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North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has dismissed his top general and called for stepping up war preparations “in an offensive way”, including boosting weapons production and conducting more drills, state media reported Thursday.

With a cigarette in hand, Kim was shown talking to a room full of uniformed top generals, and pointing at maps, images in state media showed, while he discussed “major military actions” against South Korea at a meeting of the Central Military Commission.

The Korean Central News Agency said the agenda of the meeting, which comes just days after Kim inspected key arms factories, was “the issue of making full war preparations” and ensuring “perfect military readiness for a war”.

The meeting comes as Seoul and Washington prepare for major joint drills later this month, which the North views as rehearsals for invasion and has repeatedly warned could trigger “overwhelming” action in response.

At the meeting, Kim dismissed chief of the general staff Pak Su Il, replacing him with Vice Marshal Ri Yong Gil, KCNA said without giving further details.

Pak, who was promoted to the post late last year, may have been dismissed “because he did not demonstrate sufficient competence in the field of military operations,” according to Cheong Seong-chang, a researcher at the Sejong Institute.

“Kim Jong Un has shown a tendency to quickly replace officials when they are judged to be lacking in the ability to control and perform their duties,” he said.

Ri may have been the “most suitable person” to replace Pak, as he has previously held the position for a long time, Cheong added.

– ‘Mass-production’ of weapons –

Kim called for “all the munitions industrial establishments to push ahead with the mass-production of various weapons and equipment”, the report said.

“He also called for actively conducting actual war drills to efficiently operate (the) newly deployed latest weapons and equipment,” it added.

Kim reached an “important conclusion on further stepping up the war preparations of the KPA in an offensive way,” KCNA reported, referring to the North’s military.

The latest KCNA report appeared to be North Korea’s “own response to the upcoming joint military training between Seoul and Washington,” an official from Seoul’s unification ministry told reporters.

Referring to photos carried by the North’s Rodong Sinmun newspaper showing Kim pointing to what appeared to be a map of Seoul, he said: “I think he wanted to send a message to the South with a threatening action.”

The meeting also discussed preparations for a massive parade to mark the 75th anniversary of the founding of North Korea on September 9.

Last month, Pyongyang held a major military parade to mark the 70th anniversary of the Korean War armistice, with analysts describing the event as “the largest, most overt North Korean display of nuclear-capable systems”.

North Korea also held a large defence expo to coincide with the parade, with Kim giving the visiting Russian defence minister a tour of the country’s newest and most advanced weaponry, including ballistic missiles and spy drones.

Saudi Arabia’s embassy in Tehran has resumed operations, state media in Iran reported Wednesday, following a thaw in ties seven years after the mission was closed.

Shiite-dominated Iran and Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia agreed to resume diplomatic relations and reopen their respective embassies following a China-brokered deal announced in March.

The long-time regional rivals severed ties in 2016 after Saudi diplomatic missions in Iran were attacked during protests over Riyadh’s execution of Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr.

“The embassy of Saudi Arabia in the Islamic Republic of Iran has officially commenced its activities” and has been operating since Sunday, the official news agency IRNA said, quoting an “informed source” at Iran’s foreign ministry.

There has been no official confirmation from Riyadh on the move.

In June, Iran marked the reopening of its embassy in Riyadh with a flag-raising ceremony.

Iranian media had previously attributed the delay in reopening the Saudi embassy to the poor condition of the building which was damaged during the 2016 protests.

The reports said Saudi diplomats would work from a luxury hotel in the Iranian capital pending the completion of the works.

Since the March deal, Saudi Arabia has restored ties with Iranian ally Syria and ramped up a push for peace in Yemen, where it has for years led a military coalition against the Iran-backed Huthi forces.

Iran and Saudi Arabia have backed opposing sides in conflict zones across the Middle East for years.

Iran has in recent months been at odds with Saudi Arabia and Kuwait over the ownership of a disputed gas field.

Saudi Arabia and Kuwait claim “sole ownership” to the field, with Iran warning it would “pursue its right” to the offshore zone if negotiations fail.

The former chief of Brazil’s highway police was arrested Wednesday over allegations he deployed officers to prevent voters in left-leaning areas from casting ballots in the country’s divisive elections last year.

Silvinei Vasques, director of the Federal Highway Police (PRF) under far-right ex-president Jair Bolsonaro, was arrested in the southern city of Florianopolis, a police source told AFP.

He is accused of abusing his position and obstructing the right to vote with massive roadblock operations in Brazil’s northeast on October 30, the day of Bolsonaro’s runoff election against now-President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

The northeast, Brazil’s most populous region, is largely poor, black and pro-Lula. It delivered the election to the veteran leftist that day, giving him nearly 70 percent of its votes.

