North Korea launched two short-range ballistic missiles toward its eastern waters Thursday after the United States redeployed an aircraft carrier near the Korean Peninsula in response to Pyongyang’s previous launch of a nuclear-capable missile over Japan.

The latest missile launches suggest North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is determined to continue with weapons tests aimed at boosting his nuclear arsenal in defiance of international sanctions. Many experts say Kim’s goal is to eventually win U.S. recognition as a legitimate nuclear state and the lifting of those sanctions, though the international community has shown no sign of allowing that to happen.

The latest missiles were launched 22 minutes apart from the North’s capital region and landed between the Korean Peninsula and Japan, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement. The first missile flew 350 kilometers (217 miles) and reached a maximum altitude of 80 kilometers (50 miles) and the second flew 800 kilometers (497 miles) on an apogee of 60 kilometers (37 miles).

The flight details were similar to Japanese assessments announced by Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada, who confirmed that the missiles didn’t reach Japan’s exclusive economic zone.

He added that the second missile was possibly launched on an “irregular” trajectory. It is a term that has been previously used to describe the flight characteristics of a North Korean weapon modeled after Russia’s Iskander missile, which travels at low altitudes and is designed to be maneuverable in flight to improve its chances of evading missile defenses.

South Korea’s military said it has boosted its surveillance posture and maintains readiness in close coordination with the United States. The U.S. Indo Pacific Command said the launches didn’t pose an immediate threat to United States or its allies, but still highlighted the “destabilizing impact” of North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who was expected to hold a telephone call with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol over the North Korean threat later Thursday, said the North’s continued launches were “absolutely intolerable.”

Yoon’s office said his National Security Director Kim Sung-han discussed the launch at an emergency security meeting where members discussed plans to prepare for further North Korean hostilities, including military provocations.

The launches were North Korea’s sixth round of weapons tests in less than two weeks, adding to a record number of missile launches this year that has prompted condemnation from the United States and other countries. South Korean officials the North may up the ante soon by testing an intercontinental ballistic missile or conducting its first nuclear test explosion since 2017 and seventh overall, escalating an old pattern of heightening tensions before trying to wrest outside concessions.

Moon Hong Sik, a South Korean Defense Ministry spokesperson, said North Korea’s accelerating tests also reflect an urgency to meet Kim Jong Un’s arms development goals. Kim last year described an extensive wish list of advanced nuclear weapons systems, including more powerful ICBMs, multiwarhead missiles, underwater-launched nuclear missiles and tactical nuclear arms.

North Korea is “moving accordingly with the timeline it set for itself,” Moon said.

On Tuesday, North Korea staged its most provocative weapons demonstration since 2017, firing an intermediate-range missile over Japan, forcing the Japanese government to issue evacuation alerts and halt trains.

Experts said the weapon was likely a Hwasong-12 missile capable of reaching the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam and beyond.

Other weapons tested earlier included Iskander-like missiles and other ballistic weapons designed to strike key targets in South Korea, including U.S. military bases there.

Thursday’s launches came as the U.S. aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan returned to waters east of South Korea in what South Korea’s military called an attempt to demonstrate the allies’ “firm will” to counter North’s continued provocations and threats.

The carrier was in the area last week as part of drills between South Korea and the United States and the allies’ other training involving Japan. North Korea considers such U.S.-led drills near the peninsula as an invasion rehearsal and views training involving a U.S. carrier more provocative.

North Korea’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement Thursday that the redeployment of the Reagan strike group poses “a serious threat to the stability of the situation on the Korean peninsula and in its vicinity.” The ministry said it strongly condemns U.S.-led efforts at the U.N. Security Council to tighten sanctions on the North over its recent missile testing, which it described as a “just counteraction” to joint U.S.-South Korean drills.

After the North’s intermediate-range missile launch, the United States and South Korea also carried out their own live-fire drills that have so far involved land-to-land ballistic missiles and precision-guided bombs dropped from fighter jets.

But one of the tit-for-tat launches nearly caused catastrophe early Wednesday when a malfunctioning South Korean Hyumoo-2 missile flipped shortly after liftoff and crashed into the ground at an air force base in the eastern coastal city of Gangneung. South Korea’s military said no one was hurt and civilian facilities weren’t affected.

