SEOUL, South Korea: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un threatened to expand his nuclear arsenal as he disclosed a list of high-tech weapons systems under development, saying the fate of relations with the United States depends on whether it abandons its hostile policy, state media reported Saturday.
Kim’s comments during a key meeting of the ruling party this week were seen as applying pressure on the incoming administration of President-elect Joe Biden, who has called Kim a “thug” and has criticized his summits with President Donald Trump.
The Korean Central News Agency quoted Kim as saying the “key to establishing new relations between (North Korea) and the United States is whether the United States withdraws its hostile policy.”
Kim said he won’t use his nuclear arsenal unless “hostile forces” intend to use their nuclear weapons against North Korea first. He also suggested he is open to dialogue if Washington is too, but stressed North Korea must further strengthen its military and nuclear capability to cope with intensifying US hostility.
He again called the US his country’s “main enemy.”
“Whoever takes office in the US, its basic nature and hostile policy will never change,” he said.
Biden, who will take office on Jan. 20, is unlikely to hold direct meetings with Kim unless the North Korean leader takes significant denuclearization steps.
Cheong Seong-Chang, a fellow at the Wilson Center’s Asia Program, said Kim’s speech showed he has no interests in denuclearization talks with Biden if he insists that working-level negotiations must sort out contentious issues first.
Kim didn’t cite any specific provocative US actions. North Korea has previously called regular US military drills with South Korea and the American military presence in South Korea as proof of hostility. In particular, the North views the US-South Korean drills as an invasion rehearsal, though the allies have repeatedly denied that.
The North Korean leader listed sophisticated weapons systems that he said were under development. They include a multi-warhead missile, underwater-launched nuclear missiles, solid-fueled long-range missiles and spy satellites. He said North Korea must also advance the precision attack capability on targets in the 15,000 kilometer (9,320 mile)-striking range, an apparent reference to the US mainland, and develop technology to manufacture smaller nuclear warheads to be mounted on long-range missiles more easily.
“Nothing would be more foolish and dangerous than not strengthening our might tirelessly and having an easy-going attitude at a time when we clearly see the enemy’s state-of-the-art weapons are being increased more than ever,” Kim said. “The reality is that we can achieve peace and prosperity on the Korean Peninsula when we constantly build up our national defense and suppress US military threats.”
It’s unclear if North Korea is capable of developing such systems. It’s one of the world’s most cloistered countries, and estimates on the exact status of its nuclear and missile programs vary widely. In 2018, the South Korean government said North Korea was estimated to have up to 60 nuclear weapons.
“What they want to tell the US is we’re developing the new strategic weapons that you can see as the most intimidating. Do you want to come to the negotiating table?” Choi Kang, vice president of Seoul’s Asan Institute for Policy Studies, said. “While Kim leaves the door open for talks, he’s still sending a message to Biden that he’s not an easy (dialogue) partner.”
The ruling party congress convened for the first time in five years. KCNA said Kim spoke for nine hours during his review of party projects from Tuesday to Thursday.
The congress is the Workers Party’s top decision-making body, and it is being held as Kim faces what appears to be the toughest moment of his nine-year rule due to blows to his already-fragile economy — pandemic-related border closings that have sharply reduced the North’s external trade, a spate of natural disasters last summer and US-led sanctions.
During his opening-day speech, Kim called the difficulties the “worst-ever” and admitted his previous economic plans had failed. In his other comments reported Saturday, he called for building a stronger self-supporting economy and reducing reliance on imports. He said new five-year development goals would include more investments in the metal and chemical industries and increasing the production of consumer goods.
Since taking power in late 2011, Kim, who turned 37 on Friday, has pushed the so-called “byungjin” policy of simultaneously seeking economic growth and the expansion of his nuclear deterrent.
During this week’s speeches, Kim said North Korea will further boost ties with China, its biggest ally and economic lifeline. He also slammed South Korea for aggravating animosities by continuing the drills with the US and introducing modern weapons. He said improved ties depend on South Korea’s actions.
South Korea’s Unification Ministry responded that it remains committed to establishing peace and denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula. A statement said it hopes for the early resumption of North Korea-US talks.
North Korea threatens to build more nukes, cites US hostility
https://arab.news/5hs6z
North Korea threatens to build more nukes, cites US hostility
- Kim’s comments during a key meeting of the ruling party this week were seen as applying pressure on the incoming administration of President-elect Joe Biden
Philippines swelters in scorching heat as mercury hits record high in Manila
- Children will attend remote classes on Monday, Tuesday in flashback to COVID times
- Temperature in capital’s Metro region could surpass 40 degrees next month, forecasters say
MANILA: The Philippines is bracing for more blistering weather as temperatures in the capital region rose to a record high over the weekend.
