Nineteen Palestinians, including children, were shot and killed by Israeli soldiers since November 22 - UN

JERUSALEM, Saturday, December 17, 2022 (WAFA) – Israeli soldiers shot and killed 19 Palestinians, including three children, in different incidents in the occupied territories between November 22 and December 11, making 2022 the deadliest year for Palestinians in the West Bank since 2005, according to the biweekly report on the protection of civilians published by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in the occupied Palestinian territory.

It said that a 16-year-old Palestinian boy was killed on November 22 after Israeli settlers broke into Joseph’s Tomb site in Nablus City. Another child, 16, was killed near Aboud village, northwest of Ramallah, on December 8, and a 15-year-old girl, was killed in Jenin on December 11.

Meanwhile, on 29 November, two Palestinian brothers were killed by live ammunition in Kafr Ein village near Ramallah and on 2 December a Palestinian man was killed in cold blood by an Israeli Border Police officer in Huwwara town, south of Nablus. One Palestinian has also died of wounds sustained earlier. The others were killed during clashes, some of them innocent bystanders, or in attacks.

According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, Israel killed 166 Palestinians since the start of the year (11 of them killed since the start of December), including 39 children and eight females (three children under 18 years, one 68 years, another 51 years, and three 45, 31 and 24 years of age).

Israeli forces also set up closures around one town and blocked the main entrances of four villages, disrupting access of thousands of Palestinians to livelihoods and services during the reporting period from November 22 through December 5, said OCHA.

During this period, added the OCHA report, the Israeli authorities demolished, confiscated, or forced people to demolish 58 structures, including 10 residential homes and one school, for lacking Israeli-issued building permits. Five of the structures were provided by donors as humanitarian assistance. As a result, 47 Palestinians, including 27 children, were displaced, and the livelihoods of more than 160 others were affected.

It said that 56 of the targeted structures were in Area C, including five structures demolished based on Military Order 1797, which provides only a 96-hour notice and very limited grounds for legally challenging a demolition. In addition, two structures were demolished by their owners in East Jerusalem to avoid the payment of fines to the Israeli authorities.

One donor-funded school was demolished, and another had a demolition order issued against it in Hebron, said OCHA. On 23 November, the Israeli authorities demolished Isfey al-Faqua donor-funded school, which served 21 students from three communities in southern Hebron. Isfey al-Fauqa is one of 13 herding communities comprising about 1,150 people, half of whom are children, in an area designated by the Israeli authorities as ‘Firing Zone 918’ in Masafer Yatta. On 29 November, the Israeli authorities issued a demolition order, with a 96-hour notice, against another donor-funded school in Khashem al Karem (Hebron). On 1 December, legal aid partners secured a court injunction against the demolition, which is valid for 21 days as long as no additional construction takes place at the school during this period.

M.K.

Newspapers Review: Dozens of injuries due to Israeli army crackdown on Palestinian protests focus of dailies

RAMALLAH, Saturday, December 17, 2022 (WAFA) – Dozens of Palestinians were injured yesterday in the Israeli army crackdown on the weekly Friday protests in the occupied territories against the occupation and its settlement enterprise, said the three Palestinian Arabic dailies published today in their main front-page story.

Al-Hayat al-Jadida daily said one person was shot by a live bullet while others were either hit by rubber-coated metal bullets or suffocated from tear gas fired by the soldiers.

Al-Quds daily said settlers, under army protection, opened a road through Palestinian-owned land in the town of Dura in the south of the West Bank to serve their expansionist policies.

The third daily, al-Ayyam, said Palestinians confronted wide-scale settler intrusions on their properties.

It also said that Israeli soldiers forced Palestinians to remove their clothes when passing through a checkpoint in Tel Rumeida neighborhood in the occupied part of the southern West Bank city of Hebron.

The three dailies said the Israeli army turned over yesterday the remains of two young Palestinians its forces killed in cold blood near Ramallah on October 3 and has been holding ever since. In that incident, soldiers opened fire at a car near Jalazon refugee camp without any reason killing two and injuring a third, who was treated at a hospital in Ramallah. The two will be buried today in their hometowns of Birzeit and nearby Jifna.

