Foreign
North Korea’s Kim declares ‘full support’ for Russian war in Ukraine – Russian President Vladimir
In a show of defiance against Western sanctions, Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un signed a comprehensive strategic pact on Wednesday pledging to come to each other’s assistance in case of a military attack — the starkest evidence yet of Russia’s alignment with anti-Western nations determined to topple the United States as a global leader.
Putin, visiting the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, for the first time since 2000, said Russia and North Korea “pursue an independent foreign policy and do not accept the language of blackmail and diktat.”
“The comprehensive partnership agreement signed today provides, among other things, for mutual assistance in the event of aggression against one of the parties to this agreement,” Putin said.
Shunned by the West over his invasion of Ukraine, Putin is seeking partners who share his anti-Western stance, including China, Iran and North Korea. Kim extolled the “firm alliance” with Moscow and openly backed Putin’s war against Ukraine, the strongest support for Russia’s invasion from any foreign leader.
“Moscow and Pyongyang will continue to oppose the practice of sanctions strangulation that the West has become accustomed to,” Putin said, calling for a review of U.N. sanctions against North Korea over its nuclear weapons program.
His remarks — supporting North Korea’s right to “take justified measures” to ensure its national security — will inevitably increase Western fears of new Russian military and technological support for North Korea.
Putin also blamed the “confrontational policy” of the United States for undermining peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula.
“We categorically reject the attempts to blame [North Korea] for the worsening situation,” Putin said, adding that Pyongyang was “entitled to take justified measures to strengthen its national defense capacities, ensure national security, and protect its sovereignty.”
Russia for years backed U.N. sanctions against North Korea but in March vetoed a Security Council vote on extending a U.N. panel of experts monitoring sanctions compliance. Since then, senior Russian officials have repeatedly used the term “strangulation” to describe the U.N. sanctions.
Putin first visited North Korea in 2000, shortly after his election as president, becoming the only Russian or Soviet leader to travel to Pyongyang. He wanted to restore his country’s influence over the Korean Peninsula. For the next 24 years, he saw no need to return — until Wednesday.
The reason: To sustain his war on Ukraine, he needs North Korea’s help.
After an ostentatious welcome ceremony and an afternoon of meetings, the two emerged to announce their shared vision of a united front against the West and the U.S.-led global order. Putin asserted his country’s fight against “decades of imperialist policies” of the United States and its allies. In turn, North Korea promised “full support and solidarity for the Russian government, army and people” in the war in Ukraine, state media agencies reported.
The two leaders signed an agreement on “comprehensive strategic partnership,” Russian media reported. The text was not immediately published, but Russian officials said before the meeting that it would replace previous key documents.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un signed an aid agreement in Pyongyang on June 19. (Video: The Washington Post)
Whatever the ultimate extent of the agreement, it served as a clear rejoinder to President Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky just six days after they signed a 10-year security agreement committing the United States to provide Kyiv with a wide range of military aid.
Putin’s visit underscored the dramatic changes in the countries’ relationship in the aftermath of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. For decades after the founding of North Korea in 1945, the Soviet Union served as its main economic and security benefactor. Now, as Putin faces growing isolation and a dwindling supply of artillery to use in Ukraine, North Korea has become one of its few remaining sources of diplomatic and military support.
In a front-page article in the newspaper of North Korea’s ruling party, Putin proposed cooperation between Moscow and Pyongyang in fighting sanctions, in creating a new security architecture across Eurasia, and in science and tourism. He wrote that Russia would a form a new trade and financial network to compete with Western-controlled global financial institutions.
“Russia is fighting the hegemonic and imperialist policy of the United States and its satellites against the Russian Federation which has been imposed for decades,” Putin wrote. “We highly appreciate your consistent and unwavering support for Russian policy, including in the Ukrainian direction.”
North Korea, for its part, has plenty to gain from Russia. Kim is facing increasing economic sanctions and isolation because of his nuclear ambitions. He needs food, fuel, cash and weapons technology — all of which Russia can provide.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un attend a welcome ceremony at Kim Il Sung Square in Pyongyang on Wednesday. (Vladimir Smirnov/Sputnik/Pool/Reuters)
Still, it is unusual for North Korea to have such a valuable bargaining chip with Russia, given its tiny size, poor economy and international pariah status. Kim is no stranger to bluster, but usually with no real upper hand in a diplomatic negotiation.
“I think the fact that Putin has to come all the way to North Korea to pay his respects underscores how desperate he is for the ammunition he needs from North Korea,” said Michael McFaul, former U.S. ambassador to Russia. “That is a giant reversal from 10 to 20 years ago when Putin was the powerful one. Now he needs weapons, and he needs Kim Jong Un, and he needs weapons for his war in Ukraine.”
