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Tag: nuclear weapons

  • Kim’s sister warns US of ‘a more fatal security crisis’

    Kim’s sister warns US of ‘a more fatal security crisis’

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    SEOUL, South Korea — The influential sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un warned the United States on Tuesday that it would face “a more fatal security crisis” as Washington pushes for U.N. condemnation of the North’s recent intercontinental ballistic missile test.

    Kim Yo Jong’s warning came hours after U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield told an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council that the U.S. will circulate a proposed presidential statement condemning North Korea’s banned missile launches and other destabilizing activities. After the meeting, Thomas-Greenfield also read a statement by 14 countries which supported action to limit North Korea’s advancement of its weapons programs.

    Kim Yo Jong, who is widely considered North Korea’s second most powerful person after her brother, lambasted the United States for issuing what she called “a disgusting joint statement together with such rabbles as Britain, France, Australia, Japan and South Korea.”

    Kim compared the United States to “a barking dog seized with fear.” She said North Korea would consider the U.S.-led statement “a wanton violation of our sovereignty and a grave political provocation.”

    “The U.S. should be mindful that no matter how desperately it may seek to disarm (North Korea), it can never deprive (North Korea) of its right to self-defense and that the more hell-bent it gets on the anti-(North Korea) acts, it will face a more fatal security crisis,” she said in a statement carried by state media.

    Monday’s U.N. Security Council meeting was convened in response to North Korea’s ICBM launch on Friday, which was part of a provocative run of missile tests this year that experts say is designed to modernize its nuclear arsenal and increase its leverage in future diplomacy. Friday’s test involved its most powerful Hwasong-17 missile, and some experts say the successful steep-angle launch proved its potential to strike anywhere in the U.S. mainland if it’s fired at a standard trajectory.

    During the Security Council meeting, the United States and its allies strongly criticized the ICBM launch and called for action to limit North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs. But Russia and China, both veto-wielding members of the Security Council, opposed any new pressure and sanctions on North Korea. In May, the two countries vetoed a U.S.-led attempt to toughen sanctions on North Korea over its earlier ballistic missile tests, which are prohibited by U.N. Security Council resolutions.

    North Korea has said its testing activities are legitimate exercises of its right to self defense in response to regular military drills between the United States and South Korea which it views as an invasion rehearsal. Washington and Seoul officials say the exercises are defensive in nature.

    Kim Yo Jong said the fact that North Korea’s ICBM launch was discussed at the Security Council is “evidently the application of double-standards” by the U.N. body because it “turned blind eyes” to the U.S.-South Korean military drills and arms buildups targeting North Korea. She said North Korea will take “the toughest counteraction to the last” to protect its national security.

    On Monday, North Korea’s foreign minister, Choe Son Hui, called U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres “a puppet of the United States.”

    There are concerns that North Korea may soon conduct its first nuclear test in five years.

    The status of North Korea’s nuclear capability remains shrouded in secrecy. Some analysts say North Korea already has nuclear-armed missiles that can strike both the U.S. mainland and its allies South Korea and Japan, but others say the North is still years away from possessing such missiles.

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  • Iran says uranium enrichment ramped up to near weapons-grade at a second facility

    Iran says uranium enrichment ramped up to near weapons-grade at a second facility

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    Tehran — Iran has begun producing uranium enriched to 60 percent at its Fordo plant, official media reported Tuesday about the underground facility that reopened three years ago amid the breakdown of its nuclear deal with major powers. The move was part of Iran‘s response to the United Nations nuclear watchdog’s adoption last week of a censure motion drafted by Western governments accusing it of non-cooperation.

    “Iran has started producing uranium enriched to 60 percent at the Fordo plant for the first time,” Iran’s ISNA news agency reported.

    While 60 percent enriched uranium still isn’t technically weapons-grade (weapons require uranium enriched to 90 percent or higher), having a significant stockpile of it could reduce the time Iran would need to make a bomb.


    Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi: The 60 Minutes Interview

    14:26

    Iran has always denied any ambition to develop a nuclear weapon, insisting its nuclear activities are for civilian purposes only, but the U.S. and its allies — most notably Israel and major European powers — don’t trust Tehran.

    Under the landmark 2015 nuclear deal, Iran agreed to mothball the Fordo plant and limit its enrichment of uranium at other facilities to 3.67 percent, which is sufficient for most civilian uses, as part of a package of restrictions on its nuclear activities aimed at preventing it covertly developing a nuclear weapon. In return, major powers including the U.S. agreed to relax sanctions they had imposed over Iran’s nuclear program.

    But the deal began falling apart in 2018 when then U.S. President Donald Trump pulled Washington out of the agreement and reimposed crippling economic sanctions on Iran unilaterally.

    The following year, Iran began stepping away from its commitments under the deal. It reopened the Fordo plant and starting enriching uranium to higher levels.

    US Iran Tensions
    A file photo released by the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran on November 6, 2019 shows a forklift carrying a cylinder containing uranium hexafluoride gas set to be injected for enrichment into centrifuges in Iran’s Fordo nuclear facility near the city of Qom, Iran.

    Atomic Energy Organization of Iran/AP


    In January 2021, Iran said it was working to enrich uranium to 20 percent at Fordo. Several months later another Iranian enrichment plant, Natanz, reached 60 percent.

    France, Germany and the U.K., which were all party to the now-defunct 2015 nuclear agreement, expressed “grave concern” last year over Iran’s upgrade to 60 percent and said the Islamic Republic had “no credible civilian need for enrichment at this level.”

    President Joe Biden has expressed a desire for Washington to return to a revived version of the agreement and on-off talks have been underway since April last year, but Secretary of State Antony Blinken said late last month that he saw little scope to restore the deal, as Iran battles nationwide protests sparked by the September death in police custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman.

    Commenting Tuesday on the Iranian announcement, U.S. special envoy for Iran Robert Malley said Washington had seen Tehran’s response to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) censure motion coming.

    “Unfortunately, the Iranian response was not unexpected,” Malley told the Al Jazeera television network, adding that the U.S. would closely monitor the next steps taken by Iran.

    Asked about negotiations to revive the nuclear deal, Malley said Tehran’s crackdown on anti-government protests, and the Islamic Republic’s admitted sale of drones to Russia for its war in Ukraine, had turned the Washington’s focus away from the discussions.


    Iran admits to supplying Russia with military drones in war against Ukraine

    02:10

    Implementation of the 2015 deal was overseen by the IAEA, but the U.N. watchdog’s relations with Iran have declined sharply in recent months. The IAEA board of governors passed a resolution on Thursday criticizing Iran for its lack of cooperation.

    Iran announced late Sunday that it had begun taking retaliatory measures but did not specify what they were.

    “In response to the recent action of three European countries and the United States in the adoption of a resolution against Iran, some initial measures have been decided by the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran,” foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani said.

    The ISNA news agency said the upgraded enrichment at Fordo was one part of Iran’s response.

    AP Analysis Iran Nuclear
    Nov. 1, 2019 satellite image provided by provided by Maxar Technologies shows the Fordo nuclear facility, just north of the holy city of Qom in Iran

    Maxar Technologies via AP


    “As well, in a second action in response to the resolution, Iran injected (uranium hexafluoride) gas into two IR-2m and IR-4 cascades at the Natanz plant,” it said, referring to an older enrichment facility where uranium was already being enriched to 60 percent.

    The U.N. watchdog has been pressing Iran to explain the discovery of traces of nuclear material at three sites it had not declared, a key sticking point that led to the adoption of an earlier censure motion by the IAEA in June.

    In a report seen by AFP earlier this month, the IAEA said Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium stood at 3,673.7 kilograms as of October 22, a decrease of 267.2 kilograms from the last quarterly report. But that included significant stockpiles of uranium enriched to higher levels — 386.4 kilograms to 20 percent and 62.3 kilograms to 60 percent.

    The IAEA complains that the ability of its inspectors to monitor Iran’s stepped-up nuclear activities has been hampered by restrictions imposed by Iran.

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  • Veterans of UK nuclear weapons tests win battle for medal

    Veterans of UK nuclear weapons tests win battle for medal

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    LONDON — Seven decades after Britain detonated a nuclear bomb in the Indian Ocean, troops who took part — sometimes unknowingly — in the country’s atomic weapons tests are being recognized with a medal.

    The U.K. government’s announcement on Monday of the Nuclear Test Medal is a victory for veterans and their families, who have campaigned for years for recognition. Now, many want recognition of the health problems they believe they suffered as a result of exposure to radiation.

    Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said the medal was “an enduring symbol of our country’s gratitude” to the test veterans.

    “Their commitment and service has preserved peace for the past 70 years, and it is only right their contribution to our safety, freedom and way of life is appropriately recognized with this honor,” he said.

    Sunak attended the first-ever ceremony for the nuclear veterans at the National Memorial Arboretum in central England, marking the 70th anniversary of the U.K.’s first atmospheric atomic test on Oct. 3, 1952. The detonation of a plutonium implosion device aboard a Royal Navy ship in the Montebello Islands off Western Australia, dubbed Operation Hurricane, made Britain the world’s third nuclear-armed nation, after the United States and Russia.

    Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said those who took part had made an “invaluable contribution to the safety and security of the U.K.”

    The U.K. set off further nuclear explosions in Australia and ocean territories including Christmas Island over the following years. Veterans groups say about 22,000 U.K. military personnel were involved in British and American tests in the 1950s and 60s, many of them conscripts doing postwar national service.

    Veterans, scientists and civil servants from Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and Kiribati who served under British command during the tests between 1952 and 1967 will also be eligible for the U.K. medal.

    Many veterans and their families are convinced there is a link between the tests and health problems they have suffered, and are pressing the U.K. to hold a public inquiry into the tests. Some allege they were deliberately exposed to radiation to see how their bodies would react, and claim their medical records were later suppressed.

    John Morris, who saw nuclear blasts on Christmas Island as a young conscript in the 1950s, told the BBC earlier this year that “I felt like I had seen the end of the world.”

    “I saw right through my hands as the light was so intense,” he said. “It felt like my blood was boiling. The palm trees — which had been 20 miles away — were scorched.”

