Breaking: North Korea boats draw warning shots from South

(Reuters) - Two North Korean vessels crossed into the South's waters off the peninsula's tense west coast before returning when South Korea fired warning shots, military officers said on Sunday.

The area has been a site of military standoffs and is near where a South Korean navy ship sank in March after apparently being struck by a torpedo, killing 46 sailors.

South Korea has not officially blamed the North for the attack but officials have made little secret of their belief Pyongyang was behind the attack. An international team of investigators are expected to release their findings this week.

"Two patrol boats crossed on two separate occasions and warning shots were fired," said an officer at the South's Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The apparent maritime border violation by the North's vessels come amid a deepening chill in relations between the rival Koreas, which remain technically at war under a truce that ended fighting in the 1950-53 Korean War.

South Korea's belief in the North's involvement in the sinking of its navy corvette Cheonan has been a source of friction between Seoul and Beijing, and Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi tried to cool South Korea's exasperation when top diplomats from the two countries and Japan met this weekend.

In contrast to the aloof response shown by Yang the day before, Japan's Katsuya Okada was more sympathetic to the South when he met Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan on Sunday in Gyeongju, the scenic ancient capital of Shilla, a Buddhist kingdom that ruled the peninsula in the first millennium.

"(Okada) expressed his high respect for our government's efforts to get to the cause through scientific and objective means under what can only be a truly difficult situation," a South Korean official said after their meeting.

"The two sides agreed (on) close cooperation in the response following the investigation into the Cheonan incident."

The Chinese foreign ministry on Saturday called for "calm and restraint" in dealing with the Cheonan sinking.

South Korea knows it cannot launch a retaliatory strike against the North without risking greater conflict and undermining its own economy, just recovering from the global financial slump.

But it does want international punishment of the North. That would likely mean even tougher sanctions by the United Nations, which would need China's support to take effect.

There is media speculation in South Korea that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will visit Seoul later this month in a show of support over the sinking.

There was little formal discussions at the three-way meeting on how to resume the stalled negotiations with North Korea on compensating it in return for concrete steps to end its nuclear arms program.

South Korea and Japan said they would not sit at the table with the North if Pyongyang is found to be the culprit in the navy ship sinking. China hosts those talks, which also involve the United States and Russia and have been stalled since 2008.

(Editing by Jerry Norton)

Cathay Pacific plane from HK escorted to Vancouver by F-18s

VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- Canadian fighter jets escorted a Cathay Pacific airliner incoming from Hong Kong to a safe landing in Vancouver International Airport on Saturday due to a potential security threat, a North American Aerospace Defense Command spokesperson said.

The Canadian Press news agency cited Canadian Defense department officials as saying there was a bomb threat aboard Flight CX838, but they could not provide details.
Television images showed the plane on an isolated stretch of tarmac, where it had been towed away from the main airport terminal.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) said the passengers were safely taken off the plane and no one was injured.

Canadian F-18 Hornet fighter jets intercepted the plane and flew alongside it until it landed around 1:40 p.m. local time (4:40 p.m. Eastern time, 2040 GMT), drawing attention from people throughout Vancouver who heard the roar of the low-flying planes.

"As a precaution, NORAD fighters escorted the aircraft until it landed safely in Vancouver," said North American Aerospace Defense Command's Maj. Holly Apostoliuk.

Apostoliuk said the jets responded quickly from their base in Comox, British Columbia, once information on a potential threat was received.

They did not land with the airliner, and returned to their base.

God's speed Atlantis!

Atlantis in Orbit!
Fri, 14 May 2010 01:29:50 PM CDT

Main engine cutoff is confirmed -- space shuttle Atlantis is officially in orbit, kicking off its STS-132 mission and the pursuit of its target, the International Space Station. Atlantis lifted off from NASA's Kennedy Space Center right on time at 2:20 p.m. EDT, rising into a picture-perfect Florida sky and capping a relatively problem-free countdown.

NASA Television will air the post-launch news conference at about 3:20 p.m.

Last Shot For Atlantis!

-3 Hours and Holding; Fueling Complete
Fri, 14 May 2010 07:18:39 AM CDT

Countdown activities continue on schedule as teams across NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida prepare for the 2:20 p.m. EDT liftoff of space shuttle Atlantis. At T-3 hours and holding, Atlantis' external tank is fully loaded with more than a half million gallons of liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen. The fueling process started on time at 4:55 a.m. and finished at 7:56 a.m. as the tank entered "stable replenish."

At Launch Pad 39A, the Closeout Crew is beginning to ready the climate-controlled White Room outside Atlantis' crew access hatch and the Final Inspection Team will conduct a detailed survey of the shuttle and the pad structure, checking for ice buildups or other potential hazards.

Weather remains favorable, with STS-132 Weather Officer Todd McNamara predicting a 70 percent chance of good conditions at launch time.

