ReportWire

Tag: Military and defense

  • Musk: SpaceX might keep funding satellite service in Ukraine

    Musk: SpaceX might keep funding satellite service in Ukraine

    [ad_1]

    NEW YORK — Billionaire Elon Musk suggested in a Saturday tweet that his rocket company SpaceX may continue to fund its satellite-based Starlink internet service in Ukraine. But Musk’s tone and wording also raised the possibility that the irascible Tesla CEO was just being sarcastic.

    Musk frequently tweets jokes and insults and sometimes goes on unusual tangents, such as a recent series of tweets suggesting that one of his companies has begun selling its own line of fragrances. It is not clear if SpaceX has actually established future plans for service in Ukraine.

    On Friday, senior U.S. officials confirmed that Musk had officially asked the Defense Department to take over funding for the service Starlink provides in Ukraine. Starlink, which provides broadband internet service using more than 2,200 low-orbiting satellites, has provided crucial battlefield communications for Ukrainian military forces since early in the nation’s defense against Russia’s February invasion.

    “The hell with it … even though Starlink is still losing money & other companies are getting billions of taxpayer $, we’ll just keep funding Ukraine govt for free,“ Musk tweeted Saturday.

    Early Friday, Musk tweeted that it was costing SpaceX $20 million a month to support Ukraine’s communications needs. Tesla didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

    The senior U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter not yet made public, said the issue of Starlink funding has been discussed in meetings and that senior leaders are weighing the matter. There have been no decisions.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Musk: SpaceX might keep funding satellite service in Ukraine

    Musk: SpaceX might keep funding satellite service in Ukraine

    [ad_1]

    NEW YORK — Billionaire Elon Musk suggested in a Saturday tweet that his rocket company SpaceX may continue to fund its satellite-based Starlink internet service in Ukraine. But Musk’s tone and wording also raised the possibility that the irascible Tesla CEO was just being sarcastic.

    Musk frequently tweets jokes and insults and sometimes goes on unusual tangents, such as a recent series of tweets suggesting that one of his companies has begun selling its own line of fragrances. It is not clear if SpaceX has actually established future plans for service in Ukraine.

    On Friday, senior U.S. officials confirmed that Musk had officially asked the Defense Department to take over funding for the service Starlink provides in Ukraine. Starlink, which provides broadband internet service using more than 2,200 low-orbiting satellites, has provided crucial battlefield communications for Ukrainian military forces since early in the nation’s defense against Russia’s February invasion.

    “The hell with it … even though Starlink is still losing money & other companies are getting billions of taxpayer $, we’ll just keep funding Ukraine govt for free,“ Musk tweeted Saturday.

    Early Friday, Musk tweeted that it was costing SpaceX $20 million a month to support Ukraine’s communications needs. Tesla didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

    The senior U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter not yet made public, said the issue of Starlink funding has been discussed in meetings and that senior leaders are weighing the matter. There have been no decisions.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • US shift on Venezuelan migrants fuels anxiety in Mexico

    US shift on Venezuelan migrants fuels anxiety in Mexico

    [ad_1]

    TIJUANA, Mexico — Jose Maria Garcia Lara got a call asking if his shelter had room for a dozen Venezuelan migrants who were among the first expelled to Mexico under an expanded U.S. policy that denies rights to seek asylum.

    “We can’t take anyone, no one will fit,” he answered, standing amid rows of tents in what looks like a small warehouse. He had 260 migrants on the floor, about 80 over capacity and the most since opening the shelter in 2012.

    The phone call Thursday illustrates how the Biden administration’s expansion of asylum restrictions to Venezuelans poses a potentially enormous challenge to already overstretched Mexican shelters.

    The U.S. agreed to let up to 24,000 Venezuelans apply online to fly directly to the U.S. for temporary stays but said it will also start returning to Mexico any who cross illegally — a number that topped 25,000 in August alone.

    The U.S. expelled Venezuelans to Tijuana and four other Mexican border cities since Wednesday, said Jeremy MacGillivray, deputy director of the United Nations’ International Organization for Migration in Mexico. The others are Nogales, Ciudad Juarez, Piedras Negras and Matamoros.

    Casa del Migrante in Matamoros admitted at least 120 Venezuelans from Brownsville on Thursday, said the Rev. Francisco Gallardo, the shelter director. On Friday, the Mexican government was offering free bus rides to Mexico City.

    Venezuelans have suddenly become the second-largest nationality at the U.S. border after Mexicans, a tough challenge for President Joe Biden. Nearly four out of five who were stopped by U.S. authorities in August entered in or near Eagle Pass, Texas, across from Piedras Negras, a Mexican city of about 150,000 people with scarce shelter space.

    “We are on the verge of collapse,” said Edgar Rodriguez Izquierdo, a lawyer at Casa del Migrante in Piedras Negras, which feeds 500 people daily and is converting a school to a shelter for 150 people.

    Tijuana, where Garcia Lara runs the Juventud 2000 shelter, is the largest city on Mexico’s border and likely has the most space. The city says 26 shelters, which are running near or at capacity, can accommodate about 4,500 migrants combined.

    Tijuana’s largest shelter, Embajadores de Jesus, is hosting 1,400 migrants on bunk beds and floor mats, while a group affiliated with University of California, San Diego, is building a towering annex for thousands more.

    Embajadores de Jesus is growing at a blistering pace at the bottom of a canyon where roosters roam freely and shanties made of plywood and aluminum sheets line dirt roads and cracked pavement that easily flood when it rains. A cinderblock building with a kitchen and dining area is nearing completion, while migrants shovel dirt for a soccer field.

    Gustavo Banda, like other shelter directors in Tijuana, doesn’t know what to expect from the U.S. shift on Venezuela, reflecting an air of uncertainty along the Mexican border. Tijuana was blindsided by a surge in Haitian arrivals in 2016, a giant caravan from Central America in 2018 and the implementation in 2019 of a now-defunct policy to make asylum-seekers wait in Mexico for hearings in U.S. immigration court.

    “Nobody really knows what’s going to happen until they start sending people back,” Banda said Thursday as families with young children prepared for sleep.

    Mexico’s Foreign Affairs Ministry said it would temporarily admit “some” Venezuelans who are expelled from the U.S. under a public health order known as Title 42, without indicating a numerical cap. The U.S. has expelled migrants more than 2.3 million times since Title 42 took effect in March 2020, denying them a chance at asylum on grounds of preventing the spread of COVID-19.

    A Mexican official said Mexico’s capacity to take back Venezuelans hinges on shelter space and success of the U.S. offer of temporary stays for up to 24,000 Venezuelans. The official was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke condition of anonymity.

    Until now, Mexico has only accepted returns from Guatemala, Honduras or El Salvador, in addition to Mexico. As a result, Mexican shelters have been filled with migrants from those countries, along with Haitians.

    Venezuelans, like those of other nationalities including Cuba and Nicaragua, have generally been released in the United States to pursue immigration cases. Strained diplomatic relations have made it nearly impossible for the Biden administration to return them to Venezuela.

    Blas Nuñez-Neto, a top U.S. Homeland Security Department official, didn’t answer directly when asked by reporters Thursday how many Venezuelans are likely to be expelled to Mexico, saying only that he expects fewer will try to cross the border.

    Homeland Security said Venezuelans who cross the border by land after Wednesday’s announcement will be expelled. Edward Pimentel was among the migrants who said they were returned despite being in U.S. custody before the policy was announced.

    “The truth is that our dream is the American dream, we wanted to go to the United States,” Pimentel said outside a Tijuana convenience store.

    In Matamoros, hundreds of Venezuelans protested, saying they entered the U.S. before the policy took effect. Gregori Josue Segovia, 22, said he was processed by U.S. authorities Monday in El Paso, Texas, and was moved around before ending up in Matamoros.

    “We were on three buses and they told us nothing, but we thought everything was normal when we realized were on the (international) bridge” to be returned to Mexico, he said Friday.

    About 7 million Venezuelans have fled their homeland in recent years but had largely avoided the U.S. The U.S. offers a relatively strong economy and slim chances of being returned to Venezuela, suddenly making it more attractive.

    For Venezuelans in Mexico, their best hope may be a U.S. exemption from Title 42 for people deemed particularly vulnerable.

    In Tijuana, it appears more migrants are getting such exemptions from the U.S. Homeland Security Department. The U.S. has been allowing about 150 migrants a day at a border crossing to San Diego, said Enrique Lucero, Tijuana’s director of migration affairs.

    Many are chosen by advocacy groups from Tijuana shelters — causing some migrants to move there not for a place to stay but for a better shot at being selected to enter the U.S., said Lucero.

    Embajadores de Jesus keeps a notebook with names of migrants hoping to qualify for a Title 42 exemption. Banda, a pastor and shelter director, said they wait about three months to enter the U.S.

    Venezuelans who were in Mexico before Wednesday may also apply for one of the 24,000 temporary slots that the U.S. is making available, similar to an effort launched in April for up to 100,000 Ukrainians fleeing Russia’s invasion. They must have a financial sponsor in the U.S. and pay for their flights.

    Mexico welcomed statements from U.S. officials that the temporarily relief offered to Ukrainians and now Venezuelans may expand to other nationalities.

    Orlando Sanchez slept in a bus station in Mexico City with hundreds of other Venezuelans waiting to receive money from family. He said he didn’t have enough for a flight.

    Naile Luna, a Venezuelan who was on her way to Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso, said she hoped being eight months pregnant would spare her being expelled to Mexico. She said she knew nothing about the new policy.

    ———

    Verza reported from Mexico City. Associated Press writer Gisela Salomon in Miami and videographer Jordi Lebrija in Tijuana contributed to this report.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Idaho man dies while fighting as volunteer in Ukraine

    Idaho man dies while fighting as volunteer in Ukraine

    [ad_1]

    BOISE, Idaho — In the days since Dane Partridge was fatally wounded while serving as a volunteer soldier in Ukraine, his sister has found moments of comfort in surprising places: First, a misplaced baseball cap discovered in her laundry room, then in a photo of a battered pickup truck with only one tire intact.

