WASHINGTON: A senior US military official warned his Chinese counterpart against Beijing’s “dangerous” moves in the South China Sea during the first talks of their kind between the commanders.
Washington and Beijing remain at odds on issues from trade to the status of self-ruled Taiwan and China’s increasingly assertive approach in disputed maritime regions.
But they have sought to re-establish regular military-to-military talks in a bid to prevent flashpoint disputes from spinning out of control.
Samuel Paparo, Commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command, and Wu Yanan, head of the Chinese army’s Southern Theater Command talked via video call on Tuesday China time.
Paparo “underscored the importance of sustained lines of communication between the US military and the PLA,” a statement from his command said.
“Such discussions between senior leaders serve to clarify intent and reduce the risk of misperception or miscalculation,” he said.
But he also raised recent “unsafe interactions with US allies” by the Chinese side.
Paparo “urged the PLA to reconsider its use of dangerous, coercive, and potentially escalatory tactics in the South China Sea and beyond,” the statement said, referring to the Chinese military by its official name.
Wu’s Southern Theater Command is responsible for the Beijing military’s activities in the South China Sea, where Chinese vessels have engaged in a series of high-profile confrontations with Philippine ships in recent months.
China claims almost all of the economically vital body of water despite competing claims from other countries and an international court ruling that its assertion has no legal basis.
This month, Beijing insisted it was defending its “rights” in the waters, after the Philippines released footage appearing to show a Chinese coast guard vessel ramming one of its ships during an at-sea confrontation.
Beijing’s readout of the talks said that Wu held “an in-depth exchange of views” with his US counterpart.
The two officials discussed “issues of common concern,” it added.
The talks were the first of their kind since China scrapped military communications with the United States in 2022 in response to then-US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan.
Tuesday’s high-level military dialogue between the geopolitical rivals comes on the heels of the first visit to China by a US national security adviser since 2016.
Top White House aide Jake Sullivan visited Beijing last month, where he held talks with senior army official Zhang Youxia.
Sullivan’s meeting with Zhang saw the officials agree to hold a call between the two sides’ theater commanders in the near future, the White House said.
The top aide also raised the importance of “freedom of navigation” in the South China Sea and “stability” in the Taiwan Strait, Washington said.
Zhang, in turn, warned that the status of the self-ruled island was “the first red line that cannot be crossed in China-US relations.”
“China demands that the US halts military collusion with Taiwan, ceases arming Taiwan, and stops spreading false narratives related to Taiwan,” Zhang added.
He also asked the US to “work with China to promote communication and exchanges between the two militaries and jointly shoulder the responsibilities of major powers.”
US military warns Beijing against ‘dangerous’ South China Sea moves in talks
https://arab.news/puf57
US military warns Beijing against ‘dangerous’ South China Sea moves in talks
- Washington and Beijing remain at odds on issues from trade to the status of self-ruled Taiwan and China’s increasingly assertive approach in disputed maritime regions
UK govt condemns ‘death to the IDF’ chants at Glastonbury
- Bob Vylan led crowds in chants of ‘Death, death to the IDF,’ a reference to the acronym for the Israeli military, during their set on Saturday
- They were broadcast live on the BBC, which airs coverage of Britain’s most popular music festival
GLASTONBURY: A British punk-rap group faced growing criticism on Sunday for making anti-Israel remarks at the Glastonbury music festival that have sparked a police inquiry.
Bob Vylan led crowds in chants of “Death, death to the IDF,” a reference to the acronym for the Israeli military, during their set on Saturday.
British police officers are also examining comments by the Irish rap trio Kneecap, whose members have likewise been highly critical of Israel and its military campaign against the Palestinian militant group Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
One of Kneecap’s members wore a T-shirt dedicated to the Palestine Action Group, which is about to be banned under UK terror laws.
The UK government has “strongly condemned” Bob Vylan’s chants, which festival organizers said had “very much crossed a line.”
“We are urgently reminding everyone involved in the production of the festival that there is no place at Glastonbury for antisemitism, hate speech or incitement to violence,” the festival said in a statement.
Avon and Somerset police said Saturday that video evidence would be assessed by officers “to determine whether any offenses may have been committed that would require a criminal investigation.”
Israeli embassy
The chants about Israel’s military, condemned by the Israeli embassy in London, were led by Bob Vylan’s frontman Bobby Vylan.
They were broadcast live on the BBC, which airs coverage of Britain’s most popular music festival.
