Tag Archives: Military and defense

US bans WeChat, TikTok from app shops, threatens shutdowns

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WASHINGTON — The U.S. Commerce Division stated Friday it would ban Chinese language-owned TikTok and WeChat from U.S. app shops on Sunday and can bar the apps from accessing important web providers within the U.S. — a transfer that would successfully wreck the operation of each Chinese language providers for U.S. customers.

TikTok will not face essentially the most drastic sanctions till after the Nov. three election, however WeChat customers might really feel the results as early as Sunday.

The order, which cited nationwide safety and information privateness issues, follows weeks of dealmaking over the video-sharing service TikTok. President Donald Trump has pressured the app’s Chinese language proprietor to promote TikTok’s U.S. operations to a home firm to fulfill U.S. issues over TikTok’s information assortment and associated points.

California tech large Oracle lately struck a take care of TikTok alongside these traces, though particulars stay foggy and the administration continues to be reviewing it. White Home press secretary Kayleigh McEnany stated on Fox Enterprise Community Friday stated the administration continues to be “negotiating and looking out on the proposal.”

The brand new order places strain on TikTok’s proprietor, ByteDance, to make additional concessions, stated James Lewis of the Heart for Strategic and Worldwide Research. Trump stated this week that he doesn’t like the concept of ByteDance maintaining majority management of TikTok.

TikTok expressed “disappointment” over the transfer and stated it might proceed to problem President Donald Trump’s “unjust govt order.” The Commerce Division is enacting an order introduced by President Donald Trump in August. TikTok sued to cease that ban.

WeChat proprietor Tencent stated in an emailed assertion that it’ll proceed to debate methods to deal with issues with the federal government and search for long-term options.

Google and Apple, the house owners of the foremost cell app shops, didn’t instantly reply to questions. Oracle additionally didn’t reply.

“On the President’s course, we’ve taken vital motion to fight China’s malicious assortment of Americans’ private information, whereas selling our nationwide values, democratic rules-based norms, and aggressive enforcement of U.S. legal guidelines and rules,” Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross stated in a ready assertion.

The motion is the Trump administration’s newest try to counter the affect of China, a rising financial superpower. Since taking workplace in 2017, Trump has waged a commerce struggle with China, blocked mergers involving Chinese language firms and stifled the enterprise of Chinese language corporations like Huawei, a maker of telephones and telecom tools.

China-backed hackers, in the meantime, have been blamed for information breaches of U.S. federal databases and the credit score company Equifax, and the Chinese language authorities strictly limits what U.S. tech firms can do in China.

The order requires WeChat, which has thousands and thousands of U.S. customers who depend on the app to remain in contact and conduct enterprise with individuals and firms in China, to finish funds by way of its service as of Sunday and prohibits it from getting technical providers from distributors that would critically affect its features.

Comparable technical limitations for TikTok do not go into impact till Nov. 12, shortly after the U.S. election. Ross stated early Friday on Fox Enterprise Community that entry to that app could also be potential if sure safeguards are put into place. TikTok says it has 100 million U.S. customers and 700 million globally.

Nicholas Weaver, a pc science lecturer at UC Berkeley, stated the actions taking impact Sunday are short-sighted and recommend that “the U.S. is to not be trusted and never a pleasant place for enterprise.” Customers, in the meantime, face a safety “nightmare” as a result of they will not be capable of get app updates that repair bugs and safety vulnerabilities, he stated.

The technical measures are “enforceable, the query is whether or not they’re authorized,” stated the Heart for Strategic and Worldwide Research’ Lewis, likening them to a U.S. model of China’s “Nice Firewall,” which censors its home web. He stated there could possibly be a First Modification problem.

WeChat customers have sued to cease the ban, and a federal decide in California appeared sympathetic to WeChat customers in a listening to Thursday, however didn’t challenge an injunction towards the federal government. The Justice Division had stated in a submitting in that case that they’d not goal WeChat customers with prison or civil penalties for utilizing the app for messaging.

