Russia starts direct commercial flights between Moscow and Pyongyang
The first flight operated by Russian carrier Nordwind took off from Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport carrying over 400 passengers. Russia's Transport Ministry said there will be one flight a month to meet demand.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who visited North Korea's new Wonsan-Kalma beach resort earlier this month to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, promised to encourage Russian tourists to visit the complex.
The resort, which can accommodate nearly 20,000 people, is at the center of Kim's push to boost tourism to improve his country's troubled economy.
North Korea has been slowly easing the curbs imposed during the pandemic and reopening its borders in phases. But the country hasn't said if it would fully resume international tourism.
Regular flights between Russia's eastern port city of Vladivostok and Pyongyang reopened in 2023 following a break caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
Russia and North Korea have sharply expanded military and other ties in recent years, with Pyongyang supplying weapons and troops to back Russia's military action in Ukraine.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
GOP Celebrates The Return Of The Great American Car With A Picture Of A Lada
When Jalopnik writer Collin Woodard dropped this tweet from the official GOP account into Slack, I had to double check and triple check to see if it was a joke, but nope — that really is a picture of President Trump, doing his favorite weird dance that looks like a baby who has just discovered his hands, in front of a Lada. And not even a relatively new Lada either, as it appears to be a VAZ-2101, one of the earliest models of the car produced in the 1970s and '80s. What the hell? The meme style image bears the watermark of The Daily Signal, a serious conservative news website that clearly does not have an automotive or satirical section, but even so, this is not a retweet from a potentially smarmy site. It's a full blown post by the official GOP account, a tweet that proudly proclaims "The One Big Beautiful bill will drive the return of the great American car." That roof line, those wheel arches — pure Lada, comrade. Ladas are, most notably, not American-made cars. Until recently, Lada's home was in Tolyatti, Russia, on the Volga River. That was before sanctions against Russia due to the invasion of Ukraine forced the company to pause production. Renault had a controlling stake in Avtovaz, the parent company of Lada, but pulled out that same year, CNN reports. The company was founded as a state-run car company (as almost all of the companies in the USSR were) and basically built rebadged Fiat 124s that could survive the brutal Russian weather. Read more: Call Me A Luddite, But These Modern Features Only Seem To Make Cars Worse The Right Car, At The Right Time, At The Right Price It's such a ridiculous and frankly surprising mistake to make. There is such a wealth of American cars, both from the past--if that's what you want for your message about the future for some reason--and from the present, which would make a hell of a lot more sense. Heck, you could have put a Tesla back there and repaid your best frenemy's many generous donations to the winning GOP candidate's campaign with a little more free publicity. God knows Tesla could really use the help right now, as sales have slumped ever since CEO Elon Musk dipped his toes into the swamp of Washington D.C. But even as a mistake, using this Lada image makes no sense. It even looks like a crappy old car. The civilian, non-car person might see a Chrysler K-Car in those boxy and uninspiring proportions, but that is also bad for your brand. Why would you pick not just an old, but proudly economical vehicle? The vision of the future of the auto industry this tweet is selling strikes me as pretty grim, even besides the fact that is an old Soviet-made car in the background. Maybe it made it on because the car is yellow, and some 20-year-old social media manager thought yellow means it is a cool car. Really sloppy work. The Lada is better known these days for taking a monumental amount of abuse and continuing on their merry way. From our own Lada project car to Garage 54, a YouTube channel which has welded a Lada to another Lada, given a Lada legs and powered one with just 50 cordless drills among other things, Ladas have staying power. Maybe that's what the GOP wanted to convey: an automotive industry as unstoppable as a Soviet made car. Want more like this? Join the Jalopnik newsletter to get the latest auto news sent straight to your inbox... Read the original article on Jalopnik.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Trump planning ‘shock and awe' Russia sanctions
Donald Trump, the US president, is preparing 'shock and awe' sanctions on Russian exports, a senior Republican has said. Senator Jim Risch, the chairman of the powerful Senate foreign relations committee, said Mr Trump would make good on his pledge to impose crippling economic penalties on Moscow's trading partners by Aug 8. The US president this week shortened his deadline for hitting Russia with the most severe sanctions on its oil experts to date, giving Vladimir Putin 10 days to reach a deal to end the war in Ukraine. 'When and if secondary sanctions hit, it's going to be shock and awe,' Senator Risch told The Telegraph, adding that 'things are going to change dramatically' as a result. The so-called secondary sanctions – which cut short the president's previous 50-day timeframe – were slated to slap 100 per cent tariffs on buyers of Russian oil, with the biggest customers being India and China. However, Mr Trump appeared to water down his pledge on Wednesday, announcing that India would be hit with a 25 per cent tariff. India has 'always bought a vast majority of their military equipment from Russia, and are Russia's largest buyer of energy, along with China, at a time when everyone wants Russia to stop the killing in Ukraine – all things not good!' he wrote on Truth Social. 