China issues Taiwan arms sales threat

China vowed retaliation against a proposed $ 8 billion U. S. sale of advanced fighter jets to Taiwan, threatening to impose sanctions on American firms participating in such a deal.

“China will take all necessary measures to defend its own interests, including imposing sanctions on the U. S. companies involved in the arm sales,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said Wednesday. “They constitute severe interference in China’s internal affairs and undermine China’s sovereignty and security interests.”

The sale of the 66 advanced Lockheed Martin Corp. F- 16 jets, approved by the Trump administration, marks a major advance for Taiwan’s aging air defense capabilities. China considers democratically run Taiwan part of its territory and views such arms sales as a violation of its agreements with the U. S.

Maduro: secret meetings

Venezuelan officials have been holding “secret meetings” with “high- ranking” U. S. counterparts for months, President Nicolas Maduro said.

“There have been contacts with high- ranking U. S. government officials in the Trump administration and my government under my express authorization to try resolving the conflict,” Mr. Maduro said in a speech broadcast Tuesday on state television. He said he was ready to speak directly with President Donald Trump.

U. S. National Security Adviser John Bolton said Venezuelan officials who are reaching out to the U. S. are actually doing so without Mr. Maduro’s permission. “The only items discussed by those who are reaching out behind Maduro’s back are his departure and free and fair elections,” he said in a Twitter post.

Drug traffickers’ pesticide

RESNO, Calif. — California law enforcement authorities have learned that Mexican drug traffickers are using a dangerous pesticide banned in the U. S. to grow marijuana in remote areas of California’s Sierra Nevada mountains.

The pesticide, carbofuran, is toxic to wildlife and humans and can cause permanent reproductive damage. Forest Service agents raided one such illegal grow site Monday, apprehending two suspected traffickers.

2 Russians die of radiation

MOSCOW — Two of the Russian specialists killed in the explosion at a White Sea missile testing range died not of traumatic injuries from the blast but of radiation sickness, the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta reported Wednesday. The explosion occurred Aug. 8 on a sea- based platform off the village of Nyonoksa, in Russia’s far north.