NORTH KOREA
‘Crucial’ test successful
The government has conducted another “crucial test” at the Sohae Satellite Launching Station, state media reported yesterday, as nuclear negotiations between Pyongyang and Washington remain stalled with a deadline approaching. “Another crucial test was successfully conducted at the Sohae Satellite Launching Station from 22:41 to 22:48 on Dec. 13,” an Academy of National Defense Science spokesman said in a statement carried by the Korean Central News Agency. The “research successes” would be “applied to further bolstering up the reliable strategic nuclear deterrent” of the nation, the spokesman added.
NEPAL
Suspected bomb kills three
An explosion at a house in a southern town killed three people, including the owner, his son and a police officer who responded to the call about a device, police said yesterday. The explosion just after midnight in Mahendranagar, 200km southeast of Kathmandu, also injured another police officer and the son and daughter of the house’s owner, a local businessman who ran a medicine store. The owner had spotted a suspicious device planted at the entrance gate of his house and called the police. The officers were checking the device when it exploded. Authorities were investigating the explosion, but there were no immediate suspects. No one has claimed responsibility.
QATAR
Malaysia sides with Iran
US sanctions imposed on Iran are in breach of the UN charter and international law, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad told a conference in Doha yesterday. “Malaysia does not support the reimposition of the unilateral sanctions by the US against Iran,” he told the Doha Forum, also attended by Emir Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani. Malaysia and other countries have lost a “big market” because of the sanctions on Iran, he said. “Such sanctions clearly violate the United Nations charter and international law; sanctions can only be applied by the United Nations in accordance with the charter,” he added.
UNITED KINGDOM
Johnson to thank the north
Prime Minister Boris Johnson was yesterday heading to northern England to meet newly elected Conservative Party lawmakers in the working-class heartland that turned its back on the opposition Labour Party in this week’s election and helped give him an 80-seat majority. While Johnson was on a victory lap yesterday, Corbyn came under fire from within his own party. Former lawmaker Helen Goodman, one of many Labour legislators to lose their seat in northern England, told BBC radio that “the biggest factor was obviously the unpopularity of Jeremy Corbyn as the leader.”
HONDURAS
Prison director gunned down
A gang of gunmen on motorcycles on Friday killed Pedro Ildefonso Armas, the director of the nation’s maximum security prison. The prison was where a key witness against the president’s brother was killed in October. Armas was seen on a video in October talking to inmate Nery Lopez Sanabria before a masked man opened a door and allowed a gang of prisoners to shoot and stab Lopez Sanabria. Notebooks belonging to Lopez Sanabria were used in a US drug trafficking trial as evidence to convict former congressman Antonio Hernandez, the younger brother of President Juan Orlando Hernandez.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese