UAE
US deploys F-22 jets
US F-22 fighter jets on Saturday arrived at an air base following a spate of unprecedented attacks in Abu Dhabi by Houthi fighters in Yemen, the US Air force said. In the past few weeks, the Iran-aligned Houthis have waged a string of largely failed strikes on United Arab Emirates (UAE) targets that have triggered Emirati and US air defenses and have even seen US troops based there briefly taking shelter. The jets arrived at the base as part of a multifaceted demonstration of US support after a series of attacks throughout last month threatened US and Emirati armed forces stationed at the host installation, the statement said. “The Raptors’ presence will bolster already strong partner nation defenses, and puts destabilizing forces on notice that the US and our partners are committed to enabling peace and stability in the region,” Lieutenant General Greg Guillot, commander of the US Air Force’s Middle East command, said in a statement. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin ordered the rapid deployment of the fifth-generation aircraft in coordination with Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the US Air Forces Central said in a statement. The airmen and F-22s are deployed from the First Fighter Wing from Joint Base Langley-Eustis in Virginia, the US Air Force said.
YEMEN
UN employees abducted
Five UN staff have been abducted in the south of the nation while returning to Aden after a field mission, the UN said on Saturday. The staff were taken on Friday in Abyan Governorate, said Russell Geekie, a spokesman for the top UN official in the country. “The United Nations is in close contact with the authorities to secure their release,” Geekie said. The country’s internationally recognized government, based in the south, was working to safely free the UN staff abducted by unknown gunmen, the official news agency cited a cabinet statement as saying. An official at the UN office in Aden said that four of those seized were Yemeni nationals.
NICARAGUA
Torres dies in detention
Former guerrilla Hugo Torres, one of 46 opposition figures jailed since last year by the government of President Daniel Ortega, died on Saturday, his family said in a statement. He was 73. The statement offered few details on Torres’ death, but expressed his children’s “deep pain over the death of our beloved father.” It was released by the opposition coalition Blue and White National Unity, of which Torres was a member. A former Sandinista dissident, Torres had been held since June 13 last year in El Chipote prison, before being transferred in December to a hospital for treatment, sources said. Torres had been vice president of the opposition Democratic Renovation Union (UNAMOS), formerly the Sandinista Renovation Movement, established in 1995 by militants unhappy with Ortega’s leadership. A retired army general, Torres in 1974 undertook a risky operation to free a group of jailed politicians — including Ortega — being held under then-president Anastasio Somoza. However, Ortega has accused dozens of opposition figures of conspiring against his government with US backing. Torres was hailed on Saturday as a “hero” by former guerrilla and exiled Sandinista dissident Monica Baltodano. She told news Web site 100% Noticias that Torres was “a true hero of the struggles against the dictatorships that have dominated Nicaragua — the dictatorship of Somoza and now the dictatorship of Ortega, which is a brutal and criminal dictatorship.”
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
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