Tag Archives: Threats

Pompeo urges NATO allies to adapt to new threats from Russia, China

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (3rd L) speaks at the meeting of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Foreign Ministers at the State Department in Washington, U.S., April 4, 2019. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

By Lesley Wroughton and David Brunnstrom

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday called on NATO allies to adapt to confront a wide variety of emerging threats, including Russia’s increased aggression, Chinese strategic competition and uncontrolled migration.

Pompeo made the call at the start of a meeting of North Atlantic Treaty Organization foreign ministers in Washington marking the 70th anniversary of the transatlantic military alliance.

“We must adapt our alliance to confront emerging threats … whether that’s Russian aggression, uncontrolled migration, cyber attacks, threats to energy security, Chinese strategic competition, including technology and 5G, and many other issues,” Pompeo said.

In a 2018 strategy document, the U.S. military put countering China and Russia at the heart of a new national defense strategy.

The meeting’s first session focused on ways to deter Russia, including in the Black Sea where it seized three Ukrainian naval vessels last year.

NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg called on Moscow to release the ships and their crews.

He said Russia’s breach of the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty was part of a “pattern of destabilizing behavior.”

Washington has said it will withdraw from the treaty this summer unless Moscow ends its alleged violations of the pact, which rid Europe of land-based nuclear missiles.

“We will not mirror what Russia is doing,” said Stoltenberg. “We will be measured and coordinated, and we have no intention of deploying ground-launched nuclear missiles in Europe.”

In his remarks, Pompeo said NATO should also confront increased cyber warfare, including from China.

Washington has warned it will not partner with countries that adopt China’s Huawei Technologies systems but has been at odds on the issue with the European Union, which has shunned U.S. calls to ban the company across the bloc. The bulk of NATO members are EU countries.

Huawei is under scrutiny from Western intelligence agencies for its perceived ties to China’s government and the possibility its equipment could be used for espionage. Huawei has repeatedly denied engaging in intelligence work for any government.

The United States has also been at odds with European countries over the failure of many of them to meet NATO defense spending guidelines of 2% of GDP.

Stoltenberg told reporters that NATO allies should commit to increased defense spending to improve burden-sharing in NATO.

“All NATO allies made a pledge to invest more in defense to improve burden sharing in our alliance, and I expect all allies, including Germany, of course, to make good on the pledge we made together,” the NATO secretary general said.

U.S. President Donald Trump has called on NATO countries to pay even more than 2% of their gross domestic product for defense. He told NATO leaders last year to increase defense spending to 4% of GDP. He said the United States pays 4.3% of its GDP to NATO.

Trump has singled out Germany for not doing enough.

Stoltenberg said Germany was now making progress, but all allies needed to do more.

“We didn’t make this pledge to please the United States. We made it because we live in a more unpredictable and uncertain world,” Stoltenberg said.

The NATO chief said disagreement between NATO members Turkey and the United States over Turkey’s plan to buy S-400 missile defense systems from Russia was not part of the formal agenda of the Washington meeting but would be discussed on the margins.

The United States has halted delivery of equipment related to its advanced F-35 fighter jets to Turkey over its S-400 plans.

The United States says Turkey’s purchase of the Russian air defense system would compromise the security of F-35 aircraft, which is built by Lockheed Martin Corp and uses stealth technology.

(Reporting by Lesley Wroughton and David Brunnstrom; editing by Jonathan Oatis and James Dalgleish)

Trump threatens to close U.S. border with Mexico next week

U.S. President Donald Trump arrives to speak at a campaign rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, U.S., March 28, 2019. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

By Yeganeh Torbati and Jeff Mason

WASHINGTON/LAKE OKEECHOBEE, Fla. (Reuters) – President Donald Trump threatened on Friday to close the U.S. border with Mexico next week, potentially disrupting millions of legal border crossings and billions of dollars in trade if Mexico does not stop immigrants from reaching the United States.

“We’ll keep it closed for a long time. I’m not playing games. Mexico has to stop it,” Trump said on a visit to Florida. Asked if he would close the Mexican border to all trade, Trump told reporters: “It could be to all trade.”

Trump has repeatedly vowed to close the U.S. border with Mexico during his two years in office and has not followed through. But this time the government is struggling to deal with a surge of asylum seekers from countries in Central America who travel through Mexico.

