People set off fireworks as they celebrated his resignation in Baghdad's Tahrir Square, after anti-government protests, which began on October 1, swept through the country against alleged government corruption and Iranian involvement in the country's affairs.
In the statement, Abdul Mahdi said he would submit a resignation request to parliament "to consider its options, with the knowledge that those near and far are aware that I had already made this decision known."
He called on Iraq's government to "act in the interests of Iraq; to preserve the blood of its people; and to avoid slipping into a cycle of violence, chaos and devastation."
Abdul Mahdi said his resignation was in response to the Friday sermon of Iraq's top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who referenced the "failure of respective agencies to handle developments over the past two months."
The news comes after the Iranian consulate in the southern city of Najaf was attacked on Wednesday. Mahdi ordered an investigation on Thursday into the deaths of at least 31 people.
More than 1,000 people were injured over three days of demonstrations across Iraq from November 26 to November 28, the country's Independent High Commission for Human Rights said Thursday.
In total, more than 300 people have been killed and 15,000 injured in Iraq since the protests began. Protesters have demanded the government step down and hold early elections under direct supervision of the United Nations, activists told CNN.
Many Iraqis blame the current political parties in power for their economic hardship.
Officials have imposed curfews, internet blackouts, and deployed lethal force in attempts to quash the protests. The government said it only shoots when attacked, but demonstrators have disputed that.
MEXICO CITY – Civil defense officials in northern Mexico have confirmed the death of California mountain climber Brad Gobright in a fall.
The fall occurred at an almost sheer rock face known as Sendero Luminoso on the El Potrero Chico peak near the northern city of Monterrey.
The Nuevo Leon state civil defense office said Thursday that Gobright fell about 300 meters (yards).
The publication Rock and Ice described the 31-year-old Gobright as a native of Orange County, California, who was “one of the most accomplished free solo climbers in the world.”
Ten global partners of Alibaba beat the gong during the company's listing on the Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Market on November 26, 2019.
VCG | Visual China Group | Getty Images
Hong Kong has been engulfed in anti-government protests for months, but the city's capital markets have remained an important gateway between China and the world, according to an industry association.
That's despite China ramping up efforts to open up its financial sector to foreign investors, said Mark Austen, chief executive at Asia Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, or Asifma. China has recently announced its plans to scrap limits on foreign stakes and quotas for foreign securities investment.
"China needs to move from an over reliance on bank lending to one where they have a dynamic, liquid capital market to fund their economic growth going forward," Austen told CNBC's "Squawk Box Asia" on Friday.
"But we still see Hong Kong as being that conduit to enter and exit China in the medium term because it's really the only option that exists for China to connect to the outside world," he added.
Hong Kong's edge over China lies in its openness to foreign investors and "strong rule of law," which are important to maintain, said Austen. That appeal is evident in Chinese tech giant Alibaba's recent Hong Kong listing, which attracted strong demand from investors, he noted.
Alibaba's secondary listing — the world's largest offering so far this year — came at a time when business sentiment in Hong Kong has taken a hit amid the protests, which at times involved violent clashes between protesters and the police.
"In spite of what's going on in Hong Kong at the moment, Alibaba has proven that the market (in Hong Kong) is still stable, it's still liquid," said Austen.
Still, China's opening up is a trend that looks set to continue, but the extent and pace depend on financial stability in the country, said Michael Taylor, chief credit officer for Asia Pacific at Moody's Investors Service.
"I think the commitment is very strong. The authorities have shown their willingness to open up markets," he told CNBC's "Street Signs Asia" on Friday.
"Obviously, that's subject to other policy constraints that they have. One of the overarching objectives is to maintain stability. So, any opening up is going to be subject to its impact in terms of overall financial stability."
A woman in Seoul watches a news program in reporting North Korea's firing unidentified projectiles Thursday, with a file image of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. | Lee Jin-man/AP Photo
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea on Thursday fired two short-range projectiles, likely from a “super-large” multiple rocket launcher, South Korea’s military said, adding to tensions three days after the North said its troops conducted artillery drills near its disputed sea boundary with South Korea.
The recent North Korea activities could indicate it wants to show what would happen if Washington fails to meet a year-end deadline set by its leader, Kim Jong Un, for the U.S. to offer a new proposal in their stalemated nuclear talks.
Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement that the projectiles were launched toward the North’s eastern waters from northeastern South Hamgyong province.
Maj. Gen. Jeon Dong Jin, a senior operations officer at the JCS, said the projectiles flew about 380 kilometers (235 miles) at a maximum altitude of 97 kilometers (60 miles). He said South Korean and U.S. intelligence authorities were continuing to analyze the details.
“Our military expresses its strong regret over (the launches) and urges (North Korea) to immediately stop acts that escalate military tensions,” Jeon said in a televised briefing. He said the military is monitoring possible additional launches by North Korea.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe condemned the launches as a “serious challenge” to both Japan and the international community, even though the projectiles did not land inside Japanese territorial waters.
He said his government will “do its utmost” to protect the lives and assets of Japanese people.
The reported launches were the 13th major public weapons test by North Korea this year and the first since it conducted what it called a test-firing of a new “super-large” multiple rocket launcher late last month. That launcher is apparently the same system that South Korea’s military said was likely used in Thursday’s launches.
Abe called the projectiles “ballistic missiles.” Some experts have said that projectiles fired from the “super-large” multiple rocket launcher are virtually missiles or missile-class weapons.
On Monday, North Korea said leader Kim visited a front-line islet and ordered artillery troops there to practice firing near the sea boundary, the scene of several bloody naval clashes between the Koreas in past years. South Korea protested the drills, saying they violated an agreement last year aimed at lowering military animosity.
Seoul’s Defense Ministry said the artillery firing occurred on Nov. 23, the 9th anniversary of the North Korean shelling of a South Korean border island that killed four South Koreans in 2010.
