Week 23 in Review

Below is a short overview of the news this week. If you have events or updates to share with our network, you may forward them to info {at} efadrones.org.

 

We launched a country profile for Norway which can be found here. Particularly of interest with regards to Norway is the involvement in the armed drone industry, and the facilitation of sattellite connections for the use of drones via SvalStat, despite the fact that rhetoric on drones in Norwegian discourse is often critical.

The Stimson Center together with CIVIC launched the “An Action Plan on U.S. Drone Policy: Recommendations for the Trump Administration” , alongside an event and a publication at DefenseOne.

Reprieve published an letter written by Yemeni father Saleh al Manthari, whos son was killed in a drone strike: ‘An American drone killed my son; President Trump has still not apologised.’ The man was not part of Al Qaida according to both his father and other local sources, and the US will be conducting a review of what happened.

In Belarus, a single-fire rocket launcher was fixed to a quadcopter and presented as an “anti-tank” drone.

In Turkey, President Erdogan presented a new design of an armed drone on television, “featuring operational capabilities similar to the US made General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper“.