The United States supports humanitarian aid for North Korea regardless of progress on the country’s denuclearization, the U.S. envoy to Pyongyang said Tuesday. The comments by the envoy, Sung Kim, came at the end of his four-day visit to Seoul, where he reiterated his readiness to meet North Korean leaders “anywhere, anytime.” In a column in South Korea’s Hankyoreh newspaper, Kim also said the United States supports humanitarian cooperation projects between North and South Korea and is “open to exploring meaningful confidence-building initiatives.” “The United States will continue to support the provision of humanitarian aid, consistent with international standards for access and monitoring, to the most vulnerable North Koreans, regardless of progress on denuclearization,” Kim wrote.  Kim did not elaborate on what types of humanitarian aid are under consideration. But his South Korean counterpart, Noh Kyu-duk, said Monday the two men discussed initiatives related to healthcare, pandemic quarantine measures, clean drinking water, and hygiene. “We also talked about humanitarian support to the North through international organizations and nongovernmental organizations,” Noh added.  South Korea has repeatedly offered assistance to fight the spread of coronavirus and other aid to North Korea, which is impoverished in many areas and has an uneven healthcare system. But Pyongyang has ignored or rejected such offers. Pyongyang says it hasn’t had COVID-19 cases yet and the government announced this week that it has developed its own equipment to conduct coronavirus tests, according to an announcement on state media. Back and forth There was some brief optimism late last month, when North and South Korean leaders announced the existence of high-level dialogue along with the restoration of several inter-Korean communication lines that Pyongyang had severed a year earlier. But ties went frosty again — and North Korea stopped answering the South’s twice daily hotline calls — after Seoul and Washington this month went ahead with annual summer military exercises.U.S. Special Representative for North Korea, Sung Kim (L) meets with Noh Kyu-duk (R), South Korea’s Special Representative for Korean Peninsula Peace and Security Affairs during their meeting at Plaza Hotel, Aug. 24, 2021.In his editorial Tuesday, Sung Kim defended the drills, saying the United States “does not have hostile intent” toward North Korea.  “The U.S.- (South Korea) combined military exercises, which are currently underway, are longstanding, routine, and purely defensive, and support the security of both our countries,” he added.  More tensions coming? Many Korea watchers expect the North to soon conduct a weapons test, which could further raise tensions. Last week, North Korea reportedly declared a no-sail zone for ships off its east coast — a routine it occasionally conducts to warn vessels to stay away from areas affected by missile tests. But a launch never occurred during the period, according to South Korean officials quoted in local media.  Senior North Korean military general Kim Yong Chol earlier this month warned of a “huge security crisis” after the United States and South Korea announced they would move ahead with the military drills.  Pyongyang sees the exercises as a provocation and often uses them as an occasion to conduct its own weapons tests or issue verbal threats.  At the beginning of 2020, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un warned he will no longer be bound by his self-imposed moratorium on long-range missile launches or nuclear tests.  But many analysts suspect North Korea will not take any step that risks bringing further economic and diplomatic isolation.  Tough times North Korea is already dealing with economic hardship caused by its severe coronavirus lockdown, as well as several natural disasters, such as a heat wave and floods, that have hurt its agriculture.  The North is also under U.S. and United Nations sanctions, which are meant to pressure Pyongyang to halt its development of nuclear weapons program and ballistic missiles.  Some aid groups have complained the sanctions make efforts to provide urgent international aid to North Korea more difficult; the U.S. says mechanisms are in place for those groups to receive humanitarian exemptions. Kim Jong Un sought sanctions relief and other concessions in 2018 and 2019, when he met three times with then U.S. President Donald Trump.  But after those talks broke down, North Korea focused its attention inward, saying the country would have to live under sanctions for the foreseeable future. For the past year and a half, North Korea has been in a severe pandemic lockdown, sealing its borders, cutting imports, and restricting domestic travel.  
