In a US presidential race dominated by national security, what some see as the world's biggest nuclear danger -- North Korea -- is only now emerging as a hot political topic.
It's a difficult subject for Republicans and Democrats alike. North Korea doesn't dominate the news the way Iraq does, making it an unlikely issue for winning votes. Moreover, both parties are vulnerable to criticism on their handling of the North Korean threat.
President George W. Bush has said that he will not tolerate nuclear weapons in North Korea. Yet North Korea, long believed to have possessed one or two nuclear weapons, has restarted its weapons program and could soon have several more, if it doesn't have them already. Multinational negotiations appear to have produced little.
Republicans argue actions of the Clinton administration led to the current standoff.
They say a 1994 agreement for North Korea to freeze its nuclear program in exchange for food and energy assistance lacked safeguards to prevent cheating. That allowed North Korea to develop a secret uranium-based weapons program, they say, even while the older plutonium program was stopped as promised.
Although North Korea hasn't been at the forefront for most of his campaign, Senator John Kerry has accused Bush repeatedly of being so fixated on Iraq that he ignored the danger posed by Kim Jong-il's government.
Kerry stepped up the criticisms after an explosion last Thursday that raised fears Pyongyang had conducted a nuclear test. The North Koreans say the explosion was the result of the demolition of a mountain for a hydroelectric project. US officials say they do not believe it was a nuclear blast, accidental or otherwise.
"The mere fact that we are even contemplating a nuclear weapons test by North Korea highlights a massive national security failure by President Bush," Kerry said on Sunday.
In a telephone call to The New York Times, Kerry accused the administration of letting "a nuclear nightmare" develop in North Korea.
Bush spokesman Scott McClellan accused Kerry of wanting to return to "the failed Clinton administration policy" on North Korea.
"That failed policy let North Korea dupe the United States. It would be the wrong approach to go down that road again," he said on Monday aboard Air Force One en route to a Bush campaign stop.
Bush has stressed that the US will work with the negotiating partners -- South Korea, Japan, China and Russia -- toward a verifiable dismantling of Pyongyang's nuclear weapons programs.
Indonesia yesterday began enforcing its newly ratified penal code, replacing a Dutch-era criminal law that had governed the country for more than 80 years and marking a major shift in its legal landscape. Since proclaiming independence in 1945, the Southeast Asian country had continued to operate under a colonial framework widely criticized as outdated and misaligned with Indonesia’s social values. Efforts to revise the code stalled for decades as lawmakers debated how to balance human rights, religious norms and local traditions in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation. The 345-page Indonesian Penal Code, known as the KUHP, was passed in 2022. It
‘DISRESPECTFUL’: Katie Miller, the wife of Trump’s most influential adviser, drew ire by posting an image of Greenland in the colors of the US flag, captioning it ‘SOON’ US President Donald Trump on Sunday doubled down on his claim that Greenland should become part of the US, despite calls by the Danish prime minister to stop “threatening” the territory. Washington’s military intervention in Venezuela has reignited fears for Greenland, which Trump has repeatedly said he wants to annex, given its strategic location in the arctic. While aboard Air Force One en route to Washington, Trump reiterated the goal. “We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it,” he said in response to a reporter’s question. “We’ll worry about Greenland in
PERILOUS JOURNEY: Over just a matter of days last month, about 1,600 Afghans who were at risk of perishing due to the cold weather were rescued in the mountains Habibullah set off from his home in western Afghanistan determined to find work in Iran, only for the 15-year-old to freeze to death while walking across the mountainous frontier. “He was forced to go, to bring food for the family,” his mother, Mah Jan, said at her mud home in Ghunjan village. “We have no food to eat, we have no clothes to wear. The house in which I live has no electricity, no water. I have no proper window, nothing to burn for heating,” she added, clutching a photograph of her son. Habibullah was one of at least 18 migrants who died
Russia early yesterday bombarded Ukraine, killing two people in the Kyiv region, authorities said on the eve of a diplomatic summit in France. A nationwide siren was issued just after midnight, while Ukraine’s military said air defenses were operating in several places. In the capital, a private medical facility caught fire as a result of the Russian strikes, killing one person and wounding three others, the State Emergency Service of Kyiv said. It released images of rescuers removing people on stretchers from a gutted building. Another pre-dawn attack on the neighboring city of Fastiv killed one man in his 70s, Kyiv Governor Mykola
RSS