Taiwan to vote in shadow of China pressure, Hong Kong protests

Han has complained of "dirty tricks" being used to smear him as a puppet for China, especially revelations in Australian media from a self-proclaimed Chinese spy who claimed China has supported Han. Han strongly rejects this.

"I beseech Taiwan's people, in the 2020 presidential and parliamentary election, open your eyes. I hope Taiwan's people see these wicked smears to paint me black, red and yellow and make a rational decision," Han said on Tuesday.

"SCARING TAIWAN"

In the run-up to the election, China has repeated its "one country, two systems" offer to Taiwan.

Liu Jieyi, the urbane head of China's policy-making Taiwan Affairs Office, wrote in the Communist Party's official People's Daily last week that people in Taiwan were "positively exploring" this model, though offered no evidence.

But one Chinese official, who meets regularly with senior members of the People's Liberation Army, told Reuters that the Hong Kong protests had "increased the difficulty of getting Taiwan back".

"What's happening there is scaring Taiwan," the official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said, referring to conversations with military officers.

While China has denied seeking to interfere in Taiwan's elections, Taiwan's parliament on the final day of last year passed a new anti-infiltration law designed to stop Chinese influence on Taiwan's democracy.

China's military is not idly sitting on the sidelines.

Its newest aircraft carrier, the Shandong, has twice sailed through the sensitive Taiwan Strait in the past two months, most recently in late December.

The United States, Taiwan's main arms supplier and strongest international backer even in the absence of official diplomatic ties, has said it is concerned at Chinese efforts to sway the election.

Zhou Bo, director of the Center for Security Cooperation of the Office for International Military Cooperation at China's Defense Ministry, said China "of course" wanted to resolve the "Taiwan issue" peacefully.

But China could not sit by while Taiwan continued attempts to distance itself from China, and the United States should heed that warning, he said.

"I don't know whether the United States is prepared to pay the price militarily for Taiwan."




(Reporting by Yimou Lee and Ben Blanchard; Additional reporting by Beijing newsroom; Editing by Michael Perry)

'Shot across the bow': U.S. steps up pressure on UK ahead of Huawei decision

By Jack Stubbs and Alexandra Alper,
Reuters•


FILE PHOTO: The logo of Huawei Technologies is pictured in front of the German headquarters of the Chinese telecommunications giant in Duesseldorf

By Jack Stubbs and Alexandra Alper

LONDON/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is making a final pitch to Britain ahead of a UK decision on whether to upgrade its telecoms network with Huawei equipment, amid threats to cut intelligence-sharing ties, people with knowledge of the matter told Reuters.

Britain is expected to make a final call on how to deploy Huawei equipment in its future 5G networks later this month, weighing U.S.-led allegations that the equipment could be used for Chinese state spying against Britain's relationship with Beijing and industry warnings that banning the firm outright would cost billions of dollars.

Huawei, the world's largest maker of mobile networking equipment, has repeatedly denied the allegations. A company spokesman said UK lawmakers had confirmed Huawei equipment would not be deployed in networks used for intelligence sharing.
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"Our 5G equipment does not pose a threat to information security," he said. "We are confident the UK government will take an evidence-based approach when making its decision about Huawei's inclusion in the 5G network."

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is expected to press British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab over Huawei at a meeting in Washington on Thursday, the sources said.

Ahead of the decision, Washington had also planned to send a delegation, including deputy national security adviser Matt Pottinger, to meet with British officials this week, sources said. But the trip was cancelled at the last minute, two of the people said, due to bad weather.

Last month, the United States also passed legislation that included a provision bolstering threats to restrict intelligence-sharing with allies that use Huawei equipment.

Washington is seen to be "cocking the pistol," said a person with knowledge of the British government's position on Huawei. "What's unclear is how, when or indeed if it will actually be fired."

A UK government spokesman said: "The security and resilience of the UK's telecoms networks is of paramount importance. The government continues to consider its position on high-risk vendors and a decision will be made in due course."

The U.S. State Department and National Security Council did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Britain is a key battleground in the geopolitical tug-of-war over Huawei. Officials decided in principle last year to block the company from critical parts of the 5G network but give it limited access to less sensitive parts. A final decision has yet to be made public.

A provision of the U.S. 2020 defence spending law, signed by President Donald Trump in December, directs intelligence agencies to consider the use of telecoms and cybersecurity infrastructure "provided by adversaries of the United States, particularly China and Russia," when entering intelligence-sharing agreements with foreign countries.

The provision, added by Republican Senator Tom Cotton, was aimed in particular at members of the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance made up of the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and was intended as a "a first shot across the bow," said a person familiar with the matter.

An aide to Cotton said the senator's team is working on a new draft bill that could be released this month and would "significantly restrict" intelligence-sharing with countries that use Huawei equipment in their 5G networks, following through on earlier U.S. threats to do so.

"I'm profoundly concerned about the possibility that close allies, including the UK, might permit the Chinese Communist Party effectively to build their highly sensitive 5G infrastructure," Cotton told Reuters.



(Reporting by Jack Stubbs in London and Alexandra Alper in Washington; Editing by Leslie Adler and Elaine Hardcastle)

Romania's Aegis Ashore Is Now Online and Can Shoot Down Enemy Missiles

David Axe,
The National Interest•




Key point: NATO's missile shield will help defend it against any surprise attacks.

A key NATO missile-defense site in Romania on Aug. 9, 2019 completed a three-month upgrade process that had forced operators to take the system offline.

To fill the resulting gap in coverage, the U.S. Army in May 2019 deployed to Romania one of its seven Terminal High-Altitude Area-Defense missile-interceptor batteries.

The THAAD deployment was controversial.
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The THAAD system set up within sight of the Aegis Ashore site in Romania. The Army and the U.S. Defense Department separately posted, then quickly deleted, at least one photo of the battery preparing for duty. Some websites preserved the photo.

THAAD antagonized the Russian government, just like Aegis Ashore has done. Russia "can’t understand what tasks the Aegis Ashore system will accomplish in the missile defense area,” Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov said in late April 2019.

The Pentagon and NATO repeatedly tried to explain their reasoning for deploying THAAD. “At the request of NATO, the secretary of defense will deploy a U.S. Army Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system to Romania this summer in support of NATO ballistic-missile defense,” U.S. European Command announced in early April 2019.

“The THAAD, from the 69th Air Defense Artillery Brigade, 32nd Army Air and Missile Defense Command stationed at Fort Hood, Texas, will integrate into the existing NATO BMD architecture during a limited period of scheduled maintenance and updates on the Aegis Ashore missile-defense system in Romania this summer.”

As of early 2019 the Army had acquired around 200 THAAD rockets for its seven batteries and roughly 40 launchers. The U.S. Missile Defense Agency on its website describes THAAD as a “land-based element capable of shooting down a ballistic missile both inside and just outside the atmosphere.”

The U.S. Army mans THAAD batteries on the island of Guam as well as in South Korea. The Army in March 2019 deployed a THAAD battery to Israel.




