Philippines, US begin two-week joint military drills

A US Army UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter prepares to land near an assault amphibious vehicle during the joint US and Philippine troops live fire exercise on April 30, 2015. (AFP)
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Updated 11 April 2021
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Philippines, US begin two-week joint military drills

  • 1,000 Filipino and 700 American troops will participate in the Balikatan exercises this year

MANILA: Nearly 1,700 Filipino and American military personnel will take part in a two-week joint exercise from Monday.

The exercises are taking place amid rising tensions over Beijing’s increasingly aggressive behavior in the South China Sea and a dramatic surge in COVID-19 cases across the Philippines.

Unlike in previous years, the Balikatan exercises 2021 (BK-21) will not be open to the public as part of safety protocols to limit the coronavirus outbreak’s spread.

“The exercises officially start tomorrow and will last for about two weeks,” Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Cirilito Sobejana told reporters on Sunday.

“We will be conducting (the exercises), but it will be different from previous years because of the pandemic. There will be a virtual (portion) of the exercise,” he said.

The opening ceremonies for BK-21 will be held at the AFP General Headquarters in Camp Aguinaldo, Quezon City on Monday, Sobejana said, adding that 700 American and 1,000 Filipino troops would take part.

This year’s resumption of the annual BK-21 event, which was called off last year due to the pandemic, follows a phone call between the two countries’ defense chiefs on Sunday to “reaffirm their shared commitment to the US-Philippines alliance.”

In a statement, Pentagon spokesperson, John Kirby, said that US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin III and his Filipino counterpart, Delfin Lorenzana, “discussed the situation in the South China Sea, and the recent massing of People’s Republic of China maritime militia vessels at Juan Felipe (Whitsun) Reef.”

The boomerang-shaped Julian Felipe Reef is about 175 nautical miles west of Bataraza, Palawan, within the Philippine Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and Continental Shelf (CS).

Austin proposed several measures to “deepen defense cooperation between the United States and the Philippines, including by enhancing situational awareness of threats in the South China Sea,” according to Kirby.

He also “reiterated the US commitment to maintaining a free and open Indo-Pacific, rooted in international law, including the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).”

The two leaders also affirmed the value of the US-Philippines Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA), with Department of National Defense (DND) spokesperson, Arsenio Andolong, saying that the US official “reiterated the importance of the VFA and hopes that it would be continued.”

“Secretary Lorenzana committed to discussing the matter with the president as the final approval lies with him,” Andolong said.

In February last year, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte unilaterally terminated the VFA after Washington canceled the visa of one of his close political allies and former police chief, Sen. Ronald Dela Rosa.

He extended the withdrawal period twice “to allow both sides to find a more enhanced, mutually beneficial, mutually agreeable . . . and lasting arrangement.”

In December, however, he demanded that the US pay for the VFA.

The VFA provides a legal framework within which US troops can operate on a rotational basis in the Philippines.

Besides the VFA, Andolong confirmed that the two defense chiefs also “discussed the situation in the West Philippine Sea and recent developments in regional security.”

He said that the Balikatan exercises “would be a very scaled-down version” of the annual event.

“It will be just tabletop exercises, just a handful of people doing planning and simulation. There will be no amphibious exercises, and we won’t be seeing various (US military) assets rolling and flying here and there,” he told Arab News on Sunday.

“American forces participating in the activities will be subject to COVID-19 health protocols and guidelines that are used for all foreigners coming into the country. No exemption,” he added.

When asked about the significance of the exercises this year, Andolong said: “It’s really important because . . . in light of recent developments in the West Philippine Sea, I think it’s an affirmation that our (US-Philippines) alliance with our only defense treaty ally is still alive and well.”

“I think that’s important especially now that there are doubts not only due to (current) defense (issues), the pandemic, and all other reasons,” he said.

The Balikatan is an annual US-Philippine military training event focused on various missions, including humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, counter-terrorism, and other combined military operations.

Philippine and US service members will conduct humanitarian civic action (HCA) activities throughout Luzon during BK-2021. The exercise will also demonstrate cooperation and interoperability between the Philippines and the US, consistent with the Mutual Defense Treaty and the VFA.


Bus crash blaze kills 38 in Tanzania

Updated 18 sec ago
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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

The EU must adopt a more assertive posture against Israel over its violations of international law in Gaza, Josep Borrell, said.
Updated 10 min 54 sec ago
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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

Updated 33 min 48 sec ago
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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.


Air India plane crash probe looking at all angles: minister

Updated 35 min 1 sec ago
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Air India plane crash probe looking at all angles: minister

  • All but one of the 242 people on board the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner were killed when it crashed in the western city of Ahmedabad on June 12
  • Authorities have identified 19 others who died on the ground, but a police source said after the crash that the toll was 38

NEW DELHI: An Indian aviation minister on Sunday said investigators were probing “all angles” behind an Air India crash when asked by media about possible sabotage.

All but one of the 242 people on board the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner were killed when it crashed in the western city of Ahmedabad on June 12.

Authorities have identified 19 others who died on the ground, but a police source told AFP after the crash that the toll was 38.

India’s minister of state for civil aviation, Murlidhar Mohol, said the investigation was looking at “all angles” when asked specifically about possible “sabotage,” in an interview with Indian news channel NDTV.

“It has never happened before that both engines have shut off together,” Mohol said earlier in the interview, in reference to theories by some experts of possible dual-engine failure.

The minister added that until the investigation report is published, it would be premature to comment on the cause.

The team appointed to investigate the crash started extracting data from the plane’s cockpit voice and flight data recorders this week, in an attempt to reconstruct the sequence of events leading to the disaster.

Air India has said that the plane was “well-maintained” and that the pilots were accomplished flyers.


Germany seeks Israeli partnership on cyberdefense, plans ‘cyber dome’

Updated 57 min 46 sec ago
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Germany seeks Israeli partnership on cyberdefense, plans ‘cyber dome’

BERLIN: Germany is aiming to establish a joint German-Israeli cyber research center and deepen collaboration between the two countries’ intelligence and security agencies, German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said on Sunday.
Germany is among Israel’s closest allies in Europe, and Berlin has increasingly looked to draw upon Israel’s defense expertise as it boosts its military capabilities and contributions to NATO in the face of perceived growing threats from Russia and China.
“Military defense alone is not sufficient for this turning point in security. A significant upgrade in civil defense is also essential to strengthen our overall defensive capabilities,” Dobrindt said during a visit to Israel, as reported by Germany’s Bild newspaper.
Dobrindt, who was appointed by new German Chancellor Friedrich Merz last month, arrived in Israel on Saturday.
According to the Bild report, Dobrindt outlined a five-point plan aimed at establishing what he called a “Cyber Dome” for Germany, as part of its cyberdefense strategy.
Earlier on Sunday, Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Soeder called for the acquisition of 2,000 interceptor missiles to equip Germany with an “Iron Dome” system similar to Israel’s short-range missile defense technology.