Globalsecurity.org

Exercise Steadfast Defender 24, NATO's largest exercise in decades, began on Wednesday, January 24, 2024 as the dock landing ship USS Gunston Hall (LSD 44) departed Norfolk, Virginia, United States and following a series of operations will commence her transit across the Atlantic.

Iran-backed Houthi militants launched new attacks Wednesday on merchant shipping in the Gulf of Aden, just hours after the United States carried out preemptive strikes to stave off what it said was an imminent attack on shipping lanes in the Red Sea.

The Philippine armed forces will seek to ensure the country has "unimpeded" access to natural resources within its waters in the South China Sea, Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro said this week as he signaled a more defiant strategy toward China.

Prime Minister Hun Manet said on Wednesday that no foreign military bases will be allowed on Cambodian territory - a statement likely made to blunt criticism over China's recent involvement in the development at Ream Naval Base on the Gulf of Thailand.

At least nine people were killed and another 75 wounded Wednesday in Khan Younis as tank shelling hit a United Nations training center, where 800 displaced Palestinians were housed in the southern Gaza city, a U.N. relief official said.

Nine people were killed and 75 injured on Wednesday in a direct hit on a training centre turned shelter in southern Gaza run by UNRWA, the UN agency that assists Palestinians, according to initial reports.

Work harder to end the war in Gaza and recognize the State of Palestine were the messages once more from many countries on Wednesday, taking part in the two-day Security Council debate over the Middle East crisis.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal says he agreed with his Slovak counterpart, Robert Fico, on a policy of "new pragmatism" as the two neighbors try to improve relations that have soured since the populist Slovak leader won an election last year vowing to halt military aid to Kyiv.

The Missile Administration of the DPRK conducted the first test-fire of the new-type strategic cruise missile "Pulhwasal-3-31" under development on January 24.

North Korea says it has tested a new type of strategic cruise missile, assuring neighbors that the test-firing has no impact on the security of neighboring countries.

The United States has called on North Korea to refrain from further destabilizing actions and to return to diplomatic engagement following North Korea's firing of several cruise missiles into the waters off its western coast earlier on Wednesday.

The Ministry of Defence has signed Contract with Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Ltd (MDL), Mumbai on 24 January, 2024, for acquisition of 14 Fast Patrol Vessels (FPVs) for the Indian Coast Guard (ICG)

Iran's former President Hassan Rohani has been disqualified from running in the upcoming election for the Assembly of Experts, a clerical body whose tasks include appointing and theoretically removing the supreme leader.

Russia's heavy losses in its full-scale invasion of Ukraine mean that Moscow now sees its battlefield nuclear weapons as increasingly important in deterring and defeating NATO, according to a new report from the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), which warns that the West must wake up to the rising nuclear threat.

One of Russia's leading manufacturers of fighter jets and civilian aircraft continued to import parts and other equipment from European and U.S. suppliers despite the imposition of Western sanctions following the start of Moscow's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

China and Nauru formally established diplomatic relations on Wednesday following the Pacific island nation's decision earlier this month to sever ties with Taiwan.

The U.N. Security Council is to hold an emergency meeting Thursday after a Russian military transport plane went down near the Russia-Ukraine border, as both Russian and Ukrainian officials call for an investigation.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) on Wednesday kicked off "Exercise Steadfast Defender 2024," its largest military drills in decades.

Criticism pours in after the Israeli regime attacks a United Nations' facility in the city of Khan Younis in southern Gaza Strip, which has endured more than three months and a half of an unrelenting genocidal Israeli war.

A Yemeni military spokesman announced on Thursday morning that the country's armed forces have once again confronted Americans in waters off the Yemeni coast, targeting warships with missiles and directly hitting one of them.