Al-Quds said the United Nations recognized the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination with 168 members voting in favor of this resolution, six opposed and eight abstained.

Al-Hayat al-Jadida said UN experts have condemned the rise in settler violence and the Israeli army’s excessive use of force against the Palestinian civilians in the occupied territories.

Al-Ayyam said an Israeli settler official has called on the army to wage a military attack on Nablus.

The three dailies also highlighted on their front page the recent protests in Jordan against the rise in prices of fuel with al-Ayyam saying a security man was killed in the protests and two others were injured, while al-Quds said the Jordanian monarch said his government will take strong action against those who use weapons.

The dailies also reported on the developments in the formation of the Israeli government and said the Israeli parliament has approved in first reading law in favor of Smotrich and Deri, who is accused of corruption.

They also highlighted developments in the war in Ukraine.

M.K.

Africa faces its biggest food crisis yet

One in five Africans, a record 278 million people, was already facing hunger in 2021, according to data from the UN  Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). It says the situation has worsened.

Friday 16/12/2022

Young girls pull containers of water as they return to their huts from a well in the village of Lomoputh in northern Kenya, May 12, 2022. (AP)

MOGADISHU-

In October, Nadifa Abdi Isak brought her malnourished daughters to hospital in Mogadishu. That day, a nurse said, 42 other children had already been checked into the emergency unit, ravaged by hunger. There were 57 the day before that.

Staff at the Benadir maternity and paediatric hospital said admissions of malnourished children have more than doubled their patient numbers over the past year. They are now treating over 1,000 emergency cases each month.

Half a million children's lives are at risk from a looming famine in Somalia, according to the United Nations which says this more than in any country worldwide this century.

Across Africa, from east to west, people are experiencing a food crisis that is bigger and more complex than the continent has ever seen, say diplomats and humanitarian workers.

One in five Africans, a record 278 million people, was already facing hunger in 2021, according to data from the UN  Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). It says the situation has worsened.

The number of East Africans experiencing acute food insecurity, when a lack of food puts lives or livelihoods in immediate danger,  has spiked by 60% in just the last year and by nearly 40% in West Africa, according to the World Food Programme (WFP).

Conflict and climate change are the long-term causes. Heavy debt burdens following the COVID-19 pandemic, rising prices and war in Ukraine have made things much worse as European aid has been sucked away, data and testimony from more than a dozen experts, donors, diplomats, medical staff and men and women in farms and marketplaces across nearly a dozen countries in Africa and beyond show.

Benadir Hospital is coping, said Dr Aweis Olow, head of its paediatric department. But referrals from other clinics are accelerating: "Without a lot of help from the rest of the world, the situation will be out of control."

There are five reasons Africa is suffering from the worst food crisis ever recorded.

Climate change

East Africa has missed four consecutive rainy seasons, the worst drought in 40 years, said Michael Dunford, the WFP's East Africa director.

"The situation has never been as bad from a regional perspective as it is today," he told Reuters.

African countries account for only around three percent of the global emissions deemed responsible for climate change, but suffer more than any other region from its impact.

Of the 20 nations ranked as most vulnerable to climate change, all but four are African, according to the Notre Dame Global Adaptation Index, which measures countries' vulnerability.

Some 22 million people across Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia face high levels of acute food insecurity due solely to the drought, a number projected to rise to up to 26 million by February if the rains again fail, the WFP said.

The lack of rainfall has caused crops to fail. In northern Kenya, pastoralists dig deeper and deeper in search of water for their livestock.

Traditional Maasai herders, whose culture revolves around their cows, face the choice of selling them or watching them die.

On the other side of the continent, parts of West Africa have been hit by flooding after the most intense rainfall in 30 years. By mid-October, five million people and one million hectares of farmland were affected, according to the WFP.

In Chad, over 19,000 head of livestock were swept away after rivers broke their banks, while in neighbouring Nigeria, flooding has hit 29 of the 36 states.

In October in Benue state, part of Nigeria's agricultural heartland, farmer Abraham Hon looked out over water stretching to the horizon, covering some 20 hectares of his ruined rice fields.

"You have drought in some places, then you have floods in some places," he said. "That is a real shift."

