INDIA
Nuclear sub plans approved
The Cabinet on Wednesday approved plans to construct two of a new class of nuclear-powered attack submarines among the six the navy plans to make, two defense officials said on condition of anonymity, in a project estimated to cost about 450 billion rupees (US$5.4 billion). Faster, quieter and capable of longer underwater stays than conventional diesel-powered craft, which makes them more difficult to detect, nuclear-powered attack submarines rank among the most potent naval weapons in the world. Only a handful of nations make them, including China, France, Russia and the US. The new submarines are to be built at the government’s shipbuilding center in the port of Visakhapatnam. Conglomerate Larsen and Toubro is also expected to join the project, one of the officials said.
EGYPT
Cairo rejects Sudan claims
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has denied allegations by Sudanese paramilitary chief Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, at war with the army since April last year, that its military has been involved in the conflict. The war between Daglo’s Rapid Support Forces and the regular military, led by army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, has killed tens of thousands and caused the world’s largest displacement crisis. In a video posted online on Wednesday, Daglo accused the Egyptian air force of carrying out strikes targeting his forces near Jebel Moya, a key area south of Khartoum. In a statement issued later that day, the ministry denied the allegations “regarding the participation of the Egyptian air force in the battles taking place in brotherly Sudan,” it said.
MALAYSIA
Death penalty commuted
A former police officer convicted of murdering a Mongolian translator yesterday won an appeal against his death penalty, with the federal court commuting the sentence to 40 years in jail. Azilah Hadri, 48, was one of two bodyguards to then-
minister of defense Najib Razak convicted of shooting in 2006 Altantuya Shaariibuu, and then blowing up her body with military-grade explosives near Kuala Lumpur. His accomplice, Sirul Azhar Umar, fled to Australia in 2015, where he was held in immigration detention until his release in November last year. Azilah had filed the appeal after the nation passed a law last year that allows judges to commute death penalty sentences. Chief Justice Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat noted that Azilah’s appeal for a lighter sentence was also backed by the victim’s father, as she revised the penalty to 40 years behind bars and 12 strokes of the cane. Altantuya’s killing was linked to a scandal that allegedly saw kickbacks doled out during a 2002 deal to purchase French submarines, on which the Mongolian national worked as a translator.
JAPAN
Nuclear reactor to shutter
Kansai Electric Power Co yesterday said it would shut a nuclear reactor after finding a “tiny” hole in a pipeline, threatening to increase fossil fuel requirements to fill any electricity shortfall. The No. 3 reactor at the Mihama nuclear power plant in Fukui Prefecture was to be closed for inspection, the utility said in a filing, which did not provide a timeline for the shutter or restart. The hole was discovered in a pipe used to release water to the sea from the cooling system. Kansai Electric has canceled a tender to sell a cargo of liquefied natural gas for December delivery following the incident, traders with knowledge of the matter said. The tender was to close yesterday.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
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