Tag Archives: United States

North Korea engine test may be prelude to partial ICBM flight

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un watched the ground jet test of a Korean-style high-thrust engine newly developed by the Academy of the National Defence Science in this undated picture provided by KCNA in Pyongyang on March 19, 2017.

By Ju-min Park

SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea has likely mastered the technology to power the different stages of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) and may show it off soon, analysts say, but it is likely still a long way from being able to hit the mainland United States.

North Korean state media announced its latest rocket-engine test on Sunday, saying it would help North Korea achieve world-class satellite-launch capability, indicating a new type of rocket engine that could be compatible with an ICBM.

The test showed “meaningful” progress, a spokesman for South Korea’s Defence Ministry said on Monday, with the firing of a main engine and four auxiliary engines as part of the development of a new rocket booster.

Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis declined to give a specific assessment of the test but said it was “consistent with the pattern we’ve seen by North Korea to continue to develop their ballistic missile program.”

The North Korean announcement came as U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was in Beijing at the end of his first visit to Asia for talks dominated by concern about North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs.

South Korean Defense Ministry spokesman Lee Jin-woo said the test showed progress in engine function, but added that further analysis was needed to show the exact thrust produced and possible uses for the engine.

North Korea’s state media released pictures of the high-thrust engine test overseen by leader Kim Jong Un, and said he had called it “a new birth” of the country’s rocket industry.

Experts say space rockets and long-range missiles involve fundamentally identical technologies, but with different configurations for trajectory and velocity for the stages.

MOTOR FOR ICBM?

Kim Dong-yub of Seoul’s Institute for Far Eastern Studies said he believed North Korea had carried out “a comprehensive test for the first-stage rocket for an ICBM.”

“It appears that North Korea has worked out much of its development of the first-stage rocket booster,” he said.

Joshua Pollack, of Washington’s Nonproliferation Review, said four steering nozzles had also been seen in older, long-range rockets North Korea used to launch objects into space in 2012 and 2016. But he said the main engine was quite different from anything seen previously and appeared roughly the right diameter to serve as either the first or second stage of an ICBM.

U.S. aerospace expert John Schilling, a contributor to the 38 North North Korea monitoring website, said the motor appeared too big for any ICBM North Korea has been known to be working on, but would be a good fit for the second stage of a new space rocket it is planning – or for a yet-unknown ICBM design.

Kim said North Korea had not yet mastered the re-entry technology needed for an ICBM, so still had work to do before it was able to hit the United States. It might though soon be able to demonstrate that it had perfected an ICBM system’s booster rocket stage.

“What could be next is they would make a new type of ICBM with this new engine system and launch it, but not the entire stages, but to make only the first stage, fly about 400 km and drop. They are not going to show it all at once.”

A U.S. administration official declined to give a specific technical assessment of the test but said it showed North Korea was “150 percent” committed to its weapons programs.

“This is one more indication that they are going to act in a way that is counterproductive,” he said.

North Korea has conducted five nuclear tests and a series of missile launches in defiance of U.N. resolutions, and experts and Western officials believe it is working to develop nuclear-tipped missiles that can reach the United States.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said this year the country was close to test-launching an ICBM, prompting U.S. President Donald Trump to tweet: “It won’t happen!”

Last week, Tillerson issued the Trump administration’s starkest warning yet to North Korea, saying a military response would be “on the table” if it took action to threaten South Korean and U.S. forces.

Trump told reporters on Sunday he held meetings on North Korea over the weekend and said Kim was “acting very, very badly.”

China said on Monday the situation with North Korea was at a new crossroads with two scenarios – a deterioration to war or a diplomatic solution.

“Any chance for dialogue must be seized, as long as there’s hope,” Foreign Minister Wang Yi said in Beijing.

(Additional reporting by James Pearson in Seoul and David Brunnstrom, Matt Spetalnick and Idrees Ali in Washington; Editing by Jack Kim and James Dalgleish)

New U.S.-led force to deter Russia in Poland with NATO

U.S. (R to L), Poland's flags and jack of the President of Poland are seen during the inauguration ceremony of bilateral military training between U.S. and Polish troops in Zagan, Poland,

By Robin Emmott

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – A U.S.-led battalion of more than 1,100 soldiers will be deployed in Poland from the start of April, a U.S. commander said on Monday, as the alliance sets up a new force in response to Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Crimea.

More than 900 U.S. soldiers, around 150 British personnel and some 120 Romanian troops will make up the battlegroup in northeastern Poland, one of four multinational formations across the Baltic region that Russia has condemned as an aggressive strategy on its frontiers.

