UK plans tough laws to fight people smugglers

NEW DELHI: India’s defense minister has approved a framework for building the country’s most advanced stealth fighter jet, the defense ministry said on Tuesday, amid a new arms race with Pakistan weeks after a military conflict between the neighbors.

Indian state-run Aeronautical Development Agency, which is executing the program, will shortly invite initial interest from defense firms for developing a prototype of the warplane, envisaged as a twin-engine 5th generation fighter, the ministry said.

The project is crucial for the Indian Air Force, whose squadrons of mainly Russian and ex-Soviet aircraft have fallen to 31 from an approved strength of 42 at a time when rival China is expanding its air force rapidly.

Pakistan has one of China’s most advanced warplanes, the J-10, in its arsenal.

Militaries of nuclear-armed neighbors India and Pakistan faced-off in four days of fighting this month, which saw use of fighter jets, missiles, drones and artillery by both sides before a ceasefire was announced by US President Donald Trump.

It was the first time both sides utilized drones at scale and the South Asian powers are now locked in a drones arms race, according to Reuters’ interviews with 15 people, including security officials, industry executives and analysts in the two countries.

India will partner with a domestic firm for the stealth fighter program, and companies can bid independently or as a joint venture, the defense ministry said in a statement, adding that the bids would be open for both private and state-owned firms.

In March, an Indian defense committee had recommended including the private sector in military aircraft manufacturing to shore up the capabilities of the Indian Air Force and reduce the burden on state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd, which makes most of India’s military aircraft.

Air Chief Marshal Amar Preet Singh has previously criticized Hindustan Aeronautics for slow delivery of light combat Tejas aircraft, a 4.5 generation fighter, which the firm blamed on slow delivery of engines from General Electric due to supply chain issues faced by the US firm.

HANOI: Between jabs at Donald Trump’s US trade tariffs and criticism of Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea, French President Emmanuel Macron warned Vietnamese students Tuesday that “on the impulse of a superpower, everything can change.”
Macron is in Vietnam as part of a six-day Southeast Asian tour that includes Indonesia and Singapore, as he tries to pitch his offer of a “third way” between the United States and China to a region caught up in a confrontation between the two.
“The conflict between China and the United States of America is a geopolitical fact that casts the shadow of risk of a much larger conflict in this important region,” he told a group of around 150 students at the University of Science and Technology in Hanoi, listening through translation headsets.
China would do well to remember that “freedom of navigation, maritime freedom is important for the South China Sea,” he said, adding that what is happening there “worries everyone.”
Macron quickly moved on to a swipe at the United States, which he described as “imposing tariffs according to the side of the bed on which he woke up,” before presenting France as a reliable alternative.
His address comes a day after he visited a Hanoi war memorial to those who fought against French colonial occupation, which ended in 1954 following a bloody uprising by Vietnamese pro-independence forces.
Vietnam has been careful to follow a balancing act between China and the United States.
It shares concerns about Beijing’s increasing assertiveness in the contested waterway, but it has close economic ties with its giant neighbor.
Communist-run Vietnam has also been threatened with a hefty 46 percent tariff by US President Donald Trump as part of his global trade blitz.
France’s “Indo-Pacific strategy” could offer a “path of freedom” and “sovereignty,” Macron told the students.
More than 100 other students who were unable to fit into the university hall where he spoke tuned in via video link from a side room, often clapping as he spoke.
Some seemed convinced, seeing an opportunity in France to avoid the chaos that many international students in the United States are enduring after Trump attempted to block Harvard University from enrolling foreigners.
“Given the context in the US where visa issues for international students are quite risky, I will prioritize studying in France because it is more stable,” 21-year-old Nguyen Quang Bach told AFP.
Nguyen Thi Thuy Linh, 21, who chatted to Macron ahead of the speech, called the president “friendly and approachable.”
During the speech, Macron also urged the students, a few of whom spoke French, not to fall into the “world of fools” that prevails on social media, where people are free to criticize with short messages “those whose thoughts you do not understand.”
“I do not believe all words are equal. I think there are people who know (things) and people who know less,” he said.