N Korea can conduct N-test any time: ROK
Reuters, Seoul
North Korea has maintained readiness to conduct a new nuclear test at any time, a South Korean military official said on Friday, amid a report of a possible test within days as Pyongyang defies international pressure.
United States and South Korean military surveillance assets were closely monitoring the North’s Punggye-ri nuclear test site on the reclusive state’s east coast, said the official, who declined to be identified.
German state poll an election-year test for Merkel
AFP, Berlin
German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s party faces a first election-year test against resurgent leftwing challengers when voters go to the polls on Sunday in the tiny region of Saarland.
Although the state on the French border is home to just one million people, the poll there is seen as a first litmus test in the battle between Merkel and the Social Democrats under their new leader Martin Schulz.
US won’t attend Afghan peace confce
AP, Washington
The United States won’t attend a multinational peace conference on Afghanistan next month in Russia, a State Department official said Thursday.
The reasons: The US wasn’t consulted before receiving the invitation and doesn’t know Russia’s objectives for the gathering.
Japan culls 280,000 more birds for avian flu
AFP, Tokyo
Japan deployed hundreds of soldiers to help cull more than 280,000 chickens on Friday, officials said as they try to contain further outbreaks of a highly contagious strain of avian flu.
The latest slaughter means more than 1.67 million birds will have been killed in a dozen mass culls at several farms across the country since November when the virus was detected in the northern Aomori prefecture..
