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Videos show both sides of US-China aerial encounter — and highlight the risks involved | CNN

Published

2 years ago

January 3, 2023

Videos show both sides of US-China aerial encounter — and highlight the risks involved | CNN

Editor’s Be aware: A model of this story appeared in CNN’s In the meantime in China publication, a three-times-a-week replace exploring what you could know concerning the nation’s rise and the way it impacts the world. Enroll right here.

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The interception of a United States Air Drive reconnaissance jet by a Chinese language fighter over the South China Sea final month ought to be seen as a possible warning of how simply, and rapidly issues can go terribly unsuitable – elevating the danger of a lethal navy confrontation between the 2 powers, analysts say.

The incident in query occurred on December 21 over the northern a part of the South China Sea in what the US says was worldwide airspace.

Performing what the US navy deemed an “unsafe maneuver,” a Chinese language navy J-11 fighter jet flew inside 20 ft of the nostril of a US RC-135 Rivet Joint, an unarmed reconnaissance aircraft with about 30 folks on board, forcing the US aircraft to take “evasive maneuvers to keep away from a collision,” based on an announcement from the US Indo-Pacific Command issued on December 28.

It launched a video of the incident exhibiting the Chinese language fighter flying to the left of and barely above the four-engine US jet, much like the Boeing 707 airliners of the Nineteen Sixties and ’70s, after which regularly closing nearer to its nostril earlier than transferring away.

The Folks’s Liberation Military’s Southern Theater Command, in a report on China Army On-line, had a distinct interpretation of the encounter, saying it was the US jet that “abruptly modified its flight angle and compelled the Chinese language plane to the left.”

“Such a harmful approaching maneuver severely affected the flight security of the Chinese language navy plane,” it mentioned.

It launched its personal video of the incident, shot from the fighter jet, that appeared to indicate the RC-135 transferring nearer to and behind the fighter.

Aviation and navy specialists contacted by CNN who watched the 2 movies mentioned it appeared the Chinese language jet was firmly within the unsuitable and had no cause to get as shut because it did to the American aircraft.

“The 135 was in worldwide airspace and is a big, sluggish, non-maneuverable plane. It’s the accountability of the approaching smaller, quick, maneuverable plane to remain clear, to not trigger an issue for each plane,” mentioned Peter Layton, a former Royal Australian Air Drive officer, now with the Griffith Asia Institute.

“The intent of the interception was presumably to visually determine the plane and the fighter might have stayed a number of miles away and competed that process. Getting nearer brings no features,” he mentioned.

Robert Hopkins, a retired US Air Drive officer who flew comparable reconnaissance jets, additionally pushed again on the Chinese language interpretation of occasions.

“The (Chinese language) response is to this point divorced from actuality that it’s fictional. An unarmed, airliner-sized plane doesn’t aggressively flip right into a nimble armed fighter,” mentioned Hopkins.

However Hopkins additionally mentioned the US navy risked blowing the incident out of proportion in saying the US jet needed to take “evasive maneuvers,” a time period he described as “overly dramatic.”

“These aren’t any completely different than a driver adjusting her place to keep away from a short lived lane incursion by an adjoining driver,” Hopkins mentioned. “The US response is pure theater and needlessly creates an exaggerated sense of hazard.”

However whereas the incident itself was safely manged by the US pilots, specialists agreed the small distance between the US and Chinese language planes evident within the movies leaves little room for error.

“Flying plane shut to one another at 500 miles per hour with unfriendly intentions is usually unsafe,” mentioned Blake Herzinger, a nonresident fellow and Indo-Pacific protection coverage professional on the American Enterprise Institute.

“At that vary, an surprising maneuver or an tools difficulty could cause a horrible accident in below a second,” Herzinger mentioned.

And Herzinger mentioned the present state of US-China navy relations means accidents might rapidly flip into armed confrontation.

“It’s price remembering that the PLA has successfully wrecked any sort of hotlines or dialogue boards for addressing potential incidents with the US. If an intercept does go unsuitable, there are fewer choices than ever for senior officers to restrict potential escalation,” he mentioned.

Layton identified one other potential hazard that might result in escalation. As seen within the US video, the Chinese language plane is armed with air-to-air missiles.

“The 135 is an unarmed plane. Why does the PLAN take into account it essential to intercept carrying missiles when the intent was to visually determine the plane? Doing that is probably harmful and will result in a serious and tragic incident,” Layton mentioned.

