CNN
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At the top of the Korean Peninsula, the past military checkpoints and bumpy dirt roads of one of the world’s most secret countries, rise up deep crater lakes immersed in volcanoes and symbolism.

Mount Paektu, an active Stratovolcano that spans the North-China border, is the highest peak on the South Korean Peninsula and is at the heart of North Korean foundation mythology.

The North Korean side of the mountain was recently designated as a UNESCO global geopark and marked the first natural location of North Korea on the list.

The Executive Committee of the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) recognized the site of “impressive natural and cultural heritage” that includes volcanic eruptions and geological features.

However, to understand the importance, you need to stand on the edge of Lake Chong. This is a caldera about 7,200 feet above sea level and was formed by a massive eruption more than 1,000 years ago, allowing you to feel the wind slashing across your face.

I did exactly that in June 2017 as one of the few Western journalists reaching the Paektu summit from the North Korean side. Authorized and closely monitored by Pyongyang, the trip provided unusual access.

According to North Korean legend, the mountain was the birthplace of Dangan, the mythological founder of the first Korean kingdom.

North Korea’s founder and grandfather of UN Kim Jong Kim, is said to have used the mountain as a hideaway when fighting Japan’s occupation for independence in the 1940s. State media often refer to the eldest son regarding the mountain, using titles such as “The Legendary Hero of Paektu.”

North Korea claims that Kim Jong-un’s late leader and father, Kim Jong-Il, was born near the Paektu summit. The guide showed me a wooden cabin. There, the snow melted, the sun broke, the flowers bloomed, and new stars appeared in the sky to mark his birth.

There is no historical evidence for this, and while many scholars believe Kim was likely born in Russia, the story is told across North Korea without hints of doubt. Paektu is not just a mountain, it is the altar of the nation.

This mountain is widely used by the Kim dynasty to introduce the tradition and deification of the family themselves. Its peak is decorated with the national coat of arms of the country, and its name has been borrowed to everything from rockets to power plants and sometimes to the country itself.

North Korean society praises racial purity and state propaganda, while the Kim family praises the “Paektu Bloodline.”

“This is the soul of the Korean revolution,” the guide told me. The North Korean pilgrims were standing quietly nearby, and they shed tears, believing they were on sacred ground.

UN Kim Jong visited the sacred mountains, usually before a massive shake-up, such as his uncle in 2013 and the 2016 nuclear test.

In 2018, he brought then-Korea President Moon Jae-in to the summit in a rare moment of unification. Moon stood on top of Kim holding Kim’s hand with his wife, so the visit was called a dream come true.

“I thought I might have a chance (come here), but my wish came true,” Moon said. For Koreans on both sides of the border, peaking has long been a rite of passage, but access to most South Korea’s lives has been closed.

In 2019, North Korean state media released a photo of Kim riding a white horse on a sacred mountain on at least two separate occasions amidst tensions on the peninsula.

In its recognition, the UNESCO Executive Committee cited the volcanic heritage of Paektu, the valleys shaped by glacial erosion, and rocky plains as part of its global importance.

It also noted that the “millennial eruption” that occurred on Mount Paektu more than 1,000 years ago in 946 AD was one of the most powerful volcanic eruptions in recorded history.

Currently, there are over 200 earthworms in 49 countries, according to the organization. UNESCO’s Global Geoparks are recognized as “a single unified geographical area in which sites and landscapes of international geological significance are managed by the overall concepts of conservation, education and sustainable development.”

Last year, the UNESCO committee designated the Chinese side of the mountain as a global geopark under the Chinese name Changbaishan.

North Korea called for UNESCO geopark designation in 2019, a year ago for China, but on-site inspections of North Korean sites were delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

With the designation, Pyongyang may now attempt to rebrand Peektu as a geotourism destination. It promotes its natural wonders, just like Korean mythology.

In 2017, the trip to Paektu passed through a remote farming village where children had escaped from our cameras. In Samyon, the nearest town, Kim Il’s monuments dot the landscape, with scars from the battle with Japanese occupying people.

Life near Paektu is rural and sparse. But the people we met spoke with quiet pride about their history, their homes, and their belief that they live in places that matter.

This UNESCO recognition means Mount Paektu is now recognized not only as a national symbol, but as a site of global geological values. It is unclear whether that will lead to more involvement or whether it will remain another tool for Pyongyang’s story.

For now, the mountains are standing, their slopes covered in clouds, and the story has been passed over generations. And if you go out to the summit, stare at Chung Lake and find yourself breathing in the frigid air, you may understand why many North and South believe that they have Korean souls.

New Delhi
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Three extremists in charge of the fatal attacks on Indian-controlled Kashmir tourists have been killed earlier this year, a senior Indian official told lawmakers on Tuesday.

During the April genocide, gunmen struck the spots of Indian-controlled Kashmir’s scenic mountains, killing 26 people, mostly Indian tourists. The murders sparked rage throughout India, causing a brief but dangerous conflict between India and Pakistan.

The militants were killed in a joint operation called Operation Mahadev by Indian Army, Central Reserve Police, Jammu and Kashmir police officers, India’s Home Minister Amit Shah told Congress.

