Human rights activists scheduled a demonstration yesterday at a British airport where a US flight with a hazardous cargo bound for Israel is due to land to refuel, an organizer of the rally said.
A US-chartered plane bound for Tel Aviv was scheduled to touch down at Prestwick Airport, near Glasgow, Scotland yesterday -- a day after a similar flight used the same airport, Britain's Civil Aviation Authority said.
The demonstrations come amid fierce criticism of Britain's apparent cooperation in the transport of missiles to the Jewish state during its bombing campaign in Lebanon.
US President George W. Bush has apologized for two earlier flights that stopped at Prestwick and had failed to declare they were carrying missiles to Tel Aviv, Prime Minister Tony Blair's official spokesman said.
Blair has denied Britain has acted inappropriately and dismissed critics who have called for a ban on US military aircraft landing on British airfields.
"What happens at Prestwick Airport is not going to determine whether we get a ceasefire in the Lebanon," Blair told Britain's Sky News in an interview on Saturday.
"If what people are saying is that we should impose an arms embargo on Israel or indeed on the US, I think that would be very curious indeed," he told BBC television.
The Civil Aviation Authority said the flights on Saturday and yesterday were bound for Tel Aviv from Texas and confirmed special exemption permits had been requested and granted for hazardous materials aboard.
The authority is investigating whether Washington applied for similar exemptions to carry hazardous material on two chartered Airbus A310 cargo planes that recently refueled at Prestwick Airport.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing