Tuesday, February 14, 2023

China’s Spy Satellites Make Balloons Incidental

Spy balloons have captured the headlines, but there is a bigger, more significant story about space espionage that deserves our attention.

Wesley Wark
February 14, 2023

A suspected Chinese spy balloon drifts to the ocean after being shot down off the coast in Surfside Beach, South Carolina, February 4, 2023. (Randall Hill/REUTERS)

China boasts the world’s longest history of spy balloon deployment, dating back to the third-century use of floating lanterns to alert cities of imminent attack. But the world of international spying has since moved into the realm of spy planes, drones and satellites. Does the recent balloon furor mean the technology of espionage has passed China by?

Not a bit — and this is what makes the fears and rhetoric generated by the current spate of “spy balloon” shoot downs (four to date, in rapid succession) so dangerously beside the point. Whatever is eventually discovered and revealed about these balloons/flying objects, the story is a mere footnote to a larger issue about the scale and ambitions of Chinese high-tech spying, particularly from space.

As yet, we lack definitive information about these balloons, their provenance, their payloads and their missions. Two of them (those downed over Yukon and off the coast of Alaska) are still officially being characterized, owing to uncertainty about their exact nature, as “flying objects.”

Chinese officials insist that the first and largest of the balloons, which drifted at high altitudes across both Canadian and US territory before being downed by a US air-to-air missile off the coast of South Carolina, was an innocent weather balloon, blown off course. The United States is engaged in a recovery mission of the remains, and Pentagon officials have indicated they believe it was carrying equipment that could intercept communications — in other words, that its mission was to gather signals intelligence.

Canadian officials, including the minister of national defence, have been more circumspect about the smaller object downed over central Yukon, where debris recovery will pose special challenges. The defence minister, Anita Anand, said at a press conference February 11 that it was too early to tell whether the “object” came from China. To add to the uncertainly, Anand suggested that the object was “potentially similar” to the one earlier shot down off the coast of South Carolina, although smaller and “cylindrical in nature.”

(UFO-ologists might have a field day with that description.)

Spy balloons have captured the headlines, but there is a bigger, more significant, story about space espionage that deserves our attention. The rise of Chinese capabilities in space surveillance has been remarkably rapid, and drawn remarkably little notice. According to a US Department of Defense report to Congress in November 2022, China nearly doubled the number of ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) satellite platforms in the past four years, and its total satellite fleet, numbering 260 platforms, is second only to that of the United States.

Canada, by contrast, deploys four dual-use satellites. Our procurement system for next-generation satellites is predictably slow and likely to leave dangerous gaps in our already limited capabilities, especially when it comes to surveillance of our Arctic territories.

The extensive Pentagon report about the Chinese satellite program was candid: “Recent improvements to China’s space-based ISR capabilities emphasize the development, procurement, and use of increasingly capable satellites with digital camera technology as well as space-based radar for all-weather, 24 hour coverage. These improvements increase China’s monitoring capabilities, including observation of U.S. aircraft carriers, expeditionary strike groups, and deployed air wings. Space capabilities will enhance potential PLA [People’s Liberation Army] military operations farther from the Chinese coast. These capabilities are being augmented with electronic reconnaissance satellites that monitor radar and radio transmissions.”

Beyond the improvements it’s made with its fleet of space satellites, China is becoming a global force in satellite communications (SATCOM) and space-based navigation systems (BeiDou). The BeiDou system is linked to the Chinese economic Belt and Road Initiative, and is being used as both an export market force and a strong incentive to align partner countries.

China also continues to develop counterspace capabilities, in both its kinetic weapons and its cyber capabilities to hack into satellite systems and their downlink stations.

These ambitions are part of a larger military plan for “intelligentized warfare,” announced by the Chinese government (Chinese Communist Party) in October 2020. The precise meaning of this doctrine, beyond entailing exploitation of all manner of disruptive technologies, remains to be seen. But its application to the fast-paced rise of China’s spy satellite capabilities is clear.

China’s recent satellite launches of its “Yaogan 36” class of satellites are often officially described as involving scientific research, conducting land surveys and monitoring agriculture. But the reality is that many of these satellites are dual-use in nature. “Spy” satellites have both civilian and military/national security uses, often carried in the same payloads. Snap a picture of a farmer’s field; snap a picture of a military base.

China has global eyes in the sky. Hundreds of them. It will have more and better spy satellites in future. Eyes in the sky is one ambition. The civilian uses are enormously beneficial, especially for understanding and mitigating climate change. The military/national security uses? Like other forms of espionage, the best you can hope for is decent levels of protection of your own secrets.

But if China’s ambition grows to include becoming dominant in spy satellites (as opposed to achieving equivalency with the United States’ capabilities) — and the blinding of adversaries’ capabilities — then that will mark a very dangerous and unprecedented phase in the “space race.”

