PARIS: France is increasing its military presence in the Indo-Pacific region, sending warships through the South China Sea and planning air exercises to help counter China’s military build-up in disputed waters.
In late May, the French assault ship Dixmude and a frigate sailed through the disputed Spratly Islands and around a group of reefs that China has turned into islets to push back against Beijing’s claim to own most of the resource-rich South China Sea.
“Our patrol involved passing close to these islets to obtain intelligence with all the sensors it is possible to use in international waters,” the Dixmude’s commanding officer, Jean Porcher, told reporters in a video interview.
Writing in The Wall Street Journal, a researcher from the Hudson Institute think-tank who was onboard, said that “several Chinese frigates and corvettes” tailed the French vessels.
Porcher said the ship maintained “cordial” radio contact with Chinese military vessels, “which were present in the area until we left.”
So far the United States has taken the lead in confronting China over its territorial claims in the South China Sea, which are contested by several neighbors, particularly Vietnam.
But France, which along with Britain is the only European nation to regularly send its navy into the region, has also waded into the dispute, sending its ships into the South China Sea three to five times a year.
In August, the airforce will stage its biggest-ever exercises in southeast Asia as part of a strategy to mark France’s presence in a region that is home to 1.5 million French citizens in the country’s overseas territories.
Three Rafale fighter jets, one A400M troop transporter and a C135 refueling tanker will fly from Australia to India, with several stop-offs along the way.
The sea and air operations follow a visit by President Emmanuel Macron last month to Australia, where he spoke of the need to protect the Indo-Pacific region from “hegemony” — a veiled reference to Beijing’s growing might.
He stressed that France, which will be the last country in the EU after Britain leaves the bloc to have territories in the Pacific, did not want to antagonize China.
But a “strong Indo-Pacific axis” was needed to ensure respect for freedom of navigation and aviation in the region, he told Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.
Macron appears to be “realistically assessing the growing Chinese challenge,” said Jonas Parello-Plesner, a researcher from the US-based Hudson Institute who was an observer on the recent French navy voyage.
“This is a welcome change from his predecessors, who were enthralled by the business and investment opportunities in China,” he wrote in The Wall Street Journal.
But France had already began to push back against China’s expansionism before Macron took power.
Since 2014, the navy has sailed regularly through the South China Sea as part of its stated bid to uphold a rules-based maritime order.
In 2016, then French defense minister Jean-Yves Le Drian (now the foreign minister) called on other European navies to develop a regular and visible presence in the South China Sea.
Besides protecting navigation, France has cited the need to defend the interests of its citizens scattered across five French territories in the Pacific, including New Caledonia and French Polynesia.
“This region is also our home,” current Defense Minister Florence Parly said during a visit to Singapore in early June.
Valerie Niquet, an expert on the Asia-Pacific region at the Foundation for Strategic Research in Paris, said France’s growing assertiveness showed the US was no longer the only Western power “getting involved in the area.”
“Faced with China the US obviously plays the main deterrent role, but it’s not pointless or trivial for a power like France, a permanent member of the (UN) Security Council, to take a firm, principled position and carry out concrete actions,” she said, predicting that it would “marginalize China’s position a little bit more.”
Analysts point to another factor underpinning France’s growing activism in the Indo-Pacific region: the need to show buyers of French arms that Paris has their back.
In 2016, India agreed buy 36 Rafale fighter jets and Australia signed a deal worth A$50 billion ($37 billion) for 12 next-generation French submarines.
“That is also doubtlessly pushing France to be a lot firmer on subjects that, up until recently, were broached with great care,” Niquet said.
France challenges Beijing in South China Sea
France challenges Beijing in South China Sea
- So far the United States has taken the lead in confronting China over its territorial claims in the South China Sea
- But France had already began to push back against China’s expansionism before Macron took power
Unfazed devotees shrug off stampede at India mega-festival
- The disaster, which saw a crowd spill out of a police cordon and trample bystanders, prompted spooked pilgrims to leave festival
- The Kumbh festival attracts tens of millions of Hindu faithful from around India every 12 years to the northern city of Prayagraj
Prayagraj: Swarming throngs of devotees bathed in rivers at the world’s biggest religious gathering in India on Thursday, undeterred by a stampede a day earlier that killed at least 30 people.
The Kumbh Mela attracts tens of millions of Hindu faithful from around India every 12 years to the northern city of Prayagraj but has a woeful record of deadly crowd incidents.
Wednesday’s pre-dawn disaster, which saw a surging crowd spill out of a police cordon and trample bystanders, prompted some spooked pilgrims to leave the festival.
But many more were still arriving in the stampede’s aftermath to participate in what they said was a matter of religious obligation.
