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Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said Monday that the United States must accelerate and lead in adoption of artificial intelligence technologies to maintain the country's strategic position. File Photo by Kevin Dietsch/UPI
Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said Monday that the United States must accelerate and lead in adoption of artificial intelligence technologies to maintain the country's strategic position. File Photo by Kevin Dietsch/UPI | License PhotoBy Ed Adamczyk
2-3 minutes
The Defense Department announced adoption of ethical principles for use of artificial intelligence on Monday.
The announcement comes after 15 months of consultation with AI experts in industry, government, academia and the American public and aligns with the strategy objectives for the U.S. military's lawful and ethical use of AI systems.
Initial recommendations were given to Defense Secretary Mark Esper in October by the Defense Innovation Board, whose mission includes bringing high-technology innovation to the U.S. military.
"The United States, together with our allies and partners, must accelerate the adoption of AI and lead in its national security applications to maintain our strategic position, prevail on future battlefields and safeguard the rules-based international order," Esper said Monday in a statement.
The announcement highlighted the areas of equitability, with "deliberate steps to minimize unintended bias in AI capabilities;" traceability, with transparent and auditable methodologies; reliability, with well-defined military uses of AI; and governability, with an emphasis on the avoidance of unintended consequences.
The Defense Department's Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, based in Washington, D.C., will implement and coordinate the new policies.
"AI technology will change much about the battlefield of the future, but nothing will change America's steadfast commitment to responsible and lawful behavior," Esper said. "The adoption of AI ethical principles will enhance the department's commitment to upholding the highest ethical standards as outlined in the DOD AI Strategy, while embracing the U.S. military's strong history of applying rigorous testing and fielding standards for technology innovations."

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February 24, 2020
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In August 2017, the pair say they threw a pipe bomb into the Dar al-Farooq Islamic Center in Illinois.

Hoping to scare Muslims into leaving the United States, members of an Illinois militia group rented a truck and drove more than 805km to bomb a Minnesota mosque, two men admitted on Thursday.

Michael McWhorter and Joe Morris said that when they arrived at the Dar al-Farooq Islamic Center in Bloomington on August 5, 2017, they broke a window and threw a lit pipe bomb and a gasoline mixture inside, causing an explosion, fire and extensive damage.

No one was injured in the attack, which happened just as morning prayers were about to begin, shaking members of the local Muslim community.

McWhorter, 29, and Morris, 23, of Clarence, Illinois, each pleaded guilty on Thursday to five counts in connection with the mosque attack, the attempted bombing of an Illinois abortion clinic, armed robberies and other crimes.

A third defendant, 47-year-old Michael Hari, whom prosecutors said directed the bombing, remains in federal custody in Illinois.

The plea agreements portray Hari as the ringleader of a militia group called the White Rabbits, which included Hari, McWhorter, Morris and at least five other people. Hari's trial is set for July.

The guilty pleas of McWhorter and Morris came a day before three members of another militia were set to be sentenced for a foiled plot to massacre Muslims in southwest Kansas by blowing up a mosque and apartments housing Somali immigrants.

That attack, planned for the day after the November 2016 presidential election, was thwarted after another member of the group tipped off authorities.

Anti-Muslim attacks have spiked since Donald Trump became US President, watchdog groups say.

The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) recorded 300 US hate crimes targeting Muslims in 2017. That number marked a 15-percent increase from 2016, when CAIR recorded 260 incidents targeting Muslims.
Muslims 'not going anywhere'

In the Minnesota mosque bombing, Hari allegedly picked Dar al-Farooq because it was far enough away from the White Rabbits' central Illinois hometown that he thought they wouldn't be suspected. He also allegedly believed it was a focal point for "terrorism" recruiting, a claim that law enforcement has not substantiated.

Morris's attorney, Robert Richman, said his client merely followed the lead of Hari, a man he'd known as a father figure since he was nine years old.

"Hari essentially weaponised Joe Morris," Richman said.

McWhorter's attorney, Chris Madel, said, "Human beings are a lot more complicated than what some people believe, and Michael McWhorter's story has yet to be told."

Morris and McWhorter could each face at least 35 years in prison.

Neither attorney would say whether his client would cooperate or testify against Hari. Messages left with Hari's attorneys in Illinois and Minnesota were not immediately returned.

The plea agreements say the men targeted the mosque to interfere with the free exercise of religion by Muslims and to let Muslims know they were not welcome in the United States.

Jaylani Hussein, executive director of CAIR in Minnesota, said McWhorter and Morris wanted the Muslim community to be fearful and run away.

"We're not going anywhere," he said.

According to the plea agreements, the men were headed towards Minnesota when Hari told McWhorter and Morris that he had a pipe bomb in the vehicle and they were going to bomb a mosque.

