North Korea’s deputy foreign minister has accused the US of “unjust and outrageous hostility” towards Pyongyang and Moscow, saying it shows Washington’s hegemonic mentality based on Cold War logic.
“The US ill-minded repugnancy toward the North Korea-Russia relations only reveals that it lacks power and wits in the showdown with the anti-imperialist independent countries,” Im Chon Il said in a statement on Sunday.
The security alliance between the US, South Korea and Japan – as well as the Washington-led NATO military bloc – are “cancer-like entities jeopardizing the international order,” the diplomat claimed, describing NATO as “the mastermind of the Ukrainian crisis.”
Im went on to say relations between North Korea and Russia have reached “the height of development” due to actions by the US and its allies, who “have gone to the extremes in their confrontational and divisive moves for gaining hegemony.”
North Korea intends to further boost its ties with Russia and other “independent sovereign countries” in order to “deter the imperialists’ military threat... and firmly defend peace and security on the Korean peninsula and in the rest of the world,” the diplomat insisted.
Last month, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un spent almost a week in Russia, arriving in the country’s Far East by train. During the visit, he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu and other officials. Among other things, Kim toured the Vostochny Cosmodrome, inspected military and civilian aviation plants, and was shown Russia’s nuclear-capable strategic bombers and fighter jets, including a MiG-31 aircraft armed with the Kinzhal hypersonic missile.
The visit caused serious concerns in Seoul and Washington, with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol claiming that “military cooperation between North Korea and Russia is illegal and unjust as it contravenes UN Security Council resolutions and various other international sanctions.”
Similar comments were made by US officials, who also speculated that Putin and Kim had been discussing the supply of shells by North Korea to Russia amid the conflict in Ukraine. White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby warned that if Moscow and Pyongyang were to “decide to move forward with some sort of arms deals, well, obviously we'll take a measure of that, and we'll deal with it appropriately.”
Putin said last month that Russia intends to build “good neighborly relations” with North Korea. “We never violate anything and in this case we’re not planning to violate anything,” the Russian leader said, referring to claims that cooperation between Moscow and Pyongyang were in violation of UN sanctions on North Korea. There was no mention of any arms deals being signed during Kim’s visit to Russia, by either Moscow or Pyongyang.
Ukraine has lost up to 690 soldiers both killed and wounded in six directions over the past 24 hours, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Saturday.
"The enemy's losses in this [Donetsk] direction over the past 24 hours amounted to 430 Ukrainian servicepeople killed and wounded, four armored combat vehicles and two cars. In the course of counter-battery fighting, a US-made M777 howitzer, a Polish-made Krab self-propelled howitzer and a Gvozdika self-propelled howitzer were hit," the ministry said.
Meanwhile, in the South Donetsk direction, Russian forces repelled two attacks by Ukrainian forces, destroying 120 servicepeople, two pick-up trucks, a US-made M777 howitzer and a Polish-made self-propelled gun-howitzer Krab, the ministry said.
In the Zaporozhye direction, Kiev lost up to 30 servicepeople, the ministry said, adding that a US-made M119 howitzer, a UK-made FH70 howitzer, as well as two D-30 howitzers and one Msta-B howitzer had been hit.
In addition, Ukraine lost about 40 servicepeople and three vehicles in the Kherson direction, as well as 20 troops, two vehicles, a US-made M777 howitzer, a Msta-B howitzer and a Gvozdika self-propelled howitzer in the Kupyansk direction, the ministry added. In the Kherson direction, Russian forces also destroyed three Ukrainian ammunition depots near the villages of Kiselevka, Shlyahovoe and near the city of Kramatorsk, the ministry said.
Moreover, in the Krasny Liman direction, Russian forces repelled two attacks by the Ukrainian army, destroying up to 50 soldiers and six pieces of equipment, the ministry said.
Watch Russian Artillery Wipe Out Ukrainian Outpost in Special Op Zone
Ukraine launched its latest counteroffensive in early June. Three months later, Russian President Vladimir Putin said the Ukrainian counteroffensive had failed, with Ukraine suffering 71,000 casualties. Several Western officials have also admitted that the Ukrainian counteroffensive had not been successful.
Russia’s Ministry of Defense has published footage that shows artillery unleashing destruction on Ukrainian positions in the special military operation zone.
Moscow completely dominates in the air, ravaging Kiev's troops and crushing NATO-supplied military equipment, as well as crippling the much-touted counteroffensive.
