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China threatens US blue waters
Eric S. Margolis (America Angle)The mighty US Navy won’t say so publicly, but it’s increasingly worried by China’s development of new anti-ship missiles.
The chief worry is China’s new DF-21D whose primary target is America’s huge aircraft carriers.
According to Chinese sources, the DF-21D anti-ship ballistic missile (ASBM) has recently become operational in limited numbers. Originally developed for submarines, the DF-21D is said to have a range of 2,700km and at least some capability to strike moving targets.
China’s military is hard at work on satellites, long-range backscatter radar, submarines, and drones that can identify moving naval targets up to Read more…
Study: High Food Prices Driving Unrest
abc.net.au
The researchers point to two main factors driving the increase in food prices
The waves of social unrest and political instability seen recently around the world have coincided with large peaks in global food prices, US researchers have found.
They warn that unless something is done urgently to address rising food prices, it could trigger more widespread trouble in the near future.
Professor Yaneer Bar-Yam, president of the New England Complex Systems Institute, and colleagues, correlated the dates of riots around the world with data from the United Nations that plots changes in the price of food.
They found evidence that episodes of social unrest in North Africa and the Middle East coincided closely with peaks in the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s Food Price Index.
Reporting their findings on the pre-press website arXiv.org the researchers say that although the riots reflect many factors such as the long-standing political failings of governments, high food prices provide a tipping point.
“There are indeed many factors that can contribute to unrest,” Bar-Yam explains. “What we see, however, is that these conditions can Read more…
The Growing Threat From China’s Air Force
Two advanced Su-27 fighters recently chased an American reconnaissance plane over the Taiwan Strait.
China watchers have been fixated on the maiden voyage of Beijing’s first aircraft carrier this month. However, U.S. and Asian defense planners should take care not to ignore another aspect of China’s growing military might. The Chinese Air Force may one day play the most significant role in challenging America’s military presence in the Asia-Pacific. At the same time, looming cuts to the U.S. Air Force may wind up reducing its ability to protect American interests.
As the U.S. Air Force’s National Air and Space Intelligence Center put it in a report last year, the People’s Liberation Army Air Force, or Plaaf, has been “transforming itself from a poorly equipped and trained organization into an increasingly capable fighting force. Dramatic changes have occurred, and continue to occur, in the areas of mission, organizational structure, personnel, education, training, and equipment.”
Today, the Plaaf remains Read more…
OP-ED Expanding Deserts, Falling Water Tables and Toxins Driving People from Homes
Saharan dust blowing off west coast of Africa, over the Canary Islands, Nov. 11, 2006. Image credit:NASA
WASHINGTON, Aug 23, 2011 (IPS) – People do not normally leave their homes, their families, and their communities unless they have no other option. Yet as environmental stresses mount, we can expect to see a growing number of environmental refugees. Rising seas and increasingly devastating storms grab headlines, but expanding deserts, falling water tables, and toxic waste and radiation are also forcing people from their homes.
Advancing deserts are now on the move almost everywhere. The Sahara desert, for example, is expanding in every direction. As it advances northward, it is squeezing the populations of Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria against the Mediterranean coast.
The Sahelian region of Africa – the vast swath of savannah that separates the southern Sahara desert from the tropical rainforests of central Africa – is shrinking as the desert moves southward. As the desert invades Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, from the north, farmers and herders are forced Read more…
Future TSA: Track All ‘Daily Travels To Work, Grocery Stores & Social Events’
While the TSA can’t explain why invasive patdowns without probable cause are legal, that isn’t stopping TSA from future plans to track all your daily travels, anywhere you go, from work, to stores, or even when you go out to play.
By Ms. Smith
When the TSA was asked to provide legal reasons that definitely spelled out why physically invasive patdowns are legal, without any
probable cause, not one TSA person had an answer. There was no legal documentation for enhanced patdowns other than it serves “the essential administrative purpose.”
Peep show, police state or privacy invasion, patdowns and body scans are not just in airports. EPIC said DHS is refusing to disclose details of mobile body scanner technology. In fact, in answer to EPIC’s FOIA request, DHS handed over “several papers that were completely redacted.”
