china confidential
Monday, November 10, 2008
Chinese UAVs Unveiled at Airshow
State-run defense companies impressed analysts attending Airshow China.
Janes Information Group reports:The full extent of Chinese unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) development has been revealed for the first time at Airshow China, where more than a dozen aircraft have been unveiled by a string of state-run defence companies.
The wide range of UAV and unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV) designs on show at the 4-9 November event in Zhuhai - some at the concept stage, some still in testing and others entering production--also demonstrated the culture of intense competition that exists between the various elements of China's military-industrial complex in the UAV sphere, not to mention the wealth of options open to the People's Liberation Army (PLA) when it comes to placing orders.
The number of UCAV designs further showed the progress being made by the Chinese military towards achieving its goal of being able to conduct 'informationised' warfare.
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IRA Dissidents Terrorizing Northern Ireland
SPLINTER GROUPS USING BOMBS TO ATTACK POLICE
Foreign Confidential....
IRA dissidents pose a rising threat in Northern Ireland.
Shawn Pogatchnik reports from Dublin:Irish Republican Army splinter groups are launching more attacks in Northern Ireland than at any time in recent years, and are increasingly trying to kill police officers, international experts said in a report published Monday.
The IRA renounced violence and disarmed in 2005 after killing nearly 1,800 people in a failed 1970-97 effort to force Northern Ireland out of the United Kingdom. But breakaway groups are trying to keep alive that campaign of violence and undermine the central achievement of Northern Ireland's peace process: a power-sharing government that unites British Protestants with the Irish Catholics of Sinn Fein, the IRA-linked party.
The report said one splinter group, called the Real IRA, badly wounded one police officer by detonating a bomb under his private car in May; firebombed four businesses; tried to recruit disillusioned members of the mainstream IRA; and "continued to seek to obtain weapons from associates, criminals and from overseas as well as by manufacturing them itself."
And it said another, the Continuity IRA, tried twice in recent months to blow up police patrols near the border. The group planted a remote-controlled bomb under a small bridge in June, and fired rocket-propelled grenades containing Semtex plastic explosive....
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Also Rising: Crime and Cocaine Use
Ironically, the dismantling of paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland has led to a breakdown in security resulting in increased criminal activity, including large-scale drug dealing and drug smuggling.
In fact, Northern Ireland now faces a cocaine “epidemic”, after new figures revealed that its use has tripled in just four years.
The news comes as over £400m of the drug was seized in a major Garda and Irish armed forces operation last Friday.
Security sources told reporters that had the haul had not been seized, a significant amount of the drug would have been smuggled into Northern Ireland.
Yachting Monthly reports on the seizure of the "cocaine yacht:"The 60-foot sloop 'Dances With Waves', detained off the coast of Ireland last Friday with over 1,800kg of cocaine on board, was apparently doomed to arrest from almost the minute it left the Caribbean.
Suspicions over 'Dances With Waves' mounted when she was detected in waters off Trinidad & Tobago. Just 17 months ago, the catamaran 'Lucky Day', whose 1,554kg cocaine shipment was seized in Dunlough Bay in west Cork, began her transatlantic journey from precisely these same waters.
As the sloop battled gales and mountainous seas to cross the Atlantic with her cargo of 1,875kg of cocaine, her every movement was watched by the US Drug Enforcement Agency, the Portugal-based Maritime Analysis and Operations Centre; the UK's elite Serious Organised Crime Agency and Ireland's Joint Drugs Taskforce.
Experts suggest that the yacht was tracked on radar in the Caribbean by a long range P-3 Orion surveillance aircraft, before being tracked by US satellites and 'black', or virtually undetectable radar, before its position was relayed ashore by Irish aircraft.2,000-Year-Old Gold Earring Unearthed in Jerusalem
Foreign Confidential....
The Israel Antiquities Authority says archeologists have discovered a 2,000-year-old gold earring beneath a parking lot next to the walls of Jerusalem's old city.
The authority says the earring is inlaid with pearls and emeralds and was made around the time of Jesus, between first century BC and the beginning of the fourth century AD.
In a statement released Monday the authority said the "astonishingly well-preserved" piece was discovered during excavation of the ruins of a building from the Byzantine period, dating from around the fifth century, A.D. It said the earring appeared to have been crafted using a technique similar to that depicted in portraits from Roman-era Egypt.
- AP
Monday, 10 November 2008
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