Islamic State militants, who once relied on wealthy Persian Gulf donors for money, have become a self-sustaining financial juggernaut, earning more than $3 million a day from oil smuggling, human trafficking, theft and extortion, according to U.S. intelligence officials and private experts.
The extremist group's resources exceed that "of any other terrorist group in history," said a U.S. intelligence official who, like others interviewed, spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss classified assessments. Such riches are one reason that American officials are so concerned about the group even while acknowledging they have no evidence it is plotting attacks against the United States.
The Islamic State group has taken over large sections of Syria and Iraq, and controls as many as 11 oil fields in both countries, analysts say. It is selling oil and other goods through generations-old smuggling networks under the noses of some of the same governments it is fighting: Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq, Turkey and Jordan.
While U.S. intelligence does not assess that those governments are complicit in the smuggling, the Obama administration is pressing them do to more to crack down. The illicit oil is generally transported on tanker trucks, analysts said.
"There's a lot of money to be made," said Denise Natali, who worked in Kurdistan as an American aid official and is now a senior research fellow at National Defense University. "The Kurds say they have made an attempt to close it down, but you pay off a border guard you pay off somebody else and you get stuff through."
The price the Islamic State group fetches for its smuggled oil is discounted — $25 to $60 for a barrel of oil that normally sells for more than $100 — but its total profits from oil are exceeding $3 million a day, said Luay al-Khatteeb, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution's Doha Center in Qatar.
The group also has earned hundreds of millions of dollars from smuggling antiquities out of Iraq to be sold in Turkey, al-Khatteeb said, and millions more from human trafficking by selling women and children as sex slaves.
Other revenue comes from extortion payments, ransom from kidnapped hostages, and outright theft of all manner of materials from the towns the Islamic State group has seized, analysts say.
"It's cash-raising activities resemble those of a mafia-like organization," a second U.S. intelligence official said, reflecting the assessment of his agency. "They are well-organized, systematic and enforced through intimidation and violence."
Extortion, bank robberies, ransom
Even prior to seizing Mosul in June, for example, the group began to impose "taxes" on nearly every facet of economic activity, threatening death for those unwilling to pay, U.S. intelligence officials say. An analysis by the Council on Foreign Relations estimated the group was reaping $8 million a month from extortion in Mosul alone.
Once the group took over Mosul, in northern Iraq, and other areas, it grabbed millions of dollars in cash from banks, though not the hundreds of millions initially reported, U.S. intelligence officials say.
This spring, four French and two Spanish journalists held hostage by Islamic State extremists were freed after their governments paid multimillion-dollar ransoms through intermediaries.
The Islamic State group "has managed to successfully translate territorial control in northern Syria and portions of Iraq into a means of revenue generation," said a third U.S. intelligence official.
Analysts say the group is relying on the fact that the area along the border between Iraq and Turkey has long been a smugglers haven, and was made more so by the fall of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in 2003. Generations of families have illicitly moved goods through the region.
The Islamic State is the successor to al-Qaeda in Iraq, which was founded by Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. For a time, the group was allied with the Nusra Front, the al-Qaida affiliate that is a key player among the rebels battling Syrian President Bashar Assad. The Islamic State group has since broken with the Nusra Front and al-Qaeda.
In the early days of the Syrian civil war, the Islamic State group was funded in large part by donations from wealthy residents of Gulf States, including Kuwait and Qatar, American officials have said.
"A number of fundraisers operating in more permissive jurisdictions — particularly in Kuwait and Qatar — are soliciting donations to fund ... al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, the Nusra Front, and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS)," David Cohen, the Treasury department's top counterterrorism official, said in a speech in March.
That stream of funding has diminished in recent months as the group's violent tactics have drawn worldwide attention, U.S. intelligence officials say.
The group's reliance on oil as its main source of revenue could easily be disrupted by American airstrikes, officials say. But so far, no decision has been made to target Iraqi or Syrian oil infrastructure, which is serviced by civilian workers who may have been conscripted.
Showing posts with label planes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label planes. Show all posts
Sunday, September 14, 2014
Thursday, August 28, 2014
Armed Canadian fighter jets move to Russia’s doorstep
OTTAWA—As NATO leaders prepare to beef up the military presence in eastern Europe as a deterrence to Russia aggression, Canadian fighter pilots are already there.
Six CF-18 fighter jets were sent to Romania in early May, dispatched to Europe as part of a show of force in the face of Russian military moves in Ukraine.
The Canadian fighter jets have now moved to Lithuania to patrol the skies at the front lines of what some worry could be the next standoff with Russia.
Those tensions aren’t lost on the fighter pilots deployed overseas but it doesn’t influence their day-to-day flying, said Lt.-Col. Jonathan Nelles, deputy commander and chief of staff of the air task force during its time in Romania.
“We all want to understand the political situation and why it is we are in the location that we are, why we have been sent here,” Nelles said.
“But at the tactical level, we have a mission to execute,” Nelles told the Star in a telephone interview from Campia Turzii, Romania, where the Canadians were recently stationed.
“We are close to where those tensions are but our daily activities do not involve those tensions,” he said.
Yet those tensions will top the agenda when the leaders of the NATO military alliance, including Prime Minister Stephen Harper, gather in Wales next week to discuss their response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea and ongoing backing of separatist rebels fighting in Ukraine.
