KOENIG

An oil tanker traveling through the tiny strip of water located in the mouth of the Persian Gulf stopped transmitting its location more than two days ago when it drifted into Iranian waters.

It is not clear what happened to the Panamanian-flagged oil tanker – which is based in the United Arab Emirates – on Saturday night as it traveled through the Strait of Hormuz, but its apparent disappearance has raised concerns amid heightened tensions between Iran and several Western nations.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said some countries will only wake up to the Iranian threat when nuclear missiles fall on European soil, as the European Union on Monday declared that recent Iranian violations of a nuclear deal are not significant enough to reimpose sanctions.

Netanyahu urged the EU to act immediately against Iran, and in a video posted on his social media invoked the memory of Britain’s failed attempt to appease Nazi Germany on the eve of World War II.

“The response by the European Union to the Iranian violations [of the nuclear deal] reminds me of the European appeasement of the 1930s,” Netanyahu said in the Hebrew-language clip. “Also then, there was someone who buried his head in the sand and didn’t see the approaching danger.”

• Barry may be inland and slowly weakening, but it remains dangerous.
   
• Heavy rainfall is expected through Tuesday in the lower Mississippi Valley. 
   
• Flash flooding is a significant danger in parts of Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee and southeast Missouri.
   
• Power outages and tree damage from winds are likely in parts of Louisiana and Mississippi.
   
• Barry made landfall midday Saturday along the northern Gulf Coast.

The short video trailer emphasizes the biblical foundation of the Land of Israel and provides eight major record-setting catastrophes that occurred during the GHW Bush, Clinton, GW Bush, Obama and Trump presidencies.

The center of Barry is moving onto the Louisiana coast with forward speed only around 6 mph. Hurricane Barry became the first hurricane of the 2019 Atlantic hurricane season on Saturday morning [with sustained winds at 75 mph] as it approached the Gulf Coast.

Although Barry is a hurricane, its water (rain, surge) impacts are bigger concerns than wind. Flash flood watches are in effect for the entire lower Mississippi Valley, including parts of Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama and the western Florida Panhandle. This includes New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Little Rock, Memphis, Jackson and Mobile.

ANKARA, Turkey — The first shipment of a Russian missile defense system has arrived in Turkey, the Turkish Defense Ministry said Friday, moving the country closer to possible US sanctions and a new standoff with Washington.

A Defense Ministry statement said “the first group of equipment” of the S-400 air defense systems has reached the Murted Air Base near the capital, Ankara.

The delivery of parts of the system will continue in the coming days and authorities will decide “how it will be used” once the system is made operational, Turkey’s defense industry authority said in a statement.

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran on Friday demanded the British navy release an Iranian oil tanker seized last week off Gibraltar, accusing London of playing a “dangerous game” and threatening retribution, while London announced it was sending a destroyer to the Persian Gulf.

The comments from Iran’s Foreign Ministry came the day after police in Gibraltar, a British overseas territory on the southern tip of Spain, said they arrested the captain and chief officer of the supertanker suspected of breaching European Union sanctions by carrying a shipment of Iranian crude oil to Syria.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi told Iranian state news agency IRNA that “the legal pretexts for the capture are not valid … the release of the tanker is in all countries’ interest.”