Headlines:

• CIA Engaged in Human Experimentation
• US Gets Aggressive with Russia
• JF-17 Gets its First Buyer

Details:

CIA Engaged in Human Experimentation

The UK’s Guardian Newspaper confirmed that the CIA had explicit guidelines for “human experimentation” before, during and after its post-9/11 torture of terrorism detainees. The document containing the guidelines, dated 1987 but updated over the years and still in effect at the CIA, was obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the ACLU and shared with the Guardian, which published it for the first time. It proved, the CIA director could “approve, modify, or disapprove all proposals pertaining to human subject research”. The leeway provides the director, who has never in the agency’s history been a medical doctor, with significant influence over limitations the US government sets to preserve safe, humane and ethical procedures on people. Whilst the facility that came to be known as Guantanamo Bay, was always questioned by some, the US government has been exposed of breaking all its laws and values when it came to torture, holding prisoners without trial and denying many a fair hearing. But the US Senate exposed that none of the captives in Guantanamo Bay provided any useful information that could stop another plot, it is now clear the US government was engaged human experimentation, which included testing the limits of torture, assessing how much an individual could handle and even mind and thought based experiments to see if ones beliefs could be changed.

US Gets Aggressive with Russia

The New York Times reported June 13, that the Pentagon is poised to store battle tanks, infantry fighting vehicles and other heavy weapons for as many as 5,000 American troops in several Baltic and Eastern European countries in a significant move to deter possible Russian aggression in Europe. The proposal, if approved, would represent the first time since the end of the Cold War that the US has stationed heavy military equipment in the newer NATO member nations in Eastern Europe that had once been part of the Soviet Union sphere of influence. Mr. Vejonis, who will become Latvia’s president in July highlighted: “We need the prepositioned equipment because if something happens, we’ll need additional armaments, equipment and ammunition. If something happens, we can’t wait days or weeks for more equipment…..We need to react immediately.” After more than a year of tensions over Ukraine, why is the US moving its military equipment now. “This is essentially about politics. This is about telling Russia that you’re getting closer to a real red line,” said Professor Galeotti, a professor at New York University who has written extensively on Russia’s military and security services. In an interview before a visit to Italy this week, Putin dismissed fears of any Russian attack on NATO. “I think that only an insane person and only in a dream can imagine that Russia would suddenly attack NATO,” he told the newspaper Corriere Della Sera. “I think some countries are simply taking advantage of people’s fears with regard to Russia.”

JF-17 Gets its First Buyer

Pakistan’s first indigenous fighter jet, the JF-17, developed with extensive Chinese help has its first confirmed foreign buyer.  “A contract has been signed with an Asian country,” stated Air Commodore Khalid Mahmood, head of sales and marketing for the Pakistan Aeronautical Complex/Chengdu Aircraft Industry Corporation (PAC/CAC) JF-17 Thunder combat aircraft, at the biennially held Paris Air Show on June 14. Khalid refused to name the country. Nor did he specify the number of planes to be sold, although he stated that deliveries will begin in 2017.  Currently, the Pakistani Air Force (PAF) is the only one to operate the aircraft. So far, the (PAF) has received 50 Block I planes, and is scheduled to receive 16 Block-II JF-17s annually over the next few years. The plane is manufactured at the Pakistan Aeronautical Complex (PAC) west of Islamabad, which has the capacity to produce 25 aircraft per year. But unusually the Pakistan army or government refuse to name the customer.  This is probably because the customer is Burma, as General Khin Aung Myint, Commander-in-Chief (Air) Republic of the Union of Myanmar Air Force visited Air Headquarters Islamabad In May 2015, and also visited the Pakistan Aeronautical Complex (PAC), where the JF-17 IS constructed. The Pakistan establishment felt it could not publically state this sale due to the response of the Muslims of Pakistan for their brother and sisters being massacred by the Burmese government.