Military

New York City council member Ben Kallos has introduced the "No Killer Robots Act" as a preventative measure to expand the so-called Public Oversight of Surveillance Technology (POST Act) and prohibit the New York City Police Department (NYPD) from using or threatening to use armed robots in the future. Similarly, Kallos urges that robots not be used in a way "that has a high probability of causing death or serious bodily injury."

For the first time in decades of disarmament, the British government wants to allow an expansion of its nuclear arsenal. According to a document on the country's strategic reorientation after Brexit, which Prime Minister Boris Johnson presented in parliament, the limit on the number of nuclear warheads, which had previously been set until the middle of the decade, is to be increased from 180 to up to 260.

This is necessary to maintain a minimum level of deterrence in the face of the "changing security environment, including a range of technological and ideological threats", it said. It is the most far-reaching change in Britain's foreign policy since the end of the Cold War.

NATO is expanding its mission in Iraq to about 4000 soldiers. This was decided by the Alliance's defence ministers, as NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announced. The aim is to prevent the jihadist militia "Islamic State" from gaining strength again.

NATO has been training security forces in Iraq since 2017. So far, the training and advisory mission has a maximum strength of 500 soldiers, of which around 300 are currently in the country, according to the alliance. Iraqi soldiers are trained in particular in the defusing of explosive devices, maintenance and medical care. In addition, they are advising the Iraqi Ministry of Defence and other security authorities.

President Joe Biden has signed an executive order on Monday, reversing a Trump-era ban prohibiting transgender Americans to join the military. The order states that the government "immediately prohibits involuntary separations, discharges and denials of reenlistment or continuation of service on the basis of gender identity or under circumstances related to gender identity."

"Today, I repealed the discriminatory ban on transgender people serving in the military. It’s simple: America is safer when everyone qualified to serve can do so openly and with pride," so Biden on Twitter.

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas (SPD) was allowed to use the Airbus A350-900 for the first time for a trip to Egypt.

The new jet is 67 meters long, can reach speeds of up to 960 kilometers per hour, flies more than 13,000 meters high and can reach any destination worldwide without a stopover.

Being the the first of three new acquisitions, the two other A350-900s are to be delivered for the Bundeswehr's "white fleet" by 2022.

The U.S. is imposing sanctions on NATO ally Turkey over its deployment of Russia's S-400 missile defense system. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced Monday in Washington that punitive measures would be imposed against the Defense Security Directorate (SSB). The directorate reports to the office of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The sanctions included a ban on all U.S. export licenses and permits for SSB, Pompeo announced.

Any assets of SSB chief Ismail Demir and other U.S. executives would be frozen. They would also be subject to entry restrictions. At the same time, Pompeo stressed that Turkey is a "valued ally" of the U.S. and an important security partner in the region, and that they would like to see continued cooperation in the defense sector.

According to an article by Motherboard (Vice) the magazine has observed both the Android and iOS versions of the Muslim Pro app sending granular location data to the X-Mode endpoint multiple times.

X-Mode is a company that obtains location data directly from apps, then sells that data to contractors, and by extension, the military. Motherboard has used public records, interviews with developers, and technical analysis to discover the connection that the military uses data from X-Mode.

The population of the Falkland Islands has been celebrating the removal of an estimated 13,000 mines that were planted by Argentine forces in the 1982 military conflict.

Barry Elsby, a member of the island's legislative assembly, has stated that "This will be another good bit of closure for people who were here when the invasion happened and lived through the horrors of that time" and added that "All the mine signposts were a constant reminder of what happened but now they are all away, it's another return to normality".

According to a paper of the Working Group on Security and Defence Policy, quoted by "Welt am Sonntag", the SPD calls for the introduction of a "28th EU army". The force would be directly subordinated to the European Commission and would be under the responsibility of a newly appointed Commissioner for Defence.

"Our aim is to improve the EU's ability to act, regardless of the tiresome questions of sovereignty," Fritz Felgentreu, defence policy spokesman for the SPD parliamentary group, told the newspaper.

A German former Military Counterintelligence Service member (MAD) has been acquitted of the charge of treason. The 44-year-old military member had been accused to have warned a KSK-soldier of a raid by the attorney general as part of a right-wing extremism investigation.

The suspect himself had stated this during his interrogations and publicly. The MAD employee had now testified in court that the information had come from a leak at the Attorney General. Thereupon the public prosecutor withdrew the appeal proceedings.

One E-6B Mercury plane has been launched on each the west and the east of the American coasts shortly before President Donald Trump announced that he has been tested positive for Covid-19.

The planes are airborne nuclear command posts for the Pentagon that carry special communication systems and crews that command the nuclear ballistic-missile submarine fleet of the United States.

Tim Hogan, an open-source intelligence practitioner from the United States has tweeted that he "would expect them to pup up if he [Trump] tests positive". The airplanes could be tracked via public software only because the military crews did not turn off the transponders.

A military judge has tried a sergeant, a captain, two lieutenants, a corporal and three soldiers of the Spanish Legion for crimes such as concealment, disloyalty, disobedience and obstruction of justice. The Legion members had previously shot tried to cover up after the tried sergeant had shot another soldier.

In a 150-page ruling, the military judge details the accumulation of irregularities that surrounded the exercise in which 21-year-old Mallorcan Legionnaire Alejandro Jiménez Cruz lost his life, and the lies concocted to obstruct the investigation.

The US Space Command has stated that they have evidence of Russia testing an anti-satellite weapon in space. According to them "a projectile was launched from" the Cosmos 2543 Russian satellite, that has been tailing a US spy satellite.

Russia claims the object that has been dispatched from the satellite was an inspector satellite. Stephen Kitay, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for space policy, rejected that explanation and stated that "the behavior of that satellite looked nothing like an inspector satellite and looked like something much more concerning".

The Finnish Air Force Command removed the swastika from its emblem without making any announcement. The symbol had been in use since 1918 when Swedish Count Eric von Rosen gifted a plane to the nascent air force of Finland.

While the air force had stopped using the swastika on its planes after World War II, the symbol featured on unit emblems, unit flags and uniforms until recently.

Russia is showing it's military in a parade on Wednesday one day ahead of the constitutional referendum that would enable President Vladimir Putin to extend his reign until 2036. The military parade is happening in honour of the 75th anniversary of the World War II defeat of Nazi Germany. The annual parade was originally scheduled for the beginning of May but delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. This year 14,000 soldiers and different kinds of weapons will be shown in it.

The US Navy has announced that the test of a high-energy laser has been successful. The transport dock ship USS Portland manage to shoot down a drone from mid-air with a high-energy laser for the first time.

The U.S. Navy relieved Capt. Brett Crozier of the U.S.S. Theodore Roosevelt of his command after he wrote a memo sounding the alarm on an exploding coronavirus infection on board the cramped quarters of the aircraft carrier.

Last week, the aircraft carrier was ordered to port in Guam after five sailors tested positive for Covid-19.