Hundreds of thousands of homes are submerged and at least 132 people have been killed as some of the worst flooding in decades hits Vietnam and Cambodia, affecting more than 5 million people.
An aerial picture shows Hue city, submerged in floodwaters caused by heavy downpours, in central Vietnam, earlier in October. Photo: AFP
Flooding and landslides caused by seven consecutive tropical storms and torrential rainfall killed 105 people in Vietnam alone and washed away homes, livestock and crops, according to the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which is currently providing humanitarian aid to the region.
Viet Nam Red Cross told the ABC that 690,000 poultry and livestock had been killed or swept away, and nearly 200,000 homes were completely submerged.
"These devastating floods are some of the worst we have seen in decades, and they are dealing a staggering blow to the livelihoods of millions of people already reeling from hardships caused by the COVID-19 pandemic," said the organisation's president Nguyen Thi Xuan Thu.
"Everywhere we look, homes, roads and infrastructure have been submerged."
He said the Red Cross was ramping up relief operations, working alongside authorities to provide "immediate relief to people by boat, by air and on land, including food, safe water, tarpaulins and other essentials".
The group told the ABC that conditions were very difficult, with roads cut off and infrastructure destroyed.
Tropical Storm Saudel is predicted to make landfall this weekend, bringing more torrential rain to areas of central Vietnam that are still experiencing heavy flooding.
"We have grave fears that the flooding will go from bad to worse and that it [will] be overwhelming for even the most prepared and resilient communities, with many more typhoons and storms predicted in the next month," Viet Nam Red Cross told the ABC via email.
The International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC) said the flooding was a "deadly double disaster" following COVID-19.
"These floods are the last straw and will push millions of people further towards the brink of poverty," Red Cross official Christopher Rassi said.
"Hundreds of thousands of people are in urgent need of emergency shelter, safe drinking water, food, and income support in the coming days and weeks to prevent a larger humanitarian crisis."
The IFRC added that it had provided about US$325,000 ($460,000) in aid relief so far.
Nguyen Thi Tham lives in Hai Duong City, an area unaffected by the floods, but worries for her family in the Thach Ha district of the hard-hit Ha Tinh province.
"One of my girls had just had a baby and they returned a few days before the floodwaters passed," she said.
"I'm really scared.
"When they were able to use the phone, they called me on the rooftop waiting for the rescue team.
"It's really awful, the weather is very cold and everywhere is water. There are many people trapped in their home when the water spills in."
In neighbouring Cambodia, flash floods have killed at least 27 people since October 19 and adversely affected more than 532,000, cutting access to many hard-hit communities, USAID said.
Video footage showed submerged homes and shops, people wading in neck-high water, and families attempting to salvage their possessions by boat or makeshift rafts.
Conditions are predicted to get worse for residents living close to the Mekong River.
Cambodia's Ministry of Water Resources and Meteorology said the water level in the Mekong would continue to rise over the next six days, causing additional severe flooding in many areas.
- ABC
A United States Marine Corps (USMC) helicopter crew chief says Australian special forces shot and killed a bound Afghan prisoner after being told he would not fit on the US aircraft coming to pick them up.
A Marine corps helicopter crew member waits as a helicopter lands at Musa Qala District centre base in Helmand province on January 27, 2011. Photo: AFP / Dmitry Kostyukov
Josh* flew 159 combat missions for the USMC's Light Attack Helicopter Squadron 469 (HMLA-469).
He has allowed the ABC to publish pictures of him but has asked that his real name not be used because he fears retribution.
He has told ABC Investigations he was a door gunner providing aerial covering fire for the Australian soldiers of the 2nd Commando Regiment during a night raid in mid-2012.
The operation took place north of the HMLA-469 base at Camp Bastion in Afghanistan's Helmand Province.
It was part of a wider joint Australian special forces-US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) campaign targeting illicit drug operations that were financing the Taliban insurgency.
"We had done the drug raid, the Aussies actually did a pretty impressive job, wrangling all the prisoners up," Josh said.
"We just watched them tackle and hogtie these guys and we knew their hands were tied behind their backs."
He says the commandos then called up the US aircraft to pick them and about seven prisoners up.
He says the Americans only had room on the aircraft for six.
"And the pilot said, 'That's too many people, we can't carry that many passengers.' And you just heard this silence and then we heard a pop. And then they said, 'Okay, we have six prisoners'.
"So it was pretty apparent to everybody involved in that mission that they had just killed a prisoner that we had just watched them catch and hogtie," he said.
Josh says neither he nor any of his crew spoke about what had just happened.
"We were all being recorded on our comms," he said.
