Q&A: TikTok Owner Is Essentially ‘Subsidiary’ of China’s Communist Party, US Lawmaker Says  

washington — The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill March 13 that, if enacted into law, would give ByteDance, the Chinese owner of the TikTok social media app, 180 days to divest its U.S. assets or face a ban over concerns about national security, including Beijing’s ability to access Americans’ private information through the company

ByteDance denies it would provide such private data to the Chinese government, despite reports indicating such information could be at risk.

VOA sat down on the day the bill passed with Republican Representative Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida, chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee on state, foreign operations and related programs, and co-chair of the Congressional Taiwan Caucus, to hear why he supported the bill and why he’s calling for faster military support for Taiwan, the self-ruled island that Beijing claims as a breakaway province that must one day reunite with the mainland, by force if necessary.

This year marks the 45th anniversary of Congress’ enactment of the Taiwan Relations Act, which outlines nondiplomatic relations between Washington and Taipei in the wake of formal U.S. recognition of Beijing as the government of China. The act states that the U.S. must provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself.

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

VOA: The House just passed a bill that would require ByteDance to divest TikTok. Did you support this bill?

U.S. Representative Mario Diaz-Balart: I absolutely did. … It has strong bipartisan support. And there’s also been a lot of misinformation about it. People say that it’s to ban TikTok. No, it’s basically saying you have to divest from, in essence, being controlled by the Communist Party of China.

We would have never allowed, during the Soviet empire, the Soviet Union to control, to own, one of the major networks in the United States – ABC, NBC, CBS. Why? Because it’s a threat to national security. In this case, it’s even more dramatic because they [the Chinese] have access not only to getting into people’s homes, but to actually get information from the American people. And they’ve been pretty good and very aggressive at doing that. And so TikTok needs to be divested. That’s the least that we should be requiring, and if so, then they can continue to function. But we cannot allow for this to function, getting information from the American people to an entity that is in essence a subsidiary of the Communist Party of China.

VOA: It is a consensus in Washington that if China invaded Taiwan, it would trigger a domino effect that could be catastrophic for the U.S. What are the most important actions the U.S. can take right now to prevent that from happening?

Diaz-Balart: The key is to avoid China doing something stupid, to avoid China being irresponsible in trying to intervene militarily with Taiwan. … And the way to do that is to make sure that Taiwan has the weaponry, everything it needs, so that China understands that trying to invade Taiwan is a very, very bad proposition.

VOA: The Biden administration last month approved a package of military equipment sales to Taiwan. Some analysts are worried this may not be sufficient to counter China’s aggression in the region. Do you think military sales to Taiwan are sufficient?

Diaz-Balart: I think military sales to Taiwan have to be done quicker. We have to be more aggressive … not only, obviously, directly, to help send the weaponry, sell the weaponry, and send the weaponry to Taiwan, but we also have to keep up with our defense spending domestically to keep the military industrial base alive and, well, with what we’ve seen, for example, going on Ukraine, [that] has demonstrated that we’re not where we need to be as far as our industrial base.

VOA: You visited Taiwan in January right after its election. What is your key takeaway from that trip?

Diaz-Balart: Taiwan is a very vigorous democracy. The press is very aggressive. That’s a good thing. … We made a point of obviously visiting with the president and the vice president-elect, also with the outgoing president. But we also met with the leadership of the other two parties, because it’s important to demonstrate that we cherish and that we love democracy and freedom. Taiwan is a beacon of freedom and democracy.

VOA: It is the bipartisan consensus to see China as one of the biggest geopolitical challenges for the U.S. in the coming decades. What should be the top priority the U.S. should tackle right now with China?

 

Diaz-Balart: We have to be a little bit more serious about understanding that China is a very dangerous player in the world. It is the largest fascist dictatorship on the planet, and the wealthiest fascist dictatorship on the planet. It has very ambitious goals. It has, you know, we see the cyberattacks that have taken place in this country that we know have come from Communist China. We also know that there have been thousands upon thousands of men, military-age males, coming from China across the southern border, which should frankly frighten all of us. …

That means utilizing every diplomatic and economic tool at our disposal to treat China as what it is: a growing threat to the United States and to the world. And you see, for example, in the region, how countries are very concerned about China’s aggressiveness, whether it’s the Philippines or India or even Vietnam. So there’s a growing concern in the world about this aggressive attitude of China. But we need to take real steps to confront that in a way to avoid war.

