At least 100 North Koreans dead in Ukraine war, says South Korea

BBC News,

At least 100 North Korean soldiers have been killed in fighting in the Ukraine war since entering combat on the Russian side earlier this month, a South Korean MP has said.Lee Sung-kwon, speaking to reporters after parliament was briefed by the country’s National Intelligence Service, said another 1,000 had been injured.

He said the casualties included high-ranking officials, and could be explained by the troops lack of familiarity with the terrain, and with drone warfare.The first reports of North Korean casualties came earlier this week. It emerged in October that the North had sent 10,000 troops to help Russia’s war effort.

They are not thought to have been deployed in Ukraine itself, where Russian troops have been advancing in eastern parts of the country in recent months.Neither Russia nor the North have acknowledged the troop deployments, but a North Korean statement on Thursday carried by state news agency KCNA said the country’s alliance with Moscow was “deterring the US and the West’s ill-intended extension of influence”.

Fed lowers rates but sees fewer cuts next year due to stubbornly high inflation

Reuters,

The U.S. central bank cut interest rates on Wednesday, as expected, but Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said more reductions in borrowing costs now hinge on further progress in lowering stubbornly high inflation, remarks that showed policymakers are starting to reckon with the prospects for sweeping economic changes under a Trump administration.

Powell’s explicit – and repeated – references to the need for caution from here on jolted Wall Street, sending stocks sharply lower, bond yields higher and leading investors to dial back estimates of how far borrowing costs are likely to fall over the coming year.

“I think we’re in a good place, but I think from here it’s a new phase and we’re going to be cautious about further cuts,” Powell said at a press conference after the central bank’s policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee cut its benchmark interest rate by a quarter of a percentage point at the end of a two-day meeting.

Powell described at length the ways in which inflation has improved since peaking in 2022, as well as the ways it has disappointed by moving “sideways” in recent months, with shelter costs in particular improving more slowly than the Fed expected.

While he said the Fed remained confident price pressures would continue to ease, he also acknowledged central bank staff and policymakers were beginning to at least preliminarily think through how President-elect Donald Trump’s promises of higher tariffs, tax cuts and tougher immigration policy will change the outlook.

In developing ,”some people did take a very preliminary step and start to incorporate highly conditional estimates of economic effects of policies into their forecasts at this meeting,” Powell said of an outlook in which U.S. central bankers anticipated a higher inflation outlook and fewer rate cuts next year.

An index of policymakers’ sense of risk around their projections also shifted sharply higher for inflation, with a separate measure of uncertainty increasing as well in an abrupt change from the outlook issued in September, before the Nov. 5 U.S. presidential election.

Powell said those changes were largely driven by data, but analysts saw the beginnings of a reckoning with Trump policies that many expect will add to inflation pressures.

The new projections show officials expect the personal consumption expenditures price index excluding food and energy costs, or core PCE, to be stuck at 2.5% through 2025, an improvement over this year’s 2.8% but significantly higher than the Fed’s 2% target.

“Uncertainty and upside risks to core PCE inflation both up sharply since September. This seems to largely reflect new government policies’ potential impact,” said Karim Basta, chief economist with III Capital Management.

Human Rights Watch accuses Israel of genocide by ‘deliberately’ restricting water in Gaza 

CNN,

Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Thursday accused Israel of “acts of genocide” against Palestinians in Gaza by depriving them of adequate water supplies.

The group, in an extensive report, found that between October 2023 and September 2024, Israeli authorities deprived Palestinians of what the World Health Organization (WHO) says is the minimum quantity of water required for survival in prolonged emergency situations. This has contributed to thousands of deaths and the spread of numerous diseases, the report found.

CNN has reached out to the Israeli military and COGAT, the Israeli agency responsible for approving aid into Gaza, for comment on the report.The Israeli government has denied previous allegations of genocide as “entirely baseless,” and has categorically denied using hunger as a weapon of war.

According to WHO, a person needs between 50 and 100 liters (13 and 26 gallons) of water per day to ensure their “basic needs are met.” In protracted emergency situations, the minimum amount of water can drop to 15 to 20 liters per day for drinking and washing.

For the over 2 million Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip, even this is out of reach, HRW found. Most or all of the water Palestinians in Gaza have access to is not safe to drink.