North Korea, you're up next

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Re: North Korea, you're up next

Postby BenDhyan » Sat Apr 22, 2017 11:48 pm

Sorry folks, it's been nice knowing you...but my friend Kim insists... :)

North Korea warns Australia of nuclear strike over Julie Bishop's comments

April 23 2017 - 9:53AM

Image

According to a translation of the KCNA report, which was dated Friday, the same day US Vice-President Mike Pence arrived in Australia, Ms Bishop had said in the radio interview that North Korea seriously threatens regional peace and she supports the US policy that "all options are on the table".

A spokesman for the Foreign Ministry of North Korea - officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) - was quoted as saying: "The present government of Australia is blindly and zealously toeing the US line. It is hard to expect good words from the foreign minister of such government."

The spokesman said the Korean Peninsula "is inching close to the brink of war in an evil cycle of increasing tensions" and blamed US policy."If Australia persists in following the US moves to isolate and stifle the DPRK and remains a shock brigade of the US master, this will be a suicidal act of coming within the range of the nuclear strike of the strategic force of the DPRK."

http://www.smh.com.au/world/north-korea-warns-australia-of-nuclear-strike-over-julie-bishops-comments-20170422-gvqg5e.html
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Re: North Korea, you're up next

Postby brekin » Mon Apr 24, 2017 1:01 pm

Well, going on what was on "the list", Lebanon or Iran would be next.

“We’re going to take out 7 countries in 5 years: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan & Iran..”

...
AMY GOODMAN: Now, let’s talk about Iran. You have a whole website devoted to stopping war.

GEN. WESLEY CLARK: http://Www.stopiranwar.com.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you see a replay in what happened in the lead-up to the war with Iraq — the allegations of the weapons of mass destruction, the media leaping onto the bandwagon?

GEN. WESLEY CLARK: Well, in a way. But, you know, history doesn’t repeat itself exactly twice. What I did warn about when I testified in front of Congress in 2002, I said if you want to worry about a state, it shouldn’t be Iraq, it should be Iran. But this government, our administration, wanted to worry about Iraq, not Iran.

I knew why, because I had been through the Pentagon right after 9/11. About ten days after 9/11, I went through the Pentagon and I saw Secretary Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz. I went downstairs just to say hello to some of the people on the Joint Staff who used to work for me, and one of the generals called me in. He said, “Sir, you’ve got to come in and talk to me a second.” I said, “Well, you’re too busy.” He said, “No, no.” He says, “We’ve made the decision we’re going to war with Iraq.” This was on or about the 20th of September. I said, “We’re going to war with Iraq? Why?” He said, “I don’t know.” He said, “I guess they don’t know what else to do.” So I said, “Well, did they find some information connecting Saddam to al-Qaeda?” He said, “No, no.” He says, “There’s nothing new that way. They just made the decision to go to war with Iraq.” He said, “I guess it’s like we don’t know what to do about terrorists, but we’ve got a good military and we can take down governments.” And he said, “I guess if the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem has to look like a nail.”

So I came back to see him a few weeks later, and by that time we were bombing in Afghanistan. I said, “Are we still going to war with Iraq?” And he said, “Oh, it’s worse than that.” He reached over on his desk. He picked up a piece of paper. And he said, “I just got this down from upstairs” — meaning the Secretary of Defense’s office — “today.” And he said, “This is a memo that describes how we’re going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran.” I said, “Is it classified?” He said, “Yes, sir.” I said, “Well, don’t show it to me.” And I saw him a year or so ago, and I said, “You remember that?” He said, “Sir, I didn’t show you that memo! I didn’t show it to you!”

AMY GOODMAN: I’m sorry. What did you say his name was?

GEN. WESLEY CLARK: I’m not going to give you his name.

AMY GOODMAN: So, go through the countries again.

GEN. WESLEY CLARK: Well, starting with Iraq, then Syria and Lebanon, then Libya, then Somalia and Sudan, and back to Iran. So when you look at Iran, you say, “Is it a replay?” It’s not exactly a replay. But here’s the truth: that Iran, from the beginning, has seen that the presence of the United States in Iraq was a threat — a blessing, because we took out Saddam Hussein and the Baathists. They couldn’t handle them. We took care of it for them. But also a threat, because they knew that they were next on the hit list. And so, of course, they got engaged. They lost a million people during the war with Iraq, and they’ve got a long and unprotectable, unsecurable border. So it was in their vital interest to be deeply involved inside Iraq. They tolerated our attacks on the Baathists. They were happy we captured Saddam Hussein.
...

http://www.globalresearch.ca/we-re-goin ... -iran/5166
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Re: North Korea, you're up next

Postby 82_28 » Mon Apr 24, 2017 1:46 pm

While anti-war in all ways and care not for the military, NK has to know just that fleet has the power to completely wipe it off the map within minutes. I doubt China ain't gettin' into none of it.
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Re: North Korea, you're up next

Postby seemslikeadream » Mon Apr 24, 2017 9:23 pm



North Korea nuclear: White House calls Senate to briefing
5 hours ago

Kim Jong-un, here visiting a pig farm, has vowed to continue missile tests
In an unusual move, the entire US Senate is being called to the White House for a briefing on North Korea.
Washington has become increasingly concerned at North Korean missile and nuclear tests and threats to its neighbours and the US.
The briefing, involving 100 senators as well as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Defence Secretary James Mattis, is being held on Wednesday.
China, North Korea's main ally, has called for restraint from all sides.
China's call came in a phone conversation between President Xi Jinping and President Donald Trump on Sunday.
Mr Xi urged all parties to "maintain restraint and avoid actions that would increase tensions", according to the Chinese foreign ministry.
Why Beijing should lead on North Korean crisis
For his part, Mr Trump said North Korea's "continued belligerence" was destabilising the Korean peninsula.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joseph Dunford, will be among those briefing the senators
White House officials regularly go to Congress to brief on national security matters, but it is unusual for the whole Senate to go to the White House.
Alongside Mr Tillerson and Gen Mattis will be National Intelligence Director Dan Coats and Gen Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Questioned by reporters at his regular briefing, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer referred further inquiries to the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell.
Aides, quoted by Reuters, say the House of Representatives is seeking a similar briefing on North Korea.