After Tuesday’s North Korean launch, the United States, Britain, France, Albania, Norway and Ireland called for an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council. But the session Wednesday ended with no consensus, underscoring a divide among the council’s permanent members that has deepened over Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Russia and China during the meeting insisted to fellow Security Council members that U.S.-led military exercises in the region had provoked North Korea into acting. The United States and its allies expressed concern that the the council’s inability to reach consensus on North Korea’s record number of missile launches this year was emboldening North Korea and undermining the authority of the United Nations’ most powerful body.

North Korea has fired more than 40 ballistic and cruise missiles over more than 20 launch events this year, using the stalled diplomacy with the United States and Russia’s war on Ukraine as a window to speed up arms development.

Source: AP

South Korea’s military and Japan’s Coast Guard say North Korea has fired a ballistic missile, which has flown over the northern part of Japan, prompting a warning for residents to take cover and a temporary suspension of train operations.

According to both countries, the launch that took place early Tuesday marked Pyongyang’s first missile to fly over Japan in five years.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said it appeared to have been an intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) launched from North Korea’s Jagang Province. North Korea has used that province to launch several recent tests, including multiple missiles that it claimed were hypersonic.

Tokyo urged residents to shelter themselves and suspended train operations in the area, which was overflew by the North’s projectile.

The missile fell into the Pacific Ocean after flying “over and past” Japan’s territory, the Japanese government said.

North Korea fires ballistic missiles, marking fourth in a week

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, meanwhile, said the South’s military was “maintaining a full readiness posture and closely cooperating with the United States while strengthening surveillance and vigilance.”

“North Korea’s series of actions, including its repeated ballistic missile launches, threaten the peace and security of Japan … and pose a serious challenge to the entire international community, including Japan,” Japan’s top government spokesperson Hirokazu Matsuno, told a news conference.

The test prompted East Japan Railway Co to suspend train operations in the northern regions, Japanese broadcaster NHK reported. Matsuno said there were no reports of damage to aircraft or ships from the missile.

He said the North’s missile flew 4,600 kilometers (2,850 miles) to a maximum altitude of 1,000 km.

The new missile launch came less than a week after South Korea, Japan, and the US staged anti-submarine drills.

Days earlier, Washington and Seoul’s navies conducted large-scale exercises in the waters off the Korean Peninsula. North Korea considers such drills to be rehearsals for an invasion on its territory.

Last week, Pyongyang fired short-range ballistic missiles on four occasions, including just hours after US Vice President Kamala Harris flew out of Seoul.

US President Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump, took unprecedented steps towards apparently fraternizing the North by initiating several rounds of dialog with it, and even walking a number of steps into the country alongside North Korea’s ruler Kim Jong-un.

However, Washington blew what Pyongyang called a “golden opportunity” at mending the situation by insisting too much on the North’s denuclearization. The emphasis prompted Pyongyang to discredit all the steps that had been taken by Trump as not being genuine and go back to its fiery discourse towards Washington.

Culled from Presstv

China’s former justice minister faces life in prison after a court handed him a suspended death sentence on Thursday for taking bribes and “bending the law”.

Fu Zhenghua’s death sentence will be commuted to life imprisonment after a two-year reprieve, the Intermediate People’s Court in the city of Changchun said in a statement.

The high-profile sentencing — part of a sweeping anti-graft campaign — comes just three weeks before a key political meeting where President Xi Jinping is expected to secure an unprecedented third term.

The court said former politician Fu had abused his power while in a range of senior positions from 2005 to 2021.

“(He is) deprived of political rights for life and all personal property should be confiscated,” it added.

Fu, 67, had accepted bribes worth over 117 million yuan ($16.5 million), the court said.

Between 2014 and 2015, when Fu was head of the Beijing Public Security Bureau, the court said he hid evidence of suspected crimes committed by his brother, Fu Weihua, and failed to handle the case in accordance with the law.

Anti-corruption drive

During his tenure as Beijing’s top cop, Fu is thought to have led the corruption investigation into Zhou Yongkang, the former security chief who was jailed in 2015 in one of the anti-graft campaign’s most high-profile cases.

Fu was a member of the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission and the minister of justice before entering semi-retirement in May 2020.

He was serving as the deputy director of the social and legal affairs committee on the standing committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) — a largely ceremonial advisory body — when anti-graft authorities launched an investigation into his dealings last October.

More than a million officials have been punished under the anti-corruption campaign, which critics say has also served as a means to remove Xi’s political enemies since he came to power in 2013.

The Chinese leader has accelerated the pace of the anti-graft campaign in the run-up to the party congress in mid-October.

Three former police chiefs, all accused of graft, were given harsh sentences for corruption on Wednesday.

