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The US government shutdown entered its 35th day on Tuesday, matching a record set during Donald Trump’s first presidency, as his administration warned of potential chaos at airports going into one of the busiest travel periods of the year.The federal closure appears almost certain to become the longest in history, with no major breakthroughs expected before it goes into its sixth week at midnight — although there were fragile signs in Congress that an off-ramp was closer than ever.The government has been grinding to a halt since Congress failed to approve funding past September 30, and pain has been mounting as welfare programs — including aid that helps millions of Americans afford groceries — hang in limbo.About 1.4 million federal workers, from air traffic controllers to park wardens, have been placed on enforced leave without pay or made to work for nothing.The Trump administration sounded the alarm Tuesday over turmoil at airports nationwide if the shutdown drags into a sixth week, worsening staff shortages, snarling airport lines and closing down sections of airspace.”So if you bring us to a week from today, Democrats, you will see mass chaos… You will see mass flight delays,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy told a news conference in Philadelphia.”You’ll see mass cancelations, and you may see us close certain parts of the airspace, because we just cannot manage it because we don’t have the air traffic controllers.”Thanksgiving air travel is expected to set a new record this year, the AAA projected — with 5.8 million people set to fly domestically over the November 27 holiday. More than 60,000 air traffic controllers and Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officers are working without pay, and the White House has warned that increasing absenteeism could mean chaos at check-in lines.  Airport workers calling in sick rather than working without pay — leading to significant delays — was a major factor in Trump bringing an end to the 2019 shutdown, the joint-longest alongside the current stoppage.Some lawmakers are hoping a slew of elections taking place in New York, Virginia, New Jersey and California on Tuesday will provide the momentum they need to reopen the government. But both sides remain dug in over the main sticking point — health care spending.- ‘Defiance’ -Democrats say they will only provide votes to end the funding lapse after a deal has been struck to extend expiring insurance subsidies that make health care affordable for millions of Americans.But Republicans insist they will only address health care once Democrats have voted to switch the lights back on in Washington.While both sides’ leadership have shown little appetite for compromise, there have been signs of life on the back benches, with a handful of moderate Democrats working to find an escape hatch.A separate bipartisan group of four centrist House members unveiled a compromise framework Monday for lowering health insurance costs.Democrats believe that millions of Americans seeing skyrocketing premiums as they enroll onto health insurance programs for next year will pressure Republicans into seeking compromise.But Trump has held firm on refusing to negotiate, telling CBS News in an interview broadcast Sunday that he would “not be extorted.” The president has sought to apply his own pressure to force Democrats to cave, by threatening mass layoffs of federal workers and using the shutdown to target progressive priorities.Last week, his administration threatened to cut off a vital aid program that helps 42 million Americans pay for groceries for the first time in its more than 60-year history, before the move was blocked by two courts.Trump nevertheless insisted Tuesday — in apparent defiance of the court orders — that the food aid would be disbursed only after the government shutdown ends.The White House later clarified, however, that it was “fully complying” with its legal obligations and was working to get partial SNAP payments “out the door as much as we can and as quickly as we can.”

New Yorkers looked set to elect a young Muslim leftist as mayor Tuesday as US voters cast judgment for the first time on Donald Trump’s tumultuous second presidency in nationwide local elections.While Zohran Mamdani’s rise has dominated headlines, elections for governor in Virginia and New Jersey could also be revealing gauges of the US political mood nearly 10 months since Trump’s return to the White House.Democratic wins in those states may indicate a revived opposition ahead of next year’s midterm elections to decide control of Congress.In New York, Mamdani, aged just 34, is a self-described socialist who was virtually unknown before his upset victory to secure the Democratic nomination.He has focused on reducing living costs for ordinary New Yorkers, building support through his informal personal style and social-media-friendly clips of him walking the streets chatting with voters.Unabashedly playing the race card, President Trump on Tuesday labelled Mamdani, who would be New York’s first Muslim mayor, as a “Jew hater.””Any Jewish person that votes for Zohran Mamdani, a proven and self professed JEW HATER, is a stupid person!!!” the Republican president posted on his social media platform.Mamdani was on about 44 percent in latest polls, several points ahead of former state governor Andrew Cuomo who is running as an independent.Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa, founder of the Guardian Angels citizen crime patrol group, was on 24 percent — a margin that could sway the vote if enough of his backers shifted to Cuomo. Turnout by midday, with nine hours of voting remaining was 1.195 million, exceeding the total of 1.14 million votes cast in 2021, which saw the election of current Mayor Eric Adams who bowed out when his reelection campaign was hit by scandals and corruption allegations. He endorsed Cuomo, 67.Denise Gibbs, 46, a doctor of physiotherapy, voted at a school in Brooklyn.”I sure hope it improves the city. I want to see it decrease divisiveness and increase livelihoods of working-class households and services for children,” she said, wearing green scrubs.Polls close at 9:00 pm (0200 GMT Wednesday).