North Korea fires short-range ballistic missile off western Japan
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea fired a shortrange ballistic missile that landed in Japan’s maritime economic zone Monday, officials said, the latest in a string of test launches as the North seeks to build nuclear-tipped ICBMs that can reach the U.S. mainland.
The suspected Scud-type missile launched from the coastal town of Wonsan flew about 450 kilometers (280 miles), the South’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement. It landed in Japan’s exclusive maritime economic zone, which is set about 200 nautical miles off the Japanese coast, Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said. He said there was no report of damage to planes or vessels in the area.
North Korea is still thought to be several years
BERLIN — German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Sunday urged European Union nations to stick together in the face of emerging policy divisions with the U.S., Britain’s decision to leave the bloc and other challenges.
Speaking at a campaign event held in a Bavarian beer tent, Merkel suggested that the G-7 summit in Italy that ended Saturday had served as something of a wakeup call. G-7 leaders were unable to reach unanimous agreement on climate change after U.S. President Donald Trump said he needed more time to decide whether to back a key climate accord.
“The times in which we can fully count on others are somewhat over, as I from its goal of being able to target U.S. mainland cities with a nuclear intercontinental ballistic missile. It has a strong arsenal of short- and medium-range missiles that could hit Japan and South Korea as well as U.S. forces in the region, and it is working to perfect its longer-range missiles.
North Korea’s state-controlled media had no immediate comment. But a day earlier, the North said leader Kim Jong Un had watched a successful test of a new type of anti-aircraft guided weapon system. It wasn’t clear from the state media report when the test happened.
Kim found that the weapon system’s ability to detect and track targets had “remarkably” improved and was more accurate, according to the official Korean Central News Agency. KCNA cited Kim as ordering have experienced in the past few days,” Merkel told the crowd of some 2,500 that gathered to hear her and Bavarian governor Horst Seehofer.
“And so all I can say is that we Europeans must really take our destiny into our own hands,” she said, according to the dpa news agency.
Merkel emphasized the need for continued friendly relations with the U.S. and Britain and also stressed the importance of being good neighbors “wherever that is possible, including with Russia, but also with others.”
“But we need to know we must fight for our own future, as Europeans, for our destiny,” she said.
Despite the Trump administration’s talk of an “America first” policy and officials to mass-produce and deploy the system all over the country so as to “completely spoil the enemy’s wild dream to command the air.”
The North’s nuclear and missile programs are perhaps the biggest foreign policy challenges to the new leaders in Washington and Seoul.
President Donald Trump has alternated between bellicosity and flattery in his public statements about North Korea, but his administration is still working to solidify a policy to handle its nuclear ambitions.
Monday’s missile launch was the third since South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in was inaugurated on May 10. He has signaled an interest in expanding civilian exchange with North Korea, but many analysts say he won’t likely push for any major rapprochement ongoing criticism of Germany for its massive trade surplus, the G-7 leaders in Sicily did vow to fight protectionism, reiterating “a commitment to keep our markets open.”
They also agreed to step up pressure on North Korea, to forge closer cooperation in the fight against terrorism, on the possibility of imposing more sanctions on Russia over role in the conflict in Ukraine.
But while six of the seven G-7 nations agreed to stick with their commitment to implement the 2015 Paris Agreement that aims to slow global warming, Trump said he needed more time to decide if the U.S. would abandon the accord.
His administration has argued that U.S. emissions standards are tougher than because North Korea has gone too far in developing its nuclear program.
Moon called a National Security Council meeting Monday morning to discuss the North’s launch.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who just returned from a G7 meeting in Italy, told reporters that “North Korea’s provocation by ignoring repeated warnings from the international society is absolutely unacceptable.”
The U.S. Pacific Command said in a statement that it tracked a shortrange missile for six minutes until it landed in the Sea of Japan.
Suga, the Japanese cabinet secretary, told reporters that the missile fell about 300 kilometers (190 miles) north of the Oki islands in southwestern Japan and 500 kilometers (310 miles) west of Sado island in central Japan. those set by China, India and others, and therefore have put American businesses at a disadvantage.