When the three arrived at Dar al-Farooq, Hari gave Morris a sledgehammer and told him to break a window, the plea agreements say. McWhorter then lit the fuse on the pipe bomb and threw it inside; Morris threw the gasoline mixture.

McWhorter and Morris also pleaded guilty to their roles in a failed attack on a Champaign, Illinois, abortion clinic in November 2017. A pipe bomb that Morris said he and Hari threw into the clinic did not explode.
Robberies and foiled attacks

The plea agreements say Hari, McWhorter, Morris and others also participated in an armed home invasion in Ambia, Indiana, and the armed robberies or attempted armed robberies of two Walmart stores in Illinois

Morris and McWhorter also admitted to attempting to extort Canadian National Railway by threatening to damage tracks if the railroad didn't pay them money.

A fourth man, Ellis Mack of Clarence, already pleaded guilty to two counts in Illinois. He's scheduled to be sentenced in April.

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), an Alabama-based hate monitor, identified 689 anti-government groups across the nation in 2017. Of that total, 40 percent were militias.

In recent years, many militia groups have participated in far-right rallies, including violent clashes with anti-fascists, and carried out vigilante patrols on the US-Mexico border.

Earlier this week, three men and a high school student were arrested over their alleged plans to attack Islamberg, a predominantly Muslim community in upstate New York.

"If they had carried out this plot, which every indication is that they were going to, people would have died," local Greece Police Chief Patrick Phelan said.

"I don't know how many and who, but people would have died."

Islamberg was founded more than three decades ago by a group of black Muslims who follow the teachings of Pakistani Sufi scholar Mubarik Ali Shah Gilani.

According to the Federal Bureau of Investigations, hate crimes across the country spiked by 17 percent in 2017.

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January 25, 2019
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Currently, about 7,200 US military personnel are based in dozens of African countries.

The US army will withdraw hundreds of troops conducting counterterrorism operations across Africa over the next several years, the Pentagon has said, in a move that comes amid efforts to prioritise resources "for long-term competition with China and Russia".

Currently, about 7,200 US military personnel are based in dozens of African nations, with notable footprints in countries such as Somalia, Nigeria and Libya.

Commander Candice Tresch, Pentagon spokesperson, said on Thursday that figure would be reduced by about 10 percent over the next few years.

Tresch did not specify which countries would see a drawdown but said the cuts would leave "counter-violent extremist organisation" activities largely untouched in several countries, including Somalia, Djibouti and Libya.

In other parts of the continent, including West Africa, the emphasis would shift from "tactical assistance to advising, assisting, liaising and sharing intelligence", Tresch added.

A US official, speaking to the Reuters news agency on condition of anonymity, said the reduction of troops would likely take place over three years and could include countries such as Kenya, Cameroon and Mali.

The role of the US military on the African continent has received increased attention after an ambush last year in Niger, claimed by a local Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) affiliate, which killed four US soldiers and several members of Nigerien partner forces.

The announcement by the Pentagon comes as it works on implementing President Donald Trump's sweeping National Defense Strategy, which highlights a new era of "Great Power competition" with Moscow and Beijing.

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November 16, 2018
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India agreed a deal with Russia to buy S-400 surface to air missile systems on Friday, the Kremlin said, as New Delhi disregarded US warnings that such a purchase could trigger sanctions under US law.


Although there was no public signing, the deal was sealed during President Vladimir Putin’s ongoing visit to New Delhi for an annual summit.
“The deal was signed on the fringes of the summit,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Reuters. The contract is estimated to be worth more than $5 billion and gives the Indian military the ability to shoot down aircraft and missiles at unprecedented ranges.
But the United States has said countries trading with Russia’s defense and intelligence sectors would face automatic sanctions under a sweeping legislation called Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act.
A State Department spokesperson said this week that the implementation of the sanctions act would be focused at countries acquiring weapons such as the S-400 missile batteries.
Last month, the United States imposed sanctions on China’s military for its purchase of combat fighters as well as the S-400 missile system it bought from Russia this year.
India is hoping that President Donald Trump’s administration will give it a waiver on the weapons systems which New Delhi sees as a deterrent against China’s bigger and superior military.
After summit talks between Putin and Modi, the two countries signed eight agreements covering space, nuclear energy and railways at a televised news conference.

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October 06, 2018
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Teledyne Gavia has announced the recent delivery to an undisclosed military customer of a Sonar Transponder Module for anti-submarine warfare training.

The STM module has been constructed by Scanmatic AS of Norway and forms part of a Gavia payload module capable of receiving and transmitting sonar signals for training purposes, the company said in a press release.

