N Korea fires ballistic missile
as Blinken visits South
SEOUL, Jan 06: North Korea launched a ballistic missile on Monday, South Korea's military said, as the top US diplomat was meeting key officials in Seoul. "North Korea sent unknown ballistic missile towards the East Sea," South Korea's military said, referring to the body of water also known as the Sea of Japan. Monday's launch took place while outgoing US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was meeting his counterpart and the South's acting president before he heads to Japan. The missile appeared to have fallen into the sea, the Japanese defence ministry and Japanese coast guard said in separate statements. — AFP
Austria's president tasks far right
to form govt in historic first
VIENNA, Jan 06:- Austria's president tasked far-right leader Herbert Kickl with trying to form a government Monday, in a historic move after coalition talks that excluded the Freedom party (FPOe) collapsed. The FPOe topped the poll in September's national election for the first time ever, winning almost 29 percent of the vote, but until now had been unable to find partners to form a national government. After meeting Kickl for about an hour, President Alexander Van der Bellen said he had tasked the far-right leader with trying to form a government with the conservatives given the "new situation". Talks between the conservatives and Social Democrats and liberals fell apart over the weekend. —AFP
Over 30 million in need of aid in Sudan
PORT SUDAN, Jan 06: More than 30 million people, over half of them children, are in need of aid in Sudan after twenty months of war, the United Nations said on Monday. The UN has launched a $4.2 billion call for funds, targeting 20.9 million people across Sudan from a total of 30.4 million people it said are in need in what it called "an unprecedented humanitarian crisis". Sudan has been torn apart and pushed to the brink of famine by the war that erupted in April 2023 between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Tens of thousands of people have been killed and more than eight million internally displaced, which, in addition to 2.7 million displaced before the war, has made Sudan the world's largest internal displacement crisis. —AFP
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