Tag: International incidents

Today in History: December 4, the “Million Dollar Quartet”

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Today in History

Today is Sunday, Dec. 4, the 338th day of 2022. There are 27 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlights in History:

On Dec. 4, 1956, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins gathered for the first and only time for a jam session at Sun Records in Memphis.

On this date:

In 1783, Gen. George Washington bade farewell to his Continental Army officers at Fraunces Tavern in New York.

In 1918, President Woodrow Wilson left Washington on a trip to France to attend the Versailles (vehr-SY’) Peace Conference.

In 1942, during World War II, U.S. bombers struck the Italian mainland for the first time with a raid on Naples. President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered the dismantling of the Works Progress Administration, which had been created to provide jobs during the Depression.

In 1965, the United States launched Gemini 7 with Air Force Lt. Col. Frank Borman and Navy Cmdr. James A. Lovell aboard on a two-week mission. (While Gemini 7 was in orbit, its sister ship, Gemini 6A, was launched on Dec. 15 on a one-day mission; the two spacecraft were able to rendezvous within a foot of each other.)

In 1978, San Francisco got its first female mayor as City Supervisor Dianne Feinstein (FYN’-styn) was named to replace the assassinated George Moscone (mahs-KOH’-nee).

In 1980, the bodies of four American churchwomen slain in El Salvador two days earlier were unearthed. (Five Salvadoran national guardsmen were later convicted of murdering nuns Ita Ford, Maura Clarke and Dorothy Kazel, and lay worker Jean Donovan.)

In 1986, both houses of Congress moved to establish special committees to conduct their own investigations of the Iran-Contra affair.

In 1992, President George H.W. Bush ordered American troops to lead a mercy mission to Somalia, threatening military action against warlords and gangs who were blocking food for starving millions.

In 1995, the first NATO troops landed in the Balkans to begin setting up a peace mission that brought American soldiers into the middle of the Bosnian conflict.

In 2000, in a pair of legal setbacks for Al Gore, a Florida state judge refused to overturn George W. Bush’s certified victory in Florida and the U.S. Supreme Court set aside a ruling that had allowed manual recounts.

In 2016, a North Carolina man armed with a rifle fired several shots inside Comet Ping Pong, a Washington, D.C., pizzeria, as he attempted to investigate an online conspiracy theory that prominent Democrats were harboring child sex slaves at the restaurant; no one was hurt, and the man surrendered to police. (He was later sentenced to four years in prison.)

In 2018, long lines of people wound through the Capitol Rotunda to view the casket of former President George H.W. Bush; former Sen. Bob Dole steadied himself out of his wheelchair to salute his old friend and one-time rival.

Ten years ago: Two Australian radio disc jockeys impersonating Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Charles made a prank call to a London hospital and succeeded in getting a nurse to tell them the condition of the Duchess of Cambridge, who was being treated for acute morning sickness; another nurse who had put the call through would be found dead three days later in an apparent suicide.

Five years ago: Declaring that “public lands will once again be for public use,” President Donald Trump scaled back two sprawling national monuments in Utah; it was the first time in a half century that a president had undone that type of land protection. The Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to fully enforce a ban on travel to the United States by residents of six mostly Muslim countries. Trump formally endorsed Republican Roy Moore in the Alabama Senate race, looking past sexual misconduct allegations against the GOP candidate.

One year ago: James and Jennifer Crumbley, the parents of a Michigan teen charged with killing four students at a high school earlier in the week, were arrested in a Detroit commercial building where police said they’d been hiding; a judge later imposed a combined $1 million bond for the couple, who pleaded not guilty to charges of involuntary manslaughter in connection with the shooting rampage. CNN fired anchor Chris Cuomo less than a week after new information emerged about how he assisted his brother, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, as the politician faced sexual harassment allegations earlier in the year. Country musician Stonewall Jackson, who sang on the Grand Ole Opry for more than 50 years and had No. 1 hits with “Waterloo” and others, died after a long battle with vascular dementia; he was 89.

Today’s Birthdays: Game show host Wink Martindale is 89. Pop singer Freddy Cannon is 86. Actor-producer Max Baer Jr. is 85. Actor Gemma Jones is 80. Rock musician Bob Mosley (Moby Grape) is 80. Singer-musician Chris Hillman is 78. Musician Terry Woods (The Pogues) is 75. Rock singer Southside Johnny Lyon is 74. Actor Jeff Bridges is 73. Rock musician Gary Rossington (Lynyrd Skynyrd; the Rossington Collins Band) is 71. Actor Patricia Wettig is 71. Actor Tony Todd is 68. Jazz singer Cassandra Wilson is 67. Country musician Brian Prout (Diamond Rio) is 67. Rock musician Bob Griffin (formerly with The BoDeans) is 63. Rock singer Vinnie Dombroski (Sponge) is 60. Actor Marisa Tomei is 58. Actor Chelsea Noble is 58. Actor-comedian Fred Armisen is 56. Rapper Jay-Z is 53. Actor Kevin Sussman is 52. Actor-model Tyra Banks is 49. Country singer Lila McCann is 41. Actor Lindsay Felton is 38. Actor Orlando Brown is 35. MLB pitcher Joe Musgrove is 30. Actor Scarlett Estevez (TV: “Lucifer”) is 15.

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December 3, 2022
Israeli aircraft hit Gaza after rocket fire

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GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Israeli aircraft struck several military sites in the Gaza Strip early Sunday, hours after Palestinian militants fired a missile into southern Israel in a move apparently linked to rising tension in the occupied West Bank, Israel said.

The Israeli military said the airstrikes targeted a weapons manufacturing facility and an underground tunnel belonging to Hamas, the militant group that has controlled Gaza since 2007. The military said more projectiles were fired over the border while warplanes were hitting the Gaza sites.

No Palestinian group claimed responsibility for the Saturday evening rocket, which landed in an open area near the Gaza-Israel fence. The border has been quiet since August’s three-day blitz between Israel and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a powerful Gaza group that is smaller than the dominant Hamas.

Hamas and other factions have largely honored the unofficial understandings that have kept the situation in the impoverished territory calm in exchange for thousands of Israeli work permits. Israel and Egypt maintain a blockade on Gaza to prevent Hamas from stocking up weapons.

“The strike overnight continues the progress to impede the force build-up” of Hamas, the Israeli army said.

Critics of the blockade say it is a form of collective punishment that harms Gaza’s 2.3 million people.

While Gaza remained quiet, tension has been boiling for months in the West Bank, where the Palestinian Authority exerts limited self-rule in parts of the territory.

Israel carried out near daily raids that it says targets wanted Palestinians involved in planning or taking part in attacks, prompted by a spate of Palestinian attacks on Israelis in the spring that killed 19 people.

The military says the raids are meant to dismantle militant networks and thwart future attacks, but the Palestinians say they entrench Israel’s open-ended occupation, now in its 56th year. A recent wave of Palestinian attacks on Israeli targets killed an additional nine people.

More than 140 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli-Palestinian fighting this year. The Israeli army says most of the Palestinians killed have been militants. But stone-throwing youths protesting Israeli army incursions and others not involved in confrontations have also been killed.

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December 3, 2022
US VP Harris flying to Philippine island near disputed sea

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PUERTO PRINCESA, Philippines — U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris is flying to a western Philippines island province at the edge of the South China Sea on Tuesday to amplify America’s support to its treaty ally and underline U.S. interest in freedom of navigation in the disputed waters, where it has repeatedly chastised China for belligerent actions.

