Officials identify two killed when hit by military vehicle
Military officials have identified the two soldiers killed after a military vehicle struck them while they were in formation at an Army base in South Carolina.
A statement from Fort Jackson Oct. 7 identified the dead as Pvt. Ethan Shrader of Prospect, Tenn., and Pvt. Timothy Ashcraft of Cincinnati, Ohio.
The injured were identified as Pvt. Emmett Foreman from Daleville, Ala.; Pvt. Hannah New of Cartersville, Ga.; Pvt. Benjamin Key of Livingston, Tenn.; Pvt. Alan Kryszak of Clarksville, Tenn.; Pvt. Cardre Jackson Jr., Laurel, Md,; and Pvt. James Foster, Macon, Ga.
Fort Jackson called the incident Oct. 6 a “tragic accident,” but didn’t say where the wreck happened or the type of vehicle involved.
Fort Jackson is the Army’s largest training instillation, with more than 50,000 recruits assigned there each year. AP
Iran Guard chief warns U.S. against imposing new sanctions
The chief of Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard said Oct. 8 the U.S. should move its military bases farther from Iran’s borders if it imposes new sanctions against Tehran, the official IRNA news reported.
The report quotes Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari as saying: “If new sanctions go into effect, the country should move its regional bases to a 2000-kilometer (1,240-mile) radius” out of the range of Iranian missiles.
Currently, U.S. military bases are located in countries neighboring Iran, including Bahrain, Iraq, Oman and Afghanistan, less than 500 kilometers (310 miles) from Iran’s borders.
Jafari rejected the idea of negotiating with the U.S. over regional issues and said if the United States designates the Revolutionary Guard a terrorist group, the Guard — which has suffered significant casualties fighting the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq — will also consider the U.S. army a terrorist group.
He said such moves by the U.S. will eliminate “any chance for engagement forever.”
President Donald Trump appears to be stepping back from his campaign pledge to tear up the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers, instead aiming to take other measures against Iran and its affiliates.
New actions expected to be announced by the White House in the coming days will focus on the Revolutionary Guard and Hezbollah, the Shiite militant group blamed for sowing discord in the Middle East and seeking Israel’s demise. They include financial sanctions on anyone who does business with the Revolutionary Guard, as well as millions of dollars in rewards for information leading to the arrest of two operatives of Iran-backed Hezbollah.
On Oct. 7, Iran’s president defended the nuclear deal and said not even 10 Donald Trumps can roll back its benefits to Iran. AP
U.S. Commerce Department slaps more duties on Bombardier
The U.S. Commerce Department said Oct. 6 that it is imposing more duties on Canada’s Bombardier C series aircraft, charging that the Canadian company is selling the planes in America below cost.
The 80 percent duty comes on top of duties of nearly 220 percent Commerce announced last month. The case is a victory for U.S. rival Boeing.
The U.S. says Montreal-based Bombardier used unfair government subsidies to sell jets at artificially low prices in the United States.
“The United States is committed to free, fair and reciprocal trade with Canada, but this is not our idea of a properly functioning trading relationship,” Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said.
Specifically, Boeing charges that Bombardier last year sold Delta Air Lines 75 CS100 aircraft for less than it cost to build them. But Delta has said Boeing did not even make the 100-seat jets it needed.
“These anti-dumping duties on Bombardier’s C Series aircraft unfairly target Canada’s highly innovative aerospace sector and its more than 200,000 workers — and put at risk the almost 23,000 U.S. jobs that depend on Bombardier and its suppliers,” said Chrystia Freeland, Canada’s foreign affairs minister. “Boeing is manipulating the U.S. trade remedy system to prevent Bombardier’s new aircraft, the C Series, from entering the U.S. market.”
Bombardier charged that the decision “represents an egregious overreach and misapplication of the U.S. trade laws in an apparent attempt to block the C Series aircraft from entering the U.S. market, irrespective of the negative impacts to the U.S. aerospace industry, U.S. jobs, U.S. airlines, and the U.S. flying public.”
Bombardier can appeal any sanctions to a U.S. court or to a dispute-resolution panel created under the North American Free Trade Agreement. The Canadian government can also take the case to the World Trade Organization in Geneva. AP