SEOUL: North Korea has unveiled a new “suicide drone,” state media said Monday, with leader Kim Jong Un overseeing a performance test of the weapons, which experts said could have come from Russia.
Wearing a cream baker boy hat, Kim was shown beaming as he watched, aided by high-powered binoculars, as the drones blew up targets, images in state media showed.
Kim said that “it is necessary to develop and produce more suicide drones,” the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported, in addition to “strategic reconnaissance and multi-purpose attack drones.”
Suicide drones are explosive-carrying unmanned drones designed to be deliberately crashed into enemy targets, effectively acting as guided missiles.
The nuclear-armed North’s growing drone fleet will “be used within different striking ranges to attack any enemy targets on the ground and in the sea,” KCNA said.
All the drones North Korea tested on August 24 “correctly identified and destroyed the designated targets after flying along different preset routes,” it added.
Kim also said his country would work toward “proactively introducing artificial intelligence technology into the development of drones.”
Experts said the drones in the images released by state media looked similar to the Israeli-made “HAROP” suicide drone, Russian-made “Lancet-3” and Israeli “HERO 30.”
North Korea may have acquired these technologies from Russia, which in turn likely obtained them from Iran — with Tehran itself suspected of accessing them through hacking or theft from Israel.
“The suicide drone that looks similar to HAROP can fly over 1,000km (600 miles),” said Cho Sang-keun, a professor at South Korea’s Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology.
This is a significant threat to South Korea’s national security and its critical facilities, added Cho.
“They are showing off that they have the ability to hit everything from the tactical level to the strategic level.”
“Should there be a provocation or an international conflict, the South Korean army would inevitably sustain significant damage from these suicide drones,” said Cho.
In 2022, Pyongyang sent drones across the border which Seoul’s military was unable to shoot down, saying they were too small.
In 2023, South Korea launched a drone operation command to better address the growing threat.
Pyongyang and Moscow have been allies since North Korea’s founding after World War II and have drawn even closer since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
The United States and South Korea have accused North Korea of providing ammunition and missiles to Russia for its war in Ukraine.
Kim Jong Un unveils new North Korea ‘suicide drones’
https://arab.news/2bjmh
Kim Jong Un unveils new North Korea ‘suicide drones’
- Suicide drones are explosive-carrying unmanned drones designed to be deliberately crashed into enemy targets, effectively acting as guided missiles
Albanian port awaits first migrant transfer from Italy
- The five-year deal with Albania, estimated to cost Italy 160 million euros ($175 million) annually, covers adult male migrants intercepted by Italian vessels in international waters, but within Italy’s search and rescue area
SHENGJIN, Albania: The fishermen in Shengjin barely give a look at the temporary cabins built on one side of the Albanian port that Italy considers a groundbreaking scheme in Europe’s campaign against undocumented migrants.
Sixteen men from Bangladesh and Egypt, rescued in the Mediterranean on Sunday, are set to become the first residents at the Shengjin migrant center on Wednesday.
The migrant scheme could be discussed at a European Union summit this week. But Arben Leli is more worried about whether the fish bite.
“I don’t care about migrants, when they arrive, when they leave, what they do,” Leli told AFP as he tended his nets.
“I have the sea, I want to fish, that’s my life,” the 56-year-old added.
Nearby, Dashamira Deda was pulling fish from a net.
The mother-of-two, who works with her husband on a boat, said that “human nature is to think first of ourselves and then of what’s going on around us... the best thing was to leave us alone.”
Deda said the people of Shengjin, with its population of about 8,000, did not want to appear callous, but they have other pressing concerns, including making a living.
“We are just hoping it’s for a good cause without harming our lives,” the 42-year-old added, without even a glance at the center’s high walls.
But this center, and another in nearby Gjader, has been drawing growing European attention since Italy’s Prime Minister Georgia Meloni struck a deal with Albanian counterpart Edi Rama to become the first EU country to create migrant processing centers outside the bloc.
