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katyshannon

U.S. B-52 joins flyover after North Korea's bomb claim - CNN.com - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...b-52-south-korea

u s joins flyover north korea bomb claim cnn politics history US crisis

shared by katyshannon on 11 Jan 16 - No Cached
  • Days after North Korea claimed it tested a hydrogen bomb, the United States responded with a display of military might on the Korean Peninsula.
  • A B-52 bomber jet from Andersen Air Force Base in Guam flew over Osan, South Korea, on Sunday "in response to a recent nuclear test by North Korea," United States Pacific Command said.
  • "This was a demonstration of the ironclad U.S. commitment to our allies in South Korea, in Japan, and to the defense of the American homeland," said PACOM Commander Adm. Harry B. Harris Jr.
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  • The B-52 was flanked by South Korean F-15 fighter jets and U.S. F-16 fighter jets.
  • "They absolutely took notice," CNN's Will Ripley reported from the North Korean capital. "A lot of North Korean military commanders find U.S. bombers especially threatening, given the destruction here in Pyongyang during the Korean War, when much of the city was flattened," Ripley said.
  • The show of solidarity has caught the attention -- and likely the ire -- of North Korea.
  • The show of solidarity between the U.S. and South Korea came after Seoul reactivated loudspeakers broadcasting propaganda into North Korea near the heavily fortified border between the countries.Pyongyang considers the broadcasts tantamount to an act of war, and in the past has responded to them with artillery fire.
  • North Korea bragged about the "spectacular success" of its first hydrogen bomb test on Wednesday. But outside the hermit kingdom, the claims have been met with skepticism.
  • The United States, South Korea, Japan and China have been testing for airborne or ground radiation in the region, but say they haven't found any evidence supporting the claim of an H-bomb test.Wednesday's test yielded a blast of a similar magnitude to a previous North Korean test in 2013, said Martin Navias, a military expert at King's College London.
  • "We won't know for another few days or weeks whether this was (a hydrogen bomb)," he said. "It doesn't look like one. ... One would have expected [the power] to be greater if it was an H-bomb."One analyst in Seoul cast doubt on whether enough material could be collected to ever find out definitively what Pyongyang has tested.
millerco

North Korea Says It Has the Right to Shoot Down U.S. Warplanes - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...trump-north-korea.html

Us history Trump politics north korea kim jong-un

shared by millerco on 25 Sep 17 - No Cached
  • North Korea Says It Has the Right to Shoot Down U.S. Warplanes
  • North Korea’s foreign minister escalated tensions with the United States on Monday, saying that President Trump’s threatening comments about the country and its leadership were “a declaration of war” and that North Korea had the right to shoot down American warplanes, even if they are not in North Korean air space.
  • “The whole world should clearly remember it was the U.S. who first declared war on our country,” the foreign minister, Ri Yong-ho, told reporters
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  • “Since the United States declared war on our country, we will have every right to make countermeasures, including the right to shoot down United States strategic bombers even when they are not inside the airspace border of our country,” he said.
  • The North’s leader, Kim Jong-un, said last week: “Now that Trump has denied the existence of and insulted me and my country in front of the eyes of the world and made the most ferocious declaration of a war in history that he would destroy the D.P.R.K. [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea], we will consider with seriousness exercising of a corresponding, highest level of hard-line countermeasure in history.”
  • Mr. Ri, speaking two days after American warplanes flew close to the North’s coast, added that “in light of the declaration of war by Trump, all options will be on the operations table of the supreme leadership” of North Korea.
  • While North Korea has reserved the right to take pre-emptive action against the United States and South Korea, Mr. Ri’s threat to shoot down American planes in international airspace was a new element in the standoff.
  • Referring to Mr. Trump’s assertion that the North Korean leadership may not “be around much longer,” Mr. Ri said that the question of “who would be around much longer will be answered” by North Korea.
  • The Pentagon said on Saturday that the Air Force had sent B-1B bombers and F-15C fighters over waters north of the Demilitarized Zone that separates the two Koreas, in response to what it called the North Korean government’s “reckless behavior.”
  • It was the farthest north “any U.S. fighter or bomber aircraft have flown off North Korea’s coast in the 21st century,”
  • In April 1969, North Korean fighter jets shot down an unarmed United States Lockheed EC-121 spy plane on a North Korean intelligence-gathering mission over the Sea of Japan, with a loss of 31 American lives.
edencottone

North Korea's Kim Yo Jong breaks silence to warn US against 'causing a stink' - CNNPoli... - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

