UN envoy bound for North Korea as tensions soar

UN under secretary general for political affairs Jeffrey Feltman (R) arrives to take a flight for North Korea at the International Airport of Beijing on December 5, 2017. (AFP)
Updated 05 December 2017
Follow

UN envoy bound for North Korea as tensions soar

BEIJING: A senior United Nations envoy arrived at Beijing’s airport on Tuesday on his way to North Korea for a rare visit aimed at defusing soaring tensions over Pyongyang’s intercontinental ballistic missile launch.
The unusual trip by Jeffrey Feltman, which runs to Friday, comes less than a week after North Korea said it test-fired a new ballistic missile capable of reaching the United States.
AFP journalists saw Feltman arrive in a UN-flagged car at the Chinese capital’s international airport in the morning. North Korea’s Air Koryo airline has a 0455 GMT flight to Pyongyang on Tuesday.
His trip comes a day after the United States and South Korea launched their biggest-ever joint air exercise — maneuvers slammed by Pyongyang as an “all-out provocation.”
The five-day Vigilant Ace drill involves 230 aircraft, including F-22 Raptor stealth jet fighters, and tens of thousands of troops, Seoul’s air force said.
Feltman arrived in China on Monday as Beijing is one of the few transit points to North Korea in the world.
China is Pyongyang’s sole major diplomatic and military ally, and its main trade partner.
Once in the North, Feltman will discuss “issues of mutual interest and concern” with officials, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said, adding he was unable to say whether Feltman will meet with the reclusive state’s leader Kim Jong-Un.
It will be Feltman’s first visit to North Korea since he took office five years ago, and the first by a UN under-secretary-general in more than seven years.
The UN envoy is also planning to see foreign diplomats and UN workers in the North on humanitarian missions, Dujarric said.
The UN Security Council has hit the isolated and impoverished North with a package of sanctions over its increasingly powerful missile and nuclear tests, which have rattled Washington and its regional allies South Korea and Japan.
Pyongyang ramped up already high tensions on the Korean Peninsula five days ago when it announced it had successfully test-fired a new ICBM, which it says brings the whole of the continental United States within range.
Analysts say it is unclear whether the missile survived re-entry into the earth’s atmosphere or could successfully deliver a warhead to its target — key technological hurdles for Pyongyang.
A Cathay Pacific crew spotted what was “suspected to be the re-entry” of the missile as they flew from San Francisco to Hong Kong, the airline said.
In a separate message to staff, Cathay general manager Mark Hoey said the crew described seeing the missile “blow up and fall apart,” The South China Morning Post reported.
In recent years, Pyongyang has accelerated its drive to bring together nuclear and missile technology capable of threatening the US, which it accuses of hostility.
US President Donald Trump has engaged in months of tit-for-tat rhetoric with Kim, pejoratively dubbing him “Little Rocket Man” and a “sick puppy.”
North Korean state media has hit back with a flurry of its own colorful insults, calling Trump a “dotard,” a “frightened dog” and a “gangster.”
Over the weekend, Pyongyang countered that Washington was “begging for nuclear war” as the North blasted the joint US-South Korean drills.
As well as featuring the latest generation of stealth fighters, this year’s war games involve simulated precision attacks on the North’s military installations, including its missile launch sites and artillery units, Yonhap news agency said, citing unnamed Seoul sources.
As tensions surged, US Senator Lindsey Graham, an influential Republican and foreign policy hawk, warned that the US was moving closer to “preemptive war” if the North continued its nuclear tests.
His remarks echoed those of Trump’s National Security Adviser HR McMaster, who told a security forum on Saturday that the potential for war with the North “is increasing every day.”
But some Trump advisers say US military options are limited when Pyongyang could launch an artillery barrage on the South Korean capital — only around 50 kilometers (30 miles) from the heavily-fortified border and home to 10 million people.
Tokyo’s parliament on Monday slammed the North’s weapons program as an “imminent threat.” Last week’s missile landed in Japan’s economic waters.
China’s foreign ministry warned that the situation on the Korean peninsula remained “highly sensitive” and called on all sides to “do more things to ease the tension and avoid provoking each other.”
The North has boasted that the Hwasong 15 ICBM tested on Wednesday is capable of delivering a “super-large” nuclear warhead anywhere in the US mainland.
While analysts agree the latest test showed a big improvement in potential range, they say the North may not have yet mastered all the technology required to successfully hit the US with a nuclear warhead.