    The 34-year-old Idaho man died Tuesday from injuries sustained during during a Russian attack in Luhansk.

    A former U.S. Army infantryman, Partridge felt “spiritually called” to volunteer with the Ukranian military as they defend the country from invading Russian forces, his sister Jenny Corry said. He flew to Poland on a one-way ticket in April, his rucksack packed with body armor, a helmet and other tactical gear.

    “Made it to the embassy, getting on a bus for the border,” Partridge wrote on his Facebook page on April 27. “From this point on I will not likely be giving locations or actions for opsec reasons. I will let you all know I’m alive.”

    Partridge joined a military unit that included several volunteers from other countries, Corry said, the men mostly relying on interpreters to communicate. Partridge and his fellow soldiers were in Severodonetsk, a city in the Luhansk region, when he was hit in the head with shrapnel during an attack by Russian fighting vehicles, Corry said.

    The unit had no stretchers and was still under attack, Corry said, but Partridge’s fellow soldiers carried him out on a blanket and loaded him and other injured colleagues into a drab-painted pickup truck to rush them to safety.

    “I have a picture of the truck,” Corry said in a phone interview Friday. The photo shows a drab-painted pickup with shredded rubber hanging off the wheel hubs. All but one of the tires were destroyed in the grim rush to safety.

    “As a family, we really like that picture of the vehicle — it speaks to the bravery of how they tried to save their men, and the way they pushed that vehicle to its last leg just to get to the hospital,” she said. “It speaks volumes.”

    Partridge leaves behind five young children. Corry deflected questions about the children and some other parts of Partridge’s life, saying the family had jointly agreed to focus on his military service out of respect to those “who are still living and still affected by his personal life.”

    “We want to just focus on the good that he did and don’t want to mention any personal things,” Corry said in a phone interview Friday.

    Military service has been a large part of Partridge’s life. He was the youngest of five kids, and his father was a member of the U.S. Air Force. As a child, Partridge liked to dress up in his dad’s oversized camouflage uniform and play “army guy” in the dirt, Corry said.

    By the time he’d graduated high school, Partridge had grown into a gregarious man with a booming voice and a joking personality, she said.

    “When he showed up, you knew he was there. He had a bigger personality,” she said. “If somebody was sad, he was going to make sure he cheered them up. He liked to spend quality time with people.”

    He enlisted in the U.S. Army in 2006 and served in Baghdad as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom from 2007 to 2009 before leaving the military in 2012.

    He didn’t talk a lot about his experiences in Iraq, but she knew some of it weighed heavily on him throughout his life.

    “He was a Humvee driver, and when he was training they told him that as the driver if he tried to save himself his men would likely be killed, but if he saved his men then he would most likely be killed,” Corry said her brother told her. “That was something that sat deeply with him.”

    Still, it was the battlefield where Partridge thrived. Corry believed the adrenaline, the sense of purpose and the heightened feeling of service is what drew him in.

    “It was almost as if he could tell he had a greater purpose to fulfill,” she said. “Sometimes it was harder for him to mesh in the civilian world.”

    When Russia invaded Ukraine, Partridge felt a need to help the Ukranians. He was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and believed that he was being spiritually called to join the fight, she said.

    “He believed it with every fiber of his being, and he wanted to honor his God,” she said.

    He stayed with Corry for a time before he made the trip to Ukraine. After she left, she found his camouflage baseball cap had been left in her laundry room. It was strange, she said, because he was very neat and organized, and never left things lying around.

    “I just kind of set it to the side, and it sat there for a while,” she said, pausing for a shaky breath. “And the day I decided to pick it up and wear it because I wanted to feel close to him is the day that he died.”

    Partridge’s family knew he might not come home. A few encouraged him to think on his decision a little longer, but Partridge was intent on serving, she said.

    “We’re sad, but because of the circumstances it was already a thought that he could pass away. It wasn’t like we were blindsided,” Corry said. “In a way, it was something that we had to understand when he went over there.”

    Partridge was in a coma and on life support for eight days before he died. Family members had a chance to say goodbye, long-distance, before he passed, she said.

    The family is raising money to try to bring Partridge’s remains back home to be buried in Blackfoot, Idaho. They also hope to raise money to replace the truck his unit used to bring Partridge to the hospital, and to purchase other vital supplies for his unit, she said.

    “We just want to do something to pay the men back,” Corry said.

    At least four other U.S. citizens have been killed while fighting in Ukraine, based on reports from their families and the U.S. State Department. The Ukrainian government has recruited people with military experience to join the International Legion for the Territorial Defense of Ukraine.

    ———

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

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Today in History: October 14, Martin Luther King wins Nobel

    Today in History: October 14, Martin Luther King wins Nobel

    [ad_1]

    Today in History

    Today is Friday, Oct. 14, the 287th day of 2022. There are 78 days left in the year.

    Today’s Highlight in History:

    On Oct. 14, 1964, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was named winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.

    On this date:

    In 1066, Normans under William the Conqueror defeated the English at the Battle of Hastings.

    In 1586, Mary, Queen of Scots, went on trial in England, accused of committing treason against Queen Elizabeth I. (Mary was beheaded in February 1587.)

    In 1933, Nazi Germany announced it was withdrawing from the League of Nations.

    In 1939, a German U-boat torpedoed and sank the HMS Royal Oak, a British battleship anchored at Scapa Flow in Scotland’s Orkney Islands; 833 of the more than 1,200 men aboard were killed.

    In 1944, German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel took his own life rather than face trial and certain execution for allegedly conspiring against Adolf Hitler.

    In 1947, U.S. Air Force Capt. Charles E. (“Chuck”) Yeager (YAY’-gur) became the first test pilot to break the sound barrier as he flew the experimental Bell XS-1 (later X-1) rocket plane over Muroc Dry Lake in California.

    In 1964, Soviet leader Nikita S. Khrushchev was toppled from power; he was succeeded by Leonid Brezhnev as First Secretary and by Alexei Kosygin as Premier.

    In 1981, the new president of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak (HOHS’-nee moo-BAH’-rahk), was sworn in to succeed the assassinated Anwar Sadat. Mubarak pledged loyalty to Sadat’s policies.

    In 1986, Holocaust survivor and human rights advocate Elie Wiesel (EL’-ee vee-ZEHL’) was named winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.

    In 1990, composer-conductor Leonard Bernstein (BURN’-styn) died in New York at age 72.

    In 2008, a grand jury in Orlando, Fla. returned charges of first-degree murder, aggravated child abuse and aggravated manslaughter against Casey Anthony in the death of her 2-year-old daughter, Caylee. (She was acquitted in July 2011.)

    In 2016, a judge in Connecticut dismissed a wrongful-death lawsuit by Newtown families against the maker of the rifle used in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting massacre, citing a federal law that shielded gun manufacturers from most lawsuits over criminal use of their products.

    Ten years ago: Extreme athlete Felix Baumgartner landed gracefully in the eastern New Mexico desert after a 24-mile jump from a balloon in the stratosphere in a daring, dramatic feat that officials said made him the first skydiver to fall faster than the speed of sound. Retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Chuck Yeager, at the age of 89, marked the 65th anniversary of his supersonic flight by smashing through the sound barrier again, this time in the backseat of an F-15 which took off from Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada. Former Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, 82, died in Philadelphia.

    Five years ago: A truck bombing in Somalia’s capital killed more than 500 people in one of the world’s deadliest attacks in years; officials blamed the attack on the extremist group al-Shabab and said it was meant to target Mogadishu’s international airport, but the bomb detonated in a crowded street after soldiers opened fire. The board of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences revoked the membership of movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, after published reports about sexual harassment and rape allegations against Weinstein.

    One year ago: New York real estate heir Robert Durst was sentenced in Los Angeles to life in prison without a chance of parole for the murder of a friend, Susan Berman, more than two decades earlier. (Durst died in prison in January 2022 at 78.) South Carolina state police said prominent attorney Alex Murdaugh had been arrested and charged with stealing insurance settlements that were meant for the sons of his late housekeeper. A work by British street artist Banksy that sensationally self-shredded just after it sold at auction three years earlier fetched more than $25 million — a record for the artist, and close to 20 times its pre-shredded price.

    Today’s Birthdays: Classical pianist Gary Graffman is 94. Movie director Carroll Ballard is 85. Country singer Melba Montgomery is 85. Former White House counsel John W. Dean III is 84. Fashion designer Ralph Lauren is 83. Singer Sir Cliff Richard is 82. Singer-musician Justin Hayward (The Moody Blues) is 76. Actor Greg Evigan is 69. TV personality Arleen Sorkin is 67. World Golf Hall of Famer Beth Daniel is 66. Singer-musician Thomas Dolby is 64. Actor Lori Petty is 59. Former MLB player and manager Joe Girardi is 58. Actor Steve Coogan is 57. Singer Karyn White is 57. Actor Edward Kerr is 56. Actor Jon Seda is 52. Country singer Natalie Maines (The Chicks) is 48. Actor-singer Shaznay Lewis (All Saints) is 47. Actor Stephen Hill is 46. Singer Usher is 44. TV personality Stacy Keibler is 43. Actor Ben Whishaw is 42. Actor Jordan Brower is 41. Director Benh Zeitlin is 40. Actor Skyler Shaye is 36. Actor-comedian Jay Pharoah is 35. Actor Max Thieriot is 34.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • NKorea fires missile and shells, further inflaming tensions

    NKorea fires missile and shells, further inflaming tensions

    [ad_1]

    SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea early Friday fired an additional ballistic missile and 170 rounds of artillery shells toward the sea and flew warplanes near the tense border with South Korea, further raising animosities triggered by the North’s recent barrage of weapons tests.

    The North Korean moves suggest it is reviving an old playbook of stoking fears of war with provocative weapons tests before it seeks to win greater concessions from its rivals.

    South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement the short-range missile lifted off from the North’s capital region at 1:49 a.m. Friday (1649 GMT Thursday; 12:49 p.m. EDT Thursday) and flew toward its eastern waters.

    It was North Korea’s 15th missile launch since it resumed its testing activities on Sept. 25. North Korea said Monday its recent missile tests were simulations of nuclear strikes on South Korean and U.S. targets in response to their “dangerous” military exercises involving a U.S. aircraft carrier.

    After the latest missile test, North Korea fired 130 rounds of shells off its west coast and 40 rounds off its east coast. The shells fell inside maritime buffer zones the two Koreas established under a 2018 inter-Korean agreement on reducing tensions, thus violating the accord, South Korea’s military said.

    North Korea separately flew warplanes, presumably 10 aircraft, near the rivals’ border late Thursday and early Friday, prompting South Korea to scramble fighter jets. There were no reports of clashes between the two countries.

    South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said North Korea’s provocations are becoming “indiscriminative’” but that his country has massive retaliation capabilities that can deter actual North Korean assaults to some extent.

    “The decision to attack can’t be made without a willingness to risk a brutal outcome,” Yoon told reporters. “The massive punishment and retaliation strategy, which is the final step of our three-axis strategy, would be a considerable psychological and social deterrence (for the North).”

    Maj. Gen. Kang Ho Pil of the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff later said in a televised statement that South Korea issued “a stern warning to (North Korea) to immediately halt” its weapons tests. He said South Korea has the ability to deliver an “overwhelming response” to any North Korean provocations.

    South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said Friday it imposed sanctions on 15 North Korean individuals and 16 organizations suspected of involvement in illicit activities to finance North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile programs. They were Seoul’s first unilateral sanctions on North Korea in five years, but observers say they are a symbolic step because the two Koreas have little financial dealings between them.

    Most of the North’s recent weapons tests were ballistic missile launches that are banned by U.N. Security Council resolutions. But the North hasn’t been slapped with fresh sanctions thanks to a divide at the U.N. over U.S. disputes with Russia over its invasion of Ukraine and with China over their strategic competition.

    The missile launched Friday traveled 650-700 kilometers (403-434 miles) at a maximum altitude of 50 kilometers (30 miles) before landing in waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan, according to South Korea and Japanese assessments.

    “Whatever the intentions are, North Korea’s repeated ballistic missile launches are absolutely impermissible and we cannot overlook its substantial advancement of missile technology,” Japanese Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada said.

    He said the missile flew on an “irregular” trajectory — a possible reference to describe the North’s highly maneuverable KN-23 weapon modeled on Russia’s Iskander missile.

    The U.S. Indo-Pacific Command said in a statement the North Korean launch didn’t pose an immediate threat to U.S. personnel or territory, or to its allies, adding that the U.S. commitments to the defense of South Korea and Japan remain “ironclad.”

    Other North Korean tests in recent weeks included a new intermediate-range missile that flew over Japan and demonstrated a potential range to reach the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam; a ballistic missile fired from an inland reservoir, a first for the country; and long-range cruise missiles.

    After Wednesday’s cruise missile launches, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said the tests successfully demonstrated his military’s expanding nuclear strike capabilities. He said his nuclear forces were fully prepared for “actual war to bring enemies under their control at a blow” and vowed to expand the operational realm of his nuclear armed forces, according to North Korea’s state media.

    Some observers had predicted North Korea would likely temporarily pause its testing activities this week in consideration of its ally China, which is set to begin a major political conference Sunday to give President Xi Jinping a third five-year term as party leader.

    North Korea’s ongoing testing spree is reminiscent of its 2017 torrid run of missile and nuclear tests that prompted Kim and then U.S.-President Donald Trump to exchange threats of total destruction. Kim later abruptly entered high-stakes nuclear diplomacy with Trump in 2018 but their negotiations fell apart a year later due to wrangling over how much sanctions relief Kim should be provided in return for a partial surrender of his nuclear capability.

    Kim has repeatedly said he has no intentions of resuming the nuclear diplomacy. But some experts say he would eventually want to win international recognition of his country as a nuclear state and hold arms control talks with the United State to wrest extensive sanctions relief and other concessions in return for partial denuclearization steps.

    The urgency of North Korea’s nuclear program has grown since it passed a new law last month authorizing the preemptive use of nuclear weapons over a broad range of scenarios, including non-war situations when it may perceive its leadership as under threat.

    Most of the recent North Korean tests were mostly of short-range nuclear-capable missiles targeting South Korea. Some analysts say North Korea’s possible upcoming nuclear test, the first of in five years, would be related to efforts to manufacture battlefield tactical warheads to be placed on such short-range missiles.

    These developments sparked security jitters in South Korea, with some politicians and scholars renewing their calls for the U.S. to redeploy its tactical nuclear weapons in South Korea as deterrence against intensifying North Korean nuclear threats

    North Korea’s military early Friday accused South Korea of carrying out artillery fire for about 10 hours near the border, forcing it to take unspecified “strong military countermeasures” in response.

    South Korea’s military later confirmed it conducted artillery training at a site 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) away from the Koreas’ military demarcation line and said the training did not violate the conditions of the 2018 agreement.

    ——

    Associated Press writer Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo contributed.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Mexican congress approves keeping military in police work

    Mexican congress approves keeping military in police work

    [ad_1]

    MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s Congress has approved a constitutional reform that allows the armed forces to continue performing domestic law enforcement duties through 2028.

    Putting soldiers on the streets to fight crime was long viewed as a stopgap measure to fight drug gang violence, and legislators had previously said civilian police should take over those duties by 2024.

    But President Andrés Manuel López Obrador supports relying on the military indefinitely because he views the armed forces as more honest. The president has given the military more responsibilities than any Mexican leader in recent memory.

    The reform backed by López Obrador passed the lower house late Wednesday, and must still be approved by a majority of Mexico’s 32 state legislatures.

    Most experts agree that Mexico needs better-paid, trained and equipped civilian police. The army and marines were called in to aid local police forces in 2006 in fighting the country’s well-armed drug cartels. Mexico’s state and municipal police are often corrupt, poorly trained and unprofessional.

    But López Obrador has relied almost exclusively on the military for law enforcement. He eliminated the civilian federal police and created the National Guard, which he now wants to hand over completely to the Defense Department.

    López Obrador has relied on the armed forces for everything from building infrastructure projects to running airports and trains.

    The reform extending the military mandate also promises to restore some funding to improve state and local police forces, which López Obrador cut soon after he took office in December 2018.

    However, new measure — which was already approved by the Senate — does not specify how much funding will be provided to improve civilian police other than saying it cannot be less than the annual increase in funding given to the military and National Guard.

    In fact, under a bill passed this week by the lower house, much of that funding would come from the government confiscating domestic bank accounts if they have laid untouched for six years or more.

    But on Thursday, López Obrador said he opposed giving even that money to police, saying “it should be for disabled people, the elderly, health care.”

    Starved for money, many local police forces are in a precarious state, with ill-paid cops working 24-hour shifts and having to buy their own equipment or uniforms.

    “We have seen in the south, southeast of Mexico a lot of them don’t even wear uniforms; they wear a white T-shirt and boots they have to buy themselves,” said Magda Ramírez, a researcher at the civic group Mexico Evalua.

    “There isn’t funding even to buy indispensable things like bulletproof vests or equipment,” she noted. Even in better-funded police departments — and there are some, especially in northern Mexico — police officers often must fix their own patrol vehicles.

    “Okay, maybe you have a uniform and a bulletproof vest, but you are fixing your own patrol car. You’re a policeman, not a mechanic,” Ramírez said.

    Critics note the military is not trained for police work and does little investigation. The armed forces have been accused of human rights violations while performing law enforcement duties.

    But polls have found most Mexicans trust the military more than local police and want the army and navy to continue in law enforcement tasks. That is not surprising, given the poor state of most of the police forces they have seen; but most Mexicans have never been given the choice between good, efficient police and soldiers.

    The problems with law enforcement in Mexico are unlikely to be solved by the army or the militarized National Guard, said security expert Alejandro Hope.

    “Crimes aren’t reported. When they are reported, they aren’t investigated. When they are investigated, they aren’t prosecuted properly,” said Hope, noting that none of that will be solved by “a military force that carries out patrols, but doesn’t investigate.”

    For example, the National Guard has about 118,000 officers and the Mexican army and navy have about 140,000 deployable troops. “There are 400,000 local police: That is where the efforts should be concentrated,” Hope said.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • China accuses US of ‘Cold War thinking’ in security strategy

    China accuses US of ‘Cold War thinking’ in security strategy

    [ad_1]

    BEIJING — The Chinese government on Thursday accused Washington of “Cold War thinking” and appealed for efforts to repair strained relations after President Joe Biden released a national security strategy that calls for “out-competing China” and blocking its efforts to reshape global affairs.

    The foreign ministry also accused Washington of trade protectionism after Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the United States would reinforce its global supply chains to guard against “geopolitical coercion” by China, Russia and other governments.

    Biden’s document Wednesday accused China of trying to “erode U.S. alliances” and “create more permissive conditions for its own authoritarian model.” It called for “out-competing China” in political alliances and “global governance” as well as business, technology and military affairs.

    U.S.-Chinese relations are at their lowest level in decades, strained by disputes over technology, security, Taiwan and human rights.

    “Cold War thinking and zero-sum games, sensationalizing geopolitical conflicts and great power competition are unpopular and unconstructive,” said Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning. She called on Washington to “meet China halfway and promote China-U.S. relations back to a healthy and stable track.”

    The White House document calls for the United States to “maintain a competitive edge” over China, which has antagonized Japan, India and other neighbors with an increasingly assertive foreign policy and growing military.

    China’s multibillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative to build ports, railways and other infrastructure across Asia and Africa has fed concern in Washington, Moscow and other capitals that Beijing is trying to build its strategic influence and undermine theirs.

    China, with the second-largest global economy and military, is the “only competitor with both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military and technological power to do it,” the document says.

    Mao, speaking at a regular news briefing, said China was a “defender of the world order” and rejected “sensationalizing geopolitical conflicts and great power competition.”

    Mao criticized the “weaponization of economic and trade issues” after Yellen said Wednesday the United States was trying to reduce reliance on China and other Asian suppliers of semiconductors, electric vehicle batteries, solar panels and other technology.

