Tag: north korea nuclear development

North Korea Nuclear Timeline Fast Facts | CNN

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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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March 29, 2024
Russia gives Kim Jong Un an inside look at its warplanes and frigates | CNN

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CNN
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North Korean leader Kim Jong Un inspected warplanes, toured an airfield and visited a Pacific Fleet frigate on Saturday as the latest stop on his tour of Russia took him to Vladivostok.

Russian state media reported that Kim had met the Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu at the Knevichi airfield in Vladivostok before both men were accompanied by the commander-in-chief of the Russian Navy, Admiral Nikolai Evmenov, on a visit to the Pacific Fleet frigate Marshal Shaposhnikov.

The North Korean leader was shown the ship’s central command center and its modern missile weapon control systems, the Russian Ministry of Defence said via Telegram.

The Russian defence ministry added that Admiral Evmenov had talked to Kim about the “expanded capabilities of the new control systems, which allow Kalibr sea-based cruise missiles to be effectively used against sea and coastal targets at a distance of more than 1,500 kilometers from the ship.”

Afterwards Kim was gifted a replica of the ship and left a comment in the frigate’s guest book, though the ministry did not reveal what he wrote.

The stop in Vladivostok is Kim’s latest in a tour of Russia and its Far East region that follows his meeting with President Vladimir Putin earlier this week, at which the North Korean leader appeared to endorse Moscow’s war on Ukraine.

The meeting has led to speculation around the potential for some kind of military cooperation between Moscow and Pyongyang.

The ministry said on Saturday that the frigate had been selected to showcase the modernization within the Far East region “which clearly demonstrates the capabilities of the shipbuilding industry.”

Earlier in the morning, Kim and Shoigu had toured the Knevichi airfield in Vladivostok, according to Russian state news agency RIA Novosti, where Kim was shown Russian aircraft including the Tu-160, Tu-95MS and Tu-22M3.

Kim also saw the Su-34, Su-30SM, Su-35S fighter jets along with the Su-25SM3 attack aircraft, RIA added.

The Kinzhal hypersonic missile system and Russia’s Tu-214 long-haul passenger airplane were also on display, it said.

On Friday, North Korean state media reported Kim had been “deeply impressed” by a visit to a Russian aircraft manufacturing plant.

Kim toured facilities for aircraft design and assembly at the Komsomolsk-on-Amur Yuri Gagarin Aviation Plant, where he was struck by “the rich independent potential and modernity of the Russian aircraft manufacturing industry,” the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported.

He met test pilots, climbed aboard a Su-57 fifth-generation fighter jet, and watched a test flight of the airplane, KCNA said.

The facility Kim toured on Friday is Russia’s largest aviation manufacturing plant and builds and develops warplanes for the ministry of defense, including Su-35S and Su-57 fighter jets, according to the Russian state media agency TASS. Kim’s late father, Kim Jong Il, visited it in 2002.

On Friday’s visit Kim “expressed sincere regard for Russia’s aviation technology” and how it had undergone “rapid development, outpacing the outside potential threats, and wished the plant success in its future development,” KCNA reported.

After the tour and a luncheon, Kim left a message in the visitor’s book saying, “Witnessing the rapid development of Russia’s aviation technology and its gigantic potential” before signing it with the date and his name.

According to a Russian government press release on Friday, Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov said Moscow saw “the potential for cooperation both in aircraft manufacturing and in other industries” with North Korea.

“This is especially relevant for achieving the tasks our countries face to achieve technological sovereignty,” he said in a statement circulated on Telegram.

While exact details remain scant on what sorts of talks have taken place behind closed doors, observers say it’s clear what each is looking for from the other.

Moscow is desperate for fresh supplies of ammunition and shells as its war with Ukraine drags on – and Pyongyang is believed to be sitting on a stockpile.

Meanwhile, after years of sanctions over its nuclear weapon and missiles program, North Korea is equally in need of everything from energy to food to military technology, all of which Russia has.

When the two leaders met at the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia’s Amur Region, a reporter asked Putin whether Russia would help North Korea “launch its own satellites and rockets” – to which Putin responded, “That’s exactly why we came here.”

The Russian president also said Kim “shows great interest in space, in rocketry, and they are trying to develop space.”

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September 16, 2023
The West fears a closer Russia and North Korea. China may not | CNN

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Hong Kong
CNN
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A rare meeting between Russia’s Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un at a space launch center in the Russian Far East earlier this week has triggered alarm from countries from South Korea and Japan to Ukraine, the United States and its partners in Europe.

But China, the biggest economic lifeline for both Moscow and Pyongyang whose border lies less than 200 miles (321 kilometers) from where the two leaders met, may have a different view.

Rather than look to oppose or limit cooperation between Russia and North Korea, Beijing may see more benefits than risks for itself in this emerging axis, analysts say – particularly in regard to its great power rivalry with the US.

And while it’s unclear exactly how much insight Chinese officials have into negotiations between North Korea and Russia, analysts say the meeting itself may not have gone forward with some level of consideration of China’s ties to the two.

“(Given) the importance of the support that China provides to both, China is of course looming in the background,” said Alexander Korolev, a senior lecturer in Politics and International Relations at the University of New South Wales in Australia.

“China is too important for both North Korea and Russia, so for them it would be foolish to do something behind China’s back that it wouldn’t like,” he said. “The China factor is there.”

Neither North Korea or Russia has released details of any agreements reached during the more than five hours Putin and Kim spent together during a tour of the Vostochny Cosmodrome, closed-door talks, and a lavish state dinner – where both leaders toasted to their countries’ growing friendship.

But observers say it’s clear what each is looking for from the other.

Moscow is desperate for fresh supplies of ammunition and shells to feed what’s become a war of attrition in Ukraine – and Pyongyang is believed to be sitting on a stockpile. Pyongyang, after years of sanctions over its nuclear weapon and missiles program, is in need of everything from energy to food to military technology – all of which Russia has.

To be sure, North Korea potentially pumping munitions into Russia could raise awkward optics for China, which accounts for the vast majority of North Korea’s trade and remains Russia’s most powerful diplomatic partner after its Ukraine invasion.

The international community has long looked to Beijing to exert pressure over its government to follow the rules.

And in recent months Beijing has been at pains to frame itself as a proponent of peace in the conflict in Ukraine – part of a bid to win back lost goodwill in Europe, which has recoiled over Beijing’s decision to continue to strengthen its ties with Russia despite its war.

Beijing has already signaled what its official response to any military cooperation between the two would be, with its Foreign Ministry this week repeatedly telling reporters that Wednesday’s meeting was “between the two countries” – implying it’s not China’s business.

But while China itself has appeared careful to avoid any large-scale military support of Russia, analysts say it may see potential support from North Korea as a boost to its own geopolitical calculus, where Russia remains a crucial partner amid rising tensions with the West.

“(If) North Korea is really prepared to provide ammunition to Russia, it would be good for the Chinese expectation that Russia doesn’t experience a major military defeat in the battlefield in Ukraine,” said Li Mingjiang, an associate professor of international relations at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University.

“In that respect, it’s good for China’s geopolitical interests … in terms of China and Russia on the one hand and Western countries on the other,” he said.

China, which supported communist North Korea in the Korean War some 70 years ago, has maintained a complicated relationship with its rogue neighbor.

Like Russia, it has backed past United Nations sanctions against North Korea’s weapons programs – though it’s also been accused of practicing an arbitrary implementation of these controls and in recent years has blocked efforts to strengthen sanctions and led efforts to ease them.

Now, as China feels constrained by what it sees as an increasingly hostile US and its allies, it may welcome a stronger coordination with both Russia and North Korea as counterweights, analysts say.

In that vein, a shift in the relationship between Russia and North Korea which sees Moscow lending support to Pyongyang could also take pressure off China – and strengthen its position in the region.

“China would support a more capable North Korea in many respects – economically, militarily – and a North Korea that continues to serve as a troublemaker for the US,” said Li.

One reason? “When you have a more assertive North Korea it will lead to some sort of incentive for the US and South Korea to seek China’s cooperation in terms of dealing with North Korea,” he said.

Meanwhile, mutual support between the two sanctions-hit neighbors could mitigate international pressure on China over its strong ties to both.

“Since China is not the sole supporter of either, it reduces China’s isolation for its support of both,” Yun Sun, director of the China Program at the Stimson Center think tank in Washington, who said that while their tightening of ties is not without drawbacks for Beijing, its leaders would still likely see this as a “net gain.”

Even a transfer of military technology from Russia to North Korea, which may be concerning to China given its interests in regional stability, may have a silver lining, according to Sun.

China has a stake in avoiding seeing tensions between North Korea and US-allied South Korea escalate into conflict, which could spark to an influx of refugees across its own borders — as well as American military response.

“Such a (military technology) transfer will be destabilizing for the region, but China will turn the table and blame the US and its allies for pushing both Russia and North Korea in a corner. This reinforces China’s opposition to the ‘Asian NATO’ it sees US as orchestrating,” she said.

But despite the potential gains, experts also say China is not immune to the risks that can come from a stronger Russia or a stronger North Korea.

“Beijing has a large stake in global trade,” said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul.

