North Korea plans satellite launch as Seoul, US hold drills

North Korea is planning to launch another satellite just three months after its first attempt to put a military eye in the sky failed, prompting condemnation from Tokyo and Seoul on Tuesday and demands to call it off. (KCNA via Reuters)
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Updated 22 August 2023
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North Korea plans satellite launch as Seoul, US hold drills

  • The launch is set to take place between August 24 and 31
  • Seoul said the launch would be “an illegal act” because it violates UN sanctions

SEOUL: North Korea is planning to launch another satellite just three months after its first attempt to put a military eye in the sky failed, prompting condemnation from Tokyo and Seoul on Tuesday and demands to call it off.
The launch is set to take place between August 24 and 31, Pyongyang told Japan’s coast guard Tuesday, with Tokyo mobilizing ships and its PAC-3 missile defense system in case it lands in their territory.
Seoul said the launch would be “an illegal act” because it violates UN sanctions prohibiting the North from tests using ballistic technology, which is used for both space launches and missiles.
“North Korea’s so-called ‘satellite launch’ is a clear violation of UN Security Council resolutions... No matter what excuses North Korea tries to make, it cannot justify this illegal act,” South Korea’s Unification Ministry said in a statement.
The foreign ministry said Seoul would “respond sternly to the North’s illicit provocation with close trilateral Korea-US-Japan cooperation.”
The United States echoed that statement.
“We urge the DPRK to refrain from further unlawful activity and call on Pyongyang to engage in serious and sustained diplomacy,” the State Department said in a statement, using the North’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
Pyongyang’s announcement came days after leaders from Washington, Seoul and Tokyo met at Camp David in the United States, with North Korea’s growing nuclear threats a key item on the agenda.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida urged Pyongyang to call off the launch, saying Japan was taking “all possible measures to prepare for any unforeseen eventuality.”
Japan’s Coast Guard said Pyongyang had informed it of three designated danger areas: the Yellow Sea, East China Sea and waters east of the Philippines’ Luzon Island.
In May, Pyongyang launched what it described as its first military reconnaissance satellite, but the rocket carrying it, the “Chollima-1” — named after a mythical horse that often features in official propaganda — plunged into the sea minutes after takeoff.
Soon after, Kim Jong Un’s government vowed to successfully launch its spy satellite “in the near future,” saying it was a necessary counterbalance to the growing US military presence in the region.
Pyongyang’s new launch plan follows Seoul and Washington kicking off their major annual joint military drills on Monday.
Known as Ulchi Freedom Shield, the exercises, which are aimed at countering growing threats from the nuclear-armed North, will run through August 31.
Pyongyang views all such drills as rehearsals for an invasion and has repeatedly warned it would take “overwhelming” action in response.
Suspected North Korean hackers have already targeted the exercises, with email attacks on South Korean contractors working at the allies’ combined exercise war simulation center.
On Tuesday, North Korea’s state news agency condemned “the aggressive character” of the US-South Korea drills.
KCNA warned in a commentary that if the drills involve a “nuclear provocation,” the possibility “of a thermonuclear war on the Korean peninsula will become more realistic.”
South Korea’s spy agency told lawmakers last week that Pyongyang could launch a reconnaissance satellite ahead of the 75th anniversary of the North’s founding on September 9, member of parliament Yoo Sang-bum told reporters after the briefing.
Choi Gi-il, professor of national security at Sangji University, told AFP: “Pyongyang appears to be timing its next satellite launch with the ongoing joint Ulchi Freedom Shield exercise, having improved and supplemented technical aspects of the launch over the past three months.”
“Given the nature of the North Korean regime, three months seems sufficient enough to find flaws from its failed May launch and apply fixes — though we have to see whether it can pull it off this time,” he said.
Kim has made the development of a military spy satellite a top priority.
The crash of the satellite in May sparked a complex South Korean salvage operation. The government analyzed the retrieved parts and concluded the satellite had no military utility.


Muslim leaders increase security after vandalism reports at Texas and California mosques

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Muslim leaders increase security after vandalism reports at Texas and California mosques

“The past two years have been extremely difficult for American Muslims,” said Edward Ahmed Mitchell
The recent vandalism reports have left some worried and frustrated — but not entirely surprised

TEXAS: After a spate of vandalism reports involving graffiti at a few mosques in Texas and California, Muslim leaders there have stepped up existing efforts to keep their sacred spaces and community members safe.

The incidents and subsequent hypervigilance add to what many American Muslims say has already been a charged climate amid the fallout in the US from the Israel-Hamas war that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and devastated Gaza. The war started in October 2023 with a deadly attack by Hamas on Israel.

“The past two years have been extremely difficult for American Muslims,” said Edward Ahmed Mitchell, national deputy director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization.

