News in Brief

Date: 11 February 2023 - 21:30

News ID: ۱۱۲۲۹۰

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – During the NATO Baltops 22 exercise last summer, U.S. and German navy aircraft regularly circled over the sites of future explosions on the Nord Stream pipelines, according to Sputnik’s analysis of Flightradar24 data. Investigative journalist and Pulitzer Prize winner Seymour Hersh published a report saying U.S. Navy divers during NATO Baltops exercises in the summer of 2022 planted explosives to destroy the Nord Stream pipelines, which Norway activated three months later. According to the report, U.S. President Joe Biden decided to sabotage the Nord Streams after more than nine months of secret discussions with the national security team. Flightradar24 data analyzed by Sputnik shows that, between June 8 and June 16 of last year, German and U.S. maritime surveillance aircraft P-3 Orion and P-8 Poseidon carried out regular flights over the sites of future Nord Stream explosions. The military aircraft descended to low altitudes and turned off transponders in almost every flight, so some of their trajectories remained unrecorded. On June 8, the American Poseidon aircraft circled over the sites of three future explosions on the Nord Stream pipelines northeast of Bornholm Island. The German P-3 Orion aircraft then flew over a future blast site east of the island. On June 9, the Poseidon aircraft flew over the sites northeast and east of Bornholm. From June 11 to June 15, the U.S. Poseidon aircraft circled precisely over the sites of future Nord Stream sabotage acts every day, often making many turns and loops at low altitude. On June 16, the German P-3 Orion flew over the area.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A U.S. fighter jet on Friday shot down over Alaska a high-altitude object that was the size of a small car, on the order of President Joe Biden, the White House said. White House spokesperson John Kirby told reporters many details were unknown about the object but the United States expected to recover the object after it landed in U.S. territorial waters. It was unclear where the object came from, Kirby said. “We don’t know who owns this object,” he said. He said the object, which had been flying at about 40,000 feet (12,190 meters), went down on the far northeastern part of Alaska near the Canadian border. He said the American pilot’s assessment was that no human was aboard. The United States on Feb. 4 shot down off the coast of South Carolina a Chinese high-altitude surveillance balloon that transited the United States. U.S. officials have been recovering the debris from the 200-foot-tall (60-meter-high) balloon and its undercarriage of electronic gadgetry. Kirby was careful not to classify the new object as a balloon. He said the discovery of the new object and its track first came to U.S. attention on Thursday night. He said that, unlike the Chinese balloon, this object did not appear to be maneuverable and was at the mercy of the wind.

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MANILA (Reuters) -- Five soldiers were killed in a shooting at a military camp in the southern Philippines, including the shooter, the military said on Saturday. A soldier ran amuck after 1 a.m. on Saturday (1700 GMT on Friday), killing four service personnel at an army compound in Cagayan de Oro City, Major Francisco Garello, spokesperson of the 4th Infantry Division, said in a statement. The shooter then went to other rooms, where two soldiers grappled with and killed him, the army said. “We assure the public that this is an isolated incident”. Another person was critically injured. An internal investigation has begun to identify the cause and gaps in the recruitment and training process, the military said. Shootings are sporadic in the Southeast Asian nation. In June, three people, including a former mayor, died in graduation day shooting in the capital Manila.

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CAPE TOWN (Dispatches) – South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, amid mounting public anger, has declared a national “state of disaster” over the country’s crippling power crisis, warning that it poses an “existential threat” to the economy and social fabric. During a state of the nation address in Cape Town, Ramaphosa said the measure would take immediate effect. “We are in the grip of a profound energy crisis,” he stressed. “The crisis has progressively evolved to affect every part of society. We must act to lessen the impact of the crisis on farmers, on small businesses, on our water infrastructure and our transport network”. Therefore, he hastened to add, his government is “declaring a national state of disaster to respond to the electricity crisis and its effects”. In recent months, state energy company Eskom has been scheduling power outages for up to 12 hours a day in order to prevent the increasing collapse of coal power plants, the mainstay of the country’s power network. As a result, Ramaphosa’s government has come under blistering public wrath with factories grinding to a halt, crops withering and food rotting. “Our most immediate task is to dramatically reduce the severity of load shedding in the coming months,” Ramaphosa said, pledging support for Eskom.

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SANTIAGO (AFP) – Chile has announced a nighttime curfew in south-central regions where forest fires have raged for more than a week, leaving at least 24 people dead. The midnight-to-05:00 am curfew came into effect on Friday in 28 municipalities in the hard-hit regions of Biobio, Nuble and La Araucania, said Biobio military chief Jorge Keitel. The move seeks to prevent theft and looting in the affected regions while some 5,600 Chilean firefighters, backed by experts from Mexico, Colombia, Spain and Argentina among other countries, battle 90 priority fires out of 323 still active. The efforts suffered a setback Thursday when a tanker sent to Chile to help, suffered mechanical issues for the second time this week. The plane can dump some 36,000 liters of water. The flames are being fueled by temperatures exceeding 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) in many regions amid severe drought conditions, and officials fear the blazes could spread to other regions. The fires have left 24 people dead and more than 2,000 injured, and destroyed more than 300,000 hectares (741,316 acres) of forest.

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MEXICO CITY (AP) – Roman Catholic Bishop Rolando Álvarez, an outspoken critic of Nicaragua’s government, was sentenced to 26 years in prison and stripped of his Nicaraguan citizenship Friday, the latest move by President Daniel Ortega against the Catholic church and his opponents. A day after he refused to get on a flight to the United States with 222 other prisoners, all opponents of Ortega, a judge sentenced Álvarez for undermining the government, spreading false information, obstruction of functions and disobedience, according to a government statement published in official outlets. The sentence handed down by Octavio Ernesto Rothschuh, chief magistrate of the Managua appeals court, is the longest given to any of Ortega’s opponents over the last couple years. Álvarez was arrested in August along with several other priests and lay people. When Ortega ordered the mass release of political leaders, priests, students and activists widely considered political prisoners and had some of them put on a flight to Washington Thursday, Alvarez refused to board without being able to consult with other bishops, Ortega said.