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SEPTEMBER 19, 2014
Russian Nuclear Bombers Buzz Alaska, N.
September 19, 2014 2:20 pm BY Bill Gertz Russian strategic nuclear bombers carried out air defense zone incursions near Alaska and across Northern Europe this week in the latest nuclear saber rattling by Moscow. Six Russian aircraft, including two Bear H nuclear bombers, two MiG-31 fighter jets and two IL-78 refueling tankers were intercepted by F-22 fighters on Wednesday west and north of Alaska in air defense identification zones, said Navy Capt. Jeff A. Davis, a spokesman for the U.S. Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command. Two other Bears were intercepted by Canadian jets on Thursday. “The group of Russian aircraft flew a loop south, returning westward toward Russia,” Davis told the Free Beacon. A day later two more Bear bombers were intercepted by Canadian CF-18 jets in the western area of the Canadian air defense identification zone near the Beaufort Sea, north of Alaska, he said. The Russian bombers did not enter U.S. airspace but flew within 63 miles of the Alaskan coast and 46 miles of the Canadian coastline, Davis said. In both instances, the Russian bombers did not enter sovereign airspace, he added, noting the Russian aircraft flew within about 55 nautical miles of the Alaskan coastline, and within about 40 nautical miles of the Canadian coastline. One defense official said the Russian bomber activity appeared timed to the visit to the United States and Canada by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. The Ukrainian leader was in Ottawa for meetings with Canadian leaders on Wednesday. He met with President Obama on Thursday. Ukraine is locked in a battle with Moscow over the Russian military annexation of Crimea and continuing backing of pro-Russian Ukrainian militias in eastern Ukraine. Over Europe on Tuesday, two Bear H bombers conducted practice strategic bombing runs on Tuesday and were met by interceptor jets from Norway, Denmark, Britain, and Netherlands, defense officials told the Free Beacon. “NATO jets … were scrambled to visually identify unknown aircraft approaching allied airspace,” said a NATO military officer who confirmed details of the incident. “The approaching aircraft were identified as two Tu-95 Russian Bear H bombers,” he said. “The Russian flights originated in the Barents Sea and went through international airspace down to the North Sea off the Dutch coast.” The Russian aircraft flew in international airspace “close to NATO territory” but did not violate allied airspace, the officer said. The NATO jets were scrambled as a response to the approach of unidentified aircraft, the officer said. The type of NATO jets involved in the intercepts was not provided. The Telegraph reported that British Royal Air Force Typhoon jets took part. “This is a standard procedure because these flights also pose a potential risk to civil aviation given that the Russian military often do not file flight plans, or use their on-board transponders,” he added. “This means civilian air traffic control cannot identify these aircraft nor ensure there is no interference with civilian air traffic.” The officer said similar intercepts have taken place in the past. “NATO jets routinely identify, intercept, and escort Russian military planes that fly unannounced in international airspace but close to allied borders,” he said, noting the missions are “entirely defensive.” “The event that occurred on 16 September shows NATO aircraft from several allies cooperating and coordinated by national and allied air command and control centers in a mission that reflects NATO’s readiness and determination to ensure collective security,” he said. In a related development, Sweden’s military on Friday confirmed that two Russian Su-24 fighter-bombers violated the country’s airspace on Wednesday. A Gripen jet fighter was scrambled to intercept the jets. Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt called the Russian jet incident “the most serious aerial incursion by the Russians during my years as foreign minister,” Sweden’s news outlet The Local reported Friday. Russia’s strategic aviation forces have sharply increased flights in recent months in Asia, near Alaska, Canada, and the United States and Europe. The flights were carried out amid growing tensions with Russia over its military annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea and continuing covert military destabilization of eastern Ukraine. The NATO alliance announced earlier this month that it is creating a rapid response military force in Eastern Europe to counter the growing threat of Russian intervention. “Russia’s aggressive actions against Ukraine have fundamentally challenged our vision of a Europe whole, free, and at peace,” NATO said in a concluding statement Sept. 5. Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney, a former Alaskan Air Command commander with experience in Russian strategic flight incursions, said the increased bomber activity appears related to nuclear activities. “They are having a very aggressive nuclear readiness exercise now as a show of force,” McInerney said. “Whereas the U.S. has been on a path of nuclear zero which they think is ridiculous.” McInerney added: “The Russians sense weakness in American leadership and they are trying to intimidate us and show us that our nuclear deterrent forces are vulnerable to Russian nuclear forces.” Other recent Bear bomber incidents included a practice cruise missile attack by two bombers off the coast of Canada earlier this month. That incident appeared timed to the NATO summit meeting in Wales. The U.S. Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command in August stated that Russian strategic nuclear bombers sharply increased incursions into U.S. air defense zone. More than 16 bomber flights were tracked and intercepted by U.S. and Canadian jets during a 10-day period that month. The new aggressive military posture appears to be an element of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s policy of seeking to return Russia to its Soviet empire status. Russia, under Putin, is engaged in a large-scale nuclear buildup that includes new missiles, submarines, and a new bomber. On Sept. 10, the Russian navy conducted a test firing of a new submarine-launched ballistic missile. State-run Interfax-AVN news service reported earlier this week that nuclear cruise missile firing Russian Tu-95 Bear Bombers and Tu-22 Backfire C bombers completed missions that involved “snap readiness checks” in the Pacific. Russian military forces also are bolstering forces in the arctic as part of Moscow’s efforts to secure resources in the region. Two military bases are being built at Wrangel Island, on the arctic Chukchi Sea north of the Russian Far East, and on Cape Schmidt, also on the Chukchi Sea, the Moscow Times reported Sept. 8. The report said the bases were part of Moscow’s efforts to restore the Soviet military presence in the resource-rich arctic. Russia also is deploying new attack submarines to the region. Update 5:50 P.M.: This story has been updated to include developing information about the Russian incursion off the coast of Alaska. |
CIA halts spying in Europe
September 19, 2014 - 10:05 PM BY KEN DILANIAN, Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — The CIA has curbed spying on friendly governments in Western Europe in response to the furor over a German caught selling secrets to the United States and the Edward Snowden revelations of classified information held by the National Security Agency, according to current and former U.S. officials. The pause in decades of espionage, which remains partially in effect, was designed to give CIA officers time to examine whether they were being careful enough and to evaluate whether spying on allies is worth running the risk of discovery, said a U.S. official who has been briefed on the situation. Under the stand-down order, case officers in Europe largely have been forbidden from undertaking "unilateral operations" such as meeting with sources they have recruited within allied governments. Such clandestine meetings are the bedrock of spying. CIA officers are still allowed to meet with their counterparts in the host country's intelligence service, conduct joint operations with host country services and conduct operations with the approval of the host government. Recently, unilateral operations targeting third country nationals — Russians in France, for example —were restarted. But most meetings with sources who are host nationals remain on hold, as do new recruitments. The CIA declined to comment. James Clapper, the U.S. director of national intelligence, said during a public event Thursday that the U.S. is assuming more risk because it has stopped spying on "specific targets," though he didn't spell out details. Spying stand-downs are common after an operation is compromised, but "never this long or this deep," said a former CIA official, who, like others interviewed for this article, spoke on condition of anonymity because it's illegal to discuss classified material or activities. The pause, which has been in effect for about two months, was ordered by senior CIA officials through secret cables. The current stand-down was part of the fallout from the July 2 arrest of a 31-year-old employee of the German intelligence service. Suspected of spying for Russia, he told authorities he passed 218 German intelligence documents to the CIA. In a second case, authorities searched the home and office of a German defense official suspected of spying for the U.S., but he denied doing so, and no charges have been filed against him. A few days later, Germany asked the CIA station chief in Berlin to leave the country, an unprecedented demand from a U.S. ally. The move demonstrated how seriously the Germans were taking the situation, having already been stung by revelations made by Snowden, a former NSA systems administrator, that the agency had tapped German Chancellor Angela Merkel's mobile phone. The NSA disclosure infuriated Merkel, who demanded explanations from President Barack Obama. It embarrassed both world leaders and has left many Germans skeptical about cooperating with the U.S. CIA managers were worried that the incident could lead European security services to begin closely watching CIA personnel. Many agency officers in Europe, operating out of U.S. embassies, have declared their status as intelligence operatives to the host country. The spying stand-down comes at an inopportune time, with the U.S. worried about Europeans extremists going to fight in Syria, Europe's response to Russian aggression and European hostility to American technology companies following revelations the companies turned over data to the NSA. While the U.S. cooperates closely with Europe against terrorism, spying can help American officials understand what their allies are planning and thinking, whether about counterterrorism or trade talks. The "EUR" division, as it is known within the CIA, covers Canada, Western Europe and Turkey. While spying on Western European allies is not a top priority, Turkey is considered a high priority target — an Islamic country that talks to U.S. adversaries such as Iran, while sharing a border with Syria and Iraq. It was not known to what extent the stand-down affected operations in Turkey. European countries also are used as safe venues to conduct meetings between CIA officers and their sources from the Middle East and other high priority areas. Those meetings have been rerouted to other locales while the pause is in place. The European Division staff