North Korea pledges deeper ties with Russia as security chief visits

North Korea pledges deeper ties with Russia as security chief visits
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, meets with a delegation led by Sergei Shoigu, Secretary of the Security Council of Russia. (Reuters)
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Updated 14 September 2024
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North Korea pledges deeper ties with Russia as security chief visits

North Korea pledges deeper ties with Russia as security chief visits
  • Western powers have accused cash-strapped North Korea of selling ammunition to Russia
  • North Korea has recently bolstered military ties with Russia

SEOUL: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un pledged to deepen ties with Russia as he held talks with visiting security chief Sergei Shoigu, state media reported Saturday.
Western powers have accused cash-strapped North Korea of selling ammunition to Russia in defiance of sanctions over the more than 30-month war in Ukraine.
North Korea has recently bolstered military ties with Russia, with President Vladimir Putin making a rare visit to Pyongyang in June, where he signed a mutual defense agreement with Kim.
Pictures in North Korean state media showed Kim and Shoigu hugging and smiling at the end of their visit, with the North Korean leader “wishing the respected President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin good health and success in his work.”
The pair were described as having had “constructive” talks in “a friendly and trustworthy, warm atmosphere.”
The exact location of their meeting was not disclosed, but experts suspect it was the Kumsusan Guest Palace in Pyongyang, which has hosted both Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
“There was a wide exchange of views on the issues of steadily deepening the strategic dialogue between the two countries and strengthening cooperation to defend the mutual security interests and on the regional and international situation,” North Korean state media said.
Kim “affirmed that the DPRK government would further expand cooperation and collaboration” with Russia based on the treaty they signed in June, it added, using the country’s official name.
Russia’s security council said on its website that Shoigu’s meeting with Kim will “make an important contribution to the implementation” of the defense pact.
Shoigu heads Russia’s Security Council after stepping down as defense minister in May.
He last met with Kim in July 2023, during a celebration in Pyongyang for the 70th anniversary of the 1953 Korean War armistice.
Their latest meeting comes two days after North Korea fired multiple short-range ballistic missiles into waters east of the Korean peninsula. Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the testing spree was possibly of weapons meant “for export to Russia.”
On Friday, North Korea released images of its uranium enrichment facility for the first time, and Kim stressed “the need to further augment the number of centrifuges in order to exponentially increase the nuclear weapons for self-defense.”
The United States and South Korea have accused North Korea of supplying ammunition and missiles for Russia’s war effort, a claim Pyongyang has called “absurd.”
A Conflict Armament Research report this week used debris analysis to show “that missiles produced this year in North Korea are being used in Ukraine.”
Russia, a historical ally of North Korea, is one of a handful of nations with which Pyongyang maintains friendly relations. Ties have warmed since the 2022 start of the Ukraine war ruptured Russia’s relations with the West.


UK PM Starmer’s chief of staff steps down, takes new role

UK PM Starmer’s chief of staff steps down, takes new role
Updated 17 sec ago
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UK PM Starmer’s chief of staff steps down, takes new role

UK PM Starmer’s chief of staff steps down, takes new role
LONDON, Oct 6 : British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s chief of staff Sue Gray has resigned just over three months after the Labour Party won a parliamentary election, after rumors about in-fighting in Starmer’s team.
“In recent weeks it has become clear to me that intense commentary around my position risked becoming a distraction to the government’s vital work of change,” Gray said in a statement.
Gray will take up a new post as Starmer’s envoy for the regions and nations, the prime minister’s office said.
Gray will be replaced by Morgan McSweeney who previously was chief adviser to the prime minister, it said.