“I thought it’s appalling, to be honest,” Wes Streeting, the Labour’s government’s health secretary, said of the chants, adding that “all life is sacred.”
“I think the BBC and Glastonbury have got questions to answer about how we saw such a spectacle on our screens,” he told Sky News.
The Israel embassy said in a statement late Saturday that “it was “deeply disturbed by the inflammatory and hateful rhetoric expressed on stage at the Glastonbury Festival.”
But Streeting also took aim at the embassy, telling it to “get your own house in order.”
“I think there’s a serious point there by the Israeli embassy. I wish they’d take the violence of their own citizens toward Palestinians more seriously,” he said, citing Israeli settler violence in the West Bank.
A spokesperson for the BBC said Vylan’s comments were “deeply offensive” and the broadcaster had “no plans” to make the performance available on its on-demand service.
Festival-goer Joe McCabe, 31, told AFP that while he did not necessarily agree with Vylan’s statement, “I certainly think the message of questioning what’s going on there (in Gaza) is right.”
Chants of ‘Free Palestine’
Kneecap, which has made headlines in recent months with its pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel stance, also led crowds in chanting abuse against UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
Starmer and other politicians had said the band should not perform after its member Liam O’Hanna, known by his stage name Mo Chara, was charged with a terror offense.
He appeared in court this month accused of having displayed a Hezbollah flag while saying “Up Hamas, Up Hezbollah” after a video resurfaced of a London concert last year.
The Iran-backed Lebanese force Hezbollah and the Palestinian militant group Hamas are banned in the UK, and it is an offense to express support for them.
O’Hanna has denied the charge and told the Guardian newspaper in an interview published Friday that “it was a joke — we’re playing characters.”
Kneecap regularly lead crowds in chants of “Free Palestine” during its concerts, and fans revere them for their anti-establishment stance and criticism of British imperialism, while detractors call them extremists.
The group apologized this year after a 2023 video emerged appearing to show one singer calling for the death of British Conservative lawmakers.
Investigators not ruling out sabotage in Air India crash
- Air India’s Boeing 787 Dreamliner crashed soon after take-off from Ahmedabad on June 12
- Minister of state for civil aviation says probe materials include 30 days of city CCTV footage
NEW DELHI: Indian investigators are not ruling out sabotage in connection with the crash of the London-bound Air India flight that killed at least 260 people earlier this month, a minister has said, as officials began examining the plane’s black box.
The London-bound Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner crashed less than a minute after taking off from Ahmedabad airport in the western Indian state of Gujarat on June 12.
The Ministry of Civil Aviation has confirmed that investigators had recovered from the crash site both components of the black box — the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder — and brought them to the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau in New Delhi last week.
“Right now, the investigation is ongoing. But this is a rare incident. It has never happened before that both the engines got shut at the same time,” Murlidhar Mohol, minister of state for civil aviation, told the media on Saturday evening.
He did not dismiss the possibility of “sabotage” when New Delhi Television asked if it was being considered.
“We are investigating it from all angles to find out what was the cause of this accident,” Mohol said.
“We are looking at CCTV footage of Ahmedabad over the last 30 days, (of) those who came, those who went through screening, all the passports — we are probing it from all the angles.”
Data from the black box has been downloaded and the final report was expected in three months.
“Was it due to a bird strike, was there some technical issue with the engine, was there a fuel-supply issue, why both the engines shut down at the same time ... we will know only after the investigation,” the minister said, adding that the black box would be investigated domestically and “there is no need to send it abroad.”
The Air India flight was carrying 242 people — 230 passengers, two pilots and 10 crew members. Only one person, a British national sitting in an emergency exit seat, survived the crash.
It was initially unclear how many more people were killed on the ground as the aircraft fell on the B. J. Medical College and hostel for students and resident doctors of the Ahmedabad Civil Hospital.
After two weeks of DNA testing, authorities in Gujarat state announced on Saturday the final toll, saying they had recovered 260 bodies.
The number is lower than the initial number reported by the Junior Doctors’ Association at the B. J. College, whose president told the media a day after the crash that the hospital had received the bodies of 270 victims.
Bus crash blaze kills 38 in Tanzania
DAR ES SALAAM: A collision between a bus and minibus in Tanzania has killed 38 people after both vehicles were set on fire by the crash, the presidency said Sunday.
The accident in Sabasaba, in the Kilimanjaro region, on Saturday evening occurred after one of the bus’s tires punctured, causing the driver to lose control.
