US imposes security zone in search for Chinese balloon remnants

US imposes security zone in search for Chinese balloon remnants
The remnants of a large balloon drift above the Atlantic Ocean, just off the coast of South Carolina. (AFP)
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Updated 07 February 2023

US imposes security zone in search for Chinese balloon remnants

US imposes security zone in search for Chinese balloon remnants
  • China called the shooting down of the balloon an “obvious overreaction”

WASHINGTON: The US Coast Guard on Monday imposed a temporary security zone in waters off South Carolina during the military’s search and recovery of debris from a suspected Chinese spy balloon that a US fighter jet shot down.
The White House said the balloon’s flight over the United States had done nothing to improve already tense relations with China and its national security spokesperson dismissed Beijing’s contention that the balloon was for meteorological purposes as straining credulity.
Beijing condemned the shooting down of the balloon and urged Washington to show restraint over the episode. White House national security spokesperson John Kirby told reporters: “Nobody wants to see conflict here.”
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken postponed a planned Feb.5-6 visit to China because of the balloon’s flight into US airspace last week. It was shot down off the Atlantic Coast on Saturday.
Kirby said Blinken would seek to reschedule the trip when the time is right.
The trip to Beijing would have been the first by a US secretary of state since 2018 as the United States and China have sought to mend ties that have been under severe strain over a range of disagreements, including US attempts to block Chinese access to some cutting-edge technologies.
INTELLIGENCE GATHERING
The United States was able to study the balloon while it was aloft and officials hope to glean valuable intelligence on its operations by retrieving as many components as possible, Kirby said.
China called the shooting down of the balloon an “obvious overreaction.”
“China firmly opposes and strongly protests against this,” Vice Foreign Minister Xie Feng said in remarks to the US embassy in Beijing posted on the ministry’s website.
US officials have played down the balloon’s impact on national security, although a successful recovery could potentially give the United States insight into China’s spying capabilities.
Senior US officials have offered to brief former Trump administration officials on the details of what the White House said was three China balloon overflights when Donald Trump was president. US officials said those balloons came to light after Trump left office in January 2021 and was succeeded by President Joe Biden.
A senior US general responsible for bringing down the balloon said on Monday the military had not detected previous spy balloons before the one that appeared on Jan. 28 over the United States and called it an “awareness gap.”
However, Air Force General Glen VanHerck, head of US North American Aerospace Defense Command and Northern Command said US intelligence determined the previous flights after the fact based on “additional means of collection” of intelligence without offering further details on whether that might be cyber espionage, telephone intercepts or human sources.
On Monday, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said China learned that its balloon had drifted over the United States after being notified by Washington.
“The unintended entry of this airship (into the US) is entirely an isolated, accidental incident. It tests the sincerity the US has in improving and stabilizing bilateral relations and the way it handles crises,” she said.
Mao said another balloon, spotted over Latin America, was an unmanned civilian airship on a test flight that “severely deviated and unintendedly entered the space above Latin America because it was affected by the weather and because it has limited self-steering capability.”
On Sunday, Colombia’s military said it sighted an airborne object similar to a balloon after the Pentagon said on Friday that another Chinese balloon was flying over Latin America.
POSSIBLE REPERCUSSIONS
While calling for US restraint, China has warned of “serious repercussions” and said it will use the necessary means to deal with “similar situations,” without elaborating. Some policy analysts said they expect any response to be finely calibrated, however, to prevent diplomatic ties becoming even worse.
Brokerage ING said in a Monday note that the incident could exacerbate the “tech war” and would have a negative near-term impact on China’s yuan currency.
“Both sides will likely impose more export bans on technology in different industries. This is a new threat to supply chain disruption, although the risk of logistical disruption from COVID restrictions has now disappeared,” it said.
“This new risk is more of a long-term risk than an imminent one,” ING said.


