Tag Archives: North Korea

A North Korea nuclear test over the Pacific? Logical, terrifying

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

By Hyonhee Shin and Linda Sieg

SEOUL/TOKYO (Reuters) – Detonating a nuclear-tipped missile over the Pacific Ocean would be a logical final step by North Korea to prove the success of its weapons program but would be extremely provocative and carry huge risks, arms control experts said on Friday.

North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho suggested leader Kim Jong Un was considering testing “an unprecedented scale hydrogen bomb” over the Pacific in response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s threat at the United Nations to “totally destroy” the country.

“It may mean North Korea will fire a warhead-tipped (intermediate range) Hwasong-12 or Hwasong-14 intercontinental ballistic missile and blow it up a few hundred kilometers above the Pacific Ocean,” said Yang Uk, a senior researcher at the Korea Defence and Security Forum in Seoul.

“They may be bluffing, but there is a need for them to test their combined missile-bomb capability. They could have already prepared the plan and are now trying to use Trump’s remarks as an excuse to make it happen,” said Yang.

Such an atmospheric test would be the first globally since China detonated a device in 1980, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Tests of nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles are rarer still. The United States’ only test of an operational ballistic missile with a live warhead was fired from submarine far out in the Pacific Ocean in 1962.

China was widely condemned for a similar test with a missile that exploded over its Lop Nur test site in the country’s west in 1966.

North Korea’s six nuclear tests to date have all been underground, the most recent earlier this month by far its largest.

“We have to assume they *could* do it, but it is exceedingly provocative,” said Vipin Narang, an associate professor of political science at  Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

“To put a live nuclear warhead on a missile that’s only been tested a handful of times, overflying potentially populated centers. If it…doesn’t go exactly as planned….it could be a world changing event.”

North Korea has fired two ballistic missiles over Japan’s north Hokkaido region in the past month as part of a series of tests that experts say have illustrated unexpectedly rapid advances.

“They said Pacific Ocean, which pretty much means firing a missile over Japan,” said Melissa Hanham, a senior research associate at the U.S.-based Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, California. “They want to shut us all up for doubting they could build it.”

SERIOUS FALLOUT

While a missile would be the most ideal means of delivery, it is also possible to put a bomb on a ship and detonate on the surface of the ocean or in the sea, the experts said.

Either way, the radioactive fallout could be significant, as well as the diplomatic backlash from around the world. North Korea’s recent missile launches over Japan especially drew stern rebukes from Tokyo and the international community.

Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga called Pyongyang’s remarks and behavior “completely unacceptable”.

Narang said a test high enough over the ocean would limit the radioactive fallout but risks included damage from an electro-magnetic pulse, something Pyongyang has hinted it might employ on an attack on the United States or its allies.

“If it doesn’t go exactly as planned and the detonation occurs at a lower altitude we could see some EMP-like effects for anything in the area. A lot of dead fish too.”

Pyongyang has launched dozens of missiles this year as it spurs a program aimed at mastering a nuclear-tipped missile that can strike the United States, in addition to its Sept 3 nuclear test.

If Kim’s threat materializes, it will be a “tipping point” for China, and may prompt many other countries to demand an “end to the regime,” said David Albright, founder of the non-profit Institute for Science and International Security in Washington.

“No one has tested above ground for decades and the radioactive fallout could be terrifying to many,” Albright said.

Other experts said such an atmospheric nuclear test is unlikely for now due to its substantial technical and diplomatic risks.

Joshua Pollack, editor of the Washington-based Nonproliferation Review, said it would be an “end-to-end demo of everything.”

“But I would be surprised if this were their very next move. They have yet to test an ICBM at full range into the Pacific,” said Pollack. “That will probably come first.”

(Reporting by Hyonhee Shin in Seoul and Linda Sieg in Tokyo; Additional reporting by James Pearson in Seoul, Nobuhiro Kubo and Timothy Kelly in Tokyo, and David Brunnstrom in Washington; Editing by Lincoln Feast)

North Korea may consider H-bomb test in Pacific, Kim calls Trump ‘deranged’

North Korea may consider H-bomb test in Pacific, Kim calls Trump 'deranged'

By Christine Kim and Steve Holland

SEOUL/NEW YORK (Reuters) – North Korea said on Friday it might test a hydrogen bomb over the Pacific Ocean after President Donald Trump vowed to destroy the reclusive country, with leader Kim Jong Un promising to make Trump pay dearly for his threats.

Kim did not specify what action he would take against the United States or Trump, whom he called a “mentally deranged U.S. dotard” in the latest bout of insults the two leaders have traded in recent weeks.

South Korea said it was the first direct statement of its kind by a North Korean leader. However, Kim’s foreign minister, Ri Yong Ho, said North Korea could consider a hydrogen bomb test of an unprecedented scale over the Pacific Ocean. Ri told reporters in New York he did not know Kim’s exact thoughts.

Japan, the only country ever to suffer an atomic attack, described the threat as “totally unacceptable”.

The U.S. president, who has not shrunk from fighting fire with fire in his rhetoric on North Korea, sent another message Friday on Twitter.

“Kim Jong Un of North Korea, who is obviously a madman who doesn’t mind starving or killing his people, will be tested like never before,” Trump said, a day after announcing additional sanctions on Pyongyang.

Trump said in his first address to the United Nations on Tuesday he would “totally destroy” North Korea, a country of 26 million people, if it threatened the United States and its allies, and called Kim a “rocket man” on a suicide mission.

Kim said the North would consider the “highest level of hard-line countermeasure in history” against the United States and that Trump’s comments had confirmed his own nuclear program was “the correct path”.

Pyongyang conducted its sixth and largest nuclear test on Sept. 3 and has launched dozens of missiles this year as it accelerates a program aimed at enabling it to target the United States with a nuclear-tipped missile.

