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India’s foreign minister on Monday defended his country’s right to buy a missile defense system from Russia despite the threat of sanctions from the United States. On a visit to Washington, Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar said India was discussing the US concerns but declined to forecast the ultimate decision on the fate of the S-400 purchase from Russia. “We have always maintained that what we buy — the sourcing of military equipment — is very much a sovereign right,” he told reporters ahead of a meeting with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. “We would not like any state to tell us what to buy or not to buy from Russia any more than we would like any state to tell us to buy or not buy from America,” he said. “That freedom of choice is ours and we think it’s in everybody’s interest to recognize that,” he said. India, a Cold War ally of the Soviet Union, last year agreed to buy five S-400 systems for $5.2 billion, and Russia has said that delivery is on track. Under a 2017 law, the

You’ll have heard that Tony Hall has reversed the BBC’s unfortunate decision about Naga Munchetti and she has been uncensured. Will heads roll? Come back John Humphrys, that’s your speciality isn’t it? I intended to watch Jane Corbin’s take on the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, mainly because I’ve just mastered the fluent pronunciation of 'Khashoggi', with both adjacent gs (hard and soft) bound seamlessly together, which is more than most BBC announcers can manage.  The problem was that the TV was tuned to Channel Four and I was transfixed by the post-conference interview with a portly-looking Krishnan Guru-Murphy, Rachel Sylvester, Craig Oliver and Gillian Keegan MP.   Tory MP Gillian Keegan tells @krishgm re Johnson groping claims: ‘I've no reason not to believe him’ https://t.co/ZGhx9zfywd — Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) September 30, 2019 Unsurprisingly, being Channel 4, the topic they were most excited about was Boris and thigh-gate. Who lied? If it wasn’t Ch

Shabaab has conducted two major attacks on foreign troops inside Somalia today. The first targeted U.S. personnel at a base outside of Mogadishu, while the second hit Italian troops on patrol inside of Mogadishu. The first claimed attack occurred earlier today at a joint U.S.-Somali base in Baledogle, roughly 70 miles northwest of Mogadishu. According to reports, a suicide car bomb rammed into the base’s gate before detonating. Following the explosion, an assault team entered the fray. This is a common tactic employed by Shabaab routinely seen in its raids on hotels and government facilities in Mogadishu. In Shabaab’s statement of responsibility, it claimed killing “over 100” U.S. and Somali troops, though this is likely a stark exaggeration. Locals reported hearing a fierce firefight within the base , however, no casualties have been reported within either U.S. or Somali ranks. Shabaab’s statement also made the unsubstantiated claim that Israeli forces were present at the base.

Pentagon Navy announces new CIO By Lauren C. Williams Sep 30, 2019 Aaron Weis has been named as the Navy’s new CIO. The Navy formally announced the new role for Weis, a former senior advisor at the Navy Department’s Chief Information Office, on Sept. 27. The news comes more than a month after Navy Undersecretary Thomas Modly, who had been acting as CIO, signaled the department’s decision to elevate the position . Weis will also serve as the principal staff assistant to the Navy Secretary on information technology management, digital, data and cyber strategy, overseeing technology , data, digital strategy and cybersecurity . The Navy also whittled down its office of the CIO in 2018 amid a realignment effort to turn that shop from more of a compliance-based organization to that could “help rapidly prioritize and accelerate business transformation initiatives," Modly wrote in a March 2018 memo. The new CIO structure follows the Navy’s cybersecurity review, released in Ma

AI & Analytics Back to basics: How this mindset shapes AI decision-making By Frank Strickland Sep 30, 2019 When it comes to future military readiness, 2019 has been the year of artificial intelligence. The Department of Defense launched its  AI strategy  in February followed by the White House's  executive order  on “Maintaining American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence” -- both of which indicate accelerated delivery of AI-enabled capabilities and scaling the technology across DOD while cultivating a much-needed tech workforce. Military leaders recognize AI’s potentially seismic impact on their mission and operations, and they expect practical applications to proliferate, from threat monitoring to asset tracking to predictive maintenance. Where, when and how those applications evolve from idea to reality is an unfolding story. So too is the global AI landscape, as Russia, China and other countries make substantial investments in such capabilities.  Given the urgen

