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Post by Admin on Mar 28, 2020 23:00:18 GMT
North Korea appears to be expanding a key rocket launch facility it once pledged to dismantle, according to new satellite imagery shared exclusively with NPR. The imagery, taken by commercial company Planet and shared via the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, shows new roads under construction at the Sohae Satellite Launching Station. Sohae has been used in the past by North Korea to conduct satellite launches and test powerful engines for its long-range missiles. Parts of the facility were dismantled following a 2018 summit in Singapore between President Trump and North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un. Kim promised to fully dismantle the site in the presence of international inspectors if a deal could be reached. Following a breakdown in diplomacy, key parts of Sohae were rebuilt, and last year, the site was used to conduct missile engine tests. Now, satellite imagery shows new roads in a long-abandoned section of the site, according to Dave Schmerler, a senior research associate with the Middlebury Institute. "We're seeing roadwork that would facilitate the possible addition of new structures," he says. The exact nature of the expansion remains unclear, but Schmerler says any changes at Sohae are important. "It's a site that hasn't seen a lot of physical construction activity in a long time," he says. "The site was supposed to be shut down — apparently it's not," says Vipin Narang, an arms control researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who follows North Korea's program. "It's hard to know what it is, but they're clearly reactivating it and preparing for personnel to be there, which suggests that they may want to start using it again," Narang says. "Maybe they want to test a satellite launch vehicle; maybe they want to test an ICBM; maybe they want to test an engine." He says the news about changes at Sohae aren't surprising given that Trump and Kim never reached a deal and that diplomacy between North Korea and the U.S. appears to be "in a coma." Narang speculates that the decision to make changes to the site in the middle of the global coronavirus pandemic might not be a coincidence. With the world's attention elsewhere, "it's good opportunity to do the stuff behind the scenes to expand and improve," he says.
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Post by Admin on Apr 19, 2020 19:08:11 GMT
ship-to-ship transfer of coal near the Chinese port of Lianyungang. Photograph: United Nations/Reuters North Korea sharply stepped up trade in coal and oil products last year in defiance of UN sanctions through the apparent help of China’s shipping industry, a UN panel has said. The annual report to the UN Security Council by sanctions experts went online on Friday and inexplicably disappeared later in the day, with the text itself noting China’s reservations about the findings. Publishing photographs, shipping logs and submissions from member-states, the panel said that North Korea had violated the total UN prohibition on exporting coal, as well as restrictions on imports of refined petroleum. “The continued violation by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea of commodity export bans not only flouts security council resolutions but serves to fund a revenue stream that has historically contributed to the country’s prohibited nuclear and ballistic missile programs,” the report said. The panel, quoting data from an unspecified country, estimated that North Korea exported 3.7m tons of coal between January and August last year, grossing around $370m. Most coal exports were transferred from North Korean ships to Chinese barges, which often sailed up the Yangtze River to make deliveries, it said. In a new development, North Korea has also been spotted sending coal into the ocean for pick-up on self-propelled barges that are easier to evade detection, the report said.
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Post by Admin on May 24, 2020 20:09:09 GMT
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un hosted a military meeting to discuss new policies to bolster the country's nuclear capabilities amid stalled denuclearisation talks with the United States, state media KCNA said on Sunday. The meeting of the ruling Workers' Party's powerful Central Military Commission marked Kim's first public appearance in three weeks. He made an unusually small number of outings in the past two months amid coronavirus concerns. North Korea has imposed strict anti-coronavirus measures, although it has said it has no confirmed cases. The appearance followed intense speculation about Kim's health last month after he missed a key anniversary. US-led negotiations aimed at dismantling North Korea's nuclear and missile programmes have made little progress since late last year, especially after the global fight against the coronavirus began. The meeting discussed measures to bolster armed forces and "reliably contain the persistent big or small military threats from the hostile forces", KCNA said.
