North Korea’s leader is in Russia to meet Putin, with both locked in standoffs with the West

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North Korean leader Kim Jong Un meets with Russian Natural Resources Minister Alexander Kozlov upon arrival in Khasan, Russia, September 12, 2023, in this image released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency on September 13, 2023. (REUTERS)
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Updated 13 September 2023
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North Korea’s leader is in Russia to meet Putin, with both locked in standoffs with the West

  • The United States has accused North Korea of providing Russia with arms, including selling artillery shells to the Russian mercenary group Wagner. Both Russian and North Korean officials denied such claims

SEOUL, South Korea: North Korea’s Kim Jong Un rolled through Russia on an armored train Tuesday toward a meeting with President Vladimir Putin, a rare encounter between isolated leaders driven together by their need for support in escalating standoffs with the West.
Kim is expected to seek economic aid and military technology for his impoverished country, and, in a twist, appears to have something Putin desperately needs: munitions for Russia’s grueling war in Ukraine.
It’s a chance for the North Korean leader to get around crippling UN sanctions and years of diplomatic isolation. For Putin, it’s an opportunity to refill ammunition stores that the war has drained.
Any arms deal with North Korea would violate the sanctions, which Russia supported in the past.
Kim’s personal train stopped in Khasan, a station on the Russia-North Korea border, early Tuesday where it was met by a military honor guard and a brass band. He was met on a red carpet by regional Gov. Oleg Kozhemyako and Natural Resources Minister Alexander Kozlov, according to North Korean state media and video posted on social media channels.
Kim said his decision to visit Russia four years after his previous visit — his first foreign trip since the COVID-19 pandemic — showed how Pyongyang is “prioritizing the strategic importance” of its relations with Moscow, North Korea’s official news agency said Wednesday.
The Korean Central News Agency said Kim then left for his destination, but it didn’t specify where.
Many had assumed he and Putin would meet in Vladivostok, a Russian city close to the border where the two leaders had their last meeting in 2019, and which Putin is visiting this week for an economic forum.
But Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed only that Kim has entered Russia, and state news agency RIA-Novosti later reported his train had headed north after crossing the Razdolnaya River, taking it away from Vladivostok. The South Korean news agency Yonhap later published a photo it said showed the train in Ussuriysk, a city about 60 kilometers (about 40 miles) north of Vladivostok that has a sizable ethnic Korean population.
Some Russian news media speculate he is headed for the Vostochny spaceport, which Putin is to visit soon. At the forum, Putin declined to say what he intended to do there. The launch facility is about 900 kilometers (550 miles) northwest of Ussuriysk, but the route there is circuitous and it is unclear how long Kim’s slow-moving train would take to reach it.
Peskov said Putin and Kim will meet after the Vladivostok forum, and that the meeting would include a lunch in Kim’s honor.
Kim left Pyongyang on his train Sunday, accompanied by members of the ruling party, government and military, KCNA said.
Officials identified in North Korean state media photos could hint at what Kim might seek from Putin and what he would be willing to give.
Kim is accompanied by Jo Chun Ryong, a ruling party official in charge of munitions policies who joined him on recent tours of factories producing artillery shells and missiles, according to South Korea’s Unification Ministry. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu will be part of the Russian delegation, Peskov said.
Kim’s delegation also includes Foreign Minister Choe Sun Hui and his top military officials, including Korean People’s Army Marshals Ri Pyong Chol and Pak Jong Chon and Defense Minister Kang Sun Nam.
North Korea may have tens of millions of aging artillery shells and rockets based on Soviet designs that could give a huge boost to the Russian army in Ukraine, analysts say.
Also identified in photos were Pak Thae Song, chairman of North Korea’s space science and technology committee, and navy Adm. Kim Myong Sik, who are linked with North Korean efforts to acquire spy satellites and nuclear-capable ballistic missile submarines. Experts say North Korea would struggle to acquire such capabilities without external help, although it’s not clear if Russia would share such sensitive technology.
Kim Jong Un may also seek badly needed energy and food supplies, analysts say. Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Rudenko said Russia may discuss humanitarian aid with the North Korean delegation, according to Russian news agencies.
Data from FlightRadar24.com, which tracks flights worldwide, showed an Air Koryo An-148 took off from Pyongyang on Tuesday and flew to Vladivostok. North Korea’s national airline has only just resumed flying internationally after being grounded during the COVID-19 pandemic. There had been speculation that North Korea could use a plane to fly in support staff.
Kim is making his first foreign trip since the pandemic, during which North Korea imposed tight border controls for more than three years. After decades of hot-and-cold relations, Russia and North Korea have drawn closer since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Lim Soo-suk, South Korea’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, said Seoul was maintaining communication with Moscow while closely monitoring Kim’s visit.
“No UN member state should violate Security Council sanctions against North Korea by engaging in an illegal trade of arms, and must certainly not engage in military cooperation with North Korea that undermines the peace and stability of the international community,” Lim said at a briefing.
US deputy ambassador Robert Wood said Tuesday that Moscow’s potential deals with North Korea could include “the provision of raw materials that would assist Russia’s defense industrial base.” Wood’s comments came during a UN Security Council meeting called by Russia to protest Western weapons supplies to Ukraine.
According to US officials, Putin could focus on securing more supplies of North Korean artillery and other ammunition to refill arsenals as Moscow seeks to rebuff a Ukrainian counteroffensive and show that he’s capable of grinding out a long war of attrition. That could potentially put more pressure on the US and its partners to pursue negotiations as concerns over a protracted conflict grow despite their huge shipments of advanced weaponry to Ukraine in the past 18 months.
The United States has accused North Korea of providing Russia with arms, including selling artillery shells to the Russian mercenary group Wagner. Both Russian and North Korean officials denied such claims.
Speculation about their military cooperation grew after Shoigu, the Russian defense minister, visited North Korea in July. Kim invited him to a massive military parade in the capital showcasing ICBMs designed to target the US mainland.
Following that visit, Kim toured North Korea’s weapons factories. Experts say Kim’s visits to the factories likely had a dual goal of encouraging the modernization of North Korean weaponry and examining artillery and other supplies that could be exported to Russia.