The STM is a flooded transducer compartment, an electronic compartment and a towed hydrophone behind an autonomous underwater vehicle. The STM can be programmed to simulate a wide variety of submersible targets, emitting different sound signals that emulate submarines and torpedoes.

The Gavia AUV is an autonomous sensor system that is modular and reconfigurable depending on the user. It can use several types of sensor, navigation and battery modules depending on the mission.

Gavia claims that it has low logistics costs and maintenance requirements. Modules include acoustic systems for ASW training, side scan sonars, multibeam sonars, cameras and environmental sensors to determine water conditions.
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September 12, 2018
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General Electric has been awarded a contract for support of the F414 engine, found in the Super Hornet and Growler aircraft.

The contract, announced Monday by the Department of Defense, comes under a $37 million modification to an existing contract for the repair, replacement and general support of 773 F414 engines for the F/A-18E and F Super Hornet and EA-18G Growler fighter aircraft.

The F-18 series of aircraft -- the Growler is an electronic warfare variant -- is the primary naval fighter of the United States, as well as a number of allied nations. The fighters specialize in jamming enemy aircraft and ground defense systems.

Work will be performed at General Electric locations across the United States, as well as the Fleet Readiness Center at Jacksonville, Fla. Work is expected to be completed by Sept. 30, 2018.

Fiscal 2018 Navy funds in the amount of just over $37 million has been obligated to GE, and the funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year.
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July 03, 2018
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Boeing has been awarded an $80 million contract to build four new MH-47G Chinook helicopters for the U.S. Army's 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment.

The deal, announced Thursday by the Department of Defense, is a cost-plus-fixed-fee delivery order and will fulfill an urgent need for more aircraft due to increased Special Operations Forces operational demands.

Fiscal procurement funds amounting to more than $80 million will be obligated at the time of the award. A majority of the work will be performed in Ridley Park, Pennsylvania.

The twin-rotor aircraft has been in use since its first iteration, the CH-47, was introduced in 1962 to transport troops and large payloads at high speed and long ranges.

The MH-47G, the most recent upgrade of the helicopter, has been in use by the 160th "Nightstalker" Special Operations Aviation Regiment since the first model was delivered in 2014.
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June 29, 2018
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 Aerojet Rocketdyne will work to develop the AR1 booster engine and RL10CX upper stage engine for the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle program to benefit national security-related space launches.

Aerojet Rocketdyne has been awarded a contract for rocket propulsion engine development for the U.S. Air Force.

The deal, announced Friday by the Department of Defense, is valued at more than $69.8 million under the terms of a modified contract that enables Aerojet Rocketdyne to develop the "AR1 booster engine and the RL10CX upper stage engine for the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle program," the Pentagon said.
The Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle provides the U.S. "assured access to space," said a U.S. Air Force fact sheet. The Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle, or EELV, program has conducted more than 70 launches to support the U.S. Air Force, Navy and National and National Reconnaissance Office.

The contract is part of a mandate under Section 1604 of the Carl Levin and Howard P. "Buck" McKeon National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2015. Section 1604 requires the U.S. military to begin developing a "next-generation rocket propulsion system that will transition away from the use of non-allied space launch engines to a domestic alternative for National Security Space launches."

Work on the contract will occur in multiple locations across the United States and is expected to be complete in December 2019, with the work on the RL10CX upper stage engine slated to be complete in December 2021.

More than $63 million will be obligated to Aerojet Rocketdyne at time of award -- the funds will be allocated from fiscal year 2017 research, development, test and evaluation. In additional, $20 million will also be obligated to the company from fiscal year 2018 research, development, test and evaluation funds, the Pentagon said.

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June 25, 2018
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General Dynamics OTS has been awarded a foreign sales contract to produce missiles and warheads, the Department of Defense announced.


The $149 million modification to a previous contract covers procurement of various quantities of M151, M274, M257, M278, M156, M264, M278, and WTU-1/B rockets, warheads, vehicle motors and associated components. Buyers include the governments of Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Kenya, Jordan, Nigeria and Qatar, a Defense Department statement said on Thursday.

Fiscal 2016, 2017 and 2018 other procurement funds of $149 million were obligated at the time of the award. The work, to be completed by Feb. 28, 2021, will be conducted at General Dynamics' facilities in Williston, Vt., and Hampton, Ariz.

The U.S. Army Contracting Command, at Redstone Arsenal, Ala., is the contracting party.
By Ed Adamczyk
June 23, 2018
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A  17-year-old girl has been gang-raped and killed in Ogwugwu village, Oba, in the Idemili South Local Government Area of Anambra State.

