ROTTERDAM, January 15 -- Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte is a supporter of international organizations such as the European Union. But he also thinks President Trump has some legitimate complaints about multilateralism — and he apparently has little patience for some of Trump’s Dutch critics. “It pisses me off when I hear white-wine-sipping Amsterdam elites say that Trump is so wrong,” Rutte said Sunday in an interview on Buitenhof, a Dutch TV program. “In NATO, lots of things are not good. In the [World Trade Organization,] lots of things are not good. In the European Union, lots of things are not good,” he said. “So let’s make use of the presence of someone like Trump, who sometimes rightly says, ‘Guys, this is not good.’ ” Rutte singled out E.U. policy as an area where there is not enough coordination between groups. “Eastern Europe does nothing at all and leaves it to the Netherlands and Germany to decide,” he said. Rutte also pushed back on talk that he might be the next president of the European Council, suggesting that he had never been asked. The Dutch prime minister went on to say that upcoming European Parliament elections, in which the far right may make big gains, are not that important, especially given that turnout is “so low.” (E.U. data shows that voter turnout for the last election, held in 2014, was 42.6 percent). Rutte’s comments drew criticism from some Dutch citizens, especially those based in Amsterdam. Zeeger Ernsting, a member of the city council for the GroenLinks party, tweeted a picture of Rutte sharing a glass of white wine with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
0 Comments
TEHRAN, January 4, -- Deputy Chief of Navy Force of the Iranian Army announced that the army's naval fleet will enter the Atlantic Ocean in early 2019 on a five-month voyage. Admiral Touraj Hasnai Moqaddam said in an interview with the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) on Friday that the trip will be conducted in accordance with the order of the hierarchy of command. 'The Atlantic Ocean is a long route, and it is likely that this Iranian mission would take five months to complete,' he added. The deputy commander of the Navy, arguing that the Iranian navy would rotate the planet Earth, said, 'A member of the Iranian navy will be the Sahand destroyer.' Sahand, the most advanced destroyer of West Asia, joined the Navy’s south fleet in Bandar Abbas on December 1. This four-engine destroyer has been designed and made more advanced than its predecessor, Jamaran destroyer, with radar-evading capabilities. BEIJING, December 19 -- China is watching closely as the EU advances its defense integration in the face of anxieties over Russia and US President Donald Trump’s wavering commitment to NATO. The aim of the EU Global Strategy (EUGS) and the Permanent Structured Co-operation (PESCO) is to streamline the EU’s defense spending, investment and operations. As a potential complement to NATO, its development will impact China’s foreign policy ambitions. In a new China Monitor, Scott W. Harold, political scientist at RAND corporation and MERICS visiting fellow, explores five scenarios for how China’s interaction with the new initiative might develop. China has traditionally viewed the EU as an “important strategic partner” in the promotion of a “multi-polar international order.” Harold notes the potential value of the integration efforts to China as a “reinsurance policy” against the United States. Should the project deepen trans-Atlantic divisions, “Beijing may seek to encourage breakdowns in trust between Washington and Brussels,” Harold writes.
MOSCOW, December 18 -- The Russian Navy will take the delivery of 12 warships and combat boats, two submarines and four Bal and Bastion coastal defense systems in 2019. efense Minister Sergei Shoigu said this at the ministry’s year-end board meeting attended by President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday. "A total of 12 warships and combat boats, two submarines and 12 support vessels will enter service with the Navy. Four Bal and Bastion coastal defense systems will be delivered to the troops. As a whole, the task is to raise the share of modern weaponry in the Navy to 64%," the defense chief said. The Bastion mobile coastal defense missile system with the standardized Yakhont (Oniks) supersonic homing anti-ship cruise missile is designed to strike surface ships of various classes and types from amphibious assault formations, convoys, naval and carrier strike groups, and also sole warships and ground radiocontrast targets amid intensive fire and jamming. The Bal mobile coastal defense missile complex with the Kh-35 anti-ship missile is designed to control territorial waters and straits, defend naval bases, other coastal facilities and infrastructure, and also defend the coastline in the areas vulnerable to amphibious assaults. The system can be used in any weather conditions, day and night with the fully autonomous guidance after the launch amid an enemy’s fire and jamming. The system can strike targets at a range of 120km with the Kh-35 missile and 260km with the Kh-35U missile. MOSCOW, December 18 -- Intelligence agencies from at least ten countries have been showing high interest in Russia’s Armed Forces. The head of the Military Counterintelligence Department at the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) Colonel General Nikolai Yuryev revealed in an interview ahead of the military counterintelligence agency’s centennial anniversary. "Russia’s Armed Forces still are a matter of interest for foreign intelligence agencies," he noted. "This is proven by the fact that military counterintelligence officers exposed dozens of intelligence agents from the US, Great Britain, Germany, Spain, Sweden, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Georgia and Poland," Yuryev added. The general stressed that the FSB Military Counterintelligence Department and army security agencies were particularly tasked with preventing foreign intelligence agencies from reaching out to the Russian Armed Forces, collecting intelligence concerning security threats, preventing terrorist and subversive activities against the army, as well as with protecting state secrets, countering organized crime, corruption, arms and drug trafficking in the army. Russia’s military counterintelligence agency will mark its centennial anniversary on December 19.
