- Early this morning the phone rang but I was still in bed so I let the message machine pick it up. When I finally listened to the message it was from a woman politician in Norway calling about the Global Network 21st annual space conference in Kiruna, Sweden on June 27-29. She wants to come and needed more information.
- I did a radio interview on Voice of Russia two nights ago about the conference - they were particularly interested in discussing how the US radar facilities in Vardo, Norway and Thule, Greenland are key instruments in the Pentagon's mis-named "missile defense" system aimed at Russia.
- The photo above is from the Esrange Space Center in Kiruna. When I visited Kiruna years ago a young woman came to my talk and said she worked at Esrange and kept seeing that information downloaded from satellites was immediately sent to the US. She asked why and got no answer. It indicates how the downlink stations in Sweden and Norway are tied into US military operations. This will be a big theme of our conference. I am told that the Communication Director at Esrange has contacted our folks in Sweden and said he wanted to meet us at Esrange when we go there during the conference. I'm sure his job will be to tell us that everything that happens at Esrange is for civilian use. We've heard that tune many times before. They say that at NASA too but we know better.
- It's interesting that Obama was just in Berlin where he made his big speech about wanting to cut back on US-Russian nuclear weapons at the same time he is expanding "missile defense" systems to surround Russia. He knows Russia will never agree to a plan that would make them more vulnerable. His speech was pure public relations - done to try to impress the European audience on the heels of the embarrassing disclosures about NSA spying on everybody around the world. The speech was also intended to mollify the left in the US and some have taken the bait.
- Following Obama's call for more nuclear weapons cuts, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said, "Apart from the role of nuclear weapons and issues related to the ceilings in the nuclear arms area, the Russian leadership will also take into account the missile defense situation, the creation of non-nuclear precision weapons [Pentagon's Global Strike program], the possibility of deploying weapons in space, to which Moscow categorically objects, and refusal of a number of countries to take part in key arms control agreements. [The US and Israel have refused for years to negotiate with Russia and China on a ban on weapons in space.] Without taking all these circumstances into account, it is wrong to talk only about the role of nuclear weapons as a factor affecting strategic stability."
- In related news the Obama administration had promised to build Israel a state-of-the-art facility to house a new ballistic-missile defense system, the Arrow 3. The Arrow 3 is capable of intercepting missiles at a range of up to 1,500 miles and can maneuver in midair to chase them. Last February, Israel conducted the first test of the Arrow 3 in space. That test was overseen by the United States.
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