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North Korea has claimed it has developed a new hypersonic missile following a test flight on Tuesday. If true, it would represent a significant step forward in Pyongyang’s military technology. The North’s announcement came a day after the South Korean and Japanese militaries said they detected North Korea firing a ballistic missile into the sea. Hypersonic missiles are incredibly fast at more than five times the speed of sound.
Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Mark Milley offered senators a blunt assessment of the hasty U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. “It was a logistical success, but a strategic failure,” Milley told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday. He suggested the war had been lost, but touted the U.S. military effort that evacuated more than 124,000 people in the final weeks of the U.S. presence in the country.
At least 30 inmates have been killed and dozens injured in a fight between rival gangs at a prison in the Ecuadorean port city of Guayaquil. A police commander said at least five inmates had been decapitated while others had been shot dead. The regional governor said it took 400 police officers to regain control of the jail, which houses prisoners with links to international drug gangs.
The crisis in Ethiopia is a “stain on our conscience,” the United Nations humanitarian chief said, as children and others starve to death in the Tigray region under what the U.N. has called a de facto government blockade of food, medical supplies and fuel. Martin Griffiths issued one of the most sharply worded criticisms yet of the world’s worst hunger crisis in a decade after nearly a year of war, in an interview with The Associated Press Tuesday.
Fumio Kishida, a former foreign minister with a reputation as a consensus builder, is set to become Japan’s prime minister after winning the ruling Liberal Democratic party’s presidential election in a runoff against the vaccination minister, Taro Kono. Kishida, 64, will have little time to adjust to his new role, which became vacant after the outgoing prime minister, Yoshihide Suga, said he would not run in the party leadership race.
The top US general, Mark Milley, will appear before Congress on Tuesday in what is expected to be the most heated cross-examination of a senior US military officer in over a decade. In the book, Peril, the Washington Post journalists report that Milley twice called his Chinese opposite number to reassure him that the US would not conduct a surprise attack, and that the US general would alert Beijing if the president tried to order one.
North Korea has fired a projectile presumed to be a short-range missile into waters off the east coast of the Korean Peninsula, according to statements from South Korean officials — just hours before Seoul launched a new submarine. The missile was fired around 6:40 a.m. local time Tuesday, the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement, adding the South Korean military is “maintaining a readiness posture” for potential “additional launches.”
Nineteen of 39 miners trapped underground over the weekend in Ontario, Canada, were brought back to the surface early Tuesday, Brazilian mining company Vale said. The rescued miners were in “good health and eager to return home,” Vale said in a statement emailed to NBC News. The remaining trapped miners were expected to be rescued later Tuesday morning, the statement added.
Singapore’s population size this year saw its sharpest percentage drop since 1950, a report said on Tuesday, as coronavirus-induced travel restrictions kept foreigners away from the Asian financial hub. It was the second consecutive year the city-state saw its population shrink and only the third time it had negative growth since 1950, according to an official annual population report.
Singer R. Kelly has been found guilty of exploiting his superstar status to run a scheme to sexually abuse women and children over two decades. Eleven accusers – nine women and two men – took the stand over the searing six-week trial to describe sexual humiliation and violence at his hands. After two days of deliberation, the jury found the US star guilty on all nine charges he was facing.