BEIJING/PYONGYANG: Military force cannot resolve tension over North Korea, China said on Thursday, while an influential Chinese newspaper urged the North to halt its nuclear program in exchange for Chinese protection.
With a US aircraft carrier group steaming to the area and tension rising, South Korea said it believed the US would consult it before any pre-emptive strike against the North.
Fears have been growing that the reclusive North could soon conduct its sixth nuclear test or more missile launches in defiance of UN sanctions and stark warnings from the US that a policy of patience was over.
China, North Korea’s sole major ally and benefactor, which nevertheless opposes its weapons program, has called for talks leading to a peaceful resolution and the denuclearization of the peninsula.
“Military force cannot resolve the issue,” Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told reporters in Beijing.
“Amid challenge there is opportunity. Amid tensions we will also find a kind of opportunity to return to talks.”
While US President Donald Trump has put North Korea on notice that he would not tolerate any provocation, US officials have said his administration was focusing its strategy on tougher economic sanctions.
Trump has diverted the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier group toward the Korean peninsula, which could take more than a week to arrive, in a show of force aimed at deterring North Korea from conducting another nuclear test or launching more missiles to coincide with important events and anniversaries.
The possibility of US military action gained traction after the US Navy fired 59 Tomahawk missiles at a Syrian airfield last week in response to a deadly gas attack.
Wang warned that history would hold any instigator to account.
“Whoever provokes the situation, whoever continues to make trouble in this place, they will have to assume historical responsibility,” Wang said.
South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se told Parliament in Seoul he believed Washington would consult Seoul if it was considering a pre-emptive strike. The US has about 28,500 troops in South Korea.
A Washington-based think-tank that monitors North Korea, 38 North, said satellite images on Wednesday showed activity around the North’s Punggye-ri nuclear test site on the east coast that indicated it was ready for a new test.
South Korean officials said there were no new signs to indicate a test was more likely, although they also said the North appeared ready to conduct a test at any time.
An influential state-backed Chinese newspaper said the best option for North Korea and its leader, Kim Jong Un, was to give up its nuclear program, and China would protect it if it did.
“As soon as North Korea complies with China’s declared advice and suspends nuclear activities ... China will actively work to protect the security of a denuclearized North Korean nation and regime,” said an editorial in the Global Times, which is published by the Communist party’s People’s Daily.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe underscored fears about threats from North Korea, telling Parliament in Tokyo that Pyongyang could have the capacity to deliver missiles equipped with sarin nerve gas.
A senior Japanese diplomat said the US was putting “maximum pressure” on North Korea to resolve issues peacefully while putting responsibility on China to sway its old ally.
“We will watch what action China takes,” the diplomat said.
While Japan did not see a high risk of military action, it expected to be consulted by the US if it decided to attack. North Korea has about 350 missiles that can hit Japan.
About 200 foreign journalists gathered in Pyongyang for North Korea’s biggest national day, the “Day of the Sun,” were taken to what officials billed as a “big and important event” early on Thursday.
It turned out to be the opening of a new street in the center of the capital, attended by leader Kim.
North Korea marks the 105th anniversary of the birth of state founder Kim Il Sung on Saturday. In 2012, it tried but failed to launch a long-range rocket carrying a satellite to mark the date and tested a newly developed intermediate-range missile last year.
North Korea’s official KCNA news agency said early on Thursday that Kim Jong Un had guided training of the army’s special operation forces jumping from aircraft.
On Tuesday, North Korea warned of a nuclear attack on the US at any sign of American aggression. The North is technically at war with the US and South Korea after the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a truce and not a peace treaty.
The North regularly threatens to destroy both countries.
US officials said Trump was considering sanctions that could include an oil embargo, banning North Korea’s airline, intercepting cargo ships, and punishing Chinese banks doing business with it.
“There’s a whole host of things that are possible, all the way up to what’s essentially a trade quarantine on North Korea,” one official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters in Washington.
Customs data in Beijing on Thursday showed that China’s coal imports from North Korea had plunged 51.6 percent in the first three months in 2017 from a year ago.
China suspended issue of permits for coal imports from North Korea on Feb. 18 as part of its effort to implement UN sanctions.
Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke by telephone on Wednesday, just days after they met in the US for the first time, underscoring the sense of urgency about North Korea.
Trump said on Twitter his call with Xi was a “very good” discussion of the “menace of North Korea.” He said later on Wednesday the US was prepared to tackle the crisis without China, if necessary.
Force against N. Korea will not resolve tension, China tells US
Force against N. Korea will not resolve tension, China tells US
Philippines, UAE pledge stronger economic ties as Marcos marks first visit
- Marcos is the first Philippine president to visit Abu Dhabi in more than 15 years
- UAE president says he looks forward to talks on a free trade deal with the Philippines
Manila: The Philippines and the UAE on Tuesday committed to boosting economic relations as Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. marked his first official trip to Abu Dhabi.
