Category Archives: Entities

ISIS’s Jihad on Turkey

Roy Gutman reports: Ten days before the New Year’s attack on an Istanbul night club for which the so-called Islamic State now claims responsibility, it posted a grisly video on social media showing its forces burning two Turkish soldiers alive — and coupled it with a warning of worse atrocities to come.

Turkey “has become the land for Jihad,” a Turkish ISIS fighter calling himself Abu Hasan declared in the immolation video. He urged the group’s sympathizers in Turkey to “burn it, blow it up and destroy it.” It may well have been a signal to proceed with the attack early Sunday, which killed at least 39 and wounded 65.

“A hero soldier of the caliphate attacked one of the most famous nightclubs, where Christians celebrated their pagan holiday” and “transformed their celebration into mourning,” the group said in a message posted on an Internet app early Monday.

The message, a rare example of ISIS taking responsibility for an attack in Turkey, went on to condemn the Turkish intervention in northern Syria, where its forces along with Syrian rebels now encircle the ISIS-held town of Al Bab. “The government of Turkey should know that the blood of Muslims, which it is targeting with its planes and its guns, will cause a fire in its home by God’s will,” it said.

The Turkish government, which has clamped down severely on news reporting on the assault, responded defiantly, vowing to continue the cross-border operation. [Continue reading…]

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More than 1,100 law school professors nationwide oppose Sessions’s nomination as attorney general

The Washington Post reports: A group of more than 1,100 law school professors from across the country is sending a letter to Congress on Tuesday urging the Senate to reject the nomination of Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) for attorney general.

The letter, signed by professors from 170 law schools in 48 states, is also scheduled to run as a full-page newspaper ad aimed at members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which will be holding confirmation hearings for Sessions on Jan. 10-11.

“We are convinced that Jeff Sessions will not fairly enforce our nation’s laws and promote justice and equality in the United States,” states the letter, signed by prominent legal scholars including Laurence H. Tribe of Harvard Law School, Geoffrey R. Stone of the University of Chicago Law School, Pamela S. Karlan of Stanford Law School and Erwin Chemerinsky of the University of California, Irvine School of Law. [Continue reading…]

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Trump hosted ‘small-time mobster’ Joey ‘No Socks’ Cinque at New Year’s party

The Guardian reports: Donald Trump rang in 2017 at a New Year’s Eve bash at his Mar-a-Lago estate with Joseph Cinque – reportedly a convicted felon who goes by the nickname “Joey No Socks”.

Cinque, a longtime acquaintance of Trump’s, can be seen grinning on stage as the president-elect reads off a list of accomplishments he intends to achieve in office.

In a video of the speech, which was obtained and published by the Palm Beach Daily News, Cinque, wearing a tuxedo, claps and cheers loudly – even pumping his arms in the air when Trump pledges to repeal the Barack Obama’s signature healthcare law, the Affordable Care Act. On Trump’s other side, a man awkwardly holds what appears to be a gilded statue of a bald eagle. [Continue reading…]

 

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Video puts new focus on Donald Trump’s ties to Dubai partner

The New York Times reports: President-elect Donald J. Trump praised a business partner from Dubai during a New Year’s Eve party at his lavish Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Fla., on Saturday night, raising new questions about the scope of his potential business conflicts around the world just weeks before he is sworn in.

In a video captured by a guest, Mr. Trump can be heard singling out “Hussain and the whole family” as “the most beautiful people,” apparently referring to Hussain Sajwani, the chairman of Damac Properties, which has built the Trump International Golf Club, Dubai; Trump Prvt luxury homes; and a Trump Spa, in addition to building a second golf course there that is scheduled to open next year.

The tape, obtained by CNN on Monday night, is the latest reminder of Mr. Trump’s vast array of global business relationships that could create conflicts of interest for his presidency, including the prospect that a commander in chief might make policy decisions guided by what is best for his own family’s brand and wealth. [Continue reading…]

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Trump insists North Korean intercontinental missile ‘won’t happen,’ berates China

The Washington Post reports: President-elect Donald Trump contended Monday night that North Korea would not be able to develop a nuclear weapon capable of reaching the United States, despite its claims to the contrary, and berated China for not doing enough to help stop the rogue state’s weapons program.

