DARWIN, Australia: An Italian carrier strike group on its first deployment to the Indo-Pacific region will sail through the South China Sea to the Philippines after participating in war games with US allies in Australia, a senior Italian navy official said on Thursday.
The moves come amid rising tensions between China and some of its neighbors in the contested South China Sea region. About 40 percent of Europe’s foreign trade flows through the South China Sea, where the United States, Japan, Australia and other nations have conducted joint maritime exercises they say uphold freedom of navigation. China claims almost the entire strategic waterway.
The Italian aircraft carrier Cavour is in the northern Australian town of Darwin taking part in Exercise Pitch Black this week, where Italy is contributing nearly two dozen fighter jets to the 20-nation drills with host Australia.
The United States, Britain, Japan, the Philippines and Papua New Guinea are also taking part.
It is the first time an aircraft carrier has joined the exercises, Italian Navy Rear Admiral Giancarlo Ciappina said.
Twenty-three Italian jets, including eight stealthy F-35Bs, are practicing dogfights, strikes and other operations alongside its allies over huge swathes of largely unpopulated land in northern Australia.
“Pitch Black gives us a chance to work with the main F-35 communities, shoulder to shoulder,” said Captain Dario Castelli, the strike group’s carrier air wing commander. “In terms of deploying far from home, it is also an incredible logistics exercise for us.”
After the current exercises end on Aug. 2, the 1,200-person strong Italian carrier strike group will travel to the US Pacific territory of Guam and Japan, before transiting the South China Sea to the Philippines for the first time, Ciappina said.
‘Very powerful tool’
Ciappina said his strike group did not plan to conduct any freedom of navigation operations.
The Cavour will carry out humanitarian work in the Philippines, performing surgery on children in the ship’s hospital while at port in Manila, he said.
“An aircraft carrier — just being present somewhere, it has an effect, it can influence. It is a very powerful tool,” Ciappina said.
Manila and Beijing have traded barbs repeatedly over jurisdiction as the Philippines challenges China’s permanent presence around strategic features inside Manila’s exclusive economic zone.
Ciappina said the Italian Navy’s first Indo-Pacific deployment improved its training and provided a better understanding of the region.
Although the deployment is not a NATO initiative, Italy has coordinated with the French Navy and Britain’s Royal Navy, which will send ships to the region later in the year, to ensure significant capacity remains in the Mediterranean, he said.
“Everything is connected... that’s why we have to also be present in the Pacific now,” he said.
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Italy carrier strike group joins Australia war games, will visit Philippines
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Italy carrier strike group joins Australia war games, will visit Philippines
- Italian aircraft carrier Cavour is in the northern Australian town of Darwin taking part in Exercise Pitch Black this week
- 23 Italian jets, including eight stealthy F-35Bs, are practicing dogfights, strikes and other operations alongside its allies
Trump says he doesn’t know if aliens are real but directs government to release files on UFOs
- Former President Obama recently suggested in a podcast interview that aliens were real
- Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump suggested this week that the president was ready to speak about it
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump said Thursday that he’s directing the Pentagon and other government agencies to identify and release files related to extraterrestrials and UFOs because of “tremendous interest.”
Trump made the announcement in a social media post hours after he accused former President Barack Obama of disclosing “classified information” when Obama recently suggested in a podcast interview that aliens were real.
Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One, “I don’t know if they’re real or not,” and said of Obama, “I may get him out of trouble by declassifying.”
In a post on his social media platform Thursday night, Trump said he was directing government agencies to release files related “to alien and extraterrestrial life, unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), and unidentified flying objects (UFOs), and any and all other information connected to these highly complex, but extremely interesting and important, matters.”
Obama, who made his comments in a podcast appearance over the weekend, later clarified that he had not seen evidence that aliens “have made contact with us,” but said, “statistically, the universe is so vast that the odds are good there’s life out there.”
Trump told reporters Thursday that when it came to the prospect of extraterrestrial visitors: “I don’t have an opinion on it. I never talk about it. A lot of people do. A lot of people believe it.”
Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump suggested this week that he was ready to speak about it, however, when she said on a podcast that the president had a speech prepared to deliver on aliens that he would give at the “right time.”
That was news to the White House. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt responded with a laugh when she was asked about it Wednesday and told reporters, “A speech on aliens would be news to me.”
Public interest in unidentified flying objects and the possibility of the government hiding secrets of extraterrestrial life re-emerged in the public consciousness after a group of former Pentagon and government officials leaked Navy videos of unknown objects to The New York Times and Politico in 2017. The renewed scrutiny prompted Congress to hold the first hearings on UFOs in 50 years in May 2022, though officials said that the objects, which appeared to be green triangles floating above a Navy ship, were likely drones.
Since then the Pentagon has promised more transparency on the topic. In July 2022 it created the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office, or AARO, which was intended to be a central place to collect reports of all military UFO encounters, taking over from a department task force.
In 2023, Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, the head of AARO at the time, told reporters he didn’t have any evidence “of any program having ever existed as a to do any sort of reverse engineering of any sort of extraterrestrial (unidentified aerial phenomena).”
The information that has been made public shows that the vast majority of UFO reports made by the military go unsolved but the ones that are identified are largely benign in nature.
An 18-page unclassified report submitted to Congress in June 2024 said service members had made 485 reports of unidentified phenomena in the past year but 118 cases were found to be “prosaic objects such as various types of balloons, birds, and unmanned aerial systems.”
“It is important to underscore that, to date, AARO has discovered no evidence of extraterrestrial beings, activity, or technology,” the report stressed.
Trump made the announcement in a social media post hours after he accused former President Barack Obama of disclosing “classified information” when Obama recently suggested in a podcast interview that aliens were real.
Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One, “I don’t know if they’re real or not,” and said of Obama, “I may get him out of trouble by declassifying.”
In a post on his social media platform Thursday night, Trump said he was directing government agencies to release files related “to alien and extraterrestrial life, unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), and unidentified flying objects (UFOs), and any and all other information connected to these highly complex, but extremely interesting and important, matters.”
Obama, who made his comments in a podcast appearance over the weekend, later clarified that he had not seen evidence that aliens “have made contact with us,” but said, “statistically, the universe is so vast that the odds are good there’s life out there.”
Trump told reporters Thursday that when it came to the prospect of extraterrestrial visitors: “I don’t have an opinion on it. I never talk about it. A lot of people do. A lot of people believe it.”
Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump suggested this week that he was ready to speak about it, however, when she said on a podcast that the president had a speech prepared to deliver on aliens that he would give at the “right time.”
That was news to the White House. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt responded with a laugh when she was asked about it Wednesday and told reporters, “A speech on aliens would be news to me.”
Public interest in unidentified flying objects and the possibility of the government hiding secrets of extraterrestrial life re-emerged in the public consciousness after a group of former Pentagon and government officials leaked Navy videos of unknown objects to The New York Times and Politico in 2017. The renewed scrutiny prompted Congress to hold the first hearings on UFOs in 50 years in May 2022, though officials said that the objects, which appeared to be green triangles floating above a Navy ship, were likely drones.
Since then the Pentagon has promised more transparency on the topic. In July 2022 it created the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office, or AARO, which was intended to be a central place to collect reports of all military UFO encounters, taking over from a department task force.
In 2023, Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, the head of AARO at the time, told reporters he didn’t have any evidence “of any program having ever existed as a to do any sort of reverse engineering of any sort of extraterrestrial (unidentified aerial phenomena).”
The information that has been made public shows that the vast majority of UFO reports made by the military go unsolved but the ones that are identified are largely benign in nature.
An 18-page unclassified report submitted to Congress in June 2024 said service members had made 485 reports of unidentified phenomena in the past year but 118 cases were found to be “prosaic objects such as various types of balloons, birds, and unmanned aerial systems.”
“It is important to underscore that, to date, AARO has discovered no evidence of extraterrestrial beings, activity, or technology,” the report stressed.
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