Finland to Produce a Million Land Mines
October 21st, 2026Via: The War Zone:
NATO member Finland is preparing to reintroduce anti-personnel landmines into its military arsenal, with a contract for around one million examples due to be signed soon, following the country’s withdrawal from the Ottawa Convention that aims to eliminate these weapons. The move comes as Helsinki looks to strengthen its territorial defenses against a longstanding Russian threat and the prospect of a larger Russian military presence along its eastern border in the years ahead.
Finland’s withdrawal from the treaty, which prohibits the use, stockpiling, production, and transfer of anti-personnel mines, took effect on January 10 of this year. Reflecting growing concern among NATO’s eastern-flank members about Russia’s military posture and the lessons of the war in Ukraine, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia have also moved to leave the convention.
Alaska’s HAARP Site Now Being Used To Test New Air Force Over-The-Horizon Radar Tech
October 21st, 2026Via: The War Zone:
The U.S. military has successfully demonstrated a new lower-cost receiver that could form part of a future over-the-horizon (OTH) radar. The testing also raises the question of whether the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) research site in Alaska, which the U.S. Air Force transferred away more than a decade ago, could be repurposed for operational use in this role. A new radar of this kind would help the United States plug critical gaps in surveillance coverage over the ever-more strategic Arctic region. Canada is notably already pursuing a multi-billion-dollar OTH radar project in cooperation with Australia for this exact purpose.
The U.S. military put out a press release yesterday regarding the testing of the newly developed receiver array, which occurred between September 7 and September 11. This was the culmination of a series of “Arctic air domain awareness” experiments conducted cooperatively by U.S. and Canadian authorities over the past three years.
The final round of experimentation last month “examined whether an existing high-frequency transmitter [HAARP], paired with a newly developed, low-cost [16-element high-frequency] receiver array, could detect aircraft beyond the coverage of current long-range radar sites,” according to the release. “The effort focused on improving awareness across a region where vast distances, harsh weather and limited infrastructure present challenges for air surveillance.”
“Researchers used the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program [HAARP] facility and a receiver array in Cold Bay developed by MITRE to collect data on participating aircraft over the Gulf of Alaska and Bering Sea,” the release added. “MITRE also supported the effort throughout the three-year experiment series and designed and executed the field experiment in partnership with government, scientific, and operational participants.”
Claim that Russian Satellite Came Within 85 Feet of Commercial Imaging Satellite
October 20th, 2026Via: The War Zone:
A Russian satellite, Kosmos 2612, may have passed within approximately 85 feet (26 meters) of a U.S.-registered satellite belonging to commercial imagery provider ICEYE. This would be an extraordinarily close and potentially dangerous pass-by for two objects in space traveling at thousands of miles per hour. For weeks beforehand, ICEYE-X36, which would be of special interest to Russia, had already found itself in increasingly close orbital alignment with its pursuer. The two satellites now look to be drifting further and further apart, but the episode has been a clear sign of what is to come as the potential for conflict in space only continues to grow.
Publicly available space tracking data from the satellitemap.space and orbitalradar.com websites show that Kosmos 2612 (also written sometimes Cosmos 2612 and abbreviated K2612) and ICEYE X36 had their especially close encounter at approximately 16:07 UTC today. Private space services company LeoLabs also told TWZ today that it could not “confirm or contradict what other data sources have stated publicly,” but that it has “high-confidence that the objects came within approximately [emphasis in the original] 500 meters [1,640 feet] of each other.” Kosmos 2612 had been making progressively closer passes by ICEYE X36 in recent days.
Scientists Built a Computer Using Living Human Brain Cells—Now It Can Decode Braille
October 20th, 2026Via: The Debrief:
Biohybrid computers made of organoids—tiny human brain models using real cells—have reached an important new benchmark by reading braille for the first time, even under challenging conditions.
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Although biohybrid computers could eventually offer advantages in energy efficiency, demonstrating that they can reliably process and transmit meaningful information remains a work in progress. The Bristol team sought to advance this research by developing organoids modeled on the human forebrain and testing their ability to process information encoded from Braille characters.
