Japan to deliver 12 amphibious aircraft to Indian Navy

Washington (UPI)
Jan 5, 2016

Japan is scheduled to deliver 12 Utility Seaplane Mark 2 amphibious search-and-rescue aircraft to the Indian Navy.

The delivery is part of a $1.65 billion deal reached between both governments to facilitate the export of the aircraft. The deal was signed following Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's visit to India, where leaders from both countries agreed to further their cooperation on procuring defense and security equipment, according to The Hindu Business Line.

The "agreement provides a framework to enhance defense and security co-operation by making available to each other, defense equipment and technology necessary to implement joint research, development and production," sources told The Hindu.

The Utility Seaplane Mark 2 is the basis for the model known as the US-2i for India. It has the same capability as the US-2, with some equipment modifications specific to India's requirements. The plane, crewed by 11, is capable of carrying 20 passengers or 12 stretchers for search-and-rescue missions.

The first two US-2i will be imported, while the remaining 10 are scheduled to be manufactured in India.

Source: Space War.
Link: http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Japan_to_deliver_12_amphibious_aircraft_to_Indian_Navy_999.html.

For Ukraine's rebel east, 2016 promises more tension

December 30, 2015

DONETSK, Ukraine (AP) — The holiday market in the central square of Donetsk, the principal city of rebel-held eastern Ukraine, has all the trappings of a celebratory time — shiny ornaments, colorful toys and a cartoon-faced kiddie train on a meandering track. But the aura is more forced than festive, as the region's people face a new year that gives little promise.

While full-scale fighting in the war between Ukrainian forces and Russia-backed separatists died down in 2015, true peace appears a distant prospect. Shooting and shelling erupts sporadically despite repeated cease-fires called under an internationally mediated peace agreement. The latest truce was declared last week by the Contact Group negotiators from Ukraine, Russia and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, but the antagonists each have claimed violations by the other side since then.

It's an emotional whipsaw for Donetsk's residents. "A feeling of peace? Sometimes there is. But when they start to shoot, you don't feel any kind of peace," said Alexandra Kirichenko, an 18-year-old student, walking down a street where apartment windows shattered by fighting were blocked off with plywood sheets.

In the central square, a middle-aged woman named Galina was trying to sell toys for parents to give their children on New Year's Eve, the main day for presents in much of the former Soviet Union. Her mood was as grim as the toys were merry, her words as terse and direct as a telegram from the front lines.

"Uncertainty; you live from day to day; constant tension, fear," said Galina, who declined to give her last name. Even if the fear abates for a few hours or days, the region's economic difficulties make life a constant grind. The Ukrainian government has halted payment of pensions and social stipends to the rebel-held areas and cut off business contacts. The isolation brings both high prices for scarce goods and high unemployment.

"It's harder and harder to sell anything," said Galina, whose stock of toys was compiled before the war, which has killed more than 9,000 people, started in April 2014. If the fighting is less intense than it was a year ago, the issues behind it remain just as passionate and resistant to resolution as ever.

The fighting began after separatists in the primarily Russian-speaking Donetsk and Luhansk regions seized government buildings, saying they wanted no part of the new government formed after Russia-friendly President Viktor Yanukovych fled in the face of mass protests in the capital Kiev. The separatists alleged the new government was so Ukrainian nationalist that it was effectively fascist and would run roughshod over the east.

The Minsk peace agreement signed in February — a second try after the first agreement of five months earlier failed to get traction — calls for the Donetsk and Luhansk regions to remain part of Ukraine, but with ill-defined "special status." That lack of clarity obstructs real resolution, and the continuing fighting and economic suffering only reinforce the stalemate.

"To return to what existed before — to a unified Ukraine, etc. — is already impossible. You can't wash away our citizens' memories of what Ukraine did in this period," said Denis Pushilin, the head of the rebel parliament in Donetsk.

For Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, the situation is equally difficult. Granting amnesty to the separatists and giving them special status, as envisioned by Minsk, could be politically ruinous, angering nationalists who reject any concessions to the rebels.

"The Minsk agreement exists only on paper. And so, especially on the border, it doesn't make any difference — shooting with them continues," a rebel who declined to provide his name told The Associated Press.

