WORLD

Japan on Friday unveiled its biggest military build-up since World War Two with a $320 billion plan that will buy missiles capable of striking China and ready it for sustained conflict, as regional tensions and Russia's Ukraine invasion stoke war fears.

The sweeping, five-year plan, once unthinkable in pacifist Japan, will make the country the world's third-biggest military spender after the United States and China, based on current budgets.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who described Japan and its people as being at a "turning point in history", said the ramp-up was "my answer to the various security challenges that we face".

In a veiled reference to China, External Affairs Minister on Thursday said that evidence-backed proposals on terrorism are put on hold at the United Nations. 

While addressing the UNSC meeting on terrorism, Jaishankar stressed that contemporary epicentre of terrorism remains very much alive and active. 

His comments were apparently aimed at Pakistan which has been nurturing and harbouring terrorists and helping them infiltrate into India to carry out dastardly attacks.

The external affairs ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has lost its credibility as it has taken a communal and a factually incorrect approach to issues after the organisation’s secretary-general Hissein Brahim Taha visited Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir.

“We strongly condemn the visit of the OIC Secretary General to Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK) and his comments on Jammu and Kashmir during his visit to Pakistan,” Bagchi said, according to a report by ANI.

Bagchi outlined that the OIC has no right or authority to deliberate on matters related to the Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir. He said Kashmir is an inalienable part of the nation and the OIC’s efforts to meddle in India’s internal affairs is unacceptable.

A new study has revealed that Pakistan is at the top of the list of 82 nations most influenced by China.

The China Index, a database relaunched on December 8 by DoubleThink Labs, a Taiwan-based research organization has ranked Pakistan at the top of the list of 82 other nations around the world, ANI quoted Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty as saying.

According to the report, Pakistan’s links and dependency on China with regard to the foreign and domestic policy, technology and the economy make it susceptible to Beijing’s influence.

Apart from Pakistan, Cambodia and Singapore are at the second spot while Thailand is at the third spot.

India stood alone abstaining on a Security Council resolution backed in a show of consensus by the Western countries as well as China and Russia, warning it could allow the diversion of aid to terrorist groups like the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM).

The resolution adopted on Friday with the support of all the other 14 members exempts the provision of what it calls "humanitarian assistance" from UN sanctions imposed on terrorist groups for two years.