It’s unclear whether this is merely a temporary relationship of convenience or a lasting military alliance similar to the Cold War era, analysts say. Either way, it highlights a remarkable evolution in their growing cooperation since the invasion, experts note.
“This summit serves as both a testament to the current strength of the relationship between the two countries and a harbinger of an even stronger partnership in the future,” said Lami Kim, professor at the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies in Honolulu.
Pyongyang was lined with Russian flags and banners with Putin’s photo, welcoming the first major world leader to visit the country since North Korea’s pandemic closures, Russian media footage showed.
Kim did not elaborate on what his “full” support for Russia might look like, but the remarks, reported by Russian media in Pyongyang, will fuel concerns that the outcast leaders of two heavily sanctioned states will use this visit to deepen their military partnership.
Washington and its allies contend that North Korea, which is believed to have a large stockpile of dated artillery shells and rockets compatible with Soviet and Russian weapons systems, has been sending Russia munitions to use against Ukraine.
North Korea has sent at least 10,000 shipping containers to Russia, which could hold as many as 4.8 million of the types of artillery shells that Putin has used in Ukraine, South Korea’s defense minister, Shin Won-sik, told Bloomberg last week.
The State Department said Tuesday that North Korea had unlawfully transferred “dozens of ballistic missiles and over 11,000 containers of munitions to aid Russia’s war effort” in recent months.
Fyodor Tertitskiy, an expert on North Korea’s history and military at Seoul’s Kookmin University, said the visit was purely pragmatic. “They are not both cooperating because they like each other, but because they hope to get something,” he said. “It’s not like an ideological alliance, it’s tactical cooperation.”
On the economic side, Russia may need North Korean labor, said Andrei Lankov, a Russia-born North Korea expert. North Korean workers remain in Russia, in violation of U.N. bans on North Korean labor exports.
“The Russian economy is now going through a minor economic boom … and the shortage of labor is significant. So I expect a large number of North Korean workers to arrive in Russia soon,” Lankov said.
The Kim regime takes the lion’s share of the money the laborers earn abroad.
Although it is unclear what North Korea has received in return so far, there are indications that Russian technology was used in North Korea’s recent efforts to launch a spy satellite into space, experts say.
During Kim’s visit to Moscow in September, Putin promised to support Kim’s ambitions for space technology.
Just two months after that summit, North Korea successfully launched its first military satellite into orbit.
Relations between the two capitals go back decades. Kim’s grandfather, Kim Il Sung, was chosen in 1948 by the Soviet Union as North Korea’s founding president, and Kim’s father, Kim Jong Il, was born in Siberia and grew up with the Russian nickname “Yura.”
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia became more interested in capitalism and less interested in North Korea, supplying it with oil but otherwise doing little to prop it up. Moscow even joined the “six-party talks” process that began in 2005, aimed at convincing Pyongyang that it should drop its nuclear ambitions, although most of North Korea’s nuclear scientists trained in Russia.
All that changed after Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
Russia — along with China — has enabled North Korea to develop its ballistic missile program in recent years, repeatedly rejecting new sanctions the United States and its allies proposed in response to Pyongyang’s violations of U.N. bans on ballistic missile tests.
Russia used its Security Council veto in March to neuter a long-running sanctions regime designed to deter and slow Pyongyang’s development of its nuclear arsenal. Russian officials accused the West of trying to “strangle” North Korea.
Kim has refused Washington’s efforts to engage with him after denuclearization talks fell apart in 2019. Instead, he has drawn closer to Russia and to China, North Korea’s economic lifeline.
In recent years, Kim has ramped up rhetoric about a “new Cold War” and, along with Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping, has called for a “multipolar world” — a vision that seeks an end to the dominance of the United States.
The United States and its allies have repeatedly called on Moscow to follow the “rules-based international order” by respecting international law, territorial integrity and democratic norms.
But Putin, with the support of Xi and now Kim, argues that in a “multipolar” world, countries can operate by a different set of rules.
On Wednesday, North Korean state media described the relationship between Pyongyang and Moscow as “an engine for accelerating the building of a new multipolar world.”
Putin has also made moves to undermine sanctions, edge out the dollar as the major global reserve currency and shape international institutions to suit Russian interests, a campaign that has had resonance among some Global South nations intent on pursuing their own national interests, many of them unhappy with Western pressure to take sides.
Since beginning his fifth term in office this year, Putin’s anti-Western posturing has grown more marked as he seeks to deter Western nations from continuing military support for Ukraine and to constrain Kyiv’s capacity to strike at military targets within Russia.
