World

BRUSSELS — The US decision to step up military support for Israel after the surprise assault by Hamas will not harm Washington's ability to keep arming Ukraine, its NATO envoy said on Tuesday.

"On the question of whether or not US support for Israel could possibly come at the expense of US support for Ukraine, we don't anticipate any major challenges in that regard," US Ambassador Julianne Smith told journalists.

"I suspect the United States will be able to stay focused on our partnership and commitment to Israel's security while also meeting our commitments and promise to continue supporting Ukraine."

President Joe Biden ordered US ships and warplanes to move closer to Israel in a show of support on Sunday, while also sending fresh military aid.

The crisis in Israel comes as the White House is scrambling to find a way to keep weapon supplies flowing to Ukraine after turmoil in the US Congress.

Kyiv’s international backers are meeting in Brussels on Wednesday to discuss arms deliveries, with a focus on keeping Ukraine’s counteroffensive advancing and providing air defences to protect against a suspected winter onslaught by Russia.

“I anticipate that the emphasis will be mostly on air defence and ammunition, although no doubt the Ukrainians will come in with a variety of other requests,” Smith said.

 Biden has sought to calm nerves among allies over Washington’s backing for Kyiv after new assistance was dropped from a deal in the US Congress to avoid a government shutdown this month.

The US has given as much military support to Ukraine on its own as all European NATO members and Canada combined since Moscow launched its all-out invasion last year.

Western diplomats at NATO insist there is no danger of arms supplies to Ukraine drying up in the near future.

But the European Union’s top diplomat has warned the bloc would not be unable to fill any funding gap left by the United States.

BAGO — Residents of Myanmar’s flood-hit Bago city salvaged food and belongings from their waterlogged homes on Tuesday after record rainfall triggered floods that authorities said have displaced 14,000 people.

The rainy season typically brings months of heavy downpours to the Southeast Asian country, but scientists say man-made climate change is making weather patterns more intense.

In eastern Bago city residents waded down streets through waist-deep water or floated along in boats or on rubber tyres, as ripples lapped at shuttered shops and houses.

“This is the first time my house has been flooded in my life,” Phwar Than Hme, 101, told AFP from the monastery where she was taking shelter.

“I was standing on a chair while my house was being flooded.

“My neighbour and rescue people told me not to stay at home and to go to the camp. They carried me on their backs and brought me here.”

On Sunday authorities reported that 200mm  of rain had fallen in the previous 24 hours in Bago region northeast of commercial hub Yangon — a record for October.

Heavy rain continued through Monday night. 

“I didn’t expect this level of water here,” said Chit Nyunt, 69, told AFP as he waded down the street holding a pair of sandals and an umbrella. 

“I have never seen anything like this.”

State broadcaster MRTV said 14,000 people had been displaced across Bago region, northeast of commercial hub Yangon. 

Almost 5,600 people were being accommodated in local government temporary relief centres, according to the state-backed Global New Light of Myanmar.

The lower floors of Bago’s general hospital had been flooded, a resident told the newspaper, and three of Myanmar’s four telecoms providers were not working in the area. 

Flooding began in July and has affected nine of Myanmar’s states and regions, including Rakhine, Kachin, Karen, Mon and Chin.

Myanmar is in the grip of a bloody civil conflict between the junta, which ousted the government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021, and armed groups opposed to its coup.

SEOUL — South Korea, the United States and Japan concluded a joint maritime drill on Tuesday that simulated intercepting North Korean smuggling vessels, Seoul’s navy said.

The two-day exercise was the first of its kind in seven years, as the three countries ramp up cooperation in the face of threats from Pyongyang.

It was aimed at enhancing their “deterrence and response against North Korea’s recently advancing nuclear and missile threats”, the navy said in a statement.

It added that the drill was a “follow-up” to an agreement made at an August summit aimed at presenting a unified front to an increasingly belligerent North Korea, the navy said.

Taking part in the exercises off the waters of Jeju island were South Korea’s Aegis-equipped destroyer Yulgok Yi I, the US aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan and Japan’s JS Hyuga destroyer, among other ships.

The nuclear-powered US carrier and other ships from its naval strike group will make a five-day visit to the southern port city of Busan later this week, the defence ministry said.

Faced with a record-breaking series of North Korean missile launches, the conservative government of President Yoon Suk Yeol has made a concerted effort to improve historically strained ties with Japan, the country’s former colonial ruler.

In August, Yoon and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida took part in a three-way summit hosted by US President Joe Biden at Camp David, agreeing to a multiyear plan of regular joint exercises.

The leaders also agreed to share real-time data on North Korea.

The Camp David meeting marked the first time the three leaders had met for a standalone summit, rather than on the sidelines of a larger event.

WASHINGTON — More than 450 years ago, a three-masted ship sank in a hurricane off the coast of Florida, taking with it France’s hopes of colonising the peninsula.

Since the wreckage of “La Trinite” was discovered in 2016, it has been at the centre of an epic legal battle between an American treasure hunter and the French government, with Paris recently claiming a decisive victory — or so officials hope.

A 24-page judgement, delivered on September 29 by US Magistrate Judge Allen Winsor in Tallahassee, delved into the distant and largely forgotten era of “French Florida”, when a colony was established there by French Huguenots in the mid-16th century.

The colony’s short existence, and Florida’s longtime history under Spanish rule, may have been the direct result of the sinking of La Trinite and the squadron of ships commanded by Captain Jean Ribault, sent by Admiral Gaspard de Coligny, leader of the French Protestant group.

The wreck of La Trinite lies at a depth of less than 10 metres, a stone’s throw from a beach on Cape Canaveral. It was discovered in 2016 by a private underwater research company, Global Marine Exploration (GME), led by American Robert Pritchett.

