Editor’s Note: Samson Inocencio Jr. is the national director of the Philippines’ International Judicial Mission (IJM) and regional vice president of IJM’s OSEC hub, and is opposed to online sexual exploitation of children (OSEC). The views expressed in this commentary are the views of the authors only.

On this day in the world against human trafficking, I realized that I myself held two truths in tension. It’s deep despair and deep hope. After more than 20 years fighting human trafficking in the Philippines, I have witnessed both the unthinkable harm that was inflicted on my children and the extraordinary progress made to stop it.

Now, on an astonishing scale, sex offenders around the world conspire online with traffickers from countries like the Philippines to pay livestreams of child sexual abuse as the offenders directed in real time. As part of the International Judicial Mission (IJM), I am committed to leading a team in the Philippines to protect children from this horrific human trafficking. There, young victims are being trafficked to produce child sex abuse material (CSAM).

At the same time, I am looking forward to seeing incredible success in partnership with the Philippine government to deal with this crime. Since 2011, through IJM-backed cases, Philippine law enforcement has safely led more than 1,470 victims (and at-risk individuals), arrested more than 430 traffickers and convicted more than 265 assailants. In 2016, the US Department of State also recognized this advancement by upgrading the Philippines to Tier 1 in its Human Trafficking (TIP) report. The message was clear. When the judicial system is equipped and accountable, they can stop human trafficking.

However, despite this advancement and commitment from the government, the trafficking enhanced by this particular form of technology continues to destroy communities across the Philippines and around the world. It has become clear that individual governments and bilateral partnership efforts cannot be relied solely on individual governments or bilateral partnership efforts to properly address the tide of violence against children on the Internet. That alone isn’t enough.

“Technology companies must play a pivotal role in preventing victims and vulnerable individuals from being exploited through the use of online platforms and be part of their solutions to combat human trafficking,” according to the 2024 TIP Report. And with many of the world’s largest and most influential technology companies being based in the United States, the US Congress must pass laws to properly encourage this influential sector.

Countries like the United States, where sex offenders who drive the demand for this crime often live, and online platforms, payment processors and money transfer services that make it wrong must take action. This comes at a timely moment for US policymakers who are increasingly paying attention to the crisis of children being exploited online.

It is when the US Congress passes the CSAM Act (HR3921 and S.1829). The momentum of the law was considered at a march hearing before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee and advanced bipartisanly by that committee on a unanimous 22-0 vote on June 12th. If enacted, the bill would allow victims to promote or assist in exploitation and seek legal reliance on online platforms that exploit it.

The STOP CSAM Act also helps to improve the quality of reports that online platforms have submitted to the National Centre for CybertiPline of Dead Children by requiring the platform to report specific details of child sexual exploitation. Online platforms must report this form of child sex trafficking under the Reporting Act, passed by Congress and signed into law in May 2024. The STOPCSAM Act strengthens existing reporting obligations and highlights the importance of including certain data points in CybertiPline reports that help you identify or find children, including whether users are actively watching whether they are being exploited or not.

It is a moral obligation to stop the online sexual exploitation of children. And it should be enforced by an increase in legislative measures in the United States.

The work is hard and long, marked by moments of deep fatigue and despair, but hope still wins. Last year, I was recognized as a reporting hero for human trafficking by the US State Department, which gave me a glimpse of this sustained hope. Looking back at the last 20 years of this work, I have undoubtedly witnessed the darkest side of humanity. But my team and I have also experienced deep generosity and care from those who work to combat this crime. And we are supported by the experience of change possible.

The sea of Baltic trees and pine seas of the Baltic Sea sways in the wind as the roads go deep into the forest. In the peaceful depths of Western Lithuania National Park here in Lithuania, a idyllic lake, wetlands, old villages and forest area 30 miles inland from the Baltic Sea, Soviet missile operators were eagerly waiting for the destruction of Western Europe.

Today, the once-classified complex known as the Plokštinė missile base is the Cold War Museum, the park’s most visited attraction. In 2024, 35,000 people from all over the world came to explore this eerie underground world, including underground rooms, passageways and missile silos.

Some lines of barbed wire greet anyone arriving at the facility. Afterwards, four white domes appear, a bunker that once housed weapons of mass destruction, in contrast to the greenery of the forest. The structure stands there like a parasitic mushroom that does not belong to its surroundings.

