20.08.2011 20:59

U.S. SUPERSONIC AIRLINER DISAPPEARS FROM RADAR

Washington .- The Pentagon called it an "anomaly" losing track of Falcon HTV-2, the world’s fastest airplane designed to fly anywhere in the world in less than 60 minutes.

"We collected more than nine minutes of information before a failure will cause to lose sight," reported on its website Research Agency Defense Advanced Research Projects (DARPA).

He said that initial indications show that the so-called Hypersonic Technology Vehicle, Falcon HTV-2, with speeds 20 times greater than the sound, hit the Pacific Ocean on the planned flight path in the second test.

The largest of the Air Force, Chris Schulz, said the ship was accomplished drivespace and insert the spacecraft into a hypersonic flight in the atmosphere.

"What we still do not know is how to achieve the desired control during the aerodynamics of flight," said Schulz, who expressed confidence of achieving a solution to this obstacle.

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TWENTY-SIX INJURED IN AN EARTHQUAKE MEASURING 5.8 DEGREES IN CHINA

Twenty-six people were injured in an earthquake of 5.8 degrees rocked the region in northwest China's Xinjiang.

 

The quake occurred at 18.08 local time (10.08 GMT) at the boundary between the prefectures of Kashgar and Kizilsu, an area inhabited by ethnic Kyrgyz and Uighur border with Central Asia.

The quake caused the collapse of at least 30 homes in the area, local authorities said that so far no deaths have been reported.

This is the second earthquake this week cause injury in China and on Tuesday reported three wounded and 40,000 affected in another earthquake, this time in southwest China's Yunnan province.

The west is an area of ​​frequent seismic activity, being in the area of friction between the Asian and Indian tectonic plates, but due to low population density of this region (where Tibet) many of these earthquakes
not cause injury or damage. 

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U.S. FEARS THAT AL QAEDA IS PREPARING A BIOLOGICAL ATTACK

 

 

U.S. intelligence services are "increasingly concerned" because al Qaeda is preparing a biological attack, according to an article published in The New York Times...

 

The New York newspaper, which has had access to classified intelligence documents indicates that for over a year, the subsidiary of Al Qaeda in Yemen has purchased "large quantities" of seeds to produce ricin, a toxin whose white powder inhaler only reaches the bloodstream and is fatal.

Intelligence officials say they have collected evidence that members of Al Qaeda are trying to move castor beans for processing in a laboratory in the province of Shabwa, a Yemen's tribal areas controlled by insurgents.

U.S. counterterrorism services indicate that this evidence suggests that terrorists try to hide lots of deadly poison in packages with small explosives to blow them up in enclosed public places like a mall, an airport or subway station.

The newspaper said U.S. officials have said there was no indication of an attack "imminent" ricin and some experts believe that the terrorist group is still trying to find how to use ricin as a weapon effectively.

The same sources question the "usefulness" of ricin, since, as explained, the substance loses its power under conditions in dry and sunny, like Yemen, and unlike other nerve agents, is not easily absorbed through the skin.

However, U.S. intelligence services do not rule out any possibility, and according to the New York newspaper, are working with the hypothesis of a close threat, given that the cell Yemen has been behind recent attempts to attack the U.S.

"(The threat) has been taken seriously by this government. What we know about AQAP (stands for Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula) is that they do what they say," said a senior U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Al Qaeda in Yemen claimed responsibility for the attempted attack on December 2009 when a Nigerian man tried to detonate a homemade bomb that was hidden in his underwear on a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit.

The same group, ten months later, on to the red alert the American security services intercepted two packages when ink cartridges packed with explosives destined for Chicago.

"The potential threat of weapons of mass destruction, even in the simplest form of what people can imagine (...) is very, very real," said Michael E. Leiter, former director of the National Counterterrorism Center in a recent lecture in which he said that "it is difficult to develop ricin."

The intelligence services also are on guard against a possible attack by Al Qaeda after the U.S. last May shot the leader of the terrorist network, Osama bin Laden, a precision operation conducted by a group of military forces elite.