GENEVA (AP) — The bodies of two Belgian mountaineers who went missing in the Swiss Alps more than three decades ago have been found, officials said.
Police in the southwestern Valais region, which has a database of people listed as missing over the last century, said the retreat of glaciers has led to the emergence of remains of people who went missing decades earlier.
Late last month, a hiker discovered human remains that turned up following the melting of the Trift glacier south of the city of Lucerne, prompting a recovery operation, the regional government said Wednesday.
DNA tests conducted at a Valais hospital determined that the remains were those of two Belgian hikers, aged 39 and 41 at the time, who went missing near the Weissmies mountain — dozens of kilometers (miles) to the south — in 1992.
Such discoveries are nothing new but have become more frequent as Switzerland's glaciers have melted at an increasing rate.
Three years ago, DNA tests confirmed that a body found on a Swiss glacier near the Matterhorn was that of a German mountaineer who disappeared in 1986.
Many scientists blame global warming for a recent surge in glacier melt in Switzerland and beyond.
FILE - The glacial ice avalanche of the Trift Glacier above the village in Saas-Grund, Valais, Switzerland, Sunday, Sept. 10, 2017. (Dominic Steinmann/Keystone via AP, File)
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea launched a suspected ballistic missile toward the sea on Thursday, Japan said, a day after North Korea shrugged off a U.S. decision to scale back military drills with South Korea in an apparent bid to resume diplomacy.
The Japanese prime minister's office said it detected the suspected launch but gave no further details.
South Korean media, citing the military, reported that North Korea fired an unidentified projectile off the North’s east coast.
On Wednesday, the South Korean and U.S. militaries said they were scaling back their 11-day Ulchi Freedom Shield exercises. U.S. President Donald Trump earlier ordered the Pentagon to “substantially reduce” the exercises, just before they began Monday. Trump cited what he said was a good relationship with Kim and South Korea’s refusal to support him over the war in Iran.
Kim Yo Jong, the influential sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, dismissed Trump’s overture later Wednesday. She said it was not even worthy of comment.
“The provocative, aggressive nature of the drills won’t change even though their duration and size were reduced," she said. “If the U.S. calculates that it can propagate its recent measure as the one of so-called good faith, they will not get the desired answer.”
She also cited a series of other military drills carried out by the U.S. and South Korea earlier this year and South Korea’s push to introduce nuclear-powered submarines.
Kim Yo Jong still refrained from the typical North Korean reaction of fiery rhetoric and said personal relations between her brother and Trump are “still excellent.” That signals North Korea would want to wait for Trump to make bigger concessions before returning to talks.
She denied Trump's claim that Kim Jong Un had responded to his request for a conversation.
When asked by reporters Wednesday if he would be meeting with Kim Jong Un this year, Trump said that “Yeah, I will be.” He wouldn’t answer a question about whether he is exchanging letters with Kim but said he gets along with him.
U.S. Army soldiers try to dismantle a floating bridge during a training exercise on a river in Yeoncheon, South Korea, near the border with North Korea, Thursday, Aug. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
U.S. Army soldiers try to dismantle a floating bridge during a training exercise on a river in Yeoncheon, South Korea, near the border with North Korea, Thursday, Aug. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