Taiwan’s former leader Ma begins China visit

Taiwan’s former leader Ma begins China visit
Updated 21 min 4 sec ago

Taiwan’s former leader Ma begins China visit

Taiwan’s former leader Ma begins China visit
  • The ex-president is visiting in a private capacity

TAOYUAN: Former Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou departed for a 12-day tour of China Monday, a day after Taiwan lost another of its 14 diplomatic partners to China.
The ex-president is visiting in a private capacity, bringing a delegation of academics and college students for exchanges, as well as members of his family, but the trip is loaded with political meaning.
Ma’s policies brought Taiwan and Beijing to their closest relationship ever, but his exit from office was overshadowed by massive protests against a trade deal with the mainland and his successor has focused on defending the autonomy of the democratically-governed island that China claims as part of its own territory.
Ma’s visit comes amid rising tensions. Beijing has exerted a long-standing campaign of pressure against Taiwan, poaching its diplomatic allies while also sending military fighter jets flying toward the island on a near daily basis. On Sunday, Honduras established diplomatic relations with China, leaving Taiwan with only 13 countries that recognize it as a sovereign state.
Ma, a member of the opposition Nationalist Party (Kuomingtang), will land in Shanghai before starting his visit in nearby Nanjing. He is expected to tour the mainland from March 27 to April 7, stopping in Wuhan and Changsha, as well as other cities. He is bringing college students from Taiwan to meet with fellow students from Shanghai’s Fudan University and Changsha’s Hunan University.
Ma has framed the visit as a bid to lower the tensions in cross-strait relations through people to people exchange. “I hope through the enthusiasm of the youth and their interactions to improve the cross-strait mood, so bring peace faster, and earlier,” he said to reporters ahead of his departure on Monday afternoon. He also said it would be his first time visiting China.
His trip has not drawn much controversy in Taiwan, where the public is used to seeing Kuomingtang politicians visit China. However, it has been criticized by some political opponents and activists.
A former mainland student leader in the 1989 Tiananmen square protests called on Ma to cancel his trip. “If you have even a strand of affection for Taiwan ... you should announce the cancelation of your trip,” said Wang Dan, a Chinese dissident who previously lived in Taiwan, on his Facebook page.
A handful of protesters from a pro-independence group held a demonstration at the departures area at Taoyuan airport before Ma’s departure. “Ma Ying-jeou is humiliating our nation and forfeiting its sovereignty,” they shouted before police carried them out. “You are a stinky beggar.”
On the other side, a small group of people from the pro-unification camp also came to the airport to show their support. “Cross-strait relations are like flowers blossoming in spring and both sides are a family,” they shouted.
The trip is also a chance for him to honor his ancestors, ahead of Tomb Sweeping Day on April 5. During the festival, which is celebrated in Taiwan and China among other countries, families visit ancestral graves to maintain the burial grounds and remember the dead.
Ma will not go to Beijing, but may meet with Chinese officials.
Ma met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Singapore in 2015, while he was still in office. The meeting was the first between the leaders of the two sides since Taiwan split from mainland China in 1949 during the Chinese civil war, but was considered more symbolic than substantive.
In 2016, the independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party won national elections and Beijing cut off contact with Taiwan’s government, citing President Tsai Ing-wen’s refusal to endorse the idea that Taiwan and China are one country.


Myanmar junta chief vows continued crackdown, then elections

Myanmar junta chief vows continued crackdown, then elections
Updated 27 March 2023

Myanmar junta chief vows continued crackdown, then elections

Myanmar junta chief vows continued crackdown, then elections
  • Myanmar has been in turmoil since the military deposed Aung San Suu Kyi’s civilian government
  • Min Aung Hlaing: Military will take ‘decisive action’ against opponents and ethnic rebels supporting them