    President Xi Jinping’s government is spending heavily to reduce its need for U.S. and other Western technology by developing its own creators of processor chips, artificial intelligence, aerospace and other know-how. Beijing is pressing Chinese companies to reduce reliance on global supply chains by using domestic vendors whenever possible, even if that increases costs.

    “We know the cost of Russia’s weaponization of trade as a tool of geopolitical coercion, and we must mitigate similar vulnerabilities to countries like China,” Yellen said in Washington.

    The United States should “abandon unilateralism and protectionism,” Mao said, and work with “the international community to maintain the security and smooth flow of the industrial and supply chain.”

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Ukraine’s Kyiv area hit by Iranian-made kamikaze drones

    Ukraine’s Kyiv area hit by Iranian-made kamikaze drones

    [ad_1]

    KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine’s capital region was struck by Iranian-made kamikaze drones early Thursday, officials said, sending rescue workers rushing to the scene as residents awoke to air raid sirens for the fourth consecutive morning following Russia’s major assault across the country earlier this week.

    Kyiv regional governor Oleksiy Kuleba said the strike occurred in the area around the capital. It wasn’t yet clear if there were any casualties.

    Deputy head of the presidential office Kyrylo Tymoshenko said on Telegram that “critical infrastructure facilities” in the area were hit, without offering any details on which ones.

    In the southern city of Mykolaiv, overnight shelling destroyed a five-story apartment building as fighting continued along Ukraine’s southern front.

    Mykolaiv regional governor Vitali Kim said that an 11-year-old boy was rescued from under the rubble, where he had spent six hours, and rescuers on Thursday morning were searching for seven more people, Kim said.

    He said that the building was hit by an S-300 missile which is ordinarily used for targeting military aircraft, but Russians have apparently been increasingly using them for unprecise ground strikes.

    Early morning attacks on Ukraine’s southern front have become a daily occurrence in Russia’s war as Kyiv’s forces push a counteroffensive aimed at recapturing territory occupied by Moscow.

    Attacks on Kyiv had become rare before the capital city was hit at least four times during Monday’s massive strikes, which killed at least 19 people and wounded more than 100 across the country.

    Western leaders this week pledged to send more weapons to Ukraine, including air defense systems and weapons Kyiv has said are critical to defeating the invading Russian forces.

    Britain said Thursday that it will provide missiles for advanced NASAM anti-aircraft systems that the Pentagon plans to send to Ukraine in coming weeks. It’s also sending hundreds of additional aerial drones for information gathering and logistics support, plus 18 more howitzer artillery guns.

    U.K. Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said that “these weapons will help Ukraine defend its skies from attacks and strengthen their overall missile defense alongside the U.S. NASAMS.”

    The systems, which Kyiv has long wanted, will provide medium- to long-range defense against missile attacks.

    The offer comes as NATO defense ministers meet in Brussels, aiming to help bolster Ukraine’s aerial defenses after Monday’s widespread Russian assault.

    Ukraine’s military said this week that its current air defenses have shot down dozens of incoming Russian missiles and Shahed-136 drones, the so-called kamikaze drones that have played an increasingly deadly role in the war.

    ———

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

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Today in History: October 13, Chilean miners rescued

    Today in History: October 13, Chilean miners rescued

    [ad_1]

    Today in History

    Today is Thursday, Oct. 13, the 286th day of 2022. There are 79 days left in the year.

    Today’s Highlight in History:

    On Oct. 13, 2010, rescuers in Chile using a missile-like escape capsule pulled 33 men one by one to fresh air and freedom 69 days after they were trapped in a collapsed mine a half-mile underground.

    On this date:

    In 1775, the United States Navy had its origins as the Continental Congress ordered the construction of a naval fleet.

    In 1792, the cornerstone of the executive mansion, later known as the White House, was laid by President George Washington during a ceremony in the District of Columbia.

    In 1932, President Herbert Hoover and Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes laid the cornerstone for the U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington.

    In 1943, Italy declared war on Germany, its one-time Axis partner.

    In 1960, the Pittsburgh Pirates won the World Series, defeating the New York Yankees in Game 7, 10-9, with a home run hit by Bill Mazeroski.

    In 1972, a Uruguayan chartered flight carrying 45 people crashed in the Andes; survivors resorted to feeding off the remains of some of the dead in order to stay alive until they were rescued more than two months later.

    In 1974, longtime television host Ed Sullivan died in New York City at age 73.

    In 1999, in Boulder, Colorado, the JonBenet Ramsey grand jury was dismissed after 13 months of work with prosecutors saying there wasn’t enough evidence to charge anyone in the 6-year-old beauty queen’s slaying.

    In 2003, the U.N. Security Council approved a resolution expanding the NATO-led peacekeeping force in Afghanistan.

    In 2007, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, after meeting with human-rights activists in Moscow, told reporters the Russian government under Vladimir Putin had amassed so much central authority that the power-grab could undermine its commitment to democracy.

    In 2011, Raj Rajaratnam (rahj rah-juh-RUHT’-nuhm), the hedge fund billionaire at the center of one of the biggest insider-trading cases in U.S. history, was sentenced by a federal judge in New York to 11 years behind bars.

    In 2016, Bob Dylan was named winner of the Nobel prize in literature.

    Ten years ago: Republicans Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan rallied college students in all corners of all-important Ohio and hammered at President Barack Obama for going easy on China over unfair trade practices; Obama took precious time off the campaign trail to practice for the next debate against his GOP rival. Actor and TV host Gary Collins, 74, died in Biloxi, Mississippi.

    Five years ago: President Donald Trump accused Iran of violating the 2015 nuclear accord, but did not pull the U.S. out of the deal or re-impose nuclear sanctions. (Trump would pull the U.S. out of the deal the following May and restore harsh sanctions.) Attorneys general in nearly 20 states filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration over the decision to end a federal subsidy under the Affordable Care Act that lowered out-of-pocket medical costs for consumers with modest incomes.

    One year ago: U.S. officials said they would reopen land borders to nonessential travel starting in November, ending a 19-month freeze. The government reported that another jump in consumer prices in September sent inflation up 5.4% from where it was a year earlier, as tangled global supply lines continue to create havoc. At the age of 90, actor William Shatner – best known as Captain Kirk on “Star Trek” – rode into space and back aboard a ship built by Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin company, becoming the oldest person to travel in space.

    Today’s Birthdays: Gospel singer Shirley Caesar is 85. Actor Melinda Dillon is 83. Singer-musician Paul Simon is 81. Musician Robert Lamm (Chicago) is 78. Country singer Lacy J. Dalton is 76. Actor Demond Wilson is 76. Singer-musician Sammy Hagar is 75. Pop singer John Ford Coley is 74. Actor John Lone is 70. Model Beverly Johnson is 70. Producer-writer Chris Carter is 66. Actor and former NBA star Reggie Theus (THEE’-us) is 65. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., is 64. R&B singer Cherrelle is 63. Singer/TV personality Marie Osmond is 63. Rock singer Joey Belladonna is 62. NBA coach Doc Rivers is 61. Actor T’Keyah Crystal Keymah (tuh-KEE’-ah KRYS’-tal kee-MAH’) is 60. College and Pro Football Hall of Famer Jerry Rice is 60. Actor Christopher Judge is 58. Actor Matt Walsh is 58. Actor Reginald Ballard is 57. Actor Kate Walsh is 55. R&B musician Jeff Allen (Mint Condition) is 54. Actor Tisha Campbell-Martin is 54. Olympic silver medal figure skater Nancy Kerrigan is 53. Country singer Rhett Akins is 53. Classical crossover singer Paul Potts is 52. TV personality Billy Bush is 51. Actor Sacha Baron Cohen is 51. R&B singers Brandon and Brian Casey (Jagged Edge) are 47. Actor Kiele Sanchez is 46. Former NBA All-Star Paul Pierce is 45. DJ Vice is 44. Singer Ashanti (ah-SHAHN’-tee) is 42. R&B singer Lumidee is 42. Christian rock singer Jon Micah Sumrall (Kutless) is 42. Olympic gold medal swimmer Ian Thorpe is 40. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., is 33. Actor Caleb McLaughlin (TV: “Stranger Things”) is 21.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • North Korea says Kim supervised cruise missile tests

    North Korea says Kim supervised cruise missile tests

    [ad_1]

    SEOUL, South Korea — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un supervised tests of long-range cruise missiles, which he described as a successful demonstration of his military’s expanding nuclear strike capabilities and readiness for “actual war,” state media said Thursday.

    Wednesday’s tests extended a record number of weapons demonstrations this year by North Korea, which has punctuated its testing activity with threats to preemptively use nuclear weapons against South Korea and the United States if it perceives its leadership as under threat.

    Analysts say Kim is exploiting the distraction created by Russia’s war on Ukraine, using it as a window to accelerate arms development as he pursues a full-fledged nuclear arsenal that could viably threaten regional U.S. allies and the American homeland.

    South Korean officials say Kim may also conduct a nuclear test in the coming weeks or months, escalating a pressure campaign aimed at forcing the United States to accept the idea of North Korea as a nuclear power that can negotiate economic and security concessions from a position of strength.

    North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency said the two missiles during Wednesday’s tests flew for nearly three hours, drawing oval and figure eight-shaped patterns above its western seas, and showed that they can hit targets 2,000 kilometers (1,240 miles) away. The tests demonstrated the accuracy and war-fighting efficiency of the weapon system that has already been deployed at army units operating “tactical” battlefield nuclear weapons, the agency said.

    Kim after the tests praised the readiness of his nuclear combat forces, which he said were fully prepared for “actual war to bring enemies under their control at a blow” with various weapons systems that are “mobile, precise and powerful,” according to the report.

    He said that the tests send “another clear warning to enemies” and vowed to further expand the operational realm of his nuclear armed forces to “resolutely deter any crucial military crisis and war crisis at any time and completely take the initiative in it.”

    The missiles’ flight details and characteristics described in state media resembled what North Korea reported in January following the previous demonstration of its long-range cruise missile system, which was first revealed in September last year.

