DUBAI: Russia launched 215 drones and missiles in an overnight attack on Ukraine, Ukraine’s air force said.
Air force units shot down 48 missiles and 64 drones, while 68 drones were redirected by electronic warfare, the air force said in a post on Telegram.
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Russia launched 215 drones and missiles against Ukraine overnight, Ukrainian air force says
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Russia launched 215 drones and missiles against Ukraine overnight, Ukrainian air force says
Nearly 200 migrants in small boats rescued in Channel
Lille: Nearly 200 migrants trying to cross the Channel from France to Britain in small boats were rescued between late Friday and late Saturday, French coastal authorities said.
A total 184 people were picked up in four different rescue operations, the maritime prefecture for France’s Channel and northern region said in a statement on Sunday.
In one instance, the motor died on a boat carrying 61 people. In another, nine people on a boat called for assistance.
According to an AFP tally of official figures, 15 people have died so far this year trying to cross the Channel, one of the busiest areas in the world for shipping.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer in May announced tougher new policies to tackle high levels of regular and irregular migration, in an attempt to stem a growing loss of support to the hard right.
They include looking at the creation of centers in other countries to take in migrants whose asylum applications have been turned down.
The EU has also unveiled plans to make it easier to send asylum seekers to certain countries outside the bloc, in the latest overhaul aimed at reducing irregular migration.
Bangladesh opens fugitive ex-PM’s trial over protest killings
- Up to 1,400 people were killed between July and August 2024 when Hasina’s government launched its crackdown, according to the United Nations
DHAKA: Fugitive former prime minister Sheikh Hasina orchestrated a “systemic attack” to try to crush the uprising against her government, Bangladeshi prosecutors said at the opening of her trial on Sunday.
Up to 1,400 people were killed between July and August 2024 when Hasina’s government launched its crackdown, according to the United Nations.
Hasina, 77, fled by helicopter to her old ally India as the student-led uprising ended her 15-year rule, and she has defied an extradition order to return to Dhaka.
The domestic International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) is prosecuting former senior figures connected to Hasina’s ousted government and her now-banned party, the Awami League.
“Upon scrutinizing the evidence, we reached the conclusion that it was a coordinated, widespread and systematic attack,” Mohammad Tajul Islam, ICT chief prosecutor, told the court in his opening speech.
“The accused unleashed all law enforcement agencies and her armed party members to crush the uprising.”
Islam lodged charges against Hasina and two other officials of “abetment, incitement, complicity, facilitation, conspiracy, and failure to prevent mass murder during the July uprising.”
Hasina, who remains in self-imposed exile in India, has rejected the charges as politically motivated.
As well as Hasina, the case includes ex-police chief Chowdhury Abdullah Al Mamun — who is in custody, but who did not appear in court on Sunday — and former interior minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal, who like Hasina, is on the run.
The prosecution of senior figures from Hasina’s government is a key demand of several of the political parties now jostling for power. The interim government has vowed to hold elections before June 2026.
The hearing is being broadcast live on state-owned Bangladesh Television.
Prosecutor Islam vowed the trial would be impartial.
“This is not an act of vendetta, but a commitment to the principle that, in a democratic country, there is no room for crimes against humanity,” he said.
Investigators have collected video footage, audio clips, Hasina’s phone conversations, records of helicopter and drone movements, as well as statements from victims of the crackdown as part of their probe.
The ICT court opened its first trial connected to the previous government on May 25.
In that case, eight police officials face charges of crimes against humanity over the killing of six protesters on August 5, the day Hasina fled the country.
Four of the officers are in custody and four are being tried in absentia.
The ICT was set up by Hasina in 2009 to investigate crimes committed by the Pakistani army during Bangladesh’s war for independence in 1971.
It sentenced numerous prominent political opponents to death and became widely seen as a means for Hasina to eliminate rivals.
Earlier on Sunday, the Supreme Court restored the registration of the largest Islamist party, Jamaat-e-Islami, allowing it to take part in elections.
Hasina banned Jamaat-e-Islami during her tenure and cracked down on its leaders.
In May, Bangladesh’s interim government banned the Awami League, pending the outcome of her trial, and of other party leaders.
Europe bristles at US proposals at Asian gathering, India-Pakistan hostility on show
- US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says Washington wants Europeans to concentrate on European security at summit
- India, Pakistan military delegations pointedly keep out of each other’s way in hotel corridors and meeting halls
SINGAPORE: The Shangri-La Dialogue security meeting in Singapore has long been marked by US-China rivalry but Beijing’s relative retreat at the weekend exposed a new faultline — tensions between the US and Europe over Asia.
