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by Simon MARTIN PYONGYANG , North Korea (AFP) — North Korea’s first ruling party congress since 1980 moved into a second day Saturday, after leader Kim Jong-Un opened with a defiant defense of his nuclear weapons program and amid fresh signs Pyongyang is readying a fifth nuclear test. The once-in-a-generation gathering of the country’s top decision-making body is being scrutinized for signs of any substantive policy change or major reshuffle in the isolated state’s ruling […]
JERUSALEM , Israel (AFP) — Israeli aircraft targeted two Hamas sites in southern Gaza early Saturday in response to a cross-border rocket attack, the army said, as tensions along the Palestinian territory’s border simmered. “Earlier today… a rocket was fired from the Gaza Strip at southern Israel,” a military statement read. “In response… aircraft targeted two Hamas terror infrastructures in the southern Gaza Strip.” There were no immediate reports of casualties. The rocket and air […]
SEOUL , South Korea (AFP) — Top US intelligence official James Clapper asked South Korean officials during a recent visit for Seoul’s bottom line in any future negotiation between the US and North Korea on a permanent peace treaty, a report said Saturday. The 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice that has never been formalized by a peace treaty, meaning that the two Koreas technically remain at war. Pyongyang wants a treaty to be […]
UNITED NATION, United States (AFP) — More than 50 mass graves have been discovered in territory formerly controlled by Islamic State group fighters in Iraq, including three burial pits in a football field, the UN envoy said Friday. Jan Kubis told the Security Council that evidence of the “heinous crimes” committed by the jihadists in Iraq were being uncovered as territory is retaken from IS. “More than 50 mass graves have been discovered so far […]
DENPASAR , Indonesia (AFP) — Seventeen passengers were injured Saturday when a Hong Kong Airlines flight hit severe turbulence over Borneo after taking off from the Indonesian resort island of Bali, an airport official said. The extreme weather forced Hong Kong-bound Flight CRK 6704 carrying 204 passengers and 12 crew to return to Denpasar. “Seventeen people were injured, 12 must be admitted to a hospital for further treatment while five others were treated in the […]
by Karam al-Masri ALEPPO , Syria (AFP) — A temporary truce in the Syrian battleground city of Aleppo was extended for 72 hours from 00:01 Saturday, as clashes raged further south. The extended pause in fighting for Aleppo comes as international condemnation mounted over deadly air strikes on a camp for displaced people in northern Syria, which the regime and its Russian ally have denied responsibility for. Russia’s defense ministry said the fragile ceasefire had […]
FORT MCMURRAY , Canada (AFP) — The center of the city at the heart of the forest fires raging through Alberta’s oil sands region remains “largely intact” even though outlying neighborhoods have suffered serious damage, the authorities said Friday. Fort McMurray’s downtown area “is largely intact, the hospital is still standing, the telephone center is intact and the water treatment center is back up and running,” Alberta’s Premier Rachel Notley told reporters during a news […]
SEOUL , South Korea (AFP) — Analysis of recent satellite images suggests North Korea may be moving forward with preparations to conduct a fifth nuclear test in the near future, a US think-tank said Saturday. The pictures, dated May 5, show closely parked vehicles at what is believed to be the test command center, some six kilometers (four miles) south of the underground detonation site at Punggye-ri in the country’s northeast. “While the historical record […]
LONDON , United Kingdom (AFP) — Opposition Labor lawmaker Sadiq Khan was elected mayor of London with 57 percent of the vote, final results showed Saturday, making him the first Muslim mayor of a major Western capital. Khan, the son of a Pakistani immigrant bus driver, won 1,310,143 votes against 994,614 for his main rival Zac Goldsmith, a multimillionaire environmentalist from Prime Minister David Cameron’s Conservative party. After a negative campaign in which Khan was […]
(REUTERS) Japan’s ambassador to the United States weighed in on the U.S. presidential election debate on Friday by arguing against the “America first” stance of Republican candidate Donald Trump and stressing the importance of the U.S.-Japan alliance. Without mentioning Trump by name, the envoy, Kenichiro Sasae, told a Washington forum Japan had come up unexpectedly in the election debate, showing that nothing could be taken for granted in terms of the long-standing alliance. “In the […]
(REUTERS) Thousands of pigeons with tiny LED lights strapped to their legs swooped through the darkening skies in a jaw-dropping display of beauty, but savvy New Yorkers gazing up at the performance art knew enough to keep their mouths shut. As evening fell over the Brooklyn Navy Yard, once home to the nation’s largest naval fleet of carrier pigeons, artist Duke Riley opened an enormous coop and released the homing pigeons of his […]
(REUTERS) A U.S. think tank said on Friday that commercial satellite images it had obtained of North Korea’s nuclear test site taken on May 5 showed that the country may be preparing to carry out a nuclear test in the near future. The 38 North website, run by Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, said the images showed vehicle movement at the site “not often seen there except during preparations for a […]
