Thousands of North Korean “soldier-builders” in olive green uniforms and bright red hardhats are doing everything from digging ditches to putting up walls on multistory apartment blocks and government buildings in this northern city near the Chinese border. Samjiyon is one of the main focuses of a massive nationwide construction campaign ahead of North Korea’s 70th anniversary in what leader Kim Jong Un has described as a symbolic battle against anyone who would oppose his country.The Sept. 9 anniversary is shaping up to be the biggest event since Kim assumed power in late 2011. Along with huge rallies in Pyongyang…

President Donald Trump’s tariff policies reflect a serious misunderstanding of the importance of free trade and Japanese companies’ contributions to the U.S. economy, Japan’s trade minister said.Hiroshige Seko, the minister of economy, trade and industry, warned in an interview that Tokyo might take action if the U.S. fulfills threats to levy a 25 percent tariff on Japanese auto imports. He gave no details but didn’t rule out retaliatory tariffs.“Japanese automakers are a major contributor to the American economy,” Seko said in the interview Thursday at his ministry office in Tokyo. “If the Japanese auto industry is weakened, it will not…

Russian trolls and social media bots use tactics similar to those employed during the 2016 presidential election to spread misinformation about vaccines, research has revealed.An examination of over 1,793,690 tweets posted between July 2014 and September 2017 revealed that a handful of accounts which have since been identified as Russian trolls who meddled in the U.S. election, as well as malware and marketing bots, spread false information about vaccines.“Health communications have become ‘weaponized’: public health issues, such as vaccination, are included in attempts to spread misinformation and disinformation by foreign powers,” wrote the authors of the study published in the…

Senate President Bukola Saraki on Wednesday boasted that the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) will win the 2019 presidential elections.Mr Saraki said this in Ilorin at a meeting with PDP members who came from the 16 local government areas of the state.He also expressed his confidence that his new party would emerge victorious in all the local government areas of Kwara State.Mr Saraki said that the victory of PDP at both federal and state levels would be beneficial to all the members in the state.The Senate President said that the future of PDP was now brighter than it used to…