'India will therefore be paying a tariff on 25 per cent, plus a penalty for the above, starting on August first.' The 25 per cent tariff is another drop after a Republican-backed bill initially proposed imposing 500 per cent tariffs against Russia and its allies, which was later revised to 100 per cent by Mr Trump. Steve Witkoff, Mr Trump's special envoy, is expected to visit Russia in the coming days following a trip to food distribution sites in Gaza on Thursday. 'He's going to Russia, believe it or not,' Mr Trump told reporters ahead of the visit, before describing Moscow's recent strikes on Kyiv as 'disgusting'. Mr Witkoff's last known trip to Russia was in April, when he met Putin for talks at the Kremlin that did not yield a breakthrough. Mr Trump said he had seen internal data revealing the catastrophic losses faced by Russia in a statement on Truth Social. 'I have just been informed that almost 20,000 Russian soldiers died this month in the ridiculous War with Ukraine. Russia has lost 112,500 soldiers since the beginning of the year,' he said, describing the tally as a 'lot of unnecessary death'. Ukraine, he added, had lost 8,000 soldiers since the start of the year, adding that there had also been civilian casualties as Russian rockets crashed into Kyiv and other parts of the country. 'This is a War that should have never happened — This is Biden's War, not 'Trump's'.' I'm just here to see if I can stop it!' While Mr Trump confirmed he would proceed with fresh sanctions, he conceded they may have little effect on Putin's mindset. 'I am not sure it bothers him or if it has any effect, but we are going to do it,' he said. Depending on the figure, imposing sweeping sanctions on Russian oil exports has the potential to disrupt global oil supplies given that Moscow ships 4.5 per cent of the world's crude oil, according to the International Energy Agency. Mr Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Tuesday that he was not worried about potential chaos in the oil market, pledging to boost domestic production to offset any impact. John Kelley, a Senior US diplomat, reiterated Mr Trump's message on tariffs to the United Nations National Security Council on Thursday, telling Russia and Ukraine: 'It is time to make a deal.' He added: 'The United States is prepared to implement additional measures to secure peace.' Kyiv and Moscow have held three rounds of talks in Istanbul this year that yielded exchanges of prisoners and bodies, but no breakthrough to defuse the more than three-year conflict. Addressing Putin's failure to heed American warnings on secondary sanctions, Senator Risch said: 'He's made a lot of mistakes, but this could be the biggest one yet.' Solve the daily Crossword
Associated Press
4 hours ago
- Associated Press
Russian and US space chiefs meet to discuss continued cooperation
MOSCOW (AP) — Russia's space chief has visited the United States to discuss plans for continued cooperation between Moscow and Washington on the International Space Station and lunar research with NASA's acting chief, the first such face-to-face meeting in more than seven years. Dmitry Bakanov, the director of the state space corporation Roscosmos, met Thursday with NASA's new acting administrator, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, on a visit to attend the planned launch of a U.S.-Japanese-Russian crew to the space station. The launch was delayed by weather until Friday. Roscosmos said Bakanov and Duffy discussed 'further work on the International Space Station, cooperation on lunar programs, joint exploration of deep space and continued cooperation on other space projects.' Once bitter rivals in the space race during the Cold War, Roscosmos and NASA cooperated on the space station and other projects. That relationship was beset with tensions after Moscow sent troops into Ukraine in 2022, but Washington and Moscow have continued to work together, with U.S. and Russian crews continuing to fly to the orbiting outpost on each country's spacecraft. Plans for broader cooperation, including possible Russian involvement in NASA's Artemis program of lunar research, have fallen apart. As Russia has become increasingly reliant on China for its energy exports and imports of key technology amid Western sanctions, Roscosmos has started cooperation with China on its prospective lunar mission. Speaking to Russian reporters after the talks with Duffy, Bakanov said that they agreed to keep working on keeping the space station in operation to the end of the decade. 'Our experts will now start working on those issues in details,' Bakanov said, praising Duffy for giving a green light for those contacts 'despite geopolitical tensions.' The Russian space chief added that he and Duffy will report the results of the meeting to Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Donald Trump to secure their blessing for potential space cooperation. 'In view of the difficult geopolitical situation, we will need to receive the necessary clearance from the leaders of our countries,' Bakanov said. He added he invited Duffy to visit Moscow and the Russia-leased Baikonur launch facility in Kazakhstan for the launch of another Russia-U.S. crew to the space station scheduled for November. 'I will put my efforts into keeping the channel of cooperation between Russia and the U.S. open, and I expect NASA to do the same,' Bakanov said.
