Top US national security officials yesterday warned congressional Republicans and Democrats demanding a new war authorization that existing laws governing combat operations against terrorist groups are legally sufficient and that repealing them prematurely could signal the United States is backing away from the fight, Associated Press reported.
During testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis urged Congress to tread carefully. If lawmakers are compelled to replace the post-September 11, 2001, laws, the two secretaries cautioned them against imposing restrictions and conditions on American military forces that allow their enemies "to seize the initiative."
NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg urged all United Nation members today to fully and transparently implement sanctions against North Korea, which he said has emerged as a global threat able to fire ballistic missiles as far as Europe and North America, Reuters reported.
“North Korea’s ballistic and nuclear tests are an affront to the United Nations Security Council,” North Atlantic Treaty Organization Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said in a joint announcement in Tokyo, where he met Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
South Korea is open to talks with North Korea even before Pyongyang gives up its nuclear weapons if the North shows its commitment to denuclearization, South Korea's unification minister said today.
Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon also said in a parliamentary audit that North Korea is not currently showing any intent to have dialogue with the US, though both sides seem to be exploring the possibility of talks, The Korea Herald reported.
A diplomatic dispute between South Korea and China officially ended on Tuesday, following months of tense relations and economic retaliation triggered by the deployment of a controversial missile defense system, CNN reported.
In statements issued by both countries' foreign ministries Tuesday, Seoul and Beijing said they recognized the "great importance" of the relationship between the two neighbors."
The relationship between the two countries had deteriorated after South Korea announced in July 2016 that it would deploy the US-built Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) defense system to defend against North Korean missile threats.
With little more than 100 days to go before the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea, chief organiser Lee Hee-beom has dismissed fears of a potential attack by the nuclear-armed North as an "exaggeration", Channel News Asia reported.
Several countries have expressed concerns about the Pyeongchang Games, which will take place in February just 80km from the heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) which divides the Korean peninsula.
North Korea probably stole South Korean warship blueprints after hacking into Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co Ltd’s database in April last year, a South Korean opposition lawmaker said on Tuesday.
North Korea has reportedly threatened the UK after the latter claimed Kim Jong-un was behind the NHS cyber attack.
North Korea has responded to the claims, blasting it as an "attempt to incriminate the Democratic People's Republic of Korea [DPRK]".
The global pitch against North Korea's show of nuclear mettle is getting shriller by the day. The hermit nation's response has been increasingly arrogant as it readily accepts the possibility of more potent nuclear tests and an attack on Guam - an unincorporated and organised territory of the United States.
The discourse among conflict analysts and columnists has gone a step further and considered the possibility of a North Korean nuclear missile attack on mainland United States.
Whether North Korea will take such a step is best left to their conscience but a potential offensive against the world's most powerful military raises a question: Can the US protect itself from such an occurrence?
n another belligerent act of defiance, North Korea conducted its sixth and most powerful nuclear test on Sunday at its Punggye-ri test site.
Even before a formal announcement came from Pyongyang, Japanese and South Korean meteorologists had figured out what the hermit nation was up to after a shallow earthquake was detected near the test site.
North Korea’s hunger for power is evident and it does have nuclear weapons in its arsenal. But how dangerous is the threat?
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