SEOUL (AFP) - North Korea fired a ballistic missile, Seoul’s military said Saturday, days after demanding an apology for a blast that wounded three South Korean soldiers in the DMZ that it blames on the North. Pyongyang has denied responsibility for last month’s explosion inside the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) and called South Korea “despicable” on Friday, undercutting overtures by Seoul’s civilian leadership seeking a return to dialogue.

 

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NAIROBI (Reuters) - Ethiopia’s federal military has recaptured the main airport in the capital of the northern Tigray region, three sources said on Saturday, dealing a major setback to an opposition alliance in its stronghold. Clashes pitting a rebel alliance led by Tigray’s ruling party against the government and its allied forces broke out in northern Ethiopia last week, in the most serious escalation of violence since a 2020-2022 civil war. The fighting has stoked fears that it could escalate into a wider regional conflict, potentially drawing in neighboring countries in the Horn of Africa. The federal government in Addis Ababa severed diplomatic ties with Eritrea this week, accusing it of supporting the rebel alliance alongside Sudan and Egypt. The three countries deny this.

 

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former U.S. Congressman David Rivera was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Friday for illegally lobbying U.S. officials to ease pressure on ousted Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s government. Rivera, a Republican who represented southern Florida in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2011 to 2013, was convicted at trial in May of lobbying U.S. officials on Venezuela’s behalf in 2017 without registering as a foreign lobbyist as required by the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). The sentence was handed down by U.S. District Judge Melissa Damian at a hearing in federal court in Miami.

 

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LILLE, France (AFP) - A man has been found shot dead in a UK tradesman’s van carrying irregular migrants parked in a rest stop along a northern French motorway, officials said on Oct 3. The vehicle was found on Oct 2, around 30km north of the city of Troyes, which is located south-east of Paris and around 300km from the Channel, according to the local prosecutor’s office. A suspect “believed to have been present at the crime scene” was arrested early on Oct 2, Troyes’ prosecutor, Isabelle Verissimo, said.

 

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SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s lead over Senator Flavio Bolsonaro narrowed ahead of Sunday’s first-round vote, a CNT/MDA poll showed on Saturday, while also pointing to a tighter race in a likely runoff. In a first-round scenario, Lula would receive 43.1% of voter support, followed by Bolsonaro (38%), Augusto Cury (3.2%), Ronaldo Caiado (3%) and Renan Santos (1.5%), according to the poll.

• A September 15 poll had Lula at 40.5%, Bolsonaro at 30.4%, Cury at 6%, Caiado at 3% and Santos at 2.7%