- Mamdani’s improbable rise -The race has centered on cost of living, crime and how each candidate would handle Trump, who has threatened to withhold federal funds from New York.Syracuse University political science professor Grant Reeher said a Mamdani win would set up a clash with Trump.”Trump will treat New York City more aggressively,” he said. “There will be some kind of political showdown.”Mamdani’s improbable rise highlights the Democratic Party’s debate over a centrist or a leftist future.”I think that this has to be a party that actually allows Americans to see themselves in it,” Mamdani said last week.But Cuomo said there was “a civil war in the Democratic Party.” “You have an extreme radical left that is run by the socialists that is challenging what they would call moderate Democrats. I’m a moderate Democrat,” he said after voting.In New Jersey, Democratic Party candidate Mikie Sherrill, a former Navy helicopter pilot, faces off against Republican Jack Ciattarelli, a businessman backed by Trump.In Virginia’s race for governor, Democratic candidate Abigail Spanberger has been polling ahead of Virginia’s Republican Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears.Both sides wheeled out big guns, with former president Barack Obama rallying support for Spanberger and Sherrill over the weekend and Trump scheduling tele-rallies for both Virginia and New Jersey on the eve of voting.Obama also reportedly spoke to Mamdani over the weekend but — reflecting the internal party debate — held off endorsing him.Emailed bomb threats involving polling stations across New Jersey forced the brief closure of several sites, said state Attorney General Matthew Platkin. Mamdani called the threats “incredibly concerning.” “It’s an illustration of the attacks we are seeing on our democracy,” he said after voting in Astoria, Queens.

Dick Cheney, arguably the most powerful vice president in US history as George W. Bush’s number two during the September 11, 2001, attacks and ensuing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, died Monday. He was 84.Cheney forged an influential role in the traditionally inconsequential job and was a major power behind the throne as Bush thrust the United States into the so-called “war on terror,” with a dark underbelly of renditions, torture and the Guantanamo prison site.A hated figure by many on the left, he made a remarkable pivot toward the end of his life when he opposed Donald Trump’s ultimately successful campaign to return to the White House in 2024.Cheney’s daughter Liz Cheney, a former congresswoman from Wyoming, said her deeply Republican father had voted for Trump’s Democratic opponent Kamala Harris.Cheney, also a former congressman and defense secretary, “died due to complications of pneumonia and cardiac and vascular disease,” according to a family statement.As 46th vice president, Cheney served for two terms between 2001 and 2009.The job is often frustrating for ambitious politicians, but Cheney’s Machiavellian skills gave him considerable sway.He helped usher in an aggressive notion of executive power, believing the president should be able to operate almost unfettered by lawmakers or the courts, particularly during wartime.It was an approach that saw Bush enter military quagmires in Afghanistan and Iraq, and prompt major controversy over his impact on civil liberties.Bush on Tuesday hailed his former vice president as “among the finest public servants of his generation” and “the one I needed” when in the White House.Cheney was “a patriot who brought integrity, high intelligence and seriousness of purpose to every position he held,” Bush added.White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt pointedly offered no condolences when asked Tuesday about Cheney’s death.Trump “is aware of the former vice president’s passing,” she told a briefing, noting White House flags had been lowered to half staff “in accordance with statutory law.”- Neo-con -Born in Lincoln, Nebraska, on January 30, 1941, Cheney grew up mostly in the sparsely populated western state of Wyoming.He attended Yale University but dropped out of the prestigious East Coast school and ended up earning a degree in political science back home at the University of Wyoming.He spent ten years in Congress as a representative for Wyoming before being appointed defense secretary by George H.W. Bush in 1989.Cheney presided over the Pentagon during the 1990-91 Gulf War, in which a US-led coalition evicted Iraqi troops from Kuwait.As vice president, Cheney brought his neo-conservative ideology to the White House and played a greater role in making major policy decisions than many of his predecessors in the role.Cheney was one of the driving forces behind the decision to invade Iraq following the September 11, 2001, attacks by Al-Qaeda on New York and Washington.His inaccurate claims that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction fueled the drumbeat for war ahead of the 2003 US invasion.Seen as Bush’s mentor on foreign policy, Cheney remained loyal to his former boss and a staunch defender of Bush-era policies.In a 2015 interview, Cheney said he had no regrets over the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and credited a so-called “enhanced interrogation program” for the successful hunt for Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, who was killed by US forces in 2011. Despite a preference for privacy, Cheney was rarely out of the headlines.He once hurled an expletive at a Democratic senator on the Senate floor and infamously accidently shot his friend Harry Whittington in the face during a hunting trip.His professional life was punctuated by a series of health scares — he suffered five heart attacks between 1978 and 2010, including one in 2000, the year he and Bush were elected to the White House.He underwent quadruple bypass surgery and had a pacemaker fitted in 2001, which was later replaced.