VOA: You’re also the chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee on state, foreign operations and related programs. What kind of role would you like to see U.S. international broadcasting agencies like Voice of America play in countering Chinese Communist Party propaganda?

Diaz-Balart: The Voice of America has been a key player for decades in that cause of freedom and in getting real news, real information to people who don’t have access to it because of censorship. And so I’ve always been a strong supporter of it because of that. I think information is key. The first thing that happens in a dictatorship is that they close the ability for people to get real information, to get real news. And if we can be helpful to have people around the world get real information, real news, not only about what happens around the world but also what even happens in their own country, I think that is a service to humanity.

Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.

US Says NKorea Shipped 10,000 Containers of Munitions to Russia

Jung Pak, the U.S. Senior Official for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, told VOA on Monday that there have been at least 10 instances where North Korean missiles have been used on the battlefield in Ukraine. Pak told VOA’s Nike Ching that the U.S. still assesses North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is not currently planning an imminent attack on Washington’s allies, South Korea and Japan.

VOA Interview | US Says NKorea Shipped 10,000 Containers of Munitions to Russia

STATE DEPARTMENT — The United States disclosed Monday that North Korea has dispatched at least 10,000 containers loaded with military munitions to Russia in support of its war in Ukraine. This number surpasses the 7,000 containers estimated by the South Korean defense chief earlier in the day.

Jung Pak, the U.S. Senior Official for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), told VOA on Monday that there have been at least 10 instances where North Korean missiles have been used on the battlefield in Ukraine.

She expressed deep concern about the increasing ties between Russia, a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, and the DPRK.

Earlier on Monday, North Korea launched several ballistic missiles into the sea for the first time in two months, as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Seoul for the Summit for Democracy hosted by South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol.

Despite these “unfortunate” and “concerning” developments, Pak told VOA the U.S. still assesses North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is not currently planning an imminent attack on Washington’s allies, South Korea and Japan.

The following has been edited for brevity and clarity.

VOA: North Korea has fired several ballistic missiles at a time when South Korea is hosting the Summit for Democracy, and a few days after the U.S. and South Korea finished their military exercises. Do you still believe that a direct attack from North Korea against Japan and South Korea is not imminent?

Jung Pak, U.S. Senior Official for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea: I still do. Ballistic missile launches are something that the DPRK has been doing: 69 in 2022, several dozen last year. And this is their latest set of launches. And it was unfortunate that they did it when the secretary was in Seoul for the Summit for Democracy.

We still assess that DPRK’s leader, Kim Jong Un, is not looking at an imminent attack or near-term attack. I think Kim Jong Un probably knows what that would likely mean in response. But we are very concerned about the level of activity, weapons advancements, and the increasing alignment with Russia over the past couple of years.

VOA: Just to clarify, does the U.S. not see any signs of North Korea planning some form of lethal military action against South Korea in the coming months?

Pak: We’re always on the lookout for any kind of dangerous activities. But I’ll also point out that these ballistic missile tests, various cruise missile tests, and this hostile rhetoric coming out of the DPRK, are of great concern to us. Regardless, we’re going to keep trying to see where we can engage with the DPRK, because diplomacy is the only way that we can get a sustained peace on the peninsula and discuss the issue of denuclearization.

VOA: Also on Monday, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un congratulated Russian President Vladimir Putin for his reelection. Meanwhile, South Korea’s defense chief says North Korea has supplied 7,000 containers filled with munitions to Russia. Can you talk about the closer ties between Moscow and Pyongyang?

Pak: It’s been a very concerning development to have a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council openly flout the Security Council resolutions that it signed up to, along with the rest of the international community, and that they’re engaging in weapons transfers. We know that there have been at least 10,000 containers that have gone from DPRK to Russia. And DPRK is not doing this for free. There are almost certainly things that DPRK wants in return. And we’re concerned about what might be going to the other side.

We also worry about what the DPRK could be learning from Russia’s use of these weapons and ballistic missiles on the battlefield, and how that might embolden and/or help the DPRK even further advance their weapons program. So, this is a really dangerous time.

VOA: Does the U.S. see new evidence that more ballistic missiles provided by North Korea to Russia have been fired at targets in Ukraine since 2024?

