News of the World

[kyonides]

US NEWS

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US Government Fights to Stop New Titanic Expedition

The U.S. government is trying to stop a planned expedition to recover items of historical interest from the sunken Titanic, citing a federal law and an international agreement that treat the shipwreck as a hallowed gravesite.

The expedition is being organized by RMS Titanic Inc., the Georgia-based firm that owns the salvage rights to the world’s most famous shipwreck. The company exhibits artifacts that have been recovered from the wreck site at the bottom of the North Atlantic, from silverware to a piece of the Titanic's hull.

The government's challenge comes more than two months after the Titan submersible imploded near the sunken ocean liner, killing five people. But this legal fight has nothing to do with the June tragedy, which involved a different company and an unconventionally designed vessel.

The battle in the U.S. District Court in Norfolk, Virginia, which oversees Titanic salvage matters, hinges instead on federal law and a pact with Great Britain to treat the sunken Titanic as a memorial to the more than 1,500 people who died. The ship hit an iceberg and sank in 1912.

The United States argues that entering the Titanic's severed hull—or physically altering or disturbing the wreck—is regulated by federal law and its agreement with Britain. Among the government's concerns is the possible disturbance of artifacts and any human remains that may still exist.

Pentagon Extends Troop Deployment
at US-Mexico Border Through September

The U.S. Defense Department said Thursday that it will extend the deployment of up to 400 active-duty American troops at the U.S. southern border with Mexico until at least the end of September.

The Pentagon had pulled 1,100 troops from the border last month but extended the deployment of the remaining 400 soldiers.

"On Aug. 24, 2023, the secretary of defense approved an extension of up to 400 personnel providing support to Customs and Border Protection on the southwest border through Sept. 30, 2023," Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Devin Robinson told NBC News on Sept. 1.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin approved in May the deployment of 1,500 active-duty troops to the southern border for 90 days to assist border officials with a possible influx of illegal immigration at the border.

The Pentagon said the troops will "fill critical capability gaps, such as ground-based detection and monitoring, data entry, and warehouse support" but will not directly participate in law enforcement activities.

Calls Grow for Staten Island to Secede From NYC
as Illegal Immigrant Crisis Escalates

Growing safety concerns over the city's bussing of illegal immigrants into the outer boroughs have intensified efforts from Staten Island to break away from the Big Apple.

“The values of New York City are not in line with those of Staten Island and they haven’t been for a long time and that divide is only growing larger,” Staten Island Borough President Vito Fossella told the Epoch Times. “There is this very real sense that the city won’t listen to our concerns and that we have reached a boiling point.”

“The people feel like we are on a tugboat attached to the Titanic,” Fossella said. “The people can see that the city is sinking, and unless we are okay with sinking too, there is a need to separate.”

Staten Island, long known as the forgotten borough, has often flirted with the idea of breaking off from the rest of the city. It has always been an outlier within the five boroughs, with a majority conservative Republican population that is often at odds with the rest of the city. Despite New York City’s status as a blue stronghold, the borough mostly voted for former President Donald Trump in 2020. However, in recent years, many residents have reached a breaking point over increases in crime and, more recently, the bussing of illegal immigrants into residential neighborhoods, according to Mr. Fossella.

“They dump these individuals into our neighborhoods and to my knowledge none of them have been vetted,” said Mr. Fossella. “One of these migrant shelters is located directly across the street from two elementary schools and they just expect the people to take it. Why would we want to take that risk?

“The concern is legitimate. We are not as safe as we should be and the people are fed up.”

2 People Charged With Looting
as Residents Worry About Burglaries Following Hurricane Idalia

Two people were charged with looting a home damaged by Hurricane Idalia in Florida's Big Bend region, as residents' concerns grew that burglars could be tempted to hit other hurricane-ravaged homes since law enforcement is stretched thin in the remote, wooded area along the Gulf Coast.

Some residents of Horseshoe Beach, Florida, one of the communities hardest hit after Idalia made landfall Wednesday as a Category 3 hurricane, urged law enforcement to set up checkpoints where people would have to show identification in order to get into the town.

Marina worker Kerry Ford had high praise for local law enforcement's response to the hurricane but wished more would be done to keep out people who don't belong in Horseshoe Beach.
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A man and a woman from Palmetto, Florida, almost 200 miles (322 kilometers) south of where Idalia made landfall, were arrested Wednesday after an officer from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission heard noises coming from outside a home in Horseshoe Beach.

