Canadian Minister of National Defence Bill Blair on Friday slammed Chinese fighter jets’ second “significantly unsafe” intercept in two weeks of Canadian aircraft patrolling the Pacific Ocean.
Blair told a news conference in Ottawa that a Chinese fighter jet on Sunday last week twice flew close to a Canadian Cyclone helicopter near the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島) in the South China Sea, and on the second flyby fired flares “directly in front” of the helicopter.
There was “little separation” between the fighter jet and the helicopter, he said.
“The actions of the People’s Republic of China fighter jet were deemed to be significantly unsafe, and we’ll express our concerns to the People’s Republic of China about that,” he said.
The helicopter and HMCS Ottawa were in the South China Sea as part of US and allied “freedom of navigation” crossings to reinforce the status of the body as an international waterway.
Beijing claims almost the entire South China Sea, through which trillions of dollars in trade passes annually, and has ignored an international court ruling that its assertion has no legal basis.
China’s assertiveness in the South China Sea through deploying hundreds of vessels and aircraft to the area, which has led to recent clashes with Philippine and Vietnamese ships, has become a growing concern for Washington and its regional allies.
Washington recently accused Beijing of orchestrating a “concerted” campaign of dangerous and provocative air force maneuvers against US military planes flying in international airspace in the region, warning that such moves could spark inadvertent conflict between the two powers.
Last month, Chinese fighter jets also buzzed a Canadian Aurora maritime patrol aircraft helping to enforce UN Security Council sanctions against North Korea in response to its nuclear weapons tests and ballistic missile launches.
Blair had called the latter actions by the Chinese air force — coming within 5m of the Canadian plane — “dangerous and reckless.”
Beijing hit back, accusing the Aurora plane of having “illegally intruded into the airspace” of Chiwei Islet (赤尾嶼), which lies in the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台) — known as the Senkaku Islands in Japan, which administers the territory that is also claimed by Taiwan and China.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
A new online voting system aimed at boosting turnout among the Philippines’ millions of overseas workers ahead of Monday’s mid-term elections has been marked by confusion and fears of disenfranchisement. Thousands of overseas Filipino workers have already cast their ballots in the race dominated by a bitter feud between President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and his impeached vice president, Sara Duterte. While official turnout figures are not yet publicly available, data from the Philippine Commission on Elections (COMELEC) showed that at least 134,000 of the 1.22 million registered overseas voters have signed up for the new online system, which opened on April 13. However,
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
RSS