Shengjin’s seaside hotels are a summer tourist draw. But Albania’s third largest port has seen its size reduced by 4,000 square meters (43,000 square feet) so that the migrant camp, protected by high gates and Italian soldiers and police, could be built.
The five-year deal with Albania, estimated to cost Italy 160 million euros ($175 million) annually, covers adult male migrants intercepted by Italian vessels in international waters, but within Italy’s search and rescue area.
An initial screening at sea will determine which migrants are from countries considered “safe,” which could make repatriation simpler.
In Shengjin, migrants will undergo registration and health checks, and then they will be sent to the other center in Gjader to await the processing of asylum claims.
The Gjader facility includes a section for migrants whose asylum applications have been rejected, as well as a small jail.
Human rights groups have questioned the protections offered for asylum seekers. Amnesty International has called the centers a “cruel experiment (that) is a stain on the Italian government.”
Meloni on Tuesday called it a “courageous” move that could be set up in other non-EU countries.
Macron says Israel PM ‘mustn’t forget his country created by UN decision’
- “Mr Netanyahu must not forget that his country was created by a decision of the UN,” Macron told the weekly French cabinet meeting
- “Therefore this is not the time to disregard the decisions of the UN“
PARIS: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should not forget his country was created as a result of a resolution adopted by the United Nations, French President Emmanuel Macron told cabinet on Tuesday, urging Israel to abide by UN decisions.
Tensions have increased between Netanyahu and Macron with the French leader last week insisting that stopping the export of weapons used by Israel in Gaza and Lebanon was the only way to stop the conflicts.
France has also repeatedly denounced Israeli fire against UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon, who include a French contingent.
“Mr Netanyahu must not forget that his country was created by a decision of the UN,” Macron told the weekly French cabinet meeting, referring to the resolution adopted in November 1947 by the United Nations General Assembly on the plan to partition Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state.
“Therefore this is not the time to disregard the decisions of the UN,” he added, as Israel wages a ground offensive against the Iran-backed Shiite militant group Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, where the UN peacekeepers are deployed.
His comments from the closed door meeting at the Elysee Palace were quoted by a participant who spoke to AFP and asked not to be named.
UN Security Council Resolution 1701 states that only the Lebanese army and the UN peacekeeping mission UNIFIL should be deployed in southern Lebanon.
Netanyahu on Sunday called on the UN to move the 10,000 strong peacekeeping force, who include 700 French troops, deployed in south Lebanon out of “harm’s way,” saying Hezbollah was using them as “human shields.”
Later on Tuesday, Netanyahu hit back at Macron’s comments, saying the country’s founding was achieved by the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, not a UN ruling.
“A reminder to the president of France: It was not the UN resolution that established the State of Israel, but rather the victory achieved in the war of independence with the blood of heroic fighters, many of whom were Holocaust survivors — including from the Vichy regime in France,” Netanyahu said to a statement.
India-Canada relations reach historic lows as top diplomats expelled
- Relations fraught since the murder of a Sikh separatist leader in British Columbia last year
- Canadian PM says Indian officials identified as ‘persons of interest’ in the assassination plot
NEW DELHI: Relations between India and Canada have reached a historic low as the countries expelled each other’s diplomats in an ongoing row over the killing of a Sikh separatist activist on Canadian soil.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused India’s government on Monday of “supporting criminal activity against Canadians here on Canadian soil,” and the country’s Foreign Ministry announced the expulsion of six Indian diplomats, including the high commissioner.
The ministry said Canadian police had gathered evidence, which identified them as “persons of interest” in last year’s killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, who was gunned down in Surrey, British Columbia.
India immediately rejected the accusations as absurd, and its Ministry of External Affairs said it was expelling Canada’s acting high commissioner, his deputy, and the embassy’s four first secretaries.
Before the announcement, it also summoned the Canadian charge d’affaires and said it was withdrawing its high commissioner and “other targeted diplomats,” contradicting Canada’s statement of expulsion.
