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Magyarország
2017. XII. 20. A General Electric szállíthatja majd a paksi erőmű 5-ös és 6-os új blokkjához szükséges egyenként 1200 megawatt teljesítményű áramfejlesztő turbinákat. A Roszatom közbeszerzési oldalán található hirdetmény szerint az amerikai háttérrel rendelkező GE Hungary Kft. nettó 793,8 millió euro-s (mai árfolyamon 248,12 milliárd forint) ajánlatát fogadta el az orosz atomóriás. A cég döntőbizottsága a szentpétervári Szilovije Masini-t azért zárta ki, mert műszaki pályázata több ponton nem felelt meg a kiírásban szereplő műszaki ajánlatnak, ezt egyhangúan szavazták meg. Az orosz Roszatom – pontosabban az AO Inzsinyiringovaja kompanyija ASZE nevű részvénytársaság – és az MVM Paks II. Atomerőmű Fejlesztő Zrt. 2014-ben kötött megállapodást (EPC-szerződés) a Paks II. atomerőmű két VVER típusú, egyenként 1200 megawattos blokkjának tervezésére, a berendezések szállítására, az építésre és az atomerőmű üzembe helyezésére. A 2015. január 1-jén hatályba lépett megállapodás alapján az ASZE fővállalkozóként végzi a munkát, és kulcsrakész kivitelezést valósít meg. (Forrás: mno)
2017. XII. 19. 1963/2017. (XII. 19.) Korm. határozat a Szent Korona és a magyar királyi koronázási jelvények hagyományának őrzéséről (Forrás: Jogtár/WoltersKluwer): https://tinyurl.com/yc4h4hls
2017. XII. 19. Közös céljaink vannak: /video/ (Forrás:YouTube): https://tinyurl.com/yan8kzk4
Russia
20th December 2017 Russia has practised a full-scale mock invasion of the West that includes capturing Baltic states, bombing Germany and invading neutral countries. The terrifying war drills, the "Zapad" (West) exercises were carried out in September and featured troops, artillery, tanks, missile attacks and naval and air force raids. The "shock campaign" against Western European NATO countries included first overrunning the Sulwalki Gap - a 60 mile stretch of NATO land that connects the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad with its ally Belarus. It practised this by creating a mock state on an identical piece of land in Belarus then invading it. At the same time, the Kremlin also rehearsed neutralising or taking under control air fields and harbours (in eastern Europe), so there are no reinforcements arriving from other NATO states there. This does not mean that you have to occupy the countries and declare 'Peoples' Republics' or something like that, but that you have to occupy the harbours, airports and so on. Over two days, Russian fighter jets also flew mock sorties through the Baltic and North Seas, swooping down onto the edges of Germany and the Netherlands, invading neutral Finland, as well as Sweden, Norway and Poland. (Source: TheSun)
December 13, 2017 Russia is aggressively building up its nuclear forces and is expected to deploy a total force of 8,000 warheads by 2026 along with modernizing deep underground bunkers, according to Pentagon officials. The 8,000 warheads will include both large strategic warheads and thousands of new low-yield and very low-yield warheads to circumvent arms treaty limits and support Moscow's new doctrine of using nuclear arms early in any conflict. In addition to expanding its warheads, Russia also is fortifying underground facilities for command and control during a nuclear conflict. The alarming expansion indicates Russia is preparing to break out of current nuclear forces constraints under arms treaties, including the 2010 New START and 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaties. Russia violated the INF accord by testing an illegal ground-launched cruise missile. What is new are Russia's large and increasing force of smaller nuclear warheads that will be deployed on its new short- and medium-range missiles, including the ground based SSC-8 cruise missile and the SS-N-27 Kalibr anti-ship and land-attack missile. Additionally, Russia is developing new and innovative nuclear arms that include very low yield nuclear weapons- less than 1 kiloton. The nuclear modernization is regarded as more ominous because it is coupled to Moscow's new strategic doctrine that calls for quickly resorting to nuclear weapons during any conventional conflict. Russian weapons researchers have been studying these advanced nuclear arms since the late 1990s. They include precision strike nuclear weapons; clean weapons that produce little radiation fallout; pure fusion weapons that do not require a nuclear blast to trigger them; and tailored effects weapons. Special effects arms include neutron bombs that kill with radiation instead of a large blast, electronics-destroying electromagnetic pulse blasts, and X-ray and Gamma ray weapons. The New START treaty, signed by Russia and the