Tag Archives: Warsaw Pact

News, Politics, Government

Defense Spending In 'New Europe' Is Collapsing

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By Mark Adomanis, Contributor

It wasn’t all that long ago that NATO was supposedly going to be rejuvenated by the influx of post-Communist  nations, nations that had previously been a part of the Warsaw Pact (or in the case of the Baltics, the Soviet Union itself). With fresh memories of Russian imperialism these countries would take their membership in NATO seriously, and in their role as NATO policy-makers would help ensure the commitment of the spineless French, Germans, and Italians. “New Europe,” in short, understood that NATO wasn’t some knock-off version of the European Union but was a serious military bloc with serious military responsibilities that demanded a serious commitment of political will and economic resources. …read more

Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest

News, Politics, Government

Cuba calls weapons on North Korean ship 'obsolete'

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Cuba said military equipment found buried under sacks of sugar on a North Korean ship seized as it tried to cross the Panama Canal was obsolete weaponry from the mid-20th century that it had sent to be repaired.

Panamanian authorities said it might take a week to search the ship, since so far they have only examined one of its five container sections. They have requested help from United Nations inspectors, along with Colombia and Britain, said Javier Carballo, Panama’s top narcotics prosecutor. North Korea is barred by U.N. sanctions from importing sophisticated weapons or missiles.

Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli said Tuesday that the ship identified as the 14,000-ton Chong Chon Gang, which had departed Cuba en route to North Korea, was carrying missiles and other arms “hidden in containers underneath the cargo of sugar.”

Martinelli tweeted a photo showing a green tube that appears to be a horizontal antenna for the SNR-75 “Fan Song” radar, which is used to guide missiles fired by the SA-2 air-defense system found in former Warsaw Pact and Soviet-allied nations, said Neil Ashdown, an analyst for IHS Jane’s Intelligence.

“It is possible that this could be being sent to North Korea to update its high-altitude air-defense capabilities,” Ashdown said. Jane’s also said the equipment could be headed to North Korea to be upgraded.

North Korea has not commented on the seizure, during which 35 North Koreans were arrested after resisting police efforts to intercept the ship in Panamanian waters last week, according to Martinelli. He said the captain had a heart attack and also tried to commit suicide.

But Cuba’s Foreign Ministry released a statement late Tuesday acknowledging that the military equipment belonged to the Caribbean nation, saying it had been shipped out to be repaired and returned to the island.

“The agreements subscribed by Cuba in this field are supported by the need to maintain our defensive capacity in order to preserve national sovereignty,” the statement read.

It said the vessel was bound for North Korea mostly loaded with sugar — 10,000 tons of it — but added that the cargo also included 240 metric tons of “obsolete defensive weapons”: two Volga and Pechora anti-aircraft missile systems, nine missiles “in parts and spares,” two Mig-21 Bis and 15 engines for those airplanes.

It …read more

Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News

News, Politics, Government

N. Korean ship carrying weapons seized near Panama Canal

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A North Korean ship carrying weapons system parts buried under sacks of sugar was seized as it tried to cross the Panama Canal on its way from Cuba to its home country, which is barred by United Nations sanctions from importing sophisticated weapons or missiles, Panamanian officials said Tuesday.

The ship appeared to be transporting a radar-control system for a Soviet-era surface-to-air missile system, according to a private defense analysis firm that examined a photograph of the find.

Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli said the ship identified as the 14,000-ton Chong Chon Gang was carrying missiles and other arms “hidden in containers underneath the cargo of sugar.”

Martinelli tweeted a photo showing a green tube that appears to be a horizontal antenna for the SNR-75 “Fan Song” radar, which used to guide missiles fired by the SA-2 air-defense system found in former Warsaw Pact and Soviet-allied nations, said Neil Ashdown, an analyst for IHS Jane’s Intelligence.

“It is possible that this could be being sent to North Korea to update its high-altitude air-defense capabilities,” Ashdown said.

Panamanian authorities said one container buried under sugar sacks contained radar equipment that appears to be designed for use with air-to-air or surface-to-air missiles, said Belsio Gonzalez, director of Panama’s National Aeronautics and Ocean Administration. He said Panamanian authorities expected to find the missiles themselves in containers that must still be searched. An Associated Press journalist who gained access to the rusting ship saw green shipping containers that had been covered by hundreds, perhaps thousands, of white sacks marked “Cuban Raw Sugar.”

Later Tuesday, Cuba acknowledged that the military equipment belonged to the Caribbean nation, saying it had been shipped out to be repaired and returned to the island.

