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Ottobre 2017 - page 5

North Korea’s Deputy UN Ambassador Kim In Ryong says “nuclear war may break out at any moment”

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On Tuesday, North Korea’s Deputy UN Ambassador Kim In Ryong told the General Assembly’s committee on disarmament that the situation on the Korean peninsula “has reached the touch-and-go point and a nuclear war may break out any moment.”

The reclusive nation said that it will never negotiate the dismantling of its nuclear weapons unless the United States reverses its “hostile” policy. Ryong said, “The situation on the Korean peninsula where the attention of the whole world is focused has reached the touch-and-go point and a nuclear war may break out any moment. As long as one does not take part in the U.S. military actions against the DPRK (North Korea), we have no intention to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against any other country”. Meanwhile, on Tuesday, hours after Pyongyang warned that a nuclear war might break out at any moment, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John J Sullivan said that the U.S. is not ruling out the eventual possibility of direct talks with North Korea. For months now, China has been urging the U.S. and North Korea to find a diplomatic solution, more so because it fears a refugee crisis breaking out at its border with Pyongyang and chaos across the region. However, U.S. and its ally Japan have been reluctant to sit down at the table while Pyongyang continues to pursue a goal of developing a nuclear-tipped missile capable of hitting the United States. The official KCNA news agency said in a commentary, “The DPRK has been fully ready for all the U.S. is resorting to, including sanctions, pressure and military option, as it has the tremendous nuclear force for self-defence and irresistible strength of self-reliance and self-development”. Commenting on North Korean envoy’s warning of nuclear war, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang said it would not be in anyone’s interest. He said at a news briefing, “China still hopes that all parties, in this situation where things on the Korean peninsula are highly complex and sensitive, can exercise restraint and do more to benefit the lowering of tensions in the region”.

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US takes aim at Yemeni Daesh for first time

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The United States said it launched its first attack on Daesh’s deadly Yemen branch on Monday with a series of nighttime airstrikes that residents said targeted two villages and killed several people. Unmanned US drones launched around 12 missiles at militant positions in Yakla and Al-Abl in southern Al-Bayda province, according to local people living nearby, who declined to be named due to safety concerns. They said the number of casualties caused by the attack was not immediately clear because locals were too afraid to approach the site as US aircraft hovered over the area for hours. The Pentagon said in a statement that US forces had killed dozens of Daesh members in a strike on two camps where fighters trained in using machine guns and grenade launchers. The United States provides arms and logistical support to a Saudi-led military coalition that has launched almost daily air strikes against the Houthis to try to restore Yemen’s internationally recognized government.

 

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19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China to plan for political reform

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The 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) will map out overall reform measures about the country’s political system and other systems, a spokesman for the congress said Tuesday. Based on the systematic review of achievements and experience of reform in the past, the congress will strive to address outstanding issues that have emerged in practice and work out overall reform measures, Tuo Zhen told reporters. “We will unswervingly move toward the goal of improving and developing socialism with Chinese characteristics and modernizing China’s state governance system and capability”, Tuo said.  “All the achievements China has made in reform and development since the launch of reform and opening up nearly four decades ago will not be possible without political system reform, and this will remain the case in the future”, he said. The spokesman said China has achieved major and historic achievements in political system reform, which have provided important guarantee for deepening reform in other fields and created better conditions for economic and social development. China will not copy and replicate the models of other countries in political system reform, the spokesman said. “Our unique cultural traditions, unique historic experience and unique national conditions determine that we must pursue a path of development suited to our own features”, he said.

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Islamic State defeated in its Syrian capital Raqqa

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U.S.-backed militias said they had defeated Islamic State in its former capital Raqqa on Tuesday, raising their flags over the jihadist group’s last footholds in the city after a four-month battle. The fighting was over but the alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias was clearing the stadium of mines and any remaining militants, said Rojda Felat, commander of the Raqqa campaign for the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). A formal declaration of victory in Raqqa will soon be made, once the city has been cleared of mines and any possible Islamic State sleeper cells, said Talal Silo, the SDF spokesman. The only populated areas still controlled by the jihadist group in Syria are the towns and villages downstream of Deir al-Zor along the Euphrates valley. They are areas that for the past three years Islamic State ran from Raqqa.

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North Korea justifies its most powerful nuclear bomb test

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As South Korea and the United States began their week-long joint Navy drills in the waters around the Korean peninsula on Monday – North Korea released a statement justifying its nuclear program. A North Korean lawmaker said that was America’s antics that compelled Pyongyang to develop and successfully test what was by far its most powerful nuclear weapon yet. Addressing the 137th Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union in St. Petersburg, Russia, the Deputy Chairman of North Korea’s parliament An Tong Chun argued that U.S. military pressure was the primary inspiration for Pyongyang’s decision to pursue its nuclear and ballistic weapons program, despite heavy international sanctions. He said, “It was the United States who prompted the DPRK (the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) to create a hydrogen bomb and ballistic missiles. We are determined to build up our nuclear forces until peace in struggle with the United States is secured. North Korea will never discuss its right to nuclear weapons as long as the United States keeps its nuclear threat and belligerent policy towards North Korea”. Now, North Korea has claimed that it has a right to create, test and possess nuclear and ballistic weapons as a deterrent against an invasion from hostile powers such as the U.S., but the U.S. and a number of other countries, including North Korea’s closest traditional ally, China, have objected to Kim Jong Un’s actions. On Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has previously protested Kim Jong Un’s moves, signed a decree affirming Moscow’s commitment to a November 2016 UN Security Council resolution that implements harsh sanctions against North Korea and individuals believed to be linked to its nuclear weapons program. Earlier this month, a Russian lawmaker who returned from a visit to Pyongyang said that North Korea is preparing to test a long-range missile which it believes can reach the west coast of the United States. According to South Korean intelligence officials and analysts, North Korea might time its next provocation to coincide with China’s all-important Communist Party Congress that begins on Wednesday. Meanwhile, on Monday, the European Union banned the sale of oil and oil products to North Korea, in a largely symbolic move aimed at encouraging countries that have more significant levels of trade with the country to follow suit.

