Important Takeaways:
- North Korea’s Kim, Russia’s Putin exchange letters vowing stronger ties
- North Korea leader Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin exchanged letters on Tuesday pledging to develop their ties into what Kim called a “long-standing strategic relationship,” Pyongyang’s state media KCNA said.
- The letters mark the 78th anniversary of Korea’s liberation from Japan’s 1910-45 colonial rule, which is also celebrated as a national holiday in South Korea.
- In his letter to Putin, Kim said the two countries’ friendship was forged in World War II with victory over Japan and is now “fully demonstrating their invincibility and might in the struggle to smash the imperialists’ arbitrary practices and hegemony,” KCNA said.
- “I am firmly convinced that the friendship and solidarity … will be further developed into a long-standing strategic relationship in conformity with the demand of the new era,” Kim was quoted as saying in the letter.
- “The two countries will always emerge victorious, strongly supporting and cooperating with each other in the course of achieving their common goal and cause.”
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Important Takeaways:
- Kim pointed at the South Korean capital, Seoul, and its surrounding area on a map at a meeting with generals, in pictures released by state media.
- Kim held a meeting of the central military commission in the country’s capital, Pyongyang, on Wednesday and discussed plans against its enemy, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported. It did not say who the enemy was.
- Pak Su Il was also removed from his post as chief of the general staff after just seven months.
- North Korea has launched several missiles since the start of this year, and last month it launched the Hwasong-18 intercontinental ballistic missile, which officials said could reach the U.S. mainland.
- It also threatened to shoot down American spy planes after what it said were incursions into its airspace.
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Important Takeaways:
- Japan raises alarm over China’s military, Russia ties and Taiwan tensions in new defense paper
- The Japanese government stepped up its alarm over Chinese assertiveness, warning in a report issued Friday that the country faces its worst security threats since World War II as it plans to implement a new strategy that calls for a major military buildup.
- The 2023 defense white paper, approved by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s Cabinet, is the first since the government adopted a controversial new National Security Strategy in December, seen as a break from Japan’s postwar policy limiting the use of force to self-defense.
- China, Russia and North Korea contribute to “the most severe and complex security environment since the end of World War II,” according to the 510-page report. It says China’s external stance and military activities have become a “serious concern for Japan and the international community and present an unprecedented and the greatest strategic challenge.”
- On Thursday, Russian and Chinese delegates joined North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in North Korea’s capital for a military parade that showed off the country’s latest drones and long-range nuclear-capable missiles.
- Russia and China have also stepped up strategic ties
- The report predicted that China will possess 1,500 nuclear warheads by 2035 and increase its military superiority over Taiwan, in what Japan views as a security threat, especially to its southwestern islands including Okinawa.
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Revelations 6:3-4 “when he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” 4 And out came another horse, bright red. Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people should slay one another, and he was given a great sword.
Important Takeaways:
- North Korea fires ballistic missiles after U.S. nuclear sub harbors in Jeju Island
- North Korea launched two ballistic missiles into the East Sea late Monday, after a U.S. nuclear-powered submarine took harbor in a South Korean naval base amid growing tensions on the peninsula.
- South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff confirmed the launches in a text message to reporters, stating the first launch of a short-range ballistic missile was detected at 11:55 p.m. Monday followed by a second launch at 12 a.m. Tuesday.
- Both missiles landed in the East Seat after each flew about 250 miles, it said.
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Revelations 6:3-4 “when he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” 4 And out came another horse, bright red. Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people should slay one another, and he was given a great sword.
Important Takeaways:
- U.S. ‘actively engaged’ in ensuring King’s safety – envoy
- Private faced disciplinary action, due to fly back to the U.S.
- North Korea remained silent on Thursday about a U.S. soldier who split from a tour group and made a dash across the heavily fortified border two days earlier, landing Washington in a new diplomatic quandary amid an already tense military standoff.
- State Department spokesman Miller said Sweden has been engaged as it acts as a diplomatic channel for Washington which remains technically at war with North Korea.
- “We are still trying to gather information here about the whereabouts of Private King,” he said. “The administration has and will continue to actively work to ensure his safety and return him home to his family.”
- North Korea has previously detained Americans who entered the country and put them on trial but eventually released them, often following high-level diplomatic intervention. But incidents involving U.S. servicemen have been rare.
- In a case that remains unexplained, an American college student Otto Warmbier was held for more than a year and was returned to the United States in a coma and died days later.
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Revelations 6:3-4 “when he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” 4 And out came another horse, bright red. Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people should slay one another, and he was given a great sword.
Important Takeaways:
- North Korea launches two missiles in defiance after US deployed a nuclear sub to South Korea and a soldier was arrested crossing the DMZ
- North Korea fired two short-range ballistic missiles into its eastern sea early Wednesday in what appeared to be a statement of defiance as the United States deployed a nuclear-armed submarine to South Korea for the first time in decades.
- It comes just two days after White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said he’s ‘been concerned for some time’ about more tests even though there are no ‘indications’ of an impending launch.
- The launches happened as a U.S.-led United Nations Command tried to secure the release of a U.S. soldier who fled to North Korea from the South Korean side of a border village Tuesday afternoon.
- Private 2nd Class Travis King, in his early 20s, had just been released from a South Korean prison where he was held on assault charges.
- Instead of getting on a plane to be taken back to Fort Bliss, Texas, he left and joined a tour of the Korean border village of Panmunjom, where he ran across the border, U.S. officials say.
