North Korea leader Kim Jong Un said his country’s hard-won nuclear weapons were a solid security guarantee and a reliable, effective deterrent that could prevent a second Korean War, state media reported Tuesday.
Kim’s comments before war veterans marking the 67th anniversary of the end of the 1950-53 Korean War again show he has no intention of abandoning his weapons as prospects dim for resuming diplomacy with the United States.
North Korea has previously ratcheted up fiery rhetoric or conducted weapons tests to wrest outside concessions. But some experts say Pyongyang will likely avoid serious talks with Washington before the US presidential elections in November as there is a chance for a US leadership change.
Kim said in his speech Monday his country has tried to become a nuclear state with an absolute might to prevent another war and that it has now built such a deterrent, according to the Korean Central News Agency.
Now, we’ve changed to a country which can defend itself reliably and unwaveringly against high-intensity pressures and military threats and blackmailing by imperialistic reactionaries and hostile forces, Kim said.
There won’t any war on this land again and our national security and future will be guaranteed firmly and permanently because of our reliable, effective self-defensive nuclear deterrent, Kim said.
Kim’s speech followed recent remarks by both North Korean and U.S. officials suggesting they were reluctant to engage in a new round of diplomacy on the North’s nuclear program anytime soon.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had said President Donald Trump would only want to engage with Kim if there were real prospects of progress. Kim’s sister and senior ruling party official, Kim Yo Jong, said a new summit would be unpractical for North Korea and that Pyongyang won’t gift Trump a high-level meeting that he can boast as a foreign policy achievement.
Kim Jong Un and Trump met three times since Kim in 2018 abruptly reached out to Washington and Seoul for talks after expressing his intent to deal away his advancing nuclear arsenals.
Many experts were skeptical of Kim’s disarmament commitment and said he only aimed to weaken US-led sanctions and perfect his nuclear program.
The nuclear diplomacy remains largely stalled since a second Kim-Trump meeting in February 2019 in Vietnam collapsed without reaching any agreement because Trump Kim rejected Kim’s proposal to get extensive sanctions relief in return for a limited denuclearization step.
Kim entered this year with a vow to bolster his nuclear program and threatened to unveil a new strategic weapon.
He also said he would no longer be bound by a self-imposed moratorium on nuclear and long-range missile tests. Kim hasn’t performed such high-profile weapons tests, which some analysts say could completely derail diplomacy with the United States. PTI
Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Tuesday took a veiled dig at the BSP, alleging that the whip issued by it to its MLAs in Rajasthan is a clean chit to those who “murdered” democracy and the Constitution.
The BSP on Sunday issued a whip to six MLAs, who had left the party to join the Congress last year, to vote against the ruling party in the state in case of a trust motion in the Assembly.
“Undeclared spokespersons of the BJP have issued a whip in support of the BJP. But, this is not a whip but a clean chit to those who murder democracy and the Constitution,” she said in a tweet in Hindi.
While the BSP MLAs have claimed that they have joined the Congress of their own will, the BSP has been claiming that since theirs is a national party, the local unit cannot merge on its own.
The Congress government in Rajasthan led by Ashok Gehlot is facing a crisis after 19 of its rebel MLAs including Sachin Pilot revolted against it.
Gehlot is now keen to prove his majority on the floor of the House and is now demanding a session of the Vidhan Sabha. PTI
The Uttar Pradesh government told the Supreme Court Tuesday it would file a status report detailing the steps taken by the authorities on encounter killings of gangster Vikas Dubey and his associates.
A bench headed by Chief Justice S A Bobde said it may consider appointing a committee headed by a former judge to probe the encounters of Dubey and his aides as also the killing of eight Uttar Pradesh policemen by the gangster.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for Uttar Pradesh, told the bench that he would file the status report by July 16.
The apex court said it would hear on July 20 the pleas seeking court-monitored probe into the encounters of Dubey and his associates.
Eight policemen, including DSP Devendra Mishra, were ambushed in Bikru village in Chaubeypur area of Kanpur when they were going to arrest Dubey and fell to bullets fired from rooftops shortly after midnight on July 3.
Dubey was killed in an encounter on the morning of July 10 when a police vehicle carrying him from Ujjain to Kanpur met with an accident and he tried to escape from the spot in Bhauti area, the police had said.
