North #Korean leader deploys 50 new rocket launchers ahead of major party congress.

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea said Thursday leader Kim Jong Un held a ceremony to unveil the deployment of 50 new launch vehicles for nuclear-capable short-range missiles threatening rival South Korea as he flaunted his expanding military capabilities ahead of a major ruling party congress.

In a separate statement, Kim’s sister, who is a key foreign policy official acknowledged a South Korean minister’s apology regarding alleged civilian drone incursions, but said the North is bolstering border security against the “enemy” South.

North Korea has suspended nearly all talks and cooperation with the South since 2019, when Kim’s nuclear diplomacy with U.S. President Donald Trump derailed over U.S.-led sanctions. Relations worsened in recent years as Kim discarded the North’s long-standing goal of peaceful reunification and declared a hostile “two-state” system on the Korean Peninsula, a stance he may further institutionalize in the Workers’ Party’s constitution during the upcoming congress.

State media photos showed rows of launcher trucks lined up near the April 25th House of Culture, the venue of party congresses in 2016 and 2021.

The Korean Central News Agency said the vehicles support the country’s 600-millimeter multiplier rocket launcher systems. Experts say North Korea’s large artillery rockets blur the distinction between artillery systems and short-range ballistic missiles because they can create their own thrust and are guided during delivery. They are part of Kim’s growing collection of nuclear-capable short-range weapons that are designed to overwhelm missile defenses in South Korea.

Kim, in a speech, said the “wonderful” rocket launchers are equipped with artificial intelligence and advanced guiding technologies tailored to carry out a “strategic mission,” a term that implies nuclear purpose. He said the upcoming congress will issue new plans to expand the capabilities of his nuclear-armed military, which already has various systems targeting U.S. allies in Asia and long-range missiles potentially capable of reaching the U.S. mainland.

In her statement, Kim’s sister, Kim Yo Jong, said she “highly assesses” an apology made by South Korean Unification Minister Chung Dong-young over the alleged drone flights but reiterated that the North would respond with force if such flights recur. She said the country’s military would strengthen surveillance across the border with the South.

“The border with an enemy state should naturally be firm,” she said.

Chung on Wednesday said Seoul was considering reinstating a suspended 2018 inter-Korean military pact on reducing border tensions, which included a no-fly zone, as part of measures to prevent further drone incursions into the North.

North Korea threatened retaliation last month after accusing South Korea of launching a surveillance drone flight in September and again in January. The South Korean government has denied operating any drones during the times specified by North Korea but law enforcement authorities are investigating three civilians suspected of flying drones into the North from border areas.

Kim Tong-hyung, The Associated Press

#Vatican says it will not participate in Trump’s ‘Board of Peace’, Pope Leo, the first U.S. pope and a critic of some of Trump’s policies, was invited to join the board in January.

Under Trump’s Gaza plan that led to a fragile ceasefire in October, the board was meant to supervise Gaza’s temporary governance. Trump thereafter said the board, with him as chair, would be expanded to tackle global conflicts. The board will hold its first meeting in Washington on Thursday to discuss Gaza’s reconstruction.

Italy and the European Union have said their representatives plan to attend as observers as they have not joined the board.

The Holy See “will not participate in the Board of Peace because of its particular nature, which is evidently not that of other States,” Parolin said.

“One concern,” he said, “is that at the international level it should above all be the UN that manages these crisis situations. This is one of the points on which we have insisted.”

Many rights experts say that Trump overseeing a board to supervise a foreign territory’s affairs resembled a colonial structure. The board launched last month has also faced criticism for not including a Palestinian.

Countries have reacted cautiously to Trump’s invitation, with experts concerned that the board could undermine the U.N. Some of Washington’s Middle Eastern allies have joined but its Western allies have stayed away so far.

The Gaza truce has been repeatedly violated with hundreds of Palestinians and four Israeli soldiers reported killed since it began in October.

Israel’s assault on Gaza has killed over 72,000, caused a hunger crisis and internally displaced Gaza’s entire population.

Multiple rights experts, scholars and a UN inquiry say it amounts to genocide. Israel calls its actions self-defence after Hamas-led militants killed 1,200 people and took over 250 hostages in a late 2023 attack.

