SEOUL, South Korea: South Korea summoned the Russian ambassador to protest the country’s new defense pact with North Korea on Friday, as border tensions continued to rise with vague threats and brief, seemingly accidental incursions by North Korean troops.
Earlier Friday, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un issued a vague threat of retaliation after South Korean activists flew balloons carrying anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets across the border, and South Korea’s military said it had fired warning shots the previous day to repel North Korean soldiers who briefly crossed the rivals’ land border for the third time this month.
That came two days after Moscow and Pyongyang reached a pact vowing mutual defense assistance if either is attacked, and a day after Seoul responded by saying it would consider providing arms to Ukraine to fight Russia’s invasion.
South Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Hong Kyun summoned Russian Ambassador Georgy Zinoviev to protest the deal between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un and called for Moscow to immediately halt its alleged military cooperation with Pyongyang.
Kim, the South Korean diplomat, stressed that any cooperation that directly or indirectly helps the North build up its military capabilities would violate UN Security Council resolutions and pose a threat to the South’s security, and warned of consequences for Seoul’s relations with Moscow.
Zinoviev replied that he would convey Seoul’s concerns to his superiors in Moscow, the ministry said.
Leafletting campaigns by South Korean civilian activists in recent weeks have prompted a resumption of Cold War-style psychological warfare along the inter-Korean border.
The South Korean civilian activists, led by North Korean defector Park Sang-hak, said it sent 20 balloons carrying 300,000 propaganda leaflets, 5,000 USB sticks with South Korean pop songs and TV dramas, and 3,000 US dollar bills from the South Korean border town of Paju on Thursday night.
Pyongyang resents such material and fears it could demoralize front-line troops and residents and eventually weaken Kim Jong Un’s grip on power, analysts say.
In a statement carried by North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency, Kim Yo Jong, one of her brother’s top foreign policy officials, called the activists “defector scum” and issued what appeared to be a threat of retaliation.
“When you do something you were clearly warned not to do, it’s only natural that you will find yourself dealing with something you didn’t have to,” she said, without specifying what the North would do.
After previous leafletting by South Korean activists, North Korea launched more than 1,000 balloons that dropped tons of trash in South Korea, smashing roof tiles and windows and causing other property damage. Kim Yo Jong previously hinted that balloons could become the North’s standard response to leafletting, saying that the North would respond by “scattering dozens of times more rubbish than is being scattered on us.”
In response, South Korea resumed anti-North Korea propaganda broadcasts with military loudspeakers installed at the border for the first time in years, to which Kim Yo Jong, in another state media statement, warned that Seoul was “creating a prelude to a very dangerous situation.”
Tensions between the Koreas are at their highest in years as Kim Jong Un accelerates his nuclear weapons and missile development and attempts to strengthen his regional footing by aligning with Russian President Vladimir Putin in a standoff against the US-led West.
South Korea, a growing arms exporter with a well-equipped military backed by the United States, says it is considering upping support for Ukraine in response. Seoul has already provided humanitarian aid and other support while joining US-led economic sanctions against Moscow. But it has not directly provided arms, citing a long-standing policy of not supplying weapons to countries actively engaged in conflict.
Putin told reporters in Hanoi, Vietnam, on Thursday that supplying weapons to Ukraine would be “a very big mistake,” and said South Korea “shouldn’t worry” about the agreement if it isn’t planning aggression against Pyongyang.
South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said Minister Cho Tae-yul on Friday held separate phone calls with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa to discuss the new pact. The diplomats agreed that the agreement poses a serious threat to peace and stability in the region and vowed to strengthen trilateral coordination to deal with the challenges posed by the alignment between Moscow and Pyongyang, Cho’s ministry said in a statement.
North Korea is extremely sensitive to criticism of Kim’s authoritarian rule and efforts to reach its people with foreign news and other media.
In 2015, when South Korea restarted loudspeaker broadcasts for the first time in 11 years, North Korea fired artillery rounds across the border, prompting South Korea to return fire, according to South Korean officials. No casualties were reported.
South Korea’s military said there are signs that North Korea was installing its own speakers at the border, although they weren’t yet working.
In the latest border incident, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said several North Korean soldiers engaged in unspecified construction work briefly crossed the military demarcation line that divides the two countries at around 11 a.m. Thursday.
