World
US fighter jet shoots down suspected Chinese spy balloon

A US military fighter jet shot down a suspected Chinese spy balloon off the coast of South Carolina on Saturday, a week after it first entered US airspace and triggered a dramatic -- and public -- spying saga that worsened Sino-US relations, Reuters reported.
President Joe Biden said he had issued an order on Wednesday to take down the balloon, but the Pentagon had recommended waiting until it could be done over open water to safeguard civilians from debris crashing to Earth from thousands of feet (meters) above commercial air traffic.
"They successfully took it down, and I want to compliment our aviators who did it," Biden said.
Multiple fighter and refueling aircraft were involved in the mission, but only one -- an F-22 fighter jet from Langley Air Force Base in Virginia -- took the shot at 2:39 p.m. (1939 GMT), using a single AIM-9X supersonic, heat-seeking, air-to-air missile, a senior US military official said.
According to Reuters China strongly condemned the military strike on an airship that it says was used for meteorological and other scientific purposes, and which it said had strayed into US airspace "completely accidentally" -- claims flatly dismissed by US officials.
"China had clearly asked the US to handle this properly in a calm, professional and restrained manner," China's foreign ministry said in a statement. "The US had insisted on using force, obviously overreacting."
The balloon was shot down about six nautical miles off the US coast of the Atlantic Ocean, over relatively shallow water, potentially aiding efforts to recover elements of the Chinese surveillance equipment over the coming days, US officials said.
One US military official said the debris field was spread out over seven miles (11 km) of ocean, and multiple US military vessels were on site.
The downing of the balloon came shortly after the US government ordered a halt to flights in and out of three airports in South Carolina -- Wilmington, Myrtle Beach and Charleston -- due to what it said at the time was an undisclosed "national security effort." Flights resumed on Saturday afternoon, Reuters reported.
While Saturday's shootdown concludes the military dimension to the spying saga, Biden is likely to continue to face intense political scrutiny from Republican opponents in Congress who argue he failed to act quickly enough.
A senior administration official said after shooting down the balloon, the US government spoke directly with China about the action. The State Department also briefed allies and partners around the world, the official said.
Questions remain about how much information China may have gathered during the balloon's trek across the United States, read the report.
The balloon entered US airspace in Alaska on Jan. 28 before moving into Canadian airspace on Jan 30. It then re-entered US airspace over northern Idaho on Jan. 31, a US defense official said. Once it crossed over US land, it did not return to open waters, making a shootdown difficult.
US officials did not publicly disclose the balloon's presence over the United States until Thursday, Reuters reported.
"It's clear the Biden administration had hoped to hide this national security failure from Congress and the American people," said US Representative Mike Rogers, a Republican who leads the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee.
Biden's emphasis on Saturday that -- days ago -- he ordered the balloon shot down as soon as possible could be an effort to respond to such critics.
Former President Donald Trump, Biden's potential rival in the 2024 election, called earlier this week for the balloon to be shot down, and has sought to portray himself as stronger than Biden on China. The US relationship with China is likely to be a major theme of the 2024 presidential race.
Washington had called the balloon's appearance a "clear violation" of US sovereignty and notified Beijing about the shootdown on Saturday, a US official said.
Still, officials on Saturday appeared to play down the balloon's impact on US national security.
"Our assessment -- and we're going to learn more as we pick up the debris -- was that it was not likely to provide significant additive value over and above other (Chinese) intel capability, such as satellites in low-Earth orbit," the senior US defense official said.
A Reuters photographer who witnessed the shootdown said a stream came from a jet and hit the balloon, but there was no explosion. It then began to fall.
The Pentagon assesses that the balloon was part of a fleet of Chinese spy balloons. On Friday, it said another Chinese balloon was flying over Latin America.
"Over the past several years, Chinese balloons have previously been spotted over countries across five continents, including in East Asia, South Asia and Europe," the US official said.
The suspected spy balloon prompted Secretary of State Antony Blinken to postpone a visit to China this week that had been expected to start on Friday, Reuters reported.
