World’s most advanced nuclear submarine, HMS Astute, runs aground on rocks off Scotland -

World’s most advanced nuclear submarine, HMS Astute, runs aground on rocks off Scotland - 

The world’s most advanced nuclear submarine, HMS Astute, has run aground on rocks off Scotland causing considerable embarrassment for Navy chiefs.

The grounding of the £1.2 billion Astute hunter-killer comes at the end of a dire week for the Royal Navy which has seen its carrier force halved, Harrier jump jets axed and warship force reduced by almost a quarter.

It is understood that the boat, which is first in its class, ran aground by its stern in a manoeuvre that “went slightly wrong” after it had dropped some sailors ashore in tidal waters off the Isle of Skye.

As the tide rapidly ebbed it is thought the skipper of Astute, Commander Andy Coles, decided not to power it off the obstruction as it would risk damaging the hull that carries some of the most advanced acoustic tiles that make Astute virtually undetectable beneath the seas.

Read more - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newsvideo/8080439/Nuclear-submarine-runs-aground-off-the-coast-of-Scotland.html

Biggest Leak in US History - 109,032 deaths in Iraq, 66,081 'civilians'; 23,984 'enemy' - 31 civilians dying every day -

Biggest Leak in US History - 109,032 deaths in Iraq, 66,081 'civilians'; 23,984 'enemy' - 31 civilians dying every day - 

At 5pm EST Friday 22nd October 2010 WikiLeaks released the largest classified military leak in history. The 391,832 reports ('The Iraq War Logs'), document the war and occupation in Iraq, from 1st January 2004 to 31st December 2009 (except for the months of May 2004 and March 2009) as told by soldiers in the United States Army. Each is a 'SIGACT' or Significant Action in the war. They detail events as seen and heard by the US military troops on the ground in Iraq and are the first real glimpse into the secret history of the war that the United States government has been privy to throughout.

The reports detail 109,032 deaths in Iraq, comprised of 66,081 'civilians'; 23,984 'enemy' (those labeled as insurgents); 15,196 'host nation' (Iraqi government forces) and 3,771 'friendly' (coalition forces). The majority of the deaths (66,000, over 60%) of these are civilian deaths.That is 31 civilians dying every day during the six year period. For comparison, the 'Afghan War Diaries', previously released by WikiLeaks, covering the same period, detail the deaths of some 20,000 people. Iraq during the same period, was five times as lethal with equivallent population size.

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London School of Economics: US Must Prepare for "Savage Austerity" -

London School of Economics: US Must Prepare for "Savage Austerity" - 







Howard Davies, chairman of the London School of Economics, and Willem Buiter, chief economist at Citigroup Inc., talk about the potential impact of additional quantitative easing by the Federal Reserve on the U.S. economy. Davies and Buiter say "Savage Austerity" coming to America as they talk with Tom Keene on Bloomberg Television's "Surveillance Midday." (Source: Bloomberg)

WikiLeaks’ 400,000 Iraq War Docs Reveal Torture & Collateral Murder unit killed insurgents who were trying to surrender -

WikiLeaks’ 400,000 Iraq War Docs Reveal Torture & Collateral Murder unit killed insurgents who were trying to surrender - 







The secret-spilling website WikiLeaks released almost 400,000 U.S. Army reports from the Iraq War on Friday, marking the largest military leak in U.S. history.

The database covers events from the Iraq War dating from 2004 through 2009, with the vast majority of entries classified at the “secret” level. WikiLeaks’ War Logs pageincludes a sophisticated search engine that makes it easy to browse and search through the documents. Unlike its Afghan release last July, WikiLeaks does not appear to have made the Iraq database available for bulk download as an SQL or CSV file.
News outlets who’d been provided advance copies of the massive database — including the Qatar-based Al Jazeera network, the U.K. newspaper Guardian and The New York Times — have already published detailed analysis. They’ve found previously unreported civilian death counts in the files, rampant brutality by Iraqi police and a report of a separate shooting incident involving the same Apache helicopter unit that was involved in the now-famous 2007 “Collateral Murder” video that WikiLeaks published last April. In the second incident, the unit reportedly shot and killed insurgents who were trying to surrender.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has scheduled a press conference in London on Saturday at 10:00 a.m. local time (5:00 a.m. EDT) to discuss the release.
For Wired’s take on the contents of the database, watch our sister blog, Danger Room


Read more - http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/10/wikileaks-press/#ixzz138DErpey