US jets down 4 objects in 8 days, unprecedented in peacetime

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US officials were still trying to precisely identify two other objects shot down by F-22 fighter jets. (AFP)
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Updated 13 February 2023
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US jets down 4 objects in 8 days, unprecedented in peacetime

  • North America has been on high alert for aerial intrusions following the appearance of a white, eye-catching Chinese airship over American skies earlier this month

WASHINGTON: A US fighter jet shot down an “unidentified object” over Lake Huron on Sunday on orders from President Joe Biden. It was the fourth such downing in eight days and the latest military strike in an extraordinary chain of events over US airspace that Pentagon officials believe has no peacetime precedent.
Part of the reason for the repeated shootdowns is a “heightened alert” following a spy balloon from China that emerged over US airspace in late January, Gen. Glen VanHerck, head of NORAD and US Northern Command, said in a briefing with reporters.
Since then, fighter jets last week also shot down objects over Canada and Alaska. Pentagon officials said they posed no threats, but so little was known about them that Pentagon officials were ruling nothing out — not even UFOs.
“We have been more closely scrutinizing our airspace at these altitudes, including enhancing our radar, which may at least partly explain the increase,” said Melissa Dalton, assistant defense secretary for homeland defense.
US authorities have made clear that they constantly monitor for unknown radar blips, and it is not unusual to shut down airspace as a precaution to evaluate them. But the unusually assertive response was raising questions about whether such use of force was warranted, particularly as administration officials said the objects were not of great national security concern and the downings were just out of caution.
VanHerck said the US adjusted its radar so it could track slower objects. “With some adjustments, we’ve been able to get a better categorization of radar tracks now,” he said, “and that’s why I think you’re seeing these, plus there’s a heightened alert to look for this information.”
He added: “I believe this is the first time within United States or American airspace that NORAD or United States Northern Command has taken kinetic action against an airborne object.”
Asked if officials have ruled out extraterrestrials, VanHerck said, “I haven’t ruled out anything at this point.”
The Pentagon officials said they were still trying to determine what exactly the objects were and said they had considered using the jets’ guns instead of missiles, but it proved to be too difficult. They drew a strong distinction between the three shot down over this weekend and the balloon from China.
The extraordinary air defense activity began in late January, when a white orb the officials said was from China appeared over the US and hovered above the nation for days before fighter jets downed it off the coast of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. That event played out over livestream. Since, then many Americans have been captivated by the drama playing out in the skies as fighter jets scramble to shoot down objects.
The latest brought down was first detected on Saturday evening over Montana, but it was initially thought to be an anomaly. Radar picked it up again Sunday hovering over the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and it was going over Lake Huron, Pentagon officials said Sunday.
US and Canadian authorities had restricted some airspace over the lake earlier Sunday as planes were scrambled to intercept and try to identify the object. According to a senior administration official, the object was octagonal, with strings hanging off, but had no discernable payload. It was flying low at about 20,000 feet, said the official who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to disusc
Meanwhile, US officials were still trying to precisely identify two other objects shot down by F-22 fighter jets, and were working to determine whether China was responsible as concerns escalated about what Washington said was Beijing’s large-scale aerial surveillance program.
An object shot down Saturday over Canada’s Yukon was described by US officials as a balloon significantly smaller than the balloon — the size of three school buses — hit by a missile Feb. 4. A flying object brought down over the remote northern coast of Alaska on Friday was more cylindrical and described as a type of airship.
Both were believed to have a payload, either attached or suspended from them, according to the officials who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing investigation. Officials were not able to say who launched the objects and were seeking to figure out their origin.
The three objects were much smaller in size, different in appearance and flew at lower altitudes than the suspected spy balloon that fell into the Atlantic Ocean after the US missile strike.
The officials said the other three objects were not consistent with the fleet of Chinese aerial surveillance balloons that targeted more than 40 countries, stretching back at least into the Trump administration.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told ABC’s “This Week” that US officials were working quickly to recover debris. Using shorthand to describe the objects as balloons, he said USmilitary and intelligence officials were “focused like a laser” on gathering and accumulating the information, then compiling a comprehensive analysis.
“The bottom line is until a few months ago we didn’t know about these balloons,” Schumer, D-N.Y., said of the spy program that the administration has linked to the People’s Liberation Army, China’s military. “It is wild that we didn’t know.”
Eight days ago, F-22 jets downed the large white balloon that had wafted over the US for days at an altitude of about 60,000 feet. US officials immediately blamed China, saying the balloon was equipped to detect and collect intelligence signals and could maneuver itself. White House officials said improved surveillance capabilities helped detect it.
China’s Foreign Ministry said the unmanned balloon was a civilian meteorological airship that had blown off course. Beijing said the US had “overreacted” by shooting it down.
Then, on Friday, North American Aerospace Defense Command, the combined US-Canada organization that provides shared defense of airspace over the two nations, detected and shot down an object near sparsely populated Deadhorse, Alaska.
Later that evening, NORAD detected a second object, flying at a high altitude over Alaska, US officials said. It crossed into Canadian airspace on Saturday and was over the Yukon, a remote territory, when it was ordered shot down by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
In both of those incidents, the objects were flying at roughly 40,000 feet. The object on Sunday was flying at 20,000 feet.
The cases have increased diplomatic tensions between the United States and China, raised questions about the extent of Beijing’s American surveillance, and prompted days of criticism from Republican lawmakers about the administration’s response.
 

