News in Brief
LONDON (FT) -- Woody Johnson, the U.S. ambassador to the UK, has urged British ministers to increase defense spending and push ahead with the F-35 program, echoing Donald Trump’s warning that America’s allies had to become more self-sufficient.
UK defense officials are carrying out a wide-ranging review of the UK’s military capabilities. The review is expected to be finished in July, in time for a NATO summit in Brussels that Trump will attend.
Gavin Williamson, the UK defense minister, is pushing chancellor Philip Hammond to increase the amount of money the UK spends on defense from the current level of 2 per cent of GDP, or just over £37bn a year. Military chiefs have feared they could face further spending cuts to pay for a funding shortfall of up to £20bn over the next decade.
The program to build the first 48 of a potential total of 138 F-35s is costing the UK over £9 billion. While the UK government says it remains committed to buying the full quota of 138 jets from U.S. defense company Lockheed Martin, there has been speculation that Britain could reduce the size of the final order to cut costs.
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KUALA LUMPUR/TOKYO (Reuters) -- New Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said on Tuesday he will remain in office for one or two years and that Anwar Ibrahim, the jailed reformist he had vowed would replace him, will be released on Wednesday.
Mahathir, 92, said he thought that "in a short while” the government could have a case against his predecessor, Najib Razak, who has been dogged by a multi-billion-dollar scandal at state fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB).
A four-party alliance driven by Mahathir and Anwar won the general election last week, ousting the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition for the first time in the history of the Southeast Asian nation. Mahathir was sworn in as prime minister on Thursday, making him the world’s oldest democratically elected leader.
In "an initial stage, maybe lasting one or two years, I will be the prime minister”, Mahathir said, speaking by live video link from Kuala Lumpur to a Wall Street Journal CEO conference in Tokyo.
"I will play a role in the background even when I step down.”
The pardons board in Malaysia’s capital will meet on Wednesday to discuss Anwar’s release and Mahathir said he would be released the same day.
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GENEVA (AFP) -- North Korea plans to join international efforts to implement a total ban on nuclear weapons tests, an ambassador for the country told the United Nations disarmament body Tuesday.
"DPRK will join international desires and efforts for a total ban on nuclear tests," North Korea's ambassador to the UN in Geneva Han Tae-song said in an address to the Conference on Disarmament, using North Korea's official acronym.
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MADRID (AFP) -- A Spanish police union warned Monday young people in the poorer south were flocking to work for flush narco gangs as they rise in power in an area where security forces are now reluctant to be posted.
The stark warning came days after some 40 people – some of whom are thought to be linked to drug mafias – attacked nine Guardia Civil police officers on their time off in Algeciras, part of the southern province of Cadiz, a drug trafficking hotspot.
"Before the mafias avoided us, now this new generation of narcos is challenging security forces directly, they use guns, and they have professionals, we’re now noting the presence of sicarios,” Alberto Moya, head of the AUGC Guardia Civil union, told Spanish radio.
Sicario is a term used to describe hired killers, especially of Latin American drug cartels.
"These people employ legions of youth,” he added, pointing to the high unemployment rate in this poorer area of southern Spain as one of the reasons.
"These people can pay salaries that not even a multinational could pay its executives.”
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ATHENS (Reuters) -- Greece said Tuesday it was "far away" from resolving a decades-long dispute over Macedonia's name despite progress in talks between the two neighbors.
The row erupted in 1991 when Macedonia declared independence from Yugoslavia as it disintegrated. Greece refuses to recognize it under the name Macedonia, saying this implies a territorial claim on a northern Greek region of the same name, and has blocked its efforts to join NATO and the European Union.
"In our continuing talks with our neighbors, there has been significant progress but we are still far away from concluding negotiations and reaching an agreement," government spokesman Dimitris Tzanakopoulos told a press briefing.
The prime ministers of Greece and Macedonia are expected to meet in neighboring Bulgaria on Thursday on the sidelines of an EU-Western Balkans summit.
Tzanakopoulos said the meeting would be "very useful and important" but the two countries might need a new round of talks to resolve the dispute.
