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An Australian student was released Thursday after a week in detention in North Korea and flew to Beijing, where he described his condition to reporters as “very good.”
Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced to Parliament that Alek Sigley, 29, had been released hours earlier following intervention from Swedish diplomats Wednesday.
Sigley looked relaxed when he arrived at Beijing airport. He did not respond to reporters’ questions about what had happened in Pyongyang.
His father, Gary Sigley, said his son would soon be reunited with his Japanese wife Yuka Morinaga in Tokyo.
“He’s fine. He’s in very good spirits. He’s been treated well,” the father told reporters in his hometown of Perth.
Swedish diplomats had raised Sigley with North Korean authorities in Pyongyang where Australia does not have an embassy.
“Alex is safe and well. Swedish authorities advised the Australian government that they met with senior officials from the DPRK yesterday and raised the issue of Alex’s disappearance on Australia’s behalf,” Morrison said, using the official name for North Korea.
Morrison thanked Swedish authorities for “their invaluable assistance in securing Alek’s prompt release.”
“This outcome demonstrates the value of discrete behind-the-scenes work of officials in resolving complex and sensitive consular cases in close partnership with other governments,” Morrison said.
The Pyongyang university student and tour guide lost contact with family and friends in Japan and Australia last Tuesday.
Morrison’s announcement was the first confirmation that he had been detained.
Editor’s note: A look at the veracity of claims by political figures
WASHINGTON — In his Fourth of July remarks, President Donald Trump will be celebrating the armed forces and showcasing what he’s done for them. But in recent days, he has falsified his record on military matters on several fronts.
He’s claimed, for example, that he came up with the “genius idea” of giving veterans private health care so they don’t have to wait for Veterans Affairs appointments, only to find out that others had thought of it but failed to get it done.
President Barack Obama signed the law getting it done in 2014.
Trump also made the flatly false statement that he won troops their first raise in a decade, suggested he’s made progress reducing veteran suicides that is not backed up by the numbers, and contradicted the record in claiming that North Korea is cooperating on the return of the remains of U.S. troops.
A look at his statements on military matters and personnel, some of which may be heard from the stage Thursday or in tweets:
FILE – U.S. President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump take a selfie with U.S. troops at Ramstein Air Force Base, Germany, Dec. 27, 2018.
Military pay
Trump, addressing military members: “You also got very nice pay raises for the last couple of years. Congratulations. Oh, you care about that. They care about that. I didn’t think you noticed. Yeah, you were entitled. You know, it was close to 10 years before you had an increase. Ten years. And we said, ‘It’s time.’ And you got a couple of good ones, big ones, nice ones.” — remarks Sunday at Osan Air Base, South Korea.
The facts: He’s been spreading this falsehood for more than a year, soaking up cheers from crowds for something he didn’t do. In May 2018, for example, he declared to graduates of the U.S. Naval Academy: “We just got you a big pay raise. First time in 10 years.”
U.S. military members have received a pay raise every year for decades.
Trump also boasts about the size of the military pay raises under his administration, but there’s nothing extraordinary about them.
Several raises in the last decade have been larger than service members are getting under Trump — 2.6% this year, 2.4% last year, 2.1% in 2017.
Raises in 2008, 2009 and 2010, for example, were all 3.4% or more.
Pay increases shrank after that because of congressionally mandated budget caps. Trump and Congress did break a trend that began in 2011 of pay raises that hovered between 1% and 2%.
Veterans’ suicide
Trump: “On average, 20 veterans and members take their own lives every day. … We’re working very, very hard on that. In fact, the first time I heard the number was 23, and now it’s down somewhat. But it’s such an unacceptable number.” — call on June 25 with military veterans.
The facts: Trump incorrectly suggests that he helped reduce veterans’ suicide, noting that his administration was working “very, very hard” on the problem and that in fact the figure had come down. But no decline has been registered during his administration. There was a drop during the Obama administration, but that might be because of the way veterans’ suicides are counted.
The Veterans Affairs Department estimated in 2013 that 22 veterans were taking their lives each day on average (not 23, as Trump put it). The estimate was based on data submitted from fewer than half of the states. In 2016, VA released an estimate of 20 suicides per day, based on 2014 data from all 50 states as well as the Pentagon.
The estimated average has not budged since.
Trump has pledged additional money for suicide prevention and created in March a Cabinet-level task force that will seek to develop a national roadmap for suicide prevention, part of a campaign pledge to improve health care for veterans.