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U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris said Tuesday the Indo-Pacific region is “critically important to our nation’s security and prosperity” as she promoted partnerships with allies there and criticized China’s actions regarding the South China Sea. Speaking during a visit to Singapore, Harris said she was reaffirming U.S. commitments to peace and stability, freedom on the seas, unimpeded commerce, advancing human rights and an international rules-based order. She cited the millions who depend on sea lanes in the region for their livelihood and the billions of dollars in commerce flowing through the region. “And yet, in the South China Sea we know that Beijing continues to coerce, to intimidate and to make claims to the vast majority of the South China Sea,” Harris said. “These unlawful claims have been rejected by the 2016 arbitral tribunal decision.”U.S. Vice President visits Singapore, Aug. 24, 2021. Harris said common interests in the region “are not zero-sum” and said U.S. engagement is not against any one country or seeking to make allies choose one country or another, but about advancing an optimistic vision for partnership. “The fact is that I believe our world is embarking on a new era, an era with new challenges like cybersecurity and an era with new opportunities like clean energy,” she said. “The fact is our world is more interconnected and interdependent, and in order then to embrace this new era nations must be willing to take on challenges together and create opportunities together.” She said those in the Indo-Pacific region understand the threats of climate change, including rising sea levels and floods, and that the crisis is “getting much more urgent.”  Harris added that in an interconnected world, the issue affects everyone and “requires collective action.” Speaking specifically about Myanmar, also known as Burma, Harris said the United States is “deeply alarmed” by the coup carried out by the military earlier this year. “We condemn the campaign of violent repression and we are committed to supporting the people there as they work to return their nation to the path of democracy. And we hope that the nations throughout the Indo-Pacific will join us in that effort,” she said. Harris also took part Tuesday in a roundtable discussion about supply chain resilience and cooperation. She is set to fly later Tuesday to Vietnam and become the first U.S. vice president to visit Hanoi.In Vietnam, she is expected to discuss many of the same issues, including security and climate change. 
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An internal U.S. Capitol Police investigation has exonerated one of its officers in the fatal shooting of a woman inside the U.S. Capitol on January 6 as she and hundreds of supporters of then-President Donald Trump tried to stop lawmakers from certifying that Democrat Joe Biden had defeated Trump in last November’s election.Last April, federal authorities had said they would not pursue criminal charges against the officer, who has never been publicly identified, in the shooting of Ashli Babbitt, 35, a decorated Air Force veteran who in recent years had become a staunch Trump supporter.On Monday, the police agency responsible for security at the Capitol said it also, in an internal administrative investigation, has cleared the officer of wrongdoing.The officer shot Babbitt moments after other nearby rioters smashed a glass door just steps from the House of Representatives as lawmakers scrambled to safety when they realized the rioters had breached security at the building while they were in the initial stages of certifying Biden’s victory.FILE – Capitol Police in riot gear push back demonstrators at the U.S. Capitol, Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington.In a statement, the Capitol Police said its Office of Professional Responsibility “determined the officer’s conduct was lawful and within department policy, which says an officer may use deadly force only when the officer reasonably believes that action is in the defense of human life, including the officer’s own life, or in the defense of any person in immediate danger of serious physical injury.”The police agency said that in the chaos of January 6, “the officer in this case potentially saved (lawmakers) and staff from serious injury and possible death from a large crowd of rioters who forced their way into the U.S. Capitol and to the House chamber” where the lawmakers and staff “were steps away.”The review said the officers had barricaded the lobby outside the House chamber “with furniture before a rioter shattered the glass door. If the doors were breached, the rioters would have immediate access to the House chambers. The officer’s actions were consistent with the officer’s training and (U.S. Capitol Police) policies and procedures.”The agency said, “The officer in this case, who is not being identified for the officer’s safety, will not be facing internal discipline.”The police statement said the officer and his family “have been the subject of numerous credible and specific threats for actions that were taken as part of the job of all our officers: defending the Congress, (lawmakers), staff and the democratic process.”To some supporters of Trump trying to downplay the significance and violence of the January 6 riot, Babbitt has become something of a posthumous heroine. In recent years, she had posted numerous messages on social media voicing support for Trump and the QAnon conspiracy theory movement.One conservative Republican lawmaker, Representative Paul Gosar, has called Babbitt’s death “an execution” and accused the officer who shot her of “lying in wait” to do so.Authorities believe about 800 Trump supporters entered the Capitol on January 6, with some of them storming past law enforcement authorities, smashing windows, ransacking congressional offices and scuffling with police, 140 of whom were injured in the melee.Many of the rioters boasted on social media of occupying the Capitol and were quickly identified by their friends and relatives, as well as by police investigators.To date, 615 people have been charged with an array of criminal offenses, some as minor as trespassing in a secure area, while others face more serious charges including attacking police or vandalizing the Capitol. About 40 have pleaded guilty so far, with some facing three-or-four-year prison sentences while others have been given probationary terms for minor offenses.
