text:
NATO Surrenders Europe To U.S. Global Missile Shield Project
By Rick Rozoff
On January 27 the North Atlantic Treaty Organization took the most decisive step yet toward the implementation of the decades-old project first proposed by the Ronald Reagan administration for a Strategic Defense Initiative, popularly known as Star Wars.
In what will be the culmination of five years of extensive planning by the U.S. and NATO to construct an impenetrable interceptor missile shield to cover the European continent, the military bloc announced on the above date that it had handed over the first-ever theater ballistic missile defence capability to NATO military commanders at the NATO Combined Air Operations Centre in the German city of Uedem, which occurred "after NATO technicians computer-tested a software system linking anti-missile equipment from France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and the United States." [1]
Italian Air Force Brigadier General Alessandro Pera, head of the NATO Active Layered Theatre Ballistic Missile Defence (ALTBMD) Programme Office, delivered the plan to NATO Deputy Secretary General Claudio Bisogniero while the second day of a NATO Military Committee meeting at the Atlantic Alliance headquarters in Brussels with chiefs of defense staff and other military representatives from 66 countries was underway.
Those also present in Germany included U.S. Air Force Major General Mark Ramsay, deputy chief of staff for Operations and Intelligence at Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (NATO's main European command) and other military and civilian authorities from the Alliance and Germany. General Mark Welsh III, commander of Allied Air Command Ramstein, paid his first visit to the NATO Combined Air Operations Centre to coincide with the capability demonstration of the ALTBMD program. Brigadier General Pera "handed over a symbolic key to the operational user of the capability," represented by Major General Ramsay. [2]
This year the Pentagon will begin its announced ten-year Phased Adaptive Approach (sometimes with a comma between the first two words) project to deploy medium- and intermediate-range interceptor missiles on ships in the Baltic Sea and Mediterranean Sea, which will be followed by the stationing of no fewer than 48 advanced Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) interceptors in Eastern Europe: 24 each in Romania and Poland.
The SM-3 is a ship-based missile jointly developed by the U.S. and Japan which will be deployed on Aegis class guided missile destroyers and cruisers in the two above-mentioned seas. A land-based version of the missile (Aegis Ashore) will be deployed near the Baltic and Black Seas in Poland and Romania.
Missile radar sites will accompany the interceptors, with potential sites discussed to date including Bulgaria, Turkey, the Czech Republic, Azerbaijan and Georgia in addition to the X-band radar (AN/TPY-2 Transportable Radar Surveillance/Forward Based X-band Transportable) designed for the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-ballistic missile system, with a range of 2,900 miles, deployed to the Negev Desert in Israel in 2008, manned by over 100 U.S. military personnel including a representative of the Missile Defense Agency. [3] The Azerbaijani location would be the early warning radar facility at Gabala currently operated by the Russian Space Forces.
This week four U.S. senators endorsed the placement of an interceptor missile radar facility in Georgia, which fought a five-day war with Russia in August 2008.
Last May the U.S. deployed the first interceptors in Europe, a Patriot Advanced Capability-3 battery in the Polish city of Morag, 35-40 miles from the Russian Kaliningrad district. An estimated 150 American troops arrived with the missiles to service and train Polish service members to operate them.
Until 2005 the U.S. had concentrated its missile shield initiatives further east: In Alaska, including its Aleutian Islands chain, and Japan, with preliminary radar facilities in Greenland, Britain and Norway to the west. The Missile Defense Agency's 280-foot-high Sea-Based X-Band Radar, which displaces 50,000 tons and has a surface as large as two football fields, is based in Adak in the Aleutian Islands near Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula.
Developments took a dramatic turn in that year, however. On March 11 NATO's North Atlantic Council, its highest civilian governing body, approved plans for a theater missile defense (TMD) system to protect deployed troops. The military bloc at that time had forces on the ground in Bosnia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
Six years ago NATO envisioned a combination of the U.S.-German-Italian Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS), Patriot Advanced Capability-3 and Surface Air Moyenne Portée/Terre systems as the foundation for lower-tier – battlefield or theater – components of its interceptor missile program, with U.S. Theater (now Terminal) High Altitude Area Defense and the then-current sea-based Standard Missile-2 systems serving as the upper-layer complements. [4]
The integrated system was to achieve initial operating capability last year – when NATO's 28 members unanimously authorized a far wider-ranging missile shield at the Alliance's summit in Portugal in November – and full operating capability in 2013.
To that end NATO's Active Layered Theatre Ballistic Missile Defence (ALTBMD) program was established in September 2005 after a seven-year feasibility study had been conducted by eight of the bloc's leading members and in which "various NATO projects cooperatively participated." [5]
At that time the ALTBMD project was described in part as an "integrated system-of-systems architecture [that] will create a larger range of detection, communication and missile defence capabilities for NATO forces, whether deployed within or beyond NATO's area of responsibility. It will also provide complete coverage against the threat posed by tactical ballistic missiles with ranges up to 3,000 kilometres. [6]
The U.S. arms manufacturers Boeing and Northrop Grumman announced intentions in the same month to bid on "systems engineering and integration work on NATO's Theater Missile Defense capability." [7]
At almost exactly the same time, in November of 2005, Agence France-Presse disclosed that the U.S. was developing a complementary and more advanced interceptor missile program for Europe. Eastern Europe.
Citing a senior, unnamed, Pentagon official, the press service stated that although discussions had been held "below the radar screen" since 2002, "the US government was now nearing the point of making decisions on whether and how to go forward with such an initiative."
The Defense Department source was quoted as stating: "There have been a handful of countries, Poland is one, but there are several others with whom we've been having discussions with." [8]
A week earlier the Gazeta Wyborcza had revealed the plans to base American interceptor missiles in Poland. Four years later the same newspaper divulged weeks ahead of the event that Washington was shifting its plans for ten ground-based interceptors in Poland and a missile radar base in the Czech Republic – because of their impracticability, their ineffectiveness – to what on September 17, 2009 President Barack Obama termed a "smarter, stronger, and swifter" missile shield system that would include components from the Baltic to the Black to the Mediterranean Seas. [9]
The U.S. official quoted above would not divulge which other countries would be involved in the system as planned at the time, but confirmed that the deployment in Poland would be comparable to those at Fort Greely, Alaska where the Missile Defense Agency is working on completing the construction of as many as 14 silos with 30-40 long-range ground-based interceptors as part of the Ground-based Midcourse Defense element of America's global missile shield plans.
That was the strategy pursued by the George W. Bush administration but superseded by its successor in 2009.
In adopting a continent-wide interceptor missile program as part of its new Strategic Concept last November, NATO agreed to subordinate its 26 members and 14 partners (17 if the South Caucasus is included) in Europe to a U.S.-dominated missile system that is not limited to the continent but is an integral part of a global layered and integrated missile shield network.
The Lisbon summit declaration of November 20 affirms that "We have adopted a new Strategic Concept [and] decided to develop a missile defence capability to protect all NATO European populations, territory and forces…."
"Our Strategic Concept underscores our commitment to ensuring that NATO has the full range of capabilities necessary to deter and defend against any threat to the safety of our populations and the security of our territory. To that end, NATO will maintain an appropriate mix of conventional, nuclear, and missile defence forces. Missile defence will become an integral part of our overall defence posture…."
"[W]e have decided that the Alliance will develop a missile defence capability to pursue its core task of collective defence. The aim of a NATO missile defence capability is to provide full coverage and protection for all NATO European populations, territory and forces against the increasing threats posed by the proliferation of ballistic missiles, based on the principles of the indivisibility of Allied security and NATO solidarity…."
