Pyongyang launches more missiles; US flies bombers over SKorea
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea added to its recent barrage of weapons demonstrations by launching four ballistic missiles into the sea on Saturday, as the United States sent two supersonic bombers streaking over South Korea in a dueling display of military might that underscored rising tensions in the region.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said that the four short-range missiles fired from a North Korean western coastal area around noon flew about 80 miles toward the country’s western sea.
The North test-fired more than 30 missiles last week, including an intercontinental ballistic missile on Thursday that triggered evacuation alerts in northern Japan, and flew large numbers of warplanes inside its territory in an angry reaction to a massive combined aerial exercise between the United States and South Korea.
The South Korean military said two B-1B bombers trained with four U.S. F-16 fighter jets and four South Korean F-35 jets during the last day of the “Vigilant Storm” joint air force drills that wrapped up Saturday. It marked the first time since December 2017 that the bombers were deployed to the Korean Peninsula. The exercise involved around 240 warplanes, including advanced F-35 fighter jets from both countries.
North Korea’s Foreign Ministry late Friday described the country’s military actions last week as an appropriate response to the exercise, which it called a display of U.S. “military confrontation hysteria.” It said North Korea will respond with the “toughest counteraction” to any attempts by “hostile forces” to infringe on its sovereignty or security interests.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the participation of the B-1Bs in the joint drills demonstrated the allies’ readiness to “sternly respond” to North Korean provocations and the U.S. commitment to defend its ally with the full range of its military capabilities, including nuclear.
Vigilant Storm had been scheduled to end Friday, but the allies decided to extend the training in response to a series of North Korean ballistic launches on Thursday, including an ICBM that triggered evacuation alerts and halted trains in northern Japan.
Migrants in limbo: Two German-run migrant rescue ships carrying nearly 300 rescued people were waiting off the eastern coast of Sicily on Saturday, one with permission to disembark its most vulnerable migrants while the other’s request for a safe port has gone unanswered despite “critical” conditions on board.
Chaos and uncertainty has resulted from the decision late Friday by Italy’s far-right-led government to close its ports to humanitarian rescue ships.
Nearly 1,100 rescued migrants aboard four ships run by European charity organizations are stuck in the Mediterranean Sea, some with people rescued as long as two weeks ago amid deteriorating conditions on board.
‘Zero-COVID’ in China: Chinese health officials gave no indication Saturday of any relaxation of COVID-19 restrictions, following several days of speculation that the government was considering changes to a “zeroCOVID” approach that has stymied economic growth and disrupted daily life.
The officials said they would “unswervingly” stick to the policy, which seeks to stop cases from coming into the country and snuff out outbreaks as they are uncovered.
The speculation rallied stock markets in China last week, with investors as well as the public latching onto any hints of possible change. The death of a 3-year-old boy in a quarantined residential compound fueled growing discontent with the anti-virus controls, which are increasingly out of step with the rest of the world.
Anyone entering China must quarantine at a designated hotel for seven to 10 days. People in the country line up several times a week to get a virus test to meet a requirement for a negative result within the previous 72 hours to enter office buildings, shopping malls, restaurants, parks and other public places.
Deadly Russia blaze: A fire in a large cafe in the Russian city of Kostroma killed 13
people and injured five others on Saturday, local authorities said.
The governor of the Kostroma region, Sergei Sitnikov, said 13 people died in the fire and five more were slightly injured. Kostroma, a riverside city of 270,000, is 210 miles north of Moscow.
The blaze erupted in the early hours after someone apparently used a flare gun, according to the authorities. The Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reported that a brawl erupted in the cafe shortly before the fire, but it wasn’t immediately clear if it had anything to do with the flare gun.
Russia’s Investigative Committee, which investigates major crimes, said a suspect had been detained for allegedly firing the flare gun and that the cafe’s director also was being held.
NY apartment fire: More than three dozen people were injured, two critically, in a fire at a high-rise apartment
building in Manhattan caused by a faulty battery, fire officials said.
The blaze broke out Saturday morning in the 37-story building on East 52nd Street near the East River. Videos posted online showed people hanging out of apartment windows as firefighters used ropes to scale the building and smoke poured out of a window.
Some residents above the floor where the fire started escaped to the roof, fire officials said.
At a news conference, FDNY Commissioner Laura Kavanagh said the fire started in a 20th-floor apartment from a lithium battery connected to an unspecified micromobility device.
Thirty-eight people were injured, including two in critical condition and five in serious condition, fire officials said. Fire officials were not sure how many families were displaced by the fire.
Several people have died in fires linked to micromobility devices in New York. An electric scooter battery
sparked a fire that killed an 8-year-old girl in the Queens borough in September, and a woman and a 5-year-old girl were killed in August in Harlem by a fire blamed on a scooter battery. A fire linked to an e-scooter also killed a 9-year-old boy in Queens in September 2021.
Somalia airstrike: The United States military says it has carried out an airstrike in support of the Somali government’s operations against the al-Shabab extremist group that has killed some of the group’s fighters.
A statement by the U.S. Africa Command on Saturday describes the airstrike as being carried out Thursday in “collective self-defense” and at the request of the Somali army near the town of Cadale, 137 miles north of the capital, Mogadishu.
The U.S. statement says al-Shabab fighters had been attacking Somali military forces. It says the initial assessment is that no civilians were killed.