Knife-wielding US hijacker shot dead by passenger on Belize flight
A passenger on a small plane from Belize on Thursday shot dead an American armed with a knife who was attempting a hijacking, police in the Caribbean nation said.
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The would-be hijacker threatened the pilot soon after the Cessna Grand Caravan from Belize's Tropic Air took off in the morning with 14 on board from the town of Corozal.
It was headed for the Belizean island of San Pedro, but the man ordered the pilot to head 'out of the country', police commissioner Chester Williams told Channel 5 news.
Williams said the plane was followed by a helicopter in case a quick rescue operation needed to be mounted in the event of a crash.
The plane hovered for some time over the international airport of Belize City before landing just as it was about to run out of fuel, at which point the hijacker stabbed two fellow passengers.
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One had a firearm he was licensed to carry, and shot the attacker dead, according to officials and local media.
Police identified the assailant as 49-year-old US national Akinyela Sawa Taylor, who was apparently a military veteran.
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Asia Times
3 days ago
- Asia Times
Ukraine shows it knows wars are never won in the past
The iconoclastic American general Douglas MacArthur once said that 'wars are never won in the past.' That sentiment certainly seemed to ring true following Ukraine's recent audacious attack on Russia's strategic bomber fleet, using small, cheap drones housed in wooden pods and transported near Russian airfields in trucks. The synchronized operation targeted Russian Air Force planes as far away as Irkutsk – more than 5,000 kilometers from Ukraine. Early reports suggest around a third of Russia's long-range bombers were either destroyed or badly damaged. Russian military bloggers have put the estimated losses lower, but agree the attack was catastrophic for the Russian Air Force, which has struggled to adapt to Ukrainian tactics. This particular attack was reportedly 18 months in the making. To keep it secret was an extraordinary feat. Notably, Kyiv reportedly did not inform the United States that the attack was in the offing. The Ukrainians judged – perhaps understandably – that sharing intelligence on their plans could have alerted the Kremlin in relatively short order. Ukraine's success once again demonstrates that its armed forces and intelligence services are the modern masters of battlefield innovation and operational security. Western military planners have been carefully studying Ukraine's successes ever since its forces managed to blunt Russia's initial onslaught deep into its territory in early 2022, and then launched a stunning counteroffensive that drove the Russian invaders back towards their original starting positions. There have been other lessons, too, about how the apparently weak can stand up to the strong. These include: attacks on Russian President Vladimir Putin's vanity project, the Kerch Bridge, linking the Russian mainland to occupied Crimea (the last assault occurred just days ago) the relentless targeting of Russia's oil and gas infrastructure with drones attacks against targets in Moscow to remind the Russian populace about the war, and its incursion into the Kursk region, which saw Ukrainian forces capture around 1,000 square kilometres of Russian territory. On each occasion, Western defense analysts have questioned the wisdom of Kyiv's moves. Why invade Russia using your best troops when Moscow's forces continue laying waste to cities in Ukraine? Why hit Russia's energy infrastructure if it doesn't markedly impede the battlefield mobility of Russian forces? And why attack symbolic targets like bridges when it could provoke Putin into dangerous 'escalation'? The answer to this is the key to effective innovation during wartime. Ukraine's defense and security planners have interpreted their missions – and their best possible outcomes – far more accurately than conventional wisdom would have thought. Above all, they have focused on winning the war they are in, rather than those of the past. This means: using technological advancements to force the Russians to change their tactics shaping the information environment to promote their narratives and keep vital