However in an everyday press briefing on Friday, a spokesperson for the Chinese language International Ministry mentioned the incident was simply the newest in a string of US provocations that threaten stability within the area.

“Let me level out that for a very long time, the US has regularly deployed plane and vessels for close-in reconnaissance on China, which poses a critical hazard to China’s nationwide safety,” International Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin mentioned.

The Chinese language Southern Theater Command mentioned the US reconnaissance jet was flying “within the neighborhood of China’s southern shoreline and the Xisha Islands” – identified within the West because the Paracels – the place Beijing has constructed up navy installations.

The US Indo-Pacfic Command mentioned the RC-135 was in worldwide airspace and was “lawfully conducting routine operations.”

China claims virtually the entire huge South China Sea as a part of its territorial waters, together with lots of distant islands and inlets within the disputed physique of water, lots of which Beijing has militarized.

The US doesn’t acknowledge these territorial claims and routinely conducts operations there, together with freedom of navigation operations by means of the South China Sea.

“The US’s provocative and harmful strikes are the foundation explanation for maritime safety points. China urges the US to cease such harmful provocations, and cease deflecting blame on China,” the International Ministry’s Wang mentioned.

However Washington has constantly pointed the finger again at China in these intercepts, which date again many years.

In essentially the most notorious incident in 2001, a Chinese language fighter jet collided with a US reconnaissance aircraft close to Hainan Island within the northern South China Sea, resulting in a serious disaster because the Chinese language pilot was killed and the broken US aircraft barely managed a secure touchdown on Chinese language territory. The US crew was launched after 11 days of intense negotiations.

After a string of incidents final yr involving intercepts of US and allied plane by Chinese language warplanes, US Protection Secretary Lloyd Austin mentioned the PLA’s actions have been escalating and “ought to fear us all.”

Layton mentioned he thinks Beijing might have been making an attempt to impress the US navy final month, and get it on video.

“There was no potential acquire by the fighter flying so shut besides to create an incident – that was handily recorded on a top quality video digital camera the fighter’s crew simply occurred to have and be utilizing. The incident appears very nicely deliberate by the PLAN, if relatively dangerous,” he mentioned.

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As California Burns, ‘Octavia Tried to Tell Us’ Has New Meaning

Published

3 hours ago

January 17, 2025

Press Room

As California Burns, ‘Octavia Tried to Tell Us’ Has New Meaning

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In the wake of the devastating fires in Los Angeles, many people are referencing the work of the science fiction writer Octavia Butler. Butler, who grew up in Pasadena, was the daughter of a housekeeper and a father who was a shoeshiner. She went on to become the first science fiction writer to win a MacArthur “genius” award. Her book “Parable of the Sower,” published in 1993, paints a picture of a California ravished by the effects of climate change, income inequality, political divisiveness and centers on a young woman struggling to find faith and the community to build a new future.

The phrase “Octavia tried to tell us,” which began to gain momentum in 2020 during the pandemic, has once again resurfaced, in part because Butler studied science and history so deeply. The accuracy with which she read the shifts in America can, at times, seem eerily prophetic. One entry in “Parable of the Sower,” which is structured as a journal, dated on “February 1, 2025” begins, “We had a fire today.” It goes on to describe how the fear of fires plague Robledo, a fictional town that feels much like Altadena, a haven for the Black middle class for more than 50 years, where Butler lived in the late ’90s.

In 2000, Butler wrote a piece for Essence magazine titled, “A Few Rules for Predicting the Future.” She wrote: “Of course, writing novels about the future doesn’t give me any special ability to foretell the future. But it does encourage me to use our past and present behaviors as guides to the kind of world we seem to be creating. The past, for example, is filled with repeating cycles of strength and weakness, wisdom and stupidity, empire and ashes.”

In one of the last interviews before she died in 2006, Butler spoke to Democracy Now!, an independent news organization, about how she’d been worried about how climate could devastate California . “I wrote the two ‘Parable’ books back in the ’90s,” she said, referring to “Parable of the Sower” and her 1998 follow-up, “Parable of the Talents.” These books, she explained, were about what happens when “we don’t trouble to correct some of the problems we are brewing for ourselves right now. Global warming is one of those problems. And I was aware of it back in the ’80s.” She continued: “A lot of people were seeing it as politics, as something very iffy, as something they could ignore because nothing was going to come of it tomorrow.”