“This is a mission, not a cycle of training events,” U.S. Army Lt. Colonel Steven Gventer, who heads the battlegroup, told a news conference. “The purpose is to deter aggression in the Baltics and in Poland … We are fully ready to be lethal.”

Britain, Canada and Germany are leading the other three battlegroups in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which are due to be operational by June. They will have support from a series of NATO nations including France.

In total, some 4,000 NATO troops – equipped with tanks, armored vehicles, air support and hi-tech mission information rooms – will monitor for and defend against any potential Russian incursions.

Moscow, which denies having any expansionist or aggressive agenda, accuses NATO of trying to destabilize central Europe and has respond by forming four new military divisions to strengthen its western and central regions and stepping up exercises.

Seeking to avoid stationing troops permanently on Russia’s borders, the new NATO force across the Baltics and Poland can rely on a network of eight small NATO outposts in the region, regular training exercises and, in the case of attack, a much larger force of 40,000 alliance troops.

“We are not the entirety of NATO’s response,” said U.S. Army Major Paul Rothlisberger, part of the U.S.-led battalion to be based in Orzysz, 220 kilometers (137 miles) northeast of Warsaw.

The alliance is seeking to show the ex-Soviet countries in NATO that they are protected from the kind of annexation Russia orchestrated in February in 2014 in Ukraine’s Crimea.

It also wants to avoid a return to the Cold War, when the United States had some 300,000 service personnel stationed in Europe, and stick to a 1997 agreement with Moscow not to permanently station forces on the Russian border.

The plan is being implemented as Western powers try for a peace settlement in eastern Ukraine, where NATO says Russia supports separatist rebels with weapons and troops.

Russia plans to stage large-scale war games near its western borders this year, but has not said how many troops will take part.

(Reporting by Robin Emmott; Editing by Tom Heneghan)

Russian parliament backs investigation into U.S. media

MOSCOW (Reuters) – The Russian lower house of parliament, the State Duma, has approved a proposal to launch an investigation into U.S. media organizations that operate in Russia, it said in a statement posted on its web site late on Friday.

The investigation, which will be conducted by the Duma’s information policy, technologies and communications committee, will check whether CNN, the Voice of America, Radio Liberty and “other American media” are complying with Russian law.

The statement said the Duma backed the move on Friday evening after Konstantin Zatulin, an MP from the pro-Kremlin United Russia party, proposed an investigation to retaliate for what he called a “repressive” U.S. move against Russian state-funded broadcaster RT.

He said he was referring to an initiative by U.S. Senator Jeanne Shaheen, who has introduced a bill to empower the Justice Department to investigate possible violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act by RT.

Shaheen, a Democrat, cited a U.S. intelligence agency assessment that suggested RT was part of a Russian influence campaign to help Donald Trump win the White House last year. The Kremlin and RT have strongly rejected that allegation.

Foreign media in Russia are overseen by the Russian Foreign Ministry, whose spokeswoman Maria Zakharova this week singled out Shaheen’s demarche for criticism, quipping ironically that the senator should have included a clause drawing up a list of books for burning.

The U.S. move also solicited the ire of Margarita Simonyan, RT’s editor-in-chief, who on Wednesday told the daily Izvestia it had echoes of the activities of U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy, who oversaw a campaign to expose people he regarded as communists in the 1950s.

(Reporting by Andrew Osborn; Editing by Julia Glover)

South Dakota’s governor vetoes loosening of concealed carry gun laws

FILE PHOTO: Republican Governor Dennis Daugaard of South Dakota listens to remarks during a discussion at the National Governors Association Winter Meeting in Washington, February 23, 2014. EUTERS/Mike Theiler/File Photo

By Tom James

(Reuters) – South Dakota’s Republican Governor Dennis Daugaard on Friday vetoed a pair of bills that would have loosened restrictions on carrying concealed guns in the state, after saying current laws made sense and were adequate.

One measure would have allowed carrying concealed weapons in the state without a permit. The second proposed allowing carriers of an enhanced permit to carry concealed weapons at the state capitol.

South Dakota bars convicted felons and those convicted of some violent or drug crimes from obtaining a concealed weapons permit.

Eleven U.S. states allow gun owners to carry concealed weapons without a permit, according to the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, a gun-control advocacy group. Another 39, including South Dakota, allow concealed carry with a permit.