Fleur-de-lis cannon 

Among the objects identified underwater are three bronze cannons decorated with a traditional French fleur-de-lis symbol, as well as a prized marble column bearing the coat of arms of the Kingdom of France, which Ribault was supposed to install on land to mark French sovereignty.

For seven years, GME and Pritchett have been waging a legal battle over who can claim the wreck, which likely contains other riches.

Standing in the way of GME is the Sunken Military Craft Act (SMCA), a law signed by then-president George W. Bush in 2004 which recognises the sovereignty of a country over its former warships.

In June 2018, a federal court ruled that La Trinite was indeed Captain Ribault’s flagship, and thus a French naval vessel.

But GME then argued that the ship, when it sank, had been carrying goods and settlers to the New World and was not engaged in a military conflict. France and Spain were not even at war at the time, the company argued.

However, French authorities, through their American lawyer Jim Goold, offered evidence that the ship was still considered a military vessel at the time.

“A lot of people, a very excellent team did research in the [French] Bibliotheque Nationale where there are a spectacular collection of records from the 16th century,” Goold told AFP.

The library’s “records show everything that was on La Trinite, that it was a Navy ship, that it had every specific details about the cannons and the gunpowder”, he said.

The ship was also engaged in conflict as part of an ongoing dispute between French Protestants and the Catholic Crown of Spain, Goold said.

He explained that upon leaving Fort Caroline — the French colony in Florida where the US city of Jacksonville now lies — Ribault “informed the French commander of the fort that he was going to attack the Spanish”.

Goold convinced the court. “France has presented sufficient uncontested evidence to establish La Trinite sank while on military noncommercial service, meaning La Trinite is a |sunken military craft’,| Judge Winsor ruled.

‘New France?’

As a last resort, GME argued that France had benefitted unduly from the US company’s work to locate, photograph and search the wreck.

But Winsor shot that claim down, finding that France could not be held responsible for services it had not ordered.

“This decision is a relief, and we hope that this legal saga will now stop, so that we can concentrate on the preservation of these elements of cultural heritage,” Florence Hermite, a legal attache at the French embassy, told AFP.

Will the world now finally be able to focus in on what La Trinite holds? Goold certainly hopes so.

“I think it is quite appropriate to say that this is the single most historically important shipwreck in North America,” said the lawyer, whose work for Spain in 2012 led to the reclaiming of $500 million worth of treasures found in a Spanish galleon shipwreck.

“When Captain Ribault arrived, France had commanding military strength in Florida — more ships, more soldiers, more cannons than the Spanish,” he said.

“But the loss of La Trinite and the hundreds of French soldiers and sailors and colonists resulted in the King of France deciding to focus on Canada instead.”

“If there had not been this hurricane, who knows?” he wondered, positing that maybe even “Washington would be the capital of New France.”

MOSCOW — Moscow and the Arab League will work to "stop the bloodshed" in Israel and Gaza, the Russian foreign minister said Monday as he met the group's chief Ahmed Aboul Gheit.

Aboul Gheit was in Moscow for talks after the massive assault on Israel by the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas.

"I am sure that Russia and the Arab League [will cooperate] above all else to stop the bloodshed," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.

Lavrov said it was necessary to "urgently stop clashes, solve the problem with civilians... and establish a reason why there is no solution [to the Israel-Palestinian conflict]."

He said Moscow and the Arab League will also work "with those countries that are interested in establishing lasting peace in the Middle East".

Aboul Gheit, a former Egyptian foreign minister, said he condemned "the violence, but from all sides".

"We demand the creation of political prospects and a fair resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict", he said.

Russia has said it is in contact with all sides in the conflict, calling for an "immediate ceasefire".

FRANKFURT, Germany — German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s coalition suffered losses in two state elections Sunday seen as a crucial test halfway through its term, TV exit polls showed, while the resurgent far right made new gains.

All three parties in the coalition, Scholz’s centre-left SPD, the Greens and the liberal FDP, lost ground in southern Bavaria, the country’s biggest state, and western Hesse, according to the exit polls from broadcasters ZDF and ARD.

The far-right AfD, which has enjoyed a surge in opinion poll ratings in recent times, won more support in both states, they showed.

The conservative CDU party, the main opposition at the national level, came first in Hesse, where it was already in power in a coalition, and gained several percentage points over its last result in 2018, the exit polls showed.

The CSU, the CDU’s sister party, maintained its first place in Bavaria, although its support there fell slightly, according to the polls.

Almost 14 million people were eligible to vote in both states, almost one in five of Germany›s electorate. With both states qualifying as economic heavyweights among the country’s 16 regions, the elections provide a crucial indicator of the population’s mood.

MOSCOW — Russia's defence minister Sergei Shoigu inspected a military factory producing the Sarmat intercontinental missile, saying it would soon be ready for use, his ministry posted on Telegram Saturday.

The Sarmat is capable of carrying multiple nuclear warheads and is among Russia's next-generation missiles which Putin has described as "invincible".

The Russian defence ministry posted footage of Shoigu and other military officials being given a tour of the Kramash factory in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk.

Shoigu said the long-range missile complex "will become the basis of the ground-based grouping of Russia's strategic nuclear forces."

The Sarmat missile will be "put on combat duty in the near future," the ministry said in a statement.

President Vladimir Putin on Thursday said Russia had almost completed work on the Sarmat, after Moscow earlier this year announced it had successfully tested the missiles.

Putin said the “truly unique weapon will strengthen the combat potential of our armed forces, reliably ensure the security of Russia from external threats”.

The Kremlin, hit by an unprecedented Western sanctions regime, has pivoted to a wartime economy. It has increased defence spending by 68 per cent for 2024.