PYONGYANG: Crowds of flower-bearing North Koreans have streamed passed statues and portraits of their leaders to pay respects on the sixth anniversary of the death of Kim Jong Un’s father, Kim Jong Il.
With somber, recorded music playing in the sub-zero air, thousands upon thousands of people marched up Pyongyang’s Mansu Hill to bow and place flowers at the feet of two giant bronze statues of Kim Jong Il and national founder Kim Il Sung, who is North Korea’s “eternal president” and Kim Jong Un’s grandfather.
Kim Jong Il died on Dec. 17, 2011.
Although the sense of national mourning is less intense than in previous years, North Koreans are expected to avoid drinking, entertainment and inappropriate displays of enjoyment on the day before and the day of the anniversary.
North Korea marks 6th anniversary of Kim Jong Il’s death
North Korea marks 6th anniversary of Kim Jong Il’s death
Anger mounts in Kenya over abductions
- Former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua, who was ousted after clashing with Ruto over the protests, also alleged on Friday that a secret unit was behind the disappearances
NAIROBI: Kenyan rights groups, lawyers and politicians voiced grave concern over a fresh spate of abductions targeting government critics on Friday.
A small protest was organized in northeastern Embu town, where a 24-year-old man, Billy Mwangi, disappeared last weekend.
Security forces in the East African nation have been accused of carrying out dozens of illegal detentions since youth-led anti-government demonstrations in June and July. The latest disappearances have been primarily young men who have criticized President William Ruto online.
Police have denied involvement but activists have questioned why they appear not to be investigating the disappearances.
The Law Society of Kenya said recent denials by the inspector-general of police were “insufficient,” calling for him to take clear action against the kidnappers or resign. “If indeed the police are not complicit,” LSK said, they must immediately “investigate and prosecute those responsible.”
Human Rights Watch said earlier this year that its research pointed toward a unit drawn from multiple security agencies.
Former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua, who was ousted after clashing with Ruto over the protests, also alleged on Friday that a secret unit was behind the disappearances.
“Abducting these children and killing them is not a solution ... This is the first administration in the history of this country to target children for repression,” Gachagua claimed at a press conference.
The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights said Thursday there had been 82 abduction cases carried out “clandestinely, with unidentified armed persons” since June, with 29 still missing. It listed seven people who had been abducted since Dec. 17.
Two of them — Mwangi and Peter Muteti — were taken shortly after sharing AI-generated images of Ruto dead.
The Kenyan Judiciary said this week that “abductions have no place in law and indeed are a direct threat to the rights of citizens.”
In a post on X on Thursday, it urged “security agencies and all connected entities to adhere to the law to safeguard fundamental rights and freedoms.”
The anti-government demonstrations earlier this year were sparked by proposed tax hikes, triggering the worst crisis since Ruto took power in 2022.
While large-scale rallies have mostly stopped, anger against the government has simmered, fueled by a cost of living crisis and continued allegations of brutality by the security forces.
Several wounded North Korean soldiers died after being captured by Ukraine: Zelensky
Ukraine and its western allies say North Korea has sent thousands of soldiers to support Russia’s army, in what is seen as a major escalation in the nearly three-year war following Moscow’s 2022 invasion.
“Today there were reports about several soldiers from North Korea. Our soldiers managed to take them prisoner. But they were very seriously wounded and could not be resuscitated,” Zelensky said in an evening address posted on social media.
South Korea’s spy agency said earlier on Friday that a North Korean soldier who was captured while fighting in Russia’s war against Ukraine had died of his wounds.
Zelensky did not specify how many North Koreans had died after being captured by Ukrainian troops.
Zelensky had earlier said that nearly 3,000 North Korean soldiers had been “killed or wounded” so far as they joined Russia’s forces in combat in its western Kursk border region, where Ukraine mounted a shock incursion in August.
South Korea’s intelligence service had previously put the number of killed or wounded North Koreans at 1,000, saying the high casualty rate could be down to an unfamiliar battlefield environment and their lack of capability to counter drone attacks.
The White House on Friday confirmed the South Korean estimates, saying that Pyongyang’s troops were being sent to their deaths in futile attacks by generals who see them as “expendable.”
“We also have reports of North Korean soldiers taking their own lives rather than surrendering to Ukrainian forces, likely out of fear of reprisal against their families in North Korea in the event that they’re captured,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters.
North Korea and Russia have strengthened their military ties since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
A landmark defense pact between Pyongyang and Moscow signed in June came into force this month, with Russian President Vladimir Putin hailing it as a “breakthrough document.”
North Korean state media said Friday that Putin sent a New Year’s message to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, saying: “The bilateral ties between our two countries have been elevated after our talks in June in Pyongyang.”
