Category World News

South Korean forces have accused North Korea of firing warning shots at its soldiers who were engaged in a border-reinforcement project, warning Seoul that the actions would escalate tensions to “uncontrollable” levels.

Ko Jong Chol, the North’s Korean People’s Army Vice Chief of the General Staff, quoted by Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) as saying the South should stop its “premeditated and deliberate” provocation, which he described as “inciting military conflict.”

The South Korean military fired more than 10 warning shots at North Korean troops, according to Ko, who described the incident as a “serious provocation” from earlier this week.

“This is a very serious prelude that will unavoidably lead to the situation in the southern border area, where a large number of forces are stationed, in conflict with one another, to an uncontrollable phase,” Ko said.

According to state media outlet KCNA, the incident occurred on Tuesday as North Korean soldiers were attempting to permanently seal the peninsula’s heavily fortified border, citing a statement from Ko.

The South Korean military acknowledged that its soldiers had fired warning shots after claiming North Korean troops had briefly crossed the border in a statement on Saturday.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff of Seoul reported in a statement that some North Korean soldiers who were operating close to the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) in the central frontline DMZ]Demilitarized Zone [had crossed the MDL, prompting our military to fire warning shots.

The statement continued, “The North Korean soldiers then moved north of the MDL.”

The North and South Korean forces have been at odds for decades over the tightly guarded border that divides both countries, but the reportedly fired warning shots only represent the latest confrontation.

The archrivals’ final border conflict occurred in early April when a group of ten North Korean soldiers briefly crossed the border with South Korea’s military.

The two countries’ Demilitarized Zone, which contains significant amounts of mined and overgrown land, was where those troops were spotted.

Following President Lee Jae-myung’s victory in June, South Korea has been easing border tensions in recent months.

‘Corresponding countermeasure ‘

North Korea’s army announced last October that it would completely shut off the southern border, claiming to have received a phone message from US forces stationed in South Korea to “prevent any misinterpretation and accidental conflict.”

It blew up portions of the former North and South’s cross-border roads and railroad tracks, which were largely unused but incredibly symbolic.

Ko warned that any interference with North Korea’s army’s efforts to permanently seal the border would be retaliated in the statement released by state media.

Our army will view the act of restraining or obstructing the project as a deliberate military provocation, he said, and take appropriate countermeasure if it persists.

North Korea claimed last year that sending thousands of trash-carrying balloons southward was retaliation for South Korean activists’ use of anti-North Korean propaganda balloons.

Here is how things stand on Saturday, August 23:

Fighting

• Russian oil supplies to Hungary and Slovakia could be suspended for at least five days after a Ukrainian drone strike on a facility in Russia, Hungarian and Slovak officials said. The attack by Ukraine marked the second time this week that Russian oil supplies have been cut to both countries.

Peace talks

• United States President Donald Trump renewed a threat on Friday to impose sanctions on Russia if there is no progress towards a peaceful settlement in Ukraine in two weeks, showing frustration at Moscow a week after his warm meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska.
• Zelenskyy has accused Russia of doing everything it can to make sure that a meeting between him and Putin does not take place, and called on Ukraine’s allies to apply renewed sanctions on Moscow if it continues to show no desire to end its invasion of his country.

Politics and diplomacy

• Putin has said there was “light at the end of the tunnel” in Russia-US relations, and that the two countries were discussing joint projects in the Arctic and Alaska, signalling Russia’s optimism that it can mend relations with Washington and strike business deals with Trump, despite a lack of progress towards ending its war on Ukraine.

Regional security

• Russian forces have conducted an exercise in the Baltic Sea, including drills to repel an underwater attack, the Defence Ministry in Moscow said. It was the second time this month that Russia held naval exercises with an antisubmarine component, after President Trump ordered two US nuclear submarines to reposition closer to Russia.
• Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has warned neighbouring Belarus against staging “reckless provocations” during joint military drills with Russian forces in September.
• Kyiv called on its European partners to remain vigilant during the joint Belarus-Russia “Zapad” military exercises, and urged Belarusian authorities “to remain prudent, not to approach the borders and not to provoke” Ukraine’s armed forces.
• Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko dismissed as “complete nonsense” the idea that Minsk would utilise the mobilisation of military forces during the exercises to attack Ukraine.

