Day: August 6, 2022

SEOUL, South Korea -- North Korea on Saturday called U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “the worst destroyer of international peace and stability,” accusing her of inciting anti-North Korea sentiment and enraging China during her Asian tour earlier this week. Pelosi traveled to South Korea after visiting Taiwan, which had prompted China to launch military exercises including missile strike training in waters near the self-governed island. China views Taiwan as part of its own territory to be annexed by force if necessary. While in South Korea, Pelosi visited a border area with North Korea and discussed the North’s nuclear program with South Korean National Assembly Speaker Kim Jin Pyo. According to Kim, the two agreed to support their governments’ push for denuclearization and peace on the ...

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia -- Efforts by Myanmar’s neighbors to help restore peace and normalcy to the strife-torn Southeast Asian nation were hindered by the country’s recent executions of four political activists, Cambodia’s foreign minister said Saturday. Prak Sokhonn, speaking in his capacity as special envoy to Myanmar of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, warned that further executions would force the regional grouping to reconsider how it engages with fellow member Myanmar. Cambodia is the current chair of the regional grouping, and Myanmar is not welcome to send members of its ruling military government to ASEAN meetings because of its failure to cooperate with a plan agreed upon last year to work toward restoring peace. Myanmar’s military rulers initially agreed to...

TOKYO -- Hiroshima on Saturday remembered the atomic bombing 77 years ago as officials, including the head of the United Nations, warned against nuclear weapons buildup and as fears grow of another such attack amid Russia's war on Ukraine. “Nuclear weapons are nonsense. They guarantee no safety — only death and destruction," said U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres, who joined the prayer at the Hiroshima Peace Park. “Three quarters of a century later, we must ask what we’ve learned from the mushroom cloud that swelled above this city in 1945," he said. The United States dropped the world’s first atomic bomb on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, destroying the city and killing 140,000 people. It dropped a second bomb three days later on Nagasaki, killing another 70,000. Japan surrendered on ...

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip -- Israeli jets pounded militant targets in Gaza early Saturday as rockets rained on southern Israel, hours after a wave of Israeli airstrikes on the coastal enclave killed at least 11 people, including a senior militant and a 5-year-old girl. The fighting that began Friday with Israel's dramatic targeted killing of a senior commander of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad continued throughout the night, drawing the sides closer to an all-out war. But the territory's Hamas rulers appeared to stay on the sidelines of the conflict, keeping its intensity somewhat contained, for now. Israel and Hamas have fought four wars and several smaller battles over the last 15 years at a staggering cost to the territory’s 2 million Palestinian residents. The latest round of Israel-Gaza...

BEIRUT -- A ship bringing corn to Lebanon’s northern port of Tripoli normally would not cause a stir. But it's getting attention because of where it came from: Ukraine’s Black Sea port of Odesa. The Razoni, loaded with more than 26,000 tons of corn for chicken feed, is emerging from the edges of a Russian war that has threatened food supplies in countries like Lebanon, which has the world's highest rate of food inflation — a staggering 122% — and depends on the Black Sea region for nearly all of its wheat. The fighting has trapped 20 million tons of grains inside Ukraine, and the Razoni's departure Monday marked a first major step toward extracting those food supplies and getting them to farms and bakeries to feed millions of impoverished people who are going hungry in Africa, the Middle...

NAIROBI, Kenya -- Kenyans vote Tuesday to choose a successor to President Uhuru Kenyatta. The race is close and could go to a runoff for the first time. One top candidate is Raila Odinga, an opposition leader in his fifth run for the presidency who is being supported by former rival Kenyatta. The other is William Ruto, Kenyatta’s deputy who fell out with the president earlier in their decade in power. Both tend to focus far more on domestic issues, raising the question of how either will follow up on Kenyatta's diplomatic efforts for calm in neighboring Ethiopia or in the tensions between Rwanda and Congo. WHAT’S AT STAKE? Kenya is East Africa’s economic hub and home to about 56 million people. The country has a recent history of turbulent elections. Even then, it stands out for its re...