Trump visits Pearl Harbor

N. Korea rules out negotiations

HONOLULU, Nov 4, (AFP): US President Donald Trump paid a somber visit to Pearl Harbor ahead of his first official trip to Asia, also meeting with military officials overseeing US operations in the Pacific region.

Trump and his wife Melania tossed white pikake flower petals into the waters at the USS Arizona memorial, where hundreds of US service members died when Japan launched a surprise attack in 1941, triggering the US entry into World War II.

The Trumps also took part in a wreath-laying ceremony during the stopover on Friday, watching as two sailors placed the flower arrangement before a white marble wall bearing the names of the fallen.

Before his some 20-minute visit to the shrine, Trump met with leaders of the US Pacific Command, amid growing concerns over security in the region.

In brief comments to reporters, Trump said it was “very special being in Hawaii.”

He voiced enthusiasm over his trip to Pearl Harbor, “which I’ve read about, spoken about, heard about, studied, but I haven’t seen.

“And that is going to be very exciting for me.”

Trump stopped in Hawaii ahead of a tour of Asia lasting nearly two weeks which will include visits to Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines.

He left Washington with heavy domestic

Baluchistan province, says the family of Dr Allah Nizar, who heads the Baluchistan Liberation Front separatist group, was arrested while trying to illegally cross into Afghanistan. He said the family was treated respectfully.

Mama Qadeer, a human rights activist, said Saturday that Nizar’s family was detained in Quetta city.

Although separatists in Baluchistan often baggage — including new developments in the high-stakes probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 election — that risks dogging efforts at top-level diplomacy.

The trip itself poses its own set of challenges, with efforts to contain or roll back North Korea’s ballistic and nuclear missile programs topping the diplomatic agenda.

North Korea ruled out talks and threatened to increase its nuclear arsenal in a fresh warning to Trump’s administration Saturday as the US President set off on a tour of Asia.

Nuclear

Trump departed for his first presidential trip to Asia Friday, with tensions over North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats looming large. He is due to arrive in South Korea Tuesday, after first visiting Japan.

The North’s state-run KCNA news agency said in a commentary that the US should be disabused of the “absurd idea” that Pyongyang would succumb to international sanctions and give up its nuclear weapons, adding that it is in “the final stage for completing nuclear deterrence”.

“It had better stop daydreaming of denuclearisation talks with us”, said the commentary titled “Stop dreaming a daydream”.

“Our self-defensive nuclear treasure sword will be sharpened evermore unless the US hostile policy toward the

blame the government for making illegal detentions, it is the first time authorities have acknowledged releasing the family of a separatist leader who has waged a lowlevel insurgency to pressure the government for a greater share of the region’s natural resources or outright independence. (AP)

Monsoon rains kill 12 in India:

Thousands DPRK is abolished once and for all”, it said, using an acronym for the official name of North Korea.

The White House said Trump will deliver a speech at South Korea’s National Assembly and urge “common resolve in the face of shared threat”.

But there is widespread concern in South Korea that the US president’s visit might worsen the situation if Trump fails to rein in his fierce rhetoric.

Trump and the North’s leader Kim Jong-Un have traded insults and threats of war in recent months.

“Because of his tendency to veer off the script, many Koreans are worried that he may let loose”, Professor Yang Moo-Jin of the University of North Korean Studies told AFP.

Some 500 protesters took to the streets in Seoul Saturday, chanting slogans and waving banners as they accused Trump of bringing the Korean peninsula to the brink of war.

“No Trump, No War”, read one of the banners, while others portrayed the US President wearing a Nazi uniform.

Nearby, a rival group of some 100 Trump supporters, including many military veterans, chanted: “Welcome to Korea, We believe in Trump”.

Trump, who dismissed direct talks with Pyongyang as “waste of time”, will meet with President Moon Jae-In, who came to power early this year advocating for engagement with Pyongyang, a stance denounced as “appeasement” by Trump.

of people took refuge in relief camps as torrential monsoon rains flooded parts of southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, killing at least 12 people this week, the government said Saturday.

Schools in Chennai, the state capital, and other coastal towns have been closed with the weather office warning of intermittent heavy rains this weekend.

A government statement said over 10,000 people were living in 105 state-run relief camps as rains flooded low-lying areas in Chennai and its suburbs on Thursday and Friday. (AP)

Messaging services to be blocked:

Afghanistan’s telecoms regulator wrote to internet service providers this week ordering them to block the messaging services WhatsApp and Telegram but it was not immediately clear whether they had complied.

Use of social media and mobile instant messaging services has exploded in Afghanistan over recent years. Social media users and civil rights groups reacted with outrage to initial reports of the move and the letter sent by telecoms regulator ATRA was widely shared on social media.

Some media reports, citing unidentified sources, said the move had been ordered by the National Directorate for Security to thwart the use of the encrypted messaging services by the Taleban and other insurgent groups.

It was not immediately possible to confirm the reports. (RTRS)