Russian Military Hardware Best In The World -- Pravda
The global arms market has been growing steadily during the recent years. Russian arms are in high demand on this market, and it is the weapons and equipment of Soviet development that are competitive most. Their performance is even better than that of advanced Western models for certain tasks. In 2012, the Russian Federation has topped the arms export plan.
Russian (Soviet) small arms and more sophisticated equipment works smoothly and efficiently in all climate conditions. On December 5th, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy published a report, which said that Iranian pilots on Soviet Su-25 fighter jets (NATO: Frogfoot) intercepted advanced U.S. drone USAF MQ-1 Predator over the Persian Gulf. The authors of the report said that the Soviet-made aircraft was not an interceptor: it was not equipped with modern radars, but it could successfully destroy state-of-the-art aircraft, Worldtribune.com wrote.
Lebanon, Israel Take Step Toward Claiming Big Oil, Gas Deposits -- Christian Science Monitor
Lebanon and Israel dispute their maritime boundary in the eastern Mediterranean, which contains some 8.5 percent of the world's oil and gas under the seabed.
The United States has proposed a boundary between Lebanon and Israel's maritime economic zones to help end a lingering dispute over rival claims and open up oil and gas exploration in the eastern Mediterranean.
If the idea is accepted by both sides, it will reduce the risk of renewed conflict between the two enemy states and hasten Lebanon’s efforts to begin tapping the billions of dollars of natural gas estimated to be lying beneath the seabed.
The proposal, which was submitted to both countries recently, is a compromise on the overlapping exclusive economic zone (EEZ) boundaries individually submitted by Lebanon and Israel, which left 330 square miles in dispute.
My Comment: I will be surprise if Lebanon agrees to this border. Hezbollah is a major player in the government .... and they have made it very clear over the years that they do not even recognize the state of Israel. But by agreeing to this proposed border with Israel .... they will then be tacitly agreeing that the state of Israel does exist.
Benghazi Siege: The Ambassador's Last Minutes -- Lateef Mungin, CNN
(CNN) -- They were hiding in a place security officers called a "safe area." It was anything but. Outside an angry crowd grew, gunfire rang out and a fire blazed. Thick smoke blinded the three trapped men. The intruders banged on the fortified safety gate of the bunker-like villa. A security officer handed his cell phone to Ambassador Chris Stevens. Prepare for the mob to blast open the locks of the safety gate, the officer said.
My Comment: This is depressing reading, but we owe it to Amb. Stevens and three other Americans who died to understand why this occurred, to bring those who committed this crime to justice, to have those U.S. officials who failed in doing their job be held accountable, and to make sure that it does not happen again.
State Department Resignations Follow Benghazi Report -- CNN
Washington (CNN) -- Three State Department officials, including two who oversaw security decisions at the diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, Libya, resigned in the wake of a review of security failures there, senior State Department officials told CNN Wednesday.
The independent review of the September 11 attacks on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi released Tuesday cites "systemic failures and leadership and management deficiencies" at the State Department.
The attacks killed four Americans, including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens.
Army Seeking Death Penalty For Sergeant Accused of Killing Afghan Civilians -- New York Times
SEATTLE — The United States Army will seek the death penalty against Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, who is accused of killing 16 civilians in Afghanistan, officials said on Wednesday.
Sergeant Bales’s court-martial will consider 16 counts of premeditated murder, six counts of attempted murder and seven counts of assault, among other charges, but no trial date was set.
The Army has charged that Sergeant Bales, 39, who was serving his fourth combat tour, walked away from a remote outpost in southern Afghanistan and shot and stabbed members of several families in an ambush in two villages in the early morning hours of March 11. At least nine of the people he is accused of killing were children.
2012 Person Of The Year: Barack Obama, The President -- Michael Scherer, Time
Twenty-seven years after driving from New York City to Chicago in a $2,000 Honda Civic for a job that probably wouldn’t amount to much, Barack Obama, in better shape but with grayer hair, stood in the presidential suite on the top floor of the Fairmont Millennium Park hotel as flat screens announced his re-election as President of the United States. The networks called Ohio earlier than predicted, so his aides had to hightail it down the hall to join his family and friends. They encountered a room of high fives and fist pumps, hugs and relief.