MOSCOW, December 1 -- The Russian Aerospace Forces have successfully conducted a test-firing of a modernised air defence rocket at the Sary Shagan testing range in Kazakhstan, the Russian Defence Ministry said on Saturday.
According to Colonel Sergei Grabchuk, the officer tasked with running the department which operates the Russian Aerospace Forces anti-missile defence system, after a series of tests, the new antimissile defence system "confirmed the characteristics that were set to it and successfully completed the task, hitting the conventional target with a given accuracy". The air defence system is in service with the Russian Aerospace Forces and is designed to protect against air attacks.
THE HAGUE, November 16 -- The Dutch Minister of Defense Ank Bijleveld said Thursday her country's government opposes the establishment of a "European army".
Bijleveld said the vision of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron for a European army is going "far too far". She noted that the Netherlands will remain responsible for the deployment of its army. Bijleveld also stressed the Dutch government is not alone, since there are other countries which oppose the EU army. When necessary, the Dutch army can work with NATO and the EU, but the country is not dependent on them, she added. German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Tuesday called for creating a European Union army, stressing that Europeans can no longer merely rely on the U.S. for their security. “We Europeans now have to really take our faith fully into our own hands if we want to defend our union,” Merkel said addressing the European Parliament. French president Emmanuel Macronsaid earlier that building a European army will reduce dependence on the U.S., adding: "We will not protect the Europeans unless we decide to have a real European army." LONDON, November 4 -- A Russian Tu-142 bomber blindsided a US flagship taking part in NATO’s massive Trident Juncture 18 drills off Norway. Spectacular photos of the flyby have expectedly sparked a media uproar, while Moscow called the flight routine.
The plane appeared in the air at the very moment the marines on board the USS Mount Whitney, the flagship of the US Sixth Fleet, gathered on deck for a group photo. The flyby provided the American troops with a rare opportunity to check out the Tu-142, which NATO codenamed ‘Bear-F.’ "It's a long-range maritime patrol reconnaissance plane," one of the marines said. Military.com reported that the US soldier was “fascinated” as he witnessed the Russian Bear live in the air for the first time.
"The main task I see is to prepare for combat operations. We are doing this, we are readying our reserves," Poltorak said on Wednesday, adding that the situation in the conflict zone was "complicated but stable" for now. In televised comments at the start of a cabinet meeting, he reported that pro-Russian separatists had taken on "reinforcements". "We observe their movements, we know where they are and we expect unpredictable actions from them." Also on Wednesday, US General Philip Breedlove, NATO's supreme commander, lent his weight to a report by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation (OSCE), released last week, that said columns of Russian tanks were entering Ukraine. "We agree that there are multiple columns that we have seen; we agree with the OSCE reports. And as to their intent: I'm not sure," Breedlove said during a visit to Sofia. "My strategic team believes that there is a possibility that, as you know, this pocket of separatist Russian-backed forces and Russian forces in the east of Ukraine - it's not a very contiguous pocket. "What worries me the most, I've said before, is that we have a situation now where the former international border, the current international border, of Ukraine and Russia, is completely porous; it is completely wide-open. Forces, money, support, supplies, weapons are flowing back and forth across this border completely at will. Russia has repeatedly denied claims that its troops are moving across the border into rebel-held eastern Ukraine, despite openly offering its backing to elections in the separatist areas. Reports from Donetsk, said the military presence had been increasing in recent days: "We ourselves witnessed a military column travelling to Donetsk yesterday," she said. "There's certainly a build-up, with daily sightings of military convoys and a build up of fighting. "The Ukrainian Defence Ministry announced it is going to prop up its military to defend against possible rebel advancement across their territory." OSCE observers had reported seeing a convoy of 43 unmarked military vehicles, five towing Howitzer heavy artillery pieces and another five towing multi-launch rocket systems, travelling into the rebel stronghold of Donetsk on Tuesday. On the ground, several hours of heavy artillery fire rocked Donetsk, the most intense fighting since the weekend. WASHINGTON, October 13 -- Turkey has allowed the US and its partners to use its air bases, the White House said. "We have not asked for the Turks to send ground forces of their own into Syria," US National Security Adviser Susan Rice said on NBC's Meet the Press. "The Turks have, this just in the last several days, made a commitment that they will in the first instance allow the United States and our partners to use Turkish bases and territory," she added. ISTANBUL. October 7 -- Turkey, a NATO member, says the alliance has drawn up a strategy to defend the country if it is attacked along its border with Syria.
