| To: Les H who wrote (43587) | 9/18/2024 12:43:10 PM | | From: Les H | | | | Houthis claim US offered to recognize its government if it stopped maritime attacks
US official says statement — which comes a day after a ballistic missile launched by the group reached central Israel — is ‘total fabrication’
By Reuters and ToI Staff
17 September 2024
CAIRO, Egypt — A senior member of the Iran-backed Houthi rebel group claimed on Monday that the US had offered to recognize its government in Sanaa in a bid to stop its attacks on maritime shipping, in remarks that a US official said were false.
The Houthi official’s remarks came a day after a ballistic missile fired from Yemen reached central Israel for the first time, prompting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to warn Israel would inflict a “heavy price” on the rebel group.
“There is always communication after every operation we conduct,” Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, a member of the Houthi movement’s political bureau, told Al Jazeera Mubasher TV. “These calls are based on either threats or presenting some temptations, but they have given up to achieve any accomplishment in that direction.”
A US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, called the remarks “a total fabrication.”
Separately, a US State Department official said: “Houthi propaganda is rarely true or newsworthy. Coverage like this puts a guise of credibility on their misinformation.”
Al-Bukhaiti claimed the calls after attacks included some from the US and the United Kingdom indirectly through mediators and that the threats included direct US military intervention against countries that intervene militarily “in support of Gaza.”
timesofisrael.com |
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| To: Les H who wrote (43589) | 9/18/2024 5:15:09 PM | | From: Les H | | | | More Wireless Devices Explode in Lebanon in Second Attack
For a second day, hand-held communication devices exploded across Lebanon and in the southern suburbs of the capital, Beirut, in an apparent attack on Hezbollah. At least 20 people were killed and 450 people were injured, according to the Lebanese health ministry.
nytimes.com
Trying to further provoke Hezbollah and then claim that they escalated the situation in order to justify military intervention. |
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| From: Don Green | 9/18/2024 7:38:58 PM | | | | | | Red Sea Lessons Informing Fleet Forces’ Combat Surge Model, Says Admiral
 Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Carney (DDG-64) defeats a combination of Houthi missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles in the Red Sea, Oct. 19, 2023. US Navy PhotoVIRGINIA BEACH, Va. – The short-notice surge of U.S. warships from the East Coast to take on missile and drone threats in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Red Sea is informing a model for how the Navy will surge ships to fight in future conflicts, the commander of U.S. Fleet Forces Command told a group of naval engineers on Tuesday.
With about two weeks’ notice, Fleet Forces prepared guided-missile destroyers USS Carney (DDG-64) and USS Mason (DDG-87) to sail from Virginia and Florida to augment ships already in the region, Adm. Daryl Caudle said during a keynote at the ASNE Fleet Maintenance and Modernization symposium.
Carney and Mason both went on to serve as part of Operation Prosperity Guardian and downed hundreds of missiles, one-way attack drones and attack surface craft launched by Houthi forces in the Middle East.
The ships were classified as combat-ready surge forces that met a minimum level of qualifications to quickly deploy in the event of a crisis.
A combat-ready force component is “a unit that within an acceptable level of risk, I would have confidence that could go into combat… and I know it can do a few things,” Caudle said.
“I know it can maneuver, communicate, shoot and defend itself… They’re good enough.”
Under the construction, every ship and submarine on the waterfront are ranked by their ability to be ready in time to surge.
That was the case for the DDGs sent to the Eastern Mediterranean and the Red Sea following the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel and the subsequent Houthi attacks on merchant traffic in the Middle East.
In preparation to go forward, “we quickly gave them an intelligence brief. Gave them some synthetic training on what we thought they would see and within a couple of weeks we were pushing two more DDGs across the Atlantic,” Caudle said.
The ships stayed for months in the Middle East reloading as needed to keep present against the Houthi drone and missile threat.
Caudle is planning for stories like Mason and Carney to be the new normal for surface ships. He framed the combat surge as an answer Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti’s ongoing call for more players on the field to meet the demand for forces, he said.
Overall, the trend will move toward shorter maintenance periods and longer periods in a ship’s life where they will be able to move at short notice.
“The expectation is that you flow within 30 days,” Caudle said.
