Saturday, June 11, 2022

ICC publishes protocols for ethical engagement in the Arctic

The Inuit Circumpolar Council's protocols were developed in response to negative experiences with outside researchers and other visitors.

By
 Yereth Rosen, Alaska Beacon
 -

Alaska’s Dalee Sambo Dorough (left) is seen in a 2018 file photo after being elected chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Council at the group’s quadrennial meeting in Utqiagvik. Here she’s pictured with outgoing ICC chair Okalik Eegeesiak, of Canada. (Yereth Rosen / ArcticToday file photo)

As more scientists, policymakers, industrial developers and mariners head north into the warming and melting Arctic, some of the region’s Indigenous people have developed standards for how the visitors should operate respectfully and collaboratively.

The Inuit Circumpolar Council, representing Inuit people from Greenland to Chukotka in the Russian Far East, last week released a set of protocols intended to ensure that Indigenous people have more say in what happens in their homeland.

The ICC’s Circumpolar Inuit Protocols on Equitable and Ethical Engagement, was developed over three years, said Carolina Behe, a science and Indigenous knowledge advisor with the organization’s Alaska affiliate. But the motivation for the protocols began much earlier, she said.

Over many years, Inuit residents have chafed at “the heavy, heavy top-down” approach to scientific research and other activities, Behe said. There have been persistent complaints, for example, about researchers coming to the Arctic, doing their projects, leaving and then never communicating with the residents in any follow-up, she said.

“Over and over, the point came up about lack of engagement,” she said.

The protocols are intended to protect Inuit rights, including intellectual rights, as activity in the Arctic intensifies, said ICC officials from Alaska.

“We persist with the call for all others to recognize our status, rights, and role in relation to every issue of concern to us,” Dalee Sambo Dorough, the organization’s international chair and a professor at the University of Alaska Anchorage, said in a statement.

“As the first inhabitants and stewards of the Arctic, we have the right and responsibility to protect our environment and culture,” James Stotts, president of ICC Alaska, said in the statement. “Our knowledge must be relied upon to inform decision-making in all matters.”

The protocols are divided into eight categories. They include guidance for building partnerships, sharing data, co-producing knowledge, practicing good governance and distributing funding.

In the category of communication, for example, there are specific pieces of advice, such as: “Listen more than you speak.” The communications category also lists the Arctic’s Inuit as the experts on local safety whose guidance should be followed. In the category of funding, there is a call to prioritize local hiring and to adequately and fairly pay local people.

“Inuit need to be compensated for our knowledge, expertise, time, and labor. Agree upon appropriate compensation before work begins,” the document says.

In the scientific community, there is increasing attention to collaboration with the Indigenous people of Alaska and the Arctic.

The National Science Foundation’s Navigating the New Arctic initiative is one program that is putting a recently strengthened emphasis on community engagement and co-production of knowledge. The program funds and manages numerous research projects, with a series of Arctic operating principles intended to be applicable to each project.

The ICC’s newly released protocols, however, go beyond such specific research projects and beyond the category of scientific research entirely, Behe said. They are applicable to local people’s relationships with industries, with government agencies and with international organizations like the Arctic Council and United Nations, she said.

This story was first published by Alaska Beacon and is republished here under a Creative Commons license. You can read the original here.

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Finland plans to build barriers on its border with Russia

The move is meant to prepare against hybrid threats from Russia.

By Reuters
-June 10, 2022

A general view of the border town of Imatra, Finland on March 24, 2022.
 (Essi Lehto / Reuters File Photo)


Road signs are seen at the Imatra border crossing with Russia, amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine, in Imatra, Finland on March 23, 2022. (Essi Lehto / Reuters File Photo)


HELSINKI — Finland’s government plans to amend border legislation to allow the building of barriers on its eastern frontier with Russia, it said on Thursday, in a move to strengthen preparedness against hybrid threats amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Finland, which is currently applying for membership in the Western military alliance NATO, has a history of wars with Russia, although currently the forest-covered border zone between the two countries is marked merely with signs and plastic lines for most of its 1,300-kilometer (810-mile) length.

The Finnish government has rushed to strengthen border security as it fears Russia could attempt to put pressure on Finland by sending asylum seekers to its borders — as the European Union accused Belarus of doing at the end of last year when hundreds of migrants from the Middle East, Afghanistan and Africa got stuck on the Polish border.

The government’s amendments to the law include a proposal to enable concentrating the reception of asylum applications only at specific points of entry.

Under existing EU rules, migrants have the right to ask for asylum at any given entry point to an EU member country.

The amendments would also allow the building of barriers such as fences, as well as new roads to facilitate border patrolling on the Finnish side.

