North Korea and South Korea

[GreyhoundFan]

Not a big surprise: "How Russia quietly undercuts sanctions intended to stop North Korea’s nuclear program"

Spoiler

Russian smugglers are scurrying to the aid of North Korea with shipments of petroleum and other vital supplies that could help that country weather harsh new economic sanctions, U.S. officials say in an assessment that casts further doubt on whether financial measures alone can force dictator Kim Jong Un to abandon his nuclear weapons program.

The spike in Russian exports is occurring as China — by far North Korea’s biggest trading partner — is beginning to dramatically ratchet up the economic pressure on its troublesome neighbor in the face of provocative behavior such as last week’s test of a powerful nuclear bomb.

Official documents and interviews point to a rise in tanker traffic this spring between North Korean ports and Vladivostok, the far-eastern Russian city near the small land border shared by the two countries. With international trade with North Korea increasingly constrained by U.N. sanctions, Russian entrepreneurs are seizing opportunities to make a quick profit, setting up a maze of front companies to conceal ­transactions and launder payments, according to U.S. law enforcement officials who monitor sanction-busting activity.

Such trade could provide a lifeline to North Korea at a time when the United States is seeking to deepen Kim’s economic and political isolation in response to recent nuclear and missiles tests. Trump administration officials were hoping that new trade restrictions by China — including a temporary ban on gasoline and diesel exports imposed this spring by a state-owned Chinese petroleum company — could finally drive Kim to negotiate an agreement to halt work on nuclear weapons and long-range delivery systems.

The U.N. Security Council late Monday approved a package of new economic sanctions that included a cap on oil imports to North Korea, effectively slashing its fuel supply by 30 percent, diplomats said. A U.S. proposal for a total oil embargo was dropped in exchange for Russian and Chinese support for the measure.

“As the Chinese cut off oil and gas, we’re seeing them turn to Russia,” said a senior official with detailed knowledge of smuggling operations. The official, one of several current and former U.S. officials interviewed about the trend, insisted on anonymity in describing analyses based on intelligence and confidential informants.

“Whenever they are cut off from their primary supplier, they just try to get it from somewhere else,” the official said.

The increase in trade with Russia was a primary reason for a series of legal measures announced last month by Justice and Treasury officials targeting Russian nationals accused of helping North Korea evade sanctions. Court documents filed in support of the measures describe a web of alleged front companies established by Russian citizens for the specific purpose of concealing business arrangements with Pyongyang.

While Russian companies have engaged in such illicit trade with North Korea in the past, U.S. officials and experts on North Korea observed a sharp rise beginning last spring, coinciding with new U.N. sanctions and the ban on fuel shipments in May by the state-owned China National Petroleum Corp. The smuggled goods mostly are diesel and other fuels, which are vital to North Korea’s economy and can’t be produced indigenously. In the past, U.S. agencies also have tracked shipments of Russian industrial equipment and ores as well as luxury goods.

Traffic between Vladivostok and the port of Rajin in North Korea has become so heavy that local officials this year launched a dedicated ferry line between the two cities. The service was temporarily suspended last week because of a financial dispute.

China, with its large shared border and traditionally close ties with Pyongyang, remains North Korea’s most important trading partner, accounting for more than 90 percent of the country’s foreign commerce. Thus, Beijing’s cooperation is key to any sanctions regime that seeks to force Kim to alter his behavior, current and former U.S. officials say.

Still, Russia, with its massive petroleum reserves and proven willingness to partner with un­savory regimes, could provide just enough of a boost to keep North Korea’s economy moving, allowing it to again resist international pressure to give up its strategic weapons, the officials said.

“Russia is now a player in this realm,” said Anthony Ruggiero, a former Treasury Department official who is now a senior fellow with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington think tank. “The Chinese may be fed up with North Korea and willing to do more to increase the pressure. But it’s not clear that the Russians are willing to go along with that.

The reports of Russian oil smuggling come as Moscow continues to criticize international efforts to impose more trade restrictions on North Korea. Russian President Vladimir Putin, during a joint news conference Wednesday with South Korean leader Moon Jae-in, pointedly refused to support new restrictions on fuel supplies for the North.

“We should not act out of emotions and push North Korea to a dead end,” Putin said, according to South Korean media accounts of the news conference.

Rare insight into exactly how Russian firms conduct business with Kim’s isolated regime can be gleaned from the court papers filed last month to support new sanctions against Russian nationals accused of supplying diesel and other fuels to North Korea. The papers describe in detail how one company, Velmur, was set up by Russian operatives in Singapore to allegedly help North Korea purchase millions of dollars’ worth of fuel while keeping details of the transactions opaque.