 


111 monsoon-related deaths in Pakistan since late June: disaster agency

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111 monsoon-related deaths in Pakistan since late June: disaster agency

ISLAMABAD: Monsoon rains in Pakistan have been linked to more than 110 deaths including dozens of children since they arrived in late June, according to government figures released Monday.
Data from the national disaster agency between June 26 and July 14 showed that electrocution was the leading cause of fatalities, followed by flash floods.
In late June, at least 13 tourists were swept to their deaths while sheltering from flash floods on a raised river bank.
In its latest report, the disaster agency said 111 people including 53 children have been killed, with the highest number of deaths in the most populous province of Punjab.
Meanwhile, the national meteorological service has issued a warning for further heavy rainfall in the northern and eastern regions of the country, with the potential for urban flooding, landslides, and infrastructure damage due to strong winds.
Monsoon season brings South Asia 70 to 80 percent of its annual rainfall, arriving in early June in India and late June in Pakistan, and lasting through until September.
The annual rains are vital for agriculture and food security, and the livelihoods of millions of farmers.
But it brings with it flooding, landslides and causes buildings to collapse.
South Asia is getting hotter and in recent years has seen shifting weather patterns, but scientists are unclear on how exactly a warming planet is affecting the highly complex monsoon.
Pakistan is one of the world’s most vulnerable countries to the effects of climate change, and its 240 million residents are facing extreme weather events with increasing frequency.
In 2022, unprecedented monsoon floods submerged a third of Pakistan and killed 1,700 people, with some areas yet to recover from the damage.
In May, at least 32 people were killed in severe storms, including strong hailstorms.

Greek govt calls for EU farm scandal probe

Updated 6 min 22 sec ago
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Greek govt calls for EU farm scandal probe

