Thailand will join three other Southeast Asian navies in patrolling the vital Strait of Malacca shipping lane to combat piracy and terrorism, Indonesia's military chief said.
General Endriartono Sutarto also said Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, which launched joint patrols last month, were open to offers of help from other countries.
"Last week, we expanded with Thailand to conduct coordinated patrols. We are still open to other countries outside the current four if they want to offer assistance," Sutarto said late on Thursday night.
He did not elaborate, but a senior navy officer said yesterday that a greater intelligence capacity was needed to combat militants.
"We are open to any intelligence on terrorism from other countries that can help us because we know terrorism must be fought together," said Indonesian Navy spokesman First Admiral Adiyaman Saputra.
Britain's top navy officer said in an interview published on Thursday that intelligence shows that al-Qaeda has plans to target merchant shipping in a bid to disrupt trade.
"We have got an underlying level of intelligence which shows there is a threat," the Royal Navy's First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff, Admiral Sir Alan West, was quoted as saying by Lloyd's List maritime newspaper.
West said ports and strategic sea lanes like the Malacca Straits posed the biggest risks as ships stack up in numbers. More than 50,000 commercial vessels sail the 800km channel each year.
Incumbent Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa on Sunday claimed a runaway victory in the nation’s presidential election, after voters endorsed the young leader’s “iron fist” approach to rampant cartel violence. With more than 90 percent of the votes counted, the National Election Council said Noboa had an unassailable 12-point lead over his leftist rival Luisa Gonzalez. Official results showed Noboa with 56 percent of the vote, against Gonzalez’s 44 percent — a far bigger winning margin than expected after a virtual tie in the first round. Speaking to jubilant supporters in his hometown of Olon, the 37-year-old president claimed a “historic victory.” “A huge hug
Two Belgian teenagers on Tuesday were charged with wildlife piracy after they were found with thousands of ants packed in test tubes in what Kenyan authorities said was part of a trend in trafficking smaller and lesser-known species. Lornoy David and Seppe Lodewijckx, two 19-year-olds who were arrested on April 5 with 5,000 ants at a guest house, appeared distraught during their appearance before a magistrate in Nairobi and were comforted in the courtroom by relatives. They told the magistrate that they were collecting the ants for fun and did not know that it was illegal. In a separate criminal case, Kenyan Dennis
A judge in Bangladesh issued an arrest warrant for the British member of parliament and former British economic secretary to the treasury Tulip Siddiq, who is a niece of former Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina, who was ousted in August last year in a mass uprising that ended her 15-year rule. The Bangladeshi Anti-Corruption Commission has been investigating allegations against Siddiq that she and her family members, including Hasina, illegally received land in a state-owned township project near Dhaka, the capital. Senior Special Judge of Dhaka Metropolitan Zakir Hossain passed the order on Sunday, after considering charges in three separate cases filed
APPORTIONING BLAME: The US president said that there were ‘millions of people dead because of three people’ — Vladimir Putin, Joe Biden and Volodymyr Zelenskiy US President Donald Trump on Monday resumed his attempts to blame Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy for Russia’s invasion, falsely accusing him of responsibility for “millions” of deaths. Trump — who had a blazing public row in the Oval Office with Zelenskiy six weeks ago — said the Ukranian shared the blame with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who ordered the February 2022 invasion, and then-US president Joe Biden. Trump told reporters that there were “millions of people dead because of three people.” “Let’s say Putin No. 1, but let’s say Biden, who had no idea what the hell he was doing, No. 2, and
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