Even as he warned in a speech on Saturday that China posed an “imminent” threat, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth made clear he wanted Europeans to concentrate on European security as they boosted military budgets.
“We would much prefer that the overwhelming balance of European investment be on that continent...so that as we partner there, which we will continue to do, we’re able to use our comparative advantage as an Indo-Pacific nation to support our partners here,” he said.
Hegseth also noted the absence of his Chinese counterpart Dong Jun, as Beijing instead dispatched a low-level team of military scholars to the annual event, which attracts top defense officials, diplomats, spies and arms dealers from across the world.
The other highlight of the event was the presence of high-powered military delegations from India and Pakistan after four days of intense clashes between the nuclear-armed neighbors that were halted by a ceasefire on May 10.
The delegations, in full uniform and bristling with medal and service ribbons, were led by India’s highest-ranking military officer and Pakistan’s chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. They pointedly kept out of each other’s way in the corridors and meeting halls of the sprawling Shangri-La hotel.
On engaging in Asia, at least some European nations signaled they would not be swayed by the US exhortations.
They insisted they would try to stay in both the Asian and European theaters, noting their deep links and vital trade flows as well as the global nature of conflict.
“It is a good thing we are doing more (in Europe), but what I want to stress is that the security of Europe and the security of the Pacific is very much interlinked,” said Europe’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas.
“If you are worried about China, you should be worried about Russia,” Kallas said, underlining the importance of Chinese assistance to the Russian war effort in Ukraine and Moscow’s deployment of North Korean soldiers.
FRANCE’S ASIAN TIES
French President Emmanuel Macron insisted that his nation remains an Indo-Pacific power, alluding to its enduring colonial presence in New Caledonia and French Polynesia and the basing of over 8,000 soldiers across the region.
“We are neither China nor the US, we don’t want to depend on either of them,” Macron said at a press conference on Friday, outlining a “third path” coalition between Europe and Asia that avoided having to choose between Beijing and Washington.
“We want to cooperate with both as far as we can, and we can cooperate for growth and prosperity and stability for our people and the world order, and I think this is exactly the same view of a lot of countries and a lot of people of this region,” he said.
Beyond the rhetoric, regional military attaches and analysts say the European regional presence — and ambitions — may not be easy to shift.
Military deployments are mapped out over decades rather than months, and both commercial and defense relationships go back decades, some of them only rarely publicly acknowledged.
The visit of a British aircraft carrier to Singapore later this month is part of a program first mentioned by then-Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson in 2017 to stress British support for freedom of navigation in the South China Sea.
The carrier visit in part reflects Britain’s commitments under the 54-year-old Five-Power Defense Arrangement that links its military with counterparts in Singapore, Malaysia, Australia and New Zealand.
British ties with Australia have been bolstered with the recent three-way AUKUS submarine and advanced technology sharing agreement struck with the US — a move that could see British submarines visiting Western Australia.
Singapore meanwhile keeps 200 personnel in France operating 12 of its light combat aircraft while Britain also has a jungle training camp and helicopters in Brunei and a 1,200-strong Gurkha battalion, according to International Institute of Strategic Studies data.
A report last month by the London-based IISS highlighted European defense firms’ long-standing and expanding defense ties to Asia, even in the face of competition, particularly from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates as regional budgets rise.
“European companies, including Airbus, Damen, Naval Group and Thales, have a long-standing presence in Southeast Asia, and other European actors have established themselves in the market in the last decade, including Italy’s Fincantieri and Sweden’s Saab,” the IISS study said.
Saab is close to securing a deal with US ally Thailand to supply its Gripen fighters, beating out Lockheed Martin’s F-16s.
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute has reported that Asian defense spending rose 46 percent in the decade to 2024, reaching $629 billion.
For Finnish officials at least, Hegseth’s remarks resonated — it is Moscow rather than the Indo-Pacific that looms large for Helsinki given the country’s long Russian border.
“When Europe’s defense is in a good shape, then you will have resources to do something more,” Finnish Defense Minister Antti Hakkanen told Reuters.
“But now all the European countries must do their main focus on European defense so that the United States can do a bigger share in the Indo-Pacific area,” Hakkanen said.
China says Hegseth is touting a Cold War mentality in calling it a threat
- The Chinese foreign ministry said Hegseth had vilified Beijing with defamatory allegations the previous day before at the Shangri-La Dialogue
BEJING: China on Sunday denounced US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for calling the Asian country a threat, accusing him of touting a Cold War mentality as tensions between Washington and Beijing further escalate.
