Pompeo seeks faster progress with N.Korea after rockets
AFP, Washington
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Friday that negotiations with North Korea were going too slowly after Pyongyang fired two more short-range projectiles.
Pompeo downplayed Thursday’s launches themselves, saying they were consistent with previous moves, but called for more effort in nuclear negotiations. “The progress has been far too slow,” Pompeo told radio station KQAM in his home state of Kansas.
US extends protection for 6 nations’ migrants for a year
AP, Tegucigalpa
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced Friday it is extending temporary protected status coverage for migrants from El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua and Sudan through Jan. 4, 2021.
The status, which has been granted because of disasters or conflicts in those countries, had been set to expire in January 2020, or in Nepal’s case, March.
Lebanese man sentenced to death in 2013 mosque bombing
AP, Beirut
A Lebanese court has sentenced a man to death for twin car bombings in 2013 that targeted two mosques in the northern city of Tripoli, killing 47 people, state-run National News agency reported Friday.
NNA said the Judicial Council sentenced Youssef Diab to death on Friday. NNA gave no further details regarding the sentence over the near-simultaneous bombings that targeted Sunni mosques in Lebanon’s second largest city. Police said at the time that the bombings wounded some 300 others.
Thai cave reopens for visitors after Wild Boars rescue
AFP, Bangkok
Thailand has reopened the cave where 12 young footballers and their coach were trapped last year in a saga that captivated the world.
The Tham Luang cave has been closed to visitors since the Wild Boars football team were rescued alive after nearly three weeks inside the grotto’s waterlogged corridors. But the world-famous cave in northern Chiang Rai province was re-opened Friday, drawing some 2,000 tourists in a single day, a local conservation official told AFP.