"To this end, we have decided that the scope of NATO's current Active Layered Theatre Ballistic Missile Defence (ALTBMD) programme's command, control and communications capabilities will be expanded beyond the protection of NATO deployed forces to also protect NATO European populations, territory and forces. In this context, the United States European Phased Adaptive Approach is welcomed as a valuable national contribution to the NATO missile defence architecture, as are other possible voluntary contributions by Allies. We have tasked the Council to develop missile defence consultation, command and control arrangements by the time of the March 2011 meeting of our Defence Ministers. We have also tasked the Council to draft an action plan addressing steps to implement the missile defence capability by the time of the June 2011 Defence Ministers' meeting." [10]
A sop was thrown to Russia, which with the best of reasons had been suspicious of American and NATO interceptor missile plans since their inception, with the summit statement claiming that NATO had "invited Russia to cooperate with us."
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev was the first head of state of his nation (and its predecessor state, the Soviet Union) to attend a NATO summit last year, but despite the Russian political leadership's (over-)willingness to trust its NATO "partners," two months later Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen threw cold water on Moscow's self-deluded understanding of where it stood in regard to U.S.-NATO European missile shield plans in announcing that "the alliance's plan for a European missile shield involves two separate but collaborative programs, one operated by the military alliance and the other by Russia," although "Moscow and Brussels in November decided to work on researching and potentially setting up a continent-wide program for missile defense." [11]
That is, Russia will have no role in monitoring or in any other direct manner affecting Western interceptor plans. American officials have been blunt in asserting that the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) pact will in no manner restrict U.S. and NATO continent-wide (except for Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova for the time being) interceptor missile arrangements. Or the Pentagon's new Prompt Global Strike program designed to accomplish with conventional measures the task formerly assigned to the American nuclear arsenal and triad. [12]
Immediately after Rasmussen's reaffirmation that Russia, like all NATO partners, can only expect to play a subordinate role in this as in all other matters, the lower house of the Russian parliament, the State Duma, posted a draft supplementary statement to the new START agreement ratification document on its website demanding that "Russia must quickly modernize its nuclear deterrent focusing on the deployment of ballistic missiles capable of penetrating the most sophisticated missile defenses."
The supplement stated:
"The State Duma believes that maintaining Russia's nuclear deterrent in an adequate state of readiness is a key venue of the country's military doctrine, with the focus on the deployment of strategic offensive weapons that possess the most combat effectiveness and the highest potential to penetrate missile defenses.
"The combat effectiveness of Russia's nuclear deterrent must be maintained at the level that guarantees the protection of the country from attacks carried out by any foreign state or a group of states in any military-strategic situation." [13]
On January 24 President Medvedev demanded an unequivocal response from NATO on what role his country will be permitted to play in Western missile shield plans, stating:
"Our partners have to understand that we do not want this simply to have some common toys that NATO and us can play with, but because we want adequate protection for Russia."
"So this is not a joking matter. We expect from our NATO partners a direct and unambiguous answer.
"In either case, we are either together with NATO, or we separately find an adequate response to the existing problem.
"Either we agree to certain principles with NATO, or we fail to agree, and then in the future we are forced to adopt an entire series of unpleasant decisions concerning the deployment of an offensive nuclear missile group." [14]
Two days later Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov told the upper house of parliament, the Federation Council, that "Russia will go forward with plans to develop its own missile defense system after the ratification of a strategic arms reduction treaty with the United States."
"As far as our missile defense system is concerned, we have been developing it and will be further developing it," he added. [15]
On the same day Chief of General Staff Nikolay Makarov said "that Russia's permanent involvement in designing the architecture of the European missile defense system should be the main precondition for NATO-Russia co-operation." [16]
A Russian commentary of January 27 included these observations – and warnings:
"Neither NATO nor the US has answered Russia's questions so far. The would-be shield is even called differently by both sides. While the Russian leadership describes it as 'European missile defense system,' it is referred to as 'NATO's missile defense system' in the alliance's official documents.
"Moscow will not participate in any joint program where it does not have its say. The big fear is that the European shield will be directed by the US, which does not abandon the idea of its own global missile defense shield." [17]
NATO's comprehensive, all-encompassing interceptor missile system is in fact controlled by the U.S. and is part of an international network that includes air, land, sea and space elements. [18] Washington has added South Korea and Australia to its missile shield alliance with Japan in the Asia-Pacific region and is selling billions of dollars worth of theater and more advanced interceptor missiles to Taiwan, Japan and the Persian Gulf states of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. [19]
The same source cited Yury Solomonov, director and general designer of the Moscow Institute of Thermal Technology, who said Russia is developing new warheads for intercontinental ballistic missiles which "would be able to overcome any existing and future missile defense systems."
The article continued:
"The development of new warheads looks like Russia's answer to plans of the US and NATO to create a new missile defense shield for Europe. Both Washington and the alliance had formally invited Moscow to take part in a joint program. But even Europeans themselves do not know the exact details of the initiative.
"NATO member states are still to come to an agreement between themselves….[T]o maintain the potential of strategic nuclear forces Russia must radically increase the production of intercontinental ballistic missiles. [Solomonov] also said that the Bulava sea-based intercontinental ballistic missile will be commissioned and pass into service in 2011 if the planned test launches are successful." [20]
On the day the above appeared NATO announced the activation of its first anti-ballistic missile capability.
On February 3 Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was quoted warning that "If negotiations between NATO and Russia will only be used as a cover for a NATO-American missile defense system that ignores the Russian interests then of course we will have no choice but to take adequate measures to protect ourselves." [21]
So much for pushing reset buttons with the new START agreement and the reactivation of the NATO-Russia Council in November.
Before this month's announcement that NATO was integrating hitherto separate interceptor missile systems into a coherent network linked with the new American European system, Italy's Brigadier General Pera, head of NATO's Active Layered Theatre Ballistic Missile Defence Programme Office and veteran of NATO campaigns in Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan, gave an interview to the U.S.-based Defense News in April of last year in which he itemized the components that will be incorporated into the missile interception program:
"For the interim capability, five nations are contributing weapons systems and sensors: Germany, Patriot PAC3 missiles; France, SAMP/T missiles; Italy, Horizon-class frigates; the Netherlands, Patriot PAC-3 missiles, ADCF (Air Defense Command) frigates; and the United States, Aegis cruisers, Patriot PAC-2 and -3 missiles, space early warning. The missiles mentioned can act both as missile interceptors and as anti-aircraft missiles.
"In its final configurations, we will also have MEADS (Medium Extended Air Defense System) missile weapon systems from the U.S., Germany and Italy; SAMP/T weapon systems and TPS 77 sensors, Italy; NATO sensors Fixed Air Defense Radar/Deployable Air Defense Radar, Aegis Standard Missile-3 systems, AN/TPY 2 radar and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system from the U.S.; Patriot PAC-2 and F100 frigates, Spain; F124 frigates and Global Hawk IR, Germany; Patriot PAC-2, Greece."
"ALTBMD has a lower layer to deal with short- and medium-range missiles (the interim capability is the first step of it) and an upper layer to deal with longer-range tactical missiles, up to 3,000 kilometers. The ultimate aim is for theater missile defense to be able to counter long-range missiles, too, so that NATO countries remain one step ahead of the threat by being able to knock out missiles not just in their re-entry phase but also in the midcourse and boost phases."
"The interfaces between ALTBMD and the U.S.A.'s Phased Adaptive Approach have already been successfully tested.
"ALTBMD is planning to have an initial operational capability in 2012, while the plan is for the full spectrum of capabilities to be available by 2017." [22]
His inclusion of Terminal High Altitude Area Defense and its AN/TPY-2 Transportable Radar Surveillance/Forward Based X-Band Transportable which "is capable of tracking and identifying small objects at long distance and at very high altitude, including space" [23] indicates a more sophisticated overall plan than is generally acknowledged. Though last summer Lieutenant General Patrick O'Reilly, director of the Missile Defense Agency (which grew out of Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative) said "combined defenses would feature the best of both worlds: an 'upper layer' framework of SM-3 and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, interceptors, operated by the United States, that could shoot down enemy missiles in space or the upper atmosphere; and a 'lower layer' of Patriot batteries, operated by European allies, providing a second layer of defense closer to the ground." [24]
On December 1 of last year Frank Rose, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control, Verification and Compliance, testified before the House Armed Services Committee Subcommittee on Strategic Forces and stated of the American Phased Adaptive Approach that "this approach to missile defense squarely in a NATO context as was decided at the Lisbon Summit. Missile defense is now firmly entrenched in NATO as both the summit declaration and Strategic Concept make it clear. NATO will develop missile defense as part of the Alliance's core task of collective defense."
