Twitter has announced that Marvel's Avengers: Endgame has cemented its place in history. The film had earned over 50 million tweets since the beginning of 2019. Read more...
It pains us to thank a brand for anything, so we will instead thank Chance the Rapper, whose tweet about Wendy's beloved Spicy Chicken Nuggets has (probably) led to their return to the menu.
On Saturday, Chance included the nuggets in a "positive affirmations" tweet. "I WILL have a good day today, I will succeed today, Wendy's WILL bring back spicy nuggets at some point please please Lord let it be today," he wrote.
The initial response from Wendy's was disappointing: "It won't be today, but there's always a chance." Later, though, the brand came through with a promise. If the below tweet got 2 million likes, they'd bring back the nuggets, which were phased out in 2017. Read more...
Those are the golden words you're probably dying to see if you've been slacking on Mother's Day shopping. Amazon and Walmart are both coming in clutch to offer free two-day shipping on a handful of last-minute gift items that don't require much research. Grab the latest iPad, the Roomba 680, or a KitchenAid mixer on sale without having to compare brands — these are obviously the best.
If you're anything like us, spring has you wanting to be productive and get your act together. Tackle those sleep troubles you've been complaining about with a new bed: Casper mattresses of all sizes are 25% off on Amazon, and this weighted blanket is on sale for just $59.50. Whether you need extra lower back support or just want something to cuddle with, both of these could re-introduce you to those mythical eight hours of sleep. Read more...
The royal family has officially welcomed a new member.
On Monday, the @sussexroyal Instagram account announced that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex were "overjoyed" to welcome the birth of their son, and Prince Harry later confirmed the new addition to his family to the press.
Though the name of the baby boy has yet to be revealed, Prince Harry made a public statement, assuring everyone that both his child and wife, Meghan Markle, are doing "incredibly well."
BREAKING: “It’s been the most amazing experience I can ever possibly imagine. How any woman does what they do is beyond comprehension.” Prince Harry speaks after birth of royal baby boy pic.twitter.com/kKaUvTp8vv
Mother’s Day is just a few short days away, and if you haven’t gotten a gift yet (don’t worry, we aren’t judging), you might want to consider getting something under the smart home umbrella. These popular devices are great not only because they simply make life easier, but they also allow for expansive customization — you can always add on more devices, making an even more connected home.
Our recommendation? How about this smart thermostat from ecobee — it’s $50 off on Amazon and is really effective in keeping a balanced temperature throughout the home. Read more...
Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) is scheduled for June 3-7, but Bloomberg's Mark Gurman already has a very long list of software features Apple is likely to launch with its new versions of iOS, macOS, and watchOS.
Highlights include a standalone App Store for watchOS 6, a Dark Mode and a new, revamped Sleep Mode for the iOS 13, and the ability for developers to easily port iPad apps to the Mac in macOS 10.15.
WWDC is typically where Apple launches new versions of its software platforms: iOS, macOS, tvOS and watchOS. There's little in the way of hardware; new gadgets and gizmos are usually reserved for separate events, the most important being the iPhone launch, typically in the fall. Read more...
Game of Thrones is wrapping up soon, and you might be left with an empty place in your life where the show used to be. Getting into a new show after finishing something as involved as GoT can almost feel like a chore. So, maybe turn off the TV and read something instead.
Paperwhite is the thinnest Kindle yet, making it more comfortable to hold as you read. It features a 300 ppi, glare-free display with laser-quality text. Plus, the Kindle Paperwhite has twice the storage of the previous generation and a single battery charge can last for weeks. Read more...
In honor of Mental Health Awareness Month, Instagram co-launched a powerful campaign to help raise awareness on social media.
The #RealConvo Campaign — spearheaded by both Instagram and the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP,) an organization that helps those affected by suicide — encourages people to use the hashtag to share their own personal mental health experiences and speak more openly about their struggles.
On Thursday, the AFSP Instagram account introduced the campaign with the help of nine people who are challenging the idea that Instagram is exclusively a place for sharing positive moments, filtered photos, and superficial glimpses at seemingly-perfect lifestyles. Read more...
Are you an overalls lover? Then here is the extremely relatable song you didn't even know you needed.
27-year-old YouTuber Lex Croucher put a lot of hot takes into a catchy song. With the title "Ode to Dungarees (Adult Baby)," you can guess what the tune is about. Yup, dungarees (also known as overalls).
In her virtual love letter to the clothing item, Croucher sings "I feel like an adult baby but it doesn't phase me" while dancing over a green screen. Additionally, she lightly raps, "you gotta get nude if want to pee, and you'll never be accepted by soc-ie-ty," which will probably hit home for a lot of dungaree-wearing adults. Read more...
What other explanation is there for Season 8's fourth episode? It confusingly bears the title "The Last of the Starks" even though the A-plots, such as they were, focused very little on Winterfell's children. Even if we're still calling Jon a Stark — a generous designation at this point — the title fails.
No one really mattered in the third-to-last Game of Thrones episode ever. Multiple characters betrayed everything we've come to know about them, apparently for no other reason than to shove the lumbering plot one step closer to the can't-come-soon-enough finish line. Read more...
There are lots of reasons to see Avengers: Endgame, and now you can add "watching the new Spider-Man: Far From Home trailer" to that list.
Tom Holland's next adventure as Peter Parker marks the end of Phase Three and the Marvel Cinematic Universe as we currently know it. And while this isn't the movie's first full-blown trailer, it is the first one to arrive in a post-Endgame world — and that shows.
I'm not going to say anything about it here. Just make sure you go see the latest Avengers before you hit playSpider-Man: Far From Home hits theaters on July 2. Read more...
A common theme in cryptocurrency circles in the last couple of years has been the one of institutional investors entering the space. However, certain key players, including Intercontinental Exchange-backed crypto market Bakkt, have postponed their launch.
But a new, big player might join the fray soon. On Monday, Bloombergreported that finance services behemoth Fidelity Investments will launch a cryptocurrency trading service "within a few weeks."
According to the report, which cites a person familiar with the matter, Fidelity's offering will focus on institutional customers only. In contrast, brokerage firm E*Trade is said to be launching crypto trading for retail investors, while another brokerage firm Robinhood already did so in December 2018. Read more...
As usual, we're expecting the tech giant to announce a laundry list of updates for its major platforms and services. Everything from Android Q, to the Google Assistant, to new Pixel phones, to Duplex will likely be on deck.
But as we get ready for the barrage of Google news, it's the perfect time to check in on all the things the company announced at last year's conference. Did Google deliver on its promises? Let's take a look.
From the Battle of Winterfell, we saw a true hero emerge in Arya Stark.
In Game of Thrones' fourth episode of Season 8, "The Last of the Starks," we saw the inadvertent birth of the internet's new hero: a Starbucks coffee cup.
The disposable cup can be seen in front of the table in front of a forlorn Daenerys Targaryen, at about 14:44 in the episode.
For a show that is so meticulous in detail, the oversight (or product placement, if you put your tinfoil hats on) is pretty hilarious. You bet the internet noticed.