“(It) can ill afford collateral damage from destabilizing pariah state behavior, such as the invasion of Ukraine and habitually threatening the use of nuclear weapons,” he said.

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September 14, 2023
Kim Jong Un to visit Russia at Vladimir Putin’s invitation | CNN

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CNN
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Kim Jong Un will travel to Russia at the invitation of his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, Pyongyang and Moscow said on Monday, amid warnings from the United States that the two leaders could strike an arms deal.

The US government said last week that such a meeting could take place as part of Russia’s efforts to find new suppliers for weapons to use in its war against Ukraine.

Neither country specified when or where the visit would take place, nor what would be on the agenda of any potential face-to-face. The Kremlin said in a statement Monday that Kim would pay an official visit to Russia “in the coming days,” while North Korean state media said they would “meet and have a talk.”

However, it appears likely that the two leaders will see each other in the far eastern city of Vladivostok, where they met for the first time in April 2019. Putin reportedly arrived in Vladivostok on Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, according to state TV Russia 24. Kim, meanwhile, appears to be on a train heading to Russia, a South Korean government official told CNN.

The visit will be Kim’s first foreign trip since the Covid-19 pandemic. With its borders sealed because of that for much of the past three years, North Korea has only recently begun to relax travel restrictions.

It will also be only Kim’s 10th trip since assuming power in 2011. All of those came in 2018 and 2019, as the North Korean leader engaged in negotiations over his nuclear weapons and missile programs in three meetings with then-US President Donald Trump – one in Singapore, one in Hanoi and one in the demilitarized zone (DMZ) separating North and South Korea.

Kim also made four trips to China over those two years to meet with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. The remaining trip was to the DMZ in 2018 to meet with then-South Korean President Moon Jae-in.

Vladivostok lies 130 km (80 miles) from the border with North Korea.

The North Korea leader is said to prefer traveling in an upscale armored train – as did his father before him – but rail travel accounts for less than half of his foreign trips. Three of this nine trips have been made in planes and two, both to the DMZ, by car.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu also visited Pyongyang in July in an attempt to convince it to sell artillery ammunition.

Last Tuesday, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan warned that North Korea it will “pay a price” if it strikes an arms deal with Russia, though he did not elaborate on these potential repercussions.

North Korea is already under United Nations and US sanctions imposed over Pyongyang’s weapons of mass destruction program.

The potential Putin-Kim meeting could lead to Pyongyang getting its hands on the sort of weapons those sanctions have barred it from accessing for two decades, especially for its nuclear-capable ballistic missile program.

It also comes after more than a year and a half of war in Ukraine has left the Russian military battered, depleted and in need of supplies.

Following Monday’s announcement from both countries, the White House urged North Korea to “not provide or sell arms to Russia.

“As we have warned publicly, arms discussions between Russia and the DPRK are expected to continue during Kim Jong-Un’s trip to Russia,” said National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson in response to Russia and North Korea’s announcement.

The statement also urged the country to “abide by the public commitments that Pyongyang has made to not provide or sell arms to Russia.”

After reports emerged of North Korean arms sales to Russia in September 2022, a North Korean Defense Ministry official said at the time that Pyongyang had “never exported weapons or ammunition to Russia before and we will not plan to export them.”

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September 11, 2023
North Korea says it launched new ‘tactical nuclear attack’ submarine | CNN

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North Korea launched a new “Korean-style tactical nuclear attack submarine” on Wednesday, according to the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), during a ceremony attended the country’s leader Kim Jong Un.

The new submarine “will perform its combat mission as one of core underwater offensive means of the naval force of the DPRK,” Kim said during the ceremony according to KCNA. DPRK stands for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

The submarine, named “Hero Kim Kun Ok,” would herald “the beginning of a new chapter for bolstering up the naval force of the DPRK,” KCNA reported.

“There is no room to step back in the drive for the expansion of the naval vessel-building industry as it is the top priority task to be fulfilled without fail,” Kim said according to KCNA.

The announcement comes after North Korea said it had simulated a nuclear missile attack over the weekend to warn the United States of “nuclear war danger.”

The simulation was in response to joint military exercises conducted by the United States and South Korea, earlier in the week, KCNA reported at the time.

The US-South Korea live fire exercises, based on a counterattack against invading forces, began on August 31.

US and South Korean Presidents had pledged to step up military cooperation following a May summit meeting in Seoul, and after North Korea conducted more than a dozen missiles tests this year, compared to only four tests in 2020, and eight in 2021.

North Korea is set to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the country’s founding on September 9.

