US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that talks on Sunday between US and North Korean officials to discuss the return of remains of US service members killed in the 1950-53 Korean War "resulted in firm commitments."

It was the first time in nine years that US and North Korean generals held talks. The two sides met on the inter-Korean border on Sunday and agreed to resume joint field activities to search for the remains of Americans missing from the war, Pompeo said in a statement.

"Today’s talks were productive and cooperative and resulted in firm commitments," he said.

The repatriation of US remains was one of the agreements reached during an unprecedented summit between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in June in Singapore.

Working level meetings will begin on Monday to coordinate the next steps for the repatriation of remains, including the transfer of those already collected in North Korea, Pompeo said.

The Pentagon has said North Korean officials have indicated in the past they have the remains of as many as 200 US troops. But a U.S. military official familiar with the matter said last month it was not clear what North Korea might hand over.

US forces brought some 100 wooden coffins into the DMZ last month, which will be used to transport the remains, according to South Korea’s Yonhap news agency.

About 7,700 US military personnel still remain unaccounted for from the Korean War, US military data show. More than 36,500 U.S. troops died in the conflict.

The German interior minister is facing calls to resign following the suicide of a migrant he joked about.

Horst Seehofer threatened to bring down Angela Merkel’s government in a major rift over migrant policy earlier this month.

But now he is facing a crisis of his own after a remarkably ill-judged joke at the expense of migrants.

Mr Seehofer told a press conference earlier this week of his delight that Germany had deported 69 rejected asylum-seekers to Afghanistan on his 69th birthday. 

“And I didn’t even order it,” he told reporters with a grin. As interior minister, he has demanded a tougher migrant policy and more deportations

At the time Mr Seehofer was condemned by political opponents over the remarks, but widespread disapproval has turned to public anger after it emerged that one of the deported migrants he was referring to committed suicide on arrival in Kabul.

More than 60,000 people had signed a petition calling on Mr Seehofer to resign over the remarks by Thursday morning.

“Deportation is not a joking matter,” Thomas Oppermann, deputy speaker of the German parliament and a senior figure in Mrs Merkel’s main coalition partner, the Social Demorcats (SPD), said.

“Seehofer is a pathetic cynic and does not have the character to be fit for office,” Kevin Kühnert, the influential leader of the SPD youth wing tweeted. “His resignation is long overdue.”

“An interior minister who publicly relishes people being sent back to a war-torn country obviously has not only a blatant lack of humanity, but is also unqualified for his office," Ulla Jelpke of the opposition Left Party said. “In my view, Seehofer should be dismissed.”

“Obviously he is morally overtaxed in his office and simply unfit to perform his duties,” Anton Hofreiter of the opposition Green Party said. “Deportations to war zones are wrong.”

The unnamed 23-year-old migrant who took his own life had lived in Germany since he was 16 years old. His asylum claim was rejected, but he was allowed to remain in Germany because of the dangerous situation in Afghanistan. He had criminal convictions in Germany for theft and assault.

In a controversial decision, Mrs Merkel’s government has ruled that much of Afghanistan is safe and started returning rejected asylum-seekers to the country.

Mr Seehofer is expected to survive the controversy — not least because his resignation could plunge the government into renewed crisis.

But by taking on Mrs Merkel so directly he has made a powerful enemy. The chancellor is unlikely to help him if he makes any more gaffes.

A six-year-old girl who was recorded crying in a detention centre after being separated from her mother at the US-Mexico border has been reunited with her.

The mother, Cindy Madrid, who had fled from El Salvador, was reunited with her daughter Alisson at Houston airport after weeks apart.

Last month Alisson was heard on a tape published by ProPublica, reciting a phone number for her family as she was detained.

At a press conference in Houston,  Alisson, speaking though an interpreter, said: "I was away from her for a month and I was really happy when I saw her. I was happy because I was able to see her and hug her."

Her mother said: "It’s so hard for a parent to be away from their kids. I was so desperate."

The family’s lawyer said they would be living together in Houston before an asylum hearing at an as yet unknown date.

The mother had been held at a detention centre in Houston and her daughter had been taken to one in Arizona.

Under the "zero tolerance" policy employed by US President Donald Trump they were separated after crossing the border illegally. Mr Trump later reversed the policy.

