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Kim Jong-un celebrates American Independence Day in style…

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« Reply #200 on: September 15, 2017, 01:27:39 pm »


from The Washington Post....

U.S. general says size of most recent North Korean test ‘equates to’
a hydrogen bomb


General John Hyten cited the massive size of North Korea's most recent nuclear test.

By DAN LAMOTHE | 6:31PM EDT - Thursday, September 14, 2017

General John E. Hyten, U.S. Strategic Command commander, stands in front of a flag at Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota, on June 6, 2016. Hyten presented the 5th Bomb Wing with the 2017 Omaha Trophy in the Strategic Bomber category and recognized multiple Team Minot Airmen for their mission contributions. — Photograph: Senior Airman J.T. Armstrong/U.S. Air Force.
General John E. Hyten, U.S. Strategic Command commander, stands in front of a flag at Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota, on June 6th, 2016.
Hyten presented the 5th Bomb Wing with the 2017 Omaha Trophy in the Strategic Bomber category and recognized multiple Team Minot
Airmen for their mission contributions. — Photograph: Senior Airman J.T. Armstrong/U.S. Air Force.


OFFUTT AIR FORCE BASE, NEBRASKA — The chief of U.S. Strategic Command said Thursday that the size, yield and other indications seen in North Korea's most recent nuclear test “equates to a hydrogen bomb” and that he must now assume Pyongyang can build one.

Air Force General John Hyten, who oversees U.S. nuclear forces and monitors North Korea, told reporters meeting with him at his headquarters on this installation that he cannot confirm a hydrogen bomb was tested but the test was significant “because of the sheer destruction and damage you can use and create with a weapon of that size.” The September 3rd blast is believed to have been at least 100 kilotons in size, large enough to reshape the size of the mountain above the test site that Pyongyang used.

“The change from the original atomic bomb to the hydrogen changed our entire deterrent relationship with the Soviet Union,” Hyten said. “It is significantly of concern not just to Strategic Command, but to everybody in the free world. It should be of concern to people in the neighborhood, which is Japan and Korea, as well as China and Russia.”

Hyten said that if North Korea can mount a bomb of that size on a missile, it could potentially destroy a city. The United States has the ability to deter a nuclear attack on itself or its allies because of the nuclear weapons it maintains, but it's a “different question” whether America can stop North Korea from building them.

“Do I, U.S. Strategic Command, have the ability for the United States to deter an adversary from attacking the United States with strategic weapons,” he said. “Yes, because they know the response is going to be the destruction of their entire nation, and I think that does provide a powerful deterrent.”

Hyten's comments came in an interview with journalists traveling with Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, who is visiting nuclear weapons sites this week as tensions with North Korea continue to simmer as a result of the nuclear test and an August 29th operation in which Pyongyang launched a Hwasong-12 ballistic missile some 1,700 miles over northern Japan.

Hyten suggested on Thursday that the debate about deterrence in the United States needs to evolve from the 1,550 nuclear warheads it maintains under the New START Treaty it signed with Russia in 2010 to account for other adversaries and other threats, including cyber warfare.

“It is the starting point for any deterrence equation, but it's not the end point,” Hyten said of the treat. “We have to worry not just about attacks that could hurt this country in the nuclear realm, but we have to worry about large-scale conventional attacks as well as space and cyber attacks that could seriously damage this country.”


• Dan Lamothe covers national security for The Washington Post and anchors its military blog, Checkpoint.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2017/09/14/u-s-general-says-size-of-most-recent-north-korean-test-equates-to-a-hydrogen-bomb
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« Reply #201 on: September 15, 2017, 01:28:00 pm »


from The Washington Post....

North Korea fires another missile over Japan,
triggering warnings and condemnation


By ANNA FIFIELD and DAN LAMOTHE | 8:12PM EDT - Thursday, September 14, 2017

A photo made available by the North Korean Central News Agency shows the second test-fire of Hwasong-14 intercontinental ballistic missile at an undisclosed location in North Korea on July 28th, 2017. Multiple media reported on Friday, September 15th, 2017, that North Korea has launched another unidentified missile and that it has passed over Japan. — Photograph: KCNA/European Pressphoto Agency/Agencia EFE.
A photo made available by the North Korean Central News Agency shows the second test-fire of Hwasong-14 intercontinental ballistic
missile at an undisclosed location in North Korea on July 28th, 2017. Multiple media reported on Friday, September 15th, 2017,
that North Korea has launched another unidentified missile and that it has passed over Japan.
 — Photograph: KCNA/European Pressphoto Agency/Agencia EFE.