  🇬🇧 Displayed here now are much better illustrations of Royal Mail’s upcoming issue which commemorates the 20th anniversary of the publication of Julia Donaldson’s children’s book, The Gruffalo. The issue is made up of 6 stamps (2 se-tenant strips of 3), 1 miniature sheet containing 4 different stamps and a ‘Genetic/Collectors sheet’ to be sold for £11.50p. The issue will be released on 10 October 2019 and was designed by Rose and lithographed by International Security Printers and perforated 14. A pleasant if inconsequential issue. Rating:- **. 🇦🇺 Australia Post will issue a single stamp on 1 October 2019 to commemorate the Australian cricket team’s success in drawing the Ashes series with the English team. As a result of the two teams winning two matches each and drawing one, the Australian team retained the Ashes trophy. The English men’s team had of course already won the Cricket World Cup this summer, following in the footsteps of the English wo

Things I don’t want to see on TV (or read online or in the press.) 1) Do people really care what Boris Johnson did under the dinner table twenty years ago? Back then the killer look was an effective way of dealing with creepy things like that. Norman Smith is in Manchester. He likes to use his own brand of flippancy to spin the news. He thinks Boris’s irrelevant, electioneering-motivated promises about 'busses' is sheer deflection from the far more serious matter of inappropriate thigh-squeezing. In the studio, Joanna Gosling jokes chummily, “He likes busses”  If that ain’t Naga style editorialising I don’t know what is.  Don’t you just hate it when people you quite like say really stupid things? 2) Take, for example, Brendan O’Neill. He’s written about Naga-gate over at the Spectator - You’ve probably read it by now. Everything he’s written is negated by his opening remark, which is that Trump’s abbreviated (quote-mined)  tweet was racist. Fortunately for my continui

F-35 Testing Delays Continue, Even as Aircraft Has Made Its Combat Debut (excerpt) (Source: Military.com; posted Sept. 27, 2019) The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter will not complete its already-delayed formal operational test phase this fall because of a setback in the testing process, according to a source close to the program. While the F-35 Initial Operational Test and Evaluation (IOT&E) was supposed to be complete by late summer, a source with knowledge of its development said the testing is still incomplete due to an unfinished phase known as the Joint Simulation Environment. The JSE simulations project characteristics such as weather, geography and range, allowing test pilots to prove the aircraft's "full capabilities against the full range of required threats and scenarios," according to a 2015 Director, Operational Test & Evaluation (DOT&E) report. The F-35 Joint Program Office (JPO), in coordination with the Defense Department, confirmed that the Joint

(Source: US Department of Defense; issued Sept. 27, 2019) The Boeing Co., Seattle, Washington, has been awarded a $2,628,005,872 modification (P00165) to previously awarded contract FA8625-11-C-6600 for Lot 5 production KC-46 aircraft, initial spares, and support equipment. The contract modification provides for the exercise of an option for an additional quantity of 15 KC-46 aircraft, data, two spare engines, five wing refueling pod kits, initial spares, support equipment, subscriptions and licenses, and G081 flat file being produced under the basic contract. Work will be performed in Seattle, Washington, and is expected to be completed by March 2023. Fiscal 2017 aircraft procurement funds in the amount of $112,957,314; fiscal 2018 aircraft procurement funds in the amount of $363,104,247; and fiscal 2019 aircraft procurement funds in the amount of $2,151,944,310 are being obligated at the time of award. The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, O

