RUTHFULLY YOURS

A braking system that will let the new European-Russian ExoMars craft touch down on Red Planet without exploding comes from the Rafael defense systems firm .

Man’s latest attempt to search for life on the Red Planet has a critical blue-and-white component – a propulsion system that will gently guide the newly-launched ExoMars spacecraft to the surface of Mars when it gets ready to touch down sometime in 2018.

The craft’s propulsion system was developed by Rafael, the same company that developed, among other things, the Iron Dome missile defense system.

While known for its defense systems, Rafael is also active in the space business, specifically as the manufacturer of controllable propulsion and reaction control systems (RCS), which help “brake” the landing of satellites and missiles. This ensures that their fuel tanks do not crash into the ground as they land and ignite an explosion.

When ExoMars, launched Monday, gets to its destination, it will release a descent module called Schiaparelli which will land on Mars. During the descent phase, a heat shield will protect the payload from the severe heat flux. Parachutes, thrusters, and damping systems will reduce the speed, allowing a controlled landing on the surface of Mars.

The module’s fuel tanks are equipped with Rafael-supplied mini-rockets that will spring into action when the craft gets ready to land on the surface of Mars, according to Zvi Zuckerman, a Rafael engineer who helped develop the system. In comments to Yedioth Ahronoth, Zuckerman said that the landing “will be a dramatic moment, because if anything goes wrong, the spacecraft could explode” due to the impact of landing.

According to Zuckerman, the European Space Agency, which is sponsoring the mission along with Russian space agency Roscosmos, chose Rafael’s propulsion system for the job “because our propulsion tanks are lighter, and use cleaner fuel,” which ensures a smoother landing.

Russian diplomats are stressing that Israel’s national security interests will not be hurt by the country’s sudden announcement of its plans to withdraw troops from Syria, which Israel’s top general admitted took him by surprise, Ynet reported Tuesday.

“We will try to ensure that this (Syria) crisis is resolved, and we will also do everything so that Israel’s national security interests are not harmed in the process,” Alexey Drobinin, Russia’s deputy ambassador to Israel, told Ynet. Russian troops have been aiding the Iran-backed regime of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad since last fall.

Russia’s goal in withdrawing much of its forces from Syria is to send a “clear message” that “it’s time to give political dialogue a chance,” Drobinin said. He added that it was still necessary to fight terror organizations like ISIS and the al-Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front, and that Russia would continue to do so alongside a international coalition.

Drobinin also told Israel’s Army Radio, that Russia is aware of Israel’s security concerns in the region, and that the Russians “have an ongoing dialogue with the Israeli side on all levels – the military level and diplomatic level.”

After Russia’s withdrawal was announced, IDF Chief of Staff Gen. Gadi Eisenkot told members of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that Russian intervention had strengthened Assad’s position, and it was unclear at this point what the ramifications of the withdrawal will be. “At this stage, humility and caution are required in trying to understand the vector in which the Syrian theatre will develop with the exit of Russian forces,” he said.

In How Israel Navigated through the Hurricane of the Syrian Civil War, which was published in the March 2016 of The Tower Magazine, Jonathan Spyer highlighted aspects of Israel’s coordination with Russia regarding Syria.

It is no less important that Israel has been careful to maintain communication with the Russians, and a “deconfliction” regime appears to be in effect between Russian and Israeli air power over Syria. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot, and Military Intelligence chief Herzl Halevi travelled to Moscow immediately following the Russian intervention, presumably to lay the groundwork for a channel of communication. As of now, this appears to have permitted Israel to continue to operate in the skies over Syria. Thus, while the emergence of a fledgling Russian-Iranian strategic alliance in the Middle East is surely of concern to Israel, the evidence to date suggests that the alliance by no means implies carte blanche for the Iranians to pursue all their regional goals under the umbrella of Russian air cover. On the contrary, the Russians, as the senior partner in the relationship, dictate when and to what extent cooperation takes place.

