Tag: InternationalNews

{{ The head of U.S. air forces in the Pacific said on Monday that Russia’s intervention in Ukraine had been accompanied by a significant increase in Russian air activity in the Asia-Pacific region in a show of strength and to gather intelligence.

General Herbert “Hawk” Carlisle said the activity had included Russian flights to the coast of California, and around the U.S. Pacific island of Guam.

Carlisle said the number of long-range Russian patrols around the Japanese islands and Korea had increased “drastically.” He said there had also been “a lot more ship activity as well.”}}

Speaking at Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank, Carlisle showed a slide of a U.S. F-15 fighter jet intercepting a Russian “Bear” aircraft over Guam. He used the Cold War NATO name for Russia’s Tupolov Tu-95 strategic bomber.

“Certainly what’s going on in Ukraine and Crimea is a challenge for us and it’s a challenge for us in Asia Pacific as well as Europe,” Carlisle said.

He said there had been “a significant” increase in Russian activity in the Asia Pacific “and we relate a lot of that to what’s going on in the Ukraine.”

“They’ve come with their long-range aviation out to the coast of California, they’ve circumnavigated Guam,” he said.

“That’s to demonstrate their capability to do it, it’s to gather intel,” Carlisle said, adding that the surveillance had included observation of military exercises involving U.S. forces in South Korea and Japan.

{{The Vatican has told the United Nations that the Holy See’s powers to prosecute abusive priests do not extend beyond the tiny Vatican City state.}}

“The Holy See has no jurisdiction over every member of the Catholic Church,” Archbishop Silvano Tomasi said.

The archbishop, who is the papal envoy to the UN, was speaking in Geneva to the UN Committee against Torture.

Victims of clerical sex abuse argue that the Catholic Church has failed to protect children and shielded abusers.

They also argue that rape and molestation of children come under the terms of the UN Convention against Torture.

It is the second time this year that the Vatican is being scrutinised by the United Nations over its record in dealing with child sex abuse by priests.

Archbishop Tomasi said the Vatican could only apply the UN convention – which it signed in 2002 – inside Vatican City, which has a resident population of less than 1,000.

UN experts challenged that position, alleging it was an attempt to deflect criticism by using excessively legalistic arguments, media reports from Rome.

The Vatican will give its response on Tuesday.

{{Dozens of U.S. intelligence agents are involved in the Ukrainian government’s struggle against pro-Russian separatists in the country’s embattled southeast, Germany’s best-selling newspaper said.}}

In a report published Sunday, German tabloid Bild said Central Intelligence Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation officials are advising the interim Kiev government on how to stifle the growing unrest in the country.

Citing German security officials, the Bild report said there are currently dozens of U.S. secret services agents who have been tasked with helping the interim government of acting acting President Oleksandr Turchynov counter separatist rebellions in the country’s east, set up a security system and fight organized crime.

U.S. analysts have also reportedly been assigned with the specific task of tracking down the fortune of ousted Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, Bild said.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said Tuesday that the U.S. was determined to help Ukraine find billions of dollars it says were stolen by Yanukovych and his aides.

All U.S. agents in Ukraine are working from Kiev, with none of them on the ground in the eastern Ukrainian cities that have seen recent outbreaks of violence, Bild said.

The report was prominently cited by Russia’s main news outlets, as apparent confirmation of U.S. involvement in Ukraine, allegations that gained forced in mid April when CIA director John Brennan traveled to Kiev. The White House said at the time Brennan’s trip had been a routine visit.

Russia and the U.S. have been embroiled in back and forth accusations of having a hand in the ongoing conflict in Ukraine between pro-Russian and government forces, with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov openly blaming recent clashes in the Black Sea port city of Odessa on Kiev and the West.

“Kiev and its Western sponsors are practically provoking the bloodshed and bear direct responsibility for it,” RIA Novosti quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as telling reporters.

The Bild article appeared hours after a team of OSCE observers, among them four Germans, returned home after being held hostage for more than a week by separatists in the eastern Ukrainian city of Slovyansk.

{A woman pictured above holds a banner saying “The Kiev junta carries out the U.S. scenario” outside a town administration building in Kramatorsk, eastern Ukraine.}

{{A bridge has collapsed in southern China, killing 11 people, state media and officials say.

The stone arch bridge was being constructed illegally at a village in Gaozhou City, Guangdong province, the officials said.

It collapsed on Saturday, killing five people instantly, while six died later in hospital.

Authorities are investigating the incident. The contractor has been arrested, state media report.

The bridge was being built in Liangkengkou village in Gaozhou. Twenty-six people were trapped under the bridge when it collapsed, officials said.

Survivors were taken to hospital after being pulled from the rubble.

“I feel much better now. I could not even open my eyes when I was taken to hospital in Shenzhen township,” Qin Zechu, one of the survivors, said.

Government officials said the village had been ordered to stop building the bridge several times.

However, the village secretly restarted construction over the May Day holiday, which ran from Thursday to Saturday, they added.}}