Schumer says Trump should not take the podium at coronavirus briefings: Hes a threat to public health
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Schumer says Trump should not take the podium at coronavirus briefings: Hes a threat to public health
Michael Novakhov - SharedNewsLinks℠ | InBrief |
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Michael Novakhov - SharedNewsLinks  | |||||||
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| FOX News: Schumer says Trump should not take the podium at coronavirus briefings: Hes a threat to public health | |||||||
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Tuesday that President Trump should not take the podium at the coronavirus briefings expected to resume later in the day, alleging that he is a threat to public health.  | |||||||
| The National Interest: Anthrax is One of the Deadliest Biological Weapons- And Killed Dozens in Russia | |||||||
Sebastien Roblin Security,  In October 1979, a West German newspaper run by Soviet émigrés ran a vague story alleging that an explosion in a military factory in Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg) had released deadly bacteria, killing as many as a thousand.Here's What You Need to Remember: Because anthrax can be easily manufactured and remains stable for years, it also was ideal as a biological weapona fact that U.S. scientists were aware of due to the experience of their own biological-weapons program, which had been active since 1943.In October 1979, a West German newspaper run by Soviet émigrés ran a vague story alleging that an explosion in a military factory in Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg) had released deadly bacteria, killing as many as a thousand. The story swiftly drew attention from other Western newspapers and eventually the U.S. government, because if Soviet factories were producing biological weapons, they were doing so in contravention of the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention. Not so, Moscow swiftly retorted. Yes, an outbreak had killed dozens in Sverdlovsk, a closed city devoted to the Soviet military-industrial complex and the fourth largest in Russia today. But the culprit was tainted meat afflicted by anthrax. Anthrax is an infection caused by a naturally occurring bacteria transported via spores that can be found all over the planet, and that can lie dormant in the soil for some time. Humans are most commonly affected by anthrax when abraded skin makes contact while handling an affected animal, particularly sheep or cattle, or animal products such as hides or wool. This form, known as cutaneous anthrax, leaves nasty sores, but is only fatal 20 percent of the time when left untreated. Much rarer gastrointestinal anthrax infections can result from eating infected animals. However, the deadliest form of transmission involves breathing in anthrax spores, and has an 85 percent fatality rate. For pulmonary anthrax infections to occur, high concentrations of spores must be inhaled, and the spores cannot be too large, so as to slip past human mucous membranes. Once inside the human body, the bacteria multiply and in a couple of days begin producing deadly toxins. The victim may feel flu-like symptoms such as a sore throat and aching muscles, as well as shortness of breath and nausea. These symptoms progress to intense bleeding coughs, fevers, interrupted breathing and lethal meningitis (inflammation of the brain), leading to characteristic dark swelling along the chest and neck. Vaccination with antibiotics is effective at preventing the infection, but is not effective once the infection sets in. Because anthrax can be easily manufactured and remains stable for years, it also was ideal as a biological weapona fact that U.S. scientists were aware of due to the experience of their own biological-weapons program, which had been active since 1943. It ultimately mass-produced six major strains of deadly bioweapons, many of which were designed to be spread by air-dropped cluster bombs. However, President Richard Nixon brought an end to the program in 1969, and three years later most of the worlds nations signed onto the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention, banning not only the use, but the production and development, of biological weapons. However, the convention lacked a formal compliance and monitoring mechanism. Furthermore, it does not ban research on how to defend against bioweaponswhich explains why weapons-grade anthrax is stored in U.S. government laboratories, and was available for use in the infamous anthrax letters that were sent shortly after 9/11, likely by a disgruntled employee. U.S. intelligence analysts were skeptical of the Soviet tainted-meat storyCIA agents had obtained scattered reports supporting the narrative that there had been a factory accident at the time of the outbreak. Furthermore, the deaths of Soviet citizens spanning over two months did not cohere with a tainted meat-supply problem, which could have been dealt with swiftly. The Reagan administration seized on the incident to lay into the Soviet Union for apparently contravening the bioweapons ban. The Soviet press maintained that this just showed how Washington was ready to use any tragedy afflicting the Soviet people to its political advantage. Some U.S. scientists, such as renowned Harvard researcher Matthew Meselson, were also inclined to believe the Soviet explanation. In 1981, the United States had alleged that Communist forces in Asia made use of Yellow Rain mycotoxins in Asiaallegations that were widely discredited. When, in 1988, Soviet scientist Pyotr Burgasov flew to the United States and presented autopsy records and photos from the victims of the Sverdlovsk outbreak, many Western scientists were finally persuaded that the incident merely reflected an embarrassing slip-up of the Soviet medical system. However, even that autopsy data suggested some curious anomalies, including evidence of swelling of the lungs corresponding to a pulmonary anthrax infection. Furthermore, why had the outbreak mostly affected adult males, and relatively few women or children? New rumors emerged that the Soviet Union had developed some form of disease tailored to kill military-age men. The true situation would soon come to light in 1992, after the fall of the Soviet Union. The newly anointed Russian president, Boris Yeltsin, confided to President George H. W. Bush at a conference that U.S. allegations about the Soviet bioweapon were entirely true. Yeltsin, as it happened, had been the party boss in the Sverdlovsk during the outbreak, which he admitted was the result of the bioweapons accident. Just a year after signing on to the 1972 bioweapons ban, the Soviet Union had actually expanded its bioweapons production via a massive new civilian program, known as Biopreparat, that employed fifty thousand personnel scattered across fifty-two separate facilities. Biopreparat had manufactured hundreds of tons of a dozen different biowarfare agents, designed to be spread by missiles or sprayed out of airplanes. And mishaps did occurfor example, in 1971, weaponized smallpox being tested on Vozrozhdeniya Island had infected a scientist on a passing ship, leading to three deaths. The deputy director of