Forget spy balloons.

The opinions expressed in this article/multimedia are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of CIGI or its Board of Directors.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Wesley Wark
Wesley Wark is a CIGI senior fellow.

Mysterious Balloons

George Friedman

February 14, 2023

The relationship between nations is always complex and sometimes difficult to understand. Sometimes it enters the realm of the bizarre. And then, at the most extreme level, it enters the world of balloons, unidentified objects and F-22 fighters – all converging on, as they say in Washington, lies, damn lies and press briefings. This is compounded by the fact that the likely villain, China, claims that the U.S. has intruded on Chinese territory with balloons (their word) at least 10 times. This is possible but also raises the question of why Beijing permitted so many intrusions without a whisper of rage.

According to the Pentagon, China’s spy balloons have entered the airspace of more than 40 nations in recent years. Given that these flying objects are somewhat visible from the ground, it is strange that no one noted them at least loudly enough to be noticed. The question is what the Chinese were looking for – and the Americans too, if Beijing’s counteraccusations are correct. Both countries have many spy satellites, conceived of and used to map out the locations of nuclear-capable aircraft and missiles and deployed in constellations that would detect an enemy launch. These satellites evolved into systems that can detect a wide variety of objects on the ground as well as some that can detect electronic signals.

The satellites certainly appear to be helpful in their primary mission: There has been no nuclear exchange. But as many commentators said, satellites cannot detect everything effectively. The U.S. government has not described everything the suspected Chinese balloons spied on, which is reasonable, but it leads me to wonder what additional objects China was looking for and why slow-moving high-altitude systems were needed. Obviously, they were not tasked with detecting a range of objects in real time. To provide broad coverage, large numbers of these objects – they ought to be called objects rather than balloons, since they are at least partially steered – would have to blanket the sky, remaining relatively immobile (and utterly defenseless), broadcasting data to their home base, and therefore visually and electronically detectable.

They could have been taking a closer look at objects on the ground detected by satellites. Their targets would have to be static for an extended time, since the craft are slow moving. In addition, they would have to be outdoors. Most such things are better surveyed by humans in cars or, better yet, riding bicycles and changing a tire at a strategic place.

The problem I have is imagining the mission these objects could carry out, one that would be invisible, allow loitering if needed and be able to avoid detection. There could be some highly specialized targets, but the fleet that the Chinese appear to have, and that they claim the U.S. has, seems excessive to the task. One Chinese craft was over a U.S. Air Force base that is doubtless loaded with secrets, but how many of the secrets would be visible or broadcasting in the clear?

One theoretical mission would be to divert attention. Russia is much closer to Alaska than is China. It is engaged in a war where the United States has a role, to understate it. Having large, weird craft flying over the continental United States could, in this thinking, generate panic, with the public demanding that the government focus on national defense and not Ukraine. There are a hundred diversionary functions these objects could serve for a limited time, although the result of this episode is low panic and high confusion.

The fundamental question is how objects this large, at altitudes allowing enhanced visibility, could go unnoticed if U.S. and Chinese charges are even close to true. From available information, the craft move with the grace of an elephant and could be shot down by aircraft, missile or a well-aimed slingshot. They must be stunningly advanced, which would explain why the U.S. government is withholding answers. If national security requires it, then it should be. But the price is that the U.S. government is shooting down aircraft and, knowing from the beginning that they are Chinese, is unable to tell us what it found in the wreckage.

I don’t believe these questions can be answered by assuming the relevant actors are stupid or treasonous. The objects need explaining and thus far are incomprehensible. Those favoring explanations based on stupidity or treason are welcome to. I prefer to think I am simply not capable of understanding the complex truth.

DEMOCRACY NOW!

US-China Tensions Escalate Amid Mutual Accusations of Surveillance

TRANSCRIPT

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re beginning today’s show looking at U.S.-China relations, 10 days after the U.S. shot down a suspected high-altitude Chinese surveillance balloon off the coast of South Carolina, after it had flown across Alaska, across Canada, and then across the United States. According to the U.S. military’s Northern Command, divers’ crews have been able to recover “significant debris” from the site, including sensor and electronic pieces from the structure.

Meanwhile, China has accused the U.S. of flying surveillance balloons into Chinese airspace at least 10 times over the past year, a claim the Biden administration has rejected. This is Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin.

WANG WENBIN: [translated] The illegal intrusion of airspace of other countries by U.S. balloons is also commonplace. Just since last year, the U.S.’s high-altitude balloons illegally entered Chinese airspace more than 10 times without the approval of the relevant Chinese authorities. The first thing the U.S. side should do is start with a clean slate, undergo some self-reflection, instead of smearing and accusing China.

