Boots on the Ground 070714

Hundreds evacuated from Channel Tunnel as train breaks down after losing power

The French-bound Eurotunnel passenger shuttle train came to a halt at round 7.30am this morning when all 382 passengers and four dogs were evacuated

Hundreds of passengers have been evacuated after a broken down train in the Channel Tunnel caused travel chaos.
The French-bound Eurotunnel passenger shuttle train came to a halt about a quarter of the way through the tunnel after a problem with the overhead power line.
As it was likely to be some time before the train could be moved, the 382 passengers and four dogs were evacuated and taken on to the French terminal.
Services through the tunnel, using one of the two running tunnels, were able to continue but Eurotunnel warned that services were being delayed, with hold-ups possibly lasting for the rest of the day.

State Dept. Spends $450K to Teach Afghan Women to Play Cricket

(CNSNews.com) – The State Department is spending $450,000 to teach Afghan women to play cricket in a leadership exchange with female cricket players from Pakistan and India.

“Cricket is increasingly popular among Afghan women, but opportunities to participate in the sport are still rare. Women who play sports are powerful symbols of moderation, equality and progress,” the grant said. “Their participation in sports in public fora is a powerful visual that counters negative narratives about the role that women should play in Afghan society.”
The Public Affairs Section (PAS) of the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan invited eligible organizations to submit proposals for the development, coordination, and implementation of a regional sports leadership exchange for female cricket players from Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India.

Self-healing ‘transformer’ drones – future of warfare?

Future aircraft should be able to heal themselves in flight, include 3D printers that could produce mini-drones during a mission, and even use a ‘transformer’ technology, believes BAE Systems claiming all of this could become a reality by 2040.
Scientists and engineers from the British defense company BAE Systems and the Ministry of Defense believe that in just 25 years from now a lot of game changing technology will be in use.
In future the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) could create the “ultimate adaptable taskforce” and a team from BAE’s research and development facility in Warton Lancashire is working with the UK government as well aviation experts from leading universities to explore the potential of this technology.
To illustrate some of their ideas and projects BAE has released a number of concept videos.
In a production called the Survivor, researchers are investigating a possibility of using a light weight adhesive fluid, which can be installed inside an aircraft to allow jets to heal themselves mid-flight in just a few minutes.

Tapped Out Detroit Residents in Water Fight With City

Where water once flowed, there’s nothing. The only thing coming out of the faucets in Nicole Hill’s Detroit home is the squeaky sound of empty spouts. Her plight is like thousands of other residents in the Motor City who’ve seen their water turned off for non-payment.

“It’s the worst experience I've ever been through,” said Hill. “I just cannot imagine that there’s thousands of people right here in the city that are going through this and that so many people see nothing wrong with it. They feel like, ‘Well if you didn’t pay your bill, then you shouldn’t get water.’” 

This means Warren: Obama backs challenger to Hillary

President Obama has quietly promised Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren complete support if she runs for president — a stinging rebuke to his nemesis Hillary Clinton, sources tell me.
Publicly, Obama has remained noncommittal on the 2016 race, but privately he worries that Clinton would undo and undermine many of his policies. There’s also a personal animosity, especially with Bill Clinton, that dates from their tough race six years ago.
A former Harvard law professor and administration aide, Warren would energize the left wing of the Democratic Party just as Obama did against Clinton in 2008.
Thanks to her outspoken stand against big banks and the top 1 percent, Warren is the darling of progressives. She won her Senate seat thanks to millions of dollars in donations from outside Massachusetts, including from rich environmentalists and Hollywood celebrities.
Obama has authorized his chief political adviser, Valerie Jarrett, to conduct a full-court press to convince Warren to throw her hat into the ring.
In the past several weeks, Jarrett has held a series of secret meetings with Warren. During these meetings, Jarrett has explained to Warren that Obama is worried that if Hillary succeeds him in the White House, she will undo many of his policies.
He believes that the populist Warren is the best person to convince the party faithful that Hillary is out of touch with poor Americans and the middle class. Warren, in his view, would carry on the Obama legacy after he leaves the White House.

IDF preparing for escalation against Hamas, senior army source says

Military calls up 1,500 reservists; IDF beefing up Gaza border infantry forces; source: 7 Hamas members killed when their own explosives went off in attack tunnel; Hamas behind Gaza rocket fire.

The IDF is taking "significant steps" to prepare itself for a stepped up campaign of attacks against Hamas in Gaza, a senior military source said Monday, as Palestinian projectile fire from the Strip continued unabated.
"We can't avoid dealing with Gaza because there is noise [security developments] in other arenas," the source said, referring to rioting by Arab Israelis and in Palestinian districts of east and north Jerusalem. 
The IDF's steps to enhance preparedness on the Gaza border include the calling up of 1,500 reserves, and the setting up of infantry assault units on the Gaza border, in case "a decision is made" for an offensive in Gaza, the source said. 
"We are ready for an escalation," the source said, adding that Hamas is not only failing to prevent other terror groups from firing projectiles at southern Israel, it is taking an active and dominant part in the recent attacks.
Most of the projectiles landing in southern Israel are mortar shells, and the rate of rocket fire is low, the source said, but all of the projectile fire has to stop, he added.
"We're taking steps now... ahead of the possibility that the escalation increases. We're preparing for a gradual increase in the use of force, and increasing our rate of attacks [on terror targets in Gaza]," he stated.
A majority of the reserves will be sent to unit headquarters and Home Front Command units, and some are Border Police who will replace conscripted forces currently on duty in the West Bank, freeing them up for deployment to Gaza.