Rwanda will deploy Marburg vaccine under trial as death toll rises to 12

Rwanda will deploy Marburg vaccine under trial as death toll rises to 12
Updated 4 min 24 sec ago
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Rwanda will deploy Marburg vaccine under trial as death toll rises to 12

Rwanda will deploy Marburg vaccine under trial as death toll rises to 12
KIGALI: Rwandan health authorities will begin a vaccine study against the Marburg hemorrhagic fever, officials said Sunday, as the East African country tries to stop the spread of an outbreak that has killed 12 people.
Rwanda, which received 700 doses of a vaccine under trial from the U.S.-based Sabin Vaccine Institute on Saturday, will target health workers and emergency responders as well as individuals who have been in contact with confirmed cases, according to the Health Ministry.
Health Minister Sabin Nsanzimana told reporters Sunday that the Rwanda Biomedical Centre had reviewed the vaccine shipment.
There is no authorized vaccine or treatment for Marburg.
Like Ebola, the Marburg virus is believed to originate in fruit bats and spreads between people through close contact with the bodily fluids of infected individuals or with surfaces, such as contaminated bed sheets. Without treatment, Marburg can be fatal in up to 88% of people who fall ill with the disease.
In a statement, Sabin Vaccine Institute said it had “entered into a clinical trial agreement with the Rwanda Biomedical Centre, the trial sponsor, to provide investigational doses" for the study.
The Rwandan government said there were 46 confirmed cases, with 29 of them in isolation. Health authorities have identified at least 400 people who came into contact with confirmed cases of the virus.
Rwanda declared an outbreak of Marburg on Sept. 27 and reported six deaths a day later. Authorities said at the time that the first cases had been found among patients in health facilities. There is still no confirmation of the source of the outbreak.
Symptoms include fever, muscle pains, diarrhea, vomiting and, in some cases, death through extreme blood loss.
In Rwanda, most of the sick are health workers in six out of the country's 30 districts. Some patients live in districts bordering Congo, Burundi, Uganda and Tanzania, according to the World Health Organization.
Rwandans have been urged to avoid physical contact to help curb the spread. Strict measures include the suspension of school and hospital visits as well as a restriction on the number of those who can attend funerals for Marburg victims. Home vigils aren’t allowed in the event a death is linked to Marburg.
The U.S. Embassy in Kigali has urged its staff to work remotely and avoid visiting offices.
Marburg outbreaks and individual cases have in the past been recorded in Tanzania, Equatorial Guinea, Angola, Congo, Kenya, South Africa, Uganda and Ghana, according to WHO.
The virus was first identified in 1967, after it caused simultaneous outbreaks of disease in laboratories in Marburg, Germany and Belgrade, Serbia. Seven people died after being exposed to the virus while conducting research on monkeys.

Philippines to send halal trade mission to Saudi Arabia this month

Philippines to send halal trade mission to Saudi Arabia this month
Updated 58 min 52 sec ago
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Philippines to send halal trade mission to Saudi Arabia this month

Philippines to send halal trade mission to Saudi Arabia this month
  • Philippine businesses participate at 2024 halal expo in Riyadh
  • Halal trade delegation also includes tourism, agriculture officials

MANILA: The Philippines is preparing to send a halal trade mission to Saudi Arabia later this month as the Southeast Asian nation seeks to deepen trade relations with the Kingdom.

Organized by the Philippine Department of Trade and Industry, the activities will cover Riyadh and Jeddah from Oct. 27 to Nov. 5.

Philippine officials have been working to expand their domestic halal industry, while also seeking to boost trade relations with Saudi Arabia.

“This Philippine halal mission to Saudi Arabia aims to effectively promote the burgeoning Philippine halal trade industry and further strengthen trade relations between the Philippines and Saudi Arabia,” Rommel Romato, charge d’affaires of the Philippine Embassy in Riyadh, told Arab News on Sunday.

“The Philippine delegation is composed of government agencies and private sector entities or representatives who will take part in the Saudi International Halal Expo 2024 in Riyadh.”

The mission will also include tourism and agriculture officials, as well as members of the National Commission on Muslim Filipinos, the body governing Muslim affairs in the Southeast Asian nation, Romato added.