In addition to restocking missiles, Caudle said the Navy needed to improve maintenance rates and look at other ways to conduct the maintenance in the U.S. and overseas to maximize the surge capacity.
 Adm. Daryl Caudle, commander, U.S. Fleet Forces Command, delivers keynote remarks at the 2024 American Society of Naval Engineers (ASNE) Fleet Maintenance and Modernization Symposium at the Virginia Beach Convention Center, Sept. 17, 2024. US Navy Photo“We are looking at potential benefits of shorter duration or frequent availability to reduce scope,” he said.
“For the global maritime response plan to reach its full potential of generating surging and regenerating forces, our maintenance and modernization team will have to think about how to scale both operations and output to quickly respond to increased demands.”
Throughout his speech, Caudle emphasized the expansion of Chinese naval power, Beijing’s close relationship with Moscow and the growing technology exchange between the two as the imperative to speed up maintenance rates and improve Navy readiness.
Caudle said it took years for U.S. industry to catch up after the attack on Pearl Harbor to meet the needs of the war effort and implied a modern conflict might not allow for that length of time to support a fight.
“It would surely take time for us to get to the gold standard of production we enjoyed in our industrial base by 1943 until about the war’s end. Said another way, consider that today is Dec. 6, 1941, are we ready for Dec. 7th?”
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| From: Don Green | 9/18/2024 9:12:05 PM | | | | | | In a world of debt, interest rates are a weapon. And Powell is determined to use it.
If we examine the history of rate cuts, we see that there hasn’t been a slow cutting cycle since the mid-1980s, when Volcker decided to taper back the extreme financial restriction he put in place at the beginning of his term. In fact, every rate cutting cycle since 1992 has taken place over an average of 18 months. Since the turn of the century, the rate cuts have totaled an average of 4.35% from peak to trough.
This portends the rate cuts being much deeper, and happening a lot quicker, than even the most astute market participants imagine.
But why? What’s the reason, and urgency, for such a rate cut in the first place?
Warren claims in her letter that the reason for the needed rate cuts is purely economic. Multiple indicators, like inflation and unemployment, are pointing to the fact that the Fed is already behind the curve and is woefully underpricing the risk of a recession.
“It is clearly the time for the Fed to cut rates. In fact, it may be too late: your delays have threatened the economy and left the Fed behind the curve. Inflation has fallen to 2.5 percent, well below the mid-2022 peak of 7 percent and just above the Fed’s target of 2 percent.
[...]
The FOMC must cut rates by more than the 25 bps cut that some Fed officials have already signaled. A rate cut of 75 bps would put the federal funds rate at 4.5 - 4.75%, which would still be higher than it was at any point between November 2007 and January 2023.
[…]
If the Fed is too cautious in cutting rates, it would needlessly risk our economy heading towards a recession. A number of economists have warned of this risk since July.16 Former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Bill Dudley, wrote, “dawdling now unnecessarily increases the risk.” The Committee must consider implementing rate cuts more aggressively upfront to mitigate potential risks to the labor market.”
These arguments do have some validity. Significant progress has been made on the inflation front, even if you do not believe the faulty BLS consumer price index (realized inflation is probably around double what they claim). The interest rate hikes have slowed the massive price appreciation from the tsunami of money, and the damage brought on the banking system has been papered over well enough to avoid a full-blown crisis, although there are still gaping holes, as I have covered in The Underwater Banks.
The bigger reason than even inflation is the growing unemployment rate. The official number now sits at 4.2%, up from 3.4% in April 2023. The BLS has also been busy doing its best to obfuscate these numbers as well, by overreporting jobs numbers and then revising them downwards months later after the media attention has shifted. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported that the U.S. economy added 142,000 jobs in August 2024, an increase of 28,000 compared to July. Private sector payrolls grew by 118,000 during the month. However, job growth for the previous two months was revised downward by 89,000 jobs.
This is not the first time they’ve done this. In March, the BLS held its annual benchmark review of its own data and found it was far weaker than initially thought, with 818,000 fewer jobs for the year prior. This has happened so consistently it is becoming a trend, and many are starting to question if the jobs figures are actually much worse than they are letting on- something I discussed here.
