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A deadly suicide attack on a NATO convoy in Kabul at the weekend underscored a key vulnerability in the alliance’s practices. A vehicle filled with explosives rammed a heavily-armored transport traveling along a predictable route. Seventeen NATO soldiers and civilians died in the blast. The targeted vehicle was of a design known as a ‘Rhino.’ Custom-built by Labock Technologies in Florida, the Rhino is specifically designed to protect its occupants from bomb blasts. Weighing up to 13 tons, the Rhino comes in various configurations seating up to 36 people. Its sloped hull and sophisticated armor protect it from all but the most powerful explosives. The US military and its allies have used Rhinos for years. During the height of the Iraq war, Rhinos transported civilian and military personnel between bases in Baghdad – almost always under the cover of darkness and with helicopters and armored vehicles as escorts. Insurgents attacked Rhinos in ... Read More...
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China’s fast developing space programme is set to take another significant step forward next month with the launch of a craft that will undertake the country’s first space docking with a space lab module that was launched in September. Shenzhou-8 and its carrier rocket were reportedly transferred Wednesday morning on a railway to the launch pad. ‘Technicians completed testing on the assembling of Shenzhou-8 and the rocket after they were delivered to the launch centre at the end of August, said Lu Jinrong, the launch centre’s chief engineer,’ the official Xinhua News Agency reported. ‘In the next few days, the launch centre will continue testing the spacecraft and the rocket, and inject propellant before the final launch in early November, Lu said.’ How significant is this? ‘The Shenzhou 8 unmanned mission to dock with Tiangong-1 is part of step two of their long ago announced plans for human spaceflight,’ Joan Johnson-Freese, a professor ... Read More...
This month, Moscow publicly announced its federal security service had detained a Chinese spy, Tong Shengyong, who the Russians say they caught attempting to purchase documentation for the S-300 surface-to-air missile. The case has puzzled observers, because Beijing had already purchased the S-300 system several years ago, and started fielding its own knock-off. Speculation has abounded over why the Chinese intelligence services would waste their time stealing details of a system they already possessed. The mechanics of Tong’s case are less important, however, than what it says about Chinese intelligence services and their operations – or at least foreign perceptions of that threat. Most analysts believe the Chinese intelligence threat is largely amorphous, a vast human network vacuuming up many bits of information. China’s seemingly unique approach to intelligence is known by various names, including ‘human wave,’ ‘mosaic,’ or the ‘thousand grains of sand’ approaches to intelligence. Ultimately, it’s a view of ... Read More...
American protestors are motivated by the belief that social mobility in the United States has stalled or even reversed, resulting in growing intolerance toward the extremely wealthy.
