Trevor Hunnicutt | Reuters
The United States is pushing China to break a longstanding resistance to nuclear arms talks, seeing a "limited opportunity" for early two-way conversations on the superpowers' approach to the issue, a senior Biden administration official said. The renewed U.S. push for nuclear talks comes as U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan met top Chinese officials in Beijing to try and resolve gaping differences on a broad range of issues."We saw some limited opportunity to open, at least the beginnings of conversation on the subject in the last months, but it's been fits and starts, and I think it will continue to be fits and starts," said the official, who sought anonymity because the matter is a sensitive one. "They've signalled some willingness to start nibbling around the margins of arms control, but then they're not very forward-leaning about following through on that," the official said.
Reuters
Russia said on Wednesday its forces had defused unexploded U.S.-supplied munitions fired by Ukraine that were shot down just 5 km (3 miles) from Russia's Kursk nuclear power plant, which Moscow has accused Ukrainian forces of trying to strike…Rosgvardiya, Russia's National Guard, said in a statement that its sappers had found a shell from a U.S.-supplied HIMARS multiple launch rocket system 5 km from the power plant, and a rocket fragment which it said was stuffed with 180 unexploded munitions.
Song Jung-a, Christian Davies, Raphael Minder, Sarah White, and Alice Hancock | Financial Times
South Korea is accelerating its push to export nuclear reactors to Europe as it seeks to become a leading player in a global market dominated by China and Russia. After beating Westinghouse of the US and France’s EDF to become preferred bidder on a $17bn project in the Czech Republic in July, state-run utility Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power is set to sign a contract early next year for two reactors in the central European country. The deal, if completed, will mark Korea’s first major overseas nuclear power project in 15 years, since a consortium led by KHNP parent Kepco won a $20bn contract in 2009 to build and operate four nuclear plants in the United Arab Emirates.
Lee Minji | Yonhap News
South Korea and the United States on Thursday wrapped up a major combined military exercise after its 11-day run as the allies sought to bolster their joint defense readiness against evolving North Korean military threats. The annual Ulchi Freedom Shield (UFS) exercise, which began on Aug. 19, came amid persistent concerns over Pyongyang's weapons development and heightened inter-Korean tensions worsened by the North's recent trash balloon campaign.
Stephen Losey | Defense News
The Air Force is making progress on preparing a network of dispersed bases and airfields across the Pacific in case of a war against China, the service’s top general said Wednesday, but must do more to defend those bases against attack…The Air Force fears that if a conflict breaks out in the Pacific, China could send barrages of missiles against the United States’ larger, more traditional regional air bases in Japan and Guam. Such attacks could seriously degrade or knock out the Air Force’s ability to launch aircraft in the Pacific.
Joshua Keating | Vox
Leaders in Kyiv likely hoped to send a message to their friends in the United States and Europe that their approach to the war has been overly cautious — that fears about “escalation,” “red lines,” and Russian nuclear use — a threat that Putin himself has voiced repeatedly — have been overblown. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy acknowledged this explicitly in a speech on August 19, saying, “We are now witnessing a significant ideological shift, namely, the whole naive, illusory concept of so-called ‘red lines’ refs somewhere near Sudzha” — a town near the border now under the control of Ukrainian forces.