MILWAUKEE — Introducing himself to the nation after being tapped as Donald Trump’s running mate, JD Vance is planning to use his Wednesday night address to the Republican National Convention to share the story of his hardscrabble upbringing and make the case that his party best understands the challenges facing struggling Americans.

The 39-year-old Ohio senator is a relative political unknown. In his first primetime speech since becoming the nominee for vice president, Vance is expected to talk about growing up poor in Kentucky and Ohio, his mother addicted to drugs and his father absent, and how he later went on to the highest levels of U.S. politics.

Vance, who rapidly morphed in recent years from a bitter critic of the former president to an aggressive defender, is positioned to become the future leader of the party and the torch-bearer of Trump’s “Make America Great Again” political movement, which has reshaped the Republican Party and broken longtime political norms. The first millennial to join the top of a major party ticket, he enters the race as questions about the age of the men at the top — 78-year-old Trump and 81-year-old Biden — have been high on the list of voters’ concerns.

Speaking earlier Wednesday, at his first fundraiser as Trump’s running mate, Vance said he will use the speech to highlight the contrast between Trump and Biden.

“The guy who actually connects with working people in this country is not Fake Scranton Joe, it’s Real President Donald Trump,” he said.

Vance was introduced at the fundraiser by Indiana Rep. Jim Banks, who said Trump’s decision to choose Vance wasn’t about picking a running mate or the next vice president.

“Donald Trump’s decision this week in picking JD Vance was about the future,” he said. “Donald Trump picked a man in JD Vance that is the future of the country, the future of the Republican Party, the future of the America First movement.”

Along with his relative youth, Vance is new to some of the hallmarks of Republican presidential politics: This year’s gathering is the first RNC that Vance has attended, according to a Trump campaign official who was not authorized to speak publicly.

Trump, who entered the arena to a version of the song “It’s a Man’s World” by James Brown and Luciano Pavarotti, will be watching from his family box.

Convention organizers had stressed a theme of unity, even before Trump survived an attempted assassination at a rally in Pennsylvania Saturday. Trump’s refusal to accept the results of the 2020 election and the subsequent attack on the U.S. Capitol, officials said, would be absent from the stage.

But that changed with former White House official Peter Navarro, who was greeted with enthusiastic cheers and a standing ovation hours after he was released from a Miami prison where he served four months for defying a subpoena from the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob of the former president’s supporter.

“If they can come for me, if they can come for Donald Trump, be careful. They will come for you,” he said in a fiery speech. He compared his legal troubles to those faced by Trump, who earlier this year was convicted on 34 felony charges in his criminal hush money trial. Trump is also facing two indictments for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

“They did not break me,” Navarro said, “and they will never break Donald Trump.”

Also spotted on the floor of the convention: Paul Manafort, Trump’s 2016 campaign chair, who was convicted as part of the investigation into Russia’s meddling in that election.

Vance is an Ivy League graduate and former businessman, but gained prominence following the publication of his bestselling 2016 memoir “Hillbilly Elegy,” which tells the story of his blue-collar roots. The book became a must-read for those seeking to understand the cultural forces that propelled Trump to the White House that year.

Still, most Americans — and Republicans — don’t know much about Vance. According to a new poll from the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, which was conducted before Trump selected the freshman senator as his choice, 6 in 10 Americans don’t know enough about him to have formed an opinion.

About 2 in 10 U.S. adults have a favorable view of him, and 22% view him negatively. Among Republicans, 61% don’t know enough to have an opinion of Vance. About one-quarter have a positive view of him, and roughly 1 in 10 have a negative one.

Vance will be introduced Wednesday night by his wife, Usha Chilukuri Vance. Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., who is a close friend of Vance, will also speak.

Beyond Vance’s prime-time speech, the Republican Party focused Wednesday on a theme of American global strength. Speakers were to include family members of service members killed during the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan and someone taken hostage during the Oct. 7 attack in Israel, according to a person familiar with the program.

Republicans contend that the country has become a “global laughingstock” under Biden’s watch. The party that was once home to defense hawks and neoconservatives has fully embraced Trump’s “America First” foreign policy that redefined relationships with allies and adversaries.

Democrats have sharply criticized Trump — and Vance — for their positions, including their questioning of U.S. support for Ukraine in its defense against Russia’s invasion.

In a video released Wednesday by Biden’s reelection campaign, Vice President Kamala Harris dismissed Vance as someone Trump “knew would be a rubber stamp for his extreme agenda.”

“Make no mistake: JD Vance will be loyal only to Trump, not to our country,” Harris says in a video.
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LOS ANGELES — A former Syrian military official who oversaw a prison where human rights officials say torture and abuse routinely took place has been arrested, authorities said Wednesday.

U.S. Department of Homeland Security agents took Samir Ousman al-Sheikh into custody last week at Los Angeles International Airport, said agency spokesperson Greg Hoegner.

