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  • North Korea Nuclear Timeline Fast Facts | CNN

    North Korea Nuclear Timeline Fast Facts | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Here is a look at North Korea’s nuclear capabilities and the history of its weapons program.

    North Korea signs the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

    The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) demands that inspectors be given access to two nuclear waste storage sites. In response, North Korea threatens to quit the NPT but eventually opts to continue participating in the treaty.

    North Korea and the United States sign an agreement. North Korea pledges to freeze and eventually dismantle its old, graphite-moderated nuclear reactors in exchange for international aid to build two new light-water nuclear reactors.

    January 29 – US President George W. Bush labels North Korea, Iran and Iraq an “axis of evil” in his State of the Union address. “By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger,” he says.

    October – The Bush Administration reveals that North Korea has admitted operating a secret nuclear weapons program in violation of the 1994 agreement.

    January 10 – North Korea withdraws from the NPT.

    February – The United States confirms North Korea has reactivated a five-megawatt nuclear reactor at its Yongbyon facility, capable of producing plutonium for weapons.

    April – Declares it has nuclear weapons.

    North Korea tentatively agrees to give up its entire nuclear program, including weapons. In exchange, the United States, China, Japan, Russia and South Korea say they will provide energy assistance to North Korea, as well as promote economic cooperation.

    July – After North Korea test fires long range missiles, the UN Security Council passes a resolution demanding that North Korea suspend the program.

    October – North Korea claims to have successfully tested its first nuclear weapon. The test prompts the UN Security Council to impose a broad array of sanctions.

    February 13 – North Korea agrees to close its main nuclear reactor in exchange for an aid package worth $400 million.

    September 30 – At six-party talks in Beijing, North Korea signs an agreement stating it will begin disabling its nuclear weapons facilities.

    December 31 – North Korea misses the deadline to disable its weapons facilities.

    June 27 – North Korea destroys a water cooling tower at the Yongbyon nuclear facility.

    December – Six-party talks are held in Beijing. The talks break down over North Korea’s refusal to allow international inspectors unfettered access to suspected nuclear sites.

    May 25 – North Korea announces it has conducted its second nuclear test.

    June 12 – The UN Security Council condemns the nuclear test and imposes new sanctions.

    November 20 – A Stanford University professor publishes a report that North Korea has a new nuclear enrichment facility.

    October 24-25 – US officials meet with a North Korean delegation in Geneva, Switzerland, in an effort to restart the six-party nuclear arms talks that broke down in 2008.

    February 29 – The State Department announces that North Korea has agreed to a moratorium on long-range missile launches and nuclear activity at the nation’s major nuclear facility in exchange for food aid.

    January 24 – North Korea’s National Defense Commission says it will continue nuclear testing and long-range rocket launches in defiance of the United States. The tests and launches will feed into an “upcoming all-out action” targeting the United States, “the sworn enemy of the Korean people,” the commission says.

    February 12 – Conducts third nuclear test. This is the first nuclear test carried out under Kim Jong Un. Three weeks later, the United Nations orders additional sanctions in protest.

    March 30-31 – North Korea warns that it is prepping another nuclear test. The following day, the hostility escalates when the country fires hundreds of shells across the sea border with South Korea. In response, South Korea fires about 300 shells into North Korean waters and sends fighter jets to the border.

    May 6 – In an exclusive interview with CNN, the deputy director of a North Korean think tank says the country has the missile capability to strike mainland United States and would do so if the United States “forced their hand.”

    May 20 – North Korea says that it has the ability to miniaturize nuclear weapons, a key step toward building nuclear missiles. A US National Security Council spokesman responds that the United States does not think the North Koreans have that capability.

    December 12 – North Korea state media says the country has added the hydrogen bomb to its arsenal.

    January 6-7 – North Korea says it has successfully conducted a hydrogen bomb test. A day after the alleged test, White House spokesman Josh Earnest says that the United States has not verified that the test was successful.

    March 9 – North Korea announces that it has miniature nuclear warheads that can fit on ballistic missiles.

    September 9 – North Korea claims to have detonated a nuclear warhead. According to South Korea’s Meteorological Administration, the blast is estimated to have the explosive power of 10 kilotons.

    January 1 – In a televised address, Kim claims that North Korea could soon test an intercontinental ballistic missile.

    January 8 – During an interview on “Meet the Press,” Defense Secretary Ash Carter says that the military will shoot down any North Korean missile fired at the United States or any of its allies.

    January 12 – A US defense official tells CNN that the military has deployed sea-based radar equipment to track long-range missile launches by North Korea.

    July 4 – North Korea claims it has conducted its first successful test of an intercontinental ballistic missile, or ICBM, that can “reach anywhere in the world.”

    July 25 – North Korea threatens a nuclear strike on “the heart of the US” if it attempts to remove Kim as Supreme Leader, according to Pyongyang’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

    August 7 – North Korea accuses the United States of “trying to drive the situation of the Korean peninsula to the brink of nuclear war” after the UN Security Council unanimously adopts new sanctions in response to Pyongyang’s long-range ballistic missile tests last month.

    August 9 – North Korea’s military is “examining the operational plan” to strike areas around the US territory of Guam with medium-to-long-range strategic ballistic missiles, state-run news agency KCNA says. The North Korea comments are published one day after President Donald Trump warns Pyongyang that if it continues to threaten the United States, it would face “fire and fury like the world has never seen.”

    September 3 – North Korea carries out its sixth test of a nuclear weapon, causing a 6.3 magnitude seismic event, as measured by the United States Geological Survey. Pyongyang claims the device is a hydrogen bomb that could be mounted on an intercontinental missile. A nuclear weapon monitoring group describes the weapon as up to eight times stronger than the bomb dropped in Hiroshima in 1945. In response to the test, Trump tweets that North Korea continues to be “very hostile and dangerous to the United States.” He goes on to criticize South Korea, claiming that the country is engaging in “talk of appeasement” with its neighbor to the north. He also says that North Korea is “an embarrassment to China,” claiming Beijing is having little success reining in the Kim regime.

    November 1 – A US official tells CNN that North Korea is working on an advanced version of its intercontinental ballistic missile that could potentially reach the United States.

    November 28 – A South Korean minister says that North Korea may develop the capability to launch a nuclear weapon on a long-range ballistic missile at some point in 2018.

    January 2 – Trump ridicules Kim in a tweet. The president says that he has a larger and more functional nuclear button than the North Korean leader in a post on Twitter, responding to Kim’s claim that he has a nuclear button on his desk.

    January 10 – The White House releases a statement indicating that the Trump administration may be willing to hold talks with North Korea.

    March 6 – South Korea’s national security chief Chung Eui-yong says that North Korea has agreed to refrain from nuclear and missile testing while engaging in peace talks. North Korea has also expressed an openness to talk to the United States about abandoning its nuclear program, according to Chung.

    March 8 – Chung, standing outside the White House, announces that Trump has accepted an invitation to meet Kim.

    June 12 – The final outcome of a landmark summit, and nearly five hours of talks between Trump and Kim in Singapore, culminates with declarations of a new friendship but only vague pledges of nuclear disarmament.

    December 5 – New satellite images obtained exclusively by CNN reveal North Korea has significantly expanded a key long-range missile base, offering a reminder that Kim is still pursuing his promise to mass produce and deploy the existing types of nuclear warheads in his arsenal.

    January 18 – Trump meets with Kim Yong Chol, North Korea’s lead negotiator on nuclear talks, and they discuss denuclearization and the second summit scheduled for February.

    February 27-28 – A second round of US-North Korean nuclear diplomacy talks ends abruptly with no joint agreement after Kim insists all US sanctions be lifted on his country. Trump states that Kim offered to take some steps toward dismantling his nuclear arsenal, but not enough to warrant ending sanctions imposed on the country.

    March 8 – Analysts say that satellite images indicate possible activity at a launch facility, suggesting that the country may be preparing to shoot a missile or a rocket.

    March 15 – North Korea’s foreign minister tells reporters that the country has no intention to “yield to the US demands.” In the wake of the comment, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo insists that negotiations will continue.

    May 4 – South Korea’s Defense Ministry states that North Korea test-fired 240 mm and 300 mm multiple rocket launchers, including a new model of a tactical guide weapon on May 3. According to the defense ministry’s assessment, the launchers’ range is about 70 to 240 kilometers (43 to 149 miles). The test is understood to be the first missile launch from North Korea since late 2017 – and the first since Trump began meeting with Kim.

    October 2 – North Korea says it test fired a new type of a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM), a day after Pyongyang and Washington agreed to resume nuclear talks. The launch marks a departure from the tests of shorter range missiles North Korea has carried out in recent months.

    December 3 – In a statement, Ri Thae Song, a first vice minister at the North Korean Foreign Ministry working on US affairs, warns the United States to prepare for a “Christmas gift,” which some interpret as the resumption of long-distance missile testing. December 25 passes without a “gift” from the North Korean regime, but US officials remain watchful.

    October 10 – North Korea unveils what analysts believe to be one of the world’s largest ballistic missiles at a military parade celebrating the 75th anniversary of the Workers’ Party broadcast on state-run television.

    August 27 – In an annual report on Pyongyang’s nuclear program, the IAEA says North Korea appears to have restarted operations at a power plant capable of producing plutonium for nuclear weapons. The IAEA says that clues, such as the discharge of cooling water, observed in early July, indicated the plant is active. No such evidence had been observed since December 2018.

    September 13 – North Korea claims it successfully test-fired new long-range cruise missiles on September 11 and 12, according to the country’s state-run KCNA. According to KCNA, the missiles traveled for 7,580 seconds along oval and figure-eight flight orbits in the air above the territorial land and waters of North Korea and hit targets 1,500 kilometers (930 miles) away. The US and neighboring South Korea are looking into the launch claims, officials in both countries tell CNN.

    October 14 – An academic study finds that North Korea can get all the uranium it needs for nuclear weapons through its existing Pyongsan mill, and, based on satellite imagery, may be able to increase production above its current rate.

    January 12 – The United States announces sanctions on eight North Korean and Russian individuals and entities for supporting North Korea’s ballistic missile programs.

    January 20 – North Korea says it will reconsider its moratorium on nuclear and long-range missile tests, according to state media.

    March 24 – North Korea fires what is believed to be its first intercontinental ballistic missile since 2017. Analysts say the test could be the longest-range missile yet fired by North Korea, possibly representing a new type of ICBM.

    September 9 – North Korean state media reports that North Korea has passed a new law declaring itself a nuclear weapons state. Leader Kim Jong Un vows the country will “never give up” its nuclear weapons and says there will be no negotiations on denuclearization.

    October 4 – North Korea fires a ballistic missile without warning over Japan for the first time in five years, a highly provocative and reckless act that marks a significant escalation in its weapons testing program.

    October 10 – North Korea performs a series of seven practice drills, intended to demonstrate its readiness to fire tactical nuclear warheads at potential targets in South Korea. Quoting leader Kim Jong Un, who oversaw the drills, KCNA says the tests, which coincided with nearby military drills between the United States, South Korea and Japan, showed Pyongyang was ready to respond to regional tensions by involving its “huge armed forces.”

    January 1 – Pyongyang’s state media reports that Kim Jong Un is calling for an “exponential increase” in his country’s nuclear weapons arsenal in response to what he claims are threats from South Korea and the United States.

    July 18 – South Korea’s Defense Ministry announces the presence of a nuclear capable US Navy ballistic missile submarine in the South Korean port city of Busan. The arrival of the submarine follows a period of heightened tensions on the peninsula, during which North Korea has both tested what it said was an advanced long range missile and threatened to shoot down US military reconnaissance aircraft.

    September 28 – The state-run Korean Central News Agency reports North Korea has amended its constitution to bolster and expand its nuclear force, with leader Kim Jong Un pointing to the growing cooperation between the United States, South Korea and Japan. The law added into North Korea’s constitution reinforces North Korea’s view that it is a forever nuclear power and that the idea of denuclearizing or giving up its weapons is not up for discussion.

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  • Russia says it shot down Ukrainian missiles over key Crimea bridge | CNN

    Russia says it shot down Ukrainian missiles over key Crimea bridge | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Russian officials say multiple missiles were shot down over the crucial bridge connecting the annexed Crimea to the mainland on Saturday, the latest in a series of apparent Ukrainian attacks in the region.

    The bridge is one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s pet projects and has frequently been targeted as a hated symbol of occupation.

    Two Ukrainian missiles were shot down on Saturday afternoon, the Russia-appointed Head of Crimea Sergey Aksyonov wrote in a post on Telegram, adding that the bridge was undamaged.

    Photos and videos circulating on social media platforms showed white smoke billowing from the bridge. CNN has not independently verified the images.

    An update from Aksyonov said later Saturday that another Ukrainian missile had been shot down in the area.

    “Another enemy missile was shot down over the Kerch Strait. Thank you to our air defense troops for their high professionalism and vigilance!” Aksyonov wrote on Telegram.

