North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has repeated his warning that Pyongyang could “preemptively” use its nuclear weaponry to counter hostile forces, state media reported Saturday.

Kim told top military officers that to “maintain the absolute superiority” of North Korea’s armed forces, the country should be able to “preemptively and thoroughly contain and frustrate all dangerous attempts and threatening moves… if necessary,” the official KCNA news agency reported.

Pyongyang should continue to build up its arsenal so that it can have the “overwhelming military muscle that no force in the world can provoke,” Kim said, calling it the “lifeline guaranteeing the security of our country”.

The leader’s comments followed similar remarks at a military parade on Monday, when he said he could use his atomic arsenal if North Korea’s “fundamental interests” were threatened.

Kim made his latest comments at a meeting with top brass to praise their work on Monday’s parade, which commemorated the 90th anniversary of the country’s armed forces and showcased its most powerful intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Despite biting sanctions, North Korea has doubled down on Kim’s military modernisation drive, test-firing a slew of banned weapons this year while ignoring US offers of talks.

Last month Pyongyang test-fired an ICBM at full range for the first time since 2017, and satellite imagery has shown signs of activity at a nuclear testing site.

The string of weapons tests comes as South Korea prepares for an incoming president, Yoon Suk-yeol, who takes a more hawkish approach to Pyongyang and has not ruled out a preemptive strike if necessary.

Analysts say Kim’s warning shows he is not open to dialogue with Seoul’s new government.

“Kim’s remarks demonstrate no interest in engaging with the incoming Yoon administration in South Korea or restarting denuclearisation talks with the United States,” said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor of international studies at Ewha University in Seoul.

Source: AFP

President Joe Biden called former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright a “force of nature” on Wednesday at a memorial service attended by former presidents in honor of the first woman to serve as the United States’ top diplomat.

Albright, who served as secretary of state from 1997 to 2001, died last month of cancer. The professor, businesswoman, mother and grandmother was heralded as a trailblazer after her death.

Biden praised Albright for her grace, humanity and intellect, and said she changed the tide of history.

“Her story was America’s story,” he said. “She loved to speak about America as the indispensable nation. … It was about gratitude for all this country made possible for her. It was a testament to her belief in the endless possibilities that only America could help unlock around the world.”

Biden, who is leading the US effort to support Ukraine after Russia’s invasion, said Albright was a big reason why NATO alliances are so strong today.

Former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also gave tributes. Albright served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations from 1993 to 1997 during President Clinton’s first four-year term before becoming secretary of state, and was an active supporter of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaigns.

Albright and her family fled the Nazis in her native Czechoslovakia during World War Two. They eventually settled in the United States, where Albright grew to become a tough-talking diplomat, famous for a sometimes sharp tongue and a collection of pins she would wear to send political messages.

Albright’s memorial service was held at the Washington National Cathedral. More than 1,400 people were expected to attend, according to a spokesperson for the family, including foreign ministers, ambassadors and members of Congress.

The family requested that attendees wear masks inside the cathedral; Washington has experienced a dramatic uptick in Covid-19 cases in recent weeks.

Albright’s three daughters were to give tributes. Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was to give a reading from the Bible.

Former President Barack Obama, former first lady Michelle Obama and former Vice President Al Gore attended along with current administration officials including Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

Source: REUTERS

Multiple people were shot and at least 13 were injured on Tuesday in a New York City subway station, the fire department said, in the latest spasm of violence in the city’s sprawling transit system.

The shootings occurred during the morning commute at the 36th Street subway station in Brooklyn’s Sunset Park neighborhood.

CNN and other media reported that at least five people were shot, citing sources in the New York Fire Department, but Reuters could not immediately confirm the specific number. It was not immediately clear whether the number of injured people included those who were shot.

The whereabouts of the perpetrator were unclear.

Juliana Fonda, a broadcast engineer at radio station WNYC, told local news website Gothamist that she heard shots while in an adjoining subway car.

“The reaction of the passengers was terrifying because they were trying to get into our car away from something that was happening in the back of the train,” she said. “None of us in the front of the train knew what was going on, but people were pounding and looking behind them, running, trying to get onto the train.”

She added that she heard “a lot of loud pops” and that there was smoke in another train car.

Authorities shut down a dozen or so blocks around the 36th Street subway station and another nearby station, and closed off the immediate area with yellow crime scene tape.

