IDF begins complex task of recovering the dead
By YAAKOV KATZ
07/28/2010 00:46
Rescue and forensic teams heading out to Carpathian Mountains helicopter crash site; Black box found, may provide vital information on cause of Monday's tragedy.
BOBOC, Romania - IDF rescue and forensic teams arrived in Romania on Tuesday and were gearing up to head out to the Carpathian Mountains to recover the remains of six Israel Air Force servicemen who were pronounced dead after their Sikorsky CH-53 Sea Stallion transport helicopter crashed there a day earlier.
Even though the IDF had yet to reach the crash site, Romanian authorities declared that the airmen, and a Romanian military officer, had been killed. Late on Tuesday evening, Romanian rescue authorities found the black box flight recorder at the site, which may provide vital information on the cause of the crash.
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The IAF dead were identified as Lt.-Col (res.) Avner Goldman, 48, from Modi'in; Lt.-Col. Daniel Shipenbauer, 43, from Moshav Kidron; Maj. Yahel Keshet, 33, from Hatzerim; Maj. Lior Shai, 28, from Tel Nof; Lt. Nir Lakrif, 25, from Tel Nof; and St.-Sgt. Oren Cohen, 24, from Rehovot.
The Romanian victim was named as Capt. Stefan Claudius Dragnea.
Romanian Defense Minister Gabriel Oprea sent condolences to families of those that died and Defense Minister Ehud Barak expressed his "deep regret," according to a ministry statement.
The crash occurred during a military exercise in which crews are trained to fly at low altitudes. The joint exercises with Romania, which were due to end on Thursday, were suspended after the accident.
On Tuesday, The Jerusalem Post accompanied the IDF military attaché to Romania, Col. Shlomi Cohen, as he climbed up the steep Carpathian mountain range in central Romania to try to get to the site of the crash.
Due to the bad weather, poor visibility and tough terrain, it was impossible to get all the way to the wreckage.
On Wednesday morning, search-and-rescue teams from the IAF's elite 669 Unit and forensic experts will head out to locate the remains of the six IAF servicemen and the Romanian soldier killed in the disaster.
The teams arrived in two Hercules C-130 transport aircraft on Tuesday and will be working with officers from the IDF Chaplaincy Corps - responsible for identifying the bodies - as well as dogs from the army's Oketz canine unit to find the remains.
The rescue work is expected to take all of Wednesday and possibly longer, depending on the weather.
"The teams will try their best to get there first thing in the morning," IAF Deputy Commander Brig.-Gen. Nimrod Shefer said. "The remains of the helicopter are spread over a wide area, in a steep ravine, difficult to reach."
Shefer explained the IAF's decision to ground all of its aircraft on Tuesday. "It is important that we stop and think about the families and the missing servicemen," he said.
The IAF committee of inquiry into the crash will also visit the scene and will begin collecting evidence.
"All of the possibilities are currently being investigated," Shefer said.
The main directions of the inquiry are either a mechanical malfunction in the aircraft or human error, possibly caused by the thick fog during Monday's flight.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu addressed the helicopter disaster during a graduation ceremony at the National Security College on Tuesday.
Quoting from Samuel II, he eulogized: "They were swifter than eagles, they were stronger than lions, but today, choked by tears, we hear, how are the mighty fallen, and the weapons of war perished!" "The disaster is large," he said. "This is a difficult day for all of Israel... The Jewish people trembles for the best of its sons, who were on an important mission for IDF and the state."
Shefer said the IAF would continue training overseas despite the crash. The advantage of flying in Romania was the ability to train pilots in unfamiliar terrain and territory, he said. The IAF also looks for places like Romania where it can conduct long-range training flights.
In recent years, the IAF has sent aircraft to conduct exercises in Romania, Gibraltar (according to foreign sources), Greece, Italy and the United States.
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Defense attaché oversees rescue efforts
By YAAKOV KATZ JERUSALEM POST CORRESPONDENT
07/28/2010 01:18
Shlomi Cohen finds himself at chopper crash site again.
BRAN, Romania - Col. Shlomi Cohen knows a thing or two about helicopter crashes.
In 1997, as chief operations officer for the Golani Brigade, Cohen was one of the first officers to arrive at the wreckage of two Israel Air Force Sikorsky CH-53 Sea Stallion transport helicopters - called Yasours by the IAF - which had collided in midair over the northern community of Sha'ar Yashuv on their way to Lebanon.
