Latest News & Features from Usman Ansari

News Digest from the January 2013 Edition

DEPLOYMENTS ABANDONED IN THE FACE OF SEQUESTRATION AXE While the US Navy remains the world’s most powerful and prominently deployed maritime fighting force - active across the Seven Seas - budget cuts imposed this year under the notorious sequestration process have already seen deployments cancelled. The Perry Class frigate USS Rentz and Los Angeles Class attack submarine USS Jefferson City, both based at San Diego, have remained in port rather than setting ...

News Digest from the March 2013 Edition

JAPAN’S FURY AS CHINESE WARSHIP LOCKS ON TO ITS DESTROYER Tensions between Tokyo and Beijing over disputed islands in the East China Sea took a dangerous twist when ...

News Digest from the January 2013 Edition

CHINA SEA GRAB RAISES ALARM A map printed in six million new passports for its citizens clearly indicate Beijing’s ambition to expand territorial waters across almost the whole ...

News Digest from the December 2012 Edition

UK TO OPERATE TWO CARRIERS The British government has staged a volte-face two years after declaring it would only ever operate one of the two new Queen Elizabeth Class ...

News Digest from the November 2012 Edition

USA LIFTS BAN ON KIWI SHIPS Washington has lifted a ban on New Zealand naval vessels visiting US naval and coast guard bases around the world. The ban was ...

News Digest from the October 2012 Edition

ASIA-PAC MARINES ARE ‘TIP OF SPEAR The US Marines Corps is to commit 22,000 troops west of the International Date Line (IDL), with a significant proportion of them deployed aboard ...

News Digest from the September 2012 Edition

SOUTH CHINA SEA SIMMERS President Benigno Aquino of the Philippines last month (July) said his country would not back down in its maritime dispute with Beijing, pledging to obtain ...