The New York Police Department warned people to stay away from the area, which is known for its thriving Chinatown, views of the Statue of Liberty and Industry City, a sprawling warehouse district that has become home to many creative businesses.

In recent months New York has experienced a rise in gun violence in general and a spate of attacks in the city’s transit system, one of the world’s oldest and most extensive.

Local and federal law enforcement officials gathered at the scene, watched by small crowds of people on sidewalks huddled against buildings in a drizzle. Many officers could be seen donning heavy-duty armor and helmets.

Konrad Aderer, a commuter, was in the stairwell about to enter the 36th Street station when he saw a man with bleeding legs explaining what had happened to a worker at the station booth.

“He just said that there was a lot of people bleeding,” Aderer told Fox News in a phone interview. “He took it upon himself to make sure that people were alerted, despite being injured.”

The fire department initially said that undetonated explosive devices were found at the station, but police later said in a Tweet there were no active explosive devices.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams was being briefed on the situation, his press secretary said in a statement shared on Twitter. Adams recently tested positive for COVID-19.

(Source: Reuters)

World food prices hit an all-time high in March as Russia’s military operation of Ukraine sent “shocks” through markets for staple grains and vegetable oils, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization said on Friday.

The disruption in export flows resulting from the February 24 military operation and international sanctions against Russia has spurred fears of a global hunger crisis, especially across the Middle East and Africa, where the knock-on effects are already playing out.

Russia and Ukraine, whose vast grain-growing regions are among the world’s main breadbaskets, account for a huge share of the globe’s exports in several major commodities, including wheat, vegetable oil and corn.

“World food commodity prices made a significant leap in March to reach their highest levels ever, as war in the Black Sea region spread shocks through markets for staple grains and vegetable oils,” the FAO said in a statement.

The FAO’s food price index, which had already reported a record in February, surged by 12.6 percent last month, “making a giant leap to a new highest level since its inception in 1990”, the UN agency said.

The index, a measure of the monthly change in international prices of a basket of food commodities, averaged 159.3 points in March.

The jump includes new all-time highs for vegetable oils, cereals and meats, the FAO said, adding that prices of sugar and dairy products “also rose significantly”.

– Famine fears –

Russia and Ukraine together accounted for around 30 percent and 20 percent of global wheat and maize exports respectively, over the past three years, the FAO said.

The war continues to rage as sowing season has started in Ukraine.

Wheat prices rose by almost 20 percent, with the problem exacerbated by concerns over crop conditions in the United States, the organization said.

The FAO’s vegetable oil price index surged by 23.2 percent, driven by higher quotations for sunflower seed oil, of which Ukraine is the world’s leading exporter.

Spanish supermarkets have rationed the sale of sunflower oil to stop customers stockpiling over shortage fears due to the war.

The United States has accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of creating “this global food crisis”.

France has warned that the war has increased the risk of famine around the world.

The conflict has also sent oil and gas prices through the roof, causing inflation to rise further across the world and raising concerns that it could derail global economic growth.

(Source: AFP)

North Korea will use its nuclear weapons to “eliminate” South Korea’s army in the event they launch a pre-emptive strike, the powerful sister of leader Kim Jong Un said Tuesday.

Kim Yo Jong’s warning, carried in state media, was her second angry retort in three days to comments made by South Korea’s defence chief Suh Wook last week.

They come as North Korea has resumed its sanctions-breaking weapons tests with an unprecedented blitz this year, last month firing its first intercontinental ballistic missile at full range since 2017.

Suh had said Friday that South Korea’s military had missiles with “the ability to accurately and quickly hit any target in North Korea when there are clear signs of North’s missile launch”.

In response, Kim Yo Jong said it was a “very big mistake” for “lunatic” Suh to have discussed a pre-emptive strike against a nuclear power, according to the report in KCNA.

“In case South Korea opts for military confrontation with us, our nuclear combat force will have to inevitably carry out its duty,” said Kim Yo Jong, who is a key policy advisor in Pyongyang.

She said the “primary mission” for her country’s nuclear forces was to act as a deterrent, but if an armed conflict were to break out, such weapons will be used for “eliminating the enemy’s armed forces at a strike”.

As a result of this “dreadful attack”, South Korean forces will face a “miserable fate little short of total destruction and ruin”, she said.

