NEWS ROUNDUP

•  The region of Sicily on January 11 moved to suspend US plans to construct a satellite communications system called Mobile User Objective System, on the Italian island after activists blocked construction crews. The move came after protesters blocked trucks and cranes overnight in the town of Niscemi and later clashed with police near an American military base. There are only three other ground stations like the MUOS in the world, producing very high electromagnetic fields, in Virginia, Hawaii and Australia.
•  The ‘reset’ in relations between the US and Russia is dead, as the Obama administration has never truly cooperated with Moscow, instead pushing the same policy Washington has been imposing on Russia for the past 20 years.  Stephen F. Cohen— professor of Russian Studies and History at New York University and Princeton University told Russia Today, “That policy is advancing NATO toward Russia’s borders, building missile defense on Russia’s borders, interfering in Russia’s internal politics....Increasingly we are plunging into a new Cold War. But it’s not a surprise ....Obama has continued the policy toward Moscow begun by President Clinton, a Democrat, and continued by President Bush, a Republican."
•  The US and New Zealand conducted secret tests of a "tsunami bomb" designed to destroy coastal cities by using underwater blasts to trigger massive tidal waves. The tests were carried out in waters around New Caledonia and Auckland during the Second World War and showed that the weapon was feasible and a series of 10 large offshore blasts could potentially create a 33-foot tsunami capable of inundating a small city. The top secret operation, code-named "Project Seal", tested the doomsday device as a possible rival to the nuclear bomb. About 3,700 bombs were exploded during the tests.
• In 2011 one corporation, Bath Iron Works (BIW) in Maine, received a $3.5 million “credit against withholding taxes otherwise due” from the state government. Individual employees were credited for their withheld taxes, but since 2000 BIW has retained and will continue to retain $3 million-$3.5 million annually. This subsidy lasts 20 years, or until $60 million of state income tax revenue has been captured by the company. After being given $197 million in state and local tax subsidies to modernize its Bath plant, employment went from nearly 7,700 in 1999 to below 5,200 in 2011. BIW builds Aegis destroyers for the Navy that are outfitted with so-called "missile defense" systems and are being used to surround Russia and China's coastal regions.  See more here