Asia

    North Korea has reportedly begun to dismantle a key nuclear test site just weeks before ruler Kim Jong-un is due to meet President Donald Trump for a historic summit. Satellite images examined by American researchers appear to show building demolitions, removal of railways, and overturned mining carts at the Punggye-ri nuclear test site in North Korea. The researchers are relying on commercial satellite imagery from May 7, according to the 38 North web site. The site analyzed images which show significant changes that have been made at the location which are consistent with decommissioning. Between April 20 and May 7, 2018, the probable engineering office building and a possible instrumentation shed located just outside the North Portal (where the last five underg...

    At least 11 people were killed on Sunday morning after suicide bombers detonated explosions at three churches in Surabaya, Indonesia’s second-largest city, as worshipers gathered between services, the police said. Indonesia’s police chief, Tito Karnavian, said the bombings had been the work of one family, who set off three different kinds of bombs. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack, according to the Islamist militant group’s news agency Amaq, but did not provide any evidence. More than 41 other people were wounded by the attackers, at least one of whom was disguised as a churchgoer, said Frans Barung Mangera, a police spokesman. He said the number of casualties could increase as the police were still investigating the blasts. Mr. Mangera said...

    Muslim scholars have declared that violent extremism and terrorism, including suicide attacks, are against Islamic principles, in an effort to convince the Taliban to end its violence, at a conference in Indonesia on Friday. Seventy prominent Muslim scholars from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Indonesia issued the fatwa, or edict, during a discussion on ways to achieve peace and stability in Afghanistan. Indonesian President Joko Jokowi Widodo, who opened the one-day meeting, stressed his country’s commitment to helping build peace in the war-torn country. Mr Jokowi said the conference was part of Indonesia's efforts to encourage the role of Islamic clerics, or ulema, in promoting peace in Afghanistan. He expressed his hope that the conference could make a concrete con...

    Pakistani authorities have reportedly prevented an American diplomat involved in a deadly car crash from leaving Pakistan after a U.S. military plane arrived specifically to fly him out of the country. Pakistan's The Nation and The Express Tribune reported Saturday that Col. Joseph Hall, the U.S. Embassy's military attaché in Pakistan, was prevented from leaving the country while U.S. officials were informed he could not leave until the wreck was adjudicated. The government can't overlook the court orders into the matter, a source told the Tribune. A U.S. Air Force C130 had landed at Pakistan's Nur Khan air base to bring Hall back to the United States, but was forced to leave without him, according to local reports. Tensions between the U.S. and Pakistan have been...

    North Koreans will set their clocks ahead by 30 minutes on Saturday, as the country moves to match its time zone to South Korea's for the first time since 2015. The country's state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported on Friday that the North would adjust its timezone in order to speed up the process for the North and the South to become one. The BBC provided a translation of the report. The adjustment comes hours after President Trump announced that he had set a date and time for a key meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, though he did not say when or where that encounter would take place. Trump is expected to meet with Kim in late May or sometime in June. The talks will mark the first such meeting between a sitting U.S. president and a North Ko...

    The onset of India's monsoon season isn't coming quietly for the northern part of the country. At least 100 people were recently killed by a massive dust storm that swept through the region on Wednesday night. According to local reports, many of the fatalities occurred when intense wind knocked over large structures, killing or injuring those in its way. Dust storms are an annual weather pattern seen in the region. The scale and intensity of this most recent storm, however, surprised officials on the ground. It stretched from the western state of Rajasthan to the eastern state of Uttar Pradesh and hit Delhi, which lies between them. In past years, fatalities from the dust storms rarely caused more than a dozen fatalities. Speaking with the BBC, secretary for disas...

    North Korea has launched an international manhunt for one of its most senior counter-espionage officers, who disappeared in late February and is believed to have defected, possibly to Britain, according to a media report in South Korea. The official has been identified as a Mr Kang, a colonel in his 50s with the Ministry of State Security and responsible for monitoring dissident and espionage efforts in Russia, China and south-east Asia. He disappeared from the Zhongpu International Hotel in the Chinese city of Shenyang on February 25, sources in China and North Korea told the Seoul-based DailyNK news website. The hotel was previously known as the Chilbosan Hotel and was operated jointly by the North Korean and Chinese governments. The hotel has reportedly served a...

    Amid an apparent historic diplomatic rapprochement between the two Koreas, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has hinted that his country might end its nuclear testing and eventually give up its atomic weapons. There are reasons to be skeptical. Yes, Libya suspended its own nuclear-weapons program in 2003. But that program amounted to little more than exploratory research. Libya had no functional weapons. Since the United States tested the first nuclear bomb in July 1945, just one country South Africa in the late 1980s and early ’90s has voluntarily ended a well-established nuclear-weapons program and dismantled a functional atomic arsenal. But North Korea is not like South Africa. It could be difficult to duplicate, in Pyongyang, the internal and external forces that...

    With a single step over a weathered, cracked slab of concrete, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un made history Friday by crossing over the world's most heavily armed border to greet South Korean President Moon Jae-in for talks on North Korea's nuclear weapons. Kim then invited Moon to cross briefly back into the north with him before they returned to the southern side. Those small steps must be seen in the context of the last year when the United States, its ally South Korea and the North seemed at times to be on the verge of nuclear war as the North unleashed a torrent of weapons tests but also in light of the long, destructive history of the rival Koreas, who fought one of the 20th century's bloodiest conflicts and even today occupy a divided peninsula that's still...

    A domestic Air India flight has added to an already eventful week in commercial aviation. Severe turbulence on a flight from from the north-western city of Amritsar to capital city Delhi saw a window detach at 15,000 feet - an event eerily similar to the Southwest Airlines 1380 incident last Tuesday. A video shows a flight attendant desperately attempting to fix a window panel on the 787 Dreamliner, which was violently shaken about shortly after take off last Thursday, the Daily Mail reported. The turbulence was said to have lasted from around 10 to 12 minutes, with three passengers being treated for injury on arrival. Indian governmental bodies the Directorate General of Civil Aviation and the Aircraft Accident Investigation Board said they are investigating. La...