Ayumi Fujimoto

NBC News • 12th May 2022

Kim declares 'most serious emergency' as North Korea reports first Covid cases

HONG KONG — North Korea is raising its anti-epidemic measures to the maximum level, state media reported Thursday, as it confirmed its first coronavirus infection after claiming to be virus-free since the start of the pandemic.

Tests of samples collected on Sunday from an unspecified number of people with fevers in the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, confirmed that they were infected with the omicron variant of the virus, the Korean Central News Agency reported, calling it “a most serious emer

NBC News • 29th March 2022

Kremlin says Biden's Putin comments 'alarming'

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said Monday he has asked an official to explore a humanitarian cease-fire in Ukraine. Guterres said he asked Martin Griffiths, under-secretary-general at the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, to start immediately and that "he already made some contacts." "I think this is the moment in which I believe it makes sense for the U.N. to assume the initiative," Guterres told reporters. There have been agreements for humanitarian corridors in Uk

NBC News • 26th March 2022

Movie about bride kidnapping in Kyrgyzstan nominated for Academy Award

In rural Kyrgyzstan, an estimated 1 in 3 marriages begin with an abduction, researchers and rights groups say.

Unaware of abductors waiting for them outside their workplace or home, women are forcibly shoved into a vehicle, often in broad daylight, and driven to a man’s village for marriage, they say.

At times, these men kidnap the wrong woman. But once they set out to bring home a bride, it doesn’t matter who she is, as one fictional character finds in “Ala Kachuu - Take and Run,” one of the

NBC News • 22nd March 2022

Kyiv refuses demands to surrender Mariupol

Russia has responded to Japanese sanctions by terminating World War II peace treaty talks with the country, which responded angrily Tuesday. The two countries never formally ended hostilities because of a territorial dispute over an island chain that lies between them. The islands, which Russia calls the Kurils and Japan calls the Northern Territories, were occupied by the Soviet Union in 1945. Moscow is halting the talks with Tokyo as well as efforts toward joint economic activity on the island

NBC News • 16th March 2022

E.U. leaders visit Kyiv amid crisis

Ukrainian president claims Russia has lost more military equipment than in both Chechen wars Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy claimed Monday that Russian forces had lost more military equipment in nearly three weeks than during both of their invasions of Chechnya, the small republic in Russia’s southwest that endured years of bloody conflict and destruction beginning in the 1990s. Saying Ukrainian soldiers were inflicting “devastating” losses on invading troops, Zelenskyy seemed to taunt

NBC News • 30th April 2022

Kyiv rocked by missile strikes, Moscow makes 'limited' progress in east

Zelenskyy accuses Russia of trying to destroy Donbas KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia of trying to destroy the Donbas and all who live there. “The constant brutal bombardments, the constant Russian strikes on infrastructure and residential areas show that Russia wants to empty this territory of all people. Therefore, the defense of our land, the defense of our people, is literally a fight for life,” he said late Friday in his nightly video address to the nat

NBC News • 30th March 2022

U.S., Ukraine skeptical of Moscow's claims it will scale back military

Video shows damage in Ukrainian city of Irpin, said to be liberated Recaptured Ukrainian city of Irpin left with destruction from Russian invasion Video from the city of Irpin on Tuesday showed the devastation in the western Kyiv suburb a day after Ukraine's president and others said the city was back under their control. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Monday that Ukrainian forces had freed Irpin from Russian control, more than a month after Russia attacked and invaded Ukraine in an assault

NBC News • 15th March 2022

Moscow and Kyiv meet for talks as attacks intensify

Zelenskyy expected to ask Congress for more support: 'Time is people's lives' 'No time to wait': Former Zelenskyy press secretary discusses his coming address to Congress Zelenskyy is expected to outline the urgent needs of his country, particularly air defense support, in his virtual address to the Congress, said Iuliia Mendel, his former press secretary. Speaking Monday to MSNBC, Mendel said Zelenskyy “will explain the situation on the ground and will explain everything that Ukraine is doing t