    Oleg Kryuchkov, an adviser to the Russian-appointed Head of Crimea, said special services put up a “smoke screen,” which are used to conceal any damage caused.

    Russia’s defense ministry also said earlier Saturday that its forces had destroyed 20 Ukrainian drones launched at the peninsula overnight.

    Following the attempted strikes, Russia’s foreign ministry condemned Ukraine for what it described as a “terrorist attack.”

    “The Crimean bridge is an object of purely civilian infrastructure, attacks on which are unacceptable. It has been subjected to such attacks since the autumn of last year, which also led to the death of civilians,” Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said.

    “Such barbaric actions cannot be justified and will not go unanswered,” Zakharova continued.

    Meanwhile, traffic has resumed on the Crimean bridge, according to the Crimean bridge operative information Telegram account, after it was temporarily blocked.

    The Crimean bridge is a vital artery for supplying Russia’s war on Ukraine, allowing people and goods to flow into the Ukrainian territories that Moscow has occupied in the south and east of the country.

    Also known as the Kerch Bridge, it holds personal value for Russian President Vladimir Putin. In the Kremlin narrative it marks the “reunification” of Crimea with the Russian mainland.

    In October, the bridge was partially destroyed when a fuel tanker exploded and damaged a large section of the road. The Kremlin was quick to blame Kyiv for that explosion, and Putin alleged that it was an act of “sabotage” by Ukrainian security services.

    The bridge was also hit by two strikes in July in an attack a Ukrainian security official told CNN Kyiv was responsible for.

    Last week the head of the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) Vasyl Maliuk said that any explosions that happen to Russian ships or the Crimean bridge are “an absolutely logical and effective step.”

    Maliuk said that if the Russians wanted such explosions to stop “they have the only option to do so – to leave the territorial waters of Ukraine and our land.”

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  • Zelensky urges Trump to share Ukraine peace plan but says he won’t give territory to Russia | CNN Politics

    Zelensky urges Trump to share Ukraine peace plan but says he won’t give territory to Russia | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Volodymyr Zelensky urged Donald Trump to share his peace plans publicly if the former US president has a way to end the war between Ukraine and Russia – but the Ukrainian president cautioned in an interview Tuesday that any peace plan where Ukraine gives up territory would be unacceptable.

    “He can publicly share his idea now, not waste time, not to lose people, and say, ‘My formula is to stop the war and stop all this tragedy and stop Russian aggression,’” Zelensky told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, following his speech Tuesday at the United Nations General Assembly. “And he said, how he sees it, how to push Russian from our land. Otherwise, he’s not presenting the global idea of peace.”

    The Ukrainian president added: “So (if) the idea is how to take the part of our territory and to give Putin, that is not the peace formula.”

    Trump, the front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, has claimed that he would be able to cut a deal with Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the war in Ukraine within 24 hours. Pressed Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” about whether the deal would let Putin keep the land he’s taken, Trump said, “No, no. I’d make a fair deal for everybody. Nope, I’d make it fair.”

    Trump, asked at the time whether it would be a win for Putin, said, “You know, that’s something that could have been negotiated. Because there were certain parts, Crimea and other parts of the country, that a lot of people expected could happen. You could have made a deal. So they could have made a deal where there’s lesser territory right now than Russia’s already taken, to be honest.”

    Zelensky’s trip to the United Nations comes as Ukraine is facing its stiffest headwinds in the US to date over support for the war. A faction of the House GOP conference is openly hostile to providing Ukraine with any additional military aid, and it remains unclear whether House Speaker Kevin McCarthy will be willing to sign off on more funding.

    In the interview, Zelensky gave a positive assessment of Ukraine’s ongoing counteroffensive, which has sparked concerns that it’s failing to achieve expected results. And he reiterated Ukraine’s desire to obtain long-range missiles from the US, which President Joe Biden is still considering, saying it would be “a loss” for Ukraine if they do not receive them.

    “We are on the finishing line, I’m sure of that,” Zelensky said.

    Zelensky told Blitzer that he’s planning to meet with McCarthy when he travels to Washington later this week. Asked about those skeptical of offering more funding to Ukraine, Zelensky said that it was difficult for those who have not seen war up close to compare domestic problems like civil rights or energy to the existential threat facing a country under attack.

    “It’s so difficult to understand when you are in war, and when you are not in war,” Zelensky said. “Even when you come to the war, to the country which is in war, when you come to one day, you can understand more than you live, you hear, you think, you read. No, you can’t compare. It’s different situation. That’s why I’m thinking we can’t compare these challenges.”

    Biden last month asked Congress to approve an additional $24 billion in emergency spending for Ukraine and other international needs. While there’s bipartisan support for the funding package in the Senate, there’s no sign yet that the Republican-led House will play ball.

    Following his speech Tuesday at the UN General Assembly, Zelensky is traveling to Washington, DC, where he will hold talks with Biden at the White House, along with a visit to Capitol Hill. Zelensky addressed a joint meeting of Congress in a surprise appearance last December.

    Zelensky’s trip to the Capitol this week gives him the chance to make a personal pitch to skeptical lawmakers to approve more aid for the war. The Ukrainian leader is slated to speak at an all-senators meeting, though a similar meeting is not planned for the House.

    McCarthy, who is expected to meet with Zelensky along with other House leaders, declined Tuesday to commit to more funding for Ukraine.

    “Was Zelensky elected to Congress? Is he our president? I don’t think so. I have questions for where’s the accountability on the money we’ve already spent? What is this the plan for victory?” the California Republican said.

    ‘Nobody knows’

    Asked whether a major breakthrough was possible this year in Ukraine’s military counteroffensive, Zelensky said, “I think nobody knows, really.”

    “But I think that we will have more success,” he said, noting gains Ukraine has made in the east.

    Zelensky said he remained focus on obtaining more long-range missiles from the US, arguing that Ukraine did not want them to target Russia but to keep the battlefield capabilities level between the two sides.

    Biden is expected to make a final decision soon on sending the long-range Army Tactical Missile Systems, also known as ATACMS, CNN reported earlier this month.

    “It would be a loss for us” if the weapons are not provided, Zelensky said, adding it would result in “more casualties on the battlefield and elsewhere.”

    He also reiterated the need for more air defense systems, particularly the US-made Patriot air defense system, saying they were needed to help protect civilian areas.

    Zelensky downplayed tensions between the US and Ukrainian officials over Ukraine’s military strategy in Russian-occupied Crimea, when asked about skepticism from officials in Washington over Ukraine ramping up missile strikes to try to disrupt Russian logistics and resupply efforts.

    “We think the same way,” he said.

    Still, Zelensky defended the strategy.

    “Temporary-occupied Crimea – it’s a place they store weapons to kill our civilians,” he said. “They’re shooting from Crimea into our territory. And of course, we have to see where their rockets are coming from, and we have to basically deal with it.”

    This story has been updated with additional details.

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  • Incident involving US warship intercepting missiles near Yemen lasted 9 hours | CNN Politics

    Incident involving US warship intercepting missiles near Yemen lasted 9 hours | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    A US warship that intercepted drones and missiles near the coast of Yemen on Thursday encountered a larger and more sustained barrage than was previously known, shooting down 4 cruise missiles and 15 drones over a period of 9 hours, according to a US official familiar with the situation.

    The USS Carney, an Arleigh-Burke class destroyer that traversed the Suez Canal heading south on Wednesday, intercepted the missiles and drones as they were heading north along the Red Sea. Their trajectory left little doubt that the projectiles were headed for Israel, the official said, a clearer assessment than the Pentagon’s initial take.

    A sustained barrage of drones and missiles targeting Israel from far outside the Gaza conflict is one of a series of worrying signs that the war risks escalating beyond the borders of the coastal enclave.

    In addition to protests at US embassies across the Middle East, US and coalition forces in Syria and Iraq have come under repeated attack over the past several days.

    On Thursday, Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said the missiles were fired by Iranian-backed Houthi forces in Yemen and were launched “potentially towards targets in Israel.” At the briefing, Ryder said three land-attack cruise missiles and “several” drones.

    Some of the projectiles were traveling at altitudes that made them a potential risk to commercial aviation when they were intercepted, the US official said. The drones and missiles were intercepted with SM-2 surface-to-air missiles launched from the USS Carney.

    US interceptions of Houthi launches are exceedingly rare, making the timing of this incident, as tensions rise in Israel, more significant. In October 2016, the USS Mason deployed countermeasures to stop an attempted attack in the Red Sea targeting the Navy destroyer and other ships nearby. In response, the US fired sea-launched cruise missiles at Houthi radar facilities in Yemen.

    On Wednesday, one-way attack drones targeted two different US positions in Iraq, according to US Central Command. One of the attacks resulted in minor injuries. One day later, the At-Tanf garrison in Syria, which houses US and coalition forces, was targeted by two drones, which also caused minor injuries.

    Early Friday morning in Iraq, two rockets targeted the Baghdad Diplomatic Support Center near the airport, which houses US military, diplomatic and civilian personnel, according to another US defense official. One rocket was intercepted by a counter-rocket system, while the second hit an empty storage facility, the official said. No one was injured as a result of the rocket attack.

    The US has not assigned attribution for any of the recent attacks in Iraq and Syria, though Iranian proxies have carried out similar drone and rocket attacks against US forces in both countries in the past.

    The US military has carried out strikes on Iranian-backed militias as a response to previous such attacks against US forces, but the Pentagon would not say anything yet about its intentions.

    “While I’m not going to forecast any potential response to these attacks, I will say that we will take all necessary actions to defend US and coalition forces against any threat,” said Ryder. “Any response, should one occur, will come at a time and a manner of our choosing.”

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  • North Korea says satellite launch fails, plans to try again | CNN

    North Korea says satellite launch fails, plans to try again | CNN

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    Seoul, South Korea
    CNN
     — 

    North Korea’s attempt to put a military reconnaissance satellite in space failed Wednesday when the second stage of the rocket malfunctioned, state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said, adding that Pyongyang planned to carry out a second launch as soon as possible.

    “The new satellite vehicle rocket, Chollima-1, crashed into the West Sea ​​as it lost propulsion due to an abnormal startup of the engine on the 2nd stage after the 1st stage was separated during normal flight,” KCNA said.

    The report said “the reliability and stability of the new engine system” was “low” and the fuel used “unstable,” leading to the mission’s failure.

    North Korea’s National Space Development Agency said it would investigate the failure “urgently” and carry out another launch after new testing, KCNA reported.

    The South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said it identified an object presumed to be part of what North Korea claims to be its space launch vehicle in the sea about 200 kilometers (125 miles) west of Eocheong Island at around 8:05 a.m. and is in the process of obtaining it.

    Earlier, South Korea’s military said Pyongyang fired a “space projectile,” triggering emergency alerts in Seoul and Japan, weeks after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ordered officials to prepare to launch the country’s first military reconnaissance satellite.

    Both countries later canceled those alerts when it became clear there was no danger to civilian areas from the North Korean launch.

    Analysts said Wednesday morning’s events illustrated problems for both North and South Korea, for Pyongyang in its space program and for Seoul in its public alert process.

    “North Korean space efforts have consistently failed, indicating that whereas its military ballistic capabilities are being developed, its space launch capabilities are not proceeding at the same pace of development,” said Malcolm Davis, a senior analyst at The Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

    South Korea identified what it believes to be a part of a fallen North Korean space vehicle

    “That is curious because space launch capabilities and ballistic missile systems are essentially similar technologies in many respects, and North Korean testing of ballistic missile systems have been more successful,” Davis said.

    North Korea has performed dozens of ballistic missile tests over the past two years, which analysts have said have shown a maturation in the program.

    The test of a new solid-fueled intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) in April showed that Pyongyang could launch the missiles more quickly in the event of any nuclear confrontation, analysts said.

    The North Korean launch sparked air raid sirens around Seoul about 6:30 a.m., causing confusion among residents who are used to pre-announced tests of the warning system in the middle of the day.

    The sirens were followed by a text sent to cell phones, telling people to prepare to seek shelter.

    The alert was canceled about 20 minutes after it was issued.

    Who implemented the alert remains uncertain. The Interior Ministry said it was issued by the Seoul city government in error.

    Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon apologized to the citizens for “causing confusion” over sending a citywide alert, adding that efforts will be made to refine the system to avoid similar situations.

    Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, said any criticism of government leaders for the alert may be unwarranted.

    “The government would receive more criticism if it did not make every effort for public safety,” Easley said.

    In fact, he said the alert could help shake South Korean residents from complacency about the dangers posed by Pyongyang’s missile programs.

    “The Yoon administration will likely promise improvements to the alert system but may also expect that greater awareness of the North Korean threat will increase support for the government’s military deterrence policies,” Easley said.

    Both the South Korean and Japanese governments condemned the North Korean launch as a violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions.

    “Whether it was a success or not (it was) a serious provocation that threatens peace and security on the Korean Peninsula and the international community,” according to a statement from Yoon’s office.

    In Japan, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said Tokyo “vehemently protested” to North Korea. He promised continued “vigilance and surveillance” from the Japanese government.