He added: "The deployment of the AN/TPY-2 radar in Southern Europe in the 2011 timeframe will augment the capabilities of our existing Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system to intercept long-range missiles launched from the Middle East, should that threat emerge. In many ways, this is analogous to the AN-TPY-2 radar deployed in Japan that serves to assist with the defense of Japan and U.S. territory from the North Korean threat." [25]
Washington persists in the disingenuous contention that covering Europe in a U.S.-controlled missile shield is aimed at protecting nations from Poland to Britain from North Korean, Iranian, Syrian and even North African threats.
A NATO press release on the January 27 event stated:
"The ALTBMD Programme Office will continue to upgrade the NATO Command and Control System for Theatre Ballistic Missile Defence in incremental steps from 2013 to 2018, to field a more robust Final Operational Capability. In line with the Lisbon Summit decision of November 2010, the ALTBMD capability will also be expanded to protect not just deployed forces, but NATO European territories and populations as well." [26]
2018 is the year the U.S. will inaugurate its Phase 3 advanced SM-3 interceptor site in Poland.
Late last month pro-American Romanian President Traian Basescu, recruited last year by his American counterpart Obama to host Standard Missile-3s on his nation's soil, said:
"The United States remains our strategic partner and our main ally in the field of security. Today, the main vector of our cooperation is the anti-missile shield. We wish to conclude this year the bilateral negotiations." [27] In 2005 the Pentagon secured the use of four military bases in Romania, including what is being upgraded into a strategic air base.
Two days before the above quote appeared on the Internet, it was reported that the U.S. Air Force had "augmented the hardware of a missile defense radar facility in Greenland," NATO ally Denmark's possession, and that it "has already upgraded early warning radar sites at Beale Air Force Base in California and at Fylingdales Royal Air Force Station in the United Kingdom," and "intends to update two more of the sites." [28] An island between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans is an odd location for tracking imaginary Iranian and North Korean intercontinental ballistic missiles.
Also in late January and in the Atlantic Ocean, the U.S. Navy, the Missile Defense Agency and weapons manufacturer Lockheed Martin conducted a missile interception training exercise off the coast of Virginia with an Aegis class guided missile cruiser and two Aegis guided missile destroyers. Lockheed announced that "the ships tracked a short-range ballistic missile target and two performed simulations that would have resulted in successful interceptions of the target." [29]
The Navy announced in a press release that it was "the first live ballistic missile defense test on the East Coast," as before then Standard Missile-3 intercepts of target missiles (and in February of 2008 a space satellite) had been conducted from the Pacific Missile Range Test Facility in Kauai, Hawaii.
In the same week Lockheed, working with Raytheon, and Boeing, partnering with Northrop Grumman, submitted proposals to the Missile Defense Agency in competition for a $4.2 billion, seven-year contract "to develop and sustain the Ground-based Midcourse Defense [GMD] portion of the nation's ballistic missile defense program."
"Elements of GMD, including some of the radars and Standard Missile 3[s] used in the ship-based Aegis system, are being considered for use as part of President Barack Obama's 'phased adaptive approach' to enhancing missile defense in Europe." [30]
Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS) International, based in Orlando, Florida, recently disclosed that it had successfully conducted "milestone tests" on an X-band radar system and was preparing for systems testing this year at the Pratica di Mare Air Force Base in Italy. The U.S. funds 58 percent of the MEADS European missile defense program, with Germany and Italy providing 25 and 17 of the financing respectively.
The MEADS consortium, for which Lockheed Martin provides Patriot and longer-range missiles, describes its operation as follows:
"Under development by Germany, Italy and the United States, MEADS is a mobile system that will replace Patriot in the United States and Nike Hercules in Italy. It will replace Patriot and the retired Hawk system in Germany. The system is designed to permit full interoperability between the U.S. and allied forces, and it is the only medium-range air defense system to provide full 360-degree coverage."
In addition: "In August 2010, the MEADS program completed an extensive series of Critical Design Review events with a Summary Critical Design Review at MEADS International in Orlando, FL. The program is now completing final build, integration and test activities leading to flight tests involving all system elements at White Sands Missile Range in 2012." [31]
On February 1 NATO announced that a subsidiary of the joint U.S.-French ThalesRaytheonSystems won a contract for "enhancements to the Air Command and Control System (ACCS) as part of the Active Layered Theatre Ballistic Missile Defence (ALTBMD) programme."
"This award is for the Preliminary System Definition of the first phase of the ACCS TMD [theater missile defense] project and will be followed by the development, integration and testing of two increments leading to an Initial Operational Capability (IOC). The new functionality developed under the contract will provide sensor and weapon system configuration, management and coverage, air and missile track processing, dissemination, classification, display and alerting. It will also provide weapon system status, engagement, monitoring and control."
The NATO website quoted Dr. Gerhard van der Giet, General Manager of the NATO ACCS Management Agency:
"As Allies decided at the NATO summit in Lisbon last November, the scope of ALTBMD will be expanded beyond the protection of deployed forces to also protect NATO European populations, territory and forces. The command and control enhancements developed under the ACCS TMD project provide a future foundation for Missile Defence." [32]
It was reported two days afterward that Siemens Turkiye, the German electronic and engineering firm's Turkish subsidiary, and a local software company "will develop and implement NATO's strategic Air Command and Control Information (AirC2I) System….[T]he system will set a benchmark for future NATO Bi-Strategic Command Automated Information Systems Functional Services, be a key component of NATO's Active Layered Theater Ballistic Missile Defense system's initial operating capability, and provide a possible foundation for missile defense." [33]
A copy of Ronald Reagan's Star Wars speech of March 23, 1983 is displayed prominently at the Missile Defense Agency's Von Braun Complex in Huntsville, Alabama. U.S. officials, military and civilian, have openly spoken of having brought to fruition Reagan's plan for a Strategic Defense Initiative in intent and practical effects if not precise configurations.
The Aegis Combat System is a product of the Strategic Defense Initiative. Last year President Obama pushed for an increase in the system's Standard Missile-3 interceptors to 436, up from the previous year's request of 147 of the missiles costing $10-15 million apiece.
NATO's summit in Lisbon last November has delivered almost the entire European continent to a 21st century version of Star Wars.
1) Deutsche Presse-Agentur, January 27, 2011
2) U.S. Air Forces in Europe, January 31, 2011
3) Israel: Forging NATO Missile Shield, Rehearsing War With Iran
Stop NATO, November 5, 2009
4) NATO OKs Missile Defense Management Agency
Defense News, March 21, 2005
5) North Atlantic Treaty Organization
Active Layered Theatre Ballistic Missile Defence Programme Office
6) Ibid
7) Defense News, September 9, 2005
8) Agence France-Presse, November 16, 2005
9) U.S. Expands Global Missile Shield Into Middle East, Balkans
Stop NATO, September 11, 2009
10) North Atlantic Treaty Organization
Lisbon Summit Declaration
November 20, 2010
11) Global Security Newswire, January 20, 2011
12) Prompt Global Strike: World Military Superiority Without Nuclear
Stop NATO, April 10, 2010
13) Russian Information Agency Novosti, January 22, 2011
14) Agence France-Presse, January 24, 2011
15) Russian Information Agency Novosti, January 26, 2011
16) RT, January 27, 2011
17) Ibid
18) Militarization Of Space: Threat Of Nuclear War On Earth
Stop NATO, June 18, 2009
19) U.S. Extends Missile Buildup From Poland And Taiwan To Persian Gulf
Stop NATO, February 3, 2010
Middle East Loses Trillions As U.S. Strikes Record Arms Deals
Stop NATO, September 2, 2010
20) RT, January 27, 2011
21) Russia rules out being NATO's patsy on missile defense
Russian Information Agency Novosti, February 3, 2011
22) Defense News, April 5, 2010
23) Global Security.org
24) Washington Post, August 1, 2010
Europe And Beyond: U.S. Consolidates Global Missile Shield
Stop NATO, August 3, 2010
25) U.S. Department of State, December 1, 2010
26) North Atlantic Treaty Organization, January 27, 2011
27) Sofia News Agency, January 21, 2011
28) Global Security Newswire, January 19, 2011
29) Philadelphia Business Journal, January 28, 2011
30) Huntsville Times, January 29, 2011
31) MEADS International, January 31, 2011
32) NATO and ThalesRaytheonSystems sign contract for Theatre Missile
Defence extension
North Atlantic Treaty Organization, February 1, 2011
33) Defense News, February 3, 2011


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With an understanding of what fluency is and how to assess it, let's turn to the questions that teachers are always most interested in: What should fluency instruction look like? And, what can I do to help students whose fluency is far behind their peers'?