Trump’s declarations on Twitter came after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said in a New Year’s address that the country had reached the “final stages” of testing its first intercontinental ballistic missile that could reach the United States.

“It won’t happen!” Trump tweeted.


The president-elect — who spent Monday with advisers at Trump Tower in New York following his holiday respite in Florida — did not specify what, if anything, the United States might do under his command to stop North Korea from developing the missile. [Continue reading…]

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Trump will ‘take action’ against North Korea, but most Americans lack confidence in his crisis management skills

Gallup reports: As Donald Trump prepares to take the presidential oath on Jan. 20, less than half of Americans are confident in his ability to handle an international crisis (46%), to use military force wisely (47%) or to prevent major scandals in his administration (44%). At least seven in 10 Americans were confident in Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton in these areas before they took office. [Continue reading…]

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China has more interest in Trump’s policies than his tweets

The Wall Street Journal reports: Addressing questions about Mr. Trump’s tweets [on North Korea] during a regular press briefing on Tuesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said that China’s efforts to solve the North Korean nuclear issue “are clear for all to see.”

Mr. Geng pointed to China’s convening of six-nation talks aimed at convincing North Korea to give up its nuclear program, as well as its support for United Nations sanctions against its ally. He added that any problems in the economic relationship between the U.S. and China should be “properly addressed through dialogue and consultation,” but avoided commenting on whether Mr. Trump’s use of Twitter helped or hindered diplomatic discussions.

“We don’t pay attention to the features of foreign leaders’ behavior. We focus more on their policies,” he said.

Members of China’s U.S.- and North Korea-watching community also largely shrugged off Mr. Trump’s tweets.

Shi Yinhong, director of the Center for American Studies at Renmin University, said U.S. frustration with Beijing over North Korea is nothing new. “Trump’s comments regarding China’s perceived passivity on North Korea’s nuclear program are very much in line with the overwhelming consensus view in U.S. diplomatic circles,” said Mr. Shi.

Although Mr. Trump, as a presidential candidate, signaled a more conciliatory approach toward Mr. Kim, including the possibility of a face-to-face meeting, the president-elect will find it difficult to honor this promise without significant concessions from Pyongyang, Mr. Shi said.

Mr. Trump’s hostile tone may damp optimism in Pyongyang about dialogue with the new U.S. administration and it may “adjust its position accordingly,” said Wang Sheng, a professor at China’s Jilin University who studies China-North Korea relations. [Continue reading…]

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Dealing with a nuclear-armed North Korea

Evans J.R. Revere writes: North Korea’s leaders long ago concluded that the United States would not attack a country that has nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them. North Korean interlocutors have said as much in unofficial dialogues with American experts, and also declared that the DPRK was determined “not to become another Libya or Iraq.”[1] The belief that the only way to defend against American military power is to possess nuclear weapons was a central theme of DPRK Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho’s speech at the U.N. General Assembly on September 23, 2016.

Meanwhile, a second motivation for North Korea’s pursuit of nuclear weapons is now clear. DPRK representatives have said privately to American interlocutors that they have the United States “deterred.” They believe they have neutralized the U.S. ability to bring its conventional and strategic capabilities to bear against the North. They assert that the United States and the international community must now live with, if not formally accept, a permanently nuclear-armed North Korea. They have declared that the DPRK’s possession of a deterrent means the United States should now accept Pyongyang’s longstanding demand to negotiate a peace treaty to replace the Korean War armistice agreement.

North Korean officials have also reaffirmed privately what the DPRK has declared publicly: North Korea will not, under any circumstances, give up its nuclear weapons. They have made clear that the DPRK is prepared to use its nuclear assets to strike regional targets and the United States, preemptively if necessary. And they have emphasized the DPRK’s intention to further strengthen its nuclear and missile arsenals, a point Foreign Minister Ri also made in his address to the U.N. General Assembly.

