Pentagon reveals it spotted UFO in Middle East last year

The US Department of Defence is continuously tracking hundreds of suspicious “anomalous phenomena” that may threaten national security, it revealed during a Senate hearing this week, including one unidentified object seen in the Middle East.

The director of the Pentagon's new All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, Sean Kirkpatrick, told the Senate Armed Services Committee's Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities that sightings of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) were on the rise and that the office he leads is currently looking into more than 650 sightings.

That number is a sharp increase from what was previously reported in January.

“I should also state clearly for the record that in our research, AARO has found no credible evidence thus far of extraterrestrial activity,” Mr Kirkpatrick said.

He shared that a UFO was seen over Iraq in July last year, showing the committee declassified video of the sighting.

In the footage, an object can be seen moving near an MQ-9 drone, which attempts to follow the fast-moving object with its camera.

The object appears to be silver in colour and metallic.

Mr Kirkpatrick said the office deemed the object “not [to be] exhibiting anomalous behaviour”, though it was still classified as unidentified due to a lack of data.

“It is going to be virtually impossible to fully identify that, just based off of that video,” CNN cited as Mr Kirkpatrick saying on the sighting.

US intelligence finds no evidence of alien spacecraft — video

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Will the pound fall to parity with the dollar?

The idea of pound parity now seems less far-fetched as the risk grows that Britain may split away from the European Union without a deal.

Rupert Harrison, a fund manager at BlackRock, sees the risk of it falling to trade level with the dollar on a no-deal Brexit. The view echoes Morgan Stanley’s recent forecast that the currency can plunge toward $1 (Dh3.67) on such an outcome. That isn’t the majority view yet – a Bloomberg survey this month estimated the pound will slide to $1.10 should the UK exit the bloc without an agreement.

New Prime Minister Boris Johnson has repeatedly said that Britain will leave the EU on the October 31 deadline with or without an agreement, fuelling concern the nation is headed for a disorderly departure and fanning pessimism toward the pound. Sterling has fallen more than 7 per cent in the past three months, the worst performance among major developed-market currencies.

“The pound is at a much lower level now but I still think a no-deal exit would lead to significant volatility and we could be testing parity on a really bad outcome,” said Mr Harrison, who manages more than $10 billion in assets at BlackRock. “We will see this game of chicken continue through August and that’s likely negative for sterling,” he said about the deadlocked Brexit talks.

The pound fell 0.8 per cent to $1.2033 on Friday, its weakest closing level since the 1980s, after a report on the second quarter showed the UK economy shrank for the first time in six years. The data means it is likely the Bank of England will cut interest rates, according to Mizuho Bank.

The BOE said in November that the currency could fall even below $1 in an analysis on possible worst-case Brexit scenarios. Options-based calculations showed around a 6.4 per cent chance of pound-dollar parity in the next one year, markedly higher than 0.2 per cent in early March when prospects of a no-deal outcome were seemingly off the table.

Bloomberg

Key findings of Jenkins report

Founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan al Banna, "accepted the political utility of violence"
Views of key Muslim Brotherhood ideologue, Sayyid Qutb, have “consistently been understood” as permitting “the use of extreme violence in the pursuit of the perfect Islamic society” and “never been institutionally disowned” by the movement.
Muslim Brotherhood at all levels has repeatedly defended Hamas attacks against Israel, including the use of suicide bombers and the killing of civilians.
Laying out the report in the House of Commons, David Cameron told MPs: "The main findings of the review support the conclusion that membership of, association with, or influence by the Muslim Brotherhood should be considered as a possible indicator of extremism."

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