It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Monday, August 01, 2022
‘I Needed to Do Something’: Tattoo Artists Stage Abortion Fund Drive
Ella Ceron, Bloomberg News
A volunteer with a "Clinic Escort" tattoo outside the EMW Women's Surgical Center in Louisville, Kentucky, U.S., on Tuesday, Sept. 28, 2021. The EMW Women's Surgical Center is now part of a U.S. Supreme Court term that could gut the constitutional right to abortion and allow sweeping new restrictions in much of the country. , Bloomberg
(Bloomberg) -- In just a few weeks, Krista Reid turned an idea to use tattoos as a way to help abortion seekers into reality.
The owner of Oak & Iron Salon and Tattoo, a tattoo shop in Buffalo, New York, started the call for the “My Body My Choice” flash tattoo event in June, shortly after the US Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade. On Sunday, more than 150 tattoo and piercing shops will open their doors to raise donations for nonprofits that help abortion seekers who can’t pay for their care. The drive, which will benefit the National Network of Abortion Funds — or NNAF, which distributes money to its 92 member funds.
“I just felt very strongly that I needed to do something,” said Reid of the drive. “And this is the only way that I knew how to stand up for it.”
The event comes at an increasingly critical time for abortion nonprofits, which are spending funds faster than they can raise them. Abortion seekers who live in states that have banned the procedure have to travel hundreds of miles to get it elsewhere and they’re requesting more on average to cover related costs, according to the funds.
Teen Has Raised $1.5 Million for Abortion Funds in the Week Since Matt Gaetz Mocked Her
Some Democratic states have pledged resources to local funds and providers, but the increasing need is straining a system that already couldn’t meet demand. Members of NNAF were only able to match 35% of calls between July 2019 and June 2020, the organization noted on its website. One example is Indigenous Women Rising, a fund dedicated to supporting Indigenous and Native abortion seekers and a member of NNAF, which said last week it prematurely hit its July threshold for giving and would have to pause donations until August.
The “My Body My Choice” event will feature pre-approved designs by a variety of artists, which include imagery of burning bras, a pill that notes the year Roe v. Wade was decided and several nods to uteruses. Most tattoos will cost between $100 and $150.
The group has amassed more than 11,000 Instagram followers in less than a month, and TikTok video of Reid announcing the drive has been viewed nearly 400,000 times. Subsequent TikTok videos have garnered tens of thousands of views, as well as comments from people asking if any shops in their area were participating.
It was “bittersweet” to know that the event had grown to its current size, said Jessica Valentine, the owner of Haven Tattoo Studio in Brooklyn, New York. Valentine designed several of the tattoos for the event, and will participate as an artist.
“It’s amazing so many of us tattooers and clients will be banding together for a cause,” she said. “It’s just so sad that we have to in the first place.”
ActBlue, a Democratic fundraising platform, said in its second-quarter recap that it saw $20.6 million in donations the day the Dobbs decision was handed down. That was the most donations seen in a 24-hour period all year, eclipsing the $12 million the platform processed in May during the 24 hours after Justice Samuel Alito’s Dobbs decision draft was leaked.
First-time donors were particularly motivated to give, ActBlue said. While 2020 saw more overall donations for the same quarter, a smaller number of donors made a larger average donation size this year, the company added.
Tattoo shops in 40 states, as well as one in Cornwall, England, have committed to stage events. That includes several shops in Texas, where abortion has been banned after about six weeks of pregnancy since last September. Several artists from various corners of the US told Bloomberg that the event also provides a permanent, visible kind of solidarity for those who participate.
“As a shop, we will just be using the sheet that is being put together for the organization,” said Jordanne Le Fae, the owner of Weird Ink Society in St. Paul, Minnesota, who designed one of the tattoos. “We want our clients to be able to get the same tattoos as so many others across the country.”
Lionesses Nikita Parris, Demi Stokes, Lucy Bronze and Fara Williams pose with the trophy after the UEFA Women's Euro England 2022 final match between England and Germany. (Getty/ Marc Atkins)
The UK is reeling after England’s Lionesses became Euro 2022 champions, bringing home the first major trophy for an England senior football team in 56 years.