Biopreparat, Kanatzhan Alibekov (now Ken Alibek), would later immigrate to the United States and give his account of the Sverdlovsk incident in his book Biohazard, based on accounts he overheard from several colleagues. The bacteria had originated from a bioweapons facility in Sverdlovsk known as Compound 19A, built in 1946 using specifications found in the Japanese germ warfare documents captured in Manchuria, according to Alibekov. The Japanese Unit 731 was infamous during World War II for both testing and field deploying bioweapons targeting Chinese civilians. Compound 19A produced tons of anthrax in powdered form annually, for release from ballistic missilesin particular a strain known as Anthrax 836 selected (not designed) because it was particularly deadly to humans. One dayAlibek places the date as March 30, 1979, though most sources insist it was early Aprila technician removed a clogged filter and left a note indicating it needed to be replaced. His account continues: Compound 19 was the Fifteenth Directorate's busiest production plant. Three shifts operated around the clock, manufacturing a dry anthrax weapon for the Soviet arsenal. It was stressful and dangerous work. The fermented anthrax cultures had to be separated from their liquid base and dried before they could be ground into a fine powder for use in an aerosol form, and there were always spores floating in the air. Workers were given regular vaccinations, but the large filters clamped over the exhaust pipes were all that stood between the anthrax dust and the outside world. After each shift, the big drying machines were shut down briefly for maintenance checks. A clogged air filter was not an unusual occurrence, but it had to be replaced immediately. Lieutenant Colonel Nikolai Chernyshov, supervisor of the afternoon shift that day, was in as much of a hurry to get home as his workers. Under the army's rules, he should have recorded the information about the defective filter in the logbook for the next shift, but perhaps the importance of the technician's note didn't register in his mind, or perhaps he was simply overtired. When the night shift manager came on duty, he scanned the logbook. Finding nothing unusual, he gave the command to start the machines up again. A fine dust containing anthrax spores and chemical additives swept through the exhaust pipes into the night air. The missing filter was noticed hours later and swiftly correctedbut by then it was too late. A brisk night breeze had carried the deadly spores over into an adjacent ceramics factory, infecting the largely male factory laborers working the night shift. Nearly all died within a week. The city authorities were kept in the dark about the accident until the outbreak became apparent. Then the party swiftly engaged in a cover-up. Troops established a perimeter around the factory, while Soviet officials announced that tainted meat was responsible. Hundreds of stray dogs were shot and black-market food vendors were arrested for spreading tainted food. The KGB destroyed hospital records and pathological reports documenting the outbreak, while the victims bodies were bathed in chemical disinfectants to remove the evidence left by the spores. According to Alibek, damage control measures instigated by ill-informed Soviet officials actually worsened the outbreak. The local Communist Party boss, who was apparently told that there had been a leak of hazardous material from the plant, ordered city workers to scrub and trim trees, spray roads, and hose down roofs. This spread the spores further through "secondary aerosols"spores that had settled after the initial release and were stirred up again by the cleanup blitz. Anthrax dust drifted through the city, and new victims arrived at the hospitals with black ulcerous swellings on their skin. Through May, at least ninety-nine Soviet citizens were infected and sixty-four died within a two-and-a-half-mile radius of the factory. Alibek claims he was told the actual count was closer to 105. For sheep, which were more susceptible to the spores, cases were reported within thirty miles. Boris Yeltsin more or less supported Alibeks account when he admitted to the chemical weapons program and the accident in a speech in 1993. Furthermore, Andrei Mironyuk, head of the Special Department of the Ural Military District, also testified to a chemical accident in Ural magazine in 2008. And of course, Yeltsin also allowed in international inspectors, including Matthew Meselson, whose findings now supported the explanation of bioweapons leak, as recounted in his wifes history of the incident, Anthrax: The Investigation of a Deadly Outbreak. Yet despite the former Russian presidents open testimony to the contrary, the Sverdlovsk incident is treated as an open question today in Russia, with some Russian officials sticking to the tainted-meat story. The Russian-language Wikipedia article on the incident lists both tainted-meat and factory leak narratives, and then lists a number of conspiracy theories blaming Western bioterrorists. Burgasov, the scientist who earlier had presented the tainted meat evidence in the United States, now claims that the anthrax strains in Sverdlovsk are only found in Canada or South Africa. The Sverdlovsk incident illustrates both how inherently awful and self-destructive bioweapons have the potential to be, and the extent to which authoritarian societies engage in extraordinary deception and obfuscation to conceal their accidents and illicit activities. It should bring to mind the elaborate deception following the shooting down of Korean Air Lines Flight 007 in 1983. Even in the face of strong contravening evidence, indignant denials can sway the fair-minded and convince sympathetic observers. By some accounts, the facility at Compound 19 remained active in Yekaterinburg and is still engaged in bioweapons production. States today already dispose of vast arsenals of destructive and inhumane weaponry, ranging from thermobaric warheads to nerve gas and nuclear warheadsso what need is there to add biological weapons to the mix? Surely, it should be in the collective interest of all nations to truly adhere to the ban on biological weapons, which have abundant potential to turn on their users, whether by accident or in the hands of terrorists. Sébastien Roblin holds a masters degree in conflict resolution from Georgetown University and served as a university instructor for the Peace Corps in China. He has also worked in education, editing and refugee resettlement in France and the United States. He currently writes on security and military history for War Is Boring. This first appeared several years ago and is being republished due to reader interest. Image: Wikimedia | |||||||
| FOX News: Fisherman hooks 'monstrous' trout from river, reportedly reels in record | |||||||
The only thing better than catching a fish is reeling in a record with it.   | |||||||
| Esper says US considering troop adjustments in South Korea | |||||||
WASHINGTON (AP) The Pentagon is considering adjustments to its military presence in South Korea and around the globe as it shifts from years of countering insurgencies and militants in the greater Middle East to focusing on China, Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Tuesday.
