Author: Mitasar

MANILA: The United States has called out China for interfering in the Philippines’ maritime operations and undermining regional stability, urging Beijing to stop “its dangerous and destabilizing conduct” in the South China Sea. The Philippines and China have traded accusations over a ramming incident at the weekend involving their vessels while Manila’s vessels were on a resupply mission to Second Thomas Shoal where its soldiers are stationed in a deliberately grounded navy vessel. “Obstructing supply lines to this longstanding outpost and interfering with lawful Philippines maritime operations undermines regional stability,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a December 10…

The US will continue to work with allies to counter Beijing’s growing maritime capabilities, Washington’s new chief of naval operations said. The Indo-Pacific region “remains America’s foremost priority,” Admiral Lisa Franchetti said at an online briefing Friday from South Korea as she wrapped up a weeklong visit to the region. “By operating together, continuing to build our interoperability through exercise, training and planning, the United States and all of its allies and partners will continue to deter China and other potential adversaries around the world,” she said. The US and China have recently tried to stabilize ties, with Presidents Joe…

Argentina’s new government says it will weaken the value of its currency by more than 50% against the US dollar. It is part of the “economic shock therapy” that President Javier Milei says the country needs to fix its worst crisis in decades. Economy Minister Luis Caputo also announced deep cuts to public spending. They include a reduction in fuel and transport subsidies and freezing spending on some major government contracts and advertising. Mr Caputo said he had inherited the worst economic legacy in Argentina’s history and he was taking steps to avoid hyperinflation. “We are going to be worse…

Nov 1 (Reuters) – Ukraine’s war with Russia is moving towards a new stage of static and attritional fighting, a phase that could allow Moscow to rebuild its military power, Ukraine’s commander-in-chief has said. In an article for The Economist published on Wednesday, General Valery Zaluzhnyi said his army needed key new military capabilities and technological innovation to break out of the new phase of the war, now in its 21st month. Using stark language, he described risks of prolonged, attritional fighting: “This will benefit Russia, allowing it to rebuild its military power, eventually threatening Ukraine’s armed forces and the…

BUENOS AIRES, Nov 24 (Reuters) – Argentine former central banker Luis Caputo, frontrunner to be the new economy minister, met local and international bank officials on Friday to lay out the economic plans of President-elect Javier Milei, three sources and a banking group said. The meeting at the La Rural conference center in Buenos Aires comes as Milei, who has pledged “shock therapy” for the embattled economy, races to put together his economic team. Caputo has been tipped as a front-runner for the role. In the meeting, however, Caputo declined to confirm that he would be the new economy minister,…

Argentina and Brazil are the largest economies in South America. They are both in the G-20, and Argentina has now been invited to join Brazil and other large developing economies in the BRICS group. They are both big commodity producers. They both have four decades of experience with democracy after years under harsh military dictatorship. They both have a fondness for telenovelas and have won a bunch of World Cups. And they both trade a lot with China.  But while Argentina has signed up to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Chinese President Xi Jinping’s signature program of massive lending to finance…

Three people were killed, including a young child, and two injured when debris from a destroyed Ukrainian drone fell on homes in Russia’s Belgorod region, a local official says. Belgorod regional Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said early on Thursday that Russian air defences shot down an “aircraft-type” unmanned aerial vehicle as it approached Belgorod city, and the falling debris had destroyed several homes. “To great sorrow, there are dead. Operational services recovered the bodies of two people from the rubble – a man and a woman,” Gladkov wrote on the Telegram messaging app. The governor later updated the death toll to three following the discovery…

MOSCOW, September 27. /TASS/. Russia sees any lingering hope for a revival of the original Black Sea Grain Initiative as dead in the water; the US Space Force is seeking to set up a hotline with China to prevent potential crises in space; and Russia’s latest submarine will be joining the Pacific Fleet in 2024 to patrol and protect the country’s Far Eastern waters. These stories topped Wednesday’s newspaper headlines across Russia. Russia sees no real chance that its conditions for restoring the Black Sea grain deal will actually be met, and thus expects that the parties will never return…

To get to Marcelo Mindlin’s desk in his downtown Buenos Aires office, guests must walk past a big steel ring – a cross-section of natural gas pipeline. The hunk of metal epitomises the views of Mindlin, and Argentina’s leaders, on the future of energy: Even as electrification gathers speed, fossil fuels will be needed for decades to come. Argentina is home to the world’s second-biggest trove of shale gas in Patagonia’s Vaca Muerta, or Dead Cow, formation. Mindlin, 59, who founded Pampa Energia SA in 2005 as the country rebounded from financial and economic implosion, wants to unearth as much…

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday called for joint efforts to strengthen sovereignty and territorial integrity of all nations while underlining India’s commitment to a code of conduct for South China Sea that is effective and compliant with the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). In the second of his two addresses in Jakarta, PM Modi also referred to ongoing military conflicts and reiterated that “today’s era is not of war”. The big challenges that confront the world are terrorism, extremism and geopolitical conflicts as well as important issues related to the global south. “The need of…