Ethiopians celebrate Christmas as natural calamities and conflict take their toll

Updated 5 sec ago
Follow

Ethiopians celebrate Christmas as natural calamities and conflict take their toll

  • The patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church called for reconciliation and peace in a nation where conflict has been often fueled by ethnic strife

ADDIS ABABA: Ethiopia’s Orthodox Christians are celebrating Christmas with prayers for peace in the Horn of Africa nation that has faced persistent conflict in recent years.

Ethiopians follow the Julian calendar, which runs 13 days later than the Gregorian calendar, used by Catholic and Protestant churches. They traditionally celebrate by slaughtering animals and joining family members to break the fast after midnight.

The patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, Abune Mathias, in his televised Christmas Eve message called for reconciliation and peace in a nation where conflict has been often fueled by ethnic strife. Different parts of Ethiopia recently have also faced natural calamities, including mudslides. Earthquakes last week in the remote regions of Afar, Amhara and Oromia have displaced thousands.

Despite the signing of a peace agreement to end the armed conflict in the northern region of Tigray in 2022, recurring conflicts in Amhara, Oromia and elsewhere have caused widespread suffering and forced 9 million children to drop out of school, according to UNICEF.

Almaz Zewdie, who was among thousands of Orthodox Christians attending ceremonies in Addis Ababa’s Medhanyalem Church, said she was praying for peace. 

She was draped in an all-white traditional attire to mark the end of a 43-day fasting period and the birth of Jesus Christ.

“I lost friends and my livelihood,” said Zewdie, a merchant from the tourist town of Gondar, speaking of the toll of the conflict in Amhara, where government troops have been fighting members of a local militia.

Isaias Seyoum, a priest in Addis Ababa’s Selassie Church, said the celebration of Christmas is more than just feasting and merrymaking. It is also a time to share meals with needy people and help those impacted by conflict, including many sheltering in Addis Ababa, he said.


Baroness Warsi accuses UK Conservative Party of demonizing her over Islamophobia claims

Updated 08 January 2025
Follow

Baroness Warsi accuses UK Conservative Party of demonizing her over Islamophobia claims

  • Party recently told Warsi she would not have whip restored in UK’s upper house of parliament
  • Internal inquiry clears Warsi of ‘bringing the party into disrepute’ over support for pro-Palestinian protester

LONDON: The UK’s first Muslim cabinet member has accused her Conservative Party of attempting to “demonize” her after she criticized the party over Islamophobia.

Baroness Sayeeda Warsi was told recently she was not welcome back into the Conservative Party in the UK’s upper house of parliament, where she holds a seat, The Independent reported on Wednesday.

Warsi resigned from the party in the House of Lords in September, claiming the Conservatives had moved too far to the right.

The former co-chair of the Conservative Party had also come under pressure from senior party members over language used in a tweet supporting a pro-Palestinian protester.

Warsi has now been cleared of being “divisive” and “bringing the party into disrepute” by a disciplinary panel investigating the tweet.

But the Conservatives wrote to Warsi saying that while she could remain a member of the party, they would not restore to her the party whip, meaning she could not be affiliated with the party in the Lords.

In response, Warsi said she had not asked to have the whip restored, and accused the Conservatives of playing games.

She told The Independent that the party was attempting to “demonize” her for challenging the party’s “rising levels of extremism, racism and Islamophobia.”