A record crowd of 87,192 people watched the team beat Germany 2-1 after extra time at Wembley on Sunday (31 August).
A first goal came from Ella Toone, while the second came from substitute Chloe Kelly, securing their victory in the 110th-minute.
But the Lionesses’ win also marked a historic moment for women’s sport in England, often seen as less than, especially in the world of football.
In a now viral clip, Arsenal icon and presenter Alex Scott said that the days of “begging” Premier League teams to host women’s matches in their stadiums were over.
After one Euro 2022 game was even held at the Manchester City Academy Stadium, which has a capacity of just 7,000, Scott said: “I had a conversation yesterday. I’m not standing up at corporate events in front of sponsors anymore begging for them to get involved in the women’s game because you know what?
“If you’re not involved, you’ve missed the boat, you’ve missed the train. Because look at this… it has finally left the station and it is gathering speed.”
Former Crystal Palace and Arsenal player Ian Wright slated those who would “jump on” women’s football after the win, insisting: “This game needs continuous support for it to grow.”
For the the team themselves, the lasting impact of their victory will take a while to sink in. For now, celebration is the number one priority.
Manager Sarina Wiegman told the BBC after the Lionesses’ win: “I don’t think I realise what’s going on – I need some time.
“Now we have won the Euros the expectation will go up again. First we will party.”
But, she added: “During our preparation for the Euros we brought in some players who played in 1971.
“We should always remember the ones who went before us because they made a path for us. This team makes a path for the next generation.”
PATRIARCHY IS MISOGYNY 'Rotten luck to get a girl': Man in China rants online, refuses to choose name for newborn daughter
JULY 31, 2022
By LIYA SU A handout photo. A man in China who has just become a new father has shocked millions after an enraged online rant about his bitter disappointment at having a daughter instead of a son. South China Morning Post
A man in China furious that his newborn baby was a girl instead of a boy has vented on social media, talking about divorce and how he could not be bothered naming his newborn daughter, causing outrage online.
The father, a businessman, surnamed Rao, from Chongqing in southwestern China, was furious and disappointed after his wife gave birth to a baby girl on Tuesday. He soon afterwards expressed his anger in a number of ranting posts on WeChat Moments.More from AsiaOneRead the condensed version of this story, and other top stories with NewsLite.
"I can't even bear staying at the hospital for a single minute. I must have committed evil in my last life, thus my rotten luck to get a daughter now," he wrote.
Rao said in one post that he had been looking forward to what he assumed would be the birth of a baby boy for the last nine months. He also wrote that he was so disappointed, that he couldn't be bothered choosing a name for his newborn daughter. He also said in one post that he would divorce his wife as punishment for giving birth to a daughter.
Reaction to the man's rant went viral on mainland social media, where screenshots of his posts were shared online by one of his WeChat friends. At the time of writing, there were 27,556 comments and 809,684 likes on the Weibo post carrying the story.
Rao admitted to writing the comments but said the post saying he would like to divorce his wife was from before his daughter was born. But he did not provide any evidence to refute the widely shared screenshots of the comment.
"I have quite an aggressive personality, I tend to go to extremes, but my posts were just a few words of complaint," he told Jimu News.
He said that having a son has been his dream, and when he made the posts he had just lost 70,000 yuan (S$14,300) in a scam and was under a lot of stress.
"In the future, I will certainly meet my responsibilities for raising and taking care of my family," Rao said
.
Children wearing face masks are seen at Shanghai railway station in Shanghai, China, on March 5, 2020. PHOTO: Reuters
"I don't have any siblings. Actually both my parents like having a baby girl, now they are looking after their daughter-in-law and granddaughter."
A man who claimed to be a friend of Rao's, identified only as Huang, defended him in an interview with Jimu News.
Huang told the paper that the baby girl is Rao and his wife's first child by way of explaining his behaviour. He also claimed that Rao's parents had been angered by his comments and had reprimanded him as a result.
Local police and the Chongqing Women's Federation have said they are aware of the incident, and the latter said it would offer support if the mother or daughter were at risk.