The history of the base reflects the logic of the Cold War and the nuclear weapons race. Western Lithuania – At the time, some of the Soviet Union’s Soviet Socialist Republics were the best places to store warheads targeting NATO countries.

Lithuania, which faced Scandinavia in the Baltic Sea, was transformed into a highly militarized zone with rocket bases, military towns and risons. Nearby Latvia and Estonia (part of the Soviet Union) suffered the same fate.

Located anywhere, Plokshin Forest provided the ideal conditions for building a secret underground complex. The nearby 4.6 square miles of Plateria Lake provided water for the cooling system, with small populations in the surrounding villages and soft, sandy soils making it easy to excavate.

The Plokštinė missile base was completed in 1962 after two years of construction involving more than 10,000 workers across the Soviet Union. Such immeasurable work was not noticed by the locals.

“People didn’t know what kind of weapons were stored there, but we knew about this place,” says Aušra Brazdeikytė, a guide to the Cold War Museum.

Brazil was born in a village not too far from the base and spent his life in the area.

Soldiers became equipment for local living, and hearing about heavy equipment transporting military equipment was a regular event.

“We worked with various Soviet Republic soldiers on collective farms, but we never discussed military topics,” she recalls. Asking the wrong questions could end tragically in the Soviet Union.

The complex was largely fixed, with two miles of electric fences stretching around the base. The dense forests became even more difficult to reach, so locals refused to access it.

All this secret has been rewarded. The US Intelligence Agency discovered the base through satellite reconnaissance in 1978. By then, the Soviets had abolished the facility as part of the rocket disarmament agreement between the Soviet Union and the US.

The entrance to the facility, as usual, passes through a hole in the ground.

“Please, wipe your feet,” reads the Russian sign in Russian on the sealed door. Cleanliness is important in the workplace, especially if you work in a secret underground facility with a nuclear warhead.

The Plokštinė missile base was an elaborate military project, an exemplary facility of this kind of the Soviet Union. There were also four 100-foot shafts that housed R-12 DVINA surface-to-surface missiles, centered around an underground command center with a corridor network. There were also underground power plants to generate energy in emergencies.

After Lithuania declared independence from the Soviet Union in 1990 and subsequently declared the collapse of the iron curtain, the base was abandoned completely and plundered for metal. Thanks to EU funding, local officials were able to establish an incredible museum that opened in 2012, offering public access to a command center, an electric factory and one silo.

Walking through the dimly lit underground maze gives you a creepy feeling. Especially because it is filled with Soviet tools. Lenin and Stalin statues, military awards, hammer and chicque ceramic and flags. Visitors pass through interactive halls of themes dedicated to different stages of the Cold War and learn about propaganda produced in the second half of the 20th century. All over the place, realistic silicone mannequins of grumpy soldiers send you into the eerie Soviet-style valleys.

The most striking attraction is the abandoned ruins of military technology. The skeletons from the old electric factory are the ideal backdrop for computer games. There is a huge hall where tanks with missile fuel are stored.

However, the highlight is the silo. You will feel a small dizzy at the edge of the 100-foot hole and standing at the edge of the deep by. The missiles left this shaft unattended and did not seed destruction, but they had casualties over the years.

“When his (safe) belt broke during routine service checks, the soldier fell into his death,” says Brazdeikytė, whose words echoing gloomy in the darkness.

“Two other soldiers died during a nitrate spill while trying to refuel the missile,” she adds. The darkness gets thicker.

Apart from the four silos are ghost towns that were never named. Originally it housed around 300 soldiers and officers who worked at missile bases.

Oddly, after the abolition of Plokštinėbase, several management buildings in the town were converted into children’s summer camps. It was called žuvėdra, meaning Segal, and ran from 1979 to 1990. The bus stop just behind the entrance gate features a colorful mural showing the gnome of a mushroom carrying flowers.

There is not much left in the military town today. The most compelling sight is a series of previous storage hangars. Covered with mud and grass, it looks like an ancient pyramid lost in the forest.

Heaven and Hell

The juxtaposition of a gloomy abandoned nuclear missile base and the beautiful regions surrounding it could be an all-talk of modern Lithuania.