    Japan’s Defense Ministry had warned on Monday it would destroy any North Korean missile that entered its territory after Pyongyang notified the country of plans to launch a “satellite.”

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  • Ukraine’s air defenses are better than ever, but Dnipro devastation shows they’re not perfect | CNN

    Ukraine’s air defenses are better than ever, but Dnipro devastation shows they’re not perfect | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    The drive takes us through unmarked roads and fresh trails in a remote wooded area.

    “We’re nearly there,” our driver signals, pointing at a dot on a map, a location shared by the Ukrainian military.

    We turn a corner and, in the bushes, we see the Gepard, a German-made self-propelled anti-aircraft gun.

    Air defense units like this one can be the difference between life and death, whenever Russia launches missile strikes or fills the skies with swarms of Iranian-made drones.

    They are frequently targeted by Moscow and this type of access is rare.

    “You are looking at a Gepard 1 A2 self-propelled anti-aircraft gun,” Oleh, one of the gun’s operators says.

    “The turret is equipped with two 35 mm guns made by Orlikon, the rate of fire of these guns is 550 rounds per minute per gun, which is 1,100 rounds per minute in total.”

    This is one of 34 Gepards Germany has sent to Kyiv, with more already promised. The system, first built in the 1970s and decommissioned by Berlin in 2010, is old but reliable and has been a game changer for Ukraine.

    “Thanks to the fact that this anti-aircraft system has a computer system that automatically helps us to detect the target, capture it and help us destroy it as soon as possible,” Oleh explains.

    “There may be more than one target, maybe three or four targets, and we need to destroy them one by one, so the computer system makes it as easy as possible for the operator to do their job.”

    His unit has already shot down four Shahed drones and two missiles.

    “[The Russians] like to say that their missiles are impossible to shoot down, but when the technology allows, the crew is motivated, trained and knows their job, nothing is impossible,” he adds. “We can destroy any enemy target.”

    Because of Western donations, Ukraine now field a multi-layered air defense network capable of hitting short, medium and long range targets.

    The Gepard is the tip of the spear in an arsenal that now includes Franco-Italian SAMP/T, German Iris-T, as well as the American NASAMS and Patriot air defense systems, among others. All of these are kept under even more secrecy, in undisclosed locations away from prying eyes, to avoid targeting by Russian forces.

    And the results are on display, with Russian missile and drone strikes inflicting less and less damage.

    The Gepard -- which means Cheetah in German -- is armed with twin 35 mm guns which can fire up to 550 rounds per minute each.

    This particular unit has successfully shot down two Russian missiles and four Iranian-made Shahed drones.

    “By enriching our air defense system with such very effective models, we increase the effectiveness of the air defense system in general, in particular, we have the means that can fight Kinzhals and ballistic missiles, as well as cruise missiles and strike drones,” Lieutenant General Serhii Naiev, Commander of the Joint Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine says.

    Lt General Naiev has oversight over the Gerards and says their work in combination with other systems is why Ukraine’s air defenses have become so effective.

    “We place them at appropriate distances in the overall air defense concept. This gives the result that we see with our own eyes when we count the number of enemy targets shot down,” he explains.

    “The percentage is constantly increasing, now the efficiency is over 80%.”

    He says the current success rate has no parallel.

    “This is the efficiency of our crews, these guys, and the assistance provided by our partners. We are grateful to our partners,” Naiev says. “We’ll definitely continue learning and will definitely continue to defend our land from air strikes.”

    Still, some drones and missiles do break through Ukraine’s anti-aircraft defenses.

    Sometimes their impact is minimal, but sometimes it is devastating, such as Friday’s deadly strike in the city of Dnipro.

    “S-300 or S-400 anti-aircraft guided missiles, this is the type of weapon the occupiers often use attacking the frontline areas. Presumably, it was these types of rockets that struck civilian objects [in Dnipro],” Yurii Inhat, spokesman for Ukraine’s Air Force command said after the strike.

    “Using this type of weapon in the densely populated cities is pure terrorism.”

    Lt. General Naiev says to stop such attacks breaking through its defenses Ukraine needs more equipment, more ammunition and more training for its personnel.

    “We realize that the protection of civilians and important critical facilities depends on the amount of equipment we have received and the training of our personnel,” Naiev says.

    Ukrainian forces demonstrate their German-donated Gepard self-propelled anti-aircraft gun.

    “In order to increase and improve the air defense system, we need more of the latest models and certainly ammunition and missiles for them, because the enemy tests our air defense system almost every night.”

    “We are spending our missiles and ammunition,” he adds.

    Oleh agrees. “We are very effective in doing our job, but in order to push the enemy out of our land, we certainly need more weapons,” he says.

    Presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak says the Ukrainian government is trying to get its soldiers what they need, asking allies for additional weapons.

    “President Zelensky, together with the leaders of other countries, has built an almost perfect system of closed skies over Ukraine, which consists of many different elements of missile defense,” he says.

    “But in order for the sky to be absolutely covered, especially from guided air bombs and from ballistic missiles with a close range, which have an approach time of 1.5 minutes, we need F-16s for that.”

    “Undoubtedly [our allies] will finally allow us to close the sky and then Russia will lose its last trump card – the ability to terrorize the civilian population of Ukraine using aerial attacks.”

    As Ukraine shifts from defense to offense, preparing to launch a much anticipated counteroffensive, air defense assets like the Gepard will also play an important part protecting advancing troops.

    “[Air defense] is very important in order to protect the counteroffensive groups during their movement, also for the creation of proper offensive groups, and during the conduct of the offensive as an air cover, because the enemy will throw all available forces that he has to reduce the combat potential of our offensive,” Lt. General Naiev explains.

    “Success on the ground during the advance and liberation of Ukrainian territory will depend on high-quality air defenses.”

    In some cases, air defense systems can also be used for offensive purposes.

    “We can destroy the Su-25, Su-35 and Su-54, which are the most promoted aircraft of our enemy,” Oleh says. “We can also work on ground targets, on armored vehicles.”

    “We have additional weapons, we can use shells that can hit lightly armored and armored vehicles,” he adds.

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  • A weapons stockpile and asymmetric warfare: how Taiwan could thwart an invasion by China — with America’s help | CNN

    A weapons stockpile and asymmetric warfare: how Taiwan could thwart an invasion by China — with America’s help | CNN

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    Taipei, Taiwan
    CNN
     — 

    When Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen defied warnings from China to meet with US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in California earlier this month, Beijing’s aggressive military response reverberated around the world.

    In actions that only fueled fears that communist-ruled China may be preparing to invade its democratically ruled neighbor, the People’s Liberation Army simulated a blockade of the island, sending an aircraft carrier and 12 naval ships to encircle it, and flying over a hundred warplanes into its air defense identification zone during a three-day military drill.

    China’s ruling Communist Party, which claims Taiwan as part of its territory despite never having controlled it, described the drills as “joint precision strikes” that should serve as a “serious warning against the Taiwan separatist forces.”

    The message, in Taipei’s mind, seemed clear. China appeared “to be trying to get ready to launch a war against Taiwan,” the island’s Foreign Minister Joseph Wu told CNN’s Jim Sciutto.

    That blunt assessment will likely have raised doubts in some quarters over whether the island’s military preparations for such a scenario are sufficient.

    Taipei recently – and very publicly – announced an extension to mandatory military service periods from four months to a year and accelerated the development of its indigenous weapons program to boost its combat readiness.

    But analysts say a recent announcement – one that has perhaps gone less remarked upon in the global media – could prove a game-changer: talks between Taipei and the United States to establish a “contingency stockpile” of munitions on Taiwan’s soil.

    In remarks that were not widely picked up at the time, Defense Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng told Taiwan’s parliament in March that Taipei was in discussions with the US over a potential plan to set up a war reserve stock on the island – a measure made possible by a provision in the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), signed into law by US President Joe Biden last December.

    And while Taiwan has long been a purchaser of weapons from the US, military experts say the creation of such a stockpile could be vital to the island’s defense because – as China’s recently simulated blockade showed – it could be incredibly difficult to supply the island with additional weapons if war does break out.

    Unlike Ukraine, Taiwan has no land borders so any supplies would have to go in by air or sea – delivery methods that would be highly vulnerable to interceptions by the Chinese military.

    It is therefore vital for Taiwan to stock up ammunition on the island before any conflict begins, said Admiral Lee Hsi-min, who served as Chief of the General Staff for the Taiwanese military between 2017 and 2019.

    “Having a war reserve stockpile is crucial and meaningful for Taiwan,” he said. “Even if the United States does not want to intervene directly with military force, those kinds of stockpiles can still be very effective for our defense.”

    Taiwan has also repeatedly raised concerns about delays in US weapon deliveries amid the war in Ukraine. Following his meeting with Tsai, Speaker McCarthy tweeted: “Based on today’s conversations, it’s clear several actions are necessary: We must continue arms sales to Taiwan and make sure such sales reach Taiwan on time.”

    Patriot surface-to-air missile systems at Warsaw Babice Airport in the Bemowo district of Warsaw, Poland, on 06 February, 2023.

    The talks over the possible stockpile beg the question: What exactly does Taiwan need for its defense?

    For decades, the Taiwanese military has been purchasing fighter jets and missiles from the United States, which continues to be the single biggest guarantor of the island’s safety despite not having an “official” diplomatic relationship.

    Last month, the Biden administration made headlines with its approval of potential arms sales to Taiwan worth an estimated $619 million, including hundreds of missiles for its fleet of F-16 fighter jets.

    But Admiral Lee said Taiwan urgently needed to stock up on smaller and more mobile weapons that would have a higher chance of surviving the first wave of a Chinese attack in an all-out conflict – which would likely include long-range joint missile strikes on Taiwanese infrastructure and military targets.

    In a high-profile book published last year, titled “Overall Defense Concept,” Lee argued that Taiwan should shift away from investing heavily in fighter jets and destroyers, as its military assets were already vastly outnumbered by China’s and could easily be paralyzed by long-range missiles.

    Last year, China’s defense budget was $230 billion, more than 13 times the size of Taiwan’s spending of $16.89 billion.

    Admiral Lee Hsi-min, during an interview with CNN in Taipei, Taiwan.

    So instead of matching ship for ship or plane for plane, Lee argued, Taiwan should embrace an asymmetric warfare model focused on the procurement of smaller weapons – such as portable missiles and mines – that are hard to detect but effective in halting enemy advances.

    “In Ukraine, their military has used Neptune anti-ship missiles to sink Moscow’s battleships,” he said. “Asymmetric weapon systems will allow us to maintain our combat capabilities. That is because if our enemies want to destroy them, they will need to get closer to us, which makes them vulnerable to our attack.”

    “If we can establish good enough asymmetrical capability, I believe China won’t be able to take over Taiwan by force, even without United States’ intervention,” he added.

    Though the US maintains close unofficial ties with Taiwan, and is bound by law to sell arms to the island for its self-defense, it remains deliberately vague on whether it would intervene in the event of a Chinese invasion, a policy known as “strategic ambiguity.”

    Under this year’s National Defense Authorization Act, passed by the US Congress and signed by US President Joe Biden, Taiwan will be eligible to receive up to $1 billion in weapons and munitions from the United States to counter China’s growing military threat.

    The act also allows for the creation of a regional contingency stockpile, which would enable the Pentagon to store weapons in Taiwan for use if a military conflict with China arises.

    In a response to CNN for this article, a spokesman at Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense confirmed it is in discussions with the United States on the definition of a “contingency”, the types of munition that can be operated immediately by its armed forces, and the timeline for shipping the items.

    The ministry added that the move is aimed only at meeting Taiwan’s defensive needs, as opposed to “pre-stocking” munitions on the island.

    The US Indo-Pacific Command declined to provide details about the progress of talks on creating the stockpile but said it would continue to enable Taiwan to maintain a sufficient self-defense capability.

    Meanwhile, China’s Foreign Ministry told CNN that it “resolutely opposes” any military exchanges between the United States and Taiwan, adding that Beijing will take “all necessary measures” to defend its sovereignty and security interests.

    A Javelin anti-tank weapon is fired during a joint military exercise between US and Philippine troops in Fort Magsaysay on April 13, 2023.

    Lin Ying-yu, an assistant professor from Tamkang University who specializes in military affairs, said that if a contingency stockpile were to be created, it should focus on amassing munitions already in use by Taiwan’s military to ensure operational effectiveness.

    “I think some of the weapons that the US might be willing to provide include the Stinger and the Patriot missiles,” he said. The Stinger is a surface-to-air missile that can be fired by a single soldier, while the Patriot missile defense system is capable of intercepting enemy missiles and aircraft.

    Admiral Lee said another weapon that could be stockpiled was the Javelin, a US-made portable anti-tank weapon system that has been widely used by the Ukrainian military to target Russian tanks.

    The National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System, or NASAMS, could also be useful for targeting Chinese warplanes, he said, as it was capable of firing the medium-range AIM-120 missile from ground level.

