Thailand will join three other Southeast Asian navies in patrolling the vital Strait of Malacca shipping lane to combat piracy and terrorism, Indonesia's military chief said.
General Endriartono Sutarto also said Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, which launched joint patrols last month, were open to offers of help from other countries.
"Last week, we expanded with Thailand to conduct coordinated patrols. We are still open to other countries outside the current four if they want to offer assistance," Sutarto said late on Thursday night.
He did not elaborate, but a senior navy officer said yesterday that a greater intelligence capacity was needed to combat militants.
"We are open to any intelligence on terrorism from other countries that can help us because we know terrorism must be fought together," said Indonesian Navy spokesman First Admiral Adiyaman Saputra.
Britain's top navy officer said in an interview published on Thursday that intelligence shows that al-Qaeda has plans to target merchant shipping in a bid to disrupt trade.
"We have got an underlying level of intelligence which shows there is a threat," the Royal Navy's First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff, Admiral Sir Alan West, was quoted as saying by Lloyd's List maritime newspaper.
West said ports and strategic sea lanes like the Malacca Straits posed the biggest risks as ships stack up in numbers. More than 50,000 commercial vessels sail the 800km channel each year.
Kouri Richins, a Utah mother who published a children’s book about grief after the death of her husband is to serve a life sentence for his murder without the possibility of parole, a judge ruled on Wednesday. Richins was convicted in March of aggravated murder for lacing a cocktail given to her husband, Eric Richins, with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl at their home near Park City in 2022. A jury also found her guilty of four other felonies, including insurance fraud, forgery and attempted murder for trying to poison her husband weeks earlier on Feb. 14, 2022, with a
‘PERSONAL MISTAKES’: Eileen Wang has agreed to plead guilty to the felony, which comes with a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison A southern California mayor has agreed to plead guilty to acting as an illegal agent for the Chinese government and has resigned from her city position, officials said on Monday. Eileen Wang (王愛琳), mayor of Arcadia, was charged last month with one count of acting in the US as an illegal agent of a foreign government. She was accused of doing the bidding of Chinese officials, such as sharing articles favorable to Beijing, without prior notification to the US government as required by law. The 58-year-old was elected in November 2022 to a five-person city council, from which the mayor is selected
DELA ROSA CASE: The whereabouts of the senator, who is wanted by the ICC, was unclear, while President Marcos faces a political test over the senate situation Philippine authorities yesterday were seeking confirmation of reports that a top politician wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) had fled, a day after gunfire rang out at the Philippine Senate where he had taken refuge fearing his arrest. Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, the former national police chief and top enforcer of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs,” has been under Senate protection and is wanted for crimes against humanity, the same charges Duterte is accused of. “Several sources confirmed that the senator, Senator Bato, is no longer in the Senate premises, but we are still getting confirmation,” Presidential
HELP DENIED? The US Department of State said that the Cuban leadership refuses to allow the US to provide aid to Cubans, ‘who are in desperate need of assistance’ US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday said that Cuba’s leadership must change, as Washington renewed an offer of US$100 million in aid if the communist nation agrees to cooperate. Cuba has been suffering severe economic tumult led by an energy shortage that plunged 65 percent of the country into darkness on Tuesday. Cuba’s leaders have blamed US sanctions, but Rubio, a Cuban American and critic of the government established by Fidel Castro, said the system was to blame, including corruption by the military. “It’s a broken, nonfunctional economy, and it’s impossible to change it. I wish it were different,” he told
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