How Kim Jong-un would escape in caves if a nuclear war occurs A NORTH Korea expert has revealed how Kim Jong-un could flee, warning he could be harder to find than Osama bin Laden. news.com.au 8 Set 17 Sam Webb, Grant Rollings and Martin Phillips, The Sun NORTH Korean dictator Kim Jong-un will escape to a vast complex of underground tunnels if a nuclear war breaks out — with a huge supply of his favourite cheese.
And a military expert says that if the brutal leader of the Stalinist regime does go underground he will be harder to take out than 9/11 terror mastermind Osama bin Laden………
September 9, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
North Korea, politics |
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North Korea nuclear test site experiencing landslides: researchers, https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/world/north-korea-nuclear-test-site-experiencing-landslides-researchers-20170907-gycjvb.html, By William Broad, New York: Analysts peering at satellite images of North Korea after the latest nuclear test on Sunday, report they have spotted many landslides and wide disturbances at the country’s test site, in the North’s mountainous wilds. Tunnels for the nuclear blasts are deep inside Mount Mantap, a mile-high peak.
“These disturbances are more numerous and widespread than what we have seen from any of the five tests North Korea previously conducted,” three experts wrote in an analysis for 38 North, a website run by the US-Korea Institute of the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.
Early readings from global networks that monitor shock waves suggest that the nuclear blast on Sunday had a destructive power equal to 120,000 tons of high explosives. If correct, that is roughly six times more powerful than the North’s test of September 2016, and eight times larger than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.
The new satellite images of the Punggye-ri nuclear test site were taken Monday, the day after the nuclear detonation. Planet, a company in San Francisco that owns swarms of tiny satellites, reconnoitered the secretive nuclear test site.
The three analysts, Frank Pabian, Joseph Bermudez jnr and Jack Liu, said the wide disturbances appeared to include numerous landslides throughout the rugged site “and beyond”.
They added that they could find no evidence of a surface crater that would have formed if the cavern carved out within the mountain by the blast’s violence and high temperatures had suddenly collapsed.
Sunday’s underground test resulted in two earthquakes, with other analysts suggesting the second could have been a tunnel collapse.
t comes as a nuclear scientist said the mountain could collapse due to the impact of five underground nuclear tests at the same Punggye-ri site, on the southern side of Mount Mantap. China Institute of Atomic Energy’s Wang Naiyan said it could cause an environmental disaster as “many bad things” could leak out.
September 9, 2017
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North Korea, safety |
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Kim’s Nukes Aren’t a Bargaining Chip. They’re an Insurance Policy Climb into the North Korean dictator’s mind, and you can see that his aim isn’t to destroy Los Angeles but to save his regime. Bloomberg Michael Schuman, 7 Sept 17,
North Korea looks pretty scary at the moment, firing off missile after missile, threatening to target Guam, and, on Sept. 3, testing what the regime claims was its first hydrogen bomb. And the country’s dictator, Kim Jong Un—so ruthless he may have had members of his own family murdered—might be just crazy enough to push the button to initiate a catastrophic war.
Or maybe not. Look deeper, and you’ll find a North Korea that isn’t as much of an immediate danger to the U.S. as the headlines and rhetoric suggest. That’s because Pyongyang isn’t very likely to use its nukes and missiles against the U.S.—or anyone else.
Don’t get me wrong: North Korea still presents a huge
security risk to East Asia and the world. Kim’s neighbors include three of the world’s 11 largest economies and two of America’s closest allies, Japan and South Korea. No U.S. president would want to see Pyongyang lob a missile into Tokyo or Seoul, let alone Hawaii.
But climb into the mind of Kim—as terrifying as that may sound—and we can conclude that his aim isn’t to destroy Los Angeles but to save his own skin. This is a regime that was never expected to still be around in 2017. When the Berlin Wall came down and the Soviet Union unraveled more than a quarter century ago, North Korea was supposed to vanish with them. The regime has since outlasted economic and political isolation, stiff international sanctions, and famines so severe that they may have claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. But through it all, the Pyongyang government has persisted. That speaks to the cunning of the Kim family, which has lorded over the country since its founding by the current Kim’s granddaddy in 1948. They’re survivors.