The 72-year-old has been charged with immigration fraud, specifically that he denied on his U.S. visa and citizenship applications that he had ever persecuted anyone in Syria, according to a criminal complaint filed on July 9 and reviewed by The Associated Press. Investigators are considering additional charges against al-Sheikh, the complaint shows.

He was in charge of Syria’s infamous Adra Prison from 2005 to 2008 under President Bashar Assad. Human rights groups and United Nations officials have accused the Syrian government of widespread abuses in its detention facilities, including torture and arbitrary detention of thousands of people, in many cases without informing their families about their fate. Many remain missing and are presumed to have died or been executed.

“This is the highest-level Assad regime official arrested anywhere in the world. … This is a really big deal,” said Mouaz Moustafa, executive director of the Syrian Emergency Task Force, a U.S.-based opposition organization.

Moustafa said Wednesday that one of his staff members, a former Syrian detainee, was first tipped off in 2022 by a refugee that there was “potentially a war criminal” in the United States. His organization alerted several federal agencies and began working with them to build a case against al-Sheikh.

Al-Sheikh’s attorney, Peter Hardin, called it a “simple misunderstanding of immigration forms” that has been politicized and said al-Sheikh “finds himself being made a pawn caught up in a larger international struggle.”

“He vigorously denies these abhorrent accusations,” Hardin said.

Investigators interviewed five former inmates at the Syrian prison, who described being hanged by their arms from the ceiling, severely beaten with electrical cables, and witnessing other prisoners being branded by hot rods, according to court documents. One inmate described how guards broke his back.

According to the complaint, al-Sheikh, a resident of Los Angeles since 2020, stated in his citizenship application that he had “never persecuted (either directly or indirectly) any person because of race, religion, national origin, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion” and “never been involved in killing or trying to kill someone.” This was false, as al-Sheikh persecuted political dissidents and ordered the execution of prisoners while he was head of Adra, the complaint states.

He began his career working police command posts before transferring to Syria’s domestic intelligence agency, which focused on countering political dissent, the complaint says. He later became head of Adra Prison and brigadier general in 2005. He also served for one year as the governor of Deir Ez-Zour, a region northeast of the Syrian capital of Damascus, where there were violent crackdowns against protesters.

He had purchased a one-way plane ticket to depart LAX on July 10, en route to Beirut, Lebanon, which shares a border with Syria, according to the complaint. After his arrest, al-Sheikh made his first appearance in Los Angeles federal court last Friday. He has family in the United States, including a daughter living in the Los Angeles area, according to the Syrian Emergency Task Force.

Syria’s civil war, which has left nearly half a million people dead and displaced half the country’s prewar population of 23 million, began as peaceful protests against Assad’s government in March 2011.

Other players in the war, now in its 14th year, have also been accused of abuse of detainees, including insurgent groups and the U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, which guard suspected and convicted Islamic State members imprisoned in northeastern Syria.

In May, a French court sentenced three high-ranking Syrian officials in absentia to life in prison for complicity in war crimes in a landmark case against Assad’s regime and the first such case in Europe.

The court proceedings came as Assad had begun to shed his longtime status as a pariah because of the violence unleashed on his opponents. Human rights groups involved in the case hoped it would refocus attention on alleged atrocities.
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Washington — Russia and China are edging ever closer to unleashing space-based weapons, a decision that could have far-reaching implications for America’s ability to defend itself, U.S. military and intelligence agencies warn.

Adding to the concern, they say, is what appears to be a growing willingness by both countries to set aside long-running suspicions and animosity in order to gain an edge over the United States.

“I would highlight … the increasing amount in intent to use counterspace capabilities,” said Lieutenant General Jeff Kruse, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency.

“Both Russia and China view the use of space early on, even ahead of conflict, as important capabilities to deter or to compel behaviors,” Kruse told the annual Aspen Security Forum on Wednesday. “We just need to be ready.”

Concerns about the safety of space surged earlier this year when House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Turner called for the declassification of “all information” related to what was described as a new Russian anti-satellite capability involving nuclear weapons.

More recently, Turner has warned that the U.S. is “sleepwalking” into a disaster, saying that Russia is on the verge of being able to detonate a nuclear weapon in space, which would impose high costs on the U.S. military and economy.

The White House has responded repeatedly that U.S. officials have been aware of the Russian plans, and that Moscow has not yet deployed a space-based nuclear capability.

It is a stance that Kruse reaffirmed Wednesday, with added caution.

“We have been tracking for almost a decade Russia’s intent to design the ability to put a nuclear weapon in space,” he said. “They have progressed down to a point where we think they’re getting close.”

The Russians “don’t intend to slow down, and until there’s repercussions, will not slow down,” he said.

Russian and Chinese officials have yet to respond to VOA’s requests for reaction to the latest U.S. accusations, but both countries have repeatedly denied U.S. criticisms of their space policies.

In May, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov dismissed U.S. concerns about Moscow trying to put nuclear weapons in space as “fake news.”

But the Chinese Embassy in Washington, while admitting there are some “difficulties” when it comes to China-U.S. relations in space, rejected any suggestion Beijing is acting belligerently in space.

“China always advocates the peaceful use of outer space, opposes weaponizing space or an arms race in space and works actively toward the vision of building a community with a shared future for mankind in space,” spokesperson Liu Pengyu told VOA in an email.

“The U.S. has been weaving a narrative about the so-called threat posed by China in outer space in an attempt to justify its own military buildup to seek space hegemony,” Liu said. “It is just another illustration of how the U.S. clings on to the Cold War mentality and deflects responsibility.”

Despite Beijing’s public posture, the Defense Intelligence Agency’s Kruse suggested Wednesday that China’s rapid expansion into the space domain is just as worrisome.

“They’re in multiple orbits that they did not used to be before,” he told the audience in Aspen, Colorado, warning that Beijing has already invested heavily in directed energy weapons, electronic warfare capabilities and anti-satellite technology.

“China is the one country that more so even than the United States has a space doctrine, a space strategy, and they train and exercise the use of space and counterspace capabilities in a way that we just don’t see elsewhere,” he said.

The general in charge of U.S. Space Command described the Chinese threat in even starker terms.

“China is building a kill web, if you will, in space,” said General Stephen Whiting, speaking alongside Kruse at the Aspen conference. 

“In the last six years, they’ve tripled the number of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance satellites they have on orbit — hundreds and hundreds of satellites, again, purpose built and designed to find, fix, track target and, yes, potentially engage U.S. and allied forces across the Indo-Pacific,” he said.

Whiting also raised concerns about the lack of clear military communication with China about space.

“We want to have a way to talk to them about space safety as they put more satellites on orbit,” he said, “so that we can operate effectively and don’t have any miscommunication or unintended actions that cause a misunderstanding.”
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Amsterdam — The Netherlands commemorated on Wednesday the 298 victims of flight MH17 with a ceremony attended by the bereaved and representatives from Malaysia, Australia, Britain, Belgium and Ukraine.

Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was shot down over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014, as fighting raged between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian forces, the precursor of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

All 283 passengers and 15 crew on board, including 196 Dutch citizens, were killed, leaving the plane’s wreckage and the remains of the victims scattered across fields of corn and sunflowers.

Based on an international investigation, a Dutch court in 2022 said there was no doubt the plane was shot down by a Russian missile system and that Moscow had “overall control” of the forces of the separatist “Donetsk People’s Republic” in eastern Ukraine since May 2014. Russia denies any involvement.

During Wednesday’s ceremony, which took place at the MH17 monument in the village of Vijfhuizen near Amsterdam, loved ones read out loud the names of all the victims.

Mark Rutte, who was prime minister when the disaster happened and has been a strong critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin ever since, drew applause for his efforts during his time in office to keep the international spotlight on the incident.

The Dutch court convicted two former Russian intelligence agents and a Ukrainian separatist leader in absentia of murder for their role in the transport into eastern Ukraine of the Russian military BUK missile system used to down the plane.

“Justice requires a long, long breath,” said Prime Minister Dick Schoof, who took office earlier this month, adding that “a conviction is not the same as having someone behind bars.”  

Commemorating the victims in his nightly video message, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said: “There is no doubt that the judicial process and the overall work of international justice will inevitably lead to entirely fair sentences for all responsible for this crime.”

His foreign minster, Dmytro Kuleba, wrote on X that Russia had twice killed the victims. “First with a missile. Second, with lies that abused their memory and hurt their relatives.”  

Moscow denies any responsibility for MH17’s downing and in 2014 it also denied any presence in Ukraine. However, the EU’s outgoing foreign policy chief Josep Borrell on Tuesday called on Russia to finally accept its responsibility.

“The evidence presented makes it abundantly clear that the BUK surface-to-air missile system used to bring down Flight MH17 belonged beyond doubt to the armed forces of the Russian Federation,” Borrell said.

“No Russian disinformation operation can distract from these basic facts, established by a court of law.”
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London — Britain’s new Labour Party government promised to calm the country’s febrile politics and ease its cost-of-living crisis as it set out its plans for “national renewal” at the grand State Opening of Parliament on Wednesday.

Stabilizing the U.K.’s public finances and spurring economic growth were at the center of Prime Minister Keir Starmer ‘s legislative agenda, announced in a speech delivered by King Charles III.

“My government will seek a new partnership with both business and working people and help the country move on from the recent cost of living challenges by prioritizing wealth creation for all communities,” the king said in a speech to hundreds of lawmakers and scarlet-robed members of the House of Lords.

Starmer campaigned on a promise to bring bold change to Britain at modest cost to taxpayers. He aims to be both pro-worker and pro-business, in favor of vast new construction projects and protective of the environment. The risk is he may end up pleasing no one.

In a written introduction to the speech, Starmer urged patience, saying change would require “determined, patient work and serious solutions” rather than easy answers and “the snake oil charm of populism.”