A statement from the Foreign Ministry said the vessel was bound for North Korea mostly loaded with sugar but added that the cargo also included 240 metric tons of “obsolete defensive weapons”: two Volga and Pechora anti-aircraft missile systems, nine missiles “in parts and spares,” two Mig-21 Bis and 15 engines for those airplanes.

“The agreements subscribed by Cuba in this field are supported by the need to maintain our defensive capacity in order to preserve national sovereignty,” the statement read.

The U.N. Security Council has imposed four rounds of increasingly tougher sanctions against North Korea since its first nuclear test on Oct. 9, 2006.

Under current sanctions, all U.N. member states are prohibited from directly or indirectly supplying, selling or transferring all arms, missiles or missile systems and the equipment and technology to make them to North Korea, with the exception of small arms and light weapons.

The most recent resolution, approved in March after Pyongyang’s latest nuclear test, authorizes all countries to inspect cargo in or transiting through their territory that originated in North Korea, or is destined to North Korea if a state has credible information the cargo could violate Security Council resolutions.

“Panama obviously has an important responsibility to ensure that the Panama Canal is utilized for safe and legal commerce,” said Acting U.S. Ambassador Rosemary DiCarlo, who is the current Security Council president. …read more

Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News

Automobiles

The 24 Hours of LeMons 2012 National Champions! The Year’s Best Teams, Marques, and More

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By Murilee Martin


The 20-race 2012 24 Hours of LeMons season is over, and we’ve been following all the LeMons action right here on Car and Driver for the first year of our inexplicable sponsorship. All the inspections of never-belonged-on-a-race-track cars, all the ill-advised engine swaps, all the super-creative teams, and all the harsh truths about which cars fare much more poorly than suggested by conventional car-guy wisdom. Now that all the individual race wrap-ups have been done, we need to look at the teams, drivers, and marques that came out on top during the past year. Here they are, the 2012 National 24 Hours of LeMons Champions!

Top Teams of 2012

The points system for determining the championship teams for a season works like this: Your team gets three points just for showing up to a LeMons race and putting at least one tire on the track surface. If you finish first overall, your team gets 10 points. Finish in P2, you get nine points, and so on down to one point for a still-impressive P10 finish. After adding up all the team points for 2012, here’s who came out on top:


1. Speedycop & the Gang of Outlaws, 87 points

As Speedycop, the fast-driving, weird-car-hoarding Washington, D.C., police officer in charge of the Gang of Outlaws, writes in his team’s 2012 season roundup, “How did we win the 2012 National Points Championship in The 24 Hours of LeMons? The answer is simple: Volume!”


Speedycop and the Gang of Outlaws entered 28 separate team entries, with 11 different cars, at 11 of the 20 LeMons events during the course of 2012. All but three of their 87 points came from those three-points-just-for-starting awards, because only one of those cars ever cracked the top 10 at a race (the MR2-chassis-equipped Lancia Scorpion finished eighth at the season-ender in Texas). We can’t even begin to scratch the surface of what these Legends of LeMons have accomplished since their 2009 LeMons debut, but you can learn more about this Falcon and the other 10 Gang of Outlaws racin’ machines on the official Speedycop site.


They started the 2012 season in true Speedycoppian fashion, with this 1976 AMC Pacer at the Southern Discomfort 24 Hours of LeMons in South Carolina. Also in true Speedycoppian fashion, this car was later sold to a Colorado team, who drove it to Index of Effluency victory in the ’12 B.F.E. GP.


Of course, the Speedycop & the Gang of Outlaws entry that most messed up our minds—in a good way—was the infamous Racing Trailer, which showed up at the Loudon Annoying race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. A pop-up camping trailer with a Suzuki X-90 inside, the Speedycop Racing Trailer looked fabulous on the track, managed to turn 168 laps on a grueling NASCAR-centric track, and won Speedycop & the Gang of Outlaws their fourth Index of Effluency trophy (the top prize in LeMons racing).


Well done, Speedycop & the Gang of Outlaws! Get ready for even better stuff from these guys in 2013.


2. Cerveza Racing, 59 pointsThe other way to do well in the season points championship is to place high in the standings in a lot of races, and that’s exactly what the most dominating team of the 2012 season did. These guys have been competing in West Coast LeMons events for years, getting a little better with each passing race, and we predicted that they were poised for a bunch of overall wins earlier in the year, and we were right— three consecutive wins on laps for the Cerveza Racing 1983 BMW 533i (plus some points earned by their other two cars, a pretty quick Porsche 944 and a one-race-wonder air-cooled Beetle).