    Numerous studies over the decades have probed allegations of high cancer rates among the test veterans, and of birth defects in their children, but have failed to establish an ironclad connection with the nuclear tests.

    Successive British governments have denied troops were exposed to unsafe levels of radiation.

    Alan Owen, founder of the Labrats International charity for atomic test survivors, welcomed the government’s recognition, but said “we want more.”

    “It’s great the government is starting to recognize the veterans,” said Owen, whose father James was present during nuclear testing on Christmas Island in 1962. James Owen died in 1994, aged 52.

    “For me it is going to be an emotional day because I will be representing him and my sister will be there and we will be laying flowers in his memory.”

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  • Kim Jong Un took his daughter to a missile launch and no one is quite sure why | CNN

    Kim Jong Un took his daughter to a missile launch and no one is quite sure why | CNN

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    Seoul, South Korea
    CNN
     — 

    Father and daughter walking hand in hand near a towering weapon of mass destruction.

    That was the scene North Korea showed the world on Saturday as state media released the first pictures of Kim Jong Un with a child believed to be his daughter, Ju Ae, inspecting what experts say is an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).

    North Korea said the missile launched Friday from Pyongyang International Airfield was a Hwasong-17, a huge rocket that could theoretically deliver a nuclear warhead to the mainland United States.

    But even after Kim warned that his nuclear forces are prepared to engage in “actual war” with Washington and its allies South Korea and Japan, it was the girl, not the missile, who grabbed the world’s attention.

    What did her presence at the launch mean? Could she be a possible successor to Kim? What does an approximately 9-year-old girl have to do with nuclear arms?

    Leif-Eric Easley, associate professor of international studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, said the girl’s presence should be seen through a domestic lens.

    “Outside North Korea, it may appear deranged to pose for the cameras hand in hand with a child in front of a long-range missile designed to deliver a nuclear weapon to a distant city,” Easley said.

    “But inside North Korea, a purportedly successful launch of the world’s largest road-mobile ICBM is cause for national celebration.”

    Yang Moo-jin, president of the University of North Korean Studies in the South, also noted the domestic tilt in the images of Kim’s daughter.

    “By showing some quality time with his daughter, it looked like he (Kim) wanted to show his family as a good and stable one, and to show himself as a leader for normal people,” Yang told Canadian broadcaster Global News.

    The images also presented the girl as a key member of the Kim bloodline, Yang said.

    North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and his daughter watc the launch of an ICBM in this undated photo released on November 19, 2022, by North Korean state media.

    North Korea has been ruled as a hereditary dictatorship since its founding in 1948 by Kim Il Sung. His son, Kim Jong Il, took over after his father’s death in 1994. And Kim Jong Un took power 17 years later when Kim Jong Il died.

    But any near-term change in the North Korean leadership is highly unlikely.

    Kim Jong Un is only 38 years old. And even if some unexpected problem were to take his life, Ju Ae is likely at least a decade or more away from being able to replace her father atop the North Korean state.

    “I’m genuinely unsure about the succession implications of his daughter being introduced,” said Ankit Panda, senior fellow in the nuclear policy program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

    “On the one hand, publicly revealing (a) child can’t be taken lightly by any North Korean leader, but she’s underage and her role at the test wasn’t particularly punched up by state media,” he said.

    Panda noted that video released by North Korea of Friday’s ICBM launch may prove much more valuable to Western intelligence than anything gleaned from Kim’s daughter’s presence.

    “The US has sophisticated sources and methods that’ll give it tremendous insight into North Korea’s missiles, but the video may be helpful for building a more complete model of the missile’s performance,” he said.

    “In the past, analysts have used videos to derive the acceleration of the missile at launch, which can help us identify its overall performance.”

    North Korea's latest ICBM missile launch on Friday November 18, 2022.

    It was only the third time Pyongyang has released a video of a missile launch since 2017, according to Panda.

    “The North Koreans used to be considerably more transparent prior to 2017, when their primary concern was the credibility of their nuclear deterrent,” he said.

    While Friday’s 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’s able to survive the fiery reentry into Earth’s atmosphere before plunging to their target.

    But analysts say with their repeated tests, the North Koreans are refining their processes. A missile believed to be a Hwasong-17 ICBM tested earlier this month failed in the early stages of its flight.

    “The fact that (Friday’s test) didn’t blow up indicates they have made progress in fixing the technical issues that marked previous tests,” said Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists.

    What comes next from North Korea is anybody’s guess.

    For much of this year, Western analysts and intelligence sources have been predicting North Korea will test a nuclear weapon, with satellite imagery showing activity at the nuclear test site. Such a test would be Pyongyang’s first in five years.

    But Yang, the University of North Korean Studies president, told Global News that Friday’s test may have dampened any urgency for a nuclear test, at least for the time being.

    “The possibility of North Korea’s seventh nuclear test to be conducted in November seems a little low now,” he said.

    But another ICBM test could be Pyongyang’s response if the US continues to bolster its military presence in the region and expands exercises with South Korea and Japan, he said.

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  • World leaders met all week to address global issues. Putin appears to no longer have a seat at the table | CNN

    World leaders met all week to address global issues. Putin appears to no longer have a seat at the table | CNN

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    Bangkok, Thailand
    CNN
     — 

    The three major summits of world leaders that took place across Asia in the past week have made one thing clear: Vladimir Putin is now sidelined on the world stage.

    Putin, whose attack on Ukraine over the past nine months has devastated the European country and roiled the global economy, declined to attend any of the diplomatic gatherings – and instead found himself subject to significant censure as international opposition to his war appeared to harden.

    A meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders in Bangkok closed on Saturday with a declaration that references nations’ stances expressed in other forums, including in a UN resolution deploring “in the strongest terms” Russian aggression against Ukraine, while noting differing views.

    It echoes verbatim a declaration from the Group of 20 (G20) leaders summit in Bali earlier this week.

    ‘Beyond logic’: Retired general baffled by Russia’s military move

    “Most members strongly condemned the war in Ukraine and stressed it is causing immense human suffering and exacerbating existing fragilities in the global economy,” the document said, adding that there were differing “assessments” on the situation within the group.

    Discussions within the summits aside, the week has also shown Putin – who it is believed launched his invasion in a bid to restore Russia’s supposed former glory – as increasingly isolated, with the Russian leader hunkered down in Moscow and unwilling even to face counterparts at major global meetings.

    A fear of potential political maneuvers against him should he leave the capital, an obsession with personal security and a desire to avoid scenes of confrontation at the summits – especially as Russia faces heavy losses in the battlefield – were all likely calculations that went into Putin’s decision, according to Alexander Gabuev, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

    Meanwhile, he may not want to turn unwanted attention on the handful of nations that have remained friendly to Russia, for example India and China, whose leaders Putin saw in a regional summit in Uzbekistan in September.

    “He doesn’t want to be this toxic guy,” Gabuev said.

    But even among countries who have not taken a hardline against Russia, there are signs of lost patience, if not with Russia itself, than against the knock-on effects of its aggression. Strained energy, issues of food security and spiraling global inflation are now squeezing economies the world over.

    Indonesia, which hosted the G20, has not explicitly condemned Russia for the invasion, but its President Joko Widodo told world leaders on Tuesday “we must end the war.”

    India, which has been a key purchaser of Russia’s energy even as the West shunned Russian fuel in recent months, also reiterated its call to “find a way to return to the path of ceasefire” at the G20. The summit’s final declaration includes a sentence saying, “Today’s era must not be of war” – language that echoes what Modi told Putin in September, when they met on the sidelines of the summit in Uzbekistan.

    It’s less clear if China, whose strategic partnership with Russia is bolstered by a close rapport between leader Xi Jinping and Putin, has come to any shift in stance. Beijing has long refused to condemn the invasion, or even refer to it as such. It’s instead decried Western sanctions and amplified Kremlin talking points blaming the US and NATO for the conflict, although this rhetoric has appeared to be somewhat dialed back on its state-controlled domestic media in recent months.

    Ukrainian President Volodymir Zelensky addresses G20 leaders via video link from his office in Kyiv.

    In sidelines meetings with Western leaders this past week, however, Xi reiterated China’s call for a ceasefire through dialogue, and, according to readouts from his interlocutors, agreed to oppose the use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine – although those remarks were not included in China’s account of the talks.

    But observers of China’s foreign policy say its desire to maintain strong ties with Russia likely remains unshaken.

    “While these statements are an indirect criticism of Vladimir Putin, I don’t think they are aimed at distancing China from Russia,” said Brian Hart, a fellow with the China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “Xi is saying these things to an audience that wants to hear them.”

    Russian isolation, however, appears even more stark against the backdrop of Xi’s diplomatic tour in Bali and Bangkok this week.

    Though US President Joe Biden’s administration has named Beijing – not Moscow – the “most serious long-term challenge” to the global order, Xi was treated as a valuable global partner by Western leaders, many of whom met with the Chinese leader for talks aimed at increasing communication and cooperation.

    Xi had an exchange with US Vice President Kamala Harris, who is representing the US at the APEC summit in Bangkok, at the event on Saturday. Harris said in a Tweet after she noted a “key message” from Biden’s G20 meeting with Xi – the importance of maintaining open lines of communication “to responsibly manage the competition between our countries.”

    And in an impassioned call for peace delivered to a meeting of business leaders alongside the APEC summit on Friday, French President Emmanuel Macron appeared to draw a distinction between Russia’s actions and tensions with China.

    While referencing US-China competition and increasing confrontation in Asia’s regional waters, Macron said: “What makes this war different is that it is an aggression against international rules. All countries … have stability because of international rules,” before calling for Russia to come back “to the table” and “respect international order.”

    US Vice President Kamala Harris meets with US allies at APEC following North Korea's ballistic missile launch on Friday.

    The urgency of that sentiment was heightened after a Russian-made missile landed in Poland, killing two people on Tuesday, during the G20 summit. As a NATO member, a threat to Polish security could trigger a response from the whole bloc.

    The situation defused after initial investigation suggested the missile came from the Ukrainian side in an accident during missile defense – but highlighted the potential for a miscalculation to spark a world war.