“The people responsible for killing our citizens in Baisalan Valley are these three terrorists, and all three have been killed,” Shah said.

He said all three people killed by lawmakers were Pakistani citizens.

CNN has contacted the Pakistani government for a response.

India has accused Pakistan of the attacks that Islamabad denied. New Delhi launched airstrikes on its neighbors in the following weeks, sparking a tattish military response claiming to live on both sides of the border.

Shah said India’s intelligence agency received information in May about the trio’s conditional location in Dachigam National Park, on the outskirts of Srinagar city.

The Indian government, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is under great pressure to find and punish people behind the tourist genocide.

The trio convened a special discussion on Operation Sindoah, the formal name given to India’s retaliation measures against Islamabad after the attack.

The contested region of Kashmir has been the flashpoint for relations between India and Pakistan since the two countries gained independence from the UK in 1947.

Both countries, emerging from the bloody division of Britain’s India (Hindu majority India and Muslim majority Pakistan), have fully advocated Kashmir despite only controlling a portion of it. A few months after independence, they fought the beginning of three wars over territory.

The conflict that followed the April genocide was India, with Pakistan at its worst in decades, with both sides deeper into the other’s territory.

After a four-day battle, the ceasefire between India and Pakistan was first announced by US President Donald Trump, who claimed that Washington had helped secure the deal. India denied that we were involved in the consultation.

There are heavy rainy days At least 30 people have been killed in Beijing’s northern suburbs, state media reported Tuesday. China reportedly tackles yet another deadly rainy season characterized by extreme downpours, catastrophic floods and landslides.

Recently, severe storms have hit much of northern China. This is a dense section of a large metropolitan city and agricultural centre, a dense section of a home.

There, residents and their livelihoods have become increasingly vulnerable to worsening summer storms and flooding, as well as worsening heat waves and droughts. As the climate crisis causes extreme weather to get more frequent and more intense, it poses a major challenge for the Chinese government.

The thrilling rain escalated around China’s capital on Monday, killing 28 people in Miyun. Two more people were killed in Yangkin, reported by Chinese state broadcaster CCTV.

Footage circulating on social media shows brown floods cleaning residential communities, washing cars, knocking down electric poles and turning the streets towards Miyoon’s river.

It could complicate rescue operations, with dozens of roads being damaged in more than 100 small, rural villages, and downpours also blocking electricity.

More than 80,000 people have moved, including around 17,000 from Miyun.

Some residents have explained the horrors they have on social media. A woman from Miyun’s small town wrote on Chinese Instagram Xiaohongshu that she was filled with a “feeling of fear” on Monday night, with nearby rivers overflowing and erupting with trees, vehicles and construction debris.

“The place I grew up was destroyed overnight, and I never imagined that such devastation would occur within the capital,” she wrote.

Firefighters arrived Tuesday morning for rescue, and the communications team was still trying to retrieve telephone signals from remote locations, she said.

Some residents support Using boats and excavators, rescue efforts will be made to evacuate people trapped in the flood. A local man rescued 17 people on a boat, and another man used an excavator to safely move over 80 people, A Miyun resident told CCTV.

Authorities have discharged flood waters from Miyun’s reservoir on Monday to create space for rainy rapids as peak flows of the largest flood reached record highs, Xinhua reported.

According to a newcomer at the state communications agency, Beijing saw the average rainfall over the last few days of recent heavy rain. Maximum rainfall was recorded at 543 mm Miyun, roughly equaling the average annual rainfall in Beijing.

On Monday, Beijing issued the highest level of flood alerts, urging residents to move away from the spawning river. The city’s weather observatory also issued a red warning against storms. This is the highest in the four-tier system, warning of the “very high risk” of night rain, flash floods in mountainous areas, landslides and landslides.

Authorities have ordered schools, construction sites and scenic locations throughout the city to be closed, and all rural homestays and campsites should be stopped.

By Tuesday afternoon, rain had stopped in central Beijing and flooding began sinking into its suburbs.

According to CCTV, heavy rains and associated flooding and associated flooding and geological disasters have resulted in “severe casualties and loss of property” in Beijing, Hebei, Jilin and the northern provinces of Shandong.

XI has directed “full efforts” to search and rescue people who are still missing, to properly evacuate at risk residents and to make “full efforts” to minimize the greatest possible casualties.

Newly appointed Chinese ambassador David Purdue expressed his sadness towards the victims.

“It was a great disappointment to hear about the loss of life in China, including Beijing, due to heavy rain. We sincerely express our deepest condolences to those who lost their family and loved ones,” he wrote on Social Platform X.

The fatal rain and flooding came just two years after the Chinese capital was slammed by record-breaking rain that killed 33 people. In 2023, Beijing was hit by the heaviest rainfall of 140 years, unleashing serious flash floods in the western mountain suburbs.

Many states in northern China have reported deaths from heavy rain.

In Hebei province surrounding Beijing, landslides killed four people and lost eight more, state media reported Monday.

In nearby Shanghai, a bus carrying 14 people went missing near the village during a small Sunday. Authorities discovered the bodies of passengers downstream and were still searching for others, Xinhua reported.

