Author: Benjamin Franklin

Defence industry minister Pat Conroy admits ‘scope’ for extra costs and that local shipbuilder ASC may not win contract for British-designed boats Australian taxpayers may end up spending more than the $3bn initially announced to boost the submarine industrial capacity of the US and the UK under the Aukus deal, a minister has revealed. The minister for defence industry, Pat Conroy, confirmed there was “scope for additional funding” beyond the first four-year budget period, with the exact amount to depend on negotiations with the two countries. In an interview with Guardian Australia, Conroy also warned it would be “a grave mistake” to…

Just three days before a now-disbanded special police unit stopped Tyre Nichols in Memphis, it stopped another black man, 22-year-old Monterrious Harris, in an apartment complex in the city. According to Mr Harris, how he was initially treated was similar to the traffic stop that ultimately led to the death of Mr Nichols. Five former Memphis officers – all belonging to the so-called Scorpion unit – have been charged with murder over the death. Video showed officers shouting at and beating Mr Nichols. The same five officers were involved in the stop of Mr Harris, but he told the BBC…

The White House has said there is no indication three flying objects blasted out of the sky over the weekend by the US military are linked to alleged Chinese spying. The objects may be “tied to commercial or research entities and therefore benign”, spokesman John Kirby said. US and Canadian officials have not yet located or recovered any wreckage from the three downed aircrafts. Beijing earlier accused the US of “a trigger-happy overreaction”. China has denied one of its balloons, which was destroyed by a US fighter jet earlier this month off South Carolina, was being used for espionage, saying…

By Phil Stewart, Idrees Ali and Steve Scherer WASHINGTON/OTTAWA (Reuters) -A U.S. F-22 fighter jet shot down an unidentified cylindrical object over Canada on Saturday, the second such instance in as many days, as North America appeared on edge following a week-long Chinese spying balloon saga that drew the global spotlight. Separately, the U.S. military also scrambled fighter jets in Montana to investigate a radar anomaly that triggered a brief federal closure of airspace. “Those aircraft did not identify any object to correlate the radar hits,” the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) said in a statement. Canadian Prime Minister…

New Jersey Rep. Chris Smith and a group of Republican and Democrat leaders in Congress introduced a resolution Tuesday to urge the State Department to add Nigeria to its annual list of countries that violate religious freedom, known as the Countries of Particular Concern (CPC) list. The resolution also calls for the appointment of a special envoy to monitor and combat human rights violations in the region. Co-sponsored by Arkansas Republican Rep. French Hill and Texas Democrat Henry Cuellar, the resolution will signal U.S. commitment to religious freedom across the world, especially in Nigeria. “Last year alone, 5,014 Christians were…

The US Treasury Department accused Emmerson Mnangagwa Jr of ties to sanctioned businessman Kudakwashe Tagwirei. The United States has announced sanctions against Emmerson Mnangagwa Jr, the son of Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa, ahead of a summit of African leaders in Washington, DC. The penalties against Mnangagwa Jr were laid out in a US Treasury Department press release on Monday, alongside sanctions for three other individuals and two entities. “The Zimbabwe sanctions programme targets human rights abusers and those who undermine democratic processes or facilitate corruption. US sanctions do not target the Zimbabwean people, the country of Zimbabwe, or Zimbabwe’s banking sector,” the press…