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Russia’s Shoigu Meets North Korea’s Kim in Pyongyang 

In this pool photograph distributed by the Russian state agency Sputnik, Russia's Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu attends a meeting of Russia's President with secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council in Saint Petersburg on September 12, 2024. (AFP)
In this pool photograph distributed by the Russian state agency Sputnik, Russia's Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu attends a meeting of Russia's President with secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council in Saint Petersburg on September 12, 2024. (AFP)
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Russia’s Shoigu Meets North Korea’s Kim in Pyongyang 

In this pool photograph distributed by the Russian state agency Sputnik, Russia's Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu attends a meeting of Russia's President with secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council in Saint Petersburg on September 12, 2024. (AFP)
In this pool photograph distributed by the Russian state agency Sputnik, Russia's Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu attends a meeting of Russia's President with secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council in Saint Petersburg on September 12, 2024. (AFP)

Top Russian security official Sergei Shoigu held talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during a visit to Pyongyang on Friday, Russian news agencies said.

The visit took place at a critical juncture in the war in Ukraine, for which the United States says North Korea has supplied ammunition and ballistic missiles to Russia.

The US and its allies are weighing a decision on whether to let Ukraine use Western-supplied long-range missiles to strike deep inside Russia. President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that if that happened, the West would be fighting directly with Russia.

Moscow and Pyongyang have denied arms transfers but have vowed to boost military ties. Russia has deepened its relations with North Korea since the start of the Ukraine war, and Kim received Putin on a state visit in June.

Shoigu was Russian defense minister until May, and is now secretary of the Security Council which brings together Putin, his military and intelligence chiefs and other senior figures.

"As part of the ongoing strategic dialogue between our countries, a substantive exchange of views took place with Korean colleagues on a wide range of issues on the bilateral and international agenda," state news agency RIA quoted the Security Council as saying.

It said the meetings took place in an "exceptionally trusting, friendly atmosphere" and would make an important contribution to the implementation of agreements reached between Putin and Kim at their summit three months ago.

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Taiwan President Will Visit Allies in South Pacific as Rival China Seeks Inroads

FILE -Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te delivers a speech during National Day celebrations in front of the Presidential Building in Taipei, Taiwan, Oct. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying, File)
FILE -Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te delivers a speech during National Day celebrations in front of the Presidential Building in Taipei, Taiwan, Oct. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying, File)
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Taiwan President Will Visit Allies in South Pacific as Rival China Seeks Inroads

FILE -Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te delivers a speech during National Day celebrations in front of the Presidential Building in Taipei, Taiwan, Oct. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying, File)
FILE -Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te delivers a speech during National Day celebrations in front of the Presidential Building in Taipei, Taiwan, Oct. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying, File)

Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te will visit the self-governing island’s allies in the South Pacific, where rival China has been seeking diplomatic inroads.
The Foreign Ministry announced Friday that Lai would travel from Nov. 30 to Dec. 6 to the Marshall Islands, Tuvalu and Palau.
The trip comes against the background of Chinese loans, grants and security cooperation treaties with Pacific island nations that have aroused major concern in the US, New Zealand, Australia and others over Beijing's moves to assert military, political and economic control over the region.
Taiwan’s government has yet to confirm whether Lai will make a stop in Hawaii, although such visits are routine and unconfirmed Taiwanese media reports say he will stay for more than one day.
Under pressure from China, which claims Taiwan as its own territory and threatens to annex it by force if needed, Taiwan has just 12 formal diplomatic allies. However, it retains strong contacts with dozens of other nations, including the US, its main source of diplomatic and military support.
China has sought to whittle away traditional alliances in the South Pacific, signing a security agreement with the Solomon Islands shortly after it broke ties with Taiwan and winning over Nauru just weeks after Lai's election in January. Since then, China has been pouring money into infrastructure projects in its South Pacific allies, as it has around the world, in exchange for political support.
China objects strongly to such US stopovers by Taiwan's leaders, as well as visits to the island by leading American politicians, terming them as violations of US commitments not to afford diplomatic status to Taiwan after Washington switched formal recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1979.
With the number of its diplomatic partners declining under Chinese pressure, Taiwan has redoubled efforts to take part in international forums, even from the sidelines. It has also fought to retain what diplomatic status it holds, including refusing a demand from South Africa last month that it move its representative office in its former diplomatic ally out of the capital.