North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has observed the test firing of a new type of tactical guided weapon aimed at boosting the country’s nuclear capabilities, the North’s KCNA news agency reported on Sunday (April 17).
“The new-type tactical guided weapon system … is of great significance in drastically improving the firepower of the frontline long-range artillery units and enhancing the efficiency in the operation of tactical nukes of the DPRK,” KCNA said.
DPRK stands for the North’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
KCNA did not say when the test took place but the North’s state media usually reports on the leader’s activities a day later.
The latest launch came less than a month after North Korea resumed testing its intercontinental ballistic missiles for the first time since 2017. Officials in Seoul and Washington also say there are signs it could soon resume testing nuclear weapons.
Twelve people were injured, 10 of them by gunfire, in a shooting that erupted on Saturday (April 16) inside a shopping mall in Columbia, South Carolina, and three people were taken into custody, police said.
Columbia Police Chief William Holbrook said the shooting at the Columbiana Centre mall was not believed to have been a random act of violence but rather stemmed from “some kind of conflict” among a group of armed individuals who knew each other.
However, details surrounding the shooting remained sketchy, he said. Local media outlets reported a heavy presence of police and emergency personnel at the mall about 10 miles north of downtown Columbia, the state capital.
No one was killed in the incident, which unfolded at about 2 p.m. local time. But 10 people were struck by gunfire, and eight of them were transported to area hospitals. Of those, two were listed in critical but stable condition and six in stable condition, Holbrook told a news briefing hours later.
The gunshot victims ranged in age from 73 to 15, he said. Two other people were injured in a “stampede” of bystanders running for safety.
At least three people were found to have been carrying firearms inside the mall, and at least one of them fired a weapon, Holbrook said. Three individuals were detained in connection with the shooting, he said.
“The China Manned Space Agency is well on the way to those goals, and this mission has shown they are capable of long-term space flight, which makes Earth’s future goals and plans for the Moon and beyond exciting,” an Australian scholar said.
The Shenzhou-13 mission has been a success, said an Australian scholar in astrophysics.
Dr. Brad Tucker, an astrophysicist and cosmologist at the Australian National University (ANU), told Xinhua that the task was “important to move forward with a long-term space station and full operation.”
Three Chinese astronauts returned to Earth safely on Saturday. Tucker noted that the Shenzhou-13 mission had the big task of getting the Tianhe module and the Tiangong Space Station ready, with spacewalks and even video lessons to school kids on Earth.
The astronauts were sent into space onboard the Shenzhou-13 spaceship and entered Tianhe on Oct. 16, 2021. They had lived and worked in the space station complex for 183 days, the longest stay in space by Chinese astronauts on a single mission, according to the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA).
They have completed multiple tasks over the past few months, including two extravehicular activities, two live science lectures, and a number of sci-tech experiments and application projects. They also used manual teleoperation equipment for the first time, operating the cargo craft and the space station for rendezvous and docking.
Students attend a livestreamed popular-science lecture given by Chinese astronauts from China
“It was great that it went relatively smooth and definitely a success,” said Tucker.
“Six months has now become the normal length for a mission on the International Space Station and so this mission is on par with the Russians and Americans,” he added. According to him, over the next few missions, finalizing the full operation of Tiangong is critical. This will allow for years of science and operation.”
In a previous interview, Tucker has said that as the International Space Station started to show its age, it would be important that Tiangong is operating and can perform science into the future.
Talking about his expectation for China’s development in aerospace, he said it was the Moon.
“CMSA is well on the way to those goals, and this mission has shown they are capable of long-term space flight, which makes Earth’s future goals and plans for the Moon and beyond exciting,” Tucker said.
Screen image taken at Beijing Aerospace Control Center on Jan. 8, 2022 shows the Shenzhou-13 astronauts in China
Britain’s Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, had a face-to-face meeting with Queen Elizabeth on Thursday (April 14), his spokesperson said after The Sun newspaper reported the visit.
The spokesperson said the couple stopped by the United Kingdom on their way to The Hague to attend The Invictus Games, adding that Harry had previously said he hoped to see his grandmother.
Buckingham Palace declined to comment.
The Sun said Harry and Meghan also saw Prince Charles during a visit to Windsor Castle, which it said was their first joint trip to Britain since they quit royal duties in March 2020.
Harry, who moved to the United States with Meghan, did not attend last month’s memorial service for his grandfather, Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, who died in April last year.