Still, a report by the Government Accountability Office in December found the VA had left millions of dollars unspent that were available for suicide prevention efforts. The report said VA had spent just $57,000 out of $6.2 million available for paid media, such as social-media postings, thanks in part to leadership turmoil at the agency.
FILE – U.S. General Vincent Brooks, commander of the U.N. Command, U.S. Forces Korea and Combined Forces Command, speaks during a repatriation ceremony for the remains of U.S. soldiers who were killed in the Korean War and collected in North Korea.
North Korea
Trump, on North Korea’s help in returning the remains of U.S. troops from the Korean War: “The remains are coming back as they get them, as they find them. The remains of our great heroes from the war. And we really appreciate that.” — remarks Sunday to Korean business leaders in Seoul.
Trump: “We’re very happy about the remains having come back. And they’re bringing back — in fact, we were notified they have additional remains of our great heroes from many years ago.” — remarks June 28 in Japan.
The facts: His account is at odds with developments.
No remains of U.S. service members have been returned since last summer and the U.S. suspended efforts in May to get negotiations on the remains back on track in time to have more repatriated this year. It hopes more remains may be brought home next year.
The Pentagon’s Defense POW-MIA Accounting Agency, which is the outfit responsible for recovering U.S. war remains and returning them to families, “has not received any new information from (North Korean) officials regarding the turn over or recovery of remains,” spokesman Charles Prichard said Wednesday.
Prichard said his agency is “still working to communicate” with the North Korean army “as it is our intent to find common ground on resuming recovery missions” in 2020.
Last summer, in line with the first summit between Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un that June, the North turned over 55 boxes of what it said were the remains of an undetermined number of U.S service members killed in the North during the 1950-53 war. So far, six Americans have been identified from the 55 boxes.
U.S. officials have said the North has suggested in recent years that it holds perhaps 200 sets of American war remains. Thousands more are unrecovered from battlefields and former POW camps.
The Pentagon estimates that 5,300 Americans were lost in North Korea.
Health care
Trump, on approving private-sector health care for veterans: “I actually came up with the idea. I said, ‘Why don’t we just have the veterans go out and see a private doctor and we’ll pay the cost of the doctor and that will solve the problem?’ Because some veterans were waiting for 2 weeks, 3 weeks, 4 weeks, they couldn’t get any service at all. I said, ‘We’ll just send them out.’ And I thought it was a genius idea, brilliant idea. And then I came back and met with the board and a lot of the people that handled the VA. … They said, ‘Actually, sir, we’ve been trying to get that passed for 40 years, and we haven’t been able to get it.’ … I’m good at getting things done. … It’s really cut down big on the waits.” — call on June 25 with military veterans.
Trump: “We passed VA Choice and VA Accountability to give our veterans the care that they deserve and they have been trying to pass these things for 45 years.” — Montoursville, Pennsylvania, rally May 20.
The facts: Trump did not invent the idea of giving veterans the option to see private doctors outside the Department of Veterans Affairs medical system at government expense. Nor is he the first president in 40 years to pass the program.
Congress approved the private-sector Veterans Choice health program in 2014 and Obama signed it into law. Trump expanded it.
Under the expansion, which took effect last month, veterans still may have to wait weeks to see a doctor. The program allows veterans to see a private doctor if their VA wait is 20 days (28 for specialty care) or their drive is only 30 minutes.
Indeed, the VA says it does not expect a major increase in veterans seeking care outside the VA under Trump’s expanded program, partly because waiting times in the private sector are typically longer than at VA.
“The care in the private sector, nine times out of 10, is probably not as good as care in VA,” VA Secretary Robert Wilkie told Congress in March.
A tornado swept through the northeastern Chinese province of Liaoning Wednesday, killing six and injuring 190, the state broadcaster said, amid a series of “extreme” weather events that government forecasters have linked to climate change.
The tornado damaged nearly 3,600 homes and affected more than 9,900 residents in Kaiyuan, a city of around a half-million people, according to China Central Television.
Footage posted by CCTV on its official Weibo account shows dozens of flattened buildings in an economic development zone in Kaiyuan.
China’s Global Times newspaper said that tornadoes were rarely seen in the area.
The country’s weather bureau Tuesday said climate change could cause more extreme weather events, following floods, drought and extreme high temperatures in some regions this year.
It said rainfall had broken records in some areas and that as many as 40 weather stations had this year registered their hottest temperatures ever.
The northern Chinese province of Hebei issued an extreme heat “red alert” Thursday, with temperatures set to soar beyond 40 Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) in its major cities and putting the area’s corn crop at risk, the local government said.
The government of Hebei said on its official website that the cities of Baoding, Shijiazhuang, Hengshui, Cangzhou, Xingtai and Handan were all expected to see temperatures above 40C Thursday.
