SYDNEY: Australia will invest A$7 billion ($5.2 billion) to develop and buy high-tech US drones for joint military operations and to monitor waters including the South China Sea, it said Tuesday.
Canberra has been embarking on its largest peacetime naval investment through a massive shipbuilding strategy that includes new submarines, offshore patrol vessels and frigates to shore up its defense capabilities.
As part of this, the government will spend A$1.4 billion to buy the first of six MQ-4C Triton maritime surveillance drones, with the aircraft to enter service from mid-2023, complementing seven P-8A Poseidon planes currently in use.
“Together these aircraft will significantly enhance our anti-submarine warfare and maritime strike capability, as well as our search and rescue capability,” Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said in a statement.
“This investment will protect our borders and make our region more secure.”
The drones — high-altitude, long endurance aircraft that can support missions for up to 24 hours and provide a 360-degree view of their surroundings for over 2,000 nautical miles — will replace the AP-3C Orion spy plane.
“It gives us enormous capabilities in surveillance and reconnaissance,” Defense Industry Minister Christopher Pyne told Sky News, adding that the total cost was about A$7 billion.
“Australia’s responsible for about 10 percent of the world’s surface into the Indian Ocean, the Pacific, down to Antarctica up into the South China Sea.”
Pyne added that the drones would be used to monitor who was in Australian waters, other countries’ naval vessels, for people-smuggling and illegal fishing.
The unmanned systems would also continue Australia’s surveillance of the South China Sea, he added.
“Australia insists on its rights to be able to travel through the South China Sea, in international waters as we have always done, whether it is with surface ships or aircraft,” Pyne said.
China claims sovereignty over virtually all the resource-endowed South China Sea, despite rival claims from its Southeast Asian neighbors.
The Australian navy has already conducted joint exercises in the South China Sea with other nations, including the US.
Australia buys high-tech drones to monitor South China Sea, Pacific
Australia buys high-tech drones to monitor South China Sea, Pacific
Trump ‘very disappointed’ with UK’s Starmer for blocking use of air bases, Telegraph says
- UK PM then said bases could be used in “defensive” operations
- Trump says it took “too long” for Starmer to change his mind
LONDON: Donald Trump said he was “very disappointed” with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer for not allowing the US to use the Diego Garcia air base to carry out strikes on Iran, the Daily Telegraph quoted the US president as saying in an interview.
Britain had reportedly initially denied the US permission to conduct air strikes from its bases, but on Sunday evening Starmer said he was accepting a request for their use in any “defensive” strikes the US wanted to make against Iranian targets.
In an interview published on Monday Trump told the British newspaper that it took “too long” for Starmer to change his mind.
“That’s probably never happened between our countries before,” he told the Telegraph, adding: “It sounds like he was worried about the legality.”
Trump said Starmer should have approved from the get-go the American use of Diego Garcia — a strategically important US-UK air base in the Indian Ocean — saying Iran was responsible for killing “a lot of people from your country.”
Britain was not involved in the joint US-Israel air strikes on Iran that killed the country’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on Saturday.
Since attacks on Iran started on Saturday, Iran has been targeting Gulf countries with missiles, and on Sunday an Iranian-made drone hit Britain’s RAF Akrotiri base in Cyprus, causing limited damage and no casualties.
Trump said it was “useful” that the US would now be able to launch operations from Diego Garcia, as he also criticized a deal Starmer has made over the sovereignty of the Chagos Islands, where Diego Garcia is based.
