Tokyo, 16 August, /AJMEDIA/
Germany sends fighter jets to Indo-Pacific for 1st time
BERLIN – The German air force sent a fleet including fighters to the Indo-Pacific for the first time on Monday for joint exercises and other operations, the Defense Ministry said.
The dispatch of six Eurofighter jets and other military planes, including air tankers, is aimed at promoting security ties with the region amid high tensions surrounding the Taiwan Strait.
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Pentagon chief, new Japan defense minister affirm alliance strength
WASHINGTON – U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin on Monday affirmed with new Japanese Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada their commitment to strengthening the bilateral alliance and cooperation toward a “free and open Indo-Pacific,” the Pentagon said.
The Pentagon also announced the same day that the United States, Japan and South Korea recently engaged in a missile warning and ballistic missile tracking exercise, saying that the drill underscored the trilateral cooperation in place to respond to North Korean threats.
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Int’l nuclear panel urges Russia to end Ukraine power plant seizure
NEW YORK – A panel under an ongoing major nuclear disarmament conference has effectively urged Russia to end the seizure of a nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine, according to a draft report dated Sunday.
The call for “the restoration of control to the competent Ukrainian authorities” of the Zaporizhzhia plant is included in a draft expected to be finalized and combined with the reports of two other panels by the Aug. 26 end of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty review conference at the U.N. headquarters.
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Nuclear war between U.S. and Russia could starve 5 bil. people: study
WASHINGTON – A nuclear war between the United States and Russia could put over 5 billion people in danger of starving to death due to climate disruptions caused by the use of the devastating weapons, a study published in British science journal Nature Food showed Monday.
The study highlighted the impact of massive amounts of soot that would likely be thrown into the atmosphere as a result of firestorms triggered by the dropping of nuclear bombs on cities and industrial areas. It indicated that such particles would spread through the atmosphere and result in a rapid cooling of the planet.
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Pentagon chief Austin tests COVID positive for 2nd time this yr
WASHINGTON – U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said he tested positive for the novel coronavirus Monday morning and is experiencing mild symptoms.
Austin, who also tested positive for COVID-19 in January, said in a statement that he will quarantine at home for the next five days while maintaining his normal work schedule virtually.
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Asteroids may have brought water, organic matter to Earth
TOKYO – Asteroids that traveled from the fringes of the solar system more than 4.5 billion kilometers away may have brought water and organic matter to the primordial Earth, a team of Japanese researchers said Monday.
The hypothesis, published in the scientific journal Nature Astronomy by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and others, was drawn from an analysis of samples from the Ryugu asteroid collected by the Hayabusa2 space probe.
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Taiwan President Tsai meets U.S. lawmakers amid tensions with China
TAIPEI – Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen said the self-ruled island is determined to maintain the status quo in the Taiwan Strait when meeting a delegation of U.S. lawmakers on Monday, with cross-strait military tensions further heightened as the trip followed shortly on from a high-profile U.S. visit to the island earlier this month.
Calling the delegation headed by Senator Ed Markey “very important friends of Taiwan,” Tsai said the self-ruled island has been working closely with its international partners amid Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine and following China’s large-scale military exercises held around Taiwan earlier this month.
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Myanmar’s Suu Kyi gets 6 more years in prison for corruption
YANGON – A special court set up by Myanmar’s military on Monday sentenced the nation’s deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi to six more years in prison over additional corruption charges, local media reported.
Since the military ousted her democratically elected government in a February 2021 coup and put her under house arrest, Suu Kyi, who is being held in a jail in the country’s administrative capital Naypyitaw, has been on trial on over a dozen criminal charges.
