CONTRA EL PINGALISMO CASTRISTA/
"Se que no existe el consuelo
que no existe
la anhelada tierrra de mis suenos
ni la desgarrada vision de nuestros heroes.
Pero
te seguimos buscando, patria,..." - Reinaldo Arenas
North Korean ship was carrying sugar donation, Cuba told Panama
When a North Korean ship carrying Cuban arms was seized last week in Panama on suspicion of smuggling drugs, Cuba first said it was loaded with sugar for the people of North Korea, according to a Panamanian official familiar with the matter.
Cuban officials were quick to request the ship be released, pledging there were no drugs on board, and made no mention of the weapons which two days later were found hidden in the hold under 220,000 sacks of brown sugar, the official told Reuters.
"They said it was all a big misunderstanding," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Cuba declined to comment on the official's account.
Diplomats have long employed disingenuous turns of phrase to avoid conceding inconvenient and sometimes self-evident truths that could compromise or embarrass their nations. While artfulness is preferred, bald-faced lying is also part of the protocol. When the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, says, for instance, as he has been wont to over the past year, that Russian arms shipments to Syria’s Assad régime are not offensive in nature and mere obligatory fulfillments of old standing orders—made long before the country’s civil war—he is, most likely, lying. It is difficult to know, as yet, just why Cuba would have wished to secretly load two MiG-21 fighter jets, fifteen MiG engines, and two anti-aircraft missile systems of Soviet vintage onto a North Korean cargo ship, the Chong Chon Gang, which then concealed that cargo underneath ten thousand tons of Cuban brown sugar. But the explanation that Cuba’s foreign ministry quickly offered on Tuesday, a day after the ship’s dramatic seizure by suspicious Panamanian authorities at the Atlantic entrance to the Panama Canal, was somewhere between decidedly strange and scarcely believable. The cargo was indeed Cuba’s, said the foreign-ministry communique, consisting of “obsolete defensive weapons” which was being sent to North Korea for “repair.” If the Chong Chon Gang’s mission was as prosaic as that, then it’s captain certainly overreacted when, as the Panamanians boarded his vessel, he attempted to commit suicide by cutting his own throat, while his crewmen mounted a resistance against their captors.
Check out the language used by Lavrov at the time. Sound familiar?
Russia's foreign minister said Friday he did not understand the international uproar created by Moscow's continuing weapons cooperation with regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. "I do not understand why the media is trying to create a sensation out of this," said Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. "We have not hidden that we supply weapons to Syria under signed contracts, without violating any international agreements, or our own legislation." Lavrov said during a joint press appearance in Sochi with visiting UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon that Russia only supplied defence weapons that could not alter the outcome of the 26-month conflict between Assad's forces and the opposition. "We are first and foremost supplying defence weapons related to air defence," Lavrov said in televised comments. "This does not in any way alter the balance of forces in this region or give any advantage in the fight against the opposition," he stressed.
That's the inherent contradiction the Castro regime has stumbled itself into in its statement regarding Cuban weapons shipments to North Korea.
It took the Castro regime well over 12 hours to respond to the capture of a North Korean ship -- full of Cuban weapons hidden under 10,000 tons of sugar -- by the Panamanian authorities.
In its statement, the Castro regime admits to violating U.N. sanctions with over 240 metric tons of weaponry.
Its spin (and bollocks), after getting caught with its hands in the cookie jar, is that these were "obsolete defensive weapons." However, it then proceeds to state that they are "need[ed] to maintain our defensive capacity."
Begs the contradiction -- how do "obsolete" weapons further the Castro regime's "defensive capacity"? Aren't they obsolete?
Despite the contradiction, this line is also being regurgitated by some Cuba "experts" and the Castro regime's advocates abroad, who had been promising that the Castro regime is not hostile and worthy of the U.S.'s embrace -- seeing their credibility even further damaged.
Meanwhile, it took the Kim regime in North Korea nearly 24 hours to respond (as it needed plenty of time to consult with its Cuban brethren).
And predictably, it had the exact same line as the Castro regime and its "experts" abroad: "This cargo is nothing but ageing weapons which are to be sent back to Cuba after overhauling them."
The fact remains that these weapons are hostile and have the ability to cause great harm (just ask the Assad regime in Syria). Thus, the reason why the shipment of such weapons are illegal.
(UPDATE: Panama has charged the 35 North Korean crew members of endangering public security by illegally transporting war material.)
El extraño caso de la incautación y revisión de una embarcación que se dirigía a Corea del Norte seguidas de una violenta lucha en el Canal de Panamá suena como una escena eliminada de la Guerra Fría.
Pero los funcionarios, temerosos de algún tipo de Crisis de Misiles Cubanos moderna, se sintieron aliviados al descubrir que lo que Cuba describe como una variedad de antiguas armas soviéticas descubiertas a bordo del barco y escondidas entre 225,000 sacos de azúcar morena era más apropiado para un museo de la Guerra Fría que para utilizarse como armas en el siglo XXI.
La embarcación, que todavía está registran funcionarios panameños, contenía 240 toneladas de armas de defensa de fabricación rusa, incluyendo dos sistemas de misiles antiaéreos, nueve misiles en partes y dos jets MIG-21, de acuerdo con funcionarios cubanos. Panamá no ha ofrecido detalles de lo incautado.
Cuba dijo que las armas, que se encontraban en ruta a Corea del Norte para ser reparadas están “obsoletas”. Los expertos que identificaron reliquias del comienzo de la Guerra Fría como el sistema de defensa aérea soviético SA-2 aseguran que Cuba no está muy lejos de la verdad.
“Estamos hablando de objetos realmente viejos, la tecnología fue diseñada en las décadas de los 40 y de los 50", dijo James O’Halloran, editor de Jane’s Land Based Air Defence y Jane’s Strategic Weapon System.
El SA-2, que consiste de un solo misil guiado por radar montado en un lanzamisiles, se desarrolló años antes de la Crisis de Misiles Cubanos en 1960 y fue utilizado por el Viet Cong durante la guerra de Vietnam.
“Hoy no hay razón para que un piloto occidental sea blanco de un SA-2, si te golpea uno, has hecho algo realmente tonto, o tienes muy mala suerte", según O´Halloran.
La dificultad para armarse
Pero Corea del Norte y Cuba, aliados comunistas aislados y socios comerciales desde la Guerra Fría, no son países modernos, y después de años de sanciones y embargos hay muy pocos lugares a su disposición para obtener armas, de acuerdo con los expertos.
“Si compras un nuevo sistema de armamento, también tienes que comprar el equipo y la capacitación, que puede llevar un año o más", dijo Mike Elleman, autoridad del Regional Security Cooperation en el IISS. “Y los cubanos no tienen dinero", añadió.
Aun si Cuba tuviera dinero, países como Rusia serían renuentes a venderle al régimen de Castro sistemas avanzados de armamento por miedo a enfurecer a los estadounidenses. E incluso si Cuba obtuviera armas nuevas, Elleman dice que Estados Unidos las eliminaría de inmediato.
La solución para países como Cuba es buscar reparar sistemas como el SA-2, que dejó de estar en servicio hace décadas, y el jet MiG2, que se fabricó por última vez en 1985 y que ahora sólo lo mantienen países aliados de Rusia para obtener refacciones, de acuerdo con O’Halloran de Jane’s.
Viejas sanciones
Las autoridades panameñas continúan revisando el Chong Chon Gang, y han solicitado a Estados Unidos y a Gran Bretaña que envíen equipos para ayudarles a identificar las armas, y han invitado a una comisión especial de las Naciones Unidas para determinar si el cargamento viola la prohibición del organismo sobre armas a Corea del Norte.
Los expertos no esperan que el episodio tenga un efecto diplomático significativo en cualquiera de los dos países: “Corea del Norte ya tiene infinidad de sanciones”, dijo Elleman, y las relaciones de Cuba con Estados Unidos se están descongelando después de años de tensión.