The deployment of the six CF-18s and several hundred military personnel to Romania in April was part of “reassurance” measures by NATO to step up its presence in eastern Europe in the wake of Russia’s military moves.
In Lithuania, those fighters will be flying missions on Russia’s doorstep — a mere 300 kilometres away as the CF-18 flies — where they will be until at least December.
“Through the hard work of our men and women in uniform, Canada will continue to demonstrate the strength of allied solidarity in response to Russian aggression,” Defence Minister Rob Nicholson said in a statement confirming the Lithuanian mission.
The deployments are a throwback to the era when Canadian fighters and army units were permanently based in West Germany, helping to maintain a nervous peace on the front-lines of the Cold War.
In those days, when Canadian CF-104 Starfighter jets thundered off the runways and into the sky, pilots knew well the deadly serious nature of their missions.
“Back then, during my flying in Europe it was during the Cold War, so 150 miles east of us were people who wanted to kill us. Our job was to prepare to do it to them,” said former fighter pilot Laurie Hawn.
“We weren’t just there to be a flying club. We were there for potentially a pretty serious reason,” said Hawn, now the Conservative MP for Edmonton Centre.
Indeed, the pilot-turned-politician got his call-sign “Hawnski” after flying for 20 minutes through East German airspace in his sleek Starfighter jet.
“I was chased out by some East German MiGs. They didn’t catch me,” said Hawn, adding that a fellow pilot thought that if he was going to fly in Soviet airspace, he should at least have a Russian-sounding name.
The times have changed. The end of the Cold War and shrinking defence budgets prompted Canada to shutter its European bases.
NATO jets still patrol European skies. NATO has been flying so-called air policing missions over the Baltic states — Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia — since 2004, when the three countries joined the 28-member military alliance.
Though not a new mission, it has taken new urgency as geopolitical tensions rise. Since April, NATO has committed additional fighters to patrol the Baltic airspace.
This is the first time Canadian fighter jets have participated. Indeed, the deployments to Romania and Lithuania mark the first time Royal Canadian Air Force fighters have operated so far east in Europe, past the Cold War-era borders that divided east and west.
“Our fighter aircraft have certainly not operated in this area of the world, eastern Europe, in the past,” Nelles said.
Flying from an airbase in Siauliai, part of their mission over the Baltics will be to conduct air patrols and intercept any aircraft — usually Russian — that infringe on the sovereign airspace over the three countries.
It’s similar to the missions now flown by Canadian and U.S. jets under the umbrella of North American Aerospace Defense Command to protect airspace over Canada and the U.S.
“Same concept, just a different location,” Nelles said.
Yet because of the nature of that intercept mission, the CF-18s will be armed when they fly from Lithuania, unlike their time in Romania.
Canada’s deployment of fighters could be the prelude of a larger NATO commitment to position troops and equipment in the Baltic States to ensure they are not seen as an “easy target” by Russia.
That’s the advice from a July report from the British House of Commons defence committee, which warned that Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are especially vulnerable “due to their position, their size and their lack of strategic depth.”
It quoted one retired Swedish general as saying the territories could be overrun in a couple of days. Without forces based in the Baltic states, it’s unlikely NATO could respond to a surprise attack.
It said that the attack on Ukraine has raised the possibility — albeit “unlikely” — of an attack on the Baltic states and said NATO must step up its readiness.
The report recommends that NATO leaders consider whether to pre-position equipment in the Baltic states, keep NATO troops on exercise there and establish a headquarters to focus on eastern Europe and the Baltic states.
Because all three countries are NATO members, under the alliance’s treaty 5, an attack on one would be seen as an attack on all of the alliance, potentially triggering a sweeping military response.
Academic Roland Paris, of the University of Ottawa, says the vulnerability of the Baltic states may have prompted Canada’s decision to contribute the air assets.
“They are more vulnerable that the other countries and there are signs that Russia has been connecting with Russian-speaking minorities in the Baltic countries in a way that is worrisome,” Paris said in an interview.
“In the end, six CF-18s are not going to change the strategic calculus. It’s symbolic. The deployment of six CF-18s means we are putting skin in the game,” he said.
NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said he fears that the ambitions of Russian President Vladimir Putin go beyond Ukraine. But he said the best security of the Baltic states is their membership in NATO.
“I think the leaders in the Kremlin are very well aware that any attempt to test our determination to defend and protect our allies would provoke a very firm response from our side,” Rasmussen said, vowing that the alliance would take “all measures” to protect a member state.
In Romania, the Canadians got a chance to work with a NATO partner overcoming differences in culture, language, tactics and procedures.
And because Romania flies Soviet-era MIG-21 Lancer fighters, Canadian pilots got a chance to fly alongside — and mock fight against — aircraft they don’t normally see.
The lessons learned during peacetime collaboration are vital for those times when “things get more complex,” Nelles said.
“Knowing how someone else is going to react and respond and knowing other’s capabilities is truly important,” he said.
“We had a lot more integration than just flying jets in the air. It was developing a camaraderie, a rapport, an understanding and a trust which I think is vital for defining what interoperability really is,” Nelles said.
Six CF-18 fighter jets were sent to Romania in early May, dispatched to Europe as part of a show of force in the face of Russian military moves in Ukraine.
