The Tamil Refugee Council (TRC) has condemned the Australian government for supplying five drones to the Sri Lankan police, reports Chris Slee.
drones
The US Central Intelligence Agency’s drone program in Africa is expanding, the New York Times said on September 10.
Just south of the Libyan border, a covert military base in Dirkou, Niger has been deploying fleets of drones on surveillance missions for several months, a Defense Department spokeswoman, Major Sheryll Klinkel told the NYT.
Under President Barack Obama, the US acknowledged killing between 2867 and 3138 people in strikes in countries like Somalia, Yemen and Pakistan.
In the waning days of his presidency, Obama took some steps to improve transparency about drone strikes, including providing the total estimated death toll. However, a new report by the Columbia Law School Human Rights Clinic and the Sana’a Center for Strategic Studies says that the US is still lagging in providing a full accounting of its drone program.
Wedge-tailed eagles have found a new but unlikely prey in the Western Australian goldfields: mining company surveying drones.
South African goldmining company Gold Fields, the world's seventh-biggest gold producer, has lost nine drones to the birds, costing the company more than $100,000.
Wedge-tailed eagles are one of the largest birds of prey in the world.
Their wingspan is more than twice that of the one metre-wide drones and they have razor-sharp talons that allow them to grab and destroy the drones in flight.
Powers that went largely unchallenged during the Obama administration are now in the hands of President-elect Donald Trump — and that’s a frightening prospect.
The release of the Defence White Paper in February reveals the Malcolm Turnbull government sees engaging in a regional “arms race” and securing its borders as far higher priorities than guaranteeing our healthcare system, quality public education, housing and welfare entitlements.
While this thinking is nothing new and continues the trend of successive governments — both Coalition and Labor — the Turnbull government added an extra twist, in quarantining the defence budget so that it is protected from cuts if revenue decreases.
Reversing earlier promises to end US military involvement in Afghanistan, President Barack Obama has announced that US troops will remain indefinitely. He said they will not be ground combat forces, but trainers and advisers to the forces of the US-imposed warlord-dominated regime.
US air strikes in support of the regime, by both piloted aircraft and drones, will continue. One such strike was the deliberate bombing of the Doctors Without Borders (MSF) hospital in Kunduz.
Newly leaked United States government documents have provided an unprecedented window into the secret US drone assassination program across the globe.
In “The Drone Papers”, online publication The Intercept reveals drone strikes have resulted from unreliable intelligence, stemming in large part from electronic communications data, or “signals intelligence” (for example, using mobile phone signals to identify people) that officials acknowledge is insufficient.
On August 19, a Taliban suicide squad attacked the Kabul offices of the British Council, a government-funded institution that “promotes educational and cultural relations” between Britain and other countries.
The August 20 Guardian said at least 12 people were killed, including a New Zealand SAS soldier and three “security contractors” working for multinational security outfit G4S.
The company was contracted to guard the offices.
Six G4S employees were wounded, including three Nepalese, veterans of the British Army’s Gurkha regiments.