A new Russian jet fighter, using stealth technology designed to conceal the plane from radar, is being called a “super weapon” by military experts who say that the fifth-generation Russian fighter jet actually surpasses United States fighters and could give Russia an advantage in the skies.

Known as the TA-50 PAK FA, the new Russian stealth fighter is developed by the Russian aeronautic giant Sukhoi and is set to go into action in 2016. Russia is developing the new super fighter together with India, which is kicking in 25 percent of the T-50 program’s $20 billion projected cost.

Each T-50 PAK FA stealth jet fighter costs about $50 million to build. Russia is India’s second-biggest supplier of weapons, behind only the United States.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has called the new fifth-generation stealth fighter “superior to our main competitor, the F-22, in terms of maneuverability, weaponry and range.”

The Lockheed F-22 Raptor is one of the two most sophisticated stealth fighters in the U.S. arsenal, matched only by another fifth-generation Lockheed plane, the F-35 Lightning II. And according to U.S. military aviation experts, Putin’s claim was not just an empty boast.

“The analysis that I have seen on the PAK-FA indicates a pretty sophisticated design that is at least equal to, and some have said even superior to, U.S. fifth-generation aircraft,” said former U.S. Air Force intelligence head Lt. Gen. Dave Deptula, in an interview with the National Interest magazine. “It certainly has greater agility with its combination of thrust vectoring, all moving tail surfaces, and excellent aerodynamic design, than does the F-35.”

A top U.S. military aviation official, who spoke anonymously to the National Interest, seconded Deptula’s opinion.

“Performance-wise it certainly looks to compete with the Raptor,” the official told the magazine.

While the new Russian stealth fighter is said to be less “stealthy,” that is, able to evade radar detection, than its U.S. counterparts, it makes up for that slight disadvantage with its incredible maneuverability in the skies that experts say is at least on par with the Raptor and far exceeds the Lightning II.

But the U.S. fighters still hold one advantage — data technology. The U.S. fighter jets still have better “sensor and data fusion,” in other words, technology for processing information about the jet fighter’s surroundings and feeding it to the pilot in a way that lets him make quick decisions.

“In the future — while aerodynamic performance will continue to be important — [planes require] speed, range and payload to a greater degree than maneuverability,” Deptula said. “Even more important will be the ability to ubiquitously share knowledge to the point that we have faster decision advantage than any adversary.”

The Russians, however, are already at work on their sixth-generation jet fighters, which could solve the data problems and are scheduled to be ready for action by 2025.

More than 350,000 electric customers from Maine to Virginia were without power this morning, after a storm dumped a sloppy mix of rain and snow along the East Coast.

New Hampshire residents experienced the heaviest level of outages, with more than 180,000 electric customers there reported without power this morning. More than 78,000 customers in Maine lost power, along with 55,000 customers in New York.

The tarmac of LaGuardia airport is pictured through a window on the day before Thanksgiving, in New York November …

The storm system grounded hundreds of flights and turned highways hazardous along the congested Washington-to-Boston corridor Wednesday, fouling up transportation on one of the busiest travel days of the year. Further travel issues are expected today.

The snow piled up from North Carolina to Maine, bringing down branches and power lines. Marin Murray, a spokesman with Public Service Company of New Hampshire, said the snow’s consistency – wet and heavy – along with little wind has contributed to the power outages.

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REFILE - CORRECTING BYLINE Cars make their way on a highway in New Jersey November 26, 2014. A storm expected …

“We do anticipate, unfortunately, that some of our customers will not have power likely for a couple of days,” Murray told ABC News. “It’s going to take that long to restore power to all of customers, unfortunately.”

Sara Willingham of Concord, New Hampshire, lost power at her home.

“I think all my food now is going to need to be thrown out,” she said.

Amid the heavy snowfall, some hospitals were forced to rely on backup generators.

Residents in the Midwest also experienced wintry weather Wednesday. The whipping winds in Des Moines, Iowa, sent snow sideways, and cars off the road.

Some travelers tried to change their plans and catch earlier flights to beat the storm Wednesday, and major airlines waived their rebooking fees. But most planes were already filled.

Numerous traffic accidents were reported across the Northeast Wednesday, where by midafternoon the line between rain and snow ran roughly along Interstate 95, the chief route between Washington and Boston.

Schools and businesses also closed in some areas, and state government offices let workers go home early.

Pat Green and her husband drove from Saugerties, New York, Wednesday to the Albany airport for the first leg of their trip to San Francisco. She said the drive on the New York State Thruway was "a little hairy," but they made it.