Vuln!! Path it now!!
Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has sought a detailed analytical report from the Delhi government’s health secretary on factors responsible for COVID-19 deaths in the city in the last fortnight, officials said.
Delhi reported 736 deaths in the last two weeks, with 397 people succumbing to the disease in the first week of July.
Officials said the objective of seeking the report is to take all possible measures to reduce coronavirus deaths in the national capital.
A total of 3,165 COVID-19 deaths have occurred in Delhi so far.PTI
OBC leaders and ministers of Mahavikas Aghadi should not show love of aunty for OBC community, show love of mother OBC leader, – Anil Mahajan slammed OBC ministers in power.
Mahajoti Sanstha Mahavikas Aghadi, established by the previous Devendra Fadnavis government for the OBC community, should be started immediately.
State President of OBC Jankranti Parishad and Maharashtra Mali Samaj Mahasangh, OBC leaders and Anilbhau Mahajan have written letters to the Chief Minister and the Minister to convey the sentiments of the OBC community to the government. He has written a letter to Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray. In this letter, he has given this copy to the Chief Minister and Backward Classes Minister Vijay Vadettiwar and Minister Chhagan Bhujbal. The letter requested the government to set up an organization called Mahajoti with the following five demands.
(01) An IAS officer should be appointed as MD at Mahajoti
(02) The office of Mahajoti Sanstha should be located in the center of Pune.
(03) Give a fund of 1000 crores to this Mahajoti Sanstha.
(04) The departmental work of this organization should be started all over the state.
(05) All the original OBC officers should be appointed in this Mahajoti Sanstha.
Devendra Fadnavis The BJP government has set up an organization called Mahajoti for the development of the OBC community. Such is the legal ruling. Its head office was at Pune. It is understood that the Mahavikas Alliance government has shifted it to Nagpur in Vidarbha. The leader of each community sees how his community will progress. So which Ganpati did the OBC leader of the ruling party go to drown? Such a question has arisen. Such a toll was imposed by Mahajan.
Three security force personnel were injured in an encounter with militants in Pulwama district of Jammu and Kashmir on Tuesday, police said.
A police official said that a militant was believed to have been killed during the encounter as he was shot at when he tried to jump from a house. However, the body of the militant is yet to be retrieved.
On a tip off about presence of militants in Goosu village of Pulwama, security forces launched a cordon and search operation, the official said.
He said the search operation turned into an encounter after militants opened fire towards security forces positions.
Three security force personnel sustained injuries in the initial firefight. They have been evacuated to a hospital here, the official said.
The operation was going on till last reports came in.PTI
Delhi recorded 2,442 fresh coronavirus cases on Wednesday, taking the infection tally in the city to over 89,000, while the death toll from the disease mounted to 2,803, the authorities said.
Recently, Delhi had eclipsed Mumbai as the city worst-hit by the pandemic in the country.
Sixty-one fatalities were recorded in the past 24 hours, the Delhi health department bulletin said on Wednesday.
The death toll from COVID-19 in Delhi stood at 2,742 on Tuesday.
The bulletin said the death toll due to the infection has risen to 2,803 and the total number of cases mounted to 89,802.
Besides, Mahesh Verma, the head of a Delhi government committee tasked with strengthening the preparedness of hospitals to battle coronavirus, has said the city’s COVID-19 tally may not reach 5.5 lakh cases by July-end as estimated earlier, but one needs to see how the virus behaves during the monsoon.
Meanwhile, a Delhi government panel has recommended roping in postgraduate students, pooling of resources and cash incentives to address the problem of staff shortage in hospitals amid a surge in coronavirus cases, sources said.
The two-member committee, comprising Verma and Dr BL Sherwal, director, Rajiv Gandhi Super Speciality Hospital (RGSSH), was formed last week.
According to the bulletin, 59,992 patients have recovered, been discharged or migrated so far, while the number of active cases stood at 27,007, adding that 5,51,708 tests have been conducted.
The number of containment zones in the city on Wednesday stood at 437.PTI
Vuln!! Path it now!!