WeChat customers might bypass the Commerce Division’s technical provisions utilizing a digital non-public community, or VPN, stated Gregory Touhill, an adjunct college member at Carnegie Mellon and a former chief info safety officer of the U.S.

Like most social networks, TikTok collects person information and moderates customers’ posts. It grabs customers’ areas and messages and tracks what they watch to determine how finest to focus on adverts to them.

Comparable issues apply to U.S.-based social networks comparable to Fb and Twitter, however Chinese language possession provides an additional wrinkle as a result of the Chinese language authorities might demand cooperation from Chinese language firms. The administration, nonetheless, has offered no particular proof that TikTok has made U.S. customers’ information accessible to the Chinese language authorities. Some cybersecurity specialists query whether or not the administration’s efforts are extra political than rooted in legit issues about Chinese language threats to information safety.

“If there are direct nationwide safety threats, that info ought to be shared with the U.S. inhabitants,” stated David Kennedy, CEO of cybersecurity agency TrustedSec, earlier than the Commerce Division’s rules had been introduced. “We’re not taking about what must occur policy-wise, we’re attempting to hack this collectively to harm China.”

TikTok says it doesn’t retailer U.S. person information in China and that it might not give person information to the federal government, and doesn’t censor movies per dictates from China.

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US banning use of WeChat, TikTok for nationwide safety

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The Commerce Division stated President Trump’s proposed ban of the apps WeChat and TikTok will go into impact Sunday to “safeguard the nationwide safety of the US.”

September 18, 2020, 12:18 PM

1 min learn

WASHINGTON — The Commerce Division will roll out a ban of transactions within the U.S. utilizing TikTok and WeChat beginning Sunday.

The order Friday was put into place, in line with Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, to “fight China’s malicious assortment of Americans’ private knowledge.”

The federal government beforehand stated that utilizing and downloading the app to speak gained’t be a banned transaction, though messaging on the app “could possibly be straight or not directly impaired” by the ban, and individuals who use it for messaging gained’t be topic to penalties.

Some safety consultants have raised issues that ByteDance Ltd., the Chinese language firm that owns TikTok, would preserve entry to data on the 100 million TikTok customers in the US, making a safety threat.

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Brazil normal named well being minister after months as interim

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Gen. Eduardo Pazuello has grow to be Brazil’s third well being minister throughout the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, after practically 4 months holding the place on an interim foundation and virtually 120,000 COVID-19 deaths throughout that point

By

MAURICIO SAVARESE and DAVID BILLER Related Press

September 17, 2020, 12:20 AM

5 min learn

SAO PAULO — Gen. Eduardo Pazuello on Wednesday grew to become Brazil’s third well being minister throughout the coronavirus pandemic, after practically 4 months holding the place on an interim foundation and virtually 120,000 COVID-19 deaths throughout that point.

Pazuello, a logistics professional with no prior well being expertise earlier than taking the deputy well being minister place in April, follows two predecessors who departed after disagreements with President Jair Bolsonaro relating to correct means to fight the brand new coronavirus.

“I’m neither arriving nor leaving,” Pazuello joked at a ceremony at Brazil’s presidential palace in Brasilia. “That is an unprecedented scenario.”

Bolsonaro, who has downplayed the dangers of COVID-19 because the begin of the pandemic, attended the ceremony and as soon as once more touted an anti-malarial drug as a treatment for the illness whereas blaming mayors and governors for limiting actions; these two stances are what prompted the exits of his prior well being ministers.

The South American nation had confirmed simply over 15,000 deaths from COVID-19 when Gen. Pazuello took over as interim well being minister in Might, and within the three following months recorded a median 1,000 deaths per day. That development has dipped downward in latest weeks. The full demise toll has surpassed 134,000, the second highest on this planet after the U.S.