Seoul’s military believes that North Korea was seeking to modernize its conventional warfare capabilities through combat experience gained in the Russia-Ukraine war.
NATO chief Mark Rutte had also said that Moscow was providing support to Pyongyang’s missile and nuclear programs in exchange for the troops.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said Monday that Pyongyang is reportedly “preparing for the rotation or additional deployment of soldiers” and supplying “240mm rocket launchers and 170mm self-propelled artillery” to the Russian army.
Pyongyang’s involvement in Russia’s war against Ukraine had prompted warnings from Seoul.
South Korea’s President Yoon Suk Yeol, currently suspended, said in November that Seoul was “not ruling out the possibility of providing weapons” to Kyiv, which would mark a major shift to a long-standing policy barring the sale of weapons to countries in active conflict.
Azerbaijani and US officials suggest plane that crashed may have been hit by weapons fire
- Azerbaijani lawmaker and aviation experts blame Azerbaijan Airlines crash on Russian air defenses
- Crash killed 38 people and left all 29 survivors injured
BAKU: Russian air defense systems may have brought down an Azerbaijani airliner this week, a US official said Friday after an Azerbaijani minister also suggested the plane was hit by a weapon, citing expert analysis and survivor accounts.
Friday’s assessments by Rashan Nabiyev and White House national security spokesman John Kirby echoed those made by outside aviation experts who blamed the crash on Russian air defense systems responding to a Ukrainian attack. These statements raised pressure on Russia, where officials said a drone attack was underway in the region where the Azerbaijan Airlines flight was heading for a landing. They did not address statements blaming air defenses.
Kirby told reporters on Friday that the US “have seen some early indications that would certainly point to the possibility that this jet was brought down by Russian air defense systems,” but refused to elaborate, citing an ongoing investigation.
Pressed on whether the US has intelligence that helped lead to that conclusion, or was simply relying on informed speculation from experts based on visual assessments of the crash, Kirby characterized the short answer as “yes” but said he’d “leave it at that,” without providing further details.
The plane was flying from Azerbaijan’s capital of Baku to Grozny, the regional capital of the Russian republic of Chechnya, on Wednesday when it turned toward Kazakhstan and crashed while making an attempt to land. The crash killed 38 people and left all 29 survivors injured.
Nabiyev, Azerbaijan’s minister of digital development and transportation, told Azerbaijani media that “preliminary conclusions by experts point at external impact,” as does witness testimony.
“The type of weapon used in the impact will be determined during the probe,” Nabiyev said.
Passengers and crew who survived the crash told Azerbaijani media that they heard loud noises on the aircraft as it was circling over Grozny.
Flight attendant Aydan Rahimli said that after one noise, the oxygen masks automatically released. She said that she went to perform first aid on a colleague, Zulfugar Asadov, and then they heard another bang.
Asadov said that the noises sounded like something hitting the plane from outside. Shortly afterwards, he sustained a sudden injury like a “deep wound, the arm was lacerated as if someone hit me in the arm with an ax,” he added. He denied a claim from Kazakh officials that an oxygen canister exploded inside the plane.
Two other survivors recounted hearing explosions before the plane went down: Jerova Salihat told Azerbaijani television in an interview in the hospital that “something exploded” near her leg, and Vafa Shabanova said that “there were two explosions in the sky, and an hour and a half later the plane crashed to the ground.”
Dmitry Yadrov, head of Russia’s civil aviation authority Rosaviatsia, said Friday that as the plane was preparing to land in Grozny in deep fog, Ukrainian drones were targeting the city, prompting authorities to close the area to air traffic.
Yadrov said that after the captain made two unsuccessful attempts to land, he was offered other airports but decided to fly to Aktau in Kazakhstan, across the Caspian Sea.
He didn’t comment on statements from some aviation experts, who pointed out that holes seen in the plane’s tail section suggested that it could have come under fire from Russian air defense systems.
Ukrainian drones have previously attacked Grozny and other areas in the Russian North Caucasus.
Azerbaijan Airlines blamed the crash on unspecified “physical and technical interference” and announced the suspension of flights to several Russian airports. It didn’t say where the interference came from or provide any further details.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined to comment on the claims that the plane was hit by Russian air defenses, saying that it will be up to investigators to determine the cause of the crash.
“The air incident is being investigated, and we don’t believe we have the right to make any assessments until the conclusions are made as a result of the investigation,” Peskov said in a conference call with reporters.
If it’s proven that the plane crashed after being hit by Russian air defenses, it would be the second deadly civil aviation accident linked to fighting in Ukraine. Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was downed with a Russian surface-to-air missile, killing all 298 people aboard, as it flew over the area in eastern Ukraine controlled by Moscow-backed separatists in 2014.