Velmur was registered in Singapore in 2014 as a real estate management company. Yet its chief function appears to be “facilitating the laundering of funds for North Korea financial facilitators and sanctioned entities,” according to a Justice Department complaint filed on Aug. 22. The company has no known headquarters, office space or even a Web address, but rather “bears the hallmarks of a front company,” the complaint states.

According to the documents, Velmur worked with other Russian partners to obtain contracts this year to purchase nearly $7 million worth of diesel fuel from a Russian supplier known as IPC between February and May. In each case, North Korean operatives wired the payments to Velmur in hard currency — U.S. dollars — and Velmur in turn used the money to pay IPC for diesel tanker shipments departing the port of Vladivostok, the documents show.

“The investigation has concluded that North Korea was the destination” of the diesel transshipments, the Justice Department records state. “As such, it appears that Velmur, while registered as a real estate management company, is in fact a North Korean financial facilitator.”

Officials for Velmur could not be reached for comment. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, reacting to the U.S. court filing last month, dismissed the sanctions policy as futile, while declining to address specific allegations about sanctions-busting by Russian individuals.

“Washington, in theory, should have learned that, for us, the language of sanctions is unacceptable; the solution of real problems is only hindered by such actions,” Ryabkov said. “So far, however, it does not seem that they have come to an understanding of such obvious truths.”

U.S. officials acknowledged that it may be impossible to physically stop Russian tankers from delivering fuel shipments to North Korean ports, as long as the Putin government grants tacit approval. But the United States enjoys some leverage because of the smugglers’ preference for conducting business in dollars.

When Justice Department officials announced sanctions on Russian businesses last month, they also sought the forfeiture of millions of dollars in U.S. currency allegedly involved in the transactions, a step intended as a warning to others considering trading with North Korea. Black-market traders tend to shun North Korea’s currency, the won, which has been devalued to the point that some Pyongyang department stores insist on payment in dollars, euros or Chinese renminbi.

“There are vulnerabilities here, because the people North Korea is doing business with want dollars. It was dollars that the North Koreans were attempting to send to Russia,” said Ruggiero, the former Treasury official. “The Russians are not about to start taking North Korean won.”

 

[Howl]

Here's a miscellaneous item to add to the What Could Possibly Go Wrong Category? where you're just reading the (actual paper) newspaper before 7 am and you go, The **** I just read?
I'm mentally filing this in the Those Wacky South Koreans, What Will They Think of Next? sub-category:  

From the New York Times

Quote

 

South Korea Plans ‘Decapitation Unit’ to Try to Scare North’s Leaders

SEOUL, South Korea — The last time South Korea is known to have plotted to assassinate the North Korean leadership, nothing went as planned.

In the late 1960s, after North Korean commandos tried to ransack the presidential palace in Seoul, South Korea secretly trained misfits plucked from prison or off the streets to sneak into North Korea and slit the throat of its leader, Kim Il-sung. When the mission was aborted, the men mutinied. They killed their trainers and fought their way into Seoul before blowing themselves up, an episode the government concealed for decades.

Full text here. 

 

The South Koreans are trying to do this again, but with regular special forces guys known as the Spartan 3000, to try to spook Kim Jong Un (who's already pretty damned unhinged) into thinking that there is an assassination squad out to get him, hence 'decapitation' in singe quotes.  However, the cat's kinda out of the bag that it's more of a psy-ops. Or is it?

 

 

Edited September 13, 2017 by Howl

[samurai_sarah]

Far from being an expert, worried me asked my S Korean family. They say that N Korea is posturing, and N Korea is "starving again, so send more food". Also, Kim does this kind of shite every year.

I have no idea, so I hope they are right.

[Howl]

4 hours ago, samurai_sarah said:

Far from being an expert, worried me asked my S Korean family. They say that N Korea is posturing, and N Korea is "starving again, so send more food". Also, Kim does this kind of shite every year.

Yes, there is endless posturing, but the missile firing in response to Trumps bellicose comments seems to be a bit more aggressive.  China certainly does NOT want war on their doorstep, and I think will make extreme diplomatic efforts to get Kim Jong Un to chillax.  

[samurai_sarah]

16 hours ago, Howl said:

Yes, there is endless posturing, but the missile firing in response to Trumps bellicose comments seems to be a bit more aggressive.  China certainly does NOT want war on their doorstep, and I think will make extreme diplomatic efforts to get Kim Jong Un to chillax.  

I agree with you, but from what I hear from relatives it's not terribly different from every other year. The in-laws claim that it's more a case of the Western media paying more attention, thanks to Trump's comments. But since this is hearsay, I can't say anything about the veracity of their assessment. I suspect that Kim is rattling sabres a bit more this year, since Trump singled him out, to show that he's a hard man.

Only, in realistic terms, he's the owner of the insignificant half of a small peninsula. Historically, Korea only survived as an autonomous kingdom, by two means 1. fighting off the Japanese on her own shores (a strategy that worked well, until it stopped working in the early 1900s) and 2. paying tribute to the Chinese empire and collaborating to be left alone. For as long as those two worked, it remained a rather insignificant little kingdom, protected by China to the north, fighting off Japan every now and then in the south.

Today, S Korea is economically significant with allies, all over the world. Those allies have their own reasons for supporting S Korea. N Korea has precisely one ally. And a grudging one at that.  I agree that China is not interested in N Korea starting trouble. Having to support N Korea on the basis of ideology would harm their economy, and cause no end of diplomatic headaches.

I suspect that rather than taking it to the world stage, China will give Kim a sharp slap on the wrist and tell him to knock it off. And N Korea being what it is would starve without support from China, S Korea etc. If Kim has any sense, he'll leave it at posturing, accept the next batch of food aid for his starving population, and refrain from pissing off China.

Or maybe I am crediting that tyrant with too much common sense. I was going to say that I hope his advisors tell him not to pick a fight, but then I remembered that he is known for murdering his relatives, starving his people, and murdering the families of those that manage to flee. So, I hope that China strong-arms him into leaving it at his annual sabre-rattling. For all our sakes, including the people of N Korea.

[Howl]

All good points, @samurai_sarah.  Is it possible that a lot of this is to convince the NK populace that he's completely bad ass and protecting them from the evil outside world?  They might be too hungry to care, but it seems agit-prop is everything in that country. 

Edited September 14, 2017 by Howl

[samurai_sarah]

30 minutes ago, Howl said:

All good points, @samurai_sarah.  Is it possible that a lot of this is to convince the NK populace that he's completely bad ass and protecting them from the evil outside world?  They might be too hungry to care, but it seems agit-prop is everything in that country. 

I can't say much about this, since all I know is hearsay. But based on said hearsay, from Korean-speaking friends who have actually visited NK, I'd say that your assessment is quite right. In every respect.

Having said that, it's difficult to tell what's really going on. An acquaintance got permission to do a sociological study in N Korea, and returned saying that she found N Koreans to be uninformed and spouting the party line. Uninformed is easy to explain, when your entire media is controlled. So is spouting the party line, when you and your entire family might get murdered, if you speak out.

It's very, very difficult to tell. From the little I can tell, from refugees, there are some grumblings. But, who can you trust with even the mildest of criticism? One friend of a friend said that everyone she met was like a robot, repeating the party line. That doesn't mean that N Koreans on the whole are robots, but that they're brainwashed/ terrified/ hungry etc.

Refugees have spoken out, but fleeing on your own is a death-sentence for your entire family. Even when an individual is safe, it is best to keep one's head down. N Korea has never been shy about kidnapping people. S Korea has never been shy about spying on people who show an interest in N Korea.

Basically, in my estimation, it's like the Cold War never ended in a small part of the world.

 

P.S.: Turns out I have a lot to say about this.

[Cartmann99]

 

Quote

 North Korea fired a missile that flew over Japan’s northern Hokkaido far out into the Pacific Ocean on Friday, South Korean and Japanese officials said, deepening tensions after Pyongyang’s recent test of its most powerful nuclear bomb.

The missile flew over Japan and landed in the Pacific about 2,000 km (1,240 miles) east of Hokkaido, Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters.

Warning announcements about the missile blared around 7 a.m. (2200 GMT Thursday) in parts of northern Japan, while many residents received alerts on their mobile phones or saw warnings on TV telling them to seek refuge.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis said the launch “put millions of Japanese into duck and cover”, although residents in northern Japan appeared calm and went about their business as normal after the second such launch in less than a month.

The missile reached an altitude of about 770 km (480 miles) and flew for about 19 minutes over a distance of about 3,700 km (2,300 miles), according to South Korea’s military - far enough to reach the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-missiles/north-korea-fires-another-missile-over-japan-deepening-regional-tensions-idUSKCN1BP35B

[apple1]

(I know it's old news now).