Western aid flowing, and deploying surprise attacks not just as ways to boost public morale, but also to impose disproportionate costs on the Russian state. In doing so, Ukraine has had an eye for strategic effects. As the smaller nation reliant on international support, this has been the only logical choice. Putin has been prepared to commit a virtually inexhaustible supply of expendable cannon fodder to continue his country's war ad infinitum. Russia has typically won its wars this way – by attrition – albeit at a tremendous human and material cost. That said, Ukraine's most recent surprise attack does not change the overall contours of the war. The only person with the ability to end it is Putin himself. That's why Ukraine is putting as much pressure as possible on his regime, as well as domestic and international perceptions of it. It is key to Ukraine's theory of victory. This is also why the latest drone attack is so significant. Russia needs its long-range bomber fleet, not just to fire conventional cruise missiles at Ukrainian civilian and infrastructure targets, but as aerial delivery systems for its strategic nuclear arsenal. The destruction of even a small portion of Russia's deterrence capability has the potential to affect its nuclear strategy. It has increasingly relied on this strategy to threaten the West. A second impact of the attack is psychological. The drone attacks are more likely to enrage Putin than bring him to the bargaining table. However, they reinforce to the Russian military that there are few places – even on its own soil – that its air force can act with operational impunity. The surprise attacks also provide a shot in the arm domestically, reminding Ukrainians they remain very much in the fight. Finally, the drone attacks send a signal to Western leaders. US President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance, for instance, have gone to great lengths to tell the world that Ukraine is weak and has 'no cards'. This action shows Kyiv does indeed have some powerful cards to play. That may, of course, backfire: after all, Trump is acutely sensitive to being made to look a fool. He may look unkindly at resuming military aid to Ukraine after being shown up for saying Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky would be forced to capitulate without US support. But Trump's own hubris has already done that for him. His regular claims that a peace deal is just weeks away have gone beyond wishful thinking and are now monotonous. Unsurprisingly, Trump's reluctance to put anything approaching serious pressure on Putin has merely incentivised the Russian leader to string the process along. Indeed, Putin's insistence on a maximalist victory, requiring Ukrainian demobilisation and disarmament without any security guarantees for Kyiv, is not diplomacy at all. It is merely the reiteration of the same unworkable demands he has made since even before Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022. However, Ukraine's ability to smuggle drones undetected onto an opponent's territory, and then unleash them all together, will pose headaches for Ukraine's friends, as well as its enemies. That's because it makes domestic intelligence and policing part of any effective defence posture. It is a contingency that democracies will have to plan for, just as much as authoritarian regimes, who are also learning from Ukraine's lessons. In other words, while the attack has shown up Russia's domestic security services for failing to uncover the plan, Western security elites, as well as authoritarian ones, will now be wondering whether their own security apparatuses would be up to the job. The drone strikes will also likely lead to questions about how useful it is to invest in high-end and extraordinarily expensive weapons systems when they can be vulnerable. The Security Service of Ukraine estimates the damage cost Russia US$7 billion. Ukraine's drones, by comparison, cost a couple of thousand dollars each. At the very least, coming up with a suitable response to those challenges will require significant thought and effort. But as Ukraine has repeatedly shown us, you can't win wars in the past. Matthew Sussex is associate professor (Adj), Griffith Asia Institute; and fellow, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Asia Times
4 days ago
- Asia Times
Will Ukraine or Russia win the war?
