MV-22 Osprey comes under fire in Sudan

UBA, South Sudan (AFP) - US aircraft flown into South Sudan to help with evacuation efforts on Saturday, Dec 21, 2013, came under fire, wounding four US servicemen, officials said, as fighting in the country escalated.

Three US military Osprey aircraft were hit as they headed to Bor, a rebel-held city in Jonglei state, US officials said.

"The damaged aircraft diverted to Entebbe, Uganda, where the wounded were transferred onboard a US Air Force C-17 and flown to Nairobi, Kenya for medical treatment," an updated Pentagon statement said.

"All four service members were treated and are in stable condition." The targeted aircraft was possibly a Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey.

Fired Nuke Commander went on drinking binge/misconduct while in Russia

WASHINGTON - The Air Force general who was fired from command of U.S. land-based nuclear missile forces had engaged in "inappropriate behaviour" while on official business in Russia last summer, including heavy drinking, rudeness to his hosts and associating with "suspect" women, according to an investigation report released Thursday.

The events that led to the dismissal took place while Maj. Gen. Michael Carey was in Russia in July as head of a U.S. government delegation to a nuclear security training exercise. At the time, he was commander of the 20th Air Force, responsible for all 450 of the Air Force's Minuteman 3 intercontinental ballistic missiles stationed in five U.S. states.

When Carey was relieved of command in October, the Air Force said he had engaged in unspecified misbehaviour while on a business trip, but it did not say the episode was in Russia, nor did it indicate the specific allegations against him.

Carey's firing was one of several setbacks for the nuclear force this year. The Associated Press has documented serious security lapses and complaints of low morale and "rot" within the force, as well as an independent assessment of "burnout" among a sampling of nuclear missile launch officers and security forces.

After the Russia trip, a member of the delegation lodged a complaint about Carey's behaviour. That person, described as a female staff member in the Office of the Secretary of Defence, asserted to investigators that on the delegation's first night in Moscow, July 15, Carey was drinking and speaking loudly in a hotel lounge about how he is "saving the world" and that his forces suffer from low morale.

The investigators said Carey, whom they interviewed at length on Sept. 4, seemed to forget substantial portions of what happened in Russia. The report also said that at times he clammed up or gave testimony at odds with others in the delegation.

"Maj. Gen. Carey was generally less credible than the other witnesses," the report said, adding that at times he was flippant and refused to answer certain questions.

"Gen. Carey either had a poor recall of significant events, perhaps due to his alcohol consumption, or was untruthful during the interview," the report said.

After interviews with seven delegation members, the investigators concluded that Carey "engaged in inappropriate behaviour" that amounted to "conduct unbecoming of an officer and a gentleman," as defined in the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

In response to the investigators' report, Carey received what the Air Force calls a "letter of counselling." That's a form of discipline for noncriminal misbehaviour.

In response to an AP request, the Air Force said Carey was not commenting on the investigation report.

After he was relieved of duty in October, Carey was reassigned as special assistant to the commander of Air Force Space Command, where he has no responsibility for nuclear weapons. He remains in that post.

The Air Force has commented only once about the Carey case since his firing was announced Oct. 11. In mid-November, the Air Force chief of staff, Gen. Mark Welsh, told a group of reporters that Carey had stumbled in a way that could not be tolerated, despite Carey's long career and his record of accomplishment.

Welsh said Carey told him, "I've embarrassed myself, my Air Force, I'm sorry.

READ THE REST OF THE STORY HERE

Breaking: NASA orders series of urgent spacewalks

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA has ordered up a series of urgent spacewalks to fix a broken cooling line at the International Space Station.

Station managers decided Tuesday to send two American astronauts out as soon as possible to replace a pump with a bad valve. It's a major job that will require three spacewalks — Saturday, Monday and next Wednesday on Christmas Day.

"The next week will be busy with space walks so not much tweeting from here," NASA astronaut Rick Mastracchio tweeted from space soon after the decision was announced.

The spacewalks are taking priority over the launch of a supply ship from Virginia. The commercial delivery had been scheduled for this week, but is now delayed until at least mid-January.

Half of the station's cooling system shut down last Wednesday, forcing the six-man crew to turn off all nonessential equipment, including some science experiments. Because of the valve failure, one of the two cooling lines became too cold.

The space station cooling system, which runs ammonia through the lines, is critical for dispelling heat generated by on-board equipment.

