US military ‘showcase’ annoys China
SOUTH CHINA SEA: As fighter jets streaked overhead, a United States aircraft carrier sailed through the South China Sea yesterday in the latest display of America’s military might after China built a string of islands with military facilities to assert its claims in the strategic waters, sparking regional alarm.
The US Navy flew a small group of Philippine generals, officials and journalists to the USS Theodore Roosevelt, where fighter jets landed and took off by catapult with thunderous blasts. The nuclear-powered carrier, and its 65 supersonic F18 jets, spy planes and helicopters, was en route to Manila.
Recent US deployments of aircraft carriers, backed by destroyers, to perform freedom of navigation exercises to Beijing’s territorial claims are reassuring allies but also prompting concerns with China’s own show of force in the busy waterway.
‘‘It’s a showcase of the capability of the US armed forces not only by sea but also by air,’’ Philippine army Lieutenant General Rolando Bautista said after joining a tour of the 97,000-tonne carrier. ‘‘The Americans are our friends. In one way or another, they can help us to deter any threat.’’ He said the American military presence helps secure vulnerable Philippine waters.
At least twice this year, the US Navy has deployed destroyers in freedom of navigation sail-bys near Chinese-occupied Scarborough Shoal, which Beijing wrestled from the Philippines in 2012, and Manila-claimed Mischief Reef, which Chinese forces occupied in 1995.
Another US carrier, the USS Carl Vinson, patrolled the con- tested waters last month, taking part in anti-submarine drills in the South China Sea with Japanese forces and visiting Vietnam with its 5000-strong crew, the largest such US military presence there since the Vietnam War ended in 1975.
China has protested those moves, calling it US meddling in an Asian conflict, and renewed warnings to Washington to stay away. Beijing has also reportedly been holding large-scale naval exercises in the area featuring its only operating aircraft carrier.
– AP
Pistorius out of options
Legal experts say Olympian Oscar Pistorius has finally run out of options to appeal his 13-year prison sentence for the murder of Reeva Steenkamp. South Africa’s highest court dismissed Pistorius’ request to review the sentence on Tuesday, bringing a close to a five-year legal saga surrounding the man who was once one of the world’s most celebrated athletes. Last year, the Supreme Court of Appeal more than doubled Pistorius’ six-year sentence for the murder of Steenkamp, a 29-year-old model, who he shot four times through a locked bathroom door in his home on Valentine’s Day in 2013.
Historian stole war relics
A French historian who was a recognised expert on the D-Day invasion was sentenced to 364 days in prison for stealing dog tags and numerous other relics of US servicemen whose planes crashed during World War II, officials said yesterday. Antonin DeHays, whose research focused on events at the French beach at Normandy, where President Dwight D Eisenhower’s troops launched the D-Day invasion, pilfered nearly 300 dog tags and other war relics during visits to a public research room of the National Archives in College Park, Maryland. The systematic thefts by DeHays, a 33-year-old native of Normandy, took place during visits to the research room from 2012 to 2017. The published historian used his researcher identification card to access the artefacts.
Trucks ordered off road
A Canadian trucking company that owns the semi-trailer that collided with a youth hockey bus, killing 15 people, has been ordered to keep its vehicles off the road. A spokesman with Alberta Transportation said that Calgary, Alberta-based Adesh Deol Trucking Ltd had its commercial carrier’s safety fitness certificate suspended on Tuesday. John Archer said the move was standard procedure and the company had passed recent inspections. The Humboldt Broncos junior hockey team was on its way to a playoff game last weekend when the crash happened in Saskatchewan. Fourteen people were injured.