Viewpoint: Renewable energy is a terrifying word to people who don't care

Theresa Hinman

The Oklahoman
Sun, December 5, 2021

Theresa Hinman

Although the population of Native Americans, as a whole, has risen in Oklahoma, self-actualization has maintained the irony of moving fast by running and boasting of how far you ran.

Old Native men would tell you, "you didn't run anywhere, kiddo, your treadmill stayed in place." Your reply: "No grandfather, this computer readout says I just ran three miles in place so it's the same as running three miles." Then, the grandfather says, "You can lie and still accomplish the truth? ... There is no truth to going three miles in place, but there is truth in moving your body like it went three miles in place."

This is the story of statistics. The practical application of statistics sounds good, but application is greater. We, in America, shun the very idea of communism and socialism. That is exactly what our tribes practiced and lived by 1,000 years before the "invasion." The old school tribes never had global warming ... for 1,000 years. We looked out for our fellow animals and the Earth and shared evenly.

The fossil fuel profiteers left oil drills and debris all over the land as they skipped to the bank. Once an area was spent, the oil companies just walked away from the mess they created. They didn't care. They had money to spend, and there was no respect for the Earth. We, tribal people, shared everything and counted the wildlife and Earth as our family. We used only what we needed and never became greedy of overuse. Renewable energy is a terrifying word to the people who don't care. The fossil fuel profiteers take, take until there is nothing left to take.

We can now accomplish running around the world on our treadmill by applying the ever available renewable energy the Earth provides. As a bonus, we can rid ourselves of reliance on the profiteers and be excellent stewards to what we are blessed to have on our tribal lands. The U.S. government thought they gave us useless land. We are Native Americans, and no land is useless because we are privileged to be on any of it.

Theresa Hinman is a member of the Ponca Nation.

Native Americans can apply the ever available renewable energy the Earth provides and be good stewards of the land.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Viewpoint: Renewable energy is terrifying word to people who don't care

Indigenous Leaders Pledge to Oppose New Enbridge Developments

Darren Thompson
Sat, December 4, 2021,


Screenshot of a map of Enbridge's pipeline system, Enbridge's website, 12-3-21

On November 5, the Canadian oil company Enbridge announced that it plans to increase capacity on its pipeline system that connects a crude-oil storage hub in Oklahoma to the Texas Gulf Coast, now that the Line 3 pipeline linking Alberta and Wisconsin is complete. The Carrizo Comecrudo and other Indigenous groups in the area, along with the Indigenous Environmental Network, have pledged to protect Indigenous sacred sites and oppose future pipeline developments.

Increasing capacity may include building a new pipeline linking the Houston area to the Port of Corpus Christi, more than 200 miles away. In October, Enbridge acquired the Ingleside Energy Center in Corpus Christi, Texas, the largest crude-exporting hub in the U.S.

Line 3 transports crude oil from the Alberta tar sands to Superior, Wisconsin, through Northern Minnesota. Now that it’s been completed — thanks to approval by the Biden administration on June 23 —its capacity has increased from 390,000 barrels a day to 760,000 barrels a day. Biden’s top domestic policy advisor, Susan Rice, was ordered to divest from the company earlier this year. President Donald Trump initially gave the Line 3 project the green light, and the Biden administration defended it in court when challenged by tribes and environmental groups.

“Returning the line to full capacity sets us up for downstream expansion to the US Gulf Coast,” Enbridge CEO Al Monaco said in the Nov. 5 statement. The company, he explained, wants to continue promoting a "full path access for Canadian heavy [crude oil] to the US Gulf Coast" as the world continues to recover from the pandemic.

Any new pipeline on the Texas coast will be met with resistance from Gulf Coast communities, many of whom have been hit hard by climate disasters intensified by global warming.

“We’ve been fighting Enbridge since pre-NAFTA to protect our sacred sites,” Carrizo Comecrudo Tribal Chairman Juan Mancias told Native News Online. “The wall Trump attempted to build, and any other projects that aimed to extract resources and transport them, have never consulted with tribes in Texas.”

The Carrizo Comecrudo Tribe in South Texas is not a federally recognized tribe, but are the original peyote people, said Mancias. “It was our ancestors who introduced peyote to the Native American Church,” he said. “Our people have always been here, and we predicted these things that are coming, and no one has ever listened to us.”

The three federally recognized tribes in Texas are not native to Texas and were displaced from other locations in the country.