The Biden administration recently gave Ukraine permission to carry out limited strikes in Russia using U.S. equipment and ammunition, but only in a border region near Kharkiv, in eastern Ukraine, effectively preserving Russia’s advantage.
Putin’s visit to North Korea underscores his recent threat to supply Russian missiles to nations opposed to the West should the United States and other Western nations permit Kyiv to carry out longer-range strikes using Western weapons on military targets in Russia.
Foreign
California man bids goodbye to family, invites BBC to witness his death as MPs debate assisted dying
It’s 10am, and in a little over two hours, Wayne Hawkins will be dead.
The sun is shining on the bungalow where the 80-year-old lives in San Diego, California with his wife of more than five decades, Stella.
I knock on the door and meet his children – Emily, 48, and Ashley, 44 – who have spent the last two weeks at their father’s side.
Wayne sits in a reclining chair where he spends most of his days. Terminally ill, he is too weak to leave the house.
He has invited BBC News to witness his death under California’s assisted dying laws – if MPs in London vote to legalise the practice in England and Wales, it will allow some terminally ill people here to die in a similar way.
Half an hour after arriving at Wayne’s house, I watch him swallow three anti-nausea tablets, designed to minimise the risk of him vomiting the lethal medication he plans to take shortly.
Are you sure this day is your last, I ask him? “I’m all in,” he replies. “I was determined and decided weeks ago – I’ve had no trepidation since then.”
His family ask for one last photo, which I take, and you can see at the top of this page. As usual, Stella and Wayne are holding hands.
Shortly after, Dr Donnie Moore arrives. He has got to know the family over the past few weeks, visiting them on several occasions alongside running his own end-of-life clinic. Under California law, he is what is known as the attending physician who must confirm, in addition to a second doctor, that Wayne is eligible for aid in dying.
Dr Moore’s role is part physician, part counsellor in this situation, one he has been in for 150 assisted deaths before.
On a top shelf in Wayne’s bedroom sits a brown glass bottle containing a fine white powder – a mixture of five drugs, sedatives and painkillers, delivered to the house four weeks before. The dosage of drugs inside is hundreds of times higher than those used in regular healthcare and is “guaranteed” to be fatal, Dr Moore explains. Unlike California, the proposed law at Westminster would require a doctor to bring any such medication with them.
Dr Donnie Moore has been involved in dozens of assisted deaths
When Wayne signals he is ready, the doctor mixes the meds with cherry and pineapple juice to soften the bitter taste – and he hands this pink liquid to Wayne.
No one, not even the doctor, knows how long it will take him to die after taking the lethal drugs. Dr Moore explains to me that, in his experience, death usually occurs between 30 minutes and two hours of ingestion, but on one occasion it took 17 hours.
This is the story of how and why Wayne chose to die. And why others have decided not to follow the same course.
We first met the couple a few weeks earlier, when Wayne explained why he was going ahead with the decision to have an assisted death – a controversial measure in other parts of the world.
“Some days the pain is almost more than I can handle,” he said. “I just don’t see any merit to dying slow and painfully, hooked up with stuff – intubation, feeding tubes,” he told me. “I want none of it.”
Wayne said he had watched two relatives die “miserable”, “heinous” deaths from heart failure.
“I hate hospitals, they are miserable. I will die in the street first.”
Wayne met Stella in 1969; the couple married four years later. He told us it was something of an arranged marriage, as his mother kept inviting Stella for dinner until eventually the penny dropped that he should take her out.
They lived for many years in Arcata, northern California, surrounded by sweeping forests of redwood trees, where Wayne worked as a landscape architect, while Stella was a primary school teacher. They spent their holidays hiking and camping with their children.
Now Wayne is terminally ill with heart failure, which has already brought him close to death. He has myriad other health issues including prostate cancer, liver failure and sepsis which brings him serious spinal pain.
He has less than six months to live, qualifying him for an assisted death in California. His request to die has been approved by two doctors and the lethal medication is self-administered.
It was during our first meeting that he asked the BBC to return to observe his final day, saying he wanted terminally ill adults in the UK to have the same right to an assisted death as him.
“Britain is pretty good with freedoms and this is just another one,” he said. “People should be able to choose the time of their death as long as they meet the rules like six months to live or less.”
Stella, 78, supports his decision. “I’ve known him for over 50 years. He’s a very independent man. He’s always known what he wants to do and he’s always fixed things. That’s how he’s operating now. If this is his choice, I definitely agree, and I’ve seen him really suffer with the illness he’s got. I don’t want that for him.”