In any regard, the unemployment rate has ticked up considerably and the economy is softer than when the Fed began their hiking cycle. Furthermore, the 10yr-2 yr spread has inverted again, which is typically a sign of oncoming recession. In fact, since 1976, this indicator has accurately predicted a downturn every single time, with the one exception being the recession brought on by the COVID pandemic.
A bottoming and then slowly rising unemployment rate is also a sign of an oncoming recession, being a reliable indicator for every contraction in the last 50 years with the exception of COVID, same as the yield curve inversion.
But we don’t need the unemployment rate or even the inflation rate to explain why the Fed feels it has to cut again (despite what it claims is strong economic data). The real reason always has been and always will be LIQUIDITY. Although most people think that the Fed has been tapering since March of 2022, the reality is that M2, cash assets, and bank reserves all bottomed in the fall of 2022 and have been slowly grinding upwards ever since.
This may come as a shock to some of you- the Fed is supposed to be tapering, right? Tapers come with the attendant balance sheet drawdown, sales of securities, falling equity prices, deflating bubbles, etc. And yet, if you take a glance at the S&P 500 or NASDAQ, you know that isn’t the case. Mysteriously, the Fed has been able to pull off this taper without actually causing the typical symptoms of one- a clever sleight of hand, where it appears to work on the surface without actually impacting anything underneath.
Equity markets have broadly become yet another measure of liquidity. Their continuing rally warns us that liquidity is not falling, but rising. The money is coming from somewhere.
That money however, is running out.
Reverse Repo, now understood to be one of the Fed’s new secret liquidity tools, is finally beginning to run out. This facility grew to a gargantuan $2.2 trillion in the aftermath of the massive wave of QE unleashed during the lockdowns, and has been the secret war chest from which the Fed has been drawing ammo to keep the monetary system working as intended. Even in 2008, the facility had only held around $25B of cash, and this had later grown to between $100B-$300B during QE II and QE III.
Once Reverse Repo is gone, the only major liquidity tools remaining will be the Treasury General Account (which is much harder to manage since this entails conspiring with Yellen for more spending on a daily basis to inject cash) and the Foreign Repo Pool, which affects only offshore (Eurodollar) banks and does not look inwards to the domestic markets.
Realistically, Reverse Repo has been the best tool the monetary officials could have hoped for in this scenario. As it finally runs out, the urgency to find a new source of liquidity is ramping up.
Hence, the underlying urgency (and severity) of the rate cut discussions makes sense. In a system that is completely dependent on fresh money printing, the incumbents cannot afford for this printer to stop. Lowering rates means a resumption of the monetary stimulus; not only will it make it easier for individuals and corporations to borrow and load up on debt, it will also come with new QE.
In fact, historically the Fed has never done a rate cutting cycle without an attendant rise in securities (aka QE). This makes intuitive sense- lowering the Fed funds rate only affects the extreme short end of the curve, the overnight interbank borrowing rate. By including asset purchases with a move lower in the Fed Funds, the central bank is able to affect the entire yield curve, bringing down rates across tenors. Given that Treasuries function almost as money in many regards, especially in the Repo market, the Fed is able to affect the price and quantity of the collateral that underlies the wider shadow banking system.
Increases in the Fed’s balance sheet are accompanied by increases in bank reserves, which are a liability to them but an asset to commercial banks. This also means an increase in cash assets, which are an even more direct way to view liquidity. Any form of overt (or covert) QE therefore, increases cash and therefore liquidity, pumping asset prices back up and freeing up capital for investments.
This next rate-cutting cycle will thus see a new wave of QE.Que the cuts, Jerome. |
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| From: Don Green | 9/18/2024 9:18:13 PM | | | | | | | AI's parent-teen gap | | | 
Data: Common Sense Media. (Respondents could select multiple tasks.) Chart: Axios Visuals
Generative AI is demonstrating one of the most enduring laws in tech: Teenagers are always a lap ahead of their elders, Axios' Megan Morrone writes.
- Why it matters: Efforts to keep kids safe from potentially harmful or dangerous technology regularly falter because adults don't understand what youngsters are actually doing.