Nord Stream

• The AFP news agency reports that the suspect in the attack on the Nord Stream underwater gas pipelines has refused to be extradited to Germany from Italy, where he was arrested.

Rodrigo Chaves Robles, who is facing allegations of corruption and the possibility of a criminal trial, is the first sitting president in Costa Rica history to testify before a legislative committee.

The three-member committee discussed whether Chaves Robles’ immunity as president should be upheld at the hearing on Friday.

In the event that Chaves Robles is accused of using government funds to pay kickbacks to an ally, that would open the door for prosecution.

Chaves Robles has accused his rivals of using the judiciary to overthrow his government and has denied any wrongdoing.

Chaves Robles said on Friday, “What we are experiencing has historic consequences.” The attorney general and the criminal court are allegedly rigging the entire nation.

He claimed to have “staged a ridiculous case to carry out a judicial coup d’etat” and to persuade the public that he was a “scoundrel” before the Legislative Assembly.

Following Chaves Robles’ testimony to the full legislative assembly, the committee must submit a report to the committee, which will decide whether to grant him legal protection.

Chaves Robles, a conservative economist and former finance minister, is accused of forcing a partner to use money from a contract with a development bank, the Central American Bank for Economic Integration, to pay Federico Cruz, his former presidential adviser.

According to the prosecution, Cruz allegedly used the $ 32, 000 to purchase a home.

The bank admitted to conducting its own internal investigation, which the attorney general of Costa Rica received as a result, to the Reuters news agency. Patricia Navarro, the president’s former communications minister, and Christian Bulgarelli, a businessman, are among the witnesses for the prosecution.

In response to the accusations, Chaves Robles said, “I never ordered the delivery of money to anyone.”

The accusations do not meet the “minimum requirements” for the removal of presidential immunity, according to his attorney, Jose Miguel Villalobos.

Chaves Robles’ immunity would need to be revoked by the Legislative Assembly through a supermajority.

Chaves Robles, a member of the conservative Social Democratic Progress Party, was seen as a dark horse candidate in his 2022 presidential campaign.

He was still subject to scrutiny for allegedly operating an illegal parallel campaign financing structure even then. Additionally, he was charged with sexual harassment while working for the World Bank by numerous other women.

In 2026, Chaves Robles is unable to run for president in part because of the law’s prohibition on consecutive presidential terms.

Caspar Veldkamp, the country’s foreign minister, resigned after failing to secure the government’s support for additional sanctions against Israel for its military assault on Gaza.

Veldkamp, a member of the centre-right New Social Contract party, claimed on Friday that colleagues had repeatedly resisted imposing “meaningful measures” and had repeatedly faced opposition to them because they were already putting in place.

Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, two far-right Israeli ministers, were among his efforts, including enforcing entry bans against them for their involvement in provoking settler violence against Palestinians.

Additionally, Veldkamp issued a warning about “deteriorating conditions” in Gaza and the “risk of undesirable end use” by robbing three export permits for navy ship components.

“I also observe the construction decision for the disputed settlement E1, as well as the attacks on Gaza City, the developments in the West Bank, and East Jerusalem,” Veldkamp told reporters.

As the European Union negotiates security guarantees for Ukraine and continues to discuss tariffs with the United States, his departure leaves the Netherlands without a foreign minister.

All New Social Contract ministers and state secretaries resigned from the caretaker government in solidarity after he resigned.

Veldkamp was “under increasing pressure from parliamentarians, particularly from the opposition who have been asking for stricter sanctions against Israel,” according to Al Jazeera’s Step Vaessen, who was reporting from Berlin on the developments in the Netherlands.

