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Taiwan detains Chinese-crewed ship suspected of cutting undersea cable

Taiwan’s coast guard detained a cargo ship and its Chinese crew on Tuesday and said it was investigating whether the vessel had deliberately cut an undersea internet cable, in the latest possible breach of the island’s communication lines.

The vessel suspected of damaging the cable connecting Taiwan to its outlying Penghu Islands carried a “flag of convenience” and was crewed by eight Chinese nationals, Taiwan’s coast guard said in a statement.

A “flag of convenience” vessel is one that flies the flag of a country other than the country of ownership.

The ship “Hong Tai,” registered in the West African nation of Togo with Chinese funding, had been lingering near the cable in waters off the southwestern coast of Taiwan since Saturday evening and did not respond to multiple broadcasts from Taiwan’s coast guard, the statement added.

Shortly after the ship dropped anchor in the early hours of Tuesday, Taiwan’s telecom company Chunghwa Telecom detected that the cable had been disconnected.

The coast guard said it intercepted and boarded the vessel, before escorting it back to a port in the city of Tainan for investigation.

Taiwanese authorities said they could not rule out the possibility of a Chinese “gray zone operation,” a coercive or subversive act that falls below the threshold of war.

“Whether it was an intentional act of sabotage or purely an accident needs to be further probed,” the coast guard said in the statement, adding that the matter is now under investigations by prosecutors “in accordance with national security-level guidance.”

In recent years, multiple undersea telecoms cables around Taiwan have suffered suspicious damage.

In January, Taiwanese authorities said a Chinese-linked cargo vessel could have cut an international undersea cable off the island’s northern coast.

In 2023, Taiwan officials blamed Chinese ships for two incidents in which cables connecting Taiwan’s main island to its outlying islands of Matsu were damaged, causing an internet blackout. They stopped short of saying the acts were deliberate.

The incidents have raised concerns among Taiwan authorities of “gray zone” activities that could hamper the island’s internet and communications with the outside world.

Those concerns come as Taiwan has faced increasing intimidation from Beijing, which claims the self-ruled democracy as its own territory and has vowed to take control of it, by force if necessary.

They also follow a string of incidents in recent years of damage to undersea infrastructure worldwide, including communications cables. Two high-profile incidents in the Baltic Sea involved Chinese ships and remain under investigation.

According to NATO chief Mark Rutte, more than 95% of internet traffic globally is carried via undersea cables, with some 1.3 million kilometers of such cabling securing an estimated $10 trillion dollars of international trade daily.

This post appeared first on cnn.com
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Judicial pushback on Trump ‘hurting American people,’ says GOP rep leading impeachment charge

Georgia Republican Rep. Andrew Clyde, who earlier this month announced he was drafting articles of impeachment against a Rhode Island judge overseeing one of President Donald Trump’s legal challenges, condemned judges who continue to bar Trump’s agenda from being implemented. 

Clyde is working in conjunction with Rep. Eli Crane, R-Ariz., who is also preparing impeachment articles against U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer. The Georgia Republican said the real victims of judicial pushback against Trump’s policies are the American people. 

‘You’re not just hurting the president,’ Clyde told Fox News Digital. ‘You’re hurting the American people because they’re the ones who elected him, and they’re the ones who want him to do this – to exercise these specific authorities. And these judges are really denying the American people their rights.’

Clyde threatened to file articles of impeachment against District Judge John McConnell who, at the time, filed a motion ordering the Trump administration to comply with a previous restraining order. The order temporarily blocked the administration’s efforts to pause federal grants and loans. 

McConnell has since come under fire from Trump supporters and conservatives who have accused him of being a liberal activist after a 2021 video of him saying courts must ‘stand and enforce the rule of law, that is, against arbitrary and capricious actions by what could be a tyrant or could be whatnot’ resurfaced online.  

‘You have to take a moment and realize that this, you know, middle-class, White, male, privileged person needs to understand the human being that comes before us that may be a woman, may be Black, may be transgender, may be poor, may be rich, may be – whatever,’ McConnell said in the video, according to WPRI.

Clyde acknowledged that judges have their own opinions and ‘they’re certainly entitled to them, but they’re not overt and political in mentioning them,’ saying ‘they don’t want to be seen as potentially having a conflict of interest.’

‘And I think that’s very, very much the case when it comes to both Judge Engelmayer and Judge McConnell,’ the lawmaker said. 

Since taking office in January, activist and legal groups, along with elected officials, local jurisdictions and individuals, have launched more than 70 lawsuits against the administration. The legal challenges cover Trump’s executive order on birthright citizenship, the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) efforts to slash unnecessary government spending, and Trump’s removal of various federal employees. 