“Later on, the government will decide on border barriers to the critical zones on the eastern border, on the basis of the Finnish Border Guard’s assessment,” minister of internal affairs Krista Mikkonen said in a statement.

Reporting by Anne Kauranen.
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Trans deputy’s gender-confirmation surgery must be covered by county plan, GA judge says

Charlotte Observer (NC)

A Georgia federal district court judge has ruled in favor of a transgender sheriff’s deputy who sued the county after she was told that her health insurance plan would not cover gender-confirmation surgery.

In a June 2 ruling, Judge Marc Treadwell found that Houston County, Georgia, had violated the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution by denying Houston County Sheriff’s Deputy Anna Lange coverage for gender-affirming care under her county health plan, according to a lawsuit filed on Lange’s behalf in 2019.

Lange, who was assigned male at birth, began her gender transition in 2017, according to the lawsuit.

She has worked for the Houston County Sheriff’s Department for the past 16 years, according to the Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund, which represented Lange in the lawsuit. In 2018, she requested permission from Sheriff Cullen Talton to wear the women’s uniform and to present as a woman at work.

The sheriff ultimately granted Lange’s request, despite saying he didn’t “believe in sex changes” and he told her that she would need a “tough skin” to deal with her coworkers.

The Houston County Sheriff’s Office declined a request for comment from McClatchy News.

Lange’s doctors later concluded she would need gender-confirmation surgery in order to treat her gender dysphoria, according to court documents. Gender dysphoria is a condition of distress experienced by people whose gender identity conflicts with the gender they were assigned at birth, according to the Mayo Clinic.

On Nov. 30, 2018, the county’s personnel director denied Lange’s request for pre-authorization for the surgery. Lange appealed the decision but was denied again in 2019, court documents show.

In the judge’s decision, Treadwell wrote that by excluding coverage for gender-affirming care in its health insurance policy, Houston County was unconstitutionally discriminating against transgender people, who are protected under Title VII — a section of the Civil Rights Act.

“Sex discrimination under Title VII includes discrimination based on sexual orientation and discrimination based on gender stereotyping because ‘it is impossible to discriminate against a person for being homosexual or transgender without discriminating against that individual based on sex,’” Treadwell wrote.

Lange said in a statement published by the Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund that she was relieved by the judge’s decision.

“I can confidently move forward with my life knowing that gender affirming care is protected under federal law,” her statement says. “This decision is not only a personal victory, but a tremendous step forward for all transgender Southerners who are seeking insurance coverage for medically necessary care.”

One in four people who responded to the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey reported experiencing a problem with their insurance related to being transgender, including being denied coverage for care for a gender transition. More than half of those who sought coverage for a gender-affirming surgery were denied. (2015 was the latest year the survey was conducted.)

Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund legal director David Brown said in a statement that the Georgia ruling will have an impact on the lives of transgender people throughout the southern U.S.

“The Court’s decision makes clear that depriving transgender people of healthcare is not only immoral but also illegal,” the statement says. “An employer cannot refuse health coverage to a transgender employee who needs access to medically necessary, life-saving care.”

How many Americans are trans or nonbinary? Poll shows big difference between age groups

Professor who refused to use student’s pronouns wins $400K lawsuit with Ohio college

Your US passport can soon come with third gender option. What to know about the change

©2022 The Charlotte Observer. Visit charlotteobserver.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
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LGBTQ RIGHTS ARE HUMAN RIGHTS WHICH TRUMP RELIGIOUS RITES


LGBTQ Pride Month is currently being celebrated throughout the United States. Since the Stonewall riots in New York City in 1969, progress towards equal protections for LGBTQ people has been hard-won throughout the country, culminating in the legalization of same-sex marriage in 2015. Significant progress for LGBTQ communities seeking equal protection under the law has been made in much of Western Europe and the Americas but still lags in most of Africa and Asia, where same-sex sexual acts are deemed illegal in many states. Here's a look at the legal environment for LGBTQ people around the globe.
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White supremacists riling up thousands of followers on social media
10 Jun, 2022

A white man who gunned down shoppers at a Buffalo, New York supermarket shared his anti semitic rants on Gab, on a site that attracts extremists. Photo / AP

AP

The social media posts are of a distinct type. They hint darkly that the CIA or the FBI are behind mass shootings. They traffic in racist, sexist and homophobic tropes. They revel in the prospect of a "white boy summer".

White nationalists and supremacists, on accounts often run by young men, are building thriving, macho communities across social media platforms like Instagram, Telegram and TikTok, evading detection with coded hashtags and innuendo.

Their snarky memes and trendy videos are riling up thousands of followers on divisive issues including abortion, guns, immigration and LGBTQ rights. The Department of Homeland Security warned this week such skewed framing of the subjects could drive extremists to violently attack public places across the US in the coming months.

