Japanese police on Saturday arrested three North Korean crew members for suspected theft, a spokesman said, amid a fresh wave of North Korean "ghost ship" fishing vessels washing up in Japanese waters. The three were among the 10 North Korean "fishermen" spotted aboard a tiny wooden boat struggling in bad weather off the northern island of Hokkaido late last month. The 45-year-old captain and t...

North Korea blamed US "nuclear blackmail" for soaring tensions over its weapons programme in rare meetings with a senior UN official, but agreed to regular communication with the organisation, state media said Saturday. Jeffrey Feltman arrived in Beijing Saturday after wrapping up a five-day visit to Pyongyang aimed at defusing the crisis, just a week after North Korea said it test-fired a new b...

Japan plans to purchase offensive air-to-surface missiles to counter North Korea's rising military threat, its defence minister said Friday, a move likely to stir debate over its decades-long pacifist policy. Itsunori Onodera said the ministry intends to request a special budget for the fiscal year starting April 2018 to purchase long-range cruise missiles deployed on fighter jets. According to...

Lubaina Himid, 63, on Tuesday became the oldest winner of the Turner Prize, Britain‘s most prestigious yet controversial visual art award, for her works celebrating black creativity. Judges praised the Zanzibar-born artist for the “seriousness of themes she addressed”, paying tribute to the “current vitality of Lubaina’s work as well as the current relevance” of it in three decades past. The wi...

BEIJING - A senior United Nations official arrived in North Korea on Tuesday for a rare visit aimed at defusing soaring tensions over Pyongyang's nuclear weapons programme. Jeffrey Feltman's visit -- the first by a UN diplomat of his rank since 2010 -- comes less than a week after North Korea said it test-fired a new ballistic missile capable of reaching the United States. Feltman shook hands w...

An airplane crew flying over Japan saw North Korea's missile as it plunged back through the atmosphere last week, their airline said Monday, as South Korea and the US kicked off their largest ever joint air exercise. Hong Kong carrier Cathay Pacific released a statement saying the crew of flight CX893 spotted "what is suspected to be the re-entry" of the missile as they flew from San Francisco t...

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un declared his country had achieved its long-cherished goal of full-fledged nuclear statehood after successfully testing a new type of intercontinental ballistic missile on Wednesday. The United States and its allies have always maintained they would never accept a nuclear North Korea, but have been forced to watch from the sidelines as Pyongyang pursued an accelera...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US President Donald Trump on Tuesday pledged to "take care" of North Korea after its latest ballistic missile launch -- the first after a two-month hiatus -- which his Pentagon chief said was its highest yet, signifying an expanded threat. The ICBM is believed to have flown a relatively modest 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) from North Korea, before splashing down harmlessly in ...

WASHINGTON (AFP) -- US President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe held emergency talks Tuesday, weighing their response to a provocative North Korean missile test. Trump White House aide Dan Scavino posted an image on Twitter of Trump speaking to Abe, saying the conversation was “regarding North Korea‘s launch of a intercontinental ballistic missile into the Sea of Japan.”

Egypt mourned on Saturday as the death toll from a gun and bomb assault on a mosque in the Sinai Peninsula soared above 300, including children, in the deadliest attack the country has witnessed. The army said warplanes had struck militant hideouts in the insurgency-wracked North Sinai in retaliation. According to the state prosecution, up to 30 militants in camouflage flying the Islamic State ...

A bridge providing the main road link between China and North Korea is to be closed "temporarily" while workers on the North side carry out maintenance, Beijing announced Friday. Some 70 percent of trade between the Asian neighbours is conducted in the northeastern Chinese city of Dandong, connected to North Korea by the Sino-Korean Friendship Bridge. "The bridge will be closed temporarily beca...

Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has vowed to respond forcefully after attackers killed at least 235 worshippers in a packed mosque in restive North Sinai province, the country's deadliest attack in recent memory. Al-Sisi declared three days of mourning would begin Saturday, the day after the gun and bomb assault on the Rawda mosque, roughly 40 kilometers west of the North Sinai capital of...

At least 50 people were killed on Tuesday when a suicide bomber blew himself up in a mosque in northeast Nigeria, police said, in an attack blamed on Boko Haram jihadists. The blast happened during early morning prayers at the Madina mosque in the Unguwar Shuwa area of Mubi, some 200 kilometres (125 miles) by road from the Adamawa state capital Yola. It was the biggest attack in Adamawa since D...

HARARE (AFP) -- Robert Mugabe has been removed as president of Zimbabwe's ruling ZANU-PF party and replaced by his former vice president Emmerson Mnangagwa, a party delegate told AFP on Sunday outside a meeting in Harare. "A resolution has been adopted to recall the president and elevate Mnangagwa as the party president," said the delegate, who declined to be named.

HAVANA (AFP) -- North Korea's foreign minister is to visit Cuba on Monday in a trip that comes at a time when both Pyongyang and Havana have strained relations with Washington. Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho will meet with his Cuban counterpart Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla and participate in other unspecified activities, according to a brief statement late Saturday from Cuba's foreign ministry. The vi...