SEOUL — North Korea fired another missile over the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido on Friday morning, just a day after Pyongyang threatened that the four main Japanese islands “should be sunken into the sea” by its nuclear bomb.

This was the second time in less than three weeks that North Korea sent a projectile over Japan, and the missile firing immediately sparked angry reactions in Tokyo and Seoul.

The missile was launched from the Sunan airfield just north of Pyongyang about 6:30 a.m. local time, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said. It flew for 17 minutes, passing over Hokkaido and landing some 1,200 miles to the east in the Pacific Ocean.

The launch immediately triggered emergency alerts in Japan, with text messages and loud speakers telling residents along the missile's potential flight path to seek shelter.

The Japanese government warned people not to approach any debris or other suspicious-looking material, a reflection of the fact that North Korean missiles sometimes break up in flight.

Japan's chief cabinet secretary, Yoshihide Suga, condemned the latest launch and reiterated that Japan would “not tolerate” North Korea's actions. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had asked his government to “prepare for any contingency,” but Japan did not try to shoot down the missile.

In Washington, the White House said President Trump was briefed on the latest North Korean missile launch by his chief of staff, John F. Kelly.

Details were still emerging, but Friday's launch appeared similar to the previous launch, on August 29th.

On that day, North Korea fired a Hwasong-12 — an inter­mediate-range ballistic missile technically capable of flying 3,000 miles, enough to reach the U.S. territory of Guam — from the Sunan airfield. It flew to the east, over Hokkaido and into the Pacific Ocean, rather than on a southward path toward Guam.

But analysts said that, after testing its missiles by firing them straight up and having them crash into the sea between the Korean Peninsula and Japan, North Korea was apparently testing its flight on a normal trajectory without crossing a “red line” of aiming at the United States.




On Thursday, a North Korean state agency had issued an alarming threat to Japan. “The four islands of the [Japanese] archipelago should be sunken into the sea by [our] nuclear bombs,” the Korea ­Asia-Pacific Peace Committee said in a statement carried by the official news agency.

Hokkaido is the northern-most of Japan's four main islands.

“Japan is no longer needed to exist near us,” the committee said.

This is the first missile launch since North Korea conducted a huge nuclear test on September 3rd, which analysts say appeared to live up to Pyongyang's claim that it was a hydrogen bomb, exponentially more powerful than a normal atomic device.

The August 29th missile launch, followed by the huge nuclear test, triggered tough new sanctions from the U.N. Security Council.

The Japanese government estimates that the force of that nuclear explosion was 160 kilotons — more than 10 times the size of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima — but some analysts have said its yield could have been as much as 250 kilotons.

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, traveling from Washington to view U.S. nuclear weapons at Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota, said on Wednesday that the North Korean nuclear test appeared to be “100 kilotons or more.”

“I don't want to talk any further than that right now, okay?” Mattis said. “It's a large one.”

Air Force General John Hyten, the chief of U.S. Strategic Command, agreed with the assessment that North Korea had probably tested a hydrogen bomb.

Speaking just before the missile was launched, Hyten, who oversees U.S. nuclear forces and monitors North Korea, told reporters that the size, yield and other indications seen in North Korea's most recent nuclear test “equates to a hydrogen bomb” and that he must now assume Pyongyang can build one.

He said he could not confirm that a hydrogen bomb was tested but said the test was significant “because of the sheer destruction and damage you can use and create with a weapon of that size.”

“The change from the original atomic bomb to the hydrogen [bomb] changed our entire deterrent relationship with the Soviet Union,” Hyten said. “It is significantly of concern not just to Strategic Command but to everybody in the free world. It should be of concern to people in the neighborhood, which is Japan and Korea, as well as China and Russia.”

