A collection of tombs from Korea’s ancient Gaya confederacy, a Viking age ring fortress in Denmark, an ancient Thai town and a 2,000-year-old earthworks in Ohio are among the contenders for inscription on the UNESCO World Heritage List this year.

Following much deliberation, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) is shortly expected to announce which sites have been given the honor of a place on its list of World Heritage Sites.

This year, the UNESCO World Heritage Committee is reviewing nominations from both 2022 and 2023, with participants from across the world attending the session in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia to examine almost 50 contenders.

‘Outstanding universal value’

This year’s meeting comes 45 years after UNESCO designated its first ever World Heritage Sites, when both the United States’ Yellowstone National Park and Ecuador’s Galapagos Islands secured a spot on the coveted list.

According to UNESCO, sites must be of “outstanding universal value” to be included on the World Heritage List.

In order to qualify, a site has to meet at least one of a specific list of criteria, which is “regularly revised by the committee to reflect the evolution of the World Heritage concept itself.”

The nomination process can extend over years, and if a landmark is omitted during one year, it can be examined again when the next UNESCO convention comes around.

Once a landmark is given UNESCO World Heritage status, the country or nation it’s based in can receive financial assistance, as well as expert advice from UNESCO to help preserve the site.

So far, the World Heritage Committee has inscribed approximately 1,157 sites in 167 different countries onto the World Heritage List.

The contenders

Only those countries that sign the convention creating the World Heritage Committee and list are permitted to nominate sites.

While this consisted of around 40 countries when the nominations were introduced, it has since grown to 195 nations.

Gaya Tumuli, made up of seven tomb clusters from Korea’s ancient Gaya confederacy, is one of the many highlights from the 50 sites nominated for inscription on the UNESCO World Heritage List this year.

The cone-shaped burial mounds, which extend across the hills of Goryeong, would be the 16th site in South Korea to be added to the list if chosen.

Encompassing an area of 830 square miles, the incredible landscape of Ethiopia’s Bale Mountains National Park is also a strong contender.

Situated 240 miles southeast of Addis Ababa, the park encompasses an area of 830 square miles, including the Sanetti Plateau, which is home to the Ethiopian wolf – the world’s rarest canid.

Meanwhile, Gordion, the capital city of ancient Phrygia in Turkey has also been nominated under the “cultural properties” section.

With an illustrious history dating back to the Early Bronze Age in 3000 B.C.E., Gordion holds around 90 pyramid-shaped mounds, the largest believed to be the tomb of ancient king Midas.

Other treasures on the consideration list include:

Viking-Age Ring Fortresses, Denmark: The ruins of ancient fortifications and dwellings believed to date back more than 1,000 years.

Andrefana Dry Forests, Madagascar: Highly unusual landscapes of flora and fauna, including lemurs, that are found only on Madagascar.

The Ancient Town of Si Thep, Thailand: The ruins of an ancient city that once grew into a powerful local state.

The Maison Carrée of Nîmes, France: The “Square House” Roman temple is one of the best-preserved relics of the Roman empire’s rule over southern France.

Uruq Bani Ma’arid, Saudi Arabia: The western edge of the Ar-Rub‘ al-Khali, or Empty Quarter, is one of the world’s most spectacular sandy deserts and home to rare Arabian oryx.

Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks, Ohio: These gigantic ceremonial structures date back up to 2,000 years, with some believed to be used as lunar or astral observatories.

Historic center of Gorokhovets, Russia: This small medieval town in Vladimir Oblast, Russia is home to the Gorokhovets Historical and Architectural Museum.

Jewish-Medieval Heritage of Erfurt, Germany: The Old Synagogue, which holds a Jewish ritual bath known as mikveh, and the gravestones of the medieval Jewish community are among the many examples of significant Jewish-Medieval heritage in the city of Erfurt, Germany.

Koh Ker: Archaeological Site of Ancient Lingapura or Chok Gargyar, Cambodia: A former capital of the Khmer Empire, this 10th century temple complex in northern Cambodia features an iconic seven-stepped pyramid, known as Prang.

Kuldīga, formerly Goldingen, in Courland, Latvia: This charming town in the Courland region of Latvia is known for its pretty old town and red-brick bridge.