Esper said he has issued no order to withdraw from South Korea. Without discussing specifics, Esper said he favors more emphasis on rotational deployments, as opposed to permanent stationing, of American troops "because it gives us, the United States, greater strategic flexibility in terms of responding to challenges around the globe." The U.S. has about 28,500 troops stationed in South Korea as a bulwark against North Korea, but the U.S.-South Korea treaty alliance is under great strain, mainly because of the Trump administrations demand that Seoul vastly increase the amount it pays for the U.S. presence. Negotiations led on the U.S. side by the State Department have been deadlocked for months. The Pentagon said Esper spoke by phone Monday with his South Korean counterpart to discuss the payment issue and other matters, including the stalemated U.S. effort to rid North Korea of its nuclear weapons. It gave no details. President Donald Trump has questioned the value of stationing U.S. troops in South Korea and elsewhere in the world, saying Seoul and other host governments must pay more of the cost. In his remarks in a webinar hosted by the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, Esper said that since taking office a year ago he has sought to review the global U.S. military footprint with an eye to competing more effectively with China and Russia. That has included looking for ways to bring more U.S. troops home so that they can train more directly for missions related to potential conflict in the Asia-Pacific region. Esper said he hopes to visit China this year to "enhance cooperation on areas of common interest," improve crisis communications systems, and "reinforce our intentions to openly compete in the international system in which we all belong." Earlier this month Esper approved the withdrawal of 9,500 troops from Germany, although he has yet to publicly disclose how many of those will be brought home and how many will be shifted to other parts of Europe or elsewhere. He also has reviewed the U.S. presence in Africa. "We will continue to look at adjustments in every command we have, in every theater, to make sure we are optimizing our forces," Esper said in Tuesday's webinar. The U.S. military presence in South Korea dates to the 1950-53 Korean War in which American forces fought in support of the South after North Korean troops invaded and were later supported by Chinese troops. Copyright 2020 Associated Press. All rights reserved. | |||||||
| Air Force Sees Largest Jump in Military-Wide Coronavirus Spike | |||||||
Nearly 22,000 U.S. troops have been diagnosed with COVID-19 since the military diagnosis in February, with almost half the cases occurring since July 1, according to data released by the Pentagon Monday.
© Copyright 2020 <a href="http://Military.com" rel="nofollow">Military.com</a>. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.As of July 20, 21,909 service members have received positive COVID-19 tests, up from 12,521 on July 1 -- a 75% increase in less than three weeks.  Hardest hit has been the Army, with 7,282 cases; followed by the Navy with 5,629 cases; the Air Force with 3,263 cases; the Marine Corps with 2,470 cases; and the National Guard with 3016 cases. Members assigned to Defense Department agencies made up the remaining 249 cases. But since July 1, the Air Force saw the largest increases in terms of percentage, up 101%; followed by the Marine Corps, up 96%; the Army, up 89%; and the Navy, up 65%. The National Guard saw a 48% increase in the last three weeks. Across DoD, 9,509 others have been diagnosed with the illness, including 2,925 dependents, 4,563 civilian employees and 2,021 contractors. Nearly 1,000 people who work for the DoD or are family members are currently hospitalized with the virus. Forty-eight have died, including three service members, seven dependents, 11 contractors and 27 civilian employees. Still, the case fatality rate among the relatively young military population remains significantly lower than the national average, .013% among service members versus 3.7% in the U.S. The overall DoD case fatality rate is .15%. The surge in cases among service members and in the DoD comes as cases across the United States have exploded: the U.S. as of Monday has had 3.8 million cases, more than a quarter of the world's 14.6 million cases, and 104,811 deaths, 23% of the world's total, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. As of Wednesday, 90 of 231 DoD installations, or 39%, were been greenlighted for travel, while some previously cleared bases have reinstated restrictions, including Naval Air Station Corpus Christi, Texas, Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay, Georgia; Luke Air Force Base, Arizona; Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, Marine Corps Base Camp Butler in Okinawa, Japan and Fort McCoy in Wisconsin. A significant number of the military's largest bases remain under travel restrictions, including the Army's Fort Benning, Georgia, and Fort Bragg, North Carolina, as well as all installations in California and Florida, which are under complete restriction. The travel restrictions continue to limit the number of military families who can make permanent change of station moves this year, although many moves are continuing with precautions on a case-by-base basis. With the rise of coronavirus cases across the U.S., DoD has dispatched 740 medical and support personnel to augment staff at civilian hospitals in Texas and California. At the request of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, U.S. Northern Command is dispatching 580 Army and Navy personnel to Texas to work at hospitals in San Antonio, Houston, McAllen, Harlingen, Del Rio, Eagle Pass and Rio Grande City. An additional 160 service members have been assigned to five California hospitals, including Adventist Health Lodi Memorial in Lodi, Community Regional Medical Center in Fresno, Dameron Hospital in Stockton, Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage, and Kaweah Delta Medical Center in Visalia. "We are committed to assisting those in need as part of the ongoing whole-of-America response to the COVID-19 pandemic," said Lt. Gen. Laura Richardson, U.S. Army North commander, in a release. "Over the past few days our joint service members have worked determinedly to relieve stress on hospitals and to deliver care to communities in need as part of the ongoing whole-of-nation response to the COVID-19 pandemic and in support of FEMA," she said. -- Patricia Kime can be reached at Patricia.Kime@Monster.com. Follow her on Twitter @patriciakime. Related: US Troops Would Be Among First to Get a Working COVID-19 Vaccine, Officials Say Show Full Article | |||||||
| Google Alert - Coronavirus and US Military: Air Force Sees Largest Jump in Military-Wide Coronavirus Spike | |||||||
Nearly 22,000 U.S. troops have been diagnosed with COVID-19 since the military diagnosis in February, with almost half the cases occurring since ... | |||||||
| 9:27 AM 7/21/2020 - Army surges past 7000 coronavirus cases as military tops 21000 positive tests | |||||||
 9:27 AM 7/21/2020 Michael Novakhov - SharedNewsLinks - Latest Post
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| Did America Use Bioweapons in Korea? Nicholson Baker Tried to Find Out | |||||||
To my nonscientists eye. Similar caveats we may never have incontrovertible proof, its remotely possible, though perhaps eternally unprovable, we may never know, its at least possible, will we ever know?, let me just blurt out what I think happened, etc. infest Bakers narrative, usually preceded or followed by wild accusations (and, occasionally, by a sign of self-awareness: I lay in bed some of today reading more of this book, hating it, excited by it, embarrassed by it).
