The North Korean envoy to the United Nations has blamed the United States for rising tensions on the Korean Peninsula. During a rare news conference, the North Korean UN ambassador Sin Son-ho said hostile relations with the United States could lead to a new war at any moment. He called for an end to economic sanctions and reiterated North Korea’s offer of wide-ranging senior-level talks with the US.
President Obama has formally nominated James Comey as the new director of the FBI. Mr Comey, a 52-year-old Republican, was deputy attorney general in President George W Bush’s administration. Katy Watson reports from Washington.
Mr Comey’s time working under the George W Bush administration is seen as a good thing, a bipartisan gesture by President Obama at a time when he is facing tough criticism by Republicans in Congress. Mr Comey’s shown himself to be tough on government surveillance and he’s perhaps best-known for successfully opposing a controversial programme allowing government wiretaps to be used without warrants. If the Senate accepts the nomination, James Comey will replace director Robert Mueller who’s been in charge of the FBI since the 9/11 attacks and is retiring this coming September.
And the wife of China’s Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo is preparing a legal challenge against the authorities for holding her under unofficial house arrest for nearly three years. Liu Xia has been able to leave her Beijing flat on only a few occasions since her husband who’s in prison won the peace prize in 2010 for advocating political reform. She has limited contact with the outside world and visitors are prevented from seeing her.