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September 7, 2023
North Korea, China and Russia commemorate ‘victory’ 70 years ago, while aligning on Ukraine | CNN

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Seoul, South Korea
CNN
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Delegations from Russia and China, North Korea’s key allies in the Korean War, gathered in Pyongyang this week to celebrate North Korea’s “Victory Day” in the war that ravaged the Korean Peninsula seven decades ago as they align over another very contemporary conflict – Russia’s devastating invasion of Ukraine.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un gave Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu – an architect of Moscow’s assault on Ukraine – a tour of a defense exposition in Pyongyang on Wednesday, with images from North Korean media showing them walking past an array of weaponry, from Pyongyang’s nuclear-capable ballistic missiles to its newest drones.

At a state reception for Shoigu and the Russian delegation, in a reference to the war in Ukraine, North Korean Defense Minister Kang Sun Nam expressed Pyongyang’s full support “for the just struggle of the Russian army and people to defend the sovereignty and security of the country,” according to a report from the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

In remarks of his own, Shoigu then said the Korean People’s Army (KPA) has “become the strongest army in the world” and pledged continued cooperation to keep it that way.

Also Wednesday, at a reception for the Chinese delegation led by Politburo member Li Hongzhong, senior North Korean official Kim Song Nam thanked Chinese forces for joining in the Korean War, saying North Korea “would not forget forever the heroic feats and merits of the bravery soldiers who recorded a brilliant page in the history.”

Ankit Panda, Stanton senior fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace said the presence of the Chinese and Russian delegations at the armistice anniversary “underscores the importance Pyongyang attaches to its relationships with both countries.”

“Shoigu’s presence is particularly notable: a sign of just how close Pyongyang and Moscow have become since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year,” Panda said.

Thursday is the 70th anniversary of the end of the 1950-1953 Korean War, one of the first international conflicts of the Cold War era.

In the fall of 1950, China sent a quarter million troops into the Korean Peninsula, supporting its North Korean ally and pushing back the combined forces of South Korea, the United States and other countries under the United Nations Command.

More than 180,000 Chinese troops died in the Korean War, or what Beijing calls the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea.

Russia’s predecessor, the Soviet Union, also supported North Korea during the war, with combat support like Soviet aircraft engaging US jets and with supplies of heavy weaponry like tanks.

Despite Pyongyang’s claims of a victory, the war it launched in 1950 ended in a stalemate, with the current demilitarized zone along the 38th parallel in much the same location as it was before the war.

The Korean War armistice was signed on July 27, 1953, ending hostilities although a true peace deal has never been signed.

After the war, the US, which anchored the UN Command that supported South Korea, kept a large contingent of troops in the South at a range of Army and air bases. The US’ Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek, south of Seoul, is the largest overseas US military base.

Meanwhile, Moscow over the decades has been a staunch ally for North Korea, especially as the two share a joint animosity toward the West. The same can be said for the Chinese Communist Party, especially under China’s current leader Xi Jinping.

Panda noted how both Moscow and Beijing, permanent members of the UN Security Council, have defended Pyongyang’s interests before the world body as Western powers led by the US have tried to put further sanctions on North Korea.

Now the three authoritarian nuclear powers are putting up a united front over Ukraine, a former Soviet state which Russia invaded in February 2022 after Russian President Vladimir Putin declared it was historically Russian territory.

That invasion soon stumbled as Ukrainians put up a fierce defense of their homeland and as Western powers scrambled to send weapons and ammunition to Kyiv while Moscow burned through its own stocks and looked to allies like Iran and North Korea to resupply.

US officials said last year that North Korea was selling millions of rockets and artillery shells to Russia for use on the battlefield in Ukraine.

And while China has not supplied Russia with weaponry, it has remained steadfastly in Moscow’s corner as the war in Ukraine drags into its 18th month, with Xi deepening his relationship with Putin and echoing the Kremlin’s rhetoric over the conflict.

After the brief mutiny in Russia by the Wagner mercenary group last month, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson expressed support for the Putin regime.

“As Russia’s friendly neighbor and comprehensive strategic partner of coordination for the new era, China supports Russia in maintaining national stability and achieving development and prosperity,” an online statement said.

Meanwhile, the Russian and Chinese militaries have been active in the waters off the Korean Peninsula, with their latest joint exercise, Northern/Interaction-2023, bringing together naval and air forces from both countries in drills aiming to “strengthen both sides’ capabilities of jointly safeguarding regional peace and stability and responding to various security challenges,” according to the People’s Liberation Army’s English website.

Those exercises in the waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan occurred as South Korea and the US were conducting military displays of their own, including a US Navy nuclear-capable ballistic missile submarine making a port call in South Korea for the first time in four decades.

