World News

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who watched the failed launch, called it a "criminal act," that tarnished the country's dignity.

A new North Korean naval destroyer launch ended in failure, state media reported Thursday.

North Korea's state news agency, KCNA, said Kim Jong Un described the accident as a "criminal act caused by absolute carelessness."

The country's leader reportedly witnessed the failed launch, which left "some sections of the warship's bottom crushed."

Kim has ordered the ship to be repaired ahead of a major meeting of the ruling Workers' Party Central Committee in late June.

Prime Minister Mark Carney said he has had talks with Donald Trump about it. The defense system is designed to detect, track and potentially intercept incoming missiles.

Canada is conducting "high level" talks with the United States over joining Donald Trump's proposed "Golden Dome" missile defense program, Prime Minister Mark Carney said on Wednesday.

Trump announced his plans the previous day to develop the multilayered, $175 billion (€155 billion) system with ground- and space-based capabilities that can defend against a wide range of enemy weapons, like drones, hypersonic and cruise missiles, and intercontinental ballistic missiles.

The US President said he expected the missile shield to be ready by the end of his second term in 2029.

The ship slid off the ramp and became stuck after the flatcar failed to move alongside it, throwing off its balance and crushing parts of the ship’s bottom, according to the Korean Central News Agency.

The accident at Wednesday’s ceremony at the northeastern port of Chongjin was an embarrassing setback for Kim, who has emphasized naval advancement as key to his nuclear-armed military.

The damaged vessel was likely in the same class as the country’s first destroyer, unveiled on April 25, which experts assessed as the North’s largest and most advanced warship to date. Kim called it a significant asset for advancing his goal of expanding the military’s operational range and nuclear strike capabilities.

The delegation included diplomats from China, Japan, Mexico and several European, including France, Spain and Italy.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/30472635

By Mera Aladam
Published date: 21 May 2025 15:09 BST

"He told the network that the “obvious appearance” of the war on #Gaza is that "thousands of innocent #Palestinians are being killed, as well as many #Israeli soldiers," adding that "from every point of view, this is obnoxious and outrageous."

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/30472250

By Ahmed Aziz in Khan Younis, occupied Palestine
Published date: 21 May 2025 13:30 BST

"“No aid has entered the Gaza Strip since 2 March,” said Nahed Shuhibar, head of Gaza’s Private Transport Association, in an interview with Alaraby TV.

“Aid lorries are still stuck at the Karem Abu Salem crossing.”"

US President Donald Trump confronted his South African counterpart, Cyril Ramaphosa, over widely discredited claims of a white genocide in South Africa, during an Oval Office meeting on Wednesday.

Mr Trump said that white farmers are "fleeing South Africa", playing footage to the room showing people chanting "kill the Boer, kill the farmer".

Responding, Mr Ramaphosa condemned the chants but pushed back against claims of white persecution.

THE COGNITIVE DISSONANCE begins from above. The stunning aquiline waters and jagged Cuban coastline of Guantánamo Bay come into view, and our plane makes a dramatic arc before landing on the US naval base that Amnesty International dubbed “the gulag of our times.”

It’s been eight years since my last visit, which was the first time Donald J. Trump was inaugurated as president and vowed to fill Guantánamo up with “bad dudes.” The prison population at that time was forty-one, and he didn’t end up sending anyone here during his first term. The Joe Biden administration reduced the number further, so that today just fifteen “War on Terror” captives remain (nine of the 780 detainees died while in custody, and others were repatriated or resettled in third countries). This dwindling population is being held in the world’s most expensive detention centre. Everything at this remote base, from water bottles to Humvees, must be shipped or flown in. According to 2019 estimates from the New York Times, the cost works out to about $36 million (US) per year per prisoner.

THERE HAVE BEEN small changes since my last visit in 2017. The four windmills that the navy spent $12 million (US) on to power about a quarter of the base stopped turning more than a year ago, and now there’s only one radome on the hill (those large golf balls for electronic surveillance) instead of two. No one can explain why the blades ceased or where the other white dome went.

The gift shop still does good business, although it no longer stocks snow globes and “Kisses from Guantánamo” magnets. There is, however, a new line of “The Real Housewives of Guantánamo Bay” T-shirts, stickers, keychains, and tote bags, and the dive shop has long-sleeved shirts that say “Fishing in Fidel’s Backyard.”

Across Africa, debates about cultural preservation and traditional values are increasingly being influenced by forces that promote conservative social agendas rooted in colonial and missionary legacies. These movements, often backed by generous Western funding, seek to impose rigid, exclusionary values that contradict the continent’s diverse and historically dynamic cultures.

A recent example of this dynamic played out last week in Nairobi, where the second Pan-African Conference on Family Values organised by the Africa Christian Professionals Forum sparked controversy by claiming to defend “traditional” African family values.

The event’s foreign supporters, including the Center for Family and Human Rights (C-Fam) and Family Watch International, are known for their opposition to LGBTQ rights, reproductive health, and comprehensive sex education.

These organisations, some classified as hate groups by the United States-based Southern Poverty Law Center, often present their positions as inherently African, despite their deep connections to Western conservative funding.

This duplicity came to the fore ahead of the conference in Nairobi when it was revealed that the preliminary list of speakers consisted entirely of white men.

