Abyzemen

The Republic of Korea (ROK) sent an advance team Monday to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) to prepare for a groundbreaking ceremony later this week to connect railways and roads across the border, according to Seoul's unification ministry. The advance team, composed of 31 officials from unification and transport ministries, left early in the morning for the DPRK's border town of Kaesong. Among them, 27 officials will stay there for the ceremony preparations. Seoul and Pyongyang agreed to hold the groundbreaking ceremony at Panmun Station in Kaesong on Wednesday. On Sunday, the ROK dispatched 14 officials to the Panmun Station for the ceremony preparations. They returned home late Sunday. Following their first summit in April at the border village of Panmunjom, ROK President Moon Jae-in and top DPRK leader Kim Jong Un agreed to modernize and eventually re-connect railways and roads along the western and eastern Korean Peninsula. Moon and Kim agr...

The former Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was sentenced to seven years in prison by the accountability court,  Reuters reported citing Pakistani media.  Sharif was ousted from his third term as PM by the Supreme Court last year following a corruption investigation.

A respected defense secretary resigns in protest at his leader's foreign policy agenda, a major conflict is withdrawn from without consulting allies, the president's charitable foundation is accused of illegality and forced to close, a former key adviser appears in court, and the government is shut down for Christmas. A dramatic year for most leaders. A few days in late December for U.S. President Donald Trump. In 2018 Trump continued his wrecking ball approach to diplomacy, while the Democrats delivered a weighty midterm election blow to his administration's domestic agenda and the Mueller investigation gathered steam.   The world has never seen a leader quite like Trump, the president who has turned the international order on its head and stoked divisions at home in just two years in the White House.  U.S. alliances are being split, multilateral agreements abandoned and a trade war waged. In 2018 alone, Trump took the...

U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday announced he will replace Defense Secretary James Mattis with his deputy Patrick Shanahan, speeding up the Pentagon chief's planned exit days after he quit, citing key policy differences with the U.S. president. Mattis, 68, had said he would leave at the end of February to allow a smooth transition for the next chief of the world's top military power, but Trump – who was reportedly upset over media coverage of the stinging resignation letter submitted by the defense secretary – moved up the timetable. "I am pleased to announce that our very talented Deputy Secretary of Defense, Patrick Shanahan, will assume the title of Acting Secretary of Defense starting January 1, 2019," the Republican leader tweeted. "Patrick has a long list of accomplishments while serving as Deputy, & previously Boeing. He will be great!" Trump initially praised Mattis in a tweet announcing his departure, saying that he was retiring ...

Egyptian police killed 14 terrorists during a shootout in Arish city in North Sinai province, the Egyptian Interior Ministry said in a statement on Sunday. The police killed eight of them during the exchange of gunfire lasting for an unspecified number of hours, according to the statement. A further six ran away, but officers pursued and killed them.  The statement said the militants were killed during a raid on a terrorist hotbed planning attacks in Arish. "Many weapons, ammunition and explosive devices were found in their possession," it said. Egypt has been experiencing terrorist activities that have killed hundreds of policemen, soldiers and civilians following the ouster of former president Mohamed Morsi in July 2013 and a later security crackdown on his supporters. Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood group is currently blacklisted in Egypt as a terrorist organization. Most of the terror attacks in Egypt in the past few years have been claimed by a Sinai-based ...

The death toll from a tsunami that struck beaches around the Sunda Strait in Indonesia on Saturday night has risen to 281, with more than 1,000 other people injured, Indonesia's national disaster agency updated on Monday morning. Authorities said the tsunami, which took place at 9:27 p.m. local time (1427 GMT), may have been triggered by "an undersea landslide resulting from volcanic activity on Anak Krakatau" and was exacerbated by an abnormally high tide because of the current full moon. Hundreds of buildings were also destroyed by the fierce wave. Thousands of residents were forced to evacuate to higher ground. Timeline: Indonesia battered by tsunamis for centuries The Pandeglang district of Banten province suffered the most from the tsunami, and two other districts of Serang in the province and Lampung Selatan in Lampung province were also impacted. In the worst-hit area, huge waves rattled residential areas and several tourist destinations along the co...

An iconic tea towel, first sold as Britain entered the European Economic Community in the 1970s, offers a baffling explanation of cricket. "You have two sides, one out in the field and one in. Each man that's in the side that's in goes out and when he's out he comes in and the next man goes in until he's out…" and so it goes on. Britain's attempt to leave the European Union (EU) can seem equally confusing. Some people voted to be in, more voted to be out. Others voted to be in but are now trying to get out. Others are determined to stay in despite the vote to be out. Most MPs want to be in, but voters opted for out: a constitutional clash between representative and direct democracy that hasn't been reconciled. Divorce from the EU was always going to be tough, but why has it got so messy? It's a tale of rivalries, divisions, calculation, party breakup — and a simple question.  What does Brexit mean? The roots of the current Brexit d...