North Korea confirms June launch of military spy satellite

North Korea confirms June launch of military spy satellite
In 2012 and 2016, Pyongyang tested ballistic missiles that it called satellite launches. (File/AP)
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Updated 30 May 2023
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North Korea confirms June launch of military spy satellite

North Korea confirms June launch of military spy satellite
  • Announcement came a day after Japan said it was informed by North Korea that a satellite launch could happen imminently

SEOUL: North Korea said Tuesday that it would launch a spy satellite in June, claiming it was necessary to monitor the “dangerous” military movements of the United States and its allies.
Criticizing US-South Korea joint military exercises, including the ongoing large-scale live-fire drills, a top North Korean military official confirmed that “military reconnaissance satellite No. 1” would be launched next month.
The announcement came a day after Japan said it was informed by North Korea that a satellite launch could happen imminently, with Tokyo warning it would likely violate United Nations sanctions.
Satellite launch technology overlaps significantly with that used in ballistic missiles, which Pyongyang is explicitly prohibited from using under UN sanctions.
The official Korean Central News Agency cited Ri Pyong Chol, vice-chairman of the ruling party’s central military commission, saying the satellite was “indispensable to tracking, monitoring... and coping with in advance in real time the dangerous military acts of the US and its vassal forces.”
Citing “reckless” acts by Washington and Seoul, Ri said North Korea felt “the need to expand reconnaissance and information means and improve various defensive and offensive weapons.”
The official also accused the United States of conducting “hostile air espionage activities on the Korean peninsula and in its vicinity,” according to the KCNA dispatch.
Pyongyang, which typically does not give advanced warning of missile launches, has been known to inform international bodies of purportedly peaceful satellite launch plans.
It told Japan Monday it would launch a rocket between May 31 and June 11.
“Even if it’s described as a satellite, a launch using ballistic missile technology would be a violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions” and would threaten people’s safety, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said.
In 2012 and 2016, Pyongyang tested ballistic missiles that it called satellite launches. Both flew over Japan’s southern Okinawa region.
“North Korea is giving justification and legitimacy to the upcoming launch of a military reconnaissance satellite, by blaming the ongoing US-South Korea joint drills,” Yang Moo-jin, president of the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, told AFP.
He said that although satellites and ballistic missiles differ in their missions, the technology was effectively identical.
“If North Korea launches a satellite, it will be a violation of UN security resolutions, as it bans all launches using ballistic missile technology.”
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un this month inspected the country’s first military spy satellite as it was prepared for launch, and gave the green light for its “future action plan.”
In 2021, Kim had identified the development of such satellites as a key defense project for the North Korean military.
Japan’s defense ministry issued an order to shoot down any ballistic missile confirmed to be on course to fall into its territory.
South Korea’s foreign ministry condemned the launch plan, saying the “so-called ‘satellite launch’ is a serious violation of UN Security Council resolutions banning all launches using ballistic missile technology.”
South Korea and Japan have been working to mend long-frayed ties, including through greater cooperation on North Korea’s military threats.


Military delegations of Armenia and Azerbaijan attend CIS meeting in Russia -media

Military delegations of Armenia and Azerbaijan attend CIS meeting in Russia -media
Updated 10 sec ago
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Military delegations of Armenia and Azerbaijan attend CIS meeting in Russia -media

Military delegations of Armenia and Azerbaijan attend CIS meeting in Russia -media
MOSCOW: Delegations from the defense ministries of Azerbaijan and Armenia arrived in the Russian city of Tula for a meeting of the council of defense ministers of CIS states, Russian state-run news agencies reported on Friday citing the Russian defense ministry.
According to TASS news agency, the delegations of the defense ministries of Russia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan will take part in the meeting.
“During the meeting, they will discuss a range of issues of military and military-technical cooperation of mutual interest. There will also be an exchange of views on the current military-political situation in the world,” TASS reported.

Death toll from fuel depot blast in Karabakh rises to 170 — media

Death toll from fuel depot blast in Karabakh rises to 170 — media
Updated 10 min 40 sec ago
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Death toll from fuel depot blast in Karabakh rises to 170 — media

Death toll from fuel depot blast in Karabakh rises to 170 — media
  • Authorities have not given any explanation of the cause of the blast

MOSCOW, Sept 29 : The death toll from an explosion and fire at a fuel depot in Nagorno-Karabakh has risen to 170, Armenpress news agency reported on Friday citing local officials in the breakaway region.
The blast occurred as thousands of ethnic Armenians fled the breakaway enclave after their fighters were defeated by Azerbaijan in a lightning military operation.
The authorities have not given any explanation of the cause of the blast.
The number of victims rose sharply from an earlier announcement by Karabakh authorities reporting 68 dead on Tuesday evening.
Rescue work at the blast site continues.
As of Friday morning, more than 84,700 of the 120,000 ethnic Armenians who call Nagorno-Karabakh home had already crossed into Armenia.


Explosion at rally celebrating birthday of Islam’s prophet kills 6 people in southwest Pakistan

Explosion at rally celebrating birthday of Islam’s prophet kills 6 people in southwest Pakistan
Updated 2 min 12 sec ago
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Explosion at rally celebrating birthday of Islam’s prophet kills 6 people in southwest Pakistan

Explosion at rally celebrating birthday of Islam’s prophet kills 6 people in southwest Pakistan
  • The bombing occurred in Mastung, a district in Baluchistan province

QUETTA,: A powerful bomb exploded at a rally celebrating the birthday of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad in southwest Pakistan on Friday, killing at least 13, more than 50 injured, police and a government official said.