Warmbier's parents were on a couple of TV interviews yesterday, and it is just heartbreaking. As a parent myself, I cannot even imagine the grief.

That said - nothing really changed, except I guess it gave them a chance to tell their story a little bit. There is some (at least, in some details) discrepancy between what the parents said and what the Hamilton County (Cincinnati area) coroner had to say. I live in the area, and this coroner has a pretty good reputation. I also think that if an actual autopsy had been performed, more might have been known.

What a devastatingly tragic situation.

[onekidanddone]

On 9/13/2017 at 8:59 AM, samurai_sarah said:

Far from being an expert, worried me asked my S Korean family. They say that N Korea is posturing, and N Korea is "starving again, so send more food". Also, Kim does this kind of shite every year.

NK might do this every year, but I don't trust Trump not to 'bomb us all  back into the stone age'.

[nvmbr02]

Yes, No. Korea hasn't really done or said anything different than past years. All the players are the same and doing what is expected EXCEPT the US and its response. I know my fear is that the US is currently backing No. Korea into a corner, pushing them to make the first move. Really, No. Korea doesn't gain anything by attacking So. Korea, Japan, Guam, etc... And the US can not strike first without causing an issue with China and probably Russia, plus that would also anger a lot of our other allies. But Trump and his nonsense is a wild card that may push No. Korea into believing they have no other options.

Hopefully there is a lot more going on that isn't being reported. 

 

[nvmbr02]

As for the Otto Warmbier situation.... I have such mixed feelings. I have no doubt that No. Korea tortures people and I do believe Otto died because of some type of injury that happened while he was under No. Korean custody. I do think No. Korea is responsible for his death and that they are lying and trying to cover up what happened to him. I also have some doubts on if he did steal the poster in the first place and I think that even if he did steal the poster his sentence (which ended up being a death sentence) was unjust.

But I also feel like his parents are pushing some weird agenda. I know they are grieving their son and they probably feel a lot of anger at both North Korea and the US government (particularly the Obama administration) but the weird praise of the Trump administration who really did nothing to get him released and the new fox interview that seems to tell and embellished story just doesn't make sense. 

[GreyhoundFan]

1 hour ago, nvmbr02 said:

As for the Otto Warmbier situation.... I have such mixed feelings.

I'm right there with you, @nvmbr02. The young man did not deserve to die a horrible death. However, traveling to certain places, like NK, is inherently dangerous and young men especially often don't think rationally before acting. Also, I've only traveled in North America and Europe, but between my travels, talking to people, and reading, I realize that many Americans don't understand that you don't bring your civil liberties with you when you go outside the US. When we lived in Germany, my mom would tell me about the young soldiers in her company who would go out and do dumb things that would have gotten them a slap on the wrist here in the US, but were strictly enforced in Germany. Those guys didn't understand that things aren't necessarily the same everywhere and you have to not only know, but obey the law wherever you are. I love to travel, but I'm always careful and respectful. Of course, it helps that I'm a 50+ year old woman and a bit of a fuddy-duddy.

Back to Otto Warmbier, I understand his parents are grieving, but blaming the Obama administration isn't helpful. It's not like the US government sent Otto to NK. He went of his own accord to a country where we have no diplomatic relations, not that we have many diplomatic relations in the TT era. I can pretty much guarantee you if Otto had been arrested during the TT's presidency, the TT wouldn't have been able to secure his safe release. I feel terrible for the Warmbiers, but going on Faux News won't bring Otto back to life.

[candygirl200413]

@GreyhoundFan, @nvmbr02: I totally feel the same as you, especially when I saw they were on fox news this morning  talking about him which sorry not sorry left a really bad taste in my mouth.

[GrumpyGran]

11 hours ago, candygirl200413 said:

@GreyhoundFan, @nvmbr02: I totally feel the same as you, especially when I saw they were on fox news this morning  talking about him which sorry not sorry left a really bad taste in my mouth.

Ugh, haven't had a lot of time to really check into this so I'm going on what you guys are saying has happened in the last few days. I saw a news show on this just after he was returned and I'm on the fence about whether he stole the poster but if that was him on the video tape he was on a floor of the hotel that was expressly off-limits. The story showed footage some other young travelers had recorded when they snuck onto the floor. It was apparently a 'thing' to do this if you wanted a challenge.

It's hard to imagine that the NK gov't would just randomly arrest some American and hold them for over a year(?) And his parents' attitude seems to reflect an attitude that would lead a 22-year-old to do something stupid because he believed that as an American he was bullet-proof. I've seen this before where parents are just tone-deaf to the reality of the situation when their precious little children are in danger.

[MarblesMom]

On 9/14/2017 at 5:49 AM, samurai_sarah said:

I agree with you, but from what I hear from relatives it's not terribly different from every other year.

This is what I hear from my son in Seoul, every year.  NK whines/threats and someone sends them something and they shut up.

Bigger problem is we have "You Are Fired" living in the WH.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"A gruesome North Korean murder plot: Trial sheds new light on assassination of Kim Jong Un’s brother"

Spoiler

On the morning of Feb. 13, a pudgy, balding middle-aged man approached a self-check-in kiosk in a terminal at Malaysia’s Kuala Lumpur International Airport. As he punched up the information for his AirAsia flight to Macau, nothing would flag him as any different from the other travelers hustling through the busy area.

But his passport was under a pseudonym, Kim Chol. It gave his age as 46. He had tattoos on his chest, arms and back, according to the Associated Press, among them a fire-breathing dragon. He clutched a backpack containing $120,000 in cash, possibly a gift from an American intelligence officer. And he had every reason to be worried about someone trying to kill him.

Still, Kim Jong Nam — the estranged half brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un — did not see his death coming.

While he stood at the kiosk, a young Vietnamese woman in a white shirt emblazoned with “LOL” — “laugh out loud” — stalked up from behind and slipped her hands over his face. She then quickly ran toward a nearby bathroom. A second woman approached and did the same. She also made for a sink in the other direction.

Already, the oily, odorless substance smeared on the exile’s skin was beginning to shut his body down. He died in an ambulance heading for the hospital.

That the North Korean regime would be blamed for the assassination was no surprise. As The Washington Post’s Anna Fifield wrote two days later, the totalitarian government “makes no bones about getting rid of its enemies — sometimes through traditional purges and executions in North Korea, sometimes through mysterious car crashes in a country with almost no traffic. And sometimes with plots that would make James Bond proud.”

This month, a Malaysian judge in Shah Alam, just outside Kuala Lumpur, is hearing details of the assassination of the man once considered the natural heir to the family dynasty. Siti Aisyah, of Indonesia, and Doan Thi Huong, of Vietnam, face the death penalty for their alleged role in the murder, according to Reuters.

Over the course of the trial, prosecutors have laid out one of the more bizarre murder plots in modern political history.

Four North Koreans, suspected government agents with code names such as “Mr. Y” and “Grandpa,” are also accused of being involved. None, however, are in custody. They all took flights out of Kuala Lumpur that morning, via a circuitous journey through Jakarta, Dubai and Russia, to get back to North Korea.

The alleged murder weapon, the substance smeared on Kim Jong Nam’s skin, was no simple poison but VX, a nerve agent banned by international treaty and rarely used today. During the trial, a government chemist testified that a lethal dosage of VX was 0.142 milligrams per kilogram of body weight, as the Straits Times reported.  The concentration found on Kim Jong Nam’s skin was 1.4 times greater than the deadly amount, he testified.

Prosecutors showed the court security footage from the airport that not only caught the bizarre encounter between Kim Jong Nam and his attackers but additional footage linking the two women to the other suspects. Investigator Wan Azirul Nizam Che Wan Aziz told the court the other plotters have been identified only as Mr. Chang, Mr. Y, James and Hanamori, who was also known as “Grandpa” or “Uncle,” according to Reuters.

These four men are accused of recruiting Siti Aisyah and Doan Thi Huong and training them for the encounter. They even ran the women through a practice session at the airport two days before the attack, according to testimony.

In his testimony, Wan Azirul juxtaposed video of the practice session with footage of the actual murder to dispel the idea the defendants were unknowingly involved in the assassination. “She seemed to be anxious,” he said, the AP reported. “From my observation, Doan has been informed and knew what needed to be done. Even though she seemed to be in panic, she knew what to do.”

Aisyah was captured on a security camera meeting at a cafe before the attack with a man in a black baseball cap who was holding a white plastic bag and handed a taxi voucher to her before she left, according to the AP.

Video showed their target, Kim Jong Nam, arriving at the check-in area at Kuala Lumpur International Airport. As he did, a woman identified as Huong approached him, clasped her hands on his face from behind and fled. There was no video showing the second suspect, but police testified that she was the person seen in the video running away, the AP reported.