Netanyahu, according to the Times of Israel, told Russian President Vladimir Putin in “no uncertain terms” that Israel would not tolerate Tehran’s efforts to arm Israel’s enemies in the region, and that Jerusalem has taken and will continue to take action against any such attempts. The Times quoted the prime minister saying, “This is our right and also our duty.… There were no objections to our rights.… There was readiness to make sure that whatever Russia’s intentions for Syria, Russia will not be a partner in extreme actions by Iran against us.”

It was not solely 1400 years ago that a little girl named Aisha married a 55-year-old man, although Muslims, their scholars, Sheiks and Imams argue to the contrary. Tens of thousands of “Aishas” are being forced to marry elder man on a daily basis under the name of Islam in Muslim nations in the 21st century. No one is even raising an eyebrow. For example, according to the latest reports from Persian news outlets, the number of the child marriages has been dramatically increasing in the Islamic Republic. According to the Students’ News Agency and Radio Farda, these marriages include girls under 10 years old.

On the other hand, the hypocritical politicians in the Islamist regime of Iran point out that there is gender equality in Iran and that Islam respects both women and men. For example, recently, Shahindokht Molaverdi, the Islamic Republic’s vice president for women and family affairs who led a delegation to the United Nations in New York, lied to the international community in stating that “the Islamic Republic of Iran has always had the empowerment of women and improving their status…on its agenda.”

What is also hidden by the ruling clerics, and from most of the reports, is the fact that the notion of forcing a child girls into marriage is encouraged in Iran. In addition, the groom is normally a much older man. These children are forced to sleep with their older male husbands on the first night of the marriage so that the family of the groom can be certain that the child is a virgin.

Many of these girls are forced into marriage due to the fact that their parents want to get rid of their daughters since a girl is considered much more inferior to a man. There exists a plenitude of verses from the Quran and hadiths from Muhammad declaring that women are legally, physically, socially and intellectually inferior to men.

The dear leader of North Korea, Kim Jung Un, threatened to take out New York City with a nuclear weapon. His threat responds to a new round of sanctions imposed by the international community after Pyongyang’s most recent nuclear test. Kim might be posturing—more than a little. Still there is every reason to take seriously the chance of waking up one morning in a mushroom cloud.

One of the top analysts of the danger posed by North Korea concludes that the regime has a working long-range ballistic missile that can range U.S. territory and it is more than likely that they can top their weapon with a functioning nuclear warhead. That is not the same, however, as saying Pyongyang could hit New York with a bomb big enough to take out the city.

Still, don’t dance in the streets of Times Square. Kim Jung Un continues to press the development of the regime’s nuclear arsenal. It is only a matter of time before Kim does have a city-killing missile or the ability to destroy the U.S. nuclear grid with a EMP attack in his hands.

When North Korea gets a weapon that can take out the Big Apple, here is what the results might look like. With a low-altitude explosion with a 10-kiloton weapon “about 50 percent of the energy released by the detonation takes the form of the ‘blast,’ an enormous wave of over pressurized air caused by the nuclear explosion. Within seconds, nearly all of the buildings within a half-mile radius would be destroyed by the concussion from the initial blast. Roughly half of the population within the blast radius would die almost instantaneously from collapsing buildings. Many others, without hope of rescue or aid, would soon die from mortal injuries inflicted by the blast. The blast would turn debris from collapsing buildings into makeshift missiles, extending as far out as 3.5 miles.”

The French see René Descartes, a 17th century philosopher, scientist, and mathematician, as the truest expression of their national mind. I am afraid they are right.

Descartes rejected authority in intellectual life and insisted on reconstructing knowledge on plain sense and strict reasoning, hence his famous motto, cogito ergo sum (“I think and therefore I am”). However, he also disdained experience as long as it could not be boiled down into logical and mathematical terms. This approach, so much at odds with the empirical and pragmatic approach favored in the Anglo-Saxon world, is indeed a hallmark of French culture — including politics.

