News in Brief(2023-08-21)

FE Team | Published: August 20, 2023 23:19:30

US, Japan and Australia plan joint navy
drills in disputed South China Sea
MANILA, Aug 20: The United States, Japan and Australia are planning a joint navy drill in the South China Sea off the western Philippines this week to underscore their commitment to the rule of law in the region after a recent show of Chinese aggression in the disputed waters, Filipino security officials said Sunday. On Aug. 5, Chinese coast guard ships used water cannons against Philippine vessels in the contested waterway where disputes have long been regarded as a potential flashpoint and have become a fault line in the rivalry between the U.S. and China in the region. —AP
Pak rights activist, politician detained
ISLAMABAD, Aug 20: A prominent human rights activist and a former lawmaker were arrested on Sunday after they rallied against enforced disappearances in Pakistan. Lawyer Imaan Mazari-Hazir and politician Ali Wazir appeared at the first protest in months to be staged by the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM), which fights for the rights of ethnic Pashtuns. The pair appeared at a court in the capital Islamabad on Sunday and were remanded in custody in a case registered under the anti-terrorism act, lawyer Zainab Janjua said. PTM was launched to fight against what it says are military excesses committed during anti-terrorism operations in the country's northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province where most Pashtuns live.
—AFP
Chinese military launches drills around Taiwan
BEIJING, Aug 20: The Chinese military launched drills around Taiwan on Saturday as a "stern warning" over what it called collusion between "separatists and foreign forces," its defense ministry said, days after the island's vice president stopped over in the United States. Taiwanese Vice President William Lai's recent trip to Paraguay to reinforce relations with his government's last diplomatic partner in South America included stops in San Francisco and New York City. The mainland's ruling Communist Party claims democratic Taiwan as part of its territory and says it has no right to conduct foreign relations. —AP
Zelensky asks Sweden for Gripen jets
HARPSUND, August 20: Ukraine has begun discussing with Sweden the possibility of receiving Gripen jets to boost its air defences, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Saturday after meeting Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson. Zelensky's visit is his first to Sweden since Russia's invasion in February 2022 and the talks about obtaining Gripen jets, which he cast as preliminary, follow approval from the United States for Denmark and the Netherlands to send F-16 fighters to Ukraine. —Reuters
Seven children killed in Congo fire
KALEHE, Aug 20: At least seven children were killed in eastern Congo on Saturday after a fire broke out at camp for people displaced by flooding, local official Thomas Bakenga said. Hundreds of families had been living in makeshift huts at the refuge in the town of Kalehe since May, when devastating floods destroyed their homes in the villages of Bushushu and Nyamukubi in South Kivu province. The children killed in the fire were aged between one and five, while four adults were in a critical condition in hospital, Kalehe territorial administrator Bakenga said. — Reuters
Guatemala votes in presidential runoff
GUATEMALA CITY, Aug 20: Guatemalans head to the polls Sunday in a presidential runoff marked by the harassment of a surprise frontrunner, who has fired up voters with his promises to end the rot of corruption. The Central American nation is dogged by poverty, violence and graft, with thousands of its citizens heading abroad every year in search of a better life, many to the United States. Reformist outsider Bernardo Arevalo pulled off a massive upset by finishing second in the first round, and will face off against former first lady Sandra Torres in the runoff. A recent poll shows Arevalo with a strong lead. Both are social democrats, meaning Guatemala will have its first leftist leader in over a decade. —AFP