Kim Jong Un unveils new North Korea ‘suicide drones’

Kim Jong Un unveils new North Korea ‘suicide drones’
A target explodes during a performance test of drones overseen by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at an undisclosed location on Aug. 24, 2024. (KCNA via Reuters)
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Updated 26 August 2024
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Kim Jong Un unveils new North Korea ‘suicide drones’

Kim Jong Un unveils new North Korea ‘suicide drones’
  • Suicide drones are explosive-carrying unmanned drones designed to be deliberately crashed into enemy targets, effectively acting as guided missiles

SEOUL: North Korea has unveiled a new “suicide drone,” state media said Monday, with leader Kim Jong Un overseeing a performance test of the weapons, which experts said could have come from Russia.
Wearing a cream baker boy hat, Kim was shown beaming as he watched, aided by high-powered binoculars, as the drones blew up targets, images in state media showed.
Kim said that “it is necessary to develop and produce more suicide drones,” the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported, in addition to “strategic reconnaissance and multi-purpose attack drones.”
Suicide drones are explosive-carrying unmanned drones designed to be deliberately crashed into enemy targets, effectively acting as guided missiles.
The nuclear-armed North’s growing drone fleet will “be used within different striking ranges to attack any enemy targets on the ground and in the sea,” KCNA said.
All the drones North Korea tested on August 24 “correctly identified and destroyed the designated targets after flying along different preset routes,” it added.
Kim also said his country would work toward “proactively introducing artificial intelligence technology into the development of drones.”
Experts said the drones in the images released by state media looked similar to the Israeli-made “HAROP” suicide drone, Russian-made “Lancet-3” and Israeli “HERO 30.”
North Korea may have acquired these technologies from Russia, which in turn likely obtained them from Iran — with Tehran itself suspected of accessing them through hacking or theft from Israel.
“The suicide drone that looks similar to HAROP can fly over 1,000km (600 miles),” said Cho Sang-keun, a professor at South Korea’s Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology.
This is a significant threat to South Korea’s national security and its critical facilities, added Cho.
“They are showing off that they have the ability to hit everything from the tactical level to the strategic level.”
“Should there be a provocation or an international conflict, the South Korean army would inevitably sustain significant damage from these suicide drones,” said Cho.
In 2022, Pyongyang sent drones across the border which Seoul’s military was unable to shoot down, saying they were too small.
In 2023, South Korea launched a drone operation command to better address the growing threat.
Pyongyang and Moscow have been allies since North Korea’s founding after World War II and have drawn even closer since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
The United States and South Korea have accused North Korea of providing ammunition and missiles to Russia for its war in Ukraine.


Australian police seek three suspects in synagogue blaze

Australian police seek three suspects in synagogue blaze
Updated 9 sec ago
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Australian police seek three suspects in synagogue blaze