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Igor Vovkovinskiy, the tallest man in the United States, has died in Minnesota. He was 38.His family said the Ukrainian-born Vovkovinskiy died of heart disease on Friday at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester. His mother, Svetlana Vovkovinska, an ICU nurse at Mayo, initially posted about his death on Facebook.Vovkovinskiy came to the Mayo Clinic in 1989 as a child seeking treatment. A tumor pressing against his pituitary gland caused it to secrete abnormal levels of growth hormone. He grew to become the tallest man in the U.S. at 2 meters, 34.5 centimeters (7 feet, 8.33 inches) and ended up staying in Rochester.His older brother, Oleh Ladan of Brooklyn Park, told the Star Tribune of Minneapolis that Vovkovinskiy was a celebrity when he arrived from Ukraine because of his size and the flickering Cold War of the late 1980s. But Ladan said Vovkovinskiy “would have rather lived a normal life than be known.”Vovkovinskiy appeared on “The Dr. Oz Show” and was called out by President Barack Obama during a campaign rally in 2009, when the president noticed him near the stage wearing a T-shirt that read, “World’s Biggest Obama Supporter.” In 2013, he carried the Ukrainian contestant onto the stage to perform in the Eurovision Song Contest.When he was 27, Vovkovinskiy traveled to New York City and was declared America’s tallest living person by a Guinness World Records adjudicator on Oz’s show. He edged out a sheriff’s deputy in Virginia by one-third of an inch.He issued a plea in 2012 to cover the estimated $16,000 cost for specially made shoes that wouldn’t cause him crippling pain. At the time, he said he hadn’t owned a pair for years that fit his size 26, 10E feet. Thousands donated more than twice what he needed. Reebok provided the custom shoes for free.Vovkovinskiy was born Sept. 8, 1982, in Bar, Ukraine, to Vovkovinska and Oleksandr Ladan, according to Ranfranz and Vine Funeral Home, which is holding a memorial service on Saturday. His father died earlier.
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U.S. officials are not alone in facing blame for miscalculating the speed of the Taliban offensive.  European leaders and their security advisers are also coming under mounting criticism for misjudging how rapidly events would play out in Afghanistan once President Joe Biden had decided on withdrawing American forces from the central Asian country. In Britain, Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his top ministers are being accused by lawmakers from their own party as well as by opposition politicians of failing to have evacuation plans ready ahead of a possible Taliban surge as U.S. and NATO troops were being withdrawn.With recriminations flying over the lack of apparent evacuation preparation and amid chaotic scenes at Kabul’s airport, a senior member of Johnson’s ruling Conservative party, Tobias Ellwood, a former British defense minister, complained Saturday of lack of coordination between NATO governments.Ellwood questioned the overall thinking which saw NATO forces being withdrawn before the evacuation of the Afghan civilians they needed to get out. “You don’t get your military out first, you get the civilians out, then you retreat yourselves?” he told “Times Radio,” a British station. “We’ve done it the other way round.””Incompetence. Poor judgment. Lack of preparedness. Untruths. Confusion. Complacency. Delay,” was the editorial judgement Sunday of Britain’s Observer newspaper on what has been unfolding at Kabul’s airport of continuing chaos.Pressure is mounting on Britain’s foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, to resign over the handling of Britain’s evacuation program with lawmakers infuriated that he remained on vacation with his family in Crete last week as the Taliban rolled into Kabul. Colonel Richard Kemp, a former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, fumed to the BBC that Raab’s absence showed a “ministerial lack of urgency.” Keir Starmer, leader of Britain’s main opposition Labour Party, said Sunday that the response of Boris Johnson’s government has been characterized by “complete and utter complacency from start to finish.”Merkel under fire In Germany, too, which withdrew its last contingent of around 570 soldiers from Afghanistan in June, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government is also facing a storm of criticism for not having finalized before the fall of Kabul evacuation plans for Afghans who worked with German forces.  German soldiers line up for the final roll call in front of a Bundeswehr Airbus A400M cargo plane after returning from Afghanistan at the airfield in Wunstorf, Germany, June 30, 2021. (Hauke-Christian Dittrich/Pool via Reuters)According to Der Spiegel magazine, top German officials started discussing in April what to do about local hires, including translators, drivers, and cooks, but for weeks disagreed about who deserved to be evacuated — whether it should be all 50,000 Afghans who had worked for the German military mission since 2013 — or only those who have worked the past two years.  There were months-long disputes about whether scheduled flights from Kabul should be used, with the evacuees paying their own way, or whether the German government should arrange charter flights, according to minutes of meetings seen by Der Spiegel.  