In a letter accompanying one of the vetoes, Daugaard, who had previously pointed to his own membership in the National Rifle Association, defended the state’s existing concealed weapons laws as reasonable.

“I am unaware of a single instance in which a person who could lawfully possess a gun was denied a permit to carry a concealed pistol,” Daugaard wrote. By comparison, he added, two counties in the state have turned down nearly 600 permit applicants “who were disqualified due to mental illness or due to violent or drug-related crimes.”

The veto echoed statements Daugaard made in a Feb. 11 editorial in the Rapid City Journal, in which he said he viewed the state’s laws as “effective, appropriate and minimal.” Daugaard also vetoed a similar proposal loosening concealed-carry standards in 2012.

Rep. Lee Qualm, who sponsored the proposal relaxing the state capitol restrictions, called the vetoes “frustrating,” and said in a phone interview on Friday that he would try to override them when the legislature returns from recess March 27. An override requires a two-thirds majority in South Dakota, and Qualm said both bills were only a handful of votes short of that threshold in both chambers.

Rep. Lynne Disanto, sponsor of the broader of the two bills, did not respond to calls or emails seeking comment.

The bills’ failure at the hands of a Republican governor pointed to a divide in his party over the regulations. Neither bill received full Republican support in either chamber, and the statewide measure was opposed by about one in five Republicans in the House and one in three in the Senate.

(Reporting by Tom James in Seattle; Editing by Patrick Enright and Richard Chang)

U.S., China soften tone, say to work together on North Korea

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi (R) talks with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson at Diaoyutai State Guesthouse on March 18, 2017 in Beijing, China. REUTERS/ Lintao Zhang/POOL

By Yeganeh Torbati and Ben Blanchard

BEIJING (Reuters) – The United States and China will work together to get nuclear-armed North Korea take “a different course”, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Saturday, softening previous criticism of Beijing after talks with his Chinese counterpart.

China has been irritated at being repeatedly told by Washington to rein in North Korea’s surging nuclear and ballistic missile programmes, one of a series of hurdles in ties between the world’s two largest economies.

But Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi described the talks with Tillerson as “candid, pragmatic and productive”. The two sides appeared to have made some progress or put aside differences on difficult issues, at least in advance of a planned summit between Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump.

On Friday, Tillerson issued the Trump administration’s starkest warning yet to North Korea, saying in Seoul that a military response would be “on the table” if Pyongyang took action to threaten South Korean and U.S. forces.

Tillerson took a softer line after the meeting with Wang. He told reporters both China and the United States noted efforts over the last two decades had not succeeded in curbing the threat posed by North Korea’s weapons programmes.

“We share a common view and a sense that tensions on the peninsula are quite high right now and that things have reached a rather dangerous level, and we’ve committed ourselves to doing everything we can to prevent any type of conflict from breaking out,” Tillerson said.

He said Wang and he agreed to work together to persuade North Korea “make a course correction and move away from the development of their nuclear weapons.”

Wang said U.N. resolutions on North Korea both mapped out sanctions and called for efforts to resume efforts for a negotiated settlement.

“No matter what happens, we have to stay committed to diplomatic means as a way to seek peaceful settlement,” he said.

Wang said he and Tillerson “both hope to find ways to restart the talks”.

“Neither of us are ready to give up the hope for peace,” he said.

Tillerson had said on Friday that any talks on North Korea could only take place after it began the process of unwinding its weapons programmes.

A U.S. official had told Reuters in Washington earlier this week that Tillerson may raise the prospect of imposing “secondary sanctions” on Chinese banks and other firms doing business with North Korea in defiance of U.N. sanctions.

Trump said in a tweet on Friday that North Korea was “behaving very badly” and accused China, Pyongyang’s neighbour and only major ally, of doing little to resolve the crisis.

XI-TRUMP SUMMIT

However, the two sides appear to have toned down differences as they work on finalising a trip by Xi to the United States, possibly next month, for his first summit with Trump.

Wang said the two countries were in “close communication” on arranging the meeting, but gave no details.

The state-run Chinese tabloid the Global Times said on Saturday that it was in China’s interests to stop North Korea’s nuclear ambitions but to suggest China cut the country off completely was ridiculous as it would be fraught with danger.

“Once there is chaos in North Korea, it would first bring disaster to China. I’m sorry, but the United States and South Korea don’t have the right to demand this of China,” it said in an editorial.

A former oil executive with no prior diplomatic experience, Tillerson will meet Xi on Sunday.

North Korea has conducted two nuclear tests and a series of missile launches since the beginning of last year.