The King’s Speech is the centerpiece of the State Opening, an occasion where royal pomp meets hard-nosed politics, as the king donned a diamond-studded crown, sat on a gilded throne and announced the laws his government intends to pass in the coming year.

Labour won a landslide election victory on July 4 as voters turned on the Conservatives after years of high inflation, ethics scandals and a revolving door of prime ministers. Starmer has promised to patch up the country’s aging infrastructure and frayed public services, but says he won’t raise personal taxes and insists change must be bound by “unbreakable fiscal rules.”

Wednesday’s speech included 40 bills – the Conservatives’ last speech had just 21 – ranging from housebuilding to nationalizing Britain’s railways and decarbonizing the nation’s power supply with a publicly-owned green energy firm, Great British Energy.

The government said it would “get Britain building,” setting up a National Wealth Fund and rewriting planning rules that stop new homes and infrastructure being built.

Economic measures included tighter rules governing corporations and a law to ensure all government budgets get advance independent scrutiny. That aims to avoid a repetition of the chaos sparked in 2022 by then-Prime Minister Liz Truss, whose package of uncosted tax cuts rocked the British economy and ended her brief term in office.

The government promised stronger protections for workers, with a ban on some”zero-hours” contracts and a higher minimum wage for many employees. Also announced were protections for renters against shoddy housing, sudden eviction and landlords who won’t let them have a pet.

The government promised more power for local governments and better bus and railway services – keys to the “levelling up” of Britain’s London-centric economy that former Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson promised but largely failed to deliver.

Though Starmer eschewed large-scale nationalization of industries, the government plans to take the delay-plagued train operators into public ownership.

The speech said the government “recognizes the urgency of the global climate challenge” — a change in tone from the Conservative government’s emphasis on oil and gas exploration. As well as increasing renewable energy, it pledged tougher penalties for water companies that dump sewage into rivers, lakes and seas.

The speech included new measures to strengthen border security, creating a beefed-up Border Security Command with counter-terrorism powers to tackle people-smuggling gangs.

It follows Starmer’s decision to scrap the Conservatives’ contentious and unrealized plan to send people arriving in the U.K. across the English Channel on a one-way trip to Rwanda.

The speech also tackled an issue that has foxed previous governments: reforming the House of Lords. The unelected upper chamber of Parliament is packed with almost 800 members – largely lifetime political appointees, with a smattering of judges, bishops and almost 100 hereditary aristocrats. The government said it would remove the hereditary nobles, though there was no mention of Starmer’s past proposal of setting a Lords retirement age of 80.

There was no mention of lowering the voting age from 18 to 16, though that was one of Labour’s election promises.

While much of Starmer’s agenda marks a break with the defeated Conservative government of former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, Starmer revived Sunak’s plan to stop future generations from smoking by gradually raising the minimum age for buying tobacco.

The speech confirmed that the government wants to “reset the relationship with European partners” roiled by Britain’s exit from the European Union in 2020. It said there would be no change to Britain’s strong support for Ukraine and promised to “play a leading role in providing Ukraine with a clear path to NATO membership.”

Wednesday’s address was the second such speech delivered by Charles since the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, in September 2022.

He traveled from Buckingham Palace to Parliament in a horse-drawn carriage – past a small group of anti-monarchy protesters with signs reading “Down with the Crown” – before donning ceremonial robes and the Imperial State Crown to deliver his speech. Police said 10 members of an environmental activist group were arrested near Parliament over alleged plans to disrupt the ceremony.

For all its royal trappings, it is the King’s Speech in name only. The words are written by government officials, and the monarch betrayed no flicker of emotion as he read them out.

“The king has zero agency in this,” said Jill Rutter, senior research fellow at the Institute for Government think tank.
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LONDON — The GMB union has failed to secure the right to formally represent workers at an Amazon warehouse in Coventry, central England, Amazon said on Wednesday.

The ballot result on union recognition is a blow for the U.K. trade union movement as victory in the ballot would have forced the U.S. e-commerce giant to negotiate labor terms with a U.K. union for the first time.

The Coventry workers have been involved in a dispute over pay and union recognition for more than a year and have carried out numerous strikes.

The GMB union has argued Amazon frustrated its recognition bid by recruiting hundreds of additional workers at the site so the union no longer had the numbers to make the ballot threshold.

Amazon’s treatment of workers has been in the spotlight for years. It has historically opposed unionization, saying its preference has been to resolve issues with employees directly rather than through unions.

However, in 2022, workers at its warehouse in Staten Island, New York, forced the company to recognize a trade union in the U.S. for the first time.

That was seen as key moment for the union movement. However, Amazon workers at two other New York warehouses and one in Alabama have since voted against unionizing.

Amazon does interact with unions in countries such as Germany and Italy. But that is largely because it is required to by government.

Amazon employs about 75,000 in the UK, making it one of the country’s top 10 private sector employers.

Britain’s new Labor government has promised to give workers more rights and unions more power.

It plans to update trade union legislation, removing restrictions on trade union activity and ensuring industrial relations are based around good faith negotiation and bargaining.

Labor says British employment laws are outdated, a drag on economic growth and a major factor in the U.K.’s worst period of industrial relations since the 1980s.
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Paris — The mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, swam in the murky waters of the Seine on Wednesday to demonstrate the river is now clean enough for outdoor Olympic swimming events.

Wearing goggles and a wet suit, the 65-year-old city leader swam breaststroke before immersing her face and beginning a front crawl, covering around 100 meters up and downstream.

She was joined by senior local officials and by Tony Estanguet, a triple Olympic gold medalist in canoeing who heads the organizing committee for the Paris Games, which open next week on July 26.

“Today is a confirmation that we are exactly where we meant to be,” Estanguet said. “We are now ready to organize the games in the Seine.”

Despite an investment of $1.5 billion to prevent sewage leaks into the waterway, the state of the Seine has brought suspense to the build-up to the Paris Games.

But since the beginning of July, with heavy rain finally giving way to sunnier weather, samples have shown the river to be ready for the open-water swimming and the triathlon.

“On the eve of the Games, when the Seine will play a key role, this event represents the demonstration of the efforts made by the city and the state to improve the quality of the Seine’s waters and the ecological state of the river,” Hidalgo’s office said on Tuesday.

The Socialist politician had originally planned to swim last month but had to delay because bacteria indicating the presence of fecal matter were found to be sometimes 10 times higher than authorized limits.

The long wait for her dip had sparked jokes and memes on social media, with one viral AI-generated image showing her looking like the wrinkled Gollum character from the Lord of the Rings movies after her amphibious exploit.

President Emmanuel Macron, who had promised to join the Seine bathers, was a notable absentee as he is occupied by a political crisis caused by his decision to call snap parliamentary elections last month.

The Seine is set to be used for the swimming leg of the Olympics triathlon on July 30-31 and Aug. 5, as well as the open-water swimming on Aug. 8-9.

Strong currents

The locations chosen for open-water swimming have also caused difficulties at past Olympics, notably ahead of the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games and those in Tokyo in 2021.

“It’s been raining all over France. Summer has been very late to arrive and so have the good results,” said Marc Valmassoni from clean-water campaign group Surfrider which has been conducting weekly tests on the Seine since last year.

“They’re not excellent, they’re not terrible, they’re average. But at this time the water is swimmable.”

Cleaning up the Seine has been promoted as one of the key legacy achievements of Paris 2024, with Hidalgo intending to create three public bathing areas for the city’s residents next year, a century after swimming was banned.

“We’re not doing it for three days of competition in the Seine,” Estanguet told AFP during an interview last week. “We’re going it above all for environmental reasons… I’m proud that we’ve served as an accelerator.”

Authorities have invested in new water treatment and storage facilities in and around Paris, as well as ensuring that thousands of homes and canal boats without wastewater connections are linked up to the sewerage system.

Major storms still overwhelm the Paris underground waste-water network, however, some of which dates back to the 19th century.
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Milwaukee —  On the floor of the Republican National Convention Tuesday evening, vice presidential candidate JD Vance greeted and shook hands with excited delegates as he walked toward his seat.

It was a marked contrast from former President Donald Trump, who entered the hall a few minutes later and was separated from supporters by a column of Secret Service agents. His ear still bandaged after an attempted assassination, Trump closely hugged the wall. Instead of handshakes or hellos for those gathered, he offered fist pumps to the cameras.

The contrast underscores the new reality facing Trump after a gunman opened fire at his rally in Pennsylvania Saturday, raising serious questions about the agency that is tasked with protecting the president, former presidents and major-party candidates. Trump’s campaign must also adjust to a new reality after he came millimeters from death or serious injury — and as law enforcement warns of the potential for more political violence.

Trump campaign officials declined to comment on the stepped-up security and how it might impact his interactions going forward.

“We do not comment on President Trump’s security detail. All questions should be directed to the United States Secret Service,” said Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, whose agency oversees the Secret Service, said Monday that he could not discuss “specifics of the protection or the enhancements made, as they involve sensitive tactics and procedures. I can say, however, that personnel and other protective resources, technology, and capabilities have been added.”

The Secret Service had already stepped up Trump’s protection in the days before the attack following an unrelated threat from Iran, two U.S. officials said Tuesday. But that extra security didn’t stop the gunman, who fired from an adjacent roof, from killing one audience member and injuring two others along with Trump.

The FBI and Homeland Security officials remain “concerned about the potential for follow-on or retaliatory acts of violence following this attack,” according to a joint intelligence bulletin by Homeland Security and the FBI and obtained by The Associated Press. The bulletin warned that lone actors and small groups will “continue to see rallies and campaign events as attractive targets.”

Underscoring the security risks, a man armed with an AK-47 pistol, wearing a ski mask and carrying a tactical backpack was taken into custody Monday near the Fiserv Forum, where the convention is being held.

