1. Trump
Threatens ‘Fire and Fury’ Against North Korea if It Endangers U.S.
The New York Times AUG. 8, 2017
BRIDGEWATER,
N.J. — President Trump threatened on Tuesday to unleash “fire and fury”
against North Korea if it endangered
the United States, as tensions with the isolated and impoverished nuclear-armed
state escalated into perhaps the most serious foreign policy challenge yet of
his administration.
In
chilling language that evoked the horror of a nuclear exchange, Mr. Trump
sought to deter North Korea from any actions that would
put Americans at risk. But it was not clear what specifically would cross his
line. Administration officials have said that a pre-emptive military strike,
while a last resort, is among the options they have made available to the
president.
“North
Korea best not make any more threats to the United States,” Mr. Trump told
reporters at his golf club in Bedminster, N.J., where he is spending much of
the month on a working vacation. “They will be met with fire and fury like the
world has never seen.”
Referring
to North Korea’s volatile leader, Kim Jong-un, Mr. Trump said, “He has
been very threatening beyond a normal state, and as I said, they will be met
with fire and fury, and frankly power the likes of which this world has never
seen before.”
Undaunted,
North Korea warned several hours later that it was considering a strike that
would create “an enveloping fire” around Guam, the western Pacific island where
the United States operates a critical Air Force base. In recent months,
American strategic bombers from Guam’s Andersen Air Force Base have flown over
the Korean Peninsula in a show of force.
“Will only the U.S. have option called
‘preventive war’ as is claimed by it?” the Strategic Force of the North’s
Korean People’s Army, or K.P.A., said in a statement. “It is a daydream for the
U.S. to think that its mainland is an invulnerable Heavenly kingdom.”
“The
U.S. should clearly face up to the fact that the ballistic rockets of the
Strategic Force of the K.P.A. are now on constant standby, facing the Pacific
Ocean and pay deep attention to their azimuth angle for launch,” the statement
said.
Mr.
Trump’s stark comments went well beyond the firm but measured
language typically preferred by American presidents in confronting North
Korea, and indeed seemed almost to echo the bellicose words used by Mr. Kim.
Whether that message was mainly a bluff or an authentic expression of intent,
it instantly scrambled the diplomatic equation in one of the world’s most
perilous regions.
Supporters
suggested that Mr. Trump was trying to get Mr. Kim’s attention in a way that
the North Korean leader would understand, while critics expressed concern that
the American president could stumble into a war with devastating consequences.
“This
is a more dangerous moment than faced by Trump’s predecessors,” said Mark
Dubowitz, chief executive of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a
nonprofit group in Washington. “The normal nuanced diplomatic rhetoric coming
out of Washington hasn’t worked in persuading the Kim regime of American
resolve. This language underscores that the most powerful country in the world
has its own escalatory and retaliatory options.”
But
Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, said it would be
counterproductive. “President Trump is not helping the situation with his
bombastic comments,” she said in a statement. Senator John McCain, Republican
of Arizona and chairman of the Armed Services Committee, also took exception.
“All it’s going to do is bring us closer to some kind of serious
confrontation,” he told KTAR News radio.
In
Guam, Governor Eddie Baza Calvo played down the North’s threat to the island in a video address
on Wednesday. He said his administration had been in touch with the White House
and U.S. military commanders and that there was “no change in the threat level
resulting from North Korea events.”
North
Korea has accelerated its progress toward a working nuclear-tipped missile
force since Mr. Trump, who has vowed not to let that happen, took office. Last
month, the North successfully tested for the first time
an intercontinental ballistic missile that could reach the continental United
States.
The
Washington Post reported on Tuesday that American
intelligence agencies had concluded that North Korea had miniaturized a warhead
that could fit on top of one of its missiles. The Japanese government also said
in an annual threat assessment on Tuesday that “it is possible that North Korea
has already achieved the miniaturization of nuclear weapons and has acquired nuclear
warheads.”
But
experts said the main problem for North Korea is not miniaturization; the bombs
are already judged small enough to fit on a ballistic missile, as a famous
picture of Mr. Kim with an odd warhead resembling a disco ball seemed to make
clear. The real test is whether a warhead can survive the intense heat of
re-entry as it plunges through the atmosphere from space, a hurdle North Korea
is not believed to have overcome.
2.
Russia’s new ICBMs can ‘rip apart’ US anti-missile systems –
Deputy PM Rogozin
RT
23 Feb, 2017
Russia
is constantly improving its nuclear deterrence and is very close to deploying
new technologically-advanced intercontinental ballistic missiles which can
defeat any US missile defense systems, a Russian deputy prime minister said in
an interview.
“These weapons will soon appear in our armed forces,” Dmitry Rogozin told
Rossiya-1 TV on Sunday. While not naming the new ICBM, the deputy PM in charge
of the defense industry said the missile will have the capacity to penetrate
any American air defenses.
“These weapons are able to clear the United States’ missile defense both
of today and of tomorrow – and even of the day after tomorrow,” Rogozin said.
Rogozin
also noted that the existing Russian nuclear deterrent forces, made up of
various missiles including the Soviet-era R-36M2 Voevoda (SS-18 Satan) ICBMs,
which he described as “very reliable,” will remain in use
until the latest arsenal becomes operational.
While
the weapon of the future wasn’t named, media were quick to allege that Rogozin
was most likely describing the RS-28 Sarmat heavy intercontinental ballistic
missile, which is being introduced as part of Russia’s nuclear modernization.
