NEWS OF THE FORCE | Thursday, July 16, 2015 - Page 1

[Newsoft...@aol.com]

  Thursday, July 16, 2015 - Today is the World Day for International Justice.

---

 

Ukraine's president fires air force commander

    Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has signed the decree on firing Gen. Yuriy Baidak from the position of Ukrainian air force commander and has sent him into the reserve.

 

Greece's debt crisis

    Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is focused on completing a bailout deal agreed with the eurozone despite setbacks in a crucial vote to push through tough reforms, his spokesman has said.

 

Mexican authorities release prison escape video

    Mexican authorities have released security camera video footage showing the moment drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman escaped from his cell in a maximum-security prison.

 

Japanese Parliament panel approves military deployment law

    Despite mass protests, a key panel of Japan's Parliament has approved legislation concerning the deployment of the country's troops abroad.

 

Obama encourages U.S. lawmakers to approve deal with Iran

By Lisa Levine, News of the Force Tel Aviv

    

    U.S. President Barack Obama yesterday urged lawmakers to support the nuclear deal reached with Iran, saying that failure to put it into effect would increase the likelihood of war in the Middle East and accelerate a nuclear arms race in the region.

    Iran may be hoping to claim back its share of Asia's oil market now that the nuclear accord signed this week cleared the way to ramp up exports.

    A Middle East expert says the deal with Iran will mean more regional wars which will lead to more radicalism, more sectarianism, and more terrorism; and another says Iran has become a "sort of" regional superpower.

    The world has placed the fate of the Middle East in the hands of Tehran, which is not and has never been trustworthy.

    An Egyptian church leader now based in West London, England, has told how hatred for their ancient enemy, Israel, has turned to love by reading the Bible.

    A Palestinian activist says America's policies concerning the Jewish State are problematic - for both Israel and the Palestinians.   

    If you Google "Protective Edge," you'll find that is was one of the largest military operations in the history of Israel. The operation began on July 8 and ended on Aug. 26, 2014.

    And the Police Investigations Department filed an indictment with the Tel Aviv District Court yesterday alleging that its former officer, David Arzkanazi, took bribes, leaked internal police information, engaged inn fraud, and committed other crimes between 2008 and 2011. Arzkanazi, 47, from Bat Yam, and five others, were charged in the bribery and fraud scam. The five were two private investigators, to private collections agents collecting tax debts on behalf of the Tel Aviv Municipality, and another former police officer. It's alleged that Arzkanazi abused his authority to access classified records on behalf of the private investigators in exchange for thousands of shekels' worth of bribes and other benefits. The prosecution also alleges that Arzkanazi accompanied private tax collectors to help them seize personal property from debtor in exchange for bribes.

 

Japanese Parliament panel approves military deployment law

    Despite mass protests, a key panel of Japan's parliament has approved legislation concerning the deployment of the country's troops abroad.

 

---

    Cuzin Jim's Thought for the Day: The shortest distance between two points depends on how far apart they are.

---

 

U.S. Air Force news

    

    Being a drone pilot (if you're flying a drone used to deploy weapons) is about the most unhappy profession imaginable. You carry the weight of knowing you are responsible for killing people, but you're doing it from a darkened room halfway around the world while looking at a screen, relying on others' judgments that what you're doing is morally acceptable or strategically useful, deprived of even the sensory experience, physical challenge, and danger that a pilot of a manned craft might be distracted by.

    The Air Force Reserve Command had scheduled the deactivation of the 440th Airlift Wing, at Pope AAF, N.C., for late September, but has now delayed that plan by at least a year.

    Air Force Maj. Pauline A. Orcutt has arrived for duty as the chief of public affairs with 910th Airlift Wing, at Youngstown Air Reserve Base, Ohio.

    The 403rd Civil Engineer Squadron was inactivated in a ceremony held at Keesler AFB, Miss., on July 12, as a result of budget cuts.

    Iowa's Des Moines Airport Authority Board voted on Tuesday to temporarily delay terminating the Iowa Air National Guard's lease. Currently, the Air National Guard pays the airport authority $1.00 a year for the lease of 176 acres at the airport.

    The North Dakota Air National Guard officially became a National Guard organization on Jan. 16, 1947, at Hector Field, in Fargo, N.D.

    The power of the sun is turning into savings for the Utah Air National Guard.

    One hundred airmen have volunteered from duty sections across the air base to become a part of the Tier One Nebraska National Guard Reaction Force.

    A former top Pennsylvania Air National Guard officer at the 171st Air Refueling Wing, in Pittsburgh, is set to plead guilty next week in connection with a conspiracy to defraud the U.S. Government.