Russia has denied responsibility, but a Dutch court in 2022 convicted two Russians and a pro-Russia Ukrainian man for their role in downing the plane with an air defense system brought into Ukraine from a Russian military base.
Investigators from Azerbaijan are working in Grozny as part of the probe of Wednesday’s crash, the Azerbaijani Prosecutor General’s office said in a statement.
Following Wednesday’s suspension of flights from Baku to Grozy and Makhachkala, Azerbaijan Airlines announced Friday that it would also halt service to eight more Russian cities.
The company will continue to operate flights to six Russian cities, including Moscow and St. Petersburg. Those cities also have been repeatedly targeted by Ukrainian drone strikes in the past.
Kazakhstan’s Qazaq Air also announced Friday that it was suspending flights from Astana to the Russian city of Yekaterinburg in the Ural Mountains for a month.
FlyDubai also halted flights to Sochi and Mineralnye Vody in southern Russian for the next few days.
The day before, Israel’s El Al carrier suspended flights from Tel Aviv to Moscow citing “developments in Russia’s airspace.” The airline said it would reassess the situation next week.
Driver who killed 35 in China car ramming sentenced to death
- On November 11, 62-year-old Fan Weiqiu deliberately drove through people exercising outside a sports complex in his small SUV, the worst attack in China since 2014
BEIJING: A man who killed 35 people in a car attack in the southern Chinese city of Zhuhai last month was sentenced to death on Friday, state media reported.
On November 11, 62-year-old Fan Weiqiu deliberately drove through people exercising outside a sports complex in his small SUV, the worst attack in China since 2014.
He was detained at the scene with self-inflicted knife injuries and fell into a coma, police said at the time.
His case was publicly tried on Friday, state broadcaster CCTV reported, with the verdict reached on the same day.
The court said the defendant’s motives “were extremely vile, the nature of the crime extremely egregious, the methods particularly cruel, and the consequences particularly severe, posing significant harm to society,” state media said.
In front of some of the victims’ families, officials and members of the public, Fan pleaded guilty, it added.
The court found Fan had “decided to vent his anger” over “a broken marriage, personal frustrations, and dissatisfaction with the division of property after divorce,” the report said.
China has this year seen a string of mass casualty incidents — from stabbings to car attacks — challenging its reputation for good public security.
Some analysts have linked the incidents to growing anger and desperation at the country’s slowing economy and a sense that society is becoming more stratified.
Philippine companies secure $100m in deals at Saudi Halal Expo
- Filipino expats in Saudi Arabia were among main drivers of success
- Seafood, precooked meals are Philippines’ top halal export products
MANILA: Philippine companies have secured $100 million in deals at this year’s Saudi Halal Expo in Riyadh, the Department of Trade and Industry said on Friday, marking a milestone in the country’s efforts to tap into the global halal market.
The annual Saudi International Halal Expo was held in Riyadh from Oct. 28 to 30, providing a platform for stakeholders from across the world to see and showcase the latest innovations, research and developments in the global halal market.
The Philippine delegation to the fair was led by the DTI, with exhibitors presenting products that including fruit, food and beverages, as well as supplement sectors to tourism, travel and finance.
The $100 million in deals was achieved from the “participation of Philippine exporters at the Saudi Halal Expo 2024 and B2B (business-to-business) meetings,” Aleem Guiapal, who leads the DTI’s halal industry taskforce, told Arab News.
“Seafood, pre-cooked halal (meals) were the top products.”
One of the main drivers of the success were the more than a million Filipino expats living and working in Saudi Arabia.
“The presence of the overseas Filipino workers in the Middle East is a captured market for Filipino halal products,” he said. “Institutional buyers such as supermarkets and industries also see the value of Filipino ingenuity in our products and cuisine.”
The 64-member Philippine delegation that took part in the expo and business meetings included 12 Filipino companies. They showcased their products under “Halal-friendly Philippines” – a government umbrella brand promoting the country as a halal market hub in the Asia-Pacific region.
The Philippine government welcomed the achievement as proof of the country’s growing international reputation as a provider of halal-certified products and services.
“This success reflects the Philippines’ strategic vision under Bagong Pilipinas to establish a strong and sustainable halal ecosystem that meets global demand,” the DTI’s Secretary Cristina A. Roque said in a statement.
“It is also a testament to the collective efforts of our industries and the government to drive business growth, attract international investments, and create meaningful job opportunities for Filipinos and the global halal community.”
The predominantly Catholic Philippines – where Muslims constitute about 10 percent of the almost 120 million population – has been making efforts to tap into the global halal market, which is estimated to be worth more than $7 trillion.
By increasing its presence and doubling the number of its halal-certified products and services, the Philippine government plans to raise $4 billion in investments and generate about 120,000 jobs by 2028.
