I though the ONYX was surface to surface and am trying to check this out. If this is the same missile the Russians as of at least last year have been concentrating on developing a system making it possible to install the missiles on aircraft of the Su-27 and Su-35 types (an aircraft type of such a missile weighs 2.5 tons). So, these Su planes can carry up to three missiles each and use them against both naval and coastal targets.
New Russian anti-ship missile v no international agreements violated
One year ago:
Designers at the Russian Mashinostroyeniye research and manufacture association Reutovo, a suburban town near Moscow, arrived at the conclusion in the mid-1980s that the countries which had purchased first-generation cruise missiles in the 1970s and the 1980s would need to modernize their missiles in five years' time. Anti-ship missiles made in the U.S., France, Italy and Russia, acquired in large numbers by navies throughout the world, have grown outdated morally and physically. Modern air defense means installed on board ships can easily locate and destroy them.
The first-generation missiles could have been replaced by missiles of the next generation, but their export is prevented under international agreements on nonproliferation of missile technologies. The Mashinostroyeniye designers decided to solve this problem without violating international nonproliferation agreements and fill the export gap. And an anti-ship cruise missile of the fourth generation, named Yakhont, has been developed. Different types of carriers can deliver this unique missile.
Yakhont combines the main qualities of future anti-ship - it has small weight and size, it is invisible for modern radars (Stealth technologies), it flies at supersonic speed and is guided autonomously on a "shot-forgot" principle.
Yakhont is an operational and tactical missile. It is designed for hitting complex targets. The new Russian missile can be used against both a single medium ship of the destroyer type and against an aircraft-carrier force.
The Yakhont designers wanted not just to develop high combat qualities but also to make its use and maintenance as cheap as possible. Its original airframe allowed them to increase its aerodynamic properties and diminish its diameter.
Yet another new technical innovation is its transport and launching container, which is adapted to most different carriers, and any modification of the missile can be kept in it up to three years. A technical inspection and diagnostics of the missile's mechanisms can be carried out through a special joint on its body.
The universal missile weights only 3 tons, and it can be placed in all kinds of ships or launches of Russian or foreign make. Its guidance system can be used with various types of carriers. If installed on a ship being modernized, three containers with Yakhont missiles can replace a single launching position of an "old" cruise missile. For instance, when modernizing a boat of the 1241 Tarantul project, which was sold well to dozens of countries in the Soviet years, its four P-15 Termit missiles may be replaced with 12 Yakhont anti-ship cruise missiles.
When such a missile leaves its launching container, a sold-fuel booster device, installed in the combustion chamber of the sustainer, is switched on. The missile is thus boosted to a speed of 2 Machs. After that the booster unit is switched off, it is ejected from the sustainer by the oncoming air flow, and a Yakhont continues its flight at the speed of 2.5 Machs due to the operation of a direct-flow liquid-fuel air-breathing engine.
The missile's flight range is up to 300 km if it flies along a combined altitude trajectory, and the range is120 km if altitudes range 5 to 15 meters. It passes the main part of its flight at the altitude of 15 km.
A Yakhont missile is guided towards a target by an inertia navigational system using the target-indicating data put into it before launching. At a pre-set point of the trajectory (25-80 km), a target-seeking device determines precisely the location of a target. The target seeker is switched on again after a missile trajectory declines sharply down to 5 to 15 meters, at the moment when a few second are left before hitting a target.
The Yakhont designers assume that at a distance of 300 km the enemy may detect a missile launching and do whatever necessary to destroy the missile. But being "deaf" to jamming a Yakhont missile, flying at a speed of 750 meters per second and performing complex tactical maneuvering during the flight, will reach its target anyway. No navy in the world has effective means against the Russian missile.
According to military sources, the Russian Yakhont-Onyx ship wreckers are being installed on two Russian vessels - a submarine and a surface ship, which are currently under construction. It is supposed to be used in coastal Bastion anti-ship defense mobile systems moving on motor vehicle chassis. Designers now concentrate on developing a system making it possible to install the missiles on aircraft of the Su-27 and Su-35 types (an aircraft type of such a missile weighs 2.5 tons). So, these Su planes can carry up to three missiles each and use them against both naval and coastal targets.
Military analysts believe that the Yakhont cruise missile will remain unparalleled in the world at least during a decade. This forecast is confirmed by the interest currently displayed by foreign purchasers. A number of countries in the Asian and Pacific region and the Middle East, which purchased Russian ships and boats armed with cruise missiles, have shown interest in Yakhont. Good prospects open up before it also when ships of a foreign make are to be modernized and it can replace U.S., French, or Italian anti-ship missiles.
According to Herbert Yefremov, chief designer of Mashinostroyeniye, it is important for Russia to secure a place on the international market of cruise missiles. Experts assess the demands on the market at 7,000 missiles and the cost of deals may exceed $14 billion.
The Russians for at least since last year have been concentrating on developing a system making it possible to install the missiles on aircraft of the Su-27 and Su-35 types (an aircraft type of such a missile weighs 2.5 tons). So, these Su planes can carry up to three missiles each and use them against both naval and coastal targets. #msg-6509467
Given the following and the fact that many other countries have the Sunburn, the precursor of the ONYX, I think maybe Venezuela and Cuba have the ONYX albeit possibly on another type of plane other than the Venezuelan MIG 29 SMTs.
This apparently is what Australia is afraid of and one reason for the Aegis systems.
Sukhoi" Present New Strategic Risk For Australia
Used as bombers, Flankers could be armed with AGM-142 equivalent standoff weapons such as the Raduga Kh-59M, GBU-15 equivalent TV guided bombs like the GNPP KAB-500/1500Kr. Flankers could also carry Harpoon-clone anti-ship missiles such as the Zvezda Kh-35U and unique weapons like the Zvezda Kh-31 Krypton family of long range ramjet anti-radiation missiles, or the massive supersonic sea- skimming Raduga Kh-41 Moskit/Sunburn and MBRPA Kh-61 Yakhont anti-shipping misiles. As such, the Su-30s provide robust precision strike, defence suppression and sea control capabilities. China is building up a force of 350 – possibly up to 500, rivalling in size the US F-15 fleet. #msg-6413560
May 23, 2005 The Pentagon Monday announced the possible sale of three Aegis naval weapons systems to Australia, saying it would increase the ability of the US and Australian navies to operate together.