has long been considered among the most risk-averse in the agency, several former case officers said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to discuss secret intelligence matters by name. A former CIA officer who worked under nonofficial cover wrote a 2008 book in which he described a number of operational "stand- downs," in Europe, including one in France in 1998 because of the World Cup soccer championship, and another in a European country in 2005, in response to unspecified security threats. The former officer, whose true name has not been made public, wrote "The Human Factor: Inside the CIA's Dysfunctional Intelligence Culture," under a pseudonym, Ishmael Jones. He is a former Marine who served 15 years in the agency before resigning in 2006. The CIA acknowledged his status as a case officer when it successfully sued him for publishing the book without first submitting it for pre-publication censorship, as he was required to do under his secrecy agreement. The CIA last faced that sort of blowback from a European ally in 1996, when several of its officers were ordered to leave France. An operation to uncover French positions on world trade talks was unraveled by French authorities because of poor CIA tactics, according to a secret CIA inspector general report, details of which were leaked to reporters. The Paris flap left the EUR division much less willing to mount risky espionage operations, many former case officers have said. Politician accused of dropping pants, hurling racist slurs dropping out of race
By Brian Amaral updated September 19, 2014 at 3:24 PM SOUTH PLAINFIELD — A borough council candidate is bowing out of his race after revelations that he allegedly shouted racist slurs while mooning patrons of a local diner. Joe Sorrentino, in a statement released Wednesday by his Democratic ticket, said he made a "stupid mistake" seven years ago, but learned from it. Local Republicans released police reports Wednesday detailing two separate incidents at the Sherbans Diner. "I regret what happened, and I have worked every single day to prove that I am not the man that the report says," Sorrentino said. In 2007, police went to the Sherbans Diner to investigate a report that several men were acting disorderly -- one of the men had allegedly mooned a woman and her daughter, and used a sexist epithet to describe them. The officer arrived to find Sorrentino with his pants down, yelling the N-word through the diner window, according to the police report. The police officer yelled at Sorrentino to stop, according to the police report. (The reports, which contain offensive language, can be found here.) Sorrentino apologized to police repeatedly, the report said, but was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct. He appeared intoxicated, police said. Sorrentino didn't respond to NJ Advance Media's requests for elaboration. According to the South Plainfield municipal court, the charge was reduced to improper behavior/disorderly conduct, and Sorrentino paid $533 for a fine and court costs. He was in his early 20s at the time. But that wasn't the end of Sorrentino's troubles at the Sherbans Diner. Six years ago, in 2008, a different police officer went out again to the same eatery for a report of disorderly customers. The officer found Sorrentino and his brother, Anthony, in a confrontation with two women. The women said the Sorrentinos were drunk and had called them an epithet for lesbians. The Sorrentinos also threatened to strike them, one of the women said. According to the report, Joe and Anthony Sorrentino told police that they weren't using the epithet to refer to the two women in question. Instead, they allegedly told the officers, they were using it in reference to someone else. The two women misunderstood, and that's how the confrontation began, they said. Police didn't charge anyone in the incident. Sorrentino is a member of the South Plainfield Board of Education and a special education teacher. The election for borough council is Nov. 4. South Plainfield is a borough of about 24,000 in northern Middlesex County. Sorrentino was running on a Democratic ticket with mayoral candidate Chrissy Buteas and council candidate Joe Lambert. They are challenging Republican Mayor Matt Anesh and incumbent council members Alex Barletta and Derryck White. "It's just disturbing," Anesh said in an interview with NJ Advance Media on Wednesday, before Sorrentino dropped out. Anesh said that last year, Sorrentino actually screened for the Republican Party's endorsement. When they asked if he had anything controversial in his past that an opposition researcher might turn up, Sorrentino said no. READ MORE |
Tiny Implants Could Give Humans Self-Healing Superpowers
By Elizabeth Palermo
Wolverine, Ghost Rider, the Incredible Hulk — all of these characters have at least one awesome trait in common: the ability to heal themselves. And now, the Pentagon wants to give ordinary people this superhumancapability.
A new military-sponsored program aims to develop a tiny device that can be implanted in the body, where it will use electrical impulses to monitor the body's organs, healing these crucial parts when they become infected or injured.
Known as Electrical Prescriptions, or ElectRx, the program could reduce dependence on pharmaceutical drugs and offer a new way to treat illnesses, according to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the branch of the U.S. Department of Defense responsible for developing the program. [5 Crazy Technologies That Are Revolutionizing Biotech]
"The technology DARPA plans to develop through the ElectRx program could fundamentally change the manner in which doctors diagnose, monitor and treat injury and illness," Doug Weber, program manager for DARPA's biological technologies office, said in a statement.
