North Korea successfully tests satellite rocket engine

Kim Jong Un

North Korea has said it has successfully tested a new rocket engine which could be used to launch satellites.
The country’s leader Kim Jong-Un has asked scientists and engineers to make preparations for a satellite launch as soon as possible.
The United Nations and others view the North’s space launch development project as a way of

World leaders at UN approve plan for refugee crisis

With more people forced to flee their homes than at any time since World War II, global leaders on Monday approved a declaration aimed at providing a more coordinated and humane response to the refugee crisis that has strained resources and stoked divisions from Africa to Europe.
The issue of what to do about the world’s 65.3 million displaced people will take center stage at the General Assembly with leaders from the United Nations’ 193-member states converging on New York for the first-ever summit on Addressing Large Movements of Refugees and Migrants.
“Today’s summit represents a breakthrough in our collective efforts to address the challenges of human mobility,” said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, calling on leaders to commit to “upholding the rights and dignity of everyone force by circumstance to flee their homes in search of a better life.”
The New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants contains no concrete commitments and is not legally binding but rather calls on countries to protect refugees’ human rights, boost

Congolese rebel leader on 12th day of hunger strike

Congolese former rebel leader Bosco Ntaganda was Monday on the 12th day of an unprecedented hunger strike in his detention cell in The Netherlands, refusing to attend his war crimes trial.
The once feared rebel leader from the Democratic Republic of Congo has not appeared in the courtroom at the International Criminal Court in The Hague since September 7.
He is the first defendant before the tribunal — set up in 2002 to try the world’s worst crimes — to ever go on hunger strike and his protest is vexing judges who have ordered his trial must go on in his absence.
“How long can this situation last? Is it the kind of justice we want before the International Criminal Court?” said his lawyer, Stephane Bourgon, in a statement sent early Monday.
“We can’t ignore the absence of the accused whose current state of health is rapidly deteriorating.”
Ntaganda, who has been held in the ICC’s detention unit in the seaside suburb of Scheveningen since he surrendered in 2013, has also told his lawyers to stop acting for him.

Philippine Central Bank ordered to return recovered money to Bangladesh

A security guard stands beside a logo of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (Central Bank of the Philippines) posted at the main gate in Manila, Philippines April 28, 2016(Reuters)

A Philippine regional trial court has ordered the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) to return to the Bangladesh central bank a recovered portion of the $81 million that was stolen from the bank earlier this year, a government lawyer said on Monday.
The court has declared Bangladesh as the rightful owner of the funds, totaling $15 million, Ricardo Paras III, chief state counsel of the Philippines’ Department of Justice, said while reading a copy of the court’s ruling to a Reuters reporter.

Duterte to extend drug war as ‘cannot kill them all’

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has asked for a six-month extension for his war on drugs, saying there are too many people involved in the narcotics trade and he “cannot kill them all”.
Some 3,000 people have been killed since Duterte won May elections in a landslide on a vow to kill tens of thousands of criminals in an unprecedented blitz to rid the country of illegal drugs in six months.
“I did not realise how severe and how serious the drug menace was in this republic until I became president,” Duterte, 71, told reporters late Sunday in his southern home city of Davao.
Launching his crackdown was like letting “a worm out of the can” he said, adding that he wanted “a little extension of maybe another six months” to try and finish the job.
“Even if I wanted to I cannot kill them all because the last report would be this thick,” he said, referring to a new police list of people including top officials suspected of being involved in the drugs trade.
Police say they have killed 1,105 drug suspects in the slightly more than two months since Duterte took office.

Over 40 per cent of Japanese are virgins – poll

More than 40 percent of young Japanese single adults are virgins, a government survey has shown, and almost three-quarters of men are not in any kind of relationship.
The poll reveals the extent of sexlessness in a country where policymakers worry about low birthrates and the knock-on effect of an ageing society.
The National Institute of Population and Social Security Research quizzed more than 5,000 singletons aged 18 to 34 about their lives between the sheets.
It found that 42 percent of men and 44 percent of women had never had sex.
The survey, carried out in June 2015, showed the number of people who remained chaste in Japan was increasing over time.
A similar poll conducted in 2005 found only a third of young singletons had always been celibate — out of preference or otherwise.
The 2015 survey also found that seven-in-10 men were not in a relationship, while nearly six-in-ten women were going to bed alone.

Global fund raises $12.9 billion to fight AIDS, TB, malaria

The Global Fund has raised over 12.9 billion from international donors as part of a campaign aimed at effectively eradicating AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis by 2030.
This was disclosed on Monday in Montreal after a conference organised on Sunday seeking faith-based and private-sector partners to raise 13 billion dollars to support its activities over the next three years, starting in 2017.
Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, said after the meeting which drew several heads of state, that “we can declare success for we have saved the lives of 8 million people.”

Obama urges black voters to back Clinton

President Barack Obama delivered an impassioned plea to the African-American community on Saturday night to help stop Donald Trump, saying he would consider it a “personal insult” to his legacy if black voters didn’t turn out for Hillary Clinton.
Addressing the Congressional Black Caucus gala for the last time as president, Obama warned that while his name would not be on the ballot in November, all of the progress that the country has made over the last eight years was on the line.
“If I hear anybody saying their vote does not matter, that it doesn’t matter who we elect – read up on your history. It matters. We’ve got to get people to vote,” Obama said. “I will consider it a personal insult – an insult to my legacy – if this community lets down its guard and fails to activate itself in this election. You want to give me a good sendoff? Go vote.”
Obama’s speech – coming less than two months away from Election Day — marked some of his harshest words yet about Trump, as well as his most forceful call on the black community to get