These type of threats and racist ideology have become so commonplace on social media it's nearly impossible for law enforcement to separate internet ramblings from dangerous, potentially violent people, Michael German, who infiltrated white supremacy groups as an FBI agent, told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday (local time).

"It seems intuitive that effective social media monitoring might provide clues to help law enforcement prevent attacks," German said. "After all, the white supremacist attackers in Buffalo, Pittsburgh and El Paso all gained access to materials online and expressed their hateful, violent intentions on social media."

But, he continued, "so many false alarms drown out threats".

The DHS and the FBI are also working with state and local agencies to raise awareness about the increased threat around the US in the coming months.

The heightened concern comes just weeks after a white 18-year-old entered a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, with the goal of killing as many Black patrons as possible. He gunned down 10.

That shooter claims to have been introduced to neo-Nazi websites and a livestream of the 2019 Christchurch, New Zealand, mosque shootings on the anonymous, online messaging board 4Chan. In 2018, the white man who gunned down 11 at a Pittsburgh synagogue shared his antisemitic rants on Gab, a site that attracts extremists. The year before, a 21-year-old white man who killed 23 people at a Walmart in the largely Hispanic city of El Paso, Texas, shared his anti-immigrant hate on the messaging board 8Chan.

References to hate-filled ideologies are more elusive across mainstream platforms like Twitter, Instagram, TikTok and Telegram. To avoid detection from artificial intelligence-powered moderation, users don't use obvious terms like "white genocide" or "white power" in conversation.


A white 18-year-old entered a Buffalo, New York supermarket with the goal of killing as many Black patrons as possible and gunned down 10. Photo / AP

They signal their beliefs in other ways: a Christian cross emoji in their profile or words like "anglo" or "pilled," a term embraced by far-right chatrooms, in usernames. Most recently, some of these accounts have borrowed the pop song "White Boy Summer" to cheer on the leaked Supreme Court draft opinion on Roe v. Wade, according to an analysis by Zignal Labs, a social media intelligence firm.

Facebook and Instagram owner Meta banned praise and support for white nationalist and separatist movements in 2019 on company platforms, but the social media shift to subtlety makes it difficult to moderate the posts. Meta says it has more than 350 experts, with backgrounds from national security to radicalisation research, dedicated to ridding the site of such hateful speech.


"We know these groups are determined to find new ways to try to evade our policies, and that's why we invest in people and technology and work with outside experts to constantly update and improve our enforcement efforts," David Tessler, the head of dangerous organisations and individuals policy for Meta, said in a statement.

A closer look reveals hundreds of posts steeped in sexist, antisemitic, racist and homophobic content.

In one Instagram post identified by The Associated Press, an account called White Primacy appeared to post a photo of a billboard that describes a common way Jewish people were exterminated during the Holocaust.

"We're just 75 years since the gas chambers. So no, a billboard calling out bigotry against Jews isn't an overreaction," the pictured billboard said.

The caption of the post, however, denied gas chambers were used at all. The post's comments were even worse: "If what they said really happened, we'd be in such a better place," one user commented. "We're going to finish what they started someday," another wrote.

The account, which had more than 4000 followers, was immediately removed, after the AP asked Meta about it. Meta has banned posts that deny the Holocaust on its platform since 2020.

US extremists are mimicking the social media strategy used by the Islamic State group, which turned to subtle language and images across Telegram, Facebook and YouTube a decade ago to evade the industry-wide crackdown of the terrorist group's online presence, said Mia Bloom, a communications professor at Georgia State University.

"They're trying to recruit," said Bloom, who has researched social media use for both Islamic State terrorists and far-right extremists. "We're starting to see some of the same patterns with ISIS and the far-right. The coded speech, the ways to evade AI. The groups were appealing to a younger and younger crowd."

For example, on Instagram, one of the most popular apps for teens and young adults, white supremacists amplify each other's content daily and point their followers to new accounts

In recent weeks, a cluster of those accounts has turned its sights on Pride Month, with some calling for gay marriage to be "re-criminalised" and others using the #Pride or rainbow flag emoji to post homophobic memes.

Law enforcement agencies are already monitoring an active threat from a young Arizona man who says on his Telegram accounts he is "leading the war" against retail giant Target for its Pride Month merchandise and children's clothing line and has promised to "hunt LGBT supporters" at the stores. In videos posted to his Telegram and YouTube accounts, sometimes filmed at Target stores, he encourages others to go to the stores as well.

Target said in a statement it is working with local and national law enforcement agencies who are investigating the videos.