Defense Minister Ismet Yildiz said Monday that NATO did that at Turkey's request as Islamic State militants, who have captured a large swath of Iraq and Syria, are trying to take the Syrian town of Kobani near the Turkish border. NATO is required to help protect member countries from military attacks. Yildiz told reporters: "If there is an attack, NATO's joint defense mechanism will be activated." Kurdish forces are defending Kobani, but two banners of the Islamic State group were raised over a building and a nearby hill on Monday, suggesting that the militants may have broken through the Kurdish perimeter. BERLIN, October 5 -- Finland’s most citizens would not want their country to join NATO, and thus the issue is not on the agenda, Finland’s Prime Minister Alexander Stubb said. “We should have joined NATO in 1995, when we joined the European Union. But now we are very satisfied with the close partnership with the Alliance, though purely formal; though we do not have security guarantees in case of attacks. Anyway, I do not see a majority calling for joining (NATO),” he said. Besides, the prime minister stressed importance of economic relations with Russia. “If everything is good in the Russian economy, everything will be good in ours, too,” he said. Thus, Helsinki is for “diplomatic settlement of the Ukrainian conflict,” which has been a reason for the sanctions against Russia. Finland is also affected by the sanctions, the prime minister added. Source: Agencies MADRID, September 22 -- The Netherlands is pulling out its air defense troops from Turkey but Spain will take its place, ensuring that the NATO deployment of Patriot systems will remain on the Turkey-Syria border. Last month, the Netherlands announced that it would end its deployment in Turkey in January 2015. The Dutch were part of a NATO deployment, also including the United States and Germany, which has operated the Patriot missile defense systems since December 2012. There had been media reports that the entire NATO mission was in peril because the Patriot units of the contributing members were becoming overextended. But on September 17, Spain announced that it will step in and deploy about 130 soldiers and two Patriot batteries, averting that threat. An unnamed senior Turkish diplomat said the decision "denoted critical help from an ally at a most critical time," wrote Defense News. “Our southern [Syrian] and southeastern [Iraqi] borders are under serious threat, and the deployment will help us better counter any attack from across these borders,” the diplomat said. The move represents a bit of a departure from Spain, which Reuters notes "has not been an major participant in these types of international initiatives in recent years." NATO's perception of the situation in Syria has dramatically shifted since the beginning of the Patriot deployment in 2012; at the time the government of Bashar al-Assad was thought to be the main threat, now the radical opposition group ISIS has emerged as an international menace after taking over large swathes of territory in Iraq as well as in Syria. Along with that shift, there have been concerns that Turkey's interests are not in tune with those of its NATO allies; a recent much-discussed Wall Street Journal editorial was titled "Our Non-Ally in Ankara." Part of the reason for Turkey's half-hearted devotion to the anti-ISIS effort was that 46 of its citizens were being held hostage by the group in Iraq; those hostages were freed and returned to Turkey this weekend. Source: Agencies VILNIUS, September 20 -- NATO's top general says he has little faith in the 2-week-old cease-fire between Ukraine and pro-Russian militants fighting in the country's east. Speaking to reporters in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius (VEEL'-nee-oos) on Saturday, U.S. Air Force Gen. Philip Breedlove said the September agreement is a "cease-fire in name only." He said violence levels, including the number of artillery rounds fired in the past few days, are as high as prior to the cease-fire. Breedlove said he hopes the agreement announced Saturday for creation of a buffer zone between Ukrainian government troops and the pro-Russian militants will succeed in stabilizing the situation. Breedlove was in Vilnius for a meeting of NATO military chiefs, who discussed a range of issues including the situation in Ukraine and relations with Russia. Source: Agencies |
Thank you for choosing to make a difference through your donation. We appreciate your support.
This website uses marketing and tracking technologies. Opting out of this will opt you out of all cookies, except for those needed to run the website. Note that some products may not work as well without tracking cookies. Opt Out of CookiesCategories
All
Archives
April 2024
|