Last week, it launched four more ballistic missiles and is working to develop nuclear-tipped missiles that can reach the United States.

Washington has been pressing Beijing to do more to stop North Korea’s nuclear and missile programmes.

China has called for a dual track approach, urging North Korea to suspend its tests and the United States and South Korea to suspend military drills, so both sides can return to talks.

China has also been infuriated by the deployment of the THAAD, or Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, missile defence system in South Korea, which it says will both harm China’s own security and do nothing to ease tensions.

China says the system’s powerful radar will extend into the country’s northeast and potentially track Chinese missile launches, and maybe even intercept them. Russia also opposes THAAD, for the same reasons.

There are other tricky issues too, including the self-ruled island of Taiwan which China claims as its own.

The Trump administration is crafting a big new arms package for Taiwan that could include advanced rocket systems and anti-ship missiles to defend against China, U.S. officials said, a deal sure to anger Beijing.

Wang said Saturday’s talks included discussions on THAAD and Taiwan but did not give details.

(Additional reporting by Elias Glenn; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)

Trump, Germany’s Merkel to hold first face-to-face meeting at White House

German Chancellor Angela Merkel gives a statement at the Chancellery in Berlin. REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch

By Jeff Mason and Andreas Rinke

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump welcomes German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Friday for a White House meeting that could help determine the future of the transatlantic alliance and shape the working relationship between two of the world’s most powerful leaders.

The new U.S. president and the long-serving stateswoman, whose country is Europe’s largest economy, will discuss funding for NATO and relations with Russia in their first meeting since Trump took office in January.

The meeting is consequential for both sides.

Merkel, who officials say has prepared carefully for the encounter, is likely to press Trump for assurances of support for a strong European Union and a commitment to fight climate change.

Trump, who as a presidential candidate criticized Merkel for allowing hundreds of thousands of refugees into Germany, will seek her support for his demand that North Atlantic Treaty Organization nations pay more for their defense needs.

Relationship building will be a less overt but important agenda item. Merkel had close relations with Trump’s Democratic and Republican predecessors, Barack Obama and George W. Bush, and she is likely to seek a strong working relationship with Trump despite major policy differences and wariness in Germany about the former New York businessman.

“Those who know the chancellor know that she has a knack for winning over people in personal discussions. I am sure that Donald Trump will not be immune,” said Juergen Hardt, a conservative lawmaker who helps coordinate transatlantic relations for the German government.

Trump is eager to see follow-through on his demand that European countries shoulder more of the burden of paying for the NATO alliance, which he has criticized.

He will also seek counsel from Merkel on how to deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin, a leader Merkel has dealt with extensively and whom Trump, to the consternation of Republican and Democratic lawmakers, has praised.

“The president will be very interested in hearing the chancellor’s views on her experience interacting with Putin,” a senior administration official told reporters.

CLIMATE ACCORD

A U.S. official said the Trump administration’s position on U.S. participation in the Paris agreement to curb climate change would likely come up in the Merkel meeting and be further clarified in the weeks and months ahead. Merkel is a strong supporter of international efforts to fight global warming.

Trump has called climate change a hoax and vowed during his campaign to “cancel” the Paris agreement within 100 days, saying it would be too costly for the U.S. economy.

Since being elected, he has been mostly quiet on the issue. In a New York Times interview in November, he said he would keep an open mind about the Paris deal.

Merkel is also likely to press Trump about U.S. support for European security, despite assurances from Vice President Mike Pence about that issue on his recent trip to Europe.

“There is still lingering doubt about … how the U.S. sees European security, and whether the U.S. sees its security and Europe’s security as intrinsically linked and inseparable,” Jeffrey Rathke, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic & International Studies, told reporters.

(Additional reporting by Noah Barkin; Editing by Peter Cooney)

China to build on disputed shoal in South China Sea

Boats at Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea are shown in this handout photo provided by Planet Labs, and captured on March 12, 2016. REUTERS/Planet Labs/Handout via Reuters

BEIJING (Reuters) – China will begin preparatory work this year for an environmental monitoring station on Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea, an official said, as two U.S. senators introduced a bill to impose sanctions on its activities in the disputed waterway.

Last month, a Philippine minister said Chinese President Xi Jinping had promised his Philippine counterpart China would not build structures on the rocky outcrop both countries claim, but China called the comments “baffling and regrettable”.

China seized the shoal, which is northeast of the Spratly islands, in 2012 and denied access to Philippine fishermen. But after President Rodrigo Duterte visited China last year, it allowed them to return to the traditional fishing area.