Public opinion online was swift to condemn Rao for his comments.
One person wrote on Weibo: "He was given birth to by a woman, did he feel unlucky for himself then?"
Another wrote: "When will the feudal idea of having a preference for male offspring over female ones die out?" Census data for 2021 released in February by China's National Bureau of Statistics revealed that last year the gender ratio of the country's population remained skewed in favour of males - 723 million males compared to 689 million females.
In the traditional marriage age range of 20 to 40 there were 20 million more men than women, the data also revealed.
In response to growing concern at these population trends, the Chinese government last year initiated a three-child policy, replacing the previous two-child policy introduced in 2016. Before that, couples in China were restricted to having just one child for nearly 40 years.
Don’t tarnish all the bin Ladens, says Charles’s charity after £1m donation
Prince Charles. Photo: Andrew Milligan/PA
Hannah Furness in London August 01 2022
A charitable fund set up by Prince Charles accepted £1m (€1.2m) from the half-brothers of Osama bin Laden, believing that the actions of the former al-Qa’ida leader should not tarnish the whole family name, it is claimed.
The charity accepted the payment from Bakr bin Laden, the patriarch of the wealthy Saudi family, and his brother Shafiq, who are both half-brothers of Osama bin Laden.
The prince is known to have met with Bakr (76) at the royal’s private residence in London on October 30, 2013, two years after Osama bin Laden was killed by US special forces in Pakistan.
Clarence House, the prince’s private office, has insisted that the decision to accept the money was made by the “charity’s trustees alone” with the Prince of Wales Charitable Fund (PWCF) also seeking to put distance between the charity and its royal namesake.
A source close to the charity yesterday said that, after thorough examination of the issues at the time of the donation, trustees had concluded that the actions of one bin Laden should not tarnish the whole family.
The palace has disputed claims made by The Sunday Times that Charles had personally brokered the donation, ignoring the strong feelings of staff who advised against it.
Sources told the newspaper that several of the prince’s advisers, including at least one PWCF trustee, “pleaded with him in person to return the money”, with one member of staff saying it would cause national outrage if the news leaked to the media.
Another is said to have told the prince he would suffer serious reputational damage if his name was linked with Osama bin Laden, the al-Qa’ida terrorist responsible for the 9/11 attack in which nearly 3,000 people, including 67 Britons, were killed.
A spokesman for Clarence House said: “The Prince of Wales’s Charitable Fund has assured us that thorough due diligence was undertaken in accepting this donation.
“The decision to accept was taken by the charity’s trustees alone and any attempt to characterise it otherwise is false.”
Ian Cheshire, chairman of PWCF, said: “The donation from Sheik Bakr bin Laden in 2013 was carefully considered by PWCF trustees at the time.
“Due diligence was conducted, with information sought from a wide range of sources, including government. The decision to accept the donation was taken wholly by the trustees. Any attempt to suggest otherwise is misleading and inaccurate.”
The trustees have since changed to an entirely new board, with the prince’s charities slimmed down in recent years. The charity, which was founded in 1979 with a mission to transform lives and build sustainable communities, awards grants to UK-registered non-profit organisations to deliver projects in the UK, Commonwealth and overseas.
It no longer has a significant active fundraising programme, instead deciding which good causes to spend Duchy of Cornwall money on.
It is the latest scandal for the Prince of Wales and his charities, coming just a month after it emerged that he had accepted a suitcase of cash during a meeting with former prime minister of Qatar Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber al-Thani. The cash contributed to donations to PWCF amounting to around £2.6m (€3.1m).
CNN host Fareed Zakaria on Sunday slammed Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito for what he called a “disgusting” and “scandalous” speech last week criticizing foreign leaders who disagreed with his ruling on Roe V. Wade.
Zakaria told Jim Acosta on CNN that Supreme Court justices are supposed to, at the very least, conduct themselves in a way that is above politics, given they are unelected members with life tenure who can decide crucial decisions shaping the lives of millions of Americans.
“The reason they have that legitimacy is, to put it very simply, that they behave themselves, that they behave in accordance with the kind of dignity and majesty of the court,” said Zakaria, who hosts CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS.”