Wayne would also qualify under the proposed new assisted dying law in England and Wales. The measures return to the House of Commons later this month, when all MPs will have a chance to debate and vote on changes to the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill.
The proposed legislation, tabled by Labour MP Kim Leadbeater, says that anyone who wants to end their life must have the mental capacity to make the choice, that they must be expected to die within six months, and must make two separate declarations – witnessed and signed – about their wish to die. They must satisfy two independent doctors that they are eligible.
MPs in Westminster voted in favour of assisted dying in principle last November but remain bitterly divided on the issue. If they ultimately decide to approve the bill, it could become law within the next year and come into practice within the next four years.
A list of organisations in the UK offering support and information with some of the issues in this story is available at BBC Action Line
There are also divisions here in California, where assisted dying was introduced in 2016. Michelle and Mike Carter, both 72 and married for 43 years, are each being treated for cancer – Mike has prostate cancer that has spread to his lymph nodes, and Michelle’s advanced terminal ovarian cancer has spread throughout much of her body.
“I held my mother’s hand when she passed; I held my father’s hand when he passed,” Michelle told me. “I believe there’s freedom of choice however for me, I choose palliative care… I have God and I have good medicine.”
Michelle Carter is placing her trust in medicine
Michelle’s physician, palliative care specialist Dr Vincent Nguyen, argued that assisted dying laws in the US state lead to “silent coercion” whereby vulnerable people think their only option is to die. “Instead of ending people’s lives, let’s put programmes together to care for people,” he said. “Let them know that they’re loved, they’re wanted and they’re worthy.”
He said the law meant that doctors have gone from being seen as healers to killers, while the message from the healthcare system was that “you are better off dead, because you’re expensive and your death is cheaper for us”.
Some disability campaigners say assisted dying makes them feel unsafe. Ingrid Tischer, who has muscular dystrophy and chronic respiratory failure, told me: “The message that it sends to people with disabilities in California is that you deserve suicide assistance rather than suicide prevention when you voice a desire to end your life.
“What does that say about who we are as a culture?”
Critics often say that once assisted dying is legalised, over time the safeguards around such laws get eroded as part of a “slippery slope” towards more relaxed criteria. In California, there was initially a mandatory 15-day cooling off period between patients making a first and second request for aid in dying. That has been reduced to 48 hours because many patients were dying during the waiting period. It’s thought the approval process envisaged in Westminster would take around a month.
‘Goodbye,’ Wayne tells his family
Outside Wayne’s house on the morning of his death, a solitary bird begins its loud and elaborate song. “There’s that mockingbird out there,” Wayne tells Stella, as smiles flicker across their faces.
Wayne hates the bird because it keeps him awake at night, Stella jokes, hand in hand with him to one side of his chair. Emily and Ashley are next to Stella.
Dr Moore, seated on Wayne’s other side, hands him the pink liquid which he swallows without hesitation. “Goodnight,” he says to his family – a typical touch of humour from a man who told us he was determined to die on his terms. It’s 11.47am.
After two minutes, Wayne says he is getting sleepy. Dr Moore asks him to imagine he is walking in a vast sea of flowers with a soft breeze on his skin, which seems appropriate for a patient who has spent much of his life among nature.
After three minutes Wayne enters a deep sleep from which he will never wake. On a few occasions he lifts his head to take a deep breath without opening his eyes, at one point beginning to snore softly.
Dr Moore tells the family this is “the deepest sleep imaginable” and reassures Emily there is no chance her dad will wake up and ask, “did it work?”
“Oh that would be just like him,” Stella says with a laugh.
The family start to reminisce about hiking holidays and driving around in a large van they converted to become a camper. “Me and dad insulated it and put a bed in the back,” says Ashley.
On the walls are photos of Emily and Ashley as small children next to huge carved Halloween pumpkins.
Dr Moore is still stroking Wayne’s hand and occasionally checking his pulse. For a man who Emily says was “always walking, always outdoors, always active”, these are the final moments of life’s journey, spent surrounded by those who mean most to him.
At 12.22pm Dr Moore says, “I think he’s passed… He’s at peace now.”
Outside, the mockingbird has fallen silent. “No more pain,” says Stella, embracing her children in her arms.
I step outside to give the family some space, and reflect on what we have just seen and filmed.
I have been covering medical ethics for the BBC for more than 20 years. In 2006, I was present just outside an apartment in Zurich where Dr Anne Turner, a retired doctor, died with the help of the group Dignitas – but California was the first time I had been an eyewitness to an assisted death.
This isn’t just a story about one man’s death in California – it’s about what could become a reality here in England and Wales for those who qualify for an assisted death and choose to die this way.