The implant that DARPA hopes to develop is something akin to a tiny, intelligent pacemaker, Weber said. The device would be implanted into the body, where it would continually assess a person's condition and provide any necessary stimulus to the nerves to help maintain healthy organ function, he added.
The idea for the technology is based on a biological process known as neuromodulation, in which the peripheral nervous system (the nerves that connect every other part of the body to the brain and spinal cord) monitors the status of internal organs and regulate the body's responses to infection and disease. When a person is sick or injured, this natural process can sometimes be thrown off, according to DARPA. Instead of making a person feel better, neuromodulation can actually exacerbate a condition, causing pain, inflammation and a weakened immune system.
But with the help of an electrically charged implant, DARPA says it can keep neuromodulation under control. Electric impulses from the device will stimulate the nerve patterns that help the body heal itself and keep the out-of-whack nerve stimulus patterns that cause a sick person even greater harm from doing damage.
DARPA hopes to develop a device so tinythat it can be implanted using only a needle. Such a small implant would be a huge improvement over similar neuromodulation devices already in use today, most of which are about the size of a deck of cards and require invasive surgery to implant, according to DARPA.
And the miniature size of the device has another advantage: It can be placed exactly where it is needed at nerve endings. An implant as small as a nerve fiber could minimize the side effects caused by implants whose electric impulses aren't sent directly into nerve channels, DARPA officials said.
The device could help treat a host of painful, inflammatory conditions, such as rheumatoid arthritis, systemic inflammatory response syndrome (a condition that causes inflammation throughout the body) and inflammatory bowel disease. And if the ElectRx program is a success, it could also lead to the development of implants that help treat brain and mental-health disorders, such as epilepsy, traumatic brain injury, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression, according to DARPA.
Follow Elizabeth Palermo @techEpalermo.
By Elizabeth Palermo
Wolverine, Ghost Rider, the Incredible Hulk — all of these characters have at least one awesome trait in common: the ability to heal themselves. And now, the Pentagon wants to give ordinary people this superhumancapability.
A new military-sponsored program aims to develop a tiny device that can be implanted in the body, where it will use electrical impulses to monitor the body's organs, healing these crucial parts when they become infected or injured.
Known as Electrical Prescriptions, or ElectRx, the program could reduce dependence on pharmaceutical drugs and offer a new way to treat illnesses, according to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the branch of the U.S. Department of Defense responsible for developing the program. [5 Crazy Technologies That Are Revolutionizing Biotech]
"The technology DARPA plans to develop through the ElectRx program could fundamentally change the manner in which doctors diagnose, monitor and treat injury and illness," Doug Weber, program manager for DARPA's biological technologies office, said in a statement.
The implant that DARPA hopes to develop is something akin to a tiny, intelligent pacemaker, Weber said. The device would be implanted into the body, where it would continually assess a person's condition and provide any necessary stimulus to the nerves to help maintain healthy organ function, he added.
The idea for the technology is based on a biological process known as neuromodulation, in which the peripheral nervous system (the nerves that connect every other part of the body to the brain and spinal cord) monitors the status of internal organs and regulate the body's responses to infection and disease. When a person is sick or injured, this natural process can sometimes be thrown off, according to DARPA. Instead of making a person feel better, neuromodulation can actually exacerbate a condition, causing pain, inflammation and a weakened immune system.
But with the help of an electrically charged implant, DARPA says it can keep neuromodulation under control. Electric impulses from the device will stimulate the nerve patterns that help the body heal itself and keep the out-of-whack nerve stimulus patterns that cause a sick person even greater harm from doing damage.
DARPA hopes to develop a device so tinythat it can be implanted using only a needle. Such a small implant would be a huge improvement over similar neuromodulation devices already in use today, most of which are about the size of a deck of cards and require invasive surgery to implant, according to DARPA.
And the miniature size of the device has another advantage: It can be placed exactly where it is needed at nerve endings. An implant as small as a nerve fiber could minimize the side effects caused by implants whose electric impulses aren't sent directly into nerve channels, DARPA officials said.
The device could help treat a host of painful, inflammatory conditions, such as rheumatoid arthritis, systemic inflammatory response syndrome (a condition that causes inflammation throughout the body) and inflammatory bowel disease. And if the ElectRx program is a success, it could also lead to the development of implants that help treat brain and mental-health disorders, such as epilepsy, traumatic brain injury, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression, according to DARPA.
Follow Elizabeth Palermo @techEpalermo.