Unusually hot temperatures have been recorded across South and Southeast Asia in recent days, forcing schools to close and authorities to issue health warnings.
In Metro Manila on Saturday, the mercury hit 38.8 degrees Celsius, surpassing the previous record set in 1915.
Elsewhere in the country, the weather has been even hotter, with Tarlac province seeing the mercury hit 40.3 degrees earlier in the year.
The hottest ever temperature recorded in the Philippines was 42.2 degrees in 1912.
Glaiza Escullar of state weather agency PAGASA told Arab News it was likely that some parts of the country would continue to see temperatures of 40 degrees and above until the second week of May.
March, April and May are typically the hottest and driest months of the year, but conditions this year have been exacerbated by the El Nino weather phenomenon.
The heat index, which also takes into account humidity, reached 45 degrees on Saturday, which the weather agency classifies as “danger.” It said it could hit 46 degrees on Monday.
“We are issuing a heat index warning just to emphasize that apart from the hot weather or high temperature, relative humidity has a factor in terms of health,” Escullar said.
“If (a person) is dehydrated or he is not in a good condition, the body tends to overheat because the sweating process is slowed down by the high relative humidity.”
In response to the searing heat and a nationwide transport strike, the Department of Education announced on Sunday that all public schools would be closed on Monday and Tuesday but that classes would be held remotely.
Jeepney drivers are staging a three-day strike in protest at the government’s plan to phase out the iconic vehicles.
Many schools in the Philippines do not have air conditioning and several were forced to close earlier this month and hold remote classes in a reminder of the COVID-19 pandemic.
High school student Ivan Garcia told Arab News the soaring heat was affecting his studies.
“The weather is annoyingly hot … I cannot focus on doing my school work,” he said.
Ninth-grader Adrian Reyes said he preferred to work from home.
“I usually leave the house around noontime and it’s really a challenge especially for me and others like me who have to commute to get to school,” he said.
“I prefer the asynchronous mode of learning because we have aircon at home.”
Wiping out polio ‘not guaranteed,’ support needed — Bill Gates
- Pakistan and the neighboring Afghanistan are the only two countries in the world where polio remains endemic
- Gates warned against complacency in tackling the disease as he welcomed $500 million pledge from Saudi Arabia
LONDON: Success in the fight to wipe out polio is not guaranteed, according to tech billionaire turned philanthropist Bill Gates, whose foundation has poured billions into the effort.
Gates warned against complacency in tackling the deadly viral disease as he welcomed a $500 million pledge from Saudi Arabia on Sunday to fight polio over the next five years, bringing it in line with the US as one of the biggest national donors.
However, there is still a $1.2 billion dollar funding gap in the $4.8 billion budget for the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) up to 2026, a spokesperson said. The new money from Saudi Arabia will go some way toward closing that.
Saudi Arabia has supported polio eradication for more than 20 years, but the significant increase in funding comes amid a “challenging” situation, said Abdullah Al Moallem, director of health at the King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Center, the kingdom’s aid arm.
Cases of polio, a viral disease that used to paralyze thousands of children every year, have declined by more than 99 percent since 1988 thanks to mass vaccination campaigns.
But the aim of getting cases down to zero, particularly in the two countries where the wild form of the virus remains endemic – Afghanistan and Pakistan – has been held up by insecurity in the regions where pockets of children remain unvaccinated.
“It’s not guaranteed that we will succeed,” Gates told Reuters in an online call last week. “I feel very strongly that we can succeed, but it’s been difficult.”
The support of powerful Muslim countries such as Saudi Arabia would help, he added, particularly in addressing some lingering suspicions about vaccination.
The foundation said it would open a regional office in Riyadh to support the polio and other regional programs.
It is allocating $4 million to humanitarian relief in Gaza, to be distributed through UNICEF, it said. The King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Center will also allocate $4 million, it said.
The first missed target for eradicating polio was in 2000, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is the largest donor trying to realize that goal.
“If we’re still here 10 years from now, people might be urging me to give up,” Gates said. “But I don’t think we will be. If things go well, we’ll be done in three years,” he said.
Chants of ‘shame on you’ greet guests at White House correspondents’ dinner shadowed by war in Gaza
- “Western media we see you, and all the horrors that you hide,” crowds chanted at one point
WASHINGTON: The war in Gaza spurred large protests outside a glitzy roast with President Joe Biden, journalists, politicians and celebrities Saturday but went all but unmentioned by participants inside, with Biden instead using the annual White House correspondents’ dinner to make both jokes and grim warnings about Republican rival Donald Trump’s fight to reclaim the U.S. presidency.
