Taipei says Chinese aircraft carrier group sailed through Taiwan Strait

Taipei says Chinese aircraft carrier group sailed through Taiwan Strait
China’s Liaoning aircraft carrier takes part in earlier military drills east of Taiwan, in this screenshot from a handout video released on Oct. 14, 2024. (PLA Eastern Theatre Command via Reuters)
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Updated 23 October 2024
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Taipei says Chinese aircraft carrier group sailed through Taiwan Strait

Taipei says Chinese aircraft carrier group sailed through Taiwan Strait
  • China considers Taiwan to be part of its territory and has ramped up military activity around the island in recent years
  • While Taiwan has its own government, military, and currency, Beijing insists the island is part of its territory

TAIPEI: A Chinese aircraft carrier group sailed through the Taiwan Strait on Wednesday, Taiwan’s defense minister said, a day after Beijing held a live-fire exercise near the self-ruled island.
China considers Taiwan to be part of its territory and has ramped up military activity around the island in recent years to pressure Taipei into accepting its claims of sovereignty.
“The Liaoning is passing through the Taiwan Strait now, sailing north along the west of the median line (of the passage) and we are closely monitoring it,” Defense Minister Wellington Koo told reporters.
The Liaoning, China’s oldest aircraft carrier, took part in Beijing’s large-scale military drills around Taiwan last week that were condemned by Taipei and its key backer Washington.
A blockade was among the exercises carried out.
Koo warned on Wednesday that an actual blockade of Taiwan would be an “act of war” and have a “very serious impact on the global economy.”
China has two aircraft carriers in active service, and a third undergoing sea trials. The Liaoning has previously passed through the strait.
It appeared to be returning to Qingdao port in eastern China via the Pratas Islands, in the northern part of the South China Sea, for “replenishing and necessary maintenance,” said Jiang Hsin-biao, a military expert at Taiwan’s Institute for National Defense and Security Research.
Its involvement in the recent military drills was for “the purpose of practicing against foreign forces and intimidating Taiwan,” Jiang said.
Beijing sent a record number of military aircraft — including fighter jets and drones — as well as warships to encircle Taiwan on October 14 in what Beijing said was a “stern warning to the separatist acts of ‘Taiwan Independence’ forces.”
It was in response to Taiwan President Lai Ching-te’s National Day speech on October 10 in which he vowed to “resist annexation,” and insisted that Beijing and Taipei were not subordinate to each other.
Lai, who took office in May, has used stronger language than his predecessor Tsai Ing-wen in defending Taiwan’s sovereignty, angering China’s leaders in Beijing who call him a “separatist.”
Taipei said Tuesday the live-fire drill could be part of Beijing’s “tactics to bolster its intimidation in conjunction with the dynamics in the Taiwan Strait.”
Over the weekend, a US and a Canadian warship passed through the 180-kilometer Taiwan Strait, part of regular passages by Washington and its allies meant to reinforce its status as an international waterway.
Beijing condemned the passage as disrupting “peace and stability” in the strait.
Taiwan’s defense ministry said Wednesday it had detected 15 Chinese military aircraft and six navy vessels in the skies and waters around the island in the 24 hours to 6:00 a.m. Wednesday.
China and Taiwan have been ruled separately since 1949 after Chiang Kai-shek’s nationalist forces fled to the island following their defeat by Mao Zedong’s communist fighters.
While Taiwan has its own government, military, and currency, Beijing insists the island is part of its territory and has refused to rule out the use of force to bring it under its control.


Women to be barred from nursing and midwifery courses in Afghanistan

Women to be barred from nursing and midwifery courses in Afghanistan
Updated 04 December 2024
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Women to be barred from nursing and midwifery courses in Afghanistan

Women to be barred from nursing and midwifery courses in Afghanistan
  • Women flocked to nursing and midwifery institutes after being barred from universities two years ago
  • Afghanistan has around 10 public, over 150 private health institutes offering two-year diplomas in 18 subjects

KABUL: Senior employees at several institutions offering nursing and midwifery courses in Afghanistan on Tuesday said women would be barred from classes, following an edict by the Taliban supreme leader.
Health officials met with directors of education institutes on Monday in the capital Kabul to inform them of the ruling, an official from the public health ministry who was not authorized to speak to the media told AFP.
“There is no official letter but the directors of institutes were informed in a meeting that women and girls can’t study anymore in their institutes,” he said.
“They were not provided with any details and justification and were just told of the order of the supreme leader and were asked to implement it.”
The manager of an institute who attended the meeting and asked not to be named for fear of reprisal said dozens of managers were in attendance.
A senior employee of another center told AFP his boss had been at a separate meeting with health officials on Tuesday after confusion about the rule.
The employee said institutes had been given 10 days to hold final exams.
Some managers petitioned the ministry for clarity, while others carried on as normal in the absence of a written order.
The Taliban could not be reached for comment.
Not long after Taliban authorities swept back to power in 2021, they barred girls from education beyond secondary school as part of restrictions labelled “gender apartheid” by the United Nations.
Women students then flocked to health institutes, one of the few avenues still open to them.
They now make up the majority of students in these centers.
Afghanistan has around 10 public and more than 150 private health institutes offering two-year diplomas in 18 subjects, ranging from midwifery to anaesthesia, pharmacy and dentistry, with a total of 35,000 women students, health ministry sources said.
“What are we supposed to do with just 10 percent of our students?” one manager said.
Aysha — not her real name — a midwifery teacher at a private institute in Kabul, said she received a message from management telling her not to come to work until further notice with little explanation.
“This is a big shock for us. Psychologically, we are shaken,” the 28-year-old said.
“This was the only source of hope for the girls and women who were banned from universities.”
The United Kingdom’s charge d’affaires said he was “deeply concerned” by the reports.
“This is another affront to women’s right to education and will further restrict access to health care for Afghan women and children,” he posted on social media platform X.
The health ministry source said the ban would squeeze an already suffering health sector.
“We are already short of professional medical and para-medical staff and this would result in further shortages.”


Raids in Germany target Channel migrant smuggling ring

Raids in Germany target Channel migrant smuggling ring
Updated 04 December 2024
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Raids in Germany target Channel migrant smuggling ring

Raids in Germany target Channel migrant smuggling ring
  • The suspects, all based in Germany, organized the purchase, storage and transport of inflatable boats to smuggle migrants from beaches near the French city of Calais to Britain

BERLIN: German police commandos carried out a series of pre-dawn raids Wednesday against an alleged Iraqi-Kurdish network accused of smuggling migrants to Britain.
More than 500 officers searched locations in multiple German cities in an operation coordinated with Europol and French security service, police said.
The network is accused of the “smuggling of irregular migrants from the Middle East and East Africa to France and the UK using ... low-quality inflatable boats,” German police said in a statement.
Police searched residential properties and storage facilities on the basis of search and arrest warrants issued by a French court in Lille, according to police.
The raids targeted properties in Essen, Gelsenkirchen, Grevenbroich, Bochum and other cities, including a refugee home in Essen, Germany’s Bild newspaper reported.
More than 20 French investigators and three Europol officials were assisting, police said.
The raids follow an investigation by Belgian, French and German authorities into another Iraqi-Kurdish smuggling network that led to 19 arrests earlier this year.
The suspects, all based in Germany, organized the purchase, storage and transport of inflatable boats to smuggle migrants from beaches near the French city of Calais to Britain, The Hague-based Europol said.
Migrant-smuggling via small boats has been on the rise since 2019 and two years later overtook the practice of hiding people in the back of lorries.
Last year, around 30,000 migrants and 600 boats reached Britain, according to Europol.


Gunman shoots at Sikh leader outside India’s Golden Temple, no one harmed

Gunman shoots at Sikh leader outside India’s Golden Temple, no one harmed
Updated 04 December 2024
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Gunman shoots at Sikh leader outside India’s Golden Temple, no one harmed

Gunman shoots at Sikh leader outside India’s Golden Temple, no one harmed
  • Politician, Sukhbir Singh Badal, former deputy chief minister of Punjab state, was unharmed
  • The shooter, identified by police as Narain Singh, 68, was caught and arrested, police said 