A constant stream of images showing the death, destruction and ongoing starvation in Gaza has taken a toll, said Mitchell, as has a rise in anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian bigotry in the US

He pointed to one of the most egregious examples of that bigotry: After the war started, an Illinois man killed a 6-year-old Palestinian American Muslim boy and wounded his mother in a hate-crime attack.

Worry and frustration

The recent vandalism reports have left some worried and frustrated — but not entirely surprised.

“Since October 2023, we’ve definitely seen rise in Islamophobia,” said Rawand Abdelghani, who is on the board of directors of Nueces Mosque, one of the affected mosques in Austin, Texas. “Anti-Palestinian, anti-immigrant, all of that rhetoric that’s being said … it has contributed to things like this happening.”

Nueces security footage showed someone, their face partially covered, spray-painting what appears to be Star of David symbols at the property. CAIR Austin said similar incidents were reported at two other Austin mosques.

They all seemingly happened on the same night in May, in what the group described as part of “a disturbing pattern of hate-motivated incidents.” It called for increased security patrols and protective measures.

Shaimaa Zayan, CAIR Austin operations manager, called them an intimidation attempt.

Less than two weeks earlier, someone had spray-painted graffiti at the Islamic Center of Southern California, including the Star of David on an outer wall there, center spokesperson Omar Ricci said.

“In light of what’s going on within Palestine and the genocide in Gaza, it felt like an attack,” said Ricci, who’s also a reserve Los Angeles Police Department officer.

Some specifics remained unresolved. The LAPD said it opened a vandalism/hate crime investigation and added extra patrols, but added it has neither a suspect nor a motive and noted that nonreligious spaces were also targeted.

The Austin Police Department did not respond to Associated Press inquiries.

Nueces had already increased its security camera use following three incidents last year, including someone throwing rocks at the mosque, Abdelghani said. After the May vandalism, it also added overnight security, she added.

Nueces serves many university students and is considered a “home away from home,” Abdelghani said. It’s where they learn about their faith, meet other Muslims and find refuge, including during tense times, like when some students got arrested amid campus protests last year, she added.

CAIR says that in 2024, its offices nationwide received 8,658 complaints, the highest number it has recorded since its first civil rights report in 1996. It listed employment discrimination as the most common in 2024.

The group says last year, US Muslims, along with others of different backgrounds, “were targeted due to their anti-genocide … viewpoints.” Referencing former President Joe Biden, the CAIR report said that for “the second year in a row, the Biden-backed Gaza genocide drove a wave of Islamophobia in the United States.”

Israel has strongly rejected allegations it’s committing genocide in Gaza, where its war with Hamas has killed more than 59,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials. The initial Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7, 2023, killed some 1,200 people, while about 250 were abducted.

Tensions in multiple spaces

The war has fueled tensions in myriad US settings. After it started, Muslim and Jewish civil rights groups reported a surge of harassment, bias and physical assaults reports against their community members. Pew Research Center in February 2024 found that 70 percent of US Muslims and nearly 90 percent of US Jews surveyed say they felt an increase in discrimination against their respective communities since the war began.

More recently, leaders of US Jewish institutions have called for more help with security after a firebomb attack in Colorado on demonstrators showing support for Israeli hostages in Gaza that left one person killed and others injured, as well as a fatal shooting of two Israeli Embassy staffers outside a Jewish museum in Washington, D.C.

Politically, the conflict loomed over last year’s presidential election, leaving many pro-Palestinian US voters feeling ignored by their own government’s support for Israel. It has roiled campuses and sparked debates over free speech and where political rhetoric crosses into harassment and discrimination.

There’ve been bitter disagreements, including among some Jewish Americans, about exactly what the definition of antisemitism should cover, and whether certain criticism of Israeli policies and Zionism should be included. That debate further intensified as President Donald Trump’s administration sought to deport some foreign-born pro-Palestinian campus activists.

The Islamic Center of Southern California has been targeted before, including vandalism in 2023 and separate threats that authorities said in 2016 were made by a man who was found with multiple weapons in his home.

Incidents like the latest one cause concern, Ricci said.

“People see that it’s not going to take very much to spark something in the city,” he said. “There’s a lot of emotion. There’s a lot of passion” on both the pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli sides.

Salam Al-Marayati, president of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, said “if people think they can get away with graffiti, then the next step is to firebomb a mosque or even go attack worshippers.”

Opening doors and receiving support

Al-Marayati and others praised how many have shown support for the affected Muslim communities.

“The best preparation is what we did in Los Angeles and that’s to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our allies and be there for one another,” he said.

In Texas, a gathering at Nueces brought together neighbors and others, including Christians and Jews, to paint over the vandalism, clean up the property and garden, Zayan said.