Research over the past two decades has identified repeated reading as the key strategy for improving students' fluency skills (NICHD, 2000). Repeated reading has two essential elements: 1) Giving students the opportunity to read and then re-read the same text, and 2) having students practice their reading orally with an opportunity to receive corrections and guidance (if necessary).
Research has also determined that having students read aloud along with a model of well-paced, expressive reading and receiving specific feedback through systematic progress monitoring also helps improve students' fluency skills. So, what are the best methods to use in the classroom to help students become fluent? The answer depends on whether the student is just beginning to read, has learned to read and is making adequate progress, or is struggling. Let's start with beginning readers, those students in kindergarten and grade one.
Teaching beginning readers to become fluent
Because accuracy is a fundamental component of fluency, teachers who work with beginning readers must focus significant amounts of instructional time on basic word recognition and word analysis skills (Pikulski and Chard, 2005). To do this effectively, teachers should provide instruction that systematically presents daily opportunities for students to learn to read words accurately (Snow, Burns, and Griffith, 1998)-the important first step in becoming a skillful, proficient, and motivated reader. Pushing students to "read faster" too soon could cause some students to begin guessing or otherwise undermine their focus on reading carefully.
There is no guidance from empirical research about precisely when teachers should formally begin encouraging beginning readers to increase their speed, but teachers usually wait until about the middle of first grade. Fluency researchers Stahl and Kuhn (2002) recommend that students be given opportunities to re-read sentences and encouraged to make their reading "sound like talking" as soon as they are making good progress with basic decoding, demonstrating an understanding of the act of reading, and showing some degree of confidence-whether that happens in kindergarten or in first grade.
Teachers and parents should also frequently model fluent reading, demonstrating (and sometimes explicitly pointing out) how accurate reading can be done at a reasonable rate and with good phrasing, intonation, and expression. In the classroom, the teacher can read aloud from large-format books so the students can follow along.
Maintaining reading fluency for on-level readers
What about students in grades two and higher who are making adequate progress with their reading? Three techniques can be used very frequently with a variety of texts to help maintain and develop students' reading fluency: Choral reading, cloze reading, and partner reading. All of these procedures can be used with readers at any grade level, with small or large groups, and with fiction or content-heavy nonfiction materials. Two additional techniques can also be considered for use: Readers' Theater and poetry readings. Let's review each.
For choral reading, the teacher and students read aloud together, following the teacher's pace-so students get the benefit of a model while they practice reading aloud. The teacher can stop at any time to ask questions, comment on the text, discuss a vocabulary term, or remind the class that she expects everyone to be reading. If choral reading is used with heterogeneously grouped students, it is possible that the lowest performing students may have difficulty keeping up with even a moderate pace. However, they can follow along, participating when they can, and still hear the text being read accurately and with good pacing and phrasing. Choral reading works best if the teacher directs all students-regardless of age or ability level-to use a marker or finger to follow along in the text as they read.
Cloze reading is similar to choral reading, except that the teacher does most of the oral reading while the students read along silently. Once or twice every few sentences, the teacher omits an important vocabulary or content word, not a simple sight word, and the students' job is to read it aloud as a class. Notice that with cloze reading, as opposed to choral reading, students spend less time practicing oral reading. Therefore, cloze reading is best thought of as an alternative to Round Robin Reading.
Cloze reading allows teachers to cover text and keep students engaged while avoiding the pitfalls of subjecting the class to examples of poor reading and embarrassing struggling students. As with choral reading, it is likely that the lowest performing readers will be unable to keep up or to correctly read every omitted word, but they will not be singled out-and will be provided with examples of skillful reading.
Another method for improving fluency is to have students read aloud to a partner. This procedure works best when students are taught some techniques for giving feedback and managing their time, and when the partners have been selected by the teacher.
One technique for assigning partners is for teachers to first rank the students from the strongest reader in the class to the weakest (making judgments subjectively or from assessment data) and then consider whether there are students whose reading ability is so low that partner reading may be inappropriate. These students could meet with the teacher for more direct instruction or closely supported partner reading while the other students do independent partner reading.
The teacher then divides the remaining students in half, forming pairs such that the strongest reader is paired with a mid-level reader, and so on, ensuring that each pair has a slightly stronger reader, but that the difference in the students' ability is not so large as to cause embarrassment or confusion.
At times, the stronger reader may be directed to read first, providing a model of fluent reading. Then the less fluent reader reads the same text aloud. The stronger student can help with word recognition and give feedback and encouragement to the less fluent partner. Another effective technique pairs students who read at the same level and asks them to re-read a story on which they have already received instruction from the teacher (Osborn and Lehr, 2004).
Readers' Theater and poetry readings-both of which engage students in a reading performance-have become popular over the last few years. Much has been written about Readers' Theater in particular, and about the apparent value of having students participate in dramatic readings (Rasinski, 2006). These kinds of activities provide students with an opportunity to read text that is enjoyable-and provides a clear incentive for students to read, and re-read, their assigned parts or poem.
However, while these techniques are motivating, teachers should not assume that either one could possibly provide as much practice for the whole class as choral or partner reading, much less anything close to the amount of instruction and practice necessary for struggling students to improve their fluency.
Improving struggling readers' fluency: Suggestions for intervention
The research literature provides some clear directions on what to do with struggling readers: Interventions must combine the modeling, repeated reading, and feedback that research has demonstrated effective (Shaywitz, 2003). Several commercial programs have been developed, including Read Naturally (Ihnot, 1991), the Six Minute Solution (Adams and Brown, 2003), Quick Reads (Heibert, 2002), and the Great Leaps Reading program (Campbell, 1996). Each of these programs includes at least some of the instructional components that have been shown to improve students' reading fluency and has its own approach to student engagement.
Unfortunately, research that directly compares the effectiveness of these various programs has yet to be done. In my own review of the available research, I've concluded that the strategy developed by Read Naturally makes the best use of the research base on fluency and has the strongest evidence of effectiveness as a fluency intervention. And, in using the Read Naturally strategy with students in many different grade levels, I've found that it engages them in the repeated reading they so desperately need.
However, I encourage readers to keep in mind that over the next several years, research may provide evidence of effectiveness on these other programs that equals or surpasses that of the Read Naturally strategy.
The Read Naturally (RN) strategy was developed by Candyce Ihnot, a Title I reading teacher from Minneapolis. Candyce developed and tested it in 1989 as part of her master's thesis in special education. After finding that her approach was effective with struggling students in her school, Candyce and her husband, Tom Ihnot, developed a set of instructional materials that are commercially available from their company, Read Naturally, Inc.
To implement the RN strategy, students' fluency levels (WCPM) are assessed to place students at an appropriate instructional level. The teacher then helps each student set a reasonable, achievable fluency goal (approximately 80-90 WCPM for primary students or older students reading at a primary level; from 90-120 WCPM for upper elementary students).