North Korean representatives have said the United States and the DPRK should now engage in “arms control” talks. One goal of such talks would be removing the U.S. “threat,” which the North Koreans, when asked, define as the end of the U.S.-ROK alliance, the withdrawal of American troops from South Korea, and the removal of the U.S. “nuclear umbrella”—the centerpiece of the extended deterrent that helps defend South Korea and Japan.

DPRK representatives clearly do not understand that none of their beliefs or assertions are true or possible. Nor does it seem that Pyongyang comprehends the unacceptability of its demands of the United States.

Pyongyang appears to believe its nuclear and missile forces have fundamentally changed the dynamics of U.S.-DPRK relations. Significantly, North Korea may also think it can compel the United States to enter a dialogue that would achieve its long-sought goals of ending the U.S.-ROK alliance and removing the U.S. extended deterrent. If Pyongyang were to succeed in doing this, it would open the way for the DPRK to achieve its ultimate goal: the reunification of the Korean Peninsula on its terms.

The DPRK may also believe that the mere existence of its nuclear capabilities will complicate U.S.-ROK alliance crisis management decisionmaking, and give the United States and its allies pause before responding to a conventional provocation.

By threatening the actual use of nuclear weapons, Pyongyang is signaling its preparedness to risk more in trying to achieve its goals than the United States and the ROK are willing to in defending their interests. Put another way, Pyongyang’s message to the United States is: “We are willing to risk nuclear war to achieve our goals, are you?”

This thinking represents a unique challenge to the U.S.-ROK alliance and to the credibility of the U.S. commitment to deter North Korea and defend South Korea. The belief that it has changed the balance of power on the Korean Peninsula makes the danger posed by North Korea all the more destabilizing. It requires the United States, its allies, and partners to find a better way to deal with the North Korean threat.

Meanwhile, North Korea’s actions and rhetoric are also designed to make the United States’ choices as stark and difficult as possible. By closing off options that the United States might prefer, Pyongyang hopes to leave the United States with no alterative but to deal with a nuclear-armed North Korea on its terms.

The DPRK has declared denuclearization dead, and with it, any possibility of a dialogue on the subject. To reinforce this point, both the DPRK’s foreign minister at the U.N. General Assembly and individual North Korean representatives in informal dialogues have stressed not only North Korea’s intention to retain nuclear weapons, but also its plan to expand its nuclear arsenal and refine the capabilities of its ballistic missile delivery systems.

By making clear what North Korea is prepared to risk, the DPRK seeks to force the United States to choose between accepting a nuclear-armed North or risking war to prevent Pyongyang from realizing its nuclear ambitions.

As the next American president mulls options, he or she will need to take into account the evolution of China’s position on North Korea.

There are signs that the United States may have reached the limits of Beijing’s willingness to do more to isolate and pressure the DPRK. Beijing’s distaste for sanctions, its opposition to unilateral measures, and its concern that excessive pressure could lead to the collapse of the regime are well-known. These Chinese concerns have not abated as Beijing sees growing U.S., ROK, and Japanese interest in taking sanctions and pressure to a new level.

Even after the latest nuclear test, China has resisted demands that it do more against Pyongyang. On September 14, the Communist Party-controlled People’s Daily rejected U.S. suggestions that China take further steps, saying that the United States bears primary responsibility for the current situation. China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson had already weighed in along similar lines on September 12, saying that the North Korea issue was a “dispute between the DPRK and the United States” and expressing opposition to the role of sanctions in dealing with North Korea.

China’s Premier Li Keqiang managed to avoid mentioning sanctions at all in his September 21 speech to the U.N. General Assembly, and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi reportedly used a September 14 telephone call with his Japanese counterpart to convey opposition to unilateral sanctions on North Korea.

China is trying to have it both ways on North Korea. Beijing’s leadership continues to stress the importance of friendly China-DPRK ties, while China avoids directly challenging North Korea’s assertions about its nuclear ambitions. Constant attentiveness to North Korean sensitivities characterizes China’s approach to dealing with its troublesome neighbor and ally, even as Pyongyang’s actions threaten regional stability.

China is more direct and often critical when it has something to say about the U.S. position on North Korea. This reflects longstanding Chinese misgivings about Washington’s preference for sanctions and pressure. But Beijing’s opposition to tougher steps on North Korea is increasingly being driven by broader, geopolitical concerns, especially China’s strategic rivalry with the United States in East Asia. [Continue reading…]

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Ousted after the Arab Spring, a former dictator is back

The Washington Post reports: The slim, brown-suited man with the handlebar mustache nodded approvingly.

He stood behind a chair at a ceremony in the summer, watching as his loyalists and rebels signed a power-sharing deal to rule the country. Never mind that peace talks were underway at the time, or that the United Nations had expressed concerns that the deal violated the constitution.

Yemen’s former longtime ruler, Ali Abdullah Saleh, was back.

Ousted during the Arab Spring uprisings, one of the Middle East’s wiliest politicians has risen up again. He is taking advantage of the chaos of conflict and the political inexperience of the rebels to deepen his influence, officials and analysts say. [Continue reading…]

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U.S. lending support to Baltic states fearing Russia

The New York Times reports: Dozens of United States Special Operations forces are now in the Baltics to bolster the training and resolve of troops who are confronting a looming threat from Russia, and to enhance the Americans’ ability to detect Moscow’s shadowy efforts to destabilize the former Soviet republics.

“They’re scared to death of Russia,” Gen. Raymond T. Thomas, the head of the Pentagon’s Special Operations Command, who visited here recently, said of the tiny militaries of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. “They are very open about that. They’re desperate for our leadership.”

As a result, General Thomas said, American commandos now have a “persistent” presence here with Baltic special operations troops, after forging close ties with them over the past decade while fighting together in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Americans bring sophisticated surveillance technology and broad sources of intelligence. The Baltic partners have a deep understanding of conventional Russian military might as well as Moscow’s increasing use of cyberwarfare, information subterfuge and other means less than all-out war to weaken the Western-backed governments. [Continue reading…]

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Can carbon capture technology prosper under Trump?

The New York Times reports: Can one of the most promising — and troubled — technologies for fighting global warming survive during the administration of Donald J. Trump?

The technology, carbon capture, involves pulling carbon dioxide out of smokestacks and industrial processes before the climate-altering gas can make its way into the atmosphere. Mr. Trump’s denial of the overwhelming scientific evidence supporting climate change, a view shared by many of his cabinet nominees, might appear to doom any such environmental initiatives.

But the new Petra Nova plant about to start running here, about 30 miles southwest of Houston, is a bright spot for the technology’s supporters. It is being completed essentially on time and within its budget, unlike many previous such projects. When it fires up, the plant, which is attached to one of the power company NRG’s hulking coal-burning units, will draw 90 percent of the CO2 from the emissions produced by 240 megawatts of generated power. That is a fraction of the roughly 3,700 megawatts produced at this gargantuan plant, the largest in the Lone Star State. Still, it is enough to capture 1.6 million tons of carbon dioxide each year — equivalent to the greenhouse gas produced by driving 3.5 million miles, or the CO2 from generating electricity for 214,338 homes. [Continue reading…]

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How Nixon conspired to prolong the Vietnam War

John A. Farrell writes that in 1968: Nixon had entered the fall campaign with a lead over [Vice President Hubert H.] Humphrey, but the gap was closing that October. Henry A. Kissinger, then an outside Republican adviser, had called, alerting Nixon that a deal was in the works: If Johnson would halt all bombing of North Vietnam, the Soviets pledged to have Hanoi engage in constructive talks to end a war that had already claimed 30,000 American lives.