Modernist Kaunas: Architecture of Optimism, 1919-1939, Lithuania

National Archaeological Park Tak’alik Ab’aj, Guatemala

Santiniketan, India

Silk Roads: Zarafshan-Karakum Corridor, Tajikistan

Talayotic Menorca, Spain

The Gedeo Cultural Landscape, Ethiopia

The Persian Caravanserai, Iran

Tr’ondëk-Klondike, Canada

Žatec and the Landscape of Saaz Hops, Czech Republic

Forest Massif of Odzala-Kokoua, Congo

Volcanoes and Forests of Mount Pelée and the Pitons of Northern Martinique, France

Koutammakou, the Land of the Batammariba, Benin

Ha Long Bay – Cat Ba Archipelago, Vietnam

Hyrcanian Forests, Iran/Azerbaijan

Ancient Jericho/Tell es-Sultan, Palestinian Territories

Astronomical Observatories of Kazan Federal University, Russia

Cultural Landscape of Khinalig People and “Köç Yolu” Transhumance Route, Azerbaijan

Djerba: cultural landscape, Tunisia

ESMA Museum and Site of Memory – Former Clandestine Center of Detention, Torture and Extermination, Argentina

Funerary and memory sites of the First World War Western Front, Belgium/France

Jodensavanne Archaeological Site, Suriname

Royal Eise Eisinga Planetarium, Netherlands

Medieval Mosques of Anatolia with Wooden Posts and Upper Structure, Turkey

Memorial sites of the Genocide: Nyamata, Murambi, Gisozi and Bisesero, Rwanda

Sacred Ensembles of the Hoysalas, India

The Cosmological Axis of Yogyakarta and its Historic Landmarks, Indonesia

The Cultural Landscape of Masouleh, Iran

Anticosti, Canada

Bale Mountains National Park, Ethiopia

Cold Winter Deserts of Turan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan

Evaporitic Karst and Caves of Northern Apennines, Italy

Nyungwe National Park, Rwanda

Tugay forests of the Tigrovaya Balka Nature Reserve, Tajikistan

Highlands of the Mongolian Altai, Mongolia

Zagori Cultural Landscape, Greece

Historic Center of Guimarães and Couros Zone, Portugal

South Africa’s viniculture industry employs around 270,000 people, producing some of the world’s most sought-after wines. But not all jobs are best left to humans. In some cases, it’s better to get your ducks in a row – and then put them to work.

Outside Cape Town on the banks of the Eerste river, Vergenoegd Löw The Wine Estate has repurposed a centuries-old practice by marshaling a battalion of ducks to keep its vineyard free of pests.

Inspired by ducks used to remove pests from rice paddies in Asia, the winery calls on the services of some 1,600 ducks as part of its effort to make wine production more sustainable.

“I call our ducks the soldiers of our vineyards,” says managing director Corius Visser. “They will eat aphids, they will eat snails, they will eat small worms – they keep (it) completely pest-free.”

The species, the Indian runner duck, is flightless, with a peculiarly upright stance and highly developed sense of smell. The duck troops are cajoled on a 14-day circuit through the vineyard, eating and fertilizing the ground as they go.

The ducks’ “annual leave” takes place during the harvest (they’d eat the grapes). During this time they forage on open farm pasture, swim in a nearby lake and undergo selective breeding, says Visser.

Duck eggs are consumed in the vineyard restaurant, but never the ducks themselves – “that would be like eating a colleague,” Gavin Moyes, the estate’s tasting room manager, said in a 2020 interview.

“The world is moving away from more conventional farming to (being) a bit more organic,” Visser explains. “For Vergenoegd, it’s a big goal … to have less influence on the Earth, the soil and the environment.” Other sustainable initiatives include an extensive solar power plant and a 25-hectare wetland conservation area on the farm.

Vergenoegd Löw’s ingenious pest control system has been deployed since the 1980s, but the fowl-based feeding frenzy could soon be spreading its wings.

As a pioneering winemaker with industry clout – vines have being grown on the estate since the late 17th century – Vergenoegd Löw is hoping to convince others to adopt its approach. Visser says the vineyard plans to sell 750 ducks to other vineyards and replenish numbers by breeding the birds. “We can be in a position where we say that we have (not just) the best runner ducks in South Africa, but also the world,” Visser argues.

“I think the industry itself has the potential to engage more in experimental ways,” he adds. That requires money, and increasing the price point of South African wines in the world market could help fund Vergenoegd Löw and other vineyards’ green initiatives.

“If we can achieve that, we can then put back some of that (income) into our people, into our land, and become more sustainable,” Visser says.

They’d be quackers not to.

To see other animals with jobs, scroll through the gallery above.

The United Arab Emirates foiled an attempt to smuggle 13 tonnes of the addictive amphetamine captagon – worth more than $1 billion – hidden in a shipment of doors and decorative building panels, the country’s Ministry of Interior said in a statement on Thursday.