Dick Cheney achieved influence unrivaled for a vice president in shaping US foreign policy, ruthlessly pursuing military might and advocating pre-emptive war to reshape the world.The descent of Cheney, who died Tuesday, was also spectacular. His hawkish brand of neoconservatism, including the invasion of Iraq, began to be repudiated even before he left office, and today both major US parties largely reject his views.With America shellshocked by the September 11, 2001 attack, Cheney — his grim demeanor accentuated when he spoke from dark bunkers — advocated a doctrine of pre-emptive strikes, with the United States attacking first before threats materialize, toppling hostile regimes if needed.Cheney also led the shattering of Western norms on treatment of prisoners, indefinitely jailing terrorism suspects without charges and approving “enhanced interrogation” techniques such as waterboarding that are widely considered torture.Cheney, a veteran Washington insider with no ambition to be president himself, quickly towered over the less experienced commander-in-chief, George W. Bush.”It would be hard to argue that he was not the most influential vice president,” said Aaron Mannes, a scholar of the American vice presidency who lectures at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy.Cheney gained clout by focusing narrowly on national security and enabled Bush by “pushing an open door.””There were a lot of stories of him being a sort of secret president — the Darth Vader — running everything. I’m not sure that’s true,” Mannes said. “It was more a matter of where he put his weight.” – Iraq bloodshed -The decision to invade Iraq still reverberates across the Middle East and haunts American foreign policy.Hundreds of thousands of civilians, as well as more than 4,000 US troops, died as the United States toppled Saddam Hussein and the country descended into sectarian bloodshed.Cheney by the end of his 2001-2009 term began to lose policy debates.Bush sided with his secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, and pursued diplomatic options such as talks with North Korea defying Cheney’s motto, “We don’t negotiate with evil; we defeat it.”Democrat Barack Obama swept to power rejecting Cheney’s worldview, offering an outstretched hand to those who “unclench your fist.”Less expected, Cheney’s Republican Party shifted direction, as many veterans came home to struggling communities and drug addiction.Donald Trump last year called Cheney “the King of Endless, Nonsensical Wars, wasting Lives and Trillions of Dollars,” though as president he has been eager to exert the swagger of force himself.In another turn that would have been unthinkable when Cheney was vice president and a hate figure for Democrats, he said he voted for Democrat Kamala Harris last year over Trump.He joined his daughter, former congresswoman Liz Cheney, who unlike many Republicans has spared no words in criticizing Trump as anti-democratic.Danielle Pletka, a senior fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute who backed the Iraq war, nonetheless said she believed Americans still backed Dick Cheney’s idea that a “strong America is a power for good in the world.””And I don’t think Donald Trump would disagree with that characterization of his own stance,” she said.- Never prosecuted -Obama vowed on taking office that the United States “does not torture” but also decided not to prosecute anyone, hoping to turn the page.The prison for indefinite detentions on Guantanamo Bay, Cuba — which Obama wanted to close within a year — remains open a decade and a half later, although with far fewer inmates.Sarah Yager, Washington director of Human Rights Watch, which long urged an investigation against Cheney, said the US breaking of norms emboldened other nations to torture.She also pointed to allegations of mistreatment of migrants sent by Trump to El Salvador.”There is a direct line from Vice President Cheney to the torture that the US is now complicit in in El Salvador,” she said.”It’s really a shame that accountability never closed the door for the United States on torture.”

