Japan PM Shinzo Abe promises to handle North Korea threat
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has promised strong "counter-measures" against North Korea, after winning a decisive victory in Sunday's election.
Mr Abe had called an early election for a greater mandate to deal with "crises", including the growing threat from Pyongyang, which has fired missiles over Japan in recent months.
His ruling coalition has retained a two-thirds majority in parliament.
This paves the way for Mr Abe to amend Japan's post-war pacifist constitution.
The prime minister has previously called for the existence of the country's armed forces to be formalised, a controversial move which he says is needed to strengthen Japan's defence but which critics say is a step towards re-militarisation.
Kenya set to hold controversial election rerun as ballot papers arrive
Despite threatened opposition boycott and widespread doubt over logistics, Kenyans look likely to go to the polls again on Thursday
Ballot papers for Kenya’s presidential election next week have begun arriving in the country, in a sign that the troubled poll will probably go ahead.
The final batch of papers is scheduled to arrive from Dubai on Tuesday, less than 48 hours before Kenyans vote for a second time in less than three months to elect a president.
There have been widespread doubts that the Kenyan election officials could overcome huge logistical obstacles to organise the election, taking place after the supreme court annulled the result of an election in August won by the incumbent president, Uhuru Kenyatta.
North Korea sends unprecedented open letter to West urging 'sharp vigilance' against Donald Trump
'If Trump thinks that he would bring the DPRK, a nuclear power, to its knees through nuclear war threat, it will be a big miscalculation and an expression of ignorance'
North Korea has sent an unprecedented open letter to the West, urging “sharp vigilance” against the “heinous and reckless” administration of Donald Trump.
It also announces the emergence of North Korea as a “fully fledged nuclear power".
It is believed the letter, written by the Foreign Affairs Committee, was sent to a number of Western countries covertly.
German military: 200 soldiers classified as far-right extremists since 2008
A German lawmaker has criticized discrepancies in the reporting of right-wing sympathizers among the military's ranks. The identified extremists could use their military training to advance their cause, she warned.
Germany's Military Counterintelligence Service (MAD) has classified about 200 Bundeswehr soldiers as right-wing extremists since 2008, according to a report published Monday in regional daily Mitteldeutsche Zeitung.
The German defense ministry released the figure following a parliamentary inquiry by Green Party lawmaker and domestic policy spokesperson Irene Mihalic, the report said.
Mihalic told the newspaper that the recruitment of more than 20 right-wing extremists per year poses a serious challenge to domestic security. They could use their military training to advance their agenda, she said.
Philippine government declares battle with Islamist militants over in Marawi
The Philippines announced on Monday the end to five months of military operations in a southern city held by pro-Islamic State rebels, after a fierce and unfamiliar urban war that has marked the country’s biggest security crisis in years.
Offensive combat operations were terminated after troops prevailed in what was the last stand against rebel gunmen who clung on inside several buildings in the heart of Marawi, and refused to surrender.
The bodies of 40 of those fighters and two of their wives were found on Monday in two buildings and a mosque in the battle zone. Artillery and automatic gunfire were still heard on Monday and Reuters journalists saw flames behind a mosque.
Israel maintains robust arms trade with rogue regimes
by Jonathan Cook
Tel Aviv - Human rights activists are stepping up efforts to expose Israel's long and covert history of supplying weapons and military training to regimes while they actively commit massacres, ethnic cleansing and genocide.
The issue of Israel's trade with rogue regimes has been thrust into the spotlight again after revelations that it is sending weapons to Myanmar, in defiance of a US and European arms embargo.
Formerly known as Burma, Myanmar was condemned last month by the United Nations for conducting what it called a "textbook ethnic cleansing" of the Rohingya, a Muslim minority. Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya are reported to have fled to neighbouring Bangladesh in recent weeks, after evidence of the torching of entire villages, massacres and systematic rapes.
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