
North Korea test fires missile as Blinken visits Seoul, weighs in on Putin-Kim ties, Israel-Hamas truce talks
CBSN
Seoul — North Korea on Monday test fired a ballistic missile as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited South Korea, where he warned that Pyongyang was working ever closer with Russia on advanced space technology. Blinken also said that while he believed a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas would end the war in Gaza, it may not happen until after President Biden's term, under returning President-elect Donald Trump.
Blinken visited Seoul as investigators were trying to arrest conservative President Yoon Suk Yeol, who has entrenched himself in his residence after being impeached for a failed attempt to impose martial law, but he declined to wade into the domestic political turmoil that has gripped the close U.S. ally.
In a reminder of common challenges that go beyond the South's politics, North Korea on Monday fired a ballistic missile to sea as Blinken held meetings in Seoul, pushing him to rebuke Pyongyang and its ally Russia.

Felix Baumgartner, the daredevil who made a record-breaking parachute jump from the stratosphere in 2012, died Thursday in a paragliding accident in Italy, a local mayor confirmed. Firefighters who responded to the scene said they found a paraglider that had crashed into the side of a swimming pool in the city of Porto Sant Elpidio, on central Italy's eastern coast.

Baghdad — A fire at a newly opened mall in eastern Iraq's Wasit province killed more than 60 people, including women and children, Iraqi officials said Thursday. The nation's Interior Ministry said in a statement that 61 people died, most of them from suffocation, in the blaze that broke out late Wednesday in the city of al-Kut.

Moscow — An American who spied on Ukrainian troops to help Moscow's military offensive in the country has been granted Russian citizenship, Moscow-installed authorities said Tuesday. Daniel Martindale spent two years in Ukraine after Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, transmitting coordinates of military facilities to Russia's secret services, according to reports in Russian state media.