with no power how to do anythings
worst maybe a sudden explosion

they shud have remain surfaced after they reported the initial battery problem, not sure why they gone underwater after that?

if they lose power while underwater then its pretty much game over..

better ask LTZ bro
the sea state there has been absolutely bloody hell the previous week, and subs are far less stable than ships in surface travel. IMHO it would have been far more likely for them to be swamped if they had travelled on the surface.

also contributing significantly to the problems impeding the search

This post has been edited by KLboy92: Nov 25 2017, 03:26 AM

Norway rolls newly delivered AW101 helicopter





[sos]

Stormy weather with 6 meters waves.




https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_am...m=.41e4eec5efdc

This post has been edited by azriel: Nov 25 2017, 08:17 AM

Attack on mosque in Egypt's Sinai kills at least 235


A bomb explosion ripped through the Rawda mosque frequented by Sufis about 40km west of the North Sinai capital of El-Arish before gunmen opened fire on those gathered for weekly Friday prayers.



CAIRO: Attackers killed at least 235 worshippers on Friday (Nov 24) in a bomb and gun assault on a packed mosque in Egypt's restive North Sinai province, in the country's deadliest attack in recent memory.

A bomb explosion ripped through the Rawda mosque frequented by Sufis about 40 kilometres west of the North Sinai capital of El-Arish before gunmen opened fire on those gathered for weekly Friday prayers, officials said.
Witnesses said the assailants had surrounded the mosque with all-terrain vehicles then planted a bomb outside.
The gunmen then mowed down the panicked worshippers as they tried to flee and used congregants' vehicles they had set alight to block routes to the mosque.



Egyptian air force jets later destroyed vehicles used in the attack and "terrorist" locations where weapons and ammunition were stocked, an army spokesman said on Friday.


The planes "destroyed several vehicles used in the attack," Tamer el-Refai said.
The state prosecutor's office said in a statement that 235 people were killed and 109 wounded in the attack, the scale of which is unprecedented in a four-year insurgency by Islamist extremist groups.

Between 10 and 20 armed attackers "entered the mosque, killing more people than they injured," Magdy Rizk, who was wounded in the attack, told AFP.
"They were wearing masks and military uniforms," he said, adding that the area was predominantly Sufi and that locals have received threats from extremist groups.
The state prosecutor's office said in a statement that 235 people were killed and 109 wounded in the attack, the scale of which is unprecedented in a four-year insurgency by Islamist extremist groups.
US President Donald Trump condemened on Twitter the "horrible and cowardly terrorist attack on innocent and defenseless worshippers."

A furious Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi declared three days of mourning and pledged to "respond with brutal force".
"The army and police will avenge our martyrs and return security and stability with force in the coming short period," he added in a televised speech.
Russian President Vladimir Putin sent condolences to Sisi, calling the attack "striking for its cruelty and cynicism", while condemnations poured in from Israel, Iran, Saudi Arabia and other countries.
UK foreign minister Boris Johnson decried the "barbaric attack", while his French counterpart Jean-Yves Le Drian labelled it "despicable".

Read more at http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/world/...ast-235-9437310

Pope Francis and Egypt's highest Muslim religious authority joined in the condemnation.

"His Holiness joins all people of good will in imploring that hearts hardened by hatred will learn to renounce the way of violence," the pope's office said.

The grand imam of Cairo's Al-Azhar, Sheikh Ahmed el-Tayeb, condemned "in the strongest terms this barbaric terrorist attack".

IS TARGETING OF SUFIS

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the bloodshed.

The Islamic State group's Egypt branch has killed hundreds of policemen and soldiers, and also civilians accused of working with the authorities, in attacks in the north of the Sinai peninsula.

They have also targeted followers of the mystical Sufi branch of Sunni Islam as well as Christians.

The victims of Friday's attack included civilians and conscripts praying at the mosque.

A tribal leader and head of a Bedouin militia that fights IS told AFP that the mosque is known as a place of gathering for Sufis.

The Islamic State group shares the puritan Salafi view of Sufis as heretics for seeking the intercession of saints.

The militants had previously kidnapped and beheaded an elderly Sufi leader, accusing him of practising magic which Islam forbids, and abducted Sufi practitioners later released after "repenting."

