North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has arrived in the Chinese capital Beijing along with his daughter, Kim Ju Ae, images appear to show.

Kim is in China to attend a “Victory Day” parade on Wednesday, which will see him rub shoulders with China’s President Xi Jinping, Russia’s Vladimir Putin and other world leaders – making it his first multilateral meeting.

Kim crossed into China on Tuesday onboard his armoured train, which is said to include a restaurant serving fine French wines and dishes like fresh lobster.

Photos showed him stepping off his train at Beijing Railway Station accompanied by his daughter. South Korea’s spy agency has previously said she was Kim’s “most likely” successor.

Source: BBC

President Donald Trump on Tuesday ruled out sending US troops to back up any Ukraine peace deal but suggested air support instead, as European nations began hashing out security guarantees ahead of a potential Russia summit.

In a flurry of diplomacy aimed at ending the war, Trump brought Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and European leaders to the White House on Monday, three days after his landmark encounter with Russia’s Vladimir Putin in Alaska.

But while Trump said Putin had agreed to meet Zelensky and accept some Western security guarantees for Ukraine, those promises have been met with extreme caution by Kyiv and Western capitals, and many details remain vague.

Putin proposed holding the summit with Zelensky in Moscow, three sources familiar with Trump call told AFP. One source said Zelensky immediately said “no” to meeting in the capital of his country’s invader.

Source: France 24

The Kremlin has played down Donald Trump’s orders to move two nuclear submarines closer to Russia, saying Moscow did not want to be involved in polemics.

In the first official reaction since the US president’s comments last Friday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said American submarines were on combat duty anyway and dismissed the idea that there had been an escalation.

“Very complex, very sensitive issues are being discussed, which, of course, many perceive very emotionally,” Peskov said – though he added that everyone should be “very cautious” with nuclear rhetoric.

US envoy Steve Witkoff is due to visit Russia on Wednesday, according to Russian media.

Last week President Trump ordered two nuclear submarines to “be positioned in the appropriate regions” in response to what he called “highly provocative” comments by former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

Trump did not say whether they were nuclear-powered or nuclear-armed submarines.

Medvedev – who in recent years has espoused increasingly extreme rhetoric online – had accused Trump of “playing the ultimatum game” with Russia after the US president set a new deadline for Vladimir Putin to end the war with Ukraine.

Without referencing the Medvedev spat directly, Peskov said on Monday that while “in every country members of the leadership… have different points of view”, Russian foreign policy was dictated by Putin alone.

Medvedev did not react to Trump’s response and has not been active on X since sending the offending post.

Relations between the US and Russia improved significantly after Trump took office in January – although in recent months the US president has signalled he suspects Putin may not be truly committed to ending the war in Ukraine, which began when Moscow launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Now Trump has brought forward a deadline for Russia to reach a peace deal, threatening Moscow with severe tariffs targeting its oil and other exports if a ceasefire is not agreed by Friday 8 August.

Still, Washington and Moscow remain in contact and Peskov welcomed Witkoff’s trip later this week.

Source: BBC

South Korea’s former president has been rearrested over last year’s failed martial law bid that plunged the country into political turmoil.

Yoon Suk Yeol was impeached in April over the order, which saw military rule introduced for six-hours in December.

A senior judge at Seoul’s Central District Court issued an arrest warrant for Yoon on Wednesday, citing fears he could destroy evidence.

Yoon, who was the first sitting South Korean president to be arrested, faces trial on charges of leading an insurrection over his attempt to impose martial law.

During Wednesday’s seven-hour hearing, a special counsel team argued for the arrest warrant on five key charges, South Korean news agency Yonhap reported.

The charges include Yoon’s alleged violation of the rights of cabinet members by not inviting some of them to a meeting before he declared martial law.

Yoon initially attended the hearing alongside his lawyers to deny the charges, before being taken to Seoul Detention Center to await a decision on an arrest warrant.

He was first arrested in January following a lengthy stand-off, with investigators scaling barricades and cutting through barbed wire to take him into custody from his residence in central Seoul.

Yoon was released two months later after a court overturned his arrest on technical grounds, but still faces trial.

If found guilty, he could face life in prison or the death penalty.

Prosecutors have reportedly found evidence that Yoon ordered military drones to be flown over North Korea to provoke a reaction that would justify his martial law declaration, according to reports.

Other senior officials also face charges including insurrection and abuse of authority over the martial law declaration.

Insurrection is one of a small number of criminal charges from which South Korean presidents do not have immunity, but now Yoon is no longer president he is open to other criminal charges.

South Korea’s new president, Lee Jae-myung, was elected in June following a snap election after Yoon’s impeachment.

Lee campaigned on the promise to strengthen the country’s democracy following the crisis and appointed a special counsel team to investigate Yoon over the imposition of martial-law, as well as other criminal allegations surrounding his administration.

Source: BBC

An Air India plane with more than 200 people on board crashed near the airport in India’s western city of Ahmedabad, the airline and police officials said on Thursday, without specifying whether there were any fatalities.

The plane was headed to London’s Gatwick airport in the UK, Air India said, while police officers said it crashed in a civilian area near the airport.

The 242 people included 217 adults and 11 children, a source told Reuters. Of them, 169 were Indian nationals, 53 were Britons, seven Portuguese, and one Canadian, the airline said.

Aviation tracking site Flightradar24 said the plane was a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, one of the most modern passenger aircraft in service.

Source: France 24

Iran threatened Wednesday to target US military bases in the region if conflict breaks out, while President Donald Trump said he was “less confident” about reaching a nuclear deal.

Tehran and Washington have held five rounds of talks since April to thrash out a new nuclear deal to replace the 2015 accord that Trump abandoned during his first term in 2018.

Since returning to office in January, Trump has revived his “maximum pressure” campaign on Tehran, backing nuclear diplomacy but warning of military action if it fails.

“All its bases are within our reach, we have access to them, and without hesitation we will target all of them in the host countries,” Iran’s Defence Minister Aziz Nasirzadeh said in response to US threats of military action if the talks fail.

“God willing, things won’t reach that point, and the talks will succeed,” the minister said, adding that the US side “will suffer more losses” if it came to conflict.

The United States has multiple bases in the Middle East, with the largest located in Qatar.

Iran and the United States have recently been locked in a diplomatic standoff over Iran’s uranium enrichment, with Tehran defending it as a “non-negotiable” right and Washington calling it as a “red line”.

Trump had previously expressed optimism about the talks, saying during a Gulf tour last month Washington was “getting close” to securing a deal.

But in an interview published Wednesday, Trump said he was “less confident” the United States and Iran could reach a deal, in response to a question on whether he believed he could stop Tehran from enriching uranium.

Source: AFP