China test-fires ICBM with ‘dummy’ warhead, after Biden touts US relationship with Japan, South Korea
(HONG KONG and LONDON) — The Chinese military test-fired an intercontinental ballistic missile into the Pacific on Wednesday, marking the first known launch of an ICBM in decades, officials said.
The People’s Liberation Army launched the ICBM carrying a “dummy warhead” into the “high seas” at about 8:44 in the morning, the Chinese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. The missile splashed down into the area where they had planned for it to fall, the ministry said. Local media reported that the launch was the first such test since 1980.
“This test launch is a routine arrangement in our annual training plan,” the ministry said. “It is in line with international law and international practice and is not directed against any country or target.”
China’s official Xinhua news agency said “relevant countries” had been notified in advance. But Japanese officials weren’t notified prior to the launch, the country’s chief cabinet secretary told reporters on Wednesday afternoon in Tokyo.
“There was no notification beforehand and, according to the comprehensive analysis, we have been confirmed that it flew over our territory and there was no damage recorded,” Hayashi Yoshimasa said, according to an official translation.
The Chinese military’s Rocket Force has been under some domestic scrutiny over the past year, after some top generals were purged last summer over alleged corruption related to equipment procurement. The test-firing may be viewed internationally as a signal of the military’s readiness, despite those purges, which saw two former defense ministers expelled from the Communist Party.
The test launch comes days before Beijing is set to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the founding of the PRC on Oct. 1.
The test-fire also comes as the U.N. General Assembly meets in New York, where U.S. President Joe Biden spoke on Tuesday of his efforts to build a strong trilateral relationship with Japan and South Korea. Those relationships have been part of Biden’s strategy to counter China’s influence in the region.
“These partnerships are not against any nation,” Biden said on Tuesday. “They’re building blocks for a free, open, secure, peaceful Indo-Pacific.”
The United States in April said it had deployed mid-range missiles to Philippines. And Yoshimasa of Japan said on Wednesday that China’s defense budget had been increasing rapidly “without any visibility,” adding that China has been expanding their presence near Japanese territory “with a lack of transparency” about their movement.
“This is a very serious concern for Japan and the international society,” Yoshimasa said.
(LONDON) — No decisions were made on Ukraine’s use of American long-range weapons against Russia during a meeting between Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Ukrainian leadership on Wednesday, according to an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskky.
The discussion comes as Blinken announced more than $700 million in new funds to support Ukraine during remarks in Kyiv.
Restrictions on Ukraine’s use of American long-range weapons against targets inside Russia have been one of the most pressing issues for Blinken during the visit. America’s top diplomat was accompanied by British Foreign Secretary David Lammy.
During a lengthy meeting, Zelenskky and Blinken discussed lifting the ban on strikes deeper in Russian territory and weapon supplies, according to an adviser to Zelenskyy with knowledge of the meeting. Zelenskyy gave Blinken a detailed plan of how Ukraine could use long-range missiles for strikes into Russia and gave him a list of possible targets, the adviser said.
Blinken confirmed with reporters during remarks following the meeting that he discussed long-range fires with Ukrainian officials, “but a number of other things as well.”
Blinken said he will share what he learned from his talks with Ukrainian leadership on this trip with President Joe Biden, who is set to meet with U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Friday to “discuss how to further help Ukraine.”
‘We have adjusted and adapted as needs have changed, as the battlefield has changed, and I have no doubt that we’ll continue to do that as this evolves,” Blinken said.
He said escalation from Russia — including the acquisition of Iranian ballistic missiles — is “one of the factors that we always consider, but it’s certainly not the only factor.”
“We’re determined to ensure that they have what they need to succeed,” he added.
Blinken said the more than $700 million in new funds announced on Wednesday will help repair Ukraine’s energy and electric grid and provide humanitarian support as Ukraine heads into the fall fighting season against Russia.
“We remain fully committed to Ukraine’s victory, to not only ensuring that Ukraine can defend itself today, but can stand on its own feet strongly, militarily, economically, democratically for many, many days ahead,” Blinken said.
The new funds include $325 million to help repair Ukraine’s energy and electric grid, $290 million in new humanitarian support to those displaced by the war and $102 million in additional funding to help remove landmines and unexploded ordnances left behind by Russia across Ukraine, according to Blinken.
“The bottom line is this, we want Ukraine to win, and we’re fully committed to keep marshaling the support that it needs for its brave defenders and citizens to do just that now,” Blinken said.
Lammy also announced more than 600 million pounds in new support for Ukraine, including 242 million pounds this financial year for immediate humanitarian energy and stabilization needs.
Lammy additionally announced that the U.K. will send hundreds of additional air defense missiles and tens of thousands of additional artillery ammunition rounds to Ukraine by the end of the year.
“Together, Britain and our allies are united in our commitment to Ukraine, to freedom, to victory, because we both recognize what is at stake here — not just the liberty of Ukraine, but the security of Europe and the security of the West,” he said.
Kyiv has long been advocating for U.S. permission to strike military targets within Russian borders, including airfields that are key to Moscow’s long-range missile campaign against Ukrainian cities.