“We’ve obviously heard about the stampede,” 21-year-old Naveen Pradhan, who arrived at the festival with his family hours after the disaster, told AFP.
“But this is a holy thing, a religious thing, something we should do as Hindus, and my family wouldn’t have missed this no matter what.”
The six-week Kumbh Mela is the single biggest milestone on the Hindu religious calendar, and Wednesday marked one of the holiest days in the festival, coinciding with an alignment of the Solar System’s planets.
Despite the early morning disaster, saffron-clad holy men continued with the day’s rituals hours later, leading millions into a sin-cleansing bath by the confluence of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers.
“The journey was challenging — the trains were packed, the train stations were packed,” pharmacist Padmabati Dam, who traveled by train for more than 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) to reach the festival, told AFP.
“We were tired after such a long journey but as soon as we took a dip in the river we just felt so fresh and happy. It was as if all that inconvenience was really worth it.”
The Kumbh Mela is rooted in a mythological Hindu battle between deities and demons for control of a pitcher containing the nectar of immortality.
Organizers have likened the scale of this year’s festival to a temporary country, forecasting up to 400 million pilgrims would visit before the final day on February 26.
Authorities waited nearly 18 hours after Wednesday’s stampede to give an official death toll, an apparent effort to minimize disruption to the day’s events.
Even before the latest incident, attendees have fumed over what they said was poor crowd management.
Reserved pathways and cordoned-off areas reserved for eminent attendees have been a source of vehement complaint at the festival for reducing the amount of space for common pilgrims.
Police this year installed hundreds of cameras at the festival site and on roads leading to the sprawling encampment, mounted on poles and a fleet of overhead drones.
The surveillance network feeds into an artificial intelligence system at a command and control center meant to alert staff if sections of the crowd get so concentrated that they pose a safety threat.
More than 400 people died after they were trampled or drowned at the Kumbh Mela on a single day of the festival in 1954, one of the largest tolls in a crowd-related disaster globally.
Another 36 people were crushed to death in 2013, the last time the festival was staged in Prayagraj.
American Airlines jet collides with helicopter near Washington’s Reagan Airport
- A web camera shot from Kennedy Center in Washington showed an explosion mid-air across the Potomac around 2047 ET with an aircraft in flames crashing down rapidly
- There has not been a fatal US passenger airplane accident since February 2009, but a series of near-miss incidents in recent years have raised serious safety concerns
WASHINGTON: An American Airlines regional passenger jet and a US Army Black Hawk helicopter crashed into the Potomac River after a midair collision near Reagan Washington National Airport on Wednesday night, officials said.
The Washington Post said multiple bodies had been pulled from the water. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas said on social media that “we know there are fatalities,” though he did not say how many.
An American Airlines source told Reuters that 60 passengers, along with two pilots and two crew members were scheduled to be on the flight. Three soldiers were aboard the helicopter, a US official said.
There has not been a fatal US passenger airplane accident since February 2009, but a series of near-miss incidents in recent years have raised serious safety concerns.
NBC reported that four people had been pulled alive from the Potomac River.
A web camera shot from the Kennedy Center in Washington showed an explosion mid-air across the Potomac around 2047 ET with an aircraft in flames crashing down rapidly.
The US Federal Aviation Administration said a PSA Airlines regional jet collided midair with the helicopter while on approach to Reagan.
PSA was operating Flight 5342 for American Airlines, which had departed from Wichita, Kansas, according to the FAA.
Police said multiple agencies were involved in a search and rescue operation in the Potomac River, which borders the airport.
Dozens of police, ambulance and recuse units, some ferrying boats, staged along the river and raced to positions along the tarmac of Reagan airport. Live TV images showed several boats in the water, flashing blue and red lights.
The airport said late on Wednesday that all takeoffs and landings had been halted as emergency personnel responded to an aircraft incident.
The National Transportation Safety Board said it was gathering more information on the incident.
American Airlines said on social media that it was “aware of reports that American Eagle flight 5342, operated by PSA, with service from Wichita, Kansas (ICT) to Washington Reagan National Airport (DCA) has been involved in an incident.”
American Airlines said it would provide more information as it became available to the company.
Over the last two years, a series of near-miss incidents have raised concerns about US aviation safety and the strain on understaffed air-traffic-control operations.
FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker stepped down on Jan. 20 and the Trump administration has not named a replacement — or even disclosed who is running the agency on an interim basis.
The last deadly major crash involving a commercial airliner in the US was in 2009, when 49 people aboard a Colgan Air flight crashed in New York state. One person also died on the ground.
Passenger jet with 64 aboard collides with Army helicopter while landing at Reagan Airport near DC
ARLINGTON: A jet carrying 60 passengers and four crew members collided Wednesday with an Army helicopter while landing at Ronald Reagan National Airport near Washington, prompting a large search-and-rescue operation in the nearby Potomac River.
There was no immediate word on casualties or the cause of the collision, but all takeoffs and landings from the airport were halted as helicopters from law enforcement agencies across the region flew over the scene in search of survivors. Inflatable rescue boats were launched into the Potomac River from a point along the George Washington Parkway, just north of the airport, and first responders set up light towers from the shore to illuminate the area near the site of the collision.
President Donald Trump said he had been “fully briefed on this terrible accident" and, referring to the passengers, added, “May God Bless their souls.”
The Federal Aviation Administration said the midair crash occurred around 9 p.m. EST when a regional jet that had departed from Wichita, Kansas, collided with a military helicopter on a training flight while on approach to an airport runway. It occurred in some of the most tightly controlled and monitored airspace in the world, just over three miles south of the White House and the Capitol.
Investigators will try to piece together the aircrafts' final moments before their collision, including contact with air traffic controllers as well as a loss of altitude by the passenger jet.
American Airlines Flight 5342 was inbound to Reagan National at an altitude of about 400 feet and a speed of about 140 miles per hour when it suffered a rapid loss of altitude over the Potomac River, according to data from its radio transponder. The Canadian-made Bombardier CRJ-701 twin-engine jet, manufactured in 2004, can be configured to carry up to 70 passengers.
A few minutes before landing, air traffic controllers asked the arriving commercial jet if it could land on the shorter Runway 33 at Reagan National and the pilots said they were able. Controllers then cleared the plane to land on Runway 33. Flight tracking sites showed the plane adjust its approach to the new runway.
Less than 30 seconds before the crash, an air traffic controller asked the helicopter if it had the arriving plane in sight. The controller made another radio call to the helicopter moments later: “PAT 25 pass behind the CRJ.” Seconds after that, the two aircraft collided.
The plane’s radio transponder stopped transmitting about 2,400 feet short of the runway, roughly over the middle of the river.
Video from an observation camera at the nearby Kennedy Center showed two sets of lights consistent with aircraft appearing to join in a fireball.
The collision occurred on a warm winter evening in Washington, with temperatures registering as high as 60 degrees Fahrenheit, following a stretch days earlier of intense cold and ice. On Wednesday, the Potomac River was 36 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The National Weather Service reported that wind gusts of up to 25 mph were possible in the area throughout the evening.
The U.S. Army described the helicopter as a UH-60 Blackhawk based at Fort Belvoir in Virginia. A crew of three soldiers were onboard the helicopter, an Army official said. The helicopter was on a training flight.
The crash is serving as a major test for two of the Trump administration’s newest agency leaders. Pete Hegseth, sworn in days ago as defense secretary, posted on social media that his department was “actively monitoring” the situation that involved an Army helicopter. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, just sworn in earlier this week, said in a social media post that he was “at the FAA HQ and closely monitoring the situation.”
The airport was to remain closed until 5 a.m. Friday.
Located along the Potomac River, just southwest of the city. Reagan National is a popular choice because it’s much closer than the larger Dulles International Airport, which is deeper in Virginia.
Depending on the runway being used, flights into Reagan can offer passengers spectacular views of landmarks like the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, the National Mall and the U.S. Capitol. It’s a postcard-worthy welcome for tourists visiting the city.
The incident recalled the crash of an Air Florida flight that plummeted into the Potomac on January 13, 1982, that killed 78 people. That crash was attributed to bad weather.
The last fatal crash involving a U.S. commercial airline occured in 2009 near Buffalo, New York. Everyone aboard the Bombardier DHC-8 propeller plane was killed, including 45 passengers, 2 pilots and 2 flight attendants. Another person on the ground also died, bringing the total death toll to 50. An investigation determined that the captain accidentally caused the plane to stall as it approached the airport in Buffalo.
Trump issues orders to promote school choice, end “anti-American” teaching
- Order prioritizes federal funding for school choice programs
- Second order aims to block federal funding related to “gender ideology or discriminatory equity ideology” in schools
President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed executive orders to promote parental choice in school selection and end federal funding for curricula that he called the “indoctrination” of students in “anti-American” ideologies on race and gender.
The two directives, which come a week after Trump was sworn into his second term of office, are in keeping with his campaign promise to remake the country’s education system in line with a rigorous conservative agenda that Democrats say could undermine public schools.
The first order directs the Department of Education to issue guidance on how states can use federal education funds to support “choice initiatives,” without providing further details.
“It is the policy of my Administration to support parents in choosing and directing the upbringing and education of their children,” the president said in the order. “Too many children do not thrive in their assigned, government-run K-12 school.”