“The Indigenous Peoples of the Coastal Bend will not allow Enbridge to feel comfortable with their colonial ways of destroying Indigenous communities,” the Indigenous Environmental Network said in a statement November 11. “They can expect the same resistance from tribal communities in Texas as they did with Line 3.”

More than 1,000 people have been arrested or issued citations in Minnesota for opposing the construction of Line 3. Opponents object that the pipeline project not only continues to pollute the environment, but threatens wild rice and water in Anishinaabe-ceded territory in northern Minnesota.

Enbridge also completed an expansion of its Wisconsin-to-Illinois Southern Access expansion that starts in Superior, Wisconsin and ends in Flanagan, Illinois, but had been waiting until the completion of Line 3 to return to service. The expansion, which cost nearly $500 million, runs for almost 500 miles. It is part of Enbridge’s larger Mainline network to move Canadian crude oil to refining hubs in the Midwest and Gulf Coast. The expansion was operating at 996,000 barrels per day and is now operating at 1.2 million barrels per day.

Enbridge’s announcement to expand its tar-sands transportation infrastructure further comes weeks after world leaders gathered in Glasgow, Scotland for the global climate summit known as COP26 (the United Nations Climate Change Conference), to discuss plans to address climate change, including the phasing out of fossil fuels.

The company said more pipeline expansions will be needed even after Canada's Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion, which is slated to be completed at the end of 2022, is running.

With the capacity to ship more than 3.1 million barrels a day across 8,600 miles, the Mainline network is Canada's largest crude-oil transporter and exporter, moving crude oil from the Alberta tar sands to the US Midwest refining markets. It is connected to the Cushing, Oklahoma hub and the Gulf Coast through the terminals at Flanagan South in Illinois and Seaway in north Texas. Mainline’s volume averaged 2.67 million barrels per day in the third quarter of 2021, up from 2.56 million barrels per day during the same quarter in 2020. Enbridge projects that it expects to average 2.95 million barrels per day in the fourth quarter of 2000 and nearly 3 million barrels per day in 2022, said in a statement.

About the Author: "Darren Thompson (Lac du Flambeau Ojibwe) is a freelance journalist and based in the Twin Cities of Minnesota, where he also contributes to Unicorn Riot, an alternative media publication. Thompson has reported on political unrest, tribal sovereignty, and Indigenous issues for the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network, Indian Country Today, Native News Online, Powwows.com and Unicorn Riot. He has contributed to the New York Times, the Washington Post, and Voice of America on various Indigenous issues in international conversation. He has a bachelor\u2019s degree in Criminology & Law Studies from Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. "

Contact: dthompson@nativenewsonline.net

White Supremacists Stage Bizarro Rally in Downtown D.C., Find Themselves Stranded

Blake Montgomery

Sat, December 4, 2021,

WASHINGTON, D.C.—A group of white supremacists stormed through downtown Washington, D.C. on Saturday evening, bearing American flags and mildly menacing plastic shields while marching to the beat of a snare drum down the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. But after chanting aggressively about their plans to “reclaim America,” their intended show of force stalled spectacularly when they lost their ride.

While the group had marched through the city with threatening chants about their plan to “reclaim America,” by the end of the night it was not even clear how they intended to reclaim their U-Haul.

The rally by more than 100 members of the “Patriot Front” group, held just blocks from the White House, sparked fear among many bystanders and immediately attracted the attention of law enforcement, who shadowed the group to forestall any conflict.

Members wore a uniform: white gaiters, sunglasses, blue jackets, khaki pants, and brown boots and hats. Some donned plastic shinguards, seeming to anticipate violence.

As Patriot Front’s leader Thomas Rousseau spoke beside the Capitol reflecting pool, bystanders booed. Asked about the reason for the march, Rousseau said, “Our demonstrations are an exhibition of our unified capability to organize, to show our strength—not as brawlers or public nuisances, but as men capable of illustrating a message and seeking an America that more closely resembles the interests of its true people.”

At the end of the night, the march ended in a logistical anti-climax. No arrests were made at the Arlington Memorial Bridge, where the demonstration wound down, and D.C. police Lt. Jason Bagshaw told The Daily Beast that the cops, some in riot gear, were on the scene simply “waiting for people to leave.”

That is when it became clear that more than two dozen members of the white supremacist group could not leave, as they were apparently stranded. Members of the group had waited in a one-way roundabout to depart in one of the U-Hauls they had used to transport themselves for the rally. But the large rented moving van could not fit them all, so many of them were forced to wait in 45-degree darkness as the bulky orange vehicle made multiple trips over the course of nearly three hours.

