Japan scrambles jets as Russian bombers fly over high seas
Japan scrambles jets as Russian bombers fly over high seas/node/2588504/world
Japan scrambles jets as Russian bombers fly over high seas
A Russian Tu-95 strategic bomber conducts flight over the neutral waters of the Sea of Okhotsk and Sea of Japan, in this still image from video released Jan. 30, 2025. (Russian Defense Ministry via Reuters)
Japan scrambles jets as Russian bombers fly over high seas
‘We confirmed that Russian military bombers and fighter jets flew over the high seas of the Sea of Okhotsk and the Sea of Japan yesterday’
Tokyo has raised the issue with Moscow in the past through diplomatic routes, including regarding a Russian fighter jet’s intrusion into territorial airspace in September
Updated 31 January 2025
AFP
TOKYO: Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian bombers flew over international waters around the country, Tokyo’s top government spokesman said Friday.
“We confirmed that Russian military bombers and fighter jets flew over the high seas of the Sea of Okhotsk and the Sea of Japan yesterday, and we scrambled Air Self-Defense Force fighter jets” in response, Yoshimasa Hayashi told reporters.
“It is difficult to say clearly what the purpose of the flight was... but the Russian military has been active on an ongoing basis in areas surrounding Japan,” he said.
Tokyo has raised the issue with Moscow in the past through diplomatic routes, including regarding a Russian fighter jet’s intrusion into territorial airspace in September, which Russia denied according to media reports.
“We will continue to monitor (the situation) closely and do our best to take measures in patrolling and responding to airspace incursions,” Hayashi said.
Russia’s defense ministry said on Telegram Thursday that two long-range bombers flew over international waters in the Sea of Japan and the Sea of Okhotsk.
The Russian ministry also released a video of two Tupolev-95 aircraft escorted by Russian fighter jets conducting what it called a regular flight over more than eight hours.
“All flights by Russian Aerospace Forces aircraft are carried out in strict compliance with international rules on the use of airspace,” it said in a statement.
Why is Ethiopia’s Tigray again on the brink of conflict?
Power struggle within the once-dominant Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) party has sparked fears of renewed conflict
There is concern in Addis Ababa that Eritrea, its historic rival that gained independence from Ethiopia in 1993, will exploit the unrest
Updated 5 sec ago
AFP
ADDIS ABABA: More than two years after a peace deal ended the devastating war in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, a power struggle within the once-dominant TPLF party has sparked fears of renewed conflict.
Could these rising tensions lead to violence so soon after one of the century’s deadliest conflicts that killed an estimated 600,000 people?
The Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) ran the whole of Ethiopia for nearly three decades until Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, a non-Tigrayan, took power in 2018.
His takeover led to months of tension with the TPLF leadership, eventually leading Abiy to send troops to Tigray in November 2020, accusing their forces of attacking federal army camps.
This triggered two years of horrific war between Tigrayan rebels and government forces backed by militias and Eritrean troops. It finally ended with a November 2022 peace treaty, known as the Pretoria Agreement.
A new interim administration was created in Tigray with TPLF veteran Getachew Reda in charge, though overseen by the federal government.
But divisions have emerged in recent months between Getachew and the TPLF’s leader, Debretsion Gebremichael.
Getachew faces criticism over delays in implementing the peace deal — particularly the failure to expel Eritrean forces who supported the federal government against the Tigrayans, and return the million people displaced by the war.
The Tigray Defense Forces (TDF) had previously stayed neutral in the Getachew-Debretsion dispute.
But in January, a dissident group within the TDF accused Getachew’s administration of undermining “the Tigrayan people’s national interest and engaging in treason.”
One foreign expert, who did not want to be named, estimated around 200 commanders supported the letter.
Getachew described it as declaring “a coup d’etat.”
In early March, he attempted to suspend three TDF generals and accused Debretsion’s faction of trying to “take over the whole of Tigray.”
This week, Debretsion’s forces took control of the municipalities in state capital Mekele and second city Adigrat, putting their own mayors in place.
General view of Mekele, the capital city of the Tigray region in northern Ethiopia. (AFP)
Many residents, already deeply weary of war, are panicking over the threat of renewed conflict with reports of bank runs and sold-out flights.
Getachew has asked for assistance from the federal government in Addis Ababa, though he said this should not be military in nature.
The federal government has not responded publicly.
There is concern in Addis Ababa that Eritrea, its historic rival that gained independence from Ethiopia in 1993, will exploit the unrest.
Eritrea’s rhetoric has been increasingly bellicose. Last month, its information minister accused Ethiopia of “waging an intense and unacceptable campaign against Eritrea” and committing “malicious provocations.”
A security source told AFP on condition of anonymity that armed Ethiopian convoys were heading toward the region of Afar, which borders Eritrea, in recent days.
Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki’s dissatisfaction with the 2022 peace agreement, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s ambitions for a Red Sea port and geopolitical interest from the Middle East have fueled the deteriorating tensions, said Kjetil Tronvoll, Oslo University professor specializing in the region.
That has left the “two countries inching closer to a new war,” he said.
At least 26 dead in massive US storm after Kansas reports 8 fatalities
Wildfires elsewhere in the Southern Plains threatened to spread rapidly amid warm, dry weather and strong winds in Texas, Kansas, Missouri and New Mexico
Updated 16 March 2025
AP
Violent tornadoes ripped through parts of the US, wiping out schools and toppling semitractor-trailers in several states, part of a monster storm that has killed at least 26 people as more severe weather was expected late Saturday.
The number of fatalities increased after the Kansas Highway Patrol reported eight people died in a highway pileup caused by a dust storm in Sherman County Friday. At least 50 vehicles were involved.
Missouri recorded more fatalities than any other state as it withstood scattered twisters overnight that killed at least 12 people, authorities said. The deaths included a man who was killed after a tornado ripped apart his home.
“It was unrecognizable as a home. Just a debris field,” said Coroner Jim Akers of Butler County, describing the scene that confronted rescuers. “The floor was upside down. We were walking on walls.”
Dakota Henderson said he and others rescuing people trapped in their homes Friday night found five dead bodies scattered in the debris outside what remained of his aunt’s house in hard-hit Wayne County, Missouri.
“It was a very rough deal last night,” he said Saturday, surrounded by uprooted trees and splintered homes. “It’s really disturbing for what happened to the people, the casualties last night.”
Henderson said they rescued his aunt from a bedroom that was the only room left standing in her house, taking her out through a window. They also carried out a man who had a broken arm and leg.
Officials in Arkansas said three people died in Independence County and 29 others were injured across eight counties as storms passed through the state.
“We have teams out surveying the damage from last night’s tornadoes and have first responders on the ground to assist,” Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders said on X.
She and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp declared states of emergency. Kemp said he was making the declaration in anticipation of severe weather moving in later Saturday.
On Friday, meanwhile, authorities said three people were killed in car crashes during a dust storm in Amarillo in the Texas Panhandle. Extreme weather encompasses a zone of 100 million people
The deaths came as a massive storm system moving across the country unleashed winds that triggered deadly dust storms and fanned more than 100 wildfires.
Extreme weather conditions were forecast to affect an area home to more than 100 million people. Winds gusting up to 80 mph (130 kph) were predicted from the Canadian border to Texas, threatening blizzard conditions in colder northern areas and wildfire risk in warmer, drier places to the south.
The National Weather Service issued blizzard warnings for parts of far western Minnesota and far eastern South Dakota starting early Saturday. Snow accumulations of 3 to 6 inches (7.6 to 15.2 centimeters) were expected, with up to a foot (30 centimeters) possible.
Winds gusting to 60 mph (97 kph) were expected to cause whiteout conditions.
Evacuations were ordered in some Oklahoma communities as more than 130 fires were reported across the state. Nearly 300 homes were damaged or destroyed. Gov. Kevin Stitt said at a Saturday news conference that some 266 square miles (689 square kilometers) had burned in his state.
The State Patrol said winds were so strong that they toppled several tractor-trailers.
Experts said it’s not unusual to see such weather extremes in March. Tornadoes hit amid storm outbreak
The Storm Prediction Center said fast-moving storms could spawn twisters and hail as large as baseballs on Saturday, but the greatest threat would come from winds near or exceeding hurricane force, with gusts of 100 mph (160 kph) possible.
Significant tornadoes continued to hit Saturday. The regions at highest risk stretch from eastern Louisiana and Mississippi through Alabama, western Georgia and the Florida panhandle, the center said.
Bailey Dillon, 24, and her fiance, Caleb Barnes, watched a massive tornado from their front porch in Tylertown, Mississippi, about half a mile (0.8 km) away as it struck an area near Paradise Ranch RV Park.
They drove over afterward to see if anyone needed help and recorded a video depicting snapped trees, leveled buildings and overturned vehicles.
“The amount of damage was catastrophic,” Dillon said. “It was a large amount of cabins, RVs, campers that were just flipped over — everything was destroyed.”
Paradise Ranch reported on Facebook that all its staff and guests were safe and accounted for, but Dillon said the damage extended beyond the ranch itself.
“Homes and everything were destroyed all around it,” she said. “Schools and buildings are just completely gone.”
Some of the imagery from the extreme weather has gone viral.
Tad Peters and his dad, Richard Peters, had pulled over to fuel up their pickup truck in Rolla, Missouri, Friday night when they heard tornado sirens and saw other motorists flee the interstate to park.