It came as a judge in California ordered the Trump administration to pay the costs of reuniting illegal immigrant parents with children separated from them at the border, rather than forcing the parents to pay.

The US government is still working to reunite more than 2,500 children with their parents.

Nato leaders will try on Thursday to move beyond the demands of Donald Trump, the US president, for higher defence spending, and focus on ending the long war in Afghanistan, in the second day of a summit in Brussels underscored by transatlantic tensions.

On a trip that will also take Trump to Britain and to Helsinki to meet Russia’s Vladimir Putin, the president spent the first day of the Nato summit lambasting allies for failing to spend the targeted 2 percent of GDP on defence and accused Germany of being a prisoner to Russian energy.

Trump, in a late-night post on Twitter, wrote: "Billions of additional dollars are being spent by Nato countries since my visit last year, at my request, but it isn’t nearly enough. US spends too much."

It followed an uncomfortable first round at the summit where anxious Western allies were subjected to the U.S. president’s "America first" approach.

His comment that Germany was controlled by Russia earned a rebuke from Berlin.

On day two, leaders will welcome non-Nato partners including Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and Ukraine’s Petro Poroshenko to the alliance’s new glass-and-steel headquarters as they seek to focus on policy rather than politics.

British Prime Minister Theresa May tried to set the tone on Wednesday by announcing more troops for Nato’s Afghan training mission.

"We will be deploying an additional 440 personnel to Nato’s Resolute Support mission in Afghanistan and I think that shows when Nato calls, the UK is one of the first to step up," May told reporters.

North Atlantic Treaty Organization chief Jens Stoltenberg wants leaders to agree to fund Afghan security forces until 2024, despite public fatigue in Western countries about their involvement in the conflict.

Funding has averaged at about $1 billion annually and Stoltenberg has said he expected that level to be met.

Leaders will be keen to hear more about Trump’s military approach to Afghanistan, which he revamped last August to include a surge in air strikes to force Taliban militants to the negotiating table.

U.S. officials have told Reuters that Washington is preparing another review of strategy, a year after Trump begrudgingly agreed to extend involvement in the 17-year-old war.

Trump was opposed to remaining in America’s longest war, but his advisers convinced him to give it more time. He authorized the deployment of an additional 3,000 troops, bringing the total to around 15,000.

A US secret service agent who suffered a stroke during Donald Trump’s visit to his Turnberry golf resort has died.

Nole Edward Remagen was serving as part of the US president’s security detail for his UK trip when he suffered the stroke on Sunday.

He had been receiving treatment at a hospital in Scotland but died from the on Tuesday surrounded by his family, the White House said.

Mr Remagen was a veteran agent with 19 years’ experience and was a "dedicated professional of the highest order", the US secret service said in a statement. 

It added: “The secret service thanks the medical personnel in Scotland, in addition to the members of the White House Medical Unit and Police Scotland who provided exceptional care and support for a member of our family.”

The White House described Mr Remagen as an "elite hero" who served in the agency’s select presidential protection division.

In a tribute to Mr Remagen on Wednesday, Mr Trump said: "Our hearts are filled with sadness over the loss of a beloved and devoted Special Agent, husband, and father. Our prayers are with Special Agent Remagen’s loved ones, including his wife and two young children. We grieve with them and with his Secret Service colleagues, who have lost a friend and a brother.

"At the time of his passing, he was among the elite heroes who serve in the Presidential Protection Division of the Secret Service.

"Melania and I are deeply grateful for his lifetime of devotion, and today, we pause to honor his life and 24 years of service to our Nation."

Mr Trump ended his controversial visit to the UK with a private two-day stay at his Turnberry resort, during which he was booed by spectators as he played golf and thousands protested in Edinburgh and Glasgow.

A 55-year-old paraglider was also arrested after flying over the golf resort with a banner criticising the president.

Police Scotland said the activists had placed himself in "grave danger" with snipers position on scaffolding across the golf course.

Greenpeace, who claimed responsibility for the stunt, later said one of their activists was allowed to stay the night in Mr Trump’s Turnberry hotel despite filming the paraglider from a close proximity to the president.

The moment she was finally reunited with her family after years of slavery under Islamic State should have been filled with joy, but instead it was one of the worst days of Soham’s life.