“We continue to persuade our partners at all levels about long-range capabilities,” Zelenskyy wrote on his Telegram channel on Sunday.
“Russia can avoid seeking peace only as much as the world avoids making strong decisions aimed at Russia’s defeat. Long-range capabilities are one of those key, strategic decisions.”
Yehor Cherniev — a member of the Ukrainian parliament and the chairman of his country’s delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly — told ABC News that Ukrainians are hoping for U.S. permission to use the MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile System, colloquially known as the ATACMS, for strikes within Russia. The longest-range variant of the weapon can hit targets out to 190 miles.
“It will inspire Ukrainians and our army,” Cherniev said. Russian airfields and military depots will be top of Kyiv’s target list if American restrictions on ATACMS use are indeed lifted, he added.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told journalists at a Wednesday briefing prior to Blinken’s remarks that he expected the U.S. to give its permission.
“Most likely, of course, all these decisions have already been made,” he said, as quoted by the state-run Tass agency.
ABC News’ Tanya Stukalova and Joe Simonetti contributed to this report.
(LONDON) — At least 14 more people were killed and 450 injured in Lebanon on Wednesday after a series of new explosions of wireless devices rocked the South, the Bekaa and the southern suburbs of Beirut, according to the Ministry of Health and the Lebanese Red Cross.
More than 30 ambulances are providing treatment and evacuations to wounded people in Lebanon on Wednesday, the Lebanese Red Cross said.
The Lebanese Army command has asked citizens not to gather in places witnessing security incidents to allow medical teams to arrive.
Members of the Lebanese Civil Defense are working to extinguish fires that broke out inside homes, cars and shops in the Bekaa, the South, Mount Lebanon and the southern suburbs due to the explosions, officials said.
All walkie-talkie devices were taken from security services members at the Rafiq Harir International Airport in Beirut after news of the devices exploding.
Pagers explode across Lebanon on Tuesday
At least 12 civilians were killed and at least 2,800 people injured in the explosions that took place Tuesday, according to Lebanese authorities. Around 460 of the injuries were critical and required surgery, Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abiad said. Most victims are suffering from eye and facial injuries, while others suffered injuries to hands and fingers, he said.
Israel was behind the deadly explosion of pagers across Lebanon on Tuesday, sources told ABC News on Wednesday.
The Hezbollah militant group said it is conducting a “security and scientific investigation” into the explosion of pagers across Lebanon on Tuesday.
Hezbollah said 11 of its members were killed on Tuesday, though — as is typical in its statements — did not specify how they died.
“We hold the Israeli enemy fully responsible for this criminal aggression, which also targeted civilians and led to the deaths of a number of martyrs and the injury of a large number with various wounds,” Hezbollah said of the pager explosions in a Tuesday statement.
In a Wednesday morning statement, Hezbollah said it would continue operations to “support Gaza,” and vowed a “reckoning” for Israel for the “massacre on Tuesday.”
The dead and injured included people who are not members of Hezbollah. Lebanese officials said that an 8-year-old girl and an 11-year-old boy are among the dead.
Israel has not commented on explosions
Israel has not commented on its alleged involvement in the apparent attack, which prompted chaos in the capital Beirut and elsewhere in Hezbollah’s south Lebanon heartland.
Around 100 hospitals received wounded people, the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health said, with hospitals in Beirut and its southern suburb quickly filling to capacity. Patients were then directed to other hospitals outside the region.
The Iranian ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani, was among those who had one of the pagers and was injured in an explosion Tuesday, according to Iranian state TV. The diplomat said in a phone call that he was “feeling well and fully conscious,” according to Iranian state TV.
“I am proud and honored that my blood has become one with the blood of the honorable Lebanese people, as a result of the horrific terrorist crime that targeted our brotherly Lebanon yesterday. This noble country has stood with dignity and pride since the first day of al-Aqsa Storm,” Amani said Wednesday.
At least 14 people were also injured in targeted attacks on Hezbollah members in Syria, according to the Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Fears grow of Israel-Hezbollah escalation
The alleged Israeli operation has again piqued fears of escalation in the Israel-Hezbollah conflict ongoing since Oct. 8, when members of the Iranian-backed group began cross-border attacks in support of Hamas’ war with Israel in the Gaza Strip.
Frontier skirmishes, Israeli strikes and Hezbollah rocket and artillery salvoes have been near-constant through 11 months of war in Gaza. Israeli officials have repeatedly threatened to launch a new military operation against Hezbollah along the Israel-Lebanon border. Tens of thousands of Israelis have left their homes in border regions due to the fighting.
The Israel Defense Forces said warplanes hit Hezbollah targets in six locations in southern Lebanon overnight into Wednesday. Artillery strikes were also conducted, it added.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah is due to make a public address on Thursday afternoon to address the situation. In February, Nasrallah urged members to stop using their cellphones, describing the technology as “a deadly agent.”
Schools across Lebanon will be closed on Wednesday, Lebanese state media reported, citing the country’s Minister of Education. Schools and offices closed include public and private schools, high schools, technical institutes, the Lebanese University and private higher education institutions, Lebanese state media reported.
