CHIAYI, Taiwan — Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen lauded military cooperation with Washington on Thursday as she commissioned the first combat wing of F-16 fighters upgraded with US help to bolster the island’s defenses during rising tensions between Taipei and Beijing.

Frequent Chinese and US military exercises in the region have raised fears of conflict touched off by a crisis over democratically ruled Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its own territory.

Ms. Tsai told a ceremony at an air base in the southern Taiwanese city of Chiayi to unveil the first squadron of its most advanced F-16s, the F-16V, that the project showed the firm commitment of the Taiwan-US partnership.

“I believe that as long as we adhere to the values of democracy and freedom, there will be more like-minded countries standing on the same front with us,” she said, speaking on the same stage as the top US diplo-mat in Taiwan, Sandra Oudkirk.

The United States has no official diplomatic ties with Taiwan but is the island’s main international backer and arms supplier, to Beijing’s fury.

The T$110-billion ($3.96 billion) F-16 upgrade is led by manufacturer Lockheed Martin Corp. and Taiwan’s Aerospace Industrial Development Corp. (AIDC), and is the latest example of military cooperation between Washington and Taipei.

Taiwan has been converting 141 F-16A/B jets into the F-16V type, 64 of which have already been upgraded, and has additionally ordered 66 new F-16Vs, which have new avionics, weapons and radar systems to better face down the Chinese air force, including its J-20 stealth fighter.

The F-16Vs can carry Raytheon Technologies Corp’s advanced AIM-9X Sidewinder air-to-air missiles.

To a backdrop of dance music broadcast over the air base, the F-16s showed off their metal with combat take offs and landings, and flying low in formation above the runway. Ms. Tsai said that as more F-16Vs entered service, Tai-wan’s defenses would be “even stronger.” Taiwan’s air force is well trained but dwarfed by China’s.

The United States in 2019 approved an $8 billion sale of F-16 fighter jets to Taiwan, a deal that would take the island’s F-16 fleet to more than 200 jets, the largest in Asia.

China has announced sanctions on Lockheed Martin for selling arms to Taiwan. — Reuters

WASHINGTON — The UN envoy to Afghanistan on Wednesday delivered a bleak assessment of the situation following the Taliban takeover, saying that an affiliate of the Islamic State group has grown and now appears present in nearly all 34 provinces.

UN Special Representative Deborah Lyons told the UN Security Council that the Taliban’s response to Islamic State-Khorasan Province’s (ISKP) expansion “appears to rely heavily on extrajudicial detentions and killings” of sus-pected ISKP fighters.

“This is an area deserving more attention from the international community,” she said.

Her comments came hours after the group — an ideological foe of the Taliban — claimed responsibility for two blasts that killed at least one person and wounded six others in a heavily Shiite Muslim neighborhood of Kabul.

The Taliban, she said, has been unable to stem ISKP’s growth.

“Once limited to a few provinces and the capital, ISKP now seems to be present in nearly all provinces, and increasingly active,” Ms. Lyons said, adding that the number of the group’s attacks have increased from 60 strikes in 2020 to 334 this year.

While the Taliban is making “genuine efforts to present itself as a government” since seizing Kabul in August after a 20-year war with the United States, they continue excluding representatives of other sectors of society and curtailing the rights of women and girls.

The UN mission regularly receives credible reports of house searches and the “extrajudicial killings” of former security personnel and officials, she said.

Ms. Lyons warned anew of a humanitarian catastrophe as winter looms due to a failing economy and drought.

She implored the international community to find ways to fund the salaries of healthcare workers, teachers and humanitarian workers, saying humanitarian aid is insufficient.

The economic collapse will fuel illicit drug, arms and human trafficking and unregulated money exchanges that “can only help facilitate terrorism,” Ms. Lyons said. “These pathologies will first affect Afghanistan,” she said. “Then they will infect the region.” — Reuters

SEOUL — More than half a million South Koreans sat for the annual national college entrance exams on Thursday, pandemic rules adding stress to the eight-hour event seen as life-defining in Asia’s fourth-largest economy.

This year’s test-takers didn’t face the delays and uncertainties of the first pandemic-era exams last year, but COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) measures have left their mark on the College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT) widely considered as indispensable for landing one of a limited number of jobs in a competitive society.

“I couldn’t go to private institutes, study rooms, nor school properly due to coronavirus,” said 17-year-old Ahn Jeong-min. “Still, I’m vaccinated, and everyone will wear face masks and use partitions during the exam, so I think I can take the exam well, feeling comfortable rather than much concern.”

More than 509,000 high school seniors, graduates and others have signed up to take the single-day, five-session exam held at 1,251 test sites nationwide, according to the education ministry.

At least 173 people who tested positive for the coronavirus or otherwise required isolation will take the test at hospitals or separate exam centers, the ministry said.

Thursday morning saw traditional society-wide efforts to help the test-takers, with the country’s financial markets opening an hour later than usual to ease traffic.

Commercial air traffic was scheduled to be suspended during a key period in the afternoon, warplanes from the South Korean and US militaries will be grounded, and live-fire exercises shut down throughout the day, officials said.

“We’re doing our part to keep distractions down so you can keep your scores up!” tweeted US Forces-Korea, which includes about 28,500 American troops stationed in South Korea.

Pandemic measures meant other, louder traditions to wish the test-takers well were missing.

Outside schools in Seoul, there was none of the customary cheering by high school juniors, praying parents, or schoolmates who typically beat drums and hand out sweets to participants.

Lee Eu-gene, a mother who said she had an older child take the test last year, said her son sitting for the exam this year seemed to be better off because schools had more in-person learning.

“He studied in this situation, so it’s in the mother’s heart that I hope he will get good results and happily expand his future,” she said. — Reuters