An IS propaganda outlet had published an interview earlier with the commander of its "morality police" in Sinai who said their "first priority was to combat the manifestations of polytheism including Sufism."

The group has killed more than 100 Christians in church bombings and shootings in Sinai and other parts of Egypt, forcing many to flee the peninsula.

The military has struggled to quell militants who pledged allegiance to IS in November 2014.

IS regularly conducts attacks against soldiers and policemen in the peninsula bordering Israel and the Palestinian Gaza Strip, although the frequency and scale of such attacks has diminished over the past year.

The militants have since increasingly turned to civilian targets, attacking not only Christians and Sufis but also Bedouin Sinai inhabitants accused of working with the army.

The Gaza Strip's border crossing with Egypt that had been due to reopen Saturday will remain closed until further notice because of the attack, a Palestinian official said.

Aside from IS, Egypt also faces a threat from Al-Qaeda-aligned militants who operate out of neighbouring Libya.

A group calling itself Ansar al-Islam - Supporters of Islam in Arabic - claimed an October ambush in Egypt's Western Desert that killed at least 16 policemen.

Many of those killed belonged to the interior ministry's secretive National Security Service.

The military later conducted air strikes on the attackers, killing their leader Emad al-Din Abdel Hamid, a most wanted militant who was a military officer before joining an Al-Qaeda-affiliated group in Libya's militant stronghold of Derna.
Source: AFP
Read more at http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/world/...ast-235-9437310

Only Saudi Arabia can lift Yemen out of the mess again
Jamal Khashoggi

When Saudi Arabia's war in Yemen erupted in March 2015, there was widespread Saudi popular support for it - including by me.

Like other Saudi citizens, I was concerned about Iran's sectarian expansionist policies, as its influence has extended across the entire region north of the Saudi borders, the "Shi'ite crescent" that extends from Iran to the Mediterranean.



Today, Iran can easily construct a highway extending from Teheran to Beirut across Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. This arc of influence is a very real threat to Saudi Arabia.


Also, I strongly supported the war against Houthi rebels because I saw them as the antithesis of the Arab Spring that my government, unlike me, fiercely opposed.

The Houthis swept to power in the months before the Saudi-led campaign, refusing power-sharing arrangements that were supposed to transition Yemen into a democracy after three decades of dictatorship. By March 2015, the rebels had forced the legitimate Yemeni president and his government to flee the country.

Yet now, I am increasingly concerned that my country has failed to stem the Iranian advance despite the enormous spending on the war - there are credible estimates of US$200 million (S$270 million) a day - which has exhausted the Saudi budget.


Saudi Arabia has depleted one-third of its financial reserves, which have declined to around US$400 billion. US-made Patriot missile systems, at an average cost of US$3 million each, are in high demand to protect vital infrastructure, including Red Sea desalination plants.

More than the economic consequences, the political fallout for Saudi Arabia is much worse. Today, Yemen is teetering on the verge of a humanitarian disaster so vast that it is facing the world's most serious famine since the great drought hit Africa in the 1990s.

According to the World Food Programme, 17 million Yemenis (out of a total population of 28 million) will be affected.



A man carrying an injured child rescued from the site of a Saudi-led air strike that killed eight of her family members in Sanaa, Yemen, in August. The writer says only Saudi Arabia can initiate a complete reboot of peace talks. It did so in 1965 to end the Yemen civil war and can do so again today. PHOTO: REUTERS
Former Central Intelligence Agency senior adviser Bruce Riedel said recently at the Brookings Institution: "It started as Decisive Storm; the only thing that's 'decisive' today is that it's the worst humanitarian disaster in Yemen."

Saudi Arabia, more than any other country, is seen as responsible for the dire situation in Yemen. My country's reputation has been badly damaged and our credibility weakened.

Images of starving children should overwhelm even the most stalwart defender of the Saudi security interests that led us to destroy the poorest, most illiterate country in the Arab world.

Saudi Arabia announced it will lift the blockade on the port of Hodeida for United Nations humanitarian aid to come through. But ultimately, the only way out is to stop the war in Yemen. The UN has tried repeatedly and failed.