The deceased, who just finished her West African Senior School Certificate Examination, was said to have been attacked and raped by six young men while on her way to buy garri for dinner around 7pm on Wednesday.

A source told our correspondent that the suspects believed to be known to the victim had lured her to an uncompleted one-storeyed building where she was raped and killed.

The source said, “The boys lured her to an uncompleted building, where they took turn to rape her until she became weak.

“They threw her down from the storey building so that she would not expose them.”

He added that the girl’s corpse had been deposited in a morgue.

The Divisional Police Officer in charge of Ojoto Police Division, Prince Ezejiofor, confirmed the incident, saying no arrest had been made.

The DPO said, “They perpetrated the act about 7pm, but we are closing in on the suspects.”

Reacting to the incident, the President General of Aboji Akanano Union, Oba, Dozie Nweke, described the murder as wicked.
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June 21, 2018
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The United Kingdom Office for National Statistics released figures Thursday that showed net migration to Britain in 2015 rose to 333,000, its second-highest level on record. These are the last numbers to be released before the referendum on the country's membership to the European Union on June 23.

 

Net migration is the difference between the number of people entering and leaving Britain. According to BBC, the net figure for EU citizens was 184,000 in 2015, up 10,000 from 2014.


The pro-Brexit group, campaigning for Britain to vote to leave the EU, has blamed the bloc's freedom of movement rules for high levels of immigration. A prominent Tory Member of Parliament, David Davis, has labeled the EU a "job transfer machine," alleging that EU migrants were taking up jobs that should have gone to British workers, BBC reported.
Boris Johnson, one of the leaders of this group, told Sky News Thursday: “What is so scandalous about the figures today is that they show the failure of the government.” Johnson said that even though he is in favor of immigration, “what is happening at the moment is being done completely without the consent of the British people.”
Meanwhile, "Remain" campaign supporter Lord Blunkett reportedly maintains that EU cooperation is the only "rational" way of managing migration.
The left-leaning Institute for Public Policy Research said Thursday's figures would "pose challenges" for both sides in the referendum debate.
“We expect the Leave campaign to use this as further evidence that leaving the EU is the only way of bringing down historically high migration,” Phoebe Griffith, the think tank's associate director for migration, integration and communities, told BBC.
“Yet there is no denying two realities — first that migration from Europe is running at historically high levels, and second that certain sectors in our economy have become heavily reliant on a temporary workforce from the EU,” she added.
Prime Minister David Cameron had promised in 2010 to reduce the annual level of net migration to below 100,000. However, he has failed to keep his pledge, partly due to the number of EU citizens moving to Britain.
Immigration and the economy remain the two most important issues ahead of the EU referendum next month.
May 27, 2016
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China will send nuclear weapons to patrol the South China Sea amid rising tensions with the U.S. over the disputed region, the Guardian reported Thursday. The area has become a point of contention between the U.S. and China, as Beijing claims it has sovereignty over the zone. The U.S. says the area is in international waters until competing land claims from neighboring countries are resolved.

 

Beijing is expected to send submarines equipped with nuclear missiles to patrol the region after working on the technology for ballistic missile submarines for nearly three decades. However, Chinese military authorities did not say when exactly these nuclear patrols would begin.
“Because China’s SSBNs [nuclear missile submarines] are in the South China Sea, the U.S. navy will try to send spy ships in there and get close to the SSBNs. China’s navy hates that and will try to push them away,” Wu Riqiang, an associate professor at the School of International Studies at the Renmin University in Beijing, told the Guardian.
China has submitted a vast land claim over the region and sought to bolster that claim by building artificial islands in the South China Sea, including the Spratly Islands. While the islands are small and mostly unpopulated, they sit in the middle of popular trade routes and could also contain precious natural resources. The Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei, have also submitted competing claims over some part of the region.
The U.S. has accused China of militarizing the zone, and the U.S. military sent ships to sail through part of the South China Sea that Beijing claims as its own as a way to insist that the region is in international waters. The announcement of the planned use of nuclear-armed submarines came little over a week after two Chinese fighter jets nearly collided with a U.S. military reconnaissance aircraft in the region.
May 27, 2016
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Bangladeshi police officers stand guard at the site where an Italian charity worker was shot to death by attackers in Dhaka, Sept. 29, 2015.
Photo: Getty Images
Police in Gaibandha, Bangladesh, said Thursday Islamic extremists were likely responsible for Hindu shop owner Debesh Chandra Pramanik’s recent death — not the Islamic State group. 
The 60-year-old Hindu man was found at his shoe store Wednesday with cuts on his neck that suggested he’d been hacked to death, the New York Times reported. Police initially said Pramanik likely died fighting over money with another local resident, but then the Islamic State group, or ISIS, took responsibility for the killing.
Law enforcement rejected the claim Thursday. “We suspect that members of JMB may have killed him,” police chief Ashrfaul Islam told Agence France Presse, referencing Jamayetul Mujahedeen Bangladesh, a local organization of Islamic militants. “We’ve launched raids in the area.”
Jamayetul Mujahedeen Bangladesh launched at the turn of the century and rose to prominence in 2005, when it organized an attack across Bangladesh that involved nearly 500 bombs exploding in 63 towns within 7 minutes, according to GlobalSecurity.org. The group has also attacked courthouses and shrines with the goal of “overthrow[ing] the democratically elected government in Bangladesh,” an official with the National Investigating Agency said last year.
Pramanik’s death followed those of eight others in the region since April, including a professor, an atheist, a monk and two activists, AFP reported.
ISIS took responsibility for last week’s hacking death of a doctor, but police again rejected the connection. “The home-grown militants visibly are repeatedly trying to prove their links with international outfits like [ISIS] or the al-Qaeda,” an anonymous official told Press Trust of India. Additionally, Home Secretary Rhmatul Munim added investigations have found “no link of any international group to the incidents in Bangladesh.”
The National Investigating Agency said in 2015 the Jamayetul Mujahedeen Bangladesh had been organizing in Assam, Jharkhand and West Bengal, collecting money, recruiting young members and training fighters, DNA India reported.
May 27, 2016
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In what appears to be the latest scheme to fund its global terrorism campaign, the Islamic State's branch of militants in India planned to extort movie stars there, the Indian Express reported. The Asian country's movie scene, more popularly known as Bollywood, was in the crosshairs of the group also known as ISIS as recently as last September — until local authorities caught on to the nefarious intentions.

