SEOUL, South Korea: North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui arrived in Russia Tuesday for an official visit after South Korea and the United States said Pyongyang has sent thousands of troops to train in Russia.
The minister flew into the far eastern Russian city of Vladivostok, TASS state news agency reported.
North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency said a delegation led by Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui departed for Russia on Monday, but didn’t specify the purpose of the visit.
The announcement of Choe’s visit came hours after the Pentagon said North Korea has sent about 10,000 troops to Russia, who are expected to arrive in battlefields in Ukraine within “the next several weeks.”
South Korean and Western leaders have expressed concern that North Korean involvement could help prolong Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, and that Russia may offer technology in return that could advance the threat posed by North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile program.
Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh told reporters Monday that some of the North Korean soldiers have already moved closer to Ukraine and were believed to be heading for the Kursk border region, where Russia has been struggling to push back a Ukrainian incursion.
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol in telephone calls with European Union Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte on Monday shared South Korean intelligence assessments that North Korean troops could be deployed to battlefronts “more quickly than anticipated.” He called for closer coordination with European governments aimed at “monitoring and blocking “illegal exchanges between Pyongyang and Moscow, Yoon’s office said in a statement.
After initially denying the claims about North Korean troop deployments, Pyongyang and Moscow have adopted a vaguer stance, asserting that their military cooperation conforms with international law without directly admitting the presence of North Korean forces in Russia.
North Korea has also been accused of providing millions of artillery shells and other military equipment to Russia to fuel its war in Ukraine. The United States and its partners have described Russia’s procurement of North Korean personnel and supplies as a violation of UN Security Council resolutions, and raised suspicions that Moscow is helping Pyongyang to evade sanctions and unlawfully finance its weapons program.
“The illegal military collusion between Russia and North Korea poses a significant security threat to the international community and a serious matter that could potentially harm our security. We must thoroughly examine all possibilities and prepare countermeasures,” Yoon said in a Cabinet meeting in Seoul on Tuesday.
Yoon last week raised the possibility of supplying Ukraine with weapons while saying Seoul is preparing countermeasures that could be rolled out in stages depending on the degree of military cooperation between Pyongyang and Moscow.
South Korea, a growing arms exporter, has provided humanitarian aid and other non-lethal support to Ukraine and joined US-led economic sanctions against Moscow. It has so far resisted calls by Kyiv and NATO to directly supply Ukraine with weapons, citing a longstanding policy of not providing arms to countries engaged in active conflict.
North Korea’s FM arrives in Russia as its troops train to fight in Ukraine
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North Korea’s FM arrives in Russia as its troops train to fight in Ukraine
Taiwan expects Super Typhoon Kong-rey to make landfall on Thursday
- Packing gusts of nearly 300 kph, the storm has strengthened into a super typhoon and is expected to further intensify before hitting Taitung county
- Up to 1.2 meters of rainfall is expected in mountainous eastern Taiwan and destructive winds are likely to hit coastal areas on Thursday
Packing gusts of nearly 300 kph, the storm has strengthened into a super typhoon and is expected to further intensify before hitting Taitung county, according to US Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center.
The storm is then forecast to cross Taiwan’s south, enter the Taiwan Strait and head toward China, Taiwan’s Central Weather Administration said, which labelled the storm a “strong typhoon,” the most powerful storm level for Taiwan.
Up to 1.2 meters (3.9 feet) of rainfall is expected in mountainous eastern Taiwan and destructive winds are likely to hit coastal areas on Thursday, according to the administration.
Taiwan President Lai Ching-te urged people to stay away from the mountains and coast.
“I would like to urge my friends in the eastern, southern and northern parts of the country to be on alert,” he wrote on his Facebook page.
Taiwan’s defense ministry said it had put about 36,000 troops on standby across the island.
Central Weather Administration forecaster Stan Chang said it was relatively rare for a strong typhoon to directly hit Taiwan this late in the year, pointing to the still favorable environment for typhoons, including warmer sea temperatures in the Pacific and later-than-normal cold fronts from the north.
“We must urge people to make preparations. It’s a strong typhoon with a large size,” Chang added.
Heavy rain is also expected in the north around the capital Taipei throughout the day on Thursday, the administration said.
The transport ministry said at least 26 ferry trips to outlying islands had been stopped for Wednesday, while Taiwan’s largest domestic carrier UNI Air said it had canceled all flights for Thursday.
Subtropical Taiwan is frequently hit by typhoons. The last one, Typhoon Krathon, killed four people earlier this month as it passed through the south of the island.