Department of Homeland Security officials warned that traffic with Mexico could slow as the agency shifts 750 border personnel from ports of entry to help process asylum seekers who are turning up between official crossing points.

“Make no mistake: Americans may feel effects from this emergency,” Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said in a statement. Nielsen said the personnel shift would lead to commercial delays and longer wait times at crossing points.

Nielsen and other U.S. officials say border patrol officers have been overwhelmed by a dramatic increase in asylum seekers, many of them children and families, fleeing violence and economic hardship in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala.

March is on track for 100,000 border apprehensions, the highest monthly number in more than a decade, U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan said on Wednesday. Some 90,000 will be able to remain in the United States while their asylum claims are processed, he said.

Mexico played down the possibility of a border shutdown.

“Mexico does not act on the basis of threats. We are a great neighbor,” Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said on Twitter.

It is not clear how shutting down ports of entry would deter asylum seekers, as they are legally able to request help as soon as they set foot on U.S. soil.

But a border shutdown would disrupt tourism and commerce between the United States and its third-largest trade partner, which totaled $612 billion last year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

“We’d be looking at losses worth billions of dollars,” said Kurt Honold, head of CCE, a business group in Tijuana, Mexico, in response to Trump’s threat. “It’s obvious he’s not measuring what he says.”

U.S. ports of entry recorded 193 million pedestrian and vehicle-passenger crossings last year, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.

As president, Trump has legal authority to close particular ports of entry, but he could be open to a legal challenge if he decided to close all of them immediately, said Stephen Legomsky, a former chief counsel at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services under Democratic President Barack Obama.

Trump is trying to convince Congress to sign off on a revised trade agreement with Mexico and Canada that his administration negotiated last year.

“Mexico has for many years made a fortune off of the U.S., far greater than Border Costs. If Mexico doesn’t immediately stop ALL illegal immigration coming into the United States through our Southern Border, I will be CLOSING the Border, or large sections of the Border, next week,” he said on Twitter.

Trump launched his presidential bid in June 2015 with a promise to crack down on illegal immigration, saying Mexico was sending rapists and drug runners into the United States.

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Thursday that tackling illegal immigration is an issue chiefly for the United States and the Central American countries to address.

Trump has so far been unable to convince Congress to tighten asylum laws or fund a proposed border wall, one of his signature policies. Trump has declared a national emergency to justify redirecting money earmarked for the military to pay for its construction.

(Reporting by Yeganeh Torbati and Jeff Mason; Additional reporting by David Alexander, Anthony Esposito, Lizbeth Diaz and Andy Sullivan; Writing by Andy Sullivan; Editing by Tim Ahmann and Grant McCool)

Teen arrested over racist threat that closed Charlottesville schools

FILE PHOTO: Messages are left on a chalkboard wall ahead of the one-year anniversary of 2017 Charlottesville "Unite the Right" protests, in Charlottesville, Virginia, U.S., August 10, 2018. REUTERS/Jim Urquhart/File Photo

(Reuters) – Police arrested a 17-year-old boy on Friday over a racist threat of violence posted online that prompted authorities to close all the schools in Charlottesville, Virginia, for two days.

The boy, who has not been publicly identified, was charged with threatening to cause bodily harm on school property, a felony, and harassment by computer, a misdemeanor, police said in a statement.

City leaders have worked to ease racial tensions in the city since a white nationalist rally in August 2017 descended into violence, with a white nationalist killing a counter-protester and injuring others after he drove into a crowd.

The threat against Charlottesville High School was reported to the police on Wednesday afternoon, according to the police department.

School officials then quickly decided to close all schools in the city. According to U.S Census Bureau data, African Americans make up around 19 percent of Charlottesville’s population of nearly 50,000 people.

“We would like to acknowledge and condemn the fact that this threat was racially charged,” Charlottesville City Schools said in a letter sent to parents and posted on its website on Thursday evening notifying them of Friday’s closures. “The entire staff and School Board stand in solidarity with our students of color.”

The Richmond Times-Dispatch reported that a person claiming to be a student at Charlottesville High School, one of the region’s largest schools, warned white students to stay at home so they could shoot dead non-white students in an act of “ethnic cleansing.”

The boy arrested on Friday is not a student at any of the city’s schools, the Times-Dispatch reported, citing the schools superintendent.

There was widespread condemnation for the white nationalists involved in the violence in Charlottesville in 2017.