Only Saudi Arabia can initiate a complete reboot of peace talks. It did so in 1965 to end the Yemen civil war and can do so again today - by repositioning itself from an active participant in the war to a guarantor of peace.



Despite taking sides in the first Yemen civil war, King Faisal was able to withdraw and lead the peace negotiations, successfully ending the war. He invited all sides to his palace, where, at the Taif Conference, participants drew the road map to peace.

In the current conflict, Crown Prince and Defence Minister Mohammed bin Salman, popularly known as MBS, should see the past as precedent and similarly inspire peace by offering a grand gesture - it must curb funding and other support for the war.

The international community would need to pressure the Houthis - and Iran - to accede to a fair, negotiated settlement.

Saudi Arabia would recognise the Houthis as a legitimate Yemeni faction; the Houthis would have to similarly acknowledge other Yemeni factions.

All sides would agree to a power-sharing arrangement that guarantees Yemen's integrity as a unified nation. MBS would then achieve the upper hand by exposing Iran and the Houthis if they refuse to negotiate a comprehensive end to this horrific war.

MBS would gain the credibility needed to negotiate a ceasefire and then the terms of peace.

By facilitating a peace agreement and leading the reinvestment and reconstruction in Yemen, Saudi Arabia can turn around a failed state and bolster its standing as a global and regional leader.

However, to do any of this, as King Faisal did in 1965, MBS must end his campaign against political Islam and his clear intolerance for core democratic principles such as freedom of expression - both at home and in Yemen.

Earlier this month, MBS took a brave step by meeting the leaders of the Yemeni Islah Party, which is considered a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is designated, rather unfairly and non-strategically, by Saudi Arabia as a terrorist organisation.

Saudi Arabia should feel safe with a representative government in Yemen that includes its allies and rivals. This was exactly what Saudi Arabia achieved in 1965, and it is capable of doing it again.

WASHINGTON POST

Russian MiG-41 Stealth Interceptor And US Boeing X-51 Hypersonic Aircraft

Indonesia urged to end discriminatory virginity test for female security force applicants

JAKARTA: New York based rights group Human Rights Watch (HRW) has urged President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo to order the chiefs of the National Police and Indonesian Military (TNI) to immediately ban virginity testing for female applicants, saying the practice is a form of gender based violence.

The decades old practice that includes a “two-finger” test to determine whether a female applicant’s hymen is intact was degrading and discriminatory, as well as harming women’s equal access to job opportunities, HRW women’s rights advocacy director Nisha Varia said.

“The Indonesian government’s continuing tolerance for abusive virginity tests by the security forces reflects an appalling lack of political will to protect the rights of Indonesian women,” Varia said in a statement on Wednesday.

“Indonesian women who seek to serve their country by joining the security forces shouldn’t have to subject themselves to an abusive and discriminatory virginity test,” she said.

Despite criticism from human rights campaigners, security forces continue to impose the test, classified as psychological examinations, on the grounds that the virginity test was for “mental health and morality reasons”, senior police and military officers told HRW.

All females who took part in the test told HRW that the experience of having doctors inserting two fingers into their vagina to check the level of vaginal laxity was traumatic, painful and embarrassing.

World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines issued in 2014 stated that virginity testing has no scientific validity. The discriminatory practice has also been internationally recognized as a violation of human rights.

The rights group further urged Jokowi to prohibit virginity tests by the Police and TNI, and establish an independent monitoring mechanism to ensure the two institutions comply.

By ending the practice, the Indonesian government would abide by its international human rights obligations as well as honor the goals of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, which falls on Nov. 25, HRW said.

“The Indonesian police and military cannot effectively protect all Indonesians, women and men, so long as a mindset of discrimination permeates their ranks,” Varia added. – The Jakarta Post/Asia News Network

https://www.thestar.com.my/news/regional/20...rce-applicants/

high seas robbery. mana dia tau ni tug bawak CPO? sure ada org dalam bagi tau, these buggers intercepted the tug n barge in the middle of nowhere and made good with the cargo. damn!!!

If you see the map, the robbery location is in the middle of the ocean with no near land mass. Obviously it's a targeted hit, not a passing target of opportunity. The robber must have known an expensive shipment is confirmed en route to risk so much investment on his men and gear getting to that far-off location.

deswai i said ada org dalam bgtau cos not many people knows the shipment. but loose lips can be dangerous too.

interesting

lol.. all in cahoot... port authorities, army, marine police, navy, bunker fuel supplier, cargo owner or even the ship operator...

well, either one of them was involved...