"It was snowing so hard you couldn't see the car ahead of you," she said. "We slowed down so we were fine. We also give ourselves a lot of extra time."

An estimated 41.3 million travelers are expected to hit the nation's highways between Wednesday and Sunday, a 4.3 percent increase over last year, according to AAA.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

MANDERA, Kenya (Reuters) - Scores of teachers and civil servants were stranded at a remote Kenyan airstrip on Thursday, demanding evacuation and protection five days after Islamist gunmen killed 28 non-Muslim bus passengers in the surrounding border region near Somalia.

Somalia's al Shabaab militants claimed responsibility for Saturday's attack in the Mandera area, where gunmen commandeered the Nairobi-bound bus, then killed anyone who could not recite verses from the Koran.

Many people fled, and unions representing teachers and health workers in the area advised members to leave for their own safety.

More than 100 children and pregnant women were evacuated on Tuesday. But more than 100 people were still waiting at the airstrip, including state school teachers and others who had moved to the area to work in government posts.

"I have decided never to return to Mandera," said 27-year-old teacher Cates Mugo, adding that she might leave by road as the chance of being flown out now seemed remote.

Around her, families laid out cloths on the red earth, saying they were afraid of being targeted in another attack.

Many Kenyans blame the government for not doing enough to protect its citizens from al Shabaab, which has carried out a string of assaults in the country.

"The feeling of the general public is that it may not have received the level of attention that it ought to have received considering 28 Kenyans have been butchered," Mandera County Governor Ali Roba told Reuters.

He said security had been boosted and military helicopters were patrolling the area, which had been hit by seven attacks using improvised bombs in the past two months, including one targeting his own convoy.

Al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab says it wants to punish Nairobi for contributing troops to an African Union peacekeeping force in war-torn Somalia.

The exodus of teachers and other civil servants would increase the isolation of Mandera, one of Kenya's poorest areas, Roba said.

"Mandera generally has not been able to attract enough personnel, and we have really serious concerns that this will really hamper service delivery," he added.

Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta said on Wednesday the security forces would do more but added "there will never be one policeman for every citizen," so Kenyans had to help too.

Critics on social media said the comments were "callous" and showed the government's inability to secure the nation.

(Writing by Edith Honan in Nairobi; Editing by Edmund Blair and Andrew Heavens)

Despite the uproar over Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's cabinet passing the new "Jewish nation-state" bill, its discriminatory contents are part and parcel of Israel's long history of marginalising and discriminating against the country's Palestinian minority.

The bill, which still needs to be passed by Israel's parliament, the Knesset, defines Israel as the "nation-state for the Jewish people" and enshrines the Zionist principles that the state was founded on at the expense of all Palestinians more than six decades ago.

Its defenders point out that it protects "the personal rights of all [the state's] citizens", ignoring that it only guarantees "communal rights" to Jews, who, regardless of their ancestral origins, have always been permitted to immigrate to Israel and gain citizenship.

Within Netayahu's cabinet, the bill was passed by a 14-6 vote and reportedly sparked a passionate debate. As usual, that debate didn't focus on the rights of Palestinian citizens of Israel, who make up 20 percent of the total population, but centred on the state's Declaration of Independence and founding ideology of Zionism.

For the 1.7 million Palestinians who were forced to take Israeli citizenship and continue living in what became Israel after the Nakba, this bill is nothing more than Israel finally taking off its mask in front of the world.

The debate it has thus far sparked is also nothing new: Despite our nominal citizenship, we have always been rendered second-class citizens with limited rights, for no reason other than not being born Jewish.

Discrimination from day one

Whether Netanyahu's latest bill passes is irrelevant to Palestinians everywhere - in present-day Israel, the occupied Palestinian territories and the diaspora, where millions of refugees are waiting to return to the lands they were violently expelled from in 1948.

For those of us living in present-day Israel, the law is merely symbolic, as there are already dozens of laws that "discriminate against Palestinian citizens of Israel in all areas of life, including their rights to political participation, access to land, education, state budget resources, and criminal procedures," as Adalah Legal Centre has revealed.

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Was it not already clear that Palestinians in Israel are living under the same occupation as Palestinians in the West Bank, including Jerusalem, and the imprisoned Gaza Strip? Treating us as a "demographic threat", Israel champions our citizenship in front of the world as alleged proof of its democratic nature, while simultaneously attempting to limit our presence and influence in society.

Following the state's declaration of independence, the first Prime Minister David Ben Gurion, dismayed at the number of Palestinians who stayed in their ancestral lands, lamented that Israel wouldn't be able to "clear the entire central Galilee region" of the then 100,000 remaining indigenous residents without a war.

