Commander
Posted 24 May 2009 - 12:09 AM
East German Stasi tried to recruit Merkel as a spy
The East German Stasi secret police once offered Angela Merkel a position as a spy, but she declined, citing her talkative nature.
Commander
Posted 24 May 2009 - 08:13 PM
Commander
Posted 25 May 2009 - 01:33 PM
Blackmail fear over lost RAF data
An internal MoD memo - obtained by a former officer and passed to BBC Two's Who's Watching You programme - shows the lost files contained "details of criminal convictions, investigations, precise details of debt, medical conditions, drug abuse, use of prostitutes, extra-marital affairs including the names of third parties".
The e-mail - from an unnamed wing commander - says the data "provides excellent material for Foreign Intelligence Services and blackmailers".
Commander
Posted 01 June 2009 - 09:09 PM
French Plane Vanishes In Ocean Storm
An Air France plane carrying 228 people from Brazil to France has vanished over the Atlantic after flying into turbulence, airline officials say.
The Airbus sent an automatic message at 0214 GMT, four hours after leaving Rio de Janeiro, reporting a short circuit. It may have been damaged by lightning.
It was well over the ocean when it was lost, making Brazilian and French search planes' task more difficult.
France's president said the chances of finding survivors were "very small"....
http://news.bbc.co.u...cas/8076848.stm
Lieutenant
Posted 02 June 2009 - 11:07 AM
Commander RNVR
Posted 02 June 2009 - 11:39 AM
Lt. Commander
Posted 03 June 2009 - 01:11 AM
This is in fact very odd. By what maps I've seen, it was just on the edges of the Bermuda Triangle. There's "whispers in the wind" that two US subs are participating in search efforts.
If they find the black boxes (which are actually day-glow orange in appearance) it may tell us something, but they only transmit the GPS signal for thirty days, but in nearly 15,000 feet of water, there's nothing that can get down there.
There is the terrorism factor because whatever happened, happened fast with very little time for a seasoned crew to react.
Freak weather conditions or foul play is anybody's guess. Only thing that's confirmed last I heard via CNN was electrical and sudden de-comp of the cabin. No matter how big the plane, de-comp at 35K feet and 600 mph will make short work of an aluminium fuselage.
I'm just surprised there's been no sign of debris but on a pitch black night in the middle of the Atlantic and bad weather, even a seat cushion doesn't stand a chance.
Commander RNVR
Posted 03 June 2009 - 07:08 AM
Commander
Posted 07 June 2009 - 01:01 PM
Jetpacks Go Mainstream
Capable of 30 minutes of flight at around 60 miles per hour, the Martin Jetpack can apparently go as high as 8,000 feet in the air. Naturally, its creator has equipped the device with an integrated ballistic parachute, just in case something goes wrong with its engine while you’re flying around. You certainly wouldn’t want that machine to stop working on you while you look like a minuscule dot to people on the ground.
Well, if you want to find the original article go to "www [dot] geeksaresexy [dot] net [slash] 2009 [slash] 05 [slash] 08 [slash] jetpacks-go-mainstream [slash]
Commander
Posted 11 June 2009 - 08:38 PM
http://www.dailymail...t--just-20.html
A newly divorced City banker is 'giving away' his millionaire lifestyle complete with his home, car and boat in a competition that anyone can enter for £20.
Andrew Paul, 38, from Ightham near Sevenoaks, says he wants to 'make a fresh start' after splitting from his wife of five years.
The City equities trader says his £1.1m five-bedroom house, £160,000 Aston Martin DBS and his £200,000 Sealine 35 Sport motor boat now hold 'too many painful memories' for him and is offering them as a prize at winanewlife.com.
Entrants pay £20 per ticket and guess the location of a ball in a golfing picture.
The first prize includes £85,000 to meet legal fees and insurance costs for the car and boat in the first year.
The winner can also choose to take £1m in cash as an alternative to the prizes.
If he achieves maximum sales of 200,000, Mr Paul will rake in up to £4million, making a very healthy profit at a time when it might otherwise have been hard to sell his house.
There will be a lower cash prize if fewer than 150,000 tickets are sold.
Mr Paul said: 'My wealth is self-made. I have worked hard my entire career but now I want to slow the pace of my life a little.
'I have a four-year-old son and he and my recent divorce have changed my priorities. I like the idea of giving someone else the opportunity to live life to the full the way I have been doing.
'I can't wait to see what a difference it will make to the winner. That’s all the satisfaction I will need'.
The competition, which Mr Paul devised after taking legal advice, runs until 19 August.
Commander
Posted 12 June 2009 - 10:56 PM
http://www.dailymail...-submarine.html
Admiral Abramovich launches his £300million mega-yachtski: The world's biggest (and it even has its own submarine)
By Mail Foreign Service
Last updated at 10:33 PM on 12th June 2009
It is the biggest private yacht in existence and comes with a missile-detection system, two helipads, a luxury spa, swimming pool and a miniature submarine.
But when you're Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, only the most ostentatious displays of wealth will do.
His latest baby is the Eclipse, a 557-footer reported to have cost a staggering £300million.
Roman Abramovich's new yacht slides out of the ship-yard in Hamburg, Germany. It comes with a raft of features including two heli-pads, a pool and a missile-detection system.