US Transport Secretary Sean Duffy warned Tuesday that the government shutdown will cause air travel chaos if it lasts another week, worsening staff shortages, snarling airport lines and closing down sections of airspace.”So if you bring us to a week from today, Democrats, you will see mass chaos… You will see mass flight delays,” he told a news conference in Philadelphia.”You’ll see mass cancellations, and you may see us close certain parts of the airspace, because we just cannot manage it because we don’t have the air traffic controllers.”With the standoff in Congress over health care spending set to become the longest in history, Trump’s Republicans and the opposition Democrats are facing increasing pressure to end a crisis that has crippled public services.More than 60,000 air traffic controllers and Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officers are working without pay, and the White House has warned that increasing absenteeism could mean chaos at check-in lines.  Airport workers calling in sick rather than working without pay — leading to significant delays — was a major factor in Trump bringing an end to the 2019 shutdown, the joint-longest alongside the current stoppage, at 35 days.After five weeks of failed votes on a House-passed resolution to reopen the government, the Senate rejected the legislation for a 14th time on Tuesday.Democrats say the only path to reopening the government is a Trump-led negotiation over their demands to extend subsidies that make health insurance affordable for millions of Americans — the key sticking point in the standoff.But Trump has insisted he won’t negotiate with Democrats until the shutdown is over.

The Nigerian government Tuesday said it does not tolerate religious persecution, responding to US President Donald Trump’s threats of military intervention over the killing of Christians by jihadists in the country.Trump said over the weekend that he had asked the Pentagon to map out a possible plan of attack in Africa’s most populous nation because radical Islamists are “killing the Christians and killing them in very large numbers”.Roughly evenly split between a mostly Christian south and Muslim-majority north, Nigeria is home to myriad conflicts, which experts say kill both Christians and Muslims, often without distinction.Foreign Minister Yusuf Tuggar insisted that his country’s constitution did not allow religious persecution.”It’s impossible for there to be a religious persecution that can be supported in any way, shape or form by the government of Nigeria at any level,” Tuggar told a press conference in Berlin. Nigeria has a “constitutional commitment to religious freedom and rule of law”, the foreign minister added.Claims of Christian “persecution” in Nigeria have found traction online among the US and European right in recent months.Flanked by his German counterpart Johann Wadephul, Tuggar warned against any attempts to divide Nigeria along religious lines, drawing parallels with civil war-ravaged Sudan.”What we are trying to make the world understand is that we should not create another Sudan,” he said.”We’ve seen what has happened with Sudan with agitations for the partitioning of Sudan based on religion, based on tribal sentiments and you can see the crisis even when the partitioning was done according to religion or according to tribe,” Tuggar added.- Muslim victims too -Trump has not suggested any division of Nigeria along religious lines, but said without evidence that “thousands of Christians are being killed (and) Radical Islamists are responsible for this mass slaughter”.Ikemesit Effiong, an analyst with the Lagos-based SBM Intelligence consultancy, suggested that Nigeria’s fears of partition are informed by history, with several former British colonies having experienced “violent partitions and secessions”.”Nigeria is actually sensitive to the fact that while our diversity can be a strength, it can also be a lever of division, of violence and eventually of partition,” he told AFP.Ethnic, religious and regional divisions have flared with deadly consequences in the past — notably during the country’s 1967-70 civil war — and still shape the country’s modern politics.The west African political and economic bloc ECOWAS, based in Abuja, issued a statement Tuesday saying that militant groups in the region, including in Nigeria, “target innocent civilians of all religious denominations”.The statement, which did not specifically mention the United States or Trump’s recent comments, said claims that one particular group is targeted by violence “seek to deepen insecurity in communities and weaken social cohesion”.Claims of a “Christian genocide” have been pushed in recent years by separatist groups in the southeast.US-based firm