The Canadian fighter jets have now moved to Lithuania to patrol the skies at the front lines of what some worry could be the next standoff with Russia.
Those tensions aren’t lost on the fighter pilots deployed overseas but it doesn’t influence their day-to-day flying, said Lt.-Col. Jonathan Nelles, deputy commander and chief of staff of the air task force during its time in Romania.
“We all want to understand the political situation and why it is we are in the location that we are, why we have been sent here,” Nelles said.
“But at the tactical level, we have a mission to execute,” Nelles told the Star in a telephone interview from Campia Turzii, Romania, where the Canadians were recently stationed.
“We are close to where those tensions are but our daily activities do not involve those tensions,” he said.
Yet those tensions will top the agenda when the leaders of the NATO military alliance, including Prime Minister Stephen Harper, gather in Wales next week to discuss their response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea and ongoing backing of separatist rebels fighting in Ukraine.
The deployment of the six CF-18s and several hundred military personnel to Romania in April was part of “reassurance” measures by NATO to step up its presence in eastern Europe in the wake of Russia’s military moves.
In Lithuania, those fighters will be flying missions on Russia’s doorstep — a mere 300 kilometres away as the CF-18 flies — where they will be until at least December.
“Through the hard work of our men and women in uniform, Canada will continue to demonstrate the strength of allied solidarity in response to Russian aggression,” Defence Minister Rob Nicholson said in a statement confirming the Lithuanian mission.
The deployments are a throwback to the era when Canadian fighters and army units were permanently based in West Germany, helping to maintain a nervous peace on the front-lines of the Cold War.
In those days, when Canadian CF-104 Starfighter jets thundered off the runways and into the sky, pilots knew well the deadly serious nature of their missions.
“Back then, during my flying in Europe it was during the Cold War, so 150 miles east of us were people who wanted to kill us. Our job was to prepare to do it to them,” said former fighter pilot Laurie Hawn.
“We weren’t just there to be a flying club. We were there for potentially a pretty serious reason,” said Hawn, now the Conservative MP for Edmonton Centre.
Indeed, the pilot-turned-politician got his call-sign “Hawnski” after flying for 20 minutes through East German airspace in his sleek Starfighter jet.
“I was chased out by some East German MiGs. They didn’t catch me,” said Hawn, adding that a fellow pilot thought that if he was going to fly in Soviet airspace, he should at least have a Russian-sounding name.
The times have changed. The end of the Cold War and shrinking defence budgets prompted Canada to shutter its European bases.
NATO jets still patrol European skies. NATO has been flying so-called air policing missions over the Baltic states — Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia — since 2004, when the three countries joined the 28-member military alliance.
Though not a new mission, it has taken new urgency as geopolitical tensions rise. Since April, NATO has committed additional fighters to patrol the Baltic airspace.
This is the first time Canadian fighter jets have participated. Indeed, the deployments to Romania and Lithuania mark the first time Royal Canadian Air Force fighters have operated so far east in Europe, past the Cold War-era borders that divided east and west.
“Our fighter aircraft have certainly not operated in this area of the world, eastern Europe, in the past,” Nelles said.
Flying from an airbase in Siauliai, part of their mission over the Baltics will be to conduct air patrols and intercept any aircraft — usually Russian — that infringe on the sovereign airspace over the three countries.
It’s similar to the missions now flown by Canadian and U.S. jets under the umbrella of North American Aerospace Defense Command to protect airspace over Canada and the U.S.
“Same concept, just a different location,” Nelles said.
Yet because of the nature of that intercept mission, the CF-18s will be armed when they fly from Lithuania, unlike their time in Romania.
Canada’s deployment of fighters could be the prelude of a larger NATO commitment to position troops and equipment in the Baltic States to ensure they are not seen as an “easy target” by Russia.
That’s the advice from a July report from the British House of Commons defence committee, which warned that Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are especially vulnerable “due to their position, their size and their lack of strategic depth.”
It quoted one retired Swedish general as saying the territories could be overrun in a couple of days. Without forces based in the Baltic states, it’s unlikely NATO could respond to a surprise attack.
It said that the attack on Ukraine has raised the possibility — albeit “unlikely” — of an attack on the Baltic states and said NATO must step up its readiness.
The report recommends that NATO leaders consider whether to pre-position equipment in the Baltic states, keep NATO troops on exercise there and establish a headquarters to focus on eastern Europe and the Baltic states.
Because all three countries are NATO members, under the alliance’s treaty 5, an attack on one would be seen as an attack on all of the alliance, potentially triggering a sweeping military response.
Academic Roland Paris, of the University of Ottawa, says the vulnerability of the Baltic states may have prompted Canada’s decision to contribute the air assets.
“They are more vulnerable that the other countries and there are signs that Russia has been connecting with Russian-speaking minorities in the Baltic countries in a way that is worrisome,” Paris said in an interview.
“In the end, six CF-18s are not going to change the strategic calculus. It’s symbolic. The deployment of six CF-18s means we are putting skin in the game,” he said.
NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said he fears that the ambitions of Russian President Vladimir Putin go beyond Ukraine. But he said the best security of the Baltic states is their membership in NATO.
“I think the leaders in the Kremlin are very well aware that any attempt to test our determination to defend and protect our allies would provoke a very firm response from our side,” Rasmussen said, vowing that the alliance would take “all measures” to protect a member state.
