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As North Korea missile threat grows, Japan lawmakers argue for first strike options

Japan Self-Defense Forces soldiers inject fuels into a unit of Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) missiles at the Defense Ministry in Tokyo. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon

By Tim Kelly and Nobuhiro Kubo

TOKYO (Reuters) – Rattled by North Korean military advances, influential Japanese lawmakers are pushing harder for Japan to develop the ability to strike preemptively at the missile facilities of its nuclear-armed neighbor.

Japan has so far avoided taking the controversial and costly step of acquiring bombers or weapons such as cruise missiles with enough range to strike other countries, relying instead on its U.S. ally to take the fight to its enemies.

But the growing threat posed by Pyongyang, including Monday’s simultaneous launch of four rockets, is adding weight to an argument that aiming for the archer rather than his arrows is a more effective defense.

“If bombers attacked us or warships bombarded us, we would fire back. Striking a country lobbing missiles at us is no different,” said Itsunori Onodera, a former defense minister who heads a ruling Liberal Democratic Party committee looking at how Japan can defend against the North Korean missile threat. “Technology has advanced and the nature of conflict has changed.”

For decades, Japan has been stretching the limits of its post-war, pacifist constitution. Successive governments have said Tokyo has the right to attack enemy bases overseas when the enemy’s intention to attack Japan is evident, the threat is imminent and there are no other defense options.

But while previous administrations shied away from acquiring the hardware to do so, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s LDP has been urging him to consider the step.

“It is time we acquired the capability,” said Hiroshi Imazu, the chairman of the LDP’s policy council on security. “I don’t know whether that would be with ballistic missiles, cruise missiles or even the F-35 (fighter bomber), but without a deterrence North Korea will see us as weak.”

The idea has faced stiff resistance in the past but the latest round of North Korean tests means Japan may move more swiftly to enact a tougher defense policy.

“We have already done the ground work on how we could acquire a strike capability,” said a source with knowledge of Japan’s military planning. He asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue.

Any weapon Japan acquired with the reach to hit North Korea would also put parts of China’s eastern seaboard within range of Japanese munitions for the first time. That would likely anger Beijing, which is strongly protesting the deployment of the advanced U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system in South Korea.

“China has missiles that can hit Japan, so any complaints it may have are not likely to garner much sympathy in the international community,” said Onodera.

GROWING THREATS

Currently, more than three missiles at one would be too many for Japan’s already stretched ballistic missile defense to cope with, another source familiar with Japan’s capability said.

One serious concern for Japan is North Korea’s development of solid fuel systems demonstrated last month that will allow it to conceal preparations for missile strikes because it no longer needs fuel its missiles just prior to firing.

That test also demonstrated a cold launch, with the rocket ejected from its launcher before engine ignition, minimizing damage to the mobile launch pads. Japanese officials also noted that the launch truck was equipped with tracks rather than wheels, allowing it to hide off road.

North Korea says its weapons are needed to defend against the threat of attack from the United States and South Korea, which it is still technically at war with.

Japan is already improving its ballistic missile defenses with longer-range, more accurate sea-based missiles on Aegis destroyers in the Sea of Japan and from next month will start a $1 billion upgrade of its ground-based PAC-3 Patriot batteries.

Also under consideration is a land-based version of the Aegis system or the THAAD system.

Those changes, however, will take years to complete and may not be enough to keep pace with rocket technology advances by Pyongyang, the sources said.

A quicker option would be for Japan to deploy ground-to-ground missiles to defend against an attack on its Yonaguni island near Taiwan fired from bases on Japanese territory several hundred kilometers to the east.

A missile with that range could also hit sites in North Korea.

Japan could also buy precision air launched missiles such as Lockheed Martin Corp’s extended-range Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) or the shorter-range Joint Strike missile designed by Norway’s Kongsberg Defence Aerospace AS for the F-35 fighter jet.

But with limited capability to track mobile launchers, some Japanese officials still fear any strike would leave North Korea with enough rockets to retaliate with a mass attack.