“We managed to achieve a well-defined scenario of stability,” the newly-inducted minister stated Wednesday. “We needed to change the tires of the automotive because it glided by.”

There are a number of causes Brazil’s variety of circumstances and deaths remained at a excessive plateau for therefore lengthy. First, Brazil has a big inhabitants, with about 210 million folks, and an enormous territory roughly the dimensions of the contiguous U.S. states. Which means the virus first barreled by means of the southeast and northern areas and, after ebbing in these areas, started pummeling the center-west and south areas.

Additionally boosting Brazil’s caseload is the very fact the nation by no means applied a surveillance system or something near efficient contact tracing that might assist authorities get a deal with on the unfold, in response to Pedro Hallal, an epidemiologist who coordinates the Federal College of Pelotas’ Epicovid19-BR testing program, by far the nation’s most complete.

Whereas mayors and governors declined to impose Europe-style lockdowns, they did implement sweeping restrictions on exercise that they’ve begun lifting since Might. These makes an attempt to sluggish contagion raised hackles with Bolsonaro, who routinely sabotaged their measures. Quite, the president targeted on the pandemic’s financial impression, warning the upshot of bringing the financial system to a screeching halt could be worse for Brazilians than the virus itself, as many dwell hand-to-mouth.

Bolsonaro fired his first well being minister for supporting native leaders’ broad quarantine measures. That minister’s successor – who held the submit for lower than a month – resigned within the face of the president’s promotion of the anti-malarial medicine as an answer to COVID-19. Upon assuming the interim place, Pazuello backed the drug’s nationwide prescription and formally added its distribution by the ministry as a part of Brazil’s anti-virus measures.

“I congratulate the entire docs, particularly those that had been daring with hydroxychloroquine,” Bolsonaro stated Wednesday, referring to the anti-malarial. There is no such thing as a scientific proof the drug helps COVID-19 sufferers, and an growing physique of analysis signifies it doesn’t and, moreover, may cause harmful negative effects.

Bolsonaro has usually made a present of his outings from the presidential palace to mingle with supporters, generally with out a masks. He suspended such habits as soon as he contracted the virus himself, however his rhetoric remained and he stated he was taking hydroxychloroquine tablets. The very fact he finally overcame the virus jibed together with his repeated declare – mimicked by his ardent supporters — that the so-called well being specialists have unnecessarily stoked panic.

Since Pazuello grew to become interim minister, he changed dozens of the docs and specialists in Brazil’s well being ministry with troopers, which on Wednesday he touted as “the restructuring of the ministry.”

He wore a masks however shook arms with lots of these current within the crowd, together with ministers, lawmakers and generals, with no obvious social distancing.

Pazuello’s new standing is anticipated to create some rigidity inside Brazil’s armed forces, as a result of lots of his colleagues imagine having an energetic responsibility service as minister constitutes an unsavory mixing of armed forces with authorities. Pazuello didn’t say whether or not he’ll retire.

“As a navy man, I perceive that his remaining energetic responsibility implies dangers to the picture of the pressure,” stated Maynard Santa Rosa, a retired military normal and a former minister of strategic affairs. Santa Rosa added that Pazuello has efficiently made inroads with native authorities, which helped his efforts to stop Brazil’s demise toll from rising even additional.

Considered one of Pazuello’s most criticized actions on the job got here in June, when Brazil’s well being ministry stopped publishing the variety of whole COVID-19 deaths and confirmed coronavirus circumstances in its web site. He solely reversed course after the nation’s high courtroom ordered the federal government to renew full publication of knowledge.

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Ambassador: Time is true for brand new arms management settlement

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The Trump administration has sketched out a framework that it hopes will keep away from a three-way arms race

By

SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN Related Press

September 16, 2020, 4:22 PM

three min learn

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. —
The Trump administration has sketched out a framework that it hopes will keep away from a three-way arms race as a deadline nears for extending the one remaining nuclear arms management cope with Russia and as China appears to increase its nuclear forces.

