous secrecy apparatus in a generation. Just ask Shakil Afridi, the physician who helped the CIA track down Osama bin Laden. Actually, you'll have trouble asking Dr. Afridi, because he's rotting in a Pakistani prison. He was arrested after someone leaked his story to the press.

What about the deep-cover spy who managed to penetrate al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and personally thwart a terrorist attack? That story leaked almost immediately. It was really great press and a thrilling read. Of course, the CIA had planned to keep the operation alive a few weeks longer, but there are political considerations! It's unlikely that the British and Saudi intelligence agencies who helped us execute the daring operation were happy about the news. And ostensibly hostile foreign governments who might otherwise help us thwart terrorist attacks are thus unlikely to risk being outed as collaborating with the imperialist United States.

Calls for classification policy reform are old hat. And though Congress has taken an interest in plugging leaks from the executive branch (and the executive branch has been zealous in prosecuting leakers under the Espionage Act), the problem is far more fundamental. The U.S simply has too many secrets and too many people with access to sensitive material. If protecting the bow-and-arrow and the atomic bomb (an admittedly exaggerated pairing) are given equal priority under the law, leaks are never going to go away. But if the government trimmed its portfolio of secrets to the absolute minimum, and focused only on protecting the most essential intelligence and operations, it would find greater success.

And the government officials know that. The problem is funding. It takes a lot of people and a lot of money to declassify material. Presently, 375 million pages sit awaiting declassification. Considering the nation's dire economic situation, it's a fair question for lawmakers to ask: Do I fund bureaucrats shuffling paperwork, or do I fund public works initiatives? But effective oversight of the government requires access to information. We need to know where the money is going and what our government is doing. That's an economic solution unto itself. Every American citizen, to a certain extent, has a definite "need to know."

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At least 19 people have been killed after gunmen opened fire on worshippers in an evangelical Christian church in central Nigeria.

"The attack was from unknown gunmen at the Deeper Life Church," said Lt. Col. Gabriel Olorunyomi, head of the military's Joint Task Force (JTF) in Kogi state,

"They were doing their normal Monday evening service. When we went there we discovered the church had been attacked. Instantly we saw 15 people dead, including the pastor."

The military has since learned that an additional four people had died from their injuries.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility. The JTF commander said an investigation had been launched and that it was premature to speculate as to the culprits.

Islamist extremist group Boko Haram has claimed scores of attacks on churches in northern and central Nigeria in recent months as part of an insurgency that has killed hundreds.

The group has also attacked Muslim figures as well as a range of other targets, including the United Nations building in the capital Abuja.

A number of Boko Haram members are alleged to have come from Kogi state.

In mid-July, a bomb went off near another church in Okene, but caused no casualties.

Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan said in June that Boko Haram was seeking to incite a religious crisis by attacking churches in an attempt to destabilise the government.

Jonathan described how the group had moved from targeting local rivals to government institutions and now churches.

Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation and largest oil producer, is roughly divided between a mainly Muslim north and predominately Christian south.

In a video posted to YouTube on Saturday, the suspected leader of Boko Haram criticised Jonathan as well as US President Barack Obama over Washington's decision to label him a "global terrorist".

It was unclear when the video was made, but it marked the first time Abubakar Shekau publicly addressed the terrorist designation slapped on him by the United States in June.

In addition to Shekau, the US State Department also announced the designations for Abubakar Adam Kambar and Khalid al-Barnawi. Kambar and Barnawi were said to be linked to Boko Haram and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), al-Qaeda's north African branch.

Members of Boko Haram are believed to have received training from AQIM in northern Mali, and Western countries have been watching closely for signs of further cooperation.

Some US lawmakers have been pushing Obama's administration to label Boko Haram as a whole a terrorist organisation, but American diplomats have stressed that the group remains domestically focused.

They also say deep poverty and a lack of infrastructure in Nigeria's north must be addressed as part of the solution to the violence.

Source: AFP

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Iran's possible nuclear program is dominating news from the Middle-East because Israel knows if it perfects a thermonuclear device, Tehran likely has the ability to deliver it aboard some of its current missiles.

Israel thinks this is too great a threat for it to allow.

The Jewish state has worked with the U.S. over the years to develop a pretty comprehensive missile defense system and we've outlined a rough version of it here, along with Iran's biggest threats.

While Israel's system strives to be fully comprehensive in its defense, if any of Iran's rockets were strapped with a nuclear device — or if Iran could hand deliver a device into Israel — none of this preparation would mean much at all.

The homemade Qassam rocket has already been sent into Israel

The Qassam rocket is typically manufactured by Palestinian militants and fired into Israel without advanced guidance capabilities. They cost an estimated $800 each. 

They're a very, very basic type of missile, propelled by a solid mixture of potassium nitrate fertilizer mixed with sugar. The warhead is typically scavenged TNT or urea nitrate. They have no guidance mechanism beyond aiming, and an estimated 2,048 were fired into Israel in 2008. 

Grad missiles have killed 22 people since 2000

Since 2006, Hamas has been lobbing ex-Soviet 122mm Grad missile into Israel. The missiles are likely copies imported from Iran or China, brought into the Gaza strip from tunnels to Egypt. 

These rockets have a range of 20 kilometers, but are typically fired from a moving launcher, greatly expanding their abilities. 

The Grad rockets, with the improvised Qassam rockets, have caused some of the most pain in Israel, claiming the lives of 22 citizens since 2000.  

The Sejjil missile is capable of striking Tel Aviv, Israel

Tel Aviv, Israel is roughly 1,600 kilometers from Tehran, Iran. That, for all intent and purposes, is the magic number here; a central point in Iran to a central point in Israel is roughly 1,600 km. These are the ballistic missiles that can allegedly make that trip. 

The Sejjil missile is a solid-fueled Iranian surface-to-surface missile that is roughly 58 feet long and can travel between 2000 and 2500 kilometers, bringing Israel well within its range. 

That missile is strikingly similar to the Iranian Ashoura missile, with an alleged range of 2,000 km. That medium ranged ballistic missile has been in service since November 1997. 

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