As the group finally departed, one police officer yelled, “Whose shield is that?” after one white supremacist apparently left his plastic shield behind.

Zachary Petrizzo

Patriot Front was once known as Vanguard America but changed its name after a man affiliated with the group murdered a woman at the notorious Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville. Members with military experience often train each other in basic tactics ranging from a protest gear list (Marine Corps-issued combat boots and decontaminate wipes) to hand-to-hand combat. White nationalists like Richard Spencer have hired the group for their own security.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

S.Africans protest against Shell oil exploration in pristine coastal area





Residents demonstrate against Royal Dutch Shell's plans to start seismic surveys in Sigidi

Sun, December 5, 2021
By Siyabonga Sishi

PORT EDWARD, South Africa (Reuters) - South Africans took to their beaches on Sunday to protest against plans by Royal Dutch Shell to do seimsic oil exploration they say will threaten marine wildlife such as whales, dolphins, seals and penguins on a pristine coastal stretch.

A South African court on Friday struck down https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/shell-wins-court-case-start-seismic-surveys-offshore-south-africa-2021-12-03 an application brought by environmentalists to stop the oil major exploring in the eastern seaboard's Wild Coast, rejecting as unproven their argument that it would cause "irreparable harm" to the marine environment, especially migrating hump-back whales.

The Wild Coast is home of some of the country's most undisturbed wildlife refuges, and it's stunning coastal wildernesses are also a major tourist draw.

At least 1,000 demonstrators gathered on a beach near Port Edward, a Reuters TV correspondent saw.

"It's just absolutely horrendous that they are even considering this. Look around you?" said demonstrator Kas Wilson, indicating an unspoilt stretch of beach. "It's unacceptable and ... we will stop it."

Shell officials were not immediately available for comment, but the company said on Friday that its planned exploration has regulatory approval, and it will significantly contribute to South Africa's energy security if resources are found.

But local people fear the seismic blasting conducted over 6,000 square kilometres will kill or scare away the fish they depend on to live.

"I don't want them to operate here because if they do we won't be able to catch fish," said 62-year-old free dive fisherwoman Toloza Mzobe, after pulling a wild lobster from the ground. "What are we going to eat?"

Environmentalists are urging Shell and other oil companies to stop prospecting for oil, arguing that the world has no chance of reaching net zero carbon by 2050 if existing oil deposits are burned, let alone if new ones are found.

Earlier this year, a Dutch court ordered Shell to reduce its planet warming carbon emissions by 45% by 2030 from 2019 levels, a decision it plans to appeal.

South Africa's environment ministry referred Reuters to a statement late last month that "the Minister responsible for environmental affairs is ... not mandated to consider the application or to make a decision on the authorisation of the seismic survey."

(Writing by Tim Cocks;Editing by Elaine Hardcastle)

What was that mysterious streak in the nighttime sky above the Blue Ridge Mountains?



Joe Marusak

The Charlotte Observer
Sat, December 4, 2021

Residents staring skyward saw a mysterious streak in the nighttime sky over the Blue Ridge Mountains and Upstate South Carolina on Thursday night.

Was it a comet? A UFO?

“Hey @NWSGSP, I’m getting multiple messages from viewers who spotted this just after 7pm tonight,” Cody Alcorn of FOX Carolina in Greenville, S.C., posted on the Twitter account of the National Weather Service office in Greer, S.C. “People in the Blue Ridge area and really multiple spots across the Upstate. Any info on it?”

Alcorn included a 16-second video of the object, which looks like a comet with a really long tail. The video post has drawn about 2,000 views.

Within an hour, the NWS solved the mystery: “This is from the SpaceX Starlink satellite launch,” an NWS meteorologist posted.

At 6:12 p.m. Thursday, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched 48 Starlink satellites and two BlackSky spacecraft into orbit from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, SpaceX posted on its website with video of the launch.

The launch and landing was the ninth for the Falcon 9, according to SpaceX.

NWS meteorologists in the past have sometimes received “crazy” questions from people convinced they’d seen something extraterrestrial in the sky, NWS meteorologist Jeffrey Taylor told The Charlotte Observer on Saturday.

The sightings turned out to be planets, stars or aircraft, he said. “Most things you can explain,” he said.

The Carolinas, however, are a well-documented hotbed of UFO sightings, The Charlotte Observer reported in 2020.

On a sunny June morning that year, an 88-year-old Korean War combat veteran spotted an orange-tinged orb high in the North Carolina mountains sky, the Observer reported at the time.