A few weeks ago, music streaming service Spotify filed a complaint with the European Commission, claiming that Apple's App Store rules give Apple an "unfair advantage at every turn."
Now, the Financial Times reports that the EU will launch a formal antitrust inquiry into the matter in the next couple of weeks.
In a blog post explaining its decision to file the complaint, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek said that Apple has put Spotify in an impossible position.
"Apple requires that Spotify and other digital services pay a 30 percent tax on purchases made through Apple’s payment system, including upgrading from our Free to our Premium service. If we pay this tax, it would force us to artificially inflate the price of our Premium membership well above the price of Apple Music," he wrote. Read more...
Uno, the card game, has called out people who stack a Draw 2 card on top of a Draw 4, a truly devastating move which forces the next player to pick up six cards.
The move can eventuate with someone picking up many more cards, if you're playing with some truly evil friends. But it's no bueno, as clarified by the game's Twitter post.
If someone puts down a +4 card, you must draw 4 and your turn is skipped. You can’t put down a +2 to make the next person Draw 6. We know you’ve tried it#UNOpic.twitter.com/wOegca4r0h
The Battle of Winterfell just ended but there's no time to rest. After mourning the dead, Jon and Dany are off to King's Landing to face Cersei. Read more...
Warning: Spoilers forGame of Thrones: Season 8, Episode 4 below.
Game of Thrones faked everyone out again.
After last episode's supreme twist wherein Arya killed the Night King, the show surprised its audience by dishing up a large helping of fan service followed by a steaming pile of disappointment.
On the good side, the Battle of Winterfell party made many people happy by showcasing fun character moments and a long-awaited moments like Gendry proposing to Arya and Brienne finally banging Jamie. On the bad side, the tension between Dany and Jon became unbearable as the final season marched towards the doom of yet another dragon and the beloved Missandei. Read more...
The White Walkers are dust, the armies are on the march, and the first blood has been spilled at King's Landing. It's time for the last war.
In this preview for the fifth episode in Game of Thrones' final season, we get a peek at all the preparations being made as Cersei's assembled forces prepare for the North's onslaught. But with one dragon down and King's Landing locked down for defense — and filled with innocents — there won't be any easy victory. (And let's be real: on Game of Thrones, even a victory is going to look like a defeat.)
There are just two episodes and close to three hours left before it's all over. Who will win and who will do? We'll find out soon. Read more...
It's one of the perils of live TV: Someone out there is going to ruin the shot.
Even in the quaint surrounds of Windsor in the UK, where a reporter for Australian show Sunrise was upstaged by a kid in a passing car on Sunday night.
Windsor Castle is one of the official residences for the British Royal Family, where the Queen usually spends her weekends — and where reporter Edwina Bartholomew was covering the imminent arrival of the royal baby of Meghan and Harry, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
While the castle might be a place of good etiquette, don't expect that on the streets of Windsor, where you might be accosted by a kid who'll flip you off for fun. Read more...
The K-Pop boy band BTS rode the ever-stronger wave of popularity breaking on U.S. shores straight to the Rose Bowl on Saturday. From the looks of their tricked out performance, the boiz gave their mega-fans a night to remember.
BTS kicked off their “Love Yourself: Speak Yourself” tour with a sold-out show at the Pasadena, CA stadium in front of a crowd of 60,000. With a Saturday Night Live appearance and a record-breaking collaboration with Halsey, the group is being hailed as one of the first K-Pop stars to break out in the US.
At the Rose Bowl on Saturday, there were giant panther statues, a bounce house, fireworks, holographic hearts, and a human-sized plastic bubble — along with singing, rapping, dancing, and levitating group members. Read more...
You'd better believe I put a terrible pun in that headline.
It's true, though. As Avengers: Endgame continues to make a boatload of money (I did it again), a major record has fallen. James Cameron's Titanic has been the second-biggest global box office money maker of all time since 2009 — and it was #1 before that, going all the way back to 1997.
Now it's in third-place. Weekend estimates for Endgame bring the total global box office for Marvel's latest up to $2.188 billion, just a hair ahead of Titanic's $2.187 billion. And even if the estimate turns out to be off — sometimes these things happen — Titanic's long-standing record is doomed. Read more...
With 10,000 lies to his name, Donald Trump is a pro at putting out false or misleading information. Unfortunately, many of the people who are tasked with informing the public are inadvertently helping him do just that.
A new study from the journalism watchdog organization Media Matters for America (MMFA) has found that news outlets frequently amplify Trump’s falsehoods by putting uncontested Trump claims that haven't been fact-checked in tweets.
For example, an outlet will tweet out something like “President Trump says the Russia investigation was a ‘coup’,” rather than something like “President Trump falsely claims that the Russia investigation was a ‘coup.'” Read more...
Game of Thrones is ending. But there's still plenty to talk about — and that's what we're going to highlight every Sunday until the final episode airs.
The battle of Winterfell is now officially in the rearview. The White Walker threat is extinguished, the bodies have been counted, and attention is now turning to the south. Cersei Lannister is still there, safely ensconced in King's Landing, and she's still a traitorous snake.
With the White Walkers defeated — or so everyone thinks, for now — we're in uncharted territory. In the north we have the combined forces of Westeros gathered together but also, presumably, severely weakened after the devastating battle of Winterfell. And in the south, Cersei has her whole, still-fresh army along with Euron Greyjoy's Iron Fleet. Read more...
The four major wireless telecommunication companies in the U.S. have just been hit with massive class action lawsuit.
The suit claims that AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile all violated customers’ privacy by sharing their data to third party brokers. In turn, these brokers would then sell the data to bounty hunters, bail bondsmen, debt collectors, and middlemen.
The complaint alleges that the four biggest U.S. mobile carriers violated federal communications law by sharing phone numbers, geolocation data, and other account information. The class action covers approximately 300 million customers ranging from April 30, 2015 and February 15, 2019 spread out between the four companies. Read more...
Some of our generation's musical greats have just proved that they will happily sacrifice their dignity for enough money.
HBO announced in April that it was releasing an album of Game of Thrones-inspired tunes from artists like A$AP Rocky and Ellie Goulding. The album dropped April 26, and now the project has cursed us with a music video of the track "Power is Power" by SZA, The Weeknd, and Travis Scott.
The video features the artists getting their Westerosi warrior on. Dressed in furs and ribbons, The Weeknd embodies the spirit of Jon Snow while contemplating deep phrases like "heavy is the head that wears the crown." SZA writhes around on the Iron Throne while channeling Daenerys, and Travis Scott tries to play the maniacal bad guy, overlooking some steam-filled mountains. The whole time, scenes from Thrones play in the background. Read more...
Michael Reeves is a YouTuber with a foul mouth who builds silly and irreverent robots. His latest invention is a modded Roomba that screams horrifically when it bumps into things.
Watching this cursed object in action is startling, disturbing, and sometimes extremely relatable.
"Why would you build me so that my sole existential purpose is to suffer for the entertainment of others?" the Roomba asks.
Reeves gives viewers a peek inside the Roomba to check out his handiwork. He explains that he gave the Roomba a voice with a touch sensor, a small computer, and a bluetooth speaker. Read more...