With regard to the specific suits over DOGE’s actions, Clyde told Fox News Digital he expects the president to ‘prevail on the merits of his case.’

‘I think the president will certainly prevail on the merits of his case. He has the authority under Article II of the Constitution,’ Clyde said. ‘But yet for the entire time of the restraining order, the judge will have prevented this duly elected authority from being exercised by the president. And also, they will have prevented the American people from dealing with waste, fraud and abuse in their government.’

Clyde said he hopes other members of Congress join his and Crane’s efforts to continue holding judges accountable, saying those barring Trump’s agenda from being implemented ‘need to understand that they’re not going to get away with it.’

‘They can’t just stop the president from doing what the Constitution gives him the authority to do, and the people have given him the authority to do,’ Clyde said. 

Fox News Digital’s Elizabeth Elkind and Diana Stancy contributed to this report. 

This post appeared first on FOX NEWS
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EXCLUSIVE: Trump warns major Dem against move that could cost voters trillions

President Donald Trump’s White House is warning that a key Democrat’s move to end the president’s energy national emergency would kill hundreds of jobs and cost $3.6 trillion in higher prices and lost energy output. 

‘Tim Kaine wants to impoverish Americans. President Donald Trump’s executive order brings America into the future and unleashes prosperity. Senator [Tim] Kaine wants to cost the economy trillions and risk losing nearly a million jobs,’ said deputy press secretary Anna Kelly in an exclusive statement to Fox News Digital. 

The White House’s statement is in response to Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., and ranking member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., filing a joint resolution to end Trump’s energy national emergency and teeing up a vote on the Senate floor this week.

Ending the energy emergency would lead to the loss of 869,800 jobs, according to a White House document obtained by Fox News Digital. 

The White House emphasized that ending the emergency would usher back in the Biden administration’s policies. The document stressed that under those policies, during Biden’s first two years, families spent an additional average of $10,000 in energy costs, citing a study published by the Committee to Unleash Prosperity. 

The document cited that estimates of liquefied natural gas growth in the new administration were projected to bring in half a million jobs annually and boost U.S. GDP by $1.3 trillion through 2040, per a study by S&P Global in December. 

‘The Trump Administration is living in a fantasy land,’ Kaine and Heinrich told Fox News Digital in a joint statement. ‘Energy demand is high and only getting higher, which is why it’s great that America is producing more energy than at any other point in our history. Decreasing the supply of American-made energy when demand is high is the quickest way to raise prices—and that’s exactly what President Trump’s sham energy emergency will do. By tampering with the market to favor some forms of energy over others and making it easier for fossil fuel companies to take Americans’ private property, Trump’s emergency declaration will benefit Big Oil, but leave American consumers with fewer choices and higher bills.’

‘At the same time, Trump’s decision to illegally halt investments appropriated by Congress in energy projects that are creating jobs in communities across the country is costing Americans valuable, good-paying jobs,’ they added. 

The two Democrats unveiled their privileged legislation against Trump’s order earlier this month.

‘Senate Democrats are yet again attempting to block President Trump’s efforts to secure cheaper, more reliable energy—just when America needs it most,’ Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources Chairman Mike Lee, R-Utah, said in a statement to Fox News Digital.

‘Their message to families is clear: pay more, expect less. Luckily, President Trump is committed to unleashing American energy and rescuing the country from the energy crisis that they have perpetuated. Senate Republicans won’t let Democrats delay and obstruct any longer and will ensure the President has the tools necessary to deliver the results the American people expect.’

Kaine and Heinrich’s introduction of the resolution will force a vote on the Senate floor, which is expected to occur on Wednesday. 

The measure is likely to fail, with Republicans vocally supportive of Trump’s energy agenda. The GOP has a 53-seat majority in the upper chamber.

This post appeared first on FOX NEWS
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Who is Daniel ‘Razin’ Caine? Air Force general tapped for top advisor role in Pentagon upheaval

The Trump administration’s Friday evening shakeup at the Pentagon saw the firing of six senior officers as Secretary Pete Hegseth made good on promises to upend the agency’s leadership. 

President Donald Trump and Hegseth fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. C.Q. Brown, and replaced him with a relatively unknown figure in Lt. Gen. Dan Caine. 

The choice of Caine shows the president’s preference for irregular warfare and special operations: Caine was among a group of military leaders who met with the president in December 2018 at the Al Asad airbase in Iraq. Trump was there to deliver a Christmas message and hear from commanders on the ground, and there Caine told Trump they could defeat ISIS quickly with a surge of resources and a lifting of restrictions on engagement. 

”We’re only hitting them from a temporary base in Syria,” Trump said Caine told him. ”But if you gave us permission, we could hit them from the back, from the side, from all over – from the base that you’re right on, right now, sir. They won’t know what the hell hit them.” 