    The Vermont Air National Guard will hold an "open house" on Saturday, Aug. 1, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., EDT, at the air base in South Burlington.

    Another plane is missing in Washington state's Whatcom County. The Civil Air Patrol says the plane was reported overdue and missing about 6 p.m., on Tuesday. It took a few days for family and friends to realize the plane did not arrive at its destination.

    Civil Air Patrol pilots have found scattered plane debris on the Twin Sisters Mountains, from which a 16-year-old girl walked away, at 8 a.m., PDT, yesterday while searching for a plane overdue on Orcas Island. Wash.

    The Dickinson County Composite Squadron, a unit of the Michigan Wi9ng of the Civil Air Patrol, is hosting an open house from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m., on Thursday, July 23, at the National Guard Armory, located at 401 S. Carpenter Ave. in Kingsford, Mich.

    Former Civil Air Patrol National Commander Brig. Gen. Richard Anderson - now a District 51 delegate to Virginia's Legislature - has launched his re-election campaign.

    And Emily Haskins, 15, will tell you she was just in the right place at the right time, and was trained the right way. Haskins is a Civil Air Patrol cadet and was at a local encampment program in Wendover, Utah, during the last week of June. On June 28, she brought lunch to CAP senior member Alanna Mabey. Mabey and her daughter weren't in the regular dining hall, but in the logistics hut, as Mabey was in charge of logistics. Mabey asked Haskins a question just as she was about to walk back out the door, so Haskins stayed a minute longer. In the next minute, Mabey "started to make some noises as if she was clearing her throat," Haskins said. "Then it looked like she was trying to gag herself. She then stood up and let out this deathly moan. That is when I knew something was wrong." The Provo teen realized Mabey was choking, so she jumped up behind her and started doing the Heimlich maneuver. "It felt like I had done the thrusts about 10 times before she said, 'It’s out!' She braced herself against the wall, and I sat down," Haskins said. Mabey is the mother of one of Haskins' friends, and she considers Mabey a mother figure in the CAP. So, understandably after the incident was over, Haskins was a bit shook up. But during the emergency, she knew exactly what to do, and how to do it because she'd learned first aid and ground search and rescue procedures during a recent CAP National Emergency Services Academy (NESA). "Because of my training, I wasn’t scared and I didn't hesitate," Haskins said. Mabey thanked Haskins multiple times for saving her life, but Haskins was surprised by some of the other expressions of gratitude. When she returned to the dining hall that day, the support staff sent up a sudden cheer for her heroics. During the pass and review awards ceremony at the end of the encampment, Haskins was called out of her formation and honored and applauded for her quick action. She was awarded the lifesaving ribbon by the Civil Air Patrol's Rocky Mountain Region, and encampment officials also submitted her name for the CAP's national life-saving award, since it was a CAP cadet saving a CAP senior member at a CAP event. "I’m glad I was there to save her," Haskins said.

 

Statement by VA's Deputy Inspector General

        

    "I am initiating the following steps to further strengthen the Whistleblower Protection Ombudsman program in the VA Office of the Inspector General (OIG)," Linda Halliday, VA's Deputy Inspector General announced yesterday:

    "Improved Hotline submission process. The OIG Hotline is the front door for complainants to contact the OIG. In order to better serve complainants and review whistleblower concerns in an informed manner, we have created additional web forms designed to ensure anonymity, confidentiality, or allow for full identity disclosure. Providing these different classifications will allow complainants a greater degree of confidence that their personal information is appropriately protected. We also rewrote in plain English the notice Hotline sends to individuals who contact us so that there is a
clear understanding of what to expect when making a complaint.

    "Reinvigorated the OIG Rewards Program. To promote greater utilization of the OIG’s cash reward program to individuals who disclose information leading to felony charges, monetary recovery, or significant improvements to VA operations or programs, each OIG Directorate and the OIG Whistleblower Ombudsman will proactively conduct a semiannual review of disclosures made to the OIG to identify potential recipients for cash rewards. Rewards will be based on such factors as the significance of the
information, risks to the individual making the disclosure, time spent and expenses incurred by the individual making the disclosure, and cost savings to VA. Recipients will be recognized at either a public or private presentation, according to their preference.

    "Enhanced crime awareness education briefings. These briefings, provided by our criminal investigators as part of cyclical inspection reviews of Veterans Health Administration and Veterans Benefits Administration facilities, will be expanded to better define how VA employees can make disclosures of protected health information, the roles and responsibilities of the Whistleblower Protection Ombudsman, and the avenues of relief available to VA employees.

