North accuses as US bombers conduct Korea training flight Nuclear war near: Kim
NORTH Korea has accused the US of pushing the Korean peninsula to the brink of nuclear war after a pair of strategic US bombers flew over the area in a training drill with the South Korean air force.
The two supersonic B- 1B Lancer bombers were deployed yesterday amid rising tensions over North Korea’s pursuit of its nuclear and missile programs in defiance of United Nations sanctions and pressure from the US.
The bomber flights came as US President Donald Trump said he was open to meeting North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in the appropriate cir- cumstances, even though Pyongyang suggested it would continue with its nuclear tests.
South Korean Defence Ministry spokesman Moon Sang- gyun told a briefing in Seoul that the joint drill was to deter provocations by the North and to test readiness against another potential nuclear test.
The US Air Force said in a statement the bombers had flown from Guam to conduct training exercises with the South Korean and Japanese air forces. North Korea said the bombers conducted “a nuclear bomb- dropping drill against major objects” in its TRADITIONAL May 1 union marches turned violent in France on Monday and presidential election frontrunner Emmanuel Macron attacked far- right rival Marine Le Pen, highlighting the divisions six days before the run- off.
Six police officers were hurt in clashes in Paris between masked youths throwing molotov cocktails and riot police who responded with tear gas, as tens of thousands of union activists took to the streets for May Day demonstrations.
One riot police officer was engulfed in flames. Interior Minister Matthias Fekl condemned the violence and said one officer was seriously burned on the hand while another had serious burns to the face.
Reacting to the scenes, far- right presidential candidate Ms Le Pen tweeted: “This is the sort of mess ... that I no longer want to see on our streets.” In a feisty speech, Mr Macron told thousands of his supporters he would defend “free democracy” if voters choose him on Sunday after Ms Le Pen had urged voters to reject “the world of finance, of arrogance, of money as king” she said her opponent embodied.
In Paris’s Place de la Republique, 28- yearold teacher Camille Delaye held a placard that read: “Abstention is a political act” – meaning he is so disgusted by both candidates, he will not vote on Sunday. But Nastassja Naguszewski, 28, who works in local government, said: “You have to put Le Pen as low as possible. One of them is a candidate who will uphold republican values and one is not.”
Two unions, the CFDT and Unsa, have called for their members to back Mr Macron. But while three other more left- wing unions including the biggest, the CGT, have called for demonstrations against Ms Le Pen’s vision of French identity, they have stopped short of backing Mr Macron, whose economically liberal outlook worries many members. A GUNMAN distraught over a recent break- up calmly reclined in a pool chair as he shot strangers at a San Diego birthday party and phoned his ex- girlfriend so she could hear the gunfire and screams of terror. Before police fatally shot him, Peter Selis, 49, killed one woman and wounded six others in a rampage that turned a birthday party yesterday into bedlam. “These victims were just in his vicinity when he committed this terrible tragedy,” police Chief Shelley Zimmerman said. “What started as a celebration of a friend’s birthday party turned into a tragedy of just epic proportion for all those in attendance.” After shooting two people, Selis, a resident at the complex, called his ex- girlfriend to tell her what he’d done. The woman heard two more shots before the line went dead. territory at a time when Mr Trump and “other US warmongers are crying out for making a pre- emptive nuclear strike” on the North. “The reckless military provocation is pushing the situation on the Korean peninsula closer to the brink of nuclear war.”
Tensions on the Korean peninsula have been high for weeks, driven by concerns that the North might conduct its sixth nuclear test.
Despite that, Mr Trump said he would be “honoured” to meet the North’s young leader.
“If it would be appropriate for me to meet with him, I would absolutely, I would be honoured to do it,” Mr Trump told Bloomberg News in comments that drew criticism in Washington. SOUTHERN US states are bracing for more wild weather after storms, tornadoes and flash flooding killed 16 people and swept two children away. The storm front which hit much of the country’s midwest and south on Saturday caused at least four tornadoes in Texas and severe flooding in Missouri. Flash floods in Missouri were blamed for the deaths of a 77- year- old man, an 18- year- old man and a 72- year- old woman, whose husband desperately tried to save her before their car was swept away. Six people died in Arkansas as hopes fade for two missing children who were inside a truck with their mother on Saturday when it was swept off a bridge. More flooding and tornadoes are possible as storms roll eastward stretching from Alabama to the Ohio River valley.
He did not say what conditions would need to be met for any such meeting to occur, but the White House said later North Korea would need to meet many conditions. “Clearly conditions are not there right now,” White House spokesman Sean Spicer said.
Mr Trump warned in an interview with Reuters last week that a “major, major conflict” with North Korea was possible, while China said the situation on the Korean peninsula could escalate or slip out of control. In a show of force, the US has already sent an aircraft carrier strike group to waters off the Korean peninsula. NEW evidence indicates that the Syrian government used suspected nerve agents in four chemical weapons attacks since December as part of a broader pattern of chemical weapons use, a human rights group said yesterday. Human Rights Watch said in a report that the “widespread and systematic” attacks on civilians using chemical weapons could constitute crimes against humanity. “The government’s recent use of nerve agents is a deadly escalation – and part of a clear pattern,” said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. This also shows “that serious use of chemical weapons is becoming a central part of its military strategy,” he said during a news conference to present the report.