‘It was a different message than [Trump] had gotten from leadership at the Pentagon, and I think that really made an impression,’ according to Rob Greenway, a former National Security Council official who was on the trip and has known Caine since they graduated from Virginia Military Institute together. 

Trump, on picking Caine Friday, lauded him as ‘an accomplished pilot, national security expert, successful entrepreneur, and a ‘warfighter’ with significant interagency and special operations experience.’

He’d plucked the retired general from relative obscurity to serve as his senior military adviser after accusing his predecessor, C.Q. Brown of pushing a ‘woke’ agenda at the Pentagon. Brown had been behind a 2022 memo laying out diversity goals for the Air Force. 

Caine does not meet the position’s prerequisites, such as being a combatant commander or service chief, and will require a waiver to be confirmed to the position. 

But the choice leaves Pentagon watchers curious on what direction Caine will take at his new high-level post. 

‘Caine hasn’t written much, we’re sort of trying to read the tea leaves here,’ said Mark Cancian, a senior defense advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. 

Greenway called Caine ‘an absolutely inspired pick, a tremendous officer with a remarkable background, and he has the confidence in the president.’ 

Trump was undoubtedly attracted to his reputation as an aggressive fighter pilot that earned him the nickname ‘Razin’ Caine. But Caine’s nontraditional path throughout the military ranks and the business world was surely a selling point, according to Greenway.

‘It’s a priority of the president to have the Pentagon pass an audit, to have someone who knows what a balance sheet looks like, and can hopefully help the department get to the right side of it.’

The Pentagon has failed seven straight audits and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has set its sights on budget cuts at DOD. 

Caine, an F-16 pilot by background, spent time as the top military liaison to the CIA, an Air National Guard officer and regional airline founder in Texas. He was a White House fellow at the Agriculture Department and a counterterrorism specialist on the White House’s Homeland Security Council.

From 2018-19, he was deputy commander of Special Operations Joint Task Force – Operation Inherent Resolve, which has been fighting the Islamic State since 2014, though little is publicly known about his role in that operation. The role of airstrikes, however, grew during that time, including clandestine ones, and Trump designated airstrike approval to commanders rather than the White House. 

But critics say Caine, like Hegseth, does not have the command experience for the role as Trump’s top military advisor. 

‘Trump sees [the role] as somebody who has the ability to move forces and direct funding, and it just doesn’t work that way. That’s not what the role is. So now you have a president who has people around him who are his principal advisors, [Hegseth] and this new chairman, who really have limited qualifications at the more senior levels,’ said Gene Moran, former advisor to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs and founder of lobbying firm Capitol Integration. 

The administration also relieved Adm. Lisa Franchetti, chief of naval operations – who Hegseth believed had been given the job because she was a woman – Gen. Jim Slife, Air Force vice chief of staff, and the judge advocates general of the Army, Navy and Air Force. 

‘If naval operations suffer, at least we can hold our heads high. Because at least we have another first! The first female member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff – hooray,’ Hegseth wrote in his 2024 book, ‘The War on Warriors.’ 

‘The Navy, in particular, has been unable to complete a procurement program on time and on budget and notoriously has decommissioned more ships than it’s made,’ said Greenway. ‘So I think the message there was accountability has to be restored.’ 

The switch-up of judge advocates general could be the biggest signal of policy change, where Hegseth has looked to grant greater authority to forces on the ground without having to worry about legal constraints. 

The judge advocates general, the top uniformed attorneys of the Army, Air Force and Navy, oversee the legal advisors for each branch and the defense counsel and prosecutors for courts-martial. 

Hegseth has spoken out against what he sees as an ‘obsessive’ prosecution of war crimes. ‘He wants to give the benefit of the doubt to the warfighter, if there’s not, you know, an absolute massacre,’ one source familiar with the defense secretary’s thinking said.  

‘Ultimately, we want lawyers who give sound constitutional advice and don’t exist to attempt to be roadblocks to anything that happens,’ the Pentagon chief told Fox News on Sunday. 

‘Hegseth has said the troops should do what they need to achieve victory and not feel constrained by the lawyers,’ said Cancian. ‘But then you could have some actions that are contrary to international law or treaties, that could make a huge controversy, both domestically and with our allies.’

But the advancement of Caine, with his covert operations background, and the removal of the top lawyers would signal a new focus on covert operations – a push that would line up with new terrorism designations for cartels in Latin America – and could set the military up for covert counter-narcotics strikes south of the border. 

‘We could definitely see a change in troop postures in some of these regions we’ve been in for too long, and new missions in Mexico going after the cartels,’ another Hegseth ally said. 