    State media photos of Wednesday’s test showed a missile leaving an orange tail of flame as it shot out of a launch vehicle. Kim is seen smiling and clapping from a viewing station established inside an arched structure that appears to be a highway tunnel. Experts say the North may intend to use such structures to conceal its weapons before launch.

    South Korea’s military didn’t immediately comment on the latest tests.

    The tests were the first known weapons demonstrations by North Korea after it launched 12 ballistic missiles in a span of two weeks through Oct. 9 in what it described as simulated nuclear attacks on South Korean and U.S. targets. Those weapons included a new intermediate range ballistic missile that flew over Japan while demonstrating potential range to reach Guam, a major U.S. military hub in the Pacific, and a short-range missile fired from an unspecified platform inside an inland reservoir.

    North Korea said those drills were meant as a warning to Seoul and Washington for staging “dangerous” joint naval exercises involving the nuclear-powered U.S. aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan in recent weeks, which were intended as the allies’ show of strength in the face of growing North Korean threats.

    Concerns about Kim’s expanding nuclear arsenal has grown since his rubber-stamp parliament last month passed a new law that authorized preemptive use of nuclear weapons over a broad range of scenarios, including non-war situations, where it may perceive its leadership as under threat. South Korea’s military has since warned North Korea that it would “self-destruct” if it uses its bombs by triggering an “overwhelming” response from the allies.

    While Kim’s intercontinental ballistic missiles targeting the American homeland have gathered much international attention, he has also been expanding his arsenal of shorter-range weapons aimed at overwhelming missile defenses in South Korea. The North describes some of those weapons as “tactical,” which experts say communicate a threat to arm them with small battlefield nukes and proactively use them during conflicts to blunt the stronger conventional forces of South Korea and the United States, which stations about 28,500 troops in the South.

    North Korea has fired more than 40 ballistic and cruise missiles over more than 20 launch events this year, exploiting a divide in the U.N. Security Council deepened over Russia’s war on Ukraine. The council’s permanent members Moscow and Beijing have rejected U.S.-led proposals to impose tighter sanctions on Pyongyang over its intensified testing activity. Experts say the North’s next nuclear test, which would be its seventh overall since 2006, is likely to be the first that the Security Council fails to meet with new sanctions.

    Nuclear negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang have stalled since early 2019 over disagreements in exchanging the release of crippling U.S.-led sanctions against the North and the North’s denuclearization steps.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Live Updates: Russia-Ukraine-War

    Live Updates: Russia-Ukraine-War

    [ad_1]

    MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that Moscow is ready to resume gas supplies to Europe via a link of Germany-bound Nord Stream 2 pipeline under the Baltic Sea which has never been in use.

    The Nord Stream 2 pipeline has never brought natural gas to Europe because Germany prevented the flows from ever starting just before Russia invaded Ukraine.

    Russia has cut off the parallel Nord Stream 1 pipeline, which has been at the center of an energy standoff with Europe. Russia has blamed technical problems for the stoppage, but European leaders call it an attempt to divide them over their support for Ukraine.

    Speaking at a Moscow energy forum, Putin again claimed Wednesday that the U.S. was likely behind the explosions that ripped through both links of the Nord Stream 1 pipeline and one of the two links of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, causing a massive gas leak and taking them out of service.

    The U.S. has previously rejected similar allegations by Putin.

    ———

    KEY DEVELOPMENTS:

    — Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant loses external power

    — Belarus army would likely have little impact in Ukraine war

    — Bodies exhumed from mass grave in Ukraine’s liberated Lyman

    — EU countries turn to Africa in bid to replace Russian gas

    — Leak detected in pipeline that brings crude oil to Germany

    — Worried UN meets on Ukraine hours after Russian strikes

    — Follow all AP stories on the war in Ukraine at https:/ /apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

    ———

    OTHER DEVELOPMENTS:

    KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian authorities say a Russian attack on a market in the eastern Donetsk region has killed seven people and wounded eight.

    The deputy head of the Ukraine president’s office says the attack happened early Wednesday morning in Avdiivka.

    “The Russian military needs more blood, more death and more destruction,” Kyrylo Tymoshenko said on Telegram. “This is a hunt for the lives of peaceful citizens.”

    Photos attached to the post showed dead people lying in line near one of kiosks that had potatoes and bread on the counter.

    ———

    KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine government’s energy minister says Russian attacks in the past two days have damaged about one third of the country’s energy infrastructure.

    “For the first time since the start of the war, Russia is targeting energy infrastructure,” German Galushchenko said on Wednesday. He says this is because Ukraine is exporting energy to Europe.

    ———

    KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine’s presidential office says Russian shelling in the past 24 hours has affected eight regions in the southeast, while strikes on central and western areas have eased for the moment.

    Russian forces used drones, heavy artillery and missiles, according to the presidential office’s Wednesday morning update.

    Three people have been rescued alive from the rubble in Zaporizhzhia after over a dozen missiles rained on the city, the report said. A six-year-old girl and two more people were wounded in the shelling of Nikopol, where the attacks damaged some three dozen residential buildings, private houses, kindergartens, a school, two plants and several shops, the report added.

    Ukrainian forces say they shot down nine Iranian Shahed-136 drones and destroyed eight Kalibr cruise missiles near Mykolaiv, leaving the southern city without power.

    “Russian shelling intensifies and subsides, but doesn’t stop, not for a day the city lives in tension, and the Russians’ main goal appears to be keeping us in fear,” Mykolaiv regional governor Vitali Kim said.

    ———

    KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian officials and military analysts say Kyiv’s counteroffensive in the occupied regions in the south and east of the country has slowed down significantly despite Ukraine retaking five towns and villages in the Kherson area.

    Russian troops have been re-enforcing the front lines and regrouping following Ukrainian successes, which has forced the Ukrainian forces to ease their advances.

    Regional administrator in the eastern Luhansk region says Russian forces there have been building a multi-layered defense line and mining the front line’s first section.

    Serhiy Haidai says people in the Luhansk region are moving from the Russia-occupied cities to villages, where they have been settling down in empty houses to “spend the winter in warm.”

    Luhansk is among the four region that Russia unlawfully annexed following referendums dismissed as sham by both Ukraine and the West.

    “In the south, the Ukrainian army is slowing down the pace of the counteroffensive, because the Russians managed to regroup and put forward paratrooper units, and unexpected issues arose,” Ukrainian military analyst Oleh Zhdanov told The Associated Press.

    ———

    MOSCOW — The Kremlin says there are no plans for Russian President Vladimir Putin to meet with U.S. President Joe Biden during a Group of 20 summit in Indonesia next month.

    Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Wednesday said “neither the Russian, nor American side put forward any initiatives about organizing bilateral contacts” during the summit in Bali.

    Asked about Biden’s comments in an interview with CNN in which he warned that the use of nuclear weapons against Ukraine would lead to a “horrible outcome,” Peskov said the remarks were part of “harmful and provocative” Western nuclear rhetoric.

    Putin has said he wouldn’t hesitate to use “all means available” to protect Russian territory in a clear reference to Russian nuclear arsenals, a statement that was broadly seen as an attempt to force Ukraine to halt its offensive to reclaim control of the four regions that were illegally absorbed by Russia.

    ———

    BRUSSELS — A Belarus opposition leader says Russia is now de facto occupying her country by deploying its troops there and using authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko as its puppet.

    Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya urged more support from EU leaders during a two-day visit to European Union headquarters in Brussels. She says “we face an enemy who denies the very existence of our country as a free and independent nation.”

    The exiled opposition leader fears that Lukashenko could force the Belarus army to join Russian forces in Moscow’s war against Ukraine. Russia has already used Belarus as a staging ground to send troops and missiles into Ukraine earlier in the war.

    Tsikhanouskaya adds the situation has become “dramatic” in Belarus, which has become totally subservient to the wishes of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Putin and Lukasenko, she says, have “tried to increase and legalize the constant deployment of Russian troops on Belarus territory.”

    “It’s an occupation,” adds Tsikhanouskaya. “Our position is clear, Belarus must officially withdraw from participation in Russian war, and the Russian soldiers must leave Belarus unconditionally.”

    Tsikhanouskaya fled to Lithuania after Lukashenko claimed victory in disputed August 2020 elections that many thought she won.

    ———

    KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine Southern Operational Command says its forces have recaptured five settlements in the Kherson region.

    The villages of Novovasylivka, Novohryhorivka, Nova Kamianka, Tryfonivka and Chervone in the Beryslav district were retaken as of Oct. 11, according to the speaker of the southern command Vladislav Nazarov.

    The settlements are in one of the four regions recently illegally annexed by Russia.

    ———

    MOSCOW — Russia’s top KGB successor agency said Wednesday that it has arrested eight people on charges of involvement in the attack on the bridge linking Russia to Crimea.

    The Federal Security Service (FSB) said it arrested five Russians and three citizens of Ukraine and Armenia on charges of involvement in Saturday’s attack on the bridge.

    A truck loaded with explosives blew up while driving across the bridge, killing four and causing two sections of one of the two automobile links to collapse.

    The FSB charged that the arrested suspects were working on orders of Ukraine’s military intelligence to secretly move the explosives into Russia and forge the accompanying documents.

    It said the explosives were moved by sea from the Ukrainian port of Odesa to Bulgaria before being shipped to Georgia, driven to Armenia and then back to Georgia before being transported to Russia in a complex scheme to secretly deliver them to the target.

    Russian President Vladimir Putin denounced the attack on the bridge as an “act of terrorism” and responded by ordering a barrage of missile strikes on Ukraine.

    Ukrainian officials have lauded the explosion on the bridge, but stopped short of directly claiming responsibility for it.

    ———

    KYIV, Ukraine — A Ukrainian official says a Russian attack blew up windows and doors on residential buildings in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia.

    City council Secretary Anatoliy Kurtev on Wednesday warned the residents of possible follow-up attacks. There were no reports of injuries from the initial shelling.

    Zaporizhzhia, which sits fairly near the front line, has been repeatedly struck with often deadly attacks in recent weeks. It is part of a larger region, including Europe’s largest nuclear power plant now in Russian control, that Moscow has said it has annexed in violation of international law. The city itself remains in Ukrainian hands.