Aegis systems are centered on a sophisticated computerized command system that can cue air defense missiles to enemy missiles and aircraft detected by targeting radar. Using its AN/SPY-1 phased array radar, it can track over a hundred targets simultaneously. #msg-6451627
Friday 24 December 2004, 10:39 Makka Time, 7:39 GMT
Chavez is seeking to lower the dependence on the US market
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has offered China wide access to his country's vast energy resources, including oilfields and the possibility of increased direct crude supplies.
The offers were contained in a bilateral energy accord signed in Beijing late on Thursday following talks with Chinese President Hu Jintao, the presidential press office in Caracas said.
Under the deal, China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) will work with Venezuela's ministry of energy and mining, the Chinese foreign ministry said.
The oil agreements were among a series of deals signed with the aim of deepening cooperation in energy and mining resources.
Diversification drive
China is keen to secure a steady supply of raw materials to fuel its booming economy while Venezuela wants to diversity its markets.
Venezuela, the world's fifth largest oil exporter, ships more than half its daily oil output to the US, but since taking office the leftist Chavez has sought to reduce its economic dependence on the nearby US market.
Lake Maracaibo is the centre of Venezuela's oil and gas industry
"Venezuela is making a major energy offer to China because China has become the world's second biggest energy importer," the Venezuelan president said in Beijing on Thursday.
Change of policy
Energy-hungry China is also keen to diversify its energy imports away from the volatile Middle East by striking exploration and supply deals in Latin America, Africa and Southeast Asia.
China became a net importer of oil in the mid-1990s. Imports now account for more than one-third of the country's oil and gas consumption.
Under the deal signed in Beijing, Venezuela has authorised Chinese firms operating oilfields in the South American nation to start producing associated gas along with crude oil. This gas would be sold locally to power basic industries.
China National Petroleum Corporation already operates two Venezuelan fields, Intercampo Norte and Caracoles.
Orimulsion plant
"Venezuela is making a major energy offer to China because China has become the world's second biggest energy importer"
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez
Venezuela also offered an agreement to supply 120,000 barrels of fuel oil a month to China.
According to Chavez, Chinese firms will be allowed to exploit 15 mature oil fields at Zumano in the east of the country, where he estimated reserves of more than a billion barrels.
"Most of that oil will go to China," the Venezuelan statement quoted him as saying.
The two nations were also continuing a venture to build a plant in Venezuela to produce orimulsion, Venezuela's trademark boiler fuel. It would be ready in September 2005 and would produce six million tonnes a year for China, Chavez said.
Wednesday 15 December 2004, 9:17 Makka Time, 6:17 GMT
Castro (L) and Chavez are close allies
Cuban President Fidel Castro and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez have announced an alternative trade bloc to the one proposed by the US for a free-trade area of the Americas.
The alternative was conceived as "a battle fought with the same rules and regulations as those imposed by the [US] empire to divide the people", Castro said on Tuesday.
Naming the new pact the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), the presidents said it would eliminate trade barriers and tax obstacles, provide incentives for investment, increase banking relations and tourism cooperation.
Venezuela promised financing for Cuban industrial and infrastructure projects, while Cuba agreed to pay a minimum price of $27 per barrel of Venezuelan oil, as part of the accord "to apply the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas".
FTAA dead
Before the signing of the agreement, Castro and Chavez addressed a rally in Havana where both presidents declared the US-proposed Latin American Free Trade Zone dead.
Chavez has long accused the US of plotting against him
"It is an alternative to the perverse FTAA, which they have been trying to impose on us for years," Chavez said. "FTAA is dead."
Chavez also accused Washington of pursuing imperialist intentions in free trade talks with Andean countries.
Venezuela is one of the biggest suppliers of crude oil to the US, but their relations have been strained by disputes between Chavez and the White House.
Washington has expressed concern over Chavez's close ties to Castro since Chavez won the presidency in 1998.
And US President George Bush's says the FTAA is the solution to the region's deepening poverty.
Chavez visit
Chavez is on a two-day visit to commemorate his first encounter in Havana with Castro 10 years ago when he was an army officer recently released from prison for leading a failed coup.
At the time, Castro proclaimed him Venezuela's future leader.
Venezuela currently provides Cuba with 53,000 barrels of oil a day at preferential prices, while Cuba has 13,000 doctors in Venezuela, is helping the country stamp out illiteracy and has treated thousands of Venezuelans in its hospitals.
Colombia discovers petroleum deposits near Venezuelan border
Bush has for a long time wanted to seize the Venezuelan oilfields. Since most of the fighting in Colombia centers on their pipelines these Colombian petroleum deposits discoveries near the Venezuelan border will probably see much violence and spillover into Venezuela giving Bush a shot at ousting Chavez.
-Am
Background:
The hypocrisy of Bush's "war on terrorism" is apparent for all to see in Colombia where Bush proposes to spend $98 million to protect Occidental Petroleum's 480-mile-long pipeline which runs from Colombia's second-largest oil field to the Caribbean coast. The $98 million will follow the $1.3 billion the U.S. has already given to Colombia, ostensibly to fight the "drug terrorists." In 2001, the Cano Limon pipeline was closed for 266 days, due to holes blasted in it. The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebels have blown holes in the pipeline for the past fifteen years, resulting in 2.5 million barrels of spilled oil oozing into Colombia's rivers and streams, about ten times the amount of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska.
If Bush enters this 38-year old conflict in Colombia which has resulted in 40,000 deaths in the past decade, he'll be involving the U.S. in a dead-end power struggle among FARC, the Cuban-inspired National Liberation Army (ELN), ultra-right paramilitary groups and the U.S.-supported fascist government. The excuse for spending U.S. taxpayers' money in Afghanistan was that Bin Laden was responsible for the September 11th attacks. Now the only pretext for spending taxpayers' money in Colombia is to combat the FARC and ELN "terrorists" who only threaten U.S. oil company resources, not American lives.