And that’s what Kim is striving to do today: survive. He’s not out to conquer the world or even expand his influence in his own neighborhood. Kim and the
Pyongyang elite must recognize that the odds are against them and their backs are to the wall. …….
Here’s where the nukes come into play. Pyongyang believes they’re the best, and possibly only, deterrent against evaporation, absorption, or annihilation. That’s why the regime has never been truly willing to trade its nuclear program for other benefits—something Washington has tried to do since the 1990s. The nukes aren’t a bargaining chip. They’re an insurance policy.
Yet the very same weakness that drives Kim’s mania for nuclear weapons is why he can never use them, at least not as an aggressor. As President Trump has already warned, any such attack would be met by “fire and fury.” That comment was irresponsible, but the point is true nevertheless. Kim likely isn’t delusional enough to think his country could survive an all-out war with the U.S. and its allies. Proactively launching a nuclear-topped ballistic missile against the U.S. would mean his own destruction. That’s why it won’t happen. The U.S. Defense Department in its 2015 report said that even though the country remains a continuing threat, “North Korea is unlikely to attack on a scale that would risk regime survival.”
If we see Pyongyang’s motivations in this light, the policy course the Trump administration is taking is all wrong. Threats of fire and fury will only make Kim more paranoid and more certain that he needs nukes to defend himself or deter an aggressive Washington—……
At this stage, with Kim already in possession of nukes and maybe the ability to deliver them, the only viable option for Washington is to accept this reality and deal with Pyongyang as it does with any of the world’s other nuclear powers. This may sound terribly distasteful, and the course presents its own risks—mainly, that North Korea’s neighbors, especially Japan and South Korea, will feel the need for nuclear weapons of their own, leading to a regionwide, potentially destabilizing arms race. Washington would also have to work hard to ensure Pyongyang doesn’t spread its know-how to other rogue states or terrorist organizations that might be less wary of using it—such as Islamic State.
But the U.S. has successfully dealt with the appearance of other nuclear powers, whether China, India, or Pakistan, and it may have to do so again, this time by containing the North Korean threat instead of attempting to eliminate it. ……https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-07/kim-s-nukes-aren-t-a-bargaining-chip-they-re-an-insurance-policy
September 9, 2017
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How the nuclear-armed nations brought the North Korea crisis on themselves https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/05/nuclear-armed-nations-brought-the-north-korea-crisis-on-themselves
Failure to honour terms of the 1970 nuclear non-proliferation treaty has helped create ground for Kim Jong-un’s recklessness, Guardian, Simon Tisdall, 5 Sept 17, North Korea’s defiant pursuit of nuclear weapons capabilities, dramatised by last weekend’s powerful underground test and a recent long-range ballistic missile launch over Japan, has been almost universally condemned as posing a grave, unilateral threat to international peace and security.
The growing North Korean menace also reflects the chronic failure of multilateral counter-proliferation efforts and, in particular, the longstanding refusal of acknowledged nuclear-armed states such as the US and Britain to honour a legal commitment to reduce and eventually eliminate their arsenals.
In other words, the past and present leaders of the US, Russia, China, France and the UK, whose governments signed but have not fulfilled the terms of the 1970 nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT), have to some degree brought the North Korea crisis on themselves. Kim Jong-un’s recklessness and bad faith is a product of their own.
The NPT, signed by 191 countries, is probably the most successful arms control treaty ever. When conceived in 1968, at the height of the cold war, the mass proliferation of nuclear weapons was considered a real possibility. Since its inception and prior to North Korea, only India, Pakistan and Israel are known to have joined the nuclear “club” in almost half a century.
To work fully, the NPT relies on keeping a crucial bargain: non-nuclear-armed states agree never to acquire the weapons, while nuclear-armed states agree to share the benefits of peaceful nuclear technology and pursue nuclear disarmament with the ultimate aim of eliminating them. This, in effect, was the guarantee offered to vulnerable, insecure outlier states such as North Korea. The guarantee was a dud, however, and the bargain has never been truly honoured.