Russia, which Kiev and the West allege is supplying troops and weapons to the rebels, has brushed off the separatists' drive to be annexed by Moscow and says it is committed to fulfilling the Minsk agreement. Russia last week announced that a close ally of President Vladimir Putin, former parliament speaker Boris Gryzlov, had been named the new Russian representative to the Contact Group.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the appointment of such a prominent figure indicates Russia is intensifying its commitment to the Minsk agreement "despite the fact that efforts to implement this document now unfortunately are in a pretty deplorable state."

Ukrainian political analyst Vadim Karasev said Russia's interest in resolving the conflict may be more a matter of pragmatism than principle and that Ukrainian authorities see it similarly. "The alternative to the Minsk agreement is war, and that's too expensive for Kiev and for the Kremlin," he said.

Associated Press writers Yuras Karmanau in Minsk, Belarus, and Jim Heintz in Moscow contributed to this story.

Germany rethinking arms sales to Saudi Arabia

Berlin (UPI)
Jan 5, 2016

The German government is evaluating its sale of military equipment and arms to Saudi Arabia in response to escalating tensions between the kingdom and Iran.

The response came in an announcement by German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel, who condemned Saudi Arabia's decision to execute 47 prisoners at the start of 2016.

"We must now review whether in future we should take a more critical stance on defensive armaments which we have so far sold to Saudi Arabia for its national defense," Gabriel said.

The Saudi executions included Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr and three other Shiite Muslims, which prompted protests and the attacking of the Saudi embassy in Tehran. Iran and Saudi Arabia severed diplomatic ties after the attack.

German newspaper Handelsblatt reports Germany has halted the sale of tanks and G36 Heckler and Koch assault rifles to Saudi Arabia, however continues to sell other defensive weapons to the country.

German officials approved several arms trade agreements with Gulf region countries in early 2015, which included the sale of 15 patrol boats to Saudi Arabia, despite criticism of the countries' human rights records.

Germany is the world's fourth-largest arms exporter, with sales valued at roughly $4 billion in the first half of 2015.

Source: Space War.
Link: http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Germany_rethinking_arms_sales_to_Saudi_Arabia_999.html.

French journalist leaves China after being forced out

December 31, 2015

BEIJING (AP) — A French journalist left China after being denied press credentials and facing heavy criticism from the Foreign Ministry and state media over her reporting.

Ursula Gauthier, a longtime journalist for the French news magazine L'Obs, left on a flight out of Beijing shortly after midnight Friday. She was the first foreign journalist forced to leave China since 2012, when American Melissa Chan, then working for Al Jazeera in Beijing, was expelled.

The Chinese government refused to renew Gauthier's press credentials, without which she could not obtain a new visa. It demanded that she apologize publicly and express contrition over what it said was anti-Chinese bias.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said Monday that Gauthier was no longer "suitable" to be allowed to work in China because she had supported "terrorism and cruel acts" that killed civilians and refused to apologize for her words.

Gauthier said Thursday that she would never apologize for what she wrote, even if it meant not returning to China. She earlier called the accusations absurd and said China should prosecute her if it truly believed she supported terrorism.

The French foreign ministry issued a statement of regret over China's refusal to renew her visa, while the Foreign Correspondents' Club of China said it was "appalled" by the decision and expressed concern that the government was using the accreditation and visa process to threaten foreign journalists.

Gauthier was also subject to a harsh media campaign for writing in a Nov. 18 article, shortly after the attacks in Paris, that Beijing's expression of solidarity with Paris was partially a bid to gain international support for its contention that ethnic violence in China's northwestern Muslim region of Xinjiang is linked to global terrorism.

Gauthier wrote that some violent attacks in Xinjiang involving members of the minority Uighur (pronounced WEE-gur) community showed no evidence of foreign links — an observation that has been made by other many China-based journalists, along with numerous foreign experts on security and on Xinjiang's ethnic policies and practices.

Advocacy groups have argued that the violence is more likely to be a response to Beijing's heavy-handed rule, mass migration by Chinese from other parts of the country to the region, and restrictions on Uighur religious and cultural life.