After the summit, Merkel called the climate talks “very difficult, if not to say, very unsatisfactory.”
‘I ain’t fit to live’: Police say Mississippi gunman kills 8
BROOKHAVEN, Miss. — A man who got into an argument with his estranged wife and her family over his children was arrested Sunday in a house-to-house shooting rampage in rural Mississippi that left eight people dead, including his mother-in-law and a sheriff’s deputy.
“I ain’t fit to live, not after what I done,” a handcuffed Willie Corey Godbolt, 35, told The Clarion-Ledger.
The gunfire erupted Saturday night at Godbolt’s inlaws’ home in Bogue Chitto after the deputy arrived in response to a domestic disturbance call, and spread to two houses in nearby Brookhaven.
Godbolt was hospitalized in good condition with a gunshot wound, though it wasn’t clear who shot him.
The slain deputy, William Durr, was a two-year sheriff’s department veteran and former police officer in Brookhaven, about 70 miles (110 kilometers) south of Jackson.
US official mulling greatly expanded airplane laptop ban
WASHINGTON — Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly said Sunday he’s considering banning laptops from the passenger cabins of all international flights to and from the United States.
That would dramatically expand a ban announced in March that affects about 50 flights per day from 10 cities, mostly in the Middle East. The current ban was put in place because of concerns about terrorist attacks.
The ban prevents travelers from bringing laptops, tablets and certain other devices on board with them in their carry-on bags. All electronics bigger than a smartphone must be checked in.
Kelly was asked on “Fox News Sunday” whether he would expand the ban to cover laptops on all international flights into and out of the U.S.
His answer: “I might.”
Philippines pounds militants as civilians found shot dead
MARAWI, Philippines — Philippine forces found corpses in the streets of a besieged southern city on Sunday, including at least eight civilians who appeared to have been executed, as soldiers battled a weakened but still forceful group of militants linked to the Islamic State group.
The death toll from six days of fighting neared 100.
The crisis in Marawi, home to some 200,000 people, has grown increasingly dire as the militants show unexpected strength, fending off a military that has unleashed attack helicopters, armored vehicles and scores of soldiers.
The violence prompted President Rodrigo Duterte on Tuesday to declare 60 days of martial law in the southern Philippines, where a Muslim separatist rebellion has raged for decades. But the recent bloodshed in Marawi has raised fears that extremism is growing as smaller militant groups unify and align themselves with the Islamic State group.
Much of the city is a nogo zone, but as the military advances and more civilians escape, the scope of the battle is becoming clear.
Thousands of civilians have streamed out of Marawi and more than 2,000 were still trapped inside the city. Many sent desperate text messages begging to be rescued and reporting that their homes had been destroyed, said Zia Alonto Adiong, an official in Lanao del Sur, one of the country’s poorest provinces.
UK: Manchester attack investigation still at ‘full tilt’
LONDON — Britain’s interior minister says the hunt is still on for suspects in the Manchester bombing, and members of attacker Salman Abedi’s network may still be at large.
Home Secretary Amber Rudd says that “the operation is still at full tilt” and “we can’t be entirely sure that it’s closed.”
Abedi, a 22-year-old Briton of Libyan descent, killed 22 people on May 22 at an Ariana Grande concert. Police have 11 suspects in custody and have searched properties across the northwest England city.
On Saturday, Britain lowered its official terrorism threat level from “critical” to “severe” after police said they had dismantled a large part of Abedi’s network.
Sri Lanka finds more bodies as mudslide deaths reach 151
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Sri Lankan rescuers on Sunday pulled out more bodies that were buried by enormous mudslides as the death toll in the disaster climbed to 151, with 111 others missing.
Although the weather has cleared, more rains are forecast for Monday, threatening to bring further misery to over 100,000 people displaced in western and southern regions of the island nation that were lashed by two days of torrential rains.
Taking advantage of a lull in rain, soldiers cleared road access to most of the affected areas while others were reachable by boat, said Maj. Gen. Sudantha Ranasinghe, who is heading the search and rescue mission.
Ranasinghe said he didn’t expect to find any more survivors.