Vaessen said the foreign minister was facing growing demands that the Dutch government “should be doing more,” despite Veldkamp’s announcement to ban two Israeli ministers from traveling there a few weeks ago.

The Dutch foreign minister had “increasingly become frustrated because Germany was blocking that,” Vaessen continued, noting that “Veldkamp has also been pushing for a suspension of the EU’s trade agreement with Israel.” The Dutch parliament also pushed the idea that the Netherlands should impose sanctions on Israel on its own instead of waiting for any further European sanctions.

Relations between Israel and Europe

Despite the country’s limited sanctions against Israel, the nation continues to support the F-35 fighter jet’s supply chain.

According to research from the Palestinian Youth Movement, ships carrying F-35 components frequently dock at Rotterdam, which is run by Danish shipping company Maersk.

Israel has engaged in F-35 jets in airstrikes on Gaza, which have destroyed much of the Strip and caused more than 62, 000 lives since October 2023.

The Netherlands joined 20 other countries earlier this week to denounce Israel’s approval of a sizable expansion of the West Bank’s settlements, calling it “unacceptable and contrary to international law.”

In addition, as a result of the mounting famine, Israel’s military attacks on Gaza continue. Residents of Gaza City and the surrounding areas are currently in officially famine conditions, according to a global hunger monitor’s confirmation on Friday.

Former President Joseph Kabila is being tried in absentia, but a military prosecutor in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is demanding the death penalty.

The court heard that general Lucien Rene Likulia, the country’s military auditor general, had requested that judges sentence Kabila to death for treason and war crimes, including homicide, torture, and organizing an insurrection.

In July, the former president was detained for allegedly supporting Rwanda-backed M23 rebels, who seized significant chunks of the mineral-rich eastern DRC this year in absentia.

Kabila is accused of plotting to overthrow President Felix Tshisekedi and other war crimes crimes crimes related to the M23 group, a fact that has been ongoing for two years outside of the DRC.

The “forcible occupation of the city of Goma,” which M23 fighters seized in January before agreeing a ceasefire with the government in July, was also noted in the charge sheet against him, which was visible to the AFP news agency.

Kabila has called the trial “an instrument of oppression,” calling it an “instrument of oppression.”

It is an act of relentlessness and persecution against a member of the opposition, according to Ferdinand Kambere, the political party secretary for Kabila.

No judicial executions have occurred since the DRC lifted its moratorium on the death penalty last year.

Who is the brains behind M23?

Kabila resigned in 2018 after almost two decades in power. Since late 2023, he has spent most of his time abroad, most recently in South Africa.

In April, he announced that he would be making a trip to the DRC to promote peace in the region’s devastated east. Later that month, the DRC’s government announced a swift ban on his political party and the seizing of his assets.

His immunity from prosecution was lifted by the DRC’s senate in May.

In front of M23’s spokesperson Lawrence Kanyuka, Kabila made an appearance in the rebel-held east in late May.

Tshisekedi, his successor to the presidency, has alleged that Rwanda has assisted him in capturing cities in the resource-rich east.

Kabila is accused of conspiring with Rwanda to “overthrow by force the power established by law” (AFC), which is M23’s political arm, and of initiating the charge sheet.

Additionally, it claimed that Kabila was to blame for the atrocities committed by the movement in the provinces of North and South Kivu.

Rwanda has denied providing M23 with military support, but UN experts claim that its army contributed to the group’s offensive there.

In a statement to journalists in Goma in July, the AFC and M23’s executive secretary, Benjamin Mbonimpa, defended the movement against Kabila and said his trial was part of a “malevolent strategy” against him.

Kabila assumed power in the DRC between 2001 and 2009 after his father’s murder.

The former leader still has a significant impact on Congolese politics despite his leaving in 2023. He has criticized Tshisekedi’s “dictatorship” in media.