On his one-day trip, Marcos was received by UAE President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed.
He is the first Philippine president to visit the UAE since Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in 2008.
During the meeting, the two leaders committed “to deepening cooperation in various areas, including economy, trade and sustainability,” Marcos’ office said in a statement.
“The two leaders emphasized their dedication to strengthening bilateral ties and delivering lasting benefits to their peoples, coinciding with the 50th anniversary of friendship and collaboration between their nations.”
The Philippines and the UAE celebrated 50 years of diplomatic relations on Aug. 19.
Emirati state news agency WAM cited Sheikh Mohammed as saying that he hoped the visit “would herald a new and significant chapter” in UAE-Philippine ties and that the UAE “looks forward to continuing discussions toward reaching a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement with the Philippines to elevate trade and investment relations to new heights of mutual economic growth.”
Negotiations on the free trade deal have been underway between Philippine and UAE officials since the beginning of this year.
The UAE is a key trading partner of the Philippines in the region and home to the second-largest Filipino diaspora after Saudi Arabia.
Some 700,000 overseas Filipino workers live and work in the UAE. Many are employed in the construction, healthcare and hospitality sectors.
Marcos was initially expected to meet representatives of the Filipino community, but his visit was shortened, with the Philippine Presidential Communications Office saying he would “immediately fly back to Manila to resume his personal supervision and inspection of the relief and reconstruction activities in communities devastated by six successive typhoons.”
India seizes 5,500 kg of methamphetamine in biggest drug bust
- Myanmar-flagged boat was seized when it entered Indian waters in the Andaman Sea
- 70 percent of illegal drugs are nowadays smuggled into India via sea routes, expert says
NEW DELHI: India’s coast guard has seized a Myanmar vessel carrying 5,500 kg of methamphetamine in the Andaman Sea, marking its biggest haul of illegal drugs.
The Myanmar-flagged fishing boat Soe Wai Yan Htoo was spotted by an Indian Coast Guard reconnaissance air patrol in the Andaman Sea on Monday, as it was “operating in a suspicious manner,” the Indian Ministry of Defense said in a statement.
Officers boarded the boat for investigation when it entered Indian territorial waters.
“The six crew onboard the boat were identified as Myanmarese nationals,” the ministry said. “During rummaging, the boarding party found approx. 5,500 kgs of prohibited drug methamphetamine.”
The vessel and its crew have been taken for further investigation to an Indian naval base in Sri Vijaya Puram, the capital of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
“The seizure is the largest-ever drug haul by the Indian Coast Guard in maritime history, highlighting the growing threat of transnational maritime narcotics,” the ICG said.
The trafficking of illicit drugs from Myanmar through the Andaman Sea has been on the rise as drug cartels try to evade land controls, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime. The UNODC identifies Myanmar’s Shan state as “the epicenter” of methamphetamine production in the region.
Shan state is part of the Golden Triangle — a mountainous area in the northern part of the Mekong River basin, where the borders of Thailand, Laos, and Myanmar meet. The region has long been associated with illegal drug production and was a major source of opium in the 1970s and 1980s. In recent years, it has seen a shift toward the production of synthetic drugs.
“Myanmar’s political instability adds to this challenge since many insurgent groups operate between the border regions,” said Dr. Sreeparna Banerjee, associate fellow at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi.
She estimated that some 70 percent of illegal drugs smuggled into India currently enter the country through the Andaman Sea and the Bay of Bengal, with Monday’s haul raising concerns over the scale of criminal networks operating at sea.
“While this seizure highlights the success of coordinated operations by the ICG and other agencies, it also raises concerns about the gaps traffickers exploit. The use of unregistered vessels and vast stretches of unmonitored waters make the Andaman Sea a challenging zone for law enforcement,” Banerjee told Arab News.
“The size of the haul also indicates the potential involvement of transnational organized crime syndicates, further complicating efforts to dismantle these networks.”
Indonesia’s Supreme Court reverses acquittal of former official in slavery case
- A police investigation found 665 people had been held in cells on his property since 2010
JAKARTA: Indonesia’s Supreme Court jailed a former government official accused of human trafficking for four years, reversing a lower court decision to acquit him after people were found in cages in his palm oil plantation.
Condemned internationally and at home, the senior official in the provincial government in North Sumatra, Terbit Rencana Perangin-angin, had been accused of human trafficking, torture, forced labor, and slavery.
Prosecutors launched an appeal after a lower court acquitted him of the charges in July.
Indonesia’s Supreme Court said he would serve four years in jail, without specifying reasons, in a ruling dated Nov. 15 and seen on the court’s website on Tuesday.
The Supreme Court and prosecutors did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Reuters has sought comment from Terbit’s lawyer.
