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Operations
Defense Policy / Programs
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News Reports

Current Operations

• OIF/OEF/OND Casualty Update 20 Jun 2014 [PDF]
• Afghan authorities register thousands of refugees fleeing Pakistani clashes - UN UN News Centre 20 Jun 2014 -- The United Nations refugee agency is helping authorities in the eastern Afghan province of Khost to register and assist thousands of people fleeing the current Pakistani military offensive against Taliban militants in that country's tribal regions.
• Airmen repair runway in Afghanistan AFNS 20 Jun 2014 -- Airmen from the 455th Expeditionary Civil Engineer Squadron and the 577th Expeditionary Prime Base Engineer Squadron completed flightline repairs to the main runway here June 9.
• Kirby: Special Operators Will Assess Situation in Iraq AFPS 20 Jun 2014 -- Special operators that President Barack Obama is sending to Iraq, up to 300 U.S. military personnel, will form assessment teams to evaluate the situation on the ground there and boost Iraq's ability to counter the threat from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, known as ISIL.

Defense Policy / Programs

• Revamped weapon school program takes flight AFNS 20 Jun 2014 -- The U.S. Air Force Weapons School recently unleashed the next stage of its newly revamped graduate program.
• DOD Ethics Adviser Focuses on Trust, Accountability Issues AFPS 20 Jun 2014 -- "I don't know of an institution in the world that has higher personal standards than the military. We want to keep that," Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said in March as he announced the appointment of a Navy admiral to be his senior advisor for military professionalism following a series of highly publicized incidents that he said called for reinvigorating "our ethics and character."
• Department of Defense Press Briefing by Rear Adm. Kirby in the Pentagon Briefing Room DoD 20 Jun 2014 -- Presenter: Department of Defense Press Briefing by Rear Adm. Kirby in the Pentagon Briefing Room
• Readout of Secretary Hagel's Meeting With New Zealand Prime Minister John Key DoD 20 Jun 2014
• 4th Law Enforcement Battalion, Canadian Army kick down barriers, strengthen relationships during Exercise Tradewinds 2014 USMC News 20 Jun 2014 -- Lance Cpl. Ikesha Thomas lifts her rifle to the ready position as she moves toward the entrance of the area she needs to clear, with support of Sgt. Yeuris Aponte. At the ready signal, both go through the entrance, successfully clearing the room as their colleagues watched. Thomas, a lance corporal in the Antigua and Barbuda Defense Force, and Aponte, a sergeant in the Dominican Republic Armed Forces, trained side by side during Exercise Tradewinds 2014.
• USS Ashland and Embarked Marines Wrap up Amphibious Phase of CARAT Malaysia 2014 NNS 20 Jun 2014 -- Whidbey Island-class amphibious dock landing ship USS Ashland (LSD 48) departed Kuantan, Malaysia, June 19 after participating in the amphibious phase of exercise Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training (CARAT) Malaysia 2014.
• American, Spanish Marines combine for amphibious training USMC News 20 Jun 2014 -- Exhaustion had set in and the summer heat wore down their bodies, but the Marines knew that there was no choice but to accomplish the mission. Anything less was unacceptable – a failure not only to themselves but to their brethren, Spanish and American alike.
• BALTOPS 2014 comes to a close in Germany NNS 20 Jun 2014 -- Forces participating in Baltic Operations (BALTOPS) 2014, including the U.S. 6th Fleet command and control ship, USS Mount Whitney (LCC20), arrived in Kiel, Germany, June 20 after the successful completion of BALTOPS 2014.
• USS North Carolina Returns to Pearl Harbor NNS 20 Jun 2014 -- The Virginia-class fast attack submarine USS North Carolina (SSN 777), returned home to Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam following a deployment to the Western Pacific region, June 19.
• S-400 Air Defense Systems to Protect Russia's Kamchatka RIA Novosti 20 Jun 2014 -- Anti-aircraft defense in Kamchatka will be reinforced with new S-400 Triumf systems, the Ministry of Defense said Friday.
• Russia Continues Military Exercise near EU Border, 'Eliminates' Militant Group RIA Novosti 20 Jun 2014 -- Paratroopers and coastal troops taking part in a large scale exercise in Russia's Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad successfully "eliminated" a group of militants, according to the Russian Baltic Fleet's press office.
• Kremlin Says No Russian Military Buildup Near Ukraine, Only Enhanced Border Security RIA Novosti 20 Jun 2014 -- Moscow is surprised by allegations of a buildup of Russian troops near Ukraine, saying it is only taking measures backed by European leaders to better protect its border, a Kremlin spokesman said Friday.
• No Russian troops near Ukrainian border - Putin's aide VoR 20 Jun 2014 -- Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov has refuted the allegations that Russia is moving troops towards the Ukrainian border. 'There is no enlargement [of the military contingent] there. There is only a certain saturation of the border factor,' Ushakov told a press briefing on Friday. He said that was done because the Russian administration was concerned about the border situation.
• Press Briefing by Principal Deputy Press Secretary Josh Earnest, 6/20/14 The White House 20 Jun 2014
• June 20, 2014 - U.S. Department of State Daily Press Briefing US Dept. of State 20 Jun 2014

