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Hekmatyar says no to closing Taliban office in Qatar

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The leader of Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin Hekmatyar has opposed with the bid to close the Taliban office in Qatar as he insisted that his party supports the legitimate demands of the group. According to Hekmatyar, those who are attempting to extend the war in Afghanistan and stand against peace and reconciliation, have became hopeless. He once again reiterated his previous claims regarding the individuals and groups who had paved the way for civil war, emphasizing that with the return of him, the individuals and groups have failed to implement their conspiracies. Sources privy of the development have said President Trump has discussed the issue with Afghan counterpart President Ghani.

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Egypt found by UN

in AFRICA/ASIA/PRESS RELEASE/REGIONS by

In an investigation led by the United Nations, it was discovered that North Korea and Egypt had struck a secret weapons deal worth 23 million dollar. The UN investigators revealed that Egypt had ordered 30,000 weapons from North Korea. UN officials and Western diplomats revealed that as part of the deal, Egyptian business executives ordered millions of dollars worth of rockets from North Korea for their country’s military. According to reports, business executives planned to keep the transaction hidden. The investigation also found that its cargo was hidden by large, heavy tarps. The ship entered Egyptian waters, customs agents boarded and discovered a stockpile of more than 30,000 rocket-propelled grenades concealed underneath bins of iron ore. In a statement quoted in the Washington Post, the UN said it was the “largest seizure of ammunition in the history of sanctions against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea”. The Egyptian Embassy in Washington, D.C., said Egypt will “continue to abide by all Security Council resolutions and will always be in conformity with these resolutions as they restrain military purchases from North Korea”.

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North Korea opens second internet connection via Russia

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In a move that cybersecurity experts believe could give Pyongyang greater capability to conduct cyber attacks, Russian state-owned company TransTeleCom has provided a new internet connection to Kim Jong Un’s regime. In a brief statement, TransTeleCom said that it has telecommunications links with North Korea under a deal signed in 2009 but refused to elaborate. The new connection was revealed by North Korea monitoring project 38 North and cybersecurity experts too confirmed the new Russian link. Experts believe that the move strengthens North Korea’s cybersecurity capabilities at a time of heightened tensions with the U.S. and also reduces its reliance on China. More importantly, the new internet connection boosts North Korea’s cybersecurity strength. Bryce Boland, a cybersecurity expert with FireEye said, “By increasing the number of internet connections in and out of the country, it increases its resilience to attacks”. Over the weekend, the U.S. Cyber Command carried out an operation attacking hackers affiliated with North Korea’s military spy agency. Now, cybersecurity experts claim that with Russia involved in North Korea’s internet, things could get more complicated.

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Putin expects trade with Turkmenistan to recover shortly

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The amount of trade between Russia and Turkmenistan may recover shortly, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at Russian-Turkmen talks in an expanded format on Monday. Putin said the countries put much emphasis on trade-economic cooperation. “Unfortunately, last year our trade saw a certain decline for different reasons, I think first of all for objective reasons – currency exchange rate fluctuations, unfavorable world situation and some other factors”, the president said. “But we have every possibility to overcome this tendency, I hope this will happen shortly”, Putin said. He reiterated that Moscow and Ashgabat have created a system of cooperation mechanisms in different sectors, and the key role in this belongs to the intergovernmental commission. Besides, the president said, the program of economic cooperation until 2018 is aimed at improving the structure of trade. It includes 80 events and projects. “The implementation of this document will help expand investment cooperation, which in my opinion is very important”, the president said. The activity of the Russian Export Center is aimed at assisting in joint foreign economic programs. According to Putin, the Eximbank of Russia and the Agency for Export Credit and Investment Insurance that make part of this center have supported 16 projects with $182 million.

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DPRK Will Win Victory in Final Battle with U.S.: Rodong Sinmun

in ASIA/FAR EAST/PRESS RELEASE/REGIONS by

The service personnel and people of the DPRK will give full play to the pent-up wrath and fury and biggest power to annihilate the U.S. imperialists and achieve the historic cause of national reunification without fail, says Rodong Sinmun Monday in an article. Everyone believes that the DPRK is sure to win victory in the all-out death-defying struggle against the U.S. The DPRK has the single-minded unity more powerful than nuclear weapons, the most powerful striking means developed by itself and the Juche-oriented war methods beyond imagination. The DPRK has already been in full readiness. All striking means are on the alert. All our service persons and people have turned out in the retaliatory war of justice. Once the Korean-style striking battle prepared for centuries for a final battle with brigandish U.S. imperialists starts, this will be the most dreadful and horrible retaliatory war, and continue till there is no one left to sign a surrender document to cry out and till the U.S. imperialists are removed from this planet.