"All of us were pretty aware of what we just witnessed, and kind of didn't want to be involved in whatever came next."
Josh says he later discussed the incident with his crewmates after returning to Camp Bastion.
"This was the first time we saw something we couldn't morally justify, because we knew somebody was already cuffed up, ready to go, taken prisoner and we just witnessed them kill a prisoner," he said.
"This isn't like a heat of the moment call where you're trying to make a decision. It was a very deliberate decision to break the rules of war.
"I think that was the first thing that happened that didn't quite sit right with us, where we were like, 'Okay, there's no excuse, there's no ambiguity, there's no going around this one'."
'Lots of fire and bodies were often left in their wake'
ABC Investigations understands that - as part of its inquiry into alleged special forces war crimes in Afghanistan - the Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force (IGADF) is investigating the killing of at least one prisoner by Australian commandos.
Australian soldiers from the Special Operations Task Group using their rifle scopes to investigate the surrounding mountains during an operation in southern Afghanistan on 21 October, 2009. Photo: AFP / Australian Department of Defence / Stu Dood
It is unclear if this alleged killing is one of those being investigated.
When contacted for a response to this story, an Australian Defence Force spokesperson said: "It is not appropriate for Defence to comment on matters that may or may not be the subject of the Afghanistan Inquiry."
Josh says he did between one and two dozen drug missions with the Australians from 2nd Commando in 2012, mainly providing aerial cover fire and sometimes dropping sniper teams on overwatch positions.
"A lot of us wanted to work with the Australians because we were all like - I don't know if bloodthirsty is the right term - but we wanted action. They wanted to shoot. And when you worked with the Aussies you get involved pretty often," he said. "Lots of breaching of walls with explosives and lots of fires and bodies were often left in their wake."
He says on a mission early in his 2012 deployment, one of his USMC comrades was shocked by what he witnessed the commandos do on a joint drug operation.
"They go down for a landing. As soon as the Aussies exit, there was somebody just sitting on a wall watching them land. They got off and popped the guy a few times in the chest."
Josh says his fellow marine later confronted the commandos about the killing.
"My buddy came and asked, 'Hey, what happened to that guy?' And he said, 'Oh, he's dead mate.' And he's like, 'Why? He wasn't even armed. What happened there?' He said, 'Oh, he was armed when we got through with him.'"
'We're not going to work with those f***ing guys'
A member of 2nd Commando's Oscar platoon who served on that deployment has confirmed that the Americans were unhappy with the conduct of some of his comrades.
Australian soldiers in southern Uruzgan province's Mirwais on January 20, 2010. Photo: AFP / Deshakalyan Chowdhury
"Our platoon commander pulled our platoon together and said that the [DEA] has said in no uncertain terms that they won't operate with [2nd Commando] November platoon any more due to their behaviour in the field," he said.
Another commando from Oscar platoon who was on that deployment confirmed to ABC Investigations that November platoon had a bad reputation among the Americans.
"I remember talking to [DEA agent] afterwards, and he said, 'We're not going out with those f***ing guys ever again'. Every DEA team that went through there loved working with us and had no problem, but November platoon was the first platoon that the DEA said they wouldn't work with," the former commando said.
"Something obviously went down."
Former USMC helicopter crew chief Josh says he flew dozens of missions with other special forces, including USMC special operations and the British SAS.
"The [British] SAS always had an incredible restraint, at least in the times when me and my friends worked with them. Sometimes a frustrating amount," he said.
"Everybody else would step on the lines, but the Aussies would just see the line and just hop right over it."
* Name has been changed
- ABC
America's Osiris-Rex spacecraft has completed its audacious tag-and-go manoeuvre designed to grab surface rock from an asteroid.
Bennu contains chemistry preserved from the dawn of the Solar System. Photo: NASA/GODDARD/UOA
Radio signals from 330 million km away confirm the probe made contact with the 500m-wide object known as Bennu.
But the Nasa-led mission will have to wait on further data from Osiris-Rex before it's known for sure that material was actually picked up.
The aim was to acquire at least 60g, perhaps even a kilo or more.
Because Bennu is a very primitive space object, scientists say its surface grit and dust could hold fascinating clues about the chemistry that brought the Sun and the planets into being more than 4.5 billion years ago.
"The team is exuberant; emotions are high; everyone is really proud," said principal investigator Dante Lauretta from the University of Arizona, Tucson.
"This was the key milestone of this mission. Now it's a few days to figure out how much of this amazing sample we got that we've been thinking about for decades," added Thomas Zurbuchen, Nasa's associate administrator for science.
Both men were following events from mission control at spacecraft manufacturer Lockheed Martin.