“Whoa, is this coming? Oh, it’s here. It’s here,” Tad Peters can be heard saying on a video. “Look at all that debris. Ohhh. My God, we are in a torn ...”
His father then rolled up the truck window. The two were headed to Indiana for a weightlifting competition but decided to turn around and head back home to Norman, Oklahoma, about six hours away, where they encountered wildfires.
Wildfires elsewhere in the Southern Plains threatened to spread rapidly amid warm, dry weather and strong winds in Texas, Kansas, Missouri and New Mexico.
A blaze in Roberts County, Texas, northeast of Amarillo, quickly blew up from less than a square mile (about 2 square kilometers) to an estimated 32.8 square miles (85 square kilometers), the Texas A&M University Forest Service said on X. Crews stopped its advance by Friday evening.
About 60 miles (90 kilometers) to the south, another fire grew to about 3.9 square miles (10 square kilometers) before its advance was halted in the afternoon.
High winds also knocked out power to more than 200,000 homes and businesses in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana and Michigan, according the website poweroutage.us.
Stuck NASA astronauts one step closer to home after SpaceX crew-swap launch
The pressure from Musk and Trump has hung over a NASA preparation and safety process that normally follows a well-defined course
Updated 16 March 2025
Reuters
WASHINGTON: NASA and SpaceX on Friday launched a long-awaited crew to the International Space Station that opens the door to bringing home US astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who have been stuck on the orbital lab for nine months.
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket lifted off at 7:03 p.m. ET (2303 GMT) from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida carrying four astronauts who will replace Wilmore and Williams, both of whom are veteran NASA astronauts and retired US Navy test pilots and were the first to fly Boeing’s faulty Starliner capsule to the ISS in June. Otherwise a routine crew rotation flight, Friday’s Crew-10 mission is a long-awaited first step to bring the astronaut duo back to Earth — part of a plan set by NASA last year that more recently has been given greater urgency by President Donald Trump.
The Crew-10 launch occurred as Wilmore and Williams were asleep in their daily schedule on the station, Dina Contellam deputy manager of NASA’s ISS program, told reporters after the launch.
After the Crew-10 astronauts’ ISS arrival on Saturday at 11:30 p.m. ET, Wilmore and Williams are scheduled to depart on Wednesday as early as 4 a.m. ET (0800 GMT) on Sunday, along with NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov. Hague and Gorbunov flew to the ISS in September on a Crew Dragon craft with two empty seats for Wilmore and Williams.
The Crew-10 crew, which will stay on the station for roughly six months, includes NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi and Russian cosmonaut Kirill Peskov.
PLANNING FOR THE UNEXPECTED
Minutes after reaching orbit, McClain, part of NASA’s astronaut corps since 2013, introduced the mission’s microgravity indicator — per tradition in American spaceflight to signal the crew safely reached space — as a plush origami crane, “the international symbol for peace, hope and healing.”
“It is far easier to be enemies than it is to be friends, it’s easier to break partnerships and relationships than it is to build them,” McClain, the Crew-10 mission commander, said from the Crew Dragon capsule, her communications live-streamed by NASA.
“Spaceflight is hard, and success depends on leaders of character who choose a harder right over the easier wrong, and who build programs, partnerships and relationships. We explore for the benefit of all,” she said.
The mission became entangled in politics as Trump and his adviser Elon Musk, who is also SpaceX’s CEO, urged a quicker Crew-10 launch and claimed, without evidence, that former President Joe Biden had abandoned Wilmore and Williams on the station for political reasons. “We came prepared to stay long, even though we planned to stay short,” Wilmore told reporters from space earlier this month, adding that he did not believe NASA’s decision to keep them on the ISS until Crew-10’s arrival had been affected by politics.
“That’s what your nation’s human spaceflight program’s all about,” he said, “planning for unknown, unexpected contingencies. And we did that.”
The Crew-10 mission is part of a normal crew rotation happening at an unusual time for NASA’s ISS operations — rather than a dedicated mission to retrieve Wilmore and Williams, who will return to Earth as late additions to NASA’s Crew-9 crew.
Musk says SpaceX had offered a dedicated Dragon mission for the pair last year as NASA mulled ways to bring the two back to Earth.
But NASA officials have said the two astronauts have had to remain on the ISS to maintain adequate staffing levels, and that it did not have the budget or the operational need to send a dedicated rescue spacecraft.
Having seen their mission turn into a normal NASA rotation to the ISS, Wilmore and Williams have been doing scientific research and conducting routine maintenance with the other five astronauts.
Williams told reporters earlier this month that she was looking forward to returning home to see her two dogs and family. “It’s been a roller coaster for them, probably a little bit more so than for us,” she said.
