KHANKANDI, Azerbaijan (Dispatches) -- Russian humanitarian aid arrived Tuesday in the breakaway region of Karabakh via Azerbaijan’s territory, separatist authorities in the enclave said. The sole road linking the mountainous territory with Armenia, the Lachin corridor, is policed by Russian peacekeepers as part of a ceasefire agreement Moscow brokered between the ex-Soviet Caucasus nations in 2020. “The Russian Red Cross’s humanitarian aid was delivered” to Khankandi on Tuesday, the rebel regime’s information center said. Azerbaijan’s Red Crescent confirmed the report, saying that the truck belonging to Russia’s Red Cross arrived in the city of Khankandi via the Aghdam road which links the region with the rest of Azerbaijan. Earlier in September, Azerbaijan agreed to simultaneously reopen, for humanitarian supplies, both the Lachin corridor and the Aghdam road, but said Armenian separatists rejected the proposal. Armenia and Azerbaijan have fought two wars for control of Karabakh and the last fighting in 2020 ended with a Russian-brokered ceasefire that saw Armenia cede swathes of the Azerbaijani territory it had occupied for decades.

 

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LONDON, Sept 12 (Reuters) -- Britain’s BAE Systems , Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, and Italy’s Leonardo have agreed the next steps to deliver the concept phase of a next-generation combat aircraft, BAE Systems said on Tuesday. The three nations agreed in December 2022 to collaborate to build an advanced front-line fighter to enter service around the middle of the next decade. The new Global Combat Air Program (GCAP) agreement will support discussions to set out working arrangements and capability requirements for the aircraft, BAE said. GCAP is expected to cost tens of billions of dollars but the parties have not yet finalized how the budget will be split.  Britain’s defense ministry had committed 2 billion pounds to the project, formerly known as Tempest, before Japan and Italy joined.

 

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TAIPEI (AFP) -- China’s most modern aircraft carrier is expected to be commissioned by 2025, the Taiwan government said Tuesday, describing it as a major threat to be dealt with in the future. China views self-ruled Taiwan as part of its territory and has vowed to bring the self-ruled island under its control. The Fujian, Beijing’s third and biggest carrier, was launched last year but authorities have not said when it will enter service. Taiwan’s defense ministry said in a biennial report released Tuesday the Fujian is expected to be commissioned “after its completion of sea trials by 2025”. The Fujian is China’s “first catapult aircraft carrier”. Its other carriers, the Liaoning and the Shandong, use a ski-jump-style ramp for takeoffs, said Huang Wen-chi, assistant deputy chief of Taiwan’s General Staff for Intelligence. The building of the Fujian shows that China “is preparing for deep-sea operations”, said Huang.

 

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GENEVA (AFP) -- The Mexico-United States border was the world’s most dangerous land route for migrants in 2022, with nearly 700 dying or going missing, the UN migration agency said on Tuesday. “The International Organization for Migration (IOM) documented 686 deaths and disappearances of migrants on the U.S.-Mexico border in 2022, making it the deadliest land route for migrants worldwide on record,” it said. “The figure represents nearly half of the 1,457 migrant deaths and disappearances recorded throughout the Americas in 2022, the deadliest year on record since IOM’s Missing Migrants Project (MMP) began in 2014.” Nearly half (307) of the deaths on the United States-Mexico border were linked to the hazardous crossing of the Sonoran and Chihuahuan Deserts, far more than other desert regions where irregular migration is prevalent.

 

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TOKYO (Reuters) -- Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is considering retaining Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki and Industry Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura, Kyodo news agency reported on the eve of an expected cabinet reshuffle, making major changes in the ministerial line-up unlikely. Recent opinion polls show Kishida, who became prime minister less than two years ago, scoring lower approval than disapproval ratings, and he has said he plans to reshuffle his cabinet and make changes in the leadership of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) as early as Wednesday. Earlier, the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper reported that Kishida had decided to keep Hirokazu Matsuno in his current post as chief cabinet secretary, a key position that coordinates policy among ministries and acts as the top government spokesperson. Shinzo Abe and Yoshihide Suga, two prime ministers before Kishida, both served as chief cabinet secretary before becoming premier.

 

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SINGAPORE (AFP) -- A Malaysian court upheld on Tuesday the acquittal of jailed former prime minister Najib Razak on an audit tampering charge in the investigation into corruption at the 1MDB state wealth fund. Najib is serving a 12-year prison term on other graft charges related to the 1 Malaysia Development Berhad financial scandal. The plundering of the fund led to investigations around the world, including in the United States, Switzerland and Singapore, into the use of their financial systems to launder money. But Malaysia’s Court of Appeal struck out the appeal by state prosecutors against the acquittal of the audit tampering charge after prosecutors did not submit documents in time, Najib’s lawyer Mohamed Shafee Abdullah told AFP.