"SAVING OUR CHILDREN"

Isak's hometown, Dinsoor, is about 370 kilometres from the capital in Somalia's Bay region. In June, she and her husband and children set out on foot, hoping to escape drought. The journey to Mogadishu took 12 days. They brought their savings of around $15 and some milk and food.

They walked. "We fled in the hope of saving our children," she said, seated on a hospital bed with her two girls, Nasib, four and Fardawsa, three and an infant on her back.

A day into the journey, they were ambushed by bandits. The robbers took their money and food, but spared their lives. They kept walking. A stranger gave the children a lift on his donkey cart.

After four days they reached the regional capital, Baidoa, but could not find help there. Someone gave them a lift to Mogadishu. There, they found a spot on government land and built a shelter with other displaced people.

Mohamud Abdi Ahmed, an official for the Garasbaley district where the family set up camp, said there were 50,000 displaced families there.

"Sometimes it's difficult to count them, because more arrive every minute."

Food supplies are distributed during a visit by World Food Programme (WFP) Regional Director Michael Dunford to a camp for the internally-displaced in Adadle, in the Somali Region of Ethiopia, January 22, 2022. (AP)

Conflicts 

Conflict has long been a driver of hunger. War forces civilians from their homes, livelihoods, farms and food sources. It also makes it dangerous to deliver assistance.

The number of displaced people in Africa has tripled over the past decade to a record 36 million in 2022, according to UN  data. That represents almost half the displaced people in the world. Most were displaced internally within their own countries by conflict.

Conflicts are worsening across the continent, according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), a crisis monitoring group.

In 2016, it recorded 3,682 "battles" between armed groups in Africa. There were 7,418 in 2021.

Isak's country, Somalia, has been unstable since a civil war in the early 1990s and today is a patchwork of clan strongholds, government-controlled areas and zones in the grip of al Shabaab, an al Qaeda-linked militant group fighting to impose its own rule based on a strict interpretation of Islamic Sharia law.

A US non-profit, Fund for Peace, ranks global states by how fragile they are. In 2022, 15 African nations occupied the top 20 slots of its rankings.

Whenever Isak had food, her youngest children were given top priority.

"The children were getting weaker for months," she said. She and other mothers say malnourished children swell up and their skin thins. They bruise easily.

Just a week after the family arrived in Mogadishu in June, two of Isak's daughters, six year-old Muna and  seven year-old Hamdi, fell ill one after another.

They were weak and ran fevers, their legs bowed and limbs swelled. They began to cough and struggled to breathe.

People who do not get enough minerals or vitamins can develop iron-deficiency anaemia, which means they do not have enough healthy red blood cells to carry oxygen to tissues throughout the body.

So as children starve, their bodies slowly suffocate.

Dr Olow said such cases are becoming commonplace. Children arriving at Benadir Hospital receive oxygen, emergency feeding and, if needed, blood transfusions. Just three percent die, Olow said.

By the time Isak brought Muna and Hamdi for treatment, it was too late.

"The doctors could not help them, because they were about to die when we reached the hospital," Isak said.

Conflict in Europe

Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February added to Africa's problems.

The crisis distracted wealthy governments' humanitarian agencies for the first half of this year, said a senior Western government official involved in humanitarian response in Africa, who asked not to be named because he was not authorised to speak to the media.

"When Ukraine happened, it sucked all the oxygen out of the room," he said.

As the food crisis deepened earlier this year, the African Development Bank set up an emergency food production fund of $1.5 billion aimed at helping African farmers produce 38 million tonnes of wheat, corn, rice and soybeans.

However needs across Africa's crises have risen by 13% over the past year alone, the data shows. While total donor funding over that time has increased 12%, it currently meets just half of requirements.

European countries in particular have cut aid in Africa. European governments contributed 21% of humanitarian relief aid to African countries in 2022, down 16 percentage points since 2018.

Some countries such as the United States have since boosted humanitarian assistance budgets, but the shortfalls remain, a Reuters analysis of UN  data shows.

Four of the five African countries receiving the most humanitarian funding under the 2022 aid appeal are located in or border the drought-stricken Horn of Africa region.

That is leading to some tough choices.