The national result was a far narrower 50.9 percent for Lula to 49.1 percent for Bolsonaro.

Witnesses said highway police roadblocks created huge traffic jams on election day, when officers stopped and boarded buses taking voters to the polls, in some cases allegedly trying to influence or intimidate them.

Highway police leadership is accused of “directing human and material resources to impede the transit of voters” on election day, federal police said in a statement.

“The crimes were allegedly planned from early October.”

Authorities also carried out 10 search and seizure operations in connection with the investigation, acting under the Supreme Court’s orders, it said.

Vasques had reportedly posted his support for Bolsonaro on social media ahead of the election.

He denied wrongdoing when he was called to testify on the roadblocks before a Congressional inquiry in June, saying the northeast has a high number of traffic accidents.

JERUSALEM: Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has frozen funds for Arab towns and Palestinian education programmes in East Jerusalem, citing crime and safety fears and prompting accusations of racism.

Smotrich, a key member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s nationalist-religious government, said on Monday some of the budget funds meant for Arab local councils were a political pay-off by the previous cabinet that could end up in the hands of “criminals and terrorists”.

“The priorities of our national government… are different from those of the previous leftist government and we should not apologise for that,” said Smotrich, head of the pro-settler Religious Zionism party.

Lawmaker Mansour Abbas who heads the United Arab List accused Smotrich of racism. “Arab citizens are entitled to those funds, which were meant to close the gaps between Arab and Jewish communities,” he said.

Forces demolish home of alleged attacker; minister brushes off US terrorism label

Demolishes home

Israel’s army said on Tuesday it demolished the home of a Palesti­nian accused of killing a soldier and his brother in the occupied West Bank.

Overnight incursion by Israeli army to destroy the residence of Abdel Fatah Khroushah in the Askar camp for Palestinian refugees, in the northern city of Nablus, the military said.

After the military blew up his residence, smoke billowed across the densely populated neighbourhood and neighbours inspected the damage.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said six Palestinians were wounded. It said Israeli forces targeted one of its ambulances with rubber bullets and tear gas.

The army had accused Khroushah of shooting dead two Israeli settlers in February.

‘Terror attack’

An Israeli official brushed off on Tuesday the rare US use of the term “terror attack” to condemn the killing of a Palestinian in the occupied West Bank.

“We strongly condemn yesterday’s terror attack by Israeli extremist settlers,” the US State Department’s Near East Bureau said on Saturday.

Police initially accused the settlers of “deliberate or depraved-indifference homicide” with a racist motivation, but a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netan­yahu’s security cabinet argued that culpability for the Burqa death was far from clear.

“I wouldn’t advise treating the US definition as a precise professional definition. At the end of the day, they are not drawing on intelligence, but on media reports,” said Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter, a former counterterrorism chief for Israel’s Shin Bet security service.

The State Department appeared disinclined on Monday to elaborate on its sharpened censure over the Burqa killing.

“The thinking is that it was a terror attack, and we are concerned about it, and that’s why we called it that,” spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters.

China’s capital has been hit by record downpours in recent weeks, damaging infrastructure and deluging swathes of the city’s suburbs and surrounding areas.

 

Officials said on Wednesday that 33 had died in the recent bad weather in Beijing, mainly by flooding and buildings collapsing, almost three times the figure given by officials last Tuesday.

“I would like to express my deep condolences to those who died in the line of duty and the unfortunate victims,” Xia Linmao, Beijing’s vice mayor, told a press conference, according to state broadcaster CCTV.

Scores have died in the floods across northern China, with Beijing on Friday saying 147 deaths or disappearances last month were caused by natural disasters.

Of those, 142 were caused by flooding or geological disasters, China’s Ministry of Emergency Management said.

In Hebei province, which neighbours Beijing, 15 were reported to have died and 22 were missing.

And in northeastern Jilin, 14 died and one person was reported missing on Sunday.

Further north in Heilongjiang, state media reported dozens of rivers saw water levels rise above “warning markers” in recent days.

“I still feel scared when I recall the recent flooding,” Zheng Xiaokang, a police officer from the province’s Jiangxi village, told the state-run Xinhua News Agency.

“In the face of the persistent downpour and rising river water, the consequences would have been devastating had we not managed to timely evacuate the villagers,” Zheng said.

Millions of people have been hit by extreme weather events and prolonged heatwaves around the globe in recent weeks, events that scientists say are being exacerbated by climate change.