The Jim Bakker Show

Chinese bomber flies round contested Spratlys in show of force: U.S. official

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A Chinese H-6 strategic bomber flew around the Spratly Islands at the weekend in a new show of force in the contested South China Sea, a U.S. official said on Tuesday.

It was the second such flight by a Chinese bomber in the South China Sea this year. The first was on Jan. 1, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The flight could be seen as a show of “strategic force” by the Chinese, the official said.

It comes after U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has signaled a tougher approach to China when he takes office on Jan. 20, with tweets criticizing Beijing for its trade practices and accusing it of failing to help rein in nuclear-armed North Korea.

Commander Gary Ross, a Pentagon spokesman, said he had no specific comment on China’s recent bomber activities, but added: “we continue to observe a range of ongoing Chinese military activity in the region‎.”

In December, China flew an H-6 bomber along the “nine-dash line” it uses to map its claim to nearly all of the South China Sea, a strategic global trade route. That flight also went around Taiwan, which China views as a renegade province.

In August, China conducted “combat patrols” near contested islands in the South China Sea.

Trump has enraged Beijing by breaking with decades of U.S. policy and speaking to the Taiwanese president by telephone.

A state-run Chinese newspaper warned Donald Trump on Sunday that China would “take revenge” if he reneged on the U.S. one-China policy, only hours after Taiwan’s president made a controversial stopover in Houston.

Last week China said that a group of Chinese warships led by its sole aircraft carrier was testing weapons and equipment in exercises this week in the South China Sea, where territory is claimed by several regional states.

U.S. warships conducted what they call “freedom of navigation” patrols through the South China Sea over the past year amid growing concern about Chinese construction of air strips and docks on disputed reefs and islands.

(Reporting by Idrees Ali and David Brunnstrom; Editing by James Dalgleish)

North Korea says can test-launch ICBM at any time: official news agency

SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea declared on Sunday it could test-launch an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) at any time from any location set by leader Kim Jong Un, saying a hostile U.S. policy was to blame for its arms development.

Kim said on Jan. 1 that his nuclear-capable country was close to test-launching an ICBM.

“The ICBM will be launched anytime and anywhere determined by the supreme headquarters of the DPRK,” an unnamed Foreign Ministry spokesman was quoted as saying by the official KCNA news agency, using the acronym for the country’s name.

The North is formally known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

U.S. Defence Secretary Ash Carter said on Sunday that North Korea’s nuclear weapons capabilities and ballistic missile defence programs constituted a “serious threat” to the United States and that it was prepared to shoot down a North Korean missile launch or test.

“We only would shoot them down … if it was threatening, that is if it were coming toward our territory or the territory of our friends and allies,” Carter said during an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press” program.

The United States said on Jan. 5 that North Korea had demonstrated a “qualitative” improvement in its nuclear and missile capabilities after an unprecedented level of tests last year.

North Korea has been testing rocket engines and heat-shields for an ICBM while developing the technology to guide a missile after re-entry into the atmosphere following a liftoff, experts have said.

While Pyongyang is close to a test, it is likely to take some years to perfect the weapon, according to the experts.

Once fully developed, a North Korean ICBM could threaten the continental United States, which is around 9,000 km (5,500 miles) from the North. ICBMs have a minimum range of about 5,500 km (3,400 miles), but some are designed to travel 10,000 km (6,200 miles) or farther.

On Monday, South Korean defence ministry spokesman Moon Sang-gyun called North Korea’s statement a “provocative announcement” and told a regular news briefing that Pyongyang would face stronger sanctions if it were to launch an ICBM. Unification Ministry spokesman Jeong Joon-hee said there were no signs of any launch preparations.

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump responded to Kim’s comments on an ICBM test by declaring in a tweet last week: “It won’t happen!”

Asked for comment on Sunday, the White House referred to Jan. 3 comments by White House press secretary Josh Earnest in which he said the U.S. military believed it could protect against the threat emanating from North Korea.