At times, the book is framed as a deliberate challenge to the intelligence community: I could be completely wrong. The only way to prove me wrong is by declassifying the entire document. But this is not how a historian proceeds. Again and again, Baker bristles with anger over actions that were seriously contemplated by the C.I.A., other intelligence agencies and the military but never undertaken. I felt trembly and disgusted at the same time, he writes of Operation Sphinx, a proposal to gas millions of Japanese from the air during World War II. Its a horrible and disillusioning thing to know that your own country was passing around a paper like Sphinx in the Pentagon. Really? To know that in a brutal war men thought brutal things? At another point, he questions the long, interesting, confusing letter he got from Floyd ONeal, one of some 30 captured American airmen and Marines who confessed to germ-warfare bombing in Korea. ONeals confession is surprising and moving, though, whether or not its true, Baker tells us. ONeal recanted completely after he was released, and writes in his letter of sustaining torture so awful he still wont describe it to Baker more than 50 years later: What they did for the next days I dont care to discuss but I finally agreed to sign their confession. There is nothing surprising or moving about a coerced confession, save for ONeals ability to endure the price it exacted. Baker concedes that Americans individually have done good things, a gesture followed by a banal list that includes sunglasses, topiary, no-hitters and the midcentury New Yorker. Yes, and also little baby ducks and old pickup trucks. This is another affectation of virtue, not a moral argument. I share Bakers disgust with all the crazy, wasteful, illegal, counterproductive and murderous things the C.I.A. has done, and no doubt continues to do. Hell, I even like dogs. Bakers Olympian worldview, though, takes him to almost the same place he landed in Human Smoke, his paste-up 2008 history of the road to World War II: immobilized by purity and concluding that we should never have intervened, even to stop the Nazis. Americans are neither beasts nor angels, just human beings trying to forge our way through the murky moral choices this world poses. To pretend otherwise is perhaps the worst deception of all. | |||||||
| Google Alert - COVID-19 is used as a Bioweapon: Did America Use Bioweapons in Korea? Nicholson Baker Tried to Find Out | |||||||
Between the disinformation surrounding the coronavirus, Russian bots on the internet, police cover-ups of excessive force applied to unarmed ... | |||||||
| 8:49 AM 7/21/2020 | |||||||
 8:49 AM 7/21/2020
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| The Pentagon confronts the pandemic | |||||||
Become a powerful force for change
On March 26th, the coronavirus accomplished what no foreign adversary has been able to do since the end of World War II: it forced an American aircraft carrier, the USS Theodore Roosevelt, to suspend patrol operations and shelter in port. By the time that ship reached dock in Guam, hundreds of sailors had been infected with the disease and nearly the entire crew had to be evacuated. As news of the crisis aboard the TR (as the vessel is known) became public, word came out that at least 40 other U.S. warships, including the carrier USS Ronald Reagan and the guided-missile destroyer USS Kidd, were suffering from Covid-19 outbreaks. None of these approached the scale of the TR and, by June, the Navy was again able to deploy most of those ships on delayed schedules and/or with reduced crews. By then, however, it had become abundantly clear that the long-established U.S. strategy of relying on large, heavily armed warships to project power and defeat foreign adversaries was no longer fully sustainable in a pandemic-stricken world.Just as the Navy was learning that its preference for big ships with large crewstypically packed into small spaces for extended periods of timewas quite literally proving a dead-end strategy (one of the infected sailors on the TR died of complications from Covid-19), the Army and Marine Corps were making a comparable discovery. Their favored strategy of partnering with local forces in far-flung parts of the world like Iraq, Japan, Kuwait, and South Korea, where local safeguards against infectious disease couldnt always be relied on (or, as in Okinawa recently, Washingtons allies couldnt count on the virus-free status of American forces), was similarly flawed. With U.S. and allied troops increasingly forced to remain in isolation from each other, it is proving difficult to conduct the usual joint training-and-combat exercises and operations. In the short term, American defense officials have responded to such setbacks with various stopgap measures, including sending nuclear-capable B-1, B-2, and B-52 bombers on long-range show-of-force missions over contested areas like the Baltic Sea (think: Russia) or the South China Sea (think: China, of course). We have the capability and capacity to provide long-range fires anywhere, anytime, and can bring overwhelming firepower even during the pandemic, insisted General Timothy Ray, commander of the Air Force Global Strike Command, after several such operations. In another sign of tactical desperation, however, the Navy ordered the shattered crew of the TR out of lockdown in May so that the ship could participate in long-scheduled, China-threatening multi-carrier exercises in the western Pacific. A third of its crew, however, had to be left in hospitals or in quarantine on Guam. Were executing according to plan to return to sea and fighting through the virus is part of that, said the ships new captain, Carlos Sardiello, as the TR prepared to depart that Pacific island. (He had been named captain on April 3rd after a letter the carriers previous skipper, Brett Crozier, wrote to superiors complaining of deteriorating shipboard health conditions was leaked to the media and the senior Navy leadership fired him.) Such stopgap measures, and others like them now being undertaken by the Department of Defense, continue to provide the military with a sense