FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Kingston Peel, 11, and his 9-year-old brother, Wynn, got woken up early Friday at their home in the Bahamas. Their mother had a surprise for them.

In only a few hours, they’d fly to South Florida to see superstar Lionel Messi make his Major League Soccer debut with Inter Miami.

“We’re here to see Messi,” Kingston and Wynn said in unison. They arrived at DRV PNK Stadium hours before Inter Miami’s match against Mexican club Cruz Azul in the Leagues Cup.

And Friday night, Messi gave an unforgettable thrill to fans young and old who witnessed his first game, converting a free kick from about 25 yards in the 94th minute to give his new team a 2-1 victory.

Troves of fans, some from as far away as Ecuador and Messi’s native Argentina, bounced around the outskirts of the stadium ahead of Messi’s debut. Some, like Kingston and Wynn, wore black-and-pink Inter Miami jerseys with Messi’s No. 10 on the back. Others wore the 36-year-old’s Argentina jersey. Dozens stood in line for team gear. Even more waited to have their Messi flags and jerseys captured in a photo booth.

Kim Kardashian arrived at the stadium about an hour before the start of the match, with one of her children wearing Messi’s Inter Miami jersey. Serena Williams and LeBron James were there, too, and James greeted Messi before the game.

“It’s insane,” said season ticket holder Christian Zinn, who lives in nearby Parkland and attended the match with his son, Oliver. “We normally come a half hour before the game, and it’s like this. Not two hours before the game. We knew it was going to be crazy.”

Messi and fellow newcomer Sergio Busquets checked into the game in the 54th minute, with phones out all around the stadium to capture the moment. Inter Miami led 1-0 at the time, but Cruz Azul tied it shortly after he checked in, setting up the incredible finish.

After months of speculation, Messi signed a 2 1/2-year contract with the team this past weekend. Tens of thousand of people showed up to see the team introduce Messi Sunday night. Inter Miami co-owner David Beckham said online video of the event was viewed 3.5 billion times.

“That’s a gift that Leo has given the sport,” Beckham said. “He’s at the stage of his career where he’s done everything that any soccer player can do in a sport. He’s one of the greatest players if not the greatest player to ever play that game.”

Beckham, an English great who also came to MLS in 2007 after a long career in Europe, said Messi’s move has “raised the bar” for soccer in the United States.

“When I went on the journey in 2007, and when I started my Miami journey 10 years ago, my vision was exactly what we saw the moment that Leo announced,” Beckham said. “That’s what I wanted to see for the sport.”

Miami native Carlos Fierro, who said he’s been a Messi fan his whole life, said Messi’s arrival had a similar impact to James’ signing with the Miami Heat in 2010.

“It’s going to be very different because Messi’s that type of player. He’s going to bring the party,” Fierro said. “We saw it in the presentation how loud it got. I’m expecting everything to be loud and fun. Just typical Miami style.”
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It has never been easy for the United States to secure the return of citizens from North Korea, one of the world’s most isolated nations.  

The task may be even harder in the case of Private Travis King, with communication between the countries now almost nonexistent, diplomats and negotiators say.  

King, an active-duty U.S. Army soldier serving in South Korea, sprinted into North Korea on Tuesday while on a civilian tour of the Demilitarized Zone on the border between the two Koreas.  

Washington is fully mobilized in trying to contact Pyongyang about him, U.S. Army Secretary Christine Wormuth said Thursday, but North Korea had yet to respond.  

Since U.S. President Joe Biden took office in 2021, the limited contacts between Washington and Pyongyang have all but ceased as the Trump administration’s efforts to negotiate over North Korea’s nuclear weapons program fizzled and North Korea sealed its borders in response to COVID-19.  

It’s a different situation than those that most earlier negotiators faced.  

“The North Koreans have shown no interest in dialog with us at this point,” said Thomas Hubbard, a retired U.S. ambassador who traveled to Pyongyang in 1994 to bring back Bobby Hall, the last serving member of the U.S. military held in North Korea. 

At that time, U.S. officials had just concluded an initial nuclear agreement with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s father, Kim Jong Il. 

“We were in a very different time,” Hubbard said. “The North Koreans saw they had some stake in the relationship with the United States.” 

Limited options 

U.S. negotiators have few ways of reaching the North Koreans. The countries have no diplomatic relations, and Sweden, which officially represents U.S. interests in Pyongyang, pulled out its diplomats in August 2020 amid the coronavirus pandemic.  

U.S. officials said the United States had attempted to reach North Korea about King through the United Nations Command hotline and other channels, including the U.N. in New York, where North Korea has a representative.  

The best approach for now, said experts, may be a low-key public stance.

“About 90% of [the outcome] will be determined based on how we react right now,” said Mickey Bergman, executive director of the Richardson Center, set up by Bill Richardson, a former diplomat who has previously negotiated with North Korea for the release of detainees.  

North Korea would likely interrogate King at length, then have an option of deporting him or charging him, Bergman said, adding that the U.S. should avoid “pounding our chest” and instead calmly communicate that Washington respects Pyongyang’s right to detain and question a soldier who entered its territory.  

Jenny Town, of Washington’s 38 North think tank, said the case was complicated by not knowing King’s intentions and whether he actually wanted to return. King had been detained in South Korea for more than a month for assault and was to fly back to the U.S. to face military discipline. 

Cases of U.S. soldiers going to North Korea are extremely rare. In 1965, Charles Robert Jenkins, a 25-year-old U.S. Army sergeant, walked across the DMZ and spent four decades in North Korea, where he taught English and also portrayed a U.S. spy in a propaganda film.  

‘He’s now their pawn’ 

A former North Korean diplomat who defected to South Korea said King may be used as a propaganda tool, but it was not clear how long North Korea would want to exploit his presence. 

“Holding an American soldier is probably a not very cost-effective headache for the North in the long run,” said Tae Yong-ho, now a member of South Korea’s parliament. 

A cautionary case of North Korean detention is that of Otto Warmbier, a college student detained on a tour in 2015 and sentenced to 15 years of hard labor for trying to steal an item with a propaganda slogan. 

Warmbier was eventually returned to the United States in a coma in 2017 and died days later. 

Otto’s father, Fred, feels empathy for King and his family. 

“This is about a young man – we don’t know his mental condition,” he told Reuters in an interview. “He’s now their pawn. If it was any other country in the world, there would be communication now.” 

When asked about King, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday said the Biden administration had repeatedly tried to reestablish dialog with Pyongyang since taking office, offering new nuclear talks without preconditions.  

“We sent that message several times,” Blinken told the Aspen Security Forum. “Here’s the response we got: one missile launch after another,” referring to repeated North Korean missile tests.
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President Joe Biden elevated CIA Director William Burns to his Cabinet on Friday, a symbolic move that underscores the intelligence chief’s influence and his work in U.S. support for Ukraine. 

In a statement, Biden said Burns had “harnessed intelligence to give our country a critical strategic advantage” and credited his “clear, straightforward analysis that prioritizes the safety and security of the American people.” 

Burns has been a central figure in the Biden administration, particularly in the White House strategy to declassify intelligence findings that Russia was intending to launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. A career diplomat and former ambassador to Russia, Burns was sent to Moscow months before the war to warn Russian President Vladimir Putin of Washington’s analysis. 

In the nearly 18 months since Putin invaded, the U.S. has provided intelligence support to Ukraine along with weapons and ammunition. Burns has gone to Kyiv repeatedly to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. He was also sent in November 2022 to warn Russia not to use nuclear weapons in the conflict. 

Burns is known to meet with Biden regularly and often briefs him directly on Ukraine and other world issues. As a Cabinet member, he will serve alongside Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines, whose office sets direction for the CIA and other members of the U.S. intelligence community. 

“The president’s announcement today recognizes the essential contributions to national security the Central Intelligence Agency makes every day, and reflects his confidence in our work,” Burns said in a statement. “I am honored to serve in this role, representing the tremendous work of our intelligence officers.” 

Not all administrations have had top intelligence officials in their Cabinets. Former President Donald Trump included his directors of national intelligence and CIA directors. 
…

The U.N. humanitarian chief warned Friday that millions of people are at risk of hunger and death as a consequence of Russia’s withdrawal from the Black Sea grain deal.

“Some will go hungry, some will starve. Many may die as a result of these decisions,” Martin Griffiths told a meeting of the U.N. Security Council convened to discuss the humanitarian impacts of Russia’s announcement Monday that it is leaving the nearly year-old grain deal.