In that briefing, Earnest also touted the defensive measures the United States had taken to guard against the threat, such as anti-ballistic missile facilities that had been installed around the Pacific region and diplomatic pressure to discourage North Korea from pursuing its nuclear program.

A U.S. State Department spokesman said last week that the United States did not believe that North Korea was capable of mounting a nuclear warhead on a ballistic missile.

North Korea has been under U.N. sanctions since 2006 over its nuclear and ballistic missile tests. The sanctions were tightened last month after Pyongyang conducted its fifth and largest nuclear test on Sept. 9.

“The U.S. is wholly to blame for pushing the DPRK to have developed ICBM as it has desperately resorted to anachronistic policy hostile toward the DPRK for decades to encroach upon its sovereignty and vital rights,” KCNA quoted the spokesman as saying.

“Anyone who wants to deal with the DPRK would be well advised to secure a new way of thinking after having clear understanding of it,” the spokesman said, according to KCNA.

Here is an interactive guide to North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programmes produced by the Reuters graphics team.(http://tmsnrt.rs/2inl1WO)

(Reporting by Jack Kim and Ju-min Park; Additional reporting by Julia Harte in Washington; Editing by Angus MacSwan and Peter Cooney)

South Korea minister says China indirectly retaliating against THAAD

SEJONG, South Korea (Reuters) – China is suspected to be taking indirect action against South Korea’s decision last year to deploy a U.S. anti-missile system, South Korea’s finance minister said.

China worries that the U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) system’s powerful radar can penetrate its territory and it has objected to the deployment.

South Korea and the United States say the missile system is aimed solely at countering any threat from North Korea. It is due to be deployed this year.

“China is officially denying it, but we feel their actions are linked and that there have been indirect responses taken,” Finance Minister Yoo Il-ho told a news conference on Thursday at the ministry’s headquarters in Sejong City, south of Seoul.

“It’s hard to ask them what they’re up to when they have been denying it officially.”

Yoo did not elaborate on what he meant by “indirect action” but China recently rejected applications by South Korean carriers to add charter flights between the two countries.

Yoo said on Sunday the government was looking into whether China’s decision to deny the airlines’ applications, which came ahead of a traditional surge in Lunar New Year travel, was related to the deployment of the anti-missile system.

Chinese authorities have not responded to requests for comment on the rejection of the flight applications.

Yoo also said South Korea planned to make efforts to reduce its trade surplus with the United States in response to an assertion by President-elect Donald Trump that the United States had been hurt by what he considers an unfair trade agreement with South Korea.

Another finance ministry official told Reuters separately the government could look into importing more U.S. raw materials and machinery parts as part of the effort to reduce the surplus.

(Reporting by Shin-hyung Lee; Writing by Christine Kim; Editing by Robert Birsel)

Nuclear, missile tests show ‘qualitative’ improvement in North Korea capabilities: U.S.

North Korea leader Kim Jong Un watching missile test

By David Brunnstrom and Lesley Wroughton

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States said on Thursday North Korea had demonstrated a “qualitative” improvement in its nuclear and missile capabilities after an unprecedented level of tests last year, showing the needed to sustain pressure on Pyongyang to bring it back to disarmament negotiations.

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken told a joint news conference after a meeting with his Japanese and South Korean counterparts that North Korea had conducted 24 missile tests in the past year, as well as two nuclear tests, and learned from each one.

“Even a so-called failure is progress because … they apply what they have learned to their technology and to the next test. And in our assessment, we have a qualitative improvement in their capabilities in the past year as a result of this unprecedented level of activity,” he said.

“With every passing day the threat does get more acute,” Blinken said, and referred to comments by North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un, on Sunday that his country was close to test-launching an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) of a kind that could someday hit the United States.

Blinken said it was vital for the United States, Japan, South Korea and other countries to boost cooperation to defend against the threat.