An evening normally devoted to presidents, journalists and comedians taking outrageous pokes at political scandals and each other often seemed this year to illustrate the difficulty of putting aside the coming presidential election and the troubles in the Middle East and elsewhere.
Biden opened his roast with a direct but joking focus on Trump, calling him “sleepy Don,” in reference to a nickname Trump had given the president previously.
Despite being similar in age, Biden said, the two presidential hopefuls have little else in common. “My vice president actually endorses me,” Biden said. Former Trump Vice President Mike Pence has refused to endorse Trump’s reelection bid.
But the president quickly segued to a grim speech about what he believes is at stake this election, saying that another Trump administration would be even more harmful to America than his first term.
“We have to take this serious — eight years ago we could have written it off as ‘Trump talk’ but not after January 6,” Biden told the audience, referring to the supporters of Trump who stormed the Capitol after Biden defeated Trump in the 2020 election.
Trump did not attend Saturday's dinner and never attended the annual banquet as president. In 2011, he sat in the audience, and glowered through a roasting by then-President Barack Obama of Trump's reality-television celebrity status. Obama's sarcasm then was so scalding that many political watchers linked it to Trump's subsequent decision to run for president in 2016.
Biden’s speech, which lasted around 10 minutes, made no mention of the ongoing war or the growing humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
One of the few mentions came from Kelly O’Donnell, president of the correspondents’ association, who briefly noted some 100 journalists killed in Israel's 6-month-old war against Hamas in Gaza. In an evening dedicated in large part to journalism, O’Donnell cited journalists who have been detained across the world, including Americans Evan Gershkovich in Russia and Austin Tice, who is believed to be held in Syria. Families of both men were in attendance as they have been at previous dinners.
To get inside Saturday's dinner, some guests had to hurry through hundreds of protesters outraged over the mounting humanitarian disaster for Palestinian civilians in Gaza. They condemned Biden for his support of Israel's military campaign and Western news outlets for what they said was undercoverage and misrepresentation of the conflict.
“Shame on you!” protesters draped in the traditional Palestinian keffiyeh cloth shouted, running after men in tuxedos and suits and women in long dresses holding clutch purses as guests hurried inside for the dinner.
“Western media we see you, and all the horrors that you hide,” crowds chanted at one point.
Other protesters lay sprawled motionless on the pavement, next to mock-ups of flak vests with “press” insignia.
Ralliers cried “Free, free Palestine." They cheered when at one point someone inside the Washington Hilton — where the dinner has been held for decades — unfurled a Palestinian flag from a top-floor hotel window.
Criticism of the Biden administration's support for Israel's military offensive in Gaza has spread through American college campuses, with students pitching encampments and withstanding police sweeps in an effort to force their universities to divest from Israel. Counterprotests back Israel's offensive and complain of antisemitism.
Biden’s motorcade Saturday took an alternate route from the White House to the Washington Hilton than in previous years, largely avoiding the crowds of demonstrators.
Saturday's event drew nearly 3,000 people. Celebrities included Academy Award winner Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Scarlett Johansson, Jon Hamm and Chris Pine.
Both the president and comedian Colin Jost, who spoke after Biden, made jabs at the age of both the candidates for president. “I’m not saying both candidates are old. But you know Jimmy Carter is out there thinking, ‘maybe I can win this thing,’” Jost said. “He’s only 99.”
Law enforcement, including the Secret Service, instituted extra street closures and other measures to ensure what Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said would be the “highest levels of safety and security for attendees.”
Protest organizers said they aimed to bring attention to the high numbers of Palestinian and other Arab journalists killed by Israel's military since the war began in October.
More than two dozen journalists in Gaza wrote a letter last week calling on their colleagues in Washington to boycott the dinner altogether.
“The toll exacted on us for merely fulfilling our journalistic duties is staggering," the letter stated. “We are subjected to detentions, interrogations, and torture by the Israeli military, all for the ‘crime’ of journalistic integrity.”
One organizer complained that the White House Correspondents' Association — which represents the hundreds of journalists who cover the president — largely has been silent since the first weeks of the war about the killings of Palestinian journalists. WHCA did not respond to a request for comment.
According to a preliminary investigation released Friday by the Committee to Protect Journalists, nearly 100 journalists have been killed covering the war in Gaza. Israel has defended its actions, saying it has been targeting militants.
“Since the Israel-Gaza war began, journalists have been paying the highest price — their lives — to defend our right to the truth. Each time a journalist dies or is injured, we lose a fragment of that truth,” CPJ Program Director Carlos Martínez de la Serna said in a statement.