The WFP has, in some cases, been forced to reduce rations, said Ollo Sib, a senior researcher for the agency in West Africa.

"We can keep people alive, but we don't just want to keep people alive," he said.

Chad, for example, currently hosts 577,000 refugees from other countries, the largest group in West Africa. Since 2020, conflict there has also more than doubled the number of internally-displaced Chadians to around 381,000.

Faced with overwhelming needs, the WFP has already begun reducing rations for some refugees. And it told Reuters that, without more funding soon, it could be forced to suspend food assistance for all but the ten percent of refugees considered the most vulnerable.

Moscow's Ukraine campaign also throttled grain exports.

The UN  and Turkey brokered a deal in July to unblock three Black Sea ports. Under that initiative, 615 vessels left Ukrainian ports between August 1 and December 13 carrying over 13.8 million tonnes of corn, wheat, rapeseed and sunflower oil.

However, only just  11 of these ships were destined for sub-Saharan Africa.

It's making a contribution. But there is no silver bullet," said the WFP's Dunford.

Disruptions caused by that war have also provoked a fertiliser shortage. Where stocks are available, prices have risen beyond the means of many farmers. The result will be smaller harvests next year: In West Africa, the WFP estimates cereal production could fall 20%.

The Benadir hospital cannot always help.

"Sometimes mothers bring us dead children," said Farhia Moahmud Jama, head nurse at the paediatric emergency unit. "And they don't know they're dead."

Weakened by hunger, camp residents are vulnerable to disease and people are dying due to a lack of food, said Nadifa Hussein Mohamed, who managed the camp where Isak's family initially stayed.

"Maybe the whole world is hungry and donors are bankrupt, I don't know," she said. "But we're calling out for help and we do not see relief."

Isak and her husband said some nights, armed men threaten and beat the residents: "They want to sell the land."

Ahmed, the district official, said security around the camps was tight.

 

Food supplies are distributed during a visit by World Food Programme (WFP) Regional Director Michael Dunford to a camp for the internally-displaced in Adadle, in the Somali Region of Ethiopia, January 22, 2022. (AP)

Debt

COVID-19 left Africa facing the strongest economic headwinds in years, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

After years of borrowing, countries are struggling to service their debts. According to the IMF, 19 of sub-Saharan Africa's 35 low-income countries are in debt distress where a government is unable to fulfil its financial obligations and debt restructuring is required or at high risk of it.

Ghana is an example. The country of 32 million people owed around $42 billion in September,  over $1,300 per person. In July, the government turned to the IMF for relief. In December, Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta said debt had topped 100% of Ghana's Gross Domestic Product.

Ghana's currency, the cedi, is Africa's weakest. At its lowest level this year, in November, it sank by 59% against the dollar, straining the country's ability to pay for imports. Shopkeepers shut their doors temporarily in October in protest.

In October, Ghana's inflation rate hit a new 21-year high of 40.4%, driven in large part by higher food costs. Cereal prices have gone up over 51%. Dairy and eggs by nearly 59%.

Globally, prices of cereals, dairy, meat, vegetable oils and sugar climbed over 23% in 2021, the fastest in more than a decade, according to an index from the FAO.

Food expenses constitute 40% of households' consumer spending in sub-Saharan Africa, the highest share in the world, according to the IMF.

For Ghanaian Evelyn Lartey, a trip to market in the capital Accra has become a race.

"The maths you use one day expires the next, and you don't know what are the real prices," she said. "You just have to pay what you're told or else keep walking."

Heart pain

On Wednesday October 19, months after Muna and Hamdi's deaths, two of Isak's other daughters Nasib and Fardawsa could not sleep.

"They were complaining of heart pain. It was 2am," she said.

They set off for the hospital. There were few vehicles on the road and none stopped when they tried to wave them down, so Isak and her husband carried the children for four kilometres.

A normal three-year-old child has between 11 and 13.7 grams of haemoglobin, the iron-rich protein that carries oxygen around the body, per decilitre of blood.

Doctors told Isak that Fardawsa's blood contained one gram of haemoglobin per decilitre. She needed a blood transfusion.

The medics could not find a vein on her hands, so they transfused the blood through a vein in her head.