“A strike could be justified as self defense, but we have to consider the response that could provoke,” said another LDP lawmaker, who asked not to be identified.

(This story was refiled to correct full name of THAAD in paragraph 10)

(Editing by Lincoln Feast)

Harsh Hezbollah words aim to draw ‘red lines’ for Trump: source

Lebanon's Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah addresses his supporters through a screen during a rally commemorating the annual Hezbollah Martyrs' Leaders Day in Jebshit village, southern Lebanon February 16, 2017. REUTERS/Ali Hashisho

By Laila Bassam and Angus McDowall

BEIRUT (Reuters) – The Hezbollah leader’s harsh words for Israel and U.S. President Donald Trump this week were aimed at drawing “red lines” to prevent any threatening action against Lebanon or the group, a source familiar with the group’s thinking said on Friday.

Trump and administration officials have used strong rhetoric against Hezbollah’s political patron Iran and to support its main enemy Israel, including putting Tehran “on notice” over charges it violated a nuclear deal by test-firing a ballistic missile.

Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Sunday described Trump as being an “idiot”. On Thursday he said that his group, which played a major role in ending Israel’s occupation of Lebanon, could strike its nuclear reactor at Dimona.

The harsh words for Israel and Trump were aimed at drawing “red lines” for the new U.S. administration, the source familiar with the thinking of the Lebanese Shi’ite group said.

“Until now, Hezbollah is not worried about the arrival of Trump into the U.S. administration, but rather, it called him an idiot this week and drew red lines in front of any action that threatens Lebanon or Hezbollah’s presence in Syria,” the source said.

Israel and the United States both regard Hezbollah, which dominates Lebanese politics and maintains an armed militia that has had a significant part in fighting for President Bashar al-Assad in Syria, as a terrorist organization.

The group was founded as a resistance movement against Israel’s occupation of the predominantly Shi’ite Muslim south Lebanon which ended in 2000, a role that meant Beirut allowed it to keep its arms after the country’s civil war ended in 1990.

In 2006 Israel launched another war against Hezbollah in south Lebanon but withdrew without forcing the group, which gives allegiance to the supreme leader of Shi’ite Iran, to abandon its weapons.

Lebanon’s President Michel Aoun, an ally of Hezbollah, defended the group this week, saying: “As long as the Lebanese army lacks sufficient power to face Israel, we feel the need for (Hezbollah’s) arsenal because it complements the army’s role”.

THREATS

In his speech on Sunday, Nasrallah said: “We are not worried (about Trump), but rather we are very optimistic because when there is an idiot living in the White House, who boasts of his idiocy, it is the beginning of relief for the weak of the world”.

On Thursday he urged Israel to dismantle its nuclear reactor at Dimona. Israel is widely believed to have the Middle East’s only atomic arsenal at its Dimona reactor but it refuses to confirm or deny if it is a nuclear power.

“We can turn the threat (of their nuclear capability) into an opportunity,” he said, signaling that Hezbollah could strike the Dimona reactor and other Israeli atomic sites according to the source familiar with Hezbollah thinking.

Israeli Intelligence Minister Yisrael Katz said in a statement on Thursday: “If Nasrallah dares fire on the Israel’s home front or on its national infrastructure, then all of Lebanon will be hit.”

The source familiar with Hezbollah thinking said that it has been Nasrallah’s policy since the 2006 war with Israel to reveal elements of the group’s military capabilities as part of a policy of deterrence against attack by the Jewish state.

(Reporting By Laila Bassam, writing by Angus McDowall; Additional reporting by Maayan Lubell in Jerusalem)

Australia causing refugees ‘severe and lasting harm’: Human Rights Watch

By Tom Westbrook

SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australia’s poor treatment of refugees in offshore detention camps is “draconian” and is causing lasting damage to refugees and to Australia’s reputation as a rights-respecting country, Human Rights Watch said on Friday.