“Prime Minister Trudeau has been making these public statements repeatedly, but the evidence that he claims to possess is not available to us so we cannot make any kind of a judgment,” Dr. Ajai Sahni, executive director of the Institute for Conflict Management in New Delhi, told Arab News.
“This is the first time the relationship is so low … It has created a lot of problems and it has done damage to relationships between the two countries for the time being.”
This is not the first time India-Canada relations have been strained. In 1974, after India conducted its first nuclear weapon test, it drew outrage from Canada, which accused it of extracting plutonium from a Canadian reactor, a gift intended for peaceful use.
Ottawa subsequently suspended its support for New Delhi’s nuclear energy program.
“The relationship was also low in the 1980s with the hijacking of an Indian Airlines plane and the bombing of the plane, in which many people died,” said Prof. Ronki Ram, political science lecturer at the Punjab University.
The explosion from a bomb planted by Canada-based militants killed 329 people — the worst terrorist attack in Canadian history. India had warned the Canadian government about the possibility of attacks and accused the Canadian Security Intelligence Service of not acting on it.
But the current strain in relations is the first in which diplomats have been withdrawn.
“This is the first time that the relationship has gone down so low,” Ram said.
“Allegations and counter-allegations will have serious implications both internationally and domestically. The Indian government should look into the allegations and try to address them.”
Nijjar, a Sikh Canadian citizen, was gunned down in June 2023 outside a Sikh temple in Surrey, which has a significant number of Sikh residents. He was an outspoken supporter of the Khalistan movement, which calls for a separate Sikh homeland in parts of India’s Punjab state.
The movement is outlawed in India, considered a national security threat by the government, and Nijjar’s name appears on the Indian Home Ministry’s list of terrorists.
Canada has the largest population of Sikhs outside their native state of Punjab — about 770,000 or 2 percent of its entire population.
“Many Panjabi diaspora are in Canada, and a mini-Punjab has been established there,” Ram said.
“The government is taking an electoral interest in the landscape of Canada also. Those things are becoming very critical.”
Russia releases man whose daughter’s drawing opposed Ukraine fighting
- Alexei Moskalyov was convicted in March 2023 on the basis of posts that he made on a social media site
- The post came to authorities’ attention after his daughter, then age 13, made a drawing in school opposing the military operation
MOSCOW: A Russian man convicted of discrediting the military after his daughter made a drawing criticizing Russia’s military actions in Ukraine was released from prison after serving 22 months, a group that monitors political detentions said Tuesday.
Alexei Moskalyov was convicted in March 2023 on the basis of posts that he made on a social media site. The post came to authorities’ attention after his daughter, then age 13, made a drawing in school opposing the military operation.
Moskalyov was sentenced to two years in prison, but he fled. He was arrested in Belarus a day later and extradited to Russia. A court later reduced his sentence to a year and 10 months.
The OVD-Info group, which reported his release, said that Moskalyov told it that agents of the Federal Security Service questioned other inmates in his unit before he was released and suggested they were looking for cause to file new charges against him.
Since sending troops into Ukraine in February 2022, Russia has cracked down harshly on criticism of the military and the operation in Ukraine. Several prominent opponents of the fighting who were sentenced to lengthy prison terms — one of them to 25 years — were freed and sent out of the country in August in a widescale prisoner exchange with the West.
Canada lists pro-Palestinian group Samidoun as a ‘terrorist’ entity
- “Canada will not tolerate this type of activity,” Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc said
OTTAWA: Canada, in coordination with the United States, on Tuesday designated the pro-Palestinian group Samidoun as a “terrorist entity” alleging that it had links with another terrorist-designated group, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
“The listing of Samidoun as a terrorist entity under the Criminal Code sends a strong message that Canada will not tolerate this type of activity, and will do everything in its power to counter the ongoing threat to Canada’s national security and all people in Canada,” Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc said in a statement.