Pak: Yes, this is of course concerning to us, that we have a known proliferator in the DPRK selling weapons to Russia, and to be able to conduct their unlawful brutal attack on Ukraine, killing Ukrainian people, destroying Ukraine infrastructure, and just destroying lives. And so, we’re very much concerned about that.

There have been at least 10 instances where the DPRK missiles have been used on the battlefield. So, we’re absolutely concerned about what that means for proliferation going forward, and how this exacerbates the situation.

VOA: Does the U.S. see further evidence that Russia has agreed to and is helping North Korea with nuclear-capable missiles?

Pak: We think the DPRK is probably looking for ballistic missile technologies, or other advanced technologies, or surface-to-air missiles, or armored vehicles. We’ve observed a significant increase in exchanges across military, leadership, economic, and cultural levels. So, it’s pretty apparent that the two sides are getting closer and closer together.

VOA: You have said there would have to be interim steps toward ultimate denuclearization. Can you please elaborate on that? Is having “interim steps” to denuclearizing North Korea an official U.S. government policy?

Pak: Our policy is the same since we rolled out our policy review back in the spring of 2021, which is that we are absolutely looking for the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. And so that goal has not wavered for us at all.

When we talk about “interim steps,” we’re making explicit what has always been implicit: which is a complete denuclearization will not occur overnight. So, there are valuable discussions that we can have with the DPRK on reducing the potential for military risk, and other substantive discussions as we work toward complete denuclearization.

VOA: Isn’t it a departure from seeking complete denuclearization?

Pak: It is not a departure. As I mentioned, this is not something that’s going to happen overnight. There are going to have to be substantial discussions that will need to take place.

 

US, Japan Urge Nations Not to Deploy Nuclear Weapons in Orbit

WASHINGTON — The United States and Japan on Monday proposed a U.N. Security Council resolution stressing that nations should comply with a treaty that bars putting nuclear weapons in space, a message that appeared aimed at Russia. 

Washington believes Moscow is developing a space-based anti-satellite nuclear weapon whose detonation could cause havoc by disrupting everything from military communications to phone-based ride services, a source familiar with the matter has said. 

Russia, a party to the 1967 Outer Space Treaty that bars putting “in orbit around the earth any objects carrying nuclear weapons or any other kinds of weapons of mass destruction,” has previously said it opposes deploying nuclear weapons in space. 

Russia’s defense minister has also denied it is developing such a weapon. Deploying a nuclear weapon in orbit is barred by the treaty; developing one, however, is not prohibited.  

In their resolution seen by Reuters, the United States, the only nation to use a nuclear weapon in war, and Japan, the only nation attacked with one, urged countries bound by the treaty not to place such weapons into space and also not to develop them. 

Reports about possible Russian development emerged after a Republican lawmaker on February 14 issued a cryptic statement warning of a “serious national security threat.”

The clearest public sign Washington thinks Moscow is working on such a weapon was a White House spokesman’s February 15 comment that the lawmaker’s letter was related to a space-based anti-satellite weapon that Russia was developing but had not deployed, and that would violate the Outer Space Treaty.

US Supreme Court Examines Government Efforts to Curb Online Misinformation

Washington — The US Supreme Court was hearing arguments on Monday in a social media case involving free speech rights and government efforts to curb misinformation online.

The case stems from a lawsuit brought by the Republican attorneys general of Louisiana and Missouri, who allege that government officials went too far in their efforts to get platforms to combat vaccine and election misinformation.

A lower court last year restricted some top officials and agencies of President Joe Biden’s administration from meeting and communicating with social media companies to moderate their content.

The ruling was a win for conservative advocates who allege that the government pressured or colluded with platforms such as Facebook and Twitter to censor right-leaning content under the guise of fighting misinformation.

The order applied to a slew of agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the State Department and Justice Department as well as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The decision restricted agencies and officials from meeting with social media companies or flagging posts containing “free speech” protected under the First Amendment to the Constitution.

Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry hailed the “historic injunction” at the time, saying it would prevent the Biden administration from “censoring the core political speech of ordinary Americans” on social media.

He accused federal officials of seeking to “dictate what Americans can and cannot say on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other platforms about COVID-19, elections, criticism of the government, and more.”