    A day after that situation, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken pointed to what he called a “split-screen.”

    Kaja Kallas Amanpour

    NATO must keep ‘cool head’ over missile incident in Poland, says Estonian PM


    07:40

    – Source:
    CNN

    “As the world works to help the most vulnerable people, Russia targets them; as leaders worldwide reaffirmed our commitment to the UN Charter and international rules that benefit all our people, President Putin continues to try to shred those same principles,” Blinken told reporters Thursday night in Bangkok.

    Coming into the week of international meetings, the US and its allies were ready to project that message to their international peers. And while strong messages have been made, gathering consensus around that view has not been easy – and differences remain.

    The G20 and APEC declarations both acknowledge divisions between how members voted in the UN to support its resolution “deploring” Russian aggression, and say that while most members “strongly condemned” the war, “there were other views and different assessments of the situation and sanctions.”

    Even making such an expression with caveats was an arduous process at both summits, according to officials. Indonesia’s Jokowi said G20 leaders were up until “midnight” discussing the paragraph on Ukraine.

    Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha and Chinese leader Xi Jinping meet at APEC on November 18, 2022 in Bangkok, Thailand.

    “There was a lot of pressure that came after the G20 reached consensus on their communique,” Matt Murray, the US senior official for APEC said in an interview with CNN after the summit’s close, adding the US had been consistent during lower-level meetings “all year long” on the need to address the war in the forum, given its impact on trade and food security.

    “In each and every instance where we didn’t get consensus earlier, it was because Russia blocked the statement,” he said. Meanwhile, “economies in the middle” were concerned about the invasion, but not sure it should be part of the agenda, according to Murray, who said statements released this week at APEC were the result of more than 100 hours of talks, in person and online.

    Nations in the groupings have various geo-strategic and economic relationships with Russia, which impact their stances. But another concern some Asian nations may have is whether measures to censure Russia are part of an American push to weaken Moscow, according former Thai Foreign Minister Kantathi Suphamongkhon, speaking to CNN in the days ahead of the summit.

    Boris Bondarev Putin split

    Ex-Russian official who turned on Putin predicts his next moves

    “Countries are saying we don’t want to just be a pawn in this game to be used to weaken another power,” said Suphamongkhon, an advisory board member of the RAND Corporation Center for Asia Pacific Policy. Instead framing censure of Russia around its “violation of international law and war crimes that may have been committed” would hit on aspects of the situation that “everyone rejects here,” he said.

    Rejection of Russia along those lines may also send a message to China, which itself has flouted an international ruling refuting its territorial claims in the South China Sea and has vowed to “reunify” with the self-governing democracy of Taiwan, which it’s never controlled, by force if necessary.

    While efforts this week may have upped pressure on Putin, the Russian leader has experience with such dynamics: prior to Putin’s expulsion over his annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea in 2014, the Group of Seven (G7) bloc was the Group of Eight – and it remains to be seen whether the international expressions will have an impact.

    But without Putin in the fold, leaders stressed this week, suffering will go on – and there will be a hole in the international system.

    This story has been updated with new information.

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  • Asia must not become arena for ‘big power contest,’ says China’s Xi as APEC summit gets underway | CNN

    Asia must not become arena for ‘big power contest,’ says China’s Xi as APEC summit gets underway | CNN

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    Bangkok, Thailand
    CNN
     — 

    Chinese leader Xi Jinping has stressed the need to reject confrontation in Asia, warning against the risk of cold war tensions, as leaders gather for the last of three world summits hosted in the region this month.

    Xi began the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders’ summit in Bangkok by staking out his wish for China to be viewed as a driver of regional unity in a written speech released ahead of Friday’s opening day – which also appeared to make veiled jabs at the United States.

    The Asia-Pacific region is “no one’s backyard” and should not become “an arena for big power contest,” Xi said in the statement, in which he also decried “any attempt to politicize and weaponize economic and trade relations.”

    “No attempt to wage a new cold war will ever be allowed by the people or by our times,” he added in the remarks, which were addressed to business leaders meeting alongside the summit and did not name the US.

    Xi struck a milder tone in a separate address to APEC leaders on Friday morning as the main event got underway, calling for stability, peace and the development of a “more just world order.”

    Leaders and representatives from 21 economies on both sides of the Pacific meeting in the Thai capital for the two-day summit will grapple with that question of how best to promote stability, in a region sitting on the fault lines of growing US-China competition and grappling with regional tensions and the economic fallout of Russia’s war in Ukraine.

    Those challenges were palpable Friday morning, as North Korea launched an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), the second weapons test by Kim Jong Un’s regime in two days amid increased provocation from Pyongyang.

    US Vice President Kamala Harris gathered on the sidelines of the summit with leaders from Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand and Canada to condemn the launch in an unscheduled media briefing.

    In a speech Friday to business leaders, Harris said the US had a “profound stake” in the region, and described America as a “strong partner” to its economies and a “major engine of global growth.”

    Without mentioning China in her address, she also promoted American initiatives to counter Beijing’s regional influence, including the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, launched by Washington earlier this year, and the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment.

    “The US is here to stay,” said the vice president, who is representing the US at the summit after US President Joe Biden returned home for a family event after attending meetings around the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in Phnom Penh, Cambodia and the G20 summit in Bali in recent days.

    Despite the US-China rivalry, the three summits have also brought opportunities to defuse rising tensions and strained communication between the world’s top two powers.

    US-China relations have deteriorated sharply in recent years, with the two sides clashing over Taiwan, the war in Ukraine, North Korea, and the transfer of technology among other issues.

    In August, following a visit by US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan, China fired multiple missiles into waters around the self-governing island and ramped up naval and warplane exercises in the surrounding area. Beijing claims the democratic island as its territory, despite never having controlled it, and suspended a number of dialogues with the US over the visit.

    A landmark meeting between Xi and Biden on the sidelines of the G20 in Bali on Monday – the leaders’ first since Biden took office – ended with the two sides agreeing to bolster communication and collaborate on issues like climate and food security.

    After landing in Bangkok Thursday, Chinese leader Xi sat down with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, in the first meeting between leaders of the two Asian countries in nearly three years. Both sides called for more cooperation following a breakdown in communication over points of contention from Taiwan to disputed islands.

    At stake in the broader meeting, however, is whether leaders can find consensus on how to treat Russia’s aggression in a concluding document, or whether differences in views between the broad grouping of nations will stymie such a result, despite months of discussion between APEC nations’ lower-level officials.

    In an address to business leaders alongside the summit Friday morning, French President Emmanuel Macron, who was invited by host country Thailand, called for consensus and unity against Moscow’s aggression.

    “Help us to convey the same message to Russia: stop the war, respect the international order and come back to the table,” he said.

    Macron also called out the US-China rivalry, warning of the risk to peace if countries are forced to choose between the two great powers.

    “We need a single global order,” Macron said to applause from business leaders.

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  • North Korea fires ICBM into sea off Japan, according to South Korean officials | CNN

    North Korea fires ICBM into sea off Japan, according to South Korean officials | CNN

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    Seoul, South Korea
    CNN
     — 

    North Korea launched an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) on Friday, the second missile test by the Kim Jong Un regime in two days, in actions condemned as unacceptable by Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.

    The ICBM was launched around 10:15 a.m. local time from the Sunan area of the North Korean capital Pyongyang, and flew about 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) east, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said.

    Kishida said it likely fell in Japan’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ), about 210 kilometers (130 miles) west of the Japanese island of Oshima Oshima, according to the Japan Coast Guard. It did not fly over Japan.

    “North Korea is continuing to carry out provocative actions at frequency never seen before,” Kishida told reporters Friday at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting in Bangkok, Thailand.

    “I want to restate that we cannot accept such actions,” he said.

    The Japanese government will continue to collect and analyze information and provide prompt updates to the public, he said. So far, there have been no reports of damage to vessels at sea, Kishida added.

    The ICBM reached an altitude of about 6,100 kilometers (3,790 miles) at Mach 22, or 22 times the speed of sound, according to the JCS, which said details were being analyzed by intelligence authorities in South Korea and the US.

    Friday’s missile was about 100 kilometers short in altitude and distance compared to Pyongyang’s missile test on March 24, which recorded the highest altitude and longest duration of any North Korean missile ever tested, according to a report from the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) at the time. That missile reached an altitude of 6,248.5 kilometers (3,905 miles) and flew a distance of 1,090 kilometers (681 miles), KCNA reported.

    Calling the launch a “significant provocation and a serious act of threat,” the JCS warned the North of violating the UN Security Council’s resolution and urged it to stop immediately.

    The Misawa Air Base issued a shelter in place alert after the firing of the missile, according to US Air Force Col. Greg Hignite, director of public affairs for US Forces Japan. It has now been lifted and the US military is still analyzing the flight path, he said.

    US President Joe Biden has been briefed on the missile launch and his national security team will “continue close consultations with Allies and partners,” National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said in statement Friday.

    “The door has not closed on diplomacy, but Pyongyang must immediately cease its destabilizing actions and instead choose diplomatic engagement,” Watson said. “The United States will take all necessary measures to ensure the security of the American homeland and Republic of Korea and Japanese allies.”

    Friday’s launch comes one day after Pyongyang fired a short-range ballistic missile into the waters off the east coast of the Korean Peninsula, and issued a stern warning to the United States of a “fiercer military counteraction” to its tighter defense ties with South Korea and Japan.

    It’s the second suspected test launch of an ICBM this month – an earlier missile fired on November 3 appeared to have failed, a South Korean government source told CNN at the time.

    The aggressive acceleration in weapons testing and rhetoric has sparked alarm in the region, with the US, South Korea and Japan responding with missile launches and joint military exercises.

    Leif-Eric Easley, associate professor of International Studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, said North Korea is “trying to disrupt international cooperation against it by escalating military tensions and suggesting it has the capability of holding American cities at risk of nuclear attack.”

    North Korea has carried out missile tests on 34 days this year, sometimes firing multiple missiles in a single day, according to a CNN count. The tally includes both cruise and ballistic missiles, with the latter making up the majority of North Korean test this year.

