22/05/2025

THURSDAY | MAY 22, 2025

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Trump unveils ‘Golden Dome’ missile shield

UK charges third suspect over fire plot LONDON: A third man, a Ukrainian, has been charged over a series of arson attacks targeting properties linked to British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, police said yesterday. Petro Pochynok, 34, was charged with conspiracy to commit arson with intent to endanger life, the Metropolitan police said after two others – a Romanian and a Ukrainian – were also charged over the blazes. The charges come after three separate incidents in London – a car fire on May 8 and two separate blazes at homes on May 11 and 12 – all linked to properties associated with the prime minister. As part of the same investigation, a 21-year old Ukrainian, Roman Lavrynovych, was charged last week with three counts of arson with intent to endanger life. On Tuesday, a second man, Romanian Stanislav Carpiuc, 26, appeared in court charged with conspiracy to commit arson with intent to endanger life. Both men were remanded in custody and will appear in court on June 6. Police said on May 12 they had launched an investigation into a fire that caused damage outside Starmer’s former family home in Kentish Town, north London on the night of May 11. Starmer still owns the property, UK media said, but he moved into the prime minister’s official residence in Downing Street after his Labour party’s election victory last year. Police said they were also investigating a another fire at a property linked to Starmer on May 11 and a car that was set alight on May 8. “Due to the property having previous connections with a high-profile public figure, officers from the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command have led the investigation into the fires,” police said. – AFP SYDNEY: Fast-moving floodwaters rose yesterday in eastern Australia, flooding homes and leaving residents stranded on their roofs overnight, as authorities warned more rain was expected in coming days. Storms have already dumped more than four months of rain in just two days in parts of New South Wales, engulfing homes, businesses and roads in muddy waters, authorities said. “We have a situation in which the rain has been falling quite heavily and hard and it has not been moving away,” said the state’s Emergency Minister Jihad Dib. Taree, about 300km north of Sydney, is a key area of concern for emergency services after 415mm of rain lashed the town since Monday, more than four times the mean monthly rainfall for May. Authorities said water levels of a river in Taree surged past a previous record in 1929, reaching 6.3m yesterday. The rising floodwaters left locals stuck on roofs, with rescuers unable to reach them due to the bad weather. Taree resident Holly Pillotto, who was among those stranded on an upper level of her home, said she was desperate for assistance as floodwaters continued to rise. “Our neighbours on the back verandah here are also stranded. It’s a really dangerous spot to be,” she told Australia’s Channel Nine. Dib said emergency services were “throwing everything we have into” reaching those affected. State Emergency Service Chief Superintendent Dallas Byrnes said the situation was “incredibly dynamic and escalating”, with more than 150 flood rescues conducted overnight. “We’ve got a lot of people getting rescued from rooftops and from upper levels of houses,” Byrnes told the national broadcaster ABC. – AFP Flood-hit residents stranded on roofs

o China expresses serious concern over global stability

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump has announced new details and initial funding for his “Golden Dome” missile shield system, with geopolitical rival China accusing Washington yesterday of undermining global stability. Trump on Tuesday announced US$25 billion (RM106.8 billion) earmarked for the project, which he said could eventually cost a total of around US$175 billion and would be operational in about three years. Beijing hit back yesterday, denouncing Golden Dome as a threat to international security and accusing the United States of fuelling an arms race. “In the campaign, I promised the American people I would build a cutting-edge missile defence shield,” Trump said at the White House on Tuesday. “Today, I am pleased to announce we have officially selected architecture for this state-of the-art system.” “Once fully constructed, the Golden Dome will be capable of intercepting missiles even if they are launched from the other side of the world, and even if they are launched from space,” Trump said. “This is very important for the success and even survival of our country.” He said US Space Force Gen Michael Guetlein will lead the effort, and that Canada has expressed interest in being part of it as “they want to have protection also”. While Trump put the total price at about US$175 billion, the Congressional Budget Office has estimated the cost of space-based interceptors to defeat a limited number of intercontinental ballistic missiles at between US$161 billion and US$542 billion over 20 years. Golden Dome has more expansive goals, with Trump saying it “will deploy next generation technologies across the land, sea and space, including space-based sensors and interceptors.” Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth, speaking alongside Trump, said the system is aimed at protecting “the homeland from cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, hypersonic missiles and drones, whether they’re conventional or nuclear”.

Hegseth explains the defence shield to Trump and journalists at the Oval Office. – REUTERSPIC

actors like the Houthis in Yemen. Beijing expressed “serious concern” over the plan, saying it undercuts “global strategic balance and stability”. “The United States puts its own interests first and is obsessed with seeking its own absolute security, which violates the principle that no country’s security should come at the expense of others,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said at a regular briefing. “(The plan) heightens the risk of space becoming a battlefield, fuels an arms race and undermines international security.” China this month had already joined Russia in slamming the concept as “deeply destabilising”. It “explicitly provides for a significant strengthening of the arsenal for conducting combat operations in space,” said a statement published by the Kremlin after talks between the two sides. – AFP

The Golden Dome name stems from Israel’s Iron Dome air defence system that has intercepted thousands of short-range rockets and other projectiles since it went into operation in 2011. The United States faces various missile threats from adversaries, but they differ significantly from the short-range weapons that Israel’s Iron Dome is designed to counter. The 2022 Missile Defence Review pointed to growing threats from China and Russia. Beijing is closing the gap with Washington when it comes to ballistic and hypersonic missile technology, while Moscow is modernising its intercontinental-range missile systems and developing advanced precision strike missiles, the document said. It also said the threat of drones, which have played a key role in the Ukraine war, is likely to grow, and warned of the danger of ballistic missiles from North Korea and Iran, as well as rocket and missile threats from non-state

‘Sudan deportations appear to violate court order’ BOSTON: A federal judge on Tuesday ordered the Trump administration not to let a group of migrants being flown to South Sudan leave the custody of US immigration authorities after saying they appeared to have been deported in violation of a court order. Murphy told Elianis Perez, a lawyer with the Department of Justice. Murphy, an appointee of former Democratic President Joe Biden, said any migrants covered by the injunction en route to the African nation must remain in the government’s custody pending a further hearing today. implement Trump’s calls for mass deportations as part of his hardline immigration agenda. The class action lawsuit before Murphy was filed after the Department of Homeland Security in February instructed immigration officers to review cases of people granted protection against being removed to their home countries to see if they could be re-detained and sent to a third country.

District Judge Brian Murphy in Boston said during a hastily arranged virtual hearing that while he was not going to order the plane to turn around, that was an option the Department of Homeland Security could employ to comply with his order. Murphy warned that officials could be held in criminal contempt if he found they violated his previous order barring the swift deportation of migrants to countries other than their own before they could raise any concerns that they might face torture or persecution there. “I have a strong indication that my preliminary injunction order has been violated,”

He said the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, could comply with that order in a myriad of ways, including keeping the migrants on the plane once it lands. “I’m not going to limit DHS on where they hold them. If they want to turn the plane around, they can,” Murphy said. The agency did not respond to requests for comment. The development marked a new clash between the federal judiciary and President Donald Trump’s administration in its efforts to

Murphy issued a preliminary injunction on April 18 designed to ensure any migrants being sent a third country were provided due process under the US Constitution Fifth Amendment and a “meaningful opportunity” to raise any fears for their safety. In a motion filed on Tuesday, a lawyer for the plaintiffs said they learned that nearly a dozen migrants held at a facility in Texas were being flown to South Sudan, where conditions have long been dangerous. – Reuters