A US spy plane landing in South Korea: the US is closely monitoring activity in the North
Washington says a flotilla, led by the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson, is expected to arrive off the peninsula within days, despite conflicting messages last week on its exact whereabouts.
Mr Trump has also told United Nations Security Council ambassadors, meeting at the White House, that the UN must be ready to impose new sanctions on North Korea.
The US is pursuing a multi-pronged strategy to make its point on North Korea, the BBC's Gary O'Donoghue in Washington says.
First it wants the UN to tighten sanctions even further, and to ensure those in place are properly enforced.
Secondly, it is attempting to put fresh pressure on China to rein in its communist neighbour. The third aspect is the sending of an aircraft carrier to the Korean peninsula - making clear military action is an option.
North Korean rhetoric
North Korean state media said on Sunday the country's forces were "combat-ready to sink" the Carl Vinson.
The ruling Workers' Party newspaper Rodong Sinmun called the carrier a "gross animal".
North Korea has promised to press ahead with missile tests despite Mr Trump's warnings and experts say it may be preparing for another nuclear test, in defiance of UN resolutions.
However, a North Korean ballistic missile test on 16 April failed within seconds of launch, US experts said.
Washington is concerned that Pyongyang may develop the ability to place a nuclear bomb on a missile capable of reaching the US.
Beijing is worried about the possibility of all-out conflict on the peninsula, which could lead to the collapse of the North Korean regime under its mercurial leader Kim Jong-un.
China fears this could cause a sizeable refugee problem and lead to an American presence up to the Chinese border.
North Korea 'detains American citizen'
What can the outside world do about N Korea?
Timeline of recent tensions
8 April: The US military orders a navy strike group to move towards the Korean peninsula
11 April: North Korea says it will defend itself "by powerful force of arms"
15 April: North Korea puts on a huge military parade - complete with missiles - to mark 105th birthday of the nation's founding president, Kim Il-sung. Meanwhile US Vice-President Mike Pence arrives in South Korea
16 April: North Korea conducts a rocket test, but it fails
17 April: Senior North Korean official tells the BBC the country will continue to test missiles "weekly" and Mr Pence warns North Korea not to "test" Donald Trump
18 April: It emerges the US Navy strike group was not heading towards North Korea when US officials suggested it was
22 April: US Vice-President Mike Pence says the group will arrive off the Korean peninsula "within days".
23 April: North Korea says it is "ready to sink" the US aircraft carrier
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39694640



Remarks by President Trump at a Working Lunch with U.N. Security Council Ambassadors

State Dining Room

11:50 A.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT: This is a very, very important and powerful group of people, and it’s really wonderful to have you with us. And I have to say, welcome to the White House. It’s a privilege to have all of the ambassadors and their spouses. You know, they were going to leave out the spouses, and I said, you must bring your spouses. (Laughter.) You know, I heard there were a lot of very angry spouses -- (laughter) -- and this is their first time to the White House. So it’s a great honor to those of you that brought your wife or spouse.

As you know, the United States holds the presidency of the Security Council this month, and I’m glad that we are continuing the tradition of hosting the Council’s ambassadors in our nation’s capital. It’s our great honor, believe me.

I want to thank Ambassador Nikki Haley for her outstanding leadership, and for acting as my personal envoy on the Security Council. She’s doing a good job. Now, does everybody like Nikki? Because if you don’t -- (laughter) -- otherwise, she can easily be replaced. (Laughter.) No, we won’t do that, I promise. We won’t do that. She’s doing a fantastic job. And everyone, I see -- even as we took pictures before -- the friendship that you’ve developed, all of you together. That’s really a fantastic thing.

The mission of the United Nations and the U.N. Security Council is to maintain international peace and security. These are important aims and shared interests. But as we look around the world, it’s clear that there is much work for you to achieve. You’re going to be very busy people, I suspect, over these coming months and years.

Our nation faces serious and growing threats, and many of them stem from problems that have been unaddressed for far too long. In fact, the United Nations doesn’t like taking on certain problems. But I have a feeling that people in this room -- and I know for a fact that Nikki feels very, very strongly about taking on problems that really people steered away from.

I encourage the Security Council to come together and take action to counter all of these many threats. On Syria, the Council failed again this month to respond to Syria’s use of chemical weapons. A great disappointment; I was very disappointed by that.

The status quo in North Korea is also unacceptable, and the Council must be prepared to impose additional and stronger sanctions on North Korean nuclear and ballistic missile programs. This is a real threat to the world, whether we want to talk about it or not. North Korea is a big world problem, and it’s a problem we have to finally solve. People have put blindfolds on for decades, and now it’s time to solve the problem.

For the United Nations to play an effective role in solving these and other security challenges, big reforms will be required. In addition, we must also take a close look at the U.N. budget. Costs have been -- absolutely gone out of control. But I will say this: If we do a great job, I care much less about the budget, because you’re talking about peanuts compared to the important work you’re doing. You really are. You’re talking about the most important things ever. And I must say, I’m a budget person. You see the way I’m talking about NATO, the same thing, but if you do a great job at the United Nations, I feel much differently about it because we’re talking pennies compared to the kind of lives and money that you’ll be saving.

The United States, just one of 193 countries in the U.N., pays for 22 percent of the budget and almost 30 percent of the United Nations peacekeeping, which is unfair. We need the member states to come together to eliminate inefficiency and bloat, and to ensure that no one nation shoulders a disproportionate share of the burden militarily or financially. This is only fair to our taxpayers.

I look forward to a productive discussion about our shared role in keeping the peace, advancing reforms, and getting everyone to do their fair share.

I also want to say to you that I have long felt the United Nations is an underperformer but has tremendous potential. There are those people that think it’s an underperformer and will never perform. I think -- and I think especially I’m so happy with the job that Nikki is doing and our representatives -- but Nikki and the group -- and I see the relationship that she has already developed.

