World

WASHINGTON — Russia may soon target Ukraine with another of its new hypersonic Oreshnik missiles, two US officials said on Wednesday, after Moscow first used one of the weapons in a strike last month.

"Russia has signaled its intent to launch another experimental Oreshnik missile at Ukraine, potentially in the coming days," one official said on condition of anonymity.

"However, this missile is not a battlefield game-changer but an effort to intimidate Ukraine and its allies. The Oreshnik, with its smaller warhead and limited availability, is unlikely to alter the course of the conflict," the official said.

A second US official likewise downplayed the missile's potential impact, saying Moscow only has a limited supply.

"Russia wants to use this weapon to intimidate Ukraine and its supporters, but the reality is that Russia likely possesses only a handful of these experimental missiles," the official said.

Putin unveiled the nuclear-capable weapon last month after using it to strike the city of Dnipro in central Ukraine, sharply escalating tensions in the almost three-year-long conflict.

The United States has spearheaded the push for international support for Ukraine, quickly forging a coalition to back Kyiv after Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022 and coordinating aid from dozens of countries.

Meanwhile, Ukraine attacked Russian border regions with missiles and drones early Wednesday, sparking a fire at an oil depot and damaging an "industrial facility", officials said.

Two separate attacks targeted Russia's southern Rostov region and western Bryansk region, both of which have been hit by cross-border Ukrainian fire throughout Moscow's nearly three-year invasion.

Videos purportedly taken in the Bryansk region showed a distant fireball illuminating the night sky over an urban area, while air raid sirens could be heard in footage from the southern Rostov region.

Kyiv said it struck an oil depot being used to "supply the Russian occupation army" in the Bryansk region, while the governor of Russia's Rostov region said a Ukrainian missile attack damaged an "industrial enterprise" in the port city of Taganrog.

The Russian governor of the Bryansk region, Alexander Bogomaz, said that Ukraine had attacked a "production facility" with drones but that the blaze had since been extinguished.

Refineries and oil depots are a huge driving force behind Russia's economy, with some facilities being given their own air defence systems to ward off attacks.

Major companies have redirected oil to sites further away from Ukraine, as some Ukrainian drone strikes have reached hundreds of kilometres into Russian territory.

Ukraine says its attacks are "fair" retaliation for Moscow's strikes on its own energy infrastructure that have cut power to millions of people.

SEOUL  — South Korean authorities banned more top officials from leaving the country Tuesday, in the wake of President Yoon Suk -yeol's bungled attempt to impose martial law.

A day after Yoon himself was hit with a travel ban, his party was, meanwhile, forging a "resignation roadmap" that reportedly could see him step down in February or March before fresh elections, while the opposition plans to organise an impeachment vote every Saturday.

Yoon suspended civilian rule a week ago and sent special forces and helicopters to parliament, before lawmakers forced him to rescind the decree in a country assumed to be a stable democracy.

Investigators are probing the president and a cabal of allies -- many from the same school -- for alleged insurrection over the sequence of extraordinary events.

On Tuesday Cho Ji-ho, commissioner general of the Korean National Police Agency, and two other top police officials became the latest to be barred from foreign travel, police told AFP.

Already under a travel ban are the former defence and interior ministers and martial law commander General Park An-su, who along with other top brass was grilled by lawmakers on Tuesday.

Yoon narrowly survived an impeachment effort in parliament on Saturday as tens of thousands braved freezing temperatures to call for his ouster.

The motion failed after members of Yoon's ruling People Power Party (PPP) walked out of parliament, depriving it of the necessary two-thirds majority.

The offices of ruling party lawmakers were being vandalised, local media said Tuesday, with one image showing a door covered in what appeared to be ketchup and eggs and flour scattered on the floor.

Protesters were also sending condolence flowers to the offices, typically reserved for funerals, to express their opposition to the boycott, with signs that read "insurrection accomplices".

Local police in Seoul's Dobong district told AFP that an unspecified "weapon" was found in front of PPP lawmaker Kim Jae-sub's residence, and he has requested personal protection measures from the police.

All my fault 

Kim Yong-hyun, the former defence minister, was detained on Sunday and late Monday prosecutors filed a formal arrest warrant against him.

Charges included "engaging in critical duties during an insurrection" and "abuse of authority to obstruct the exercise of rights".

A Seoul court will hold a hearing later Tuesday to rule on whether to issue the warrant for Kim, the first court decision to be made related to the martial law chaos.

