The Solomon Islands' capital was calm yesterday as an Australian-led intervention force set about restoring law and order, one day after landing in the strife-torn Pacific nation.
Larger than normal crowds thronged Honiara's main streets, while rundown buildings were being cleaned and long-closed shops reopened as Operation Helpem Fren -- pidgin for "help a friend" -- started smoothly.
The Australian head of the regional mission Nick Warner said the arrival of the first wave of troops Thursday, in what is the biggest military operation in the South Pacific since World War II, had had an instant impact on life on the islands.
"From the moment we arrived things really did change," he told Australian broadcaster ABC.
"As of last night [Thursday] we had joint patrols with the Royal Solomon Islands police, we had close personal protection on Prime Minister [Sir Allan] Kemakeza and we have static guarding at key facilities around Honiara."
However Warner stressed restoring law and order across the entire island would be a lengthy process.
"We shouldn't fool ourselves that this is going to be a quick operation, it's not," he said.
The Solomon Islands has suffered a four-year civil war that, despite peace efforts, showed few signs of ending before the arrival of the intervention force, which has been endorsed by the 16-nation Pacific Forum.
In the days leading up to Thursday, militants were still around Honiara, although unarmed. The militants had slipped away by yesterday, however.
Another early sign of the operation's success came with the announcement that New Zealand Foreign Minister Phil Goff will travel to Honiara with Australian counterpart Alexander Downer next week.
"We will be talking with Prime Minister [Allan] Kemakeza about the strengthened assistance package and how we can work with the Solomon Islands government and people to ensure the success of the intervention," Goff said in Wellington.
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
Le Tuan Binh keeps his Moroccan soldier father’s tombstone at his village home north of Hanoi, a treasured reminder of a man whose community in Vietnam has been largely forgotten. Mzid Ben Ali, or “Mohammed” as Binh calls him, was one of tens of thousands of North Africans who served in the French army as it battled to maintain its colonial rule of Indochina. He fought for France against the Viet Minh independence movement in the 1950s, before leaving the military — as either a defector or a captive — and making a life for himself in Vietnam. “It’s very emotional for me,”
The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Central Committee is to gather in July for a key meeting known as a plenum, the third since the body of elite decisionmakers was elected in 2022, focusing on reforms amid “challenges” at home and complexities broad. Plenums are important events on China’s political calendar that require the attendance of all of the Central Committee, comprising 205 members and 171 alternate members with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at the helm. The Central Committee typically holds seven plenums between party congresses, which are held once every five years. The current central committee members were elected at the