Hyten said that if North Korea can mount a bomb of that power on a missile, it could potentially destroy a city. The United States has the ability to deter a nuclear attack on itself or its allies because of the nuclear weapons it maintains, Hyten said, but it's a “different question” whether the United States can stop North Korea from building them.

Hyten said that the United States still has not seen North Korea “put everything together” with a nuclear warhead mounted on an intercontinental ballistic missile but that it is only a matter of time before the North Koreans do so.

“Whether they have the ability, I don't have any insight into that,” Hyten said. “I can just look at historic examples and say that it could be within months or it could be within years.”


Dan Lamothe reported from Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska. David Nakamura in Washington contributed to this report.

• Anna Fifield is The Post’s bureau chief in Tokyo, focusing on Japan and the Koreas. She previously reported for the Financial Times from Washington DC, Seoul, Sydney, London and from across the Middle East.

• Dan Lamothe covers national security for The Washington Post and anchors its military blog, Checkpoint.

__________________________________________________________________________

Related to this topic:

 • VIDEO: Economy of deceit: How North Korea funds its nuclear weapons program | Loopholes

 • YouTube has shut down more North Korean channels — and researchers are livid

 • For Kim Jong Un, nuclear weapons are a security blanket. And he wants to keep it.

 • North Korean missile flies over Japan, escalating tensions

 • GRAPHIC: What is North Korea trying to hit?


https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/north-korea-fires-another-missile-from-near-pyongyang-reportedly-over-japan/2017/09/14/9d465988-9999-11e7-a527-3573bd073e02_story.html
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« Reply #202 on: September 15, 2017, 01:57:52 pm »


Oooooooooooooh.....that will most definitely upset Donald J. Trump's day.....HUGELY!!   Grin   Cool
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« Reply #203 on: September 15, 2017, 02:51:20 pm »

I think if I lived in South Korea or Japan I would be getting a bit concerned about how this is all going to end up....in the US...not so much🙄...

...and just in case he wanted drop a bomb on a country who is not big on defence and no one cares about....

...how are we off for a defence system capable of neutralising any nuclear missiles heading our way🙄
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« Reply #204 on: September 15, 2017, 03:03:03 pm »


from The Washington Post....

Kim Jong Un — smart and strategic?

An imagined interview with the North Korean leader.

By FAREED ZAKARIA | 8:02PM EDT - Thursday, September 14, 2017

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. — Photograph: Korean Central News Agency /Agence France-Presse/Getty Images.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. — Photograph: Korean Central News Agency /Agence France-Presse/Getty Images.

LONDON — I am sometimes asked what world figure I most want to interview. For me, the answer is obvious: Kim Jong Un. The general impression around the globe continues to be that the North Korean leader is crazy, provocative and unpredictable, but I think that he might well be strategic, smart and utterly rational. Because I am unlikely to get that interview, I have decided to imagine it instead.

Question: Marshal Kim, why do you keep building and testing nuclear weapons and missiles, even though they result in massive, crippling economic sanctions?

Answer: My nation faces a fundamental challenge — survival. The regime is more threatened than ever before. My forefathers had it easy. The Great Leader, my grandfather, ruled with the support of the world's other superpower at the time, the Soviet Union, as well as our gigantic neighbor, China. The Dear Leader, my father, still had Beijing's help for the most part. But today, the Soviet Union is history and China has become more integrated with the Western system. And the sole superpower, the United States, has made it clear that it seeks regime change in my country. And yet, we have survived with our ideology and system intact. How? Because we have built a protection for ourselves in the form of nuclear weapons.

Question: But China still provides you with crucial supplies of food and fuel. Don't you see it as an ally?

Answer: China is ruthlessly pragmatic. It supports us for its own selfish interests. It doesn't want millions of refugees — or a unified Korea on its border that is a larger version of what South Korea is now, with U.S. troops and a treaty alliance. But I believe that China no longer considers us an ally. It has voted to sanction us in the U.N. Security Council. The current president, Xi Jinping, cultivates close relations with South Korea. He has never met with me, the leader of North Korea, something that the leader of China has always done. Meanwhile, he has had about 10 meetings with the last two presidents of South Korea. At the grand celebrations in Beijing two years ago commemorating the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, he placed the president of Russia and the president of South Korea at his side. In North Korea, we pay a lot of attention to ceremonies and what they signal.