    "For the period FY 2014 to present, a total of more than 300 briefings were attended by approximately 20,000 VA employees nationwide. 
    "For additional information on the VA OIG’s Whistleblower Protection Ombudsman program and contact information, please visit our website at
http://www.va.gov/oig/hotline/whistleblower-protection.asp ."

 

The day the bomb exploded

By Ken Bass, KALH Radio

    When a flash of light beamed from the arid New Mexico desert early on July 16, 1945, residents of the historic Hispanic village of Tularosa, N.M., felt windows shake and heard dishes fall. Some in the largely Catholic town fell to their knees and prayed. The end of the world is here, they thought.

    What villagers didn't know was that just before 5:30 a.m., scientists from the then-secret city of Los Alamos successfully exploded the first atomic bomb at the nearby Trinity Site. Left in its place was a crater that stretched a half-mile wide and several feet deep.

    Today marks the 70th anniversary of the Trinity Test in southern New Mexico. It comes as Tularosa residents say they were permanently affected by the test and want acknowledgement and compensation from the U.S. Government.

    Tina Cordova, co-founder of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders, said the aftermath caused rare forms of cancer for many of the 30,000 residents in the area surrounding Trinity. She said residents weren't told about the site's dangers and often picnicked there and took artifacts, including the radioactive green glass known as "trinitite."

    Researchers from the National Cancer Institute are studying past and current cancer cases in New Mexico that might be related to the Trinity Test.

    "It's a moral and ethical issue. It’s about consent," said Cordova, a former Tularosa resident and cancer survivor. "We were never given the opportunity to do anything to protect ourselves, before or after."

    Vera Burnett-Powell, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Justice's Radiation Exposure Compensation Act program, did not immediately return a phone message and e-mail from The Associated Press.

    Cordova’s father, Anastacio "Tacho" Cordova, was 3 at the time of the blast and later suffered from multiple forms of cancer. He died in 2013, and Cordova believes his illnesses were related to Trinity's aftermath.

    The anniversary also comes amid renewed interest in the Manhattan Project, the secretive World War II program that provided enriched uranium for the atomic bomb. Last year, for example, President Barack Obama signed federal legislation to establish the Manhattan Project National Historical Park to preserve sites that helped make the bomb. During the project, Los Alamos scientists worked to develop the bomb that was dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It involved three research and production facilities, at Los Alamos; Oak Ridge, Tenn.; and Hanford, Wash.

    Retired physicist Duane Hughes, who gives tours at the National Museum of Nuclear Science & History in Albuquerque, N.M., said the history of the Trinity test was important because it helped end World War II and set the stage for a Cold War arms race. "I don’t know if anyone thought it was a failure," Hughes said. "It really changed the history of the world."

    Meanwhile, writers with the WGN America show "Manhattan" are tackling questions about Trinity for its upcoming second season. The series follows a group of Los Alamos scientists as they face moral quandaries involving the bomb. The show doesn't seek to preach but hopes to demonstrate the project’s complexities, "Manhattan" creator Sam Shaw said. Shaw didn't want to give away too many details of the up-coming season. But he said with the Trinity test a focus, writers couldn’t ignore the plight of residents from nearby towns such as Tularosa. "Some of the aspects of that story still exist on the horizon for us and for this show," he said. "But the story from the beginning, I think, has been as much about secrets and secrecy as it has been about a weapon."

 

NOAA news

    This is the longest span of time in which no major hurricane has struck the mainland U.S. in NOAA's hurricane records going back to 1851, the agency says.

    And Dr. Richard Stumpf, from the NOAA, has explained the risks posed by this year's algal bloom on Lake Erie, which is expected to reach unheard-of proportions.

 

UFO news

    

    The Kecksburg, Pa., Volunteer Fire Department has two things to

this year: It is the 10th year of the department's annual Kecksburg Old Fashion Days and UFO Festival, which will take place July 24-26 at the fire company's grounds, located at the intersection of Claypike and Route 982, in Mt. Pleasant Township.