Invading Colombia follows the British-U.S. oil imperialism pattern: going where the oil is. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, Colombian oil production rose from only 100,000 barrels per day in the early 1980s to approximately 844,000 barrels in early 1999 -- an increase of nearly 750 percent. Colombian oil exports to the United States have also risen sharply, and today Colombia is this country's seventh largest supplier of petroleum. Colombia harbors large reserves of untapped oil and natural gas, possibly as much as 20 billion barrels (and Venezuela has 73 billion barrels in proven reserves); hence Colombia--and its oil-rich neighbor countries--become one of many new oil imperialism targets. The United States imports more oil from Colombia and its neighbors, Venezuela and Ecuador, than from all of the Persian Gulf.
Colombia discovers petroleum deposits near Venezuelan border
12:38, July 02, 2005
Colombia announced on Friday the discovery of two new petroleum deposits in the department of Arauca on the Venezuelan border.
The discovery was initially revealed by the governor of Arauca, Julio Acosta Bernal.
According to Acosta, in the two municipalities where the new deposits were found, exploration is undertaken by US oil firm OXYand Spanish firm Repsol.
Colombian Mining and Energy Minister Luis Ernesto Mejia confirmed the discovery but remained cautious, saying it is too soon to make calculations on the potential of the deposits or to tell whether the deposits are commercially exploitable.
In the 1980s, OXY found in Arauca department the Cano Limon deposit, one of the most important in the history of the country and from which great volumes of petroleum are still being extracted.
An important decrease in crude production has been reported as of lately in Colombia and it is estimated that by 2009 the country will have to import petroleum.
I can understand Vialls leaning on Sharon, although not to this degree, but Israel itself is to me almost a separate entitiy. The people of many countries do not subscribe to their leaders agenda. However I have found Vialls to be right about many things therefore worth posting.
-Am
During a visit to Ramallah in Palestine on April 29, 2005, President Putin commented: "Expecting Mahmoud Abbas to fight terrorism effectively, we have to realize that a slingshot and a handful of stones won't do the job." Then Putin paused, before adding, "Which Israel clearly understands."
Copyright Joe Vialls, 5 May 2005 Immediately after his arrival in Palestine on Wednesday April 27, 2005, Russian President Vladimir Putin lights a candle as he visits the Christian Church of the Holy Sepulchre, believed to be built on the site of Jesus' last resting place after his body was removed from the cross in the old town of Jerusalem. When Vladimir Putin arrived in Palestine recently, the western media was curiously muted, perhaps painfully aware of the fact that the Russian President was one (perhaps the only) head of state, who would not allow himself to be meekly shepherded around the Jewish State on one of Ariel Sharon's intentionally demeaning whistle stop tours of the 'Holocaust' Museum and Wailing Wall.
Put bluntly, Putin has no need to be subservient to those he perceives as vassals of the Wall Street banks - the very same institutions that brought the Soviet Union to its knees in 1989, with a little inside help from Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, who was later rewarded for his treason with matching unrestricted American Express Gold Cards for he and his wife Raisa. In purely commercial terms then, Gorbachev was an extraordinarily cheap presidential commodity. With "their man" Gorbachev at the helm, and with Russia in total disarray, the Wall Street bankers ordered their oligarchs in Moscow to start buying up state assets at bargain basement prices, with a view to adding Russia to their ever growing basket of wholly-owned subsidiary nation states. Total control of Russia would finally give the 'One World Government' freaks in New York the awsome power they sought - or so they believed at the time. Year after miserable year, the oligarchs grabbed bigger and bigger slices of the Russian State pie, committed willful fraud on a daily basis, and formed the Moscow Mafia to terrorize Russian residents into submission. Prominent among these oligarchs were Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Leonid Nevzlin, Mikhail Brudno, Vladimir Dubov and Vladimir Gusinsky. All lived high on the hog, right up to the day when Vladimir Putin became President of Russia. Most readers already know what happened to Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Shortly after attempting to illegally transfer ownership of Russian oil giant Yukos to Exxon Mobil of America, Khodorkovsky was arrested for fraud and tax evasion. His sentence was due to be handed down on April 27, the day before Putin was scheduled to arrive in Jerusalem for a brief visit. This verdict was eagerly awaited in Tel Aviv, where a very nervous Ariel Sharon badly need a bit of 'leverage' to use against the Russian President. Alas, it was not to be. At 10 a.m. Moscow time on April 27, a small white notice was pinned to the door of the Russian Court. It read quite simply, "The sentencing of Mikhail Khodorkovsky had been delayed until May 16, 2005." This judicial decision could not have been influenced by Vladimir Putin, because of the separation of powers guaranteed by the new Russian democracy. The decision was, however, a body blow to Ariel Sharon and to those who lurked in his large shadow. The indistinct fuzzy faces lurking in Sharon's shadow include Leonid Nevzlin, Mikhail Brudno, Vladimir Dubov and Vladimir Gusinsky: all of whom have taken up residence in the Jewish State in recent years as Russia ordered their arrests. That these felons should seek sanctuary alongside indicted war criminal Ariel Sharon is no great surprise, because every thieving oligarch in Russia since 1989 has been Jewish, and all hold valid 'Israeli' citizenship and passports for use in emergencies. Like unquestionaly attracts like, and never more so than here. During the forties the Jews pillaged sovereign Palestine because "God said they could", then they went on to pillage sovereign Russia as well. Clearly not content with these two massive atrocities, they then ordered puppet George W. Bush to pillage sovereign Iraq as well. It is a fact that organized crime attracts oligarchs like flies around a rotting corpse, and last year's intelligence reports show that the Jewish State nowadays controls some 94% of the global (Ecstacy) drug trade, thereby providing mind-altering chemicals on demand for your gullible teenage sons and daughters. None of this appalling 'One World Government' and corruption went unnoticed in Moscow, where for more than a decade senior officials have been quietly organizing the asymmetric destruction of the monstrous Zionist 'Empire', by carefully placing key strategic and tactical military assets around the globe, in countries potentially vulnerable to the oligarchs. Mostly this Russian (and Chinese) activity went unnoticed in the west, and where the oligarchs did ctually notice, they sneered scornfully and failed to respond, because