Washington: United States President Joe Biden said on Monday that Washington is ready to get involved militarily to defend Taiwan in the event of invasion. Biden met with Prime Minister Kishida Fumio of Japan on Monday to advance cooperation on a range of bilateral, regional, and global issues.During a joint press conference with the Japanese PM, Biden reaffirmed Washington's commitment to ensuring the security of the Taiwan Strait and preventing any change in the status quo unilaterally. When asked whether the US is ready to get involved militarily to defend Taiwan, he replied in the affirmative, adding that this is the commitment that the US has taken on. "We remain committed to supporting peace and stability in Taiwan Strait. The US stands firmly with Japan and other nations not to let that happen (China taking over Taiwan)," he said."After this, US and Japan together with 11 other nations will be launching the Indo-Pacific economic framework. This framework is a commitment to working with our close friends and partners in the region and challenges that matter most to ensuring economic competitiveness," he added.According to the White House statement, Biden commended Prime Minister Kishida's leadership in responding to Russia's war against Ukraine, and his determination to strengthen Japan's defence capabilities, noting that a strong US-Japan alliance is the cornerstone of peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region.The two leaders committed to work closely together to address security challenges, including North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile programs and China's increasingly coercive behaviour that runs counter to international law. They agreed to deepen cooperation in areas such as emerging technologies, supply chain security, and clean energy. Addressing a press conference, the Japanese PM said the two leaders discussed the impact of the Ukraine situation on the Indo-Pacific. "For China, we concurred to monitor recent activities of Chinese Navy and joint military exercise of China and strongly oppose the changes caused by force." Ahead of the Quad summit on Tuesday, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi slammed the United States' Indo-Pacific strategy on Sunday, charging that the four-nation grouping was formed in the guise of freedom and openness but with the purpose to contain China.He made these comments while addressing a press conference after talks with visiting Pakistani Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari in Guangzhou,&nbsp;Xinhua&nbsp;news agency reported.When asked about the 'Indo-Pacific Strategy', Wang said: "The US' Indo-Pacific Strategy is causing more and more vigilance and concern in the international community, especially in the Asia-Pacific region."—ANI

United States President Joe Biden said on Monday that Washington is ready to get involved militarily to defend Taiwan in the event of invasion.

US ready to send troops if China invades Taiwan

America

Washington: US President Joe Biden on Thursday authorized another USD 100 million in security assistance to Ukraine, following the passage of the USD 40 billion Ukraine aid bill by Congress, US Department of Defence said in a press statement. Pentagon Press Secretary John F Kirby said that the aid package includes 18 155 mm howitzers, 18 tactical vehicles to tow those howitzers, three AN/TPQ-36 counter-artillery radars and additional field equipment and spare parts. "That stuff will start to flow very, very soon," he said. "I cannot give you an exact date of when it's all going to show up in Ukraine, but you can imagine having seen us do this in the past that we're not going to sit on our hands. We'll start flowing that stuff immediately," the release said.Kirby said that US has provided nearly USD 4 billion in security assistance to Ukraine, since the start of Russian invasion on February 24, this year. The release also stated that prior to the most current presidential drawdown package, the US provided 90 155 mm howitzers to Ukraine, more than 200,000 artillery rounds, over 1,400 Stinger anti-aircraft systems, over 5,000 Javelin anti-armor systems and more than 700 Switchblade tactical unmanned aerial systems. US is not the only nation sending assistance to Ukraine, Kirby further said, adding that it will continue to work with partner and allied nations to provide the Ukrainians with what is needed to defend their national sovereignty. Referring to the shortage of infant food caused by supply chain bottlenecks, Kirby said, "While parents struggle with a nationwide shortage of infant formula, US Transportation Command is working with the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Food and Drug Administration to support "Operation Fly Formula.""US Transportation Command will leverage its partnership with commercial air carriers to contract and accelerate the importation of infant formula into the United States that meets our government's health and safety standards," he said. " The first step of that is ... working with the interagency to identify locations where formula can be had overseas and then getting the right aircraft in place to bring that to the United States, and then of course working out the destinations," the release quoted Kirby as saying.While he didn't disclose any of the details for the first of those flights to happen, but he did mention that it appears unlikely it would be military, or "grey tail" aircraft that perform the work. He also said that much of the security assistance going to Ukraine is traveling on commercial contract carriers rather than on US military aircraft. "We believe at this point that probably the most expeditious and, quite frankly, the most cost-efficient way to support this immediate need would be through commercial contract carriers," Kirby said.—ANI

US President Joe Biden on Thursday authorized another USD 100 million in security assistance to Ukraine, following the passage of the USD 40 billion Ukraine aid bill by Congress, US Department of Defence said in a press statement.

