Iran claims to have captured another US Drone- US doubtful

Iranian state television has showed images of what it says is an unmanned US drone captured in its airspace.

The Revolutionary Guards said they had brought down a ScanEagle - one of the smaller, less sophisticated drones employed by the Americans.

Rear Admiral Ali Fadavi told the Fars news agency that the drone had conducted several reconnaissance flights over the Gulf in recent days.

But the US Navy said none of its drones was missing in the Middle East.

Other nations in the region, including the United Arab Emirates, also operate ScanEagles - low-cost, long-endurance aircraft with a 10ft (3m) wingspan, Associated Press says.

Rear Adm Fadavi said that "such drones are usually launched from large warships".

Fars said the drone was captured "in the last few days" without giving further details.

A spokesman for US Naval Forces Central Command in Bahrain said: "The US Navy has fully accounted for all unmanned air vehicles operating in the Middle East region.
"We have no record that we have lost any ScanEagles recently."

"Our operations in the Gulf are confined to internationally recognised water and air space.

Last month, the US said Iranian warplanes had shot at a US surveillance drone flying in international airspace. Iran said the aircraft had entered its airspace.

November also saw Iran's ambassador to the United Nations, Mohammad Khazaee, write to Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to complain about what he said were repeated US violations of Iranian airspace near the Bushehr power station, describing them as "illegal and provocative acts".

A year ago, Iranian TV broadcast pictures of an American RQ-170 Sentinel surveillance drone that Iran said had been brought down using electronic warfare. The US said it had malfunctioned.

Iran rejected a US call for the return of the drone. It subsequently claimed to have developed its own unmanned drone.

Washington and Tehran are engaged in a dispute over Tehran's nuclear programme.

The Revolutionary Guards are an elite unit of the Iranian military which operate their own naval forces.

A U.S. Navy spokesman said all U.S. drones are "fully accounted for."

Cmdr. Jason Salata, a spokesman for the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet, cast doubt on Iranian claims Tuesday that the U.S. ScanEagle drone entered Iranian airspace, saying U.S. operations in the Persian Gulf are "confined to internationally recognized water and airspace."

The U.S. Navy spokesman said no American drones are missing in the Middle East. He said that U.S. ScanEagles have been lost in the sea in the past, but none have gone down recently.

Other nations in the Gulf, including the United Arab Emirates, have ScanEagle drones in service.

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Europe consortium aiming to build civil tiltrotor

Graham Warwick Washington

Europe is drawing up plans to build ground and flight demonstrators for commercial and regional aircraft, a compound helicopter and tiltrotor under a civil-aviation research program that will run from 2014-20.

The €3.6 billion ($4.7 billion) Clean Sky 2 program, funded 50:50 by government and industry, is being proposed as a follow-on to the €1.6 billion Clean Sky technology initiative now underway. 

But the final scale of the new effort will depend on the outcome of negotiations over funding for the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program, which has a projected budget of around €80 billion.

Clean Sky 2 will have two major aims. One is to take technologies developed under Clean Sky to a higher level of system maturity through more-integrated demonstrators, with the aim of meeting the environmental targets set by European industry in its Vision 2020. The other is to begin work on technologies needed to meet the more challenging longer-term objectives outlined by industry in its Flightpath 2050.

“We need to achieve the full Vision 2020 targets and start a new wave of technologies moving toward the Flightpath 2050 goals,” says Eric Dautriat, executive director of Clean Sky. “We need to go beyond the 2020 goals, to an intermediate step of 2030-35, and it needs to be started now.”

Launched in 2008, Clean Sky runs to 2017 and includes six integrated technology demonstrators for commercial and regional aircraft, business jets, rotorcraft and engines. Advances being developed under Clean Sky are projected to reduce aviation CO2 emissions by about 30%, against the Vision 2020 goal of 50% to 40% from technologies and 10% from air traffic management.

“There remains another 10% to reach the full Vision 2020,” says Dautriat. “In Clean Sky 2 we need to increase the maturity of technologies and increase the CO2 savings in parallel.” Where Clean Sky is “clearly focused on the environment,” Clean Sky 2's objectives will be “more than just environmental,” he says. The new research program will fit within the “smart and green transport” pillar of the EC's Horizon 2020, which has as targets the environment, mobility and competitiveness.

Whereas Clean Sky is aimed at increasing technology readiness levels (TRL) across a broad front, Clean Sky 2 will be focused on raising the readiness level of systems incorporating the new technologies. “We want to move to the maturity of the system rather than TRL only,” he says. “So we intend to deliver more highly integrated demonstrators than in Clean Sky.”

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North Korea preps for missile launch

BBC: North Korea has begun installing a rocket at its Sohae launch pad ahead of a planned launch this month, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reports.

The North's state news media say the launch is an attempt to put an observation satellite into space, between 10 and 22 December.

It is expected to take scientists several days to assemble the three-stage rocket at the Sohae station.

The US and its allies say it is a cover for long-range missile technology.