“Just before the module could chalk out the entire plan, security agencies, which had been monitoring their online activities, arrested them in a nationwide clampdown,” a source told the Indian Express.
ISIS has shown a penchant for diversifying the way it secures funding for its terror missions. The terrorist group has relied on selling oil that it steals from Iraq and Syria, but it also has commanded hundreds of millions of dollars annually from taxing the areas under its control, Al Arabiya reported. ISIS has also relied on humanitarian aid funds through fraudulent charities as well as looting ancient sites, such as the now-razed Palmyra ruins in Syria. Extorting monies from Bollywood stars seems to fall right in line with the aforementioned tactics to keep its funding coming in.
But extortion is nothing new for Bollywood, which has been fleeced by the local mafia for decades, the Huffington Post reported. 
ISIS has seemingly been ramping up its activity in India as of late. Just last week, the group issued a public threat to the Indian government as a means to avenge the 2002 killing of Muslims during a riot in Gujarat and elsewhere in the country, Reuters reported.
A video was released alongside the threat. Soon after, India.com reported two Indian men featured in it had been promoted within the militant group. One of the men, Aman Naeem Tandel, could be seen on the video announcing the group's plans for revenge in India.
“We will return [to India], but with a sword in our hand and to avenge the Babri Masjid demolition and the killings of Muslims in Gujarat, Kashmir and Muzaffarnagar," he said.
May 27, 2016
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The Afghan government is looking warily at the conservative religious scholar who has assumed leadership of the Taliban, seeing in him a rigid proponent of hard-line orthodoxy who is unlikely to favor peace talks, officials said.

