China, Russia begin naval drills near North Korea

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un watches the launch of a Hwasong-12 missile in this undated photo released by North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on September 16, 2017. KCNA via REUTERS A

 

China and Russia began naval drills near North Korea on Monday amid continuing tensions over the isolated state’s nuclear ambitions and ahead of a United Nations General Assembly meeting this week, where North Korea is likely to loom large.

BEIJING: China and Russia began naval drills near North Korea on Monday amid continuing tensions over the isolated state’s nuclear ambitions and ahead of a United Nations General Assembly meeting this week, where North Korea is likely to loom large.

North Korea launched a missile over Japan last Friday, its second in the past three weeks, and conducted its sixth and by far most powerful nuclear test on Sept. 3, in defiance of international pressure.

North Korea will cross point of no return with 6th nuke test

China’s President Xi Jinping attends the signing ceremony at the Presidential Palace in Helsinki, Finland April 5, 2017. Lehtikuva/Vesa Moilanen/via REUTERS

 

China says North Korea will cross the “point of no return” and face destruction by the U.S. if they carry out a sixth nuclear test

(WASHINGTON, DC) On Tuesday the Global Times published an Op-Ed with these ominous words noting that Pyongyang will incur the wrath of the United States if it ignores this warning.

“The game of chicken between Washington and Pyongyang has come to a breaking point,” the Global Times, a nationalist Chinese newspaper managed by the state-run People’s Daily, writes. “If North Korea carries out a sixth nuclear test as expected, it is more likely than ever that the situation will cross the point of no return.”

“All stakeholders will bear the consequences, with Pyongyang sure to suffer the greatest losses,” the outlet warns.

Trump: If China won’t “solve” North Korea problem, WE will

 

(WASHINGTON, DC) Trump plans to push China to put greater pressure on North Korea during his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping next week, but if Xi refuses, the U.S. will go its own way.

“China has great influence over North Korea. China will either decide to help us with North Korea, or they won’t,” the president told the Financial Times, “If China is not going to solve North Korea, we will.”

ASIA NUCLEAR TENSIONS: Pakistan launch nuke capable missile after successful India test

Named Ababeel, the weapon has a maximum range of 2,200km [Getty]

 

PAKISTAN is asserting its nuclear prowess as it conducted an atomic test in a thinly veiled threat to its nuclear-armed neighbour India.

The country’s military proudly announced it had successfully test-fired a surface-to-surface ballistic missile for the first time.

Named Ababeel, the weapon has a maximum range of 2,200km (1,367 miles) and is capable of carrying “multiple warheads”, a statement confirmed. 

China deploying troops along North Korea border

The Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy, a nongovernmental organization in Hong Kong, announced Wednesday that Beijing has dispatched 2,000 soldiers along the border, South Korean news service Newsis reported.China has previously deployed troops along its border with North Korea.

Forgetting National Security, Ignoring Truth

 

The 1992 presidential election turned on one key phrase: “It’s the economy, stupid.” The Cold War had been won. America was the sole superpower of the world. We had just won the Gulf War. And, Americans were tired. We wanted to enjoy our prosperity. It was at that moment that we officially began to separate and silo the critical issues of the day. President Reagan, twelve years before, had integrated three critical issues and focused the whole of his administration on them. These were known collectively as Reagan’s “three-legged stool.” Judeo-Christian Values. Free Market Economics. Strong National Defense. But when Clinton arrived, we were told that the economy mattered most. What a President does in his private life is irrelevant so long as the economy is booming, or so we were told. Who cares if something called al Qaeda attacks targets overseas? Why should that matter as long as we have the most powerful weapons?

Why China Won’t Stop North Korea

An article from 2009 that hits the nail on the head in explaining the true relationship between China and North Korea. North Korea is a Chinese proxy which serves to keep America distracted from the main threat: China. As time has passed by since this article was written, North Korea has also exponentially increased as a threat toward the United States as well.

 

North Korea has nukes, and China isn’t worried. Something’s not right.

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Understandably, America and its allies in Asia are alarmed by Kim Jong Il’s apocalyptic ambitions. Shortly after Pyongyang conducted its nuclear test on May 25, it turned South Korea into a nervous wreck by threatening a “strong military strike,” and saying that its 56-year cease-fire with Seoul no longer applies. Nearby Japan is so alarmed Tokyo is chattering about the need to develop its own nuclear arsenal. Concerns over North Korea’s nuclear belligerence reverberated throughout Asia.

Except in China.

North Korea tells world ‘wait and see’ on new nuclear test

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – North Korea said on Friday that the world would have to “wait and see” when asked for details of “a new form” of nuclear test it threatened to carry out after the United Nations Security Council condemned Pyongyang’s recent ballistic missile launch.

North Korea fired two medium-range Rodong ballistic missiles into the sea on March 26. Its first firing in four years of mid-range missiles that can hit Japan followed a series of short-range rocket launches over the past two months.

Members of the Security Council on March 27 condemned the move as a violation of U.N. resolutions and that it would continue discussions on an “appropriate response.

North Korea (DPRK) reacted on Sunday with a threat to conduct what it called “a new form of nuclear test.

“The DPRK made it very clear, we will carry out a new form of nuclear test. But I recommend you to wait and see what it is,” North Korea’s Deputy U.N. Ambassador Ri Tong Il said on Friday during the normally reclusive state’s third U.N. news conference this year.