“It was beautiful,” she said.

“It’s really important to open your doors and open your heart and invite people and to rebuild this trust and connection,” she said. “For non-Muslims, it was a great opportunity for them to show their love and support. They really wanted to do something.”

New Delhi’s high-tech suburb drowns in trash as sanitation workers flee

Updated 26 July 2025
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New Delhi’s high-tech suburb drowns in trash as sanitation workers flee

  • Local residents took to social media to show extent of garbage problem in Gurugram
  • Photos and videos show garbage piling up in residential areas, sideroads covered in junk

NEW DELHI: One of India’s most modern, high-tech, and upscale urban centers, Gurugram, is sinking in municipal waste that has not been collected for months, residents say, as sanitation workers have fled fearing a police crackdown on undocumented migrants.

Formerly known as Gurgaon, the city of skyscrapers and luxury apartments is located about 30 km south of New Delhi and was transformed over the last two decades from farming fields into a major hub for technology and outsourcing companies.

While its poor waste management system has made local headlines over the years, the problem worsened recently with garbage piling up in residential areas, sideroads covered in junk and trash burning becoming increasingly commonplace, prompting mass complaints from residents who posted visuals across social media platforms.

“There is a serious crisis in Gurgaon on waste management. Wastes are lying everywhere and the administration does not have a clue how to handle that. This is the crisis created by the administration and its policies,” Saurabh Bardhan, owner of Gurugram-based waste management company Green Bandhu, told Arab News.

Indian authorities have detained hundreds of alleged illegal immigrants in recent months, with a Human Rights Watch report published on Wednesday saying that at least 1,500 ethnic Bengali Muslims were expelled to Bangladesh “without due process” between May and June, as expulsions continue.

As many of them are employed as informal garbage collectors in Gurugram, the crackdown has affected waste management in the city.

“The migrant workers have been collecting waste for years in this so-called millennium city and they have never bothered to regularize their jobs. These workers were carrying the load of managing the city waste to a great extent,” Bardhan said.

“I heard they are being detained and this has created panic among them. But if we think that only these migrant workers are affected we are wrong. It is the whole society that is suffering because of the government’s hasty and unmindful act.”

S.S. Rohilla, public relations officer at the Municipal Corp. of Gurugram, told Arab News on Saturday that the local government is “trying to resolve the problem,” adding that the situation was “not as bad” as reported by media outlets.

But for Kalyan Singh, the waste problem in his residential area in Gurugram was a crisis.

“For the last two to three days we have been facing an acute crisis of waste lying everywhere in my (area). Never before have we faced something like this,” Singh told Arab News.

“This problem has cropped up, we learnt, after the migrant Bengali-speaking laborers have left en masse after the government’s drive to detain suspected Bangladeshis and foreigners. I hope the situation is addressed soon.”

Meanwhile, other Gurugram residents took to social media to raise concerns over public health risks and express their frustrations with the government.

“Bad roads. Poor waste management. No drainage system. Yet what does the Gurugram gov’t. choose to act on? Not infrastructure. Not public welfare. (But) targeting the people who keep this city running — the migrant workers who clean our homes and city,” Aanchal Jauhari wrote on X.

“Health Danger! Sector 70 (of) Gurugram drowning in garbage. Breeding ground for diseases,” another X user, Gautam Dhar, said. “Please help. Citizen’s health (is) at severe risk.”


Hungary’s Orban to block EU budget unless funds released

Updated 26 July 2025
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Hungary’s Orban to block EU budget unless funds released

  • Nationalist leader has for years clashed with Brussels over migration, LGBTQ rights and what critics see as eroding democracy in Hungary
  • The EU has suspended billions of euros earmarked for Hungary while a rule-of-law dispute drags on

BUDAPEST: Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban threatened on Saturday to torpedo the European Union’s new seven-year budget unless Brussels unlocks all suspended EU funds.

The nationalist leader has for years clashed with Brussels over migration, LGBTQ rights and what critics see as eroding democracy in Hungary. The EU has suspended billions of euros earmarked for Hungary while a rule-of-law dispute drags on.

“The approval of the new seven-year budget requires unanimity and until we get the remaining (frozen) funds, there won’t be a new EU budget either,” Orban said in a speech at a summer university in the Romanian town of Baile Tusnad.

The European Commission has proposed a €2 trillion ($2.35 trillion) EU budget for 2028 to 2034 with emphasis on economic competitiveness and defense.

Orban also criticized the EU for supporting Ukraine and accused Brussels of planning to install a “pro-Ukraine and pro-Brussels government” in Hungary at next year’s vote.

He also accused EU leaders of risking a trade war with US President Donald Trump’s administration that Europe “cannot win.”