"It's not yet her time to die," her mother said, relieved.

Government failures

African governments have done little to prevent food crises from recurring.

In a move to boost production, reduce import reliance and improve food security, leaders in 2003 pledged to commit at least ten percent of their national budgets to agriculture and rural development within five years.

By 2021, nearly two decades later, just two countries in sub-Saharan Africa, Mali and Zimbabwe, met that target.

Instead, an analysis of 39 African countries by UK charity Oxfam found, spending on agriculture fell as a share of budgets between 2019 and 2021.

Agriculture makes up nearly 20% of Africa's GDP and more than half of Africans work in the sector, according to the World Bank. Most of this is low-productivity subsistence farming and the region is a net importer of staples including wheat, palm oil and rice, the FAO says.

Productivity and crop yields have increased, but they are still the lowest in the world and the FAO says they come nowhere close to keeping up with the continent's growing population, which the UN  forecasts will more than triple to 4.3 billion by the end of the century.

So agricultural production per capita is falling, according to the FAO.

Self-sufficiency for major food commodities is decreasing. Without action, the World Bank says Africa's food import bill, which stood at $43 billion in 2019, could rise to $110 billion in 2025.

"We have 65% of the world's available arable land. We have to wake up," Akinwumi Adesina, president of the African Development Bank, told Reuters.

"For me, the bare minimum is that Africa is able to feed itself."

"Strength, but no work"

Nasib and Fardawsa spent a week in the hospital, receiving blood transfusions, medicine and nutritional biscuits. They recovered, but then Isak's four-month-old, Farhan, needed care.

He received an emergency transfusion and treatment. The doctor prescribed syrups and supplementary iron tablets that the family cannot afford.

"I don't have any money," she said.

In search of aid and security, in November the family moved onto an abandoned military camp closer to the city centre.

They are no longer harassed, but attacks by Islamist militants periodically send the city into lock-down. Isak's husband, Mohamed Ibrahim, hoped he could earn money for food in town, working as a porter.

"I have strength but no work. I have a wooden wheelbarrow," he said. But most people use the services of tuk-tuks instead.

After months on the move, from her village to the city, from camp to camp and hospital to hospital, Isak is running out of energy. She believes she herself and two other children are now also anaemic.

"If he gets a dollar or two, this is not even enough for food for the children."

Written By  Joe Bavier, Abdi Sheikh, Aditi Bhandari and Michael Ovaska

U.S. wrongly revoked Oppenheimer’s security clearance in 1954, Biden admin says

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said in a written order that the since-dissolved Atomic Energy Commission acted out of political motives.

Manhattan Project officials, including Dr. Robert J. Oppenheimer (white hat) inspect detonation site of the Trinity atomic bomb test.Los Alamos National Laboratory / Time & Life Pictures/Getty Image

Dec. 17, 2022,
By Reuters

The Biden administration on Friday reversed a 1954 decision by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) to revoke the security clearance of Robert Oppenheimer, known as the “father of the atomic bomb” for his work on the Manhattan Project.

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said in a written order that the since-dissolved AEC acted out of political motives when it revoked Oppenheimer’s security clearance nearly 70 years ago. Oppenheimer died in 1967.

“The Oppenheimer matter concerned a man who, not long before, had played an indispensable and singular role in the war effort, a man whose loyalty and love of country were never seriously questioned,” Granholm said in the written order.

“More troubling, historical evidence suggests that the decision to review Dr. Oppenheimer’s clearance had less to do with a bona fide concern for the security of restricted data and more to do with a desire on the part of the political leadership of the AEC to discredit Dr. Oppenheimer in public debates over nuclear weapons policy,” she said.

Oppenheimer, a theoretical physicist, headed the top secret Los Alamos Laboratory, which was established under President Franklin Roosevelt as home of the Manhattan Project to build the first atomic bomb during World War Two.

He oversaw the first atomic bomb detonation in the New Mexico desert, code-named “Trinity,” before the weapons were used in the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Following the war, Oppenheimer opposed nuclear proliferation and development of the hydrogen bomb, stances that Granholm suggested in her order led the AEC to revoke his security clearance.