“I will surely and definitely tame the mentally deranged U.S. dotard with fire,” Kim said in the statement on the KCNA state news agency.

Asked about the North Korean hydrogen bomb threat, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told ABC that diplomatic efforts will continue but all military options were still on the table.

“We are quite challenged” with the escalating rhetoric, he said, but hoped increased sanctions and “voices from every corner of the world” would help lead Kim to talks.

“SLEEPWALKING INTO WAR”

In a separate report, KCNA made a rare criticism of official Chinese media, saying their comments on the North’s nuclear program had damaged ties and suggested Beijing, its only major ally, had sided with Washington.

Singling out the official People’s Daily and its more nationalistic sister publication, the Global Times, KCNA said Chinese media was “openly resorting to interference in the internal affairs of another country” and driving a wedge between the two countries.

At the United Nations, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for statesmanship to avoid “sleepwalking” into a war.

South Korea, Russia and China all urged calm.

“All relevant sides should exercise restraint and dedicate themselves to easing the situation rather than irritating each other,” said Lu Kang, China’s foreign ministry spokesman.

However, the rhetoric was starting to rattle some in the international community. French Sports Minister Laura Flessel said France’s team would not travel to the 2018 Winter Olympic Games in South Korea if its security could not be guaranteed.

The 2018 Games are to be staged in Pyeongchang, just 80 km (50 miles) from the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea, the world’s most heavily armed border.

Asian stocks fell, and the Japanese yen and Swiss franc gained, on the possibility of a hydrogen bomb test in the Pacific. [MKTS/GLOB]

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan handed back earlier gains and was down 0.4 percent.

MORE TIME

In Thursday’s sanctions announcement, Trump stopped short of going after Pyongyang’s biggest trading partner, China, praising as “tremendous” a move by its central bank ordering Chinese banks to stop doing business with North Korea.

Asked about the order on Friday, China’s foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang said, “As far as I understand, the situation you have just mentioned does not accord with the facts.

“In principle, China has always fully and strictly enforced U.N. resolutions and accepted our international obligations”.

He did not elaborate. Chinese government ministries generally do not offer comment on decisions taken by other government departments. The additional sanctions on Pyongyang, including on its shipping and trade networks, showed Trump was giving more time for economic pressure to weigh on North Korea after warning about the possibility of military action on Tuesday.

Asked before a lunch meeting Thursday with the leaders of Japan and South Korea if diplomacy was still possible, Trump nodded and said, “Why not?”

Trump said the new executive order on sanctions gives further authorities to target individual companies and institutions that finance and facilitate trade with North Korea.

It “will cut off sources of revenue that fund North Korea’s efforts to develop the deadliest weapons known to humankind”, Trump said.

The White House said North Korea’s energy, medical, mining, textiles, and transport industries were among those targeted and that the U.S. Treasury could sanction anyone who owns, controls or operates a port of entry in North Korea.

The new measures do not target Pyongyang’s oil trade.

“ON NOTICE”

U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said banks doing business in North Korea would not be allowed to operate in the United States.

“Foreign financial institutions are now on notice that going forward they can choose to do business with the United States or with North Korea, but not both,” Mnuchin said.

The U.N. Security Council has unanimously imposed nine rounds of sanctions on North Korea since 2006, the latest this month capping fuel supplies to the isolated state.

The United States and South Korea are technically still at war with North Korea because the 1950-53 Korean conflict ended with a truce and not a peace treaty.

The North accuses the United States, which has 28,500 troops in South Korea, of planning to invade and regularly threatens to destroy it and its Asian allies.

(For a graphic on Nuclear North Korea, click http://tmsnrt.rs/2n0gd92)

(Additional reporting by Linda Sieg in Tokyo, Michael Martina, Ben Blanchard and Christian Shepherd in BEIJING, David Brunnstrom, Michelle Nichols and Arshad Mohammed, Jeff Mason in NEW YORK, Doina Chaicu in Washington, Soyoung Kim in SEOUL; Writing by Yara Bayoumy and Lincoln Feast; Editing by Clarence Fernandez and Chizu Nomiyama)

Trump to add North Korea sanctions, allies call for strict enforcement

U.S. President Donald Trump looks on during his meeting with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani during the U.N. General Assembly in New York, U.S., September 21,

By Steve Holland and David Brunnstrom

NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday the United States will add more sanctions against North Korea, while U.S. allies have called for enforcing existing international sanctions as the best way to get Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons program.

The sanctions are not expected to further target oil, a senior Trump administration official told Reuters.

Tensions have risen over North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile tests, despite intense pressure from world powers. The U.N. Security Council has unanimously imposed nine rounds of sanctions on North Korea since 2006, the latest earlier this month capping fuel supplies to the isolated state.

“We will be putting more sanctions on North Korea,” Trump said in response to a question at a meeting with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani in New York on the sidelines of the annual gathering of world leaders at the United Nations.

Trump would make the announcement at lunch with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and South Korean President Moon Jae-in, officials said.

Trump said before the lunch that he and Moon were discussing trade issues and North Korea. “I think we’re making a lot of progress in a lot of ways,” Trump told reporters.

Moon, sitting with Trump and their respective delegations, said the U.S. president’s warning to Pyongyang in his speech at the U.N. on Tuesday “will also help to change North Korea.”

Trump warned North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in his address that the United States, if threatened, would “totally destroy” his country of 26 million people.

It was Trump’s most direct military threat to attack North Korea and his latest expression of concern about Pyongyang’s repeated launching of ballistic missiles over Japan and underground nuclear tests.

North Korea’s foreign minister likened Trump to a “barking dog” in response.

On Thursday, South Korea’s Moon said sanctions were needed to bring Pyongyang to the negotiating table and force it to give up its nuclear weapons, but Seoul was not seeking North Korea’s collapse.

“All of our endeavors are to prevent war from breaking out and maintain peace,” Moon said in his speech to the U.N. General Assembly. He said that Pyongyang’s nuclear issue “needs to be managed stably so that tensions will not become overly intensified and accidental military clashes will not destroy peace.”

Moon, a former human rights activist whom Trump has accused of appeasement towards North Korea, said: “We will not seek unification by absorption or artificial means.”

Moon said all countries must strictly adhere to U.N. sanctions on North Korea and impose tougher steps in the event of new provocations by Pyongyang.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin will hold a news briefing at 3 p.m. (1900 GMT) in which he is expected to discuss the Trump administration’s sanctions announcement.

U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley will brief the news media at 4:30 p.m. (2030 GMT), the White House said.

In Geneva, North Korea told a U.N. rights panel that international sanctions would endanger the survival of North Korean children.

 

AID PLAN

South Korea approved a plan on Thursday to send $8 million worth of aid to North Korea, as China warned the crisis on the Korean peninsula was getting more serious by the day.

The last time the South had sent aid to the North was in December 2015 through the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) under former President Park Geun-hye.

North Korea conducted its sixth and largest nuclear test on Sept. 3 and has launched numerous missiles this year, including two intercontinental ballistic missiles and two other rockets that flew over Japan.

The United States and South Korea are technically still at war with North Korea because the 1950-53 Korean conflict ended with a truce and not a peace treaty. The North accuses the United States, which has 28,500 troops in South Korea, of planning to invade and regularly threatens to destroy it and its Asian allies.

Earlier this month, Mnuchin warned China, North Korea’s main ally and trading partner, that if it did not follow through on new U.N. sanctions on Pyongyang, Washington would “put additional sanctions on them and prevent them from accessing the U.S. and international dollar system.”

Last month, the Trump administration blacklisted 16 Chinese, Russian and Singaporean companies and people for trading with banned North Korean entities, including in coal, oil and metals. However, it did not sanction Chinese banks that experts and former U.S. officials say enable North Korea’s international trade, often by laundering funds through the United States.

On Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told a news conference there “some indications” that sanctions were beginning to cause fuel shortages in North Korea.

 

(Reporting by Steve Holland and David Brunnstrom; additional reporting by Michelle Nichols and Susan Heavey; Writing by Yara Bayoumy; Editing by Grant McCool)

 

South Korea approves aid to North Korea, North calls Trump ‘barking dog’

By Christine Kim

SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korea approved a plan on Thursday to send $8 million worth of aid to North Korea, as China warned the crisis on the Korean peninsula was getting more serious by the day and the war of words between Pyongyang and Washington continued.

North Korea’s foreign minister likened U.S. President Donald Trump to a “barking dog” on Thursday, after Trump warned he would “totally destroy” the North if it threatened the United States and its allies.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said the situation on the Korean peninsula was getting more serious by the day and could not be allowed to spin out of control.

“We call on all parties to be calmer than calm and not let the situation escalate out of control,” Wang said, according to a report from the state-run China News Service on Thursday.

Meeting separately with his South Korean counterpart, Kang Kyung-wha, Wang reiterated a call for South Korea to remove the U.S.-built THAAD anti-missile system, which China says is a threat to its own security.

“China hopes South Korea will make efforts to reduce tension,” a report on China’s official Xinhua news agency quoted Wang as saying.

The decision to send aid to North Korea was not popular in South Korea, hitting President Moon Jae-in’s approval rating. It also raised concerns in Japan and the United States, and followed new U.N. sanctions against North Korea over its sixth nuclear test earlier this month.

The South’s Unification Ministry said its aid policy remained unaffected by geopolitical tensions with the North. The exact timing of when the aid would be sent, as well as its size, would be confirmed later, the ministry said in a statement.

The South said it aimed to send $4.5 million worth of nutritional products for children and pregnant women through the World Food Programme and $3.5 million worth of vaccines and medicinal treatments through UNICEF.

“We have consistently said we would pursue humanitarian aid for North Korea in consideration of the poor conditions children and pregnant women are in there, apart from political issues,” said Unification Minister Cho Myong-gyon.

UNICEF’s regional director for East Asia and the Pacific Karin Hulshof said in a statement before the decision the problems North Korean children face “are all too real”.

“Today, we estimate that around 200,000 children are affected by acute malnutrition, heightening their risk of death and increasing rates of stunting,” Hulshof said.

“Food and essential medicines and equipment to treat young children are in short supply,” she said.

The last time the South had sent aid to the North was in December 2015 through the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) under ex-president Park Geun-hye.

 

DOG BARKING

South Korea’s efforts aimed at fresh aid for North Korea dragged down Moon’s approval rating. Realmeter, a South Korean polling organization, said on Thursday Moon’s approval rating stood at 65.7 percent, weakening for a fourth straight month.

Although the approval rate is still high, those surveyed said Moon had fallen out of favor due to North Korea’s continued provocations and the government’s decision to consider sending aid to North Korea, Realmeter said.

Moon will meet Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Trump later on Thursday on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, where North Korea was expected to be the core agenda item.

In an address on Tuesday, Trump escalated his standoff with North Korea over its nuclear challenge, threatening to “totally destroy” the country of 26 million people if the North threatened the United States and its allies.

Trump also mocked its leader, Kim Jong Un, calling him a “rocket man”.

North Korea’s Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho called Trump’s comments “the sound of a dog barking”.

“There is a saying that goes: ‘Even when dogs bark, the parade goes on’,” Ri said in televised remarks to reporters in front of a hotel near the U.N. headquarters in New York.

“If (Trump) was thinking about surprising us with dog-barking sounds then he is clearly dreaming,” he said.

Asked by reporters what he thought of Trump calling North Korean leader Kim Jong Un “rocket man”, Ri quipped: “I feel sorry for his aides.”

North Korea conducted its sixth and largest nuclear test on Sept. 3 and has launched numerous missiles this year, including two intercontinental ballistic missiles and two other rockets that flew over Japan.

Such provocations have sparked strong disapproval from the international community, especially from the United States and Japan.

 

(Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard and Michael Martina in BEIJING; Editing by Michael Perry and Paul Tait)

 

South Korea says Trump’s warning to North Korea ‘firm and specific’

South Korea's President Moon Jae-in receives the Global Citizen Award at an Atlantic Council event in New York, U.S. September 19, 2017. REUTERS/Stephen Yang

By Christine Kim and Kaori Kaneko

SEOUL/TOKYO (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump’s speech to the United Nations, where he warned he would “totally destroy” North Korea if threatened, reinforced the need for Pyongyang to realize it must give up its nuclear weapons, South Korea said on Wednesday.

In a hard-edged speech to the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, Trump mocked North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as a “rocket man” for his repeated ballistic missile tests.

“We view the speech as portraying a firm and specific stance on the key issues regarding keeping peace and safety that the international community and the United Nations are faced with,” the office of South Korean President Moon Jae-in said in a statement on Wednesday.

“It clearly showed how seriously the United States government views North Korea’s nuclear program as the president spent an unusual amount of time discussing the issue,” the presidential Blue House’s statement said.

Trump’s speech “reaffirmed that North Korea should be made to realize denuclearization is the only way to the future through utmost sanctions and pressure”, it said.

Moon came to power in May on a platform of more engagement with North Korea. Since Pyongyang’s sixth and largest nuclear test earlier on Sept. 3, however, Moon has said the time is not right for dialogue.

He and Trump plan to meet in New York early on Wednesday U.S. time, Moon’s office said.

“GREAT STRENGTH”

Trump’s most direct military threat to attack North Korea was his latest expression of concern about Pyongyang’s repeated weapons tests.

“The United States has great strength and patience, but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea,” Trump told the 193-member world body. “Rocket man is on a suicide mission for himself and his regime.”

U.S. ally Japan, which Pyongyang often threatens to destroy, has taken a consistently hard line on North Korea, pushing for increased sanctions and pressure.

“We greatly appreciate President Trump’s approach to changing North Korea’s policy stance, denuclearizing the country and calling on the international community, including China and Russia, for their cooperation toward strengthening pressure on North Korea,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters.

Suga also welcomed Trump’s reference to a Japanese girl who was kidnapped by North Korean agents in 1977.

The plight of abductees is a key issue for Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who has pledged to rescue them while in office, and an emotive one for the Japanese public.

North Korea admitted in 2002 it had kidnapped 13 Japanese in the 1970s and 1980s to train spies. Five of them returned to Japan but Tokyo suspects that hundreds more may have been taken.

STRICT SANCTIONS

North Korea, which has conducted more than 80 missile tests under third-generation leader Kim, says it needs its weapons to protect itself from U.S. aggression. South Korea and the United States are technically still at war with North Korea after the 1950-53 Korean conflict ended with a truce, not a peace treaty.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, interviewed by Fox News on Tuesday, highlighted Washington’s policy of pressuring North Korea through sanctions.

“We have the strictest sanctions ever put in place. We do believe there are early signs of those having an effect,” he said. “Ultimately, though, we’re going to need the assistance of the neighbors in the region.”

The U.N. Security Council has unanimously imposed nine rounds of sanctions on North Korea since 2006, the latest earlier this month aimed at restricting fuel supplies and cutting off textile exports, a key foreign exchange earner.

The United States has urged China, North Korea’s main ally and trading partner, and Russia to do more to rein in Kim, something Trump appeared to allude to in his speech.

“It is an outrage that some nations would not only trade with such a regime but would arm, supply and financially support a country that imperils the world with nuclear conflict,” Trump told the General Assembly.

China’s Foreign Ministry, asked to respond to Trump’s comments about destroying North Korea if it had to, said U.N. resolutions were clear the Korean peninsula issue should be resolved peacefully through political and diplomatic means.

The resolutions passed by the U.N. Security Council on North Korea reflected the “common will and consensus of the international community” to denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, Ministry spokesman Lu Kang told a regular briefing.

(Reporting by Christine Kim in SEOUL and Kaori Kaneko in TOKYO; Additional reporting by Steve Holland and Jeff Mason at the UNITED NATIONS and Michael Martina and Philip Wen in BEIJING; Writing by Lincoln Feast; Editing by Paul Tait and Michael Perry)

Exclusive: From Russia with fuel – North Korean ships may be undermining sanctions

Exclusive: From Russia with fuel - North Korean ships may be undermining sanctions

By Polina Nikolskaya

MOSCOW (Reuters) – At least eight North Korean ships that left Russia with a cargo of fuel this year headed for their homeland despite declaring other destinations, a ploy that U.S. officials say is often used to undermine sanctions.

Reuters has no evidence of wrongdoing by the vessels, whose movements were recorded in Reuters ship-tracking data. Changing a ship’s destination once underway is not forbidden and it is unclear whether any of the ships unloaded fuel in North Korea.

But U.S. officials say that changing destination mid-voyage is a hallmark of North Korean state tactics to circumvent the international trade sanctions imposed over Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program.

Changing course and the complex chain of different firms –many offshore — involved in shipments can complicate efforts to check how much fuel is supplied to North Korea and monitor compliance with a cap on fuel imports under U.N. sanctions.

“As part of North Korea’s efforts to acquire revenue, the regime uses shipping networks to import and export goods,” U.S. Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Marshall S. Billingslea told the Congressional Foreign Affairs Committee this month.

“North Korea employs deceptive practices to conceal the true origins of these goods. Pyongyang has been found to routinely falsify a vessel’s identity and documentation.”

VOYAGE OF THE MA DU SAN

The eight vessels identified in the tracking data set sail from the Far Eastern Russian port of Vladivostok or nearby Nakhodka and registered China or South Korea as their destination with the Information System for State Port Control.

After leaving Russia, they were next recorded off the North Korean ports of Kimchaek, Chongjin, Hungnam or Najin. None went on to China and most went back to Russia.

All had a cargo of diesel, a source at the company that services vessels in Vladivostok said. Their cargo capacity ranged from 500 tonnes to 2,000 tonnes.

One of the vessels was the Ma Du San, owned by North Korea’s Korea Kyongun Shipping Co. It took on a cargo of 545 tonnes of marine fuel at Vladivostok’s Pervaya Rechka terminal, owned by Russia’s Independent Petroleum company (IPC).

Reuters obtained a bill of lading — a receipt for goods issued when a ship loads up — dated May 19 showing the Ma Du San’s cargo came from Khabarovskiy NPZ, a refinery owned by IPC.

The ship set sail on May 20. Documents filed with Russia’s Information System for State Port Control stated its next destination as the Chinese port of Zhanjiang and the bill of lading showed it as Busan in South Korea.

The Ma Du San’s next recorded location after Vladivostok was inside the perimeter of the port of Kimchaek — all the other ships were tracked only in the vicinity of ports. North Korean ships intermittently turn off their transponders, and satellites cannot track them at such times, U.S. officials say.

Allegations outlined in two U.S. Treasury Department sanctions orders and a legal complaint filed by the U.S. government match the information Reuters obtained on the Ma Du San though the U.S. documents do not name the vessel involved.

SANCTIONS BLACKLIST

On June 1, the U.S. Treasury Department included IPC on its sanctions blacklist, saying it provided oil to North Korea and may have been involved in circumventing sanctions.

On Aug. 22, the U.S. government sanctioned two more companies, both registered in Singapore — Transatlantic Partners and Velmur Management Pte. Ltd.

The legal complaint, also filed on Aug. 22, accused the two firms of money laundering on behalf of sanctioned North Korean banks seeking to buy petroleum products, citing a bill of lading for May 19 for a cargo of diesel sold by IPC to Velmur and loaded in Vladivostok — the same date as the bill of lading for the Ma Du San.

Andrey Serbin, who represents Transatlantic Partners, said the firm had not received payments from a sanctions-hit bank and that ownership of the fuel changed after it was loaded.

“We sold the fuel to a Chinese company,” Serbin, who has been blacklisted by the U.S. government for “operating in the energy industry in the North Korean economy” and working to purchase fuel for delivery to North Korea, said of several shipments where the company acted as middleman.

“There’s no way we can control them (the goods),” he said.

Serbin did not identify the vessels Transatlantic Partners loaded fuel on to, but a source in a company that services ships in Vladivostok said the Ma Du San was among them.

The bill of lading named the recipient of the Ma Du San’s cargo as a company called LLC Sky Shipping Limited. Reuters was unable to find any record of such a firm.

Velmur said it could not have known where the cargo would end up and did not knowingly help anyone dodge sanctions.

IPC did not respond to a request for comment. Its parent company, Bermuda-registered Alliance Oil Company Ltd., denied having any contractual relations with North Korean companies when U.S. sanctions were imposed on IPC.

The U.S. Treasury and State departments declined to answer questions about Reuters’ findings.

Russia’s foreign ministry did not respond to questions about fuel exports to North Korea but has said Russia complies with the sanctions. Russia’s customs service said it could not provide information about movement of goods across borders.

Since the U.S. sanctions were imposed on IPC, all North Korean-flagged vessels that had been in Vladivostok port have left, according to the tracking data.

They departed with no cargo, an employee with a shipping agent in Vladivostok said. This is confirmed by documents seen by Reuters.

Russian supplies of oil and oil products to North Korea are much smaller than volumes shipped by China, Pyongyang’s only major ally. Beijing has acted to reduce the flows, but Russia’s trade in all goods with North Korea more than doubled in the first quarter of 2017 to $31.4 million.

Moscow’s trade with Pyongyang is under closer scrutiny following a series of missile launches by North Korea and a test involving what it said was a hydrogen bomb.

(Additional reporting by David Brunnstrom in WASHINGTON, Chen Aizhu in BEIJING, James Pearson in SEOUL, Katya Golubkova, Gleb Stolyarov, Vladimir Soldatkin and Olesya Astakhova in MOSCOW; Editing by Christian Lowe and Timothy Heritage)

Trump vows if threatened to ‘totally destroy’ North Korea

Trump vows if threatened to 'totally destroy' North Korea

By Steve Holland and Jeff Mason

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump escalated his standoff with North Korea over its nuclear challenge on Tuesday, threatening to “totally destroy” the country of 26 million people and mocking its leader, Kim Jong Un, as a “rocket man.”

In a hard-edged speech to the United Nations General Assembly, Trump offered a grim portrait of a world in peril, adopted a more confrontational approach to solving global challenges from Iran to Venezuela, and gave an unabashed defense of U.S. sovereignty. (http://live.reuters.com/Event/Live_US_Politics/1092226107)

“The United States has great strength and patience, but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea,” Trump told the 193-member world body, sticking closely to a script.

As loud, startled murmurs filled the hall, Trump described Kim in an acid tone, saying, “Rocket man is on a suicide mission for himself and his regime.”

His remarks rattled world leaders gathered in the green-marbled U.N. General Assembly hall, where minutes earlier U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appealed for statesmanship, saying: “We must not sleepwalk our way into war.”

Trump’s most direct military threat to attack North Korea, in his debut appearance at the General Assembly, was his latest expression of concern about Pyongyang’s repeated launching of ballistic missiles over Japan and underground nuclear tests.

His advisers say he is concerned about North Korea’s advances in missile technology and the few means available for a peaceful response without China’s help.

Inside the hall, one man in the audience covered his face with his hands shortly after Trump made his “totally destroy” comment. Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom crossed her arms.

“It was the wrong speech, at the wrong time, to the wrong audience,” Wallstrom later told the BBC.

Trump did not back down, instead tweeting out the line in his speech vowing to destroy North Korea if needed.

A junior North Korean diplomat sat in the delegation’s front-row seat for Trump’s speech, the North Korean U.N. mission said. North Korea’s mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In Germany, Chancellor Chancellor Angela Merkel said she would do everything in her power to ensure a diplomatic solution. “Anything else would lead to disaster,” she told a campaign event ahead of Sunday’s election.

CABINET CONTRAST

Trump’s saber-rattling rhetoric, with the bare-knuckled style he used to win election last November, was in contrast to the comments of some of his own Cabinet members who have stated a preference for a diplomatic solution.

Reaction around the United States was mixed. Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican presidential nominee, tweeted that Trump, a fellow Republican, “gave a strong and needed challenge” to U.N. members to confront global challenges.

But Democrat Ed Markey of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee denounced Trump’s remarks in a CNN interview, saying the president had yet to exhaust his other options in encouraging Pyongyang to negotiate.

“The least we should be able to say is that we tried, we really tried, to avoid a nuclear showdown between our two countries,” Markey said.

In a thunderous 41-minute speech, Trump also took aim at Iran’s nuclear ambitions and regional influence, Venezuela’s collapsing democracy and the threat of Islamist extremists and criticized the Cuban government.

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ “Major portions of the world are in conflict and some in fact are going to hell,” he said.

His speech recalled the fiery nationalist language of his Jan. 20 inaugural address when he pledged to end what he called an “American carnage” of rusted factories and crime.

‘HOSTILE’ BEHAVIOR

His strongest words were directed at North Korea. He urged U.N. member states to work together to isolate the Kim government until it ceases its “hostile” behavior.

In what may have been a veiled prod at China, the North’s major trading partner, Trump said: “It is an outrage that some nations would not only trade with such a regime but would arm, supply and financially support a country that imperils the world with nuclear conflict.”

The U.N. Security Council has unanimously imposed nine rounds of sanctions on North Korea since 2006 and Guterres appealed for that 15-member body to maintain its unity.

Turning to Iran, Trump called the 2015 nuclear deal negotiated by his predecessor, Barack Obama, an embarrassment and hinted that he may not recertify the agreement when it comes up for a mid-October deadline.

“I don’t think you’ve heard the last of it,” he said.

He called Iran an “economically depleted rogue state” that exports violence.

There was no immediate comment from either Iran’s U.N. delegation or its foreign ministry in Tehran.

But French President Emmanuel Macron, in his U.N. speech, said his country would not close the door to negotiations over North Korea and staunchly defended the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. “Renouncing it would be a grave error,” Macron said.

Trump called the collapsing situation in Venezuela “completely unacceptable” and warned the United States was considering what further actions it can take. “We cannot stand by and watch,” he said.

Venezuela rejected Trump’s threats and said it was prepared to resist any U.S. actions, even a military invasion. Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza called Trump a white supremacist who was returning the world to the Cold War of the 1980s.

Financial markets showed little reaction to the speech, with most major assets hovering near the unchanged mark on the day.

“He stuck with his script,” said Lennon Sweeting, chief market strategist at XE.com in Toronto. “The dollar/yen jumped around a bit but it’s basically flat. I don’t think we will see any more volatility out of this.”

(Additional reporting by Michelle Nichols, Arshad Mohammed, John Irish, Parisa Hafezi, David Brunnstrom, Yara Bayoumy and Anthony Boadle at the UNITED NATIONS, Richard Leong in NEW YORK and Dan Williams in JERUSALEM; Writing by Steve Holland; Editing by Howard Goller)

Trump to single out North Korea, Iran in first speech at U.N.

Trump to single out North Korea, Iran in first speech at U.N.

By Steve Holland and Jeff Mason

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump will urge United Nations member states on Tuesday to turn up the pressure on North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons, using his maiden speech to the world body to address what he considers the top global challenge.

Senior White House officials said Trump would also target Iran’s nuclear program, single out Venezuela for criticism and refer to Islamist militants as “losers,” in his first appearance in the green-marbled U.N. General Assembly hall, where applause from world leaders is generally muted.

“Big day at the United Nations – many good things, and some tricky ones, happening. We have a great team,” Trump wrote in an early morning post on Twitter that also noted his “big speech.”

The speech, scheduled for 10:30 a.m. ET (1430 GMT), will mark his latest attempt to lay out his America First vision for a U.S. foreign policy aimed at downgrading global bureaucracies, basing alliances on shared interests, and steering Washington away from nation-building exercises abroad.

Trump’s first major turn on the global platform offered by the United Nations has been dominated by Iran and North Korea, which have been the focus of his talks with other world leaders.

Now eight months in the White House, Trump also has found time to criticize the world body, alleging gross mismanagement and demanding that the United States, the largest donor to the United Nations, get more for its investment.

In his speech, he will seek to rally the world to help the United States and its Asian allies reduce North Korea to pariah status and pressure Iran to rein in everything from ballistic missile launches to interference in Syria.

With North Korean nuclear tests and missile launches stirring global tensions, the U.S. ambassador to the United States, Nikki Haley, has said that most non-military options have all but been exhausted.

The U.N. Security Council has imposed several rounds of sanctions on North Korea.

A senior White House official, briefing reporters on the contents of the speech, said Trump would single out North Korea for “destabilizing, hostile and dangerous behavior.”