Assuming there is a suitable sample safely aboard, the probe will be able to package it for return to Earth, scheduled for 2023.
If not, the mission team will have to configure Osiris-Rex for another go.
The spacecraft made its sample bid in a narrow patch of northern terrain on Bennu dubbed Nightingale.
Artwork: Osiris-Rex approaching the surface of Asteroid Bennu. Photo: NASA/GODDARD/UOA
The probe descended slowly to the 8m-wide target zone over a period of four-and-a-half hours, squeezing past some imposing boulders on the way, including a two-storey-high block that had been dubbed Mount Doom.
Osiris-Rex used what some have described as a "reverse vacuum cleaner" to make its surface grab.
More properly called the Touch-and-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism, or Tag-Sam, this device is a long boom with a ring-shaped collection chamber on the end.
The idea was to push the ring into the surface and at the same moment express a stream of nitrogen gas to kick up small fragments of rock.
Sensors on Osiris-Rex reported back to mission controllers that all the actions in the sampling sequence had been completed successfully, and that the spacecraft had backed away from Bennu as planned after a few seconds of contact.
But the science and engineering team will need time to assess what exactly might have been caught in the collection chamber.
One way to do this is to photograph the ring head. This will be done in the coming days.
But controllers will also command the spacecraft to spin itself around with the boom and Tag-Sam ring outstretched. Any extra mass on board will change the amount of torque required to turn the probe, compared with the amount needed to perform the same rotation exercise prior to sample acquisition.
This measurement technique will give a quantity precise to within a few 10s of grams.
Osisris-Rex took pictures all the way through its descent but could not send any of these home at the time because its high-gain antenna was not pointed at Earth.
Once the probe has re-established this connection, the data can be downlinked.
"Those images are going to tell us an enormous amount of information about how the events of today went," said Prof Lauretta. "For one thing they will tell us about the likelihood of sample collection, a kind of probabilistic assessment."
Nasa promises to release some of these pictures on Wednesday.
Numerous scientists, including in the UK, are hoping to get the chance to analyse any materials brought back from Bennu - among them Sara Russell from London's Natural History Museum.
Asteroids like Bennu formed in the very, very earliest times of the Solar System. They are basically the building blocks of the planets - a time capsule that will tell us how the Sun and the planets came into being and evolved. Bennu can really help us to drill down into how that process actually happens," she told BBC News.
- BBC
The fiancée of slain Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi and a human rights group that he founded filed a lawsuit in a US court with allegations that Saudi Arabia's crown prince ordered him killed.
Photo: AFP / Saudi Royal Palace/ Bandar al-Jaloud
The civil lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages against Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, also named more than 20 other Saudis as defendants. It coincides with complications in the US-Saudi relationship over the 2018 slaying of Khashoggi, Riyadh's human rights record, its role in Yemen's civil war and other issues.
The Saudi embassy did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit. The crown prince - known by his initials MbS - has denied ordering Khashoggi's murder.
Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi Photo: AFP / Mohammed Al-Shaikh
Khashoggi, who criticised the policies of the crown prince, Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler, in Washington Post columns, was killed and dismembered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. He went there to obtain papers he needed to marry Hatice Cengiz, a Turkish citizen.
Cengiz and Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), a US-based human rights group founded by Khashoggi, a legal resident of Virginia, filed the lawsuit in US District Court for the District of Columbia. It names several of the crown prince's aides and officials who were convicted in Saudi Arabia of the murder. The prosecution declared the Saudi case closed.
Hatice Cengiz Photo: Anadolu Agency / Elif Ozturk
The lawsuit charged that MbS, his co-defendants and others carried out a plot to "permanently silence Mr. Khashoggi" no later than the summer of 2018 after discovering his "plans to utilize DAWN as a platform to espouse democratic reform and promote human rights."
A lawsuit was filed in August in a US court by a former top Saudi intelligence official who accused the crown prince of sending a hit team to kill him in Canada, where he lives in exile.
Both lawsuits were brought under a law allowing US court actions against foreign officials over allegations of involvement in torture or extrajudicial killings.
- Reuters
Cathay Pacific has announced it is closing its subsidiary Cathay Dragon and cutting 8500 jobs.
Photo: 123RF
Cathay Dragon was a full service regional carrier flying mainly to mainland China and other Asian destinations.
Hong Kong-based Cathay Pacific says it hopes to retain most of Cathay Dragon's routes.
Many other airlines are on the brink of survival as the Covid-19 pandemic batters travel and tourism.
The cutbacks at Cathay Pacific are part of the airline group's attempt to reduce costs during travel restrictions that governments have imposed to limit the pandemic.