    Other weapons that should be considered included the loitering munition drone – a so-called “suicide drone” that can be carried by a single soldier and is capable of destroying high-value targets – as well as other anti-armor and anti-ship weaponry, he added.

    “If you have a high enough number of these kinds of asymmetrical weapon systems that survive the initial attack, you can keep most of your fighting capabilities intact and stop the enemy from conducting a landing operation,” Lee said.

    Another question that arises is how many weapons or missiles Taiwan would need to defend itself against China.

    Experts said providing a concrete number was difficult because the possible combat scenarios were so varied.

    In his book, Admiral Lee wrote that the Chinese military could resort to different options in attempting to bring Taiwan under its control.

    In an all-out war, China could fire long-range missiles to destroy Taiwanese infrastructure and military targets before attempting to send its ground troops across the Taiwan Strait.

    Other scenarios with limited military action could include an aerial and naval blockade around Taiwan, or the seizure of Taiwan’s small outlying islands that are close to the Chinese coast.

    However, Lin suggested the number of missiles that Taiwan likely needs would be in the “tens of thousands.”

    Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen with US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California on April 5, 2023.

    He said one relatively simple way of calculating the number of missiles required involves estimating the total number of offensive military assets owned by the enemy, and the effectiveness of Taiwan’s defensive weapons. “For example, if our enemy has 1,000 missiles and we have a success rate of 25%, then we will need about 4,000 anti-ballistic missiles.”

    In addition to weapons, Taiwan’s military could benefit from mobile radar systems that would enable it to receive military signals from the US, Lin added. These would be useful in conducting electronic warfare, as the US military would be able to help identify potential enemy targets even if ground radar systems had been destroyed.

    “Even though the United States does not have troops on the ground in Ukraine, it has been able to tell the Ukrainian military where to fire their weapons by sending signals from its electronic warfare aircraft,” Lin said. “We need to make sure we have the necessary equipment to link with US military systems at times of war.”

    There were other reasons the discussions with the US over the possible stockpile were important, Admiral Lee said, and they went beyond issues of storing up ammunition and spare parts.

    “(Having a contingency stockpile) is very crucial, because it sends a signal to China that the United States is determined to assist in our defense,” he said.

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  • North Korea says it tested a new solid-fuel ICBM | CNN

    North Korea says it tested a new solid-fuel ICBM | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    North Korea said it launched a new solid-fueled Hwasong-18 Intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) on Thursday (local time), according to state media KCNA on Friday.

    North Korean leader Kim Jong Un guided the “first test launch of the new ICBM” and the launch had no “negative impact” to the safety of the neighboring countries, per KCNA. The missile also did a stage separation, it said.

    Solid-fueled ICBMs are the state-of-the-art world standard, and can be moved more easily and launched quicker than a liquid-fueled rocket. The United States’ main ICBM, the Minuteman III, is powered by three solid-fueled rocket motors.

    The Hwasong-18 will “defend North Korea, suppress invasions, and protect the safety of the nation,” KCNA said, saying Kim expressed “great satisfaction” over the achievement of the test launch.

    Jeffrey Lewis, an analyst at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, said on Twitter that it was “no surprise” a solid-fueled ICBM wasted tested by North Korea, saying “it’s just easier to use solid-fuel missiles.

    “North Korea was always going to follow the same technical path as the US, Soviet Union, France, China, Israel and India,” he added. “Given that North Korea has been testing large diameter solid rocket motors for … several years, it’s been clear (to me at least) that since 2020 a test like this could have come at any time.”

    The Thursday launch by North Korea sparked momentary panic on the Japanese northern island of Hokkaido after the government’s emergency alert system warned residents to take cover.

    Soon after, fear turned into anger and confusion as the evacuation order was lifted amid reports that it had been sent in error, with local officials saying there was no possibility of the missile hitting the island and Tokyo later confirming it had fallen outside Japanese territory, in waters off the east coast of the Korean Peninsula.

    The South Korean military said at the time that it believed Pyongyang was testing a new ballistic missile, which it had showcased in a military parade, according to a military official.

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  • Japan to develop long-range missiles as tensions with China rise | CNN

    Japan to develop long-range missiles as tensions with China rise | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Japan on Tuesday announced plans to develop and build an array of advanced long-range missiles as it bolsters its defenses amid increasing tensions with neighboring China.

    The Japanese Defense Ministry said it had signed contracts with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) to develop and mass produce the weapons under a plan extending to 2027.

    The deals, worth more than $2.8 billion, follow Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s announcement in December that he planned to boost defense spending and enable Japan to possess “counterstrike capabilities,” the ability to directly attack another country’s territory in the event of an emergency and under specific circumstances.

    In taking the new defense initiatives, Japan is bending the interpretation of its post-World War II constitution, which put constraints on its Self-Defense Forces in that they can only be used for what their name implies, defending the Japanese homeland.

    Under the deals, MHI will begin mass production this year on two types of already developed missiles – ground-launched Type 12 guided missiles designed to target ships at sea and hypersonic glide missiles designed for island defense, the ministry said. Deployment of those weapons is scheduled for 2026 and 2027, it said.

    The Defense Ministry news release did not say how many of each missile would be acquired.

    Meanwhile, MHI will this year begin development of advanced versions of the Type 12 that can also be launched by aircraft and ships. Defense industry news site Janes reported that the updgraded Type 12 will have a range of up to 1,000 kilometers (620 miles), five times the reach of the current version.

    At the same time, MHI will begin development of submarine-launched missiles that could be fired by the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force’s fleet of conventionally powered boats.

    In December, Kishida instructed his defense and finance ministers to secure funds to increase Japan’s defense budget to 2% of current GDP in 2027.

    Along with the development of Japan’s own missiles, Kishida said in February the country planned to buy as many as 400 Tomahawk cruise missiles from the United States. Tomahawks can hit targets as far as 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles) away.

    Japan’s military buildup comes amid increasing tensions with China, which has been growing its naval and air forces in areas near Japan while claiming the Senkaku Islands, an uninhabited Japanese-controlled chain in the East China Sea, as its sovereign territory.

    Meanwhile, China has been upping its military pressure on Taiwan, the self-ruled island whose security Japanese leaders have said is vital to that of Japan.

    Just this week, Japan scrambled fighter jets as a Chinese aircraft carrier group came within 230 kilometers (143 miles) of the southern Japanese island of Miyako while it simulated strikes on Taiwan.

    Chinese military exercises around Taiwan last August including the launching of ballistic missiles, some of which landed in Japan’s Exclusive Economic Zone.

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  • Inside the international sting operation to catch North Korean crypto hackers | CNN Politics

    Inside the international sting operation to catch North Korean crypto hackers | CNN Politics

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    Watch Alex Marquardt’s report on the sting operation on Erin Burnett OutFront on Monday, April 10, at 7 p.m. ET.



    CNN
     — 

    A team of South Korean spies and American private investigators quietly gathered at the South Korean intelligence service in January, just days after North Korea fired three ballistic missiles into the sea.

    For months, they’d been tracking $100 million stolen from a California cryptocurrency firm named Harmony, waiting for North Korean hackers to move the stolen crypto into accounts that could eventually be converted to dollars or Chinese yuan, hard currency that could fund the country’s illegal missile program.

    When the moment came, the spies and sleuths — working out of a government office in a city, Pangyo, known as South Korea’s Silicon Valley — would have only a few minutes to help seize the money before it could be laundered to safety through a series of accounts and rendered untouchable.

    Finally, in late January, the hackers moved a fraction of their loot to a cryptocurrency account pegged to the dollar, temporarily relinquishing control of it. The spies and investigators pounced, flagging the transaction to US law enforcement officials standing by to freeze the money.

    The team in Pangyo helped seize a little more than $1 million that day. Though analysts tell CNN that most of the stolen $100 million remains out of reach in cryptocurrency and other assets controlled by North Korea, it was the type of seizure that the US and its allies will need to prevent big paydays for Pyongyang.

    The sting operation, described to CNN by private investigators at Chainalysis, a New York-based blockchain-tracking firm, and confirmed by the South Korean National Intelligence Service, offers a rare window into the murky world of cryptocurrency espionage — and the burgeoning effort to shut down what has become a multibillion-dollar business for North Korea’s authoritarian regime.

    Over the last several years, North Korean hackers have stolen billions of dollars from banks and cryptocurrency firms, according to reports from the United Nations and private firms. As investigators and regulators have wised up, the North Korean regime has been trying increasingly elaborate ways to launder that stolen digital money into hard currency, US officials and private experts tell CNN.

    Cutting off North Korea’s cryptocurrency pipeline has quickly become a national security imperative for the US and South Korea. The regime’s ability to use the stolen digital money — or remittances from North Korean IT workers abroad — to fund its weapons programs is part of the regular set of intelligence products presented to senior US officials, including, sometimes, President Joe Biden, a senior US official said.

    The North Koreans “need money, so they’re going to keep being creative,” the official told CNN. “I don’t think [they] are ever going to stop looking for illicit ways to glean funds because it’s an authoritarian regime under heavy sanctions.”

    North Korea’s cryptocurrency hacking was top of mind at an April 7 meeting in Seoul, where US, Japanese and South Korean diplomats released a joint statement lamenting that Kim Jong Un’s regime continues to “pour its scarce resources into its WMD [weapons of mass destruction] and ballistic missile programs.”

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    “We are also deeply concerned about how the DPRK supports these programs by stealing and laundering funds as well as gathering information through malicious cyber activities,” the trilateral statement said, using an acronym for the North Korean government.

    North Korea has previously denied similar allegations. CNN has emailed and called the North Korean Embassy in London seeking comment.

    Starting in the late 2000s, US officials and their allies scoured international waters for signs that North Korea was evading sanctions by trafficking in weapons, coal or other precious cargo, a practice that continues. Now, a very modern twist on that contest is unfolding between hackers and money launderers in Pyongyang, and intelligence agencies and law enforcement officials from Washington to Seoul.

    The FBI and Secret Service have spearheaded that work in the US (both agencies declined to comment when CNN asked how they track North Korean money-laundering.) The FBI announced in January that it had frozen an unspecified portion of the $100 million stolen from Harmony.

    The succession of Kim family members who have ruled North Korea for the last 70 years have all used state-owned companies to enrich the family and ensure the regime’s survival, according to experts.

    It’s a family business that scholar John Park calls “North Korea Incorporated.”

    Kim Jong Un, North Korea’s current dictator, has “doubled down on cyber capabilities and crypto theft as a revenue generator for his family regime,” said Park, who directs the Korea Project at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center. “North Korea Incorporated has gone virtual.”

    Compared to the coal trade North Korea has relied on for revenue in the past, stealing cryptocurrency is much less labor and capital-intensive, Park said. And the profits are astronomical.

    Last year, a record $3.8 billion in cryptocurrency was stolen from around the world, according to Chainalysis. Nearly half of that, or $1.7 billion, was the work of North Korean-linked hackers, the firm said.

    The joint analysis room in the National Cyber ​​Security Cooperation Center of the National Intelligence Service in South Korea.

    It’s unclear how much of its billions in stolen cryptocurrency North Korea has been able to convert to hard cash. In an interview, a US Treasury official focused on North Korea declined to give an estimate. The public record of blockchain transactions helps US officials track suspected North Korean operatives’ efforts to move cryptocurrency, the Treasury official said.

    But when North Korea gets help from other countries in laundering that money it is “incredibly concerning,” the official said. (They declined to name a particular country, but the US in 2020 indicted two Chinese men for allegedly laundering over $100 million for North Korea.)

    Pyongyang’s hackers have also combed the networks of various foreign governments and companies for key technical information that might be useful for its nuclear program, according to a private United Nations report in February reviewed by CNN.

    A spokesperson for South Korea’s National Intelligence Service told CNN it has developed a “rapid intelligence sharing” scheme with allies and private companies to respond to the threat and is looking for new ways to stop stolen cryptocurrency from being smuggled into North Korea.

    Recent efforts have focused on North Korea’s use of what are known as mixing services, publicly available tools used to obscure the source of cryptocurrency.

    On March 15, the Justice Department and European law enforcement agencies announced the shutdown of a mixing service known as ChipMixer, which the North Koreans allegedly used to launder an unspecified amount of the roughly $700 million stolen by hackers in three different crypto heists — including the $100 million robbery of Harmony, the California cryptocurrency firm.

    Private investigators use blockchain-tracking software — and their own eyes when the software alerts them — to pinpoint the moment when stolen funds leave the hands of the North Koreans and can be seized. But those investigators need trusted relationships with law enforcement and crypto firms to move quickly enough to snatch back the funds.

    One of the biggest US counter moves to date came in August when the Treasury Department sanctioned a cryptocurrency “mixing” service known as Tornado Cash that allegedly laundered $455 million for North Korean hackers.

    Tornado Cash was particularly valuable because it had more liquidity than other services, allowing North Korean money to hide more easily among other sources of funds. Tornado Cash is now processing fewer transactions after the Treasury sanctions forced the North Koreans to look to other mixing services.