While the astronauts are safe and comfortable, NASA wants the system back up to full strength, in case of another failure that could leave the orbiting outpost even more vulnerable than it is right now.

READ THE REST OF THE STORY HERE

NATO Black Hawk crashes - attacked by militants - six killed.

NBC NEWS: KABUL - Six U.S. soldiers serving with the NATO International Security Assistance Force were killed when their Sikorsky UH-60 'Black Hawk' helicopter crashed in southern Afghanistan Tuesday, officials said.

The cause of the crash is under investigation, NATO said in a statement, but a senior U.S. defense official said the aircraft had a hard landing due to mechanical problems and was attacked by militants after it went down.

NATO did not disclose the nationalities of the victims but the U.S. official said they were American.

There were no reports of enemy fire in the area the when helicopter went down, the NATO statement added.

The helicopter crashed in the Shahjoi district of the Zabul province, according to its deputy governor Mohammad Jan Rasulyar.

Federal Judge rules NSA phone surveillance program is likely unconstitutional

A federal judge ruled Monday that the National Security Agency's phone surveillance program is likely unconstitutional, Politico reports.

U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon said that the agency's controversial program, first unveiled by former government contractor Edward Snowden earlier this year, appears to violate the Constitution's Fourth Amendment, which states that the "right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated."

“I cannot imagine a more ‘indiscriminate’ and ‘arbitrary invasion’ than this systematic and high-tech collection and retention of personal data on virtually every single citizen for purposes of querying it and analyzing it without judicial approval,” Leon wrote in the ruling.

The federal ruling came down after activist Larry Klayman filed a lawsuit in June over the program. The suit claimed that the NSA's surveillance “violates the U.S. Constitution and also federal laws, including, but not limited to, the outrageous breach of privacy, freedom of speech, freedom of association, and the due process rights of American citizens."

READ THE RULING HERE

Breaking: Kim Jon -un executes his uncle.

BBC: The once-powerful uncle of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has been executed after being purged for corruption, state news agency KCNA reports.


Chang Song-thaek was dramatically removed from a Communist Party session by armed guards earlier this week.

He was accused of forming factions against the state, corruption and "depraved" acts such as womanising and drug abuse.

It was the biggest upheaval since Mr Kim succeeded his father two years ago.

READ MORE HERE

NASA - "serious" cooling problem on ISS may necessitate space walk

The International Space Station has experienced a "serious" problem with its cooling system, NASA said.

A problem with one of the International Space Station's cooling systems may require a repair spacewalk, NASA told announced Wednesday.

The situation doesn't represent a life-threatening emergency, but it has required a cutback in normal operations on the orbiting outpost, NASA spokesman Josh Byerly said.

One of the station's two cooling loops, known as Loop-A, shut down due to an anomalous temperature imbalance on Wednesday, Byerly told NBC News. That forced NASA to reroute coolant systems onto Loop-B. As a result, the station's six-person crew has to prioritize life support systems, electrical systems and science experiments — including the freezers that preserve samples. Some non-critical systems were shut down, Byerly said, but external electrical equipment is still working fine.

"The crew was never in any danger," Byerly said. "They worked to keep the freezers going. ... They're fine for the near future."

Byerly said engineers think the problem was caused by a malfunctioning flow control valve for the station's ammonia coolant. Mission managers are trying to determine whether a software fix can get the valve working again, or whether a spacewalk will be required. Sorting through the issues might take a couple days, or as much as a couple of weeks.

U.S. spacewalks were suspended after Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano's spacesuit filled with water during a July outing, but Russian spacewalks have proceeded without problems.

Check back for more about this developing story.

WASHTIMES: PANETTA source of Zero Dark Thirty leak

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WASHINGTON TIMES: Freedom of Information request filed by government watchdog Judicial Watch revealed that former CIA Director Leon E. Panetta was the source who gave up secret information to the scriptwriter of “Zero Dark Thirty,” the Hollywood movie about the raid on Osama bin Laden.

Judicial Watch said in an email that Mr. Panetta revealed the classified information during an awards ceremony on June 24, 2011, to mark the administration’s assault on Osama bin Laden. Mr. Panetta was giving a speech at the ceremony, during which he concluded: “You have made me proud of the CIA family. And you have made me proud as an Italian to know that bin Laden sleeps with the fishes.”

