BSP-2097 - regression

PARIS (AP) — France will keep providing military intelligence to Ukraine after Washington announced it was freezing the sharing of information with Kyiv, French defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu said Thursday.

The U.S. said Wednesday it had paused its intelligence sharing with Ukraine, cutting off the flow of vital information that has helped the war-torn nation target Russian invaders, but Trump administration officials have said that positive talks between Washington and Kyiv mean it may only be a short suspension.

American intelligence is vital for Ukraine to track Russian troop movements and select targets.

Speaking to France Inter radio on Thursday, Lecornu said France is continuing its intelligence sharing.

“Our intelligence is sovereign,” Lecornu said. “We have intelligence that we allow Ukraine to benefit from.”

Lecornu’s office later said the sharing of intelligence with Ukraine is not a novelty but “a continuity of service.”

Lecornu added that following the US decision to suspend all military aid to Ukraine, French President Emmanuel Macron asked him to “accelerate the various French aid packages” to make up for the lack of American assistance.

Lecornu said that in the wake of the U.S. decision, shipments of Ukraine-bound aid departing from Poland had been suspended, adding however that “Ukrainians, unfortunately, have learned to fight this war for three years now and know how to stockpile.”

ITOMAN, Japan (AP) — Takamatsu Gushiken turns on a headtorch and enters a cave buried in Okinawa’s jungle. He gently runs his fingers through the gravel until two pieces of bone emerge. These are from the skulls, he says, of an infant and possibly an adult.

He carefully places them in a ceramic rice bowl and takes a moment to imagine people dying 80 years ago as they hid in this cave during one of the fiercest battles of World War II. His hope is that the dead can be reunited with their families.

The remains of some 1,400 people found on Okinawa sit in storage for possible identification with DNA testing. So far just six have been identified and returned to their families. Volunteer bone hunters and families looking for their loved ones say the government should do more to help.

Gushiken says the bones are silent witnesses to Okinawa’s wartime tragedy, carrying a warning to the present generation as Japan ups its defense spending in the face of tensions with China over territorial disputes and Beijing’s claim to the nearby self-governing island Taiwan.

“The best way to honor the war dead is never to allow another war,” Gushiken says. “I’m worried about Okinawa’s situation now. ... I’m afraid there is a growing risk that Okinawa may become a battlefield again.”

An island haunted by one of the deadliest battles of World War II

On April 1, 1945, U.S. troops landed on Okinawa during their push toward mainland Japan, beginning a battle that lasted until late June and killed about 12,000 Americans and more than 188,000 Japanese, half of them Okinawan civilians. That included students and victims of mass suicides ordered by the Japanese military, historians say.

The fighting ended at Itoman, where Gushiken and other volunteer cave diggers — or “gamahuya” in their native Okinawan language — have found the remains of what are likely hundreds of people.