World News
GCAP: Japan, UK, Italy to develop a new generation fighter
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Steph Deschamps / December 9, 2022
Japan will collaborate with the United Kingdom and Italy to develop a next-generation fighter jet by 2035, the three countries announced Friday.
Tokyo, London and Rome will launch “an ambitious effort to develop a next-generation combat aircraft” under a program called GCAP (Global Combat Air Programme), the governments said.
The collaboration, which will build on research already launched by the three partners in advanced air combat technologies such as unmanned aircraft, marks Japan’s first association with European partners to design a combat aircraft.
Details on the cost of the project have not yet been finalized, according to a Japanese defense ministry official, who said production is expected to begin around 2030 or 2031 in order to deploy a prototype by 2035.
When you look at other countries, the United States has the F-35 and Europe has the Eurofighter. We will of course aim to create fighter aircraft that exceed the capabilities of these models,” added the official.
Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Britain’s BAE Systems and Italy’s Leonardo are expected to be at the center of the project, according to information from the Japanese business daily Nikkei.
“We are determined to defend the free, open and rules-based international order, which is more important than ever at a time when these principles are being challenged and threats and aggression are increasing,” the three countries said in a statement.
Since it is crucial to defend our democracy, economy and security and to protect regional stability, we need strong defence and security partnerships, underpinned and reinforced by a credible deterrent,” they added.
Japan, whose defense strategy is heavily dependent on its U.S. ally, is seeking to drastically increase its defense capabilities to address the growing threats it feels on its borders, from North Korea to China to Russia after the invasion of Ukraine.
Tokyo announced this week that it plans to increase its military spending by 56% over the period 2023-2027, compared to the previous five fiscal years, and to raise its defense budget to 2% of the national GDP by 2027, compared to a maximum of 1% until now.
Such a goal is controversial in this country, which has had a pacifist constitution since 1947 and which greatly limits the means and missions of its “Self-Defence Forces” (the name of its army).
Japan, the United Kingdom and Italy say they have designed the GCAP program as a basis for cooperation with other countries, emphasizing in their statement its “future interoperability with the United States, Nato and our partners across Europe, the Indo-Pacific and globally.
“The United States supports Japan’s security and defense cooperation with like-minded allies and partners … in the development of its next fighter aircraft,” said a joint statement from the U.S. Department of Defense and the Japanese Ministry of Defense.
The two countries are discussing “autonomous systems” that could be complementary to the Japanese fighter project and have agreed to “begin concrete cooperation in the coming year”, allowing “joint responses to future threats” in the Asia-Pacific region, the statement added.
The future fighter is seen as a successor to the Japanese Mitsubishi F-2, designed with the American Lockheed Martin and put into service in 2000.
Its development should incorporate the advances of the Tempest fighter project, led by the United Kingdom, and a pre-prototype of which is announced “within the next five years”.
An agreement has also been signed in recent weeks between France’s Dassault and Europe’s Airbus to relaunch the costly and complex SCAF European fighter jet project, launched in 2017 and supposed to replace France’s Rafale and Germany’s and Spain’s Eurofighter jets by 2040.
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Sylvie Claire / July 21, 2024
Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky spoke on the phone on Friday, with the former US president claiming to have promised the Ukrainian president to “end the war” between Ukraine and Russia should he return to the White House. “As your next president of the United States, I will bring peace to the world and end the war that has cost so many lives,” said the Republican presidential candidate.
Donald Trump frequently claims that he would be able to put an end to the conflict in Ukraine very quickly on his return to power, but never provides details of how he would achieve this. Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed the phone call, during which he congratulated the billionaire on his official nomination the previous day as the Republican Party’s presidential candidate.
Donald Trump’s frequent praise of Russian President Vladimir Putin, as well as his criticism of other Nato countries, is causing concern among Ukraine’s Western allies. In February, he threatened that, if he returned to the White House, he would no longer guarantee the protection of Atlantic Alliance countries against Russia if they did not pay their share, even claiming that he would “encourage” Moscow to attack them. The former American president also used his power over the Republicans to block a $61 billion military aid package for Kiev for months in Congress, which was finally adopted at the end of April.
In his posting on X on Friday, Volodymyr Zelensky said he had “agreed with President Trump to discuss, in a face-to-face meeting, the steps to be taken towards a just and lasting peace” in Ukraine.
World News
Former Ukrainian far-right MP murdered in Lviv: “All leads are being investigated, including Russia”
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Steph Deschamps / July 21, 2024
In a message on Telegram, the Ukrainian National Police said she had succumbed to her injuries in hospital after being the target of an assassination attempt.
“I always say that no place is safe in Ukraine,” lamented Lviv mayor Andriï Sadovy, denouncing a ‘heinous murder’ and offering his condolences to the victim’s relatives.
According to the Ukrainian Prosecutor’s Office, the attack took place on Friday evening, at around 7.30pm, when an unidentified individual fired at Irina Farion, seriously wounding her in the head. “All surveillance cameras are being checked, witnesses are being interviewed and several districts (of Lviv) are being examined. All leads are being investigated, including the one leading to Russia”, reacted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on X on Saturday.
Interior Minister Igor Klimenko told a briefing in Lviv on Friday evening that the suspected killer could have been lurking around Irina Farion’s home for several days.
According to him, investigators are currently focusing on the possibility of a murder motivated by a “personal grudge” linked to the victim’s activities, but are not ruling out a “commissioned assassination” either.
The 60-year-old language teacher and linguist was a member of parliament for the nationalist Svoboda party between 2012 and 2014.
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Sylvie Claire / July 18, 2024
At least six people died in a shopping mall fire on Wednesday in Zigong, southwest China, and thirty others were rescued, China’s state broadcaster CCTV said. “Rescue teams are continuing their search,” the media outlet added.
Images broadcast by the channel and others shared on social networks show thick black smoke rising from a building overlooking a shopping street in this city 1,600 kilometers from the capital Beijing, in the southwestern province of Sichuan.
The fire broke out in the early evening in a shopping mall at the foot of a 14-storey building, CCTV reported.
“At 8:20 pm, the fire was extinguished and 17 people were rescued. Others are still trapped, and rescue operations are continuing”, said the station in an initial report on the situation.
Fires and other fatal accidents are frequent in China, due to the sometimes lax application of safety standards. In January, at least 39 people perished in a store fire in central China. According to the authorities, the fire started in the basement of a store when workers “broke the rules” during construction work. At the time, Chinese President Xi Jinping called for lessons to be learned from the disaster to prevent further tragedies. The same month, a fire in a residential building claimed at least 15 lives.
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