North Korea vows to press on with nuclear agenda as Russia denies trade violations
Pyongyang warns world leaders not to expect any change in policy, declaring itself a ‘responsible’ nuclear power
Russia has denied claims that UN sanctions against North Korea have been breached by Russian tankers transferring fuel to the regime’s tankers at sea.
The statement from the foreign ministry said Russia has “fully and strictly observed the sanctions regime”. It came in response to a Reuters report citing two separate, unidentified western European security sources who said ship-to-ship transfers took place in October and November and represented a breach of sanctions.
The statement did not address whether the ships had transferred the fuel. It did however say resolutions by the UN security council had imposed limits on North Korea’s refined oil imports but had not banned them altogether.
In 2018 the barbarous wars in Iraq and Syria may finally be coming to an end
The new area of instability in the Middle East today is further south in the Arabian Peninsula – the war in Yemen is now the bloodiest and cruellest in the region
I spent most of the last year reporting two sieges, Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria, which finally ended with the decisive defeat of Isis. This was the most important event in the Middle East in 2017, though people are already beginning to forget how dangerous the Isis caliphate was at the height of its power and even in its decline. Not so long ago, its “emirs” ruled an area in western Iraq and eastern Syria which was the size of Great Britain and Isis-inspired or organised terrorists dominated the news every few months by carrying out atrocities from Manchester to Kabul and Berlin to the Sahara. Isis retains the capacity to slaughter civilians – witness events in Sinai and Afghanistan in the last few weeks – but no longer has its own powerful centrally organised state which was what made it such a threat.
The defeat of Isis is cheering in itself and its fall has other positive implications. It is a sign that the end may be coming to the cycle of wars that have torn apart Iraq since 2003, when the US and Britain overthrew Saddam Hussein, and Syria since 2011, when the uprising started against President Bashar al-Assad. So many conflicts were intertwined on the Iraqi and Syrian battlefields – Sunni against Shia, Arab against Kurd, Iran against Saudi Arabia, people against dictatorship, US against a variety of opponents – that the ending of these multiple crises was always going to be messy. But winners and losers are emerging who will shape the region for decades to come. Over-cautious warnings that Isis and al-Qaeda may rise again or transmute into a new equally lethal form underestimate the depth of the changes that have happened over the last few years. The Jihadis have lost regional support, popular Sunni sympathy, the element of surprise, the momentum of victory while their enemies are far stronger than they used to be. The resurrection of the Isis state would be virtually impossible.
Anti-government demonstrations in western Iran turn deadly
Two protesters taking part in demonstrations roiling Iran were killed at a rally overnight, a semi-official news agency reported Sunday, the first deaths attributed to the ongoing protests.
The demonstrations, which began Thursday over the economic woes plaguing Iran, appear to be the largest to strike the Islamic Republic since the protests that followed the country's disputed 2009 presidential election.
In Doroud, a city some 325 kilometers (200 miles) southwest of Tehran, in Iran's western Lorestan province, protesters gathered for an unauthorized rally that lasted into the night Saturday, the semi-official Mehr news agency reported.
Mehr quoted Habibollah Khojastepour, the security deputy of Lorestan's governor, as saying the illegal gathering ignited clashes. The two protesters were killed in the clashes, he sai
DRC blocks internet as anti-Kabila protests planned
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has ordered a countrywide shutdown of internet and SMS services ahead of planned anti-government protests on Sunday.
The country's telecommunications minister, Emery Okundji, issued a letter instructing operators to suspend their services at 18:00 local time (17:00 GMT) on Saturday until further notice, citing "state security" reasons.
The move comes as Catholic church activists have called for a "peaceful march" in various cities, demanding that President Joseph Kabila step down. There is growing anger over Kabila's refusal to relinquish power after his second full term ended in December 2016.
Japanese media’s hits and misses of 2017
BY PHILIP BRASOR
The term “fake news” was used in so many different situations this year that it no longer describes an agreed upon concept but rather anything you don’t agree with. This is why the U.S. press has had a difficult time making sense of its president’s conflation of cynical policy aims with his own deranged self-esteem.
Aside from players with axes to grind on either side of the ideological divide, outlets such as The Washington Post managed to keep facts in sight and as a result did some of their best work in years.
Matters aren’t as problematic in Japan because the mainstream media here rarely acts in an adversarial capacity. Japan’s masukomi (mass communication) is on the same power continuum that runs through the country’s political and economic worlds, but the fact that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has bet the nation’s well-being on the Manichean delusions of U.S. President Donald Trump should make all Japanese reporters and editors with a conscience worry about the state of their soul
The most bizarre stories from around the world in 2017
By Amanda Erickson
It’s been a chaotic year, and a strange one. So much of what’s happened seems scary, or at least unsettling. But it wasn’t all bad.
Here are some of our favorite chronicles from 2017:
It was supposed to be a staid and serious interview about a corruption scandal in South Korea. Instead, a professor was interrupted by his two adorable children — and harried wife — on live TV, apologizing all the while. The professor, Robert E. Kelly, managed to keep a straight face throughout, and he and his wife became viral stars. They later explained that their daughter was in a “hippity hoppity mood.”
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