CHINA REACTS TO LLOYD AUSTIN’S BULLY REMARK, SAYS US RESORTS TO COERCION 

China on Tuesday responded to the United States' remark that the world witnesses 'bullying and coercion' from Beijing. The spokesperson of the Chinese Embassy in India reacted sharply to the statement and said that China is a contributor to world peace and prosperity, adding that victims of US coercion and bullying include its allies and partners and developing nations are bearing the 'brunt' of it. The spokesperson reportedly said that it is the US that resorts to all types of measures for 'coercion' and 'hegemony'.

"China is a contributor to world peace and prosperity. It is the US, not China, who resorts to all types of measures for coercion and hegemony. Victims of US coercion and bullying include its allies and partners, with developing countries bearing the brunt of it", the spokesperson of the Chinese Embassy in India, Wang Xiaojian, tweeted.

On the India-China border issue, Wang said, "The current China-India border situation is overall stable. The boundary question is a matter between China and India, and brooks no interference of any third party."

Earlier, US Defence Secretary, Lloyd Austin said, "We face a rapidly changing world. We see bullying and coercion from China, Russian aggression against Ukraine & transnational challenges such as terrorism and climate change.

He was speaking on the importance of joint military exercises between India and the US.

CRITICAL DAM ON FRONTLINE IN SOUTHERN UKRAINE DAMAGED

A major dam in southern Ukraine collapsed Tuesday, triggering floods, endangering crops in the country’s breadbasket and threatening drinking water supplies as both sides in the war scrambled to evacuate residents and blamed each other for the destruction. The dam supplies water to a wide area of southern Ukrainian farmland, including the Russian-occupied Crimean peninsula, as well as cooling the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant. The vast reservoir behind the dam is one of the main geographic features of southern Ukraine, 240 km long and up to 23 km wide. An expanse of countryside lies in the flood plain below, with low-lying villages on the Russian-held southern bank particularly vulnerable.

Ukraine accused Russia of blowing up the Nova Kakhovka dam on the Dnipro River in a deliberate war crime. The Kremlin said it was Ukraine that had sabotaged the dam, to distract attention from the launch of a major counteroffensive Moscow says is faltering. Neither side offered immediate public evidence of who was to blame. The Geneva Conventions explicitly ban targeting dams in war, because of the danger to civilians.

The dam’s destruction raised fears of a new humanitarian disaster in the centre of the war zone and transformed frontlines just as Ukraine prepared to launch a long-awaited counteroffensive to drive Russian troops from its territory. Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg called it “an outrageous act, which demonstrates once again the brutality of Russia’s war in Ukraine”.

RUSSIA AND WAGNER CLASH OVER UKRAINE ATTACK CLAIMS

A fresh row has broken out between the Wagner Group and the Russian military, as long-simmering tension between the groups threatens to spill over. Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin dismissed Russia’s claims to have inflicted heavy losses on Ukraine in the Donbas when Kyiv attempted offensive action. Russia said the attack was part of a Ukrainian “long-promised offensive” in the Donetsk region, which took place over Sunday and Monday. Ukraine’s military said on Monday that it had no information about a major attack in the region, and that it wouldn’t comment on claims it called “fake”.

Speaking to state media, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu insisted that his forces had inflicted over 3,715 casualties on Ukraine during the attack and destroyed dozens of pieces of military equipment. However, Prigozhin was quick to hit out at the defence ministry’s claims on Monday evening, saying the claims of a huge success would amount to a “massacre”. Moscow rejected Prigozhin’s claims in a statement on Tuesday. It said his allegations did “not correspond to reality” and insisted that the suburb remained under Moscow’s control.

IRAN REOPENS ITS LONG-SHUT SAUDI ARABIA EMBASSY AFTER 7-YEAR GAP

RIYADH: Iran reopened its embassy in Saudi Arabia after a seven-year closure, reaffirming a Chinese-brokered rapprochement. The Iranian mission resumes in its former premises in Riyadh’s diplomatic quarter — near Syria’s embassy, which is also expected to reopen soon following Saudi outreach to Damascus.

PAKISTAN RENTS OUT ROOSEVELT HOTEL TO NY FOR $220M

Pakistan has rented out its iconic Roosevelt Hotel to the New York city government for three years, helping the cash-strapped country earn $220 million from the deal. The New York administration will pay a rent of as much as $210 for each of the 1,025 rooms of the century-old hotel owned by state-run Pakistan International Airlines Corp, aviation minister Khawaja Saad Rafique said on Sunday.

The hotel had to be shut due to financial losses after the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. The New York city government will now use it for “immigrant housing business,” Pakistan’s finance ministry said in a statement last month. The development comes when PM Shehbaz Sharif is trying for a bailout from the International Monetary Fund to avoid a default amid the nation’s depleting foreign exchange reserves.

Pakistan was spending $25 million a year in taxes and salaries even after the hotel was shut. The nation expects the deal will help it clear all its liabilities, including reconciliation of $66 million demanded by the hotel’s union. Earlier, Deloitte had recommended the best use of the property would be to redevelop the site into a mixed use through a joint venture.