NAYPYIDAW, Myanmar: Flanked by tanks and missile launchers, Myanmar’s junta chief Monday vowed no letup in a crackdown on opponents and insisted the military would hold elections — weeks after admitting it did not control enough territory to allow a vote.
Myanmar has been in turmoil since the military deposed Aung San Suu Kyi’s civilian government over two years ago after making unsubstantiated claims of electoral fraud.
The putsch sparked renewed fighting with ethnic rebels and birthed dozens of anti-junta “People’s Defense Forces” (PDFs), with swathes of the country now ravaged by fighting and the economy in tatters.
The military will take “decisive action” against its opponents and ethnic rebels supporting them, Min Aung Hlaing told an audience of around 8,000 service members attending the annual Armed Forces Day parade in the military-built capital Naypyidaw.
“The terror acts of NUG and its lackey so-called PDFs need to be tackled for good and all,” he said, referring to the “National Unity Government,” a body dominated by ousted lawmakers working to reverse the coup.
The junta would then hold “free and fair elections” upon the completion of the state of emergency, he said.
Last month, the military announced an extension of a two-year state of emergency and postponement of elections it had promised to hold by August, as it did not control enough of the country for a vote to take place.
“Serenity and stability are vital” before any election could go ahead, Min Aung Hlaing told the parade.
Planes flew overhead spewing smoke in the yellow, red and green of the national flag and a flight of five Russian-made Sukoi Su-30 jets roared past.
Women lined the streets leading to the parade ground to garland marching soldiers with flowers, images on state media showed.
Armed Forces Day commemorates the start of local resistance to the Japanese occupation during World War II, and usually features a military parade attended by foreign officers and diplomats.
Two years after the coup, the situation in Myanmar is a “festering catastrophe,” United Nations human rights chief Volker Turk said earlier this month, adding that the military was operating with “complete impunity.”
More than 3,100 people have been killed in the military’s crackdown on dissent since the coup, according to a local monitoring group.
More than a million people have been displaced by fighting, according to the UN.
In December, the junta wrapped up a series of closed-court trials of Suu Kyi, jailing her for a total of 33 years in a process rights groups have condemned as a sham.


Voter turnout ticks up in Cuba legislative elections

Voter turnout ticks up in Cuba legislative elections
Updated 27 March 2023

Voter turnout ticks up in Cuba legislative elections

Voter turnout ticks up in Cuba legislative elections
  • Latest provisional figures show voter turnout stood at 70.33 percent
  • Modest increase from the 68.5 percent who voted in last November’s municipal elections

HAVANA: Cuba’s government managed to mobilize voters on Sunday for National Assembly elections, the results of which were a foregone conclusion, as it pushed back against a recent abstentionist trend in the communist-ruled nation.
As many as eight million eligible voters selected from the 470 candidates on the ballot — 263 women and 207 men — are vying for the 470 seats in the congress.
But what was really in play was the number of Cubans refusing to vote.
The opposition had called on citizens to abstain, with one opposition Twitter account branding the vote a farce.
Voting is not obligatory and abstention has risen steadily in recent years.
On Sunday the nation’s 23,648 polling stations closed at 7:00 p.m. (2300 GMT), an hour later than initially announced by authorities.
According to the latest provisional figures released by the National Election Council, as of 5:00 p.m. turnout stood at 70.33 percent.
That marked a modest increase from the 68.5 percent who voted in last November’s municipal elections, the lowest turnout since the island’s current electoral system was set up in 1976.
Last September about 74 percent of eligible Cubans voted in a referendum on a new family code, down from the 90 percent turnout in the 2019 referendum on a new constitution.
Cuba’s communist government does not allow opposition, so most parliamentary candidates are members of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC).
Candidates still must receive 50 percent of votes to be elected.
Voters had two choices: they could tick the names of any number of individual candidates, or they could select the “vote for all” option.
“I voted for the unified vote because, despite the needs, the difficulties that this country can have, I could not imagine” abstaining, Carlos Diego Herrera, a 54-year-old blacksmith in Havana, said.
He said abstaining would be like voting “for those that want to crush us, the Yankees.”
Washington has imposed sanctions on the island nation since 1962, three years after the communist revolution that saw Fidel Castro take power after overthrowing US-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista.
Student Rachel Vega, 19, also said she voted for all candidates, considering it “a step forward right now” that would “improve the situation in the country.”
President Miguel Diaz-Canel is among the candidates, as is his predecessor, 91-year-old Raul Castro.
“With the united vote we defend the unity of the country, the unity of the revolution, our future, our socialist constitution,” said Diaz-Canel, 62, after voting in Santa Clara, 175 miles (280 kilometers) southeast of Havana.
The opposition scoffed at the turnout figures, with dissident Manuel Cuesta Morua of the Council for the Democratic Transition in Cuba warning about “the government’s electoral mathematics.”
“At 9am it reports that 18.2 percent of the electorate has voted. At 11am it says 41.66 percent — that is, in less than two hours the turnout increased by 23.46” points, he said on Twitter. “Impossible!!! The polling stations are empty.”
Final figures will be released Monday.