During the event, participants were urged to “resist growing trends that seek to redefine marriage, weaken the institution of family, or devalue human sexuality” and to rise up to defend the African family from a “new colonialism”.

Yet the fact is that the narrative of preserving tradition that was on full display at the conference is far from organic. Instead, it itself continues a pattern established during the colonial era, when imperial powers imposed patriarchal norms and strict social hierarchies under the guise of paradoxically both preserving and “civilising” indigenous cultures.

In doing so, missionary and colonial institutions both reimagined and reframed African social structures to align with Victorian ideals, embedding rigid gender roles and heteronormative family models into the social fabric and inventing supposedly ancient and unchanging “traditions” to support them.

The latter were themselves built on self-serving ideas of Africans as “noble savages”, living in happy conformity with supposedly “natural” values, trapped by petrified “culture”, and undisturbed by the moral questions that plagued their civilised Western counterparts from whose corruption they needed to be protected...

FIFA’s ongoing failure to enforce sanctions against the Israeli Football Association (IFA) despite long-standing and irrefutable evidence that the IFA is in violation of FIFA Statutes is further evidence of the organisation’s ad hoc and selective enforcement of its rules.

The Israeli military fired warning shots at a large delegation of European and Arab diplomats on an official visit to the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday, drawing swift condemnation.

Delegations from more than 20 countries, including the United Kingdom, France, Canada and others, were on an official mission to see the humanitarian situation in the besieged camp, according to the Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which called the incident a “deliberate and unlawful act.”

Videos on social media show delegation members giving media interviews when shots are heard ringing out close to the group and forcing it to run for cover.

Video 1: https://i.imgur.com/uJHYoLB.mp4

Video 2: https://i.imgur.com/uHrD2Ji.mp4 shows bullet impacts at walls near the group such as 0:20

Two of northern Gaza’s last functioning hospitals have been encircled by Israeli troops, preventing anyone from leaving or entering the facilities, hospital staff and aid groups said this week, as Israel pursued its renewed offensive into the devastated Palestinian territory.

The Indonesian hospital and al-Awda hospital are among the region’s only surviving medical centers. Both have come under fire this week, including shelling at al-Awda that happened Wednesday as The Associated Press spoke to its director on the phone.

A third hospital, Kamal Adwan, is out of service, its director said, citing Israeli troops and drones in its vicinity.

Group calling itself ‘Last Defence Wave’ had recruited other teens online and promoted ‘extremist terrorism’

German police have staged early morning raids against an alleged far-right “terrorist” cell on suspicion of attacks against asylum seekers and political enemies, arresting five teenage suspects, federal prosecutors have said.

The operation on Wednesday targeting a neo-Nazi group calling itself “Last Defence Wave” marked the latest high-profile action against groups Germany says are working to destabilise its democratic order.

Four of those arrested – named only as Benjamin H, Ben-Maxim H, Lenny M and Jason R, in line with German privacy rules – are suspected of membership of a “domestic terror organisation”. The fifth, Jerome M, is accused of supporting the group.

Two of the suspects are accused of attempted murder and aggravated arson. All five are German citizens between the ages of 14 and 18.

The Israeli military said that it fired near a diplomatic delegation which it said deviated from an approved route in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday.

Diplomatic sources said European diplomats were part of the delegation to the West Bank city of Jenin.

The military said "the delegation deviated from the approved route and entered an area where they were not authorised to be" and that soldiers fired "warning shots to distance them away."

The Palestinian Authority's Foreign Ministry said "the delegation was undertaking an official mission to observe and assess the humanitarian situation and document the ongoing violations perpetrated by" Israel. The ministry called the Israeli military's actions a violation of international law.

No aid has reached Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip as of Wednesday, despite Israeli claims that dozens of trucks have entered.

Since 2 March, Israel has enforced a total blockade on Gaza, preventing any food, medical supplies, or goods from entering the besieged enclave.

On Sunday, Israel stated it would allow a “basic amount of food” into Gaza for what it described as “diplomatic reasons” aimed at easing international pressure that could force an end to the ongoing war.

The Israeli military claimed that over 90 aid lorries have entered the strip this week. However, sources inside Gaza told Middle East Eye trucks remain stalled on the Palestinian side of the Karem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) crossing.

Andrii Portnov, a former member of parliament in Ukraine, was sanctioned by the US over corruption allegations. He was shot dead outside a school in Madrid.

Spain's Interior Ministry on Wednesday said Andrii Portnov, an adviser to former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, was killed outside a school in Madrid.

According to the police, they received a call about the shooting of a Ukrainian citizen near the elite American School of Madrid in Pozuelo de Alarcón at 9:15 a.m. local time (0715 GMT).

Police said Portnov was shot multiple times in the head and back by more than one gunman while getting into a vehicle. The attackers then fled toward a forested area, police added.

A rice remark cost Japan's agriculture minister his job amid a price crisis that Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba's government is grappling with.

Japan's Agriculture Minister Taku Eto announced his resignation on Wednesday following backlash over an inappropriate comment about rice.

Eto came under fire earlier this week after stating that he had "never had to buy rice" because supporters gave it to him, a remark that sparked public outrage amid a national rice shortage and soaring prices.

Rice is a staple food in Japan, and Eto's comment struck a nerve in a country where retail rice prices have doubled since last year.