China navy plane crashes on training mission: Xinhua

SHANGHAI: A Chinese navy plane crashed on a training mission over the eastern coastal province of Zhejiang, the official Xinhua news agency said Friday, but did not say if there were casualties.

The military plane crashed late Thursday night in a mountainous area near the city of Yiwu, it said.

Xinhua said the plane belonged to the navy´s East China Sea fleet while the military news channel of the Sina website quoted sources as saying the aircraft was a fighter-bomber JH-7 "Flying Leopard".

The fleet´s area of responsibility includes disputed islands in the East China Sea, according to state media, which Japan administers and calls the Senkaku islands but which China also claims and names the Diaoyu islands.

For more than a year since Tokyo nationalised some of the islands in September 2012, Chinese vessels and aircraft have regularly approached them, playing cat and mouse with the Japanese coastguard.

Search and rescue teams were looking for the crew of the crashed plane, Xinhua reported, but did not say how many people were on board. The JH-7 typically carries two.

 

Japan Navy chief’s message for new Indian govt.

The new government that will take charge in New Delhi next month has been given a clear message from Japan’s top-most naval official: Tokyo hopes the Indian political establishment – which under two terms of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) has generally been cautious on boosting military ties with Japan keeping China’s concerns in mind– will do “much more” to build closer relations.

Admiral Katsutoshi Kawano, Chief of Staff of Japan’s Maritime Self-Defense Force (MSDF), said his country has been “wanting very much” to re-join the bilateral Malabar sea exercises between the United States and India. Japan was last invited to join the exercise in 2007, but has subsequently been kept out after China protested the three-way exercises and suggested they were aimed at Beijing.

“We have been wanting very much to join the Malabar sea exercises, with United States and India,” Admiral Kawano said. “As I understand, the Indian Navy is keen and willing. But Indian politics is very complicated,” he said, speaking to The Hindu.

Admiral Kawano was among top naval officials from the U.S., China, Canada, France and New Zealand present at a reception Tuesday evening on board India's missile frigate INS Shivalik, which is in this northeastern Chinese port city – the headquarters of the Chinese Navy’s North Sea Fleet – to participate in multilateral maritime exercises to mark the 65th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN).

“We very frequently hold exchanges with the Indian Navy, but we want to do much more,” Admiral Kawano said.

While he did not elaborate further, the Admiral appeared to be referencing the Indian government’s caution about going forward with the trilateral exercises. After a five-year hiatus, the Indian government told Japanese officials in January, when Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visited New Delhi, that Japan would be included in exercises later this year. The change in stance comes as the UPA’s second-term comes to an end.

The Admiral’s comments about the “complicated” politics in New Delhi however suggested that from the Japanese point of view, there was still some uncertainty about how committed the Indian government was to the idea amid different prevailing views in the government.

Some officials in New Delhi acknowledge that the government may have been excessively cautious in this regard. The policy now, they say, is to actively develop and improve ties with both Japan and China. One observer noted how “tabled have turned” in the past decade, when Japan was initially focused on mending ties with China and lukewarm towards India’s proposals to enhance then-limited naval drills between coast guards.

But under Mr. Abe, ties with China have plummeted over disputed East China Sea islands and questions of wartime history.

While Admiral Kawano was hosted as a member of the 21-country Western Pacific Naval Symposium (WPNS) which was held here this week, Japan was not invited to participated in maritime exercises held on Wednesday alongside the meeting to mark the PLA Navy’s anniversary.

While the PLAN’s commander Admiral Wu Shengli met with visiting naval chiefs – he also visited India’s INS Shivalik on Tuesday – he did not hold talks with Admiral Kawano. The Chinese Defence Ministry said the reason was “a series of inappropriate actions by the Japanese government and leaders”.

Admiral Kawano said he was “very concerned” and “worried” about the implications of China’s rapidly growing military strength on the region. But Japan, he said, was taking overdue steps to boost its military – which still is called a “self-defence force” in keeping with Japan’s post-war Pacifist Constitution.

Mr. Abe wants Japan to become a “normal country” with a proper military, citing China’s rise as a prime reason. China, however, has accused him of seeking to rewrite Japan’s wartime atrocities and post-war commitments.

On Saturday, Japan broke ground on a new radar station on an island close to those disputed with China – the first such move in four decades.

“Our Navy is not small,” Admiral Kawano said. “China has 1 billion people, so it will have a sizeable navy. We plan to expand a lot more.”

Japan also wanted to expand ties with India’s “very good navy” through more exchanges and port calls.

“We are very interested to help India develop its naval technology,” he added, pointing to the recent agreement for India to purchase 15 US-2 amphibious aircraft from Japan, which will mark the first instance of Japan selling major military hardware after the Second World War.

Italian navy says nearly 900 migrants rescued

ROME: Italy has rescued 896 migrants crossing the Mediterranean by boat in the past 24 hours, the navy said on Friday, after the government warned of an "emergency" caused by a surge in new arrivals.

Three navy warships and two coast guard patrol boats took on the migrants who are now being transferred to other vessels and taken to ports in Sicily for identification, the navy said in a statement.

The anti-immigration Northern League, a small but vociferous opposition party, has called for migrants to be sent back and, along with a series of far-right parties, accuses the government of failing to act.

Interior Minister Angelino Alfano has appealed for more assistance from the European Union but migrant rights campaigners say the real fault is with failures in Italy´s immigration and asylum system.

Activists say Italy´s immigration centres are full and asylum-seekers are being put up in temporary or private facilities like hotels which are not offering adequate assistance to the new arrivals.

Ukraine facing loss of its navy

UKRAINE: Lashed by the wind as it whips across Crimea's biggest lake, a third of Ukraine's warships have nowhere to go and nothing to do but rise and fall on its choppy waves.
Russian forces have blocked their only exit point to the Black Sea by sinking two ageing vessels there, and Russia's well-armed Moskva missile cruiser can be seen treading water a short distance off the coast, with menace.
With six more of Ukraine's two dozen warships similarly blockaded and Russian forces building up their strength ahead of a referendum that seems likely to result in Crimea becoming part of Russia, Ukraine is facing the humiliating loss of its navy.
Pacing up and down a spartan room in an outbuilding overlooking a row of warships, support vessels, and tugboats, Brigade Commander Vitaly Zvyagintsev says he can't believe the Russian Black Sea Fleet with whom the Ukrainian navy regularly held exercises in the past has turned hostile.
"I have two theories," he told Reuters in an interview. "The first is that they want to prevent Ukrainian ships leaving their base and blockading them as they are us now.
The second is that they want to make sure that if and when Crimea joins Russia, Ukraine can't get its ships back."
"Georgia doesn't have a fleet any more and the same thing could now happen with Ukraine," he said gloomily, referring to the 2008 Russia-Georgia war which ended with Russian forces taking control of a fifth of Georgia's territory.
The Ukrainian navy has around 25 warships including one submarine, 15 support vessels of different categories and around 15,000 men under arms, 10,000 of whom are based on the Crimean Peninsula.
Zvyagintsev and another senior commander decline to say how many Ukrainian sailors serve on this desolate base, which nestles in a landscape dotted with little apart from wind turbines and rundown Soviet-era apartment blocks.
They say they don't have the technical equipment cutters and cranes to remove the sunken ships blocking them in. Though facing what they euphemistically describe as a "complex situation," black humour prevails.
"It's even quite satisfying that the Russian Black Sea Fleet considers my ships to be so battle-ready that they have left behind the Moskva, a ship that is designed to sink aircraft carriers," said Zvyagintsev with a wry smile.
Eight warships from Russia's Black Sea Fleet initially blockaded the Ukrainians' exit to the Black Sea here, but now that the scuttled ships prevent navigation, only the Moskva remained, he said.