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Airbus Military has begun bench testing systems for a signals intelligence variant of the A320, as part of a drive to expand its offering of military derivatives of Airbus commercial platforms. Equipment is being tested at one of the company's facilities near Madrid under a self-funded feasibility study, says Miguel-Angel Morell, senior vice-president engineering and technology. He confirms that applications being tested "are electronic,communications and signals intelligence". Senior vice-president commercial Antonio Rodriguez-Barberán says: "We have initiated preliminary conversations with some potential customers with regard to an application of this type. We will do this with the same philosophy as our...

Israel has assessed that Iran could employ electronic warfare (EW) to shut down communications in the Jewish state. Officials said the Defense Ministry and the military have concluded that Iran was acquiring and testing EW systems meant to destroy computers in government and key facilities as well as the Internet infrastructure in Israel. They said Iranian methods could also include hacking computers of the state-owned broadcasting network and planting false messages. "On its own, Iran doesn't yet have significant EW capabilities," an official said. "But we know that it is working with elements in several countries, including China, that have...

has received $59 million from the U.S. Air Force for additional Sniper Advanced Targeting Pods (ATP). This order represents the second increment on the U.S. Air Force’s Sniper ATP Lot 9 contract, originally awarded in September 2009, bringing the total value of the Lot 9 buy to $95 million. Delivering the highest resolution imagery for precision targeting and non-traditional intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, the Sniper ATP plays a major role in Air Force operations in theater, providing top cover for ground forces, as well as increasing the safety of civilian populations. “This Lot 9 increment brings total Sniper ATP sales...

Attack, not defense, will reshape electronic warfare. A magazine filled with electron pulses, information scrambling data streams and invasive algorithms may arm the Next-Generation Jammer (NGJ). By 2018, variants of the U.S. Navy’s NGJ likely will be carried by a half-dozen manned and unmanned aircraft—perhaps more. The service’s EP-X signals and communications intelligence aircraft—still without a final design or completed requirements—will be replacing the long-serving EP-3E. “EP-X is going to be the eyes and ears that find the signals” that NGJ will jam and manipulate, says Christopher Carlson, director of U.S. business development for ITT’s integrated EW systems. “Precisely identifying...

Many of the tools for airborne electronic warfare and attack are aging and lack flexibility. At the same time, new off-the-shelf technologies used by irregular and conventional foes—ranging from low-power command-and-control communications to advanced, long-range anti-aircraft missiles—are increasingly sophisticated, making it more expensive and time-consuming to find, analyze and counter them. Developers are in a quandary about which technologies to pursue first, a problem compounded by a lack of agreement among the U.S. Navy, Air Force and Army about how to address common problems. Faced with this swiftly changing environment, the Navy is searching for solutions within the framework of...

One reason so many roadside bombs in Afghanistan use pressure plates or wire controlled devices to detonate these weapons, is because American jamming technology has made wireless detonation of the bombs so difficult. The U.S. Department of Defense is working on a third generation of jammers, to make sure the terrorists have to rely on less effective means of detonating their bombs for the foreseeable future. The most recent innovation in the areas was the JCREW (Joint Counter Radio-Controlled Improvised Explosive Device Electronic Warfare) 3.1 dismounted (wearable) jammer. These cost about $99,000 each. The wearable JCREW jammers are more useful...

Afghanistan, American aircraft equipped with radar (that can see what's on the ground), are tailing Taliban suspects driving through remote areas. Operators in these JSTARS aircraft can track movement of ground units, or individual vehicles, over a wide area. Operators can also use the detail mode to pick out specific details of what's going on down there, like tracking the movement of vehicles fleeing the scene of a battle, or meeting with Taliban leaders. JSTARS is real good at picking up trucks moving along highways on flat terrain, but the equipment has now been tweaked to deal with the mountains...

In Afghanistan, the Taliban are finding that their Medieval warrior mentality and physical hardiness are no match for smart bombs and even smarter intelligence work. The Taliban fighters are often described as clever and adaptive. They are. But the Taliban fighters, including many of the leaders, are illiterate and uncomfortable with new technology. They constantly get nailed using cell phones and walkie talkies (like the Motorola models available worldwide), even though it's common knowledge that the U.S. frequently eavesdrops. The Afghans believe the Americans are using some kind of pagan "magic", and if an Islamic warrior is pure-of-heart, the magic...

The U.S. Navy is playing catch-up by equipping some of its F-18E fighters with IRST (Infa-Red Search & Track). The first F-18E Block IIs are entering service, carrying an IRST pod. IRST uses a high resolution infrared (heat sensing) radar to positively spot and identify a potential aerial target (using a 3-D model of the target in its computer memory.) This is similar to the ATFLIR (Advanced Targeting Forward Looking Infrared) pods used to spot surface targets. FLIR (Forward Looking Infrared Radar) has been around since the 1980s, and as the technology became more powerful, it was possible to spot...

The U.S. Air Force has backed away from developing a new electronic warfare aircraft. Now it will rely on UAVs equipped with jammers, and electronic jamming pods on non-specialized (as jamming aircraft) warplanes. This was not the preferred approach. Last year, the air force revived a program to convert some of its B-52 heavy bombers into radar jamming aircraft. This would be done by equipping the bombers with jamming pods (that are similar in appearance to large bombs). The air force planned to buy 24 sets of pods, for a force of 34 B-52s. Each pair of pods would cost...