Lynell George, a writer who lives in Los Angeles and the author of a book on Butler and her creative journey, has spent many years studying Butler’s archives at the Huntington Library in Pasadena. In 2022, we asked George to write about how Butler predicted the world we live in. As so many people are turning to her work during this time of tremendous loss, we wanted to share that story with our readers again.

In her piece, “The Visions of Octavia Butler,” George wrote: “In ‘Parable of the Sower,’ Earth is tipping toward climate disaster: A catastrophic drought has led to social upheaval and violent class wars. Butler, a fervent environmentalist, researched the novel by clipping articles, taking notes and monitoring rain and growth in her Southern California neighborhood. She couldn’t help but wonder, she later wrote, what ‘environmental and economic stupidities’ might lead to. She often called herself a pessimist, but threaded into the bleak landscape of her ‘Parable’ novels are strands of glimmering hope — ribbons of blue at the edges of the fictional fiery skies.”

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Donald Trump’s inauguration to be moved indoors because of ‘bitterly cold’ weather

Published

5 hours ago

January 17, 2025

Press Room

Donald Trump’s inauguration to be moved indoors because of ‘bitterly cold’ weather

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Parts of Donald Trump’s inauguration will be moved inside the US Capitol because of freezing weather that is forecast for Washington on Monday.

It will be the first time since 1985 — when a severe cold snap hit Ronald Reagan’s second inauguration — that a swearing-in ceremony has been moved indoors.

The president-elect announced the revised plans in a Truth Social post on Friday, saying he had ordered the inauguration address, as well as prayers and speeches, to be delivered inside the Capitol Rotunda as Reagan had done four decades ago.

“There is an Arctic blast sweeping the Country. I don’t want to see people hurt, or injured, in any way,” Trump wrote.

“It is dangerous conditions for the tens of thousands of Law Enforcement, First Responders, Police K9s and even horses, and hundreds of thousands of supporters that will be outside for many hours on the 20th.”

The National Weather Service said an “enhanced winter storm threat” was in place for Sunday afternoon and evening, and predicted about 2-4 inches of snow would fall, with a “reasonable worst case” scenario of 4-8 inches.

“Bitterly cold wind chills” were expected Monday to Wednesday, the NWS said on Friday, as it forecast temperatures to be “well below freezing” during this period.

The agency is forecasting a high of about -5C at 11am local time on Monday, when the swearing-in ceremony is due to begin, with a wind-chill of -13C that it warned could result in hypothermia or frostbite without appropriate attire.

Trump said the Capital One Arena — with a capacity of 20,000 — will be opened on Monday for a live viewing of the ceremony, and that he would visit the venue, located about 2km from the Capitol, following his swearing-in.

Other events, including a victory rally at the arena are scheduled for Sunday and inaugural balls set for Monday night, will continue as scheduled, the president-elect said.

Trump encouraged supporters who choose to come to “dress warmly!”

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CNN liable for defamation over story on Afghanistan 'black market' rescues

Published

5 hours ago

January 17, 2025

Press Room

CNN liable for defamation over story on Afghanistan 'black market' rescues

Security contractor Zachary Young alleges CNN defamed him in a November 2021 report, shown above, about Afghans’ fears of exorbitant charges from people offering to get them out of the country after the Taliban took control of Afghanistan. CNN says it will defend the report in a trial set to start in a Florida court Monday.

CNN via Internet Archive/Screenshot by NPR

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CNN via Internet Archive/Screenshot by NPR

A Florida jury has found that CNN defamed a security consultant in presenting a story that suggested he was charging “exorbitant prices” to evacuate people desperate to get out of Afghanistan after the U.S. withdrawal in August 2021.

Jurors found the network should pay $5 million to U.S. Navy veteran Zachary Young for lost finances and suffering, and said he was eligible for more in punitive damages. The proceedings turned immediately to expert testimony as both sides presented cases over what punitive damages would be appropriate.

Young sat impassively as the jury’s verdict was read aloud in court.

The November 2021 story focused on concerns from Afghans that they faced extraordinary costs in a “black market” to secure safe passage for relatives and friends, especially those who had worked with U.S. agencies and organizations and therefore were fearful of the takeover by the Taliban.

Young was the only security contractor named in the piece, however, and a caption warned he offered “no guarantee of safety or success.”