Cathay says it has already tried to cut costs by deferring aircraft deliveries, implementing special leave schemes and cutting executive pay.
It also received a $US5bn ($NZ7.6bn) bailout from the Hong Kong government in June.
But the airline group is still losing as much as $260m a month.
Staff cutbacks
Although the restructure will itself cost $284m, the airline said it will reduce costs by $64m a month in 2021.
Of the 8500 positions that will be eliminated, 5300 jobs will be from Hong Kong and a further 600 from overseas.
A total of 2400 of positions are currently unfilled because of a hiring freeze and the closure of some overseas operations.
The job losses account for about 24 percent of the Cathay Pacific's total staff.
The airline will also ask Hong Kong-based cabin and cockpit crew to agree to changes in their employment conditions "to match remuneration more closely to productivity".
Cathay said this week that it expects to run at half capacity through next year.
Dragon down
Cathay Dragon originally operated as Dragonair when it was established in 1985. It had the financial backing of Hong Kong as well as mainland Chinese investors.
Initially it operated charter flights to China and also flew to a handful of cities in South East Asia.
After adding new routes to its network, Cathay Pacific acquired a stake in the airline in 1990, and then bought it outright in 2006.
Cathay Pacific changed the brand name to Cathay Dragon in 2016.
- BBC
Pacific Islands Forum leaders have drafted a statement to be considered at the special session of the United Nations General Assembly on Covid-19 in December.
In its search for a collective response to Covid-19, the Pacific Islands Forum says there is a need to address the disproportionate impacts of the pandemic on vulnerable groups in the region.
Sione Teketeke, left, the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat's director governance and engagement with Secretary General Dame Meg Taylor. Photo: Supplied/PIFS
Forum leaders aim to send a strong message to the world when they present a statement to be considered at the special session of the United Nations General Assembly on Covid-19 in December.
The document, Protecting the Health and Well-being of the Blue Pacific, is part of the region's response to the impacts of the global pandemic.
Following the Pacific Foreign Ministers Conference last week, meeting chair Simon Kofe from Tuvalu said Forum members were working on a collective response to Covid.
And driving this is the Pacific Humanitarian Pathway for Covid-19, Kofe said.
The ministers discussed the urgent need to look into how the pandemic had impacted vulnerable groups in the region.
Kofe said these groups included the disabled, the elderly, and women and girls.
"The Pacific Humanitarian Pathway for Covid-19 continues to drive an effective Pacific-led regional response as Forum nations look for similar collective responses to the widespread cost-cutting impacts of the pandemic," he said.
"Recognising the severe health and social impacts of Covid-19 on the Blue Pacific, ministers discussed their comprehensive list of further policy considerations for strengthening collective response efforts to the pandemic."
Call for equal access to Covid-19 tests, treatments and vaccines
The ministers also highlighted the need for co-operative multilateral projects to ensure equitable access to trusted and certified Covid-19 tests, treatments and vaccines.
Kofe said this ensured they were accountable and transparent procurement and distribution methods.
Forum Secretary-General Dame Meg Taylor said regional governments had been working closely with different groups to ensure the Pacific secured the vaccine.
"And we have a very strong commitment from Australia that it would make sure that as they access that they would make it the pacific was also able to access it," she said. "I feel very confident about that."
But Dame Meg said on whether the vaccine would come from Australia or from a combination of other vaccines being developed around the world, she could not clarify.
She said at the UN Assembly in December, the Pacific leaders will emphasise they get their fair share of the vaccines.
"And this is not just through Australia and New Zealand, if there are opportunities for the vaccines from elsewhere that have been cleared, there are some Pacific island states working with different groupings to ensure that those vaccines will be available."
The Tuvalu Foreign Minister said there was this perception that the Pacific was the least affected by the pandemic in terms of infections.
But Simon Kofe said this should not affect the support to the region "because although health-wise we are not getting the virus, it has an impact on the economy particularly those countries that rely heavily on tourism.
"They require testing facilities, the health equipment to be able to allow the movement of people." Kofe said. "And the same would apply to the vaccines.
"I hope that we are not looked upon as not really needing it.
"It's something that is a need for our economies and the well-being of the people of the Pacific.
Simon Kofe is Tuvalu Foreign Minister. Photo: Supplied/PIFS
Economic recovery taskforce
Dame Meg said while there was an emphasis on the vaccines, the focus should also be on economic recovery in the Pacific.
She said this was a big part of where the Pacific is right now.
Dame Meg said the economic ministers, when they met earlier this year, had proposed the establishment of an economic recovery taskforce.