In Romania, the Canadians got a chance to work with a NATO partner overcoming differences in culture, language, tactics and procedures.
And because Romania flies Soviet-era MIG-21 Lancer fighters, Canadian pilots got a chance to fly alongside — and mock fight against — aircraft they don’t normally see.
The lessons learned during peacetime collaboration are vital for those times when “things get more complex,” Nelles said.
“Knowing how someone else is going to react and respond and knowing other’s capabilities is truly important,” he said.
“We had a lot more integration than just flying jets in the air. It was developing a camaraderie, a rapport, an understanding and a trust which I think is vital for defining what interoperability really is,” Nelles said.
Google's secret lab working on fleet of self-flying vehicles to deliver packages more quickly
SAN FRANCISCO - Google's secretive research laboratory is trying to build a fleet of drones designed to bypass earthbound traffic so packages can be delivered to people more quickly.
The ambitious program announced Thursday escalates Google's technological arms race with rival Amazon.com Inc., which also is experimenting with self-flying vehicles to carry merchandise bought by customers of its online store.
Amazon is mounting its own challenges to Google in online video, digital advertising and mobile computing in a battle that also involves Apple Inc.
Google Inc. calls its foray into drones "Project Wing."
Although Google expects it to take several more years before its fleet of drones is fully operational, the company says test flights in Australia delivered a first aid kit, candy bars, dog treats and water to two farmers after travelling a distance of roughly one kilometre, or just over a half mile, two weeks ago. Google's video of the test flight, set to the strains of the 1969 song "Spirit In The Sky," can be seen at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRTNvWcx9Oo .
Besides perfecting their aerial technology, Google and Amazon still need to gain government approval to fly commercial drones in many countries, including the U.S. Amazon last month asked the Federal Aviation Administration for permission to expand its drone testing. The FAA currently allows hobbyists and model aircraft makers to fly drones, but commercial use is mostly banned.
Project Wing is the latest venture to emerge from Google's "X'' lab, which has also been working on self-driving cars as well as other far-flung innovations that company CEO Larry Page likens to "moonshots" that push the technological envelope. The lab's other handiwork includes Internet-connected eyewear called Google Glass, Internet-beaming balloons called Project Loon and a high-tech contact lens that monitors glucose levels in diabetics.
Google says it is striving to improve society through the X's lab's research, but the Glass device has faced criticism from privacy watchdogs leery of the product's ability to secretly record video and take pictures. Investors also have periodically expressed frustration with the amount of money that Google has been pouring into the X lab without any guarantee the products will ever pay off.
A team led by Massachusetts Institute of Technology aeronautics professor Nick Roy already has been working on Project Wing for two years, according to Google. The Mountain View, California, company didn't disclose how much the project has cost.
Drones clearly could help Google expand an existing service that delivers goods purchased online on the day that they were ordered. Google so far is offering the same-day delivery service by automobiles in parts of the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles and New York.
"Self-flying vehicles could open up entirely new approaches to moving goods, including options that are cheaper, faster, less wasteful and more environmentally sensitive than what's possible today," Google said in a pamphlet outlining Project Wing.
Google, though, seems to see its drones as something more than another step in e-commerce delivery. The aerial vehicles also could make it easier for people to share certain items, such as a power drill, that they may only need periodically and carry emergency supplies to areas damaged by earthquakes, hurricanes and other natural catastrophes, according to Google's Project Wing pamphlet.
The ambitious program announced Thursday escalates Google's technological arms race with rival Amazon.com Inc., which also is experimenting with self-flying vehicles to carry merchandise bought by customers of its online store.
Amazon is mounting its own challenges to Google in online video, digital advertising and mobile computing in a battle that also involves Apple Inc.
Google Inc. calls its foray into drones "Project Wing."
Although Google expects it to take several more years before its fleet of drones is fully operational, the company says test flights in Australia delivered a first aid kit, candy bars, dog treats and water to two farmers after travelling a distance of roughly one kilometre, or just over a half mile, two weeks ago. Google's video of the test flight, set to the strains of the 1969 song "Spirit In The Sky," can be seen at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRTNvWcx9Oo .
Besides perfecting their aerial technology, Google and Amazon still need to gain government approval to fly commercial drones in many countries, including the U.S. Amazon last month asked the Federal Aviation Administration for permission to expand its drone testing. The FAA currently allows hobbyists and model aircraft makers to fly drones, but commercial use is mostly banned.
Project Wing is the latest venture to emerge from Google's "X'' lab, which has also been working on self-driving cars as well as other far-flung innovations that company CEO Larry Page likens to "moonshots" that push the technological envelope. The lab's other handiwork includes Internet-connected eyewear called Google Glass, Internet-beaming balloons called Project Loon and a high-tech contact lens that monitors glucose levels in diabetics.
Google says it is striving to improve society through the X's lab's research, but the Glass device has faced criticism from privacy watchdogs leery of the product's ability to secretly record video and take pictures. Investors also have periodically expressed frustration with the amount of money that Google has been pouring into the X lab without any guarantee the products will ever pay off.
A team led by Massachusetts Institute of Technology aeronautics professor Nick Roy already has been working on Project Wing for two years, according to Google. The Mountain View, California, company didn't disclose how much the project has cost.