    Suspected North Korean operatives sent $24 million in December and January through a new mixing service, Sinbad, according to Chainalysis, but there are no signs yet that Sinbad will be as effective at moving money as Tornado Cash.

    The people behind mixing services, like Tornado Cash developer Roman Semenov, often describe themselves as privacy advocates who argue that their cryptocurrency tools can be used for good or ill like any technology. But that hasn’t stopped law enforcement agencies from cracking down. Dutch police in August arrested another suspected developer of Tornado Cash, whom they did not name, for alleged money laundering.

    Private crypto-tracking firms like Chainalysis are increasingly staffed with former US and European law enforcement agents who are applying what they learned in the classified world to track Pyongyang’s money laundering.

    Elliptic, a London-based firm with ex-law enforcement agents on staff, claims it helped seize $1.4 million in North Korean money stolen in the Harmony hack. Elliptic analysts tell CNN they were able to follow the money in real-time in February as it briefly moved to two popular cryptocurrency exchanges, Huobi and Binance. The analysts say they quickly notified the exchanges, which froze the money.

    “It’s a bit like large-scale drug importations,” Tom Robinson, Elliptic’s co-founder, told CNN. “[The North Koreans] are prepared to lose some of it, but a majority of it probably goes through just by virtue of volume and the speed at which they do it and they’re quite sophisticated at it.”

    The North Koreans are not just trying to steal from cryptocurrency firms, but also directly from other crypto thieves.

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    After an unknown hacker stole $200 million from British firm Euler Finance in March, suspected North Korean operatives tried to set a trap: They sent the hacker a message on the blockchain laced with a vulnerability that may have been an attempt to gain access to the funds, according to Elliptic. (The ruse didn’t work.)

    Nick Carlsen, who was an FBI intelligence analyst focused on North Korea until 2021, estimates that North Korea may only have a couple hundred people focused on the task of exploiting cryptocurrency to evade sanctions.

    With an international effort to sanction rogue cryptocurrency exchanges and seize stolen money, Carlsen worries that North Korea could turn to less conspicuous forms of fraud. Rather than steal half a billion dollars from a cryptocurrency exchange, he suggested, Pyongyang’s operatives could set up a Ponzi scheme that attracts much less attention.

    Yet even at reduced profit margins, cryptocurrency theft is still “wildly profitable,” said Carlsen, who now works at fraud-investigating firm TRM Labs. “So, they have no reason to stop.”

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  • North Korea launches at least two unidentified ballistic missile into waters off eastern Korean peninsula | CNN

    North Korea launches at least two unidentified ballistic missile into waters off eastern Korean peninsula | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    North Korea launched two suspected ballistic missiles into the waters off the east coast of the Korean peninsula on Monday morning, according to the Japan Coast Guard.

    The first suspected ballistic missile is believed to have already fallen, Japan’s Coast Guard said on Monday morning at 7:54 a.m. local time (6:54 p.m. ET).

    A second missile launched from North Korea landed in the water, the Japan Coast Guard said at 8:05 a.m. local time (7:05 p.m. ET).

    This is a developing story and will be updated.

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  • South Korean leader lands in Japan for first visit in 12 years for fence-mending summit | CNN

    South Korean leader lands in Japan for first visit in 12 years for fence-mending summit | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol arrived in Japan Thursday for a fence-mending summit, the first such visit in 12 years as the two neighbors seek to confront growing threats from North Korea to rising concerns about China.

    Those shared security challenges were on stark display just hours before the trip when North Korea fired a long-range ballistic missile into the waters off the east coast of the Korean Peninsula – the fourth intercontinental ballistic missile launch in less than one year.

    Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno condemned the latest launch, calling it a “reckless act” that “threatens the peace and security of our country, the region, and the international community.”

    The summit between Yoon and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is a crucial step to mend frayed ties after decades of disputes and mistrust between two crucial US allies in Asia.

    Yoon’s office has hailed it “an important milestone” in the development of bilateral relations.

    The two East Asian neighbors have a long history of acrimony, dating back to Japan’s colonial occupation of the Korean Peninsula a century ago.

    The two normalized relations in 1965, but unresolved historical disputes have continued to fester, in particular over colonial Japan’s use of forced labor and so-called “comfort women” sex slaves.

    In recent years the often fraught relations have undermined efforts by the United States to present a united front against North Korea – and the growing assertiveness of Beijing.

    Now, the region’s two most important allies for the US appear ready to turn a new page in bilateral ties.

    Much of that is driven by deepening security concerns about Pyongyang’s ever more frequent missile tests, China’s increasingly aggressive military posturing and tensions across the Taiwan Strait – an area both Tokyo and Seoul say is vital to their respective security.

    Before departing for Tokyo, Yoon told international media on Wednesday “there is an increasing need for Korea and Japan to cooperate in this time of a polycrisis,” citing escalating North Korean nuclear and missile threats and the disruption of global supply chains.

    “We cannot afford to waste time while leaving strained Korea-Japan relations unattended,” Yoon said.

    Analysts say this outreach is a break from the past.

    Under Yoon’s predecessor Moon Jae-in, South Korea’s relationship with Japan was “openly combative,” said Joel Atkinson, a professor specializing in Northeast Asian international politics at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in Seoul.

    “So this visit is significant, sending a strong signal that under the Yoon administration, both sides are now working much more cooperatively,” Atkinson said.

    The thaw in relations comes after South Korea took a major step toward resolving a long-running dispute that plunged ties to their lowest point in decades.

    Last week, South Korea announced it would compensate victims of forced labor under Japan’s occupation from 1910 to 1945 through a public foundation funded by private Korean companies – instead of asking Japanese firms to contribute to the reparations.

    The move was welcomed by Japan and hailed by US President Joe Biden as “a groundbreaking new chapter of cooperation and partnership between two of the United States’ closest allies.”

    The deal broke a deadlock reached in 2018, when South Korea’s Supreme Court ordered two Japanese companies to compensate 15 plaintiffs who sued them over forced labor during Japan’s colonial rule.

    Japan did not agree with the South Korean court’s 2018 decision, and no compensation had been paid by Tokyo.

    That led to rising tensions between the two sides, with Japan restricting exports of materials used in memory chips, and South Korea scrapping its military intelligence-sharing agreement with Tokyo during the presidency of Moon.

    But the Yoon administration has been striving to improve relations between Seoul and Tokyo – even if it means pushing back against domestic public pressure on contentious, highly emotional issues like the compensation plan.

    Apart from the growing North Korean nuclear threat, China appears to have been a big factor in Yoon’s willingness to face the domestic backlash over the compensation deal, said Atkinson, the expert in Seoul.

    “The administration is making the case to the South Korean public that this is not just about Japan, it is about engaging with a wider coalition of liberal democracies,” he said.

    “What South Koreans perceive as Beijing’s bullying, arrogant treatment of their country, as well as its crushing of the Hong Kong protests, threats toward Taiwan and so on, have definitely prepared the ground for that.”

    Even before the pivotal move to settle the historical dispute, Seoul and Tokyo have signaled their willingness to put the past behind them and foster closer relations.

    On March 1, in a speech commemorating the 104th anniversary of South Korea’s protest movement against Japan’s colonial occupation, Yoon said Japan had “transformed from a militaristic aggressor of the past into a partner” that “shares the same universal values.”

    Since taking office, the two leaders have embarked on a flurry of diplomatic activities toward mending bilateral ties – and deepening their joint cooperation with Washington.

    In September, Yoon and Kishida held the first summit between the two countries since 2019 in New York on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, where they agreed to improve relations.

    In November, the two leaders met Biden in Cambodia at a regional summit, where they “commended the unprecedented level of trilateral coordination” and “resolved to forge still-closer trilateral links, in the security realm and beyond.”

    Closer alignment among the US, Japan and South Korea is an alarming development to China, which has accused Washington of leading a campaign to contain and suppress its development.

    Beijing is particularly worried about the involvement of South Korea in the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue – better known as “the Quad” – an informal security dialogue among the US, Japan, Australia and India. It views the grouping as part of Washington’s attempt to encircle the country with strategic and military allies.

    Last week, a senior South Korean official said Seoul plans to “proactively accelerate” its participation in the Quad working group.

    “Although we have not yet joined the Quad, the Yoon Suk Yeol government has been emphasizing its importance in terms of its Indo-Pacific strategy,” the official told reporters during a visit to Washington, D.C., Yonhap reported.

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  • US imposes sanctions on three companies and two individuals for ‘illicitly’ generating income for North Korea | CNN Politics

    US imposes sanctions on three companies and two individuals for ‘illicitly’ generating income for North Korea | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    The US Treasury Department on Wednesday imposed sanctions on three companies and two individuals for “illicitly” generating income for the North Korean government.

    The sanctions come after months of internationally condemned missile launches by Pyongyang – the most recent of which took place last month.

    North Korea’s “unlawful weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs threaten international security and regional stability,” Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian Nelson said in a statement. “The United States remains committed to targeting the regime’s global illicit networks that generate revenue for these destabilizing activities.”

    According to a news release from the Treasury, the agency sanctioned Chilsong Trading Corporation and Korea Paekho Trading Corporation “for being agencies, instrumentalities, or controlled entities of the Government of North Korea or the Workers’ Party of Korea.”

    “Chilsong is subordinate to the Government of North Korea, which uses trading companies like Chilsong to earn foreign currency, collect intelligence, and provide cover status for intelligence operatives” and “Paekho has generated funds for the DPRK government since the 1980s by conducting art and construction projects on behalf of regimes throughout the Middle East and Africa,” the news release said.

    Wednesday’s sanctions also targeted Hwang Kil Su and Pak Hwa Song, and their Democratic Republic of the Congo-based company Congo Aconde SARL for generating revenue for the North Korean government.

    In a separate statement, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken noted that Wednesday’s “action further aligns U.S. sanctions with our international partners.”

    “The European Union previously designated Chilsong, Paekho, Pak, and Hwang for engaging in sanctions evasion and being responsible for supporting the DPRK’s unlawful nuclear and ballistic missile programs,” he said.

    In mid-February, North Korea said it conducted a test of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), its third known test of the long-range weapon in less than a year. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said that the missile landed inside Japan’s exclusive economic zone.

    In remarks at the Munich Security Conference the day of that missile test, Blinken, Japanese Foreign Minister Hayashi Yoshimasa and South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin all condemned the launch.

    Blinken called it “yet again a provocative act by North Korea in violation of multiple UN Security Council resolutions.”

    “We’ve made clear over many, many months that we were prepared to engage with North Korea without any preconditions. The response from North Korea has been missile launch after missile launch,” he said. “We have been very clear that our commitment to the security of our close allies and partners – South Korea and Japan – is ironclad. And beyond making that clear, we have been working very closely together in full coordination to take appropriate steps to strengthen even more our deterrence and defense capacity.”

    “And so the result of these actions by North Korea is simply to even further solidify the work that we do together, the alliance that we share, and our commitment to the defense of our partners and allies,” Blinken said.

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  • North Korea tests long-range ballistic missile, Seoul says | CNN

    North Korea tests long-range ballistic missile, Seoul says | CNN

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    Seoul, South Korea
    CNN
     — 

    North Korea launched a presumed long-range ballistic missile Saturday afternoon, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said, a day after Pyongyang warned of “unprecedented strong responses” if the US and South Korea go ahead with planned military exercises.

    Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said the missile landed inside Japan’s exclusive economic zone west of the northern main island of Hokkaido, sparking condemnation from the United States.

    Japan’s Defense Ministry said the missile reached an altitude of 5,700 kilometers (3,541 miles) and flew a distance of about 900 kilometers (559 miles). It was launched from Pyongyang’s Sunan area around 5:22 p.m. local time Saturday, the South Korean JCS said.

    Japanese officials said the missile flew for more than 60 minutes.

    North Korea launched a missile last March with a slightly longer flight distance and time. That projectile was believed to be an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), its first test of such a missile since 2017.

    In November, after another similar launch, Pyongyang announced the “test firing of a new kind” ICBM, which it called the Hwasong-17.

    Japanese Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada said at the time it had the potential to reach the US mainland. “The ICBM-class ballistic missile launched this time could have a range of over 15,000 km when calculated based on the flight distance of this ICBM,” Hamada said in a statement. “It depends on the weight of the warhead, but in that case, the US mainland would be included in the range.”

    North Korea tests its missiles at a highly lofted trajectory. If they were fired at a flatter trajectory, they would in theory have the ability to reach the US mainland.

    The US government described Saturday’s missile launch as “a flagrant violation of multiple UN Security Council resolutions,” according to a statement from White House National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson.

    “While [the US Indo-Pacific Command] has assessed it did not pose an immediate threat to U.S. personnel, or territory, or to our allies, this launch needlessly raises tensions and risks destabilizing the security situation in the region,” Watson said. “It only demonstrates that the DPRK continues to prioritize its unlawful weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs over the well-being of its people.”

    Watson said the US is urging other countries “to condemn these violations and call on the DPRK to cease its destabilizing actions and engage in serious dialogue.”

