Day's Headlines: Ancient Jerusalem in the Papers; Israel Hit Again; Letting Leaders Mount; NATO's Hard Force; Giving up on NK; Spain Denies Russia Because Russia Denies Spain; Gambia Follows the South; Robot Shadow; and 3D Squid

Wednesday, October 26, 2016

Ancient Jerusalem in the Papers; Israel Hit Again; Letting Leaders Mount; NATO's Hard Force; Giving up on NK; Spain Denies Russia Because Russia Denies Spain; Gambia Follows the South; Robot Shadow; and 3D Squid

Isreal

Rare First Temple-era scroll exposes earliest Hebrew mention of Jerusalem jpost

Written in ancient Hebrew script, and dating back to the Kingdom of Judah during the 7th century BCE, the rare relic made of papyrus is the earliest extra-Biblical source to mention Jerusalem in Hebrew writing.

Israel likely to lose big in Wednesday’s UNESCO vote jpost

The result of the vote in [the World Heritage Committee] -- if there is a roll-call vote -- will likely make the previous UNESCO’s Executive Board look like a victory in comparison. And Israel lost that vote 24 to six, with 26 abstentions.

The only states that might possibly vote for Israel, and against the resolution, are two EU states -- Poland and Croatia -- although even that is unlikely. Neither the US, the Netherlands, Germany, Estonia, Britain or Lithuania – all counties that voted against the motion in the UNESCO Executive Board – are on this committee.

Netanyahu Says He’ll Soon Decide If Lawmakers Can Ascend to Temple Mount jewishpress

For nearly a year, Israeli lawmakers have been banned from the site by an edict issued by the prime minister in order to minimize tensions with Arab agitators.

NATO

U.K. to Send Formidable Force to Eastern Europe wsj

The U.K. troops will deploy in the spring and will be joined in Estonia by forces from France and Denmark, said Michael Fallon, the British defense secretary. The force, he said, would likely include tactical drones, Challenger 2 main battle tanks and Warrior armored infantry fighting vehicles army.mod.uk. “That battalion will be defensive in nature, but it will be fully combat-capable,” he said in an interview.

Also see Nato prepares to station thousands of troops in Russian border countries independent.co.uk and Russia reinforces Baltic Fleet with ships armed with long-range cruise missiles in 'worrying' response to Nato build-up telegraph.co.uk

North Korea

Getting North Korea to give up nuclear bomb probably 'lost cause': U.S. spy chief reuters

"They are under siege and they are very paranoid, so the notion of giving up their nuclear capability, whatever it is, is a non-starter with them," [Clapper] said.

Russia

Russian warships: Spain says refuelling request withdrawn bbc

"Given the information which appeared on the possibility that these ships would participate in supporting military action in the Syrian city of Aleppo, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs requested clarification from the embassy of the Russian Federation in Madrid spain.mid.ru," the foreign ministry said in a statement to the BBC.

But following its request for clarification, the ministry said, the Russian embassy in Madrid said it was withdrawing its request for refuelling.

Africa

Gambia is latest African nation to quit international criminal court theguardian

The announcement late on Tuesday came after similar decisions this month by South Africa and Burundi to abandon the troubled institution, set up to handle the world’s worst crimes.

Also see Gambia Announces Its Departure From the International Criminal Court time

Robots

Secretive Canadian Company Teaches Robots to Be More Like People bloomberg

You’ve ordered a robot online and are booting it up at home. At first the bot doesn’t do much of anything; it simply follows you around and observes your daily routine: walking the dog, making lasagna, washing the dishes. But before long the bot has learned to be your surrogate, shouldering quotidian tasks so you can focus on more interesting ones.

That’s the world envisioned by Suzanne Gildert and Geordie Rose.

Research

3D printed autonomous ‘squid’ takes sea exploration to new depths. 3dprintingindustry

As with the group’s other prototypes, all aptly named Cephalobot, KRAKEN (Kinematically Roving Autonomously Kontrolled Electro-Nautic), and CALAMAR-E in turn, 2015’s underwater vehicle is torpedo-like in appearance, and can move in part by a propeller at the rear. However, what can be more clearly seen in models such as the 2011 Cephalobot, are the ‘squid thrusters’ at the sides which are the primary motivators for the vehicle’s motion, as mentioned in the abstract of the paper,

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