of ongoing readiness, even aggressiveness, in a time of Covid-related restrictions. Were the current pandemic to fade away in the not-too-distant future and life return to what once passed for normal, they might prove adequate. Scientists are warning, however, that the coronavirus is likely to persist for a long time and that a vaccineeven if successfully developed may not prove effective forever. Moreover, many virologists believe that further pandemics, potentially even more lethal than Covid-19, could be lurking on the horizon, meaning that there might never be areturn to a pre-pandemic normal. That being the case, Pentagon officials have been forced to acknowledge that the military foundations of Washingtons global strategy particularly, the forward deployment of combat forces in close cooperation with allied forcesmay have become invalid. In recognition of this harsh new reality, U.S. strategists are beginning to devise an entirely new blueprint for future war, American-style: one that would end, or at least greatly reduce, a dependence on hundreds of overseas garrisons and large manned warships, relying instead on killer robots, a myriad of unmanned vessels, and offshore bases. Ships without sailorsIn fact, the Navys plans to replace large manned vessels with small, unmanned ones was only accelerated by the outbreak of the pandemic. Several factors had already contributed to the trend: modern warships like nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and missile-armed cruisers had been growing ever more expensive to build. The latest, the USS Gerald R. Ford, has cost a whopping $13.2 billion and still doesnt work to specifications. So even a profligately funded Pentagon can only afford to be constructing a few at a time. They are also proving increasingly vulnerable to the sorts of anti-ship missiles and torpedoes being developed by powers like China, while, as events on the TR suggest, theyre natural breeding grounds for infectious diseases.Until the disaster aboard the Theodore Roosevelt, most worrisome were those Chinese land-based, anti-ship weapons capable of striking American carriers and cruisers in distant parts of the Pacific Ocean. This development had already forced naval planners to consider the possibility of keeping their most prized assets far from Chinas shores in any potential shooting war, lest they be instantly lost to enemy fire. Rather than accept such a version of defeat before a battle even began, Navy officials had begun adopting a new strategy, sometimes called distributed maritime operations, in which smaller manned warships would, in the future, be accompanied into battle by large numbers of tiny, unmanned, missile-armed vessels, or maritime killer robots. In a reflection of the Navys new thinking, the services surface warfare director, Rear Admiral Ronald Boxall, explained in 2019 that the future fleet, as designed, was to include 104 large surface combatants [and] 52 small surface combatants, adding, Thats a little upside down. Should I push out here and have more small platforms? I think the future fleet architecture study has intimated yes, and our war gaming shows there is value in that And when I look at the force, I think: Where can we use unmanned so that I can push it to a smaller platform? Think of this as an early public sign of the rise of naval robotic warfare, which is finally leaving dystopian futuristic fantasies for actual future battlefields. In the Navys version of this altered landscape, large numbers of unmanned vessels (both surface ships and submarines) will roam the worlds oceans, reporting periodically via electronic means to human operators ashore or on designated command ships. They may, however, operate for long periods on their own or in robotic wolf packs. Such a vision has now been embraced by the senior Pentagon leadership, which sees the rapid procurement and deployment of such robotic vessels as the surest way of achieving the Navys (and President Trumps) goal of a fleet of 355 ships at a time of potentially static defense budgets, recurring pandemics, and mounting foreign threats. I think one of the ways you get [to the 355-ship level] quickly is moving toward lightly manned [vessels], which over time can be unmanned, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper typically said in February. We can go with lightly manned ships You can build them so theyre optionally manned and then, depending on the scenario or the technology, at some point in time they can go unmanned That would allow us to get our numbers up quickly, and I believe that we can get to 355, if not higher, by 2030. To begin to implement such an audacious plan, that very month the Pentagon requested $938 million for the next two fiscal years to procure three prototype large unmanned surface vessels (LUSVs) and another $56 million for the initial development of a medium-sized unmanned surface vessel (MUSV). If such efforts prove successful, the Navy wants another $2.1 billion from 2023 through 2025 to procure seven deployable LUSVs and one prototype MUSV. Naval officials have, however, revealed little about the design or ultimate functioning of such robot warships. All that services 2021 budget request says is that the unmanned surface vessel (USV) is a reconfigurable, multi-mission vessel designed to provide low cost, high endurance, reconfigurable ships able to accommodate various payloads for unmanned missions and augment the Navys manned surface force. Based on isolated reports in the military trade press, the most that can be known about such future (and futuristic) ships, is that they will resemble miniature destroyers, perhaps 200 feet long, with no crew quarters but a large array of guided missiles and anti-submarine weapons. Such vessels will also be equipped with sophisticated computer systems enabling them to operate autonomously for long periods of time and under circumstances yet to be clarified take offensive action on their own or in coordination with other unmanned vessels. The future deployment of robot warshipson the high seas raises troubling questions. To what degree, for instance, will they