Military board substantiates misconduct but declines to fire Marine who adopted Afghan orphan

Military board substantiates misconduct but declines to fire Marine who adopted Afghan orphan
Marine Maj. Joshua Mast and his wife, Stephanie, arrive at Circuit Court for a hearing in an ongoing custody battle over an Afghan orphan, March 30, 2023, in Charlottesville, Va. (AP/File)
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Updated 09 October 2024
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Military board substantiates misconduct but declines to fire Marine who adopted Afghan orphan

Military board substantiates misconduct but declines to fire Marine who adopted Afghan orphan
  • The Afghan couple who raised the child for 18 months in Afghanistan is seeking to have Mast’s adoption of her undone

CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C.: A US Marine whose adoption of an Afghan war orphan has spurred a yearslong legal battle and raised alarms at the highest levels of government will remain on active duty.
A three-member panel of Marines found Tuesday that while Maj. Joshua Mast acted in a way unbecoming of an officer in his zealous quest to bring home the baby girl, it did not warrant his separation from the military.
Lawyers for the Marine Corps argued Mast abused his position, disregarded orders of his superiors, mishandled classified information and improperly used a government computer in his fight over the child who was found orphaned on the battlefield in rural Afghanistan in 2019.
Mast and his wife, Stephanie, then lived in rural Fluvanna County, Virginia. They persuaded a judge there to grant them an adoption of the child, even though she remained in Afghanistan as the government there tracked down her extended family and reunited her with them. Mast helped the family flee Afghanistan after the Taliban took over in 2021. Once in the US, Mast used the adoption papers to get the federal government to take the child from her Afghan relatives and give her to him. She has remained with his family ever since.
A five-day board of inquiry hearing held partially behind closed doors at the Marine Forces Special Operations Command at Camp Lejeune was administrative, not criminal, and intended to determine whether Mast was fit to remain in the military. The worst outcome Mast might have faced was an other-than-honorable discharge.
Mast, 41, who now lives in Hampstead, North Carolina, denied the allegations against him, insisting he never disobeyed orders but was encouraged by his supervisors, and was simply upholding the code of the Marine Corps by working tirelessly to ensure the girl was safe. At the front of the room, he set up poster-sized photos of the child as a baby at Afghanistan’s Bagram Airfield and as a smiling toddler in North Carolina.
But because the board substantiated misconduct, a report will be entered into Mast’s file, which could affect promotions and assignments, the Marines said Tuesday. The board’s report will be sent up the ladder to the Secretary of the Navy, who will close the case against Mast.
The child’s fate, however, remains in limbo. The Afghan couple who raised the child for 18 months in Afghanistan is seeking to have Mast’s adoption of her undone. The US Department of Justice has intervened and contended that Mast lied to the Virginia court and federal officials to justify taking the girl, and his actions threaten America’s standing around the world.
The Virginia Court of Appeals ruled earlier this year that the adoption should have never been granted but the case is stalled at the Virginia Supreme Court.
Lawyers for the Afghan couple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Much of the government’s case in the hearing was held in secret because lawyers were presenting classified information. Everyone present in the nondescript conference room was dressed identically in camouflage. And Mast chose to make an unsworn statement in a closed session, which meant he was not subject to cross-examination.
But his wife, Stephanie, testified publicly, offering rare insight into the couple’s motivation for working so vigorously to bring the child into their home. The Masts have long declined to talk to The Associated Press about their actions and the Virginia court file remains sealed. The Masts, as well as the Afghan couple, are now barred from speaking to the media about the state court case.
Stephanie Mast wept as she described her husband’s decision to work to bring the girl back to the United States as exemplary of his commitment to Marine Corps values.
“It was very much an American response,” she said. “We value human life. As Marines, you serve and protect.”
The deciding panel of two lieutenant colonels and a colonel was allowed to ask questions, and one asked Stephanie Mast why she and her husband continued to try to adopt the girl even after she had been reunited with relatives in Afghanistan. They noted that multiple high-ranking officials, including then-Secretary of State Michael Pompeo and a federal judge, told them to stop.
When she responded that getting the child to the United States was their highest priority, the board asked whether the assumption that a child would be better off in the US rather than Afghanistan was a product of Western bias.
“They have a survival mentality,” she said of Afghans. “We believe in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And we wanted her to have that.”