    Earlier this month, the Kim Jong Un regime showcased almost at least 11 advanced ICBMs at a nighttime military parade in Pyongyang in the biggest display yet of what its state-run media described as North Korea’s “nuclear attack capability.”

    Analysts said those missiles appeared to be Hwasong-17s.

    Ankit Panda, a nuclear policy expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said on social media that if each missile in the parade were equipped with multiple nuclear warheads, they could represent enough volume to overwhelm US ballistic missile defenses.

    Saturday’s test came after the North Korean Foreign Ministry lashed out at the United States and South Korea on Friday over their plans for upcoming military exercises.

    Washington and Seoul are expected to hold nuclear tabletop drills next week at the Pentagon, the South Korean Defense Ministry said Friday. The allies are also expected to hold military drills next month in the Korean Peninsula.

    North Korea, in the same statement, also said it would consider additional military action if the UN Security Council continues to pressure Pyongyang “as the United States wants.”

    In January, Kim Jong Un called for “an exponential increase of the country’s nuclear arsenal” and highlighted the “necessity of mass-producing tactical nuclear weapons,” according to the country’s state media KCNA.

    Kim had called for the development of a new “Intercontinental Ballistic Missile system,” capable of a rapid nuclear counterstrike, according to the KCNA report.

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  • China has more ICBM launchers than US, senior general tells lawmakers | CNN Politics

    China has more ICBM launchers than US, senior general tells lawmakers | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    A senior American military officer notified lawmakers in January that China has more land-based fixed and mobile intercontinental ballistic missile launchers than the US, according to a letter sent to Congress.

    The letter from Gen. Anthony Cotton, commander of US Strategic Command which oversees the US nuclear arsenal says that as of October 2022 China’s inventory of land-based fixed and mobile ICBM launchers “exceeds the number of ICBM launchers in the United States.”

    The letter also says that China’s does not have more ICBMs or nuclear warheads than the US.

    A joint statement released on Tuesday by Republican leaders of Congress’ Armed Services committees called the letter “a wake-up call for the United States.”

    “It is not an understatement to say that the Chinese nuclear modernization program is advancing faster than most believed possible. We have no time to waste in adjusting our nuclear force posture to deter both Russia and China. This will have to mean higher numbers and new capabilities,” the statement said.

    The details of the letter were first reported by the Wall Street Journal.

    Though the US has larger nuclear arsenal than China, Beijing’s efforts to modernize and increase its nuclear capabilities have alarmed lawmakers and garnered the attention of US military leaders.

    The news of the letter comes as tensions between the US and China have increased over a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon the US military shot down over the Atlantic Ocean on Saturday. The balloon resulted in Secretary of State Antony Blinken postponing his anticipated trip to Beijing, calling the balloon’s presence over the continental USA a “clear violation of US sovereignty and international law.”

    China has maintained that the balloon crossing into the US was “completely an accident” and said on Sunday that China reserves “the right to make further necessary reaction.”

    ICBMs are a staple in the US nuclear triad, which includes nuclear delivery systems on land and in the air and sea. According to the Defense Department, they are distributed across 400 “hardened, underground silos” with another 50 silos “kept in ‘warm’ status.”

    The US arsenal also includes more than a dozen submarines capable of launching ballistic missiles and a fleet of nuclear-capable bombers.

    The US stockpile of nuclear warheads far surpasses China’s; in 2022, the US had more than 5,000 total nuclear warheads, with 1,644 of them deployed according to the Federation of American Scientists. China, meanwhile, has recently surpassed 400. And while the difference in stock is significant, a Pentagon report released in November said China is building its nuclear stockpile at an increasingly fast pace, and could have roughly 1,500 nuclear warheads by 2035 if they maintained that pace.

    “We see, I think, a set of capabilities taking shape and new numbers in terms of what they’re looking to pursue that raise some questions about what their intent will be in the longer term,” a senior defense official told reporters at the time.

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  • Best drip coffee maker in 2023 | CNN Underscored

    Best drip coffee maker in 2023 | CNN Underscored

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    CNN
     — 

    There are so many brewing methods to choose from (French press, the currently trendy dalgona whipped, pour-over), but many coffee lovers still rely on the classic, automatic drip for their daily fix. That’s why we tested the best-rated drip coffee makers using a wide range of criteria (outlined below) over the course of several weeks. Bags upon bags of dark roast, light roast and medium roast coffee beans were ground and brewed. We made full carafes, half carafes and single cups. And we tasted the results black, with cow’s milk, almond milk, sweetened condensed milk, cold-brew strength over ice — you name it.

    Many, many pots of coffee later, we settled on four standout drip coffee machines.

    Best drip coffee maker overall

    The Braun KF6050WH BrewSense Drip Coffee Maker produced consistently delicious, hot cups of coffee, brewed efficiently and cleanly, from sleek, relatively compact hardware that is turnkey to operate, and all for a reasonable price.

    Runner-up with a modern bent

    CNN Underscored_drip coffee makers_cuisinart product card

    This was, to our eye, the most handsome and minimally designed of the straightforward auto-brewers, delivering a clean, tasty cup. It lost first place only because the touchscreen may not be for every consumer, and brew time is significantly longer than the other machines we tried out.

    Luxury pick for the design-obsessed

    CNN Underscored_drip coffee makers_moccamaster product card

    In just near five minutes, the Technivorm Moccamaster 59636 KBG Coffee Brewer turns out a whole pot of pretty perfectly brewed coffee, and the process is as entrancing as a targeted Netflix trailer.

    Best affordable drip coffee maker

    CNN Underscored_drip coffee makers_mr coffee product card

    One of the cheapest options we tested, the Mr. Coffee 12-cup brewer is compact, simple to operate and yields a very competitive cup. ​

    CNN Underscored_drip coffee makers_braun body

    We brewed countless pots of coffee with the BrewSense, ranging from light to dark roast, and each one yielded a strong, delicious cup with no sediment, thanks to the gold tone filter, designed to remove the bitterness from coffee as well reduce single-use paper-filter waste. The machine we tested was white — a nice option for those with a more modern kitchen design — but it also comes in black, and it’s compact enough to fit under the cabinets in a smaller space compared to some of the more cumbersome machines we tested.

    The BrewSense is straightforward to operate: It’s designed like a traditional automatic drip machine with manual operating buttons, but with a sleek, modern upgrade. The hardware is a sophisticated combination of brushed metal and plastic, with a glass carafe that feels comfortable in the hand.

    The BrewSense doesn’t have a lot of bells and whistles compared to some of the machines we tested, and that functional ease helped elevate it to the top of our list. You could unbox this machine, flush it through with water once, and be drinking a freshly brewed cup within 15 minutes, all without reading the manual. Brewing is also a nearly silent process, which can be pleasing on early mornings. Some consumers may want a machine loaded with special features, but for those who just want delicious, hot coffee every morning, without spending over a hundred bucks, this is your best bet.

    The BrewSense isn’t perfect: It’s not the fastest we tested — to brew a full pot of 12 cups took upwards of 11 minutes. And we found an annoying error in the instruction manual around how to program the clock (call us rigid, but we insisted on programming the time before using each of the machines!); the directions read to press and hold CLOCK and then SET, but that didn’t work. We had to simply press and hold the CLOCK button and then sort of trial and error our way through the hours and minutes. Meanwhile, the auto-program setup is not as obvious as we’d have liked; though once we got it, it worked like a dream. But otherwise, we found this machine intuitive and easy to operate even without the instruction manual.

    Cleanup could at times be a little messier than some of our other machines. The hot water comes up through the filter basket and spreads the grounds up to the top of the cone, and during one brewing, a tiny bit rose up outside the cone so the top of the brew apparatus needed a little wipedown. Overall, though, for less than $80, this machine delivers the best bang for your buck of anything on the market.

    CNN Underscored_drip coffee makers_cuisinart body

    Coming in just a few points behind the Braun BrewSense was one of the three Cuisinart automatic drip machines we tested: the Touchscreen 14-Cup Programmable.

    We rated all three Cuisinarts highly, but the Touchscreen ranked highest for its combination of progressive design and everyday efficacy. All the Cuisinart products we encountered were well designed, but this one feels special, like when you unbox a brand-new Apple product: Its all-black, shiny surfaces and touchscreen control panel look and feel next-level for an everyday coffee maker (and the price, $235 at Macy’s, more than three times that of the Braun, reflects that).

    But this isn’t just a fancy, aesthetically pleasing machine: It brewed strong, delicious coffee that tasted cleanly filtered but rich. It’s also relatively easy to program and use, given its tech-centric platform. The touchscreen panel features cute little icons signifying one-touch commands to help customize your brew: If you like your coffee bolder, you can select the BOLD feature; if you’re brewing less than half a pot, select the 1 to 4 cups feature for a slower brew with the proper extraction time; adjust the hot plate temperature to low, medium or high; turn the audible brew-cycle-finished tone on or off.

    That tech-centric design is also one of the reasons this didn’t come in at number one, however. As exciting and different as it felt, we did feel that this machine — the only touchscreen model we tested — would feel less intuitive and more laborious than some consumers would want as part of their morning coffee routine. The touchscreen goes dark during the brew process, which yes, is nice-looking, but also feels a bit jarring, like you’re literally in the dark, asking yourself, “What’s going on? Is coffee brewing?” The settings and operating buttons are clear enough when illuminated, but it did take us a few times brewing to get used to how much pressure you need to apply with your fingertip to the touchscreen. We could easily think of people in our own lives who would be flummoxed by this machine if left alone with it and a bag of coffee — and for that, it lost a few points in functionality.

    Also, like its Cuisinart cousins we tested, this one’s a slower brewer. We clocked 11 minutes for eight cups, and if you’re watching your coffee maker brew like, well, a watched pot, it seems like it … takes forever. We understand the appeal of a slower brewing process (pour-over and Chemex fans, we hear you!), but 12 to 14 minutes for a full pot of coffee seems like a long time to wait when you’re thirsty for your morning Joe and you’re not doing it by hand. Finally, not everyone will want to spend more than $200 on a coffee maker. But many may.

    While some consumers might be flummoxed by the technology of this higher-end product, others will embrace it and make it a centerpiece of their kitchen, and rightly so. Form plus function equals morning happiness here.

    CNN Underscored_drip coffee makers_moccamaster body

    We had heard about the Technivorm Moccaster, a machine beloved for its innovative and old-school industrial design, handmade and tested in the Netherlands since 1968, even before we received it for this story. Multiple friends reached out upon hearing that we were testing a Moccamaster, singing the brand’s praises, and one declared it superlative via Instagram DM: “Moccamaster? Test over!” And the Moccamaster arrives with its own best PR too. Its user manual applauds buyers: “Congratulations on your purchase of the World’s Finest Coffee Brewer!” (If you’re spending more than $300 on a coffee maker, perhaps the enthusiasm feels validating.)

    Once we got the apparatus set up — which takes a little focus and time, to be honest — it really did pay off, with possibly the most delicious, hot, fresh cup of coffee we have ever tasted from a home-brewed machine. What’s more, you barely have time to peruse the morning news headlines before the process is done. The Moccamaster brewed 10 cups in less than six minutes, and, on a second trial, six cups in under four minutes. The brew function is almost jarringly fast: Once you turn on the machine, the brewing starts immediately. Then, seeing the water heat in the tank and bubble up through the water transfer tube into the brewer was a throwback to middle-school science experiments in the most pleasing way, like if a lava lamp produced fresh hot coffee after a few mesmerizing undulations.

    We discovered much to love about the Moccamaster, but there also were elements we didn’t adore. Perhaps ironically, they’re about the design. Some love a more hands-on coffee-making process, but some might find that there are just too many moving parts here, literally. We needed to read the directions pretty closely to assemble the parts. Once assembled, and once we digested what was happening brew-process-wise, the machine became fairly easy to operate.

    But each time you use this machine, you have to take the brew basket apart to add a new paper filter (yes, it requires a paper filter, if that makes a difference to you) and coffee grounds, and that basket removal sometimes disrupts the outlet arm and the reservoir lid — not a huge deal, but it could feel like you have to put your coffee maker back together from scratch every morning. Also, the basket lid and outlet arm, through which the hot water travels from the tube to the brew basket, get very hot during the process. It’s fine if you’re aware and cautious, but you wouldn’t want someone to wander up and unknowingly touch the hot part of the brewer.

    And finally, perhaps our most significant beef with this model: When you return the glass carafe to hotplate in between pours, the glass scrapes the warmer in a slightly cringey way.

    The coffee that this striking machine yields, though, may diminish other distractions — we found ourselves moving this maker back to the kitchen counter time and again, because the brew process and its results were superior. If you, like us, are a fan of the Moccamaster, you’re likely to be one for many years to come, which will amortize the steep price tag accordingly.