Ambassador Marshall Billingslea, the particular presidential envoy for arms management, spoke with The Related Press about negotiations with Russia whereas touring a few of the high nuclear analysis labs and manufacturing websites in the USA.

Final week’s go to to New Mexico, Texas and Tennessee comes as amenities ramp up modernization of the nation’s multibillion-dollar nuclear enterprise, which incorporates capabilities for producing the plutonium cores utilized in warheads and know-how for aiding nonproliferation of weapons across the globe.

Billingslea stated the proposed settlement can be bold and that the time is true to “go down this path.”

“As President Trump has made clear, he intends to and has proven a method forward with the Russian federation — and finally with China — that we will do one thing that nobody has ever achieved earlier than,” he stated.

Signed in 2010, the New START treaty limits the USA and Russia to not more than 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads and 700 deployed missiles and bombers. It represents the one remaining nuclear arms management deal between the 2 international locations after they each withdrew from the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty final 12 months.

Billingslea stated the present New START treaty has loopholes and that any new settlement with Russia ought to embody each nuclear and traditional warheads and bolster verification protocols and transparency. With such an settlement in place, he stated China finally wouldn’t have a lot of a selection and would wish to affix such a framework.

“The world is just not going to take a seat by and permit China to easily do what it at present thinks it’s going to do when it comes to greater than doubling it’s nuclear stockpile,” he stated. “So the president has made clear he doesn’t desire a three-way arms race. It’s fully counterproductive and pointless.”

Arguing that its stockpile is small, China has stated it will take part provided that the U.S. agrees to nuclear parity amongst all nations. Russia has steered that if China have been a part of the pact, different international locations would should be included as effectively.

Billingslea stated the U.S. needs to work towards joint verification experiments with Russia and China, noting that earlier iterations of the treaty had allowed for such work earlier than it was renegotiated a decade in the past by the Obama administration.

“We have to get the consultants collectively to get comfy with technical options that allow significant arms management going ahead,” he stated, with the purpose being safety and stability in Europe and Asia.

Nonetheless, the Trump administration and Congress are pushing forward with plans began throughout the Obama administration to make sure the USA’ personal nuclear capabilities. Billions of {dollars} are being funneled towards work to exchange growing old plutonium cores within the arsenal and initiatives managed by the Nationwide Nuclear Safety Administration at Los Alamos and Sandia nationwide labs in New Mexico and different federal websites tied to the nuclear program.

A lot of the infrastructure throughout the complicated is many years previous. NNSA Administrator Lisa Gordon-Hagerty, who additionally visited final week, stated work has been deferred in some instances for as many as 30 years.

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Cambodia, China, problem US over sanctions on Chinese language agency

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Cambodia and China are rejecting U.S. allegations {that a} Chinese language state-owned firm is responsible of human rights abuses and corruption in its acquisition of land in Cambodia

By

SOPHENG CHEANG Related Press

September 16, 2020, 1:44 PM

three min learn

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — Cambodia and China on Wednesday rejected U.S. allegations {that a} Chinese language state-owned firm was responsible of human rights abuses and corruption in its acquisition of land in Cambodia.

The U.S. Treasury Division’s Workplace of Overseas Belongings Management introduced Tuesday that it’s imposing sanctions below U.S. legislation on China’s Union Growth Group Co. Ltd. for its actions in Cambodia.

It charged that the corporate “compelled Cambodians from their land and devastated the setting, hurting the livelihoods of native communities, all below the guise of changing Cambodia right into a regional logistics hub and vacationer vacation spot.”

A spokesman for Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen’s ruling Cambodian Individuals’s Social gathering stated Wednesday that whereas the U.S. authorities had the precise to impose sanctions, its allegations have been baseless.

Sok Eysan stated the federal government allowed the challenge to proceed solely after its grasp plan was reviewed and authorised by the state Cambodian Growth Council, and that the Chinese language firm was working in line with that plan.