shared by edencottone on 17 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • Kim Yo Jong, the sister of North Korea's leader, warned the Biden administration against "causing a stink at its first step" on Monday, hours after the White House said it had not received a response to its outreach to Pyongyang.
  • "If it wants to sleep in peace for (the) coming four years, it had better refrain from causing a stink at its first step," she said. The warning comes as the US and South Korea conduct scaled-down, simulated military exercises and US Secretary of State Tony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin have touched down in the region for meetings with their Japanese and South Korean counterparts.
  • North Koreans see several reasons why they should not denuclearize based on recent history, including situations in Iraq, Libya and more recently Iran. Leaders in Iraq and Libya were toppled after relinquishing their nuclear programs under US pressure, while Iran entered a deal with the US only to have the Trump administration withdraw, impose crippling economic sanctions and then assassinate the country's leading general and nuclear scientist.
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  • "Diplomacy is always our goal. Our goal is to reduce the risk of escalation. But, to date, we have not received any response," Psaki said, noting that the outreach "follows over a year without active dialogue with North Korea, despite multiple attempts by the US to engage."
  • However, experts told CNN prior to Kim Yo Jong's message that Pyongyang was likely to rebuff diplomatic efforts for the time-being for a number of reasons including the coronavirus pandemic, the Biden team's ongoing North Korea policy review, the meetings in the region and above all, the administration's rhetoric.
  • "That's just a non-starter for the North Koreans," said Jeffrey Lewis of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies.
  • On Monday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters that the administration had reached out to North Korea, noting they have "a number of channels, as we always have had, that we can reach out through."
  • "It has to be nuanced because you can't just say, you know, we want to have talks, and the talks are going to be about North Korea's complete denuclearization, because that sounds very one sided," he told CNN. "It would have to be long term and not the Libya model of complete denuclearization upfront before we give them anything they want."
  • But after the summit, Trump administration officials, including former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, said the agreement pledged North Korea to the complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantlement of its nuclear program, despite the fact that it said nothing of the sort.
  • Former officials and experts also noted that Biden administration officials' commitments not to lift tariffs on North Korea during confirmation hearings did not go unnoticed, which could be one factor driving Pyongyang's decision not to engage directly with the US.
  • "What if the US and China come out of their meetings this week and make it clear that they are headed for escalating US-China tensions? If you are Kim Jong Un you would read that as meaning that it is less likely that China will put the squeeze on North Korea," said Anthony Ruggiero, a former National Security Council official. "If that happens, maybe Kim now knows he can go to China to buy more pieces for its nuclear programs, or to go to China and sell more coal. That would be a bad sign for the future of any US-North Korea diplomacy."
  • Aum said that he doesn't think they'd "want to do anything to provoke the US prior to some greater signal that the US is going to take a very hostile approach."
criscimagnael

North Korea Launches Suspected ICBM and Two Other Ballistic Missiles - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...-korea-ballistic-missiles.html

shared by criscimagnael on 01 Jun 22 - No Cached
  • North Korea launched three ballistic missiles, including a possible intercontinental ballistic missile, toward the waters off its east coast on Wednesday, South Korea’s military said. The launches came just after President Biden wrapped up a trip to the region, where he vowed to strengthen deterrence against the North’s growing nuclear threat.
  • It was North Korea’s 17th missile test this year.
  • Shortly after the North’s tests, the South Korean and United States militaries each launched a land-to-land missile off the east coast of South Korea to demonstrate what Seoul called the allies’ “swift striking capability to deter further provocations from North Korea,” as well as the South Korean military’s “overwhelming” ability to launch “precision strikes at the origin of North Korean provocation.”
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  • The first missile launched on Wednesday by North Korea appeared to have been an ICBM, South Korean defense officials said. But it flew only 224 miles, the officials said, indicating that North Korea did not want to launch the missile on a full ICBM trajectory over the Pacific while Mr. Biden was in the air on his way back to Washington after a visit to Seoul and Tokyo.
  • The second missile launched on Wednesday apparently failed because it “disintegrated” after reaching an altitude of 12 miles, the South Korean officials said. The third projectile was a short-range ballistic missile.
  • The missile launches on Wednesday were a strong signal that North Korea was embarking on a new cycle of tensions in the Korean Peninsula despite the country’s first reported outbreak of the coronavirus. It also constituted North Korea’s public reaction to Mr. Biden’s trip to the region, where he met with the leaders of South Korea and Japan and vowed to step up measures, including joint military exercises, to help deter the growing nuclear and missile threat from the North.
  • But like his conservative predecessors, he attached an important caveat: Such economic largess would be possible only “if North Korea genuinely embarks on a process to complete denuclearization.”
  • In the same speech, he seemed to take a page from the playbook of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia when he warned that his nuclear arsenal was not just to deter foreign invasion, but also to be used “if any forces try to violate the fundamental interests of our state.”
  • “North Korea continues to improve, expand and diversify its conventional and nuclear missile capabilities, posing an increasing risk to the U.S. homeland and U.S. forces, allies, and partners in the region,” John Plumb, the U.S. assistant secretary of defense for space policy, told the Senate Armed Services Committee this month. “Most of North Korea’s ballistic missiles have an assessed capability to carry nuclear payloads.”
jlessner

Western Relations Frosty, Russia Warms to North Korea - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...ssia-warms-to-north-korea.html

