Sunday, 18 September 2011
Written by Editor
SAN DIEGO: Night-long celebrations will mark the final countdown to the historic end of the U.S. military's ban on openly gay troops, and even more partying will take place once it is lifted Tuesday. But in many ways change is already here.
Countless subtle acts over the past months have been reshaping the military's staunchly traditional society in preparation for the U.S. armed forces' biggest policy shift in decades. Supporters of repeal compare it to the racial de-segregation of troops more than 60 years ago.
For some gay service members, the fear of discovery and reprisals dissipated months ago when a federal court halted all investigations and discharge proceedings under "don't ask, don't tell," while military leaders prepared the armed services for its end.
Several have come out to their peers and commanders.
A few have since placed photographs of their same-sex partners on their desks and attended military barbecues and softball games with their significant others.
Friday, 11 November 2011
Written by Editor
TACOMA, WASHINGTON: A US army sergeant was convicted by court-martial on Thursday of murdering unarmed civilians and cutting fingers from their corpses as ringleader of a rogue platoon in Afghanistan's Kandahar province.
A five-member jury panel returned a guilty verdict on all counts against Staff Sergeant Calvin Gibbs, 26, capping an 18-month investigation of the most egregious case of atrocities US military personnel have been convicted of committing during a decade of war in Afghanistan.
Pentagon officials have said the misconduct exposed by the case, which evolved from a probe of drug abuse within Gibbs' Stryker Brigade infantry unit, damaged the image of the United States around the globe.
Photographs entered as evidence in the case showed Gibbs and other soldiers casually posing with bloodied Afghan corpses, drawing comparisons with the inflammatory Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal in Iraq in 2004.
The verdict by the jury panel -- two enlisted personnel and three officers -- followed a week and a half of testimony at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, near Tacoma.
Wednesday, 21 December 2011
Written by Editor
NEW DELHI: The Indian Army is conducting a Court of Inquiry against a Colonel who was allegedly honey-trapped by Pakistan intelligence agency ISI in Bangladesh.
Sources said the Colonel was cultivated by a woman when he was posted in Bangladesh for a military course in one of the institutes of the neighbouring country. The relationship developed into a love affair sometime in the middle of this year, the Colonel has confessed to Indian army contacts.
Later sometime in October, the Colonel was approached by ISI operatives based in Bangladesh, asking him to work for them. Sources said the Colonel also received letters threatening to put up on the Internet photographs of him in compromising position with the woman, as well as to send them to Delhi, if he failed to work for the ISI. When the pressure mounted on him, the Colonel reported the entire matter to the Indian High Commission in Dhaka, sources said.
The officer was immediately repatriated to Delhi and the Army headquartered ordered a Court of Inquiry.
Tuesday, 14 February 2012
Written by Editor
WASHINGTON: The aging U-2 spy plane of Cold War fame has avoided retirement and will stay in the air until 2025, the Air Force has said, because the costly drone due to replace it turned out to be less effective.
As part of cost-saving measures announced by the Pentagon, officials concluded the U-2 jet -- which dates back to the 1950s -- provided better value than a version of the Global Hawk unmanned aircraft, which had been scheduled to take the U-2's place by 2015.
Both aircraft fly at high altitude for surveillance flights over Afghanistan and elsewhere, retrieving pictures and eavesdropping. But the U-2's sensors produce much higher quality imagery than the Global Hawk's equipment, Air Force General Larry Spencer told reporters.
Spencer said "it would be cost-prohibitive to try to get the Global Hawk as capable as the U-2."
In its budget request for fiscal year 2013, the Pentagon said it would cancel the purchase of 18 of the "Block 30" models of the Global Hawk and proposed "to extend U-2 operations until FY 2025.
Sunday, 21 November 2010
Written by Editor
WASHINGTON: North Korea last week showed an American scientist a vast, new plant for enriching uranium with hundreds of centrifuges already installed and running, the New York Times reported late Saturday.
Scientist Siegfried Hecker told the US daily that he had been "stunned" by the sophisticated new plant and that he had already privately informed the White House of his findings a few days ago after his return.
The North Koreans had claimed some 2,000 centrifuges were already installed and running in the plant, which Hecker was allowed to tour, the Times reported. It was not immediately clear where the facility was located.
Hecker said he saw "hundreds and hundreds" of centrifuges set up in an "ultra-modern control room."
But he said he was forbidden from taking photographs and could not verify North Korean claims that the plant was already producing low-enriched uranium.
"There are reasons to question whether that's true," Hecker told the daily, adding that he doubted Pyongyang would be able to complete the project.
Sunday, 25 July 2010
Written by Editor
[ Shiv Aroor/Livefist] -766004.jpg)
Admiral Mike Mullen (left), chairman of the US Joint Chiefs, was in Delhi to (among other things) push forward three stalled bilateral defence agreements that have been stalled with no resolution in sight. His frustration with the status quo emerged at a briefing for journalists that I attended this evening. The three agreements are the politically contentious Logistics Supply Agreement (a euphemism for the ACSA), the Communication Interoperability & Security Memorandum Agreement (CISMOA) -- without which, the US insists, India's C-130Js and P-8Is will be little more than flying hunks of metal -- and the Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement for Geo-Spatial Cooperation (BECA). Status: no movement. Indian Decence Minister AK Antony reiterated New Delhi's concerns about Washington's continued supply of conventional armaments to Pakistan under the "delusion" that they're being used in the war on terror, but was politely snubbed by the Admiral, who later said, "I don't believe we've sold them anything that imbalances the capability between the two countries.
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