Cambodian officials say renovation work on a naval base in the coastal city of Sihanoukville is nearly complete, but U.S. officials have voiced suspicions the facility, being upgraded by China, will be used exclusively by China’s military.

Suspicions about China’s intentions for the Ream naval base were raised after satellite imagery showed that a major pier capable of anchoring aircraft carriers had been constructed on the site.

Chhum Socheat, a spokesman for the Cambodia National Defense Ministry, confirmed to VOA Khmer that the work will be completed soon but said, “I don’t know the inauguration day.”

He denied speculation that China will use the base to expand its influence in the region against its rival, the United States.

“I regret that there is untrue information. Cambodia is very small. They [some countries] have bad intentions on our country,” he said.

“Some countries don’t acknowledge the truth, and they still say untrue information,” he said.

Satellite imagery taken by BlackSky, a U.S. commercial imagery company that monitors the construction at Ream naval base, noted “the rapid pace of development of a large Chinese military naval station from August 2021 until July 2023.”

“There is a near-exact similarity between an angled deep-water pier located on the western shore of the Ream base and another military pier at the People’s Liberation Army Support Base in Djibouti.

“Both main piers are 363 meters long and large enough to support any ship in China’s naval arsenal, including the new 300-meter-long Type 003 Fujian aircraft carrier,” said Craig Singleton, China Program deputy director and senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, in a July 24 release on BlackSky’s website.

In August 2022, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken raised the issue with the Cambodian government about the naval base it is modernizing with Chinese funds, saying use of the site would pose a threat to Southeast Asia if used exclusively for China’s military. He made his remarks during a visit to Phnom Penh.

In discussing the naval base, Blinken told VOA Khmer that U.S. concern “is first and foremost in making sure that Cambodia has a truly independent foreign policy, and is not, does not feel pressured, of course, by anyone.”

“And when it comes to the Ream naval base, I think countries throughout the region would be very concerned if any one country had exclusive control or use of any portion of the base or was doing anything there that undermined the security of other countries in the region. So, I think it’s important to have transparency and to make sure that the base is open to all, and not the exclusive use of any one country,” the top U.S. diplomat said.

Political analyst Em Sovannara told VOA Khmer the Ream base is “a very sensitive issue” that requires the Cambodian government to be transparent to allay U.S. suspicions.

”If it is just a political statement via news outlets, it can’t solve or clear doubts from the U.S. Thus, there should be other mechanisms for strengthening diplomatic ties with the U.S., which is a way to solve the issue,” he said.

The United States has alleged that China will maintain a military presence at Ream, Beijing’s second such overseas outpost and its first in the strategically significant Indo-Pacific region. It also has an outpost in Djibouti, at the mouth of the Red Sea.

Tea Banh, Cambodia’s defense minister, said in June 2022 the Ream base would most likely not be open for full examination by any foreigners after completion.

He said that Cambodia would not allow any foreign military base on its soil and “has no intention to provoke any threats to any country, and Cambodia is never against other countries’ ‘military building efforts.’”

“Cambodia just wants to strengthen its protection capacities to curb against pressure and impacts of the current geopolitics competition,” he said, adding, “Cambodia has no policy to choose one country against one country.”

In October 2022, the U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh told VOA Khmer the Cambodian government had “not been fully transparent about the intent, nature and scope of this project.”

Ream is on the Gulf of Thailand near the South China Sea, where China has claimed sovereignty and disregarded international law.

The Wall Street Journal in 2019 also reported that China had signed an agreement to have People’s Liberation Army officers stationed at the naval base. Satellite imagery has shown the demolition of buildings, some built by the United States, and the recent construction of two structures on the base’s northern half.

Some information for this article comes from Agence France-Presse.
…

your ad here

A towering construction crane caught fire high above the west side of Manhattan on Wednesday morning, then lost its long arm, which smashed against a nearby building, dangled and then plummeted to the street as people ran for their lives on the sidewalk below. 