The investigator also pointed out video showing the suspects rushing into separate bathrooms after the attack, each with their hands outstretched, and then to an airport taxi stand. The state contends that women both ran to wash the nerve agent off after the attack. A government chemist testified that the deadly VX could have been immediately cleaned off by scrubbing and washing without causing harm to the attackers.

It did plenty of damage to their target. According to a pathologist’s report submitted at the trial, VX was found on Kim Jong Nam’s face, in his eyes, in his blood and urine and on his clothing and bag. It did lethal damage to his brain, his lungs, his liver and his spleen. Tests showed that the VX nerve agent inhibited enzyme levels in the victim’s body, causing a breakdown in neurotransmitters that send signals to the brain and muscles.

The suspects say they are not guilty. The women claim they were duped into believing it really was a prank, staged for a reality television show.

But prosecutors argued that their actions indicated both understood they were handling poison, and that traces of a VX byproduct were detected on Huong’s fingernail clippings and on the clothing of both women.

The judge, lawyers and defendants are scheduled to visit the scene of the crime next week.

The proceedings are unfolding as the North Korean leader continues to play a dangerous game of rhetorical chicken with President Trump over nuclear weapons testing. But, as an expert explained to The Washington Post earlier this year, the brazen assassination offers a rare glimpse into Kim Jong Un’s mind-set at a time when world leaders nervously try to anticipate his next move.

“It’s a sign of supreme confidence that he can get away with anything, that he can literally get away with murder,” Alexandre Mansourov, a North Korea leadership expert, told The Post last February.

Kim Jong Nam was the oldest son born to North Korea’s second leader, Kim Jong Il. His mother was an actress, Sung Hye Rim. He grew up bouncing around Europe, including stops in Moscow and Geneva. By the time he returned to Pyongyang in 1988, the heir-apparent was no longer his father’s favorite. Not that it bothered him. As The Post has reported previously, the boy showed little interest in autocratic rule. He eventually settled for exile.

Despite his aversion to politics, The Post reported earlier this year that there had been rumors the more moderate Kim Jong Nam could be a stable successor should his younger brother lose power. “However improbable, there are always rumors that Kim Jong Nam could replace Kim Jong Un as the head of the regime at the behest of China or the U.S.,” a former Central Intelligence Agency analyst told The Post.

As a potential threat to his own power, Kim Jong Un put out a standing assassination order on his half brother as part of a larger bloody purge of possible usurpers. At least two other murder attempts on Kim Jong Nam had failed, the New York Times has reported.

At the Malaysian trial this month, prosecutors described the intricate plot that finally succeeded.

Wow.

[GreyhoundFan]

Lovely, just lovely (end sarcasm): "North Korea’s latest missile launch appears to put Washington, D.C., in range"

Spoiler

TOKYO —  North Korea launched what appears to be another intercontinental ballistic missile, the Pentagon said Tuesday, with experts calculating that Washington, D.C., is now technically within Kim Jong Un’s reach.

The launch, the first in more than two months, is a sign that the North Korean leader is pressing ahead with his nation’s stated goal of being able to strike the United States mainland and is not caving in to the Trump administration’s warnings. The missile notched a longer flight time than any of its predecessors.

“We will take care of it,” President Trump told reporters at the White House after the launch. He called it a “situation we will handle.” 

Trump has repeatedly said that military options are on the table for dealing with North Korea, suggesting that time has run out for a diplomatic solution to the nuclear problem.

A growing chorus of voices in Washington is calling for serious consideration of military action against North Korea, although this is strongly opposed by South Korea, where the Seoul metropolitan region — home to 25 million people — is within North Korean artillery range.

And Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Tuesday that “diplomatic options remain viable and open, for now.” He added, “The United States remains committed to finding a peaceful path to denuclearization and to ending belligerent actions by North Korea.”

The missile launched early Wednesday local time traveled some 620 miles and reached a height of about 2,800 miles before landing off the coast of Japan, flying for a total of 54 minutes. This suggested it had been fired almost straight up — on a “lofted trajectory” similar to North Korea’s two previous intercontinental ballistic missile tests.

The Pentagon said the missile did indeed appear to be an intercontinental ballistic missile, or ICBM. The latest missile “went higher, frankly, than any previous shot they’ve taken,” Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said. He described the launch as part of an effort to build missiles “that can threaten everywhere in the world.”

If it had flown on a standard trajectory designed to maximize its reach, this missile would have a range of more than 8,100 miles, said David Wright, co-director of the global security program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. 

