Bovington Fire
Articles in the Telegraph and the Times speculate on the cause of a fire at Bovington Army Base on Friday. The Army’s position is as follows.
An Army spokesperson said:
We can confirm a fire occurred on Friday evening at Bovington Camp, Dorset Fire & Rescue attended the fire. There was some damage but no one was injured, while an investigation is taking place it would be inappropriate to comment further.
Red Arrows
Following the announcement made by MOD yesterday, the Daily Mirror reports that the Red Arrows are going to ‘fly the flag’ for British industry by performing at the Zhuhai Air Show in China for the first time. The article states that they will also perform at displays in India, Malaysia and Singapore.
The Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said:
Our RAF Red Arrows and Typhoons represent the best of British. The Red Arrows will fly the flag for Britain in key export markets while our RAF Typhoons will exercise with our allies.
You can read the full MOD statement here.
Mogadishu
The Times, Telegraph, Wall Street Journal and the Independent all report on yesterday’s attacks in Mogadishu, Somalia. It’s reported that suicide bombers detonated two car bombs outside a peacekeeping base where dozens of British troops are housed. It is noted that while no British soldiers were hurt, the blasts killed at least 13 people. The attack has been claimed by Islamist terror group al-Shabaab.
Open Skies
Today a Russian aircraft will start a series of flights over the UK that will last two days. The UK is party to international conventional arms control agreements and confidence building measures, one of the long-standing treaties we administer is called ‘Open Skies’ which came into force in January 2002 and currently has 34 signatory nations.
Open Skies establishes a program of unarmed aerial surveillance flights over the territory of its participants and is aimed at building confidence and familiarity through participation in over flights. It is under this agreement that the Russian military will fly an Antonov (unarmed photography aircraft) from RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire where RAF personnel join the aircraft to monitor the flight as it flew across the UK.
The routes are first pre-approved by the MOD and RAF and then flown as per the flight plan. Such sorties are commonplace, reciprocal and have been going on for many years, the UK recently conducted our own flights over Russia. When Open Skies flights occur over the UK, we always have RAF representatives onboard – and the UK always gets to see all the photos which were taken on the flight.
So why do we do it? The opportunity to observe each other’s territories is invaluable for transparency and the development of international trust between nations. In addition, aside from observing their work in the sky, we also get to interact professionally and to learn more about the culture of the nation in question; in this instance interacting with our Russian counterparts.
Picture of the day