Four people suffered minor injuries, but no one died, according to New York City Mayor Eric Adams. 

“As you can see from the debris on the street, this could have been much worse,” the Democrat said, noting that the street at that hour of the morning is often filled with pedestrians, cars and buses. 

The fire atop the 54-story building was reported around 7:25 a.m. Photos and videos posted on social media showed flames bursting from the car of a crane hundreds of feet above 10th Avenue at 41st Street. The crane’s arm, which was carrying a 16-ton load, snapped off after the fire had been burning for a period of time. 

The person operating the crane tried to put out the fire as it spread, but then had to flee to safety, according to Fire Department First Deputy Commissioner Joseph Pfeifer. 

Firefighters stationed on a roof deck of another building used hoses to battle the blaze. Surrounding streets were closed to traffic. 

The fire’s cause was being investigated. 

The location is near the Port Authority Bus Terminal and an entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel, which carries auto traffic to and from New Jersey under the Hudson River. 
…

your ad here

Top U.S. military officials and diplomats are embarking this week on another concerted push against Chinese influence across the Indo-Pacific, hoping to expand security agreements with key Pacific Island nations. 

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin arrived in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea late Wednesday for a series of meetings with the country’s prime minister and top defense officials. 

The visit to Papua New Guinea, the first by a sitting U.S. secretary of defense, comes just months after the two countries signed a Defense Cooperation Agreement, meant to serve as a framework for enhancing the capabilities of Port Moresby’s defense forces and establishing a U.S. military presence – with rotational forces – on the island. 

From there, Austin is set to travel to Brisbane, Australia, for the 33rd annual Australia-United States Ministerial Consultations (AUSMIN), where he will be joined by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and their Australian counterparts.   

Blinken will arrive in Australia after a visit to the island nation of Tonga, where he dedicated a new U.S. embassy, and a stop in New Zealand. 

The visits by Austin and Blinken are being supplemented by other trips to the region by high-ranking U.S. officials, including a visit by Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff to New Zealand and Samoa, and an upcoming trip by Interior Secretary Deb Haaland to Palau and the Federated States of Micronesia. 

“We see ourselves as delivering results with partners,” a senior U.S. defense official said Monday, ahead of Austin’s visit to Papua New Guinea. “The secretary’s hitting the road again to keep the momentum moving forward in the region.” 

Focus on defense agreement

For Austin, the key focus for his meetings in Port Moresby will be on the recently signed defense agreement, which still needs to be ratified by Papua New Guinea’s parliament.   

U.S. officials said they are optimistic the deal will be ratified “quite soon,” adding it is something “that both sides really wanted.” 

“The agreement will serve as a foundational framework for us to enhance our security cooperation, improve the capacity of the PNG [Papua New Guinea] defense forces, allow us to respond to humanitarian and regional crises, and also expand the scope of our [military] exercises,” said a second defense official, who like the first briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity. 

The official also expressed confidence that officials from both countries will make progress on a second deal — a so-called shiprider agreement — that allows Papua New Guinea personnel to sail on U.S. Coast Guard ships. 

“This is really important and really valuable for enhancing maritime domain awareness and combating things like illegal unregulated and unreported fishing,” the official said. 

Concern about China  

Yet for all the optimism, there is growing concern about pushback from China in response to U.S. efforts.   

During a visit to the U.S. last week, the president of Palau, a small Pacific Island nation, warned Beijing is actively trying to influence politicians in his country and others to prevent them from gravitating to Washington. 

“All the Chinese need to do is get a new president that favors what they want to do and they can change it,” Palau President Surangel Whipps Jr. said during an event in Washington.  

And Whipps said Beijing’s strategy is meeting with some success, having managed to curry favor with some of his fellow politicians by offering economic incentives that Washington has yet to match.   

Pressed on China’s outreach campaign and offers of economic cooperation, some U.S. officials downplayed the concerns. 

“Our approach… is to demonstrate value and to demonstrate the ways in which we can contribute meaningfully to a long term, mutually beneficial security relationship,” said the second senior defense official. 

