A Danish court ordered the arrest of Peter Madsen for manslaughter

A Danish court ordered the owner of an amateur-built submarine Saturday held in pre-trial detention for 24 days while police investigate the disappearance of a Swedish journalist who had been on the ship before it sank.

Peter Madsen was arrested Friday on preliminary manslaughter charges, hours after his 40-ton, nearly 18-meter-long (60-foot-long) submarine sank off Denmark's eastern coast.

The inventor, who is from Denmark, has denied responsibility for the fate of 30-year-old Kim Wall, saying the journalist disembarked before his vessel went down.

Judge Kari Soerensen announced the ruling after a two-hour custody hearing held behind closed doors.

Madsen's defense lawyer, Bettina Hald Engmark, said her client maintains his innocence. He is "willing to cooperate" and hasn't decided whether to appeal the detention ruling, Hald Engmark said.

Before the hearing was closed, the courtroom was packed with Danish and Swedish reporters and the 46-year-old Madsen's relatives. Madsen smiled and chatted with his lawyer.

"I would very much like to express myself," he said after the preliminary charges were read.

Prosecutor Louise Pedersen said Madsen faces the preliminary manslaughter charge "for having killed in an unknown way and in an unknown place Kim Isabell Frerika Wall of Sweden sometime after Thursday 5 p.m."

Wall's boyfriend alerted authorities early Friday that the sub, named the UC3 Nautilus, had not returned to Copenhagen as expected. The Danish Navy launched a major search involving two helicopters, three ships and several private boats. The Navy said the sub was seen sailing, but then sank shortly afterward.

Kristian Isbak, who had responded to the Navy's call to help locate the ship on Friday, told The Associated Press he first spotted Madsen standing wearing his trademark military fatigues in the submarine's tower while it was still afloat.

"He then climbed down inside the submarine and there was then some kind of air flow coming up and the submarine started to sink," Isbak said. "(He) came up again and stayed in the tower until water came into it" before swimming to a nearby boat as the submarine sank, he added.

Madsen told authorities he had dropped Wall off on an island in Copenhagen's harbor a few hours into their Thursday night trip.

"It is with great dismay that we received the news that Kim went missing during an assignment in Denmark," her family said in statement emailed to The Associated Press.

The Sweden-born freelance journalist studied at the Sorbonne university in Paris, the London School of Economics and at Columbia University in New York, where she graduated with a master's degree in journalism in 2013.

She lived in New York and Peking, her family said, and had written for The New York Times, The Guardian, the South China Morning Post and Vice Magazine, among other publications.

A salvage vessel on Saturday raised the submarine, which was seven meters (23 feet) under water off Copenhagen's south island of Dragoer. Danish police say they have not found the body of the missing Swedish journalist inside the submarine.

In theory, the Nautilus can dive up to 470 meters (1,550 feet) but has rarely gone deeper than 40 meters (132 feet), according to Madsen's business web site.

If tried and found guilty, Madsen would face between five years and life in prison.

Mother of Charlottesville suspect: 'I just knew he was going to a rally ... I thought it had something to do with Trump'

The mother of the man who allegedly plowed into a group of people protesting a white nationalist rally Saturday in Virginia said she knew her son was attending a rally -- but she thought it was a rally for President Trump, not for white nationalists.

In an interview Saturday night in Toledo, Ohio, with The Associated Press, Samantha Bloom said of her son James Alex Fields Jr., "I just knew he was going to a rally. I mean, I try to stay out of his political views. You know, we don't, you know, I don't really get too involved, I moved him out to his own apartment, so we -- I'm watching his cat."

Bloom was informed by The AP reporter that the rally was indeed organized by white nationalists. "I thought it had something to do with Trump. Trump's not a white supremacist," she said.

"He had an African-American friend so ...," she said before her voice trailed off.

In an interview with The Toledo Blade, she said, "I told him to be careful. [And] if they’re going to rally to make sure he’s doing it peacefully.”

Bloom told The AP she didn't even know about the incident until she spoke with the AP reporter. She said she was indeed surprised with the deadly outcome. "Yeah, that he would run his car into a group of people for... I'm really not clear on..."

DAVID CAPLAN

North Korea vows harsh retaliation against new UN sanctions

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea vowed Monday to bolster its nuclear arsenal and gain revenge of a "thousand-fold" against the United States in response to tough U.N. sanctions imposed following its recent intercontinental ballistic missile tests.

