When the world gets closer.

We help you see farther.

Sign up to our expressly international daily newsletter.

Already a subscriber? Log in .

You've reached your limit of one free article.

Get unlimited access to Worldcrunch

You can cancel anytime .

SUBSCRIBERS BENEFITS

Exclusive International news coverage

Ad-free experience NEW

Weekly digital Magazine NEW

9 daily & weekly Newsletters

Access to Worldcrunch archives

Free trial

30-days free access, then $2.90
per month.

Annual Access BEST VALUE

$19.90 per year, save $14.90 compared to monthly billing.save $14.90.

Subscribe to Worldcrunch
InterNations
North Korea

WATCH - North Korea Releases Unbelievable Video Of US City Under Attack

THE KOREA TIMES (South Korea), URIMINZOKKIRI (North Korea), AFP

Worldcrunch

North Korea, which is expected to carry out a third nuclear test any day now, has released a video depicting a city that resembles New York under missile attack.

The footage shows a dream sequence, set to the tune of Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie’s song "We Are The World." It features a young man picturing himself circling the globe on board a space shuttle.

The video gets real around the two-minute mark, when the camera zooms in to reveal what looks like New York City shrouded in a U.S. flag, its skyscrapers engulfed in flames after being hit by North Korean rockets.

The video was uploaded on Uriminzokkiri.com – a website that distributes news from North Korea's central news agency.

According to the AFP, the captions running across the screen read:

"Somewhere in the United States, black clouds of smoke are billowing"

"It seems that the nest of wickedness is ablaze with the fire started by itself"

The end of the video has the young man conclude that his dream will "surely come true"

The whole footage could be seen as just another provocation from a country known for its delusions of grandeur. But it coincides with a statement from South Korea's ambassador to the United Nations Kim Sook, warning that a North Korean nuclear test "seems to be imminent," The Korea Times reports.

The threat has led South Korea and the United States to warn North Korean leader Kim Jong-un of "further consequences," were the country to press on with a third nuclear test (North Korea carried two previous tests in 2006 and 2009).

Sanctions may most likely include a global freeze on Pyongyang’s international transactions and expanding the proliferation security initiative (PSI), a U.S.-led maritime interdiction of ships that are suspected of transporting banned materials, according to The Korea Times.

You've reached your limit of free articles.

To read the full story, start your free trial today.

Get unlimited access. Cancel anytime.

Exclusive coverage from the world's top sources, in English for the first time.

Insights from the widest range of perspectives, languages and countries.

Society

Iran's War On Abortion Rights, A Toxic Mix Of Theocracy And Demographic Panic

Ending a pregnancy has become a major complication, and a crime, for Iranian women who cannot or will not have children in a country wracked by socio-economic woes and a leadership.

photo of a young child surrounded by women in chadors

Iran's government wants to boost the birth rate at all costs

Office of Supreme Leader/ZUMA
Firoozeh Nordstrom

Keen to boost the population, Iran's Islamic regime has reversed its half-hearted family planning policies of earlier years and is curbing birth control with measures that include banning abortion.

Its (2021) Law to Support the Family and Rejuvenate the Population (Qanun-e hemayat az khanevadeh va javani-e jam'iyat) threatens to fine the women who want to abort, and fine, imprison, and dismiss the performing physician, if the pregnancy is not deemed to be life-threatening. The law also bans contraceptives.

For the latest news & views from every corner of the world, Worldcrunch Today is the only truly international newsletter. Sign up here.

The measures are in line with the dictates of Iran's Supreme leader, Ali Khamenei. He was already denouncing birth control policies by 2018-19, though conservative elements among Iran's rulers have always dismissed birth control as a piece of Western corruption.

Today, measures to boost families include land and credit incentives for young couples, but it is difficult to say how far they will counter a marked reluctance among Iranians to marry and procreate. Kayhan-London had an online conversation with individuals affected by the new rules in Iran.

Keep reading...Show less

The latest