A Xinjiang court last year sentenced a Uighur scholar critical of China's ethnic policies in Xinjiang to life in prison. In December, a Beijing court convicted a prominent lawyer of fanning ethnic hatred based on his comments that Beijing should rethink its Xinjiang policies.

In her article, Gauthier focused on a recent deadly attack in a mine in Xinjiang portrayed by China as an act of terrorism committed with the collusion of overseas groups. She described it as more likely an act by Uighurs against mine workers from China's majority Han ethnic group over what the Uighurs perceived as mistreatment, injustice and exploitation.

"I don't believe it yet, there is something in me which says no, it can't be true," she said about her departure. "It can't be true, all this because of one stupid article which isn't even my best article. So there's something really ridiculous, crazy, silly. I just cannot understand it."

Associated Press writer Christopher Bodeen contributed to this report.

After 1 million migrants, Europe's borders are back

January 03, 2016

STOCKHOLM (AP) — Since it opened in 2000, the Oresund bridge between Sweden and Denmark has been a towering symbol of European integration and hassle-free travel across borders that people didn't even notice were there.

On Monday new travel restrictions imposed by Sweden to stem a record flow of migrants are transforming the bridge into a striking example of how national boundaries are re-emerging. A year of clampdowns on migration and terrorism has all but killed the idea of a borderless Europe where you could drive or train-hop from Spain in the south to Norway in the north without ever having to show your passport.

"We're turning back the clock," said Andreas Onnerfors, who lives in Lund, on the Swedish side of the bridge. An associate professor in intellectual history, he said he's benefited from the free flow of people and ideas across the bridge — he's studied on both sides and taught students from both Sweden and Denmark.

"We're going back to a time when the bridge didn't exist," he said, referring to the ID checkpoints being set up Monday on the Danish side for train passengers wishing to cross over to Sweden. The move is meant to stop undocumented migrants from reaching Sweden, which abruptly reversed its open-door policy after receiving more than 160,000 asylum-seekers last year, mainly from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.

It follows the reintroduction of border checks in Germany, Austria, France, Belgium and other countries in what's supposed to be a passport-free travel zone spanning 26 nations. The moves are supposedly temporary, but are likely to be extended if Europe's migrant crisis continues in 2016.

"It's basically every country for itself now," said Mark Rhinard, an expert on the European Union at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs. Citing exceptional national circumstances related to security, terrorism and public order, several European countries have suspended EU rules that required them to keep their borders open to each other.

It's a significant development that strikes at the very heart of the EU project — the free movement of goods and people across borders. The Bruegel think tank in Brussels says that in 2014 there were almost 1.7 million cross-border commuters in the passport-free zone known as the Schengen Area, after the Luxembourg town where it was created in 1985. Abolishing it would affect their daily lives, but the consequences for Europe would go deeper, given the "visible and powerful symbol of European integration that Schengen represents," Bruegel researchers Nuria Boot and Guntram Wolff wrote in December.

Whether the temporary reintroduction of borders also means rebuilding mental boundaries between EU citizens remains to be seen. But the migrant crisis is becoming an even bigger challenge to European unity than the cracks emerging in recent years over the bloc's common currency, the euro.

EU nations demonstrated starkly different views on how to deal with the 1 million migrants that crossed the Mediterranean in 2015. Germany and Sweden, until recently, said refugees were welcome, while Hungary built a fence to keep them out. The Danish government took a series of measures to discourage migrants from going there, including a proposal to seize their jewelry to cover their expenses in Denmark.

Common rules requiring refugees to seek shelter in the first EU country they enter collapsed, as Greece and Italy were overwhelmed by sea arrivals and countries further north just waved the migrants through to their intended destination, often Germany or the Scandinavian countries.

Meanwhile the EU's efforts to spread refugees more evenly across the bloc met stiff resistance from member states. By November only about 150 of 160,000 refugees had been relocated from Greece and Italy under an EU plan.

The crisis underlines structural flaws in the EU, showing how it has implemented common rules that it just can't enforce once the external pressures become too great, said Karl Lallerstedt, co-founder of Black Market Watch, a Switzerland-based non-profit group focusing on cross-border smuggling.