The Dubai Police said it arrested six people who were part of an “international criminal cartel,” in what it said was “one of the largest smuggling operations of captagon tablets in the world.”

The pills were hidden using “innovative smuggling methods,” concealed within 432 pieces of high-end furniture panels and 651 professionally crafted doors made from iron and wood, the interior ministry said, adding that extracting the tablets took “days.”

The UAE “stands as an impenetrable fortress against any threat aimed at jeopardizing the security and well-being of the Emirati society,” Interior Minister Sheikh Saif bin Zayed Al Nahyan said in a statement on Twitter on Thursday.

A surveillance video shared by the interior ministry on Thursday shows the suspects attempting to bring the captagon tablets through Dubai’s Jebel Ali Port.

UAE authorities have seized hundreds of thousands of captagon pills since 2019. In June of this year, the Abu Dhabi Customs said it had seized nearly 175,000 pills between the start of 2019 and May this year.

Captagon was originally the brand name for a medicinal product containing the synthetic stimulant fenethylline. Though it is no longer produced legally, counterfeit drugs carrying the captagon name are regularly seized in the Middle East, according to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction.

Experts say the vast majority of global captagon production occurs in Syria, with the Gulf region being its primary destination.

The growth of the industry has raised alarms in the international community. Last year, the US introduced the 2022 US Captagon Act, which linked the trade to the Syrian regime and called it a “transnational security threat.”

How do you feel when you read the same word many, many, many times? Do people have an equal number of hairs in both their nostrils? Does electrifying your tongue change the taste of the food you are eating?

The scientists who researched these questions are among the winners of this year’s Ig Nobel Prizes – an accolade that has no affiliation to the Nobel Prizes – which aim to “celebrate the unusual, honor the imaginative and spur people’s interest in science, medicine, and technology.”

The Ig Nobel Prize’s 33rd ceremony took place virtually on Thursday night, with prizes awarded by “genuine, genuinely bemused” Nobel laureates over Zoom. Each winner received a (now defunct) 10 trillion Zimbabwe dollar bill and a pack of “Ig Pseudo Cola.”

Winners of the prizes represented 22 countries, including five researchers from the United States, four from the United Kingdom, and three from China.

Geologist Jan Zalasiewicz won the coveted Chemistry and Geology Prize for his research into why many scientists like to lick rocks. According to Zalasiewicz, scientists lick rocks as it is easier to tell its type when it is wet. The researcher demonstrated this scientific approach by licking a 400 million-year-old trilobite during his online acceptance speech.

The Literature Prize went to a team of researchers who were offered “congratulations and congratulations and congratulations and congratulations and congratulations” for their research into “jamais vu,” the experience of finding a familiar thing unfamiliar, in the repetition of language. The researchers found that about two-thirds of people reported feeling “peculiar” when they repeated the same word about 30 times.

A team from Rice University in Texas won the Mechanical Engineering Prize for re-animating dead spiders to use as mechanical gripping tools, able to grasp objects up to 130% of their own weight.

The Medicine Prize was awarded for research into how many nose hairs are in each of a person’s nostrils. Using dead bodies in their investigation, the winning team found that there are around 120 nose hairs in the average person’s left nostril, and 112 in their right. This work will be used to investigate how the immune systems of people with alopecia, a condition that causes hair loss, are affected by a lack of nose hairs.

Research into brain activity when a person speaks backward won the Ig Nobel Communication Prize, while the Public Health Prize was awarded to urologist Seung-min Park, who invented the Stanford Toilet, a device that analyzes excrement, recognizing users by their “analprint” – an identifier as unique as a fingerprint, apparently.

Japanese scientists Homei Miyashita and Hiromi Nakamura won the Nutrition Prize for their research into how electrification can affect the taste of food, finding that it increased users’ perception of saltiness.

American psychologists Stanley Milgram, Leonard Bickman and Lawrence Berkowitz won the Psychology Prize for investigating how members of a crowd looked up if they saw other people doing so, while the Education Prize was awarded for research into how teachers’ boredom affects the boredom of students in a classroom.

Finally, the Physics Prize went to a team who investigated how the sexual activity of anchovies impacts ocean-water mixing and the global circulation of ocean currents.

The ceremony was accompanied by mini-non-opera songs (songs with no plot, sung in an operatic way) about water, as well as an annual paper plane throwing event.

The researchers will have the opportunity to meet one another at a companion Ig Nobel Face-to-Face event in Cambridge, Massachusetts in November. More songs and paper planes are expected.

