News in Brief
KIEV (Reuters) -- Ukrainian opposition leader and political veteran Yulia Tymoshenko said on Wednesday she would run for president in elections due next year.
"I will run for the presidency of Ukraine," she said during a question-and-answer video posted on her official Facebook page.
Tymoshenko led an opinion poll conducted in May by the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation and the Kiev-based Razumkov think-tank, with support among likely voters of 13%. Incumbent President Petro Poroshenko came fourth in the poll.
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SEOUL (AFP) -- New pipelines could be laid to bring Russian gas through North Korea to the South and even on to Japan following the diplomatic thaw with Pyongyang, Seoul's leader suggested Wednesday.
President Moon Jae-in was speaking to Russian news media before a three-day visit to Moscow starting Thursday, with the presidential Blue House releasing the transcript.
Russia and South Korea agreed in 2008 to lay gas pipelines through the North to bring Russian natural gas to the South. But the project failed to take off due to tensions over the North's nuclear weapons program.
Restoring inter-Korean railroads and linking them to trans-Siberian railways would also enable overland transport from trade-dependent South Korea to Europe, Moon added.
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SKOPJE (AFP) -- The Macedonian parliament ratified Wednesday a historic accord with Greece to rename the small Balkan nation the Republic of North Macedonia in a bid to end a 27-year row between the two neighbors.
"We have a deal that clearly defines our identity, our Macedonian language forever," Prime Minister Zoran Zaev told lawmakers ahead of the vote, urging them to back the agreement.
A total of 69 MPs in the 120-seat assembly supported the accord, while the nationalist opposition deputies were not present during the vote.
The agreement's adoption by parliament clears the way for a referendum to be held at a later date.
If the public back the name change, the government will then have to change the constitution - a key Greek demand before its own parliament is asked to ratify the deal.
The nationalist party VMRO-DPMNE, the main Macedonian opposition, has repeatedly said it will not support the change of "Macedonia's constitutional name", arguing it erodes the country's identity.
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BEIJING (Reuters) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping offered high praise to visiting North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, lauding the "positive” outcome of his historic summit with U.S. President Donald Trump and promising unwavering friendship.
Meeting Kim on his third trip to China this year, and just a week after Kim met Trump in Singapore, Xi said China was willing to keep playing a positive role to promote the peace process on the Korean Peninsula.
Kim’s visit was the latest in a flurry of diplomatic contacts, and unlike during his previous two visits to China, the government announced his presence while he was in the country rather than waiting for him to leave.
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LONDON (AP) -- At least 450 people had their lives shortened by a British hospital's institutionalized practice of administering opioids without medical justification between 1989 and 2000, an independent panel concluded Wednesday after years of campaigning by family members who demanded answers into the deaths of loved ones.
The panel chaired by Liverpool Bishop James Jones found another 200 patients were "probably" similarly affected at Gosport War Memorial Hospital in southern England, but records were missing and clinical notes were not found.
"There was a disregard for human life and a culture of shortening the lives of a large number of patients by prescribing and administering "dangerous doses" of a hazardous combination of medication not clinically indicated or justified," Jones said in the report. "They show too that, whereas a large number of patients and their relatives understood that their admission to the hospital was for either rehabilitation or respite care, they were, in effect, put on a terminal care pathway."
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LUSAKA, Zambia (AFP) -- At least 10 people were killed when a mine dump collapsed in Zambia’s second-largest city and copperbelt mining hub Kitwe on Wednesday, police said.
"So far we have retrieved 10 dead bodies and seven bodies of those injured,” said Copperbelt province police commissioner Charity Katanga.
A mineral exploration drilling team drills holes to identify the location and the quality of gold deposits at the Segilola Gold Project site in the village of Iperindo-Odo Ijesha, near the city of Ilesha, on May 29, 2018. Nigeria is working to diversify its economy, which has been dependent on the oil and gas sector for decades, through formalizing the artisanal mining sector.
"I will run for the presidency of Ukraine," she said during a question-and-answer video posted on her official Facebook page.
Tymoshenko led an opinion poll conducted in May by the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation and the Kiev-based Razumkov think-tank, with support among likely voters of 13%. Incumbent President Petro Poroshenko came fourth in the poll.
***
SEOUL (AFP) -- New pipelines could be laid to bring Russian gas through North Korea to the South and even on to Japan following the diplomatic thaw with Pyongyang, Seoul's leader suggested Wednesday.
President Moon Jae-in was speaking to Russian news media before a three-day visit to Moscow starting Thursday, with the presidential Blue House releasing the transcript.
Russia and South Korea agreed in 2008 to lay gas pipelines through the North to bring Russian natural gas to the South. But the project failed to take off due to tensions over the North's nuclear weapons program.
Restoring inter-Korean railroads and linking them to trans-Siberian railways would also enable overland transport from trade-dependent South Korea to Europe, Moon added.
***
SKOPJE (AFP) -- The Macedonian parliament ratified Wednesday a historic accord with Greece to rename the small Balkan nation the Republic of North Macedonia in a bid to end a 27-year row between the two neighbors.
"We have a deal that clearly defines our identity, our Macedonian language forever," Prime Minister Zoran Zaev told lawmakers ahead of the vote, urging them to back the agreement.
A total of 69 MPs in the 120-seat assembly supported the accord, while the nationalist opposition deputies were not present during the vote.
The agreement's adoption by parliament clears the way for a referendum to be held at a later date.
If the public back the name change, the government will then have to change the constitution - a key Greek demand before its own parliament is asked to ratify the deal.
The nationalist party VMRO-DPMNE, the main Macedonian opposition, has repeatedly said it will not support the change of "Macedonia's constitutional name", arguing it erodes the country's identity.
***
BEIJING (Reuters) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping offered high praise to visiting North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, lauding the "positive” outcome of his historic summit with U.S. President Donald Trump and promising unwavering friendship.
Meeting Kim on his third trip to China this year, and just a week after Kim met Trump in Singapore, Xi said China was willing to keep playing a positive role to promote the peace process on the Korean Peninsula.
Kim’s visit was the latest in a flurry of diplomatic contacts, and unlike during his previous two visits to China, the government announced his presence while he was in the country rather than waiting for him to leave.
***
LONDON (AP) -- At least 450 people had their lives shortened by a British hospital's institutionalized practice of administering opioids without medical justification between 1989 and 2000, an independent panel concluded Wednesday after years of campaigning by family members who demanded answers into the deaths of loved ones.
The panel chaired by Liverpool Bishop James Jones found another 200 patients were "probably" similarly affected at Gosport War Memorial Hospital in southern England, but records were missing and clinical notes were not found.
"There was a disregard for human life and a culture of shortening the lives of a large number of patients by prescribing and administering "dangerous doses" of a hazardous combination of medication not clinically indicated or justified," Jones said in the report. "They show too that, whereas a large number of patients and their relatives understood that their admission to the hospital was for either rehabilitation or respite care, they were, in effect, put on a terminal care pathway."
***
LUSAKA, Zambia (AFP) -- At least 10 people were killed when a mine dump collapsed in Zambia’s second-largest city and copperbelt mining hub Kitwe on Wednesday, police said.
"So far we have retrieved 10 dead bodies and seven bodies of those injured,” said Copperbelt province police commissioner Charity Katanga.
A mineral exploration drilling team drills holes to identify the location and the quality of gold deposits at the Segilola Gold Project site in the village of Iperindo-Odo Ijesha, near the city of Ilesha, on May 29, 2018. Nigeria is working to diversify its economy, which has been dependent on the oil and gas sector for decades, through formalizing the artisanal mining sector.