Australia and New Zealand yesterday announced plans for the allies’ armies to work more closely together as New Zealand looks to its larger neighbor for help reinvigorating an armed forces battling worker shortages.
Plan ANZAC, named after the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps World War I force, aims to improve army interoperability with more cooperation in the areas of training, capability, readiness and personnel. Special forces troops were singled out as an area for continued cooperation.
The plan also aims to support participation in the American, British, Canadian, Australian and New Zealand Armies’ Program, a military standardization pact between the powers that also operate the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance.
Photo: AFP
“As close neighbors and allies we have a mutual commitment to support each other’s security ... and maintain a shared focus on the security and stability of our wider region,” New Zealand Army Chief Major General John Boswell said in a statement.
New Zealand’s only formal defense ally Australia has signed up to the AUKUS technology sharing alliance and is spending hundreds of billions on new weapons, raising concerns about whether New Zealand’s military can keep pace and maintain interoperability.
The announcement comes at a time when geopolitical tensions are ramping up in the Pacific and the need to respond to climate change disasters becomes more frequent.
New Zealand has idled three of its nine navy vessels and retired its P-3 Orion air fleet early as workers leave the military for higher pay elsewhere.
“We will be able to better share lessons across capability development, doctrine for training, and many other areas related to the generation, and in the New Zealand Army’s current case, the regeneration of land combat capability,” Boswell said.
The deal builds on a 2018 agreement to work more closely together to maintain regional stability and improve the effectiveness of joint operations with cooperation on logistics, communication and training.
PHISHING: The con might appear convincing, as the scam e-mails can coincide with genuine messages from Apple saying you have run out of storage For a while you have been getting messages from Apple saying “your iCloud storage is full.” They say you have exceeded your storage plan, so documents are no longer being backed up, and photos you take are not being uploaded. You have been resisting Apple’s efforts to get you to pay a minimum of ￡0.99 (US$1.33) a month for more storage, but it seems that you cannot keep putting off the inevitable: You have received an e-mail which says your iCloud account has been blocked, and your photos and videos would be deleted very soon. To keep them you need
The Israeli military has demolished entire villages as part of its invasion of south Lebanon, rigging homes with explosives and razing them to the ground in massive remote detonations. The Guardian reviewed three videos posted by the Israeli military and on social media, which showed Israel carrying out mass detonations in the villages of Taybeh, Naqoura and Deir Seryan along the Israel-Lebanon border. Lebanese media has reported more mass detonations in other border villages, but satellite imagery was not readily available to verify these claims. The demolitions came after Israeli Minister of Defense Israel Katz called for the destruction of
A US YouTuber who caused outrage for filming himself kissing a statue commemorating Korean wartime sex slaves has been sentenced to six months in prison, a court in Seoul said yesterday. Johnny Somali, 25, gained notoriety several years ago for recording himself doing a series of provocative stunts in South Korea and Japan, and streaming them on platforms such as YouTube and Twitch. South Korean authorities indicted Somali — whose real name is Ramsey Khalid Ismael — in 2024 on public order violations and obstruction of business, and banned him from leaving the country. “The court has sentenced him to six months in
The death toll from a shooting in western Afghanistan rose to 11 on Saturday, after gunmen targeted civilians at a picnic spot in Herat, the provincial authority said. Bullet marks were visible on a wall of the Sayed Mohammad Agha Shia shrine, while bloodstains marked a blanket abandoned at the scene. “Eleven people have been recorded dead and eight others wounded from Friday’s incident, with the condition of two of the wounded reported as critical,” Herat’s information office said in a statement. The update raises a toll of seven killed provided on Friday by the Afghan Ministry of Interior Affairs
RSS