“Hay un buen número de personas que creen que las sanciones contra Cuba son obsoletas, y que sólo es cuestión de tiempo que se levanten. No creo que esto cambie esa situación”, dijo Elleman a CNN.
El efecto más duradero de la redada a este barco podrían ser las 10,000 toneladas de azúcar morena que se econtraron a bordo del barco. La tripulación intentó sabotear el Chong Chon Gang cortando los cables de sus grúas de carga lo que ocasionó que las autoridades panameñas tuvieron que retirar a mano 255,000 sacos de azúcar.
Los expertos creen que el azúcar podría ser el pago de Cuba a Corea del Norte (que carece de fondos) a cambio de la reparación de las armas. “Se podría tratar de mucho ruido y pocas nueces, excepto por la revelación al mundo de la mala situación en la que se encuentran Cuba y Corea del Norte en la actualidad: intercambiar materiales del comienzo de la Guerra Fría por azúcar dice mucho”, Dijo Elleman.
Hace más de 30 años que la colaboración de Nixon primero, Ford después y Carter como cerrador, le abrieron las puertas de la región al comunismo castrista.
El 99 % de los “mandatarios” de Latinoamérica de entonces (descontando a los “dictadores” que no soportaron que los americanos hicieran todo lo posible por derrocarlos, como Somoza, Baby Doc y Strossner o a quienes ayudaron a derrocar a Allende, la Junta Militar Chilena; otros, experimentos “democráticos” de la “izquierda socialista” que afilaban las uñas por el banquete por venir) se han comportado tan buenos con esos delincuentes que destruyeron a Cuba que, más que pena, en mi caso, lo que siento es el odio eterno y profundo sin posibilidades de “cambio”.
La política de concesiones al tirano trajo como consecuencia la América de hoy, sumida en el semi-esclavismo ideológico por voto democrático y en el neo absoluto por imposición de la política de robo y pillaje oficialista encubierta en “nacionalización”.
Una América, a fin de cuentas, como la soñó el KOMINTERN que envió a La Habana a Fabio Grobart a mediados de los 20’s, que se acabó tanto para su soberanía individual como Cuba y, por lo que se ve, por la peligrosa corriente de decadencia socio-política de aceptación viciosa y auto-destructiva universal, hasta los propios Estados Unidos.
Desde 1970, cuando Chile “rompió el bloqueo” colectivo de las relaciones con la dictadura con la llegada al poder del comunista Allende, han existido un par de razones para que el castrismo siempre agarre el sartén por el mango: el miedo al inicio del foco guerrillero de los países hispanos o, si existía, a su fortalecimiento con todo el apoyo material y logístico soviético-búlgaro-castrista, más la sugerencia velada de Estados Unidos a que se tomaran pasos ¿positivos? para atraer a su vecino o hijo natural descarriado a su entorno natural, sin entrar en justificaciones ni tomando en cuenta que los comunistas no tienen entorno ni son hijos naturales, sino monstruos para quienes el mundo es su espiral enfermiza en intención de engullirse todo lo que puedan, desde América hasta África.
Una vez que Nixon creó la llamada POLÍTICA DE PRAGMATISMO REALISTA para aplicárselo solo a Cuba y Ford y Carter le dieron un acelerón de primera a partir de la Conferencia de Cancilleres de México de 1975, que resultó en “discusiones” bilaterales de buena voluntad entre el State Dept y el propio Carlos Rafael Rodríguez, todo ha marchado viento en popa en cuanto al objetivo americano con respecto a la dictadura castrista.
Lo de Ronald Reagan dio asco cuando le envió unas comitiva de civiles y militares a nadar a Cayo Coco, acompañados del propio Caníbal de Birán, para proponerle el cambio de armamento, el abandono de la Unión Soviética como aliado y a vivir sin problemas por siempre jamás el diablo en su madriguera; lo que no estuvo en agenda en aquellas “productivas y reveladoras conversaciones” fue la salida de los contingentes mercenarios castro-comunistas de África, con lo que se confirmó el rumor, revelado después, de que, además, las tropas de ocupación castro-soviéticas cumplían la tarea de cuidar los pozos petroleros de los socios de Castro bajo contrato, demócratas multi-millonarios del petróleo como el clan Rockefeller.
El error que le evitó parcialmente al Gran Comunicador su estigmatización como el Gran Traidor, fue que se les olvidó Radio Martí, descuido que enfureció al tirano, que lo consideró un paso desleal en la intención inminente de abrir “un nuevo mundo de felicidad hipotecada de relaciones de total mutuo beneficio”.
Castro respondió abandonando el nuevo guión que casi cambia todo para América Latina y hubiera dejado a Cuba en igual o peor situación que como estaba: propiedad del capital americano con la tiranía como capataz, todos igual de esclavos en la plantación o cimarrones nadie sabría dónde.
El Presidente panameño Ricardo Martinelli informó que las fuerzas de Seguridad del Canal (recuerde que Estados Unidos fue sustituido por China y, por lo menos yo, no sé si ha cambiado este panorama con relación al manejo de la vía interoceánica) había retenido un barco coreano proveniente de Cuba con material bélico.
La penetración castrista en el Itsmo da asco, intervienen en todo dentro del pequeño país, al que usan lo mismo para traficar armas que guerrilleros que como punto especial de lavado de dinero. Una gran parte del trabajo sucio de la tiranía se prepara en Panamá.
A veces hay que regresar a décadas anteriores de la política de la 2da mitad del siglo pasado, esta vez, mediante la intención de incluir a Martinelli en el saco de aquellos “buenos tan buenos que comían mierda con respecto a Castro”, que creyeron algunos (otros lo vivían como militantes y lo desarrollaron como actividades de sus agendas rojas) en la política sugerida por Washington para resolverle de una vez el problema al tirano, consistente en hacerlo pasar como “la hija que se fue de puta, pero, a pesar de todo, hija es…” (palabras de Camilo José Cela en La Habana a finales de los 60’s, que molestaron muchísimo al “Sargento Tamal” y a la jauría seudo-intelectual sovietizada de entonces que mandaba la llamada Casa de las Américas), porque no es posible que este mandatario haya informado solo que “se retuvo un barco cubano rumbo a Corea del Norte que llevaba o traficaba armas”, sin explicar también que “escondidas entre sacos de azúcar”, y sin agregar que, sospechosamente, como política ordenada para solucionar debilidades ante entrevistadores especiales de inteligencia, el intento de suicidio de su capitán. Que hubiera sido lo mejor para desarmar la explicación fraudulenta tanto de Cuba como de Corea de “son obsoletas y tenían como objetivo repararse…” en un país proscrito de todas las leyes internacionales sobre compromisos de la agenda nuclear y las violaciones de Derechos Humanos.
Por cierto, una congresista demócrata vio el asunto como “un intento de La Habana para exportar al país sud-asiático su molde comunista, explotador y criminal”, con lo que puso en entredicho su capacidad para representar a un pueblo amenazado como el estadounidense, que lo está, nadie lo dude, por fuerzas enormes en lo doméstico y revanchistas de alto voltaje en lo exterior, desde semejante puesto de la alta política del país.
Este tipo de comegofio nativo, más la mala idea y el odio al blanco y a la nación que practican Obama y toda su Corte faraónica, acaban de regalarle a Raúl Castro la continuación de las conversaciones sobre temas de Inmigración por el gesto favorable y positivo de traficar materiales peligrosos para la guerra rumbo a Corea por el Canal de Panamá.
Si este “caretú” que se gasta Estados Unidos como “emperador” se tomara el trabajo de decir algo al respecto, que nadie dude que en menos de 15 días habilitará 25 nuevos decretos de beneficio a la tiranía.
