North Korea Mobilizes Military Helicopters for Flood Rescue

28 July 2024, North Korea, North Pyongan: This image provided by the North Korean state news agency KCNA on 29 July, 2024 shows flooded areas in North Pyongan province, according to KCNA. Photo: Uncredited/kcna/kns/dpa

Asharq Al Awsat

07:41-29 July 2024 AD ـ 22 Muharram 1446 AH

Asharq Al Awsat

07:41-29 July 2024 AD ـ 22 Muharram 1446 AH

North Korea Mobilizes Military Helicopters for Flood Rescue

North Korea deployed military helicopters to bring thousands of people stranded in a flood-hit zone to safety, state media reported Monday.
The official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported leader Kim Jong Un last week "personally guided" a military rescue -- including 10 helicopters and navy lifeboats -- shaking the hands of the pilots "one by one".
Kim reprimanded officials for their failure to prepare and respond to the recent torrential rains, despite previous orders to enhance the country's measures against natural disasters, it said.
Last week, North Korea conducted a crisis response meeting to discuss strategies to mitigate the impact of natural disasters on agriculture, AFP said.
North Korea has been enduring record-breaking downpours, and one day in July Kaesong City experienced an unprecedented 463 mm (18.2 inches) of rain.
South Korea's meteorological administration said it was the highest recorded in the North in 29 years.
Natural disasters tend to have a greater impact on the isolated and impoverished North due to its weak infrastructure, while deforestation has left it vulnerable to flooding.
The North has been working to prevent floods, including releasing water from a dam near the inter-Korean border, raising flooding concerns in the South.
South Korea's environment ministry said in early July that North Korea had likely discharged water from the Hwanggang Dam near the inter-Korean border without prior notification, something they have not done in recent years.
Relations between the two Koreas are at one of their lowest points in years.
Pyongyang unilaterally cut off all official military and political communication links with Seoul in 2020 and blew up a disused inter-Korean liaison office on its side of the border.
It has not been responding to inter-Korean hotline calls since April 2023.

Macron Speeds up Rafale Warplane Orders as France Invests in Nuclear Deterrence

France's President Emmanuel Macron delivers a speech in front of a Dassault Rafale (R) and A Dassault Mirage 2000 fighter aircraft during his visit of the French Air and Space Force (Armee de l'air et de l'espace) Luxeuil-Saint-Sauveur Airbase in Saint-Sauveur, north-eastern France on March 18, 2025. (AFP)

17:37-18 March 2025 AD ـ 18 Ramadan 1446 AH

Macron Speeds up Rafale Warplane Orders as France Invests in Nuclear Deterrence

President Emmanuel Macron said France would order additional Rafale warplanes in the coming years and invest nearly 1.5 billion euros ($1.6 billion) into one of its air bases to equip its squadrons with the latest nuclear missile technology.

Jolted by Russia's invasion of Ukraine and US President Donald Trump's more confrontational stance towards traditional Western allies, European countries are hiking defense spending and seeking to reduce dependence on the United States.

Macron, who has initiated a doubling of the French defense budget over the course of his two mandates, has recently set an even higher target, saying the country should increase defense spending to 3-3.5% of economic output from the current 2%.

He has also offered to extend the protection of France's nuclear weapons, the so-called nuclear umbrella, to other European countries.

"We haven't waited for 2022 or the turning point we're seeing right now to discover that the world we live in is ever more dangerous, ever more uncertain, and that it implies to innovate, to bulk up and to become more autonomous," he said.

"I will announce in the coming weeks new investments to go further than what was done over the past seven years," he told soldiers at one of the country's historical air bases in Luxeuil, eastern France.

Macron said he had decided to turn the base, famed in military circles as the home of American volunteer pilots during World War One, into one of its most advanced bases in its nuclear deterrence program.

The base will host the latest Rafale S5 fighter jets, which will carry France's next-generation ASN4G hypersonic nuclear-armed cruise missiles, which are intended to be operational from 2035 onwards, French officials said.

The French air force will also receive additional Dassault-made Rafale warplanes, in part to replace the Mirage jets France has transferred to Ukraine, Macron said.

"We are going to increase and accelerate our orders for Rafales," he said.

French officials said the 1.5 billion euros were part of the already approved multi-year military spending plan. It remained unclear how France would finance a massive hike in military spending at a time it is trying to reduce its budget deficit.

Macron's speech comes on the day the German parliament approved a massive increase in military spending.

North Korea Mobilizes Military Helicopters for Flood Rescue

North Korea Mobilizes Military Helicopters for Flood Rescue

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Macron Speeds up Rafale Warplane Orders as France Invests in Nuclear Deterrence

Macron Speeds up Rafale Warplane Orders as France Invests in Nuclear Deterrence

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