Around the World briefs
By Associated Press
North Korean leader Kim leads rocket drills that simulate a nuclear counterattack against enemies
SEOUL, South Korea | North Korean leader Kim Jong Un supervised salvo launches of the country’s “super-large” multiple rocket launchers that simulated a nuclear counterattack against enemy targets, state media said Tuesday, adding to tests and threats that have raised tensions in the region.
The report by North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency came a day after the South Korean and Japanese militaries detected the North firing what they suspected were multiple short-range ballistic missiles from a region near its capital, Pyongyang, toward its eastern seas.
Analysts say North Korea’s large-sized artillery rockets blur the boundary between artillery systems and ballistic missiles because they can create their own thrust and are guided during delivery. The North has described some of these systems, including the 600mm multiple rocket launchers that were tested Monday, as capable of delivering tactical nuclear warheads.
KCNA said Monday’s launches represented the first demonstration of the country’s nuclear-weapons management and control system called “Haekbangashoe,” or “nuclear trigger.” The report described the drill as aimed at demonstrating the strength and diverse attack means of North Korea’s nuclear forces amid deepening tensions with the United States and South Korea, which it portrayed as “warmongers” raising tensions in the region with their combined military exercises.
State media photos showed at least four rockets being fired from launch vehicles as Kim watched from an observation post. It said the rockets flew 352 kilometers (218 miles) before accurately hitting an island target and that the drill verified the reliability of the “system of command, management, control and operation of the whole nuclear force.”
KCNA said Kim expressed satisfaction, saying that the multiple rocket launchers were as accurate as a “sniper’s rifle.”
He said the drill was crucial for “preparing our nuclear force to be able to rapidly and correctly carry out their important mission of deterring a war and taking the initiative in a war in any time and any sudden situation.” The comments reflected North Korea’s escalatory nuclear doctrine, which authorizes the military to launch preemptive nuclear strikes against enemies if it perceives the leadership as under threat.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the weapons from Monday’s launches flew about 300 kilometers (185 miles) before crashing in the waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan. The ranges suggested the weapons would likely target sites in South Korea. The latest launches came as South and the United States have been conducting a two-week combined aerial exercise that continues through Friday aimed at sharpening their response capabilities against North Korean threats.
When asked about the North Korean claims, Lee Sung Joon, spokesperson of South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, said it remains unclear whether the North perfected the designs for small, battlefield nuclear weapons that could fit on its rockets. He insisted the North was likely exaggerating the accuracy of its multiple rocket launcher systems and that South Korea would be able to detect and intercept such weapons, without elaborating on specific missile defense capabilities.
Lee said it was possible that the North used the drill to test the multiple rocket launchers it potentially plans to export to Russia as the countries expand their military cooperation in the face of separate, intensifying confrontations with the United States. The U.S. and South Korea have accused North Korea of transferring artillery shells, missiles and other munitions to Russia to help extend its warfighting in Ukraine.
North Korea in recent months has maintained an accelerated pace in weapons testing as it continues to expand its military capabilities while diplomacy with the United States and South Korea remained stalled. Outside officials and analysts say Kim’s goal is to eventually pressure the United States into accepting the idea of the North as a nuclear power and negotiating economic and security concessions from a position of strength.
In response to North Korea’s evolving nuclear threats, the United States and South Korea have been strengthening their bilateral military drills and trilateral exercises with Japan. The countries are also sharpening their nuclear deterrence strategies built around strategic U.S. assets.
In past years, North Korea has test-fired nuclear-capable missiles designed to strike sites in South Korea, Japan and the mainland U.S. Many experts say North Korea already possesses nuclear missiles that can reach all of South Korea and Japan, but it has yet to develop functioning intercontinental ballistic missiles that can travel to the continental U.S.
The latest launches came days after North Korea announced Saturday it tested a “super-large” cruise missile warhead and a new anti-aircraft missile in a western coastal area earlier last week. In early April, North Korea also test-launched what it called a solid-fuel intermediate-range missile with hypersonic warhead capabilities, a weapon that experts say is meant to attack remote targets in the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam and beyond.