The U.S. Treasury Division stated in an announcement asserting the sanctions that the Chinese language firm in 2008 acquired a 99-year lease from Cambodia’s authorities for the event of the Dara Sakor challenge overlaying virtually 20% of Cambodia’s shoreline by forming a neighborhood firm to turn out to be the leaseholder. The corporate later reverted to Chinese language possession, the Treasury Division stated.

It charged that Cambodia’s navy used violence to assist clear the land, and that then-armed forces chief of workers Kun Kim benefited financially from the association. Kun Kim and his shut members of the family have already been focused with U.S. sanctions for alleged corruption.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spelled out broader issues in a separate assertion Tuesday.

“There are credible stories that the coastal growth challenge at Dara Sakor could possibly be used to host PRC (China’s) navy property, and in that case would go towards Cambodia’s Structure and will threaten Indo-Pacific stability, probably impacting Cambodia’s sovereignty and the safety of our allies,” he stated.

U.S. officers have beforehand recommended a Cambodian naval base on the coast was being ready to be used by China, and an airport being constructed on the Chinese language firm’s land gave the impression to be designed to accommodate navy plane in addition to civilian planes.

Hun Sen has denied repeatedly that he would enable any overseas energy to make use of Cambodian territory for a base.

Chinese language overseas ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin stated Wednesday that Washington “has repeatedly used unwarranted allegations that China’s related challenge in different nations could possibly be reworked into navy bases to discredit and assault our regular cooperation with related nations.”

“Nevertheless, the US itself has tons of of navy bases in additional than 150 nations world wide. This hypocritical and double-standard follow by the US is despicable,” Wang stated.

The U.S. sanctions, imposed below the Magnitsky Act, block the Chinese language firm’s entry to any property it has in the US, and U.S. residents and firms are barred from conducting any monetary or different transactions with it.

Distinguished Cambodian environmentalist Ouch Leng stated the U.S. motion got here too late, after a land rights protest chief died, forest and different pure assets have been exhausted and other people’s livelihoods suffered, leaving them fearful and with out first rate jobs.

He charged that different Chinese language corporations are finishing up actions dangerous to the setting and hurting individuals’s livelihoods.

———

Related Press author Grant Peck in Bangkok contributed to this story

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3 additional Iranian students challenge removal from country

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Three more students from Iran attending New England colleges have filed civil rights complaints with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, saying they were mistreated and illegally denied entry into the country

February 21, 2020, 7:07 PM

2 min read

BOSTON —
Three more students from Iran attending New England colleges have filed civil rights complaints with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, saying they were mistreated and illegally denied entry into the country.

The complaints follow similar ones filed by an Iranian student seeking to begin classes at Northeastern University and a graduate student at Harvard University.

Pegah Karimi said in her complaint filed earlier this month that she was denied entry at Boston’s Logan International Airport in August despite having a student visa to attend graduate school at Southern New Hampshire University in Manchester.

Mohammad Moradi said in his separate complaint filed this month that he had a student visa to pursue a doctorate degree at Northeastern in Boston.

He said he was denied entry in October as he returned from a conference in Paris, where he presented an academic paper.

Moradi said officials denied him entry even though he’d been admitted to the U.S. three times prior that year, including after two brief trips to Canada to visit relatives.

And Behzad Rezaei said in his complaint that he had a student visa to pursue a doctorate degree at Worcester Polytechnic Institute but was denied entry in August.

Homeland Security spokespeople didn’t respond to an email seeking comment Friday.

The five students who have filed complaints to Homeland Security say they were detained for hours and subjected to harsh questioning by federal officials at the airport.

They say the officials wrongly determined they planned on staying in the country longer than their temporary student visas allowed. The students maintain they had no intention of overstaying and that federal officials provided no proof supporting their conclusions.

The five students are among at least 10 Iranians denied entry into the U.S. since August, the start of the academic year at most colleges. Seven of those had flown into Boston’s airport.