North Korea’s official KCNA news agency said on Monday that the more sanctions that Washington and its allies imposed on Pyongyang, the faster it would move to complete its nuclear plans.

‘SHARED MENACE’

Trump will also voice concern about Iran, which aides say he considers in violation of the spirit of a 2015 deal negotiated by his Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama, and aimed at containing Iran’s nuclear program.

“Theirs is a shared menace and nations cannot be bystanders to history and if we don’t confront the threats now, they will only gather force and become more formidable,” the official said of North Korea and Iran.

Trump has set U.S.-Iran relations on a far more confrontational path than the detente Iranian President Hassan Rouhani enjoyed with Obama.

Trump’s rhetoric against Iran, coming as he appears to be leaning against recertifying the nuclear deal by a mid-October deadline, prompted a retort from Rouhani on Monday.

Rouhani told CNN that exiting the Iran nuclear deal “would carry a high cost for the United States of America, and I do not believe Americans would be willing to pay such a high cost for something that will be useless for them.”

Later on Tuesday, Trump is scheduled to meet with Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani. White House officials have said Trump on Wednesday will meet with leaders from Jordan, the Palestinian Authority, Britain and Egypt.

Trump is using his four days in New York to voice his concern about Venezuela, telling Latin American leaders on Monday night the United States would take additional steps if Caracas moved toward authoritarian rule.

(Reporting by Steve Holland and Jeff Mason; Writing by Steve Holland; Editing by Yara Bayoumy and Howard Goller)

Korean peninsula draws range of military drills in show of force against North Korea

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

By Ben Blanchard and Hyonhee Shin

BEIJING/SEOUL (Reuters) – The U.S. military staged bombing drills with South Korea over the Korean peninsula and Russia and China began naval exercises ahead of a U.N. General Assembly meeting on Tuesday where North Korea’s nuclear threat is likely to loom large.

The flurry of military drills came after Pyongyang fired another mid-range ballistic missile over Japan on Friday and the reclusive North conducted its sixth and most powerful nuclear test on Sept. 3 in defiance of United Nations sanctions and other international pressure.

A pair of U.S. B-1B bombers and four F-35 jets flew from Guam and Japan and joined four South Korean F-15K fighters in the latest drill, South Korea’s defense ministry said.

The joint drills were being conducted “two to three times a month these days”, Defence Minister Song Young-moo told a parliamentary hearing on Monday.

In Beijing, the official Xinhua news agency said China and Russia began naval drills off the Russian far eastern port of Vladivostok, not far from the Russia-North Korea border.

Those drills were being conducted between Peter the Great Bay, near Vladivostok, and the southern part of the Sea of Okhotsk, to the north of Japan, it said.

The drills are the second part of China-Russian naval exercises this year, the first part of which was staged in the Baltic in July. Xinhua did not directly link the drills to current tension over North Korea.

China and Russia have repeatedly called for a peaceful solution and talks to resolve the issue.

On Sunday, however, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said the U.N. Security Council had run out of options on containing North Korea’s nuclear program and the United States might have to turn the matter over to the Pentagon.

In response, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said the most pressing task was for all parties to enforce the latest U.N. resolutions on North Korea fully, rather than “deliberately complicating the issue”.

Military threats from various parties have not promoted a resolution to the issue, he said.

“This is not beneficial to a final resolution to the peninsula nuclear issue,” Lu told a daily news briefing.

U.S. President Donald Trump has vowed that North Korea will never be able to threaten the United States with a nuclear-tipped ballistic missile.

Asked about Trump’s warning last month that the North Korean threat to the United States would be met with “fire and fury”, Haley said: “It was not an empty threat.”

Washington has also asked China to do more to rein in its neighbor and ally, while Beijing has urged the United States to refrain from making threats against the North.

 

FUEL PRICES SURGE

The U.N. Security Council unanimously passed a U.S.-drafted resolution a week ago mandating tougher new sanctions against Pyongyang that included banning textile imports and capping crude and petrol supply.

North Korea on Monday called the resolution “the most vicious, unethical and inhumane act of hostility to physically exterminate” its people, system and government.

“The increased moves of the U.S. and its vassal forces to impose sanctions and pressure… will only increase our pace toward the ultimate completion of the state nuclear force,” the North’s foreign ministry spokesman said in a statement carried by its official KCNA news agency.

Gasoline and diesel prices in the North have surged since the latest nuclear test in anticipation of a possible oil ban, according to market data analyzed by Reuters on Monday.

The international community must remain united and enforce sanctions against North Korea after its repeated launch of ballistic missiles, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said in an editorial in the New York Times on Sunday.

Such tests were in violation of Security Council resolutions and showed that North Korea could now target the United States or Europe, he wrote.

Abe also said diplomacy and dialogue would not work with North Korea and concerted pressure by the entire international community was essential to tackle the threats posed by the north and its leader, Kim Jong Un.

However, the official China Daily argued on Monday that sanctions should be given time to bite and that the door must be left open to talks.

“With its Friday missile launch, Pyongyang wanted to give the impression that sanctions will not work,” it said in an editorial. “Some people have fallen for that and immediately echoed the suggestion, pointing to the failure of past sanctions to achieve their purpose.

“But that past sanctions did not work does not mean they will not. It is too early to claim failure because the latest sanctions have hardly begun to take effect. Giving the sanctions time to bite is the best way to make Pyongyang reconsider,” the newspaper said.

Pyongyang has launched dozens of missiles as it accelerates a weapons program designed to provide the ability to target the United States with a powerful, nuclear-tipped missile.

It says such programs are needed as a deterrent against invasion by the United States, which has 28,500 troops stationed in South Korea. On Saturday, it said it aimed to reach an “equilibrium” of military force with the United States.