western relations russia north korea US politics policy

shared by jlessner on 12 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • Russia’s relations with many Western nations, including the United States, may be at their worst levels since the Cold War, but its relationship with North Korea is blooming faster than the famously lush flower beds of Moscow’s Alexander Garden.
  • On Wednesday, the Russian Foreign Ministry announced an agreement to designate 2015 a “Year of Friendship” with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, which is regarded by much of the world as a pariah state.
  • Tellingly, news of the Year of Friendship came on the same day that Berlin officials said that the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, had declined Mr. Putin’s invitation to attend the ceremony. The German government cited Russia’s policies in Ukraine, where the Kremlin has annexed Crimea and backed violent separatists in Donetsk and Luhansk, as the reason for her refusal to attend.
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  • The Foreign Ministry in its statement said that the Year of Friendship would also commemorate the 70th anniversary of North Korea’s liberation, and was intended to bring relations “in the political, economic, humanitarian and other areas to a new level.”
  • but the closer ties to North Korea may serve only to reinforce his image as increasingly isolated from the world’s more established powers.
  • North Korea, meanwhile, has taken at least one step to reduce its own isolation. Last week, the country said it was reopening its borders, which had been closed to foreigners for four months over fears of Ebola, just in time to allow international participants in the Pyongyang marathon next month. It is only the second year that foreigners have been allowed to participate in the race in the North Korean capital.
  • Russia is one of just four countries — the others being Venezuela; Nicaragua; and Nauru, an eight-square-mile island in the South Pacific — to recognize Abkhazia as an independent nation.
rachelramirez

U.N. Toughens Sanctions on North Korea in Response to Its Nuclear Program - The New Yor... - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...north-korea-un-sanctions.html

sanctions new york times US politics crisis policy

shared by rachelramirez on 03 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • U.N. Toughens Sanctions on North Korea in Response to Its Nuclear Program
  • Exasperated with North Korea’s defiant testing of nuclear bombs and ballistic missiles, the United Nations Security Council voted unanimously on Wednesday to severely toughen its penalties against the isolated country.
  • The 15-member Council approved a draft resolution, negotiated for weeks by American and Chinese officials, that called for inspecting all cargo going in and out of the country, banning all weapons trade and expanding the list of individuals facing sanctions.
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  • Much depends, however, on whether China — North Korea’s leading trade partner and diplomatic shield — will enforce it.
  • The measure’s toughest component would require all countries to inspect all cargo passing through their territory to or from North Korea. In the past, inspections were required only if there was reasonable suspicion of contraband aboard.
  • It prohibits North Korea from sending martial arts experts to train police officers in foreign countries, as a United Nations panel recently accused Pyongyang of doing in Uganda.
  • Although prices have fallen in recent years, minerals still account for 53 percent of North Korea’s $2.5 billion in exports to China, its chief supplier of oil.
  • The Chinese ambassador, Liu Jieyi, focused on the North’s Jan. 6 and Feb. 7 tests, done in violation of previous resolutions. He also expressed skepticism about the effectiveness of sanctions, and used the occasion to criticize an American proposal to deploy a missile shield in South Korea.
  • China’s agreement to limit imports of North Korean coal and iron ore came with a condition: that it should be demonstrated that such imports would support the North’s illicit weapons programs
zachcutler

South Korea Government Accused of Using Defamation Laws to Silence Critics - The New Yo... - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...rea-critics-press-freedom.html

south korea government laws

shared by zachcutler on 06 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • SEOUL, South Korea — In late 2014, months after 304 people died in the sinking of a South Korean ferry
  • Was Ms. Park, the flier asked, now cracking down on her critics in an attempt to keep that scandal from coming to light?
  • Last year, the United Nations Human Rights Committee warned against South Korea’s “increasing use of criminal defamation laws to prosecute persons who criticize government action.” Freedom House, a rights group based in Washington, criticized “the increased intimidation of political opponents” under Ms. Park, who took office in 2013.
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  • An opposition lawmaker, Park Jie-won, said the indictment had embarrassed the country. “It’s prosecutors who should be indicted for defaming South Korea,” he said
  • Charges that her administration was suppressing political rights sprang up almost as soon as Ms. Park — whose father, the military dictator Park Chung-hee, ruled South Korea with an iron fist during the 1960s and ’70s — assumed office.
  • The government’s use of the laws against critics predates Ms. Park’s presidency. During the five-year tenure of her predecessor, Lee Myung-bak, 30 such cases were filed, 24 of them criminal and six civil, according to People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy, an influential South Korean civic group.
  • Attempts to amend the defamation laws have also been unsuccessful. Last month, the Constitutional Court struck down a proposal to ban defamation charges in cases where the supposedly defamatory comment circulated online is true
  • Bills that would bar government officials from filing defamation cases have stalled in Parliament.
  • “I can never support this attempt to place a dog collar on the people,” Eun Soo-mi, an opposition lawmaker who was once tortured by the spy agency, said during a 10-hour filibuster against the bill, which was approved but has not yet become law.
  • Such rulings aside, critics argue that South Korean prosecutors and judges have largely failed to protect the public’s rights, often because they want to earn the favor of politicians who can promote them.
zachcutler

North Korea-South Korea tensions: Warning shots fired - CNN.com - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

north korea shots fired Obama

shared by zachcutler on 14 Jan 16 - No Cached
  • Tensions between North Korea and South Korea escalated on Wednesday after South Korea said an unidentified aircraft approached the demilitarized zone.
  • It was not immediately clear whether the drone was armed or what its mission was.
  • However, a former U.S. Army senior intelligence officer who served there suggested the purpose was either surveillance or instigation by North Korea.
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  • "We are concerned that additional North Korean provocations could heighten tensions, lead to a cycle of escalation," he said
  • There could be firing by the North Koreans, which then could prompt South Koreans to retaliate very quickly," she said
  • In an additional provocation, South Korean soldiers on Wednesday found anti-South Korea and anti-U.S. propaganda leaflets
  • North Korea defends its nuclear ambitions
  • But North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Wednesday defended his nuclear program, saying his country needs the capability to strike the United States if provoked.
  • Researchers with the Center for Nonproliferation Studies at Middlebury said that the heavily edited film seemed to show black smoke, several fireballs and even possibly falling debris
johnsonma23