Currently
Sarmat is undergoing the final stages development at the Makeyev Rocket Design
Bureau in the city of Mias. According to reports, the new missile, weighing at
least 100 tons, will be capable of carrying a payload of up to 10 tons on any
trajectory.
“We can rip their air defenses apart; at the moment [the US defense
shield] poses no serious military threat to us, except for provocations,” Rogozin said.
Last
summer the US activated an $800 million missile shield base in Romania, which
will form part of the larger Aegis-based missile defense system in Europe.
While
the officially-stated purpose is to counter a potential threat from Iran, the
system’s proximity to Russian borders threatens Russia’s national security by
tipping the global balance of power. Moscow has taken counter measures
including the deployment of Iskander missile system to its western exclave, Kaliningrad,
in the wake of concerns over potentially multi-purpose “defense” installations
in Europe.
The
land- and sea-based Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System provides the US with
missile defense against short to intermediate-range ballistic missiles. Short,
medium, and intermediate missiles can also be intercepted using Terminal High
Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system.
3. China’s ‘Giant Infants’
The New York Times AUG. 8, 2017
BEIJING
— My generation of urban Chinese, born in the 1980s and 1990s under the
one-child policy, were long labeled “little emperors,” a term used to
characterize us as narcissistic and weak-willed children spoiled by parental
attention and newfound material comfort. It was an image that we rejected: In
reality, as I used to joke with friends, our lives of academic grind and
adolescent boredom felt closer to that of an overworked county clerk than a
privileged little brat. Gradually, as single-child families became the norm,
the term fell out of use.
But
as young people are venturing into the real world and confronting economic and
social challenges with a complexity unknown to our parents, many of us are
starting to wonder whether the “little emperor” label had been more accurate
than we thought.
Many
of my peers, finding themselves overwhelmed by the trials of adulthood, have
begun to reflect critically on how middle-class kids are raised in urban China. Perhaps what were considered markers of my
generation’s privilege — intensive parenting, rigorous education and
consumerist culture — are in fact our bane, making us self-centered and
emotionally isolated, struggling to find independence and fulfillment in a
fast-changing society.
The
evidence is hard to miss: the Chinese student overseas who calls home every day
sobbing; the fashionable young woman who screams at a mortified boyfriend in
public; the top-performing university student who stops going to class and
loses himself in video games. In the latest dating show taking television
by storm, contestants appear onstage flanked by their parents, who grill
suitors before their children are allowed to meet them.
Chinese
people have “giant infant” syndrome, says Wu Zhihong, a psychiatrist and author
of a best-selling book called “A Country of Giant Infants” who lists symptoms
that call to mind a grown-up “little emperor.” In Mr. Wu’s view, social
problems from littering in public places to codependency in romantic
relationships have their roots in China’s family-centered culture and its new
levels of oppression that stunt individual psychological growth.
His
analysis struck a chord with Chinese millennials. Their enthusiastic responses
alarmed state censors and got the book banned early this year, apparently for
its damning portrayal of what it calls the Chinese “national character.”
Mr.
Wu’s attack on the family resonated for good reasons. Despite having been the
bedrock of Chinese culture for millenniums, family values have changed in the
past 30 years, as the country has become wealthier and more capitalist. The focus
is now less on the young’s respect for their elders than on parents’
unrelenting devotion to their offspring. Urban Chinese parents are involved in
their children’s lives in ways that would make “tiger mothers” from earlier
times gasp.
Mothers
and fathers have expanded their influence on their children’s lives beyond
school, into career, marriage, housing purchase and child-rearing. It is driven
in part by necessity: the rollback of the socialist welfare system and the
shortage of sought-after social benefits, like good schools, obliged families
to pool their resources to help the young. But this ethos deprives children of
the chance to develop social skills and the sense of self-sufficiency
associated with adulthood.
A
2013 study by Australian scholars showed that compared with older cohorts with
siblings, members of China’s one-child generation are more prone to traits like
risk aversion and pessimism. These are reflected, for instance, in their
preference for stable jobs and their difficulty in adjusting to work
environments. According to recent career surveys, college graduates have
consistently ranked government jobs as their top choice, yet they frequently
complain of the stress and boredom, as well as the difficulty of navigating
interpersonal relations. One-quarter quit their first job within a year.
“People
born in the ’80s and ’90s, having always had their life mapped out by parents,
have trouble switching from their child identity into that of a working
professional,” wrote Miao Lijuan, a business commentator, in an essay
dissecting millennials’ work experience in a journal on corporate culture.
“They had to go through psychological weaning after starting work.”
If
helicopter parenting hinders the socialization of the young, the effect is compounded
by its narrow focus. While Chinese middle-class parents tirelessly push their
children to work hard and master society’s hidden rules, they pay far less
attention to emotional qualities like empathy. The education system, which pits students
against one another in ruthless competition for spots at elite universities,
does little to ease the problem.
4. Powerful earthquake kills at least 19 in China, hundreds
injured
CNN August 9, 2017
(CNN)At least 19 people were killed and
247 more injured late Tuesday after a powerful earthquake struck a popular
tourist area in southwest China, according to state media.
The
quake struck Jiuzhaigou County in China's southwestern Sichuan Province late on
Tuesday night.
At
least five of the people who died were tourists, Xinhua reported, citing the
information office of the provincial government. About 2,800 people were
evacuated from the severely damaged Intercontinental hotel.
Rescuers
are still working to clear the rubble, and there are people buried
beneath the debris, state broadcaster CCTV said.
