Why don’t they get together for a joint venture?
Israel’s national infrastructure minister, Uzi Landau, is due to speak publicly about the idea Tuesday at an international nuclear energy conference in Paris.
"Building a nuclear reactor to produce electricity will allow Israel to achieve energy independence and end its dependence on others," Landau said in a statement.
Israel, Syria want to develop nuclear energy – World news- msnbc.com
This time a new missile launch site.
New Iran rocket launch site shows NKorea links: Jane’s – Yahoo! News
LONDON (AFP) – Iran is building a new rocket launch site a short distance from an existing complex in the north of the country, and seems to be working with North Korea, information group IHS Jane’s said Friday. Construction visible from satellite imagery of the new site, near the city of Semnan east of Tehran, seems to suggest that Tehran has been collaborating with Pyongyang, said the London-based defence intelligence group. Iran unveiled the Simorgh space-launch vehicle (SLV) on February 3, but had not yet publicly revealed the location of the rocket?s launch complex, it reported.
Interesting story. I suppose North Korea is as obsessed with lavish Western status symbols just like South Korea is.
VIENNA – A North Korean colonel who spent two decades going on European shopping sprees for his country’s rulers said Thursday the late dictator Kim Il Sung lived in luxury while many people struggled to survive in his impoverished communist nation.
Kim Jong Ryul, who spent 16 years under cover in Austria, also described how the "great leader" and his son and successor Kim Jong Il spent millions pampering and protecting themselves with Western goods — everything from luxury cars, carpets and exotic foods, to monitors that can detect heartbeats of people hiding behind walls and gold-plated handguns.
Shopper for N. Korea dictator speaks – Asia-Pacific – msnbc.com
This is something that would have been unfathomable just a few years ago….
New school in Area I means a long ride will come to an end | Stars and Stripes
CAMP RED CLOUD, South Korea — Shortly after 6 on a recent morning, children emerged from the pre-dawn darkness here one or two at a time to board a bus for their 90-minute journey south to schools at Yongsan Garrison in Seoul.For the most part, the dozens of children who commute each day between Area I, the northernmost region in South Korea, and Seoul don’t seem to mind the three-hour roundtrip.
But parents and officials with Department of Defense Dependents Schools hope the planned August opening of Area I’s first on-base school, at Camp Casey, will give students something they have missed — a sense of “community.”
As far as the opening date goes, I’ll believe it when I see it.
I’m thinking this “offensive” has taken as many noncombatant lives as it has Taliban….
KABUL, Afghanistan – A NATO airstrike killed at least 27 civilians in central Afghanistan, the Cabinet said Monday, the third time a mistaken coalition strike has killed noncombatants since the start of a major offensive aimed at winning over the population.
The top NATO commander, U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, apologized to the Afghan president, NATO said.
The Afghanistan Council of Ministers strongly condemned the airstrike Sunday in Uruzgan province, calling it "unjustifiable." An earlier statement issued Monday put the death toll at 33. It was not immediately clear why the figure had been revised.
Afghan officials: Airstrike kills 27 civilians – Afghanistan- msnbc.com
The Army isn’t satisfied after any failure without some sort of investigation taking place.
Report faults officers’ absence in Afghan ambush that killed 5 U.S. troops | Stars and Stripes
WASHINGTON — The absence of experienced senior leaders and inadequate action by officers in a tactical operations center, including a failure to provide effective artillery and air support, contributed to the deaths of five U.S. troops and nine Afghans in a Sept. 8 battle, an official investigation has found.
Read the whole article to get a better picture of what took place, but it still leaves a lot of questions unanswered. The officers reprimanded would have probably been screwed had they ordered the artillery and air support because friendly forces or civilians might have been killed. A culture of inertia to act for fear of civilian or friendly casualties, as well as a healthy dose of bureaucracy led to this. It sets a precedent now by which officers will fear inaction and I see a lot more civilian and friendly casualties on the horizon as a result.
There is an increasingly zero-defects mentality emerging in Afghanistan.
Many Koreans suffer some type of personality disorder, be it narcissistic, histrionic, or in this case, borderline. The relationship Korea has with the US (or you may substitute Japan) is characterized by five of the following (take your pick):
Take the following as an example of fear of abandonment:
The United States and South Korea are headed toward a collision in a dispute over whether American or South Korean officers should command their combined forces if war breaks out on the Korean peninsula. The U.S. says it should be Koreans; the Koreans agree — but argue "not yet."
Moreover, the U.S. has informed the Koreans that American forces in Korea, while prepared to help South Korea defend itself against North Korea, have started to focus on missions outside the Korean peninsula in East Asia and around the world. The Koreans have expressed misgivings, fearing the U.S. will abandon Korea.
S. Korea jittery over command issue | honoluluadvertiser.com | The Honolulu Advertiser
Let the record show that not once in my almost 19 years have I ever received any type of bonus or incentive….
The U.S. Army has made significant investments in its future, especially in its leadership. In particular, the Army has devoted billions of dollars to officer undergraduate-level education, world class training, and developmental experiences. Since the late 1980s, however, prospects for the Officer Corps’ future have been darkened by an ever-diminishing return on this investment, as evidenced by plummeting company-grade officer retention rates. Significantly, this leakage includes a large share of high-performing officers, many of them developed via a fully-funded undergraduate education.
In the last few years, the Army has responded to this challenge with unprecedented retention incentives, to include broadly offered cash payments.
This should keep more units stuck on the FOBs because their commanders and sergeants major will fear for their OERs/NCOERs.
The U.S. military has reprimanded an unusually large number of commanders for battlefield failures in Afghanistan in recent weeks, reflecting a new push by the top brass to hold commanders responsible for major incidents in which troops are killed or wounded, said senior military officials.
The military does not release figures on disciplinary actions taken against field commanders. But officials familiar with recent investigations said letters of reprimand or other disciplinary action have been recommended for officers involved in three ambushes in which U.S. troops battled Taliban forces in remote villages in 2008 and 2009. Such administrative actions can scuttle chances for promotion and end a career if they are made part of an officer’s permanent personnel file.
U.S. military punishes more officers – Washington Post- msnbc.com
I of course had the fortunate option of choosing whether I would have a reprimand/disciplinary action or plead mental illness, and I wisely chose the latter.
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Dysthymia 