Instruction begins with an unpracticed, "cold reading" of a student-selected passage from the targeted level. Passages may range in length from approximately 100 words at the mid-first-grade level to 350 words at the sixth-grade level. As they read, students use a timer and keep track of the words they skip or stumble over (by lightly underlining the problem word). They then calculate their WCPM and graph this first, unpracticed WCPM score on a bar graph.
In step two, students practice reading this same passage three to four times along with a model to learn how to accurately pronounce all the words in the text. This step is not timed, and the students read the entire passage. The modeled reading can come from a recording or a person trained to read the passage at a rate that is comfortable for the student.
The key here is that a student does not just listen to the model, but actually reads aloud (softly) with the narrator's voice, giving full attention to the text. Encouraging students to point to the text being read and informing them that they will be responsible for answering a set of comprehension questions after completing all the steps in the strategy helps students stay focused.
Once students feel comfortable with the text, they begin step three in which they read the text independently, again aloud, but softly. Students set a timer for one minute and read the text several times until they are comfortably reaching their predetermined goal level-and are ready to be checked by the teacher. Having some kind of silent signal for the teacher such as a flag or colored card at the students' desk can help manage this step. Students keep practicing the passage until the teacher can meet with them because this maximizes their engaged practice time-a key to improved skills in low-performing students (Brophy, 1988).
In the final step, the student reads for the teacher, who then calculates the WCPM score. The student "passes" if four criteria are met:
- the WCPM score meets or exceeds the predetermined goal;
- three or fewer errors are made;
- the student reads the passage with correct phrasing and attention to punctuation; and,
- the student can correctly answer a few comprehension questions.
When students do not pass, they continue practicing this same text. When they do pass, they graph their new score onto the same bar with their initial, unpracticed score, using a different colored pencil or marker. This graph gives tangible evidence to the students that they are improving-and keeps motivation high by showing them that their own effort makes the difference. For an external check on progress, the teacher should also periodically assess students' performance on an unpracticed passage by following the progress monitoring procedure described in the article "Screening, Diagnosing, and Progress Monitoring: The Details."
Students repeat these steps until they complete 10-12 passages of equivalent difficulty. At that point the student and teacher collaboratively examine the data on the student's graph to decide what step to take next. If the student is making steady progress in the current level, but is not yet approaching his goal level on the first, unpracticed reading, he should stay in that same level for another 10-12 passages.
If the student's first unpracticed readings are occasionally meeting or approaching the goal, the teacher and student may decide to move the student up to the next level of difficulty with the same goal, or stay in the current level of difficulty and raise the "pass" goal a bit higher. Of course, if at any time the student is having difficulty reading at the goal level after the practice readings, the decision can be made to move the student down to an easier level or make a downward adjustment in the WCPM goal.
In addition to requiring the students to answer a set of comprehension questions at the end of each passage, some teachers have added other comprehension activities to this process, such as having the students write a five-minute re-tell response after each passage.
Using the RN strategy for 20-30 minutes per day, for three or more days per week, can have a significant impact on improving students' reading fluency. In two studies reported on by Hasbrouck, Ihnot, and Rogers (1999), second- and third-grade Title I students, as well as sixth-grade special education students, showed significant improvement in their fluency. The second- and third-graders received, on average, 32 weeks of RN instruction. From fall to spring, the second-graders' average WCPM increased from 17.9 to 71.6, meaning that they moved from well below the 25th percentile to well above it (see norms table in "Screening, Diagnosing, and Progress Monitoring: The Details"); they showed an average gain of 1.68 WCPM per week, much greater than the 1.2 WCPM per week gain that second-graders typically make.
Third-grade students had similar results. From fall to spring, their average WCPM increased from 42 to 93, meaning that they moved from just below the 25th percentile to well above it; they gained 1.60 WCPM per week, as compared to the typical growth of 1.1 WCPM per week. The study of sixth-grade special education students also found significant improvements. These students were reading at levels ranging from grade 1.5 to 4.0. They received RN instruction in a special education class for 20 to 32 weeks and improved their fluency by an average of 1.4 WCPM per week, which is double the 0.7 words per week that sixth-graders typically gain.
I would like to add two caveats regarding reading fluency. First, as this skill has recently garnered greater attention, and awareness of the link between fluency and comprehension has grown, there appears to be a tendency for some to believe that raising a student's fluency score is the main goal of reading instruction. As important as fluency is, and as valuable as the information obtained from fluency-based assessments can be for instructional decision-making, I want to caution teachers and administrators to keep fluency and fluency-based assessment scores in perspective.
The ability to read text accurately, at a reasonable rate, and with appropriate expression and phrasing is certainly a key factor in being able to understand what has been read and to enjoy the process of reading. Nonetheless, fluency is only one of the key components of reading. I urge teachers to use the 50th percentile as a reasonable level of proficiency for students, and keep in mind that it is appropriate and expected for students to adjust their rate when reading texts of varying difficulty and for varied purposes.
Pushing every student to reach the 90th or even the 75th percentile in fluency is not feasible or necessary and, for students at or above the expected level in fluency, the instructional time could be better spent by enhancing other critical aspects of reading, such as increasing their vocabulary and becoming better at monitoring their comprehension.
The second caveat is that we still have much to learn about fluency. Ongoing debates in the research community include questions regarding the value of reading lists of words versus sentences and paragraphs; repeated reading of the same passage versus reading several different passages that have lots of the same vocabulary; the nature of the text in which students would benefit most for fluency practice (i.e., narrative or expository, randomly selected or highly controlled passages); the exact role of silent reading in a comprehensive reading instructional program; the role of prosody in the impact of fluency on text comprehension, etc.
For example, we know that the ability to instantaneously recognize high-frequency sight words is an essential element of fluent reading. Researchers continue to explore whether or not having students practice reading word lists or passages is the more efficient way to develop this automaticity. Until research provides a definitive answer, having students orally read passages seems more beneficial because of the added opportunity to work on prosody and comprehension.
Likewise, we know that repeated reading of a single passage is highly effective, but it is not clear whether or not a set of passages on a single topic that has been carefully written with a large number of repeated words could be equally or even more effective. If reading a set of passages turns out to be as effective as re-reading a single passage, the set could conceivably be used to enhance students' fluency, vocabulary, and domain knowledge simultaneously.
We will leave researchers to continue their valuable efforts to address these important but yet-to-be-answered questions. However, this article should help practitioners feel confident that there is sufficient guidance from research to support the use of fluency-based assessments in their professional data-collection procedures, and to select instructional practices for both those students who are on-track and those who are struggling to develop the essential skill of reading fluency.
Hasbrouck, J. (2006). For Students Who Are Not Yet Fluent, Silent Reading Is Not the Best Use of Classroom Time. American Educator, Summer 2006, 30(2).


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When the children of south Tel Aviv head back to school on Tuesday, kindergarteners will attend facilities that are segregated by race. The children of asylum seekers from sub-Saharan Africa will go to their kindergartens and all the other kids will go to their own. As of this year, the municipality of Israel's most liberal city decided that separate-but-equal for three-to-six year olds was the way to go—in 2013.
According to a report published by Ynet (Hebrew edition), the city built the new preschools for black children after Jewish-Israeli residents of the inner city area threatened to keep their children at home rather than allow them to learn how to count, fingerpaint and play on the swings alongside their peers from Eritrea and Sudan.
The south Tel Aviv neighborhoods of Shapira and Hatikvah have for decades been one of the city's two most deprived areas (the other is southern Jaffa). Home to a population of mostly low income Mizrahi Jews (a.k.a. Oriental Jews), it suffers from the problems that plague most low-income areas—overcrowding, poor-quality housing and inadequate infrastructure. In recent years newcomers settled there, most notably foreign workers from the Philippines. More recently, asylum seekers from Sudan and Eritrea found their way to the economically depressed neighborhood. Tension between the veteran Jewish residents and the African asylum seekers has been high for quite some time, thanks partly to incitement from certain right-wing Members of Knesset and some rabbis, with the latter discouraging their followers from renting apartments to non-Jews. Last year the growing tension exploded in race riots. Mobs of angry Jewish residents smashed cars and shops belonging to blacks, beating and terrorizing them.