Hollywood’s Mark Boal, who produced “Zero Dark Thirty,” was at this awards ceremony. According to internal documents from the CIA received by Judicial Watch as part of the group’s FOIA request, Mr. Panetta’s entire speech was classified “Top Secret.” And Mr. Panetta shouldn’t have spoken those words in front of Mr. Boal, who didn’t have a top security clearance, Judicial Watch reported.

Mr. Panetta said he didn’t know Mr. Boal was in the audience during his speech and assumed all those who were at the ceremony had the proper security clearances, Judicial Watch reported.

The most egregious part of the intelligence slip was that Mr. Panetta “specifically recognized the unit that conducted the raid and identified the ground commander by name,” a draft Pentagon inspector general’s report stated, Judicial Watch reported.

And the leak caused some consternation on Capitol Hill.

Rep. Peter T. King, New York Republican, accused the CIA of being “very sloppy” and called the administration “very sloppy in enforcing security procedures when it came to Hollywood. It almost seems as if they were star-struck.”

Judicial Watch said it received about 200 pages as part of its FOIA request to the CIA



Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/dec/11/leon-panetta-named-source-hollywood-scriptwriters-/#ixzz2nCjeiEf1
Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter

Web coalition works to reform NSA surveillance programs

ABC GO: A coalition of eight technology companies including Google, Yahoo, and Facebook have launched a campaign to reform government surveillance programs, pushing back on perceptions that these companies voluntarily hand over widespread access to users’ private data.

Launched this morning, the website ReformGovernmentSurviellance.com, outlines several principles the companies are seeking.

“The balance in many countries has tipped too far in favor of the state and away from the rights of the individual — rights that are enshrined in our Constitution,” the group wrote in a letter to President Obama and members of Congress. “This undermines the freedoms we all cherish.”

“It’s time for a change.”

The five principles include limiting government’s authority to collect user information, greater oversight over the process of requesting this information, increased transparency about government requests, allowing data to move across borders freely, and establishing a framework to prevent conflicts among governments.

Additional partners in the effort include AOL, Apple, LinkedIn, Microsoft, and Twitter.

The CEOs of Google and Facebook have been particularly aggressive in pushing back against the perception that their companies have given the government a “back door” into the personal information of their users.

“Reports about government surveillance have shown there is a real need for greater disclosure and new limits on how governments collect information,” wrote Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. “The US government should take this opportunity to lead this reform effort and make things right.”

The tactical offensive on the part of these companies comes after revelations about the scope of the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs have continued months after the most explosive ones were revealed in documents leaked by a former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

Since then, Obama has said that he will move to reform parts of the NSA’s activities, even while insisting that the programs are operating within the law and by and large without abuses.

“NSA actually does a very good job about not engaging in domestic surveillance, not reading people’s emails, not listening to their — the contents of their phone calls,” Obama told MSNBC’s Chris Matthews in an interview last week.

His statement on the subject has largely remained the same since the revelations first emerged.

“But I want everybody to be clear: The people at the NSA generally are looking out for the safety of the American people,” Obama continued. “They are not interested in reading your emails.”

AQAP claims responsibility for Yemen Defense Ministry Attack

BBC: Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has said it was behind an attack on Yemen's defence ministry on Thursday that left 52 people dead.

The group's media arm, al-Malahim, said the ministry complex in Sanaa had been targeted because US unmanned drones were being operated from there.

The attack saw a suicide bomber ram an explosives-filled car into the main gate before gunmen launched an assault.

Among the dead were soldiers and civilians, including seven foreigners.

It was the deadliest attack in Sanaa since May 2012, when a suicide bomber blew himself up during a rehearsal for a military parade.

'Heavy blow'

Thursday's attack in the Bab al-Yaman district, on the edge of Sanaa's old city, began at about 09:00 (06:00 GMT) with a huge car bomb explosion at the entrance to the defence ministry's command complex, one of the government's most important security facilities.

About a dozen militants then stormed the compound, targeting civilians working at a military hospital inside or receiving treatment there.

The BBC's Shaimaa Khalil describes "plumes of smoke and gunfire" at the scene

Two doctors from Germany, two others from Vietnam, as well as two nurses from the Philippines and one nurse from India were among those killed, the official Saba news agency reported.

The Philippine foreign ministry said seven of its nationals had died.

Other civilian victims included a top Yemeni judge and his wife, and one of President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi's relatives.

