Cruise in Croatia
PLUS Reduce your footprint
North Korea was last night reportedly preparing for the launch of a ballistic missile, possibly an ICBM. South Korea’s Defence Ministry said “signs that North Korea was preparing for another ballistic missile launch have consistently been detected since Sunday’s test”, according to South Korea’s Yonhap news agency. North Korea conducted its sixth nuclear test on Sunday. The ministry did not give details, or indicate when a launch might take place.
South Korea, meanwhile, is preparing for fresh military drills with the United States and ramping up its ballistic missile defences in response to North Korea’s latest nuclear test.
The United Nations Security Council was set to meet later last night to discuss fresh sanctions against the isolated regime. US President Donald Trump had also asked to be briefed on all available military options, according to his defence chief.
South Korea’s air force and army conducted exercises involving longrange air-to-surface missiles and ballistic missiles yesterday, the joint chiefs of staff said in a statement. More drills were being prepared with US forces in the South, it said.
The South’s Environment Ministry was expected to announce its approval of an environmental assessment report for the deployment of a controversial US anti-missile defence system, a ministry official told Reuters.
Seoul said in June it would hold off installing the remaining components of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (Thaad) system until it completed an assessment of its impact on the environment.
North Korea said on Sunday it had tested an advanced hydrogen bomb for a long-range missile, prompting the warning of a “massive” military response from the US if it or its allies were threatened. “We are not looking to the total annihilation of a country, namely North Korea,” US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis said after meeting Trump and his national security team. “But as I said, we have many options to do so.”
Trump has previously vowed to stop North Korea developing nuclear weapons and said he would unleash “fire and fury” if it threatened US territory. That prompted the North to threaten to fire missiles towards the US Pacific territory of Guam, although it has since appeared to back away from that threat.
Despite the tough talk, the immediate focus of the international response was expected to be on tougher economic sanctions.
Diplomats have said the UN Security Council could now consider banning Pyongyang’s textile exports and the North’s national airline, stop supplies of oil to the Government and military, prevent North Koreans from working abroad and add top officials to a blacklist to subject them to an asset freeze and travel ban.
China said last night that Trump’s threat to cut off trade with countries that deal with North Korea is unacceptable and unfair. Trump said on Twitter yesterday that the US is considering halting trade with “any country doing business with North Korea”.
Geng Shuang, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, told reporters at a briefing in yesterday that China regarded as “unacceptable a situation in which on the one hand we work to resolve this issue peacefully but on the other hand our own interests are subject to sanctions and jeopardised”. Geng said: “This is neither objective nor fair.”
Ruan Zongze, a former Chinese diplomat now with the China Institute of International Studies, a thinktank affiliated with the Foreign Ministry, said: “The United States has to play its own role and should not be blindly putting pressure on China to try and squeeze North Korea.”
China is the North’s closest ally and commercial partner. — Reuters