In coastal Shandong Province, 19 homes in Foothill village were destroyed last week, killing two people, and another 10 people went missing after six months of rain fell in five hours a night.

At Hebei, some residents trapped in floods and landslides are seeking support on social media.

A woman from Yang Jatai, a mountain village in Chendae city in Hebei province near Miyun, said her village was hit by floods and landslides, knocking down the house, cutting out the roads and knocking out electricity and traffic lights.

She escapes from the village to seek help. “Most people are not evacuated. Only a few people can come out to communicate with the outside world and bring some supplies back,” she said.

Haicen Yang and Martha Zhou contributed the report.

Kostiantynivka, Ukraine
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The final lifeline to the besieged town along the eastern frontline of the Ukrainian army is increasingly caught up in deadly and sophisticated drone warfare nets, relying on technology, fishing nets from thousands of years ago.

The nets strung on poles along the roadside provide Ukrainian troops cover from Russian drones that often circulate deep into the territory as small, explosive devices become caught up in tough strings.

There is little of this low-tech defense against a more important high-tech threat than Kostiantinibka, one of the three frontline towns where Ukrainian troops are Russia’s summer offensive and rapidly transforming progressive profits into strategic advantages.

The Ukrainian commander defending the region told CNN that he had not received new units for eight months and had replenished only frontline positions.

Near Kostiantynivka, locals pass unsettled by the gaps they made on the net – their daily needs are more important than net protection – holes can be exploited by more skilled Russian drone operators. Sudnyi Den, an elite drone unit in Moscow, posts videos of the drone online, sometimes working in pairs. Footage from July 20th shows one drone attacking a Ukrainian SUV, another drone sitting on nearby gravel, waiting for another target.

According to officials from the city of Kostiantynivka, four civilians were killed and 31 injured last week due to the Russian strike. Children have been evacuated, and more than 8,000 civilians remain in the town itself.

That street is scattered with cars attacked by Russian drones last month when they reached the area of Russian advance. Even at the town’s safer edge, the white minivan was abandoned, and its passenger side was crumpled from a drone strike just hours before Saturday. The local governor said the vehicle driver was killed on Sunday despite the drone explosives not explosive.

Living nearby is not a fishing net, but a thin string entanglement that defines a fiber optic cable, rather than a fishing net used to prevent drones from being clogged. Russian and Ukrainian operators remain physically attached to several drones using thin glass wires of razors of dozens of kilometers.

Shuffling past the ruins is Tatiana, who is returning from her old house on the outskirts of town. “It’s heavy, it’s really heavy,” she said. “There’s no one on the street. I have no other place to go.”

Over the past week, Russian troops have moved southwest, within eight kilometres of the southeastern edge of the town, according to mappings by the Open Source Monitor Deep State. Maintaining progressive progress at the expense of large casualties has long been a hallmark of Moscow’s war effort, but simultaneous progress around the eastern towns of Pokrovsk and Kostiannibka, as well as further north, Kupiansk risks re-transforming the claims of the Donet region of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Kostiantynivka’s central market is an oasis of activities that locals bust to gather food despite the risks of drones and artillery fire. Many people are reluctant to photograph their faces. This indicates that if the town is quickly occupied, you may be afraid to be labeled Proklenian. “Now they’re bombing us,” a reference to the fear that Russian troops use news footage to help target them said one elderly woman.

Another man who didn’t give his name, an Azerbaijani native who sells fruits, declared loudly, “glory to Ukraine” and “glory to heroes.” “What do you see?” he asked. “I’m not calm today. Of course I took a photo.”

The control of the sky is underground. Local commander Vasyl cleans up the banks of monitors in the underground room. The war is currently divided into two parts. Hunted by the dreaded frontline drones, the hunters themselves, drone operation bunkers and positions are frequently attacked by airstrikes. On the screen behind Vasyl, mushroom clouds are digging holes in the sky. It’s a Russian airstrike that is about to target Ukrainian operators.

His lasting problem is the people. For eight months, Vasil from the 93rd Mechanized Brigade has not been sent any new personnel. “We have a significant shortage of personnel. No one wants to fight. The war is over (for them).

The remaining infantry in Vasyl occasionally holds positions in pairs and is delivered food, water and ammunition in the semi-light of dawn or dusk when the larger Ukrainian vampire quadcopter drone can fly. “We’ll load up 10 kilograms of supplies,” he said. “And it flies 12-15 km carrying supply. Food, ammunition, batteries, radio station chargers.” The frontline position is so vulnerable to Russian drones that mortar teams often need to walk for hours on foot, Vasyl carries 30 kilograms of ammunition and equipment.

The commander said the new Russian drone team, known as the Rubicon unit, is a well-trained professional, sometimes another drone flying over a Ukrainian device, hanging tangled with the rotors to crash the Ukrainian drone.

Vasyl said there is inadequate communication from the frontline of the nature of the military issue. “A lot hasn’t been told, it’s hidden,” he said. “We don’t tell a lot to the states. Our state doesn’t tell a lot to people.”

“You need to be there to understand the situation,” he said. “When you say the situation is difficult, no one understands it. You have to be in our shoes. We are tired. Everyone is tired of this war.