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KLAIPEDA:  The UK pledged to boost defence of the Baltic states to deter a "more assertive" Russia as the British navy held its largest drills in the Baltic region, which includes a Russian territory, in more than a century.Defence Secretary Penny Mordaunt said the British-led Joint Expeditionary Force, a rapid response unit, has reached a "new scale" in the exercise that included nearly 4,000 people and 44 vessels from nine nations.Mordaunt called the exercise "the largest Royal Navy deployment in the Baltic for more than a hundred years", speaking to reporters aboard a British warship in the Lithuanian port of Klaipeda, which is just a stone's throw from the militarised Russian exclave of Kaliningrad.The exercise was meant to reassure eastern flank NATO allies and to demonstrate that they are "aligned and ready"."Russia is becoming more assertive, we see her deploying more forces and new weapons, and we can imagine scenarios that may p...

LONDON: Britain on Thursday scrambled fighter jets to escort an Air India passenger flight forced to land at London’s Stansted Airport following a "bomb threat", security officials and the airline said."The RAF (Royal Air Force) can confirm Quick Reaction Alert Typhoon aircraft were launched this morning... to intercept a civilian aircraft," Britain’s defence ministry said in a statement. "The aircraft was safely escorted to Stansted Airport."The plane, en route from the Indian city of Mumbai to Newark in the United States, made a "precautionary landing" at the airport following a "bomb threat", Air India said in a tweet that was subsequently deleted. British police said the plane was diverted to Stansted at around 9:50am local time (0850 GMT) following "reports of a security alert"."The plane is currently at the airport and officers are making enquiries," Essex police said on Twitter. Stansted Airport, northeast of ...

TOREE DEL ESPANOL, Spain: A Spanish forest fire raged out of control on Thursday amid a European heatwave, devouring land as hundreds of firefighters battled through the night, local authorities said.The blaze broke out on Wednesday afternoon in Torre del Espanol in the northeastern region of Catalonia and by Thursday had destroyed more than 5,500 hectares (13,500 acres), the regional government said.The fire could eventually devour 20,000 hectares in what was presented as an "extreme risk", a statement said. Some 350 firefighters backed by around 230 soldiers and 15 aerial tanker aircraft were at the scene of the blaze, the worst in Catalonia in 20 years. The fire raged several kilometres from the Asco nuclear plant but officials said the site was not at risk since winds were blowing the flames away from it."The difficulties are such that we can’t talk about a fire that is under control or in the extinction phase, but rather that we’re at a moment when the blaze is gett...

TUNIS: Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi was in "critical condition" on Thursday after being taken to hospital with a serious illness, a key adviser said.The 92-year-old leader "was taken seriously ill and transferred to the military hospital in Tunis," the presidency said on its Facebook page. Shortly afterwards key adviser Firas Guefrech said on Twitter that the president was in "critical condition".The announcement came after two suicide attacks in Tunis on security forces killed a policeman and wounded eight people. Essebsi, the country’s first democratically elected president, came to power in 2014, three years after the Arab Spring uprising toppled longtime dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and sparked revolts in several Arab nations. Last week, a presidential adviser said that Essebsi had undergone routine medical tests while another said he had suffered from a slight "discomfort". from The News International - World https://ift.tt/2IU...

MIAMI: All eyes turn toward front-runner Joe Biden on Thursday when he and nine more Democratic presidential hopefuls take the stage in Miami for a second night of debate with immigration, health care and economic inequality commanding the candidates’ attention.Elizabeth Warren, cementing her status as a top-tier candidate, set the tone of the first debate of the 2020 presidential race Wednesday, calling out great disparities in wealth and income as "corruption, pure and simple".The first take also featured a spirited encounter among ex-congressman Beto O’Rourke, Senator Cory Booker, former San Antonio mayor Julian Castro and New York Mayor Bill de Blasio on everything from health care and economic inequality to climate action, gun violence, Iran and immigration.They hit out at President Donald Trump’s economic and immigration policies, but diverged on how zealously the next president should shift the country onto a more liberal course. The next round features former vice pre...

BEIJING: In a secretive school in China’s capital rows of students face a giant video projection of Xi Jinping, making careful notes on the lecture on their leader’s guiding principles.Sitting in red-covered chairs in a school dotted with statues of late Chinese leaders, the mostly male students are being groomed to become elite members of the Communist Party. In particular, the students are learning the intricacies of "Xi Jinping Thought".President Xi is himself a former head of the Central Party School, but now his guiding philosophy is part of the curriculum for the cadres studying their way up the political ladder. The usually highly secretive school in Beijing gave a rare tour to foreign media during a tightly controlled visit this week.Statues of late Chairman Mao Zedong -- also a former dean -- and late paramount leader Deng Xiaoping dot the leafy campus. The students are already stationed in the apparatus of the regime, such as the spokeswoman of the foreign ministry ...

WASHINGTON: The US-led coalition said on Thursday it had unintentionally killed at least 1,319 civilians in strikes during its fight against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria since 2014.The figure is far lower than the death tolls given by groups that have monitored the conflict in the two countries. "The coalition conducted 34,514 strikes between August 2014 and the end of May 2019," it said in a statement.During this period, it "assesses at least 1,319 civilians have been unintentionally killed by coalition strikes." The coalition, which has repeatedly insisted it does all it can to avoid civilian deaths, said it was still assessing 159 additional reports of civilian casualties.Airwars, an NGO that monitors civilian casualties from air strikes worldwide, estimates more than 8,000 civilians have been killed in coalition raids. In a report released in late April, Amnesty International and Airwars found that coalition air and artillery strikes killed more tha...