A day after the Afghan Taliban announced that Haibadullah Akhundzada would take over after Mullah Akhtar Mansour was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Pakistan, officials on Thursday were trying to form a picture of a leader best known for relentlessly applying strict Sharia, or Islamic law.
In his former role as one of the Taliban insurgency's senior judges, he was responsible for issuing a series of death sentences against opponents of Mansour, according to Gen. Abdul Razeq, police chief of Akhundzada's home city of Kandahar.
Officials said he appeared to favor a return to the austere and often harsh Islamic rule in Afghanistan before the Taliban were ousted by U.S.-led forces in 2001, something that would be unacceptable to the Afghan government and its Western backers.
"He is a simple religious cleric," said Haji Agha Lalai, an adviser to President Ashraf Ghani, who added that Akhundzada would rely heavily on his deputy Sirajuddin Haqqani, leader of the feared Haqqani network, for battlefield decisions.
For the moment, the Afghan government and its NATO allies do not see any letup in the fighting, and are bracing for likely bomb attacks as Akhundzada consolidates his position and demonstrates his determination to fight.
"It's all speculation at the moment as to where he will go," said Brig. Gen. Charles Cleveland, spokesman for NATO's Resolute Support mission.
"In the short term, though, we don't expect to see any significant changes on the battlefield," he told reporters.
Taliban officials present at the meeting where Akhundzada was made leader said he was appointed largely because he was perceived as a unifying figure who could heal the rifts that emerged during Mansour's brief tenure.
But Lalai said he did not appear to have the kind of political skills needed to change the strategic direction of the Taliban, which has ruled out joining peace talks, even if he wanted to.
"People in the Taliban only respect him because he is a pious man," he said. "We don't see any hope that he would agree [to] or ... convince the Taliban to accept a peace deal."
Akhundzada, from a deeply religious family in the Panjwai district of Kandahar province, also attracted harsh criticism from factional rivals within the Taliban, who previously opposed Mansour.
"He is a very conservative, narrow-minded, inefficient kind of person who will never be able to unite the Taliban or gather support," said Mullah Abdul Manan Niazi, the deputy and spokesman of Mullah Mohammad Rasool, leader of the most prominent anti-Mansour faction in the Taliban.
He said Akhundzada was responsible for the execution of several senior Taliban commanders.
"His fatwa was to execute whoever rejected Mullah Mansour as a leader," he said.
Pakistan, which has faced fresh accusations of harboring the Taliban after Mansour's death on its soil, said the drone strike had undermined the so-called quadrilateral peace process involving Pakistan, Afghanistan, the United States and China.
But foreign policy chief Sartaj Aziz, who said the United States informed Chief of Army Staff Gen. Raheel Sharif of the strike against Mansour 3 1/2 hours before Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, said contacts would resume.
"As the new [Taliban] leadership settles down, the four members will make their own contacts and then there will be a collective assessment of how to move this process forward."
May 27, 2016
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MOSCOW — A Russian court Thursday sentenced two Ukrainians to at least 20 years each in jail for allegedly fighting alongside Chechen rebels against Russian troops in the 1990s. Ukraine considers Stanislav Klikh, who was given 20 years behind bars, and Nikolai Karpyukh, who received 22 and a half years, political prisoners and has demanded their release. 

The decision by the court in the Chechen capital of Grozny comes a day after Ukrainian pilot Nadezhda Savchenko, sentenced to 20 years in prison by a Russian court last month, was returned to Kiev as part of a prisoner swap for two alleged Russian intelligence officers. 
Klikh and Karpyukh deny ever setting foot in Russia's southern republic of Chechnya and allege they were tortured in a long period of incarceration, during which their families did not know their whereabouts, after their arrest by Russian intelligence agents in 2014. 
“The Ukrainian president and the Ukrainian authorities will try and resolve this through negotiations like with Savchenko,” Ilya Novikov, a lawyer for Klikh who also defended Savchenko, told International Business Times.

Nikolai Karpyukh, accused of killing Russian soldiers in 1994, shown during his trial in the Chechen capital of Grozny, May 17, 2016.
Photo: Anton Naumlyuk Continue Reading Below
The two men were convicted by a jury earlier this week based on confessions they later withdrew and on evidence given by Alexander Malofeyev, a Ukrainian national reportedly covered in Nazi tattoos with several chronic diseases who is serving a sentence of over 35 years in a Russian prison.
“Everything that is in this criminal case is built on me being forced to slander myself. Why do you need facts and proof when there are electric shocks?” Karpyukh said during his final statement to the court earlier this month, according to a report by Radio Liberty. 
Karpyukh and Klikh were tortured by electric shocks on their hands, feet and genitals, being hung from handcuffs and by enduring long periods of solitary confinement, according to their lawyers.
Russian prosecutors accused the two men of being part of a group of Ukrainian nationalists, known as the Vikings, who fought in Grozny in 1994 against Russian soldiers during a bloody separatist war that engulfed the region after the fall of the Soviet Union. 
Klikh worked as a history teacher in Ukraine before his arrest, while Karpyukh, who has a wife and a nine-year old son, was a member of the extreme Ukrainian nationalist organization Right Sector. 

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko makes a statement with Ukrainian servicewoman Nadezhda Savchenko in Kiev, May 25, 2016.
Photo: Reuters Klikh’s behavior has become increasingly erratic during the court proceedings, and there are fears his mental health has suffered. “Klikh conducts himself very strangely, as if he is a very ill person,” lawyer Novikov said. Experts appointed by the court said Klikh was fit to stand trial.
Evidence given by Klikh and Karpyukh was reportedly used last year by top Russian investigators to accuse Ukrainian officials, including then-Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk, of fighting in Chechnya.
The two men are among a group of Ukrainian nationals, including Savchenko, who have been sentenced to long prison sentences in Russia in what Kiev says are political decisions. There was a collapse in relations between Ukraine and Russia in 2014 after the toppling of a pro-Russian government, which was then followed by the Kremlin’s annexation of Crimea and military support for anti-Kiev rebels in the east of Ukraine.
Ukrainian film director Oleg Sentsov was sentenced by Russia to 20 years in prison in August on terrorism charges, and Ukrainian pensioner Yuri Soloshenko, a 73-year-old reportedly suffering from cancer, was sentenced to six years in prison in October on spying charges.