3. Rally Baby Racing, 45 pointsRally Baby Racing is another team that follows the quantity formula, running 15 separate entries at various Eastern and Southern Region 24 Hours of LeMons events. Their 1975 Mercedes-Benz 450SL, which we think is one of the most beauteous Benzes we’ve ever seen on a race track, debuted at the Real Hoopties of New Jersey, where it won a well-deserved Organizer’s Choice trophy. Rally Baby also runs a couple of Audi 4000s and a BMW 325is with an excellent “Speedykop Mall Security” meta-theme. Not a single Rally Baby entry managed to make it into the top 10 of a race, but those three points for making the green flag add up quickly when you have this many cars.

The other top teams of 2012 were:
4. Subliminal Racing, 44 points
5. Lost In the Dark, 43 points
6. Eyesore Racing, 38 points
7. Keystone Kops, 37 points
8. Team Blue Goose, 34 points
9. Rust In The Wind, 34 points
10. Pulp Friction, 32 points

Top Drivers of 2012

Individual 24 Hours of LeMons drivers rack up championship points in the same way that teams do: three points for suiting up and driving at least one lap on the track during a LeMons race, 10 points for a first-place finish, nine points for second, and so on. Here are the Driver’s Championship winners for the 2012 season.


1. Anton Lovett, 65 pointsAnton has been competing in the 24 Hours of LeMons series since the very beginning. In 2012, he roamed the country, traveling from race to race and signing up for arrive-and-drives with teams running everything from an Austin Mini to a diesel W126 Mercedes-Benz. From California to New Jersey, Wisconsin to Texas, Anton participated in 13 of the 20 LeMons races in 2012.


Anton dragged his 1984 Chevrolet Cavalier wagon from California all the way out to the Flat Rock, Michigan, race in 2007, where his team won the Index of Effluency. By the end of that year, Anton had won his first LeMons Driver’s Championship, making him the only two-time winner of that award in 24 Hours of LeMons history (the Cavalier went on to get destroyed in spectacular upside-down-and-on-fire fashion at Sears Point, but there’s a Cadillac Cimarron replacement in the works).


Anton mostly chose teams with lots of heart but not much horsepower during 2012, but his adopted teams clawed their way into the top 10 of the standings a few times.


At the season-ender in Texas earlier this month, the Harley-Davidson-engined Toyota Prius that he helped build earned him his second Index of Effluency—and the season championship. Congratulations, Anton!

2. Harry Demas, 56 pointsWhen you drive in every race entered by the winningest team on the West Coast, you get plenty of championship points. If only Cerveza Racing had hauled their car out to the season-ender, Harry might have grabbed the 2012 Driver’s Championship. Well, there’s always next year!

The other top drivers of 2012 were:
3 (tie). Pete Pressley (Cerveza Racing)
3 (tie). Charles Gayraud (Cerveza Racing)
5. Steve Kohli (Clueless Racing)
6 (tie). Eric Cayton (Subliminal Racing)
6 (tie). Justin Lauderback (Subliminal Racing)
6 (tie). Jim Mosher (Subliminal Racing)
6 (tie). Matt Phillips (Subliminal Racing)
10. Steven McDaniel (Silver Errors – Big Blue)

2012 Constructor Championship Winners

The marques that compete in the 24 Hours of LeMons are also building up point totals as the teams and drivers are doing the same. A marque gets no reward for its cars just showing up—if there were, General Motors would have done much, much better in this competition—so top-10 spots in the standings are needed to bring Constructor Championship glory to a car manufacturer. Win a race, the marque gets 10 points. P2 gains the marque nine points, and so on all the way down to the single point for a 10th-place finish. At the end of the season, we added up all those points, and here’s how it sorted out:

1. BMW, 283 pointsFor the second year in a row, BMW wins the 24 Hours of LeMons Constructor Championship by a commanding margin. Much of this is the sheer quantity of BMWs in LeMons racing (the E30 3-series is the single most numerous type of vehicle in the series), but it’s tough to argue with seven overall wins for the Bavarian brand. On top of that, BMWs finished second in four races, third in four races, and fourth in eight races. E30s, E12s, E28s, an E34, and even a couple of 2002s grabbed points for BMW in 2012. Much as we’d like to see more E30 teams switch to, say, Autocars Sussitas (or at least convert their cars to rolling monuments to Warsaw Pact dictators), we can’t help but respect the achievements of Bayerische Motoren Werke AG in this series.

