Today's news: Police in Laos rescue 17 girls (as young as 10) from sex slavery for Chinese tourists; UN report denounces "institutionalized" forced labor in North Korea; Six Vietnamese men poisoned in a Bangkok hotel room; Recruitment among ultra-Orthodox begins next week, clashes in Tel Aviv; Hindu group offers prayer for Trump's "health" after attack.
According to a local think tank, nearly 60 per cent of South Koreans would prefer another word, but there is no consensus at present on an alternative. The issue touches on the identity of the inhabitants of the peninsula. Since 1953, at least 3,400 people have fled the North Korean regime.
Today's news: three civilians killed in an Israeli raid in southern Lebanon, in Gaza the attack on the UN school exceeds 20 dead; Talks between Palestinian factions on 20 and 21 July in China; High North Korean official in Cuba defects and flees to South Korea; Bangkok court postpones extradition hearing in Vietnam for activist Montagnard Y Quynh Bdap.
Today's news: No chance of finding 55 passengers missing from the landslide that swept away their buses in Nepal; Alliance of minority groups agree four-day truce with the Burmese army in Shan State; Islamabad reaches agreement with the IMF on a seven billion dollar loan; Kuwait announces the discovery of a huge new oil field.
On the day the Church calls for reconciliation on the anniversary of the start of the war, Archbishop Chung Soon-taick urged people to pray "not to change the other, but to imitate God's boundless mercy and patience, choosing the path of peace". Tonight there are still 350 balloons loaded with rubbish from the North, while tomorrow the joint military exercises of South Korea, the United States and Japan begin.
Like Crimea, Korea is key to destabilising Asia as well as Europe, amid permanent tensions and growing winds of war elsewhere. This seems to be the real purpose of Putin's visits, which from China and Uzbekistan to Korea and Vietnam are part of a plan for a new "world order" while trying to instil fear in both East and West.