May 27, 2016
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President Barack Obama will make history Friday as he becomes the first sitting U.S. president to visit the Japanese city of Hiroshima that was eviscerated by a U.S. atomic bomb during World War II. Obama will not apologize for the actions of his predecessors in Japan, he said, arguing that the trip was a way for former enemies to grow ever closer as allies.

"It's important to recognize that in the midst of war, leaders make all kinds of decisions, it's a job of historians to ask questions and examine them," Obama said. "But I know, as somebody who's now sat in this position for the last seven and a half years, that every leader makes very difficult decisions, particularly during wartime."
Long before Obama's arrival, the shadow of the bombing of Hiroshima loomed over his planned diplomatic visit. The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the first and only time nuclear weapons have been used in warfare.
When U.S. President Harry Truman made the decision to drop twin bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki days apart in 1945, World War II had been raging since 1939 and the U.S. had been involved since 1941. While the U.S. had at first remained neutral in the European conflict, the U.S. declared war on Germany and its allies in 1941 after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, killing 2,403 people.
Japan had refused to surrender after Germany accepted defeat in May 1945, and Truman argued that the complete destruction of Japanese cities was the only way to end the war that had killed millions of people. An atomic bomb tore through Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, killing 80,000 people immediately and tens of thousands more from radiation. Three days later, a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, where 40,000 people died instantly and 10,000 more died from their injuries or from radiation. Japan surrendered less than 10 days later.
"We are now prepared to obliterate more rapidly and completely every productive enterprise the Japanese have above ground in any city,” Truman said as he announced the bombings to the U.S. in a televised address. “We shall destroy their docks, their factories and their communications. Let there be no mistake; we shall completely destroy Japan's power to make war."
May 27, 2016
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Britain plans to send a navy warship to help battle the smuggling of both people and arms off the coast of Libya, Prime Minister David Cameron will tell G7 leaders.

 

The European Union this week agreed to help rebuild Libya's shattered navy and coastguard to tackle migrant smugglers after a plea for aid from the new U.N.-backed unity government in Tripoli.
A U.N. Security Council resolution would be needed to go after arms traffickers on the high seas, ministers said at the time.
A government spokesman said that during a session on foreign affairs on Thursday evening, Cameron would set out Britain's plans to increase its involvement in the region, where it already has four ships.
"(The prime minister will) make the argument it is a global challenge requiring a comprehensive solution, reiterate our determination to work with the Libyan government and help them build the capacity of their coastguard to help them intercept boats off the Libyan coast," the spokesman said.
"We will now take an active leadership role in that process ... Once the relevant U.N. security resolutions are in place, we intend to deploy a navy warship to the region to assist in the interception of arms and human smuggling."
U.N.-backed Libyan Prime Minister Fayez Seraj, who has yet to establish his government beyond Tripoli, wrote to EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini to request the naval support, as well as possible training for Libyan security personnel.
A British government official said there had not yet been a formal request from Libya to operate within its waters, but one was expected "fairly swiftly." The warship could be operating in the area within weeks, the official added.
The EU's "Operation Sophia" mission operates in international waters near Libya but is too far out to destroy boats used by people smugglers, catch traffickers or head off migrants seeking to reach Europe by sea from Libya.
May 27, 2016
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Colombian Defense Minister Luis Carlos Villegas talks during an interview with Reuters in Bogota, Colombia, May 18, 2016.
Photo: REUTERS/JOHN VIZCAINO
Colombian officials said Thursday that Marxist rebel group, the National Liberation Army, or the ELN, was responsible for the kidnapping of three journalists near the country’s border with Venezuela, media reports said.
Defense Minister Luis Carlos Villegas said intelligence reports “confirm with certainty” that the rebel group was responsible for the disappearance of the journalists. “From this point on the responsibility for the safety and freedom of these three citizens is exclusively in their hands,” he added, according to the Associated Press.
Spanish reporter Salud Hernandez-Mora, 59, was the first to disappear after she was last seen climbing aboard a motorcycle taxi Saturday. Hernandez-Mora was reportedly working on a story about illegal drug trade in the Catatumbo region near the border.
Reporter Diego D'Pablos and cameraman Carlos Melo of local television channel RCN were the other two journalists to go missing. The two were covering the search for the Spanish journalist when they disappeared Tuesday.
RCN News Director Claudia Gurisatti told CNN Tuesday that a government human rights official first confirmed the disappearance of her network's journalists.
“They called us and said that, ironically, the group of journalists who were covering what people in the area knew about Salud's disappearance had themselves been attacked. Their belongings, including their equipment, cameras, computers, communication equipment, telephones, were taken from them,” Gurisatti said.
President Juan Manuel Santos Wednesday had held out the possibility that Hernandez-Mora hadn't returned as she might have chosen to report from inside of a rebel camp. However, the government later issued a statement calling for the immediate release of the missing journalists.
According to Reuters, even though Colombia and the ELN agreed in March to begin peace talks, Santos said at the time that no official talks would begin until the group freed all hostages.
The rebel group has not commented on the situation, reports said.
Hernandez-Mora writes for the Spanish daily newspaper El Mundo and is known for opinion columns highly critical of Colombia's insurgents, the Santos administration and the peace process.
May 27, 2016
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MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin took part in a huge rally in the Russian capital Monday to commemorate the end of World War II and the millions of Soviet citizens who died fighting Nazi Germany. The march in downtown Moscow was the largest of its kind ever seen in Russia, with police estimating a turnout exceeding half a million people.
Called the Immortal Regiment, the event saw people carrying pictures of relatives who had served or been killed during the Great Patriotic War, as it known here. Putin held a picture of his father, who was wounded in combat. 
“I wanted my mother to take part today,” said Lyudmilla Vetrova, carrying a photograph of her mother, who she said helped build the defenses that protected Moscow from the Germans in 1941. 
“When the whole world is against us and wants to forget that our soldiers died, it is important to show that we haven’t forgotten,” said Vetrova’s sister, Inna Onlitaeva, who was walking alongside and carrying a photograph of their father, who also fought in the war. 