    Another powerful blast struck Melitopol, which is in the same region, sending a car flying into the air, said mayor Ivan Fedorov. There was no word on casualties. Also Wednesday, air raid sirens sounded in the capital Kyiv.

    ———

    WARSAW, Poland — A leak has been detected in an underground oil pipeline in Poland which is the main route through which Russian crude oil reaches Germany.

    Polish operator, PERN, on Wednesday said it detected a leak in the Druzhba pipeline, which originates in Russia, on Tuesday evening about 70 kilometers (45 miles) form the the central Polish city of Plock. It said the cause of the leak wasn’t known.

    The Druzhba pipeline, which in Russian means “Friendship,” is one of the world’s longest oil pipelines, and after leaving Russia it branches out to bring crude to points including Belarus, Ukraine, Poland, Hungary, Austria and Germany.

    The incident follows leaks late last month in the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines running along the Baltic seabed.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Ukraine recaptures 5 settlements in Kherson region

    Ukraine recaptures 5 settlements in Kherson region

    [ad_1]

    KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian forces recaptured five settlements in the southern Kherson region, according to the southern Operational Command.

    The villages of Novovasylivka, Novohryhorivka, Nova Kamianka, Tryfonivka and Chervone in the Beryslav district were retaken as of Oct. 11, according to the speaker of the southern command Vladislav Nazarov.

    The settlements are in one of the four regions recently annexed by Russia.

    Meanwhile, Russia’s top domestic security agency said Wednesday it arrested eight people on charges of involvement in the bombing of the main bridge linking Russia to Crimea, while an official in the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia said Russian forces carried out more strikes there.

    The Federal Security Service, known by the Russian acronym FSB, said it arrested five Russians and three citizens of Ukraine and Armenia over Saturday’s attack that damaged the Kerch Bridge between Russia and the Crimean Peninsula — a crucial thoroughfare for supplies and travel whose much-ballyhooed construction under Russian President Vladimir Putin cost billions.

    A truck loaded with explosives blew up while driving across the bridge, killing four people and causing two sections of one of the two automobile links to collapse.

    Ukrainian officials have lauded the explosion on the bridge, but stopped short of directly claiming responsibility for it.

    The FSB alleged that the suspects were working on orders of Ukraine’s military intelligence to secretly move the explosives into Russia and forge the accompanying documents.

    It said the explosives were moved by sea from the Ukrainian port of Odesa to Bulgaria before being shipped to Georgia, driven to Armenia and then back to Georgia before being transported to Russia in a complex scheme to secretly deliver them to the target.

    Putin alleged that Ukrainian special services masterminded the blast, calling it “an act of terrorism,” and responded by ordering a barrage of missile strikes on Ukraine.

    Russia’s onslaught continued in the Zaporizhzhia region and eponymous city on Wednesday, shattering windows and blowing out doors in residential buildings, municipal council secretary Anatoliy Kurtev said. There were no immediate reports of casualties, though Kurtev warned locals of the possibility of a follow-up attack.

    Zaporizhzhia, which sits fairly near the front line between Russian and Ukrainian forces, has been repeatedly struck with often deadly attacks in recent weeks. It is part of a larger region, including Europe’s largest nuclear power plant now in Russian control, that Moscow has said it has annexed in violation of international law. The city itself remains in Ukrainian hands.

    To the south, in a Russian-controlled area of the region, a powerful blast struck the city of Melitopol — sending a car flying into the air, mayor Ivan Fedorov. There was no word on casualties.

    The new clashes came two days after Russian forces began pummeling many parts of Ukraine with more missiles and munition-carrying drones, killing at least 19 people on Monday alone in an attack the U.N. human rights office described as “particularly shocking” and amounting to potential war crimes.

    Tuesday marked the second straight day when air raid sirens echoed throughout Ukraine, and officials advised residents to conserve energy and stock up on water. The strikes knocked out power across the country and pierced the relative calm that had returned to the capital, Kyiv, and many other cities far from the war’s front lines.

    “It brings anger, not fear,” Kyiv resident Volodymyr Vasylenko, 67, said as crews worked to restore traffic lights and clear debris from the capital’s streets. “We already got used to this. And we will keep fighting.”

    The leaders of the Group of Seven industrial powers condemned the bombardment and said they would “stand firmly with Ukraine for as long as it takes.” Their pledge defied Russian warnings that Western assistance would prolong the war and the pain of Ukraine’s people.

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told the G-7 leaders during a virtual meeting Russia fired more than 100 missiles and dozens of drones at Ukraine over two days. He appealed for “more modern and effective” air defense systems — even though he said Ukraine shot down many of the Russian projectiles.

    The Pentagon on Tuesday announced plans to deliver the first two advanced NASAMs anti-aircraft systems to Ukraine in the coming weeks. The systems, which Kyiv has long wanted, will provide medium- to long-range defense against missile attacks.

    In a phone call with Zelenskyy on Tuesday, President Joe Biden “pledged to continue providing Ukraine with the support needed to defend itself, including advanced air defense systems,” the White House said.

    Ukraine’s defense minister tweeted that four German IRIS-T air defense systems had just arrived, saying a “new era” of air defense for Ukraine had begun.

    ———

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

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • 20 years after Bali bombings, ‘the ache does not dim’

    20 years after Bali bombings, ‘the ache does not dim’

    [ad_1]

    DENPASAR, Indonesia — Hundreds gathered Wednesday on the Indonesian resort island of Bali to commemorate 20 years since a twin bombing killed 202 people, mostly foreign tourists, including 88 Australians and seven Americans.

    Services were held simultaneously in several places in Australia and at Bali’s Australian Consulate in the city of Denpasar, where Australian survivors of the 2002 terrorist attack and relatives of the deceased were among the 200 in attendance to pay tribute.

    Survivors and relatives laid wreaths and flowers at the Memorial Garden after a moment of silence.

    Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese attended a service in his hometown, Sydney, at the beachside suburb of Coogee. Six members of the Coogee Dolphins Rugby League Football Club died in the blasts.

    Albanese paid tribute Wednesday to the strength and unity the Coogee community had shown since the tragedy.

    “Twenty years ago, the shock waves from Bali reached our shores. Twenty years ago, an act of malice and calculated depravity robbed the world of 202 lives, including 88 Australians. Twenty years on, the ache does not dim,” Albanese said.

    At a ceremony at Australian Parliament House in the national capital Canberra, Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong welcomed Indonesian Ambassador Siswo Pramono, who was among the dignitaries.

    “Ambassador, on behalf of the Australian government, I warmly welcome you and acknowledge the strength, the courage and the cooperation of our two peoples,” Wong said in Bahasa, the official language of Indonesia.

    “Today, we remember what was taken. Today, we remember what was lost. And we wonder what might have been had they all come home,” Wong added.

    Pramono said the terrorist attack had created a “better and stronger bond” between Indonesia and Australia.

    “Twenty years ago today, a hideous crime struck and it was one of the saddest days in Indonesian history,” Pramono told the gathering.

    “Family and friends were left with overwhelming grief and even though a lot of hearts were broken and our loved ones were taken from us, there are some things that a terrorist couldn’t take: our love and compassion for others and the idea that people are equal in rights and freedoms,” Pramono added.

    Survivors are still battling with their trauma of the tragedy, when a car bombing in Sari Club and a nearly simultaneous suicide bombing at nearby Paddy’s Pub on a Saturday night in October 2002.

    After the attack, the bustling tourist area was quiet for a time, but it has since returned to a state of busy weekends, packed traffic and tourists. What used to be Sari Club is now a vacant lot, while Paddy’s Pub has resumed its operation 100 meters (300 feet) from its original location.

    A monument stands less than 50 meters (yards) from the bombing sites with the names of the those who died inscribed on it. People regularly come and pray and place flowers, candles, or flags with photos of their loved ones.

    A photo of two women tied with a bouquet of fresh chrysanthemums and roses sits next to a laminated paper that reads: “To our beautiful girls Renae & Simone. It is twenty years on and not a day has gone by without thinking of you both, and how we lost two treasures. Our hearts will cry for you forever. We love and miss you so very much. Your loving Dad and Brothers.”

    The 2002 attack in Bali, carried out by suicide bombers from the al-Qaida-linked group Jemaah Islamiyah, started a wave of violence in the world’s most populous Muslim nation. Three years later, another bomb attack the island and killed 20 people. Numerous attacks followed, hitting an embassy, hotels, restaurants, a coffee shop, churches, and even police headquarters across the archipelago nation.

    Two decades after the Bali bombings, counterterrorism efforts in the world’s most populous Muslim country remain highly active. Indonesia founded Densus 88, a national counterterrorism unit, in the wake of the attacks. More than 2,300 people have since been arrested on terrorism charges, according to data from the Center for Radicalism and Deradicalization Studies, a non-government Indonesian think tank.

    In 2020, 228 people were arrested on terrorism charges. The number rose to 370 last year, underscoring authorities’ commitment to pursue suspects even as the number of terrorist attacks in Indonesia has fallen.

    The pursuit of suspects related to the Bali bombings has also continued, most recently resulting in the arrest of Aris Sumarsono, 58, whose real name is Arif Sunarso but is better known as Zulkarnaen, in December 2020. The court sentenced him to 15 years in prison for his role. Indonesian authorities also suspect him to be the mastermind of several other attacks in the country.

    In August, Indonesia’s government considered granting an early prison release to the bombmaker in the Bali attack, Hisyam bin Alizein, 55, better known by his alias, Umar Patek, who has also been identified as a leading member of Jemaah Islamiyah.

    Indonesian authorities said Patek was an example of successful efforts to reform convicted terrorists and that they planned to use him to influence others not to commit terrorist acts. But the Australian government has expressed its strong opposition to his possible release.

    ———

    McGuirk reported from Canberra, Australia.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Ex-NSA worker accused of selling secrets ordered detained

    Ex-NSA worker accused of selling secrets ordered detained

    [ad_1]

    DENVER — A former National Security Agency employee from Colorado accused of trying to sell classified information to Russia will remain behind bars while he is prosecuted, a magistrate judge ruled Tuesday.

