Palantir Cuts Deal To Clear Landmines In Ukraine

So no HALO Trust?

From The Telegraph, March 2:

Ukraine strikes deal with Peter Thiel’s tech giant to clear unexploded mines
Palantir strikes deal amid plans to decontaminate 80pc of mined land within a decade

Ukraine has turned to a company founded by Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel to clear thousands of square miles of mines and explosives.

The deal will see Palantir supply Ukraine with its artificial intelligence (AI) tools to organise and accelerate its demining efforts.

Ukraine is hoping to decontaminate 80pc of its potentially mined land within 10 years and bring it back into economic use, freeing up millions of acres of farmland. Roughly a third of the country’s landmass is thought to be hazardous owing to mines or unexploded ordnance.

The World Bank has estimated efforts to remove the explosives could cost up to $38bn (£30bn), with Ukraine seeking international deals and support to accelerate the effort even as it grapples with Russian advances in the Donbas.

The 12-month agreement with Palantir builds on an earlier pilot programme. Palantir’s technology can be used to create a digital map of Ukraine’s territory and resources, such as heavy machinery and drones, and prioritise its clearance efforts.

Yulia Svyrydenko, Ukraine’s economic minister, said clearing Ukraine’s land would take “decades with the resources we have”.

“We’ve discussed with Palantir the opportunity to set up a programme for a more sophisticated approach”, she said. “It is very important to prioritise.”

The country has approximately 50 heavy demining machines and has trained around 3,500 sappers. It is seeking to double the number of machines it has available in deals with overseas suppliers and by boosting local factories.

Louis Mosley, Palantir’s European executive vice president, said the company’s technology “allows you to make a data driven decision about the highest priority area to demine”.

The deal with Palantir does not have an initial upfront cost to Ukraine.....

....MUCH MORE

I was thinking of the HALO Trust because of Lt Col Colin Campbell Mitchell and I was thinking of the Lieutenant Colonel because of the failure of the Western militaries to convince the Houthis to stop firing missiles at passing ships.

In Aden Yemen he led what has been referred to as the "Last Battle of the British Empire" in July 1967.

He and his 700 -strong 1st Battalion, Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders did a bayonet charge at 500-700 of the local militia and police who had perfidiously killed a bunch of Brits a couple weeks earlier.

As they charged the bagpipes began making their Godawful noise, in this case the regimental charge Mony Musk. Here's a recording from the year after the charge:

Commanding Officer Lt Col C.C. Mitchell
Drum Major WO ll J Malloch
Pipe Major Sgt. K. Robson
1968 

As the crazy Scotsmen are running straight at the Yemenis, the pipes go double-time. In December's "Maersk Ship Hit by Missile in the Red Sea"  I mentioned:

It might be time for a reprise of "Mad Mitch" in Yemen with cold steel and pipes skirling

with a short explanation after the jump:

...Back to Mad Mitch, after he was basically chased out of the British Army for exceeding his orders, he went on to found, along with his wife and another Scotsman, the HALO Trust, clearing landmines from the world's conflict areas and keeping kids bipedal. 

His regiment's march, Mony Musk, sounds like it would be quite terrifying to those being approached by a bunch of loony Scots, never mind the bayonets.

And then it goes up-tempo, Yikes! I'd be thinking, time to run.

It was in all the papers and contemporaneous reports on the "mad hillmen" were referring to the Scots, not the Houthis or other Yemenis. But as a result hardly a shot was fired, the Yemenis laid down their weapons and Britain pulled out of Aden, their only Arab colony, on the schedule they had announced in 1963 and the rest is history.

HALO Trust has cleared tens of thousand of acres of a million or two landmines in conflict zones all around the world, and kept a few thousand - or more - kids walking on two legs. 

Or walking at all.

And that's why I thought of the HALO Trust.