The macabre case came to light in 2022, when a police corruption investigation into Terbit found people detained in cages on his property, drawing condemnation from rights groups.
A police investigation found 665 people had been held in cells on his property since 2010, court documents showed.
Terbit, who was jailed for nine years for corruption in 2022, had previously claimed the detained individuals were participating in a drug rehabilitation program.
Prosecutors said they had been tortured and forced to work on his plantation. Six had died in captivity, Indonesia’s rights body found.
Four Pakistan security forces killed as ex-PM Khan supporters flood capital
ISLAMABAD: Pakistani protesters demanding the release of ex-prime minister Imran Khan on Tuesday killed four members of the nation’s security forces, the government said, as the crowds defied police and closed in on the capital’s center.
More than ten thousand protesters armed with sticks and slingshots took on police in central Islamabad on Tuesday afternoon, AFP journalists saw, less than three kilometers (two miles) from the government enclave they aim to occupy.
Khan was barred from standing in February elections that were marred by allegations of rigging, sidelined by dozens of legal cases that he claims were confected to prevent his comeback.
But his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party has defied a government crackdown with regular rallies. Tuesday’s is the largest in the capital since Khan was jailed in August 2023.
Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi said “miscreants” involved in the march had killed four members of the paramilitary Rangers force on a city highway leading toward the government sector.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said the men had been “run over by a vehicle.”
“These disruptive elements do not seek revolution but bloodshed,” he said in a statement. “This is not a peaceful protest, it is extremism.”
The government said Monday that one police officer had also been killed and nine more were critically wounded by demonstrators who set out toward Islamabad on Sunday.
The capital has been locked down since late Saturday, with mobile Internet sporadically cut and more than 20,000 police flooding the streets, many armed with riot shields and batons.
The government has accused protesters of attempting to derail a state visit by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who arrived for a three-day visit on Monday.
Last week, the Islamabad city administration announced a two-month ban on public gatherings.
But PTI convoys traveled from their power base in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and the most populous province of Punjab, hauling aside roadblocks of stacked shipping containers.
“We are deeply frustrated with the government, they do not know how to function,” 56-year-old protester Kalat Khan told AFP on Monday. “The treatment we are receiving is unjust and cruel.”
The government cited “security concerns” for the mobile Internet outages, while Islamabad’s schools and universities were also ordered shut on Monday and Tuesday.
“Those who will come here will be arrested,” Interior Minister Naqvi told reporters late Monday at D-Chowk, the public square outside Islamabad’s government buildings that PTI aims to occupy.
PTI’s chief demand is the release of Khan, the 72-year-old charismatic former cricket star who served as premier from 2018 to 2022 and is the lodestar of their party.
They are also protesting alleged tampering in the February polls and a recent government-backed constitutional amendment giving it more power over the courts, where Khan is tangled in dozens of cases.
Sharif’s government has come under increasing criticism for deploying heavy-handed measures to quash PTI’s protests.
“It speaks of a siege mentality on the part of the government and establishment — a state in which they see themselves in constant danger and fearful all the time of being overwhelmed by opponents,” read one opinion piece in the English-language Dawn newspaper published Monday.
“This urges them to take strong-arm measures, not occasionally but incessantly.”
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said “blocking access to the capital, with motorway and highway closures across Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, has effectively penalized ordinary citizens.”
The US State Department appealed for protesters to refrain from violence, while also urging authorities to “respect human rights and fundamental freedoms and to ensure respect for Pakistan’s laws and constitution as they work to maintain law and order.”
Khan was ousted by a no-confidence vote after falling out with the kingmaking military establishment, which analysts say engineers the rise and fall of Pakistan’s politicians.
But as opposition leader, he led an unprecedented campaign of defiance, with PTI street protests boiling over into unrest that the government cited as the reason for its crackdown.
PTI won more seats than any other party in this year’s election but a coalition of parties considered more pliable to military influence shut them out of power.
Russia’s Medvedev warns West over discussing nuclear weapons for Ukraine
MOSCOW: Senior Russian security official Dmitry Medvedev said on Tuesday that if the West supplied nuclear weapons to Ukraine then Moscow could consider such a transfer to be tantamount to an attack on Russia, providing grounds for a nuclear response.
The New York Times reported last week that some unidentified Western officials had suggested that US President Joe Biden could give Ukraine nuclear weapons, though there were fears such a step would have serious implications.
“American politicians and journalists are seriously discussing the consequences of the transfer of nuclear weapons to Kyiv,” Medvedev, who served as Russia’s president from 2008 to 2012, said on Telegram.
Medvedev said that even the threat of such a transfer of nuclear weapons could be considered as preparation for a nuclear war against Russia.
“The actual transfer of such weapons can be equated to the fait accompli of an attack on our country,” under Russia’s newly updated nuclear doctrine, he said.
