Search for missing US Marines becomes recovery effort after crash off Australia
August 6, 2017 by admin
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SYDNEY/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Navy and Marine Corps suspended their search and rescue efforts on Sunday for three U.S. Marines missing after their aircraft crashed into the sea off Australia’s northeast coast a day earlier, the U.S. Marine Corps said.
The Marine Corps said they had shifted to recovery efforts in coordination with the Australian Defence Force, which could last several months, and had notified the next-of-kin of the three missing Marines.
“The transition comes after teams led continuous sustained search efforts supported by aircraft and ships,” the III Marine Expeditionary Force, based in Okinawa, Japan, said.
“As the sea state permits, recovery efforts will be conducted to further search, assess and survey the area …,” they said in a statement.
The U.S. Marines have described the incident involving the MV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft as a “mishap” and said it was under investigation.
Ospreys have been involved in incidents resulting in deaths or injuries in recent years.
Twenty-three other personnel aboard the aircraft had been rescued. Australian emergency officials said one person had been taken to hospital in Rockhampton in northeastern Queensland state but gave no other details.
“All other personnel are accounted for and safe,” the III Marine Expeditionary Force said on Twitter.
The incident happened off the coast of Shoalwater Bay in Queensland at about 4 p.m. local time on Saturday (0600 GMT), the Marine Corps said. They called off the search at about 3 a.m. on Sunday (1700 GMT Saturday).
“BENIGN” WEATHER
Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology described wind, swell and atmospheric conditions at the time of the incident as “benign”.
“There was a light northeasterly wind with high cloud … but that would have had no impact whatsoever on conditions at the surface,” meteorologist Michael Paech said.
The aircraft that crashed had launched from the USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD 6) amphibious assault ship and was on regular operations when it hit the water, according to the Marines Corps. Boats and aircraft on the ship immediately began search-and-rescue efforts.
U.S. President Donald Trump, who was on his first full day of vacation at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey, was briefed on the crash by his chief of staff, retired Marine Corps General John Kelly, a White House official said.
The Bonhomme Richard Expeditionary Strike Group was in Australia to participate in joint training maneuvers involving more than 33,000 U.S. and Australian military personnel, which ended two weeks ago.
“On behalf of all Queenslanders, our prayers are with those U.S. military personnel involved in the incident,” Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said in a statement.
The exercises in the Coral Sea included the participation of MV-22 Ospreys practising the deployment of U.S. Marine reconnaissance teams.
The Osprey, built by Boeing Co and Textron Inc’s Bell Helicopter unit, is designed to take off like a helicopter and rotate its propellers to fly like a plane.
Its development was nearly canceled after the deaths of 23 Marines during flight testing in 2000, but its speed and range have made it very popular in recent years.
In December, the U.S. military grounded its Osprey fleet in Japan after one of the aircraft ditched into the sea, injuring its crew of five, when a hose connected to the aircraft broke during a refueling exercise.
Reporting By Valerie Volcovici in WASHINGTON and Joseph Hinchliffe in SYDNEY; Editing by Mary Milliken and Paul Tait
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UN vote Saturday on US bid to slash North Korea exports over missile tests
August 5, 2017 by admin
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UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – The United Nations Security Council is set to vote on Saturday on a U.S.-drafted resolution that aims to slash by a third North Korea’s $3 billion annual export revenue over Pyongyang’s two intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) tests in July.
A council diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said there was a “high confidence” that North Korea ally China and Russia would support the draft resolution, which was circulated to the 15 Security Council members on Friday.
The council is due to vote at 3 p.m. EDT (1900 GMT). A resolution needs nine votes in favor, and no vetoes by the United States, China, Russia, France or Britain, to be adopted.
The draft resolution would ban North Korea’s exports of coal, iron, iron ore, lead, lead ore and seafood. It would also prohibit countries from increasing the current numbers of North Korean laborers working abroad, ban new joint ventures with North Korea and any new investment in current joint ventures.
“These are export sectors where this money is viewed as a critical, critical source of hard currency that the North immediately turns around into its fantastically expensive war machine and these just amazingly expensive ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programs,” the diplomat said.
“These sanctions are not targeted at the people of North Korea,” the diplomat said.
u.s. Pressure on China
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The draft resolution would also add nine individuals and four entities to the U.N. blacklist, including North Korea’s primary foreign exchange bank, subjecting them to a global asset freeze and travel ban.
The United States and China have been negotiating the draft text for the past month. Typically, they agree sanctions on North Korea before formally involving other council members.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has been frustrated that China has not done more to rein in North Korea and Washington has threatened to impose new sanctions on Chinese firms doing business with Pyongyang.
“The Trump administration should issue new sanctions against China at the same time the new resolution is adopted as Beijing is still violating U.S. law by allowing its companies, individuals, and banks to facilitate North Korea’s sanctions evasion,” said Anthony Ruggiero, a Foundation for Defense of Democracies senior fellow and former U.S. Treasury official.
China has also been upset by possible moves by the Trump administration to exert trade pressure on Beijing.
“(The draft) appears to reflect a compromise between the U.S. and China in several areas,” Bonnie Glaser, senior adviser for Asia at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said. “It notably does not include any reduction in Chinese crude oil shipments to North Korea.”
While supportive of new U.N. action, Security Council member Sweden said sanctions alone could not solve the problem.
“More creative diplomacy is urgently needed. A long-term solution can only be achieved through dialogue and negotiations,” said Sweden’s Deputy U.N. Ambassador Carl Skau.
u.s. Vs Russia
The United States had been informally keeping Britain and France in the loop on the bilateral negotiations, while U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said China had been sharing the draft and negotiating with Russia.
It has not been clear if poor relations between Russia and the United States, which imposed new unilateral sanctions on Moscow on Wednesday, would hamper negotiations.
Moscow has disagreed with assessments by Western powers that Pyongyang launched two long-range missiles, saying they were mid-range. Diplomats say China and Russia only view a test of a long-range missile or a nuclear weapon as a trigger for further possible U.N. sanctions.
North Korea has been under U.N. sanctions since 2006 over its ballistic missile and nuclear programs and the Security Council has ratcheted up the measures in response to five nuclear weapons tests and two long-range missile launches.
The U.N. diplomat said North Korea has been estimated to earn in 2017 $400 million from coal, $251 million from iron and iron ore, $113 million from lead and lead ore and $295 million from seafood. The diplomat said it was difficult to estimate how much North Korea was earning from sending workers abroad.
A United Nations human rights investigator said in 2015 that North Korea has forced more than 50,000 people to work abroad, mainly in Russia and China, earning the country between $1.2 billion and $2.3 billion a year for the government.
Additional reporting by David Brunnstrom in Washington; Editing by James Dalgleish and Mary Milliken