The country has overcome Soviet decades and transformed the scars of the Cold War into a moment of teaching.

Away from the base, Zematilla National Park is one of the most luxurious places in Lithuania and is filled with attractions. A visit to the park will take you to the heart of Samogitia, a region with a rich local culture. Pagan and Christian traditions coexist here. The land is considered to be the last part of Europe that converted to Christianity in the 15th century.

Samogitia pancakes, o Samogitan pancakes are a local food superstar. These are heartwarming potato pancakes with meat inside. Zeppelins, Potato dumplings stuffed with cottage cheese and ground meat are another comfortable Lithuanian food. And no one leaves without sampling Cold Bouchecold pink beetroot soup.

The town of Plateria, 15 minutes north of the nuclear location, is home to the church of the apostles Peter and Paul, a wooden building that poses awe-inspiring. The town’s restored mansion features the Mardi Gras Museum, with its distinctive wooden mask.

Lake Plateria itself is for nature lovers, with cycling and hiking trails, waterside campsite spots and a scenic restaurant next to the coast.

Once upon a time, Jemaitilla’s greatest secret was the Prockstein nuclear missile base. Today, the region itself is a hidden gem of slow travel in Europe.

London
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The founders of the pro-Palestinian activist group have earned the right to challenge the UK government’s decision to ban the group under anti-terrorism laws.

London High Court Judge Martin Chamberlain said Palestinian Action co-founder Huda ammori granted permission to seek judicial review on Wednesday, saying it was “reasonably controversial,” and that the ban disproportionately obstructed the group’s rights to freedom of expression, assembly and associations under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

The UK-based group, which aims to disrupt the operations of arms manufacturers that supply the Israeli government, was banned earlier this month after two Palestinian activists invaded the largest air force base in central England and damaged two military aircraft in June.

The group’s prohibition is illegal under British law, and is either a member of Palestinian actions or invites support, making it equivalent to terrorist organizations such as Hamas, al-Qaeda and ISIS.

The move has been criticized by several human rights groups, including UN Human Rights Chief Vol Cartark, who said on Friday that it raised concerns that UK terrorism law “is applied to conduct that is essentially not terrorists but risks preventing the legal exercise of basic freedoms.”

Earlier this month, the High Court rejected ammori’s application to suspend the ban.

On Wednesday, Judge Chamberlain said that British Secretary of the Interior Yvette Cooper, who filed the ban, may have consulted Palestinian actions before the ban.

The judicial review may take place in September.

CNN reached out to the Home Office for comment.

The news comes as more than 200 people have been arrested in support of the group since July 5, according to the defense of the UK-based nonprofit Ju Court. Many have been arrested on suspicion of terrorist crimes because they displayed posters in support of the group or Palestinian cause.

Demonstrations of Palestinian action took place across the UK, including London, Edinburgh, Manchester, Bristol and Truro.

As previously reported, the 8.8 magnitude earthquake on Wednesday off the east coast of Russia is tied to the sixth strongest recorded.

It lined up along the devastating 2010 Chilean earthquake, killing more than 500 people, causing massive destruction, causing the 1906 earthquake in Ecuador and Colombia, causing tsunamis that killed 1,500 people.

“This is the biggest earthquake we’ve done in more than a decade in the world,” Jeffrey Park, a seismologist and professor of Earth and Planetary Science at Yale University, told CNN News Central on Wednesday.

“It’s one of the top 10 earthquakes measured by humans in the last half century.”

Lisa McNeill, a professor of tectonics at the University of Southampton in the UK, was said to have “ruptured the past of the subduction zone in Krill Kamchatka,” the same structural environment as the 2011 Japan and the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake.

It was a “very big earthquake,” she said. “The subduction zone is where one tectonic plate collides and slides under another earthquake, which creates the largest earthquake on the planet.

“There are no tsunamis as some fault movements do not move much on the seabed,” she added. “In this earthquake, there was a very large burst and slip (the earthquake becomes large), which created a tsunami.”

Joanna Fare Walker, professor of seismic geology and disaster risk reduction at UCL, also mentioned the role of seafloor displacement in driving the tsunami layer.

“Tsutami travels across the ocean at speeds comparable to a jumbo jet,” she said, adding that when the waves reach shallower coastal waters it slows down and builds heights.