United States limits both countries to 1,550 deployed weapons. However, the treaty has no limits on tactical nuclear weapons. Russia: between 50 and 200 low-yield weapons already are deployed on strategic systems, in addition to traditional high-yield warheads. The State Department reported in October that the United States has 1,393 deployed strategic warheads, and Russia has deployed 1,561 warheads. On the underground complexes, two major Russian command-and-control centers, along with several smaller facilities, also are being modernized, including the secret complex known as Kosvinsky Mountain, located in the Ural Mountains about 850 miles east of Moscow. Kosvinsky is Russia's main, nuclear-survivable command post that includes underground rail system that will be used to transport Russian leaders from Moscow. Another command post, also about 850 miles from Moscow, is located at Yamantau Mountain in the Urals near Belorets. Other underground leadership bunkers have been identified by U.S. intelligence at Voronovo, about 46 miles south of Moscow, and at Sharapovo, some 34 miles from Moscow. Both are equipped with underground rail links. The Congressional Research Service reported that the U.S. non-strategic nuclear stockpile includes around 760 weapons, including around 200 deployed in Europe. (Source: TheWashingtonFreeBeacon)
European Union
18 December 2017 Global feeling of insecurity? The 2016 election of US President Trump and Britain's decision to leave the EU also revealed voters' frustration with the political establishment. Traditional parties are forced to decide whether to ostracise, copy or collaborate with the far-right. The migrant crisis has been a key factor in fuelling the rise of far-right populism. More than 1.5 million people, many fleeing the civil war in Syria, have landed on Europe's shores since 2015. Resentment toward these new arrivals has grown in wealthy nations like Germany and Austria, which have received among the bloc's biggest share of asylum seekers. The first boost to populists came in March when the Dutch anti-Islam Freedom Party of Wilders became the second force in parliament. Then followed the French National Front (FN) of Le Pen, which took nearly 34 percent of votes in the May presidential run-off won by Macron. September saw Germany's Islamophobic and anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD), founded in 2013, enter the Bundestag - the first far-right party to do so since the end of World War II. Last but not least, Austria's anti-immigration Freedom Party (FPOe) got a near-record result of 26 percent in October and on became the junior coalition partner in the rightwing government of leader-in-waiting Kurz, 31. Far-right discourse seeks to conflate the issue of immigration with terror attacks carried out on European soil over the past two years. In neighbouring Hungary, the ultra-nationalist Jobbik party has been outflanked by Prime Minister Orbán's hardline anti-immigration stance. Meanwhile Bulgaria's centre-right government of Borisov in March entered a coalition with ultra-nationalists. (Source: France24)
Saudi Arabia
December 20, 2017 Bank accounts of 376 individuals, all of whom are either detainees or people linked to them, have been frozen as a “precautionary measure”. Some suspects being held are starting to make payments to settle cases in exchange for freedom. (Source: Bloomberg)
19 December 2017 Saudi Arabia has intercepted a rocket fired by rebel Houthi fighters in Yemen, who declared a “new chapter” in its confrontation with the kingdom. The Volcano 2-H ballistic missiles was aimed at the al-Yamma royal palace in Riyadh, but was stopped by Saudi’s air defences. Reporters heard a blast and saw a plume of smoke rising above the Saudi capital near the palace, where King Salman chairs weekly government meetings and hosts foreign dignitaries. More than 8,750 people have been killed since Saudi Arabia and its allies joined the government's fight against the Houthis in 2015, triggering what the UN has called the world's worst humanitarian crisis. Yemen's war has killed more than 10,000 civilians and driven millions to the brink of famine. The coalition imposed a blockade on aid and commercial shipping to rebel held parts of Yemen on Nov. 6, in response to a Houthi missile attack. (Source: TheTelegraph)
Syria