UK must keep Trident nuclear deterrent – David Cameron

The UK would be “foolish” to abandon Trident in the face of the potential threat of nuclear attack from North Korea and Iran, David Cameron has said.

Writing in the Daily Telegraph, he said the country still needed the “ultimate weapon of defence”.

The prime minister said the nuclear danger had “increased” since the end of the Cold War.

North Korean military cleared to wage nuclear war on U.S.

PAJU, South Korea — North Korea warned early Thursday that its military has been cleared to attack the U.S. using “smaller, lighter and diversified nuclear” weapons, while the U.S. said it was strengthening protection in the region and seeking to defuse the situation.

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The strident warning from Pyongyang is the latest escalating threats from North Korea, which has railed against joint U.S. and South Korean military exercises taking place in South Korea and has expressed anger over tightened sanctions for its February nuclear test.

Japan has right to develop pre-emptive strike capability: defense chief

It’s already known that Japan can go nuclear within months, being they have the technology and the industry to produce. It’s also possible that they might even possess a nuclear weapons in pieces which could be assembled within weeks. Nevertheless, as this article shows, Japan seems ready to flex its muscles against China. How it will now handle Russia who is now entering the fray and doubling pressure remains to be seen. With both combined, we’re talking about going against the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

TOKYO — Japan has the right to develop the ability to make a pre-emptive strike against an imminent attack given a changing security environment although it has no plan to do so now, the defence minister said on Thursday, days after North Korea conducted a third nuclear test.

Any sign that Japan was moving to develop such a capability in response to North Korea’s nuclear program could upset neighbors China and South Korea, which have reacted strongly in the past to suggestions it might do so.

“When an intention to attack Japan is evident, the threat is imminent, and there are no other options, Japan is allowed under the law to carry out strikes against enemy targets,” Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera told Reuters in an interview.

North Korea’s neighbours prepare for war after hermit nation’s nuclear test

South Korea and Japan bolstered military preparations and mobilized scientists Wednesday as North Korea’s neighbours tried to determine if Pyongyang’s third nuclear test was as successful as it claimed.

The detonation was also the focus of global diplomatic maneuvers, with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry reaching out to counterparts in Seoul, Beijing and Tokyo. President Barack Obama used his State of the Union address to assure U.S. allies in the region and warn of “firm action.”

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Intelligence officials and analysts in Seoul raised the possibility of another nuclear test and of ballistic missile test-launches. North Korea’s Foreign Ministry said the latest test was merely its “first response” to what it called U.S. threats and that Pyongyang will continue with unspecified “second and third measures of greater intensity” if Washington maintains its hostility.

North Korea warns of ‘dark cloud of war’ as South begins naval drills ahead of ‘imminent’ nuclear test

SEOUL, South Korea — South Korean and U.S. troops began naval drills Monday in a show of force partly directed at North Korea amid signs that Pyongyang will soon follow through on a threat to conduct its third atomic test.

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North Korea’s state media said Sunday that at a high-level Workers’ Party meeting, leader Kim Jong Un issued “important” guidelines meant to bolster the army and protect national sovereignty. North Korea didn’t elaborate, but Kim’s guidelines likely refer to a nuclear test and suggest that Pyongyang appears to have completed formal procedural steps and is preparing to conduct a nuclear test soon, according to South Korean analyst Hong Hyun-ik.

North Korea tested Iranian warhead or “dirty bomb” in 2010 for $55m

German and Japanese intelligence sources Monday, March 5, confirmed – and qualified – to debkafile reports in the German Der Spiegel and Welt am Sonntag that Western intelligence had known for 11 months that at least one of North Korea’s covert nuclear tests in 2010 was carried out on an Iranian radioactive bomb or nuclear warhead.
Those sources report five facts are known for sure:

1. North Korea carried out two covert underground nuclear explosions in mid-April and around May 11 of 2010 equivalent to 50- 200 tonnes of TNT.

2. Two highly lethal heavy hydrogen isotopes, deuterium and tritium,  typical of a nuclear fission explosion and producing long-term contamination of the atmosphere, were detected and analyzed by  Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBOTO) monitoring stations in South Korea, Japan and Russia.

3. The presence of tritium in one of the tests led several intelligence agencies watching North Korea’s nuclear program and its longstanding links with Iran and Syria to examine the possibility that Pyongyang had tested the internal mechanism of a nuclear warhead on Iran’s behalf.  This strongly indicated to German and Japanese intelligence that Iran had already developed the nuclear warhead’s outer shell and attained its weaponization.

4.  Another possibility examined was that North Korea had tested an Iranian “dirty bomb” – i.e. a conventionally detonated device containing nuclear substances. Tritium would boost its range, force and lethality.

This was one of the conclusions of atmospheric scientist Larsk-Erik De Geer of the Swedish Defense Research Agency in Stockholm, who spent a year studying the data collected by various CTBOTO stations tracking the North Korean explosions.

On February 3, De Greer published some of his findings and conclusions in Nature Magazine. His paper will appear in the April/May issue of the Science and Global Security Journal.

5. The Japanese and German sources found confirmation of their suspicions that North Korea had abetted Iran’s nuclear aspirations in three events:

Full article: North Korea tested Iranian warhead or “dirty bomb” in 2010 for $55m (DEBKAfile)