Sunday, June 10, 2007
Suicide bomber kills 13 Iraqi
soldiers
A suicide bomber driving a tanker truck struck an
Iraqi army checkpoint outside the capital city yesterday, killing at least 13
soldiers in the deadliest of a series of attacks against Iraqi forces as they
try to take over their country's security.
Russia wants freeze on U.S. missile
plan
Russia's foreign minister urged
the United States yesterday to freeze plans for missile defense installations in
eastern Europe during negotiations, and warned that the proposal --
intended to serve as a buffer against Iran -- could backfire.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said yesterday that
a U.S. missile defense shield could worsen the Iranian nuclear stand-off
and urged Washington to freeze work on the plans with the Czech Republic and
Poland.
Palestinian gunmen break through
border
Palestinian gunmen from Gaza broke through Israel's
border fortifications yesterday and battled Israeli troops near an army post,
the military said, in the first such incursion in a year.
Dems push Colombia on terror
groups
Top Democratic lawmakers, including presidential
hopefuls Barack Obama and Chris Dodd, have urged Colombia to reverse the
"infiltration" of murderous paramilitary groups at high government levels or
risk losing $700 million a year in U.S. aid.
At least six die in Australia
storms
Six people were confirmed dead and another two were
missing yesterday as wild storms continued to lash Australia's east coast,
smashing boats, flooding roads and cutting power to 200,000 homes.
President Bush meets with the
Pope
President Bush, deeply unpopular in
Italy and met by boisterous protests, sought to impress Pope Benedict XVI
and the Italian public yesterday with his humanitarian record -- and
downplayed differences with the Vatican over Iraq.
Bush said yesterday he felt "awe" in the presence
of Pope Benedict, who urged the U.S. leader to seek a "regional and negotiated"
solution to Middle East conflicts like Iraq.
Israel: Military action against Iran
possible
The Israeli government says military action against
Iran is still possible, but Deputy Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz says Israel still
prefers diplomacy for now and war would be a last resort.
U.S. says Iran's response on missing former FBI agent
'not credible'
The U.S. has asked three friendly countries
that have relations with Iran to inquire about retired FBI agent Robert
Levinson; Iran says it has no information on him.
Dean: Democratic president would end the
war
The high hurdles faced by congressional Democrats
in their efforts to end the Iraq war make electing a Democratic president in
2008 the best way to finish the conflict, Democratic party chairman Howard Dean
said yesterday.
Lebanon's army shells camp, three soldiers
killed
Lebanese troops shelled
al-Qaida-inspired militants entrenched in a Palestinian refugee camp yesterday,
and three soldiers died in the heavy battles, security sources said.
Iraq protests shelling by Turkish
army
Iraq's Foreign Ministry accused Turkey of
"intensively shelling" northern Iraq this week, and said it had handed the
Turkish envoy in Baghdad a protest letter yesterday.
At least 23 killed by storms in
China
Rain storms and floods have killed at least 23
people across southern China in recent days and made thousands homeless, the
Xinhua news agency said yesterday.
Blast in Pakistan kills three
Three people were killed and nine were wounded
by a bomb blast outside a hotel in a town in the gas-rich Pakistani province of
Baluchistan, police said yesterday.
Bush: 'Time us up' for resolving Kosovo
issue
No more time should be wasted in resolving the
question of Kosovo's future status, President Bush said during his visit to
Italy yesterday.
Putin does not rule out running for re-election in
2012
Vladimir Putin, whose term as
Russian president ends next year, does not rule out running again in 2012, a
leading Russian daily reported yesterday.
U.S. tells Israel it will assess Iran sanctions at end
of the year
The United States told Israel it plans to tighten
economic sanctions on Iran and assess their impact at year-end, a top Israeli
official said yesterday in comments that appeared to play down military options
for now.
DoD identifies Air Force
casualty
Senior Airman
William N. Newman, 23, of Kingston Springs, Tenn., died June 7 south of Balad,
Iraq, of wounds suffered from an improvised explosive device. He was assigned to
the Explosive Ordinance Disposal Team of the 15th Civil Engineer Squadron,
Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii.