Pyongyang’s armistice commemorations were expected to continue Thursday with a military parade in the capital. North Korea typically marks key moments in its history with displays of its newest weaponry.

One such weapon that may be on display is the Hwasong-18 ICBM, a solid-fueled, nuclear-capable missile that North Korea claims could hit anywhere in the United States. It has tested that missile twice this year, most recently earlier this month.

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July 26, 2023
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.

“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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May 31, 2023
Biden rolls out red carpet for South Korea’s Yoon with state visit and new cooperation against North Korea’s nuclear threat | CNN Politics

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CNN
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President Joe Biden welcomes South Korea President Yoon Suk Yeol to the White House for the full pomp and circumstance and hospitality of an official state visit – a high-stakes meeting amid ongoing provocations from North Korea, China’s growing influence in the Indo-Pacific region and a recent leak of Pentagon documents.

The leaders are set to announce a key new agreement strengthening extended deterrence – a US policy that uses the full range of military capabilities to defend its allies – with new commitments alongside South Korea in response to nuclear threats from North Korea.

And more broadly, the visit signals the importance with which the US views its relationships with allies in the Indo-Pacific, this trip coming one week before Biden hosts Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos and weeks before Biden is expected to travel to the region himself.

Biden and Yoon will unveil the “Washington Declaration” on Wednesday at the White House, senior administration officials told reporters, a set of new steps to boost US-South Korean cooperation on military training, information sharing and strategic asset movements in the face of a recent spate of missile launches from North Korea.

It is intended to send a clear message: “What the United States and the ROK plan to do at every level is strengthen our practices, our deployments, our capabilities, to ensure the deterrent message is absolutely unquestioned and to also make clear that if we are tested in any way that we will be prepared to respond collectively and in an overwhelming way,” a senior administration official said.

The product of a monthslong discussion between officials from both countries, the declaration will announce that the US “(intends) to take steps to make our deterrence more visible through the regular deployment of strategic assets, including a US nuclear ballistic submarine visit to South Korea, which has not happened since the early 1980s,” the official said. Officials made clear that such assets will not be stationed permanently, and there is “no plan” to deploy any tactical nuclear weapons to the Korean peninsula.

The US and Korea will also “strengthen our training, our exercises and simulation activities to improve the US-ROK alliance’s approach to deterring and defending” against North Korean threats, per the official.

It also creates the “US-ROK Nuclear Consultative Group,” which the official said will convene regularly to consult on nuclear and strategic planning issues, with the hope that it will give allies “additional insight in how we think about planning for major contingencies.” That group is modeled after US engagement with European allies during the height of the Cold War, the official said.

After a year in which North Korea fired a record number of nuclear missile tests, South Korea’s President Yoon earlier this year spoke about possibly deploying US tactical missiles on the Korean peninsula or even developing the country’s own set of nuclear weapons.

While he dialed back his remarks, those are both scenarios the Biden administration wanted deeply to avoid, and White House officials spent recent months looking for ways to reassure South Korea by bolstering the alliance, including considering a plan to incorporate nuclear exercises into the war planning the two nations already do together, according to two senior Biden administration officials.

“We need to have tabletop exercises that go through a variety of scenarios, including possibly nuclear weapons,” a senior official told CNN earlier this month.

“The South Koreans don’t have experience in using nuclear weapons. This is why we need to do tabletop exercises with them. The Koreans need to be educated in what it means to use nuclear weapons, the targeting, and the effects,” said David Maxwell of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, adding that there will be no change to the US having control on the targeting. “The hope is that this will satisfy them and improve readiness.”

The hope, the officials said, was that this offer – along with sustained engagement to develop other ideas to implement – will provide the alternative that the South Koreans need.

Beyond the declaration, Biden and Yoon are expected to celebrate 70 years of the US-South Korea alliance, highlighting close economic ties between the nations, pointing to cooperation on issues like climate change and the Covid-19 pandemic, and looking toward ways to continue supporting Ukraine amid Russia’s ongoing invasion, plus a new dialogue on cyber cooperation. They are also expected to announce a new student exchange program focused on STEM “that will significantly increase the number of students going in both directions,” a second senior official said.

And Biden is expected to celebrate Yoon’s “determination and courage” to improve the strained relationship between Japan and South Korea, an area that has been “of deep interest” to Biden, who has twice met with both countries’ leaders in a trilateral setting, national security adviser Jake Sullivan told White House reporters earlier this week. A stronger alliance between those two countries is strategically important to the US as it looks for ways to counter China’s rising influence.

Recent online leaks of Pentagon documents involving South Korea also loom over the visit. One of the leaked documents describes, in remarkable detail, a conversation between two senior South Korean national security officials about concerns by the country’s National Security Council over a US request for ammunition.