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He talks of war with US, but North Korea’s top diplomat Ri Yong-ho has a ‘great sense of humour’

in ASIA/FAR EAST/PRESS RELEASE/REGIONS by

During the recent United Nations General Assembly meeting, he emerged as the fire-breathing mouthpiece of North Korea’s inflammatory government. Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho mocked Donald Trump as “President Evil” and offered up sound bites about detonating nuclear bombs over the Pacific and shooting down US planes. But here’s a little secret about Ri: beneath the bluster, he has a reputation as a soft-spoken, self-deprecating diplomat whom US officials have for years deemed one of the most accessible representatives of his government. Gary Samore, a former US diplomat and non-proliferation specialist now at Harvard’s Belfer Centre for Science and International Affairs, said: “He was put in that job for the purpose of being the negotiator. His speciality is negotiating with Americans”,  he add: “He is not one of these guys who acts like a caricature of a communist apparatchik. He has a great sense of humour. He is very creative in coming up with wording acceptable to both sides”. Samore described Ri’s as “excellent, superb, idiomatic”.

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As UN sanctions bite, North Korean workers leave Chinese border hub

in ASIA/FAR EAST/PRESS RELEASE/REGIONS by

North Korean workers have begun to leave the Chinese border city of Dandong, after the latest round of sanctions seeking to restrict Pyongyang’s ability to earn foreign currency income, local businesses and traders say. Almost 100,000 overseas workers, based mostly in China and Russia, funnel some 500 million dollar in wages a year to help finance the North Korean regime, the US government says. Dandong, a city of 800,000 along the Yalu River, which defines the border with North Korea. Thousands of workers, most of them women, are also employed by Chinese-owned garment and electronics factories in Dandong, with a significant share of their wages going straight to the North Korean state. In a statement on Thursday, China’s Ministry of Commerce ordered the implementation of the new sanctions across the country within 120 days. The sanctions allow workers to serve out existing contracts. Businesspeople in Dandong, through which most of trade between the two countries flows, said contracts could not be renewed and new visas were not being approved. The sanctions have come as a rude jolt to Dandong businesses and traders who had long rolled with North Korea’s unpredictability but believed their neighbour’s economic reliance on China would keep its belligerence in check.

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US in contact with North Korea and ready to talk, Tillerson says

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The United States has direct communication channels with North Korea and is investigating whether the regime is ready to enter talks on giving up its nuclear weapons programme, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Saturday. China and the United States to strengthen coordination on major global issues and to respect each other’s core interests. The two nations have disagreements over the handling of North Korea, with Washington calling on Beijing to put more pressure on Pyongyang, while Beijing says the crisis should be resolved through dialogue. Su Hao, a professor with the China Foreign Affairs University in Beijing, said China and the US were trying to contain their differences and find common ground in an effort to build positive momentum for Trump’s visit. Pang Zhongying, an international relations professor at Ocean University in Qingdao, said China’s role and leverage over North Korea would be reduced if the US and North Korea engaged in talks. “That leverage might be further diminished if the US could accept a nuclear-armed North Korea”, he said.

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President Xi meets US secretary of state

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President Xi Jinping met with visiting US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson Saturday, Xi said: “Currently the most important event in our bilateral relations is President Trump’s China visit in November. His visit will be a major opportunity for the development of China-US relations”. He add China-US ties have been generally stable, and that he has maintained sound communication with President Trump. Chinese and US teams should implement consensus reached by the two heads of state, grasp the direction of bilateral relationship, respect each other, and focus on cooperation while dealing with differences properly. China and the US are respectively the largest developing country and the largest developed one as well as two leading economies of the world, Xi said, stressing both sides need to and can cooperate on the bilateral, regional and global levels. “The common interests of our two countries far exceed our differences, and cooperation is the only correct choice”, Xi said. Tillerson conveyed Trump’s greetings to Xi, saying the US president looks forward to his visit to China. Tillerson said the United States values its relations with China and hopes to increase mutual trust and practical cooperation in various areas as well as to jointly tackle international and regional challenges.

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China completes registration of 8,000-strong UN peacekeeping force, defence ministry says

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China is set to play a bigger role in United Nations peacekeeping missions while also providing its military with real-life training opportunities after completing the registration of 8,000 troops last week, analysts said. China’s defence ministry spokesman Wu Qian said on Thursday, as required, the standby peacekeeping force would “conduct task-specific and adaptive training in accordance with the UN training standards”. China’s President Xi Jinping promised to make 8,000 troops available to the UN in 2015, at which time he also offered to help train 2,000 peacekeepers from other countries, provide 100 million dollar in military aid to the African Union, and deploy more engineering, transport and medical personnel. The increased numbers of military troops is indicative of Beijing’s desire to play a bigger role in global policing. Miwa Hirono, a professor of Chinese international relations at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, Japan, said the composition of the new peacekeeping force represented a “comprehensive contribution that reflects the current challenges peacekeepers have”. “Maintaining peace and security in conflict areas has become a really important challenge for China, because it has a lot of assets and people in those places”, Hirono said. The government has frequently cited the peacekeeping force as an example of how “China is bearing the international responsibilities of a great power”.

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