 


Microsoft CEO heckled over company’s ties to Israeli military

Updated 7 sec ago
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Microsoft CEO heckled over company’s ties to Israeli military

  • Employee tells Satya Nadella to show annual conference ‘how Microsoft is killing Palestinians’
  • ‘A top Azure customer is committing crimes against humanity. We see it live on the internet every day’

LONDON: A keynote address by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella was interrupted by an employee protesting the company’s relationship with Israel on Monday.

Joe Lopez, a firmware engineer who works on Microsoft’s cloud-computing platform Azure, shouted “Satya, how about you show how Microsoft is killing Palestinians” during the company’s annual developer conference.

Before he was escorted from the room, he added: “How about you show how Israeli war crimes are powered by Azure?”

It was not the only protest against Microsoft’s relationship with Israel amid the ongoing war in Gaza.

A group called No Azure for Apartheid, which has been campaigning for over a year, also demonstrated at the conference.

Azure is believed to have been used by Israel in surveillance of Palestinians and is utilized by the Ofek Unit, a branch of the air force that identifies airstrike targets, The Guardian reported.

Lopez emailed colleagues to explain his actions. “As one of the largest companies in the world, Microsoft has immeasurable power to do the right thing: demand an end to this senseless tragedy, or we will cease our technological support for Israel,” he said.

“If leadership continues to ignore this demand, I promise that it won’t go unnoticed. The world has already woken up to our complicity and is turning against us. The boycotts will increase and our image will continue to spiral into disrepair.”

Lopez added: “Leadership rejects our claims that Azure technology is being used to target or harm civilians in Gaza. Those of us who have been paying attention know that this is a bold-faced lie.”

He concluded: “We don’t need an internal audit to know that a top Azure customer is committing crimes against humanity. We see it live on the internet every day.”

Anna Hattle, a Microsoft employee and organizer of the No Azure for Apartheid campaign, emailed senior management on May 15 stating: “One year ago, workers launched the No Azure for Apartheid campaign and petition in a state of urgency after 7 months of genocide.”

Referencing the 1948 mass displacement of an estimated 750,000 Palestinians known as the Nakba, Hattle said the world is “currently witnessing the same crimes committed 77 years ago with one key difference: now, the Israeli Occupation Forces are carrying out this genocide at a much greater scale thanks to Microsoft cloud and AI technology.”

On April 6, employees Ibtihal Aboussad and Vaniya Agrawal accused Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman of profiting from war at an artificial intelligence event. Aboussad and Agrawal were subsequently dismissed by the company.

Google also fired 50 people last year after a series of internal protests against its own cloud-computing relationship with the Israeli military.

Microsoft refused to comment on Lopez’s protest. An earlier investigation by the company concluded that there was “no evidence” Israel uses its technology to harm or target people.


UK PM refuses to say if Israel committing genocide in Gaza

Updated 16 min 12 sec ago
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UK PM refuses to say if Israel committing genocide in Gaza

  • Keir Starmer: It is a ‘really serious, unacceptable, intolerable situation’
  • UN humanitarian chief: International community must ‘act now’ to ‘prevent genocide’

London: UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has refused to be drawn on whether Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

It follows comments from Tom Fletcher, head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, that the international community needs to “act now” to “prevent genocide” in the Palestinian enclave.

Fletcher also told the UN Security Council that Israel has been “deliberately and unashamedly” blocking aid from entering Gaza.

Starmer was asked by Sky News at a press conference following a new set of agreements with the EU if he believes genocide is happening in Gaza.

He did not answer the question directly, but said it is a “really serious, unacceptable, intolerable situation.”

His words were echoed by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who was also in attendance and called for the “unacceptable” blockade by Israel to be “lifted now.”

The Genocide Convention defines genocide as the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group,” including acts such as killings, causing physical or mental harm, or creating conditions in order to destroy an identified group.