The local weather bureau also warned that the extreme heat and drought in the province were likely to affect its corn crop.
Hebei, which surrounds the capital Beijing, is among China’s biggest producers of the grain.
Rainfall in the province has declined 23.9% compared to the average in the second quarter of 2019, the local Hebei Daily reported.
Cities in Hebei have been deploying sprinklers mounted on trucks to try to keep temperatures down, putting further pressure on water supplies.
The heat wave that has swept across northern China, including the capital Beijing, is expected to last until next week, the Hebei Daily said, citing the local weather bureau.
In a joint statement with France and the United Nations released Saturday, China promised to show the “highest possible ambition” when it comes to fighting global warming, with higher targets to cut carbon emissions expected next year.
The White House is blasting a Seattle judge’s ruling that says the Trump administration can’t indefinitely lock up migrants who are seeking asylum without giving them a chance to be released on bond.
U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman on Tuesday blocked a new administration policy saying that asylum-seekers will no longer get bond hearings but instead must remain in custody as they pursue their claims.
She said it’s unconstitutional for the government to detain people without demonstrating it’s necessary.
White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham issued a statement Wednesday calling the ruling “at war with the rule of law.” She says it “only incentivizes smugglers and traffickers.”
American Civil Liberties Union lawyer Michael Tan says the ruling “upholds the law against this administration’s ongoing attempts to violate it.”
Officials say U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport thwarted a man’s attempt to import several pounds of African rat meat.
Customs spokesman Steve Bansbach said Tuesday that the man declared the 32 pounds of meat on June 26 when his flight arrived from the Ivory Coast. The meat was confiscated and destroyed.
Bansbach says the man did not face a fine and continued on his journey because he was forthcoming about what he was bringing into the country. He says customs officials prohibit the entry of African meats to prevent the spread of African swine fever.
The Department of Agriculture says the highly contagious and deadly viral disease affects domestic and wild pigs and is not a threat to humans. The department says it has never been found in the U.S.
Rights groups urged Thai authorities Wednesday to investigate attacks against pro-democracy activists after one was beaten and left unconscious on a sidewalk in the latest case of growing violence.
Amnesty International submitted open letters to Thailand’s defense minister and its police commissioner asking them to bring to justice attackers against three vocal pro-democracy activists who have faced physical abuse on multiple occasions since the military seized power in a coup in 2014.
Authorities have so far failed to investigate the violence. The ruling junta has actively cracked down on dissent and political discussions while it enacted new election laws that favored its leader, Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, in elections in March.
Amnesty said the attacks against the activists “appear to fit a pattern of systemic violence timed to coincide with their efforts to draw attention to perceived election irregularities and problems relating to the formation of a new government.”
The appeal follows an attack last Friday on Sirawith Seritiwat, who opposes the military’s role in politics. He was beaten until he was unconscious on a sidewalk near his home in Bangkok in broad daylight.
Photos of a bloodied Sirawith and security camera footage of the attack that were circulated online have sparked public outrage.
Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha said Tuesday he had instructed police to investigate the attack on Sirawith.
“I am not his enemy,” Prayuth said.
Police said they’re investigating.
The most recent attack on Sirawith left him with a fractured eye socket and head injuries. He was previously attacked on June 3 by at least five men after he had been working on a campaign to petition members of the junta-appointed Senate not to vote for Prayuth to become prime minister.
Other anti-military activists such as Anurak Jeantawanich and Ekachai Hongkangwan have faced physical abuse on multiple occasions by unknown assailants.
Anurak said he was most recently attacked in May by six-to-eight men, some wearing motorcycle helmets and using metal bars to hit his head, after he announced a plan to protest the election of the pro-army speaker of the lower house of Parliament.
Ekachai faced physical abuse on several occasions in addition to having his parked car set on fire twice this year. He was also subjected to at least four violent attacks in 2018 as he engaged in peaceful protests about official misconduct, according to Amnesty International.
“Intimidating activists by physical abuse appears to be becoming increasingly aggressive and involving a rising number of victims,” Angkhana Neelapaijit of Thailand’s National Human Rights Commission said in a Facebook post last Friday after Sirawith was attacked.
“These incidents usually occur during the day in public places but authorities have never been able to apprehend the perpetrators, which leads to continued intimidation against political opponents without consideration for the law.”
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Wednesday that Japan cannot give South Korean exports preferential treatment because the country is not abiding by an agreement regarding wartime issues that Japan insists have been resolved.