Esa es su forma de tratar con esos bandidos como el buen bandido que también es, sin tener en cuenta que “la sangre de Trayvon Martin todavía está fresca y caliente” para la Media comunista que lo mantiene ahí.
En la tarde del martes, el Gobierno de Cuba hizo como quien presenta su renuncia antes de que lo boten. Ante el hallazgo por parte de las autoridades panameñas de lo que la consultoría de defensa IHS Jane’s identificó como un sistema de control de fuego antiaéreo por radar RSN-75 ‘Fan Song’ , La Habana hizo público el inventario completo del armamento oculto a bordo del buque norcoreano “Chong Chon Gang”, bajo la carga declarada de “Azúcar crudo cubano”.
“240 toneladas métricas de armamento defensivo obsoleto —dos complejos coheteriles antiaéreos Volga y Pechora, nueve cohetes en partes y piezas, dos aviones Mig-21 Bis y 15 motores de este tipo de avión”, enumeró impasible el MINREX. Después aseguró que “La República de Cuba reitera su firme e irrevocable compromiso con la paz, el desarme, incluido el desarme nuclear, y el respeto al Derecho Internacional”.
Pero al gobierno cubano podría no haberle quedado más remedio que hacer algún acopio de franqueza, después de que fracasara una gestión urgente por debajo de la mesa para encubrir el escándalo .
El ministro de Seguridad Pública de Panamá, José Raúl Mulino,se quejóeste miércoles en declaraciones a la radioemisora local Noticias AM , de la poca transparencia del gobierno cubano, al recordar que el pasado sábado el vicecanciller de Cuba le pidió a las autoridades panameñas que liberaran el barco, aunque sin revelarles el contenido ilegal de la carga.
El titular dijo que el comunicado del MINREX le había permitido entender la reticencia del capitán del buque a cooperar y los variados intentos de amotinamiento de la tripulación desde el pasado miércoles, cuando la nave fue interceptada por orden de la Fiscalía de Drogas.
Mulino, un abogado especializado en derecho marítimo, señaló que lo que no está consignado en un conocimiento de embarque a través de los documentos apropiados, se considera contrabando o materia ilícita. “Además, el hecho de que yo declare que una mercancía esté dañada u obsoleta no implica que no la tenga que declarar en un conocimiento de embarque”.Lo único que declaró el Chong Chon Gang como carga a bordo fueron los 220 mil quintales de azúcar cubano.
El ministro panameño anticipó que después de terminar el registro de la bodega donde se encontraron los primeros equipos militares seguirán con las otras.
Indicó asimismo que técnicos y especialistas que llegarían a Panamá en el transcurso de esta semana deberán juzgar si el embarque clandestino de armamento violó resoluciones del Consejo de Seguridad de Naciones Unidas, en cuyo caso el asunto podría salir de la jurisdicción panameña y adscribirse a la de la ONU.
Ministro panameño José Raúl Mulino sobre falta de transparencia de Cuba
URGENCIA SURCOREANA
El gobierno de Corea del Sur, país que vive bajo permanente amenaza de sus vecinos del norte, fue de los primeros en reaccionar a la noticia, pidiendo al Consejo de Seguridad de la ONU que intervenga "con rapidez" en caso de que se confirme que el barco interceptado en Panamá procedente de Cuba transportaba misiles a Corea del Norte.
En un comunicado, el Ministerio de Exteriores de Seúl dijo que espera "que los procedimientos necesarios en el comité de sanciones del Consejo de Seguridad se apliquen con rapidez" en caso de que la carga interceptada por las autoridades panameñas viole las resoluciones de este organismo de la ONU., .
Las resoluciones del Consejo de Seguridad, que castigan los recientes ensayos nucleares y de misiles de Corea del Norte, prohíben expresamente al país implicarse en actividades relacionadas con el comercio de armas.
LAS BARDAS DE TU VECINO
El ministro de Seguridad de Costa Rica, Mario Zamora, manifestó mientras tanto que el hallazgo de presuntos lanza misiles en un barco de bandera norcoreana en Panamá, es una situación que preocupa a Centroamérica.
"Es altamente preocupante porque el escenario de este tipo de armamento pasando por nuestros territorios entraña riesgos de enormes proporciones", declaró Zamora a los periodistas tras ser preguntado sobre el tema.
El funcionario recordó que Centroamérica tiene suscritos mecanismos que prohíben el paso por la región de armas de destrucción masiva, por lo que consideró que "el paso de esta nave con misiles por Panamá es una afrenta".
"La lectura que hacemos es que estamos no solo frente a las amenazas clásicas provenientes del crimen organizado, si no que también tenemos en este escenario amenazas no convencionales transitando por nuestros territorios", expresó.
OJO CON CUBA
Por su parte Hugh Griffiths, experto en tráfico de armas del Centro de Investigación de la Paz de Estocolmo, manifestó a la agencia APHugh Griffiths, experto en tráfico de armas del Centro de Investigación de la Paz con sede en Estocolmo dijo a la la agencia AP que después de este incidente habría que enfocarse nuevamente en los vínculos entre Corea del Norte y Cuba.
Griffiths recordó que su institución le informó este año a la ONU que había descubierto pruebas de un vuelo desde Cuba a Corea del Norte que viajó a través de África central [lejos de las rutas aéreas internacionales].
"Dada la historia de Corea del Norte, la cooperación militar cubana y ahora esta última captura, ese vuelo cobra nueva relevancia", dijo el experto.
El Chon Chong Gang tiene un historial de detenciones bajo sospecha de tráfico de drogas y municiones, agregó.
SIN RASTRO
Otro grupo especializado, Lloyd’s List Intelligence señaló que en un tramo de su travesía hacia La Habana el Chong Chon Gang desapareció del seguimiento satelital.
La agencia Reuters reporta, citando a Lloyds, que la motonave fue rastreada cuando salía de Vostochnyy, Rusia, el 12 de abril
Después fue registrada en Balboa, en el lado del Pacífico del Canal de Panamá, el 31 de mayo; cruzó el canal al día siguiente con destino declarado La Habana, Cuba; y entonces desapareció del sistema de rastreo para reaparecer en Manzanillo, Panamá, el 11 de julio, según datos obtenidos por IHS Maritime. IHS dijo que había indicaciones de que había cambiado su carga en algún momento,
Según Lloyd’s, la desaparición del rastreo vía satélite indica que la tripulación pudo haber desconectado un dispositivo que transmite automáticamente la ubicación de la nave después que entró en el Caribe.
EN LA PRENSA
El servicio de noticias Bloomberg dice en un comentario que Raúl Castro tendrá que dar algunas explicaciones, y si se determina que la carga encubierta violó las sanciones de la ONU, sería un feo recordatorio del verdadero rostro de la dirigencia cubana y sus alianzas con los peores malhechores del mundo.
Bloomberg toma nota de que, hace apenas dos semanas, el jefe del Estado Mayor del ejército de Corea del Norte visitó La Habana. “Lo más probable es que no estuviera allí por los habanos”, apunta.
“A los cubanos como mínimo se les debe restregar en las narices este asunto en Naciones Unidas”, recomienda el comentario. En cuanto a la administración Obama “haría bien en exigir el fin de este tipo de transacciones como condición inamovible para cualquier mejora en las relaciones [bilaterales]”.
Por su parte el Wall Street Journal publica un artículo de un experto en asuntos coreanos de la Universidad de Leeds en Gran Bretaña, quien recuerda que el jefe del ejército de Corea del Norte, Kim Kyok Sik, dijo durante su reciente visita a La Habana que Cuba y su país estaban "en la misma trinchera."
Según el académico Aidan Foster-Carter,el decomiso en Panamá, de armas cubanas ocultas bajo sacos de azúcar en un carguero norcoreano, parece confirmar esa imagen: los dos últimos regímenes comunistas de línea dura, luchando hombro con hombro, en la misma trinchera, contra las mareas de la globalización y la democracia.