Conditions in the camps are abusive and detainees “regularly endure violence, threats and harassment”, Human Rights Watch said in the Australian chapter of its annual global report.

Under Australian rules, anyone intercepted while trying to reach the country by boat is sent for processing to camps in the Pacific Island nation of Nauru and at Manus Island, in Papua New Guinea (PNG). They are never eligible to be resettled in Australia.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Immigration, asked about the report before its release, declined to comment but referred to earlier department assertions that conditions at the camps were adequate and were the responsibility of Nauru and PNG.

Those governments did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Australia said in November it had agreed with the United States to resettle some of the refugees in the Nauru and PNG camps, in return for Australia taking refugees from Central America. But subsequent White House comments cast doubt on whether the new U.S. administration would proceed with the deal.

The arrangement offered “no solution” in any case, Human Rights Watch said, adding Australia should close the camps and better protect refugees.

Australia’s tough policy has drawn strong criticism from the United Nations and other international rights organizations amid a global debate on how to manage huge numbers of asylum seekers displaced by conflict.

Successive Australian governments have supported the policy, which they say is needed to stop people drowning at sea during dangerous boat journeys.

More than 1,990 asylum seekers have drowned on voyages to Australia since January 2000, according to Monash University’s Australian Border Deaths Database.

More than a third of the deaths occurred between 2007 and 2012, when Australia suspended its offshore detention program, including an accident in 2010 when 50 people were killed when their boat was thrown onto rocks at Christmas Island.

That accident swung political and public opinion behind the offshore detention policy, which has enjoyed bipartisan and public support in Australia.

Human Rights Watch also criticized PNG for police brutality, after officers opened fire on student protesters in June.

PNG was also “one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a woman”, and the government had failed to address corruption, Human Rights Watch added.

Australia and PNG agreed to close the Manus Island camp in August, but gave no date and it remains open. It held 871 people and the Nauru camp 383 people, according to the most recent statistics released by Australia in November.

(Reporting by Tom Westbrook; Editing by Robert Birsel)

U.S. police say black killings, protests raised tensions: survey

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Three quarters of American police officers said their interactions with black people have become more tense following police killings of unarmed black men and waves of protests that followed, according to a survey published on Wednesday.

The Pew Research Center survey found a widespread feeling among police that the general public misunderstood them and the public outcry over the deaths in recent years was motivated by anti-police bias rather than a will to hold police accountable.

Police killings of several unarmed black men in 2014 led to nationwide protests and the rise of the grassroots movement known as Black Lives Matter.

Supporters of the movement, including some Democrats, have said it shines a light on a previously overlooked problem of excessive use of force against blacks by police. Critics, including President-elect Donald Trump and other Republicans, have criticized Black Lives Matter as unfairly maligning police doing a dangerous job.

“Within America’s police and sheriff’s departments, the survey finds that the ramifications of these deadly encounters have been less visible than the public protests, but no less profound,” the researchers wrote in a report accompanying the survey results.

Seventy five percent of officers told Pew their interactions with black people had become more tense in the wake of high-profile police killings of blacks and the protests they generated. Two thirds of officers said the protests were motivated “a great deal” by a general bias towards police.

Two thirds of officers saw the killings of unarmed black men as isolated incidents rather than a sign of a broader problem. This was in marked contrast to the sentiment of the general public, 60 percent of whom said in a separate Pew survey the killings pointed to a broader systemic problem.

More than ninety percent of American police officers said they worried more about their safety because of the protests. About three quarters said they or their colleagues were less willing to stop and question people who seemed suspicious or to use force even when appropriate.

Majorities of police officers and the general public supported the wider use of body cameras worn by officers to record interactions, at 66 percent and 93 percent respectively.

Pew based its findings on online surveys with 7,917 officers from 54 police and sheriff’s departments between May 19 and August 14 last year. There is no single margin of error for the results because of the complex, multi-stage way Pew arrived at its sample of police officers, Pew said.