A new confrontation erupted in the contested waterway ahead of her visit when the Philippine navy alleged a Chinese coast guard vessel had forcibly seized Chinese rocket debris as Filipino sailors were towing it to their island.

The long-seething territorial conflicts involving China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei have long been regarded as an Asian flashpoint and a delicate fault line in the U.S.-China rivalry in the region.

In talks with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. in Manila on Monday, Harris reaffirmed Washington’s commitment to defend the Philippines under the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty, which obligates the allies to help defend any side which comes under attack.

“An armed attack on the Philippines armed forces, public vessels, or aircraft in the South China Sea would invoke U.S. Mutual Defense commitments,” Harris told Marcos Jr. “And that is an unwavering commitment that we have to the Philippines.”

Marcos Jr. thanked Harris, saying that with the upheavals in the region and beyond, “this partnership becomes even more important.”

In Palawan’s main city of Puerto Princesa, Harris would visit a small fishing community called Tagburos and discuss with impoverished villagers the impact of illegal fishing on their livelihood and promote responsible fishing.

The Philippine coast guard said it would welcome Harris on board one of its biggest patrol ships, the BRP Teresa Magbanua, at a seaport in Puerto Princesa, where she is scheduled to deliver a speech to underscore the importance of international law, freedom of navigation and unimpeded commerce in the South China Sea.

She would announce an additional aid of $7.5 million to Philippine maritime law enforcement agencies to boost their capacity to counter illegal fishing, carry out sea surveillance and help in search and rescue efforts, including in the South China Sea, according to a statement issued by the vice president’s office.

The Philippine coast guard would also get additional U.S. help to upgrade its vessel traffic management system for better safety at sea. The Philippines is also now receiving real-time surveillance data to be able to detect and counter illicit activities at sea in a project by the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, an informal strategic bloc that involves the U.S., India, Japan and Australia, according to Harris’s office said.

While the U.S. lays no claims to the strategic waterway, where an estimated $5 trillion in global trade transits each year, it has said that freedom of navigation and overflight in the South China Sea is in America’s national interest.

In March, U.S. Indo-Pacific commander Adm. John C. Aquilino told The Associated Press that China has fully militarized at least three of several islands it built in the disputed South China Sea, arming them with anti-ship and anti-aircraft missile systems, laser and jamming equipment in an increasingly aggressive move that threatens all nations operating nearby.

Aquilino spoke with AP onboard a U.S. Navy reconnaissance aircraft that flew near Chinese-held island bases in the South China Sea. During the patrol, the P-8A Poseidon plane was repeatedly warned by Chinese radio callers that it illegally entered what they said was China’s territory and ordered the plane to move away.

In Sunday’s incident in the Spratlys, the most hotly contested area of the South China Sea, Vice Adm. Alberto Carlos, commander of the Philippine military’s Western Command, said a Chinese coast guard ship twice blocked a civilian boat manned by Philippine navy personnel before seizing the debris it was towing off Thitu island.

China denied there was a forcible seizure and said the debris, which it confirmed was from a recent Chinese rocket launch, was handed over by Philippine forces after a “friendly consultation.”

Chinese coast guard ships have blocked Philippine supply boats delivering supplies to Filipino forces in the disputed waters in the past but seizing objects in the possession of another nation’s military constitutes a more brazen act.

China has warned Washington not to meddle in what it calls a purely Asian dispute and has said that U.S. Navy and Air Force patrols and combat exercises in the disputed waters were militarizing the South China Sea.

In July, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called on China to comply with a 2016 arbitration ruling that invalidated Beijing’s vast territorial claims on historical grounds in the South China Sea.

China has rejected the 2016 decision by an arbitration tribunal set up in The Hague under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea after the Philippine government complained about China’s increasingly aggressive actions in the disputed waters. Beijing did not participate in the arbitration, rejected its ruling as a sham and continues to defy it.

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November 21, 2022
Chinese coast guard seizes rocket debris from Filipino navy

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MANILA, Philippines — The Chinese coast guard forcibly seized floating debris the Philippine navy was towing to its island in another confrontation in the disputed South China Sea, a Philippine military commander said Monday. The debris appeared to be from a Chinese rocket launch.

The Chinese vessel twice blocked the Philippine naval boat before seizing the debris it was towing Sunday off Philippine-occupied Thitu Island, Vice Admiral Alberto Carlos said Monday. He said no one was injured in the incident.

It’s the latest flare-up in long-seething territorial disputes in the strategic waterway, involving China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan.

Chinese coast guard ships have blocked Philippine supply boats delivering supplies to Filipino forces in the disputed waters in the past, but seizing objects in the possession of another nation’s military constituted a more brazen act.

Carlos said the Filipino sailors, using a long-range camera on Thitu island, spotted the debris drifting in strong waves near a sandbar about 800 yards (540 meters) away. They set out on a boat and retrieved the floating object and started to tow it back to their island using a rope tied to their boat.

As the Filipino sailors were moving back to their island, “they noticed that China coast guard vessel with bow number 5203 was approaching their location and subsequently blocked their pre-plotted course twice,” Carlos said in a statement.

The Chinese coast guard vessel then deployed an inflatable boat with personnel who “forcefully retrieved said floating object by cutting the towing line attached to the” Filipino sailors’ rubber boat. The Filipino sailors decided to return to their island, Carlos said, without detailing what happened.

Maj. Cherryl Tindog, spokesperson of the military’s Western Command, said the floating metal object appeared similar to a number of other pieces of Chinese rocket debris recently found in Philippine waters. She added the Filipino sailors did not fight the seizure.

“We practice maximum tolerance in such a situation,” Tindog told reporters. “Since it involved an unidentified object and not a matter of life and death, our team just decided to return.”

Metal debris from Chinese rocket launches, some showing a part of what appears to be Chinese flag, have been found in Philippine waters in at least three other instances. Such discovery of Chinese rocket debris has opened China to criticism.

Rockets launched from the Wenchang Space Launch Center on China’s Hainan island in recent months have carried construction materials and supplies for China’s crewed space station.

The Philippine government has filed a large number of diplomatic protests in recent years against China over such aggressive actions in the South China Sea but it did not immediately say what action it would take following Sunday’s incident. The Department of Foreign Affairs in Manila would usually wait for an official investigation report before lodging a protest.

Thitu island, which Filipinos call Pag-asa, hosts a fishing community and Filipino forces and lies near Subi, one of seven disputed reefs in the offshore region that China has turned into missile-protected islands, including three with runways, which U.S. security officials say now resemble military forward bases.

The Philippines and other smaller claimant nations in the disputed region, backed by the United States and other Western countries, have strongly protested and raised alarm over China’s increasingly aggressive actions in the busy waterway.

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, who is visiting Manila, is scheduled to fly to the western province of Palawan, which faces the South China Sea, on Tuesday to underscore American support to the Philippines and renew U.S. commitment to defend its longtime treaty ally if Filipino forces, ships and aircraft come under attack in the disputed waters.

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November 20, 2022
US defense chief: ‘Tyranny and turmoil’ in Russian invasion

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HALIFAX, Nova Scotia — U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin warned Saturday Russia’s invasion of Ukraine offers a preview of a world where nuclear-armed countries could threaten other nations and said Beijing, like Moscow, seeks a world where might makes right.

Austin made the remarks at the annual Halifax International Security Forum, which attracts defense and security officials from Western democracies.

“Russia’s invasion offers a preview of a possible world of tyranny and turmoil that none of us would want to live in. And it’s an invitation to an increasingly insecure world haunted by the shadow of nuclear proliferation,” Austin said in a speech.