“A total of 38 people died in the crash, including two women,” a presidency statement said, adding that 28 others were wounded.
“However, due to the extent of the burns, 36 bodies remain unidentified,” the presidency said.
Six of the injured were still in hospital for treatment, it added.
Deadly crashes are frequent on Tanzania’s roads.
In a 2018 report, the World Health Organization estimated that 13,000 to 19,000 people in Tanzania were killed in traffic accidents in 2016, far higher than the government’s official toll of 3,256.
EU must be more assertive with Israel: Ex-foreign policy chief
- Josep Borrell: Europe has been ‘relegated to the sidelines’ in mediating conflict
- Country ‘carrying out the largest ethnic-cleansing operation since end of Second World War’
LONDON: The EU must adopt a more assertive posture against Israel over its violations of international law in Gaza, Josep Borrell, the bloc’s former foreign policy chief, has said.
In an article for Foreign Affairs magazine, Borrell argued that the EU has a “duty” to intervene over the humanitarian catastrophe in the Palestinian enclave, The Guardian reported.
Rather than relying on the US to bring an end to the war, Europe must launch its own plan, he said.
The article was co-authored with Kalypso Nicolaidis, a Franco-Greek academic who has advised the EU.
“Europe can no longer afford to linger at the margin. The EU needs a concerted plan,” the two authors said.
“Not only is Europe’s own security at stake, but more important, European history imposes a duty on Europeans to intervene in response to Israel’s violations of international law.
“Europeans cannot stay the hapless fools in this tragic story, dishing out cash with their eyes closed.”
Borrell’s successor, Kaja Kallas, said last week that it was “very clear” Israel had breached its human rights commitments during its war on Gaza.
However, the “concrete question” remains the choice of action EU member states can agree on in response, she added.
Last month, 17 EU member states, in protest against Israel’s blockade of humanitarian aid to Gaza, triggered a review of the bloc’s association agreement with Israel, which covers trade and other cooperation.
Borrell last month accused Tel Aviv of “carrying out the largest ethnic-cleansing operation since the end of the Second World War.”
Europe’s inconsistent response to the humanitarian crisis can be partly explained by the reluctance of some countries — including Germany, Hungary and Austria — to take action against Israel for historical reasons, Borrell and Nicolaidis wrote.
Yet there are ways for other EU member states to take action without requiring a continent-wide consensus, they said, highlighting the EU’s financial leverage and the utility of European programs for Israel, including the Erasmus student exchange scheme.
EU member states could also invoke Article 20 of the EU’s treaty to “allow for at least nine member states to come together to utilize certain foreign policy tools not related to defense,” they wrote.
“Because such an action has never been taken before, those states would have to explore what (it) … would concretely allow them to do,” the Foreign Affairs article said.
The EU has been rendered ineffective in applying pressure due to disunity, the two authors said, arguing that the bloc should act as a powerful mediator in the Middle East.
“Some EU leaders cautiously backed the International Criminal Court’s investigations, while others, such as Austria and Germany, have declined to implement its arrest warrants against Israeli officials,” they wrote.
“And because EU member states, beginning with Germany and Hungary, could not agree on whether to revisit the union’s trade policy with Israel, the EU continues to be Israel’s largest trading partner.
“As a result, the EU, as a bloc, has been largely relegated to the sidelines, divided internally and overshadowed in ceasefire diplomacy by the US and regional actors such as Egypt and Qatar. Shouldn’t the EU also have acted as a mediator?”
Ukraine on track to withdraw from Ottawa anti-personnel mines treaty, lawmaker says
KYIV: Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has signed a decree on the country’s withdrawal from the Ottawa Convention, which bans the production and use of anti-personnel mines, a senior Ukrainian lawmaker said on Sunday.
Ukraine ratified the convention in 2005 and a parliamentary decision is needed to withdraw from the treaty.
The document is not yet available on the website of the president’s office.
“This is a step that the reality of war has long demanded. Russia is not a party to this Convention and is massively using mines against our military and civilians,” Roman Kostenko, secretary of the Ukraine parliament’s committee on national security, defense and intelligence, said on his Facebook page.
“We cannot remain tied down in an environment where the enemy has no restrictions,” he added, saying that the legislative decision must definitively restore Ukraine’s right to effectively defend its territory.
Russia has intensified its offensive operations in Ukraine in recent months, using significant superiority in manpower.
Kostenko did not say when the issue would be debated in parliament.
