Author: Himalaya Post

WASHINGTON  – Forty-four people were shot across the Midwestern US city of Chicago Sunday, US media reported, with five killed in a wave of violence police branded “totally unacceptable.” Chicago Police chief of patrol Fred Waller told a press conference Sunday afternoon some of the shootings were “targeted” and related to gang conflicts. “The city of Chicago experienced a violent night. Incidents of either random or targeted shooting on our streets is totally unacceptable,” he said.CNN reported multiple shootings took place between midnight and 2:00 pm local time — with 10 taking place in just three hours from 1:30 am. Gunmen targeted groups including one gathering of people who had attended a funeral repast, police said, adding that one of the injured victims was an 11-year-old boy.Chicago experienced a near 20-year record number of murders in 2016, prompting President Donald Trump to regularly single out the city for criticism. But Waller said so far this year, there has been a reduction in shootings of over 30 percent in Chicago, while murders are down by 25 percent.”That’s not a victory by any means, or any stretch” he said. “But we continue to head in the right direction.” He also said more than 5,500 illegal guns had been confiscated from the city’s streets.”I promise this city, we won’t be defeated,” he vowed during the press conference.”We all live in this city....

SEOUL – The foreign ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and 17 other countries urged North Korea to fulfill its commitment to complete denuclearization during their Singapore talks last week, their chair statement showed Monday. Singapore, this year’s chair of the annual ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), published its statement summarizing the foreign ministers’ meeting, which took place Saturday. The annual ARF is the sole regional forum in which the North’s top diplomat participates. “The ministers urged all concerned parties to continue working towards the realization of lasting peace and stability on a denuclearized Korean Peninsula,” the statement reads. “They also urged the DPRK to fulfill its stated commitment to complete denuclearization and its pledge to refrain from further nuclear and missile tests,” it added, referring to North Korea’s formal name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. The statement also noted that the ministers welcomed the April and May inter-Korean summits at the border truce village of Panmunjom and the historic June Singapore summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. At the summits, Kim committed himself to the complete denuclearization of the peninsula, which was seen by optimists as a positive sign but by skeptics as yet another vague pledge with no specifics as for how and when to achieve that goal. The statement, in addition, said that during the ARF talks,...

TEHRAN  – Saudi Arabia has granted a visa to an Iranian diplomat to work in a consular office in Jeddah, state media reported Sunday, in a rare sign of a thaw between the rival powers. Foreign ministry official Mohammad Alibak has been permitted to serve as head of Iran’s Interests Section in the consulate, state news agency IRNA reported. There was no immediate confirmation from Riyadh.Sunni powerhouse Saudi Arabia and Iran, the predominant Shiite power, have for decades stood on opposing sides of conflicts in the Middle East including the Syrian civil war. The two countries severed diplomatic relations in early 2016 after Riyadh’s embassy in Tehran was attacked by militants in response to the execution of a top Shiite cleric in Saudi...

TOKYO – A bell tolled Monday in Hiroshima as Japan marked 73 years since the world’s first atomic bombing, with the city’s mayor warning that rising nationalism worldwide threatened peace. The skies over Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Park were clear, just as they were on August 6, 1945, when an American B-29 bomber dropped its deadly payload on the port city dotted with military installations, ultimately killing 140,000 people. Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui, standing at the park near ground zero for the annual ceremony, appealed for a world without nuclear weapons and sounded the alarm over increasing nationalism. Without naming specific nations, he warned that “certain countries are explicitly expressing self-centred nationalism and modernising their nuclear arsenals.”They were “rekindling tensions that had eased with the end of the Cold War”, he added. He urged the abolition of nuclear weapons, in a year when President Donald Trump pledged to increase the US nuclear arsenal. “If the human family forgets history or stops confronting it, we could again commit a terrible error. That is precisely why we must continue talking about Hiroshima,” Matsui said. “Efforts to eliminate nuclear weapons must continue.”His call however highlighted Japan’s contradictory relationship with nuclear weapons.Japanese officials routinely argue that they oppose atomic weapons but the nation’s defence is dependent on the US nuclear umbrella. – New relations – This year’s ceremony comes amid a diplomatic push for...