12.2.2009: GERMANY [German Secret Service] SEEKS U.S. PARTNER TO DEVELOP OPTICAL SPACE IMAGERY CAPABILITIES

1. (C) SUMMARY: The German element of EADS Astrium GmbH and the German Space Agency (DLR) are in the advanced stages of programmatic development of a High-Resolution Optical System (HiROS) satellite constellation. They are also in discussions with the U.S. firm DigitalGlobe (DG) about partnering to share costs, speed up program development, and enter the U.S. market. Germany believes that HiROS is a logical, low-risk, next step to expand its national space reconnaissance architecture. Germany already flies space-based Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) and multi-spectral systems, soon expanding its suite to include a hyper-spectral platform. We note that Germany,s plan exclude any reliance on other EU members (i.e. France) and reflects Germanys desire to build this competency independent of EU interest.

2. (C) Since 2007, Germany has been producing, processing, and analyzing high quality space-based SAR data from its Ministry of Defense (MOD)-run SAR Lupe program (a 5-satellite constellation that is built and operated by OHB Systems AG) and the Astrium/DLR-run commercial TerraSAR-X program. During this interval, Germany has made impressive strides in its abilities to collect, process, and analyze SAR data, but concluded that, Electro-Optical (EO) data supplementing SAR data makes interpretation and analysis much easier. Presently, Germany is wholly dependent upon foreign sources of high resolution EO imagery. Germany would very much like to remedy this and DLR believes it now has the knowledge, skill, and ability to field an operating 0.5 meter resolution HiROS constellation within three years (2012) at a price tag of about 200 million euro. END SUMMARY

Aftenposten: De skjuler spionsatellitter som miljøtiltak

● 5.2.2009: BND LOBBYING MERKEL AND USG ON SATELLITE RECONNAISSANCE COOPERATION
● 15.2.2009: GERMANY EXPANDING OVERHEAD RECONNAISSANCE PROGRAMS AND EYE CLOSER USG PARTNERSHIP
● 3.9.2009: GERMANY TO FRANCE: STAY OUT OF OUR COMMERCIAL SATELLITE AFFAIRS
● 20.5.2009: GERMAN COMPANY MARKETING SATELLITE IMAGERY TO US DESPITE FRENCH OPPOSITION
● 10.9.2009:GERMAN INTELLIGENCE VIEWS ON OPTICAL RECONNAISSANCE CAPABILITIES
● 11.9.2009: GERMAN OPTICAL SATELLITE REMOTE SENSING: THE PATH FORWARD
● 30.9.2009: GERMAN SPACE AGENCY SEEKING USG SUPPORT ON OPTICAL SATELLITE COOPERATION

Wikileaks releases cable of the July 1990 meeting between then-US Ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie, and Saddam before the Kuwait invasion: Saddam's message of friendship to President Bush.

¶2. SUMMARY: SADDAM TOLD THE AMBASSADOR JULY 25
THAT MUBARAK HAS ARRANGED FOR KUWAITI AND IRAQI
DELEGATIONS TO MEET IN RIYADH, AND THEN ON
JULY 28, 29 OR 30, THE KUWAITI CROWN PRINCE WILL
COME TO BAGHDAD FOR SERIOUS NEGOTIATIONS. "NOTHING
WILL HAPPEN" BEFORE THEN, SADDAM HAD PROMISED
MUBARAK.

--SADDAM WISHED TO CONVEY AN IMPORTANT MESSAGE TO
PRESIDENT BUSH: IRAQ WANTS FRIENDSHIP, BUT DOES
THE USG? IRAQ SUFFERED 100,000'S OF CASUALTIES
AND IS NOW SO POOR THAT WAR ORPHAN PENSIONS WILL
SOON BE CUT; YET RICH KUWAIT WILL NOT EVEN ACCEPT
OPEC DISCIPLINE. IRAQ IS SICK OF WAR, BUT KUWAIT
HAS IGNORED DIPLOMACY. USG MANEUVERS WITH THE UAE
WILL ENCOURAGE THE UAE AND KUWAIT TO IGNORE
CONVENTIONAL DIPLOMACY. IF IRAQ IS PUBLICLY
HUMILIATED BY THE USG, IT WILL HAVE NO CHOICE
BUT TO "RESPOND," HOWEVER ILLOGICAL AND SELF
DESTRUCTIVE THAT WOULD PROVE.