North Korea: How to get serious with it (Opinion) - CNN.com - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

korea opinion US

shared by johnsonma23 on 18 Jan 16 - No Cached
  • How to get serious with North Korea
  • (CNN)North Korea's nuclear test last week follows a well-worn pattern that spans over a quarter century: Resort to periodic provocations, wait out the flurry of condemnations
  • All the while as Pyongyang advances its nuclear and missile technolog
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  • The record of the past quarter-century of nuclear diplomacy vis-à-vis Pyongyang is distinguished by blame, denial, and fantasy masquerading as policy.
  • The only way to change this equation is to persuade Pyongyang that its regime preservation is dependent on reform and disarmament.
  • Today, China will yet again make token gestures like signing on to U.N. Security Council resolutions while repeatedly violating those resolutions and actually increasing trade with Pyongyang
  • Second, delegitimize Kim's rule in the eyes of his people and the world by engaging them through broadcasting and other information operations directed at the North Korean people
  • Such tactics proved lucrative during the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations, when the U.S. appeased Pyongyang with some $1.3 billion in effectively unconditional aid. Instead, we must show Pyongyang that time is not on its side.
  • Pyongyang's first long-range missile test on August 31, 1998, led to the Clinton administration's reengagement of the North
  • First, block the Kim Jong Un regime's offshore hard currency reserves and income with financial sanction
  • But all Beijing has done so far is demonstrate a disingenuous pattern of diplomatic ambidexterity.
  • China will not solve the North Korea problem for the United States until China sees the Kim regime as a financial liability
  • A regime that systematically brutalizes its own people, deliberately starves its population and remains unaccountable to its people or the norms of civilization will feel little moral restraint about making war on its neighbors or arming terrorists.
  • Recent U.N. reports confirm that North Korea continues to rely on the dollar, and its access to the dollar system, to move its streams of hard currency, much of it derived from proliferation and illicit activities, in and out of its vast offshore deposits.
  • sanctions against North Korea have failed to achieve their objectives.
  • The Treasury Department has blocked the assets of Sudanese officials for human rights violations, of Iranian entities for censorship, of the leaders of Belarus and Zimbabwe for undermining democratic processes or institutions, and of Russian officials and financiers for aggression against a neighboring country
  • It has imposed comprehensive anti-money laundering restrictions on Iran and Myanmar, but not North Korea, the only state in the world known to counterfeit U.S. currency.
  • Until Washington applies sufficient financial pressure to threaten the survival of the regime in Pyongyang, it will lack sufficient leverage for diplomacy to work. T
  • The North Korea Sanctions Enforcement Act, which this Tuesday passed the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly, would codify this strategy and require the administration to keep this pressure in place until it verifies North Korea's disarmament and humanitarian reforms.
Javier E

Are Trump's Feuds With Tillerson and Corker a Prelude to War? - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...542481

trump war korea foreign policy diplomacy

shared by Javier E on 11 Oct 17 - No Cached
  • On face, however, the splits with Tillerson and Corker both center around the same material question of whether the United States will start a shooting war, most likely with North Korea.
  • , Corker told the Times that he worried Trump didn’t understand the stakes of his statements on foreign-policy questions, viewing it as a “reality show of some kind.”
  • “He doesn’t realize that, you know, that we could be heading towards World War III with the kinds of comments that he’s making,” said Corker, who is the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and close to Tillerson, and therefore particularly well-placed to analyze Trump’s foreign-policy choices.
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  • There are two obvious things Corker could be talking about (and one hopes no less-obvious ones): North Korea and Iran.
  • Trump keeps telegraphing a desire to start a war with North Korea.  Having first drawn blood with his missile-strike on Syria, and been pleased with the reaction from the public and press, Trump seems to want more.
  • Although the official U.S. position, as outlined by other officials, is that all options are on the table, the president keeps suggesting that really only one is on the table. Why else would he so publicly slam the door shut on Tillerson’s open channel to Pyongyang? What else might he mean when he promised that the U.S. will “do what has to be done”?
  • There are other indications, too. In August, after a North Korean missile test, he said, “They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen. He has been very threatening beyond a normal statement, and as I said they will be met with fire, fury, and frankly power, the likes of which this world has never seen before.” (Aides said the language was improvised, and could not explain what he meant by it.)
  • In mid-September, at the United Nations General Assembly, Trump said that if Pyongyang’s aggression continued, the U.S. “will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea,” also saying, “The United States is ready, willing and able, but hopefully this will not be necessary.”
  • Of course, Trump could be just talking trash, trying to do the geopolitical dozens with Kim Jong Un, but there’s no way for Kim, or diplomats from other foreign countries, or the American people to know the difference. (North Korea itself claimed Trump’s UN remarks constituted a declaration of war, though the regime has a long history of similar comments.)
  • The impression of a slouch toward war is sharpened by other evidence. Mattis, for example, on Monday told Army generals to be ready to fight a war in Korea. Some of that is standard readiness, but given his own bleak view of a military solution—Mattis said earlier this year that a war against North Korea would be “catastrophic” and “probably the worst kind of fighting in most people's lifetimes”—it could also be an indication of growing probability of a shooting war.
  • Yet the road to a major war is usually a long one. The Bush administration spent months laying the groundwork, both publicly and privately, for the war in Iraq. At this point, the president has demonstrated a pattern of comments that indicate a preference for a military response to North Korea, although it’s not clear that his preference will prevail. That pattern is enough that Trump’s feuds with Tillerson and Corker deserve to be seen not merely as wacky, somewhat disconcerting antics, but as part of a potential move toward a war—whether that’s World War III or not.
oliviaodon