    There are substantial differences between these two types of missiles.

    A ballistic missile is launched with a rocket and travels outside Earth’s atmosphere, gliding in space before it re-enters the atmosphere and descends, powered only by gravity to its target.

    A cruise missile is powered by a jet engine, stays inside Earth’s atmosphere during its flight and is maneuverable with control surfaces similar to an airplane’s.

    Ankit Panda, senior fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said that while he wouldn’t see Friday’s presumed ICBM launch “as a message, per se,” it can be viewed as part of North Korea’s “process of developing capabilities Kim has identified as essential for the modernization of their nuclear forces.”

    The US and international observers have been warning for months that North Korea appears to be preparing for an underground nuclear test, with satellite imagery showing activity at the nuclear test site. Such a test would be the hermit nation’s first in five years.

    Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at Center for Non-proliferation Studies, said the ICBM test was designed to validate parts of North Korea’s missile program, something that Kim Jong Un has vowed to do this year.

    The recent short-range tests “are exercises for frontline artillery units practicing preemptive nuclear strikes,” Lewis said.

    He dismissed any political or negotiating message from the tests.

    “I wouldn’t think about these tests as primarily signaling. North Korea isn’t interested talking right now,” Lewis said.

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  • North Korea launches another ballistic missile, Seoul says

    North Korea launches another ballistic missile, Seoul says

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    North Korea launched yet another ballistic missile toward its eastern waters on Thursday, South Korea’s military said, hours after the North threatened to launch “fiercer” military responses to the U.S. bolstering its security commitment to its allies South Korea and Japan.

    The launch of a short-range ballistic missile occurred at 10:48 a.m. local time Thursday into the East Sea, originating from the North Korean city of Wonsan, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff reported. The missile flew a distance of about 240 kilometers, at an altitude of 47 kilometers, and at a speed of Mach 4, South Korea’s military estimated.

    U.S. Indo-Pacific Command said in a statement that it was “aware” of the launch and was “consulting closely with our allies and partners.” The agency added that it had determined the launch did “not pose an immediate threat to U.S. personnel or territories, or to our allies.”

    Earlier Thursday, North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hue warned that a recent U.S.-South Korea-Japan summit accord on the North would leave tensions on the Korean Peninsula “more unpredictable.”

    Choe’s statement was North Korea’s first official response to President Biden’s trilateral summit with his South Korean and Japanese counterparts in Cambodia on Sunday. In their joint statement, the three leaders strongly condemned North Korea’s recent missile tests and agreed to work together to strengthen deterrence, while Biden reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to defend South Korea and Japan with a full range of capabilities, including its nuclear arms.

    North Korea missile test
    People watch a television screen showing a news broadcast with file footage of a North Korean missile test, at a railway station in Seoul, South Korea, on Nov. 3, 2022. 

    JUNG YEON-JE/AFP/Getty Images


    Choe said the U.S.-South Korea-Japan summit will bring the situation on the Korean Peninsula to “a more unpredictable phase.”

    “The keener the U.S. is on the ‘bolstered offer of extended deterrence’ to its allies and the more they intensify provocative and bluffing military activities on the Korean Peninsula and in the region, the fiercer (North Korea’s) military counteraction will be, in direct proportion to it,” Choe said. “It will pose a more serious, realistic and inevitable threat to the U.S. and its vassal forces.”

    Choe didn’t say what steps North Korea could take but said that “The U.S. will be well aware that it is gambling for which it will certainly regret.”

    North Korea has steadfastly maintained its recent weapons testing activities are legitimate military counteractions to what it calls military drills between U.S. and South Korean forces, which it views as a practice to launch attacks on the North.

    In late October, U.S. and South Korean officials confirmed to CBS News that North Korea is preparing to test an atomic weapon soon, in what would be its first nuclear test since 2017.

    And earlier this month, North Korea fired dozens of missiles and flew warplanes toward the sea — triggering evacuation alerts in some South Korean and Japanese areas — in protest of massive U.S.-South Korean air force drills that the North views as an invasion rehearsal. 

    On Nov. 7, North Korea released a statement saying that its flurry of missile tests were practice to “mercilessly” strike key South Korean and U.S. targets, such as air bases and operation command systems. 

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  • G20 leaders’ declaration condemns Russia’s war ‘in strongest terms’ | CNN

    G20 leaders’ declaration condemns Russia’s war ‘in strongest terms’ | CNN

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    Bali, Indonesia
    CNN
     — 

    Russia’s international isolation grew Wednesday, as world leaders issued a joint declaration condemning its war in Ukraine that has killed thousands of people and roiled the global economy.

    The Group of 20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, concluded Wednesday with a leaders’ statement that “deplores in the strongest terms the aggression by the Russian Federation against Ukraine and demands its complete and unconditional withdrawal from the territory of Ukraine.”

    Speaking after the closing of the summit, Indonesian President and G20 host Joko Widodo told a news conference that “world leaders agreed on the content of the declaration, namely condemnation to the war in Ukraine” which violates its territorial integrity. However, some of the language used in the declaration pointed to disagreement among members on issues around Ukraine.

    “This war has caused massive public suffering, and also jeopardizing the global economy that is still vulnerable from the pandemic, which also caused risks for food and energy crises, as well as financial crisis. The G20 discussed the impact of war to the global economy,” he said.

    The 17-page document is a major victory for the United States and its allies who have pushed to end the summit with a strong condemnation of Russia, though it also acknowledged a rift among member states.

    “Most members strongly condemned the war in Ukraine and stressed it is causing immense human suffering and exacerbating existing fragilities in the global economy,” it said. “There were other views and different assessments of the situation and sanctions.”

    Jokowi said the G20 members’ stance on the war in Ukraine was the “most debated” paragraph.

    “Until late midnight yesterday we discussed about this, and at the end the Bali leaders’ declaration was agreed unanimously in consensus,” Jokowi said.

    “We agreed that the war has negative impact to the global economy, and the global economic recovery will also not be achieved without any peace.”

    The statement came hours after Poland said a “Russian-made missile” had landed in a village near its border with Ukraine, killing two people.

    It remains unclear who fired that missile. Both Russian and Ukrainian forces have used Russian-made munitions during the conflict, with Ukraine deploying Russian-made missiles as part of their air defense system. But whatever the outcome of the investigation into the deadly strike, the incident underscored the dangers of miscalculation in a brutal war that has stretched on for nearly nine months, and which risks escalating further and dragging major powers into it.

    Waking up to the news, US President Joe Biden and leaders from the G7 and NATO convened an emergency meeting in Bali to discuss the explosion.

    The passing of the joint declaration would have required the buy-in from leaders that share close ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin – most notably Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who declared a “no-limits” friendship between their countries weeks before the invasion, and India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

    While India is seen to have distanced itself from Russia, whether there has been any shift of position from China is less clear. Chinese leader Xi Jinping has called for a ceasefire and agreed to oppose the use of nuclear weapons in a flurry of bilateral meetings with Western leaders on the sidelines of the G20, but he has given no public indication of any commitment to persuade his “close friend” Vladimir Putin to end the war.

    Since Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine in February, Beijing has refused to label the military aggression as an “invasion” or “war,” and has amplified Russian propaganda blaming the conflict on NATO and the US while decrying sanctions.

    When discussing Ukraine with leaders from the US, France and other nations, Xi invariably stuck to terms such as “the Ukraine crisis” or “the Ukraine issue” and avoided the word “war,” according to Chinese readouts.

    In those meetings, Xi reiterated China’s call for a ceasefire through dialogue, and, according to readouts from his interlocutors, agreed to oppose the use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine – but those remarks are not included in China’s account of the talks.

    China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi later told Chinese state media that Xi had reiterated China’s position in his meeting with Biden that “nuclear weapons cannot be used and a nuclear war cannot be fought.”

    In a meeting with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov Tuesday, Wang praised Russia for holding the same position. “China noticed that Russia has recently reaffirmed the established position that ‘a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought,’ which shows Russia’s rational and responsible attitude,” Wang was quoted as saying by state news agency Xinhua.

    Wang is one of the few – if not only – foreign officials to have sat down for a formal meeting with Lavrov, who has faced isolation and condemnation at a summit where he stood in for Putin.

    On Tuesday, Lavrov sat through the opening of the summit listening to world leaders condemn Russia’s brutal invasion. Indonesian President and G20 host Widodo told world leaders “we must end the war.” “If the war does not end, it will be difficult for the world to move forward,” he said.

    Xi, meanwhile, made no mention of Ukraine in his opening remarks. Instead, the Chinese leader made a thinly veiled criticism of the US – without mentioning it by name – for “drawing ideological lines” and “promoting group politics and bloc confrontation.”

    Compared with the ambiguous stance of China, observers have noted a more obvious shift from India – and the greater role New Delhi is willing to play in engaging all sides.

    On Tuesday, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for leaders to “find a way to return to the path of ceasefire and diplomacy in Ukraine” in his opening remarks at the summit.

    The draft of the joint declaration also includes a sentence: “Today’s era must not be of war.” The language echos what Modi told Putin in September, on the sidelines of a regional summit in Uzbekistan.

    “If the Indian language was used in the text, that means Western leaders are listening to India as a major stakeholder in the region, because India is a country that is close to both the West and Russia,” said Happymon Jacob, associate professor of diplomacy and disarmament at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi.

    “And we are seeing India disassociating itself from Russia in many ways.”

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  • Zelenskyy tells ‘G19’ leaders: Don’t ask Ukraine to compromise

    Zelenskyy tells ‘G19’ leaders: Don’t ask Ukraine to compromise

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    BALI, Indonesia — Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Tuesday called on G20 leaders not to offer his country any peace deal that would compromise its independence from Russia, amid recently renewed contact between Washington and Moscow over the future of the war.

    Zelenskyy appeared at the Bali summit via videolink at the invitation of the Indonesian hosts, just days after Ukraine liberated Kherson from invading Russian forces — a feat he compared to the D-Day landing of allied troops in Normandy, a key turning point of World War II.