This post appeared first on FOX NEWS
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Deciphering Donald Trump: How his rhetoric sends different messages

Among the critics who posted on X Sunday after my Fox News show was one who made an argument that surprised me.

Don’t pay attention to what President Trump says, this person wrote. Pay attention to what he does.

Now that’s a novel idea. What the President of the United States says is unimportant and should be ignored. I doubt that this person applied the same standard to President Joe Biden.

And yet there’s an interesting thought exercise here. Trump says a lot of things, especially since he talks to journalists at length virtually every day. Not everything rises to the same level of seriousness. I say this as someone who has interviewed him many times over the years, including our sitdown two weeks before the election.

Sometimes the president says things just to rile up the press. Sometimes he says things that aren’t true, or are exaggerations or taken out of context.

But more often he says the quiet part out loud, signaling what he plans to do or insulting those with whom he disagrees, the kind of stuff that reporters used to have to attribute to unnamed aides, and he does it in front of the cameras.

At the top of the list right now would be Ukraine. Donald Trump is a smart guy, he knows that Russia invaded its much smaller sovereign neighbor with the aim of wiping it off the map and putting it under Moscow’s control. But he has chosen to blame Ukraine for starting the war, and to insult Volodomyr Zelenskyy as a dictator when everyone knows that label perfectly describes Vladimir Putin.

The most charitable interpretation is that Trump believes the only way to end the war is through an alliance with Putin for a settlement that could then be sold to Ukraine. (The United States voted with Russia yesterday against a U.N. resolution condemning the invasion.) 

Of course, Trump has cozied up to Putin for a long time. During their Helsinki summit in the first term, the president accepted Putin’s denial that the Kremlin had hacked into Democratic emails, despite the evidence gathered by his own intelligence agencies.

Trump has repeated again and again that Zelenskyy bears responsibility for the war that just marked its three-year anniversary. Is this aimed at the American public or at Moscow or Kyiv (to put pressure on Ukraine)?  

Journalists keep asking Trump aides and Republican supporters if they agree with the president’s blame-Ukraine approach, and many have simply tried to deflect the question.

In my ‘Media Buzz’ interview with Jason Miller, the longtime Trump confidante and senior adviser to the Trump transition team, he deftly avoided contradicting the president.

‘What President Trump has done,’ he said, ‘is he has forced the sides to the table to actually stop the killing and come up with a peace deal. For the last several years. Joe Biden has sat there completely incompetent, doing nothing but fueling and funding more killing and more death.’ 

When I tried again, Miller said of his boss that ‘his legacy really will be as a peacemaker.’

I came back a third time, quoting conservative radio host Mark Levin as saying, ‘This is sick. Ukraine didn’t start this war. What were they supposed to do? Roll over and play dead? They’re just trying to survive.’ 

And I asked: ‘Why is President Trump blaming Zelenskyy for the beginning of the war?’

‘Well, Zelenskyy has a lot of blame. I think that would go to this as well. But again, you want to look into the past, I want to look into the future, what we do to save lives.’ 

Jason Miller was doing his job. A similar scenario played out on the other Sunday shows.

On ‘Fox News Sunday,’ my colleague Shannon Bream asked Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth whether it was fair to say that Russia was unprovoked when it attacked Ukraine. He replied that it was ‘fair to say it’s a very complicated situation.’

Stressing that Trump wants to end the war, Hegseth said: ‘‘You’re good, you’re bad; you’re a dictator, you’re not a dictator; you invaded, you didn’t.’ It’s not useful. It’s not productive.’

Another part of my Sunday interview also shed light on Trump’s use of language.

The president had told reporters: ‘I think we should govern the District of Columbia, make it absolutely flawlessly beautiful.’ 

The District has enjoyed home rule for 50 years, although Congress retains the power to overturn its laws. The capital, like most cities, grapples with crime, poverty and other urban ills.

I asked point blank: Is the president ready to end home rule in D.C.?

Miller said Mayor Muriel Bowser is largely doing a good job, adding: ‘I think part of the reason why President Trump won is because he said he was going to clean up our cities to make them safe. Of course he’s going to put pressure on the District of Columbia.’

So Trump’s words in this instance had a different meaning, as a warning signal to the District.

Oh, I also wondered why Trump keeps referring to Canada as the 51st state when that’s not going to happen.

‘The president’s having a little bit of fun with it. But he’s also making some very serious points.’

My online detractor was wrong. It’s important to pay attention to the president’s words, especially for the media, which have a tendency to overreact to some of his language. The challenge is deciphering when he’s dead serious, when he’s sending signals, and when he’s just trolling. 