The French elites relish in abstract, “élégant,” symmetrically organized concepts; they have problems with hard, rough, irregular facts. And should it come to pass that facts do not fit with concepts, they would rather ignore the former than question the latter. Even if major aspects of reality are being denied in the process, and the concepts themselves turned into inert dogmas or voided of any meaning.

Such a tendency was worrisome enough in the past, as some of the greatest French authors or thinkers realized, from Alexis de Tocqueville to Hippolyte Taine to Marc Bloch. It grew into an intractable problem after 1945, when France was reorganized as a statist nation, and a new administrative elite, engineered and trained by meritocratic academic institutions like Sciences Po (Political Science Schools), Ecole Normale Superieure (the Higher School for Education), and above all, Ecole nationale d’Administration (National School of Administration) engulfed the political class. Admission to ENA — through competitive examination — and graduation from ENA depend largely on mastering the required conceptual framework and never departing from it.

When Turkey’s Constitutional Court ruled that the detention for 92 days of two journalists, Can Dundar and Erdem Gul, constituted a breach of their basic rights, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan did not hide his anger, and said he would not obey the supreme court’s ruling.

Turkish courts, controlled by Erdogan’s government, put the newspaper Zaman, one of the last remaining media critics of Erdogan, under state control. A court actually appointed administrators to run the newspaper. Editor-in-chief Sevgi Akarcesme said that this was effectively the end of media freedom in Turkey.

Turkey ranks 149th amongst the 180 countries in the Reporters Without Borders’ World Press Freedom Index 2015.

Quite realistically, Nigel Farage, a British opposition figure, accused Turkey of “blackmailing” the EU over the Syrian refugee crisis and its proposed EU membership.

Turkey has been sliding into an ugly Islamist despotism. Yet its relations with the European Union (EU) which it aspires to join has rarely been better. Some call it a mutually “transactional” improvement: “pragmatism.” Others, in less diplomatic language, call it Turkish blackmailing on the back of the refugee crisis. Even Turkey’s Prime Minister Ahmet Davutogu admitted that his latest round of negotiations with Europe’s leaders was a fine bargaining “a la Kayseri,” a Turkish city famous for its tough-bargaining merchants.

In reality, modern Turkey has never been this galactically distant from the core values enshrined by the European civilization and its institutions, including even the EU.

When Turkey’s Constitutional Court ruled that the detention for 92 days of two journalists, Can Dundar and Erdem Gul, constituted a breach of their basic rights, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan did not hide his anger. He said he would not respect or obey the Supreme Court’s ruling.

The journalists had been charged with espionage and terrorism after their secular newspaper, Cumhuriyet, ran photos and a story about Turkish intelligence sending trucks full of arms to jihadists fighting in Syria. Prosecutors demand life sentences for the prominent journalists.

In 35 nations Islamic extremism “has risen to a level akin to ethnic cleansing” of Christians.

Something else stands behind this rise of genocidal “Islamic extremism”: U.S. foreign policy. In every Muslim nation where the U.S. has intervened in the name of “freedom and democracy,” Christian life has exponentially worsened.

For years the Obama administration has refused to list Boko Haram as a terrorist organization, and has argued that its violence had nothing to do with Islam and was a result of poverty and grievances. Instead, the U.S. pressured the Nigerian government to make concessions, including by building more mosques—the very structures, as the Nigerian lawyer Emmanuel Ogebe said, where Muslims are radicalized and recruited for the jihad.

Globally empowering forces hostile to Christians is synonymous with globally empowering forces hostile to America.

The primary achievement of U.S. foreign policies, apart from wasted American blood and treasure—

is the unprecedented rise in Muslim nations of Islamic forces outspokenly bent on destroying America.

2015 was the “worst year in modern history for Christian persecution,” according to Open Doors, a human rights organization that has been documenting the persecution of Christians since 1955.