But U.S. President Donald Trump drew strong criticism in the days after the Charlottesville rally for equating white supremacists with counter-protesters and saying he thought there were “fine people” on both sides.

(Reporting by Jonathan Allen; editing by Nick Carey and Susan Thomas)

U.S. spy chiefs warn Senate on many threats to the United States

FBI Director Christopher Wray, CIA Director Gina Haspel, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) Director Gen. Robert Ashley, National Security Agency (NSA) Director Gen. Paul Nakasone and Robert Cardillo, director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, testify to the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing about "worldwide threats" on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., January 29, 2019. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

By Patricia Zengerle and Doina Chiacu

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – China and Russia pose the biggest risks to the United States, and are more aligned than they have been in decades as they target the 2020 presidential election and American institutions to expand their global reach, U.S. intelligence officials told senators on Tuesday.

The spy chiefs broke with President Donald Trump in their assessments of the threats posed by North Korea, Iran and Syria. But they outlined a clear and imminent danger from China, whose practices in trade and technology anger the U.S. president.

While China and Russia strengthen their alliance, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said some American allies are pulling away from Washington in reaction to changing U.S. policies on security and trade.

The directors of the CIA, FBI, National Security Agency and other intelligence agencies flanked Coats at the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing. They described an array of economic, military and intelligence threats, from highly organized efforts by China to scattered disruptions by terrorists, hacktivists and transnational criminals.

FBI Director Christopher Wray, CIA Director Gina Haspel, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) Director Gen. Robert Ashley, National Security Agency (NSA) Director Gen. Paul Nakasone and Robert Cardillo, director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, testify to the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing about "worldwide threats" on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., January 29, 2019. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

FBI Director Christopher Wray, CIA Director Gina Haspel, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) Director Gen. Robert Ashley, National Security Agency (NSA) Director Gen. Paul Nakasone and Robert Cardillo, director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, testify to the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing about “worldwide threats” on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., January 29, 2019. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

“China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea increasingly use cyber operations to threaten both minds and machines in an expanding number of ways – to steal information, to influence our citizens, or to disrupt critical infrastructure,” Coats said.

“Moscow’s relationship with Beijing is closer than it’s been in many decades,” he told the panel.

The intelligence officials said they had protected the 2018 U.S. congressional elections from outside interference, but expected renewed and likely more sophisticated attacks on the 2020 presidential contest.

U.S. adversaries will “use online influence operations to try to weaken democratic institutions, undermine alliances and partnerships, and shape policy outcomes,” Coats said.

The intelligence chiefs’ assessments broke with some past assertions by Trump, including on the threat posed by Russia to U.S. elections and democratic institutions, the threat Islamic State poses in Syria, and North Korea’s commitment to denuclearize.

Coats said North Korea is unlikely to give up its nuclear weapons. Trump has said the country no longer poses a threat.

Coats also said Islamic State would continue to pursue attacks from Syria, as well as Iraq, against regional and Western adversaries, including the United States. Trump, who plans to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria, has said the militant group is defeated.

The intelligence officials also said Iran was not developing nuclear weapons in violation of the 2015 nuclear agreement, even though Tehran has threatened to reverse some commitments after Trump pulled out of the deal.

Senators expressed deep concern about current threats.

“Increased cooperation between Russia and China – for a generation that hasn’t been the case – that could be a very big deal on the horizon in terms of the United States,” said Senator Angus King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats.

CHINA BIGGEST COUNTERINTELLIGENCE THREAT

The officials painted a multifaceted picture of the threat posed by China, as they were questioned repeatedly by senators about the No. 2 world economy’s business practices as well as its growing international influence.

“The Chinese counterintelligence threat is more deep, more diverse, more vexing, more challenging, more comprehensive and more concerning than any counterintelligence threat I can think of,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said.

He said almost all the economic espionage cases in the FBI’s 56 field offices “lead back to China.”

Coats said intelligence officials have been traveling around the United States and meeting with corporate executives to discuss espionage threats from China.

He said China has had a meteoric rise in the past decade, adding, “A lot of that was achieved by stealing information from our companies.”

Speaking in Beijing, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said he hoped the United States would abandon its zero-sum thinking and work with China, Russia and the rest of the international community to ensure global security.

Tuesday’s testimony came just a day after the United States announced criminal charges against China’s Huawei Technologies Co Ltd [HWT.UL], escalating a fight with the world’s biggest telecommunications equipment maker and coming days before trade talks between Washington and Beijing.