This post appeared first on FOX NEWS
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Highway overpass collapses, killing at least four construction workers in South Korea

Broadcaster YTN aired dashcam footage showing the towering deck of the overpass suddenly collapsing and slamming onto the road below.

The massive road network is still being built and no passenger cars were around the construction site.

Acting Interior and Safety Minister Koh Ki-dong urgently ordered relevant agencies, including the fire and police departments, to “mobilize all available equipment and personnel for rescue efforts, while ensuring the safety of firefighters,” according to the ministry’s press release.

This post appeared first on cnn.com
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Crypto Market Recap: Bybit Suffers US$1.5 Billion Hack, Saylor’s Strategy Buys More Bitcoin

Here’s a quick recap of the crypto landscape for Monday (February 24) as of 9:00 p.m. UTC.

Bitcoin and Ethereum price update

Bitcoin (BTC) is currently trading at US$94,006.38 reflecting a decrease of 1.9 percent over the past 24 hours. The day’s trading range has seen a high of US$95,658 and a low of US$93,775.

Ethereum (ETH) is priced at US$2,640.58, marking a decline of 5.58 percent over the same period. The cryptocurrency reached an intraday high of US$2,678 and a low of US$2,633.

Altcoin price update

  • Solana (SOL) is currently valued at US$151.06, down 9.8 percent over the past 24 hours. SOL experienced a high of US$158 and a low of US$150 during Monday’s trading session.
  • XRP is trading at US$2.43, reflecting a 4.8 percent decrease over the past 24 hours. The cryptocurrency recorded an intraday high of US$2.48 and a low of US$2.40.
  • Sui (SUI) is priced at US$3, showing a 9.9 percent decrease over the past 24 hours. It achieved a daily high of US$3.19 and a low of US$2.98.
  • Cardano (ADA) is trading at US$0.7176, reflecting a 6.4 percent decrease over the past 24 hours. Its highest price on Monday was US$0.7327, with a low of US$0.7133.

Crypto news to know

Hackers steal US$1.5 billion from Bybit in ‘biggest digital heist ever’

Cryptocurrency exchange Bybit has suffered what is believed to be the largest digital theft in history, losing US$1.5 billion worth of Ethereum to hackers this past Friday (February 21).

The Dubai-based platform reported that the attacker gained access to one of its Ethereum wallets during a routine transfer between cold and warm storage, successfully moving the funds to an unknown address.

Bybit CEO Ben Zhou has reassured users that the exchange remains solvent and has enough funds to cover losses, ensuring all customers are fully reimbursed.

However, the platform has experienced a surge in withdrawal requests, causing processing delays. In response, Bybit has offered a 10 percent reward — up to US$140 million — for assistance in recovering the stolen funds.

Some security analysts suspect the involvement of North Korean state-backed hacker group Lazarus, known for previous large-scale crypto heists.

Ethena raises US$100 million for institutional token

Bloomberg reported on Monday that Ethena, the issuer of stablecoin USDe and token ENA, has raised US$100 million in a private sale of ENA to fund a new token aimed at institutional investors.

This new token will be built on Ethena’s blockchain and will be similar to USDe, but with added features to comply with financial regulations, potentially paving the way for greater institutional adoption of Ethena’s products.

Strategy’s Bitcoin stockpile nears 500,000

Strategy (NASDAQ:MSTR), formerly MicroStrategy, completed the sale of US$2 billion worth of convertible senior notes due in 2030 in a private offering to institutional investors, the company announced on Monday.

As expected, CEO Michael Saylor also disclosed the acquisition of 20,356 additional Bitcoin for roughly US$1.99 billion, bringing the company’s total holdings to 499,096 acquired for US$33.1 billion, or US$66,357 each. Rounding the current Bitcoin price down to US$94,000, the holdings are worth about US$46.92 billion.

Nasdaq seeks to list Hedera ETF

The Nasdaq has applied to list an exchange-traded fund (ETF) designed to hold the Hedera Network’s native token, HBAR, according to a 19b-4 form filed with the US Securities and Commission Exchange on Monday.

The token is one of a very small number of cryptocurrencies starting the week in the black, up 0.3 percent in 24 hours to US$0.21 at the time of this writing. If approved, the ETF would be managed by Canary Capital, which filed to list a proposed Canary HBAR ETF in November.

Citadel Securities eyes increased crypto market involvement

Sources for Bloomberg said financial firm Citadel Securities is looking to increase its involvement in the cryptocurrency market by joining the roster of approved market makers on major exchanges like Coinbase, Binance and Crypto.com. If approved, the firm plans to set up international teams, according to people familiar with the matter.