A weeks-long, community-wide scavenger hunt concluded on Saturday at roughly 3:00 p.m. ET with a giant bang. The smoking volcano situated in the northeast corner of the map erupted, and flying debris laid waste to a number of popular locations, including the city of Tilted Towers and the Retail Row shopping district.
Before the volcano rained down its destructive fire, players gathered around Loot Lake for a different event: the metal plate at the bottom of the former body of water slid open and whisked players off to another realm, a realm where Fortnite's banished guns apparently live out their afterlife. Read more...
Astronomers have assembled the most all-encompassing image of space ever created.
It puts together 16 years of data captured from the Hubble Space Telescope, according to a statement from NASA. All together, the composite is made up of nearly 7,500 individual exposures.
Dubbed the “Hubble Legacy Field,” this wide view image shows around 265,000 galaxies. These galaxies go back 13.3 billion years to 500 million years after the big bang, showcasing how they have changed over time.
This latest Hubble mosaic consists of around 30 times as many galaxies as previous deep fields did. For example, the eXtreme Deep Field (XDF) which was put together in 2012 and is included in the Hubble Legacy Field, contains 5,500 galaxies. Read more...
* US will deploy a carrier strike group and a bomber task force to the Middle East * Move aims to send a clear message to Iran that any attack on U.S. interests or its allies will be met with 'unrelenting force,' U.S. national security adviser said * Amid rising tensions between the US and Iran, Bolton said the decision was 'in response to a number of troubling and escalatory indications and warnings'
A White House decision to dispatch an aircraft carrier and other military resources to send a message to Iran followed "clear indications" that Iranian and Iranian proxy forces were preparing to possibly attack U.S. forces in the region, a defense official told the Associated Press.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information, said the Pentagon approved the deployments and that U.S. forces at sea and on land were thought to be the potential targets. The official declined to be more specific.
White House national security adviser John Bolton said in a statement Sunday night that the U.S. is deploying the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group and a bomber task force to the U.S. Central Command region, an area that includes the Middle East.
* Passengers were seen fleeing from the Sukhoi Superjet at Sheremetyevo airport in Moscow, Russia, Sunday * The plane made an emergency landing after a fire on board soon after takeoff to the Arctic city of Murmansk * Flames were seen from the rear of the Russian national carrier Aeroflot aircraft with a reported 78 on board * Two children among those confirmed dead following the inferno, the Russian Investigative Committee said * An airport official said 'many passengers delayed emergency evacuation as they picked up hand luggage'
Forty-one people are believed to have died after a Russian passenger plane made an emergency landing at Moscow's busiest airport and caught fire, investigators said on Sunday.
'There were 78 people including crew members on board the plane,' the Investigative Committee said in a statement.
'According to the updated info which the investigation has as of now, 37 people survived.'
Two children are among those confirmed dead following the inferno on the Sukhoi Superjet at Sheremetyevo airport on Sunday, the Russian Investigative Committee said.
Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu provided details of Russia's latest snap exercise at the National Defence Control Centre in Moscow on 16 March Source: Russian MoD
The United States has a basic problem: Devising a strategy toward great power adversaries necessitates having some reasonable estimate of their economic and military power. We do not do this especially well.
Ask yourself: Do we really know how much our adversaries spend on their military, and what they are getting for their money? Russia, for example, presents a glaring problem for academic and policy circles alike. Most comparisons are done in current U.S. dollars based on prevailing exchange rates, making Russia's economy seem the size of South Korea's. This approach is useless for comparing defense spending, or the country's purchasing power. Yet, it is used frequently to argue that despite a large military modernization program, and a sizable conventional and nuclear deterrent, Moscow is a paper tiger. As a consequence, the debate on relative military power and expectations of the future military balance is terribly warped by a low-information environment.
WNU Editor: I am very skeptical on the number quoted by the above author ....
.... In reality Russia's effective military expenditure, based on purchasing power parity (Moscow buys from Russian defense manufacturers in rubles), is more in the range of $150-180 billion per year, with a much higher percentage dedicated to procurement, research and development than Western defense budgets.
The reason why. The Russian military industrial base is limited in the amount of equipment and material that it could produce, and what they can produce is under budget constraints. Case in point .... they have a limited budget to purchase their new tank .... Russia's New Armata Tanks Will Finally Enter The Service This Year (February 17, 2019). Another example .... they do not have the means to mass-produce their advanced Su-57 stealth fighter jet .... Russia Announces That It Will Not Mass-Produce Its Advanced Su-57 Fighter Jet (July 12, 2018). The only exceptions to these constraints is the Kremlin's focus on maintaining Russia's nuclear force, submarine fleets, S-400/500 programs, and purchasing weapon systems that may be older but are reliable. And while Russian military salaries and benefits do not match what their Western counterparts earn, it should be pointed out that their cost of living is far lower than the West. So bottom line .... if I was to hazard a guess, I would put the true Russian defense budget at around $80 - $100 billion USD.
....of additional goods sent to us by China remain untaxed, but will be shortly, at a rate of 25%. The Tariffs paid to the USA have had little impact on product cost, mostly borne by China. The Trade Deal with China continues, but too slowly, as they attempt to renegotiate. No!
* In addition, Trump threatened to impose 25% tariffs on an additional $325 billion of Chinese goods "shortly." * The president said that trade talks with China are continuing, but are moving too slowly as Beijing tries to re-negotiate.
President Donald Trump said Sunday that tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods will increase to 25% on Friday, despite repeated claims by the administration in recent weeks that trade talks with Beijing were going well.
The tariff rate on those goods was originally set at 10%. Trump had initially threatened to increase the tariffs at the start of the year, but postponed that decision after China and the U.S. agreed to sit down for trade talks.
In addition, Trump threatened to impose 25% tariffs on an additional $325 billion of Chinese goods "shortly."
The president said that trade talks with China are continuing, but are moving too slowly as Beijing tries to re-negotiate.
WNU Editor: Regular readers of this blog know that I have never been optimistic that these talks will result in a trade agreement. I know from personal experience that China has no interest in compromising when it comes to opening their markets to foreign competition, and they certainly do not want to change the rules that they must operate under when it comes to exporting their products overseas. In regards to the current talks, Beijing is playing the waiting/delaying game in the hope that President Trump will be defeated in 2020, and that a Democrat President will return everything to the status quo.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is expected to change the way the United States and other nations operate their nuclear command and control. For instance, a recent RAND report surveyed AI and nuclear security experts and notes that "AI is expected to become more widely used in aids to decisionmaking" in command-and-control platforms. The report also indicated the possibility that narrow AI could in the future act as a "trusted advisor" in nuclear command and control. In this article, I will examine the advice such an advisor might provide to decision-makers in a nuclear crisis, focusing on the possibility that an algorithm could offer compelling evidence that an incoming nuclear alert was a false alarm, thereby counseling restraint rather than confrontation.
* China is building a third aircraft carrier, the country's second domestically produced carrier, and it could be a major improvement over its predecessors, the Pentagon said in its new report. * China already has one carrier in service, and a second one is expected to join the fleet later this year. * The Department of Defense expects the country's third carrier, which is under construction, to be larger and include a catapult launch system, meaning the ship could possibly carry a larger air wing than its predecessors and be much more effective in a conflict.