“I commend Sec. of Energy Granholm for vacating the AEC’s flawed 1954 decision to revoke Robt Oppenheimer’s security clearance,” Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont said on Twitter.

“He was a loyal American who was subjected to a gross miscarriage of justice, and this action was long overdue.”

Reuters

FRACKQUAKE

5.4 magnitude earthquake rocks west Texas just weeks after similar jolt

By Patrick Hilsman

The second 5.4-magnitude earthquake in a month rocked the area around Midland, Texas, on Friday. Image provided by U.S. Geological Survey


Dec. 17 (UPI) -- Western Texas was rocked by a 5.4 magnitude earthquake Friday, exactly one month after a similar quake struck the oil-producing region, the U.S. Geological Survey reported.

The powerful tremor was counted as fourth-strongest earthquake in Texas history by the U.S. Weather Service. No injuries were reported.

Residents felt the quake, which struck near Midland, Texas, as far away as Lubbock and Abilene San Angelo. Locals also reported cracked tiles, walls and ceilings.

"The earthquake occurred within the interior of the North American Tectonic Plate far from any tectonic plate boundaries, and is therefor considered an intraplate earthquake,' the USGS said in a statement.

The magnitude was originally reported as 5.3 before being updated to 5.4, then downgraded to 5.2, and finally upgraded back to 5.4. An aftershock about 3 minutes after the initial temblor registered at 3.6 before being downgraded to 3.3.

Friday's quake comes one month after the same area of Texas recorded the third-largest earthquake in state history.

The area where Friday's earthquake struck has experienced 120 earthquakes of 2.5 magnitude or greater since 2018 and the U.S. Geological Survey believes human activity has contributed to them.

"Over the past two decades the central and eastern United States (CEUS) has experienced an increase in the occurrence of earthquakes," the agency said.

"Scientific studies have linked much of this increase to human activity, predominantly wastewater injection into deep disposal wells. However, other mechanisms such as fluid withdrawal, enhanced oil recovery, or hydraulic fracturing processes can also result in induced earthquakes."

5.3-magnitude earthquake rattles West Texas in heart of oil country, geologists say

BROOKE BAITINGER

December 16, 2022


U.S. Geological Survey

A 5.3-magnitude earthquake shook West Texas near Midland on the afternoon of Friday, Dec. 16, the U.S. Geological Survey reports.

The quake hit the heart of oil country at 5:35 p.m. Central Time, according to the USGS. People from as far away as Carlsbad, New Mexico and San Angelo reported feeling the tremor to the agency. The epicenter was about 13 miles northwest of Midland.

The National Weather Service in Midland said it’s the fourth strongest earthquake ever registered in Texas.No injuries were immediately reported.

A Twitter user commented on the NWS thread and said they felt it from their third floor apartment in Midland. “It made the dish drainer fall into the sink and my Christmas tree almost fell over,” they wrote.

Another said they felt their apartment shake in Grand Prairie.

“That was actually a little scary,” another person wrote.

It’s at least the second earthquake of 5.0 magnitude or larger in the area in the last month, the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal reported. On Nov. 16, a 5.3-magnitude earthquake hit northwest of Pecos, the outlet reported.

People felt that quake in various parts of Texas and New Mexico as well, including El Paso, Midland and Lubbock, the outlet reported.

Magnitude measures the energy released at the source of the earthquake, the U.S. Geological Survey says. It replaces the old Richter scale.

Quakes between 2.5 and 5.4 magnitude are often felt but rarely cause much damage, according to Michigan Tech. Quakes below 2.5 magnitude are seldom felt by most people.

Midland and neighboring Odessa are in the heart of the Permian Basin, with a combined population of more than 300,000.

The Midland Reporter-Telegram says the other most powerful earthquakes in Texas were:

• 6.5 magnitude -- Aug. 16, 1931, near Fort Davis

• 5.7 magnitude – April 14, 1995, near Alpine

• 5.4 magnitude -- Nov. 16, 2022, west-southwest of Mentone

Earthquakes occur less often east of the Rocky Mountains but “are typically felt over a much broader region than earthquakes of similar magnitude in the west,” according to USGS.

This is a developing story that will be updated.