Moran Global Strategies has been lobbying on behalf of separatists this year, advising congressional staff on what it said was Christian “persecution”, according to lobbying disclosures.Central Nigeria sees violence between Fulani Muslim herders and mostly Christian farmers, though experts say the conflicts are sparked by dwindling land and resources rather than religious differences.Nigeria also faces “bandit” gangs in the northwest who stage kidnappings, village raids and killings.The north’s population is mostly Muslim — meaning most of the victims are, too.Nigeria’s newly appointed chief of defence staff, Lieutenant General Olufemi Oluyede, told reporters on Monday that “there are no Christians being persecuted in Nigeria”.Analysts have suggested that Washington’s amped-up rhetoric could be related to Abuja rejecting demands to accept non-Nigerian deportees expelled from the United States as part of Trump’s immigration crackdown.burs-sn-nro/sbk

Starbucks has announced it will sell a controlling stake in its Chinese retail operations as it seeks to revitalise performance in a fiercely competitive market it once dominated.Hong Kong-based investment firm Boyu Capital will hold up to 60 percent of a new joint venture operating 8,000 Starbucks stores across China, under a deal which values the business at around $4 billion.Seattle-based Starbucks said on Monday it will retain a 40-percent stake and continue to own the brand and intellectual property.The partnership marks a strategic shift for Starbucks after more than 26 years in China, where it has seen its market share fall to 14 percent in 2024 from a peak of 42 percent in 2017.China represents Starbucks’s second biggest market globally, though the company has faced increasing competition from local coffee chains like Luckin Coffee, which has won over customers with lower prices.Luckin, founded in 2017, has expanded rapidly to more than 26,000 stores by targeting young spendthrift consumers with aggressive discounts, a host of quirky drink flavours, and brand tie-ups with everything from anime to the traditional Chinese liquor baijiu.It opened its first US store in June.- ‘So much more’ -Dozens of other chains have emerged in China, many following Luckin’s model of handling orders through mobile apps and operating small stores with few staff and little or no seating, which helps to lower costs.Cotti Coffee, another competitor, targets smaller cities and towns with drinks starting at 9.9 yuan ($1.40), and already has more China stores than Starbucks despite being founded only three years ago.Starbucks has failed to meet customers’ rising demand for better value, said Yaling Jiang, founder of consultancy ApertureChina and author of a newsletter on Chinese consumers.”Consumers feel they can get so much more from domestic competitors,” she told AFP.Starbucks cut its prices in June, but its cheapest Americano still costs 27 yuan ($3.80).Luckin’s marketing, often focusing on viral online trends, has also given it an edge over Starbucks’ more traditional approach.Luckin also leverages its data-centric operation to analyse and anticipate trends for its product development, said Felipe Cabrera from Ad Astra Coffee Consulting, a specialist in the Chinese market.Boyu Capital will likely “manage the company in a very Chinese style, which will give some advantage to Starbucks China teams to react fast to trends in the local coffee industry”, he said, possibly even surpassing competitors in “creating ‘hot’ new” products.- Expansion -Starbucks reported last week that its latest quarterly same-store sales in China increased by two percent, fuelled by an increase in traffic, but added that average spending per ticket had dropped.The company said it expects the total value of its China retail business to exceed $13 billion, including proceeds from the sale, its retained interest, and future licensing fees over the next decade.”Boyu’s deep local knowledge and expertise will help accelerate our growth in China, especially as we expand into smaller cities and new regions,” said Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol.While local brands have embraced franchise models to expand rapidly, Starbucks continues to directly operate large traditional coffee stores concentrated mostly in large cities.Jiang said that “they need a new generation of local and young leaders to make changes, especially in terms of marketing”.”If they keep what they’re doing… Boyu is only going to waste their money,” she said.The companies said they aim to grow the store count to as many as 20,000 locations over time, with the business continuing to be headquartered in Shanghai.The deal is expected to close in the second quarter of fiscal year 2026, pending regulatory approvals.