Defense Industry

• DoD News: Contracts for June 20, 2014

Other Conflicts

• 20 June 2014 - Daily Press Briefing by the Office of the Spokesperson for the Secretary-General United Nations 20 Jun 2014
• 'War's Human Cost': World's population of displaced tops 50 million, UN refugee agency reports UN News Centre 20 Jun 2014 -- World Refugee Day is being marked by yet another sombre milestone in a year that has seen crisis after crisis force desperate people to flee their homes ahead of bullets and bombs: a new UN report reveals that the number of refugees, asylum-seekers and internally displaced people has, for the first time in the post-World War II era, exceeded 50 million people.
• Number of Displaced People Hits 50 Million, Highest Since WWII VOA 20 Jun 2014 -- The U.N. refugee agency's annual Global Trends report says more than 50 million people were forcibly displaced by conflict at the end of last year, the highest number since World War II.
• Seven Ukrainian soldiers killed in east Iran Press TV 20 Jun 2014 -- Seven Ukrainian soldiers have been killed during clashes with pro-Russia fighters in the volatile east, Ukrainian officials said.
• Ukraine Loses Seven Soldiers As Poroshenko Readies Peace Plan RFE/RL 20 Jun 2014 -- Ukraine says seven of its troops have been killed in heavy fighting with pro-Russian separatists in the country's east, as President Petro Poroshenko prepares to unveil his plan to quell the conflict.
• US Imposes Sanctions Against Leaders of Self-Proclaimed Republics of Luhansk, Donetsk RIA Novosti 20 Jun 2014 -- Washington has added seven high-ranking officials from the self-proclaimed Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk to its list of individuals subjected to asset freezes and travel bans, the US Treasury Department said on its website Friday.
• Russia Sends Three Planes with Aid to Refugee Camps in Crimea, Rostov Region RIA Novosti 20 Jun 2014 -- Two of three Russian planes carrying humanitarian aid for Ukrainian refugees landed in Crimea and in the Rostov region on the border with Ukraine's restive Luhansk, according to the Russian Emergency Ministry's spokesman Alexander Drobyshevsky.
• Kiev Claims Operation to Close Border with Russia Nearing Completion RIA Novosti 20 Jun 2014 -- The Ukrainian army is almost done shutting down its eastern border with Russia, according to Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada Chairman and former interim President Oleksandr Turchynov.
• Independence Supporters, Ukrainian Army Fighting Near Russian Border RIA Novosti 20 Jun 2014 -- Luhansk defense forces are currently engaged in fighting with the Ukrainian military near the border with Russia, a spokesperson for the self-proclaimed Luhansk People's Republic told RIA Novosti.
• Russia Establishes Five More Centers for Ukrainian Refugees RIA Novosti 20 Jun 2014 -- Five more temporary accommodation centers have been established in the past 24 hours in southern and central Russia to receive refugees from Ukraine, a source in the Russian security services told RIA Novosti Friday.
• Ukraine's President Unveils Peace Plan; Clashes Continue VOA 20 Jun 2014 -- Ukraine's new president unveiled a sweeping 14-point peace plan Friday designed to quell the violence in the restive east, as the government reported the deaths of seven soldiers and Russia resumed building up troops near the border.
• Ukraine's army terminates blockade of eastern borders - Turchynov VoR 20 Jun 2014 -- Ukrainian military and border guards have completed the operation of blocking the country's eastern borders, according to Verkhovna Rada Speaker Alexander Turchynov. 'According to reports from the leadership of the Defense Ministry, with whom I've spoken this morning, our troops approached Izvarino, thus completing the operation of blocking the borders,' Turchynov said.
• Syrian Refugees In Iraq Face New Uncertainties RFE/RL 20 Jun 2014 -- Having taken control of several Iraqi towns, including the country's second largest city, Mosul, ISIL is moving southward, toward the capital, Baghdad. This has led hundreds of thousands Iraqis to flee the fighting. Some, have headed north, bringing competition and new uncertainties to the some 220,000 Syrian refugees, most of them Kurds, living in Iraq's northern Kurdish region.
• Evacuation plans made for Chinese workers in Iraq People's Daily 20 Jun 2014 -- The central government and Chinese companies operating in Iraq have prepared evacuation plans for workers from China if the situation in the strife-torn Middle Eastern nation continues to worsen.
• ISIL terrorists must be thrown out of Iraq: Cleric Iran Press TV 20 Jun 2014 -- A prominent Iraqi cleric has said that militants from the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) must be expelled from the country before it gets too late.
• Top Shi'ite Cleric Calls For New Government In Iraq RFE/RL 20 Jun 2014 -- The spiritual leader of Iraq's Shi'ite majority has called for the creation of a new, 'effective' government.
• Battle Over Iraqi Oil Refinery Continues VOA 20 Jun 2014 -- Iraqi troops continued battling Islamic militants over control of a major oil refinery Friday, amid news that the insurgents have seized a chemical weapons facility once owned by the late Saddam Hussein.
• Gulf Leaders Blame Iraq's Maliki for ISIL Crisis VOA 20 Jun 2014 -- As the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) continued along a bloody path toward Baghdad, President Barack Obama announced Thursday that the U.S. has stepped up "intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets" in Iraq to get a clearer picture of what's going on there.
• UN rushes aid as over one million hit by Iraq fighting VoR 20 Jun 2014 -- UN aid agencies said Friday they were rushing supplies to conflict-torn Iraq to help over one million people driven from their homes by fighting. Donor nations were also holding a closed-door meeting at the UN's European offices in Geneva ahead of an expected fresh funding appeal next week, said Jens Laerke, spokesman for the world body's humanitarian division. An existing $105-million appeal has garnered just 14 percent of what is needed, he told reporters.
• China extends olive branch to Vietnam on sea dispute People's Daily 20 Jun 2014 -- Chinese State Councilor Yang Jiechi held a meeting with Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh in the Vietnamee capital of Hanoi on June 18, 2014. The two countries pledged to rein in maritime tensions during the highest-level direct contact since relations deteriorated in May over a Chinese oil rig operating in the South China Sea.
• China Moves 2nd Oil Rig Near Vietnam VOA 20 Jun 2014 -- China is sending a second oil rig near Vietnamese waters in an apparent escalation of its dispute with Hanoi over the exploitation of resources in the South China Sea.
• New Chinese oil rig to arrive in South China Sea Iran Press TV 20 Jun 2014 -- Another Chinese oil rig is to arrive in the South China Sea amid an increasingly heated territorial dispute between the country and Vietnam.
• 'UN will not give up trying to restore peace to your country,' Ban tells Syrian people UN News Centre 20 Jun 2014 -- Spotlighting the worsening of the already horrifying war in Syria, "which continues to bleed beyond its borders," Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today delivered a strong rebuke to the world's indifference to the bloodshed and rejected the notion that a military solution is the only way to end it, offering instead a "principled and integrated" approach that would end the violence, jumpstart political talks and sow the seeds for a better future for the Syrian people.
• Yemenis 'weaving together tapestry of new country' UN envoy tells Security Council UN News Centre 20 Jun 2014 -- The political transition in Yemen is moving forward, a senior United Nations official told the Security Council today, but he warned that the presence of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula remains "a very real and lethal threat" requiring more concerted and sustained international assistance.