Leo has repeatedly decried conditions in Gaza. The pope, leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics, rarely joins international boards. The Vatican has an extensive diplomatic service and is a permanent observer at the United Nations.

Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan, Reuters

4 dead in 30-vehicle pileup in Colorado as powerful winds slam Plains, fueling multiple wildfires.

At least 29 people were taken to the hospital with injuries, according to the Colorado State Patrol, which did not provide any additional information on the severity of those injuries.

A three-mile stretch of the interstate remains shut down between mile markers 91 and 94 and there is no estimated reopening time, the Colorado Department of Transportation said.

The same powerful winds are causing fire weather conditions to go downhill fast in a “particularly dangerous situation” fire threat that’s gripping the region.

A wildfire that broke out late Tuesday morning in Beaver County, Okla., rapidly crossed into southwest Kansas in just a few hours. It’s burned about 15,000 acres as of Tuesday afternoon, according to the Oklahoma Forestry Service.

The fire is threatening at least two communities in Kansas. Evacuations are underway in Englewood and Ashland, according to CNN affiliate KAKE. At least one health center in Ashland, a town of around 700 people, reported it was evacuating in a social media post.

‘Eye-watering numbers’: Reaction to Canada’s new $6.6B defence strategy.

HALIFAX — A new $6.6-billion national defence strategy is reportedly designed to support Canadian businesses and position Canada to shift away from an overreliance on the United States for defence support, while still meeting its NATO commitments.

The new plan, expected to officially be unveiled on Tuesday, includes targets of increasing defence exports by 50 per cent and industry revenues related to defence by 240 per cent.

Prime Minister Mark Carney was supposed to unveil these changes last week, but that announcement was delayed after the mass shooting in Tumbler Ridge, B.C.

#MOSCOW -- The Kremlin on Monday flatly rejected accusations from five ‌European countries that the Russian state had killed Alexei Navalny two years ago using toxin from poison dart frogs, but his widow said the truth had finally been proven.

Navalny, President Vladimir Putin’s most prominent domestic critic, died on Feb. 16, 2024, in the “Polar Wolf” penal colony north of the Arctic Circle about 1,900 kilometres northeast of Moscow. He was 47.

His death, which the Russian state said was from natural causes, occurred a month before Putin was re-elected for a fifth term in ​a landslide ​vote which western nations said was neither free nor fair due to censorship ‌and a crackdown on opponents.

Britain, ⁠France, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands said on Saturday that analyses of samples from Navalny’s body had “conclusively” confirmed the presence of epibatidine, a toxin found in poison dart frogs in South America and not found naturally in Russia.

“Navalny died while held in prison, meaning Russia had the means, motive and opportunity to administer this poison to him,” they said.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov rejected the allegations.

“Naturally, we do not accept ⁠such accusations. We disagree with them. We consider them biased and not based on anything. And we strongly reject them," Peskov told reporters.
Test results?

Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, previously said Moscow would provide relevant comment if and when the countries making the allegations released and detailed ⁠their test results.

Until then, the state TASS news agency cited her as saying, the allegations were “merely propaganda aimed at diverting attention from pressing western issues.”

The British government on Saturday declined to respond to a Reuters query about how the samples from Navalny’s body were obtained or where they were assessed.

The European joint statement referenced the ​2018 Novichok poisoning in Salisbury, England, of former Russian agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter, suggesting that Moscow has form ‌when it comes to using deadly poisons against ⁠its enemies.

Russia denies involvement in the Salisbury ⁠incident. It also rejects British allegations that Moscow killed dissident Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006 by lacing his tea with radioactive polonium-210.

New anti-#government chants in #Tehran after giant rallies abroad: reports.

Some residents of Tehran on Sunday chanted slogans against the clerical leadership from balconies and windows, reports said, a day after Iranians abroad staged giant opposition rallies in Europe and North America.

The Islamic republic under supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was shaken by a protest movement that peaked in January and which according to rights groups was repressed by security forces in a crackdown that left thousands dead.

While the street protests have petered out in the face of the crackdown, last week residents of Tehran and other cities began shouting slogans against the leadership from the relative safety of their own homes inside vast apartment blocks.