Crashed Azerbaijani plane was riddled with holes after incident over Russia, report says

Crashed Azerbaijani plane was riddled with holes after incident over Russia, report says
Updated 56 min 7 sec ago
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Crashed Azerbaijani plane was riddled with holes after incident over Russia, report says

Crashed Azerbaijani plane was riddled with holes after incident over Russia, report says
  • A senior Azerbaijani government official told Reuters that the external impact referred to in the report was from a Russian surface-to-air missile
  • “The Azerbaijani side possesses a fragment of a Pantsir-S missile, which was extracted from the aircraft and identified through international expertise“

ASTANA: An Azerbaijani passenger plane that crashed in December after being diverted from Russia to Kazakhstan had suffered external damage and was riddled with holes in its fuselage, according to a report published on a Kazakh government website on Tuesday.
Thirty-eight people were killed when the Azerbaijan Airlines passenger plane crashed on Dec. 25 near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan after re-routing across the Caspian Sea from southern Russia.
Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev said in December the plane had been damaged by accidental shooting from the ground in Russia. Moscow has not confirmed this.
Following the crash, Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a rare apology to Aliyev for the “tragic incident” in Russian airspace, but the Kremlin did not say Russia had fired at the plane, only noting that a criminal case had been opened.
The preliminary report was issued under global aviation rules designed to draw lessons to prevent future accidents, rather than assigning blame or liability.
It was cautiously worded and did not say what had caused the extensive damage to the plane, including its stabilizers, hydraulics and trim systems.
But it included photographs showing the port side of the tail section was punctured with numerous holes. Also pictured were fragments that it described as “foreign metal objects” removed from the left stabilizer and hydraulic system.
A senior Azerbaijani government official told Reuters that the external impact referred to in the report was from a Russian surface-to-air missile.
“The Azerbaijani side possesses a fragment of a Pantsir-S missile, which was extracted from the aircraft and identified through international expertise,” the source said.
It was the first time that a Baku government source has claimed to have physical proof that Russia shot down the plane, a Brazilian-manufactured Embraer E190. No comment was immediately available from Russian officials late on Tuesday evening.
Russia says it has assigned its own investigation to the most experienced experts and that actions are being taken to establish the cause and circumstances of the incident.

’PASSENGERS ARE LOSING CONSCIOUSNESS’
The plane had been flying from Baku to Grozny in southern Russia, where the Kremlin said Ukrainian drones had been attacking several cities at the time.
Twenty-nine people survived the crash-landing in Kazakhstan. Aliyev has hailed the pilots, who died, as national heroes. The Azerbaijani leader has said that blame lies with Russian individuals, and that Baku demands justice.
The report said that at the start of the incident, the cockpit voice recorder identified the sound of two impacts in the space of 25 seconds. Two minutes later, the pilot reported to air traffic control that he thought the plane had suffered a bird strike.
After a further five minutes, he said the aircraft was losing control.
Several other airports were discussed as possible landing sites for the stricken plane before the crew decided to head to Aktau in Kazakhstan, which required them to fly east across the Caspian Sea.
“So, we have this situation, oxygen is running out in the passenger cabin, which means an oxygen tank exploded there, I think,” the pilot reported. “So there is a smell of fuel, some passengers are losing consciousness, give us permission to go at a lower altitude.”
The plane transmitted a distress signal while approaching Aktau. It collided with the ground there an hour and 12 minutes after the pilots first reported a problem.
Azerbaijan’s transport ministry, commenting on the report, said the plane had been fully airworthy but was damaged due to the impact of “external objects.”
It highlighted the report’s finding that it was not until eight minutes after the initial impacts that Russian air traffic controllers initiated a protocol that bans aircraft from flying in areas which are being subjected to drone attacks.


US flights carrying detained migrants to Guantanamo ‘underway’

US flights carrying detained migrants to Guantanamo ‘underway’
Updated 55 min 20 sec ago
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US flights carrying detained migrants to Guantanamo ‘underway’

US flights carrying detained migrants to Guantanamo ‘underway’
  • Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt: ‘Today, the first flights from the United States to Guantanamo Bay with illegal migrants are underway’
  • Guantanamo still holds 15 people incarcerated for militant activity, among them several accused plotters of the 9/11 attacks, including mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

