Australia edges closer to recognising Palestinian state
Although Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has not laid out a clear timeline for recognition, he has repeatedly claimed that the decision was a matter of 'when, not if'.
Canada, France, and the UK have all announced that they plan on conditionally recognising the state of Palestine ahead of the UN General Assembly next September.
International law expert Professor Donald Rothwell told AAP, 'Everything at the moment is pointing towards Australia positioning itself to make an announcement of the recognition of Palestine by the time of the [assembly].'
Video transcript
Australia is edging closer to recognising a Palestinian state, with a decision set to be made this week.
Although Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has not laid out a clear timeline for recognition, he has repeatedly claimed that the decision was a matter of when, not if.
Canada, France, and the UK have all announced that they plan on conditionally recognising the state of Palestine ahead of the UN General Assembly next month.
International law expert Professor Donald Rothwell told AAP everything at the moment is pointing towards Australia positioning itself to make an announcement of the recognition of Palestine by the time of the assembly.
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Japan is selling top-of-the-line warships to another key US ally. What that means in the highly contested Pacific
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It was a key force behind the buildup of the Imperial Japanese Navy leading up to World War II and is responsible for making the largest battleships in history, the Yamato and the Musashi, 69,000-ton behemoths with 18-inch main guns. They were state-of-the-art for battleships and entered the war only after Japan's December 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor, but the advent of aircraft carriers conveying torpedo bombers made them essentially obsolete before they could ever show their true power. The Musashi sank during the Battle of Leyte Gulf in October 1944 after being hit by dozens of torpedoes and bombs dropped by US planes. Yamato was sunk by US carrier-based planes in April 1945 while making a planned suicide run to the Battle of Okinawa. The plan was for the ship to be beached and become a Japanese fort against the US invasion.
CNN
an hour ago
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Japan is selling top-of-the-line warships to another key US ally. What that means in the highly contested Pacific
Australia last week announced a $6.5 billion deal to buy advanced warships from Japan, a move that can go a long way to making Canberra a Pacific maritime power and Tokyo a major weapons exporter, analysts say. The Australian Defense Ministry said it will buy 11 of Japan's Mogami-class frigates, stealthy, state-of-the-art surface combatants that analysts say are equal to – or in some repects better than – anything China or even the United States is putting in the water. Announcing the deal with its fellow member of the the US-led Quad defense group, Australia's Minister for Defense Industry Pat Conroy called it 'another step towards delivering a much larger and more lethal navy, with stealth frigates that will reassure our allies and deter our adversaries.' Australia's main security concern is its growing neighborhood rivalry with China, which was stoked earlier this year when a Chinese naval task force circumnavigated the continent and held live-fire exercises off Australian shores, forcing dozens of passenger planes to divert from their usual flight paths. Canberra says the vessels will be 'upgraded' Mogami-class ships – bigger than a version already in service with Japan's Maritime Self-Defense Force – giving them more firepower and a longer unrefueled range of approximately 11,500 miles (about half the length of the equator). Japan's Defense Minister Gen Nakatani echoed Conroy's sentiment, calling the deal a 'big step' that will boost Tokyo's security cooperation with a special strategic partner, Japanese public broadcaster NHK reported. The new warships, built by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, will have 32 Mk 41 vertical launch cells, capable of firing surface-to-air missiles and anti-ship missiles, the Defense Ministry said. These will enable the Mogamis to fire 128 air defense missiles, four times the number current Australian surface vessels can fire, Conroy said. Analysts noted the Lockheed Martin-made Mk 41 launch cells are big enough to carry Tomahawk cruise missiles – which, with a range of 1,000 miles, could greatly extend the warships' target area. The Mk 41 cells could also be used for long-range anti-submarine rockets, enabling them to better hunt down fleeing nuclear-powered submarines, said Sidharth Kaushal, a research fellow in sea power at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in London. The Japanese-made frigates are also lauded for their lean manning, needing only a crew of 90, compared with 170 on Australia's current ANZAC-class frigates the Mogamis will replace. The smaller crew is important for countries like Japan and Australia that face military recruiting challenges. 