WASHINGTON, Dec. 5, 2011 For the 56th year running, the North American Aerospace Defense Command will add the job of tracking the global flight of Santa on Christmas Eve to its mission of North American aerospace warning and control.
The North American Aerospace Defense Command based at Peterson Air Force Base, Colo., will again track Santa Claus on his annual Christmas Eve flight to deliver presents to children around the globe..
"NORAD stands the watch protecting the skies of North America 365 days a year, but on Christmas Eve the children of the world look to NORAD and our trusted partners to make sure that Santa is able to complete his mission safely," said Army Gen. Charles H. Jacoby Jr. Jacoby commands NORAD, as well as U.S. Northern Command, both based at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado.
The NORAD Tracks Santa mission is a duty to the children of the world, he added, and a privilege we've enjoyed for 56 consecutive years.
From a NORAD video of the 2010 Santa flight, a military specialist looks up from a bank of computer screens:
Sir, he says, turning to look at the camera, weve picked up Big Red on the radar. Hes entering from the northeast.
Recommend fighter escort as he transitions over North America, the specialist adds, as the video shows an F-16 moving down the runway.
This year, the NORAD Tracks Santa website went live Dec. 1 and features a Countdown Calendar, a Kids Countdown Village with holiday games and activities that change daily, and video messages from students and troops from around the world.
The website is available in English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Japanese, Brazilian Portuguese and Chinese.
For the first time, using free apps in the Apple iTunes Store and in the Android market, parents and children can use their smart phones to count down the days until Santa and his reindeer take off from the North Pole to deliver presents to kids everywhere.
Facebook, Google+, YouTube and Twitter also offer tracking opportunities. Santa followers can type @noradsanta into each search engine to get started.
And thats not the only technology that goes into the Santa tracking mission. To track the big man in red, NORAD uses radar, satellites, Santa cams and fighter jets.
A NORAD radar system called the North Warning System consists of 47 installations strung across the northern border of North America. On Dec. 24, NORAD monitors the radar systems continuously for indications that Santa Claus has left the North Pole.
The moment radar indicates a lift-off, satellites positioned in geo-synchronous orbit at 22,300 miles from the Earths surface are equipped with infrared sensors, which enable them to detect heat. Rudolphs bright red nose gives off an infrared signature that allows the satellites to detect Santas sleigh.
NORAD starting using the Santa cam network in 1998. Santa cams, according to NORAD, are ultra-cool, high-tech, high-speed digital cameras prepositioned at many locations around the world. They use the cameras once a year to capture images and videos of Santa and his reindeer.
In the air, Canadian NORAD pilots flying the CF-18 fighter will intercept and welcome Santa to North America.
In the United States, American NORAD fighter pilots in F-15s, F-16s or F-22 Raptors will fly alongside Santas airborne sleigh pulled by his famous reindeer: Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen and Rudolph.
Once data is collected on Dec. 24, it is pushed into Google Maps and Google Earth so families all over the world can follow Santa.
Thanks to these systems and technologies, starting at midnight Mountain Standard Time on Dec. 24, visitors to the NORAD Santa website can watch Santas progress around the globe.
It all started in 1955 when a Sears media advertisement directed kids to call Santa Claus but printed a telephone number that rang through to the crew commander on duty at the Continental Air Defense Command Operations Center.
The colonel on duty told his staff to give all children who called in a "current location" for Santa Claus. The tradition continued when NORAD replaced CONAD in 1958.
The [NORAD Tracks Santa] effort, Jacoby said, could not be carried out without the superb assistance of numerous government and nongovernment contributors.
Sponsors of this years program include Acuity Scheduling, Big Fish Worldwide, Carousel Industries, the Colorado Springs Chamber of Commerce Military Affairs Council, General Electric, the National Tree Lighting Ceremony, RadiantBlue Technologies Inc., thunderbaby studios, the U.S. Coast Guard Band, the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy Band, Visionbox, and the West Point Band.
Returning sponsors include the Air Force Academy Band, Analytical Graphics Inc., Air Canada, Avaya, Booz Allen Hamilton, Colorado Springs School District 11, the Defense Video & Imagery Distribution System, the Federal Aviation Administration, First Choice Awards & Gifts, Globelink Foreign Language Center, Google, the Marine Toys for Tots Foundation, Meshbox, the Naden Band of the Maritime Forces Pacific, Naturally Santas Inc., the Newseum, OnStar, PCI Broadband, the Space Foundation, tw telecom, Verizon and UGroup Media.
It is the generosity of these contributors, the hard work of the more than 1,200 volunteers who man the NORAD Tracks Santa Operations Center, and vigilance of the Canadian and U.S. forces who work at NORAD that guarantees the program's success each and every year, Jacoby said.
[Dawn] After a break of five days or so, dengue fever claimed lives of another three patients at city hospitals on Saturday.
Three dengue-related deaths in relatively cold weather have baffled health and district government experts who had strong belief that dengue spreading mosquito remains inactive in this weather.
However, a hangover is the wrath of grapes... even advent of December brought no relief to two young and a middle-aged man, who ultimately fell victim to the virus. Saturday's three deaths took the toll to 355.
Nineteen-year-old Niaz of Samanabad succumbed to virus at a private health facility near Shadman Market, Iqra (18) of Sanda at Mayo Hospital and Amjad Ali (40) of Cantonment at Services Hospital.
Also, 15 more patients were tested dengue positive at public and private hospitals of the city on Saturday.