China is working on a third aircraft carrier, one expected to be much more technologically advanced and powerful than its predecessors, the Department of Defense said in its new report on China's growing military might.
China has one carrier — the Liaoning — in service with the People's Liberation Army Navy. Formerly a Soviet heavy aircraft-carrying cruiser, this vessel is the flagship of China's navy.
Anchors, catapult parts, and steel from the world's first nuclear aircraft carrier are already on other flattops or will go into future ones.
It may take more than 15 years for workers to completely scrap the now-decommissioned aircraft carrier USS Enterprise, but the Navy is already recycling parts and raw materials from the ship. Components from "Big E" are already on certain Nimitz-class carriers and more could find their way onto new Ford-class carriers, including a future flattop that will also carry the name Enterprise.
Defense One's Marcus Weisgerber and Brad Peniston got the details on how the former Enterprise will continue serving the Navy during a visit to Huntington Ingalls Industries' Newport News Shipbuilding in Newport News, Virginia on May 1, 2019. The one-of-a-kind ship, the first ever nuclear aircraft carrier anywhere in the world, has been at the shipyard since 2013. The flattop had first entered service in 1961 and the Navy finally decommissioned her officially in 2017.
It's strange what can make an impact. Sometimes a message needs to be loud and over-the-top to come across, like punk rock or the films of Oliver Stone. In other cases, cool and quiet works much better.
Take the new time lapse map created by Japanese artist Isao Hashimoto. It is beautiful in a simple way and eerie as it documents the 2,053 nuclear explosions that took place between 1945 and 1998.
U.S. Air Force says a ground-based laser downed multiple test missiles over New Mexico.
A successful ground test has moved the U.S. military one big step closer to putting anti-missile lasers on its aircraft.
A ground-based laser shot down "several" missiles in flight during an April 23 test at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, Air Force officials said. Run by the Air Force Research Laboratory, or AFRL, the test was part of the Self-Protect High Energy Laser Demonstrator, or SHiELD, a program intended to protect aircraft from incoming missiles.
AFRL officials said security reasons prevented them from saying how many missiles were downed in the test.
The laser that the Air Force lab used for the test was ground-based, and on the heavy side.
WNU Editor: They admit that the laser used was ground-based, and on the "heavy side". Translation .... a lot more work is necessary before this can be deployed on aircraft.
More News On The US Air Force Successfully Downing Multiple Test Missiles Using A Ground-Based Laser
North Macedonian voters are choosing a new president in a poll that could make life more difficult for the ruling Social Democrats. The entire election will need to be rerun if not enough people turn out to vote.
Voters in North Macedonia returned to the ballot box on Sunday to vote in a presidential runoff election that focused on the name change deal with Greece.
The hotly contested vote pits Stevo Pendarovski, backed by the ruling Social Democrats, against his nationalist-backed rival Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova.
Casting his ballot on Sunday, Pendarovski urged people to vote for his concept of "moving forward for all citizens of Republic of North Macedonia, all ethnicities regardless of religion, nationality or political party."
His rival, Siljanovska-Davkova, said she would end the "political winter in Macedonia."
Surveys show the ruling Panamenista Party will lose power in elections marked by outrage over corruption allegations.
Panama City - Voters in Panama cast ballots on Sunday to elect their next president, 71 legislators, and hundreds of local government officials.
The country's 2.7 million voters are expected to vote the ruling Panamenista Party out of office in elections marked by widespread outrage over recent government corruption scandals.
Businessman and former lawmaker Laurentino "Nito" Cortizo is the top contender for the next five-year term as president. For months, the Democratic Revolutionary Party candidate held a double-digit lead in most polls.
"We are very certain the people will ensure the triumph of Nito Cortizo," his campaign spokesperson Juvy Cano told Al Jazeera.
Fuat Oktay says US concerns over the Russian-made defence system are not reasonable, adding Ankara will not back down.
Turkey will never bow to US sanctions over its agreement to buy Russian S-400 defence systems, Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay said on Sunday in reference to a deal that has strained ties between the NATO allies.
Washington has said the S-400s could compromise the capabilities of its F-35 fighter jets - for which it has a separate deal with Turkey - and warned of possible US sanctions if Ankara pushed on with the Russian deal.
Ankara has said the S-400s and F-35s would not affect each other and that it will not abandon the former.
We just targeted Hamed Ahmed Khudari, a Gazan terrorist responsible for transferring Iranian funds to Hamas & PIJ in Gaza, helping fund their rocket fire at Israelis.
Transferring Iranian money to Hamas & the PIJ doesn't make you a businessman. It makes you a terrorist. pic.twitter.com/WvGEB16r4h
The IDF spokesman announced the assassination of Hamed Ahmed Abed Khudri, which would mark the first time in a number of years that the IDF has used targeted assassinations against terrorist leaders.
Shortly after the IDF announced on Sunday the targeted assassination of a Hamas commander responsible for transferring funds from Iran to Gaza, a security official said that the security cabinet directed the IDF to "intensify the attacks against the terrorist organizations in Gaza."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said "massive attacks against terrorist elements" in Gaza will continue after militants in the coastal enclave fired approximately 600 rockets towards Israel.
Speaking at the weekly Cabinet meeting Sunday morning, Netanyahu said: "Hamas bears the responsibility not only for its own attacks and actions but also for the actions of Islamic Jihad, and it is paying a very heavy price for this."
Israel has so far responded with airstrikes on 260 targets across Gaza, according to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
Three Israelis were killed, according to the ZAKA rescue and recovery organization and the Barzilai hospital in Ashkelon. Four Palestinian militants were killed in the airstrikes, according to Gaza health officials, as well as two other Palestinian men.
A Venezuelan military helicopter has crashed, killing all seven people on board. The deceased include three captains, two majors and two lieutenant-colonels.
The Cougar Siglas helicopter was flying from Caracas to San Carlos, in the state of Cojedes. The helicopter crashed shortly after leaving the Venezuelan capital in a wooded area of the Caracas municipality of El Hatillo.
Sergei Lavrov and Mike Pompeo will soon meet in Helsinki to discuss Venezuela's future.
Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo are heading towards a contentious meeting in Finland (their first since the Helsinki summit last year) with the crisis in Venezuela crowding out almost all other items on the agenda.
Last week, Russia and Cuba may have thwarted a U.S. backed plot to engineer a peaceful transfer of power from Nicolas Maduro to a transitional government led by interim president Juan Guaido and Venezuela's top officials, including Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino and Supreme Court Chief Justice Maikel Moreno.
WNU Editor: I do not think Russia has the leverage in Venezuela that the White House thinks it has. It is true that Russia has a few hundred military contractors in Venezuela, and it is giving support to Cuba to maintain a few thousand advisers/contractors/etc. to prop up the Maduro regime. But does the Kremlin have the influence to tell Nicolas Maduro to quit the Presidency and move to Cuba for the rest of his life? The answer is no.