Investigators look inside a recently opened container holding military equipment aboard the North Korean-flagged freighter Chong Chon Gang in Colon City, Panama, Wednesday.
By Ian Johnston, Staff Writer, NBC News
Leading Republican and Democrat senators called on President Barack Obama to act over a Cuban shipment of weapons and equipment to North Korea, as talks got under way about migration between the U.S. and Cuba.
A North Korean ship was stopped by Panama as it headed home with a cargo of rockets, missile parts and two Cold War-era fighter jets hidden among sacks of brown sugar.
United Nations sanctions ban the export of most military equipment to North Korea, though Havana said it was sending “obsolete” hardware to be repaired and then returned to Cuba.
Sen. Robert Menendez, the Democrat who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in a statement that the shipment was “a grave violation of international treaties.”
“Weapons transfers from one communist regime to another hidden under sacks of sugar are not accidental occurrences, and reinforces the necessity that Cuba remain on the State Department’s list of countries that sponsor state terrorism,” he said.
A ship stocked with weapons and missiles was intercepted near the Panama Canal traveling from Cuba to North Korea.
“In addition to possible violations of Panamanian law, the shipment almost certainly violated United Nations Security Council sanctions on shipments of weapons to North Korea and as such, I call on the Obama administration to submit this case to the U.N. Security Council for review,” he added.
Sen. Marco Rubio, who gave the Republican response to Obama’s State of the Union address this year and is a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry that the discovery of the shipment should “finally prompt the administration to re-calibrate its misguided and naïve Cuba policy.”
He said the U.S. should “immediately reverse its January 2011 decision easing restrictions on people-to-people travel and remittances sent to Cuba; as well as immediately halt granting visas to Cuban government officials.”
Rubio said Cuba’s actions were a “flagrant violation” of U.N. sanctions and “the latest reminder of the true nature of the Cuban regime.”
“I urge the Administration to take meaningful action to send a clear message that Cuban collusion with North Korea to undermine the international nonproliferation system carries heavy consequences,” he said.
Like Menendez, he also said the U.S. should raise the matter at the U.N. Security Council.
Both Rubio and Menendez are Cuban-Americans known as tough critics of Cuba's communist government.
Their comments, on Wednesday, came as Cuba’s delegation to Washington issued a statement saying talks with their U.S. counterparts took place in a “climate of respect.”
“A review was made of the evolution of the migration accords in force between the two countries and the main results of the individual and joint actions undertaken by the Parties to cope with illegal migration and alien smuggling,” the Cuban statement said.
It said also Cuba had ratified protocols to prevent people trafficking and smuggling of migrants.
U.S. officials said that they had used the meeting to again press Cuba to release jailed American contractor Alan Gross.
Gross is serving a 15-year sentence for installing Internet networks for Cuban Jews as part of a U.S. program that Cuba considers subversive.
Gross' arrest in late 2009 and sentencing in March 2011 halted a brief thaw in U.S.-Cuba relations after Obama took office in January 2009.
U.S. officials have said they plan to raise the issue of the weapons shipment to Cuba soon.
Meanwhile, international vessel tracking monitor IHS Fairplay said that it had established that five North Korean cargo ships had made similar journeys since 2010, including the O Un Chong Nyon Ho, which docked in Havana, Cuba, in May last year.
Raul con el general Kim Kyok a principios de mes en La Habana
el asunto no reside en que las armas sean 'defensivas y obsoletas' y fueran enviadas para su reparacion al unico lugar donde la anacronica tecnologia aun existe como afirman en la declaracion, sino que las mismas estaban convenientemente escondidas y no fueron declaradas a las autoridades del canal de panama como establecen los convenios internacionales. pero, y desde cuando los emperadores de
castrolandia ha rendido cuenta de los movimientos y trafico de armas que
llega incluso al empleo de valijas diplomaticas?
Las dudas sobre el barco Chong Chon Gan con bandera norcoreana retenido
la noche de este lunes en el puerto de Manzanillo en Colón, con supuesto
cargamento bélico y que venía de Cuba, dispara también la interrogante
sobre el vínculo entre las dos naciones comunistas.
Lo que no
se sabe y lo que el gobierno panameño no ha dicho nada es saber el
trasfondo de este barco que transportaba 220 mil quintales de azúcar.
¿Cuáles son las principales negociaciones bilaterales entre ambas naciones?
A inicios de este mes, una delegación militar norcoreana, encabezada por el general de Ejército Kim Kyok Sik, jefe del Estado Mayor General del Ejército Popular de Corea Democrática, realizó una visita a Cuba, reseñó el diario cubano Granma.
La prensa oficial cubana no precisó los temas tratados en los
encuentros sostenidos por militares de ambos países; sin embargo,
destacó que el general Kyok Sik, durante sus visitas, estuvo acompañado
por el general de Cuerpo de Ejército Álvaro López Miera, “Héroe de la
República de Cuba”, miembro del Buró Político del Partido Comunista,
viceministro primero de las Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias y jefe del
Estado Mayor General.
En tanto, el sitio digital Cubainformación
extrajo que la nación caribeña está vinculada con Corea del Norte en la
defensa del socialismo frente a las agresiones del imperialismo
estadounidense.
En 2009 ambos países firmaron varios convenios
de cooperación en los sectores de la educación, petróleo, agricultura y
comercio.
Cuba y la República Popular Democrática de Corea establecieron relaciones diplomáticas desde el 29 de agosto de 1960.
A North Korean ship carrying what is believed to be “sophisticated missile equipment” hidden in sugar containers was stopped while returning home from Cuba, Panama’s president said late Monday.
Speaking to Radio Panama, President Ricardo Martinelli said the captain of the ship tried to kill himself after officials began searching the consignment of sugar.
The vessel, which Martinelli did not name, was heading for the Panama Canal when it was stopped. It was then taken the port of Manzanillo to be searched.
“We suspected that it was carrying drugs and we brought it to port and we started verifying everything that was on the ship,” he said. “We started disembarking the sugar and found some containers that we believe are carrying sophisticated missile equipment."
Martinelli said that the ship was being held while a “more thorough investigation” was carried out.
He added that officials had taken photographs of the arms – one of which he posted on Twitter – “so that the world knows that you can’t transfer non-declared, war-like material through the Panama Canal.”
“The Panama Canal is a canal of peace not of war,” he told the radio station.
Panamanian authorities have detained some 35 crew members, Reuters reported.
The vessel “aroused suspicion by the violent reaction of the captain and the crew from Friday afternoon,” Panama's Security Minister Jose Raul Mulino told the radio station, according to AFP.
And Javier Caraballo, an anti-drugs enforcement official, said: "Until now we have not found drugs in the boat, we found military equipment."
A spokeswoman for the Panama Canal told Reuters she did not have any more information and referred questions to the attorney general. The attorney general's office did not immediately return requests for comment.
In April, Admiral Sam Locklear told Congress that the U.S. was capable of intercepting a missile launched by North Korea.
This came after months of heightened tensions due to missile and nuclear bomb tests by the North, during which it threatened to launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike against U.S. and South Korean targets.
In October, 2012, North Korea claimed that the U.S. mainland was “within the scope” of its missiles.
There are fears Pyongyang is trying to build a missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead to the U.S.
A new oversight report from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction shows that the U.S. government has provided the Afghanistan National Army (ANA) over $1 billion worth of U.S. taxpayer funded ammunition.
The actual number is $1.03 billion; this cost is in addition to the $288 million in ammunition that the U.S. has also provided to the Afghan National Police (ANP).
In addition to bullets for both the ANA and the ANP, the U.S. has spent $3.4 billion for "equipment and transportation" for the ANP alone. Of this, $366,079,788 was used for weapon purchases, while over $2.6 billion was used for transportation purchases.
