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NASA unveils plans for permanent moon base as stepping stone to Mars

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By MARCIA DUNN, Associated Press | Editing By TOE  Nasa has released details of robotic landers, hopping drones and vehicles it aims to send to the Moon as part of US plans to build a lunar base. NASA is already ordering landers, rovers and drones for a sprawling moon base, less than two months after the Artemis II’s record-breaking lunar flyaround. The space agency outlined the first phase of its moon base plans on Tuesday, awarding hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts to four U.S. companies. Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin will provide a pair of landers to deliver moon buggies to the lunar surface, at a spot near the moon’s south pole. These so-called lunar terrain vehicles will be built by Astrolab and Lunar Outpost. Firefly Aerospace, which landed successfully on the moon last year, will deliver the first drones to the moon. All this hardware is ideally supposed to arrive before the first Artemis astronauts land on the moon, planned for as early as 2028. Du...
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North Korea launches ballistic missile and other weapons over the sea in latest show of force

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By  HYUNG-JIN KIM and KIM TONG-HYUNG ,Associated Press  North Korea launched a close-range ballistic missile and other weapons toward the sea on Tuesday, South Korea’s military said, the latest in a series of weapons demonstrations by North Korea this year. The missile fired from Jongju, a city near the North’s west coast, flew about 80 kilometers (50 miles), South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said. North Korea launched other kinds of projectiles, it said, but didn’t elaborate. South Korea’s military, under a solid alliance with the U.S., maintains a readiness to repel any provocations by North Korea, the Joint Chiefs of Staff said. South Korea’s military has bolstered a surveillance posture, it said. It was North Korea’s first weapons launch event since April 19, when the country fired multiple short-range missiles in what state-media described as a demonstration of cluster bomb warheads. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has focused on...
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Myanmar military steps up fight for rare earth area and border routes

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Myanmar’s military has launched renewed offensives into several border regions, including a frontier area with critical rare earth deposits and other vital trade routes, a month after a new administration took formal control of the war-torn country. New military chief Ye Win Oo, who took office in March after his long-time predecessor stepped down to become president, is ​making an aggressive push to reclaim strategic border strongholds from ethnic armies that have gained strength in recent years, spokesmen ‌for rebel groups and analysts told Reuters. The military’s recent offensives have focused on Kachin State, a region rich in heavy rare-earth elements that abuts China, as well as Chin State on the Indian border and a key trade corridor in Karen State, next to Thailand. At a meeting last week, Ye Win Oo told soldiers that the military had secured Falam town in Chin State and an arterial route between Mandalay and Myitkyina in Kachin State, the state-run Global New Light...
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Pakistan train blast kills at least 24 in Balochistan

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A blast targeting a train carrying military personnel killed at least 24 people on Sunday in Pakistan’s turbulent southwestern province of Balochistan, a senior official said. Army servicemen were among the victims of the attack in the provincial capital Quetta, which wounded more than 50 people, the official told AFP. The attack, which was claimed by the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) militant group, was branded a “cowardly” act of terrorism by Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. Images showed a mangled train carriage on its side as people clambered over the wreckage to find survivors. People could be seen carrying blood-soaked victims on stretchers away from a derailed car, while armed security forces stood guard. The local official told AFP that the train carrying army personnel and their family members was going from Quetta to Peshawar in Pakistan’s northwest. The train was passing a signal at Chaman Pattak in Quetta “when an ...
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Coal mine explosion in China kills 90 people

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A gas explosion at a coal mine in China’s northern Shanxi province killed at least 90 people, state media said on Saturday, in the country’s deadliest mining accident in recent years. Official news agency Xinhua said the accident at Changzhi city’s Liushenyu coal mine happened on Friday evening. Around 247 workers were on duty at the time. Nine miners were still unaccounted for as of Saturday afternoon, Xinhua said, and more than 120 people were hospitalized. The cause of the explosion was under investigation, Xinhua reported, and rescue work is pressing on with hundreds of rescuers and medical personnel sent to the site. Among the injured, many were hurt by toxic gas, according to state media CCTV. Chinese President Xi Jinping has called for an all-out effort to rescue the missing, reported Xinhua. Xi also called for the “proper handling of the aftermath of the accident and urged a thorough investigation into its cause, with accountability pursued in accordance wi...
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NATO allies bewildered by Trump’s about-face on US troop moves in Europe

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BY MARK CARLSON and LORNE COOK AP NATO allies and defense officials expressed bewilderment on Friday at U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to send  5,000 U.S. troops  to Poland just weeks after he had ordered 5,000 troops to be pulled out of Europe. “It is confusing indeed, and not always easy to navigate,” Swedish Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard told reporters at a meeting she was hosting of her NATO counterparts, including U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio. U.S. defense officials were also confused. “We just spent the better part of two weeks reacting to the first announcement. We don’t know what this means either,” said one of two officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military matters. In a post on Truth Social, Trump said “I am pleased to announce that the United States will be sending an additional 5,000 Troops to Poland.” He said this was due to his strong ties with Polish President Karol Nawrocki, whom Trump e...
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Cuba outraged after US indicts Raul Castro

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Cubans expressed their shock and indignation after the United States indicted former president Raul Castro on murder charges, a stunning new step in President Donald Trump’s pressure on the communist state. The charges against the ex-leader — who at 94 years old remains influential in Cuban politics — have fuelled speculation that Trump will try to topple the crisis-hit island, culminating a US pressure campaign which has imposed months of crippling oil blockades. Authorities in Cuba and abroad slammed the indictment, the latest step-up in Trump’s international interventions after the Iran war, the US toppling of Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro and threats against Greenland. The charges against Raul Castro — younger brother of Fidel Castro, the late iconic US nemesis who led Cuba’s communist revolution that culminated in 1959 — stem from the deadly downing of two civilian planes manned by anti-Castro pilots in 1996. Cub...
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