The order could seriously limit top government agencies from notifying the platforms about false or hateful content that can lead to harmful consequences.

But the ruling said that the government could still inform them about posts involving criminal activity, national security threats and foreign attempts to influence elections.

In addition to communications with social media companies, the ruling also restricted agencies from “collaborating, coordinating, partnering” with groups such as the Election Integrity Partnership, a coalition of research institutions that tackle election-related falsehoods.

Some experts in misinformation and First Amendment law criticized the ruling, saying authorities needed to strike a balance between calling out falsehoods and veering towards censorship or curbing free speech.

Back to the Moon – Part 1

After the Apollo program ended, the US took a long hiatus from lunar exploration. What happened during this time, and what has NASA been doing? This documentary by the Voice of America’s Russian service explores the multiple attempts to return to the Moon, the space developments that laid the foundation for future concepts, and the birth of the Artemis lunar program.

Russian Opposition Activists in Seattle Remember Navalny as Putin Claims Victory

In Seattle, there were no polling stations for Russian citizens to join the worldwide movement known as “Noon Against Putin,” a symbolic protest of the re-election of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Instead, they commemorated opposition leader Alexey Navalny and wrote letters to the growing list of political prisoners in Russia. Natasha Mozgovaya has the story.

European Far-Right Firebrand Prevented From Speaking at Swiss Event

Berlin — A prominent European far-right figure was prevented from giving a speech at an event in Switzerland and thrown out of the region where it was taking place.

Martin Sellner of the Identitarian Movement said in a video posted on social media network X, formerly Twitter, that he had been invited by a local group, Junge Tat (Young Deed), to “talk about remigration and the ethnic vote” and what happened at a recent meeting in Germany that prompted a string of large protests there. Remigration refers to the return, sometimes forced, of non-ethnically European immigrants back to their place of racial origin.

Sellner, who comes from neighboring Austria, said that a few minutes after he started speaking at the event Saturday, the electricity was turned off and he was taken to a police station, then told he was thrown out of Aargau canton (state) and escorted to Zurich.

Regional police said in a statement that they tracked down the Junge Tat event in the small town of Tegerfelden on Saturday after receiving several tips. They found some 100 people at the venue and said that, after the landlady found out about the contents of the planned meeting, she canceled the contract for it.

Police said they told organizers to end the event, but they didn’t obey. Without identifying Sellner by name, they said the speaker was held and ordered out of the region “to safeguard public security” and prevent confrontations with opponents.

Germany has seen large protests of the far right following a report that extremists met in Potsdam in November to discuss the deportation of millions of immigrants, including some with German citizenship. Sellner presented his “remigration” vision for the deportation of immigrants there.

That meeting has prompted widespread criticism of the Alternative for Germany party, some of whose members reportedly attended. The party has sought to distance itself from the event, while also decrying the reporting of it.

Spanish Farmers Stage Fresh Protests in Madrid 

Madrid — Hundreds of farmers paraded through the Spanish capital on foot and by tractor on Sunday in the latest protest over the crisis facing the agricultural sector.

The farmers marched from the Ministry of Ecological Transition to the Ministry of Agriculture after the European Union proposed legislative changes to drastically ease the environmental rules of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) Friday.

Rallied by their trade union, farmers carried banners proclaiming “We are not delinquents” to the sound of horns and whistles. One decorated his tractor with a mock guillotine.

“It is as if they want to cut off our necks,” said Marcos Baldominos explaining his guillotine.

“We are being suffocated by European rules,” the farmer from Pozo de Guadalajara, 50 kilometers (30 miles) east of Madrid, added.

Friday’s concessions in Brussels aimed to loosen compliance with some environment rules, EU chief Ursula von der Leyen said.

While the move was welcomed by Spain’s left-wing government, some environmental NGOs criticized the measures.

“We are faced with a pile of bureaucratic rules that make us feel more like we are at an office than on a farm,” the trade union behind Sunday’s march, Union de Uniones, said with reference to requirements “that many small and medium-sized farms” cannot “cope with”.

Sunday marked the fourth demonstration in Madrid since the start of the wider European farm protest movement in mid-January.

Belgorod, City Where War in Ukraine Came to Russia, Perseveres

BELGOROD, Russia — Air raid sirens wail almost daily in the southern Russian city of Belgorod, sending people rushing for cover and reminding residents the full-scale war in neighboring Ukraine is a reality for them too.