PAK DEBT SWELLS TO RS 58 TRILLION

The Pakistan government’s total debt has increased 34.1% year-on-year to Rs 58.6 trillion in April, according to the latest report by the central bank. The increase was 2.6% on a month-on-month basis, ‘Dawn’ reported on Tuesday. The domestic debt amounted to Rs 36.5 trillion (62.3%) while the external debt accounted for a 37.6% share with Rs 22 trillion in April. On an annual basis, the increase in external debt remained 49.1%, the State Bank of Pakistan data showed.

PAK REJECTS TTP’S TALKS OFFER OVER BITTER EXPERIENCE IN PAST: REPORT

Islamabad : Authorities in Pakistan have declined an offer from the outlawed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) terror outfit to resume talks, citing their previous negative experience with dialogue, a media report said on Tuesday.

The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, through various individual contacts, expressed its willingness to re-engage in talks in recent days but the government rejected the offer and instead urged the militants to surrender, The Express Tribune newspaper quoted sources as saying.

The government last year engaged in talks with the proscribed group, which has been fighting to impose the rule of Sharia across Pakistan, at the insistence of the Afghan Taliban government in Kabul. A ceasefire was also announced as the two sides engaged in dialogue but the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan unilaterally terminated the truce in November last year, a few days before the appointment of Gen Asim Munir as the new army chief of Pakistan.

A senior government official said that during the previous rounds of talks, Afghanistan’s acting interior minister Sirajuddin Haqqani was the mediator. However, he did not hold the role of guarantor in those discussions. “We need solid guarantees,” the official told the newspaper. “Negotiations will be meaningless without a solid guarantor. So when this offer was made it was rejected outright,” he added.

IRAN UNVEILS ‘HYPERSONIC MISSILE’, SAYS IT CAN BEAT ANY REGIONAL DEF SYSTEM

Dubai : Iran claimed on Tuesday that it had created a hypersonic missile capable of travelling at 15 times the speed of sound, adding a new weapon to its arsenal as tensions remain high with the United States over Tehran’s nuclear programme.

The new missile — called Fattah, or “Conqueror” in Farsi — was unveiled even as Iran said it would reopen its diplomatic posts on Tuesday in Saudi Arabia after reaching a détente with Riyadh following years of conflict. The tightly choreographed segment on Iranian state television apparently sought to show that Tehran’s hard-line government can still deploy arms against its enemies across much of the Middle East.

“Today we feel that the deterrent power has been formed,” Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said at the event. “This power is an anchor of lasting security and peace for the regional countries. ”

Gen Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the head of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard’s aerospace programme, unveiled what appeared to be a model of the missile. Hajizadeh claimed the missile had a range of up to 1,400km.

That’s about mid-range for Iran’s expansive ballistic missile arsenal, which the Guardhas built up over the years as Western sanctions largely prevent it from accessing advanced weaponry. “There exists no system that can rival or counter this missile,” he claimed. That claim, however, depends on how manoeuvrable the missile is. Ballistic missiles fly on a trajectory in which anti-missile systems like the Patriot can anticipate their path and intercept them.

Tuesday’s event showed what appeared to be a moveable nozzle for the Fattah, which could allow it to change trajectories in flight. The more irregular the missile’s flight path, the more difficult it becomes to intercept. Iranian officials did not release footage of a Fattah successfully launching and then striking a target. Hajizadeh later said there had been a ground test of the missile’s engine.

RUSSIA A ‘TERRORIST STATE’, SAYS UKRAINE AT WORLD COURT

Ukraine on Tuesday called Russia a terrorist state at the top UN court as hearings began in a case over Moscow’s backing of pro-Russian separatists blamed for shooting down Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 in 2014. It was the first time lawyers for Ukraine and Russia met at the International Court of Justice, also know as the World Court, since Moscow launched an invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Legal teams with dozens of representatives were sent by each side.

A panel of 16 judges at the ICJ began hearing Ukraine’s claim that Moscow violated a UN anti-terrorism treaty by equipping and funding pro-Russian forces who shot down the jetliner, killing all 298 passengers and crew. In the same claim, Ukraine has also asked the Hague-based court to order Russia to halt discrimination against the Tatar ethnic group in Crimea, a Ukrainian peninsula occupied by Russia since 2014.

“Russia cannot defeat us on the battlefield, so it targets civilian infrastructure to try to freeze us into submission,” Ukrainian Ambassador-at-Large Anton Korynevych told hearings, describing Russia’s actions as “the actions of a terrorist state”. “Just today Russia blew up a major dam . . . causing significant civilian evacuations, ecological damage and threatening the safety of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. ”

CHINA, RUSSIA CONDUCT AIR PATROL OVER SEA OF JAPAN, EAST CHINA SEA

China and Russia conducted joint air force patrols over the Sea of Japan and the East China Sea on Tuesday, as South Korea said it had deployed fighter jets in response to warplanes near its airspace.

Beijing and Moscow “staged the sixth joint aerial patrol in accordance with an annual military cooperation plan between China and Russia”, the Chinese Defence Ministry said in a statement.

The statement gave no further details of the manoeuvres, which took place over waters bordering Japan, the Korean peninsula and Taiwan.

