Baltic Sea wind farms impair Sweden’s defense, says military

Offshore wind farms in the Baltic Sea hinder the defence of Sweden and its allies, impairing the military's ability to identify threats, it said on Wednesday. (AFP/File)

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Updated 27 November 2024

AFP

November 27, 2024 17:39

Baltic Sea wind farms impair Sweden’s defense, says military

The revelation comes after the Swedish government blocked the construction of 13 offshore wind farms in the Baltic on November 4
“The Swedish Armed Forces have been clear in their evaluation regarding offshore wind energy in the Baltic Sea,” the military said

Updated 27 November 2024

AFP

November 27, 2024 17:39

STOCKHOLM: Offshore wind farms in the Baltic Sea hinder the defense of Sweden and its allies, impairing the military’s ability to identify threats, it said on Wednesday.
The revelation comes after the Swedish government blocked the construction of 13 offshore wind farms in the Baltic on November 4, and stopped another off the island of Gotland on November 21 due to the military’s defense concerns.
On Wednesday the military said all wind farm projects in the Baltic would pose a problem.
“The Swedish Armed Forces have been clear in their evaluation regarding offshore wind energy in the Baltic Sea,” the military said in an email to AFP.
“It would pose unacceptable risks for the defense of our country and our allies,” it added.
The government said the towers and rotating blades of wind turbines emit radar echoes and generate other forms of interference.
The relative proximity of the 13 blocked projects to the “highly militarised” Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, which is sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania, had been “central” in the government’s assessment, Defense Minister Pal Jonson said.
He said wind farms in the area could delay the detection of incoming cruise missiles, cutting the warning time in half to 60 seconds.
“We currently see no technical solutions or legal prerequisites for a coexistence of our defense interests and wind power in the Baltic Sea,” the Armed Forces said on Wednesday.
“The greatly deteriorated security situation after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine means that we can no longer accept any risks to our defense capability.”
“Our ability to detect incoming threats against both Sweden and our allies is vital. Our sensor chain plays a decisive role in this and it must be able to operate with the highest possible capability,” it said.
Tensions have mounted in the Baltic since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
With Sweden and Finland now NATO members, all of the countries bordering the Baltic are now members of the alliance except Russia.
The Swedish government has insisted that wind power expansion remained a priority, with electricity consumption expected to double by 2045 from the current level.
It has said other areas off Sweden’s southwestern and northeastern coasts were better suited for offshore wind projects.

Topics: Sweden Baltic Sea Swedish Armed Forces

German voters prepare to elect a new parliament. Here’s what to expect on and after election day

Updated 4 sec ago

February 20, 2025 05:19

German voters prepare to elect a new parliament. Here’s what to expect on and after election day

Preelection polling shows a mainstream conservative bloc with about 30 percent support and the far-right Alternative for Germany with around 20 percent.
Germany is a leading member of NATO and the second-biggest weapons supplier to Ukraine

Updated 4 sec ago

February 20, 2025 05:19

BERLIN: German voters go to the polls Sunday to elect a new parliament that will determine how the country is run for the next four years.
Europe’s biggest economy is the 27-nation European Union’s most populous nation and a leading member of NATO, as well as the second-biggest weapons supplier to Ukraine, after the United States, following Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. Germany’s next government will be central to Europe’s response to an assertive new US administration.
Here’s a look at what to expect for Sunday and beyond.
What happens on election day?
Polls are due to open at 8 a.m. and close at 6 p.m.. Germans can also vote by postal ballot, but their ballot must arrive by the time polling stations close on election day to be counted.
Exit polls will come and vote-counting will begin immediately after voting ends, and the general picture of the outcome should be clear very quickly. A final official result is expected early Monday.
Who are the contenders?
Four candidates are running to be Germany’s next leader: incumbent Chancellor Olaf Scholz, of the center-left Social Democrats; Friedrich Merz, the candidate of the mainstream conservative Christian Democratic Union party; current Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck, of the environmentalist Greens; and Alice Weidel, of the far-right, anti-immigration Alternative for Germany, or AfD.
Preelection polls have put Merz’s Union bloc in the lead with support of about 30 percent, ahead of AfD, with around 20 percent. Scholz’s Social Democrats and Habeck’s Greens are further back.
Merz is favored to replace Scholz as chancellor, but it’s not yet clear what governing coalitions will be possible after the election. How easy it is to form a government may depend in part on how many parties are in the new parliament. Opinion polls show three parties hovering around the 5 percent of the vote needed to win seats.
All mainstream parties say they won’t work with AfD.
What’s up for grabs?
At least 59.2 million people in a country of 84 million are eligible to vote for the new Bundestag, or lower house of parliament. It is the 630-member Bundestag that will elect the next chancellor, Germany’s equivalent of a prime minister.
There are 29 parties on the ballot, but it’s likely that between five and eight of them will get enough votes to win seats in parliament. In most cases, parties must win at least 5 percent of the vote to get a share of the seats.
What happens after polls close?
Germany’s electoral system rarely gives any party an absolute majority and opinion polls suggest that no party is anywhere near one this time. The country has no tradition of minority governments at national level, which means that two or more parties will most likely form a coalition.
There is no formal referee for the process of forming a new government, and no set time limit. Parties hold exploratory talks to determine who they have most common ground with, and one combination of parties then moves on to formal coalition talks.
Those negotiations typically produce a detailed coalition agreement setting out the new government’s plans. That will typically need approval at least from conventions of the parties involved. Some parties may choose to put it to a ballot of their entire membership.
Once that process is complete, the Bundestag can elect the new chancellor.
What’s at stake?
A strong German government would be important to Europe’s response to the new US administration and to turmoil in Ukraine and elsewhere.
Germany and neighboring France have traditionally been the motor of the EU, but both heavyweights have been consumed by domestic political instability in recent months.
This election is being held seven months earlier than originally planned because Scholz’s three-party coalition collapsed in November as it argued about how to reinvigorate the economy, which has shrunk for the past two years. One of the new government’s most urgent tasks will be to find a coherent response to that problem.
Another challenge will be further reducing irregular migration, which has been a top issue in the campaign.
Merz has said he hopes to form a new government by mid-April if he wins. Scholz’s outgoing government will remain in office on a caretaker basis until the Bundestag elects the new chancellor.

