North Korea to top agenda at Lee-Hu summit in China

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak will this week ask China to use its influence to lean on North Korea to show restraint amid a delicate transition to a new leadership in Pyongyang focused on projecting a militaristic image.

Lee will hold a summit with China’s president, Hu Jintao, in Beijing and will “discuss ways to develop the strategic partnership between the two nations and cooperative measures for peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula”, the South Korean president’s office said in a statement.

Lee’s three-day state trip to China, his second in four years, starts tomorrow.

The South has said its primary foreign policy goal this year is maintaining stability on the divided peninsula as its unpredictable neighbour embarks on a third generation of dynastic rule following Kim Jong-il’s death last month.

Little is known about Kim’s chosen successor, his son Kim Jong-un, who in his late 20s and who will be relying on a small circle of trusted members of the military and political elite to act as minders while he cements his grip on power.

Iran test-fires new missile as Strait of Hormuz posturing continues

Iran test-fired a new Qader missile today, in the latest bout of martial posturing over the country's nuclear program and the security of the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial shipping lane for oil.

Iran fires long-range missile during Gulf drill, IRNA reports

An Iranian warship launches a missile in an unknown location in this still image taken from footage released by Islamic Republic of Iran News Network on January 1, 2012

Iran said today it had successfully test-fired a long-range missile during its naval exercise in the Gulf, the official IRNA news agency reported.

“We have test fired a long-range shore-to-sea missile called Qader (capable), which managed to successfully destroy predetermined targets in the Gulf,” the agency quoted deputy navy Commander Mahmoud Mousavi as saying.

Syrian rebels capture troops in north

Demonstrators against Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad gather in Derbasia near Hassaka on December 13, 2011. Security forces shot dead 17 people in Syria on Tuesday and rebels killed seven police in an ambush.


Armed Syrian rebels captured dozens of members of the security forces by seizing two military checkpoints in the northern province of Idlib today, the opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

It said the army deserters also clashed with security forces at a third checkpoint, killing and wounding an unspecified number of troops loyal to President Bashar al-Assad.

Rami Abdelrahman, director of the British-based Observatory, said Monday's operation took place in the Jabal al-Zawiyah region of Idlib. It was not immediately clear how many people had been killed or captured by the rebels, he said.

Iran threatens to stop Gulf oil if sanctions widened

Iran’s Navy Commander Habibulah Sayari holds a news conference in Tehran, December 22, 2011, on its war games.


Iran threatened yesterday to stop the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz if foreign sanctions were imposed on its crude exports over its nuclear ambitions, a move that could trigger military conflict with economies dependent on Gulf oil.

Western tensions with Iran have increased since a November 8 report by the UN nuclear watchdog saying Tehran appears to have worked on designing an atomic bomb and may still be pursuing research to that end. Iran strongly denies this and says it is developing nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.

Globe and Mail Challenges Emerge as Arab League Observers Begin Work in a Syrian City

A team of observers from the Arab League traveled to the embattled Syrian city of Homs on Tuesday in a visit that quieted days of fierce violence but also provided hints of the potential challenges of a group trying to monitor a ...

North Korean Mourners Line Streets for Kim Jong-il's Funeral

Kim Jong-un, the designated successor to the socialist throne in Pyongyang, North Korea, bid farewell on Wednesday to his deceased father, Kim Jong-il, walking along his hearse through snow-covered downtown Pyongyang in an ...

Funeral for North Korean leader starts

North Korea's military staged a huge funeral procession on Wednesday in the snowy streets of the capital Pyongyang for its deceased "dear leader," Kim Jong-il, readying a transition to his son, Kim Jong-un.North Korea's new leader Kim Jong-un cries as his father, North Korea's late leader Kim Jong-il, lies in state during the run-up to his funeral in Pyongyang in this still image taken from video broadcast on December 27, 2011.



Pictures from state television showed a funeral cortege led by a limousine carrying a huge picture of the 69-year old, who died on December 17, passing serried ranks of olive green-clad soldiers whose heads were bowed.

A hearse carrying the coffin was led by a weeping Kim Jong-un, accompanied Jang Song-thaek, his uncle and a key power-broker in the transition, and Ri Yong-ho, the army chief of staff.

Kim Jong-un will become the third member of the family to run the isolated and unpredictable Asian country.

The coming year was supposed to mark North Korea's self-proclaimed transformation into a "strong and prosperous" nation, but it faces a dangerous transition to a young, untested leader at a time when dictatorships across the world have tumbled.

It would seem however that little is set to change in a country that has staged what many analysts have dubbed a "Great March Backwards" over the last 20 years.

Strong it may be - North Korea is backed by neighbouring China, has conducted two nuclear tests and has ambitions to become a nuclear power and boasts a 1.2 million-strong armed forces - but prosperous it is not.

On average, North Koreans die three-and-a-half years earlier than they did when "Eternal President" Kim Il-sung died, according to U.N. data.

Japan getting ready for unexpected after Kim’s death

Portraits of North Korean founder Kim Il-sung (left) and his son Kim Jong-il at the People’s Palace of Culture in Pyongyang


Japan scurried to prepare for the unexpected today after news that Kim Jong-il, the leader of its unpredictable neighbour North Korea, had died of a heart attack.

“We hope this sudden event does not have an adverse effect on the peace and stability of the Korean peninsula,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura told a news conference after a hastily called ministerial meeting on security.