U.S. taxpayers have funded nearly $900 million worth of weapons purchases for the ANA as well.
Researchers at the University of Maryland, funded by the U.S. Army, may have just taken drone warfare to the next level.
The Robo-Raven is a robotic bird, with wings that can flap independently of one another. This technology makes the aircraft appear like a live bird.
In fact, a YouTube video from the University of Maryland Robotics Department shows the Robo-Raven in flight, a flight so lifelike that the machine gets attacked by a hawk at 1:49 in the video.
“Our goal is to create a robotic bird that can do things that have never been done before,” Dr. S.K. Gupta, a professor at UMD’s Robotics Department, says in the video.
The tactical potential is outstanding. In Iraq and Afghanistan, insurgents have been known to bury weapons or disperse when they see or hear surveillance drones doing low passes. With the technology harnessed by the Robo-Raven, a surveillance drone could hover overhead and no one would have any idea.
(AP) MOSCOW--Russia is looking at Steven Seagal to be the face of its weapons industry as it guns for first place on the world arms market.
Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said the action movie star may head up an international marketing campaign to promote the Degtarev arms plant, Russian news agencies reported. He accompanied Seagal on a visit there Tuesday.
"You're ready to fight American (manufacturers) with your teeth and your intellect, and if Americans are prepared to promote and support you, that says we're learning new ways to work on corporate warfare markets," Rogozin said.
Russian officials are big fans of Seagal, who met President Vladimir Putin in March and claimed to have set up a meeting with Rogozin for a Congressional delegation last week.
Evo Morales y Nicolás Maduro, en un reciente encuentro en La Paz. Foto: Efe
Bolivia tiene una deuda comercial con Venezuela por un poco más de 145 millones de dólares.
El presidente de Bolivia, Evo Morales, reveló que su país compró nueve aviones de entrenamiento militar con fondos del programa ‘Bolivia cambia, Evo cumple’, que en el período 2006-2011 recibió donaciones de dinero de Venezuela.
En su discurso, Morales se refirió al asunto en un acto del Colegio Militar de Aviación de la ciudad de Santa Cruz (este), en medio de una polémica entre su gobierno y la oposición sobre el uso dado a los fondos de ese programa gubernamental en Bolivia.
Relató que en 2006, cuando llegó a la presidencia, encontró una Fuerza Aérea Boliviana (FAB) con “oficiales desmoralizados” y a sus familiares solicitando a gritos en los actos públicos que se compren los aviones de entrenamiento. “Para información de nuestro comandante, de nuestro oficial de la Fuerza Aérea Venezolana, y (con) parte del programa ‘Bolivia cambia’, compramos nueve aviones de entrenamiento. Muchas gracias hermano general, muchas gracias al pueblo venezolano”, sostuvo Morales, sin detallar la identidad de ese oficial.
Morales pidió en el acto, al que asistió dicho militar venezolano, “un aplauso como justo homenaje a esta cooperación incondicional, que lamentablemente algunos opositores, algunos políticos empresarios cuestionan”.
El mandatario no precisó si hubo fondos venezolanos usados de forma directa en la compra de las naves, aunque el plan ‘Bolivia cambia, Evo cumple’ recibió donaciones de ese país hasta 2011.
Morales se refirió al tema en medio de una polémica que hay en Bolivia sobre el uso otorgado a ese programa, tras la publicación de un estudio hecho por el opositor y empresario Samuel Doria Medina, que habló de una supuesta falta de transparencia en el plan.
El Gobierno ha rechazado las denuncias de Doria Medina y ha defendido que el plan se enfocó en obras para combatir la pobreza. Según el estudio de Doria Medina, en ese programa se gastó en seis años una suma de 438,7 millones de dólares, mientras que el gobierno, según el matutino La Razón, ha emitido informes en el sentido de que en el período 2007-2012 se gastaron 402 millones de dólares.
El gobierno boliviano también ha insistido estos días en aclarar que se trataron de donaciones y no de créditos de Venezuela, por lo que no hay deuda acumulada por los fondos del citado programa.
El único contrato de préstamo contraído con Venezuela data de 2008 y fue de 300 millones de dólares para la construcción de una carretera, pero de los que el Gobierno venezolano solo desembolsó 20 millones invertidos en el comienzo de las obras.
Aparte, Bolivia tiene una deuda comercial con Venezuela por la compra de gasóleo por un poco más de 145 millones de dólares.
In a major address Thursday President Barack Obama sought to reframe the nation’s counterterrorism strategy, saying, “Our systematic effort to dismantle terrorist organizations must continue. But this war, like all wars, must end. That's what history advises. That's what our democracy demands.”
He said in a speech at the National Defense University in Washington, “We must define our effort not as a boundless 'global war on terror' - but rather as a series of persistent, targeted efforts to dismantle specific networks of violent extremists that threaten America."
In an attempt to define a new post-Sept. 11 era, Obama outlined new guidelines for the use of drones to kill terrorists overseas and pledged a
President Barack Obama discusses civilian casualties resulting from U.S. drone strikes while speaking Thursday at the National Defense University
renewed effort to close the military detention center in Guantanamo Bay. In the speech, Obama argued that, “In the years to come, not every collection of thugs that labels themselves al Qaeda will pose a credible threat to the United States.” He warned that “unless we discipline our thinking and our actions, we may be drawn into more wars we don't need to fight.”
With efforts under way in Congress to redefine the 2001 authorization to use military force (AUMF) against al Qaida, Obama said he would work with Congress “in efforts to refine, and ultimately repeal, the AUMF's mandate. And I will not sign laws designed to expand this mandate further.”
Toward the end of Obama’s address as he discussed the Guantanamo detainees, he was repeatedly interrupted by heckling from Medea Benjamin, founder of the antiwar Code Pink, whose members have frequently been arrested for disrupting hearings on Capitol Hill – but Obama patiently said that Benjamin’s concerns are “something to be passionate about.”
“We must define the nature and scope of this struggle, or else it will define us, mindful of James Madison's warning that ‘No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.’ Neither I, nor any president, can promise the total defeat of terror,” he declared.
As part of his redefinition of counterterrorism, the president announced several initiatives:
Setting narrower parameters for the use of remotely piloted aircraft, or drones, to kill terrorists overseas and to limit collateral casualties;
Renewing efforts to persuade Congress to agree to close the Guantanamo detention site in Cuba where 110 terrorist suspects are being held;
Appointing a new envoy at the State Department and an official at the Defense Department who will attempt to negotiate transfers of Guantanamo detainees to other countries.
Lifting the moratorium he imposed in 2010 on transferring some detainees at Guantanamo to Yemen. Obama imposed that moratorium after it was revealed that Detroit “underwear bomber” Umar Farouq Abdulmuttalab was trained in Yemen.
Obama argued that when compared to the Sept. 11, 2001 attackers, “the threat today is more diffuse, with Al Qaeda's affiliates in the
Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP
President Barack Obama talks about national security, Thursday, May 23, 2013, at the National Defense University at Fort McNair in Washington.
Arabian Peninsula – AQAP – the most active in plotting against our homeland. While none of AQAP's efforts approach the scale of 9/11 they have continued to plot acts of terror, like the attempt to blow up an airplane on Christmas Day in 2009.”
So he said, “As we shape our response, we have to recognize that the scale of this threat closely resembles the types of attacks we faced before 9/11.”
He said that the current threat is often from “deranged or alienated individuals – often U.S. citizens or legal residents – (who) can do enormous damage, particularly when inspired by larger notions of violent jihad. That pull towards extremism appears to have led to the shooting at Fort Hood, and the bombing of the Boston Marathon.”
