Saudi Navy carries out evacuation operation from Sudan

The Royal Saudi Naval Forces (RSNF) carried out the operation that evacuated citizens, other nationals, diplomats and international officials from Sudan on Saturday, the Foreign Ministry announced. The RSNF conducted the operation with the support of various branches of the armed forces.

The Ministry said, “66 persons from Kuwait, Qatar, UAE, Egypt, Tunisia, Pakistan, India, Bulgaria, Bulgaria, Philippines, Canada, and Burkina Faso were among the evacuated.” The number of evacuated Saudi citizens was 91 persons.

All the Saudi citizens and nationals of other countries have arrived safely in Jeddah. This has come in the implementation of the directives of the Kingdom’s leadership, the Ministry said.

The batches arrived in Jeddah at King Faisal Naval Base and were received by Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Eng. Waleed Al-Khereiji.

Al-Khereiji said that the journey of the evacuation was long, starting from Khartoum, passing through a number of regions in Sudan until reaching Port Sudan, and with the cooperation of government agencies in the Kingdom. He affirmed that an important role of the operation was done by Ministry of Defense that implemented this plan.

“We all celebrate the return of our sons and the sons of brotherly and friendly countries to the land of Saudi Arabia, which coincided with the celebration of Eid Al-Fitr.”

Saudi Arabia has worked to provide all the main needs for the foreign nationals, in preparation for facilitating their departure to their countries.

Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Prince Faisal Bin Farhan received a phone call from his Kuwaiti counterpart Sheikh Salem Abdullah Al-Jaber Al-Sabah.

Sheikh Salem voiced sincere congratulations on successful evacuations by Saudi ships of citizens from 11 countries from Sudan to Jeddah.

Sheikh Salem expressed Kuwait's appreciation and gratitude to the Saudi foreign minister for the Kingdom's efforts to ensure the evacuation of Kuwaiti citizens from Sudan.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs had announced earlier on Saturday the start of arranging the evacuation of Saudi citizens and a number of nationals from other countries from Sudan to Jeddah by sea on 5 Saudi ships. The second Saudi ship was carrying Saudia airline crew who was targeted in Khartoum airport.

It is noteworthy that after a week of fighting between two factions of the country’s military leadership, at least 400 people have been killed in Sudan.

Record heatwave scorching much of Asia

A record-smashing heatwave has been scorching South and South-east Asia, with temperatures so searing in places like India’s West Bengal that people there are frying eggs under the heat of the noonday sun, reports The Straits Time.

Meteorologists have been tracking temperatures of as high as 45 deg C in India, Thailand and Myanmar, and 42 to 43 deg C in Bangladesh, Laos, Vietnam, Nepal and China. These are temperatures that most of these countries have not experienced in decades.

Populations across the continent are cranking up their air-conditioners and electric fans, seeking shelter in shopping malls and in their offices, or praying for rain.

People are dying of heatstroke as they gather in thick, large crowds under the sun, and students are landing in hospitals as their schools bake in the heat.

Power grids are stretched beyond their capacities, and farmers are looking at failed harvests.

The continent is experiencing the worst April heatwave in its history, said climatologist and weather historian Maximiliano Herrera, who tracks extreme weather on his Twitter account.

“It will just get worse,” he warned.

Climatologists and scientists say this is just the start of a long dry spell that will likely be exacerbated by the El Nino weather phenomenon forecast to hit later in 2023. Asia will have to brace itself for even warmer days ahead, they warn.

At least 13 people died from heatstroke in India’s western Maharashtra state after attending a state award ceremony on Sunday that drew over a million people.

In Ahmedabad, the most populous city in Gujarat state, the air had been so hot and humid that asphalt on a freshly laid road did not harden, but instead melted.

At least two other states in India – Tripura in the north-east and West Bengal in the east – have ordered schools to shut this week as the temperature rose above 40 deg C.

In the Philippines, where the temperature hit 37 deg C, close to 150 secondary schoolchildren in a province south of capital Manila suffered heatstroke after a power outage hit their school. Seven of them fainted; two had to be taken to a hospital. The school has classrooms crammed with some 60 students each, and only electric fans to cool them.

The surge in power demand is already straining power grid capacities in poorer nations like Bangladesh, which is being forced to cut power to millions of people.

India is also warning of blackouts as higher use of air-conditioners and irrigation pumps depletes fuel used by its power plants.

But scientists are not laughing. It is warmer now because of climate change, they say.

Dr Fahad Saeed, regional lead for climate policy at Climate Analytics said, “This year’s record heat in Thailand, China and South Asia is a clear climate trend and will cause public health challenges for years to come.”

India’s scorching temperatures are making its population of over 1.4 billion – set to become the world’s largest – more vulnerable to illness and hunger, he said.