“At the same time, it’s absolutely vitally important that we exercise sustained, comprehensive pressure on North Korea to get it to stop these programs, to come back to the negotiating table, and to engage in good faith on denuclearization,” Blinken said, referring to international sanctions.

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump responded on Monday to Kim’s comments on an ICBM test by declaring in a tweet that “It won’t happen!”

Experts say preventing such a test is far easier said than done, and Trump gave no indication what new steps he might take to roll back North Korea’s weapons programs after he takes office on Jan. 20, something successive U.S. administrations, both Democratic and Republican, have failed to do.

Former U.S. officials and other experts say the United States essentially had two options when it came to trying to curb North Korea’s fast-expanding nuclear and missile programs – negotiate or take military action.

Neither path offers certain success and the military option is fraught with huge dangers, especially for Japan and South Korea, given their close proximity to North Korea.

Japanese Vice Foreign Minister Shinsuke Sugiyama said Tokyo was watching closely to see what kind of Asia policy Trump would follow, but did not expect major changes.

“Will it be exactly the same as we have it now? I doubt it. But basically, I don’t see the direction as changing in a significant way,” he told the news conference, adding that the U.S. security treaties with Tokyo and Seoul were an important pillar of U.S. policy.

Blinken said an effective sanctions campaign required “determination” and “patience.” “I believe that as long as we sustain it and build on it, it will have an effect,” he said.

In another tweet on Monday, Trump said North Korea’s neighbor and only ally, China, was not helping to contain Pyongyang – despite Beijing’s support for successive rounds of U.N. sanctions.

Blinken said Washington had seen positive signs from China in recent weeks in implementing new restrictions on coal imports from North Korea, but added: “That needs to be sustained … to be carried forward.”

(Reporting by David Brunnstrom and Lesely Wroughton; Editing by James Dalgleish and Lisa Shumaker)

Pentagon says it can protect U.S., allies from North Korean missile threats

U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter addresses a news conference at the Pentagon in Washington,

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Defense Department, reacting to North Korea’s statement that it plans to test an intercontinental ballistic missile, said on Tuesday it was confident in its ability to protect U.S. allies and the U.S. homeland from threats from Pyongyang.

“We have a ballistic missile defense … umbrella that we’re confident in for the region and to protect the United States homeland,” Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook told a news briefing two days after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said his country was close to testing an ICBM.

(Reporting by Idrees Ali; Writing by David Alexander)

North Korea’s Intercontinental ballistic missile is plausible, could reach U.S.

A new engine for an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) is tested at a test site at Sohae Space Center in Cholsan County, North Pyongan province in North Korea in this undated photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency

By James Pearson

SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea has been working through 2016 on developing components for an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), making the isolated nation’s claim that it was close to a test-launch plausible, international weapons experts said on Monday.

North Korea has been testing rocket engines and heat-shields for an ICBM while developing the technology to guide a missile after re-entry into the atmosphere following a lift-off, the experts said.

While Pyongyang is close to a test, it is likely to take some years to perfect the weapon.

North Korea’s state media regularly threatens the United States with a nuclear strike, but before 2016 Pyongyang had been assumed to be a long way from being capable of doing so.

“The bottom line is Pyongyang is much further along in their missile development than most people realize,” said Melissa Hanham, a senior research associate at the U.S.-based Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, California.

She said the North’s test in April of a large liquid-fuel engine that could propel an ICBM was a major development.

“The liquid engine test was astounding,” Hanham said.

“For years, we knew that North Korea had a Soviet R-27 missile engine design. They re-engineered the design of that engine to double its propulsion”.

North Korea has said it is capable of mounting a nuclear warhead on a ballistic missile but it claims to be able to miniaturize a nuclear device have never been independently verified.

The isolated nation has achieved this progress despite U.N. Security Council imposed sanctions for its nuclear tests and long-range rocket launches dating back to 2006. The sanctions ban arms trade and money flows that can fund the country’s arms program.

North Korea has enough uranium for six bombs a year and much of what it needs for its nuclear and missile programs relies on Soviet-era design and technology. Labor is virtually free.

