DPRK

Top leader inspects weapons production

Kim Jong-un, top leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, visited a major munitions factory on Saturday to learn about its production of tactical guided weapons, the official Korean Central News Agency reported on Sunday. Kim praised the multipurpose precision-guided weapons produced by the factory, said the report. "The potential military and technological power of our tactical guided weapon system has military effective value great enough to replace even the multiple launch rocket system in the future," he was quoted by KCNA as saying. The DPRK leader stressed the country's major units will be equipped with this weapon system in an organized way from the first half of this year, and "need to expand the current production capacity by about 2.5 times", said the report.

GERMANY

Berlin to go without electricity for days

Tens of thousands of homes in Berlin will be without electricity until Thursday as authorities struggle to repair power cables seriously damaged in a suspected arson attack, officials said. Some may also be without heating as the outage has affected local systems, at a time when the German capital is blanketed in snow and temperatures are hovering around freezing. Emergency services were alerted early on Saturday that several high-voltage cables on a bridge near a power plant had gone up in flames. Firefighters quickly extinguished the blaze, but about 45,500 households and 2,200 businesses in districts in southwest Berlin were left without power, according to grid operator Stromnetz Berlin.