    “For Ukraine, this liberation operation of our defense forces is reminiscent of many battles of the past, which became turning points in the wars of the past,” Zelenskyy said in his speech to world leaders, among them U.S. President Joe Biden — and, according to a Western diplomat, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. “It is like, for example, D-Day — the landing of the allies in Normandy.”

    Pointedly addressing his comments to the “dear G19” — the leaders of the Group of 20, with a snub to Russia — Zelenskyy warned against making Ukraine weaker than it was before Russian President Vladimir Putin launched the full-scale invasion in February.

    “I want this aggressive Russian war to end justly and on the basis of the U.N. Charter and international law,” Zelenskyy said in his speech, the content of which was leaked to POLITICO. “Ukraine should not be offered to conclude compromises with its conscience, sovereignty, territory and independence. We respect the rules and we are people of our word.”

    Russian President Vladimir Putin was invited to the summit in Bali but last week decided not to attend, sending Lavrov instead.

    In his speech on Tuesday, Zelenskyy rejected any negotiations like those Kyiv held with Moscow in previous years, after Russia invaded and annexed Crimea in 2014, before seizing, via proxies, territory in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine.

    “Apparently, one cannot trust Russia’s words, and there will be no Minsk 3, which Russia would violate immediately after signing,” Zelenskyy said, referring to the Minsk 1 and 2 agreements, signed in 2014 and 2015 and mediated by the leaders of France and Germany in the so-called Normandy Format, which were intended to bring an end to the war at that time.

    Zelenskyy’s speech to the G20 came on the same day Chinese President Xi Jinping asked his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron to work toward negotiated peace for Ukraine.

    According to the Chinese state media Xinhua, Xi “emphasized that China’s position on the Ukrainian crisis is clear and consistent, advocating ceasefire, cessation of war and peace talks. The international community should create conditions for this, and China will continue to play a constructive role in its own way.”

    Nevertheless, Zelenskyy thanked countries including China for rejecting Russia’s threats to use nuclear weapons.

    Slamming the “crazy threats of nuclear weapons,” the Ukrainian president added: “There are and cannot be any excuses for nuclear blackmail. And I thank you, dear G19, for making this clear.”

    Bill Burns, the head of the Central Intelligence Agency, met his Russian counterpart Sergei Naryshkin in Turkey on Monday and warned Moscow against using nuclear weapons, according to the White House.

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  • Biden holds high-stakes talks with China’s president

    Biden holds high-stakes talks with China’s president

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    Biden holds high-stakes talks with China’s president – CBS News


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    President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping’s highly anticipated meeting lasted more than three hours at the G20 summit in Indonesia. Tensions over trade, Taiwan and the war in Ukraine loomed over their first face-to-face encounter, but both leaders said they’re committed to improving relations. Nancy Cordes is in Bali with more.

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  • CIA director Burns to meet Russian counterpart in Turkey

    CIA director Burns to meet Russian counterpart in Turkey

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    WASHINGTON — CIA Director Bill Burns will meet in Ankara, Turkey, on Monday with his Russian intelligence counterpart to underscore the consequences if Russia were to deploy a nuclear weapon in Ukraine, according to a White House National Security Council official.

    The official, who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Burns and Sergey Naryshkin, the head of Russia’s SVR spy agency, would not discuss settlement of the war in Ukraine. Burns is also expected to raise the cases of WNBA star Brittney Griner and Michigan corporate security executive Paul Whelan, two Americans detained in Russia whom the Biden administration has been pressing to release in a prisoner exchange.

    The official said that Ukrainian officials were briefed ahead of Burns’ travel to Turkey.

    Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday he could neither confirm nor deny reports of U.S.-Russia talks in Turkey.

    Two Turkish officials said they had no knowledge about a meeting between U.S. and Russian delegations. A Turkish Foreign Ministry Spokesman could not immediately be reached for comment.

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  • Biden huddles with Asian allies on NKorea threat, China

    Biden huddles with Asian allies on NKorea threat, China

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    PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — President Joe Biden is set to meet Sunday with the leaders of Japan and South Korea to coordinate their response to North Korea’s threatening nuclear and ballistic missile programs, as well as to seek input on managing China‘s assertive posture in the Pacific region on the eve of his planned face-to-face with President Xi Jinping.

    Biden will hold separate meetings with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol. The three leaders will then sit down together on the sidelines of the East Asia Summit in Cambodia.

    The meetings come as North Korea has fired dozens of missiles in recent weeks, including an intercontinental ballistic missile 10 days ago that triggered evacuation alerts in northern Japan, and as the allies warn of a looming risk of the isolated country conducting its seventh nuclear test in the coming weeks.

    U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters on Saturday that Biden aims to use the meetings to strengthen the three countries’ joint response to the dangers posed by North Korea, officially known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

    “What we would really like to see is enhanced trilateral security cooperation where the three countries are all coming together,” he said. “That’s acutely true with respect to the DPRK because of the common threat and challenge we all face, but it’s also true, more broadly, about our capacity to work together to enhance overall peace and stability in the region.”

    Tensions on the Korean peninsula have skyrocketed in recent months as the North continues its weapons demonstrations and the U.S. and South Korea launched stepped-up joint defense exercises. Earlier this month, the South Korean military said two B-1B bombers trained with four U.S. F-16 fighter jets and four South Korean F-35 jets during the last day of “Vigilant Storm” joint air force drills. It was the first time since December 2017 that the bombers were deployed to the Korean Peninsula. The exercise involved a total of roughly 240 warplanes, including advanced F-35 fighter jets from both countries.

    North Korea responded with its own display of force, flying large numbers of warplanes inside its territory.

    The Biden administration has said it has sent repeated requests to negotiate with North Korea without preconditions on constraining its nuclear and ballistic missile programs, but that Kim Jong Un’s government has not responded.

    Biden on Monday said he plans to press Xi to use China’s unique sway over North Korea to curtail its aggressive behavior, as part of what is expected to be a wide-ranging bilateral meeting on the margins of the Group of 20 gathering in Bali, Indonesia.

    China “has an interest in playing a constructive role in restraining North Korea’s worst tendencies,” Sullivan said Saturday. “Whether they choose to do so or not is, of course, up to them.”

    Biden told reporters on Sunday that he’s “always had straightforward discussions” with Xi, and that has prevented either of them from “miscalculations” of their intentions. Their meeting comes weeks after Xi cemented his grip on China’s political system with the conclusion of the Community Party congress in Beijing that gave him a norm-breaking third term as leader.

    “His circumstances changed, to state the obvious, at home,” Biden said of Xi.

    Monday’s meeting will be the first in-person sit-down between the leaders since Biden was elected to the White House. U.S. officials in the past have expressed frustration that lower-level Chinese officials have proven unable or unwilling to speak for Xi, and are hoping the face-to-face summit will enable progress on areas of mutual concern — and, even more critically, a shared understanding of each others’ limitations.

    “I know him well, he knows me,” Biden said. “We’ve just got to figure out where the red lines are and what are the most important things to each of us, going into the next two years.”

    As president, Biden has repeatedly taken China to task for human rights abuses against the Uyghur people and other ethnic minorities, Beijing’s crackdowns on democracy activists in Hong Kong, coercive trade practices, military provocations against self-ruled Taiwan and differences over Russia’s prosecution of its war against Ukraine.

    Xi’s government has criticized the Biden administration’s posture toward Taiwan — which Beijing looks eventually to unify with the communist mainland — as undermining China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. The Chinese president also has suggested that Washington wants to stifle Beijing’s growing clout as it tries to overtake the U.S. as the world’s largest economy.

    Biden also held a pull-aside meeting with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who has sought out his own meeting with Xi this week in an effort to ease Chinese sanctions against his country.

    Sullivan said Biden would also ask Japan and South Korea’s leaders which issues they want him to talk about with Xi, though it would not be the primary discussion at their trilateral meeting.

    “One thing that President Biden certainly wants to do with our closest allies is preview what he intends to do,” Sullivan said, “and also ask the leaders of (South Korea) and Japan, ‘What would you like me to raise? What do you want me to go in with?’”

    —

    Kim reported from Nusa Dua, Indonesia. AP writer Josh Boak contributed from Baltimore.

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  • Biden to meet with top US allies Japan and South Korea following midterm boost | CNN Politics

    Biden to meet with top US allies Japan and South Korea following midterm boost | CNN Politics

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    Phnom Penh, Cambodia
    CNN
     — 

    President Joe Biden landed in Cambodia on Saturday still reveling in midterm election results that have produced an unexpected boost at home for his second two years in office.

    The scale of the challenges abroad, and the effort to translate 21 months of intensive engagement into tangible results for US alliances, will put the value of that political capital on the international stage to the test even as votes are still being counted.

    Biden is set to confront a series of stark challenges in his sit-down with Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, critical allies in an Indo-Pacific region rattled by an increasingly belligerent North Korea. An assertive and confrontational China, long a central animating issue for the Biden administration, also looms large.

    Biden will also meet with Kishida and Yoon individually before their trilateral meeting.

    Biden’s stop at the Asian nations summit comes as advisers see a clear boost from bucking the historical and political trends in the midterm elections. While Biden’s message won’t shift dramatically, the weight behind it is unmistakably more robust after American voters delivered a message that surpassed the hopes of even the most optimistic White House officials.

    The trio of world leaders previously met on the sidelines of the NATO Summit in June, pledging to enhance cooperation – a complicated task for the major US allies that have a historically fraught relationship.

    But that cooperation is imperative as recent, stepped-up aggression from North Korea will be top of mind for the trio of leaders Sunday. North Korea has conducted missile launches 32 days this year, according to a CNN count of both ballistic and cruise missiles. By contrast, it conducted only four tests in 2020, and eight in 2021.

    National security adviser Jake Sullivan suggested Saturday the meeting will not lead to specific deliverables, telling reporters aboard Air Force One that the leaders will “be able to discuss broader security issues in the Indo-Pacific and also, specifically, the threats posed by North Korea’s missile and nuclear programs.”

    The trilateral comes one day ahead of a high-stakes, one-on-one meeting for Biden with China’s leader Xi Jinping, their first in-person encounter since Biden took office. That meeting will take place on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Bali.

    Speaking to reporters Sunday morning, Biden said he was entering the meeting with Xi in a position of relative strength.

    “I know I’m coming in stronger,” he said, noting he knew Xi well and there was “very little misunderstanding” between the two leaders.

    “We just got to figure out what the red lines are and what the most important things are to each of us going into the next few years,” Biden said.

    Biden, Yoon, and Fumio will also discuss Monday’s meeting during the trilateral meeting.

    “One thing that President Biden certainly wants to do with our closest allies is preview what he intends to do, and also ask the leaders of (South Korea) and Japan, ‘What would you like me to raise? What do you want me to go in with?’” Sullivan said, adding that it “will be a topic but it will not be the main event of the trilateral.”

    Earlier Sunday, Biden will attend the East Asia Summit, building on Saturday’s appearance at the ASEAN Summit aimed at boosting US-Indo-Pacific relations. He then meets with Fumio and Yoon before departing for Bali.

    This leg of the trip, a senior administration official told reporters on a call earlier this week, reflects “stepped-up engagement with ASEAN and with Southeast Asia” during the Biden administration.

    Biden, the official added, will “lay out our vision for keeping up a pace of enhanced engagement and trying to also address concerns of importance to ASEAN in ways that they are looking for,” keeping with an ongoing theme during the Biden presidency of building alliances in strategic competition with China.

    Among the key topics of discussion this weekend in Cambodia, the official said, is the ongoing conflict in Myanmar, where the military seized power in a coup last year.

    World leaders will discuss “efforts to promote respect for human rights, rule of law and good governance, the rules-based international order, and also to address the ongoing crisis in Burma.”

    Biden arrived in Phnom Penh on Saturday, holding a bilateral meeting with ASEAN chair and Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, and attending the ASEAN-US summit.

    “This is my third trip, my third summit – second in-person, and it’s testament to the importance the United States places in our relationship with ASEAN and our commitment to ASEAN’s centrality. ASEAN is the heart of my administration’s Indo-Pacific strategy. And we continue to strengthen our commitment to work in lockstep with an empowered, unified ASEAN,” Biden said in brief opening remarks as the summit began.

    On Friday, Biden made a three-hour stop in Sharm El Shiekh, Egypt, where he attended the COP27 climate summit and met with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi.

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  • Biden arrives in Cambodia looking to counter China’s growing influence in Southeast Asia | CNN Politics

    Biden arrives in Cambodia looking to counter China’s growing influence in Southeast Asia | CNN Politics

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    Phnom Penh, Cambodia
    CNN
     — 

    President Joe Biden underscored the US partnership with Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries on Saturday as “the heart of my administration’s Indo-Pacific strategy” as he seeks to counter China’s growing influence ahead of a high-stakes meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping set for Monday.

    The weekend of meetings in Cambodia comes ahead of the highly anticipated Group of 20 summit next week in Indonesia where Biden will meet with Xi for the first time in person since he took office. The ASEAN meetings – along with Sunday’s East Asia Summit, which is also being held in Phnom Penh – will be a chance for the president to speak with US allies before sitting down with Xi.

    In remarks to the summit, Biden announced “another critical step” toward building on the group’s progress as he detailed the launch of the US-ASEAN Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, which, he said, “will tackle the biggest issues of our time, from climate to health security, defend against the significant threats to rule based order and to threats to the rule of law, and to build an Indo-Pacific that’s free and open, stable and prosperous, resilient and secure.” He touted existing US financial commitments to ASEAN as he noted a budget request for $850 million in assistance for Southeast Asia.

    “This is my third trip, my third summit – second in person – and it’s testament to the importance the United States places in our relationship with ASEAN and our commitment to ASEAN’s centrality. ASEAN is the heart of my administration’s Indo-Pacific strategy. And we continue to strengthen our commitment to work in lockstep with an empowered, unified ASEAN,” Biden said in brief opening remarks as the summit began.

    The president’s first order of business in Cambodia was a bilateral meeting with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen as he looks to build on a summit between Biden and ASEAN leaders in Washington earlier this year.

    Biden, national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters aboard Air Force One, “was intent on elevating our engagement in the Indo-Pacific” from the start of his presidency, and his attendance at the ASEAN and East Asia summits this weekend will highlight his work so far, including the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework announced earlier this year and security partnership efforts.

    “He’s coming into this set of summits with that record of accomplishment and purpose behind him, and he wants to be able to use the next 36 hours to build on that foundation to take American engagement forward, and also to deliver a series of concrete, practical initiatives,” Sullivan said.

    Among those practical initiatives, Sullivan noted, are new ones on maritime cooperation, digital connectivity and economic investment. Biden is set to launch a new maritime domain effort “that focuses on using radio frequencies from commercial satellites to be able to track dark shipping, illegal and unregulated fishing, and also to improve the capacity of the countries of the region to respond to disasters and humanitarian crises,” Sullivan said.

    Biden will also highlight a “forward-deployed posture” toward regional defense, Sullivan added, to show that the US is on the front foot in terms of security cooperation.

    During his remarks, Biden also pointed to a new US-ASEAN electric vehicle infrastructure initiative.

    “We’re gonna work together to develop an integrated electric vehicle ecosystem in Southeast Asia, enabling the region to pursue clean energy, economic development, and ambitious emissions reductions targets,” he said of the initiative.

    There will also be a focus on Myanmar and discussions on coordination “to continue to impose costs and raise pressure on the junta,” which seized power from the country’s democratically elected government in a February 2021 coup.

    While in Phnom Penh, Biden will be meeting with the leaders of Japan and South Korea on Sunday following multiple weapons tests by North Korea, Sullivan said. The meeting is notable given the historic tensions between Japan and South Korea, and the relationship between the two staunch US allies has been one that Biden has attempted to bridge.

    The Japanese and the South Koreans find themselves united in concern about Kim Jong Un’s missile tests, as well as the prospect of a seventh nuclear weapons test. North Korea has ramped up its tests this year, having carried out missile tests on 32 days in 2022, according to a CNN count. That’s compared to just eight in 2021 and four in 2020, with the latest launch coming on Wednesday.

    Sullivan suggested the trilateral meeting will not lead to specific deliverables, but rather, enhanced security cooperation amid a range of threats.

    The trio of world leaders, Sullivan told reporters, will “be able to discuss broader security issues in the Indo-Pacific and also, specifically, the threats posed by North Korea’s missile and nuclear programs.”

    Sullivan said Thursday that the administration is concerned about the North Koreans conducting a seventh nuclear test but can’t say if it will come during the weekend of meetings.

    “Our concern still remains real. Whether it happens in the next week or not, I can’t say,” Sullivan said earlier this week. “We are also concerned about further potential long-range missile tests in addition to the possibility of a nuclear test. And so, we’ll be watching carefully for both of those.”

    But the Monday meeting with Xi in Bali, Indonesia, will undoubtedly hang over the summits in Cambodia, and will be part of those trilateral conversations.

    “One thing that President Biden certainly wants to do with our closest allies is preview what he intends to do, and also ask the leaders of (South Korea) and Japan, ‘what would you like me to raise? What do you want me to go in with?’” Sullivan said, adding that it “will be a topic but it will not be the main event of the trilateral.”

    Biden and Xi have spoken by phone five times since the president entered the White House. They traveled extensively together, both in China and the United States, when both were serving as their country’s vice president.

    Both enter Monday’s meeting on the back of significant political events. Biden fared better than expected in US midterm elections and Xi was elevated to an unprecedented third term by the Chinese Communist Party.

    US officials declined to speculate on how the two leaders’ political situations might affect the dynamic of their meeting.

    The high-stakes bilateral meeting between Biden and Xi will center on “sharpening” each leader’s understanding of the other’s priorities, Sullivan told reporters.

    That includes the issue of Taiwan, which Beijing claims. Biden has vowed in the past to use US military force to defend the island from invasion. The issue is among the most contentious between Biden and Xi.

    Biden will also raise the issue of North Korea, with an emphasis on the critical role China can play in managing what is an acute threat to the region, Sullivan said.

    Biden has repeatedly raised the issue in his calls with Xi up to this point, but Sullivan underscored the US view that China plays a critical role – and one that should be viewed within its own self-interest.

    “If North Korea keeps going down this road, it will simply mean further enhanced American military and security presence in the region,” Sullivan said. “And so (China) has an interest in playing a constructive role in restraining North Korea’s worst tendencies. Whether they choose to do so or not is of course up to them.”

    Sullivan said Biden will detail his position on the issue, “which is that North Korea represents a threat not just to the United States, not just to (South Korea) and Japan, but to peace and stability across the entire region.”

    Sullivan suggested the meeting will focus on a better understanding of positions on a series of critical issues, but is not likely to result in any major breakthroughs or dramatic shifts in the relationship.

    Instead, “it’s about the leaders coming to a better understanding and then tasking their teams” to continue to work through those issues, Sullivan told reporters aboard Air Force One as Biden traveled to Cambodia.

    The meeting, set to take place on the sidelines of the G-20 summit, was the result of “several weeks of intensive” discussions between the two sides, Sullivan said, and is viewed by Biden as the start of a series of engagements between the leaders and their teams.

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  • G20 host Indonesia lobbies West to soften Russia criticism in communiqué

    G20 host Indonesia lobbies West to soften Russia criticism in communiqué

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    BALI, Indonesia — Senior Indonesian politicians are calling on Western leaders to make concessions on how far to go in criticizing Russia over the war in Ukraine in a last-ditch effort to avoid leaving the G20 summit later this week without a joint declaration, three diplomats with knowledge of the ongoing negotiations told POLITICO.

    According to these diplomats, U.S., European, Australian, Canadian and Japanese officials are among those under pressure from Indonesian counterparts, all the way up to President Joko Widodo, to show “flexibility” and consider using less tough rhetoric in order for Moscow — represented at the Bali summit by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov — to say yes to a communiqué at the end of the gathering.

    Widodo “considers it a personal success” if a G20 declaration could be reached, one of the officials said, adding that the Indonesian leader has lamented repeatedly that he is chairing the “most difficult” G20 summit ever.

    He is also seeking to avoid kicking Russia out and making it the G19, which the G8 did in the wake of Moscow’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea in 2014.

    One possibility would be to focus squarely on the aspect of “upholding international law.” If adopted, that would be much more coded wording than what’s been used by the G7, which has repeatedly condemned Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine.

    The latest G7 statement, following this month’s meeting of foreign ministers from the group, criticized Moscow for “its war of aggression against Ukraine” and called for Russia to withdraw. “We condemn Russia’s recent escalation, including its attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure,” it said. The G7 countries also blasted “Russia’s irresponsible nuclear rhetoric,” according to the Nov. 4 statement.

    “Obviously we can’t be as tough as we do it in G7 when you need the Russians, Chinese and Saudis to agree,” a Western diplomat said, referring to the larger G20 grouping. “The question is how much we need to delete.”

    China, Saudi Arabia, India and Brazil, four of the fellow G20 countries, are described as “sitting on the fence” over the issue.

    Beijing, in particular, would find it impossible to accept any direct criticism of Russia. Chinese President Xi Jinping, who will be attending the G20 summit personally, has so far only made an effort to show disapproval of any threats of using nuclear weapons, without attributing such threats to Moscow.

    Another issue for Widodo is the likely lack of a family photo for the two-day summit that starts on Tuesday. According to convention, all the G20 leaders would line up and take a group picture to show solidarity. This time, however, Western leaders have hesitation about being in the same frame as Lavrov, a key aide to Putin, whom U.S. President Joe Biden has called a “killer.”

    Widodo is described as “interested” in assessing fellow leaders’ opinions on having such a family photo.

    Much of his lobbying has taken place in Cambodia, where he’s attending the East Asia Summit. Also in Cambodia were Biden, European Council President Charles Michel, Canada’s Justin Trudeau and Australia’s Anthony Albanese. Russia’s Lavrov and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang were also in Phnom Penh.

    Indonesian President Joko Widodo has urged Western countries for more “flexibility” | Sonny Tumbelaka/AFP via Getty Images

    Speaking in Cambodia, Albanese confirmed to reporters that officials are still negotiating over the wording a G20 final communiqué.

    “You know the way that these conferences work. We’ve just got through an East Asia Summit, an ASEAN meeting and a range of other summits. So we’re waiting to see what happens, but I go into the G20 with a great deal of confidence,” Albanese said.

    Lavrov criticized Washington for stirring up confrontation in Asia. “There is a clear trend on militarization of the region through coordination of efforts of local U.S. allies such Australia, New Zealand, Japan with NATO enlargement,” he said.

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    Stuart Lau

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  • Ukraine’s troops move cautiously into Kherson as Russia declares its hasty withdrawal complete

    Ukraine’s troops move cautiously into Kherson as Russia declares its hasty withdrawal complete

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    Russia’s military said on Friday that it had completed its withdrawal from the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, the only regional capital that Vladimir Putin’s invading army had managed to capture since he launched his full-scale war at the end of February. The military said “not a single piece of military equipment” was left on the western bank of the Dnipro River, which bisects the wider Kherson region, with the city of the same name sitting on its west bank.

    In a statement, military commanders in Moscow said “all Russian servicemen crossed” the river without sustaining “losses of personnel, weapons, military equipment and material.” The announcement came just two days after Russia’s defense chief ordered the retreat from Kherson city, with his top commander in Ukraine telling him in a televised conversation that it was “not easy” to make the call, but that it would “save the lives of our military.”

    There was no immediate word from Ukrainian or U.S. military officials to confirm the Russian announcement, but Ukrainian lawmaker Oleksiy Goncharenko told CBS News correspondent Chris Livesay that his country’s forces were in the city of Kherson on Friday morning. He had said earlier in a tweet that Ukrainian troops were “already in Kherson.”

    ukraine-kherson-retaken.jpg
    An image from a video posted on the Telegram social media app on November 11, 2022, which CBS News could not independently verify but which corroborated information provided by multiple sources, shows a civilian hugging a Ukrainian soldier after a Ukrainian national flag was hung in front of the Kherson police station, not long after Russia declared its retreat from the city complete.

    Telegram


    Images quickly emerged on social media showing Ukraine’s national flag flying in front of the regional administration building. Videos showed civilians hugging Ukrainian soldiers and helping them hang Ukrainian flags on other buildings, including the city’s police headquarters.

    There were claims by Ukrainian civilians on social media that some Russian troops had put on civilian clothes and remained behind, and Ukrainian troops were entering cautiously, wary of mines and boobytraps. 

    Ukrainian and U.S. officials were skeptical of the Russian withdrawal announcement from the moment it was issued on Wednesday, suggesting it could be a trap to lure Ukraine’s forces eastward, toward entrenched Russian positions on the eastern bank of the Dnipro.

    ukraine-regions-map-1372767715.jpg
    A map shows the oblasts, or politically administered regions of Ukraine and their regional capitals.

    Getty/iStock


    As of Thursday evening in Ukraine, U.S. officials told CBS News they had seen no signs of Russian troops moving in significant numbers across the river. CBS News national security correspondent David Martin said that wasn’t necessarily viewed as evidence that the withdrawal announcement was a ruse, just that it would likely take time.

    While there was no official confirmation of the status of the Russian withdrawal from Ukrainian commanders, unverified videos posted online showed what appeared to be Russian troops crossing a pontoon bridge across the Dnipro on foot. The bridge sat right next to the larger Antonivskiy Bridge, which multiple videos showed completely unusable, with a large section destroyed.

    While it wasn’t immediately clear what caused the collapse of the road bridge, BBC News reported that the key piece of infrastructure had been “gradually damaged by Ukrainian missiles” during Russia’s months-long occupation of Kherson city and much of the surrounding region.

    Russia’s invading forces have suffered setbacks for the last couple months, retreating from towns and villages west of Kherson, and in areas north of that region, amid a Ukrainian counteroffensive bolstered by the huge influx of Western weapons.

    kherson-region-ukraine.jpg
    An image from video posted on the Telegram messaging app on November 11, 2022 shows what is described as a soldier holding a Ukrainian national flag in the village of Klapaya, about 10 miles west of the city of Kherson, after the village was retaken from Russia’s invading forces. 

    Telegram


    While the Ukrainian advance has pushed the Russians back quickly, the U.S. has been reluctant to grant country’s requests for even more advanced weapons systems, and many analysts expect the rapid shift in the front lines of the last couple months to slow as winter sets in and Russia entrenches in positions it has held for years further in eastern Ukraine.

    Ukrainian soldiers just a few miles from enemy lines have been using Western-supplied drones to hone in on Russian positions. But the Russians can also see the Ukrainians coming.

    Russia’s relatively new commander in the war — dubbed “General Armageddon” — has shown he is willing to use devastating tactics, relying on long-range missile and drone strikes to pummel civilian areas in a bid to decrease Ukrainian morale.


    Russian attacks on Ukraine’s power grid leave 4.5 million without power

    05:29

    The strikes have knocked out power and water supplies to millions of Ukrainians, and as CBS News correspondent Chris Livesay reports, Russia’s retreating forces have also left behind them a deadly trail of landmines and boobytraps.

    Even if and when Ukraine does confirm that Russia’s forces have pulled out of Kherson, the Russian threat, with its indiscriminate firepower, will still lie entrenched just across the river. And despite mounting calls for peace talks, there’s little to suggest the war that has raged for more than eight months, and simmered for more than eight years before that, is about to end.

    So far, U.S. officials estimate the war has claimed the lives of roughly 40,000 Ukrainian civilians, while some 100,000 of the country’s forces have been killed or injured. Russian forces are believed to have sustained a similar number of casualties. 

    CBS News producer Erin Lyall contributed to this report.

    Tucker Reals

    Tucker Reals is the CBSNews.com foreign editor, based at the CBS News London bureau.

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  • North Korea launches ballistic missile, says South Korean military | CNN

    North Korea launches ballistic missile, says South Korean military | CNN

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    Seoul, South Korea
    CNN
     — 

    North Korea launched a short-range ballistic missile toward waters off its east coast on Wednesday, according to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff.

    The missile was fired at 3:31 p.m. local time from the Sukchon area of South Pyongan province, according to the JCS. It added that the South Korean military has strengthened its surveillance and is closely cooperating with the United States.

    Japan’s Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada said the missile flew about 250 kilometers (about 155 miles) “at a very low altitude of about 50 kilometers (about 31 miles) or less,” and landed in the East Sea, also known as the Sea of Japan.

    He added that authorities are still examining further details like the missile’s orbit, and condemned the launch as threatening “the peace and security of our country, the region and the international community.”

    This marks the 32nd day this year that North Korea has carried out a missile test, according to a CNN count. The tally includes both ballistic and cruise missiles.

    By contrast, it conducted only four tests in 2020, and eight in 2021.

    Wednesday’s launch comes during midterm elections in the United States, with votes still being counted as Democrats and Republicans vie for control over Congress.

    Also on Wednesday, South Korea’s military said a missile fired last week was a Soviet-era SA-5 surface-to-air missile – not a short-range ballistic missile, as it had claimed at the time.

    On November 2, South Korea said Pyongyang had fired as many as 23 missiles to the east and west of the Korean Peninsula, including the now-identified SA-5, which landed close to South Korean territorial waters for the first time since the division of Korea.

    JCS said the missile landed in international waters 167 kilometers (104 miles) northwest of South Korea’s Ulleung island, about 26 kilometers south of the Northern Limit Line – the de facto inter-Korean maritime border, which North Korea does not recognize.

    Debris from the missile was salvaged from the sea, and displayed to the press at the Defense Ministry in Seoul on Wednesday.

    Tensions in the Korean Peninsula have steadily risen this year, with South Korea and the US responding to Pyongyang’s missile tests by stepping up joint drills and military exercises, as well as their own missile tests.

    South Korea is also currently carrying out its own standalone drills in an annual exercise that emphasizes defense operations, according to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The drills are expected to continue through Thursday.

    On Monday, North Korean state media released images purporting to show last week’s missile launches with a warning that what it called the “reckless military hysteria” of the US and its allies was moving the peninsula towards “unstable confrontation.”

