TAIPEI: China employed a record 125 aircraft, as well as its Liaoning aircraft carrier and ships, in large-scale military exercises surrounding Taiwan and its outlying islands Monday, simulating the sealing off of key ports in a move that underscores the tense situation in the Taiwan Strait, officials said.
China made clear it was to punish Taiwan’s president for rejecting Beijing’s claim of sovereignty over the self-governed island.
The drills came four days after Taiwan celebrated the founding of its government on its National Day, when Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te said in a speech that China has no right to represent Taiwan and declared his commitment to “resist annexation or encroachment.”
“This is a resolute punishment for Lai Ching-te’s continuous fabrication of ‘Taiwan independence’ nonsense,” China’s Taiwan Affairs Office said in a statement.
Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense said 90 of the aircraft, including warplanes, helicopters and drones, were spotted within Taiwan’s air defense identification zone. The single-day record counted aircraft from 5:02 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Shipping traffic was operating as normal, the ministry said.
Taiwan remained defiant. “Our military will definitely deal with the threat from China appropriately,” Joseph Wu, secretary-general of Taiwan’s security council, said at a forum in Taipei, Taiwan’s capital. “Threatening other countries with force violates the basic spirit of the United Nations Charter to resolve disputes through peaceful means.”
Taiwan’s Presidential Office also called on China to “cease military provocations that undermine regional peace and stability and stop threatening Taiwan’s democracy and freedom.”
A map aired on China’s state broadcaster CCTV showed six large blocks encircling Taiwan indicating where the military drills were being held, along with circles drawn around Taiwan’s outlying islands.
Taiwan’s defense ministry said the six areas focused on key strategic locations around and on the island.
China deployed its Liaoning aircraft carrier for the drills, and CCTV showed a J-15 fighter jet taking off from the deck of the carrier.
China’s People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theater Command spokesperson Senior Captain Li Xi said Monday evening that the drill was successfully completed.
Li said the navy, army air force and missile corps were all mobilized for the drills, which were an integrated operation. “This is a major warning to those who back Taiwan independence and a signifier of our determination to safeguard our national sovereignty,” Li said in a statement on the service’s public media channel.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said at a daily briefing that China did not consider relations with Taiwan a diplomatic issue, in keeping with its refusal to recognize Taiwan as a sovereign state.
“I can tell you that Taiwan independence is as incompatible with peace in the Taiwan Strait as fire with water. Provocation by the Taiwan independence forces will surely be met with countermeasures,” Mao said.
Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said it deployed warships to designated spots in the ocean to carry out surveillance and stand at ready. It also deployed mobile missile and radar groups on land to track the vessels at sea. It said as of Monday morning, they had tracked 25 Chinese warplanes and seven warships and four Chinese government ships, though it did not specify what types of ships they were.
On the streets of Taipei, residents were undeterred. “I don’t worry, I don’t panic either, it doesn’t have any impact to me,” Chang Chia-rui said.
Another Taipei resident, Jeff Huang, said: “Taiwan is very stable now, and I am used to China’s military exercises. I have been threatened by this kind of threats since I was a child, and I am used to it.”
The US, Taiwan’s biggest unofficial ally, called China’s response to Lai’s speech unwarranted. “This military pressure operation is irresponsible, disproportionate, and destabilizing,” Pentagon spokesman Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said in a statement. “The entire world has a stake in peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, and we continue to see a growing community of countries committed to peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.”
“We call on (Beijing’s government) to act with restraint and to avoid any further actions that may undermine peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and in the broader region,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a statement.
China held similar large-scale exercises after Lai was inaugurated in May. Lai continues the eight-year rule of the Democratic Progressive Party that rejects China’s demand that it recognize Taiwan is a part of China.
China also held massive military exercises around Taiwan and simulated a blockade in 2022 after a visit to the island by Nancy Pelosi, who was then speaker of the US House of Representatives. China routinely states that Taiwan independence is a “dead end” and that annexation by Beijing is a historical inevitability. China’s military has increased its encircling of Taiwan’s skies and waters in the past few years, holding joint drills with its warships and fighter jets on a near-daily basis near the island.
