Thursday, September 7, 2017
China agrees more U.N. actions needed against North Korea after nuclear test
Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) interceptors are seen as they arrive at Seongju, South Korea, September 7, 2017. Lee Jong-hyeon/News1 via REUTERS |
The United States wants the U.N. Security Council to impose an oil embargo on North Korea, ban its exports of textiles and the hiring of North Korean laborers abroad, and subject leader Kim Jong Un to an asset freeze and travel ban, according to a draft resolution seen by Reuters on Wednesday.
Pressure from Washington has ratcheted up since North Korea conducted its sixth and largest nuclear test on Sunday. That test, along with a series of missile launches, showed Pyongyang was close to achieving its goal of developing a powerful nuclear weapon that could reach the United States.
U.S. President Donald Trump has urged China to do more to rein in its neighbor, which has pursued its weapons programs in defiance of U.N. sanctions and international condemnation.
China said on Thursday it hoped North Korea refrained from further challenging the international consensus.
“Given the new developments on the Korean peninsula, China agrees that the UN Security Council should make a further response and take necessary measures,” Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told reporters, without elaborating.
“Any new actions taken by the international community against the DPRK should serve the purpose of curbing the DPRK’s nuclear and missile programs, while at the same time be conducive to restarting dialogue and consultation,” he said, using the initials of North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
China is by far North Korea’s biggest trading partner, accounting for 92 percent of two-way trade last year. It also provides tonnes of oil and fuel to the impoverished regime.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said he had an executive order ready for Trump to sign that would impose sanctions on any country that trades with Pyongyang if the United Nations does not put additional sanctions on North Korea.
THAAD DEPLOYMENT
Amid the rising tensions, Seoul installed the four remaining launchers of the U.S. anti-missile Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system on a former golf course in the south early on Thursday. Two launchers had already been deployed.
More than 30 people were wounded when around 8,000 South Korean police broke up a blockade of about 300 villagers and civic groups opposed to the THAAD system deployment, fire officials said.
“It is very unfortunate there some wounded, but it was an inevitable choice in order to protect the lives of the people in this situation made serious by North Korea’s recent nuclear test,” South Korean Interior and Safety Minister Kim Boo-kyum told reporters.
The decision to deploy the THAAD system has drawn strong objections from China, which believes its radar could be used to look deeply into its territory and will upset the regional security balance.
China said it had lodged another stern protest over the THAAD deployment on Thursday.
“We again urge South Korea and the United States to take seriously China’s and regional nations’ security interests and concerns, stop the relevant deployment progress, and remove the relevant equipment,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told a regular media briefing.
“China has already lodged stern representations with South Korea over this,” he said.
MOON, ABE MEET
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and South Korean President Moon Jae-in spoke at a regional meeting in the eastern Russian city of Vladivostok and agreed to try to persuade China and Russia to cut off oil to North Korea as much as possible, according to South Korean officials.
The European Union’s foreign and defense ministers will discuss further sanctions for North Korea on Thursday, the bloc’s top diplomat said ahead of an EU ministers’ meeting in the Estonian capital.
However, sanctions have so far done little to stop North Korea boosting its nuclear and missile capacity as it faces off with Trump.
China and Russia have advocated a “freeze for freeze” plan, where the United States and South Korea would stop major military exercises in exchange for North Korea halting its weapons programs, but neither side appears willing to budge.
South Korean Marines wrapped up a three-day firing drill on Thursday aimed at protecting its islands just south of the border with North Korea, while the air force will finish up a week-long drill on Friday.
North Korea says it needs to develop its weapons to defend itself against what it sees as U.S. aggression.
South Korea and the United States are technically still at war with North Korea after the 1950-53 Korean conflict ended with a truce, not a peace treaty.
For a graphic on nuclear North Korea, click: http://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/rngs/NORTHKOREA-MISSILES/010031V7472/index.html
(Additional reporting by Soyoung Kim in SEOUL, Christian Shepherd and Vincent Lee in BEIJING, Steve Holland, Eric Walsh, Jeff Mason and Jim Oliphant in WASHINGTON and Gabriela Baczynska, Robin Emmott and David Mardiste in TALLINN; Writing by Lincoln Feast; Editing by Nick Macfie and Paul Tait)
Trump Admin. Urges Dreamers to Arrange, Prepare For Leaving U.S.