Israeli politician slammed for saying country should not 'kill babies for a hobby'

Updated 14 min 45 sec ago
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Israeli politician slammed for saying country should not 'kill babies for a hobby'

JERUSALEM: Israeli government and opposition leaders condemned on Tuesday a left-wing politician, Yair Golan, after he said in a radio interview that “a sane country... does not kill babies for a hobby.”
“Israel is on the path to becoming a pariah state among the nations — like the South Africa of old — if it does not return to behaving like a sane country,” said Golan, chairman of Israel’s Democrats party.
“A sane country does not wage war against civilians, does not kill babies for a hobby, and does not set goals involving the expulsion of populations,” he told Israel’s Kan public radio.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Golan, a former major general in the military, of “wild incitement” against Israeli troops and of “echoing the most despicable anti-Semitic blood libels against the (Israeli army) and the State of Israel.”
Golan also drew condemnation from government critics, with opposition leader Yair Lapid saying in a post on X: “Our fighters are heroes and are defending our lives. The statement that they kill children as a hobby is incorrect and is a gift to our enemies.”
Education Minister Yoav Kisch, of Netanyahu’s party, called for an investigation for incitement into Golan, whose party is a coalition of several left-wing factions.
“Golan is not a member of Knesset and does not have immunity. I expect the attorney general to immediately open an investigation against him for incitement,” Kisch said on X.
Military chief Eyal Zamir in a statement condemned remarks that cast doubt on the “morality” of the army’s actions and of its troops.
Responding to criticism, Golan said on X that he was trying to sound the alarm on the direction he believed Israel was headed.
The government’s war plans are “the realization of the fantasies of (Itamar) Ben Gvir and (Bezalel) Smotrich,” Golan said, referring to two far-right ministers.
“If we allow them to realize them, we will become a pariah state,” the left-wing politician said.
Golan is a vocal opponent of Netanyahu’s government and its policies.
In November 2024, he accused Netanyahu of putting his own political interests before the country’s following a decision to dismiss defense minister Yoav Gallant.


Pakistan, India agree to withdraw troops by end May

Updated 20 May 2025
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Pakistan, India agree to withdraw troops by end May

  • More than 70 people were killed in the four-day conflict
  • The military confrontation involving intense tit-for-tat drone, missile, aerial combat and artillery exchanges

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan and India have agreed to withdraw troop reinforcements deployed during their recent conflict back to their peacetime positions by the end of May, a senior Pakistani security official told AFP on Tuesday.
More than 70 people were killed in the four-day conflict, which was sparked by an attack on tourists by gunmen in Indian-administered Kashmir last month that New Delhi accused Islamabad of backing -- a charge it denies.
The military confrontation involving intense tit-for-tat drone, missile, aerial combat and artillery exchanges came to an abrupt end after US President Donald Trump announced a surprise ceasefire, which is still holding.
"Troops will be withdrawn to pre-conflict positions by the end of May," the senior security official told AFP on condition of anonymity as he was not authorised to speak to the media.
The official said both countries agreed a phased withdrawal of the additional troops and weaponry deployed, mostly on the already heavily militarised de facto border in Kashmir, known as the Line of Control (LoC).
It comes after the Indian army last week said both sides agreed to take "immediate measures to ensure troop reduction from the borders and forward areas".
"All of these steps were initially planned to be completed within 10 days, but minor issues caused delays," the Pakistani official added.
Kashmir is claimed in full by both India and Pakistan, which have fought several wars over Muslim majority region since their 1947 independence from British rule.
The latest conflict began on May 7 when India launched strikes against what it said were "terrorist camps" in Pakistan, triggering an immediate response from Islamabad.


WHO members adopt a ‘pandemic agreement’ born out of the disjointed global COVID response

Updated 20 May 2025
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WHO members adopt a ‘pandemic agreement’ born out of the disjointed global COVID response

GENEVA: The World Health Organization’s member countries on Tuesday approved an agreement to better prevent, prepare for and respond to future pandemics in the wake of the devastation wrought by the coronavirus.
Sustained applause echoed in a Geneva hall hosting the WHO’s annual assembly as the measure — debated and devised over three years — passed without opposition.
The treaty guarantees that countries which share virus samples will receive tests, medicines and vaccines. Up to 20 percent of such products would be given to the WHO to ensure poorer countries have some access to them when the next pandemic hits.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has touted the agreement as “historic” and a sign of multilateralism at a time when many countries are putting national interests ahead of shared values and cooperation.
Dr. Esperance Luvindao, Namibia’s health minister and the chair of a committee that paved the way for Tuesday’s adoption, said that the COVID-19 pandemic inflicted huge costs “on lives, livelihoods and economies.”
“We — as sovereign states — have resolved to join hands, as one world together, so we can protect our children, elders, frontline health workers and all others from the next pandemic,” Luvindao added. “It is our duty and responsibility to humanity.”
The treaty’s effectiveness will face doubts because the United States — which poured billions into speedy work by pharmaceutical companies to develop COVID-19 vaccines — is sitting out, and because countries face no penalties if they ignore it, a common issue in international law.
The US, traditionally the top donor to the UN health agency, was not part of the final stages of the agreement process after the Trump administration announced a US pullout from the WHO and funding to the agency in January.