US presses North Korea for 'historic' plan to disarm as Pompeo meets Kim aide
State department says regime must map out denuclearisation steps it is willing to take if summit is to go ahead
The official was speaking in New York as the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, and a top North Korean official, Kim Yong-chol, met over a dinner ahead of a day of talks on Thursday aimed at defining negotiating positions and narrowing differences before the summit.
In a letter to Kim last week, Trump declared he was calling off the summit scheduled for 12 June in Singapore, after a spat broke out between Washington and Pyongyang over military exercises the US conducted with South Korea, and expectations of the outcome of the unprecedented meeting between the two national leaders.
Why Arkady Babchenko's strange resurrection is a PR gift for the Kremlin
Arkady Babchenko has no doubt walked into a number of press conferences in his journalism career, but few would have been like this. He was being presented by Ukrainian authorities, alive and well, a day after he had been reportedly assassinated outside his home.
The head of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) Vasyl Hrytsak said that the Russian Mr Babchenko – a staunch critic of the Kremlin – had agreed to take part in a ruse to lure contract killers to arrest. The operation had helped prevent both Mr Babchenko’s own death and a wider, unspecified terrorist attack, Mr Hrytsak claimed.
“I’m still alive,” Mr Babchenko told a startled room. “I’m sorry you had to go through this but there was no other way.”
UN warns Gaza on the brink of war
The latest escalation of fighting between Israel and Palestinian Hamas has pushed Gaza to the brink of war, the UN envoy for the Middle East warned the Security Council on Wednesday.
Nickolay Mladenov delivered the stark warning as the council remained deadlocked over how to respond to the flare-up between Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip and Israel.
"This latest round of attacks is a warning to all of how close to the brink of war we are every day," said Mladenov, who spoke via video link from Jerusalem.
The council met in emergency session at the request of the United States, which had asked the top UN body to condemn rocket firings by Hamas and Islamic Jihad on Israel.
More Nicaragua protesters killed in Mother's Day march
Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets of Nicaragua's capital calling on President Daniel Ortega to resign in the latest and largest anti-government protest in decades.
At least three more protesters were killed and several others wounded in Managua on Wednesday as anti-Ortega demonstrations continued and anger grows in the Latin American nation.
The Mother's Day march was organised in solidarity with the mothers of students and peaceful demonstrators who have been killed by police and pro-government forces since the start of a nationwide political crisis on April 18.
Fukushima tells world radiation is down, exports up after nuclear crisis
Fukushima Gov Masao Uchibori on Wednesday told the international community that the nuclear-crisis-hit Japanese prefecture is mostly decontaminated and that its food exports are picking up.
"Our consistent efforts over the seven years have borne fruit and recovery is under way," Uchibori said at a press conference at One World Trade Center in New York City, a site symbolizing the U.S. recovery from the tragedy of the terror attacks on Sept.11, 2001.
He said the prefecture has completed decontamination work for 97 percent of its land after a magnitude-9.0 earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011, triggered reactor meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. The governor also said the size of evacuation zones has dropped to 3 percent of prefectural land from the peak of 12 percent.
The story of Pakistan's 'disappeared' Shias
CCTV images from a local mosque show 30-year-old Naeem Haider being led away in handcuffs by more than a dozen armed men. Some have their faces covered with masks, others are in police uniform.
It was the night of 16 November 2016. Mr Haider has not been seen since. Despite the CCTV video evidence both the police and intelligence services have denied in court that he is in their custody.
Mr Haider is one of 140 Pakistani Shias to have "disappeared" over the past two years, according to community activists. Their families believe they were taken into custody by the intelligence services. Over 25 of the missing, including Mr Haider, belong to Pakistan's largest city Karachi.
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