His non-attendance followed a disagreement with the government over security protection.
The queen, who turns 96 later this month, has been suffering from mobility problems and did not attend the annual Maundy Service at Windsor Castle’s St George’s Chapel on Thursday. She will also not attend an Easter Sunday service at Windsor.
The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation released further information on the activities of biological laboratories in Ukraine funded by the United States at a press conference on Thursday.
At the press conference, Chief of the Russian Armed Forces’ Radiation, Chemical and Biological Defense Forces Igor Kirillov revealed some details of the U.S.’ project 3007, a monitoring project on epidemiological and ecological situations of extremely dangerous waterborne diseases in Ukraine.
Ukrainian specialists involved in activities controlled by U.S. researchers consistently collected samples of water from major Ukrainian rivers, including the Dnieper, the Danube and the Dniester, as well as from the North Crimean Canal, to detect the presence of extremely dangerous pathogens, including cholera, typhoid fever and hepatitis A and E, and conclude the possibility of spreading them via waterways, according to Kirillov.
The results of these activities may be used for the creation of hostile biological conditions not only in Russia but in the entire area of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, as well as in Eastern European countries such as Belarus, Moldova and Poland, Kirillov said.
The official also revealed that from 2019 to 2021, American scientists at a laboratory in the town of Merefa (the Kharkiv Region) conducted trials of these extremely hazardous samples on patients at the Clinical Psychiatric Hospital No. 3 in the city of Kharkiv.
Individuals with mental disorders were selected for tests based on their age, ethnicity and immune status, and special forms were recording the results of the round-the-clock monitoring of the patients’ conditions. Information was not included in the hospital’s database, and the staff of the medical facility signed a non-disclosure statement.
In January of 2022, the operations of the laboratory in Merefa were suspended, and all equipment and biological products were taken to western Ukraine, according to Kirillov.
On March 9, Russian reconnaissance units found three drones furnished with 30-litre capacities and spraying equipment in the Kherson Region.
In January 2022, Ukraine purchased through intermediary companies over 50 drones that can be employed for using biological substances and toxic chemicals.
The United States has allocated over 350 million U.S. dollars in the past few years to the Science and Technology Center in Ukraine that distributed grants for research in the Pentagon’s interests, including in the field of biological weapons, Kirillov said.
For people in many countries, living in a penthouse is the dream. In North Korea? Not so much. In North Korea, the poor live in penthouses rather than the rich.
Leader Kim Jong Un keeps building outwardly glamorous high-rise apartments in Pyongyang, with the latest being an 80-storey skyscraper completed earlier this week. But defectors and other North Koreans say that unreliable elevators and electricity, poor water supply, and concerns about workmanship mean that historically few people have wanted to live near the top of such structures.
“In North Korea, the poor live in penthouses rather than the rich, because the lift often does not work properly, and they cannot pump water up due to low water pressure,” said Jung Si-woo, a 31-year-old who defected to neighbouring South Korea in 2017.
In the North, he lived on the third floor of a 13-storey building that lacked an elevator, while a friend who lived on the 28th floor of a 40-storey block had never used the elevator because it was not working, Jung said.
On Thursday (April 14) state media showed Kim inaugurating another housing cluster, this time for members of the elite, including a famous TV news presenter, Ri Chun Hi. They were low-rise buildings, each only a few floors tall.
Lee Sang-Yong, the editor-in-chief of Daily NK, a Seoul-based website that reports on North Korea, said his sources reported that the apartments for regular people were not ready to live in.
Windows had only frames and water taps, though installed, were not working, but the recently completed luxury homes come complete with furniture and utensils. To ensure the new high-rise apartments are popular, North Korea will have to further improve electricity and water supplies, and overcome worries about the quality of construction, he added.
North Korea assigns housing, with buying and selling of homes or apartments technically illegal in the socialist state. But experts say the practise has become common, dabbled in mostly by those who benefited from the spread of private markets under Kim. He has vowed to improve construction quality and build tens of thousands of new apartments.
The power supply improved significantly under Kim, spawning some new nightlife opportunities, but North Korea still grapples with shortages and sometimes shoddy infrastructure.
Ukrainians formed long queues outside Kyiv’s main post office on Thursday (April 14) to buy postage stamps of Ukrainian soldier making a crude gesture to a Russian ship, following the news that the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, the Moskva, was badly damaged when ammunition on board blew up.