The officer found the man and woman loading up items from the waterfront home into a rented pickup truck. One of the suspects told deputies that the homeowner had given him permission to remove items from the house on stilts. But the homeowners told deputies when contacted that they had done no such thing, according to a statement from the Dixie County Sheriff's Office.

Each suspect was charged with burglary of an unoccupied dwelling during an emergency, grand theft, and trespassing, with bails set for each at $1 million.

Wrong-Way Crash With Greyhound Bus
Leaves One Dead, 18 Injured in Maryland

One person died and 18 others were injured in a wrong-way crash involving a Greyhound passenger bus on a Maryland highway, police said.

The driver of an SUV died early Thursday when the vehicle, which driving on the wrong side of the highway, hit the bus, according to police. The crash injured the bus driver and 17 bus passengers.

The bus was traveling eastbound on Route 32 near Interstate 95 in the Savage area with 38 passengers aboard around 3:30 a.m. when it collided with a Buick Enclave that was traveling westbound in eastbound lanes, Howard County police said in a news release. Savage is 15 miles (24.14 kilometers) southwest of Baltimore.

The man who was driving the Buick died at the scene. The bus driver and injured passengers were taken to area hospitals with injuries that weren’t considered life-threatening, police said.

EUROPEAN NEWS

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Italy May Leave China's Belt and Road Initiative, Dealing Major Blow

Italy's foreign minister, Antonio Tajani, ahead of his three-day trip to Beijing, said that being a part of China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) did not bring the country the expected economic benefits.

“The Italian Parliament is checking the situation. In this moment, the countries without the Belt and Road Initiative, the European countries, are working better than us. For this, Italy will decide if [to] stay or not [to] stay in the Belt and Road Initiative. In the parliament, many parties are against it,” he said on CNBC Saturday.

He said the deal had "failed to meet Italian expectations."

The BRI was meant to connect Asia, Europe, and Africa through a "new Silk Road," via large infrastructure spending. Critics have decried it as a way for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to expand its geopolitical power and economic influence.

“The Italian message is very clear: we want to work with China, we want to be present in China’s market, we are ready for Chinese investment, but as I said, it is important [to have a] level playing field,” said Mr. Tajani, who previously served as President of the European Parliament, as European Commissioner, and is also Italy's Deputy Prime Minister. "We want to continue to work closely with China, but we must also analyze exports: the BRI has not produced the results we were hoping for."

Italy is the only G7 country that is a part of China's BRI, and its withdrawal would mean a major setback for China.

Kremlin Threatens to use Nuclear Weapons
if Ukraine Retakes ‘Russian Land’ in Counteroffensive

Moscow will not hesitate to use nuclear weapons if Ukraine’s counteroffensive efforts are successful and recapture “Russian land”, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev warned on Sunday.

The war of words once again escalated in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine on Sunday, with Zelensky declaring that it is “absolutely fair” for targets within Russia to be attacked and top-Putin ally Dmitry Medvedev explicitly threatening to resort to a nuclear strike to win the war.

Taking to his personal Telegram channel to mark the Russian military holiday of Navy Day, the former president said: “Our Armed Forces, repelling the counteroffensive of the collective enemy, protect the citizens of Russia and our land. This is obvious to all decent people.

“But beyond that, they prevent world conflict. After all, if we imagine that the offensive of the [Ukrainian Nazis] with the support of NATO was successful and they seized part of our land, then we would have to, by virtue of the rules of the decree of the President of Russia dated 06/02/2020, go for the use of nuclear weapons.”

“There is simply no other way out. Therefore, our enemies must pray to our warriors. They do not allow the global nuclear fire to flare up,” Medvedev concluded.

Number of English Channel Boat Migrant Crossings
Hits Highest Single Day Total of the Year

Despite claims from Prime Minister Rishi Sunak that his feckless Conservative government’s policies have been “working” to stem the tide of illegals pouring over the Channel from France, the crisis seems to be escalating rather than abating.

According to figures published by the Home Office, some 872 migrants reached the UK on Saturday in 15 small boats launched by people smugglers on the coasts of France. This represents the highest total for any single day period of 2023.

The PA news agency noted that Saturday’s crossings surpassed the previous high on August 10th when 756 illegals made the perilous journey across the world’s busiest waterway. Saturday’s record number of migrants did fall short of the all time high set last year on August 22 when 1,295 arrived.

