Michael Novakhov retweeted:

Brazen seagull shoplifts pack of Mini Cheddars from Tesco after stealing £300 worth of goods

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said on Monday that his nation’s efforts to be carbon neutral by 2050 would rely in part on returning to nuclear power, even though his predecessor had tried to move away from atomic power.

Yoon’s comments at a summit in the United Arab Emirates, made in front of the country’s leader, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, served to underline Seoul’s commitment to nuclear power as it works to finish the Arabian Peninsula’s first atomic power plant. That could see South Korea in line for lucrative maintenance contracts and future projects in the UAE, which Seoul has grown closer to over recent years.

“If our two countries join efforts in clean energy development … it will not only enhance our two countries energy security but also will contribute to global energy market stability,” Yoon said in an address at Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week.

The UAE also promises to be carbon neutral by 2050 — a target that remains difficult to assess and one that the Emirates still has not fully explained how it will reach. The $20 billion Barakah nuclear power plant, Seoul’s first attempt to build atomic reactors abroad, will one day account for nearly a quarter of all of the Emirates’ power needs.

Already, Yoon’s four-day trip the UAE has seen a promise from Sheikh Mohammed to invest some $30 billion in the country. Heavyweight business leaders from Hyundai, Samsung and other companies also are taking part in the state visit.

During his trip, Yoon also visited South Korean special forces stationed in the United Arab Emirates, a murky deployment that grew out of Seoul’s deal over the nuclear power plant. The Akh unit is comprised of some 150 troops.

“The UAE is our brother nation. … This isn’t a foreign country called the UAE – this right here, is your country,” a hawkish Yoon told the gathered forces. Both he and his wife, who accompanied him on the trip, wore desert fatigues.

“The security of our brother nation is our security. The enemy of the UAE, its most-threatening nation, is Iran, and our enemy is North Korea. … We are in a very similar situation with the UAE,” he said.

Yoon’s comments comes as the Emiratis have been trying to hedge in its relationship with Iran, a major business partner. The UAE also is home to around 3,500 American troops at Al Dhafra Air Base, a naval outpost in Fujairah and other locations.

Already, the Emiratis have paid $3.5 billion for the Cheongung II, or “Heaven’s Bow,” surface-to-air missile system from South Korea to protect itself against aerial threats. Emirati officials have grown increasingly concerned about protecting their airspace after being targeted in long-range drone attacks by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels — drones likely built by or with Tehran’s help.

South Korea has found itself squeeze by the tensions over Iran’s collapsed nuclear deal with world powers. Billions of dollars in Iranian funds remain in Seoul, frozen by American sanctions. Iran held a South Korean oil tanker for months in 2021 amid the dispute.

Yoon’s wife, Kim Keon Hee, had a different question for the troops, however. She asked if the soldiers had seen foxes in the Emirati desert.

___

Associated Press writer Kim Tong-hyung in Seoul contributed to this report.

___

Follow Jon Gambrell on Twitter at www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP.

Michael Novakhov retweeted:

Министр обороны ФРГ Кристине Ламбрехт подала в отставку. “Пристальное внимание СМИ к моей личности делает практически невозможными деловое информирование и дискуссии о военнослужащих, бундесвере и установке приоритетов в сфере политики безопасности”, – говорится в ее заявлении

WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — President Joe Biden is set to mark what would have been the 94th birthday of the late Martin Luther King Jr. with a sermon Sunday at Atlanta’s historic Ebenezer Baptist Church that aims to celebrate the civil rights leader’s legacy while reviving the Biden administration’s call for sweeping voting rights legislation.

Biden’s failure to win passage of a measure that would have bolstered voting right protections, a central campaign pledge, is one of his biggest disappointments of his first two years in office. The task is even steeper now that Republicans control the House.

In advance of Biden’s visit to the church where King once preached, White House officials said he was committed to advocating for meaningful voting rights action.

“The president will speak on a number of issues at the church, including how important it is that we have access to our democracy,” senior adviser Keisha Lance Bottoms said

Bottoms, who was Atlanta’s mayor from 2018 to 2022, said “you can’t come to Atlanta and not acknowledge the role that the civil rights movement and Dr. King played in where we are in the history of our country.”

The Democrats’ voting rights bill, named after John Lewis, the late civil rights leader and Georgia congressman, included provisions that would have made Election Day a national holiday, ensured access to early voting and mail-in ballots and enabled the Justice Department to intervene in states with a history of voter interference, among other changes.

The legislation collapsed last year when two senators — Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Arizona’s Kyrsten Sinema, a Democrat then and now an independent — refused to join Democratic colleagues in changing Senate rules to overcome a Republican filibuster. Sinema last month announced that she was changing her party affiliation, but she continues to caucus with Democrats.

Biden was invited to Ebenezer, where King served as co-pastor from 1960 until he was assassinated in 1968, by Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, the senior pastor. Warnock, like many battleground state Democrats who won reelection in 2022, kept his distance during the campaign from Biden as the the president’s approval rating lagged and the inflation rate climbed.

But with Biden beginning to turn his attention toward an expected 2024 reelection effort, Georgia is going to get plenty of his attention.

In 2020, Biden managed to win Georgia as well as closely contested Michigan and Pennsylvania, where Black votes made up a disproportionate of the Democratic electorate. Turning out Black voters in those states will be essential to Biden’s 2024 hopes.

The White House has tried to promote Biden’s agenda in minority communities. The White House has cited efforts to encourage states to take equity into account for public works projects as they spend money from the administration’s $1 trillion infrastructure bill. The administration also has acted to end sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine offenses, scrapping a policy widely seen as racist.

The administration also highlights Biden’s work to diversify the federal judiciary, including his appointment of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson as the first Black woman to serve on the Supreme Court and the confirmation of 11 Black women judges to federal appeals courts — more than those installed to those powerful courts under all previous presidents combined.

The visit to Ebenezer also comes at a delicate moment for Biden after Attorney General Merrick Garland on Thursday announced the appointment of a special counsel to investigate how the president handled classified documents after leaving the vice presidency in 2017. The White House on Saturday revealed that additional classified records were found at Biden’s home near Wilmington, Delaware.

In Atlanta, Biden will the first sitting president ever to speak at a Sunday service at Ebenezer, Bottoms said.

King, who was assassinated in 1968 after he fueled passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965, would have celebrated his 94th birthday on Sunday. Members of King’s family are expected to be in attendance for Biden’s visit.

The president plans to be in Washington on Monday to speak at the National Action Network’s annual breakfast on the King holiday.

___

Associated Press writer Bill Barrow in Atlanta contributed to this report.