The predominantly Catholic Philippines — where Muslims constitute about 10 percent of the nearly 120 million population — has plans to double the number of its halal-certified products and services, raise 230 billion pesos ($4 billion) in investments and generate around 120,000 jobs by 2028 by tapping into the global halal market, which is estimated to be worth more than $7 trillion.

Earlier this year, the DTI sent a business-matching mission to Saudi Arabia, comprising food, beverage and personal care exporters.

Manila recorded a rise in Philippine-Saudi trade volume from 2022 to 2023, following President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s visit to Riyadh last October, during which a $4.26 billion investment agreement was signed with Saudi business leaders.


Teenager 'stabbed 50 times', burned alive in Marseille: prosecutors

Teenager 'stabbed 50 times', burned alive in Marseille: prosecutors
Updated 06 October 2024
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Teenager 'stabbed 50 times', burned alive in Marseille: prosecutors

Teenager 'stabbed 50 times', burned alive in Marseille: prosecutors
MARSEILLE: A 15-year-old boy was "stabbed 50 times" and burned alive this week in the southern French city of Marseille in an apparent case of drug-related violence, prosecutors said on Sunday.
Speaking to reporters, Marseille prosecutor Nicolas Bessone said the teenager was murdered on Wednesday, describing the case as one of "unprecedented savagery."
Marseille, France's second-largest city but also one of its poorest, is plagued by drug-related violence.
Bessone said that victims and perpetrators of such violence were getting increasingly younger.
The city has in recent years witnessed a turf war for control of the highly profitable drug market between various clans including DZ Mafia.
The teenager had been hired by a 23-year-old prisoner to intimidate a competitor by setting fire to his door, the prosecutor said, adding he had been promised 2,000 euros.
The teenager had however been spotted by members of a rival gang who repeatedly stabbed him then set him on fire, he added.
The same prisoner then recruited a 14-year-old minor to carry out a revenge attack and kill a member of the Blacks gang, promising to pay him 50,000 euros.
The 14-year-old hired a 36-year-old driver who angered the minor and ended up being killed.
The two latest cases mean that the number of drug-related killings in Marseille has risen to 17 since the start of the year.
By comparison, a total of 49 people were killed in drug related violence in Marseille in 2023.
san-ol-as/rlp

1 dead as Russia strikes Ukraine with drones and missiles

1 dead as Russia strikes Ukraine with drones and missiles
Updated 06 October 2024
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1 dead as Russia strikes Ukraine with drones and missiles

1 dead as Russia strikes Ukraine with drones and missiles

KYIV: One person has died after Russian forces attacked Ukraine overnight with 87 Shahed drones and four different types of missiles, officials said Sunday.
A 49-year-old man was killed in the Kharkiv region after his car was hit by a drone, said regional Gov. Oleh Syniehubov. A gas pipeline was also damaged and a warehouse set alight in the city of Odesa, Ukrainian officials reported.
Ukraine’s air force said in a statement that air defenses had destroyed 56 of the 87 drones and two missiles over 14 Ukrainian regions, including the capital, Kyiv.
Another 25 drones disappeared from radar “presumably as a result of anti-aircraft missile defense,” it said.
The barrage comes a day after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Saturday that he will present his “victory plan” at the Oct. 12 meeting of the Ramstein group of nations that supplies arms to Ukraine.
Zelenskyy presented his plan to U.S. President Joe Biden in Washington last week. Its contents have not been made public but it is known that the plan includes Ukrainian membership in NATO and the provision of long-range missiles to strike inside Russia.
In a statement Sunday, the Ukrainian leader paid tribute to the country’s troops, which he also described as “preparing (for) the next Ramstein.”
“They demonstrate what Ukrainians are capable of when they have enough weapons and sufficient range,” he said in a statement on social media. “We will keep convincing our partners that our drones alone are not enough. More decisive steps are needed — and the end of this war will be closer.”