The final days of any campaign can alter the psyches of even the most experienced political pros. At some point, there is nothing to do but wait. Members of Obama’s team responded in the only rational way available to them — by acting irrationally. They turned neckties into magic charms and facial hair into a talisman and compulsively repeated past behaviors so as not to jinx what seemed to be working. In Boca Raton, Fla., before the last debate, they dispatched advance staff to find a greasy-spoon diner because they had eaten at a similar joint before the second debate, on New York’s Long Island. They sent senior strategist David Axelrod a photograph of the tie he had to find to wear on election night: the same one he wore in 2008. Several staffers on Air Force One stopped shaving, like big-league hitters in the playoffs. Even the President succumbed, playing basketball on Election Day at the same court he played on before winning in 2008.
My Comment: I agree with the choice .... for better or worse President Obama is the 'Person of the Year" for 2012 .... and Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi is #2. But unlike 2008 when Time chose President Obama the first time as their "Person of the Year" .... the mood is more darker now .... the optimism of 2008 is certainly not present today.
South Korea Elects Its First Woman President, Park Geun-hye -- Donal Kirk, Christian Science Monitor
Conservative candidate Park Geun-hye has made history by winning South Korea's presidential election, becoming the country's first female president-elect after defeating her liberal rival.
Park Geun-hye won a decisive victory Wednesday after a bitterly fought election for president of South Korea in which she overcame criticism of her legacy as the daughter of long-ruling dictator Park Chung-hee. So doing, she also overcame traditional barriers to women in government and business to become the first woman to win her country's presidency.
Dictator's Daughter New SKorea President -- The Australian
SOUTH Korea has elected its first female president, handing a slim but historic victory to conservative ruling party candidate Park Geun-Hye, daughter of the country's former military ruler.
As leader of Asia's fourth-largest economy, Park, 60, will face numerous challenges, handling a belligerent North Korea, a slowing economy and soaring welfare costs in one of the world's most rapidly ageing societies.
With 85 per cent of the national vote counted, Park had an insurmountable lead of 51.6 per cent to 48 per cent over her liberal rival, Moon Jae-In of the main opposition party.
South Korea Elects First Female President -- Voice of America
SEOUL — Conservative Saenuri [New Frontier] Party candidate Park Geun-hye has made history by winning South Korea's presidential election, becoming the country's first female president-elect after defeating liberal rival Moon Jae-in of the Democratic United Party by several percentage points.
Interacting briefly with several media representatives on a large open-air stage in downtown Seoul, the five-term lawmaker and daughter of a former dictator vowed to fulfill every promise she made during the campaign.
Jeff, I don't have the exact answer you're seeking, but I want to mention that my MacBook, bought two weeks after they debuted, has lost its screen, keyboard, and touch pad functions, but still is operable with an external monitor, keyboard, and mouse. I attached speakers and an external drive with all my music and use it at work next to my work computer. So if portability isn't a "must," you might go that direction.
I have a 13" MacBook Pro that appears to have one of the 2 USB ports that is not working. The one that does work will connect easily and power items but the other does not seem to connect. I do get lights on with things like a USB mouse but it does not move the pointer. In most cases, a flashdrive or my USB Seagate back-up drive will not connect through this port.
Yep! But you might need an adapter because your MacBook lacks a VGA port. Susn adaptor can be bought in any Applestore or online at Apple directly.
Stefan
Op 18 dec. 2012 om 22:11 heeft Ariella Vanderveen <ariellav@sbcglobal.net> het volgende geschreven:
> > if a monitor says it can connect to a PC (with a vga cord and ferrite) > does that mean it works the same for my macbook? > > thanks, > happy holidays~~~~ > ariella > >
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Panel on Benghazi Attack Heaps Blame On State, Citing 'Systemic Failures' -- Christian Science Monitor
An independent panel investigating the 9/11 attack on the US consulate in Benghazi released a report finding that the State Department failed at securing the compound on multiple fronts.
