UNITED STATES
PRC links critical: Pentagon
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin on Thursday said that it was critical to have direct lines of communication with Chinese officials in case of an accident. “I’m concerned about something that could happen that could spark a crisis, and I think we need the ability to be able to talk with both our allies and partners, but also our adversaries or potential adversaries,” Austin told lawmakers during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing. “There needs to be a direct line of communication between the military and also between government officials as well,” he added.
UNITED STATES
Image abroad improves
The US’ image abroad has improved dramatically since Joe Biden replaced Donald Trump as president, a Pew Research Center survey of 12 nations, mainly in Europe and Asia, that was showed on Thursday. The nonpartisan research group found that a median of 75 percent of people had confidence in Biden “to do the right thing regarding world affairs,” versus 17 percent who felt that way about Trump in last year’s poll. A median of 62 percent had a favorable view of the US, up from 34 percent last year. Those with an unfavorable view fell to 36 percent from 63 percent. The poll was conducted in Canada, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, the UK, Australia, Japan and South Korea. “Throughout Donald Trump’s presidency, publics around the world held the United States in low regard, with most opposed to his foreign policies,” Pew said, adding that it found “a significant uptick in ratings for the US, with strong support for Biden and several of his major policy initiatives.”
CAMBODIA
US repatriates antiquities
The US has repatriated 27 antiquities to Cambodia after years of work by New York investigators to recover the smuggled artifacts. Valued at about US$3.8 million, the items included several Hindu and Angkorian Buddhist statues, such as a bronze meditating Buddha on a Naga, a statue of Shiva and a Buddhist sandstone sculpture of Prajnaparamita. The repatriation “restores an important link between the nation’s classical Angkor era and its modern customs and beliefs that for far too long was disrupted by the greed of stolen antiquities traffickers,” Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance said in a statement. Cambodian Minister of Culture and Fine Arts Phoeurng Sackona said that the antiquities were the “missing souls” of the country’s ancestors.
UNITED STATES
Missing dog turns to herding
A pet dog who vanished for two days after being ejected from a vehicle during an accident has been found apparently doing the job it was bred to do — herding sheep. Linda Oswald’s family and their dog, Tilly, were driving on Idaho State Highway 41 on Sunday last week when they crashed into another vehicle, launching the dog through the rear window, the Spokesman-Review reported. The unharmed, but stunned dog ran away, prompting an immediate search that included at least six strangers who witnessed the crash, Oswald said. The search lasted about 10 hours before the family went home. The family then turned to Facebook to continue the search of the two-year-old border collie mix. That was when Tyler, Travis and Zane Potter recognized the dog as the same dog they saw on their family farm south of Rathdrum on Tuesday. Both the Potters and Oswald think Tilly was drawn to the farm and their sheep. “I think that dog was trying to herd,” Travis Potter said.
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
Le Tuan Binh keeps his Moroccan soldier father’s tombstone at his village home north of Hanoi, a treasured reminder of a man whose community in Vietnam has been largely forgotten. Mzid Ben Ali, or “Mohammed” as Binh calls him, was one of tens of thousands of North Africans who served in the French army as it battled to maintain its colonial rule of Indochina. He fought for France against the Viet Minh independence movement in the 1950s, before leaving the military — as either a defector or a captive — and making a life for himself in Vietnam. “It’s very emotional for me,”
UNDER INVESTIGATION: Members of the local Muslim community had raised concerns with the police about the boy, who officials said might have been radicalized online A 16-year-old boy armed with a knife was shot dead by police after he stabbed a man in the Australian west coast city of Perth, officials said yesterday. The incident occurred in the parking lot of a hardware store in suburban Willetton on Saturday night. The teen attacked the man and then rushed at police officers before he was shot, Western Australian Premier Roger Cook told reporters. “There are indications he had been radicalized online,” Cook told a news conference, adding that it appeared he acted alone. A man in his 30s was found at the scene with a stab wound to his back.