As it glided out of the Blohm & Voss shipyard, in Hamburg, Germany, it was so breathtaking that many stopped to watch, barely able to believe their eyes.
To keep the oligarch safe, the Eclipse has a military-grade missile defence system, armour-plating around Abramovich's master suite and bullet-proof windows.
There is also a private submarine, which doubles as an escape pod.
The project has been shrouded in such secrecy that at one point the shipbuilders would only say that a yacht called Eclipse was being built somewhere in Germany. Needless to say, they would not confirm who had bought it.
But there is little doubt that 40-year-old Abramovich who already owns four luxury vessels, is the proud owner.
According to industry experts, the Eclipse has been specifically designed to overshadow the world's current largest private yacht, a 525-footer owned by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai.
Abramovich's new toy is due to be delivered in 2010 and will join the rest of his fleet. None of his ships - the Pelorus (377ft), the Ecstasea ( 282ft) and the Sussurro (161ft) - are insubstantial but the Eclipse will dwarf them all.
The oil magnate, who is the 11th richest man in the world according to Forbes, uses his yachts for very specific purposes.
Originally built for a Saudi sheikh, the Pelorus is used for entertaining and boasts room for 22 guests and 40 staff. It has two helipads, an indoor pool and a steam room.
He uses the Ecstasea, which comes complete with Chinese-themed interior, for cruising and the Sussuro for short journeys and to loan to friends.
Annual overhead for the boats is more than £15million, and it costs him £73,000 just to fill up the tanks of his current largest boat, Pelorus.
The son of Jewish parents, Abramovich began his business career selling plastic ducks from a grim Moscow apartment but, within a few years, his vast wealth spread from oil conglomerates to pig farms.
Russia's richest man has flourished under president Vladimir Putin, with critics saying he used his government ties to take over former state-owned assests and reap the profits for personal use.
Outside of Russia, the 41-year-old is known as owner of the Chelsea Football Club. He is also known to entertain players and British financiers on his yachts.
Abramovich reportedly lost up to £13billion in the global financial crisis, but he was already in the process of having his biggest-ever yacht built.
Commander
Posted 15 June 2009 - 04:52 PM
http://www.express.c...d-by-the-enemy-
CHIVALRY has seldom played a part in the brutal kill-or-be-killed business of war. In the First World War, both British and German fliers considered themselves “knights of the air” who would salute each other at the start of deadly encounters. For the most part, though, men in battle have fought to the death, neither giving nor taking any quarter.
But there are rare examples of extreme human kindness from an enemy and this is one. It began on the cold, overcast morning of December 20, 1943.
US Air Force Second Lieutenant Charles L Brown was new to aerial warfare. And that morning, as he lined up his B-17F bomber for take-off, he was in a highly nervous state.
It was his first combat mission as a commander with the 379th Bomb Group and the target that day was an aircraft factory in Bremen, Germany. Charles – or “Charlie” as everyone called him – was only 21 and the average age of the other members of the crew was about 19.
But what he and his youthful companions did not know that morning was that they were soon to become participants in an air adventure that was unique at that time in the war over Europe. It would also remain shrouded in mystery for many years to come.
Charlie guided his bomber, nicknamed “Ye Olde Pub”, behind others on the raid and was soon airborne. Later they began their 10-minute bomb run at around 28,000 feet. As they ploughed through the clouds that morning over Germany, the flak became heavier and heavier.
Even before the order “bombs away” was given, the B-17 was hit by flak that shattered the Plexiglas nose, then knocked out number two engine, damaged number four (which had to be frequently throttled back to prevent over-speeding) and caused heavy damage to the controls.
Ye Olde Pub was beginning to rattle and shake. Charlie Brown was unable to remain with the bombing formation and soon became a straggler.
Soon after, the limping B-17 was spotted by a group of 15 Messerschmitt BF-109s. They swooped on the bomber, damaging the number three engine, which would now only produce half power.
Brown struggled to keep his aircraft in the air as oxygen, hydraulic and electrical systems crumbled and his controls were so badly hit that they were only partially responsive.
Worse, the bomber’s 11 guns were reduced by the extreme cold and the flak damage to only two top-turret guns and one forward-firing nose gun. The tail gunner had been killed and all but one of the crew were badly wounded. Brown had a large bullet fragment in his right shoulder.
Faced with all these problems and what appeared a slender chance of survival, Charlie Brown decided to take an offensive line. Each time attackers approached he skilfully turned his bomber into them, attempting to disrupt their aim with what remained of his fire power. At one point he recalled reversing into a steep turn, becoming inverted, and even looking “up” at the ground.
He became oxygen-starved and momentarily lost consciousness. When he came round, the B-17 was miraculously level at about 1,000 feet. Still dazed, he started a slow climb, using the remaining engine at full power.
Brown considered the options. There were three men seriously injured aboard, so he rejected bailing out or crash landing. The only alternative was the slender chance of reaching his home base at Kimbolton in Cambridgeshire.
A s he struggled with the plane’s shattered controls and tried to guide the battered bomber towards England, he looked out of his right window – and felt suddenly sick. There, flying close to his right wing was a German Messerschmitt BF-109.