Compared with the destruction across much of Ukraine, Russia’s vast territory has been largely unscathed.

Belgorod, 40 kilometers (25 miles) north of the border, is the main exception, a reminder that not every civilian can be shielded from the conflict.

As Russians began voting early on Friday in a three-day presidential election, a missile alert forced election officials to take shelter at a polling station in Belgorod and voting was briefly halted, according to Russia’s RIA state news agency.

Vladimir Seleznyov, a pensioner who witnessed a missile attack on Plekhanov Street on February 15 in which seven people were killed, said it was hard to grow accustomed to the danger.

“Of course, the situation is difficult, but we live near the border. It would be a stretch to say that we got used to that,” he told Reuters on a recent visit to the city to which international media rarely get access.

“It’s understood that, naturally, we will win, we will prevail, but the people are worried and concerned,” he said.

In the ancient fortress town, now a modern city of 300,000 people that is once again on Russia’s front lines, scores of civilians have been killed in drone and missile strikes from Ukraine since February 2022, including two on Saturday.

Kyiv denies targeting civilians just as Moscow does, despite Russia having launched drones and missiles against Ukraine that have killed thousands of civilians and caused hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of damage.

In the worst civilian loss of life from foreign enemy fire in internationally recognized Russian territory since World War II, 25 people were killed and more than 100 wounded in missile attacks on Belgorod on December 30.

As he marches towards all but certain reelection in the March 15-17 vote, President Vladimir Putin nevertheless remains popular in Belgorod as he does across Russia, underlining how the war has galvanized support for him.

He calls it a “special military operation” and casts it as part of a long-running battle with a decadent and declining West that humiliated Russia after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989.

Ukraine and its Western allies say the invasion was an aggressive and illegal land grab.

War footing

For Belgorod residents, disruptions are frequent, and the signs of war are in plain view.

Soldiers walk the streets and cement blocks have been positioned at bus stops to protect people from potential blasts.

Primary schools have moved to only online lessons while secondary schools are working on a hybrid model of home and in class, similar to how many Ukrainian institutions operate.

Buses stop running when warnings of a missile threat sound, forcing people to disembark and walk. Shopping can be complicated, and appointments are often canceled. Thousands of people left the surrounding region to escape the danger.

Civilian volunteer groups in Belgorod are supporting soldiers, a phenomenon that is common across Russia and Ukraine.

Galina, who collects everyday hygiene items and tools for digging trenches and sends them to the army, said she helps to try to bring the conflict to an end.

Echoing words used by the Kremlin to describe the leadership in Kyiv, she spoke of the need to “denazify” Ukraine and end “fascism” there. Ukraine and its allies dismiss such language as nonsense, pointing out that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is Jewish.

“There are no other options,” said Galina, who gave only her first name, as she stood in a warehouse with goods for soldiers.

“I believe that the work that he [Putin] has started in terms of a special military operation, he must complete it,” she said.

Cross-border incursions

Russia’s defense ministry said on Friday its forces had thwarted a Ukrainian attempt to launch a cross-border attack on the Belgorod region the day before.

In a statement, the ministry said Ukraine used helicopters to land up to 30 soldiers close to the border village of Kozinka. It said they were repelled by Russian soldiers and border guards.

Ukrainian officials said earlier on Friday that two Russian border provinces, Belgorod and neighboring Kursk, were under attack by anti-Kremlin Russian armed groups based in Ukraine.

The town of Shebekino, located some 7 kilometers (4.3 miles) from the border in the Belgorod region, was hit by shelling in May and June last year by armed infiltrators. Shell craters mark the roads, and buildings were hit and damaged.

At that time, regional Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov escorted about 600 children from Shebekino and Graivoron districts to the cities of Yaroslavl and Kaluga, far from the Ukrainian border.

Pensioner Valentina said she also left Shebekino temporarily last summer, persuaded to do so by her daughter, before returning.

She said that she hoped the war would end soon and that people who left the town would come back.

“Everyone wants to get back home,” she said, adding that she planned to vote for Putin. “He has to finish off this war.”

Russian-Belarusian Band Returns to Stage After Detention in Thailand

Warsaw, Poland — A Russian-Belarusian rock band that denounces Moscow’s Ukraine invasion returned to the stage this week, voicing defiance after being detained in Thailand in January and threatened with deportation to Russia. 