There are about 65,000 African asylum seekers spread around Israel, with a significant number concentrated in south Tel Aviv.
The Jewish residents of south Tel Aviv reject angrily the accusation that they are racists. They point out that the infrastructure and amenities in their impoverished neighborhoods are already overburdened. If the residents of the wealthy, liberal parts of the city had to share their apartment buildings and schools with impoverished asylum seekers from Africa, say the Jews of south Tel Aviv, they too would be resistant.
They might have a point there. Last year, some parents in the prosperous and fashionable Sheinkin area of central Tel Aviv opposed a visit from 35 black children for a joint Hanukkah at a local kindergarten. According to a Ynet (English) report, a group of parents started a chain of racist emails, with one claiming they needed to know if the African children had been immunized in order to "protect" their own children.
And so we have officials representing the city that markets itself as a paradise for gays and liberals of all types embracing the concept of segregated kindergartens, presenting it as a win-win for the African newcomers and the veteran residents.
"We understand what is happening in the southern part of the city," one unidentified municipal official tells Ynet. "And thus we had no choice but to take this step. The residents are not interested in studying with the foreigners, so this is the only option left to us."
According to the report, the segregated schools are for the children of black sub-Saharan asylum seekers only. The non-Jewish children from other regions, like Southeast Asia and Europe, will continue to attend the "Jewish" municipal kindergartens. Presumably Ethiopian Jewish children have been attending the mixed schools all along, and will continue to do so.
One Israeli activist who works on behalf of the asylum seekers' children suggests that the municipality set up the segregated kindergarten in order to provide them with extra tutoring, helping to prepare them for elementary school. Then she adds dubiously that she hopes this was indeed the motivation. But residents quoted in the article seem pretty certain the municipality is responding to their demands by separating the African children from theirs.
Yoav Goldring, a city council member from the liberal City for All party, told Ynet that he is puzzled by the municipality's decision to build segregated kindergartens, rather than simply more kindergartens for everyone. "Instead of resolving the neighborhood's existing problems of overcrowding and lack of infrastructure, the municipality catered to the prevailing atmosphere of racial segregation." Goldring added that he intended to request the ministry of education to look into this matter.
Segregation is actually illegal in Israel, but the law won't be enforced unless someone takes the municipality of Tel Aviv and the ministry of education to court. Given the climate of crude racism directed against the Africans, with even radio presenters casually using the term "infiltrators" rather than refugees or asylum seekers, it is quite possible that no-one will think this outrageous incident is worth pursuing.


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Thank you so much for joining us for the Curtain Call Inspiration Challenge - All Boy!
For each challenge, we select a LEAD who is invited to be a guest designer in an upcoming challenge. Show Stoppers are other projects that have caught the design team's eye.
The LEAD of the All Boy challenge is...
Congrats! We invite you to be a guest designer in an upcoming challenge. Please email Stacey at firstname.lastname@example.com for the details!
" Love the vibrant background on Kelly's card!"
"Kelly's card has an amazing BG and love how she used the two stencils to create it."
" Kelly has created a fun backdrop to her rocket. I love the combination of colors, and the embossing with the two different stencils on top is a fabulous look."
" I just love the great background Kelly created for her card!"
The Show Stoppers for the All Boy challenge are...
" I love Cori's paper choice and the great textured stamps with the birthday flair and pinking circle. all great boy details."
Nicole Parmentier
Be sure to check back tomorrow for a new challenge.


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The face of HIV in the United States has long been white gay men, even though the epidemic has had a devastating and disproportionate impact on African-American communities.
This is especially true among women; 60 percent of newly diagnosed cases of HIV in women in 2017 were African-American. Yet, African-American women's voices are notoriously absent from the national discourse on HIV.
Largely invisible to a fractured health care system, these women are often breadwinners and matriarchs whose families count on them for support and care.
Treatments to help people who are HIV-positive manage their illness and survive into older age have improved greatly, yet the unique health needs of African-American women living and aging with HIV – estimated at about 140,000 – are often ignored.
While many are actively taking medication and receiving care, some do not know their HIV status. After diagnosis, many have difficulties managing their HIV, which can contribute to their other health challenges.
Researchers have been working on collecting oral histories from many older HIV-positive women in the Washington D.C. area. They hope that by focusing on the voices of African-American women themselves, the United States is able to better understand the profound impact that HIV has had on black life.
HIV and African-Americans
Many believe the HIV epidemic in the United States is nearing an end, in part because increased funding, targeted prevention efforts, and better treatment have resulted in drastic reductions in new HIV-positive cases. Even President Trump, in his recent State of the Union address, discussed his goal of ending HIV by 2030. HIV researchers say this is unrealistic, especially for African-Americans.
Despite comprising only 12 percent of the overall U.S. population, African-Americans represent 43 percent of all persons with newly diagnosed HIV and 42 percent of all people living with HIV. African-Americans living with HIV are nearly 10 times more likely to be diagnosed with AIDS and over six times more likely to die of complications of AIDS than their white counterparts.
African-Americans are also at a higher risk for other health conditions, which can make managing HIV infection more difficult. For instance, African-Americans are twice as likely to die from heart disease and 50 percent more likely to have high blood pressure than whites.
In Washington D.C., a place filled with public health experts and policymakers, the HIV prevalence rate is the highest in the nation, exceeding the World Health Organization definition of a generalized epidemic. African-Americans represent a staggering 75 percent of all HIV cases in D.C.
HIV in Washington D.C. is a regional epidemic, and crosses the jurisdictional border into Prince George's County, Maryland. The sprawling suburbs of Prince George's County are well known for their ranking as one of the wealthiest African-American-majority counties in the nation, but with HIV rates that are four to 10 times higher than those of white adults.
The high rates of HIV in Washington D.C. and Prince George's County reflect a growing public health crisis in the United States, where the disproportionate burden of HIV is increasingly concentrated in the U.S. South. Southern states, where 55 percent of African-Americans live, have the highest rates of new HIV-positive diagnoses, the highest percentage of people living with HIV, and the lowest rates of survival for those who are HIV-positive.
Government investment in the domestic response to HIV tops more than US$26 billion per year, yet these health inequities in HIV for African-Americans continue to persist. These inequities are due in part to abstinence-only funding to schools with large minority populations and HIV-specific criminal laws, which undermine the health and well-being of African-Americans and perpetuate systems of inequity. Systemic racism in resource distribution, such as concentrated poverty and health care and funding disparities is also a significant driver of the epidemic within African-American communities.
Since the beginning of the epidemic in the 1980s, African-American women have carried a large burden of HIV, and more than 60,000 lost their lives. But not everyone died. A researcher's project of personal narratives of these women suggest that they live with multiple uncertainties brought on by HIV. Many worry about how their health, disability, and eventual death will impact their roles as mothers, grandmothers, daughters, sisters and wives.
Lives of suffering, strength and survival
Shawnte' Spriggs' story is typical of many African-American women living with HIV. Many suffered trauma and abuse as children. Like everyone, however, she has her own unique story.
"My family stories are not pretty," said Spriggs, 45, who grew up in northeast Washington D.C., in a neighborhood with open-air drug markets, crime and gang violence. "My mother had a very bad temper. If she had a bad day, or someone teed her off, or one of her boyfriends did something to her, I was abused pretty bad."
Her father was around only intermittently. She later learned the reason for his disappearances: He was often in prison.
Looking for love and craving protection from her mother, she turned to her godbrother, a caring guardian whom she later married.
Three months into their marriage, beatings began. The first was in the middle of the night. She woke suddenly. Her ex-husband was still asleep but sat up as if he were awake and punched her in the face. They both laughed about it in the morning, as if it had been an accident.
The abuse continued.
Eventually Spriggs escaped the marriage. She moved to another state and created a rewarding life. She even found love again, and remarried. She changed careers. She also became an evangelist, traveling for religious conferences frequently.