Today's papers: Going
long
By Roger McShane
The Washington Post
leads with American military officials envisioning a small, long-term presence
in Iraq. The idea guiding the plan is that "the United States should leave Iraq
more intelligently than it entered."
The Los Angeles
Times leads with a severe crackdown on domestic dissent in
Iran.
The New York Times leads with the
Bush administration's shift in policy towards Microsoft. Unlike its predecessor,
this administration has repeatedly defended the company against accusations of
anti-competitive behavior.
The White House recently floated the idea of
a long-term military presence in Iraq, but the Post lead differentiates
itself from previous reports by looking at the idea from the perspective of the
military. Officials see the presence having four major components: about 20,000
troops responsible for securing the Iraqi government and assisting Iraqi forces;
10,000 troops to train the Iraqi military and police; a "small but significant"
special-operations unit to fight al-Qaida in Iraq; and more than 10,000 troops
to deal with logistics and supply.
Boeing, Aeroflot sign 'Dreamliner'
deal
The Boeing Co. and Aeroflot signed a
deal yesterday for the Russian carrier to acquire 22 "Dreamliner" jets from the
American plane-maker and defense contractor.
Current, former Civil Air Patrol members plan
'National Strike Weekend'
A Web site known as "CAP
Insights" is calling for a national strike against corruption in the Civil Air
Patrol.
CAP Insights is asking the general membership
of the CAP to suggest the best weekend to conduct this event nationally.
The weekend must take place before the National Board Meeting on August 9, the
Web site says.
"It is the intention of CAP Insights
to bring into very sharp focus, the fact that the national leadership of the
Civil Air Patrol really serves at the pleasure of the general membership, and
that the Civil Air Patrol general membership will no longer stand for the level
and depth of the near total corruption that exists in the Civil Air Patrol's
leadership today, a press release states.
"This
national strike will not involve any emergency services missions that might
occur, but will apply to all other Civil Air Patrol-related activities,"
according to the statement. "This event is meant to drive the point home to CAP,
CAP-USAF, the Air Force and Congress that the corruption will not be tolerated.
The leadership of the Civil Air Patrol is moot without the general membership.
The membership will not allow the corruption to
continue."
CAP Insights is asking for suggestions as
to the best weekend to hold this demonstration from the general membership of
the organization. Suggested dates should be emailed to: capin...@vdo1.us
.
The Web site is also calling for all available
public affairs officers and those with PAO aspirations or capabilities to
document and report on the walk-out
nationwide.
Further updates are available at http://360.yahoo.com/rayhayden_33321 .
The Civil Air Patrol is the Auxiliary of the
U.S. Air Force. Since it is a volunteer organization whose members are not
subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), such a strike by CAP
members would not be illegal, and the Air Force could not "order" their return
to duty.
DoD identifies Army
casualty
Sgt. 1st Class
Greg L. Sutton, 38, of Spring Lake, N.C., died June 6 in Baghdad, Iraq, of
wounds sustained from an improvised explosive device. He was assigned to the
212th Military Transition Team, 1st Brigade, 1st Infantry Division, Fort Riley,
Kansas.
GPS: How to stay alive in the
wild
(ABC) -- With summer fast approaching, people are
hitting the road and heading to their favorite outdoor vacation destinations
-- lakes, mountains and forests. But a good time outdoors can turn bad very
quickly if people find themselves lost or suffer some sort of injury that
requires immediate attention.
A
quick response from rescue services can mean life or death in some
situations.
Last December, three
climbers went missing on Oregon's Mount Hood. Two of the climbers survived, but
the third climber died. None of the climbers were carrying any sort of tracking
system with them, making the rescue attempt go on for days.
In a separate
incident that month James Kim was found dead of hypothermia on an Oregon
mountain road after he had gone seeking help for himself and his family when
they were stranded during a blizzard. Like the Mount Hood climbers, the Kim
family was without a GPS device.
Could these deaths
have been prevented if the parties had a GPS device with them?
In an effort to
decrease tragic wilderness events and improve rescue time when someone gets
lost, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is
encouraging outdoors enthusiasts to purchase locator devices in case they become
lost or have an accident.