“Because (Russian President Vladimir) Putin’s fellow autocrats are watching. And they could well conclude that getting nuclear weapons would give them a hunting license of their own. And that could drive a dangerous spiral of nuclear proliferation.”

Austin dismissed Putin’s claims that “modern Ukraine was entirely created by Russia,” calling it a vision of “a world in which autocrats decide which countries are real and which countries can be snuffed out.”

He added that the war “shows the whole world the dangers of disorder. That’s the security challenge that we face. It’s urgent, and it’s historic.

But we’re going to meet it. … The basic principles of democracy are under siege around the world,” he said.

U.S. President Joe Biden last month declared that the risk of nuclear “Armageddon” is at the highest level since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis; Russian officials have raised using tactical nuclear weapons after suffering massive setbacks in the nearly nine-month invasion of Ukraine.

While U.S. officials for months have warned of the prospect that Russia could use weapons of mass destruction in Ukraine in the face of battlefield setbacks, Biden administration officials have repeatedly said nothing has changed in U.S. intelligence assessments to suggest that Putin has imminent plans to deploy nuclear weapons.

CIA Director Bill Burns recently met with his Russian intelligence counterpart to warn of consequences if Russia were to deploy a nuclear weapon in Ukraine.

Austin said nuclear weapons need to be responsibly controlled, and not used to threaten the world.

“Ukraine faces a harsh winter. And as Russia’s position on the battlefield erodes, Putin may resort again to profoundly irresponsible nuclear saber-rattling,” he said

Austin also compared Russia to China, saying Beijing is trying to refashion both the region and the international system to suit its authoritarian preferences. He noted China’s increasing military activities in the Taiwan Strait.

“Beijing, like Moscow, seeks a world where might makes right, where disputes are resolved by force, and where autocrats can stamp out the flame of freedom,” he said.

Austin called Putin’s invasion the worst crisis in security since the end of the Second World War and said the outcome “will help determine the course of global security in this young century,” Austin said..

Austin said the deadly missile explosion in Poland this week is a consequence of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “war of choice” against Ukraine. “The tragic and troubling explosion in Poland this week reminded the whole world of the recklessness of Putin’s war of choice,” Austin said.

On Tuesday, two workers were killed when a projectile hit a grain-drying facility close to Poland’s border with Ukraine. While the source of the missile is under investigation, NATO officials have said they suspect it was fired from a Ukrainian missile battery.

Officials from Poland, NATO and the United States have blamed Russia for the deaths in any case, saying a Ukrainian missile would not have misfired had the country not been forced to defend itself against heavy Russian attacks that day.

Russian officials have cast the conflict as a struggle against NATO — though Ukraine is not a NATO member even if it has been receiving aid from NATO member states.

Austin said NATO is a defensive alliance and poses no threat to Russia.

“Make no mistake: we will not be dragged into Putin’s war of choice. But we will stand by Ukraine as it fights to defend itself. And we will defend every inch of NATO territory,” Austin said.

A Polish investigation to determine the source of the missile and the circumstances of the explosion was launched with support from the U.S. and Ukrainian investigators joined the probe on Friday.

Andriy Yermak, head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, said in an interview broadcast live at the forum that “It’s not right to say it’s a Ukrainian rocket, or a Russian rocket, before the investigation is over.”

In its 14th year, about 300 people gather each year at Halifax International Security Forum held at Halifax’s Westin hotel, where about 13 Ukrainian refugees now work.

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November 19, 2022
Russia-Ukraine grain deal extended in win for food prices

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ANKARA, Turkey — A wartime agreement that unblocked grain shipments from Ukraine and helped temper rising global food prices will be extended by four months, the United Nations and other parties to the deal said Thursday, preventing a price shock to some of the world’s most vulnerable countries where many are struggling with hunger.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the 120-day extension a “key decision in the global fight against the food crisis.” Struck during Russia’s war in Ukraine, the initiative established a safe shipping corridor in the Black Sea and inspection procedures to address concerns that cargo vessels might carry weapons or launch attacks.

The deal that Ukraine and Russia signed in separate agreements with the U.N. and Turkey on July 22 was due to expire Saturday. Russia confirmed the extension but said it expected progress on removing obstacles to the export of Russian food and fertilizers.

Ukraine and Russia are key global suppliers of wheat, barley, sunflower oil and other food to countries in Africa, the Middle East and parts of Asia where millions of impoverished people lack enough to eat. Russia was also the world’s top exporter of fertilizer before the war. A loss of those supplies following Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine had pushed up global food prices and fueled concerns of a hunger crisis in poorer countries.

While the extension prevents a price shock in developing nations that spend far more on food and energy than richer countries, threats persist from droughts in places like Somalia and the weakening of currencies around the world, which makes buying imported grain more expensive.

“I was deeply moved to know that in Istanbul, Turkey, Ukraine, Russia and the U.N. had come to an agreement for the rollover of the Black Sea Grain Initiative, allowing for the free exports of Ukrainian grains,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said.

The Turkish Defense Ministry said the decision to extend the deal came after two days of talks in Istanbul between delegations from Turkey, Russia, Ukraine and the U.N. that were held in a “positive and constructive” atmosphere.

Russia had voiced dissatisfaction with the deal facilitating exports of Russian grain and fertilizer, hinting that it might not approve an extension and even briefly suspending its part of the deal late last month. It cited risks to its ships following what it alleged was a Ukrainian drone attack on Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.

Although Western sanctions against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine did not target food exports, many shipping and insurance companies were reluctant to deal with Moscow, either refusing to do so or greatly increasing the price.

Guterres said the U.N. was “fully committed” to removing hurdles to shipping food and fertilizer from Russia.

The United Nations has been working to overcome issues related to insurance, access to ports, financial transactions and shipping for Russian vessels, according to a U.N. official who was not authorize to speak publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. The official said the insurance issue has mainly been resolved in recent days.

Russia has offered to donate 260,000 metric tons of fertilizer stored in European ports to farmers in the developing world who have been priced out of the fertilizer market because of shortages, and the official said the first ship is slated to leave the Netherlands on Monday for Mozambique, where the fertilizer will go by land to Malawi. Further shipments are expected from Belgium and Estonia, the official said.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said Moscow had allowed the extension to take effect “without any changes in terms and scope.” It said Russia noted the “intensification” of U.N. efforts to hasten Russian exports.

“All these issues must be resolved within 120 days for which the ‘package deal’ is extended,” the ministry said.

During talks on the extension, the sides discussed possible additional measures to “deliver more grain to those in real need,” the ministry added, apparently to address Russian complaints that most of the grain has ended up in richer nations.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan suggested Thursday that wheat from Russia could be turned into flour in Turkey and shipped to African nations in need.

U.N. humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths said last month that 23% of the exports from Ukraine under the grain deal have gone to lower- or lower-middle-income countries and 49% of all wheat shipments have gone to such nations.

Markets were pleasantly surprised by the extension, said Ian Mitchell, co-director of the Europe program at the Center for Global Development who specializes in agriculture and food security. Following the announcement, wheat futures prices dropped 2.6% in Chicago.

“Ukraine and Russia are such important grain exporters that the rest of the market can’t fully substitute for the complete absence of Ukrainian grain,” he said. “So that deal is going to matter to food prices significantly, even if the volumes are not what they were before the invasion.”

He said, however, that uncertainty is “unhelpful in this deal.” Toward the end of the four-month extension, markets will “price in the risk that it wasn’t extended, and prices will rise a little bit again.”

