War is Boring

Adnkronos International, Rome (TNS) During the phone call that lasted about five minutes, Ishiba and Trump – Kyodo reports again – did not talk about the increase in defense spending by Japan or a further share of the costs for the US military presence in the country.

The Korea Herald, Seoul / Asia News Network (TNS) Nov. 5—SEOUL(The Korea Herald/ANN) — North Korea on Tuesday launched several short-range ballistic missiles into the sea east of the Korean Peninsula a day before the US presidential election, according to the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff. The missiles were fired at around 7:30 a.m. from a province south of Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, the JCS said. Other details are still being analyzed.

Sara Lemel and Jan-Uwe Ronneburger dpa (TNS) TEL AVIV, Israel — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has dismissed his defense minister, Yoav Gallant, saying he has lost confidence in him, according to a statement from the prime minister’s office on Tuesday. He is to be replaced by Foreign Minister Israel Katz.

dpa (TNS) Cairo — Security forces in Iraq have killed the leader of the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group in the country, Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani said on Tuesday. In addition to the leader of Islamic State in Iraq, eight other senior figures in the group were killed during a “heroic operation” in the Hamrin Mountains, he said. “There is no place for terrorists in Iraq,” al-Sudani said.

dpa (TNS) Tel Aviv — A network of Jewish Israelis spying for Iran has been dismantled, Israel’s Shin Bet domestic intelligence agency and police reported on Monday. Seven people from the port city of Haifa and its surroundings had collected sensitive information on military bases and energy infrastructure for two years, the report said. They had also gathered information on prominent Israelis.

dpa (TNS) Seoul — The South Korean Foreign Ministry has summoned the Russian ambassador in Seoul over the apparent deployment of North Korean soldiers to Russia, the Yonhap news agency reported on Monday. During the meeting, First Vice Foreign Minister Kim Hong Kyun said he expressed his disappointment to Georgy Zinoviev. Zinoviev made no comment to the journalists present after the meeting at the Foreign Ministry, Yonhap said.

Fabian Kretschmer and Ciarán Sunderland dpa (TNS) Seoul/Brussels — South Korea said on Friday that North Korea has decided to send 12,000 troops to support Russian forces fighting in Ukraine and that 1,500 of these have already been deployed. South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) said the troops were transported in Russian ships to Vladivostok, where they are presumably being prepared for deployment in the war in Ukraine. More troops, including special forces, are to follow, it said.

PA Media/dpa (TNS) London — British counterterrorism police are investigating whether Russian spies planted a bomb in a parcel that caught fire at a delivery warehouse after arriving on a plane to the United Kingdom. Fire crews and staff tackled the blaze on July 22 at the DHL warehouse in Minworth, near Birmingham. No-one is thought to have been injured in the incident first reported by The Guardian and German broadcasters.

Dan Williams Bloomberg News (TNS) Israel said it’s weighing U.S. misgivings over a planned counter-strike on Iran, after a report suggesting the government is keeping nuclear and energy facilities off the target list to cap a potential escalation.

dpa (TNS) Dortmund, Germany — Swedish activist Greta Thunberg has accused German authorities of “silencing” protesters after police shut down a pro-Palestinian camp in the western city of Dortmund which Thunberg had been planning to visit. “After almost 4 months of encampment, the student Palestine encampment in Dortmund were forced by German police to take down the camp and leave, and police said they would arrest me if I went there,” Thunberg wrote on X on Wednesday.