In discussing his drone strategy he indicated his remorse over the innocent people who had been killed: “it is a hard fact that U.S. strikes have resulted in civilian casualties, a risk that exists in all wars. For the families of those civilians, no words or legal construct can justify their loss. For me, and those in my chain of command, these deaths will haunt us as long as we live, just as we are haunted by the civilian casualties that have occurred through conventional fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq.”
There remains considerable doubt about Obama’s ability to persuade a majority in Congress to change the current law on releasing detainees held there.
The defense spending bill which Obama signed into law last year prohibits any transfers to the United States of any detainee at Guantanamo who was held there on or before Jan. 20, 2009, the day Obama became president.
And the law sets a very high legal bar for Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to transfer a detainee to his country of origin, or to any other foreign country.
Hagel would need to certify to Congress that the detainee will not be transferred to a country that is a designated state sponsor of terrorism. The country must have agreed to take steps to ensure that the detainee cannot take action to threaten the United States, U.S. citizens, or its allies in the future.
The law allows Hagel to use waivers in some cases to transfer detainees.
Speaking a day before Obama’s speech, Ben Wittes, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and co-founder of the Lawfare blog which covers detainee news, said, “I don’t see any significant change in congressional sentiment right now” on closing the Guantanamo site.
“He’s got a lot of domestic pressure from his base to be seen to be doing something and he’s also got a hunger strike there (at Guantanamo) — and I think there’s a lot of genuine sentiment in the administration that they want to do something (about Guantanamo) so they’re committed to another push and trying again – but the question of what they actually could get done is a difficult question. There’s very limited latitude.”
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea fired a projectile into waters off its eastern coast Sunday, a day after launching three short-range missiles in the same area, officials said.
North Korea routinely test-launches short-range missiles. But the latest launches came during a period of tentative diplomacy aimed at easing recent tension, including near-daily threats by North Korea to attack South Korea and the U.S. earlier this year. North Korea protested annual joint military drills by Seoul and Washington and U.N. sanctions imposed over its February nuclear test.
The fourth launch occurred Sunday afternoon, according to officials at Seoul's Defense Ministry and Joint Chiefs of Staff. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity citing department rules, refused to say whether it was a missile or artillery round.
On Saturday, North Korea fired two short-range missiles in the morning and another in the afternoon. The U.S. responded by saying threats or provocations would only further deepen North Korea's international isolation, while South Korea called the launches a provocation and urged the North to take responsible actions.
The North has a variety of missiles but Seoul and Washington don't believe the country has mastered the technology needed to manufacture nuclear warheads that are small and light enough to be placed on a missile capable of reaching the U.S.
U.S. officials said the North has recently withdrawn two mid-range "Musudan" missiles believed to be capable of reaching Guam after moving them to its east coast during the recent tensions.
The Korean Peninsula officially remains in a state of war because the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty. South Korea's Defense Ministry said Sunday it has deployed dozens of Israeli-made precision guided missiles on front-line islands near the disputed western sea boundary as part of an arms buildup begun after a North Korean artillery strike on one of the islands in 2010 killed four South Koreans.
Driving a war drone is a stressful business. Shifts up to 12 hours long are stretches of dullness, watching and waiting, interrupted by flashes of intense activity in which pilots must make life-or-death decisions. Not their own life or death, however.
U.S. Air Force/ A pilot trainee flies an MQ-1 Predator simulator
Pilots may be thousands of miles away from the flying weapons system they're operating. They often head home at the end of the day, as if returning from any other office job, maybe picking up milk on the way. But while at work, their drones' onboard cameras put them in a unique position to watch people being killed and injured as a direct result of their actions.
As psychologists learn more about the mental scarring warfare leaves on drone pilots — caused by long shift hours, isolation, witnessing casualties and those Jekyll-and-Hyde days split between battlefield and home — experts from within the U.S. Air Force are calling for a review of drone pilot selection.
Brad Hoagland, an Air Force colonel and visiting researcher at the Brookings Institution, and a fighter-jet pilot and operations commander of 23 years himself, believes that drone pilots could be picked better, and that existing selection techniques are due to be updated now that the service has accumulated almost a decade of research into the psychological characteristics of drone pilots.
"The thrill of taking off from a runway, flying a mission and then coming back and landing at the end of the mission — that’s very exciting," he told NBC News. "But I think that’s a different type of person who can do that, than someone who is maybe wired to fly an unmanned system from a console 7,000 miles away. It’s a different psychological makeup requirement to execute the mission."
Right stuff, wrong stuff"I think we are still trying to figure out exactly what the 'right stuff' is," Wayne Chappelle, a clinical psychologist consulting for Air Force Medical at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, told NBC News. "We have a general idea ... but I certainly think we're probably more aware of what the wrong stuff is versus the right stuff."
The trouble is that spotting the known positive attributes in up-and-coming drone pilots is harder than spotting the negative attributes. To begin with, Chappelle drew up a portrait of the ideal drone pilot from the recorded testimony of 82 drone pilots and their supervisors in a 2011 report.
Good drone pilots, according to Chappelle's findings, have excellent memory for pictures and sounds. They are bombarded with sounds and images from multiple screens through their long shifts, but parse that data quickly, cutting through the noise. They're multitaskers and collaborators.
"These guys are very smart, very bright in a wide range of areas. They are emotionally resilient and highly stress tolerant and very motivated," Chappelle said.
People who have a history of abuse or dependence on alcohol, drugs or other substances, anxiety or depression, and cognitive impairments such as learning disabilities tend to make bad drone pilots.
Although the strengths of a drone pilot differ from the strengths of a manned fighter pilot, Chappelle said the psychological screening protocol for both is the same — and hasn't changed in a decade. "We're still looking at ways to improve and expand upon the screening procedures."
In his research, Hoagland has found that washout rates among undergraduate pilot trainees headed to crafts like the F-16 are traditionally about 10 to 15 percent. But drone pilot trainees exit at 30 percent (though that's down from 45 percent a few years ago). Pilots may drop out, but more often, they fail to meet some flight or academic criteria along the way, Hoagland said.
And when they do graduate, they receive mental health diagnoses at a rate on par with pilots who fly in aircraft, and at much higher rates than other non-pilot Air Force personnel, according to a February 2013 report by the Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center.
NBC News has requested to interview a pilot or pilot instructor at the Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico, where drone pilots are trained, but to date the Air Force has declined the request without further explanation.
Testing, testing
In an upcoming report headed to the Pentagon, Hoagland will suggest some fixes for his higher-ups to consider.
For one, though the Air Force has a test called the Pilot Candidate Scoring Method, not all pilot candidates — of drones or manned craft — are given the exam. (The Air Force Academy, for example, only recently started administering it, and only on an "experimental" basis.)
"I can't believe we as an Air Force haven't standardized this," Hoagland says. Once everyone's taking the test, and baseline scores are set, those scores can be mined for indicators as to who might be better suited to fly an F-16 and who might be destined for a drone. "It's a common sense approach."
Also, though it's been standard procedure to assess concentration, attention, psychomotor skills as part of the Medical Flight Screening-Neurosychiatric test in pre-screened pilots-to-be, that information is not used in the selection process. Tests do weed out the medically and psychologically unfit — Hoagland thinks it would be an easy next step to ask: "Is this person suited for an unmanned or manned system?"
The coming swarm
As the Air Force's drone program grows, so does the importance of pilot selection. What started in 2004 as five drone combat patrols — four aircraft each — will to swell to 65 patrols by 2014. By 2010, Predators had logged more than a million combat hours, more than any other military bird. And today's population of 1,300 combat drone pilots will be joined by 500 more in the next few years.
And as autonomous systems evolve, the capabilities of unmanned craft will, too. The Air Force will shift to a system with multiple vehicles flown in tandem, answering to a single pilot. These "swarm" handlers will have more complex tasks heaped on them earlier in their career.