Coats also said Russia’s social media efforts will continue to focus on aggravating social and racial tensions, undermining trust in authorities and criticizing politicians perceived to be anti-Russia.

Senator Mark Warner, the panel’s top Democrat, said he was particularly concerned about Russia’s use of social media “to amplify divisions in our society and to influence our democratic processes” and the threat from China in the technology arena.

The Senate Intelligence Committee is one of several congressional panels, along with Special Counsel Robert Mueller, investigating whether there were any connections between Trump’s 2016 and Russian efforts to influence the election.

Russia denies attempting to influence U.S. elections, while Trump has denied his campaign cooperated with Moscow.

Coats declined to respond when Democratic Senator Ron Wyden asked whether Trump’s not releasing records of his discussions with Russian President Vladimir Putin put U.S. intelligence agencies at a disadvantage.

“To me from an intelligence perspective, it’s just Intel 101 that it would help our country to know what Vladimir Putin discussed with Donald Trump,” Wyden said.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle and Doina Chiacu; Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard in Beijing; editing by Mary Milliken and Jonathan Oatis)

Trump tells Iran ‘never, ever threaten’ U.S. or suffer consequences

FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump speaks about his summit meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin as he begins a meeting with members of the U.S. Congress at the White House in Washington, July 17, 2018. REUTERS/Leah Millis/File Photo

By Warren Strobel and Parisa Hafezi

WASHINGTON/ANKARA (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump told Iran it risked dire consequences “the like of which few throughout history have suffered before” if the Islamic Republic made more threats against the United States.

His words, spelled out in capital letters in a late night Twitter message, came hours after Iranian President Hassan Rouhani told Trump that hostile policies toward Tehran could lead to “the mother of all wars.”

Despite the heightened rhetoric, both sides have reasons to want to avoid starting a conflict that could easily escalate.

Trump’s comments come in the context of a barrage of speeches and online communications meant to foment unrest and pressure Iran to end its nuclear program and its support of militant groups, according to U.S. officials.

Iran has faced increased U.S. pressure and possible sanctions since Trump’s decision in May to withdraw the United States from a 2015 international agreement over Iran’s nuclear program.

In his message directed at Rouhani, Trump wrote: “Never, ever threaten the United States again or you will suffer consequences the likes of which few throughout history have ever suffered before. We are no longer a country that will stand for your demented words of violence and death. Be cautious!”.

Earlier on Sunday, Rouhani had told a gathering of Iranian diplomats: “Mr Trump, don’t play with the lion’s tail, this would only lead to regret.”

“America should know that peace with Iran is the mother of all peace, and war with Iran is the mother of all wars,” said Rouhani, quoted by the state news agency IRNA.

Rouhani left open the possibility of peace between the two countries, at odds since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. But Iran’s most powerful authority Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Saturday negotiations with the United States would be an “obvious mistake”.

Rouhani also scoffed at Trump’s threat to halt Iranian oil exports and said Iran has a dominant position in the Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, a major oil shipping waterway.

A senior commander of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards reacted angrily to Trump’s threats by saying Tehran would continue to resist its enemies, Iran’s Students news Agency ISNA reported.

“We will never abandon our revolutionary beliefs … we will resist pressure from enemies … America wants nothing less than (to) destroy Iran … (but) Trump cannot do a damn thing against Iran,” Brigadier General Gholamhossein Gheybparvar said.

“WAR OF WORDS”

Trump’s warning to Iran came hours after a speech by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo who denounced Iran’s clerical leadership as a “mafia” and promised unspecified backing for Iranians unhappy with their government.

Tehran reacted to Pompeo’s speech as an interference in Tehran’s affairs, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported.

“Such policies will unite Iranians who will overcome plots against their country,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qasemi said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised Trump’s “strong stance” on Iran.

At the same time, Germany said threats of war were “never helpful”.

There is limited appetite in Washington for a conflict with Iran, not least because of the difficulties the U.S. military faced in Iraq after its 2003 invasion but also because of the impact on the global economy if conflict raised oil prices.

Many ordinary Iranians are worried that the war of words might lead to a military confrontation but insiders in Tehran told Reuters that the U.S. administration would not drag the country into another quagmire in the Middle East.

With popular discontent over Iran’s faltering economy and sliding currency, and the prospect of tough new U.S. sanctions, Iran’s leaders have called for unity.