Gong Daoan, former police chief of Shanghai; Deng Huilin, former police chief of Chongqing; and Liu Xinyun, former police chief of coal-rich Shanxi province, were sentenced in separate courts in Hebei province.

Gong, former deputy mayor and director of the Shanghai Public Security Bureau, was given a life sentence for accepting bribes worth 73.43 million yuan ($10.4 million), state broadcaster CCTV reported.

Deng, the former director of the Chongqing Public Security Bureau, was jailed for 15 years for taking 42.67 million yuan ($6 million) in bribes, CCTV said.

Liu, the former top cop in Shanxi was imprisoned for 14 years for taking bribes worth 13.33 million ($1.9 million), CCTV reported.

Source: AFP

Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby on Monday praised Queen Elizabeth II’s life of duty and service to the UK and Commonwealth at the state funeral for Britain’s longest-serving monarch. “People of loving service are rare in any walk of life. Leaders of loving service are still rarer. But in all cases those who serve will be loved and remembered when those who cling to power and privileges are forgotten,” he said in his funeral sermon.

Culled from France 24

Hundreds of thousands of people have descended on London as Queen Elizabeth II is laid to rest on Monday after a grand state funeral attended by leaders from around the world, and a historic last ceremonial journey through the packed streets of London.

Elizabeth II’s body has been lying in state at Westminster Hall since Wednesday, and people from around the country and overseas have queued for hours to file past her coffin in a constant, emotional stream.

Hundreds of thousands of people have camped out for days to witness the elaborate spectacle of pageantry and to pay their final respects to Britain’s longest-reigning monarch.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan says the funeral is an “unprecedented” security challenge, with crowds packing central London and a guest list of 500 emperors, kings, queens, presidents and prime ministers.

After the funeral, the flag-draped coffin of the queen, topped with the majestic Imperial State Crown, will be taken west to Windsor Castle.

Elizabeth II will be buried alongside her father king George VI, her mother queen Elizabeth the queen mother, and sister princess Margaret, reuniting in death the family who once called themselves “us four”. The coffin of her husband, Prince Philip, who died last year aged 99, will also be transferred to lie alongside her.

Culled from France 24

Two thousand guests, including several hundred presidents, heads of state and monarchs, will attend Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral at Westminster Abbey in London on Monday. She will then be buried at Windsor Castle in the evening.

Queen Elizabeth II’s state funeral, which is one of the biggest logistical challenges in British history, will take place on September 19 in Westminster Abbey, London.

US President Joe Biden, the Emperor of Japan Naruhito and French President Emmanuel Macron are among the 2,000 guests attending this historic event. More than 10,000 police officers from all over the country will be stationed in the capital as the authorities expect record crowds along the funeral route.

In the afternoon, Queen Elizabeth II’s coffin will travel to Windsor Castle for a church service. She will then be buried in a private ceremony. FRANCE 24 outlines the programme for this extraordinary day. 

Procession with music

On Monday morning, the royal coffin, which is currently on display at Westminster Palace in London, will be moved to Westminster Abbey where the state funeral will take place. The procession will begin at 10.35am (11.35am in Paris) and the coffin will be placed on a gun carriage towed by 98 naval officers, in a tradition dating back to Queen Victoria’s funeral in 1901. 

The procession, followed by the king and members of the British Royal Family, will be led by a band of 200 pipers and drummers from the Royal Air Force to Westminster Abbey Gate at 10.52am.

State funeral

Although the state funeral service, led by the Dean of Westminster David Hoyle, will begin at 11am, the Abbey’s doors will open three hours earlier to welcome the 2,000 people who have been invited to the event.

While the final list of invitees is being kept secret for security reasons, several heads of state, political representatives and monarchs have already said that they will be attending. These include President Biden, President Macron, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, Japanese Emperor Naruhito and Indian President Droupadi Murmu.

Members of the Belgian, Dutch, Qatari and Saudi royal families will also be present, as well as several hundred anonymous people who were decorated by the queen, including social workers and carers.

After the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby’s sermon, the Last Post will be sounded, followed by two minutes of silence to be observed in the Abbey and throughout the UK.

The Reveille, national anthem and a lament performed by the queen’s piper will conclude the state funeral service at around noon.

Foreign heads of state and government representatives will then attend a reception hosted by the British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly at Church House, the headquarters of the Church of England, next to Westminster Abbey.

The queen’s coffin will be paraded through the capital to Hyde Park Corner, to the sound of the bells of Big Ben, where it will be loaded into a hearse and driven to Windsor, a town in south-eastern England, some 30km from London.

Religious ceremony and burial at Windsor

From 3pm, a new procession, preceded by members of the Royal Cavalry, will cross the ‘Long Walk’ leading to Windsor Castle, the British Royal Family’s famous residence. The Royal Family will then join the procession to St. George’s Chapel.

Some 800 guests, including the queen’s personal staff, will attend the service, led by the Dean of Windsor David Conner.

Finally, at 7.30pm, the queen will be laid to rest in a private funeral service held in the presence of the king and members of the Royal Family. 

Queen Elizabeth II will be buried with her late husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, in the King George VI Memorial Chapel.

Culled from France 24

US President Joe Biden on Saturday headed to London to attend the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II.

The state funeral, the first in Britain since the death of Winston Churchill in 1965, will take place Monday at Westminster Abbey in London at 11:00 am (1000 GMT).

Biden will be among several hundred leaders from around the world attending the somber and historic event, along with some 2,000 other guests.

While the leaders of the European Union, France, Japan and many other countries will attend, those of Russia, Afghanistan, Myanmar, Syria and North Korea were not invited.

On Sunday, Biden will attend a reception organized by King Charles III, the White House announced. The two men spoke by phone on Wednesday, with Biden vowing to preserve the “special relationship” between their countries.

A meeting Biden was to have held Monday with new Prime Minister Liz Truss at her Downing Street residence has been canceled, US and British officials announced, but the two instead will meet Wednesday in New York when both arrive to attend the annual United Nations General Assembly.

World leaders were beginning to gather in London on Saturday to prepare for Monday’s funeral.

Their presence — along with that of hundreds of thousands of mourners from across Britain and around the world — poses an extraordinary challenge to British police.

It will be London’s largest ever policing event, the city’s Metropolitan Police force said Friday.

More than 2,000 officers have been drafted from across the country to help Scotland Yard.

After the funeral, the queen’s coffin will be transferred by royal hearse to Windsor Castle, west of London, for a committal service.

That will be followed by a family-only burial in which the queen will be laid to rest alongside her late husband Philip, both her parents and her younger sister.

Source: AFP

Queen Elizabeth II’s coffin left Buckingham Palace for the last time Wednesday as it was taken amid somber pageantry on a horse-drawn gun carriage past crowds of mourners to the Houses of Parliament, where the late monarch will lie in state for four days.

Crowds began massing early along the flag-lined road outside the palace for the procession from the monarch’s official London residence to the historic Westminster Hall at Parliament. King Charles III and other members of the royal family walked behind the coffin.

Thousands of people gathered on The Mall outside Buckingham Palace and along the banks of the River Thames hours before the coffin procession began.

About a half-hour before the procession was due to start, the gun carriage passed through the palace’s wrought iron gates.

Joan Bucklehurst, a 50-year-old retail worker from Cheshire in northwestern England, said the queen “meant so much for everybody”.

“She was amazing, yeah,” she added, choking up with emotion. “So, we had to be here. We’ve been here a few times when there have been special occasions, but this one, I couldn’t miss this.”

The crowds are the latest manifestation of a nationwide outpouring of grief and respect for the only monarch most Britons have ever known, who died at her beloved Balmoral summer retreat on Thursday at age 96, ending a 70-year reign.

Outpouring of grief

“It’s a very sad day, but it’s our last opportunity to do our duty for the queen and it’s our first opportunity to do it for the king, and that makes us all very proud,” said Maj. Gen. Christopher Ghika, of the Household division, who is responsible for organising the ceremonial aspects of the queen’s funeral.

London’s Heathrow Airport halted flights that could disturbing the procession. British Airways canceled 16 flights as a result of the changes.

The airport said in a statement that the changes would “ensure silence over central London as the ceremonial procession moves from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Hall”.

Troops involved in the procession have been preparing since the queen died. So have the horses of the King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery.

Sgt. Tom Jenks, from the King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery, said that the horses have undergone special training, including how to handle weeping mourners, as well as flowers and flags being thrown onto streets as the procession passes by.

People stood behind metal barriers or sat on folding chairs, umbrellas at the ready, takeout coffees in hand under gray skies hours before the coffin was scheduled to leave the landmark palace at 2:22pm (13:22 GMT).

Crowds have lined the route of the queen’s coffin whenever it has been moved in its long journey from Scotland back to London.

On Tuesday night, thousands braved a typical London drizzle as the state hearse, with interior lights illuminating the sovereign’s flag-draped casket, drove slowly from a military air base into the heart of London.