China has already seen major disruptions to industrial production in recent years because of extreme weather. It was gripped by a severe drought in 2022 that impacted the Yangtze River – a key conduit used to irrigate farms and power the massive Three Gorges Dam power station.

 

US to establish new naval bases in Philippines

The Pentagon on Monday announced the locations of four new naval bases in the Philippines, securing three of the spots in the northeastern part of the island to better counter Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacific.

The US will create two naval bases in the Cagayan province covering Luzon, the northern portion of the Philippines archipelago that lies directly across from Taiwan in the South China Sea. Naval Base Camilo Osias will be located near the municipality of Santa Ana, Cagayan. The other base in Caguyan will be near the Lal-lo Airport. Another military base, called Melchor Dela Cruz, will be located in Gamu, Isabela, also on the Luzon point. A fourth military base will be located at Balabac Island in the province of Palawan, located in the western part of the Philippines near the Spratly Islands, a major archipelago in the disputed South China Sea.

Tensions between the US and China are high over fears that Beijing will seek to take control of Taiwan in the coming years. China has also angered its regional neighbors with aggressive efforts to assert control over the South China Sea, which is crucial to global trade.

America’s new bases in the Philippines will provide a major boost to the US presence in the region, as part of efforts to neutralize China’s influence.

Pentagon Deputy Press Secretary Sabrina Singh said the expansion in the Philippines makes our training more resilient.

“It is about creating regional readiness but also being able to respond to any type of disaster or any type of humanitarian disaster that could arise in the region,” she told reporters at a Monday briefing.

Beijing has reacted angrily to the expansion of the US military in the Philippines.

A spokesperson for China’s embassy in the Philippines said the agreement will seriously endanger regional peace and stability and drag the Philippines into the abyss of geopolitical strife and damage its economic development.

 

is tantamount to quenching thirst with poison and gouging flesh to heal wounds,” “Creating economic opportunities and jobs through military cooperation the spokesperson said after US Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland traveled to the Philippines last month.

Washington already operates five military bases in the Philippines on a rotational basis, meaning they cannot station troops there permanently.

Those camps are located near Manila and in the south and east of the Philippines — but none were in the northern Luzon province, which is more strategically located.

The US reached an agreement for the bases with the Philippines in 2014 called the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced the four new military bases in February during a trip to Manila, the capital of the Philippines, but did not disclose the planned locations.

Austin at the time called it a big deal and a sign of the ironclad partnership with the Indo-Pacific nation.

The US has already pledged US$82 million for improvements at the existing five bases in the Philippines and intends to invest more funds to get the new camps up and running.

 

 

Focus should be on oil and gas, not maritime dispute, Beijing urges Philippines

China and the Philippines should not be distracted by their disputes in the South China Sea and should instead focus on advancing cooperation on oil and gas exploration in the region, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said when wrapping up his week-long tour of Southeast Asia.

Wang said the two countries would continue to “properly manage their disputes” and push for oil and gas exploration in the South China Sea.

Wang’s trip that included stopovers in Myanmar, Indonesia and Brunei was part of Beijing seeking to consolidate its ties with the region.

In an interview with state media posted on the Ministry’s website, Wang highlighted China’s desire to move the focus away from maritime disputes to joint exploration of resources in the waters. “Both sides believe that the South China Sea issue is only partial to the entirety of Sino-Philippines relations,” Wang said, discussing the outcomes of his Manila visit. “We should not let such one percent difference derail the 99 percent of our relations.”

Separately during Wang’s tour, China and Brunei set up a working group on energy cooperation, the ministry said on Friday, without providing details.

The Philippine government in October lifted a ban on offshore oil and gas exploration, reopening the door to joint energy development with China.

Two years ago, the two governments signed a memorandum of understanding to jointly explore undersea oil and gas, a way of defusing their corner of a broader regional dispute.

In 2016, an international tribunal in The Hague upheld the Philippines’ challenge to Beijing’s territorial claims to almost all of the South China Sea, but Beijing has never accepted the ruling. President Rodrigo Duterte’s administration has promised to shelve the dispute in exchange for Beijing’s economic aid.

As the Duterte administration nears its end, Beijing has sought to reaffirm support for its neighbour, promising half a million doses of Covid-19 vaccines, US$1.34 billion in loan pledges for infrastructure projects and US$77 million in grants.

Wang said the supply of vaccines to the Philippines showed Beijing’s willingness to help the Philippines overcome its Covid-19 pandemic challenges.

China and the Philippines also announced an arrangement for fast-track border crossing during the pandemic for certain personnel, and opened the Bank of China’s yuan clearing business in the Philippines.

China would continue to take part in the Philippine side’s infrastructure plans and actively promote cooperation on major projects to lay a better foundation for the Philippines’ long-term development, Wang said.

He said China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations were working together to advance post-pandemic recovery. “Facts once again show that adherence to regional and a multilateral mechanism is more important than ever,” he said.