Mike Pompeo: CIA chief 'made secret trip to North Korea'
CIA director Mike Pompeo travelled to Pyongyang for a secret meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, US media report.
The meeting to prepare for direct talks between US President Donald Trump and Mr Kim took place on about 1 April, unnamed officials said.
Mr Trump had earlier alluded to high-level direct talks with Pyongyang.
But this unexpected and clandestine meeting would mark the highest level US contact with North Korea since 2000.
"We have had direct talks at... extremely high levels," Mr Trump said from Florida, where he is hosting Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
Somaliland poet jailed for three years in crackdown on writers
Naima Abwaan Qorane sentenced for ‘anti-national activity’ in former British protectorate
A poet has been sentenced to three years in prison in Somaliland as part of a wide-ranging crackdown against activists and writers.
Naima Abwaan Qorane, 27, was jailed on Sunday for “anti-national activity of a citizen and bringing the nation or state in contempt”.
Prosecutors said she had expressed opinions on social media that undermined the semi-autonomous state’s claim to full independence.
German theater under probe for promising free tickets to those donning swastika
A theater is under investigation for promising free entry to spectators who wear a swastika to a play named after Adolf Hitler's "Mein Kampf." The theater has defended the move as a social experiment.
German prosecutors have launched a probe into a theater's plans to offer free tickets to a play named after Adolf Hitler's "Mein Kampf" to people willing to don a swastika.
A spokesman from the prosecutor's office in the southern city of Constance said it had received a number of complaints about the theater's offer. Under German law, publicly displaying the National Socialist symbol is illegal, with very few exceptions.
Cuba set to usher in new era without a Castro at the helm
Cuban lawmakers were set to start a two-day session on Wednesday to name the first non-Castro president in more than 40 years, ushering in younger Communist leaders who will be under pressure to revitalise the creaking economy.
The replacement for President Raul Castro is widely expected to be First Vice-President Miguel Diaz-Canel, 57, an engineer who embraces technology and appears socially liberal but is considered a safe pair of hands to follow the elderly leaders who fought the 1959 revolution, as they retire.
The next president is likely to be cautious at first, seeking to consolidate support among conservatives despite a desire for faster development of an economy smaller than it was in 1985, when Cuba had the support of the Soviet Union.
The next president is likely to be cautious at first, seeking to consolidate support among conservatives despite a desire for faster development of an economy smaller than it was in 1985, when Cuba had the support of the Soviet Union.
China's live fire drill a 'red line' in Taiwan Strait
Beijing: China has held a live-fire drill in the Taiwan Strait, with Chinese media reporting the aim was to "deter separatists" and "draw a red line to the US and Taiwan".By Kirsty Needham
However Taiwan's president, Tsai Ing-wen, who has drawn the ire of Beijing since taking office in May 2016, was not in the country as the naval drill started on Wednesday.
Taiwan accused Beijing of sabre rattling, and Taiwan's military chiefs downplayed China's People's Liberation Army's exercise, which is the first live fire drill in the Taiwan Strait since Tsai took office.
Tsai left for her first official visit to Africa a day earlier, arriving in Swaziland, one of the few nations to offer Taiwan diplomatic recognition. She presented King Mswati III with five cows.
After Eastern Ghouta siege ends, healthcare is in short supply
As the buses with people who were forced from their homes left parts of Eastern Ghouta, government forces and allied militia moved in after five years of siege and bombings.
Pro-Assad government television crews rushed in to show how the enclave had been run by rebel fighters, who they call "terrorists".
Relentless bombardment had forced people underground into basements. Aid workers say people often spent days in poor living conditions inEastern Ghouta.
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