Security forces later retook the complex after killing the attackers.

READ THE REST AT THE BBC HERE

Aviation Week & Space Technology: Unmasking the new stealthy RQ-180

Unmasking the RQ-180

Posted by Jen DiMascio 7:16 AM on Dec 06, 2013 

The Air Force has long debated how to conduct penetrating intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions since the venerable, high-speed SR-71 retired in 1998. But despite the need and a lingering requirement, no visible progress toward that goal was made. That’s because the highly classified aircraft – the RQ-180 – has been developed by Northrop Grumman in secret.

click here

In the Dec. 9 issue of Aviation Week & Space Technology, Senior Pentagon Editor Amy Butler and Senior International Defense Editor Bill Sweetman (this week celebrating his 40th year as an aviation journalist) reveal the existence of the black-world aircraft now flying at Area 51,



Amy and Bill’s report is accompanied by both an interactive timeline and a family tree, highlighting the evolution of U.S. stealth UASs.


They explain in an additional story how the new UAS fits within the context of the Air Force’s plans for a future family of aircraft capable of conducting intelligence and strike missions.


Also, don’t miss Bill’s opinion column, ‘Commander’s Intent’ from earlier this year, explaining why UAVs need stealth, and why secrecy can be counter-productive

CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL STORY AT AVWK 

US Navy launches drone from sub

NBC: The U.S. Navy says it has successfully launched a drone from a submerged submarine, another big step toward developing new military spying and reconnaissance capabilities.

In a press release, the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory said the fuel-cell-powered "XFC" unmanned aircraft was fired from the torpedo tube of the USS Providence using a launch system known as Sea Robin.

The launch system was designed to fit within an empty canister used for launching Tomahawk cruise missiles. Once ejected from the canister, the launch vehicle with the drone rose to the ocean surface; the drone's wings then unfolded and the vehicle took vertical flight for several hours.

The XFC drone streamed live video back to the Providence, support vessels and Navy officials before landing at the Naval Sea Systems Command Atlantic Undersea Test and Evaluation Center in the Bahamas.

The Navy released a time-lapse photo taken of the underwater launch but didn’t reveal exactly where — or when — the operation took place.

The sub launch came after nearly six years of development. The project received funding from SwampWorks at the Office of Naval Research and the Department of Defense Rapid Reaction Technology Office.

"Developing disruptive technologies and quickly getting them into the hands of our sailors is what our SwampWorks program is all about," said Craig A. Hughes, acting director of innovation at ONR.

The Navy said the successful launch of a remotely deployed drone ”offers a pathway to providing mission critical intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities to the U.S. Navy's submarine force.

Alert: Truck carrying radioactive cobalt stolen in Mexico

Compiled from various sources:

A truck carrying "extremely dangerous" material used in medical treatment has been stolen in Mexico, officials said.

The truck was transporting cobalt-60 from a hospital in the northern city of Tijuana to a radioactive waste storage facility when it was stolen in Tepojaco near Mexico City Monday, the International Atomic Energy Agency said in a statement. Cobalt-60 is a radioactive isotope and was being used in radiotherapy.


Mexican authorities are conducting a search for the material and have issued a statement to alert the public, the IAEA said.


The truck is a white Volkswagen Worker with license plate 726-DT-8, Mexico's National Commission for Nuclear Security and Safeguards said.


"At the time the truck was stolen, the source was properly shielded. However, the source could be extremely dangerous to a person if removed from the shielding, or if it was damaged," the IAEA said in the statement.


There was no indication from officials that the truck was headed for the U.S.


U.S. law enforcement and Department of Homeland Security officials are aware of the theft and working closely with Mexican authorities, a U.S. official briefed on the situation told ABC News.


Border officials armed with radiation detection devices have been alerted. It is unclear who stole the material and if they know what they have, the official said.

Cobalt-60, which is primarily used in medical treatments, cannot be utilized in a conventional nuclear weapon; however, it could be added to a "dirty bomb." Such a device could potentially spread the radioactive material over a wide area.

An official at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said the agency was in close communication with authorities south of the border and "will continue to closely monitor this situation."

The International Atomic Energy Agency, which has stepped up calls on member states to tighten security to prevent nuclear and radioactive materials from falling into the wrong hands, made no mention of any such risk in its statement on Wednesday.