MUMBAI: A gunman shot at a prominent Sikh politician outside the Golden Temple in northern India on Wednesday before police caught and arrested him, in a scare at the popular site that witnessed a bloody clash between Sikh militants and troops four decades ago.
The politician, Sukhbir Singh Badal, former deputy chief minister of Punjab state, was unharmed.
The shooter, identified by police as Narain Singh, 68, was seen in TV footage from news agency ANI walking to the entrance of the temple in Amritsar city, the holiest shrine for Sikhs, and stealthily removing a gun from his pocket to fire at Badal.
He was stopped and pushed away by a policeman in plainclothes who was standing next to Badal, but not before he fired a stray shot, which did not hit anyone, police said.
“Due to the alertness and deployment of our police, this attack attempt was foiled,” Amritsar Police Commissioner Gurpreet Singh Bhullar told reporters, adding that the gunman had been arrested.
The reason for the attack was not immediately clear.
Badal, a former ally of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, was sitting outside the Golden Temple doing a penance ritual imposed on him by the Akal Takht, Sikhism’s highest body.
Sikhism is one of the country’s main religions, and Sikhs form nearly 2 percent of India’s 1.4 billion population.
In 1984, then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi sent the military into the Golden Temple to evict armed Sikh separatist leader Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and his supporters, infuriating Sikhs around the world.
A few months later, Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards at her home in New Delhi.


Japanese court convicts Australian who says she was tricked into smuggling drugs

Japanese court convicts Australian who says she was tricked into smuggling drugs
Updated 04 December 2024
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Japanese court convicts Australian who says she was tricked into smuggling drugs

Japanese court convicts Australian who says she was tricked into smuggling drugs

CHIBA: A Japanese court on Wednesday sentenced an Australian woman who says she was tricked amphetamines into the country to six years in prison, despite accepting her testimony that she was the victim of an online romance scam.
The Chiba District Court said it found Donna Nelson from Perth, Australia, guilty of violating the stimulants control and customs laws. It ordered her to pay a fine of 1 million yen ($6,671) in addition to serving a prison term.
Nelson was arrested at Japan’s Narita International Airport just outside Tokyo on Jan. 3, 2023 when customs officials found about 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds) of phenylaminopropane, a stimulant, hidden under a false bottom in a suitcase she was carrying as checked luggage.
Nelson, 58, told the court that she did not know that drugs were hidden in the suitcase and that she was carrying them for a man she thought she loved and hoped to marry.
The man, whom she met online in 2020, told her he was the Nigerian owner of a fashion business. In 2023, he paid to travel to Japan via Laos, and asked her to collect dress samples from an acquaintance in Laos, her lawyers said.
She was supposed to meet the man in Japan but he never showed up, according to prosecutors.
Nelson has already been in custody for nearly two years. The court said 430 days of that will be counted toward her sentence.
Presiding Judge Masakazu Kamakura said that although Nelson was decieved, she had a sense that something was wrong with the arrangement and that something illegal could be hidden in the suitcase, and she could have stopped.
However, the judge said there was room for sympathy and imposed a shorter sentence than would be typical for the amount of drugs she was carrying.
Prosecutors demanded 10 years in prison and a fine of 3 million yen (about $20,000) in their closing argument last month.
Nelson’s lawyer Rie Nishida said the ruling was unjust and did not make sense, and that she planned to appeal.
On Wednesday, Nelson dropped her head and seen sobbing as she listened to the verdict in the witness seat in front of a panel of judges. One of her daughters, Kristal Hilaire, was also seen wiping away tears as she looked on from her seat in the audience.
Several other family members who attended earlier sessions, seeing Nelson for the first time since her arrest nearly two years ago, returned home ahead of the verdict.


UK’s David Lammy: hand of Russia seen in many world conflicts at present

UK’s David Lammy: hand of Russia seen in many world conflicts at present
Updated 04 December 2024
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UK’s David Lammy: hand of Russia seen in many world conflicts at present

UK’s David Lammy: hand of Russia seen in many world conflicts at present

BRUSSELS: Russia’s involvement can be seen in many of the wars currently taking place across the world, said British Foreign Minister David Lammy at a NATO meeting on Wednesday, as he urged NATO allies to ‘get serious’ over defense spending.
“We are living in dangerous times,” said Lammy.
“And as we look across the world with war here on our continent in Europe, with the tremendous aggression that we are seeing across the Middle East with the hand of Iran so present in the Middle East and with this rising conflict in Sudan and now in Syria, there is one country with its hand in so much of it, and that is Russia,” he added.