“In every one of our alliances and partnerships throughout the region, we are working to ensure they’re delivering for the partners and for the host countries,” the official said. “And I think that’s true in every instance.” 

As evidence, they point to agreements like the ones signed by Papua New Guinea and also to military exercises like Talisman Sabre, getting underway in Australia. 

With some 30,000 troops taking part, Talisman Sabre is the largest U.S.-Australian military exercise. This year, however, U.S. officials point to participation from a host of other countries from the region, including India, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, and New Zealand. Additionally, Papua New Guinea, Fiji and Tonga, are taking part for the first time. 

U.S. diplomatic officials, however, have been careful not to paint U.S. efforts, including the establishment of a new U.S. embassy in Tonga, as part of a counter-China campaign. 

“Our embassy is not being set up to counter China,” a State Department official told reporters last week, briefing on the condition of anonymity. 

“Strategic competition is an aspect, a reality in the region,” the official added. “But we are standing up an embassy to reflect our strong ties with Tonga and, frankly, our desire to be engaged in places like Tonga.” 

Still, despite efforts to downplay Washington’s moves in the Pacific, some analysts say the U.S. and allies like Australia are keenly aware of China’s efforts to lure countries into its sphere of influence, either with economic incentives or with security agreements, as it has done with the Solomon Islands. 

“Australia and the U.S. have never been more interested in the Pacific Islands than they are now,” said Lavina Lee, a Sydney-based adjunct fellow with the U.S. Center for Strategic and International Studies, during a media call previewing this week’s Australia-U.S. ministerial meeting in Brisbane.     

“Both Australia and the U.S. is keen to address the region’s concerns by also showing that they are a provider of public goods without strings attached, as opposed to China.” 

At the same time, the U.S. and Australia are working to strengthen their growing military cooperation, with U.S. officials speaking of a “profound strategic alignment” between the two allies. 

“There will be a strong focus on advancing defense industrial cooperation, production and information,” the second U.S. defense official said of Saturday’s ministerial meeting. 

U.S. officials said they expect the meeting to result in a “broadening [of] our force posture initiatives to new domains and locations” in Australia. 

They also expect talks to focus on Australia’s guided weapons and explosive ordnance enterprise aimed at bolstering Australia’s ability to produce precision guided munitions, which have been in demand in Ukraine and could further be in demand by Taiwan should China decide to retake the island by force. 
…

your ad here

A former United States military pilot’s Sydney extradition hearing on U.S. charges, including that he illegally trained Chinese aviators, was postponed Tuesday while authorities investigate the role of an Australian spy agency in his arrest. 

Boston-born Dan Duggan, 54, was arrested by Australian police in October near his home, in Orange, New South Wales, and has been fighting extradition to the United States. The former U.S. Marine Corps major and flying instructor maintains he has done nothing wrong and is an innocent victim of a worsening power struggle between Washington and Beijing. 

“This is a signal, signal sending. It has nothing to do with me personally,” Duggan told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. in a telephone call from maximum-security prison. 

“It’s more to do with the signal that they want to send in a geopolitical sense,” he added in an interview broadcast on Monday. 

His lawyers successfully applied Tuesday in Sydney’s Downing Centre Local Court for the extradition hearing to be delayed until November 24 while they await findings about their allegation that Duggan, now an Australian citizen, was illegally lured from China back to Australia in 2022 to be arrested. 

Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security Christopher Jessup, the regulator of Australia’s six spy agencies, announced in March that he was investigating Duggan’s allegation that the Australian Security Intelligence Organization, known as ASIO, was part of a U.S. ploy to extradite him. 

Duggan returned from China to work in Australia after he received an ASIO security clearance for an aviation license. A few days after his arrival, the ASIO clearance was removed, which his lawyers argue made the job opportunity an illegal lure to a U.S. extradition partner country. They expect Jessup’s findings will provide grounds to oppose extradition and apply for his release from prison on bail before the extradition question is resolved. 