Question: Is that why you seem to go out of your way to embarrass China and Xi specifically?

Answer: We will not be pushed around. We heard that senior officials in China and the United States were discussing whether to encourage a coup in North Korea to get a more pliable ruler. So I've taken steps to ensure that this can't happen. The man in our government closest to the Chinese, who could have arranged such a coup attempt, was my uncle. The man who would have been my natural replacement was my half brother. Both have been liquidated, as have more than 100 disloyal high-level officials.

Question: So will you come to the negotiating table? Will you agree to denuclearization in return for the lifting of sanctions?

Answer: Yes and no. We will readily come to the table. But we will never give up our arsenal. We're not stupid. It's all that is keeping us alive. Look at Saddam Hussein — and we never forget that North Korea was named as part of the “axis of evil” a year before the United States invaded Iraq. Look what happened to Moammar Gaddafi in Libya after he agreed to give up his nuclear weapons program. Look at what's happening to Iran right now. After Washington signed a deal and the Iranians have been certified to be adhering to it, President Trump now says he's going to tear it up anyway. Do you think we would be stupid enough to believe American promises after all this? We are a nuclear power. That is not negotiable. We are willing to talk about limits, test bans, freezes — but we would need to be given something in return, and not just money. We need security, in the form of diplomatic recognition by Washington and guarantees of non-aggression from China, Japan and the United States.

Question: Many Americans worry that you will soon have the capacity and the intention to launch missiles at the United States.

Answer: We will have the capacity. And it serves my purposes to keep you off guard. But why would I strike America and invite a retaliatory counterstrike that would put an end to my regime? Keep in mind, the whole point of this — my entire strategy, all our efforts and the hardships we have borne — is to ensure that my regime and I survive. Why would I risk that? I believe in assassination, not suicide.


• Fareed Zakaria writes a foreign affairs column for The Washington Post. He is also the host of CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS and a contributing editor for The Atlantic.

North Korean citizens visit the statues of President Kim Il Sung and leader Kim Jong Il. — Photograph: Korean Central News Agency/Reuters.
North Korean citizens visit the statues of President Kim Il Sung and leader Kim Jong Il. — Photograph: Korean Central News Agency/Reuters.

__________________________________________________________________________

Related to this topic:

 • Here's what a permanent treaty with North Korea might look like


https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/kim-jong-un--smart-and-strategic/2017/09/14/0c28a516-9988-11e7-82e4-f1076f6d6152_story.html
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« Reply #205 on: September 15, 2017, 03:05:05 pm »


Yep.....that about sums it up alright.

Dictators who don't have a nuke deterrent get overthrown.

Dictators who do have a nuke deterrent don't get overthrown.

Kim Jong Un knows this (through simple observation of what happens around the world), so he has put himself in the second category.
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« Reply #206 on: September 15, 2017, 03:11:32 pm »

...mmm...I think there maybe a third category soon...

..Dictators who have nukes and get blown up and overthrown😜
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« Reply #207 on: September 15, 2017, 03:27:34 pm »


Guess what?

Even that American General (in the first article on this page) admits there is nothing they can do to stop Kim getting nukes on ICBMs.

I guess he isn't as stupid & dumb as you, eh?
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« Reply #208 on: September 15, 2017, 03:31:35 pm »

..mm...I really that Japan and South Korea need to step to the plate and get nuclear weapons of their own....stop having to depend on the US taxpayer🙄
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« Reply #209 on: September 15, 2017, 03:51:56 pm »


Yep....and I think Iran should get nukes as a deterrence against Israeli nukes.
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« Reply #210 on: September 15, 2017, 03:55:21 pm »

...yes...and we should get nukes because I don't trust Australia🙄

..perhaps we could cancel the $38 million for Rnz and put it towards nuclear missiles😜
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« Reply #211 on: September 16, 2017, 06:02:03 pm »

Yes..great that America has that out post...did they dig up coral reefs to build it🙄

....or is it a real island?
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« Reply #212 on: September 16, 2017, 07:13:00 pm »


from The Washington Post....