The Lebanese Council of Ministers collectively condemned “this criminal Israeli aggression, which constitutes a serious violation of Lebanese sovereignty and a crime by all standards.”
It added that “the government immediately began making all necessary contacts with the countries concerned and the United Nations to place it before its responsibilities regarding this continuing crime.”
World reacts to pager attacks
The United Nations special coordinator for Lebanon condemned the attack on Lebanon, calling it an “extremely concerning escalation in what is an already unacceptably volatile context,” in a statement released by the U.N. Office of the Spokesperson for the Secretary General.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said during a press conference in Egypt on Wednesday that the U.S. “did not know about and was not involved” in Israel’s pager attacks in Lebanon and Syria — but said that officials were still gathering information and did not directly blame Israel.
“Broadly speaking, we’ve been very clear, and we remain very clear about the importance of all parties avoiding any steps that could further escalate the conflict that we’re trying to resolve in Gaza,” Blinken said. Its spread to other fronts, he added, is “clearly not in the interest of anyone involved.”
A cease-fire deal in Gaza, Blinken added, would “materially improve the prospects of defusing the situation” on the Israeli-Lebanese border and allow thousands of people living near the area on both sides of the divide to return home.
The U.S. and the European Union have both designated the Hezbollah militant group a foreign terrorist organization.
ABC News’ Luis Martinez, Shannon K. Kingston, Ghazi Balkiz, Morgan Winsor, Anne Flaherty, Nasser Atta, Joe Simonetti, Jordana Miller and Helena Skinner contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — One of the driest regions on earth is shifting green, as an influx of heavy rainfall causes vegetation to grow in the typically barren landscape.
Satellite images released by NASA show pockets of plant life popping up all over the Sahara Desert after an extratropical cyclone drenched a large swath of northwestern Africa on Sept. 7 and Sept. 8.
Treeless landscapes in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya — areas that rarely receive rain — are now seeing traces of green sprouting up, according to the NASA Earth Observatory.
The plants include shrubs and trees in low-lying areas, like riverbeds, Sylwia Trzaska, a climate variability researcher at the Columbia Climate School, told ABC News.
It is not wholly unusual for the plant life to sprout in the Sahara when a deluge of rain pours in, past research has shown. When parched regions in this part of Africa get heavy rainfall, the flora responds almost readily, Peter de Menocal, president and director of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, told ABC News.
“When you get these really exceptional rainfall events, the dunes become these just incredibly verdant and flowered fields where the plants will just instantly grow for a short period of time to take advantage of,” he said.
The region was once permanently home to lush greenery. Between 11,000 and 5,000 years ago, the Sahara was covered with vegetation and lakes, according to a 2012 paper authored by De Menocal.
“It looks like a desert, and then when the rain comes, then everything starts greening very quickly,” Trzaska said.
In addition, lakes that are typically empty are filling up due to the most recent event, Moshe Armon, a senior lecturer at the Institute of Earth Sciences and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, said in a statement released by NASA.
Between 2000 and 2001, Sebkha el Melah, a salt flat in central Algeria, has only filled six times in the past, according to research conducted by Armon and his colleagues.
Preliminary satellite analysis shows rainfall accumulations topping half a foot in the areas affected, according to NASA. Some areas of the Sahara receive just a few inches of rain per year.
While some degree of rainfall every summer is normal due to the West African Monsoon season, it is unusual for the Intertropical Convergence Zone — or the tropical rain belt — to reach as far north as the Sahara, De Menocal said.
The northward displacement of the storm track helped a developing system dump a year’s worth of rainfall in some areas in just a matter of days, according to NASA. The system formed over the Atlantic Ocean and extended far southward, pulling moisture from equatorial Africa into the northern Sahara, according to NASA.
Since mid-July, the Intertropical Convergence Zone has been sending storms into the southern Sahara, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Prediction Center.
About four million people across 14 African countries have been impacted by flooding, according to the World Food Programme.
Record-high ocean temperatures in the northern Atlantic ocean is contributing to the shift in the rain belt, bringing heavy rainfall typical of regions in the equator farther north, De Menocal said.
The transition from El Niño to La Niña likely affected how far north the Intertropical Convergence Zone moved, Trzaska said.
Climate change could cause the rain belt to shift farther northward in the future, according to a study published in Nature earlier this year. But as the ocean temperatures elsewhere in the world catch up to the Atlantic, the rain belt will likely shift back down, even south of the equator, De Menocal said.
“Decades from now, when the larger oceans have warmed more uniformly, we expect the rain belt to actually go back to its original position, and it can even shift into the other hemisphere,” he said.
The northward shift of the Intertropical Convergence Zone across West Africa has also likely contributed to a lull in tropical activity in the Atlantic Basin, according to experts.
Disturbances moving across this region are then entering the Atlantic over relatively cooler waters, Dan Harnos, a meteorologist at NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center, told ABC News last month. With greater exposure to dry air from the mid-latitudes, the chances of a storm developing are hindered.