Duggan’s grounds for resisting extradition include his claim that the prosecution is political and that the crime he is accused of does not exist under Australian law. The extradition treaty between the two countries that has existed since 1976 requires that a suspect can only be extradited for an allegation that is recognized by both countries as a crime. 

The Australian government is reviewing laws to ensure former military personnel cannot sell their expertise to the Chinese military. 

Saffrine Duggan, Duggan’s wife and mother of their six children, addressed more than 20 supporters who protested outside the court for his release. 

“I would never have thought this could ever happen in Australia, let alone to our family,” she said. “My family is brave and strong and so are our friends and so is my husband, but we are all terribly torn apart.” 

She complained in February that Australia was holding her husband in inhumane conditions. 

Dan Duggan said the Chinese pilots he trained while he was contracted by flying school Test Flying Academy of South Africa in 2011 and 2012 — the period covered by the charges — were civilians, and nothing he taught was classified. 

His lawyer, Bernard Collaery, said the Australian and Chinese navies were involved in joint training exercises around the time Duggan was accused of “consorting with the enemy.” 

“It’s a double standard, it’s hypocrisy,” Collaery said. “If Australia does extradite him, we’re liable to see him become a pawn in this China game. It is very worrying.” 
…

your ad here

A former U.S. Marine who was freed by Russia last year in a prisoner swap has been injured while fighting for Ukraine against Moscow’s forces, the U.S. State Department said Tuesday. 

Trevor Reed, who was held by Russia for more than two years before winning his freedom in April 2022, sustained shrapnel wounds after stepping on a landmine about two weeks ago but now is recovering at a German hospital, according to U.S. news accounts. 

The U.S. has repeatedly warned Americans to not visit Ukraine during the war, let alone join Ukrainian forces in the fight against Russia. At some point, however, Reed became one of what is believed to be several thousand U.S. fighters who have joined Kyiv’s forces.

But State Department spokesman Vedant Patel, while acknowledging Reed’s battlefield injury, said Reed “was not engaged in any activities on behalf of the U.S. government.” 

With the help of a nongovernmental organization, Reed “has been transported to Germany, and he is receiving medical care,” Patel said. 

Reed’s condition was not immediately clear. 

Reed was arrested in 2019 for violence against a Russian police officer and later sentenced to nine years in prison. Following his arrest, his family engaged in an extensive public advocacy effort to get him freed. 

Eventually, the administration of President Joe Biden secured his release, swapping Reed for Konstantin Yaroshenko, a convicted Russian cocaine smuggler serving a 20-year sentence in the U.S. 
…

your ad here

Next year, a daily oral birth control pill will be available in the United States without a prescription for the first time. Reproductive health advocates say the move will improve the well-being of women in the country, but some groups have raised concerns. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias explains.
…

your ad here

WASHINGTON — The International Monetary Fund on Tuesday raised its 2023 global growth estimates slightly given resilient economic activity in the first quarter, but warned that persistent challenges were dampening the medium-term outlook.

The IMF in its latest World Economic Outlook said inflation was coming down and acute stress in the banking sector had receded, but the balance of risks facing the global economy remained tilted to the downside and credit was tight.

The global lender said it now projected global real GDP growth of 3.0% in 2023, up 0.2 percentage point from its April forecast, but it left its outlook for 2024 unchanged, also at 3.0%.

The 2023-2024 growth forecast remains weak by historical standards, well below the annual average of 3.8% seen in 2000-2019, largely due to weaker manufacturing in advanced economies, and it could stay at that level for years.

“We’re on track, but we’re not out of the woods,” IMF chief economist Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas told Reuters in an interview, noting that the upgrade was driven largely by first-quarter results. “What we are seeing when we look five years out is actually close to 3.0%, maybe a little bit above 3.0%. This is a significant slowdown compared to what we had pre-COVID.”

