Baltic NEWS in UK » nato

NATO Fills Lithuanian Skies

Joanna - Baltic NEWS in UK — Mon, 07 Apr 2014 13:47:17 +0000

The skies over Lithuania have become very busy of late. One hundred US air force personnel, F-15 fighter jets and a NATO early warning radar plane plus JAS-39 Gripen of the Swedish air force have all been deployed at Šiauliai in Northern Lithuania. Šiauliai is the largest former military airbase in Eastern Europe; it is reputedly big enough to land a Space Shuttle. In practice runs the F 15 fighters aim to be airborne with in 15 minutes of an alarm being rung. Lithuania do also have military planes of their own, just not enough of them to police the skies from recent frequent Russian ‘fly byes’, so NATO’s more equipped members intend to take turns doing it for them. The US has provided ten F 15, up from the usual 4 provided and offers of planes have come from other member states including France, Denmark and the UK.

The force in Šiauliai can also be backed up by Uedem, a base in Northern Germany. Here a variety of NATO forces work together in collaboration to monitor the skies and track planes travelling over the Baltic States. Air borne forces from Uedem can be deployed at a moments notice to back up those already in the Baltics if required.

Since 9/11 it isn’t just the recent excess of Russian planes causing such intense scrutiny of the skies, unidentified civilian planes are treated with equal concern.

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E-stonian Cyber Experts

Joanna - Baltic NEWS in UK — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 17:18:29 +0000

During a recent meeting between Finnish Parlimentary Speaker Eero Heinaluoma and Estonian Foreign Minister Ulmas Paet held in Tallinn, Estonia particular emphasis was put upon the co-operation that exists between Finland and Estonia. “Estonia and Finland contribute to the development of the Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region and the digital market,” remarked Ulmas Paet.

Indeed Estonia has in recent years been dubbed ‘E-stonia’ due to some major advancement in cyber technology which includes Estonia’s involvement in the creation of the now globally employed computer communication system, Skype. After experiencing Cyber-war in 2007; government, financial and media computer networks were paralyzed by a series of attacks, which authorities ultimately concluded originated in Russia, Estonia took stock and remodeled their cyber defense systems and tightened up their on line digital IDs formats. Much help and advice in this was provided by the Cyber Defense League, a volunteer group organization made up of programmers, computer scientists and software engineers. Estonia is also the base for Cooperation Cyber Defense Center of Excellence (CCDCOE), a NATO-approved think-tank that creates new strategies for the understanding and prevention of online attacks. The center is used internationally as a base for information sharing and research.

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Baltic States Presidents Meet with Barack Obama for Discussions in Poland

Simon - Baltic NEWS in UK — Tue, 31 May 2011 12:23:48 +0000

All three Presidents of the Baltic states; Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia had the opportunity to meet and hold individual discussions with US President Barack Obama in Warsaw, Poland at a dinner on Friday. As part of his European tour President Obama attended a working dinner in Poland with the leaders of Central and Eastern Europe.

High on the agenda for Lithuania’s President, Dalia Grybauskaitė was the issue of NATO. On Thursday she was quoted as saying, regarding her impending meeting with Mr Obama, “I will raise issues of urgent importance to Lithuania and other NATO border states. We’re seeking that NATO’s missile defence system, agreed upon last year in Lisbon, should cover all members of the alliance,”

Estonia’s President Toomas Hendric Ilves said of his meeting with the US president, “It is in the interests of both the democratic states of Europe and the United States of America that there are as much strong democratic economies and internationally responsible regions in the world as possible,”

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