Pyongyang’s international trade minister Yun Jong Ho is leading the delegation, the state-run KCNA news agency has reported

A high-profile North Korean delegation is making a rare foreign visit to Iran, the state-run KCNA news agency has reported. The last time officials from Pyongyang made a publicly announced trip to Tehran was in 2019.

A delegation headed by North Korea’s minister for external economic relations, Yun Jong Ho, departed for Iran by plane on Tuesday, according to the agency. KCNA did not reveal further details about the visit.

In February, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un sent a congratulatory message to Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi on the 45th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution in the country. Kim expressed confidence that “the traditional relations of friendship and cooperation between our two countries forged on the road of joint struggle against imperialism will expand and develop in various fields.”

US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said last Tuesday that Washington is “incredibly concerned” about alleged cooperation between Tehran and Pyongyang in nuclear and ballistic missile development. The two countries remain under harsh international sanctions over their weapons programs.

Read more US House speaker announces ‘new axis of evil’

Last week, South Korea’s spy agency, the National Intelligence Service (NIS), said it is “keeping tabs on whether the North Korean technology was included in Iran’s ballistic missiles launched against Israel, given the North and Iran’s missile cooperation in the past.”

On April 13, Tehran fired several hundred missiles and drones at military targets inside Israel, in response to an earlier strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus, Syria, which left two generals and several other senior officers dead.

Pyongyang has also faced accusations from the West that Palestinian armed group Hamas, which has ties with Iran, used North Korean weapons in its attack against Israel on October 7.

At the time, KCNA rejected the claims as “a groundless and false rumor,” aimed to “shift the blame for the Middle East crisis caused by [the US] wrong hegemonic policy onto a third country.”

READ MORE: US troubled by Russia’s ‘complete embrace’ of North Korea – senior diplomat

North Korea and Iran have also been accused by the US and its allies of respectively providing artillery shells and drones to Russia amid the conflict with Ukraine. Pyongyang and Tehran have denied the claims, while Russia has insisted it relies on domestically produced weapons for its military operation.

Authorities have warned of possible mud rains and respiratory health risks

A massive dust storm blowing in from Africa has covered Athens and other Greek cities, tinting the sky yellow-orange, videos showed on Tuesday.

According to meteorological services, the Sahara dust storm will be accompanied by mud rains, mostly in the northern and western parts of the country.

The storm coincided with elevated spring temperatures, intensifying its impact, local weather reports stated. The winds are expected to shift direction westward on Wednesday, resulting in lower dust levels.

“This is a phenomenon that occurs these months... it is usually accompanied by southerly winds and an increased temperature,” the director of research at the Institute for Environmental Research and Sustainable Development at the National Observatory, Dr. Kostas Lagouvardos told Athens-Macedonian News Agency.

He described it as an “important environmental problem because it affects many people, especially when the concentrations are high on the ground.”

READ MORE: Hot pink northern lights illuminate skies over Russia (VIDEO)

Doctors are warning of increased risks to citizens, especially those with pre-existing respiratory conditions.

#شاهد | إغلاق المجال الجوي وتعليق الرحلات من وإلى مطار #بنينا الدولي في #بنغازي بسبب سوء الأحوال الجوية. #ليبيا_أوبزرفر #ليبيا pic.twitter.com/fCGiwBK1aw

— ‎ليبيا أوبزرڤر - The Libya Observer (@lyobserver_ar) April 22, 2024

The Sahara sandstorm forced Libya to suspend air traffic on Monday and Tuesday. It was accompanied by winds reaching up to 70 km/h, according to the Libya Observer. Video broadcast by local media showed a runway covered in a thick layer of sand.

The pathogen has been detected in 33 herds across eight states, officials say

Particles of bird flu have been found in samples of consumer milk in the US, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said in a report on Tuesday, revealing the extent of the outbreak of the H5N1 strain of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI).

The virus has previously been detected in raw milk, the agency wrote, adding that while “pasteurization is likely to inactivate the virus,” the process is not expected to fully remove the presence of viral particles.