It can produce much of its missile parts domestically and invested heavily in its missile development infrastructure last year, funded by small arms sales and by taxing wealthy traders in its unofficial market economy.

PROPAGANDA OFFENSIVE

Throughout the year, North Korean state media showed images of numerous missile component tests, some of which revealed close-up details of engines and heat shields designed to protect a rocket upon re-entry into the earth’s atmosphere.

The propaganda offensive may have revealed some military secrets, but it may have also been a bid to silence outside analysts, many of whom had remained skeptical of the North’s missile program.

“They’re answering the public criticisms of U.S. experts,” said Joshua Pollack, editor of the U.S.-based Non proliferation Review. “A lot of people had questioned whether they had a working ICBM-class heat shield”.

“So they showed us”.

Despite the research, Pyongyang has experienced considerable difficulties getting its intermediate-range Musudan missile, designed to fly about 3,000 km (1,860 miles), off the ground. It succeeded just once in eight attempted launches last year.

North Korea has fired long-range rockets in the past, but has characterized those launches as peaceful and designed to put an object into space.

Still, the South Korean defense ministry believes the three-stage Kwangmyongsong rocket used by Pyongyang to put a satellite in space last February already has a potential range of 12,000 km (7,457 miles), if it were re-engineered.

Doing so would require mastering safer “cold-launch” technology, and perfecting the ability of a rocket to re-enter the earth’s atmosphere without breaking up.

“North Korea is working hard to develop cold-launch technology and atmospheric re-entry but South Korea and the U.S. will have to assess further exactly which level of development they have reached,” South Korean defense ministry official Roh Jae-cheon told a briefing on Monday.

North Korea began stepping up its missile development in March 2016, Roh said, but added that there were no “unusual signs” related to test preparations, according to the South Korean military.

That same month, Kim Jong Un was photographed looking at a small, ball-like object that North Korean state news agency KCNA said was a miniaturized nuclear warhead – the device North Korea would need to fulfill its ICBM threat.

“2016 marked the year North Korea truly ramped up their WMD (Weapons of Mass Destruction) program,” Hanham at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey said.

“I think we’re going to see a (ICBM) flight test in 2017”.

(Additional reporting by Jeongeun Lee; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)

Canadian diplomats visit pastor imprisoned in North Korea

South Korean-Canadian Pastor Imprisoned by North Korea

OTTAWA (Reuters) – Diplomats from Canada this week paid a rare visit to North Korea and were able to see a Canadian pastor serving a life sentence for subversion, a foreign ministry official said on Thursday.

Hyeon Soo Lim, who served at one of the largest churches in Canada, was sentenced to hard labor for life in December 2015 for what North Korea says was an attempt to overthrow the regime. He is the only Western citizen known to be held currently in North Korea.

Chantal Gagnon, a spokeswoman for Canadian Foreign Minister Stephane Dion, confirmed a report by North Korea’s KCNA news agency that said the diplomats visited the country from Tuesday until Thursday and saw Lim.

“We are still very concerned about his health, well-being and continued detention and are ‎working actively to secure his release,” she said.

“This case is absolutely a priority for us,” she added, declining to give details of Lim’s health.

In a statement, Lim’s Toronto-area church said “we are hopeful that this is a positive sign that we will see Reverend Lim released and home soon.”

Canada established diplomatic relations with Pyongyang in 2001 but froze them in 2010. Ottawa now says it will only talk to North Korea about regional security, human rights and consular cases.

The church has said Lim visited North Korea more than 100 times since 1997 and helped set up an orphanage and nursing home.

In January, Lim told CNN he spends eight hours a day digging holes at a labor camp where he has not seen any other prisoners.

