Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog

Category: government – Page 126

The C20 will replace the C8 as the personal defence weapon for Canadian Forces sniper teams, confirmed Department of National Defence spokeswoman Andrée-Anne Poulin.

The government will also launch a competition sometime this month to buy 229 bolt action sniper rifles. That rifle, designated as the C21, will be used for long-range shooting and will come in two different calibres.

The Canadian Forces says the new C20, which will be in 7.62 calibre, will be more accurate and an improvement over the current C8 used by sniper teams.

Read more | >

Debate was halted amid an attempt by Sen. Bill Eigel, R-Weldon Spring, to add an amendment to reduce personal property tax rates on cars older than five years.

Sen. Mike Cunningham, R-Rogersville, acknowledged lawmakers were operating in “crazy times.”

A coalition of diverse government watchdog groups also panned the creation of the so-called “Christmas tree” bills in an attempt to move legislation to Gov. Mike Parson’s desk before the scheduled May 15 adjournment.

Read more | >

‘s COVID-19 reporting is supported by the Pulitzer Center.

A group of prominent academic scientists that has been advising the U.S. government on security matters since the Cold War is conducting a quick-turnaround, pro bono study of a new threat to national security—the impact of COVID-19 on academic research. And this time it’s personal.

Last month, some 30 members of Jason began to tackle the thorny question of how to reopen university laboratories safely in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. Nobody is paying for the study, a rare departure for the group, whose work is usually financed by government agencies and often involves classified information. But the study’s leader, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) physicist Peter Fisher, says several federal agencies have expressed interest in the group’s analysis of the technical challenges facing every university that wants to resume research operations without jeopardizing the health of the faculty, students, and staff who work in those labs.

Read more | >

Circa 2020 o.o

China’s military is soliciting would-be suppliers for a new airborne laser weapon. Notices on a government website invited defense contractors to provide information on an airborne laser attack pod. Depending on the level of power, the pod could be used to defend a friendly aircraft from incoming missile threats or destroy enemy aircraft and ground targets. Laser weapons are the next revolution in aerial warfare and could make dogfighting obsolete.

According to the South China Morning Post, weain.mil.cn, the official weapons and equipment procurement website of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) published two solicitations to contractors, one titled, “procurement plan for airborne laser attack pod” and the other “price inquiry on procurement plan for controlling software module of laser attack platform.” The solicitations, marked confidential, invited China’s defense firms to bid to develop the items. The Pentagon uses a similar system to procure weapons, equipment, and other technology.

Read more | >

Amazon is among the players in a bankruptcy bidding game with the assets of the OneWeb satellite venture at stake, according to Space Intel Report.

Quoting unnamed industry officials, Space Intel Report’s Peter B. de Selding says other potential bidders include two Chinese organizations that are apparently acting on behalf of the Chinese government; the Paris-based satellite operator Eutelsat, which apparently has the backing of the French government and several other European Union member states; and Cerberus Capital Management, a New York-based private equity firm with interesting connections.

Space Intel Report also quotes the officials as saying that SpaceX was among those expressing interest, but SpaceX CEO Elon Musk denied that was the case. “Not SpaceX,” Musk wrote in a tweet.

Read more | >

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — A former Green Beret has taken responsibility for what he claimed was a failed attack Sunday aimed at overthrowing Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and that the socialist government said ended with eight dead.

Jordan Goudreau’s comments in an interview with an exiled Venezuelan journalist capped a bizarre day that started with reports of a predawn amphibious raid near the South American country’s heavily guarded capital.

An AP investigation published Friday found that Goudreau had been working with a retired Venezuelan army general now facing U.S. narcotics charges to train dozens of deserters from Venezuela’s security forces at secret camps inside neighboring Colombia. The goal was to mount a cross-border raid that would end in Maduro’s arrest.

Read more | >

We are being told that mistakes can not happen in labs. I for one do not believe such, so let me take you on a trip down memory lane to 2014, around the same year funding of gain of function was stopped.

Lab workers at different sites accidentally jabbed themselves with needles contaminated by anthrax or West Nile virus. An air-cleaning system meant to filter dangerous microbes out of a lab failed, but no one knew because the alarms had been turned off. A batch of West Nile virus, improperly packed in dry ice, burst open at a Federal Express shipping center. Mice infected with bubonic plague or Q fever went missing. And workers exposed to Q fever, brucellosis or tuberculosis did not realize it until they either became ill or blood tests detected the exposure.

The recent number of mistakes documented at federal laboratories involving anthrax, flu and smallpox viruses have contributed to a debate over lax government oversight at high-level containment labs.

Read more | >