Dec 14, 2017 Sophisticated weapons the U.S. military secretly provided to Syrian rebels quickly fell into the hands of the islamic state. The arms included anti-tank weapons purchased by the United States that ended up in possession of the islamic state within two months of leaving the factory, according to the study by Conflict Armament Research, an organization that tracks arms shipments. The study was funded by the European Union and German government. It has long been known that isis captured a huge amount of American weapons - including tanks and artillery - when the militant group swept into Iraq from Syria in 2014 and routed several divisions of Iraqi soldiers, many who abandoned their weapons and fled. The covert CIA program, begun by the Obama administration in 2013, was ended earlier this year by President Trump. Saudi Arabia, which - like the U.S. - strongly opposes Assad, also supplies weapons to rebel groups. The covert program arming anti-Assad rebels is distinct from the Pentagon's publicly acknowledged operation to arm the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance of Kurds and Arabs fighting isis, but not Assad. Most of the weapons secretly sent to factions in Syria were purchased by the United States and Saudi Arabia from arms manufactured in Eastern Europe. Most militants in Iraq and Syria use AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades made in former Soviet bloc countries or China. (Source: USAToday)
United States
December 20, 2017 Hollywood producer Goddard accused of sexual misconduct by 8 former child actors (Source: LosAngelesTimes)
12/19/2017 The UFO spotter. Raytheon Advanced Targeting Forward Look Infrared (ATFLIR) sensor is carried under the wing of fighter jet. It is designed to operate on targets that are traveling in excess of Mach 1. It’s a very agile optical system with a sensitive detector that can distinguish between the cold sky and the hot moving target quite easily. ATFLIR, designated AN/ASQ-228 by the U.S. Navy, is a single pod that combines mid-wave infrared targeting and navigation FLIRs, an electro-optical, or visual light, sensor, a laser rangefinder and target designator, and a laser spot-tracker. It can locate and designate targets day or night at ranges exceeding 40 nautical miles and altitudes surpassing 50,000 feet. (Source: Raytheon)
Dec 19, 2017 Federal officials ended a moratorium imposed three years ago on funding research that alters germs to make them more lethal. Such work can now proceed, said Dr. Collins, the head of the National Institutes of Health, but only if a scientific panel decides that the benefits justify the risks. Some scientists are eager to pursue these studies because they may show, for example, how a bird flu could mutate to more easily infect humans, or could yield clues to making a better vaccine. Critics say these researchers risk creating a monster germ that could escape the lab and seed a pandemic. The pathogen to be modified must pose a serious health threat, and the work must produce knowledge - such as a vaccine - that would benefit humans. Finally, there must be no safer way to do the research. (Source: TheNewYorkTimes)
Dec 19, 2017 The House passed a sweeping $1.5 trillion tax bill that slashes tax rates for corporations, provides new breaks for private businesses and reorganizes the individual tax code. The Republican bill was approved on a 227-203 vote in the House, with no Democrats supporting it. Twelve Republicans also voted against the measure. It is including a permanent reduction in the corporate tax rate to 21 percent from 35 percent. The bill lowers individual tax rates, including the top bracket to 37 percent from 39.6, while doubling the standard deduction and replacing personal exemptions with a $2,000 partly refundable child tax credit. It eliminates various deductions while limiting others on state and local taxes and mortgage interest. It also exempts larger inheritances from the estate tax, doubling the thresholds to $11 million for individuals and $22 million for married couples. (Source: NBCNews)
18 December 2017 What is Boeing's secret plane? The radical design combines fixed-wing technology from planes with rotary-wing technology from helicopters. Two large fans buried in the aircraft's fuselage to provide vertical lift and a pair of swiveling wingtip fans for stability and control during hover and for propulsion during forward flight... It is believed to be a radical new craft using electric 'hairdryer' to allow it to land and take off vertically. Earlier this year Boeing bought Aurora Flight Sciences Corp, which is developing the autonomous, electric-powered and long-flight-duration aircraft for its commercial and military businesses. Last year, Aurora won a contract for more than $89 million for the vertical take off and landing X-plane, beating Boeing in the process. The mysterious X-37b spaceplane has captured the imagination of many, with some suggesting it is a spy plane and others who think it could be a space bomber. The engine would drive 24 ducted fans, nine integrated into each wing and three inside each canard. /video/: (Source: DailyMail): https://tinyurl.com/y7uqblrd