Arnaud Petit, executive director of the International Grains Council, said the Black Sea region produces some of the world’s cheapest wheat and securing those supplies prevents a price shock to developing nations.

There have been good harvests in the region, contributing to an expected 10 million more tons of wheat worldwide compared with last year, he said. The extension means that Ukrainian farmers can plan to plant.

Petit called the extension a building block in “an unstable region where things can change on a daily basis.”

However, when it comes to food prices, trade movement isn’t as important as currencies around the world weakening against a strong U.S. dollar, which commodities like wheat and other grain are priced in, Petit said.

The council calculated that for Ghana, which mainly imports its wheat from Canada, the price of wheat in dollars from Canada has been largely stable for two years. But changing into local currency translated to a 70% price hike.

Global food prices declined about 15% from their March peak after the grain initiative was adopted in July.

“With the delivery of more than 11 million tons of grains and foodstuffs to those in need via approximately 500 ships over the past four months, the significance and benefits of this agreement for the food supply and security of the world have become evident,” Turkey’s Erdogan said.

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Bonnell reported from London. Associated Press writers Jamey Keaten in Geneva and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed.

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Follow AP’s coverage of the food crisis at https://apnews.com/hub/food-crisis and war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

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November 17, 2022
Poland, NATO say missile strike wasn’t a Russian attack

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PRZEWODOW, Poland — NATO member Poland and the head of the military alliance both said Wednesday a missile strike in Polish farmland that killed two people did not appear to be an intentional attack, and that air defenses in neighboring Ukraine likely launched the Soviet-era projectile against a Russian bombardment that savaged its power grid.

“Ukraine’s defense was launching their missiles in various directions and it is highly probable that one of these missiles unfortunately fell on Polish territory,” said Polish President Andrzej Duda. “There is nothing, absolutely nothing, to suggest that it was an intentional attack on Poland.”

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, at a meeting of the 30-nation military alliance in Brussels, echoed the preliminary Polish findings, saying: “We have no indication that this was the result of a deliberate attack.”

The initial assessments of Tuesday’s deadly missile landing appeared to dial back the likelihood of the strike triggering another major escalation in the nearly 9-month-old Russian invasion of Ukraine. If Russia had deliberately targeted Poland, that could have risked drawing NATO into the conflict.

Still, Stoltenberg and others laid overall but not specific blame on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war.

“This is not Ukraine’s fault. Russia bears ultimate responsibility,” Stoltenberg said.

Before the Polish and NATO assessments, U.S. President Joe Biden had said it was “unlikely” that Russia fired the missile but added: “I’m going to make sure we find out exactly what happened.”

Three U.S. officials said preliminary assessments suggested it was fired by Ukrainian forces at an incoming Russian one. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

That assessment and Biden’s comments at the Group of 20 summit in Indonesia contradicted information earlier Tuesday from a senior U.S. intelligence official who told The Associated Press that Russian missiles crossed into Poland.

Ukraine, once part of the Soviet Union, maintains stocks of Soviet- and Russian-made weaponry, including air-defense missiles, and has also seized many more Russian weapons while beating back the Kremlin’s invasion forces.

Ukrainian air defenses worked furiously against the Russian assault Tuesday on power generation and transmission facilities, including in Ukraine’s western region that borders Poland. Ukraine’s military said 77 of the more than 90 missiles fired were brought down, along with 11 drones.

Russia said it didn’t launch the missile. A Defense Ministry spokesman said no Russian strike Tuesday was closer than 35 kilometers (22 miles) from the Ukraine-Poland border. The Kremlin denounced Poland’s and other countries’ initial response and, in rare praise for a U.S. leader, hailed Biden’s “restrained, much more professional reaction.”

“We have witnessed another hysterical, frenzied, Russo-phobic reaction that was not based on any real data,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

Still, Ukraine was under countrywide Russian bombardment Tuesday by barrages of cruise missiles and exploding drones, which clouded the initial picture of what exactly happened in Poland and why.

The Polish president said the projectile was “most probably” a Russian-made S-300 missile dating from the Soviet era.

“It was a huge blast, the sound was terrifying.” said Ewa Byra, the primary school director in the eastern village of Przewodow, where the missile struck. She said she knew both men who were killed — one was the husband of a school employee, the other the father of a former pupil.

In Europe, NATO members Germany and the U.K. laced calls for a through investigation with criticism of Moscow.

“This wouldn’t have happened without the Russian war against Ukraine, without the missiles that are now being fired at Ukrainian infrastructure intensively and on a large scale,” said German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said: “This is the cruel and unrelenting reality of Putin’s war.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called it “a very significant escalation.” On the other end of the spectrum, China called for calm and restraint.

Damage in Ukraine from the aerial assault was extensive and swaths of the country were without power. Zelenskyy said about 10 million people lost electricity but tweeted overnight that 8 million were subsequently reconnected, with repair crews laboring through the night. Previous Russian strikes had already destroyed an estimated 40% of the country’s energy infrastructure.

The Russian bombardment also affected neighboring Moldova. It reported massive power outages after the strikes in Ukraine disconnected a power line to the small nation.

Tuesday’s assaults killed one person in a residential building in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv. It followed days of euphoria in Ukraine sparked by one of its biggest military successes — the retaking last week of the southern city of Kherson.

With its battlefield losses mounting, Russia has increasingly resorted to targeting Ukraine’s power grid, seemingly hoping to turn the approach of winter into a weapon by leaving people in the cold and dark.

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AP journalists Vanessa Gera and Monika Scislowska in Warsaw; Lorne Cook in Brussels; John Leicester in Kyiv, Ukraine; Zeke Miller in Nusa Dua, Indonesia; Michael Balsamo and Lolita Baldor in Washington, James LaPorta in Wilmington, North Carolina, contributed.

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Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

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November 16, 2022
Poland, NATO say missile landing wasn’t Russian attack

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PRZEWODOW, Poland — Poland said Wednesday there is “absolutely no indication” that a missile which came down in Polish farmland, killing two people, was a intentional attack on the NATO country, and that neighbor Ukraine likely launched the Soviet-era projectile as it fended off a Russian air assault that savaged its power grid.

“Ukraine’s defense was launching their missiles in various directions and it is highly probable that one of these missiles unfortunately fell on Polish territory,” said Polish President Andrzej Duda. “There is nothing, absolutely nothing to suggest that it was an intentional attack on Poland.”

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, at a meeting of the military alliance in Brussels, agreed with the assessment.

“An investigation into this incident is ongoing and we need to await its outcome. But we have no indication that this was the result of a deliberate attack,” Stoltenberg told reporters.

The preliminary findings came after U.S. President Joe Biden and other Western backers of Ukraine had thrown their weight behind the investigation and amid repeated assertions from Russia that it didn’t fire the missile.

Biden said it was “unlikely” that Russia fired the missile but added: “I’m going to make sure we find out exactly what happened.”

The missile came down Tuesday near Poland’s border with Ukraine. Three U.S. officials said preliminary assessments suggested it was fired by Ukrainian forces at an incoming Russian one. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

That assessment and Biden’s comments at the Group of 20 summit in Indonesia contradicted information earlier Tuesday from a senior U.S. intelligence official who told The Associated Press that Russian missiles crossed into Poland.

Former Soviet-bloc country Ukraine maintains stocks of Soviet- and Russian-made weaponry, including air-defense missiles, and has also seized many more Russian weapons while beating back the Kremlin’s invasion forces.

