Kim Jong-un visits China in his first known overseas trip since taking power in North Korea in 2011: Report

Agencies
March 27, 2018

Beijing, Mar 27: North Korea leader Kim Jong-un has visited China, Bloomberg reported on Monday, citing three unnamed sources, in what would be his first known overseas trip since taking power in 2011 and ahead of a potential summit with US president Donald Trump.

Details of his visit including its purpose and itinerary were not yet known, Bloomberg said. Japanese media reported earlier on Monday that a high-ranking Pyongyang official appeared to have arrived by train in Beijing.

Kyodo, citing sources close to the matter, said the visit of the official was intended to improve ties between Beijing and Pyongyang that have been frayed by North Korea’s pursuit of nuclear weapons and China’s backing of tough sanctions against North Korea at the United Nations Security Council.

The visit could not immediately be confirmed by news agency.

Footage from Nippon News Network, owned by Nippon TV, showed what an announcer described as a green train carriage with yellow horizontal lines, part of a 21-car train, similar to the kind that Kim’s late father, Kim Jong-il, rode when he visited Beijing in 2011.

Beijing has traditionally been the closest ally of secretive and isolated North Korea. But Kim is due to hold summit meetings separately with China’s rivals, South Korea and the United States.

“Such a visit would reflect China’s effort to get back in the game,” said Scott Snyder, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations think tank. “Xi would not tolerate being third in line to meet Kim.”

Asked earlier at a daily news briefing about reports of an important North Korean visitor arriving at the Chinese border city of Dandong, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said she was unaware of the situation.

Nobody answered the telephone at the North Korean embassy in Beijing on Monday evening.

“The government is closely communicating with relevant countries and monitoring the situation,” South Korea’s presidential Blue House said in a statement via a messaging app earlier on Monday.

Asked about the report that Kim was in China, White House spokesman Raj Shah told reporters on Monday: “We can’t confirm those reports. We don’t know if they’re necessarily true.”

Kyodo, citing sources, reported that on Sunday, a special train that might have carried the official passed through Dandong. Two sources in northeastern China also told Reuters that a North Korean visitor had crossed into Dandong by train.

The rail journey between Dandong and Beijing covers more than 1,100 km (680 miles). It takes at least 14 hours by ordinary service, according to Chinese railway timetables.

Heavy security

On Chinese social media, some residents of Dandong said there had been high security around the train station there and said there were rumors that Kim was passing through.

Police tightened security along Beijing’s main east-west thoroughfare, Changan Avenue, mid-afternoon Monday, closing off the entrances to some of the buildings which face the road.

Police also cleared out all tourists from Tiananmen Square around the same time, which normally only happens when important meetings are happening in the Great Hall of the People, where top Chinese leaders often meet visiting heads of state.

There was a large security presence outside the Great Hall on Monday evening. Reuters reporters saw a lengthy motorcade, including a limousine with dark tinted windows, heading down Changan Avenue in the direction of the Diaoyutai State Guest House and away from the Great Hall of the People, flanked by a police escort on motor-bikes.

Also on Monday evening, the Beijing railway bureau warned on its microblog, without giving a reason, of multiple train delays of up to two hours in the Beijing region.

A source with ties to the Chinese military told Reuters that it was “not possible to rule out the possibility” that Kim was visiting Beijing, but cautioned this was not confirmed.

A diplomatic source told Reuters that there was heavy security around the Diaoyutai State Guest House, where some high level foreign visitors stay during visits to the city. Other diplomatic sources said they were aware of the speculation that Kim was visiting but were not able to immediately confirm it.

Visits to China by Kim Jong-il were only confirmed by both China and North Korea once he had left the country.

Kim Jong-il traveled by private train during his rare visits to China or Russia under tight security. Diplomats and other sources have said Kim Jong-il avoided flying for overseas trips due to security concerns.

The younger Kim, who was educated in Switzerland, is not known to have any fear of flying and state media have shown pictures of him aboard a plane. However, he is not known to have traveled outside the country since assuming power in late 2011 after his father’s death.