AMY GOODMAN: In recent days, the U.S. has also shot down three additional objects flying at a lower altitude — one in northern Alaska, one over Lake Huron and one over central Yukon in Canada. The Biden administration has said little about the three objects, leading to rampant speculation. On Sunday, a reporter asked the NORAD commander — that’s the Air Force General Glen VanHerck — if the military has ruled out aliens or extraterrestrials. VanHerck responded by saying, “I haven’t ruled out anything at this point.” That led to the White House briefing on Monday where they said, “No indication of aliens or extraterrestrial activity.” Democratic Congressmember Jim Himes appeared on Meet the Press Sunday and called on the Biden administration to release more information.

REP. JIM HIMES: You know, the one thing, Chuck, that is troubling me here, I sort of see a pattern. As I looked at social media this morning, you know, all of a sudden, massive speculation about alien invasions and, you know, additional Chinese action —
CHUCK TODD: Yeah.
REP. JIM HIMES: — or Russian action. In the absence of information, people’s anxiety leads them into a potentially destructive area. So I do hope that very soon the administration has a lot more information for all of us on what’s going on.

AMY GOODMAN: U.S. senators are scheduled to receive a classified briefing today.

We’re joined now by Jake Werner, a historian of modern China, research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. His new piece for The Nation with Bill Hartung is headlined “War With China Is Preventable, Not Inevitable.”

Welcome to Democracy Now!, Jake. I mean, what we are seeing in this last week, the — you know, you have these jet fighter planes that are taking down, exploding these surveillance objects in the sky. Even people like Congressmember Himes are saying, “What are we doing?” They not only don’t pose military threat, they don’t pose a civilian threat. Like, when was the last time a balloon took down a civilian plane? But the reason this is all happening is because of this increased anti-China fervor in the United States. Can you just talk about everything in context?

JAKE WERNER: Yeah. What this really shows is that as the sense of threat around China increases, then American leaders are looking for threats everywhere, in places that they weren’t looking before, and they’re finding things that they hadn’t paid any attention to and identifying those as potential threats and taking preemptive — excuse me — preemptive action on them. So now we’re shooting down objects that previously would have been ignored, that previously the surveillance capabilities of the United States would have filtered out. With the intrusion of the Chinese spy balloon into U.S. airspace, now people are looking for threats everywhere. And that’s not just around surveillance. It’s not just around balloons or unidentified flying objects. It’s around everything. People are seeing threats from China everywhere they go, and responding in ways that will often be very counterproductive.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Jake Werner, why do you think this is happening? I mean, this whole thing about the balloons, when so many governments have satellite systems that are doing reconnaissance on an almost daily basis of countries around the world, why this sudden fixation on balloons has arisen?

JAKE WERNER: I think — I think it’s actually unwanted on the part of the Biden administration. They were looking to improve the relationship with China, as the Chinese government was looking to improve the relationship with the United States. Unfortunately, the wandering of this balloon into the public consciousness gave space to people who are looking — who are looking very hard for places to attack both the administration and China on in U.S. politics. That gave them an opening, and there was just a massive kind of freak-out around the balloon.

But you’re right: Surveillance is something that major countries do to each other on an everyday basis. It’s one of the most banal facts of international relations. The U.S. is spying on China. China is spying on the United States. The U.S. is spying on allies even. There was a scandal less than 10 years ago about the U.S. spying on the chancellor of Germany, Merkel. So this is something that is just a part of international relations. It can be healthy, because if major countries know what they’re doing, there is less room for miscalculation when it comes to tension and conflict. That doesn’t mean that countries shouldn’t take prudent steps to guard against it, but it really is all part of the game, and it shouldn’t be — it shouldn’t be the occasion for massive overreaction or for demonizing other countries around. And that goes for China, as well. Of course, China is sort of hitting back at the United States, but this is something that the United States — as everybody knows, the United States has been spying on China for many years and is doing so probably more effectively with satellite surveillance than with balloons.

So, I think the important thing here is to not lose sight of how crucial it is that the two most powerful countries in the world avoid a trajectory towards really serious conflict, that they were on, and that the meeting between Xi Jinping and Joe Biden last November seemed to give a respite from that. It’s important to return to that possibility of cooling tensions.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: But you say that President Biden is committed to trying to tamp down conflicts between the United States and China, but yet, at the same time, he is remaining extremely ambiguous over the long-standing One China policy of the United States. Could you talk about how the Biden administration has been dealing with the issue of Taiwan as a sore point in U.S.-China relations?

JAKE WERNER: Yeah.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And what should be done by the administration?

JAKE WERNER: Yeah, on Taiwan, and on a lot of issues, honestly, there’s a bit of a contradiction within the administration, I think. On the one part, they genuinely want to avoid conflict with China. On the other hand, they increasingly are pursuing a policy path that is almost guaranteed to create conflict with China.

