Amatrice / AFP The death toll from a powerful earthquake in central Italy rose to 247 on Thursday amid fears many more corpses would be found in the rubble of devastated mountain villages. Rescuers sifted through collapsed masonry in the search for survivors, but their grim mission was clouded by uncertainty about exactly how many people had been staying in …

  Seoul / AFP North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un declared a submarine-launched missile test the “greatest success”, state media said on Thursday, as the UN weighed a condemnation of the launch which appears to advance Pyongyang’s nuclear strike capability. The US mainland and the Pacific are now “within the striking range” of the North’s army, the official KCNA news agency …

  Tokyo / AFP Russia has released a Japanese citizen detained on a disputed island claimed by both countries, Tokyo’s foreign ministry said on Thursday, ahead of diplomatic talks on the long-running territorial dispute. Tokyo and Moscow are working to resolve decades of tensions over four islands occupied by the Soviet Union in the closing days of World War II and …