"In terms of who we need to have, I think we're on a learning curve there," Anthony Tvaryanas, a doctor of aerospace medicine and technical advisor with the 711th Human Systems Integration Directorate at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, told NBC News.
"If [a pilot is] operating a swarm, what are you looking for in that person? I don't think anyone's looking into those concepts," Tvaryanas said.
"As we get from a pilot in an airplane to a pilot outside the airplane to a pilot controlling 100 airplanes, I think we're approaching the limits of what [prior experience and studies] can inform us. There's a need to look back at training," he added.
(AP) - A drone the size of a fighter jet took off from the deck of an American aircraft carrier for the first time Tuesday in a test flight that could eventually open the way for the U.S. to launch unmanned aircraft from just about any place in the world.
The X-47B is the first drone designed to take off and land on a carrier, meaning the U.S. military would not need permission from other countries to use their bases.
"As our access to overseas ports, forward operating locations and airspace is diminished around the world, the value of the aircraft carrier and the air wing becomes more and more important," Rear Adm. Ted Branch, commander of Naval Air Forces Atlantic, said after the flight off the Virginia coast. "So today is history."
The move to expand the capabilities of the nation's drones comes amid growing criticism of America's use of Predators and Reapers to gather intelligence and carry out lethal missile attacks against terrorists in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen.
Critics in the U.S. and abroad have charged that drone strikes cause widespread civilian deaths and are conducted with inadequate oversight.
Still, defense analysts say drones are the future of warfare.
The new Joint Strike Fighter jet "might be the last manned fighter the U.S. ever builds. They're so expensive, they're so complex, and you put a human at risk every time it takes off from a carrier," said James Lewis, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
"This is the next generation of military technology _ the unmanned vehicles, the unmanned submersibles, the unmanned aircraft. This will be the future of warfare, and it will be a warfare that is a little less risky for humans but maybe a little more effective when it comes to delivering weapons and effect."
While the X-47B isn't intended for operational use, it will help Navy officials develop future carrier-based drones. Those drones could begin operating by 2020, according to Rear Adm. Mat Winter, the Navy's program executive officer for unmanned aviation and strike weapons.
The X-47B is far bigger than the Predator, has three times the range and can be programmed to carry out missions with no human intervention, the Navy said.
While the X-47B isn't a stealth aircraft, it was designed with the low profile of one. That will help in the development of future stealth drones, which would be valuable as the military changes its focus from the Middle East to the Pacific, where a number of countries' air defenses are a lot stronger than Afghanistan's.
"Unmanned systems would be the likely choice in a theater or an environment that was highly defended or dangerous where we wouldn't want to send manned aircraft," Branch said.
During Tuesday's flight, the X-47B used a steam catapult to launch, just as traditional Navy warplanes do. The unarmed aircraft then landed at Naval Air Station Patuxent River in Maryland.
The next critical test for the tailless plane will come this summer, when it attempts to land on a moving aircraft carrier, one of the most difficult tasks for Navy pilots.
Earlier this month, the X-47B successfully landed at the air station using a tailhook to catch a cable and bring it to a quick stop, just as planes setting down on carriers have to do.
The X-47B has a wingspan of about 62 feet and weighs 14,000 pounds, versus nearly 49 feet and about 1,100 pounds for the Predator.
While Predators are typically piloted via remote control by someone in the U.S., the X-47B relies only on computer programs to tell it where to fly unless a human operator needs to step in. Eventually, one person may be able to control multiple unmanned aircraft at once, Branch said.
The group Human Rights Watch said it is troubled by what it described as a trend toward the development of fully autonomous weapons that can choose and fire upon targets with no human intervention.
"We're saying you must have meaningful human control over key battlefield decisions of who lives and who dies. That should not be left up to the weapons system itself," said Steve Goose, director of the arms division at Human Rights Watch.
Developed by Northrop Grumman under a 2007 contract at a cost of $1.4 billion, the X-47B is capable of carrying weapons and providing around-the-clock intelligence, surveillance and targeting, according to the Navy, which has been giving updates on the project over the past few years.
The X-47B can reach an altitude of more than 40,000 feet and has a range of more than 2,100 nautical miles, versus 675 for the Predator. The Navy plans to show the drone can be refueled in flight, which would give it even greater range.
Around the same time the nation was transfixed on the hunt for the Boston Marathon bombers last month, thieves on the other side of the country pulled off a little-noticed heist -- swiping 559 pounds of explosives from a federal storage facility in Montana.
As of Friday, not one ounce of it has been found.
The incident, federal officials believe, was not terrorism-related. But it's the latest to raise security concerns in an age when authorities are warning about the desire of violence-bent terrorists to inflict mass casualties with bombs.
Rep. Steve Daines, Montana's only congressman, told FoxNews.com he's "deeply concerned" about the theft in his state and will be "closely monitoring" the investigation.
The explosives were stolen from a locked U.S. Forest Service bunker near Billings. Thieves took off with various emulsion-type explosives, cast boosters and detonating cord.
Federal officials weren't able to point to why the explosives were taken and have downplayed what could happen if they fall into the wrong hands. Some in the area -- who did not want to be named publicly -- believe the facility might have been looted by local miners or by private forestry-related companies that want to bypass buying the explosives legally.
The types of items that were taken are often used in mines, to clear rockslides and construction trails, and to blow up animal carcasses. Strapping sticks of dynamite to a dead animal is a common method used in the region to dispose of the bodies. When animals -- like elk or horses -- start decomposing, the scent attracts bigger animals like bears to populated areas.
Carbon County Sheriff Thomas Rieger told FoxNews.com his office is working with federal authorities to find the culprit but admits it's disturbing to think that someone walked off with hundreds of pounds of bomb-making material.
"We still don't have any idea who done it," Rieger said, adding, "It's under a full investigation."
Daines, a member of the Homeland Security Committee, said he's looking into the investigation and it's "critical that the USFS, ATF and local law enforcement find answers about how the security of this site was breached and work to strengthen the security measures for these storage sites to ensure that a theft like this does not happen again."
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives spokesman Brad Beyersdorf said the agency is offering a $5,000 reward for information on the incident. Stealing explosives and possession of stolen explosives is punishable by up to 10 years in prison. To date, there have been no arrests made in connection to the case, though the Billings Gazette reports that the ATF is chasing some recent leads.
While Beyersdorf stressed that security at ATF-affiliated facilities in the country is tight, there have been an alarming amount of explosives lost from private sites over the past decade.
On Aug. 11, 2011, Travis McQueen broke into storage units at the Buckley Powder Company in Cass County, Neb., and stole 100 pounds of blasting agents, two cases of boosters and 3,000 feet of detonating cord. Authorities in the eastern Nebraska area put up flyers asking residents for help in cracking the case. An anonymous caller led federal agents to McQueen. Soon thereafter, authorities arrested Christopher Bousman in connection to the crime.
According to court records, McQueen stole the explosives and asked Bousman to help get rid of them. The two dumped the bulk of the stolen property into the Missouri and Platte rivers. McQueen was sentenced to 63 months in prison. On Monday, an Omaha federal judge sentenced Bousman to 18 months behind bars followed by three years of supervised release, Criminal Chief Jan Sharp told FoxNews.com.
Not much of the blasting agent was recovered after it was thrown into the river, Sharp said. The incident is the only sizeable theft of this nature in Nebraska.
In 2005, massive amounts of stolen explosives were also found after they went missing from the Cherry Engineering storage site near Albuquerque, N.M. ATF agents recovered 150 pounds of C-4 explosives, 250 pounds of sheet explosives, 20,000 feet of detonator cord and 2,500 blasting caps.
Federal authorities at the time said they didn't know what the thieves planned to do with the material but did say the amount that went missing was enough to flatten a large building. Most of the explosives eventually turned up in Bloomfield and Ignacio.
The problem of stolen dynamite isn't just a domestic one.