The enemy fighter plane had the stricken American bomber trained in its sights and at its mercy. It would have taken little more than a burst of fire from its guns to send the B-17 and its crew spiralling to their deaths.
Yet then, quite suddenly, Brown saw the enemy pilot wave at him and smile even. He then flew across the B-17’s nose and motioned Brown to land in Germany – which he refused to do.
Brown grew increasingly nervous as the German fighter escorted him for several miles out over the North Sea. Then, quite unexpectedly, the Luftwaffe pilot saluted, rolled over and disappeared.
Brown could not believe what had happened and it would be many years before he knew the answer to the pressing and complex question: why had the Luftwaffe pilot not shot him down? Charlie Brown and his B-17 did make it across the 250 miles of storm-tossed North Sea and landed near the English coast. He was quickly debriefed about what exactly had happened during their mission, and when he explained the strange encounter with the Messerschmitt the debriefing was suddenly classified “secret” and would remain so for many years.
On that December day in 1943 there were two good reasons why the Luftwaffe pilot, Oberleutnant Franz Stigler, should have shot down Charlie Brown’s bomber. That day he had already downed two four-engine bombers and needed only one more to earn a Knight’s Cross (one of the highest decorations for German wartime fliers).
Stigler was also taking a big risk in letting the B-17 escape. The decision not to finish off the aircraft was a court-martial offence in Nazi Germany and if revealed could have led to his execution.
Years later, he admitted that these considerations had come into his mind as he flew alongside the shattered B-17. But he was a deeply humane man, and he could not bring himself to shoot down an aircraft that was limping home with serious damage and which was carrying wounded men.
H e said later: “It was the most heavily damaged aircraft I ever saw that was still flying. I could see the wounded men aboard and I thought to myself: ‘I cannot kill these half-dead people. It would be like shooting at a parachute.'”
So Franz Stigler accompanied the B-17 some distance over the North Sea towards England. He then saluted Charlie Brown and turned away, back to Europe.
When he landed, Stigler told his commanding officer that the plane had been shot down over the sea – and continued to keep the secret of what really happened to it for many years. Brown and the remains of his crew were also ordered never to talk about what happened.
Charlie Brown went on to complete his combat tour, returned to America where he finished college and would accept a regular commission in the United States Air Force where he served with the Office of Special Investigations.
But the image of his strange encounter with the Messerschmitt BF-109 would remain firmly embedded in his memory. In 1986 he began a search for the anonymous pilot. And four years later Franz Stigler, by that time living in Canada, responded to a notice about the famous encounter published in a newsletter for former German fighter pilots.
He compared the time, place and aircraft markings and that soon proved it was Stigler who was the heroic pilot who had allowed Brown’s crew to live.
The two men eventually met when Brown, by then living in Seattle, tracked Stigler down to the town of Surrey in British Columbia. Amazingly, he was still flying a Messerschmitt at air shows.
The two men met each other and Stigler gave Charlie Brown a huge bear hug. Charlie responded by calling him “big brother”.
“It was a very moving sight and everyone was moved to tears,” said Stigler’s 77-year-old wife Helga afterwards. It turned out that the two men, once sworn enemies, had been unwittingly living fewer than 200 miles apart for half a century. Following their reunion they remained close friends and met almost every year until Stigler’s death, aged 92, in March 2008. Charlie Brown died later the same year at the age of 89.
Stigler’s act of chivalry was later, if belatedly, recognised and honoured by a number of military organisations. Brown, however, was never decorated for his part in that day’s events and the incident itself never reported by his Bomb Group to its commanders. It would be many years later before the remarkable story would finally be told.
Lt. Commander
Posted 15 June 2009 - 07:38 PM
$134bn bond scam arrests
By Hannah McCarthy
Sunday, 14 June 2009
Two middle-aged men have reportedly been detained in Italy while trying to take $134bn in US bonds – equivalent to the entire GDP of Kazakhstan – into Switzerland.
The undeclared bonds were discovered by Italian police in the false bottom of a suitcase when they searched the men on a train stopping in Chiasso, near the Swiss border, on 3 June. Japan is investigating reports that two of its citizens are involved.
The two men would, if the bonds are genuine, be the US government's fourth-biggest creditor, ahead of the UK with $128bn of US debt, and behind Russia, which is owed $138bn. The two men could also be fined around 40 per cent of the total value of the bonds – $38bn.
Commander
Posted 15 June 2009 - 08:46 PM
I like the precision "two middle-aged" (it gives a very real touch to the story). Using the false bottom of a suitcase, on a train, is so deliciously old school!
Commander
Posted 18 June 2009 - 08:32 PM
Mexico cocaine 'hidden in sharks'
The Mexican Navy says it has seized more than a tonne of cocaine hidden inside the carcasses of frozen sharks.
Armed officers found slabs of cocaine inside more than 20 sharks aboard a freight ship in the Gulf coast port of Progreso in Yucatan state.
Correspondents say cartels are coming up with increasingly creative ways of smuggling drugs into the US.
Shipments of cocaine have also been discovered hidden inside sealed beer cans, religious statues and furniture.
"We are talking about more than a tonne of cocaine that was inside the ship," said Mexican Navy Commander Eduardo Villa.