Lindsey Graham: There's a 30 Percent Chance Trump Attacks North Korea - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...548381

war

shared by oliviaodon on 15 Jan 18 - No Cached
  • It’s become a grim ritual in Washington foreign-policy circles to assess the chances that the United States and North Korea stumble into war. But on Wednesday Lindsey Graham did something different: He estimated the odds that the Trump administration deliberately strikes North Korea first, to stop it from acquiring the capability to target the U.S. mainland with a long-range, nuclear-tipped missile. And the senator’s numbers were remarkably high.
  • “I would say there’s a three in 10 chance we use the military option,” Graham predicted in an interview. If the North Koreans conduct an additional test of a nuclear bomb—their seventh—“I would say 70 percent.”
  • “We’re not to the tipping point yet,” he noted, but “if they test another [nuclear] weapon, then all bets are off.”
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  • “War with North Korea is an all-out war against the regime,” he said
  • “I don’t know how to say it any more direct: If nothing changes, Trump’s gonna have to use the military option, because time is running out,” Graham said. “I don’t care if North Korea becomes a Chinese protectorate. … I don’t care who [the Chinese] put in charge of North Korea, as long as that person doesn’t want to create a massive nuclear arsenal to threaten America. There are a couple ways for this to end: The Chinese could kill the guy if they wanted to, or they could just stop oil shipments [to North Korea], which would bring [Kim Jong Un’s] economy to [its] knees.” Graham’s scenarios for resolving the crisis short of war, along with his vision for war, notably conclude with regime change in North Korea, which the Trump administration claims to not be pursuing.
izzerios

Trump may have to be patient about North Korea - CNNPolitics.com - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

shared by izzerios on 19 Apr 17 - No Cached
  • Lean on China to turn off its life support to its neighbor, for another
  • warnings that Trump will fix the showdown with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, it's so far unclear whether at its foundation, his strategy is all that different from previous administrations -- which for the last quarter century have failed
  • "The era of strategic patience is over," Vice President Mike Pence
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  • the US, working closely with the UN and Japan, South Korea, China and Russia, could create enough international pressure to eventually push North Korea to denuclearize
  • Pyongyang recently conducted its fifth nuclear test and is soon expected to conduct a sixth, part of its accelerated drive to develop missiles that can reach the continental US with nuclear weapons small enough to place in the nosecones.
  • it's possible that Trump has pushed Beijing to pressure its unpredictable ally and trade partner
  • possible cost of North Korean retaliation for any military action against its nuclear and missile complex -- an artillery barrage targeting civilians in Seoul and thousands of US troops south of the border
  • China's capacity and willingness to make North Korea bend to Washington's will, for instance by cutting off fuel, food and investment supplies that sustain Kim's regime.
  • "We're definitely not seeking conflict or regime change," Susan Thornton, acting assistant secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs
  • The US has "made a decision -- and it's a decision that's been made with all of our allies and partners on this issue -- to maximize pressure, economic pressure, on the North Korean regime to try to get it to make tangible steps to roll back their illegal programs," Thornton said. "We just have to stick with it, be patient."
  • I think we should give the Chinese president some opportunity, some time, as well as pursuing the economic and diplomatic pressures that we have and our allies have that we can bring to bear on North Korea."
  • White House optimism about China's evolving role in the North Korea crisis was the summit earlier this month between Trump and Xi in Florida
  • China accounts for some 80% of North Korea's trade and as such, could have outsized influence on Pyongyang. "President Trump is very hopeful the Chinese will use the leverage they have,"
  • Trump, for instance, praised China last week for sending back a fleet of coal ships to North Korea, in line with international sanctions on the Stalinist state's exports adopted during the Obama administration.
  • Beijing is determined to avoid any action that could trigger the chaotic downfall of his regime and send refugees fleeing across the border into China.
  • China also wants to avoid the eventual scenario of a unified Korea, which could produce a US-allied nation on its frontier
  • "The conditions are not really ripe for any kind of talks until North Korea shows it is serious about what would be accomplished by undertaking such talks,"
  • "We're looking for some sort of signal that they've realized that the status quo is unsustainable."
millerco

South Korea Plans 'Decapitation Unit' to Try to Scare North's Leaders - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...south-korea-decapitation-.html