Latest North Korea missile launch suggests Guam is within reach

The missile flew 2,300 miles. Guam is 2,100 miles from North Korea.

By ADAM TAYLOR, LARIS KARKLIS and TIM MEKO | 12:14PM EDT - Friday, September 15, 2017



ON Friday morning, a North Korean ballistic missile flew over the Japanese island of Hokkaido and into the Pacific Ocean. This was the second time in less than three weeks that a missile has flown over Japan; worryingly, it came just a day after Pyongyang said that Japan “should be sunken into the sea.”

However, as sirens sounded in Japan, Americans quickly grew concerned that the real threat revealed by this latest missile test was not just against Japan but also the U.S. territory of Guam.

North Korea's missile, believed to be an intermediate-range Hwasong-12, had flown 2,300 miles in just over 17 minutes, according to South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff. That range means that Guam, which lies 2,100 miles from North Korea, is now in reach.

“North Korea demonstrated that it could reach Guam with this missile,” David Wright, co-director of the global security program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, wrote in a blog post.

As tensions between North Korea and the United States and its allies have increased in recent weeks, Pyongyang has made a number of threats against Guam, an island territory of 160,000 people. In early August, a North Korean military spokesman said that the country was considering a plan to fire missiles into the sea around Guam. A propaganda video released a few weeks later reiterated this suggestion.

It's an ominous thought. Guam might have only 14 minutes to react if a North Korean missile were about to strike, officials have said.




Guam has faced similar warnings from North Korea in the past. The island territory, which is around 4,000 miles west of Hawaii, is an important strategic hub for U.S. power in the Pacific. It is home to both Andersen Air Force Base and Naval Base Guam, bases that contain not only 6,000 troops but also long-range bombers, ships and submarines.

“Every time there is some saber rattling in this part of the world, Guam is always part of the occasion,” Robert A. Underwood, president of the University of Guam and a former delegate to the House of Representatives, told The Washington Post in August.

However, rapid advancements in North Korea's missile technology have changed the nature of the threat. Notably, missile tests earlier this year were fired at a lofted trajectory — essentially sending the missile high into space to avoid flying it over other nations. Two Hwasong-14 intercontinental ballistic missiles tested in July appeared to be capable of reaching the U.S. mainland, but it remains unclear how they would fare on a standard trajectory.

With the past two tests that apparently used Hwasong-12 missiles, Pyongyang appears to have moved away from that cautious strategy and has conducted tests over Japanese territory — a tactic that involves considerable risk.

The increase in range between the August 28th and September 15th launches would appear to show that Guam is in range of the Hwasong-12 — in theory, at least. However, there are still a number of unknown variables in the test, including the size of its payload and how a heavier payload would affect its flight. In his blog post, Wright adds that it is also unlikely that the missile is accurate enough to hit a military base on Guam.

“Even assuming the missile carried a 150 kiloton warhead, which may be the yield of North Korea's recent nuclear test, a missile of this inaccuracy would still have well under a 10 percent chance of destroying the air base,” Wright wrote.

But North Korea is still likely to proclaim the latest missile test a success. After the August 28th test, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said it was “a meaningful prelude to containing Guam,” the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported.


• Adam Taylor writes about foreign affairs for The Washington Post. Originally from London, he studied at the University of Manchester and Columbia University.

• Laris Karklis has been working at The Washington Post since 2000.

• Tim Meko designs and develops maps, data visualizations and explanatory graphics for The Washington Post. Before coming to The Post he led the visuals team at the Urban Institute and was an infographics artist at the Columbus Dispatch.

__________________________________________________________________________

Related to this topic:

 • VIDEO: Why tiny Guam is in North Korea's crosshairs

 • North Korea's latest nuclear test was so powerful it reshaped the mountain above it

 • A majority of Americans favor deploying U.S. troops if North Korea attacks South Korea, poll finds


https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/09/15/latest-north-korea-missile-launch-suggests-guam-is-within-reach
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« Reply #213 on: September 16, 2017, 07:32:00 pm »

...yep..it's time for the US to install nukes in South Korea and Japan😜
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« Reply #214 on: September 16, 2017, 08:03:22 pm »


The Japanese, like New Zealand, have legislation BANNING nukes.