The attack has led to stepped-up security not only for Trump. President Joe Biden’s security has also been bolstered, with more agents surrounding him as he boarded Air Force One to Las Vegas on Monday night. Independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. also received Secret Service protection in the shooting’s wake.

Trump’s campaign has also responded in other ways, including placing armed security at all hours outside their offices in Florida and Washington, D.C.

Trump has already scheduled his next rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on Saturday. That’s where he will appear with Vance for their first event as a presidential ticket.

But the new posture complicates, at least for now, the interactions Trump regularly has with supporters as he signs autographs, shakes hands and poses for selfies at events and on airplane tarmacs.
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The U.S. Republican Party put some of Donald Trump’s intra-party former foes briefly back in the spotlight on the second night of its nominating convention. VOA’s chief national correspondent Steve Herman was on the convention floor Tuesday and has details from Milwaukee.
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WASHINGTON — A high-ranking U.S. official stressed Tuesday that the U.S.-South Korea alliance is a “nuclear alliance,” reinforcing the South Korean government’s description of the two allies, after the United States and South Korea signed new deterrence guidelines last week. 

Vipin Narang, U.S. acting assistant secretary of defense for Space Policy, told VOA’s Korean Service in an exclusive interview that “when we formally extend nuclear deterrence to our allies, it is a nuclear alliance, and South Korea is an example of that.”

Narang explained that it would be similar to what the United States has with the European allies through NATO. 

“NATO publicly says, for example, that so long as nuclear weapons exist, NATO will be a nuclear alliance. And the relationship with ROK, similarly, is a formal extension of U.S. nuclear,” he said, referring to South Korea with the abbreviated form of its official name, the Republic of Korea. “We commit to defend South Korea with all capabilities.” 

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said earlier on Tuesday in a Cabinet meeting that South Korea’s alliance with the United States has been upgraded to a “nuclear-based alliance,” adding that the U.S nuclear assets will now be “specially assigned to missions on the Korean Peninsula” under the newly agreed guidelines between the two allies. 

On Thursday, Yoon met U.S. President Joe Biden on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Washington, reaffirming their commitments to the Washington Declaration unveiled in 2023, which outlines the two countries’ commitment to engage in deeper dialogue and information sharing to strengthen nuclear deterrence efforts on the Korean Peninsula.

According to the joint statement released after the two leaders’ latest meeting, Biden reiterated that the U.S. commitment to extended deterrence to South Korea is backed by “the full range of U.S. capabilities, including nuclear.” 

In line with such a move, Narang, who co-chairs the Nuclear Consultative Group, a bilateral body set up by the United States and South Korea under the Washington Declaration, met his South Korean counterpart, Cho Chang Lae, in Washington last week and signed “the United States and Republic of Korea Guidelines for Nuclear Deterrence and Nuclear Operations on the Korean Peninsula.” 

The guidelines, according to the Department of Defense, provide principles and procedures to assist policymakers and military officials of both countries “in maintaining an effective nuclear deterrence policy and posture.”

Narang emphasized that the guidelines would help the Nuclear Consultative Group (NCG) evolve in accordance with the threats by the U.S.-South Korea alliance.

“The guidelines document is the not the end, it’s the beginning, and sort of sets up the NCG as an enduring body,” he said. “The NCG is a living body, and the work streams evolve with the threat environment and the capabilities, just as North Korea’s capabilities continue to expand and diversify.” 

However, he made it clear that only the U.S. president will be able to authorize the use and employment of U.S. nuclear weapons, while underscoring Washington and Seoul will be approaching the extended deterrence “as equal partners.”  

“We have extended deterrence relationships. We need conventional support from our allies,” he stressed. 

His remarks come amid growing skepticism in South Korea over the U.S. extended deterrence, especially after Russia and North Korea signed a defense pact, which indicated Moscow’s willingness to engage in full-fledged military cooperation with Pyongyang. 

An increasing number of South Korean people are calling for South Korea’s own nuclear weapons, arguing that the U.S.-ROK alliance’s existing deterrence strategy would not be enough to protect South Korea from the possible attacks from North Korea, if it joins hands with Russia. 

The acting assistant secretary of defense gave a strong warning against South Korea having its own nuclear weapons.

“It would be in violation of the NPT (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty),” Narang said, adding that South Korea would probably face international sanctions. 

He also suggested that Seoul would be “an international pariah” and would become vulnerable to North Korea’s nuclear attacks during the time it is pursuing nuclear weapons. 

Experts in Washington remained cautious about what the new guidelines could mean for the extended deterrence for South Korea. 

“It shows that the United States is taking seriously South Korea as a partner in all aspects of defense,” said Scott Snyder, president of Korea Economic Institute of America.

Snyder told VOA’s Korean Service on Tuesday that the decision to employ a nuclear weapon should be made in a closely integrated manner between Seoul and Washington. 

“If it’s not integrated, the alliance will fail,” he said. 

He added that the decision will heavily depend on the U.S. inclination.  

Bruce Bennett, a senior defense analyst at the Rand Corporation, told VOA’s Korean Service on Tuesday that it is difficult to see the U.S.-South Korea alliance as a “nuclear alliance.” 