Rather than reducing their nuclear arsenals, the US, Russia and China have modernised and expanded them. Britain has eliminated some of its capability, but it is nevertheless renewing and updating Trident. France clings fiercely to its “force de frappe”. Altogether, the main nuclear-weapon states have an estimated 22,000 nuclear bombs. A report by the non-governmental British-American Security Information Council in May said nuclear security was getting worse.
“The need for nuclear disarmament through multilateral diplomacy is greater now than it has been at any stage since the end of the cold war. Trust and confidence in the existing nuclear non-proliferation regime is fraying, tensions are high, goals are misaligned and dialogue is irregular,” the report said.
“Internationally, relationships between the nuclear-weapon states have deteriorated, in particular between the US and Russia, and to some extent, China … All nuclear-armed states are modernising their nuclear forces, at a worldwide cost of $1tn per decade … Attention tends to be focused on specific cases of proliferation concern, such as North Korea and Iran, at the expense of the bigger picture.”
Multilateral forums for advancing nuclear disarmament are in crisis. The next NPT review conference is not due until 2020. Like its 2015 predecessor, it is not expected to achieve much. The UN-backed conference on disarmament, which helped produce conventions banning biological and chemical weapons and initiated the 1996 comprehensive test ban treaty, is politically polarised and struggling to agree key measures such as a fissile material cut-off treaty.
Meanwhile, as South Korea and Japan consider acquiring nuclear weapons, Donald Trump appears irrationally determined to scrap one of the few recent arms control successes – the landmark 2015 nuclear deal with Iran.
There has been one big breakthrough this year, the under-reported adoption by 122 countries at the UN in July of a new treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons, which envisages an outright ban on the use of all nukes. It has, however, been potentially fatally undermined by a boycott by the nuclear powers. The US, Britain and France declared, cynically as critics saw it, that they preferred to stick with the never-ending NPT route to disarmament. “This initiative clearly disregards the realities of the international security environment,” they said in a joint statement.
The ineffectiveness of current arms control and counter-proliferation efforts has helped to create an environment in which North Korea, allegedly using smuggled, Russian-designed ballistic missile engines, is rapidly advancing its nuclear ambitions with apparent impunity, at great risk to international stability.
Multilateral arms control failures also mean the Korean “solution” Trump talks about with increasing frequency – the use of preventive military action, notwithstanding its illegality under international law – could, if applied, spell the end of deterrence and the beginning of an unchecked global nuclear arms race.
September 6, 2017
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North Korea nuclear crisis: Putin warns of planetary catastrophe As Kim Jong-un reportedly prepares further missile launch, Russian president says further sanctions would be ‘useless’, Guardian, Justin McCurry in Tokyo and Tom Phillips in Beijing, 6 Sept 17, The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has warned that the escalating North Korean crisis could cause a “planetary catastrophe” and huge loss of life, and described US proposals for further sanctions on Pyongyang as “useless”.
“Ramping up military hysteria in such conditions is senseless; it’s a dead end,” he told reporters in China. “It could lead to a global, planetary catastrophe and a huge loss of human life. There is no other way to solve the North Korean nuclear issue, save that of peaceful dialogue.”
On Sunday, North Korea carried out its sixth and by far its most powerful nuclear test to date. The underground blast triggered a magnitude-6.3 earthquake and was more powerful than the bombs dropped by the US on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the second world war.
Putin was attending the Brics summit, bringing together the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Speaking on Tuesday, the final day of the summit in Xiamen, China, he said Russia condemned North Korea’s provocations but said further sanctions would be useless and ineffective, describing the measures as a “road to nowhere”.
Foreign interventions in Iraq and Libya had convinced the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, that he needed nuclear weapons to survive, Putin said.
“We all remember what happened with Iraq and Saddam Hussein. His children were killed, I think his grandson was shot, the whole country was destroyed and Saddam Hussein was hanged … We all know how this happened and people in North Korea remember well what happened in Iraq.