Case in point: Many teens use generative AI tools like ChatGPT, but less than half (37%) of their parents think they do, according to a reportreleased yesterday from Common Sense Media.
- Another 40% are not sure whether their teens had used genAI or not.
- Almost half (49%) say they have not talked to their teens about their AI use.
??? The big picture: Educators, parents and legislators today are still struggling to place appropriate boundaries around young people's use of social media, which has been at the center of many teen lives for nearly two decades.
- Now AI is racing into homes and schools faster than parents can keep up.
The bottom line: Since teens are going to use generative AI no matter what, the adults around them need to understand and educate themselves and their kids about the technology's flaws and biases.
?? P.S. The rise of AI will boost the global economy by a cumulative $19.9 trillion by 2030, according to a new study by marketing research giant IDC.
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| To: Les H who wrote (43590) | 9/19/2024 10:42:20 AM | | From: Les H | | | | With respect to Boris Johnson’s little speech to the Yalta European conference held in Ukraine last week in which he spoke in the most flattering terms about Ukrainian military capabilities and their future role in the European defense, I think it is a mistake to put everything down to delusional thinking as so many of my peers are doing. I must agree with Boris on the heroism, on the valor of many of the Ukrainian soldiers. That 600,000 of them have been slaughtered senselessly is the national tragedy for which the Zelensky gang with its stranglehold on power is to blame, together with the cynical and cruel NATO backers of his regime. I have said before and repeat today that the Russian advance in the Donbas and now the clean-up operation in Kursk are not a walk in the rose garden. The Russians face tough fighting which is due to the residual patriotism and courage of Ukrainian soldiers.
With respect to Lloyd Autin, I make reference to his answer to a reporter on giving permission to Kiev to use NATO missiles to strike at the heartland of Russia. This exchange took place a couple of days before Vladimir Putin issued his warning about the use of NATO missiles in this way. Said Austin, 1) Kiev has no need for the Storm Shadow, because it has other means available to it to strike military targets deep in Russia, 2) the Russians have already pulled back their bombers and arms caches beyond the range of the Storm Shadow. These arguments were lucid and correct. Accordingly, it appears that the U.S. military has not only brawn but also brains.
gilbertdoctorow.com |
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| To: Les H who wrote (43561) | 9/19/2024 10:47:00 AM | | From: Les H | | | | Jewish Chronicle Scandal: When 'pro-Israel' Means Becoming a Megaphone for the Netanyahu Government
The venerable British Jewish paper has increasingly abandoned journalistic integrity in order to champion causes widely associated with the Israeli right. In Israel too, parts of the media share its descent from reporting to propaganda
Etab Hechin, Haaretz
On September 2, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dramatically declared the Philadelphi route that separates Gaza from Egypt as "the cornerstone of our existence" – all but proclaiming it a magical barrier that prevents hostages from being spirited away to Sinai, Iran or Yemen.
Miraculously, just three days later, veteran British weekly The Jewish Chronicle – hardly a household name in Israel for explosive news – published a "major scoop" by a freelancer called Elon Perry. His story claimed that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was plotting a barely believable escape to Iran with Israeli hostages in tow. This fortuitously timed piece came just as the murder of six hostages in Rafah had triggered mass protests on the streets of Israel calling for a cease-fire and hostage-release deal.
The story in the Jewish Chronicle, peddled by Netanyahu's media cronies, seemed tailor-made to silence critics and advocate for the war's continuation. Seizing the narrative, the prime minister referenced this obscure report to rationalize ongoing military actions.
However, the plot thickened as skepticism mounted over the story's credibility, with respected Israeli reporters calling it a wild concoction. An Israel Defense Forces probe was launched into this potential disinformation campaign as well.
The JC story's narrative quickly unraveled, exposing not only the documents to be forgeries but also revealing "Elon Perry" to be one Eli Yifrach – who is neither a journalist nor Tel Aviv University professor, as he claimed to be. He was "outed" by the Israeli current events show "Hazinor." The reporter confronting Yifrach was met with a torrent of abuse, including the wish that he be murdered by Hamas.
archive.ph |
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| From: tntpal | 9/19/2024 10:53:33 AM | | | | | |
Israel thwarts Iranian plot to assassinate Benjamin Netanyahu, Yoav Gallant, Ronen Bar
m.jpost.com
The Shin Bet unveiled an Iranian assassination plot targeting PM Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and Shin Bet Director Ronen Bar.
 Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Shin Bet Director Ronen Bar.(photo credit: AVSHALOM SASSONI/FLASH90, Chaim Goldberg/Flash90, MAYA ALLERUZZO/POOL/VIA REUTERS, WEST ASIA NEWS AGENCY/REUTERS)
Iran plotted to assassinate Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and Shin Bet Director Ronen Bar, the Shin Bet announced on Thursday.
Its efforts were particularly intense following the assassination of Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, which most of the world has attributed to Mossad. However, Israel has made sure not to take any credit for it.
In addition, the Islamic Republic, at a somewhat more vague level, explored assassinating former prime minister Naftali Bennett and other top Israeli defense officials.
The plot was to use an Israeli businessman, named by Israeli media as Moti Mqman, 73 years old from Ashkelon, who spent extensive time living in Turkey and had financial dealings with both Turkish and Iranian persons to develop assassination plans in Israel. |
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| From: Don Green | 9/19/2024 3:53:40 PM | | | | | | Pentagon Worries Israel Is Close to Launching Ground War in Lebanon
Wave of exploding electronic devices used by Hezbollah members could be prelude to wider attack
Even before the hundreds of widely dispersed detonations Tuesday and Wednesday, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told other senior Pentagon officials in a Monday meeting that he feared Israel could soon launch an offensive, after months of back-and-forth rocket and air attacks with Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed militia group that controls much of southern Lebanon.
U.S. alarm about a possible invasion has intensified since the brazen attacks in Lebanon. “I am very concerned about this spiraling out of control,” a senior defense official said, echoing comments since Tuesday by other Pentagon aides.
Israel’s military moved a division of commando and paratrooper soldiers to the north in recent days from the southern part of the country, after it had operated for months in Gaza, according to a person familiar with the matter. The division consists of thousands of soldiers.
Since the Gaza war broke out last October, the Biden administration has worried about a full-scale conflict on Israel’s northern frontier that could draw in the U.S. and even Iran.
 Hezbollah militants Wednesday at a funeral for people who died after electronic pagers exploded earlier this week. Photo: Anwar Amro/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
U.S. officials stressed that they haven’t yet seen any indicators such as calling up reserves to indicate an imminent invasion. Even once a decision is made, it could take weeks before Israeli forces are in position to launch a major offensive. But Israel could order a smaller operation more quickly, without other major military moves, U.S. defense officials said.
Israeli officials said Wednesday that they were beginning a new stage in their clash with Hezbollah, unless the militant group pulls back its forces from southern Lebanon and halts cross-border rocket and mortar attacks, which have forced the evacuation of tens of thousands of Israelis from the north.
“We are at the start of a new phase in the war—we are allocating resources and forces to the northern arena and our mission is clear: ensuring the safe return of Israel’s northern communities to their homes,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant posted Wednesday on X. “To do so, the security situation must be changed.”
John Kirby, U.S. National Security Council spokesman, told reporters Wednesday that there was still a way to end the crisis through diplomacy, not war. “Nothing is inevitable,” he said of a potential conflict.
 White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby, right, with White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Hezbollah promised to retaliate against Israel for the covert attacks on its communications. Israeli officials have made no public comments about the explosions. The attacks Wednesday killed 20 people and injured more than 450, after Tuesday’s attacks killed 12 and injured more than 2,800 people, said Lebanon’s government, which blamed Israel.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken, at a news conference in Cairo on Wednesday, said it was “imperative that all parties refrain from any actions that could escalate the conflict.”
Austin on Thursday postponed a trip to the Middle East, a defense official said. The defense secretary was expected to leave Saturday night and stop in Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Bahrain.
Hezbollah has fired hundreds of rockets at northern Israel, mostly at military targets, and most have been intercepted by Israel’s defense systems. Hezbollah has targeted residential areas as well. Hezbollah said it would halt attacks when Israel ceases its assault on Hamas in Gaza.