With public universities under
threat, massive protests against austerity shake Argentina
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina | Raising their textbooks and diplomas and singing the national anthem, hundreds of thousands of Argentines filled the streets of Buenos Aires and other cities on Tuesday to demand increased funding for the country’s public universities, in an outpouring of anger at libertarian President Javier Milei’s harsh austerity measures.
The scale of the demonstration in downtown Buenos Aires appeared to exceed other massive demonstrations that have rocked the capital since Milei came to power.
Students and professors coordinated with the country’s powerful trade unions and leftist political parties to push back against budget cuts that have forced Argentina’s most venerable university to declare a financial emergency and warn of imminent closure.
In a sign unrest was growing in response to Milei’s policies, even conservative politicians, private university administrators and right-wing TV personalities joined the march, defending the common cause of public education in Argentina that has underpinned the country’s social progress for decades.
“It is historic,” said Ariana Thiele Lara, a 25-year-old recent graduate protesting. “It feels like we were all united.”
Describing universities as bastions of socialism where professors indoctrinate their students, Milei has tried to dismiss the university budget crisis as politics as usual.
“The cognitive dissonance that brainwashing generates in public education is tremendous,” he said.
At the University of Buenos Aires, or UBA, halls went dark, elevators froze and air conditioning stopped working in some buildings last week. Professors taught 200-person lectures without microphones or projectors because the public university couldn’t cover its electricity bill.
“It’s an unthinkable crisis,” said Valeria Añón, a 50-year-old literature professor at the university, known as UBA. “I feel sad for my students and for myself as professor and researcher.”
In his drive to reach zero deficit, Milei is slashing spending across Argentina — shuttering ministries, defunding cultural centers, laying off state workers and cutting subsidies. On Monday he had something to show for it, announcing Argentina’s first quarterly fiscal surplus since 2008 and promising the public the pain would pay off.
“We are making the impossible possible even with the majority of politics, unions, the media and most economic actors against us,” he said in a televised address.
On Tuesday, the footfall of protesters resounded in the city center. “Why are you so scared of public education?” banners asked. “The university will defend itself!” students shouted.
“We are trying to show the government it cannot take away our right to education,” said Santiago Ciraolo, a 32-year-old student in social communication protesting Tuesday. “Everything is at stake here.”
Since last July, when the fiscal year began, the state has provided the University of Buenos Aires with just 8.9% of its total budget as annual inflation now hovers near 290%. The university says that’s barely enough to keep lights on and provide basic services in teaching hospitals that have already cut capacity.
The university warned last week that without a rescue plan, the school would shut down in the coming months, stranding 380,000 students mid-degree. It’s a shock for Argentines who consider a free and quality university education a birthright. UBA has a proud intellectual tradition, having produced five Nobel Prize winners and 17 presidents.
“I’ve been given access to a future, to opportunities through this university that otherwise my family and many others at our income level could never afford,” said Alex Vargas, a 24-year-old economics student. “When you step back, you see how important this is for our society.”
President Milei came to power last December, inheriting an economy in shambles after years of chronic overspending and suffocating international debt. Brandishing a chainsaw during his campaign to symbolize slashing the budget, he repeats a simple catchphrase to compatriots reeling from budget cuts and the peso’s 50% devaluation: “There is no money.”
Overall, Argentina puts 4.6% of its gross domestic product into education. Public universities are also free for international pupils, drawing legions of students from across Latin America, Spain and further afield. Critics of the system want foreign students to pay dues.
“Where I’m from, high-quality education is unfortunately a privilege, not a basic right,” said Sofia Hernandez, a 21-year-old from Bogota, Colombia studying medicine at UBA. “In Argentina there is a model that I wish more countries could have.”
The government said late Monday it was sending some $24.5 million to cover maintenance costs at public universities and another $12 million to keep medical centers operating.
“The discussion is settled,” presidential spokesperson Manuel Adorni said.
University authorities disagreed, saying the promised transfer — which they still have not received — covers a fraction of what they need. For UBA, that means a 61% annual budget cut.