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American cruise passengers quarantined at US military bases

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More than 300 American cruise ship passengers, including 14 who tested positive for coronavirus, are being quarantined at military bases in California and Texas after arriving from Japan on charter flights overnight

By

The Associated Press Associated Press

February 17, 2020, 6:18 PM

5 min read

TRAVIS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. —
More than 300 American cruise ship passengers, including 14 who tested positive for coronavirus, were being quarantined at military bases in California and Texas on Monday after arriving from Japan on charter flights overnight.

One plane carrying cruise passengers touched down at Travis Air Force Base in Northern California just before midnight Sunday, while another arrived at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas early Monday. The passengers will remain at the bases for two weeks.

Japan’s Defense Minister Taro Kono tweeted earlier that Japanese troops helped transport 340 U.S. passengers on 14 buses from Yokohama port to Tokyo’s Haneda airport. About 380 Americans were on the cruise ship.

The U.S. said it arranged for the evacuation because people on the Diamond Princess were at a high risk of exposure to the new virus that’s been spreading in Asia. For the departing Americans, the evacuation cuts short a 14-day quarantine that began aboard the cruise ship Feb. 5.

The State Department announced later that 14 of the evacuees received confirmation they had the virus but were allowed to board the flight because they had no symptoms. They were being kept isolated from other passengers on the flight, the U.S. State and Health and Human Services said in a joint statement.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health, said Sunday that an infected person who shows minimal symptoms could still pass the virus to someone else.

It’s unclear which base the 14 who tested positive for the virus went to.

Officials said the evacuees who arrived at Travis Air Force Base will be housed at a different location from the more than 200 other Americans who were already being quarantined on the base, in a hotel. Those people have been at the base since early February, when they arrived on flights from China.

No Travis airmen will have contact with the passengers, officials said.

Now that they’re in the U.S., the cruise ship passengers must go through another 14 days of quarantine at the military facilities — meaning they will have been under quarantine for a total of nearly four weeks.

Australia, Canada, Hong Kong and Italy were planning similar flights of passengers. Other governments, including Canada and Hong Kong, also will require the passengers to undergo a second 14-day quarantine.

Japan on Monday announced another 99 infections on the Diamond Princess, raising the ship’s total number of cases to 454. Overall, Japan has 419 confirmed cases of the virus, including one death. The United States has confirmed 15 cases within the country. Separately, one U.S. citizen died in China.

Americans Cheryl and Paul Molesky, a couple from Syracuse, New York, opted to trade one coronavirus quarantine for another, leaving the cruise ship to fly back to the U.S. Cheryl Molesky said the rising number of patients on the ship factored into the decision.

“We are glad to be going home,” Cheryl Molesky earlier told NHK TV in Japan. “It’s just a little bit disappointing that we’ll have to go through quarantine again, and we will probably not be as comfortable as the Diamond Princess, possibly.”

She sent The Associated Press a video of her and her husband boarding the plane with other Americans.

“Well, we’re exhausted, but we’re on the plane and that’s a good feeling. Pretty miserable wearing these masks though, and everybody had to go to the bathroom on the bus,” she said.

Some American passengers said they would pass up the opportunity to fly to the United States because of the additional quarantine. There also was worry about being on a long flight with other passengers who may be infected or in an incubation period.

One of the Americans, Matthew Smith, said in a tweet Sunday that he saw a passenger with no face mask talking at close quarters with another passenger. He said he and his wife scurried away.

“If there are secondary infections on board, this is why,” he said. “And you wanted me to get on a bus with her?”

He said the American health officials who visited their room was apparently surprised that the couple had decided to stay, and wished them luck.

“Thanks, but we’re fine,” Smith said he told them.

———

This story has been corrected to show the first flight landed in California at 11:30 p.m. Sunday, not 2:30 a.m. Monday.

———

Associated Press journalists Mari Yamaguchi, Yuri Kageyama and Emily Wang in Tokyo contributed to this report.