"And that has been established and we are trying to get that off the ground to try and look at what are the different opportunities that we can particularly using the digital economy," she said.
"But with that of course, we're up against the high cost of transport to get products to the market.
"In terms of shipping, there is a lot of activity going on from some of our islands still shipping primary produce to countries like Australia and New Zealand."
Kofe said Australia and New Zealand are important development partners for the Pacific.
But he said there were other areas that needed cooperation with the two countries.
"The vulnerable state of our health systems in the Pacific - if some of these countries were to have cases of Covid 19, the impacts would be devastating on the people socially and economically.
"But there are other related mattes as well besides the health sector: one area for Tuvalu is connectivity during Covid-19.
"There's a renewed focus on improving our infrastructure and internet connectivity, delivery of our service to some of the remote places.
"In some countries in the Pacific we're still under a state of emergency and there was a period where schools were closed for some time."
This had placed more pressure on other services like the internet, Kofe said.
He hoped support and cooperation from New Zealand and Australia would continue in these areas.
Women leaders forum plan
Kofe said there was a renewed focus on what the international engagement on the Pacific's priorities would look like post-pandemic.
He said consultations, coherence and listening to member states' common concerns and ideas was key to regionalism.
"As part of a need to invigorate regional commitment towards gender equality, ministers have recommended a proposal for an annual meeting of Pacific women leaders.
"This meeting would involve women leaders of heads of governments, ministerial level, heads of ministries and departments."
Kofe said the proposal came after the Forum Secretariat's decision to review the 2012 Pacific Leaders Gender Equality declarations.
Eighteen Forum members and associate member Tokelau attended last week's conference.
Protesters have come under gunfire in Nigeria's biggest city, Lagos, eyewitnesses and local media say, amid continuing anger over police brutality.
People hold hands to barricade the protesters from the Nigerian Police force as they march at Alausa Secretariat in Ikeja, Lagos State. Photo: AFP / Olukayode Jaiyeola/NurPhoto
Who opened fire and the number of casualties is unclear, but Amnesty International said it had credible reports of deaths.
An indefinite 24-hour curfew has been imposed on Lagos, the commercial hub.
Other regions are also imposing curfews after two weeks of protests that began over a now-disbanded police unit.
Eyewitnesses spoke of uniformed men opening fire in the wealthy Lekki suburb of Lagos on Tuesday evening.
Armed soldiers were seen barricading the protest site moments before the shooting, BBC Nigeria correspondent Nayeni Jones reports.
It is not yet clear how many people were injured or killed, but social media footage streamed live from the scene shows protesters attending to the wounded.
In a tweet, Amnesty International Nigeria said it had "received credible but disturbing evidence of excessive use of force occasioning deaths of protesters at Lekki toll gate in Lagos".
Amnesty International spokesman Isa Sanusi later said: "People were killed at the tollgate by security forces... we are working on verifying how many."
The Nigerian authorities have not yet commented.
How did the unrest begin?
Protests began nearly two weeks ago with calls for a much-hated police unit, the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (Sars), to be disbanded.
President Muhammadu Buhari did then dissolve the unit, which had been accused of illegal detentions, assaults and shootings, on 11 October.
But the demonstrators called for more changes in the security forces as well as reforms to the way the country is run.
Lagos state Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu has said that criminals have hijacked the protests "to unleash mayhem".
- BBC
On a windy August afternoon in 2017, Akitsinnguaq Ina Olsen was relaxing in the old harbour of Nuuk, Greenland's capital, when a Chinese icebreaker sailed unannounced into the Arctic island's territorial waters.
Nuuk is Greenland's capital. Photo: Unsplash / Aningaaq Rosing Carlsen
"I saw it by chance," Olsen, 50, told Reuters. "My first thought was: 'They're already here!' They're pretty cheeky, those Chinese."
She pulled out her phone and took a picture of the 167-metre long Chinese icebreaker Xue Long (Snow Dragon), before it turned around and disappeared.
The Chinese ship was one of a growing number of unexpected arrivals in Arctic waters as shrinking sea ice has fast-tracked a race among global powers for control over resources and waterways. Both China and Russia have been making increasingly assertive moves in the region, and after the US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo last year said now is "America's moment to stand up as an Arctic nation and for the Arctic's future," military activity is stepping up.
Greenland is a semi-autonomous part of the Kingdom of Denmark and Copenhagen runs the island's defence through its Joint Arctic Command. On several occasions since 2006, foreign vessels have turned up unexpectedly or without the necessary protocols, in waters that NATO-member Denmark aims to defend, Greenland residents and military sources in Denmark and the US told Reuters.