Alexander Gorbunov, born in 1992 in the North Caucasus city of Makhachkala, revealed himself as the author behind famous social media channels StalinGulag
* Blogger StalinGulag revealed himself as Alexander Gorbunov, born in 1992 * Gorbunov has 300,000 followers on Telegram and over a million on Twitter * He said he revealed his identity out of fear after police raided his parents' home * He has used a wheelchair for most of his life because of spinal muscular atrophy * New Russian legislation prohibited individuals to spread news about officials * Alexei Navalny has defined him 'the most important political columnist in Russia'
A secretive anti-Kremlin blogger behind popular social media accounts mocking the Kremlin and life in modern Russia has revealed his identity after years of speculation.
Known for his wit, StalinGulag has more than 300,000 followers on Telegram and over a million on Twitter.
This week, the blogger revealed himself as Alexander Gorbunov, born in 1992 in the North Caucasus city of Makhachkala.
Gorbunov, who lives in Moscow with his wife and has been a successful financial trader since the age of 13, said he has decided to come forward out of fear of reprisals for his family, after police in Makhachkala raided his parents' home.
WNU Editor: He is very good. Once every week or two I read what he has posted, and I have never been disappointed. I am surprised that he has decided to go. Russian bloggers prefer to be private, even when the state is threatening them. If you understand Russian, here is his interview with the BBC (link here).
Russia's online community has been abuzz over the past week with praise for popular YouTuber Yury Dud's documentary about life in the land of the gulag labor camps.
It's a departure for the 32-year-old sports editor, whose 5.1 million subscribers tune in to watch him interview personalities from all walks of life about their personal lives. More often than not, Dud's questions have been said to "border on the tabloid-esque."
Reverse Engineering a Xinjiang Police Mass Surveillance App.
Since late 2016, the Chinese government has subjected the 13 million ethnic Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang to mass arbitrary detention, forced political indoctrination, restrictions on movement, and religious oppression. Credible estimates indicate that under this heightened repression, up to one million people are being held in "political education" camps. The government's "Strike Hard Campaign against Violent Terrorism" (Strike Hard Campaign, 严厉打击暴力恐怖活动专项行动) has turned Xinjiang into one of China's major centers for using innovative technologies for social control.
WNU Editor: This is how authoritarian police states will function in the future. And the frightening part about using this type of technology is that it is incredibly effective.
THE world could amazingly be running out of sand and the risk of losing the vital construction material has sparked the birth of criminal gangs seeking to stock up on the mineral, an activist has warned.
THE SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft launched successfully from a Flacon 9 rocket and is expected to arrive at the International Space Station on Monday morning.
FORMER Vice President Joe Biden told attendees at a Columbia, South Carolina, fundraising event Saturday he wasn't going to stoop to Trump's level of name-calling and mud-slinging.
THE aircraft which burst into flames at Moscow airport claiming the lives of 41 people reported a radio failure shortly after departure, according to reports.
RAMADAN is the holiest month in the Islamic calendar. Muslims across the world are marking Ramadan 2019 with four weeks of fasting. But is Ramadan Mubarak or Ramadan Kareem the correct Ramadan greeting?
(JERUSALEM) — The Israeli army on Monday lifted protective restrictions on residents in southern Israel, while the Hamas militant group’s radio station in the Gaza Strip reported a cease-fire, signaling a deal had been reached to end the bloodiest fighting between the two sides since a 2014 war.
There was no official cease-fire announcement from either side, but the intense fighting over the past two days appeared to come to a sudden halt in the early morning hours.
The Israeli military announced its decision, saying: “As of 7 a.m., all protective restrictions in the home front will be lifted.”
Schools and roads had been closed, and residents had been encouraged to remain indoors and near bomb shelters as intense rocket fire pounded the area.
In Gaza, Hamas’ Al-Aqsa radio station had a short item saying a cease-fire had been reached. However, neither the strip’s Hamas rulers nor the smaller Islamic Jihad militant group that is active in Gaza issued any formal announcement.
Israel and Hamas are bitter enemies and have fought three wars and numerous smaller battles since the Islamic militant group seized control of Gaza in 2007.
In the latest fighting, which erupted over the weekend, Palestinian militants fired hundreds of rockets into Israel, while the Israeli military responded with airstrikes on dozens of targets inside Gaza.
Palestinian medical officials reported 23 deaths, including at least nine militants as well as two pregnant women and two babies. Four Israelis also were killed from incoming fire, the first Israeli fatalities from rocket fire since the 50-day war in 2014.
Egyptian mediators had been working with the United Nations to broker a cease-fire. Under past Egyptian-brokered deals, Israel has agreed to ease a crippling blockade of Gaza in exchange for a halt to rocket fire.
The latest fighting broke out after Palestinian militants accused Israel of not honoring an earlier cease-fire deal from March.
The terms of the latest deal were not immediately known, but recent cease-fires have been short-lived.
Brunei will not enforce draconian anti-LGBT punishments it implemented last month as part of its rollout of Sharia law, the Sultan of Brunei said in a speech on Sunday.
In his first public comments since introducing the harsh new penal code, which would have made actions like adultery and sex between two men punishable by death by stoning, Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah acknowledged that the laws had raised “many questions and misperceptions,” according to the BBC.
Despite moratorium, the Sultan defended the rules, saying they had “merit,” reports the BBC.
The enactment of the laws in the predominantly Muslim Asian nation of about 450,000 people sparked international outrage. The U.N. urged the country to suspend or repeal them, saying they “breach international human rights norms.” The U.S., Australia, the U.K. and France all voiced objections to the laws.
Several celebrities also joined the cause. Hollywood actor George Clooney led a boycott of hotels owned by the nation’s sovereign wealth fund – including the well-known Beverly Hills Hotel and Hotel Bel-Air in Los Angeles – which is run by the 72-year-old sultan.
The changes made theft punishable by amputation and defamation of the Prophet Muhammed, adultery, robbery and gay sex – which was already illegal but carried penalty of prison time – punishable by death by stoning. The code also criminalized teaching children about any laws except Islam, and implemented whipping as a sentence for lesbian sex.
(BANGKOK) — Thailand’s newly crowned King Maha Vajiralongkorn made a spectacular public appearance in front of his countrymen Sunday, carried atop a golden palanquin by soldiers in ancient fighting uniforms in a procession through Bangkok’s historic quarter.
Hundreds of other soldiers marched in front, behind and alongside the palanquin in scorching heat as the procession set off from Bangkok’s Grand Palace just after 5 p.m. with a marching band setting the pace. Also taking part in the slow parade were the prime minister and other senior officials in the military government as well as the king’s wife, Queen Suthida, and one of his daughters, Princess Bajrakitiyabha.
Slightly more than five hours after starting the day-into-night, 7.15-kilometer (4.3-mile) journey, the king reached the last of three prominent Buddhist temples — the Temple of the Reclining Buddha — where he stopped to pay homage to Buddha images. At the two temples he visited earlier, he also paid homage to the relics of his royal ancestors.