The latest small boat crossings take the total for the year to approximately 20,973, with 1,172 reaching the country over the past week, alone.  While this is down from last year, when around 25,000 migrants had reached the UK by this point of the year, it is still significantly higher than in 2021 when around 28,000 landed on British beaches during the entire year.

ASIAN NEWS

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China's Fishing Armadas Ensnare Pacific Economies, Ecologies

They sweep the sea in 400-ship swarms, Chinese fishing boats that—based on time of year and fishery—include trawlers, purse seiners, gill-netters, pole-and-line platforms, squid jiggers, tuna longliners, wood-hulled freighters, and sail-masted junks.

The fleet is shepherded by oil tankers, supply barges, “research” vessels, and hospital ships, shadowed by Chinese navy warships and coast guard cutters, and serviced by massive motherships with 500,000 cubic feet of frozen storage holds.

Rotating motherships ferry harvests to China and return with provisions on a continuous cycle so the fleet can keep fishing until there are no more fish and it must move on to keep fishing until there are no more fish in the new areas across the globe, from Senegal to the South Pacific.

Chinese fishing armadas are becoming common and long-lingering sights in international waters just beyond 200-mile national exclusive economic zones (EEZ) off Africa’s and South America’s coasts and across the vast central and western Pacific, including off—and allegedly in—the sovereign waters of Guam, American Samoa, and the Commonwealth of Northern Marianas Islands (CNMI), which are United States territories.

Marauding Chinese fishing boats have destroyed domestic commercial industries and damaged sports-fishing businesses across the Pacific, island leaders told a Congressional panel during meetings and field hearings staged on Guam, Saipan, American Samoa, Palau, and Micronesia between Aug. 23–Aug. 28.
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Leaders from the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI), Republic of Palau, and Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) joined territorial government officials in citing illegal fishing by swarming Chinese boats as part of a “political warfare” pattern of economic coercion, subversion, harassment, and overt threats orchestrated by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to sew discord among local governments, businesses, and civic groups across the Pacific in a persistent effort to drive a wedge between them and the United States.

Japan and Taiwan Amplify Defense Budgets to Fortify the First Island Chain

The Summit at Camp David has drawn to a close, culminating in a robust show of military alignment among the United States, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. On Aug. 21, Japan unveiled a significant hike in its defense budget for fiscal year 2024, Taiwan revealed a record-setting budget for the upcoming year, and the United States and South Korea commenced expansive joint military drills. These collective moves amplify the strategic posture along the first island chain and serve as tangible manifestations of the commitments made during the summit.

At the closing press conference of the summit on Aug. 18, the leaders of the United States, Japan, and South Korea shared a united vision for enhanced trilateral security cooperation and emphasized the role their countries will play in fostering a more secure and prosperous global order.

Japan’s daily newspaper Sankei Shimbun reported that the Japanese Ministry of Defense’s fiscal 2024 budget request amounts to an unprecedented 7.738 trillion yen (approximately $52.75 billion), marking a significant escalation from the 6.8219 trillion yen ($46.6 billion) allocated for fiscal 2023.

The proposed budget earmarks 930 billion yen (about $6.35 billion) for ammunition expenses, aimed at augmenting the nation’s sustained combat capabilities. A further 380 billion yen (about $2.6 billion) has been allocated for the initiation of construction for two naval vessels outfitted with the state-of-the-art missile defense system, Aegis Ashore, referred to as “Aegis system equipped vessels (ASEV).”
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In Taiwan, President Tsai Ing-wen has ratified an unprecedented defense budget for the upcoming fiscal year. Ms. Tsai said during a briefing on Aug. 21 that Taiwan’s overall defense budget for the coming year will soar to a record 606.8 billion Taiwan dollars (about $19 billion) from the 359.6 billion Taiwan dollars (about $11 billion) allocated in 2016, and is expected to account for 2.5 percent of its GDP.
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Steady advancements have been observed in the country's defense capabilities, including the imminent delivery of 683 eight-wheeled armored fighting vehicles and the first tranche of M1A2T tanks. Taiwan’s Air Force is also set to complete the full upgrade of 141 F-16A/B fighter jets by year-end, along with the introduction of 91 naval vessels and a prototype submarine, expected to be launched this September.