This week, Xiao Jie, the mayor of what China calls Sansha City, said China planned to begin preparatory work this year to build environmental monitoring stations on a number of islands, including Scarborough Shoal.

Sansha City is the name China has given to an administrative base for the South China Sea islands and reefs it controls.

The monitoring stations, along with docks and other infrastructure, form part of island restoration and erosion prevention efforts planned for 2017, Xiao told the official Hainan Daily in an interview.

A spokesman for the Philippine foreign ministry, Charles Jose, declined to comment, saying it was trying to verify the reports.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson arrives in Beijing on Saturday for a two-day visit, where the South China Sea, almost all of which is claimed by China, is likely to figure.

Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam also claim parts of the waters, which have rich fishing grounds, along with oil and gas deposits. About $5 trillion worth of trade passes through the waterway each year.

The United States has criticized China’s construction of manmade islands and its build-up of military facilities there, expressing concern they could be used to restrict free movement.

This week, U.S. Senators Marco Rubio and Ben Cardin introduced the South China Sea and East China Sea Sanctions Act that would ban visas for Chinese people contributing to building development projects in the South and East China Seas.

It would also put sanctions on foreign financial bodies that “knowingly conduct or facilitate a significant financial transaction for sanctioned individuals and entities” if China steps up activity at Scarborough Shoal, among other actions.

The senators’ proposal was “extremely grating,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said on Friday.

“I think the proposal put forward by individual senators shows their arrogance and ignorance,” Hua told a daily news briefing in Beijing.

China resolutely opposes the proposal, which infringes international law and international relations norms, she added.

Tension over the South China Sea reached a flashpoint after the Philippines filed an arbitration case against China in the Hague and as China started militarizing artificial islands it built up on reefs in the region.

China is also involved in a separate dispute with Japan over a group of uninhabited islands in the East China Sea.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard and Christian Shepherd; Additional reporting by Manuel Mogato in MANILA; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

Trump vows to appeal against travel ban ruling to Supreme Court

U.S. President Donald Trump delivers remarks at the American Center for Mobility for American Manufactured Vehicles in Ypsilanti Township, Michigan, U.S. March 15, 2017. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

By Dan Levine and Mica Rosenberg

HONOLULU/NEW YORK (Reuters) – A defiant Donald Trump has pledged to appeal against a federal judge’s order placing an immediate halt on his revised travel ban, describing the ruling as judicial overreach that made the United States look weak.

In granting the temporary restraining order in response to a lawsuit by the state of Hawaii, U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson found on Wednesday that “a reasonable, objective observer … would conclude that the executive order was issued with a purpose to disfavor a particular religion.”

Early on Thursday, U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang issued a nationwide preliminary injunction in a similar case in Maryland brought by refugee resettlement agencies represented by the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Immigration Law Center.

Chuang ruled that the agencies were likely to succeed in proving that the travel ban portion of the executive order was intended to be a ban on Muslims and, as a result, violates the U.S. Constitution’s religious freedom protection.

“To avoid sowing seeds of division in our nation, upholding this fundamental constitutional principle at the core of our nation’s identity plainly serves a significant public interest,” Chuang wrote in his ruling.

The actions were the latest legal blow to the administration’s efforts to temporarily ban refugees as well as travelers from six predominantly Muslim countries. The president has said the ban is needed for national security.

However, the orders, while a victory for the plaintiffs, are only a first step and the government could ultimately win its underlying case. Watson and Chuang were appointed to the bench by former Democratic President Barack Obama.

Trump, speaking after the Hawaii ruling at a rally in Nashville, called his revised executive order a “watered-down version” of his first.

The president said he would take the case “as far as it needs to go,” including to the Supreme Court, in order to get a ruling that the ban is legal.

The likely next stop if the administration decides to contest the Hawaii judge’s ruling would be the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Three judges on the Ninth Circuit upheld a restraining order on the first travel ban issued by a Washington state judge.

At that point, the government’s legal options were to ask for a hearing by a larger panel of judges or petition the Supreme Court to hear the case. Instead, the administration withdrew the ban, promising to retool it in ways that would address the legal issues.

If the Ninth Circuit were to uphold the Hawaii court’s ruling, an appeal to the Supreme Court would be complicated by its current makeup of four conservative and four liberal judges, with no ninth justice since the death of Antonin Scalia more than a year ago.

The travel ban has deeply divided the country on liberal and conservative lines, and it is unlikely that a ninth Supreme Court justice would be seated in time to hear an appeal in this case.