WASHINGTON: The first US flights carrying detained migrants to America’s notorious Guantanamo military base in Cuba were underway Tuesday as President Donald Trump’s administration cracks down on illegal migration, the White House said.
Guantanamo is primarily known as a detention center for suspects accused of terrorism-related offenses, but the base also has a history of being used to hold migrants, and Trump last week ordered the preparation of a 30,000-person “migrant facility” there.
“Today, the first flights from the United States to Guantanamo Bay with illegal migrants are underway,” Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Fox Business.
Trump has launched what his second administration is casting as a major effort to combat illegal migration, trumpeting immigration raids, arrests and deportations on military aircraft.
The president has made the issue a priority on the international stage as well, threatening Colombia with sanctions and massive tariffs for turning back two planeloads of deportees.
The Guantanamo prison was opened in the wake of the 9/11 attacks and has been used to indefinitely hold detainees seized during the wars and other operations that followed.
The conditions there have prompted consistent outcry from rights groups, and UN experts have condemned it as a site of “unparalleled notoriety.”
Democratic presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden both sought to close the facility, but Congress has opposed efforts to shutter Guantanamo and it remains open to this day.
It still holds 15 people incarcerated for militant activity or terrorism-related offenses, among them several accused plotters of the 9/11 attacks, including self-proclaimed mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
But migrants will be detained in a separate part of the base.
According to US Southern Command, there are some 300 American military personnel at Guantanamo supporting “illegal alien holding operations.”
The base has for decades been used to hold Caribbean asylum seekers and refugees caught at sea, and was used in the 1990s to house tens of thousands of Haitians and Cubans who fled crises in their homelands.
They were accommodated in tent cities, with many eventually sent home after being held at Guantanamo for years.
Thousands of undocumented migrants have been arrested since Trump’s January 20 inauguration, including some accused of crimes.
An unknown number have been repatriated to Colombia, Mexico, Guatemala, Brazil and other countries, and Trump has vowed to expel millions.
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Monday described Guantanamo as the “perfect place” to detain migrants as he visited the border with Mexico — an area where the Trump administration has boosted the country’s military presence in recent weeks.
The Pentagon will provide any necessary assets “to support the expulsion and detention of those in our country illegally,” Hegseth said.


Australia bans Chinese AI program DeepSeek on government devices

Australia bans Chinese AI program DeepSeek on government devices
Updated 04 February 2025
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Australia bans Chinese AI program DeepSeek on government devices

Australia bans Chinese AI program DeepSeek on government devices
  • Australian government said DeepSeek poses 'an unacceptable level of security risk'
  • Several countries expressed concern about DeepSeek’s data practices

SYDNEY: Australia has banned DeepSeek from all government devices as it seeks to block “an unacceptable level of security risk” presented by the Chinese artificial intelligence program, according to an official order Tuesday.
“After considering threat and risk analysis, I have determined that the use of DeepSeek products, applications and web services poses an unacceptable level of security risk to the Australian Government,” Department of Home Affairs Secretary Stephanie Foster said in the directive.
As of Wednesday all non-corporate Commonwealth entities must “identify and remove all existing instances of DeepSeek products, applications and web services on all Australian Government systems and mobile devices,” she added.
The directive also required that access, use or installation of DeepSeek be prevented across government systems and mobile devices.
The action is the latest by governments from around the world which have been turning a spotlight on the services of the Chinese startup.
DeepSeek raised alarms last month when it claimed its new R1 chatbot matches the capacity of artificial intelligence pace-setters in the United States for a fraction of the cost.
Countries now including South Korea, Ireland, France, Australia and Italy have expressed concern about DeepSeek’s data practices, including how it handles personal data and what information is used to train DeepSeek’s AI system.


Navalny family mulls taking France to European court: lawyer

Navalny family mulls taking France to European court: lawyer
Updated 04 February 2025
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Navalny family mulls taking France to European court: lawyer

Navalny family mulls taking France to European court: lawyer
  • “We are considering taking the case to the European Court of Human Rights,” said William Bourdon, who represents Navalny’s family
  • “It was our duty to go all the way with his wife, in memory of Alexei“