"It's not a strong federal state that can overrule its members," he said. "At the same time individual states have obligations to the EU. So you're in this sort of half-way house." Any hope of a quick return to a borderless Europe was crushed by the deadly Paris attacks in November, after which France declared a state of emergency and beefed up border controls with neighboring countries.

However, if bottlenecks build up at the borders, EU citizens and companies moving goods in trucks will eventually get fed up, said Rhinard, of the Swedish Institute of International Affairs. "As soon as it starts to bite economically, people are going to start to ask: 'Is this the right solution to the problem?'" Rhinard said.

That question is already being asked by companies and commuters opposed to new ID checks at the 8-kilometer (5-mile) Oresund bridge-and-tunnel, known to European TV viewers as the focal point of the Swedish-Danish crime series "The Bridge."

Train networks on either side have been integrated to allow thousands of commuters to cross the bridge daily, essentially incorporating the southern Swedish cities of Malmo and Lund into suburban Copenhagen.

But the new ID checks mean there will be no more direct railway service from Copenhagen's main station to Sweden. Travelers heading to Malmo will have to switch trains at Copenhagen Airport after going through the checkpoints there, adding an estimated half an hour to the 40-minute commute.

To avoid the hassle, Sweden's national railway company SJ cancelled service to Denmark altogether, leaving only Danish and regional Swedish operators with service across the bridge. "This is what happens when national states put down their foot down and say security is most important," said Onnerfors. "It collides with the freedom (of movement) they've been talking about for 20 years, which was the reason we joined the EU to begin with."

Associated Press writers Raf Casert in Brussels, Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin, Ciaran Giles in Madrid, Barry Hatton in Lisbon, George Jahn in Vienna and Collen Barry in Milan contributed to this report.

As 2016 dawns, Europe braces for more waves of migrants

January 01, 2016

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Bitter cold, biting winds and rough winter seas have done little to stem the seemingly endless flow of desperate people fleeing war or poverty for what they hope will be a brighter, safer future in Europe. As 2016 dawns, boatloads continue to reach Greek shores and thousands trudge across Balkan fields and country roads heading north.

More than a million people reached Europe in 2015 in the continent's largest refugee influx since the end of World War II — a crisis that has tested European unity and threatened the vision of a borderless continent. Nearly 3,800 people are estimated to have drowned in the Mediterranean last year, making the journey to Greece or Italy in unseaworthy vessels packed far beyond capacity.

The European Union has pledged to bolster patrols on its external borders and quickly deport economic migrants, while Turkey has agreed to crack down on smugglers operating from its coastline. But those on the front lines of the crisis say the coming year promises to be difficult unless there is a dramatic change.

Greece has borne the brunt of the exodus, with more than 850,000 people reaching the country's shores, nearly all arriving on Greek islands from the nearby Turkish coast. "The (migrant) flows continue unabated. And on good days, on days when the weather isn't bad, they are increased," Ioannis Mouzalas, Greece's minister responsible for migration issues, told The Associated Press. "This is a problem and shows that Turkey wasn't able — I'm not saying that they didn't want — to respond to the duty and obligation it had undertaken to control the flows and the smugglers from its shores."

Europe's response to the crisis has been fractured, with individual countries, concerned about the sheer scale of the influx, introducing new border controls aimed at limiting the flow. The problem is compounded by the reluctance of many migrants' countries of origin, such as Pakistan, to accept forcible returns.

"If measures are not taken to stop the flows from Turkey and if Europe doesn't solve the problems of the returns as a whole, it will be a very difficult year," Mouzalas warned. Along the Balkan migrant route, an undetermined number of men, women and children considered economic migrants have found themselves stranded, their hopes of reaching prosperous northern EU countries dashed by recent border closures. Greece, with thousands of miles of coastline, is the only country that cannot feasibly block people from entering without breaking international laws about rescuing those in distress at sea.

"It's a bad sign, this unabated flow that continues," Mouzalas said. "It creates difficulties for us, as the borders have closed for particular categories of people and there is a danger they will be trapped here."