The 23-year-old Yazidi woman spent the five-hour ride from Mosul to Dohuk in Iraqi Kurdistan in anguish, crying for the daughter she had been forced to leave behind.

It wasn’t her choice to give her one-year-old daughter up, she says. But her uncle made it clear that the child, born as a result of rape by an Isil fighter, would never be accepted in the closed Yazidi community.

“I cried and screamed, told my uncle she was my flesh and blood, but he still made me sign the paper and hand her over to the Iraqi officials….

An "unprecedented" heatwave in Japan has killed at least 65 people in one week, government officials said Tuesday, with the weather agency now classifying the record-breaking weather as a "natural disaster."

In the week to Sunday at least 65 people died of heat stroke while 22,647 people were hospitalised, the Fire and Disaster Management Agency said in a statement.

Both figures are "the worst-ever for any week during summer" since the agency began recording fatalities resulting from heat stroke in July 2008, an agency spokesman told AFP.

The Fire and Disaster Management Agency said Tuesday that a total of 80 people have died from the heat since the beginning of July, and over 35,000 have been hospitalised.

Among those killed was a six-year-old school boy who lost consciousness on his way back from a field trip.

"As a record heatwave continues to blanket the country, urgent measures are required to protect the lives of schoolchildren," top government spokesman Yoshihide Suga told reporters Tuesday.

The government said it would supply funds to ensure all schools are equipped with air conditioners by next summer.

Less than half of Japan’s public schools have air conditioning, and the figure is only slightly higher at public kindergartens.

Suga said the government would also consider extending this year’s summer school holidays as the heatwave drags on.

On Monday, the city of Kumagaya in Saitama outside Tokyo set a new national heat record, with temperatures hitting 41.1 Celsius (106 degrees Fahrenheit).

And temperatures over 40 degrees were registered for the first time in Tokyo’s metro area, where the government is promoting Uchimizu, a tradition where water is sprinkled onto the ground, as part of a summer heat awareness campaign.

It was marginally cooler on Tuesday – 36 degrees in Tokyo according to the national weather agency – but temperatures remained well above normal in most of the country, and little relief is forecast.

"We are observing unprecedented levels of heat in some areas," weather agency official Motoaki Takekawa said late Monday.

The heatwave "is fatal, and we recognise it as a natural disaster," he told reporters.

The agency warned that much of the country will continue baking in temperatures of 35 degrees or higher until early August.

Officials have urged people to use air conditioning, drink sufficient water and rest often.

Japan’s summers are notoriously hot and humid, and hundreds of people die each year from heatstroke, particularly the elderly in the country’s ageing society.

The heatwave follows record rainfall that devastated parts of western and central Japan with floods and landslides that killed over 220 people.

And many people in the affected areas are still living in damaged homes or shelters and working outdoors on repairs, putting them at great risk.

The record-breaking weather has revived concerns about the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, which will be held in two years time in July and August.

Tokyo governor Yuriko Koike this week promised that the heat would be given the same priority as measures to counter terrorism.

"It’s just as important because the purpose is also to protect people’s lives," she told reporters, comparing Japan’s summer to "living in a sauna".

Cincinnati schoolteacher Bryce Carlson set a record for the fastest solo unsupported west-east row across the North Atlantic ocean on Saturday and also became the first US citizen to complete the feat.

The 37-year-old landed at the port of St Mary’s in the Scilly Isles, off the coast of south-west England, some 38 days six hours and 49 minutes after he set off from St John’s in Newfoundland.

The previous record for the solo west-east crossing was 53 days eight hours and 26 minutes set by Canadian Laval St. Germain in 2016, according to the Ocean Rowing Society.

St Germain rowed a slightly longer route from Halifax, Nova Scotia, to Brest in France.

Asked how he was feeling as he came ashore in front of a crowd of onlookers after rowing some 2,300 nautical miles through major storms and several capsizes, Carlson replied: "A little wobbly".

Speaking to Reuters later by telephone from a nearby restaurant, where he ordered cod wrapped in prosciutto as his first proper meal after endless dehydrated rations, Carlson spoke of his achievement.

"I think the effort of the last month and a half has to some extent numbed me a little bit. So I think it’s going to sink in in waves," he said.