“If South Korea has been given a role in planning the nuclear options, yes, but the U.S. has been implying that that hasn’t occurred,” Bennett said. 

“If they are a nuclear alliance, then it ought to describe in what way it’s a nuclear alliance – is South Korea being included in planning how nuclear weapons will be used? That’s what President Yoon asked for. It’s not clear to me.” 
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The corruption trial of U.S. Senator Robert Menendez ends with guilty verdicts on all charges against him. Aron Ranen reports from New York City.
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washington — North Korea and China are watching for possible regional impacts from Japan’s recent enhanced security cooperation with Germany.

This weekend, Japan will hold joint drills with Germany around the Chitose Air Base in Hokkaido, Japan’s northernmost main island. Spain is slated to join them there, while France will join Japan next week for drills over Hyakuri Air Base in Ibaraki Prefecture bordering the Pacific Ocean.

At a joint press conference in Berlin late last week, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said defense cooperation will be enhanced by the planned visits of German aircraft and frigates to Japan and of a Japanese training fleet to Hamburg this summer.

North Korea slammed the security cooperation as “collusion” that crossed a “red line” and is “reminiscent of the Second World War,” according to North Korea’s state-run KCNA on Monday.

“The defeated war criminal nations are in cahoots to stage a series of war games escalating the regional tensions,” KCNA continued.

Kishida said Japan hopes to work with Germany “to deal with the deepening military cooperation between Russia and North Korea as well as China’s moves related to the Russian invasion of Ukraine,” according to Nippon.com, a news agency based in Tokyo.

Kishida and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz agreed in Berlin on Friday to boost their security cooperation after attending a NATO summit in Washington. It was Kishida’s first trip to Germany as prime minister.

Pact enters into force

Also on Friday, a military supply-sharing pact that aims to exchange food, fuel, and ammunition between Japan and Germany entered into force. The agreement was signed in January.

Beijing said the cooperation between Japan and Germany should not create tensions in the Asia-Pacific region.

Liu Pengyu, a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, told VOA on Monday that “cooperation between countries, including military and security ties, should not target any third party or harm their interests.”

Maki Kobayashi, Japanese cabinet secretary for public affairs, told VOA’s Mandarin Service during the NATO summit that Japan has been working “very closely” with NATO countries on security issues and joint exercises.

“China has been saying there is an attempt at creating NATO in Asia, which is not correct,” she said.

Rather, she said, Japan has been seeking closer ties among like-minded countries “to share situational analyses and also align some policies” in support of an international order based on the rule of law.

In Berlin, Kishida and Scholz also agreed to enhance economic security including safeguarding the resilience of supply chains for key items such as critical minerals and semiconductors.

Cooperation seen two different ways

In Washington last week, the leaders of NATO and four Indo-Pacific countries, Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea, discussed how to ramp up their combined defense capacity.

“A union of defense industrial bases between NATO and IP4 countries would have significant and positive implications for international peace and stability,” said Matthew Brummer, professor at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo.

“Japan has recently moved to provide surface-to-air missiles to the United States, which then sends them to Ukraine,” he added.

In December, Tokyo agreed to ship Japanese-made Patriot guided missiles to backfill U.S. inventory after taking a major step away from its pacifist self-defense policies and easing its postwar ban on the export of lethal weapons.

“In general, the NATO-IP4 cooperation is a good thing, since it symbolizes the recognition that both the Indo-Pacific theater and the European theater are linked,” Elli-Katharina Pohlkamp, visiting fellow of the Asia Program at the European Council on Foreign Relations based in Berlin said via email.

However, she continued, “Strengthening NATO-IP4 ties could exacerbate tensions with China and Russia, who may perceive this cooperation as a containment strategy,” and encourage countries like North Korea to align more closely with them.

Adam Xu contributed to this report.
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Dubai, United Arab Emirates — Tehran remains open to resuming negotiations with Washington on restoring their participation in a nuclear agreement, Iran’s acting foreign minister told Newsweek magazine in an interview published on Tuesday.

Ali Bagheri Kani’s remarks come as he prepares to address the United Nations Security Council in New York.

The United States under President Donald Trump withdrew from in 2018 from the nuclear accord between Iran and six world powers, which restricted Tehran’s nuclear programs.

Indirect talks between the U.S. and Tehran to revive the deal have stalled. Iran is still part of the agreement, but it has decreased its commitments because of U.S. sanctions imposed on it.

Newsweek reported: “On the foreign policy front, he [Bagheri Kani] said that Tehran remained open to resuming negotiations with Washington toward restoring mutual participation in a nuclear deal.”

However, Iran also intended to foster its deepening ties with China, Russia and neighboring nations, it quoted him as saying. Iran will also call for greater action against Israel in view of the Gaza war, he said.

The Biden administration said last week the United States was not ready to resume nuclear talks with Iran under its new president.

