Marathon to create awareness on drug addiction at Manipal
More than 3,000 students, people participate
Udupi, September 23: More than 3,000 students and general public participated in a 5 km long marathon organised by the district police, district working journalists association and Press Club in association with MAHE and Manipal Runners Club to mark anti-drug month to create awareness on drug addiction held at Manipal on Sunday.
Right from kids to aged people including Students, Employees, Police officers participated with enthusiasm. SP Lakshman Nimbargi, MAHE Pro-vice Chancellor Dr. H.S. Ballal and flagged off the marathon in front of the University. The marathon passes through M Cops, Upendra Pai Circle, Syndicate Circle, Venugopal Temple, MIT Swimming Pool, MIT, Kamath Café, Tiger Circle and converged at the Manipal Edu Building.
Speaking at the programme, MAHE Pro-vice-chancellor Dr. H.S. Ballal said that the awareness jatha was organized to create awareness among youth who have been addicting into the drugs. The Manipal Institutions have been contributing to the creation of healthy society and in future also, such programmes would be held, he said.
SP Lakshman Nimbargi said that the country has the highest number of youth in the world and socio-economical and political future of the country was depending upon the youth who should be guided properly. As part of the Anti-Drugs Month programme, various programmes were conducted in the district in the last two months. Many people have the opinion that the police could arrest the drug addicts and the drug peddlers and check the drug addiction. But only people and law could not control this evil. As a result, the department has planned to conducted awareness jatha to give a message to the youth, he said.
Syndicate Bank General Manager H. Bhaskar Hande, GDM B.R. Hiremath, District Working Journalists Association President Ganesh Prasad Pandelu, Press Club convener Nagaraj Rao, KMC professor Dr. Vinod Nayak and others were present. The police personnel and officers who are always busy in providing security and investigation and interrogation, have also participated. SP Lakshman Nimbargi, ASP Kumarachandra, DySP Kumaraswamy, Belliyappa, Dinesh Kumar and other police officers participated in the sports dress.
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North Korea launches new intercontinental ballistic missile designed to threaten US
Seoul (AP/PTI): North Korea launched a new intercontinental ballistic missile Thursday in its first test in almost a year of a weapon designed to threaten the US mainland and occurring days ahead of the US election.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ordered the missile test and was at the launch site, calling the launch “an appropriate military action” to show North Korea's resolve to respond to its enemies' moves that has threatened the North's safety, according to its Defence Ministry.
The United States, South Korea and Japan had also identified the weapon as an ICBM and condemned the launch as raising tensions. The launch came as Washington warned that North Korean troops in Russian uniforms are heading toward Ukraine, likely to augment Russian forces and join the war.
North Korea confirmed the launch hours after its neighbours detected the firing of what they suspected was a new, more agile weapon targeting the mainland US. The statement was unusually quick since North Korea usually describes its weapons tests a day after they occur.
“I affirm that the DPRK will never change its line of bolstering up its nuclear forces,” Kim said, according to a North Korean Defence Ministry statement carried by state media. DPRK stands for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, North Korea's official name.
South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said North Korea could have tested a new, solid-fuelled long-range ballistic missile. Missiles with built-in solid propellants are easier to move and hide and can be launched quicker than liquid-propellant weapons.
JCS spokesperson Lee Sung Joon said the launch was possibly timed to the US election in an attempt to strengthen North Korea's future bargaining power. He said the North Korean missile was launched on a high angle, apparently to avoid neighbouring countries.
Japanese Defence Minister Gen Nakatani told reporters the missile's flight duration of 86 minutes and its maximum altitude of more than 7,000 kilometres exceeded corresponding data from previous North Korean missile tests. Lee, the South Korean military spokesperson, said South Korea has a similar assessment on Thursday's launch.
KCNA said the flight characteristics of this launch exceeded those registered for its previous missile launches but did not detail the differences.
US National Security Council spokesperson Sean Savett had called the launch “a flagrant violation” of multiple UN Security Council resolutions that “needlessly raises tensions and risks destabilising the security situation in the region.” Savett said the US will take all necessary measures to ensure the security of the American homeland and its South Korean and Japanese allies.
Both South Korea and Japan condemned the North Korean launch for posing a threat to international peace and they said they're closely coordinating with the US over the latest North Korean weapons test. Lee said that South Korea and the US plan “sufficient” bilateral military exercises and trilateral ones involving Japan in response to North Korean threats.
Lee said the missile may have been fired from a 12-axle launch vehicle, the North's largest mobile launch platform that it disclosed in September. The vehicle's unveiling had prompted speculation North Korea could be developing an ICBM that is bigger than its existing ones.
North Korea has made strides in its missile technologies in recent years, but many foreign experts believe the country has yet to acquire a functioning nuclear-armed missile that can strike the US mainland. They say North Korea likely possesses short-range missiles that can deliver nuclear strikes across all of South Korea.
One of the technological hurdles North Korea still faces is for its weapons to be capable of surviving the harsh conditions of atmospheric reentry. South Korean officials and experts earlier said North Korea may test-launch a ICBM on a normal angle to verify that capability.
Lee said a high-angle launch like Thursday's test cannot examine a missile's reentry vehicle technology. He said that more analysis is required to find why North Korea didn't conduct a standard-trajectory launch on Thursday.
South Korea's military intelligence agency told lawmakers Wednesday that North Korea was close to test-firing a long-range missile capable of reaching the United States and has also likely completed preparations for its seventh nuclear test.
North Korea last test-fired an intercontinental ballistic missile in December 2023, when it launched the solid-fueled Hwasong-18.
In the past two years, Kim has used Russia's invasion of Ukraine as a window to ramp up weapons tests and threats while also expanding military cooperation with Moscow. South Korea, the US and others have recently accused North Korea of dispatching thousands of troops to support Russia's warfighting against Ukraine. They've said North Korea has already shipped artillery, missiles and other convectional arms to Russia.
North Korea's possible participation in the Ukraine war would mark a serious escalation. South Korea, the US and their partners also worry about what North Korea could get from Russia in return for joining Russia's war against Ukraine.
Aside from his soldiers' wages, experts say Kim Jong Un likely hopes to get high-tech Russian technology that can perfect his nuclear-capable missiles and build a reliable space-based surveillance system. Kim could also want Russian fighter jets and help to modernize North Korea's conventional weapons.
On Wednesday, Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin said North Korean troops wearing Russian uniforms and carrying Russian equipment are moving toward Ukraine, in what he called a dangerous and destabilising development. Austin said “the likelihood is pretty high” that Russia will use the troops in combat.
Austin spoke at a news conference in Washington with South Korean Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun. South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol last week raised the possibility of supplying Ukraine with weapons while stressing that his government “won't sit idle” over North Korea's reported troop dispatch.
South Korea said Wednesday that North Korea has sent more than 11,000 troops to Russia and that more than 3,000 of them have been moved close to battlefields in western Russia.