Pakistan army silent as Islamists, police clash



FAIZABAD (Pakistan) • Islamist party activists yesterday clashed with Pakistani security forces for a second day outside the capital, Islamabad, burning vehicles before withdrawing to a protest camp they have occupied for more than two weeks, police said.

Despite an order from the civilian government to the army on Saturday night to help restore order, no troops were at the scene around the protest camp in Faizabad, witnesses said.

The military's press department did not respond to queries about the government's order.


According to media reports, at least six people were killed the previous day, when several thousand police and paramilitary forces tried to disperse the religious hardliners, who have blocked the main route into the capital demanding that Law Minister Zahid Hamid be fired for committing blasphemy.

At least 150 people were wounded in Saturday's clashes, hospitals reported, and police superintendent Amir Niazi said 80 members of the security forces were among those casualties. Reuters could not confirm that there had been any deaths.

Yesterday morning, smoke billowed from the charred remains of a car and three motorcycles torched near the protest camp, where several thousand members of the Tehreek-e-Labaik party have gathered in defiance of the government.



After the early morning clashes yesterday, the area settled into an uneasy stand-off. The paramilitary Rangers force - which had held back from Saturday's confrontation - was in charge of yesterday's operations, officers said. "We still don't have orders to launch an operation. We will act as the government orders us," said the Rangers commander at the scene, Colonel Bilal, who gave only one name. "We have surrounded the protesters from all sides. We can move in when the government orders us."

The protests began on Nov 8 over a proposed change in election laws - just a few words of text - that weakened an oath that all candidates for public office must repeat, swearing they believe that Muhammad was the final prophet. Pakistan's population is 95 per cent Muslim.

The government swiftly apologised for the "clerical error", but protest leaders continued to push for further action, especially the firing of the Law Minister.

"We will not leave. We will fight until the end," Tehreek-e-Labaik party spokesman Ejaz Ashrafi told Reuters on Saturday.



Led by cleric Khadim Hussain Rizvi, Labaik is one of two new ultra-religious political movements that became prominent in recent months. Labaik, which campaigns on defending Pakistan's strict blasphemy laws, won a surprisingly strong 6 per cent and 7.6 per cent of the vote in two recent by-elections.

While Islamist parties are unlikely to win a majority, they could play a major role in elections that must be held by the summer of next year.

Tehreek-e-Laibak was born out of a protest movement lionising Mumtaz Qadri, a bodyguard of the governor of Punjab province who gunned down his boss in 2011 over his call to reform strict blasphemy laws. Party leader Rizvi has called Qadri, who was executed last year, "a hero".

For a second day, private TV stations were ordered off the air, with only state-run TV broadcasting. Facebook, Twitter and YouTube were also blocked.

After Saturday's failed crackdown by police, the government called for military assistance "for law and order duty according to the Constitution".

However, there has been no public statement from the military in response and no sign that any troops had left their barracks.

On Saturday before the government order, Pakistan's army chief called on the civilian government to end the protest while "avoiding violence from both sides", the military press wing said.

The ruling party of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif - who was disqualified by the Supreme Court in July and is facing a corruption trial - has a fraught history with the military, which in 1999 launched a coup to oust Sharif from an earlier term.

Minister of Interior Ahsan Iqbal on Saturday said the protests were part of a conspiracy to weaken the government, which is now run by Sharif's allies under Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi.

"There are attempts to create chaos in (the) country," Mr Iqbal said on state-run Pakistan TV.

REUTERS , WASHINGTON POST

US Army organization terms



Want to know what the US Army organization terms such as Platoon, Brigade, division and more mean? This video breaks down the Army's organization terms and sizes for those of you that are curious.

Live firing exercise of the Indonesian Marine Corps new RM-70 Vampir MLRS in Singkawang West Kalimantan. Credit to peloporwiratama.

lolll. looked like the rocket fly over kampung house

hope they got notice "pls duck"


This post has been edited by DDG_Ross: Nov 27 2017, 03:15 PM