Copenhagen and its Arctic neighbours have tried in recent decades to keep the region what they call a "low tension" area. But each event underscores new challenges for Denmark and its allies.
The main problem: It's hard to see what's going on there.
Greenland, which US President Donald Trump offered unsuccessfully to buy from Copenhagen last year, is largely an ice sheet with a rocky coastline of 44,000 km (27,000 miles) - longer than the earth's equator. It's hidden by almost complete darkness in the winter months.
Beneath its rocks and ice are abundant resources of minerals and rare earth metals used in equipment from smartphones to electric vehicles and military jets, as well as uranium and potentially vast resources of oil and natural gas.
Greenland offers more than resources. The island, which is nearer to New York than New York is to Los Angeles, is also a strategic window onto space.
Located at Thule, the US' northernmost air base houses the 21st Space Wing's network of sensors, which provides early missile warning and space surveillance and control. Thule is one of the few places in the world with access to satellites that orbit the poles, completing coverage of the globe which is essential for weather forecasting, search-and-rescue and climate research.
"Historically the Arctic, like space, was characterised as a predominantly peaceful domain," Secretary of the US Air Force Barbara Barrett said in July when presenting America's Arctic strategy in the transcript of a webinar hosted by the Atlantic Council think tank.
"This is changing."
Several countries are building new icebreakers to increase freight traffic. China, which in 2018 declared itself a "near-Arctic" nation, has said it wants to build infrastructure and "participate in the governance of the Arctic."
China has "really gone from zero to 60 in space, very quickly," US Space Force chief General John W. Raymond told the July presentation. He said China's capabilities "threaten our access to space in the Arctic" both in Alaska and Thule.
The icebreaker that Olsen photographed in 2017, used by China's Polar Research Institute for scientific expeditions, had been invited by a researcher in Greenland, the researcher said. But it had not, as would normally be expected, applied in advance for clearance, the head of the Joint Arctic Command Kim Jorgensen told Reuters.
Also in the area taking advantage of the short Arctic summer, a multinational search-and-rescue exercise spotted the Xue Long. Danish armed forces invited it to seek permission to enter, which was granted, Jorgensen said.
China's foreign ministry did not comment on that incident but said in a statement it respects the sovereignty and jurisdiction of "the Arctic countries in the area" and is ready to make positive contributions to the peace, stability and sustainable development.
By this year, Western allies had increased their presence. US destroyer Thomas Hudner, together with Denmark's Joint Arctic Command, sailed for the first time into the deep fjord near Nuuk in August. In August and September, a US Coast Guard cutter carried out joint exercises with Danish and French naval vessels on Greenland's west coast. And last month, Denmark for the first time joined the United States, UK and Norway in a large-scale military exercise in the Barents Sea near Russia.
The Barents Sea. Photo: Unsplash / Yury Orlov
Danish Defence Minister Trine Bramsen told Reuters in a statement that Denmark wants to keep tension low in the Arctic, "but we must not be naive." Russia is trying to limit the right to free navigation in international waters, she said; Denmark is taking steps towards strengthening the Armed Forces' surveillance and presence there.
A spokesperson at the US embassy in Copenhagen said Denmark needs to strengthen its defence in the Arctic with additional investment.
Moscow's ambassador to Denmark, Vladimir Barbin, said talk of threats to freedom of navigation is a "made-up pretext" for naval exercises and Russia's activities in the Arctic are peaceful. US policy "accompanied by bellicose rhetoric, is creating a new reality and splitting Arctic states and could open (the) sluice gates for overspill of tension from the outside to the Arctic region," he told Reuters in a statement.
Below the radar
Some Arctic regions are relatively well covered by satellite and radar. But since the early 1990s, Greenland has slipped off the radar.
From 1959 to 1991 Greenland was part of the North American Aerospace Defence Command, an integrated chain of 63 radar and communication centres stretching 3000 miles from Western Alaska across the Canadian Arctic. It had four radars operating on its ice sheet. Two were dismantled; the other two were abandoned and are now slowly sinking into the ice.
Today, to monitor its vast area, Greenland has one aircraft, four helicopters and four ships. In addition to enforcing sovereignty, they handle fishing inspection and search and rescue operations. Six sleds powered by 80 dogs patrol the remote northeastern part.
In August 2006, a local couple said they spotted a submarine while they were hunting reindeer at the remote Qassit fjord in southern Greenland, said Niels Erik Sorensen, who headed Denmark's Arctic Command at the time. The couple told the police and made a drawing, which the military identified as a likely Russian model.
"This was the first sighting since the end of the Cold War," said Sorensen.