This was also related to the aging of the global population, especially in countries such as China, Germany and Japan, he said. New technologies could boost productivity in coming years, but that in turn could be disruptive to labor markets.

Debt distress could spread

The outlook is “broadly stable” in emerging market and developing economies for 2023-2024, with growth of 4.0% expected in 2023 and 4.1% in 2024, the IMF said. But it noted that credit availability is tight and that there was a risk that debt distress could spread to a wider group of economies.

The world is in a better place now, the IMF said, noting the World Health Organization’s decision to end the global health emergency surrounding COVID-19, and with shipping costs and delivery times now back to pre-pandemic levels.

“But forces that hindered growth in 2022 persist,” the IMF said, citing still-high inflation that was eroding household buying power, higher interest rates that have raised the cost of borrowing and tighter access to credit as a result of the banking strains that emerged in March.

“International trade and indicators of demand and production in manufacturing all point to further weakness,” the IMF said, noting that excess savings built up during the pandemic are declining in advanced economies, especially in the United States, implying “a slimmer buffer to protect against shocks.”

While immediate concerns about the health of the banking sector — which were more acute in April — had subsided, financial sector turbulence could resume as markets adjust to further tightening by central banks, it said.

The impact of higher interest rates was especially evident in poorer countries, driving debt costs higher and limiting room for priority investments. As a result, output losses compared with pre-pandemic forecasts remain large, especially for the world’s poorest nations, the IMF said.

The IMF forecast that global headline inflation would fall to 6.8% in 2023 from 8.7% in 2022, dropping to 5.2% in 2024, but core inflation would decline more gradually, reaching 6.0% in 2023 from 6.5% in 2022 and easing to 4.7% in 2024.

Gourinchas told Reuters it could take until the end of 2024 or early 2025 until inflation came down to central bankers’ targets and the current cycle of monetary tightening would end.

The IMF warned that inflation could rise if the war in Ukraine intensified, citing concern about Russia’s withdrawal from the Black Sea grain initiative, or if more extreme temperature increases caused by the El Nino weather pattern pushed up commodity prices. That in turn could trigger further rate hikes.

The IMF said world trade growth is declining and will reach just 2.0% in 2023 before rising to 3.7% in 2024, but both growth rates are well below the 5.2% clocked in 2022.

The IMF raised its outlook for the United States, the world’s largest economy, forecasting growth of 1.8% in 2023 versus 1.6% in April as labor markets remained strong.

It left its forecast for growth in China, the world’s second-largest economy, unchanged at 5.2% in 2023 and 4.5% in 2024. But it warned that China’s recovery was underperforming, and a deeper contraction in the real estate sector remained a risk.

The fund cut its outlook for Germany, now forecast to contract 0.3% in 2023 versus a 0.1% contraction in April, but sharply upgraded its forecast for the U.K., now expected to grow 0.4% versus a 0.3% contraction forecast in April.

Euro zone countries are expected to grow 0.9% in 2023 and 1.5% in 2024, both up 0.1 percentage point from April.

Japan’s growth was also revised upward by 0.1 percentage point to 1.4% in 2023, but the IMF left its outlook for 2024 unchanged at 1.0%.

Inflation remains a focus

The rise in central bank policy rates to fight inflation continues to weigh on economic activity, the IMF said, adding that the U.S. Federal Reserve and the Bank of England were expected to raise rates by more than assumed in April, before cutting rates next year.

It said central banks should remain focused on fighting inflation, strengthening financial supervision and risk monitoring. If further strains appeared, countries should provide liquidity quickly, it said.

The fund also advised countries to build fiscal buffers to gird for further shocks and ensure support for the most vulnerable. 

“We have to be very vigilant on the health of the financial sector … because we could have something that basically seizes up very quickly,” Gourinchas said. “There is always a risk that if financial conditions tighten, that can have a disproportionate effect on emerging market and developing economies.”

The IMF said unfavorable inflation data could trigger a sudden rise in market expectations regarding interest rates, which could further tighten financial conditions, putting stress on banks and nonbank institutions — especially those exposed to commercial real estate.