Being futile from the very beginning, the counteroffensive has brought Zelensky’s regime nothing but losses and the disappointment of its Western partners
Watch POW Reveal How Scores of Ukrainian Soldiers Desert After Frontline Action
Desertion has become a major problem for the Kiev regime forces as soldiers become increasingly disenchanted with their cause, a Ukrainian soldier who was taken prisoner by Russian forces in the Zaporozhye region has revealed.
Morale in the Ukrainian forces is low as soldiers suspect that they are being sent their deaths while their commanders try to persuade them to keep fighting, a captured Ukrainian POW has revealed.
He also mentioned that the Ukrainian soldiers who deserted did so after seeing action.
“They did not say anything. They just spent a few days drinking vodka, then they grabbed their things and went AWOL,” the prisoner recalled, noting that “maybe about 50” Ukrainian soldiers deserted that way. “They just turn around and leave, maybe after realizing that their superiors are lying. Everything they [Ukrainian officers] say is a lie. People begin to think and realize that this is a meat grinder.”
Early in June, the Kiev regime launched its overhyped “counteroffensive,” essentially throwing thousands of Ukrainian soldiers equipped with armaments and military hardware generously supplied by NATO at the well-entrenched Russian forces.
In the three months that followed, the Ukrainian forces failed to breach even the first line of the Russian defenses, only succeeding in losing dozens of Western armored vehicles and weapon systems and sacrificing the lives of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers basically for nothing.
An explosion occurred near the building of the Turkish Ministry of Internal Affairs in the center of Ankara, and members of the presidential guard arrived at the scene, local TV channel reports.
A suicide bomber detonated an explosive device near Turkey’s interior ministry building in the heart of the capital Ankara on Sunday. A second assailant was killed in a shootout with police. Two police officers were injured in what the interior ministry called a “terrorist attack”.
There was an attempted terrorist attack near the ministry building in Ankara: one of the terrorists blew himself up, the other was neutralized, the head of the Turkish Interior Ministry said.
Earlier Turkish media reported about axplosion.
“An explosion was heard in the Kızılay district in the center of Ankara. It is alleged that the explosion occurred near the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The roads around were closed to traffic. The presidential guard arrived,” the TV channel said in a statement.
Two police officers were slightly injured during the attack near the ministry of interior affairs, Minister Ali Yerlikaya said on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
Yerlikaya said the assailants arrived at the scene inside a light commercial vehicle.
Turkey's government said on Sunday two terrorists carried out a bomb attack in front of the Interior Ministry buildings in Ankara, adding one of them died in the explosion and the other was "neutralised" by authorities there.
An explosion was heard near the parliament and ministerial buildings, Turkish media had earlier reported, and broadcasters showed footage of debris scattered on a street nearby.
The blast was the first in Ankara since 2016, and comes on the day that parliament was set to open a new session.
According to the channel, a person was wounded as a result of the attempted attack. The roads around the scene of the attempted attack are blocked.
Ankara General Prosecutor Office has launched investigation, while police officers asked journalists asked journalists not to report from the scene of the attack.
Turkey says terrorists set off bomb at Ankara government building
Security forces are seen outside the Interior Ministry following a bomb attack in Ankara
Turkish authorities also have banned media from broadcasting at the scene of an attempted terrorist attack, the local newspaper reported on Sunday.
Senator Chuck Schumer, the majority leader, giving a thumbs-up on Saturday night after the Senate passed a stopgap measure to keep the government running. Credit... Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times
Congress narrowly averted a government shutdown on Saturday as the House, in a stunning turnabout, approved a stopgap plan to keep the federal government open until mid-November. After Senate passage, President Biden signed the bill shortly before midnight.
In a rapid-fire sequence of events on Capitol Hill, a coalition of House Democrats and Republicans voted to pass a plan that would keep money flowing to government agencies and provide billions of dollars for disaster recovery efforts. The bill did not include money for Ukraine despite a push for it by the White House and members of both parties in the Senate, but House Democrats embraced the plan anyway, seeing it as the most expedient way to avoid widespread government disruption.
Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who had for weeks brushed off demands to work with Democrats on a spending solution, outlined the proposal for Republicans in a closed-door meeting Saturday morning and then rushed to get it on the floor under a special procedure that meant it could only pass with substantial Democratic help.
