The conflict over disputed islands in the Asia Pacific is once more right in the international media spotlight.
Tokyo protested to Beijing after a Chinese frigate entered waters near a disputed island chain in the East China Sea. Japanese Defense Ministry spokesman Yoshitomo Mori said a Japanese Navy destroyer detected the Chinese ship as it entered the contiguous zone – an area stretching 24 nautical miles out from the edge of territorial waters – around the Senkaku, also known as Diaoyu, islands, on June 9.
Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs Akitaka Saeki summoned China’s ambassador, Chen Yonghua, to lodge a protest «with serious concern», and demand that the Chinese military ship leave the area immediately.
«We are worried that this action raises tensions to a higher level», Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said at a regular press briefing in Tokyo. «Related ministries are working together to deal with this and we will work closely with the US», Suga noted.
China’s Defense Ministry responded that its navy had every right to operate in Chinese waters.
The incidents come as Japan, the United States and India launched a major joint naval exercise, dubbed Malabar, from June 10 in the nearby Western Pacific.
While the US has not endorsed Tokyo’s territorial claim to the islands, it has said the Japanese-controlled territory falls under its security treaty with Tokyo that obligates Washington to defend Japan against an attack.
The risk of conflict in the region is significant. China, Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, and the Philippines have competing territorial and jurisdictional claims, particularly over rights to exploit the region’s possibly extensive reserves of oil and gas. Freedom of navigation in the Asia-Pacific is also a contentious issue, especially between the United States and China over the right of US military vessels to operate in China’s two-hundred-mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ). In May, a US warship demonstratively sailed within 12 miles of an artificial island built by China in the South China Sea, an operation intended to show that the United States opposes China’s efforts to restrict navigation in the strategic waterway.
The solution to the region’s insecurities may come from Moscow. Given the growing importance of Asia-Pacific region to Russia as an Asia-Pacific power, Moscow has a major interest in preventing any one of the various disputes in the South China Sea from escalating militarily. Russia’s clout in the region is growing fast.
Russia's new Yu-74 ultra-maneuverable hypersonic glide vehicles may become yet another response to the deployment of NATO's missile installations in Eastern Europe, according to military analysts.
Going head to head with the United States and China, Russia has been developing its own hypersonic weapons during the past few years.
A hypersonic weapon usually has a speed between 3,840 miles per hour (Mach 5) and 7,680 miles per hour (Mach 10).
Furthermore, these systems use sophisticated technologies for maneuvering and boast allow the rapid delivery of warheads, precise targeting and survivability against wide range of missile defense systems.
Last year Russia conducted a series of tests of the Yu-71 hypersonic attack aircraft. The Yu-71 is part of secret missile program codenamed "Project 4202." The glider was said to reach speeds of up to 7,000 miles per hour. Due to its outstanding maneuverability and high speed the system can overcome any defense shield, military experts noted.
Designed to carry up to 24 nuclear-loaded Yu-74 gliders, each Sarmat ballistic missile will be able to hit any target located within a 6.2 thousand mile radius in one hour.
Each Yu-74 glider can be equipped with a nuclear warhead, electronic warfare (EW) applications or false target simulators.
"These features guarantee penetration of any existing and prospective missile defense system of a potential adversary. By adopting such systems Russia's Strategic Missile Forces will significantly increase their efficiency," the analysts emphasize.
Commenting on the recent remarks of US Vice Adm. James Foggo III that an “effective, skilled, and technologically advanced Russian submarine force is challenging” the US in the Atlantic, German newspaper Die Welt provided its reasons for the US concerns.
“Russia is rapidly closing the technological gap with the United States. It has created an advanced military designed to overcome our advantages and exploit our weaknesses — this is the epitome of asymmetric warfare,” US Vice Adm. James Foggo III wrote in his recent article for the US Naval Institute.
“Russia rapidly is building and deploying more advanced and significantly quieter attack submarines and frigates armed with the long-range Kalibr cruise missile (including six new Kilo-class diesel-electric attack submarines destined for the Black Sea). Not coincidentally, these are the platforms that are the most challenging for us to deal with because of their inherent stealth.”
“The clear advantage that we enjoyed in antisubmarine warfare during the Cold War is waning. Russian submarines are more capable than before, and so we are again in a technological arms race with Russia,” he adds.
