Top Stories Today – august 1, 2019
Top Stories Today – august 1, 2019
N Korea reports latest weapons test
North Korea said Thursday leader Kim Jong Un supervised the first test firing of a new multiple rocket launcher system that could potentially enhance its ability to strike targets in South Korea and US military bases there. The report by North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency differed from the assessment by South Korea’s military, which had concluded Wednesday’s launches were of two short-range ballistic missiles.
KCNA provided no specific descriptions of how the “large-caliber multiple launch guided rocket system” performed, but said the test confirmed the system’s “combat effectiveness.” The network obscured the images of the launcher and vehicle, apparently to limit outside analysis of the system. KCNA said Kim expressed satisfaction over the test firing and said the newly developed rocket system would soon serve a “main role” in his military’s land combat operations and create an “inescapable distress to the forces becoming a fat target of the weapon.” The Associated Press
Cambodia says US officials can pack up and leave
US embassy officials in Cambodia can leave if they do not like it there, a Cambodian government spokesman said on Thursday, following criticism by US diplomats that the Southeast Asian nation’s 2018 election was deeply flawed. Prime Minister Hun Sen’s ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CCP) won all 125 parliamentary seats in the election last year that rights groups said was neither free nor fair following the dissolution of the main opposition party. In a Facebook post on Tuesday marking a year since the vote, the US embassy in Phnom Penh, said the election had “failed to represent the will of the Cambodian people”.
In a regular news conference on Thursday, government spokesman Phay Siphan said “Although we are friends, if these officials don’t like Cambodia, they should pack up and leave. Let me be clear: We don’t welcome you,”. Siphan said he was referring to a Twitter posting last month by US President Donald Trump telling four ethnic minority Democratic congresswomen to “go back” to the “the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came”. “We have the same right to speak as President Donald Trump. It’s simple. If you don’t like it here, leave,” Siphan said. A spokeswoman for the US embassy declined to comment. Reuters
Biden hits back at Democratic rivals
Former Vice-President Joe Biden has come under attack from other Democratic 2020 candidates in a televised debate. There were sharp exchanges on healthcare and the southern border between the frontrunner and nine other hopefuls on stage in Detroit. In an echo of the last debate in June, Senator Kamala Harris launched another assault on Biden’s record on race. But she herself had to defend her actions against drug offenders when she was a prosecutor in California.
Biden was criticized during the last debate in June for being unprepared amid fierce criticism of his ties to two Democratic senators who had favored racial segregation, but he seemed better equipped to respond on Wednesday. It was the second of two nights of debates among Democrats vying to win the presidential nomination, which will be announced next July at the party’s convention. BBC
US believes Bin Laden’s son is dead
The United States believes that Hamza bin Laden, a son of slain al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and himself a notable figure in the militant group, is dead, a US official said on Wednesday. The US official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, provided no further details, including when Hamza died or where. President Donald Trump earlier on Wednesday declined to comment after NBC News first reported the US assessment. Asked if he had intelligence that bin Laden’s son had been killed, Trump told reporters: “I don’t want to comment on it.”
Hamza, believed to be about 30 years old, was at his father’s side in Afghanistan before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the US and spent time with him in Pakistan after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan pushed much of al Qaeda’s senior leadership there, according to the Brookings Institution. Osama bin Laden was killed by US special forces who raided his compound in Pakistan in 2011. Hamza was thought to be under house arrest in Iran at the time, and documents recovered from the compound indicated that aides had been trying to reunite him with his father. Reuters
Rwanda shuts border with DR Congo to stop Ebola
Rwanda has closed part of its border with DR Congo, where an Ebola outbreak has killed more than 1,800 people in the past year. At least two people have died from the virus in the past month in the crowded Congolese border city of Goma.
It is the worst Ebola outbreak in the nation’s history, with at least 2,700 people so far infected with the virus. And the outbreak has been complicated by an active conflict zone, leading to attacks on healthcare workers. About 12 new cases are being reported every day in DR Congo, the World Health Organization (WHO) reports. BBC
Senate confirms Kelly Craft as US ambassador to UN
The Senate has confirmed Kelly Craft to become the next US envoy to the United Nations despite Democratic concerns about her inexperience and potential conflicts of interest. Craft, a longtime GOP activist from Kentucky, is currently US ambassador to Canada. She was confirmed 56-34, ending a more than seven-month vacancy in the key diplomatic position.
She and her husband, Joe Craft, have donated millions of dollars to Republican political candidates, and she will be first major political donor to occupy the top U.N. post for any administration. Joe Craft is the chief executive of Alliance Resource Partners, one of the largest coal producers in the country. In her confirmation hearing, Craft vowed to continue the efforts of Trump’s first ambassador to the U.N., Nikki Haley, to push for reform at the world body and to fight against anti-Israel resolutions and actions by the United Nations and its affiliated agencies. The Associated Press
US pilot missing after jet crashes in Death Valley
A Navy fighter jet, FA-18E Super Hornet, crashed in Death Valley National Park on Wednesday morning, and the search is still on for the missing pilot. Seven people on the ground suffered minor injuries when the aircraft went down in the area that attracts visitors who want to observe low-level training flights, officials said. It was downed in an area known as Star Wars Canyon.
Capt. Jim Bates, commodore for the Strike Fighter Wing Pacific based at Naval Air Station Lemoore, said the crash site has been found, and crews had planned to spend the night searching for the missing pilot. The accident is under investigation. NBC News