The United States and South Korea are technically still at war with North Korea because the 1950-53 Korean conflict ended with a truce and not a peace treaty.

 

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard in BEIJING, Hyonhee Shin and Soyoung Kim in SEOUL; Editing by Paul Tait and Simon Cameron-Moore)

 

North Korea says seeking military ‘equilibrium’ with U.S.

North Korea says seeking military 'equilibrium' with U.S.

By Christine Kim and Michelle Nichols

SEOUL/UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – North Korea said on Saturday it aims to reach an “equilibrium” of military force with the United States, which earlier signaled its patience for diplomacy is wearing thin after Pyongyang fired a missile over Japan for the second time in under a month.

“Our final goal is to establish the equilibrium of real force with the U.S. and make the U.S. rulers dare not talk about military option,” North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was quoted as saying by the state news agency, KCNA.

Kim was shown beaming as he watched the missile fly from a moving launcher in photos released by the agency, surrounded by several officials.

“The combat efficiency and reliability of Hwasong-12 were thoroughly verified,” said Kim as quoted by KCNA. Kim added the North’s goal of completing its nuclear force had “nearly reached the terminal”.

North Korea has launched dozens of missiles under Kim’s leadership as it accelerates a weapons program designed to give it the ability to target the United States with a powerful, nuclear-tipped missile.

After the latest missile launch on Friday, White House National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster said the United States was fast running out of patience with North Korea’s missile and nuclear programs.

“We’ve been kicking the can down the road, and we’re out of road,” McMaster told reporters, referring to Pyongyang’s repeated missile tests in defiance of international pressure.

“For those … who have been commenting on a lack of a military option, there is a military option,” he said, adding that it would not be the Trump administration’s preferred choice.

Also on Friday, the U.N. Security Council condemned the “highly provocative” missile launch by North Korea.

It had already stepped up sanctions against North Korea in response to a nuclear bomb test on Sept. 3, imposing a ban on North Korea’s textile exports and capping its imports of crude oil.

The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, echoed McMaster’s strong rhetoric, even as she said Washington’s preferred resolution to the crisis is through diplomacy and sanctions.

“What we are seeing is, they are continuing to be provocative, they are continuing to be reckless and at that point there’s not a whole lot the Security Council is going to be able to do from here, when you’ve cut 90 percent of the trade and 30 percent of the oil,” Haley said.

U.S. President Donald Trump said that he is “more confident than ever that our options in addressing this threat are both effective and overwhelming.” He said at Joint Base Andrews near Washington that North Korea “has once again shown its utter contempt for its neighbors and for the entire world community.”

MISSILE

North Korea’s latest test missile flew over Hokkaido in northern Japan on Friday and landed in the Pacific about 2,000 km (1,240 miles) to the east, the Japanese government said.

It traveled about 3,700 km (2,300 miles) in total, according to South Korea’s military, far enough to reach the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam, which the North has threatened before.

“The range of this test was significant since North Korea demonstrated that it could reach Guam with this missile,” the Union of Concerned Scientists advocacy group said in a statement. However, the accuracy of the missile, still at an early stage of development, was low, it said.

On Thursday, U.S. Secretary of State Tillerson called on China, Pyongyang’s only ally, and Russia to apply more pressure on North Korea by “taking direct actions of their own.”

Beijing has pushed back, urging Washington to do more to rein in North Korea.

“Honestly, I think the United States should be doing .. much more than now, so that there’s real effective international cooperation on this issue,” China’s ambassador to the United States, Cui Tiankai, said on Friday.

“They should refrain from issuing more threats. They should do more to find effective ways to resume dialogue and negotiation,” he said, while adding that China would never accept North Korea as a nuclear weapons state.

North Korea staged its sixth and most powerful nuclear bomb test earlier this month and in July tested long-range intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching at least parts of the U.S. mainland.

Last month, North Korea fired an intermediate range missile that also flew over Hokkaido into the ocean.

Warning announcements about the latest missile blared in parts of northern Japan, while many residents received alerts on their mobile phones or saw warnings on TV telling them to seek refuge.

The U.S. military said it had detected a single intermediate range ballistic missile but it did not pose a threat to North America or Guam.

Global equities investors largely shrugged off the latest missile test by North Korea as shares on Wall Street set new highs on Friday.

DIFFERENCES OVER DIRECT TALKS

Trump has promised not to allow North Korea to threaten the United States with a nuclear-tipped missile.

Russia’s U.N. ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, said the United States needed to begin talks with North Korea, something that Washington has so far ruled out.

“We called on our U.S. partners and others to implement political and diplomatic solutions that are provided for in the resolution,” Nebenzia told reporters after the Security Council meeting. “Without implementing this, we also will consider it as a non-compliance with the resolution.”

Asked about the prospect for direct talks, a White House spokesman said, “As the president and his national security team have repeatedly said, now is not the time to talk to North Korea.”

South Korean President Moon Jae-in also said dialogue with the North was impossible at this point. He ordered officials to analyze and prepare for possible new North Korean threats, including electromagnetic pulse and biochemical attacks.

The United States and South Korea are technically still at war with North Korea because the 1950-53 Korean conflict ended with a truce and not a peace treaty. The North accuses the United States, which has 28,500 troops in South Korea, of planning to invade and regularly threatens to destroy it and its Asian allies.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason and Michelle Nichols; Additional reporting by Hideyuki Sano, William Mallard, Tim Kelly and Chehui Peh in Tokyo, Jack Kim and Christine Kim in Seoul, Mohammad Zargham, Susan Heavey, Makini Brice and David Brunnstrom in Washington; Tom Miles in Geneva; Masha Tsvetkova and Polina Devitt in Moscow; Christian Shepherd in Beijing; Writing by Frances Kerry; Editing by Alistair Bell and Cynthia Osterman)