South Korea and US will start summer military drills next week to counter North Korean threats

South Korean protesters march during a rally opposing the joint military exercises between the US and South Korea in Seoul, South Korea. The banner reads "Stop the military exercises between the U.S. and South Korea."(AP)
Short Url
Updated 12 August 2024
Follow

South Korea and US will start summer military drills next week to counter North Korean threats

  • The drills could trigger a belligerent response from North Korea

SEOUL, South Korea: South Korea and the United States will begin their annual joint military exercises next week with a focus on improving their combined capabilities to deter and defend against growing North Korean nuclear threats, the allies said Monday.
The drills could trigger a belligerent response from North Korea, which portrays them as invasion rehearsals and have used the allies’ military cooperation as a pretext to advance the development of nuclear weapons and missile systems.
South Korean and US military officials said this year’s Ulchi Freedom Shield exercise, scheduled for Aug. 19-29, will include computer-simulated exercises designed to enhance readiness against such threats as missiles, GPS jamming and cyberattacks, and concurrent field maneuvers and live-fire exercises.
The allies in particular aim to “further strengthen (their) capability and posture to deter and defend against weapons of mass destruction,” military officials said in a joint news conference.
Lee Sung Joon, spokesperson of South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, said about 19,000 South Korean troops will participate in the drills, which he described as an “essential element for maintaining a strong defense posture to protect the Republic of Korea,” using South Korea’s formal name.
Col. Ryan Donald, spokesperson of USForces Korea, didn’t comment on the number of US troops participating in the exercises and said he couldn’t immediately confirm whether the drills will involve US strategic assets. The United States in recent months has increased its regional deployment of long-range bombers, submarines and aircraft carrier strike groups to train with South Korean and Japanese assets in a show of force against the North.
“This exercise will reflect realistic threats across all domains such as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s missile threats and we will take in lessons learned from recent armed conflicts,” Donald said, invoking the North’s formal name.
“ROK and US units will execute combined field training exercises across all domains. Field maneuver and live fire exercises will strengthen the alliance’s interoperability while showcasing our combined capabilities and resolve,” he said.
In addition to its military exercises with the United States, the South Korean military will support the country’s civil defense and evacuation drills on Aug. 19-22, which will include programs based on North Korean nuclear attack scenarios, Lee said.
Animosity on the Korean Peninsula is high, as North Korean leader Kim Jong Un continues to use Russia’s war on Ukraine as a window to accelerate weapons development while issuing verbal threats of nuclear conflict toward Washington and Seoul.
In response, South Korea, the United States and Japan have been expanding their combined military exercises and sharpening their nuclear deterrence strategies built around US strategic assets.
During last year’s Ulchi Freedom Shield exercises, North Korea conducted ballistic missile tests that it described as simulating “scorched earth” nuclear strikes on South Korean targets.
The North in recent weeks has also flown thousands of balloons carrying trash toward the South in a bizarre psychological warfare campaign that has further deteriorated relations between the war-divided rivals.
Trash from at least one of those balloons fell on the South Korean presidential compound last month, raising worries about the vulnerability of key South Korean facilities. The balloon contained no dangerous material and no one was hurt.


’No winners in a trade war’: Chinese vice premier tells Davos

Updated 7 sec ago
Follow

’No winners in a trade war’: Chinese vice premier tells Davos

Davos, Switzerland: A top Chinese official warned Tuesday that no country would emerge victorious from a trade war, in a speech to the Davos forum as Donald Trump returned to the White House.
“Protectionism leads nowhere, and there are no winners in a trade war,” Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang said in a speech to the World Economic Forum in the Swiss Alps.

