Xinhua world news summary at 1530 GMT, March 1

MOSCOW -- Russia has been modernizing its strategic arsenal in response to the U.S. global deployment of missile defense systems, President Vladimir Putin said Thursday.

"Russia has created and is upgrading relatively cheap but very efficient systems to overcome missile shields," Putin said in his annual address to the Federal Assembly, or the parliament. (Russia-New Weapons)

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PYONGYANG -- The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) Thursday unofficially marked the 99th anniversary of the "March 1" popular uprising of Koreans against Japanese invaders.

The ceremony was held by the Korean Council of Religionists at a church here and attendants were mostly religious group members. (DPRK-Anti-Japanese Uprising-Anniversary)

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CAIRO -- The Egyptian army announced Thursday it killed 13 more terrorists and arrested 86 suspects in North Sinai province in the latest operation of a comprehensive anti-terror campaign.

Since the launch of the "Sinai 2018" anti-terror campaign on Feb. 9, a total of 95 terrorists have been killed so far, the army said in a statement. (Egypt-Terrorism-Sinai Raids)

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CAIRO -- Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi ordered Thursday the formation of a technical committee to examine all locomotives and railways following a train collision accident.

The move came after the train collision on Wednesday that killed at least 12 people in the Beheira province north of the capital Cairo. (Egypt-Sisi-Train Crash)

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SEOUL -- South Korean President Moon Jae-in and his U.S. counterpart Donald Trump held a telephone conversation Thursday night over possible preliminary talks between the United States and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), Yonhap news agency reported.

The phone talks between Moon and Trump, the first in about a month, were held at around 10 p.m. local time (1300 GMT), Yoon Young-chan, senior press secretary for the South Korean president, was quoted as saying. (S.Korea-DPRK-U.S.) Enditem