Testing begins for Ethereum’s Pectra upgrade

Ethereum will initiate the testing phase of its latest upgrade, Pectra, on the Holesky testnet at epoch 115968 on Monday, marking another advancement in Ethereum’s ongoing development.

The Pectra upgrade is designed to enhance the network’s scalability, security and overall efficiency, addressing some of the current limitations of the Ethereum blockchain such as transaction fees and network congestion.

This testing phase will help developers identify potential issues before the upgrade is deployed on the Ethereum mainnet, which is scheduled for later this year.

Securities Disclosure: I, Giann Liguid, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.

Securities Disclosure: I, Meagen Seatter, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.

This post appeared first on investingnews.com
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Australia found out about Chinese navy live-fire drills through a commercial pilot, official says

Australia learned about Chinese live-fire naval drills off the country’s coast that forced dozens of flights to be diverted via an alert from a commercial pilot, authorities said on Monday.

The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy’s unprecedented show of firepower in waters between Australia and New Zealand has raised alarm in both countries in recent days as a clearer picture emerges of how much warning Beijing gave about the exercises.

The first notice of the Chinese drills in the Tasman Sea came in a radio transmission on an emergency frequency monitored by a Virgin Australia passenger jet on Friday, according to Australian officials.

The Virgin pilot relayed the information to Australian aviation authorities, who then issued a “hazard alert” via air traffic control, Airservices Australia CEO Rob Sharp told a parliamentary hearing.

Airservices Australia Deputy CEO Peter Curran told the hearing that at least 49 aircraft diverted their flight paths on Friday to avoid the flotilla of three Chinese warships conducting the exercise.

The New Zealand and Australian governments said China did not issue a Notice to Airmen (NOTAM) about the drills, which they said took place in two rounds in the Tasman Sea on Friday and Saturday.

A NOTAM tells aviators about airspace changes and can be issued up to seven days before events like the live-fire drills, according to US authorities.

China’s Ministry of Defense said Sunday that the exercises conducted in international waters complied with international law and did not affect aviation safety. It also slammed Australia for “hyping up” the drills and making “unreasonable accusations.”

Though the drills were held in international waters, Beijing could have given Australia and New Zealand a heads-up much sooner in the interests of safety, naval experts said.

Defense analyst Jennifer Parker, a former Australian naval officer, wrote in a blog post Sunday that the Chinese ships did not violate international law and were well within their rights to conduct the live fire drills where they did, in the open ocean.

“It’s not aggressive, it’s just what warships do on the high seas,” Parker wrote. “There is no legal obligation for foreign warships to notify coastal nations over 300 nautical miles away about live firing activities on the high seas.”

But Parker said the Chinese ships may not have followed best practices, under which live-fire drills should maintain a safe distance from commercial flight routes.

“Indications from flight diversions suggest that the Chinese warships may have been too close to civilian air transit routes. If this is the case, it represents poor practice that warrants diplomatic discussion,” she wrote.

Analyst Carl Schuster, a former US Navy captain, was blunter.

“Forcing aircraft to divert from their internationally recognized routes is considered unsafe and irresponsible,” Schuster said.

Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Saturday that while China’s drills complied with international law, Beijing “could have given more notice.”

Judith Collins, the defense minister of New Zealand, said China’s warning should have come hours earlier.

“There was a warning to civil aviation flights, that was basically a very short amount of notice, a couple of hours, as opposed to what we would consider best practice, which is 12-24 hours’ notice, so that aircraft are not having to be diverted when they’re on the wing,” she told public broadcaster Radio New Zealand (RNZ).

‘Standard procedure’

By Tuesday, the Chinese ships had moved to about 160 miles east of Hobart on the southern island of Tasmania, and Australian and New Zealand defense forces were monitoring their movements, the Australian Defense Ministry said.

Australian officials said Monday that flight diversions continued throughout the weekend but did not cause any major disruptions to air traffic.

In such circumstances it’s best to exercise caution, analysts said.

“Airliners listen out on the standby radio to the 121.5 international distress frequency. The naval group will contact the aircraft on 121.5 before it reaches a ’threat’ range and demand it alter course to avoid overflight,” said Byron Bailey, a former Emirates airline senior captain.

“It is standard procedure not to overfly a naval battle group,” he said.

Bailey recounted how, when flying a 777 airliner over the Persian Gulf, a US Navy aircraft carrier strike group once ordered him to alter his course to avoid going over the US flotilla.

The PLA Navy ships – a frigate, a Type 055 destroyer and a replenishment vessel – had been sailing down the coast of Australia since mid-February, according to the Australian Defence Force.

Collins, the New Zealand defense minister, said the Chinese naval exercises were unprecedented in those waters.

“We’ve certainly never seen a task force or task group of this capability undertaking that sort of work,” Collins told RNZ.