Aegis Ashore is a land-based version of the U.S. Navy’s SM-3 missile-interceptor. The Missile Defense Agency by way of NATO operates Aegis Ashore sites in Poland and Romania. The sites help to defend Europe and the United States from limited missile strikes by a Middle East power such as Iran.

But U.S. missile defenses for decades have been controversial in Russia. Moscow views American BMD systems as a threat to the global balance of power, as they in theory could render ineffective Russia’s own nuclear-tipped rockets. In fact, most U.S. missile-defenses lack the speed, range and accuracy to intercept an intercontinental ballistic missile.

Only the United States’s Ground-Based Midcourse Defense systems in Alaska and California, both of which exist to intercept North Korean rockets, in controlled tests have proved to be capable of hitting some ICBM-class weapons.

Many Russians also believe, wrongly, that Aegis Ashore has a ground-to-ground capability and could function as a surprise first-strike weapon. Aegis Ashores "play[s] to a very specific Russian fear," said Jeffrey Lewis, a nuclear expert at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey.

Lewis said many Russians believe the United States has planned for years to secretly arm its missile-defense installations in Poland and Romania with nuclear weapons, transforming defensive weapons into what Lewis describes as a "covert" strike force whose true mission is to launch a surprise atomic attack on Moscow in order to "decapitate" the Russian government.

"It's insane but I swear they 100-percent believe this," Lewis said of the Russians.

NATO stressed that neither Aegis Ashore nor THAAD poses a danger to Russia. “The THAAD unit will be under NATO operational control and the full political control of the North Atlantic Council,” the alliance stated “It will only remain operational until the Aegis Ashore Romania site is back online.”

Three months later, Aegis Ashore was done updating. “The THAAD system will now be redeployed as planned,” NATO announced on Aug. 9, 2019.

David Axe serves as Defense Editor of the National Interest. He is the author of the graphic novels War Fix, War Is Boring and Machete Squad. This first appeared in August 2019.

Image: Reuters.

Read the original article.

Netanyahu Distances From Soleimani Slaying, Says Israel Shouldn’t Be ‘Dragged’ Into It: Report

Noga Tarnopolsky,
The Daily Beast•January 7, 2020

Lior Mizrahi/Getty

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Trump’s closest ally on the international stage, is walking on a tightrope in crafting his reaction to the American strike against Iranian General Qassem Soleimani.

On Sunday, for public consumption, Netanyahu issued a statement of praise, but restrained himself from the usual flourishes he indulges in when congratulating Trump, such as accompanying videos.

In a statement released by his office, Netanyahu said, “Qassem Soleimani brought about the death of many American citizens and many other innocents in recent decades and at present. Soleimani initiated, planned and carried out many terrorist attacks throughout the Middle East and beyond.

“President Trump is deserving of all esteem for taking determined, strong and quick action. I would like to reiterate—Israel fully stands alongside the US in the just struggle for security, peace and self-defense.”

And that was it.

Netanyahu is in the thorniest moment of his turbulent, three-decade long career in politics. He is running for re-election after having failed to form a coalition government in two elections held in 2019. Last November, he became the first sitting Israeli prime minister to be accused of crimes, when he was indicted on three separate counts of corruption. In the fight for his political life, Netanyahu took the unprecedented step of requesting parliamentary immunity last Thursday.

Israel has previously been the target of terror attacks attributed to Iran, including the bombing of its embassy in Buenos Aires in 1992, and several attacks in other countries in the past decade.

While the foreign ministry put all its embassies on high alert immediately following the assassination of Soleimani, the last thing Netanyahu wants is for Israelis to suspect the danger from Iran has grown since the 2018 American withdrawal from Syria, which Netanyahu championed and celebrated.

Two leaks from his security cabinet meeting on Monday helped sustain this aim, despite Iranian troops’ entrenchment along Israel’s northern border with Syria in recent years.

On Monday, as the meeting ended, several ministers transmitted Netanyahu’s declaration distancing Israel from the Soleimani hit.

“The assassination of Soleimani isn’t an Israeli event but an American event. We were not involved and should not be dragged into it,” he said, according to Israeli news outlets.

Simultaneously, journalists were told that security and intelligence officials who briefed the security cabinet told ministers there was no imminent threat of Iranian attacks against Israel following the Soleimani assassination.

With one exception, regarding the Kurds fighting in Syria after the withdrawal of American troops, Netanyahu has never distanced himself from Trump, though his thoughts about Iran have occasionally slipped out.

Last November, speaking at a graduation ceremony for army officers, he said, “Iran’s brazenness in the region is increasing and even getting stronger in light of the absence of a response.”

At the same time, Israel’s Channel 13 news reported that some weeks earlier, in a closed-door meeting, Netanyahu told cabinet members he believed Trump would not act against Iran until the 2020 elections were behind him.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Hong Kong politician vows to return to the streets after being pepper-sprayed in the eyes

Nicola Smith,
The Telegraph•



Anti-government protesters are arrested on New Year's Day - REX

A Hong Kong legislator who was temporarily blinded after a riot officer lifted his protective goggles to fire pepper spray directly into his eyes on New Year’s Day has vowed to return to the frontlines of the months-long pro-democracy movement to record allegations of police brutality.

“It was very painful and I lost my sight for half an hour. Not totally – it was like I can’t open my eyes, I can’t cry. I didn’t lose my sight completely as I could see blurred images, but it was horrible to have someone guide me,” Ted Hui said of the moment he was pepper-sprayed in a downtown shopping district.

Mr Hui, a Democratic Party politician, is one of several members of the city’s parliament, the Legislative Council, who have risked injury and arrest while trying to deescalate conflict between the riot police and anti-government demonstrators who have rallied in the streets since June.

He said it saw it as his duty as a “public officer” to hold the police accountable during the protests, which began in opposition to a controversial extradition bill, and to get firsthand information to follow up on mounting accusations of the excessive use of force by officers.

now : Riot police just attacked Legislative Councillor Ted Hui Chi-fung and then pepper spraying citizens and journalists pic.twitter.com/rGtn2xU5xH

— Studio Incendo (@studioincendo) January 1, 2020
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“I want the public to feel that members of parliament are with them. I don’t want them to feel isolated,” he said in an interview.

The altercation began during a police clearance operation after the authorities abruptly cancelled a mass rally of an estimated one million people calling for more democratic rights, ordering them to disperse in under an hour.

According to Mr Hui, he was challenging the police to allow reporters to witness the arrest of a young man they had surrounded and pinned down after riot officers charged through Causeway Bay, a crowded shopping area. Hundreds were detained that night in one of the largest mass arrests since the protests began.

“I told them that if you are not abusing your power then you should allow the world to watch your actions. Of course, they ignored me and started warning me, pointing pepper spray at me,” he said.

Riot police fire tear gas in central Hong Kong on New Year's Day Credit: Kyle Lam/Bloomberg

But he was “astonished” when an officer snapped off his protective plastic glasses to spray his eyes twice with a stinging peppery substance, pushing him and causing him to stagger backwards from the pavement to the road.

The incident, during which spray was also fired into the crowd, was witnessed by multiple media outlets, including the Telegraph, and recorded in videos which have since gone viral.