The sub was mentioned in a 2016 report on Denmark's Arctic defence, which said candidly that "there is no access to a coherent picture" of the situation in the area of responsibility for its Arctic Command. Neither the airspace nor activities below sea-level are monitored.
As there is no surveillance, it said, "it is not possible to assess whether violations of sovereignty are taking place in the air. Thus, no deliberate violations of the airspace ... have been found."
In another part of the Arctic that year, a US Coast Guard vessel accidentally discovered a joint Russian-Chinese naval exercise in Arctic waters near Kamchatka, said Paul Zukunft, who retired as Commandant of the US Coast Guard in 2018.
"This is a region where we did not have any satellite coverage," he said. "But we did have a ship up there, and they literally stumbled upon this joint naval exercise between Russia and China that otherwise would not have been known."
Russia's ambassador said there are no joint Russian-Chinese military-naval exercises in the Arctic Ocean. The Chinese foreign ministry did not comment.
The Danish government promised in 2019 to upgrade military spending in Greenland with a payment of 1.5 billion Danish crowns ($US237 million) for surveillance. Denmark's Bramsen said that was a "first step" and Copenhagen has yet to decide how to spend the money.
For now, Denmark has no satellites to monitor traffic around Greenland. In 2018, it started receiving a few satellite images a day from the European Union's Maritime Safety Agency, but they aren't always detailed enough for military purposes.
"Denmark will never be able to defend itself in the Arctic," said Steen Kjaergaard, head of the Centre for Arctic Security Studies at the Royal Danish Defence College, which does research for the defence ministry.
"The government is trying to strike a balance."
"Dark targets"
That balance is becoming increasingly delicate. For years, it's been fairly easy for foreign researchers to access the waters around Greenland and those between Greenland, Iceland and the UK, researchers and military sources say: All that's needed is to fill in a form seeking permission.
Last year, though, Danish authorities failed to approve an application from a Swiss-led group of international researchers, the government said in response to a Freedom of Information request from Reuters. The researchers were planning to travel on a Russian icebreaker, 50 Let Pobedy (50 Years of Victory) on the first-ever circumnavigation of Greenland.
Authorities let the application expire without responding.
Two sources with knowledge of the matter said they had become suspicious that the icebreaker, used for several earlier expeditions in Greenland, could serve non-scientific purposes such as tapping information from subsea fibre cables or mapping the seabed to ease access for Russian submarines.
In 2016, a Russian vessel, Yantar, which the US Navy has alleged transports submersibles that can sever and tap into cables miles beneath the ocean's surface, anchored outside Nuuk, where a subsea communications cable lands that connects Iceland and America.
Ambassador Barbin said Russia considered the icebreaker decision an "unfortunate misunderstanding," noting that this year Denmark agreed to another Russian icebreaker visiting Greenland and the Faroe Islands.
Even NATO allies arrive unannounced in these vast, dark waters.
Foreign ships usually report their arrival using the international Automatic Identification System ship-tracking system. When analysing satellite images, the Joint Arctic Command often identifies what it calls "dark targets" - objects that look like ships but can't be identified on the system.
If the Danish military sends out vessels or helicopters to the target, they often find an iceberg. When the targets have turned out to be ships, these have most often been US marine vessels that haven't reported their arrival, military sources say.
The US embassy didn't comment. Denmark's defence ministry said the allies are working to bolster information sharing.
- Reuters
The father of a pupil accused of launching an online campaign against Samuel Paty, the teacher beheaded in France, sent messages to the killer before the attack, French media report.
People look at flowers layed outside the Bois d'Aulne secondary school in homage to slain history teacher Samuel Paty. Photo: AFP or licensors
Samuel Paty, who was killed on Friday, had earlier shown controversial cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad to his pupils.
The 48-year-old father, who has not been officially named, is accused of issuing a "fatwa" against the teacher.
The brutal murder of Mr Paty, 47, has shocked France.
Tens of thousands of people took part in rallies across the country on Sunday to honour him and defend freedom of speech.
A man named as 18-year-old Abdoulakh A was shot dead by police after killing Paty on Friday.
What's the latest?
The father of the pupil is reported to have exchanged a number of text messages with Paty's killer prior to the attack close to the teacher's school in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, a north-western suburb of Paris.
He is accused, along with a preacher described by French media as a radical Islamist, of calling for Paty to be punished by issuing a so-called "fatwa" (considered a legal ruling by Islamic scholars).
Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said the two men have been arrested and are being investigated for an "assassination in connection with a terrorist enterprise", French media report.
Police launched a series of raids targeting Islamist networks on Monday, and some 40 homes were targeted. More raids are expected and President Emmanuel Macron is due to chair a meeting on Tuesday to review the police operation.