Biden announces another USD 100 million military assistance to Ukraine

Washington: A presidential advisory commission has unanimously voted to recommend US President Joe Biden to process all applications for green cards or permanent residency within six months, a proposal if adopted is likely to bring cheers to the hundreds and thousands of Indian-Americans, including those waiting for it for decades.A Green Card, known officially as a Permanent Resident Card, is a document issued to immigrants to the US as evidence that the bearer has been granted the privilege of residing permanently in the US. Indian IT professionals, most of whom are highly skilled and come to the US mainly on the H-1B work visas, are the worst sufferers of the current immigration system which imposes a seven per cent per country quota on allotment of the coveted Green Card or permanent legal residency.The recommendations of the President's Advisory Commission on Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders (PACAANHPI) are to be sent to the White House now for approval.If adopted, it is likely to bring cheers to the hundreds and thousands of Indian-Americans and those waiting, some even for decades, for a Green Card. A proposal on the issue was moved by eminent Indian-American community leader Ajay Jain Bhutoria during the meeting of the PACAANHPI, during which all its 25 commissioners unanimously approved it. The proceedings of the meeting here in the national capital were webcast live last week.To reduce the pending Green Card backlog, the advisory commission recommended the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to review their processes, systems and policies and establish new internal cycle time goals by streamlining processes, removing redundant steps if any, automating any manual approvals, improving their internal dashboards and reporting system and enhancing policies. The recommendations aim to reduce the cycle time for processing all forms related to family-based Green Card applications, DACA renewals and all other Green Card applications within six months and issue adjudicate decisions within six months of applications received by it.The commission recommended National Visa Center (NVC) State Department facility to hire additional officers to increase their capacity to process Green Card applications interviews by 100 per cent in three months from August 2022, and to increase Green Card Card applications visa interviews and adjudicate decisions by 150 per cent up from capacity of 32,439 in April 2022 -- by April 2023. Thereafter Green Card visa interviews and visa processing timeline should be a maximum of six months, it said.Aimed at making it easier for the immigrants to stay and work in the country, the commission recommended that the USCIS should review requests for work permits, travel documents and temporary status extensions or changes within three months and adjudicate decisions. Only 65,452 family preference green cards were issued in fiscal 2021 out of the annual 226,000 green cards available, leaving hundreds of thousands of green cards unused (with many likely to be permanently wasted in the future) and keeping many more families needlessly separated.There were 421,358 pending interviews in April compared to 436,700 in March, said the policy paper by Bhutoria. Noting that while the US population has grown substantially in recent decades, the immigration system has not changed to keep pace, he said.The annual levels of immigration were established in the early 1990s and have remained largely unchanged since then, he said. To make matters worse, the method used to calculate the annual number of employment-and-family-based immigration is deeply flawed, and has led to family-based immigration levels being set at their absolute minimum every year for the past 20 years, while hundreds of thousands of green cards for family members go wasted, never used by any individuals when they could be used to reunite families instead, Bhutoria said.The extraordinary wait time for a Green Card to be available causes significant hardship for American families forced to wait decades to reunite with their loved ones, even though those individuals are already qualified to immigrate right now. "Family separation takes a terrible emotional toll on families, and it imposes clear logistical, economic, and emotional hardships on families, and the growing nature of the backlogs makes the process uncertain and future planning impossible, he said. Among other things, the commission also recommended the USCIS to expand premium processing to additional employment-based Green Card applications, all work permit petitions, and temporary immigration status extension requests, allowing applicants to pay USD 2,500 to have their cases adjudicated within 45 days in a phased approach.—PTI

A presidential advisory commission has unanimously voted to recommend US President Joe Biden to process all applications for green cards or permanent residency within six months, a proposal if adopted is likely to bring cheers to the hundreds and thousands of Indian-Americans, including those waiting for it for decades.

Process all Green Cards within 6 months, Presidential commission votes

Houston: Two people were killed and three others critically injured in a shooting at a flea market in Houston, the largest city of the US state Texas, authorities said.The shooting allegedly took place on Sunday due to a fight among the five male victims, the Harris County Sheriff’s Office said.The victims all appear to be in their early-to mid-20s and likely knew each other, officials said, noting they do not believe the shooting was random, Xinhua news agency reported. No innocent bystanders were hurt although the flea market was very busy at Sunday afternoon when the shooting took place. Harris County Sheriff, Ed Gonzalez said it is estimated that there were “thousands” at the flea market when the gun shots were fired. Two possible suspects were detained and a third was taken to a hospital, according to an ABC News report. The Sheriff’s office said at least two pistols have been recovered from the crime scene.—IANS

Two people were killed and three others critically injured in a shooting at a flea market in Houston, the largest city of the US state Texas, authorities said.

2 killed, 3 injured in US Houston flea market shooting

California: One person was killed, and five others were injured in a shooting on Sunday at a church in the western US state of California, the Orange County Sheriff's Department said. The shooting was reported at the church on the 24000 block of El Toro Road in the City of Laguna Woods in Southern California's Orange County on Sunday afternoon, according to the Orange County Sheriff's Department. The sheriff's department tweeted about 2:00 pm local time that deputies were responding to reports of the shooting. It added later that "dispatch received calls of a shooting inside Geneva Presbyterian Church at 1:26 pm. Four victims have been critically wounded, one with minor injuries.""All victims are adults and are en route to the hospital. One victim is deceased at the scene," said the department.<img src="https://im.rediff.com/news/2022/may/16shooting1.jpg?w=670&amp;h=900">The gunfire erupted during a lunch reception honouring a former pastor of a Taiwanese congregation that has services at Geneva, according to a statement from the Presbytery of Los Ranchos, a church administrative body.The sheriff's department noted that it had detained a suspect at the scene and had recovered a weapon that may be involved.California Governor Gavin Newsom's office tweeted,"We are actively monitoring the shooting at a church in Laguna Woods and working closely with local law enforcement. No one should have to fear going to their place of worship. Our thoughts are with the victims, community, and all those impacted by this tragic event."—ANI

One person was killed, and five others were injured in a shooting on Sunday at a church in the western US state of California, the Orange County Sheriff's Department said.