SEOUL, South Korea: North Korea launched a short-range ballistic missile toward the sea on Sunday, its neighbors said, ramping up testing activities in response to US-South Korean military drills that it views as an invasion rehearsal.
The missile launched from the North’s northwestern region flew across the country before it landed in the waters off its east coast, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement.
It said South Korea’s military has boosted its surveillance posture and maintains a readiness in close coordination with the United States.
Japan’s Defense Ministry said a suspected North Korean missile was launched on Sunday morning. It said the suspected weapon landed outside Japan’s exclusive economic zone. There were no immediate reports of damage in the area.
The launch was the North’s third round of weapons tests since the US and South Korean militaries began their joint military drills last Monday.
The latest US-South Korean drills, which include computer simulations and field exercises, are to continue until Thursday. The field exercises are the biggest of their kind since 2018.
The North views such US-South Korean military drills as a practice to launch an invasion, though Washington and Seoul have steadfastly said their training is defensive in nature.
The weapons North Korea recently tested include its longest-range Hwasong-17 intercontinental ballistic missile designed to strike the US mainland. The North’s state media quoted leader Kim Jong Un as saying the ICBM launch was meant to “strike fear into the enemies.”
A day before the start of the drills, North Korea also fired cruise missiles from a submarine. The North’s state media said the submarine-launched missile was a demonstration of its resolve to respond with “overwhelming powerful” force to the intensifying military maneuvers by “the US imperialists and the South Korean puppet forces.”
North Korea launches missile into sea amid US-South Korea drills
https://arab.news/wv89m
North Korea launches missile into sea amid US-South Korea drills
- Missile launched from the North’s northwestern region before it landed in the waters off its east coast
- Japan said suspected North Korean weapon landed outside Japan’s exclusive economic zone
Afghan man in Oklahoma City arrested for plotting Election Day attack for Daesh — indictment
- Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi, 27, has been living in Oklahoma City after entering the US in 2021 on a special immigrant visa
- Tawhedi and co-conspirator arrested on Monday after they met with FBI assets to buy two AK-47 rifles and ammunition
WASHINGTON: An Afghan man was arrested in Oklahoma for allegedly plotting an election day “terrorist attack,” the US Department of Justice said on Tuesday.
The man, Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi, 27, living in Oklahoma City after entering the US in 2021 on a special immigrant visa, was plotting the attack in the name of Islamic State, according to the indictment. The Special Immigrant Visa program, which admits up to 50 people a year, is available to people who worked with the US armed forces or under chief of mission authority as a translator or interpreter in Iraq or Afghanistan.
The indictment did not indicate whether Tawhedi worked as translator or interpreter in Afghanistan. The Department of Justice did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Tawhedi searched online for information on how to access cameras in the capital, Washington, D.C., and for states that did not require a license to get a firearm, according to the indictment. He also visited the White House and Washington Monument webcameras.
Tawhedi and an underage co-conspirator, who is his brother-in-law, were arrested on Monday after they met with FBI assets to buy two AK-47 rifles and ammunition.
In his post-arrest interview, Tawhedi said the attack planned to target large gatherings of people, during which he and his co-conspirator expected to die as martyrs.
“We will continue to combat the ongoing threat that Daesh and its supporters pose to America’s national security, and we will identify, investigate, and prosecute the individuals who seek to terrorize the American people,” US Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement.
Last week, in a “homeland threat assessment,” the Department of Homeland Security said the US threat environment was expected to remain high in the coming year due to factors including the 2024 election cycle and the war in Gaza.
“Lone offenders and small groups continue to pose the greatest threat. Meanwhile, foreign terrorist organizations, including the Islamic State and Al-Qaeda maintain their enduring intent to conduct or inspire attacks in the Homeland,” the department said in an assessment released on Oct. 2.
The Islamic State militant organization killed and executed thousands of people in the name of its extreme religious interpretation before it was territorially defeated in Iraq in 2017 and Syria in 2019.
Turkish Airlines pilot dies mid-flight, forcing emergency landing
- The plane had taken off from the western US coastal city of Seattle
ISTANBUL: A Turkish Airlines pilot died after collapsing mid-flight, forcing the Turkish national carrier to make an emergency landing in New York, the airline said on Wednesday.
The plane had taken off from the western US coastal city of Seattle on Tuesday evening, airline spokesman Yahya Ustun wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
“The pilot of our Airbus 350... flight TK204 from Seattle to Istanbul collapsed during the flight,” he wrote.
“After an unsuccessful attempt to give first aid, the flight crew of another pilot and a co-pilot decided to make an emergency landing, but he died before landing.”