The IAEA also did not give details on how much radioactive material was in the vehicle when it was seized. Inside a teletherapy device, cobalt-60 is used to treat cancer.

"At the time the truck was stolen, the (radioactive) source was properly shielded. However, the source could be extremely dangerous to a person if removed from the shielding, or if it was damaged," the IAEA said in a statement.

The IAEA has offered to assist Mexican authorities in the search.

Cobalt-60, the most common radioactive isotope of the metal, has many applications in industry and in radiotherapy in hospitals. It is also used for industrial radiography to detect structural flaws in metal parts, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

In 2000, three people died in Thailand after a cobalt-60 teletherapy unit was sold as scrap metal and ended up on a junkyard. About 1,870 people living nearby were exposed to "some elevated level of radiation," according to an IAEA publication.

About the same time in Mexico, homes built with metal rods that had been contaminated by stolen cobalt were destroyed, a spokesman for the attorney general's office said.

"Cobalt-60 has figured in several serious accidents, some of them fatal," said nuclear expert Mark Hibbs of the Carnegie Endowment think-tank. "If dispersed, cobalt-60 or other radioactive source material could cause radiation poisoning locally."

More than 100 incidents of thefts and other unauthorised activities involving nuclear and radioactive material are reported to the IAEA annually, the U.N. agency said this year.

It is rare, however, that it makes any such incident public.

Because radioactive material is regarded as less hard to find and the device easier to make, experts say a dirty bomb is a more likely threat than a nuclear bomb in a terrorist attack.

Experts say a dirty bomb carries more potential to terrorise than cause a large loss of life.

At a nuclear security summit in 2012, IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano specifically singled out cobalt-60 among radioactive sources that could be used for such bombs.

"A dirty bomb detonated in a major city could cause mass panic, as well as serious economic and environmental consequences," Amano said, according to a copy of his speech.

(Additional reporting by Michael Shields in Vienna and David Alire Garcia and Alexandra Alper in Mexico City; Editing by Mark Heinrich, Simon Gardner, Doina Chiacu andMohammad Zargham)

Breaking: Power shake-up in North Korea - Uncle dismissed - aids executed.

SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea’s spy agency believes that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s powerful uncle may have been dismissed from his posts last month and that two of his aides were executed, two lawmakers said Tuesday.

The lawmakers said they were told by South Korea’s National Intelligence Service that Jang Song Thaek has not been seen publicly since then, indicating he may have been fired.

There was no official word from North Korea on Jang’s fate, and it was not possible to independently confirm the claim.

Cyber Monday Deal: The Interceptors Club at a great price

Somewhere in the wilds of New Mexico, at a secret air base, they have built the ultimate unmanned stealth warplane.

It embodies artificial intelligence.

It is invisible on radar.

It can fly rings around any fighter jet.

It can fly above Mach 6.

It is armed with exotic pulse-weaponry...

... and it has just been stolen by a 15 year-old boy.



That's the premise behind my novel, The Interceptors Club and the Secret of The Black Manta, a work of fiction, loosely based on my many years of actual experience "stealth chasing" for publications such as Aviation Week & Space Technology Magazine, Popular Science and Aircraft Illustrated.

From young readers and adults, no matter your age, you will like The Interceptors Club & the Secret of the Black Manta.

It is a fun, intriguing and wild trip into the Black World where five teenage hackers go toe-to-toe with real spies, playing by adult rules.


From page one, you’ll be immersed in a shadow-world that exists secretly, right alongside this one, filled with dark sinister characters, stealth technology and hidden radio-waves that carry on them secret messages for espionage agents hiding in plain sight.


The Interceptors Club & the Secret of the Black Manta is a character-driven, techno-thriller for our times.


It’s also a great book for sons and their dads.


No vampires or witches- but a cool-techie-tale - intended to get young men reading again.


Think - Bourne Identity meets Sneakers -Hardy Boys meets Real Genius - Tom Clancymeets Wargames -and you’ll get The Interceptors Club and the Secret of The Black Manta!


I hope you’ll consider purchasing my e-book!
“The Interceptors and the Secret of the Black Mantra has a story line more like reality than fiction. Personally I never read fiction novels. But of course it's targeted toward a younger generation.