ATHENS: The Greek government on Monday called for a special parliamentary committee to probe a European Union farm subsidies scandal, reportedly involving tens of millions of euros, that has seen at least two ministers put under EU investigation.
Government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis said the ruling conservative party would request an investigation into the 27-year operation of the Greek authority for the payment of common agricultural policy aid (OPEKEPE).
“Our proposal concerns the period from the establishment of OPEKEPE in 1998 until today in order to investigate the dysfunctions, identify the problems, and ensure complete transparency,” Marinakis told reporters.
An investigation by EU prosecutors has shown widespread abuse of funds at OPEKEPE, which according to the government annually disburses 2.5 billion euros ($2.9 billion) to nearly 650,000 farmers. Reports said prosecutors suspect tens of millions of euros have been siphoned off.
The investigation period is mostly under the current government, which came to power in July 2019. But the government argues that the fraud has lasted decades.
In nearly 30 years, the Greek state has paid more than 2.7 billion euros in fines, Marinakis said.
Greece’s ruling New Democracy party has a large enough majority in parliament to create the committee on its own.
Last month, a minister who had formerly held the agriculture portfolio resigned, after the European Public Prosecutor’s Office sent a case to parliament on the alleged involvement of two former ministers in Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’s government in the misappropriation of EU funds.
Three junior ministers and another senior government official also submitted their resignations.
In May, investigators searched the Athens offices of OPEKEPE and seized documents and electronic equipment. They indicated that “a significant number” of people had gained payment rights between 2019 and 2022, mainly by falsely claiming public land.

Bangladesh’s child marriage rate soars to highest in South Asia

Updated 14 min 23 sec ago
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Bangladesh’s child marriage rate soars to highest in South Asia

  • 51 percent of Bangladeshi girls marry before age 18, according to UN
  • Rate is significantly lower in Afghanistan, India, and Pakistan

DHAKA: The child marriage rate continues to rise since the COVID-19 pandemic, experts warn, as the latest UN data shows that more than half of Bangladeshi girls are married before reaching adulthood — the highest percentage in the whole of South Asia.

Bangladesh has long had one of the world’s highest rates of child marriage and, unlike other countries in the region, for the past few years has seen the situation worsening.

According to the annual report of the UN Population Fund released last month, 51 percent of Bangladeshi girls are found to have been married before turning 18, the legal age for marriage.

The rate was significantly lower at 29 percent in nearby Afghanistan, 23 percent in India, and 18 percent in Pakistan.

“Among South Asian countries, we are in a poor position when it comes to child marriage rates, even though we perform better on some other gender-related indicators set by the UN,” Rasheda K. Chowdhury, social activist and executive director of the Campaign for Popular Education, told Arab News.

“Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the child marriage rate in the country was around 33 percent. At that time, we were not the worst in South Asia in this regard. However, the pandemic disrupted everything.”

Data from the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics shows a steady increase in child marriage rates of several percent a year since 2020, coinciding with pandemic lockdowns, which exacerbated poverty, disrupted education, and increased household stress.

“Our research found that COVID-19 increased poverty, interrupted education for both boys and girls, and worsened malnutrition. In this context, many guardians from underprivileged communities chose to marry off their daughters in hopes of reducing the financial burden on their families,” Chowdhury said.

“Poverty is the primary driver of early marriages, as many guardians are unable to cope with household expenses. As a result, they often choose to marry off their daughters at a young age.”

Lack of women’s access to education is usually seen as the main reason behind high child marriage rates, but Bangladesh has the highest enrollment of girls in secondary school in the whole region.

“Bangladesh has invested more in infrastructure development rather than human development,” Chowdhury said.

“To prevent early marriages, society must play a crucial role. The government alone cannot act as a watchdog in every household. Local communities need to take initiative and actively work to stop child marriages.”

Azizul Haque, project manager at World Vision Bangladesh, also saw the problem as related to social awareness.

“In the villages and remotest parts of the country, girls are mostly considered a burden for the family, so the parents prefer to marry off the girls as soon as possible … In many of the remotest areas, there are schools that provide education only up to class eight, so after the completion of their eighth grade in school, many of the girls have nothing to do at home. This situation also triggers the increase in child marriages,” he said.

“There is a huge lack of social awareness. At the national level, we need to strengthen the mass campaign conveying the demerits of early marriages, so that everyone becomes aware of the negative impacts.”


Police detain 8 people after anti-migrant clashes in Spanish town

Updated 14 July 2025
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Police detain 8 people after anti-migrant clashes in Spanish town

MADRID: Eight people have been detained by police in Spain in relation to violent clashes that erupted between far-right groups, local residents and migrants in a southeastern town over the weekend, officials said on Monday.
Clashes in Torre-Pacheco in the Murcia region took place on Saturday night after an elderly resident was beaten up earlier in the week by unknown assailants, which led to a call by far-right groups to seek retribution on the area’s large migrant community.
The motivation for the initial attack was not clear.
Among those detained were two people allegedly linked to the attack on the elderly man and several others in relation to the weekend clashes, Mariola Guevara, the central government’s representative in Murcia, said Monday on X.
Six Spaniards and one North African resident were detained for the assaults, damages and disturbances, Guevara said. The two others detained had helped the perpetrator of the attack on the elderly man, she said.
A major police presence was moved into Torre-Pacheco, which has a population of roughly 42,000. About a third of its residents are of foreign origin, according to local government figures.
Large numbers of migrants also work in the surrounding area as day laborers in agriculture, a major driver of the regional economy.


