Gibraltar visit for Royal Navy warship is routine, says MoD

Gibraltar visit for Royal Navy warship is routine, says MoD

A Royal Navy warship is to pay a “routine” visit to Gibraltar, the UK government has said, amid a continuing row with Spain over border checks.

Relations between Gibraltar and Spain have deteriorated in recent weeks.

But the Ministry of Defence said the visit was “long-planned” and one of many “regular and routine deployments”.

HMS Westminster, accompanied by two auxiliary ships, makes up part of a task force which is destined for the Middle East.

‘Granted permission’

Other warships in the task force will visit ports in Portugal, Spain, Turkey, and Malta. “Gibraltar is a strategic base for UK defence and as such Royal Navy ships visit its waters throughout the year as part of a range of regular and routine deployments,” an MoD spokesman said.

Spain’s foreign ministry agreed that the visit was “routine”, adding that the UK government had asked for permission to stop over at the Rota naval base, which is near the Strait of Gibraltar in south-west Spain.

Read more » BBC
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23624715

NATO warships rescue 9 Pakistanis, held by pirates

NATO warships rescue 9 Pakistanis, 20 Indians held by pirates

By AFP

BRUSSELS: Nato warships have rescued nine Pakistani, 20 Indian and five Iranian crew members of Iranian and Indian vessels held by Somali pirates off the Horn of Africa, Nato said Monday. …

Read more » The Express Tribune

International Pressure on Qaddafi Intensifies

Qaddafi’s Army and Jets Strike at Rebels

By KAREEM FAHIM and DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK

BENGHAZI, Libya — Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi’s forces struck back on three fronts on Monday, using fighter jets, special forces units and regular army troops in an escalation of hostilities that brought Libya closer to civil war.

The attacks by the colonel’s troops on an oil refinery in central Libya and on cities on either side of the country unsettled rebel leaders — who earlier had claimed they were close to liberating the country — and showed that despite defections by the military, the government still possessed powerful assets, including fighter pilots willing to bomb Libyan cities.

But the ease with which at least one assault, on the western city of Zawiyah, was repelled by anti-government forces raised questions about the ability of the government to muster a serious challenge to the rebels’ growing power.

An international campaign to force Colonel Qaddafi from power gathered pace on Monday as the Obama administration announced it had seized $30 billion in Libyan assets and the European Union adopted an arms embargo and other sanctions. As the Pentagon began repositioning Navy warships to support a possible humanitarian or military intervention, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton bluntly told the Libyan leader to surrender power “now, without further violence or delay.” …

Read more : The New York Times

U.S. Navy and Israeli warships moving towards Iran

– Aporrea.org

June 19, 2010 – More than a dozen U.S. warships and Israel, including an aircraft carrier, passed through the Suez Canal on Friday and head towards the Red Sea. “According to eyewitnesses, U.S. battleships were larger than crossed the Channel for many years,” reported the London-based newspaper al-Quds al-Arabi on Saturday.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported the Egyptian opposition members criticized the government for cooperation with the U.S. and Israeli forces and allow the passage of ships through Egyptian territorial waters. The Red Sea is the most direct route to the Persian Gulf from the Mediterranean.

Russian Warships Enter Venezuela

Caracas: Russian warships have sailed into a Venezuelan port in the first deployment of its kind in the Caribbean since the end of the Cold War. Thevessels were greeted by a 21-gun military salute on Tuesday at the start of a week of joint manoeuvres as Moscow and Caracas seek to strengthen their political and trade ties. The ships, including the nuclear powered cruiser Peter the Great and the destroyer Admiral Chabankenko, arrived at La Guaira, a port near to the capital Caracas, to coincide with a two day visit by Dmitry Medvedev, the Russian president. However, the move has been widely interpreted as a demonstration of the Kremilin’s anger at the US or both its plans to install a missile-defence shield in eastern Europe and its decision to send aid-laden warships to Georgia this summer. Russia and Georgia were briefly at war during August over the disputed independence of border states South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

The US administration played down any concerns over the joint show of force by two of its sharpest critics. Sean McGormack, the US state department spokesman, said: ” I don’t think there’s any qustion about.. who the region looks to in terms of political, economic, diplomatic and as well as military power. “If the Venezuelans and the Russians want to have a military exercise, that’s fine. But we’ll obisously be watching it very closely,” he said.