Ambassadors from China, the US, Russia and Japan met South Korean officials in Seoul on Monday to discuss the situation.

Korean Air is planning to reroute flights over the Yellow Sea to avoid possible collisions with rocket debris, according to the Associated Press.

The airline could not be reached for comment.

North Korea announced plans to a launch the rocket despite concern expressed by its main ally, China.

In a statement on Sunday, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said the country hoped that "all relevant parties will do that which benefits peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula" and that "all sides will respond calmly and avoid exacerbating the situation".

China acknowledged North Korea's right to the peaceful use of outer space, but said it should abide by a UN ban on ballistic missile tests.Flight path

Yonhap quoted an unnamed South Korean government source as saying: "North Korea installed the first-stage rocket onto the launch pad. That means North Korea is starting its process of launching a long-range missile."

The agency added: "It will take three or four days for North Korea to erect all three stages of the long-range rocket, South Korean intelligence and military officials say."

The BBC's Lucy Williamson, in Seoul, says North Korea's state media have described the rocket launch as being for peaceful purposes, with the aim of putting a polar-orbiting earth observation satellite into space.

But Japan has begun deploying a surface-to-air missile defence system to the southern island of Okinawa and is putting its armed forces on stand-by in response to the plan, officials confirmed on Monday.

Russia, too, has warned that the rocket launch would violate UN Security Council restrictions which prevent the country from conducting missile or nuclear-related activities.

"We urgently appeal to the government [of North Korea] to reconsider the decision to launch a rocket," Russia's foreign ministry said in a statement, according to Reuters.

A senior government source said the Russian military was ready to intercept the rocket if it deviated from its trajectory, Russian state media reports.

Meanwhile the Philippines said the launch violated UN resolutions barring from testing ballistic missile technology.

The test will be the second to take place under the leadership of Kim Jong-un, who took over the leadership of the country after the death of his father Kim Jong-il almost a year ago.

South Korea is preparing for a presidential election scheduled for 19 December.

North Korea has notified its neighbours of the planned flight path, telling them it will follow a similar route to that of the most recent rocket launch, in April, which failed.

The rocket, of the same Unha-3 variety, was supposed to pass over seas between China and the Korean Peninsula where the first stage of the rocket would fall into the sea, then to move over Okinawa.

The second stage was due to fall in seas off the coast of the Philippines.

"Unha" is Korean for "galaxy", and is the name given by North Korea to the space launcher version of its Taepodong-2 missile, which has an estimated range of 2,200km (1,300 miles). The missile has not yet been successfully tested.

DIA spinning out hundreds of spies/collectors.

By Greg Miller, Published: December 1


The Pentagon will send hundreds of additional spies overseas as part of an ambitious plan to assemble an espionage network that rivals the CIA in size, U.S. officials said.

The project is aimed at transforming the Defense Intelligence Agency, which has been dominated for the past decade by the demands of two wars, into a spy service focused on emerging threats and more closely aligned with the CIA and elite military commando units.

When the expansion is complete, the DIA is expected to have as many as 1,600 “collectors” in positions around the world, an unprecedented total for an agency whose presence abroad numbered in the triple digits in recent years.

The total includes military attachés and others who do not work undercover. But U.S. officials said the growth will be driven over a five-year period by the deployment of a new generation of clandestine operatives. They will be trained by the CIA and often work with the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command, but they will get their spying assignments from the Department of Defense.

Among the Pentagon’s top intelligence priorities, officials said, are Islamist militant groups in Africa, weapons transfers by North Korea and Iran, and military modernization underway in China.

“This is not a marginal adjustment for DIA,” the agency’s director, Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, said at a recent conference, during which he outlined the changes but did not describe them in detail. “This is a major adjustment for national security.”

The sharp increase in DIA undercover operatives is part of a far-reaching trend: a convergence of the military and intelligence agencies that has blurred their once-distinct missions, capabilities and even their leadership ranks.

Through its drone program, the CIA now accounts for a majority of lethal U.S. operations outside the Afghan war zone. At the same time, the Pentagon’s plan to create what it calls the Defense Clandestine Service, or DCS, reflects the military’s latest and largest foray into secret intelligence work.

The DIA overhaul — combined with the growth of the CIA since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks — will create a spy network of unprecedented size. The plan reflects the Obama administration’s affinity for espionage and covert action over conventional force. It also fits in with the administration’s efforts to codify its counterterrorism policies for a sustained conflict and assemble the pieces abroad necessary to carry it out.

Unlike the CIA, the Pentagon’s spy agency is not authorized to conduct covert operations that go beyond intelligence gathering, such as drone strikes, political sabotage or arming militants.

But the DIA has long played a major role in assessing and identifying targets for the U.S. military, which in recent years has assembled a constellation of drone bases stretching from Afghanistan to East Africa.

The expansion of the agency’s clandestine role is likely to heighten concerns that it will be accompanied by an escalation in lethal strikes and other operations outside public view. Because of differences in legal authorities, the military isn’t subject to the same congressional notification requirements as the CIA, leading to potential oversight gaps.

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