As society becomes more accepting of LGBTQ rights, the issue may be especially triggering for young men who have held traditional beliefs around relationships and marriage, Bloom said.

"That might explain the vulnerability to radical belief systems: A lot of the beliefs that they grew up with, that they held rather firmly, are being shaken," she said. "That's where it becomes an opportunity for these groups: They're lashing out and they're picking on things that are very different."

Read More


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Joint Statement on Canada-Mexico-United States Cooperation

From: Global Affairs Canada
MEDIA NOTE
OFFICE OF THE SPOKESPERSON
JUNE 10, 2022


Canada, Mexico, and the United States share a close relationship based on shared values and priorities. We acknowledge that working together as North America we can bring new ideas and energy to the hemisphere, and we commit to reinvigorating how we address together the issues of our time. As three likeminded countries, we affirm our strong commitment to democratic principles and intend to cooperate closely to stand up for multilateralism and the rules-based international order, support the rule of law, promote inclusive growth, invest in the development of communities, protect and promote human rights, advance gender equality, and reinforce democracy at home and inspire democratic development around the world. We worked together towards ending the COVID-19 pandemic and continue to create the conditions for equitable growth and strengthening North American competitiveness. On the occasion of today’s North American Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Los Angeles, our three countries commit to further enhancing our deep partnership and to continue working together in support of peace and prosperity around the globe.

We reaffirm our support for Ukraine’s independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity, and condemn Russia’s unprovoked invasion of its sovereign and democratic neighbor in violation of international law. Canada, Mexico, and the United States have repeatedly condemned civilian deaths resulting from Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine and stated the importance of upholding international law, including the UN Charter. We also emphasize the urgent need to allow and facilitate rapid and unimpeded passage of humanitarian relief for civilians in need. These are principles that sustain our rules-based order. We affirm the need to ensure accountability in relevant national and international courts for crimes committed, without exceptions, and support the work of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court and the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine established by the Human Rights Council. We are united in our continued support for the people of Ukraine. We also express our commitment to work together in support of those suffering around the world from the global impacts of this invasion, particularly vulnerable populations now experiencing greater food and economic insecurity.

Our coordinated responses to Russian aggression against Ukraine, including calls to establish a diplomatic path forward, demonstrate the importance of North American solidarity. We call on the Russian Federation to withdraw immediately all its military forces and equipment from within the internationally recognized borders of Ukraine and return to a path of dialogue and diplomacy. Canada,

Mexico, and the United States – as close hemispheric partners and friends – are committed to further strengthening our relations, which is key to our collective security and prosperity.

We reaffirm our commitment to addressing the root causes of irregular migration and poverty and to investing in the region – prioritizing cooperation for development to create economic opportunity for all. In particular, the three governments are united in efforts towards investing in initiatives that directly benefit the most marginalized communities. We support multilateral efforts to develop value chains and physical infrastructure in the Americas that will generate employment and equitable growth. We acknowledge that addressing irregular migration in the region requires a coordinated approach, and we support the Regional Conference on Migration, the Comprehensive Regional Protection and Solutions Framework and the vision of the Global Compact on Migration.

We celebrate the tradition of our region in welcoming refugees and migrants, and we recognize the positive contributions of refugees and migrants to the socio-economic development of their host communities. We applaud the sustained efforts of States in our hemisphere in ensuring safe, orderly, and regular migration by hosting refugees, providing regular migration pathways, promoting local economic and social integration, facilitating voluntary return, and supporting the reintegration of returnees. We remain committed to collectively leveraging the benefits of migration while addressing its challenges in countries and communities of origin, transit, destination, and return.

We are committed to continuing our cooperation to support and strengthen Haiti’s democratic process, including through our collective efforts to promote an inclusive, Haitian-led political path forward. We are also committed to working closely with the United Nations and other regional partners to promote peaceful, fair, and sustainable growth throughout the hemisphere.

We reaffirm our commitment to protect human rights, particularly for members of vulnerable and historically marginalized communities, like the LGBTQI+ and two spirit community, and afro-descendant communities, as well as the rights of Indigenous peoples. We also stress the importance of individual freedom of expression and media freedom, and together advocate for addressing impunity and inequality.

We collectively commit to taking bold, swift, and coordinated action to address the climate crisis. Climate change threatens our economies and our communities, especially those who are vulnerable and underserved. As we work to address the climate crisis, we recognize the tremendous opportunity to build back better, to create well-paying and reliable jobs in ever-growing markets, and to position North America as a global leader in clean energy solutions.

As partner countries in championing development in the Americas, we reaffirm our commitment to advancing feminist approaches, eliminating structural and indirect barriers for women, girls and marginalized people, and to integrate gender perspectives in our shared priorities. We continue to advocate for feminist approaches for a more effective, fair, relevant and accountable United Nations in support of the Sustainable Development Goals.