18 Dec 2017 Dynamic regime underneath an old, geologically quiet area. Something is rising up through the deeper part of our planet under New England. The huge build-up is thought to be a geologically recent phenomenon. A thermal anomaly that was hundreds of degrees Celsius hotter than its surroundings in the upper mantle about 200 kilometres below the surface, and measuring approximately 400 kilometres in diameter. The blob is welling directly under central Vermont, but it extends into western New Hampshire and also western Massachusetts. The findings are reported in Geology. (Source: ScienceAlert
12 Dec 2017 The Fiscal 2018 National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, authorizes about $700 billion for the Defense Department, including $634 billion for the base budget and $66 billion for the war budget. "History teaches us that when you weaken your defenses, you invite aggression," Trump said before signing the bill. Troops will see a 2.4 percent pay raise in January. The military will grow by some 20,000 troops. The Army will increase by 7,500 soldiers, the Navy by 4,000 sailors, the Marine Corps by 1,000 Marines, and the Air Force by about 4,100 airmen. Reserve forces will grow by about 3,400 reservists. The bill reduces the so-called widow's tax by making permanent the Special Survivor Indemnity Allowance, which pays $310 a month to military widows and widowers. (Source: MilitaryDailyNews): https://tinyurl.com/yawft4ve
12.17.17 A single-point failure makes the world’s busiest airport go dark for hours and traps thousands of passengers. It’s what phase one of an attack could look like. Normally around 275,000 passengers, equal to the population of a small city, pass through Atlanta’s airport every day. Why could a failure at one power source automatically knock out the supply to a whole airport? Why were there no backup systems to keep the essential services at the airport functioning? Why were there no emergency generators ready to cut in as they are, for example, at hospitals? Why was there no power for the most basic systems, not even lighting for the terminals, leaving passengers and airport staff in the dark at gates and security checkpoints? (Source: TheDailyBeast)
Dec 16, 2017 The Pentagon’s mysterious U.F.O. program. In the $600 billion annual Defense Department budgets, the $22 million spent on the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program was almost impossible to find. It was run by a military intelligence official, Elizondo, The shadowy program - parts of it remain classified - began in 2007, and initially it was largely funded at the request of Reid, the Nevada Democrat who was the Senate majority leader at the time. U.F.O.s have been repeatedly investigated over the decades in the United States, including by the American military. In 1947, the Air Force began a series of studies that investigated more than 12,000 claimed U.F.O. sightings before it was officially ended in 1969. The project, which included a study code-named Project Blue Book, started in 1952, concluded that most sightings involved stars, clouds, conventional aircraft or spy planes, although 701 remained unexplained. $22 million beginning in late 2008 through 2011; the money was used for management of the program, research and assessments of the threat posed by the objects. The funding went to Mr. Bigelow’s company, Bigelow Aerospace, which hired subcontractors and solicited research for the program. Under Mr. Bigelow’s direction, the company modified buildings in Las Vegas for the storage of metal alloys and other materials that Mr. Elizondo and program contractors said had been recovered from unidentified aerial phenomena. The program collected video and audio recordings of reported U.F.O. incidents. (Source: TheNewYorkTimes)
December 15, 2017 Unlike Nixon, Trump will not go quietly. Is the Trump investigation the rotten fruit of a poisoned tree? Is Mueller’s Dump Trump team investigating the wrong campaign? There are other reasons to believe Trump may survive the deep state-media conspiracy to break his presidency, overturn his mandate and reinstate a discredited establishment. Trump has Fox News and fighting congressmen behind him, and the mainstream media are deeply distrusted and widely detested. And there is no Democratic House to impeach him or Democratic Senate to convict him. Moreover, Trump is not Nixon, who, like Charles I, accepted his fate and let the executioner’s sword fall with dignity. If Trump goes, one imagines, he will not go quietly. (Source: WND): https://tinyurl.com/y9r58zqa