But Israeli leaders have actually attempted to do so, even in peacetime. In recent years, a plan to demolish the Galilee village of Ramiyya and expel its people is one example of attempts to make Ben Gurion's dream come true. As Professor Hilel Cohen of the Hebrew University said, "The project of 'Judaizing the Galilee' commenced when the state [of Israel] was founded and has continued in various guises to the present day."

In the Negev region, Palestinian Bedouins with Israeli citizenship have been exposed to home demolitions and denied basic services, such as water, electricity and education. Living in more than 40 "unrecognised" villages across that region, an estimated 53,000 men, women and children face impending eviction.

Al-Araqib, for instance, has been razed by Israeli bulldozers 78 times since July 2010. Its residents, however, refuse to leave, returning and rebuilding it each time. Was it not already clear to them that Israel's leaders viewed us as second-class citizens from day one? And can a Jewish "nation-state" bill, largely devoid of practical content, possibly make their daily lives any more difficult?

The opposition to the law by Israel's so-called "centrists" and "liberals", such as finance minister Yair Lapid and justice minister Tzipi Livni, exposes the whole affair as yet another case of Israel's political establishment debating over and controlling our future without our input.

A failed project

Nonetheless, Palestinian political parties in Israel continue to sit as lawmakers in the Knesset. Ostensibly convinced that they could impact the laws being pumped out of the parliament, they continue to vie for our votes and encourage us to support them each time campaign season comes around.

But this has proven to be a failed project. Despite giving the opportunity to speak in the Knesset, they have not made our daily reality any better. The onslaught of racist laws hasn't slowed down, the incitement from Israeli politicians has also grown and our ability to organise as a unified political force has been impeded by internal divisions and competition between the Arab political parties.

Palestinian lawmaker Hanin Zoabi was recently expelled from the Knesset for six months after remarking that Palestinians who kidnapped and killed three Israeli settlers this past summer were not "terrorists".

Now, Netanyahu and his rabid rightwing cohorts are pushing a new bill to expel Knesset members "who in a time of war or military action against an enemy state or terror organization offers public support for military struggle". It was aptly named the "Hanin Zoabi bill" by its sponsors.

Israel's claim to not be an apartheid state has always relied on the fact that Palestinian citizens of Israel can vote and participate in the Knesset. Do we need any more proof that this was a facade from the outset?

With a law that outright declares that this state exists solely for the Jewish people, it's high time that Palestinians in Israel drop the idea that participating in this theatre of absurdity that is the Israeli political process will improve our lives and further our cause.

It is time to take steps to dissolve our political divisions and build ties with our compatriots in the occupied Palestinian territories and the diaspora in order to build a joint struggle capable of posing a serious challenge to world's last settler colonial occupation.

Waad Ghantous is a Haifa-based Palestinian activist and a member of the Al-Awda organisation.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.

Edward Snowden Releases Smoking Gun Evidence on 9/11 – Case Closed!

NEO – America’s Nuclear Command Meltdown

America’s Nuclear Command Melt Down

… by Gordon Duff, VT Sr. Editor … with New Eastern Outlook, Moscow

[ Editor’s Note: You just can’t make this stuff up folks. Right wing email lists are being worked to spin the continued cleanup of the nuclear command, for the most obvious security reasons, as some sort of anti-military Obama’s revenge on the Air Force.

Left out of this charge is even a peep about where do the Joint Chiefs fit into the scenario. After all, they are running the investigation and making recommendations for these actions, with all of it going past General Dempsey’s desk before it gets to Obama’s.

Even savvy Internet readers get sucked into the hype. All those who are “very unhappy” with Obama are easily profiled by Google so the email list pros know exactly who to shovel the propaganda manure out to. They know that as long as it hurts Obama, the readers don’t really care too much if it is true or not.

Most are very patriotic Americans, big on national defense, and don’t have a clue that they are being played for suckers by the same crowd that brought us 9-11 with the WTC’s being brought down with mini-nukes.

This was confirmed by the IAEA with a simple mass spectroscopy dust sample analysis, something they have been doing at big boom sites to try to learn who was field-testing mini-nukes. Read more below.

VT ran a whole series of articles about a lot of this during the late summer. We did not get one call from mass media, nor one politician wanting to know more about this historic event. The story got the ostrich treatment from those who should have been happy that someone else had done the heavy lifting. One can understand their being scared, but being cowards, now that is one step too far… Jim W. Dean ]

- First published … November 22, 2014 -

While the US is negotiating with Iran over its nuclear program and American lawmakers like Senator John McCain calling for preemptive strikes on America’s ally, Pakistan, America’s own nuclear weapons program is suffering from not only failures in command, but inventory shortfalls as well.

