China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning

Beijing: China said it lodged a diplomatic protest with India over the newly established office of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Centre (TECC) of Taiwan in Mumbai.

“There is but one China in the world and Taiwan is an inalienable part of China’s territory,” China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told a media briefing here on Thursday replying to a question.

“China strongly opposes all forms of official contact and interaction between Taiwan and countries having diplomatic relations with China, including the establishment of representative offices for each other. We have lodged solemn representations to the Indian side,” she said.

Mao said the one-China principle is a serious political commitment made by the Indian side and serves as the political foundation for China-India relations.

“China urges the Indian side to strictly abide by the commitments it has made, prudently and properly settle the Taiwan-related issues, not to conduct any form of official interaction with Taiwan and avoid disturbing the process to improve the China-India relationship,” she said.

The TECC in India opened a branch in Mumbai on Wednesday, bringing the number of its offices in India to three.

The TECC previously had its offices in Delhi and Chennai.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk

New Delhi: The world’s richest person Elon Musk has taken on Indian billionaires Mukesh Ambani and Sunil Bharti Mittal over the allocation of spectrum used in wireless communication using satellites, calling their demand for the auction of such airwaves “unprecedented”.

While Ambani’s Reliance Jio has been vocal about the need to allocate such spectrum through an auction to give a level playing field to legacy operators who buy airwaves and set up infrastructure like telecom towers, Mittal on Tuesday articulated the need to use bidding for such allocation.

Musk-led Starlink is demanding administrative allotment of licences in line with the global trend as it looks to tap into the world’s fastest-growing mobile telephony and internet market. This has found some backing in Telecom Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, who said such airwaves will be given out through administrative allocation and not auctioned.

Scindia said the Telecom Act of 2023 passed in December has put the matter in ‘Schedule 1’, which means that for satcomm spectrum will be allocated administratively.

“That does not mean that spectrum does not come without a cost. What that cost is and what the formula of that cost is going to be, will not be decided by you or me …it will be decided by Trai…and there is a paper that has already been circulated by Trai, and we have a regulatory authority for telecom, and that regulatory authority of telecom has been empowered by the constitution to decide what that administrative pricing is going to be,” he said.

The minister said he is very confident that Trai will come up with the best pricing that should be adopted, provided that it is being given in an administrative manner.

“Satellite spectrum across the world is allocated administratively. So, India is not doing anything different from the rest of the world. Conversely, if you do decide to auction it then you would be doing something, which is different from the rest of the world,” the minister said.

Pointing out that satellite spectrum is a shared airwaves, Scindia said, “If the spectrum is shared then how can you price it individually”.

Musk first termed the demand made by Jio last week for shunning sector regulator Trai’s consultation paper on satellite broadband being allocated and not auctioned as “unprecedented”, and when Mittal on Tuesday in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi favoured bidding as the route, he asked if it was “too much trouble” to allow Starlink to provide internet services in India.

This is perhaps the first time that Musk, whose networth of USD 241 billion is more than the combined wealth of Ambani, Mittal and Gautam Adani, has spoken directly against demands for a level playing field made by the Indian firms.

Speaking at the India Mobile Conference, Mittal, who heads India’s second largest telecom firm Bharti Airtel, said existing telecom companies will take satellite services into the remotest parts.

“And those satellite companies, who have ambitions to come into urban areas, serving retail customers, just need to pay the telecom licenses like everyone else. They are bound to the same conditions.

“They need to buy the spectrum as the telecom companies do, and need to pay the license as the telecom companies do, and also secure the networks of the telecom companies,” he said.

Soon after, his firm issued a statement saying it has always supported the ushering in of satcom services to connect the uncovered as in the deep far-flung reaches for maritime services, aviation, defence and security.

“There is no question of Airtel having moved its stance,” it said, adding that “satellite operators who want to provide services to urban areas and retail customers indeed need to go through the regular licensing process of any country”.

In the case of India, this involved obtaining “a license, buying spectrum, undertaking all the obligations, including rollout and security, paying their license fee and taxes”.

“Therefore, mobile operators and satcom operators, who have worked in harmony for decades, can continue to do so to serve those who are still struggling to find internet connectivity,” it added.

Musk responded to Jio’s letter with a post on X, which he owns, saying, “I will call and ask if it would not be too much trouble to allow Starlink to compete to provide Internet services to the people of India”.

Last week, Ambani’s Reliance Jio had written to Scindia seeking the re-issuance of a consultation paper by Trai to ensure a level playing field between satellite-based and terrestrial-based communication services.

Jio had further urged the government to direct Trai to conduct an evaluation of the technical and economic feasibility of spectrum auction for satellite services.

