The deployment last week of 15 stealth fighters to South Korea, along with the severing of the US military's only official interaction with North Korea, appears to be part of a new push by the Bush administration to further isolate Pyongyang despite China's hesitation to join the effort.
The deployment, confirmed by the Pentagon on Friday after several news reports, came just after the Defense Department said Wednesday that it was suspending the search for soldiers missing in action since the Korean War.
Although senior Pentagon officials say the F-117 stealth fighters are part of preparation for a long-planned training exercise, the show of force comes at a delicate moment both militarily and politically. China, South Korea and some experts in the US have urged the administration to make a more specific offer to the North, laying out what it would get in return for giving up its nuclear arms program. Administration officials, however, have suggested in recent interviews that they are headed toward taking a hard line, cracking down on the North's exports of missiles, drugs and counterfeit currency.
The US warned its allies this month that the North might be preparing to test a nuclear weapon. Now senior officials say US intelligence agencies are still monitoring several locations in the North where a nuclear test might be held, though they readily concede the evidence that the North will proceed with a test is "partial."
Some officials say they doubt that North Korea's leaders are ready to risk galvanizing its neighbors against it by conducting a test and removing all ambiguity about claims that it has built nuclear weapons.
"It's a very tough calculus for the North Koreans," said one senior official.
In struggling to deal with the North's threats and its demands for concessions in return for coming back to the negotiating table, the Bush administration has sent a series of seemingly mixed messages. President George W. Bush himself has repeatedly said he has no "intention" of attacking North Korea. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said several weeks ago that the US recognized the North as a sovereign state.
In a change that reflects a failure of the present policy, some officials say they will no longer rely heavily on China to sway the North Koreans. Senior officials say they now realize that China may never be willing to use its leverage over Pyongyang.
The Chinese appear to be perfectly happy to have North Korea "roll along in this seemingly stable netherworld" one official said, rather than risk destabilizing the nation, possibly unleashing a flood of desperate and hungry refugees across its eastern border.
But in the absence of talks, much of the discussion inside the administration now is about instituting strong punitive measures, including interceptions of any shipments of suspected illicit goods.
On Saturday, however, one official said that such an effort "just won't work if we can't get the Chinese to go along."
Even as the administration accepts a more pessimistic view of China's willingness to help, almost every option under discussion similarly relies on China.
A senior State Department official said the Chinese "are genuinely concerned about North Korea's nuclear weapons."
The official added: "They can make life uncomfortable for them in small ways. They are still working on it. Will they succeed? I don't know."
Four people jailed in the landmark Hong Kong national security trial of "47 democrats" accused of conspiracy to commit subversion were freed today after more than four years behind bars, the second group to be released in a month. Among those freed was long-time political and LGBTQ activist Jimmy Sham (岑子杰), who also led one of Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy groups, the Civil Human Rights Front, which disbanded in 2021. "Let me spend some time with my family," Sham said after arriving at his home in the Kowloon district of Jordan. "I don’t know how to plan ahead because, to me, it feels
The collapse of the Swiss Birch glacier serves as a chilling warning of the escalating dangers faced by communities worldwide living under the shadow of fragile ice, particularly in Asia, experts said. Footage of the collapse on Wednesday showed a huge cloud of ice and rubble hurtling down the mountainside into the hamlet of Blatten. Swiss Development Cooperation disaster risk reduction adviser Ali Neumann said that while the role of climate change in the case of Blatten “still needs to be investigated,” the wider impacts were clear on the cryosphere — the part of the world covered by frozen water. “Climate change and
Poland is set to hold a presidential runoff election today between two candidates offering starkly different visions for the country’s future. The winner would succeed Polish President Andrzej Duda, a conservative who is finishing his second and final term. The outcome would determine whether Poland embraces a nationalist populist trajectory or pivots more fully toward liberal, pro-European policies. An exit poll by Ipsos would be released when polls close today at 9pm local time, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. Final results are expected tomorrow. Whoever wins can be expected to either help or hinder the
DENIAL: Musk said that the ‘New York Times was lying their ass off,’ after it reported he used so much drugs that he developed bladder problems Elon Musk on Saturday denied a report that he used ketamine and other drugs extensively last year on the US presidential campaign trail. The New York Times on Friday reported that the billionaire adviser to US President Donald Trump used so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that he developed bladder problems. The newspaper said the world’s richest person also took ecstasy and mushrooms, and traveled with a pill box last year, adding that it was not known whether Musk also took drugs while heading the so-called US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) after Trump took power in January. In a