NOAA Sarsat
Operations Officer Lt. Jeff Shoup said the locators can help rescue people who
are lost in a forest, or find an aircraft that has crashed. Shoup said in this
day and age, with cell phone coverage, it's still common for people to lose cell
phone reception, especially when out in the wilderness. "Once you start hiking and you get away from the highways, you run into
areas that are dead really quick," he said. "Even a mile or two out you can run
into issues."
But with a personal
locator beacon, which is light and can easily be thrown into a backpack, anyone
can relay a message to a satellite, and with that GPS beacon the person can be
located within five minutes and have searchers on the way for them.
"Summer's a prime
time for people to go out and get themselves into trouble," Shoup said. "This
year already we've saved or rescued more than 170 people and we're not even
halfway through the year. So we're looking at a busy summer, we think."
Shoup said NOAA has
registered 1,000 devices in its database almost every month, which means
more and more people are getting them and that means more and more alerts.
NOAA has two
different types of satellites used for GPS locators. The first is a
geo-stationary satellite that has constant coverage over Earth. It constantly
looks down on Earth but has no locator abilities because it's stationary unless
there's a GPS location that a beacon could give it. The other is a
polar-orbiting satellite that constantly circles the poles as Earth rotates
underneath it and can get constant coverage from it. This satellite takes about
90 minutes to orbit the Earth.
"We use the polar
orbiting satellites to get a location for you and the geo-stationary to get an
alert," said Shoup.
Anyone who wants to
purchase a locator device can do so at specialty outdoor stores. A personal
locator sells for about $350 to $650, depending on the model, and anyone who
purchases a locator has to register it with NOAA. Shoup
said this is done to cancel false alerts. He explained that false alerts can
happen all the time if the beacon is activated by accident, but said if they
receive a call and it's a false alert, they can cancel it in one phone call
without sending anyone out, saving money and not jeopardizing
lives.
Egypt furious after U.S. Congress applauds
Israel's victory in 1967 war
The U.S. House of
Representatives' resolution congratulates the Jewish state on
the reunification of Jerusalem.
Space shuttle Atlantis roars into
orbit
Running three months
late, the space shuttle Atlantis, carrying seven astronauts and a $367
million set of solar panels, roared to life and raced into orbit last night, hot
on the trail of the International Space Station.
The shuttle's
patched-up external fuel tank, its foam insulation heavily damaged by hail in
February, appeared to withstand the rigors of the launch without shedding
any noticeable foam debris.
With commander Rick
Sturckow and pilot Lee Archambault at the controls, Atlantis' three
hydrogen-fueled main engines roared to life and spun up to full throttle before
ignition of the ship's twin solid-fuel boosters at 7:38:04 p.m., last
night.
The fuel-laden 4.5-million-pound spaceship
instantly climbed away from Pad 39-A at the Kennedy Space Center, wheeled about
to line up on a northesterly trajectory and rocketed away up the East Coast to
kick off NASA's 118th shuttle flight.
The launch was
originally scheduled for March 15, but the flight was put on hold after a
freak Feb. 26 hail storm that blasted the top of the tank's foam insulation.
More than 3,000 dings and gouges had to be repaired with poured or sprayed-on
foam insulation, giving the tank a pock-marked, two-tone
complexion.
The first 135 seconds or so of flight are
considered the most critical from a debris impact perspective because during
that period, the shuttle is still in the lower atmosphere. Any lightweight foam
that separates from the tank would decelerate rapidly in the thicker atmosphere,
allowing the shuttle to run into it at a high relative velocity. Higher up in
thinner air, debris does not slow as rapidly and impact velocities are
lower.
While detailed analysis of launch camera and
video footage is not yet complete, television views beamed down from a camera
mounted on the side of the tank showed what appeared to be one of the cleanest
launches yet from a debris perspective. Spectacular video showed the separation
of Atlantis' twin booster rockets two minutes and five seconds after
launch and then the deep black of space and the curving horizon of planet Earth
as the ship continued its climb to space. Eight-and-a-half minutes after
lift-off, Atlantis slipped into its planned preliminary
orbit.
If all goes well, Sturckow will guide the
shuttle to a docking with the space station around 3:38 p.m., EDT,
this afternoon.
