North Korea

NORTH Korean leader Kim Jong Un has mobilised the military to fight the nationwide coronavirus outbreak, posing a tough challenge to his rule. Pyongyang admitted last week that the country is facing an “explosive” spread of the virus in the largely unvaccinated country. North Korea’s Central News Agency reported yesterday that over 1.2 million people fell ill with “fever”, of which 50 people have died since April. Lacking medical resources, over 560 000 people are in quarantine. Just weeks before, a massive military parade – with 20 000 people – was held in Pyongyang. |

N Ireland

SINN Fein President Mary Lou McDonald, whose party is now Northern Ireland’s largest, said she had a “fairly tough” meeting with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson yesterday in which they told him taking unilateral action over post-Brexit trade rules for Northern Ireland would be wrong. Johnson says the EU must make concessions on the Northern Ireland protocol, to win over the province’s unionist community loyal to the UK, and threatened unilateral action that the EU says could start a trade war. The dispute has stymied power-sharing between Sinn Fein and the Democratic Unionist Party. | Reuters