To a post that quoted a news report on the letter, Musk on Monday stated that this “would be unprecedented, as this spectrum was long designated by the ITU as shared spectrum for satellites”.

India is a member of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), a UN agency for digital technology.

Musk’s Starlink and global peers like Amazon’s Project Kuiper back an administrative allocation.

Musk, the mind behind PayPal, founder of Tesla and SpaceX and owner of X (formerly Twitter), uses his social media platform on a daily basis to make his views known on a vast array of topics.

Airtel, in a statement, said it has always maintained that it will use all technologies, including satcom, to ensure that every nook and corner of the country is covered with high-speed broadband connectivity.

“This position remains consistent. Airtel has tied up with Eutelsat OneWeb, which has a LEO constellation, only the second one in the world, through which it proposes to provide satcom services in India and Africa,” it said.

Eutelsat OneWeb, in a joint venture with Airtel, has already set up two ground stations, one in Gujarat and the other in Tamil Nadu, to secure all communications arising out of India on the satcom network as it awaits the green light to commercially provide such services, it added.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

Washington, Oct 15: The Biden administration has warned Israel that it must increase the amount of humanitarian aid it is allowing into Gaza within the next 30 days or it could risk losing access to US weapons funding.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin warned their Israeli counterparts in a letter dated Sunday that the changes must occur. The letter, which restates US policy toward humanitarian aid and arms transfers, was sent amid deteriorating conditions in northern Gaza and reports Israel had conducted a strike on a hospital tent site in central Gaza that killed at least four people.

A senior defence official said Tuesday that Blinken and Austin sent a letter to their Israeli counterparts as they saw a recent decrease in assistance reaching Gaza. The official said a similar letter sent by Blinken in April triggered a constructive response and “concrete measures from the Israelis”.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said the latest letter was a way to similarly address the problem.

For Israel to continue qualifying for foreign military financing, the level of aid getting into Gaza must increase to at least 350 trucks a day, Israel must institute additional humanitarian pauses and provide increased security for humanitarian sites, Austin and Blinken said. They said Israel had 30 days to respond to the different requirements.

An Israeli official confirmed a letter had been delivered but did not discuss the contents. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss a diplomatic matter, confirmed the US had raised “humanitarian concerns” and was putting pressure on Israel to speed up the flow of aid into Gaza.

Savannah: One person died as a result of a small plane crash Sunday night in a Savannah, Georgia, residential neighborhood, local police said.

The Savannah Police Department said in a brief statement that officers were dispatched to the crash site on East 66th Street, roughly 3 miles (4.8 kilometers) south of the city’s historic landmark district.

“The pilot is deceased, and the passenger has minor injuries,” Savannah police posted on X, adding, “No one on the ground was injured.”

Savannah’s firefighter union posted on Facebook that the crash happened shortly before 10 p.m. The Savannah Professional Firefighters Association posted a photograph of a mangled plane on the ground in front of a house.

The cause of the crash was not immediately known. Police said the Federal Aviation Administration is investigating.

Palestinians search for the bodies of their relatives killed in an Israeli bombardment of a school on oct 10

Deir Al-balah (Gaza Strip) (AP): An Israeli airstrike has killed at least 20 people including children at a school-turned-shelter in central Gaza, according to local hospitals.

The Sunday night’s strike also killed two women in Nuseirat. The school was sheltering some of the many Palestinians displaced by the yearlong war in Gaza.

The bodies were taken to Al-Awda hospital in Nuseirat and Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir al Balah.

Israel’s bombardment and its ground invasion of Gaza have killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry

Jerusalem The Israeli military said Tuesday that Iran has fired missiles and it ordered residents to remain close to bomb shelters as air raid sirens sounded across the country.

A series of window-shaking explosions were heard in Tel Aviv and near Jerusalem, though it was not immediately clear whether the sounds were from missiles landing or being intercepted by Israeli defenses, or both.

Israel and the United States have warned there would be severe consequences in the event of an attack on Israel from Iran, which backs the group Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Israeli army spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said the country’s air defense system was fully operational, detecting and intercepting threats. “However, the defense is not hermetic,” he said.

Orders to shelter in place were sent to Israelis’ mobile phones and announced on national television.

In the aftermath of missile strikes from Iran, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson Daniel Hagari has announced that Israelis are now permitted to leave protected areas. Speaking shortly after the update, Hagari emphasized that the IDF remains on “high alert both defensively and offensively” and assured the public of Israel’s readiness to protect its citizens.

“We will defend the citizens of the State of Israel. This attack will have consequences. We have plans, and we will operate at the place and time we decide,” Hagari said, underlining Israel’s preparedness for retaliatory action.

The spokesperson also mentioned that no casualties have been reported, crediting the citizens’ responsible actions during the attacks for preventing injuries.