Us history Trump politics north korea

shared by millerco on 13 Sep 17 - No Cached
  • South Korea Plans ‘Decapitation Unit’ to Try to Scare North’s Leaders
  • The last time South Korea is known to have plotted to assassinate the North Korean leadership, nothing went as planned.
  • In the late 1960s, after North Korean commandoes tried to ransack the presidential palace in Seoul, South Korea secretly trained misfits plucked from prison or off the streets to sneak into North Korea and slit the throat of its leader, Kim Il-sung
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  • They killed their trainers and fought their way into Seoul before blowing themselves up
  • South Korea is again targeting the North’s leadership
  • the South Korean defense minister, Song Young-moo, told lawmakers in Seoul that a special forces brigade he described as a “decapitation unit” would be established by the end of the year
  • The unit, officially known as the Spartan 3000, has not been assigned to literally decapitate North Korean leaders. But that is clearly the menacing message South Korea is trying to send.
  • Rarely does a government announce a strategy to assassinate a head of state, but South Korea wants to keep the North on edge and nervous about the consequences of further developing its nuclear arsenal
  • meant to help push North Korea into accepting President Moon Jae-in’s offer of talks
  • How can a country without nuclear weapons deter a dictator who has them?
  • “The best deterrence we can have, next to having our own nukes, is to make Kim Jong-un fear for his life,”
criscimagnael

Park Geun-hye, Ex-Leader of South Korea, to Be Pardoned - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...orea-park-geun-hye-pardon.html

shared by criscimagnael on 27 Dec 21 - No Cached
  • SEOUL, South Korea — The government of President Moon Jae-in said on Friday that it would pardon former President Park Geun-hye, who is serving a 20-year prison term after she was convicted on bribery and other criminal charges.
  • Ms. Park, 69, who became the first democratically elected South Korean leader to be removed from office through parliamentary impeachment,
  • will be freed on Dec. 31 to promote “reconciliation and consolidate national power to help overcome the national crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic,” the Justice Ministry said in a statement.
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  • She has served four years and nine months of her sentence so far. Concerns about her health were raised after she was taken to a hospital in Seoul, the capital, for various illnesses last month.
  • Mr. Moon said that Ms. Park’s declining heath had also been a factor in his government’s decision to release her.
  • Ms. Park was pardoned under a broad amnesty that benefited 700 other prisoners, whose remaining prison terms will be eradicated or cut in half. The South Korean president has the power to grant amnesty to prisoners under the Constitution, and has often exercised it to mark major national holidays or the beginning of a new year.
  • Ms. Park, a daughter of the former military dictator Park Chung-hee, was in her fourth year in power in 2016 when hundreds of thousands of protesters began months of weekly rallies in central Seoul demanding that she be forced from office for corruption and incompetence.
  • In January this year, the Supreme Court approved a reduced 20-year prison term for Ms. Park and ordered her to pay 18 billion won ($15 million) in fines, saying that she and her longtime friend and confidante Choi Soon-sil had collected or demanded $19.3 million in bribes from three big businesses, including $7 million from Samsung, South Korea’s largest and most lucrative business group.
  • The younger Mr. Lee, who was sentenced to two and a half years in prison in the corruption scandal, was released on parole in August, when South Korea freed hundreds of prisoners to mark the Aug. 15 National Liberation Day, which commemorates the end of Japanese colonial rule of South Korea at the end of World War II.
  • Despite her conviction, Ms. Park still had a sizable following of die-hard supporters, mostly older conservative South Koreans, who have held rallies in downtown Seoul calling her innocent and demanding her release.
  • Those who have argued for her pardon have compared her case to those of the former military dictators Chun Doo-hwan and Roh Tae-woo.
  • Mr. Moon’s government granted a special amnesty to former Prime Minister Han Myeong-sook, one of the president’s former political allies. Ms. Han was sentenced to two years in prison in 2015 on charges of collecting illegal political donations. She finished her term in 2017.
  • The government also released Lee Seok-ki, a progressive politician, on parole on Friday. He was arrested by Ms. Park’s government in 2013 on charges of conspiring to start an armed revolt to overthrow the Seoul government in the event of war with North Korea. He has served all but nine months of his nine-year sentence.
  • calling him a victim of what they saw as a political witch hunt by Ms. Park to repress her political enemies.
grayton downing

North Korea Threatens U.S. Over Joint Military Drill - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...ns-us-over-military-drill.html

north korea US military drill

shared by grayton downing on 23 Feb 13 - No Cached
  • North Korea on Saturday warned the top American military commander in South Korea that if the United States pressed ahead with joint military exercises with South Korea scheduled to begin next month, it could set off a war
  • North Korea warns of war and threatens to deliver a devastating blow to American and South Korean troops.
  • The United States military uses the Panmunjom channel to inform North Korea of its planned annual military drills with South Korea, which it says are for defensive purposes.
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  • Anti-American messages, already daily fare in the North, increase at those times as the leadership uses a sense of crisis to strengthen popular support.
johnsonma23

With Impounding of Ship, Philippines Set to Be First Enforcer of New North Korea Sancti... - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...ations-cargo-ship-seizure.html

north korea sanctions new york times

shared by johnsonma23 on 06 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • With Impounding of Ship, Philippines Set to Be First Enforcer of New North Korea Sanctions
  • The Philippines will become the first country to enforce tough new United Nations sanctions on North Korea
  • The MV Jin Teng, which is suspected of being a North Korean ship, arrived Thursday at Subic Bay, a commercial port about 50 miles northwest of Manila
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  • impounded, its crew deported
  • The vessel is registered and flagged under multiple countries, but it is one of 31 listed as being owned by North Korea, Philippine
  • One component of the new sanctions requires countries to inspect all cargo passing through their territory to or from North Korea
  • . The sanctions are the result of a United Nations Security Council resolution passed Wednesday, following a North Korean nuclear test on Jan. 6 and a long-range rocket test on Feb. 7.
  • “The world is concerned over North Korea’s nuclear weapons program and as a member of the U.N., the Philippines has to do its part to enforce the sanctions
  • North Korean citizens and was in the Philippines to unload a shipment of agricultural byproducts often used as livestock feed.
  • and found no prohibited items
redavistinnell