Vietnam jails six over deadly karaoke bar blaze
- The blaze in a province close to business hub Ho Chi Minh City shocked Vietnam and led to the closure of thousands of karaoke bars nationwide for failing to meet fire regulations
HANOI: A court in Vietnam on Wednesday jailed six people including four police officers over a fire that ripped through a karaoke bar two years ago, killing 32 people.
The blaze in a province close to business hub Ho Chi Minh City shocked Vietnam and led to the closure of thousands of karaoke bars nationwide for failing to meet fire regulations.
The court in southern Binh Duong province convicted the bar owner, a contractor involved in its construction and four police officers on charges of breaching fire regulations and negligence.
Bar owner Le Anh Xuan was given eight years in jail, while the bar’s fire prevention system contractor was sentenced to five years.
Four police officers were jailed for between four and seven and half years.
In his final words before court last week, bar owner Le Anh Xuan apologized to victims and their families, saying “my mistakes had caused huge losses.”
Flames engulfed the second floor of the 30-room An Phu karaoke building in Binh Duong in September 2022, trapping customers and staff as dense smoke filled the staircase and blocked the emergency exit.
Many crowded onto a balcony to escape the flames, which spread quickly through the wooden interior, while others were forced to jump from the building.
A total of 32 people died in the inferno, 17 men and 15 women.
The police officers were charged for their involvement in designing and approving the fire prevention system at the bar.
Vietnam regularly experiences deadly fires — 56 people were killed in a Hanoi apartment disaster last year — and the Binh Duong blaze prompted a nationwide crackdown on karaoke bars that failed to comply with fire regulations.
More than two-thirds of the country’s approximately 15,000 karaoke bars were forced to close, according to state media, citing police sources.
China’s new crew has arrived at space station in sign of growing influence in space field
- The team of two men and one woman will replace the astronauts who have lived on the Tiangong space station for the last six months
- China built its own space station after being excluded from the International Space Station, mainly because of US concerns
JIUQUAN, China: A Chinese spaceship carrying a three-person crew docked with its orbiting space station Tuesday as the country seeks to expand its exploration of outer space in competition with the United States, even as it looks for cooperation from other nations.
The team of two men and one woman will replace the astronauts who have lived on the Tiangong space station for the last six months, conducting a variety of experiments and maintaining the structure.
They are expected to stay until April or May of next year. The new mission commander, Cai Xuzhe, went to space in the Shenzhou-14 mission in 2022, while the other two, Song Lingdong and Wang Haoze, are first-time space travelers. Song and Wang were born in the 1990s and are graduates of the third wave of Chinese astronaut recruitment, having undergone a rigorous testing and training process taking years.
Early Wednesday morning, China declared the launch and entry into outer space a “complete success.”
The Shenzhou-19 spaceship carrying the trio blasted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China at 4:27 a.m. local time atop a Long March-2F rocket, the backbone of China’s crewed space missions.
“The crew condition is good and the launch has been successful,” the state broadcaster China Central Television announced.
China built its own space station after being excluded from the International Space Station, mainly because of US concerns over the People’s Liberation Army, the Chinese Communist Party’s military arm’s overall control over the space program. China’s moon program is part of a growing rivalry with the US and others, including Japan and India.
The new team will replace the astronauts who have lived on the Tiangong space station for the last six months and will overlap with them for a couple of days or more. They are expected to stay until April or May of next year.
The new mission commander, Cai Xuzhe, went to space in the Shenzhou-14 mission in 2022, while the other two, Song Lingdong and Wang Haoze, are first-time space travelers, born in the 1990s.
Song was an air force pilot and Wang an engineer with the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation. Wang will be the crew’s payload specialist and the third Chinese woman aboard a crewed mission.
Besides putting a space station into orbit, the Chinese space agency has landed an explorer on Mars. It aims to put a person on the moon before 2030, which would make China the second nation after the United States to do so. It also plans to build a research station on the moon and has already transferred rock and soil samples from the moon in a first for any nation in decades, and placed a rover on the little-explored far side of the moon in a global first.
The US still leads in space exploration and plans to land astronauts on the moon for the first time in more than 50 years, though NASA pushed the target date back to 2026 earlier this year.
The new Chinese crew will perform spacewalks and install new equipment to protect the station from space debris, some of which was created by China.
According to NASA, large pieces of debris have been created by “satellite explosions and collisions.” China’s firing of a rocket to destroy a redundant weather satellite in 2007 and the “accidental collision of American and Russian communications satellites in 2009 greatly increased the amount of large debris in orbit,” it said.