The FDA national survey further discovered traces of bird flu in “milk from affected animals, in the processing system, and on the shelves.”

“To date, we have seen nothing that would change our assessment that the commercial milk supply is safe,” the agency claimed, insisting that if the testing process finds “genetic material” from the virus, this “does not mean that the sample contains an intact, infectious pathogen.”

While the FDA insists there is no real concern about the safety of pasteurized dairy products, other agencies said the produce from sick cows shouldn’t be on the shelves. “Only milk from healthy animals is authorized for distribution into interstate commerce for human consumption,” the National Milk Producers Federation wrote on its website.

Read more EU state reports ‘highly pathogenic’ bird flu outbreak

Meanwhile, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has revealed that bird flu has been found in 33 herds of dairy cows in eight states as of Monday.

Although Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza has been going around for more than 20 years, its spread to bovine livestock is of substantial concern, the Washington Post wrote on Tuesday.

The concern “is that it’s showing up in a lot more samples, meaning the infection is more widespread in dairy herds than we thought,” a US public health official told the paper on the condition of anonymity.

Both the USDA and the FDA have urged consumers to avoid drinking raw milk as the situation evolves. Further results are expected in the coming days and weeks, authorities said.

The attacks targeted “civilian fuel and energy” infrastructure in Smolensk Region, governor Vasily Anokhin has said

The Ukrainian forces have targeted civilian energy infrastructure in Russia’s Smolensk Region with drones, local governor Vasily Anokhin reported on Wednesday morning.

“Our region is again under attack by Ukrainian UAVs,” Anokhin wrote on Telegram around 5am local time, adding that the Russian air defenses were responding to the raid.

The drone attack targeted “civilian fuel and energy facilities” and resulted in several fires in the Smolensky and Yartsevsky districts, according to the official. The firefighters are already working to tackle the blaze, Anokhin added, urging the residents to remain calm.

Smolensk Region is around 300 kilometers southeast of Moscow and borders Belarus. The distance to the border with Ukraine is some 400km.

Ukraine already attempted to bomb another undisclosed oil and energy facility in Smolensk last week. While the drones were downed, debris fell onto a storage unit of oil and lubricants, resulting in a small fire, according to Anokhin.

On Saturday, Russian air defenses intercepted several Ukrainian drone raids across the western part of the country, destroying some 50 drones over the border regions of Belgorod, Bryansk and Kursk, as well as deeper into Russia in Smolensk, Ryazan, Kaluga, and Moscow Regions.

Mitch McConnell accused the journalist of “demonizing” Kiev

The top-ranking Republican in the US Senate, Mitch McConnell, has claimed that Tucker Carlson’s interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin convinced too many “rank-and-file Republicans” that spending billions of taxpayer dollars on arming Kiev against Moscow was actually harming Americans and wrecking the US economy.

As a new multi-billion-dollar US aid package to Ukraine was clearing the last procedural hurdles on Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell attempted to pin the blame for months of delays on former Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson and former President Donald Trump.

“I think the demonization of Ukraine began by Tucker Carlson, who in my opinion ended up where he should have been all along, which was interviewing Vladimir Putin,” McConnell told a press briefing.

“He convinced a lot of rank-and-file Republicans that maybe this was a mistake,” he said, arguing that Trump’s “mixed views” on Ukraine aid further fuelled confusion over the official narrative in Washington.

“And then our nominee for president didn’t seem to want us to do anything at all,” McConnell added. “That took months to work our way through it.”

Read more Ukraine conflict weakening US – Tucker Carlson

Carlson recorded a lengthy interview with Putin in February, a first by a Western reporter since the conflict with Ukraine began, in which they discussed the ongoing hostilities and Moscow’s standoff with NATO.

The exchange went viral globally, with over 200 million views on X (formerly Twitter) alone, yet critics accused Carlson of not being confrontational enough with the Russian leader. The American journalist argued that most Western media outlets lie to their audiences, mainly by omission – and that the point of his interview was “to have more information brought to the West so people could make their own decisions.”

