Miscellaneous News

GulfLander

Colonel
Registered Member
Excerpt
The Pentagon has awarded a $295 million contract for the construction of a command center that will coordinate a system dedicated to the defense of Guam from air and missile threats.

Core Tech-HDCC-Kajima LLC was notified of the award on July 3. The company is a subsidiary of the multi-industry conglomerate Core Tech that has been responsible for previous military construction projects throughout the U.S. island territory.

“The work to be performed includes the construction of a defense system command center, a power generation facility, switchgear building, fuel storage, entry control facility and associated equipment,” read a Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command Pacific release.
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....

Viking to Debut India River Cruise Itinerary in 2027​

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Lethe

Captain
For those still following the crash of Air India 171, this discussion involving former NTSB air safety investigators offers a comprehensive walkthrough and analysis of AIIB's recently released
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into the crash.


This is a long discussion that is low on sensationalism, but nonetheless the TL;DR is fairly straightforward: they're convinced this was an intentional act. Below is a timeline of events created by the channel authors that features in their discussion:

AI171 Flight Safety Detectives Timeline.jpg
 

siegecrossbow

General
Staff member
Super Moderator
Think about the people below him at over 180 feet./55 meters!!that poop-projectile might have reached deadly terminal velocity and if one were to look up at the wrong time the resulting poop-to-face impact might be "life-changing" as they say in our newscasts.I will never go to that hellhole india no matter what.

Pretty sure that it is not going to be deadly unless he ate a rock. They did something similar with pennies on an episode of Myth Busters and it is not where near fatal.
 

Heresy

Junior Member
Registered Member
The State Department officials who cried and whined to WaPo were most likely SFS who lost staff to these layoffs or were close to someone who did. Just about no seasoned bureaucrat, regardless of nationality, is ever happy to see their staff reduced, and usually by extension, their budget slashed.

The Trump administration is likely shooting itself in the foot as usual, but such layoffs also aren't guaranteed to be "a good thing" for countries presumably impacted like China or Burma.

Well this wasn't mentioned by WaPo, certain responsibilities and authorities may be passed onto, if not centralized at other agencies like DoD or CIA (or even under a senior White House staffer like Andy Baker or Robert Gabriel) due to cuts at State, especially once you factor in the
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.

Unsurprisingly, CIA and DoD officials are reputed to prefer more aggressive and dangerous courses of action than their typical sister agency counterparts, which can be perilous, in particular if amplified by the relative inexperience (e.g. Hegseth is a major who never even held company command prior to confirmation as SecDef), never mind the unpredictability, of the Trump administration.

Though as recent
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, an overly influential or assertive DoD can also make for a double edged sword, especially when negotiating with anxious foreign partners:


I have a thought. Everyone looks at the Trump Regime currently self-immolating it's own soft-power and diplomatic institutions as stupidity and ritual suicide. But what if it's simply Trump (or rather his advisors) coming to the realization that these American soft power institutions are pointless going forward because of America's crumbling military and economic hard power? Also, perhaps these advisors have come to the conclusion that rather than trying to oppose China in all realms, which has become somewhat untenable, they instead should focus on a few hard power (or sharp power) realms where they might have a glimmer of hope of at least keeping China within earshot of parity? After all, why bother spending billions bribing poor countries to like you and regime changing the ones that don't when a.) they probably won't like you anyway and b.) couping and regime-changing a few countries no longer gets you enough benefit to be worth the cost. And fundamentally, your billions in soft power spending aren't going to move the needle on the one country you really care about, which is China.
I think Ben Shapiro should work until he dies in a labor camp that helps reforest the Gobi Desert and study XJP Thought when he is not working, but that’s just my opinion.

Instead of wishful thinking, perhaps some enterprising soul (or souls) can find a way to make this happen.

The more I see of recent news relating to Israel, the more I think that there needs to be some above-ground live-testing of China and Russia's nuclear missiles, preferably somewhere around Tel-Aviv and Haifa.

I appreciate you taking the herculean effort here, but you're tilting at windmills. You can use arguments and try your best to get the windmill to explain why it spins all you want. But at the end of the day, the only thing you're going to hear is the sound of the wind and the only thing you're going to see is that windmill spinning.
 

GulfLander

Colonel
Registered Member
Lin Jian: For publicly known reasons, the exchanges between Chinese and EU legislatures encountered some setbacks over the past few years. Under the current circumstances, both sides recognize the importance of enhancing dialogue and cooperation. As agreed by the two sides, the Chinese side and the European Parliament decided to fully lift restrictions on two-way exchanges simultaneously. We believe and hope that as China and the EU fully resume exchanges between the legislatures, there will be deeper exchanges and understanding, and this will provide new driving force for the sustained, sound and steady growth of China-EU relations.
. .

RIA Novosti: Nominee for the role of United States envoy to the United Nations Mike Waltz said on Tuesday that China’s malicious behavior and growing influence in the organization will be “top of mind” for him if he is confirmed for the position. What’s your comment on this? 

Lin Jian: These remarks reflect the typical ideological bias and Cold-War and zero-sum mentality of some U.S. politicians. China firmly rejects this. We urge the U.S. to view China and this bilateral relationship objectively and rationally, and make concrete effort to promote the steady, sound and sustainable development of China-U.S. relations, instead of doing the opposite.
 
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