North Korean foreign minister arrives in Moscow for talks

Above, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, right, speaks with North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui in Moscow on Nov. 1, 2024. (Russian Foreign Ministry Press Service via AP)
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Updated 01 November 2024
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North Korean foreign minister arrives in Moscow for talks

  • The visit comes after Pyongyang tested a new intercontinental ballistic missile this week
  • Washington says there are 10,000 North Korean troops in Russia

MOSCOW: North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui has arrived in Moscow and will hold strategic consultations with her Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov on Friday, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for the ministry, in a post on her official Telegram channel, published photographs of Lavrov meeting Choe at a Moscow train station.
“Today, talks between the heads of Russia and the DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) will be held in Moscow. Sergei Lavrov greeted his counterpart with a bouquet of flowers,” said Zakharova.
“The meeting began at the Yaroslavsky railway station (in Moscow), where a memorial plaque was unveiled to mark the occasion of Kim Il Sung’s 1949 visit to the USSR,” she said, referring to the founder of the DPRK.
The visit, Choe’s second in six weeks, comes after Pyongyang tested a new intercontinental ballistic missile this week and as Washington says there are 10,000 North Korean troops in Russia, including as many as 8,000 deployed in Russia’s Kursk region where Ukrainian troops have dug in.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Thursday that the United States expected the North Korean troops in Kursk region to enter the fight against Ukraine in the coming days.
Moscow has neither denied nor directly confirmed the presence of North Korean troops on its soil. President Vladimir Putin has said it is for Russia to decide how to implement a treaty he signed with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in June that includes a mutual defense clause.


British serial killer ‘Suffolk Strangler’ pleads guilty to 1999 murder

Updated 50 min 57 sec ago
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British serial killer ‘Suffolk Strangler’ pleads guilty to 1999 murder

  • Steve Wright, who is already serving a life sentence with no prospect of parole for killing the women in 2006, appeared at London’s Old Bailey ‌court

LONDON: A British serial killer dubbed the “Suffolk Strangler” by the media after he killed five young women two ​decades ago pleaded guilty on Monday to another murder from 27 years ago.
Steve Wright, who is already serving a life sentence with no prospect of parole for killing the women in 2006, appeared at London’s Old Bailey ‌court and ‌admitted kidnapping and murdering 17-year-old ‌Victoria ⁠Hall ​in ‌1999.
Wright, 67, also pleaded guilty to the attempted kidnap of a 22-year-old woman the day before Hall’s murder. He will be sentenced on Friday.
“Justice has finally been achieved for Victoria Hall after 26 years,” ⁠Samantha Woolley from the Crown Prosecution Service said ‌in a statement.
Wright was convicted ‍in 2008 of ‍the murder of five women ‍who worked as prostitutes in the town of Ipswich, northeast of London in Suffolk. Wright left two of the bodies in a ​crucifix position with arms outstretched.
He was give a whole-life order, meaning he ⁠could never be released from prison, for what the sentencing judge described as “a targeted campaign of murder.”
Wright had consistently denied the allegations even though his DNA was found on three of the victims and bloodstains from two of them were found on his jacket at his home. His victims’ bodies were found in ‌the space of just 10 days around Ipswich.