Bagheri Kani became the acting foreign minister after foreign minister Hossein Amirabdollahian died in a helicopter crash along with Iran’s president Ebrahim Raisi in May.

Iranians then elected Masoud Pezeshkian as president, a moderate who said he will promote a pragmatic foreign policy and ease tensions with the powers involved in the 2015 nuclear pact.
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WASHINGTON — The problems of rising poverty and decreasing productivity in Latin America will be on the agenda when the foreign ministers of 12 regional countries convene in Washington on Wednesday, a U.S. State Department official said. 

Secretary of State Antony Blinken aims during the talks to “tackle” those challenges and work toward making the Americas “the world’s most economically competitive region,” said Brian Nichols, assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs. 

The ministers represent members of the Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity, established two years ago to “achieve concrete results for the middle class, workers, and historically marginalized groups” by deepening economic integration and creating good paying jobs, Nichols said, speaking at a briefing this week. 

“Through this partnership, we will work together to build resilient supply chains, reinvigorate our region’s economic institutions, and invest in our workers, our infrastructure, and our strategic industries – whether through semiconductors or clean energy, or medical supplies or the critical minerals needed for our modern economy.” 

Nichols pointed out that the United States is Latin America’s largest trading partner and its largest source of foreign direct investment. In 2023, U.S. trade with Latin America and the Caribbean totaled over $1.1 trillion, and Mexico displaced China as America’s top trading partner.  

Nevertheless, he said “poverty rates are rising in Latin America, productivity has lagged, and income inequality remains a serious problem. The pandemic demonstrated to us and to our regional partners the importance of developing more diversified and reliable supply chains closer to home.” 

Lisa Kubiske, a former U.S. ambassador to Honduras and former deputy assistant secretary of state, said that in the past two years, the member nations have been able to close gaps in their free trade agreements and address structural issues that thwart broad-based economic growth. 

At a summit in November, she said, the leaders of the 12 countries directed their ministers to develop three tracks: trade, finance and foreign affairs. On the foreign affairs front, the group has engaged “on clean hydrogen, entrepreneurship, rule of law and transparency, smart agriculture, peaceful uses of space” and other issues, she told journalists at a briefing.  

The president of the Inter-American Development Bank and the deputy CEO of the Development Finance Corporation have been invited to a lunch with the ministers. There will also be two side events, one hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and another hosted by the Council of the Americas. 

The founding members of the group are Barbados, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Mexico, Panama, Peru, the United States, and Uruguay. Their leaders will meet again next year in Costa Rica.
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MADRID — Spanish authorities confirmed on Tuesday that a body found in a remote area of the island of Tenerife a day earlier was that of a missing British teenager and that the injuries sustained were compatible with an accidental fall.

“We have a positive ID,” a court spokesperson said. “Fingerprinting confirms that the body belongs to Jay Slater, and the death was due to multiple traumas compatible with a fall in the mountainous area.”

Earlier, the same spokesperson said it would take some days before autopsy results were available.

Slater’s mother, Debbie, issued a statement through the British overseas missing persons charity LBT Global acknowledging the “worst news.”

“I just can’t believe this could happen to my beautiful boy,” the statement read. “Our hearts are broken.”

The body was found Monday morning by a Civil Guard mountain rescue group.

Slater, 19, went missing on June 17, and his phone was last traced to the Masca ravine in a remote national park on the Canary Islands archipelago.

The remains were found with Slater’s possessions and clothes close to the site of his mobile phone’s last location, LBT Global said on Monday.

Matthew Searle, chief executive of LBT Global, which has issued several statements on behalf of the family, said it would help repatriate Slater’s body and belongings and make funeral arrangements.

“There will, of course, be many more hurdles for the family to face in the coming days, and we will work with them to make this horrific time as easy as possible,” he said. 
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Tallinn, Estonia — Dozens of Nobel Prize laureates are calling in an open letter on Belarus’ authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko to free all political prisoners, after 18 seriously ill activists were released this month.

The Belarusian human rights group Viasna counts almost 1,400 political prisoners, including its Nobel Peace Prize-winning founder Ales Bialiatski.

Many of Belarus’ most prominent opposition figures are behind bars while others fled abroad as authorities cracked down severely on opponents as protests gripped the country in 2020. But only one well-known figure was among the 18 prisoners whom Lukashenko allowed to be freed earlier this month.

The letter from Nobel winners urged Lukashenko to follow through with more releases.

“You have a unique opportunity to turn the page on the past and enter history not only as an uncompromising ruler but also as a political leader who has shown wisdom and compassion, responsible to your people and their future,” said the letter that was posted Friday on the website of Belarusian political scientist Dmitry Bolkunets.

The 58 signatories include literature prize winners Svetlana Alexievich of Belarus, J.M. Coetzee, Herta Mueller, and peace prize laureates Mairead Corrigan Maguire, Oscar Arias, Jody Williams, Shirin Ebadi, Tawakkol Karman, Juan Manuel Santos, Dmitry Muratov and Maria Ressa.
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