In a new night of chants, residents of the eastern Tehran district of Ekbatan on Sunday shouted “death to Khamenei”, “death to the Islamic republic” and “long live the shah”, according to the Shahrak Ekbatan social media account which monitors the area.

Reza Pahlavi, the son of the shah ousted by the Islamic revolution, had urged people inside the country to stage such actions in parallel with protests abroad over the weekend.

Police in the southern German city of Munich said 250,000 people attended a rally there Saturday which in an unusual move was personally addressed by Pahlavi.

Other major pro-monarchy rallies were held in diaspora strongholds including Los Angeles and Toronto.

Pahlavi’s office said on X that over a million people had attended such rallies worldwide but it was not immediately possible to confirm the figure.

Speaking in Munich, Pahlavi hailed the rally as the biggest such in years and said he was ready to lead a transition in Iran.

Monarchist supporters were also gladdened by an extremely rare public appearance at the rally by his sole surviving full sibling, his sister the former princess Farahnaz.

Persian-language TV channel Iran International, which is based outside Iran, reported similar actions taking place in other parts of Tehran Sunday, broadcasting images of people chanting “this is the final battle, Pahlavi is coming back” and “death to the Guards” in reference to the authorities’ ideological army the Revolutionary Guards.

Slogans hostile to the authorities were also chanted in other cities including Shiraz in the south and Arak in the centre of the country, it added.

It was not immediately possible for AFP to verify the videos.

The new actions come two days ahead of talks on Tuesday between the U.S. and Iran focused on the Iranian nuclear program in Geneva which are seen as crucial to determining if Washington goes ahead with military action against Tehran.

According to the latest toll issued by the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists #News Agency, over 7,000 people were killed during the protests, the vast majority protesters shot dead by security forces. Almost 54,000 people have been arrested in a crackdown that is ongoing, it added.

#European nations say Alexei Navalny was poisoned by the Kremlin with dart frog toxin.

The foreign ministries of the U.K., France, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands said analysis in European labs of samples taken from Navalny’s body “conclusively confirmed the presence of epibatidine.” The neurotoxin secreted by dart frogs in South America is not found naturally in Russia, they said.

A joint statement said: “Russia had the means, motive and opportunity to administer this poison.”

The five countries said they were reporting Russia to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons for a breach of the Chemical Weapons Convention. There was no immediate comment from the organization.

Navalny, who crusaded against official corruption and staged massive anti-Kremlin protests as President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest foe, died in an Arctic penal colony on Feb. 16, 2024, while serving a 19-year sentence that he believed to be politically motivated.

“Russia saw Navalny as a threat,” British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said. “By using this form of poison the Russian state demonstrated the despicable tools it has at its disposal and the overwhelming fear it has of political opposition.”

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot wrote on X that the poisoning of Navalny shows “that Vladimir Putin is prepared to use biological weapons against his own people in order to remain in power.”

The European nations’ assessment came as Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, attended the Munich Security Conference in Germany, and just before the second anniversary of Navalny’s death.

She said last year that two independent labs had found that her husband was poisoned shortly before he died. She has repeatedly blamed Putin for her husband’s death. Russian officials have vehemently denied the accusation.

Navalnaya said Saturday that she had been “certain from the first day” that her husband had been poisoned, “but now there is proof.”

“Putin killed Alexei with chemical weapon,” she wrote on She said Putin was “a murderer” who “must be held accountable.”

Russian authorities said that the politician became ill after a walk and died from natural causes.

Epibatidine is found naturally in dart frogs in the wild, and can also be manufactured in a lab, which European scientists suspect was the case with the substance used on Navalny. It works on the body in a similar way to nerve agents, causing shortness of breath, convulsions, seizures, a slowed heart rate and ultimately death.

#European officials said they had a high degree of confidence in the assessment that Navalny died from epibatidine poisoning. Asked why the results had taken so long, German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said that it had been “a complicated process.”

#Hollywood talent agent Casey Wasserman to sell company over Epstein files revelations.