Ukrainian air defenses worked furiously against the Russian assault Tuesday on power generation and transmission facilities, including in Ukraine’s western region that borders Poland. Ukraine’s military said 77 of the more than 90 missiles fired were brought down, along with 11 drones.

The Kremlin on Wednesday denounced Poland’s and other countries’ initial reaction to the missile incident and, in rare praise for a U.S. leader, hailed the response of the U.S.

“We have witnessed another hysterical, frenzied, Russophobic reaction that was not based on any real data,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Wednesday. He added that “immediately, all experts realized that it could not have been a missile linked to the Russian armed forces,” and pointed to a “restrained, much more professional reaction” of the U.S. and its president, Joe Biden.

In Brussels, NATO countries were coming together Wednesday for emergency talks. There was no immediate proof that Tuesday’s blast was a deliberate, hostile attack on NATO member Poland that could trigger the alliance’s provisions for a collective military response.

Russia denied any involvement. But Ukraine was under countrywide Russian bombardment Tuesday by barrages of cruise missiles and exploding drones, which clouded the picture of what exactly happened in Poland and why.

In Europe, NATO members Germany and the U.K. were among those stressing the need for a full investigation. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz warned against jumping to conclusions “in such a serious matter.”

Still, Scholz and others also laid overall but not specific blame on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

“This wouldn’t have happened without the Russian war against Ukraine, without the missiles that are now being fired at Ukrainian infrastructure intensively and on a large scale,” Scholz said.

U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak echoed that assessment, saying: “This is the cruel and unrelenting reality of Putin’s war.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called it “a very significant escalation.” On the other end of the spectrum, China was among those calling for calm and restraint.

Former Soviet-bloc country Ukraine maintains stocks of Soviet- and Russian-made weaponry, including air-defense missiles, and has also seized many more Russian weapons while beating back the Kremlin’s invasion forces.

Damage from the aerial assault in Ukraine was extensive and swaths of the country were plunged into darkness. Zelenskyy said about 10 million people lost power but tweeted overnight that 8 million were subsequently reconnected, with repair crews laboring through the night. Previous Russian strikes had already destroyed an estimated 40% of the country’s energy infrastructure.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg called the meeting in Brussels of the alliance’s envoys. The U.N. Security Council also planned to meet Wednesday for a previously scheduled briefing on the situation in Ukraine.

If Russia had deliberately targeted Poland, it would risk drawing NATO into the conflict.

Polish media reported that the strike took place in an area where grain was drying in Przewodow, a village near the border with Ukraine.

Russia’s Defense Ministry denied being behind “any strikes on targets near the Ukrainian-Polish border” and said in a statement that photos of purported damage “have nothing to do” with Russian weapons.

The Russian bombardment also affected neighboring Moldova. It reported massive power outages after the strikes in Ukraine disconnected a power line to the small nation.

The assault killed at least one person in a residential building in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv. It followed days of euphoria in Ukraine sparked by one of its biggest military successes — the retaking last week of the southern city of Kherson.

With its battlefield losses mounting, Russia has increasingly resorted to targeting Ukraine’s power grid, seemingly hoping to turn the approach of winter into a weapon by leaving people in the cold and dark.

———

Zeke Miller and Michael Balsamo in Washington, D.C., contributed.

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Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

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November 16, 2022
Qatar at World Cup pinnacle after years of Mideast turmoil

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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Hosting the World Cup marks a pinnacle in Qatar’s efforts to rise out of the shadow of its larger neighbors in the wider Middle East, where its politics and its upstart ambitions have brought both international attention and regional ire.

The road to the tournament — and Qatar’s increased prominence on the global stage — has been fueled by the country becoming one of the top exporters of natural gas. That newfound wealth built the stadiums that fans will fill for the tournament, created the Arab world’s most recognized news network, Al Jazeera, and enabled Doha’s diplomatic outreach to the wider world.

But that rise has not been without intrigue. A palace coup in 1995 installed a more assertive ruler in the country, who used Qatar’s wealth to back the Islamists who emerged stronger amid the 2011 Arab Spring protests — the same figures his fellow Gulf Arab leaders viewed as threats to their rule. A yearslong boycott of Qatar by four Arab nations that began in 2017 nearly sparked a war.

And while the overt tensions have eased in the region, Qatar likely hopes the World Cup will serve to boost its standing as it balances its relations abroad to hedge against any danger to the country in the future.

“They know there are these potential threats; they know they are very vulnerable,” said Gerd Nonneman, a professor of international relations and Gulf Arab studies at Georgetown University in Qatar. “Anything they can do to have an international network of if not allies, at least a sympathetic element, they will.”

Qatar, a little larger than Jamaica or just smaller than the U.S. state of Connecticut, is a peninsular nation that sticks out into the Persian Gulf like a thumb. It shares just a 60-kilometers (37-mile) border with Saudi Arabia, a nation 185 times larger, and sits just across the Gulf from Iran.

Through its sovereign wealth fund, Qatar owns London’s famed Harrods department store, Paris Saint-Germain soccer club and billions of dollars in real estate in New York City. That wealth comes from its sales of liquified natural gas through an offshore field it shares with Iran, most of it going to Asian nations such as China, India, Japan and South Korea.

That spigot of wealth began flowing in 1997, just after two major events that shook Qatar. The first, Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and the subsequent 1991 Gulf War, saw Doha and other Gulf Arab nations realize the need for long-term American military presence as a hedge, said Kristian Ulrichsen, a research fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute.

Qatar built its massive Al-Udeid Air Base, which is home to some 8,000 American troops and the forward headquarters of the U.S. military’s Central Command today.

The second event that shook Qatar took place in 1995, when Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani seized power in a bloodless coup from his father who was in Switzerland. Sheikh Hamad later put down a 1996 coup attempt by his cousin.

Under Sheikh Hamad and flush with cash, Qatar created Al Jazeera, the satellite news channel that became known worldwide for airing statements from al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. The U.S. railed against the channel after the American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, though it provided the Arab world something beyond tepid state-controlled television for the first time.

In December 2010, Qatar won its bid to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup. Just two weeks later, a Tunisian fruit seller set himself on fire in protest and ultimately died of his burns — lighting the fuse for what became the 2011 Arab Spring.

For Qatar, it marked a crucial moment. The country double-downed on its support of Islamists across the region, including Mohammed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood who would be elected president in Egypt after the fall of the longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak. Doha poured money into Syrian groups opposing the rule of Bashar Assad — with some funding going to those that America later described as extremists, like the Islamic State group.

Qatar long has denied funding extremists, though it does maintain relations with the Palestinian militant group Hamas that rules the Gaza Strip, working as an interlocutor with Israel. But analysts say there was a recognition that things may have moved too fast.

“They realize they stuck out their necks too far too soon … and they began to re-calibrate that,” Nonneman said.

The Arab Spring soon chilled into a winter. A counterrevolution in Egypt supported by other Gulf Arab states saw the installation of military general turned President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in July 2013.

A little over a week earlier, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, Sheikh Hamad’s son, took over as ruler in Qatar in the ruling family’s own acknowledgment that a generational change was needed.

Gulf Arab countries, however, remained angry. A 2014 dispute over Qatar’s support of Islamists saw Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates withdraw their ambassadors — only to bring them back eight months later.

But in 2017 after then-President Donald Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia, those three nations and Egypt began a yearslong boycott of Qatar, closing off air traffic and severing economic ties even as construction on the stadiums continued.

Things grew so tense that Kuwait’s late ruler, Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Sabah, who at the time mediated the dispute, suggested that “military action” at one point was a possibility, without elaborating.