Meanwhile, Darmanin said 51 French Muslim organisations, including charities and NGOs, would be inspected by government officials and closed down if they were found to be promoting hatred.
So far, a total of 16 people have been taken into custody in the aftermath of the murder.
The killer's grandfather, parents and 17-year-old brother were detained shortly after the gruesome attack. Four school students have been detained as well.
The interior minister also said police would be interviewing about 80 people who were believed to have posted messages in support of the killing.
On Tuesday, the French government ordered a mosque to close after it shared videos on Facebook calling for action against Paty and sharing his school's address.
The Pantin mosque, just north of Paris, will close for six months on Wednesday. The mosque expressed "regret" over the videos, which it has deleted, and condemned the teacher's killing.
Darmanin said the Pantin mosque, which has more than 1,500 worshippers and is situated in a busy suburb, shared the videos on its Facebook page just days before Paty's death on Friday.
Marlène Schiappa, French junior interior minister, met police chiefs on Monday to discuss the spread of radical material online. On Tuesday, she will meet the heads of social media networks in France to discuss so called "cyber-Islamism".
Why was Samuel Paty targeted?
On Monday, anti-terrorism prosecutor Jean-François Ricard said Paty had been the target of threats since he showed the cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad during a class about freedom of speech earlier in October.
The history and geography teacher advised Muslim students to leave the room if they thought they might be offended.
Ricard said that the killer went to the school on Friday afternoon and asked students to point out the teacher. He then followed Paty as he walked home from work and used a knife to attack him.
A silent rally is being planned for Tuesday evening and President Emmanuel Macron's office said he would attend a ceremony organised with Paty's family on Wednesday.
The teacher will also be posthumously given France's highest award, the Legion d'Honneur.
Depictions of the Prophet Muhammad can cause serious offence to Muslims because Islamic tradition explicitly forbids images of Muhammad and Allah (God).
The issue is particularly sensitive in France because of the decision by satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo to publish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. A trial is currently under way over the killing of 12 people by Islamist extremists at the magazine's offices in 2015 following their publication.
France's Muslim community comprises about 10 percent of the population, one of the largest Muslim minorities in Europe.
Some French Muslims say they are frequent targets of racism and discrimination because of their faith - an issue that has long caused tension in the country.
"In France, the vast majority of Muslims are of the republican philosophy," Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer told the BBC on Tuesday.
"We want them to be mobilised, as we want everyone to be mobilised to defend democracy," he added.
- BBC
The US government has filed charges against Google, accusing the company of abusing its dominance to preserve a monopoly over internet searches and online advertising.
Photo: 123RF / Anthony Brown
The lawsuit marks the biggest challenge brought by US regulators against a major tech company in years.
It follows more than a year of investigation and comes as the biggest tech firms face intense scrutiny of their practices at home and abroad.
Google called the case "deeply flawed".
The company has maintained that its sector remains intensely competitive and that its practices put customers first.
"People use Google because they choose to - not because they're forced to or because they can't find alternatives," it said.
Monopoly concerns
The charges, filed in federal court, were brought by the US Department of Justice and 11 other states. The lawsuit focuses on the billions of dollars Google pays each year to ensure its search engine is installed as the default option on browsers and devices such as mobile phones.
Officials said those deals have helped secure Google's placeas the "gatekeeper" to the internet, owning or controlling the channels for about 80 percent of search queries in the US.
"Google has thus foreclosed competition for internet search," the lawsuit said. "General search engine competitors are denied vital distribution, scale, and product recognition - ensuring they have no real chance to challenge Google."
It added: "Google is so dominant that 'Google' is not only a noun to identify the company and the Google search engine but also a verb that means to search the internet."
The case could be the first of many in the US that challenge the dominance of big tech firms and potentially lead to their break-up.
Coming just a few weeks before the US presidential election, it has also been viewed as a move by the Trump administration to prove its willingness to challenge the influence of the sector if it gains a second term.
Officials said they had not rushed the investigation to ensure it was filed before the election.
"We're acting when the facts and the law warranted," deputy attorney general Jeffrey Rosen said, adding that the department's review of competition practices in the technology sector is continuing.
Google has faced similar claims in the European Union. It is already appealing against €8.2bn ($NZ14.73bn) in fines demanded by the European Commission which include:
in 2017, a €2.4bn ($NZ4.3bn) fine over shopping results
in 2018, a €4.3bn (4NZ7.7bn) fine over claims it used Android software to unfairly promote its own apps
in 2019, a €1.5bn ($NZ2.7bn) fine for blocking adverts from rival search engines.
- BBC
