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.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
The pitch is a classic: A young celebrity with no climbing experience spends a year in hard training and scales Mount Everest, succeeding against some — if not all — odds. French YouTuber Ines Benazzouz, known as Inoxtag, brought the story to life with a two-hour-plus documentary about his year preparing for the ultimate challenge. The film, titled Kaizen, proved a smash hit on its release last weekend. Young fans queued around the block to get into a preview screening in Paris, with Inoxtag’s management on Monday saying the film had smashed the box office record for a special cinema