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SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said his country was “ready to mobilize” its nuclear deterrent in any future military clash with the United States and South Korea, state media said Thursday. Washington and Seoul have repeatedly warned that Pyongyang is preparing to carry out its seventh nuclear test — a move that the United States has warned would provoke a “swift and forceful” response. In Kim’s latest speech to […]
by M. Jegathesan Agence France-Presse IJOK, Malaysia (AFP) — Overripe palm oil fruits hang untouched in trees while others lie rotting scattered around a plantation, as Malaysian farmers reap the bitter harvest of a severe labor shortage. The tropical country is the world’s second-biggest producer of the edible vegetable oil, which is found in many everyday goods from chocolate to cosmetics. The sector has long been reliant on migrants from neighboring Indonesia for back-breaking plantation […]
by Sebastian Smith Agence France-Presse WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — President Joe Biden has still not decided whether to end some trade tariffs on China ahead of a phone call expected this week with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, a senior official said Tuesday. John Kirby, spokesman for the National Security Council, said the administration believes the tariffs imposed during a trade war under former president Donald Trump are not working, but that Biden has […]
TOKYO, Japan (AFP) — Japan’s former emperor Akihito has been diagnosed with heart failure but is in stable condition after being prescribed medication, the Imperial Household Agency said Tuesday. The diagnosis was made during an unrelated health checkup last month on the 88-year-old, who in 2019 became the first member of the world’s oldest royal family to abdicate the throne in more than 200 years. The examination confirmed heart expansion and pleural fluid, an agency […]
TAIPEI, Taiwan (AFP) — Taiwan simulated intercepting Chinese attacks from the sea in annual war games on Tuesday, with President Tsai Ing-wen hailing the military’s “determination” as she watched from onboard a destroyer. Democratic Taiwan lives under constant threat of being invaded by China, which views the self-ruled island as part of its territory to be seized by force if necessary. On the second day of the island’s largest annual war drills, Tsai, dressed […]
Phnom Penh, Cambodia | AFP Myanmar’s execution of four prisoners, including a former member of Aung San Suu Kyi’s party, is “highly reprehensible,” said the chair of a regional bloc leading diplomatic efforts to resolve the post-coup crisis. Cambodia, which currently heads the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), said the bloc was “extremely troubled and deeply saddened” by the executions — Myanmar’s first in decades. In a statement issued Tuesday, it accused the junta […]
Yangon, Myanmar | AFP The four prisoners Myanmar’s junta executed in the first cases of capital punishment in the country in decades “deserved many death sentences”, a military spokesman said on Tuesday. “If we compare their sentence with other death penalty cases, they have committed crimes for which they should have been given death sentences many times,” junta spokesman Zaw Min Tun said at a regular press briefing. The executions announced on Monday sparked widespread […]
TOKYO, Japan (AFP) — Japan on Tuesday executed a man convicted of killing seven people in a stabbing rampage in Tokyo’s popular Akihabara electronics district in 2008, local media reported. The Justice Ministry declined to immediately confirm reports on national broadcaster NHK and other outlets that Tomohiro Kato had been executed over the attack, which began with him driving a truck into a crowd. Kato went on the stabbing spree on June 8, 2008, telling […]
Tokyo, Japan | AFP Japan on Monday confirmed its first case of monkeypox, detected in a man in his 30s who had travelled overseas, Tokyo governor Yuriko Koike announced. “It’s a man in his 30s with a history of overseas travel who had returned from Europe. This is the first monkeypox case in Japan,” Koike told reporters. She said the man had been hospitalised in Tokyo, without giving further details. The case was reported […]
Bangkok, Thailand | AFP The Myanmar junta’s execution of four men, including a former member of parliament and a prominent democracy activist, was “an act of utter cruelty,” Human Rights Watch said on Monday, The executions of activist Kyaw Min Yu and opposition lawmaker Phyo Zeya Thaw “was an act of utter cruelty,” said Elaine Pearson, acting Asia director at Human Rights Watch, calling for the international community to “show the junta that there will […]
SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — US Army Apache attack helicopters stationed in South Korea are holding live-fire drills with guns and rockets, the US military said Monday, as Seoul looks to boost deterrence against the nuclear-armed North. The drills — the first such exercises since 2019 — come after a record-breaking blitz of weapons tests by Pyongyang this year, including firing an intercontinental ballistic missile at full range for the first time since […]
BEIJING, China (AFP) — Cities across China were on red alert for heatwaves on Monday, as tens of millions of people were warned to stay indoors and record temperatures strained energy supply. Swathes of the planet have been hit by extreme and deadly heatwaves in recent months, from Western Europe in July to India in March to April. Scientists say the extreme weather has become more frequent due to climate change, and will likely grow […]
