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US Chinese navies in south china sea

mahla — Tue, 06 Apr 2021 09:41:35 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – The US and Chinese navies are both holding aircraft carrier drills in the waters off China’s coast. The US has stepped up its drills off China’s coast in recent years, holding multiple carrier drills as well as maintaining a constant daily presence with spy planes and patrol aircraft.

Washington has presented itself as a mediator in an ongoing dispute between China and several other nations, although the US has no territory in the region, Sputnik reported.

The US and Chinese navies are both holding aircraft carrier drills in the waters off China’s coast as Washington postures as standing up to Beijing’s “aggression.”

On Sunday, the South China Sea Probing Initiative (SCSPI) think tank reported that the US Navy aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt had entered the South China Sea via the southern Strait of Malacca.

That same day, SCSPI reported a US guided-missile destroyer, the USS Mustin, was sailing in the East China Sea close to the Yangtze River delta and the cities of Shanghai and Hangzhou.

Then on Monday, China’s Global Times reported that the Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning had led a task force alongside the Type 055 cruiser Nanchang through the Miyako Strait and into the Philippine Sea before launching exercises east of Taiwan.

The two carrier strike groups are hundreds of miles apart, but the convergence of the two nations’ naval forces highlights the growing tension in the region as the US doubles down on its diplomatic and ideological offensive to portray China as a threat to the global order.

Last week, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken flew to Europe to press US allies on the need to close ranks against China. In an interview given to Italian media, he said.

Washington’s goal was “not to contain China or keep it down” but to “preserve the rules-based international order, in which we have all invested so much over the past 75 years, and which has served our interests and values well.”

“When someone challenges this system, be it China or others – when they do not play by or respect the rules, or try to undermine the commitments made by others, we all have reason to object,” Blinken said, accusing Beijing of “undermining this order, violating human rights and other commitments.”

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US Shipbuilders End Strike, Return to Their Work

reporter 1222 — Mon, 24 Aug 2020 05:41:56 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – A 63-day strike at Bath Iron Works – against the backdrop of a pandemic in an election year – came to an end Sunday with shipbuilders voting to return to their jobs producing warships for the United States Navy.

With the approval of a three-year contract, the 4,300 production workers represented by Machinists Local S6 will begin returning to work, AP reported.

After falling behind schedule, Bath Iron Works is eager to get caught up on production of destroyers as the US Navy faces growing competition from China and Russia on the high seas. The General Dynamics subsidiary was already more than six months behind schedule before the strike.

“We are pleased to welcome back our valued manufacturing employees and get back to the important work of building ships on schedule for the US Navy,” Bath Iron Works said Sunday in a statement.

Robert Martinez Jr., the Machinists’ international president, cast the outcome on Sunday in historic terms, saying “this fight for dignity, justice and good Maine jobs will go down in the history books of the Machinists Union.”

The shipyard on the Kennebec River is one of the navy’s largest, and it’s also a major employer in the state with 6,800 workers.

The stakes were high for both a company that feared being priced out of competition for navy contracts and a highly skilled workforce that didn’t want to give up ground to subcontractors. The test of wills ultimately ended with help from a federal mediator.

Shipbuilders represented by Machinists Local S6 got most of what they wanted when it came to work rules and maintaining the status quo for hiring of subcontractors, along with the previous proposal’s annual pay raises of three percent for three years. The company got streamlined rules for hiring subcontracting, and a commitment to work together to get back on track.

Because of the pandemic, voting on the contract’s approval — unanimously endorsed by the union negotiating committee – took place online and by telephone. Voting began Friday and ending at noon Sunday. The vote was 87 percent in favor of the contract among those who voted, said Jay Waldeigh, a district union official.

“Now that we successfully protected our contract language with respect to subcontracting and seniority, we need to get back to work,” said Local S6 President Chris Wiers.

The shipyard builds the workhorse of the navy fleet, destroyers that have the ability to provide air defense while simultaneously waging war against submarines and surface warships. Destroyers are also one of the few types of warships equipped to withstand a chemical attack.

The US Navy wants to increase the fleet’s size – something President Donald Trump supports – and Bath Iron Works has said it needs to get back on schedule and lower costs to remain competitive on those contracts.

Going into negotiations, the shipyard’s production workers were already angry over past concessions that ultimately still failed to yield contracts on Coast Guard cutters and a new class of navy frigates. The pandemic in which they were required to remain on the job only added to their feeling that the company didn’t care about them – deemed essential by the navy, the shipyard continued production despite a union request to shut down for two weeks.

Workers were determined enough to strike, despite the loss of company-paid insurance as the coronavirus raged around the country. A giant inflatable, cigar-smoking pig outside the union hall took aim at corporate greed as workers fumed over the hiring of “scab” workers and political leaders got involved.

It’s a far cry from the way things were in the past.

The strike was the first in 20 years at Bath Iron Works. There was enough trust between management and the union in 1994 that a contract was approved allowing cross-training of workers under a formula called a “High Performance Work Organization.” Then-president Bill Clinton visited the shipyard to praise the collaboration.

The company hopes that mediated discussions between the union and the company will help get the relationship back on track.

But it’s going to take time. Levi Benner, a shipfitter, said there are hard feelings because management routinely rejects workers’ ideas for improvements.

“It’s going to be hard to restore trust. We know what we’re doing. We’ve been building ships for years and years. These guys are geeks. They know their graphs and pie charts, but they don’t know how to build ships,” he said Sunday.

In the end, workers and the shipyard must learn how to work together if the company is to successfully compete for contracts against lower-cost competitors, said Loren Thompson, an analyst at the Lexington Institute.

“Both sides need to understand that their best chance for having a future is to get along with each other,” he said. “The American landscape is littered with the debris of destroyed industries. Most of them made a good product but they’re still gone.”

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US Navy Warship in San Diego Still ‌Blazing

reporter 1222 — Tue, 14 Jul 2020 09:15:14 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – Hundreds of US firefighters battled through a second day to save a US navy war vessel in San Diego as it is listing because of water from the fire hoses, tugboats, and helicopters fighting the inferno, which has destroyed the ship’s forward mast.

According to Reuters, the USS Bonhomme Richard, an amphibious assault ship, remained largely shrouded in thick, acrid smoke on Monday as the vessel began listing to its starboard side.

The fire, accompanied by at least one large explosion, erupted Sunday morning in the lower cargo hold of the 844-foot-long (257 meters) ship, docked for routine maintenance at its homeport at US Navy Base San Diego.

Helicopters dropped water over the ship throughout Monday while fireboats on the perimeter streamed water on the hull to cool it from the outside. San Diego fire crews discontinued blasting water into the ship from shore, apparently out of concern for destabilizing the vessel’s buoyancy.

Asked whether the ship might be burned beyond repair, Sobeck said he was “hopeful” it could be spared.

The Navy said 36 sailors and 23 civilians had been treated for minor injuries, including heat exhaustion and smoke inhalation.

The cause of the fire is still unknown

The Bonhomme Richard, commissioned in 1998, is designed to carry US Marine Corps attack helicopters and ground troops into battle.

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US Forces Have No Business in PG 7,000 Miles Away from Home

reporter 1222 — Thu, 23 Apr 2020 15:16:06 +0000

US Forces Have No Business in PG 7,000 Miles Away from Home

According To Iran News, Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif reminded Washington that American forces “have no business 7,000 miles away from home” and are provoking Iranian sailors in the Persian Gulf.

“The US military is hit by over 5000 #covid19 infections. @realdonaldtrump should attend to their needs, not engage in threats cheered on by Saddam’s terrorists,” Zarif said in a tweet on Thursday.

“Also, US forces have no business 7,000 miles away from home, provoking our sailors off our OWN Persian Gulf shores,” he added.

