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© Reuters Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Ron Prosor (left) and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas
The Israeli move, coinciding with Mr Abbas's arrival to a hero's welcome in the West Bank, came as the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu baldly rejected last Thursday's resounding vote granting the Palestinians full UN observer status.
It left the Palestinian Authority (PA) facing a financial black hole that could prevent it from paying the salaries of thousands of workers, just as Mr Abbas in Ramallah exhorted his countrymen to celebrate "a decisive landmark on the path of our national struggle".
The decision was the latest sign of Israel's mounting fury over last week's vote and came two days after Mr Netanyahu's government announced it would build 3,000 new settlers' home in east Jerusalem and the West Bank, effectively annexing land the Palestinians have earmarked as part of a future state.
Expected to take more than two years to build, at a cost of up to $100 million, the facility is to have classrooms on Level 1, an auditorium on Level 3, a laboratory, shock-resistant doors, protection from nonionizing radiation and very tight security. Clearances will be required for all construction workers, guards will be at the fence and barriers will separate it from the rest of the base.
Only U.S. construction firms are being allowed to bid on the contract, and proposals are due Dec. 3, according to the latest Corps of Engineers notice.
Site 911 is the latest in a long history of military construction projects the United States has undertaken for the IDF under the U.S. Foreign Military Sales program. The 1998 Wye River Memorandum between Israel and the Palestinian Authority has led to about $500 million in U.S. construction of military facilities for the Israelis, most of them initially in an undeveloped part of the Negev Desert. It was done to ensure there were bases to which IDF forces stationed in the West Bank could be redeployed.
© Mark Wilson/Getty Images 'The repressive treatment of Bradley Manning is one of the disgraces of Obama’s first term.'
Over the past two and a half years, all of which he has spent in a military prison, much has been said about Bradley Manning, but nothing has been heard from him. That changed on Thursday, when the 23-year-old US army private accused of leaking classified documents to WikiLeaks testified at his court martial proceeding about the conditions of his detention.
The oppressive, borderline-torturous measures to which he was subjected, including prolonged solitary confinement and forced nudity, have been known for some time. A formal UN investigation denounced those conditions as "cruel and inhuman". President Obama's state department spokesman, retired air force colonel PJ Crowley, resigned after publicly condemning Manning's treatment. A prison psychologist testified this week that Manning's conditions were more damaging than those found on death row, or at Guantánamo Bay.
Still, hearing the accused whistleblower's description of this abuse in his own words viscerally conveyed its horror. Reporting from the hearing, the Guardian's Ed Pilkington quoted Manning: "If I needed toilet paper I would stand to attention and shout: 'Detainee Manning requests toilet paper!'" And: "I was authorised to have 20 minutes sunshine, in chains, every 24 hours." Early in his detention, Manning recalled, "I had pretty much given up. I thought I was going to die in this eight by eight animal cage."
© libyasos.blogspot.ru
The report shows Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) crashing consistently and unpredictably due to a wide array of failures from technical malfunction, to complications in dealing with air traffic controllers, to downright incompetence. The documents, obtained by the Washington Post, number several thousand pages, and show that at least seven drones have crashed near airports in the past two years.
One account from April describes a sub-contracted operator launching an $8.9 million MQ-9 Reaper from the runway at the Seychelles International Airport without getting the go-head from the control tower. The same operator then accidentally switched off the engine without noticing and then tried an emergency landing, but did not release the wheels.
The aircraft was a write-off. It was the second similar accident at the site in just five months.
© ReutersA B53 bomb is seen in this handout taken October 19, 2011 and released October 20, 2011.
The secret project, called "A Study of Lunar Research Flights", as well as "Project A119" was never carried out but initially intended to intimidate the Soviet Union after their launch of the first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, which demonstrated their technological power, the Daily Mail reports.
The sight of a magnificent nuclear flash from Earth was meant to terrify the Soviet Union and boost US confidence, physicist Leonard Reiffel, 85, told the Associated Press. The nuclear device would have been launched from a missile from an unknown location. It would have ignited upon impact with the moon, causing a massive explosion that was visible from Earth.
The detonation would have been the result of an atom bomb, since a hydrogen bomb was too heavy for a missile to carry the 238,000 miles to the moon.
Astronomer Carl Sagan was responsible for some of the calculations that could cause the nuclear detonation. Sagan, who later became a famous author of popular science, was a young graduate student at the time. He worked as a NASA advisor from the 1950s onward and died in 1996.
© Flickr/ takomabibelot
The report (PDF), commissioned by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), details a clear road map to accomplishing President Barack Obama's longtime goal of shuttering the controversial military facility.
"This report demonstrates that if the political will exists, we could finally close Guantanamo without imperiling our national security," Feinstein explained in prepared text. "The GAO report makes clear that numerous prisons exist inside the United States - operated by both the Department of Defense and the Department of Justice - capable of holding the 166 detainees who remain at Guantanamo in an environment that meets the security requirements."
Palestinians celebrate in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah on November 29, 2012 after the General Assembly voted to recognize Palestine as a non-member state.
Hours before the historic vote at the General Assembly on the upgrade status on Thurday, four senators presented legislation, threatening to stop the million-dollar assistance.
The 193-member General Assembly voted 138-9 with 41 abstentions at the United Nations for a resolution approving the upgrade. Nine countries, including Canada, Israel, and the United States, voted against it.
© EPAOperation: Israeli soldiers take cover as the 'Iron Dome' fires a missile against a Grad missile fired from the Gaza Strip
"This spring, we announced that we would provide $70 million in fiscal 2012 on top of the $205 million previously appropriated to meet Israel's needs for that fiscal year," Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said at a Pentagon press conference Thursday with his Israeli counterpart, Ehud Barak. "And we will obviously continue to work together to seek additional funding to enable Israel to boost Iron Dome's capacity further and to help prevent the kind of escalation and violence that we've seen."
Panetta said Iron Dome intercepted 400 rockets during the eight day war, an 85 percent success rate.
On Thursday night, the Senate unanimously approved an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act that urges the administration to assess any further Israeli need for additional Iron Dome batteries.
Comment: US tax dollars at work supporting the successful murder of over 160 Palestinians.
Bradley Manning, the soldier accused of causing the biggest security breach in American history, finally broke his silence yesterday as he gave evidence at a pre-trial hearing, saying he felt like a doomed, caged animal after he was arrested for allegedly divulging secretes to the WikiLeaks website.
Speaking in court after 917 days in military captivity, Private Manning, who was arrested in Iraq, made the analogy in a reference to his detention in a cell in a segregation tent at a US Army outpost in Kuwait. He was later transferred to a base in Virginia.
"I remember thinking, "I'm going to die. I'm stuck inside this cage'," he said when questioned by defence attorney David Coombs. Employing dramatic language, he shared the distress he suffered after being locked up his former colleagues. "I just thought I was going to die in that cage. And that's how I saw it - an animal cage."
Comment: "Employing dramatic language"? The poor lad is probably struggling to find the words to describe his abominable treatment at the hands of the world's largest banana republic.
Comment: So, with the help of the US, Israel is planning to build a nuclear bunker in Tel Aviv adorned with religious symbols - and it decides to name it "Site 911"?!? If that does not raise an eyebrow or two we ignore what will!