Topic: WAR - on July 13, 2016 at 11:45:00 AM CEST
Mass Shootings
A note that the data on shootingtracker.com will now comply with the standard Gun Violence Archive methodology on how mass shootings are counted. Gun Violence Archive has always used the FBI derived definition: FOUR or more shot and/or killed in a single event [incident], at the same general time and location, not including the shooter. This difference is that we do not count the shooter among the victims when determining if a shooting reaches the threshold of Mass Shooting. It insures a clear separation between victims of a shooting and those who perpetrate the crime. GVA also does not parse the definition to exclude any type of gun violence such as gang shooting or domestic violence. The definition is purely numerical and reflects ALL shootings which reach that statistical threshold.
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Topic: WAR - on June 30, 2016 at 11:50:00 AM CEST
When Music Is Violence
From trumpets at the walls of Jericho to pop songs as torture in the Iraq War, sound can make an effective weapon. In December, 1989, the Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega was expelled from power by American forces. To escape capture, he took refuge in the Papal Nunciatura in Panama City. When an American general arrived to confer with the papal nuncio, the U.S. Army blared music from loudspeakers to prevent journalists from eavesdropping. Members of a psychological-operations unit then decided that non-stop music might aggravate Noriega into surrendering. They made requests for songs on the local armed-forces radio station, and directed the din at Noriega’s window. The dictator was thought to prefer opera, and so hard rock dominated the playlist. The songs conveyed threatening, sometimes mocking messages: Alice Cooper’s “No More Mr. Nice Guy,” AC/DC’s “You Shook Me All Night Long.”
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Topic: WAR - on June 30, 2016 at 11:48:00 AM CEST
Escape Tunnel, Dug by Hand, Is Found at Holocaust Massacre Site
A team of archaeologists and mapmakers say they have uncovered a forgotten tunnel that 80 Jews dug largely by hand as they tried to escape from a Nazi extermination site in Lithuania about 70 years ago.
The Lithuanian site, Ponar, holds mass burial pits and graves where up to 100,000 people were killed and their bodies dumped or burned during the Holocaust.
Using radar and radio waves to scan beneath the ground, the researchers found the tunnel, a 100-foot passageway between five and nine feet below the surface, the team announced on Wednesday.
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Topic: WAR - on October 19, 2013 at 3:19:00 PM CEST
The Navy’s newest warship is powered by Linux
When the USS Zumwalt (DDG 1000) puts to sea later this year, it will be different from any other ship in the Navy's fleet in many ways. The $3.5 billon ship is designed for stealth, survivability, and firepower, and it's packed with advanced technology. And at the heart of its operations is a virtual data center powered by off-the-shelf server hardware, various flavors of Linux, and over 6 million lines of software code.
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Topic: WAR - on September 2, 2013 at 4:32:00 PM CEST
Sarin chemicals' export claim rejected by UK
The Government was accused of “breathtaking laxity” in its arms controls last night after it emerged that officials authorised the export to Syria of two chemicals capable of being used to make a nerve agent such as sarin a year ago.
The Business Secretary, Vince Cable, will today be asked by MPs to explain why a British company was granted export licences for the dual-use substances for six months in 2012 while Syria’s civil war was raging and concern was rife that the regime could use chemical weapons on its own people. The disclosure of the licences for potassium fluoride and sodium fluoride, which can both be used as precursor chemicals in the manufacture of nerve gas, came as the US Secretary of State John Kerry said the United States had evidence that sarin gas was used in last month’s atrocity in Damascus.
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Topic: WAR - on July 22, 2013 at 5:42:00 PM CEST
AL-QAEDA FREES UP TO 6,000 DETAINEES FROM ABU GHRAIB AND TAJI PRISONS IN IRAQ
Hundreds of Iraqi inmates escaped after insurgents armed with mortars and machines guns launched coordinated late-night assaults on two high-security prisons, sparking gun battles that left dozens of people dead, officials said Monday.
In a separate attack in northern Iraq, a suicide car bomber targeted an army convoy on Monday, killing 13 people, officials said.
The jailbreaks targeted prisons in Taji and Abu Ghraib, which are home to thousands of prisoners including convicted al-Qaida militants. Iraq has seen a surge of violence since April, and the assaults on the prison laid bare the degree to which security has eroded in the country in recent months.