--ALTHOUGH NOT QUITE EXPLICIT, SADDAM'S MESSAGE
TO US SEEMED TO BE THAT HE WILL MAKE A MAJOR PUSH
TO COOPERATE WITH MUBARAK'S DIPLOMACY, BUT WE MUST
TRY TO UNDERSTAND KUWAITI/UAE "SELFISHNESS" IS
UNBEARABLE. AMBASSADOR MADE CLEAR THAT WE CAN
NEVER EXCUSE SETTLEMENT OF DISPUTES BY OTHER THAN
PEACEFUL MEANS. END SUMMARY.

Informed Comment: Glaspie Memo Vindicates Her, Shows Saddam’s Thinking

Israel's army chief told a US Congress delegation in late 2009 he was preparing for a large war in the Middle East, probably against Hamas or Hezbollah. "I am preparing the Israeli army for a large scale war, since it is easier to scale down to a smaller operation than to do the opposite," Lieutenant General Gabi Ashkenazi was quoted as saying in a cable from the US embassy in Tel Aviv. The document, dated November 15, 2009, was quoted Sunday in Norwegian by Oslo-based daily Aftenposten, which said it had obtained WikiLeaks' entire cache of 251,187 leaked US embassy cables.

Informed Comment: Wikileaks: Israel Plans Total War on Lebanon, Gaza
AWIP: WIKILEAKS: Israel prepares for a new major war

Purported 'journalism' outlet seems unfamiliar with the definition; Continues dangerous smears, innuendo... The ignorance on display in this CNN interview segment concerning Wikileaks and Julian Assange yesterday is simply astonishing. I'd expect the misinformed idiocy and/or out and out lying from one of the guests, former Bush Admin Homeland Security Advisor (now a paid CNN contributor) Fran Townsend. But the amount of ignorance about the profession of journalism, on display from CNN's very own journalist here, Jessica Yellin, almost defies words. Happily, Salon's Glenn Greenwald, a Constitutional attorney and actual journalist was the other guest on hand to help straighten both of these women out.

The British police have been secretly collecting personal information on innocent civilians as they contact the force to report crimes, an act which has given rise to public fears about the abuse of privacy.

The information is stored in a police database and includes the personal information of those who have called 999 and even non-emergency services to seek help. The revelation, which comes after the Press Association asked the police for some details related to its databases, has raised concerns with civil rights groups warning of exploitation of the data for wrong purposes or in unconnected cases.

"There's a point where the police stop seeing members of the public as the people to be protected and rather see them all as potential criminals. Until now, this only happened in non-democratic states, but I fear that this line has been crossed in ours," Gus Hosein of Privacy International said.

Police authorities have acknowledged that they could use the data against those who have not committed any crime in future investigations. Britain's second largest police force in West Midlands has stored personal information of 1.1 million people who have called to report a crime in the past 12 years.

U.S. President Barack Obama on Sunday signed a healthcare package and economic aid for people who fell sick after inhaling toxic fume from the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York City's World Trade Center, according to the White House. The bill, named "James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act, " establishes the World Trade Center Health Program and extends and expands eligibility for compensation under the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund of 2001. It passed the Congress before it adjourned for the holidays.

On Dec. 23, 2010, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee filed a 53-page motion [.pdf] asking Judge Eric Christian to sanction former employee Steven J. Rosen over the illicit possession and release of sensitive internal AIPAC documents. Rosen’s $20 million defamation suit against his former employer seeks compensation for derogatory public statements AIPAC made to justify firing him after he was indicted under the Espionage Act in 2005 and their joint defense agreement collapsed.