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Seventy-three soldiers were killed in "The Helicopter Disaster," the worst aviation accident in Israeli history.
Cohen, who raced to the scene, immediately began pulling bodies out of the burning helicopters.
(On May 10, 1977, an Israel Air Force Sikorsky CH-53 Yasour helicopter crashed during an exercise in the Jordan Valley, killing all 54 on board, including the 10- member flight crew. The disaster became known as the "Disaster of the 54.") Now the military attaché in Romania, Cohen went on Tuesday to the scene of the wreckage of the Yasour helicopter that crashed a day earlier in the Carpathian Mountains near the town of Bran, in what is one of the the worst overseas aviation accidents in Israeli history. Six IAF servicemen were killed - four pilots and two in-flight mechanics.
Cohen has been in Romania for about two years. Four years ago, he was leading troops in the war against Hizbullah in southern Lebanon as commander of an elite reserve brigade.
On Tuesday, together with other reporters, I accompanied Cohen on a long hike up the mountain toward the crash site.
The area is uninhabited and completely inaccessible to vehicles, even to 4x4 jeeps, which is why, almost 24 hours after the crash, rescue forces still had difficulty reaching the site.
By noon, though, a group of Israeli pilots - from the other helicopters that were here for the Blue Sky 2010 exercise - had succeeded in locating a landing point about 2 km. from the crash site and continued from there on foot. Once they arrived, the pilots secured the perimeter and waited for the IAF 669 search-and-rescue teams to arrive and begin extricating the remains of the Israeli crew members.
At the top of the mountain, Cohen received regular updates from the team of pilots and the Romanian security personnel who had arrived to assist the Israeli efforts.
The Romanians were impressed by Cohen's presence on the mountain. That an Israeli colonel made a special trip to the site of the crash was something unusual for them.
Cohen was not in Romania when the helicopter crashed. He had come to Israel for meetings on Monday but after hearing about the disaster, he took the first flight back to lead the rescue efforts.
Before he left for Israel last week, Cohen met with the Israeli Yasour pilots. He said on Tuesday that they had been in high spirits and were pleased with the exercise.
"We are flying in places we have never flown before," he recalled them saying.
"This is new terrain and it contributes a lot to our operational capabilities."
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Photo by: Associated Press
'Gaza cannot remain a prison camp'
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
07/27/2010 13:07
In Turkey, UK's Cameron makes harsh comments against Israel.
ANKARA, Turkey - Israel's May 31 interception of a Gaza-bound aid flotilla was "completely unacceptable," British Prime Minister David Cameron said Tuesday during an address to Turkish businessmen.
In a reference to Israel's blockade of the Strip, he said: "Gaza cannot and must not be allowed to remain a prison camp."
He also commented that the world needs Turkey's help in pushing Iran to address international concerns about its suspected nuclear weapons program.
Cameron went on to declare that Britain was a staunch backer of Turkey's troubled bid to join the European Union. His visit early in his term was a measure of Britain's acknowledgment of Turkey as a critical ally in a conflict-prone region, much as US President Barack Obama traveled to Turkey, NATO's only Muslim member, in 2009 to boost a partnership despite differences on key issues.
Cameron's strong reference to the flotilla was likely to please his Turkish hosts, though he said an Israeli inquiry into the May 31 incident should be swift and transparent. That comment differed from Turkey's public stance that any inquiry should be international.
New EU and Canadian sanctions, targeting Iran's foreign trade, banking and energy sectors, were taken Monday in an attempt to thwart Iran's nuclear program. The EU's measures also blacklist Iran's shipping and air cargo companies.
"New sanctions the EU announced yesterday are designed to persuade Iran to give the international community confidence that its nuclear program really is peaceful as Iran claimed," Cameron said.
Talkback
The "Gaza Prison" holds only one prisoner:
Author: Edna
Country: Israel
07/27/2010 19:49
His name is Gilad Shalit. All else can leave the "prison" at will through Egypt, a fellow Arab country. It is time Cameron demanded that the UN, the Arab League and the International Red Cross ensured Shalit release instead of allowing this young man abducted by the Islamist rulers of Gaza from Israel's soil, to die at the "Gaza Prison". This what I would expect of the leader of one of the leading liberal democracies in the world instead of siding with Islamism in the form of Hamas or Erdogan's Turkey.
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British Prison Camps in Cyprus
Author: Edna
Country: Israel
07/27/2010 19:49
British Prison Camps in Cyprus was where the British put Holocaust Survivors and other Jews trying to get our of hate-filled Europe, instead of letting them emigrate to Israel (then called British Mandate Palestine), seems the Brits are still groveling to please the Arabs at the expense of Justice. Any objective view of the luxury goods and regular goods entering Gaza, in addition to their Malls, Olympic size swimming pools, fine restaurants and hotels , doesn't seem to fit the definition of a prison camp by anyone's definition.
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Britain can solve the Gaza dilemma
Author: Poor Richard
Country: USA
07/27/2010 18:22
Britain can relocate all the Gazans to the Falkland Islands where they can create a great stop for cruise ships:, Arabic Ffood, bely dancing, etc. They will be fine even when they have eaten all the sheep and penguins. Then the UN can keep them supplied forever. They can direct their hostilities toward Argentina and develop rockets to attack Buenos Aires with the help of Iran and Syria and North Korea.
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PM pays surprise visit to Jordan
By HERB KEINON
07/27/2010 17:10
Netanyahu, King Abdullah discuss direct talks in Amman.
Two days before a crucial meeting of Arab League foreign ministers in Cairo to decide whether to support direct Israeli- Palestinian talks, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu held an unannounced meeting in Amman Tuesday with King Abdullah II in an apparent attempt to get him to support such talks.
This was only Netanyahu's second meeting with Abdullah since becoming prime minister in March 2009. The previous one was in May 2009.
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Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas also met with Abdullah in Amman on Monday.
A statement put out by the Prime Minister's Office described the two-hour Netanyahu-Abdullah meeting as having been "indepth," and said that the two men discussed ways to conduct "direct, effective and serious" negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians "on all issues, in order to reach a "stable, secure and sustainable" agreement based on "two states for two peoples."
A similar statement was released by the Jordanians.
Netanyahu, according to the statement, said after the meeting that Abdullah's leadership was important to further peace and stability in the region.
Netanyahu also said he intended to strengthen the ties between the two countries.
Since Netanyahu's election, the public tone of Jordanian- Israeli relations has deteriorated, even as - according to Israeli diplomatic officials - security and intelligence cooperation has remained strong.
Tuesday's meeting comes three months after Abdullah, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, said that "for the first time since my father made peace with Israel, our relationship with Israel is at an all bottom low. It hasn't been as bad as it is today and as tense as it is today."
According to Israeli officials, Tuesday's talks focused on three areas: the diplomatic process with the Palestinians, the Iranian threat, and bilateral economic issues.
Netanyahu reiterated to Abdullah, according to Israeli sources, his oft-articulated position that in any future arrangement, an Israeli presence would remain on the Jordanian border.
Netanyahu encouraged Abdullah to cooperate in bilateral economic projects, including train links between the countries. It was agreed that one of Netanyahu's top economic advisers will go to Jordan and discuss the issue.
This meeting, like the first in May, was a surprise not revealed until it was over, but whereas the first meeting was held in a secret intelligence facility, Tuesday's parley was held in the king's palace, with photographers allowed to memorialize the event.
Netanyahu was accompanied by National Security Council head Uzi Arad and military attaché Brig.-Gen. Yohanan Locker, while Jordanian Prime Minister Samir Rifai, Royal Court Chief Nasser Lozi, the king's adviser Ayman Safadi, Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh, and Director of Intelligence Lt.-Gen.
Mohammad Raqqad joined Abdullah on the Jordanian side.
Meanwhile, National Union MK Arye Eldad, who favors Jordan becoming a Palestinian state, slammed Netanyahu for seeking Jordanian assistance in creating a Palestinian state west of the Jordan River.
"Netanyahu is willing to give up land just to get direct talks," Eldad said. "His views have changed completely. Two years ago no one would have believed that he would go to Jordan to ask King Abdullah to help him form a Palestinian state not in Jordan, but in the Land of Israel."
Abbas discussed the diplomatic situation with the king on Monday. Israeli officials said that even though Netanyahu and Abbas were both in the Jordanian capital on Tuesday, their paths did not cross.
Abbas's meeting with Abdullah came on the same day that The Associated Press leaked a 36-page internal Palestinian memo that said US President Barack Obama, through envoy George Mitchell, had warned that Abbas should move quickly to direct talks to ensure continue American engagement and backing.
