North Korea's Kim arrives in Russia's Vladivostok for Putin summit
Vladivostok: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un arrived in Russia's Pacific port city of Vladivostok on Wednesday for a first summit with Vladimir Putin, as Pyongyang seeks support in its nuclear deadlock with the United States.
The talks, organised in secret and announced at the last minute, will be Kim's first face-to-face meeting with another head of state since negotiations with US President Donald Trump in Hanoi collapsed in February.
Kim's armoured train arrived in the afternoon at the Tsarist-era train station in Vladivostok and he stepped out onto a red carpet before making his way outside to be received by an honour guard.
"I hope that this visit will be successful and useful," Kim told Russian television in the Russian town of Khasan where his train crossed the border.
"I hope that during the talks... I will be able to have concrete discussions on resolving situations on the Korean Peninsula and on the development of our bilateral relationship," Kim said.
Putin was due to arrive in Vladivostok on Thursday, then fly on after the talks for another summit in Beijing.
The North's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) earlier reported Kim's departure by train, naming among his entourage foreign minister Ri Yong Ho.
The train crossed the Tumen river Wednesday and arrived in Khasan, where women in folk costumes welcomed Kim with bread and salt in a traditional greeting.
Kim's predecessors as leader, his father and grandfather, also stopped there on their trips to neighbouring Russia.
At Khasan station a small wooden building known as the House of Kim Il Sung commemorates Russian-Korean friendship.
Russian and North Korean flags were already flying on lamp posts Tuesday on Vladivostok's Russky island, where the summit is expected to take place at a university campus.
Kim plans to stay on in Vladivostok on Friday for a series of cultural events, including a ballet and a visit to the city's aquarium, Russian media reported.
The talks follow repeated invitations from Putin since Kim embarked on his diplomatic overtures last year.
Since March 2018, the formerly reclusive North Korean leader has held four meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping, three with the South's Moon Jae-in, two with Trump and one with Vietnam's president.
Analysts say he is now looking for wider international support in his standoff with Washington, while Moscow is keen to inject itself into another global flashpoint.
In Hanoi, the cash-strapped North demanded immediate relief from the sanctions imposed on it over its banned nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programmes, but the talks broke down in disagreement over what Pyongyang was prepared to give up in return.
North Korea last week launched a blistering attack on US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, insisting he be removed from the negotiations just hours after announcing it had carried out a new weapons test.
Moscow has already called for the sanctions to be eased, while the US has accused it of trying to help Pyongyang evade some of the measures -- accusations Russia denies.
Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov told a briefing on Tuesday: "The focus will be on a political and diplomatic solution to the nuclear problem on the Korean Peninsula." "Russia intends to help consolidate positive trends in every way," he said, but added that no joint statement or signing of agreements was planned.
KCNA did not mention whether Kim's wife Ri Sol Ju or his sister and close aide Kim Yo Jong were accompanying him.
Moscow was a crucial backer of Pyongyang for decades and their ties go back to the founding of North Korea, when the Soviet Union installed Kim's grandfather Kim Il Sung as leader.
The Soviet Union reduced funding to the North as it began to seek reconciliation with Seoul in the 1980s, but Pyongyang was hit hard by its demise in 1991.
Soon after his first election as Russian president, Putin sought to normalise relations and met Kim Jong Il
The first of those meetings was in Pyongyang in 2000, when Putin became the first Russian leader to visit the North.
China has since cemented its role as the isolated North's most important ally, its largest trading partner and crucial fuel supplier, and analysts say Kim could be looking to balance Beijing's influence.
While ties between Russia and the North have remained cordial, the last meeting between their leaders came in 2011, when Kim Jong Il told then-president Dmitry Medvedev that he was prepared to renounce nuclear testing.
His son has since overseen by far the country's most powerful blast to date, and the launch of missiles capable of reaching the entire US mainland.
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Israel launches first airstrike on Lebanon since ceasefire, accusing Hezbollah of breaching truce
Beirut, Nov 28: The Israeli military on Thursday said its warplanes fired on southern Lebanon after detecting Hezbollah activity at a rocket storage facility, the first Israeli airstrike a day after a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah took hold.
There was no immediate word on casualties from Israel's aerial attack, which came hours after the Israeli military said it fired on people trying to return to certain areas in southern Lebanon. Israel said they were violating the ceasefire agreement, without providing details. Lebanon's state-run National News Agency said two people were wounded.
The back-to-back incidents stirred unease about the agreement, brokered by the United States and France, which includes an initial two-month ceasefire in which Hezbollah members are to withdraw north of the Litani River and Israeli forces are to return to their side of the border. The buffer zone would be patrolled by Lebanese troops and UN peacekeepers.
On Thursday, the second day of a ceasefire after more than a year of bloody conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, Lebanon's state news agency reported that Israeli fire targeted civilians in Markaba, close to the border, without providing further details. Israel said it fired artillery in three other locations near the border. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
An Associated Press reporter in northern Israel near the border heard Israeli drones buzzing overhead and the sound of artillery strikes from the Lebanese side.
The Israeli military said in a statement that “several suspects were identified arriving with vehicles to a number of areas in southern Lebanon, breaching the conditions of the ceasefire.” It said troops “opened fire toward them” and would “actively enforce violations of the ceasefire agreement.”
Israeli officials have said forces will be withdrawn gradually as it ensures that the agreement is being enforced. Israel has warned people not to return to areas where troops are deployed, and says it reserves the right to strike Hezbollah if it violates the terms of the truce.
A Lebanese military official said Lebanese troops would gradually deploy in the south as Israeli troops withdraw. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief media.
The ceasefire agreement announced late Tuesday ended 14 months of conflict between Israel and Hezbollah that began a day after Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023 attack out of Gaza, when the Lebanese Hezbollah group began firing rockets, drones and missiles in solidarity.
Israel retaliated with airstrikes, and the conflict steadily intensified for nearly a year before boiling over into all-out war in mid-September. The war in Gaza is still raging with no end in sight.
More than 3,760 people were killed by Israeli fire in Lebanon during the conflict, many of them civilians, according to Lebanese health officials. The fighting killed more than 70 people in Israel — over half of them civilians — as well as dozens of Israeli soldiers fighting in southern Lebanon.
Some 1.2 million people were displaced in Lebanon, and thousands began streaming back to their homes on Wednesday despite warnings from the Lebanese military and the Israeli army to stay out of certain areas. Some 50,000 people were displaced on the Israeli side, but few have returned and the communities near the northern border are still largely deserted.
In Menara, an Israeli community on the border with views into Lebanon, around three quarters of homes are damaged, some with collapsed roofs and burnt-out interiors. A few residents could be seen gathering their belongings on Thursday before leaving again.