Abe was objecting to criticism over escalating tensions between the two neighbors amid disputes over Koreans forced to work as laborers during World War II.
He was defending a decision announced Monday to impose restrictions on Japan’s exports of semiconductor-related materials to South Korea. As of Thursday, exports of some materials used in manufacturing computer parts, including fluorinated polyimides used for displays, must apply for approval for each contract.
“We did not intertwine historical issues with trade issues,” Abe said. “The issue of former Korean laborers is not about a historical issue but about whether to keep the promise between countries under international law … and what to do when the promise is broken.”
Abe made the comment when asked about diplomacy during a party leaders’ debate ahead of Tuesday’s start of official campaigning for the July 21 Upper House elections.
Relations between the two main U.S. allies in East Asia have rapidly soured since South Korea’s top court in October ordered Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp. to pay 100 million won ($88,000) each to four plaintiffs forced to work for the company during Japan’s 1910-1945 colonization of the Korean Peninsula. South Korea’s top court ordered the seizure of local assets of the company after it refused to pay the compensation. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries also has refused an order by South Korea’s Supreme Court to financially compensate 10 Koreans for forced labor during Japan’s colonial era.
Abe said each country bears a responsibility to carry out export controls for national security reasons. “Within that obligation, if another country fails to keep its promise, we cannot give it preferential treatment like before,” he said.
Abe and other officials have offered conflicting explanations for the move, citing both a lack of trust and unspecified security concerns.
On Tuesday, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga cited national security concerns and “lack of trust” after exchanges with Seoul for Japan’s export control measures on South Korea.
Japan is a major supplier of materials used to make the computer chips that run most devices, including Apple iPhones and laptop computers. Tokyo’s decision is also expected to affect exports called “resists” that are used for making semiconductors, and hydrogen fluoride used for semiconductors, pharmaceuticals and polymers such as nylon and Teflon.
In the United States, the Everglades National Park has been on the U.N.’s ‘World Heritage in Danger’ list since 2010. UNESCO is meeting this week and is expected to keep the troubled wetland on that list, despite decades of restoration efforts. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
Tesla set a record for quarterly vehicle deliveries in a triumphant response to months of questions about demand for its luxury electric cars, sending shares up 7% after hours Tuesday.
Tesla did not comment on profit — which is still elusive — but the robust deliveries could help jumpstart investor sentiment on Tesla, which has been challenged in recent months.
Before Tuesday’s after-hours spike, Tesla shares were down about a third from the beginning of the year.
Brushing aside concerns about demand that have dogged the company all year, Tesla said orders during the second quarter exceeded deliveries, despite buyers getting a smaller tax credit.
A $7,500 U.S. federal tax credit was cut in half at the end of last year, fell to $1,875 on Monday and expires at the end of the year.
“We believe we are well positioned to continue growing total production and deliveries in Q3,” the company said in a statement.
Tesla delivered 77,550 Model 3s in the quarter, the company’s latest sedan and linchpin of the company’s growth strategy. That compared with analysts’ average estimate of 73,144, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.
Deliveries of all models rose 51% from the first quarter to 95,200 vehicles, including 17,650 Model S and X. Analysts on average were expecting total deliveries of 89,084.
FILE – Tesla CEO Elon Musk speaks before unveiling the Model Y at the company’s design studio in Hawthorne, California, March 14, 2019.
Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk has repeatedly said Tesla could deliver a record number of cars in the second quarter, beating the 90,700 it sent to customers in the final quarter of last year.
Wall Street ‘skeptical’
Tuesday’s numbers helped take the sting off a difficult first quarter, in which deliveries plunged and the company lost $702 million.
That fraught quarter — hurt by logistics issues at Tesla’s international ports and a drop-off in U.S. orders after the tax credit was halved — spurred worries that Tesla may have tapped a limited market for electric cars at premium prices.
Despite the positive second-quarter delivery numbers, Wedbush analyst Dan Ives cautioned that “the Street remains skeptical.”
Demand and profitability will remain the two main drivers to buoy Tesla shares in coming quarters, Ives told Reuters, signaling that Tesla’s challenges are far from over.
Garrett Nelson of CFRA Research noted that second-quarter deliveries were likely artificially boosted by customers pulling forward their vehicle purchases before the July 1 tax credit cut, warning that could result in a “significant retracement” in deliveries in the third quarter.
Tesla did not repeat its prior forecast that it would post a second-quarter loss but return to profit in the third quarter.
Delivery challenge
A big challenge for Tesla has been how to deliver its vehicles efficiently and swiftly to customers around the world.
An improved system for logistics helped in the second quarter, Tesla said, without providing more detail.