In fact, not only is it legislated against, but it is in their constitution.

Oh dear....that stupid moron Reality/Donald opened up his mouth without engaging his brain and getting his facts right....yet again!!
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« Reply #215 on: September 16, 2017, 09:17:25 pm »

Think you'll find the main reason Japan doesn't have nuclear weapons is that the US banned them there when Japan lost WW2 to the US, one - nil.
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« Reply #216 on: September 16, 2017, 09:52:49 pm »


Good luck trying to get the Japanese to change their constitution.
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« Reply #217 on: September 16, 2017, 10:02:33 pm »

Nothing a little pragmatism couldn't fix😜
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« Reply #218 on: September 16, 2017, 11:35:33 pm »

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« Reply #219 on: September 17, 2017, 12:04:39 am »


from The Washington Post....

North Korea wants military ‘equilibrium’ with the U.S., Kim Jong Un says

The country will run “full speed and straight” with its missile program, Kim says.

By ANNA FIFIELD | 9:05PM EDT - Friday, September 15, 2017

This picture released from North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency on Saturday, September 16th, 2017, shows North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un inspecting the launching of a medium-and-long range strategic ballistic rocket Hwasong-12 at an undisclosed location. — Photograph: KCNA/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images.
This picture released from North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency on Saturday, September 16th, 2017, shows North Korean leader
Kim Jong-Un inspecting the launching of a medium-and-long range strategic ballistic rocket Hwasong-12 at an undisclosed location.
 — Photograph: KCNA/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images.


SEOUL — North Korea is seeking military “equilibrium” with the United States as a way to stop American leaders from talking about military options for dealing with Pyongyang, Kim Jong Un said after supervising the launch of another missile over Japan.

And North Korea would continue to run “full speed and straight” toward achieving this goal, Kim told his top missile unit, according to the latest statement from his state news agency.

For the second time in three weeks, North Korea on Friday sent an intermediate-range missile over the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido. It traveled for 2,300 miles in an easterly direction, landing in the Pacific Ocean. But if it had been launched south-eastward, it could easily have passed the U.S. territory of Guam, some 2,100 miles from the launch site in Pyongyang.

Kim, the North Korean leader who has pressed ahead with alarming speed on his state's nuclear and missile programs, has been threatening to “envelop” Guam with missiles if the United States does not stop its “hostile policy” toward the North.

In the latest statement, Kim said that North Korea's “final goal is to establish the equilibrium of real force with the U.S. and make the U.S. rulers dare not talk about military options.”

He stressed the need for the ability to launch a “nuclear counterattack the U.S. cannot cope with,” according to the Korean Central News Agency. This statement echoed previous assertions that North Korea was not seeking to attack first, but rather aiming to develop the ability to strike back.


In this undated photo distributed on Saturday, September 16th, 2017, by the North Korean government, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, center, celebrates what was said to be the test launch of an intermediate range Hwasong-12 missile at an undisclosed location in North Korea. — Photograph: Korean Central News Agency/Associated Press.
In this undated photo distributed on Saturday, September 16th, 2017, by the North Korean government, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, center,
celebrates what was said to be the test launch of an intermediate range Hwasong-12 missile at an undisclosed location in North Korea.
 — Photograph: Korean Central News Agency/Associated Press.


North Korea confirmed that the missile launched on Friday was, as analysts thought, an intermediate range ballistic missile that North Korea calls the Hwasong-12. It was launched from a modified truck parked at Sunan airfield, near or at the main international airport in Pyongyang.

The Hwasong-12 “zoomed to the sky with dazzling flash and big explosion,” KCNA reported. The launch was celebrated in the Rodong Sinmun, the mouthpiece of the Korean Workers' Party, which devoted its first three pages to the launch. Color photos showed Kim watching the missile launch and smiling broadly.