“They will eat grass but will not stop their [nuclear] programme as long as they do not feel safe.” …….https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/05/south-korea-minister-redeploying-us-nuclear-weapons-tensions-with-north
September 6, 2017
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North Korea, politics international, Russia |
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Kim Jong-un’s North Korea nuclear test mountain may collapse, let out ‘many bad things’, SMH SEPTEMBER 6 2017 Beijing: North Korea has conducted all of its underground nuclear tests beneath one mountain, Chinese scientists believe, prompting one to express concern the mountain may collapse, causing an environmental disaster.
“We call it taking the roof off,” the China Institute of Atomic Energy’s Wang Naiyan told the South China Morning Post.
geophysicists from the University of Science and Technology of China have examined seismograph records and say Sunday’s underground nuclear test by North Korea was the fifth nuclear bomb to be exploded at the same mountain at Punggye-ri.
Professor Wen Lianxing from the university’s Key Laboratory of Earthquake and Earth Physics said nuclear explosions were previously staged at the mountain in September 2016, January 2016, February 2013 and May 2009.
The researchers used satellite images and seismic data from 112 Chinese seismic bureaus in their study, which gave the positions of the tests accurate to within 100 metres, according to a statement published on the university’s website……http://www.smh.com.au/world/kim-jonguns-north-korea-nuclear-test-mountain-may-collapse-let-out-many-bad-things-20170905-gyb8dp.html
September 6, 2017
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Pyongyang issue new threats against the US http://www.skynews.com.au/news/politics/international/2017/09/06/pyongyang-issue-new-threats-against-the-us.html, 6 September 2017 Amid international uproar over North Korea’s latest and biggest nuclear weapons test, one of its top diplomats says it’s ready to send ‘more gift packages’ to the United States.
Han Tae Song, ambassador of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) to the UN in Geneva, on Tuesday addressed the UN-sponsored Conference on Disarmament two days after his country detonated its sixth nuclear test explosion.
‘I am proud of saying that just two days ago on the 3rd of September, DPRK successfully carried out a hydrogen bomb test for intercontinental ballistic rocket under its plan for building a strategic nuclear force,’ Han told the Geneva forum.
‘The recent self-defence measures by my country, DPRK, are a ‘gift package’ addressed to none other than the US,’ Han said. ‘The US will receive more ‘gift packages’ from my country as long as its relies on reckless provocations and futile attempts to put pressure on the DPRK,’ he added without elaborating.
Military measures being taken by North Korea were ‘an exercise of restraint and justified self-defence right’ to counter ‘the ever-growing and decade-long US nuclear threat and hostile policy aimed at isolating my country’.
US disarmament ambassador Robert Wood said North Korea had defied the international community once again with its test.
‘It can no longer be business as usual with this regime.’
The White House said on Monday President Donald Trump had agreed ‘in principle’ to scrap a warhead weight limit on South Korea’s missiles in the wake of the North’s latest test.
The United States accused North Korea’s trading partners of aiding its nuclear ambitions and said Pyongyang was ‘begging for war’. Russia’s UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said on Tuesday that a US aim for the United Nations Security Council to vote on Monday on new sanctions on North Korea over its latest nuclear test is ‘a little premature’.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Japanese Prime Minister spoke by telephone on Tuesday and agreed that sanctions against Pyongyang should be stepped up.
‘She agreed with Prime Minister Abe that North Korea’s latest nuclear test threatened the security of the entire world and that this massive violation of the UN Security Council’s resolution must result in a resolute reaction from the international community as well as tougher sanctions,’ spokesman Steffen Seibert said.
September 6, 2017
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North Korea’s Nuclear Arsenal Threatens China’s Path to Power, NYT, By JANE PERLEZ, SEPT. 5, 2017 “………China has made little secret of its long-term goal to replace the United States as the major power in Asia and assume what it considers its rightful position at the center of the fastest-growing, most dynamic region in the world.
September 6, 2017
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Robin des Bois 30th Aug 2017, Within a few days, unless an accident occurs, the Pacific Egret will enter the North Korean missile influence area. The Pacific Egret carries 8 tons of MOX, a nuclear fuel made in France containing 8 to 10% of plutonium mixed with enriched uranium.