Carla Vall, lawyer for Spanish soccer star Jennifer Hermoso, reiterated that the kiss by ex-Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) president Luis Rubiales to her client after the Women’s World Cup final was non-consensual.

Rubiales was in court on Friday to testify after being summoned by the presiding judge to aid in the court’s investigation into potential charges of sexual assault and coercion against him.

The Spanish Prosecutor’s office said Rubiales answered questions from the judge and all parties and denied the charges.

“The whole world could see it was not consensual. That’s what we’ll show,” Vall said after leaving the National Court in the capital of Madrid.

Prosecutors also asked the judge to request that Rubiales appear in court twice a month, stay at least 500 meters (roughly 1,640 feet) away from Hermoso and to not communicate with her in any way during the investigation process.

“it’s just the beginning of the investigation at court,” Vall added.

Rubiales entered the court on Friday morning with his lawyer, Olga Tubau, and made no comment to the media.

Earlier this week, the National Court announced it had admitted a complaint made against Rubiales by Spanish prosecutors for sexual assault and coercion.

The hearing lasted just under an hour and was closed to the media, but local and international crews had been waiting outside the court.

Rubiales resigned from his position on Sunday following weeks of pressure from all spheres of Spanish society.

How we got here

It all began when video from the World Cup medal ceremony on August 20 showed Rubiales embracing Hermoso, then putting both hands on her head before forcibly kissing her. He then patted her on the back as she walked away.

Later, Hermoso said of the kiss, “Hey, I didn’t like it, eh,” as she apparently answered questions about the incident in an Instagram live video from a celebratory locker room.

It would be several days, on August 25, before Hermoso spoke out again on social media after Rubiales defiantly refused to step down as RFEF president, saying, “I felt vulnerable and a victim of an impulse-driven, sexist, out of place act without any consent on my part … Simply put, I was not respected.”

More than 80 Spanish soccer players then put their name on a statement supporting Hermoso and saying they would not return to the national team “if the current leaders continue” in their posts.

Interim RFEF president Pedro Rocha then began to make moves as part of his “regeneration” of the federation, firing controversial coach Jorge Vilda and appointing his deputy, Montse Tomé. Rocha then vowed in a meeting with the president of the High Council of Sport, Víctor Francos, to make more “structural changes” in RFEF.

A United Airlines flight bound for Rome returned to New Jersey just after midnight Thursday “to address a possible loss of cabin pressure,” according to a statement from the airline.

Data from the tracking site FlightAware show the plane rapidly descended over about 8 minutes from 37,000 feet at 10:07 p.m. to just below 9,000 feet at 10:15 p.m. Pilots will often quickly descend to lower altitudes when there is a concern about the plane’s pressurization.

United Airlines Flight 510 returned safely to Newark Liberty International Airport around 12:25 a.m. ET on Thursday after the crew reported a “pressurization issue,” according to a statement from the Federal Aviation Administration.

The Boeing 777 flight, with 270 passengers and 14 crew members, landed safely and never lost cabin pressure, United Airlines said.

Customers were taken to their destination on another aircraft, United added.

Jimmy Lippert Thyden says he always knew he was adopted. He also knew that he had been born not in the United States, but in Chile. Raised in Virginia by very loving and committed adoptive parents, he says he never lacked anything. The 42-year-old who served in the US Marines is now an attorney who is married and has two young daughters.

“I was told that I was given up for adoption out of love,” Thyden said. “Given by a mother who loved me and wanted the best for me: a life full of opportunity, education and meaning.”

That all started to change in 2012 when his adoptive mother gave him his adoption paperwork as he was preparing to deploy to Afghanistan. Thyden says that when he started looking closely at the adoption files, he found out that there were many discrepancies and inconsistencies.

There was one document that said he had no known father or mother. Another provided the name of a biological mother and her address. A third document specified the baby had no living relatives, and a fourth stated that he had been given up for adoption days after birth. Yet another document said he had been given up for adoption when he was two years old.

For years, Thyden wondered about his origins. He wanted to know more but didn’t know where to begin or who to reach out to in Chile.

Thyden says it was not until a few months ago, when his wife read about the case of Scott Lieberman, that he became actively engaged in uncovering the truth about his adoption.

During the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet, from 1973 to 1990, many babies were funneled to adoption agencies. Some of the children came from rich families, who in many cases gave up babies born out of wedlock. Other babies from poorer backgrounds were simply stolen.