He said X-ray machines and sniffer dogs had helped to uncover the haul.
"Those in charge of the shipment said it was a conserving agent but after checks we confirmed it was cocaine," he said.
Commander
Posted 16 August 2009 - 09:51 PM
Prosperity promise of Bolivia's salt flats
As international carmakers scramble to find a suitable alternative to petrol vehicles, Bolivia hopes its lithium reserves could be harnessed to provide an energy source - and hold the key to new-found wealth and political influence. Peter Day has been to the Uyuni salt flats.
The sky is an infinite blue. The land is perfectly flat, and dazzlingly white, stretching to a line of distant volcanoes.
And here is the boss of a potentially huge project that Bolivia is pinning great hopes on, showing me his highly decorative chickens.
Twelve thousand feet (3,700m) up here in the high Andean plains of south western Bolivia, the subzero nights are bitingly cold, but the days are hot even in the middle of winter.
The unclouded sun is reflected upwards by the largest salt flats in the world, the Salar de Uyuni.
It is a spectacular desert. For decades now it has drawn young and hardy international backpackers to endure the dusty hours of jolting journeying by bus and train and 4x4 vehicles into a vast nowhere.
But now this arduous journey is being made by other people - engineers and businessmen from some of the world's largest mining and chemical companies.
They are here every week. They are drawn to the salt flats by what lies metres below the ice-like crust of salt and mud.
Down there is a great reserve of brine, and contained in the salty liquid, the largest deposits in the world of the lightest metal, lithium.
For years lithium has been used for specıalıst purposes such as ceramics, and pills for depression.
But suddenly there is a huge new potential demand.
Great expectations
Over the past few years I have driven or been driven in several rechargeable electric cars.
Vehicle manufacturers old and new are rushing to build substitutes for the internal combustion engine.
Great hopes are being placed on batteries with this very light lithium at their core, much quicker to charge and discharge power (so they say) than heavy conventional batteries.
So if plug-in cars catch on, lithium may be one of the vital raw materials for the auto revolution.
And here in the Salar de Uyuni the experts think that the difficult and poverty-stricken country of Bolivia holds 50% of the world's total supplies of lithium, contained in these vast hidden lakes of brine.
That is why Marcelo Castro, the man with the chickens (and rabbits too, he wants to be self-sufficient in this desolate place) is building a pilot plant to learn how to get the lithium out of these salt flats, and then how to evaporate the brine and separate the precious metal from the salt.
All this is raising great expectations in landlocked Bolivia.
To outsiders it is a very curious country, the second poorest state in South America after Guyana, a society riven by fault lines - great gaps between rich and poor, big geographical differences between the lush east and the towering Andes in the west, and sharp racial differences between successful former Europeans and a majority of indigenous peoples.
These last are the ones who voted the first indigenous president into office in 2006. Evo Morales has moved quickly to shift power in favour of the peoples he comes from.
State ambitions
He has nationalised the commanding heights of the economy including oil and natural gas. And he has moved to break up big land estates.
The president (with a kind of Beatles hairstyle) has also pronounced that the new windfall, raw material lithium, should not be exploited by predator overseas capitalist multinationals, but developed by the state for the benefit of Bolivia.
This brings great pride to a local campaigner I heard from in the town nearest the deposits.
Wearing her characteristic native hat, based on the British bowler imported more than 100 years ago, Domitila Machaca told me how the local people had marched hundreds of miles to the capital La Paz in the 1990s to block the foreign exploitation of the salt flats; and she grinned toothily when she praised the Morales tactics of homemade development of these riches.
Later, still slowed down by the altitude, I wheezed slightly breathlessly in La Paz as I put it to the mining minister Luis Echazu that Bolivia was taking a big risk if it really wants to be (as some have said) "the Saudi Arabia of lithium".
"Oh no," he replied, "we want to go further than that - we don't want merely to process the metal, we want to make the batteries from it as well."
But that will take money and expertise, which Bolivia will have to import, and multinational companies are wary of socıalıst countries with big state ambitions.
map
Meanwhile, back at the salt flats, the plant construction manager Marcelo Castro gave me lunch - a vast egg sandwich made from one of the eggs from his chickens - delicious.
Despite the hardships, he was very proud, he said, to be taking part in this great Bolivian project.
If the world takes to the electric car, and if lithium really is the metal that will power it, and if the Bolivians can deliver, we may soon be hearing quite a lot more about the great Uyuni salt flats.
To say nothing of those fancy chickens.
Commander
Posted 23 August 2009 - 11:47 PM
French 007 tells of great escape from Dubai wearing a wetsuit under a burka.
A former spy convicted of fraud in the United Arab Emirates has told how he made a bid for freedom by donning a wetsuit disguised under a burka before diving into the ocean.
Frenchman Herve Jaugbert, an ex-naval officer, alleges the Dubai secret police had threatened to insert needles up his nose and that he was about to be thrown in jail for a crime he didn't commit.
Disguise: Former spy Herve Jaubert donned a wetsuit under a burka in order to escape from Dubai.
The 53-year-old explained how on the night of his escape last summer he stepped into a full-length diving suit, complete with breathing equipment, before adding padding to cover the shape of the kit.
Jaubert, who designs and builds leisure submarines, then disguised himself in a burka and walked down to the water's edge.
From there, he swam underwater to the nearby coastguard station, on a remote outpost, where he cut the fuel lines on a police patrol boat. He knew it was the only one in the area, and the coast would now be clear.
He then swam back to the beach, got into a Zodiac dinghy and headed back out to sea. Six hours later he was 25 miles off-shore and outside Dubai's territorial waters. Another former French agent met him in a yacht, he claims.
The pair then sailed to Mumbai, India, which took a week. Jaugbert told the French consul that he had lost his passport and was given a new one.
Jaubert had been working as a contractor for ship-builder Dubai World in 2007 when he was called in for questioning by police, he told The Sunday Times. An executive at the firm had reported finding bullets in Jaugbert's office and police thought he was a mercenary or hitman. At the same time, the company accused Jaubert of billing for goods that did not arrive.
According to Jaubert, his employers had run out of money and wanted to find a way of sacking him without paying benefits that would have been due under a five-year contract.
Covered up: Jaugbert used padding under the burka to disguise the shape of his breathing equipment.
'The police had interrogated me for hours and threatened me with torture,' he said from his home in Florida, where he now lives with his wife and two children. 'I lived with a ball of fear in my stomach.'
He said that if he hadn't left, he'd be 'stuck in the same nightmare as the others', referring to the dozens of expatriate businessmen who are languishing in Dubai jails for alleged 'economic crimes'.
As the economic slump deepens, foreigners are being jailed for misdeeds not generally considered as crimes, such as the bouncing of a cheque.
To the Emirati authorities, however, Jaugbert - who is writing a book about his experiences - is a liar and convicted fraudster. He was sentenced in absentia to five years in prison after his escape in the dinghy.
Out to sea: Jaugbert travelled 25 miles in a rubber dinghy to escape from the Dubai police who he alleges threatened him with torture. A friend picked him up in his yacht and they sailed on to Mumbai
A spokesman for Dubai World said Jaubert had been dismissed because 'he was found stealing from the company', adding that his five-year sentence was 'entirely appropriate'.
Commander
Posted 23 August 2009 - 11:47 PM
Commander
Posted 23 August 2009 - 11:56 PM
Frenchman Herve Jaugbert, an ex-naval officer, alleges the Dubai secret police had threatened to insert needles up his nose and that he was about to be thrown in jail for a crime he didn't commit.
Commander
Posted 23 August 2009 - 11:57 PM
Frenchman Herve Jaugbert, an ex-naval officer, alleges the Dubai secret police had threatened to insert needles up his nose and that he was about to be thrown in jail for a crime he didn't commit.
Those who have read Colonel Sun will find it even more Bond-like!
Nice find, danslittlefinger
Commander
Posted 24 August 2009 - 01:10 AM
Commander
Posted 10 September 2009 - 05:59 PM
Lieutenant
Posted 10 September 2009 - 08:37 PM
Edited by Eric Stromberg, 10 September 2009 - 08:39 PM.
Discharged.
Posted 10 September 2009 - 08:43 PM
British diplomat found dead in Jamaica
(CNN) -- A British diplomat was found slain at his home in Jamaica, authorities said.
John Terry was the honorary British consul in Montego Bay, Jamaica, said the British Foreign Office in London, England.
Terry, 64, was "killed by unknown assailants at his home in Mount Carey, St. James" on Wednesday, Jamaica's Constabulary Communications Network said in a statement.
"Mr. Terry's body was discovered in his room with a wound to the head and the police were sought." Authorities received the report about 1:30 p.m. (2:30 p.m. ET) Wednesday, the statement said.
Montego Bay's criminal investigative bureau is investigating, the constabulary network said.
"Our sympathy is with the family at this distressing time," the British Foreign Office said in a written statement.
Montego Bay is on the northwestern side of the island, roughly 80 miles from the main office of the British High Commission in Kingston. The commission employs about 100 people who focus on promoting trade, issuing visas and topics such as politics, defense and management, the commission says on its Web site.
Mount Carey is just southwest of the Montego Bay area.
Commander
Posted 07 November 2009 - 05:37 PM
http://news.yahoo.co...sspypeoplecourt
Prince Albert of Monaco sues over 'spy' claims.
NICE, France (AFP) – Monaco's royal palace said Friday it has filed suit against an American who claims to have run a private spy agency for Prince Albert II to keep tabs on powerful local personalities and media.
Robert Eringer, a US private eye who also claims to be a former FBI agent, alleged in an interview this week that he ran a service called the "Monaco Intelligence Service", reporting directly to the prince, from 2002 to 2007.
He claims he met Albert via billionaire mutual friends in 1991 and that the prince informally recruited him to brief him on key businessmen and potential investors in Monaco in an effort to "clean up" corruption in the principality.
People he investigated included a top businessman, a senior civil servant and a property developer, Eringer told French news magazine Paris-Match.
The 55-year-old also said he "infiltrated" local media on behalf of the prince, who "loved to know who was informing the papers," until Albert broke off their relations in 2007, two years after acceding to the throne.
Eringer has filed suit in California accusing the 51-year-old prince -- who as head of state has diplomatic immunity -- of wrongful contract termination.