    And amid reports of pressure on several governments to reveal records of UFO (unidentified flying object) sightings in the past, an Army officer has opened up on alien spaceship landing near a U.S. airbase over two decades ago. Providing new evidence to claims of a UFO landing a U.S. airbase in Suffolk, England, in December 1980, U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Charles Halt told the BBC that he saw the UFO at Rendlesham Forest and claimed that he has "statements from radar operators at RAF Bentwaters and nearby Wattisham airfield" mentioning an unknown object sighting at that point of time. The 75-year-old former deputy base commander at RAF Bentwaters said that former service people, who have been keeping mum until retirement, have now written to him about the UFO sighting. "I have confirmation that (Bentwaters radar operators) saw the object go across their 60-mile scope in two or three seconds, thousands of miles an hour, he came back across their scope again, stopped near the water tower, they watched it and observed it go into the forest where we were," Halt told the BBC. "At Wattisham, they picked up what they called a 'bogie' and lost it near Rendlesham Forest. Whatever was there was clearly under intelligent control," he added. Halt made the new revelation amid allegations by alien conspiracy theorists and other organizations that several countries have been intentionally hiding UFO sighting records from the public. It may be mentioned that the Welsh Government was recently asked to provide details of UFO sightings at Cardiff Airport. Darren Millar, the Shadow Minister for Health and Social Services, and a Conservative Assembly Member for Clwyd, North Wales, has asked Economy, Science and Transport Minister Edwina Hart for details of alien spaceships' sightings at Cardiff Airport since its acquisition by the Welsh Government, according to the BBC. A recent report by Express had also claimed that the United Kingdom's Ministry of Defense (MOD) might release the country's top secret on Unidentified Flying Object (UFO) sightings dubbed as the "British X-Files" in the next eight months. It claimed the government has assured to release the files in March 2016 when Lord Black, of Brentwood, asked for an update through a Parliamentary question. The same website has also claimed in another report that the German Supreme Administrative Court, in Leipzig, has ordered the German Bundestag to release files containing UFO sightings records.

    And the U.S. Air Force maintains it shut down "Project Blue Book" in 1969 because, among other things, UFO's didn't constitute a national security issue. In 1979, public records sleuth Robert Todd excavated the "Bolender memo" which had been issued a decade earlier. Even while advocating the termination of the USAF's 22-year-old supposedly transparent data-gathering operation, Brig. Gen. C.H. Bolender was writing through back channels that "reports of unidentified flying objects which could affect national security are made in accordance with JANAP 146 or Air Force Manual 55-11, and are not part of the Blue Book system." Now, Barry Greenwood, the co-author of 1984's Clear Intent, the seminal look at federal UFO documents acquired under the Freedom of Information Act, appears to have stumbled across some of the cases Gen. Bolender was alluding to. While trolling through a recently digitized National Archives database called "The Combat Air Activities File (CACTA)" Greenwood discovered a spread sheet of 16 UFO encounters during the Vietnam War, mostly from early 1969. Greenwood and his late writing partner, Larry Fawcett, made note of the war zone phenomena in Clear Intent. And as far back as 1973, Joint Chief of Staff Chairman Gen. George Brown was going on the record about it: "I don't know whether this story has ever been told or not. The weren't called 'UFOs.' They were called "enemy helicopters." And they were only seen at night and they were only seen in certain places. They were up around the DMZ in the early summer of '68. And this resulted in quite a little battle. And during the course of this, an Australian destroyer took a hit and we never found any enemy, we only found ourselves when this had all been sorted out. And this caused some shooting there, and there was no enemy at all involved but we always reacted. Always after dark. The same thing happened up at Pleiku, at the highlands, in '69." So, a few weeks ago, as Greenwood noodled through the online nooks and crannies of official memory, these 1969 cases were categorized as "secret." The listings offered few details, but in the "Determination" column, investigators inserted conclusions like "UFO," "Suspected UFO," and "UFO chase." During years of FOIA fishing expeditions for military UFO records, Greenwood avoided using the dreaded "U-word" for fear of getting his requests tossed into the "screw-ball bin"; now, suddenly, here was the Air Force routinely employing the acronym. Greenwood cross-checked the CACTA cases against the official Blue Book records and just as Gen. Bolender wrote, they were nowhere to be found. "Most everything we've gotten from Vietnam comes from anecdotes and memories," Greenwood said from his home outside Boston, Mass. "This is quite striking because now we have dates, times and locations. It's a complete reversal of what we'd expect from the Air Force. I can't imagine more of a national security issue than events occurring in wartime. I'm not in a literal sense suggesting these were spaceships, but what we do know is this happened, and the records are still classified." Furthermore, the 16 cases in question are only from 1967 and 1969. As Greenwood points out, Uncle Sam was invested in Vietnam for a good decade. What else is out there? What are the details behind the summaries of incidents we now know about? Greenwood, who has published his unexpected findings in a limited-distribution newsletter, in filing more FOIA requests. In the meantime, Vietnam vets, listen up: If you've got something to contribute, Barry Greenwood would like to hear from you at uhrhi...@verizon.net .

 

                  

            Saturday, July 25, at 11 a.m., EDT, at Manassas Regional

            Airport's Hangar Row, 10511 Wakeman Dr., Manassas, Va.

 

 

                                                Page 1