“This is significantly longer than North Korea’s previous long-range tests, which flew on lofted trajectories for 37 minutes and 47 minutes,” Wright said. “Such a missile would have more than enough range to reach Washington, D.C.”

The U.S. capital is 6,850 miles from Pyongyang. The previous long-range test, in July, could have flown 6,500 miles if not on a lofted trajectory, experts said.

... < chart >

Although it may be cold comfort, it is still unlikely that North Korea is capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to the U.S. mainland.

Scientists do not know the weight of the payload the missile carried, but given the increase in range, it seems likely that it carried a very light mock warhead, Wright said. “If true, that means it would not be capable of carrying a nuclear warhead to this long distance, since such a warhead would be much heavier,” he said in a blog post.

But the North Koreans still appear to be in the testing, rather than the operational stage, said Markus Schiller, a German aerospace engineer who specializes in missiles. 

“If they are serious about their missile program, they have to launch from time to time, and at different times of the day and in different weather,” he said.

Schiller said that North Korea still has a way to go with its missile program. “Perhaps they can hit Washington, D.C., with this, but they can’t fight a war with it,” he said.

The missile was launched just before 3 a.m. Wednesday local time from the western part of North Korea.

Japan’s Defense Ministry said it landed in waters inside Japan’s exclusive economic zone, off the coast of Aomori prefecture. The coast guard told ships to watch for falling debris, and the Japanese government condemned the launch.

South Korea’s military conducted a “precision strike” missile launch exercise in response, the South’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said.

The South Korean and Japanese governments both convened emergency national security council meetings, and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said such launches “cannot be tolerated.”

Although it was the first North Korean missile launch in more than two months, there had been signs that the North was making preparations. The Japanese government had detected radio signals suggesting that North Korea might be preparing for a ballistic missile launch, Kyodo News reported Monday, citing government sources.

Pyongyang has been working to fit a nuclear warhead to a missile capable of reaching the U.S. mainland, a weapon it says it needs to protect itself from a “hostile” Washington. It has made rapid progress this year, firing two intercontinental ballistic missiles in July, the second of which was technically capable of reaching as far as Denver or Chicago, or possibly even New York.

A senior South Korean official said Tuesday that North Korea could announce next year that it has completed its nuclear weapons program.

“North Korea has been developing its nuclear weapons at a faster-than-expected pace. We cannot rule out the possibility that North Korea could announce its completion of a nuclear force within one year,” Cho Myoung-gyon, the unification minister, who is in charge of the South’s relations with the North, told foreign reporters in Seoul.

Kim Jong Un opened 2017 with a New Year’s address announcing that North Korea had “entered the final stage of preparation for the test launch of intercontinental ballistic missile.”

After its most recent missile launch, an intermediate-range missile that flew over the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido on Sept. 15 , North Korea said it was seeking military “equilibrium” with the United States as a way to stop American leaders from talking about military options for dealing with Pyongyang.

That was the  second launch over Japan in less than three weeks and came less than two weeks after North Korea exploded what was widely believed to be a hydrogen bomb.

But despite an increase in tensions over the past two months, including a U.S. Navy three-carrier strike group conducting military exercises in the sea between Japan and the Korean Peninsula, 74 days had passed without any missile launches by the North. 

That was the longest pause all year, according to Shea Cotton, a research associate at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey, Calif. The pause had raised hopes that North Korea might be showing interest in returning to talks about its nuclear program.

In a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations late last month, Joseph Yun, the State Department’s special representative for North Korea policy, said that if North Korea went 60 days without testing a missile or a nuclear weapon, it could be a sign that Pyongyang was open to dialogue.

 

[Howl]

Let us try to wrap our minds around the fact that Trump has not yet appointed an ambassador to South Korea.  Back in August, there were many articles stating that Victor Cha (Korean-American and an academic) would be appointed, but since then, crickets.  

Hello, Rex Tillerson?  And what's up with that guy anyway?  Dept of State is being gutted and he seems like a total asshole. My husband had high hopes for him early on. 

[GreyhoundFan]

"North Korea has shown us its new missile, and it’s scarier than we thought"

Spoiler

TOKYO — A day after its latest intercontinental ballistic missile launch, North Korea released photos of what it’s calling the “Hwasong-15.” And the collective response from missile experts was — not to get too technical — whoa.

The missile and its launcher truck  do, at first blush, appear to support North Korea’s claim that this missile is much more technologically advanced than previous iterations.

Although there is still much that can’t be gleaned from the photos and North Korea does have an inglorious record of exaggeration, analysts generally agree that the Hwasong-15 marks a significant leap forward in North Korea’s missile development.

“This is a really big missile, much larger than I expected,” said Scott LaFoy, an imagery analyst for the specialist website NK News. “I believe one of my professors would have referred to it as a big honking missile.”

... < tweet >

Several analysts noted that the missile looked like the American Titan II, which was initially an ICBM but was then later used by the U.S. Air Force and NASA as a space launch vehicle.

... < tweet >

So, to break down what the initial pictures show:

The truck

The transporter erecter launcher, or TEL, has nine axles, making it one axle longer than the TEL used to launch the previous iteration of the intercontinental ballistic missile. North Korea claims to have made these trucks itself but analysts believe they are modified versions or based on the Chinese lumber truck, the WS51200.

For some perspective, this is what it looks like next to Kim Jong Un. The tires are nearly as tall as he is.

... < tweet >

“We've seen heavy vehicle extensions before but this would this would be a very large step forward for their heavy vehicles industry,” said LaFoy, estimating that the truck was about twice as long as an American school bus. “We know that this is pretty difficult. It took China a while to figure this out.”

The nose cone

The nose cone of the Hwasong-15 is much blunter than of the previous iteration, the Hwasong-14. This is likely an effort to slow down the missile slightly as it screams through the atmosphere, which lowers the heat inside the missile and means that the warhead doesn’t have to withstand quite as much variation in temperature during flight.

This might be an effort to overcome issues with the reentry vehicle — the part of the missile that protects the warhead during launch and brings it back into the Earth’s atmosphere. This is one of the parts of the missile that North Korea has not yet proven it has mastered.

... < tweet >

The size of the nose cone and re-entry vehicle on the Hwasong-15 supports North Korea’s claim that the missile can carry a “super large heavy warhead.” But experts think the missile tested this week was carrying a light, mock warhead.

The Hwasong-14 and 15 missiles are likely to have carried only very small payloads, which exaggerate the range that a North Korean missile can fly, said Michael Elleman, senior fellow for missile defense at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Basically, the heavier the warhead, the shorter the distance it can travel.

If the Hwasong-15 was fitted with a half-ton payload and flown on a standard trajectory, it could probably fly about 5,300 miles, Elleman wrote for 38 North, a website devoted to North Korea, meaning that a 600 kilogram (1,320 pound) payload “barely reaches Seattle.”

Still, with its publication of this huge reentry vehicle, Kim’s regime is clearly signaling that this is their ultimate goal.

ENGINES

The first stage of the Hwasong-15 — the bottom part that propels it off the launcher, sometimes called the “booster” — has two engines. “We’re trying to figure out what those may be and how powerful they are,” said David Wright of the Union of Concerned Scientists.

... < tweet >

But the second stage looks like it can carry more than twice as much propellant as the Hwasong-14, since it is longer and has a larger diameter, Wright said. “The combination of those two things means it really is a new, more capable missile.”

The addition of two engines doubled the second stage thrust and allows the missile to reach a higher peak altitude, Elleman said. This missile reached a height of about 2,800 miles — or ten times as high as the International Space Station.

Steering

The Hwasong-14 had only one nozzle and it used four vernier engines to steer the missile. But the newly unveiled Hwasong-15 has two nozzles and no verniers. That suggests the missile is steered by gimbaling, a more advanced way to control the missile.

“This is a sort of maneuvering which is pretty fancy. You lose the least thrust that way,” LaFoy said. “We knew they’d get there eventually but we didn’t think the North Koreans were there yet.”

... < tweet >

Scary stuff.

[AmazonGrace]

 

[fraurosena]

33 minutes ago, AmazonGrace said:

 

Well of course they are! How else will they distract from the debacle that's going to happen this weekend?

[fraurosena]

This is so true. People would do well to realize this.

He's playing right into Un's hands... 

(I have to laugh every time I hear that name: it's literally pronounced the same way as the Dutch word for idiot - 'oen')

[LeftCoastLurker]

But parades!  They’ll probably throw a yuuuge one for him!

[Howl]

38 minutes ago, LeftCoastLurker said:

But parades!  They’ll probably throw a yuuuge one for him!

Brilliant point!  And there won't be any yuuuuuge  and distasteful anti-Trump demonstrations like you might get in a backwards, uncivilized country like, uh, Britain, for example.