Boeing engineers and safety investigators are scrambling to find out how many Boeing 737NGs have cracked 'pickle forks' after finding several in the jets. A pickle fork is the part that helps attach a plane's fuselage to its wing structure. It helps manage the stress, torque and aerodynamic forces that bend the connection between the wings and the body of the jet. Engineers design pickle forks to last the lifetime of the plane, more than 90,000 landings and takeoffs, a term known as "flight cycles" in the aviation industry, without developing cracks. There could be dire results if the pickle fork system on the jet fails in flight. During a recent inspection, workers found a severely cracked pickle fork on a Boeing 737NG. The plane is relatively young, having logged approximately 35,000 flight cycles when the damage was found. A retired Boeing engineer who asked to remain anonymous tells us, "It's unusual to have a crack in the pickle fork. It's not

With small unmanned aircraft systems - frequently called drones, becoming more common every day, the Air Force Research Laboratory Directed Energy Directorate at Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico, has developed a counter-swarm high power weapon that should cause those with nefarious intentions of using drones against United States forces at U.S. military installations at home or overseas to think twice about such actions. AFRL exhibited the technology, called the Tactical High-power Operational Responder (THOR), at the 2019 Air Force Association Air, Space, and Cyber Conference at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center, located just across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C. and Virginia, September 16-18. Although AFRL's THOR is not a hammer-wielding god associated with thunder and lightning, it is a counter-swarm electromagnetic weapon that AFRL developed for airbase defense. The system provides non-kinetic defeat of multiple targets. It operates from ground pow

A U.S. Army research result brings the quantum internet a step closer. Such an internet could offer the military security, sensing and timekeeping capabilities not possible with traditional networking approaches. The U.S. Army's Combat Capability Development's Army Research Laboratory's Center for Distributed Quantum Information, funded and managed by the lab's Army Research Office, saw researchers at the University of Innsbruck achieve a record for the transfer of quantum entanglement between matter and light - a distance of 50 kilometers using fiber optic cables. Entanglement is a correlation that can be created between quantum entities such as qubits. When two qubits are entangled and a measurement is made on one, it will affect the outcome of a measurement made on the other, even if that second qubit is physically far away. "This [50 kilometers] is two orders of magnitude further than was previously possible and is a practical distance to start building inte

It’s been an excellent month for the LCA Navy, India’s first fighter jet for carrier deck operations. Just over two weeks after its debut tailhook arrested recovery in Goa, a prototype of the aircraft completed the full sequence of launch and arrested recovery in a single sortie — a major milestone in flight test, and one that brings significant validations to move the program ahead. The flight took place yesterday. In a statement, the Defence Ministry said, “On 29 September, 2019, LCA Naval Prototype-2 launched off the ski jump at 1621 hours and then subsequently “trapped” at 1631 hrs on the arresting gear site (both locations situated at Shore Based Test Facility INS Hansa, Goa). While both these activities had been achieved individually earlier, this was the first occasion when the complete cycle of launch and recovery necessary for aircraft carrier operations was accomplished in a single sortie.” It added, “A seminal achievement was accomplished in the quest for technologies rel

The video released by the #Houthis showing the massive operation inside Najran, #SaudiArabia this weekend is insane. It is clear that the Saudis took beyond heavy losses and the Houthi claims appear to be accurate. Just look at the massive amounts of POWs taken by the Houthis. pic.twitter.com/t11s0Jk8z9 — Caleb Weiss (@Weissenberg7) September 29, 2019 Yemen’s Houthi insurgents have reported a huge assault on multiple fronts inside Saudi Arabia’s southern Najran province. Massive personnel and material losses are reported, though Saudi officials have yet to comment on the raids. Yesterday, the Houthi military spokesman, Yahya Saree, announced that a major operation inside Najran dubbed “Victory from God” had occurred over the previous 72 hours. Saree added that the operation was the biggest of its kind since the war began over four years ago. According to the spokesman, over 300 raids were carried out over the three day period. Saree, via the Houthi-ran news channel Al M