The most explosive potential flashpoint is around Taiwan. Taiwan is — the claim that mainland China makes on Taiwan is a bedrock part of Chinese nationalism. The Chinese government will not give it up, and it will go to war if it feels that Taiwan is being permanently separated from China. The United States definitely does not want that. But at the same time, as distrust has really come to characterize everything about the relationship, the U.S. is pursuing a one-sided deterrence policy against China, trying to convince China not to make any aggressive moves towards Taiwan on the basis of simply strengthening the military deterrent on the U.S. side and the Taiwanese side and allied countries in the region.

But, quite predictably, this is giving the Chinese leadership the sense that they are increasingly encircled and besieged by the most powerful country in the world and the rest of the most powerful countries in the world, that all the major powers are kind of ganging up on China. And increasingly, China is pursuing its own deterrence measures aimed to convince the United States and its allies not to infringe Chinese interests. And this is leading to a kind of escalatory spiral, where both sides feel like they are looking out for their own security, they’re both trying to prevent the other side from taking aggressive actions, and the result is to exacerbate nationalism on both sides, exacerbate distrust on both sides, and lead to a militarization of the relationship that eventually, if the trajectory is not changed, eventually will likely lead to major conflict.

AMY GOODMAN: I mean, it is frightening when you see this kind of monolithic force pushing toward militarization against China. You’ve got the Republicans and Democrats essentially agreeing. You know, the Republicans are saying, “Shoot down that balloon,” and then the Biden administration and Democrats are in agreement. And the media — and I’m not just talking Fox, I’m talking CNN, MSNBC — couldn’t be more aggressive when coming to dealing with China and these, for example, spy satellites, when you have China saying, “Hey, you know, we’ve been watching your spy satellites over us, for the last year at least 10 of them, and we haven’t raised this as an issue.” But I wanted to ask: What about the corporate view of this? I mean, going back to last year, bilateral trade between the U.S. and China reaches a record-breaking $690 billion. I mean, you can’t have places like Apple and other corporations that use China for its cheap labor wanting the U.S. to go to war with China.

JAKE WERNER: No, they don’t. They certainly don’t want conflict. They also don’t want to be cut out of the Chinese market, which is one of the fastest-growing markets in the world. There’s a lot of profits to be made in the China market. There are a lot of cost advantages to sourcing production from China. A lot of manufacturers in the United States rely on low-cost Chinese imports to remain competitive. So, the business community as a whole is very uneasy about this.

But they also have — they have really gotten a clear signal from policymakers in D.C. that if they stand up and say something, that they are going to become the targets for withering attack from people who are charging them with being unpatriotic, with selling out the country. And so, what they’re doing instead is keeping this very quiet, sort of indicating in private, “We would prefer that the restriction — we understand the need for restrictions, but the restrictions shouldn’t be too tight.”

So they’re trying to kind of make movement on the edges rather than trying to change the overall foundation of the relationship. The problem with that approach is, of course, that as the relationship deteriorates, deteriorates, deteriorates, if you’re just trying to make adjustments on the margins, you’re not doing anything to the overall trajectory.

And the political logic of conflict in D.C. right now is so powerful. It’s so easy to make hay over the issue by accusing your opponent of being weak on China, and there is no political incentive for people in D.C. to stand up and say, “We don’t want international conflict.”

It’s important for the two most powerful countries in the world to have a constructive relationship and work on these hugely important issues of shared concern between the two countries, between the two peoples. Right now the forces that have an interest in cooperation between the U.S. and China are not articulating that interest effectively in D.C., and so people don’t feel like there’s a political upside to pushing back against the incitement of international conflict that is really dominant right now.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, Jake Werner, we want to thank you for being with us, historian of modern China, research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. We’ll link to your piece in The Nation with Bill Hartung, “War With China Is Preventable, Not Inevitable.”

In our next segment, we’re staying with China. We’re going to speak with David Vine, author of Base Nation: How U.S. Military Bases Abroad Harm America and the World. Stay with us.

(break)

AMY GOODMAN: “War,” performed by Edwin Starr. The protest anthem was written by Motown legend Barrett Strong, who died in January at the age of 81.

AMY GOODMAN
Amy Goodman is the host and executive producer of Democracy Now!, a national, daily, independent, award-winning news program airing on more than 1,100 public television and radio stations worldwide. Time Magazine named Democracy Now! its “Pick of the Podcasts,” along with NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

JUAN GONZÁLEZ
Juan González co-hosts Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman. González has been a professional journalist for more than 30 years and a staff columnist at the New York Daily News since 1987. He is a two-time recipient of the George Polk Award.

Ruling out aliens? Senior U.S. general says not ruling out anything yet

A cluster of young stars resembles an aerial burst

Sun, February 12, 2023
By Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Air Force general overseeing North American airspace said on Sunday after a series of shoot-downs of unidentified objects that he would not rule out aliens or any other explanation yet, deferring to U.S. intelligence experts.