This civil bomb left the French port of Cherbourg on July 5, 2017. After having sailed down the Atlantic Ocean, passed off South Africa, crossed the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean, the MOX is expected to be unloaded in the small private port of the Japanese nuclear power plant in Takahama, facing North Korea.
Once again, the French government, Areva and the Nuclear Safety Authority have taken the irresponsible risk of permitting and undertaking a nuclear expedition bound for an unsteady zone in all political, geological and climatic respects. http://www.robindesbois.org/en/moxquitue-n2/
September 6, 2017
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North Korea: What can actually be done to deal with a nuclear Pyongyang? http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09-03/north-korea-is-it-time-to-accept-it-will-remain-a-nuclear-threat/8868138, ANALYSIS By chief foreign correspondent Philip Williams, From the first tweak of the seismograph it was clear this was no ordinary tremor — it signalled the most powerful bomb of all.
The North Korean TV newsreader announced with a flourish this was the state’s first hydrogen bomb.If that now means Pyongyang has the weapon and the delivery system that could wipe out a Los Angeles, a San Francisco or a Sydney in a flash, then the world is now a different place.
Nuclear weapons are supposed to be a deterrent — make yourself so dangerous no-one will ever dare challenge you — and it is a fact that barring some Scuds aimed at Israel during the 1991 Gulf War and some border skirmishes between China and Vietnam and India and Pakistan, no nuclear-armed state has ever faced a serious attack by another country.
Clearly the thinking for three generations of Kim is that the regime is made safe if everyone fears you. And the clear impression you are crazy helps too — no-one wants to aggravate a disturbed mind.
But what to do? US President Donald Trump has described the test as hostile and dangerous and said Pyongyang “only understands one thing”.
Appeasement was not working, he said, and the rogue nation has become a “great threat and embarrassment” to China. He later tweeted the US was considering “stopping trade with any country doing business with North Korea”.
That would include both China and Russia. While both signed on to the latest UN sanctions, cutting trade altogether would be a far more serious step.
Beijing would have to cut off oil supplies and Moscow send back the North Korean labourers who “volunteer” to work in Siberian forestry camps in what have been described as slave-like conditions.
The whole region and beyond is in a fix. China especially is feeling the squeeze from the United States, and even Australia has argued Beijing has not applied full muscle against North Korea to mend its errant ways.
But the Chinese Government has agreed to the latest sanctions and deeply resents the assertion it could stop Kim Jong-un if it really wanted to. There is nothing for the Chinese to gain from a nuclear war on the Korean Peninsula.
Not only would there be the risk of nuclear contamination, what really worries Beijing is the thought of millions of refugees pouring over the border seeking shelter from a nuclear storm. Not to mention the terrible human and economic cost of shattered neighbours.
The constant refrain from Mr Trump and Malcolm Turnbull for China to do more and do it now could soon become counterproductive. Beijing’s influence on North Korea’s leadership is often overstated.
Its troublesome neighbour has repeatedly embarrassed China by testing bombs or missiles at an inopportune moment. This latest test happened at the opening of a major BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) conference held in China and hosted by President Xi Jinping.
Not only was his thunder stolen, he and guest Vladimir Putin were forced to issue a joint statement condemning the test but urging a negotiated solution. Mr Trump underlined that via a tweet, saying: “North Korea is a rogue nation which has become a great threat and embarrassment to China, which is trying to help but with little success.”
For his part, the US leader has wedged himself with rhetoric — it was only a couple of days ago he said the time for talking was over. But what does that leave?
The US military will have its plans ready, just in case. And Mr Trump is the only person with power to order what would be the destruction of North Korea. Is he really contemplating the death of millions, the ruin of cites on both sides of the 38th parallel?
Only if North Korea crosses his red lines. Do they exist in the seas off Guam, Hawaii, or the West coast of the mainland itself?
Surely Mr Kim and his predecessors have not come all this way to self-destruct. After all, these bombs and missiles are supposed to protect, not trigger an end game conflict. No party to this conundrum wants this to happen.
