��������

COPENHAGEN: A suspected drone sighting briefly shuttered a Danish airport on Friday for the second time in a few hours, after the country’s prime minister said the flights were part of “hybrid attacks” that may be linked to Russia.
Drones have been seen flying over several Danish airports since Wednesday, causing one of them to close for hours, after a sighting earlier this week prompted Copenhagen airport to shut down.
That followed a similar incident in Norway, drone incursions in Polish and Romanian territory and the violation of Estonian airspace by Russian fighter jets, which raised tensions in light of Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
“Over recent days, Denmark has been the victim of hybrid attacks,” Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said in a video message on social media on Thursday — referring to a form of unconventional warfare.
She warned that such drone flights “could multiply.”
Investigators said they had so far failed to identify those responsible, but Frederiksen stressed: “There is one main country that poses a threat to Europe’s security, and it is Russia.”
Moscow said Thursday it “firmly rejects” any suggestion that it was involved in the Danish incidents. Its embassy in Copenhagen called them “a staged provocation,” in a post on social media.
Denmark’s Justice Minister Peter Hummelgaard earlier said the aim of the attack was “to spread fear, create division and frighten us.”
He added that Copenhagen would acquire new enhanced capabilities to “detect” and “neutralize drones.”
Denmark will on Friday join other EU countries, mostly along the eastern border with Russia, in the first talks on proposals to build a “wall” of anti-drone defenses in the face of the tensions with Moscow.
Russia sabotage warning
Drones were spotted on Wednesday and early Thursday at airports in Aalborg, Esbjerg, Sonderborg and at the Skrydstrup air base before leaving on their own, police said.
Aalborg airport, located in northern Denmark, was initially shut down for several hours, and closed again for about an hour from late Thursday into early Friday morning due to another suspected sighting.
“It was not possible to take down the drones, which flew over a very large area over a couple of hours,” North Jutland chief police inspector Jesper Bojgaard Madsen said about the initial Aalborg incident.
The head of Denmark’s military intelligence, Thomas Ahrenkiel, told a news conference the service had not been able to identify who was behind the drones.
But intelligence chief Finn Borch said: “The risk of Russian sabotage in Denmark is high.”
Danish Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen told a news conference the flights appeared to be “the work of a professional actor... such a systematic operation in so many locations at virtually the same time.”
He said it had posed “no direct military threat” to Denmark.
Frederiksen said Thursday that she had spoken with NATO chief Mark Rutte about the incidents.
Lund Poulsen said the government had yet to decide whether to invoke NATO’s Article 4, under which any member state can call urgent talks when it feels its “territorial integrity, political independence or security” are at risk.
French President Emmanuel Macron said his country stood ready “to contribute to the security of Danish airspace.”
Copenhagen is set to host a summit of European Union leaders next week.
’Feel rather insecure’
Police said investigations were under way with the Danish intelligence service and the armed forces.
The drone activity shook some in Denmark, including 85-year-old Birgit Larsen.
“I feel rather insecure. I live in a country where there has been peace since 1945. I am not really used to thinking about war,” she told AFP in central Copenhagen.
Others were less concerned.
“It’s probably Russia, you know, testing the borders of Europe. They fly close to the borders and stuff and try to provoke, but not threaten,” said 48-year-old Torsten Froling.
The drone flights came after Denmark announced it would acquire long-range precision weapons for the first time, as Russia would pose a threat “for years to come.”

MANDALAY, Myanmar: Six Myanmar war widows speak softly of their grief as they walk inside the crumbling walls of Mandalay Palace, fresh arrivals in an earthquake-wracked city strained anew by conflict.
“We feel more freedom here,” said one among them, all widows of dead soldiers.
She was evacuated from her hometown, which was “ruined by war,” to the improbable refuge of a military-run quake recovery zone several months after it struck.
The March 28 jolt killed nearly 3,800 people as it flattened swaths of Mandalay – an ancient royal capital hemmed by jungle-clad mountains and the snaking Irrawaddy River.
The 7.7-magnitude tremor dealt an especially heavy blow in a country reeling from civil war since the military seized power in a 2021 coup.
The junta has pledged elections beginning on December 28 and has touted them as a path to peace with its myriad adversaries – from ragtag pro-democracy partisans to semi-professional ethnic minority armies.
However, a UN expert has dismissed the vote as a “fraud” and rebels have declared they will block it.
The military is besieging their enclaves with new offensives, bidding to expand the poll’s reach into regions it does not currently control.
Fighter jets and helicopters howl over Mandalay’s quake-dented skyline, flying toward front lines while newly displaced civilians arrive daily, crowding shelters in a city where much was razed.
Draped over the tarpaulin-wrapped palace parapet, a new red military banner urges: “Co-operate and crush all those harming the union.”
The widows, who AFP is not identifying for security reasons, have been left in mourning and displaced in a strange and wounded place.
“Some of our husbands fell in battle right before our eyes. Some fell far away,” said one, now raising three children alone.
“I have no idea about politics,” she said. “I do not think it is good that Myanmar people fight each other.”
‘I really hate war’
The strain is not immediately visible on the streets.
Most collapsed buildings have been cleared and the scaffolding-filled city resembles one undergoing a modest construction boom.
The gem market has become an unlikely hub for those displaced from the ruby-mining town of Mogok, around 115 kilometers north of Mandalay.
The junta, which has hammered the coveted town with air strikes since it was seized by rebels last summer, has said it will not hold elections there.
Now the displaced flee to Mandalay, hawking precious stones inside a shopping mall with cracked walls where trading has been restricted to the ground-floor entrance lobby.
“Because of the heavy fighting every day more and more people are coming,” said one recent arrival, touting tiny sapphires to prospective buyers.
More than 90,000 people, many jostling for aid, are living displaced in the Mandalay region, according to UN figures.
“We are getting less and less since the earthquake,” said 62-year-old Ohn May, who was sitting on the floor with around a dozen people among their belongings in a Buddhist monastery hall.
“We have been waiting for donations like chickens waiting for feed,” Ohn May said.
The prospect of polls is irrelevant for some as they scrabble to meet their daily needs.
“I do not want to think about who is right or wrong – about the power, or the politics, or whatever,” said a 56-year-old displaced teacher. “But what I know is I really hate war.”
Weary from a near half-decade of fighting, others like Khin Maung Htwe, 55, regard the election with a nothing-to-lose mindset.
Perhaps, he reasoned, “it will bring a little bit of peace and stability.”
“With the fighting, it’s the worst situation possible,” he said.
Nothing left to give
The March earthquake hit with a force so immense that the ground sheared up to six meters in places, according to NASA analysis, tearing gaping holes into roads.
Portions of the Sky Villa condo in Mandalay were pancaked in the deadliest single site, killing 206 people, according to the managers of the upmarket mid-rise.
The last of the bodies were recovered in mid-September, said a search and rescue worker as excavators churned through the ruins one recent morning.
A security guard, who once watched the daily lives of Sky Villa’s residents, has remained at his post for the past six months.
He guards the wreck of homes that buried many alive, observing a city hobbled by the combination of natural and human-made disasters.
“Everyone has their own problems and has had to look after themselves,” said the 65-year-old, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“They haven’t been able to look after each other.”