be able to choose targets on their own for attack and annihilation? The Navy has yet to provide an adequate answer to this question, provoking disquiet among arms control and human rights advocates who fear that such ships could go rogue and start or escalate a conflict on their own. And thats obviously a potential problem in a world of recurring pandemics where killer robots could prove the only types of ships the Navy dares deploy in large numbers. Fighting from afarWhen it comes to the prospect of recurring pandemics, the ground combat forces of the Army and Marine Corps face a comparable dilemma.Ever since the end of World War II, American military strategy has called for U.S. forces to fight forwardthat is, on or near enemy territory rather than anywhere near the United States. This, in turn, has meant maintaining military alliances with numerous countries around the world so that American forces can be based on their soil, resulting in hundreds of U.S. military bases globally. In wartime, moreover, U.S. strategy assumes that many of these countries will provide troops for joint operations against a common enemy. To fight the Soviets in Europe, the U.S. created NATO and acquired garrisons throughout Western Europe; to fight communism in Asia, it established military ties with Japan, South Korea, South Vietnam, the Philippines, and other local powers, acquiring scores of bases there as well. When Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, and Islamic terrorism became major targets of its military operations, the Pentagon forged ties with and acquired bases in Afghanistan, Bahrain, Djibouti, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, among other places. In a pandemic-free world, such a strategy offers numerous advantages for an imperial power. In time of war, for example, theres no need to transport American troops (with all their heavy equipment) into the combat zone from bases thousands of miles away. However, in a world of recurring pandemics, such a vision is fast becoming a potentially unsustainable nightmare. To begin with, its almost impossible to isolate thousands of U.S. soldiers and their families (who often accompany them on long-term deployments) from surrounding populations (or those populations from them). As a result, any viral outbreak outside base gates is likely to find its way inside and any outbreak on the base is likely to head in the opposite direction. This, in fact, occurred at numerous overseas facilities this spring. Camp Humphreys in South Korea, for example, was locked down after four military dependents, four American contractors, and four South Korean employees became infected with Covid-19. It was the same on several bases in Japan and on the island of Okinawa when Japanese employees tested positive for the virus (and, more recently, when U.S. military personnel at five bases there were found to have Covid-19). Add in Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti and Ahmed al-Jaber Air Base in Kuwait, not to speak of the fact that, in Europe, some 2,600 American soldiers have been placed in quarantine after suspected exposure to Covid-19. (And if the U.S. military is anxious about all this in other countries, think about how Americas allies feel at a moment when Donald Trumps America has become the epicenter of the global coronavirus pandemic.) A world of recurring pandemics will make it nearly impossible for U.S. forces to work side-by-side with their foreign counterparts, especially in poorer nations that lack adequate health and sanitation facilities. This is already true in Iraq and Afghanistan, where the coronavirus is thought to have spread widely among friendly local forces and American soldiers have been ordered to suspend joint training missions with them. A return to the pre-Covid world appears increasingly unlikely, so the search is now on big time for a new guiding strategy for Army and Marine combat operations in the years to come. As with the Navy, this search actually began before the outbreak of the coronavirus, but has gained fresh urgency in its wake. To insulate ground operations from the dangers of a pandemic-stricken planet, the two services are exploring a similar operating model: instead of deploying large, heavily-armed troop contingents close to enemy borders, they hope to station small, highly mobile forces on U.S.-controlled islands or at other reasonably remote locations, where they can fire long-range ballistic missiles at vital enemy assets with relative impunity. To further reduce the risk of illness or casualties, such forces will, over time, be augmented on the front lines by ever more unmanned creations, including armed machinesagain those killer robotsdesigned to perform the duties of ordinary soldiers. The Marine Corps version of this future combat model was first spelled out in Force Design 2030, a document released by Corps commandant General David Berger in the pandemic month of March 2020. Asserting that the Marines existing structure was unsuited to the world of tomorrow, he called for a radical restructuring of the force to eliminate heavy, human-operated weapons like tanks and instead increase mobility and long-range firepower with a variety of missiles and what he assumes will be a proliferation of unmanned systems. Operating under the assumption that we will not receive additional resources, he wrote, we must divest certain existing capabilities and capacities to free resources for essential new capabilities. Among those new capabilities that he considers crucial: additional unmanned aerial systems, or drones, that can operate from ship, from shore, and [be] able to employ both collection and lethal payloads. In its own long-range planning, the Army is placing an even greater reliance on creating a force of robots, or at least optionally manned systems. Anticipating a future of heavily-armed adversaries engaging U.S. forces in high-intensity warfare, its seeking to reduce troop exposure to enemy fire by designing all future combat-assault systems, including tanks, troop-carriers, and helicopters, to be either human-occupied or robotically self-directed