Tag Archives: China

Top diplomats from U.S., Japan, South Korea to meet on North Korea

Ryoo Yong-gyu, Earthquake and Volcano Monitoring Division Director, points at where seismic waves observed in South Korea came from, during a media briefing at Korea Meteorological Administration in Seoul

By Tony Munroe and Ben Blanchard

SEOUL/BEIJING, Sept 14 (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will meet with his Japanese and South Korean counterparts in New York on Sunday to discuss responses to North Korea’s latest nuclear test, South Korea’s foreign ministry said on Wednesday.

The three countries are pushing for tough new U.N. Security Council sanctions on North Korea after the isolated country on Friday conducted its fifth and largest nuclear test.

The blast was in defiance of U.N. sanctions that were tightened in March.

China, the North’s chief ally, backed the March resolution but is more resistant to harsh new sanctions this time after the United States and South Korea decided to deploy a sophisticated anti-missile system in the South, which China adamantly opposes.

South Korea said Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se and his counterparts Kerry and Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida will meet during the annual U.N. General Assembly to discuss putting further pressure on North Korea.

The United States wants China to do more, with U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter last week singling out the role he said China should play in curbing its neighbor.

TESTING TIMES

North Korea has been testing nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles at an unprecedented rate this year under young leader Kim Jong Un.

On Tuesday, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi spoke with South Korea’s Yun by phone, expressing Beijing’s opposition to the North’s latest nuclear test but also reiterating opposition to the planned deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THADD) anti-missile system in the South, China’s foreign ministry said.

China is North Korea’s most important diplomatic and trade partner and refuses to cut the country off completely, fearing it could collapse.

Beijing’s official People’s Daily newspaper on Wednesday called the United States a troublemaker and said it has no right to lecture China about taking responsibility for reining in North Korea as tensions on the peninsula are a direct result of U.S. actions.

In a commentary, the ruling Communist Party’s official paper said the United States was pretending it had nothing to do with the North Korea issue and was putting the blame on others.

“People have reason to doubt whether Washington is willing to make the effort to push the North Korea issue in the direction of a resolution,” the paper said.

China and Russia have pushed for a resumption of six party talks on denuclearization in North Korea. The talks, which also involve Japan, South Korea and the United States, have been on hold since 2008.

Washington has said it is willing to negotiate with the North if it the country commits to denuclearization, which Pyongyang has refused to do.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will seek Cuba’s help in responding to North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs during a rare visit to Havana next week, a spokesman said.

Typhoon cuts power, lashes China with wind and rain before weakening

People wading through flooded street after Typhoon Meranti

BEIJING (Reuters) – Typhoon Meranti slammed into southeastern China on Thursday with strong winds and lashing rain that cut power to 1.65 million homes, but there were no reports of more casualties in what has been described as the strongest storm of the year globally.

The storm, registered as a super typhoon before losing strength after sweeping across southern Taiwan, made landfall in the early hours near the major city of Xiamen.

Dozens of flights and train services have been canceled, state television said, disrupting travel at the start of the three-day Mid-Autumn Festival holiday.

Pictures on state media showed flooded streets, fallen trees and crushed cars in Xiamen as rescuers in boats evacuated people.

About 320,000 homes were without power in Xiamen. Across the whole of Fujian province, where Xiamen is located, 1.65 million homes had no electricity, state television said.

Large sections of Xiamen also suffered water supply disruptions and some windows in tall buildings shattered, sending glass showering onto the ground below, state news agency Xinhua said.

The report said it was the strongest typhoon to hit that part of the country since the founding of Communist China in 1949 and the strongest so far this year anywhere in the world.

Tens of thousands of people had already been evacuated as the storm approached and fishing boats called back to port.

One person died and 38 were injured in Taiwan, the Central Emergency Operation Centre there said, as the typhoon hit the southern part of the island on Wednesday.

Meranti was a Category 5 typhoon, the strongest classification awarded by Tropical Storm Risk storm tracker, before it made landfall on the mainland and has since been downgraded to Category 2.

Typhoons are common at this time of year, picking up strength as they cross the warm waters of the Pacific and bringing fierce winds and rain when they hit land.

Meranti will continue to lose strength as it pushes inland and up toward China’s commercial capital of Shanghai, but will bring heavy rain.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Additional reporting by Faith Hung in TAIPEI; Editing by Nick Macfie and Paul Tait)

North Korea ready for another nuclear test any time: South Korea

Kim Jon Un of North Korea

By Ju-min Park and Jack Kim

SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea is ready to conduct an additional nuclear test at any time, South Korea’s Defense Ministry said on Monday, three days after the reclusive North’s fifth test drew widespread condemnation.

Pyongyang set off its most powerful nuclear blast to date on Friday, saying it had mastered the ability to mount a warhead on a ballistic missile and ratcheting up a threat that its rivals and the United Nations have been powerless to contain.

“Assessment by South Korean and U.S. intelligence is that the North is always ready for an additional nuclear test in the Punggye-ri area,” the site of the North’s five nuclear explosions, South Korean Defense Ministry spokesman Moon Sang-gyun told a news briefing.

“North Korea has a tunnel where it can conduct an additional nuclear test,” Moon said.

South Korea is pushing for more sanctions against Pyongyang to close what it says were loopholes left in the last United Nations Security Council resolution adopted in March.

Both China and Russia backed sanctions imposed in March following the North’s January nuclear test, but their apparent ambivalence about fresh sanctions cast doubt on the Security Council’s ability to quickly form a consensus.

“We expect that China, as one of the Security Council member states, should take this issue seriously and play a very constructive role to come up with a very effective and strong sanctions resolution,” a South Korean foreign ministry official said.

NEW SANCTIONS?

The Security Council denounced the latest test on Friday and said it would begin work immediately on a resolution. The United States, Britain and France – three of the five veto-wielding permanent members – pushed for the 15-member body to impose new sanctions.

However, China’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said sanctions alone could not solve the North Korean nuclear issue. The crux of the issue lay with the United States, not China, she added.

On Saturday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said a “creative” response was needed.

Speaking to Lavrov on Monday, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said China “strongly urged North Korea and other relevant parties to remain calm and exercise restraint, and not take any new steps to intensify tensions”, China’s Foreign Ministry said.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry said Lavrov and Wang condemned North Korea’s latest nuclear test in a phone conversation on Monday. Russia and China are the remaining veto powers on the Security Council.

As tensions rose on the Korean peninsula in the week of last week’s test, South Korea’s President Park Geun-hye said that North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missiles posed an “imminent threat.

“As North Korea has publicly said nuclear warheads have been standardized and customized to mount on ballistic missiles, we should keep in mind that North Korea’s nuclear missiles are a realistic, imminent threat targeting us, not a simple threat for negotiations,” Park said in a meeting with major political party leaders.

Pyongyang’s assertions that it is able to miniaturize a nuclear warhead have never been independently verified.

BOMBER FLIGHT DELAYED

North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho, formerly the country’s chief nuclear negotiator, arrived in Beijing on Monday and was seen entering the country’s embassy, Japan’s Kyodo news agency reported.

Ri left Pyongyang on Monday to attend a meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement countries in Venezuela and later the U.N. General Assembly, the North’s official KCNA news agency said.

A U.S. special envoy for the isolated state, Sung Kim, will travel to Seoul on Monday. Kim met Japanese officials on Sunday and said the United States may launch unilateral sanctions against North Korea, echoing comments by U.S. President Barack Obama on Friday in the wake of the test.

South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported that bad weather had delayed the flight of an advanced U.S. B-1B bomber to the Korean peninsula, a show of strength and solidarity with ally Seoul, scheduled for Monday.

The flight from the U.S. base in Guam would now take place on Tuesday, a U.S. Forces in Korea official told Reuters, declining to identify the type of aircraft involved.

A group of 31 South Korean conservative lawmakers said the country should have nuclear weapons, either by acquiring its own arms or asking the Americans to redeploy tactical nuclear weapons that were withdrawn from the South under a 1991 pact for the decentralization of the peninsula.

“We should discuss every plan including an independent nuclear armament program at the level of self-defense to safeguard peace,” Won Yoo-chul, a senior lawmaker for the ruling Saenuri Party, said in a statement.

South Korea’s defense ministry said there was no change in its policy barring nuclear weapons.

(Additional reporting by John Ruwitch in Shanghai and Michael Martina in Beijing; Editing by Lincoln Feast and Alex Richardson)

Asia leaders tiptoe around South China Sea tensions

Asian leaders

By Amy Sawitta Lefevre and Manuel Mogato

VIENTIANE, Sept 8 (Reuters) – Asian leaders played down
tensions over the South China Sea in a carefully worded summit
statement on Thursday, but even before it was issued Beijing
voiced frustration with countries outside the region
“interfering” in tussles over the strategic waterway.

The heads of 10 Southeast Asian nations, as well as U.S.
President Barack Obama and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang among six
other leaders, “reaffirmed the importance of maintaining peace,
stability, security and freedom of navigation in and over-flight
in the South China Sea.”

But the draft of a statement to be issued in Vientiane,
Laos, tiptoed around the regional strains caused by competing
claims to areas of the strategically important sea.

“Several leaders remained seriously concerned over recent
developments in the South China Sea,” said the draft.

The statement, seen by Reuters, made no reference to a July
ruling by a court in The Hague that declared illegal some of
China’s artificial islands in the sea and invalidated its claims
to almost the entire waterway.

Obama said on Thursday the ruling had helped clarify
maritime rights. “I recognize this raises tensions but I also
look forward to discussing how we can constructively move
forward together to lower tensions,” he said at a summit
meeting.

Officials said that talks on Wednesday between leaders of
the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and China’s
Li had gone smoothly.

But in a statement later from China’s Foreign Ministry, Li
was paraphrased as saying China was willing to work with
Southeast Asian countries in “dispelling interference … and
properly handling the South China Sea issue.”

He did not elaborate, but such wording is typically used by
Chinese leaders to refer to not allowing countries from outside
the region with no direct involvement in the dispute, like the
United States, from getting involved.

China claims much of the South China Sea, through which more
than $5 trillion of trade moves annually. Taiwan and four ASEAN
members – Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei – also
have claims, making it a hot spot of regional tension.

The other ASEAN nations are Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos,
Myanmar, Singapore and Thailand. Leaders from Australia, China,
India, Japan, New Zealand, Russia, South Korea and the United
States also attended the summit.

China has over the past year alarmed other claimants, and
outside powers such as the United States and Japan, by
re-claiming land on several disputed reefs through dredging, and
building air fields and port facilities.

Shattering an illusion of cordiality at the summit in Laos
on Wednesday, U.S. ally the Philippines released photographs and
a map showing what it said was an increased number of Chinese
vessels near the disputed Scarborough Shoal, which China seized
after a standoff in 2012.

Its defense ministry expressed “grave concern” that Chinese
boats were preparing to build structures at the shoal.

CLEARED THE AIR

The Philippines’ move came after a dispute with the United
States, its former colonial power. Ties turned frosty when new
President Rodrigo Duterte insulted U.S. counterpart Barack Obama
on Monday, prompting the cancellation of a meeting between them.

The two leaders made some steps towards clearing the air
late on Wednesday, however, chatting briefly, and exchanging
pleasantries as they prepared to take their seats at a leaders’
dinner.

The United States has been a staunch ally of the Philippines
and China has repeatedly blamed Washington for stirring up
trouble in the South China Sea.

Washington says it has no position on the territorial
disputes but wants to ensure freedom of navigation. To press
that point, it has conducted patrols near Chinese-held islands.

Although the Scarborough Shoal is merely a few rocks poking
above the sea, it is important to the Philippines because of the
fish stocks in the area. Manila says China’s blockade of the
shoal is a violation of international law.

The dispute has become more significant since the Permanent
Court of Arbitration ruled in July that no country had sovereign
rights over activity at Scarborough Shoal. China has refused to
recognize the ruling by the court in The Hague.

Li made no direct mention of Scarborough Shoal in the
comments provided by the foreign ministry, but Beijing said on
Wednesday there had been no new activity there and “some people”
were spreading information that was “hyping the situation.”

China’s embassy in Manila said there has been no dredging or
building at the shoal and China has maintained a coastguard
presence there for law enforcement patrols.

A statement by ASEAN on Wednesday listed eight points
related to the South China Sea, but made no mention of the
arbitration ruling.

The bloc traditionally shies away from taking a position on
thorny diplomatic issues, especially where China is concerned,
because of its influence in the region and the need to balance
ties with the United States.

“Both China and the United States are among the most
important partners of ASEAN, and ASEAN does not want to have to
choose between those partners,” the secretary general of the
bloc, Le Luong Minh, told Reuters in an interview on Thursday.

(Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard in Beijing; Writing by
John Chalmers; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)

North Korea conducts fifth and largest nuclear test, drawing broad condemnation

South Korean emergency meeting

* Test seen as North’s most powerful yet

* Japan protests, sends jets to monitor for radiation

* China begins emergency radiation testing

* South accuses North of “maniacal recklessness”

* UN Security Council to hold closed-door meeting Friday –
dips

(Adds UN, CTBTO estimate, further condemnations)

By Ju-min Park and Jack Kim

SEOUL, Sept 9 (Reuters) – North Korea conducted its fifth
and biggest nuclear test on Friday and said it had mastered the
ability to mount a warhead on a ballistic missile, ratcheting up
a threat that its rivals and the United Nations have been
powerless to contain.

The blast, on the 68th anniversary of North Korea’s
founding, was more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima,
according to some estimates, and drew condemnation from the
United States as well as China, Pyongyang’s main ally.

Diplomats said the United Nations Security Council would
discuss the test at a closed-door meeting on Friday, at the
request of the United States, Japan and South Korea.

Under 32-year-old dictator Kim Jong Un, North Korea has
accelerated the development of its nuclear and missile
programmes, despite U.N. sanctions that were tightened in March
and have further isolated the impoverished country.

South Korean President Park Geun-hye, in Laos after a summit
of Asian leaders, said Kim was showing “maniacal recklessness”
in completely ignoring the world’s call to abandon his pursuit
of nuclear weapons.

U.S. President Barack Obama, aboard Air Force One on his way
home from Laos, said the test would be met with “serious
consequences”, and held talks with Park and with Japanese Prime
Minister Shinzo Abe, the White House said.

China said it was resolutely opposed to the test and urged
Pyongyang to stop taking any actions that would worsen the
situation. It said it would lodge a protest with the North
Korean embassy in Beijing.

There were further robust condemnations from Russia, the
European Union, NATO, Germany and Britain.

North Korea, which labels the South and the United States as
its main enemies, said its “scientists and technicians carried
out a nuclear explosion test for the judgment of the power of a
nuclear warhead,” according to its official KCNA news agency.

It said the test proved North Korea was capable of mounting
a nuclear warhead on a medium-range ballistic missile, which it
last tested on Monday when Obama and other world leaders were
gathered in China for a G20 summit.

Pyongyang’s claims of being able to miniaturise a nuclear
warhead have never been independently verified.

Its continued testing in defiance of sanctions presents a
challenge to Obama in the final months of his presidency and
could become a factor in the U.S. presidential election in
November, and a headache to be inherited by whoever wins.

“Sanctions have already been imposed on almost everything
possible, so the policy is at an impasse,” said Tadashi Kimiya,
a University of Tokyo professor specialising in Korean issues.

“In reality, the means by which the United States, South
Korea and Japan can put pressure on North Korea have reached
their limits,” he said.

UNPRECEDENTED RATE

North Korea has been testing different types of missiles at
an unprecedented rate this year, and the capability to mount a
nuclear warhead on a missile is especially worrisome for its
neighbours South Korea and Japan.

“The standardisation of the nuclear warhead will enable the
DPRK to produce at will and as many as it wants a variety of
smaller, lighter and diversified nuclear warheads of higher
strike power,” KCNA said, referring to the country’s formal
name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

It was not clear whether Pyongyang had notified Beijing or
Moscow of its planned nuclear test. Senior officials from
Pyongyang were in both capitals this week.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said she
had no information to provide when asked if China had advance
warning of the test, and would not be drawn on whether China
would support tougher sanctions against its neighbour.

Although Beijing has criticised North Korea’s nuclear and
missile tests, it has repeatedly expressed anger since the
United States and South Korea decided in July to deploy the
Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system
in the South.

China calls THAAD a threat to its own security and will do
nothing to bring North Korea back to the negotiating table on
its nuclear programme.

Preliminary data collected by the Vienna-based Comprehensive
Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), which monitors
nuclear tests around the world, indicates the magnitude – around
5 – of the seismic event detected in North Korea on Friday was
greater than a previous one in January.

Jeffrey Lewis of the California-based Middlebury Institute
of International Studies said the highest estimates of seismic
magnitude suggested this was North Korea’s most powerful nuclear
test so far.

He said the seismic magnitude and surface level indicated a
blast with a 20- to 30-kilotonne yield. Such a yield would make
this test larger than the nuclear bomb dropped by the United
States on the Japanese city of Hiroshima in World War Two.

“That’s the largest DPRK test to date, 20-30kt, at least.
Not a happy day,” Lewis told Reuters.

South Korea’s military put the force of the blast at 10
kilotonnes, which would still be the North’s most powerful
nuclear blast to date.

“The important thing is, that five tests in, they now have a
lot of nuclear test experience. They aren’t a backwards state
any more,” Lewis said.

(Reporting by Jack Kim, Ju-min Park, James Pearson, Se Young
Lee, Nataly Pak, and Yun Hwan Chae in SEOUL; Additional
reporting by Ben Blanchard in BEIJING, Kaori Kaneko and Linda
Sieg in TOKYO, Kirsti Knolle in VIENNA and Eric Beech and
Michelle Nichols in WASHINGTON; Writing by Tony Munroe; Editing
by Raju Gopalakrishnan and Ian Geoghegan)

Chinese Coast Guard involved in most South China Sea clashes

Chinese Coast Guard vessel manoeuvres to block a Philippine government supply ship with members of media aboard at disputed Second Thomas Shoal in South China Sea

 

By Greg Torode

HONG KONG, Sept 7 (Reuters) – Increasingly assertive action by China’s coast guard ships in the South China Sea risks destabilizing the region according to the authors of new research tracking maritime law enforcement incidents across the vital trade route.

While the risks of full-blown naval conflict dominates strategic fears over the disputed waterway, the danger of incidents involving coast guards should not be underestimated, said Bonnie Glaser, a regional security expert at Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank.

China claims much of the South China Sea, which carries the bulk of Northeast Asia’s trade with the rest of the world. Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan also have claims.

CSIS researchers have detailed some 45 clashes and standoffs in the South China Sea since 2010 in a survey published on its ChinaPower website on Wednesday.

While the research includes clashes between a variety of regional states and types of vessels, the actions of China’s coast guard dominates the picture. China’s coast guard has been involved in 30 of the cases logged, two-thirds of the total. Four other incidents involved a Chinese naval vessel operating in a law enforcement capacity.

“The evidence is clear that there is a pattern of behavior from China that is contrary to what law enforcement usually involves,” Glaser told Reuters.

“We’re seeing bullying, harassment and ramming of vessels from countries whose coast guard and fishing vessels are much smaller, often to assert sovereignty throughout the South China
Sea.”

The research includes the violent maritime stand-off between Beijing and Hanoi over the placement of a Chinese oil exploration rig off the Vietnamese coast in 2014, as well as tensions that led up to China’s occupation of the Scarborough Shoal off the Philippines in 2012.

It is being published as Chinese coast guard and other vessels return to Scarborough Shoal, sparking formal diplomatic protests from Manila. The Philippines said on Wednesday it was seeking clarification from China about the increase in ships near the shoal.

China’s State Oceanic Administration, which oversees the coast guard, did not respond to requests for comment on the research.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said she believed it was natural for China’s coast guard vessels to legally carry out patrols and maintain maritime order in waters
under China’s jurisdiction.

“We hope the relevant individuals can stop hyping up this kind of information, and stop sowing discord and tension,” she told a daily news briefing in Beijing.

The research defines an incident where a nation’s coast guard or navy has used coercive measures beyond routine law enforcement action.

In the short term, Glaser said she believed the risk of injury or death could be worse in civilian clashes than among navies patrolling the South China Sea, given the frequency and intensity of incidents in recent years.

Encounters by rival coast guards are not yet covered by expanding communications arrangements that are geared to preventing clashes between the region’s naval forces.

The survey cites research showing the unifying of China’s civilian maritime fleets in 2013, coupled with on-going budget increases, has given it the world’s largest coast guard.

It now deploys some 205 vessels, including 95 ships over 1,000 tonnes, according to the U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence – a far larger fleet than other regional countries, including
Japan.

(Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard and Michael Martina in
Beijing; Editing by Lincoln Feast and Nick Macfie)

North Korea fires three ballistic missiles as G20 leaders meet in China

A passenger watches a TV screen broadcasting a news report on North Korea firing three ballistic missiles into the sea off its east coast, at a railway station in Seoul, South Korea,

By Ju-min Park

SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea fired three ballistic missiles into the sea off its east coast on Monday, South Korea’s military said, as the leaders of the Group of 20 major economies held a summit in China, the North’s main diplomatic ally.

The missiles were fired from a region south of the capital Pyongyang just after noon local time (0300 GMT) and flew about 1,000 km (600 miles), hitting Japan’s air defense identification zone, the South’s Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said.

“We are still analyzing details but this is a grave threat to our nation’s security, and we express deep concern,” the Japan Defence Ministry said in a statement.

The missile launches were the latest in a series of launches by the isolated North this year in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions, supported by China, that ban all ballistic missile-related activities by the North.

Pyongyang rejects the ban as infringing its sovereign right to pursue a space program and self defense.

Shortly after the missile launches, South Korean President Park Geun-hye and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe met on the sidelines of the G20 summit and agreed to cooperate on monitoring the situation, a Japanese statement said.

The South’s military said the missiles were medium-range Rodong-class, launched as a show of force timed to coincide with the G20 summit.

In 2014, the North fired two Rodong medium-range missiles just as Park and Abe were meeting U.S. President Barack Obama at the Hague to discuss responding to the North’s arms program.

The latest missiles were launched from a region called Hwangju and came just hours after the leaders of South Korea and China met on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Hangzhou, China.

South Korea’s Park told Chinese President Xi Jinping that the North’s fourth nuclear test and its ballistic missile launches this year threatened regional peace and posed a challenge to South Korea’s ties with China, Yonhap news agency reported earlier.

During the meeting, Xi reaffirmed China’s commitment to realizing the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, China’s state news agency Xinhua reported on Monday.

Xi also told Park that Beijing opposed the proposed deployment of a THAAD anti-missile system in South Korea, which Seoul and the United States have said is designed to counter an increasing missile threat from North Korea.

Park said that a THAAD deployment would not threaten any other country’s security interests and would not be needed if the North’s nuclear issue was resolved, Yonhap news agency said.

In July, the North launched three missiles in a single day from the western region that flew across the country and into the sea off its east coast, flying about 500 km and 600 km (300-360 miles).

(Additional reporting by Nobuhiro Kubo in TOKYO; Writing by Jack Kim; Editing by Tony Munroe and Michael Perry)

China steps up arrival checks from Singapore amid ZIKA outreach

By Aradhana Aravindan and Ben Blanchard

SINGAPORE/BEIJING (Reuters) – China intensified its checks on people and goods arriving from Singapore on Thursday, as an outbreak of the Zika virus in the small city-state was confirmed to have spread to at least one person in neighboring Malaysia.

Singapore is the only Asian country with an active transmission of the mosquito-borne Zika virus, which is a particular risk to pregnant women, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Authorities in Singapore, a leading regional financial center and busy transit hub for people and cargo, reported the first locally-transmitted Zika infection on Saturday, with the number of cases rising to 115 by Thursday – half of whom were foreigners, mainly from China, India and Bangladesh.

Malaysia confirmed its first case of Zika infection, in a woman who had recently visited Singapore.

“We have been tracking Zika for a while now, and knew it was only a matter of time before it reached Singapore,” Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong posted on his Facebook page. “Our best defense is to eradicate mosquitoes and destroy breeding habitats, all over Singapore.”

The United States, Australia and other countries have warned pregnant women or those trying to conceive not to travel to Singapore.

The outbreak and travel warnings come just two weeks before the Singapore F1 motor-racing Grand Prix, a major sporting and tourist draw. Race promoter Singapore GP has said planning for the event is going ahead “as per normal”.

Singapore’s Tourism Board has said it is premature to consider any impact on the tourism industry, stressing the tropical city-state remains a “safe travel destination”.

More than 55 million people pass through Singapore’s Changi airport each year. Tourism arrivals topped 8 million in the first half of this year, around 1 million more than a year ago.

“NEGATIVE IMPACT”

China is trade-dependent Singapore’s top overseas market, and the Zika outbreak coincides with a dip in overall exports and slowing economic growth in both countries.

“If this continues, certainly it will have a negative impact, but it’s hard to quantify in percentage terms or dollar value,” said Francis Tan, an economist at United Overseas Bank in Singapore.

The Zika virus, which has spread through the Americas and the Caribbean since late last year, is generally a mild disease but has been linked to microcephaly – a severe birth defect in which babies are born with abnormally small heads and underdeveloped brains.

The World Health Organization, which has declared Zika an international public health emergency, is holding a regular meeting of its Zika emergency committee on Thursday to review the spread of the disease.

Singapore authorities said late on Wednesday they found some new Zika cases beyond the cluster area where it had initially been detected. They also confirmed a first Zika case in a pregnant woman in the country.

On Thursday, Singapore said half of the cases found so far involved foreigners – including 23 Chinese nationals, 15 Indians and 10 Bangladeshis – adding that most patients had recovered. Many of the foreigners are believed to be among the hundreds of thousands of migrant workers who work in Singapore’s construction and marine industries.

Malaysia, which has two land border crossings with Singapore, asked those going to the city-state to use mosquito repellent and to cover up to avoid bites. Tens of thousands of people travel between the two countries daily.

Indonesia has also stepped up protective measures following the Singapore outbreak, intensifying checks on arrivals from Singapore, introducing thermal scanners and posting paramedics at airports and border checkpoints.

Zika is carried by mosquitoes, which transmit the virus to humans, though a small number of cases of sexual transmission of the virus have been reported in the Americas. A case of suspected transmission through a blood transfusion in Brazil has raised questions about other ways in which Zika may spread.

There is no vaccine or treatment for Zika, which is a close cousin of dengue and chikungunya and causes mild fever, rash and red eyes. An estimated 80 percent of people infected have no symptoms, however. The WHO has also linked Zika to Guillain-Barre, a rare neurological syndrome that causes temporary paralysis in adults.

(Additional reporting by Joseph Sipalan and Rozanne Latiff in Kuala Lumpur; Writing by Miral Fahmy; Editing by Ian Geoghegan)

China expresses concern about Indian missiles on border

A signboard is seen from the Indian side of the Indo-China border at Bumla, in Arunachal Pradesh,

BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s Defence Ministry said on Thursday that it hoped India could put more efforts into regional peace and stability rather than the opposite, in response to Indian plans to put advanced cruise missiles along the disputed border with China.

Indian military officials say the plan is to equip regiments deployed on the China border with the BrahMos missile, made by an Indo-Russian joint venture, as part of ongoing efforts to build up military and civilian infrastructure capabilities there.

The two nuclear-armed neighbors have been moving to gradually ease long-existing tensions between them.

Leaders of Asia’s two giants pledged last year to cool a festering border dispute, which dates back to a brief border war in 1962, though the disagreement remains unresolved.

Asked about the missile plans at a monthly news briefing, Chinese Defence Ministry spokesman Wu Qian said maintaining peace and stability in the border region was an “important consensus” reached by both countries.