“Contagion effects are possible, and a flight to safety, with an attendant appreciation of reserve currencies, would trigger negative ripple effects for global trade and growth,” the IMF said.

Fragmentation of the global economy given the war in Ukraine and other geopolitical tensions remained another key risk, especially for developing economies, Gourinchas said. This could lead to more restrictions on trade, especially in strategic goods such as critical minerals, cross-border movements of capital, technology and workers, and international payments. 
…

your ad here

President Joe Biden is set to designate a new national monument on Tuesday memorializing the brutal 1950s lynching of Emmett Till, with the White House framing the symbolic act as part of a fight against resurgent racism.   

The monument, sited in several locations, will remember the 14-year-old Black boy tortured and murdered by white men in 1955 after he allegedly whistled at a white shopkeeper’s wife in Mississippi. 

His mother Mamie Till-Mobley, also honored in the memorial, became an activist, and is widely viewed as having helped to spark the U.S. civil rights movement. 

“The new monument will protect places that tell the story of Emmett Till’s too-short life and racially-motivated murder, the unjust acquittal of his murderers, and the activism of his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, who courageously brought the world’s attention to the brutal injustices and racism of the time, catalyzing the civil rights movement,” the White House said.   

The memorial signing by Biden — on the 82nd anniversary of Till’s birth — will designate three historic sites in Illinois and Mississippi. 

One of them will be the Roberts Temple Church of God in Christ in Chicago, where Till’s mother insisted at her son’s funeral that the casket remain open, allowing a huge crowd to see the boy’s disfigured body. 

Another will be the Tallahatchie, Mississippi courthouse where an all-white jury found the men accused of murdering Till not guilty. They would later admit to the crime. 

The third location will be the spot on the Tallahatchie River in Mississippi where Till’s battered body was eventually discovered. Signs commemorating the brutal event there and in other locations around Tallahatchie County have repeatedly been defaced and vandalized over the years. 

Biden’s high-profile treatment for a painful piece of 20th century U.S. history is playing out against a backdrop of accusations that a leading Republican candidate for the 2024 presidential race is openly stirring racist sentiment. 

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has led a charge to minimize the history of past racism in his state’s school curriculum, making this part of a broader campaign against what he describes as the “virus” of “woke” left-wing values. 

Responding to an outcry over what has been described as an attempt to rewrite history, DeSantis last week doubled down, saying that slavery even had benefits. 

“They’re probably going to show that some of the folks that eventually parlayed, you know, being a blacksmith into doing things later in life,” DeSantis said Friday. 

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre described DeSantis’s comment as “inaccurate” and “insulting.” 

“It’s hurtful and prevents an honest account, an honest account of our nation’s history,” she said. 

Jean-Pierre, who is Black, said the Emmett Till monument was part of “the broader story of American Black oppression, their survival.” 

“It’s an important moment. You’re going to hear directly from the president tomorrow,” she said.
…

your ad here

The Justice Department on Monday sued Texas Govenor Greg Abbott over a newly installed floating barrier on the Rio Grande that is the Republican’s latest tactic to try stopping migrants from crossing into the U.S. from Mexico.

The lawsuit asks a federal judge in Austin to force Texas to remove a roughly 1,000-foot (305-meter) line of bright orange, wrecking ball-sized buoys that the Biden administration says raises humanitarian and environmental concerns. The suit claims that Texas unlawfully installed the barrier without permission between the border cities of Eagle Pass and Piedras Negras, Mexico.

The buoys are the latest escalation of Texas’ border security operation that also includes razor-wire fencing, arresting migrants on trespassing charges and sending busloads of asylum-seekers to Democratic-led cities in other states. Critics have long called into question the effectiveness of the two-year operation, known as Operation Lone Star, and a state trooper’s account this month of measures injuring migrants has put the mission under intensifying new scrutiny.