His second directive aims to stop schools from using federal funds for curriculum, teacher certification and other purposes related to “gender ideology or discriminatory equity ideology.”
“In recent years, however, parents have witnessed schools indoctrinate their children in radical, anti-American ideologies while deliberately blocking parental oversight,” it reads.
Trump and his allies throughout the campaign have accused public schools of teaching white children to be ashamed of themselves and their ancestors due to the country’s history of slavery and discrimination against people of color.
The second order, without evidence, claims that teachers have been “demanding acquiescence” to concepts of “white privilege” or “unconscious bias” and thereby promoting racism and undermining national unity.
The executive order will have a “chilling effect” on subjects related to race and ethnicity in schools, said Basil Smikle Jr., a political strategist.
“I would imagine that it would restrict the kind of reading materials that are even available to students outside of the classroom,” he said.
Although that order does not invoke the term “critical race theory” by name, it employs the language often used by CRT opponents to criticize teaching about institutional racism.
A once-obscure academic concept, the theory has become a fixture in the fierce US debate over how to teach children about the country’s history and structural racism. An academic framework most often taught in law schools but not in primary and secondary schools, it rests on the premise that racial bias — intentional or not — is baked into US laws and institutions.
Conservatives have invoked the term to denounce curricula they consider too liberal or excessively focused on America’s history of racial discrimination. Supporters say understanding institutional racism is necessary to address inequality.
Christina Greer, an associate professor of political science at Fordham University, said the order came as no surprise.
“As a candidate, he said there was radical indoctrination of students,” she said. “He’s making sure to frighten students and educators across the country so they can’t teach the real history of the United States.”
It was not clear how the order issued on Wednesday would affect how the history of race relations is taught in American schools. During his inaugural address last week, Trump criticized education that “teaches our children to be ashamed of themselves — in many cases, to hate our country.”
SCHOOL CHOICE
The first order also directs the US Department of Education to prioritize federal funding for school choice programs, a longstanding goal for conservatives who say public schools are failing to meet academic standards while pushing liberal ideas.
Many Democrats and teachers’ unions, on the other hand, say school choice undermines the public system that educates 50 million US children.
Federal test scores released by the National Assessment of Educational Progress on Wednesday underscored the challenge faced by educators in the wake of widespread learning loss during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The scores showed that one-third of eighth graders tested below NAEP’s “basic” reading level, the most in the test’s three-decade history, while some 40 percent of fourth-graders also fell below that basic threshold.
That executive order also directs US states on how they could use block grants to support alternatives to public education, such as private and religious schools.
US education is primarily funded via states and local taxes, with federal sources accounting for about 14 percent of the funding of public K-12 schools, according to Census data.
Trump’s order could affect some $30 billion to $40 billion in federal grants, estimated Frederick Hess, an education expert at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute.
“This stuff is directionally significant,” said Hess, adding that Trump’s directive represented “the most emphatic support for school choice we’ve ever seen at the federal level.”
The first order also calls for allowing military families to use Pentagon funds to send their children to the school of their choosing. It also mandates that Native American families with students in the Bureau of Indian Education be allowed to use federal funds in selecting their schools.
A number of Republican-leaning states have in recent years adopted universal or near-universal school choice policies, paving the way for vouchers or other methods that allocate taxpayer funds for homeschooling or private tuition.
Josh Cowen, a professor of education policy at Michigan State University, said that Trump’s executive order is aimed at sending “an aggressive statement about his position on vouchers” even if his power to reallocate funds is limited.
Cowen said the bigger potential financial impact on education lies with a bill reintroduced in Congress this week that would create a federal school voucher program with an estimated $10 billion in annual tax credits.
Rohingya refugees stranded on boat off Indonesia
- Authorities block migrants from disembarking at tourist beach ‘in case they escape’
JAKARTA: At least 75 Rohingya refugees including four children were stranded aboard a migrant boat off the coast of western Indonesia on Wednesday after authorities blocked them from landing at a tourist beach.
Security officers prevented the Rohingya from disembarking at Leuge beach in Aceh province and ordered them to stay aboard the boat. Police were deployed to monitor the beach, while local residents took photos of the boat and provided the refugees with food.
“For now, they are not allowed to disembark, considering today is a public holiday. Many tourist activities are taking place ... there are concerns that they might blend in with the crowd and escape,” local official Rizalihadi said.
“The temporary policy is for them to remain on the boat while waiting for representatives from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and the International Organization for Migration to arrive.”
The Muslim minority Rohingya are persecuted in Myanmar, and thousands risk their lives each year on long and dangerous sea journeys to Malaysia or Indonesia.
