IRAN TESTS HOME- GROWN AIR DEFENSE SYSTEM
TEHRAN: Iran has tested its home- grown air defense system, designed to match the Russian S-300, the head of the Revolutionary Guards’ air defense has said. “In parallel with the deployment of the S-300, work on Bavar-373 system is underway,” Farzad Esmaili told state broadcaster IRIB late Saturday. “The system is made completely in Iran and some of its parts are different from the S-300. All of its sub-systems have been completed and its missile tests have been conducted.” Bavar (which means “belief”) is Tehran’s first long-range missile defence system, and is set to be operational by March 2018, he added. In 2010, Iran began manufacturing Bavar-373 after the purchase of the S-300 from Russia was suspended due to international sanctions.
FOREST FIRE RAGES IN FRANCE
MARSEILLE: A forest fire broke out in southeastern France, destroying more than 400 hectares near urban areas, damaging two houses and forcing the evacuation of a camping site, the fire department and local authorities said Sunday. “The fire is very violent, very virulent,” a local official in Var, Emmanuel Cayron, said. Some 430 hectares had been burned and two homes were ravaged, a spokeswoman for the local prefecture said. And 165 people were evacuated from a camping site. The fire broke out in Hyeres around 10 p.m. Saturday (2000 GMT), a day which was considered high risk due to dry weather and strong wind, according to a fire department spokesman. Several roads, as well as a high-voltage power supply, have been cut off at the request of the fire department. About 450 firefighters were battling the flames on Sunday. The fire department has requested reinforcements from neighbouring districts.
CAMBODIA DAILY TO CLOSE FOLLOWING TAX ROW WITH GOVERNMENT
PHNOM PENH: One of Cambodia’s last remaining independent newspapers announced on Sunday it was closing after 24 years, the latest in a series of blows to critics of strongman premier Hun Sen. The Cambodia Daily said Monday’s edition would be its last after it was slapped with a $ 6.3 million tax bill which its publishers said was politically motivated. “The power to tax is the power to destroy. And after 24 years, one month and 15 days, the Cambodian government has destroyed The Cambodia Daily, a special and singular part of Cambodia’s free press,” the newspaper said in a statement. The paper blamed “extra- legal threats by the government to close the Daily, freeze its accounts and prosecute the new owner” for the closure.