He was not directly accused of operating in a black market in the television or written versions of the story, but the words did appear in the caption in the TV version of the story.

On the witness stand during the trial, CNN editors defended use of the term “black market,” saying it meant operating in unregulated circumstances, such as the chaos of Kabul at that time; Young’s lawyers noted that dictionaries consistently ascribe illegality to the term.

This photo shows former President Donald Trump on a camera monitor as he speaks to the press in February outside Manhattan Criminal Court. He's wearing a blue suit jacket, a red tie and a white shirt. Many people in suits and law enforcement uniforms stand behind him.

The jury found CNN liable for defamation per se, meaning it had harmed Young by the very words it chose, and for defamation by implication, that is, it had harmed his reputation by the implications that a reasonable reader or viewer might take from the story.

Young’s lead attorney, Devin Freedman, had argued that CNN willfully damaged Young, costing him millions of dollars and causing irreparable personal harm, and that the network should be punished for it. Toward the very end of his closing arguments, Freedman told the jury they had the rare opportunity to hold the press accountable.

“Media executives around the country are sitting by the phones to see what you do,” Freedman told jurors. “CNN’s executives are waiting in their boardrooms in Georgia to see what you decide. Make the phones ring in Georgia. Send a message.”

After the initial verdict, Judge William S. Henry instructed jurors that they could only find punitive damages against CNN for its actions in the case at hand, not over any other story or issue.

Even so, over the course of the lawsuit, lawyers for Zachary Young acquired internal correspondence showing several editors within CNN held reservations about the solidity of the reporting behind the story.

Outgoing FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, a Democrat, ruled against four petitions seeking to punish television networks for how they coverand satirize presidential politics. The FCC, "should not be weaponized in a way that is fundamentally at odds with the First Amendment,” she says.

For example, Fuzz Hogan, a senior director of standards for CNN, acknowledged in testimony under oath that he had approved a “three-quarters true” story. Another editor, Tom Lumley, had said in an internal message that the piece was “80 percent emotion.” On the stand, Lumley said that it still wasn’t his favorite story, but on the grounds of the craft of story-telling involved.

During the trial, CNN’s lawyers had contended the story’s reporting holds up as fair and true under scrutiny. CNN correspondent Alexander Marquardt had presented viewers with a LinkedIn message from Young saying it would cost $75,000 to evacuate a vehicle with five or six passengers from Kabul to Pakistan. Young said he worked with corporate sponsors, including Bloomberg and Audible, rather than individuals.

On the stand, Young acknowledged that he took a 65% profit margin from the fees he charged, and took inquiries from individuals. He also curtly and coarsely brushed off people inquiring about help who could not afford his fees.

Other groups involving U.S. veterans and non-governmental organizations sought to get Afghans out without such profits, as a former major general testifying on Young’s behalf acknowledged. The retired major general, James V. Young Jr. (not related to Zach Young), said he charged donors for the cost.

CNN’s legal team, led by David Axelrod (the lawyer is not related to the Obama White House official and CNN analyst of the same name) had told jurors they should rely on their own “common sense.”

Axelrod had been able to press Young to concede that some of his claims to potential clients were not borne out by facts; Young had not in fact evacuated people from Afghanistan by air. Nor was he in constant contact with journalists, as claimed.

A Legendary Marine's Name As Code: The Ad Hoc Network That Helped Rescue Afghans

In his closing argument, Freedman presented Young as a swashbuckling former CIA operative to explain his curtness in messages to desperate people trying to help people.

On the witness stand, however, Young emerged as emotionally vulnerable himself, weeping during testimony. He recounted that, after the story ran, he became despondent, depressed, alienated from intimacy with his wife, cut off from friends and family members. HIs attorney cited “deep and lasting wounds” from the piece.

The piece was presented initially on CNN’s The Lead With Jake Tapper, and a fuller written version subsequently posted on CNN’s website. A few months later, shortly after Young’s legal team threatened legal actions, a substitute anchor apologized to Young on the air for use of the term “black market” in the story, and said it did not apply to him.

Freedman, Young’s attorney, called the apology insufficient.

“This is what makes this case historic: punitive damages,” Freedman told jurors. “A media company has to face an American jury with the power to punish. That is not a frequent event. Do you believe that CNN should be punished? Do you believe they should send a message to other media companies to avoid this misconduct?”

This story will be updated after the jury decides on what, if any, punitive damages to award Young.