Participants at the Immortal Regiment march carry portraits of their war veteran ancestors in Red Square, Moscow, Monday, May 9, 2016.
Photo: Howard Amos Continue Reading Below
The Immortal Regiment began as a small movement in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk in 2012 and has swelled to become a national event that encompasses hundreds of cities and many thousands of people. Critics say it has been co-opted by a Kremlin eager to deploy the Soviet defeat of fascism in 1945 as a key part of a resurgent Russian nationalism. 
The march in Moscow followed the traditional morning parade of Russian troops and military hardware, including tanks, missiles and air defense systems, across Red Square.
“[Victory Day] has become a symbol of the sacred relationship between Russia and its people,” Putin told the audience assembled Monday morning. "Our soldiers and commanders have proven that they are worthy successors of the Great Patriotic War heroes and that they honorably protect the interests of Russia."
The Immortal Regiment march took place later in the day, which is a national holiday in Russia and sees memorial events held across the country. 

Russian servicemen march through Red Square during the Victory Day parade, marking the 71st anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany, Monday, May 9, 2016.
Photo: Reuters
Another participant at the march, Vladimir Movolyan, 48, had extended the remit of the march further back and forward in time. He was carrying a photograph of his grandfather, who was killed in 1921 during Russia's civil war, and a photograph of Russian special forces officer Alexander Prokhorenko, who died this year while supporting Syrian President Bashar Assad's forces fighting against the Islamic State group. 
“We will always have victory,” said Movolyan. “We remember everything. Americans don’t remember everything … and in Europe everyone thinks that America won the war.”
Those attending the rally — which took place in bright spring sunshine — carried flowers, Russian and Soviet flags, and wore the orange and black St. George ribbons symbolizing Russian military prowess. Many sported Soviet-era military caps. The event was covered extensively by Russian media, and several state-owned channels broadcast live coverage.
“I am always inspired when people come together. ... It shows that even now we are a united people,” said Yelena Nedostoverna, who held aloft a photograph of her father, who was a radio engineer during the war. Her husband, marching next to her, had a photograph of his grandfather, now 92, who fought at Stalingrad, the titanic battle that turned the tide against Hitler. 
Moscow police said Monday that more than 600,000 people took part in the Immortal Regiment event in the capital alone. 
More than 20 million Soviet citizens are believed to have died in World War II from 1941 to 1945, and commemorations of the end of the conflict have changed over the years. Putin revived the military parade tradition in 2008, and now the Kremlin has embraced the Immortal Regiment movement. 
Critics say the day has become a political tool to strengthen nationalism and underscore the importance of having powerful armed forces — rather than remember those who gave their lives. "Fascism," a label often applied by the Soviets to their enemies, has also taken on new meaning in Russia in recent years, where it has a become a term used by Russian officials to describe the Ukrainian government in Kiev that swept to power after demonstrations toppled a pro-Russian regime in 2014. 
May 27, 2016

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