Georgia yesterday called for the UN to probe the use of anti-aircraft weapons in its rebel region of Abkhazia, which on Sunday claimed to have downed two Georgian spy drones.
Georgia denied the planes were shot down.
But its foreign ministry urged the UN “to immediately institute an investigation regarding the presence and utilization of ‘air defense systems’ by the Abkhaz separatists in the security zone and to inform the international community about the results.”
“Abkhaz anti-aircraft forces today destroyed two unmanned Georgian spy planes” over eastern Abkhazia, the de facto defense ministry of the self-declared Abkhaz republic said in a statement.
Authorities were searching for fragments of the planes, the statement said.
But Georgia’s interior ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili immediately denied that any aircraft had been shot down.
“We categorically deny the loss of any Georgian planes,” Utiashvili said. “There were no Georgian planes flying in the region.”
A ministry statement described reports that the planes were shot down as “misinformation” and “another provocation ... aimed at facilitating Russia’s military intervention by providing information and propaganda support.”
Abkhazia, a Moscow-backed province that broke away from Georgian control during a war in the early 1990s, claimed on Sunday to have downed two unmanned Georgian reconnaissance plane, two weeks after a similar incident hiked tensions in the region.
Georgia has alleged that a Russian MiG-29 had downed a Georgian spy plane on April 20 in an incident Tbilisi described as “an act of aggression.”
Relations between Russia and Georgia have deteriorated since Moscow announced it was strengthening cooperation with Abkhazia and breakaway Georgian region South Ossetia.
In Moscow, a foreign ministry statement accused Tbilisi of stoking tensions.
“Resorting to adventures with unmanned reconnaissance planes ... the authorities in Tbilisi have taken the road of deliberately stoking tension in the region,” the statement said.
“Yet another provocative incident with two Georgian drones, which was played out on the scheme that had been worked out by Georgia’s defense ministry in advance, is proof that Tbilisi no longer considers the possibility of a peaceful resolution,” the Russian defense ministry said.
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
GEOPOLITICAL CONCERNS: Foreign companies such as Nissan, Volkswagen and Konica Minolta have pulled back their operations in China this year Foreign companies pulled more money from China last quarter, a sign that some investors are still pessimistic even as Beijing rolls out stimulus measures aimed at stabilizing growth. China’s direct investment liabilities in its balance of payments dropped US$8.1 billion in the third quarter, data released by the Chinese State Administration of Foreign Exchange showed on Friday. The gauge, which measures foreign direct investment (FDI) in China, was down almost US$13 billion for the first nine months of the year. Foreign investment into China has slumped in the past three years after hitting a record in 2021, a casualty of geopolitical tensions,
‘SOMETHING SPECIAL’: Donald Trump vowed to reward his supporters, while President William Lai said he was confident the Taiwan-US partnership would continue Donald Trump was elected the 47th president of the US early yesterday morning, an extraordinary comeback for a former president who was convicted of felony charges and survived two assassination attempts. With a win in Wisconsin, Trump cleared the 270 electoral votes needed to clinch the presidency. As of press time last night, The Associated Press had Trump on 277 electoral college votes to 224 for US Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s nominee, with Alaska, Arizona, Maine, Michigan and Nevada yet to finalize results. He had 71,289,216 votes nationwide, or 51 percent, while Harris had 66,360,324 (47.5 percent). “We’ve been through so
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