“What Alito did, behaving like a cheap commentator, and not a particularly good one at that, was frankly disgusting. I mean I thought it was the most undignified performance by a Supreme Court justice that I have seen in my lifetime,” he said. “I don’t think any of his predecessors would have done it. I think it’s scandalous.”
Zakaria added that he did not expect formal punishment, but added: “If John Roberts wants to fulfill his role as chief justice, I think he should call Justice Alito in and try to explain to him why it damages not just Alito — who looks like an idiot — but it damages the court.”
All four leaders had sharply criticized the Supreme Court for overturning the nearly 50-year constitutional right to abortion, which Alito seemed to find amusing.
“I’ve had a few second thoughts over the last few weeks since I had the honor this term of writing I think the only Supreme Court decision in the history of that institution that has been lambasted by a whole string of foreign leaders who felt perfectly fine commenting on American law,” Alito said during his speech.
The Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe V. Wade has paved the way for many GOP-led states to ban or severely restrict abortion access across the country, despite around two-thirds of Americans supporting the right to an abortion in some cases.
Trust in the Supreme Court has never been lower, according to polling earlier this month, which found just a quarter of Americans hold confidence in the high court.
China's Nio to make power products for Europe at its first overseas plant
Yesterday
SHANGHAI (Reuters) -Chinese electric car maker Nio plans to open its first overseas plant in September to make power products for the European market as it accelerates expansion abroad.
The plant, in Pest, Hungary, will develop and manufacture power products such as battery-swapping stations to serve European users, Nio said in a statement late on Friday.
Nio will speed up construction of battery swapping stations in Europe with a view to expanding sales of its cars in countries including Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark in the second half of this year.
The company is also partnering with oil giant Shell PLC to build battery swapping stations globally, starting with China and Europe this year, according to a Nio statement on Monday. Shell will open its charging network in Europe to Nio users, it added.
Nio started shipping its ES8s to Norway in 2021 and has opened a showroom in Oslo.
The company has been touting its after-sales services with city-centre showrooms and battery service networks as important competitive advantages.
Nio has said it planned to establish 4,000 battery swapping stations worldwide, a quarter of them outside China.
More Chinese electric vehicle (EV) startups and battery makers are increasing their presence in global markets where EV and energy storage demand is taking off.
Chinese battery maker Gotion High Tech Co said in June it planned to locate a third of its production capacity outside China by 2025 with construction of its first overseas battery plant, in Gottingen, Germany, to begin by the end of the year.
(Reporting by Zhang Yan, Brenda Goh; Editing by Robert Birsel and Louise Heavens)
OF COURSE NOT
No reported damage in Philippines from Chinese rocket debris
By Associated Press August 1, 2022 at 12:50 a.m. EDT
FILE - In this photo released by Xinhua News Agency, people gather at the beach side as they watch the Long March 5B Y3 carrier rocket, carrying Wentian lab module, lift off from the Wenchang Space Launch Center in Wenchang in southern China’s Hainan Province Sunday, July 24, 2022. There was no reported damage in a western Philippine region, where debris from a rocket that boosted part of China’s new space station reportedly fell, a Filipino official said Monday, Aug. 1. (Zhang Liyun/Xinhua via AP, File)
MANILA, Philippines — There was no reported damage in a western Philippine region where debris from a rocket that boosted part of China’s new space station reportedly fell, a Filipino official said Monday.
Philippine Space Agency official Marc Talampas said authorities have been advised to be on the lookout for the rocket debris, which may have splashed down into seawaters off Palawan province.
“We are monitoring the situation and have also issued an advisory to the public to be vigilant, avoid contact with any suspected floating debris and to report to local authorities immediately,” Talampas told The Associated Press.
The China Manned Space Agency reported Sunday that most of the final stage of the Long March-5B rocket burned up after entering the atmosphere. It said the booster would be allowed to fall unguided.
The Chinese agency announcement gave no details of whether remaining debris fell on land or sea but said the “landing area” was at 119 degrees east longitude and 9.1 degrees north latitude. That is in waters southeast of Palawan’s capital city of Puerto Princesa.