they had come to believe their own propaganda that Russian and Chinese weapon systems were 'second rate'. By mid-2004 it was too late to respond meaningfully, because it was suddenly announced that Russia, China, India and Brazil had formally entered into the most powerful coalition on the face of the earth, literally surrounding both America and the Jewish State with a lethal ring of sophisticated weapons. At the same time, smaller informal coalitions were formed at the boundaries, with the most ominous (for America), being the sub coalition between Brazil, Venezuela and Cuba. Across in the Eastern Hemisphere, a second sub coalition was formed between Iran, Syria, India and China. Within a few months, every main and sub coalition sovereign nation had been armed with weapons easily capable of destroying the awesome portable firepower of both America and the Jewish State. By the time the Zionist oligarchs finally woke up, it was far too late to strike back in an effective manner. So when Vladimir Putin calmy arrived in Palestine to announce that he would be providing the Palestinian security forces with helicopters and a minimum of 50 armoured vehicles to fight "terrorists", it required very little imagination to work out which terrorists Putin was subtly referring to. The devil lay in the detail, with Putin artfully making his intent crystal clear with a blunt statement in Ramallah that, "a slingshot and a handful of stones won't do the job" [for the Palestinians]. Since the very first illegal invasion and occupation of sovereign Palestine, the traditional defense used by Palestinians against the Jewish invaders were slighshots and stones. These puny weapons were never used against anyone else, making Jewish terrorists the only possible targets for the new Russian weapons. As usual, the controlled western media 'shielded' you from these meaningful remarks, because it would be too embarrassing for Wall Street to admit that Vladimir Putin had flown into Palestine specifically to offer military assistance in the final destruction of the illegal Jewish invasion force; an event that over time will lead to a real Jewish diaspora. By western media standards, readers would of course expect Washington and Tel Aviv to threaten Putin with massive retribution for his 'insubordination', but they failed to do so. Apart from darkly muttered comments that the Russian armored vehicles would never be allowed into Palestine, "because we [The Jews] control the territory", the subject was allowed to be buried. The reason for this cowed western response is simple enough. Washington and Tel Aviv fear President Putin, and rightly so. For this is the man who provided the Iraqi Republican Guard with a massive quantity of laser-guided Kornet anti-tank missiles, each of them man-portable and easily capable of destroying an American Abrams battle tank for 1/2,000th the cost of the latter. Putin is also the man who helped to direct the rearmament of Iran and Syria so skillfully, and with such esoteric weaponry, that only a complete idiot would try to attack either country. So, in the Eastern Hemisphere, the Jewish invaders of Palestine are now surrounded, apart from the Mediterranean in the west, which is a convenient back door through which most will be allowed to flee, when the time comes for blind panic. On the left, seventh-grade Judo Black Belt Vladimir Putin throws a a lesser Japanese adversary to the mat, while on the right a mighty S-300 PMU races off its launcher, to destroy an incoming tactical ballistic missile. I did consider putting a picture of Ariel Sharon alongside, but feared the image of the grossly obese indicted war criminal would destroy the speed and grace of this photographic montage. To comprehend how it is that most people in America, Britain and Australia simply cannot appreciate what is happening in the Middle East at present, we need to go back in history to take a closer look at the massive western propaganda machine, and the way in which it has deluded entire nations into believing that America is the most advanced and powerful single entity on the face of the earth. . Since the late fifties, every media institution from the New York Times on down, has played the productive game of hyping up 'Russian inferiority', both in terms of Russia's political processes and its ability to manufacture and use sophisticated weapon systems. All of this was grossly untrue, but over the decades that followed, the creative media propaganda allowed western politicians and officials to literally 'brainwash' Americans and others into thinking that Russia was of no consequence. Now then, if you can be made to believe that Russia is garbage and America is utterly invincible, you will naturally be more prepared to send your sons and daughters to war, because the western media has already assured you each of your children will swiftly kill a few inferior "Gooks" or "Hajis" [depending on which country Wall Street is illegally invading at the time], then come home beaming and uninjured, with a load of souvenirs from exotic lands. Just like going on a pleasant package holiday, you see, but with New York throwing in a free gun and ammo for good measure. You may remember the media telling you this quite recently in fact, when television and the newspapers told you that American troops 'liberating' Russian-backed sovereign Iraq from its own sovereign government, would be greeted by delighted Iraqi citizens throwing rose petals on the road in front of the Abrams battle tanks. Grateful Iraqi maidens would allegedly bestow delightful sexual favors on their new-found American GI heroes; beer and wine would flow freely, and so on and so forth. What they forgot to tell you is that Saddam Hussein was and remains a national hero - the man who threw the British and Americans out of Iraq in 1972, thus giving Iraqi citizens their own country back and restoring their dignity. Since 2003 these same Iraqi citizens have sent more than 3,400 of your sons and daughters home in body bags, to wait in a two-year queue for burial at Arlington Cemetery. The media will, of course, tell you that the Arlington backlog is due to World War II Veterans suddenly and very conveniently dying at a vastly increased rate of more than 1,000 per week. You may believe this Orwellian fantasy if you wish. Where did the advanced weapons and tactics that made all this possible really come from? Surely not from old-fashioned, second-rate, irrelevant and defeated Russia? Actually, yes they did. You see, ever since Yuri Gagarin circled the earth in Vostok 1 during April 1961, Russia has been vastly superior to America in the areas of science and military design. Predictably, this disturbing reality was deliberately swamped by western media outlets using pure trickery, with a little graphics magic thrown in for good measure. There are countless examples I could use, but we only have room here for one. So, let us forget the insane "Apollo to the Moon" scam, which was really only about diverting trillions of taxpayer dollars to black projects and Swiss bank accounts, and focus instead on the single comparison of Yuri Gagarin's Vostok 1, and Alan Shepard's Freedom 7, which tried to follow Gagarin into space just 23 days later.
When Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin blasted off in Vostok 1 on April 12, 1961, he was sitting on top of the most powerful launch rocket in the world. America could not match it then, and still cannot match it now in 2005. Because of the rocket's ability to lift huge payloads, Gagarin was lying comfprtably inside an armored capsule so strong, that the inside pressure was a full 14.7 p.s.i., exactly the same atmospheric pressure as that found on the surface of the earth. In turn, this meant that Yuri Gagarin was able to lie there casually with his helmet visor open, breathing exactly the same air you or I breathe every day. Beneath the capsule itself was the massive guidance and support stage, containing full life support, plus thrust and vectoring rockets. For this first flight, all controls were locked and controlled from the ground by rudimentary analog computer, but Gagarin had a sealed envelope containing a key, which would give him complete control of the spacecraft if contact was lost with the ground. Vostok 1 soared into full earth orbit at an altitude of 204.4 miles, and stayed aloft for 108 minutes. After reentry, Gagarin was given the choice of remaining in the capsule as it parachuted to earth, or ejecting and and landing with a separate parachute of his own. Yuri Gagarin chose to eject, but the Russians kept this information secret for many years afterwards. There was a good reason for this. Operational ejector seats are complex, very large and very heavy, meaning that if America found out about the seat, Russia's already awesome space lift capability would have to be recaluculated and multiplied by a factor of three. Put another way, forty years ago, Yuri Gagarin was sitting in a fully-equipped and pressurised capsule larger than the cockpit of a modern F-15 Eagle fighter. Naturally enough, western spin doctors were outraged at this 'affront' to America's superior scientific ability (sic), and set up a massive counter-propaganda campaign. To put the nasty Russian Commies in their place, America strapped a rather nervous Alan Shepard into an enlarged Coke can called "Freedom 7", stuck the enlarged coke can on top of a ballistic missile, and then lit the blue touch paper on May 5, 1961. Believe me, Alan Shepard was a very brave man. Because the American ballistic missile had hopelessly inadequate lifting ability, his tiny thin-skinned Coke can could not be pressurised to full atmospheric pressure. In turn, this meant that Shepard's life depended on an all-embracing sealed space suit, and it also meant that he had to breathe 100% oxygen for the duration. Nothing wrong with 100% oxygen (I sometimes sniff it myself), but it is extremely hazardous in a partly-pressurised environment in close proximity to possible electric shorts and sparks. A single spark inside Freedom 7, would have turned Alan Shepard and his space suit into a blazing roman candle in less than one second. Needless to say, like the American Space Shuttle crews today, Shepard did not have the luxury of an ejector seat. Despite the magnificent American media fanfare following its launch, the diminutive Freedom 7 was a dismal failure, barely managing to reach 116 miles altitude in a sub-orbital trajectory, before coming back to earth after a mere 15 minutes and 28 seconds. The little eagle had landed with a sullen bump, but the big bear would go on to much bigger and better things. Just a few years later in 1965 the Russians started using a launch rocket called the "Proton", which continues today as the most reliable heavy lift launcher in history. The Proton can lift up to 22 metric tons into low earth orbit -that's more than one and a half times the mass of a Greyhound bus. Tacit acknowledgement of this awesome lift ability and reliability, lies in the fact that America nowadays pays the Russians to launch its heavy payloads into space, rather than have them self-destruct in the nose cones of notoriously unreliable converted American ballistic missiles. It is obvious from this single documented example, that where Russia uses hard science to achieve hard results, America largely uses media propaganda to deflect public opinion away from the hard fact of Russian superiority. It is a chilling reality, made all the more menacing with groups of American forces encircled by the Republican Guard in Iraq, while Iran and Syria calmly wait to repel, and if necessary destroy, any and all invaders sent by the crazed 'One World Government' in New York.
While in Palestine, Russian President Vladimir Putin paid a diplomatic 3-minute visit to the Jewish "Wailing Wall", located provocatively below the Muslim Al-Aqsa Mosque, then went on to spend four times as long at the tomb of Yasir Arafat. In direct contrast, American President George W. Bush, who continually called Yasir Arafat a "terrorist", makes a mockery of his own professed 'Christianity' by paying homage at the mock shrine of those who murdered Jesus Christ. Now then people, ask yourselves a simple question: Which religious cult do you think has absolute and unchallenged control of the United States of America? Go on, take an inspired guess... Proton For many decades, Russia has practiced asymmetric warfare techniques, meaning that it has developed weapons and techniques designed to ensure that it (and its allies) can defeat nations with much larger war chests, in this case principally although not solely the 'One World Government' folk across in New York. When America invested billions in the development of the Abrams battle tank, the Russians started to look for a more economical way of killing it without bothering to build an opposition tank of their own. To this end, they duplicated the American armor and tested different methods of penetrating it with lightweight economical weapons. Long before America invaded Russian ally Iraq in 2003, they had already found the answer. Before America crossed the border from Kuwait into Iraq, Russia discreetly supplied the Republican Guard with more than 1,000 "Kornet" anti-tank missiles. Each of these and its launcher can easily be handled by a team of three men, and be fired from a simple hole in the desert. Kornet is a laser-guided Mach 3 nightmare with a double warhead guaranteed to finish off at Abrams from 5,000 yards away. In other words, completely out of sight of the American tank crew until missile impact. These missiles have already accounted for more than 60 Abrams tanks in Iraq, and will unquestionably account for a lot more in the future. When corrupt politicians and military contractors in America decided to control the world by building monolithic aircraft carriers, known politely in New York as "Instruments of American Foreign Policy", Russia did not bother to compete. It could have done so easily, but chose instead to find more economical ways of destroying this massive seaborne American menace. This was achieved by the "Sunburn" and "Onyx" supersonic sea-skimming missiles, which have never been known to miss their targets. Note here that both missiles have a