Drones clearly could help Google expand an existing service that delivers goods purchased online on the day that they were ordered. Google so far is offering the same-day delivery service by automobiles in parts of the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles and New York.
"Self-flying vehicles could open up entirely new approaches to moving goods, including options that are cheaper, faster, less wasteful and more environmentally sensitive than what's possible today," Google said in a pamphlet outlining Project Wing.
Google, though, seems to see its drones as something more than another step in e-commerce delivery. The aerial vehicles also could make it easier for people to share certain items, such as a power drill, that they may only need periodically and carry emergency supplies to areas damaged by earthquakes, hurricanes and other natural catastrophes, according to Google's Project Wing pamphlet.
Wednesday, August 13, 2014
North Korea fires three short-range rockets as pope visits South Korea
SEOUL - North Korea fired three short-range rockets off its east coast on Thursday, South Korea's Ministry of Defense said, shortly before Pope Francis arrived in Seoul on his first visit to Asia.
The rockets were fired from multiple launchers in the North Korean port city of Wonsan and traveled 220 km (135 miles) before landing in waters east of the Korean peninsula, a defense ministry official said.
The last rocket was fired 35 minutes before Pope Francis was due to arrive at an air base in Seoul, where the pontiff started a five-day visit to South Korea.
The launches came ahead of U.S.-South Korean military exercises scheduled to start on Monday. Seoul and Washington say the exercises are defensive in nature but North Korea regularly protests against the drills, which it sees as a rehearsal for war.
North Korea last fired short-range rockets in late July but has since said repeatedly that the launches are specifically designed as counter measures against those drills.
"Given that the U.S. and the puppet forces of South Korea continue staging nuclear war exercises against us in particular, we will take countermeasures for self-defense which will include missile launches, nuclear tests and all other programs," a statement carried by North Korean state media last Friday said.
Pyongyang is under heavy U.N. and U.S. sanctions related to its nuclear and ballistic missile programs. Short-range rockets do not defy the ban but Pyongyang has in recent months changed its propaganda style to include photographs of leader Kim Jong Un personally supervising the launches.
The rockets were fired from multiple launchers in the North Korean port city of Wonsan and traveled 220 km (135 miles) before landing in waters east of the Korean peninsula, a defense ministry official said.
The last rocket was fired 35 minutes before Pope Francis was due to arrive at an air base in Seoul, where the pontiff started a five-day visit to South Korea.
The launches came ahead of U.S.-South Korean military exercises scheduled to start on Monday. Seoul and Washington say the exercises are defensive in nature but North Korea regularly protests against the drills, which it sees as a rehearsal for war.
North Korea last fired short-range rockets in late July but has since said repeatedly that the launches are specifically designed as counter measures against those drills.
"Given that the U.S. and the puppet forces of South Korea continue staging nuclear war exercises against us in particular, we will take countermeasures for self-defense which will include missile launches, nuclear tests and all other programs," a statement carried by North Korean state media last Friday said.
Pyongyang is under heavy U.N. and U.S. sanctions related to its nuclear and ballistic missile programs. Short-range rockets do not defy the ban but Pyongyang has in recent months changed its propaganda style to include photographs of leader Kim Jong Un personally supervising the launches.
Friday, March 28, 2014
11 objects spotted in search for MH370
Chinese and Australian ships are enroute to the new search area off the coast of Perth to track down debris thought to be part of the missing Malaysia Airlines plane.
A Royal New Zealand Air Force Orion spotted 11 white rectangular objects in the Indian Ocean.
The cluster of objects is sitting just below the surface about 1600 kilometres west of Perth, New Zealand Air Vice-Marshal Kevin Short told media.
"It's hard to identify because all you're seeing is this one-metre rectangular piece of material."
The 11 objects were within five metres of each other and there were objects up to a couple of hundred miles away as well, he said.
"There seems to be patches of these objects and that's not unexpected, looking at how long the aircraft's been missing.
"If they're from that aircraft it's not unusual to have them separated by hundreds of miles."
The plane carrying 239 people, including six Australians and two New Zealanders, disappeared on March 8.
The objects had been marked with a sonar buoy and four ships would be in the area to retrieve them, Air Vice-Marshal Short said.
The objects would be photographed, with the images sent to investigators, then transported to Perth for further investigation, he said.
The search area was shifted 1000 kilometres north-east after international air crash investigators had their ”most credible lead” yet.
The new area was calculated after analysis of radar data indicated the aircraft was travelling faster than previously thought, meaning it would have used its fuel more quickly and travelled less distance.
At 319,000 square kilometres, the new search area revealed is massive, almost the same size as the Malaysian land mass and roughly 50 per cent larger than Victoria.
Five aircraft also spotted coloured objects in the new search area.
Photographs of the objects were taken and were to be assessed, while a Chinese ship in the new search area was directed towards the debris.
Australian Maritime Safety Authority emergency response manager John Young said all search planes and ships had been moved to the new zone.
"We have moved on from those search areas to the newest credible lead."
Any wreckage found would be handed over to Malaysian authorities.
The findings came with a warning from Malaysia Airlines of the effect that speculation about the flight's fate could have on the families.
"Whilst we understand that there will inevitably be speculation during this period, we do ask people to bear in mind the effect this has on the families of all those on board," the airline's group chief executive Ahmad Jauhari Yahya said.