“I reject the whole premise of the war in Ukraine from the American perspective,” Carlson said in February, looking back at his conversation with Putin. “There’s a war going on that is wrecking the US economy in a way and at a scale that people do not understand.”

Read more Pentagon threatening Americans over Ukraine – Tucker Carlson

President Joe Biden requested additional cash for Ukraine last October after burning through $113 billion in previously approved spending bills. However, the request had been stalled until this week because of opposition from Republican lawmakers, who argued that Biden was merely prolonging Kiev’s conflict with Russia while offering no clear strategy for victory or a peace agreement. Most Republicans voted against the aid bill on Saturday, but House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) overrode his own party by enabling a vote on the bill and pushing it through with unanimous Democrat support.

Ottawa has granted the company a waiver from its own sanctions

The Canadian government has allowed Airbus to use Russian-produced titanium in its manufacturing processes despite being the first Western state to sanction the strategic metal.

Ottawa banned supplies from Russian titanium giant VSMPO-AVISMA – the world’s largest producer of processed titanium – in its February sanctions package against Moscow. The metal is important to the aerospace industry, prized for its strength relative to its weight.

“Airbus is aware of the Canadian government imposing sanctions on VSMPO and has obtained the necessary authorisation to secure Airbus operations in compliance with the applicable sanctions,” Airbus Canada told Reuters on Tuesday, without elaborating on the timeline.

While the EU has extensively sanctioned Moscow following the escalation of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine in February 2022, it has held off on blacklisting VSMPO-AVISMA. The exemption from the Canadian government is designed to give Airbus leeway in importing jets produced in the EU and built with Russian titanium, Reuters said.

Read more US sanctions Boeing titanium supplier

Airbus announced they were “decoupling” from Russian titanium in 2022. “It will be a matter of months not years,” Airbus Defense and Space CEO Michael Schoellhorn said in December of that year.

The company’s competitor Boeing also claimed to have stopped purchasing supplies of the strategic metal from Russia in 2022. However, major suppliers for Boeing – such as the Safran group and Rolls-Royce – have continued purchasing titanium from VSMPO-AVISMA, Washington Post wrote last month, saying it illustrated how the West remains dependent on Russia for the metal.

Only Canada and Ukraine have sanctioned the Russian titanium giant, while Ukraine’s biggest sponsor, the US, has placed export controls on the corporation in September. The limitations prohibit American exports to the company, but allow its titanium into the US.

The US could send $1 billion in new aid to Kiev as soon as President Biden authorizes a drawdown

The Pentagon has set up a robust logistical system to reportedly send up to $1 billion worth of weapons to Ukraine, once the long-delayed legislation to fund Kiev’s war effort against Moscow clears the Senate and is signed by President Joe Biden.

The new aid package will include air defense munitions and large amounts of artillery rounds, as well as armored vehicles and other weapons, several US officials told AP on Tuesday. According to unnamed sources, some of the items on the list can be shipped “within days,” but others could take longer to deliver.

The Pentagon has neither confirmed nor denied the report of a new package ready to be shipped, but press secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder told journalists on Tuesday that the US military is “doing everything we can to be poised to respond quickly” once the foreign aid package clears procedural hurdles.

“I think it’s a good assumption to expect that it’ll include air defense capabilities as well as artillery, ammunition,” Ryder said. “I will say again, that this security assistance package will be based on Ukraine’s most urgent needs.”

Read more New US aid package will just kill more Ukrainians – Kremlin

The $95 billion funding package, including $61 billion for Ukraine, is expected to advance to a Senate vote on Tuesday evening or Wednesday morning, after the senators voted overwhelmingly to end a filibuster on the issue.

President Biden already reassured his Ukrainian colleague Vladimir Zelensky in a phone call on Monday that weapons shipments will begin rapidly after the bill clears the Senate and comes to the Oval Office for his signature. While the White House offered few details on Biden-Zelensky call, the Ukrainian leader claimed that Kiev will be receiving longer-range ATACMS missiles.