‘Unusual’ 3.7-magnitude earthquake shakes western Montana awake, geologists say

3.4-magnitude earthquake shakes north of Pinnacles National Park, geologists say

Earthquake rattles North Carolina mountains, with hundreds feeling it, geologists say

Pentagon received hundreds of UFO reports in 2022
However, officials say there has been no evidence pointing to alien life

The Pentagon has released footage of unidentified flying objects in recent years

Deutsche Welle | Published 17.12.22

The Pentagon said on Friday that it has received hundreds of reports of unidentified flying objects, or UFOs, since establishing an office dedicated to the phenomenon in July.

But the new reports do not point to evidence of alien life, officials said.

"I have not seen anything in those holdings to date that would suggest that there has been an alien visitation, an alien crash or anything like that," said Ronald Moultrie, under secretary of defense for intelligence and security.

Pentagon to investigate all new reports

The All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) was created in July to investigate unidentified objects in the sky, underwater or in space.

Its establishment followed more than a year of renewed interest in unidentified flying objects that military pilots have observed but have sometimes been reluctant to report.

The AARO is headed by Sean Kirkpatrick, who said the Pentagon received "several hundred" reports into the phenomenon this year.

"I would just say that we are structuring our analysis to be very thorough and rigorous. We will go through it all," Kirkpatrick said. "As a physicist, I have to adhere to the scientific method, and I will follow that data and science wherever it goes."

Historical UFO reports under the microscope

Meanwhile, in the annual defense policy bill passed by Congress earlier this week, the Pentagon has also been directed to prepare a report looking at the historical record of the US government related to UFOs going back to 1945.

The bill will ensure the AARO researches all records, including those so highly classified that few people know about them.

"That is going to be quite a research project," Kirkpatrick said.

As for the new reports from 2020, the Director of National Intelligence is set to provide an update with the exact number of reported sightings by the end of the year.

Pentagon has received ‘several hundreds’ of new UFO reports

ByTara Copp
December 17, 2022

Washington: A new Pentagon office set up to track reports of unidentified flying objects has received “several hundreds” of new reports, but no evidence so far of alien life, the agency’s leadership says.

The All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) was set up in July and is responsible for not only tracking unidentified objects in the sky, but also underwater or in space — or potentially an object that has the ability to move from one domain to the next.

The image from the US Department of Defence from 2015 shows an unexplained soaring high along the clouds, travelling against the wind.CREDIT:AP

The office was established following more than a year of attention on unidentified flying objects that military pilots have observed but have sometimes been reluctant to report due to fear of stigma.

In June 2021 the Office of the Director of National Intelligence reported that between 2004 and 2021, there were 144 such encounters, 80 of which were captured on multiple sensors.

Since then, “we’ve had lots more reporting,” said anomaly office director Sean Kirkpatrick. When asked to quantify the amount, Kirkpatrick said, “several hundreds.”

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Those Navy UFO videos? They are real, says the Pentagon

An updated report from the Director of National Intelligence that will provide specific figures on new reports received since 2021 is expected by the end of the year, the officials said.

The office was set up not only to examine the question of whether there’s extraterrestrial life, but also because of the security risk posed by so many encounters with unknown flying objects by military installations or military aircraft.

This May, Congress held its first hearing in more than half a century on the topic, with multiple members expressing concern that whether or not the objects are alien or potentially new, unknown technology being flown by China, Russia or another potential adversary, the unknown creates a security risk.

So far, “we have not seen anything, and we’re still very early on, that would lead us to believe that any of the objects that we have seen are of alien origin,” said Ronald Moultrie, under secretary of defence for intelligence and security. “Any unauthorised system in our airspace we deem as a threat to safety.”

The office is also working on ways to improve its ability to identify unknown objects, such as by recalibrating sensors that may be focused just on known adversary aircraft or drone signatures, Moultrie said.

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Even the Pentagon is looking for aliens. What are the odds of finding them?

One reason for the hundreds of additional reports coming in may be the outreach the department has done to destigmatise reporting potential encounters. Each service has also established its own reporting processes, Kirkpatrick said.