We recognize the integral place of Indigenous peoples in North America, and their contributions to the diversity and richness of our culture and society. We acknowledge that cultural diversity and linguistic plurality are part of the heritage of humanity, so we place great value in the historical and cultural legacy of indigenous communities in the region.

By recognizing the historical legacy towards indigenous communities, our vision aims to achieve real progress towards reconciliation and a renewed relationship based on respect, truth, cooperation, partnership, and in recognition of the rights of Indigenous peoples. We reiterate our unwavering commitment to ensure that Indigenous rights, interests, and aspirations are recognized in decision-making. We intend to work together, in partnership with Indigenous peoples from our three countries, to attain our goals of safety, security, well-being, socio-economic development, and empowerment for all Indigenous peoples. We also recognize that ending violence against Indigenous women and girls requires a holistic, multidimensional, and multi-sectoral approach.

During our meeting today, we also discussed planning for the next North American Leaders’ Summit in Mexico in December.

We look forward to our increased cooperation in the years to come.
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China’s CPEC damaging environment in Pakistan’s Gilgit-Baltistan

   AlJazeera

Gilgit Baltistan [PoK], June 11 (ANI): Although Pakistan termed the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, CPEC as a game-changer for the country’s ailing economy but the fact of the matter is that Chinese mega projects are showing an adverse impact on Gilgit-Baltistan’s environment leading to uncontrollable pollution and irreversible depletion of aquatic ecosystems.

Under the banner of CPEC, Pakistan and China are initiating work on mega-dams, oil and gas pipelines, and uranium and heavy metal extraction in Gilgit-Baltistan. Gilgit-Baltistan is also providing over half of its drinking and irrigation water to Pakistan and Chinese mega projects but these projects are showing an adverse impact on the local climate leading to uncontrollable pollution and irreversible depletion of aquatic ecosystems, Global Order reported.

Recently, Pakistan’s Hasanabad had witnessed a glacial lake burst which washed away houses and razed a major bridge on the Karakoram Highway and the biggest reason behind this is climate change.

Looking at climate change, the World Bank warned that one-third of these glaciers will disappear by the end of this century causing famine of great magnitude in Pakistan. Melting ice sheets would also release viruses locked away for thousands of years causing an unprecedented rise in occurrences of rare diseases.

Meanwhile, the United Nations claimed that climate disasters could kill over 300,000 people in Pakistan in the next three decades and the alarming numbers would reach manifolds if we include the anticipated deaths from novel pandemics.

According to the publication, deforestation is the major cause of landslides in Gilgit-Baltistan. Plantation could reverse the climatic issue and even former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan said that the ten billion tree tsunami” is a good initiative but no such development took place. Even the forest land was given to Chinese hydroelectric projects in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK).

Pakistan Army instead of protecting the locals’ interests, snatched their indigenous lands and imposed Chinese interests on them.

Despite repeated warnings from locals, the military has confiscated hundreds of thousands of acres of private land in places like Diamer, Shigar, Ghizer, Gilgit and Hunza and awarded them to the Chinese companies. In one instance, the army bulldozed and flattened homes in Makpondas to grant private land to a Chinese company to build a CPEC-related economic zone, according to the publication.

Experts claim that by 2030, China will be able to produce twelve gigawatts of electricity for Pakistan from the ongoing hydro-projects in Gilgit-Baltistan. One of those projects is Diamer-Bhasha, the largest roller compact concrete dam in the world. However, the Diamer dam is being built in a geologically volatile territory where earthquakes are a daily phenomenon.

Looking at such situations, locals have raised their voices against the construction of CPEC but the government doesn’t listen to a single sound of it. The Pakistani Army is filing the case against those people who raise their voices against land theft and environmental destruction. The locals argued that the establishment is committing real treason and terrorism by sacrificing the well-being of locals for China.

Like elsewhere, the Chinese model of extraction and development is a toxic ‘friendship’ for Gilgit-Baltistan as its fragile ecology is ravaged. (ANI)

This report is auto-generated from ANI news service. ThePrint holds no responsibility for its content.


Source: The Print

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NOT THE BERMUDA TRIANGLE
Elusive Plane Puzzled European Air Defenses, Then Its Crew Vanished

The anonymous plane is making headlines for its mysterious expedition, and European air defenders still aren’t exactly sure what to make of it.
JUN 10, 2022 
THE WAR ZONE

via Euractiv
EMMA HELFRICH
View Emma Helfrich's Articles

An unidentified aircraft flew through airspaces belonging to multiple countries, almost all of them NATO members, without any official dispatch or approved flight plan. The illegal journey, which began in Lithuania, was monitored closely by all nations involved without any communication from the pilot. The plane was eventually found in Bulgaria covered in canvas without any trace of its crew.