Democrats initially complained that Mr. McCarthy had sprung the plan on them and was trying to push through a 71-page measure without sufficient scrutiny. But they also did not want to be accused of putting the U.S. aid to Ukraine ahead of keeping government agencies open and paying two million members of the military and 1.5 million federal employees.
Ultimately, it was scores of his own Republican colleagues who voted to shut down the government. The measure was approved on a vote of 335 to 91, with 209 Democrats and 126 Republicans voting in favor and 90 Republicans and one Democrat in opposition.
The outcome was similar to a vote earlier this year to suspend the federal debt limit, and it could pose difficulties for Mr. McCarthy, a California Republican, as a far-right faction had threatened to try to oust him from the speakership if he worked with Democrats to keep the government open.
But after a failed effort on Friday to win enough Republican votes to avoid a shutdown, Mr. McCarthy was out of choices if he wanted to prevent a politically and economically damaging shutdown. He put the bill on the floor without certainty it could pass.
Speaker Kevin McCarthy outlined the temporary funding proposal for members of his caucus in a closed-door meeting Saturday morning and then rushed to get it onto the floor. Credit... Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times
“I like to gamble,” he said.
The House adjourned immediately after the vote, leaving the Senate to either take up the legislation or face blame for a shutdown, since there was no way for the House to consider additional legislation before Monday.
With little alternative, and Senate Republicans clamoring for the House bill, the Senate jettisoned its own stopgap measure that contained $6 billion for Ukraine and approved the House version on an 88 to 9 vote.
“The American people can breathe a sigh of relief: there will be no government shutdown,” said Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader, after the Senate vote closed about three hours before the deadline. “After trying to take our government hostage, MAGA Republicans won nothing.”
In a statement after Senate passage of the bill, Mr. Biden called it “good news for the American people.” He added, “I fully expect the speaker will keep his commitment to the people of Ukraine and secure passage of the support needed to help Ukraine at this critical moment.”
Members of both parties said they were confident they could win money for Ukraine in the weeks ahead, but the failure to provide any money in the bill was a reflection of diminishing Republican backing for added funding for Kyiv.
It pointed to a potentially nasty fight ahead over funding Ukraine’s war effort, coming on the heels of a visit by President Volodymyr Zelensky to Washington last month to make the case for continued U.S. support. Congress has approved about $113 billion in military, humanitarian and economic aid in four packages since the invasion by Russia, and Mr. Biden has requested another $24 billion.
“This bill is a victory for Putin and Putin sympathizers everywhere,” said Representative Mike Quigley of Illinois, the only Democrat to vote against the bill, who said he did so because it did not include aid to Ukraine. “We now have 45 days to correct this grave mistake.”
Hard-right Republicans refused to support the stopgap bill, known as a continuing resolution, because it essentially maintained funding at levels set when Congress was under Democratic control last year.
Reporters interview members of Congress after a failed effort to break the impasse on spending in the House on Friday. Credit... Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times
“Instead of siding with his own party today, Kevin McCarthy sided with 209 Democrats to push through a continuing resolution that maintains the Biden-Pelosi-Schumer spending levels and policies,” Representative Andy Biggs, Republican of Arizona, wrote on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. “He allowed the D.C. Uniparty to win again. Should he remain speaker of the House?”
A much larger contingent of Republicans also refused to back the measure, which also left out severe immigration restrictions many of them had demanded.
Before the vote, Mr. McCarthy said he recognized that the legislation might spark a challenge to his job but said he was willing to risk it to push a bill through that would keep the government open.
Representative Matt Gaetz, the Florida Republican who has threatened to try and oust Mr. McCarthy, was not willing to reveal his timing. He said, however, that Mr. McCarthy’s speakership was “on tenuous ground.”
In the end, Democrats celebrated the outcome. “Extreme MAGA Republicans have lost,” Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the Democratic leader, said as he walked to the House floor to vote in favor of the bill. “The American people have won.”
The day on Capitol Hill was full of twists and turns. As House Democrats stalled Mr. McCarthy’s plan on the floor to allow time to study it, fire alarms rang out in the Cannon House Office Building, forcing its evacuation. It was later determined that Representative Jamaal Bowman, Democrat of New York, had triggered the alarm, though he claimed it was inadvertent.
“The American people can breathe a sigh of relief: there will be no government shutdown,” said Senator Chuck Schumer after the Senate passed a stopgap measure to keep the government running. Credit... Kenny Holston/The New York Times
“It was like riding a mechanical bull all week,” said Representative Tom Emmer of Minnesota, the No. 3 House Republican.