North Korea claims it has hydrogen bomb - CNN.com - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

north korea claims hydrogen bomb

shared by redavistinnell on 11 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • North Korea claims it has hydrogen bomb as U.N. discusses human rights abuses
  • North Korea has added the hydrogen bomb to its arsenal, state media said Thursday, a development that, if true, would represent a major leap in its nuclear weapons capabilities.
  • Analysts in recent years have believed that North Korea may have been working toward -- but didn't yet have the capability to produce -- a hydrogen, or thermonuclear, bomb. It can be hundreds of times more powerful than an atomic bomb.
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  • North Korea had become "a powerful nuclear weapons state ready to detonate [a] self-reliant A-bomb and H-bomb to reliably defend its sovereignty and the dignity of the nation," Kim said, according to the KCNA report.
  • Experts have responded to Pyongyang's claim with skepticism.
  • But its conventional weaponry is dated, with limited effectiveness, and it has looked to developing its nuclear capabilities to project power internationally.
  • "It's hard to regard North Korea as possessing an H-bomb. I think it seems to be developing it," Lee said, according to a report by South Korea's Yonhap news agency.
  • Kim's regime generally cloaks its efforts in secrecy and occasionally boasts of advances through propaganda outlets, leaving the rest of the world to attempt to connect the dots.
  • Pyongyang is a "black box", said Ewha's Kim. He added that the regime was well versed in using uncertainty about its true capabilities to generate fear and strengthen its hand in terms of negotiations.
  • North Korea had previously used plutonium in nuclear tests, one of the elements used in more "small fry" fission weapons such as atomic bombs, Nilsson-Wright said, and a leap to thermonuclear capability would be surprising.
  • In May, it said it had the ability to miniaturize nuclear weapons, a development that would allow it to deploy nuclear weapons on missiles. A U.S. National Security Council spokesman responded that the United States did not think the North Koreans had such a capability.
  • A hydrogen bomb produces a fusion reaction -- the energy source of the sun and the stars -- in which colliding nuclei form a new nucleus. Fusion devices produce explosions "orders of magnitude more powerful than atomic bombs," according to the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization.
  • By comparison, the world's first thermonuclear test, conducted by the U.S. in the Marshall Islands in 1952, yielded the equivalent of 10.4 million tons of TNT, a blast 700 times more powerful.
maddieireland334

After Nuclear Test, China Resists Pressure to Curb North Korea - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...th-korea-xi-jinping-obama.html

shared by maddieireland334 on 16 Jan 16 - No Cached
  • But President Xi Jinping, in a private meeting with President Obama at Constantine Palace in St. Petersburg, Russia, warned against putting too much pressure on Kim Jong-un, the North’s young, volcanic leader.
  • Since coming to power in 2012, Mr. Xi has pushed the limits of Chinese foreign policy, challenging America’s influence in the Pacific and using China’s financial heft to win allies across the globe
  • After North Korea conducted its fourth nuclear test last week, world leaders escalated pressure on Mr. Xi, whom many see as the best hope of reining in Mr. Kim. South Korea’s president, Park Geun-hye, who has cultivated closer ties to Mr. Xi, called on China this week to match its disapproving words about the North’s nuclear ambitions with “necessary measures.”
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  • “If North Korea becomes an enemy state, it would have plenty of ways to harm China,” said Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations at Renmin University in Beijing. “Beijing cannot afford to have North Korea become permanently hostile.”
  • Adding to the complications, Mr. Xi, 62, and Mr. Kim, believed to be 33, have a fraught relationship, say American, Chinese, and South Korean officials.
  • While the two leaders hail from revolutionary families, they have little else in common. Mr. Xi’s formative years were dominated by the chaos of the Cultural Revolution. Mr. Kim attended a Swiss boarding school and inherited the title of supreme leader before turning 30.
  • Mr. Xi has long recognized China’s sense of camaraderie with the North, which dates to their Korean War alliance in the 1950s. (Mao called the relationship “as close as lips and teeth.”)
  • But the two countries have followed starkly divergent paths. While China is now a sophisticated economy and a rising power, North Korea has become increasingly isolated, enfeebled and erratic, depending on China for most of its food and energy.
  • “The nuclear test will seriously damage the bilateral relationship,” Mr. Yang said. “Xi Jinping has been forced to be more assertive.”
  • While his predecessors welcomed North Korean leaders with the fanfare of Politburo meetings, Mr. Xi has kept a distance.
  • In an unusually public rebuke, Mr. Xi warned that no country should be able to throw the world into chaos for “selfish gain.” Later that year, he imposed sanctions, limiting shipments of materials used in weapons and cutting ties to some North Korean banks, though enforcement was lax.
  • Mr. Xi has made clear to the North that its future lies in economic reform, not military development, and that China will not accept a nuclear state, current and former Chinese and American officials said.
  • In a sign of his displeasure, Mr. Xi has cultivated better relations with Ms. Park, the South Korean president, traveling to Seoul for a state visit in 2014.
  • Jon M. Huntsman Jr., who served as the American ambassador to China from 2009 to 2011, said there was a generational divide among Chinese officials about how to deal with North Korea. “The older apparatchiks would defend the North Korean line,” he said. “The younger ones wanted this issue to go away. There’s no emotional connection, there’s no war being waged.”
  • In recent months, Mr. Xi extended several olive branches to Mr. Kim, concerned that the relationship had deteriorated to the point that Mr. Kim might lash out again, American and Chinese diplomats said.
  • At the parade in October, Mr. Kim stood next to Mr. Xi’s envoy, smiling and waving. He spoke of a “blood-tied friendship” and said that “bilateral ties are more than neighborliness,” according to coverage in the North Korean news media.
malonema1