range of less than 250 miles at best, proving they are designed for purely defensive use. None have been fitted to strategic bombers in order to attack American ships in American waters, but will unquestionably be used to sink any American aircraft carrier stupid enough to get within 250 miles of Russia or one of its close allies. Thus these missiles have completely neutered America's "Instruments of Foreign Policy" at a cost of just one million dollars per round. At the tactical level, these weapons are equally useful. American foreign policy has been getting dangerously close to Iran and Syria during the last two years, and both sovereign states are now equipped with either Sunburn or Onyx, both of which are nuclear capable. So if America is stupid enough to attack Iran, it will almost certainly lose at least one Carrier battle group in the Persian Gulf to these unstoppable weapons, making the odds too high. In like manner, if the Jewish State is stupid enough to attack Syria, it can expect to lose most of greater Tel Aviv and probably Haifa as well. The problem is that a desperate Jewish State on the hind foot, might decide to go nuclear, and direct its 'requisitioned' stock of American atomic weapons against both Syria and Iran. Clearly, defensive Sunburns and Onyxs would be of no use at all in such a crazed doomsday scenario. But never fear, Russia had already thought of the answer to that little problem as well. THE FUTURE OF ADVANCED RUSSIAN WEAPONS
American Abrams M1A1 tank (serial # L13170) in Baghdad, after being hit by an 8-mm speed-of-light man portable gas plasma weapon. Plasma ball entered through skirt armor covering right track, cut through main hull armor (right side), then grazed rear of gunner's seat and control panel before gouging a 2" deep hole in main hull armor (left side). Just like sliding a hot knife through soft butter. Sadly for America, Los Alamos hasn't got anything even remotely like it. Just about everyone with a television set has seen or at least heard of the fabled American "Patriot" missile, hopefully designed to intercept and destroy incoming tactical ballistic missiles, presumably fired by 'Muslim Terrorists', or perhaps any recalcitrant nation seriously pissed off at Wall Street trying to democratically steal its sovereign oil reserves. Rather like the earlier comparison between Vostok 1 and Challenger 7, the Patriot is a shrimp sized version of the venerable Russian S-300 missile system, and with the same comparative limitations, i.e. the Russian system works perfectly, while the American system does not work at all. The S-300 was originally designed in the late sixties by the Russian Almaz Scientific Production Association, to shoot down low-altitude targets, including cruise missiles and aircraft. Even in the early days its phased-array fire control radar was capable of tracking up to six targets simultaneously, while its single-state, solid-fuel propelled missile sported aerodynamic control surfaces and thrust vectoring. The first S-300 missile, known as 5V55K, had a range of 30 miles and could successfully engage its incoming targets between 200 and 100,000 feet. But that was then, and now is now. Both Iran and Syria have recently been equipped with the very latest version of this missiles, the S-300PMU-2, which is larger, faster and even more efficient at hunting down its prey. The range of this upgraded missile is in excess of 125 miles, with the ability to acquire and kill targets flying as low as 30 feet. The Russians routinely shoot down random target drones travelling at 5,800 feet per second, and further claim the weapon is easily capable of destroying targets approaching at up to 15,500 feet per second, or Mach 14. Trust me, the S-300PMU-2 will swiftly take care of anything America or the Jewish State is reckless enough to fire at Iran or Syria, and then some. Rumor has it that this big bird of prey is canny enough to detect and destroy Groom Lake's 'invisible' B2 bomber. As I prepare to post this report on the Internet, stories are flying around about a Pentagon employee who has been charged for 'leaking' top-secret plans to invade Iran, to 'pro-Israeli lobbies.' For crying out loud - it is the 'pro-Israeli lobbies' who are actually trying to get America to sacrifice its service personnel for the greater good of the terminally ill Jewish State. No doubt Vladimir Putin will allow himself a faint smile at this latest news, while quietly issuing the order to arm the Palestinians.
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) -- American actor Danny Glover on Tuesday defended a new TV station financed by Venezuela's government as a way to bring Latin America together, denying claims by critics that it will be used to demonize the United States.
The channel Telesur, which Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has promoted as an alternative to foreign media giants, began regular broadcasts Sunday and is transmitting news, documentaries and other programs to various Latin countries.
"Certainly the television station itself is not a tool that would be used to demonize the north," said Glover, a member of the station's advisory board. "It is a tool to be used to celebrate the extraordinary diversity of this hemisphere."
Glover's comments came as U.S. Ambassador William Brownfield denied suggestions the United States could try to interfere in Telesur's signal.
The station has drawn concern in the U.S. Congress, where House members last week approved a measure to transmit radio and television broadcasts to Venezuela to ensure citizens receive "accurate news."
Brownfield told the Venezuelan broadcaster Union Radio that the U.S. congressional measure is aimed at responding "only if the messages of Telesur are anti-American" -- and without "violating" Venezuelan airwaves.
The measure -- which still must be approved by the Senate -- wouldn't mean "using the same methodology that exists with other countries like Cuba," he said, referring to Radio Marti, the Miami-based radio station that transmits broadcasts critical of Cuban leader Fidel Castro.
"The truth is that, here in Venezuela, messages can be transmitted in a more open way," in contrast to Cuba, Brownfield said. He said it could be simpler for the U.S. government to carry whatever message it may have in the future through existing media in Venezuela.
Chavez, an outspoken critic of the U.S. government and a close friend of Castro, regularly criticizes U.S. "imperialism" in places from Haiti to Iraq.
But organizers of Telesur deny the channel will be a mouthpiece for Chavez and say it will support critical, independent journalism. The station, headquartered in Caracas, is also receiving backing from Argentina, Uruguay and Cuba.
Among programs Tuesday the station carried news of a recent Andean summit, a demonstration by Argentine youths, and footage of Argentine President Nestor Kirchner greeting supporters.
The Guardian newspaper of Britain reported that in one recent broadcast a swastika painted on a U.S. flag flashed across the screen.