This week, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel is expected to announce the entire restructuring of America’s nuclear weapons force based on findings of two studies, one from within the military.

The other, highly secret, has examined over two decades of espionage, weapons theft and the takeover of key nuclear command positions by both religious extremists and individuals with personal lives so out of control that they are considered at risk for blackmail.

______________________________

Tracking missing nukes

Michael Shrimpton

In Britain, something even stranger is going on related to nuclear weapons. Barrister and author, Michael Shrimpton is on trial in London for making “hoax nuclear weapons threats” against the London Olympics, or so it is being reported by the press. The truth is, as usual, somewhat different.

Shrimpton, working with reporters from the UK Guardian, a former head of MI 5 and an engineer involved in the mysterious South African nuclear program, had been tracking a series of missing nuclear weapons, built in South Africa, but purchased by Britain through authorization of then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

The transaction was negotiated by Dr. David Kelly and his young assistant, David Cameron, now prime minister of Britain. As some will note, Kelly is said to have killed himself in 2003 using over the counter pain relievers.

A number of prominent forensic pathologists have declared Kelly’s death murder. Kelly was a strong critic of then British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

In 2005, in a Guardian article by Tim Shipman, it was cited that — of the ten nuclear weapons built by South Africa — 1 was tested, 6 were dismantled by America and 3 were bought by Britain and were missing, with one of the missing having made its way to North Korea.

Shrimpton’s trial is about a missing nuclear weapon and his prosecution part of a government cover-up. Shrimpton’s claims about a German secret society and weapons recovered from the Kursk may seem farfetched, but an IAEA official cites a US NEST (Nuclear Emergency Security Team) team being dispatched to the UK to recover a nuclear weapon during the Olympics.

________________________________

Destroyed Records and Missing Weapons Inventory

Secretary of Defense Hagel, however, has much more serious problems. The most serious and the one spoken of least is that of missing weapons inventory.

Sources at the highest levels of the IAEA and Department of Energy have confirmed that all records of nuclear warheads “retired from service” under the START (Strategic Arms Limitation Treaties) beginning in 1992 are “missing.”

In a leaked portion of the Able Danger documents, it is revealed that the Department of Energy may well have both destroyed records, leading to the theft of 350 nuclear warheads, and supplied thieves with highly classified information as to the technical “specifics” of decaying nuclear pits — information that would allow otherwise useless nuclear weapons to be remanufactured.

When the US government under Clinton shut down the investigation in 1998, and issued gag orders on all those involved, Former President George H.W. Bush set up a private team headed by his close friend, Roland Carnaby, his protégé while CIA Director.

Carnaby and team members were able to trace an operation headed by Victor Bout, the “Lord of War,” a CIA-affiliated arms trader, removing nuclear “pits” from the Pantex storage facility in Texas.

Documents outline the specifics — the use of refrigerated trucks, pit storage at a packing plant, the pits being “sorted” by physicists working inside a fertilizer plant outside the town of Waco, Texas, and the weapons being shipped via the Canary Islands, Africa and on to Israel.

The Able Danger investigation traced weapons brought into New York before 9/11, and maintained surveillance on combined teams that included American, Israeli and Saudi personnel, some of whom were arrested on 9/11. Arrests were quickly covered up. Some involved, including the Israeli team that placed jammers that disabled emergency responder radios, were held for some weeks before being repatriated.

Other teams tasked with destroying the George Washington Bridge and the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels were arrested but flown out of the country at the orders of President George W. Bush. Sources say Bush was being blackmailed. The same source, highly placed, claims Cameron’s failure to act on the Olympic nuclear threat was blackmail-related also, explaining why the British government would risk so much in prosecuting Shrimpton.

Note that Shrimpton was arrested after reporting being told of a terror threat. His report was made to MI6 on a telephone line intended to be used by the public to report terror threats.

In 2008, Roland Carnaby was murdered. In 2013, the fertilizer plant was destroyed in one of the largest explosions since Hiroshima. Arms trader Victor Bout was extradited to the United States and hasn’t been seen since. Dimitri Khalezov had originally broken the story of nuclear proliferation and terrorism. Khalezov is currently imprisoned in Thailand at the request of the US government.

Full article here: This is a MUST READ article so make sure you read the rest and listen to Gordon Duff interview above!