Many ordinary Iranians are largely skeptical of the Trump administration’s support for Iranian citizens because of the harsh U.S. sanctions on the country and a visa ban imposed on Iranians barring them from entering the United States.

Iran’s faction-ridden religious and political elites have closed ranks against Trump’s hawkish approach to Tehran.

However, growing strains with the U.S. will eventually boost Rouhani’s anti-Western hardline rivals who fear losing power if the nuclear deal, championed by Rouhani, ended the country’s political and economic isolation.

Rouhani’s apparent threat earlier this month to disrupt oil shipments from neighboring countries came in reaction to efforts by Washington to force all countries to stop buying Iranian oil.

Washington initially planned to shut Iran out of global oil markets completely after Trump abandoned the deal that limited Iran’s nuclear ambitions, demanding all other countries stop buying Iranian crude by November.

But the United States has somewhat eased its stance, saying it may grant sanction waivers to some allies that are particularly reliant on Iranian supplies.

(Additional reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Washington, Dubai newsroom, Dan Williams in Jerusalem; Writing by Daniel Wallis and Parisa Hafezi; Editing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg)

Red Cross pulls 71 foreign staff out of Yemen due to insecurity

People walk past a building one day after air strikes destroyed it in Sanaa, Yemen June 6, 2018. REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah

GENEVA (Reuters) – The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Thursday it had pulled 71 international staff out of Yemen because of security incidents and threats, moving them to Djibouti.

The aid agency called on all parties to Yemen’s three-year conflict to provide security guarantees so it can keep running its surgical, water and food assistance programs there. Some 450 ICRC staff remain in Yemen, a spokeswoman said.

An ICRC employee, a Lebanese national, was killed on April 21 by an unknown gunmen who opened fire on his car in the southwestern Yemeni city of Taiz as he was on his way to visit a prison, it said at the time.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; editing by Larry King)

Cyberwarfare, populism top ‘black swan’ events at Milken conference

Thomas Barrack, Executive Chairman, Colony Northstar, speaks at the Milken Institute's 21st Global Conference in Beverly Hills, California, U.S. May 1, 2018. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson

By Anna Irrera

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (Reuters) -Cyberwarfare and populism are some of the top risks that could threaten global stability and financial markets in the years ahead, investors and policymakers warned at the annual Milken Institute Global Conference this week, as they characterized them as black swan events.

Thomas Barrack, founder and executive chairman of Colony Northstar, said cybersecurity was his greatest concern because “if the system itself is hacked or breaks or causes trauma, I am not sure what happens.”

Representative Ed Royce, chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, echoed the sentiment, saying that “Russian weaponization of information” has been one of his main concerns.

“The impact that is having in terms of the effect on the democratic process there (in Eastern Europe) is very concerning,” Royce said. “Indeed, worldwide Russian efforts in this regard need to be effectively countered, and it’s been many years since we’ve done anything effective.”

Royce, who also expressed concerns about the proliferation of nuclear weapons, called for more aggressive action.

“We need on social media and with respects to our sanctions push-back and make them (Russia) feel the price for doing this,” Royce said.

American intelligence agencies have said that Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential race to try to help Donald Trump win the presidency. Trump has repeatedly denied receiving help from Moscow for his election campaign, and Russian has denied meddling in the election.

While government and business leaders worldwide have become more aware of cybersecurity risks, the threat may still be underappreciated, some speakers said.

“The cyberwarfare in this world is completely unknown, uncontemplated and has to be grasped as we think about where we are going,” Mary Callahan Erdoes, chief executive officer of JPMorgan Asset Management, said on Monday.

Others cited rising populism in the West as one of the biggest risks for the global economy and market stability.

“My black swan is politics, politics in the West which is getting bust,” said Peter Mandelson, a former European trade commissioner and British first secretary of state. “And bust politics has two effects. It generates populist nationalist pressures on government and regulators, draws them more into the economy, onto the backs of businesses and makes decision-making by investors and businesses much more difficult.”

Although speakers did share what might keep them up at night in the coming months, the outlook was generally upbeat at the event, with Citigroup Inc <C.N> CEO Michael Corbat describing the current state of affairs as being “OK.”

Ironically, the mood was so positive that some speakers worried about excessive optimism.