At Davos, EU vows pragmatism with Trump

Updated 28 min 32 sec ago
Follow

At Davos, EU vows pragmatism with Trump

  • The EU’s first priority will be to engage early, discuss common interests, and be ready to negotiate with Trump

DAVOS: EU chief Ursula von der Leyen declared Tuesday that Europe was ready to negotiate with US President Donald Trump but the bloc will also seek to improve ties with China and other nations as global competition heats up.
Von der Leyen insisted that the United States remains an important partner, taking a conciliatory tone in a speech to the annual meeting of global elites in Davos, Switzerland.
The EU’s “first priority will be to engage early, discuss common interests, and be ready to negotiate” with Trump, she said.
“We will be pragmatic, but we will always stand by our principles. To protect our interests and uphold our values,” she said.
Trump returned to the White House on Monday, bringing with him fears he will deliver on promises to slap heavy tariffs on China and US allies including Canada and the European Union.
After his inauguration, Trump said he may impose 25 percent tariffs on Canada and Mexico as early as February 1.
He also announced the United States’ withdrawal from the Paris climate accord, which the European Commission president defended as the “best hope for all humanity” and vowed “Europe will stay the course.”
China’s Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang — also a member of the Chinese Communist Party’s apex of power that rules the country — will speak immediately after von der Leyen.
The EU chief reiterated her commitment to free trade during her speech, pointing to recent deals with Switzerland, the Latin American bloc Mercosur and Mexico.
Von der Leyen also said she and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi wanted to “upgrade” their partnership.
She stressed that Europe “must engage constructively with China — to find solutions in our mutual interest” despite escalating trade tensions between the two.
“2025 marks 50 years of our Union’s diplomatic relations with China. I see it as an opportunity to engage and deepen our relationship with China, and where possible, even to expand our trade and investment ties,” she said.


China is taking a cautious approach to Trump.
After Chinese President Xi Jinping’s conversation with Trump by phone on Friday, he said he hoped for a “good start” to relations with the new administration.
Although Trump said he would undertake sweeping trade penalties against China, he has also indicated he wants to improve ties — and even stepped in to reverse a US ban of Chinese-owned social media platform TikTok on national security grounds.
Ukraine is also keeping a very close eye on what Trump’s second mandate will involve.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is expected to call on world leaders and company executives to maintain — and even ramp up — their support for his country’s fight against Russia.
Zelensky on Monday said he is hopeful Trump will help achieve a “just peace.”


Embattled German Chancellor Olaf Scholz will also address the forum, likely his last as leader ahead of elections next month.
Also speaking on Tuesday will be conservative leader Friedrich Merz, the favorite to succeed him as chancellor.
Europeans are fretting the most about Trump’s return while countries from Brazil to China and India to Turkiye believe he will be good for their countries and global peace, according to a survey last week from the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR).
The report accompanying the survey of over 28,500 people across 24 countries serves as a warning for European leaders to act cautiously.
“Europeans will struggle to find internal unity or global power in leading an outright resistance to the new administration,” the ECFR report’s authors said.


Middle East conflicts will also be high on the agenda as Israeli President Isaac Herzog and Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani speak in separate sessions during the first full day of the forum.
As a fragile ceasefire holds in the Israel-Hamas war, the WEF will host a discussion on how to improve aid delivery to the Palestinian territory of Gaza and how to kickstart the reconstruction and recovery after heavy bombardment.
Despite suggestions Trump’s return would overshadow the forum that began on the same day as his inauguration in Washington, WEF President Borge Brende said the president had brought fresh interest to the gathering.
“It has increased the interest in Davos because people feel they need to come together to better understand what’s on its way,” Brende told AFP in an interview.


Germany calls Trump’s vow to take Panama Canal ‘unacceptable’

Updated 55 min 21 sec ago
Follow

Germany calls Trump’s vow to take Panama Canal ‘unacceptable’

  • ‘Any threat against a NATO member or other states is of course completely unacceptable’
  • ‘It’s not about how President Trump says something... but we should look at why he says something’

