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Swiss Jesuit Church with CIA NATO Symbol in Solothurn Switzerland Namen Jesu & Kreiskommando – Video

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Swiss Jesuit Church with CIA NATO Symbol in Solothurn Switzerland Namen Jesu Kreiskommando
THIS JESUIT CHURCH STANDS FOR THE VICTORY OF THE JESUITS OVER PROTESTANT EUROPE, THAT`S WHY IT WAS BUILT RIGHT AFTER THE 30 YEAR WAR OF RELIGION FROM 1618 TO ...

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Swiss Jesuit Church with CIA NATO Symbol in Solothurn Switzerland Namen Jesu & Kreiskommando - Video

Could Putin's Russia push neutral Finland into NATO's arms?

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Helsinki, Finland Seven months ago, when Russia seized and annexed the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine, Finns seemed relatively unconcerned. The world's northernmost country shares some 800 miles of border with its huge neighbor, but just a quarter of Finns said they felt threatened by Moscow. And a similar number told pollsters their country should consider joining NATO in interest of self-defense.

Since then, Russia's behavior has become more provocative, and not just in eastern Ukraine. During one week in August, Russian military aircraft conducted three unauthorized overflightsof Finnish airspace. The Finnish public reacted accordingly. A poll last month by Finnish daily Aamulehti showed that 43 percent of those polled perceived Russia as a danger, an increase of nearly 20 percent from March.

But support for Finland joining NATO remained almost unchanged: a mere two percent higher, the Finnish Broadcasting Corporation (YLE) found. Why hasnt Finnish wariness translated into stronger support for NATO membership? And what, if anything, would persuade Finns to join the defense pact?

Defense Minister Carl Haglund says that the foundation for the Finnish publics aversion to NATO membership stems from its complicated, and oft-misunderstood relationship with Russia. This [reluctance] goes back to [our] history, he says, especially the end of the Second World War and the cold war.

Put it this way," says Pekka Ervasti, political editor of YLE. "Finnish neutrality dies hard.

The 1948 treaty which Finland signed with the USSR which defeated Finland in two wars during World War II codified its enforced rapprochement with the Kremlin. Finland agreed not to join or assist NATO, which was established the following year. The treaty laid the basis for the peaceable and mutually beneficial relationship between Finland and the USSR which followed, along with half a century of Finnish military non-alignment. Active neutrality, Helsinki called it.

Critics had another term for it: Finlandization the process by which a democracy such as Finland avoided provoking Moscow, in return for independence and trading privileges. It's a policy that served Finns well for decades, and many are reluctant toabandon it.

A dose ofanti-Americanism is also at play, adds Ervasti. People feel that NATO is run by Americans and they fear that the US will drag us into foreign wars, like Iraq. Others worry that nuclear weapons will be stationed here.

Then there's the bottom line for business.Im not sure whether joining NATO is such a great idea in the long run, says Ami Hasan, head of Hasan & Partners, a leading Helsinki ad agency. Russia with its 150 million people is a huge potential trading partner for Finland and we have 1,300 kilometers of shared border. I doubt that Russia would be thrilled to share it with NATO.

Despite the generally warm relationship between the two countries in recent years, Russian officials have explicitly warned Finland against joining NATO. In June 2012, Russian Chief of Staff Nikolai Makarov, sounding much like the Soviet bear of yore, said that cooperation between NATO and Finland, which joined NATOs Partnership for Peace affiliate program in 1994, threatened Russias security.

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Could Putin's Russia push neutral Finland into NATO's arms?

NATO maritime exercise 'Noble Justification' underway in Mediterranean and Atlantic

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BRUSSELS, Oct. 15 (UPI) -- NATO's multinational "Noble Justification" maritime exercise is underway in the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean.

The purpose of the exercise, explained NATO's Maritime Commander, Vice Admiral Peter Hudson, is to help "NATO to develop force integration, multinational inter-operability and enhance readiness, by using of an improved technology."

"It exercises a high-density, high-threat scenario in which NATO responds to a threat to its integrity, and the sovereignty, of its member states."

Fourteen NATO nations, including the U.S., are participating in the maritime exercise involving 5,000 military personnel, more than 20 warships, and several submarines and aircraft.

Lt. Gen. D. Michael Day, deputy commander of the NATO Joint Force Command Naples remarked that "'Noble Justification' is not just important to the life cycle of the [NATO Response Force] but also acts to assure NATO members and their allies, of the Alliance's unity, ability and commitment to respond to any threat to NATO members' integrity and sovereignty."

NATO's new secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, has emphasized that "NATO's most important task is to protect and defend our nations against attack," a commitment that comes at a time of heightened concern about Russian aggression and the rise of Islamic extremism in the Middle East.

2014 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI's prior written consent.

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NATO maritime exercise 'Noble Justification' underway in Mediterranean and Atlantic

NATO Chief: No Russian Withdrawal From Ukraine Border

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THESSALONIKI, Greece (AP) NATO's top military commander said Wednesday that the alliance would welcome the withdrawal of Russian troops from a Russian region bordering Ukraine, but that it has seen no "major movement" so far.

On Saturday Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered about 17,600 Russian troops to return to their bases from Rostov. The region in Russia borders east Ukraine, where pro-Russian insurgents have been battling government troops since April.

"We would welcome withdrawal of troops on that border, and we are anxiously watching what is happening," U.S. Air Force Gen. Philip Breedlove, the Supreme Allied Commander Europe, told The Associated Press on the sidelines of a NATO conference in the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki.

"We have not seen major movements yet," he said. "Now we will watch to see if there is delivery on the promise."

Russia has consistently denied Ukrainian and Western claims that it has supported the insurgency in eastern Ukraine with weapons, expertise and fighters, saying troops stationed in Rostov are participating in drills.

NATO has countered previous Russian claims of troop withdrawals. In the spring, the U.S. and NATO said Russia had deployed about 40,000 troops near the border, though Putin ordered the troops back to their home bases in late May. While the U.S. and NATO did confirm those moves, in August they said Moscow was again bolstering its forces in the region and that Russia had allowed troops and vehicles to cross the border to assist the separatists.

"Actions speak louder than words," another top NATO military commander, Gen. Frank Gorenc, who heads the alliance's air command and the U.S. Air Forces in Europe, told the AP. "And the fact of the matter is, in today's environment strategic messaging without action are just words. And so their actions remain to be seen."

Breedlove noted it was important for the West to comprehend the possible motives for Russia's actions in Ukraine.

"We have to understand in the West that Mr. Putin may actually have felt threatened along the lines of Ukraine leaning to the West, both in the European union and in the NATO alliance," Breedlove said.

Putin has repeatedly accused the U.S., the EU and NATO of stonewalling Moscow's economic and security concerns and trying to pull Ukraine into the Western orbit. He accused the West of encouraging the ouster of Ukraine's former president in February, and cast the annexation of Crimea the following month as a necessary move to protect Russian speakers there.

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NATO Chief: No Russian Withdrawal From Ukraine Border

NATO Reassures Baltics Over Russia Threat: Military alliance can deploy troops in 48 hours – Video

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NATO Reassures Baltics Over Russia Threat: Military alliance can deploy troops in 48 hours
A spokesman for NATO has told the Latvian Information Agency that the military alliance could deploy troops to the Baltic states within 48 hours in the event...

By: UKRAINE TODAY

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NATO Reassures Baltics Over Russia Threat: Military alliance can deploy troops in 48 hours - Video

Report: Russian hackers spied on NATO

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DALLAS, Oct. 14 (UPI) -- A Russian group of hackers exploited a flaw in a computer operating system to spy on NATO and other security targets, a report says.

The Dallas based cybersecurity firm that uncovered the plot, iSight Partners, said a previously undiscovered flaw in Microsoft's Windows system allowed sensitive documents pertaining to the NATO summit held in Wales in September to be targeted.

ISight dubbed the hacking group the Sandworm Team, the Washington Post reported. It was presumably working for the Russian government and has been active since at least 2009, the report said, adding that a Polish energy firm, the Ukrainian government's computers and at least one nation in Western Europe were also targeted.

The flaw, known as zero-day for the amount of time programmers are aware of it, likely allowed hackers to find e-mails, Power Point presentations and encryption keys in computers considered secure.

Although policy statements were released after the NATO summit, much of the planning occurred in secret. The agenda included preparing a unified response to Russia's influence in Crimea and Ukraine, and plans for confronting the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.

U.S. President Barack Obama attended the meeting, as did Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and high-level military and civilian leaders from each NATO country.

2014 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI's prior written consent.

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Report: Russian hackers spied on NATO

Polish: New NATO chief visits Poland, promises "spearhead force" to deal with "threats" – Video

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Polish: New NATO chief visits Poland, promises "spearhead force" to deal with "threats"
Video ID: 20141007-010 W/S Polish Prime Minister Eva Kopacz and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg arriving SOT, Jens Stoltenberg, NATO Secretary-General (in English): "We will maintain...

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Polish: New NATO chief visits Poland, promises "spearhead force" to deal with "threats" - Video

One dead as suicide blast targets NATO convoy in Kabul

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KABUL - A suicide bomber targeted a NATO convoy in Afghanistan's capital Kabul on Monday, killing an Afghan civilian but causing no casualties among foreign troops, officials said.

The explosion struck around dawn in Kabul's east, on the road to the city of Jalalabad, Afghan authorities said.

"A suicide bomber blew up his vehicle loaded with explosives in Qabil Bai," deputy interior minister General Mohammad Ayub Salangi said in a tweet, adding that "one person was killed and three injured in this attack".

A spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force said there were "no ISAF casualties" in the attack.

No group has yet claimed responsibility for the bombing, but it had all the hallmarks of those carried out by the Taliban.

The group's last attack on NATO forces in Kabul was on September 16, also when a bomber rammed an explosives-laden car into a NATO convoy, triggering a massive blast that killed two Americans and one Polish soldier, and wounded a dozen civilians.

Kabul was also rocked two weeks ago by a series of suicide attacks staged during the inauguration of new president Ashraf Ghani. More than a dozen people were killed in several attacks on Afghan security forces.

About 40,000 NATO troops are serving in Afghanistan, but their combat mission is scheduled to finish at the end of this year, and the Taliban's recent offensives have severely tested Afghan soldiers and police.

NATO's follow-up mission, which will take over on January 1, will be made up of 9,800 US troops and about 3,000 soldiers from Germany, Italy and other member nations.

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One dead as suicide blast targets NATO convoy in Kabul


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