Philippines
Eyes on threat from China
The threat of China invading Taiwan is something Manila is monitoring on a daily basis as part of its contingency plans for possible conflict in the region, Secretary of Defense Gilbert Teodoro told reporters yesterday. “We really have to make an assessment whether such is likely or not,” he said. “Nonetheless, we continue to plan on all contingencies not merely any flashpoint between China and Taiwan, but any contingency within the theatre.” Without providing specifics, Teodoro said the contingency measures being discussed were “a multiagency effort and not only a defense effort.”
RUSSIA
Wagner, Belarus hold drills
Wagner mercenaries are to help train Belarusian special forces during exercises at a military range near the border with NATO member Poland, the Belarusian Ministry of Defense said yesterday. Wagner head Yevgeny Prigozhin was shown in a video on Wednesday welcoming his fighters to Belarus, telling them they would take no further part in the Ukraine war for now, but ordering them to gather their strength for Africa. “The armed forces of Belarus continue joint training with the fighters of the Wagner,” the Belarusian ministry said.
UNITED STATES
US seeks soldier’s return
The government is actively engaged in ensuring the return of Private Travis King, who had crossed into North Korea, US Special Envoy for North Korea Sung Kim said at the opening of a trilateral meeting with Japan and South Korea on countering North Korean threats.
The government is working hard to ascertain information on the soldier’s wellbeing and engaged in “ensuring his safety and return,” Kim said. On Tuesday, King made an unauthorized crossing into North Korea, the same day a US nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarine visited South Korea for the first time since the 1980s. North Korea test launched two ballistic missiles into the sea early on Wednesday.
PAPUA NEW GUINEA
Bomb in Nauru defused
An “armed and dangerous” World War II bomb was yesterday dug up and defused on the small Pacific island of Nauru, the nation’s police force said. Schools were closed and Nauru’s 12,000 residents were urged to stay at home as Australian military specialists worked on the 227kg explosive, which was first discovered almost two weeks ago. Nauru yesterday morning declared a state of emergency across the island, evacuating all houses within 2km of the bomb. Police later said the device had been “disarmed and moved to a safe location for disposal.”
GERMANY
Lioness on the loose: police
Police yestereday urged residents of Berlin’s southern suburbs to stay indoors, as they scoured the area for a wild animal on the loose, apparently a lioness. Police first issued the alarm in the early morning hours, after two people saw what appeared to be a lioness chasing a wild boar down a street. “Around midnight, we received a message hard to imagine. Two passersby who saw one animal chasing another,” Brandenburg police spokesman Daniel Keip told RBB radio. “One was a wild boar and the other apparently a wild animal, a lioness. The two men recorded a video on their phones and even experienced policemen had to concede that it was probably a lioness,” he said. No details were immediately available on where the feline could have come from.
The Philippines yesterday said its coast guard would acquire 40 fast patrol craft from France, with plans to deploy some of them in disputed areas of the South China Sea. The deal is the “largest so far single purchase” in Manila’s ongoing effort to modernize its coast guard, with deliveries set to start in four years, Philippine Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Ronnie Gil Gavan told a news conference. He declined to provide specifications for the vessels, which Manila said would cost 25.8 billion pesos (US$440 million), to be funded by development aid from the French government. He said some of the vessels would
CARGO PLANE VECTOR: Officials said they believe that attacks involving incendiary devices on planes was the work of Russia’s military intelligence agency the GRU Western security officials suspect Russian intelligence was behind a plot to put incendiary devices in packages on cargo planes headed to North America, including one that caught fire at a courier hub in Germany and another that ignited in a warehouse in England. Poland last month said that it had arrested four people suspected to be linked to a foreign intelligence operation that carried out sabotage and was searching for two others. Lithuania’s prosecutor general Nida Grunskiene on Tuesday said that there were an unspecified number of people detained in several countries, offering no elaboration. The events come as Western officials say
A plane bringing Israeli soccer supporters home from Amsterdam landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Friday after a night of violence that Israeli and Dutch officials condemned as “anti-Semitic.” Dutch police said 62 arrests were made in connection with the violence, which erupted after a UEFA Europa League soccer tie between Amsterdam club Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Israeli flag carrier El Al said it was sending six planes to the Netherlands to bring the fans home, after the first flight carrying evacuees landed on Friday afternoon, the Israeli Airports Authority said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also ordered
Former US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi said if US President Joe Biden had ended his re-election bid sooner, the Democratic Party could have held a competitive nominating process to choose his replacement. “Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi said in an interview on Thursday published by the New York Times the next day. “The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary,” she said. Pelosi said she thought the Democratic candidate, US Vice President Kamala Harris, “would have done
RSS