Afghan girls struggle with poor Internet as they turn to online classes

Afghan girls struggle with poor Internet as they turn to online classes
Updated 27 March 2023

Afghan girls struggle with poor Internet as they turn to online classes

Afghan girls struggle with poor Internet as they turn to online classes
  • Taliban officials have closed girls’ high schools, barred their access to universities
  • But Taliban administration has allowed girls to study individually at home

KABUL: Sofia logs in to class on a laptop in Kabul for an online English course run by one of a growing number of educational institutes trying to reach Afghanistan’s girls and women digitally in their homes.
But when the teacher calls on Sofia to read a passage her computer screen freezes.
“Can you hear me?” she asks repeatedly, checking her connection.
After a while, her computer stutters back to life.
“As usual,” a fellow student equally frustrated with the poor communications sighs as the class gets going again.
Sofia, 22, is one of a growing stream of Afghan girls and women going online as a last resort to get around the Taliban administration’s restrictions on studying and working.
Taliban officials, citing what they call problems including issues related to Islamic dress, have closed girls’ highschools, barred their access to universities and stopped most women from working at non-governmental organizations.
One of the most striking changes since the Taliban were first in power from 1996 to 2001, is the explosion of the Internet.
Virtually no one had access to the Internet when the Taliban were forced from power in the weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
After nearly two decades of Western-led intervention and engagement with the world, 18 percent of the population had Internet access, according to the World Bank.
The Taliban administration has allowed girls to study individually at home and has not moved to ban the Internet, which its officials use to make announcements via social media.
But girls and women face a host of problems from power cuts, to cripplingly slow Internet speeds, let alone the cost of computers and wifi in a country where 97 percent of people live in poverty.
“For girls in Afghanistan, we have a bad, awful Internet problem,” Sofia said.
Her online school, Rumi Academy, saw its enrolment of mostly females rise from about 50 students to more than 500 after the Taliban took over in 2021.
It has had hundreds more applications but cannot enrol them for now because of a lack of funds for teachers and to pay for equipment and Internet packages, a representative of the academy said.