Australian police seek three suspects in synagogue blaze
  • Mask-wearing attackers set the Adass Israel Synagogue ablaze before dawn on Friday
  • Victorian police chief commissioner: Investigations over the weekend had made ‘significant progress’
MELBOURNE: Australian police said on Monday they are hunting for three suspects over an arson attack on a Melbourne synagogue, which has been designated as a terrorist act.
Mask-wearing attackers set the Adass Israel Synagogue ablaze before dawn on Friday, police said, gutting much of the building.
Some congregants were inside the single-story building at the time but no serious injuries were reported.
The fire sparked international condemnation, including from Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Police have “three suspects in that matter, who we are pursuing,” Victorian police chief commissioner Shane Patton told a news conference.
Investigations over the weekend had made “significant progress,” Patton said, declining to provide further details of the operation.
Officials from the federal and state police, as well as Australia’s intelligence agency, met on Monday and concluded that the fire was “likely a terrorist incident,” the police chief said.
“Based on that, I am very confident that we now have had an attack, a terrorist attack on that synagogue,” he said.
Counter-terrorism police have joined the probe.
Under Australian law, a terrorist act is one that causes death, injury or serious property damage to advance a political, religious or ideological cause and is aimed at intimidating the public or a government.
The official designation unlocks help from other federal agencies for the investigation, said Australian National University terrorism researcher Michael Zekulin.
“Basically you get additional resources that you might not otherwise get,” he said.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has condemned the fire as an “outrage,” describing it at the weekend as an act of terrorism and pointing to a “worrying rise in anti-Semitism” in Australia.
The war in Gaza has sparked protests from supporters of Israel and Palestinians in cities around Australia, as in much of the world.
Netanyahu attacked the Australian government over the fire.
“This heinous act cannot be separated from the anti-Israel sentiment emanating from the Australian Labor government,” he said on Friday.
“Anti-Israel sentiment is anti-Semitism.”
His comments came just days after Australia voted for a United Nations General Assembly resolution that demanded the end of Israel’s “unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”
New Zealand, Britain, and Canada were among 157 countries that voted for the resolution, with eight against.
Australian Attorney General Mark Dreyfus rejected Netanyahu’s accusation.
“He’s absolutely wrong. I respectfully disagree with Mr. Netanyahu,” Dreyfus told Australia’s national broadcaster ABC on Monday.
“Australia remains a close friend of Israel, as we have been since the Labor government recognized the State of Israel when it was created by the United Nations. Now that remains the position.”

Trump taps his attorney Alina Habba to serve as counselor to the president

Trump taps his attorney Alina Habba to serve as counselor to the president
Updated 09 December 2024
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Trump taps his attorney Alina Habba to serve as counselor to the president

Trump taps his attorney Alina Habba to serve as counselor to the president
  • Habba has Iraqi ancestry and is Chaldean, which is Iraq’s largest Christian denomination and one of the Catholic Church’s Eastern rites

FORT LAUDERDALE, Florida: President-elect Donald Trump has announced that he is appointing one of his defense attorneys in the New York hush money case as counselor to the president.
Alina Habba, 40, defended Trump earlier this year, also serving as his legal spokesperson. Habba has been spending time with the president-elect since the election at his Florida club Mar-a-Lago.
“She has been unwavering in her loyalty and unmatched in her resolve — standing with me through numerous ‘trials,’ battles and countless days in Court,” Trump posted on his social network Truth Social. “Few understand the Weaponization of the ‘Injustice’ System better than Alina.”
Trump became the first former American president to be convicted of felony crimes when a New York jury in May found him guilty of all 34 charges in a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election through a hush money payment to a porn actor who said the two had sex.
In Trump’s first term, the position of counselor was held by Republican strategist Kellyanne Conway. Habba has Iraqi ancestry and is Chaldean, which is Iraq’s largest Christian denomination and one of the Catholic Church’s Eastern rites.
Habba frequently accompanied Trump on the campaign trail and was one of the speakers at the late October rally in New York’s Madison Square Garden.
On Sunday, Trump also announced he is bringing back former staffer Michael Anton to serve as director of policy planning at the State Department. Anton served as the National Security Council spokesman from 2017 to 2018.
Trump said he also will be appointing Michael Needham, a former chief of staff for Sen. Marco Rubio, as counselor of the State Department. The Florida senator was chosen by Trump to be his next secretary of state.

 


UN Security Council to meet Monday on Syria: diplomatic sources

A general view of a Security Council meeting at United Nations headquarters, Friday, Sep. 1, 2024. (AP)
A general view of a Security Council meeting at United Nations headquarters, Friday, Sep. 1, 2024. (AP)
Updated 09 December 2024
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UN Security Council to meet Monday on Syria: diplomatic sources

A general view of a Security Council meeting at United Nations headquarters, Friday, Sep. 1, 2024. (AP)
  • The Syrian opposition source said the rebels had shown Turkiye details of the planning, after Ankara’s attempts to engage Assad had failed

UNITED NATIONS, United States: The UN Security Council will convene Monday afternoon for an emergency closed door meeting regarding Syria in the aftermath of president Bashar Assad fleeing the country, multiple diplomatic sources told AFP on Sunday.
The meeting, set for 3:00 p.m. (2000 GMT), was requested by Russia earlier on Sunday.
 