(Reporting by David Ljunggren and Andrea Hopkins; Editing by James Dalgleish and Andrew Hay)

U.N. Security Council to vote Wednesday on North Korea sanctions

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un gives guidance during his visit to various fields of Samjiyon County in this undated photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in Pyongyang

By Michelle Nichols

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – The United Nations Security Council is set to vote on Wednesday morning on a U.S.-drafted resolution to impose new sanctions on North Korea over its fifth and largest nuclear test conducted in September, diplomats said on Monday.

Diplomats said the council’s five veto-wielding powers – the United States, China, Britain, Russia and France – had agreed to new measures, seen by Reuters on Friday, that target Pyongyang’s export earnings.

North Korea has been under U.N. sanctions since 2006. It conducted its latest nuclear test on Sept. 9, and the United States and China, a North Korean ally, then spent more than two months negotiating new sanctions. The draft resolution was given to the full 15-member council on Friday.

It intends to close loopholes in sanctions imposed in March, following Pyongyang’s fourth nuclear test in January. That resolution banned the 193 U.N. member states from importing North Korean coal, iron and iron ore unless such transactions were for “livelihood purposes” and would not generate revenue for Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs.

The new sanctions to be voted on Wednesday would cap North Korean coal exports at $400.9 million or 7.5 million metric tonnes annually, whichever is lower, starting on Jan. 1. Over the first 10 months of this year China has imported 18.6 million tonnes of coal from North Korea, up almost 13 percent from a year ago.

Coal is particularly important to the economic health of North Korea because it is one of its only sources of hard currency and its largest single export item. North Korea would also be banned from exporting copper, nickel, silver and zinc.

The draft resolution would prohibit the export of North Korean helicopters, vessels and statues, banning deals similar to multibillion-dollar contracts that Pyongyang had signed to build large statues in some African countries.

It calls on U.N. states to reduce the number of staff at North Korea’s foreign missions and requires countries to limit the number of bank accounts to one per North Korean diplomatic mission amid worries that Pyongyang had used its diplomats and foreign missions to engage in illicit activities.

The draft text says that countries can inspect the personal luggage of individuals entering or leaving North Korea as it could be a way to transport banned items.

The Security Council would blacklist a further 11 individuals, including people who have served as ambassadors to Egypt and Myanmar, and 10 entities, subjecting them to a global travel ban and asset freeze for their role in the North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

The sale or transfer of luxury items to North Korea has long been banned by the Security Council and the draft resolution adds rugs or tapestries worth more than $500 and porcelain or bone china tableware valued at more than $100 to the list.

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Japan, South Korea sign preliminary intelligence-sharing pact on North Korea

Officer near Japan and South Korea flags

TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan and South Korea signed a preliminary pact to share and safeguard sensitive information on North Korea’s missile and nuclear activities on Monday, a move that had already prompted anger among opposition lawmakers in Seoul.

The signing of the General Security of Military Information Agreement had originally been expected in 2012, but South Korea postponed it amid domestic opposition against concluding such a security pact with Japan, a one-time colonial ruler.

Japan’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement that discussions in the third round of the talks had reached an agreement and that a provisional signing had taken place.

Discussions would continue ahead of a final signing, which Kyodo news agency said could take place by the end of November.

Reclusive North Korea, which is still technically at war with the South because their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce, not a peace treaty, has carried out repeated nuclear and missile tests in defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions and sanctions.

Tokyo’s ties with Seoul, plagued by a territorial dispute and Japan’s past military aggression, have warmed after reaching a landmark agreement last December to resolve the issue of Korean girls and women forced to work in Japan’s wartime brothels.

South Korean opposition parties had warned against signing the agreement, threatening to dismiss or impeach Defence Minister Han Min-koo.

(Reporting by Elaine Lies; Editing by Nick Macfie)

South Korea says Trump pledged commitment to its defense

By Jack Kim and Ju-min Park

SEOUL (Reuters) – U.S. President-elect Donald Trump pledged his commitment to defending South Korea under an existing security alliance during a phone call with South Korean President Park Geun-hye on Thursday, her office said.