The world surpassed two sobering coronavirus milestones Sunday — 500,000 confirmed deaths, 10 million confirmed cases — and hit another high mark for daily new infections as governments that attempted reopenings continued to backtrack and warn that worse news could be yet to come.
COVID-19 has taken a very swift and very dangerous turn in Texas over just the past few weeks, said Gov. Greg Abbott, who allowed businesses to start reopening in early May but on Friday shut down bars and limited restaurant dining amid a spike in cases.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom rolled back reopenings of bars in seven counties, including Los Angeles. He ordered them to close immediately and urged eight other counties to issue local health orders mandating the same.
More Florida beaches will be closing again to avoid further spread of the new coronavirus as officials try to tamp down on large gatherings amid a spike in COVID-19 cases. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said interactions among young people are driving the surge.
Caution was thrown to the wind and so we are where we are,” DeSantis said.
South Africa’s health minister warned that the country’s current surge of cases is expected to rapidly increase in the coming weeks and push hospitals to the limit. Health Minister Zwelini Mkhize said the current rise in infections has come from people who moved back into the workplace.
New clusters of cases at a Swiss nightclub and in the central English city of Leicester showed that the virus was still circulating widely in Europe, though not with the rapidly growing infection rate seen in parts of the U.S., Latin America and India.
Poland and France, meanwhile, attempted a step toward normalcy as they held elections that had been delayed by the virus.
Wearing mandatory masks, social distancing in lines and carrying their own pens to sign voting registers, French voters cast ballots in a second round of municipal elections. Poles also wore masks and used hand sanitizer, and some in virus-hit areas were told to mail in their ballots.
I didn’t go and vote the first time around because I am elderly and I got scared, said Fanny Barouh as she voted in a Paris school.
In Texas, Abbott appeared with Vice President Mike Pence, who cut campaign events from upcoming visits to Florida and Arizona because of rising virus cases in those states.
Pence praised Abbott for both his decision to reopen the state, and to roll back the reopening plans.
You flattened the curve here in Texas … but about two weeks ago something changed, Pence said.
Pence urged people to wear masks when unable to practice social distancing. He and Abbott wore face masks as they entered and left the room, taking them off while speaking to reporters.
Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, meanwhile, defended the fact that President Donald Trump has rarely worn a mask in public, saying he doesn’t have to follow his own administration’s guidance because as a leader of the free world he’s tested regularly and is in very different circumstances than the rest of us.
Addressing spikes in reported coronavirus cases in some states, Azar said on NBC’s Meet the Press that people have to take ownership of their own behaviors by social distancing and wearing masks if possible.
A reported tally Sunday from Johns Hopkins University researchers said the death toll from the coronavirus pandemic had topped 500,00.
About 1 in 4 of those deaths more than 125,000 have been reported in the U.S. The country with the next highest death toll is Brazil, with more than 57,000, or about 1 in 9.
The true death toll from the virus, which first emerged in China late last year, is widely believed to be significantly higher. Experts say that especially early on, many victims died of COVID-19 without being tested for it.
To date, more than 10 million confirmed cases have been reported globally. About a quarter of them have been reported in the U.S.
The World Health Organisation announced another daily record in the number of confirmed coronavirus cases across the world – topping over 189,000 in a single 24-hour period. The tally eclipses the previous record a week earlier at over 183,000 cases, showing case counts continue to progress worldwide.
Overall the U.S. still has far and away the most total cases. At more than 2,450,000 – roughly twice that of Brazil. The number of actual cases worldwide is much higher.
New York, once the nation’s pandemic epicenter, is now on the exact opposite end, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in an interview with Meet the Press. The state reported five new virus deaths Saturday, its lowest reported daily death toll since March 15.
During the state’s peak pandemic in April, nearly 800 people were dying every day. New York still leads the nation in COVID-19 deaths with nearly 25,000.
In the state of Washington, Gov. Jay Inslee put a hold on plans to move counties to the fourth phase of his reopening plan as cases continue to increase. But in Hawaii, the city of Honolulu announced that campgrounds will reopen for the first time in three months with limited permits to ensure social distancing.
Britain’s government, meanwhile, is considering whether a local lockdown is needed for the central English city of Leicester amid reports about a spike in COVID-19 among its Asian community. It would be Britain’s first local lockdown.PTI
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