I think that the United Nations has tremendous potential -- tremendous potential -- far greater than what I would say any other candidate in the last 30 years would have even thought to say. I don’t think it’s lived up -- I know it hasn’t lived up to the potential. I mean, I see a day when there’s a conflict where the United Nations, you get together, and you solve the conflict. You just don’t see the United Nations, like, solving conflicts. I think that’s going to start happening now. I can see it. And the United Nations will get together and solve conflicts. It won’t be two countries, it will be the United Nations mediating or arbitrating with those countries.

So I see fantastic potential and fantastic things ahead for the United Nations. And I have to say, it’s a tremendous honor to know you and to meet you. And Nikki has given me a little briefing on each and every one of you, and I must tell you -- I will tell you, you know, I’m a very blunt person, if she didn’t like I would tell you right now -- (laughter) -- but she gets along with everybody and respects everybody in this room.

I’ll end by saying that -- unless you would rather not do it -- so we have an office in the White House, you may have heard of it, called the Oval Office. So what we'll do is we'll go down as a group and we'll take some pictures in the Oval Office. I know you’ve never seen it. Nobody seems to get to see the Oval Office very much, but we’re going to show you the Oval Office. So we’ll go down, take some pictures of the Oval Office, and we’ll have a good luncheon, and we’ll talk about the United Nations and we’ll talk about peace.

Thank you all very much for being here. It’s a great honor, and I’m glad you brought your spouses. Thank you. (Applause.)
https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-of ... mbassadors
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: North Korea, you're up next

Postby Heaven Swan » Thu Apr 27, 2017 9:34 pm

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Last edited by Heaven Swan on Thu Apr 27, 2017 9:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: North Korea, you're up next

Postby seemslikeadream » Thu Apr 27, 2017 9:37 pm

Exclusive: Trump says 'major, major' conflict with North Korea possible, but seeks diplomacy
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-t ... SKBN17U04E
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: North Korea, you're up next

Postby MacCruiskeen » Fri Apr 28, 2017 5:59 pm

Moon of Alabama‏ @MoonofA 10:44 - 27. Apr. 2017

MoA: How Bio-Weapons Led To Torture ... And North Korean Nukes:

http://www.moonofalabama.org/2017/04/fr ... rture.html

Pic: PyongYang 1953
Image

https://twitter.com/MoonofA/status/857651560465268736
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Americans are the villain they seek

Postby Harvey » Fri Apr 28, 2017 9:10 pm

I'm in a boorish and patronising mood again. But there's also my worse side to consider. So to echo one of Jeff's posts all those five or six years ago, the above title and the following heartfelt plea:

Americans need to come to terms with the fact that Trump represents business as usual in the US war economy, and remains just business. Trump is in no substantial way different. In some ways he is an epitome.

If it pricks the peoples conscience enough, as it seems to, so that their own masters herald to the American people and the world that he's different because he's orange, or because Russia, this alone should induce cognitive dissonance. Alarms should be ringing. The same mainstream liberal mouthpieces who assured Americans that Iraq and Afghanistan needed to be destroyed are the same voices now assuring us that the similarly complete destruction of Libya and Syria is in fact their liberty bell tolling for them. The same bell that will soon toll for Koreans if Americans are silent as they have been where it matters. Terror should visit Americans in the realisation that the great game really is almost up and their former lifestyles with it. But it could also visit them as something else, euphoria perhaps, knowing that since everything is in flux, now more than ever, the possibility of doing things differently already exists, more palpably than ever it has. Precisely because, despite all of the disinformation, we know as much as we do now, thanks to all of those irksome souls who could not look away.

There is no enemy. There is no more homicidal maniac faster on the draw than America, with bigger or more devastating guns, led by louder or more foolish cartoons. The truth is becoming evident to almost everyone.

Americans are the villain they seek.

We're now in the usual advertising/marketing/public relations/propaganda period before the coming wars. There's still time to save countless lives in North and South Korea. And this time, perhaps far beyond their borders. Perhaps even your life or someone you care enough about to wish them to continue living. Americans telegraph every move very clearly through every single English speaking mouthpiece they own. Every intention is writ in the image of today's Hitler, just as clearly as yesterdays. Everything gloriously choreographed so that no dullard could possibly be left behind. What could be more democratic or free? All hating daily, calmly and rationally together. At least that is what remains of the dream.

The fact that Americans don't agree with me on any of the above is the clearest indication they ought to make their divergent views known, now. As inclusively as possible, above and across the media orgiastic hysteria. Because when they do come for you, there won't be anyone sane to speak for you. No American child whether poor or entitled can survive the result if this arms pitch goes terribly wrong. And neither will mine. Undoubtedly, it will be the end of the world for all those who are about to die in Korea, and all of those for no reason whatsoever, beyond profit margins and growth projections and feeling great again. And frankly, I doubt American diplomats, politicians or generals are as skillful today as they were back then, when half of them probably managed to believe their own horseshit.

Finally, the last indignity, the executioner suggests his victim should purchase his own rope and shovel, and then ushers him calmly but forcefully toward the trapdoor:

http://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/tru ... cid=HPCDHP

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/46889.htm
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Re: North Korea, you're up next

Postby seemslikeadream » Fri Apr 28, 2017 9:42 pm

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=40221&hilit=coming+war+with+china

seemslikeadream » Mon Dec 05, 2016 11:57 am wrote:
DECEMBER 2, 2016
The Coming War on China
by JOHN PILGER

Image
When I first went to Hiroshima in 1967, the shadow on the steps was still there. It was an almost perfect impression of a human being at ease: legs splayed, back bent, one hand by her side as she sat waiting for a bank to open. At a quarter past eight on the morning of 6 August, 1945, she and her silhouette were burned into the granite. I stared at the shadow for an hour or more, unforgettably. When I returned many years later, it was gone: taken away, “disappeared”, a political embarrassment.

I have spent two years making a documentary film, The Coming War on China, in which the evidence and witnesses warn that nuclear war is no longer a shadow, but a contingency. The greatest build-up of American-led military forces since the Second World War is well under way. They are in the northern hemisphere, on the western borders of Russia, and in Asia and the Pacific, confronting China.

The great danger this beckons is not news, or it is buried and distorted: a drumbeat of mainstream fake news that echoes the psychopathic fear embedded in public consciousness during much of the 20th century.

Like the renewal of post-Soviet Russia, the rise of China as an economic power is declared an “existential threat” to the divine right of the United States to rule and dominate human affairs.

To counter this, in 2011 President Obama announced a “pivot to Asia”, which meant that almost two-thirds of US naval forces would be transferred to Asia and the Pacific by 2020. Today, more than 400 American military bases encircle China with missiles, bombers, warships and, above all, nuclear weapons. From Australia north through the Pacific to Japan, Korea and across Eurasia to Afghanistan and India, the bases form, says one US strategist, “the perfect noose”.

A study by the RAND Corporation – which, since Vietnam, has planned America’s wars – is entitled, War with China: Thinking Through the Unthinkable. Commissioned by the US Army, the authors evoke the cold war when RAND made notorious the catch cry of its chief strategist, Herman Kahn — “thinking the unthinkable”. Kahn’s book, On Thermonuclear War, elaborated a plan for a “winnable” nuclear war against the Soviet Union.

Today, his apocalyptic view is shared by those holding real power in the United States: the militarists and neo-conservatives in the executive, the Pentagon, the intelligence and “national security” establishment and Congress.

The current Secretary of Defense, Ashley Carter, a verbose provocateur, says US policy is to confront those “who see America’s dominance and want to take that away from us”.

For all the attempts to detect a departure in foreign policy, this is almost certainly the view of Donald Trump, whose abuse of China during the election campaign included that of “rapist” of the American economy. On 2 December, in a direct provocation of China, President-elect Trump spoke to the President of Taiwan, which China considers a renegade province of the mainland. Armed with American missiles, Taiwan is an enduring flashpoint between Washington and Beijing.

“The United States,” wrote Amitai Etzioni, professor of international Affairs at George Washington University, “is preparing for a war with China, a momentous decision that so far has failed to receive a thorough review from elected officials, namely the White House and Congress.” This war would begin with a “blinding attack against Chinese anti-access facilities, including land and sea-based missile launchers … satellite and anti-satellite weapons”.

The incalculable risk is that “deep inland strikes could be mistakenly perceived by the Chinese as pre-emptive attempts to take out its nuclear weapons, thus cornering them into ‘a terrible use-it-or-lose-it dilemma’ [that would] lead to nuclear war.”

In 2015, the Pentagon released its Law of War Manual. “The United States,” it says, “has not accepted a treaty rule that prohibits the use of nuclear weapons per se, and thus nuclear weapons are lawful weapons for the United States.”

In China, a strategist told me, “We are not your enemy, but if you [in the West] decide we are, we must prepare without delay.” China’s military and arsenal are small compared to America’s. However, “for the first time,” wrote Gregory Kulacki of the Union of Concerned Scientists, “China is discussing putting its nuclear missiles on high alert so that they can be launched quickly on warning of an attack … This would be a significant and dangerous change in Chinese policy … Indeed, the nuclear weapon policies of the United States are the most prominent external factor influencing Chinese advocates for raising the alert level of China’s nuclear forces.”

Professor Ted Postol was scientific adviser to the head of US naval operations. An authority on nuclear weapons, he told me, “Everybody here wants to look like they’re tough. See I got to be tough … I’m not afraid of doing anything military, I’m not afraid of threatening; I’m a hairy-chested gorilla. And we have gotten into a state, the United States has gotten into a situation where there’s a lot of sabre-rattling, and it’s really being orchestrated from the top.”

I said, “This seems incredibly dangerous.”

“That’s an understatement.”

In 2015, in considerable secrecy, the US staged its biggest single military exercise since the Cold War. This was Talisman Sabre; an armada of ships and long-range bombers rehearsed an “Air-Sea Battle Concept for China” – ASB — blocking sea lanes in the Straits of Malacca and cutting off China’s access to oil, gas and other raw materials from the Middle East and Africa.

It is such a provocation, and the fear of a US Navy blockade, that has seen China feverishly building strategic airstrips on disputed reefs and islets in the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. Last July, the UN Permanent Court of Arbitration ruled against China’s claim of sovereignty over these islands. Although the action was brought by the Philippines, it was presented by leading American and British lawyers and could be traced to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

In 2010, Clinton flew to Manila. She demanded that America’s former colony reopen the US military bases closed down in the 1990s following a popular campaign against the violence they generated, especially against Filipino women. She declared China’s claim on the Spratly Islands – which lie more than 7,500 miles from the United States – a threat to US “national security” and to “freedom of navigation”.

Handed millions of dollars in arms and military equipment, the then government of President Benigno Aquino broke off bilateral talks with China and signed a secretive Enhanced Defense Co-operation Agreement with the US. This established five rotating US bases and restored a hated colonial provision that American forces and contractors were immune from Philippine law.

The election of Rodrigo Duterte in April has unnerved Washington. Calling himself a socialist, he declared, “In our relations with the world, the Philippines will pursue an independent foreign policy” and noted that the United States had not apologized for its colonial atrocities. “I will break up with America,” he said, and promised to expel US troops. But the US remains in the Philippines; and joint military exercises continue.

In 2014, under the rubric of “information dominance” – the jargon for media manipulation, or fake news, on which the Pentagon spends more than $4 billion – the Obama administration launched a propaganda campaign that cast China, the world’s greatest trading nation, as a threat to “freedom of navigation”.

CNN led the way, its “national security reporter” reporting excitedly from on board a US Navy surveillance flight over the Spratlys. The BBC persuaded frightened Filipino pilots to fly a single-engine Cessna over the disputed islands “to see how the Chinese would react”. None of these reporters questioned why the Chinese were building airstrips off their own coastline, or why American military forces were massing on China’s doorstep.

The designated chief propagandist is Admiral Harry Harris, the US military commander in Asia and the Pacific. “My responsibilities,” he told the New York Times, “cover Bollywood to Hollywood, from polar bears to penguins.” Never was imperial domination described as pithily.

Harris is one of a brace of Pentagon admirals and generals briefing selected, malleable journalists and broadcasters, with the aim of justifying a threat as specious as that with which George W Bush and Tony Blair justified the destruction of Iraq and much of the Middle East.

In Los Angeles in September, Harris declared he was “ready to confront a revanchist Russia and an assertive China …If we have to fight tonight, I don’t want it to be a fair fight. If it’s a knife fight, I want to bring a gun. If it’s a gun fight, I want to bring in the artillery … and all our partners with their artillery.”

These “partners” include South Korea, the launch pad for the Pentagon’s Terminal High Altitude Air Defense system, known as THAAD, ostensibly aimed at North Korea. As Professor Postol points out, it targets China.

In Sydney, Australia, Harris called on China to “tear down its Great Wall in the South China Sea”. The imagery was front page news. Australia is America’s most obsequious “partner”; its political elite, military, intelligence agencies and the media are integrated into what is known as the “alliance”. Closing the Sydney Harbour Bridge for the motorcade of a visiting American government “dignitary” is not uncommon. The war criminal Dick Cheney was afforded this honour.

Although China is Australia’s biggest trader, on which much of the national economy relies, “confronting China” is the diktat from Washington. The few political dissenters in Canberra risk McCarthyite smears in the Murdoch press. “You in Australia are with us come what may,” said one of the architects of the Vietnam war, McGeorge Bundy. One of the most important US bases is Pine Gap near Alice Springs. Founded by the CIA, it spies on China and all of Asia, and is a vital contributor to Washington’s murderous war by drone in the Middle East.

In October, Richard Marles, the defence spokesman of the main Australian opposition party, the Labor Party, demanded that “operational decisions” in provocative acts against China be left to military commanders in the South China Sea. In other words, a decision that could mean war with a nuclear power should not be taken by an elected leader or a parliament but by an admiral or a general.

This is the Pentagon line, a historic departure for any state calling itself a democracy. The ascendancy of the Pentagon in Washington – which Daniel Ellsberg has called a silent coup — is reflected in the record $5 trillion America has spent on aggressive wars since 9/11, according to a study by Brown University. The million dead in Iraq and the flight of 12 million refugees from at least four countries are the consequence.

The Japanese island of Okinawa has 32 military installations, from which Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Afghanistan and Iraq have been attacked by the United States. Today, the principal target is China, with whom Okinawans have close cultural and trade ties.

There are military aircraft constantly in the sky over Okinawa; they sometimes crash into homes and schools. People cannot sleep, teachers cannot teach. Wherever they go in their own country, they are fenced in and told to keep out.

A popular Okinawan anti-base movement has been growing since a 12-year-old girl was gang-raped by US troops in 1995. It was one of hundreds of such crimes, many of them never prosecuted. Barely acknowledged in the wider world, the resistance has seen the election of Japan’s first anti-base governor, Takeshi Onaga, and presented an unfamiliar hurdle to the Tokyo government and the ultra-nationalist prime minister Shinzo Abe’s plans to repeal Japan’s “peace constitution”.

The resistance includes Fumiko Shimabukuro, aged 87, a survivor of the Second World War when a quarter of Okinawans died in the American invasion. Fumiko and hundreds of others took refuge in beautiful Henoko Bay, which she is now fighting to save. The US wants to destroy the bay in order to extend runways for its bombers. “We have a choice,” she said, “silence or life.” As we gathered peacefully outside the US base, Camp Schwab, giant Sea Stallion helicopters hovered over us for no reason other than to intimidate.

Across the East China Sea lies the Korean island of Jeju, a semi- tropical sanctuary and World Heritage Site declared “an island of world peace”. On this island of world peace has been built one of the most provocative military bases in the world, less than 400 miles from Shanghai. The fishing village of Gangjeong is dominated by a South Korean naval base purpose-built for US aircraft carriers, nuclear submarines and destroyers equipped with the Aegis missile system, aimed at China.

A people’s resistance to these war preparations has been a presence on Jeju for almost a decade. Every day, often twice a day, villagers, Catholic priests and supporters from all over the world stage a religious mass that blocks the gates of the base. In a country where political demonstrations are often banned, unlike powerful religions, the tactic has produced an inspiring spectacle.

One of the leaders, Father Mun Jeong-hyeon, told me, “I sing four songs every day at the base, regardless of the weather. I sing in typhoons — no exception. To build this base, they destroyed the environment, and the life of the villagers, and we should be a witness to that. They want to rule the Pacific. They want to make China isolated in the world. They want to be emperor of the world.”

I flew from Jeju to Shanghai for the first time in more than a generation. When I was last in China, the loudest noise I remember was the tinkling of bicycle bells; Mao Zedong had recently died, and the cities seemed dark places, in which foreboding and expectation competed. Within a few years, Deng Xiopeng, the “man who changed China”, was the “paramount leader”. Nothing prepared me for the astonishing changes today.

China presents exquisite ironies, not least the house in Shanghai where Mao and his comrades secretly founded the Communist Party of China in 1921. Today, it stands in the heart of a very capitalist shipping district; you walk out of this communist shrine with your Little Red Book and your plastic bust of Mao into the embrace of Starbucks, Apple, Cartier, Prada.

Would Mao be shocked? I doubt it. Five years before his great revolution in 1949, he sent this secret message to Washington. “China must industrialise.” he wrote, “This can only be done by free enterprise. Chinese and American interests fit together, economically and politically. America need not fear that we will not be co-operative. We cannot risk any conflict.”

Mao offered to meet Franklin Roosevelt in the White House, and his successor Harry Truman, and his successor Dwight Eisenhower. He was rebuffed, or willfully ignored. The opportunity that might have changed contemporary history, prevented wars in Asia and saved countless lives was lost because the truth of these overtures was denied in 1950s Washington “when the catatonic Cold War trance,” wrote the critic James Naremore, “held our country in its rigid grip”.

The fake mainstream news that once again presents China as a threat is of the same mentality.

The world is inexorably shifting east; but the astonishing vision of Eurasia from China is barely understood in the West. The “New Silk Road” is a ribbon of trade, ports, pipelines and high-speed trains all the way to Europe. The world’s leader in rail technology, China is negotiating with 28 countries for routes on which trains will reach up to 400 kms an hour. This opening to the world has the approval of much of humanity and, along the way, is uniting China and Russia.

“I believe in American exceptionalism with every fibre of my being,” said Barack Obama, evoking the fetishism of the 1930s. This modern cult of superiority is Americanism, the world’s dominant predator. Under the liberal Obama, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, nuclear warhead spending has risen higher than under any president since the end of the Cold War. A mini nuclear weapon is planned. Known as the B61 Model 12, it will mean, says General James Cartwright, former vice-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that “going smaller [makes its use] more thinkable”.

In September, the Atlantic Council, a mainstream US geopolitical thinktank, published a report that predicted a Hobbesian world “marked by the breakdown of order, violent extremism [and] an era of perpetual war”. The new enemies were a “resurgent” Russia and an “increasingly aggressive” China. Only heroic America can save us.

There is a demented quality about this war mongering. It is as if the “American Century” — proclaimed in 1941 by the American imperialist Henry Luce, owner of Time magazine — has ended without notice and no one has had the courage to tell the emperor to take his guns and go home.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/12/02/ ... -on-china/



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsFfkDLRqd8&t=4s


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vRhle8eHMU


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ti5Szv8xDlc
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: Americans are the villain they seek

Postby dada » Sat Apr 29, 2017 4:35 am

Harvey » Fri Apr 28, 2017 9:10 pm wrote:Americans are the villain they seek


You'll get no argument here. Those alarm bells should be ringing.

Perhaps Thoreau was right, that in the US, 'the true place for a just man is a prison." But then, perhaps I'm not just. My Thoreau motto would be "It's a great art to saunter." But I try to saunter like a black cat, casually strolling across the path. Under a ladder made of broken mirrors, on Friday the 13th.

Is that a political tactic? Not really, no. Things tumble down in my wake when I get it right, though. Probably just a coincidence.

For me, it's a question of tactics. How does a space alien get through to these people? Maybe it seems like I'm taking this too lightly. Well if I can't saunter, I don't want to be in your revolution.
Both his words and manner of speech seemed at first totally unfamiliar to me, and yet somehow they stirred memories - as an actor might be stirred by the forgotten lines of some role he had played far away and long ago.
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Re: North Korea, you're up next

Postby Heaven Swan » Sat May 20, 2017 8:34 am

This author went undercover for six months with North Korea’s future leaders – here’s what she told us

August 29, 2016

Image
Author Suki Kim teaching a North Korean university class Photo Credit: Suki Kim


Borderless News Online caught up with author and investigative journalist Suki Kim, who went undercover as a university professor in North Korea’s most elite university, where over 200 sons of the nation’s top families were being groomed to be the country’s future leaders. If caught, she would have been imprisoned and possibly executed as a spy. But she managed to secretly document her six months there, in which she spent almost every waking minute with the students, eating daily meals with them and not being allowed to leave the campus except on official school outings. She wrote about the experience in her book “Without You, There Is No US: My Time with the Sons of North Korea’s Elite,” an investigation into a world where few outsiders have ever had that kind of access.

When Kim arrived in North Korea the first day, the compound in which she would spend the next half year seemed like a prison, as she was not allowed to leave except on official group field trips.

Nor was she given a moment’s privacy, in a country where classmates, colleagues and even friends were expected to watch and inform on each other daily out of reverence for their Dear Leader, who had the status of a god there. Even being suspected of thinking the wrong thoughts can land you in prison in North Korea.

Kim spent all day with this select group of 20-year-old young men, the whole time being watched by administrators and other teachers, possible hidden cameras, and even the students themselves — one of whom had the official job of recording each lesson on an MP3 player.

The students were plucked from the Harvards and MITs of North Korea, and a brand new university was created just for them. But despite their high status, every aspect of their lives was strictly controlled — and it had likely been that way all their lives. These future rulers were not allowed to leave campus; were forbidden from making even the smallest decisions themselves; and were clueless about their own country, having never been allowed to travel inside North Korea.

This had the effect of stunting their development in terms of maturity, and making them into children in young men’s bodies, with the innocence of 8-year-old elementary school kids.

NORTH KOREANS CONSTANTLY JOKE AROUND, SO THEY CAN AVOID THE DANGER OF A REAL CONVERSATION

As a result of living in a society where everyone is always watching everyone else, North Koreans have developed the odd habit of constantly joking around. But this was not simply being good-natured or cheerful, rather it was a way to avoid having to have a real conversation and possibly slipping up and saying something that could get you in trouble, Kim said.

“There is a common trait of them kind of talking in a circle and making jokes about a lot of things. Because when you turn things into a joke, you don’t really ever have to have a real conversation, and you don’t have to ever answer any question,” she said, noting that she found this constant joking around to be mentally exhausting.

It’s also a way to get information about people, she said, pointing to the minders that are assigned to each foreign visitor to keep an eye on them.

“This intimacy (some visitors have felt) through laughing isn’t really what it is,” she said.

“It’s a very common trait of a culture where you’re trying not to reveal anything,” she said. “You talk in a circle and you turn a lot of things into jokes.”

This, she said, has often been misunderstood by visitors — even some who try to pass themselves off as experts on the country — who don’t speak or understand the Korean language.

LIES, LIES AND MORE LIES

Another defense mechanism of her students was habitual lying. This wasn’t malicious, it was just a way to survive under a regime that will lock you and your family up — and even worse — if your thoughts are deemed somehow unpatriotic.

“Because their system is different, lying was a big thing. You know, because the system is so built on lies, and encourages lies, and lies are essential for survival, that lies came so easily… Just (about) mundane things… sometimes they just lie without thinking…just sort of habit lying. If a friend was missing who was supposed to be there (and he was) late, everybody would just chip in to lie, to say, you know, ‘he went to get a haircut,’ or ‘he has a stomachache,’ but it would just happen so quickly. There’s no hesitation,” Kim said of her students.