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There was, with really no notable exception, an absence of discussion of the Afghanistan war during the course of the 2010 campaign. But that may have been more a product of the electoral landscape (congressional races often don't lend themselves to foreign policy debates) and strategic timelines (the start date for withdrawal begins in July 2011) than anything else. And, indeed, during an interview Sunday morning, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) provided some indication that Republicans would push U.S. permanency in Afghanistan in the years ahead, insisting that it would be "enormously beneficial" to show that type of force "in perpetuity."

"I think it would be enormously beneficial to the region as well as Afghanistan," Graham said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "We have had air bases all over the world and a couple of air bases in Afghanistan would allow the Afghan security forces an edge against the Taliban in perpetuity. It would be a signal to Pakistan that the Taliban are never going to come back. In Afghanistan they could change their behavior. It would be a signal to the whole region that Afghanistan is going to be a different place. "And if the Afghan people want this relationship, they are going to have to earn it.

Kavkaz Center: Robert Gates: 'We're not ever leaving' Afghanistan
AWIP: Poll: 63 Percent of Americans Oppose Afghan War
Yahoo: Senator proposes permanent US bases in Afghanistan

This winter, the Air Force is set to deploy to Afghanistan what it says is a revolutionary airborne surveillance system called Gorgon Stare, which will be able to transmit live video images of physical movement across an entire town. The system, made up of nine video cameras mounted on a remotely piloted aircraft, can transmit live images to soldiers on the ground or to analysts tracking enemy movements. It can send up to 65 different images to different users; by contrast, Air Force drones today shoot video from a single camera over a "soda straw" area the size of a building or two. With the new tool, analysts will no longer have to guess where to point the camera, said Maj. Gen. James O. Poss, the Air Force's assistant deputy chief of staff for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. "Gorgon Stare will be looking at a whole city, so there will be no way for the adversary to know what we're looking at, and we can see everything."

Arkansas game officials hope testing scheduled to begin Monday will solve the mystery of why more than 1,000 blackbirds fell from the sky just before midnight New Year's Eve. The birds -- most of which were dead -- were found within a one-mile area of Beebe, about 40 miles northeast of Little Rock, the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission said. Karen Rowe, an ornithologist for the commission, said the incident is not that unusual and is often caused by a lightning strike or high-altitude hail. A strong storm system moved through the state earlier in the day Friday.

Officials also speculated that fireworks shot by New Year's revelers in the area might have caused severe stress in the birds. "Since it only involved a flock of blackbirds and only involved them falling out of the sky, it is unlikely they were poisoned, but a necropsy is the only way to determine if the birds died from trauma or toxin," Rowe said. The dead birds will be sent for testing to labs at the Arkansas Livestock and Poultry Commission and the National Wildlife Health Center in Wisconsin.

Today's THV: Dead fish cover 20-miles of Arkansas River -Video

GOV. BARBOUR’S STATEMENT REGARDING RELEASE OF SCOTT SISTERS

"Today, I have issued two orders indefinitely suspending the sentences of Jamie and Gladys Scott. In 1994, a Scott County jury convicted the sisters of armed robbery and imposed two life sentences for the crime. Their convictions and their sentences were affirmed by the Mississippi Court of Appeals in 1996.

"To date, the sisters have served 16 years of their sentences and are eligible for parole in 2014. Jamie Scott requires regular dialysis, and her sister has offered to donate one of her kidneys to her. The Mississippi Department of Corrections believes the sisters no longer pose a threat to society. Their incarceration is no longer necessary for public safety or rehabilitation, and Jamie Scott's medical condition creates a substantial cost to the State of Mississippi.

"The Mississippi Parole Board reviewed the sisters' request for a pardon and recommended that I neither pardon them, nor commute their sentence. At my request, the Parole Board subsequently reviewed whether the sisters should be granted an indefinite suspension of sentence, which is tantamount to parole, and have concurred with my decision to suspend their sentences indefinitely.

Stephen Lendman: The Scott Sisters: Victimized by American Injustice