The initiative, negotiated by the United Nations and Turkey last July, and signed onto by Russia and Ukraine, has seen world food prices decrease 23% and stabilize after reaching highs following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

The United Nations says 64% of almost 33 million metric tons of Ukrainian grain exported under the deal went to low- and middle-income countries, helping keep food affordable and available in the midst of a global cost-of-living crisis and rising fuel prices.

Since the deal ground to a halt on Monday, the World Food Program reports wheat futures have risen by almost 9% and corn futures by 8%. Wednesday saw the largest single-day increase in wheat prices since February 2022.

“And this is not surprising,” Griffiths said. “This was predicted, and it happened.”

He warned that with shrinking options for selling their grain, Ukrainian farmers may have no choice but to stop farming. The country was an international breadbasket before the conflict, supplying 400 million metric tons of grain and foodstuffs to world markets annually.

Ports targeted

This week, Russia’s military has also resumed targeting Ukraine’s ports. For four consecutive days, it has hit Odesa, Chornomorsk and Mykolaiv ports with missiles and drones, destroying critical infrastructure, facilities and 60,000 metric tons of grain. WFP says that is enough grain to feed 270,000 people for a year.

“We strongly condemn these attacks and urge Russia to stop them immediately,” U.N. political chief Rosemary DiCarlo told the council.

Russia has also announced it will consider any ships in the Black Sea as carrying military cargo and, therefore, legitimate targets. This stance was reiterated by its envoy.

“The flagged states will be deemed to be complicit in the Ukrainian conflict on the side of the Kyiv regime,” Dmitry Polyanskiy said of the countries where the ships are registered.

The U.N. political chief said such threats are “unacceptable.”

The Russian representative claimed that Ukraine has used the grain deal as cover to beef up its military-industrial storage capacities at the Black Sea ports.

“With the end of the deal, we have an opportunity to address this situation, and to consider the fact that Ukrainian infrastructure is located there as a place of deployment for replenishment for Ukrainian forces with Western weapons,” Polyanskiy said.

As part of the grain deal, ships entering and exiting the Black Sea corridor underwent inspections by a joint team of Russian, Ukrainian, Turkish and U.N. inspectors near Istanbul in order to ensure no military cargo was aboard the vessels.

Russia’s rationale for departing the deal is that it has not benefited enough under it, an explanation that some countries saw as cynical.

“By blocking exports from Ukrainian ports and prompting an increase in agricultural and food prices, Russia is increasing the profits from its own exports,” said France’s ambassador, Nicolas De Riviere. “It is increasing its revenues to finance its war of aggression against Ukraine. This is the reality. Russia is seeking to play the victim and claim to have been swindled with the Istanbul agreements.”

Record Russian exports

The European Union envoy said public data shows Russian grain exports have reached record volumes.

“From 1 July 2022 to 30 June 2023, Russia’s wheat exports reached 44.7 million tons, more than 10% higher than the average for previous years,” Ambassador Olof Skoog said. “Its fertilizer exports are nearing full recovery.”

The U.S.-based International Food Policy Research Institute said in a paper released Thursday that global production of wheat and feed grains, including corn, should be sufficient to meet global demand this year, even without Ukrainian products.

But with Black Sea routes closed to its exports, Ukraine will have to find alternatives, which will be expensive. And without lower-cost options, Ukrainian wheat and corn production would likely drop next year. Add to that the damage to its export infrastructure, and IFPRI experts say that would significantly affect short-term global grain availability and further disrupt Ukraine’s longer-term ability to grow and export grain.
…

WASHINGTON — The White House on Friday launched an office to prepare for and respond to potential pandemics. It will be led by Paul Friedrichs, a military combat surgeon and retired Air Force major general who helped lead the Pentagon’s COVID response.

The new Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy will also take over the duties of President Biden’s current COVID-19 and monkeypox response teams, the White House said.

The office will be charged with “leading, coordinating and implementing actions related to preparedness for, and response to, known and unknown biological threats or pathogens that could lead to a pandemic or to significant public health-related disruptions in the United States,” its statement read.

Friedrichs is currently special assistant to the president and senior director for Global Health Security and Biodefense at the National Security Council.

The White House had been expected to cut down its COVID-19 response team after the U.S. government in May ended its COVID Public Health Emergency. Biden said in September last year he believed the coronavirus pandemic was over in the United States.

In June, the White House announced the departure of Ashish Jha, the last of the Biden administration’s rotating COVID response coordinators.
…

In the words of Vietnam’s coach, facing the U.S. national team in the Women’s World Cup is a daunting quest, something “like a mountain,” said Mai Duc Chung.

Vietnam makes its World Cup debut Saturday against the United States, the heavy favorites to win the tournament for an unprecedented third time. The Americans enter Saturday’s game in Auckland at Eden Park with the same confidence it carried through its last two World Cup-winning runs.

“The U.S. is a very, very strong team. It is like a mountain. But it doesn’t mean that we will give up,” said Mai.

But few believe Vietnam has a chance. The national team is very similar to Thailand, which the Americans thumped 13-0 in the opener at the World Cup four years ago in France. The United States went on to beat the Netherlands 2-0 for its second consecutive World Cup and fourth overall, the most of any nation.

“Fear? We Believe,” said captain Nuynh Nhu. “We’ve already prepared. Nothing to fear, nothing to be afraid of.”

The Americans wouldn’t dare discount an opponent, particularly after the criticism it took for running up the score against Thailand four years ago in France. They are taking Vietnam in the opening game quite seriously.

“We want to show our respect by giving our best game, and we know that they’ll do the same for us,” captain Lindsey Horan said Friday, the eve of the match. “I think everyone always gives us their best game.”

The United States has a new cast of players at this World Cup, including 14 who are making their first appearance in soccer’s biggest tournament. Among them is 18-year-old phenom Alyssa Thompson and up-and-comer Trinity Rodman, the 20-year-old daughter of former NBA star Dennis Rodman.

Another quickly rising star is Sophia Smith. Just 22, she was named National Women’s Soccer League’s Most Valuable Player and U.S. Soccer’s Player of the Year last year.

Coach Vlatko Andonovski infused the United States with young talent after the team finished with a disappointing bronze medal at the Tokyo Olympics.

“I think that we have a very good mix of young, energetic, enthusiastic players, and experienced players that have been through tough games, that have been in big tournaments and know how to win big games,” Andonovski said.

Megan Rapinoe is among the veterans on the squad and should make her 200th appearance for the national team if she plays against Vietnam. Rapinoe, 38, announced before the team left for New Zealand that this would be her last World Cup and she would retire from her professional team at the end of the season.

Rapinoe and Rose Lavelle were both limited by injuries in the run-up to the tournament, but Andonovski said both are available to play.

There were still several other players that weren’t available for the U.S. roster. Mallory Swanson, the team’s top scorer this year, injured her patella tendon in her left knee during an exhibition match against Ireland in early April.

Catarina Macario tore an ACL last year while playing for the French club Lyon and was unable to recover in time. But the biggest blow was the loss of captain Becky Sauerbrunn, who announced that a right foot injury suffered in April would keep her out of the World Cup.

Also in Group E are the Netherlands and Portugal, which meet Sunday in Dunedin. Portugal is also making its first World Cup appearance.

The teams play all of their matches in New Zealand, which is co-hosting the tournament with Australia. Should the United States top the group, the team will head to Sydney for the round of 16.

Saturday’s game will be the first meeting between the United States and Vietnam. The Vietnamese lost two exhibition matches ahead of the tournament and fell 9-0 to Spain in a closed-door tune-up match in Auckland last Friday.

Andonovski was asked what would happen if the United States lost to Vietnam, similar to how Argentina lost to Saudi Arabia at the beginning of the men’s World Cup in Qatar last year. Argentina recovered to win the World Cup.

“Then we’ll have to win the next two games and move forward,” the coach said, “and hopefully end up like Argentina.”
…

The federal judge overseeing former President Donald Trump’s trial on his mishandling of classified documents case has set a trial date for May 20, according to a court order on Friday.

The ruling from U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who sits in Fort Pierce, Florida, places Trump’s criminal trial less than six months ahead of the November 2024 U.S. presidential election. Trump is the current front-runner for the Republican nomination in the race.

Federal prosecutors working for U.S. Special Counsel Jack Smith at a hearing on Tuesday had asked Cannon to schedule the trial for December, while Trump’s lawyers said there was no need to set a date yet.