The number of those estimated to be stuck in Greece runs in the thousands. Mohammed Abusaid is one of them. A baby-faced 27-year-old Moroccan electrician, Abusaid left home with dreams of finding work in Germany or even the United States.

Like tens of thousands before him, he made his way with a group of friends to Turkey and then braved the short but perilous sea crossing to the Greek island of Lesbos in early November. From there, they headed north only to discover the Macedonian border was open only to those from war-wracked Syria, Afghanistan or Iraq. The young Moroccans now spend their nights huddling for warmth in a tent beneath a straggly tree outside Athens' old airport.

"I'm living here like a tramp. But I'm not a tramp," Abusaid said quietly. "I'm single, my parents are old. I want to look for work. We don't cause trouble, we just want to work." But Abusaid finds himself trapped in a country battered by a five-year financial crisis that has left unemployment hovering around 25 percent. Desperate, cold and hungry, two of his friends have opted for the voluntary repatriation scheme offered by the International Organization for Migration and are heading home this month. Abusaid says he's pondering following suit.

But he still hopes to make it to northern Europe for a better life, and dreams of America. "I wish I could fly like a bird and go there." Inside the old airport complex, a shelter has been set up in a former Olympic Games hockey venue but access is limited to vulnerable groups, particularly after theft, looting and fights were reported among groups of men.

"We realize it is very difficult for the new government to handle all these elevated numbers," said Chrysanthi Protogerou, director of the Greek Council for Refugees aid organization. "We were not well prepared and we continue not being well prepared."

She called for "better coordination, to make an even bigger effort, because the problem is becoming huge." Battered on the one side by a massive wave of desperate people risking their lives to reach its islands and on the other by border restrictions, Greece is struggling.

"It's a situation to which we are being subjected without bearing any responsibility for it and without being able to control it," said Mouzalas. "Whatever measures we take here, if on the Turkish side the smugglers increase the flows, we can't cope."

"We have a vast sea and countless islands," he added. "If a ground intervention occurs in Syria, we can't deal with this wave of refugees." The problem, the beleaguered minister said, "is happening in Greece but it is a European problem and the solution must be a European one."

Nearly all new arrivals are aiming for wealthy northern European countries, with Germany and Sweden the favorites. Both stood out for trying to maintain a generous welcome even as numbers swelled, with German Chancellor Angela Merkel famously proclaiming "we will manage it."

Germany received about 1 million asylum-seekers this year and Sweden more than 150,000. However, toward the end of the year even those two shifted course. Germany introduced border checks in September and Sweden in November. Sweden is now taking steps to keep people from even reaching the border and as of Monday will require passengers boarding Sweden-bound trains in neighboring Denmark to show ID. The crisis has strained relations between the Scandinavian neighbors.

Further down the migrant trail, refugees trickle steadily into Macedonia and Serbia, although authorities say numbers have decreased "drastically." In a Serbian refugee center in Presevo near the Macedonian border, a baby wearing a yellow cap and oversized gloves blinked in the winter sun while a woman slowly combed a girl's long, black hair.

Although trains and buses are still crowded, Macedonia's border controls seem to be working. "The number of migrants going through has drastically declined," said Presevo camp deputy manager Slobodan Savovic. "That means the numbers have more than halved when compared to September, when we had as much as 10,000 people per day."

Karl Ritter in Stockholm, Sweden, Marko Drobnjakovic in Presevo, Serbia and Raphael Kominis in Athens contributed.

Flooding continues in England as new storm hits Scotland

December 30, 2015

LONDON (AP) — Heavy rains and gusty winds are causing more problems for residents in large swaths of Britain. Officials say 5,500 homes in Scotland lost power Wednesday as gale-force winds hit.

About 3,000 homes in England and Wales were also reported to be without electricity. However, the number of "severe" flood warnings has dropped as many rivers in northern England are receding from record-high levels.

Environmental officials warn that the ground remains heavily saturated, making it likely that more rains could quickly lead to flooding. Officials also asked the public to stay away from parts of Tadcaster, 205 miles (330 kilometers) north of London, where a bridge said to date from around 1700 collapsed on Tuesday because of rising water in the River Wharfe.