“I am really concerned regarding the overwhelming optimism, which we observed over the past two days,” said Hiro Mizuno, chief investment officer for Japan’s Government Pension Investment Fund. “People say nothing matters to the capital markets, so that is scary.”

Chris Stadler, managing partner at CVC Capital, added: “When you sit here and…you talk about all these things hitting on all cylinders and you don’t know what could change it, you’re coming close to an event.”

(Reporting by Anna Irrera; Additional reporting by Liana Baker; Editing by Jennifer Ablan and Leslie Adler)

China warns of more action after military drills near Taiwan

FILE PHOTO - China's aircraft carrier Liaoning (C) takes part in a military drill of Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy in the western Pacific Ocean, April 18, 2018. Picture taken April 18, 2018. REUTERS/Stringer

By Ben Blanchard and Jess Macy Yu

BEIJING/TAIPEI (Reuters) – A series of Chinese drills near Taiwan were designed to send a clear message to the island and China will take further steps if Taiwan independence forces persist in doing as they please, Beijing said on Wednesday, as Taiwan denounced threats of force.

Over the past year or so, China has ramped up military drills around democratic Taiwan, including flying bombers and other military aircraft around the self-ruled island. Last week China drilled in the sensitive Taiwan Strait.

China claims Taiwan as its sacred territory, and its hostility towards the island has grown since the 2016 election as president of Tsai Ing-wen from the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party.

China has been issuing increasingly strident calls for Taiwan to toe the line, even as Tsai has pledged to maintain the status quo and keep the peace.

Speaking at a regular news briefing, Ma Xiaoguang, spokesman for China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, said the message the People’s Liberation Army was sending with its exercises was “extremely clear”.

“We have the resolute will, full confidence and sufficient ability to foil any form of Taiwan independence separatist plots and moves and to defend the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” Ma said.

“If Taiwan independence forces continue to do as they please, we will take further steps,” he added, without giving details.

The military’s drills were aimed at protecting peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait and the interests of people on both sides of it, Ma said.

In Taipei, the government’s China policy-making Mainland Affairs Council said the people of Taiwan could not accept China’s military pressure and threats which it said had damaged peace in the Taiwan Strait.

“The mainland side should not attribute the consequences of misjudgment to Taiwan. This is an extremely irresponsible act,” it added.

The Republic of China is a sovereign state, the council said, using Taiwan’s formal name, and will brook no slander or criticism from China.

“We sternly warn the other side, do not create incidents again. Only by abandoning armed intimidation, facing up to the reality of the separate control on the two sides of the Taiwan Strait, and having pragmatic communication and dialogue can the differences be resolved.”

Amid the growing tension with China, Taiwan’s defense ministry said on Tuesday it will simulate repelling an invading force, emergency repairs of a major air base and using civilian-operated drones as part of military exercises starting next week.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Michael Perry)

Twitter to put warnings before swastikas, other hate images

People holding mobile phones are silhouetted against a backdrop projected with the Twitter logo in this illustration picture taken in Warsaw September 27, 2013.

By David Ingram

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Twitter Inc said on Monday it would begin putting a warning in front of pictures that show Nazi swastikas and other items it determines are hateful imagery, as well as ban their use in any profile photos on the social media network.

The step is one of several that Twitter said it would take to crack down on white nationalists and other violent or hateful groups, which have become unwelcome on a service that once took an absolutist view of free speech.

Twitter said in a statement it would shut down accounts affiliated with non-government organizations that promote violence against civilians, and ban user names that constitute a violent threat or racial slur.

It said it would also remove tweets that it determined celebrate violence or glorify people who commit violence.

Twitter, a San Francisco company founded in 2006, had called itself “the free speech wing of the free speech party” and tried to stay out of battles among users. But that has changed as persistent harassers have driven some women and minorities off Twitter, limiting their ability to express themselves.

A rise in white nationalism in the United States has also changed tech industry standards. In August, social media networks began removing white nationalists after hundreds gathered in Charlottesville, Virginia, and one of them was charged with murdering a 32-year-old woman by running her down in a car.

In October, Twitter vowed to toughen rules on online sexual harassment, bullying and other forms of misconduct.

Tweets can still include hate imagery, but users will have to click through a warning to see them, the company said. Hate images will be banned from profile photos, and further restricted where national laws require, as in Germany.

The Nazi swastika was the only specific example of a hateful image that Twitter gave, but the company said it would try to give warnings for all symbols historically associated with hate groups or which depict people as less than human.