The Monaco royal palace responded Friday with a statement denying the assertions in bulk, and saying that "judicial proceedings are under way in the United States against Mr Eringer."
"The palace wishes to express its indignation regarding the numerous untrue and defamatory claims made against H.R.M. Prince Albert II of Monaco that sully his image and the renown of the Monaco principality," it said.
Prince Albert of Monaco
The palace did not deny the prince was acquainted with Eringer, with whom he has been photographed arm-in-arm in the past.
Prince Albert's lawyer Thierry Lacoste confirmed to AFP that he was in the process of launching a lawsuit against Eringer in Los Angeles, on several counts including defamation.
"Mr Eringer's accusations are baseless. There is not a single element of proof. This is just a load of hot air," said Lacoste.
Commander
Posted 07 November 2009 - 06:14 PM
Commander
Posted 07 November 2009 - 06:20 PM
I believe Eringer is wearing the "Quantum" tie by Magnoli from Quantum of Solace, so he must be spy!
Commander
Posted 07 November 2009 - 07:16 PM
Commander
Posted 08 November 2009 - 02:50 AM
http://www.dailymail...sub-action.html
The ultimate boy's toy: A personal sub built like a plane (Abramovich and Branson are already in the queue)
She glides silently through the cobalt water, banking gently to the left so smoothly the movement is barely discernible. Seconds later, with pinpoint precision, we swoop down to chase a school of fish confused at the sight of this strange new creature of the deep. My cockpit headset crackles into life: 'Now, brace yourself for the porpoise,' says Captain Alfred McLaren, the excitement palpable in his voice.
As the joystick is thrust backwards sharply, the world's first underwater 'flying' machine shoots upwards, breaching the water surface nose-first, before splashing back down and descending once more to the depths.
The Super Aviator, a revolutionary submersible, could be considered the ultimate boy's toy. Sleek and oozing more sex appeal than your average fighter jet, the 22ft long futuristic sub has already seduced billionaires such as Roman Abramovich and Richard Branson. They've both made enquiries about buying one of the £1.5 million machines.
But this is far more than a rich man's plaything, says senior pilot McLaren, a former U.S. Navy nuclear attack submarine commander.
'This is to underwater exploration what the first Wright Brothers plane was to commercial flight.'
McLaren, who along with partners John Jo Lewis, Jay Wade and Canadian Dr Phil Nuytten are directors of Sub Aviator Systems (SAS), the company behind the Super Aviator, says the possibilities for underwater exploration in the sub are endless.
'This submersible represents a revolution in underwater adventure and exploration. Most subs go up and down using a ballast system, similar to a hot-air balloon. They have limited manoeuvrability and range. Then you have unmanned subs, but they are normally tethered to a mother ship.
'This craft offers a freedom of movement never seen before. It's built along the principles of flight, with thrust, lift and drag allowing you to "fly" beneath the waves. It has wings and a joystick to bank like an aeroplane and it can turn and curve at will. Plus the visibility is much better than with scuba diving. You're not loaded down with heavy gear and you don't have to exert yourself physically in the way you do on a dive. Our sub has the ability to cover large areas for hours at a time without fatigue or decompression worries.
'We envision that scientists will be able to use it to study parts of the ocean and delicate reef formations that have so far been inaccessible. And because it is so quiet, you can eyeball fish and other underwater creatures without scaring them off. You really do get a truly unique viewpoint.'
The submersible can dive to a depth of over 1,000ft at a top speed of six knots and is intended to explore the limits of the continental shelves where marine archaeologists would initially look for ancient ship wrecks. Pilots are encased in one of two 'pods', or cockpits, pressurised spaces topped with thick Perspex domes allowing you a 360-degree view underwater.
The Super Aviator is capable of maintaining a state of positive or neutral buoyancy, which makes it easier to control and allows it to 'hover' if the pilot wants to stop and savour the view or carry out work tasks. The vehicle itself is battery-powered, making it environmentally friendly and virtually silent.
When I see the machine for the first time by the banks of Lake Tahoe, it's clear this revolutionary craft is something special. Within moments of it being wheeled out from its 'hangar' (in reality, a large motorised trailer), a curious crowd has gathered.
I am here to take part in the world's first underwater pilot training school, a £5,000, three-day event that has attracted some legendary names from the field of exploration, including oceanographer Dr Don Walsh (the first man to go down to the deepest part of the ocean, the Mariana Trench, in the bathyscaphe Trieste in 1960) and former Apollo 8 astronaut, retired Air Force Major General William Anders.
Another student, former French Navy captain Paul-Henri Nargeolet, has dived to the wreck of the Titanic more than anyone else - a total of 120 times. If you fancy becoming a fully qualified pilot, that will cost you £10,000.
But for SAS's John Jo Lewis, the three-day course is strictly business. A real-estate entrepreneur, he has sunk several hundred thousand dollars of his own money into the sub (he refuses to say precisely how much but admits that my estimate of $1 million 'isn't too far off').
The cockpit is similar to that of a typical aircraft. There is a joystick, rudder pedals, compass and altitude indicator. The 'flight' controls match a standard military aircraft layout with a thrust lever, directional thrust and power sequencer. The only differences are the depth gauge, levers that control emergency air bags and a drop weight that would aid the sub to get to the surface safely in the event of a catastrophic underwater failure.
