PYONGYANG (Al Jazeera) – North Korea has called on the United Nations to demand an immediate halt to joint military drills by the United States and South Korea. In a statement on state media on Sunday, Vice Foreign Minister Kim Son Gyong said the drills and the rhetoric from the allies have pushed tensions to an “extremely dangerous level”. He said the UN and the international community “will have to strongly urge the U.S. and South Korea to immediately halt their provocative remarks and joint military exercises”. The statement comes after officials from Seoul and Washington announced on Friday more than 10 days of large-scale military exercises, including amphibious landings, from March 13 to 23. The allies have said the exercises are defensive and are necessary to counter the rising threats from North Korea, but Pyongyang sees the drills as a rehearsal for invasion.

 

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TALLINN (AFP) – Estonians were voting on Sunday for a new parliament in an election that could strengthen far-right nationalists, who have campaigned against further arms deliveries to Ukraine. Prime Minister Kaja Kallas’s center-right Reform Party is predicted to win by the opinion polls, but will likely have to form a coalition to hang on to power. The party is expected to garner 24 percent to 30 percent of votes, according to final polls during the week. The far-right EKRE was predicted to take second place with 14-25 percent. The Centre Party was on 16-19 percent and Estonia 200 between nine and 15 percent. “Those who don’t vote for EKRE will not be rid of the Reform (party)”, EKRE leader Martin Helme wrote on Facebook on Sunday. Former prime minister and Reform Party member Siim Kallas warned of a splintered vote. Estonia’s military assistance to Ukraine amounts to more than one percent of GDP -- the biggest contribution of any country relative to the size of its economy.

 

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LONDON (The Guardian) – Some of Britain’s biggest unions accused the UK government of being “complicit” in attacks on hotels housing asylum seekers, and are urging members to “mobilize” against far-right groups seemingly emboldened by the rhetoric of senior Tory politicians.  The first big intervention by trade unions on the increasingly politicized issue follows comments by the Conservative party’s deputy chairman, Lee Anderson, who said he had sympathy with people protesting outside hotels. His remarks came days after the Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, stated hotels providing refuge to asylum seekers were causing “understandable tensions”, and protesters targeting them were not “racist or bigoted”. A wave of protests, many organized by far-right anti-immigrant groups, has targeted hotels in recent weeks, with a number culminating in violent clashes with police.

 

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LAGOS (Xinhua) – Nigerian troops have rescued 14 people who were being held hostage by bandits in the northern state of Kaduna, an official said. The rescue mission was carried out recently by Nigerian troops who embarked on an operation targeted at a hideout of the bandits in the Chikun local government area of the state, said Kaduna State Commissioner for Internal Security and Home Affairs Samuel Aruwan in a statement. The troops overpowered the bandits and killed one of them while others fled in disarray, said Aruwan, adding that all the rescued were safe and will be examined further before being reunited with their families. The commissioner did not reveal the exact date of the operation, saying the hideout of the bandits has been destroyed by troops in the course of the battle. There have been a number of armed attacks in Nigeria in recent months, resulting in deaths and kidnappings. 

 

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LONDON (AFP) – Prince Harry reportedly revealed he has long felt different to the rest of Britain’s royal family in an interview on Saturday with a trauma expert. In a wide-ranging discussion with Dr Gabor Mate, Harry, 38, described himself as coming from a “broken home” and said he was trying not to pass “trauma” onto his children, according to reports of the live-streamed conversation. The interview follows the January publication of the prince’s controversial memoir, “Spare”, in which he admitted his adolescence was marked by drugs and alcohol and detailed the breakdown in his relationships with father King Charles III, and brother William. “I certainly have felt throughout my life, my younger years, I felt slightly different to the rest of my family,” Harry told Mate, according to numerous media reports on the interview. “I felt strange being in this container, and I know that my mum felt the same so it makes sense to me,” he added, referring to his late mother Princess Diana. Harry went on to credit his wife Meghan Markle for having “saved” him. “I was stuck in this world, and she was from a different world and helped draw me out of that,” he said. During the conversation, Mate -- the author of several books on trauma, addiction and illness -- publicly diagnosed Harry with attention deficit disorder (ADD).