German doctor goes on trial for 15 murders

Updated 14 July 2025
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German doctor goes on trial for 15 murders

  • Palliative care specialist alleged to have killed 12 women and three men between September 2021 and July 2024 while working in Berlin
  • The case recalls that of notorious German nurse Niels Hoegel, who was handed a life sentence in 2019 for murdering 85 patients

BERLIN: A German doctor went on trial Monday accused of killing 15 patients with lethal injections and acting as “master of life and death” over those in his care.

The 40-year-old palliative care specialist, named by German media as Johannes M., is alleged to have killed 12 women and three men between September 2021 and July 2024 while working in Berlin.

The doctor is accused of injecting the victims, aged between 25 and 94, with deadly cocktails of sedatives and in some cases setting fire to their homes in a bid to cover up his crimes.

The accused had “visited his patients under the pretext of providing medical care,” prosecutor Philipp Meyhoefer said at the opening of the trial at the state court in Berlin.

Johannes M. had organized “home visits, already with the intention of killing” and exploited his patients’ trust in him as a doctor, Meyhoefer said.

“He acted with disregard for life... and behaved as the master of life and death.”

A co-worker first raised the alarm over Johannes M. last July after becoming suspicious that so many of his patients had died in fires, according to Die Zeit newspaper.

He was arrested in August, with prosecutors initially linking him to four deaths.

But subsequent investigations uncovered a host of other suspicious cases, and in April prosecutors charged Johannes M. with 15 counts of murder.

A further 96 cases were still being investigated, a prosecution spokesman said, including the death of Johannes M.’s mother-in-law.

She had been suffering from cancer and mysteriously died the same weekend that Johannes M. and his wife went to visit her in Poland in early 2024, according to media reports.

The suspect reportedly trained as a radiologist and a general practitioner before going on to specialize in palliative care.

According to Die Zeit, he submitted a doctoral thesis in 2013 looking into the motives behind a series of killings in Frankfurt, which opened with the words “Why do people kill?”

In the charges brought against Johannes M., prosecutors said the doctor had “administered an anesthetic and a muscle relaxant to his patients... without their knowledge or consent.”

The relaxant “paralyzed the respiratory muscles, leading to respiratory arrest and death within minutes.”

In five cases, Johannes M. allegedly set fire to the victims’ apartments after administering the injections.

On one occasion, he is accused of murdering two patients on the same day.

On the morning of July 8, 2024, he allegedly killed a 75-year-old man at his home in the Berlin district of Kreuzberg.

“A few hours later” he is said to have struck again, killing a 76-year-old woman in the neighboring Neukoelln district.

Prosecutors say he started a fire in the woman’s apartment, but it went out.

“When he realized this, he allegedly informed a relative of the woman and claimed that he was standing in front of her flat and that nobody was answering the doorbell,” prosecutors said.

In another case, Johannes M. “falsely claimed to have already begun resuscitation efforts” on a 56-year-old victim, who was initially kept alive by rescuers but died three days later in hospital.

Prosecutors said he had “no motive beyond killing” and are seeking a life sentence.

The case recalls that of notorious German nurse Niels Hoegel, who was handed a life sentence in 2019 for murdering 85 patients.

Hoegel, believed to be modern Germany’s most prolific serial killer, murdered hospital patients with lethal injections between 2000 and 2005, before he was eventually caught in the act.

More recently, a 27-year-old nurse was given a life sentence in 2023 for murdering two patients by deliberately administering unprescribed drugs.

In March, another nurse went on trial in Aachen accused of injecting 26 patients with large doses of sedatives or painkillers, resulting in nine deaths.

Last week, German police revealed they are investigating another doctor suspected of killing several mainly elderly patients.

Investigators are “reviewing” deaths linked to the doctor from the town of Pinneberg in northern Germany, just outside Hamburg, police and prosecutors said.