“We hope that the Indian side can do more to benefit peace and stability along the border and in the region, rather than the opposite,” Wu said, without elaborating.

China lays claim to more than 90,000 sq km (35,000 sq miles) ruled by New Delhi in the eastern sector of the Himalayas. India says China occupies 38,000 sq km (14,600 sq miles) of its territory on the Aksai Chin plateau in the west.

India is also suspicious of China’s support for its arch-rival, Pakistan.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will meet Chinese President Xi Jinping when he visits China next month to attend the G20 summit.

Modi’s government has ordered BrahMos Aerospace, which produces the missiles, to accelerate sales to a list of five countries topped by Vietnam, according to a government note viewed by Reuters and previously unreported.

Modi visits Vietnam, which is embroiled in a dispute over the South China Sea with Beijing, before arriving in China.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)

North Korea’s Kim declares sub missile launch ‘greatest success’

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is pictured during a test-fire of strategic submarine-launched ballistic missile

By Jack Kim

SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korean leader Kim Jong Un supervised the test-firing of a submarine-launched ballistic missile and declared it “the greatest success,” which puts the country in the “front rank” of nuclear military powers, official media reported on Thursday.

North Korea fired a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) on Wednesday which flew about 500 km (300 miles) towards Japan. The South Korean government and experts said the launch showed technical progress in the North’s SLBM program.

“A test-fire of strategic submarine-launched ballistic missile was successfully conducted under the guidance of supreme commander of the Korean People’s Army Kim Jong Un,” the North’s official KCNA news agency said.

“He appreciated the test-fire as the greatest success and victory,” KCNA said.

“He noted with pride that the results of the test-fire proved in actuality that the DPRK joined the front rank of the military powers fully equipped with nuclear attack capability.”

DPRK, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, is North Korea’s formal name.

A test-fire of strategic submarine-launched ballistic missile is seen in this undated photo

A test-fire of strategic submarine-launched ballistic missile is seen in this undated photo released by North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in Pyongyang August 25, 2016. REUTERS/KCNA

North Korea has conducted a spate of military technology tests this year, including a fourth nuclear test in January and numerous ballistic missile launches, in defiance of U.N. Security Council sanctions that were tightened in March.

North Korea said this year it had miniaturized a nuclear warhead to fit on a ballistic missile but outside experts have said there is yet no firm evidence to back up that claim or show it had mastered the technology to bring a live warhead back into the atmosphere and guide it to strike a target.

North Korean state television on Thursday showed video clips of the launch of a missile from underwater at dawn, and still photographs of Kim on the dock at a port as a large crane unloaded an object onto a submarine.

Kim is also seen jubilantly celebrating with military aides in photographs carried by the official Rodong Sinmun newspaper.

REACHED JAPAN DEFENCE ZONE

The Washington-based 38 North project said in a report that the missile was launched from the North’s sole experimental missile submarine and a satellite photograph taken on Monday showed final preparations, likely after the missile had already been loaded onto the submarine using a heavy construction crane.

The test showed the solid-fuel missile’s control and guidance system as well as the atmospheric re-entry of the warhead all met operational requirements, KCNA said.

The South Korean and U.S. militaries said the missile was fired from near the coastal city of Sinpo, where a submarine base is located. Japan said the missile reached its air defense identification zone, the first time by a North Korean missile.

The UN Security Council met behind closed doors on Wednesday at the request of the United States and Japan to discuss the launch. Deputy Russian U.N. Ambassador Petr Iliichev said the United States would circulate a draft press statement.

The meeting comes after the Security Council was unable to condemn a missile launch by the North earlier this month that landed near Japan because China wanted the statement to also oppose the planned deployment of a U.S. missile defense system in South Korea.

China said on Wednesday that it opposes the North’s nuclear and missile programs. It had been angered by what it views as provocative moves by the United States and South Korea on the decision to deploy the THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defence) anti-missile system in South Korea.

(Additional reporting by Minwoo Park in Seoul and Michelle Nichols at the United Nations; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)