Also on Monday, China’s Taiwan Affairs Office announced it was sanctioning two Taiwanese individuals, Puma Shen and Robert Tsao, for promoting Taiwanese independence. Shen is the co-founder of the Kuma Academy, a nonprofit group that trains civilians on wartime readiness. Tsao donated $32.8 million to fund the academy’s training courses. Shen and Tsao are forbidden to travel to China, including Hong Kong.
Taiwan was a Japanese colony before being unified with China at the end of World War II. It split away in 1949 when Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists fled to the island as Mao Zedong’s Communists defeated them in a civil war and took power.
China deploys record 125 warplanes in large-scale military drill in warning to Taiwan
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China deploys record 125 warplanes in large-scale military drill in warning to Taiwan
- The military drills come four days after Taiwan celebrated the founding of its government on its National Day
- Taiwan’s Defense Ministry deploys warships to designated spots in the ocean to carry out surveillance and stand at ready
Blast kills a woman in Greek city of Thessaloniki
ATHENS: A 38-year woman was killed after an explosion in northern Greek city of Thessaloniki early on Saturday, police officials said, adding that a criminal investigation is under way.
“It appears that she was carrying an explosive device and planned to plant it a bank’s ATM,” a senior police official told Reuters
“Something went wrong and exploded in her hands,” the official added.
Vatican workers install Sistine Chapel stove where ballots are burned during conclave to elect pope
VATICAN CITY: Vatican workers have installed the simple stove in the Sistine Chapel where ballots will be burned during the upcoming conclave to elect a new pope.
The Holy See released a video Saturday of the preparations for the May 7 conclave, which included installing the stove and a false floor in the frescoed Sistine Chapel to make it even. The footage also showed workers lining up simple wooden tables where the cardinals will sit and cast their votes on Wednesday, and a ramp leading to the main seating area for any cardinal in a wheelchair.
On Friday, fire crews were seen on the chapel roof attaching the chimney from which smoke signals will indicate whether a pope has been elected.
The preparations are all leading up to the solemn pageantry of the start of the conclave to elect a successor to Pope Francis, history’s first Latin American pope, who died April 21 at age 88.
Wednesday morning begins with a Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica celebrated by the dean of the College of Cardinals, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, after which the cardinal electors are sequestered from the rest of the world. In the afternoon, they will process into the Sistine Chapel, hear a meditation and take their oaths before casting their first ballots.
As of now, 133 cardinals are expected to take part in the conclave. If no candidate reaches the necessary two-thirds majority, or 89 votes, on the first ballot, the papers will be burned and black smoke will indicate to the world that no pope was elected.
The cardinals will go back to their Vatican residence for the night and return to the Sistine Chapel on Thursday morning to conduct two votes in the morning, two in the afternoon, until a winner is found.
After every two rounds of voting, the ballots are burned in the stove. If no pope is chosen, the ballots are mixed with cartridges containing potassium perchlorate, anthracene — a component of coal tar — and sulfur to produce black smoke out the chimney. If there is a winner, the ballots are mixed with potassium chlorate, lactose and chloroform resin to produce the white smoke.
The white smoke came out of the chimney on the fifth ballot on March 13, 2013, and Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was introduced to the world as Pope Francis a short time later from the loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica.
The preparations are underway as the cardinals meet privately in more informal sessions to discuss the needs of the Catholic Church going forward and the type of pope who can lead it.
Two women shot on campus of small technical college near Los Angeles
- The Los Angeles Police Department said officers detained a male subject from a car matching the description of a vehicle linked to the shooting
- The school went on lockdown for at least an hour after the shooting
INGLEWOOD: Two female employees of a Southern California technical college were shot on campus Friday and taken to the hospital in an incident that authorities attributed to workplace violence.
The shooting occurred around 4 p.m. in an office at the Spartan College of Aeronautics and Technology campus in Inglewood, where Mayor James Butts said the suspect was believed to be a former employee.
Aerial TV video showed a heavy police presence outside the campus in the city, which abuts Los Angeles to the southwest.