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For most of the post-World War II era, Japan banned any export of weaponry. But in recent years that policy has been relaxed to allow items related to surveillance, reconnaissance and rescue to be sold abroad. The Philippines has been the early beneficiary of this change, getting air surveillance radars from Japan over the past two years, according to Tomohisa Takei, a senior fellow at the Sasakawa Peace Foundation. Last year, Japan sold its first lethal weaponry, Patriot missile interceptors to the US, built under license from Washington to replace Patriots it had sent to Ukraine. The frigate sale to Australia dwarfs that missile deal. The Australian Defense Ministry announcement said the first three warships will be built in Japan and the remaining eight in Australia. Patalano said exporting the warships, but also exporting the technology to build them, represents a challenge for the country's arms industry. Pulling it off 'would catapult Japan in the space of major defense industry exporters,' he said. When looking at the Japan-Australia deal, analysts noted that the two US allies may be more advanced and efficient in military shipbuilding than their American partner. The US Navy has no frigates in its fleet and hasn't had them since 2015 when the last of the Oliver Hazard Perry class, the USS Simpson, was decommissioned. Washington's effort to build new frigates, the Constellation class, which was authorized in 2020, is at least three years behind schedule as it undergoes design changes despite construction having already begun, according to the Government Accountability Office. And even then, it may not be able to deliver what the Mogami does, said Schuster, the former Navy captain. 'In my opinion, it is superior to the Constellation class,' he said. Patalano, too, noted the US naval shipbuilding woes. 'When it comes to shipbuilding the US is not in the innovation space of some of its closest allies, and compared to Italy, France, the UK, the ROK (South Korea), and now Japan, the US has a lot to learn,' said Patalano, from King's College. The government of Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the frigate deal is part of a greater investment in defense that will create 10,000 jobs at home. Another leg of that is the AUKUS agreement between Australia, the US and the United Kingdom, which will see Canberra acquire and later build its own nuclear-powered submarines. Australia said the agreement announced this week is non-binding, but the Albanese government expected to have contracts signed by next year. Canberra expects the first of the new warships to be operational by 2029, a Defense Ministry statement said. The deal marks a return to the global military market for Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, a company with a rich naval history. It was a key force behind the buildup of the Imperial Japanese Navy leading up to World War II and is responsible for making the largest battleships in history, the Yamato and the Musashi, 69,000-ton behemoths with 18-inch main guns. They were state-of-the-art for battleships and entered the war only after Japan's December 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor, but the advent of aircraft carriers conveying torpedo bombers made them essentially obsolete before they could ever show their true power. The Musashi sank during the Battle of Leyte Gulf in October 1944 after being hit by dozens of torpedoes and bombs dropped by US planes. Yamato was sunk by US carrier-based planes in April 1945 while making a planned suicide run to the Battle of Okinawa. The plan was for the ship to be beached and become a Japanese fort against the US invasion.
Yahoo
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Mauritius ‘to receive £35bn' for Chagos deal over 99 years
A deal to keep the UK-US military base running in the Chagos Archipelago is projected to see £34.7 billion handed to Mauritius over the next 99 years. Conservative shadow foreign secretary Dame Priti Patel accused ministers of trying to 'cover up' the cost of ceding the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, accusing them of using an 'accountancy trick' to price the deal at £3.4 billion. The higher figure, released after a freedom of information request to the Government Actuary's Department, is a nominal amount. Adjusted to account for inflation, the deal is thought to be worth an average £101 million a year in 2025/26 terms, lowering the value to around £10 billion in today's money. The UK Government has agreed to cede the Chagos Archipelago to Mauritius but retain control of the military base on Diego Garcia. Ministers feared that without a deal, the base's future was in doubt amid challenges in international courts and tribunals. 'We've all known it's a terrible deal with huge costs to hard-pressed British taxpayers,' Dame Priti wrote in The Telegraph, which first reported the figures. 'But for months, ministers in public and Parliament have sought to cover up the true amounts.' Dame Priti also warned that 'instead of owning up to the costs, Labour has used an accountancy trick to claim the amount was only £3.4 billion – still a vast waste of money'. She described the £35 billion figure as 'mind-blowing', and labelled Foreign Secretary David Lammy as ''Calamity' Lammy'. Dame Priti accused him, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, Attorney General Lord Hermer and special envoy for the negotiations Jonathan Powell of being 'the worst team of negotiators in history'. The figures, seen by the PA news agency, show that the Government used a Treasury principle to reduce the figure by between 2.5% and 3.5% per year to £3.4 billion. This 'social time preference', used since 2003, is based on the idea that taxpayers would prefer to get their return on the deal sooner rather than later.
