In April 2006, Iran successfully test-fired a new high-speed torpedo called Hoot. It was test-fired again last July, along with various other missiles.
“The torpedo is capable of destroying the largest warships and any other vessel on the surface or beneath the water, and split it into two parts,” according to an Iranian Naval Forces official.
Technical specifications (pdf) for components of the Hoot torpedo are presented in an Iranian document (in Farsi) that was provided to Secrecy News. The document appears to have been produced by a subunit of Iran’s Aerospace Industries Organization, according to a colleague who reviewed it.
“Only Iran and another country possess the technology to build this [torpedo],” the Iranian press reported after last July’s test, apparently referring to Russia and its Shkval torpedo. On 4 April 2006, Izvestiya Moscow said that the Hoot resembles the Shkval technically and in appearance, and that Shkval torpedoes may have found their way to Iran via China, where they were delivered in the mid-1990s. But Iranian officials insist the Hoot is a completely original production.
“From a tactical point of view,” said Rear Admiral Morteza Safari of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps naval forces, “what is of critical importance is that we are everywhere, while we are nowhere!” (Fars News Agency, July 10, 2008, via OSC).
“Let me briefly say that the intelligence that the Americans have about us is very different from the intelligence that they do not have about us,” he went on. “What I mean is that they have only little information, and there is a lot of intelligence that they are not aware of.”
As humans expand our geographic reach, encroach on untouched natural territories, and interact more with animal populations, we will encounter novel zoonotic diseases that threaten the human body. The sooner we act to address these risks, the better.
This report serves as a landscape assessment and toolbox from which local governments can negotiate an informed position when it comes to the levers available to them and includes a first-of-its kind analysis of eight executed community benefits agreements.
When a hurricane hits, it’s all hands on deck – that goes for federal data, too. Pulling back from our investments in timely, accurate, and accessible public data will only make us less prepared and put us all at greater risk.
This is bigger than a singular elimination of race and ethnicity questions. It could accelerate the second wave of widespread reductions to demographic data, leaving public health officials with even less information to deliver better health outcomes for all Americans.