28/06/2025

SATURDAY | JUNE 28, 2025 9 China purges senior military official BEIJING: China’s top legislature has voted to remove senior military official Miao Hua from the Central Military Commission, its highest level military command body, according to a statement published by Xinhua news agency. Miao, 69, was put under investigation for “serious violations of discipline” in November. The former political ideology chief of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) was also suspended from his post. The Xinhua statement did not contain any other details, but the move marks another stage in President Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption purge of China’s military, in which over a dozen PLA generals and a handful of defence industry executives have been implicated. Miao’s photo had been removed from the senior leadership page of the Chinese Defence Ministry’s website in recent weeks. He was also removed from China’s national legislature for “serious violations of discipline and law”, according to a communique released by the legislature last month. “The Political Work Department of the Central Military Commission held a military representative conference on March 14 and decided to remove Miao Hua from his position as a representative of the 14th National People’s Congress,” the statement said. Miao was stationed in the coastal province of Fujian when Xi worked there as a local official, according to his official biography. Xi personally elevated Miao to the Military Commission. Another commission member and China’s second-ranking general, He Weidong, has not been seen in public since the March 11 closing ceremony of the annual parliamentary sessions in Beijing. Since then, he has not appeared at a series of high-level Politburo and military public engagements. He is the third-most powerful commander of the PLA and is considered a close associate of Xi, the army’s commander-in-chief. China’s Defence Ministry said in March it was “unaware” of reports he had been detained. His photo remains on the Defence Ministry’s website. Two former defence ministers have also been removed from the Communist Party for corruption. – Reuters India seeks solution to border dispute NEW DELHI: Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh told his Chinese counterpart that the two countries should seek a “permanent solution” to their decades-old border dispute, India’s Defence Ministry said yesterday. Rajnath met China’s Dong Jun on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation meeting of defence ministers in Qingdao on Thursday and stressed on solving issues between the two countries through a structured roadmap, the ministry said in a statement. “Rajnath also stressed on border management and having a permanent solution of border demarcation by rejuvenating the established mechanism on the issue,” the statement said, referring to the border talks process between the Asian giants. New Delhi’s stress on a permanent solution is considered significant as India has in the past generally used phrases such as “seeking an early resolution” to the dispute. Beijing says the border dispute should not affect the larger relationship and differences should be managed properly until a mutually acceptable solution is found through dialogue. There was no Chinese Defence Ministry statement yet on the meeting and its Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on India’s statement. The world’s two most populous nations – both nuclear powers – share a 3,800km, largely undemarcated and disputed border in the Himalayas. – Reuters

Black box data from tragic Air India crash recovered

o Analysis may be conducted in America

787 and also produced the combined flight data and cockpit voice recorder, called an “enhanced airborne flight recorder”. The forward recorder is equipped with an independent power supply that provides backup power to the device for about 10 minutes if the plane’s power source is lost, NTSB said in a 2014 report. The decision to begin downloading recorder data around two weeks after the crash was unusually late, three experts told Reuters, and followed speculation that the black boxes could be sent to the United States for analysis. Aviation safety expert Anthony Brickhouse said accident investigators would typically have already given some update on the status of the recorders, and would have begun downloading data in such a high profile crash. “Normally, countries know that the world is watching,” he said. India said last week that it has yet to decide where the black boxes would be analysed. The data retrieved from them could provide critical clues into the performance of the aircraft and any conversations between the pilots preceding the crash. India has said its actions have been taken in full compliance with domestic laws and international obligations in a time bound manner. – Reuters The Tehran Symphony Orchestra performing during a concert under the capital’s landmark Azadi Tower (Freedom Tower) on Wednesday. – AFPPIC

aviation future occurrences,” the ministry said in a statement. US National Transportation Safety Board chair Jennifer Homendy said she hopes the Indian government would be able to share details from the investigation into the crash in short order. “For aviation safety and for public safety and public awareness, we hope they would make their findings public swiftly,” Homendy said on the sidelines of an aviation event. She said the NTSB team has been working diligently to provide assistance to India and “we have had excellent cooperation from the Indian government and AAIB”. The probe into the crash of the Air India plane includes focus on engine thrust, according to a source with knowledge of the matter. The Wall Street Journal has reported that investigators believe the Dreamliner had its emergency-power generator operating when it crashed. Most air crashes are caused by multiple factors, with a preliminary report expected about 30 days after the incident. Two GE recorders, one in the jet’s front and another at the rear, are installed on Boeing 787 jets and record the same set of flight data. GE, which sent experts to India, manufactured the engines on the Air India safety and prevent

NEW DELHI: Investigators have downloaded flight recorder data from an Air India crash this month that killed 260 people, India’s Civil Aviation Ministry said on Thursday, a long awaited step towards understanding the world’s worst aviation disaster in a decade. The London-bound Boeing 787 Dreamliner crashed moments after takeoff from Ahmedabad city on June 12, killing 241 of the 242 people on board and the rest on the ground. The black boxes of the plane – the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder – were recovered in the days that followed, one from the rooftop of a building at the crash site on June 13, and the other from the debris on June 16. The ministry said data from the front recorder was accessed on Wednesday by a team led by India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB), with the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). “These efforts aim to reconstruct the sequence of events leading to the incident and identify contributing factors to enhance

No plan for new US nuclear talks, says Iran TEHRAN: Iran on Thursday denied it is set to resume nuclear talks with the United States after the end of a 12-day war with Israel, and accused Washington of exaggerating the impact of US strikes.

Trump said key facilities, including the underground Fordo uranium enrichment site, had been “obliterated” by American B-2 bombers. Doubts remain about whether Iran quietly removed some 400kg of enriched uranium from its most sensitive sites before the strikes – potentially hiding nuclear material elsewhere in the country. But posting on his Truth Social platform, Trump dismissed such speculation, saying: “Nothing was taken out ... too dangerous, and very heavy and hard to move!” He added that satellite images showed trucks at the site only because Iranian crews were attempting to shield the facility with concrete. Khamenei dismissed such claims, saying “the Islamic republic won, and in retaliation dealt a severe slap to the face of America”. – AFP

Araghchi’s denial came as Iranian lawmakers passed a “binding” Bill suspending cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog and after supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei accused Trump of exaggerating the impact of US strikes on Iranian nuclear sites. In a televised speech, his first appearance since a ceasefire in the war with Israel, Khamenei hailed what he described as Iran’s “victory” over Israel, and vowed never to yield to US pressure and insisted Washington had been dealt a humiliating “slap”. “The American president exaggerated events in unusual ways, and it turned out that he needed this exaggeration,” Khamenei said, rejecting US claims Iran’s nuclear programme had been set back by decades. The strikes, he insisted, had done “nothing significant” to Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. Araghchi called the damage “serious” and said a detailed assessment was under way.

The most serious conflict yet between Israel and Iran derailed nuclear talks between Iran and the United States, but President Donald Trump said Washington would hold discussions with Tehran next week, with his special envoy Steve Witkoff expressing hope “for a comprehensive peace agreement”. But Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi shut down what he said was “speculation” that Tehran would come to the table and said it “should not be taken seriously”. “I would like to state clearly that no agreement, arrangement or conversation has been made to start new negotiations, No plan has been set yet to start negotiations,” he said on state television.