“UNUSUAL” MISSION PREPARATIONS
Trump and Musk’s demand for an earlier return for Wilmore and Williams was an unusual intervention into NASA operations. The agency later brought forward the Crew-10 mission from March 26, swapping a delayed SpaceX capsule for one that would be ready sooner.
The pressure from Musk and Trump has hung over a NASA preparation and safety process that normally follows a well-defined course.
NASA’s Commercial Crew Program manager, Steve Stich, said preparing for the mission had been an “unusual flow in many respects.”
The agency had to address some “late-breaking” issues, NASA space operations chief Ken Bowersox told reporters, including investigating a fuel leak on a recent SpaceX Falcon 9 launch and deterioration of a coating on some of the Dragon crew capsule’s thrusters.
Bowersox said it was hard for NASA to keep up with SpaceX: “We’re not quite as agile as they are, but we’re working well together.”
Macron says will announce plans to ‘mobilize civilians’
Macron said the return of compulsory military service was “not a realistic option“
“We are going to look at ways to mobilize civilians,” he told the regional press
Updated 16 March 2025
AFP
PARIS: French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday ruled out bringing back mandatory military service but said he wanted to mobilize society in the face of Russian aggression and would make an announcement in the coming weeks.
Speaking to regional newspapers in comments recorded Friday and published Saturday, Macron said the return of compulsory military service was “not a realistic option.”
He said France no longer had the “logistics” to reintroduce conscription, which ended in 2001.
“We are going to look at ways to mobilize civilians,” Macron told the regional press, adding that he wanted to consolidate the “mobilization of society in the face of crises.”
European countries including France have been debating reinstating compulsory military service to boost their defenses in the face of Russian aggression. Fears about the strength of NATO have surged further after US President Donald Trump said Europe must take care of its own security.
According to a recent poll, 61 percent of French people are in favor of re-establishing some form of compulsory military service.
During his presidential campaign in 2017, Macron had promised to introduce a month-long compulsory service, but the idea received a cool response from the army.
Macron has been looking for ways to encourage young French people to serve.
In January, he asked the government and the army to submit proposals by May on how to mobilize more young volunteers to “back up the armed forces” in case of need.
Former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe, speaking to Le Figaro, proposed creating “a voluntary military service,” which would enable at least 50,000 men and women to be trained each year.
Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu has suggested strengthening a reserve force to 100,000 people.
Macron wants ‘clear pressure’ on Moscow to accept ceasefire
Russia “does not give the impression it sincerely wants peace,” Macron said
“Russia must respond clearly and the pressure must be clear, in conjunction with the United States, to obtain this ceasefire“
Updated 15 March 2025
AFP
PARIS: French President Emmanuel Macron said Saturday that Europe and the United States had to put pressure on Russia to accept a proposed ceasefire in Ukraine.
Russia “does not give the impression it sincerely wants peace,” Macron said in a statement provided to AFP following a Saturday morning video conference of countries backing Ukraine organized by UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
On the contrary, Russian President Vladimir Putin is “escalating the fighting” and “wants to get everything, then negotiate,” he said.
“Russia must respond clearly and the pressure must be clear, in conjunction with the United States, to obtain this ceasefire,” he added.
In a statement released later Saturday, his office said Macron would Canada’s new prime minister Mark Carney on Monday to discuss the war in Ukraine and “other international crises.”
Since returning to the White House in January, US President Donald Trump has stressed his desire to end the three-year old conflict, and has made a spectacular rapprochement with Vladimir Putin.
After a very public falling out between Trump and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House last month, Kyiv has worked to restore relations. It has backed Washington’s proposed a 30-day ceasefire, which Russia has not accepted.
“This is a moment of truth because if Russia does not sincerely commit to peace, President Trump will toughen sanctions and retaliation, and so that will completely change the dynamic,” Macron said in a interview Friday with French regional papers that was posted late Saturday.
He said planning was accelerating among countries willing to provide security guarantees for Ukraine following any eventual ceasefire, such as France and Britain.
Military leaders from some 30 countries met in Paris on March 11 to discuss plans for a peacekeeping force in Ukraine, and will meet again Thursday in Britain.
“Several European countries, and indeed non-European ones, have expressed their willingness to join” a possible deployment to Ukraine to secure a future peace agreement with Russia, said Macron.
This would involve “a few thousand troops” per state, deployed at key points, to conduct training programs and “show our long-term support,” he told the regional papers.
Moscow has firmly opposed such a deployment.
But Macron said: “If Ukraine requests allied forces to be on its territory, it is not up to Russia to accept or reject them.
He added: “Under no circumstances can the Ukrainians make territorial concessions without having any security guarantees.”
Macron will travel to Berlin Tuesday for talks with Chancellor Olaf Scholz for talks on Ukraine ahead of an EU summit, Berlin has announced.