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Read more about the coronavirus outbreak at https://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak

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London police arrest 5 over deliberate Heathrow drone protest

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British police say they’ve arrested 5 individuals over a plan by environmental activists to fly drones close to Heathrow Airport.

The Metropolitan Police power says three males and two ladies, aged between their 20s and their 50s, have been arrested in London “on suspicion of conspiracy to commit a public nuisance.”

A gaggle calling itself Heathrow Pause deliberate to disrupt Heathrow with drones on Friday to protest plans for a 3rd runway at Europe’s busiest airport.

The group mentioned members Roger Hallam and Mike Lynch-White have been arrested whereas being interviewed at a restaurant by a German journal. Three others have been detained in north London.

Deputy Assistant Commissioner Laurence Taylor mentioned Thursday’s arrests have been “a proportionate response to stopping prison exercise that might considerably impression on a serious piece of nationwide infrastructure.”

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Veterans with PTSD, anxiety turn to beekeeping for relief

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Gently lifting a wooden frame containing dozens of Italian honeybees, Vince Ylitalo seemed transfixed as he and several other veterans inspected the buzzing insects.

“This is really cool,” he said, pointing to a bee with blobs of orange pollen on its hind legs.

Ylitalo, who has battled PTSD after serving nearly 40 years in the military including two tours in Iraq, didn’t seem bothered by the bees swarming around his head or crawling all over the entrance to their hive. Instead, the 57-year-old logistics expert said the several hours spent working on the two hives each week at the Manchester VA Medical Center in New Hampshire was a respite of sorts from his anxiety and depression. Known as an apiary, the hives are located next to a lilac garden off a busy street.

“I’m in this program to help me get out of the thought process of all those problems that I have,” said Ylitalo, who has struggled since leaving the Army in 2017. “It helps me think of something completely different. … I’m just thinking about bees.”

Researchers are beginning to study whether beekeeping has therapeutic benefits. For now, there is little hard data, but veterans in programs like the one in Manchester insist that it helps them focus, relax and become more productive. The programs are part of a small but growing effort by Veterans Affairs and veteran groups to promote the training of soldiers in farming and other agricultural careers.

Standing near Ylitalo in her white bee suit, Army veteran Wendi Zimmermann said bees have helped her deal with the anxiety she feels outside her home — even though she initially feared being stung. She and Ylitalo are among 12 veterans that have taken part in beekeeping since the program started in May.

“It gives you a chance to shut down and not think about the outside world. It shows me there is a way to shut my brain down to get other things accomplished,” Zimmermann said. “Before, my mind would be filled with thoughts constantly and I wasn’t accomplishing daily tasks.”

While some of the programs are geared to giving soldiers the skills to become farmers and commercial beekeepers, others aim to address the challenges facing those returning home from Afghanistan and Iraq with brain injuries, post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental health issues. The programs are careful to say that beekeeping is just one of several benefits that could help a troubled veteran.

“The anecdotes we have heard are fantastic,” said Alicia Semiatin, who heads the mental health program in Manchester. “Folks find that it is really something that they benefit from at the time they are doing the beekeeping and the benefits seems to be carrying over not only for days but weeks afterward. What more could you ask for from treatment than something to that degree?”

Similar stories have been heard from beekeeping programs from Brockton, Massachusetts, to Reno, Nevada. Those running the programs said there is plenty of anecdotal evidence that beekeeping is making a difference for those who spend time managing hives and harvesting honey. Beekeeping gives them a sense of purpose, helps them relax and allows them to block out dark thoughts, they said.

“Beekeeping affords us the opportunity to really kind of engage in a different way with the natural world,” said Adam Ingrao, a fourth-generation soldier who runs Heroes to Hives through Michigan State University Extension. “You’re not thinking about what happened in Afghanistan or Iraq. You’re thinking about what’s happening right here, right now.”

