North Korea Blows Up Joint Liaison Office With South in Kaesong
BBC
North Korea has blown up a joint liaison office with the South near the North's border town of Kaesong. The move comes just hours after the North renewed threats of military action at the Korean border. The site was opened in 2018 to help the Koreas - officially in a state of war - to communicate. It had been empty since January due to Covid-19 restrictions. In a statement, South Korea warned it would "respond strongly" if the North "continues to worsen the situation". Tensions between North and South Korea have been escalating for weeks, prompted by defector groups in the South sending propaganda across the border.
India Says 20 Soldiers Killed in Clash Along Contested Border With China
Alexander Smith | NBC News
The Indian army said Tuesday that 20 of its soldiers were killed in border clashes with Chinese troops, Reuters and The Associated Press reported, citing an army statement. They mark the first deaths in 53 years in the standoff between these two nuclear-armed powers. The army originally reported that three Indian soldiers had died, but later said 17 additional soldiers succumbed to injuries they suffered, according to the news agencies that cited an army statement. The world's two most populous countries are locked in territorial dispute along their mountainous 2,167-mile frontier. On Tuesday, the Indian army said that one of its officers and two soldiers were killed in a "violent faceoff" in Galwan Valley, in the mountainous region of Ladakh. Senior military officials from both sides were meeting to defuse the situation, it said. China blamed India, whose troops it said "crossed the border for illegal activities and launched provocative attacks against Chinese personnel," the state-run tabloid newspaper, the Global Times, said citing a foreign ministry briefing.
Europeans Push for Iran Rebuke at Nuclear Watchdog Over Inspections
Reuters
Major European powers want to admonish Iran at the U.N. nuclear watchdog over its ongoing refusal to give access to inspectors at sites suspected of activities that may have been part of a nuclear weapons programme, a draft resolution showed. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has issued two reports this year rebuking Iran for failing to answer questions about nuclear activities almost two decades ago before its 2015 nuclear deal at three sites and for denying it access to two of them.A draft resolution, seen by Reuters and dated June 10, put forward by Britain, France and Germany calls on Iran to cooperate fully and promptly with the IAEA.
Japan Halts Deployment of Aegis Ashore Missile Defense System
Reuters
Japanese Defence Minister Taro Kono said on Monday that he had suspended plans to deploy two U.S.-made Aegis Ashore air defence radar stations designed to detect and counter North Korean ballistic missiles. Kono told reporters that Japan was halting the deployment due to technical issues as well as cost. The two proposed Lockheed Martin Co radar sites, one in the northern prefecture of Akita and the other in Yamaguchi prefecture in southern Japan, had also faced opposition from local residents. North Korea, which is threatening military action against South Korea unless it stops defectors from sending leaflets and other material to the North, last year tested a series of new ballistic missiles with irregular trajectories that Japan said appeared designed to penetrate Aegis defences.
Russia Charges Scientist With Passing Information to China
Ann M. Simmons | Wall Street Journal
Russian prosecutors have charged a distinguished Russian scientist with treason after accusing him of passing classified information to China, according to his lawyer, in an example of the fragile friend-foe relationship between Moscow and Beijing. Valery Mitko, president of the prestigious Arctic Civic Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg, was arrested in February on the grounds of “treason in the form of espionage,” his lawyer Ivan Pavlov said Monday. Mr. Pavlov said his client was accused of “transmitting information to do with hydro-acoustics.” He didn’t provide details on the specific nature of the material, but the official Russian news agency TASS cited a source familiar with the investigation as saying that Mr. Mitko gave China information related to “research on hydro-acoustics and submarine detection methods.”
Senate Panel Approves $10M to Prepare for Nuclear Test 'If Necessary'
Rebecca Kheel | Hill
The Senate Armed Services Committee has advanced an amendment aimed at reducing the amount of time it would take to carry out a nuclear test. The amendment, offered by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), would make at least $10 million available to “carry out projects related to reducing the time required to execute a nuclear test if necessary,” according to a copy of the measure obtained by The Hill on Monday. The amendment was approved in a party-line, 14-13 vote during the committee’s closed-door markup of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) last week, a congressional aide said. Cotton’s amendment comes after the Trump administration reportedly raised the prospect of resuming nuclear testing as a negotiating tactic in efforts to secure a trilateral nuclear agreement with Russia and China.