With McLaren in the forward pod, I carefully climb into the rear cockpit. It takes a minimum of an hour of instruction before you can safely leave terra firma. First you are strapped in, using a five-point harness, then the crew chief talks you through the practicalities of the sub, focusing on safety procedures.
There is a lot of information to take in - oxygen regulators, the CO2 scrubber, pressure equalisation valve, throttle control, joystick, rudders, console, underwater communications equipment... You are taught to read the interior percentage of oxygen and the atmospheric pressure in the pod, and much more besides.
'This isn't a joyride,' says McClaren.
'The submersible is safe but it is essential that you monitor conditions in your own pod and know exactly how to use the safety equipment just in case something happens to me when we are out there. There are no passengers in this sub. You are my co-pilot and you need to be capable of assuming control of the sub in an emergency.'
After a final safety check, the hatches are closed and secured. Next, the regulator is set and the oxygen begins to flow. The sub is pushed on a trailer to the launch site. Two divers unhook the craft from the trailer and gently guide her into the water.
Almost immediately, the sensation is like being in a washing machine on the 'slow cycle'. In the choppy waters of Lake Tahoe, the sub bobs along on the surface as communications are established with the support vessel, a small craft affectionately called 'Sub Daddy.'
Inside the sub it's surprisingly cozy and dry. After five minutes bobbing on the surface, McLaren asks, 'Are you ready to dive?'
After receiving the all-clear from Sub Daddy that there are no other vessels close by, he pushes the joystick forward, increases propulsion power and the Super Aviator slides beneath the waves and into another world.
As she slips downwards, the water colour changes noticeably. The glare from the surface quickly disappears, to be replaced by a soothing blue and then, as we go deeper, to a dark azure and then black.
It is a womb-like, calm experience. Several fish swim idly by. As the depth gauge reaches 100ft and then 200ft, a sense of peace descends. We reach a world of gently sloping sand banks topped with sea grass; seaweed unveils itself before us.
The sub is surprisingly responsive. A small right push on the joystick and it banks to the right, a gentle pull back and she begins to nose for the surface. The quiet is interrupted at regular intervals by calls from Sub Daddy on the surface to check the oxygen levels and air pressure.
All-too-soon the first hour-long dive is over. At the surface, we cut through the water until we reach the landing dock and the divers guide us back onto the dock.
The sub was the brainchild of maverick British inventor Graham Hawkes, who designed a prototype of the machine in the late Nineties. Originally from Tooting, south London, Hawkes went from designing underwater devices for British Special Forces to developing radical new one and two-man subs.
THE LOW-DOWN ON THE SUPER AVIATOR
Length 22ft
Wingspan 12.2ft
Weight 3800lbs
Max descent rate 320ft/min
Max ascent rate 600ft/min
Max speed 6 knots (with optional thrusters, 7.9 knots) Capable of around four one-hour training dives a day, or a single four-hour long-range search mission. It has been depth tested to 1,250ft. Powered by electricity, it produces no pollution and almost no noise.
He was working with Steve Fossett at the time of the adventurer's death in 2007 on a deep-dive sub capable of plunging to 35,000ft.
Lewis became involved with Super Aviator after seeing the sub during early sea trials in the Bahamas.
'It was love at first sight,' he says. Lewis put together a consortium of fellow adventurers and investors and bought out Hawkes two years ago. Together with McLaren, crew chief David Harper and investor Jay Wade, he formed SAS.
The original sub's design was radically overhauled by engineer Phil Nuytten, a Canadian who made his name and fortune inventing the 'Newt Suit', a hard-shelled, jointed diving suit widely used in the offshore oil industry.
Originally the sub was designed as a positively buoyant machine; in other words it used battery power to move forward and down but had to wage a continuous battle to stay underwater. If it went slower than the sub's 'stall speed' or got into diffi culties, it would automatically nose up and head to the surface.
'That system had several drawbacks,' says McClaren. 'You had to continuously use speed and thus steadily drain the batteries to remain submerged. So we fitted a ballast system between the two pilot hulls. When it is time to submerge, the pilot can release air from the buoyancy tank and replace it with water to allow neutral or near neutral buoyancy.'
The team plans to offer further flight schools and is hoping that the myriad capabilities of the submersible will be recognised by academic, government and commercial organisations to conduct scientific and archeological work in the oceans' depths.
'The possibilities for this sub are endless,' says McLaren. 'It can be used to explore shipwrecks and coral reefs, you could use it to survey oil rigs and other large underwater structures or for underwater filming.
'Finally, and most importantly, it can be used to educate the next generation on the largely unexplored wonders of the deep.
'It is the closest feeling to what flying is like in your dreams.'
Commander
Posted 08 November 2009 - 03:00 AM
http://www.dailymail...07s-friend.html
David Miliband's lost cousin: The beauty who foiled the Nazis and married 007's friend.
When Foreign Secretary David Miliband went to trace his family roots in Moscow last week, he might have been expecting a few surprises.
Taking time out of a diplomatic mission at the Kremlin, Mr Miliband – whose grandfather moved to the West from Poland before the Second World War – was keen to find out more about his relatives.
