China rips U.S. naval exercises S. Korea denies suspect to U.S.

China rips U.S.

naval exercises

The Associated Press

BEIJING -- China on Monday accused the U.S. of flexing its military muscles in the South China Sea by conducting exercises with two U.S. aircraft carrier groups in the strategic waterway.

Foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said the exercises were performed "totally out of ulterior motives" and undermined stability in the area.

"Against such a backdrop, the U.S. deliberately dispatched massive forces to conduct large-scale military exercises in the relevant waters of the South China Sea to flex its military muscle," Zhao said at a daily briefing.

The U.S. Navy said over the weekend that the USS Nimitz and the USS Ronald Reagan along with their accompanying vessels and aircraft conducted exercises "designed to maximize air defense capabilities, and extend the reach of long-range precision maritime strikes from carrier-based aircraft in a rapidly evolving area of operations."

China claims almost all of the South China Sea and routinely objects to any action by the U.S. in the region. Five other governments claim all or part of the sea, through which approximately $5 trillion in goods are shipped each year.

China has sought to shore up its claim to the sea by building military bases on coral atolls, leading the U.S. to sail warships through the region in what it calls freedom of operation missions.

Washington does not officially take a stand on the rival territorial claims in the region, but is closely allied with several of the claimants and insists that the waters and the airspace above be free to all countries.

S. Korea denies

suspect to U.S.

The Associated Press

SEOUL, South Korea -- A South Korean court Monday rejected an extradition request by the United States for a South Korean citizen convicted of running one of the world's biggest child pornography websites on the dark web.

The South Korean, Son Jong-woo, 24, completed an 18-month sentence in April for operating a child pornography site called "Welcome to Video," which was inaccessible by regular web browsers and for which he collected fees paid in Bitcoin from the site's users, officials said. The U.S. Justice Department wanted him extradited to face money-laundering and other charges in an American court.

But in a widely monitored ruling, the Seoul High Court said that keeping him in South Korea would help the country in its efforts to track down the users of his site for possible indictment.

The court's decision was a letdown for anti-child pornography groups in South Korea that had hoped Son's extradition would help deter sexual crimes in South Korea. They have been upset by what they consider the local judiciary's light punishment.

Some of the men in the U.S. who received child pornography through the site have been sentenced to five to 15 years in prison. In contrast, a lower court in South Korea gave Son a suspended prison term. An appeals court later sent him to jail, but for only 18 months.

In the courtroom Monday, Son again apologized for his crime and said he would "take whatever other punishment there is for me here in South Korea."

Law enforcement officials around the globe have worked together to track the site's users and have arrested hundreds of people in a dozen countries, most of them South Koreans.

They also rescued at least 23 underage victims in the U.S., Britain and Spain who were being actively abused by users of the site, the Justice Department said in October when it revealed that Son had been indicted by a federal grand jury.

Public anger over underage pornography has grown in South Korea in recent months, ​prompting Parliament ​to pass a bill calling for prison terms for the ​possessors and viewers of the material, as well as ​for ​its producers and distributors.

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