Trump could pursue streamlined initial deal on Ukraine minerals, sources say

Updated 20 February 2025

Reuters

February 20, 2025 05:04

Trump could pursue streamlined initial deal on Ukraine minerals, sources say

Zelensky rejected detailed US proposal for minerals deal for lack of security guarantees for Kyiv
Trump’s Ukraine envoy Keith Kellogg in Kyiv this week for talks with Zelensky

Updated 20 February 2025

Reuters

February 20, 2025 05:04

NEW YORK/WASHINGTON: The Trump administration may seek to strike a simplified minerals deal with Ukraine to get a pact in place quickly and later negotiate detailed terms, such as how much of Ukraine’s vast resources the US would own, two people with knowledge of the matter told Reuters on Wednesday.

This follows Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s rejection of a detailed US proposal last week that would have seen Washington receiving 50 percent of Ukraine’s critical minerals, which include graphite, uranium, titanium and lithium, the latter a key component in electric car batteries.

That episode made clear that reaching a full deal will take time, the sources said.

But US President Donald Trump wants a pact with Ukraine in place before potentially authorizing more US military support for Kyiv or moving ahead with a bid to broker formal peace talks between Ukraine and Russia to end the three-year-old war, which was triggered by Moscow’s invasion of its neighbor.

Trump’s Ukraine envoy Keith Kellogg is in Kyiv this week to discuss the parameters of a revised pact and what Ukraine needs in return for signing.

Zelensky said he would meet with Kellogg on Thursday “and it is crucial for us that this meeting — and overall cooperation with America — be constructive.”

When asked if US officials would continue to pursue a deal, a Trump adviser, speaking on condition of anonymity, said about Zelensky: “Absolutely, we need to get this guy back to reality.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The push for a deal continues despite a widening rift between Trump and Zelensky. Trump denounced his Ukrainian counterpart as “a dictator without elections” on Wednesday after Zelensky said Trump was trapped in a Russian disinformation bubble, a response to the US president suggesting Ukraine started the war.

The United States has provided tens of billions of dollars in military aid to Ukraine in the past three years , and Trump has said US investment in Ukrainian minerals could ensure “that we’re going to in some form get this money back.” He is pushing for Kyiv to grant the US mineral concessions worth $500 billion in recognition of Washington’s aid.
The sources said it is important to Trump that he can signal publicly to the American people that the US is recouping the aid.

Less ‘rapacious’
It’s unclear the extent to which the original US proposal was framed as compensation for past weapons shipments or for future installments. But Zelensky said it focused too heavily on US interests and lacked security guarantees for Kyiv. “I can’t sell our country,” he told reporters Wednesday.

A third source familiar with the matter said Ukraine is willing to make a deal with the Trump administration. Another source also said Kyiv was ready to make a deal but that it must not look as “rapacious” as the arrangement the US first proposed.

Details of the US discussions about a potential mineral deal, including who inside the administration helped draft the original proposal, are unknown.

The revised approach is just one of several being discussed at the White House on how to clinch a deal with Kyiv in the coming weeks, an unusually quick timeline for a complex sector where deals usually involve private companies and state entities, not governments.