The dispute ended as President Joe Biden stood poised to take office, though regional tensions remain. Still, Qatar has found itself hosting negotiations between American officials and the Taliban, as well as assisting the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. Russia’s war on Ukraine has seen European leaders come to Doha, hopeful for additional natural gas.

“They are at the center of attention again,” Ulrichsen said. “It gives them a seat at the table when there’s decisions being taken.”

———

Follow Jon Gambrell on Twitter at www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP.

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November 15, 2022
N. Korea denies US claims it sent artillery shells to Russia

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SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea has denied American claims that it’s shipping artillery shells and ammunition to Russia for use in its war against Ukraine, and on Tuesday accused the United States of lying.

The denial follows dozens of weapons tests by North Korea, including short-range missiles that are likely nuclear-capable and an intercontinental ballistic missile that could target the U.S. mainland. Pyongyang said it was testing the missiles and artillery so it could “mercilessly” strike key South Korean and U.S. targets if it chose to.

North Korea has been cozying up to traditional ally Russia in recent years and even hinted at sending workers to help rebuild Russian-occupied territories in Ukraine. The United States has accused North Korea, one of the most weaponized countries in the world, of supplying Soviet-era ammunition such as artillery shells, to replenish Russian stockpiles that have been depleted in the Ukraine.

Last week, Russia sent North Korean leader Kim Jong Un a trainload of 30 thoroughbred horses, opening the border with its neighbor for the first time in 2 1/2 years. Kim is an avid horseman and state media have often pictured him galloping on snowy mountain trails astride a white charger. The horses, Orlov trotters, are prized in Russia.

Spokespeople of Russia’s Far Eastern Railway told the state-run news agency Nov. 2 that the first resumed train headed to North Korea with the 30 horses and said the next train was to carry medicine.

Experts say North Korea may be seeking Russian fuel and also technology transfers and supplies needed to advance its military capabilities as it pursues more sophisticated weapons systems.

In September, North Korea restarted its freight train service with China, its biggest trading partner, ending a five-month hiatus.

Last week, U.S. National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby accused North Korea of covertly supplying a “significant number” of ammunition shipments to Russia. He said the United States believes North Korea was trying to obscure the transfer route by making it appear the weapons were being sent to countries in the Middle East or North Africa.

“We regard such moves of the U.S. as part of its hostile attempt to tarnish the image of (North Korea) in the international arena,” an unidentified vice director at the North Korean ministry’s military foreign affairs office said in a statement carried by state media.

“We once again make clear that we have never had ‘arms dealings’ with Russia and that we have no plan to do so in the future,” the vice director said.

In September, U.S. officials confirmed a newly declassified U.S. intelligence finding that Russia was in the process of purchasing millions of rockets and artillery shells from North Korea. North Korea later dismissed that report, calling on Washington to stop making “reckless remarks” and to “keep its mouth shut.”

On Nov. 2, Kirby said the U.S. has “an idea” of which country or countries the North may funnel the weapons through but wouldn’t specify. He said the North Korean shipments are “not going to change the course of the war,” citing Western efforts to resupply the Ukrainian military.

Slapped by international sanctions and export controls, Russia in August bought Iranian-made drones that U.S. officials said had technical problems. For Russia, experts say North Korea is likely another good option for its ammunitions supply, because the North keeps a significant stockpile of shells, many of them copies of Soviet-era ones.

Even as most of Europe and the West has pulled away, North Korea has pushed to boost relations with Russia, blaming the U.S. for the crisis and decrying the West’s “hegemonic policy” as justifying military action by Russia in Ukraine to protect itself. In July, North Korea became the only nation aside from Russia and Syria to recognize the Donetsk and Luhansk territories as independent.

North Korea’s possible arms supply to Russia would be a violation of U.N. resolutions that ban the North from trading weapons with other countries. But it’s unlikely for North Korea to receive fresh sanctions for that because of a division at the U.N. Security Council over America’s confrontations with Russia regarding its war in Ukraine and its separate strategic competitions with China.

Earlier this year, Russia and China already vetoed a U.S.-led attempt to toughen sanctions on North Korea over its series of ballistic missile tests that are banned by multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions.

Some observers say North Korea has also been using the Russian aggression in Ukraine as a window to ramp up weapons testing activity and dial up pressure on the United States and South Korea. Last week, the North test-fired dozens of missiles in response to large-scale U.S.-South Korea aerial drills that Pyongyang views as a rehearsal for a potential invasion.

In a separate statement published Tuesday by state media, a senior North Korean diplomat criticized U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ recent condemnation of North Korea’s missile launch barrage, calling him a “mouthpiece” of the U.S. government.

“The U.N. secretary general is echoing what the White House and the State Department say as if he were their mouthpiece, which is deplorable,” said Kim Son Gyong, vice minister for international organizations at the North Korean Foreign Ministry.

Kim said that Guterres’ “unfair and prejudiced behavior” has contributed to the worsening tensions in the region.

———

Follow AP’s coverage of the Asia-Pacific region at https://apnews.com/hub/asia-pacific

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November 7, 2022
4 Palestinians killed in flare-up as Israel counts votes

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RAMALLAH, West Bank — Israeli forces killed at least four Palestinians in separate incidents on Thursday, including one who had stabbed a police officer in east Jerusalem and three others in Israeli raids in the occupied West Bank.

The violence flared as Israel tallied the final votes in national elections held this week, with former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expected to lead a comfortable majority backed by far-right allies.

Israeli troops operating in the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank, a militant stronghold, killed at least two Palestinians, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.

The Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad said one of those killed was a local commander. Residents said he was killed while at the butcher, where he was preparing meat ahead of his wedding this weekend.

The army said the militant, Farouk Salameh, was wanted in a number of shooting attacks on Israeli security forces, including the killing of a police officer last May. It said Salameh was killed after opening fire at soldiers, fleeing the scene and pulling out a gun.

Earlier Thursday, the Palestinian Health Ministry said a Palestinian man was killed by Israeli fire in the occupied West Bank. Israeli police said it happened during a raid in the territory and alleged the man threw a firebomb at the forces.

Late Thursday, Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip launched a rocket into southern Israel, setting off air-raid sirens in the area. The army said the rocket appeared to have been intercepted. There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but in the past, Islamic Jihad has fired rockets in response to the killings of its members.

In a separate incident Thursday, a Palestinian stabbed a police officer in Jerusalem’s Old City, police said, and officers opened fire on the attacker, killing him. The officer was lightly wounded.

The violence came as a political shift is underway in Israel after national elections, with former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu set to return to power in a coalition government made up of far-right allies, including the extremist lawmaker Itamar Ben-Gvir, who in response to the incidents said Israel would soon take a tougher approach to attackers.

“The time has come to restore security to the streets,” he tweeted. “The time has come for a terrorist who goes out to carry out an attack to be taken out!”

The violence was the latest in a wave of Israeli-Palestinian fighting in the West Bank and east Jerusalem that has killed more than 130 Palestinians this year, making 2022 the deadliest since the U.N. started tracking fatalities in 2005.

The violence intensified in the spring, after a wave of Palestinian attacks against Israelis killed 19 people, prompting Israel to launch a months-long operation in the West Bank it says is meant to dismantle militant networks. The raids have been met in recent weeks by a rise in attacks against Israelis, killing at least three.

Israel says most of those killed have been militants. But youths protesting the incursions and people uninvolved in the fighting have also been killed.