    CNN Underscored_drip coffee makers_mr coffee body

    We won’t go on and on about the Mr. Coffee 12-Cup, but it brewed a very workable 12 cups, in both taste and temperature, in just nine minutes. The machine came packaged in some pretty intense plastic and cardboard — the unboxing took a full five minutes and a pair of scissors — but once separated from its packaging, this machine’s a breeze to put together. The hardware is very easy to use (and to program to brew at a specific time), even without reading the directions. It’s compact — one of the best small drip coffee makers we tested — and durable, and the lid, brew basket, carafe and removable top half are all dishwasher safe, which wasn’t common among the machines we tested.

    The testing process for these coffee makers was intensive, lasting more than a month. We evaluated each machine based on what would be most important to the user — namely, functionality, durability and design. We tested each machine at least twice (but four to eight times for some) with both dark and light roast freshly ground beans, did a programmed/timed brew when available, and tested the additional functions of the more specialty machines (single-cup, cold brew, tea, milk frothing). We jotted notes about every machine’s unboxing, read every instruction manual, handled and rehandled the hardware, timed the brew of each machine, noted the temperature of the resulting coffee, and tasted and had others taste and weigh in on user experience. We tried to get as acquainted as possible with each of these machines, became fond of a good many of them — and as a result, we drank way too much coffee over the month in question.

    Read on for the categories and their breakdowns.

    Brew function

    • Optimal temperature: We didn’t take the actual temperature of the coffee from each machine, because we don’t think that’s how the average coffee drinker evaluates home brewing — experts recommend that coffee be brewed at between 195 and 205 degrees Fahrenheit, and served immediately, at 180 to 185 degrees — but we scored the perceived temp of each brew against all the others. We tasted each cup immediately after brewing, black, and then with added cold milk, and recorded the results.
    • Taste: The taste of coffee is, obviously, subjective. Two people could spend a lifetime tasting the different coffee varietals and never agree on one. That being said, we tested each machine with both a dark roast and a light roast, keeping the amount of grounds consistent to the machine’s directions. As a result, some machines that recommended using more grounds yielded stronger brews — in those instances, we retested those with less grounds accordingly.
    • Time to brew: For each carafe brewed, we timed the process on an iPhone timer, both for a full carafe and half. For those machines that made single cups, we timed that process as well.
    • Heat retention: We noted whether the machine brewed into a glass or a thermal carafe, and how hot the coffee remained a half hour to an hour after brewing.
    • User-friendliness: We did an initial scan of each machine, evaluating whether a new customer would be able to brew coffee without reading the instruction manual. We then assessed whether the design of each machine is immediately intuitive, and on a more micro level, assessed the settings and buttons on the face of the machine, the markings on the water tank and carafe, how easy the carafe is to fill, and the design of the brew basket.
    • Volume yield: We noted how many ounces each machine can brew.
    • Programmability: We recorded whether you can program the machine to brew at a set time.

    Durability

    • Everyday durability: For this category, we assessed how the machine responded to being handled during setup, filling the water tank, adding the grounds, removing and replacing carafe to serve, cleanup, and how durable the hardware felt.
    • Build quality: We noted what materials the machine is built from, e.g., plastic, metal, brushed metal, glass, and the tangible feel of each machine in a user’s hands.
    • Serviceability: We noted the ease of opening and taking apart the removable parts of each machine, in the case it would need to be serviced.

    Setup and breakdown

    • Ease of assembly: We observed how long it took to unbox the machine, put it together, and do an initial water flush before the product could be used.
    • Size of machine: We assessed how much counter space each machine took up, and how easy it is to move and store.
    • Ease of clean: After each brewing, we took note of how easy it was to clean the brew basket, the carafe, and the surrounding hardware.

    Aesthetic

    • First impression: We observed our first impression of each machine, noting details of design, color, size, feel — whether this machine looked attractive on our counter.
    • Color options: We researched if the machine came in any colors besides black.

    Warranty

    • We checked the number of years of warranty of each machine.

    Ninja Hot and Cold Brewed System ($179.99, originally $199.99; amazon.com)

    We tested two Ninja machines, both of which have some very appealing features. The hot and cold brew system brewed an excellent pot of hot coffee in less than five minutes, as well as a very tasty single cup (in multiple sizes), a less easy feat to perfect. It also brews coffee intended to be served directly over ice, an option that lots of consumers will like. We love the cool, minimalist glass carafe, though the lid features a big hole in the middle for pouring, which can lead to some splashing.

    This machine, though prolific in function, lost points because the water tank — plastic with prominent ridges — feels cheap and devolves the user experience a bit (with this machine, thankfully, the plastic tank is in the back, hidden from view, but does need to be handled every time you add water). Another problem with this machine: The water tank doesn’t have marking measurements, only half carafe, and full carafe, and two sizes of single cup. Without ounce or cup markings, how does one know how much water to add versus amount of coffee grounds? The Ninja machines come with a special-sized coffee scoop, different amounts on each end of the scoop, but it was bothersome that the water and the coffee amounts couldn’t be more standardized without relying only on the provided removable accessories (which, for the record, are cute — there’s a removable frothing wand). A lot of performance features with this machine also means a busy control panel that also feels a bit high-maintenance.

    Ninja Specialty Coffee Maker with Glass Carafe ($159.99; amazon.com)

    The Ninja Specialty is similar to the hot and cold brewed one, with one major difference: The water tank is adjacent to the brew basket, and visible to the eye. This one also brews a very nice cup of hot fresh coffee, and has nifty added functions, too, like myriad sizes of individual cups, half and full carafes, and an over-ice option. The placement of the water tank front and center here, though, makes this one less appealing than the hot and cold option; the tank, similarly, feels flimsy and cheap, a factor that’s difficult to overlook in user experience. For those who like the Ninja brand products (they make blenders and other items), though, there’s a lot of function for your buck here.

    Cuisinart PerfecTemp 14-Cup Programmable Coffeemaker ($99.95, originally $185; amazon.com)

    The most basic of the Cuisinart options we tested, this one brewed a nearly perfect cup at, for this reviewer, a perfectly hot temp (even after adding significant cold milk, we still had a steaming hot cup), thanks to an adjustable carafe temp. This machine is solid and well-designed, with one downside (for us): Brewing time was 14 minutes for eight cups, nearly double the time of some of the other brewers we tested.

    Cuisinart Coffee Center 10-Cup Thermal Coffee Maker and Single Serve Brewer ($200.98, originally $229; amazon.com)

    Our third Cuisinart brews only 10 cups into a thermal carafe, but has the handy bonus feature of a single-serve brew — with an attachment to use prepackaged coffee pods, or an adorable mini filter to use fresh grounds. (Note: The mini filter is a bit of a chore to clean because it is so small.) Like its Cuisinart siblings above, this machine makes good coffee, but the single-serve brewer does make the whole of the hardware more cumbersome. One annoying design issue: There’s an on/off switch on the side of the machine, whose placement feels not intuitive.

    Breville BDC450 Precision Brewer ($299.95; amazon.com)

    We were giddy upon opening this fancy brewer with much to offer: standard brew, fast, gold (what even is that, I wondered at first glance!), cold brew, single cup (with a sold separately attachment), and a customizable to your preferences setting. The options are exciting, but also overwhelming. The user is prompted to enter the consistency of their water, on a hard to soft scale — do all home coffee drinkers know the texture of their tap water? Also, does the average coffee drinker know what Gold Cup certification is? These feel like niche details for an automatic drip machine.

    Big picture, the Breville brewed a good pot of coffee, quite quickly, but we didn’t find it hot enough. The whole apparatus is beautifully designed, with sleek brushed metal and a lightweight, handsome carafe lovely enough to join a brunch table. But digging in further, we found this machine just to be … too much. Too much hardware — it doesn’t fit easily under our cabinets. Too many options — we needed to read up on a bunch of coffee wisdom before we could even set up the machine to our preferences. There are lots of users who would find this machine the sweet spot of function and sophistication, and enjoy exploring all of its specialties, but for those looking for turnkey coffee-making, this is a little extra.

    Black+Decker 12-Cup Programmable Coffeemaker, Black, CM1160B ($19.99; target.com)

    The most affordable automatic drip machine we tested, the Black & Decker 12-cup, is also a solid choice. It brewed eight tasty cups in eight short minutes — overall a good user experience. Hardware-wise, it felt a bit less durable than its closest rival, the Mr. Coffee, but it’s programmable and super easy for near the cost of two lattes with an extra shot.

    Bonavita Connoisseur 8-Cup One-Touch Coffee Maker ($145.99; amazon.com)

    The Bonavita Connoisseur has its fans, but we had multiple issues with the machine. This pleasingly retro-looking apparatus brews a nice cup quickly and at a good temperature, but the user experience leaves much to be desired. Simply put, the design feels flawed. The lid of the carafe needs to be removed before brewing, so the coffee just brews directly into a wide-open carafe — this was so counterintuitive to us, even after three or four brew tries, that it diminished the experience of the brew process. The brewer also gets very hot during brewing — so hot that we wondered if it might actually be a safety issue. Lastly, after brewing, we screwed the carafe lid back on and tried to return the carafe to underneath the brewer — sure, maybe we were still sleepy, maybe not enough caffeine yet — but the carafe doesn’t fit under the brewer with the lid on; the entire top of the machine popped off. This affects storage of the machine, too; because the carafe lid and the brew basket don’t both fit into the hardware at the same time, there’s always one piece loose.

    Read more from CNN Underscored’s hands-on testing:

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  • North Korea’s record year of missile testing is putting the world on edge | CNN

    North Korea’s record year of missile testing is putting the world on edge | CNN

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    Seoul, South Korea
    CNN
     — 

    In 2020, North Korea conducted four missile tests. In 2021, it doubled that number. In 2022, the isolated nation fired more missiles than any other year on record, at one point launching 23 missiles in a single day.

    North Korea has fired more than 90 cruise and ballistic missiles so far this year, showing off a range of weapons as experts warn of a potential nuclear test on the horizon.

    Though the tests themselves aren’t new, their sheer frequency marks a significant escalation that has put the Pacific region on edge.

    “The big thing about 2022 is that the word ‘test’ is no longer appropriate to talk about most North Korean missile launches – they are hardly testing missiles these days,” said Ankit Panda, a nuclear policy expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “Everything we’ve seen this year suggests that Kim Jong Un is dead serious about using nuclear capabilities early in a conflict if necessary.”

    The attention-grabbing tests also threaten to set off an arms race in Asia, with nearby countries building up their militaries, and the United States promising to defend South Korea and Japan by the “full range of capabilities, including nuclear.”

    Here’s a look back at a year of weaponry and warnings – and what could come next.

    Of the more than 270 missile launches and nuclear tests by North Korea since 1984, more than a quarter came this year, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Missile Defense Project.

    Of that total, more than three quarters were recorded after Kim Jong Un came to power in 2011, reflecting the dictator’s ambitions – of which he made no secret, vowing in April to develop the country’s nuclear forces at the “highest possible” speed.

    That lofty goal was reflected in a flurry of testing, with North Korea firing missiles on 36 days this year, according to a CNN count.

    “For missiles, they set daily, monthly and yearly records,” said Bruce Klingner, senior research fellow at The Heritage Foundation’s Asian Studies Center.

    The majority of these tests were cruise and ballistic missiles. Cruise missiles stay inside the Earth’s atmosphere and are maneuverable with control surfaces, like an airplane, while ballistic missiles glide through space before reentering the atmosphere.

    Pyongyang has also fired surface-to-air missiles and hypersonic missiles.

    “North Korea is literally turning into a prominent operator of large scale missile forces,” said Panda. He pointed to recent instances where North Korea fired missiles in response to military exercises or diplomatic talks by the US and its regional allies, adding: “Anything that the US and South Korea will do, North Korea can proportionately demonstrate that it has capabilities to keep up as well.”

    Among the ballistic missiles tested was the Hwasong-12, which traveled more than 4,500 kilometers (about 2,800 miles) in October – flying over Japan, the first time North Korea had done so in five years. Another notable missile was the Hwasong-14, with an estimated range of more than 10,000 kilometers (more than 6,200 miles).

    To put those distances in context, the US island territory of Guam is just 3,380 kilometers (2,100 miles) from North Korea.

    But one particular weapon has drawn international attention: the Hwasong-17, North Korea’s most powerful intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) to date. It could theoretically reach the US mainland – but there are still a lot of unknowns about the missile’s ability to deliver a nuclear payload on target.

    North Korea claimed to have successfully launched the Hwasong-17 in March for the first time. However, South Korea and US experts believe the test may have actually been an older and less advanced missile.

    The Hwasong-17 was tested again in November, according to North Korean state media, with Kim warning afterward that the country would take “more offensive” action in response to “enemies seeking to destroy peace and stability in the Korean Peninsula and region.”

    Since early this year, the US and international observers have been warning that North Korea appears to be preparing for an underground nuclear test – which would be its first since 2017.

    Satellite imagery has shown new activity at North Korea’s nuclear test site, where the country has previously conducted six underground nuclear tests. It claimed its most recent test was a hydrogen bomb, the most powerful weapon Pyongyang has ever tested.

    That 2017 nuclear test had an estimated yield of 160 kilotons, a measure for how much energy the explosion releases.