Both sides have hesitated to escalate the conflict, fearing consequences that would likely be devastating.
The sharpening tensions between Israel and Hezbollah came less than a month after the two adversaries pulled back from a looming clash following Israel’s killing of a senior Hezbollah leader in Beirut and the assassination of a leader of the militant group Hamas in Tehran.
Pagers carried by thousands of Hezbollah operatives exploded across Lebanon around the same time on Tuesday. WSJ’s Sune Engel Rasmussen explains what we know about the attack. Photo: Mohamed Azakir/Reuters
Hezbollah launched hundreds of rockets and drones at Israel on Aug. 25 as around 100 Israeli warplanes struck targets in Lebanon, a move Israel said was intended to pre-empt a Hezbollah attack. The exchange appeared to result in few casualties and limited damage. Afterward, Hezbollah said its retaliatory operation had concluded.
It still has a formidable arsenal of weaponry that includes 150,000 missiles that can reach any city in Israel, as well as 30,000 full-time fighters, many of whom are battle-hardened from a decade of fighting in Syria’s civil war. Naim Qassem, Hezbollah’s deputy leader, said Saturday in Beirut that a full-scale war with Israel would result in “large losses on both sides.”
Gallant told U.S. special envoy Amos Hochstein Monday in Tel Aviv that “the only way left to return the residents of the North to their homes is via military action,” according to a statement from the minister’s office.
The Israeli defense minister, who has clashed repeatedly with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on war strategy, had the day before delivered the same message to Austin over the phone. Austin’s response was to urge Israel to “give diplomatic negotiations time to succeed,” according to Pentagon spokesman Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder.
A U.S. defense official said the secretary’s impression was that Israel was considering new military options for Lebanon.
 Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant in Tel Aviv last year. U.S. officials have urged them to give diplomacy a chance to succeed in Israel’s conflict at its northern border. Photo: Press Pool/Reuters
“You would do this as shaping one before doing something else,” a former defense official said, referring to the timing of the detonations of pagers, walkie-talkies and other electronic devices.
Hochstein met Monday with Netanyahu and implored him not to authorize a war against the Lebanese group, a senior administration official said. Israel hasn’t given up entirely on U.S.-brokered attempts to get Hezbollah to pull its forces back to the Litani River in Lebanon, 18 miles from the Israel-Lebanon border, but an Israeli official said, “It can’t go on forever.”
Shortly before the pagers detonated across Lebanon Tuesday, Gallant again called Austin to warn him about an imminent operation without divulging details, U.S. officials said. The U.S. had no involvement in Tuesday or Wednesday’s attacks, the White House said.
“The region is headed for chaos,” a Middle East official said Wednesday.
The U.S. has an aircraft carrier in the region, the USS Abraham Lincoln, and positioned an amphibious assault ship carrying Marines and helicopters in Greece, along with other ships and a missile-carrying submarine, the USS Georgia. In addition, the U.S. has sent a squadron of F-22 jet fighters and expanded its air defenses around the region to protect ground forces based there.
 Lebanese soldiers watch as colleagues prepare to detonate a walkie-talkie found at American University Hospital in Beirut on Wednesday. Photo: Hassan Ammar/Associated Press
The Biden administration has warned Americans for months to leave Lebanon because of the risks of intensified fighting. A State Department warning in late July urged Americans not to travel to Lebanon and for those living in the country’s south to depart by any means available.
The U.S. has formulated plans to evacuate Americans and other noncombatants from Lebanon. One contingency involves evacuating roughly 50,000 U.S. citizens, residents and their families to Cyprus, defense officials said. In 2022, the State Department estimated that 86,000 Americans lived in the Middle Eastern country.
The plan calls for civilian ships to carry evacuees roughly 160 nautical miles across the Mediterranean from Lebanon to Cyprus.
Theodoros Gotsis, a spokesman for Cyprus’s Foreign Ministry, said in an interview that Washington would have to officially request the use of an evacuation facility on the island. Meanwhile, he said, “coordination continues for contingencies and for all possibilities.”
Write to Alexander Ward at alex.ward@wsj.com, Nancy A. Youssef at nancy.youssef@wsj.com and Lara Seligman at lara.seligman@wsj.com |
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