Casey Wasserman, a prominent entertainment and sports agent and the chair of the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, is putting his eponymous talent agency up for sale after facing backlash over his appearance in files the U.S. Justice Department released last month related to its investigations into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

In an internal memo sent to agency staff on Friday, which was obtained by CNN, Wasserman said he has “become a distraction” to the company’s “efforts.”

“That is why I have begun the process of selling the company, an effort that is already underway,” Wasserman wrote.

Wasserman faced pressure from his talent to step aside in recent weeks, as well as calls to step down from the Olympics coordinating committee, after the files showed he held a deeper and more intimate relationship with Esptein’s accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, than had been previously known.

Wasserman has not been accused of criminal wrongdoing in relation to Epstein. CNN has reached out to a crisis communications firm representing him.

Wasserman rode on Epstein’s plane and exchanged suggestive messages with Maxwell, the files the DOJ released show.

Maxwell, Epstein’s former girlfriend, was convicted of sex trafficking and other crimes in 2021 and is serving a 20-year sentence. Epstein died by suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex-trafficking charges.

In Friday’s memo, Wasserman said he only had “limited interactions with those two individuals,” referring to Epstein and Maxwell.

“It was years before their criminal conduct came to light, and, in its entirety, consisted of one humanitarian trip to Africa and a handful of emails that I deeply regret sending,” Wasserman said. “And I’m heartbroken that my brief contact with them 23 years ago has caused you, this company, and its clients so much hardship over the past days and weeks.”

Sources close to the business told CNN that Wasserman’s investors were upset over the situation and pushed him to make this move.

In an earlier statement reported by the Associated Press last month, Wasserman clarified that his exchange with Maxwell “took place over two decades ago, long before her horrific crimes came to light.”

“I never had a personal or business relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. As is well documented, I went on a humanitarian trip as part of a delegation with the Clinton Foundation in 2002 on the Epstein plane. I am terribly sorry for having any association with either of them,” his statement read.

Details of Epstein’s alleged secret life first emerged in 2005 when several underage girls accused him of offering to pay for massages or sex acts at his Palm Beach mansion. Epstein pleaded guilty to two state prostitution charges in 2008 and served 13 months in prison.

Since the release of the latest files, singer Chappell Roan announced she was leaving Wasserman’s agency. Singer Orville Peck quickly followed, and then singer-songwriter Weyes Blood, among others.

By Kaanita Iyer, CNN

U.S. strikes alleged drug boat, killing 3, The statement did not specify where the strike took place but said “Intelligence confirmed the vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Caribbean and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations.”

At least 124 people have now been killed in strikes on suspected drug boats as part of Operation Southern Spear, a campaign the Trump administration says is aimed at curtailing narcotics trafficking.

The administration has labelled those killed as “unlawful combatants” and claimed the ability to engage in lethal strikes without judicial review due to a classified Justice Department finding.

Friday’s boat strike is the fourth publicly known attack of the year. A strike earlier this week killed two people and left one survivor, with the U.S. Coast Guard providing technical support for search and rescue operations co-ordinated by Maritime Rescue Co-ordination Centre Ecuador.

The administration has publicly presented little evidence that those killed in Operation Southern Spear are affiliated with drug cartels, or that each of the vessels had drugs on them.

The legality of the strikes has also come under intense scrutiny in Congress since the operations began in September. There is particular interest in the first attack on Sept. 2, which included a follow-up strike that killed two crew members who had initially survived. Multiple current and former military lawyers previously told CNN the strikes do not appear lawful.

#WHO prequalifies new polio vaccine to boost #global outbreak response, Prequalification certifies that the vaccine meets international standards for quality and safety, allowing #UN agencies such as #UNICEF to buy and distribute it for immunization campaigns.

The nOPV2 shot is designed to be more genetically stable than older oral polio vaccines, lowering the risk of triggering new outbreaks while helping to stop transmission, the WHO said.

The move follows a pledge by global leaders in December to provide US$1.9 billion to support eradication efforts, aiming to protect 370 million children each year despite recent budget cuts.

Polio, a disabling and potentially life-threatening disease, has been wiped out in many regions but continues to circulate.

Reporting by Ruchika Khanna in Bengaluru. Editing by Mark Potter, Reuters