The remarks came after US President Donald Trump said he had instructed the US navy to destroy Iranian boats “if they harass” US ships in the Persian Gulf.

“I have instructed the United States Navy to shoot down and destroy any and all Iranian gunboats if they harass our ships at sea,” Trump said in a tweet on Wednesday morning.

On Sunday, the IRGC Navy released a video showing a recent confrontation between its forces and the US navy in the Persian Gulf, refuting claims by Washington that Iranian forces behaved in a dangerous manner when faced with US navy vessels.

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US calls drills as provocative actions in Hormuz

reporter 1222 — Sat, 28 Dec 2019 10:32:09 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – Coincides with China, Iran, and Russia joint naval drills, Acting US Navy Secretary Thomas Modly said on Friday that Iran could carry out “provocative actions” in the Strait of Hormuz and elsewhere in that region in the future despite a period of relative calm.

US navy official told Reuters that “I think they’re going to continue to make drills as performance of provocative actions over Hormuz… and I think they’ll look at every opportunity they can to do that,” Modly told Reuters.

Since May, the Pentagon has sent 14,000 additional troops to the region to deter Iran, including an aircraft carrier.

Modly suggested that US reactions to Iranian actions could take away from the Pentagon’s focus toward priorities like countering China.

“As they start creating mischief over there… our reaction is we send an aircraft carrier over there for 10 months,” he said.

Modly’s warning on future actions coincides with China, Iran, and Russia beginning joint naval drills in the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Oman.

The Gulf of Oman is a particularly sensitive waterway as it connects to the Strait of Hormuz – through which about a fifth of the world’s oil passes – which in turn connects to the Gulf.

In this regard, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif pointed to the joint naval drill between Iran, Russia, and China and said, “the Islamic Republic of Iran has announced readiness to cooperate with its neighbors in line with providing security of the Persian Gulf.”

He added, “the joint military exercise in the Sea of Oman and Indian Ocean with the participation of Russian and Chinese partners manifests the vast commitments of the country to safeguard security of vital waterways.

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Iranian fisherman finds part of downed US spy drone wreckage

reporter 1222 — Mon, 24 Jun 2019 12:01:04 +0000

Yousef Saffari, a fisherman in Qeshm Island, has found and retrieved part of the Global Hawk spy drone on Monday which was downed four days earlier by IRGC’s air defense after the UAV violated Iran’s airspace.

According to Fars News Agency, the fisherman has discovered the piece some 5 miles away from the coastal city of Suza, on Qeshm Island. Local authorities say that the piece will soon be handed to Iranian Armed Forces.

A US Global Hawk spy drone intruded into Iranian airspace on Thursday and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps brought it down after the drone ignored Iran’s several warnings. IRGC says there was another intruding US manned plane beside the Global Hawk but the force ‘refrained’ from targeting it.

Iran had earlier revealed other sections of the US drone which were retrieved from the Iranian waters after the incident.

Iran has provided sufficient evidence proving that the UAV had violated Iran’s airspace, including exact coordinates of the place as well as sections of the vehicle’s wreckage which were retrieved from Iranian waters. Tehran also says it will take the case to the UN.

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US Navy Sends Two Ships through Taiwan Strait

reporter 1222 — Thu, 23 May 2019 07:28:41 +0000

The voyage will be viewed by Taiwan as a sign of support from the Trump administration amid growing friction between Taipei and Beijing.

The transit was carried out by the destroyer Preble and the Navy oil tanker Walter S. Diehl, a US military spokesman told Reuters.

“The ships’ transit through the Taiwan Strait demonstrates the US commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific,” Commander Clay Doss, a spokesman for the US Navy’s Seventh Fleet, said in a statement.

Doss said all interactions were safe and professional.

Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said the two US ships had sailed north through the Taiwan Strait. Taiwan’s armed forces monitored the transit and nothing out of the ordinary happened, it added.