Missing explosives and other weapons made in the U.S. or under the guard of U.S. security forces, have mysteriously disappeared from multiple locations across the world -- most recently in Kuwait. The Interior Ministry said last month thieves broke into an unguarded warehouse and took 20,000 U.S.-origin M-16 assault rifles. Also lifted were 15,000 rounds of ammunition for 9mm pistols. According to Middle East Newsline, thieves broke down three doors before clearing out all the contents in the warehouse.
¨Saturno jugando con sus hijos¨/ Pedro Pablo Oliva
Seguidores
Carta desde la carcel de Fidel Castro Ruz
“…después de todo, para mí la cárcel es un buen descanso, que sólo tiene de malo el que es obligatorio. Leo mucho y estudio mucho. Parece increíble, las horas pasan como si fuesen minutos y yo, que soy de temperamento intranquilo, me paso el día leyendo, apenas sin moverme para nada. La correspondencia llega normalmente…”
“…Como soy cocinero, de vez en cuando me entretengo preparando algún pisto. Hace poco me mandó mi hermana desde Oriente un pequeño jamón y preparé un bisté con jalea de guayaba. También preparo spaghettis de vez en cuando, de distintas formas, inventadas todas por mí; o bien tortilla de queso. ¡Ah! ¡Qué bien me quedan! por supuesto, que el repertorio no se queda ahí. Cuelo también café que me queda muy sabroso”. “…En cuanto a fumar, en estos días pasados he estado rico: una caja de tabacos H. Upman del doctor Miró Cardona, dos cajas muy buenas de mi hermano Ramón….”. “Me voy a cenar: spaghettis con calamares, bombones italianos de postre, café acabadito de colar y después un H. Upman #4. ¿No me envidias?”. “…Me cuidan, me cuidan un poquito entre todos. No le hacen caso a uno, siempre estoy peleando para que no me manden nada. Cuando cojo el sol por la mañana en shorts y siento el aire de mar, me parece que estoy en una playa… ¡Me van a hacer creer que estoy de vacaciones! ¿Qué diría Carlos Marx de semejantes revolucionarios?”.
Quotes
¨La patria es dicha de todos, y dolor de todos, y cielo para todos, y no feudo ni capellanía de nadie¨ - Marti
"No temas ni a la prision, ni a la pobreza, ni a la muerte. Teme al miedo" - Giacomo Leopardi
¨Por eso es muy importante, Vicky, hijo mío, que recuerdes siempre para qué sirve la cabeza: para atravesar paredes¨– Halvar de Flake[El vikingo]
"Como no me he preocupado de nacer, no me preocupo de morir"- Lorca
"Al final, no os preguntarán qué habéis sabido, sino qué habéis hecho" - Jean de Gerson
"Si queremos que todo siga como está, es necesario que todo cambie" - Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
"Todo hombre paga su grandeza con muchas pequeñeces, su victoria con muchas derrotas, su riqueza con múltiples quiebras" - Giovanni Papini
"Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans" - John Lennon
"Habla bajo, lleva siempre un gran palo y llegarás lejos" - Proverbio Africano
"No hay medicina para el miedo"-Proverbio escoces "El supremo arte de la guerra es doblegar al enemigo sin luchar" -Sun Tzu
"You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother" - Albert Einstein
"It is inaccurate to say I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office" - H. L. Menken
"I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented" -Elie Wiesel
"Stay hungry, stay foolish" - Steve Jobs
"If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert , in five years ther'ed be a shortage of sand" - Milton Friedman
"The tragedy of modern man is not that he knows less and less about the meaning of his own life, but that it bothers him less and less" - Vaclav Havel
"No se puede controlar el resultado, pero si lo que uno haga para alcanzarlo" - Vitor Belfort [MMA Fighter]
Liborio
A la puerta de la gloria está San Pedro sentado y ve llegar a su lado a un hombre de cierta historia. No consigue hacer memoria y le pregunta con celo: ¿Quién eras allá en el suelo? Era Liborio mi nombre. Has sufrido mucho, hombre, entra, te has ganado el cielo.
Para Raul Castro
Cuba ocupa el penultimo lugar en el mundo en libertad economica solo superada por Corea del Norte.
Cuba ocupa el lugar 147 entre 153 paises evaluados en "Democracia, Mercado y Transparencia 2007"
Cuando vinieron a buscar a los comunistas, Callé: yo no soy comunista. Cuando vinieron a buscar a los sindicalistas, Callé: yo no soy sindicalista. Cuando vinieron a buscar a los judíos, Callé: yo no soy judío. Cuando vinieron a buscar a los católicos, Callé: yo no soy “tan católico”. Cuando vinieron a buscarme a mí, Callé: no había quien me escuchara.
Un sitio donde los hechos y sus huellas nos conmueven o cautivan
CUBA LLORA Y EL MUNDO Y NOSOTROS NO ESCUCHAMOS
Donde esta el Mundo, donde los Democratas, donde los Liberales? El pueblo de Cuba llora y nadie escucha. Donde estan los Green, los Socialdemocratas, los Ricos y los Pobres, los Con Voz y Sin Voz? Cuba llora y nadie escucha. Donde estan el Jet Set, los Reyes y Principes, Patricios y Plebeyos? Cuba desesperada clama por solidaridad. Donde Bob Dylan, donde Martin Luther King, donde Hollywood y sus estrellas? Donde la Middle Class democrata y conservadora, o acaso tambien liberal a ratos? Y Gandhi? Y el Dios de Todos? Donde los Santos y Virgenes; los Dioses de Cristianos, Protestantes, Musulmanes, Budistas, Testigos de Jehova y Adventistas del Septimo Dia. Donde estan Ochun y todas las deidades del Panteon Yoruba que no acuden a nuestro llanto? Donde Juan Pablo II que no exige mas que Cuba se abra al Mundo y que el Mundo se abra a Cuba? Que hacen ahora mismo Alberto de Monaco y el Principe Felipe que no los escuchamos? Donde Madonna, donde Angelina Jolie y sus adoptados around de world; o nos hara falta un Brando erguido en un Oscar por Cuba? Donde Sean Penn? Donde esta la Aristocracia Obrera y los Obreros menos Aristocraticos, donde los Working Class que no estan junto a un pueblo que lanquidece, sufre y llora por la ignominia? Que hacen ahora mismo Zapatero y Rajoy que no los escuchamos, y Harper y Dion, e Hillary y Obama; donde McCain que no los escuchamos? Y los muertos? Y los que estan muriendo? Y los que van a morir? Y los que se lanzan desesperados al mar? Donde estan el minero cantabrico o el pescador de percebes gijonese? Los Canarios donde estan? A los africanos no los oimos, y a los australianos con su acento de hombres duros tampoco. Y aquellos chinos milenarios de Canton que fundaron raices eternas en la Isla? Y que de la Queen Elizabeth y los Lords y Gentlemen? Que hace ahora mismo el combativo Principe Harry que no lo escuchamos? Donde los Rockefellers? Donde los Duponts? Donde Kate Moss? Donde el Presidente de la ONU? Y Solana donde esta? Y los Generales y Doctores? Y los Lam y los Fabelo, y los Sivio y los Fito Paez? Y que de Canseco y Miñoso? Y de los veteranos de Bahia de Cochinos y de los balseros y de los recien llegados? Y Carlos Otero y Susana Perez? Y el Bola, y Pancho Cespedes? Y YO y TU? Y todos nosotros que estamos aqui y alla rumiando frustaciones y resquemores, envidias y sinsabores; autoelogios y nostalgias, en tanto Louis Michel comulga con Perez Roque mientras Biscet y una NACION lanquidecen? Donde Maceo, donde Marti; donde aquel Villena con su carga para matar bribones? Cuba llora y clama y el Mundo NO ESCUCHA!!!