International
NATO begins unprecedented air drill in ‘show of strength’
NATO will begin the largest air force deployment exercise in Europe in the alliance’s history on Monday in a display of unity toward partners and potential threats such as Russia.
The German-led “Air Defender 23” will run until June 23 and include some 250 military aircraft from 25 NATO and partner countries including Japan and Sweden, which is bidding to join the alliance.
Up to 10,000 people will participate in the drills intended to boost interoperability and preparedness to protect against drones and cruise missiles in the case of an attack on cities, airports or sea ports within NATO territory.
Presenting the plans last week, Lieutenant General Ingo Gerhartz of the German Luftwaffe said “Air Defender” was conceived in 2018 in part as a response to the Russian annexation of Crimea from Ukraine four years before, though he said it was “not targeted at anyone”.
He said that while NATO would defend “every centimetre” of its territory, the exercise would not “send any flights, for example, in the direction of Kaliningrad,” the Russian enclave bordering alliance member states Poland and Lithuania.
“We are a defensive alliance and that is how this exercise is planned,” he said.
US Ambassador to Germany Amy Gutmann said the drill would show “beyond a shadow of a doubt the agility and the swiftness of our allied force” and was intended to send a message to countries including Russia.
“I would be pretty surprised if any world leader was not taking note of what this shows in terms of the spirit of this alliance, which means the strength of this alliance, and that includes Mr Putin,” she told reporters, referring to the Russian president.
“By synchronising together, we multiply our force.”
Russia’s war on Ukraine has galvanised the Western military alliance set up almost 75 years ago to face off against the Soviet Union.
Finland and Sweden, which long kept an official veneer of neutrality to avoid conflict with Moscow, both sought membership in NATO after Russia’s February 2022 invasion.
Under NATO’s Article Five, an attack on one member is considered an attack on all.
– ‘Great power competition’ –
The exercise will include operational and tactical-level training, primarily in Germany, but also in the Czech Republic, Estonia and Latvia. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz will visit pilots based at the Schleswig-Jagel airfield in northern Germany on Friday.
General Michael Loh, director of the US Air National Guard, said NATO’s duties were at an “inflection point”.
“A great deal has changed on the strategic landscape throughout the world, especially here in Europe,” he said.
The exercise will focus on “supplementing the permanent United States presence in Europe” as well as providing training “on a larger scale than what was usually accomplished on the continent”, Loh added.
He said many of the alliance pilots would be working together for the first time.
“It’s about fostering the old relationships that we have but also building new ones with this younger generation of airmen,” he said.
“And so this is about now establishing what it means to go against a great power in a great power competition.”
Gutmann said that while there were no plans to make “Air Defender” a recurring exercise, she added: “We have no desire for this to be the last.”
Asked about potential disruption to civilian air transport during the exercise, Gerhartz said the planners would do “everything in our power” to limit flight delays or cancellations.
German authorities had warned that flight schedules could be impacted by the drills.
Felix Morka, the National Publicity Secretary
All Progressives Congress (APC) on Friday urged the Party faithful, supporters and all Nigerians to disregard the report labelling the party as a terrorist organisation by the Canadian Immigration Appeal Division [IAD), saying its false and misleading.
Morka, in a statement on Friday, stated categorically that the Canadian court did not declare APC as a terrorist organisation, contrary to highly erroneous media reports in circulation.
He clarified:
“As reported, the declaration was allegedly made in the case of Douglas Egharevba and the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, in which the Applicant (Douglas Egharevba) sought judicial review of a decision by ] which determined that the Applicant was inadmissible in Canada under its Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA).
In a decision in the matter dated June 17, 2025, Judge Phuong T.V. Ngo dismissed the application for judicial review on the ground that the Applicant was a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and that the PDP was an organization engaged in acts of subversion under paragraph 34(1)(b.1) of the IRPA making him inadmissible in Canada.
In his analysis, the Judge stated, “As such, applying the reasonableness standard of review, I cannot find the IAD’s conclusion that the Elections in question constituted a democratic process or institution and that the PDP, its members and supporters engaged in subversive acts committed against the electoral process for the improper purpose of maintaining political power to be unreasonable.”
To be clear, the only reference to APC in the entire 16-paged decision was in the introductory “Background”, Paragraph 4, where the court referenced a “Background Declaration Form in which the Applicant stated that “he was a member of the People’s Democratic Party [PDP] of Nigeria from December 1999 until December 2007, and a member of All Progressives Congress [APC] party of Nigeria from December 2007 until May 2017.”
For the record, APC was not in existence as of 2007.
The Party was registered in 2013. The Applicant’s claim of membership of APC as of 2007 is evidently false, as he could not have been a member of APC, which didn’t exist then.
For the avoidance of doubt, we dare to state that the court never made any determination on the question of terrorism in its decision. In the Judge’s own words:
“Having found that the IAD’s analysis on subversion was reasonable, this is sufficient to dismiss the application for review. I will therefore refrain from analysing the IAD’s findings on terrorism.”
Clearly, reports that the APC was declared a terrorist organisation by the Canadian court in this matter are patently erroneous, if not mischievous.
The court did not make such a declaration, and could not have done so, as that would be an unjustifiable overreach and a major breach of fair hearing, among other due process rights, given that APC was not a party to the proceedings.
Such a decision would also have been of absolute irrelevance as being made without jurisdiction, and of no extraterritorial applicability or significance. “
• Russian President Vladimir Putin
Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree banning the procurement of foreign-made clothing and related gear for the country’s armed forces starting in 2026.
According to the decree, from Jan. 1, 2026, all uniforms and other clothing items for the Russian Armed Forces must be produced by Russian companies whose manufacturing facilities are located within the country.
By 2027, the requirement would extend to fabrics and knitted materials used in production, which must be domestically manufactured.
The measure aims to entirely exclude the purchase of foreign-made clothing and materials for the needs of the military, the decree said.
Military clothing and gear include uniforms, insignia, underwear, bedding, special clothing, footwear, equipment, and sanitary items.Such supplies are procured through the Russian state defence order system.
(Xinhua/ NAN)
A train derailed in the southern Iranian province of Kerman on Friday, injuring more than two dozen people though no deaths were reported, according to local media.
“Thirty people were injured when a train derailed on the Kerman-Zarand railway path,” Babak Mahmoudi, head of the Red Crescent Society’s Relief and Rescue Organisation, told the Mehr news agency.
A statement from the public relations office of the national railway body carried by the Tasnim news agency reported that after “the timely arrival of railway technical personnel and rescue forces, all passengers safely exited the train”.
Train derailments are not uncommon in Iran, and while they do not generally result in deaths, there have been fatal disasters in the past.
In June 2022, 21 people were killed and dozens were injured when a train derailed near the central Iranian city of Tabas after hitting an excavator beside the track.
In 2016, two trains collided and caught fire in northern Iran, killing 44 people and injuring scores.
AFP
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