There was no immediate reaction from China.

US warships have sailed through the Taiwan Strait at least once a month since the start of this year. The United States restarted such missions on a regular basis last July.

The Pentagon says Washington has sold Taipei more than $15 billion in weaponry since 2010.

China has been ramping up pressure to assert its sovereignty over the island, which it considers a wayward province of “one China” and sacred Chinese territory, to be brought under Beijing’s control by force if needed.

Beijing said a recent Taiwan Strait passage by a French warship was illegal.

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Iran Dismisses as ‘Untrue’ Reports about US Citizen

reporter 1222 — Thu, 10 Jan 2019 09:28:28 +0000

Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qassemi dismissed as “untrue” reports by certain US media that an American citizen is imprisoned in the Iranian city of Mashhad in suboptimal conditions.

In response to a question raised by reporters on Wednesday, Qassemi confirmed that American citizen Michael White has been arrested in Mashhad.

“An American citizen, named Michael White, was arrested recently in Mashhad and his arrest was immediately reported to the US government through the US Interests Section in Tehran,” he said.

Qassemi underlined that the US was informed on the arrest of White from the early hours of his detention.

The spokesman then dismissed the false reports by certain US media on suboptimal conditions of White’s detention and said over the past few days, the media have sought to spread (anti-Iran) propaganda, escalate the psychological war against Iran and disseminate targeted lies about the country through unfounded reports on the allegedly poor well-being of the American citizen and his alleged harassment in detention.

“Such untrue and unfounded reports are categorically rejected,” he underlined.

The spokesman then underlined that the case of the American citizen is under investigation by the legal bodies and the Islamic Republic will release the results of the investigations in due time.

The New York Times reported Monday that White, a US Navy veteran, had been arrested in Iran on “unspecified charges.”

In another report on Tuesday, CBS News claimed the 46-year-old had been in detention since last summer and “was suffering psychologically and was being held in a ward with dangerous criminals.”

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US Navy ships overseas plagued with problems: Watchdog

reporter 1222 — Fri, 08 Sep 2017 04:30:43 +0000

US Navy ships on overseas missions have lost operational readiness due to a slew of problems ranging from maintenance to training, a government agency warns, in the wake of two deadly maritime mishaps that badly damaged the force’s reputation.

A new review by the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) has found that overworked and undertrained workers on board the state-of-the-art warships often miss to carry out vital maintenance operations on time.

“The Navy has been warning for some time that they have been keeping a pace that is unsustainable. Our work has confirmed the difficulties,” said John Pendleton, a GAO director.

The organization warned that the number of soldiers with insufficient training in the Navy had increased five-fold in two years.

According to the report, the problems are mostly apparent in vessels operating under the command of the Navy’s 7th Fleet, which is based in Japan and conducts high-profile missions in the South China Sea and off the Korean Peninsula.

Last month, the fleet’s USS McCain guided-missile destroyer collided with a Liberian-flagged oil tanker, near the entrance to the Strait of Malacca, one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes. The collision killed 10 sailors and injured five others.

The incident came nearly two months after seven more US Navy sailors lost their lives on board the USS Fitzgerald, another guided-missile destroyer of the 7th Fleet, as the warship crashed into a container ship south of Japan.

US Navy vessels were involved in two more collisions in Asia this year. In January, the USS Antietam ran aground near its base in Japan, and in May, the USS Lake Champlain collided with a South Korean fishing vessel.

As of June, 37 percent of the warfare certifications for cruiser and destroyer warship crews deployed to Japan had expired, while more than two-thirds of them had been expired for more than five months, Pendleton said.

The high number of incidents prompted the US Navy officials to put on halt all operations across the world and conduct a thorough review of seamanship and training in the Pacific.

While US Defense Secretary James Mattis has pledged a “broad” probe, baffled US military officials have not ruled out reasons beyond human error, including possible cyberattacks.

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