(Reporting by Jonathan Allen; Editing by Andrew Hay)

Chinese state tabloid warns Trump, end one China policy and China will take revenge

Taiwan President Tsai Ingwen visiting Texas

By Brenda Goh and J.R. Wu

SHANGHAI/TAIPEI (Reuters) – State-run Chinese tabloid Global Times warned U.S. President-elect Donald Trump that China would “take revenge” if he reneged on the one-China policy, only hours after Taiwan’s president made a controversial stopover in Houston.

Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen met senior U.S. Republican lawmakers during her stopover in Houston on Sunday en route to Central America, where she will visit Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala and El Salvador. Tsai will stop in San Francisco on Jan. 13, her way back to Taiwan.

China had asked the United States not to allow Tsai to enter or have formal government meetings under the one China policy.

Beijing considers self-governing Taiwan a renegade province ineligible for state-to-state relations. The subject is a sensitive one for China.

A photograph tweeted by Texas Governor Greg Abbott shows him meeting Tsai, with a small table between them adorned with the U.S., Texas and Taiwanese flags. Tsai’s office said on Monday she also spoke by telephone with U.S. senator John McCain, head of the powerful Senate Committee on Armed Services. Tsai also met Texas Senator Ted Cruz.

“Sticking to (the one China) principle is not a capricious request by China upon U.S. presidents, but an obligation of U.S. presidents to maintain China-U.S. relations and respect the existing order of the Asia-Pacific,” said the Global Times editorial on Sunday. The influential tabloid is published by the ruling Communist Party’s official People’s Daily.

Trump triggered protests from Beijing last month by accepting a congratulatory telephone call from Tsai and questioning the U.S. commitment to China’s position that Taiwan is part of one China.

“If Trump reneges on the one-China policy after taking office, the Chinese people will demand the government to take revenge. There is no room for bargaining,” said the Global Times.

Cruz said some members of Congress had received a letter from the Chinese consulate asking them not to meet Tsai during her stopovers.

“The People’s Republic of China needs to understand that in America we make decisions about meeting with visitors for ourselves,” Cruz said in a statement. “This is not about the PRC. This is about the U.S. relationship with Taiwan, an ally we are legally bound to defend.”

Cruz said he and Tsai discussed upgrading bilateral relations and furthering economic cooperation between their countries, including increased access to Taiwan markets that would benefit Texas ranchers, farmers and small businesses.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang on Monday urged “relevant U.S. officials” to handle the Taiwan issue appropriately to avoid harming China-U.S. ties.

“We firmly oppose leaders of the Taiwan region, on the so-called basis of a transit visit, having any form of contact with U.S. officials and engaging in activities that interfere with and damage China-U.S. relations,” Lu said.

In a dinner speech Saturday to hundreds of overseas Taiwanese, Tsai said the United States holds a “special place in the hearts of the people of Taiwan” and that the island via bilateral exchanges has provided more than 320,000 jobs directly and indirectly to the American people, her office said on Monday.

Tsai said Taiwan looked to create more U.S. jobs through deeper investment, trade and procurement.

Tsai’s office said James Moriarty, chairman of the American Institute in Taiwan, which handles U.S.-Taiwan affairs in the absence of formal ties, told the Taiwan president in Houston that the United States was continuing efforts to persuade China to resume dialogue with Taiwan.

China is deeply suspicious of Tsai, who it thinks wants to push for the formal independence of the island.

The Global Times, whose stance does not equate with government policy, also targeted Tsai in the editorial, saying that the mainland would likely impose further diplomatic, economic and military pressure on Taiwan, warning that “Tsai needs to face the consequences for every provocative step she takes”.

“It should also impose military pressure on Taiwan and push it to the edge of being reunified by force, so as to effectively affect the approval rating of the Tsai administration.”

(Reporting by Brenda Goh in Shanghai, J.R. Wu in Taipei, and Michael Martina in Beijing; Editing by Michael Perry, Robert Birsel)

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.