Warsi was appointed as the first Muslim Conservative Party chair in 2010 by Prime Minister David Cameron as he sought to modernize the party. 

But in recent years the Conservatives have shifted further right as they seek to counter the growing popularity of far-right parties. 

In March, Warsi said the party had become known as “the institutionally xenophobic and racist party.” She has also repeatedly accused it of failing to tackle Islamophobia within the party and criticized significant figures for their rhetoric over immigration.

In 2014, she resigned as a minister in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office over the government’s “morally indefensible” approach to Gaza.

Warsi’s decision to resign the whip in September was, she said: “A reflection of how far right my party has moved and the hypocrisy and double standards in its treatment of different communities.”

The move came after complaints against her for a tweet congratulating a pro-Palestinian protester acquitted of a racially aggravated public order offense. The protester had used a placard depicting Rishi Sunak, who was prime minister at the time, as a coconut.

 


Poland shuts consulate in Saint Petersburg on Russian order

Updated 08 January 2025
Follow

Poland shuts consulate in Saint Petersburg on Russian order

  • Russia ordered the closure in December after Poland said in October it was closing Russia’s consulate in the Polish city of Poznan
  • “The Polish Consulate General in Saint Petersburg was shut down upon Russia’s withdrawal of its consent to the activity of the Polish post,” Poland’s foreign ministry said

WARSAW: Poland announced Wednesday it had shut its consulate in the Russian city of Saint Petersburg, after Russia ordered the closure in a tit-for-tat move.
Russia ordered the closure in December after Poland said in October it was closing Russia’s consulate in the Polish city of Poznan, accusing Moscow of “sabotage” attempts in the country and its allies.
“The Polish Consulate General in Saint Petersburg was shut down upon Russia’s withdrawal of its consent to the activity of the Polish post,” Poland’s foreign ministry said in a statement Wednesday.
“It is in retaliation for a decision of the Polish foreign minister to close down Russia’s Consulate General in Poznan in the aftermath of acts of sabotage committed on Polish territory and linked to Russian authorities.”
After Russia ordered the closure, Poland responded that it would close all the Russian consulates on its soil if “terrorism” it blamed on Moscow carried on.
Tensions between Russia and NATO member Poland have escalated since Moscow sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022, with both sides expelling dozens of diplomats.
Poland is a staunch ally of Kyiv and has been a key transit point for Western arms heading to the embattled country since the conflict began.
In one of the largest espionage trials, Poland in 2023 convicted 14 citizens of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine of preparing sabotage on behalf of Moscow as part of a spy ring.
They were found guilty of preparing to derail trains carrying aid to Ukraine, and monitoring military facilities and critical infrastructure in the country.


2 Russian firefighters died in blaze caused by Ukraine drone: governor

Updated 08 January 2025
Follow

2 Russian firefighters died in blaze caused by Ukraine drone: governor

  • “As a result of the liquidation (of the fire), there are two dead,” said the governor of Saratov region

MOSCOW: Two Russian firefighters died on Wednesday fighting a blaze caused by a Ukrainian drone attack, the local governor said, after Kyiv said it hit an oil depot that supplies Russia’s air force.
“Unfortunately, as a result of the liquidation (of the fire), there are two dead — employees of the emergency situations ministry’s fire department,” Roman Busagrin, governor of the Saratov region where the strike happened, said on Telegram.


UK police investigating suspicious vehicle in central London, carry out controlled explosions

British police carried out a number of controlled explosions as a precaution in central London as they investigated vehicle.
Updated 08 January 2025
Follow

UK police investigating suspicious vehicle in central London, carry out controlled explosions

  • Road closures are in place in the vicinity of Regent Street and New Burlington Street in central London, police said on X

LONDON: British police carried out a number of controlled explosions as a precaution in central London as they investigated a suspicious vehicle on Wednesday, the city’s police force said on social media.
Road closures are in place in the vicinity of Regent Street and New Burlington Street in central London, police said on X.