TOO HARD
Sakina Nazari tried a virtual language class at her home in the west of Kabul for a week after she was forced to leave her university in December. But she abandoned it in frustration after battling the problems.
“I couldn’t continue,” she said. “It’s too hard to access Internet in Afghanistan and sometimes we have half an hour of power in 24 hours.”
Seattle-based Ookla, which compiles global Internet speeds, put Afghanistan’s mobile Internet as the slowest of 137 countries and its fixed Internet as the second slowest of 180 countries.
Some Afghans have started calling on SpaceX Chief Executive Elon Musk to introduce its satellite Internet service Starlink to Afghanistan, as it has done in Ukraine and Iran, posting requests for help on Twitter, which he owns.
“We also call on Elon Musk to help us,” Sofia said.
“If they would be able to (introduce) that in Afghanistan, it would be very, very impactful for women.”
SpaceX spokespeople did not respond to requests for comment.
Online schools are trying their best to accommodate Afghanistan’s pupils.
Daniel Kalmanson, spokesperson for online University of the People, which has had more than 15,000 applications from Afghan girls and women since the Taliban took over, said students could attend lectures at any time that conditions allowed them to, and professors granted extensions for assignments and exams when students faced connection problems.
The non-profit group Learn Afghanistan, which runs several community-based schools in which some teachers run classes remotely, makes its curriculum available for free in Afghanistan’s main languages.
Executive director Pashtana Durrani said the group also ensured that lessons were available via radio, which is widely used in rural areas. She was working with international companies to find solutions to poor Internet access but said she could not elaborate.
“Afghanistan needs to be a country where the Internet is accessible, digital devices need to be pumped in,” Durrani said.
Sofia said Afghan women had grown used to problems over years of war and they would persevere no matter what.
“We still have dreams and we will not give up, ever.”

 


North Korea test-fires 2 more missiles as tensions rise

North Korea test-fires 2 more missiles as tensions rise
Updated 27 March 2023

North Korea test-fires 2 more missiles as tensions rise

North Korea test-fires 2 more missiles as tensions rise
  • The allies last week completed an 11-day exercise that included their biggest field training in years

SEOUL, South Korea: North Korea fired two short-range ballistic missile toward waters off its eastern coast Monday, adding to a recent flurry in weapons tests as the United States prepared to deploy an aircraft carrier strike group to neighboring waters to step up military exercises with the South.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the missiles flew cross-country after being fired from a western inland area south of the North Korean capital of Pyongyang but didn’t immediately release specific flight details. Japan’s coast guard said it believed both weapons landed outside Japan’s exclusive economic zone.
The launches were the North’s seventh missile event this month and underscore heightening military tensions in the region as the pace of both North Korean weapons tests and the US-South Korea joint military exercises has accelerated in recent months in a cycle of tit-for-tat responses.
The allies last week completed an 11-day exercise that included their biggest field training in years. But North Korea is expected to further step up its testing activity as the United States moves an aircraft carrier group to the peninsula this week for another round of joint drills.
North Korea has fired more than 20 ballistic and cruise missiles across 11 launch events this year as it tries to force the United States to accept its nuclear status and negotiate a removal of sanctions from a position of strength.
North Korea’s launches this month included a flight-test of an intercontinental ballistic missile and a series of short-range weapons intended to overwhelm South Korean missile defenses as it tries to demonstrate an ability to conduct nuclear strikes on both South Korea and the US mainland.
The North last week conducted what it described as a three-day exercise that simulated nuclear attacks on South Korean targets as leader Kim Jong Un condemned the US-South Korean joint military drills as invasion rehearsals. The allies say the exercises are defensive in nature.
The North’s tests also included a purported nuclear-capable underwater drone that the North claimed is capable of setting off a huge “radioactive tsunami” that would destroy naval vessels and ports. Analysts were skeptical about the North Korean claims about the drone or whether the device presents a major new threat, but the tests underlined the North’s commitment to expand its nuclear threats.
Following the North’s announcement of the drone test on Friday, South Korea’s air force released details of a five-day joint aerial drill with the United States last week that included live-fire demonstrations of air-to-air and air-to-ground weapons. The air force said the exercise was aimed at verifying precision strike capabilities and reaffirming the credibility of Seoul’s “three-axis” strategy against North Korean nuclear threats — preemptively striking sources of attacks, intercepting incoming missiles and neutralizing the North’s leadership and key military facilities.
North Korea already is coming off a record year in weapons testing, launching more than 70 missiles in 2022, when it also set into law an escalatory nuclear doctrine that authorizes pre-emptive nuclear strikes in a broad range of scenarios where it may perceive its leadership as under threat.