Naval News Today
US contracted ship fires warning shots
A civilian ship contracted by the U.S. military fired warning shots at two small boats that approached it in the Persian Gulf, the U.S. Navy said Friday, the latest in a string of similar incidents to trigger concern in Washington.
The U.S. military has been wary of small boats operating near its ships since an explosive-laden vessel rammed the USS Cole as it refueled off Yemen in 2000, killing 17 sailors.
Those fears were heightened in recent months by several incidents in the Gulf’s narrow Strait of Hormuz, where small Iranian boats have approached American warships despite warnings to alter course. Senior U.S. military officials have warned Iran about the risk of triggering an unintended conflict if its boats continue to confront American ships.
The Navy said it does not know whether the two boats that approached the Western Venture cargo ship on Thursday were from Iran. Iranian officials have denied their vessels were involved.
Somalia: Ransom paid to pirates for release of Spanish ship
Authorities paid pirates a ransom of $1.2 million to win the freedom of a Spanish fishing boat and its 26-member crew seized off the Horn of Africa a week ago, a Somali official said.
Suspected pirates armed with rocket-propelled grenades had seized control of the tuna-fishing boat from Spain’s Basque region last Sunday about 200 nautical miles off the coast of Somalia, a region where piracy has escalated recently.
The pirates released the ship Saturday, authorities said. The crew was freed after Spanish authorities paid a $1.2 million ransom, Abdi Khalif Ahmed, chairman of the Haradhere local port authority in central Somalia, said late Saturday.
“The ship is free and the pirates disappeared into their villages,” he said.
Navy vessels are set to embark on two humanitarian missions
The Navy is aiming a double-barreled blast of good will across the ocean next week as two ships shove off from San Diego on missions of mercy.
The amphibious assault ship Boxer will leave San Diego Naval Base at 32nd Street on Monday on a two-month voyage to Latin America that is scheduled to include stops in Guatemala, El Salvador and Peru.
Three days later, the hospital ship Mercy will depart on a four-month cruise to the Philippines, Vietnam, Micronesia, East Timor and Papua New Guinea.
Local doctors and nurses will join Navy medical personnel and volunteers from several charities to care for thousands of patients at each stop, both on board the ship and in clinics organized ashore. They’ll remove cataracts, fix cleft palates, fill teeth and hand out prescriptions while Navy construction battalions repair clinics and water systems.
For what may be the first time since the inception of the American space program, the Navy is restricting nominations to the astronaut corps. The move comes nearly 50 years after Alan Shepard, a naval aviator, became the first American in space.
The cutback, Navy officials say, comes as the service tries to retain the expertise it needs to fulfill its wartime obligations while experiencing an overall decline in its numbers. A message from Vice Adm. J.C. Harvey Jr. last month stated that applications for Navy nominations to the space program from 10 specialties would not be accepted “due to critical inventory shortfalls and/or priority global war on terrorism skill set requirements.”
Those groups include the special forces known as SEALs, certain engineering groups and experts in explosive ordinance disposal, as well as permanent military professors and public-affairs officers.
George W.S. Abbey, a former NASA official who wielded control over the astronaut office during much of his long tenure at the agency, which lasted from 1964 to 2002, said that “the Navy is taking a position that adversely affects the country’s ability to have a vital and ongoing space program.”
Get the Yankee Sage delivered!
Bio: I am currently a Professor of Security Studies, hold a BS in Management and an MA in National Security Studies, and am pursuing an MA in Systematic and Philosophical Theology. I've written for Navy Times, Proceedings, Armed Forces Journal and a number of blogs. As a 24-year veteran of the U.S. Navy and Navy Reserve, I attained the rank of Commander, deployed five times for four different conflicts and served as a Foreign Area Officer and a Surface Warfare Officer. During my 7 years in the private sector, I worked in the fields of information technology and publishing, and even ran for public office once.