“We do not regard (them) as (a) match for our armed forces,” she said, referring to South Korea’s military.

Her latest comments follow an initial attack on Suh’s “reckless remarks” Sunday, in which she warned the South should “discipline itself if it wants to stave off disaster”.

North Korea had paused its long-range and nuclear tests when Kim Jong Un and then US president Donald Trump engaged in a high-profile bout of diplomacy that subsequently collapsed in 2019. Talks have since stalled.

North Korea will this month mark the 110th anniversary of the birth of founder Kim Il Sung — the grandfather of current leader Kim.

Typically, Pyongyang likes to mark key domestic anniversaries with military parades, major weapons tests or satellite launches.

Source: AFP

The death toll from torrential downpours that triggered flash floods and landslides in Brazil’s Rio de Janeiro state rose to 16 Sunday, with three people still missing, authorities said.

Three days of heavy rain have battered a broad swathe of the southeastern state’s Atlantic coast, the latest in a series of deadly storms in Brazil that experts say are being made worse by climate change.

Emergency workers pulled two more bodies early Sunday from the mud and wreckage left by a landslide in the Monsuaba neighborhood of Angra dos Reis, a seaside town 160 kilometers (100 miles) southwest of Rio de Janeiro city, officials said.

In all, four children and four adults were killed there, the city government said. Emergency workers are still searching for three people reported missing in Monsuaba.

Another landslide in the picturesque colonial town of Paraty killed a mother and six of her children, aged two to 17.

A seventh child was rescued alive and taken to the hospital, where he was in stable condition, the mayor’s office said.

In the Rio suburb of Mesquita, a 38-year-old man was electrocuted trying to help another person escape the flooding, officials and media reports said.

President Jair Bolsonaro said on Facebook the federal government had sent military aircraft to help the rescue effort and dispatched national disaster response secretary Alexandre Lucas to the state of 17.5 million people.

The new storms come six weeks after flash floods and landslides killed 233 people in the scenic city of Petropolis, the Brazilian empire’s 19th-century summer capital, also in Rio state.

Source: AFP

Five people were killed in gun attacks Tuesday near the Israeli coastal city of Tel Aviv, emergency responders said, in the third fatal gun or knife spree in the Jewish state in a week.

“We unfortunately have to note that five people have died,” said Eli Bin, the head of the Magen David Adom emergency responders, revising up a death toll of two from shootings in two locations of the ultra-Orthodox town of Bnei Brak.

Israeli police later confirmed that security forces had killed an assailant, but did not reveal his identity.

Residents of Bnei Brak and the neighbouring town of Ramat Gan reported that a man had driven around and opened fire at passers-by. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the shootings.

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said he would convene an emergency meeting with top security officials to review the situation.

This marks the third deadly attack in Israel in the span of one week.

A shooting on Sunday killed two Israeli police officers — identified as Shirel Aboukrat, a French-Israeli citizen, and Yezen Falah — in the northern city of Hadera.

That attack was later claimed by the Islamic State group — the jihadists’ first claim of an attack on Israeli territory since 2017.

Israeli police had said that the two perpetrators of the Sunday attack were killed at the scene.

Hamas, the Islamic Palestinian movement that rules the Gaza Strip, praised Sunday’s attack as a “natural and legitimate response” to Israeli “crimes against our people”.

It was also welcomed by the Gaza-based Islamic Jihad militant group and Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah movement.

The Sunday attack coincided with a landmark meeting bringing together Israel’s foreign minister with those of four Arab countries with ties to the Jewish state, as well as the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

Last week, a convicted IS sympathiser killed four Israelis in a stabbing and car-ramming spree in the southern city of Beersheba.

The attacks on Tuesday come as Israeli Defence Minister Benny Gantz visits Jordan, where he met King Abdullah II in a bid to ensure calm ahead in the Palestinian territories during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Tensions flared last year during the fasting month, which starts in April, between Israeli forces and Palestinians visiting Al-Aqsa mosque in annexed east Jerusalem, feeding into 11 days of armed conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

Source: AFP

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange married his long-term partner Stella Moris inside a British high-security prison on Wednesday at a small ceremony attended by just four guests, two official witnesses and two guards.

Assange is being held in jail while U.S. authorities seek his extradition to face trial on 18 counts relating to WikiLeaks’ release of vast troves of confidential U.S. military records and diplomatic cables more than a decade ago.

“I am very happy and very sad. I love Julian with all my heart, and I wish he were here,” Moris said outside the gates of Belmarsh prison following the ceremony.

The 50-year-old Australian, who denies any wrongdoing, has been in the southeast London jail since 2019, and before that was holed up in the Ecuadorean Embassy in the British capital for seven years.

While living at the embassy he fathered two children with Moris, a lawyer more than a decade his junior, whom he met in 2011 when she started work on his legal team. Their relationship began in 2015.

The registrar-led nuptials took place during visiting hours at the prison, where some of Britain’s most notorious criminals have served sentences, including child murderer Ian Huntley.  Afterwards, the guests were asked to leave immediately.

For the occasion, Moris wore a lilac satin wedding dress and Assange a kilt – a nod to his family ties to Scotland – which were created by British fashion designer Vivienne Westwood, who has campaigned against his extradition.

The bridal dress featured an inscription of a personal message from Westwood, and the long veil was embroidered with words such as “valiant”, “relentless” and “free enduring love”.

“To me, Julian is a pure soul and a freedom fighter,” Westwood said.

Outside the jail, Moris cut a wedding cake and gave a speech to supporters who had gathered for the occasion.

“You know what we are going through is cruel and inhuman,” she said. “The love that we have for each other carries us through this situation and any other that will come. He is the most amazing person in the world. He is wonderful and he should be free.”

Assange suffered a blow earlier this month when he was denied permission to launch an appeal at Britain’s Supreme Court against a decision to extradite him. However, he could still challenge the government’s ratification of the extradition.

Source: REUTERS

Tributes poured in Wednesday from diplomatic players around the world remembering Madeleine Albright, the first female US secretary of state and one of the most influential stateswomen of her generation, who has died at age 84.

Albright, who came to the United States as an 11-year-old political refugee, rose to serve as the country’s top diplomat under president Bill Clinton from 1997 to 2001.

Clinton, as well as successors George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Joe Biden, hailed her historic service.

Albright “paved the way for progress in some of the most unstable corners of the world, and was a champion for democratic values. And as an immigrant herself, she brought a unique and important perspective to her trailblazing career,” Obama said in a statement.

Born in Prague in 1937, Albright’s family — who were Jewish, although she did not know of her heritage until later in life — fled ahead of the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1939, losing several family members to extermination camps. She moved first to England, then to America a decade later.

“A Czechoslovak born leader, a strong advocate for democracy & human rights. Today more than ever, Central Europe remembers her commitment to NATO enlargement. My heartfelt condolences to her family,” the Czech Republic’s Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky said on Twitter.

In a statement, Albright’s family said she died of cancer, “surrounded by family and friends,” and paid tribute to “a loving mother, grandmother, sister and friend” as well as a “tireless champion of democracy and human rights.”

‘Trailblazer’

After studying political science, Albright made her entry into politics as a fund raiser, then a congressional aide — and entered president Jimmy Carter’s administration working for Polish-American Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was Carter’s national security advisor.

Polish President Andrzej Duda wrote on Twitter that he was saddened by the death of Albright, who “brought enormous contribution to the transatlantic community of security and of values, including to the accession of Poland and of other European countries to NATO.”

The United Nations, where Albright had served as US ambassador from 1993 to 1997, held a moment of silence for her.

Secretary General Antonio Guterres said he worked with Albright for years both in and out of government and will remember her as a dear friend.

“I was always struck by her wise counsel, deep experience, unique insights, abiding humanity, warmth and wit,” Guterres said in a statement.

“Her life is powerful testament to the invaluable contributions refugees bring to countries that welcome them,” Guterres added.

Albright — whose global influence at the height of her career was compared to that of Margaret Thatcher in Britain — knew she was part of a new generation of women in public service.

“It used to be that the only way a woman could truly make her foreign policy views felt was by marrying a diplomat and then pouring tea on an offending ambassador’s lap,” Albright once said.

“Today, women are engaged in every facet of global affairs.”

At her former department, of which she became the head in 1997, spokesman Ned Price remembered Albright as “a trailblazer as the first female secretary of state and quite literally opened doors for a large elements of our workforce.”

“I know there are many people in this building who are grieving and who will be grieving today,” he added.

Source: AFP