While the exercises may be a first for China in the southern waters, such maneuvers are standard practice around the world, including by Australia and its allies in the South China Sea.

“Australia does this on our deployments, and we should avoid overreacting,” said Parker, the Australian analyst.

That fact was noted by Chinese netizens on social media, where the PLA Navy deployment has received significant attention.

“Our 055 went to Australia for live-fire exercises, and they conducted them twice,” one person wrote on X-like platform Weibo, referring to the powerful Chinese surface vessel in a post that hinted at tensions around the South China Sea’s contested Paracel Islands, which Beijing calls the Xisha Islands.

“We should have used this way to communicate long ago. I think the Australian side will understand! If you intrude my Xisha Islands, I will come to your doorstep.”

But Bailey, the former Emirates senior captain and a former Australian air force fighter pilot, said it was China that was being provocative.

The PLA Navy drills were “unprofessional and deliberately disrespectful,” he said. “The PLAN was just ‘giving the finger’ to Australia and New Zealand.”

This post appeared first on cnn.com
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Metallurgical Drilling Confirms Historic Grades at the Byro REE / Li Project

Octava Minerals Limited (ASX:OCT) (“Octava” or the “Company”), a Western Australia focused explorer of the new energy metals antimony, REE’s, Lithium and gold, is pleased to report that laboratory assays have now been received from the two metallurgical core drillholes at the Byro REE’s / Li Project in the Gascoyne Region of Western Australia.

Highlights

  • Assay results received from metallurgical drilling at the Byro REE & Li Project confirm historic REE / Li mineralisation intercepts.
  • Intercepts of over 50m from surface with grades including 500ppm Total Rare Earth Oxides (TREO) with 20% magnetic REE’s, 375ppm Lithium Oxide (Li2O) and 523ppm Vanadium Pentoxide (V2O5).
  • Mineralisation has been intercepted in historic drilling over 30km of strike.
  • The drilling was to provide fresh samples of the Byro black shale to undergo metallurgical extraction testwork.

Octava’s Managing Director Bevan Wakelam stated;

”Octava is investigating the potential for Australia’s first, large scale, low cost sedimentary basin deposit of REE’s, lithium and base metals. Metal extraction from black shales is a proven, low- cost technology used in other operations around the world. We will commence initial metallurgical testwork to determine the viability of extracting these metals from the black shale at Byro. We look forward to providing further updates as this work proceeds.

The Byro Project is located on the Byro Plains of the Gascoyne Region, Western Australia, 220km south-east of Carnarvon and consists of two granted Exploration Licences – E 09/2673 and E 09/2674 – totalling 798 km2. The Byro Project also has Native Title agreements in place. Nearby infrastructure includes accessibility to a commercial port (Geraldton) and power from the NW gas pipeline and future potential access to Western Australian government proposed green energy sites.

Two metallurgical HQ3 coreholes were drilled for a total of 204m. The holes were drilled adjacent to previously drilled RC holes to confirm mineralisation and to provide fresh sample material for metallurgical testwork.

The Byro project lies at the centre of the Permian Byro Sub-basin of the Carnarvon Basin. The Byro Group hosts sedimentary packages of sandstones, siltstones and mudstones, including black shales and coal seams. The dominant unit in the tenure is the Bulgadoo shale, which consists of banded carbonaceous shale and arenite, containing beds of enriched pyrite, bivalves and bryozoans.

The black shales in the Byro sub basin appear to have formed a metal sink that contains large volumes of anomalous REE, Li and base metals. The source of the metals at Byro is likely the Archean basement rocks of the Yilgarn Craton located ~40km to the east. The REE host rocks at Byro have been transported to their current location, unlike typical REE clay exploration targets in Australia which are formed in situ, from weathered granitic basement rocks.

Permian Black shales are known worldwide for their potential to host enriched poly-metallic deposits. These deposits contain considerable volumes of lower concentration resources of base metals, rare earths, lithium and other strategic minerals. They offer the opportunity for large-scale, low-cost mining operations capable of supplying the metals for a number of years. Octava is examining the black shales at the Byro project for the same potential.

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South Korea’s president is fighting to stay in office and out of prison after martial law fiasco. Here’s what happens next

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol faces a string of legal battles as the suspended leader fights to save his political career – and avoid prison – following his brief imposition of martial law last year.

Yoon’s December 3 decree threw South Korea into turmoil when he banned political activity and sent troops to the heart of the nation’s democracy – only to reverse the move within six hours after lawmakers forced their way into parliament and voted unanimously to block it.

The decree was swiftly met by widespread public anger, reviving painful memories of strongmen leaders who curtailed rights and freedoms in the country after the Korean War until its transition to democracy in the late 1980s.