The South Korean military broadcast a warning and fired warning shots, after which the North Korean soldiers retreated. The joint chiefs didn’t immediately release more details, including why it was releasing the information a day late.
South Korea’s military says believes recent border intrusions were not intentional, as the North Korean soldiers have not returned fire and retreated after the warning shots.
The South’s military has observed the North deploying large numbers of soldiers in frontline areas to build suspected anti-tank barriers, reinforce roads and plant mines in an apparent attempt to fortify their side of the border. Seoul believes the efforts are likely aimed at preventing North Korean civilians and soldiers from escaping to the South.
South Korea summons Russian ambassador as tensions rise with North Korea
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South Korea summons Russian ambassador as tensions rise with North Korea
- Earlier Friday, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un issued a vague threat of retaliation after South Korean activists flew balloons carrying anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets across the border
- South Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Hong Kyun summoned Russian Ambassador Georgy Zinoviev to protest the deal between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un
Pakistan defends flood response after over 270 people killed in northwestern district
In Kishtwar district, teams are continuing their efforts in the remote village of Chositi, looking for dozens of missing people after the area was hit by flash floods last week. At least 60 were killed and some 150 injured, about 50 of them critically.
In Pakistan, authorities on Sunday defended their response to climate-induced flash floods that killed more than 270 people in a single northwestern district.
Mohammad Suhail, a spokesman for the emergency service, said 54 bodies were found after hours-long efforts in Buner, a mountainous district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, where torrential rains and cloudbursts triggered massive flooding on Friday. Similar cloudburst have also caused devastations in the Indian-administered Kashmir.
Suhail said several villagers remain missing, and search efforts are focused on areas where homes were flattened by torrents of water that swept down from the mountains, carrying massive boulders that smashed into houses like explosions.
Authorities have warned of more deluges and possible landslides between now and Tuesday, urging local administrations to remain on alert. Higher-than-normal monsoon rains have lashed the country since June 26 and killed more than 600.
More intense weather to come?
Residents in Buner have accused officials of failing to warn them to evacuate after torrential rain and cloudbursts triggered deadly flooding and landslides. There was no warning broadcast from mosque loudspeakers, a traditional method in remote areas.
The government said that while an early warning system was in place, the sudden downpour in Buner was so intense that the deluge struck before residents could be alerted.
Lt. Gen. Inam Haider, chairman of the National Disaster Management Authority, told a hastily convened news conference in Islamabad that Pakistan was experiencing shifting weather patterns because of climate change. Since the monsoon season began in June, Pakistan has already received 50 percent more rainfall than in the same period last year, he added.
He warned that more intense weather could follow, with heavy rains forecast to continue this month.
Asfandyar Khan Khattak, director-general of the Provincial Disaster Management Authority, said there was “no forecasting system anywhere in the world” that could predict the exact time and location of a cloudburst.
Mohammad Iqbal, a schoolteacher in Pir Baba village, said the lack of a timely warning system caused casualties and forced many to flee their homes at the last moment.
“Survivors escaped with nothing,” he said. “If people had been informed earlier, lives could have been saved and residents could have moved to safer places.”
People still missing
Idrees Mahsud, a disaster management official, said Pakistan’s early warning system used satellite imagery and meteorological data to send alerts to local authorities. These were shared through the media and community leaders. He said monsoon rains that once only swelled rivers now also triggered urban flooding.
An emergency services spokesman in Buner, Mohammad Sohail, said more than half the damaged roads in the district had reopened by Sunday, allowing vehicles and heavy machinery to reach cut-off villages.
Crews were clearing piles of rocks and mud dumped by the floods. They were still using heavy machinery to remove the rubble of collapsed homes after families reported that some of their relatives were missing.
In one of the deadliest incidents, 24 people from one family died in the village of Qadar Nagar when floodwaters swept through their home on the eve of a wedding. The head of the family, Umar Khan, said he survived the floods because he was out of the house at the time. Four of his relatives have yet to be found, he added.
Extreme weather events
Pakistan is highly vulnerable to climate-induced disasters. In 2022, a record-breaking monsoon killed nearly 1,700 people and destroyed millions of homes.
The country also suffers regular flash floods and landslides during the monsoon season, which runs from June to September, particularly in the rugged northwest, where villages are often perched on steep slopes and riverbanks.
Experts say climate change is intensifying the frequency and severity of such extreme weather events in South Asia.