Ford Motor Co. is providing space to Heroes to Hives at Henry Ford’s old farm near Ann Arbor. The free program provides a nine-month beekeeping course to veterans, about 80% of whom have a disability.

In Reno, Ginger Fenwick started Bees4Vets with her husband, Daniel, in 2018 after spotting a 1919 pamphlet written by the government that advocated beekeeping for veterans returning from World War I with shell shock. Bees4Vets trains 10 veterans a year to manage some of its roughly 30 hives at the agricultural experiment station at the University of Nevada, Reno and resident’s backyards in nearby Sparks.

Inspired by concerns about high levels of suicide among veterans, the program focuses on those with PTSD or traumatic brain injuries from Nevada and northern California. It also has teamed up with a University of Nevada, Reno professor who studies PTSD to research whether beekeeping is helping veterans in the program. If a majority shows improvement, the program plans to study why and how — and whether beekeeping could be helping.

“If there was anything we could do to help one family, one person, then it would be all worth it,” Fenwick said.

Each veteran gets two hives to manage for the year and learns skills like honey harvesting and wax processing. One veteran who completed the program wants to start a honey mustard business; another wants to make lip balms using bee wax.

At the University of Minnesota, Rebecca Masterman runs its bee squad. One of its programs works with veterans who manage 18 hives on the grounds of the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. She said the program’s main goal is to expose veterans to beekeeping, though it also promotes the therapeutic benefits of working with bees. She was cautious, however, about commenting on whether beekeeping could be treatment for veterans with PTSD.

“We know that beekeeping is an amazing experience,” said Masterman, whose program is seeking funding to study its impact on veterans with PTSD. “But at the same time, we’re not trying to do therapy without setting up an actual program that would specifically do therapy.”

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Householder reported from Superior Township, Michigan.

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General: US faces ‘Sputnik moment’ in space race competition

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The U.S. has reached a new “Sputnik moment” in which the military must act to keep the nation’s competitive advantage in space against adversaries such as Russia, China, and to a lesser extent, Iran and North Korea, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said Monday.

Gen. Joseph Dunford made his comments during a ceremony at Peterson Air Force Base recognizing the re-launch of U.S. Space Command.

He compared President Donald Trump’s re-boot of the U.S. Space Command to President John Kennedy’s call to action after the Soviet Union started the space race with Sputnik, the first space satellite launched in 1957, and with 1961’s first manned trip into space.

“In my view, it’s not an overstatement to say that we’re at another Sputnik moment,” Dunford said. “And you could argue that the stakes are much higher than they were in the late 1950s and early 1960s.”

The Pentagon had a U.S. Space Command from 1985 to 2002, but it was disbanded in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terror attacks to focus on homeland defense. Trump said in December he would re-establish the Space Command with the goal of improving the organization space operations across the U.S. military and to speed up technical developments.

Space Command is not Space Force, a separate military service that Trump wants but which Congress must approve. In a White House ceremony last week, the president said Space Command represents a recognition of the central role of space in security and defense.

Russia and China are placing greater emphasis on their space capabilities, and have developed technology and weapons that could disrupt or destroy satellites, Dunford said.

Iran and North Korea have less developed capabilities, they still pose a threat, he added.

Space Command has become necessary to not only compete, but will be essential to the nation’s ability to fight wars, he said.

“I learned early in my career the value of seizing the high ground in a fight,” Dunford said. “Space command will seize and hold the high ground.”

Space Command’s new commander, Gen. John “Jay” Raymond, said he wants to deter war in space by focusing on building forces that would win a cosmic battle and keep U.S. “space superiority.”

“We will develop ready and lethal space forces,” Raymond said. “We will take our existing space warfighting culture established by the original United States Space Command, honed in the Cold War and hardened in the many conflicts since, and adapt it to today’s strategic environment.”

The initial Space Command headquarters is Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, which is also home to other units with space operations, including missile defense warning systems.

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