The trial had initially been scheduled for August 14 – a date that both the defense and prosecution opposed because they said they needed more time to prepare.
…

US lawmakers are reviewing a Biden administration proposal to renew 20-year-old agreements with three Pacific Island nations. The goal of the compacts, as they are called, is to counter China’s influence in the region. But time is running out for Congress to approve them. VOA’s Jessica Stone reports from Washington.
…

SEOUL, South Korea — So what will North Korea do about the first U.S. soldier in decades to flee into its territory? Its official media have yet to mention Pvt. Travis King, there’s little precedent for his situation and guesses about the country’s next steps vary widely.

Unauthorized crossings across the Koreas’ heavily fortified border are extremely rare. The few Americans who crossed into North Korea in the past were a few soldiers, missionaries, human rights advocates or those simply curious about one of the world’s most cloistered societies. North Korea has used a varied playbook in its handlings of them.

Defecting soldiers, like Charles Jenkins or James Dresnok in the 1960s, were treated as propaganda assets, showcased in leaflets and films projecting anti-U.S. hatred and praising the North’s regime.

Other Americans were detained, criticized and handed harsh penalties based on confessions of anti-state activities they later said were coerced. Behind-the-scenes pleas and lengthy backdoor negotiations followed, and the detainee was freed, often flown home with a high-profile U.S. official who travels to Pyongyang to secure the release.

None of the previous cases, however, seems relevant as a forecast of what lies ahead with King.

The length of his stay will likely depend on whether North Koreans find a way to spin his story for their own propaganda, said Jenny Town, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center in Washington and director of the North Korea-focused 38 North website.

It’s unclear whether the North Korea of today would treat King similarly with Jenkins and Dresnok, whose crossings were six decades ago. And King might be less ideal as propaganda material. Jenkins walked into North Korea in 1965 to avoid combat duty in Vietnam, which made it easier for Pyongyang to paint him as a disillusioned U.S. solider who escaped evil imperialists and chose to live in North Korea’s “socialist paradise.” There’s a big difference with King, who was struggling with legal problems and facing disciplinary action and a possible discharge before he bolted into North Korea.

“If they decide that he’s not a good story, they may just return him so that this doesn’t exacerbate already fragile relations (with the United States),” Town said. “This is largely a wait-and-see as there’s just so little precedent for it.”

But Yang Moo-jin, president of the University of North Korean Studies in South Korea, says it’s highly unlikely North Korea would pass up the propaganda value of a U.S. soldier who voluntarily entered the country. While King’s immediate value would be propaganda, Pyongyang could seek opportunities to use him as a bargaining chip to wrest concessions from Washington, he said.

It’s possible North Korea may link King’s release with the United States scaling back its military activities with South Korea. The U.S. has increased its deployment of strategic assets like bombers and nuclear-capable submarines since 2022 in a show of force against North Korea’s nuclear threat.

North Korea’s goal would be to create a dilemma for Washington in “choosing between (strengthening) U.S.-South Korean nuclear deterrence strategies and protecting its own citizen,” Yang said. “That would create challenges for South Korea, which has been focusing on strengthening nuclear deterrence strategies with the United States,” he said.

Thae Yong Ho, a former diplomat at the North Korean Embassy in London who defected to South Korea in 2016 and is now a lawmaker, said North Korea has never released any U.S. soldier who walked into the country voluntarily. But it’s also unclear whether North Korea would want to hold King for long, considering the likely low level of U.S. military intelligence he would provide considering his rank and the high costs of managing his life in the North.

“A specialized security and surveillance team must be organized (for King), an interpreter must be arranged, a designated vehicle and driver must be provided, and accommodation must be arranged … You also need to indoctrinate him into the North Korean system, so you will need to organize a team of specialized teachers and a curriculum,” Thae wrote on Facebook.

“Marriage is another problem as North Korea values pure bloodlines and it would be highly difficult to kidnap foreigners from abroad, like they did in the past,” Thae added. He was apparently referring to Jenkins, who married a Japanese nursing student abducted by North Korean agents in 1978. Park Won Gon, a professor at Seoul’s Ewha University, said the currently high tensions between Washington and Pyongyang would complicate diplomatic efforts to bring King home.

During cozier times with the United States, North Korea released U.S. detainees rather swiftly and easily.

In 2018, North Korea released Bruce Byron Lowrance a month after he entered the country illegally through China. Lowrance’s relatively quick deportation came in the afterglow of a highly orchestrated summit between then-President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in June that year, where they issued vague goals about a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula and vowed to improve ties. Weeks ahead of that summit, North Korea released three American detainees who returned home on a plane with then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

That diplomacy collapsed in 2019, and the current environment seems unfavorable for King’s early release.

Starting in 2022, Kim ramped up his weapons testing activity, which prompted the United States to expand its military exercises and nuclear contingency strategies with South Korea. The United States will likely attempt to communicate with the North over the U.S.-led United Nations Command, which administers the southern side of the inter-Korean border village, and through the so-called “New York channel” using North Korea’s diplomatic mission to the United Nations.

But, considering the prolonged diplomatic freeze, it could be quite a while before the United States is able to send a high-profile official to Pyongyang to secure King’s release, if that happens at all. “The only thing that’s certain for now is that North Korea will handle King entirely the way it wants to, 100%,” said Park. He also believes it’s likely that North Korea will seek ways to use King for propaganda and diplomatic leverage.

“When an American goes into North Korea, they usually are used for political purposes, regardless of whether they want it or not,” he said.
…

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA — A pink phone. A New York mission. Swedish diplomats. A North-South Korean hotline.

The United States and reclusive North Korea have no diplomatic ties — but they still have ways to contact each other. An American official said Wednesday that the U.S. government had reached out to the North as it tries to discuss a U.S. soldier who dashed into North Korea during a tour of a border area this week. The North has not yet responded, according to the U.S.

Here’s a look at possible channels the rivals could use to discuss Pvt. Travis King, the first American held in North Korea in nearly five years.

Pink phone

One of the most reliable ways for the U.S. to reach North Korea is via a light pink touch-tone phone at the U.S.-led U.N. Command at the Korean border village of Panmunjom, the place where King bolted into the North on Tuesday. The telephone line connects the liaison officers from each side — whose offices are reportedly only 40 meters apart.

State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said Wednesday that the Pentagon reached out to its counterparts in the North’s Korean People’s Army but “those communications have not yet been answered.”

Miller didn’t elaborate. But observers say the U.S. likely used the “pink phone.”

In January, the U.N. Command tweeted that it had maintained “24/7/365” contact with the North’s army throughout 2022.

“Talking via the ‘pink phone,’ we passed 98 messages & held twice-daily line checks for timely & meaningful information exchange,” it said.

Moon Seong Mook, a retired South Korean brigadier general, said North Korean liaison officers appear to not be answering the calls made by the U.N. Command at the order of their higher-ups.

When North Korea previously suspended that telephone line, U.N. officers used a megaphone, Moon said.

The exact motive for King’s border crossing is unclear. He was convicted of assault in South Korea and could be discharged from the military.

New York mission

Miller said the U.S. retains a number of channels to send messages to North Korea.

One of those is North Korea’s mission to the U.N. in New York that has provided a back-channel negotiation option for the two countries, serving as a kind of substitute embassy since they don’t have embassies in each other’s capitals.

Despite the exchange of crude insults and threats of total destruction in 2017, the two countries used this “New York channel” to discuss the fate of Americans held in North Korea and the overall bilateral relationship. At the start of their second summit in Vietnam in 2019, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and then-President Donald Trump both supported the opening of a U.S. liaison office in Pyongyang, but the idea was shelved after their diplomacy broke down.

Swedish Embassy

Sweden, which does have relations with the North and an embassy in Pyongyang, has offered consular services for U.S. citizens, including those who had been detained in North Korea on charges of illegally entering the country or engaging in espionage acts.

Miller said State Department officials have reached out to Sweden on King’s case.

But a mediator role for Sweden could be complicated by the fact that its diplomats based in Pyongyang reportedly haven’t returned to the North since leaving the country due to its severe COVID-19 restrictions in 2020. Still, experts say the North’s embassy in Sweden could be a channel for communications.

Other hotlines

The rival Koreas have a set of phone and fax channels of their own to set up meetings, arrange border crossings and avoid accidental military clashes. But North Korea has been unresponsive to South Korean attempts to exchange messages via those channels since April at a time of heightened animosities over the North’s nuclear program.

Kim Yeol Soo, an expert at South Korea’s Korea Institute for Military Affairs, said communication could happen via a hotline between the two Koreas’ spy agencies. That line was reportedly previously active when others stalled. South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said Thursday that Seoul and Washington were in contact, without elaborating.