PARIS: The family of late Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny is considering taking France to the European Court of Human Rights in a case that implicates French cosmetics firm Yves Rocher, a lawyer said on Tuesday.
In 2014, Navalny and his brother Oleg were found guilty of fraud and money laundering via their transport and logistics firm which was working with Yves Rocher.
The brothers later took Yves Rocher to court in France over alleged false accusations but their complaint was dismissed by the courts.
“We are considering taking the case to the European Court of Human Rights,” said William Bourdon, who represents Navalny’s family.
“It was our duty to go all the way with his wife, in memory of Alexei,” he said, referring to the opposition politician’s widow Yulia Navalnaya.
In 2013, Russian investigators accused the Navalny brothers of “stealing” and laundering millions of rubles from Yves Rocher and a Russian firm.
The indictment followed a protracted investigation, which Navalny dismissed as persecution over his political activities.
Oleg served three-and-a-half years in prison and was released in 2018, while Alexei received a three-and-a-half-year suspended sentence.
Yves Rocher, one of the first foreign cosmetics brands to enter Russia in 1991 after the Soviet Union’s demise, eventually acknowledged publically that it had sustained “no damage” in the money laundering case.
But in 2021, Russian authorities used the old embezzlement charges to jail Navalny. He died three years later in unclear circumstances, with his family saying he was killed on President Vladimir Putin’s orders.
“I’m in jail due to a criminal complaint by a French company,” Navalny said in 2022, referring to Yves Rocher.
In 2017, the European Court of Human Rights denounced the Russian court for its original ruling that was “arbitrary and manifestly unreasonable,” ordering that the brothers be paid 83,000 euros ($93,000) in damages and costs.
Alexei and Oleg Navalny then filed a false accusation complaint in the western French city of Vannes, nor far from Yves Rocher’s headquarters, and an inquiry was opened in 2019.
“We do believe that we will find here a real and fair justice which unfortunately we cannot find in Russia,” Alexei Navalny said at the time.
However, French judges eventually dropped the inquiry, and on Tuesday, the Court of Cassation, the highest court of the French judicial system, upheld the decision after an appeal by Navalny’s family.
“We are disappointed that the Vannes court was too cautious, which benefited Yves Rocher,” said Bourdon.


North Korea troops not in combat in Russia’s Kursk since mid-Jan: Seoul

North Korea troops not in combat in Russia’s Kursk since mid-Jan: Seoul
Updated 04 February 2025
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North Korea troops not in combat in Russia’s Kursk since mid-Jan: Seoul

North Korea troops not in combat in Russia’s Kursk since mid-Jan: Seoul
  • “Since mid-January, it appears that the North Korean troops deployed to the Kursk region of Russia have not engaged in combat,” South Korea’s National Intelligence Service said
  • “One reason for this may be the occurrence of many casualties, but the exact details are still being monitored“

SEOUL: North Korean soldiers previously fighting alongside Russia’s army on the Kursk front line appear not to have been engaged in combat since mid-January, South Korea’s spy agency told AFP Tuesday, after Ukraine claimed they had been withdrawn following heavy losses.
“Since mid-January, it appears that the North Korean troops deployed to the Kursk region of Russia have not engaged in combat,” South Korea’s National Intelligence Service said.
“One reason for this may be the occurrence of many casualties, but the exact details are still being monitored,” it added in a statement.
Ukraine’s military said Friday it believed North Korean soldiers deployed to the front line in Kursk had been “withdrawn” after suffering heavy losses.
Western, South Korean and Ukrainian intelligence agencies say Pyongyang deployed more than 10,000 troops to support Russian forces fighting in its western Kursk region, where Ukraine launched a shock cross-border offensive in August.
Neither Pyongyang nor Moscow have officially confirmed the troop deployment, but the two countries signed an agreement, including a mutual defense element, when Russian President Vladimir Putin made a rare visit to the nuclear-armed North last year.
Kyiv captured dozens of border settlements in the operation — the first time a foreign army had crossed into Russian territory since the Second World War — in an embarrassing setback for the Kremlin.
The North Korean deployment was supposed to reinforce Russia’s army and help it expel Ukraine’s troops — but nearly six months on Ukraine still holds swathes of Russian territory.
Ukraine previously said it had captured or killed several North Korean soldiers in Kursk.
President Volodymyr Zelensky has published footage of interrogations with what he said were North Korean prisoners captured by his army on the Kursk front.
Ukrainian officials have said wounded North Korean troops were blowing themselves up with grenades rather than being taken alive.
Kyiv and the West had denounced their deployment as a major escalation in the three-year conflict.
Seoul has previously said that due to losses among its forces, North Korea is preparing for additional deployment to Ukraine.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in December that Pyongyang is “preparing for the rotation or additional deployment of soldiers” to aid Russia’s war effort.
Pyongyang and Moscow have deepened political, military and cultural ties since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
In a New Year’s letter, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un hailed Putin and made a possible reference to the war in Ukraine.
He said 2025 would be the year “when the Russian army and people defeat neo-Nazism and achieve a great victory.”