Chilean officials say the number of stolen babies could be in the thousands, but the country’s investigation into the controversial adoptions has languished. Some who took part in the illegal adoptions have died. Many clinics or hospitals where the babies were allegedly stolen no longer exist.

After reaching out to “Nos Buscamos,” Thyden says he got an email the next day from its director, Constanza del Río, who told him to call her right away. She suggested a DNA test, which he did on April 17. With the help of MyHeritage, an online genealogy company, Thyden got a match within a few weeks. When the match came back, del Río says she knew the next step was making a phone call to María Angélica González, 69, a woman who had believed for decades her son had died shortly after being born.

“She could not believe it. She thought it was a joke in poor taste because she had been told her premature baby boy had died,” del Río said. Del Río says González had been told the baby’s body had been disposed of in the trash. During the Pinochet dictatorship, when several thousand people were killed and disappeared, asking too many questions or protesting in a loud way could be dangerous. (Chile will mark the 50th anniversary of the coup that brought Pinochet to power on September 11.)

Learning the truth has been bittersweet for Thyden. He’s happy to finally know his true origins but sad about what his biological mother went through.

“She didn’t know about me because I was taken from her at birth, and she was told that I was dead and when she asked for my body, they told her that they had disposed of it. And so, we’ve never held each other, we’ve never hugged,” Thyden said.

After three agonizing months, he was finally able to travel to Chile to give his biological mother the hug that had to wait for 42 years. When they met in the southern city of Valdivia in mid-August, he was finally able to utter the words he had been rehearsing for weeks. “Hola, mamá!,” he said when they finally embraced.

“I’m 42 years old and I’m meeting her and hugging her and holding her for the very first time. That’s so unnatural!” Thyden said later, reflecting on the moment. “It kind of brought me to grips with the wrong that had been done. And then, to know her is to love her. She is a sweet, caring, loving woman of faith and, to know that someone would harm her […] who could hurt such a little, sweet, innocent woman.”

Once in Valdivia, and after also meeting his extended family, there was a very special birthday party that had been organized for him in advance. There were 42 balloons symbolizing the 42 years that he could not celebrate a birthday party with his biological family. As he popped one by one, the family he never knew he had shouted out the number: uno, dos, tres…

“I felt like a lost puzzle piece, a piece that had been lost for 42 years and, in that moment, I felt like I was where I was meant to be, and it felt very much normal, almost as if no time had passed once we got connected,” Thyden said later.

Thyden says that learning the truth has also been painful because his adoptive parents were also lied to and victimized. He says his adoptive parents first contacted an adoption agency in Virginia and specifically asked to adopt a child the right way, through a reputable agency, something that they put in writing.

“They never believed for one second that they were buying a child. They never would have done that,” he said.

Asked about what might have been, Thyden says it’s impossible to know.

“My life came to a T intersection, where I could go either left or right. And instead of going right, it went left. But instead of being the person behind the steering wheel, instead of being a passenger in that car, aware of what was happening, I was the baby in the trunk,” Thyden said.

“It’s not wasted on me that I recognize that I’m blessed in the fact that I have loving families on both sides of the equator. But I don’t know that I wouldn’t have been a lawyer. I don’t know that I wouldn’t have served in the military. Are those things that I did because of where I was or are those things that I did because they are at the core of who I am?,” said Thyden, who pointed out that he says “mom” or “mother” when he’s speaking about his American adoptive mother and “mamá” when he refers to his Chilean, biological mother.

In the end, he says, the wisdom about what happened to him came from his five-year-old daughter, who told him if a bad thing hadn’t happened, she wouldn’t be here. And her father, she told him, has not one but two families who love him deeply.

Vladimir Putin has said Russia will build “good neighborly relations” with North Korea on the fourth day of Kim Jong Un’s lengthy visit to the country, amid warnings from the West that Moscow must not break international sanctions targeting Pyongyang.

“Korea is our neighbor. One way or another, we must build good neighborly relations with our neighbors,” Putin said at a press conference on Friday, after the Russian president’s meeting with Belarus leader Alexander Lukashenko.

“Yes, there are certain special [circumstances] associated with the Korean peninsula, we are discussing this, discussing it openly,” Putin said, claiming Russia “never violate anything, and in this case, we are not going to violate anything either.”

His comments came after Kremlin officials talked up channels for cooperation between Moscow and the secretive state, which is the target of numerous international sanctions. The national security advisers of the United States, South Korea, and Japan on Thursday jointly issued a warning regarding potential violations of international sanctions by North Korea and Russia.