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12/05/2011 00:00 ||
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[Daily Nation (Kenya)] Guinea Bissau's presidency on Saturday denied rumours that its critically ill leader Malam Bacai Sanha, 64, had died in a Gay Paree hospital where he is being treated.
"The presidency denies persistent, contradictory and unfounded rumours circulating in the country and abroad that the president is dead," a statement said.
It called on the population of the troubled country to remain calm and pledged to continue to give information on Sanha's health.
"President Malam Bacai Sanha's health is improving after he was placed in an artificial coma to allow in-depth treatment," the presidency added.
Sanha's wife Mariam told AFP from Gay Paree where her husband is at the Val de Grace military hospital: "My husband is not dead but he is in a critical state."
The president, who was elected in 2009 after his predecessor was assassinated, was admitted to a hospital in neighbouring Senegal ... a nation of about 14 million on the west coast of Africa bordering Mauretania to the north, Mali to the east, and a pair of Guineas to the south, one of them Bissau. It is 90 percent Mohammedan and has more than 80 political parties. Its primary purpose seems to be absorbing refugees... just over a week ago before being transferred to Val de Grace which frequently takes in ailing leaders of French allies.
Sanha has spent much of his term in office in and out of the troubled country for health reasons.
While he is knows to suffer from diabetes the nature of his illness has never been divulged.
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Guinea-Bissau's chaos is evident in the rotting infrastructure all over the capital city. Middle Daughter visited in 2007, and when she asked about the disintegration of the presidential mansion she was told that the damages were from a bomb ten years earlier.
About Fred's line about Senegal's " primary purpose seems to be absorbing refugees..." Also true. Many of the refugees are escaped Black African slaves from Mauretania. Mauretania finally got around to making slavery officially illegal in 1989, but hasn't enforced its laws.
Recently, the population of Senegal was outraged by the persistent mistreatment of young boys called Talibe. The Talibe are sent to live with an imam to learn the Koran. In practice, that means that the imam sends the kids out to beg for food all day and then drills recitations of Koranic verses at night. The kids get no real education and learn no job skills; and they often get beaten for not bringing back enough. In 2010, the Senegalese press printed some exposes on the subject. In response to the resulting public investigations, the imams moved their operations into Mauretania.
Clashes have erupted between Bangladesh police forces and activists participating in an anti-government general strike in the capital Dhaka, leaving several injured.
On Sunday, coppers used batons and tear gas to disperse opposition activists protesting against a government decision to divide Dhaka into two administrative zones, the News Agency that Dare Not be Named reported.
The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) says that at least eight people were maimed, while more than 80 activists were tossed in the calaboose.
Schools and businesses remained closed during the daylong strike.
BNP leader and former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia Three-term PM of Bangla, widow of deceased dictator Ziaur Rahman, head of the Bangla Nationalist Party, an apparent magnet for corruption ... is leading the protest against the government.
Meanwhile, ...back at the precinct house, Sergeant Maloney wasn't buying it. It was just too pat. It smelled phony... Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina says the divide is necessary in order to provide Dhaka's 10 million residents with adequate services.
The BNP says the split is aimed at removing the opposition-backed mayor.
Sheikh Hasina is the present leader of the ruling Awami League Party and the current prime minister of Bangladesh.
Bangladesh has a history of military takeovers and political unrest since it secured independence from Pakistain in 1971.
Greenpeace activists managed to sneak into a French nuclear power plant on Monday, the environmental group announced, an "intrusion" which police confirmed.
In a statement Greenpeace said some members had entered the nuclear site at Nogent-sur-Seine, 95 kilometres (60 miles) south-east of Paris, to "spread the message that there is no such thing as secure nuclear power".
Eight activists entered the power station site according to a source with the French gendarmerie, the armed police force, who added that some of the intruders had already been apprehended.
"A group of militants managed to climb onto the dome of one of the reactors, where they unfurled a banner saying 'Safe Nuclear Power Doesn't Exist'," said Greenpeace spokesman Axel Renaudin.
"The aim is to show the vulnerability of French nuclear installations, and how easy it is to get to the heart of a reactor," said Sophia Majnoni, a Greenpeace nuclear expert.
#4
"Sophia Majnoni, a Greenpeace nuclear expert."
The real heart of the reactor is outside on the dome,said Sophia.
(Also minored in Breaking and Entering 101.)
(Xinhua) -- The ruling United Russia party led by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin led in Sunday's State Duma elections, the Central Election Commission (CEC) said Monday.
Putin's party after massive cheating won 49.99 percent of the vote after ballot counting was finished in more than 70 percent of the voting districts, said the commission.
The United Russia party was followed by the Communist Party which gained 19.35 percent.
The Liberal Democratic Party of Russia won 11.8 percent, compared with 13 percent for A Just Russia.
The three other small factions, including the Yabloko, the Patriots of Russia and the Right Cause, each gained less than 3 percent of the vote.
According to the electoral law, parties must pass a 7-percent threshold for representation in the State Duma.
HEBRON (Ma'an) -- A mass brawl involving Molotov cocktails injured 6 people on Sunday in the Hebron town of Dura, police said.
Police were called to the scene of the fight and placed in long-term storage 20 people involved in the violence. Paleostinian security forces also deployed in the area.
Molotov cocktails, sticks and stones were some of the weapons used in the fight, a police report said. Several cars and houses were damaged in the incident and the six people injured were taken to hospital for treatment.
Chief of Hebron police Ramadan Awad said that all those involved in the fight will be prosecuted.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
After a break of five days or so, dengue fever claimed lives of another three patients at city hospitals on Saturday.
Khaleda Zia
