TAIPEI: A US Coast Guard ship sailed through the Taiwan Strait on Tuesday, the US Navy’s 7th Fleet said on Thursday, transiting the sensitive waterway a day after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken completed a rare visit to Beijing.
The strait, which separates China from the democratically governed island of Taiwan, is a frequent source of tension as Beijing steps up its political and military pressure to try to force Taipei to accept Chinese sovereignty.
The US Navy’s 7th Fleet said the national security cutter USCGC Stratton conducted a “routine” Taiwan Strait transit on Tuesday “through waters where high-seas freedoms of navigation and overflight apply in accordance with international law.”
“Stratton’s transit through the Taiwan Strait demonstrates the United States’ commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific. The United States military flies, sails and operates anywhere international law allows,” the 7th Fleet added in its statement.
The mission, which China has yet to comment on, happened the day after Blinken ended a visit to Beijing, in which the two countries agreed to stabilize their intense rivalry so it does not veer into conflict, but failed to produce any major breakthrough.
Taiwan’s defense ministry said the ship sailed in a northerly direction, and its forces monitored the situation which it described as “normal.”
US military vessels, and on occasion those of its allies, have routinely sailed through the strait in recent years, to the anger of China, which views such missions as provocation.
This month the US Navy released a video of an “unsafe interaction” in the strait, in which a Chinese warship crossed in front of a US destroyer operating with a Canadian warship.
Taiwan’s military reports almost daily Chinese incursions in the strait, mostly warplanes that cross the waterway’s median line, which once served as an unofficial barrier between the two.
On Wednesday, Taiwan said Chinese warships led by the aircraft carrier Shandong sailed through the strait.
US Navy: Coast Guard ship transited Taiwan Strait after Blinken’s China visit
https://arab.news/5vc2e
US Navy: Coast Guard ship transited Taiwan Strait after Blinken’s China visit
- National security cutter USCGC Stratton conducted a ‘routine’ Taiwan Strait transit on Tuesday
- On Wednesday, Taiwan said Chinese warships led by the aircraft carrier Shandong sailed through the strait
Bangladesh says at least 287 killed during Hasina-era abductions
DHAKA: A Bangladesh commission investigating disappearances during the rule of ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina said Monday at least 287 people were assumed to have been killed.
The commission said some corpses were believed to have been dumped in rivers, including the Buriganga in the capital, Dhaka, or buried in mass graves.
The government-appointed commission, formed after Hasina was toppled by a mass uprising in August 2024, said it had investigated 1,569 cases of abductions, with 287 of the victims presumed dead.
“We have identified a number of unmarked graves in several places where the bodies were presumably buried,” Nur Khan Liton, a commission member, told AFP.
“The commission has recommended that Bangladesh seek cooperation from forensic experts to identify the bodies and collect and preserve DNA samples from family members.”
In its final report, submitted to the government on Sunday, the commission said that security forces had acted under the command of Hasina and her top officials.
The report said many of those abducted had belonged to the country’s largest Islamist party, Jamaat-e-Islami, or the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), both in opposition to Hasina.
In a separate investigation, police in December began exhuming a mass grave in Dhaka.
The grave included at least eight victims of the uprising against Hasina, bodies all found with bullet wounds, according to Criminal Investigation Department (CID) chief Md Sibgat Ullah.
The United Nations says up to 1,400 people were killed in crackdowns as Hasina attempted to cling to power.
She was sentenced to death in absentia in November for crimes against humanity.
“We are grateful for finally being able to know where our brother is buried,” said Mohamed Nabil, whose 28-year-old sibling Sohel Rana was identified as one of the dead in the grave in Dhaka.
“But we demand a swift trial for the police officials who shot at the people during the uprising.”