Also on Thursday, Israel said it was removing checkpoints in and out of the city of Nablus. Israel had imposed the restrictions weeks ago, clamping down on the city in response to a new militant group known as the Lions’ Den. The military has conducted repeated operations in the city in recent weeks, killing or arresting the group’s top commanders.

Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war, and has since maintained a military occupation over the territory and settled more than 500,000 people there. The Palestinians want the territory, along with the West Bank and east Jerusalem, for their hoped-for independent state.

———

Goldenberg reported from Tel Aviv, Israel.

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November 3, 2022
Pakistan hits back at Biden’s ‘dangerous nation’ comment

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ISLAMABAD — Pakistan pushed back Saturday against a comment by President Joe Biden in which he called the South Asian country “one of the most dangerous nations in the world.”

Biden was at an informal fundraising dinner at a private residence in Los Angeles on Thursday sponsored by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee when he made the comment. Speaking about China and its leader Xi Jinping, he pondered the U.S.’s role in relation to China as it grapples with its positions on Russia, India and Pakistan.

“How do we handle that?” he said, according to a transcript on the White House web page. “How do we handle that relative to what’s going on in Russia? And what I think is maybe one of the most dangerous nations in the world: Pakistan. Nuclear weapons without any cohesion.”

Pakistan’s current prime minister and two former prime ministers rejected the statement as baseless, and the country’s acting foreign secretary summoned the U.S. ambassador on Saturday for an explanation of Biden’s remarks.

“Pakistan’s disappointment and concern was conveyed to the US envoy on the unwarranted remarks, which were not based on ground reality or facts,” said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said earlier in Karachi that he believed it was the sort of misunderstanding that was created when there was a lack of engagement, apparently referring to the former government of Imran Khan and its perceived lack of engagement in international diplomacy.

“When Pakistan has nuclear assets we know how to keep them safe and secure, how to protect them as well,” Zardari said.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif in a statement rejected Biden’s remarks calling them factually incorrect and misleading. He said Pakistan over the years has proved itself to be a responsible nuclear state, and its nuclear program is managed through a technically sound command and control system. He pointed to Pakistan’s commitment to global standards including those of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Sharif said Pakistan and the U.S. have a long history of friendly and mutually beneficial relations. “It is our sincere desire to cooperate with the U.S. to promote regional peace and security,” he said.

Zardari, speaking to reporters, said if there is any question about nuclear weapons security in the region, it should be raised with Pakistan’s nuclear-armed neighbor, India. He said India recently fired a missile that landed accidentally in Pakistan.

Pakistan and India have been arch-rivals since their independence from British rule in 1947. They have bitter relations over the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir, which is divided between them and claimed by both in its entirety. They fought two of their three wars over Kashmir.

Two former prime minsters took to Twitter to respond to Biden’s comments.

Former premier Nawaz Sharif, the current prime minister’s brother, said Pakistan is a responsible nuclear state that is perfectly capable of safeguarding its national interests while respecting international law and practices. Pakistan became a nuclear state in 1998 when Sharif was in power for the second time.

“Our nuclear program is in no way a threat to any country. Like all independent states, Pakistan reserves the right to protect its autonomy, sovereign statehood and territorial integrity,” he said.

Former premier Imran Khan tweeted that Biden is wrong about the security of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons, saying he knows for a fact that they are secure. “Unlike US which has been involved in wars across the world, when has Pakistan shown aggression especially post-nuclearization ?”

Khan was ousted in April in a no-confidence vote in parliament and has put forward, without giving evidence, a claim that he was ousted as the result of a U.S.-led plot involving Sharif. The U.S. and Sharif deny the accusation.

Zardari noted that Biden’s statement was not made at any formal platform like a news conference but at an informal fundraising dinner. “I don’t believe it negatively impacts the relations between Pakistan and the U.S.,” he said.

Pakistan and the U.S. have been traditional allies but their relations have been bumpy at times. Pakistan served as a front-line state in the U.S.-led war on terror following the 9/11 attacks. But relations soured after U.S. Navy Seals killed al-Qaeda leader and 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden at a compound in the garrison city of Abbottabad, not far from Pakistan’s military academy in May 2011.

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October 15, 2022
Russia strikes Kyiv, multiple Ukrainian cities; many dead

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KYIV, Ukraine — Russia unleashed a lethal barrage of strikes against multiple Ukrainian cities Monday, smashing civilian targets including downtown Kyiv where at least eight people were killed.

The intense, hours-long attack marked a sudden military escalation by Moscow. It came a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin called a Saturday explosion on the huge bridge connecting Russia to its annexed territory of Crimea a “terrorist act” masterminded by Ukrainian special services.

At least eight people were killed and 24 were injured in just one of the Kyiv strikes, according to preliminary information, said Rostyslav Smirnov, an adviser to the Ukrainian ministry of internal affairs.

The sustained barrage on major cities hit residential areas and critical infrastructure facilities alike, portending a major surge in the war amid a successful Ukrainian counteroffensive in recent weeks. It came a few hours before Putin was due to hold a meeting with his security council, as Moscow’s war in Ukraine approaches its eight-month milestone and the Kremlin reels from humiliating battlefield setbacks in areas it is trying to annex.

Blasts struck in the capital’s Shevchenko district, a large area in the center of Kyiv that includes the historic old town as well as several government offices, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.

Some of the strikes hit near the government quarter in the symbolic heart of the capital, where Parliament and other major landmarks are located. A glass tower housing offices was significantly damaged, most of its blue-tinted windows blown out.

Residents were seen on the streets with blood on their clothes and hands. A young man wearing a blue jacket sat on the ground as a medic wrapped a bandage around his head. A woman with bandages wrapped around her head had blood all over the front of her blouse. Several cars were also damaged or completely destroyed. Air raid sirens sounded repeatedly across the country and in Kyiv.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russian forces launched dozens of missiles and Iranian-built drones against Ukraine.

The General Staff of the Ukraine Armed Forces said 75 missiles were fired against Ukrainian targets, with 41 of them neutralized by air defenses.

The targets were civilian areas and energy facilities in 10 cities, Zelenskyy said in a video address. “(The Russians) chose such a time and such targets on purpose to inflict the most damage,” Zelenskyy said.

The morning strikes sent Kyiv residents back into bomb shelters for the first time in months. The city’s subway system stopped train services and made the stations available once more as bomb shelters.

While air raid sirens have continued throughout the war in Ukraine’s major cities across the country, in Kyiv and other areas where there have been months of calm many Ukrainians had begun to ignore their warnings and go about their normal business.

That changed on Monday morning. The attacks arrived in Kyiv at the start of the morning rush hour, when commuter traffic was beginning to pick up. At least one of the vehicles struck near the Kyiv National University appeared to be a commuter minibus, known as a “marshrutka,” and a popular albeit often crowded alternative to the city’s bus and metro routes.

Nearby, at least one strike landed in the popular Shevchenko Park, leaving a large hole near a children’s playground.

Lesia Vasylenko, a member of Ukraine’s parliament, posted a photo on Twitter showing that at least one explosion occurred near the main building of the Kyiv National University in central Kyiv.

Elsewhere, Russia targeted civilian areas and energy infrastructure as air raid sirens sounded in every region of Ukraine, except Russia-annexed Crimea, for four straight hours.

Associated Press journalists in Dnipro city saw the bodies of multiple people killed at an industrial site on the city’s outskirts. Windows in the area had been blown out and glass littered the street. A telecommunications building was hit.