as circumstances dictate. The Armys next-generation infantry assault weapon, for instance, has been dubbed an optionally manned fighting vehicle (OMFV). As its name suggests, it is intended to operate with or without onboard human operators. The Army is also procuring a robotic utility vehicle, the squad multipurpose equipment transport (SMET), intended to carry 1,000 pounds of supplies and ammunition. Looking further into the future, that service has also begun development of a robotic combat vehicle (RCV), or a self-driving tank. The Army is also speeding the development of long-range artillery and missile systems that will make attacks on enemy positions from well behind the front lines ever more central to any future battle with a major enemy. These include the extended range cannon artillery, an upgraded Paladin-armored howitzer with an extra-long barrel and supercharged propellant that should be able to hit targets 40 miles away, and the even more advanced precision strike missile (PrSM), a surface-to-surface ballistic missile with a range of at least 310 miles. Many analysts, in fact, believe that the PrSM will be able to strike at far greater distances than that, putting critical enemy targetsair bases, radar sites, command centersat risk from launch sites far to the rear of American forces. In case of war with China, this could mean firing missiles from friendly partner-nations like Japan or U.S.-controlled Pacific islands like Guam. Indeed, this possibility has alarmed Air Force supporters who fear that the Army is usurping the sorts of long-range strike missions traditionally assigned to combat aircraft. A genuine strategic redesignAll these plans and programs are being promoted to enable the U.S. military to continue performing its traditional missions of power projection and warfighting in a radically altered world. Seen from that perspective, measures like removing sailors from crowded warships, downsizing U.S. garrisons in distant lands, and replacing human combatants with robotic ones might seem sensible. But looked at from what might be called the vantage point of comprehensive securityor the advancement of all aspects of American safety and wellbeingthey appear staggeringly myopic.If the scientists are right and the coronavirus will linger for a long period and, in the decades to come, be followed by other pandemics of equal or greater magnitude, the true future threats to American security could be microbiological (and economic), not military. After all, the current pandemic has already killed more Americans than died in the Korean and Vietnam wars combined, while triggering the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. Imagine, then, what a more lethal pandemic might do. The countrys armed forces may still have an important role to play in such an environmentproviding, for example, emergency medical assistance and protecting vital infrastructurebut fighting never-ending wars in distant lands and projecting power globally should not rank high when it comes to where taxpayer dollars go for security in such challenging times. One thing is inescapable: as the disaster aboard the Theodore Roosevelt indicates, the U.S. military must reconsider how it arms and structures its forces and give serious thought to alternative models of organization. But focusing enormous resources on the replacement of pre-Covid ships and tanks with post-Covid killer robots for endless rounds of foreign wars is hardly in Americas ultimate security interest. There is, sadly, something highly robotic about such military thinking when it comes to this changing world of ours. FALL FUNDRAISER
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| 75 arrested in Swiss-Italian mafia sweep | |||||||
Italian and Swiss police have arrested 75 suspects in a vast operation against the Ndrangheta, the southern Italian mafia, seizing 169 million euros in goods.
The joint operation involved 700 officers on the Italian side, Italys financial police said in a statement on Tuesday. Seventy-five people were arrested simultaneously in Italy and in Switzerland, accused of serious crimes including mafia association, international drug trafficking, money laundering and corruption, the Guardia di Finanza said in a statement. The Swiss prosecutors office said that police seized weapons and ammunition in raids in the cantons of Argovia, Solothurn, Zug and Ticino. Six key Italian suspects, most of them resident in Switzerland, are accused of crimes including bringing counterfeit money in from Italy. The accused have been living for many years in Switzerland and, presumably, carried out illegal activities along with legal activities, such as investments, loans or even the management of a restaurant, the Swiss prosecutor said. Italian police said that the operation targeted 158 people. If anybody still thinks that the Ndrangheta is a purely Italian problem, this operation shows the opposite, said the head of the Italian parliaments anti-mafia commission, Nicola Morra. Interpol warned last month that the Ndranghetas vast reserves of cash mean they can offer help to businesses struggling after the coronavirus lockdowns, giving the criminal group an entry into the legitimate economy. The Ndrangheta, centred in Calabria region, has surpassed Sicilys more famous Cosa Nostra to become Italys most powerful mafia group, operating across the world. A major police sting in December against the group resulted in the arrest of 334 people, including a police colonel and a former MP. | |||||||
| World: British parliament says government failed to investigate possible Russian election meddling | |||||||
The report contrasted the swift U.S. approach to fears of Russian interference to a British government that didnt seem to care.    | |||||||
| 6:54 AM 7/21/2020 - Genomic fingerprinting of covid-19 - GS | Russia's COVID-19 strain did not come from China | |||||||
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| How can genomic fingerprinting help us to trace coronavirus outbreaks? | |||||||
If you had told me in January that genomics would become a buzzword in 2020, Id have thought you were crazy.