The Philippine Space Agency did not receive any notifications from its Chinese counterpart about the rocket debris.
China has faced criticism for allowing rocket stages to fall to Earth uncontrolled twice before. NASA accused Beijing last year of “failing to meet responsible standards regarding their space debris” after parts of a Chinese rocket landed in the Indian Ocean.
The country’s first space station, Tiangong-1, crashed into the Pacific Ocean in 2016 after Beijing confirmed it lost control. An 18-ton rocket fell uncontrolled in May 2020.
China also faced criticism after using a missile to destroy one of its defunct weather satellites in 2007, creating a field of debris that other governments said might jeopardize other satellites.
The July 24 launch of the Long March-5B, China’s most-powerful rocket, carried the Wentian laboratory into orbit. It was attached to the Tianhe main module, where three astronauts live.
The remains of a separate cargo spacecraft that serviced the station fell into a predetermined area of the South Pacific after most of it burned up on reentry, the Chinese government announced earlier.
The closing of the San Francisco Art Institute: “The artists can go hang themselves”
The announcement in mid-July that the San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) would cease operations, no longer offering courses or degrees, is a significant and telling event.
Whatever the concrete circumstances and whichever individuals or bodies may bear some degree of responsibility, the shuttering of the once renowned school is a further sign—in the broadest sense—that, in the eyes of the American ruling elite, as we noted in April 2021 in regard to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, “the artists can go hang themselves.”
The situation is extraordinary. Not only was the SFAI one of the oldest art academies in the US, and the oldest in its Western half, it was located in one of the most dynamic cultural centers in the country historically, the Bay Area. In fact, the institute was a focal point of various artistic trends and movements in the 20th century. Now it has disappeared, without substantial outcry or protest, certainly not from the city’s affluent upper echelons.
San Francisco Art Institute (Photo credit–Pax Ahimsa Gethen)
In their July 15 announcement, Art Institute officials explained that after “many years of austerity measures, challenging fundraising campaigns, and various on and off merger and acquisition negotiations … SFAI is no longer financially viable and has ceased its degree programs as of July 15, 2022. SFAI will remain a nonprofit organization to protect its name, archives, and legacy.”
The school’s press release, written with a degree of bitterness, noted that as of July 16 “no students or employees will fill SFAI’s historic landmark campus, a beautiful and unique spot in San Francisco with its glorious Diego Rivera fresco … Instead, a few contractors will manage security, regulatory, legal, and financial matters, and ensure that students and alumni can access their academic records.”
According to the SFAI’s own historical account, “During its first 60 years, influential artists associated with the school included Eadweard Muybridge, photographer and pioneer of motion graphics; Maynard Dixon, painter of San Francisco’s labor movement and of the landscape of the West; Henry Kiyama, whose Four Immigrants Manga was the first graphic novel published in the U.S.; Sargent Claude Johnson, one of the first African-American artists from California to achieve a national reputation; Louise Dahl-Wolfe, an innovative photographer whose work for Harper’s Bazaar in the 1930s defined a new American style of ‘environmental’ fashion photography; John Gutzon Borglum, the creator of the large-scale public sculpture known as Mt. Rushmore; and numerous others.”
Following World War II, “the school became a nucleus for Abstract Expressionism.” The first fine art photography department in the US was established at the SFAI in 1946. “By the early 1950s, San Francisco’s North Beach was the West Coast center of the Beat Movement, and music, poetry, and discourse were an intrinsic part of artists’ lives.”
SFAI faculty members have included photographers Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange and Minor White, painters Elmer Bischoff, Richard Diebenkorn, Clyfford Still, Ad Reinhardt and Mark Rothko and filmmakers Stan Brakhage and George Kuchar.
The closure places Mexican artist Rivera’s famed work, The Making of a Fresco Showing the Building of a City, painted at the school in May 1931, in a precarious position. The July 15 announcement explains that the SFAI owns the fresco in its Chestnut Street campus, while the “University of California owns the building. SFAI will lose possession of the fresco if it defaults on or loses its lease on the building. SFAI is actively working with local and international donor communities to protect the fresco.”