Asked whether he had ruled out an extraterrestrial origin for three airborne objects shot down by U.S. warplanes in as many days, General Glen VanHerck said: "I'll let the intel community and the counterintelligence community figure that out. I haven't ruled out anything."

"At this point we continue to assess every threat or potential threat, unknown, that approaches North America with an attempt to identify it," said VanHerck, head of U.S. North American Aerospace Defense Command and Northern Command.

VanHerck's comments came during a Pentagon briefing on Sunday after a U.S. F-16 fighter jet shot down an octagonal-shaped object over Lake Huron on the U.S.-Canada border.

The incidents over the past three days follow the Feb. 4 downing of a Chinese balloon that put North American air defenses on high alert. U.S. officials said that balloon was being used for surveillance.Another U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the military had seen no evidence suggesting any of the objects in question were of extraterrestrial origin.

VanHerck said the military was unable to immediately determine the means by which any of the three latest objects were kept aloft or where they were coming from.

"We're calling them objects, not balloons, for a reason, said VanHerck.

The incidents come as the Pentagon has undertaken a new push in recent years to investigate military sightings of UFOs - rebranded in official government parlance as "unidentified aerial phenomena," or UAPs.

The government's effort to investigate anomalous, unidentified objects - whether they are in space, the skies or even underwater - has led to hundreds of documented reports that are being investigated, senior military leaders have said.

But the Pentagon says it has not found evidence to indicate Earthly visits from intelligent alien life.

Analysis of military sightings are conducted by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in conjunction with a newly created Pentagon bureau known as AARO, short for the cryptically named All Domain Anomaly Resolution Office.

Their first report to Congress in June 2021 examined 144 sightings by U.S. military aviators dating to 2004.

That study attributed one incident to a large, deflating balloon but found the rest were beyond the government's ability to explain without further analysis.

A report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued last month cited 366 additional sightings, mostly things like balloons, drones, birds or airborne clutter. But 171 remained officially unexplained.

"Some of these uncharacterized UAP appear to have demonstrated unusual flight characteristics or performance capabilities, and require further analysis," the office said in the report.

Sill, Ronald Moultrie, under secretary of defense for intelligence and security, told reporters in December that he had not seen anything in the files to indicate intelligent alien life.

"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," Moultrie said.

(Reporting by Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali in Washington; Additional reporting by Joey Roulette in Washington and Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Tim Ahmann)

‘Object’ downed over Canada was small metallic balloon with payload, Pentagon memo says

Memo says ‘recovery/exploitation’ efforts underway to retrieve ‘object’ shot down in Yukon

Sravasti Dasgupta
Tuesday 14 February 2023

The unidentified object shot down over Canada on Saturday was a metallic balloon with a payload, according to a memo sent by the Pentagon.

This comes as intrigue has grown over some “objects”, as officials have come to call them, that were shot down after being spotted flying over US and Canadian airspace.

The intrigue over the objects came after the US identified a Chinese balloon it said was used for surveillance and shot it down off the South Carolina coast.

Subsequently, three other “objects” were identified across US and Canadian airspace and downed over the weekend.

An “object” was shot down near Deadhorse, Alaska on Friday, while another one was destroyed over the Yukon on Saturday. On Sunday, the US shot down what it called an octagonal object flying Lake Huron in the Great Lakes region.

The “object” downed in Canadian airspace on Saturday, however, appeared to be a “small, metallic balloon with a tethered payload below it,” reported CNN, citing the Pentagon memo sent to lawmakers on Monday.

It had was previously described as a “cylindrical object” that crossed near “US sensitive sites” before being downed, reported the news network.

The object shot down over Lake Huron in Michigan on Sunday “subsequently slowly descended” into the water after impact, according to defence officials writing the memo.

It added that “recovery/exploitation” efforts were underway to retrieve the object shot down in Yukon.

It said officials in US and Canada are attempting to identify debris.

The memo stated that the FBI is embedded with Canadian officials who are leading the investigation.

“It should not be assumed that the events of the past few days are connected,” said the memo.

On Monday, Canada’s prime minister Justin Trudeau claimed there appeared to be “some sort of a pattern” with the downing of the “objects”.

US National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said on Monday, however, that there was no reason yet to believe the three flying “objects” were in any way connected to the Chinese “spy” balloon shot down by the US on 4 February.

Trudeau says flying objects brought down over the past week may be linked

Mon, February 13, 2023

Military aircraft take part in a search for wreckage from an aerial object downed over Yukon at the Whitehorse airport on Monday. (Evan Mitsui/CBC - image credit)

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Monday the four mysterious flying objects brought down over North America over the past week may be somehow related to one another.

Speaking to reporters after meeting with Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) and RCMP personnel in Yukon, Trudeau said there's reason to believe it's not a coincidence that the four objects have been spotted over such a short time period.