Prospects

Kim, the expert, said North Korea won’t respond to the U.S. outreach until it completes its investigation of King, and that will likely take at least two weeks. After the investigation, he said that a protracted negotiation between the U.S. State Department and the North Korean Foreign Ministry is expected.

While King’s custody could provide North Korea with a tool to wrest diplomatic concessions from the U.S., the country would also find it difficult to detain a low-ranking solider without much high-profile intelligence on the U.S. for an extended period, Moon said.

“If he expresses his hopes to return home, it would be burdensome for North Korea to hold him but they would still try to reach a deal with the U.S. to get what it wants,” Moon, now an analyst with the Seoul-based Korea Research Institute for National Strategy, said.

In the past, North Korea released U.S. civilian detainees after high-profile Americans such as former presidents travelled to Pyongyang to win their freedoms. Kim said similar steps could be required in King’s case.

King’s entry to North Korea is an embarrassment to the U.S., said Chun In-bum, a retired lieutenant general who commanded South Korea’s special forces, noting that it came the same day that the United States took major steps toward boosting its security commitment to South Korea. It deployed a nuclear-armed submarine to South Korea for the first time in four decades and held the inaugural meeting of a bilateral nuclear consultative body with South Korea. North Korea test-fired two missiles on Wednesday, apparently in response.

“The news of the nuclear submarine and the nuclear consultative body were both buried by him,” said Chun.
…

The United States and China appear no closer to easing mounting tensions despite a recent flurry of diplomatic activity ahead of upcoming trips by high-profile U.S. officials to the Indo-Pacific region.

Instead, officials from both countries in recent days have spoken publicly of showing strength while also lamenting the lack of progress in a variety of talks.

“Deterrence today is real, and deterrence is strong,” Ely Ratner, U.S. assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific security affairs, told lawmakers Thursday during a hearing focused on Washington’s China policy.

“The department is making historic progress toward a regional force posture that is more mobile, distributed, resilient and lethal,” Ratner said. “We have a U.S. military that is more capable, more distributed across the region, and more deeply integrated with our allies and partners.”

Speaking alongside Ratner, Daniel Kritenbrink, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, told lawmakers efforts are underway to ensure that competition between Washington and Beijing does not boil over into conflict.

“Intense competition requires intense diplomacy,” he said. “We are committed to managing this competition responsibly and to maintaining open lines of communication with the PRC [Peoples Republic of China].”

Three senior U.S. officials have made trips to China in recent weeks, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and climate envoy John Kerry.

And while not an official U.S. visit, former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger is in Beijing this week, meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The 100-year-old Kissinger is revered in China for the role he played in opening relations between Washington and Beijing in the 1970s.

But according to a statement from the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Xi’s message for Kissinger was one of caution.

“China and the United States are once again at the crossroads of where to go,” Xi said. “The two sides need to make new decisions.”

Xi’s words echoed warnings a day earlier by China’s ambassador to the U.S.

“This is, frankly speaking, a difficult time for China-U.S. relations,” Xie Feng said during a panel Wednesday at the Aspen Security Forum in Aspen, Colorado, describing the foundations of the relationship between the two countries as “still fragile.”

“There’s a Chinese saying that we will not make provocations, but we will not flinch from provocations,” Xie said, adding that when it comes to some of Washington’s recent actions, “The Chinese people cannot remain silent, and the Chinese government cannot sit idly by.”

Xie and other Chinese officials have pointed to Washington’s support for Taiwan, a self-ruled democracy that China claims as its own.

Washington’s long-standing policy has been to acknowledge Beijing’s claims but not endorse them. But U.S. military and political support for Taiwan, including a trip by then-U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi last August, have rankled Chinese officials.

“The first and foremost thing we should bear in mind is that Taiwan is China’s Taiwan,” Xie said Wednesday in Aspen, warning that the actions of those he described as “Taiwan separatists” cannot be tolerated.

“This is a very dangerous path they are taking,” he said. “The priority for us is to stop [Taiwanese Vice President William Lai] from visiting the United States, which is like a great rhino charging at us.”

Xie repeated Chinese government assertions that “no one is more eager or sincere than China to see a peaceful solution … to see a peaceful reunification” of China and Taiwan. But U.S. military and intelligence officials have their doubts.

“President Xi [Jinping] said he wants to be ready by 2027” to take Taiwan by force, U.S. Admiral John Aquilino, the commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, said earlier this week in Aspen.

“We certainly ought to be ready before then if we’re doing our jobs,” Aquilino added. “With what we have today, I’m confident that they would fail.”

But Aquilino and other military officials warn China’s rapid military modernization and expansion has been “second to none,” with Beijing also growing bolder in how it uses its military might.

That combination, along with China’s refusal to talk with U.S. military and defense officials, has Washington concerned.

“Military to military communication remained closed, and that’s unfortunate,” John Kirby, director of strategic communications for the National Security Council, told VOA on Thursday.

“You want to be able to pick up the phone and talk to your opposite and try to take the tensions down, and to avoid miscalculation,” he said. “When you have that kind of military hardware sailing so close together, flying so close together, the potential for miscalculation and risk only shoot up if you can’t talk to one another.”

In the meantime, top U.S. officials will continue their outreach to allies in the Indo-Pacific, many of whom are likewise concerned about Beijing’s behavior.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Blinken are set to visit with key allies in the region, including Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea, starting next week, hoping to further cement security arrangements aimed at curtailing China’s influence.

Austin’s visit to Papua New Guinea, building on a recently signed defense cooperation agreement, will be the first-ever by a sitting U.S. defense secretary, underscoring the importance of such alliances.

Other allies are also pushing for more U.S. help, citing growing pressure from China.

“We don’t look at them as friendly,” Palau President Surangel W. Whipps Jr. said earlier this week of repeated Chinese incursions into his country’s territorial waters.

“It looks like they have other intentions,” he said, in response to a question from VOA. “I think it’s time for some [U.S.] destroyers to show up and say, ‘What are you doing in our waters?’”

VOA congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson, White House correspondent Anita Powell and State Department Bureau Chief Nike Ching contributed to this report. 
…

The United States will add eight new fields of study for international students looking to acquire practical work experience in the country, the Department of Homeland Security announced last week.

The eight new fields of study include: landscape architecture; institutional research; mechatronics, robotics and automation engineering technology/technician; composite materials technology/technician; linguistics and computer science; developmental and adolescent psychology; geospatial intelligence; and demography and population studies.

The new fields will all be added to the science, technology, engineering, mathematics Optional Practical Training, or STEM OPT, program. Announced in a July 12 Federal Register notice, the additions will provide international students with more opportunities to temporarily work in the United States.

This is the latest move intended to attract more foreign STEM students to the United States.

Early last year, the Biden administration added 22 fields of study to the STEM OPT program.

“STEM innovation allows us to solve the complex challenges we face today and make a difference in how we secure and protect our country,” Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in announcing the 2022 expansion. “Through STEM education and training opportunities, DHS is expanding the number and diversity of students who excel in STEM education and contribute to the U.S. economy.”

DHS received nominations for 120 fields, from which eight were selected and announced last week.

Through OPT, international students on an F-1 visa can gain experience in their area of study during or following the completion of their degree.

More than 200,000 international students used the program to gain work experience in the United States during the 2020-21 academic year.

The program usually lets students work for up to one year, but certain STEM students can extend that for an additional two years.

Boundless, a firm that helps people immigrate to the U.S., hailed the latest STEM expansion.

“As the world becomes increasingly interconnected, initiatives like STEM OPT play a crucial role in promoting innovation, economic growth and cultural exchange,” the Seattle-based company said in a recent statement. “By expanding access to practical training, the U.S. signals a commitment to fostering a diverse and globally connected workforce.”
…

The labor movement in the United States is having an unusually active moment, with as many as four high-profile strikes possible and a level of coordination among separate unions that experts say has been lacking in recent years. 

In May, the Writers Guild of America, which represents film and television screenwriters, went on strike, followed last week by the Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA). The combination of the two has brought production of film and television programs in the U.S. to a near-complete halt. 

While labor action in Hollywood has garnered plenty of headlines, its day-to-day impact on average Americans has been limited. That will not be the case if two other major unions, both in contract negotiations right now, wind up on the picket lines. 

The United Auto Workers union (UAW) is negotiating with automakers General Motors, Ford and Stellantis — the so-called Big Three — to try to avert a strike that could result in hundreds of thousands of autoworkers walking off the job. At the same time, the Teamsters union is in discussions with shipping giant United Parcel Service over its contract with delivery drivers. A strike by either or both would be deeply felt across the U.S. 