Twitter said it had decided not to categorize the U.S. Confederate flag as hateful imagery, citing its place in history.

(Reporting by David Ingram; Editing by Richard Chang)

North Korea says U.S. threats make war unavoidable as China urges calm

North Korea says U.S. threats make war unavoidable as China urges calm

By Soyoung Kim and Heekyong Yang

SEOUL (Reuters) – Two American B-1B heavy bombers joined large-scale combat drills over South Korea on Thursday amid warnings from North Korea that the exercises and U.S. threats have made the outbreak of war “an established fact”.

The annual U.S.-South Korean “Vigilant Ace” exercises feature 230 aircraft, including a range of the U.S. military’s most advanced stealth warplanes, and come a week after North Korea tested its most powerful intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) to date which it says can reach the mainland United States.

A spokesman for the North’s foreign ministry blamed the drills and “confrontational warmongering” by U.S. officials for making war inevitable.

“The remaining question now is: when will the war break out?” the spokesman said late on Wednesday in a statement carried by North Korea’s official KCNA news agency.

“We do not wish for a war but shall not hide from it.”

China, North Korea’s neighbor and lone major ally, again urged calm and said war was not the answer.

“We hope all relevant parties can maintain calm and restraint and take steps to alleviate tensions and not provoke each other,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said in a statement.

“The outbreak of war is not in any side’s interest. The ones that will suffer the most are ordinary people.”

Tensions on the Korean peninsula have risen markedly in recent months after North Korea’s latest missile and nuclear tests, conducted in defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions and international condemnation.

STRATEGIC BOMBERS

On Wednesday, a U.S. B-1B bomber flew from the Pacific U.S.-administered territory of Guam to join the exercises, which will run until Friday.

The flights by the B-1B, one of America’s largest strike aircraft, have played a leading role in Washington’s attempts to increase pressure on North Korea to abandon its weapons program.

In September, B-1Bs were among a formation of U.S. military aircraft that flew further north up North Korea’s coast than at any time in the past 17 years, according to the U.S. Pacific Command.

That prompted North Korea’s foreign minister, Ri Yong Ho, to warn that the North could shoot down the U.S. bombers even if they did not enter North Korean airspace.

“B1-B bombers have been regularly dispatched to the Korean peninsula over the past years; however, it seems that the U.S. Air Force might have enhanced its training to better prepare for actual warfare,” said Yang Uk, a senior fellow at the Korea Defence and Security Forum.

While B-1Bs are no longer equipped to carry nuclear weapons of their own, they would be key to any strike targeting major North Korean facilities, he said.

“That’s why North Korea has been making such a big deal when B1-B bombers are flying overhead.”

ESCALATING TENSIONS

Both sides insist they don’t want war, but blame each other for provocations while saying they will act to defend themselves.

White House national security adviser H.R. McMaster said over the weekend that the possibility of war with North Korea was “increasing every day”.

U.S. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham urged the Pentagon on Sunday to start moving U.S. military dependants, such as spouses and children, out of South Korea, saying conflict with North Korea was getting close.

The Pentagon said it has “no intent” to move any dependants out of the country.

North Korea regularly threatens to destroy South Korea and the United States and says its weapons program are necessary to counter U.S. aggression. The United States stations 28,500 troops in the South, a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War.

“Recently, as the U.S. is conducting the largest-ever joint aerial drill on the Korean peninsula targeting the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, its high-level politicians are showing alarming signs by making bellicose remarks one after another,” the North’s foreign ministry spokesman said, using North Korea’s official name.

“These confrontational war-mongering remarks cannot be interpreted in any other way but as a warning to us to be prepared for a war on the Korean peninsula,” he said.

North Korea’s latest missile test prompted a warning from the United States that North Korea’s leadership would be “utterly destroyed” if war were to break out, a statement that drew sharp criticism from Russia.

U.S. President Donald Trump has said the whole of North Korea would be destroyed in the event of war.

The rising tensions coincide with a rare visit to the isolated North by United Nations political affairs chief Jeffrey Feltman this week, the highest-level U.N. official to visit North Korea since 2012.

Feltman met North Korean Foreign Minister Ri on Thursday, following his meeting with the vice foreign minister a day earlier, KCNA said.

(Additional reporting by Hyonhee Shin and Josh Smith in Seoul and Christian Shepherd in Beijing; Editing by Nick Macfie)