The suide attack occurred in Mastung, a district in Baluchistan province, said government administrator Atta Ullah. The injured people were being taken to nearby hospitals, and some of them were in critical condition, he said.
Ullah provided no further details.
Muslims in Pakistan and around the world celebrate the birthday of Islam’s prophet by holding public gatherings.


Putin discusses Ukraine war with top Wagner commander Troshev

Putin discusses Ukraine war with top Wagner commander Troshev
Updated 41 min 7 sec ago
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Putin discusses Ukraine war with top Wagner commander Troshev

Putin discusses Ukraine war with top Wagner commander Troshev
  • Putin meets former top Wagner commander
  • The meeting underscored the Kremlin’s attempt to show that the state had now gained control over the mercenary group

MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin was on Friday shown meeting one of the most senior former commanders of the Wagner mercenary group and discussing how best to use “volunteer units” in the Ukraine war.
The meeting underscored the Kremlin’s attempt to show that the state had now gained control over the mercenary group after a failed June mutiny by Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, who was killed with other senior commanders in a plane crash in August.
Just days after the Wagner’s mutiny, Putin offered the mercenaries the opportunity to keep fighting but suggested that commander Andrei Troshev take over from Prigozhin, Russia’s Kommersant newspaper has reported.
The Kremlin said that Putin had met with Troshev, who is known by his nom de guerre “Sedoi” — or “grey hair” — and Deputy Defense Minister Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, who sat closest to Putin, on Thursday night.
Addressing Troshev, Putin said that they had spoken about how “volunteer units that can perform various combat tasks, above all, of course, in the zone of the special military operation.”
“You yourself have been fighting in such a unit for more than a year,” Putin said. “You know what it is, how it is done, you know about the issues that need to be resolved in advance so that the combat work goes in the best and most successful way.”
Putin also said that he wanted to speak about social support for those involved in the fighting. The meeting took place in the Kremlin and was shown on state television.
Troshev was shown listening to Putin, leaning forward and nodding, pencil in hand. His remarks were not shown.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the RIA news agency that Troshev now worked at the defense ministry.
The fate of Wagner, one of the world’s most battle-hardened mercenary forces, has been unclear since Prigozhin’s failed June 23 mutiny and his death on Aug. 23.
The aborted mutiny is widely regarded to have posed the most serious internal challenge to Putin — and to the Russian state — for decades. Prigozhin said the mutiny was not aimed at toppling Putin but at settling scores with Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov.
After Prigozhin’s death, Putin ordered Wagner fighters to sign an oath of allegiance to the Russian state — a step Prigozhin had opposed.
The Putin meeting appears to indicate that what remains of Wagner will now be overseen by Troshev and Yevkurov, who has traveled over recent months to several countries where the mercenaries work.
A decorated veteran of Russia’s wars in Afghanistan and Chechnya and a former commander in the SOBR interior ministry rapid reaction force,Troshev is from St. Petersburg, Putin’s home town, and has been pictured with the president.
He was awarded Russia’s highest medal, Hero of Russia, in 2016 for the storming of Palmyra in Syria against Daesh militants.


M.S. Swaminathan, ‘father’ of India’s green revolution, dies at 98

M.S. Swaminathan, ‘father’ of India’s green revolution, dies at 98
Updated 29 September 2023
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M.S. Swaminathan, ‘father’ of India’s green revolution, dies at 98

M.S. Swaminathan, ‘father’ of India’s green revolution, dies at 98
  • Scientist revolutionized farming in 1960s when China was engulfed in deadly famine, India barely got by on hand-to-mouth imports
  • Swaminathan won many awards for his work in agriculture, including the first World Food Prize in 1987

NEW DELHI: Indian agricultural scientist Monkombu Sambasivan Swaminathan, who ushered a “Green Revolution” in India nearly six decades ago that helped end famine and transformed the country as a top producer of wheat, died on Thursday aged 98.

Swaminathan died at his home in southern India’s Chennai city following age-related illness, local media reported.

He revolutionized farming in the 1960s when China was engulfed in a deadly famine and India barely got by on hand-to-mouth imports.

Back then, Swaminathan was a young scientist who turned down plum positions in academia and the government to work in agricultural research. He helped to cross-breed wheat seeds that allowed India to more than treble its annual crop in just 15 years.

“His end came very peacefully this morning... Till the end, he was committed to the farmers’ welfare and to the upliftment of the poorest in society,” his daughter Soumya Swaminathan, former chief scientist at the World Health Organization, told ANI news agency.

President Droupadi Murmu and Prime Minister Narendra Modi joined lawmakers, scientists and people from across the country in expressing condolences.

Swaminathan won many awards for his work in agriculture, including the first World Food Prize in 1987 and the Padma Vibhushan, India’s second highest civilian award, in 1989.

Back in 2008, when Swaminathan was 82, he told Reuters in an interview that conservation farming and green technology were crucial for a sustainable “Evergreen Revolution” of the 21st century that could push India to become an even bigger supplier of food to the world.

The push for a new revolution came as hybrid seeds that helped India in the 1960s made farmers overlook the potential ecological damage of heavy fertilizer use, drop in water tables due to heavier irrigation and the impact of repeated crop cycles on soil quality.

“The Green Revolution created a sense of euphoria that we have solved our production problem. Now we have a plateau in production and productivity. We have a problem of under investment in rural infrastructure,” he said afterwards.

Swaminathan is survived by three daughters.

“He leaves behind a rich legacy of Indian agriculture science which may serve as a guiding light to steer the world toward a safer and hunger-free future for humanity,” President Murmu said in a social media post.