The foreign ministry said Hegseth had vilified Beijing with defamatory allegations the previous day before at the Shangri-La Dialogue, a global security conference. The statement also accused the United States of inciting conflict and confrontation in the region.
“Hegseth deliberately ignored the call for peace and development by countries in the region, and instead touted the Cold War mentality for bloc confrontation,” it said, referring to the post-World War II rivalry between the US and the former Soviet Union.
“No country in the world deserves to be called a hegemonic power other than the US itself,” it said, alleging that Washington is also undermining peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific.
Hegseth said in Singapore on Saturday that Washington will bolster its defenses overseas to counter what the Pentagon sees as rapidly developing threats by Beijing, particularly in its aggressive stance toward Taiwan.
China’s army “is rehearsing for the real deal,” Hegseth said. “We are not going to sugarcoat it — the threat China poses is real. And it could be imminent.”
The Chinese statement stressed that the Taiwan question is entirely China’s internal affair, saying the US must “never play with fire” with it. It also alleged Washington had deployed offensive weaponry in the South China Sea, was “stoking flames and creating tensions in the Asia-Pacific” and “turning the region into a powder keg.”
In a Facebook post on Saturday, China’s Embassy in Singapore said Hegseth’s speech was “steeped in provocations and instigation.”
The US and China had reached a deal last month to cut US President Donald Trump’s tariffs from 145 percent to 30 percent for 90 days, creating time for negotiators from both sides to reach a more substantive agreement. China also reduced its taxes on US goods from 125 percent to 10 percent.
But it’s uncertain if a trade war truce will last. Trump in a social media post on Friday said he would no longer be “nice” with China when it comes to trade and accused Beijing of breaking an unspecified agreement with the US
Tensions escalated anew after the US said on Wednesday it would start revoking visas for Chinese students studying there.
Separately, the Chinese Embassy in Singapore criticized attempts to link the issue of Taiwan with that of the war in Ukraine after French President Emmanuel Macron warned of a dangerous double standard in focusing on a potential conflict with China at the cost of abandoning Ukraine.
The embassy made no mention of Macron in its post on Facebook that included a photo showing the French president at the Singapore forum.
“If one tries to denounce ‘double standards’ through the lens of a double standard, the only result we can get is still double standard,” it said.
China, which usually sends its defense minister to the Shangri-La forum, this time sent a lower-level delegation led by Maj. Gen. Hu Gangfeng, the vice president of the People’s Liberation Army National Defense University.
Bangladesh top court restores Jamaat-e-Islami party
- Supreme Court’s decision allows Bangladesh’s largest religio-political party to partake in elections
- Jamaat-e-Islami supported Islamabad during Bangladesh’s 1971 war of independence against Pakistan
DHAKA: Bangladesh on Sunday restored the registration of the largest Islamist party, allowing it to take part in elections, more than a decade after it was removed under the now-overthrown government.
The Supreme Court overturned a cancelation of Jamaat-e-Islami’s registration, allowing it to be formally listed as a political party with the Election Commission.
“The Election Commission is directed to deal with the registration of that party in accordance with law,” commission lawyer Towhidul Islam told AFP.
Jamaat-e-Islami party lawyer, Shishir Monir, said the Supreme Court’s decision would allow a “democratic, inclusive and multi-party system” in the Muslim-majority country of 170 million people.
“We hope that Bangladeshis, regardless of their ethnicity or religious identity, will vote for Jamaat, and that the parliament will be vibrant with constructive debates,” Monir told journalists.
After Sheikh Hasina was ousted as prime minister in August, the party appealed for a review of the 2013 high court order banning it.
Sunday’s decision comes after the Supreme Court on May 27 overturned a conviction against a key leader of Jamaat-e-Islami, A.T.M. Azharul Islam.
Islam had been sentenced to death in 2014 for rape, murder and genocide during Bangladesh’s 1971 war of independence from Pakistan.
Jamaat-e-Islami supported Islamabad during the war, a role that still sparks anger among many Bangladeshis today.
They were rivals of Hasina’s father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman of the Awami League, who would become Bangladesh’s founding figure.
Hasina banned Jamaat-e-Islami during her tenure and cracked down on its leaders.
In May, Bangladesh’s interim government banned the Awami League, pending the outcome of a trial over its crackdown on mass protests that prompted her ouster last year.
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