“Because fear governs their world, because they’re always afraid of getting in trouble, and also they are also watched. It makes people self-conscious in a different way. And they have a system that they have to follow every hour of the day, in a communal way, (and) they watch each other,” she said.

“And also they don’t think for themselves, because they’re always told what to do and how to think, so that also dictates their system,” she said.

“I really do think the most accurate way to understand them would be abused children, probably that’s the closest thing to it. The way that abused kids can be more hypersensitive, for example, and make up stuff to not get in trouble out of survival habit, all of that was there, all the time, which really made me, kind of broke my heart, because I felt like I wanted to protect them or help them in some way,” she said.

But aside from the constant lying and avoiding any real discussions, Kim described her students as just like any other good-natured young men anywhere else in the world.

“Their lovely personality, or humor, or sweetness or kindness, I mean, absolute loveliness of their youth, that was the same as any other place in the world,” he said.

A RIGID STRUCTURE OF INFORMANTS

Kim said students would inform on each other daily as a matter of routine — something that’s normal in North Korea, where all citizens are required to keep an eye on each other.

The system of informing on your peers was military-like in its organization, with a very clear chain of command, in which there was a class monitor, vice monitor and secretary, and there was even a hierarchy in the young men’s shared living space in their dormitories, in which there were four people to each room, she said.

All students reported to the vice monitor, who reported to the monitor, who in turn probably reported to North Korean staff – bureaucrats or teachers – although Kim said she is not exactly sure. There was also one student whose job it was to record each class on an mp3 player, Kim said.

EVERYONE PANICS WHEN BITS OF TRUTH SLIP OUT

In North Korea, where the regime is always watching, the truth slips out from time to time. That happened once when a student had a birthday. North Koreans sing songs to celebrate birthdays, and when Kim asked what songs they sang, they told her the tunes were all about friendship, as well as their Great Leader. Then, suddenly, one student blurted out the words “rock and roll.”

In a society that is based on keeping its citizens in the dark about the outside world, any foreign music is strictly forbidden.

“He just panicked and just lowered his face, and everyone around him also panicked, and I, looking at their reaction, realized how scared they were,” Kim said, adding that such subtitles could not be gleaned from just an interview, and that you really had to live among North Koreans to understand their society.

“So I paused, and then I changed the topic…I could see the panic in all of their faces, and he also looked around to see who heard him say that. That seems like so little, but there, you can almost feel that fear,” she said.

KIM WAS THE CENTER OF HER STUDENTS’ WORLD — BECAUSE THEY HAD NOTHING ELSE

“Our relationship was so warm,” she said of the closeness she had with her students, with whom she spent all day and ate breakfast, lunch and dinner together.

They thought of her almost like a mother, she said.

“But there’s more than that. There’s the endless respect that they have for a teacher, which is a very old-fashioned way of thinking, but that was very true there. And then also I’m the only girl they see, you know? In an all-male school where they’re not allowed to keep in touch with anybody (outside the campus), I think I became kind of a center of their world in some way…Like their mom. And also I’m Korean in this foreign school, where most of the other teachers are foreigners (from Western nations),” she said of the school, which was run by a foreign organization.

While the students were guarded by young female soldiers, there was a strict policy of zero interaction between the soldiers and the students, as the students were the elite in a country governed by a rigid class system somewhat like India’s caste system. And anyway, the students would not have thought of the soldiers as real girls, given the vast class difference.

“And they told me themselves that they just felt closer, because I’m Korean. They knew I spoke it, although I wasn’t allowed to speak it. They knew that when they sometimes broke into Korean that I knew what they were saying. So there was this sort of a camaraderie, and it was special for them,” she said.

“And also I think because they didn’t have anything else. If they had other things, it wouldn’t have been such a close relationship…They literally didn’t have anything else, except an endless routine schedule that began from 5:30 am until they went to bed…they really, I think, felt a certain closeness to me, beyond just a teacher and student relationship,” she said. “We lived together, and ate every meal together,” she said.

When asked how the students felt once her six-month teaching stint was over, Kim said they were “devastated.”

“That’s all they talked about. Like children. You know I think that’s another heart breaking thing. Actually, 20-year-old young men are not going to be that upset when their teacher goes away, you know what I mean? They had no choice in anything they did, because they the only thing they kept telling me was ‘teacher, when will you come back?’ You know, like children. Kids get very excited when their mom and dad come home (after being away),” she said.

“My readers always tell me they feel like they (the students) were eight or twelve years old, and that’s how it felt. Because (that degree of) control really infantilizes people… because they were never allowed to do anything that didn’t require permission. They couldn’t say ‘I’ll come and see you.’ They can’t say stuff like that, because they’re not going to see me, they’re not going to be able to travel. So they would ask me – although they knew the answer to it – they would say “will you come back next semester. They would repeat it. It’s as if that was the only way they could say ‘we really don’t want you to go.’”

Their way of telling her they didn’t want her to leave came indirectly, the way elementary school kids would express themselves.

“They’ll be like ‘I was watching the moon last night, and I was hoping professor Suki would not leave,’” she said.

“It’s almost like kids saying ‘mom I wish that you weren’t going to go,’ or ‘mom, when are you coming back? And that was so difficult because they just repeated it and repeated it like kids do….One person said to me on my last day, ‘I know how I’m going to see you again – become an ambassador to the UN so that I can come to New York and I can see you.’ And that was the most they could think of. Because proactively going to New York is impossible for North Koreans,” she said.

HOW HAS THIS REPRESSED SOCIETY SURVIVED FOR SO LONG?

Kim said the information she recorded is important in understanding why the country has existed in this state of severe repression for so long, with the government’s boot on the neck of its citizens since the end of the Korean War.

“What population would let a regime like this continue? And then it actually makes since, because the control is so absolute. Just because you’re elite doesn’t mean that you can escape that fate. It’s obviously governed by a few of those very brutal military dictatorship personnel. And everyone just watches everyone else and no one knows anything. And I think that’s why (the regime) is able to survive,” she said.