Trump signed the new ban on March 6 in a bid to overcome legal problems with his January executive order, which caused chaos at airports and sparked mass protests before a Washington judge stopped its enforcement in February.

Watson’s order is only temporary until the broader arguments in the case can be heard. He set an expedited hearing schedule to determine if his ruling should be extended.

Trump’s first travel order was more sweeping than the second revised order. Like the current one, it barred citizens of Iran, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen from entering the United States for 90 days, but it also included Iraq, which was subsequently taken off the list.

The revised ban also excluded legal permanent residents and existing visa holders and provided waivers for various categories of immigrants with ties to the United States.

Hawaii and other opponents of the ban claimed that the motivation behind it was Trump’s campaign promise of “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.”

In Washington state, a group of plaintiffs applying for immigrant visas asked U.S. District Judge James Robart in Seattle – who suspended the first ban – to stop the new order. Robart was appointed to the bench by Republican former President George W. Bush.

Judge Robart said he would issue a written ruling, but did not specify a time line.

(Reporting by Dan Levine in Honolulu, Mica Rosenberg in New York and Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Writing by Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; Editing by Toby Chopra)

North Korea says Malaysia ‘incident’ political scheme by U.S., South Korea

North Korean diplomat Pak Myong Ho attends a news conference in Beijing, China, March 16, 2017. REUTERS/Jason Lee

BEIJING (Reuters) – The recent “incident” that occurred in Malaysia was a political scheme by the United States and South Korea that will only benefit enemy countries, a North Korean diplomat based in the Chinese capital said on Thursday.

The estranged half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was murdered on Feb. 13, when Malaysian police say two women – an Indonesian and a Vietnamese – smeared super toxic VX nerve agent on his face at Kuala Lumpur International Airport.

“The recent incident that occurred in Malaysia was clearly a political scheme by the U.S. and South Korea aimed at hurting the DPRK’s reputation and overthrowing the DPRK regime,” diplomat Pak Myong Ho told a news conference, using the country’s formal name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

“The only parties that will benefit from this incident are the enemy countries.”

(Reporting by Christian Shepherd; Writing by Ben Blanchard and Christine Kim; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

Late-season snowstorm weakens in the Northeast

Residents clear their cars and street of snow in Weehawken, New Jersey, as the One World Trade Center and lower Manhattan are seen after a snowstorm in New York, U.S. March 14, 2017. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz

(Reuters) – A late-season snowstorm that swept the mid-Atlantic and northeastern United States began to weaken on Wednesday after killing six people, grounding thousands of flights and closing schools.

Still, millions of people on the East Coast faced temperatures 10 to 25 degrees below average, wind gusts of 30 mph (50 kph) and slick roads and sidewalks as they returned to work and classes on Wednesday.

“Residual snow and slush will refreeze early this morning, resulting in hazardous conditions,” the National Weather Service said in an advisory, urging those who ventured out early to use extra caution.

The rare mid-March “nor’easter” was tapering off over upstate New York and northern New England after dumping as much as a foot (30 cm) of snow with gale-force winds throughout the region on Tuesday, the weather service said.

As life returns to normal for many, students in Boston Public Schools will have the day off while the city and surrounding area continue to dig out from heavy snowfall.

Amtrak said its trains would operate on a modified schedule between New York City and Boston and between New York City and Albany on Wednesday.

On Tuesday, snow fell from the lower Great Lakes and central Appalachians to the Eastern Seaboard and as far south as North Carolina.

Some cities, such as Washington, D.C., and New York, got just a few inches of snow, far less than the anticipated amounts that forced public officials to close schools, stop commuter trains and warn people to stay indoors on Tuesday.

Governors in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Virginia declared states of emergency before the storm.

“Mother Nature is an unpredictable lady sometimes,” New York Governor Andrew Cuomo told a news conference on Tuesday. “She was unpredictable today.” More than 6,000 commercial airline flights across the United States were canceled for the day, said tracking service FlightAware.com. Utility companies said more than 220,000 homes and businesses were without power at the storm’s peak.

Six weather-related fatalities included the death of a 16-year-old girl in a single-car crash in Gilford, New Hampshire, according to the city police department.

A snowplow driver was killed in Longmeadow, Massachusetts, local police said, and four older people died clearing snow in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, the local medical examiner said.

The storm capped an unusually mild winter, with otherwise below-normal snowfall on much of the Atlantic coast.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee and Barbara Goldberg in New York; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)