The object vanished at one point when Charles Cobb happened to look down at his iPad, but it soon reappeared, he said. “The fact that it could zoom up almost out of sight” made this no ordinary object, he told the Observer.

One study that year had Charlotte beaming itself up into the ranking of the top 10 largest North American cities for total UFO sightings in the past century, the Observer reported.

Other cities in the Carolinas made related lists for sightings per capita, including Wilmington, Asheville and Myrtle Beach.

The Queen City’s 153 sightings of mysterious lights, discs and orbs in the sky since 1910 had Charlotte ranked ninth among the 25 largest cities by population and tops in North Carolina.

Earthquake shakes western North Carolina — the sixth quake in a year for this county



Maddie Capron
Sun, December 5, 2021

A small earthquake struck a county in western North Carolina on Sunday morning, Dec. 5, geologists said.

The 2.3-magnitude earthquake was reported right before 8 a.m. EST in Laurel Park in Henderson County, about 26 miles south of Asheville, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

The earthquake was too small for most people to feel it. Only two people reported the tremor to the USGS.


Henderson County isn’t known for earthquakes, McClatchy News previously reported. However, there have been six earthquakes in the past year in the county, according to Earthquake Track.

The largest was a 2.5-magnitude earthquake in Marshall on Sept. 25, Earthquake Track reported.

Earthquakes in North Carolina are typically smaller in magnitude. The strongest earthquake in recorded state history was a 5.2-magnitude quake in 1916 near Skyland, McClatchy News reported.

Since then, a 5.1-magnitude quake hit south of Sparta near the Virginia border last August. It caused extensive damage and was felt 100 miles away in Charlotte.

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.

Sixth earthquake in a year recorded in mountain county in western North Carolina

Six small earthquakes reported in a week in North Carolina county, geologists say

2.4 magnitude earthquake rattles North Carolina near Winston-Salem, geologists say

NOT A FRACKQUAKE
Four NC earthquakes this week weren't caused by …
2018-06-14 · Fracking is not permitted anywhere in North Carolina at this time. ... 

3.5 quake in Henderson County in 1981. 4.1 quake in McDowell County in 1957.

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M
A former Netflix software engineer and his friend were sentenced to prison for conducting an insider trading scheme that made more than $3 million

ewalsh@insider.com (Emily Walsh) 

© Provided by Business Insider SOPA Images/Getty Images

A former Netflix software engineer and his friend were sentenced to prison for an insider trading scheme on Friday.

Sung Mo Jun and Junwoo Chon used private Netflix subscriber data to make more than $3 million.
Another software engineer at Netflix and Jun's brother were also involved and have pled guilty.

A former Netflix software engineer and his friend were sentenced to prison for an insider trading scheme where they used private subscriber data to make more than $3 million.

Sung Mo Jun, the former Netflix employee involved in the scheme, was sentenced to two years in prison while his friend, Junwoo Chon, was sentenced to 14 months on Friday, according to Seattle federal prosecutors. Jun and Chon were collectively fined $25,000 for their crimes.

Both Jun and Chon pled guilty to the charges in August. Another software engineer at Netflix and Jun's brother were also involved and have additionally pled guilty, according to a statement from the US Attorney's Office in the Western District of Washington.

"Insider trading undermines our capital markets, harms companies by misusing their confidential information, and causes investors to lose faith in the fairness of the system," Donald M. Voiret, the special agent in charge of the case, said in the statement. "The actions of this trusted employee and his friend were calculated and ongoing to reap a huge profit."

When Jun was a software engineer for Netflix, he gave private Netflix subscriber data to Chon and his brother, Joon Jun. They then profited by buying and selling Netflix securities based on the information.

After Jun left Netflix in 2017, another engineer that he mentored at the company, Ayden Lee, continued to give him private subscriber information, according to court documents. Joon Jun and Lee are scheduled for sentencing next year.

"What I did was foolish, wrong, illegal…. I have no excuse," Jun told the court, according to the press release. "I disappointed many people."

US Attorney Nick Brown said in a statement that the individuals involved were motivated by greed and will be required to face the consequences.

"Mr. Jun and Mr. Chon were both financially secure with good jobs and good salaries when greed drove them to break the law to increase their own wealth, at the expense of others," Brown said in a statement. "Such conduct, will not be tolerated."

The US Securities and Exchange Commission has filed a separate civil enforcement action against the defendants. Though Jun and Chon have entered into settlements with the SEC, but both men still face additional potential penalties.

