Ngày đăng: Tháng Hai 13, 2017

NATO Checking Claim that U.S. Airstrikes Killed 22 Afghan Civilians

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By MUJIB MASHAL and TAIMOOR SHAH FEB. 11, 2017

Afghan police during an operation against Taliban militants in the Sangin district of Afghanistan’s Helmand province in January. Watan Yar/European Pressphoto Agency

KABUL, Afghanistan — The NATO mission in Afghanistan has opened a preliminary investigation into claims that more than 20 civilians were killed in recent American airstrikes in the southern province of Helmand, military officials said Saturday.

Elders from the Sangin district, the scene of heavy fighting in recent weeks, with the Taliban blowing up Afghan Army posts there, have said that multiple American airstrikes early Friday morning killed at least 22 civilians, including several women and children.

Brig. Gen. Charles H. Cleveland, a spokesman for the American-led NATO mission, insisted that the military command had seen no conclusive evidence that civilians were killed in the airstrikes, but said that “a formal review to determine the credibility of the claims” had been opened. The investigation team involved NATO officers outside the American command to ensure impartiality, he added.

Trump Responds to North Korean Missile Launch With Uncharacteristic Restraint

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By PETER BAKER FEB. 12, 2017

On Sunday in Seoul, South Korea, people watched a news broadcast on the North Korean missile test. President Trump had a decidedly muted response. Kim Hee-Chul/European Pressphoto Agency

WASHINGTON — After North Korea threatened on New Year’s Day to test an intercontinental ballistic missile, Donald J. Trump, then president-elect, reacted with characteristic swagger. He vowed to stop the North from developing a nuclear weapon capable of hitting the United States. “It won’t happen!” he wrote on Twitter.

But six weeks later, after North Korea defiantly launched a missile into the sea, Mr. Trump, now president, reacted with surprising restraint. Appearing before cameras late at night on Saturday in Florida with his golfing guest, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan, Mr. Trump read a statement of just 23 words that pledged American support for Tokyo without even mentioning North Korea.

North Korea Fires Ballistic Missile, Challenging Trump

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By CHOE SANG-HUN FEB. 11, 2017

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan and President Trump denounced North Korea’s latest ballistic missile test, while Senator Chuck Schumer of New York said China should “put the wood to North Korea.”

By REUTERS and THE ASSOCIATED PRESS. Photo by Ahn Young-Joon/Associated Press. Watch in Times Video

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea launched a ballistic missile toward the sea off its eastern coast on Sunday, in what South Korea called the North’s first attempt to test President Trump’s policy on the isolated country.

A projectile believed to be a modified version of the North’s intermediate-range ballistic missile Musudan took off at 7:55 a.m. from Banghyon, a town near North Korea’s northwestern border with China, and flew 310 miles before falling in the sea, the South Korean military said. Earlier, the United States Strategic Command issued a statement identifying the missile as a medium- or intermediate-range system that “did not pose a threat to North America.”

South Korea condemned the missile launching, saying that it violated a series of United Nations Security Council resolutions that bar North Korea from developing or testing ballistic missile and nuclear weapons technologies. It also said the North had launched the missile to raise tensions over its weapons programs and to use it as leverage in dealing with the Trump administration.

Top Opposition Leader in Cambodia Resigns as Election Nears

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By JULIA WALLACE FEB. 12, 2017

Sam Rainsy, until Saturday the leader of the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party, arriving in Phnom Penh, the capital, in August 2015. He fled the country that November to avoid jail time. Heng Sinith/Associated Press

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — The embattled leader of Cambodia’s main opposition party abruptly quit on Saturday in the face of increasing government pressure, ceding a political stage he had occupied for more than two decades.

The resignation of the leader, Sam Rainsy, came after the government began a series of moves that would allow it to dissolve the Cambodia National Rescue Party he led, in advance of crucial local elections set for June. The opposition has also been hit with a barrage of lawsuits and leaked telephone conversations between leading figures and women purported to be their mistresses.

It was unclear whether Mr. Sam Rainsy, 67, was leaving politics for good or was planning to work quietly behind the scenes. Either way, his exit seemed to represent the end of an era.

As the head of three liberal-leaning political parties since 1995, he had been a thorn in the side of the country’s long-ruling prime minister, Hun Sen, for more than 20 years.