The primary goal of
Atlantis' mission is to attach a huge new set of solar panels to the
right side of the station's main power truss, along with a powerful rotary joint
to keep the huge arrays face-on to the sun. The combined truss segments tip the
scales at nearly 36,000 pounds, making this one of the heaviest space station
payloads to date. The two new solar panels, when fully extended, will stretch
240 feet from tip to tip and slowly rotate like giant paddle
wheels.
The astronauts also hope to complete the
retraction of another set of identical arrays, used to provide power to the lab
complex during the initial stages of assembly, so it can be moved to its
permanent position on the left end of the power truss later this
year.
The crew of shuttle Discovery ran into
major problems retracting one side of the P-6 array in December and ultimately
staged an unplanned space-walk, manually shaking free stuck grommets on frayed
guide wires to fold the pleated blind-like array into its storage
canister.
While
Atlantis' crew hopes to benefit from lessons learned and retract the
remaining blanket automatically, they will be standing by to provide hands-on
space-walk assistance if necessary.
Attaching the new
$367.3 million S3/S4 solar array truss segments, completing the retraction of
P-6 and ultimately re-extending its two wings on the port side of the main power
truss later this year will clear the way for attachment of European and Japanese
research modules, both major milestones on the road to completing the station in
2010.
"I hesitate to say any part of the sequence is
more critical than any other," NASA Administrator Mike Griffin said. "It's a
chain and you can break any link, and the chain doesn't function. But you have
to recognize that the sequence leading up to getting our first international
partner module, the (European Space Agency's) Columbus lab, up is a
very, very significant thing. It's going to assume an importance maybe even
larger than it really has just because of the imagery of
that."
In August, the shuttle Endeavour will
carry supplies to the station and attach a spacer segment to the S-4 solar array
installed during Atlantis' mission to permit the eventual attachment of
a fourth and final set of arrays, known as S-6.
In
October, Discovery will deliver a new multi-hatch node called
"Harmony," temporarily mounting it on the port side of the Unity module
that connects the U.S. and Russian segments of the station. The astronauts then
will move the retracted P-6 solar array to its permanent location -- the
left end of the main power truss --in one of the most challenging assembly tasks
yet attempted. If all goes well, the arrays will be re-extended, boosting the
station's electrical power.
After Discovery
departs, the station crew will use the lab's robot arm to remove the shuttle
docking port now on the forward end of the Destiny laboratory module
and attach it to "Harmony." The station astronauts then will move "Harmony" and
its shuttle docking port to the front end of Destiny and stage a series
of space-walks to route power and cooling to the new module. That will set the
stage for the long-awaited December launch of the Columbus research
module, which will be attached to "Harmony's" starboard port. The Japanese
Experiment Module will be bolted to "Harmony's" port hatch early next
year.
"Everything now is pretty serial -- it is quite
a production," said Anderson, a station crew member hitching a ride to the
outpost aboard Atlantis. "We're going to put those pieces in place one
step at a time and then if we do have any problems, we'll deal with those one
step at a time such that we can get the Columbus module, the JEM
modules on board the station, docked to 'Harmony,' because that is a huge step
to the international capability of the station. This is going to be a big four
or five flights in a row."
Under the original
schedule, Anderson was to launch in June aboard the Endeavour,
replacing astronaut Sunita Williams aboard the station as a member of the
Expedition 15 long-duration station crew. But during an unusually violent storm
that thundered over the launch pad on Feb. 26, Atlantis' external tank
was blasted by hail. Most of the damage was restricted to the upper liquid
oxygen section of Atlantis' tank and when all was said and done, it
took three months to repair. As a result, Atlantis' flight slipped to
June -- and Endeavour's to August.
Williams
was launched to the space station aboard Discovery last December. NASA
managers initially said she could safely remain aloft until August, but after
additional consideration they decided to bring her home in June, as originally
planned, but on mission STS-117 instead of STS-118. Staying up through August
was not a health threat for Williams, officials said, but her cumulative
exposure to space radiation could preclude a future station flight. And so, the
decision was made to bring her back to Earth on schedule aboard
Atlantis.
At the same time, NASA managers
decided to move Anderson, Williams' replacement, from Endeavour to
Atlantis.