Kim visited an aircraft plant in the eastern city of Komsomolsk-on-Amur on Friday, according to Russian state media. Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister, Denis Manturov, said after the tour that Moscow saw “the potential for cooperation both in aircraft manufacturing and in other industries” with North Korea, according to a Russian government press release Friday on its Telegram channel.

“We see the potential for cooperation both in aircraft manufacturing and in other industries – this is especially relevant for achieving the tasks our countries face to achieve technological sovereignty,” he said.

The facility is the country’s largest aviation manufacturing plant and builds and develops warplanes for the Ministry of Defense, including the Su-35S and Su-57 fighter jets, state media TASS reported. Kim’s late father, Kim Jong Il, also visited the plant in 2002.

Images showed Kim and his delegation at the Yuri Gagarin Komsomolsk-on-Amur Aircraft Plant (KnAAZ), which is named after the famed Russian cosmonaut, and being shown the inside of a fighter jet, according to Russian state media RIA Novosti.

Accompanying Kim on the tour was the city’s mayor, Alexander Zhornik, and the Khabarovsk Region Governor Mikhail Degtyarev.

The North Korean leader is also expected to travel to the port city of Vladivostok where he will view the military capabilities of Russia’s Pacific Fleet, Russian President Vladimir Putin told state news agency Russia 1.

The tour of key sites in the Russian Far East region came after Putin previously said Russia is considering and discussing some military cooperation with North Korea, following a summit at which Kim appeared to endorse Moscow’s war on Ukraine.

Wednesday’s five-hour meeting at the Vostochny Cosmodrome signaled closer relations between the two countries, both of which face international isolation – Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine and Pyongyang for its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile program.

The Kremlin said Thursday that Putin had accepted Kim’s invitation to visit North Korea and that Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov would also visit the country in October, according to spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

Asked if the two leaders discussed military and technical cooperation during the talks, Peskov said it was a “sensitive sphere of cooperation” and reiterated Moscow’s commitment to further developing ties with Pyongyang.

Later on Friday, Peskov said that “no agreements were signed” between the two countries during the visit.

Efforts to showcase that closer relationship were on full display during the summit. Putin presented Kim with a space suit glove that had gone into space and a high-quality domestically manufactured carbine – a type of rifle – while Kim also offered Putin a carbine crafted by North Korean artisans, according to Peskov.

At a state banquet with Putin Wednesday, Kim vowed to establish “a new era of 100-year friendship” between the two countries.

In the weeks before the summit, US officials warned that Russia and North Korea were “actively advancing” in a potential arms deal that could see Pyongyang provide weapons for Moscow to use in its faltering Ukraine war in exchange for sanctioned ballistic missile technology.

Putin was asked if he discussed military-technical cooperation with Kim during the leaders’ meeting. In response, Putin acknowledged there were certain restrictions in place, saying Moscow fully complied with them. But he also said there were areas open for discussion and consideration, suggesting potential points of cooperation.

Kim said before a toast at the state dinner with Putin that he is “certain that the Russian people and its military will emerge victorious in the fight to punish the evil forces that ambitiously pursue hegemony and expansion.”

Without naming Ukraine, Kim said the “Russian military and its people will inherit the shining tradition of victory” and demonstrate their reputation on the front line of “military operation,” the euphemistic phrasing Moscow uses to describe its illegal invasion of Ukraine.

“I will always be standing with Russia,” Kim said, praising Moscow for having “stood up against the hegemonic forces” to defend its sovereignty and security, a veiled reference to the United States and the West.

In return, Putin signaled a willingness to assist North Korea in developing its space and satellite program.

On Thursday, a Ukrainian presidential adviser called the talks “a manifestation of incapacity” and said Ukraine was “taking the actions of Moscow and Pyongyang very seriously and making its own calculations.”

“Moscow’s need to beg for help from North Korea is certainly a reason for jokes, a manifestation of Russia’s incapacity, and a verdict on Putin’s 23-year policy,” said Mykhailo Podolyak, adviser to the Head of the Ukrainian Presidential Office on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence said Wednesday that military cooperation between Russia and North Korea was not new. Russian requests for projectiles for artillery and MLRS (Multiple Launch Rocket Systems) are already known to Ukrainian authorities, Andrii Yusov, representative of the Defense Intelligence, said in an interview with Ukrainian state media.

“We can’t neglect this. This is an important factor that will be felt, unfortunately on the battlefield, but this is not news in this situation. This is a scenario, the reaction to which Ukraine is working on,” Yusov reportedly said.