Changing atmosphere 

The labor movement in the United States has been in a period of protracted decline for several decades. In the mid-20th century, fully one-third of U.S. workers belonged to unions, and it was not uncommon in any given year to see thousands of strikes, with workers in the millions across multiple industries walking off the job for some period of time. 

In 1974, at the peak of labor job actions, the federal government counted 6,074 individual strikes across the country, according to data gathered by Judith Stepan-Norris and Jasmine Kerrissey for their recent book, Union Booms and Busts: The Ongoing Fight Over the U.S. Labor Movement. 

That began to decline in the 1980s, as legal protections for employers became stronger and the courts became less friendly to labor. Strikes increasingly ended with little or no benefits for the workers involved, while many lost a major source of income for the duration of their work stoppages. Union membership fell, and by 2014, the U.S. saw only 68 strikes in total. Today, union members make up only about 6% of working Americans.

Possible turnaround 

Stepan-Norris, an emerita professor of sociology at the University of California-Irvine, told VOA there are multiple factors that appear to be animating the movement in 2023. She said the coronavirus pandemic and a trend of people leaving the workforce, called by many the “Great Resignation,” changed the dynamic significantly.  

“That gave workers more power. You had more of a strong labor market with low unemployment,” Stepan-Norris said.  

In addition, she said, they have had the example of some recent successful strikes. Last year, for example, academic workers led a massive strike against the University of California system, which resulted in major concessions in workers’ favor.  

“Other workers are looking around and seeing that these strikes are starting to show some progress for people, and so other workers are getting a taste that they can do it, too,” she said. “Not to say that any of these new strikes are directly related to that — it’s just sort of the atmosphere [of success] that surrounds them.” 

Horizontal solidarity 

Susan Schurman, who teaches labor studies and employment relations at Rutgers University, told VOA that in recent labor actions, she has seen a dynamic at play that has not been present recently: cross-union cooperation. 

“The last time the Writers Guild went on strike, SAG-AFTRA didn’t even show up,” Schurman said. “This time, I went to a couple of rallies in New York and the stage actors — Actors Equity —  were there. The stagehands [the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees] were there. The Teamsters were there. The Communication Workers [of America] were there. The building trades were there.  

“We call this ‘horizontal labor solidarity’ across unions,” Schurman said. “This is when labor really makes gains. It’s important that you have what we call ‘vertical solidarity,’ within your own union. You have to have that in order to engage in a strike. But it’s not enough. You have to have the support of other unions.” 

Horizontal solidarity was commonplace in the mid-20th century, she said, but has not been a notable factor in labor job actions in several decades.  

“We have not seen that, like we’re seeing this summer, in a very long time,” she said.

Autoworkers dispute 

The UAW has a long history of striking in order to achieve better contracts for its members, and the current contracts with GM, Ford and Stellantis are all scheduled to expire in September. 

Shawn Fain, the leader of the UAW, announced last week that his 160,000 members are prepared to put down their tools and that blame for any work stoppage will lie with the companies’ management. 

“If the Big Three don’t give us our fair share, then they’re choosing to strike themselves, and we’re not afraid to take action,” he told reporters last week. 

In a sign of how acrimonious the discussions have become, Fain broke with tradition and refused to meet company executives for a public handshake as negotiations got under way, as other UAW leaders have done in the past.  

The automakers themselves have said they want to reach a deal but point out that they are trying to remake their companies for a world in which electric vehicles are expected to replace many of the gasoline-powered cars and trucks they currently produce. They warn that the transition will lead to inevitable disruption for their workforce. 

Teamsters and UPS 

The Teamsters union represents 340,000 UPS workers poised to strike on August 1. The contract negotiations, which broke down in early July and restarted just this week, are focused on compensation for workers. 

One key point is that as the job market has tightened over the past year, the company has been forced to raise the starting salaries it offers in order to attract more workers. However, it did not also raise the wages of many of its more experienced workers. This means that some UPS employees with years of seniority are earning wages equivalent to those of new hires. 

A strike by UPS workers could be damaging economically, with the think tank Anderson Economic Group estimating that a 10-day stoppage would cost upward of $7 billion when workers’ lost pay, the company’s lost profits and damage to UPS customers are combined. 

In a statement that accompanied the announcement that it would return to the bargaining table, the delivery company emphasized the need for a prompt resolution to the problem. 

“We are prepared to increase our industry-leading pay and benefits, but need to work quickly to finalize a fair deal that provides certainty for our customers, our employees and businesses across the country,” it said.
…

A U.S. watchdog says it has disclosed to Congress information about diversion and control of international humanitarian assistance by de facto Taliban authorities in Afghanistan.

“We have just uncovered, as part of our response to the House Foreign Relations Committee, some really horrific information about the problems with the U.N. operations in Afghanistan,” John Sopko, Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), told an event at King’s College London on Thursday.

Sopko did not offer more details about his findings saying the foreign relations committee had tasked SIGAR to investigate and report to it whether U.S. aid to Afghanistan benefited the Taliban.

“A lot of congressmen are torn in this conundrum between giving humanitarian assistance to Afghans who are suffering versus how much of that [aid] is going to a regime which we hate,” said Sopko.

United Nations officials have not yet responded to VOA questions sent Thursday about what they know about diverted aid.

The Taliban are under U.S. sanctions that date back decades when the group was first in power over much of Afghanistan in the 1990s.

After spending over $146 billion on reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan between 2002 and 2022, the United States government suspended all development aid to the country following Taliban’s return to power in August 2021.

The Taliban deny they are interfering in humanitarian programs and accuse the U.S. and other Western donors of politicizing aid to Afghanistan.

However, the Islamist regime has imposed gender-based restrictions on aid activities denying Afghan women’s work for the U.N. and other non-government organizations – a move globally condemned as misogynistic.

Meanwhile, the U.N. says there continue to be many incidents of interference involving U.N. aid workers.

“118 gender-related incidents were recorded, with some 97 percent attributed to the de facto authorities and involving, inter alia, interference with programming, incidents at checkpoints, threats against humanitarian workers, assets and facilities, and mahrams [male escorts] required for movement of female staff,” the U.N. Special Representative for Afghanistan reported to the Security Council last month.

The U.N. has reported progress in reducing risks of fraud and diversion of funds in Afghanistan but has not given more details.

Robust funding

The United States, even while enforcing sanctions on the Taliban, has maintained humanitarian funding to Afghanistan amounting to about $2 billion since August 2021.

Despite a reported drop in donors’ response to the U.N. humanitarian appeal for Afghanistan, the United States remains at the top of the donors’ list with over $336 million contribution so far this year. Last year, the United States contributed over $1.26 billion to the U.N. appeal.

As of July 20, only 23% of this year’s Afghanistan appeal has been funded, according to the U.N.

Aid agencies have warned that a lack of funding to the appeal will force millions of vulnerable Afghan households into extreme poverty.

Citing North Korea and Syria, among other countries, John Sopko said in the past “we in the United States held our nose and delivered assistance to people around the world who live under governments we hate.”

Last month, the U.S. Department of States announced an additional $920 million in humanitarian assistance for the people of Syria taking the total U.S. assistance to the country since 2011 to $16.8 billion.

SIGAR said a new proposed draft law, which was passed by the House and under consideration by the Senate, will prohibit any U.S. assistance going “directly or indirectly” to the Taliban. Sopko predicted the bill, if passed, would have “serious implications” for aid to Afghanistan.
…

The Biden administration says it will do “everything we can” to bring home Private 2nd Class Travis King, the junior soldier crossed into North Korea earlier this week “willfully and without authorization.” 

John Kirby, director of strategic communications for the National Security Council, told VOA on Thursday that American officials have not had a chance to communicate with the 23-year-old soldier, who crossed the demilitarized zone earlier this week.

Kirby also expressed concerns about political infighting in Congress that has delayed passage of the National Defense Authorization Act, about concerns over Moscow’s pullout from the deal that allowed grain shipments to leave ports in the Black Sea, and about the continued lack of direct communication between the militaries of the U.S. and China.

The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

VOA: Thank you for joining us this morning. Let’s start with the saga of Private Travis King. Do we have any updates on his condition, his motivations, his whereabouts, and have we heard any communication from Pyongyang? And is the administration committed to bringing him home even if that’s against his wishes?

Kirby: We don’t have any updates on Private King. We continue to conduct appropriate outreach to the North Korean side to try to gain some information and insight as to his whereabouts and his well being, but we just don’t know. And we are absolutely committed to working to getting him returned to his family. We don’t know the motivation here. We haven’t had a chance to talk to him. So we don’t know exactly what he’s thinking right now. But he’s an American soldier. And we’re going to do everything we can to try to find out where he is, how he is, and work to get him back home.

VOA: Let’s move on to Russia and the grain deal. Is the administration looking at any workarounds to get these essential supplies out of port? Things like NATO escorts, or reflagging vessels? How seriously does the administration take the threat from Russia’s defense ministry that it’s going to treat all vessels in that port as carrying military equipment?

Kirby: We have to take that ridiculous threat seriously. We are working and we will work with Ukraine and our allies and partners to try to find other ways to get the grain out of Ukraine. It’ll most likely have to go through ground routes. We’ve done this before [when] the grain deal was in effect. It’s not as efficient; you can’t get as much grain out that way. We understand that. But we’re going to keep trying. 

Look, what has to happen here is — aside from Russia ending its blockade and, make no mistake, what they’re threatening to do is a military blockade that is a military act, so aside from just not doing that — they need to get back into the deal. The deal was good for everybody including Russian farmers. But it was really good for developing nations who have food scarcity issues that are only going to be exacerbated by this throughout the Global South, Asia, Africa, and Latin America. 

VOA: Let’s move on to Russian President Vladimir Putin and Wagner mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin. First of all, the Kremlin has said Putin is not going to South Africa, which allows him to avoid getting arrested. Does the U.S. still encourage International Criminal Court signatories to arrest him if they have the opportunity? And does this change or improve the relationship between Washington and Pretoria now that there’s no longer this awkward situation between them?

Kirby: I’ll let the South African leaders speak for themselves. We believe it’s important that everyone responsible for the atrocities and war crimes in Ukraine to be held accountable and that includes Russian leaders who are responsible for the efforts of their troops on the ground in Ukraine.

VOA: We’ve seen Prigozhin resurface and say — allegedly — that Wagner troops are not willing to fight in Ukraine. What do you make of this? What are the implications?

Kirby: It’s too hard to know right now exactly how seriously we should take this or what the impacts on the battlefield will be. I will tell you that Wagner forces — we haven’t seen them fighting in Ukraine since Mr. Prigozhin attempted overthrow of the Ministry of Defense. It’s unclear exactly how many are in Ukraine, but we haven’t seen them contribute much to the fighting in Ukraine. So it’s just too soon to know.

VOA: Moving on to the Aspen Security Forum: China keeps coming up as the big concern. U.S. Admiral John C. Aquilino said that they’re still trying to reopen military-to-military communication with China. Can you update us on that effort and why it’s so important?

Kirby: Military-to-military communications remain closed. That’s unfortunate, especially when tensions are so high. You want to be able to pick up the phone and talk to your opposite. And try to take the tensions down and to avoid miscalculation when you have that kind of military hardware sailing so close together, flying so close together. The potential for miscalculation and risk only shoot up if you can’t talk to one another.

VOA: On Iran: in April the U.S. confiscated some Iranian oil from a tanker. Iran’s navy chief is very unhappy about this and says they’ll retaliate. Is the U.S. ready to engage militarily with Iran on this? And what are the rules of engagement?

Kirby: Nobody wants to see armed conflict in the Gulf region. That said, Iran’s attacks on maritime shipping have continued nearly unabated, some of them successful, some not, because we intervene. You saw that the Pentagon just recently announced some new force deployments to the Gulf region to make us more capable of deterring these kinds of attacks. And we urge the Iranian regime to stop these destabilizing behaviors. In the meantime, we’re going to make sure we’ve got the capabilities that we need and our allies and partners have had the assurance that the United States has the capability that it needs to continue to defend ourselves and in our interests.

VOA: Last week, you told us about a mass grave in Sudan. Does this return of ethnically tinged violence at the hands of the Rapid Support Forces change the U.S. position on who to support in this conflict?

Kirby: We’re supporting the people of Sudan. Make no mistake about it. And you saw us issue sanctions against both sides. You saw us condemn this report of mass graves in West Darfur. We are on the side of the people of Sudan. That’s not going to change and we will continue to hold those accountable who are making it harder for the people of Sudan to live, to work and to achieve the kinds of civilian governance that they so desperately want.

VOA: My final question is about the National Defense Authorization Act. Earlier this week, you gave an impassioned argument for why the administration believes that reproductive care needs to be offered to service members and their families. Some right-wing media in the United States have taken your argument as justification for why women should be barred from the military. I understand that this is not a proposal that the White House or the Pentagon would take seriously. But can you remind us why diversity, equity and inclusion add to national security?

Kirby: Diversity adds to national security because it helps us make better decisions. Yes, there is a representational aspect of this. We are an all-volunteer force. And we need to recruit people from all walks of life in the United States and this is a diverse nation. Why wouldn’t you want your military to represent the very people they’re defending? But I have seen, myself, in almost 30 years of naval service, that when you have diverse people in the room, decisions are smarter, they’re more contextual, and the way we operate is better and more efficient and more effective to national defense. And that’s not something that President [Joe] Biden will ever walk away from.

VOA: Do you want to say anything else about the delay in the passage of the NDAA and the effect that it’s having on morale or national security? 

Kirby: The president looks forward to getting the NDAA legislation on his desk. He knows it’s going to look different when it gets to his desk than what it does right now. But it’s important that we do get an NDAA to the president’s desk as soon as possible so that the troops can have the resources that they need to continue to defend the nation. It is a national security issue.

VOA: Thank you so much for your commitment to our audience, John.

Kirby: It’s a pleasure. 
…

Chinese leader Xi Jinping told former top U.S. diplomat Henry Kissinger on Thursday that relations between the two countries are at a crossroads and both sides need to “make new decisions” that could result in stable ties and “joint success and prosperity.”

The 100-year-old Kissinger is revered in China for having engineered the opening of relations between the ruling Communist Party and Washington under former President Richard Nixon during the Cold War in the early 1970s.

Xi, who is head of state, party general secretary and commander of the world’s largest standing military, met with Kissinger in the relatively informal setting of Beijing’s park-like Diaoyutai State Guesthouse, with Chinese senior diplomat Wang Yi also in attendance.

“China and the United States are once again at the crossroads of where to go, and the two sides need to make new decisions,” Xi said, according to a statement released by the Chinese Foreign Ministry.

“Looking into the future, China and the United States can achieve joint success and prosperity,” Xi said.

Kissinger’s visit coincided with one by Biden’s top climate envoy, John Kerry, the third senior Biden administration official in recent weeks to travel to China for meetings following Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. The flurry of diplomacy aims to restore dialogue suspended by Beijing, mainly over U.S. support for the self-governing island democracy of Taiwan that China claims as its own territory.

Referring to Kissinger’s role in initiating China-U.S. relations while serving as national security adviser during the Nixon administration, Wang said he had played an “irreplaceable role in enhancing mutual understanding between the two countries.”

“The U.S. policy toward China requires the diplomatic wisdom like that of Kissinger and political courage like Nixon’s,” Wang said, according to the Foreign Ministry. Kissinger also served as secretary of state under Nixon.

The ministry said the two sides also discussed the war in Ukraine, in which China has largely sided with Moscow, as well as artificial intelligence and other economic issues. Wang told Kissinger that it was “impossible” to transform, encircle or contain China, which Chinese leaders say the U.S. is trying to do in disputes over trade, technology, Taiwan and China’s human rights record.

On Tuesday, Kissinger held talks with Defense Minister Li Shangfu, who is barred from visiting the U.S. over arms sales he oversaw with Russia.

China’s Defense Ministry quoted Li as praising the role Kissinger played in opening up China-U.S. relations in the early 1970s, but said bilateral ties had hit a low point because of “some people on the American side who are not willing to meet China halfway.”

U.S. leaders say they have no such intentions and only seek frank dialogue and fair competition.

China broke off many contacts with the Biden administration last August, including over climate issues, to show its anger with then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan. China claims the island as its own territory, to be brought under its control by force if necessary, threatening to draw the U.S. into a major conflict in a region crucial to the global economy.

Contacts have only slowly been restored and China continues to refuse to restart dialogue between the People’s Liberation Army, the party’s military branch, and the U.S. Department of Defense. Even before Pelosi’s visit, the U.S. says China declined or failed to respond to over a dozen requests from the Department of Defense for top-level dialogues since 2021.

The wave of U.S. diplomacy has yet to be reciprocated by China, which has its own list of concessions it wants from Washington. U.S. officials, including Kerry, have said they will not offer Beijing any such deals.