South Korea recently uncovered a North Korean plot to obtain South Korean electronic warfare equipment. North Korean agents, operating in China, sought to connect with South Korean business and government officials travelling in China, in order to see who could be bribed to help obtain the desired equipment. As a result of this, South Korea again warned their citizens, especially those working for the government or defense firms, to be careful who they deal with in China. To emphasize the danger, the government also announced the arrest of a former army officer, only identified as Mr. Lee, who had been...

A surgical jamming system that can stop the enemy from communicating and navigating while minimizing disruption to friendly forces will be demonstrated under a new program launched by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The Precision Electronic Warfare (PREW) program will demonstrate synchronization and pointing technology enabling multiple airborne and ground transmitters to work together to focus their jamming power on an area smaller than a city block. Jamming systems now used in Iraq and Afghanistan to block the triggering of remote-controlled explosive devices via cellular or satellite telephones are effective, but interfere with friendly forces' communication and navigation...

Articles indexed to sept62007 (in order of time indexed.) Israeli official: Russia behind tension with Syria ^   Posted by knighthawk On News/Activism ^ 08/30/2007 2:14:47 PM PDT · 9 replies · 322+ views al Bawaba ^ | August 30 2007   Russia uses Syrian port to demonstrate its power in the Med  ^   Posted by sukhoi-30mki On News/Activism ^ 09/01/2007 7:34:04 AM PDT · 12 replies · 379+ views The Jerusalem Post ^ | Aug 31, 2007 | ALEX KOGAN   Syrian army says it fired on IAF craft violating its space ^   Posted by Nextrush On News/Activism ^ 09/06/2007 4:57:51 AM...

WASHINGTON, Feb. 22, 2007 – U.S. Army soldiers and insurgents have something in common: They share a single electromagnetic spectrum to communicate and launch attacks. “The spectrum is that invisible world inhabited by television transmissions, by all sorts of radios, by cell phones, by satellite links, by GPS links,” Army Col. Lauri Moe Buckhout, electronic warfare division chief, told reporters at the Pentagon yesterday. “In Baghdad you might have American soldiers, coalition soldiers … an Iraqi friendly forces mother and father talking to each other to coordinate a taxi to pick up their sick son and take him to...

"The international press won't get their first look at the documentary Dixie Chicks: Shut Up and Sing until its gala premiere at the Toronto Film Festival tonight. But EW.com got an early look at the sure-to-be-controversial doc in Los Angeles and can attest that the film will continue to bring the (ex?) country trio more plaudits from progressives and further condemnation from conservatives. And if you think singer Natalie Maines had some harsh words for President Bush in public, wait till you hear what she had to say about him behind the scenes. In one memorable scene, Maines watches news...

The Chinese want boys, and the Canadians want girls. If they have enough money, they come to the United States to choose the sex of their babies. Well-off foreign couples are getting around laws banning sex selection in their home countries by coming to American soil — where it's legal — for medical procedures that can give them the boy, or girl, they want. "Some people spend $50,000 to $70,000 for a BMW car and think nothing of it, but this is a life that's going to be with us forever," said Robert, an Australian who asked that his last...

Like the U.S. C-130 Hercules, the Shaanxi Y-8 four-engine turboprop transport aircraft has been developed into many special purposes variants. The PLA Air Force was known to be have been using the Y-8 for special electronic warfare (EW) missions including electronic intelligence (ELINT) and offensive electronic countermeasures (ECM) in the past, but little was known about these programme until an electronic warfare variant Y-8 was first spotted in operation in Summer 2004. While detailed information regarding the onboard mission equipment is not available, it is believed that the new EW/ELINT variant Y-8 is equipped with an extensive array of sophisticated...

My precious Prayer Warriors, Once again, we need your help and love. I had to admit Norman to the hospital yesterday. I don't understand why, because he seemed to be doing much better. His attitude was terrific, we had a peace, and I was able to get more food in him. But when he had the biopsy, he began with immediate severe pain, sweats, and more labored breathing. Yesterday when he got up he told me he didn't know whether it was morning or night and he couldn't remember our daughter's name. So I prayed all the while he was...

EU reneges on pledge to third world Opening day of meeting clouded by row as commission tries to dilute concessions on agriculture offered to developing countries Larry Elliott and Charlotte Denny Thursday September 11, 2003 The Guardian The European commission was last night secretly preparing to sabotage plans to help poor countries trade their way out of poverty, as backstairs wrangling dominated the opening day of the World Trade Organisation's talks in Cancun, Mexico. A confidential paper not shown even to member governments, including the UK, revealed that the commission was planning to water down the already modest concessions on...

A Romanian woman has died from an allergy to her husband's sperm.He told doctors they knew about her allergy to proteins in semen but didn't always use a condom when they had sex.A doctor from the hospital in Negresti which treated the woman said it was a rare case.Dr Corneliu Ciocirlan told the Libertatea newspaper: "We did all that we could to save the patient's life but with no success. These allergies to sperm are extremely rare but very serious. I have never seen anything like this before."Cristina Dumitru's husband, Grigore, said: "It all started a year ago when we...