The postponement of Blinken's trip, which had been agreed to in November by Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping, was a blow to those who saw it as an overdue opportunity to stabilize an increasingly fractious relationship between the two countries.
China is keen for a stable US relationship so it can focus on its economy, battered by the now-abandoned zero-COVID policy and neglected by foreign investors alarmed by what they see as a return of state intervention in the market.
World
Trump says US is making progress with Russia, declines to discuss talks with Putin
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are seen by Russia as possible venues for a summit, Reuters reported earlier this month.

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Sunday he believed the United States was making progress in its talks to end thewar between Russia and Ukraine, but declined to provide details about any communications he had had with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Reuters reported.
Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump indicated that the two men had been in contact; that would mark the first officially acknowledged conversation between Putin and a U.S president since early 2022.
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Sunday he believed the United States was making progress in its talks to end thewar between Russia and Ukraine, but declined to provide details about any communications he had had with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump indicated that the two men had been in contact; that would mark the first officially acknowledged conversation between Putin and a U.S president since early 2022.
Trump has promised to end the war but not set out yet in public how he would do so.
In a Friday interview with the New York Post, Trump said that he had "better not say" how many times he and Putin had spoken and did not disclose when the latest conversation had taken place.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the TASS state news agency that "many different communications are emerging."
"I personally may not know something, be unaware of something," Peskov said when asked by TASS to comment. "Therefore, in this case, I can neither confirm nor deny it."
U.S. National Security Adviser Mike Waltz also declined to elaborate when asked about communications between the two countries, read the report.
"There certainly are a lot of sensitive conversations going on," Waltz said on NBC News.
Trump has repeatedly said he wants to end the war and that he will meet with Putin to discuss it, though the date or venue for such a meeting has not been announced. Trump told reporters on Sunday that he would meet with Putin at an appropriate time.
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are seen by Russia as possible venues for a summit, Reuters reported earlier this month.
In the coming days, a flurry of U.S. officials are heading to Europe in part to discuss the war, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Vice President JD Vance and Keith Kellogg, the special envoy for the Ukraine war.
Waltz indicated that Trump would be willing to use sanctions and tariffs to coax Putin to the negotiating table.
Waltz said U.S. and Ukrainian officials would discuss the United States gaining access to Ukraine's rare earth resources as compensation for U.S. aid to the eastern European ally.
On June 14, Putin set out his opening terms for an immediate end to the war: Ukraine must drop its NATO ambitions and withdraw its troops from the entirety of the territory of four Ukrainian regions claimed and mostly controlled by Russia, Reuters reported.
Reuters reported in November that Putin is open to discussing a Ukraine peace deal with Trump but rules out making any major territorial concessions and insists that Kyiv abandon ambitions to join NATO.
The Kremlin has repeatedly urged caution over speculation about contacts with the Trump team over a possible peace deal.
Leonid Slutsky, head of the Russian parliament's international affairs committee, was cited by the state RIA news agency on Thursday as saying that preparations for such a meeting were at "an advanced stage" and that it could take place in February or March.
Putin last spoke to former U.S. President Joe Biden in February 2022, shortly before Putin ordered thousands of troops into Ukraine.
Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward in his 2024 book "War" reported that Trump had direct conversations as many as seven times with Putin after he left the White House in 2021.
Asked if that were true in an interview to Bloomberg last year, Trump said: "If I did, it's a smart thing." The Kremlin denied Woodward's report.
Reuters, The Washington Post and Axios reported separately that Trump and Putin talked in early November. The Kremlin also denied those reports.
On Friday, Trump said he would probably meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy the following week to discuss ending the war. Zelenskiy told Reuters that he wanted Ukraine to supply the United States with rare earths and other minerals in return for financially supporting its war effort.
Putin sent thousands of troops into Ukraine in 2022, calling it a "special military operation" to protect Russian speakers and counter what he said was a grave threat to Russia from potential Ukrainian membership of NATO.