The researchers ultimately achieved an 83% classification accuracy rate by combining signals from three brain organoids to identify Braille letters.
“We can take information from a real tactile sensor, turn it into a form that a living neural network can receive, and then recover meaningful information from the organoid response,” said first author Tianyi Liu, PhD candidate at Bristol University. “That gives us a practical way to connect artificial sensors with biological neural systems, which are a very interesting possible route towards more energy-efficient computing.”
“How to Deal with Shipping AI-Written Code You Don’t Understand?”
October 20th, 2026Via: Hacker News:
I’m an engineer at Meta and I never felt this uncomfortable doing my job. I’m writing code these days and it all feels like a black box. This new standard of shipping with AI is moving so fast that if we’re going to spend our time checking each line of code, it’s going to take forever. That means you can end up with systems you’ve built where you don’t truly understand how all the code works. You understand the high level, but not every detail. And maybe this is becoming the new standard. It goes against every instinct of being a software engineer. I’m used to understanding what I’m building. Now I’m trying to figure out how much I need to understand before I’m comfortable moving forward. Are other engineers feeling this too?
How are you handling this?
44% of Americans Have Trouble Paying for Basic Necessities, 20% Got Food from a Food Bank or Food Pantry in the Last Year
October 19th, 2026Via: Pew Research:
As the 2026 midterms approach, economic issues are top of mind for voters. Many specifically mention prices and affordability as key concerns, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted this fall.
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More than four-in-ten Americans (44%) indicate they have had trouble paying for at least one of these basic necessities in the past year:
– Medical care for themselves or their family (28% had trouble paying for this)
– Daily transportation costs (22%)
– Rent or mortgage (21%)
– Food (20% say they got food from a food bank or food pantry)
Ukraine Claims First Battlefield Evacuation of Wounded Soldier by Drone
October 19th, 2026I assumed this was fake the first few times I came across it. Maybe it’s real. I don’t know.
Via: The War Zone:
The Ukrainian Armed Forces say they have carried out the world’s first frontline evacuation of a wounded soldier by aerial drone. The soldier, from the 30th Mechanized Brigade, is said to have been recovered successfully and is undergoing treatment and rehabilitation.
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At this point, it should be noted that the footage has not been independently verified and could depict a staged demonstration rather than an actual combat evacuation. It should, at least, be treated with a degree of caution.
Russia’s New Jet Drone Contains Over 75% U.S.-Made Components
October 18th, 2026Via: Militarnyi:
More than three-quarters of the Geran-4’s onboard computer consists of electronic components manufactured by American companies. Products from Texas Instruments account for the largest share, along with components from its acquired subsidiary National Semiconductor — together accounting for more than half of all identified components.
This information was revealed in a report analyzing the flight controller recovered from the wreckage of one of the drones. The investigation was conducted by an engineer using the call sign Prop, who serves with the 1230th Athena Engineering and Technical Regiment of the Ukrainian Armed Forces Support Forces. The unit shared the results with Militarnyi.
Components from foreign companies handle navigation data processing, engine control, power supply, and signal exchange between circuit boards. At the same time, the circuit boards’ serial number markings indicate that they were manufactured in Alabuga.
Related: The Best Enemy Money Can Buy by Antony C Sutton
Replacing Europe
October 18th, 2026Via: Muckraker:
France: Riots Continue
October 18th, 2026Des véhicules de police sont prises pour cible par la foule dans le secteur République à Paris.
#Paris #17octobre https://t.co/yMReav1Tie
— Luc Auffret (@LucAuffret) October 17, 2026
Via: Daily Mail:
Chaos hit the streets of France yesterday as violent protesters rebelled against the cost of living, education standards and Emmanuel Macron’s government, with police admitting they ‘lost control’.
More than 1,200 demonstrators were arrested as the streets of major French cities were turned into a battleground, with city halls and prefectures set on fire and hundreds of shops looted in ‘apocalyptic riots’.
Desperate business owners and horrified residents could only watch in fear as the mob went door-to-door, smashing their way into each business.
More: “A Decade of Unfettered Mass Migration and a Cancerous Far-Left Movement”