                                                                                                                                        -Steve Douglass


REVIEWS:


I think it would be a good motivator for up and coming engineering / aviation types. The realistic Black World "lingo" is refreshing. If I had this book when I was in the 8th grade, that would have been "Way Cool". - Dan Freeman

Review by: Phil Patton: "This is a thriller with a human side. It is all about secrecy and the mystery of technology and the sinister and the innocent. I would compare it to another novel that might come as a surprise: To Kill A Mockingbird.

Why? Because both books take on deep and important issues through the eyes of kids. In TKAM it is race, here it is the nature of knowledge and suspicion.

As someone who has seen government and organizations at work, I sense truth and insight here. Highly recommended. Many stars!

Just finished reading the book, started this morning and couldn't stop. The book is a very interesting read with some useful technical points about Stealth and how it has evolved. It still has an "Iron Eagle meets Stealth" feel to it. I enjoyed it, the story has more technical accuracies than Iron Eagle.

The Black Projects structure and procedure depicted is a believable concept but who knows? Every project is different with different goals.


It kept me interested. And I agree or enemies should very much consider the capability of our military before they shake a stick at us.

I'm a former F-117A mechanic and I enjoy all books related to Stealth.


- Don Shoemer

BUY THE INTERCEPTORS CLUB HERE

Does leaker Snowden have a "doomsday cache?"

(Reuters) - British and U.S. intelligence officials say they are worried about a "doomsday" cache of highly classified, heavily encrypted material they believe former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden has stored on a data cloud.

The cache contains documents generated by the NSA and other agencies and includes names of U.S. and allied intelligence personnel, seven current and former U.S. officials and other sources briefed on the matter said.

The data is protected with sophisticated encryption, and multiple passwords are needed to open it, said two of the sources, who like the others spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters.

The passwords are in the possession of at least three different people and are valid for only a brief time window each day, they said. The identities of persons who might have the passwords are unknown.

One source described the cache of still unpublished material as Snowden's "insurance policy" against arrest or physical harm.

U.S. officials and other sources said only a small proportion of the classified material Snowden downloaded during stints as a contract systems administrator for NSA has been made public. Some Obama Administration officials have said privately that Snowden downloaded enough material to fuel two more years of news stories.

"The worst is yet to come," said one former U.S. official who follows the investigation closely.

READ THE REST HERE

China tests RQ-170 like stealth drone

ABC NEWS: China has completed its first successful stealth drone test, according to China state media today.

“The successful flight shows the nation has again narrowed the air-power disparity between itself and Western nations,” China Daily newspaper said. The newspaper attributed confirmation to photographs taken by military fans.

Military expert Andrei Chang told the AFP the design appeared a “little naïve,” but if successful would indeed mark a milestone for China.


Lijian, or Sharp Sword, was reportedly produced by the Aviation Industry Corporation of China, but the information office has not yet confirmed the test.

News of the 20-minute test on Thursday in southwest China and photographs of Lijian first appeared on cjdby.net, a popular military forum.

Lijian’s test makes China the fourth nation to fly an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV).

Online reports suggest it is a delta-wing, single engine drone. It has been compared to both the Northrop Grumman-made X-47 series used by the U.S. Navy and the Russian MiG Skat drone.

Wang Ya’nan, the deputy editor in chief at Aerospace Knowledge Magazine, told China Daily the drone seems to be equipped with the RD-93, a Russian turbofan engine originally designed for a fighter jet.

“The drone, which is capable of flying undetected at high altitudes while providing high-resolution video and other intelligence, will let maritime departments keep abreast of developments in the East and South China seas and will help Beijing make accurate decisions when dealing with territorial disputes with its neighbors, ” Xu Guangyu, a former PLA major general told the SCMP.

The most recent Pentagon report on the Chinese military, published in May, alluded to Lijian.

“The acquisition and development of longer range Unmanned Aerial Vehicles…and Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicles, will increase China’s ability to conduct long-range reconnaissance and strike operations.”

Aviation Week Exclusive- SR-72 revealed ...

click here

Excerpt: By Guy Norris guy.norris@aviationweek.com

Source: AWIN First

Although there has been evidence to suggest that work on various classified successors to the SR-71, or some of its roles, has been attempted, none of the tantalizing signs have materialized into anything substantial. Outside of the black world, this has always been relatively easy to explain. Though few question the compelling military imperative for high speed ISR capability, the astronomical development costs have made the notion a virtual nonstarter.