The plane is reported to have initially departed from an undisclosed airport in Lithuania and then proceeded to fly over Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Serbia, and Romania before entering Bulgaria through the northern city of Vidin. With the exception of Serbia, all of the nations are part of the NATO alliance.



The plane reportedly finally landed in a small abandoned Bulgarian airfield known as the Targovishte Airport near the village of Buhovtsi between Targovishte and Shumen. The airport is purported to have not accepted a plane for many years, and locals have begun utilizing it in the summer months for agricultural purposes. European news source Euractiv states that when the plane was discovered, its engine was still warm.

Satellite image of the Targovishte Airport. Google Earth


The kind of plane used to carry out this dramatic excursion has been debated. While the majority of European news coverage is reporting it to be a two-seated, twin-engine Beechcraft plane, Lithuanian media has cited what they are claiming to be the plane’s official registration number. The LRT.It article claims that it was registered as LY-LOO, which is a registration number held by the 1962 PA-23-250 Aztec aircraft manufactured by Piper Aircraft but is apparently no longer valid. In the image posted at the top of this story and by Bulgarian TV via Euractiv.com, the plane in question looks exactly like an Aztec.

PA-23-250 Aztec in flight. Wikimedia Commons

Dehir, a Hungarian news source, spoke with Janos Vajda, managing director of Debrecen International Airport in Hungary, who said that although the plane was recorded to have taken off from a nearby area, he insisted that it was not from the Debrecen Airport. It was later confirmed by Istvan Juhos, director of Aero Club Hajduszoboszlo, who operates a flying club in Hajduszoboszlo, Hungary, that a plane coming from Lithuania did land in Hajduszoboszlo without authorization and a number of people then exited the plane and are presumed to have refueled it. Because of the illegality of the situation, airport officials contacted local police who attempted to respond but failed to arrive before the plane departed the airport.

Before ultimately touching down in Bulgaria, though, the plane is said to have been escorted by up to six fighter jets until it entered Bulgarian airspace. The U.S. Air Force, Hungarian Air Force, and Romanian Air Force were alerted of the unauthorized flight over Europe, and each is said to have deployed two fighter jets to intercept the plane. Two USAF F-16s, two Romanian F-16s, and two Hungarian Gripens chased the plane down at various points in its flight path, however, it purportedly did not respond to radio calls or visual signals.

Two Hungarian Gripens in flight. Wikimedia Commons

Because the plane had its transponder switched off and was apparently flying at altitudes low enough to make a successful interception by the fighter jets difficult to achieve, the Bulgarian Ministry of Defense decided that the plane did not pose a threat to civilian or military infrastructure. The ministry went on to claim that close monitoring continued in spite of what they seemingly decided to be a suspicious flight that didn’t present any imminent danger.


The Dehir article also reports that the Romanian Ministry of Defense shared a similar mindset about the incident and approached it with an attitude more of staunch curiosity as opposed to active defense. The article explains that the Romanian government did not think the small plane was behaving in a dangerous manner, but noted the concern grew after it failed to respond to international radio signals.


LRT.It also spoke to Bronius Zaronskis, pilot and director of Nida Air Park in Lithuania, who claims that he had recently sold the aircraft to an undisclosed organization. He notes that prior to the sale, three foreign men came to inspect the aircraft, one of which was communicating with Zaronskis in Russian. He said he did not manage to record their names.



“They were not Lithuanians. I cannot say which country they were from, maybe Ukrainians, maybe Romanians, or Bulgarians. One man and I communicated with each other in Russian…I don’t know the names of these men. I wasn’t interested,” Zaronskis told LRT.lt.

“I sold it and said goodbye to that plane. I was trying to sell it for many years. I had nowhere to put it, so I am glad that they bought it...I don’t remember which organization bought it. It was written in a foreign language,” Zaronskis added.

This bizarre flight, which happened at a time of high tensions and increased security scrutiny in light of Russia’s war in Ukraine, did not occur without precedent. For example, in March of this year, a Tu-141 "Strizh" high-speed drone armed with a bomb crashed in Croatia’s capital and prompted a discussion about just how secure NATO’s airspace in Europe may be. Whether or not this recent instance is one of criminality doesn’t change the fact that this will surely add to the debate.

Yet as more context is added to this strange incident, the more convoluted it seems to get. Certainly, some of these details are bound to change. Hopefully, a clearer picture will be painted as each country’s internal investigations are carried out, and The War Zone will try to update this report as developments continue to unfold.