After Ukraine's attack on Russian air bases, some pundits are writing that Ukraine is winning the war. At least one American newspaper headlined the surprise attack as Russia's 'Pearl Harbor,' evidently forgetting the ultimate result. In any case, the actual ground war in Ukraine is increasingly favoring the Russians, who are slowly tightening the noose on Kyiv's forces. The latest drone attack is Ukraine's emerging strategy to raise the cost of the war to the Russians, hoping either that they will get a better deal from Moscow, or more likely, persuade their American and European sponsors to actually join the fighting. The new strategy first took shape in the invasion of Kursk in August 2024, a venture that cost Ukraine approximately 75,000 troops killed or wounded. At the same time, Ukraine began launching heavy drone strikes inside Russian territory as well as on the battlefield. These attacks, at least those on the battlefield, forced the Russians to change tactics and revert to smaller unit operations that were more survivable, and it certainly slowed down the pace of operations for Russia's army. Conversely, the Russian strategy is to grind down Ukraine's army and, wherever possible, trap them in cauldrons, cutting off their resupply and rotation lines of support. The Russian strategy appears to be unaffected, at least so far, by Ukrainian strikes inside Russia, or by wasteful operations in places such as Kursk, which actually support Russia's military objective. As matters now stand, on the backside of the now-failed Kursk operation, Russia has expanded its operations in Sumy, a Ukrainian province adjacent to Kursk. Sumy offers long-range potential for a land assault on Kyiv, should Russia be able to consolidate its operations in Kursk and further weaken Ukraine's army defenses. In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights Press Service, bodies of the killed residents lie on the ground following a Russian missile attack that killed at least civilia civilians in Sumy, Ukraine, Sunday, April 13, 2025. Some Russian mil-bloggers are expressing the view that even if Russia and Ukraine sign some form of 'peace agreement,' guerrilla attacks on Russian territory and on their forces in Ukraine likely will continue for the foreseeable future. One can see in these ruminations the belief that NATO will continue to cause Russia trouble for many years to come, assuming Russia does not take more radical steps to quash them. Examples of how Ukraine is executing its strategy are clear. The attack on Russian air bases is just a part of the process: railroads have been hit, railroad bridges destroyed, and the Kerch Strait bridge was hit by a large explosion on June 3. The Ukrainians also destroyed power stations supporting Kherson and Zaphorize, showing that Russian control is not all that effective. Latest Kerch Bridge Attack Ukraine is also carrying out a record number of assassinations. including Zaur Gurtsiev, 34, a decorated former major, who was blown up in Stavropol in southern Russia. The Ukrainians are exploiting a major Russian weakness, a lack of adequate preparation to protect important assets, including key people, and poor intelligence. Ukraine's advantage is that it is supported by US and European intelligence and technical capabilities, which act as a facilitator and force multiplier for Ukrainian non-conventional operations. In addition, Ukraine has its own drone manufacturing and electronics and software development experts. Before the Russian invasion, Ukrainian software engineers were working for leading companies outside the country. Israeli companies contracted or hired Ukrainian software developers to augment Israel's own formidable capability in this sector. There also are limitations to the Ukrainian strategy. First, while the strategy, especially the use of drones coupled to some battlefield tactics, has given fits to the Russian army, the best that can be said is that it has slowed them down but not stopped them. Meanwhile, the Russians are able to keep heavy pressure on the Ukrainians, making use of long-range missiles, drones, and increasingly FAB bombs (conventional bombs with guidance kits, called UMPK kits, extending their range). Ukraine also has gotten some glide bombs from the US (such as the GBU-39), but the payload is much smaller than those used by the Russians, and the Ukrainians are running out of aircraft that can launch them. GBU-39 is a glide bomb in the 250-pound category, while Russia's glide bomb can carry between 555 pounds. and 3 tons of explosives over 37 miles. FAB-1500 with UMPK glide kit Certainly, the Ukrainians are aware of the vulnerability of their armed forces, especially as they are stretched out over a long line of contact, now expanded with Russian operations in Sumy. Reports say the Russian cauldron battlefield strategy is squeezing off logistical support for Ukrainian units, and their ability to rotate soldiers, meaning that morale is suffering and even well-organized defenses can't be held for very long. An additional problem for Ukraine is securing adequate supplies from Europe and the United States, as well as trained operators for the imported weapons. Europe has slowed down the transfer of weapons, as European planners worry that they have little left for national self-defense. It is unclear whether