In brief: Russian changes course on Ukraine

Moscow – Russia’s Federation Council, parliament’s upper house, Wednesday revoked its March ruling allowing President Vladimir Putin to use the country’s armed forces in neighboring Ukraine.

The council’s action came a day after Putin asked the legislative body for the change in a letter indicating it would “be aimed at normalizing and resolving the situation in Ukraine’s eastern regions,” said a statement posted on the Kremlin website.

More than 400 people have been killed in the conflict between pro-Russia gunmen and Ukraine’s security forces in the weeks preceding the move, officials said Wednesday.

A senior Ukraine official hailed the decision but demanded more from Moscow.

“It is a positive step,” Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin was quoted by Ukrinform news agency as saying in Brussels. “We demand that Russia make other positive steps, including support for the all-embracing peace plan” of President Petro Poroshenko.

North Korea calls U.S. movie ‘act of war’

Seoul, South Korea – North Korea is warning that the release of a new American comedy about a plot to assassinate leader Kim Jong Un would be an “act of war.”

If the U.S. government doesn’t block the movie’s release, it will face “stern” and “merciless” retaliation, an unidentified spokesman for North Korea’s Foreign Ministry said in state media Wednesday.

He didn’t mention the movie by name but was clearly referring to “The Interview,” which stars Seth Rogen and James Franco as a producer and talk-show host who land an exclusive interview with the North Korean dictator and are then asked by the CIA to assassinate him. Trailers have been released for the movie, which is set to hit U.S. theaters in October.

The “reckless U.S. provocative insanity” of mobilizing a “gangster filmmaker” to challenge the North’s leadership is triggering “a gust of hatred and rage” among North Korean people and soldiers, the spokesman said, in typically heated propaganda language.

The film’s release would be considered an “act of war that we will never tolerate,” he said.

With no independent press of its own, North Korea often holds foreign governments responsible for the content of their media.