But on Tuesday it didn't appear during hours of programming, which featured a historical interview with Castro, a documentary on Palestinians, and segments on sports, festivals and music.
Speaking during a visit to Caracas, Glover said Telesur "came out of an extreme passion, a necessity to discover or to elevate one's own voice."
"This battle of ideas is one that is taking place in every corner of the world," he said.
Glover said the "control of ideas by the established media" in the United States also has created "a large degree of insecurity and fear."
The actor, a supporter of Chavez, praised Venezuela's elections in recent years as examples of democracy and said, "I've been encouraged by what I see here."
Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
“The United States has threatened us with broadcasts to neutralize Telesur. We have scored the first goal,” said Chavez.
CARACAS, July 26, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has launched a new Latin American television channel to fight “cultural imperialism” from US and European media.
Telesur, a Spanish-language station formed by the governments of Venezuela, Argentina, Cuba and Uruguay, began transmissions with round-table commentary from the station's officials and an advisory board of international left-wing intellectuals and celebrities, Reuters reported Monday, July 25.
Chavez, an outspoken left-wing nationalist who often accuses US President George W. Bush of plotting to topple him, said the channel was drawing viewers from around the region and that even Bush was “glued to the television watching Telesur.”
“Telesur depends on no government, no line, it is free to pave the way toward integration,” said Chavez, who sees the network as a means to foster regional unity in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Based in Caracas with 160 employees, Telesur - Television of the South - will have correspondents in nine countries: Venezuela, Cuba, Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Mexico and the United States.
The company is capitalized with $10 million, and is 51 percent controlled by Venezuela, 20 percent Argentina, 19 percent Cuba and 10 percent Uruguay.
Its advisory board includes American actor Danny Glover, Le Monde diplomatic editor Ignacio Ramonet and Argentine filmmaker Fernando Pino Solanas.
Telesur, which made its first test broadcast in May, will initially offer limited programming for four hours a day but plans to move to a 24-hour format later this year, showing news, documentaries, films and cultural events.
“Al-Jazeera Model”
But just days ahead of the launch, a member of the US House of Representatives accused Chavez of launching “his own television network patterned after Al-Jazeera to spread his anti-American, anti-freedom rhetoric.”
Connie Mack, a Republican representative from Florida, authored a bill adopted by the House of Representatives last week, authorizing the US to broadcast radio and television programs at Venezuela which would counter Telesur's alleged anti-Americanism.
Nicknamed the CNN of the Arab world, the Doha-based Al-Jazeera could be the most-watched channel in the Arab world. Launched in 1996, Al-Jazeera ranked the fifth most influential global brand in an annual survey by brandchannel.com.
“Hugo Chavez is an enemy of freedom and of those who support and promote it,” Mack said when the bill was passed.
Chavez reacted sharply, saying he was ready to enter an “electronic war” and jam the transmissions from the US in the same way Cuban President Fidel Castro did when the US set up Cuba-directed Radio Marti in 1985.
“The United States has threatened us with broadcasts to neutralize Telesur. We have scored the first goal,” Chavez said in a telephone call to the channel during the launch.
Relations with the United States, the top buyer of Venezuela's oil, have deteriorated since Chavez first won office in 1998 and strengthened relations with Communist Cuba.
The United States gets around 15 percent of its oil imports from Venezuela, the world's No. 5 crude exporter.
Note: To a large extent, the commercial and military uses of space overlap—communication, navigation, remote sensing/intelligence gathering, and weather prediction. Thus the satellites used for these purposes can be considered dual use, despite the different levels of sophistication in military versus civilian satellites.
So great is Chavez' interest in rockets, space and missiles that the government of Venezuela has created a special commission to advise him on such issues. Chavez with a nuclear weapon is bad enough. Chavez with a medium-range ballistic missile just minutes from the southern United States is a disaster waiting to happen. #msg-6511466
Venezuela and Cuba have the Russian Onyx #msg-6509438
-Am
Venezuela signs arms deal with China 06/08/2005 - 09:20:04
Venezuela’s defence minister has signed a deal to buy Chinese radar systems, the latest in a series of military purchases by the government of President Hugo Chavez.
The Chinese-made long range surveillance radars will be used by Venezuela’s air force, defence officials said yesterday.
Defence Minister Adm. Ramon Orlando Maniglia and Qu Huimin, the vice president of China’s Electronics Import and Export, signed the accord on Thursday, the state-run Bolivarian News Agency reported.
The deal also includes the purchase of “other air security equipment” such as radios, and the possibility of renting a satellite communications system, the Defence Ministry said in a statement. The cost of the deal was not disclosed.
Venezuela has stepped up purchases of military equipment this year, agreeing to buy Russian rifles and military helicopters.
US officials have ccused Chavez of backing Colombian guerrillas with weapons - charges Chavez denies as ridiculous.
The former army paratrooper has made a priority of fortifying Venezuela’s military, saying troops are ready to face any foreign attack if necessary.
Posted on Thu, Aug. 11, 2005 Five months before the Bay of Pigs invasion, the CIA task force plotting to overthrow Fidel Castro concluded that the invasion was ''unachievable'' as a covert paramilitary operation, according to a newly discovered unclassified document.
Indeed, historians have documented individuals expressing doubts at various times before the ill-fated mission.
But the document, a 300-page internal CIA history, reveals for the first time that the architects themselves foresaw failure during a Nov. 15, 1960, meeting to prepare a briefing for President-elect John F. Kennedy and that they recorded it in a memo.
''There will not be the internal unrest earlier believed possible, nor will [Castro's] defense permit the type [of] strike first planned,'' say notes of the meeting, according to the official CIA historian, Jack Pfeiffer. ``Our second concept (1,500-3,000) man force to secure a beach with airstrip is also now seen to be unachievable, except as a joint Agency/DOD [CIA/Pentagon] action.''
Historians say it is unclear whether CIA Director Allen Dulles and his deputy passed this assessment along three days later, at Kennedy's post-election national security briefing in Palm Beach -- and whether changes were made as a result of the finding. But, with Kennedy's blessing, the so-called ''unachievable'' CIA-only second concept went forward five months later, on April 17, 1961 -- with devastating consequences.