Last Convoy of American Troops Leaves Iraq

An American soldier walked last week through Contingency Operating Base Adder, where the last convoy of the military withdrawal left early Sunday under cover of darkness.

Dear Leader Kim Jong-il dead at 69

A file photo shows a national meeting held to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Kim Jong-il’s start of work at the central committee of the Worker’s Party of Korea in Pyongyang June 18, 2004. Father and son together in later life. Kim Jong-il is seen in this combination of file photographs from 2004 to 2009.



orth Korean leader Kim Jong-il, revered at home by a propaganda machine that turned him into a demi-god and vilified in the West as a temperamental tyrant with a nuclear arsenal, has died, North Korean state television reported today.

Kim, who was 69 years old, died early on Saturday of a heart attack while on a train journey, it said.

Syrian troops storm Hama to break anti-Assad strike

Syrian troops swept into the city of Hama to break a three-day strike by opponents of President Bashar al-Assad, killing at least 10 people but running into resistance from armed insurgents who destroyed two armoured vehicles, activists said.

Outside Hama, army deserters attacked a convoy of military jeeps, killing eight soldiers, they said, adding to a death toll of at least 30 people across the country on Wednesday.

The assault in Hama was the first armoured incursion there since a tank offensive in August crushed huge protests in the city. Activists said troops fired machineguns and ransacked and burnt shops which had closed to observe a mass, open-ended “Strike for Dignity” called by the opposition.

The United Nations says more than 5,000 people have died in Assad’s crackdown on protests that erupted in the southern city of Deraa in March, inspired by Arab uprisings elsewhere.

Israel approves steps to rein in settler violence

Netanyahu speaks during a weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem December 11, 2011.


Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday approved steps to crack down on violent ultra-nationalist Jewish settlers after a rampage at a West Bank military base and torching of a mosque’s facade stirred public outrage.

Radical settlers are bent on foiling government efforts to shut down unauthorised outposts they have set up in occupied West Bank territory where Palestinians seek a state, although Israel has continued to expand larger official settlements.

Among the measures approved by Netanyahu were administrative detention of suspects, trials of some suspects in military rather than civil courts, and ejection from the West Bank of settlers suspected of inciting violence.

US War in Iraq Declared Officially Over

American troops in Iraq before the ceremonies marking the end of their mission on Thursday. More Photos » By THOM SHANKER and MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT BAGHDAD - The United States military officially declared an end to its mission in Iraq on Thursday even as ...

Hezbollah head says building up weapons, backs Syria

Lebanon’s Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah greets his supporters during a Muharram procession to mark Ashura in Beirut’s suburbs, December 6, 2011.

The leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah, whose backers Syria and Iran are at the centre of heightened regional tension, made a rare public appearance today marking the Shi’ite Muslim festival of Ashura and said his group was building up its arsenal.

Surrounded by armed bodyguards, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah walked through a crowd of Shi’ites in Beirut’s southern suburbs, Hezbollah’s stronghold, and greeted tens of thousands of supporters from the podium before disappearing for a few minutes to give his speech via a giant screen.

Blasts across Afghanistan target Shi’ites, 59 dead

Men stand near clothes and shoes belonging to victims of a suicide attack, outside a hospital in Kabul December 6, 2011. A suicide bomber attacked a Shi'ite Muslim shrine in Kabul on Tuesday killing at least 48 people in unprecedented sectarian violence a day after Afghanistan's Western allies pledged long-term support once their troops leave.

A suicide attack killed dozens of Shi’ite Muslims at a crowded Kabul shrine yesterday, and four others died in a smaller blast in a key northern city, in the worst sectarian violence Afghanistan has seen since the fall of the Taliban.

The Kabul bomb was the deadliest in the capital since 2008, and punctured any lingering sense of optimism from a conference on Monday where Western allies made firm but not specific promises to support Afghanistan after troops leave in 2014.

US says opposition must build ‘free, tolerant’ Syria

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton meets with a small group of expatriate Syrian opposition members at a hotel in Geneva December 6, 2011


The United States has called for a new regime of tolerance and freedom in Syria as forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad battled fighters infiltrating the country to join the growing rebel army trying to overthrow him.

Speaking after meeting members of the opposition Syrian National Council in Geneva, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Syrians must not only remove Assad but also advance towards the rule of law.

“A democratic transition includes more than removing the Assad regime,” Clinton said. “It means setting Syria on the path of the rule of law and protecting the universal rights of all citizens, regardless of sect or ethnicity or gender.”

What began nearly nine months ago as a peaceful protest against Assad, inspired by the Arab Spring in Tunisia and Egypt, is creeping closer to civil war as armed opposition groups organize and move into some city districts.

Rumors of 'silent coup' as Pakistan President Zardari heads to hospital

Aides to President Zardari rubbish the rumors, which have quickly gained credibility among the Pakistani public because of the perception that this government is on its last legs.

Afghan bombs kill 78 in two days, Karzai cancels UK visit

 
President Hamid Karzai during his visit to his German counterpart Christian Wulff at the presidential Bellevue palace in Berlin December 6, 2011.



A roadside mine killed 19 civilians and injured another five when it exploded in the southern Afghan province of Helmand today, the provincial government said.

The blast came a day after rare sectarian attacks in three Afghan cities killed 59 people, and refocused attention on the fragile Afghan security situation.

Pakistan says NATO ignored its pleas during attack

The NATO airstrikes that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers lasted almost two hours and continued even after Pakistani commanders had pleaded with coalition forces to stop, the army claimed Monday in charges that could further inflame anger ....