The students hadn’t even experienced most of their own country, she said, explaining that some of the Korean Peninsula’s most famous mountains was just around 90 minutes from campus. While her students could tell you everything about it, how many hills and waterfalls the place had, and could describe its beauty from seeing it on TV, no one had ever actually been there.

Despite these young men being the nation’s most elite, the fact that they had never been anywhere was shocking, Kim said.

“What does that little fact suggest? They have not been anywhere. They don’t know their own country,” she said.

“How does this country manage to shield the most crème de le crème kids from absolutely everything?” Unless this control is somehow so brutal, that there’s no way out of it,” she said.

“If there were a little bit of mercy, or some sort of room, where they were allowed to do something, then I think I would have found a little ounce of hope. But I just didn’t see any,” she said.

“It was so much scarier and so much more controlled than I could ever have imagined,” she said.

One telling example was once when the students wrote a short skit about their foreign teachers taking a trip to a mountain, in which one teacher had a minor accident.

READ FULL ARTICLE AT:
http://www.borderlessnewsonline.com/thi ... e-told-us/
"When IT reigns, I’m poor.” Mario
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Re: North Korea, you're up next

Postby BenDhyan » Sun May 21, 2017 7:02 am

We will not tolerate these repeated acts of provacation.....yada yada,,.

US and Japan confirm N. Korea conducted missile launch

The US and Japan have confirmed that North Korea fired a missile just one week after it launched its Hwasong-12 rocket. The new missile had a shorter range, according to Washington, and possibly landed off Japan’s east coast, inflicting no damage to ships in the area.

The North Korean missile of unknown type flew about 500km and landed outside Japan’s exclusive economic zones, South Korea’s military said.

“We are aware that North Korea launched a [medium-range ballistic missile]. This system, last tested in February, has a shorter range than the missiles launched in North Korea’s three most recent tests,” a White House official said, as cited by Reuters.

Tokyo has already condemned the launch, describing it as an “intolerable” move clearly violating UN Security Council resolutions.

Japan will not tolerate North Korea’s “repeated acts of provocation,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a news conference later on Sunday.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on Sunday that he wants to address the North Korean missile launches at the G7 summit in Italy later this month.



https://www.rt.com/news/389102-north-korea-missile-launch/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS
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Re: North Korea, you're up next

Postby SonicG » Mon May 29, 2017 5:07 am

This week in NorKor yadda-yadda:

North Korea launched a ballistic missile test Monday, its third such test in little over three weeks.

The short-range ballistic missile traveled an estimated 248 miles, splashing down within Japan's exclusive economic zone, an area of sea where commercial ships are known to operate, according to statements from both the Japanese government and the South Korean military.
South Korea and Japan immediately issued strong protests, with Japan's Prime Minister promising "concrete action" in response to the test, and South Korean defense chiefs saying the North would face "strong punishment from our military."

...

Despite that rhetoric, the allies have not given North Korea any "red lines" which it cannot cross or face a military strike, said Adam Mount, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.
"If they're not clear on what they are attempting to deter, they're not going to have the effect they desire," Mount said.
Even if a military response was considered, the repercussions could be catastrophic.
"If this goes to a military solution, it is going to be tragic on an unbelievable scale," US Defense Secretary James Mattis said earlier this month.
http://edition.cnn.com/2017/05/28/asia/ ... rojectile/


"concrete action" like that poured to make The Wall??
"a poiminint tidal wave in a notion of dynamite"
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Re: North Korea, you're up next

Postby brekin » Tue May 30, 2017 6:29 pm

Sad.

Reminded me of Dogtooth and The Wolf Pack.



If I knew all mysteries and all knowledge, and have not charity, I am nothing. St. Paul
I hang onto my prejudices, they are the testicles of my mind. Eric Hoffer
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Re: North Korea, you're up next

Postby SonicG » Thu Jun 15, 2017 8:32 am

Trump White House Stays Quiet as Russia Flouts North Korea Sanctions

Trump administration officials and lawmakers are increasingly concerned that Russia is stepping up trade with North Korea in defiance of international sanctions, jeopardizing a U.S. effort to pressure Pyongyang over its nuclear and missile programs.

The White House, however, has yet to call out Russia publicly for its dealings with North Korea.

Russia is filling a gap left after China began to scale back some trade with North Korea in response to pressure from the Donald Trump administration, and has already replaced China as the top supplier of jet fuel for North Korea. Moscow also signed an agreement in March with Pyongyang to import more North Korean workers and opened a ferry line last month out of Vladivostok that carries passengers and cargo to the deeply isolated regime.

“It’s something we need to watch closely if we’re serious about turning the screws economically on North Korea,” one administration official told Foreign Policy.

The White House is concerned about Russia helping the North gain access to jet fuel and cash, but China remains North Korea’s crucial lifeline. “It will take some doing for the Russians to back-fill all of what China supplies,” the official added.

Russian support for North Korea presents a dilemma for a White House that has sought to isolate Kim Jong Un’s regime and improve relations with Moscow. The Russian moves undercut attempts to inflict economic punishment on North Korea for its nuclear program and missile development, and present yet another obstacle to closer ties between Washington and Moscow.

While the Trump administration has not publicly challenged Russia’s trade with North Korea, senior officials have hinted at the issue. Speaking to reporters last month, U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley praised China for enforcing the sanctions regime but noted that “other countries are trying to fill that void.”

“If you are a country that is supplying or supporting North Korea, we will call you out on it,” Haley said. So far, however, the White House has not publicly rebuked Moscow.

The magnitude of Russian support to North Korea remains difficult to quantify, but South Korean experts have in recent months observed a significant uptick in trade between the two nations, said Go Myong-hyun, a research fellow at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies, a Seoul-based think tank.

“If China is tightening up border trade then there’s an incentive to go to the Russian side and procure what they need,” Go said.

More at:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-white- ... 50926.html


yadda-yadda...how many more weeks until another NorKor missile launch?
"a poiminint tidal wave in a notion of dynamite"
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