Diego Rivera's The Making of a Fresco Showing the Building of a City (1931)
The immediate circumstance that brought about the July 15 closing was the failure of the SFAI’s attempt to merge with the University of San Francisco (USF), a private Jesuit institution. The university signed a letter of intent in February 2022 pledging to investigate the possibility of “integrating operations and academic programs in the arts to elevate the next generation of artists.” However, in July USF officials indicated that after five months of “extensive exploration and discussion about a possible integration of arts education programs for undergraduate and graduate students,” the university had informed the art institute that “a full integration of the two universities is not feasible due to financial and other considerations.”
A combination of processes undermined the art school. The SFAI’s financial difficulties are not new. An April 2020 article by Sarah Hotchkiss at KQED commented that, depending “on who you talk to, SFAI’s problems stem from different causes. Some blame the first dot-com bust. Others, many others, point to the school’s [$19 million] expansion into Fort Mason. Still others blame the rise in San Francisco’s cost of living, or the difficulty of running a small school without an enormous endowment.”
Declining enrollment did not help matters. Various factors contributed to that, including, according to Hotchkiss, “the Bay Area’s prohibitive rents, the expense of a private college education, the fear of graduating with overwhelming debt.” Tuition for the 2020–21 school year amounted to approximately $46,000 for undergraduate students and nearly $48,000 for graduate students. As the same article pointed out, “Ninety percent of SFAI’s domestic students take out some form of loan to pursue their educations, loans that must one day be repaid. Amid the student debt crisis, a nearly $280,000 art degree [including graduate school] can be a hard sell.”
Moreover, as it has done in so many spheres, the pandemic had a “trigger effect” here too. The new and apparently insurmountable financial problems erupted in the spring of 2020, after the school was forced to close down its operations due to the health crisis. Pam Rorke Levy, chair of the SFAI board, told ARTnews at the time that over “the past 149 years, the San Francisco Art Institute has survived crises large and small … but the uncertainties and financial hardships resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic are threatening to take us under.”
Artnet observed in January 2021 that the “nation’s first art academy west of the Mississippi … where giants like Ansel Adams once taught, has suffered numerous financial crunches over its long history. But as Bay Area real estate prices and cost of living have skyrocketed, the financial situation at the school, which offers only fine-art degrees and no (generally more lucrative) design and architecture programs, has become especially precarious.”
Artnet reported at the time that the SFAI was considering selling off the Rivera mural, appraised at $50 million, and that one of the potential buyers was filmmaker George Lucas.
The demise of the San Francisco Art Institute is a disgraceful event, which speaks to the general decline of cultural life in crisis-ridden capitalist America. As we wrote after one year of the pandemic, as the disaster for art and artists unfolded, by and large, “global ruling elites view any activity not directly and immediately related to amassing profits or driving up share values as useless and counterproductive. Worse still, as social tensions mount, there is always the danger that artists may speak impermissible truths and gain a significant public hearing.”
A March 2021 US government report asserted that artists were “among the most severely affected workers by the pandemic.” The update estimated that 63 percent of artists or creative workers “became fully unemployed in 2020 and have lost an average of $37,430 each in creativity-based income since the pandemic’s onset.” Ninety-five percent of artists reported loss of income, while 78 percent had “no post-pandemic financial recovery plan,” 50 percent had been “unable to sell/distribute their creative product” and 74 percent had “had their events canceled.”
This, of course, came on top of pre-pandemic conditions for the vast majority of artists in the US that were already impossible.
In his book The Death of the Artist: How Creators Are Struggling to Survive in the Age of Billionaires and Big Tech (2020), William Deresiewicz took note of a study revealing that “only 10 percent of the two million arts graduates in the United States make their primary living as artists, that 85 percent of artists in New York City have day jobs unrelated to the arts, and that the other 15 percent have median incomes of $25,000.” Meanwhile, in 2018, “just twenty individuals accounted for 64 percent of total sales by living artists.”
Are there resources enough in the San Francisco Bay Area to sustain an art college? It seems so. As of April 2022, according to Forbes, the region was home to 116 billionaires, more than reside in any other single state, except New York. The six richest individuals in California alone, all of whom live in the Bay Area, have a collective net worth of more than a third of a trillion dollars, reports the magazine. What shall we call them then, “barbarians at the Golden Gate”?
