US to join 3 nations in Mideast naval exercise amid tension with Iran
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates —The U.S. Navy said Sunday that it will hold a major naval exercise alongside Belgium, France and Japan in the Mideast amid tensions over Iran’s nuclear program in the region.
The Group Arabian Sea Warfare Exercise will see ships from the four countries conduct drills in the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman. Ships involved include the French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle, as well as the amphibious assault ship USS Makin Island.
The Belgian frigate HNLMS Leopold I and the Japanese destroyer JS Ariake also will take part, as well as aircraft from the four nations.
The drill comes as Iran has abandoned all limits of its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers in the wake of then-President Donald Trump’s 2018 decision to unilaterally withdraw from the accord.
President Joe Biden has expressed a desire to return to the deal if Iran honors the deal’s limits on its nuclear program. However, tensions remain high after militias in Iraq — likely backed by Iran — continue to target American interests.
Biden last month launched an airstrike just over the border into Syria in retaliation, joining every American president from Ronald Reagan onward who has ordered a bombardment of countries in the Middle East.
There was no immediate reaction from Iran to the naval drill.
South China Sea standoff: The Philippine defense chief Sunday demanded more than 200 Chinese vessels he said were manned by militias leave a South China Sea reef claimed by Manila, saying their presence was a “provocative action of militarizing the area.”
“We call on the Chinese to stop this incursion and immediately recall these boats violating our maritime rights and encroaching into our sovereign territory,” Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said in a statement, adding without elaborating that the Philippines would uphold its sovereign rights.
A government watchdog overseeing the disputed region said about 220 Chinese vessels were seen moored at Whitsun Reef, which Beijing also claims, on March 7. It released pictures of the vessels side by side in one of the most hotly contested areas of the strategic waterway.
Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin tweeted late Sunday the Philippines has filed a diplomatic protest over the Chinese presence.
The reef, which Manila calls Julian Felipe, is about 175 nautical miles west of Bataraza town in the western Philippine province of Palawan. It’s well within the country’s exclusive economic zone, over which the Philippines “enjoys the exclusive right to exploit or conserve any resources,” the government watchdog said.
Chinese Embassy officials did not immediately issue any comment. China, the Philippines and four other governments have been locked in a tense territorial standoff over the resource-rich and busy waterway for decades.
NKorea diplomats expelled: North Korean diplomats vacated their embassy in Malaysia and were expelled Sunday, after the two nations cut diplomatic relations in a spat over the extradition of a North Korean criminal suspect to the United States.
The North Korean flag and embassy signage were removed from the premise in a Kuala Lumpur suburb. Two buses ferried the diplomats and their families to the airport, where they were seen checking in for a flight to Shanghai.
Malaysian Foreign Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said the expulsion was in response to Pyongyang’s “unilateral and utterly irresponsible decision” on Friday to sever diplomatic ties.
Ties between North Korea and Malaysia have been virtually frozen since the 2017 assassination of the estranged half brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at Kuala Lumpur International Airport.
Two days after Kuala Lumpur extradited a North Korean man to the U.S. to face money laundering charges, a furious North Korea on Friday announced it was terminating ties with Malaysia. Malaysia denounced the decision and in a tit-for-tat response, gave North Korean diplomats 48 hours to leave.
Kim Yu Song, the charge d’affaires and councilor in Kuala Lumpur, said Malaysia had “committed an unpardonable crime.”
“The Malaysian authority delivered our citizen to the U.S. in the end, thus destroying the foundations of the bilateral relations based on respect of sovereignty,” he said in a short statement outside the embassy, before heading to the airport.
North Korea has called the money laundering charges an “absurd fabrication and (a) sheer plot” orchestrated by the U.S. and warned Washington will “pay a due price.“
France back in lockdown: Residents of Paris and several other regions of France spent their first weekend under a limited monthlong lockdown. While the French government insisted the rules would be less strict than in the past, the measures have been criticized as messy.
A travel authorization certificate posted online was so ridiculed by French media for its unnecessary complexity that the Interior Ministry scrapped it within hours. For now, simple proof of residence is required to stroll within a radius of about 6 miles.
The form the French government still obliges citizens to fill out to travel greater distances — up to just over 18 miles — also was not accessible online because of a technical glitch. A website Sunday simply said, “Available soon.”
Under the new restrictions, nonessential shops were closed but people are not required to spend most of the day confined at home. The government announced the measures on Thursday as the coronavirus picked up speed again in some parts of France.
Republic of Congo election:
Republic of Congo pressed ahead Sunday with an election in which President Denis Sassou N’Guesso is widely expected to extend his 36 years in power, while the leading opposition candidate was flown to France after suffering COVID19 complications.
After casting his ballot, Sassou N’Guesso said the government was aware of opposition candidate Guy Brice Parfait Kolelas’ illness and had taken the steps necessary for him to be transferred to France for further treatment.
Aides confirmed the medical evacuation flight bringing Kolelas to a French hospital took off from Brazzaville Sunday afternoon.
Elira Dokekias, who heads Republic of Congo’s pandemic response, said Kolelas had been in serious condition on Saturday evening but that the candidate’s condition was stable ahead departure.
Kolelas, 61, had skipped his final campaign event on Friday after telling some reporters a day earlier that he feared he had malaria. A video on social media Saturday showed Kolelas wearing an oxygen mask and with a blood pressure cuff on his arm as he lay in a hospital bed.