When asked in a background briefing whether North Korea’s rockets were being supplied to Moscow, an official from South Korea’s presidential office said, “We have long confirmed that weapons provided by North Korea were used by Russia in the Ukraine battlefield.”

The Biden administration believes North Korea delivered infantry rockets and missiles for use in Ukraine by Russian mercenary force Wagner last year.

Meanwhile, the national security advisers of the United States, South Korea, and Japan said in a Thursday statement, released by South Korea’s presidential office, that there would be would be “clear consequences” if either Russia or Norther Korea were to breach their obligations under the United Nations Security Council resolutions and sanctions, particularly those relating to arms trade and military cooperation.

“All three countries expressed grave concerns over the discussions between the two leaders, which included topics related to military cooperation, including the development of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), despite repeated warnings from the international community,” the statement said.

Lampedusa has seen an influx of migrants with 7,000 people arriving in two days, prompting its mayor and the United Nations refugee agency to warn the Italian island is becoming overwhelmed.

The island – whose population is under 7,000 – has long been a first port of call for people crossing from north Africa and has been a flashpoint in Europe’s migration crisis.

Mayor Filippo Mannino on Thursday said the migrant crisis had reached a “point of no return.”

“In the past 48 hours, around 7,000 people have arrived on my island, an island that has always welcomed and saved in its arms,” Mannino told Italy’s RTL 102.5 radio.

“Now we have reached a point of no return where the role played by this small rock in the middle of the Mediterranean has been put into crisis by the dramatic nature of this phenomenon.”

The UN refugee agency’s (UNHCR) Representative for Italy, the Holy See and San Marino, Chiara Cardoletti, said Friday the situation on Lampedusa is “critical,” and moving people off the island is “an absolute priority.”

Cardoletti said that “urgent action” was underway to “bring the island back to normality” and that authorities had transferred around 5,000 people off the island in the last 28 hours.

Many of the latest people to arrive have fled political instability in Tunisia. In previous years, most came from Libya and had been rescued by NGO charity vessels and Italian rescuers rather than reaching the island, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM). The group now fears numbers will rise even further following the catastrophic floods in Libya.

On Wednesday, Germany said it informed Italy of its decision to postpone “until further notice” its intake of migrants under a European voluntary solidarity plan, according to the country’s interior ministry. That program oversees the relocation of asylum-seekers for a year and is aimed at easing pressure on EU borders.

Separately, France’s Interior Minister Gerard Darmanin said earlier this week that due to “the destabilization of Libya and Tunisia, which has accelerated,” more migrants were arriving at the French and Italian border.

Many of those arriving in Lampedusa, and who are transferred to the Italian mainland, try to cross the Ventimiglia border into the French seaside town of Menton.

Darmanin who was speaking from Menton on Tuesday, said “we have a 100% increase in flows on the Italian border, which obviously affects the Alpes-Maritimes department as well as all the departments in the Alps,” announcing “very significant reinforcements” to tackle the situation at the border and “fight illegal immigration.”

“I look at our German friends, they have four times as many asylum applications as we do, which is proof that when you put a lot of resources at the border you also limit attractiveness of our country,” Darmanin said.

“A large proportion of the people who cross the Italian border here want to go to Great Britain, which is also an incentive to negotiate with our British friends and in particular develop a European treaty between the European Union and Great Britain,” he added.

Rosario Valastro, president of Red Cross Italy, whose facility on Lampedusa hosts thousands despite being built for 500 people, said he was expecting some relief after this week’s surge.

“Activity continues incessantly at the Lampedusa hotspot where 3,800 people are present this morning,” the Red Cross said in a statement Friday.

“The over 130 operators and volunteers of the Italian Red Cross are doing beyond the impossible to ensure basic necessities. Yesterday, 5,000 lunch meals and 5,000 dinner meals were produced. We are tested but operational,” Valastro said.

“For us, people come before anything else,” he added.

As of September 14, 125,928 people had arrived in Italy, according to the Interior Ministry, a number that’s in line with those from 2016, when migrant numbers surged in the wake of the Syrian war. However, Flavio Di Giacomo, from IOM, said the number of arrivals in Lampedusa now was much higher than before.

A lack of Libyan Coast Guard presence due to the floods, and the high number of migrants in Libya (a transit country for migration to Europe) kept in detention centers who are now desperate to leave, could also affect arrivals in the coming weeks.

This week, Italy’s Minister of Infrastructure Matteo Salvini called the arrivals “an act of war” during a press conference with Italy’s Foreign Press Association.