Kim issued contrite comments Tuesday saying that "all responsibility for this situation lies solely with me".

Kim "deeply apologised" to the South Korean people and said that his subordinates were "merely following my orders and fulfilling their assigned duties", in a statement made through his lawyers.

Kwak Jong-geun, Army Special Warfare Command chief, said Tuesday that he was ordered to stop enough lawmakers from gathering at parliament to vote down Yoon's martial law decree.

"The president called me directly through a secret line. He mentioned that it appears the quorum has not yet been met and instructed me to quickly break down the door and drag out the people [lawmakers] inside," Kwak said.

'Second coup' 

At least several hundred protesters held more rallies on Tuesday evening outside the National Assembly, waving glow sticks and holding signs that read, "Impeach Yoon Suk -yeol, the insurrection criminal."

The PPP says that Yoon, 63, has agreed to hand power to the prime minister and party chief, prompting the opposition to accuse it of a "second coup".

Local media reported on Tuesday that the PPP will announce a "resignation road map" soon in order to head off a new impeachment motion, which the opposition wants to put before lawmakers on Saturday.

The party's task force was also reportedly reviewing two options, including for Yoon to resign in February with an April election, or to step down in March with a vote in May.

With the opposition holding 192 seats in the 300-strong parliament, only eight PPP members need to vote in favour of the new impeachment motion for it to pass.

Last week two PPP lawmakers -- Ahn Cheol-soo and Kim Yea-ji -- voted in favour but on Tuesday two more said they would support the motion this time.

Ahn, a self-made multi-millionaire, trained doctor and software designer, told AFP on Monday that he was booed and heckled at a party meeting.

"The idea that a president responsible for upholding the constitution of the world's 10th largest economy would stage an unconstitutional coup is beyond imagination," Ahn said.

OSLO — Japan's atomic bomb survivors' group Nihon Hidankyo accepted its Nobel Peace Prize on Tuesday, urging countries to abolish the weapons resurging as a threat 80 years after the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings.

One of the three co-chairs of Nihon Hidankyo who accepted the prize, 92-year-old Nagasaki survivor Terumi Tanaka, demanded "action from governments to achieve" a nuclear-free world.

The prize was presented at a formal ceremony in Oslo's City Hall at a time when countries like Russia -- which has the world's largest nuclear arsenal -- increasingly brandish the atomic threat.

"I am infinitely saddened and angered that the 'nuclear taboo' threatens to be broken," Tanaka told the assembled dignitaries and guests, some clad in traditional Norwegian bunads or Japanese kimonos.

Nihon Hidankyo works tirelessly to rid the planet of the weapons of mass destruction, relying on testimonies from survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, known as "hibakusha".

The US bombings of the two Japanese cities on August 6 and 9, 1945 killed 214,000 people, leading to Japan's surrender and the end of World War II.

Burnt bodies 

Tanaka was 13 years old when Nagasaki was bombed, the hypocentre just three kilometres west of his home. Five members of his family were killed.

He was upstairs reading a book when the A-bomb was dropped.

"I heard the explosion and all of a sudden saw a bright white light, which surrounded everything and everything became silent," he recalled.

"I was really surprised. I felt my life in danger."

Rushing to the ground floor, he lost consciousness when two glass doors, blown out by the detonation, fell on him, though the glass did not break.

"A miracle."

Three days later, he and his mother left in search of their relatives. That was when they realised the scope of the disaster.

"When we reached a ridge over the hills, we could look down over the city and that was when, for the first time, we saw that there was absolutely nothing left. Everything was black and charred."

He saw gravely wounded people fleeing the city, burnt bodies on both sides of the road. He and his mother cremated his aunt's body "with our own hands". 

"I was numb, not able to feel anything."

Nihon Hidankyo's ranks are dwindling with every passing year. The Japanese government lists around 106,800 "hibakusha" still alive today. Their average age is 85.

 'Uphold nuclear taboo' 

For the West, the nuclear threat also comes from North Korea, which has increased its ballistic missile tests, and Iran, which is suspected of developing nuclear weapons though it denies this.

Nine countries now have nuclear weapons: Britain, China, France, India, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, the United States, and, unofficially, Israel.

"Our movement has undoubtedly played a major role in creating the 'nuclear taboo'," Tanaka said.

"However, there still remain 12,000 nuclear warheads on Earth today, 4,000 of which are operationally deployed, ready for immediate launch."