With nuclear diplomacy with the United States largely deadlocked, North Korea has test-fired a series of newly developed weapons to pressure the U.S. while using the standstill in negotiations to upgrade its military capabilities. In early October, it conducted its first underwater launch of a ballistic missile in three years.
Attention is now focused on whether North Korea will resume long-range missile and nuclear tests which have been suspended since it conducted the third of three intercontinental ballistic missile tests in November 2017. President Donald Trump has called the suspension of those tests a major achievement of his North Korea policy.
Some experts say North Korea may restart those major weapons tests if the United States fails to meet the deadline. But others say North Korea is likely to begin with less serious provocations while attempting to improve cooperation with China and Russia, because ICBM and nuclear tests would completely derail diplomacy with the United States.
In recent weeks, high-level North Korean officials have issued statements via state media saying their country is not interested in diplomacy with the U.S. unless Washington abandons hostile policies toward the North.
North Korea says it wants the U.S. to lift international sanctions imposed on it and provide security guarantees before abandoning its advancing nuclear arsenal. But U.S. officials have said the sanctions on the North will remain in place until North Korea takes substantial steps toward denuclearization.
The nuclear negotiations broke down in February when Trump rejected Kim’s demands for major sanctions relief in return for partial disarmament steps during their second summit in Vietnam. They held a third, impromptu meeting in late June at the Korean border village of Panmunjom.
Kim Jong Un’s regime has set a year-end deadline for the U.S. to comply with its demands, threatening to escalate its provocations in 2020.
Photo:
Associated Press
SEOUL—North Korea fired two unidentified projectiles toward the waters off its east coast, according to South Korea’s military, in another weapons test aimed at increasing pressure on the U.S. to provide sanctions relief amid stalled denuclearization talks.
Seoul’s Defense Ministry on Thursday said the North conducted the test at about 4:59 p.m. local time a few miles from the North Korean port city of Hamhung, near a town believed to host a military airfield.
The latest provocation marks the North’s 14th weapons test of this year, according to South and North Korean government announcements, and follows a visit by leader
Kim Jong Un
to a military base near the Yellow Sea days earlier to oversee the testing of coastal artillery.
Experts said the tests signal Pyongyang’s growing impatience with Washington, which has been reluctant to ease sanctions that have hurt North Korea’s economy. Mr. Kim has repeatedly said economic growth is a major policy goal this year.
“North Korea is trying to tell the U.S. these weapons tests can become much more frequent, if the Americans don’t yield concessions,” said Shin Beom-cheol, a former adviser to the South Korean government and now a senior researcher at the Seoul-based Asan Institute, a private think tank.
“They are also separately testing the reactions of the U.S. and South Korean militaries to these weapons tests,” he said.
Pyongyang has escalated its threats in recent weeks to cut off negotiations with the U.S., protesting scheduled U.S.-South Korea military exercises and attacking Washington’s “hostile” policy against the isolated regime. Last week it rejected President Trump’s latest invitation for another nuclear summit.
The Kim regime has set a year-end deadline for the U.S. to comply with its demands, threatening to escalate its provocations in 2020.
“Washington is too busy with the impeachment hearings, and appears to be ignoring Kim Jong Un’s year-end ultimatum,” said
Nam Sung-wook,
a professor of North Korean studies at Korea University. “Kim loses face the more Washington looks like it ignores him. Weapons tests give him an excuse to tell his people that he stood up to U.S. sanctions and bullying.”
Nuclear talks between Washington and Pyongyang haven’t made much progress since a summit between Messrs.
Trump
and Kim in February ended without a deal. In June, Mr. Trump made an impromptu visit to the demilitarized zone on the inter-Korean border to meet Mr. Kim and agreed to restart working-level negotiations. But talks collapsed almost as soon as they resumed in October, with North Korean diplomats walking out after accusing their American counterparts of not offering adequate economic and security concessions.
Despite test-firing short-range missiles and rockets since April, Pyongyang has refrained from testing long-range missiles or nuclear warheads since November 2017—something that Mr. Trump has claimed as a foreign-policy win and which North Korea has said that it expects to be rewarded for.
The Iranian statement comes amid ongoing demonstrations in Iraq against government corruption, and a rejection of Iranian involvement in the country's affairs.
On Thursday, 13 protesters were killed in the city of Nasariyah with 75 people injured, a security official and a medic told CNN on condition of anonymity, as they are not authorized to speak to the media. Authorities imposed a curfew on Nasariyah, which lies more than 200 miles southeast of Baghdad.
Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi expressed "hatred" for the rioters who stormed and torched the consulate on Wednesday. Mousavi called on the Iraqi government to deal with the "perpetrators of the attack responsibly, firmly and effectively," according to an Iranian foreign affairs ministry statement released on Thursday.
Iran's diplomatic staff evacuated the consulate before the attack, state-run Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) said Thursday. This is the second attack on an Iranian embassy in Iraq after its office in the Shia holy city of Karbala was attacked last month.
More than 300 people have been killed and 15,000 injured in Iraq since the start of anti-government protests on October 1.
Protests have erupted in Baghdad and in several Shiite provinces in the south over unemployment, alleged government corruption and a lack of basic services.
Following the deadly government crackdown, however, protesters have demanded the government to step down and hold early elections under direct supervision of the United Nations, activists told CNN.
Many Iraqis blame the current political parties in power for their economic hardship. The scale of the protests, believed to be the biggest since the fall of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in 2003, took the government by surprise.
Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul Mahdi agreed to resign on October 31 after weeks of anti-government protests.
Besides using lethal force, officials have imposed curfews and internet blackouts in attempts to quash the protests. The government said it only shoots when attacked, but demonstrators have disputed that.