But Nixon had a pipeline to Saigon, where the South Vietnamese president, Nguyen Van Thieu, feared that Johnson would sell him out. If Thieu would stall the talks, Nixon could portray Johnson’s actions as a cheap political trick. The conduit was Anna Chennault, a Republican doyenne and Nixon fund-raiser, and a member of the pro-nationalist China lobby, with connections across Asia.

“! Keep Anna Chennault working on” South Vietnam, Haldeman scrawled, recording Nixon’s orders. “Any other way to monkey wrench it? Anything RN can do.”

Nixon told Haldeman to have Rose Mary Woods, the candidate’s personal secretary, contact another nationalist Chinese figure — the businessman Louis Kung — and have him press Thieu as well. “Tell him hold firm,” Nixon said.

Nixon also sought help from Chiang Kai-shek, the president of Taiwan. And he ordered Haldeman to have his vice-presidential candidate, Spiro T. Agnew, threaten the C.I.A. director, Richard Helms. Helms’s hopes of keeping his job under Nixon depended on his pliancy, Agnew was to say. “Tell him we want the truth — or he hasn’t got the job,” Nixon said.

Throughout his life, Nixon feared disclosure of this skulduggery. “I did nothing to undercut them,” he told Frost in their 1977 interviews. “As far as Madame Chennault or any number of other people,” he added, “I did not authorize them and I had no knowledge of any contact with the South Vietnamese at that point, urging them not to.” Even after Watergate, he made it a point of character. “I couldn’t have done that in conscience.” [Continue reading…]

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Nothing happened. It happens all the time

It’s a strange line of argument but surprisingly commonplace: to first vigorously deny something has happened, but to then say that if it did happen it’s perfectly normal.

When it comes to the issue of Russian interference in American democracy — an issue that should be of real concern to every American citizen — the deniers are mostly in the same position as people who deny climate change.

Assuming a stance of assiduous skepticism they plead that insufficient evidence has been presented to prove the case. As often applies to climate deniers, this professed skepticism seems intended to obscure the fact that the skeptic has a deep investment in one side of the argument.

At the conclusion of his latest diatribe against the mainstream media, Glenn Greenwald writes:

Since it is so often distorted, permit me once again to underscore my own view on the broader Russia issue: Of course it is possible that Russia is responsible for these hacks, as this is perfectly consistent with (and far more mild than) what both Russia and the U.S. have done repeatedly for decades.

But given the stakes involved, along with the incentives for error and/or deceit, no rational person should be willing to embrace these accusations as Truth unless and until convincing evidence has been publicly presented for review, which most certainly has not yet happened.

“[W]hat both Russia and the U.S. have done repeatedly for decades” has a vagueness worthy of Donald Trump, but Greenwald’s drift is clear: if the DNC hackings were carried out by Russia, it’s par for the course — nothing unusual, so let’s just move on.

Yet he concedes there are “stakes involved.” Indeed there are, not only because interference by a foreign power played a role in Donald Trump becoming the next U.S. president, but because this puts Greenwald and his close associate and Moscow resident, Edward Snowden, in a very awkward position. Increasingly they look less like independent dissidents speaking truth to power, and more like de facto sympathizers with a hostile power.

During the Bush era, critics of the war in Iraq and of the neoconservative agenda broadly accepted the view that America’s destructive involvement in the Middle East could ultimately be reduced to a single issue: control of the global oil supply.

Strangely, many of those same critics while now witnessing the power of oil flexing its muscles more strongly than ever seen before, would rather focus their attention on the perennial bugaboos of Washington, the mainstream media, the intelligence agencies, and American power.

The DNC was hacked, Wikileaks fed the media with a steady stream of unstartling emails, Trump wildly distorted their contents, and now the most Russia-friendly president ever is about to take office, leading an administration loaded with individuals tied to the oil industry.

Russia, the world’s number-one oil producer, eagerly awaits improved relations with the U.S. not only in the form of sanctions relief but also as Washington predictably tries to slam the brakes on the transition to renewable energy.