BERLIN: German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock on Tuesday criticized Donald Trump’s “unacceptable” pledge to seize the Panama Canal, which the returning US president repeated in his inaugural address.
Baerbock was asked in an interview about Trump’s comments Monday on the waterway and on his desire to control Greenland, an autonomous territory of NATO ally Denmark.
“Any threat against a NATO member or other states is of course completely unacceptable,” Baerbock told German broadcaster RBB.
Baerbock however said that Germany needed to “play it smart,” when responding to the president’s statements.
“It’s not about how President Trump says something... but we should look at why he says something,” Baerbock said.
The focus should be on “what interests are behind (Trump’s statements) ... and then standing up for our own interests,” she said.
In the case of the Panama Canal, the message was about China “investing massively in ports and other important infrastructure around the world,” Baerbock said.
In his inaugural address on Monday, Trump complained that China was effectively “operating” the key trading route, which the United States transferred to Panamanian control in 1999.
“We didn’t give it to China, we gave it to Panama. And we’re taking it back,” Trump said.
It was not the first time that Trump has expressed his intention to reestablish US control over the canal, with the president repeatedly refusing to rule out using military means.
Germany has no illusions about Trump as he begins his second term in office, Baerbock said.
“The USA is one of our most important allies. We want to and will continue to work closely together,” she said.
“But we have positioned ourselves more intensively and even more strongly strategically.”


Xi, Putin hold video call: Chinese state media

Updated 21 January 2025
Follow

Xi, Putin hold video call: Chinese state media

  • State broadcaster did not immediately give details of what was discussed during the call

BEIJING: Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday held a video call with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, Beijing’s state media reported.
Xi and Putin “held a video meeting at Beijing’s Great Hall of the People on the afternoon of January 21,” state broadcaster CCTV said.
The broadcaster did not immediately give details of what was discussed during the call.
China has sought to depict itself as a neutral party since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
But it remains a close political and economic partner of Moscow and has never condemned the war, leading some NATO members to brand Beijing an “enabler” of the conflict.
Both sides have made much of Xi and Putin’s supposedly strong personal bond, with Xi calling the Russian leader his “best friend” and Putin lauding his “reliable partner.”
In a New Year’s message to Putin last month, Xi vowed to promote “world peace and development,” according to a contemporary CCTV report.
“In the face of rapidly evolving changes not seen in a century and the turbulent international situation, China and Russia have consistently moved forward hand-in-hand along the correct path of non-alignment, non-confrontation and not targeting any third party,” the broadcaster reported Xi as saying.


Indian forces kill 14 Maoist rebels, including top commander

Updated 21 January 2025
Follow

Indian forces kill 14 Maoist rebels, including top commander

  • New Delhi has stepped up efforts to end the decades-long conflict
  • Tuesday’s clashes follow the killing of 12 Maoists on January 16

RAIPUR, India: Indian security forces shot dead at least 14 Maoist rebels, including a top commander, on Tuesday in what the interior minister said was one of the heaviest bouts of recent fighting.
The interior ministry said the commander killed was a leader known as Jairam or Chalpati, who had a $115,000 bounty on his head.
New Delhi has stepped up efforts to end the decades-long conflict. Tuesday’s clashes follow the killing of 12 Maoists on January 16, also in the guerrillas’ heartlands in the forests of India’s Chhattisgarh state.
More than 10,000 people have been killed in the decades-long insurgency waged by the rebels, who say they are fighting for the rights of marginalized people in India’s resource-rich central regions.
Around 287 rebels were killed in 2024, according to official figures.
The rebels, also known as Naxalites after the district where their armed campaign began in 1967, were inspired by the Chinese revolutionary leader Mao Zedong.
“Another mighty blow to Naxalism,” Interior Minister Amit Shah said in a statement, confirming that 14 rebels had been “neutralized.”
Shah, who has set a deadline of March 2026 to defeat the rebels, said that “Naxalism is breathing its last.”
Police said reinforcements had been sent to the area.
“Forces are still inside the forest,” said Vivekananda Sinha, head of Chhattisgarh’s anti-Maoist operation.
The Maoists demand land, jobs and a share of the region’s immense natural resources for local residents.
They made inroads in a number of remote communities across India’s east and south, and the movement gained in strength and numbers until the early 2000s.
New Delhi then deployed tens of thousands of troops in a stretch of territory known as the “Red Corridor.”
The conflict has also seen a number of deadly attacks on government forces. A roadside bomb killed at least nine Indian troops this month.