SEOUL: South Korea and the United States on Monday began their annual joint military exercises, but they paused live-fire training while Seoul investigates how two of its fighter jets mistakenly bombed a civilian area during a warm-up drill last week.
The modified Freedom Shield exercise, which combines computer simulations and field training and runs through March 20, still drew the condemnation of nuclear-armed North Korea, which issued a government statement calling the drill a “dangerous provocative act” that increases the risks of military conflict.
About 30 people were injured, two of them seriously, when two South Korean KF-16 fighter jets mistakenly fired eight MK-82 bombs on a civilian area in Pocheon, a town near the North Korean border. The bombing occurred while South Korean and US forces were engaging in a live-fire drill ahead of the larger Freedom Shield exercise.
In a background briefing to domestic reporters on Monday, the South Korean air force repeated its initial assessment last week that one of the KF-16 pilots had entered the wrong coordinates for a bombing site.
The unidentified pilot didn’t recognize the error during a pre-takeoff check and, rushing to meet scheduled timing, failed to visually verify the target before proceeding with the bombing. The second pilot had the correct coordinates but focused only on maintaining formation with the other aircraft and dropped the bombs following the first pilot’s instructions, failing to recognize they deviated from the right target, according to the content of the briefing provided to The Associated Press.
Gen. Lee Youngsu, chief of staff of the South Korean air force, bowed and apologized Monday over the injuries and property damage caused by the incident, which he said “should have never happened and must never happen again.”
Both the South Korean and US militaries have halted all live-fire exercises in South Korea following the mishap. South Korean military officials say live-fire training will resume after they complete the ongoing investigation on the bombing and formulate preventative steps.
The Freedom Shield exercise marks the first large-scale joint exercise since US President Donald Trump began his second term. It comes amid growing tensions with North Korea over its nuclear ambitions and its alignment with Russia in President Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine.
Trump, who met North Korean leader Kim Jong Un three times during his first term, has expressed his willingness to reach out to Kim again to revive diplomacy, which collapsed due to disagreements over exchanging US-led sanctions against the North and the North’s denuclearization steps. But Pyongyang has yet to respond to his overture and has continued its fiery rhetoric against Washington and Seoul over their joint military exercises, which Kim portrays as rehearsals for invasion.
In a statement issued through state media Monday, the North Korean Foreign Ministry called the Freedom Shield exercise an “aggressive and confrontational war rehearsal” that risks triggering “physical conflict” on the Korean Peninsula.
The ministry reiterated Kim’s state goals for a “radical growth” of his nuclear force to counter what he claims as growing threats posed by the US and its Asian allies.
US and South Korea begin joint military drills but pause live-fire training after bombing mistake
https://arab.news/jzuxf
US and South Korea begin joint military drills but pause live-fire training after bombing mistake
- The modified Freedom Shield exercise still drew the condemnation of nuclear-armed North Korea
- South Korean military officials say live-fire training will resume after they complete the ongoing investigation
Burkina Faso leader pardons 21 soldiers for 2015 failed coup
- The Justice Ministry in December said that some 1,200 people convicted in connection with the coup attempt would be pardoned from Jan. 1
ABIDJAN: The head of the junta in Burkina Faso has pardoned 21 soldiers convicted of involvement in a failed coup in 2015, according to an official decree seen by AFP on Monday.
The country has been run since September 2022 by military leaders following a coup headed by Capt. Ibrahim Traore.
Traore announced an “amnesty pardon” in December last year for several people convicted over the 2015 attempt to overthrow the transitional government in place after the fall of former President Blaise Compaore.
“The following persons, who have been convicted or prosecuted before the courts for acts committed on Sept. 15 and 16, 2015, are granted amnesty,” stated the decree, issued last week, listing the 21 soldiers. Six officers, including two former unit commanders of the former presidential guard, are on the list alongside 15 non-commissioned officers and rank-and-file soldiers.
FASTFACT
The 21 soldiers will rejoin the army, which has been fighting extremist groups linked to Al-Qaeda and Daesh for more than 10 years.
They were convicted at a military tribunal in Ouagadougou in 2019 for “harming state security,” murder, or treason.
Two generals considered the masterminds of the failed coup, Compaore’s former chief of staff Gilbert Diendere and head of diplomacy Djibril Bassole, were sentenced to 20 and 10 years in prison, respectively.
They were not part of the amnesty. Those convicted have until June to request a pardon.
To do so, they must “demonstrate a patriotic commitment to the reconquest of the territory” and “express their willingness to participate in the fight against terrorism actively.”
The 21 soldiers pardoned will rejoin the army, which has been fighting extremist groups linked to Al-Qaeda and Daesh for more than 10 years.
However, the decree stipulates that they will not be eligible for compensation or career progression.
Diendere and Bassole tried to oust the transitional government put in place after Compaore was forced out of office in October 2014 by a popular uprising, after 27 years in power.
Loyalist forces put down the attempted coup within two weeks. A total of 14 people died, and 270 were wounded.
The Justice Ministry in December said that some 1,200 people convicted in connection with the coup attempt would be pardoned from Jan. 1.
Slashed funding threatens millions of children, says charity chief
- The US contribution is directly responsible for funding 75 million of those vaccinations, Nishtar said
GENEVA: A halt to funding for Gavi, an organization that vaccinates children in the world’s poorest countries, will leave a dangerous gap threatening the lives of millions, its chief warned on Monday.
“The first impact would be for the world’s most vulnerable children,” Gavi CEO Sania Nishtar said.
She spoke via video link from Washington, during a visit to convince US authorities that their 25-year collaboration with the Geneva-based organization must continue. The New York Times broke the news last week that the US aims to cut all funding to Gavi. That step featured in a 281-page spreadsheet related to USAID cuts sent to the US Congress.
The decision would impact about 14 percent of Gavi’s core budget — and came just days after Congress had approved $300 million in funding for the organization.
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Gavi says it helps vaccinate more than half the world’s children against infectious diseases, including COVID-19, Ebola, malaria, rabies, polio, cholera, tuberculosis, typhoid, and yellow fever.
“I was very, very surprised,” Nishtar said, adding that her organization still had received no official termination notice from the US government.
If the cuts go ahead, Nishtar warned, it would have devastating effects.
“Frankly, this is too big a hole to be filled,” Nishtar warned, even as Gavi scrambled to find donors to offset the missing US funding.
“Something will have to be cut.”
Gavi says it helps vaccinate more than half the world’s children against infectious diseases, including COVID-19, Ebola, malaria, rabies, polio, cholera, tuberculosis, typhoid, and yellow fever.
Since its inception in 2000, Gavi has provided vaccines to more than 1.1 billion children in 78 lower-income countries, “preventing more than 18.8 million future deaths,” it says.
Before the US decision, the organization aimed to vaccinate 500 million more children between 2026 and 2030.
The US contribution is directly responsible for funding 75 million of those vaccinations, Nishtar said.
Without them, “around 1.3 million children will die from vaccine-preventable diseases.”
Beyond Gavi’s core immunization programs, the funding cut would jeopardize the stockpiling and roll-out of vaccines against outbreaks and health emergencies, including Ebola, cholera, and mpox.
“The world’s ability to protect itself against outbreaks and health emergencies will be compromised,” Nishtar said.
During her Washington visit, the Gavi chief said she aimed to show how effective funding has been for her organization.
For every $1 spent on vaccinations in developing countries where Gavi operates, $21 will be saved this decade in “health care costs, lost wages and lost productivity from illness and death,” the vaccine group estimates.
Unlike other organizations facing cuts, Gavi has not received an outsized contribution from Washington toward its budget, Nishtar noted, insisting that the US contribution was proportionate to its share of the global economy.
She said that other donors were paying their “fair share,” while recipient countries also pitched in and provided a path to transition away from receiving aid.
Some former recipients, like Indonesia, had even become donors to the program, she pointed out, hoping that such arguments would help sway Washington to stay the course.
Without the US backing, “we will have to make difficult trade-offs,” Nishtar warned.
That “will leave us all more exposed.”
UK’s Starmer blames a lack of joint action as he struggles to stop migrants crossing the Channel
- Starmer expressed frustration at the difficulty of stopping thousands of people a year risking the dangerous sea crossing from France
LONDON: British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Monday that a lack of coordination between UK police and intelligence agencies is partly responsible for a surge in the number of migrants reaching the UK in small boats across the English Channel.
At an international meeting on boosting border security and tackling people-smuggling, Starmer expressed frustration at the difficulty of stopping thousands of people a year risking the dangerous sea crossing from France.
“We inherited this total fragmentation between our policing, our Border Force and our intelligence agencies,” Starmer said as officials from more than 40 countries met in London. “A fragmentation that made it crystal clear, when I looked at it, that there were gaps in our defense, an open invitation at our borders for the people smugglers to crack on.”
Starmer’s center-left government, elected nine months ago, is grappling with an issue that vexed its Conservative predecessors.
Despite law-enforcement cooperation with France and work with authorities in countries further up the route taken by migrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East, more than 6,600 migrants crossed the channel in the first three months of this year, the highest number on record.
The opposition Conservatives say the figure shows Labour should not have scrapped the previous government’s contentious – and never-implemented – plan to send asylum-seekers who arrive by boat on one-way trips to Rwanda.
Starmer called the Rwanda plan a “gimmick” and canceled it soon after he was elected in July. Britain paid Rwanda hundreds of millions of pounds for the plan under a deal signed by the two countries in 2022, without any deportations taking place.
Monday’s meeting was addressed virtually by Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni, whose far-right government has opened centers in Albania to hold some asylum-seekers while their claims are processed – a project being closely watched by Starmer’s government.
Meloni said the plan was “criticized at first,” but had “gained increasing consensus, so much so that today, European Union is proposing to set up return hubs in third countries.”
The governments of Albania, Vietnam and Iraq, whose nationals account for a significant number of asylum-seekers in the UK, were also represented.
Starmer, who has said organized people-smugglers should be treated in the same way as terror gangs, has been criticized by refugee groups, and some Labour supporters, for his hard-line approach to irregular migration.
But he said “there’s nothing progressive or compassionate about turning a blind eye to this. Nothing progressive or compassionate about continuing that false hope which attracts people to make those journeys.
“This vile trade exploits the cracks between our institutions, pits nations against one another and profits from our inability at the political level to come together,” Starmer said.
“We’ve got to combine our resources, share intelligence and tactics, and tackle the problem upstream at every step of the people smuggling routes.”
Police investigate possible arson as Rome fire destroys 17 Teslas
- Tesla cars have become targets for vandalism across several countries, in response to the right-wing activism of company owner Elon Musk
- Tech billionaire, who also owns X, has joined Donald Trump’s administration and has come out in support of far-right parties in Europe
ROME: Italian police are investigating possible arson at a Tesla dealership in Rome overnight that destroyed 17 cars, a security source said on Monday.
Italy’s anti-terrorism police unit Digos is leading the investigation and is looking into the possibility that anarchists set fire to the cars on the eastern outskirts of Rome, the source said.
Drone images of the Rome fire showed the burnt-out remains of cars lined up in a parking lot, with two rows of vehicles back-to-back and a third row some distance away.
Tesla cars have become targets for vandalism across several countries, in response to the right-wing activism of company owner Elon Musk.
The tech billionaire, who also owns X, has joined US President Donald Trump’s administration and has come out in support of far-right parties in Europe.
The fire brigade said in a statement that the blaze broke out at around 04.30 a.m. (0230 GMT). The dealership was partially damaged, but nobody was injured.
Russian authorities move to lift the terrorist designation for the Taliban
- Afghanistan’s Taliban were outlawed by Russia two decades ago as a terrorist group
MOSCOW: Russia’s Supreme Court on Monday said it received a petition from the prosecutor general’s office to lift the ban on Afghanistan’s Taliban, who were outlawed two decades ago as a terrorist group.
The court said in a statement that it would hold a hearing on the petition, submitted by Prosecutor General Igor Krasnov, on April 17. Russia last year adopted a law stipulating that the official terrorist designation of an organization could be suspended by a court.
The Taliban were put on Russia’s list of terrorist organizations in 2003. Any contact with such groups is punishable under Russian law.
At the same time, Taliban delegations have attended various forums hosted by Moscow. Russian officials have shrugged off questions about the seeming contradiction by emphasizing the need to engage the Taliban to help stabilize Afghanistan.
The former Soviet Union fought a 10-year war in Afghanistan that ended with Moscow withdrawing its troops in 1989. Since then, Moscow has made a diplomatic comeback as a power broker, hosting talks on Afghanistan involving senior representatives of the Taliban and neighboring nations.
There is a deepening divide in the international community on how to deal with the Taliban, who have been in power for three years and face no real opposition. Afghanistan’s rulers have pursued bilateral ties with major regional powers.