Whether you’re for or against the proposed new Westminster law, the death of a loved one is a deeply personal and emotional time for a family. Each death leaves an imprint, as will Wayne’s.
Additional reporting by Joshua Falcon.
Earlier this week, Israel killed Ismail Barhoum, a member of Hamas’ political office, and Salah al-Bardaweel, another senior leader.
Hamas spokesman Abdel Latif al-Qanou was allegedly killed in an Israeli airstrike on northern Gaza, Hamas-affiliated news agency Shehab reported on Wednesday night.
Al-Qanoa was one of Hamas’s most prominent spokesmen in Gaza, and while he avoided media appearances during the months of fighting, he gave multiple interviews to Arab news channels after the ceasefire.
Al-Qanoua was killed when his tent was targeted in Jabaliya, the Hamas-run Al-Aqsa television reported. The same strike wounded several people, medical sources said.
Earlier this week, Israel killed Ismail Barhoum, a member of Hamas’ political office, and Salah al-Bardaweel, another senior leader.
Both Bardaweel and Barhoum were members of the 20-member Hamas decision-making body, the political office, 11 of whom have been killed since the start of the war in late 2023, according to Hamas sources.
Tents for Palestinians seeking refuge are set up on the grounds of a United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) centre in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on October 19, 2023, amid the ongoing battles between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas (credit: MAHMUD HAMS/AFP via Getty Images)
The IDF has yet to comment on the alleged elimination.
Increased IDF pressure in the Gaza Strip
Since fighting in Gaza was renewed at the beginning of last week, the IDF has killed 150 terrorists, including 10 top Hamas officials, The Jerusalem Post learned Tuesday.
In certain areas, the military has entered a full kilometer into Gaza, such as around the Nitzanim Corridor in central Gaza.
In addition to central Gaza, Beit Lahia, Beit Hanoun, parts of Khan Yunis, Shaboura, and Tel Sultan, the IDF has been evacuating and moving into Jabaliya.
Hundreds of unclaimed estates reveal untold stories of African migration, wealth, and family ties left behind.
Thousands of people die every year in the United Kingdom without leaving a will or identifying next of kin, and among them are many Nigerians and other Africans whose estates—ranging from property to savings—remain unclaimed.
The UK government’s latest list of unclaimed estates, updated daily, includes over 170 entries connected to African-born individuals, with Nigerians making up a significant portion of the cases.
A Legacy Lost
For many migrants, the UK became a home away from home—a land of opportunity where they built wealth, purchased property, and created a life.
However, the absence of a will often results in their assets being classified as “bona vacantia” (ownerless goods), leaving them to the custody of the Crown.
Families back in Africa are frequently unaware of these estates, leading to a permanent loss of assets.
Cases like that of Adenike Adebiyi, who passed away in Hackney, London, in 2004, or Solomon Adekanmibi, who died in Colchester, Essex, in 2021, highlight the consequences of dying intestate.
With no identified next of kin or missing documentation, their estates remain unclaimed, and their legacies risk being forgotten.
Why It Matters
This phenomenon underscores a critical issue: many African families are unaware of their relatives’ financial situations abroad.
Migration often disrupts communication, and without clear documentation, the wealth built overseas remains beyond reach.
The loss isn’t just financial—it’s deeply cultural and emotional. Unclaimed estates represent untold family histories, connections, and the struggles of migrants who built their lives in the diaspora.
The Challenges
Lack of Awareness:
Most families in Nigeria and other African countries are unaware of their relatives’ estates abroad or how to access them.
Genealogical Gaps:
The information provided in official records is often incomplete. For example, many entries in the UK unclaimed estates list lack detailed family history or next-of-kin information.
Cultural Hesitations:
In many African cultures, discussing death and wills is considered taboo, leading to reluctance in planning for asset distribution.
A Call to Action
African governments, community organizations, and legal professionals need to raise awareness about this issue.
Here’s what can be done:
Encouraging Will Writing: Migrants in the diaspora should be educated about the importance of drafting wills to protect their assets.
Genealogical Support: Families in Africa can be assisted in tracing unclaimed estates through local or international partnerships.
Public Awareness Campaigns: Social and traditional media can highlight the importance of estate planning and share resources for families.
How to Check the List
The UK government maintains a public Unclaimed Estates List that is updated daily.
Families can search the list by name, place of birth, or other identifiers to check for potential claims.
Final Thoughts
For many Nigerians and Africans in the UK, their unclaimed estates represent more than just wealth—it’s a story of migration, resilience, and identity.
By addressing this growing issue, families can reclaim their heritage, and the legacy of those who journeyed to the diaspora need not be forgotten.
Here is the latest daily update as of March 24, 2025. Check the list
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