KonstantinKhmelik
According to RT, the world’s most powerful heavy transport helicopter, the Mi-26 T2, is now officially on the production line, Russian Helicopters Corp. announced.
The Soviet-Russian heavy transport helicopter Mi-26 (NATO designation: Halo) remains world’s largest and most powerful helicopter to ever go into serial production.
The helicopter has both civilian and military modifications, writes RT.
Benjamin O. Davis Jr. entered West Point in 1932 as its only black cadet and spent the next four years shunned, writes the Associated Press.
He roomed alone, and no one befriended him. The future Tuskegee Airman and trailblazing Air Force general later said he was “an invisible man,” writes AL.com.
Now – more than a decade after his death – the academy that allowed Davis to be ostracized is giving him an honor.
A new cadet barracks being constructed at the U.S. Military academy will be named for Davis. It is a rare privilege previously granted to graduates like MacArthur and Eisenhower, writes the New Zealand Herald.
Officials at the legendary military university say Davis was a good choice because of his career and character. It also gives the academy a chance to belatedly do right by Davis.
“If you want to know what, ‘Duty, Honor, Country’ look like, just read a little bit about Benjamin O. Davis Jr., and your jaw will drop because he is the epitome of what we want at a time when we didn’t know what ‘right’ looked like,” said Colonel Ty Seidule, the head of West Point’s history department, writes the Salt Lake Tribune. “So it’s our chance to acknowledge one of our greatest graduates.”
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=11446567
One of the military’s most highly regarded prosecutors is leaving the justice system he’s served for more than two decades to work for a group devoted to reforming it.
Col. Don Christensen, formerly the chief prosecutor for the Air Force, is retiring from the service in December and will become the president of Protect Our Defenders, an influential nonprofit that advocates for and supports military sexual assault victims and lobbies for military justice reform.
Christensen says changes are due to a system that enables perpetrators and punishes victims.
“I’ve seen how people in units rally around the accused,” he said. “These are the future convening authorities.”
“We need to professionalize the justice system. Make it similar to what the rest of the world does.”
Christensen became well-acquainted with the advocacy group, also known as POD, after he won a conviction two years ago against Lt. Col. James Wilkerson on charges that the F-16 pilot and 31st Fighter Wing inspector general at Aviano Air Base in Italy had sexually assaulted a sleeping house guest.
At the time, Third Air Force commander Lt. Gen. Craig Franklin subsequently dismissed the case and reinstated Wilkerson into the force.
Franklin’s action — reversing the verdict and sentence of a five-colonel jury — shocked and angered numerous victims’ groups and U.S. lawmakers, who said it illustrated the bias confronting military victims of sexual crimes.
The case led to a host of legislative changes to the military justice system, including the end of commanders’ unfettered ability to dismiss verdicts and reduce sentences.
“I feel like military justice has been hijacked by a number of female senators and congresswomen,” said defense lawyer Frank Spinner, who represented Wilkerson.
After more than two decades working inside the system — as a defense lawyer, judge and prosecutor — Christensen says it remains deeply flawed.
“We need to bring balance to the system,” he said. “We’ve shoveled all these rights onto the accused that don’t appear anywhere else.”
Under the military justice system, for instance, alleged victims can be ordered to give repeated interviews and depositions to the defense before trial. And unlike in the civilian court system, defendants can call supporters to provide “good character evidence” during the trial, which by itself can raise “reasonable doubt” for an acquittal.
Christensen said he’d decided to work for Protect Our Defenders because he considers the group focused and savvy. “When they advocate changes, they’ve actually thought through how the changes will affect the criminal justice system,” he said. “I also know they’re pro-military.”
Still, he said, he expected his new career choice would be controversial. “I’ll lose friends,” he said. “There are some people who are so hostile to anything anti-military-justice, they’ll think I’m selling out.”
Nancy Parrish, POD founder and former president, said she was “honored and humbled” that Christensen was coming on board.
“Col. Christensen knows the ins and outs of our military justice system,” she said. “He has seen, up close and personal, the lack of justice victims too often receive in the military justice system, which puts a victim’s fate in the hands of the rapists’ boss rather than professional, legally trained experts.”
At POD, Christensen will “fight to improve the military that he loves,” Parrish said.
British jets have carried out their first strikes on ISIS targets in Iraq.
The British Ministry of Defence said the attacks were in support of Kurdish units in the north-west of the country.
They attacked a “heavy weapon position” and an armed pick-up truck.
The strikes – by two GR4 Tornados – came four days after Parliament approved military action, and were said to be “successful”.
Information from Kurdish sources suggests the RAF strikes had helped the Kurds retake an “important border crossing” at Rabia near Syria, said the BBC’s Clive Myrie in Irbil, northern Iraq.
Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said both Tornados had “returned safely to their base”, RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus.
He also said the “RAF jets assisted Kurdish troops under attack” and said they were in action in support of the Iraqi government.
“On arriving overhead, the RAF patrol, using their Litening III targeting pod, identified an Isil heavy weapon position which was engaging Kurdish ground forces,” an MoD statement said.
“One Paveway IV guided bomb was used to attack the Isil position.”
“Following this engagement, the patrol identified an Isil armed pick-up truck in the same area and conducted an attack on the vehicle using a Brimstone missile.
“An initial assessment indicates that both precision strikes were successful.”
Earlier, British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said Britain would not be “panicked” into dropping bombs in Iraq by reports that militants were advancing.
He said the RAF would carefully target IS, as hitting civilians would have the “opposite of the effect we are intending”.
OK, Fine. 