The police have frequently denied using more force than is permissible during protest operations.

Kong Wing-cheung, a senior superintendent, claimed in a press conference that Mr Hui had refused to leave and refused to go back to the pavement, reported the Hong Kong Free Press.

“He displayed passive resistance and kept on arguing. Our colleague warned him that pepper spray would be used to disperse him,” Mr Kong said.

An estimated one million people marched on New Year's Day Credit: Kyle Lam/Bloomberg

“He was wearing a pair of goggles – we don’t know if that was the reason he wasn’t afraid of our pepper spray. That’s why our colleague pulled off his goggles and used pepper spray to make the dispersal operation more effective,” he added.

For Mr Hui, the pain lasted through the night, causing him to seek hospital treatment. “It’s not only the eyes, but also the hair and the hands because I was trying to cover my face. My hands were sprayed very seriously. It burns the worst in the hands,” he said.

“I felt that the aim was to hurt my eyes, not to disperse people. It was out of hatred, out of anger, totally unprofessional,” he alleged.

Acknowledging that the police were also “overloaded”, he said he would continue to attend the protests undeterred.

“It’s also a gesture that I want the police or the government to know that no matter how you hurt me you can never defeat us, there are still many of us and that we are brave enough, we are not backing down, just like the young ones in the streets,” he said.

'We're going to war, bro': Fort Bragg's 82nd Airborne deploys to the Middle East

By Rich McKay,
Reuters•

By Rich McKay

FORT BRAGG, N.C. (Reuters) - For many of the soldiers, it would be their first mission. They packed up ammunition and rifles, placed last-minute calls to loved ones, then turned in their cellphones. Some gave blood.

The 600 mostly young soldiers at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, were headed for the Middle East, part of a group of some 3,500 U.S. paratroopers ordered to the region. Kuwait is the first stop for many. Their final destinations are classified.

"We're going to war, bro," one cheered, holding two thumbs up and sporting a grin under close-shorn red hair. He stood among dozens of soldiers loading trucks outside a cinder-block building housing several auditoriums with long benches and tables.

Days after President Donald Trump ordered the drone killing of Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani, raising fears of fresh conflict in the Middle East, the men and women of the U.S. Army's storied 82nd Airborne Division are moving out in the largest "fast deployment" since the 2010 Haiti earthquake.

The 82nd's commander, U.S. Army Major General James Mingus, waded through the sea of camouflage-uniformed men and women as they prepared to leave the base near Fayetteville on Sunday. He shook hands with the troops, wishing them luck.

One soldier from Ashboro, Virginia, said he wasn't surprised when the order came.

"I was just watching the news, seeing how things were going over there," said the 27-year-old, one of several soldiers Reuters was allowed to interview on condition they not be named. "Then I got a text message from my sergeant saying 'Don't go anywhere.' And that was it."

While the killing of Soleimani has ratcheted up tensions between the United States and Iran, it remains to be seen whether they will escalate to full-out conflict.

Trump last week said he ordered the killing to stop a war, not to start one. And despite Tehran's strident rhetoric, analysts say Iran will want to avoid any conventional conflict with the United States and is likely to focus on asymmetric strikes, such as sabotage or other military action via proxies.

Risks seemed to be pushed to the back of the minds of the younger soldiers, though many packed the base chapel after a breakfast of eggs, waffles, oatmeal, sausages and 1,000 doughnuts.

One private took a strap tethered to a transport truck and tried to hitch it to the belt of an unwitting friend, a last prank before shipping out.

'THIS IS THE MISSION'

The older soldiers, in their 30s and 40s, were visibly more somber, having the experience of seeing comrades come home from past deployments learning to walk on one leg or in flag-draped coffins.

"This is the mission, man," said Brian Knight, a retired Army veteran who has been on five combat deployments to the Middle East. He is the current director of a chapter of the United Service Organizations military support charity.

"They're answering America's 911 call," Knight said. "They're stoked to go. The president called for the 82nd."

There was lots of wrestling holds as the troops tossed their 75-pound (34 kg) backpacks onto transport trucks. The packs hold everything from armor-plated vests, extra socks and underwear, to 210 rounds of ammunition for their M4 carbines.

A sergeant pushed through the crowd shouting for anyone with Type O blood, which can be transfused into any patient.

"The medics need you now. Move," he said, before a handful of troops walked off to give a little less than a pint each.


UNCERTAINTY PREVAILS

While members of the unit - considered the most mobile in the U.S. Army - are used to quick deployments, this was different, said Lieutenant Colonel Mike Burns, an Army spokesman.

"The guys are excited to go, but none of us know how long they'll be gone," Burns said. "That's the toughest part."

Soldiers were ordered not to bring cellphones, portable video games or any other devices that could be used to communicate with friends and family back home, out of concern that details of their movements could leak out.

"We're an infantry brigade," Burns said. "Our primary mission is ground fighting. This is as real as it gets."

A sergeant started rattling off last names, checking them off from a list after "heres" and "yups" and "yos."

For every fighter, there were seven support crew members shipping out: cooks, aviators, mechanics, medics, chaplains, and transportation and supply managers. All but the chaplains would carry guns to fight.

A 34-year-old senior master sergeant said: "The Army is an all-volunteer force. We want to do this. You pay your taxes and we get to do this."

The reality of the deployment wouldn't sink in until the troops "walk out that door," he said, pointing to the exit to the tarmac where C-5 and C-17 transport planes and two contract commercial jets waited.

His call came when he was on leave in his hometown of Daytona Beach, Florida, taking his two young daughters to visit relatives and maybe go to Walt Disney World.

"We just got there and I got the call to turn right around and head back to base," he said. "My wife knows the drill. I had to go. We drove right back."

On a single order, hundreds of soldiers jumped to their feet. They lined up single file and marched out carrying their guns and kits and helmets, past a volunteer honor guard holding aloft flags that flapped east in the January wind.

(Reporting by Rich McKay; Editing by Scott Malone, Sonya Hepinstall and Jonathan Oatis)

Pompeo Limits U.S. Links to Iranian Group Linked to Giuliani

Nick Wadhams,
Bloomberg•

(Bloomberg) -- Secretary of State Michael Pompeo ordered U.S. diplomats to limit any contact with Iranian opposition groups, including one that once hired Rudy Giuliani and paid thousands of dollars to former National Security Adviser John Bolton to speak at one of its rallies.

The directive about Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, its offshoot, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, and five other groups was delivered in a cable sent to all U.S. diplomatic outposts on Tuesday and obtained by Bloomberg News. It says meetings with the groups could jeopardize U.S. diplomacy with Iran.

“Direct U.S. government engagement with these groups could prove counterproductive to our policy goal of seeking a comprehensive deal with the Iranian regime that addresses its destabilizing behavior,” the cable said. Exiled Iranian opposition groups “try to engage U.S. officials regularly to gain at least the appearance of tacit support and enhance their visibility and clout.”