December 14, 2017 “We recognize that there are a lot of people in the general public that have some concerns about their cellphones and whether using a cellphone is safe.” Dr. Smith with the California Department Of Public Health said. “When you sleep, you keep the cellphone at least arm’s length away from your body. And also, not carrying your cellphone in your pocket, having it either in your purse or not carrying it with you.” The research suggests cellphones could increase our risk for brain cancer and tumors, low sperm count, headaches, as well as impaired memory, hearing, and sleep. (Source: SanFranciscoCBSLocal)
Globalization
December 11, 2017 Undersea cables conduct nearly 97 percent of all global communications, and every day an estimated $10 trillion in financial transfers and vast amounts of data pass through the seabed routes. Satellites, once crucial but now limited in speed and bandwidth, handle only a tiny percentage of global communications. The optical strands inside the cables have extraordinary capacity to transmit data, millions of phone calls per fiber. The cables that house bundled fiber optics are no thicker than a human wrist. Failures along cable routes are rare, numbering on average barely 200 a year along the estimated 650,000 miles of active international commercial cables laid along sea beds. There are 428 known commercial fiber-optic cable routes worldwide. Many cables are laid parallel along heavily trafficked routes, like the U.S. to Britain, or through the Mediterranean and Red Sea toward India and the rest of Asia, and come ashore together. Florida has about 10 landing points for the two dozen or so cables that come ashore there. In recent years, a few incidents have drawn attention to sabotage and espionage. Egypt said in March 2013 that it had arrested three scuba divers who had tried to cut an undersea fiber optic cable in the Mediterranean off Alexandria that was a vital communications link between Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Egypt never explained who the three saboteurs worked for. In 2013, National Security Agency contractor Snowden revealed that U.S. and British spy agencies were stealing data from undersea cables. A handful of other nations are believed to have the same capabilities. U.S. Sen. Kirk says a fiber-optic cable running from Scott Air Force Base to the current National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency center in St. Louis is vulnerable to natural disasters or terrorist attacks. (Source: McClatchyDC): https://tinyurl.com/ybn4k86v
Space
13 December 2017 Oumuamua suggests it’s an alien probe with broken engines, says leading astronomer Dr Wright from Penn State University. He suggests that a broken alien spacecraft move in exactly the same way as the interstellar comet. 'Such derelict craft would, if they are not travelling so fast that they escape the Galaxy, eventually 'thermalize' with the stars and end up drifting around like any other interstellar comet or asteroid. Dr Wright suggests that the object could be a 'Von Neumann probe' - a theoretical self-replicating spacecraft that visits star systems. Dr Wright previously suggested the mysterious dimming of star KIC 8462852 – also known as Tabby’s Star – could be caused by an alien megastructure called a Dyson Sphere. his is a hypothetical structure that could be used by an advanced alien race to harness the energy of a star. First proposed by theoretical physicist Dyson in 1960, the sphere would be a swarm of satellites that surrounds a star. They could be an enclosed shell, or spacecraft spread out to gather its energy - known as a Dyson swarm. Researchers working on long-distance space transportation have previously suggested that a cigar or needle shape is the most likely architecture for an interstellar spacecraft, since this would minimise friction and damage from interstellar gas and dust. Another oddity is that Oumuamua is flying very 'cleanly', without emitting the usual cloud of space dust that astronomers observe around asteroids. Its orbital path suggests it entered our solar system from the direction of the constellation Lyra. (Source: DailyMail)
11 December 2017 A cigar-shaped comet named 'Oumuamua, also known as Comet C/2017 U1 sailed past Earth last month and is the first interstellar object seen in the solar system. It was first spotted by a telescope in Hawaii on 18 October, and was observed 34 separate times in the following week. Travelling at 44 kilometres per second, the comet is headed away from the Earth and Sun on its way out of the solar system. The comet is up to 400 meters long and highly-elongated - perhaps 10 times as long as it is wide. (Source: DailyMail)
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