The Philippine Air Force must ramp up pilot training if it is to buy 20 or more multirole fighter jets as it modernizes and expands joint operations with its navy, a commander said yesterday.
A day earlier US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said that the US “will do what is necessary” to see that the Philippines is able to resupply a ship on the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) that Manila uses to reinforce its claims to the atoll.
Sullivan said the US would prefer that the Philippines conducts the resupplies of the small crew on the warship Sierra Madre, which Manila beached in 1999 to reinforce maritime claims in the South China Sea contested by China.
Photo: AP
Speaking to the Aspen Security Forum conference in Colorado, Sullivan said the US has made clear to China that its mutual defense treaty with the Philippines applies to the Sierra Madre.
“The most important thing right now is to see de-escalation and to see the ability of the Philippines to do resupplies,” he said.
Meanwhile, Philippine pilots are taking part for the first time in multinational war games overseas, the Pitch Black war games involving 20 Indo-Pacific and European countries over a vast area of northern Australia.
The exercises are consuming a million liters of aviation fuel a day, as fighter jets from Australia, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, the US and the UK, among others, test war tactics and skills, organizers said.
The Philippines brought four of its 12 South Korean-built FA-50 fighter jets to the games and is assessing the capabilities of more advanced jets for its modernization programme, the contingent’s commander, Colonel Randy Pascua, said in Darwin.
Philippine Armed Forces Chief of Staff Romeo Brawner said this month that the government had approved a decision to buy “faster and more lethal” multirole jet fighters because the FA-50 was “not enough to defend our country,” although no decision had been made on the type or how many.
Pascua said the air force needs to close a “big technological gap” as it modernizes its fighter jets, including lifting pilot skills.
“If we have to acquire more than 20 multirole fighters, we really need to step up,” he said. “We are here to train and enhance our operational capability because we had lost capability for air defense for decades.”
Participation in Pitch Black would strengthen the Philippines’ international partnerships and “enforce our commitment to regional security and stability,” he said.
Police in China detained dozens of pastors of one of its largest underground churches over the weekend, a church spokesperson and relatives said, in the biggest crackdown on Christians since 2018. The detentions, which come amid renewed China-US tensions after Beijing dramatically expanded rare earth export controls last week, drew condemnation from US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who on Sunday called for the immediate release of the pastors. Pastor Jin Mingri (金明日), founder of Zion Church, an unofficial “house church” not sanctioned by the Chinese government, was detained at his home in the southern city of Beihai on Friday evening, said
Floods on Sunday trapped people in vehicles and homes in Spain as torrential rain drenched the northeastern Catalonia region, a day after downpours unleashed travel chaos on the Mediterranean island of Ibiza. Local media shared videos of roaring torrents of brown water tearing through streets and submerging vehicles. National weather agency AEMET decreed the highest red alert in the province of Tarragona, warning of 180mm of rain in 12 hours in the Ebro River delta. Catalan fire service spokesman Oriol Corbella told reporters people had been caught by surprise, with people trapped “inside vehicles, in buildings, on ground floors.” Santa Barbara Mayor Josep Lluis
The Venezuelan government on Monday said that it would close its embassies in Norway and Australia, and open new ones in Burkina Faso and Zimbabwe in a restructuring of its foreign service, after weeks of growing tensions with the US. The closures are part of the “strategic reassignation of resources,” Venezueland President Nicolas Maduro’s government said in a statement, adding that consular services to Venezuelans in Norway and Australia would be provided by diplomatic missions, with details to be shared in the coming days. The Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that it had received notice of the embassy closure, but no
A missing fingertip offers a clue to Mako Nishimura’s criminal past as one of Japan’s few female yakuza, but after clawing her way out of the underworld, she now spends her days helping other retired gangsters reintegrate into society. The multibillion-dollar yakuza organized crime network has long ruled over Japan’s drug rings, illicit gambling dens and sex trade. In the past few years, the empire has started to crumble as members have dwindled and laws targeting mafia are tightened. An intensifying police crackdown has shrunk yakuza forces nationwide, with their numbers dipping below 20,000 last year for the first time since records
RSS