FORMER SEN. DAN Coats’s wife Marsha and professional sports came up more frequently than CIA black sites and NSA surveillance powers during the Director of National Intelligence nominee’s confirmation hearing with the Senate intelligence committee Tuesday. Coats served on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence alongside many of the men and women tasked with assessing his readiness to lead the nation’s 17 intelligence agencies. The Indiana Republican announced his retirement in November 2015, before being asked by President Trump to take on the director of national intelligence job in January. His former colleagues kept things lighthearted during the unclassified session. Coats kicked off his testimony by comparing the DNI’s role to that of a head football coach. “There is a coach for offense, defense, special teams, one for quarterback and on and on it goes. But every team has a head coach. … I see the role of director of national intelligence as analogous for the head hole for th

The DPR and LPR authorities’ decree on compulsory registration of Ukrainian enterprises on the territory of the republics has entered into force. Photo: dnr-live.ru By Wednesday, the blockade of the Donbass still has not been lifted, and this means that on March 1, the decree of the heads of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and the Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR) on compulsory registration of Ukrainian enterprises on the territory of the republics, which previously paid taxes to Kiev, has officially entered into force. In fact, the process was started yesterday, but formally the decree has become operative only today. The event was marked with a symbolic move – blue lights of the Donbass Arena stadium were turned on for the first time during several years of the war in Ukraine at the first minutes of spring 2017. Yesterday evening, it was reported that armed men blocked a distribution center in Donbass Arena and issuing points of the Humanitarian Staff of Rinat Akhmetov (

The newest Russian Uran-9 unmanned ground vehicle has been spotted in Syria. The Uran-9 unmanned ground vehicle (Photo: m.rusnext.ru) In January, Russian military expert and chief editor of the Arsenal Otechestva magazine, Viktor Murakhovsky, said that the usage of perspective models of combat robots by the Russian Armed Forces in Syria is already a well-established practice. At that time, he also noted that the newest Uran-9 robotic warfare system also could be tested in the Syrian Arab Republic. “It is not a secret that Russia tests a number of robotic products in Syria: not only the Uran-6 mine clearance systems, but also the Soratnik and Nerehta unmanned vehicles. With regard to the specific model, noticed by British media, – yes, I do not exclude that the Uran-9 and other systems may appear in Syria,” Murakhovsky told the RIA Novosti news agency in January. About a month later, it was reported that the Uran-9 was allegedly spotted in Syria ( source ). The Uran-9 unmanned gr

The leader of the Islamic State terrorist group urged his closest preachers to move terrorists’ bases and strongholds to mountainous and remote areas of Syria and Iraq. Photo: Getty Images Leader of the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has admitted the defeat in the recent fighting in the course of his farewell speech, which was addressed to supporters of the terrorist organization, the Alsumaria TV-channel reported on Wednesday, citing its own source. The al-Baghdadi’s statement was directed to his closest preachers. The IS leader urged them to continue the fight, moving terrorists’ bases and strongholds to mountainous and remote areas of Syria and Iraq. According to the TV-channel’s source, high-ranking terrorists of the group have already fled from Mosul, which is the unofficial capital of the IS and besieged by the Iraqi Army, and moved to the direction of the Iraqi-Syrian border. Earlier on Wednesday, commander of the Iraqi Federal Police, Raid Shakir Jawdat

Moscow and Beijing have agreed to intensify their joint efforts to oppose the US missile system’s deployment in South Korea. Photo: AFP Beijing and Moscow have agreed to build up their coordinated efforts to oppose the planned deployment of the US anti-ballistic missile system in South Korea, as they believe that the move would harm the regional security, the Chinese Foreign Ministry announced in a statement, released on Wednesday. Last year, South Korea agreed to deploy the US Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) on its territory, explaining this with threats, posed by ballistic missiles of North Korea . The move made China and Russia to concern about a possibility of further destabilisation of the situation on the Korean Peninsula, as well as about the fact that the THAAD might challenge their own security. In January, the two countries agreed to take unspecified “countermeasures” in response to the THAAD’s deployment. Meanwhile, earlier this week, the South Korean Defense Mi