Contact the author: Emma@thewarzone.com
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‘Hedgehogs’ dug in and kept out Putin’s forces


‘Dad’s Army’ to head to front after defending Irpin

An emptied cluster munition container is seen stuck in the ground following a Russian military strike on the outskirts of Kharkiv, Ukraine. AGAINST THE GENEVA CONVENTION
Photo: Reuters/Ivan Alvarado


Nicola Smith and Illia Novikov
June 11 2022 

Armed with AK-74s and clad in mismatched uniforms, the husbands and fathers of Irpin still patrol near the town’s shattered bridge.

It was here, early in the war, that Russian shelling killed dozens of fleeing civilians, turning the crossing into a symbol of human suffering.

The men’s patrols are voluntary but foreshadow what may still come for citizens of Irpin – a once idyllic commuter town on the outskirts of Kyiv – who could be called up at any time to serve in the devastating war of attrition on the eastern front with Russia.

When Moscow unexpectedly launched a barbaric assault on the towns surrounding the Ukrainian capital in February, neighbours banded together and picked up hunting rifles, shotguns and literally any weapons they could find to fight Russian soldiers back from their families’ doorsteps.

Hulk, Doberman, Beard and Armenian became the nicknames of one “Dad’s Army” who forged a dogged camaraderie in the ashes of their homes.

The men, who did not wish to reveal their full names, called their ad hoc unit the Hedgehogs as a nod to their strategy of making their neighbourhood too difficult for the Russians to touch.

Peace has returned to Irpin, but their families have not returned to the ruins from their scattered refuges. The Hedgehogs, who have since forged links to the local Territorial Defence Forces, say they are training to go to the eastern front and see the war through to its bitter end.

“If our guys in the East need back-up and support, we are ready to do that,” said Hulk, 35, who in peacetime managed nightclubs and a furniture business. “We are defending our land. It’s important that we didn’t go to anyone else’s country. They came here and they are killing our women and children. So we are ready to fight and defend to the last one of us.”

Their determination defies the horrific admission this week by Ukrainian government officials that the brutal battle over the strategic industrial town of Severodonetsk is costing Ukraine up to 200 military casualties every day, as Russia pummels defending forces with superior long-range weaponry.

Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, has warned the fate of the entire Donbas region hangs on victory in the fight over the embattled city.

On Thursday, a Ukrainian and western intelligence dossier suggested there was a growing risk of demoralised Ukrainian soldiers deserting their ranks, The Independent reported. The Ministry of Defence refuted the report as untrue and likened it to “Russian propaganda”.

There was no sign of the dossier’s pessimism among the Hedgehogs: men who survived the Russians laying waste to their hometown in March and who are now prepared to face another hellscape in Donbas.

The fight is very personal. Doberman, 33, a former salesman, said he cried after he “lost his dream” to hold his first child, William, who was born last week in Canada rather than at home in Irpin.

Beard, 36, a truck driver, also forced his wife to flee to safety with their seven-year-old son and two-month-old daughter after their apartment building was hit by a mortar.

He still guards the street next to the blackened, charred remains of their flat in a once child-friendly cul-de-sac now pockmarked by shell craters.

At of the end of May, President Zelensky said some 700,000 military personnel were defending the country.

Official recruitment statistics are hard to nail down, but reports suggest Ukrainians are still lining up to join the fight – many motivated by a higher cause of defeating the advance of an authoritarian aggressor.

Konrad Muzyka, founder of Rochan Consulting, an independent defence consulting firm, told The Economist the number of would-be recruits for the armed forces is so high that there is a month-long waiting list to be inducted.

The more pressing challenges appear to be a lack of experience and training, and, in recent months, some shortfalls in protective gear like flak jackets, helmets, ear and eye protection.

Matthew Robinson, 39, from Yorkshire, is one of about 40 international ex-military trainers working with the Georgian Legion in Kyiv to teach recruits the basics of battle tactics and weapons handling.

But as the battle rages in the East, time is impossibly short.

He said a training session this week was abruptly called off by the military, with the message that “they are already being sent to the front, so we are cancelling the exercises”.

Mr Robinson, who said he had trained some 2,000 “completely inexperienced” volunteers, including the Hedgehogs, expressed frustration that so many were being deployed “ill-trained” and “ill-equipped” with a “hodge-podge” of body armour, firearms with no optics, and sub-optimal ammunition.

“They have big shopping lists of everything they need. It’s horrifying. I look at these men and think ‘a third of you are not going to live’,” he said.

“You do not have enough time to thoroughly drill these guys on the basic principles. You have to go through the motions and hope that they live and learn but it’s horrifying to see they are sending these men out to the front with these issues.”

