Burn Notice, USA Network television series

USA Network television series Burn Notice.

Burn Notice: The Fall of Sam Axe is a 2011 American television special based on the USA Network television series Burn Notice.

          It was the first official Burn Notice spin-off, and was directed by Jeffrey Donovan. The show was broadcast in the United States on April 17, 2011, on the U.S. television network USA Network.

          The film, while not an episode of the show, introduced plot elements for the show's fifth season.

          Set two years before the pilot episode, the film is narrated by Sam Axe (Bruce Campbell), who is being questioned about a mission in Colombia. Sam reveals that he had had an affair with a superior's wife (Chandra West).

          Sam travels to Colombia, where he meets his new team, which includes Comandante Veracruz (Pedro Pascal). He tells a local clinic that they are in danger

          A local girl, Beatriz (Ilza Rosario) tells Sam what is about to happen. Sam finally succeeds in convincing Ben and Amanda of the danger.

          The full cast was confirmed by January 2011, and included Bruce Campbell, Chandra West, RonReaco Lee, Kiele Sanchez and John Diehl.

          Jeffrey Donovan made a small, previously unannounced cameo appearance as Michael Westen, the main character of Burn Notice.

In 2 weeks of Yemen clashes ‘140 dead’

           At least 140 people have been killed in two weeks of clashes between Yemeni security forces and suspected Al Qaeda gunmen in the Southern city of Zinjibar, a military official said on Monday.

          “At least 80 security officials including soldiers have been killed and more than 200 wounded in clashes with Al Qaeda militants since Zinjibar fell under the (Al Qaeda) network’s grip” in late May, said the military official.

          Security officials say the militants are Al Qaeda fighters but the political Opposition accuses the government of embattled President Ali Abdullah Saleh of inventing a jihadist threat to head off Western pressure on his 33-year rule.

Al-Zawahri has succeeded Bin Laden

Al-Qaeda says Al-Zawahri has succeeded Bin Laden

Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahri.

          Al-Qaida has selected its longtime succeed Osama Bin Laden following last month’s US commando raid that killed the top terror leader, according to a statement posted Thursday on a website selected with the network.

          Ayman Al-Zawahri, who is believed to be operating near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

          He is the son of an upper middle class Egyptian family of doctors and scholars. His father was a pharmacology professor at Cairo University’s medical school and his grandfather was the grand imam of Al-Azhar University, a premier center of religious study.

          Al-Zawahri warned that America faces not individual terrorists but an international community of Muslims that seek to destroy it and its allies.

          “He went to his God as a martyr, the man who terrified America while alive and terrifies it in death, so much so that they trembled at the idea of his having tomb,” he said.

          Al-Qaeda gave no details about the selection process for Bin Laden’s successor but said that it was the best tribute to the memory of its “martyrs.”

          The statement announcing Al-Zawahri’s succession was filled with the terror network’s usual rhetoric. The group also said it will never accept Israel’s legitimacy and will continue to support Muslims in Afghanistan, Iraq and North Africa.

          The Al-Qaeda statement also stated the group’s support for this year’s popular uprisings in Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, Syria and Libya.

NATO alliance in danger of breaking

NATO alliance in danger of breaking,Gates says

US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.

          Robert Gates calls it “aging out.” He’s not referring to his imminent retirement as defense secretary. He’s talking about a generational expiration date on the American embrace of Europe as a pillar of US defense strategy.

          Gates made a splash with a scathing speech last week in Brussels, home of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, in which he said the 62-year-old alliance faces a “dim, if not dismal” future. He was not disowning NATO but warning that a years-long fraying of trans-Atlantic ties could eventually break the bond.

          “I am worried,” he said in an Associated Press interview in his Pentagon office on Monday.

          Throughout the Cold War, beginning with NATO’s founding in 1949 as a bulwark against the Soviet Union and its East European allies, a military and political partnership with Western Europe was fundamental to US defense policy.

          “People like me who have an emotional stake in Europe and NATO are aging out,” he said in the interview. “For a lot of these younger people,”

           “I don’t feel I went too far,” he said. “I’ll tell you one place I got pretty unanimous positive reaction, and that was in the United States of America — across the entire political spectrum.”

           Obama administration is moving ahead with plans for a NATO-wide network of missile interceptors and radars designed to protect all European members from missile attacks by Iran.

          An interview, Gates said he does not foresee a sudden rupture with Europe or NATO.