Beyond unidentifiable objects, there’s a lot of new technology — such as future stealth bombers and stealth fighters, drones and hypersonic missiles being fielded by both the US and China — that could be mistaken for a UFO. Kirkpatrick said the new office has been coordinating with the Pentagon and the US intelligence community to get the signatures of US technology in order to rule out those aircraft or drones.

“We are setting up very clear mechanisms with our blue programs, both our DOD and IC programs, to deconflict any observations that come in with blue activities, and ensure that we weed those out and identify those fairly early on,” Kirkpatrick said, referring to the “blue” US aircraft programs in operation by the Pentagon or intelligence agencies.

AP

Pentagon’s UFO investigation finds no evidence of alien origin

The agency is reviewing hundreds of incidents.

By Luis Martinez
December 16, 2022


Another UFO report comes out this week

The Pentagon said that they have has not yet been able to find any evidence that extraterrestrials may be responsible for the hundreds of UFO incidents they are reviewing or that any alien beings may have crashed on Earth.

Senior Pentagon officials relayed this to reporters Friday in a briefing to highlight the broad review headed by the new All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) working with other federal agencies to review unidentified aerial phenomena incidents. Unidentified anomalous phenomena or UAP's is the new term for UAP's and has itself gone a name change as it is no longer limited to aerial phenomena.

UFO enthusiasts have been waiting since Oct. 31 for a long delayed first annual update by the Director of National Intelligence to their 2020 report that could explain only one of the 144 incidents it reviewed.

The Pentagon's update on Friday gave a hint of what that upcoming report might reveal.

Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence Scott Bray explains a video of an unidentified aerial phenomena, as he testifies before a House Intelligence Committee subcommittee hearing at the U.S. Capitol on May 17, 2022 in Washington, DC.
Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images, FILE

MORE: Another UFO report expected this week, some incidents still unexplained

At a congressional hearing in May, Pentagon officials said they were now reviewing about 400 UAP incidents.

On Friday, officials said that so far nothing seems to indicate an extraterrestrial origin in the incidents they have reviewed so far.

"At this time, the answer's no," said Ron Moultrie, the under secretary of defense for intelligence and security. "We have nothing."

He added that nothing has been found "that any of the objects that we had seen are of alien origin."

MORE: Pentagon now reports about 400 UFO encounters: 'We want to know what's out there'

Moultrie provided a similar answer when asked if the review indicated the possibility that extraterrestrials may have crashed or landed on earth.

Video footage released by the To the Stars Academy of Arts and Science purportedly shows pilots observing a UFO while aboard a U.S. Navy aircraft.

To the Stars Academy of Arts and Science

"I have not seen anything in those holdings to date that would suggest that there has been an alien visitation and alien crash or anything like that," he said. Moultrie explained that by holdings he was referring to documents, witness interviews, or written recollections from witnesses.

ARRO Director Sean Kirkpatrick told reporters that his office was taking a sober approach to the review and would not rule out any possibility.

"I would just say that we are structuring our analysis to be very thorough and rigorous. We will go through it all," said Kirkpatrick. "As a physicist, I have to adhere to the scientific method and I will follow that data and science wherever it goes."

Moultrie noted that some of the incidents under review may be from right here on Earth.

MORE: Few answers in unclassified UFO report

"I think it would be safe to say that there will be probably a number of these activities that can be characterized as non-adversarial systems, things like balloons and things like UAVs that are operated for purposes other than surveillance or intelligence collection," he said.

Kirkpatrick agreed that was a fair characterization, but that there can be multiple explanations.

"I would just emphasize there's not a single answer for all of this, right. There's going to be lots of different answers," he said. "And part of my job is to sort out all of those hundreds of cases on which ones go to which things."

"Our team knows that the public interest in UAP is high. We are developing a plan to provide regular updates and progress reporting to the public on our work," he added. Though he explained that any potential releases would have to be weighed against maintaining some information classified for national security purposes.

Moultrie said that from now on UAP no longer stands for unidentified aerial phenomena, but now refers to unidentified anomalous phenomena, because they're no longer just limiting themselves to reviewing incidents in the skies.

"This new terminology expands the scope of UAP to include submerge and trans-medium objects and identify phenomenon all domains whether in the air, ground sea or space, pose potential threats to personal security and operations security, and they require our urgent attention," said Moultrie