Mykhailo Podolyak, a senior presidential adviser, said soldiers did receive proper training and refuted claims that front-line soldiers do not have body armour, although he has repeatedly stressed the terrible death toll inflicted by Russian artillery.

Experts also present a more complex overview of the state of Ukraine’s forces, stating that despite wartime chaos, the country has held off an overwhelmingly powerful enemy.

“It seems that we were underestimated, and they were overestimated,” said Ruslan Kavatsiuk, a Ukrainian adviser for Spirit of America (SOA), a US non-profit that is one of several groups distributing non-lethal military gear to Ukrainian front lines.

It has engaged a network of military commanders to donate nine busses and 155 tons of supplies including bulletproof vests, ballistic helmets and first aid kits to Ukraine’s forces, transported “invisibly” in vans and cars to where it is most needed.

This was not a war effort that had been forced to embrace recruits with a vastly different range of experience, he said.

The Russian “professional army is losing to all of these people”, he said, pointing to the deaths of multiple high-ranking Russian officers, including 12 generals.

“Russians don’t understand how bees operate. It looks like chaos but, in the end, they get the job done,” he said.

Matt Dimmick, SOA’s regional programme manager for Europe and previous director for Russia and Eastern Europe on the US National Security Council, said that while the Russians were bleeding the Ukrainians with artillery, Moscow, too, was being worn down by battle.

“The Russians have put everything they have into the fight,” he said. “They don’t have a renewable resource when it comes to their own troops and capabilities.”

While they could become entrenched and hard to root out, they may have reached their limits of advancing, he added.

They could make limited gains in some areas where they focused artillery power but would “probably suffer equal or more losses” where they did not have similar resources.

“The Ukrainians will sniff that out and make the Russians pay for it.” (© Telegraph Media Group Ltd 2022)
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ANOTHER WATERSPORT POLITICIAN
UK parliament won’t reveal porn data, saying it risks national security
Neil Parish stepped down as an MP after he was caught looking at porn at work. 
Photo: Chris McAndrew/UK Parliament

Jon Stone
June 11 2022

British Parliamentary authorities have refused to reveal how much porn MPs and their staff are trying to look at on work computers, citing “national security”.

The refusal to disclose the information under the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act comes after Tory MP Neil Parish quit as an MP after he was caught looking at porn at work in a “moment of madness”.

But ahead of the by-election to replace Mr Parish later this month, authorities rejected an FOI request by The Independent, citing Section 24 (1) of the act. Section 24 says information does not have to be disclosed if secrecy is “required for the purpose of safeguarding national security”.

The refusal is a change in policy for the Commons, which has previously disclosed how many porn sites were blocked on work computers on at least three separate occasions.

In 2013, parliament disclosed under FOI that computers on the parliamentary network had been blocked trying to access explicit content 309,316 times in the previous year.

In 2015, a similar disclosure revealed nearly 250,000 requests, and in 2018 the figure had fallen by around 24,000.

But the Commons authorities told The Independent that it had not only blocked the latest FOI request, but retroactively deleted the previous disclosures from its website.

As well as the national security exemption, authorities cited Section 31(1)(a) and (b), which says information can be exempted if required for “the prevention or detection of crime” and “the apprehension or prosecution of offenders”.

In its FOI response letter, authorities accepted that there was “a legitimate public interest in the House of Commons being open and transparent” but that “disclosure of this information would cause substantial risks to the parliamentary network as it would aid malicious groups in their efforts to target the network” as “both the disclosure of either specific web addresses, categories that are blocked, or totals relating to attempts or access, could provide valuable information to those wishing to bypass our security systems”.

This is because releasing the data “would make the extent of the Parliamentary Network’s blocking and filtering policies public knowledge”.

Maurice Frankel, director of the Campaign for Freedom of Information, said the block appeared to be part of a wider pattern.

“It seems that guidance has been issued to public authorities advising them not to release details of their monitoring of internet usage for fear of helping criminal, malicious or hostile users target these systems,” he said.

“Given past disclosures that hundreds of thousands of attempts to access pornographic websites have been made annually from parliament, it’s impossible to believe that hostile users don’t know this, particularly after an MP was found accessing pornography while actually in the Commons chamber.”

He added: “They will also know that the parliamentary authorities must be taking steps to block such access. Revealing the number of attempts to view explicit material tells us something significant about parliament, but little about its internet security vulnerabilities.”

A spokesperson for the Commons authorities said: “The House of Commons did previously release information on web-access requests.

“However, after reassessing cyber risk in 2017, it was determined that it presented a security risk and exposed the parliamentary network to an unacceptable amount of risk, and future requests were subsequently exempted under grounds of national security and law enforcement.
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