Ukraine and its Western backers, led by the United States, said the invasion was an imperial-style land grab and vowed to defeat Russian forces.
Moscow controls a chunk of Ukraine about the size of the American state of Virginia and is advancing at the fastest pace since the early days of the 2022 invasion.
World
Trump revokes security clearances for Antony Blinken, Jake Sullivan
The move came a day after Trump said he had revoked the security clearance for his predecessor Joe Biden, stopping his access to daily intelligence briefings, Reuters reported.

President Donald Trump has revoked security clearances for Antony Blinken, the former secretary of state, and Jake Sullivan, the former national security adviser, White House officials said on Saturday.
The move came a day after Trump said he had revoked the security clearance for his predecessor Joe Biden, stopping his access to daily intelligence briefings, Reuters reported.
Trump also revoked security clearances for Biden's Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, who helped coordinate the Department of Justice's response to the January 6, 2021, attacks by Trump supporters on the U.S. Capitol, the officials said on Saturday.
They said Trump also removed the clearances of the New York Attorney General Letitia James and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, both of whom led cases against Trump.
While the revocations may not have immediate impacts, it is another sign of the growing rift in Washington. Former U.S. presidents have traditionally received intelligence briefings so they can advise incumbent presidents on national security and foreign policy, read the report.
In 2021, Biden revoked the security clearance for Trump, who was then a former president.
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth last month revoked the personal security detail and security clearance for Mark Milley, a retired Army general and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Milley, who served as the top U.S. military officer during some of Trump's first presidential term, became a leading critic of him after retiring as a four-star general in 2023 during Biden's administration, Reuters reported.
Many of Biden's diplomats had worked with incoming Trump officials in the weeks before Jan. 20, when Trump took office, on issues including Russia's war in Ukraine.
Blinken could not be immediately reached for comment.
World
Hamas frees three more Israeli hostages for 183 Palestinian prisoners

Hamas handed over three Israeli hostages on Saturday in the latest stage of a ceasefire deal aimed at ending the 15-month war in Gaza.
Ohad Ben Ami and Eli Sharabi, both taken hostage from Kibbutz Be'eri during the Hamas-led attack on October 7, 2023, and Or Levy, abducted that day from the Nova music festival, were led onto a Hamas podium by gunmen.
Dozens of armed Hamas fighters were deployed at the site in Deir al-Balah, in central Gaza, as the men were handed over to the International Committee of the Red Cross which was to transport them to Israeli forces in Gaza, Reuters reported.
In exchange, Israel will release 183 Palestinian prisoners, some convicted of involvement in attacks that killed dozens of people and including 18 serving life sentences and 111 detained in Gaza during the war, according to Hamas.
The exchange is the latest in a series of swaps that have so far returned 13 Israeli and five Thai hostages abducted during the Hamas attack and released 583 Palestinian prisoners and detainees.
Despite hiccups, a 42-day ceasefire and hostage-for-prisoner exchange worked out with U.S. backing and mediation by Egypt and Qatar has held up since it took effect nearly three weeks ago.
But fears the deal might collapse before all the hostages are free have grown since U.S. President Donald Trump's surprise call for Palestinians to be moved from Gaza and for the enclave to be handed to the United States and developed into the "Riviera of the Middle East".
Arab states and Palestinian groups have rejected the proposal, which critics said would amount to ethnic cleansing.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, however, welcomed Trump's intervention and his defence minister ordered the military to make plans to allow Palestinians who wished to leave Gaza to do so.
Under the ceasefire deal, 33 Israeli children, women and sick, wounded and older men are to be released during an initial phase in exchange for almost 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees.
Negotiations on a second phase began this week aimed at returning the remaining hostages and agreeing a full withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza in preparation for a final end to the war.
Hamas-led gunmen attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and seizing more than 250 as hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
In response, Israel launched an air and ground war in Gaza that has killed more than 47,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities, and devastated much of the narrow enclave.
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