In 2017, 122 governments negotiated and adopted the historic UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), but the text is considered largely symbolic as no nuclear power has signed it.

While all ambassadors stationed in Oslo were invited to Tuesday's ceremony, the only nuclear powers in attendance were Britain, France, India, Pakistan and the United States. Russia, China, Israel and Iran were not present, the Nobel Institute said.

Expressing concern about the world entering "a new, more unstable nuclear age", Norwegian Nobel Committee chairman Jorgen Watne Frydnes warned that "a nuclear war could destroy our civilisation".

"Today's nuclear weapons ... have far greater destructive power than the two bombs used against Japan in 1945. They could kill millions of us in an instant, injure even more, and disrupt the climate catastrophically," he warned.

This year's Nobel prizes in the other disciplines -- medicine, physics, chemistry, literature and economics -- will be awarded at a separate ceremony in Stockholm.

MOSCOW — India's defence minister watched the commissioning of his country's latest naval vessel at a Russian shipyard on Monday, hailing it as a "significant milestone" in ties with a longstanding defence ally.

Indian defence minister Rajnath Singh took part in the commissioning ceremony of the country's latest multi-role stealth guided missile frigate, INS Tushil, in the Baltic port of Kaliningrad.

"The ship is a proud testament to India's growing maritime strength and a significant milestone in long-standing bilateral relations with Russia," Singh posted on X.

Tushil, or "Shield" in English, weighs 3,900 tonnes and carries "an impressive blend of Russian and Indian cutting edge technologies", the defence ministry in New Delhi said last week.

It also said the ship would reach India in a "near-combat ready condition" since all Russian equipment on board had been already tested successfully.

New Delhi has walked a diplomatic tightrope since the beginning of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022, pledging humanitarian support for Kyiv while avoiding explicit condemnation of Russia's offensive.

In October at the BRICS summit in Kazan, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi reiterated his calls for a quick end to the fighting in a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Putin praised what he called Russia and India's "privileged strategic partnership", and vowed to build ties further.

Modi visited Kyiv in August and Moscow in July in an effort to encourage talks, as India cast itself as a potential mediator in the conflict.

MANILA — A volcano briefly erupted in the central Philippines on Monday, sending a huge ash column high into the sky as the government ordered the evacuation of surrounding villages.

Rising more than 2,400 metres above sea level on the central island of Negros, Kanlaon is one of 24 active volcanoes in the Philippines.

A nearly four-minute eruption occurred at 3:03 pm (7:03 GMT), sending a four-kilometre ash column above the crater and a deadly spurt of hot ash, gases and fragmented volcanic rock about 3.4 kilometres down the mountain's southeast flank, officials told a news conference.

They warned that more explosive eruptions could follow shortly.

"Getting hit by these pyroclastic density currents is like being run over by a high-speed vehicle," said Maria Antonia Bornas, volcano monitoring chief of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology.

"If the ash enters your lungs it would cause asphyxiation," she said, urging local officials to evacuate 15 villages within six kilometres of the crater.

She said ash from the eruption rained down on several nearby towns and cities around the volcano, though there were no immediate reports of casualties or damage.

She also warned heavy rain could dislodge the fresh volcanic sediment from the latest eruption, which could bury communities below.

"Evacuations are ongoing" in four upland villages of La Castellana town, on the volcano's southwest slope, municipal police officer Staff Sergeant Ronel Arevalo told AFP, adding he did not have the total number of residents to be evacuated.

La Castellana resident Dianne Paula Abendan, 24, used her mobile phone to take a video clip of a giant cauliflower-shaped grey mass of smoke billowing above the crater.

"These past few days we've seen black smoke coming out of (the) volcano. We were expecting that it would erupt anytime this week," she told AFP by phone.

Abendan said people rushed home to await evacuation orders, but added that the volcanic activity appeared to ease slightly about an hour later.

Authorities said flights to and from the Bacolod-Silay international airport, nearest the volcano, remained normal, but carriers were warned from flying below 3,000 metres near the volcano.

"Flight operators are advised to avoid flying close to the volcano due to possible hazards of sudden steam-driven or phreatic eruptions and precursory magmatic activity," said an official bulletin from the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines.

In September hundreds of nearby residents were evacuated after the volcano spurted thousands of tonnes of harmful gases in a single day.

The seismology office said Kanlaon has erupted more than 40 times since 1866.

In 1996 three hikers were killed due to ash ejection from the volcano.