Yahoo! News: Iraq

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• Not your average drone: new technology the US military is developing
• Unemployment rate drops for most Americans
• Syrian nuns taken by rebels appear in video
• US Air Force has secretly built a new stealth drone
• UK marine gets minimum 10 years for Afghan murder
• Suicide bomber kills five outside Syria militia HQ: NGO
• Is Biden helping or hurting U.S. interests in Asia?
• Journalist gunned down in Iraqi Kurdistan
• Italian court sentences abducted Egyptian to 6 years: sources
• Today in History

Not your average drone: new technology the US military is developing Posted: 06 Dec 2013 03:12 PM PST High above the skies of Area 51, the secret US military testing ground in the Nevada desert, the Air Force is readying a new generation of spy drones. Dubbed the RQ-180, this drone is designed to penetrate "deep into heavily defended airspace," according to Aviation Week, which details the project in a cover story released Friday. Yet they acknowledge, too, that it's actually not too hard to shoot down America's current crop of go-to drones, like the Predator and the Reaper, since they don't have any stealth technology. "In contested airspace – a more plausible scenario for future conflicts – today's UAS [unmanned aerial systems] would be extremely vulnerable," said Gen. Roger Brady, at the time the outgoing commander of US Air Forces in Europe, at a UAS conference in 2010.

Unemployment rate drops for most Americans Posted: 06 Dec 2013 02:39 PM PST The U.S. unemployment rate fell to 7 percent in November, the lowest level in five years. The improving jobs picture benefited a broad range of workers. Unemployment fell across almost all racial and ethnic ...

Syrian nuns taken by rebels appear in video Posted: 06 Dec 2013 01:10 PM PST BEIRUT (AP) — A group of Syrian Greek Orthodox nuns reportedly seized by rebels from a convent near Damascus denied in a video broadcast Friday that they had been kidnapped and said they were being held in a safe place.

US Air Force has secretly built a new stealth drone Posted: 06 Dec 2013 11:24 AM PST The US Air Force has secretly developed a new stealth drone for long-range reconnaissance missions that could be operational by 2015, according to a report Friday in an industry magazine. The unmanned drone, dubbed RQ-180, is currently in the testing phase at the top secret Groom Lake air base in Nevada -- the infamous "Area 51" where the Air Force tested the U2 spy planes in the late 1950s, Aviation Week said. The Air Force refused to comment when contacted by AFP. The new aircraft was reportedly built by Northrop Grumann, the company behind the Global Hawk and the X-47B drones, which landed on air craft carriers for the first time this summer.

UK marine gets minimum 10 years for Afghan murder Posted: 06 Dec 2013 08:36 AM PST LONDON (AP) — A British Royal Marine convicted of murdering a wounded Taliban insurgent was sentenced Friday to a minimum of 10 years in prison.

Suicide bomber kills five outside Syria militia HQ: NGO Posted: 06 Dec 2013 08:20 AM PST A suicide bomber blew up a vehicle outside a pro-government militia headquarters in northeastern Syria, killing at least five people on Friday, a monitoring group said. Another 10 people were wounded in the bombing outside the the National Defence Forces base in the Kurdish-majority city of Qamishli on the Turkish border, Syrian Observatory for Human Rights director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP. State television reported that there had been dead and wounded in a blast in the Hasakeh province city but made no mention of it being near the militia headquarters. Syrian government forces largely withdrew from Kurdish-majority regions of the northeast and northwest in the middle of last year but have maintained a limited presence in some areas.

Is Biden helping or hurting U.S. interests in Asia? Posted: 06 Dec 2013 07:02 AM PST During his much-touted trip to Asia, Vice President Joe Biden hasn't wasted any time criticizing the Chinese government. China's newly established air defense zone in the East China Sea has been a top issue for American and Chinese leaders this week, fomenting tension between the two powers as they try to work on other issues like North Korea's nuclear ambitions. Biden was quick to remind China the United States has a vested interest in the region and does not recognize the zone, which covers airspace over islands Japan lays claim to and a reef some believe belong to South Korea. Several U.S. journalists, including nine from The New York Times and 14 from Bloomberg, have not had their visas renewed and may have to leave China by the end of the year or face expulsion.

Journalist gunned down in Iraqi Kurdistan Posted: 06 Dec 2013 05:38 AM PST Sulaimaniyah (Iraq) (AFP) - Gunmen shot dead a magazine editor investigating corruption in the autonomous Kurdistan region, the latest in a series of attacks on journalists in Iraq, media rights groups and police said Friday. Kawa Ahmed Germyani, the editor-in-chief of Rayal magazine and a correspondent for Awene newspaper, was gunned down on Thursday night, said Rahman Ghareeb, an official from Kurdish media rights watchdog Metro Centre. Ghareeb said that Germyani, 32, was shot in the head and chest in front of his mother at his home in the town of Kalar, which lies south of Iraqi Kurdistan's second-biggest city Sulaimaniyah. "We are appalled by Germyani's murder and offer our heartfelt condolences to his family and colleagues," media rights group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said in a statement.

Italian court sentences abducted Egyptian to 6 years: sources Posted: 06 Dec 2013 03:01 AM PST An Italian court sentenced the radical Egyptian Muslim cleric Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr in absentia on Friday to six years in prison for international terrorism, legal sources said. The cleric, also known as Abu Omar, was abducted and secretly flown to Egypt for interrogation under the U.S. "extraordinary rendition" programme in 2003. Nasr's abduction led to the first trial of its kind against the "renditions" practised by the administration of former U.S. president George W. Bush, which have been condemned by human rights groups as a violation of international agreements.

Today in History Posted: 05 Dec 2013 09:02 PM PST Today is Friday, Dec. 6, the 340th day of 2013. There are 25 days left in the year.

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