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SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — South Korea has custom-made furniture for Friday’s summit between President Moon Jae-in and the North’s leader Kim Jong Un — with chairs featuring disputed islands controlled by Seoul but claimed by Tokyo. One thing the rival Koreas share is a resentment of Japan, which imposed a brutal colonial rule on the peninsula from 1910 to 1945, and the gesture is likely to irritate Tokyo. Japan has already lodged a strong […]
BEIJING, China (AFP) — Chinese police have seized 1.3 tons of cocaine from South America in the country’s biggest ever haul of the drug, authorities said. Police in the southern city of Shenzhen have detained 10 suspects, mostly from Hong Kong, following an investigation that began in July 2017, the Guangdong province public security department said. The statement, released Tuesday, called it the “biggest amount of cocaine seized in the country.” The official Xinhua news […]
by Sunghee Hwang Agence France Presse GOSEONG, South Korea (AFP) — When Kim Jong Un steps over the Military Demarcation Line to attend a summit on Friday he will be the first member of Pyongyang’s ruling dynasty to set foot in the South since the Korean War. But his grandfather Kim Il Sung used to have a holiday home there. Nestled on a cliff overlooking the white sands of Hwajinpo Beach in Goseong, just a […]
TAIPEI, Taiwan (AFP) — Taiwan will practise thwarting a Chinese “invasion” in annual live-fire drills in June, simulating surprise coastal assaults to reflect increased military threats from Beijing, officials said Tuesday. China’s growing military is increasingly flexing its muscles and held live-fire drills last week in the Taiwan Strait — the narrow waterway separating the Chinese mainland from Taiwan — following weeks of naval maneuvers in the area. Chinese officials said their drills were to […]
by Jung Hawon and Sebastien Berger Agence France Presse SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and the South’s President Moon Jae-in have followed paths to power as radically different as their two countries, but they will come together at a summit in the Demilitarized Zone on Friday. Moon’s parents were both born in a small village in Hungnam, in what is now North Korea, and his father Moon Yong-hyung graduated […]
by Jamil Nasser with Shatha Yaish in Dubai Agence France Presse SANAA, Yemen (AFP) — Yemen’s Huthi militias vowed Monday to avenge the killing of their top political leader in what they said was a Saudi-led coalition air strike, the highest-ranking rebel to die in the three-year conflict. Saleh al-Sammad, head of the Huthis’ supreme political council, was “martyred” last Thursday in the eastern province of Hodeida, the Iran-allied rebels said via their Saba news […]
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AFP) — Saudi King Salman will launch the construction of an “entertainment city” near Riyadh Wednesday, authorities said, part of a series of multi-billion dollar projects as the kingdom seeks to diversify its oil-reliant economy. The 334-square kilometer project in Qiddiya, southwest of Riyadh, would rival Walt Disney and include high-end theme parks, motorsport facilities, and a safari park, officials say. The facility highlights a “relentless effort to develop giga-projects that will […]
BEIJING, China (AFP) — A fire tore through a karaoke lounge in southern China on Tuesday, killing 18 people and injuring another five in a suspected arson case, police and state media said. The blaze took place after midnight in a three-storey building in Qingyuan City, Guangdong province, and was put out shortly before 1:00 am local time, according to the police. A preliminary investigation found that the fire was caused by arson, the Qingyuan public […]
BEIJING, China (AFP) — A flotilla of Chinese naval vessels held a “live combat drill” in the East China Sea, state media reported early Tuesday, the latest show of force by Beijing’s burgeoning navy in disputed waters that have riled neighbors. The state-run Xinhua news agency said the vessels, led by China’s sole aircraft carrier the Liaoning, “took part in anti-aircraft and anti-submarine warfare training” with a simulated “opposing force”. Xinhua said the drill, which […]
by Mariam Harutyunyan Agence France Presse YEREVAN, Armenia (AFP) — Armenia’s veteran leader Serzh Sarkisian resigned on Monday after mass protests against his election as prime minister with sweeping powers, sparking celebrations across the impoverished country. Last week lawmakers voted for Sarkisian as prime minister after he served a decade as Armenia’s president, triggering political turmoil in the Moscow-allied nation of 2.9 million people. The opposition said the move was designed to extend his chokehold […]
SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un visited China’s embassy in Pyongyang to express his “bitter sorrow” after a bus crash killed dozens of Chinese tourists, state media reported early Tuesday. Thirty-two Chinese tourists and four North Koreans were killed when a bus plunged from a bridge in North Korea late Sunday, according to Chinese officials. In a rare admission of negative news from North Korea’s tightly controlled propaganda network, the […]
SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Monday praised the declaration of a moratorium on nuclear and long-range missile tests by the North’s leader Kim Jong Un, days before a summit between the two men. Pyongyang’s move was “a significant decision towards total denuclearization of the Korean peninsula”, Moon said in a meeting with aides. Kim declared that Pyongyang had no further need for nuclear tests or intercontinental ballistic missile launches, and […]