- South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said that from 3:30am to 3:46am North Korea fired two short-range ballistic missiles from an area near capital Pyongyang that flew about 341 miles before landing in waters east of the Korean Peninsula.
- The flight distance of the North Korean missiles roughly matched the distance between Pyongyang and the South Korean port city of Busan, where the USS Kentucky arrived Tuesday afternoon in the first visit by a U.S. nuclear-armed submarine to South Korea since the 1980s.
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Revelations 6:3-4 “when he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” 4 And out came another horse, bright red. Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people should slay one another, and he was given a great sword.
Important Takeaways:
- An American national has crossed into North Korea without authorization and has been detained
- An American has crossed the heavily fortified border from South Korea into North Korea, the U.S.-led U.N. Command overseeing the area said Tuesday, amid heightened tensions over North Korea’s nuclear program.
- The U.N. Command tweeted that the U.S. citizen was on a tour to the Korean border village of Panmunjom and crossed the border into the North without authorization.
- It said he is currently in North Korean custody and that the U.N. Command is working with its North Korean counterparts to resolve the incident.
- It gave no further details on who the person is or why he crossed the border.
- Tuesday’s border crossing happened amid high tensions over North Korea’s barrage of missile tests since the start of last year. The United States earlier Tuesday sent a nuclear-armed submarine to South Korea for the first time in decades as deterrence against North Korea.
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Revelations 6:3-4 “when he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” 4 And out came another horse, bright red. Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people should slay one another, and he was given a great sword.
Important Takeaways:
- Novelist, Expert Says Potential Nuclear EMP Attack Isn’t Just Fiction, US Should Prepare
- Excessive heat in parts of the country is straining the nation’s aging electrical power grid. Temporary brownouts may occur in different places.
- But what would happen if the United States lost electricity permanently?
- Electromagnetic Pulse Bomb (E.M.P.) experts warn America’s enemies are already targeting the U.S. for a devastating attack, and at least one expert believes such an attack is inevitable.
- Most people assume Russia or China would be the countries most likely to target the U.S. with an E.M.P. However, Forstchen believes North Korea is the more likely culprit.
- The late Peter Pry, a nuclear weapons expert, and former staff director at the Congressional E.M.P. Commission, agreed. Five years before his death in 2022, Dr. Pry warned that Kim Jung Un’s launch of a high-altitude ballistic missile was a test of North Korea’s E.M.P. capabilities against the United States.
- “The Japanese and South Korean military both described it as practicing for an E.M.P. attack because it was a burst set deliberately by the North Koreans when it was at an altitude of 71 kilometers, Pry said.
- The higher the altitude of the missile, the wider the area of destruction.
- Pry described the scenario of how such an attack would devastate an unprepared United States.
- “Cars would be paralyzed,” he explained. “Airplanes could fall out of the sky. You’d have natural gas pipeline explosions, nuclear reactor overloads. And worst of all, if you had a protracted blackout, it would be a serious threat to the survival of the American people.
- No electricity means no pumps to provide enough water needed to irrigate and grow crops; and since America has only a 30-day reserve food supply, 90 percent of the population would likely die within 1 or 2 years of the E.M.P. attack.
- Forstchen says history proves that societies always use the weapons they develop. He warns that the United States cannot sit back and assume an E.M.P. attack will never happen.
- When we asked why he thinks such an attack is likely or even imminent, he replied, “Sooner or later, somebody is going to try to do this,” and added, “I’m not saying it’s going to happen tomorrow, but at some point, it will happen.”
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Revelations 6:3-4 “when he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” 4 And out came another horse, bright red. Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people should slay one another, and he was given a great sword.
Important Takeaways:
- North Korea fires suspected intercontinental ballistic missile
- North Korea has fired multiple missiles, including a failed suspected intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) that forced the Japanese government to issue evacuation alerts in the northern and central parts of the country.
- The launches on Thursday are the latest in a series of North Korean weapons tests in recent months that have raised tensions in the region. They come a day after Pyongyang fired more than 20 missiles, the most in a single day, including one that landed off South Korea’s coast for the first time and prompted Seoul to fire air-to ground missiles in response.
- The United States said the launch was a clear breach of UN resolutions.
- “This action underscores the need for all countries to fully implement (North Korea) related UN Security Council resolutions, which are intended to prohibit (North Korea) from acquiring the technologies and materials needed to carry out these destabilizing tests,” a State Department spokesperson said in a statement.
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Revelations 6:3-4 “when he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” 4 And out came another horse, bright red. Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people should slay one another, and he was given a great sword.
Important Takeaways:
- The US flies nuclear-capable bombers in a fresh show of force against North Korea
- The United States flew nuclear-capable bombers to the Korean Peninsula on Friday in its latest show of force against North Korea, days after the North staged massive anti-U.S. rallies in its capital.
- The long-range B-52 bombers took part in joint aerial drills with other U.S. and South Korean fighter jets over the peninsula, South Korea’s Defense Ministry said in a statement. The bombers’ flyover is the latest in a series of temporary U.S. deployments of strategic assets in South Korea in response to North Korea’s push to expand its nuclear arsenal.
- Two weeks ago, the U.S. deployed a nuclear-powered submarine capable of carrying about 150 Tomahawk missiles to South Korean waters for the first time in six years. The USS Michigan’s arrival came a day after North Korea resumed missile tests to protest previous U.S.-South Korean drills that it views as an invasion rehearsal.
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