One of the victims was in critical condition, Butts said. The Los Angeles County Fire Department confirmed on the social platform X that two people were taken to the hospital.
A person was taken into custody after initially leaving the scene, Butts said.
The Los Angeles Police Department said officers detained a male subject from a car matching the description of a vehicle linked to the shooting, which had been sent to local law enforcement agencies by the Inglewood Police Department. The Inglewood police did not immediately respond to a request for more information.
The school went on lockdown for at least an hour after the shooting.
Chris Becker, president and chief administrator of the campus, told KABC-TV that the campus is patrolled regularly and, as an aviation school, safety is one of its primary focuses.
“It’s a peaceful campus,” Becker said. “It’s a nice community of students and teachers and staff.”
The Spartan College of Aeronautics and Technology has campuses across the country. The college’s Inglewood location, about a mile (about 1.5 kilometers) from the Los Angeles International Airport, accommodates 500 students and offers training programs focused on aviation maintenance technology, according to its website.
Gunman kills three in Thailand’s conflict-hit south
- Violence frequently rocks the kingdom’s southern provinces of Narathiwat, Pattani and Yala
- In 2004, Thai security forces shot into a crowd of protesters outside a police station in Tak Bai, killing seven
BANGKOK: A gunman has shot dead three people including a child in Thailand’s insurgency-hit south, police said Saturday, as authorities pursued the suspect.
The attacker opened fire late Friday in a residential area of Tak Bai district in Narathiwat province, one of three Muslim-majority provinces in Thailand’s far south gripped by a decades-long separatist insurgency.
Three people were killed, including a nine-year-old girl and a 75-year-old man, police said.
“One victim died at the scene, and two others succumbed to their injuries at the hospital,” local police officer Watthana Thurarat told AFP, adding that two more people were wounded.
Police believe the suspect, who remains at large, is linked to a rebel group, Watthana said.
Violence frequently rocks the kingdom’s southern provinces of Narathiwat, Pattani and Yala, where separatists seeking greater autonomy for the religiously distinct region have killed more than 7,000 people since 2004.
However, attacks on unarmed civilians in residential areas remain relatively rare, with most targeting security personnel.
In 2004, Thai security forces shot into a crowd of protesters outside a police station in Tak Bai, killing seven.
Subsequently, 78 others suffocated in the back of military trucks after they were arrested — a deadly crackdown widely seen as a trigger for the southern unrest in the Buddhist-majority country.
Last year, a Thai court dismissed the long-delayed Tak Bai case, brought by victims’ families against seven officials, when the statute of limitations expired.
Analysts have warned the decision could further inflame tensions in the region.
Worshipers stampede at a temple in western India, killing 6 and injuring dozens
- Stampedes during large Hindu religious gatherings are routinely reported in India
NEW DELHI: At least six people are dead and dozens injured after a stampede at a religious gathering in the western Indian state of Goa early Saturday, the Press Trust of India news agency reported.
The stampede broke out as thousands of devotees thronged narrow lanes leading to a temple in Shirgao village, some 40 kilometers from the state capital of Panaji, the agency quoted police as saying.
Tens of thousands of devotees from Goa and neighboring states of Maharashtra and Karnataka attended the annual Hindu festival at Sree Lairai Devi temple.
The stampede was caused as people standing on a slope near the temple fell over, pushing more people to fall onto each other, Director General of Police Alok Kumar said, according to the news agency.
The injured were taken to nearby hospitals for treatment. Authorities ordered a probe into the incident.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he was saddened by the loss of lives and expressed condolences to the victims’ families.
“The local administration is assisting those affected,” Modi said on social media.
Deadly stampedes are relatively common around Indian religious festivals, where large crowds often gather in small areas.
In January, at least 30 people died and many more were injured in a stampede as tens of thousands of Hindus rushed to bathe in a sacred river at India’s massive Maha Kumbh festival, the world’s largest religious gathering.
In July, at least 116 people died, most of them women and children, when thousands at a religious gathering in northern India stampeded at a tent camp in Hathras town.