The cable struck a dissonant note, coming less than a week after the U.S. killed Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, a move widely seen as shutting down any chance of diplomacy for the time being. It also highlights conflicting strategies the administration is trying to balance: Maintaining a “maximum pressure” campaign against the Islamic Republic while also trying to leave the door open for a deal.
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The State Department didn’t respond to a request for comment on the cable. But it provoked displeasure from some Iran hawks, who argued the U.S. should be encouraging contacts with such groups, not discouraging them.

“It’s negligent that there isn’t a strategy in place to leverage various groups opposed to the Iranian government,” said Christian Whiton, senior fellow at the Center for the National Interest and a former senior State Department adviser under President Donald Trump and George W. Bush. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend, at least while we have a mutual interest.

MEK, which was previously on a U.S. terrorism list, paid Bolton to give speeches on its behalf and once employed Giuliani, personal lawyer.

In September, former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, who had petitioned to get MEK off the terrorism list, submitted a regulatory filing declaring that he was doing lobbying work for the National Council of Resistance of Iran on an “unpaid basis,” though it will reimburse his expenses.

Iran has so far resisted Trump’s offers to meet and negotiate a deal that would replace the 2015 nuclear agreement that he abandoned in 2018.

Along with MEK, the cable cites five other groups, including the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of al-Ahwaz and the Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan. It says diplomatic posts shouldn’t meet in person with the Arab Struggle Movement or Komala because “Iran’s regime appears to assess that the United States and/or Israel support this group of militant Kurds.”

(Updates with quote, context, starting in sixth paragraph)

To contact the reporter on this story: Nick Wadhams in Washington at nwadhams@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Bill Faries at wfaries@bloomberg.net, John Harney

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

China tried to threaten Taiwan by weaponizing tourism, but it didn’t work

By Isabella Steger

Last year, China upped the ante against Taiwan and used an array of measures to try to bring its government to heel. It boycotted a prestigious film festival in Taiwan, enticed more countries to break diplomatic ties with Taipei, and once again restricted the number of visitors from the mainland. And, as before, it failed to achieve the desired effect.

According to Taiwan’s tourism bureau, the number of foreign visitors to Taiwan in 2019 hit a record 11.84 million, a 7% increase from the previous year and the sharpest annual jump since 2014. Visitors from China, meanwhile, increased 0.5% from the previous year.

This came despite an announcement by Beijing in August that it would suspend trips to Taiwan by individual tourists, an attempt to hit the island’s economy so that voters would re-consider voting for president Tsai Ing-wen in this weekend’s general election. Tourist arrivals from China promptly plunged 60% the following month.

China, which claims Taiwan as its own territory, considers Tsai a secessionist and has implemented coercive economic measures and repeatedly threatened to use force against Taiwan since she was elected in 2016. That year, China leaned on tour group operators to limit the flow of visitors to Taiwan, and in the two months after Tsai’s inauguration Chinese group tours to Taiwan dropped by 30%.

Some argue, however, that diversifying visitors away from Chinese groups is healthier for Taiwan’s domestic tourism industry: many local businesses that cater to the Chinese only receive a fraction of the money they spend, with most of the spoils going to Chinese tour organizers. Even so, workers who are reliant on business from Chinese tourists have staged protests to express their anger at Tsai’s China policies.

Tourist numbers from China to Taiwan have never quite recovered to the highs of the pre-2016 years, when a government that espoused closer ties to Beijing was in power in Taipei. Nonetheless, Taiwan has made up for that shortfall by luring tourists from other markets, mostly Japan and Southeast Asia, and by relaxing visa requirements for some countries. Last year, the number of visitors from Japan exceed 2 million for the first time.

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Hong Kong leader says new year will be a challenging one

Associated Press•

• 

• 

• 

1 / 6

Hong Kong Carrie Lam

Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam speaks during a news conference at the Office of the Chief Executive in Hong Kong, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2020. Lam said the city faces multiple challenges in the new year, including “violence, economic tribulation and a health scare" as anti-government protests enter their eighth month. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)

HONG KONG (AP) — Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam said Tuesday that the city faces multiple challenges in the new year, including violence, economic tribulation and a health scare as anti-government protests enter their eighth month.
But the government is determined to overcome these challenges, Lam said.
Her administration's reluctance to concretely address political demands has angered demonstrators, who have called for electoral reforms and an independent investigation into accusations of police brutality.
When asked again about such an inquiry at a news conference Tuesday, Lam said, “We do not need to go down this road."

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The mass protests began in June to oppose proposed extradition legislation that would have allowed Hong Kong residents to be sent to stand trial in mainland China, where activists are routinely jailed. While Lam has since withdrawn the bill, demonstrations have continued around broader democratic demands, fueled by a distrust of the Communist Party-ruled central government in Beijing.
A former British colony, Hong Kong was returned to China in 1997 under the framework of “one country, two systems," which promises the territory certain rights not afforded to the mainland.
At Tuesday's news conference, Lam also sought to quell fears around a respiratory illness that may have infected some Hong Kong residents who recently traveled to the central mainland city of Wuhan, where 59 patients are being treated for a form of pneumonia whose cause has not been determined.
Lam declined to comment on the new head of China's liaison office in Hong Kong, Luo Huining, who was appointed over the weekend.
___
This story has been corrected to show that Lam's comments in the first two paragraphs were not direct quotes.

China tried to threaten Taiwan by weaponizing tourism, but it didn’t work

Daniel Shih/AFP via Getty ImagesView from the top.
WISH YOU WERE HERE


By Isabella Steger

Last year, China upped the ante against Taiwan and used an array of measures to try to bring its government to heel. It boycotted a prestigious film festival in Taiwan, enticed more countries to break diplomatic ties with Taipei, and once again restricted the number of visitors from the mainland. And, as before, it failed to achieve the desired effect.

According to Taiwan’s tourism bureau, the number of foreign visitors to Taiwan in 2019 hit a record 11.84 million, a 7% increase from the previous year and the sharpest annual jump since 2014. Visitors from China, meanwhile, increased 0.5% from the previous year.

This came despite an announcement by Beijing in August that it would suspend trips to Taiwan by individual tourists, an attempt to hit the island’s economy so that voters would re-consider voting for president Tsai Ing-wen in this weekend’s general election. Tourist arrivals from China promptly plunged 60% the following month.

China, which claims Taiwan as its own territory, considers Tsai a secessionist and has implemented coercive economic measures and repeatedly threatened to use force against Taiwan since she was elected in 2016. That year, China leaned on tour group operators to limit the flow of visitors to Taiwan, and in the two months after Tsai’s inauguration Chinese group tours to Taiwan dropped by 30%.

Some argue, however, that diversifying visitors away from Chinese groups is healthier for Taiwan’s domestic tourism industry: many local businesses that cater to the Chinese only receive a fraction of the money they spend, with most of the spoils going to Chinese tour organizers. Even so, workers who are reliant on business from Chinese tourists have staged protests to express their anger at Tsai’s China policies.

Tourist numbers from China to Taiwan have never quite recovered to the highs of the pre-2016 years, when a government that espoused closer ties to Beijing was in power in Taipei. Nonetheless, Taiwan has made up for that shortfall by luring tourists from other markets, mostly Japan and Southeast Asia, and by relaxing visa requirements for some countries. Last year, the number of visitors from Japan exceed 2 million for the first time.