Kim also noted that North Korea had been able to make this astonishing progress on its nuclear and missile programs despite more than a decade of international sanctions aimed at cutting off its ability to produce the parts and funding it needed.

“We should clearly show the big power chauvinists how our state attains the goal of completing its nuclear force despite their limitless sanctions and blockade,” Kim told his elite missile unit. North Korea has historically used the term “big power chauvinist” to refer to China.

China supported the sanctions imposed on North Korea this week in response to its huge nuclear test on September 3rd, and its firing of a missile over Japan on August 29th.

The U.N. Security Council imposed its toughest sanctions to date against North Korea on Monday, setting limits on its oil imports and banning its textile exports. But the new sanctions were a compromise. To win the support of China and Russia, the United States had to tone down its demands, which included a total oil embargo and a global travel ban on Kim.


• Anna Fifield is The Washington Post's bureau chief in Tokyo, focusing on Japan and the Koreas. She previously reported for the Financial Times from Washington DC, Seoul, Sydney, London and from across the Middle East.

__________________________________________________________________________

Related to this topic:

 • The Latest: UN Security council condemns North Korea's test

 • North Korea says leader Kim Jong Un has vowed to complete nuclear weapons program despite sanctions


https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/north-korea-wants-military-equilibrium-with-the-us-kim-jong-un-says/2017/09/15/04f2b22e-9a77-11e7-a527-3573bd073e02_story.html
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Donald
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« Reply #220 on: September 17, 2017, 12:07:46 am »

Jacinda ran out of magic pixie dust


Labour’s Wonder Woman has found herself cast in a long-running soap opera – but not as a super hero.


 The National Party-scripted plot never varies from one election to the next, but the show never fails to draw big ratings.

Once again, Labour has been tripped up over tax policy. The only difference this time is that the major Opposition party has been even more helpful by having a whole range of new taxes in its manifesto.

The puzzle is why alarm bells did not ring at Labour’s headquarters given the scale of the free gift.


But maybe everyone was too consumed with playing the equivalent of Russian roulette by trying to sneak a capital gains tax past voters without them noticing.

The tax was the early product of Ardern’s Brave New World – a world where she intends demonstrating Labour can make the hard decisions.

It took precious little time for Labour to back off the idea as fast as decency allowed. “Let’s do this” became “Let’s not do that”.

Labour made a huge mistake.  Instead of focusing on getting into government, they got caught up in the excitement of also trying to squeeze through a minor revolution while we were all distracted by Jacinda’s smile. 

The attempt to short-circuit the usual process for introducing a reform of such magnitude is likely to prove to be wholly counter-productive.

Who in their right political mind is going to go into bat for the measure at the 2020 election?

Ardern and Robertson have killed off any chance of a capital gains tax making it on to the statute books for the foreseeable future.

Given the desperate need for such an asset tax to remove the distortions which encourage investment in non-productive sectors like residential property, that is a disaster for the country.

It should also be a big and timely lesson for Labour’s leader in the art of the possible. And that substance is exponentially more important than mere style.

They have (had?) one job:  Get into government.

Shows you how essentially incompetent they are.  They can’t even focus on the prize once every three years.

 Herald
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aDjUsToR
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« Reply #221 on: September 18, 2017, 12:29:58 pm »

KTJ have you considered writing a nice letter to dear leader asking him to grant you NK residency?I'm sure he'd love a sycophantic new zealander in his team of idiot western mascots 😁 You'd probably even get a nice home and plum job running their railways.
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Having fun in the hills!


« Reply #222 on: September 18, 2017, 12:41:58 pm »


Two idiots.....one is too stupid to even keep on topic.....the other thinks he is a comedian, but he obviously needs to find a new vocation.
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« Reply #223 on: September 18, 2017, 03:22:35 pm »

Haha...yes I could just imagine the rail worker standing beside Kim Jong Un...with his little note book....requesting to lick dear leaders arse😳
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Kiwithrottlejockey
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Having fun in the hills!


« Reply #224 on: September 19, 2017, 01:41:35 am »


Ah, yes....the IDIOT Reality/Donald farted out of his mouth again.
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