Trump on Wednesday repeated his frustration that most US aid was grants while Europe, he said, primarily made loans. “While the United States gets nothing back, so they get their money back,” he said.

He also criticized Zelensky’s rejection of the 50-50 split, characterizing it as breaching an accord without any evidence Kyiv had actually agreed to it. “And we had a deal based on rare earth and things, but they broke that deal… they broke it two days ago,” Trump said.

‘Tried, tested’ Chinese tool
A revised, simplified approach would help the United States sidestep numerous legal and logistical hurdles and give it time to negotiate the details of the development, including revenue sharing, at a later date.
“The US has not historically used natural resource-for-aid swaps, but it’s a tried and tested tool in China’s minerals playbook,” said Gracelin Baskaran, director of the critical minerals security program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Ukraine was keenly interested in building a deeper economic and security relationship with the United States and finding a way to recognize the significant US investment already made in Ukraine’s future, said Tyson Barker, former US deputy special envoy for Ukraine’s economic recovery.
“The Ukrainians are more than willing to give extra advantages to the United States, in the form of privileged concessional access to critical mineral resources, in recognition of the billions of dollars that American taxpayers have put into Ukraine,” he said. “This is something that the Ukrainians have been strategizing about for some time.”
Barker said some similar terms would need to be offered to other countries that contributed heavily to Ukraine during the war, including Canada, Britain, Japan and the EU. But Russia also covets Ukraine’s natural resources and its forces, which have already seized a fifth of Ukraine including reserves of rare earths, are now little more than 4 miles from a giant lithium deposit. Ukraine and the United States need to discuss the fate of mineral deposits in areas captured by Russia, Zelensky has said, questioning if minerals in those areas would be given to Russian President Vladimir Putin and his partners Iran, North Korea and China.

Topics: Trump Returns Russia-Ukraine Conflict Keith Kellog

Drug trafficker tunnel found between Spanish enclave, Morocco: police

Updated 20 February 2025

AFP

February 20, 2025 00:56

Drug trafficker tunnel found between Spanish enclave, Morocco: police

Updated 20 February 2025

AFP

February 20, 2025 00:56

MADRID: Spanish police said Wednesday they had discovered a tunnel running from Moroccan territory to the Spanish enclave of Ceuta as part of an operation targeting suspected trafficking of hashish.
The police stated the underground gallery, several dozen meters long and 12 meters deep, was uncovered during a search of a warehouse in an industrial zone of Ceuta, a small territory located on Morocco’s northern Mediterranean coast opposite mainland Spain.
“It is a narrow construction, reinforced with wood which could have been used to transport drugs between Morocco and Spain,” said a statement from the Civil Guard police force.
Spanish media reported the tunnel as measuring at least 50 meters long, running just inside Moroccan territory.
It could, however, prove even longer, with authorities yet to determine where it ends.
The discovery came during an operation targeting a number of criminal gangs accused of smuggling hashish into Spain in lorries.
The police said the crackdown, dubbed Operation Hades, has led to the arrest of 14 people over the past three weeks, including two policemen, and the discovery of 6,000 kilos of the drug.

Topics: Spain Morocco

Trump administration tells Pentagon to slash budget

Updated 20 February 2025

AFP

February 20, 2025 00:50

Trump administration tells Pentagon to slash budget

Updated 20 February 2025

AFP

February 20, 2025 00:50

WASHINGTON: The Trump administration has ordered senior US military leaders to plan for expansive cuts that could slash the defense budget by eight percent annually, or some $290 billion within the next five years, US media reported Wednesday.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told the Pentagon to develop the deep reductions, The Washington Post reported, citing a memo.

The Pentagon’s budget for 2025 is some $850 billion. Lawmakers across the political spectrum agree that the massive spending is needed to deter threats, especially from China and Russia.

The cuts, if implemented in full, would reduce that figure by tens of billions each year to some $560 billion by the end of the five years.

The report did not give details of where the cuts would be made in the world’s biggest military, but an earlier Post report said that junior civilian workers, not uniformed personnel, were being targeted.

The news — which comes after Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency reportedly visited the Pentagon last week — was likely to be met with stiff resistance from both the military and Congress.

Trump on Wednesday signaled support for a House of Representatives bill that would increase the defense budget by $100 billion — a move at odds with the Hegseth-directed cuts.

The planned reductions also run counter to calls by Trump and Hegseth for NATO members to increase their military spending to five percent of GDP a year.

The United States currently spends around 3.4 percent of its GDP on defense, and the five percent threshold would be even farther out of reach if the Pentagon’s budget is reduced.

The stock prices of major US defense contractors were hit by the news, with Lockheed Martin dropping briefly before recovering, Northrop Grumann falling nearly two percent and Palantir closing down more than 10 percent.

