U.S., Greece hold military copter drill
LITOCHORO, Greece -- Army aviation forces from Greece and the United States took part in a live-fire training exercise Wednesday at the foot of Mount Olympus.
Greece is ramping up its military cooperation with the U.S. and France -- and purchases of equipment from the two allies -- over wariness of worsening relations with Turkey over disputed sea- and air-space boundaries, including drilling rights in the eastern Mediterranean.
The chief of the Greek army and the U.S. ambassador to Greece watched the training drill conducted with attack helicopters in northern Greece. Washington and Athens finalized a defense agreement three weeks ago that gives American forces expanded access to Greek military bases.
"The U.S.-Greece relationship is stronger than it has ever been," U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt said. "Our defense ties and our defense cooperation is an essential component of that."
After a financial crisis that lasted nearly a decade, Greece is working to modernize its navy, upgrade its fleet of F-16 fighter jets and strengthen military ties with traditional allies.
The training drill on Wednesday involved rescuing wounded soldiers behind enemy lines with Apache and Black Hawk helicopters. The American participants were from Hunter Army Airfield in Georgia.
China bars U.S. reporters over headline
BEIJING -- China on Wednesday said it has revoked the press credentials of three reporters for the U.S. newspaper The Wall Street Journal over a headline for an opinion column deemed racist by the government.
The expulsions come after the Trump administration on Tuesday designated five state-run Chinese news outlets that operate in the United States as "foreign missions," requiring them to register their properties and employees in the U.S.
The headline on the Journal's opinion column referred to the current virus outbreak in China and called the country the "Real Sick Man of Asia."
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said the Feb. 3 op-ed by Bard College professor Walter Russel Mead "smears the efforts of the Chinese government and people on fighting [the virus] epidemic."
"The editors used such a racially discriminatory title, triggering indignation and condemnation among the Chinese people and the international community," he said in a statement.
The term "sick man of Asia" was originally used to describe China more than a century ago when it suffered internal divisions and was forced to accept unequal treaties with Western powers.
Like most foreign media outlets, The Wall Street Journal is unavailable within China and its website and stories are blocked by online censors.
Extremists kill 3 Kenya bus passengers
NAIROBI, Kenya -- The owner of a bus company says three people have been killed by suspected extremists from Somalia after they were pulled out of a bus in northeastern Kenya.
Haji Abass said Wednesday that the bus belonging to his company, Moyale Raha, was heading to the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, from Moyale, a market town on the Ethiopian border in Mandera County, when it was attacked.
Abass said suspected al-Shabab fighters in full police uniforms flagged the bus down, but the conductor and passengers who knew the route said there was no police roadblock in the area, so the driver kept going.
The fighters then fired at the bus, injuring the driver. The front and back tires deflated and the bus went out of control and hit a ditch.
The fighters then pulled out the passengers and killed two non-Muslims, as in previous attacks, as well as one Muslim, Abass said. It was not clear why they shot a man believed to be Muslim, he said.
The al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab has vowed retribution for Kenya's troop presence in neighboring Somalia. Its fighters have carried out numerous attacks on Kenyan soil since Kenya deployed troops in 2011 to fight the extremists.
Missing migrants drowned, Spanish fear
BARCELONA, Spain -- Moroccan authorities rescued only 14 migrants from a boat carrying 28 people that capsized off the Western Sahara coast, raising fears that the others drowned, Spain's maritime rescue service said Wednesday.
The news came after reports a day earlier from Alarm Phone -- a hotline for migrant boats in distress -- that cited survivors as saying 14 people, including two children, had died when their boat sank Monday off the Western Sahara city of Dakhla.
The hotline said that it spoke to some of the 14 survivors, who said they were helped by a fishing boat before being picked up by the Moroccan navy, which did not respond to requests for comment.
Spain's rescue service said it continued to search Wednesday for 53 people missing in two other migrant boats between Spain's Canary Islands and Western Sahara.
Spanish authorities had searched earlier this week for 140 missing people aboard several migrant boats after they received alerts Monday. Moroccan authorities rescued 37 people from one boat Monday and Spain rescued 14 men, nine women and a baby late Tuesday from another boat.
A Section on 02/20/2020