News Reports

• New Ukraine Foreign Minister Seen Bringing Sober Style To Kyiv Diplomacy RFE/RL 20 Jun 2014 -- One day after then Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych unexpectedly scuttled plans to sign an Association Agreement with the European Union at a Vilnius summit, his envoy in Berlin took to German radio to explain Kyiv's decision.
• Salehi: IAEA should close Irans detonator probe IRNA 20 Jun 2014 -- Head of Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Ali Akbar Salehi called on the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to close its investigation of the issue of Iran's development of high explosives detonators.
• 5th round of Iran-G5+1 talks wraps up in Vienna IRNA 20 Jun 2014 -- The fifth round of negotiations between representatives of Iran and the Group 5+1 (the US, Russia, China, France and Britain plus Germany) ended in Vienna on Friday afternoon local time.
• Iran slams IAEA failure to abide by previous deal Iran Press TV 20 Jun 2014 -- Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran has censured the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for its failure to abide by its previous agreements with Tehran.
• Iran, P5+1 Set Out Framework for Nuclear Deal RIA Novosti 20 Jun 2014 -- Iran and P5+1 nations negotiating on the Islamic Republic's nuclear program have laid down the textual framework of the future comprehensive nuclear agreement, the Chinese envoy to the talks said in Vienna on Friday.
• 33 gov'ts help NSA to monitor internet data worldwide VoR 20 Jun 2014 -- Huge volumes of private emails, phone calls, and internet chats are being intercepted by the National Security Agency with the secret cooperation of more foreign governments than previously known, according to newly disclosed documents from whistleblower Edward Snowden.