the US will keep up the pace, since there is growing concern in Washington that the US will not remain competitive in the Pacific – facing China's rising military capabilities – if it continues to strip its stockpiles of critical weapons and munitions. Should the US reduce deliveries of weapons, a distinct possibility for operational reasons, Ukraine's army cannot remain in the field for very long. Ukraine's main problem is internal and political. The current leadership can't acknowledge the surrender of any territory to Russia. It could agree to a ceasefire in place, but the Russians are not ready to grant that. It would leave the Russians with control of some of the territories they have annexed, but not all that they claim, and the possibility that the war might resume again in future. More to the point, the Ukrainians don't want to give up on a relationship with NATO and Europe. Thus, even though uninvited, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says he will attend an upcoming major NATO meeting in the Hague. While the US says that Ukrainian membership in NATO is off the table, Kiev is not accepting the US position. Zelensky is currently in Vilnius where he will be attending the Bucharest Nine and Nordic summit, aimed at unifying regional support for Ukraine. (The Bucharest Nine, established in 2015, includes Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia.) Volodymyr Zelensky in Vilnius | D. Umbraso / LRT nuotr. We know less about Russia's internal situation. The Russians, so far, have failed to come to grips with Ukraine's unconventional war strategy, nor have they reacted so far either in improving their own security measures or in answering the Ukrainian attacks. How this impacts the current leadership, the Kremlin first of all, Russia's security services, and the Russian army, is simply unknown. Having said that, it is unlikely the Russians will dramatically change their approach to the conduct of the war, or at least so far, there is no evidence of any change. It looks like Ukraine's new strategy will not have more than a marginal effect on the war itself. Stephen Bryen is a special correspondent to Asia Times and former US deputy undersecretary of defense for policy. This article, which originally appeared on his Substack newsletter Weapons and Strategy, is republished with permission.
RTHK
30-05-2025
- RTHK
Smokey Robinson counter-sues against rape allegations
Smokey Robinson counter-sues against rape allegations Smokey Robinson and his wife Frances at a pre-Grammy gala in Beverly Hills, California, in 2023. File photo: AFP American singer Smokey Robinson has filed a defamation lawsuit against four former housekeepers who accused him of rape and prompted a police investigation. Robinson and his wife, Frances Robinson, filed the counterclaim on Wednesday in Los Angeles Superior Court against the women and their lawyers, whose allegations, they say, were 'fabricated in an extortionate scheme'. The filing is a fast and forceful legal and public pushback from the 85-year-old Motown music luminary in response to the women's May 6 lawsuit and a May 15 announcement from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department that its special victims bureau is 'actively investigating criminal allegations' against Robinson. The Robinsons also filed a motion to strike the women's lawsuit. The women are seeking at least US$50 million, alleging Smokey Robinson repeatedly raped and sexually assaulted them in his home when they worked for him between 2007 and 2024. They said Frances Robinson, a co-defendant, enabled him and created an abusive workplace. The counterclaim opens with friendly text messages from the women to contradict their claims against Robinson, whose songs, including 'Tears of a Clown' and 'The Tracks of My Tears," established him among the biggest hitmakers of the 1960s. The filing says the women 'stayed with the Robinsons year after year,' vacationed with them, celebrated holidays with them, exchanged gifts with them, asked for tickets to his concerts, and sought and received help from them, including money for dental surgery, financial support for a disabled family member and 'even a car'. The filing - which includes photos from the vacations and gatherings as exhibits – says that despite the couple's generosity, the women 'secretly harboured resentment for the Robinsons and sought to enrich themselves through the Robinsons' wealth'. John Harris and Herbert Hayden, attorneys for the former housekeepers, said the defamation lawsuit 'is nothing more than an attempt to silence and intimidate the survivors of Mr Robinson's sexual battery and assault. It is a baseless and vindictive legal manoeuvre designed to re-victimise, shift blame and discourage others from coming forward'. The lawyers said they intend to get the Robinsons' lawsuit thrown out by invoking California's laws against using the courts to silence and intimidate people who sue. The four women, whose names are withheld in their lawsuit, each allege that Robinson would wait until they were alone with him in his Los Angeles house and then sexually assault and rape them. One woman said she was assaulted at least 20 times while working for Robinson from 2012 until 2024. Another said she worked for him from 2014 until 2020 and was assaulted at least 23 times. (AP)
