Pence warns of US resolve

Japan planning for refugees in event of crisis: Abe

SEOUL, April 17, (Agencies): US Vice-President Mike Pence put North Korea on notice on Monday, warning that recent US strikes in Syria and Afghanistan showed that the resolve of President Donald Trump should not be tested.

Pence and South Korean acting president Hwang Kyo-ahn, speaking a day after a failed missile test by the North and two days after a huge display of missiles in Pyongyang, also said they would strengthen anti-North Korea defences by moving ahead with the early deployment of the THAAD missile-defence system.

Pence is on the first stop of a fournation Asia tour intended to show America’s allies, and remind its adversaries, that the Trump administration was not turning its back on the increasingly volatile region.

“Just in the past two weeks, the world witnessed the strength and resolve of our new president in actions taken in Syria and Afghanistan,” Pence said in a joint appearance with Hwang.

“North Korea would do well not to test his resolve or the strength of the armed forces of the United States in this region,” Pence said.

The US Navy this month struck a Syrian airfield with 59 Tomahawk missiles after a chemical weapons attack. On Thursday, the US military said it had dropped “the mother of all bombs”, the largest non-nuclear device it has ever unleashed in combat, on a network of caves and tunnels used by Islamic State in Afghanistan.

North Korea’s KCNA news agency on Monday carried a letter from leader Kim Jong Un to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad marking the 70th anniversary of Syria’s independence.

“I express again a strong support and alliance to the Syrian government

that four people were reported missing in the accident Monday morning in Guizhou province.

The state news agency says the 19-seat and its people for its work of justice, condemning the United States’ recent violent invasive act against your country,” Kim said.

On a visit to the border between North and South Korea earlier in the day, Pence, whose father served in the 1950-53 Korean War, said the United States would stand by its “iron-clad alliance” with South Korea.

“All options are on the table to achieve the objectives and ensure the stability of the people of this country,” he told reporters as tinny propaganda music floated across from the North Korean side of the so-called demilitarised zone (DMZ).

“There was a period of strategic patience but the era of strategic patience is over.”

Pence is expected to discuss rising tension on the Korean peninsula with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Tuesday when he travels to Tokyo to kick off economic talks with Finance Minister Taro Aso.

Session

Pence will meet business leaders in Seoul before departing — a “listening session” he will reprise at other stops on his tour in Tokyo, Jakarta and Sydney.

His economic discussions will be closely watched to see how hard a line Washington is prepared to take on trade. Trump campaigned for office on an “America First” platform, and has vowed to narrow big trade deficits with nations like China, Germany and Japan.

But Trump has also shown he is willing to link trade to other issues, saying he would cut a better trade deal with China if it exerts influence on North Korea to curb its nuclear ambitions.

Trump acknowledged on Sunday that the softer line he had taken on

bus was travelling from Kaiyang county on the outskirts of the provincial capital to the Qiannan Bouyei-Miao Autonomous Prefecture when it went off a highway and China’s management of its currency was linked to its help on North Korea.

The United States, its allies and China are working on a range of responses to North Korea’s latest failed ballistic missile test, Trump’s national security adviser said on Sunday, citing what he called an international consensus to act.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Monday that Japan’s government is drawing up contingency plans in case a crisis on the Korean Peninsula sends an influx of refugees to Japan.

Abe told a parliamentary session that the government is formulating measures including protecting foreigners, landing procedures, building and operating shelters, and screening asylum seekers.

Abe’s disclosure came in response to a question that had been occasionally asked in the past but is now more realistic than ever with North Korea’s missile capability rapidly advancing and tension with the US rising.

The government has been also working on evacuation plans for about 60,000 Japanese from South Korea in case of a crisis.

Later Monday, key ministers of Abe’s National Security Council met to analyze the latest development in North Korea and discuss Japanese responses, said Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, who attended the meeting, without elaborating further.

On Friday, the NSC members discussed how to deal with a possibility that armed North Korean soldiers pretending to be refugees may try to enter Japan, Kyodo News reported. According to one scenario, a US military action sends a massive number of North Korean refugees to the Japanese coast in boats, but some armed soldiers hiding among them could plot terrorist activities after landing, Kyodo said.

into the river.

Local authorities were investigating and there was no immediate word on what caused the accident. (AP)

Tibetan monk sets self on fire:

A Tibetan Buddhist monk set himself on fire in western China in an apparent protest against Beijing’s rule, a monitoring group and a US government-backed radio station said.

The monk set himself ablaze in a public square on Saturday morning in Kardze, also known as Ganzi, in western Sichuan province, according to Radio Free Asia and Free Tibet, an advocacy group based in Britain.

The unidentified monk was taken away after the fire was extinguished by security forces, reports said. It was unclear if he survived.

A man who answered the phone at the local police station Monday said he was unaware of the case and “not clear” about the situation. The government for Garze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, which includes the town of Kardze, referred questions to police.

A YouTube video purported to be of the incident showed two men spraying fire extinguishers on what appeared to be a body at the edge of a busy street as a crowd gathered. (AP)