Despite the intense effort involved, the stopgap bill is only a temporary solution to the spending fight, which is likely to be quickly rekindled. The House and Senate are both struggling to approve yearlong spending bills and House Republicans have canceled an October break to focus on the spending legislation.
The gulf on spending between the two parties — and the two chambers — remains vast.
House Republicans are demanding deep spending cuts, a cutoff of aid to Ukraine and immigration restrictions amid a wave of asylum seekers streaming across the southern border as the price of any agreement. Senators of both parties argue that Congress should adhere to higher funding levels established in a deal that President Biden negotiated with Mr. McCarthy earlier this year, and they back continued assistance to Ukraine.
Before the sudden turn of events on Saturday, federal agencies were bracing to close if no stopgap were enacted. The armed forces and other so-called essential workers such as air traffic controllers and airport security workers would have remained on the job but without pay until the standoff was resolved. Food and medical assistance to millions of low-income mothers and children would have been in jeopardy.
The biggest obstacle to a resolution was that the House, where Republicans hold a tiny minority, is in the grips of a right-wing faction that has made it clear it is willing — perhaps even eager — for a shutdown to drive home its message that Washington is broken and federal spending is out of control. That bloc refused to back any plan that would even temporarily avert a lapse in federal funding.
Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, seen after the House passed a stopgap measure to fund the government on Saturday. Credit... Kenny Holston/The New York Times
Facing a choice between a shutdown and the far-right, Mr. McCarthy again relied on Democrats to dodge a crisis.
“What I am asking, Republicans and Democrats alike, put your partisanship away,” Mr. McCarthy said before the House vote. “Focus on the American public.”
How Each Member Voted on the Senate Stopgap Spending Measure
Senate stopgap spending vote
Answer
DemocratsDem.
RepublicansRep.
IndependentsInd.
Total
Yes
46
39
3
88
No
0
9
0
9
Rep. Jamaal Bowman Pulls Fire Alarm in House Office Building
Representative Jamaal Bowman, a Democrat of New York, at the Capitol in May. Credit... Kenny Holston/The New York Times
Representative Jamaal Bowman, Democrat of New York, pulled a fire alarm in the House Cannon office building on Saturday as his party was trying to delay a vote on a stopgap spending bill, prompting an evacuation of the building and investigations by the Capitol Police and the House Administration Committee.
The alarm was triggered at the same time that House Democrats at the Capitol were stalling a vote on a spending measure to keep the government operating for another 45 days. Speaker Kevin McCarthy had unveiled the bill just minutes earlier, and Democrats were scrambling to read the bill and determine whether to support it. Later in the day, the bill passed 335 to 91, with more Democrats voting for it than Republicans.
In a statement released Saturday night, Mr. Bowman said that he had not pulled the alarm to delay the vote, as some Republicans had presumed. He said that as he was rushing to the Capitol to cast a vote, he came to a door in the Cannon building that would not open.
“I am embarrassed to admit that I activated the fire alarm, mistakenly thinking it would open the door. I regret this and sincerely apologize for any confusion this caused,” Mr. Bowman said. “But I want to be very clear: this was not me, in any way, trying to delay any vote. It was the exact opposite — I was trying urgently to get to a vote.”
He added that he met with the sergeant-at-arms and Capitol Police after the incident at their request to explain what had happened.
The House Administration Committee began an inquiry on why the alarm was triggered, said its chairman, Representative Bryan Steil, Republican of Wisconsin, in a statement. The Capitol Police said the building was briefly evacuated. “An investigation into what happened and why continues,” a police spokesman, Paul Starks, said.
Republicans were quick to link the alarm to the vote on the spending bill. At a news conference after the spending measure passed, Mr. McCarthy criticized Mr. Bowman, suggesting he set off the alarm in an attempt to obstruct proceedings. “When we found that an individual elected to Congress would pull a fire alarm, that’s a new low,” he said.
Representative Nicole Malliotakis, Republican of New York, has drafted a motion to expel Mr. Bowman from the House, her office said.
“This is the United States Congress, not a New York City high school,” Ms. Malliotakis wrote on X. “To pull the fire alarm to disrupt proceedings when we are trying to draft legislation to AVERT A SHUTDOWN is pathetic.”