Khalid Khan, a weather expert, said Pakistan produces less than 1 percent of planet-warming emissions but faces heatwaves, heavy rains, glacial outburst floods and now cloudbursts, underscoring how climate change is devastating communities within hours.
Thursday’s floods struck during an annual Hindu pilgrimage. Authorities rescued over 300 people, while some 4,000 pilgrims were evacuated to safety.
France discussing ‘unjustified’ arrest of citizen in Mali
- Mali authorities said Thursday that the French national had been arrested on suspicion of working for the French intelligence services, and accused “foreign states” of trying to destabilize the country
PARIS: France’s foreign ministry said Saturday that it was in talks with Mali over the arrest of a Frenchman accused of working with intelligence services to “destabilize” the country, calling the claims “unjustified.”
“Discussions are underway to clear up any misunderstanding” and obtain the “immediate release” of the French embassy employee in Bamako, the ministry said.
Mali authorities said Thursday that the French national had been arrested on suspicion of working for the French intelligence services, and accused “foreign states” of trying to destabilize the country.
The West African country’s ruling junta, which came to power after back-to-back coups in 2020 and 2021, also said that dozens of soldiers had been detained for allegedly seeking to overthrow the government.
France’s foreign ministry said the arrested employee was covered by the Vienna convention on consular relations, meaning he should be released.
Impoverished Mali has been gripped by a security crisis since 2012, fueled notably by violence from groups affiliated with Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State jihadist group, as well as local criminal gangs.
The junta, led by President Assimi Goita, has turned away from Western partners, notably former colonial power France, to align itself politically and militarily with Russia in the name of national sovereignty.
European leaders to join Zelensky for Ukraine talks with Trump
- Ahead of the Washington visit on Monday, von der Leyen said she would welcome Zelensky for a meeting in Brussels which other European leaders would join by video call, before accompanying the Ukrainian leader on his US trip at his “request”
BRUSSELS: European leaders will join Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during his visit to Washington on Monday seeking an end to Moscow’s invasion, after President Donald Trump dropped his push for a ceasefire following his Alaska summit with Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
Securing a ceasefire in Ukraine, more than three years after the Kremlin ordered the invasion, had been one of Trump’s core demands before the summit, to which Ukraine and its European allies were not invited.
But after a meeting that yielded no clear breakthrough, Trump ruled out an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine — a move that would appear to favor Putin, who has long argued for negotiations on a final peace deal.
Ukraine and its European allies have criticized it as a way to buy time and press Russia’s battlefield advances, with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, French President Emmanuel Macron and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen among the leaders set to try and bend Trump’s ear on the matter.
Ahead of the Washington visit on Monday, von der Leyen said on X she would welcome Zelensky for a meeting in Brussels on Sunday which other European leaders would join by video call, before accompanying the Ukrainian leader on his US trip at his “request” with “other European leaders.”
The German government confirmed Merz was among those other European leaders, and would try to emphasize “interest in a swift peace agreement in Ukraine.”
Finland said its president, Alexander Stubb, would also travel to Washington.
Trump briefed Zelensky and European leaders on his flight back from Alaska to Washington, saying afterwards that “it was determined by all that the best way to end the horrific war between Russia and Ukraine is to go directly to a peace agreement which would end the war.”
Ceasefire agreements “often times do not hold up,” Trump added on his Truth Social platform.
But Zelensky has appeared unconvinced by the change of tack, saying on Saturday that it “complicates the situation.”
If Moscow lacks “the will to carry out a simple order to stop the strikes, it may take a lot of effort to get Russia to have the will to implement far greater — peaceful coexistence with its neighbors for decades,” he said on social media.
Trump expressed support during his call with Zelensky and European leaders for a proposal by Putin to take full control of two largely Russian-held Ukrainian regions in exchange for freezing the frontline in two others, an official briefed on the talks told AFP.
Putin “de facto demands that Ukraine leave Donbas,” an area consisting of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions in eastern Ukraine, the source said.
In exchange, Russian forces would halt their offensive in the Black Sea port region of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in southern Ukraine, where the main cities are still under Ukrainian control.
Several months into its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia in September 2022 claimed to have annexed all four Ukrainian regions even though its troops still do not fully control any of them.
“The Ukrainian president refused to leave Donbas,” the source said.
Trump notably also said the United States was prepared to provide Ukraine security guarantees, an assurance Merz hailed as “significant progress.”