In anticipation of the lawsuit, Abbott sent President Joe Biden a letter earlier Monday that defended Texas’ right to install the barrier. He accused Biden of putting migrants at risk by not doing more to deter them from making the journey to the U.S.

“Texas will see you in court, Mr. President,” Abbott wrote.

The Biden administration has said illegal border crossings have declined significantly since new immigration restrictions took effect in May. In June, the first full month since the new polices took effect, U.S. Customs and Border Protection said migrant encounters were down 30% from the month prior and were at the lowest levels since Biden’s first full month in office.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters that Abbott’s policies, as a whole, have made it difficult for U.S. Border Patrol agents to access the Rio Grande.

“Those are unlawful actions that are not helpful and is undermining what the president has put forward and is trying to do,” she said.

In a letter last week, the Justice Department gave Texas until Monday to commit to removing the barrier or face a lawsuit. The letter said the buoy wall “poses a risk to navigation, as well as public safety, in the Rio Grande River, and it presents humanitarian concerns.”

The state deployed the buoys without notifying the International Boundary and Water Commission or the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Mexico’s secretary of state asked the federal government to intervene, saying the barrier violates international treaties.

The lawsuit is not the first time the Biden administration has sued Texas overs it actions on the border.

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland in 2021 accused the state of usurping and even interfering with the federal government’s responsibility to enforce immigration laws after Abbott empowered state troopers to stop vehicles carrying migrants on the basis that they could increase the spread of COVID-19.
…

your ad here

Comic books have often been about tackling social issues and protecting the underdog. That may be why they are attracting a wide variety of unique voices, from comic creators to cosplayers. Genia Dulot reports from Comic-Con 2023 in San Diego, California.
…

your ad here

North Korea is one of the most closed-off countries, especially to foreign media. But for Jean Lee, the first American news bureau chief in Pyongyang, years of reporting from inside the country have helped her and her audiences better understand the nation. For VOA, Liam Scott has more from Washington in this story narrated by Steve Karesh. VOA footage by Cristina Caicedo Smit and Phillip Datcher.
…

your ad here

A nuclear-propelled U.S. submarine has arrived in South Korea in the second deployment of a major U.S. naval asset to the Korean Peninsula this month, South Korea’s military said Monday, adding to the allies’ show of force to counter North Korean nuclear threats. 

The USS Annapolis arrived at a port on Jeju Island about a week after the USS Kentucky docked at the mainland port of Busan. 

The Kentucky was the first U.S. nuclear-armed submarine to come to South Korea since the 1980s. North Korea reacted to its arrival by test-firing ballistic and cruise missiles in apparent demonstrations that it could make nuclear strikes against South Korea and deployed U.S. naval vessels. 

In between those launches, North Korea’s defense minister issued a veiled threat insisting the Kentucky’s docking in South Korea could be grounds for the North to use a nuclear weapon against it. North Korea has used similar rhetoric before, but the statement underscored how much relations are strained now. 

The Annapolis, whose main mission is destroying enemy ships and submarines, is powered by a nuclear reactor but is armed with conventional weapons. The Annapolis mainly docked at Jeju to load supplies, but Jang Do Young, a spokesperson of South Korea’s navy, said the U.S. and South Korean militaries were discussing whether to arrange training involving the vessel. 

Meanwhile, North Korea remained publicly silent on an American soldier, Private Travis King, who crossed the border last Tuesday. U.S. officials have expressed concern about his well-being and said North Korea has been ignoring their requests to provide basic information about King, including where he’s being detained and what his condition is. 

Analysts say North Korea wait weeks or even months to provide meaningful information about King to maximize leverage and add urgency to U.S. efforts to secure his release. Some say North Korea may try to wrest concessions from Washington, such as tying his release to the United States cutting back its military activities with South Korea. 

The United States and South Korea have been expanding their combined military exercises and increasing regional deployments of U.S. strategic assets bombers, aircraft carriers and submarines in a show of force against North Korea, which has test-fired around 100 missiles since the start of 2022. 
…

your ad here