North Korea says leader Kim Jong Un has observed a live-fire test of multiple rocket launch systems to examine the country’s war deterrence. The testing activity on Saturday was a likely response to ongoing U.S.-South Korean military training that North Korea views as an invasion rehearsal. North Korea's state media reported Sunday that Kim watched the drill involving twelve 600mm-calibre, ultraprecision rocket launchers. KCNA photos show Kim and his teenage daughter walking near launch trucks and looking at weapons being launched from them. South Korea’s military had earlier said it detected about 10 ballistic missiles fired from North Korea’s capital region on Saturday.

North Korea on Saturday has fired about 10 ballistic missiles toward the eastern sea, South Korea’s military says, staging its own show of force as the rival South conducts a joint military exercise with the United States. South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff say the missiles were fired from an area near the North Korean capital of Pyongyang. Japan’s Defense Ministry says the weapons landed in waters outside the country’s exclusive economic zone. North Korea has long said the joint U.S.-South Korea drills were invasion rehearsals and has used them to justify weapons tests and other military demonstrations.

Iran’s secretive new leader has issued his first public statements, resolving to keep fighting. In the statement released Thursday, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei promised more pain for Gulf Arab states and threatened to open “other fronts” in a war that has already disrupted world energy supplies. Early Friday, U.S. President Donald Trump issued a new threat online to Iran, writing: “Watch what happens to these deranged scumbags today.” Trump cited the damage inflicted on Iran and its leaders and called it a “great honor” to be responsible for it. The war continued to escalate as oil prices spiraled up again to $100 per barrel.

Iran parliament speaker says any invasion of Iran's islands will 'make the Persian Gulf run with the blood of invaders.'

Officials with one of the armed Kurdish Iranian dissident groups based in northern Iraq say they are not planning an imminent cross-border attack on Iran but would join a ground invasion if the U.S. were to launch one. Khalil Nadiri, an official with the Kurdistan Freedom Party PAK, made the comments in an interview with The Associated Press on Thursday. The comments appeared to be aimed at reassuring Iraqi Kurdish officials, who have said they do not want attacks to be launched against Iran from their territory. They fear that they will be further dragged into the war in the Middle East sparked by the U.S. and Israel’s strikes on Iran.

Facing tough odds in an upcoming election, Hungary’s pro-Russian prime minister is trying to convince voters that the greatest threat to the country is not economic stagnation, but neighboring Ukraine. Viktor Orbán is running an aggressive media campaign whose central message is that Hungarians should refuse to align with the rest of Europe in supporting Ukraine against Russia’s invasion. That path, he argues, risks bankrupting the country and getting its youth killed on the front lines. Orbán's chief opponent, Péter Magyar, has focused his campaign on stemming the rising costs of living, improving social services and reining in corruption. He also promises to restore democratic institutions which have eroded during Orbán’s 16 years in power.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainians have now lived with four years of war. They have lost limbs, loved ones, livelihoods and homes, but not hope. …

The latest U.S.-brokered talks between envoys from Moscow and Kyiv over Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine have ended with no sign of a breakthrough. Both sides said Wednesday the talks were “difficult,” as the war’s fourth anniversary approaches next week. The negotiations in Switzerland were the third round of direct talks organized by the U.S., after meetings earlier this year in Abu Dhabi that officials described as constructive but which also made no major headway. Expectations for significant progress in Geneva were low. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia of “trying to drag out negotiations” while it presses on with its invasion.