    Pyongyang’s missiles and air force drills prove its “will to counter the combined air drill of the enemy,” said the report.

    The US and international observers have been warning for months that North Korea appears to be preparing for an underground nuclear test, with satellite imagery showing activity at the nuclear test site. Such a test would be the hermit nation’s first in nearly five years.

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  • Ukrainians prep for a possible Russian nuclear attack

    Ukrainians prep for a possible Russian nuclear attack

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    KYIV — There’s a nuclear threat hanging over Ukraine.

    The atomic saber rattling by the Kremlin ranges from President Vladimir Putin’s threat to defend illegally annexed Ukrainian territory “by all means available,” to increasingly unhinged comments from former President Dmitry Medvedev and Moscow’s (false) hints that Ukraine is developing a nuclear “dirty bomb” — something Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has warned might be Russia preparing for a so-called false flag attack.

    For many Ukrainians, these are far from empty words and the country is getting ready.

    The Serhiy Prytula Charity Foundation in downtown Kyiv has one bomb shelter in the carpark below the building to protect staff from conventional Russian attacks and another to be used in case of a nuclear attack.

    “The second shelter is equipped accordingly. It has a supply of medicines, food, drinking and distilled water, flashlights and batteries,” said TV star Serhiy Prytula, who heads the eponymous foundation.

    “[Predicting the actions of] the Russian military and political leadership is always difficult if you use normal logic. We have been very unfortunate to have this neighbor. This is why anything connected to a nuclear threat should be taken very seriously, as a real threat, and prepare accordingly,” he said.

    The language coming out of Moscow is worrying.

    Earlier this month, Medvedev, who now serves as deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council, warned that Kyiv’s aim to recapture all of its lost territory “is a threat to the existence of our state and of a dismemberment of today’s Russia,” something he said was a “direct reason” to implement Russia’s nuclear deterrent.

    The Russian military is on the back foot in Ukraine and setting off a nuclear weapon could be seen as a desperate measure by the Kremlin to force a halt in the war.

    Kyiv’s reaction to Medvedev was swift.

    An Ukrainian Emergency Ministry rescuer attends an exercise in the city of Zaporizhzhia on August 17, 2022, in case of a possible nuclear incident at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant | Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP via Getty Images

    Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, branded his nuclear threats “an act of suicide,” saying: “Russia will finally turn into enemy No. 1 for the whole world.”

    Even Russia’s ally China is warning about the danger of using nuclear weapons. Last week, Chinese leader Xi Jinping said: “Nuclear weapons cannot be used, a nuclear war cannot be waged.”

    U.S. President Joe Biden told Putin that it would be an “incredibly serious mistake” to use a tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine.

    Brace brace

    Those international warnings aren’t stopping Ukrainians from prepping for the worst.

    The authorities in the Kyiv region have hundreds of shelters that could be used in case of nuclear attack. 

    “The past eight months have taught us that anything can happen. As an official, I am preparing for the worst-case scenario, but I hope that everything will be fine,” Oleksii Kuleba, head of the capital region’s military administration, told local media. 

    Kuleba said the shelters are below ground, have ventilation, two entrances, and by November 15 should be equipped with radio sets — which Ukrainian authorities believe might be the only means of communications after a nuclear attack.

    Ukraine’s government bodies have also recently published detailed instructions — informed by the country’s experience with the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster — on what to do in case of a nuclear strike.

    Secretary of the National security and defence council of Ukraine Oleksiy Danilov | Sergei Supinsky/AFP via Getty Images

    “The use of nuclear weapons against Ukraine is considered unlikely, and the main purpose of these threats is to scare Ukrainians and the world and force us to make concessions, and our partners to weaken their support for Ukraine,” say the instructions, which then add: “At the same time, Ukrainians must have an action plan in case of any emergency situations: the use of nuclear weapons, a ‘dirty bomb’ or in the event of an accident at a nuclear power plant.”

    The instructions detail everything from not looking at the blast — “when you notice a flash in the sky (or its reflection), in no case look in that direction” — to covering your ears to prevent damage from a shock wave and removing clothing that has been exposed to radiation. “Run for cover as soon as you can get back on your feet and when the blast wave from the use of nuclear weapons has passed,” they say.

    In early October, the capital city’s administration said the city has enough potassium iodide pills — medicine to help prevent the absorption of radioactive iodine by the thyroid gland — to distribute to medical facilities and family doctors “in case of a radiation threat or a radiation emergency.”

    “If evacuation is necessary, potassium iodide will be distributed at evacuation points to members of the population who were exposed to the radiation zone, in accordance with the recommendations of medical professionals,” the administration added.

    Meanwhile, many Kyiv residents are taking their own preventive measures.

    Kristina Riabchyna, a sustainable stylist living in Kyiv and originally from Donetsk, has bought iodine tablets from a local pharmacy. 

    “I really want to believe that there won’t be a nuclear attack. But unfortunately, we have this insufferable neighbor, so we have no choice but to believe that this absurd thing might actually be possible,” she said.

    “Buying potassium iodide was probably a way of coping with the fear,” Riabchyna added. “What I mean is, I have done what I can at this stage, for my safety and for my loved ones, I haven’t ignored the danger and this means I can carry on living my life. But it goes without saying that I understand that this isn’t a countermeasure that will save us if this threat becomes reality.”

    Mykhailo, 49, and his mother in a school’s bomb shelter where they have stayed for nearly two months on June 4, 2022 in Velyka Novosilka, Ukraine | Anastasia Vlasova/Getty Images

    Foreigners in Kyiv are taking similar measures. 

    In recent weeks, staff working for an EU-funded project — they asked that the project not be identified — received thorough instructions on what to do in case of a nuclear attack or the use of a dirty bomb — a conventional bomb laced with radioactive material.

    “Nuclear explosions can cause significant damage and casualties from blast, heat, and radiation but there are steps you can take to try to mitigate against the impact,” the instructions said, recommending that, “If warned of an imminent attack, immediately get inside the nearest building, ideally under ground, and move away from windows.”

    The instructions go on to explain how to wash off radioactive fallout, how an electromagnetic pulse can damage electronic equipment and listen for advice on possible evacuation.

    If the attack is a tactical nuclear strike on the frontlines far from Kyiv, then, “The only plan of action for our Kyiv-based staff in such a case is to jump into cars and to be on the border [with Poland] within a couple of hours,” said an EU national with the program, speaking on condition of not being identified.

    Ukrainian troops on the front lines have been given potassium iodine tablets and also received training on what to do in the event of a nuclear attack — although spokespeople from the defense ministry and the military would not specify what those instructions were.

    For Prytula, the charity boss, the danger of a nuclear attack won’t end soon.

    “The threat of a nuclear weapon being used against Ukraine, or indeed any other country in the world, will be real as long as the Russian Federation exists,” he said. 

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    Sergei Kuznetsov

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  • North Korea: Missile tests were practice to attack South, US

    North Korea: Missile tests were practice to attack South, US

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    SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea’s military said Monday its recent barrage of missile tests were practices to attack its rivals’ air bases and warplanes and paralyze their operation command systems, showing Pyongyang’s resolve to counter provocative U.S.-South Korean military drills “more thoroughly and mercilessly.”

    North Korea fired dozens of missiles and flew warplanes last week, triggering evacuation alerts in some South Korean and Japanese areas, in response to massive U.S.-South Korean air force drills that the North views as an invasion rehearsal.

    U.S. and South Korean officials strongly condemned the North’s missile launches, saying their drills were defensive in nature.

    “The recent corresponding military operations by the Korean People’s Army are a clear answer of (North Korea) that the more persistently the enemies’ provocative military moves continue, the more thoroughly and mercilessly the KPA will counter them,” the General Staff of the Korean People’s Army said in a statement carried by state media.

    It said its weapons tests involved ballistic missiles loaded with dispersion warheads and underground infiltration warheads meant to launch strikes on enemy air bases; ground-to-air missiles designed to “annihilate” enemy aircraft at different altitudes and distances; and strategic cruise missiles.

    The North’s military said it carried out an important test of a ballistic missile with a special functional warhead missioned with “paralyzing the operation command system of the enemy.” It said it also launched super-large, multiple-launch missiles and tactical ballistic missiles.

    It didn’t specifically mention a reported launch Thursday of an intercontinental ballistic missile aimed at hitting the U.S. mainland. Almost all other North’s missiles launched last week were likely short-range, many of them nuclear-capable weapons. They place key military targets in South Korea, including U.S. military bases there in striking range.

    “The KPA General Staff once again clarifies that it will continue to correspond with all the anti-(North Korea) war drills of the enemy with the sustained, resolute and overwhelming practical military measures,” it said.

    This year’s “Vigilant Storm” air force drills between the United States and South Korea were the largest-ever for the annual fall maneuvers. The drills involved 240 warplanes including advanced F-35 fighter jets from both countries. The allies were initially supposed to run the drills for five days ending on Friday, but extended the training by another day in reaction to the North’s missile tests.

    On Saturday, the final day of the air force exercises, the United States flew two B-1B supersonic bombers over South Korea in a display of strength against North Korea, the aircraft’s first such flyover since December 2017.

    South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the participation of the B-1Bs in the joint drills demonstrated the allies’ readiness to “sternly respond” to North Korean provocations and the U.S. commitment to defend its ally with the full range of its military capabilities, including nuclear.

    Even before the “Vigilant Storm” drills, North Korea test-launched a slew of missiles in what it called simulated nuclear attacks on U.S. and South Korean targets in protests of its rivals’ other sets of military exercises that involved a U.S. aircraft for the first time in five years.

    Some experts say North Korea likely aims to use the U.S.-South Korean military drills as a chance to modernize its nuclear arsenal and increase its leverage to wrest greater concessions from the United States in future dealings.

    U.S. and South Korean militaries have been expanding their regular military drills since the May inauguration of conservative South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, who has promised to take a tougher stance on North Korean provocations. Some of the allies’ drills had been previously downsized or canceled to support now-stalled diplomacy on North Korea’s nuclear program and cope with the COVID-19 pandemic.

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