An independent panel investigating the 9/11 attack on the United States consulate in Benghazi concluded that the State Department suffered “systemic failures” in providing adequate security.
The failures listed in a report released last night include relying too heavily on poorly trained local militias for security; “leadership and management” deficiencies in coordination of two important State Department bureaus; and an “under resourced” embassy lacking adequate security equipment, such as security cameras and outer perimeter walls high enough to protect the compound.
New Imaging System Could Make America's Stealth Technology Obsolete -- Business Insider
The stealth technology of America's fifth-generation jet fighters, the F-22 and the F-35, could be obsolete after a new discovery from the University of Rochester in New York.
One main goal of fifth-generation aircrafts is to slip through skies over enemy lines without being targeted. It's not invisible, but elusive, and digitally feisty.
In Sign of Normalization, Pentagon to Reimburse Pakistan $688 Million -- New York Times
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon quietly notified Congress this month that it would reimburse Pakistan nearly $700 million for the cost of stationing 140,000 troops on the border with Afghanistan, an effort to normalize support for the Pakistani military after nearly two years of crises and mutual retaliation.
The biggest proponent of putting foreign aid and military reimbursements to Pakistan on a steady footing is the man President Barack Obama is leaning toward naming as secretary of state: Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts. Mr. Kerry, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has frequently served as an envoy to Pakistan, including after the killing of Osama bin Laden, and was a co-author of a law that authorized five years and about $7.5 billion of nonmilitary assistance to Pakistan.
After The Sands Of Iwo Jima -- Max Boot, Wall Street Journal
The Marines had the idea of enlisting journalists, making their story far more compelling to the civilians back home.
The Marines are the most celebrated but least understood of our four military services. They have done a brilliant job of burnishing their martial image, from the days of the 1949 John Wayne movie "The Sands of Iwo Jima" to today's "The Few, the Proud, the Marines" commercials. With nearly 200,000 personnel and their own aircraft, tanks and artillery, they comprise one of the most capable military forces in the world. But so adept have the Marines become at telling their story—somehow the even less-than-heroic portrayals in "Gomer Pyle, USMC" and "Heavy Metal Jacket" have enhanced their reputation—that it isn't always easy to separate myth from reality.
That is a task that Aaron B. O'Connell, a history professor at the Naval Academy and himself a Marine reservist, tackles with brio in his absorbing account of the Marines between 1941 and 1965, "Underdogs: The Making of the Modern Marine Corps." Prior to World War II, Mr. O'Connell notes, the Corps "was tiny, unpopular and institutionally disadvantaged"—it had just 50,000 men, and it was seen as an adjunct of the Navy. Its commandant was a two-star general who didn't even merit a seat on the newly created Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1942.
A coalition force member demonstrates weapons tactics to Afghan national police during weapons training in western Afghanistan's Farah province, Dec. 12, 2012. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Pete Thibodeau
Insight: Afghans Turn To AK-47, Fearing Taliban Return Or Civil War -- Reuters
(Reuters) - Afghan father-of-four Mohammad Nasir has a secret he's been keeping from his family.
The aid worker pulls a television bench out from the living-room wall of his Kabul home. Behind it is a carved out shelf, hiding what he hopes will keep loved ones safe when Western troops withdraw by the end of 2014 -- an AK-47 assault rifle.
Arms purchases are soaring in Afghanistan, along with the price of weapons, a sign that many Afghans fear a return of the Taliban, civil war or rising lawlessness.
An assault rifle cost $400 a year ago. Today, some arms dealers are selling them for triple the price.
And it's not just ordinary Afghans who are buying. Warlords who control militias, and former anti-Soviet mujahideen fighters are also boosting the trade.
Putin’s Arms Dealers Are Selling More Weapons to More Dirtbags Than Ever -- Danger Room
Vladimir Putin wants to build a big friggin’ army. But to pay for it, the Russian president has expanded the amount of Russian weapons sold around the globe, and he isn’t being all that discriminating about who he sells them to.
“Let’s talk about our results — they are positive,” Putin said on Monday while meeting with officials. “We are reaching a record level of weapons exports. Their total volume was above $14 billion.” That would be the highest ever for Moscow.