Ukrainian media also reported explosions in a number of other locations, including the western city of Lviv that has been a refuge for many people fleeing the fighting in the east, as well as in Kharkiv, Ternopil, Khmelnytskyi, Zhytomyr and Kropyvnytskyi.

Kharkiv was hit three times, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said. The strikes knocked out the electricity and water supply. Energy infrastructure was also hit in Lviv, Regional Governor Maksym Kozytskyi said.

Three cruise missiles launched against Ukraine from Russian ships in the Black Sea crossed Moldova’s airspace, the country’s Foreign Affairs Minister Nicu Popescu complained.

A day earlier, Putin had called the attack on the Kerch Bridge to Crimea a terrorist act carried out by Ukrainian special services. In a meeting Sunday with the chairman of Russia’s Investigative Committee, Putin said “there’s no doubt it was a terrorist act directed at the destruction of critically important civilian infrastructure.”

The Kerch Bridge is important to Russia strategically, as a military supply line to its forces in Ukraine, and symbolically, as an emblem of its claims on Crimea. No one has claimed responsibility for damaging the 12-mile (19-kilometer) -long bridge, the longest in Europe.

Amid the onslaught, Zelenskyy said on his Telegram account that Russia is “trying to destroy us and wipe us off the face of the earth.”

The attacks appeared set to bring a fresh bout of international condemnation for Russia.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s spokesman, Steffen Hebestreit, said the Group of Seven industrial powers will hold a videoconference Tuesday on the situation which Zelenskyy will address. Germany currently chairs the G-7.

Ukrainian Foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba broke off his Africa tour and headed back to Ukraine, saying on Twitter the attacks represented “terror on peaceful Ukrainian cities.”

Some feared Monday’s attacks may just be the first salvo in a renewed Russian offensive. Ukraine’s Ministry of Education announced that all schools in Ukraine must switch to online classes at least until the end of this week.

———

Sabra Ayres in Kyiv, Vasilisa Stepanenko in Kharkiv, and Justin Spike and Yesica Fisch in Dnipro contributed to this story.

———

Follow the AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

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October 10, 2022
North Korea says US carrier’s return aggravates tensions

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SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea warned Saturday the U.S. redeployment of an aircraft carrier near the Korean Peninsula is causing a “considerably huge negative splash” in regional security, as it defended its recent missile tests as a “righteous reaction” to intimidating military drills between its rivals.

The North Korean Defense Ministry statement came a day after the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan began a new round of naval drills with South Korean warships off the peninsula’s east coast. The Reagan and its battle group returned to the area after North Korea fired a powerful missile over Japan earlier this week to protest the carrier group’s previous training with South Korea.

The Reagan’s redeployment is “an event of considerably huge negative splash to the regional situation,” an unidentified spokesman at the North Korean Defense Ministry said in remarks carried by state media. “The armed forces of (North Korea) is seriously approaching the extremely worrisome development of the present situation.”

He also called the Reagan’s return “a sort of military bluffing” to issue a warning over North Korea’s “righteous reaction” to “the extremely provocative and threatening joint military drills of the U.S. and South Korea.”

North Korea regards U.S.-South Korean military exercises as an invasion rehearsal and is especially sensitive if such drills involve U.S. strategic assets like an aircraft carrier. North Korea has argued it was forced to pursue a nuclear weapons program to cope with U.S. nuclear threats. U.S. and South Korean officials have repeatedly said they have no intentions of attacking the North.

In the past two weeks, North Korea has fired 10 ballistic missiles into the sea in five launch events, adding to its record-breaking pace of weapons tests this year. The recent weapons tests include a nuclear-capable missile that flew over Japan for the first time in five years and demonstrated a range to strike the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam and beyond.

Earlier this year, North Korea tested other nuclear-capable ballistic missiles that place the U.S. mainland and its allies South Korea and Japan within striking distance.

North Korea’s testing spree indicates its leader, Kim Jong Un, has no intention of resuming diplomacy with the U.S. and wants to focus on expanding his weapons arsenal. But some experts say Kim would eventually aim to use his advanced nuclear program to wrest greater outside concessions, such as the recognition of North Korea as a legitimate nuclear state, which Kim thinks is essential in getting crippling U.N. sanctions on his country lifted.

The Reagan carrier group’s latest training with the South Korean navy is to end on Saturday.

South Korean officials recently said North Korea was also prepared to test a new liquid-fueled intercontinental ballistic missile and a submarine-launched ballistic missile while maintaining readiness to perform its first underground nuclear test since 2017.

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October 8, 2022
S. Korean activists clash with police over anti-Kim balloons

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SEOUL, South Korea — South Korean activists say they clashed with police while launching balloons carrying anti-Pyongyang propaganda materials across the North Korean border, ignoring their government’s plea to stop such activities since the North has threatened to respond with “deadly” retaliation.

Park Sang-hak, a North Korean defector-turned-activist, said he his group had launched about eight balloons from an area in the South Korean border town of Paju Saturday night when police officers arrived at the scene and prevented them from sending their 12 remaining balloons. Park said police confiscated some of their materials and detained him and three other members of his group over mild scuffles with officers before releasing them after questioning.

Officials at the Paju police and the northern Gyeonggi provincial police agencies didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment Sunday.

The balloons flown toward North Korea carried masks, Tylenol and Vitamin C tablets along with propaganda materials, including booklets praising South Korea’s economic wealth and democratic society and hundreds of USB sticks containing videos of U.S. Congress members denouncing the North’s human rights record, Park said.

One of the balloons carried a placard that read, “Entire humanity denounces Kim Jong Un who threatens to preemptively strike (South Korea) with nuclear missiles,” referring to the North Korean leader’s escalatory nuclear doctrine that’s raising tensions with neighbors.

Saturday’s launch came weeks after South Korea’s government pleaded for activists to stop their balloon launches, citing concerns related to the safety of border area residents. Lee Hyo-jung, spokesperson of Seoul’s Unification Ministry, then said that the South would also “sternly respond” to any North Korean retaliation over the balloons.

Animosity between the Koreas has worsened this year as North Korea ramped up its missile testing activity to record pace and punctuated those tests with warnings that it would preemptively use its nukes in a broad range of scenarios where it perceives its leadership has come under threat.

North Korea is extremely sensitive to outside criticism about the Kim family’s authoritarian rule of its people, most of whom have little access to foreign news. It has berated South Korea’s current conservative government for letting South Korean civilian activists fly anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets and other “dirty waste” across the border by balloon, even dubiously claiming the items caused its COVID-19 outbreak.

For years, Park has floated helium-filled balloons with leaflets and other propaganda material harshly criticizing the Kim family. He also began sending masks, medicine and vitamins following the emergence of COVID-19.

Last year, South Korea, under its previous liberal government that sought to improve inter-Korean ties, enforced a contentious new law criminalizing civilian leafleting campaigns. Park still kept launching balloons, becoming the first person to be indicted over that law, but his trial has basically been put on hold since he filed a petition requesting the Constitutional Court to rule whether the new law is unconstitutional, according to his lawyer, Lee Hun.

Opponents of the law say it’s sacrificing South Korea’s freedom of speech in attempting to improve ties with North Korea. Supporters say the law is aimed at avoiding unnecessarily provoking North Korea and promoting the safety of frontline South Korean residents.

In 2014, North Korea fired at balloons flying toward its territory, and in 2020 it destroyed an empty South Korean-built liaison office in the North to express its anger over leafleting. In a failed assassination attempt in 2011, South Korean authorities captured a North Korean agent who tried to kill Park with a pen equipped with a poison needle.

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October 2, 2022