Vladimir Putin, who nowadays sees himself as the most powerful man in the world, has reason to be smiling with glee, while the hacking skeptics apparently think he’s merely the beneficiary of a string of good luck and that broadly speaking this is all just business as usual.

You’ve got to be kidding!

The oil industry, Washington, and Moscow will soon be marching in lockstep, while Greenwald directs his audience to the occasional piece of sloppy journalism.

Those who once warned about their dangers are now themselves wielding the weapons of mass distraction.

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Putin’s real long game

Molly K. McKew writes: Twenty-five years ago, the Soviet Union collapsed. This freed the Russian security state from its last constraints. In 1991, there were around 800,000 official KGB agents in Russia. They spent a decade reorganizing themselves into the newly-minted FSB, expanding and absorbing other instruments of power, including criminal networks, other security services, economic interests, and parts of the political elite. They rejected the liberal, democratic Russia that President Boris Yeltsin was trying to build.

Following the 1999 Moscow apartment bombings that the FSB almost certainly planned, former FSB director Vladimir Putin was installed as President. We should not ignore the significance of these events. An internal operation planned by the security services killed hundreds of Russian citizens. It was used as the pretext to re-launch a bloody, devastating internal war led by emergent strongman Putin. Tens of thousands of Chechen civilians and fighters and Russian conscripts died. The narrative was controlled to make the enemy clear and Putin victorious. This information environment forced a specific political objective: Yeltsin resigned and handed power to Putin on New Year’s Eve 1999.

From beginning to end, the operation took three months. This is how the Russian security state shook off the controls of political councils or representative democracy. This is how it thinks and how it acts — then, and now. Blood or war might be required, but controlling information and the national response to that information is what matters. Many Russians, scarred by the unrelenting economic, social, and security hardship of the 1990s, welcomed the rise of the security state, and still widely support it, even as it has hollowed out the Russian economy and civic institutions. Today, as a result, Russia is little more than a ghastly hybrid of an overblown police state and a criminal network with an economy the size of Italy — and the world’s largest nuclear arsenal.

Even Russian policy hands, raised on the Western understanding of traditional power dynamics, find the implications of this hard to understand. This Russia does not aspire to be like us, or to make itself stronger than we are. Rather, its leaders want the West — and specifically NATO and America — to become weaker and more fractured until we are as broken as they perceive themselves to be. No reset can be successful, regardless the personality driving it, because Putin’s Russia requires the United States of America as its enemy. [Continue reading…]

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‘America first’ and global conflict next

Nouriel Roubini writes: Donald Trump’s election as President of the United States does not just represent a mounting populist backlash against globalization. It may also portend the end of Pax Americana – the international order of free exchange and shared security that the US and its allies built after World War II.
That US-led global order has enabled 70 years of prosperity. It rests on market-oriented regimes of trade liberalization, increased capital mobility, and appropriate social-welfare policies; backed by American security guarantees in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, through NATO and various other alliances.

Trump, however, may pursue populist, anti-globalization, and protectionist policies that hinder trade and restrict the movement of labor and capital. And he has cast doubt on existing US security guarantees by suggesting that he will force America’s allies to pay for more of their own defense. If Trump is serious about putting “America first,” his administration will shift US geopolitical strategy toward isolationism and unilateralism, pursuing only the national interests of the homeland.

When the US pursued similar policies in the 1920s and 1930s, it helped sow the seeds of World War II. Protectionism – starting with the Smoot-Hawley Tariff, which affected thousands of imported goods – triggered retaliatory trade and currency wars that worsened the Great Depression. More important, American isolationism – based on a false belief that the US was safely protected by two oceans – allowed Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan to wage aggressive war and threaten the entire world. With the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the US was finally forced to take its head out of the sand.