The officials worried that supplying the ammunition, which the US would then send to Ukraine, would violate South Korea’s policy of not supplying lethal aid to countries at war. According to the document, one of the officials then suggested a way of getting around the policy without actually changing it – by selling the ammunition to Poland. The document sparked controversy in Seoul.

The leaks “caused the press to push him (Yoon) more on this. And we’re hearing more and more about how he feels about the issue,” Dr. Victor Cha, Korea chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said in a recent briefing.

Cha continued, “Korea has one of the largest, if not the largest, stockpile of munitions of any country in the world. And they also have tremendous production capacity in terms of munitions. And if there’s one thing that Ukraine needs in this war and that NATO allies who are supporting Ukraine need in this war, it’s munitions. So I would say to watch this space,” adding that it is unlikely that an announcement will be made during this state visit.

And the White House emphatically stated Tuesday that US commitment to its security partnership with South Korea is “ironclad” despite those leaks, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre declining to say whether it would be a topic of discussion between Biden and Yoon.

More broadly, Russia’s war in Ukraine is expected to be a key topic of discussion, with both leaders expected to continue to promote the importance of democracy, and a fulsome conversation expected on “what comes next for Korea’s support for Ukraine,” a third official said.

“Ultimately, there’s no country that has probably a better sense of the importance of the international community standing together to support a country that’s completely invaded than the ROK,” the second senior official said.

Wednesday’s events mark just the second state visit of the Biden presidency (Biden hosted French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte in December 2022).

The visit began informally Tuesday as the Bidens welcomed Yoon and his wife, Mrs. Kim Keon Hee, for an evening trip to the Korean War Memorial.

The South Korean guests will be formally received with an official arrival ceremony Wednesday morning on the South Lawn ahead of a bilateral meeting with the presidents and their staffs, followed by a joint press conference. And there will be full pageantry and glamour in the evening as the White House rolls out the red carpet for the leaders, their spouses and key dignitaries at the black-tie state dinner.

The elaborate dinner is the result of weeks of careful diplomatic preparations, with each detail meticulously planned by a team of White House chefs, social staff, and protocol experts. Ties between the countries will be front and center in the décor and on the menu, with guests set to dine under towering cherry blossom branches on food prepared by Korean American celebrity chef Edward Lee. The menu includes crab cakes with a gochujang vinaigrette, braised beef short ribs, and a deconstructed banana split with lemon bar ice cream and a doenjang caramel. Entertainment will be provided by a trio of Broadway stars.

Yoon is also scheduled to join Vice President Kamala Harris for lunch, and toured NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland with her Tuesday, where the leaders committed to increase cooperation on space exploration. And he is set to address a joint session of Congress on Thursday.

A senior administration official noted that some of the “last remaining veterans of the Korean War from both Korea and the United States” will join in Wednesday’s proceedings.

The visit is also an opportunity to reinforce the Biden-Yoon friendship. Sullivan said the leaders have “developed a rapport” that has seen four engagements to date, including Biden’s trip to Seoul in May 2022 just days after Yoon took office, as well as on the sidelines of summits in Spain, New York and Cambodia.

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April 26, 2023
North Korea says it tested a new solid-fuel ICBM | CNN

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CNN
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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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April 13, 2023
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.”

Here’s how to keep your passwords safe, according to a hacker

“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.

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.

Should you invest in crypto? One expert weighs in after FTX’s collapse

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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April 9, 2023
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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March 26, 2023
South Korean leader lands in Japan for first visit in 12 years for fence-mending summit | CNN

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CNN
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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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March 15, 2023
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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March 1, 2023
The heavily armed DMZ separating North and South Korea has become a wildlife haven | CNN

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CNN
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Between North and South Korea lies the demilitarized zone (DMZ), one of the world’s most heavily armed borders. The 160-mile stretch is barred with fences and landmines and is largely empty of human activity.

But that isolation has inadvertently turned the area into a haven for wildlife. Google released street view images of the DMZ for the first time this week, offering a rare glimpse into the flora and fauna that inhabit this no man’s land.

The images are part of a project done in collaboration with several Korean institutions to mark the 70th anniversary of the Korean War armistice, which brought hostilities to a halt in 1953 and mapped out the DMZ, though technically the war never ended as no peace treaty was ever signed.

The project allows viewers to take a “virtual tour” with Google’s street view function, highlighting cultural relics and heritage sites near the DMZ such as war-torn buildings and defense bunkers.

But the most surprising images are of the more than 6,100 species thriving in the DMZ, ranging from reptiles and birds to plants.

Of Korea’s 267 endangered species, 38% live in the DMZ, according to Google.