But now Lockheed Martin believes it has the answer. “The Skunk Works has been working with Aerojet Rocketdyne for the past seven years to develop a method to integrate an off-the-shelf turbine with a scramjet to power the aircraft from standstill to Mach 6 plus,” says Brad Leland, portfolio manager for air-breathing hypersonic technologies. “Our approach builds on HTV-3X, but this extends a lot beyond that and addresses the one key technical issue that remained on that program: the high-speed turbine engine,” he adds, referring to the U.S. Air Force/Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) reusable hypersonic demonstrator canceled in 2008.


The concept of a reusable hypersonic vehicle was an outgrowth of Darpa’s Falcon program, which included development of small launch vehicles, common aero vehicles (CAV) and a hypersonic cruise vehicle (HCV). As structural and aerodynamic technologies for both the CAV and HCV needed testing, Lockheed Martin was funded to develop a series of unpowered hypersonic test vehicles (HTV).

READ THE REST OF THE STORY HERE

Breaking: Syrian Air Defense base possibly destroyed.

A Syrian air defense base near the coastal city of Latakia was reportedly destroyed Wednesday night, with multiple Syrian and Lebanese sources speculating that an Israeli strike from the Mediterranean was to blame.


The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported a loud explosion in a Syrian army base, and Twitter users quoted eyewitnesses who said the blast occurred near Snobar Jableh, just south of the city.


More details soon.


UPDATE:

A large explosion was heard at a Syrian army missile base in Latakia, foreign media reported Thursday.

Eye witnesses told the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human rights that the explosion took place near Snobar Jableh, south of the city.

It was not yet clear whether anyone was wounded in the strike.

Reports in July claimed that the Israeli air force struck a missile warehouse that serviced Russian and Syrian interests in the area. Later, American officials told the New York Times that the strike in July did not succeed in wiping out all of the targeted Russian land-sea missiles, and that Israel was therefore likely to strike again.

The official Lebanese news agency reported that Israeli aircrafts were sighted on multiple occasions Wednesday in the south of the country. According to the report, which was based on a press statement by the Lebanese army, the airplanes entered Lebanese airspace at around 1:40 P.M. and circled over various places before leaving over the Mediterranean Sea near Tripoli and Naqoura at 5 P.M.

A Facebook page run by Syrian rebels claimed that the strike occurred at around 7 P.M. According to the page, a missile was fired from the sea and struck the Syrian base but did not result in any casualties.

Israeli sources declined to comment on the reports.

Mystery In New Mexico. Was it a crash of something black?

Yesterday afternoon (approximately 12:00 AM MDT) the USAF notified the FAA that a TFR (Temporary Flight Restrictions) box was needed over a remote area of Western New Mexico.

The text of the TFR HERE read:

FDC 3/9977 ZAB NM..AIRSPACE FLIGHT RESTRICTIONS WEST OF RESERVE NM. EFFECTIVE 1310221815 UTC UNTIL 1311221815 UTC. PURSUANT TO 14 CFR SECTION 91.137(A)(2) TEMPORARY FLIGHT RESTRICTIONS ARE IN EFFECT WITHIN A 5 NAUTICAL MILE RADIUS OF 333526N/1085739W OR THE ST JOHNS /SJN/ VORTAC 158 DEGREE RADIAL AT 50.7 NAUTICAL MILES AT AND BELOW 12000 FEET MSL TO PROVIDE A SAFE ENVIRONMENT FOR SEARCH AND RESCUE. UNITED STATES AIR FORCE RESCUE COORDINATION CENTER IS IN CHARGE OF THE OPERATION. 


On the surface it may indicate a crash of a military aircraft in the area and search and rescue efforts are underway, but what makes it unusual is that the TFR has been put in place for a full month. 

This may indicate that something either toxic or sensitive crashed in the area, with the possibilities ranging from a secret aircraft type, a satellite reentry or something carrying nuclear materials.

I talked to an air traffic controller who works at ZAB (under the conditions of anonymity) and he remarked that the USAF isn't giving out any information on why the TFR is in place except they requested that if any unauthorized civil aircraft violated the airspace they wanted to be notified of type and tail and the ultimate destination.

The TFR is in a very remote area and not very accessible to the public but it is in the middle of the RESERVE MOA and several military training routes go right through that area. It also isn't far from the White Sands Missile Range to the SE.

Searches on the Internet can find no reports of crashed aircraft or incident reports coming out of the area and inquiries by the press are not being answered. If it's an SAR exercise - why is the USAF not talking? If it's something innocuous - as it may turn out to be- why not just say so?