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Post by Admin on Jun 17, 2020 18:48:57 GMT
Metaphor is officially dead, another casualty of 2020. North Korea’s Kim Jong-un wants to signal to his counterparts in Seoul and Washington that he will blow up what’s left of their relationships unless his regime receives more concessions, so … he has literally blown up the liaison office, built and paid for by South Korea, that sat in the demilitarized zone between the two Koreas. No one was hurt, thankfully; South Korean officials have not worked in the office for months because of coronavirus restrictions. As the International Crisis Group’s Duyeon Kim told Bloomberg, “We should remember that the liaison office was essentially already dead, so, if there’s a real problem, then it’s for South Korean taxpayers.” But, of course, the previous demise of North-South rapprochement is a very real problem. In recent weeks, Kim Jong-un and his sister Kim Yo-jong have trained their public anger on Seoul for allowing private citizen activists to launch balloons across the border carrying accounts of the rulers’ misdeeds. But that’s been happening for well over a decade. It seems likely that what Pyongyang is really upset about is that Seoul continues to adhere to U.N. and U.S.-led sanctions. Net economic activity between the two countries has actually declined in recent years and, with more restrictions due to coronavirus, the North is hurting badly. South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in was elected in 2017 promising to seek improved relations with the North. He hoped (not that he had much choice, since he wasn’t consulted first) that President Trump’s peace initiative-by-photo-op would turn into a sustained process that would allow the South to relax some sanctions and stabilize the North’s weak economy. But Trump’s North Korea peace drive, like the Wicked of the East from the Wizard of Oz, is not merely dead, but “really most sincerely dead.” We are only a few days past the two-year anniversary of the first Trump-Kim meeting, though it feels like a lifetime ago. Today Americans are dealing with coronavirus, economic collapse, the 2020 presidential campaign, and the fight for racial justice – who has time to think about Trump’s failed summer romance with a foreign dictator? Even foreign affairs nerds are distracted by Trump administration plans to pull U.S. troops out of Germany (and into Poland); get back into the Iran Deal (in order to declare it dead again and impose more sanctions on Tehran); and set aside $10 million in case the U.S. suddenly needs to test a nuclear weapon (after 30 years of leading a global ban on doing so). Oh, and then there’s Israel preparing to annex parts of the Palestinian-held West Bank, the Saudis bombing Yemen some more, and China undermining civil liberties in Hong Kong. Remember those crises? Remember that the Trump administration allegedly had plans to manage or prevent each one? Apparently Trump won’t be receiving “very beautiful” letters from Kim anymore – all Pyongyang sends now are reminders of its still-growing arsenal of nuclear weapons capable of targeting U.S. allies, troops, and territory. In some ways, the current scenario is very familiar. For decades, North Korea has resorted to taking very aggressive, targeted actions to re-focus the attention of Washington and the world on its capabilities and demands. Through Pyongyang’s eyes, its current interlocutors are vulnerable. South Korea’s President Moon was elected promising breakthroughs with the North, and his country is now bracing for a possible second wave of coronavirus infections. Some analysts have suggested that Kim believes he has a better chance of extracting concessions from President Trump before the November election than from Joe Biden afterwards. It seems unlikely that North Korea’s return to bullying tactics will yield anything but more fear and instability. With Trump facing a difficult reelection fight and various domestic crises, his administration is in no position to carefully negotiate a deal with North Korea. Any deal with Pyongyang, moreover, requires at least the acquiescence and ideally the active involvement of China. And Beijing is busy with its own possible renewed coronavirus outbreak, tamping out the flames of democracy in Hong Kong, and – in a truly worrying development – occupying disputed territory along its border with India, apparently killing Indian soldiers for the first time in decades. The days of Trump shooting for big, beautiful deals are over. The best we can hope for between now and January 2021 is that his administration will manage to anticipate and defuse international conflicts before they explode into yet another crisis.
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Post by Admin on Jun 23, 2020 19:13:54 GMT
North Korea’s embassy in Moscow has threatened to use its nation’s nuclear weapons against the United States in what they claim would be “a particularly sensational event,” a Russian state-owned news agency reports. The reporting comes from the TASS news agency, a state-owned wire service known largely as a propaganda outlet for the Kremlin, which claims the embassy sent them the threat in the form of a statement over the weekend. The agency quotes the embassy as stating, “This year, the U.S. military has been carrying out various kinds of military maneuvers in South Korea and its vicinity with the purpose of striking North Korea quickly.” “A new round of the Korean War will add a particularly sensational event to the history of mankind, which will put an end to another empire, whose name is the United States,” it continues. While the statement has not been reported elsewhere, it was released in the days ahead of the 70th anniversary of the start of the Korean War. The war began on June 25, 1950, when Chinese- and Soviet-backed forces from the North invaded the South. Within weeks, the US engaged in the conflict on behalf of the South, arguing it was a fight against communism on the international stage. The Hermit Kingdom has been vocal in recent days about its efforts to go after its enemy to the south, using its own state-run news agency to announce it is amassing a pile of anti-South propaganda leaflets “as big as a mountain.”
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