But the COVID-19 pandemic has brought medical science to the top of our nightly news bulletins. And now, it seems, everyone is talking about genomics. During Australias first wave of COVID-19, genomic sequencing of the earliest Sydney clusters was crucial to identifying the difference between imported cases and local community transmissions. And now with a second wave lapping at the New South Wales border, genomic sequencing traced the origin of the Crossroads Hotel cluster back to Victoria, just as Victorian scientists were able to trace the Melbourne outbreaks back to hotel quarantine cases. Genomic sequencing offers us a key to unlocking the puzzle of local transmission of COVID-19. But what is it and how does it work? Mapping the COVID-19 family treeGenomics is the study of the genetic materials within an organism DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) and RNA (ribonucleic acid).Genomic sequencing effectively takes a genetic fingerprint of an organism and maps how the DNA or RNA inside it is ordered. COVID-19 is an RNA virus, and by looking at the genetic sequence of different cases, we can detect minute differences in each new infection. This allows us to create a genetic family tree to show which COVID-19 cases are closely related, and to identify and track clusters. The more fingerprints we take, the easier it becomes to identify whether someone contracted COVID-19 from a known cluster or case. Born in a tent: the COVID-19 genomic sequencing testLate in January, travellers returning from overseas hotspots were showing symptoms of this new coronavirus but the virus was so new we didnt yet have a genomic sequencing test developed to prove where the virus was coming from.On a family camping holiday north of Sydney over the Australia Day long weekend, I sat in a tent with my laptop, designing NSWs first genomic sequencing test for COVID-19. Meanwhile, my colleagues from the University of Sydney and NSW Health Pathology were working in the lab at Westmead Hospital testing and collating data to see whether it worked. From that point, we collected genetic material from positive COVID swab tests in NSW, and using the sequencing test we designed, we were able to generate genetic data from 209 COVID-19 cases. Our study published recently in Nature Medicine reveals how we used genomic sequencing and mathematical modelling to give important insights into the parentage of cases and likely spread of the disease in NSW during the first ten weeks of COVID-19 in Australia. Our secret weapon: rockmelonsRemember the rockmelon recall of 2018? Supermarkets across Australia pulled the fruits (otherwise known as cantaloupes) from shelves due to a deadly outbreak of listeria.Genomic sequencing was used to help trace the source of that listeria outbreak, and over many years weve used it to trace other food poisoning outbreaks, as well as transmission of tuberculosis. When COVID-19 hit Australia we had to move quickly, so we began to adapt these tests to this new coronavirus and it worked. Very early on in our research we were able to discover cases which werent linked to a known cluster or case. We identified that one-quarter of COVID-19 positive samples were local transmissions and were able to identify clusters such as those in nursing homes. Comparing our genomic sequences against an international database, we also identified which countries the virus in Australia was being imported from. We reported genomic sequencing to NSW Health to supplement epidemiological information from contact tracing and inform and improve public health follow-up of COVID-19 cases. This knowledge community transmission was occurring led to the closure of the countrys international borders, revision of testing policies, and other federal and state government measures designed to minimise further spread of the virus. Sequencing is key as we continue the battle against COVID-19We know genomic data from Australias first wave of coronavirus infections proved vital to understanding the trajectory of the disease, and it continues to help us crack the codes of the second waves clusters.With an effective vaccine still many months away at best, and with a resurgence of infections in Australia, its critical we continue to invest in this research to advance our ability to contain the virus in the long-term. | |||||||
| Google Alert - coronavirus origins: 'Genomic fingerprinting' helps us trace coronavirus outbreaks. What is it and how does it work? | |||||||
And now with a second wave lapping at the New South Wales border, genomic sequencing traced the origin of the Crossroads Hotel cluster back to ... | |||||||
| 1:48 PM 7/20/2020 - Michael Novakhov - SharedNewsLinks: Russia's COVID-19 strain did not come from China | |||||||
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| Russia's COVID-19 strain did not come from China | |||||||
Right now, Russia ranks fourth in the world in terms of COVID-19 case count, although the outbreak occurred in Russia later than in many neighboring countries. A possible reason is that Russia has shut down its border with China early. However, it is only through genetic analysis of viral samples that one can obtain precise data on the spread of the virus and the efficiency of various infection control methods. Viruses mutate fast, so by studying viral mutations and comparing viral genome sequences, one can reconstruct the evolution and spread of the virus in a population. A group of researchers from Skoltech CLS, HSE RII, and IITP RAS led by Georgii Bazykin, a professor at Skoltech, looked at the pattern of COVID-19 spread in Russia at the early stages of the pandemic. By combining genetic data on the strains circulating in Russia with travel history data, the scientists concluded that Russia's viral diversity results from at least 67 distinct virus imports into different Russian cities in late February and early March. It was found that, unlike many other countries, Russia got its virus from Europe and not China. Importantly, many early imported COVID-19 cases did not lead to transmission within Russia. However, at least nine different coronavirus strains that are currently circulating in Russia have not been encountered elsewhere. A separate analysis concerns the major COVID-19 outbreak at the Vreden Russian Research Institute of Traumatology and Orthopedics in St. Petersburg where over 400 people got infected at the institute's hospital. It was discovered that the Vreden hospital's viral strain has subsequently stread over St. Petersburg, contributing to the overall epidemiological situation in the city. "It's not just about the history; genomic epidemiology also helps interpret future events. For example, imagine that Russia opens its borders, and case counts start to rise. Is this a coincidence, or do those cases originate from newly imported virus? By comparing the genomes of new and old viruses, we will be able to tell," explains professor Bazykin.
More information:
Andrey B Komissarov et al. Genomic epidemiology of the early stages of SARS-CoV-2 outbreak in Russia,
(2020).
DOI: 10.1101/2020.07.14.20150979
Citation: Russia's COVID-19 strain did not come from China (2020, July 20) retrieved 20 July 2020 from <a href="https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-07-russia-covid-strain-china.html" rel="nofollow">https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-07-russia-covid-strain-china.html</a>
This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only. | |||||||
| "cia" - Google News: Iran executed an alleged CIA and Mossad agent who reportedly helped spy on Qassem Soleimani - Business Insider South Africa | |||||||
Iran executed an alleged CIA and Mossad agent who reportedly helped spy on Qassem Soleimani Business Insider South Africa | |||||||
| Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty: U.S. Adds Sanctions Against Chechen Leader Kadyrov For Rights Abuses | |||||||
The United States has slapped additional sanctions on Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov "for numerous gross violations of human rights."  | |||||||
| Russia's COVID-19 strain did not come from China | |||||||
... Institute for Information Transmission Problems of RAS (IITP RAS) in Moscow undertook the first study of COVID-19 genomic epidemiology in Russia ... | |||||||
| Nancy Pelosi warns Trump: Hell be leaving whether he likes it or not | |||||||
News Review from Michael Novakhov
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| RT @YahooNews: Nancy Pelosi warns Trump: Hell be leaving whether he likes it or not yhoo.it/3fK8AP2 pic.twitter.com/7xPGFhGQru | |||||||
Nancy Pelosi warns Trump: Hell be leaving whether he likes it or not yhoo.it/3fK8AP2 pic.twitter.com/7xPGFhGQru
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