Feminism and multiculturalism held the victim down while Islam wielded the knife.
In Sweden, the headline goes, in the small town of Oestersund, “Women are warned not to go out at night to avoid multiple sex attacks by “foreigners.”

As in most of Europe and a good chunk of America — like the White House — the honest word for Muslim sex attackers cannot be said.

It is taboo.

Jihadist attackers constantly look for signs of weakness, and nothing shows weakness more than failing to protect your women and children. Protecting the in-group may be the most basic role for human families, clans, tribes, and entire civilizations. But after decades of multicult self-indoctrination, Europe has managed to emasculate itself.

This is not just a metaphor. It is real, as you can see if you take a trip over there.

The Oestersund police chief is quoted in the news as saying that the local police simply did not have the resources to cope with roving gangs of Muslim teenagers looking for girls to rape.

But historically there were no police in places where people lived. (“Police” means “man of the city”). There were very few cities, and many villages and lonely farms. You couldn’t call 911, and in any case, organized help had to come from miles away. There was the militia — the one the Founders referred to in the U.S. Constitution. But for everyday purposes there were just male volunteers, the neighbors, who would respond to local dangers by defending the village. They were usually fathers or grown males, but everybody recognized a common duty to fight danger. Farm women were often very strong, and they would join in.

“The police” as an official force did not exist until a few centuries ago. Instead, every citizen, especially strong men and boys, would rush to defend a woman or child in danger. In every civilization before Multicultified Europe, it was the men who defended the women.

Apparently Sweden has totally lost one of the most important roles of men, seduced by PC propaganda.

Male gang attacks are the rule in Jihad warfare, just like the ancient warrior tribes of Mohammed’s Arabia. The Vikings and the Mongols and Cossacks were the same. Go back in history, and that kind of piratical rapine is the norm, as we can see in Homer’s Iliad, which glorifies the war of revenge conducted by the Greeks after the beautiful Helen was raped and kidnapped by the Trojans.

For 12 years, al Qaeda’s franchise in the Sahara has focused its attacks on the continent’s weakest and poorest states. Now it has turned its violence on a new kind of target: an African success story.

For nearly an hour on Sunday, gunmen in bulletproof vests stalked vacationers on a beach in Ivory Coast, Africa’s largest cocoa producer and its fourth-fastest-growing economy.

By the time security forces arrived and killed the three attackers, at least 15 civilians—most of them locals who had been drinking beer and enjoying the surf on a sunny afternoon—and three soldiers were dead.

Among the dead were four French nationals, French President François Hollande said on Monday, along with a German national identified as Henrike Grohs, who had been the director of the Goethe Institute in Ivory Coast since 2013. Ivory Coast Interior Minister Hamed Bakayoko added that other victims came from Burkina Faso, Cameroon and Mali.

The commando-style raid confirmed growing fears across West Africa that al Qaeda fighters are turning their attention to the region’s most flourishing states with the aim of exacting the highest possible toll of civilian lives.

With grenades strapped to their waists, the three fighters crept through a parking lot, shooting people standing next to BMW and Peugeot sedans. On the beach, they killed sunbathers reclining next to coolers and beach balls, and fired at swimmers. The nationalities of the attackers remained unclear on Monday.

“They were shooting in the direction of everybody eating along the beach,” said Yves Losseau, a Belgian lawyer who spends several weeks each year in the area.

On Monday, al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the Saharan affiliate of al Qaeda that claimed responsibility for Sunday’s attack, said it was a warning to other African countries that cooperate with France in its counterterrorism efforts. Some 18,000 French citizens live in the former French colony.

The attack appears to mark a turning point for Islamist militancy in Africa. Since 2003, AQIM has taken root in Mali, Mauritania, Niger and other desperately poor landlocked countries that have territory forming part of the Sahara. CONTINUE AT SITE