Small Businesses Are Fighting to Get the Pentagon War Ready
MAG Aerospace, a longtime Pentagon partner, has grown from a small to a medium-sized contractor over the last ten years. The firm stands as an example of the kinds of defense companies in a position to deepen their internal research and development.
As the Pentagon explores new avenues of outreach to small and medium-sized businesses, several key entities, such as the Department of Defense-affiliated National Security Innovation Network (NSIN), are increasing partnerships with industry innovators to accelerate an often cumbersome development process.
This government-private sector integration is precisely what NSIN envisions as central to its core mission, which it refers to as a “collaboration portfolio.”
“The Collaboration Portfolio increases the intellectual diversity of the DoD by bringing together innovators from defense, academia, and the venture community to solve national security problems,” NSIN officials told The National Interest in a written statement.
MAG Aerospace, a longtime Pentagon partner, has grown from a small to a medium-sized contractor over the last ten years. The firm stands as an example of the kinds of defense companies in a position to deepen their internal research and development.
For instance, MAG has partnered with Pentagon developers to work on a national initiative aimed at standing up “innovation centers” with specific areas of scientific focus across the country. MAG’s New Jersey Innovation Center, for example, is focused on software development to create what MAG calls an “innovative Secure Software Development Life Cycle that combines Software Engineering, Cybersecurity, Risk Management, Quality Management, and Project Management Processes.”
A software emphasis is key given its significance to weapons upgrades and ability to improve guidance technology, targeting, energetics, or explosive effects. This has been in practice for quite some time. Former Air Force Acquisition Executive William Roper once said that software will likely determine who wins the next war. The importance of information management and communication has become so critical and ubiquitous across military operations, that there continues to be a growing imperative to include “information assurance” in the equation. This is something AASKI LABS, a MAG subsidiary, is specifically focused on.
“The MAG Innovation Team injects security-based requirements directly into the initial requirements gathering process to help identify what the applicable security reviews, tests, and implementations requirements are for any given release. This provides the most secure path and inherently increases security posture as the life cycle progresses,” Matt Bartlett, president of MAG Aerospace, told The National Interest.
Much of the focus is on networking or the process of finding and advancing new and secure methods of organizing and sharing information across a multi-domain joint force. This is the concept behind the Pentagon’s Joint All Domain Command and Control (JADC2) program, an interoperability initiative MAG innovation centers are designed to address. One of the centers is called a “mobile interoperability” center which includes a customized test vehicle with racks, LRU mounting trays, cabling, wiring, power systems, and satellite terminal equipment.
“The mobile innovation center enables Over-The-Air satellite testing in conjunction with the CONUS satellite network. Our interoperability innovation lab has a full suite of Ku-band, L-band, and modem test equipment. The innovation center also has test fixtures and troubleshooting tools supporting the repair of advanced communication products,” Bartlett said.
MAG developers say the innovation center houses an environmental chamber instrumented for Ku-band and L-band devices, which is used primarily for environmental screening and testing modems and antenna RF components using cold and heat cycles.
Satellite technologies also figure prominently in MAG’s Space Innovation Center, which maintains manufacturing, prototyping, advanced engineering, and technology integration areas designed to test paradigm-changing space technology. This is critical, particularly in light of the U.S. effort to launch a new space command, for deploying hundreds of new low (LEO) and medium-earth orbit satellites and developing new weapons and defenses for space. Large numbers of dispersed and securely networked LEO satellites could prove essential during efforts to develop a continuous “track” on an enemy hypersonic weapon between segregated radar apertures. Many of these satellites build in redundancy and seek to cover expansive and disconnected areas. But they are also specifically engineered with high-throughput technology and a growing artificial intelligence-enabled ability to process information at the point of collection.
Kris Osborn is the defense editor for the National Interest. Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a Highly Qualified Expert with the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Master's Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University.