“After the Korean War, the DMZ had minimal human interference for over 70 years, and the damaged nature recovered on its own,” it said on its site. “As a result, it built up a new ecosystem not seen around the cities and has become a sanctuary for wildlife.”

The DMZ’s inhabitants include endangered mountain goats who live in the rocky mountains; musk deer with long fangs who live in old-growth forests; otters who swim along the river running through the two Koreas; and endangered golden eagles, who often spend their winters in civilian border areas where residents feed the hungry hunters.

Many of the images were captured by unmanned cameras installed by South Korea’s National Institute of Ecology. In 2019, these cameras photographed a young Asiatic black bear for the first time in 20 years – delighting researchers long concerned with the endangered population’s decline due to poaching and habitat destruction.

Seung-ho Lee, president of the DMZ Forum, a group that campaigns to protect the area’s ecological and cultural heritage, told CNN in 2019 that the DMZ had also become an oasis for migratory birds because of worsening conditions on either side of the border. Logging and flooding had damaged North Korean land, while urban development and pollution had fragmented habitats in South Korea, he said.

“We call the region an accidental paradise,” he said at the time.

The Google images also show pristine, biodiverse landscapes. Users can use street view to explore the Yongneup high moor, boasting wide grassy fields filled with wetland plants, or the Hantan River Gorge, with turquoise water snaking between high granite walls.

Many voices in both the Koreas and international environmental organizations have been calling for the conservation of the DMZ for decades. But the process isn’t easy, as it requires cooperation from both Seoul and Pyongyang.

There has been some progress in recent years, with former South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un vowing in 2018 to turn the DMZ into a “peace zone.” The following year, South Korea opened the first of three “peace trails” for a limited number of visitors along the DMZ, bringing hikers past observatories and barbed-wire fences.

However, relations have deteriorated since then, with tensions skyrocketing in 2022 as North Korea fired a record number of missiles, and as a new South Korean president took office.

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February 23, 2023
North Korea tests long-range ballistic missile, Seoul says | CNN

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Seoul, South Korea
CNN
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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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February 18, 2023
Why are South Koreans losing faith in America’s nuclear umbrella? | CNN

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Seoul
CNN
—

They have them, so we need them.

That is the fundamental argument for South Koreans who want their country to develop its own nuclear weapons. It’s about the need to protect themselves from an aggressive northern neighbor that is already a nuclear power in all but name and whose leader Kim Jong Un has vowed an “exponential increase” in his arsenal.

The counter-argument, which has has long stopped Seoul from pursuing the bomb, lies in the likely consequences. Developing nukes would not only upset the country’s relationship with the United States, it would likely invite sanctions that could strangle Seoul’s access to nuclear power. And that is to say nothing of the regional arms race it would almost inevitably provoke.

But which side of the argument South Koreans find themselves on appears to be changing.

Ten years ago, calling for South Korean nuclear weapons was a fringe idea that garnered little serious coverage. Today it has become a mainstream discussion.

Recent opinion polls show a majority of South Koreans support their country having its own nuclear weapons program; a string of prominent academics who once shunned the idea have switched sides; even President Yoon Suk Yeol has floated the idea.

So what’s changed?

For supporters, Seoul developing its own nukes would finally answer the age-old question: “Would Washington risk San Francisco for Seoul in the event of nuclear war?”

At present, South Korea comes under Washington’s Extended Deterrence Strategy, which includes the nuclear umbrella, meaning the US is obligated to come to its aid in the event of attack.

For some, that is enough reassurance. But the details of exactly what form that “aid” might take aren’t entirely clear. As that age-old question points out, faced with the possibility of a retaliatory nuclear strike on US soil, Washington would have a compelling reason to limit its involvement.

Perhaps better not to ask the question then. As Cheong Seong-chang of the Sejong Institute puts it, “If South Korea has nuclear weapons, we can respond ourselves to North Korea’s attack, so there is no reason for the United States to get involved.”

There are other reasons for South Koreans to question their decades-old leap of faith in US protection, too. Looming large among them is Donald Trump. The former US president, citing the expense involved, made no secret of his desire to pull 28,500 US troops out of South Korea and questioned why the US had to protect the country. Given Trump has already announced his presidential bid for the 2024 election that’s an issue that still plays heavy on people’s minds.

“The US simply isn’t perceived to be as reliable as it once was,” Ankit Panda of Carnegie Endowment for Peace said. “Even if the Biden administration behaves like a traditional US administration and offers all the right reassurance signals to South Korea… policy makers will have to keep in the back of their mind the possibility of the US once again electing an administration that would have a different approach for South Korea.”

But the loss of faith goes beyond Trump.

