North Korea again threatens nuke strikes on US, South Korea
North Korea again threatens nuke strikes on US, South Korea
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea on Monday issued its latest belligerent threat, warning of an indiscriminate “pre-emptive nuclear strike of justice” on Washington and Seoul, this time in reaction to the start of huge U.S.-South Korean military drills.
Such threats have been a staple of young North Korean leader Kim Jong Un since he took power after his dictator father’s death in December 2011. But they spike especially when Washington and Seoul stage what they call annual defensive springtime war games. Pyongyang says the drills, which started Monday and run through the end of April, are invasion rehearsals.
The North’s powerful National Defense Commission threatened strikes against targets in the South, U.S. bases in the Pacific and the U.S. mainland, saying its enemies “are working with bloodshot eyes to infringe upon the dignity, sovereignty and vital rights” of North Korea.
“If we push the buttons to annihilate the enemies even right now, all bases of provocations will be reduced to seas in flames and ashes in a moment,” the North’s statement said.
Responding to the North’s threat, South Korean Defense Ministry spokesman Moon Sang Gyun said Monday that North Korea must refrain from a “rash act that brings destruction upon itself.”
AP Investigation: American company bungled Ebola response
WASHINGTON (AP) — An American company that bills itself as a pioneer in tracking emerging epidemics made a series of costly mistakes during the 2014 Ebola outbreak that swept across West Africa — with employees feuding with fellow responders, contributing to misdiagnosed Ebola cases and repeatedly misreading the trajectory of the virus, an Associated Press investigation has found.
San Francisco-based Metabiota Inc. was tapped by the Sierra Leonean government and the World Health Organization to help monitor the spread of the virus and support the response after Ebola was discovered circulating in neighboring Guinea in March 2014. But emails obtained by AP and interviews with aid workers on the ground show that some of the company’s actions made an already chaotic situation worse.
WHO outbreak expert Dr. Eric Bertherat wrote to colleagues in a July 17, 2014, email about misdiagnoses and “total confusion” at the Sierra Leone government lab Metabiota shared with Tulane University in the city of Kenema. He said there was “no tracking of the samples” and “absolutely no control on what is being done.”
“This is a situation that WHO can no longer endorse,” he wrote.
Metabiota chief executive officer and founder Nathan Wolfe said there was no evidence his company was responsible for the lab blunders, that the reported squabbles were overblown and that any predictions made by his employees didn’t reflect the company’s position. He said Metabiota doesn’t specialize in outbreak response and that his employees stepped in to help and performed admirably amid the carnage of the world’s biggest-ever Ebola outbreak.
Mexican president: Trump language like that of Hitler
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto compared the language of Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump to that of dictators Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini in an interview published Monday, and said it has hurt U.S.-Mexico relations.
Asked about Trump, Pena Nieto complained to the Excelsior newspaper about “these strident expressions that seek to propose very simple solutions” and said that sort of language has led to “very fateful scenes in the history of humanity.”
“That’s the way Mussolini arrived and the way Hitler arrived,” Pena Nieto said.
Pena Nieto until now had avoided direct comments on Trump, who has pledged to build a wall along the two countries’ borders and has said Mexican immigrants bring crime and drugs to the U.S. and are “rapists.”
But as the New York businessman has built a lead in the GOP primary, current and former Mexican officials have begun to publicly express alarm. Former Presidents Vicente Fox and Felipe Calderon also have alluded to Hitler in describing Trump.
Refugees stranded in Greece await news of their fate
IDOMENI, Greece (AP) — While European leaders struggled Monday for a unified approach to the refugee crisis, tens of thousands of people affected by their decisions were left stranded in Greece, with countries along the migrant trail gradually tightening border controls to staunch the northward flood.
The restrictions along what has become known as the western Balkan route has left about 13,000-14,000 people stuck on the Greek-Macedonian border near the village of Idomeni, and more than 36,000 people in the financially stricken country.
The European Union held a summit meeting Monday with Turkey to try to halt the flow of thousands of refugees and migrants coming from the Turkish coast to nearby Greek islands, whose proximity has made the country the preferred route into Europe.
But while European leaders haggled in Brussels, a punishing thunderstorm turned much of the overcrowded Idomeni camp into a sea of mud. Conditions are deteriorating in the camp, which was set up only for about 2,000 people, and crews are struggling to maintain hygiene.
More people have arrived each day, and hundreds of small tents from aid organizations have sprung up in and around the camp, spilling into fields and onto nearby railway tracks and a train station platform, with nowhere to go.
Turkey demands more money to help EU tackle migrant crisis
BRUSSELS (AP) — European Union leaders tussled with Turkey over how to control the flow of asylum-seekers from the Middle East in a diplomatic tug-of-war Monday that left the fate of thousands of refugees seeking a way to safety people fleeing war hanging in the balance.
Daylong negotiations between the 28-nation bloc and Turkey edged toward midnight with both sides seeking more as part of any new agreement. Turkey, home to 2.75 million refugees chiefly from neighboring Syria, surprised EU counterparts by demanding a doubling of funding beyond the 3 billion euros ($3.3 billion) already pledged.
Turkey insisted that any agreement would require Europe to advance Turkey’s long-delayed hope of joining the bloc. As an additional step, Turkey said it expects EU nations to ease its visa restrictions on Turkish citizens within months.
“Turkey is ready to work with the EU, and Turkey is ready to be a member of the EU as well,” Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davatoglu told reporters in Brussels.
“Our objective is to rescue the lives of the refugees (and) to fight against human smugglers,” he said.