Personal Assistant / Administrative Manager Job at Owens & Xley Consults

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• Open to challenges.

How to Apply
Interested and qualified candidates should send their Resume to: recruitment@owensxley.com using the Job Title as the subject of the email.

Guaido Bursts In to Reclaim Venezuela’s National Assembly

Patricia Laya, Fabiola Zerpa and Alex Vasquez
Bloomberg


View photos

(Bloomberg) -- Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido on Tuesday reclaimed the National Assembly that he heads, pushing past armed guards two days after President Nicolas Maduro’s loyalists blocked him from attending his own re-election.

Guaido and his allies burst through the legislative palace’s doors minutes after a pro-government group led by lawmaker Luis Parra, who had claimed the presidency of the body, scurried to a next-door building for refuge.

Guaido climbed to the dais and took the microphone as opposition lawmakers sang the national anthem, which includes the words “Death to oppression.” Lawmakers then voted to recognize Guaido’s re-election as head of the National Assembly for 2020. They rejected Parra’s attempt to claim the role thanks to a Sunday vote taken amid chaos in the chamber as Guaido’s supporters were barred, preventing a quorum.

“It’s a great feat for us to be here today,” Guaido said Tuesday after reclaiming his place. “This is proof of what’s possible if we’re firmly united and organized.”

Electricity was cut off at one point, prompting lawmakers to read the attendance list with the help of mobile phone lights and without microphones. Outside, armed civilian groups known as colectivos cornered and forcibly removed a group of journalists and lawmakers, beating and stealing from some of those gathered.

“The president of the National Assembly is Luis Parra; whoever is with Guaido must leave now,” they shouted.

The attempted takeover of what was Venezuela’s last democratic institution has deepened the standoff between Maduro and Guaido, who last year was recognized as the nation’s legitimate leader by more than 50 countries.

The opposition is putting on a “spectacle” at the National Assembly as it fights for control of the body, Maduro said. The government would ignore the fuss and focus on winning the Assembly in elections expected for later this year, he said.

“The people will recover the National Assembly with votes in elections this year,” Maduro said on state television.

Political analyst Ricardo Sucre said that the day’s events represented a victory for the country’s beleaguered opposition.

“The opposition comes out well, in the sense that it managed to enter its natural space and hold a session,” said Sucre, also a professor at Venezuela’s Central University. “It sends an image of a cohesive, organized opposition, that could achieve a concrete effect.”

Venezuela, a formerly prosperous petrostate, has spiraled into misery after decades of misrule under Maduro and his predecessor, Hugo Chavez. The failure of their socialist program has been exacerbated by a plunge in oil prices and U.S. sanctions. Crucial oil infrastructure is defunct, hyperinflation has ravaged the economy and food and medicine are scarce.

During Tuesday’s session, Guaido pledged to find a solution to Venezuela’s crisis “so we can live with dignity and prosperity” and said the next session would take place Jan. 14. On the way out of the legislative palace, Guaido and his deputies covered their eyes and mouths as they were met with tear gas.

At a news conference later in the day, he demanded that the regime explain why it deployed military personnel to blockade the assembly building and called for protests and rallies. He said the opposition would appoint ambassadors to Bolivia, El Salvador and Uruguay.

Parra, whom the assembly is investigating in connection with a graft case, claims to have been voted in legitimately as the new national assembly head on Sunday. The U.S. is considering sanctioning lawmakers who supported his claim, according to a person familiar with the deliberations.

Guaido was confirmed as National Assembly president on Sunday by 100 lawmakers in an off-site vote after he was barred from entering the chamber.

(Updates with Maduro comments starting in eighth paragraph.)

--With assistance from Nicolle Yapur, Nick Wadhams and Jose Orozco.

To contact the reporters on this story: Patricia Laya in Caracas at playa2@bloomberg.net;Fabiola Zerpa in Caracas Office at fzerpa@bloomberg.net;Alex Vasquez in Caracas Office at avasquez45@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Daniel Cancel at dcancel@bloomberg.net

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

Internal Control Officer at Ascentech Services Limited 2020

Welcome to Jobsinnigeria.careers. This website helps you to achieve your career dream by linking you to vacancies from Top Companies in Nigeria. Job Seekers are also exposed to best articles for career growth and development

• Company: Ascentech Services Limited
• Location: Nigeria
• State: Lagos Jobs
• Job type: Full-Time
• Job category: Administrative/Secretarial Jobs in Nigeria

---

Ascentech Services Limited is a full-fledged Human Resource Solution Provider incorporated in 2013 with its Head Office in Lagos, Nigeria. We are committed to forging long-term partnerships with our clients by creating and delivering robust and flexible services that address the changing needs of their business.
We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: Internal Control Officer
Location: Lagos
Job Description/Responsibilities

• Carry out control functions, reviews and approves disbursements requests and other requests.
• Periodically perform auditing of the accounting and financial data of the various business units.
• Verify and maintain internal control checks and records including assets tags to ensure safeguard of company assets.
• Carry out investigations and disciplinary sitting where required and must be objective in judgement.
• Make recommendations regarding facilities, equipment, personnel, procedures and systems to carry out internal control functions.
• Perform variety of internal control tasks as necessary or as requested.
• Ensure you are aware of the company HSE policies
• Identify areas of financial and administrative strengths and weaknesses and develop best practices.
• Develop and implement appropriate operating procedures to ensure compliance with Leasing global policies and local laws.
• Conduct audit testing of potential risk areas and identify reportable issues
• Monitor and provide advice to management to minimize risk resulting from poor controls.
• Ensure you are familiar with the procedures relevant to the job.

Qualifications

• Degree in Accounting
• Minimum Experience: more than 3 years in financial institution

Application Closing Date
Not Specified.

How to Apply

Interested and qualified candidates should send their CV to: cv@ascentech.com.ng using the Job Title as the subject of the email

Exclusive: U.S. mulls sanctions against Venezuelan lawmakers over bid to seize congress - sources

By Matt Spetalnick and Alexandra Alper

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Trump administration is considering sanctions against some of the Venezuelan lawmakers who took part in a bid supported by President Nicolas Maduro to wrest control of the country's congress from U.S.-backed opposition leader Juan Guaido, according to two people familiar with the matter.

Deliberations over the possible sanctions targets, including Maduro-backed lawmaker Luis Parra and more than a dozen others, are in the early stages, and a final decision is not imminent, the sources told Reuters on Tuesday.

Venezuelan troops blocked Guaido from entering parliament on Sunday for what was expected to be his re-election as head of congress, allowing Maduro's socialist party to hand the post to Parra. Later in the day, opposition legislators quickly re-elected Guaido - recognized by dozens of nations as Venezuela's rightful interim leader - at the offices of a pro-opposition newspaper.
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"We go after those who undermine the constitution," said one of the sources, a high-ranking U.S. government official who declined to be named because details of the deliberations have not been made public. "This is no different."

The White House declined comment. The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The measures against the lawmakers could start with bans on their travel to the United States, a restriction that Washington has already slapped on dozens of Maduro allies, and might later involve financial sanctions against them, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Special envoy Elliott Abrams said the United States was looking at additional sanctions to step up pressure on the Venezuelan government on Monday, but did not specify potential targets.

Last January, Washington recognized Guaido as the OPEC nation's legitimate interim president and began ratcheting up sanctions and diplomatic pressure in an effort to oust Maduro.

A year later, Maduro remains in power, backed by the military as well as Russia, China and Cuba. A senior administration official told Reuters in October that Trump's frustration over the lack of results had spurred aides to ready further actions.(Reporting by Matt Spetalnick and Alexandra Alper; Editing by Peter Cooney, Leslie Adler and Lisa Shumaker)

U.S. Restricts Flights Over the Persian Gulf After Rocket Attack

Alan Levin
Bloomberg


(Bloomberg) -- U.S. aviation regulators issued new restrictions barring civilian flights over Iraq, Iran, the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, the Federal Aviation Administration said Tuesday night.

The effect of the restrictions wasn’t immediately clear because the FAA had been prohibiting American carriers from flying over most of those areas.

The agency issued an emailed statement after Iran fired volleys of rockets against U.S.-Iraqi airbases as part of its promised retaliation over the killing of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani.

“The FAA will continue closely monitoring events in the Middle East,” the agency said in the statement. “We continue coordinating with our national security partners and sharing information with U.S. air carriers and foreign civil aviation authorities.”

The FAA action applies only to U.S.-registered carriers, but nations elsewhere around the world frequently follow with similar restrictions.

The latest restrictions were imposed “due to heightened military activities and increased political tensions in the Middle East, which present an inadvertent risk to U.S. civil aviation operations due to the potential for miscalculation or mis-identification,” the FAA said in one of the three orders it issued.

The agency has enacted a number of restrictions and warnings about airline flights in the region over the past year as tensions have increased with Iran. Last June, for example, the agency barred U.S. civilian operators from flying above areas in the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman after an Iranian missile shot down a U.S. military drone.

The FAA and other nations have been more aggressive about issuing warnings and flight restrictions since Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down above Ukraine on July 17, 2014, by a Russian missile.

Separately, Singapore Airlines Ltd. said it would divert its flights to Europe in the wake of the attacks and fears of a wider conflict in the Middle East.

“In view of the latest developments in the region, all SIA flights in and out of Europe are diverted from the Iranian airspace,” Singapore Air said in an emailed statement to Bloomberg. “We are monitoring the situation closely and will make the appropriate adjustments to our routes if necessary.” It didn’t provide further details.

--With assistance from Kyunghee Park.

To contact the reporter on this story: Alan Levin in Washington at alevin24@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Jon Morgan at jmorgan97@bloomberg.net, John Harney, Chelsea Mes

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

Lindsey Graham says Trump is the '1st president in 40 years' to understand Iran

Lindsey Graham says Trump is the '1st president in 40 years' to understand Iran

Catherine Garcia,



Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) was quick to praise President Trump on Tuesday night during an appearance on Fox News, saying he is "methodical in his thinking" and is the "first president in the last 40 years who really understands the Iranians."

Graham was interviewed by host Sean Hannity just a few hours after Iran launched more than a dozen missiles against two Iraqi bases housing U.S. troops. Graham said he has "complete confidence" that Trump will keep service members safe, and thanked the troops for serving as "the virtual wall between us and radical Islam" and keeping "these bastards at bay."

The attacks were "an act of war," Graham said, and he's waiting to see what Trump, who has "one of the best national security teams that I've seen since I've been up here," will do in response. The president doesn't want a regime change, Graham continued, but he does want to see Iranian officials change their behavior. "We are dealing with religious Nazis," he said. "They really mean it when they want to destroy Israel and kill all the Jews. They've been disrupting the Mideast for 40 years. It needs to stop."

This is how the US and Iran rank among the world's 25 most powerful militaries

eioanes@businessinsider.com (Ellen Ioanes),
Business Insider•


china military

Reuters


The US killed a top Iranian general in a January 3 strike that Iran has vowed to retaliate, a tense stand-off that comes as the US is also facing a competition with Russia and China for military dominance.


Head-to-head comparisons of conventional military forces is quite complicated, which is part of what makes the annual Global Firepower rankings so noteworthy.


China, for instance, has only 1 operational aircraft carrier to the US's 11, but the People's Liberation Army-Navy is testing its second carrier at sea and has plans to build more.


Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The US killed a top Iranian general in a Jan. 3 strike that Iran has vowed to relaliate. And that stand-off comes as the US faces a rising competition with Russia and China for military dominance.

But head-to-head comparisons of military strength are hard to come by — which is what makes the Global Firepower annual rankings so noteworthy.

Their 2019 Military Strength Ranking draws on more than 55 factors to assign a Power Index score to 137 countries — adding Moldova this year. (Global Firepower appears to have changed its methodology from that of previous lists the 2019, yielding different index numbers.)
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The ranking assesses the diversity of each country's weapons and pays particular attention to their available manpower. Geography, logistical capacity, available natural resources, and the status of local industry are also considered.

Recognized nuclear powers receive a bonus, but their nuclear stockpiles are not factored into the score. Landlocked countries are not docked for lacking a navy, but countries with navies are penalized if their fleets lack diversity. (Helicopter carriers are included alongside traditional fleet carriers in Global Firepower's ranking.)

NATO countries get a slight bonus because the alliance theoretically shares resources, but in general, a country's current political and military leadership was not considered (though financial health and stability are).

The top power index score is 0.0000, which is "realistically unattainable," according to Global Firepower. The closer they are to this number, the more powerful their military is.

Per these criteria, these are the 25 most powerful militaries in the world:

25. Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia military

Umit Bektas / REUTERS

Power Index rating: 0.4268

Total population: 33,091,113

Total military personnel: 230,000 (estimated)

Total aircraft strength: 848; ranks 12th out of 137 countries

Fighter aircraft: 244; ranks 12th

Combat tanks: 1,062 (ranks 24th)

Total naval assets: 55

Defense budget: $70 billion

24. Poland
poland military

Kacper Pempel/Reuters

Power Index rating: (NATO member) 0.4059

Total population: 38,420,687

Total military personnel: 105,000 (estimated)

Total aircraft strength: 469 (ranked 27th of 137)

Fighter aircraft: 93 (ranked 26th)

Combat tanks: 1,100 (ranked 23rd)

Total naval assets: 83

Defense budget: $9.36 billion

23. Vietnam

Vietnam military army soldiers troops parade

REUTERS/Kham

Power Index rating: 0.3988

Total population: 97,040,334

Total military personnel: 5,482,000 (estimated)

Total aircraft strength: 318 (ranked 33rd out of 137)

Fighter aircraft: 108 (ranked 21st)

Combat tanks: 2,575 (ranked 28th)

Total naval assets: 65

Defense budget: $3.365 billion

22. Taiwan

Taiwan navy submarines

Reuters

Power Index rating: 0.3956

Total population: 23,545,963

Total military personnel: 1.89 million (estimated)

Total aircraft strength: 837 (ranked 13th out of 137)

Fighter aircraft: 286 (ranked 9th)

Combat tanks: 1,885 (ranked 17th)

Total naval assets: 87

Defense budget: $10.725 billion

21. Canada

Canada army engineer Norway Trident Juncture

Rob Kunzing/NATO

Power Index rating: (NATO member) 0.3941

Total population: 35,881,659

Total military personnel: 94,000 (estimated)

Total aircraft strength: 384 (ranked 31st of 137)

Fighter aircraft: 53 (ranked 38th)

Combat tanks: 80 (ranked 79th)

Total naval assets: 63

Defense budget: $21.2 billion

20. Spain

A sniper and his spotter of the Spanish Lepanto Battalion line up their target. The snipers of the Battalion train their marksmanship near Folldal during Exercise Trident Juncture. They make use of the .50 caliber Barrett and the .338 caliber Accuracy sniper rifles, firing at targets over 1.000 meters away.

Photo by 1st German/Netherlands Corps

Power Index rating: (NATO member) 0.3921

Total population: 49,331,076

Total military personnel: 139,500 (estimated)

Total aircraft strength: 522 (ranked 23rd out of 137)

Fighter aircraft: 136 (ranked 18th)

Combat tanks: 327 (ranked 51st)

Total naval assets: 46; one aircraft carrier

Defense budget: $11.6 billion

19. Australia
Australian military exercise

Hugh Gentry/REUTERS

Power Index rating: 0.3277

Total population: 23,470,145

Total military personnel: 79,700 (estimated)

Total aircraft strength: 467 (ranked 28th out of 137)

Fighter aircraft: 78 (ranked 27th)

Combat tanks: 66 (ranked 86th)

Total naval assets: 47; two aircraft carriers

Defense budget: $26.3 billion



18. North Korea
north korea rally soldiers march

REUTERS/KCNA

Power Index rating: 0.3274

Total population: 25,381,085

Total military personnel: 7.58 million (estimated)

Total aircraft strength: 949 (ranked 11th out of 137)

Fighter aircraft: 458 (ranked 5th)

Combat tanks: 6,075 (ranked 4th)

Total naval assets: 967

Defense budget: $7.5 billion

17. Israel
Israeli soldiers

Ariel Schalit/AP

Power Index rating: 0.2964

Total population: 8,424,904

Total military personnel: 615,000 (estimated)

Total aircraft strength: 595 (ranked 18th out of 137)

Fighter aircraft: 253 (ranked 11th)

Combat tanks: 2,760 (ranked 8th)

Total naval assets: 65

Defense budget: $19.6 billion

16. Indonesia
Indonesia military

Beawiharta Beawiharta/REUTERS

Power Index rating: 0.2804

Total population: 262,787,403

Total military personnel: 800,000 (estimated)

Total aircraft strength: 451 (ranked 30th out of 137)

Fighter aircraft: 41 (ranked 43rd)

Combat tanks: 315 (ranked 52nd)

Total naval assets: 221

Defense budget: $6.9 billion

15. Pakistan

Pakistan ranger

Mohsin Raza/Reuters

Power Index rating: 0.2798

Total population: 207,862,518

Total military personnel: 1,204,000 (estimated)

Total aircraft strength: 1,342 (ranked 7th out of 137)

Fighter aircraft: 348 (ranked 7th)

Combat tanks: 2,200 (ranked 13th)

Total naval assets: 197

Defense budget: $7 billion

14. Iran
iran warship

Reuters

Power Index rating: 0.2606

Total population: 83,024,745

Total military personnel: 873,000 (estimated)

Total aircraft strength: 509 (ranked 24th out of 137)

Fighter aircraft: 142 (ranked 17th)

Combat tanks: 1,634 (ranked 18th)

Total naval assets: 398

Defense budget: $6.3 billion

13. Brazil

Brazil Rio de Janeiro police troops soldiers

REUTERS/Ricardo Moraes

Power Index rating: 0.2487

Total population: 208,846,892

Total military personnel: 1,674,500 (estimated)

Total aircraft strength: 706 (ranked 16th out of 137)

Fighter aircraft: 43 (ranked 42nd)

Combat tanks: 437 (ranked 40th)

Total naval assets: 110

Defense budget: $29.3 billion

12. Egypt

Egyptian army sinai

Associated Press

Power Index rating: 0.2283

Total population: 99,413,317

Total military personnel: 920,000 (estimated)

Total aircraft strength: 1,092 (ranked 9th out of 137)

Fighter aircraft: 211 (ranked 13th)

Combat tanks: 2,160 (ranked 14th)

Total naval assets: 319; two aircraft carriers

Defense budget: $4,4 billion



11. Italy

Italy navy air force aircraft carrier

REUTERS/Fadi Ghalioum

Power Index rating: (NATO member) 0.2277

Total population: 62,246,674

Total military personnel: 357,000 (estimated)

Total aircraft strength: 831 (ranked 14th out of 137)

Fighter aircraft: 94 (ranked 25th)

Combat tanks: 200 (ranked 60th)

Total naval assets: 137; five aircraft carriers

Defense budget: $29.2 billion

10. Germany
German Germany Bundeswehr soldiers troops mortar

REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch

Power Index rating: (NATO member) 0.2097

Total population: 80,457,737

Total military personnel: 208,641 (estimated)

Total aircraft strength: 613 (ranked 17th out of 137)

Fighter aircraft: 122 (ranked 20th)

Combat tanks: 900 (ranked 26th)

Total naval assets: 81

Defense budget: $49.1 billion

9. Turkey
turkey

Umit Bektas/Reuters

Power Index rating: (NATO member) 0.2089

Total population: 81,257,239

Total military personnel: 735,000 (estimated)

Total aircraft strength: 1,067 (ranked 10th out of 137)

Fighter aircraft: 207 (ranked 14th)

Combat tanks: 3,200 (ranked 7th)

Total naval assets: 194

Defense budget: $8.6 billion

8. United Kingdom

Swift Response 16 British army parachute soldier

Sgt. Seth Plagenza/US Army

Power Index rating: (NATO member) 0.1797

Total population: 65,105,246

Total military personnel: 233,000 (estimated)

Total aircraft strength: 811 (ranked 15th out of 137)

Fighter aircraft: 129 (ranked 19th)

Combat tanks: 331 (ranked 49th)

Total naval assets: 76; one aircraft carrier

Defense budget: $47.5 billion

7. South Korea

south korea

AP

Power Index rating: 0.1761

Total population: 51,418,097

Total military personnel: 5,827,150 (estimated)

Total aircraft strength: 1,614 (ranked 5th out of 137)

Fighter aircraft: 406 (ranked 6th)

Combat tanks: 2,654 (ranked 9th)

Total naval assets: 166; one aircraft carrier

Defense budget: $38.3 billion

6. Japan

Japan military exercise

Yuya Shino/REUTERS

Power Index rating: 0.1707

Total population: 126,128,156

Total military personnel: 303,157 (estimated)

Total aircraft strength: 1,572 (ranked 6th out of 137)

Fighter aircraft: 297 (ranked 8th)

Combat tanks: 1,004 (ranked 25th)

Total naval assets: 131; four aircraft carriers

Defense budget: $47 billion

5. France

Bastille Day parade

Associated Press

Power Index rating: (NATO member) 0.1584

Total population: 67,364,357

Total military personnel: 388,635 (estimated)

Total aircraft strength: 1,248 (ranked 8th out of 137)

Fighter aircraft: 273 (ranked 10th)

Combat tanks: 406 (ranked 44th)

Total naval assets: 118; four aircraft carriers

Defense budget: $40.5 billion

4. India

India military parade

AP

Power Index rating: 0.1065

Total population: 1,296,834,042

Total military personnel: 3,462,500 (estimated)

Total aircraft strength: 2,082 (ranked 4th out of 137)

Fighter aircraft: 520 (ranked 4th)

Combat tanks: 4,184 (ranked 6th)

Total naval assets: 295; one aircraft carrier

Defense budget: $55.2 billion

3. China

Chinese soldier

Reuters/Stringer

Power Index rating: 0.0673

Total population: 1,384,688,986

Total military personnel: 2,693,000 (estimated)

Total aircraft strength: 3,187 (ranked 3rd out of 137)

Fighter aircraft: 1,222 (ranked 2nd)

Combat tanks: 13,050 (ranked 2nd)

Total naval assets: 714; one aircraft carrier

Defense budget: $224 billion

2. Russia

Russian Navy

REUTERS/Mikhail Klimentyev/RIA Novosti/Kremlin

Power Index rating: 0.0639

Total population: 142,122,776

Total military personnel: 3,586,128 (estimated)

Total aircraft strength: 4,078 (ranked 2nd out of 137)

Fighter aircraft: 869 (ranked 3rd)

Combat tanks: 21,932 (ranked 1st)

Total naval assets: 352; one aircraft carrier out of service indefinitely

Defense budget: $44 billion

1. United States

US Marines

US Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Kathryn Howard/Released

Power Index rating: (NATO member) 0.0615

Total population: 329,256,465

Total military personnel: 2,141,900 (estimated)

Total aircraft: 13,398 (ranked 1st out of 137)

Fighter aircraft: 2,362 (ranked 1st)

Combat tanks: 6,287 (ranked 3rd)

Total naval assets: 415; 24 aircraft carriers

Defense budget: $716 billion

Read the original article on Business Insider

Trump Walks Back Threat To Commit War Crimes Against Iran's Cultural Sites

Nick Robins-Early
HuffPost

President Donald Trump reluctantly walked back his threats to commit a war crime by launching airstrikes against Iranian cultural sites, telling reporters on Tuesday that he was “OK with” obeying international law on the matter while also expressing his petulance.

“We are, according to various laws, supposed to be very careful with their cultural heritage. And you know what, if that’s what the law is, I like to obey the law,” Trump said. “But think of it: They kill our people, they blow up our people and then we have to be very gentle with their cultural institutions.”

Trump vowed over the weekend to target 52 locations, including some “important to Iran & the Iranian culture,” if Tehran retaliated against the U.S. for assassinating Iranian General Qassem Soleimani. Trump then defended his stance on Sunday, effectively doubling down on his threat to commit war crimes.

Bombing cultural sites would violate multiple international treaties. Legal experts, world leaders and cultural heritage organizations all harshly condemned Trump’s threats, and top administration officials tried to water down and deflect from the statements.

Although Trump appears to have backed off somewhat following the backlash, his remarks were in keeping with a history of flagrant disregard for human rights and international law ― often describing them as a hindrance to his own authority.

During the 2016 presidential election campaign he criticized the Geneva Conventions as a “problem” in the fight against ISIS and complained that the U.S. wasn’t allowed to use torture. He also repeatedly spread a debunked myth about a World War I-era U.S. general in the Philippines killing Muslim prisoners with bullets dipped in pigs’ blood, which would also constitute a war crime.

Trump continued his disregard for international law and human rights as president, recently pardoning Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher after he was accused of war crimes and convicted of posing for photos with the corpse of a dead ISIS detainee. (Gallagher was acquitted of other charges that included shooting unarmed civilians.) Trump has praised some of the world’s worst rights abusers, while his administration broadly deemphasized and undermined human rights as an international issue.

What Trump threatened against Iran is a clear-cut example of a war crime and in violation of international treaties that the U.S. has signed on to, according to Sara Bronin, a professor at the University of Connecticut School of Law. The United States is party to the Hague Convention of 1907, which dictates that “all necessary steps must be taken” to protect sites of cultural, scientific, historic and religious importance.

The Obama administration in 2009 also ratified the Hague Cultural Property Convention of 1954 which similarly prohibits attacks and which destroying Iran’s cultural sites would violate. Article 53 of the Geneva Convention additionally forbids destruction of historic monuments and places of worship, expressly prohibiting making them the subject of reprisal attacks, while the U.S. Defense Department Law of War Manual bars targeting cultural property. The United Nations Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution in 2017 vowing to protect the world’s cultural heritage from conflict.

The U.S. interest in preserving cultural sites and important historical artifacts during war goes back to at least the Civil War era, when the Lincoln administration produced the Lieber Code ordering that “classical works of art, libraries, scientific collections, or precious instruments” should be protected from harm.

U.S. rhetoric on protecting cultural heritage hasn’t always matched its actions, which have included bombing Vietcong-occupied historic temples during the Vietnam War and in recent years supporting Saudi Arabia’s devastation of Yemen’s ancient heritage sites. But experts say that Trump’s threats were unique in their explicit contempt for international norms around cultural property, as well as nonsensical from a policy standpoint.

Trump’s threats to attack cultural sites are “not useful strategically, even if what you’re trying to do is put American foreign policy interests above all else,” said Christine Cheng, associate professor in the department of war studies at King’s College London. “There’s nothing that would rally people more than this.”

Destroying Iranian cultural sites would also be similar to abuses that the U.S. has fiercely condemned in past administrations. The Taliban’s destruction of Afghanistan’s Bamiyan Buddhas in 2001 was widely condemned as an atrocity, and the U.S. state department founded special programs to address the Islamic State militant group’s targeting of Syrian and Iraqi cultural and religious sites. It would also weaken international courts’ attempts to establish stronger norms around forbidding the destruction of cultural sites, which has increased in recent years with the International Criminal Court’s prosecution and conviction of an Al Qaeda-linked militant who organized the destruction of Muslim shrines in Mali.

Iran has 22 cultural sites which the United Nations cultural body, UNESCO, has labeled as protected on their world heritage list ― some of which have stood for thousands of years and represent world-renowned examples of art, architecture and engineering.

“A lot of these things are irreplaceable, not just irreplaceable in the physical sense but in terms of a sense of loss of dignity, in the sense of belonging and community,” Cheng said.


“You can’t really fix that, and all that really does is cause long-term hatred and resentment. It’s the opposite of what the U.S. would want in terms of eventually trying to normalize U.S.-Iran relations,” she said.


This article originally appeared on HuffPost.