MOSCOW(Anadolu) - Russian Tu-95MS strategic missile carriers conducted a scheduled flight over the neutral waters of the Barents and Norwegian seas, the Russian Defense Ministry said Monday. The flight lasted about five hours, the ministry said. The aircraft were escorted by Su-33 fighter jets of the Russian Navy, while foreign fighter aircraft accompanied the strategic bombers during certain stages of the route, it said. The Tu-95MS, known by NATO as the Bear-H, is a long-range strategic bomber and missile carrier capable of carrying cruise missiles. The ministry said Russian long-range aviation crews regularly conduct flights over neutral waters of the Arctic, North Atlantic, Pacific, Baltic and Black seas.

 

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PARIS (Reuters) - Former Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo said on Tuesday “collective failure” at institutions had opened the door to a wave of child abuse at state nurseries and primary schools in the French capital over more than a decade. Police have been examining more than 200 allegations of mistreatment, violence and sexual abuse of young children during lunch breaks, rest periods and after-school activities. Hidalgo told a Senate hearing the number of victims was unacceptable and that she understood the sense of abandonment amongst families.

 

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - FBI Director Kash Patel is set to face the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, when Democrats are expected to grill him over his leadership, use of taxpayer funds for personal travel and claims that arrests were imminent related to the 2020 election. Republicans will likely ask about probes into the federal investigation of attempts to overturn that presidential election, an issue Republican committee chair Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa has said is a top priority for the committee. Tuesday’s appearance comes days after Joe DiGenova, who had been leading an investigation scrutinizing several of Trump’s foes and that sought to prove the president was the victim of a criminal conspiracy, abruptly resigned last week. Patel will likely receive questions over the implications and reasons behind DiGenova’s departure.

 

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SEOUL (Reuter) - North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has vowed to expand and deepen “joint work” with Moscow in a message to Russian President Vladimir Putin, state media reported Tuesday, amid the two nations’ strengthening military and economic ties. Kim expressed his “deep” thanks to Putin in a reply to the Russian president’s recent congratulatory message marking North Korea’s 78th founding anniversary that fell on Sept. 9, according to Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). North Korea’s will remain “firm without doubt to expand and deepen the joint work with the Russian Federation in a comprehensive way (...)  based on the tradition of friendship, good neighborliness and mutual aids and the firm relations of alliance between the two countries,” the letter showed.

 

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TOKYO (AP) — Japan’s air force lost contact on Tuesday with one of its long-distance surveillance drones after it went missing during a flight off the country’s northwestern coast. There was no immediate information as to what the mission of the uncrewed RQ-4B aircraft, also known as Global Hawk, was. The Air Self-Defense Force said the drone disappeared from the radar and was last seen 50 kilometers (31 miles) off the coast of Tottori earlier in the afternoon. The drone is one of three Global Hawks owned by the air force and deployed at its Misawa Air Base in the northern prefecture of Aomori.