"Their anguish and distress increases with each passing day, with each fresh rumour, and with each false or misleading report."
Mr Yahya said preparations were underway for family members of passengers and crew to be taken to Perth, should physical wreckage be found.
A Royal New Zealand Air Force Orion spotted 11 white rectangular objects in the Indian Ocean.
The cluster of objects is sitting just below the surface about 1600 kilometres west of Perth, New Zealand Air Vice-Marshal Kevin Short told media.
"It's hard to identify because all you're seeing is this one-metre rectangular piece of material."
The 11 objects were within five metres of each other and there were objects up to a couple of hundred miles away as well, he said.
"There seems to be patches of these objects and that's not unexpected, looking at how long the aircraft's been missing.
"If they're from that aircraft it's not unusual to have them separated by hundreds of miles."
The plane carrying 239 people, including six Australians and two New Zealanders, disappeared on March 8.
The objects had been marked with a sonar buoy and four ships would be in the area to retrieve them, Air Vice-Marshal Short said.
The objects would be photographed, with the images sent to investigators, then transported to Perth for further investigation, he said.
The search area was shifted 1000 kilometres north-east after international air crash investigators had their ”most credible lead” yet.
The new area was calculated after analysis of radar data indicated the aircraft was travelling faster than previously thought, meaning it would have used its fuel more quickly and travelled less distance.
At 319,000 square kilometres, the new search area revealed is massive, almost the same size as the Malaysian land mass and roughly 50 per cent larger than Victoria.
Five aircraft also spotted coloured objects in the new search area.
Photographs of the objects were taken and were to be assessed, while a Chinese ship in the new search area was directed towards the debris.
Australian Maritime Safety Authority emergency response manager John Young said all search planes and ships had been moved to the new zone.
"We have moved on from those search areas to the newest credible lead."
Any wreckage found would be handed over to Malaysian authorities.
The findings came with a warning from Malaysia Airlines of the effect that speculation about the flight's fate could have on the families.
"Whilst we understand that there will inevitably be speculation during this period, we do ask people to bear in mind the effect this has on the families of all those on board," the airline's group chief executive Ahmad Jauhari Yahya said.
"Their anguish and distress increases with each passing day, with each fresh rumour, and with each false or misleading report."
Mr Yahya said preparations were underway for family members of passengers and crew to be taken to Perth, should physical wreckage be found.
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
Planes, ships chase new leads in search for Malaysian jet
PERTH/KUALA LUMPUR - New satellite images have revealed more than 100 objects in the southern Indian Ocean that could be debris from a Malaysian jetliner missing for 18 days, while planes scouring the frigid seas on Wednesday also reported seeing potential wreckage.
The latest sightings came as searchers stepped up efforts to find some trace of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, thought to have crashed on March 8 with the loss of all 239 people aboard after flying thousands of miles off course.
"We have now had four separate satellite leads, from Australia, China and France, showing possible debris," Malaysian Acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein told a news conference. "It is now imperative that we link the debris to MH370."
The latest images were captured by France-based Airbus Defence & Space on Monday and showed 122 potential objects in a 400-sq-km (155-sq-mile) area of ocean,Hishammuddin said. The objects varied in size from one metre to 23 metres (75 ft) in length, he said.
Flight MH370 vanished from civilian radar screens less than an hour after taking off from Kuala Lumpur bound for Beijing, and investigators believe someone on the flight may have shut off the plane's communications systems.
Partial military radar tracking showed it turning west and recrossing the Malay Peninsula, apparently under the control of a skilled pilot.
Malaysia's air force has released few details of its radar tracking beyond saying the plane was last detected off the northwest coast heading towards India.
But the country's deputy defence minister, Abdul Rahim Bakri, told parliament that no action was taken when the unidentified plane was spotted because it was assumed it had been ordered to turn back, local media said.
"It was detected by our radar, but the turn back was by a non-hostile plane and we thought maybe it was at the directive of the control tower," he was quoted as saying.
Asked at the news conference whether air force radar operators thought the plane had been told to turn back by air traffic controllers, Hishammuddin, who is also defence minister, said he could not confirm it.
"The crash zone is as close to nowhere as it's possible to be but it's closer to Australia than anywhere else," Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said, before leading the country's parliament in a moment's silence.
"A considerable amount of debris has been sighted in the area where the flight was last recorded. Bad weather and inaccessibility have so far prevented any of it from being recovered. But we are confident that it will be."
Wednesday's good weather was unlikely to last, in an area renowned among mariners for high winds and big waves.
"This is only going to be a narrow window of opportunity by the looks of things, because another weather system is moving in for Thursday, which looks like that will bring an increase in winds again and also lead to a reduction in visibility through the rain associated with the cold front," Neil Bennett, a spokesman for Australia's Bureau of Meteorology, said.
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak this week confirmed Flight MH370 had crashed in the southern Indian Ocean.
Citing satellite-data analysis by British company Inmarsat, he said there was no doubt the Boeing 777 came down in one of the most remote places on Earth.
Recovery of wreckage could unlock clues about why and how the plane had diverted so far off course in one of aviation's most puzzling mysteries. Theories range from a hijacking to sabotage or a possible suicide by one of the pilots, but investigators have not ruled out technical problems.
