News in Brief

Date: 09 April 2021 - 22:03

News ID: ۸۸۹۶۹

LONDON (Dispatches) -- Prince Philip, Queen Elizabeth’s husband and a pivotal figure in the British royal family for almost seven decades, has died aged 99, Buckingham Palace said on Friday. The Duke of Edinburgh, as he was officially known, had been by his wife’s side throughout her 69-year reign, the longest in British history. During that time he earned a reputation for for occasional gaffes. A Greek prince, Philip married Elizabeth in 1947. He spent four weeks in hospital earlier this year for treatment for an infection and to have a heart procedure, but returned to Windsor in early March. He died just two months before he was to celebrate his 100th birthday. The death of the queen’s husband and closest confidant will raise questions over whether she might consider abdication, but royal commentators say there is little or no chance than this will happen. In recent years, the queen has cut the number of official engagements she carries out and has passed many royal duties and patronages onto Prince Charles, his son William and other senior royals. But she still carries out the most symbolic of the monarchy’s state duties, such as the opening of parliament.

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BEIJING (Dispatches) -- China said Thursday the UK is sheltering "wanted criminals” by granting political asylum to fugitives from Hong Kong, China’s global financial hub city. "The UK is clearly a platform for Hong Kong independence agitators, and provides so-called shelter for wanted criminals,” said China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian at a press conference. His remarks came just a day after London granted political asylum to Hong Kong’s separatist Nathan Law, angering Beijing. Zhao called Law, a 27-year-old former Hong Kong lawmaker, a "criminal suspect” and described the provocative move by the British government as "gross interference” in Hong Kong’s judiciary. "The UK should immediately correct its mistake, and stop interfering in Hong Kong affairs and China’s internal affairs,” the Chinese official added.

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SEOUL (Dispatches) -- The United States and South Korea on Thursday officially signed a cost-sharing agreement to maintain the presence of American troops in the East Asian country. South Korea’s First Vice Foreign Minister Choi Jong-kun and Rob Rapson, charge d’affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Seoul, signed the deal, known as the Special Measures Agreement (SMA), in a ceremony at the Foreign Ministry building. Under the SMA, Seoul is to pay 1.05 billion dollars this year for the upkeep of the 28,500-strong U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) until 2025. The South Korean Foreign Ministry said the government would send the deal to the National Assembly for final ratification at the earliest date. Seoul used to pay Washington about 920 million dollars a year. Negotiations for a new agreement stalled when former U.S. President Donald Trump demanded a total of 5 billion dollars from South Korea and rejected Seoul’s offer to pay 13 percent more.

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SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has called for waging another "arduous march” to fight severe economic difficulties, for the first time comparing them to a 1990s famine that killed hundreds of thousands. Kim had previously said his country faces the "worst-ever” situation due to several factors, including the coronavirus pandemic, U.S.-led sanctions and heavy flooding last summer. But it’s the first time he publicly drew parallel with the deadly famine. "There are many obstacles and difficulties ahead of us, and so our struggle for carrying out the decisions of the Eighth Party Congress would not be all plain sailing,” Kim told lower-level ruling party members on Thursday, according to the Korean Central News Agency. "I made up my mind to ask the WPK (Workers’ Party of Korea) organizations at all levels, including its Central Committee and the cell secretaries of the entire party, to wage another more difficult ‘arduous march’ in order to relieve our people of the difficulty, even a little,” Kim said.

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SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — An explosive eruption rocked La Soufriere volcano on the eastern Caribbean island of St. Vincent on Friday following mandatory evacuation orders from the local government. Emergency management officials said the ash column was about 20,000 feet (6 kilometers) high and that the ash was headed east into the Atlantic Ocean. However, heavy ashfall also was reported in communities around the volcano, said Erouscilla Joseph, director of the University of the West Indies Seismic Center. "More explosions could occur,” she said, adding that it was impossible to predict whether any potential upcoming explosions would be bigger or smaller than the first one. There were no immediate reports of casualties. The volcano last erupted in 1979, and a previous eruption in 1902 killed some 1,600 people. The new eruption followed mandatory evacuation orders issued Thursday for people who live near the volcano.

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NAYPYITAW (Reuters) -- Myanmar’s military junta said on Friday that a protest campaign against its rule was dwindling since people wanted peace, while 18 ambassadors to the country called in a joint statement for the restoration of democracy. The junta will hold elections within two years and hand over power to the elected government, military spokesman Brigadier General Zaw Min Tun told a news conference in the capital, Naypyitaw. It was the first timeframe the junta has given for elections since it ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi on Feb. 1.