With yesterday's on-time launch,
Atlantis is scheduled to undock from the station June 17, leaving
Anderson behind with Expedition 15 commander Fyodor Yurchikhin and flight
engineer Oleg Kotov. Williams will return to Earth with Atlantis' crew,
gliding to a touchdown at the Kennedy Space Center around 2:45 p.m.,
EDT, on June 19.
President Bush urges senators on immigration
bill
President Bush,
calling the nation's current immigration situation "unacceptable," has urged
senators to try again to pass legislation that he described as imperfect, but
the best option available.
White House expands its legal team
The White House has
expanded its legal team to handle the fights it is having with the new
Democratic Congress.
Gay rights activists criticize President Bush's
USPHS nominee
Gay rights activists
and a top Democratic presidential hopeful have criticized President Bush's
surgeon general nominee for "anti-gay" writings, but the White House defended
him as "well qualified."
Al-Qaida's new African alliance being
watched
U.S.
counter-terrorism officials are paying renewed attention to an increasingly
dangerous incubator for extremism: a swath of northern and sub-Saharan West
Africa, from the Atlantic coast of Morocco and Mauritania to the harsh deserts
of Chad.
Harper: Canada pressed China on rights issues at
G-8 meeting
Canadian Prime
Minister Stephen Harper says that he pressed Chinese President Hu Jintao over
"shortcomings" in democracy and human rights in China when the two met at
the G-8 summit in Germany.
Coast Guard Auxiliary training
Keeping the those on the
water safe was on the minds of many yesterday as Coast Guard Auxiliary
volunteers from all over northern Michigan meet for a full day of
training.
Close to
thirty volunteers from Roscommon County to Sault St. Marie spent the day out on
the waters of Mullet Lake in Cheboygan, brushing up on their search and rescue
skills. Both old and new volunteers took to the water, putting their
life saving techniques to the test.
This was
an annual training event with the sole purpose of keeping boaters
safe.
With miles
of blue water to cover, the Coast Guard is stretched thin, making volunteers a
vital part of its existence. Made up of strictly volunteers, members of
the Auxillary give up their own time to protect others and it is what many
refer to as a family.
Currently,
there are more than 35,000 U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary members across the
country, made up of volunteers donating their time to make sure boaters are
safe. The Coast Guard is always in need of more
volunteers.
Hawaii's governor names
Moses to head state's Office of Veterans Services
Governor
Linda Lingle has appointed former State Representative Mark S. Moses to serve as
the director of the state's Office of Veterans
Services.
As director, Moses will oversee the
development and coordination of statewide policies and programs related to
veterans, their dependents and survivors.
"I am
pleased that Mark is willing to continue to serve the people of Hawaii," said
Gov. Lingle. "As a retired Marine officer, and through his experience as a state
legislator and active community leader, Mark understands the needs of our
veterans and their families, who represent a key segment of our
community."
Moses has represented the
Makakilo-Kapolei-Royal Kunia and previously the Village Park, 'Ewa and Kunia
communities on Oahu during five two-year terms in the state's House of
Representatives. During his tenure, he served on the Education, Higher
Education, Labor, Public Safety/Military Affairs, Transportation and Finance
committees. He was the minority caucus assistant leader, policy leader and
whip.
Prior to his first election in 1996,
Moses worked for Computer Sciences Corporations' Applied Technologies Division
in Arlington, Va., as a senior systems engineer and senior project engineer at
Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kauai.
His
distinguished career in the U.S. Marine Corps includes serving with Fleet
Marine Force Pacific at Camp Smith as an electronic warfare officer for five
years. He was selected to transfer to the Marine Corps Air Station in
Cherry Point, N.C., to be the second Marine aircraft wing electronic warfare
officer and simultaneously the Department of the Navy project officer to
construct the $200 million Mid-Atlantic Warfare Range (MAEWR). In addition, he
served as chairman of the MAEWR Fleet Project Team, representing all users (USN,
USMC, USAF and the Coast Guard) in the eastern U.S., and was the first
officer-in-charge of the range.
His air crew
assignment was as mission commander/electronic warfare officer in EA-6A and
EA-6B tactical jet aircraft.
Some of his awards
are the Navy Achievement Medal for administrative and managerial skills, as well
as the Joint Service Commendation Medal for meritorious achievement in
electronic warfare and command, control and communications counter-measures. He
also received 18 certificates of commendation and letters of appreciation for
achievements in various fields including physics, electronic warfare,
administration, operations, management and
design.
Earlier this year, Moses was appointed
by Gov. Lingle and confirmed by the state Senate to serve on the Statewide
Health Coordinating Council and the Health Planning Council, West Oahu
Sub-area.
Moses' community involvement has
includs numerous organizations, including the American Legion, Disabled
Americans Veterans, Fleet Reserve Association, National Association for
Uniformed Services, Oahu Metropolitan Planning Organization, Makakilo Community
Association, Friends of 'Ewa, Makakilo-Kapolei Lions Club, Kapolei Rotary,
Leeward YMCA Board of Managers, Makakilo-Kapolei Youth Baseball League, Makakilo
Elementary School Parent Teacher Student Organization, Kapolei Middle School
PTA, Kapolei High School Parent Teachers Association, Kalaeloa Regional Park
Master Plan Community Group, 'Ewa and Central Development Plan Community
representative, Kapolei Middle and High Schools Task Forces and Steering
Committees, and many others.
Moses will start
his new position on June 15.
Jemaah Islamiah leader
captured
Indonesian
police say they have caught a terrorist suspect who may have replaced Abu Bakar
Bashir as the leader of southeast Asia terror network known as Jemaah
Islamiah.
Coast Guard rescues seven
after boat sinks in Lake Erie
The U.S. Coast Guard rescued seven
people from a breakwall near Cleveland's Edgewater Marina early yesterday after
a 37-foot boat they were riding on capsized in Lake
Erie.
Request for more troops
not being met
The U.S. military is having a hard time filling a
request from commanders in Afghanistan for 3,400 troops to train the Afghan
police, a senior Defense official has said.
In March, a spokesman for Combined Security
Transition Command-Afghanistan said the request for the trainers had been made
by the commander of Task Force Phoenix, which is in charge of training Afghan
police and soldiers. As of May, only 200 U.S. troops had
received orders to go to Afghanistan to fill the
request.
The U.S. military just does not have enough
troops with the right skill sets to send to Afghanistan, the senior Defense
official explained.
To meet the request,
the U.S. military would have to move U.S. trainers from Iraq to Afghanistan, the
official said. Therefore, the U.S. military is looking to
its NATO partners to help train the Afghan police, the official
said.
The official had no timetable for how long it
might take to line up enough trainers to fill the
request.
The European Union, which already has about 100
police trainers and mentors in country, plans to add another 60 by the middle of
the month, said Michael Freienstein, a spokesman for the German Project for
Support of the Police in Afghanistan.
The Coalition's goal is to train 82,000 Afghan
police officers by the end of 2008, said Maj. Sheldon Smith, a spokesman for
Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan. "The
police are the tip of the spear in Afghanistan's fight against terrorism
and they need maximum international support toward becoming a self-sustaining
force," Smith said.
But last Tuesday, U.S. Gen. Dan McNeill, the
NATO commander in Afghanistan, told reporters that the Afghan interior ministry
was "several years behind the Ministry of Defense" in many people's assessment.
McNeill also said the lack of effective police in some areas
of the country posed a challenge to the Coalition. "There's
a lot of work to be done yet on the police," McNeill said. "The international
community seems to be slowly coming in behind that and galvanizing a bit to get
it done. But I wouldn't delude you; we've got a ways to go before we get
there."
The issue of international support for the Afghan
police is expected to come up during next week's NATO Defense Ministers Meetings
in Brussels, Belgium, said Lt. Col. Todd Vician, a U.S. Defense Department
spokesman.
Suicide truck-bomber kills
seven at Iraq police station
A suicide bomber drove an explosives-laden truck
into a police station near Tikrit this morning, killing at least seven
police officers and wounding about 52 people, some of them civilians, a Tikrit
police official said.
Some of the wounded are in critical condition so
the death toll could rise, Tikrit hospital officials said.
The blast destroyed part of the police station,
which is in Albu Ajil, a town about 3 miles east of Tikrit, the police official
said.