In prior quarters, Tesla has diverted employees from all parts of the company to help with deliveries in an all-hands-on-deck effort to meet delivery goals. That has proved to be an expensive and inefficient way to meet targets, which reduces potential profit margins on each vehicle.
The delivery numbers included 10,600 vehicles that had been in transit at the end of the first quarter.
The company has pledged to deliver 360,000 to 400,000 vehicles in 2019, a goal many analysts predict will be difficult to meet.
Overall, total production rose 13% to 87,048 vehicles compared with the first quarter. The company churned out 72,531 Model 3s in the second quarter, up from a total of 62,950 Model 3s in the preceding quarter.
Tesla said that going forward, it would no longer disclose how many vehicles were in transit at the end of each quarter due to production changes that made the number less relevant. At the end of the second quarter, over 7,400 vehicles were in transit.
European Union (EU) leaders have chosen the new heads of the 28-nation bloc’s institutions for at least the next five years, breaking a three-day deadlock triggered by deep EU divisions.
European Council President Donald Tusk said Tuesday German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen was named president of the European Commission and Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel as the council president.
FILE – German Minister of Defense Ursula von der Leyen speaks in Athens, March 5, 2019.
French monetary expert Christine Legarde was appointed chief of the European Central Bank and Spanish Acting Foreign Minister Josep Borrell was selected as the EU’s foreign affairs chief.
Lawmakers are set to choose the president of the European Parliament on Wednesday in Strasbourg.
The selections capped days of talks aimed at finding a compromise on who should be appointed to the coveted positions.
EU leaders were challenged with naming new leaders who represent the bloc’s political affiliations, population size and the EU’s various regions.
Hundreds of Israelis are protesting across the country against alleged police brutality against the country’s Ethiopian community following the killing of an Ethiopian Israeli teen by an off-duty police officer.
Demonstrators blocked a main highway in central Tel Aviv and major thoroughfares around the country on Tuesday. They have been voicing frustration over perceived systemic discrimination against the community’s roughly 150,000 members. Police say officers arrested at least three protesters at a demonstration outside Haifa that turned violent.
On Sunday, an off-duty police officer shot and killed Ethiopian Israeli teen Solomon Teka. Police said the officer was arrested and placed by a court in protective custody.
Thousands of people attended Teka’s funeral at a cemetery near Haifa on Tuesday.
Col. Turki al Maliki, spokesman for Saudi-led coalition forces in Yemen, said that a Houthi drone struck the Abha Airport for the third time in less than a month, wounding nine people in an attack during the early hours of the morning Tuesday.
Amateur video shows taxi drivers surveying damage to vehicles outside the main airport terminal building.
Saudi media quoted al Maliki as saying that nine civilians were wounded in the drone attack, which he called a “terrorist act.” Maliki also stated that the attack on a civilian target might qualify as a “war crime.”
It was the third Houthi drone attack on Abha Airport in less than a month.
Drone targets pipeline
A drone attack on Saudi oil pumping stations in May temporarily shut down the Yanbaw oil pipeline to the Red Sea.
Yemen’s Houthis also claimed responsibility for that attack, although U.S. military sources think the drones used in the attack might have come from Iraq, rather than Yemen.
“Beginning of escalation”
Hilal Khashan, who teaches political science at the American University of Beirut, said he thinks attacks on Saudi targets, like the ones on Abha Airport, are “clearly related to the situation with Iran,” and he argues they are more likely to escalate than to taper off given the current tensions between Washington and Tehran.
“I think this is the beginning of escalation,” Khashan said. “The Iranians are increasing their enrichment of uranium and … I am bracing for further developments and further military action in the region. The Iranians operate under the assumption that the Trump Administration does not want war, [that] Trump is focused on the economy and on getting re-elected. So, the Iranians calculation may be that they will do anything in order to derail his efforts.”
Khashan went on to underscore that the “Houthi attacks on Saudi airspace and Abha and Jizan Airports point to the frailty of Saudi defenses,” despite the country’s hefty military budget.
“Raises the stakes”
Washington-based Gulf analyst Theodore Karasik tells VOA that attempts by Houthi drones to hit southern Saudi Arabia are becoming a daily occurrence and the “threat to civil aviation … raises the stakes dramatically.”
Karasik notes that U.N. Yemen envoy Martin Griffiths is currently visiting the UAE, after a trip to Moscow, and he says there is “a growing consensus that the threat must be dealt with quickly.”
‘Saudi TV indicated the kingdom “may respond to the Houthi attack” on Abha Airport, but it provided no further details.