Hegseth’s memo said the proposed cuts must be drawn up by February 24, and include 17 categories that Trump wants exempted, including operations at the US border with Mexico and modernization of nuclear weapons and missile defense.

It also calls for funding for regional headquarters such as Indo-Pacific Command and Space Command.

But other major centers such as European Command, which has led the way on US strategy throughout the war in Ukraine, and also Africa Command and Central Command — which oversees operations in the Middle East — were absent from the list, the Post reported.

The Defense Department “must act urgently to revive the warrior ethos, rebuild our military, and reestablish deterrence,” Hegseth wrote in the memo, dated Tuesday, according to the Post.

“Our budget will resource the fighting force we need, cease unnecessary defense spending, reject excessive bureaucracy, and drive actionable reform including progress on the audit,” he reportedly continued.

US President Donald Trump has vowed to slash government spending and end US support for Ukraine in its war against Russian invasion.

Topics: Trump Returns Pentagon

Republican lawmaker seeks US judge’s impeachment over ruling against Trump

Updated 20 February 2025

Reuters

February 20, 2025 00:29

Republican lawmaker seeks US judge’s impeachment over ruling against Trump

Republicans have a 53-47 majority in the Senate, meaning some Democrats would need to vote for impeachment in order to remove the judge from the bench

Updated 20 February 2025

Reuters

February 20, 2025 00:29

A Republican ally of Donald Trump has moved to impeach a federal judge who blocked a team set up by the president and spearheaded by billionaire Elon Musk from accessing US Treasury Department systems responsible for trillions of dollars in payments. Congressman Derrick Van Orden on Tuesday filed a resolution in the House of Representatives seeking to have US District Judge Paul Engelmayer in Manhattan removed from office following calls by Musk and several conservative lawmakers for judges to be impeached after stymieing key parts of Trump’s agenda.
Van Orden’s resolution accused the judge of judicial misconduct and abuse of power.
In order to be removed from office, the House must pass by a simple majority vote an article of impeachment accusing Engelmayer of a crime and then the Senate must then vote by at least a two-thirds majority to convict the judge. Republicans control both chambers of Congress but do not have a two-thirds majority in the Senate. Engelmayer, an appointee of Democratic former President Barack Obama, drew Musk’s scorn after temporarily blocking Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, from accessing Treasury Department systems in a lawsuit brought by 19 Democratic state attorneys general. That decision and rulings by other judges have prompted Trump, Musk and their conservative allies to sharply criticize judges who have ruled against the Republican president’s policies, fueling concerns about whether his administration will abide by judicial rulings.
Van Orden and Engelmayer did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Judges rarely speak publicly about matters concerning pending litigation.
Trump has put Musk, the world’s wealthiest person, in charge of his efforts to downsize and overhaul the federal government. Musk has called for a “wave of judicial impeachments.” Two conservative lawmakers have announced plans to introduce articles of impeachment against US District Judge John McConnell of Rhode Island, who blocked Trump’s administration from freezing federal funding, as well as Engelmayer.
Van Orden, whose reelection bid last year received Trump’s endorsement, was the first member of Congress to formally do so, accusing Engelmayer in his resolution of committing high crimes and misdemeanors. He is the resolution’s sole sponsor.
Van Orden in his resolution accused Engelmayer of ruling against DOGE and Trump “on purely political grounds, demonstrating clear bias and prejudice against the president and the 74,000,000 Americans who voted for him.”
Marin Levy, a Duke University School of Law professor who studies the federal judiciary, said impeachment under the US Constitution is supposed to be reserved for serious misconduct, not disappointment with court decisions, which can be appealed.
“Articles of impeachment filed against judges who are simply performing their constitutional role represent an attempt to politicize the judiciary and quite frankly to intimidate judges,” Levy said.
Impeachments of federal judges are rare: Only 15 have ever been impeached in US history, and only eight have been convicted by the Senate, most recently in 2010. Such impeachments in modern history have typically related to criminal or bribery offenses.
Republicans have a 53-47 majority in the Senate, meaning some Democrats would need to vote for impeachment in order to remove the judge from the bench. US Chief Justice John Roberts in a year-end report issued on December 31 defending the judiciary’s independence described a threat by an unnamed elected official to impeach a judge over her decisions as a regrettable example of “recent attempts to intimidate judges.”

Topics: REPUBLICAN Lawmaker Derrick Van Orden Donald Trump

Baltic Sea wind farms impair Sweden’s defense, says military

Baltic Sea wind farms impair Sweden’s defense, says military

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Baltic Sea wind farms impair Sweden’s defense, says military

Baltic Sea wind farms impair Sweden’s defense, says military

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