"For people in the high tech industry, they will clearly know that there are consequences — including prison time — for this activity," Judge Richard Jones, who presided over the case, said in a press statement.

BEST PHOTO GRAPHICS

Newly unearthed dinosaur evolved 'large tail weapon' unlike any other

Monisha Ravisetti 

CNET


In a southern and sparsely populated region of Chile, scientists excavated the skeletal remains of a naturally armored dinosaur that lived over 70 million years ago, during the late Cretaceous period. Much to the team's surprise, they found it possessed a rather bizarre feature: a knife-like artillery in place of a tail.

© Provided by CNET Fossils found in Chile are from the bizarre dog-sized dinosaur species called Stegouros that had a unique slashing tail weapon. Lucas Jaymez

Although they echo beings straight out of fantasy novels, armored dinosaurs are a well-known crew. Ranging from the sharply adorned Kentosaurus to the curvy backed Hesperosaurus, paleontologists have already studied a long list of the physically shielded animals. But this new member of the warrior-like troop of beings piqued researchers' interest because of its specialized armament that could've once sliced through enemies.

The ancient herbivore "evolved a large tail weapon unlike any dinosaur," the team said about the discovery in a report published Wednesday in the journal Nature. The dinosaur's oddly shaped backside is decorated with a whopping seven pairs of bony deposits fused together, emulating actual blades.

© Provided by CNET A reconstruction of the newly unearthed dinosaur's tail. Lucas Jaymez

"It was an animal with a proportionally large head and a narrow snout with a beak," Sergio Soto Acuña, lead author of the study and a doctoral student at the University of Chile said. "However, the most notable feature is the caudal weapon: the posterior half of the tail is enclosed in a structure made up of fused bony plates that give the tail a very strange appearance."

© Mauricio Alvarez via AP

This illustration provided by Mauricio Alvarez shows a Stegouros. Fossils found in Chile are from the bizarre dog-sized dinosaur species that had a unique slashing tail weapon, scientists reported Wednesday, Dec. 1, 2021.

The team dubbed the 2-meter (about 6-foot-6-inch) long species Stegouros elengassen due to the rest of its body resembling the Stegosaurus genus -- aka Spike from The Land Before Time. Later, extensive DNA analysis and cranial examination revealed the animal to be more closely related to a dinosaur group called Ankylosaurs, but the team decided to keep the initial name.

"I think this finding radically changes what we thought about the evolution of armored dinosaurs in the southern hemisphere," Acuńa said. "Our results show that they were not simple dispersal events of northern Ankylosaurs, but rather that they were a very ancient branch of primitive Ankylosaurs that evolved in isolation from other armored dinosaurs."

© Provided by CNET The hips, legs and tails of the Chilean dinosaur's fossilized skeleton. University of Chile

He said that one of the most surprising outcomes about this discovery was the revelation of an entirely new lineage of Southern Hemisphere armored dinosaurs that had evolved its own posterior weaponry -- independently of plated dinosaurs, or Stegosaurs, and densely armored dinosaurs, or Euankylosaurs.

Presumably, the dangerous appendage was used to defend against predators. But either way, Acuña adds, "This shows us that the fossil record of the Gondwanan continents can still have unexpected surprises for us."

© Provided by CNET A stegouros chomping on some leaves. Lucas Jaymez

Ankylosaurus: Facts About the Armored Lizard | Live …

https://www.livescience.com/25222-ankylosaurus.html

2017-05-10 · Speaking of spikes, a bizarre-looking ankylosaur, described May 10, 2017, in the journal Royal Society Open Science, had such an uncanny resemblance to the …

• Estimated Reading Time: 9 mins

Mystery Cube Found on The Far Side of The Moon Is Probably Not an 'Alien Hut'

Michelle Starr 1 hour ago

There's something strange in the lunar neighborhood.

© Our Space/CNSA Yutu-2's view of the distant mystery cube.

In its exploration of the Von Kármán Crater on the far side of the Moon, China's Yutu 2 rover has spotted a peculiar object on the horizon. In a very blurry image, it appears to be a cube-shaped protrusion in an otherwise relatively featureless landscape.

On a post on social network Weixin, China National Space Administration outreach program Our Space referred to it as a "mysterious hut".

"Was it a home built by aliens after the crash landing?" the post playfully speculates. "Or is it the pioneer spacecraft of the predecessors to explore the Moon?"

The answer is that it is likely neither of those things, but something that we know the Moon has in abundance: rocks. We won't know for sure, however, until Yutu 2 can close the intervening 80-meter (260-foot) distance to study it up close – a process that will take another two or three months.

