UNITED STATES
Japan missile deal approved
Washington on Friday approved Tokyo’s request to buy 400 Tomahawk missiles, part of Japan’s bid to bolster defenses despite fresh dialogue with China. The Department of State said it was approving the US$2.35 billion sale that includes two types of the Tomahawk missiles, which have a 1,600km range. The State Department said the sale was aimed at “improving the security of a major ally that is a force for political stability and economic progress in the Indo-Pacific region.” The sale “will improve Japan’s capability to meet current and future threats by providing a long-range, conventional surface-to-surface missile with significant standoff range that can neutralize growing threats,” it said in a statement.
UNITED STATES
Diddy Combs settles suit
Hip-hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs and his ex-girlfriend R&B vocalist Cassandra Ventura on Friday settled her lawsuit that accused the rapper of serial physical abuse, sexual slavery and rape, lawyers for Ventura said. Terms of the settlement were not disclosed. In a joint written statement with Combs, Ventura said that she “decided to resolve this matter amicably on terms that I have some level of control.” Ventura, who performs under the stage name Cassie, filed the lawsuit on Thursday in a New York federal court, accusing Combs of forcing her to engage in sex acts with a succession of male prostitutes he hired while he watched and filmed. The lawsuit also accused Combs of regularly beating Ventura over the course of a 10-year professional and romantic relationship, and that he raped her in 2018.
UNITED STATES
Marcos meets with Xi
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr on Friday met with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on the sidelines of the APEC summit in San Francisco, seeking ways to come up with ways to reduce tensions in the South China Sea and restore Filipino fishers’ access to fishing grounds. The Philippines and China need to continue to communicate, with the meeting a key part of the process to maintain peace, and keep open sea lanes and airways over the South China Sea, Marcos told reporters. “We tried to come up with mechanisms to lower the tensions in the South China Sea,” he said, without elaborating. Marcos said he voiced concern over incidents between Chinese and Philippine vessels, including one collision. He said he also raised the plight of Filipino fishermen. “I asked that we go back to the situation where both Chinese and Filipino fishermen were fishing together in these waters,” he said.
AUSTRIA
‘First Dog’ nips president
After Commander, US President Joe Biden’s biting German shepherd, Moldova’s presidential pooch Codrut is in the spotlight after nipping President Alexander Van der Bellen during a visit this week. Codrut, who was adopted by Moldovan President Maia Sandu a few months ago, snapped at Van der Bellen when he tried to pet her on Thursday. Van der Bellen, 79, sustained a light injury he dismissed as not “half as bad” as it appeared in video footage. He wrote on social media on Friday that he could “understand” the dog’s excitement as “he was nervous because of all the people around him.” Codrut has not been officially reprimanded, and was even given a dog toy by Van der Bellen as a parting gift.
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
Asian perspectives of the US have shifted from a country once perceived as a force of “moral legitimacy” to something akin to “a landlord seeking rent,” Singaporean Minister for Defence Ng Eng Hen (黃永宏) said on the sidelines of an international security meeting. Ng said in a round-table discussion at the Munich Security Conference in Germany that assumptions undertaken in the years after the end of World War II have fundamentally changed. One example is that from the time of former US president John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address more than 60 years ago, the image of the US was of a country
DEFENSE UPHEAVAL: Trump was also to remove the first woman to lead a military service, as well as the judge advocates general for the army, navy and air force US President Donald Trump on Friday fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General C.Q. Brown, and pushed out five other admirals and generals in an unprecedented shake-up of US military leadership. Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social that he would nominate former lieutenant general Dan “Razin” Caine to succeed Brown, breaking with tradition by pulling someone out of retirement for the first time to become the top military officer. The president would also replace the head of the US Navy, a position held by Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to lead a military service,
BLIND COST CUTTING: A DOGE push to lay off 2,000 energy department workers resulted in hundreds of staff at a nuclear security agency being fired — then ‘unfired’ US President Donald Trump’s administration has halted the firings of hundreds of federal employees who were tasked with working on the nation’s nuclear weapons programs, in an about-face that has left workers confused and experts cautioning that the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE’s) blind cost cutting would put communities at risk. Three US officials who spoke to The Associated Press said up to 350 employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) were abruptly laid off late on Thursday, with some losing access to e-mail before they’d learned they were fired, only to try to enter their offices on Friday morning
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