News in Brief

Date: 31 July 2021 - 21:31

News ID: ۹۲۸۵۱

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) – The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) is mulling giving access to its “combat cloud” to UK military members to boost the interoperability of allied forces in a scenario involving a confrontation with China, according to the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General John Hyten. Recent war games simulating a U.S. response to an attack on Taiwan by China, were reportedly the trigger for the change, as the American forces in the drills lost “miserably” and simulated trials showed that the U.S. military could not effectively work with one of its greatest military assets: its own allies. “We have to address a classification problem because we are way over-classified. Even if we do that, we still have a problem because we like to label things ‘SECRET NOFORN [No Foreign Nationals]’. Then, even our closest allies can’t get on to our basic secret system SIPRNet”, Hyten stated. Although the Pentagon did not declassify all of the information regarding the outcome of the recent war games, Hyten said that a key problem was that the “red team” knocked out the U.S. military’s information systems at the onset of the hypothetical conflict. These essential systems are used to relay data between U.S. forces and units. The latter ended up amassed in one spot, becoming easy prey to a fictional Chinese military offensive. “Without overstating the issue, it failed miserably. An aggressive ‘red team’ that had been studying the United States for the last 20 years just ran rings around us. They knew exactly what we were going to do before we did it”, Hyten said.

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NEW DELHI (AFP) – India’s government continues to downplay the Pegasus scandal, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi dismissing it as a “non-issue”. But opposition parties have shown rare unity in calling for an investigation, describing it as an assault on human rights and democracy. Israeli NSO Group company created the Pegasus spyware to target criminals and terrorists. But investigations reveal that, like other governments around the world, India was using the spyware to target human rights activists, journalists, political activists, lawyers, judges, academics and members of the political opposition. Despite national and international calls for a judicial probe, the Modi government continues to deny the allegations – crying conspiracy instead.

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KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) – Malaysians staged an anti-government protest on Saturday in defiance of a ban on public gatherings under coronavirus curbs, piling pressure on the embattled prime minister to resign. The protesters, wearing masks and keeping distance from one another, waved banners reading “failed government” as well as black flags. It was the first sizeable demonstration in Malaysia for some time, as many had been reluctant to take to the streets due to COVID-related restrictions and for fear of getting infected. But anger is growing at the government’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak – which is escalating despite a lockdown – and Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin’s attempts to keep his crisis-riven administration in power. “We fight because while people are suffering, this government is busy playing politics,” Karmun Loh, taking part in the protest in downtown Kuala Lumpur, told the AFP news agency. “This government is … crippling the economy and also destroying our country’s democracy.”

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TOKYO (Al Jazeera) – Newly reported COVID-19 cases in Olympic host city Tokyo surged to a record high of 4,058 on Saturday, exceeding the 4,000-mark for the first time and overshadowing the Summer Games. Nationwide cases totaled 12,341 as of 6:30pm (09:30 GMT), public broadcaster NHK said, the highest for Japan and up 15 percent on the day, underscoring a rapid rise in infections across the country. The new records come a day after Japan decided to extend states of emergency to three prefectures near Olympic host Tokyo and the western prefecture of Osaka to the end of August in light of the recent spike in infections. Emergency measures will remain until after the Olympics and well into the Paralympic Games which start on August 24. Amid intensifying concerns, Tokyo Olympics organizers said on Saturday they had revoked the accreditation of games-related people for leaving the athletes’ village for sightseeing, a violation of measures imposed to hold the Olympics safely amid the pandemic.

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TUNIS (Dispatches) – The Tunisian president has denied allegations of staging a coup and insisted he would not turn into a dictator after ousting the nation’s premier and suspending the parliament and subsequent arrest of two lawmakers after the lifting of their immunity. “I know the constitutional texts very well, respect them and taught them and after all this time I will not turn into a dictator as some have said,” said President Kais Saied in a statement issued by his office. However, the former law professor has yet to carry out steps that critics insist are needed to reassure Tunisians, namely the appointment of an interim prime minister as well as a roadmap to remove the imposed emergency measures. The statement was issued just days after the North African country was thrust into a political crisis by Saied’s sudden dismissal of Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi and suspension of the legislature for 30 days on Sunday, leading major political parties to accuse him of engineering a coup amid rival protest rallies and clashes by supporters and opponents of the president.