Trump had said during the election campaign he would be willing to withdraw U.S. military stationed in South Korea unless Seoul paid a greater share of the cost of the U.S. deployment, but an adviser to the president-elect played down such comments on Thursday.

There are about 28,500 U.S. troops based in South Korea helping to defend the country against nuclear-armed North Korea, which has remained in a technical state of war with the South since the 1950-53 Korean conflict.

Park said the U.S.-South Korean alliance had grown in the past six decades and she hoped it would develop further.

She asked Trump to join in the effort to help minimize the threat from North Korea, which has carried out repeated nuclear and missile tests in defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions and sanctions.

South Korea’s presidential Blue House said Trump agreed with Park and it quoted Trump as saying: “We will be steadfast and strong with respect to working with you to protect against the instability in North Korea.”

Trump’s transition team did not respond to requests for comment, but an adviser to the president-elect played down concerns about any changes in approach to alliances in Asia.

“I think what we are going to see is a very mainstream Republican administration,” he said, adding that sharing the costs of sustaining combined defense was a matter for negotiation, as it always had been.

“It’s going to be a respectful conversation that’s going to be done at the working level and will have absolutely nothing to do with the overall strength of these alliances, which is going to remain extremely close,” he said.

The adviser, who did not want to be identified by name, also noted that during the election campaign Trump had dropped comments he had made saying he would consider letting Japan and South Korea build their own nuclear weapons rather than have them rely on the United States nuclear umbrella.

“He has moved on to talk about non-proliferation in a way that you would hear from any Republican president,” he said.

“We are very much committed to both non-proliferation and assuring the allies that not only will they continue to be under the nuclear umbrella, but that we are going to be strengthening our missile defense in ways that alleviate some of their concerns about North Korea.”

The Blue House said the call between Park and Trump lasted about 10 minutes and Park said she hoped Trump would be able to visit South Korea soon.

COST SHARING CONCERNS

There has been concern in South Korea that a Trump presidency will demand that Seoul sharply raise its share of the cost of maintaining the U.S. military presence.

Under a five-year cost-sharing accord reached two years ago, Seoul agreed to contribute $867 million toward U.S. military costs in 2014, about 40 percent of the total. The deal called for the amount to rise annually at the rate of inflation.

Trump said earlier this year that the United States was paid “peanuts” for the troop presence and that he would be willing to withdraw U.S. forces from South Korea and Japan, but “would not do so happily.”

South Korea believes its share of the cost is much higher when the vast amount of land occupied by the U.S. forces, including a large area in central Seoul, are considered.

Some members of the South Korean parliament have suggested that the country has little choice but to consider nuclear armament if U.S. forces are withdrawn while North Korea continues to develop nuclear weapons and missiles that could carry them.

South Korea’s Defense Ministry spokesman Moon Sang-gyun said on Thursday the country paid its share of the cost of maintaining the U.S. military and the contribution had been recognized by the U.S. government and Congress.

South Korea and the United States have also agreed to deploy a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system with the U.S. military to counter missile threats from North Korea.

South Korea has consistently said it had no plan to buy the THAAD system, which is built by Lockheed Martin Corp and costs an estimated $800 million a piece, that will likely add to the cost of maintaining the U.S. military presence.

The official newspaper of the North’s ruling Workers’ Party said on Thursday the U.S. wish for North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program was “only a fantasy of a bygone era” and the policy of pressure and sanctions had failed.

“The only accomplishment of the Obama administration is that it is leaving behind for the new administration coming next year the burden of having to deal with a strong nuclear power,” Rodong Sinmun said in a commentary.

It did not mention Trump by name. But Choson Sinbo, a pro-North Korean newspaper published in Japan and controlled by Pyongyang, said: “Trump is well advised to learn the lesson of history from Obama’s failure.

“Otherwise, the new owner of the White House will be met with the ashes of the calamity started by the previous owner.”

(Additional reporting by David Brunnstrom in Washington; Editing by Nick Macfie and Bill Trott)

Sign up for Jim Bakker Show