German newspaper Die Welt provided its reasons why the US is so vividly concerned.
Submarines, armed with nuclear missiles, can deliver a responsive nuclear attack far from its domestic territory, if its home country was hit with a nuclear weapon.
The European Union is an "empire that is hugely bureaucratic," warns Marc Faber, telling CNBC that he thinks that "a Brexit would be bullish for global economic growth," because "it would give other countries incentive to leave the badly organized EU." The Gloom, Boom & Doom-er explained that Brexit is a risk Britain should be willing to take, and that it would not be a disaster, "on the contrary, it would be the best thing for Britain that would ever happen!"
As CNBC reports, Faber defended his case by citing Switzerland, which is not a member of the EU nor the European Economic Area, but instead operates in the "single" market. That enables the Swiss to have rights in the U.K., but theoretically allows them to operate independently of both groups.
"Switzerland is doing much better than any other country in Europe. So maybe Britain would do the same?" said Faber.
While the Swiss franc has been relatively flat in the last month, notable highlights for Switzerland include the completion of a $12 billion rail tunnel, the longest in the world.
With expectations that Britain opts to leave the EU, Faber advised that investors should prepare for a market sell-off in the immediate aftermath, but that there will be long-term benefits.
"The establishment has said that if a Brexit occurs, they lose the export market. That's not true. They can make bilateral agreements," he exclaimed.
Faber advised that European nations should turn their focus to Asia, notably China and India, when it comes to finding fresh export partners. With this in mind, he concluded that Brexit would be a positive development for Britain and for Europe at large.
There have been hundreds of aftershocks from the magnitude 5.2 earthquake that rattled Southern California on Friday.
Aftershocks are common after significant quakes, and Friday’s temblor – which was felt from San Diego to Los Angeles and beyond – produced a few larger than 3.0. Most were much smaller.
The quake occurred in a sparsely populated area near Borrego Springs in San Diego County but the 1:04 a.m. quake was felt across a wide area.
“It’s the biggest one for a while,” said Egill Hauksson, a research professor of geophysics at Caltech.
Friday’s temblor occurred on the San Jacinto fault, the most active in the region, Hauksson said. As of Saturday, the U.S. Geological Service listed more than 200 aftershocks in the Borrego Springs area, and there were others nearby.
When did the old anti-Semitism return? For half a century the horror of a million Jewish children murdered by the Nazis stopped the mouths of the anti-Semites, but that memory has worn off. What Hecht's interlocutor believed in 1944, most liberals believe today, not to mention the vast majority of Europeans. Yes, the Arabs hate Jews, and express this hatred in a barbaric way, they will allow, but that is because Israel has provoked the hatred.
Tripwires that once seemed taboo are being crossed every day.
There is one great cognitive dissonance in the mix, and that is the transformation of the Jews from a despised, dependent and vulnerable minority to a Middle Eastern superpower. The return of the Jews to Zion threatens the belief that Islam is the seal of prophecy: how could God favor the Jews, who perverted the original revelation that Mohammed restored? That is why the Temple Mount remains a radioactive issue on the Muslim street. Merely by being there, Israel offers an existential challenge to Muslim identity. Conservative Muslim regimes, to be sure, may make a temporary accommodation with Israel when it is in their interest to do so; apocalyptic regimes like Iran's never will.
Muslim civilization is crumbling, as I warned in my 2011 book "How Civilizations Die (and Why Islam is Dying, Too)." The human cost of this crumbling will be horrific, ranking among the worst humanitarian disasters in human history, and a disaster that we will watch in real time in high-definition video. The West is sickened by the spectacle and indifferent to its causes; if the Jews madden the Muslims, enlightened opinion thinks, let them go away.
Things have changed. The crime of the Jews today is to breathe, and especially to breathe the air of their own country. As the body count rises, enlightened opinion once again will blame the Jews for breathing. Muslims will continue to engineer humanitarian disasters (as in the last Gaza War) to solicit Western sympathy, and European governments will attempt to placate their growing Muslim populations by blaming Israel.
The difference between today and the 1930s, to be sure, is that Jews are armed rather than defenseless. I am weary of excusing myself for breathing. Let them hate us as long as they fear us.
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