"Obviously, there is some sort of pattern in there. The fact we are seeing this in significant degree over the past week is a cause for interest and close attention, which is exactly what we're doing," he said.

Trudeau said this is "a very serious situation" and promised both Canada and the U.S. are taking steps to defend territorial integrity from possible threats.

U.S. military personnel shot down an alleged Chinese spy balloon that drifted across the continent earlier this month.

That was followed by the discovery of an unidentified object in the sky over Alaska, which was neutralized by the U.S. on Friday.

On Saturday, the U.S. Air Force, working with its Canadian counterparts as part of a NORAD mission, brought down another object that was flying in Canadian airspace over Yukon. And on Sunday, another unidentified object was shot down in the area around Lake Huron, which straddles Michigan and Ontario.

The U.S. and Canada have not publicly identified the source of the three latter objects.

Speaking to reporters at the White House, John Kirby, the U.S. National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications, said the first object discovered was clearly a Chinese spy balloon — and the balloon's path showed it was interested in monitoring sensitive U.S. military sites.

"These other three — they didn't have propulsion and they weren't being manoeuvred. We don't know for sure whether they had a surveillance aspect to them," Kirby said.

Officials have not said if the Chinese regime in Beijing is responsible for launching the objects that were identified over the weekend.

Now, questions are being asked about whether there are more such objects in North American airspace, what their purpose might be and what the military has learned from the ones that have been recovered so far.

Submitted by Chad Fish/The Associated Press

Trudeau said the CAF and the RCMP are leading a joint mission to the area where the Yukon object was brought down.

Trudeau said wintry weather in the northern territory is making the search for debris difficult.

The unidentified object was taken down over sparsely populated territory, he said, and whatever is recovered could pose a safety risk.

It's crucial to recover as much as possible to know what exactly breached Canada's airspace, he said.

"There is much analysis going on at the highest levels of NORAD," Trudeau said, adding that "the very best resources" of the CAF and the RCMP have been deployed to deal with the recovery efforts.

Canadian Coast Guard deployed to Lake Huron

Fisheries Minister Joyce Murray, who is also the minister responsible for the Canadian Coast Guard, said CCGS Griffon will soon be in Lake Huron to help recover debris in a "key search area."

The vessel is carrying drone equipment and a drone operator, she said, and two Coast Guard helicopters based out of Parry Sound, Ont. are also on standby, ready to be deployed to help search the lake.

"We will do our very best to secure this material so we can understand better what the purpose and the operations are about," she said.

Canadian officials told reporters Monday that the object shot down over Lake Huron was first detected over Alberta.

Officials said they couldn't definitively state what the objects are, but Maj.-Gen. Paul Prévost said that one is a "suspected balloon." He said locating the objects is the first step toward determining their purpose.

RCMP spokesperson Sean McGillis said there's a chance search teams won't be able to find them.

"We are working very hard to locate them, but there's no guarantee that we will," McGillis said, noting that the winter conditions in both search areas are making the job more difficult.

Evan Mitsui/CBC

Trudeau said the U.S. Air Force brought down the object over the Yukon because their aircraft were closer — not because Canada was incapable of downing the craft itself.

Trudeau said the Americans took it down quickly so that the object was not left to drift in darkness.

"NORAD is one of the only joint commands for territorial defence in the world," Trudeau said.

"We'll continue to work in a seamless, integrated way. We're not concerned about who's getting credit. We're more concerned about the results we're seeking."

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre called the airspace intrusion "an unequivocal violation of our national sovereignty" and said it should be "a wake-up call" for the federal Liberal government.

Pointing to the role played by the U.S. in shooting down the object over Yukon, Poilievre said "after eight years of Justin Trudeau, Canada cannot defend itself."

"With his failure to counter foreign interference and properly resource our military over eight years, the prime minister has made us more vulnerable to foreign aggression," he said.

The government has made some investments in the military in recent months.

In the last federal budget, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland pledged roughly $4.9 billion over six years to modernize NORAD and replace the aging northern warning system that is used to detect airborne threats. That money will help Canada and the U.S. build a a new "Northern Approaches" surveillance system.

Last month, Canada also signed off on the final contract to buy F-35 jet fighters to replace the air force's aging CF-18s. Canada is buying 88 of the warplanes, with deliveries expected to start sometime in 2026.

High-tech jets take on balloon, other objects in N.America skies

W.G. Dunlop
Mon, February 13, 2023

The stealthy, highly maneuverable F-22 fighter jet raced to 58,000 feet over the Atlantic Ocean and launched a missile at... a huge balloon.

The balloon -- allegedly sent by China to surveil secret US sites -- is an unlikely first aerial "kill" for a warplane designed to dominate combat against enemy planes, and it was not the last.

F-22s were again in action in the following days, shooting down an unidentified object near Alaska and another over Canada, while a fourth object was downed by an F-16 jet over Lake Huron.