South Korea said four Russian and four Chinese military aircraft had entered its air defence identification zone (ADIZ) around lunchtime on Tuesday, prompting it to scramble fighter planes.

An ADIZ is an area wider than a country’s airspace in which it tries to control aircraft for security reasons, but the concept is not defined in any international treaty.

The South Korean military “identified the Chinese and Russian jets before their entry into the air identification zone”, Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said.

“We deployed air force fighters to conduct tactical steps in preparation in case of an emergency,” it added.

The eight foreign jets did not violate Seoul’s airspace, the JCS said.

The incident comes after the Defence Ministers of South Korea, Japan and the U.S. on Saturday agreed to set up real-time data sharing on North Korean missile launches by the end of the year.

MS TO PAY $20M TO SETTLE US CHARGES OF COLLECTING KIDS’ DATA ILLEGALLY

San Francisco : Microsoft will pay a fine of $20 million to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that it illegally collected and retained the data of children who signed up to use its Xbox video game console.

The agency charged that Microsoft gathered the data without notifying parents or obtaining their consent, and that it also illegally held onto the data. Those actions violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, the FTCstated.

In a blog post, Microsoft corporate vice president for Xbox Dave McCarthy outlined additional steps the company is now taking to improve its age verification systems and to ensure that parents are involved in the creation of child accounts for the service.

CHINA HAS SHUT UNOFFICIAL POLICE STATIONS IN UK: MIN

London : UK security minister Tom Tugendhat said Tuesday China had closed reported “police service stations” at sites across the UK, and that an investigation had not revealed any illegal activity by the Chinese state at thesesites. Britain has previously said reports of undeclared police stations in the country were “extremely concerning” and that any intimidation on British soil of foreign nationals by China or other states wasunacceptable. British police have investigated claims made by the non-governmental human rights organisation ‘Safeguard Defenders’ that such police stations were operating at three British sites, Tugendhatsaid.

“I can confirm that they have not, to date, identified any evidence of illegal activity on behalf of the Chinesestate across these sites,” hesaid. “We assess that police and public scrutiny have had a suppressive impact on any administrative functions these sites may have had. ” US federal agents arrested two New York residents in April for allegedly operating a Chinese “secret police station” inthe Chinatown district of Manhattan. China had said it firmly opposed what it called “the US’s slanders andsmears. ”

FRANCE COOL ON PROPOSAL FOR NATO OFFICE IN JAPAN: OFFICIAL

Paris : France is unenthusiastic about a proposal for Nato to open a liaison office in Japan, an official said on Tuesday, adding the move would take the alliance away from its prime region of focus. There have been suggestions, alluded to most recently by secretary general Jens Stoltenberg, for the opening of the office in Tokyo in response to the growing challenge posed by China. “Nato (stands for) North Atlantic, and both article V and article VI (in its statutes) clearly limit the scope to North Atlantic,” said a French official, asking not to be named. “There is no Nato liaison office in any country in the region,” added the official.

EUROPEAN COURT CONDEMNS RUSSIA OVER POISONING OF NAVALNY IN 2020

STRASBOURG: Europe’s top rights court condemned Russia for failing to probe the 2020 poisoning of Opposition figure Alexei Navalny which the West calls an assassination bid. The European Court of Human Rights said Russia failed “to explore charges of a political motive for the attempted murder, as well as involvement of state agents”.

AFGHAN NGO’S WOMEN STAFF RESUME WORK

A leading international NGO’s Afghan women staff have resumed their work in some provinces, months after the Taliban government banned them from working.

“I am glad to confirm that we have been able to resume most of our humanitarian operations in Kandahar as well as a number of other regions in Afghanistan,” Jan Egeland, Secretary-General of the independent Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) said Monday.

Governor killed

Meanwhile, the acting Governor of northern Badakhshan in the country was killed by a suicide bomber in the provincial capital of Faizabad on Tuesday, officials said, months after the region's police chief was killed in a similar attack claimed by the Islamic State group.

NO MEANS NO: JAPAN IS SET TO REDEFINE RAPE IN LANDMARK LEGAL REFORM

The Japanese parliament is now debating a landmark bill to reform the country’s sexual assault laws, only the second such revision in a century. The bill covers a number of changes, but the biggest and most significant one will see lawmakers redefine rape from “forcible sexual intercourse” to “non-consensual sexual intercourse” - effectively making legal room for consent in a society where the concept is still poorly understood.

Current Japanese law defines rape as sexual intercourse or indecent acts committed “forcibly” and “through assault or intimidation”, or by taking advantage of a person’s “unconscious state or inability to resist”. This is at odds with many other countries which define it more broadly as any non-consensual intercourse or sexual act - where no means no.

Activists argue that Japan’s narrow definition has led to even narrower interpretations of the law by prosecutors and judges, setting an impossibly high bar for justice and fostering a culture of scepticism that deters survivors from reporting their attacks.

The proposed change is expected to make it easier for victims of sexual assault to come forward and report their attackers. It will also help bring Japan’s laws in line with international standards and improve the country’s reputation on human rights issues.