The teachers also need attention, said Matías Ruiz, UBA’s treasury secretary. They have seen their income decline in value more than 35% in the past four months. Staff salaries can be as low as $150 a month. Professors juggle multiple jobs to scrape by.
“We’ve had funding and salary freezes under previous right-wing governments but these cuts are three times worse,” said Ines Aldao, a 44-year-old literature professor at UBA.
The angry students, teachers and workers snaked through the capital’s streets just hours after Milei declared economic victory from his presidential palace.
“We are building a new era of prosperity in Argentina,” Milei told the public, boasting that Argentina had posted a quarterly fiscal surplus of 0.2% of gross domestic product.
A huge banner hanging over downtown Buenos Aires presented a choice: Milei or public education?
100-year-old British D-Day veteran dies before he can honor fallen comrades one more time
LONDON | British army veteran Bill Gladden, who survived a glider landing on D-Day and a bullet that tore through his ankle a few days later, wanted to return to France for the 80th anniversary of the invasion so he could honor the men who didn’t come home.
It was not to be.
Gladden, one of the dwindling number of veterans who took part in the landings that kicked off the campaign to liberate Western Europe from the Nazis during World War II, died Wednesday, his family said. He was 100.
Although weakened by cancer, Gladden had been determined to make it back to Normandy to take part in this year’s D-Day commemorations. With fewer and fewer veterans taking part each year, the ceremony may be one of the last big events marking the assault that began on June 6, 1944.
“If I could do that this year, I should be happy,’’ he told The Associated Press from his home in Haverhill, England, in January, even as he celebrated his birthday with family and friends. “Well, I am happy now, but I should be more happy.”
Born Jan. 13, 1924, Gladden was raised in the Woolwich area of southeast London. His mother worked at the nearby Royal Arsenal during World War I and his father was a soldier.
He joined the army at 18 and was ultimately assigned to the 6th Airborne Reconnaissance Regiment as a motorcycle dispatch rider.
On D-Day, Gladden landed behind the front lines in a wooden glider loaded with six motorcycles and a 17,000-pound (7,700-kilogram) tank. His unit was part of an operation charged with securing bridges over the River Orne and Caen Canal so they could be used by Allied forces moving inland from the beaches.
Based in an orchard outside the village of Ranville, Gladden spent 12 days making forays into the surrounding countryside to check out reports of enemy activity.
On June 16, he carried two wounded soldiers into a barn that was being used as a makeshift field hospital. Two days later, he found himself at the same hospital after machine gun fire from a German tank shattered his right ankle.
Lying on the grass outside the hospital, he read the treatment label pinned to his tunic:
“Amputation considered. Large deep wound in right ankle. Compound fracture of both tibia and fibula. All extension tendons destroyed. Evacuate.”
Gladden didn’t lose his leg, but he spent the next three years in the hospital as doctors performed a series of surgeries, including tendon transplants, skin and bone grafts.
After the war, he married Marie Warne, an army driver he met in 1943, and spent 40 years working for Siemens and Pearl Insurance. He is survived by their daughter, Linda Durrant and her husband, Kenny.
Over the years, Gladden had regularly joined other old soldiers on trips to battlefields in Normandy and the Netherlands organized by the Taxi Charity for Military veterans.
“He had a wonderful gentle voice and loved nothing more than singing some of his favorite wartime songs,’’ said Dick Goodwin, the group’s honorary secretary. “Earlier this year, we had the joy of celebrating his 100 birthday in Haverhill and, testament to the man he was, the hall was packed with all those who knew and loved him.’’
Though he was happier talking about his family than reminiscing about the war, Gladden chronicled his wartime story in a scrapbook that includes a newspaper clipping about “the tanks that were built to fly,” drawings of the glider landings and other memorabilia.
There’s also a scrap of parachute silk left behind by one of the paratroopers who landed in the orchard at Ranville. As he lay in the hospital recovering from his wounds, Gladden painstakingly stitched his unit’s shoulder insignia into the fabric.
The edges are frayed and discolored after eight decades, but “Royal Armoured Corps” still stands out in an arc of red lettering on a yellow background. Underneath is a silhouette of Pegasus, the flying horse, over the word “Airborne.”