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MOSCOW (Reuters) -- A Moscow court Tuesday sentenced Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny to 30 days in prison for his role in organizing a protest against President Vladimir Putin on May 5, a Reuters correspondent reported from the court.
UK defense officials are carrying out a wide-ranging review of the UK’s military capabilities. The review is expected to be finished in July, in time for a NATO summit in Brussels that Trump will attend.
Gavin Williamson, the UK defense minister, is pushing chancellor Philip Hammond to increase the amount of money the UK spends on defense from the current level of 2 per cent of GDP, or just over £37bn a year. Military chiefs have feared they could face further spending cuts to pay for a funding shortfall of up to £20bn over the next decade.
The program to build the first 48 of a potential total of 138 F-35s is costing the UK over £9 billion. While the UK government says it remains committed to buying the full quota of 138 jets from U.S. defense company Lockheed Martin, there has been speculation that Britain could reduce the size of the final order to cut costs.
***
KUALA LUMPUR/TOKYO (Reuters) -- New Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said on Tuesday he will remain in office for one or two years and that Anwar Ibrahim, the jailed reformist he had vowed would replace him, will be released on Wednesday.
Mahathir, 92, said he thought that "in a short while” the government could have a case against his predecessor, Najib Razak, who has been dogged by a multi-billion-dollar scandal at state fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB).
A four-party alliance driven by Mahathir and Anwar won the general election last week, ousting the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition for the first time in the history of the Southeast Asian nation. Mahathir was sworn in as prime minister on Thursday, making him the world’s oldest democratically elected leader.
In "an initial stage, maybe lasting one or two years, I will be the prime minister”, Mahathir said, speaking by live video link from Kuala Lumpur to a Wall Street Journal CEO conference in Tokyo.
"I will play a role in the background even when I step down.”
The pardons board in Malaysia’s capital will meet on Wednesday to discuss Anwar’s release and Mahathir said he would be released the same day.
***
GENEVA (AFP) -- North Korea plans to join international efforts to implement a total ban on nuclear weapons tests, an ambassador for the country told the United Nations disarmament body Tuesday.
"DPRK will join international desires and efforts for a total ban on nuclear tests," North Korea's ambassador to the UN in Geneva Han Tae-song said in an address to the Conference on Disarmament, using North Korea's official acronym.
***
MADRID (AFP) -- A Spanish police union warned Monday young people in the poorer south were flocking to work for flush narco gangs as they rise in power in an area where security forces are now reluctant to be posted.
The stark warning came days after some 40 people – some of whom are thought to be linked to drug mafias – attacked nine Guardia Civil police officers on their time off in Algeciras, part of the southern province of Cadiz, a drug trafficking hotspot.
"Before the mafias avoided us, now this new generation of narcos is challenging security forces directly, they use guns, and they have professionals, we’re now noting the presence of sicarios,” Alberto Moya, head of the AUGC Guardia Civil union, told Spanish radio.
Sicario is a term used to describe hired killers, especially of Latin American drug cartels.
"These people employ legions of youth,” he added, pointing to the high unemployment rate in this poorer area of southern Spain as one of the reasons.
"These people can pay salaries that not even a multinational could pay its executives.”
***
ATHENS (Reuters) -- Greece said Tuesday it was "far away" from resolving a decades-long dispute over Macedonia's name despite progress in talks between the two neighbors.
The row erupted in 1991 when Macedonia declared independence from Yugoslavia as it disintegrated. Greece refuses to recognize it under the name Macedonia, saying this implies a territorial claim on a northern Greek region of the same name, and has blocked its efforts to join NATO and the European Union.
"In our continuing talks with our neighbors, there has been significant progress but we are still far away from concluding negotiations and reaching an agreement," government spokesman Dimitris Tzanakopoulos told a press briefing.
The prime ministers of Greece and Macedonia are expected to meet in neighboring Bulgaria on Thursday on the sidelines of an EU-Western Balkans summit.
Tzanakopoulos said the meeting would be "very useful and important" but the two countries might need a new round of talks to resolve the dispute.
***
MOSCOW (Reuters) -- A Moscow court Tuesday sentenced Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny to 30 days in prison for his role in organizing a protest against President Vladimir Putin on May 5, a Reuters correspondent reported from the court.