Pentagon detects second Chinese balloon over Latin America

The Pentagon has detected a second Chinese balloon that is reportedly flying over Latin America. The announcement comes shortly after American authorities identified another craft over US territory.

The second balloon is also believed to be conducting surveillance, according to statements made to the media by Department of Defense spokesman Brigadier General Patrick Ryder.

“We are seeing reports of a balloon transiting Latin America,” the statement said. “We now assess it is another Chinese surveillance balloon.”

Ryder did not specify where exactly in Latin America the balloon was located, but the Costa Rica newspaper La Nación has published that hundreds of people had spotted a white hot air balloon in the sky that looked like the one identified in US airspace over Montana.

The announcement comes just hours after the US government decided to cancel a visit to China by Secretary of State Antony Blinken that had been scheduled for this weekend. The trip has been postponed and Blinken has called the presence of the spy balloon in US airspace “a clear violation of US sovereignty.”

Beijing has apologized for the first incident and acknowledged that the device belongs to it, but claims that it is merely used for scientific and weather studies and that it was blown away off its intended course. The Pentagon has ruled out this version and believes that it is a device used for espionage purposes.

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