Poland to challenge human rights report

WARSAW, Poland – Poland will challenge the findings of an international human rights commission which is expected to deliver a scathing assessment of democratic backsliding in the European Union’s largest ex-communist member state, the foreign minister said Thursday.

Witold Waszczykowski said the government plans to dispute the findings of the Venice Commission, an arm of the Council of Europe human rights group. The commission is scheduled to deliver its report on Friday in Venice.

A leaked draft of the report was strongly critical of Poland’s government.

“I won’t hide the fact that we plan to dispute this opinion,” Waszczykowski said in a radio interview.

North Korea steps up retaliatory actions

SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea responded Thursday to new sanctions from South Korea by firing short-range ballistic missiles into the sea in a show of defiance and vowing to “liquidate” all remaining South Korean assets at former cooperative projects in the North.

The moves are the latest in an escalating standoff between the Koreas that began in January when North Korea detonated what it said was an “H-bomb of justice,” its fourth nuclear test. Since then, the North has launched a long-range rocket and the South has shut a jointly run factory park, slapped sanctions on the North, and begun large-scale war games with the United States. North Korea responded by threatening nuclear strikes on South Korea and the U.S. mainland.

Associated Press