The flurry of objects recently marked for destruction in American and Canadian airspace have provided rare opportunities to engage targets for both the F-22 -- one of the most expensive aircraft in the US arsenal -- and the military commands responsible for North American security.

"I believe this is the first time within United States or America airspace that NORAD or United States Northern Command has taken kinetic action against an airborne object," General Glen VanHerck, who leads both commands, told journalists.

NORAD -- a joint US-Canada air defense command -- dates to the height of the Cold War and is perhaps best known to the public for its yearly program tracking the progress of Santa Claus as he distributes presents around the world.

NORTHCOM, which is responsible for the defense of the United States, is much newer and was established after the September 11, 2001, attacks.

While the balloon and other objects have dominated headlines this month, a more common function for North America-based fighter aircraft is intercepting Russian planes that get near American air space.

- Designed for aerial combat -

The F-22 is the supercar of American jets, featuring stealth technology to shield it from enemy radar, the ability to fly above the speed of sound without the use of afterburners and "thrust vectoring" nozzles on its engines to make it highly maneuverable.

All these features were designed to make the jet all but unbeatable in air-to-air combat with enemy warplanes, making a slow-moving object like a balloon easy prey.

The jets stemmed from a 1980s-era program but did not enter initial production until 2001 and were only made in small numbers -- fewer than 200 -- at a cost of $143 million apiece, according to the US Air Force.

It has been an aircraft in search of a war -- large-scale air-to-air combat against enemy planes is a situation that has yet to emerge since the US plane gained initial operating capability in 2005.

The F-22 first saw combat in 2014 during the war against the Islamic State group in the Middle East, carrying out strikes against the jihadists.

In the recent drama, the warplanes that shot down the balloon and the three unidentified objects all employed another piece of advanced technology: the AIM-9X, a new variant of the Sidewinder missile, which features an infrared guidance system.

VanHerck said using a missile that requires a radar track would have had a "lower probability of success" due to the difficulty of tracking smaller objects, while using a cannon on a plane would have risked flying into debris.

Therefore, AIM-9Xs have been "the weapons of choice against the objects... we've been seeing."

wd/sw/dw

Yemen model jailed for five years on appeal

Mon, 13 February 2023

An appeals court in Yemen's Huthi rebel-held capital Sanaa has confirmed a five-year jail sentence for a model accused of "prostitution", her lawyer said Monday, denouncing a political verdict.

The Iran-backed Huthis took over Sanaa in 2014 and have been enforcing a morality campaign, particularly against women.

Entisar al-Hammadi, 21, was arrested in February 2021 in Sanaa at a checkpoint while on her way to a photo shoot with a friend.

Last year the two women were sentenced to five years in jail by a lower court for "prostitution", "fornication" and "drug abuse".

Rights groups and her lawyer, Khaled al-Kamal, have dismissed the charges as lies and branded them an attack against the freedom of women.

Human Rights Watch has said the trial was riddled with "irregularities and abuse".

On Sunday an appeals court confirmed the earlier verdict, Kamal told AFP, adding that he will take the case to the supreme court.

"She was optimistic and hoped the verdict would be favourable to her," Kamal said.

"She was shocked by the verdict and began to shout and cry," he said, denouncing the ruling as politically motivated.

Hammadi, born to an Ethiopian mother and Yemeni father, has posted dozens of pictures on social media of her dressed in traditional costume, jeans or leather jacket, both with and without a headscarf.

She has thousands of followers on Instagram and Facebook.

Violence against women, especially in Huthi-controlled areas, has been on the rise since Yemen plunged into a civil war in 2014 that the United Nations says has created the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

The Huthis control much of the north of the country, while the internationally-recognised government based in the southern city of Aden is backed by a Saudi-led military coalition.

Houthi court upholds five-year sentence for Yemeni actress Intisar Al Hammadi

Al Hammadi was convicted of committing an indecent act and drug possession in 2021

Yemeni model Intisar Al Hammadi in a picture posted on her Facebook page. AFP

The National

Feb 14, 2023

A Houthi-run court has upheld a five-year sentence for jailed Yemeni actress Intisar Al Hammadi, who was convicted of committing an indecent act and drug possession, her lawyer said.

Al Hammadi was arrested along with three other women three years ago. Legal proceedings against the accused have been widely criticised by international rights groups.

The case has mirrored widespread Houthi repression and a crackdown on women in areas they control in war-torn Yemen.

Amnesty International call on Houthis to halt ‘virginity test’ on model

Al Hammadi's lawyer Khaled Al Kamal had previously told The National that his client had attempted to commit suicide shortly after she was jailed. He called the charges "baseless".

Born to a Yemeni father and Ethiopian mother, Al Hammadi was arrested while riding in a car with friends in Sanaa. She was the sole breadwinner for her four-member family, which includes her blind father and disabled brother.

Human Rights Watch has criticised the court proceedings as “marred with irregularities and abuse”. It said the Houthis confiscated Al Hammadi’s phone and “her modelling photos were treated like an act of indecency”.

Yemeni model Intisar Al Hammadi. SAM Organisation via Twitter

Al Hammadi and one of the women were first sentenced in November 2021 to five years. The other two were handed one and three years in prison, respectively.

The Court of Appeals in the Houthi-held capital of Sanaa upheld the sentences against Al Hammadi and Yousra Al Nashri, who was also handed a five-year sentence, according to lawyer Khalid Al Kamal, who represents all four women.

Yemen is now in its eighth year of war since the Iran-backed Houthis took over the capital Sanaa and a Saudi-led coalition intervened to restore the internationally recognised government to power.

In the Houthi-held areas, women who dare dissent, or even enter the public sphere, have become targets in an escalating crackdown by the Iran-backed rebels.

Updated: February 14, 2023,

Ennahda leader arrested as Tunisia cracks down on opposition

Noureddine Bhiri was taken into custody in the capital, Tunis, on suspicion of being part of a “conspiracy against the country’s security” .

The crackdown — targeting Tunisian opposition figures, the president’s critics and opponents in the media, judiciary and economic community — comes after a disastrous parliamentary election last month in which only 11 percent of the voters cast their ballots. (Reuters)

Tunisian authorities have arrested the leader of the Ennahda opposition movement in a crackdown on rival politicians and critics of the North African country's increasingly authoritarian president Kais Saied, according to lawyers.

Noureddine Bhiri, a senior Ennahda leader, was taken into custody by armed police at his home in the capital, Tunis, late Monday on suspicion of being part of a “conspiracy against the country’s security,” the movement’s lawyer, Ines Harrathi, said in a Facebook post on Tuesday.

Lazhar Akremi, a lawyer and critic of Saied, and Noureddine Bouttar, the director general of an independent radio station, Mosaïque, were also arrested by the security forces overnight Tuesday, according to Bouttar’s lawyer, Dalila Msaddek.

Authorities have not released any information on the wave of arrests that started over the weekend.

The crackdown — targeting Tunisian opposition figures, the president’s critics and opponents in the media, judiciary and economic community — comes after a disastrous parliamentary election last month in which only 11 percent of the voters cast their ballots.

The vote was organised by Saied, who is determined to reshape the country’s political system and replace a legislature that he had dissolved in 2021.

Tunisia is going through a major economic crisis, with soaring inflation and unemployment, particularly among the country’s youth. Critics of Saied's leadership and political elites accuse them of bringing the country's economy to the brink of bankruptcy.

READ MORE: Low turnout hobbles Tunisia’s second round of parliamentary polls

Tunisia arrests senior Ennahda figure, radio boss

The New Arab Staff & Agencies
14 February, 2023

A senior figure in Tunisia's Ennahda movement party and the head of a popular radio station have been arrested in the North African country.

Ennahda's Bhiri was detained for more than eight weeks early last year

Tunisian police have detained a senior figure in the Islamist-inspired Ennahda party and the head of an independent radio station, the party and Tunisian media reported.

The arrests of former justice minister Noureddine Bhiri and Mosaique FM director Noureddine Boutar on Monday night were the latest in a crackdown that has targeted activists, former lawyers and a prominent businessman.

Dozens of police officers raided Bhiri's house in Tunis and "took him to an unknown location," Ennahda spokesman Abdelfattah Taghouti told AFP.

Bhiri, 64, had been detained for more than eight weeks early last year, a few months after President Kais Saied froze the Ennahda-dominated parliament in a power grab his opponents have described as a coup.

During his detention, Bhiri staged a hunger strike, stopped taking medicines and was hospitalised before agreeing to be fed by drip.

He was later released but remains under investigation on charges related to "terrorism", according to authorities.

Mosaique FM, a popular news station, reported that police had also detained Boutar without indicating what he was accused of.

The arrests came two days after the arrest of tycoon Kamel Eltaief, former top Ennahda figure Abdelhamid Jelassi and political activist Khayam Turki.

Many Tunisians saw Eltaief, a former confidant of ousted president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, as a symbol of corruption in the North African nation.

But his arrest comes amid a spike in prosecutions against politicians, journalists and other rivals of Saied, often in military courts, since the president's dramatic move against parliament and the Ennahda-backed government in July 2021.

Since then, Saied's opponents have accused him of bringing back authoritarian rule in the birthplace of the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings.

Several Tunisian media outlets have reported that those arrested at the weekend were suspected of "plotting against state security".

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment

Tuesday, February 14, 2023

TRANSCRIPT

Houthi court upholds five-year sentence for Yemeni actress Intisar Al Hammadi

Al Hammadi was convicted of committing an indecent act and drug possession in 2021

About Me