    Jareh Sebastian Dalke, 30, is facing a possible life sentence for allegedly giving the information to an undercover FBI agent whom prosecutors say he believed was a person working for the Russian Federation. He pleaded not guilty through his lawyer during a hearing in Denver federal court before a hearing to determine if he should be released from jail.

    Dalke was arrested Sept. 28 after authorities say he arrived at Denver’s downtown train station with a laptop and used a secure connection set up by investigators to transfer some classified documents.

    Magistrate Judge S. Kato Crews said Tuesday the stiff penalty Dalke could face makes him a flight risk along with the sympathies he has allegedly expressed for Russia. Crews also said he was not sure that Dalke, who is accused of sharing the documents after promising not to disclose information he obtained while working at the NSA, would honor any conditions he could impose that would allow Dalke to live with his wife and grandmother in Colorado Springs while the case proceeds. He was also concerned about authentic-looking but counterfeit badges for government agencies, including the NSA, allegedly found during a search of Dalke’s home.

    Dalke’s lawyers had proposed that his wife, who was in court for the hearing, could supervise the Army veteran and report any violations of his bond. However, Crews was concerned whether she would be able to do that, describing Dalke as her “caretaker.”

    One of Dalke’s federal public defenders, David Kraut, said Dalke supported the household with Veterans Administration benefits and had been “supportive” of his wife in difficulties in her life. He said Dalke would not want to put her at risk by not complying with bond conditions. However, Assistant U.S. Attorney Julia K. Martinez said he already had by taking her with him when he went to scout out a public location to transmit the documents.

    Public defender, Kraut, downplayed Dalke’s access to classified information since he only worked at the NSA for less than a month this summer.

    Shortly after he left the agency, citing a family illness, and signed the non-disclosure agreement, he allegedly began talking with the undercover agent using encrypted email.

    Martinez argued that the government does not know whether Dalke obtained more information from the NSA that is stored somewhere else or possibly memorized. She said he has the motivation to sell more secrets if he were to be released.

    “He knows how to make money. Sell secrets to Russia,” said Martinez, who alleged Dalke took the job at the NSA with the intent of selling secrets.

    The information Dalke is accused of providing includes a threat assessment of the military offensive capabilities of a foreign country which is not named. It also includes a description of sensitive U.S. defense capabilities, a portion of which relates to that same foreign country, according to his indictment.

    The Army veteran allegedly told the undercover agent that he had $237,000 in debts and that he had decided to work with Russia because his heritage “ties back to your country.”

    Before Dalke transfered the classified documents, he first sent a thank you letter, which opened and closed in Russian, in which he said he looked “forward to our friendship and shared benefit,” according to court filings.

    Dalke worked for the NSA, the U.S. intelligence agency that collects and analyzes signals from foreign and domestic sources for the purpose of intelligence and counterintelligence, as an information systems security designer. After he left and allegedly provided documents with the undercover agent, prosecutors say he re-applied to work there.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • EXPLAINER: Haiti’s troubled history of foreign interventions

    EXPLAINER: Haiti’s troubled history of foreign interventions

    [ad_1]

    SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Haiti Prime Minister Ariel Henry and 18 members of his cabinet have requested the immediate deployment of foreign troops in response to gangs and protesters who have paralyzed the country.

    Fuel, water and other basic supplies have dwindled nearly a month after one of Haiti‘s most powerful gangs blocked access to a main fuel terminal in Port-au-Prince where more than 10 million gallons of gasoline and diesel are stored, along with more than 800,000 gallons of kerosene. In addition, demonstrators have blocked roads in the capital and other main cities to demand Henry’s resignation and protest rising fuel prices after the prime minister announced in early September that his administration could no longer afford to subsidize fuel.

    Gas stations and schools remain shuttered. Banks and grocery stores are operating on a limited schedule.

    The United Nations secretary-general has offered the Security Council various options, including the immediate deployment of a rapid action force.

    Opponents claim Henry hopes to use foreign troops to keep himself in power – a leadership he assumed last year after the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse and that many consider illegitimate because he was never elected nor formally confirmed in the post by the legislature. He has failed to set a date for elections, which have not been held since November 2016, but has pledged to do so once the violence is quelled.

    Here is a look at previous foreign military interventions in Haiti and the impact they’ve had on the country of more than 11 million people:

    HOW MANY FOREIGN MILITARY INTERVENTIONS HAVE THERE BEEN IN HAITI?

    Since the early 1900s, there have been at least three major foreign military interventions in Haiti led by the United States and the United Nations.

    The U.S. first occupied Haiti from 1915 to 1934.

    Nearly 60 years later, the U.N. launched a peacekeeping mission in 1993, followed by the arrival of U.S. troops in 1994. Another intervention occurred in 2004. The first of those was to restore President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to power. The second followed a rebellion that removed him again.

    WHAT LED TO THE INTERVENTIONS?

    The interventions came at moments of great political instability.

    Seven Haitian presidents were ousted or killed from 1911 to 1915, prompting U.S. President Woodrow Wilson to send U.S marines to Haiti in 1914. The U.S. removed half a million dollars from the Haitian National Bank for alleged safekeeping in New York. A formal U.S. occupation began in July 1915 and lasted until August 1934.

    In September 1994, the U.S. sent more than 20,000 troops and two aircraft carriers to Haiti as part of an operation dubbed “Restore Democracy” under President Bill Clinton. The aim was to restore to power Aristide, who had been ousted in a 1991 military coup. Aristide had become Haiti’s first democratically elected president the year before. A smaller contingent of U.S. troops remained in Haiti until early 2000, often under U.N. auspices.

    A parallel United Nations peacekeeping effort was launched in September 1993 and ran until 2000.

    Aristide was overthrown again in February 2004 in a rebellion originally launched by a street gang. The U.S., which had pushed him to resign, flew Aristide out of the country and sent troops — as did Canada, France and Chile. They were soon replaced by troops of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti, which stayed until 2017.

    WHAT IMPACT HAVE FOREIGN INTERVENTIONS HAD ON HAITI?

    Robert Fatton, a Haitian politics expert at the University of Virginia, said that overall, “The occupations didn’t really improve anything in Haiti.”

    He said the 1915-1934 occupation created a unified Haitian military, which was the country’s dominant force until the dictatorial regime of François Duvalier and later his son, Jean-Claude Duvalier, from 1957 to 1986.

    The occupation also established a type of unpaid forced labor known as “corvée” in which U.S. officials used Haitian peasants to build roads, railroads and other infrastructure.

    “The occupation was very coercive,” Fatton said. “It was also very centralizing and … very racist.”

    He said the second intervention in 1994 was more popular because it helped restore the charismatic Aristide, a former priest who once served poor communities.

    The invasion led to the creation of Haiti’s National Police, which effectively replaced the Haitian Army that was disbanded in 1995, though many police officers were former soldiers.

    However, there were two failed couple attempts during that occupation and deepening political chaos.

    The U.N.’s 2004-2017 peacekeeping mission was marred by allegations of sexual assault by its troops and staffers and the fact that peacekeepers from Nepal were blamed for introducing cholera into Haiti’s largest river in October 2010 by sewage runoff from their base. The U.N. has since acknowledged it played a role in the epidemic and that it had not done enough to help fight it, but it has not specifically acknowledged it introduced the disease.

    Fatton said that while the U.N. mission “established a modicum of order,” in Haiti, it was a “very repressive organization.”

    “To destroy gangs, they used forceful means. That left a very bad taste with poor Haitians,” he said, noting that they live side-by-side with gangs in slums. “Whether you’re with the gangs or not, you suffered the consequences.”

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Iran’s crackdown on protests intensifies in Kurdish region

    Iran’s crackdown on protests intensifies in Kurdish region

    [ad_1]

    DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iran intensified its crackdown Tuesday on Kurdish areas in the country’s west as protests sparked by the death of a 22-year-old woman detained by the morality police rage on, activists said.

    Riot police fired into at least one neighborhood in Sanandaj, the capital of Iran’s Kurdistan province, as Amnesty International and the White House’s national security adviser criticized the violence targeting demonstrators angered by the death of Mahsa Amini.

    Meanwhile, some oil workers Monday joined the protests at two key refinery complexes, for the first time linking an industry key to Iran’s theocracy to the unrest.

    Iran’s government insists Amini was not mistreated, but her family says her body showed bruises and other signs of beating. Subsequent videos have shown security forces beating and shoving female protesters, including women who have torn off their mandatory headscarf, or hijab.

    From the capital, Tehran, and elsewhere, videos have emerged online despite authorities disrupting the internet. Videos on Monday showed university and high school students demonstrating and chanting, with some women and girls marching through the streets without headscarves as the protests continue into a fourth week. The demonstrations represent one of the biggest challenges to Iran’s theocracy since the 2009 Green Movement protests.

    One video posted online by a Kurdish group called the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights showed darkened streets with apparent gunfire going off and a bonfire burning in Sanandaj, some 400 kilometers (250 miles) west of Tehran.

    Another showed riot police carrying shotguns moving in formation with a vehicle, apparently firing at homes.

    The New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran posted another video showing what it described as a phalanx of motorcycle-riding security forces moving through Sanandaj.

    “They reportedly broke the windows of hundreds of cars in the Baharan neighborhood,” the center said.

    Amini was Kurdish and her death has been felt particularly in Iran’s Kurdish region, where demonstrations began Sept. 17 at her funeral there after her death the day before.

    Amnesty International criticized Iranian security forces for “using firearms and firing tear gas indiscriminately, including into people’s homes.” It urged the world to pressure Iran to end the crackdown as Tehran continues to disrupt internet and mobile phone networks “to hide their crimes.”

    Iran did not immediately acknowledge the renewed crackdown in Sanandaj. However, Iran’s Foreign Ministry summoned the British ambassador over the United Kingdom sanctioning members of the country’s morality police and security officials due to the crackdown.