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BAE Systems blames North Korea’s Lazarus hackers for cyberattack on Taiwanese bank

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BAE Systems, the defence and security firm, said on Monday that it believed the North Korean Lazarus hacking group was likely to have been responsible for a recent cyber heist in Taiwan, the latest in a string of hacks targeting the global Swift messaging system. The British firm has previously linked Lazarus to last year’s US$81 million cyber heist at Bangladesh’s central bank, as have other cyber firms including Russia’s Kaspersky Lab and California-based Symantec. BAE’s claim that Lazarus was probably responsible for the hack on Taiwan’s Far Eastern International Bank showed that North Korea was continuing to seek to generate cash through hacking. Taiwan’s Central News Agency reported last week that while hackers sought to steal about US$60 million from Far Eastern Bank, all but 500,000 dollar had been recovered. BAE previously disclosed that Lazarus attempted to steal money from banks in Mexico and Poland, though there is no evidence the effort succeeded. A security executive with Swift ( Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication), a Belgium-based cooperative owned by banks, said last week that hackers had continued to target the message system this year, although many attempts had been thwarted by the new security controls.

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France urges China and EU to unite to protect Paris climate deal

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China and the European Union should set aside differences on trade and strengthen cooperation on climate change to “act as a shield” to protect the landmark Paris climate accord, France’s environment minister said. In an interview, French Minister for Ecological and Inclusive Transition Nicolas Hulot also urged China to step up its efforts towards a greener economy and take a lead role alongside France to implement the international climate accord reached in the French capital two years ago and now under threat from the US’ withdrawal. “It is China and the EU that have taken the leadership role on climate issues and they have to continue to play the leadership role in the implementation of the Paris Agreement … And if they coordinate they will be able to cover much larger areas,” he said during a brief trip to Hong Kong on Monday. The EU and China failed to agree an official climate statement during a bilateral summit in June over a long-standing trade spat, underlining their tense relationship and casting a shadow over their commitments to fighting global warming together in the absence of the US. Hulot said France and China held their first senior official dialogue on the low-carbon economy in June and companies from both countries were teaming up on various projects related to energy efficiency, sustainable cities, the shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy, carbon markets and green financing. The minister said the US’ retreat from the Paris deal was not a catastrophe even though it dealt a heavy blow to the global effort on climate change and had caused difficulties for poor countries most vulnerable to global warming. In response to comments by senior White House officials who said the US might reconsider its stance on the Paris agreement if other countries agreed to accommodate Washington’s concerns over economic costs and energy security, Hulot said the Paris deal was not renegotiable.

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Why Spain is right to defend its democracy in face of Catalonia crisis

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According to the Dublin-based lawyer Isabel Foley there is the need to defend the Spanish constitution for several reasons. In her dissertation the Lawyer express her point of view through different points. Beginning with the recognition of the excessive violence of the police during the referendum, she recognizes also that this violence has been used by the separatists themselves to show a picture of Spain as an Authoritarian country. The second point of her dissertation regards the Constitution, defined as a “democratic document negotiated in 1978”, and in this part she explains the Constitution itself and that there is not a dictatorship in the Country. The article shows also, at point 3 and 4, two other main points. The first one regards the prohibition of secession, according to constitution, and the second one illustrates how the same Constitution of Spain gives a great autonomy to Catalonia and to its Parliament. The last two points emphasize how the Constitution can’t be “torn up by the illegal and seditious acts of a tiny minority of its people – a minority too of the people whom the Catalan separatists purport to represent.” and that the parties have to dialogue between each other, but, at the same time, the Central Government has the duty to protect the unity of Spain.

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EU ministers approve new sanctions to punish North Korea

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The European Union imposed fresh sanctions on North Korea on Monday as part of international efforts to punish the pariah regime for its nuclear and ballistic weapons programmes. Foreign ministers meeting in Luxembourg signed off a new package of measures including a ban on investments in North Korea and on EU exports of oil to Pyongyang.

They also tightened the restrictions on North Korean workers in the EU to try to stop money being sent home that could be used to fund the disputed weapons programmes. he EU said the new steps were taken in view of the “persistent threat to international peace and stability” posed by Kim Jong-un’s regime. A total ban on EU investment in North Korea is now in force, along with a complete halt to sales of crude oil and refined petroleum products.

As part of efforts to ensure sanctions are effective, EU members will instruct their embassies in countries seen as a risk of evading North Korean sanctions to deliver formal warnings to comply.

 

 

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Oil jumps on fears of new Iran sanctions, Iraq conflict

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Oil markets jumped on Monday on concerns over potential renewed US sanctions against Iran as well as conflict in Iraq, while a falling US rig count supported prices there. Traders said that worries over renewed US sanctions against Iran were pushing prices up. US President Donald Trump struck a blow against the 2015 Iran nuclear deal on Friday, defying both US allies and adversaries by refusing to formally certify that Tehran is complying with the accord even though international inspectors say it is. Under US law, the president must certify every 90 days to Congress that Iran is complying with the deal. The US Congress will now have 60 days to decide whether to reimpose economic sanctions on Tehran that were lifted under the pact. During the previous round of sanctions against Iran, some 1 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil supplies were cut off global markets. While analysts said they did not expect renewed sanctions to have such a big impact again, especially as the United States would likely act alone, they did warn that such a move would be disruptive.

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