Kissinger did not meet with Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang, who has been out of public sight for more than three weeks. Despite speculation about political rivalries and personal scandals, the ministry has provided no information about his status in keeping with the party’s standard approach to personnel matters in a highly opaque political system in which the media and free speech are severely restricted.
…

A survey of Asian Americans released Wednesday found that more than three-fourths had a favorable view of the United States, while only 20% had a favorable view of China.

The Pew Research Center surveyed more than 7,000 Asian American adults between July 2022 and January 2023, with questions focused on views of their homelands and others in Asia. The respondents included those with Japanese, Korean, Taiwanese, Filipino, Vietnamese, Indian and Chinese ties.

When asked about their own homeland, only 41% of Chinese Americans said they had a very favorable or somewhat favorable view of China. Every other group surveyed had a majority with a favorable opinion about their homeland.

Among other Asian Americans, only 14% said they had a favorable view of China.

The Pew survey found that the longer a Chinese American had been in the United States, the less favorable their view of China. For those living in the United States for 10 years or less, 56% had a positive view compared to 38% for those in the United States for 21 or more years.

When asked if they would ever move to their ancestral homeland, Chinese Americans were the least likely to say yes with 16% signaling they would, compared to 28% for all other Asian Americans.

Economic power

A slight majority of those surveyed (53%) selected the United States as the country they thought would be the world’s top economic power in 10 years.

Taiwanese, Vietnamese and Korean respondents were the most bullish on U.S. prospects, with a gap of more than 30 percentage points between those who selected the United States and those who picked China.

The gap was tighter among Filipino, Chinese and Indian respondents, with the United States only ahead of China by about 13%.

Other findings

Each group viewed its homeland more favorably than any other country. Taiwanese Americans (95%), Japanese Americans (92%) and Korean Americans (86%) had the highest scores.

Filipino Americans were more than four times as likely to say they would consider moving to the Philippines if they were born there than if they were born in the United States. For those who expressed a willingness to move, the top selection for a reason (47%) was a lower cost of living.

The Pew survey found that Indian Americans were the most open to moving to their homeland with 33% saying they would consider doing so.

Among those who said they would, 52% said their reason for moving would be to live closer to family members.

Indian Americans also had the highest percentage of respondents (80%) saying they had a favorable view of the United States.

On the other end of the spectrum, 60% of Indian Americans viewed China negatively, compared to 10% who viewed it positively and 27% who selected neither. Among Indian Americans, no other country had more than 10% unfavorable scores.

While most other Asian Americans (68%) said they had a favorable opinion of Japan, just 36% of Korean American respondents said so. The Pew data showed U.S.-born Koreans (50%) had a more positive view of Japan than those born abroad (31%).

Overall, Vietnamese Americans were second only to China for the least number of respondents saying they had a favorable view of their homeland at 59%. Pew said there was more support among Vietnamese women, with two-thirds saying their view was favorable compared to about half of men.
…

A winning ticket has been sold in California for the Powerball jackpot worth an estimated $1.08 billion, the sixth largest in U.S. history and the third largest in the history of the game. 

The winning numbers for Wednesday night’s drawing were: white balls 7, 10, 11, 13, 24 and red Powerball 24. The California Lottery said on Twitter that the winning ticket was sold in Los Angeles at Las Palmitas Mini Market. 

Final ticket sales pushed the jackpot beyond its earlier estimate of $1 billion to $1.08 billion at the time of the drawing, moving it from the seventh largest to the sixth largest U.S lottery jackpot ever won. 

The winner can choose either the total jackpot paid out in yearly increments or a $558.1 million, one-time lump sum before taxes. 

The game’s abysmal odds of 1 in 292.2 million are designed to build big prizes that draw more players. The largest Powerball jackpot was $2.04 billion Powerball in November. 

The last time someone had won the Powerball jackpot was April 19 for a top prize of nearly $253 million. Since then, no one had won the grand prize. 

Powerball is played in 45 states, as well as Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. 
…

South Korean, US and Japanese leaders will meet in August in the United States, Seoul’s presidential office said Thursday, as the three nations increase military cooperation to counter North Korea’s growing nuclear threats. 

Relations between Pyongyang and Seoul are at one of their lowest points ever, with diplomacy stalled and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un calling for increased weapons development, including tactical nukes. 

In response, President Yoon Suk Yeol has pulled South Korea closer to long-standing ally Washington, and even sought to bury the hatchet with former colonial power Japan in a bid to contain North Korea. 

In April, Seoul and Washington said that if Pyongyang ever used its nuclear weapons against the allies, it would face a nuclear reaction and the “end” of its regime.   

“The Korea-US-Japan trilateral summit is scheduled to be held in the United States in August,” Seoul’s presidential office said Thursday, adding the specific date and location would be “announced later.” 

The Yonhap News Agency reported the meeting will take place on August 18 at Camp David near Washington, citing unnamed sources. 

The announcement comes days after Seoul and Washington held their first Nuclear Consultative Group meeting in the South Korean capital.  

On Tuesday, a nuclear-armed American submarine made a port visit to Busan for the first time since 1981.   

Pyongyang last week said it had successfully tested the Hwasong-18, its new solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile, for the second time. 

Analysts say the tests represent a major breakthrough for North Korea’s banned weapons programs. 

The announcement also comes as Washington confirmed Tuesday that a US soldier — who had been jailed in the South on assault charges — is believed to have been detained by North Korea after crossing the border. 

Pyongyang has a long history of detaining Americans and using them as bargaining chips.  
…

Messi mania has descended on Florida with the arrival of Lionel Messi to play for local team Inter Miami. Many fans say they hope a player of his stature will signal a new era for U.S. soccer. Verónica Villafañe narrates this story from reporters Antoni Belchi and José Pernalete in Miami.
Camera: Antoni Belchi and José Pernalete
…

The U.S. State Department added nearly 40 people from El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua, including former presidents and judges, to a list published Wednesday of “corrupt and undemocratic actors.”

Two former Salvadoran presidents — Mauricio Funes, who served from 2009 to 2014, and his successor, Salvador Sanchez, whom Washington links to corruption, money laundering and embezzlement of public funds — were added to the list.

Funes and Sanchez, who both faced legal proceedings in El Salvador, now live in Nicaragua and cannot be extradited after receiving citizenship from the government of President Daniel Ortega.

“Corruption, a root cause of irregular migration, harms our national security,” said Brian Nichols, assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, as he presented the report.

Guatemalan targets include Fredy Orellana, the judge who ordered the suspension of an anti-graft party after its presidential candidate, Bernardo Arevalo, garnered enough votes to take part in an August 20 presidential runoff.

The so-called Engel list also features judges and prosecutors accused of persecuting journalists in Guatemala.

Meanwhile, Guatemala’s government rejected the accusations on Wednesday, labeling the report, “used by the United States to impose its jurisdiction on people abroad, as despicable.”

It includes ex-officials from the government of former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, who was extradited to the United States over drug trafficking links.

Politicians from Honduras’ opposition Liberal Party also appear, including Liberal leader Yani Rosenthal, previously convicted of money laundering in the United States. Rosenthal responded in a tweet that he “categorically rejects the unfounded accusations made in the list.”

The Nicaraguan section includes all of the country’s parliamentary leaders, barring its president, whom Washington has already sanctioned, and several judges and directors of Nicaragua’s money-laundering watchdog.
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Israel said that beginning on Thursday it will allow entry to all U.S. citizens, including Palestinian Americans living in the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip, in a policy change it hopes will secure visa-free access for Israelis to the United States.

Washington has blocked Israel’s long-standing bid to join the U.S. Visa Waiver Program over differential treatment for some U.S. citizens, and officials said the U.S. will monitor the implementation of the changes over a six-week period.

An Israeli statement late on Wednesday quoted its national security adviser, Tzachi Hanegbi, as saying that U.S. Ambassador Thomas Nides and Israeli Ambassador Michael Herzog signed what the statement called a reciprocity agreement.

“The full implementation of the program will apply to any U.S. citizen, including those with dual citizenship, American residents of Judea and Samaria [the occupied West Bank] and American residents of the Gaza Strip,” the statement said.

U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said Washington expects the changes to “ensure equal treatment for all U.S. citizen travelers without regard to national origin, religion or ethnicity.”

The U.S. government would decide whether Israel should be admitted to the VWP by September 30, Miller said.