“An important event happened yesterday. Our Armed Forces destroyed the aggressor’s flagman ship. I think this event has to have a place in everyone’s memory.,” Ukrainian sales director Yevhen said.
The postage stamp is designed after a Ukrainian service member Roman Gribov, who was captured by Russian troops on an island after defying Russian forces with the message: “Russian warship, go f**k yourself”.
Gribov was one of a group of border guards who defied a Russian warship calling on them to surrender near tiny Snake Island in the Black Sea at the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February.
“If you strike the right cord people will like it. So, I believe it’s the right cord for people and it shows,” Ukrainian Director-General of Ukrposhta National Post Operator, Ihor Smilianskyi, said. “I think it shows the resilience of people. It shows how Ukrainians will fight and win.”
Russia said the crew of its Black Sea fleet flagship were evacuated on Thursday and measures were being taken to tow the stricken ship back to port, after an explosion of ammunition on board that Ukraine said was caused by a missile strike.
Russia’s defence ministry said the fire on the Soviet-era missile cruiser Moskva had been contained but left the ship badly damaged. It did not acknowledge the ship, which had more than 500 sailors on board, had been attacked and said the cause of the fire was under investigation
Ukraine’s southern military command said that it hit the warship with a Ukrainian-made Neptune anti-ship missile and that it had started to sink.
Reuters was unable to verify either side’s statements.
Separated by less than an arm’s length, people at a quarantine facility in the Chinese city of Shanghai after testing positive for COVID-19 lie in rows of grey camp beds, suitcases and other belongings strewn next to them.
Footage provided to Reuters on Thursday (April 14) by an occupant of the facility showed over a hundred people crammed into a floor of what looked like an office building, one of dozens of places the city has converted into quarantine centers in its battle to stem the spread of the Omicron coronavirus variant.
The person who filmed the video, who declined to be identified, said there were at least 200 people there including young children. There were no showers, four shared toilets and they had gotten just plain bread for breakfast, she said.
“This centre is so crowded, everyone is less than a metre apart,” the person said. “How do you expect anyone to get better?”
Shanghai has been strictly enforcing quarantine policy, converting schools, recently finished apartment blocks and vast exhibition halls into centres, the largest of which can hold 50,000 people. Authorities said last week they have set up over 60 such facilities. The city reported a new record of 27,719 coronavirus cases on Thursday.
Bin is one of more than 100 villages partially or completely burned by Myanmar’s military trying to suppress opposition since the start of this year
Rubble and ashes, overlooked by a single golden pagoda, are almost all that remains of the wood and brick houses most people had built for themselves in the quiet riverside village of Bin in the Buddhist heartland of central Myanmar.
Bin is one of more than 100 villages partially or completely burned by Myanmar’s military since the start of this year, its homes among more than 5,500 civilian buildings razed as troops try to suppress opposition to last year’s coup, according to media reports collated by activist group Data For Myanmar.
Dozens of satellite images reviewed by Reuters, supplied by U.S earth-imaging company Planet Labs and U.S space agency NASA, show widespread torching of villages in the central part of the country. The photos, largely confirming the local media reports, are among the strongest evidence to date that the military is using widespread arson to step up its assault on resistance in the central Sagaing region, where residents have told Reuters there is armed opposition to the junta.
Military attacks and arson have led to large-scale displacements, residents told Reuters. More than 52,000 people fled their homes in the last week of February alone, according to the United Nations.
Tom Andrews, the United Nations special envoy for human rights in Myanmar has told Reuters he has spoken by phone with several witnesses and other people providing him with information on the ground. He said these people told him that the military had increased attacks in Sagaing over the past few months, with soldiers leading ground assaults and jets carrying out airstrikes.
The military and pro-military militias have been setting fire to villages in central Myanmar almost every day since December, according to reports from BBC Burmese and local media collated by Data For Myanmar and seen by Reuters. Publicly available NASA satellite photos confirm the location of almost all the largest blazes.
Reuters spoke to 14 villagers from the Sagaing region who described how soldiers torched their settlements. Reuters was unable to confirm certain aspects of their accounts. But they were nonetheless consistent with the satellite images seen by the news agency.
The junta, which overthrew the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi on Feb. 1, 2021, has declared any opposition to it illegal and says the military is seeking to restore order in the country. Myanmar’s military did not respond to requests for comment for this story. Over the past few months, the junta has accused opposition forces of burning villages, without presenting evidence.
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