Strangeland Strangers

The death toll from a hotel attack in Somalia by Al-Shabaab rose to 26 on Saturday with victims including Kenyans, Tanzanians, Americans, a Briton, a Canadian as well as prominent Somali politicians. A presidential candidate for upcoming regional elections was also killed in the siege in Kismayo city that was carried out by al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabab, Jubbaland President Ahmed Mohamed said in a statement. More than 50 people were also wounded. Police in the southern port city earlier put the toll at 13. The attack lasted more than 14 hours before troops shot dead all attackers inside the hotel compound, Colonel Abdiqadir Nur, a local police officer, told The Associated Press.

Defying strenuous  objections and the threat of sanctions from USA, Turkey began receiving the first shipment of a sophisticated Russian surface-to-air missile system S-400 on Friday, a step certain to test the country’s uneasy place in the NATO alliance. The system, called the S-400, includes advanced radar to detect aircraft and other targets, and the United States has been unyielding in its opposition to Turkey’s acquisition of the equipment, which is deeply troubling to Washington on several levels. It puts Russian technology inside the territory of a key NATO ally and also a potential threat to stealth intelligence of F-35 . The Russian engineers who will be required to set up the system, American officials fear, will have an opportunity to learn much about the American-made fighter jets that are also part of Turkey’s arsenal.

The upgraded version of the Indo-Russian joint adventure BrahMos missile with an enhanced range of up to 500 km is ready, the CEO of BrahMos Aerospace, Sudhir Kumar Mishra, has said. Mishra, in an interview broadcast on Doordarshan News Sunday, said it is possible to increase the range of this missile because India is now a part of the elite Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR). "India has successfully test-fired a vertical deep dive version of BrahMos, the world's fastest supersonic cruise missile, that can now change the dynamics of conventional warfare... The upgraded version of the missile with enhanced range of up to 500 km is also ready," he said. He said India is now the only country in the world to integrate long-range missiles onto fighter jets after the BrahMos missile was test-fired from a Sukhoi 30 aircraft of the Indian Air Force

The Russian Defence Ministry on Friday said and confirmed that it scrambled a Sukhoi Su-27 fighter aircraft to intercept a rival US P-8A Poseidon reconnaissance jet heading towards the Russian airspace over the Black Sea most probably meant for spy job. " A Su-27 fighter jet as part of the Southern Military District's air defences was scrambled to intercept the target. The crew flew the aircraft at a safe distance to the aerial target and identified it as a US P-8A Poseidon reconnaissance jet, which immediately changed the direction of its flight to fly away from the Russian state border, " The ministry exclaimed. The Russian flight was carried out in line with international rules and the fighter jet returned to its home base after completing the mission, the ministry added.

Two women have won the backing of the EU’s leaders to head the European commission and European Central Bank, breaking with more than 60 years of male dominance at the top of the bloc’s institutions. After three days of tortuous negotiations, Germany’s defence minister, Ursula von der Leyen, received the support of heads of state and government to replace Jean-Claude Juncker as president of the commission in Brussels. And the French managing director of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde, will move to Frankfurt to take over from Mario Draghi as the first female president of the ECB once it is formally signed off by the Eurozone group.