China’s space authorities say they have measures in place in case their astronauts have to return to Earth earlier.
China launched its first crewed mission in 2003, becoming only the third nation to do so after the former Soviet Union and the United States. The space program is a source of enormous national pride and a hallmark of China’s technological advances over the past two decades.
UN envoy warns Myanmar is in crisis, with conflict escalating and criminal networks ‘out of control’
UN envoy warns Myanmar is in crisis, with conflict escalating and criminal networks ‘out of control’
- UN special envoy for Myanmar Julie Bishop: ‘Myanmar actors must move beyond the current zero-sum mentality’
- Three powerful ethnic armed militias have gained territory, keeping the government’s ruling military increasingly on the back foot
UNITED NATIONS: The UN special envoy for Myanmar warned that the Southeast Asian nation is in crisis, with conflict escalating, criminal networks “out of control” and human suffering at unprecedented levels.
Julie Bishop told the UN General Assembly’s human rights committee on Tuesday in her first report since being appointed by Secretary-General Antonio Guterres last April that “Myanmar actors must move beyond the current zero-sum mentality.”
The army in Myanmar ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021 and suppressed widespread nonviolent protests that sought a return to democratic rule, leading to increasing violence and a humanitarian crisis.
In the past year, three powerful ethnic armed militias have gained territory, keeping the government’s ruling military increasingly on the back foot in fighting that has forced hundreds of thousands of civilians to flee their homes. According to the UN, 3 million people are displaced across Myanmar and some 18.6 million need humanitarian assistance.
Bishop called for an end to the violence, stressing that “There can be little progress on addressing the needs of the people while armed conflict continues across the country.”
The former Australian foreign minister said she has engaged with the government, including Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing in Myanmar’s capital, Naypyidaw, as well as opposition representatives, ethnic armed organizations, women’s groups, human rights defenders and numerous countries. She gave no details about the meetings.
She said she has engaged with the current, previous and incoming ASEAN chairs in Vientiane, Laos; Jakarta, Indonesia; and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The UN envoy said she has also visited Myanmar’s neighbors China and Thailand and will soon visit India and Bangladesh, “continuing to urge neighboring countries to leverage their influence.” She said she will also return to Naypyidaw but gave no time frame. She gave no details about any of the meetings.
At the recent summit between the United Nations and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, known as ASEAN, Bishop said Secretary-General Guterres backed strengthened cooperation between the UN envoy and the ASEAN chair “on innovative ways to promote a Myanmar-led process.”
This includes “effective implementation” of a five-point ASEAN plan Myanmar’s rulers agreed to in April 2021 but have done little to fulfill. It calls for the immediate cessation of violence, a dialogue among all concerned parties mediated by an ASEAN special envoy, provision of humanitarian aid and a visit to Myanmar by the association’s special envoy to meet all concerned parties.
“Any pathway to reconciliation requires an end to violence, accountability and unfettered access for the UN and its partners to address vulnerabilities among the marginalized, including Rohingya, ethnic communities and particularly women and youth,” Bishop said.
But instead she pointed to rising civilian casualties and the rule of law “so severely undermined that transnational crime emanating from Myanmar is proliferating.”
“The sheer scale of arms productions and trade, human trafficking, drug manufacture and trafficking, and scam centers means Myanmar now ranks highest among all member states for organized crime,” she said. “The criminal networks are out of control.”
Bishop backed Guterres who stressed the urgency of forging a path toward a democratic transition and return to civilian rule.
“I share his concern regarding the military’s stated intention to hold elections amid intensifying conflict and human rights violations,” she said.
Bishop warned that “the Myanmar conflict risks becoming a forgotten crisis.”
“The regional implications of this crisis are evident, but the global impact can no longer be ignored,” she said.
Police say there is no nuclear risk after a fire at Britain’s nuclear submarine shipyard
- The force said two people were taken to hospitals with suspected smoke inhalation and there were no other casualties
LONDON: Two people have been hospitalized after a fire broke out at the shipyard that builds Britain’s nuclear-powered submarines, but there is “no nuclear risk,” police said Wednesday.
Cumbria Constabulary said a “significant” fire broke out soon after midnight at the BAE Systems shipyard in Barrow-in-Furness, northwest England.
The force said two people were taken to hospitals with suspected smoke inhalation and there were no other casualties. It advised people living nearby to stay indoors and keep doors and windows closed.
The 150-year-old shipyard, about 220 miles (350 kilometers) northwest of London, is currently building several nuclear-powered submarines for the Royal Navy. It is also where the handful of subs that carry the UK’s nuclear missiles were constructed.