Australia, China and France have all released satellite images over the past week showing possible debris in the same general area as the latest sighting, but no confirmed wreckage has been located.
Two Chinese ships were looking for a two-metre floating object spotted earlier in the day by an aircraft, China's state news agency Xinhua reported.
The United States has sent an undersea Navy drone and a high-tech black box detector which will be fitted to an Australian Defence vessel due in Perth in the coming days.
The so-called black boxes, the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder, record what happens during flight, but time is running out to pick up locator beacons that stop about a month after a crash due to limited battery life.
Malaysia said on Tuesday that the U.S. "Towed Pinger Locator" would not arrive in the search area until April 5, which would give it only a few days to find the black box before the beacon battery would be expected to run out.
At the Pentagon, the U.S. and British defence chiefs acknowledged the incident remained a mystery.
"On the terrorism question, I don't think at this point we can rule anything in or out. I think we have to continue to search," U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said.
"Unless and until we recover the cockpit voice recorder, we will not know for certain," British Defence Secretary Philip Hammond said.
FBI Director James Comey said at a Washington hearing on Wednesday he expected his agency to finish an investigation of computer files related to the flight in the next day or two. He did not say what results he expected.
The prolonged and so far fruitless search and investigation have taken a toll, with dozens of distraught relatives of Chinese passengers clashing with police in Beijing on Tuesday, accusing Malaysia of "delays and deception".
Malaysia's confused initial response to the plane's disappearance and a perception of poor communications have enraged many relatives of the more than 150 Chinese passengers and have strained ties between Beijing and Kuala Lumpur.
Chinese special envoy Zhang Yesui met Malaysia's Najib on Wednesday and called for "unremitting efforts" to find the plane, Xinhua said.
The latest sightings came as searchers stepped up efforts to find some trace of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, thought to have crashed on March 8 with the loss of all 239 people aboard after flying thousands of miles off course.
"We have now had four separate satellite leads, from Australia, China and France, showing possible debris," Malaysian Acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein told a news conference. "It is now imperative that we link the debris to MH370."
The latest images were captured by France-based Airbus Defence & Space on Monday and showed 122 potential objects in a 400-sq-km (155-sq-mile) area of ocean,Hishammuddin said. The objects varied in size from one metre to 23 metres (75 ft) in length, he said.
Flight MH370 vanished from civilian radar screens less than an hour after taking off from Kuala Lumpur bound for Beijing, and investigators believe someone on the flight may have shut off the plane's communications systems.
Partial military radar tracking showed it turning west and recrossing the Malay Peninsula, apparently under the control of a skilled pilot.
Malaysia's air force has released few details of its radar tracking beyond saying the plane was last detected off the northwest coast heading towards India.
But the country's deputy defence minister, Abdul Rahim Bakri, told parliament that no action was taken when the unidentified plane was spotted because it was assumed it had been ordered to turn back, local media said.
"It was detected by our radar, but the turn back was by a non-hostile plane and we thought maybe it was at the directive of the control tower," he was quoted as saying.
Asked at the news conference whether air force radar operators thought the plane had been told to turn back by air traffic controllers, Hishammuddin, who is also defence minister, said he could not confirm it.
MIDDLE OF NOWHERE
A dozen aircraft from Australia, the United States, New Zealand, China, Japan and South Korea were once more scouring the seas some 2,500 km (1,550 miles) southwest of Perth in the hunt for wreckage on Wednesday, after bad weather the previous day forced the suspension of the search."The crash zone is as close to nowhere as it's possible to be but it's closer to Australia than anywhere else," Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said, before leading the country's parliament in a moment's silence.
"A considerable amount of debris has been sighted in the area where the flight was last recorded. Bad weather and inaccessibility have so far prevented any of it from being recovered. But we are confident that it will be."
Wednesday's good weather was unlikely to last, in an area renowned among mariners for high winds and big waves.
"This is only going to be a narrow window of opportunity by the looks of things, because another weather system is moving in for Thursday, which looks like that will bring an increase in winds again and also lead to a reduction in visibility through the rain associated with the cold front," Neil Bennett, a spokesman for Australia's Bureau of Meteorology, said.
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak this week confirmed Flight MH370 had crashed in the southern Indian Ocean.
Citing satellite-data analysis by British company Inmarsat, he said there was no doubt the Boeing 777 came down in one of the most remote places on Earth.
Recovery of wreckage could unlock clues about why and how the plane had diverted so far off course in one of aviation's most puzzling mysteries. Theories range from a hijacking to sabotage or a possible suicide by one of the pilots, but investigators have not ruled out technical problems.
Australia, China and France have all released satellite images over the past week showing possible debris in the same general area as the latest sighting, but no confirmed wreckage has been located.
PASSENGER RELATIVES DISTRAUGHT
An Australian navy ship returned to the area after being driven away by gale force winds and 20-metre (66 ft) waves on Tuesday, while a Chinese icebreaker and three Chinese navy vessels were also in the search zone.Two Chinese ships were looking for a two-metre floating object spotted earlier in the day by an aircraft, China's state news agency Xinhua reported.
The United States has sent an undersea Navy drone and a high-tech black box detector which will be fitted to an Australian Defence vessel due in Perth in the coming days.
The so-called black boxes, the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder, record what happens during flight, but time is running out to pick up locator beacons that stop about a month after a crash due to limited battery life.