US energy envoy in Beirut as Israel, Lebanon eye maritime border deal
Amos Hochstein's trip comes just days after media cited Israeli officials as saying that the longstanding border dispute was “on the verge of a solution.” An Israeli warship sails near one of Israel's offshore natural gas rigs.
Photo courtesy of the IDF Spokesperson's Unit.
(July 31, 2022 / JNS) U.S. Senior Adviser for Energy Security Amos Hochstein was due in Beirut on Sunday as part of an ongoing effort to mediate indirect talks between Israel and Lebanon aimed at resolving a longstanding maritime border dispute, according to a State Department statement.
During his visit, Hochstein will “discuss sustainable solutions to Lebanon’s energy crisis, including the Biden administration’s commitment to facilitating negotiations between Lebanon and Israel on the maritime boundary. Reaching a resolution is both necessary and possible, but can only be done through negotiations and diplomacy,” the statement read.
The trip comes just days after local media cited Israeli officials as saying that the dispute was “on the verge of a solution,” and that Hochstein would present a draft compromise proposal enabling both countries to drill for gas in the contested Karish field.
“In Israel, the declarations by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah are being viewed as an attempt to frame the latest development, so that if an agreement is reached on the maritime dispute, it will be [seen as being] due to his declarations and actions,” the officials told Kan.
Nasrallah last week threatened war if Israel begins extracting gas from its offshore Karish field in the absence of a deal with Beirut.
“If the extraction of oil and gas from Karish begins in September before Lebanon obtains its right, we would be heading to a ‘problem,’ and we’ll do anything to achieve our objective,” Nasrallah told the Hezbollah-affiliated Al-Mayadeen TV channel, according to Lebanese news site Naharnet.
Previous U.S.-mediated talks failed to produce an agreement, especially after Lebanon pushed its claim in the disputed maritime zone from a boundary known as “Line 23” further south to “Line 29,” adding around 1,400 square kilometers (540 square miles) to its claim, including part of Karish.
On July 2, the Israel Defense Forces shot down three unmanned aerial vehicles sent by Hezbollah from Lebanon towards the Karish platform, which is located some 80 kilometers (50 miles) off the coast of Haifa
Hezbollah airs video of Israeli barges in disputed gas field
By KAREEM CHEHAYEB FILE - An Israeli Navy vessel patrols in the Mediterranean Sea, while Lebanon and Israel are being called to resume indirect talks over their disputed maritime border with U.S. mediation, off the southern town of Naqoura, Monday, June 6, 2022. The Israeli military on Saturday, July 2, 2022 said it shot down three unmanned aircraft launched by the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah heading toward an area where an Israeli gas platform was recently installed in the Mediterranean Sea.
(AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari, File)
BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanon’s Hezbollah on Sunday aired drone footage of Israeli ships in a disputed gas field in the Mediterranean Sea, highlighting the tension at the center of U.S.-mediated maritime border talks between Lebanon and Israel.
The footage was aired as the U.S. energy envoy, Amos Hochstein, was landing in Beirut to mediate ongoing talks between Lebanon and Israel over their sea borders. Lebanon claims the Karish gas field is disputed territory under ongoing maritime border negotiations, whereas Israel says it lies within its internationally recognized economic waters.
Caretaker Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib in a statement Friday said Hochstein will inform Lebanon of Israel’s response to Lebanon’s June proposal, adding that he was optimistic about reaching an agreement soon.
There was no immediate response to the video from Israel.
The footage aired on the Iran-backed party and militia’s Al-Manar television, showed barges from reconnaissance drones over the Karish gas field and their coordinates. It ended with footage of a rocket with the words “within range” in Arabic and Hebrew.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in an interview last week said that the militant group can locate and strike Karish and any other Israeli gas field.
Following his last visit in June, Hochstein told U.S.-funded Al-Hurra television that the Lebanese government took “a very strong step forward” by presenting a more united approach, and anticipated that there could be progress to reach a settlement.
The two countries, which have been officially at war since Israel’s creation in 1948, both claim some 860 square kilometers (330 square miles) of the Mediterranean Sea. Lebanon hopes to exploit offshore gas reserves as it grapples with the worst economic crisis in its modern history.