In 2010, Spriggs accepted an invitation to speak at a women's conference in Lynchburg, Virginia. The conference offered health screenings. Some of the women invited her to take an HIV test with them. "Sure, why not?" she thought, wanting to set an example for the young women attending.
The last thing she expected was to test positive.
Her initial reaction was that she was going to die. She researched to learn more about HIV and began to realize that many people in her life probably died of it even though it was being labeled as something else in the community. She was terrified, especially because she feared returning to the pain and trauma from her past.
"I was so afraid of going to a dark place, from my childhood. I know my triggers," Spriggs said.
She took action, signing herself up for both inpatient and outpatient mental health care, which helped her with her healing process. She attended HIV support groups, where she was the only woman among gay men.
Spriggs counts herself fortunate. She knows that many others have fewer resources, more responsibilities, and a lack of accessible and culturally appropriate care.


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Direct Drive Linear Motors and Rotary Motors Play a Critical Role in precision motion control applications in industry and research.
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Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee will oppose calling more witnesses in President Donald Trump's impeachment trial, all but dashing Democratic efforts to hear more testimony and pushing the Senate toward a vote to acquit Trump as soon as Friday.
A vote on witnesses, expected Friday, could lead to an abrupt end and assured acquittal in only the third presidential impeachment trial in American history. Trump was pressing for action in time for his State of the Union address, and that now seems likely. As the Senate adjourned late Thursday, it set the date for Tuesday night's speech.
Despite the Democrats' singular, sometimes-passionate focus on witnesses after revelations from John Bolton, the former national security adviser, the numbers are now falling short. It would take four Republicans to break with the 53-seat majority and join with all Democrats to demand more testimony.
Chief Justice John Roberts, in the rare role presiding over the impeachment trial, could break a tie, but that seems unlikely.
Alexander said in a statement late Thursday there was "no need for more evidence," giving the Trump team the likelihood of a Senate vote in its direction.
Trump was impeached by the House last month on charges that he abused his power like no other president, jeopardizing Ukraine and U.S.-Ukraine relations. Democrats say Trump asked the vulnerable ally to investigate Joe Biden and debunked theories of 2016 election interference, withholding American security aid to the country as it battled Russia at its border. The second article of impeachment says Trump then obstructed the House probe in a way that threatened the nation's three-branch system of checks and balances.
Before Alexander's statement, Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine said late Thursday she would vote to allow witnesses in the impeachment trial, briefly raising Democrats' hopes for a breakthrough.
But Alexander minutes later said that "there is no need for more evidence to prove something that has already been proven and that does not meet the U.S. Constitution's high bar for an impeachable offense."
"It was inappropriate for the president to ask a foreign leader to investigate his political opponent and to withhold United States aid to encourage that investigation," Alexander said. But, he added, "the Constitution does not give the Senate the power to remove the president from office and ban him from this year's ballot simply for actions that are inappropriate."
Collins, Alexander and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska were playing an outsized role in the final hours of debate with pointed questions. Another Republican senator, Mitt Romney of Utah, has made clear he will vote for witnesses.
Murkowski is expected to announce her decision on Friday, ahead of voting.
Democrats built pressure on senators for testimony, but Trump's lawyers argued it would take too long as they sped forward, even after Bolton's potential eyewitness account to Trump's actions detailed in a forthcoming book brought uncertainty.
Bolton's forthcoming book contends he personally heard Trump say he wanted military aid withheld from Ukraine until it agreed to investigate the Bidens. Trump denies saying such a thing.
Thursday's testimony included soaring pleas to the senators-as-jurors who will decide Trump's fate, to either stop a president who Democrats say has tried to cheat in the upcoming election and will again, or to shut down impeachment proceedings that Republicans insist were never more than a partisan attack.
"Let's give the country a trial they can be proud of," said Rep. Adam Schiff, the lead prosecutor for House Democrats. He offered to take just one week for depositions of new witnesses, sparking new discussions.
Trump attorney Eric Herschmann declared the Democrats are only prosecuting the president because they can't beat him in 2020.
"We trust the American people to decide who should be our president," Herschmann said. "Enough is Enough. Stop all of this."
Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was toiling to keep Friday's vote on schedule even as the trial was unearthing fresh evidence from Bolton's new book and raising alarms among Democrats and some Republicans about a Trump attorney's controversial defense.
In a day-after tweet, Trump attorney Alan Dershowitz, complained about the portrayal of his Wednesday night testimony when he said a president is essentially immune from impeachment if he believes his actions to be in the "national interest."
That idea frustrated some inside the White House, who felt Dershowitz's claim was unnecessary and inflammatory — irking senators with a controversial claim of vast executive powers. But those officials left it to Dershowitz to back away, wary that any public White House retreat would be viewed poorly by the president.
"I said nothing like that," the retired professor tweeted Thursday.
His words Wednesday night: "Every public official that I know believes that his election is in the public interest. And if a president does something which he believes will help him get elected is in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment."
The president has argued repeatedly that his dealings with Ukraine have been "perfect."
Asked about it as one of the first questions Thursday, Democrat Schiff, said, "Have we learned nothing in the last half century?"
Schiff drew on the lessons of the Nixon era to warn of a "normalization of lawlessness" in the Trump presidency.
Republicans Collins, Romney and Murkowski all have expressed interest in hearing from Bolton and the others in the trial and captivated attention during the final hours of questions.
Murkowski drew a reaction when she asked simply: "Why should this body not call Ambassador Bolton?"
Alexander, who was influenced by the late Howard Baker — who broke with his party over Richard Nixon — also captured attention when he questioned partisanship in the proceedings thus far.
In response to Alexander and others, Democrat Rep. Zoe Lofgren of California, a congressional staffer during Watergate and now a House prosecutor, told the senators that the Nixon impeachment also started as a partisan inquiry before a bipartisan consensus emerged. She told them while the House acted on party lines against Trump, the Senate — "the greatest deliberative body on the planet″ — has a new opportunity.
Alexander is also close allies with McConnell, and after his question Thursday night he consulted with a key staff aide to the leader. As the senators broke for dinner, Alexander and Murkowski met privately.
Senators dispatched more than 100 queries over two days. The questions came from the parties' leaders, the senators running for the Democratic nomination against Trump and even bipartisan coalitions from both sides of the aisle.
Trump's lawyers focused some of their time Thursday refloating allegations against Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, who served on the board of a gas company in Ukraine while his father was vice president. Rep. Val Demings, D-Fla., one of the managers, said the Bidens have little to tell the Senate about Trump's efforts to "shake down" Ukraine for his campaign.
The White House has blocked its officials from testifying in the proceedings and objected that there is "significant amounts of classified information" in the manuscript. Bolton resigned last September — Trump says he was fired — and he and his attorney have insisted the book does not contain any classified information.
Associated Press writers Alan Fram, Andrew Taylor, Matthew Daly, Laurie Kellman and Padmananda Rama contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2020 Capitol Hill Blue
Copyright © 2020 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved


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The Bazura Project Pilot
November 1, 2005 by The Bazura Project · Leave a Comment
This is the entire 23 minute pilot for The Bazura Project, made in 2005 – a full year before our first episode went to air. A dispiriting insight how the show was created, the pilot includes:
- a pretty funky opening title sequence that was never used again
- the exact same Sixth Sense opening from episode 1.01
- a feature story we would largely recycle in episode 1.10 when we were too tired to do a new idea
- an interview with Melbourne International Film Festival director James Hewison, who was gracious enough to help us out with the pilot before returning to do the show proper in episode 1.10
- red carpet interviews with Cameron Diaz and Toni Collette, perhaps the biggest names we ever had on the show, and yet they still couldn't make it to broadcast
The pilot is presented for the sake of completeness, and features none of the crisp, polished production values that viewers would come to expect from the show. Not our show necessarily, but some show.


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Brighten up your nursery or kids room instantly with affordable modern digital artwork.
Print 157 - Satisfy your sweet tooth in this super tasty Ice Block print. With Yellow, Orange, & Pink ice blocks on a White base.