But the scene is set, the main players less than predictable and the talk tough. North Korea will never willingly trade away its newfound military clout, it is seen as vital for survival, but successive US presidents have made it clear they will never live with a nuclear armed and able North Korea.
It is a country that revels in regular threats to wipe out entire US cities. It is no longer trash talk that can be ignored and no-one, it seems, has a plausible answer.
One commentator suggested arming both South Korea and Japan with nuclear weapons to act as a foil to the North. That would mean five countries in the region with the ability to erase entire cities from the planet.
Our once relatively safe and increasingly prosperous neighbourhood is taking a serious turn for the worse. Only two people on the planet can change all that, and neither is showing signs there is a safe way out.
Asked by a reporter if the US would attack North Korea, Mr Trump said: “We’ll see.”
September 4, 2017
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North Korea says it successfully tested hydrogen bomb, marking sixth nuclear test since 2006, ABC News, 3 Sept 17, North Korea has said it successfully tested a hydrogen bomb designed to be mounted on its newly developed intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), producing a greater yield than any of its previous nuclear tests.
Key points:
- Previous recent tremors in North Korea have been caused by nuclear tests
- Tremor came hours after state media said Kim Jong-un inspected new hydrogen bomb
- Witnesses on the Chinese side of the border said tremor lasted roughly 10 seconds
The hydrogen bomb test ordered by leader Kim Jong-un was a “perfect success” and was a “meaningful” step in completing the country’s nuclear weapons programme, according to state television.
The announcement came hours after a large quake that appeared to be man-made was detected near the North’s known nuclear test site, indicating that the reclusive country had conducted its sixth nuclear test since 2006.
The tremor struck within a kilometre of the site of a magnitude-5.3 “nuclear explosion” from September last year, according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS).
South Korea said this most recent test appeared to be several times stronger than its previous test, estimating the nuclear blast yield was between 50 to 60 kilotons — or five to six times stronger than the North Korea’s fifth test a year ago…….http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09-03/north-korea-says-it-successfully-tested-hydrogen-bomb/8867568
September 4, 2017
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All options on the table after missile: Trump Sky News , 30 August 2017 US president Donald Trump has said ‘all options are on the table’ after North Korea launched a ballistic missile over Japan.
Mr Trump spoke as China said tensions on the Korean peninsula were now at ‘tipping point’.
North Korea fired a midrange ballistic missile that flew over Japan on Tuesday, a test considered one of the most provocative ever from the reclusive state.
It came as US and South Korean forces conduct annual military exercises on the peninsula. Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying reiterated Beijing’s call for peace talks, saying ‘pressure and sanctions’ against North Korea ‘cannot fundamentally solve the issue’, and said the country needed to exercise restraint.
‘The UN Security Council has put through several resolutions and sanctions have all along been put in place but everyone can see whether they’ve had actual results,’ she added.
‘On the one hand, sanctions have continued to be put in place via resolutions and on the other hand North Korea’s nuclear and missile launch process is still continuing.’……http://www.skynews.com.au/news/top-stories/2017/08/30/all-options-on-the-table-after-missile–trump.html
August 30, 2017
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Can the world live with a nuclear North Korea?, BBC, Jonathan MarcusDiplomatic correspondent, 30 August 2017, This is, by any standards, the most provocative of North Korea’s recent missile tests.
August 30, 2017
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NORTH KOREA KEEPS SAYING IT MIGHT GIVE UP ITS NUCLEAR WEAPONS — BUT MOST NEWS OUTLETS WON’T TELL YOU THAT, The Intercept Jon Schwarz, August 26 2017 “…….here’s what you don’t know, unless you’re an obsessive North Korea-watcher:
Also starting on July 4, North Korea has been saying over and over again that it might put its nuclear weapons and missiles on the negotiating table if the United States would end its own threatening posture.
This fact has been completely obscured by U.S. and other western media. For the most part, newspapers and television have simply ignored North Korea’s position. When they haven’t ignored it, they’ve usually mispresented it as its opposite – i.e., claiming that North Korea is saying that it will never surrender its nuclear weapons under any circumstances. And on the rare occasions when North Korea’s statements are mentioned accurately, they’re never given the prominence they deserve.