The band, Bi-2, formed in the 1980s in Belarus when it was part of the Soviet Union, left Russia in protest over the invasion and has been touring ever since in countries with large Russian-speaking communities. 

Ahead of a concert in Vilnius on Thursday, band members met with exiled Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya and supporters of late Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny, who died in an Arctic prison last month. 

“We have become hostages to Russian history,” Egor Bortnik, one of the band’s two founders, told AFP ahead of a concert in Warsaw on Saturday. 

But 51-year-old Bortnik, who is better known by his stage name “Lyova,” said he was “not against the war.” 

“On the contrary, I’m for the war. I just want Ukraine to liberate its own territory,” he said. 

“Putin has to gather his orcs and get out of Ukraine,” Bortnik said, using a disparaging term for Russian soldiers frequently used by Ukrainians. 

The band was detained in Phuket, Thailand, in January on immigration charges in a case that has alarmed Russians critical of President Vladimir Putin living abroad. 

The organizers of their concerts said all the necessary permits had been obtained, but the band was issued with tourist visas in error, and they accused the Russian consulate of waging a campaign to cancel the concerts. 

After a week in detention, the band members were released and traveled to Israel, where they met with Foreign Minister Israel Katz who said in a statement that the episode showed that “music will win.” 

Several of their concerts in Russia were canceled in 2022 after they refused to play at a venue with banners supporting the war in Ukraine, after which they left the country. 

“I put my prosperity on the line when the war began, and I had to leave Russia. It was unexpected, it was not a process we had prepared for,” Bortnik said. 

Bortnik, who moved to Israel while still a teenager, said he was more used to emigration than some of his peers who left Russia in the wake of the war. 

“I understand how difficult it is,” he said. 

Bortnik said he was no “geopolitician” and does not write explicitly “political songs” although their lyrics can “hit a nerve that is constantly vibrating.” 

He said Putin’s demise could be sudden and violent and would also bring down Belarusian strongman Alexander Lukashenko, who has been in power for three decades. 

“If something happens to Putin then there could be a civil war — the finale for any tyranny,” he said. 

Iceland Volcano Erupts Again; No Flight Disruptions

COPENHAGEN — A volcano in Iceland on Saturday erupted for the fourth time since December, the country’s meteorological office said, spewing bright orange lava into the air in sharp contrast against the dark night sky.

Livestreams from the area showed fountains of molten rock soaring from fissures in the ground after authorities had warned for weeks that an eruption was imminent on the Reykjanes peninsula just south of Iceland’s capital, Reykjavik.

“Warning: An eruption began in Reykjanes,” the Icelandic Meteorological Office said on its website, while Reykjavik’s Keflavik Airport’s website showed it remained open both for departures and arrivals.

Icelandic police said they had declared a state of emergency for the area, and the Civil Defense authority dispatched a helicopter to survey the extent of the eruption.

The nearby Blue Lagoon luxury geothermal spa immediately shut its doors, as it did during previous eruptions.

“We have evacuated and temporarily closed all our operational units,” the operator said on its website.

“We will remain closed through Sunday, March 17. Further updates and information will be provided here as they become available,” it added.

Iceland, which is roughly the size of the U.S. state of Kentucky, boasts more than 30 active volcanoes, making the north European island a prime destination for volcano tourism, a niche segment that attracts thousands of thrill seekers.

In 2010, ash clouds from eruptions at the Eyafjallajokull volcano in the south of Iceland spread over large parts of Europe, grounding about 100,000 flights and forcing hundreds of Icelanders to evacuate their homes.

Volcanic outbreaks in the Reykjanes peninsula are so-called fissure eruptions, which do not usually cause large explosions or significant dispersal of ash into the stratosphere.

However, scientists fear they could continue for decades, and Icelandic authorities have started building dikes to divert hot lava flows away from homes and critical infrastructure.

The volcano last erupted in early February, cutting off district heating to more than 20,000 people as lava flows destroyed roads and pipelines, while an outbreak in January burned to the ground several houses in a fishing town.

Located between the Eurasian and the North American tectonic plates, among the largest on the planet, Iceland is a seismic and volcanic hot spot as the two move in opposite directions.