Geoff Colgan, a taxi driver who took the day off to witness the moment, stood stunned in the moments after the queen’s coffin passed.

“It’s one of those things you know would happen, but when it does you can’t believe it,” he said, holding his toddler.

Crowds line the banks of the River Thames

Earlier, in Edinburgh, some 33,000 people filed in silent respect past her coffin as it lay for 24 hours at St. Giles’ Cathedral.

Hundreds of thousands are expected to do the same in London when the queen lies in state at the 900-year-old Westminster Hall, the oldest building in Parliament, for four days before her state funeral on Monday.

The hall is where Guy Fawkes and Charles I were tried, where kings and queens hosted magnificent medieval banquets, and where ceremonial addresses were presented to Queen Elizabeth II during her silver, golden and diamond jubilees.

Chris Bond, from Truro in southwest England, was among those lining up along the banks of the River Thames. He also attended the lying in state of the queen’s mother in 2002.

“Obviously, it’s quite difficult queuing all day long, but when you walk through those doors into Westminster Hall, that marvellous, historic building, there was a great sense of hush and one was told you take as much time as you like, and it’s just amazing,” he said.

“We know the queen was a good age and she served the country a long time, but we hoped this day would never come,” he added.

Chris Imafidon, secured the sixth place in the queue.

“I have 1,001 emotions when I see her,” he said. “I want to say, God, she was an angel, because she touched many good people and did so many good things.”

Source:  AP

Prince Harry on Monday paid an emotional tribute to his late grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, calling her his “guiding compass”, and vowing to “honour” his father in his new role as king.

In his first public comments since the queen’s death last week aged 96, Harry said he was “forever grateful” to her and said she was “sorely missed”.

Harry and his wife Meghan stunned the monarchy by announcing they were quitting royal duties and moving to the United States in early 2020.

From there, they launched a series of broadsides criticising their life in the institution, including claims of racism.

That exacerbated tensions with his older brother, heir to the throne Prince William — with whom he is reported to be barely on speaking terms — and their father, now King Charles III.

But Harry, who was on a whistlestop visit to Britain with Meghan when the queen died, was handed an olive branch by Charles in his first speech as king, when he spoke of his “love” for the couple.

William also invited his brother and sister-in-law to join them for an impromptu walkabout to view floral tributes at Windsor Castle on Saturday.

Harry, a former British Army captain who saw service in Afghanistan, said the queen was his commander-in-chief but also his “granny”.

He said he would cherish the memory of the first time she met Meghan and hugged the couple’s young children, Archie, aged three, and Lilibet, one.

“I cherish these times shared with you, and the many other special moments in between. You are already sorely missed, not just by us, but by the world over,” he added.

“We now honour my father in his new role as King Charles III. Thank you for your commitment to service. Thank you for your sound advice.

“Thank you for your infectious smile. We, too, smile knowing that you and grandpa (Prince Philip) are reunited now, and both together in peace.”

Close

Harry and Meghan jetted in from their new home in California last week to attend a series of charity functions in Britain and Germany, where the next Invictus Games for disabled veterans takes place.

Queen Elizabeth II joined her grandson in a 2016 spoof video before the first edition of the multi-sports event, poking fun at playful jibes from the former US president Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle.

The video indicated a close relationship between Harry and his grandmother, which persisted despite the bombshell announcement that he was leaving royal life.

She allowed the couple to retain their official titles as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and said they would remain “much-loved members of the family”.

The late monarch also held back from publicly rejecting the couple’s claims of racism, stating that “some recollections may vary”, but promising an investigation.

Harry rushed to the Balmoral estate in the Scottish Highland last Thursday after an announcement about the queen’s health.

But he travelled separately from his brother and other senior royals, arriving several hours after the death was announced.

Harry, who is expected to stay on Britain for the queen’s funeral next Monday, is believed to have last met her in private during the public celebrations for her Platinum Jubilee in June.

Source: AFP

Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II, head of the Commonwealth and monarch of 15 countries, has died aged 96 after more than 70 years on the throne, Buckingham Palace announced on Thursday. Follow our liveblog for the latest updates and reactions from around the world.

Queen Elizabeth died at the Balmoral royal estate in Scotland after having suffered from health problems since last October.

She was in her Platinum Jubilee year, marking 70 years since she succeeded her father king George VI in 1952.

All her children – including heir to the throne Prince Charles – rushed to be at her side at Balmoral, aides said.