 


Somali pirates demand ransom for Chinese vessel

Somali pirates demand ransom for Chinese vessel
Updated 08 December 2024
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Somali pirates demand ransom for Chinese vessel

Somali pirates demand ransom for Chinese vessel

MOGADISHU: Somali pirates who hijacked a Chinese fishing boat have demanded a ransom payment for the vessel and its 18 crew members, police and local officials said.

It was not immediately clear when the ship was taken hostage by gunmen wielding AK-47 assault rifles but the EU’s anti-piracy force drew global attention to the incident on Thursday.

“The pirates are moving the ship off the coast ... they are looking for a safe haven,” Mohamed Dini, a police officer in Eyl, a traditional pirate stronghold on Puntland’s east coast, said.

The boat was hijacked by men who had been contracted to provide “protection” before later being reinforced by other pirates, Dini said, adding that they had demanded payment for its release.

Ali Warsame, a local elder familiar with the case, said a Somali company acting on the boat’s behalf had offered to pay a $300,000 ransom. But the proposal was declined by the pirates. Local fishermen said the boat came close to Eyl on Friday, but the pirates pushed back into the sea out of fear of Puntland’s coast guards.

But “they cannot move deeper toward the ocean because they are afraid of the foreign military ships,” said fisherman Abdirahman Said.


Migrants who survived Madagascar boat tragedy arrive back in Somalia

Migrants who survived Madagascar boat tragedy arrive back in Somalia
Updated 08 December 2024
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Migrants who survived Madagascar boat tragedy arrive back in Somalia

Migrants who survived Madagascar boat tragedy arrive back in Somalia
  • Survivors were stranded in the ocean for 13 days after their boat’s engines failed

MOGADISHU: Nearly 50 survivors of a migrant boat tragedy last month that left 25 people dead in the Indian Ocean off Madagascar arrived back in Somalia and were received by government officials.

The survivors aged 17 to 50 wore outfits made of fabric with the Somali national flag colors as they disembarked from a plane in the capital, Mogadishu, visibly relieved to return to safety.

Many young Somalis embark every year on dangerous journeys in search of better opportunities abroad. The UN agency has previously raised concerns over the rise in irregular migration from Horn of Africa countries as people flee from conflict and drought.

The survivors told The Associated Press that they were stranded in the ocean for 13 days after their boat’s engines failed.

Ahmed Hussein, traveling with his now-deceased cousin, said they were heading to Europe hoping for a better life. Two vessels carrying the migrants departed Somalia early last month.

“We were split into two small boats. The engine broke down, and we drifted at sea for 13 days with no functioning engine. We had no food or water, and the (few) dates we had ran out during those 13 days. We survived by catching some fish,” he said.

Officials in Madagascar and Somalia had earlier said the boats capsized but offered no further explanation. The authorities had also put the number of survivors at 48 but only 47 arrived in Somalia and the whereabouts of one survivor remained unclear.

The boats left from a beach near the Somali capital, Mogadishu, on Nov. 2 with 73 people on board and were believed to be headed to the French region of Mayotte, according to Jean-Edmond Randrianantenaina, the head of Madagascar’s Maritime Ports Agency. Mayotte, an archipelago, is around 1,600 kilometers from Mogadishu.

Abdirashid Ibrahim, another survivor, recalled how some survivors had swollen ankles and couldn’t walk after being rescued. “On the boat, we had nowhere to sleep, no food, and we were crammed together. Some people died from shock, and others succumbed to starvation,” he said.

Abdulkadir Burgal, director of the Africa Department at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who was at the airport to receive the survivors, told journalists that some of the people who helped the migrants embark on the dangerous journey had been arrested while others died in the incident.

“Eight people involved in the trafficking of Somali migrants have been arrested,” he said.

Maryan Yasin, the president’s special envoy for migration, said the survivors were happy to be home.

“They assured me they will never take the same risk again.” The Somali government is committed to finding a resolution, and this resolution will be a collective effort,” she said.