North Korea’s proclamations have been closely tracked by Robert Carlin, currently a visiting scholar at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation and formerly head of the Northeast Asia Division in the State Department’s intelligence arm. Carlin has visited North Korea over 30 times.
Via email, Carlin described how it is difficult but critical to accurately decode North Korean communications. “Observers dismiss as unimportant what the North Koreans say,” Carlin writes, and “therefore don’t read it carefully, except of course if it is colorful, fiery language that makes for lovely headlines. Some of what the North says is simply propaganda and can be read with one eye closed. Other things are written and edited very carefully, and need to be read very carefully. And then, having been read, they need to be compared with past statements, and put in context.”
With that in mind, here’s Kim Jong-un’s statement on July 4:
[T]he DPRK would neither put its nukes and ballistic rockets on the table of negotiations in any case nor flinch even an inch from the road of bolstering the nuclear force chosen by itself unless the U.S. hostile policy and nuclear threat to the DPRK are definitely terminated. [emphasis added]
That formulation again appeared in an August 7 government statement after the United Nations Security Council passed new sanctions on North Korea. The same day, North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho also said it during a speech at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations regional forum in the Philippines.
And on August 22 at the UN Conference on Disarmament in Switzerland, North Korean diplomat Ju Yong Chol made exactly the same point, stating, “As long as the U.S. hostile policy and nuclear threat remains unchallenged, the DPRK will never place its self-defensive nuclear deterrence on the negotiating table.”
In the past North Korea has pledged to renounce its nuclear weapons program. During the so-called Six-Party Talks in 2005, all the nations involved, including North Korea, affirmed that the North Korea was “committed to abandoning all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs.” Meanwhile, the United States and North Korea agreed to “respect each other’s sovereignty, exist peacefully together, and take steps to normalize their relations.”
Then the situation soured. Carlin writes that more recently “the routine formula in lower level media commentaries was that the nuclear deterrent was ‘not a mere bargaining chip to put on the table for negotiations with the United States.’”
So all of this seems quite clear and straightforward. North Korea is again telling the world that it is willing to consider renouncing its nuclear weapons program. Obviously Kim’s regime may not be telling the truth, especially given the fact that it has violated prior agreements. But the United States has flagrantly violated those agreements as well. The only way to find out whether there’s a path to North Korean disarmament is to honestly engage with them about it.
There are huge roadblocks to that happening, and one of the biggest is the failure of western media simply to inform their audience of the basics of what’s happening.
Since July 4, the New York Times and Washington Post have published hundreds of articles about North Korea. Both papers have informed their readers that Kim has called Americans “bastards.” But they’ve each only published one story quoting Kim’s key caveat, that North Korea will consider giving up its nukes if “the U.S. hostile policy and nuclear threat to the DPRK are definitely terminated.” And in both cases the Post and Times simply reprinted an AP story — in which Kim’s words appear in the 23rd paragraph – rather than running pieces of their own………
Coverage in other publications has tended to be, if anything, shoddier, with television coverage worst of all. The BBC World Service soberly explained on August 15 that “North Korea says its nuclear program can never be on the negotiating table and that’s where the stand-off is.” Other outlets have generally maintained a discreet silence about North Korea’s position.
Taken in total, the media’s performance on North Korea so far is an extremely ominous development. We know because of the Iraq War that newspapers and TV can provide a key assist in launching catastrophic U.S. wars. As things stand now, it’s by no means impossible that they will do it again. https://theintercept.com/2017/08/25/north-korea-keeps-saying-it-might-give-up-its-nuclear-weapons-but-most-news-outlets-wont-tell-you-that/
August 28, 2017
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North Korea vows to ‘sharpen its nuclear sword’ in WORLD WAR 3 threat to USA, Express UK 27 Aug 17 NORTH Korea has sparked fears of all-out war with the USA after threatening to “sharpen its nuclear sword” as tensions continue to escalate., By JOEY MILLAR, Aug 27, 2017 North Korea has issued yet another sabre-rattling statement to its Western enemies, warning the US it would show “no mercy” in any conflict.
August 28, 2017
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