The multi-billion-dollar US aid package was requested by the White House months ago but was only passed by the House of Representatives on Saturday, after Speaker Mike Johnson agreed to it.

Read more Ukraine has lost almost half a million troops – Moscow

Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu noted on Tuesday that America’s expected military assistance for Kiev is intended to “prevent the collapse” of Ukrainian forces, but predicted that the money will not significantly impact the situation on the battlefield, since “most of the funding will go to US military production.”

“The American authorities cynically state that Ukrainians will be dying in the fight with Russia for their interests,” Shoigu stated. Officials in both Washington and Kiev have argued that paying Ukraine to fight Russia is preferable to the US having to fight Russia directly.

Trailers have brought in Bradley, Marder and M113 vehicles formerly in Ukrainian service

Some of the equipment provided to Ukraine by the US and its allies has been spotted in the Russian capital, in the vicinity of Victory Park.

The park is located on Poklonnaya Gora, the hill southwest of Moscow that is home to the museums of victories in 1812 and 1945.

A video shared by the Russian military’s Zvezda TV channel on Tuesday showed two US-made M113 armored personnel carriers and a Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle (IFV), as well as the German-made Marder IFV, on transport trailers.

The Ukrainian-made ‘Azovets’ armored vehicle was also spotted on its way to the complex.

Hundreds of the obsolete M113s, first deployed in the 1960s, were sent to Ukraine by the US and its allies over the past two years. It was not clear where the one to be displayed may have been taken.

Washington followed up those deliveries with the Bradley IFV, which first saw service in the 1980s. Many of them were destroyed in the first days of Ukraine’s Zaporozhye offensive, last June. One was famously captured while still running by the “Anime squad” of Russian volunteers.

A German-made Marder was captured in near-pristine condition in late March, near the former Ukrainian stronghold of Avdeevka in the Donbass. After running some tests , the Russian military concluded it was too heavy, underpowered, and overall ill-suited to the Ukraine battlefield.

Read more WATCH German-made Leopard tank towed to Russian trophy display

The final trophy appeared to be the ‘Azovets’, a Ukrainian-designed heavy fighting vehicle that mysteriously vanished from its factory in 2016. It was eventually found buried at a base of the neo-Nazi “Azov” battalion, near Mariupol.

Muscovites have speculated that the trophies will either be put on display, or shown off during the Victory Day parade on May 9, the annual celebration of the triumph over Nazi Germany.

A captured Ukrainian Leopard 2A6 – donated either by Germany or another NATO member – was towed from the frontline over the weekend. It will presumably end up at the Kubinka tank museum located at the Patriot Park outside Moscow.

The four-legged “dog” is equipped with a flamethrower

Almost any American with about $10,000 to spare can now own a robot dog with a flamethrower mounted on its back, the Ohio-based company Throwflame has announced.

The four-legged creature dubbed ‘Thermonator’ is actually a drone, controlled via a first-person-view (FPV) interface, with a battery life of up to one hour. Its ARC flamethrower has a range of 30 feet (10 meters), according to specifications released by the company.

“Thermonator is the first-ever flamethrower-wielding robot dog,” the company said in a press release on Tuesday, when it started taking orders.

The Thermonator appears to be based on the Unitree Go1, a smaller and lighter version of the Boston Dynamics’ famous ‘Spot’ robo-dog. Throwflame has listed its retail price as $9,420, with free shipping to any US state.

According to the company, flamethrowers are “federally unregulated and not even considered a firearm (ironic) by the [Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms].” Only two states have restrictions on flamethrowers; California requires a permit, while Maryland has outlawed them entirely. It is the buyer’s responsibility to make sure they obey local laws, Throwflame said.

READ MORE: Robot kills man

The Cleveland, Ohio-based company bills itself as “the oldest flamethrower manufacturer in the US” and claims its products are “built with pride by military veterans.”