After concluding his visit to the Temple of the Reclining Buddha, also known as Wat Pho, the “Royal Procession on Land” traveled 1.5 km (1 mile) back to the Grand Palace, and the king’s palanquin passed through a gate at 11:40 p.m., approximately six-and-a-half hours after the journey began.
Vajiralongkorn on Saturday took part in an elaborate set of Buddhist and Hindu rituals that established his status as a full-fledged monarch with complete regal powers.
Also known as King Rama X, the 10th king of the Chakri dynasty, Vajiralongkorn had been serving as king since the October 2016 death of his father, King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who was on the throne for seven decades.
Though Thailand has had a constitutional monarchy since 1932, when a revolution ended absolute rule by kings, the country’s monarchs are regarded as almost divine and have been seen as a unifying presence in a country that has seen regular bouts of political instability as it rotates between elected governments and military rule.
Since taking the throne, Vajiralongkorn has tightened control over royal institutions and acted to increase his influence in his country’s administration. Like kings before him, he is protected by one of the world’s strictest lese majeste laws, which makes criticism of him and other top royals punishable by up to 15 years in prison and has dampened open debate about the monarchy’s role in society.
Onlookers who crowded the sidewalks along Sunday’s parade route were almost all wearing yellow shirts, a color closely associated with the monarchy. The 66-year-old king wore heavy, gold-embroidered vestments and a soft, wide-brimmed hat with a feather on top.
Some of those watching the parade clasped their hands in reverence; others took photos with their cellphones. Many waved small Thai flags or yellow royal flags. It was impossible to estimate the crowd size along the long, winding route. The crowds seemed to thicken after the sun went down and the weather cooled slightly.
When Vajiralongkorn passed by, there were shouts of “Long Live the King.”
The palanquin was carried by five teams of 16 soldiers each, switching places at several points along their march. The 109-member marching band played tunes composed by the king’s father, who was an enthusiastic musician, and a single musician played haunting sounds on a conch shell.
“I love and respect the monarchy,” said Sujitra Bokularb, a 43-year-old businesswoman who left home at 4 a.m. to get a place on the parade route. “We have been shown the importance of this institution since we were young and how much the previous king had done for us. I think the new king will continue his legacy.”
Vajiralongkorn was shielded by an ochre umbrella, and other royal symbols were hoisted high around him. After slightly more than an hour of marching, the king reached Wat Bovoranives, the first of the three temples visited.
Earlier Sunday, the king began his second day of coronation activities by granting new titles to members of the royal family in front of an audience of dignitaries including top government officials and senior Buddhist monks.
He launched the Sunday morning event in a hall at the Grand Palace by paying respects in front of portraits of his late father and his mother, who has been hospitalized for an extended period. His 86-year-old mother, known as Queen Sirikit, was granted a new official title of Queen Mother.
Vajiralongkorn’s son, Prince Dipangkorn Rasmijoti, was one of the family members granted a fresh title and royal decorations for the new reign. He turned 14 on April 29 and is the heir presumptive.
While Saturday’s ceremonies were solemn and heavily tinged with age-old rites, including the prominent presence of Brahmin priests, Sunday morning’s event was slightly more relaxed, though also steeped with traditional royal and Buddhist gestures.
Live television coverage showed some glimpses of informality: Queen Suthida exchanging a brief aside with Vajiralongkorn; two of his daughters in a warm hug after the second one returned from receiving her new title.
Monday will see the king greet the public from the balcony of the Grand Palace in the late afternoon and then hold a reception for the diplomatic corps.
There will be a river procession around the end of October.
(JERUSALEM) — Gaza militants fired hundreds of rockets into southern Israel on Sunday, killing at least four Israelis and bringing life to a standstill across the region in the bloodiest fighting since a 2014 war. As Israel pounded Gaza with airstrikes, the Palestinian death toll rose to 23, including two pregnant women and two babies.
The bloodshed marked the first Israeli fatalities from rocket fire since the 2014 war. With Palestinian militants threatening to send rockets deeper into Israel and Israeli reinforcements massing near the Gaza frontier, the fighting showed no signs of slowing down.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spent most of the day huddled with his Security Cabinet. Late Sunday, the Cabinet instructed the army to “continue its attacks and to stand by” for further orders. Israel also claimed to have killed a Hamas commander involved in transferring Iranian funds to the group.
Israel and Hamas, an Islamic militant group that seeks Israel’s destruction, have fought three wars since Hamas violently seized control of Gaza from Western-backed Palestinian forces in 2007. They have fought numerous smaller battles, most recently two rounds in March.
While lulls in fighting used to last for months or even years, these flare-ups have grown increasingly frequent as a desperate Hamas, weakened by a crippling Egyptian-Israeli blockade imposed 12 years ago, seeks to put pressure on Israel to ease the closure.
The blockade has ravaged Gaza’s economy, and a year of Hamas-led protests along the Israeli frontier has yielded no tangible benefits. In March, Hamas faced several days of street protests over the dire conditions.
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said in a statement late Sunday that the militant group was “not interested in a new war.”
He signaled readiness to “return to the state of calm” if Israel stopped its attacks “and immediately starts implementing understandings about a dignified life.”
With little to lose, Hamas appears to be trying to step up pressure on Netanyahu at a time when the Israeli leader is vulnerable on several fronts.
Fresh off an election victory, Netanyahu is now engaged in negotiations with his hard-line political partners on forming a governing coalition. If fighting drags on, the normally cautious Netanyahu could be weakened in his negotiations as his partners push for a tougher response.
Later this week, Israel marks Memorial Day, one of the most solemn days of the year, and its festive Independence Day. Next week, Israel is to host the Eurovision song contest. Prolonged fighting could overshadow these important occasions and deter foreign tourists.
The arrival of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which begins Monday, does not seem to be deterring Hamas.
But the group is also taking a big risk if it pushes too hard. During the 50-day war in 2014, Israel killed over 2,200 Palestinians, over half of them civilians, according to U.N. tallies, and caused widespread damage to homes and infrastructure. While Hamas is eager to burnish its credentials as a resistance group, the Gazan public has little stomach for another devastating war.
“Hamas is the change seeker,” said retired Brig. Gen. Assaf Orion, a former head of the Israeli military general staff’s strategic division. “Hamas needs to make its calculus, balancing its hope for improvement against its fear of escalation.”
In Washington, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Israelis have “every right to defend themselves.” He expressed hope that the recent cease-fire could be restored.
The U.N. Mideast envoy, Nickolay Mladenov, called for a halt in rocket fire and “a return to the understandings of the past few months before it is too late.”
EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini also called for a halt to “indiscriminate rocket attacks” from Gaza and expressed support for Egyptian and U.N. mediation efforts.
Previous rounds of fighting have all ended in informal Egyptian-mediated truces in which Israel pledged to ease the blockade while militants promised to halt rocket fire. Following a familiar pattern, the current round began with sporadic rocket fire amid Palestinian accusations that Israel was not keeping its promises to loosen the blockade.
On Friday, two Israeli soldiers were wounded by snipers from Islamic Jihad, a smaller Iranian-backed militant group that often cooperates with Hamas but sometimes acts independently. Israel responded by killing two Palestinian militants, leading to intense rocket barrages and retaliatory Israeli airstrikes beginning Saturday.