Today, too, a US turn to isolationism and the pursuit of strictly US national interests may eventually lead to a global conflict. Even without the prospect of American disengagement from Europe, the European Union and the eurozone already appear to be disintegrating, particularly in the wake of the United Kingdom’s June Brexit vote and Italy’s failed referendum on constitutional reforms in December. Moreover, in 2017, extreme anti-Europe left- or right-wing populist parties could come to power in France and Italy, and possibly in other parts of Europe. [Continue reading…]

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António Guterres has had the perfect preparation to lead the UN

Angelique Chrisafis and Julian Borger write: When António Guterres resigned halfway through his second term as Portuguese prime minister in 2002 because his minority government was floundering, he did something unusual for a man who had seen the highest reaches of power.

Several times a week, he went to slum neighbourhoods on the edge of Lisbon to give free maths tuition to children.

“He never allowed a journalist to go with him or let himself be filmed or photographed, and he never let journalists talk to any of his students,” said Ricardo Costa, editor-in-chief of the Portuguese SIC News, who covered Guterres’s political career. The former prime minister told his surprised students that what he was doing was personal and not for show.

The Portuguese socialist, who becomes the next UN secretary general on Sunday, is an intellectual who grew up under Portugal’s dictatorship and came of age with the 1974 revolution that ended 48 years of authoritarian rule.

Crucial to understanding Guterres, 67, is his Christian faith: his progressive Catholicism always informed his brand of social democratic politics.

In the heady days of Portugal’s revolution, it was rare to be a practising Catholic in a new Socialist party where many members had Marxist backgrounds. But Guterres, a star engineering student who grew a moustache in honour of the Chilean left’s Salvador Allende, would eventually become a modernising leader, arguing that his mission was social justice and equality. [Continue reading…]

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Kim says North Korea close to testing inter-continental missile

The Washington Post reports: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said his country is in the “last stage” of preparations to test-fire an intercontinental ballistic missile, refusing to slow his nuclear-arms development as President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take office in Washington.

Kim made his remarks in a New Year’s televised address as he outlined his country’s military achievements for the past year, the country’s official Korean Central News Agency said Sunday. North Korea has conducted three nuclear tests under Kim and launched long-range rockets.

North Korea “will continue to strengthen its ability based on nuclear might to mount a preemptive attack,” Kim said during a half-hour speech that touched on a variety of issues, including economic policy and relations with South Korea.

Since taking power in late 2011, the North Korean leader has concentrated on developing nuclear-armed missiles that could reach the United States. The country has refused to accept U.S. demands to freeze its arms development before the two sides can resume international disarmament talks.

Trump, who takes office Jan. 20, likened Kim to a “maniac” during his campaign while suggesting that he could meet with the North Korea leader for nuclear talks. While Kim made no mention of Trump in his speech, his comments released Sunday signal that North Korea might seek to test-fire a long-range missile around the time of the U.S. presidential inauguration to raise stakes ahead of potential talks with the Trump administration. [Continue reading…]

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Trump: ‘I know a lot about hacking’

The New York Times reports: President-elect Donald J. Trump, expressing lingering skepticism about intelligence assessments of Russian interference in the election, said on Saturday evening that he knew “things that other people don’t know” about the hacking, and that the information would be revealed “on Tuesday or Wednesday.”

Speaking to a handful of reporters outside his Palm Beach, Fla., club, Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump cast his declarations of doubt as an effort to seek the truth.

“I just want them to be sure because it’s a pretty serious charge,” Mr. Trump said of the intelligence agencies. “If you look at the weapons of mass destruction, that was a disaster, and they were wrong,” he added, referring to intelligence cited by the George W. Bush administration to support its march to war in 2003. “So I want them to be sure,” the president-elect said. “I think it’s unfair if they don’t know.”

He added: “And I know a lot about hacking. And hacking is a very hard thing to prove. So it could be somebody else. And I also know things that other people don’t know, and so they cannot be sure of the situation.”

When asked what he knew that others did not, Mr. Trump demurred, saying only, “You’ll find out on Tuesday or Wednesday.” [Continue reading…]

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