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 further.

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)

Schools in South Florida, Houston and Dallas Also Received Threats

Multiple major school districts across the United States are reporting that they received threats similar to the ones that were made against schools Los Angeles and New York earlier this week.

Schools in Miami, Houston and Dallas all reported receiving the threats on Wednesday evening. The threats weren’t determined to be credible and schools in those cities stayed open Thursday.

School officials in Los Angeles canceled all classes on Tuesday after receiving a threat that involved backpacks and other packages. The threat was ultimately determined to be a hoax.

New York Police Commissioner Bill Bratton told reporters at a Tuesday news conference that their schools got a similar threat, but determined it wasn’t serious. Classes went on as planned.

Speaking at a news conference Thursday, Miami-Dade County Public School Superintendent Alberto M. Carvalho said that someone emailed board members in multiple school districts on Wednesday night with the exact same message. After speaking with various law enforcement agencies, the threat wasn’t deemed credible and Thursday went on as “a regular school day.”

Still, the district increased its law enforcement presence in schools.

Carvalho said at the news conference that schools in Broward County, Florida, and Long Beach, California, received similar threats. The Houston Independent School District and Dallas Independent School District also got similar threats, officials there said in statements. The Orange County (Florida) Public Schools were also threatened, according to their Facebook page.

“At this time, we do not believe the threat is credible, but as a precautionary measure law enforcement officers are in the process of conducting random sweeps of school district buildings to ensure student safety,” the Houston Independent School District said in a statement.

The Dallas Independent School District said bomb-sniffing dogs were used in their sweeps.

The threats are being made against some of the largest school districts in the country.

According to American School & University Magazine, New York and Los Angeles are America’s largest and second-largest school districts in terms of enrollment, respectively. Miami-Dade ranked fourth, Broward County was sixth, Houston was seventh, Orange County was 10th and Dallas was 14th. Together, those seven districts educate close to 3 million students every day.

Hindu Extremists Order Christian Missionaries to Leave Nepal

Extremist Hindu groups have warned foreign Christian missionaries to leave Nepal. Even though there is a new Constitution that bans people from converting others to their faith, the extremists are blaming Christians for “corrupting the country.”

Morcha Nepal, a Hindu radical group, was handing out leaflets throughout Nepal, warning Christian missionaries to leave according to a report from the International Christian Concern. A report in Fides News Agency stated that the leaflets read: “Foreign influence have manipulated government decisions” and “Christians have corrupted the country.”

A statement from the extremist group says: “From today, the Morcha declares Nepal a Christian-free Hindu nation. We warn all the Christian religious leaders to leave Nepal, and appeal to all those who converted to Christianity to return home [convert back to Hinduism].”

Despite the warnings, the Fides News Agency has reported that several Christian missionaries will stay. In Nepal, 1.4% of people are Christians and 81.3% identify as Hindu.

The warnings come after Morcha Nepal was responsible for attacks on two churches in the Jhapa region of Nepal. The bombings happened after Nepal’s Constituent Assembly received and turned down many calls to revert the country back into an official Hindu state.

U.S. Warns North Korea on Nuclear Threat

United States officials have issued a stern warning to North Korea because of their threats to the U.S. and the world over their nuclear capabilities.

The day after North Korea said they have turned up their nuclear reactor at Yongbyon to full production, U.S. officials said the North Korean government should focus on “fulfilling its international obligations.”

“We will work with our partners in the context of the six-party talks to try to return North Korea to a posture of fulfilling those commitments that they have made,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said.

“We will repeat our call that North Korea should refrain from the irresponsible provocations that aggravate regional tension and should focus instead on fulfilling its international obligations and commitments.”

Earnest added that the world will not allow North Korea to become a nuclear state.

Analysts say that it’s likely Kim Jong-Un is looking at the way Iran was able to parlay their nuclear program into a financial windfall and removal of sanctions and is trying to position his nation to gain a similar bonus.

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