Meanwhile at airports, the TSA is rolling out “less-invasive gingerbread man” body scanners to a tune of $2.7 million for 240 machines. At this point, I don’t think skinnier versions of the Pillsbury Doughboy via kinder and gentler naked body scans are going to placate people who are secretly Read more…
Obama Issues Secret Order For Military Raids On Civilians
mysteryoftheinquity.wordpress.com
A frightening report prepared by Russia’s foreign military intelligence directorate (GRU) circulating in the Kremlin today states that the United States has moved even closer to becoming an all-out police state after President Obama issued a secret order yesterday allowing US military forces to begin conducting raids against American civilians.
According to this GRU report, an American law called the Posse Comitatus Act prohibits US Army and Air Force personnel and units of the National Guard under federal authority from acting in a law enforcement capacity within the United States. The US Navy and Marine Corps are prohibited by a Department of Defense directive, not by the Act itself from going against their own citizens and the Coast Guard, under the Read more…
A new kind of missile makes for even bigger explosions
The US Navy is introducing a new kind of missile. Instead of taking explosives to the target, the missile will be a chemical reaction held in readiness until it hits the target. The navy says it will reduce the deaths of innocent bystanders while increasing the effect of the explosion.How does it work?
So far, the bodies of missiles have just been a convenient way of getting explosive materials to a certain point. The outer steel shell is meant to be a durable and aerodynamic frame, to house the inner explosives. It doesn’t do anything itself. That is about to change. Instead of regular steel, the new missiles will have High-Density Reactive Materials in them. These materials, called HDRMs, will add to the explosion when they hit the target.
Instead of solid steel, these new missiles will have shells made out of a combination of Read more…
Tiny Pocketbots Prepped for Combat
When the U.S. military first got serious about ground robots, it bought up a bunch of 42-pound machines called PackBots. The name implied that infantrymen would just throw the robots in their rucksacks. In reality, the things were too heavy for already-overloaded troops to carry around on the regular. The PackBot’s main Read more…
This U.S. Military Supercomputer Lab Just Bought A Bunch Of Chinese-Made Components
Image: UT Chattanooga
The U.S. lab that creates supercomputers to simulate tests flights of next-generation military aircraft and submarine warfare is closing a deal to buy a slew of Chinese components.
According to The Washington Times, the contract calls for wrapping U.S. made Symantec software around devices made by Chinese telecommunications conglomerate Huawei Technologies.
U.S. officials maintain Huawei has close ties with China’s military, but they own a 51 percent share of Symantec from a 2008 deal.
Four Republican Senators and one member of the House Select Committee on Intelligence are urging the Pentagon to re-think the arrangement and recognize the risks to national security.
“Given Huawei’s close ties to the [Chinese] government and its Read more…
Airport security: You ain’t seen nothing yet
The Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks forever changed the way Americans fly.
In June, the IATA unveiled a mockup of the "checkpoint of the future" that includes three sensor-lined tunnels that divide passengers into high-, medium- and low-risk threats. Ten years after the 9/11 terror attacks, security experts question whether freedom, speed and personal space -- along with continued safety -- will one day return to air travel.
Gone are the days when friends or family could kiss passengers goodbye at the gate, replaced by X-rayed shoes and confiscated shampoo bottles at security checkpoints.
Air travelers are increasingly subjected to revealing full-body scans or enhanced pat-downs — all in the name of keeping the skies safe.
As America prepares to mark the 10th anniversary of the worst terrorist attacks in the U.S., security experts question whether freedom, speed and personal space — along with continued safety — will one day return to air travel.
Some security analysts foresee a bumper crop of futuristic detection methods — from biometrics to electronic fingerprinting to behavioral analysis — and predict smoother, nimbler and less-intrusive airport walkthroughs in the coming years.
Still others envision Big Brother’s even Bigger Brother: chip-embedded passports that someday tell the federal transportation watchdogs all about your daily commutes to work, the mall — even to parties.
Gazing into the future
And then there are experts like Ed Daly who peer into the next two decades of public travel and forecast two possible scenarios Read more…
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