Let Trump and Kim Meet - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...555314

politics US trump crisis

shared by malonema1 on 12 Mar 18 - No Cached
  • On Thursday, Chung Eui Yong, South Korea’s national security advisor, told a stunned group of journalists at the White House that President Donald Trump had accepted an invitation to meet with Kim Jong Un, the leader of North Korea. Like so many other decisions in this White House, this one felt chaotic. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, for example, seemed to learn of the decision to hold the meeting, which is planned to occur by May, only after it was made. (He and other administration officials have since downplayed its significance, though Trump on Friday night tweeted: “The deal with North Korea is very much in the making.”) And yet: While one may wish that Trump acted less impulsively, a Trump-Kim summit is a good idea, one that may solve the problem of a truculent North Korea.
  • It’s also worth remembering that when it comes to North Korea, nukes are hardly the only danger. Even if Pyongyang relinquished its entire nuclear arsenal, it would still possess a large stockpile of chemical and biological weapons, and could decimate Seoul, South Korea’s capital, with its conventional weaponry. The real problem is not North Korea’s nuclear arms, but its potential willingness to use them, along with the rest of its weapons, in a way that harms U.S. interests.
  • The reasonable best-case scenario for North Korea is that the Kim regime focuses almost exclusively on staying in power and delivering economic growth to its citizens rather than threatening the United States or its neighbors. (Think something like Vietnam after its 1980s economic liberalization—but with nuclear weapons.) Actually pushing for regime change is risky. A coup could replace Kim with a benevolent dictator who prepares the country for elections and reunification with the South under Seoul—or with a general who decides that launching nuclear weapons at the United States, or selling them to a group like the Islamic State, serves Pyongyang’s interests.
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  • Ahead of the proposed Trump-Kim summit, there are some key questions to keep in mind: What really matters here? That Trump cows Kim, cudgeling him and his nation with the threat of American might? That the United States risks war, the decimation of Seoul, a nuclear missile screaming towards Hawaii, and the deaths of millions of North Koreans, just so it doesn’t have to admit that Pyongyang outmaneuvered the Trump administration? Or, instead, that egos are set aside in the pursuit of peace?
malonema1

The key players attending North Korea-South Korea summit - 0 views

beta.nbcnews.com/...rea-south-korea-summit-n868891

culture policy politics

shared by malonema1 on 01 May 18 - No Cached
  • North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in met for the first time at a historic summit Friday.The neighbors technically remain at war.
  • One of the key issues to be addressed is North Korea’s nuclear program, which has been at the center of tensions between Seoul and Pyongyang, as well alarming China and the United States.The inter-Korean meeting precedes an equally high-stakes diplomatic gambit involving President Donald Trump and Kim. However, the date and location for that summit remains uncle
  • If the current overture bears fruit, it will be one of the ironies of history that Kim Jong Un’s bloody consolidation of power provided him with the impunity to pursue peace with his nation’s mortal enemy, the United States. Believed to have ordered the deaths of anyone viewed as a potential threat to his rule, Kim also personally oversaw the acceleration of North Korea’s nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missile programs. The biggest question now is whether he is actually willing to cede ground on what has been North Korea’s long-held ambition to be a nuclear power.
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  • diplomat with a 30-year career behind him, Ri Yong Ho is a former ambassador to the United Kingdom. Fluent in English, only last year Ri stood in front of the U.N. General Assembly and called Trump “President Evil” and “Commander-in-Grief.”
  • The liberal Moon swept into power after the divisive impeachment of his predecessor, and promised to pursue better relations with his northern neighbor. A human rights lawyer by trade, Moon was imprisoned as a student for his role in protesting against military strongman Park Chung-hee. Moon also served in South Korea’s special forces in the DMZ during a period of exceptionally high tensions. He promised to pursue a policy toward North Korea following in the pattern of the “Sunshine Policy” of his liberal predecessors. His challenge has been to persuade the Trump administration — and conservatives inside South Korea — of his dedication to the Seoul-Washington alliance.
  • South Korea’s top spy has been the architect of previous summits involving North Korea, and is viewed as an honest broker by Pyongyang. In the 1990s he lived in North Korea for two years, working on an international agreement that would have supplied the country with a non-military nuclear power reactor. Having studied at Johns Hopkins’ School of Advanced International Studies, Suh is also comfortable in Washington D.C., where he is well-known and respected.
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