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Biden, Trump Security Advisers Meet to Pass Ceremonial Baton

US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan (L) hands a baton to incoming National Security Advisor Mike Waltz during an event at the US Institute of Peace in Washington, DC, on January 14, 2025. (AFP)
US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan (L) hands a baton to incoming National Security Advisor Mike Waltz during an event at the US Institute of Peace in Washington, DC, on January 14, 2025. (AFP)
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Biden, Trump Security Advisers Meet to Pass Ceremonial Baton

US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan (L) hands a baton to incoming National Security Advisor Mike Waltz during an event at the US Institute of Peace in Washington, DC, on January 14, 2025. (AFP)
US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan (L) hands a baton to incoming National Security Advisor Mike Waltz during an event at the US Institute of Peace in Washington, DC, on January 14, 2025. (AFP)

Top advisers to US President Joe Biden and President-elect Donald Trump put aside their differences - mostly - for a symbolic "passing of the torch" event focused on national security issues on Tuesday.

Biden national security adviser Jake Sullivan passed a ceremonial baton to US Congressman Mike Waltz, Trump's pick for the same job, in a revival of a Washington ritual organized by the nonpartisan United States Institute of Peace since 2001.

The two men are normally in the media defending their bosses' opposing views on Ukraine, the Middle East and China.

On Tuesday, Waltz and Sullivan politely searched for common ground on a panel designed to project the continuity of power in the United States.

"It's like a very strange, slightly awkward version of 'The Dating Game,' you know the old game where you wrote down your answer, and that person wrote down their answer, and you see how much they match up," said Sullivan.

The event offered a preview of what may be in store on Monday when Trump is inaugurated as president. This peaceful transfer of power, a hallmark of more than two centuries of American democracy, comes four years after Trump disputed and never conceded his loss in the 2020 election.

This time the two sides are talking. Sullivan, at Biden's request, has briefed Waltz privately, at length, on the current administration's policy around the world even as the Trump aide has regularly said the new team will depart radically from it.

Trump's Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and Biden's envoy Brett McGurk are working together this week to close a ceasefire deal in the region for hostages held by Hamas in Gaza.

Asked about the key challenges facing the new administration, Waltz and Sullivan on Tuesday both pointed to the California wildfires and China.

Sullivan also highlighted a hostage deal and artificial intelligence as key issues.

Waltz pointed to the US border with Mexico, an area where Trump has ripped Biden's approach.

But he credited the Biden administration with deepening ties between US allies in Asia.

For all the bonhomie between the two men, and the talk of the prospects for peace in the Middle East, Waltz painted a picture of the grimmer decisions awaiting him in his new job.

"Evil does exist," he said. "Sometimes you just have to put bombs on foreheads."

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Seoul: North Korea Suspected of Preparing to Send More Troops to Russia

A Ukrainian self-propelled howitzer Dita of Azov brigade fires towards Russian positions at frontline in Donetsk region, Ukraine, Thursday Jan. 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
A Ukrainian self-propelled howitzer Dita of Azov brigade fires towards Russian positions at frontline in Donetsk region, Ukraine, Thursday Jan. 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
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Seoul: North Korea Suspected of Preparing to Send More Troops to Russia

A Ukrainian self-propelled howitzer Dita of Azov brigade fires towards Russian positions at frontline in Donetsk region, Ukraine, Thursday Jan. 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
A Ukrainian self-propelled howitzer Dita of Azov brigade fires towards Russian positions at frontline in Donetsk region, Ukraine, Thursday Jan. 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

South Korea's military said on Friday that it suspects North Korea is preparing to send more troops to Russia to fight Ukrainian forces, even after suffering losses and seeing some of its soldiers captured.
"As four months have passed for the dispatch of troops for the Russia-Ukraine war, and multiple casualties and captives have occurred, (North Korea) is suspected to be accelerating follow-up measures and preparation for an additional dispatch of troops," the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said in a statement.
The JCS analysis did not specify what other follow-up measures Pyongyang might take, Reuters reported.
North Korea is also preparing to launch a spy satellite and an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), though there were no signs of immediate action, the JCS said.
This month, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said two North Korean soldiers had been captured in Russia's Kursk region, marking the first time Ukraine had taken North Korean soldiers alive since their entry into the war last autumn.
Pyongyang has deployed about 11,000 soldiers to support Moscow's forces in Russia's western Kursk region, according to Ukrainian and Western assessments, which Ukraine seized in a surprise attack last year.
More than 3,000 have been killed or wounded, according to Kyiv.
Although Moscow and Pyongyang initially dismissed reports about the North's troop deployment, Russian President Vladimir Putin in October did not deny that North Korean soldiers were in Russia and a North Korean official said any such deployment would be lawful.
The escalating cooperation comes after Putin's visit to Pyongyang in June 2024, where the leaders signed a "Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Treaty", which includes a mutual defense pact.