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Israel is getting ready to share technology and skills with African countries struggling to sustain agricultural output due to increasingly unreliable rains, said Agriculture Minister Shalom Simhon. Simhon said sharing know-how, especially in irrigation and water management, was his focus on a tour of Senegal, Ivory Coast and Gabon. His trip comes as some 10 million people in West and Central Africa face food shortages due to failed rains. "We are not arriving here in Africa to take resources from the African countries. We are coming here in order to give know-how and abilities to these countries to develop," Simhon...

Iraqi Troops’ Mortar Know-How to Improve Security Iraqi soldiers guarding a key checkpoint will be able to respond more effectively to nighttime insurgent attacks, as mortar fire will provide needed illumination on the desert floor. By U.S. Army Spc. Lee Elder 133rd Mobile Public Affairs Detachment MUQDADIYAH, Iraq, June 6, 2006 — Iraqi army soldiers guarding a key checkpoint here will soon be able to fight fire with fire - mortar fire, that is. To ensure Iraqi soldiers with 3rd Battalion, 3rd Brigade, 5th Division know how to use these weapons, U.S. soldiers assigned to C Company, 1st Squadron,...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 24, 2006 – Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England called on what he called some of the best minds in the country today to help come up with new solutions to the threat improvised explosive devices pose to U.S. troops. Speaking to some 600 leaders from industry, academia, the national laboratories and all branches of the military at a two-day industry conference focused on the IED threat, England challenged participants to find better ways to counter what has become terrorists' weapon of choice in Iraq and, more recently, Afghanistan. "We owe it to the troops," he told the group....

ICONOCLAST DAILY NOTEBOOK.... WILLIAM GRIM: An Open Letter to Herr Joschka Fischer, German Foreign Minister... February 9, 2003: Dear Mr. Fischer: It is not without a certain amount of irony that I take notice of your remarks at the International Security Conference held in Munich yesterday (Saturday, February 8, 2003) in which you castigated the stance of US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld (and by extension that of the United States in general and her allies such as Britain, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Denmark, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, The Czech Republic, Slovakia, and the Baltic States). The irony stems from the fact...