Our amazing digital artworks are a simple and fast way to brighten up and colour your baby or kids space! Available at your fingertips, our printable art is available in an array of sizes.
This listing is for instant digital download. No physical product or frame will be shipped to you.
You will be able to download your files immediately! Either direct link from the order confirmation page or from a link in the email confirmation.
Your order includes four (4) .jpg files and one (1) .pdf instruction sheet.
Each .jpg is a 300dpi high resolution file, which will give you lovely clear prints.
The .jpgs are adjustable to fit any of the sizes listed.
00. Instruction Sheet
01. 4:5 ratio, for printing sizes:
4x5"(10x12cm), 8x10"(20x25cm), 11x14"(28x35cm), 12x15"(30x38cm), 16x20"(40x50cm)
02. 3:4 ratio, for printing sizes:
6x8"(15x20cm), 9x12"(22x30cm), 12x16"(30x40cm), 15x20"(38x50cm), 18x24"(40x50cm)
03. 2:3 ratio, for printing sizes:
4x6"(10x15cm), 8x12"(20x30cm), 12x18"(30x45cm), 16x24"(40x60cm), 20x30"(50x76cm)
04. International Paper Size (ISO): A5 | A4 | A3 | A2
Can't see the size you need, contact us for a custom order!
Digital art is great as there are many options to print your art!
1. Print instantly at home or on an office printer. Use a good quality paper, for a better finish.
2. Take to your local print shop or photo lab for a more professional finish. Try a google search for local printers in you area.
3. Online printing services are able to print your artwork onto a canvas or many other products and deliver straight to your door!
Having any trouble downloading your files?
Please don't hesitate to contact us at email@example.com
Due to the nature of digital merchandise, all sales are final.
If for some reason you're not happy with your purchase, please contact us and we will do the best we can to make it right. Please also note that the colours you see will have some slight variation depending on your monitor and/or printer calibration.
© COPYRIGHT Chuckles & Caz.
All our artworks at Chuckles & Caz are ORIGINAL & DESIGNED IN AUSTRALIA
All artwork is the intellectual property of Chuckles & Caz.
These artworks/files are for PERSONAL USE ONLY. For wholesale enquiries, please contact us.
The artworks/files may not be claimed as your own and the purchase of artworks/files does not transfer rights.


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Your credit score is an essential factor in determining much about any mortgage loan you receive. A credit score is a measure of your trustworthiness as a borrower. It pays to know as much about your credit score as possible before applying for home loan funding. Here are four key points to understand:
1. Credit Scores Are Calculated by Financial Formulas
Credit scores (also called FICO scores because they were created by the Fair Isaac Corporation) is determined by a several factors. The weightiest element - 35% - is your payment history. The more often you have been late on making your payments, the lower your credit score will be. The next largest factor - 30% - is your utilization rate. The is the ratio of how much debt you owe compared to your total available credit. Maxing out all your credit accounts will pull your score down. Another 15% of your score is made up of the length of your credit history. Shorter histories give credit bureaus less data to evaluate and may bring your score down. The types of credit you have accounts for 10% and the last 10% is determined by the number of inquiries on your credit report. That means how often you are applying for new credit accounts.
2. You Can Check Your Credit Score for Free
Your credit score is available through the three major credit reporting bureaus – Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. By federal law, you are allowed to check your credit report once year from each of the credit bureaus. Some websites will allow you to get the actual FICO score for free while other will require a fee. And checking your own credit score will not have a negative impact on your score. In fact, it is a good idea to check your credit report at least annually to look for any inaccuracies and to make sure your score is where you expect it to be.
3. Credit Scores Affect Mortgage Interest Rates and Loan Amounts
Credit scores are 3-digit numbers ranging from about 300 to 850. Good scores start at about 680 and truly poor credit begins under 620. If you have a score above 720 you will be able to qualify for the best mortgage rates. The lower your score, the higher your interest rate is likely to be. The lowest credit scores may disqualify you from certain loan programs as well. With excellent credit you may be able to borrow more for a home than you would with a less-favorable credit report.
4. You Can Take Steps to Improve Your Score
The good news is that if your credit score is not where you'd like it to be, you can improve it. The best way to push it up is to start making all your payments on time. This will take some time to show up in your score but it will have the biggest impact. You can also pay down all your credit accounts to roughly 30% of their limit to lower your utilization rate. And if you limit the number of new accounts you apply for in a given period, you may also be able to raise your score.
Once you understand these basic facts about credit scores, you will know how your score will affect your mortgage terms and will be in good shape to apply for a home loan.


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Most people upload and share photo files. But some of us would like to share images from other source as well, such as a screenshot or a piece of image from some drawing software such as Microsoft Visio. Normally we would have to copy the image to clipboard, save it to a file, browse for the file in the file upload dialog and then upload it. It's not a daunting task but it's not as convenient as it should be. Would it be really convenient if we can directly upload image from the clibpoard like a normal paste operation?
Based on this idea, we are implementing a feature called "Upload Clipboard Image". Here is how it works. Just right click in the file input box on the left side of the [browse…] button and select "Upload Clipboard Image" from the popup menu. The clipboard image will be automatically saved to a temporary file for uploading. As simple as that.
Here is the screenshot of using this feature to share photos on facebook,
This feature will be included in the next build or two. Kindly let me know what you guys think of this feature.


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The weather's getting warmer and we all want to be outdoors. Before heading out, a warning from vector control districts across the country: be prepared for a lot of mosquitoes.
The Greater Los Angeles County Vector Control District recently released a catchy, informative, musical video called "Tip Toss Boss."
"Tip Toss Boss is fun, it's upbeat but then, also, it's applicable," said Mary-Joy Coburn, director of community affairs for GLACVCD.
Coburn said "Tip Toss Boss is the second music video and it's about the shared responsibility about vector control giving the resident the power to eliminate mosquitoes on their property."
GLACVCD released "The Mosquito Rap" in 2017 and made sure the 2021 release was equally trendy and enticing, akin to the popularity of TikTok.
"I hope people will remember when they're at home and can nod to the beat and remember what they need to do to tip out water and become a tip toss boss," said Coburn.
Trends aside, Coburn says everyone needs to do their part to eliminate standing water, which is where mosquitoes like to breed.
"The hotter the temperature the faster their eggs develop, so the greater number of mosquitoes. So, temperature plays a critical role in mosquitoes and how well they do," said Dr. Tracey McNamara, a professor of pathology at Western University of Health Sciences in Southern California. She's well known in the vector world.
"I'm the person who noticed the link between an unusual outbreak of encephalitis in birds at the same time as people in New York City were dying of an unusual form of encephalitis."
That was in 1999 and the discovery would lead to the outbreak of the West Nile Virus. Dr. McNamara says more vector diseases are coming.
"The incidence of vector-borne diseases has doubled. People get kind of casual; we had 7,000 human cases of West Nile between 2003 and 2019. These viruses aren't going away."
Dr. McNamara says mosquitoes only need a bottle cap of water to breed. Researchers are looking for new sources of prevention as some mosquitoes are developing resistance to chemicals.
"What they're doing in Florida, they're about to release several hundred thousand, genetically-modified, male mosquitoes that when they breed with the female mosquitoes, it's the females that bite. They've used several new technologies and they're hoping if they release enough of these sterile males and the females bred with them, they'll end up overall dampening the mosquito population."
Whether that will work remains to be seen, but until then, we know that removing all the potential breeding sources is a good start.


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MOSCOW – Russian news reports say a passenger airliner has crashed while landing in the city of Kazan and all 44 people aboard are believed to have been killed.
The reports said the Boeing 737 belonging to Tatarstan Airlines crashed about 7:20 p.m. local time (1520 GMT) on Sunday. There were no immediate indications of what may have caused the crash.
Kazan is about 720 kilometers (450 miles) east of Moscow.
The ITAR-Tass news agency quoted a local representative of the Emergencies Ministry, Irina Rossius, as saying preliminary information indicated 44 people were aboard and all had died.
The flight originated in Moscow.