Malaysia said on Tuesday that the U.S. "Towed Pinger Locator" would not arrive in the search area until April 5, which would give it only a few days to find the black box before the beacon battery would be expected to run out.
At the Pentagon, the U.S. and British defence chiefs acknowledged the incident remained a mystery.
"On the terrorism question, I don't think at this point we can rule anything in or out. I think we have to continue to search," U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said.
"Unless and until we recover the cockpit voice recorder, we will not know for certain," British Defence Secretary Philip Hammond said.
FBI Director James Comey said at a Washington hearing on Wednesday he expected his agency to finish an investigation of computer files related to the flight in the next day or two. He did not say what results he expected.
The prolonged and so far fruitless search and investigation have taken a toll, with dozens of distraught relatives of Chinese passengers clashing with police in Beijing on Tuesday, accusing Malaysia of "delays and deception".
Malaysia's confused initial response to the plane's disappearance and a perception of poor communications have enraged many relatives of the more than 150 Chinese passengers and have strained ties between Beijing and Kuala Lumpur.
Chinese special envoy Zhang Yesui met Malaysia's Najib on Wednesday and called for "unremitting efforts" to find the plane, Xinhua said.
Sunday, February 2, 2014
Man 'acting violently' on flight to Vancouver arrested
A man on an international flight from China was arrested Sunday morning after the plane landed at Vancouver International Airport.
Richmond RCMP said a pilot had reported at about 6:30 a.m. PT that a passenger was "acting violently" on the China Southern Airlines flight, and had to be restrained.
A passenger on that plane, Tanya Truong, told CBC News that the man — who seemed to be in his 30s and may have had an Australian accent — was behaving strangely even before they all boarded the plane at Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport.
"When we were lining up to get on to the flight from Guangzhou, we had already noticed him," she said. "He appeared slightly rowdier than the rest."
But the trouble began about halfway through the 11½-hour flight, she said.
"Everyone was asleep and the lights were turned off in the plane, and he ran down the aisles, screaming and yelling at someone and alarming everyone and waking everyone one up.
"There were several flight attendants trailing him and, I think, trying to get him to calm down.
"He was just screaming a lot of swear words at one of his family members," she said.
Some passengers who had been sitting near him later told Truong that they suspected he had been intoxicated, and overheard flight attendants telling him to stop drinking.
After about an hour or two of the flight attendants keeping watch on him in the back of the plane, first in the kitchen area and then in the back row seated with one of the flight attendants, things apparently got worse.
"Other flight members had to get involved," Truong said.
"He kept trying to provoke the flight attendant," she said. "I think this definitely alarmed a lot of people because this was really loud, and it looks like he was trying to harm the flight attendant, so he had to be taken down."
"Several people had to, kind of like, sit on top of him, and then he was handcuffed," she said.
The flight attendants announced that because the passenger has compromised the safety of the other passengers, he would be taken into police custody when the plane landed.
Richmond RCMP arrested the passenger just after 9:30 a.m. PT at Vancouver International Airport.
Cpl. Stephanie Ashton said he was taken into custody and is being held at the Richmond RCMP Detachment until he appears in court on Monday.
Ashton said "it is unknown where the man originates from or the purpose of his travel to Canada."
Truong said some of the passengers who spoke with the man's family members on the flight said the family had talked about being on their way to go to Whistler to snowboard.
Richmond RCMP said a pilot had reported at about 6:30 a.m. PT that a passenger was "acting violently" on the China Southern Airlines flight, and had to be restrained.
A passenger on that plane, Tanya Truong, told CBC News that the man — who seemed to be in his 30s and may have had an Australian accent — was behaving strangely even before they all boarded the plane at Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport.
"When we were lining up to get on to the flight from Guangzhou, we had already noticed him," she said. "He appeared slightly rowdier than the rest."
But the trouble began about halfway through the 11½-hour flight, she said.
"Everyone was asleep and the lights were turned off in the plane, and he ran down the aisles, screaming and yelling at someone and alarming everyone and waking everyone one up.
"There were several flight attendants trailing him and, I think, trying to get him to calm down.
"He was just screaming a lot of swear words at one of his family members," she said.
Some passengers who had been sitting near him later told Truong that they suspected he had been intoxicated, and overheard flight attendants telling him to stop drinking.
After about an hour or two of the flight attendants keeping watch on him in the back of the plane, first in the kitchen area and then in the back row seated with one of the flight attendants, things apparently got worse.
"Other flight members had to get involved," Truong said.
"He kept trying to provoke the flight attendant," she said. "I think this definitely alarmed a lot of people because this was really loud, and it looks like he was trying to harm the flight attendant, so he had to be taken down."
"Several people had to, kind of like, sit on top of him, and then he was handcuffed," she said.
The flight attendants announced that because the passenger has compromised the safety of the other passengers, he would be taken into police custody when the plane landed.
Richmond RCMP arrested the passenger just after 9:30 a.m. PT at Vancouver International Airport.
Cpl. Stephanie Ashton said he was taken into custody and is being held at the Richmond RCMP Detachment until he appears in court on Monday.
Ashton said "it is unknown where the man originates from or the purpose of his travel to Canada."
Truong said some of the passengers who spoke with the man's family members on the flight said the family had talked about being on their way to go to Whistler to snowboard.
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