2. Mazda, 150 pointsAlso for the second year in a row, Mazda finished a strong second in the LeMons Constructor Championship. Three overall wins, four P2 finishes, five P3 finishes. Miatas, MX-3s, and RX-7s did most of the heavy lifting; if we’d given points to Mazda instead of Ford for badge-engineered Dearborn-ized Hiroshima cars (e.g., Probes, second-gen Escorts), Mazda would have come much closer to unseating BMW.

3. Honda, 129 pointsCivics, Integras, Accords, and Preludes can be among the quickest of LeMons cars, and every race features quite a few of Soichiro’s offspring. If not for the tendency of Hondas to blow head gaskets and shoot connecting rods through engine blocks, these cars would rule the LeMons world.

How did the other major marques fare in our series, you ask? Here you go:
4. Ford, 127 points
5. Nissan, 114 points
6. Volvo, 53 points
7. Toyota, 48 points
8. General Motors, 40 points
9. Chrysler, 36 points
10. Volkswagen, 30 points
11. Audi, 24 points
12. Porsche, 21 points
13. Alfa Romeo, 17 points
14. Mercedes-Benz, 12 points
15 (tie). Saab, 10 points
15 (tie). Fiat/Lancia, 10 points
17. Mitsubishi, 2 points
18. Subaru, 0 points


Yes, with the ten or so Subarus that compete in LeMons races across the country, not a single one managed to squeeze into the top ten of the standings at a race. The photograph above tells most of that story… but someday one of those quick Imprezas is going to prove us all wrong about Subarus in LeMons racing!

2012 Deconstructor Championship

The Deconstructor Championship goes to the marque that most symbolizes futility and heartbreak on the race track during the year. Detroit tends to dominate this award, but not this year!


For 2012, Volkswagen gets a well-earned 24 Hours of LeMons Deconstructor Championship award. From unfixable Sciroccos to quick-but-blow-uppy Golfs to fragile Jettas to spinout-prone and fragile air-cooleds to Brazilian-build-quality Foxes, the car company that started life by ripping off Hans Ledwinka’s designs gave hundreds of LeMons racers the opportunity to test their willpower and patience during the 2012 season.


While there are LeMons Rabbits and Jettas that can turn lap times every bit as quick as any Integra or BMW 3-series, the Volkswagens just don’t hold together as well over the course of a punishing race weekend. Only one VW has ever won a LeMons race (the 2010 Mutually Asssured Destruction of Omaha race saw an eight-valve Mk3 Golf take the win on laps . . . barely).


For all the Volkswagen engine innards that clanked onto asphalt at LeMons races throughout the 2012 season, we salute our friends from Wolfsburg. Congratulations, Volkswagen!

2012 Coppa di Bondo Winner

The Coppa di Bondo award goes to the team that LeMons HQ feels most represented the spirit of 24 Hours of LeMons racing during the previous year. In this case, it’s also something of a lifetime achievement award, taking into account the team’s accomplishments during the last few seasons.

For 2012, the Coppa di Bondo goes to NSF Racing. These longtime Legends of LeMons manage to combine bite-off-way-more-than-they-can-chew optimism with great (i.e., ludicrous) car choices inspired by really bad advice given by the likes of your LeMons correspondent.


NSF started off the 2012 season in dramatic fashion, by bringing a Mitsubishi Cordia to the Southern Discomfort race in March. Since nearly every Mitsubishi product that has ever participated in a 24 Hours of LeMons race has been terribly unreliable, we figured a Cordia would be even worse than that. The NSF Cordia has not disappointed in that department, and yet the team understood that our dream is to put on a LeMons race in which all the cars are as hilariously miserable as the Mitsubishi Cordia.


They say it’s more fun to drive a slow car fast than it is to drive a fast car slow, and NSF’s 1950 Mercedes-Benz 170S—powered by the 57-hp engine from an MGB—served as Exhibit A for that argument. Just look at it! Sure, it ended up blowing a tire and flipping over, but NSF won their third Index of Effluency trophy anyway.


For the season-ender, NSF once again paid too much attention to the cars that LeMons HQ personnel dream of seeing on the race track, this time bringing a genuine Dodge Aries K wagon.


The Aries was every bit as slow as you’d expect, and it broke a few parts during the course of the weekend, but NSF kept hammering it back into shape and returning it to the track. America is back!


Congratulations, NSF Racing! Next up on the home for all your LeMons news, we’ll have the regional award winners for 2012.

Source: FULL ARTICLE at Car & Driver