He suggested the arrivals were being “orchestrated” and said the government would “stop at nothing” to curtail the arrivals, applauding Italian PM Giorgia Meloni’s attempts to negotiate with Tunisia.

In July, Meloni, along with EU chief Ursula Von der Leyen, traveled to Tunisia with a promise of investment funds as an incentive to stop the boats, including 105 million euros ($111 million) dedicated to stop smugglers, but the EU this week largely stalled the plan in Brussels.

Meloni, under pressure from within her own coalition on migrant numbers, has not commented directly on Lampedusa, but told RAI on Thursday that relocation was not the issue – stopping the arrivals was.

Driving into Derna in the early hours was like arriving in a ghost town. The city, decimated by flash floods that tore through homes and streets earlier this week, was eerily quiet.

Even at night, damage and destruction could be seen everywhere you looked. In the light of day, a scene of utter devastation unfolded.

For our team, which traveled into the area with the Libyan National Army (LNA), it felt like driving into a war zone where massive bombs had gone off.

At least 5,000 people have died in Libya, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said Thursday, and thousands more are feared missing.

Everyone we’ve spoken to here fears and believes the death toll is only going to rise significantly in the coming days.

Officials told us the destruction and loss of life happened within the span of 90 minutes or so after the two dams above Derna burst, sending flood waters sweeping through the city, wiping out entire neighborhoods, homes and infrastructure, and carrying them out to sea.

People are in shock. This is a country that has experienced years of turmoil since the overthrow of Moammar Gadhafi’s regime in 2011 – but the disaster has hit Libyans hard.

They say they still can’t comprehend what happened. They are used to war and death but nothing could have prepared them for this: They feel like a whole city has been wiped out.

Driving in through one of the city’s entrances in the early hours, there was a large handwritten board that read “Sad Derna.” Two young men sat next to it, around a fire, in an otherwise pitch-dark street, their feet covered in mud and clothes in dust. They waved at the LNA escort, smiled and gave a “V” hand gesture.

Libyan officials say bodies are still washing back up on the shores of Derna, days after the wall of water swept through the city.

The detritus of people’s lives can also be seen in the Mediterranean waters – homes, door frames, windows, furniture, clothes, cars – everything.

Meanwhile, at least 30,000 people there have been displaced, the International Organization for Migration said Thursday. Concern for the welfare of survivors is growing.

The head of the ICRC’s Libya delegation said it would take “many months, maybe years,” for residents to recover from the devastation wreaked by Storm Daniel’s heavy rainfall.

The flooding has damaged roads and bridges, making access to the city and surrounding areas difficult. It took more than seven hours to drive from Benghazi airport to Derna on Thursday night – a journey that would typically take three hours.

Libya has been riven by political turmoil since civil war erupted in 2014, and now has two rival governments, the eastern parliament-backed government in Benghazi and the internationally recognized government in Tripoli.

But on the drive from Benghazi, many cars could be seen coming in from different cities from across Libya – from the far west and the western mountains, or the coastal city of Misrata to the south – carrying volunteers or bringing in aid.

Some drivers had spray-painted their cars or were flying flags with a phrase that might translate as “brotherly solidarity” or “rushing to the aid of our brothers.”

One young man described how volunteers were tying ropes around their bodies to dive into the sea and haul out bodies. He recounted having pulled out 40 bodies by himself in the course of one day.

Volunteers are saying they need heavy equipment that can remove large objects, such as cars that are feared to contain dead bodies, from the sea. They need divers and diving equipment, they say.

There is some international support to be seen here, including a Turkish rescue team on a rubber boat. But nowhere near enough to deal with this disaster.

And on landing at Benina airport in Benghazi, there appeared to be no big influx of aid, as one might expect following a catastrophe of this scale.

LNA officials said, though, that the support they have received from countries that have sent in teams has helped them to deal with an unprecedented situation.

‘Immense pain’

“Divers told me that they saw hundreds of bodies about 15-20 kilometers east from the Derna harbor,” he said in a phone call.

“I saw so many bodies in the last two days. I counted at least 200 bodies that were washed up on the shore. These were bodies that were in buildings, swallowed by the sea and pushed back to the shore. The statistics are not accurate, there are many numbers floating around. All I can tell you is the operations are ongoing. I pulled out bodies myself.”

Shteiwi said his “heart aches for all those who have been lost” but that he saw a positive sign with Libyans from east and west coming together.

“Security forces that were once separated are now working together, as if those differences are in the past. It hurts to see that this unification is a result of immense misery and immense pain.”