The 59-year-old pilot, who had worked for Turkish Airlines since 2007, had passed a medical examination in March, which gave no indication of any health problems, Ustun wrote.
Military board substantiates misconduct but declines to fire Marine who adopted Afghan orphan
- US Marine's adoption of an Afghan war orphan has spurred a yearslong legal battle
- Lawyers for Marine Corps argue Mast abused his position to bring the baby girl home
CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C.: A US Marine whose adoption of an Afghan war orphan has spurred a yearslong legal battle and raised alarms at the highest levels of government will remain on active duty.
A three-member panel of Marines found Tuesday that while Maj. Joshua Mast acted in a way unbecoming of an officer in his zealous quest to bring home the baby girl, it did not warrant his separation from the military.
Lawyers for the Marine Corps argued Mast abused his position, disregarded orders of his superiors, mishandled classified information and improperly used a government computer in his fight over the child who was found orphaned on the battlefield in rural Afghanistan in 2019.
Mast and his wife, Stephanie, then lived in rural Fluvanna County, Virginia. They persuaded a judge there to grant them an adoption of the child, even though she remained in Afghanistan as the government there tracked down her extended family and reunited her with them. Mast helped the family flee Afghanistan after the Taliban took over in 2021. Once in the US, Mast used the adoption papers to get the federal government to take the child from her Afghan relatives and give her to him. She has remained with his family ever since.
A five-day board of inquiry hearing held partially behind closed doors at the Marine Forces Special Operations Command at Camp Lejeune was administrative, not criminal, and intended to determine whether Mast was fit to remain in the military. The worst outcome Mast might have faced was an other-than-honorable discharge.
Mast, 41, who now lives in Hampstead, North Carolina, denied the allegations against him, insisting he never disobeyed orders but was encouraged by his supervisors, and was simply upholding the code of the Marine Corps by working tirelessly to ensure the girl was safe. At the front of the room, he set up poster-sized photos of the child as a baby at Afghanistan’s Bagram Airfield and as a smiling toddler in North Carolina.
But because the board substantiated misconduct, a report will be entered into Mast’s file, which could affect promotions and assignments, the Marines said Tuesday. The board’s report will be sent up the ladder to the Secretary of the Navy, who will close the case against Mast.
The child’s fate, however, remains in limbo. The Afghan couple who raised the child for 18 months in Afghanistan is seeking to have Mast’s adoption of her undone. The US Department of Justice has intervened and contended that Mast lied to the Virginia court and federal officials to justify taking the girl, and his actions threaten America’s standing around the world.
The Virginia Court of Appeals ruled earlier this year that the adoption should have never been granted but the case is stalled at the Virginia Supreme Court.
Lawyers for the Afghan couple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Much of the government’s case in the hearing was held in secret because lawyers were presenting classified information. Everyone present in the nondescript conference room was dressed identically in camouflage. And Mast chose to make an unsworn statement in a closed session, which meant he was not subject to cross-examination.
But his wife, Stephanie, testified publicly, offering rare insight into the couple’s motivation for working so vigorously to bring the child into their home. The Masts have long declined to talk to The Associated Press about their actions and the Virginia court file remains sealed. The Masts, as well as the Afghan couple, are now barred from speaking to the media about the state court case.
Stephanie Mast wept as she described her husband’s decision to work to bring the girl back to the United States as exemplary of his commitment to Marine Corps values.
“It was very much an American response,” she said. “We value human life. As Marines, you serve and protect.”
The deciding panel of two lieutenant colonels and a colonel was allowed to ask questions, and one asked Stephanie Mast why she and her husband continued to try to adopt the girl even after she had been reunited with relatives in Afghanistan. They noted that multiple high-ranking officials, including then-Secretary of State Michael Pompeo and a federal judge, told them to stop.
When she responded that getting the child to the United States was their highest priority, the board asked whether the assumption that a child would be better off in the US rather than Afghanistan was a product of Western bias.
“They have a survival mentality,” she said of Afghans. “We believe in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And we wanted her to have that.”
Mozambique votes in election likely to keep ruling party in power
- Poverty is the major concern for Mozambique’s 35 million people, half of whom are registered to vote
- Counting will start after the polls close but official results can take up to two weeks
MAPUTO: Voting was underway in Mozambique in a tense general election highly likely to deliver victory for the ruling party, Frelimo, which has governed the southern African nation since 1975.
Poverty is the major concern for Mozambique’s 35 million people, half of whom are registered to vote, along with an Islamist insurgency in the north that has forced thousands to flee their homes and halted multi-billion-dollar gas projects.