But there was a scathing assessment of the summit outcome from the European Union’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas, who accused Putin of seeking to “drag out negotiations” with no commitment to end the bloodshed.
“The harsh reality is that Russia has no intention of ending this war any time soon,” Kallas said.
The main diplomatic focus now switches to Zelensky’s talks at the White House on Monday.
The Ukrainian president’s last Oval Office visit in February ended in an extraordinary shouting match, with Trump and Vice President JD Vance publicly berating Zelensky for not showing enough gratitude for US aid.
In an interview with broadcaster Fox News after his sit-down with Putin, Trump had suggested that the onus was now on Zelensky to secure a peace deal as they work toward an eventual trilateral summit with Putin.
“It’s really up to President Zelensky to get it done,” Trump said.
In an earlier statement, European leaders welcomed the plan for a Trump-Putin-Zelensky summit but added that they would maintain pressure on Russia in the absence of a ceasefire.
Meanwhile, the conflict in Ukraine raged on, with both Kyiv and Moscow launching attack drones at each other Sunday.
Back in Moscow, Putin said his summit talks with Trump had been “timely” and “very useful.”
In his post-summit statement in Alaska, Putin had warned Ukraine and European countries not to engage in any “behind-the-scenes intrigues” that could disrupt what he called “this emerging progress.”
Air Canada to resume flights after directive ending strike
- Jobs Minister Patty Hajjdu issues directive to end a cabin crew strike
Air Canada plans to resume flights on Sunday after the Canadian Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) acted on a directive from the country’s Jobs Minister Patty Hajjdu to end a cabin crew strike that caused the suspension of around 700 daily flights.
The CIRB directed Air Canada to resume operations and for all Air Canada and Air Canada Rouge flight attendants to return to their duties by 2 p.m. ET (1800 GMT), the airline said in a statement.
The directive came after the government on Saturday moved to end the strike and require binding arbitration to break a contract impasse, an action that the country’s largest carrier had sought but unionized flight attendants fiercely opposed.
Thousands of Air Canada cabin crew walked off the job on Saturday for the first time since 1985, after months of negotiations over a new contract. In anticipation of the stoppage, the airline began canceling flights on Friday, forcing more than 100,000 travelers to scramble for alternatives or stay put.
Air Canada said flights would restart on Sunday evening, but some would still be canceled over the next 7-10 days as the schedule stabilizes and returns to normal.
Pope Leo XIV celebrates Mass for local homeless people, invites them to lunch at summer villa
- He is celebrating a special Mass for them and inviting them into the Vatican’s lakeside estate for a lunch of lasagna and roast veal
- Pope Leo XIV is spending the last Sunday of his summer vacation with several dozen homeless and poor people and the church volunteers who help them
CASTEL GANDOLFO: Pope Leo XIV spent the last Sunday of his summer vacation with several dozen homeless and poor people and the church volunteers who help them, celebrating a special Mass for them and inviting them into the Vatican’s lakeside estate for a lunch of lasagna and roast veal.
Leo celebrated Mass in the St. Mary sanctuary of Albano, near the papal summer retreat in Castel Gandolfo where he is vacationing. The Mass was attended by around 110 people cared for by the local Caritas church charity, and the volunteers who run the diocese’s shelters, clinics and social service offices.
In his homily, Leo celebrated the “fire of charity” that had brought them together.
“And I encourage you not to distinguish between those who assist and those who are assisted, between those who seem to give and those who seem to receive, between those who appear poor and those who feel they have something to offer in terms of time, skills, and help,” he said.
In the church, he said, everyone is poor and precious, and all share the same dignity.
Leo, the former Robert Prevost, spent most of his adult life working with the poor people of Peru, first as an Augustinian missionary and then as bishop. Former parishioners and church workers say he greatly reinforced the work of the local Caritas charity, opening soup kitchens and shelters for migrants and rallying funds to build oxygen plants during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Later Sunday, Leo was to preside over a luncheon with the guests at the Borgo Laudato Si’, the Vatican’s environmental educational center in the gardens of the papal villa in Castel Gandolfo. The center is named for Pope Francis’ 2015 landmark environmental encyclical, Laudato Si (Praised Be).
According to the Albano diocese, local caterers were providing a menu of lasagna, eggplant parmesan and roast veal. For dessert, the menu called for fruit salad and sweets named for the pope, “Dolce Leone.”
