World Briefs CHINESE NAVY SHIP DOCKS IN VENEZUELA

VENEZUELA» A Chinese navy hospital ship has docked near Venezuela’s capital as the OPEC nation’s deepening economic crisis garners the attention of the U.S. and other world powers.

Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino was on hand Saturday for the arrival of the Peace Ark. The stop by the People’s Liberation Army Navy’s ship is the latest in an 11nation “Mission Harmony” tour.

Interest in the goodwill visit has been building since the Pentagon announced in August it was sending its hospital ship to neighboring Colombia to provide free medical treatment for Venezuelan migrants fleeing their homes amid widespread food and medicine shortages.

Such goodwill visits have been a mainstay of U.S. diplomacy in Latin America for decades. But the Chinese ship has visited South America only once before. with “indirect fire,” the spokesman said.

The confrontation occurred about 31 miles northwest of the port city of Kismayo, the U.S. Africa Command statement said. Two other alshabab extremists were killed by Somali forces “with smallarms fire during the engagement,” it said.

The operation was Somaliled, the AFRICOM spokesman said.

The U.S. has carried out more than 20 airstrikes this year against the alQaedalinked alshabab, the deadliest Islamic extremist group in subsaha ran Africa. U.S. military involvement in Somalia has grown since President Donald Trump early in his term approved expanded operations against alshabab. Dozens of drone strikes followed. Late last year the military also carried out its first airstrike against fighters linked to the Islamic State in northern Somalia.