Naval News Today
US Ships Head For Myanmar As Officials Decry Delay
Four US Navy ships [ESSEX Strike Group] steamed toward cyclone-stricken Myanmar on Thursday as the Bush administration stepped up pressure on the country’s military junta to open the door to outside humanitarian assistance.
Navy helicopters and Air Force cargo planes loaded with supplies and personnel also began arriving in nearby Thailand, where US officials established a staging point for possible humanitarian operations.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice phoned her Chinese counterpart to ask Beijing to persuade Myanmar to accept international aid for an estimated 1.5 million people believed to be severely affected by the Cyclone Nargis disaster. The storm is feared to have killed 100,000 people in the country.
The US government believes existing stocks of relief supplies in Myanmar might be enough for about 10,000 people.
On April 26, 2008, the Islamist website Al-Ikhlas posted an article from Jihad Press, an e-journal reportedly linked to Al-Qaeda, which urges the mujahideen to establish naval terror cells. The article argues that gaining control over the seas and sea passages – especially around the Arabian Peninsula – is a vital step towards renewing the global Islamic caliphate.
It points out that such operations are feasible, because Yemeni groups have already carried out successful attacks against oil tankers, tourist vessels, and commercial vessels in the Gulf of Aden; and other jihad fighters have carried out “two successful attacks on Zionist-Crusader targets in the [territorial] waters of Yemen: …the attack on the American destroyer [USS] Cole in October 2000, and the [attack on the] French oil tanker Limburg in 2002.”
The article adds: “As we draw near to the [crucial] hour when the leadership of the Zionist-Crusader campaign will be dragged to the [negotiation] table to accept the [mujahideen's] terms… it is necessary to [extend] the battle to the seas. The mujahideen have successfully established units of martyrdom-seekers on land; the sea is the next strategic step towards controlling the world and restoring the Islamic caliphate.”
Analysis: Information Dissemination and EagleSpeak
US to fund establishment of Bulgarian naval surveillance system
The United States will finance under international military funds the establishment of a coastal radio location system for navigation control and safeguarding Bulgaria’s sea border, local press reported Thursday citing Bulgarian Naval Forces Commander Vice Admiral Minko Kavaldzhiev.
Kavaldzhiev announced this during a joint news conference held together with the visiting US Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Gary Roughead in Bulgarian Black Sea city of Varna. Kavaldzhiev said that the contract is expected to be signed soon so that the establishment of the system could be started. Bulgaria is also working with the United States under an exchange of staff project, under which Bulgarian seamen are trained at US ships.
Admiral Roughead told the news conference that many issues related to security in seas and oceans will be discussed at the annual meeting of the European naval forces commanders, which will start on Friday, as unfortunately, sea ways are also used for trafficking of weapons, drugs and people.
Fighter aircraft to miss the boat
Early next month, ministers in Britain are expected to give the final go-ahead for two new £4bn ($7.9bn) aircraft carriers for the Royal Navy. The 65,000 tonne ships will be the most powerful ever to sail in the navy but there is growing concern that delays to the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) programme in the US mean they will be setting out to sea without their intended aircraft.
The first of the navy’s two new carriers is due to enter service in 2014. The government had planned to operate the JSF from the ships. However, it emerged this year the navy would initially have to operate the latest version of the Harrier jump jet, developed decades ago.
“We actually do plan to use the (Harrier) GR9 on the first of the carriers. The idea that we will have a carrier’s worth of fully equipped JSFs in 2014 is not going to happen,” said David Gould, chief operating officer for equipment and support at the Ministry of Defence.
French navy forms new special troop
French President Nicolas Sarkozy Thursday announced the creation of a special navy troop to take part in a number of overseas missions, according to local media.
The troop will only have about 30 members to begin with. They will be experts on reconnaissance, mine clearance, electronic warfare, nuclear warfare and biological and chemical warfare.
Military scientists prepare for Arctic surveillance study
Canadian defence scientists will be testing some surveillance technology in the High Arctic this year as part of a major study to help affirm Arctic sovereignty and security.
Researchers with Defence Research and Development Canada plan to set up a camp on northwestern Devon Island this summer in order to install land-based sensors and underwater listening devices stretching out into Barrow Strait — one of the transit points to the Northwest Passage.
The technology being tested, as part of the military’s four-year Northern Watch study, could help Canada keep an eye on ships and submarines travelling through the passage and other northern waterways.
“We want to trial actual technology in an actual environment,” project leader Klaus Kollenberg with Defence Research and Development Canada told CBC News in an interview.
The underwater devices that will go into Barrow Strait will include underwater microphones, known as hydrophones, attached to a 10-kilometre-long cable.
The ground-based sensors will back up existing satellites like RadarSat 1 and 2, which keep an eye on the North, Kollenberg said.
System uses sound to find whales, avoid ship strikes
Ship strikes are the top human-related cause of death [of whales], which are in danger even from…a slow-moving research boat called the Shearwater. But new technology could soon help safeguard the whales by using sound, not sight, to track the creatures’ movements.
“We’re listening to their chatter,” whale expert Christopher Clark said aboard the Shearwater, referring to the grunts and groans whales use to communicate. “They can’t keep their mouths shut.”
In the past, tracking whales often depended on inefficient aerial surveys, which were limited by weather and how often the whales surfaced.
Now researchers listen for the whales using 13 underwater microphones attached to buoys off the coast of New England. Eventually, scientists hope to follow their movements closely enough so boats can slow down and post lookouts.
“The slower the ships go, the lower the risk of killing a whale with a ship,” said Clark, director of the bioacoustics research program at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and the project’s lead scientist.
Kathy Metcalf of the Chamber of Shipping of America said shippers would welcome a listening system because they are currently being asked to reduce their speed despite uncertainties about where the whales actually are.
“We’ve been saying all along that if we can get real-time information, we want to avoid them,” Metcalf said.
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Bio: I currently teach security studies at the graduate level, hold a BS in management and a MA in national security studies, and am pursuing a 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 seven years in the private sector, I worked in the fields of information technology and publishing, and even ran for public office once.