More recently, President Yoon Suk Yeol floated the idea of US tactical nuclear weapons being redeployed to the peninsula or South Korea possessing “its own nuclear capabilities” if the North Korean threat intensifies. Washington’s rejection of both ideas has been conspicuous. When Yoon said this month that Seoul and Washington were discussing joint nuclear exercises President Joe Biden was asked the same day whether such discussions were indeed underway. He responded simply, “No.”

Following Yoon’s comments, US Defense Department Press Secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder reiterated the US’ commitment to the Extended Deterrence Strategy, saying that “to date, (the strategy) has worked and it has worked very well.”

In a Chosun Ilbo newspaper interview published on January 2, Yoon said of these guarantees, “it’s difficult to convince our people with just that.”

But in another interview, with The Wall Street Journal on the sidelines of Davos last week, Yoon walked those comments back saying, “I’m fully confident about the US’ extended deterrence.”

An inconsistent message rarely soothes concerns on either side of the argument.

On Thursday, US think-tank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), suggested what might seem a middle ground – the creation of “a framework for joint nuclear planning” that could “help to develop stronger bonds of trust between the allies in the current environment.”

It said this framework could be “similar to a NATO planning group for nuclear weapons use, with planning conducted bilaterally and trilaterally (with Japan) and control remaining in the hands of the United States.”

But the CSIS made clear it did not support “the deployment of US tactical nuclear weapons to the peninsula or condoning South Korea purchasing its own nuclear weapons.”

Other experts too, like Professor Jeffrey Lewis, a nuclear non-proliferation expert at Middlebury Institute in California, see joint planning and exercises as “more realistic options than either nuclear weapons or nuclear sharing.”

For some in Yoon’s conservative party that is simply not enough. They see a nuclear-weapons-free South Korea being threatened by a nuclear-armed North Korea and want nothing less than US nukes redeployed to the Korean Peninsula.

They seem destined to be disappointed. Washington moved its tactical weapons out of South Korea in 1991 after decades of deployment and there are no signs it will consider reversing that decision.

“Putting US nukes back on the peninsula makes no military sense,” said Bruce Klingner of Heritage Foundation.

“They currently are on very hard to find, very hard to target weapons platforms and to take weapons off of them and put them into a bunker in South Korea, which is a very enticing target for North Korea, what you’ve done is you’ve degraded your capabilities.”

That leaves many South Koreans seeing just one option – and some are losing patience.

Cheong, a recent convert to South Korea acquiring the bomb, believes the Extended Deterrence Strategy has already reached its limit in dealing with North Korea and only a nuclear-armed South Korea can avert a war.

“Of course, North Korea does not want South Korea’s nuclear armament. Now they can ignore the South Korean military,” Cheong said.

“But they must be nervous, (because if South Korea decides to pursue the bomb) it has the nuclear material to make more than 4,000 nuclear weapons.”

Still, it’s not just fear of upsetting the relationship with the US that holds Seoul back from such a course. If South Korea were to leave the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) the effect on its domestic nuclear power system would likely be swift and devastating.

“First of all, the nuclear suppliers group would cut off fissile material to South Korea, which is reliant for all of its fissile material on outside suppliers. It could lead to international sanctions,” Klingner said.

Then there is the regional arms race it would likely provoke, with neighboring China making clear it will not tolerate such a build up.

“Probably China is going to be unhappy and it’ll basically stop at nothing to prevent South Korea from going nuclear,” said professor Andrei Lankov, long time North Korea expert from Kookmin University.

Given the likely fallout, Seoul might do better to take comfort in the guarantees already on offer from the US.

“The 28,500 US troops on the peninsula have a very real tripwire effect. In the event of a breakout of hostilities between the two Koreas, it is simply unavoidable for the US not to get involved. We have skin in the game,” Panda said.

Finally, there are also those cautioning that even if South Korea did acquire nuclear weapons, its problems would hardly disappear.

“So the funny thing about nuclear weapons is that your weapons don’t offset their weapons,” said Lewis at Middlebury Institute.

“Look at Israel. Israel is nuclear armed and is terrified of Iran getting nuclear weapons, so Israel’s nuclear weapons don’t in any fundamental way offset the threat they feel from Iran’s nuclear weapons.”

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January 21, 2023
North Korea’s record year of missile testing is putting the world on edge | CNN

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Seoul, South Korea
CNN
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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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December 26, 2022
South Korea fires warning shots after North Korean drones enter its airspace | CNN

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CNN
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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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December 26, 2022
North Korea plans ‘world’s most powerful’ nuclear force, Kim Jong Un says | CNN

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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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November 26, 2022
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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November 24, 2022