    For comparison, the US atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in Japan, yielded just 15 and 21 kilotons respectively. The US and Russia have performed the most explosive tests in history, yielding upwards of 10,000 kilotons.

    It’s not clear exactly how many nuclear weapons North Korea possesses. Experts at Federation of American Scientists estimate it may have assembled 20 to 30 nuclear warheads – but its ability to detonate them accurately on the battlefield is unproven.

    Though there had once been hopes of a diplomatic breakthrough in 2019 after landmark meetings between Kim and then-US President Donald Trump, those were dashed after both leaders walked away without having struck any formal denuclearization agreements.

    US-North Korea relations have nosedived since then, with Kim in 2021 announcing a sweeping five-year plan for modernizing the North’s military, including developing hypersonic weapons and a nuclear-powered submarine.

    This year is an extension of that vision, with North Korea working toward developing its own strategic nuclear deterrent as well as nuclear options in any conflict on the Korea Peninsula.

    There are a few possible reasons why this year has been so active. Some experts say Kim could have felt empowered to act while the West was preoccupied with the war in Ukraine. Panda, the nuclear expert, added that tensions tend to flare when South Korea has a conservative government – which has been the case since May.

    North Korea’s aggressive acceleration in weapons testing has sparked alarm in the region, pushing its exposed neighbors – Japan and South Korea – closer to Western partners.

    The US, South Korea and Japan have held a number of joint exercises and fired their own missiles in response to Pyongyang’s tests. The US stepped up its presence in the region, redeploying an aircraft carrier into waters near the peninsula, and sending top-of-the-line stealth fighter aircraft to South Korea for training. Meanwhile, the Quad countries – a grouping of the US, India, Japan and Australia – have deepened military cooperation, with their leaders meeting in May.

    Individual governments have also taken dramatic action, with Japan saying it will double its defense spending, the pacifist nation’s biggest military buildup since World War II.

    But experts have warned that this rapid militarization could fuel instability across the region. And there’s no clear end in sight; the US and South Korea have more joint exercises planned in the spring, which could propel North Korea to continue firing tests “just to show their displeasure,” said Klingner.

    He added that negotiations are unlikely until Kim has further developed his weapons, when “in his mind, he’d be coming back to the table in a position of strength.”

    “Each of the lanes of the road, they’ve been improving their capabilities, both nuclear and missile,” he said. “It’s all very, very worrisome.”

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  • South Korea fires warning shots after North Korean drones enter its airspace | CNN

    South Korea fires warning shots after North Korean drones enter its airspace | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Five North Korean drones crossed into South Korean airspace on Monday, prompting the South Korean military to deploy fighter jets and attack helicopters, the country’s defense ministry said.

    The ministry said South Korea’s military fired shots at the drones, but added it couldn’t confirm whether any drones were shot down.

    Lee Seung-oh, a South Korean defense official, said four of the drones flew around Ganghwa island and one flew over capital Seoul’s northern airspace.

    “This is a clear provocation and an invasion of our airspace by North Korea,” Lee said during a briefing. In response to the airspace violation, Lee said, the South Korean military sent its manned and unmanned reconnaissance assets to the inter-Korean border region, with some of them crossing into the North Korean territory.

    The assets conducted a reconnaissance mission, including filming North Korea’s military installations, Lee added.

    The South Korean military first detected the drones in the skies near the northwestern city of Gimpo at around 10:25 a.m. local time Monday, according to the country’s defense ministry.

    The last time a North Korean drone was detected below the inter-Korean border was in 2017, according to the South Korean defense ministry. At the time, South Korea said it had recovered a crashed North Korean drone that was spying on a US-built missile system in the country.

    North Korea has aggressively stepped up its missile tests this year, often launching multiple weapons at a time. It’s fired missiles on 36 separate days – the highest annual tally since Kim Jong Un took power in 2012.

    Most recently, North Korea launched two short-range ballistic missiles on Friday, according to South Korean officials. The missiles were fired from Pyongyang’s Sunan area into the waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan.

    The secretive country usually test-launches its missiles in this way, firing them at a lofted angle so that they land in the waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan.

    However, in October, it fired an intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) at a normal trajectory that went over Japan for the first time in five years.

    In November, it claimed to have launched a “new type” of ICBM, Hwasong-17, from Pyongyang International Airfield, a missile that could theoretically reach the mainland United States. And last week, Kim Yo Jong, Kim Jong Un’s sister and a top official in the regime, claimed in state media that North Korea was ready to test-fire an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) at a normal trajectory, a flight pattern that could prove the weapons can threaten the continental United States.

    The United States and South Korean experts have warned that Pyongyang could be preparing for a nuclear test, its first in more than five years. North Korea has been developing its nuclear missile forces in violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions, ramping up its activities since the last of three meetings in 2019 between Kim Jong Un and then-US President Donald Trump failed to yield any agreement.

    In October, Kim warned his nuclear forces are fully prepared for “actual war.”

    “Our nuclear combat forces… proved again their full preparedness for actual war to bring the enemies under their control,” Kim said in comments reported by the North’s state-run Korean Central News Agency.

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  • North Korea plans ‘world’s most powerful’ nuclear force, Kim Jong Un says | CNN

    North Korea plans ‘world’s most powerful’ nuclear force, Kim Jong Un says | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is planning to build “the world’s most powerful” nuclear force, state news agency KCNA reported on Sunday.

    The “ultimate goal” behind North Korea’s nuclear program was to possess an “absolute force, unprecedented in the century,” Kim said Saturday as part of an order promoting dozens of military officials, the agency reported.

    The order comes after what North Korea said was a “test firing of a new kind” of intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) on November 18.

    The missile was a Hwaseong-17, according to KCNA, a huge rocket that is theoretically capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to the United States mainland.

    Kim commended the officials who developed the new missile in his comments.

    He called the missile “the world’s strongest strategic weapon” and said it represented “a wonderful leap forward in the development of the technology of mounting nuclear warheads on ballistic missiles.”

    With the development of the new ICBM, Kim said North Korea had demonstrated to the world “the confident, ever-victorious future of our state advancing toward the goal of building the world’s strongest army.”

    In a letter sent to Kim recently, scientists from North Korea’s Academy of Defense Science said the test firing marked a “great historic victory” for the country and demonstrated North Korea’s sovereignty.

    Kim himself attended the launch with a child believed to be his daughter, Ju Ae.

    Pyongyang also released a video of the missile launch, only the third time it has done so since 2017, according to Ankit Panda, senior fellow in the nuclear policy program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

    While the test did show Pyongyang can launch a large ICBM and keep it aloft for more than an hour, North Korea still hasn’t demonstrated the ability to place a warhead atop a long-range ballistic missile – projectiles that are fired into space – that is able to survive the fiery reentry into Earth’s atmosphere.

    But analysts say that with repeated tests, the North Koreans are refining their capabilities.

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  • Harris dives into Asian diplomacy amid questions back home about her political future | CNN Politics

    Harris dives into Asian diplomacy amid questions back home about her political future | CNN Politics

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    Palawan, Philippines
    CNN
     — 

    Vice President Kamala Harris is sticking close to her script when responding to what Democrats hope will once again be their greatest electoral mobilizer: Donald Trump and his third White House bid.

    “The president said he intends to run and if he does, I will be running with him,” she told CNN on Tuesday – the first time she’d been asked about Trump’s 2024 candidacy, which he announced last week. She was addressing a gaggle of reporters aboard the Teresa Magbanua, a Philippine Coast Guard vessel stationed at the edge of the South China Sea.

    Her cautious response at the end of a weeklong gaffe-free trip to Thailand and the Philippines could serve as a reflection of Harris’ vice presidency in its second year: toe the line but don’t make waves.

    As she returns from Asia, she’s stuck in a swirl of uncertainty about her place in the party if the now 80-year-old President Joe Biden does not seek a second term. The President is expected to consider the decision over Thanksgiving and upcoming holidays with family, whose advice he’ll seek about running for reelection.

    Harris’ trip to Asia – her third to the region since taking office – was another chance for America’s first South Asian vice president to showcase her ability to lead in the traditional ways of the vice presidency without overstepping her role as No. 2.

    She attended a series of bilateral meetings and greetings with Asian prime ministers and presidents alike, including China’s President Xi Jinping, called a last-minute high-profile meeting with Indo-Pacific countries after North Korea launched a long-range ballistic missile hours before the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders’ summit began and went on a symbolic visit to the Philippines’ archipelago island of Palawan, which could potentially heighten tensions with China.

    With Biden in Washington, DC, for his granddaughter’s wedding, Harris continued her role as his top-ranking envoy in a trip meant to deepen ties to mostly friendly Asian nations and cast the US as the region’s best option for economic stability –part of an ongoing effort to counter China’s growing influence.

    The vice president called the trip a success, as she brandished her policy chops in the region, attempting to fashion herself as a deft leader who speaks for Biden in his absence.

    “It is very important that we were here today to restate the United States commitment to international rules and norms. This trip and this visit in particular has also been about demonstrating the strength and importance of our relationship with the Philippines both as it relates to economic issues and also security issues,” Harris said in Palawan, in a speech where she rejected China’s aggression in the South China Sea and announced funding initiatives ameant to beef up the country’s systems and deepen security ties.

    Still, Harris’ events were tightly scripted and the trip itself, highly choreographed.

    Harris’ “brief greeting” with Xi, as her office described it, was her first face-to-face meeting with the world leader, happening on the margins of APEC. It was likely Harris’ most high-profile moment of the trip, despite the lack of US press in the room to witness it. The vice president met with him just a week after Biden’s first in-person bilateral with Xi, which lasted three hours.

    But unlike the president, who can share as much of a conversation as he pleases, there was an obvious limit to how much Harris felt comfortable sharing. She repeatedly declined to go far beyond what was written in a carefully calculated statement on her meeting with Xi.

    “We discussed that we are keeping open lines of communication, that we do not seek conflict or confrontation, but we welcome competition,” Harris told reporters in a press conference wrapping up her trip to Thailand, dodging twice whether that conversation touched on North Korea or Taiwan.

    If the goal was to remain gaffe free, the planning seems to have paid off. The Republican National Committee only clipped on Twitter moments thatmay have been awkward but didn’t lend themselves to real criticism –unusual treatment for one of their most attacked Democrats.

    On the first day of APEC, a “deeply concerned” Harris rushed aides to convene a last-minute unannounced multi-lateral emergency meeting with Indo-Pacific region allies, according to a senior administration official, after North Korea launched a long-range ballistic missile Friday morning– her second most high-profile moment of the trip.

    Harris directed her team once she was briefed on the latest launch, a White House official said utilizing the Indo-Pacific nation’s presence at the APEC Leaders Summit to do so. At the head of a u-shaped table inside a small room in the Queen Sirikit National Convention Center, the vice president accused North Korea of “brazen violation of multiple UN security resolutions.”

    “This conduct by North Korea most recently is a brazen violation of multiple UN Security resolutions. It destabilizes security in the region, and unnecessarily raises tensions. We strongly condemn these actions, and we again call North Korea to stop further unlawful destabilizing,” Harris said. “On behalf of the United States, I reaffirmed our ironclad commitment to our Indo Pacific Alliance.”

    Her statement closely tracked one the National Security Council issued hours earlier on Biden’s behalf, almost to a tee.

    The last-minute nature of the meeting caused aides to move quickly to corral the US press, but without time to pre-set cameras, press from the US, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and Korea were fighting for an angle – causing the photo-op visuals to be at times shaky and askew.

    Still, it was a moment that looked almost presidential for Harris as it was reminiscent of the emergency in-person meeting Biden convened with top allies during his final day at the G20 in Indonesia, when a Russian-made missile fell inside the borders of a NATO ally.

    But the presidential posturing had limits. During the weeklong trip, the vice president only answered political and policy questions on two separate occasions from the group of all women reporters traveling with her from Washington – taking two or three questions each time.

    Harris didn’t stray from talking points in her answers, careful not to move beyond Biden’s position on a multitude of issues.

    Harris has long sought opportunities to showcase her own interests and craft her own lane as a younger vice president with potential presidential ambitions.

    Domestically, she has taken the lead for the administration on abortion rights. And on foreign trips, Harris has told aides she wants to go outside of the box when it comes to the schedule. A major part of that has been to meet with women and families in different countries.

    That directive was evident in Manila, when she participated in a moderated conversation about women’s empowerment and entrepreneurship inside a ballroom in the Sofitel.

    “On the issue of the economic wellbeing of women, I think we all know, and I feel very strongly, you lift up the economic status of a woman, her family will be lifted. Her community will be lifted,” Harris said as the Filipino women nodded in agreement. “All of society will benefit. Lift up the economic status of women, and all of society benefits.”

    In the Palawan fishing village of Tagburos, Harris watched women clean fish in front of a picturesque backdrop to talk about the devastation climate change and illegal fishing has had on the village.

    “Hi ma’am,” they yelled as she approached. Harris’ translator introduced the women as her best friends.

    “Best friends,” Harris said, with a laugh and a wave.

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