North Korea Leader Kim Discusses Military Cooperation with Russian Official

This picture taken on July 18, 2024 and released by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) via KNS on July 19 shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un (R) meeting with Russia's Vice Minister of Defense Aleksey Krivoruchko at the headquarters building of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea in Pyongyang. (Photo by KCNA VIA KNS / AFP)
This picture taken on July 18, 2024 and released by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) via KNS on July 19 shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un (R) meeting with Russia's Vice Minister of Defense Aleksey Krivoruchko at the headquarters building of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea in Pyongyang. (Photo by KCNA VIA KNS / AFP)
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North Korea Leader Kim Discusses Military Cooperation with Russian Official

This picture taken on July 18, 2024 and released by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) via KNS on July 19 shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un (R) meeting with Russia's Vice Minister of Defense Aleksey Krivoruchko at the headquarters building of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea in Pyongyang. (Photo by KCNA VIA KNS / AFP)
This picture taken on July 18, 2024 and released by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) via KNS on July 19 shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un (R) meeting with Russia's Vice Minister of Defense Aleksey Krivoruchko at the headquarters building of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea in Pyongyang. (Photo by KCNA VIA KNS / AFP)

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un received Russian vice minister of defense Aleksey Krivoruchko and discussed the importance of the two countries' militaries to unite more firmly to defend world peace and justice, KCNA news agency said on Friday.
Kim and Krivoruchko shared the need for military cooperation between the two countries to defend mutual security interests, KCNA said.
Krivoruchko conveyed greetings from Russian President Vladimir Putin to Kim, who expressed deep thanks in the meeting, held on Thursday.
The report did not provide any other details of Krivoruchko's delegation or the purpose of the visit to North Korea, said Reuters.
North Korea and Russia have deepened military cooperation since their leaders held a summit in the Russian Far East last year and signed a treaty on strategic partnership that includes a mutual defense agreement struck in June when Putin visited Pyongyang.
The two countries have been accused of conducting arms trade by Seoul and Washington to help Russia's stock of missiles and artillery for its war with Ukraine. The two countries deny such trade.



Global Cyber Outage Disrupts Flights, Hits Media, Banks, Telecoms

Passengers wait at Barajas Airport, as Spanish airport operator Aena on Friday reported a computer systems "incident" at all Spanish airports which may cause flight delays, in Madrid, Spain July 19, 2024. REUTERS/Elena Rodriguez
Passengers wait at Barajas Airport, as Spanish airport operator Aena on Friday reported a computer systems "incident" at all Spanish airports which may cause flight delays, in Madrid, Spain July 19, 2024. REUTERS/Elena Rodriguez
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Global Cyber Outage Disrupts Flights, Hits Media, Banks, Telecoms

Passengers wait at Barajas Airport, as Spanish airport operator Aena on Friday reported a computer systems "incident" at all Spanish airports which may cause flight delays, in Madrid, Spain July 19, 2024. REUTERS/Elena Rodriguez
Passengers wait at Barajas Airport, as Spanish airport operator Aena on Friday reported a computer systems "incident" at all Spanish airports which may cause flight delays, in Madrid, Spain July 19, 2024. REUTERS/Elena Rodriguez

Major US airlines ordered ground stops on Friday citing communications issues, while other carriers, media companies, banks and telecoms firms around the world also reported system outages were disrupting their operations.
American Airlines, Delta Airlines, United Airlines and Allegiant Air grounded flights less than an hour after Microsoft said it resolved its cloud services outage that impacted several low-cost carriers.
It was not immediately clear whether the call to keep flights from taking off were related to an earlier Microsoft cloud outage.
In Australia, media, banks and telecoms companies suffered outages, which the government said appears to be linked to an issue at global cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike.
Crowdsourced website Downdetector showed outages at several banks and telecoms companies.
Crowdstrike ran a recorded phone message on Friday when Reuters contacted its technical support saying it was aware of reports of crashes on Microsoft's Windows operating system relating to its Falcon sensor, without mentioning Australia.
There was no information to suggest the outage was a cyber security incident, the office of Australia's National Cyber Security Coordinator Michelle McGuinness said in a post on X.
The outages rippled far and wide, with Spain reporting a "computer incident" at all its airports, while Ryanair, Europe’s largest airline by passenger numbers, warned passengers of potential disruptions which it said would affect “all airlines operating across the Network," though it did not specify the nature of the disruptions.
AWS cloud service provider said in a statement that it was "investigating reports of connectivity issues to Windows EC2 instances and Workspaces within AWS."
It was not immediately clear whether all reported outages were linked to Crowdstrike problems or there were other issues at play.