Obamacare's next threat: A September surprise

Obamacare open enrollment closed March 31. The White House’s Obamacare war room did not.
Most state health insurance rates for 2015 are scheduled to be approved by early fall, and most are likely to rise, timing that couldn’t be worse for Democrats already on defense in the midterms.

The White House and its allies know they’ve been beaten in every previous round of Obamacare messaging, never more devastatingly than in 2010. And they know the results this November could hinge in large part on whether that happens again.

So they’re trying to avoid — or at least, get ahead of — any September surprise.

Aware that state insurance rate hikes could give Republicans a chance to resurrect Obamacare as a political liability just weeks before the midterms, the White House’s internal health care enrollment outreach apparatus immediately redirected into a rapid-response, blocking-and-tackling research and press operation geared toward preempting GOP attacks on the issue.
In what aides say is a sign of a changed approach within the White House — but also heightened concerns around the midterms — they’re even coordinating with Hill Democrats, funneling localized background analysis and talking points to each state’s delegation through Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and New York Sen. Chuck Schumer’s Senate Democratic Policy and Communications Committee. They’ve also relied on California Rep. Henry Waxman’s staff at the Energy and Commerce Committee to produce rebuttal reports, often in advance, on GOP claims about insurance.

Fukushima has 9 days to prevent ‘unsafe’ overheating

Fukushima operator TEPCO has been forced to switch off the cooling system at mothballed Reactor Unit 5, after it was discovered that it had been leaking water. In nine days, if the system is not repaired, temperatures will exceed dangerous levels.
Engineers have discovered that 1,300 liters of water leaked from a cooling system intended to stabilize the temperature of the spent fuel at the Reactor Unit 5, which was offline but loaded with fuel rods when the plant was damaged by the earthquake and tsunami in March 2011.
The source of the leak was a 3 mm-diameter hole near a flow valve, a statement published by the Japanese energy giant on Sunday asserts. However it is unclear from company data if the location of the opening has been discovered, or whether it was calculated with flow measurements.
At the time when the cooling system was switched off at around 12pm on Sunday, the temperature in the pool in which the rods are submerged was 23C but started increasing by 0.193 degrees per hour, TEPCO says.
If no new cold water is pumped in at such rate it will reach the dangerous threshold of 65C by the midpoint of the month in roughly 9 days.
Such temperatures, which have not been routinely seen at the plant since the failing of the cooling system in the immediate aftermath, would increase the possibility of dangerous reactions and further radiation leaks in the plant.
TEPCO however says that currently, there have been no abnormal readings anywhere in the plant.

Saudi Arabia's Family Feud

Facing threats from all directions, King Abdullah moves to get his foreign-policy team in place -- and quell infighting within the royal family.

The usual somnolence of Ramadan in Saudi Arabia is being broken this year by intense politicking within the royal family. Official Saudi work hours for the holy month are limited to just six hours a day, but key princes in the House of Saud are working long and late. Just after midnight local time on July 1, the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA) announced a "royal order" making Prince Bandar bin Sultan -- formerly the long-serving ambassador to Washington and later the intelligence chief -- King Abdullah's special envoy. Four minutes later, another SPA story announced that Bandar's cousin, Prince Khalid bin Bandar, had been made head of the Saudi intelligence agency. The two appointments have both domestic and international significance. The Islamic State's invasion of Iraq leaves Saudi Arabia's borders exposed to the chaos of what is left of the "Arab Spring." Bandar bin Sultan, who was replaced as intelligence chief in April after spending several years spearheading Saudi attempts to depose Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, is now needed to make sure that the jihadists' successes in Iraq threaten Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki without threatening the kingdom. At home, Khalid bin Bandar's elevation to the top position in the country's intelligence community came after he became the victim of a surprisingly public feud within the royal family that saw him pushed out as deputy defense minister a mere six weeks after his appointment.
The turnover at the Saudi Defense Ministry will probably have prompted at least one foreign embassy in Riyadh reporting home to recall Oscar Wilde's line from the play The Importance of Being Earnest: "To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness." Bandar's exit from the apparently dysfunctional ministry made him the fourth deputy defense minister to lose his job within the space of 15 months. Like his predecessors, he seems to have fallen foul of a junior cousin, Muhammad bin Salman, a 30-something son of Crown Prince Salman, the defense minister and heir apparent. The elder Salman, who turns 78 this year, has been widely reported to be suffering from dementia -- the accounts run the gamut from memory issues to Alzheimer's -- making him personally incapable of running the Defense Ministry.

ISIS Set to Destroy Biblical History

PARIS—More than two and a half millennia ago, the Assyrian King Senaccherib descended on his enemies “like the wolf on the fold,” as the Bible tells us—and as Lord Byron wrote in cantering cadences memorized by countless Victorian schoolchildren: “His cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold; And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea.”

The Assyrian and Babylonian empires appear throughout the Old Testament as examples of ruthless grandeur and godless decadence. The Bible says Sennacherib’s army was destroyed by the Angel of the Lord. The Israelites were carried off to Babylon, where they wept by the waters. And since the middle of the 19th century, archeologists have labored mightily to unearth the mythical and the verifiable past in the extraordinary cradle of civilizations they used to call Mesopotamia and now call Iraq.

No trace ever has been found of the Garden of Eden, said to have lain near the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates, but one of the great prizes the excavators did discover was Senaccherib’s capital, Nineveh, which the biblical prophet Nahum called “the city of blood, full of lies, full of plunder, never without victims!”

Last month, a new marauder descended on Nineveh and the nearby city of Mosul. He, too, came down like the wolf on the fold, but his cohorts brandished Kalashnikovs from pickup trucks, not shining spears; their banners were the black flags of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Sham.

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