Tracking a sniper? There's an APP for that!

Push Is On To Make Smart Phones Work for Combat Troops
By WILLIAM MATTHEWS

Already there's a smart phone application that calculates a bullet's trajectory, accounting for wind speed, distance, temperature, altitude and other factors. And soon soldiers will have another app to turn their smart phones into acoustic sensors to help locate snipers.

There's an app that uses a phone's GPS capabilities to track friendly troops, and another that helps troops translate English into Arabic.

Officials responsible for modernizing the U.S. Army say that smart phones and apps - the small but ingenious software applications that make smart phones so smart - will soon be as essential to soldiers as rifles.

It's even likely that soldiers soon will be issued smart phones or other "hand-held devices" when they start basic training, said Col. Marisa Tanner, chief of the doctrine, organization, operational architecture and threat division of the Army's Future Force Integration Directorate.

The Army is moving aggressively to get smart phones ready for active duty.

In March, the service launched an "Apps for the Army" competition in which 100 soldiers or civilian Army employees are competing to develop Army-specific applications by May 15. Designers of the eight best apps will win $2,000 in prize money. Other prizes range from $1,000 to $100. The winners will see their apps deployed.

Separately, the Army's Future Force Integration Directorate is getting ready to issue smart phones to 192 soldiers at Fort Bliss, Texas, in a project called "Connecting Soldiers to Digital Applications."

"We're trying to examine the benefits of putting access to knowledge and information in the hands of soldiers in garrison, in the field and in the theater of operations," Tanner said.

"Sometimes you're only as strong as your comms reach," she said, referring to communications. "Not every soldier dismounted from his vehicle in theater has the ability to access comms readily."

But it's when they're dismounted that soldiers get the best sense of their surroundings. They mingle with locals, observe activity and gather intelligence.

"How do you capture that information?" Tanner asked. "How do you transfer it" to other unit members and commanders? Lately, smart phones have become an obvious choice.

Unlike military hand-held devices, which tend to be expensive, single-task appliances, commercial handhelds are cheap and increasingly able to perform a multitude of tasks.

But for soldiers to get the most out of their Androids, iPhones and BlackBerries, the data they collect and share has to be structured "in a graphic format that is timely and relevant to the dismounted soldier," Tanner said.

And that's where the apps come in.

Drivers in an Army convoy will want an app that can display where roadside bombs have been discovered recently along their route. "We have found three apps that we really like" that do that, Tanner said.

There are mapping apps, maintenance manual apps, training apps, even a "COIN Collector" counterinsurgency information collection app.

For the Fort Bliss project, the Army is making more than 50 applications available to the 192 soldiers who receive smart phones, said Michael McCarthy, the director of operations for the Fort Bliss battle command training complex.

Part of the effort is to find out which apps soldiers find most useful and easiest to use, McCarthy said. If all goes well, the Army hopes to expand the program in January to an additional 2,500 soldiers.

Smart phones have already proven their value as training tools, Tanner said.

When advanced individual training materials were made available via handhelds, soldiers were able to view video clips on how to operate equipment and review classroom lessons outside the classroom. Test scores went up and training time went down, Tanner said.

'A MILITARY APPS MARKETPLACE'
While the Army checks out what smart phones and apps can do for it, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is exploring how the U.S. military can do a better job of buying them.

With a program called Transformative Apps, DARPA hopes to speed up the process of creating and buying new applications.

DARPA Director Regina Dugan said most current Pentagon development and buying practices "do not permit a quick reaction in the face of rapidly changing user needs."

Dugan told a House Armed Services subcommittee in March that she hopes to create "a military apps marketplace" and to develop "a new model for rapidly and effectively acquiring, introducing, maintaining and enhancing software."

If she succeeds, that could represent a real change.

The military often takes five to seven years to develop and buy new technology, said Mark Bigham, the vice president for business development at Raytheon's defense and civil mission solutions division.

Raytheon has already developed applications for the military. One, the Raytheon Android Tactical System, or RATS, lets soldiers designate "buddies" - which could be another soldier or an unmanned aircraft - and keep track of them on a map using a phone's GPS capabilities.

Another lets troops annotate photos and video by drawing on a hand-held screen with a finger, Bigham said.

The company has others in the works, such as an app that will let soldiers share sensor data.

"We talked to guys who came back from the wars" to see what kind of applications they think are most needed, Bigham said.

"This is an exciting new market opportunity," he said of the burgeoning interest in apps.

One caution, though: The U.S. military probably shouldn't count on $2 or $5 apps that are so widely available in the commercial sector.

Commercial applications are cheap because popular ones sell in the hundreds of thousands and volume and competition keep the price down.

In the military market, which is much smaller and more specialized, apps might sell for $50 or $500, Bigham said.