The warning came two days after the U.N. Security Council unanimously approved new sanctions to punish North Korea, including a ban on coal and other exports worth over $1 billion. The U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Nikki Haley, called the U.S.-drafted resolution "the single largest economic sanctions package ever leveled against" North Korea.

In a statement carried by the North's state-run Korean Central News Agency, North Korea's government said the sanctions were a "violent infringement of its sovereignty" that was caused by a "heinous U.S. plot to isolate and stifle" the country.

"We will make the U.S. pay by a thousand-fold for all the heinous crimes it commits against the state and people of this country," the statement said.

The North said it would take an unspecified "resolute action of justice" and would never place its nuclear program on the negotiating table or "flinch an inch" from its push to strengthen its nuclear deterrence as long as U.S. hostility against North Korea persists.

North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho made similar comments during an annual regional security conference in Manila on Monday.

South Korea's government said the North would face stronger sanctions if it doesn't stop its nuclear and missile provocation.

Lim Eul Chul, a North Korea expert at South Korea's Kyungnam University, said the comments by the North demonstrate how angry it is over the U.N. sanctions, but that the country is not likely to launch a pre-emptive strike against the United States. He said the North could still carry out further missile tests or a sixth atomic bomb test in the coming months under its broader weapons development timetable.

North Korea test-launched two ICBMs last month as part of its efforts to possess a long-range missile capable of striking anywhere in the mainland U.S. Both missiles were fired at highly lofted angles, and analysts say the weapons could reach parts of the United States such as Alaska, Los Angeles or Chicago if fired at a normal, flattened trajectory.

The centerpiece of the U.N. sanctions is a ban on North Korean exports of coal, iron, lead and seafood products — and a ban on all countries importing those products, estimated to be worth over $1 billion a year in hard currency. The resolution also bans countries from giving any additional permits to North Korean laborers, another source of foreign currency for the North, and prohibits all new joint ventures with North Korean companies.

Analysts say that North Korea, already under numerous U.N. and other international sanctions, will feel some pain from the new sanctions but is not likely to return to disarmament negotiations anytime soon because of them.

Lim, the North Korea expert, said the North will probably squeeze its ordinary citizens to help finance its nuclear and missile programs. Shin Beomchul of the Seoul-based Korea National Diplomatic Academy said sanctions that can force a change from North Korea would include a ban on China's annual, mostly free shipment of 500,000 tons of crude oil to North Korea and the deporting by U.N. member states of the tens of thousands of North Korean workers currently dispatched abroad.

Man Killed by Wife and Son, Who Then Used Drain Cleaner to Burn His Face So He Wouldn’t Be Identified

A New York man was murdered by his wife and son, who then teamed with his other son to cover up the crime, PEOPLE confirms.

Blurred Lines In Zimbabwe’s Arms of the State

A bill allowing President Robert Mugabe to appoint senior judges sparked outrage Wednesday from Zimbabwean opposition and activists who said it marked a new power-grab by the authoritarian government. The law, which was passed by the lower house on Tuesday, is the first amendment to the 2013 constitution, adopted four years ago by popular vote.
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Why An Average Congolese National Is Among The Poorest On the Planet

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo) ranked 176 out of 187on the latest United Nations Human Development Index and two new investigations have shed more light on why that’s the case.

Despite being Africa’s biggest copper producer and the world’s leading source of cobalt with “up to $10 billion” worth of those minerals mined and sold abroad, an investigation by Global Witness, the anti-corruption charity, shows that “as little as 6%” of DR Congo’s annual mining exports reach the national budget.

As a result, despite the country’s vast mineral wealth, an average Congolese national is “among the poorest on the planet,” Global Witness says.

This reality, described as a “paradox of poverty”, is the consequence of large scale corruption which ensures very little of the country’s mineral wealth find its way back to the people. Between 2013 and 2015, mining revenue of up to $1.3 billion—twice the amount the country spends annually on health and education—failed to reach the treasury, according to Global Witness. The shortfall is blamed on a “dysfunctional state-owned mining company and opaque national tax agencies” as well as “corrupt networks linked to President Joseph Kabila’s regime.”

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Brilliant: 11-year-old Pre-teen From Benin Republic Passes exams 7 years early

 Latest news from around Africa: Peace Delaly Nicoue, the youngest person to sit the Baccalaureate exam in Benin this year, has passed with top grades. The shy 11-year-old told BBC Afrique he was “happy and relieved” to achieve 17 out of 20 in Maths because he plans to study economics at university.