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Topic: WAR - on January 23, 2012 at 11:22:00 AM CET
Air Force Says Iran Didn't Down Drone
The U.S. Air Force recently announced that it knew what had caused one of its RQ-170 UAVs to crash in Iran two months ago. But the air force would not reveal details, except to say that Iran had nothing to do with the UAV crash landing. The air force did say that, because they had figured out what brought the RQ-170 down, they were continuing to fly RQ-170s on reconnaissance missions. The air force also revealed that the RQ-170 lost in Iran was being operated by the CIA.
The RQ-170 first showed up in Afghanistan and South Korea two years ago. The U.S. Air Force then admitted that this was a high altitude reconnaissance UAV developed in secret by Lockheed-Martin during the previous decade. It has a 12 meter (40 foot) wingspan. The RQ-170 is believed to be a replacement for some of the U-2s and a supplemental aircraft for the larger Global Hawk (which has a 42 meter wingspan.) RQ-170s have been operating over Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran for at least a year.
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Topic: WAR - on November 16, 2011 at 8:24:00 AM CET
"The forbidden Srebrenica report" - ITCY Report
The Srebrenica massacre, also known as the Srebrenica genocide, refers to the July 1995 killing, during the Bosnian War, of more than 8,000 Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims), mainly men and boys, in and around the town of Srebrenica in Bosnia and Herzegovina, by units of the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS) under the command of General Ratko Mladić. The mass murder was described by the Secretary-General of the United Nations as the worst crime on European soil since the Second World War. A paramilitary unit from Serbia known as the Scorpions, officially part of the Serbian Interior Ministry until 1991, participated in the massacre and it is alleged that foreign volunteers including the Greek Volunteer Guard also participated.
[PDF] The forbidden Srebrenica report - ICTY.pdf [PDF] The Fall of Srebrenica - United Nations Srebrenica_massacre [wiki]
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Topic: WAR - on August 13, 2011 at 1:06:00 PM CEST
Neo-Nazis tricked by T-shirt that changed message after it was washed
Festival goers at a nationalist, right-wing concert in Germany were taken by surprise when souvenir T-shirts they were given had a secret anti-far right message that emerged only after being washed.
The slogan on the shirts first read “hardcore rebels” along with a skull and nationalist flags. But once washed the slogan turned into a message from a group offering help to right-wing extremists break away from the neo-Nazi scene.
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Topic: WAR - on February 26, 2011 at 7:59:00 PM CET
The Arms Trade is Big Business - The world spends some $1,000 billion annually on the military. How is this so?
As detailed further on the next page on military expenditure, world military spending has now reached one trillion dollars, close to Cold War levels.
As summarized from the Military Balance, 2000/2001, by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (October 2001), for the larger arms-purchasing nations each year:
* Arms procurement is normally 20-30% of their military budgets
* The main portion is usually on operations, maintenance and personnel
* Some 40 to 50 billion dollars are in actual deliveries, (that is, the delivery of sales, which can be many years after the initial contract is signed)
* Each year, around 30-35 billion dollars are made in actual sales (agreements, or signing of contracts).
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Topic: WAR - on December 23, 2010 at 1:45:00 PM CET
The War You Don't See
is a powerful and timely investigation into the media's role in war, tracing the history of 'embedded' and independent reporting from the carnage of World War One to the destruction of Hiroshima, and from the invasion of Vietnam to the current war in Afghanistan and disaster in Iraq. As weapons and propaganda become even more sophisticated, the nature of war is developing into an 'electronic battlefield' in which journalists play a key role, and civilians are the victims.
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Topic: WAR - on October 2, 2010 at 3:48:00 PM CEST
Im Wüstensand versteckte Kampfflugzeuge (13 Fotos)
Irakische Luftwaffe Kampfflugzeuge (MiG-25) wurde in den Dünen nahe dem Flughafen von Al Takkaduma versteckt. Das US-Militär hat grub ihn, nachdem der Informant wies auf die Stelle, wo er Flugzeuge begraben wurde. Nach Angaben der Informanten, auf diese Weise wurde etwa ein Dutzend Flugzeuge versteckt. Die irakische Kommando geplant, später wiederherstellen, und zurück zum Dienst. Buried Flugzeugen auf Al Takkadume mit Tarnnetz, abgedichtet bedeckt, und in einigen Fällen ohne Flügel.
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