Islamic Jihad threatened to strike deeper into Israel, saying it “is ready to engage in an open confrontation and can open a broader front to defend our land and people.”
By Sunday, the Israeli military said militants had fired over 600 rockets, with the vast majority falling in open areas or intercepted by the Iron Dome rocket-defense system. But more than 30 rockets managed to strike urban areas, the army said.
Israeli officials said Moshe Agadi, a 58-year-old Israeli father of four, was fatally struck in the chest by shrapnel in a residential courtyard in the southern town of Ashkelon.
The other deaths included a 49-year-old man killed when a rocket hit an Ashkelon factory, a man who was killed when his vehicle was hit by a Kornet anti-tank missile near the Gaza border, and a 35-year-old man whose car was hit by a rocket in the southern city of Ashdod.
Israeli police said 66 people were wounded, three seriously. In Ashkelon, the Barzilai hospital itself was hit by debris from a rocket that was intercepted by an Iron Dome missile.
The Israeli deaths were the first rocket-related fatalities since the 2014 war, when 73 people, including six civilians, were killed on the Israeli side.
The Israeli military said it struck 250 targets in Gaza, including weapons storage, attack tunnels and rocket launching and production facilities. It also deployed tanks and infantry forces to the Gaza frontier, and put another brigade on standby.
“We have been given orders to prepare for a number of days of fighting under current conditions,” said Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, a military spokesman.
Palestinian medical officials reported 23 dead, including at least eight militants hit in targeted airstrikes. At least four civilians, including two pregnant women and two babies, were also among the dead.
Late Saturday, the Palestinians said a 37-year-old pregnant woman and her 14-month-old niece were killed in an Israeli airstrike. The army denied involvement, saying they were killed by an errant Palestinian rocket. There was no way to reconcile the claims.
Among the militants who were killed was Hamas commander Hamed al-Khoudary, a money changer whom Israel said was a key player in transferring Iranian funds to the militant group.
Late Sunday, an Israeli airstrike hit an apartment building in northern Gaza, killing a couple in their early 30s and their 4-month-old daughter. A 12-year-old boy was also killed in northern Gaza.
Sirens wailed along Israel’s border region throughout the day warning of incoming attacks. School was canceled and roads were closed. In Gaza, large explosions thundered across the blockaded enclave during the night as plumes of smoke rose into the air.
Hamas seized control of Gaza from the forces of internationally recognized Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Despite his fierce rivalry with Hamas, Abbas appealed to the international community “to stop the Israeli aggression against our people.”
(MOSCOW) — At least 40 people died when an Aeroflot airliner burst into flames while making an emergency landing at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport Sunday evening, officials said.
The Sukhoi SSJ100 operated by national airline Aeroflot had 73 passengers and five crew members on board when it touched down and sped down a runway spewing huge flames and black smoke.
Elena Markovskaya, a spokeswoman for Russia’s Investigative Committee, said early Monday that 41 people were killed. But Health Minister Veronika Skvortsova said later that 38 survived, implying the death toll was 40.
The victims included one member of the crew and at least two teenagers, according to the Investigative Committee.
Video showed desperate passengers leaping out of the plane onto inflatable evacuation slides and staggering across the airport’s tarmac and grass, some holding luggage.
The airport said in a statement that the plane, which had taken off from Sheremetyevo Airport for the northern city of Murmansk, turned back for unspecified technical reasons and made a hard landing that started the fire.
Video broadcast later on Russian television showed flames bursting from the jetliner’s underside as it lands and then bounces. The plane apparently did not have time to jettison fuel before the emergency landing, news reports said.
The SSJ100, also known as the Superjet, is a two-engine regional jet put into service in 2011 with considerable fanfare as a signal that Russia’s troubled aerospace industry was on the rise.
However, the plane’s reputation was troubled after defects were found in some horizontal stabilizers.
The plane’s manufacturer, Sukhoi Civil Aircraft, said the plane in Sunday’s accident had received maintenance at the beginning of April. Aeroflot said the pilot had some 1,400 hours of experience flying the plane.
The plane is largely used in Russia as a replacement for outdated Soviet-era aircraft, but also has been used by airlines in other countries, including Armenia and Mexico.
This is the second fatal accident involving a SSJ100. In 2012, a demonstration flight in Indonesia struck a mountain, killing all 45 aboard.
(CARACAS, Venezuela) — Venezuelan authorities are investigating the cause of a helicopter crash that killed seven military officers while they were while heading to a state where President Nicolás Maduro was visiting troops.
The crash of the Cougar helicopter on the southeastern outskirts of Caracas on Saturday followed days of upheaval during which opposition leader Juan Guaidó called in vain for a military uprising to overthrow Maduro, and five people were killed in clashes between protesters and police.
The armed forces said the chopper was heading to San Carlos in Cojedes state, near a military base where Maduro addressed cadets on Saturday. The statement didn’t say if the aircraft was part of the presidential delegation.
In late April, a Venezuelan National Guard general and a pilot died in a police helicopter crash in the city of Maracaibo. Two other people were injured.
Meanwhile the Venezuelan opposition planned a memorial service Sunday for those killed in street fighting over the past week.
Also Sunday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said ABC’s “This Week” program that he planned to meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov soon to discuss U.S. concerns that Russian support for Maduro is fueling the political and humanitarian crisis in Venezuela. Russia, in turn, has accused the United States of aggressively interfering in Venezuela’s internal affairs.
U.S. officials are working to provide President Donald Trump with “a full-scale set of options; diplomatic options, political options, options with our allies, and then ultimately, a set of options that would involve use of U.S. military,” Pompeo said. “We’re preparing those for him so that when the situation arises, we’re not flatfooted.”
The U.S. and over 50 other nations recognize Guaidó as Venezuela’s rightful leader, saying Maduro’s re-election last year was rigged. Washington has imposed economic sanctions on Venezuela’s oil industry and individuals linked to Maduro, who alleges he is the target of a U.S.-engineered coup plot in which Guaidó is a key collaborator.
(Bloomberg) — Israel and Gaza-based militants are digging in for extended fighting after a barrage of hundreds of rockets and retaliatory airstrikes boiled over into a second day, threatening to undo months of Egyptian-brokered efforts to reach a long-term truce.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday he instructed the army to continue its “massive attacks” in Gaza and bolstered forces near the coastal strip. Militant groups, who want Israel to do more to alleviate the misery in blockaded Gaza, have threatened to send rockets deeper into Israeli territory as important dates on the calendar approach.
Israel commemorates its memorial and independence days this week, and militants have vowed to ruin the May 18 Eurovision song contest in Tel Aviv. Canceling the competition — or holding it under rocket fire — could harm Israel’s effort to showcase itself as a top-tier tourist destination.
“They thought that because it’s before the Memorial Day of Israel and the Independence Day of Israel and the Eurovision which is in a week or two in Israel, Israel will not retaliate, but it was a huge mistake,” former Israeli National Security Adviser Yaakov Amidror said on a press briefing.
At least 10 Palestinians and three Israelis have been killed since lower-level fighting on Friday escalated into intense fighting the following day. A Palestinian baby and her pregnant relative were among the dead, though the army denied responsibility and said the two were killed by rockets fired from Gaza that fell short.
Low Boil
Rocket bombardments began Saturday morning and about 450 had been fired by Sunday afternoon. More than 100 rockets were intercepted by missile defense batteries, but several scored direct hits on homes, factories and cars.
In return, Israeli aircraft hit roughly 220 targets in Gaza that the army said included military compounds and training camps, naval vessels and weapons facilities. The military also destroyed several tunnels dug by Islamic Jihad to infiltrate Israel, the army said.
For more than a year, Hamas has been sponsoring weekly protests at the border designed to draw attention to the Palestinians’ plight and deflect popular anger over Gaza’s crushing poverty away from Hamas’s own failures and onto Israel. Gaza has been under an Israeli and Egyptian blockade since Hamas wrested control of the territory in 2007, and sanctions imposed by the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority, which is locked in a power struggle with Hamas, have intensified the strip’s distress.
Despite repeated confrontations this year, the Israeli government and Hamas have refrained from the sort of full-scale wars they’ve waged three times since the militant group seized control of the strip. Israeli officials have said their priority is to confront Iran’s attempts to entrench itself militarily in Syria, on Israel’s northern border, and don’t want to get bogged down in Gaza instead.
(SEOUL, South Korea) — North Korean state media on Sunday showed leader Kim Jong Un observing live-fire drills of long-range multiple rocket launchers and what appeared to be a new short-range ballistic missile, a day after South Korea expressed concern that the launches were a violation of an inter-Korean agreement to cease all hostile acts.
Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency said Kim expressed “great satisfaction” over Saturday’s drills and stressed that his front-line troops should keep a “high alert posture” and enhance combat ability to “defend the political sovereignty and economic self-sustenance of the country.”
The weapons launches were a likely sign of Pyongyang’s growing frustration at stalled diplomatic talks with Washington meant to provide coveted sanctions relief in return for nuclear disarmament. They also highlighted the fragility of the detente between the Koreas, which in a military agreement reached last September vowed to completely cease “all hostile acts” against each other in land, air and sea.
South Korea said it’s “very concerned” about North Korea’s weapons launches, calling them a violation of the agreements to reduce animosities between the countries. The statement, issued after an emergency meeting Saturday of top officials at the presidential Blue House in Seoul, also urged North Korea to stop committing acts that would raise military tensions and join efforts to resume nuclear diplomacy.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo stressed that Washington still wants to strike a deal with Kim to get the North Korea to denuclearize. He told Fox News Sunday and ABC’s “This Week” that the weapons launched were short-range and not intercontinental ballistic missiles.
“They landed in the water east of North Korea and didn’t present a threat to the United States or South Korea or Japan,” he said on ABC.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff initially said on Saturday that the North launched a single missile from the site near the coastal town of Wonsan but later said in a statement that “several projectiles” had been fired.
In its updated assessment on Sunday, the JCS did not confirm whether the North fired a ballistic missile, but said a “new tactical guided weapon” was among the weapons tested by the North, which also included 240 millimeter- and 300 millimeter-caliber multiple rocket launchers. The JCS said the various projectiles flew from 70 to 240 kilometers (44 to 149 miles) before splashing into sea.
The North’s official Rodong Sinmun newspaper published photos that showed Kim, equipped with binoculars, observing tests of different weapons systems, including multiple rocket launchers and what appeared to be a short-range missile fired from a launch vehicle, and also an explosion of what seemed to be a target set on island rocks.
“Praising the People’s Army for its excellent operation of modern large-caliber long-range multiple rocket launchers and tactical guided weapons, he said that all the service members are master gunners and they are capable of carrying out duty to promptly tackle any situation,” the KNCA paraphrased Kim as saying.
“He stressed the need for all the service members to keep high alert posture and more dynamically wage the drive to increase the combat ability so as to defend the political sovereignty and economic self-sustenance of the country and … the security of the people from the threats and invasion by any forces,” the report added.
The North Korean missile appeared to be modeled after Russia’s 9K720 Iskander mobile short-range ballistic missile system, said Kim Dong-yub, an analyst from Seoul’s Institute for Far Eastern Studies. The solid-fuel North Korean missile was first revealed in a military parade in Pyongyang in February last year and is likely the unspecified tactical weapon the North said it tested last month, he said.
The new missile would be potentially capable of delivering nuclear warheads and striking targets as far away as 500 kilometers (310 miles), which puts the entire Korean Peninsula within reach, said Kim, who based his analysis on the capabilities of the Iskander and North Korea’s current levels in missile technology.
The missile is also likely designed to be maneuvered during flight and warhead delivery, which would make it less likely to be intercepted by missile defense systems, he said.
“The North tried to clearly demonstrate its abilities to strike any target on the Korean Peninsula, including U.S. troops stationed across South Korea in areas such as Seoul, Pyeongtaek, Daegu and Busan,” said Kim, a former South Korean military official.
The distance between Wonsan, where the launch was held, and the South Korean capital of Seoul is roughly 200 kilometers (124 miles).
The North in Sunday’s report did not issue any direct threat or warning toward the South or the United States. Experts say the North may increase these sorts of low-level provocations to apply pressure on the United States to agree to reduce crushing international sanctions.
The launches come amid a diplomatic breakdown that has followed a failed summit earlier this year between President Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un over the North’s pursuit of nuclear bombs that can accurately target the U.S. mainland. The North probably has viable shorter-range nuclear-armed missiles, but it still needs more tests to perfect its longer-range weapons, according to outside analysts.
Trump said Saturday that he still believes a nuclear deal with North Korea will happen. He tweeted that Kim “fully realizes the great economic potential of North Korea, & will do nothing to interfere or end it.”
Trump added: “He also knows that I am with him & does not want to break his promise to me. Deal will happen!”
Pyongyang has recently demanded that Pompeo be removed from nuclear negotiations and criticized national security adviser John Bolton. North Korea also said last month that it had tested a new type of unspecified “tactical guided weapon.”
North Korea could choose to fire more missiles with longer ranges in coming weeks to ramp up its pressure on the United States to come up with a roadmap for nuclear talks by the end of this year, said Nam Sung-wook, a professor at Korea University.
“North Korea wants to say, ‘We have missiles and nuclear weapons to cope with (U.S.-led) sanctions,'” Nam said. “They can fire short-range missiles a couple more times this month, and there is no guarantee that they won’t fire a medium-range missile next month.”
North Korea last conducted a major missile test in November 2017 when it flight-tested an intercontinental ballistic missile that demonstrated potential capability to reach deep into the U.S. mainland. That year saw a string of increasingly powerful weapons tests from the North and a belligerent response from Trump that had many in the region fearing war.
During the diplomacy that followed those weapons tests, Kim said that the North would not test nuclear devices or ICBMs. The short-range projectiles launched on Saturday don’t appear to violate that self-imposed moratorium, and they may instead be a way to register Kim’s displeasure with Washington without having the diplomacy collapse.
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