“These are the flashes we wore on our battledress blouses,” reads the caption in Gladden’s neat block letters.
The same insignia decorated the top of his birthday cake in January as family and other guests belted out a round of “Happy Birthday to You.”
But even then, Gladden was thinking about traveling back to Normandy to honor his comrades, especially the two soldiers he carried into that barn 80 years ago. They didn’t make it.
“He wanted to go to pay his respects,’’ his niece Kaye Thorpe’s husband, Alan, told The Associated Press. “I’d like to think he’s with them now. And that he’s paying his respects in person.’’
Abortion returns to the spotlight in Italy, 46 years after it was legalized
ROME | Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni’s far-right-led government scored a victory Tuesday with the Senate approving a law allowing anti-abortion groups access to women considering ending their pregnancies. The development revives tensions around the issue of abortion in Italy, 46 years after it was legalized in the overwhelmingly Catholic country.
The Senate, where the government has a majority, voted 95-68, giving final approval to legislation tied to European Union COVID-19 recovery funds that included an amendment sponsored by Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party.
The law, already passed by the lower Chamber of Deputies, allows regions to permit groups “with a qualified experience supporting motherhood” to have access to public support centers where women who are considering abortions go to receive counseling.
For the right, the amendment merely fulfills the original intent of the 1978 law legalizing abortion, known as Law 194, which includes provisions to prevent the procedure and support motherhood.
For the left-wing opposition, it chips away at abortion rights that opponents had warned would follow Meloni’s 2022 election.
“The government should realize that they keep saying they absolutely do not want to boycott or touch Law 194, but the truth is that the right-wing opposes women’s reproductive autonomy, fears women’s choices regarding motherhood, sexuality, and abortion,” Cecilia D’Elia, a Democratic Party senator, said at a protest this week against the legislation.
Under the 1978 law, Italy allows abortion on request in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, or later if a woman’s health or life is in danger. It provides for publicly funded counseling centers to advise pregnant women of their rights and services offered if they want to terminate the pregnancies.
But easy access to abortion isn’t always guaranteed. The law allows health care personnel to register as conscientious objectors and refuse to perform abortions, and many have — meaning women sometimes have to travel far to have the procedure.
Meloni, who campaigned on a slogan of “God, fatherland and family,” has insisted she won’t roll back the 1978 law and merely wants to implement it fully. But she has also prioritized encouraging women to have babies to reverse Italy’s demographic crisis.
Italy’s birthrate, already one of the lowest in the world, has been falling steadily for about 15 years and reached a record low last year with 379,000 babies born. Meloni’s conservative forces, backed strongly by the Vatican, have mounted a campaign to encourage at least 500,000 births annually by 2033, a rate that demographers say is necessary to prevent the economy from collapsing under the weight of Italy’s aging population.
Meloni has called the left-wing opposition to the proposed amendment “fake news,” recalling that Law 194 provides for measures to prevent abortions, which would include counselling pregnant women about alternatives. The amendment specifically allows anti-abortion groups, or groups “supporting motherhood,” to be among the volunteer groups that can work in the counseling centers.
“I think we have to guarantee a free choice,” Meloni said recently. “And to guarantee a free choice you have to have all information and opportunities available. And that’s what the Law 194 provides.”
The new tensions over abortion in Italy come against the backdrop of developments elsewhere in Europe going somewhat in the opposite direction. France marked International Women’s Day by inscribing the guaranteed right to abortion into its constitution. Last year, overwhelmingly Catholic Malta voted to ease the strictest abortion laws in the EU. Polish lawmakers moved forward with proposals to lift a near-total ban on abortion enacted by the country’s previous right-wing government.
At the same time, Italy’s left fears the country might go the way of the U.S., where states are restricting access after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down landmark legislation that had guaranteed access to abortion nationwide.
Elly Schlein, head of Italy’s opposition Democratic Party, told a conference on women on Tuesday that the country needs to establish an obligatory percentage of doctors willing to perform abortions in public hospitals, “otherwise these rights remain on paper only.”
—From AP reports