What he discovered, however, was the amazing story of a long-lost female cousin with links to James Bond, who lived a rip-roaring life travelling Europe as a Jew under the noses of the Nazis and Stalin.
Foreign Secretary David Miliband has recently discovered the rip-roaring life of his hauntingly beautiful cousin Celina (right)
The Foreign Secretary uncovered the extraordinary life of lost cousin Celina Miliband during a visit to another relative he has only recently discovered.
Sofia Miliband, who is 87 and lives in the Russian capital, is Mr Miliband’s great-aunt. She revealed the untold story of Celina’s life as she filled in some of the missing pieces of Mr Miliband’s complicated family jigsaw.
Born in Poland exactly 100 years ago, Celina grew up to be a beauty who in the Cold War age of espionage managed to keep a foot on both sides of the Iron Curtain.
She was the only daughter of textile manufacturer Mikhail Miliband, a cousin of Mr Miliband’s great-grandfather Zyndel Miliband. Little is known of her early life in Warsaw before an unhappy marriage to a lawyer in her early 20s.
The marriage did not last and the couple divorced. He would later be lost without trace in the Second World War.
Quieter life: Celina during a motoring holiday with British husband Peter Janson-Smith in 1970.
Celina found her way to Britain, where she appears in the London phone book in 1939, living in South Hampstead. ‘She was known as a stunning, haunting beauty,’ Sofia told The Mail on Sunday last week.
‘I was told she was close to an English aristocrat, even a Lord, who she met. He was an aviator, posted to Poland at some point.’
Sofia, who writes specıalıst Russian dictionaries and encyclopedias, also revealed that later in her life Celina married a British man – publisher Peter Janson-Smith, the former literary agent of Bond author Ian Fleming.
Mr Janson-Smith is still alive and living in London. The Mail on Sunday tracked him down and he took up Celina’s story. He said: ‘I do not know why Celina came to London before the war.
'Maybe it was to get away from her husband because he was not a very nice character.’
He knows, however, that she bravely returned to Poland as the storm clouds gathered and Hitler prepared to invade her homeland.
‘She was an only child and thought she should be with her parents but they
persuaded her that she must escape,’ said Mr Janson-Smith, who is now 87.
‘In 1940, she went from Warsaw to Dresden on her own passport.
'She had an old exit visa that had been cancelled but somehow she managed to doctor it so that it still looked valid. She chose trains used by the German army because she knew there would be no SS on them.’
Soon afterwards, her mother and father were rounded up and taken to Umschlagplatz, in Warsaw’s ghetto, from where Jews were loaded on to freight wagons bound for the gas chambers of Treblinka.
Mr Janson-Smith said Celina found out later that her parents committed suicide together.
Celina’s epic search for sanctuary took her from Dresden to Milan. But Italy, preparing to enter the war on the German side, was barely safer for her.
‘Celina had friends in Italy and she was introduced to this Brazilian consul who was handing out false passports to Jewish refugees,’ said Mr Janson-Smith. ‘It was the only option.
'She escaped Italy from Trieste – on a boat I think. From there she went to Istanbul where she taught English for a few months.
‘Fortunately, there was a Polish Jewish organisation in Turkey and they helped her get out of the country. From there, she went to Iran and then on to India. Refugees were not made to feel welcome in India and she realised she needed to move – to Brazil.’
Fate intervened to bring her instead back to Britain. ‘Her boat broke down off the coast of South Africa. The South Africans refused to let them disembark and they missed the convoy to Brazil and instead picked up another convoy heading for Liverpool.
‘Celina spent one night in internment but then the Polish government in
exile in Britain got wind of her,’ said Mr Janson-Smith.
‘They got her out and she started working for them during the war. She later worked for the BBC.’
Having served the pro-Western Polish government, the immediate aftermath of the war found her working for Stalin’s puppet Communist government at its London embassy.
She decided to go back to Warsaw, ostensibly to resign her post, but it is possible she was engaged on some mission either on behalf of the
free Polish government or as a spy for the British.
Celina would later tell her husband that she ‘got out one day before the communists issued a warrant for her arrest’.
Celina, who had changed her surname to Wienieska, met Mr Janson-Smith after the war when they were both working in publishing in London.
They married in 1957 when he was 34 and she was 48. She became stepmother to his son Patrick – now a leading publisher whose authors have included Bill Bryson and Terry Pratchett – and two daughters.
It was through Mr Janson-Smith that she met Fleming in the heyday of his 007 writing.
Celina died in London in 1985 and her obituary appeared in The Times. She was described as ‘a kind of symbol of the indomitable spirit of the Polish community in London’.
Back in Moscow, Sofia, who has no children, feared the Miliband name and its rich history was about to die with her – she has already suffered one heart attack.
She first made the link with the British Milibands when David’s brother Ed – the Energy Secretary – was in Moscow three weeks ago and appeared on a radio show.
She called the radio station explaining she was a relative. Ed later went to visit and learned of the family’s connections.
Sofia said: ‘It is just incredible that I have suddenly found the lost branch of my family.
‘This is such a gift to me in the twilight of my life. The fact that mere chance drew me to my distant relatives makes me delighted.’