Carlson’s 20-foot boat ‘Lucille’ was equipped with plenty of technology and electronic equipment to help keep him on a relatively straight course and fully informed about weather conditions.

But there were still plenty of hair-raising moments out on the vast ocean.

"The boat capsized over a dozen times," he said. "The first one was the most terrifying. I had inadvertently left an air vent in the boat open and so as the boat went upside down water started pouring in.

"So you’re in this really stormy environment, boat goes upside down, I wake up on the ceiling," added the American.

The water also got behind the electrical panel, which meant connections eventually became corroded and the equipment less reliable.

On the plus side were all those moments where Carlson faced immense challenges and came out on top.

"Hurricane Chris came barrelling down on me. I’m looking at the wave height, and the wind strength at its worst, and I have no idea whether the boat and I are going to be able to withstand that," he said.

"Getting through, just the relief of finding enough whatever or getting lucky enough. That’s an elating moment. Facing down some massive uncertainty, with a pretty high fear factor, and coming out the other side. That’s pretty fabulous."

Carlson, who has a PhD in biological anthropology and a history of endurance feats including ultramarathons, rowed for about 12 hours a day, generally from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m, with rests and meal breaks.

He also had some suitably-themed books for those moments when he was confined to the cabin by bad weather.

Ernest Hemingway’s ‘The Old Man and the Sea’ was an easy read but Herman Melville’s ‘Moby Dick’ remained a work in progress.

"I wanted to take some literature that would help me think about the environment I was in," he explained. "Boy, Melville is long in the mouth…I just didn’t have the energy to try and make sense of what he was saying."

Asked what was his next project, Carlson did not hesitate.

"I think from here I go to being a regular guy, for a while," he said.

"This project has consumed me for the last two to three years and I know that has knock-on effects to all those around me.

"I’m looking forward to resting, to being a better partner, to being a better friend, being a more mentally and emotionally attentive teacher and coach. That’s my focus right now." 

A 10-foot shark which caused panicked tourists to flee the water a packed beach in Majorca was swimming in the shallows because it had been stung by a ray, an autopsy revealed on Friday.

Police closed the beach early on Thursday afternoon as the fish swam around just a few feet from the shoreline, watched by bathers who had retreated from the sea in fear. 

The shark, confirmed to be a tintorera, made its unexpected appearance at Cala Domingos, a sandy beach that gets very crowded in August in Calas de Majorca on the island’s east coast. 

Footage showed the animal moving through the clear blue water off the beach before coming in closer and forcing tourists out of the water. English and French speakers could be heard shouting out from rocks overlooking the sea where holidaymakers took refuge – and children screaming as the fish came in closer to where they were standing. 

A veterinary nurse confirmed on Friday that the shark had been pulled out of the water and euthanised with a tranquiliser after it was discovered to be in distress. 

“We got the first call around 3.30pm to say a shark was swimming off the beach and appeared to be swimming okay and as part of normal protocol waited for an hour because such behaviour can be normal and doesn’t necessarily mean it is ill or distressed," Guillem Felix, a veterinary nurse for Palma Aquarium’s Recovery Centre said. 

“We got a second call an hour later to say it had ended up writhing on the sand and the lifeguards had put it back in the water but had subsequently returned to the shoreline."

The shark was then seen lying about 15 metres off the coast in about 1.5m of water, not moving and "hardly breathing". The decision was made to put the fish out of its misery. 

An autopsy revealed it had been stung on the mouth by a ray, which had led it to stop eating and becoming disoriented. 

“It had a barb rays use to sting their victims stuck in its mouth where all the important nerve endings are," Mr Felix said.

Jean-Claude Juncker returned from meeting Donald Trump waving a joint US-EU agreement and declaring “peace in our time” having averted, for now, a global trade war.

Donald Trump is known as a dealmaker but Mr Juncker is also a grizzled veteran of decades of Brussels backroom deals and politicking so who came out on top in the talks?

The president of the European Commission succeeded in his mission to protect the EU car industry from fresh US tariffs and prevent the trade dispute from escalating further.  

The US tariffs on EU steel and aluminium imports remain  in place and so do the EU’s retaliatory tariffs on US products such as Kentucky Bourbon and Harley Davidson motorcycles. That will irk…