At various times over the past two months, as more towns and districts fell to the Taliban in a quickening tempo and as the Islamists drew nearer the Afghan capital, appeals were made to Chancellor Merkel to intervene in the multi-agency disputes.   German Chancellor Angela Merkel holds a protective mask during a news conference on the current developments in Afghanistan, at the Chancellery in Berlin, Germany August 16, 2021 Odd Andersen/Pool via REUTERSFour weeks ago, when half of Afghanistan had already fallen under Taliban control, lawmakers, drawn from government and opposition parties, sent a joint letter to Merkel asking her to sort out evacuation plans. “We are appealing to you urgently and therefore publicly because time is very short and Germany is in danger of betraying its commitments to local hires in Afghanistan,” they wrote.  Miscalculations  The failure to finalize evacuation plans is being put down to a miscalculation — also made in Washington — at the speed of the Taliban offensive as well as misjudgments about when the Afghan government and army might give up. Like their American counterparts, European intelligence and security agencies thought they had more time.Two weeks ago, General Nick Carter, chief of Britain’s defense staff, wrote in an article in The Times newspaper that it was much too soon “to write off the country.” “There are increasing signs that the population is rallying in defiance,” he said. In late July, Germany’s intelligence service, commonly known by its German acronym BND, was also suggesting a much longer time frame for a Taliban victory, saying that it would take around three months, according to German media reports.German intelligence officials predicted Taliban fighters would besiege Kabul until the government surrendered. They did not reckon on the sudden flight of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani. Forty-eight hours before the Taliban seized Kabul with hardly a shot being fired, the BND changed its assessment but forecast the capital would not fall before September 11.   Intel failures  A key reason for the miscalculation is that the BND, like other Western intelligence agencies, apparently failed to pick up an infiltration strategy the Taliban had launched months earlier involving moving fighters stealthy into position in key cities ready to emerge when needed, concede some European military officials speaking, on the condition of anonymity, with VOA. In many towns, including Kabul, Taliban fighters were already on the ground.And in some cases, within the ranks of the Afghan National Army, says Ali Nazari, a spokesman for Ahmad Massoud, the son of a charismatic warlord assassinated by al-Qaida, who is forming a nascent anti-Taliban movement in the mountainous Panjshir region. He says the impression given by some Western reports of a Taliban blitzkrieg rolling across Afghanistan is wrong.FILE – Afghan National Army commando forces stand guard along a road amid ongoing fighting between Taliban and Afghan security forces in the Enjil district of Herat province, Aug. 1, 2021.“There were a lot of Taliban loyalists in the army, a lot of sympathizers and supporters,” he told VOA. They just surrendered to the Taliban. “There was a conspiracy inside the army itself,” he adds.Nor were Western intelligence agencies fully aware, officials say, of the quick progress the Taliban had been making in striking since May surrender deals with tribal elders and local warlords as well as some leaders of Afghanistan’s ethnic minorities, including the country’s Hazara, who have long faced violent persecution from the Taliban because of their ethnicity and Shi’ite Muslim adherence. Another factor was the failure to appreciate the hollowness of the Afghan government and the demoralization of the country’s national army, German foreign minister Heiko Maas admitted last week. “There is no talking this up. All of us — the federal government, intelligence services, the international community — misjudged the situation,” Maas told a press conference in Berlin.  Taliban are also surprised In the defense of Western officials, American and Europe, Taliban leaders also appear to have been taken aback by the ten days that shook the world. They, too, had not anticipated such quick success with their two-month-long outside-in military strategy, which saw them slowly tightening their grip on rural districts before securing regional capitals.  FILE – Taliban fighters display their flag on patrol in Kabul, Afghanistan, Aug. 19, 2021.“It is an unexpected victory,” Abdul Ghani Baradar, one of the Taliban leaders, said in a video message last week. Taliban leaders had been negotiating with Afghan President Ghani for a transitional arrangement that would have delayed their entry into Kabul, notes Vali Nasr, a professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, a research institution in Washington D.C.“The Taliban were keen on that as they didn’t think they had the capacity to immediately take control of the city,” Nasr, a former senior advisor to the U.S. State Department on Afghanistan, said during an online discussion hosted by the Asia Society, a global non-profit. 
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