In light of that, and with the rising interest by the mainstream press, expect the USAF to issue a press release soon.

Whether it's the truth or tantamount to being the modern day equivalent of a "crashed weather balloon" story is yet to be seen.

Nothing to see here - go back to your homes.

Stay tuned - more on this story as it unfolds.


-Steve Douglass 

Wash Post: NSA harvesting hundreds of millions contact lists from e-mail and instant messaging

Washington Post:

The National Security Agency is harvesting hundreds of millions of contact lists from personal e-mail and instant messaging accounts around the world, many of them belonging to Americans, according to senior intelligence officials and top-secret documents provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

The collection program, which has not been disclosed before, intercepts e-mail address books and “buddy lists” from instant messaging services as they move across global data links. Online services often transmit those contacts when a user logs on, composes a message, or synchronizes a computer or mobile device with information stored on remote servers.

Rather than targeting individual users, the NSA is gathering contact lists in large numbers that amount to a sizable fraction of the world’s e-mail and instant messaging accounts. Analysis of that data enables the agency to search for hidden connections and to map relationships within a much smaller universe of foreign intelligence targets.

During a single day last year, the NSA’s Special Source Operations branch collected 444,743 e-mail address books from Yahoo, 105,068 from Hotmail, 82,857 from Facebook, 33,697 from Gmail and 22,881 from unspecified other providers, according to an internal NSA PowerPoint presentation. 

Those figures, described as a typical daily intake in the document, correspond to a rate of more than 250 million a year.

Each day, the presentation said, the NSA collects contacts from an estimated 500,000 buddy lists on live-chat services as well as from the inbox displays of Web-based e-mail accounts.

The collection depends on secret arrangements with foreign telecommunications companies or allied intelligence services in control of facilities that direct traffic along the Internet’s main data routes.

Although the collection takes place overseas, two senior U.S. intelligence officials acknowledged that it sweeps in the contacts of many Americans. They declined to offer an estimate but did not dispute that the number is likely to be in the millions or tens of millions.

A spokesman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which oversees the NSA, said the agency “is focused on discovering and developing intelligence about valid foreign intelligence targets like terrorists, human traffickers and drug smugglers. We are not interested in personal information about ordinary Americans.”

The spokesman, Shawn Turner, added that rules approved by the attorney general require the NSA to “minimize the acquisition, use and dissemination” of information that identifies a U.S. citizen or permanent resident.

The NSA’s collection of nearly all U.S. call records, under a separate program, has generated significant controversy since it was revealed in June. The NSA’s director, Gen. Keith B. Alexander, has defended “bulk” collection as an essential counterterrorism and foreign intelligence tool, saying, “You need the haystack to find the needle.”

Contact lists stored online provide the NSA with far richer sources of data than call records alone. Address books commonly include not only names and e-mail addresses, but also telephone numbers, street addresses, and business and family information. Inbox listings of e-mail accounts stored in the “cloud” sometimes contain content, such as the first few lines of a message.

READ THE REST OF THE STORY AT THE WASHINGTON POST 

Libyan terror suspect now in custody in U.S.

A Libyan terrorist suspect who was held aboard a U.S. warship is now in the United States, CBS News has confirmed.

The al Qaeda suspect, known as Abu Anas al-Libi, has been under federal indictment in New York for more than a decade. He's expected to stand trial over whether he helped plan and conduct surveillance for the bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998.

U.S. special operations forces snatched Al-Libi during a raid in Libya on Oct. 5.

His full name is Nazih Abdul-Hamed al-Ruqai and he used to be on the FBI's most wanted terrorists list. His family says he was not in al Qaeda.

Last week, Islamic militants in Libya vowed to avenge the arrest of Al-Libi by U.S. Special Forces.

In a statement posted to several online portals frequently used by jihadi groups operating in eastern Libya -- including Ansar al-Sharia, which is believed to have been involved in the Sept. 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. diplomatic posts in Benghazi which left Ambassador Chris Stephens and three other Americans dead -- the militants vowed to "strike back" at those responsible for the kidnapping.

While acknowledging that U.S. troops carried out the raid to apprehend al-Libi, the statement suggested reprisals would target the Libyan government, or, "those who betrayed their country and got implicated in this conspiracy."

READ MORE HERE