Castro's forces defeated the CIA-trained and backed brigade in less than 72 hours; about 114 men were killed, and more than 1,100 forces were captured and held until the United States traded $53 million in food and medicine for their freedom.
Afterward, military experts blamed the fiasco on a decision to withhold air support, a bad choice of location, and U.S. refusal to provide U.S. troops as reinforcements.
''The CIA knew that it couldn't accomplish this type of overt paramilitary mission without direct Pentagon participation -- and committed that to paper and then went ahead and tried it anyway,'' said Peter Kornbluh, senior analyst at the National Security Archive and author of Bay of Pigs Declassified, who said the disclosure is new.
Even Pfeiffer, the CIA's official Bay of Pigs historian, noted the paradox in his long-classified Volume Three of the history, on the Eisenhower years:
'How, if in mid-November 1960 the concept of this 1,500-3,000 man force to secure a beachhead with an airstrip was envisioned by the senior personnel . . . as `unachievable' except as a joint CIA/DOD effort, did it become 'achievable' in March 1961 with only 1,200 men and as an Agency operation?''
Both Kornbluh and Villanova University political scientist David Barrett were struck -- separately -- by the revelation while reading Pfeiffer's report, which Barrett discovered in June in a box marked ''Miscellaneous'' at the National Archives.
Pfeiffer, who died in 1997, wrote it at the CIA in the late 1970s from classified records and interviews with architects and operatives.
It reads like a 300-page chronicle of mission creep and misadventures in the embryonic effort to oust Castro -- from proposals to stage dirty tricks to early talks in Miami and New York between CIA agents and American executives on how to foil the young Cuban revolution.
WAS KENNEDY TOLD?
In it, Pfeiffer wrote of the Nov. 15, 1960, session of the CIA task force code-named Western Hemisphere Branch Four (WH/4), which met to prepare a summary for the deputy director for plans, Richard M. Bissell Jr., to help Dulles brief Kennedy on foreign affairs.
But no historical account shows that Bissell, who ran the project, ever told Dulles. Or that either man told Kennedy when he got his first in-depth national intelligence briefing on the Cuba crisis on Nov. 18 -- by the swimming pool at the Kennedy family's Palm Beach vacation home.
''If they thought it was unachievable, one could argue that Bissell owed it to JFK to tell him what they thought. There is no evidence that he did,'' said Barrett, who found the document while researching his latest book, The CIA and Congress: The Untold Story From Truman to Kennedy.
`COMPLETE AND FRANK'
Bissell didn't report what he told Kennedy in his own memoirs, published in 1996, two years after the once-celebrated spy master died.
''The presentation took less than an hour and was complete and frank,'' Bissell wrote in Reflections of a Cold Warrior.
``When the session ended, I drifted off to another part of the terrace while Kennedy and Dulles transacted other business.''
Says former Herald Latin America editor Don Bohning, author of The Castro Obsession, who read the Pfeiffer report, too: ``Bissell seems to have had a habit of not telling people things they needed to know.''
Historians had thought that Pfeiffer's full four-volume CIA history, Official History of the Bay of Pigs Operation, was still classified.
But Volume Three, called Evolution of CIA's Anti-Castro Policies, 1951-January 1961, arrived at the National Archives Kennedy Assassinations collection with just a few deletions of classified information in 1998 or 1999. Bay of Pigs scholars have only read it in recent weeks, after Barrett announced its existence by posting it on his university web page.
`A TREASURE TROVE'
And, said Kornbluh, whose National Security Archive has for years sifted through classified documents about long-hidden Latin American missions, Pfeiffer provided ``a treasure trove of detail on one of the most significant covert actions and foreign policy debacles in the history of the Cold War.''
It described how the Bay of Pigs invasion morphed: from a plan to drop a small, U.S.-trained Cuban guerrilla force onto the island to incite internal rebellion into the full-blown, externally directed U.S.-Cuban exile assault.
Kornbluh added that the WH/4 analysis was so sound that it eerily foreshadowed a scathing and sometimes controversial report written by CIA Inspector General Lyman Kirkpatrick in the summer of 1961.
ARROGANCE BLAMED
Kirkpatrick blamed the Bay of Pigs fiasco on institutional arrogance, ignorance and incompetence, saying a major paramilitary operation of this type was ``beyond agency responsibility and capability.''
Written on a typewriter in the 1970s, Pfeiffer dryly documented the earliest Cold War brainstorming sessions on how to overthrow Castro -- long before the Kennedy-era team hatched the better-known plots of Operation Mongoose.
Pfeiffer called them ``wild-haired proposals.''
The CIA report also shows early Eisenhower administration contact with big business on anti-Castro operations.
It highlights the role of Republican Miami businessman William Pawley, a former U.S. ambassador in Latin America, who supported Richard Nixon's presidential bid and hosted meetings between the intelligence agency and U.S. business.
The topic: The composition of a post-Castro, U.S.-backed Cuban government.
MET WITH FIRMS' EXECS
And on Dec. 20, 1960, Pfeiffer said, Dulles met U.S. corporate leaders in New York to kick around ideas for covert operations at a particularly delicate time -- during the transition from President Eisenhower to Kennedy.
Executives included the Cuban-American Sugar Co. chairman, the American Sugar Domino Refining Co. president, the president of the American and Foreign Power Co., Standard Oil of New Jersey's vice president for Latin America, representatives of Texaco, International Telephone and Telegraph ``and other American companies with business interests in Cuba.''
VARIED IDEAS
''Suggestions were made to sabotage the sugar crop -- the question being whether to burn the cane fields or ruin the refineries; to interrupt the electric power supply; and to put an embargo on food, drugs and spare parts for machinery,'' Pfeiffer wrote, quoting from a memorandum from the meeting written by Henry Holland, a former assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs.
``Dulles opposed the embargo on food and drugs, but the feeling of the business group was that it was time to get tough and, hopefully, the blame for an embargo would be laid on Castro.''
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