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News Network
July 4,2020

Maryland, Jul 4: The total number of coronavirus cases worldwide has touched 11 million, according to the latest data by the Johns Hopkins University on Saturday.
More than 523,613 people have died globally due to the infection, according to the data compiled by the university.

Though the virus is believed to have emerged from the Chinese city of Wuhan, the United States is the worst-hit country from COVID-19, which was declared as a pandemic by the WHO on March 11.

At least 129,275 people have died in the US from the coronavirus, according to Johns Hopkins University's latest tally.
There are at least 2,786,178 cases of the disease in the country. The US has the highest number of cases in the world.

The second worst-hit country is Brazil, which has reported 1,496,858 lakh cases. The country's death toll stands at 61,884.

The countries around the world including the US, India, Denmark, and Italy have started the process of lifting the lockdown by easing restrictions despite the number of cases continues to rise.

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News Network
February 16,2020

New Delhi, Feb 16: Just an hour ahead of the swearing-in ceremony, Arvind Kejriwal invited the people of Delhi again for his oath-taking ceremony at Ramlila Maidan today.

Referring himself as "son of Delhi", the AAP convener today tweeted saying, "Delhiites, your son is going to take oath as Delhi chief minister for the third time. You must come to bless your son".

The AAP national convener will be sworn-in as the Chief Minister of Delhi for the third time in a row.

Arvind Kejriwal is scheduled to take oath along with other ministers at Ramlila Maidan.

On Saturday, Kejriwal, through a tweet, has said that autorickshaw drivers, students, teachers, doctors, labourers, etc will be the "chief guests".

The guest list put out by the AAP includes ''Delhi ke Nirmata''- people who contributed to the development of the city during the last five years.

These include Sumit Nagal, a Delhi government school student and an international Tennis player, Laxman Chaudhry an auto driver, Manu Gulati a teacher and "one of the many architects of Delhi Governance Model", Dalbir Singh a farmer, Ratan Jamshed Batliboi - the architect of the famous Signature Bridge among others.

By winning 62 seats by cashing in on the plank of development, his party nearly repeated its 2015 performance, sweeping the Assembly polls in the face of a high-voltage campaign by the BJP, which had fielded a battery of Union Ministers and Chief Ministers in its electioneering, spearheaded by Home Minister Amit Shah.

The BJP marginally improved its tally, managing just eight seats from its 2015''s tally of three seats. The Congress failed to open its account in the second successive election.

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Agencies
January 12,2020

Washington, Jan 12: The US State Department has described the recent visit of envoys of 15 countries to Jammu and Kashmir as an "important step" but expressed concern over the continued detention of political leaders and restrictions on internet in the region.

Alice Wells, the Acting Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia, tweeted on Saturday that she was "closely following" the visit of the envoys to Kashmir, describing it an "important step".

Wells, who will be visiting India this week, added: "We remain concerned by detention of political leaders and residents and Internet restrictions. We look forward to a return to normalcy."

The group of diplomats made a two-day visit to the Union Territory on Thursday and Friday to see the conditions thereafter Jammu and Kashmir's special constitutional status was removed last August.

While some US politicians and media have criticised the action by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government, the US has officially appeared to support the abrogation of the Constitution's Article 370 on the special status.

Last October, Wells told the House of Representatives Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific that the State Department supported the objectives behind it, while not directly mentioning the abrogation.

"The Indian government has argued that its decision on Article 370 was driven by a desire to increase economic development, reduce corruption, and uniformly apply all national laws in Jammu and Kashmir, particularly in regard to women and minorities.

"While we support these objectives, the Department remains concerned about the situation in the Kashmir Valley, where daily life for the nearly eight million residents has been severely impacted since August 5," she had said.

Washington has banked on India's democratic institutions - the judiciary and public debates - being able to steer the country.

Bearing this out, the Supreme Court last week ordered the government to review its decision to shut down the internet in Kashmir, which it declared was a fundamental right, thus taking a step to address Wells's concern.

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