SEOUL (AP) -  North Korea said Monday leader Kim Jong Un inspected a new weapons factory that’s key to his plan to accelerate mass production of missiles in a weekend visit before he departs for a major military parade in China. North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency did not disclose the location of the factory Kim visited Sunday, but it may be in Jagang province, a hub of the country’s munitions industry that borders China. Both China and North Korea confirmed last week that Kim will make his first visit to China in six years to attend a military parade in Beijing on Wednesday, which marks the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II and China’s resistance against Japanese wartime aggression. 

 

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BRUSSELS (Reuters) - A plane carrying EU chief Ursula von der Leyen was hit by GPS jamming as it readied to land in Bulgaria on Sunday, Brussels said Monday. The European Commission said Bulgarian authorities suspected the disruption “was due to blatant interference” from Moscow but it was not clear if the chartered flight was deliberately targeted. “We can indeed confirm that there was GPS jamming,” Commission spokeswoman Arianna Podesta told a press conference in Brussels. 

 

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JAKATRA (AFP) - Thousands rallied across Indonesia Monday as the military was deployed in the capital after six people were killed in nationwide protests sparked by anger over lavish perks for lawmakers. At least 500 protesters gathered outside the nation’s parliament in Jakarta, watched by soldiers and police throughout the day, before dissipating after President Prabowo Subianto warned protests should end by sundown. But elsewhere protests were more volatile. In Gorontalo city on Sulawesi island protesters clashed with police, who responded with tear gas and water cannon, according to an AFP journalist. 

 

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LONDON (Reuters) - Britain’s manufacturers suffered a fresh setback in August after signs of a recovery with new orders dropping due to worries about trade tensions abroad and tax increases at home, according to a survey published on Monday. The S&P Global/CIPS manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index weakened for the first time in five months, decreasing to 47.0 from a six-month high 48.0 in July. The figure was weaker than a preliminary reading of 47.3 and the 11th month in a row that the PMI was in contractionary territory below the neutral 50 mark. Weak demand, global trade tariffs and rising costs for clients after April’s increase in the minimum wage and a tax hike on employers combined to push down exports and new orders which shrank at the fastest pace in four months, S&P Global said. 

 

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MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Australia will pay the small Pacific island of Nauru to resettle foreign-born criminals who the courts have ruled cannot be imprisoned indefinitely, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Monday. Nauru has become a political solution for the government after Australia’s High Court ruled in 2023 that non-citizens with no prospects of being resettled outside Australia could no longer be held indefinitely in immigration detention. Albanese did not confirm media reports that Australia would pay the tiny Pacific Island nation, population 13,000, 400 million Australian dollars ($262 million) to establish the deal then AU$70 million ($46 million) annually to maintain it. “People who have no right to be here need to be found somewhere to go, if they can’t go home,” Albanese told Australian Broadcasting Corp.