U.S. ties with its closest Middle East ally have been strained over policies toward the Palestinians of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hard-right government and its plan to overhaul the judiciary, which critics see as anti-democratic.

The VWP issue was raised when U.S. President Joe Biden hosted Israeli President Isaac Herzog in the White House on Tuesday, a source briefed on the meeting said.

Reuters first reported on the planned commitment early on Wednesday.

Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said last month that the trial, which he called a pilot program, was planned for mid-July. Sources who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue also described it as a trial.

Under the trial, Palestinian Americans from the West Bank would be able to fly in and out of Israel’s Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv. Previously they would generally fly to neighboring Jordan, cross into the West Bank by land and face restrictions if seeking to enter Israel.

They would also be able to begin using new online Israeli forms to apply for entry to Israel at West Bank crossing points as U.S. tourists, the sources said.

A Biden administration official who briefed reporters said Palestinian Americans residing in the West Bank or Gaza crossing into Israel would receive entry permits that allowed them to enter for up to 90 days.

“We want to make sure that they are in compliance with our standards and our processes,” the official said of Israel, adding that Israelis would not have visa-free access to the United States during the six-week monitoring period.

The official declined to detail how Washington would monitor implementation, but sources said a State Department and Homeland Security Department delegation was to observe operations during the trial, with visits to Ben Gurion and to crossings between the West Bank and Israel.

The Arab American Institute Foundation puts the number of Americans of Palestinian descent at between 122,500 and 220,000. A U.S. official estimated that of that number, between 45,000 and 60,000 were residents of the West Bank.

An Israeli official gave lower figures, saying that out of 70,000 to 90,000 Palestinian Americans worldwide, about 15,000 to 20,000 were West Bank residents.
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Italy put 23 cities on red alert as it reckoned with another day of scorching temperatures Wednesday, with no sign of relief from the wave of extreme heat, wildfires and flooding that has wreaked havoc from the United States to China.

The heat wave has hit southern Europe during the peak summer tourist season, breaking records – including in Rome – and bringing warnings about an increased risk of deaths.

Wildfires burned for a third day west of the Greek capital, Athens, and firefighters raced to keep flames away from coastal refineries.

Fanned by erratic winds, the fires have gutted dozens of homes, forced hundreds of people to flee and blanketed the area in thick smoke. Temperatures could climb to 109 Fahrenheit on Thursday, forecasters said.

Extreme weather was also disrupting life for millions of Americans. A dangerous heat wave was holding an area stretching from Southern California to the Deep South in its grip, bringing the city of Phoenix its 20th straight day with temperatures of 110 degrees Fahrenheit or higher.

Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Calvin lashed Hawaii, raising the potential for flash flooding and dangerous surf on the Big Island.

In Texas, at least nine inmates in prisons without air conditioning have suffered fatal heart attacks during the extreme heat this summer, the Texas Tribune newspaper reported.

Another 14 have died of unknown causes during periods of extreme heat.

A Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesperson said preliminary findings of the deaths indicate that heat was not a factor in the fatalities. Nearly 70 of the 100 prisons in Texas are not fully air-conditioned.

Temperatures soar in China, Italy

In China, which was hosting U.S. climate envoy John Kerry for talks, tourists defied the heat to visit a giant thermometer showing surface temperatures of 80 Celsius (176 Fahrenheit).

In Beijing, which set a record as temperatures remained above 95 Fahrenheit for the 28th consecutive day, Kerry expressed hope that cooperation to combat global warming could redefine troubled ties between the two superpowers, both among the top polluters.

Temperatures remained high across much of Italy on Wednesday, where the health ministry said it would activate an information hotline and teams of mobile health workers visited the elderly in Rome.

“These people are afraid they won’t make it, they are afraid they can’t go out,” said Claudio Consoli, a doctor and director of a health unit.

Carmaker Stellantis said it was monitoring the situation at its Pomigliano plant near Naples on Wednesday, after temporarily halting work on one production line the day before when temperatures peaked.

Workers at battery-maker Magneti Marelli threatened an eight-hour strike at their central Italian plant in Sulmona. A joint statement by the unions said that “asphyxiating heat is putting at risk the lives of workers.”

While the heat wave appears to be subsiding in Spain, residents in Greece were left surveying the wreckage of their homes after the wildfires.

Scientists have long warned that climate change, caused by greenhouse gas emissions mainly from burning fossil fuels, will make heat waves more frequent, severe and deadly and have called on governments to drastically reduce emissions.

In Germany, the heat wave sparked a discussion on whether workplaces should introduce siestas for workers.

Heat and floods in Asia

In South Korea, heavy rain has pummeled central and southern regions since last week. Fourteen deaths occurred in an underpass in the city of Cheongju, where more than a dozen vehicles were submerged on Saturday when a river levee collapsed. In the southeastern province of North Gyeongsang, 22 people died, many from landslides and swirling torrents.

In northern India, flash floods, landslides and accidents related to heavy rainfall have killed more than 100 people since the onset of the monsoon season on June 1, where rainfall is 41% above average.

The Yamuna River reached the compound walls of the Taj Mahal in Agra for the first time in 45 years, submerging several other historical monuments, and flooded parts of the Indian capital.

The Brahmaputra River, which runs through India’s Assam state, burst its banks this month, engulfing almost half of the Kaziranga National Park – home to the rare one-horned rhino – in waist-deep water.

A wall collapse from monsoon rains killed at least 11 construction workers in neighboring Pakistan.

Iraq’s southern Basra governorate, with a population of around 4 million, said government work would be suspended on Thursday as temperatures hit 122 Fahrenheit. In Iraq’s northern city of Mosul, farmers said crops were failing because of heat and drought.

The unprecedented temperatures have added new urgency for nations around the globe to tackle climate change. With the world’s two biggest economies at odds over issues ranging from trade to Taiwan, Kerry told Chinese Vice President Han Zheng on Wednesday that climate change must be handled separately from broader diplomatic issues.

“It is a universal threat to everybody on the planet and requires the largest nations in the world, the largest economies in the world, the largest emitters in the world, to come together in order to do work not just for ourselves, but for all mankind,” Kerry told Han.
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People who have a particular genetic variant are twice as likely to never feel sick when they contract COVID-19, researchers said Wednesday, offering the first potential explanation for the lucky group dubbed the “super dodgers.”

Those who have two copies of the variant are eight times more likely to never get any symptoms from COVID-19, according to the study in the journal Nature.

Previous research has suggested that at least 20% of the millions of infections during the pandemic were asymptomatic. To find out what could be behind these cases, researchers took advantage of a database of volunteer bone marrow donors in the United States.

The database included each person’s type of human leukocyte antigen (HLA), which are molecules on the surface of most cells in the body. The immune system uses HLA to see which cells belong in the body, and they are thought to play a key role in the response to viral infections.

Subjects self-reported symptoms

The researchers had nearly 30,000 people on the bone marrow registry self-report their COVID tests and symptoms on a mobile phone app.

More than 1,400 unvaccinated people tested positive for COVID between February 2020 and late April 2021, the study said. Out of that group, 136 saw no symptoms two weeks before and after testing positive. 

One in five of that group carried at least one copy of an HLA variant called HLA-B*15:01.

Those fortunate enough to have two copies of the gene, one from their mother and one from their father, were more than eight times more likely to be asymptomatic from COVID-91 than other people, the study said.

To find out why this was the case, the team carried out separate research looking at T cells, which protect the body from infections, in people who carried the variant. The researchers specifically looked at how T cells remembered viruses they had previously encountered.

This meant they were “armed and ready for attack when they encounter the same pathogen again,” said Jill Hollenbach of the University of California, San Francisco, who was the study’s lead researcher.

When people with the HLA variant were exposed to the coronavirus, their T cells were particularly primed for battle because they remembered similar cold viruses they had previously fended off.

Children often spared the worst

This theory — that recent exposure to colds and other coronaviruses could lead to fewer COVID symptoms — has previously been proposed to explain why children have often been spared the worst of COVID.

“Anyone that has ever been a parent knows that kids are snotty-nosed for five or six years, so I think that’s a really reasonable thing to speculate might be happening,” Hollenbach said.

She said the HLA variant was likely just one piece of the genetic puzzle behind asymptomatic COVID.

The researchers hope that studying the immune response to COVID could lead to new treatments or vaccines in the future. Hollenbach said one interesting idea was a vaccine that prevents COVID symptoms, as opposed to infection, which could potentially last longer than the currently available vaccines.

The researchers warned that most of the study’s participants were white, which could limit the findings for other groups, and that it covered an earlier period of the pandemic and did not include re-infections.
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