OAN Newsroom
The Trump administration urges recipients of the DACA program to prepare for departure from the U.S.Talking points distributed to GOP lawmakers Tuesday said so-called ‘dreamers’ should get their affairs in order following President Trump’s decision to rescind the program.
The Department of Homeland Security urged recipients to use the remaining time on work authorizations to prepare for leaving the U.S.
Officials say once the program expires dreamers will be in the country illegally, and lawmakers expect them to no longer remain in the states.
The sixth month grace period would allow Congress to draft new legislation to either legalize the program or do away with it entirely.
Conservatives sign letter warning media against Southern Poverty Law Center
Forty-seven prominent conservatives have signed an
open letter warning the mainstream media against using data on hate
groups compiled by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).
The letter
calls the SPLC a "discredited, left-wing political activist
organization that seeks to silence its political opponents with a 'hate
group' label of its own invention."
Founded in 1971, the SPLC gained fame by successfully
prosecuting legal cases against white supremacist organizations,
including the Ku Klux Klan. It describes its mission as "fighting hate
and bigotry and ... seeking justice for the most vulnerable members of
our society."Today, the SPLC is best known for tracking hate groups, which the organization defines as having "beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristic." Currently, the SPLC says 917 hate groups are operating in the United States.
SPLC's "hate map" gained prominence in the media after last month's deadly violence at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va. However, critics say the organization has falsely slapped the "hate group" label on non-violent groups who hold traditional beliefs about hot-button issues such as gay marriage and abortion.
Last month, a prominent evangelical ministry based in Florida filed a federal lawsuit accusing the SPLC of defamation after it was labeled an "active hate group." In July, Fox News found that at least seven organizations are listed as hate groups by the SPLC despite explicitly prohibiting violence by their members.
The letter also warns that receiving the SPLC's hate group label "endangers the lives of those targeted with it." It references the 2012 shooting at the headquarters of the Family Research Council in Washington. The gunman, Floyd Lee Corkins, said he disagreed with the group's opposition to gay marriage and prosecutors said he selected the group as a target using the SPLC "hate map."
"By recklessly linking the Charlottesville melee to the mainstream groups named on the SPLC website," the letter went on, "we are left to wonder if another Floyd Lee Corkins will soon be incited to violence by this incendiary information.
Prominent signatories of the letter include Brent Bozell of the Media Research Center, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council and former Attorney General Edwin Meese III.
Report: Cohn seen as unlikely pick for Fed chairman after Charlottesville remarks
Gary Cohn, the former Goldman Sachs
investment banker and President Donald Trump's current economic
adviser, is now considered an unlikely pick to lead the Federal Reserve
after criticizing the White House’s response to violence in
Charlottesville, Va.
Trump has openly floated the idea
of nominating the former banker as the potential successor to Fed Chair
Janet Yellen -- whose term ends in February – saying in July that he has
“great respect” for him.
But Trump has backtracked on the idea recently in private, people familiar with the president’s thinking told the Wall Street Journal.
The job prospects shifted mostly due to Cohn's comments about the
president’s response to violence in Charlottesville, the sources told
the paper.Cohn issued a stark rebuttal of Trump’s comments in an interview with the Financial Times last month, where he said the administration “can and must do better” to denounce hate groups, including neo-Nazis and the KKK that marched in Charlottesville.
“Citizens standing up for equality and freedom can never be equated with white supremacists, neo-Nazis and the KKK,” he told the newspaper.
The comments were a cold shower to Trump, who did not expect such an attack from his economic adviser, prompting the president to bristle at the very mention of Cohn, one White House official told the paper.
But the chances of Cohn of being appointed the next Fed chairman were still not completely lost, according to another official. A lot hinges on tax reform.
Cohn is considered one of the smartest businesspeople close to Trump and -- along with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin -- has been working on Trump's long-awaited tax plan.
Yellen has not publicly said she would serve another term. Some of her former colleagues told the Journal that she would continue to serve if asked.
Trump was critical of Yellen while campaigning last year, saying her decision to keep interest rates low was aimed at helping the Democratic Party and President Barack Obama. His opinion appeared to change after taking office, saying in a July interview that he was also considering keeping Yellen in her position.
Others said to be under consideration for the Fed job include former governors Lawrence Lindsey and Kevin Warsh, former BB&T Bank chief executive John Allison, and Stanford University economist John Taylor, the Journal reported.
A White House spokeswoman said Cohn was “focused on his responsibilities … including a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to deliver meaningful tax reform that creates jobs and grows the economy.”
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