The favorite among four candidates vying to replace President Filipe Nyusi, as he steps down after serving two terms, is Daniel Chapo, 47, a lawyer viewed as a safe choice for business and a fresh face for the long-ruling party.
Accompanied by his wife, Chapo was among the first to cast his vote in a school in the coastal city of Inhambane.
“I want to say thank you to the people of Mozambique for this opportunity we have today,” he told reporters.
Chapo faces off against Venancio Mondlane, a charismatic independent candidate who draws huge crowds, former rebel commander Ossufo Momade, and a small opposition party leader, Lutero Simango.
Among those who braved early morning rain to queue to cast their votes in Maputo, the capital, was 22-year-old student Augusto Ndeve Pais.
“I feel hopeful ... People my age are worried about the future of our country, so I think they will vote,” Pais said, declining to say for whom he was voting.
Counting will start after the polls close at 6 p.m. (1600 GMT), but official results can take up to two weeks.
Frelimo first allowed elections in 1994 and has since been accused of rigging them, charges it denies. A rebel force turned opposition party, Renamo, usually comes a distant second place.
“This election is different because we have new actors ... (but) Frelimo has a big probability to win,” said analyst Dercio Alfazema.
A disputed outcome would probably trigger protests similar to those which broke out after Frelimo swept last year’s municipal elections and which were forcefully suppressed.
But many also feel the elections will change little.
Keila Sitoe, 28, voted with her 21-year-old sister in Maputo. Both, who said they hope for change but do not expect it, declined to reveal their picks.
“We don’t feel the energy. We are young and things are difficult,” said Sitoe, who is also a student.
In the city’s middle-class neighborhood of Malhangalene, where Mondlane lives, voter Rosa Tembe, a 72-year-old widow, hoped for peace in the country’s northern Cabo Delgado province.
“We will ask the person who wins to end the conflict in Cabo Delgado because our grandsons are dying... and we don’t want this to happen anymore,” she said.
Ishiba dissolves Japan’s lower house to set up Oct. 27 parliamentary election
- Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba is seeking to secure a majority in the lower house for his governing party while he is still fresh and before the congratulatory mood fades
TOKYO: Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba dissolved Japan’s lower house of parliament Wednesday to set up an Oct. 27 snap election and seek a mandate from voters for his 9-day-old government.
Ishiba took office last week as Fumio Kishida resigned after leading the governing Liberal Democratic Party for three years as it was dogged by corruption scandals.
With the early election, Ishiba is seeking to secure a majority in the lower house for his governing party while he is still fresh and before the congratulatory mood fades.
The move has been criticized as prioritizing an election rather than policies and for allowing little debate. But Japan’s opposition has remained too fractured to push the governing party out of power.
Ishiba announced his plans for an election even before he won the party leadership vote and became prime minister. His Cabinet planned later Wednesday to formally announce the election date and the start of campaigning next Tuesday.
Ishiba and his Cabinet will stay in office until they win the election and are reappointed.
The speaker of the house, Fukushiro Nukaga, announced the dissolution of the lower, more powerful of the two parliamentary chambers at a plenary session. All 465 lawmakers stood up, cheered “banzai” and rushed out of the assembly room.
“We will act fairly and squarely in order to win the people’s endorsement for the current administration,” Ishiba told reporters. “Even while the lower house is dissolved the Japanese government must fully function” in tackling national security, disaster response and deflation, he said. “We will devote all our body and soul for the people.”
Ishiba planned to explain the election plans at a news conference late Wednesday, just before heading to Laos to make his diplomatic debut at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit.
Opposition leaders have criticized him for rushing to hold an election allowing only three days of parliamentary debate on his policies and before achieving any results.
Even though opposition parties are too fractured to topple the governing party’s almost uninterrupted postwar rule, the first public support ratings for Ishiba as prime minister were only about 50 percent or even lower, the lowest levels for a new leader, according to Japanese media.
Ishiba is increasingly seen as backpedaling on a number of proposals he previously advocated so as not to create controversy ahead of the election.
In his first policy speech at parliament Friday, he did not touch on his goal of establishing a stronger regional military framework and a more equal Japan-US security alliance, a dual surname option for married couples, and other issues seen as controversial or opposed by conservatives within the governing party.
Ishiba is unaffiliated with factions led and controlled by party heavyweights, which some experts say could make his tenure as party leader unstable.
None of his Cabinet ministers is from the late Shinzo Abe’s faction that has been linked to damaging misconduct. He also plans to not endorse some members of the Abe faction in the upcoming election to show his determination for cleaner politics. Opponents have said that’s still too lax, but Ishiba is getting backlash within the party for being too strict.