Sandra Tamari, executive director of Adalah Justice Project, a U.S.-based Palestinian advocacy group that helped organize the letter from journalists in Gaza, said “it is shameful for the media to dine and laugh with President Biden while he enables the Israeli devastation and starvation of Palestinians in Gaza."
In addition, Adalah Justice Project started an email campaign targeting 12 media executives at various news outlets — including The Associated Press — expected to attend the dinner who previously signed onto a letter calling for the protection of journalists in Gaza.
“How can you still go when your colleagues in Gaza asked you not to?" a demonstrator asked guests heading in. "You are complicit.”
___ Associated Press writers Mike Balsamo, Aamer Madhani, Fatima Hussein and Tom Strong contributed to this report.
UK to build memorial to Muslim soldiers who fought in world wars
- Monument, featuring Islamic calligraphy, will reflect ‘incredible narrative,’ architect says
- About 8m Muslim soldiers and laborers stood alongside Allied forces
LONDON: The UK is building a war memorial to the millions of Muslim soldiers who served alongside British and Commonwealth forces during the two world wars, Sky News reported.
The 13.2-meter-tall monument, which has been several years in the planning, will stand at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire. Built from brick and terracotta it will be inscribed with the personal stories of the soldiers.
About 2.5 million Muslim soldiers and laborers served in the militaries of the Allied powers during the First World War and about 5.5 million in the Second World War.
Benny O’Looney, the memorial’s architect, said: “The idea is, as you approach the memorial, it draws you in. And you can see there’s more detail, more information, more craftsmanship.
“The idea is to show a panorama of the Muslim soldiers’ service in the world war from gritty 1914 — this incredible narrative of plugging the gap and saving the expeditionary forces on the Western Front.”
The inspiration for the design, which features Islamic calligraphy, came from journeys to the Indian subcontinent, O’Looney said.
The monument will be erected on a site already containing memorials to Sikhs, Gurkhas and others.
Irfan Malik, a doctor from Nottingham whose ancestors served in both world wars, said: “I’m so glad we are near to fruition now, so that we can remember this forgotten history of the Muslim soldiers in both of the great wars and looking at Muslim contributions globally as well.
“Both of my great-grandfathers — Capt. Ghulam Mohammad and Subedar (roughly equivalent to warrant officer) Mohammad Khan — were part of the Great War and my two grandfathers were part of the Second World War, serving in Burma.
“They all descended from Dulmial village, which is based in the salt range in Punjab in present-day Pakistan, a very famous military village.”
The memorial would serve as a “symbol of remembrance of those campaigns, the sacrifices made and also an opportunity to educate our younger generation to improve community cohesion in this country,” Malik said.
France charges Daesh official’s ex-wife with crimes against humanity
- The woman identified only as Sonia M. was accused by a Yazidi woman of raping her twice and knowing that her husband was raping her, Le Parisien reported
- The Yazidi woman was 16 when she was taken captive by Daesh militants and forced into slavery by top Daesh official Abdelnasser Benyoucef
PARIS: France has charged the ex-wife of a top Daesh official with crimes against humanity on suspicion of enslaving a teenage Yazidi girl in Syria, French media reported.
A woman identified as Sonia M., the former wife of the jihadist group’s head of external operations Abdelnasser Benyoucef, was charged on March 14, Le Parisien said Saturday.
The Yazidi woman, who was 16 when she was forced into slavery by Benyoucef, accused Sonia M. of raping her twice and knowing that her husband was raping her, the report said.
The woman, now 25, said she was held for more than a month in 2015 in Syria, where she was not allowed to eat, drink or shower without Sonia M.’s permission.
Sonia M. denied the allegations against her in a March 14 interview with French investigators, saying “only one rape” had been committed by her former husband.
The teenager “left her room freely, ate what she wanted, went to the toilet when she needed to,” she said in her interview, seen by AFP.
Sonia M.’s lawyer Nabil Boudi slammed the charges as “opportunistic accusations,” saying that prosecutors were seeking “to make her responsible for the most serious crimes, because the courts have not managed to apprehend the real perpetrators.”
An arrest warrant has been issued for Benyoucef, according to a source close to the investigation.
France launched an investigation in 2016 into genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes committed against ethnic and religious minorities in Iraq and Syria since 2012.
The probe has focused on crimes suffered by members of the Yazidi and Christian communities as well as members of the Sheitat tribe, according to France’s PNAT anti-terror unit.
“The aim is to document these crimes and identify the French perpetrators who belong to the Islamic State organization,” PNAT told AFP.