That's partially because the solar-powered rover needs to shut down for the duration of the lunar night, which lasts two weeks, as well as when the Sun is directly overhead, to prevent overheating; and partially because the rover needs to travel slowly, navigating the hazardous, rubble-strewn and crater-pocked lunar terrain.

Even though we will have to wait, there are clues that offer possible hints as to the cube's identity – namely a relatively fresh impact crater nearby. This suggests the object could be a boulder excavated during the impact, a phenomenon previously observed on the Moon.

It's not the first oddity Yutu 2 has uncovered on the side of the Moon perpetually facing away from Earth. In 2019, it came across a peculiar substance described as "gel-like"; that turned out to be lunar rock melted into glass, also due to an impact.

The Moon, unprotected by an atmosphere, gets smacked into a lot.

A closer look at the "mysterious hut" will be able to tell us something about the Moon, even if it's not the presence of aliens. If it's a boulder that has been excavated from below the lunar surface, we may be able to learn something about the composition of the Moon underneath the top layer of rock and rubble. So CNSA scientists are definitely keen to get a closer look.

The rock was spotted during Yutu 2's 36th day of operations on the Moon. It's currently on its 37th lunar day, after landing in January 2019.

Planned for an original duration of three months, Yutu 2 and spacecraft Chang'e 4 are now closing in on the end of their third year, and are still going strong.

Military repairing cracks in the tails of most CH-148 Cyclone helicopters

HALIFAX — The Canadian military has discovered cracks in the tails of 19 of its 23 Cyclone helicopters.

Provided by The Canadian Press

The Royal Canadian Air Force issued an emailed statement Sunday saying cracks had been detected in four helicopters, but that number jumped to 19 later in the day.

The Air Force said the Sikorsky-made aircraft have not been grounded or placed on an operational pause. Engineering experts from the military are working with the company to repair the aircraft, the military said.

"Sikorsky has a plan to address the cracking, with each aircraft requiring a unique approach to repair the affected components," a spokesperson said Sunday in an email.

"The Royal Canadian Air Force expects that the first few aircraft affected by this issue will be repaired within the next few days."

The office of Defence Minister Anita Anand wouldn't comment on the issue and forwarded queries to the military.

Tail cracks were first detected in one of the maritime helicopters during a routine inspection on Nov. 26 at 443 Maritime Helicopter Squadron, based in Patricia Bay, B.C.

The entire fleet is overseen by 12 Wing Shearwater, the Air Force base in the Halifax area that is home to 423 Maritime Helicopter Squadron, which also flies the CH-148 Cyclone.

The military also confirmed Sunday that two Cyclones did not appear to have any tail defects, and the remaining two in the fleet were receiving longer-term maintenance and will be inspected at a later date.

The "maintenance issue" has had an impact on Operation LENTUS, the military's effort to help those affected by the widespread flooding in British Columbia. The military, however, has deployed other aircraft to fill the gap, as has the province and other emergency response partners.

Canada placed an order for 28 Cyclones in 2004, but the helicopters did not start flying missions until 2018.

Cyclones are typically deployed on board Canadian frigates and used for search and rescue, surveillance and anti-submarine warfare.

On April 29, 2020, a Cyclone carrying six military members crashed off the coast of Greece, killing all aboard.

The crash marked the largest single-day loss of life for Canada's military since it took part in the war in Afghanistan. The crash also cast a spotlight on the Cyclone's long and problem-plagued development.

Defence procurement documents released earlier this year show the $3.1-billion project is "facing financial challenges, increased procurement costs and some financial adjustments," and that officials plan to ask the government for more money to finish it.

Canada's top military procurement official also warned at the time there would be no "quick fix" to the software issue identified as the primary cause of the crash last year. Troy Crosby, assistant deputy minister of materiel at the Department of National Defence, said officials were talking to Sikorsky to find ways to deal with the issue.

Two separate internal reviews by the Canadian Armed Forces found the autopilot on the helicopter — code-named Stalker 22 — took control of the aircraft as the pilot was turning to land on HMCS Fredericton.

A flight-safety review appeared to absolve Sikorsky of any responsibility, saying the type of manoeuvre that Stalker 22's pilot was attempting to perform was not spelled out in the military's documentation.

The commander of the Royal Canadian Air Force , Lt.-Gen. Al Meinzinger, has expressed confidence in the helicopter.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 5, 2021.

SEE LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for PERMANENT ARMS ECONOMY