Also today, a parked car bomb exploded outside a
fuel station in southwestern Baghdad, killing at least one civilian and wounding
five others, an Interior Ministry official said. The station
was in Saydiya, a mixed Sunni-Shiite neighborhood.
About fifteen minutes later, another car bomb
detonated at a fuel station in southwestern Baghdad, killing at least two
civilians and wounding seven others, the official said. That
attack targeted cars in line at the station, which is located in the Shiite
neighborhood of Bayaa.
U.S. troops raided an office loosely affiliated
with radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's movement, killing at least three
people and wounding 19, the Interior Ministry reported today. The raid was launched in al-Fudhailiya, a Shiite district in southeastern
Baghdad, between 2 p.m., EDT, yesterday and 7 p.m., EDT, yesterday, an Interior
Ministry official said. During the raid, U.S. forces opened
fire on a civilian car that was approaching the office, killing one person and
wounding four others, the official said.
Area residents began firing on U.S. soldiers, the
official said. Gun battles ensued between the troops and the unknown assailants,
the U.S. military said.
A Humvee was burned during the clashes, the
Interior Ministry official said.
Georgia county's middle
schools prepare for the Civil Air Patrol
The
Colquitt County (Ga.) Board of Education recently approved the
establishment of a Civil Air Patrol at both of its middle
schools.
"Their cadet program has a lot to offer the
students. Plus, there’s nothing related to JROTC in the middle schools, and this
will be a good bridge to transition into the Marine Corps JROTC," said Shane
Womack, a member of the Civil Air Patrol and computer applications teacher at
Moultrie's Gray Middle School.
In CAP’s multi-level cadet training, students
will learn the principles of aviation and aerospace flight, even rocketry and
physics through hands-on experiments. CAP offers national cadet encampments with
activities in emergency services, engineering, technology, physical fitness,
team-building and flight training.
Each year, at least 10 percent of the freshman
class at the U.S. Air Force Academy is made up of former CAP cadets, the
CAP's Web site says. Many CAP cadets go on to careers in the aviation and
aerospace industries, and some pursue technical degrees while others go on
to one of the nation’s prestigious military academies.
Involvement in the CAP could give students a
experience gained through the program. If a cadet completes two years of the
program and chooses to join the U.S. Air Force or the U.S. Coast Guard as an
adult, he would go in as an E-2, a rank above recruit level pay, Womack said. If
a cadet completes three years, he would enter as an E-3, a “huge jump” in pay,
Womack said. "That gives them the power in middle school to
affect their future in a monetary way," he said.
The Colquitt County program will join through the
Civil Air Patrol's Tifton Squadron 061 for the fall with the aim of having its
own charter as a cadet squadron within a year. During the year, cadets will have
the opportunity to participate in orientation flights. "We’re going to get the kids up who want to fly an airplane a chance to
fly an airplane,” he said, adding that cadets will also have a chance to go on
military flights and travel to aeronautic museums.
But becoming a CAP cadet doesn’t mean a student
must have an interest in the military. "The kids don’t have
to join the military, and I’m not going to push them that route. There’s a lot
of careers inside of aviation or related to this program that kids may want
to go into. They might want to go into computer technology or into law
enforcement. They may want to be an aviation mechanic or a pilot," he said.
"There’s a lot of opportunities."
One afternoon a week, CAP cadets will meet for
two hours after school. Still under deliberation is whether the CAP programs at
both middle schools can be merged, Womack said. Williams Middle School has
proximity to the football practice fields, while Womack’s classroom at Gray has
24 computers for online projects.
Physical fitness is part of the program, and
cadets will have classroom material to study and be tested on. CAP also offers a
Drug Demand Reduction program and leadership coaching.
Cadet dues are $30. Since the program is modeled
after the Air Force ROTC program, cadets will be expected to wear Air
Force-style uniforms to school once a week.
The Civil Air Patrol is the Auxiliary of the U.S.
Air Force and is a voluntary, non-profit organization that pays for
the basic uniforms. The school board will fund the
rest.
Womack intends for the Colquitt County CAP to be
flexible to fit within the often-times demanding schedule of a middle school
student. "The program actually encourages membership in
other clubs and organizations, and that’s the whole point," he
said.