AFP, Seoul
A group of South Korean skiers flew to North Korea on Wednesday ahead of the Winter Olympics to train with their rivals, on a rare direct flight between the neighbours after Washington exempted it from sanctions.
It is the latest in a flurry of cross-border trips in the run-up to next month’s Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, which have seen a rare apparent rapprochement on the peninsula after months of high tensions over Pyongyang’s nuclear programme.
Texas inmate executed for murder
Reuters, Austin
A Dallas man who was convicted of murdering his ex-girlfriend in 1999 while he was out on parole was executed on Tuesday after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a last-minute appeal, prison officials said.
William Rayford, 64, was pronounced dead at 8:48 p.m. central time (9:48 p.m. eastern), said Texas prison spokesman Jason Clark. He was sentenced to death for beating and strangling former girlfriend Carol Hall, 44.
3 dead in California copter crash
AFP, Los Angeles
Three people were killed when a tour and flight-training helicopter crashed into a house in coastal southern California on Wednesday, witnesses and emergency personnel said.
Witnesses described seeing a plume of smoke as the four-seat Robinson 44 craft plunged to the ground and appeared to clip the roof of one home before skidding along the ground at an intersection and smashing into another house.
Guinea-Bissau President names new PM
AFP, Bissau
Guinea-Bissau’s President Jose Mario Vaz named a new prime minister late Tuesday, appointing Augusto Antonio Artur Da Silva by decree after the previous PM resigned in a bid to end a political crisis.
The new prime minister’s first job will be to organise fresh parliamentary elections in the coming months.
Earthquake kills child, injures dozens in Pakistan
Reuters, Kabul
A 6.1 magnitude earthquake struck northeast Afghanistan on Wednesday, shaking large parts of the region and killing a child and injuring several people in neighboring Pakistan, officials said.
The quake, which rattled buildings in the Afghan capital and was also felt in parts of India, struck 270 km (167 miles) northeast of Kabul in the Hindu Kush mountains, at a depth of 180 km, the European Mediterranean Seismological Center said.
Macron warns Turkey over Syrian operation
Reuters, Paris
French President Emmanuel Macron warned Turkey that its operation against Kurdish militias in northern Syria should not become an excuse to invade the country and said he wanted Ankara to coordinate its action with its allies.
Turkey last week launched an air and ground offensive in northwest Syria, targeting the Kurdish YPG militia in the Afrin region. That has opened a new front in the seven-year-old civil war and strained ties with Turkey’s NATO allies.