I don’t think I need to write much about Andrew Marr’s embarrassing performance with Boris Johnson this morning. Everyone on Twitter is having a massive go at him. I don’t think Andy did himself or the BBC any good at all.  Not only was the “interruption quotient” through the roof (i don’t think the PM was allowed to finish one sentence) but it looked as though Marr was trying to extract a ‘gotcha’, and the pettiness of the questioning was stultifying and totally counterproductive. PM Boris Johnson says he has been "a model of restraint" when it comes to his use of language around the #Brexit debate, after being accused of dismissing abuse fears of female MPs as "humbug" [Tap to expand] https://t.co/OcxOAPLFFn pic.twitter.com/3ZwsGMRfQh — BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) September 29, 2019 I’m not the only one who noticed the comparatively smooth ride enjoyed by Angela Rayner moments later. A joyride, even. Marr didn’t even bat an eyelid at her assertion that

Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, California January 26 — May 17, 2020 Granville Redmond (American, 1871–1935), Sand Dunes, n.d. . Oil on canvas, 30 x 40 in. Private collection. Granville Redmond (American, 1871–1935), Carmel Coast (Carmel Sand Dunes and Cypress), n.d. Oil on canvas, 30 x 40 inches. Collection of Paula & Terry Trotter. Widely considered one of California’s top early artists, Granville Redmond (1871–1935) produced a body of work that captures the state's diverse topography, vegetation, and color. His paintings range in style from contemplative, Tonalist works that evoke a quiet calm, to dramatic and colorful Impressionist scenes. Born in Philadelphia, Redmond contracted scarlet fever as a toddler, which left him permanently deaf. Soon after, his family moved to California. Today, Redmond is best known for his colorful Impressionist oils depicting the California landscape ablaze with poppies and other native flora. Silent film star Charlie Ch

 🇭🇰 Whilst there is a state of absolute mayhem on the streets of Hong Kong presently with protesters demonstrating against the government of the special administrative region as well as the Chinese central government, Hong Kong Post plans to release on 1 October 2019 four triangular stamps, 1 miniature sheet containing the 4 stamps and another miniature sheet containing a single stamp to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the founding of The People’s Republic Of China. Additionally the single stamp miniature sheet will also be included in a special pack containing 3 miniature sheets released by The People’s Republic and Macao to commemorate the anniversary.   The colourful and attractive issue was designed by Bon Kwan. Rating:- *****.  With 3 months of the year left and autumn settling in very nicely with its mists and mellow fruitfulness, here is an update of the list of postal administrations which have not so far released any stamps during 2019 (see Blogs 1361 an

Sukhoi and the Russian Ministry of Defense have flown the S-70 Okhotnik unmanned aerial vehicle with Su-57 fifth-generation fighter aircraft for the first time. The flight that laster 30 minutes was part of the ongoing test program. On this flight, Okhotnik flew with a full avionics configuration in an automated mode demonstrating key features for a Manned-Unmanned Teaming (MUM-T) capability. [embedded content] During the flight, Okhotnik provided sensor augmentation for the Su-57, by expanding the fighter’s radar coverage, enabling the Su-57 to acquire targets beyond the reach of its own radar, and outside enemy missiles and air defenses coverage. Okhotnik follows a stealth flying wing design that uses special materials and coatings that reduces its radar signature making it invisible to enemy radar. The UAV is equipped with optoelectronic, and radar sensors to perform both air dominance and reconnaissance missions. Let's block ads! (Why?) from Defense Update: https://ift.

What’s wrong with everybody? Can’t anyone comprehend English these days?
 Perhaps comprehension has been dropped from the school curriculum. Aren't children expected to master comprehension at about eight or nine years of age any more? I'm sure English teachers used to set a passage of text and pupils had to reproduce the gist of it in their own words to demonstrate that they’d properly understood it. “[Reading] comprehension involves three levels of understanding: literal meaning, inferential meaning, and evaluative meaning.” Something has happened. For some reason, it's become commonplace for politically motivated journalists and their followers to maliciously fail to comprehend ‘news’. and no-one seems to bat an eyelid at the alarming proliferation of “Quote mining” .  On TCW David Keighley examines the BBC’s responses to the Emily Maitlis and Naga Munchetti  affairs.  By way of a  personal declaration of non-interest, I can’t stand any of the BBC’s flim-flam fo