According to the document, Abbas was told that in the event of direct talks, the US administration could push forcefully for the establishment of a viable Palestinian state. If Abbas refused to negotiate, Obama might not be able to be of much help in getting the settlement moratorium extended or preventing the demolition of Arab homes in east Jerusalem, the document said.
Mitchell told Abbas he should seize the fleeting opportunity and not waste time, the memo said. He cautioned Abbas not to count on Netanyahu being replaced by another Israeli leader anytime soon.
Reacting to reports of the memo, a State Department official in Washington said, "Our focus remains on building on the progress that has been made and on getting the parties to direct talks as swiftly as possible."
The Palestinian document, which carried the letterhead of the Palestinian Negotiations Department, summarized diplomatic contacts with the Obama administration since February, and concluded with a recommendation to Abbas not to negotiate directly with Israel.
"There should be steadfastness in the Palestinian position regarding direct talks," the document said.
"Going to direct talks while the Israeli government refuses to stop settlement activities and refuses to continue talks where they left off in December 2008 would be like political suicide."
According to media reports, Abbas is interested in continuing to let the proximity talks run their course, forcing Netanyahu to have to choose at the end of September whether to end the settlement construction freeze, and be roundly criticized by the international community, or to extend the freeze and likely ignite a coalition crisis.
It is not clear, however, whether the US is eager to play a hand in this.
Mitchell, who was scheduled to arrive this week, is now not expected to come to the region in the coming days, with one official saying it had to do with a combination of "logistics and not having anything to talk about."
Gil Hoffman, Hilary Leila Krieger and AP contributed to this report.
Talkback
oh oh!
Author: martin
Country: uk
why do the israeli leaders have to go to neighbouring countries? it is time abdullah and others went to israel. bibi, it is time to be tough!
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1. Let's hope Bibi puts his foot down
Author: Martin
Country: U.S.A.
and tells Abdulla that Jordan is the Palestinian state.
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Brazilian church to rebuild Solomon's Temple
A church in Sao Paulo, Brazil is planning to recreate Israel's First Temple, which was built by the biblical King Solomon some three thousand years ago and destroyed by the Babylonians 400 years later.
The Universal Church of the Kingdom of God announced that the $113 million project will follow the biblical specifications for the First Temple, even down to the particular method that was proscribed for cutting the building stones.
The 12-floor main building will have a capacity of 10,000.
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Tuesday, 27 July 2010
Home Ownership at the Lowest Level in a Decade
And where will all these 'undocumented Democrats' live, if not "in the shadows"? Why, in all of our empty houses, of course.
About 18.9 million homes in the U.S. stood empty during the second quarter as surging foreclosures helped push ownership to the lowest level in a decade.
The number of vacant properties, including foreclosures, residences for sale and vacation homes, rose from 18.6 million in the year-earlier quarter, the U.S. Census Bureau said in a report today. The ownership rate, meaning households that own their own residence, was 66.9 percent, the lowest since 1999.
Sorry, I'm just cranky, I guess. We got a notice in the mail that the water bill is set to go up 16% -- on top of the electric bill increases that were already instituted in preparation for the passage of capntrade. Oh, and a credit card company sent me a bunch of blank checks that I should use freely (at 25% interest) and they came in an envelope designed to look like it was from the IRS. Go figure.
In other news, Michelle Obama and one of the daughters are going to Spain on vacation. The dates haven't been announced yet but it's either before or after their upcoming vacations to Florida and Martha's Vineyard.
The White House has not commented been asked whether the two Obamas will be travelling to Marbella, the Saudi royal family's holiday home on the 'Costa del Sol' in Spain. BtB readers will recall that this 200-acre estate boasts an imitation White House in addition to "several other palaces," a mosque, private clinic and sports center.
And before anyone accuses me of making outlandish suggestions, I would have you remember that Obama's grandmother (not the typical white one, the other one) was the guest of Saudi King Abdullah at the Hajj in Mecca less than a year ago.
For the as-yet-uneducated, the Hajj pilgrimage is one of the "five pillars of Islam" --kinda like Greek columns, only different.
And don't even get me started about the Boy Scouts. Tom already told me that
The President is the honorary President of the Boy Scouts of America, and often addresses the Scouts at the Jamborees for the second year, President Obama is not scheduled to be on the agenda recent Eagle Scout Certificates are not being signed by Obama, unlike most previous Presidents.