“The current leadership of the EU will always be the last to sign deals with the United States and always the worst deals,” Orban added, urging a change in the bloc’s leadership.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will meet Trump on Sunday in Scotland in search of a trade deal.

Orban, who swept the last four elections, faces a tough new opposition challenger Peter Maygar, whose center-right Tisza party has a firm lead over the ruling Fidesz in most polls at a time of economic stagnation.

Magyar told a rally on Saturday that Hungary must be firmly anchored in the EU and NATO military alliance, and Tisza would bring home all suspended EU funds if it wins in 2026.

“Hungary is an EU member and our relations as allies cannot be built on a political style of putting a spoke in the wheel,” Magyar said. He added that Tisza could not support the EU budget in current form but would be ready for talks on that.

“We need to make a clear and firm decision that our place has been and will be in Europe,” Magyar said, criticizing Orban’s close relations with Russia.


Russia seizes second village in central Ukraine

Updated 26 July 2025
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Russia seizes second village in central Ukraine

  • Russian army said its forces ‘liberated the locality of Maliyevka’ in Dnipropetrovsk
  • Deeper Russian advances could mean more attacks on one of Ukraine’s largest cities

MOSCOW: Russia on Saturday said it had wrested a second village in Ukraine’s central Dnipro region in a fresh advance in the industrial mining hub.

Overnight strikes between Ukraine and Russia meanwhile claimed five lives – three in central Ukraine and two in western Russia, according to officials.

The army said its forces “liberated the locality of Maliyevka” in Dnipro, a part of Ukraine’s mining heartland, particularly for coal that powers the electricity grid.

Further Russian advances could harm Ukraine’s economy and energy supplies.

Authorities have already been ordering civilians with children to flee a front line that is creeping closer.

Deeper Russian advances could mean more attacks on one of Ukraine’s largest cities, Dnipro – though Russian troops are around 200 kilometers (120 miles) away.

Dnipropetrovsk is not one of the five Ukrainian regions – Donetsk, Kherson, Lugansk, Zaporizhzhia and Crimea – that Moscow has publicly claimed as Russian territory.


Trump hits Scottish golf course as protesters set to rally

Updated 26 July 2025
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Trump hits Scottish golf course as protesters set to rally

  • His presence has turned the picturesque and normally quiet area of southwest Scotland into a virtual fortress
  • US president professes a love of Scotland, where his mother was born, but has an uneasy relationship with the nation

TURNBERRY, United Kingdom: US President Donald Trump played golf on the first full day of his visit to Scotland Saturday, as protesters prepared to take to the streets across the country.

Trump emerged from his Turnberry resort with son Eric and waved to photographers following his arrival in Scotland on Friday evening.

His presence has turned the picturesque and normally quiet area of southwest Scotland into a virtual fortress, with roads closed and police checkpoints in place.

Officers on quad bikes or horses, others on foot with sniffer dogs, patrolled the famous course – which has hosted four men’s British Opens – and the sandy beaches and grass dunes that hug the course.

The 79-year-old touched down Friday at nearby Prestwick Airport, as hundreds of onlookers came out to see Air Force One and try to catch a glimpse of its famous passenger.

The president has professed a love of Scotland, where his mother was born, but his controversial politics and business investments in the country have made for an uneasy relationship.

Speaking to reporters on the tarmac, Trump immediately waded into the debate surrounding high levels of irregular migration.

“You better get your act together or you’re not going to have Europe anymore,” he said, adding that it was “killing” the continent.

Trump’s five-day visit has divided the local community.

“A lot of people don’t trust Trump and I’m one of them. I think the man is a megalomaniac,” retiree Graham Hodgson said.

“He’s so full of himself. I think he’s doing a lot of damage worldwide with his tariffs. And I think it’s all for the sake of America, but at the moment I think America is paying the price as well for his policies.”

But at Prestwick Airport a boy held a sign that read “Welcome Trump” while a man waved a flag emblazoned with Trump’s most famous slogan – “Make America Great Again.”

“I think the best thing about Trump is he’s not actually a politician yet he’s the most powerful man in the world and I think he’s looking at the best interests of his own country,” said 46-year-old Lee McLean, who had traveled from nearby Kilmarnock.

“Most politicians should really be looking at the best interests of their own country first before looking overseas,” he said.

As the police rolled out a massive security operation, the Stop Trump Coalition announced demonstrations on Saturday near the US consulate in Edinburgh and another in Aberdeen, where Trump owns another golf resort.

Police are also monitoring any other protests that might spring up near Turnberry.

Trump has no public meetings in the diary for Saturday, but he is due to discuss trade with EU chief Ursula von der Leyen on Sunday and meet UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer.