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Post by Admin on Apr 20, 2017 18:30:18 GMT
A 38 North exclusive with analysis by Joseph S. Bermudez Jr., Jack Liu and Frank Pabian. After almost eight weeks of elevated activity at the Punggye-ri Nuclear Test Site, commercial satellite imagery from April 16 indicates little activity around the North Portal, the tunnel that North Korea appears to have been preparing for another nuclear test. Imagery does show what may be three volleyball games underway at different locations throughout the facility, and possibly another volleyball net set up at the command center area.[1] At the North Portal, the pumping of water out of the tunnel to maintain an optimal environment for instrumentation and stemming seems to have ceased. This could mean that the tunnel has been completely sealed or that the North may have installed drainage pipes instead of using open ditches. The vehicles or trailers that were previously observed near the portal or on nearby roads are gone. Three mining carts are present on the spoil pile and there appears to have been some minor dumping of material there in the past few days.
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Post by Admin on Apr 22, 2017 18:58:16 GMT
When Vice President Pence spoke at the Korean demilitarized zone on Monday, he said that the United States sought to solve the North Korean crisis “through peaceable means and negotiations,” after increasing pressure on the Pyongyang regime. But in an interview with me on Wednesday afternoon, he adopted a harder line: The Trump administration, he said, demands that North Korea abandon its nuclear and ballistic missile programs without any promise of direct negotiations with the United States. This change in message, if translated into a firm policy of not negotiating with North Korea, could have huge implications. If the United States is unwilling to negotiate with North Korea, and the regime is unwilling to abandon its nuclear and missile programs based on pressure alone, the prospect of the United States using military action to prevent North Korea from developing the capability to strike the continental United States becomes more likely. Also, the Trump administration could open a gap with its key allies as well as China, who all anticipate an eventual return to something akin to the previous multilateral negotiations with Pyongyang. “I think the path of negotiations with North Korea has been a colossal failure now for more than 25 years,” Pence told me. “We believe that through discussions and negotiations among nations apart from North Korea that we may well be able to bring the kind of economic and diplomatic pressure that would result in North Korea finally abandoning its nuclear ambitions and its ballistic missile program.”
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Post by Admin on Apr 24, 2017 19:09:04 GMT
An American citizen has been detained in North Korea as he tried to leave the country, South Korean media say. The man was identified only by his surname, Kim. He becomes the third American to be detained by the North; one has been sentenced for spying, the other for trying to steal a sign from a hotel. The latest detention comes amid high tension on the peninsula, with the US warning its "strategic patience" on the North's nuclear programme is over. A US naval battle group headed by an aircraft carrier, the USS Carl Vinson, and described by President Donald Trump as an "armada", is expected to reach the Korean peninsula later in the week.
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Post by Admin on Apr 28, 2017 18:54:57 GMT
President Trump said Thursday that a "major, major" conflict is possible between the U.S. and North Korea amid heightened tensions over Pyongyang's nuclear and missile program. "There is a chance that we could end up having a major, major conflict with North Korea. Absolutely," Trump told Reuters. Tensions rose between the U.S. and North Korea earlier this month when the U.S. announced that it would send a Navy strike group into the west Pacific near the Korean Peninsula amid increasing concern over the reclusive regime's nuclear weapons program. North Korea quickly denounced the naval movement as an act of aggression and threatened a nuclear strike on the U.S. if provoked. Since then, the two countries have hurled sweeping declarations at each other over North Korea's nuclear capabilities, while military signals have put U.S. allies in the region on high alert.
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Post by Admin on Apr 30, 2017 18:19:14 GMT
President Donald Trump would not rule out the use of military force against North Korea in an interview on CBS's "Face the Nation" on Saturday, just hours after Pyongyang launched a missile test in defiance of international pressure.
Trump downplayed the significance of North Korea's "small missile launch," which occurred early in the day. But when asked by host John Dickerson if he would consider military action in response to another nuclear test, Trump responded: "I don't know. I mean, we'll see."
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