New Yorkers are projected to elect Democrat Zohran Mamdani as mayor Tuesday, opening a new front in opposition to Donald Trump and raising the specter the president will retaliate against the city where he made his name.While Mamdani’s rise is dominating headlines, off-year elections for governor in Virginia and New Jersey will be seen as even more critical gauges of the US political mood nearly 10 months into Trump’s bruising right-wing reign.Democratic wins there will be seen as signals that the beleaguered opposition is coming back to life ahead of next year’s midterm elections to decide control of Congress.Mamdani, who describes himself as a socialist and campaigned on reducing costs for ordinary New Yorkers, was leading by seven points on 41 percent in the latest AtlasIntel poll.The 34-year-old was trailed by former state governor Andrew Cuomo on 34 percent.Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa, founder of the Guardian Angels citizen crime patrol group, was polling at 24 percent — a margin that could sway the vote if enough of his backers shifted to Cuomo.Shortly after polls opened, Denise Gibbs, 46, a doctor of physiotherapy voted at the Uncommon Bed-Stuy West school in Brooklyn.”I sure hope it improves the city. I want to see it decrease divisiveness and increase livelihoods of working class households and services for children,” she said wearing green scrubs.Polls close at 9 pm (0200 GMT Wednesday).A total of 1.14 million votes were cast in 2021, which saw the election of current Mayor Eric Adams who bowed out after his reelection campaign struggled to build momentum amid scandals and corruption allegations. He endorsed Cuomo, 67.- Trump threat -In a final push for votes, Mamdani toured nightclubs over the Halloween weekend, making a pit stop at one event called “Papi Juice” without ditching his trademark dark suit.If elected, he would be the city’s first Muslim mayor.Far-right Republicans have scorned a video he issued in Arabic to supporters in the famously diverse city.Cuomo visited all five city boroughs Monday, while Sliwa crisscrossed the city pushing his “tough on crime” message.The race has centered on cost of living, crime and how each candidate would handle Trump, who has threatened to withhold federal funds from the city.”If Communist Candidate Zohran Mamdani wins the Election for Mayor of New York City, it is highly unlikely that I will be contributing Federal Funds, other than the very minimum as required, to my beloved first home,” Trump wrote on social media.Mamdani fired back during a canvassing event in Queens Monday.”What was rumored, what was feared has become naked and unabashed — the ‘MAGA’ movement’s embrace of Andrew Cuomo,” he said.Syracuse University political science professor Grant Reeher said a Mamdani win would set up a “showdown” with Trump.”Trump will treat New York City more aggressively,” he said. “There will be some kind of political showdown.”Mamdani’s improbable ascent to the cusp of leading America’s biggest city has also sent shock waves through the Democratic Party, which is struggling to decide whether to embrace a centrist or a populist, leftist path.”I think that this has to be a party that actually allows Americans to see themselves in it and not just be a mirror image of just a few people who are engaged in politics,” Mamdani said at a dance event with the elderly Friday.- Big test of US mood -Voters in the states of New Jersey and Virginia will pick a new governor Tuesday.Democratic Party candidate Mikie Sherrill, a former Navy helicopter pilot, faces off against Republican Jack Ciattarelli, a businessman backed by Trump, with the two neck-and-neck according to polling.In Virginia’s race for governor, Democratic candidate Abigail Spanberger has been polling comfortably ahead of Virginia’s Republican Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears.Both sides have wheeled out big guns, with former president Barack Obama rallying support for Spanberger and Sherrill at two separate events over the weekend and Trump scheduling tele-rallies for both Virginia and New Jersey on the eve of voting.Obama also reportedly spoke to Mamdani over the weekend but — reflecting the internal party debate — held off endorsing him.

North Korea fired multiple artillery rockets an hour before US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth visited the border separating it from the South, Seoul’s military told AFP on Tuesday.Pyongyang also fired similar weapons minutes before South Korean President Lee Jae Myung held talks with Chinese leader Xi Jinping last week, the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said.The JCS said they had recently “detected about 10 artillery rockets fired into the northern part of the West Sea”, Seoul’s name for the Yellow Sea.The weapons were fired at around 3:00 pm (0600 GMT) on Saturday and around 4:00 pm on Monday.”Details of the projectiles are currently being closely analysed by South Korean and US intelligence authorities,” the JCS added.Hegseth visited the heavily fortified border dividing North and South Korea on Monday, becoming the first Pentagon chief in eight years to do so.He toured Panmunjom, the symbolic truce village where troops from both Koreas stand face-to-face, following a stop at Observation Post Ouellette overlooking the Demilitarized Zone.Hegseth and South Korean counterpart Ahn Gyu-back “reaffirmed the strong combined defence posture and close cooperation between South Korea and the United States”, Seoul’s defence ministry said in a statement.Hegseth said at a joint news conference with Ahn on Tuesday that South Korea faces a “dangerous security environment” and the two ministers agreed to remain “clear-eyed about the threats” they face.He also said South Korea’s increase in defence spending would accelerate its “ability to lead its conventional deterrence and defence against North Korea”.President Lee said Tuesday Seoul would make its biggest defence budget increase in six years with an 8.2 percent rise from this year to 66.3 trillion won ($4.6 billion). Hegseth’s trip comes after US President Donald Trump’s overtures to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during his Asia tour last week drew no public response from Pyongyang.However, Trump has indicated that he would still be willing to “come back” for a future meeting with Kim.On Saturday, Lee met Xi on the sidelines of an Asian economic summit, urging the Chinese leader to help Seoul “resume dialogue” with North Korea.Lee stressed the need for regional “stability” and noted “recent high-level exchanges between China and North Korea” — a reference to Kim’s attendance at a major military parade in Beijing in September.