Even several members of Yoon’s own conservative ruling party turned on him. On December 14, parliament voted to impeach him, suspending his presidential powers.

But a defiant Yoon has vowed to “fight to the end,” as the country’s top court reviews his impeachment and as he also appears in a separate criminal trial for insurrection.

Here’s what we know.

What’s happening in Yoon’s impeachment trial?

South Korea’s Constitutional Court will decide whether to remove Yoon from office permanently or reinstate him. It is now reviewing his impeachment by parliament after hearing weeks of testimony by high-ranking current and former officials.

Lawyers for parliament have argued that if Yoon is reinstated, he could try to impose martial law again or undermine constitutional institutions.

Yoon has argued that he had a right as president to issue his martial law decree. The former prosecutor-turned-politician said his move was justified by political deadlock and threats from “anti-state forces” sympathetic to North Korea.

Lawyers for Yoon have also argued that he never actually intended to stop parliament from operating, even though the order was publicly declared, and troops and police were deployed to the legislature.

Yoon also sent troops to the National Election Commission and later said the decree was necessary, in part, because the body had been unwilling to address concerns over election hacking, a claim rejected by election officials.

A ruling in the impeachment case is expected in March.

If the Constitutional Court upholds Yoon’s impeachment, he would become the shortest-serving president in South Korea’s democratic history, having taken office in May 2022. The country must then hold new presidential elections within 60 days.

If Yoon’s impeachment is upheld, it would also remove his immunity from most criminal charges.

What other charges does he face?

Prosecutors indicted Yoon on separate criminal charges related to his martial law decree of leading an insurrection. He was arrested in January after a weeks-long standoff between investigators and his presidential security team. He has since been held in solitary confinement at a detention center near Seoul.

Insurrection is one of the few criminal charges from which a South Korean president does not have immunity. It is punishable by life imprisonment or death, although South Korea has not executed anyone in decades.

The indictment alleges that Yoon’s imposition of martial law was an illegal attempt to shut down the National Assembly and arrest politicians and election authorities. Yoon has said his decree was intended as a temporary warning to the liberal opposition and that he always planned to respect lawmakers’ will if they voted to lift the measure.

Yoon’s lawyers have also repeatedly argued that his arrest was politically motivated and that the warrant was invalid because of flaws in the way the investigation was conducted.

The next preliminary hearing for the criminal proceedings is set for the end of March.

Yoon’s insurrection trial is expected to take months. A verdict could be reached by late 2025 or early 2026, according to legal analysts.

Meanwhile, the court is reviewing a request by Yoon’s lawyers to revoke his arrest order and release him from custody, though such challenges are rarely successful.

What important details did we learn from Yoon’s trial?

The impeachment proceedings offered dramatic details illustrating how Yoon and the military enacted the ultimately short-lived martial law order.

South Korea’s former Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun said it was he, not the president, who first proposed the ill-fated brief period of military rule.

Kim said he wrote the controversial decree himself, which included a sweeping ban of political activity across South Korea.

“All political activities, including the activities of the National Assembly, local councils, and political parties, political associations, rallies and demonstrations, are prohibited,” the martial law decree said.

Both Yoon and Kim strongly denied ordering military commanders to “drag out” lawmakers inside the National Assembly. However, former Army Commander Kwak Jong-geun consistently testified he received direct orders from Yoon himself to forcibly remove assembly members.

Kim and lawyers for Yoon maintained the order was misheard – arguing the Korean word for lawmakers was confused with the similar sounding word for agents or soldiers.

Former first deputy director of the National Intelligence Service (NIS) Hong Jang-won also repeatedly testified Yoon told him to take advantage of martial law. He said Yoon described it as an opportunity to “arrest” a list of 14 political and legal adversaries and to “clean everything up” – which Yoon denies.

Is that all of Yoon’s legal troubles?

Possibly not: Yoon also faces the prospect of another legal battle.

Police have been investigating Yoon on suspicion of the special obstruction of public duty since around January 3, a police spokesperson told Reuters on February 22.

The crime is punishable by up to five years in jail.

A South Korean court issued an arrest warrant for Yoon on December 31 in the criminal investigation over his martial law decree. The warrant, however, was not executed until January 15 after Yoon did not comply, remaining holed up in his heavily fortified presidential compound as the Presidential Security Service blocked investigators for days.

In the months since Yoon’s martial law declaration, South Korea has been in political disarray with parliament also voting to impeach its prime minister and acting president Han Duck-soo. Finance minister Choi Sang-mok is now acting president.

Additional reporting by Reuters and the Associated Press.

This post appeared first on cnn.com
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