North Korea Fires Ballistic Missiles, South Korea, Japan Say 

People watch a television screen showing a news broadcast with file footage of a North Korean missile test, at a railway station in Seoul on April 22, 2024. (AFP)
People watch a television screen showing a news broadcast with file footage of a North Korean missile test, at a railway station in Seoul on April 22, 2024. (AFP)
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North Korea Fires Ballistic Missiles, South Korea, Japan Say 

People watch a television screen showing a news broadcast with file footage of a North Korean missile test, at a railway station in Seoul on April 22, 2024. (AFP)
People watch a television screen showing a news broadcast with file footage of a North Korean missile test, at a railway station in Seoul on April 22, 2024. (AFP)

North Korea fired "several" short-range ballistic missiles on Monday toward the sea off its east coast, South Korea's military said, drawing a swift condemnation from Seoul, which called it a grave threat to stability on the Korean peninsula.

A Japanese government alert and its coast guard also said North Korea had fired what appeared to be a ballistic missile. The projectile appeared to have landed outside Japan's exclusive economic zone area, the NHK broadcaster said.

South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said the North launched what it suspected to be several short-range ballistic missiles from near its capital, Pyongyang. The missiles flew about 300 kilometers (186 miles) and landed in the sea.

The reports of the launch came as South Korea said its top military officer, Admiral Kim Myung-soo, had hosted the commander of US Space Command, General Stephen Whiting, on Monday to discuss the North's reconnaissance satellite development and growing military cooperation between Pyongyang and Moscow.

After a summit between the two countries' leaders in September, North Korea has been suspected of supplying arms and munitions to Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, although both deny that claim.

The North is believed to be preparing to launch another spy satellite, after successfully putting a reconnaissance satellite in orbit in November.

North Korea said last week that it had fired a strategic cruise missile to test a large warhead, and a new anti-aircraft missile.

Earlier in April, the North fired a new intermediate-range hypersonic missile as part of its development of solid-fueled missiles for all ranges of its arsenal, overseen by its leader, Kim Jong Un.

"North Korea is all-in on rapid weapons development, not just for military advantage, but also for the Kim regime’s techno-nationalist political legitimacy," said Professor Leif-Eric Easley of Ewha University in Seoul.

The North has defied a ban by the United Nations Security Council on developing ballistic missiles, rejecting Council resolutions as infringing on its sovereign right to defend itself.

Russia last month vetoed the annual renewal of the monitoring of sanctions imposed against North Korea, leading US and South Korean officials to accuse Moscow of emboldening Pyongyang. China abstained from the Security Council vote.

Russia and China, which had both voted to approve all Security Council resolutions against the North, have tried unsuccessfully to require the sanctions to be renewed annually.



Bangladesh Protest Leaders Taken from Hospital by Police

People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
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Bangladesh Protest Leaders Taken from Hospital by Police

People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)

Bangladeshi police detectives on Friday forced the discharge from hospital of three student protest leaders blamed for deadly unrest, taking them to an unknown location, staff told AFP.

Nahid Islam, Asif Mahmud and Abu Baker Majumder are all members of Students Against Discrimination, the group responsible for organizing this month's street rallies against civil service hiring rules.

At least 195 people were killed in the ensuing police crackdown and clashes, according to an AFP count of victims reported by police and hospitals, in some of the worst unrest of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's tenure.

All three were patients at a hospital in the capital Dhaka, and at least two of them said their injuries were caused by torture in earlier police custody.

"They took them from us," Gonoshasthaya hospital supervisor Anwara Begum Lucky told AFP. "The men were from the Detective Branch."

She added that she had not wanted to discharge the student leaders but police had pressured the hospital chief to do so.

Islam's elder sister Fatema Tasnim told AFP from the hospital that six plainclothes detectives had taken all three men.

The trio's student group had suspended fresh protests at the start of this week, saying they had wanted the reform of government job quotas but not "at the expense of so much blood".

The pause was due to expire earlier on Friday but the group had given no indication of its future course of action.

Islam, 26, the chief coordinator of Students Against Discrimination, told AFP from his hospital bed on Monday that he feared for his life.

He said that two days beforehand, a group of people identifying themselves as police detectives blindfolded and handcuffed him and took him to an unknown location.

Islam added that he had come to his senses the following morning on a roadside in Dhaka.

Mahmud earlier told AFP that he had also been detained by police and beaten at the height of last week's unrest.

Three senior police officers in Dhaka all denied that the trio had been taken from the hospital and into custody on Friday.

- Garment tycoon arrested -

Police told AFP on Thursday that they had arrested at least 4,000 people since the unrest began last week, including 2,500 in Dhaka.

On Friday police said they had arrested David Hasanat, the founder and chief executive of one of Bangladesh's biggest garment factory enterprises.

His Viyellatex Group employs more than 15,000 people according to its website, and its annual turnover was estimated at $400 million by the Daily Star newspaper last year.

Dhaka Metropolitan Police inspector Abu Sayed Miah said Hasanat and several others were suspected of financing the "anarchy, arson and vandalism" of last week.

Bangladesh makes around $50 billion in annual export earnings from the textile trade, which services leading global brands including H&M, Gap and others.

Student protests began this month after the reintroduction in June of a scheme reserving more than half of government jobs for certain candidates.

With around 18 million young people in Bangladesh out of work, according to government figures, the move deeply upset graduates facing an acute jobs crisis.

Critics say the quota is used to stack public jobs with loyalists to Hasina's Awami League.

- 'Call to the nation' -

The Supreme Court cut the number of reserved jobs on Sunday but fell short of protesters' demands to scrap the quotas entirely.

Hasina has ruled Bangladesh since 2009 and won her fourth consecutive election in January after a vote without genuine opposition.

Her government is also accused by rights groups of misusing state institutions to entrench its hold on power and stamp out dissent, including the extrajudicial killing of opposition activists.

Hasina continued a tour of government buildings that had been ransacked by protesters, on Friday visiting state broadcaster Bangladesh Television, which was partly set ablaze last week.

"Find those who were involved in this," she said, according to state news agency BSS.

"Cooperate with us to ensure their punishment. I am making this call to the nation."