    Iran’s Foreign Ministry called the sanctions “arbitrary and baseless,” even while threatening to potentially take countermeasures against London.

    Jake Sullivan, U.S. President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, similarly noted that “the world is watching what is happening in Iran.”

    “These protestors are Iranian citizens, led by women and girls, demanding dignity and basic rights,” Sullivan wrote on Twitter. “We stand with them, and we will hold responsible those using violence in a vain effort to silence their voices.”

    ———

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

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Key Senate chair urges US to freeze cooperation with Saudis

    Key Senate chair urges US to freeze cooperation with Saudis

    [ad_1]

    WASHINGTON — Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Robert Menendez called Monday for freezing all U.S. cooperation with Saudi Arabia, delivering one of the strongest expressions yet of U.S. anger over Saudi oil-production cuts that serve to boost Russia in its war in Ukraine.

    In a statement, Menendez specifically called for cutting off all arms sales and security cooperation — one of the underpinnings of the more than 70-year U.S. strategic partnership with the oil kingdom — beyond the minimum necessary to defend Americans and American interests.

    As committee chairman, Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat, vowed he “will not green-light any cooperation with Riyadh until the Kingdom reassesses its position with respect to the war in Ukraine. Enough is enough.”

    His statement comes four days after Saudi Arabia and Russia led OPEC nations in announcing a 2 million barrel a day cut in oil production. The Saudi- and Russian-led cuts help prop up high oil prices that are allowing President Vladimir Putin to keep paying for his eight-month invasion of Ukraine. The production cut also hurts U.S.-led efforts to make the war financially unsustainable for Russia, threatens a global economy already destabilized by the Ukraine conflict, and risks saddling President Joe Biden and Democrats with rising gasoline prices just ahead of U.S. midterms.

    Menendez’s announcement Monday places him among a growing number of Democrats who, since the announcement by OPEC nations and Russia, have called for stopping what are billions of dollars in annual U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia.

    The Democrats accuse Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom’s de facto ruler, of effectively flouting the Saudi side of a decades-long bargain that has consisted of the U.S. military and defense industry providing security for Saudi Arabia, and Saudi Arabia in turn providing world markets with a reliable flow of oil.

    Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer last week was among the Democrats blasting Prince Mohammed for seeming to act in support of Putin’s invasion.

    Schumer declared then that lawmakers were looking at legislative options to deal with what he called Saudi Arabia’s “appalling and deeply cynical action.”

    Democratic lawmakers within a day of the OPEC move were introducing new legislation to stop U.S. arms sales to the kingdom. Menendez’s action Monday, given his key role shepherding foreign policy legislation, raises the prospect that Congress could act to punish the Saudis during the lame-duck period after the November elections.

    It’s not clear how far Menendez and other Democrats would go in practical terms in cutting off weapons deals and most other cooperation with the Saudis, or whether the Biden administration would go along. Biden said last week he was disappointed with Saudi Arabia’s role in the latest oil production cut and said the administration was looking at options.

    There was no immediate reaction from the White House on Monday to Menendez’s move.

    Last week’s oil production cuts delivered one of the sharpest yet in a series of blows in the U.S. and Saudi relationship. They include the 2018 Saudi killing of a U.S.-based journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, in which the U.S. intelligence community concluded the crown prince played a key role. Americans also fault the crown prince for refusing to join in U.S.-led efforts to isolate and punish Putin for his February invasion of Ukraine, and for maintaining seemingly friendly relations with Putin.

    “There simply is no room to play both sides of this conflict — either you support the rest of the free world in trying to stop a war criminal from violently wiping off an entire country off of the map, or you support him,” Menendez said in his statement. “The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia chose the latter in a terrible decision driven by economic self-interest.”

    Biden had sought to patch relations with Prince Mohammed, traveling to Saudi Arabia in July to deliver an awkward fist bump in a conciliatory gesture.

    —-

    Aamer Madhani contributed from Washington.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Syria official: US drone attack kills IS member in northeast

    Syria official: US drone attack kills IS member in northeast

    [ad_1]

    BEIRUT — A U.S.-led coalition drone strike in northeastern Syria on Monday killed an Islamic State group militant, a Kurdish-Syrian security official said.

    Speaking on condition of anonymity in line with regulations, the official told The Associated Press that the strike targeted the IS member driving a motorcycle in the village of Hamam al-Turkman. The village is controlled by Turkish-backed Syrian opposition forces near Tel Abyad. No other casualties were reported.

    Photos from local media surfaced on social media showing what is reportedly the remains of the militant’s body next to the destroyed motorcycle.

    U.S. Central Command did not immediately issue a statement on the drone attack, and did not immediately respond to an Associated Press inquiry on the matter.

    The U.S. last week announced it killed three IS leaders in two separate operations, including a rare ground raid in a part of northeast Syria under government control.

    There are some 900 U.S. forces in Syria supporting Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in the fight against the Islamic State group. They have frequently targeted IS militants mostly in parts of northeastern Syria under Kurdish control.

    Despite their defeat in Syria in 2019, when IS lost the last sliver of land its fighters once controlled, the extremists’ sleeper cells have continued to carry out deadly attacks in Syria and Iraq. IS fighters once held large parts of the two countries.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • N. Korea confirms nuke missiles tests to ‘wipe out’ enemies

    N. Korea confirms nuke missiles tests to ‘wipe out’ enemies

    [ad_1]

    SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea’s recent barrage of missile launches were tests of its tactical nuclear weapons to “hit and wipe out” potential South Korean and U.S. targets, state media reported Monday, as its leader Kim Jong Un signaled he would conduct more provocative tests.

    The North’s statement, released on the 77th birthday of its ruling Workers’ Party, is seen as an attempt to buttress a public unity behind Kim as he faces pandemic-related economic hardships, a security threat posed by the boosted U.S.-South Korean military alliance and other difficulties.

    “Through seven times of launching drills of the tactical nuclear operation units, the actual war capabilities … of the nuclear combat forces ready to hit and wipe out the set objects at any location and any time were displayed to the full,” the North’s official Korean Central News Agency said.

    KCNA said the missile tests were in response to recent naval drills between U.S. and South Korean forces, which involved the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan for the first time in five years.

    Viewing the drills as a military threat, North Korea decided to stage “the simulation of an actual war” to check and improve its war deterrence and send a warning to its enemies, KCNA said.

    North Korea considers U.S.-South Korean military drills as an invasion rehearsal, though the allies have steadfastly said they are defensive in nature. Since the May inauguration of a conservative government in Seoul, the U.S. and South Korean militaries have been expanding their exercises, which had been previously scaled back due to the pandemic and the now-dormant nuclear diplomacy between Pyongyang and Washington.

    The launches — all supervised by Kim — included a nuclear-capable ballistic missile launched under a reservoir in the northeast; other ballistic missiles designed to strike South Korean airfields, ports and command facilities; and a new-type ground-to-ground ballistic missile that flew over Japan, KCNA reported.

    North Korea has previously test-launched missiles from a submarine off its east coast. But the most recent was its first public test of a weapon from under an inland reservoir.

    Kim Dong-yub, a professor at Seoul’s University of North Korean Studies, said North Korea likely aims to diversify launch sites to make it difficult for its enemies to detect its missile liftoffs in advance and conduct preemptive strikes.

    KCNA said when the weapon launched from the reservoir was flying above the sea target, North Korean authorities confirmed the reliability of the explosion of the missile’s warhead, apparently a dummy one, at the set altitude.

    Kim, the professor, said the missile’s estimated 600-kilometer (370-mile) flight indicated the launch could be a test of exploding a nuclear weapon above South Korea’s southeastern port city of Busan, where the Reagan previously docked. He said the missile tested appeared to be a new version of North Korea’s highly maneuverable KN-23 missile, which was modeled on Russia’s Iskander missile.

    North Korea described the missile that flew over Japan as a new-type intermediate-range weapon that traveled 4,500 kilometers (2,800 miles). Some foreign experts earlier said North Korea likely tested its existing nuclear-capable Hwasong-12 missile, which can reach the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam. But Kim, the professor, said the missile appeared to be an improved version of the Hwasong-12 with a faraway target like Alaska or Hawaii.

    Worries about North Korea’s nuclear program deepened in recent months as the country adopted a new law authorizing the preemptive use of its bombs in certain cases and took reported steps to deploy tactical nuclear weapons along its frontline border with South Korea.

    This year, North Korea has also carried out a record number of weapons tests with more than 40 ballistic and cruise missiles.

    Some experts say Kim Jong Un would eventually aim to use his advanced nuclear arsenal to win a U.S. recognition of North Korea as a legitimate nuclear state, which Kim sees as essential in getting crippling U.N. sanctions on his country lifted.

    Kim Jong Un said the recent launches were “an obvious warning” to South Korea and the United States, informing them of North Korea’s nuclear response posture and attack capabilities. Kim also repeated that he has no intentions of resuming the disarmament diplomacy with the United States now and would rather focus on expanding his weapons arsenal, according to KCNA.

    “The U.S. and the South Korean regime’s steady, intentional and irresponsible acts of escalating the tension will only invite our greater reaction, and we are always and strictly watching the situation crisis,” KCNA said.

    Kim also expressed conviction that the nuclear combat forces of his military would maintain “their strongest nuclear response posture and further strengthen it in every way” to perform their duties of defending the North’s dignity and sovereign rights.

    South Korean officials recently said North Korea maintains readiness to perform its seventh nuclear test — its first such test in five years — while preparing to test a new liquid-fueled intercontinental ballistic missile as well as a submarine-launched ballistic missile.

    “North Korea has multiple motivations for publishing a high-profile missile story now,” said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul. “Kim Jong Un’s public appearance after a month-long absence provides a patriotic headline to mark the founding anniversary of the ruling Workers’ Party.”

    “Pyongyang has been concerned about military exercises by the U.S., South Korea and Japan, so to strengthen its self-proclaimed deterrent, it is making explicit the nuclear threat behind its recent missile launches. The KCNA report may also be a harbinger of a forthcoming nuclear test for the kind of tactical warhead that would arm the units Kim visited in the field,” Easley said.

    [ad_2]

    Source link