North Korea yesterday released a new propaganda video menacingly titled “Last Chance,” showing a submarine-launched nuclear missile laying waste to Washington and concluding with the US flag in flames.
The four-minute video romps through the history of US-Korean relations and ends with a digitally manipulated sequence showing a missile surging through clouds, swerving back to the earth and slamming into the road in front of Washington’s Lincoln Memorial.
US CAPITOL
The US Capitol building explodes in the impact and a message flashes up on the screen in Korean: “If US imperialists budge an inch toward us, we will immediately hit them with nuclear [weapons].”
The video was published on the North’s propaganda Web site DPRK Today and shows images from the Korean War, the capture of US spy ship Pueblo in 1968 and the first crisis over North Korea’s nuclear program in the early 1990s.
Pyongyang has upped the rhetorical ante in recent weeks, with near daily threats of nuclear and conventional strikes against South Korea and the US mainland in response to large-scale South Korean-US war games.
PERSONAL THREATS
The threats have turned increasingly personal, and North Korea leader Kim Jong-un on Friday watched a live-fire long-range artillery drill simulating a strike on the official residence of his South Korean counterpart.
Tensions between the two Koreas have been on the rise since Pyongyang carried out its fourth nuclear test in January, and a satellite rocket launch a month later that was widely seen as a disguised ballistic missile test.
North Korea has been pushing to acquire submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) capability that would take its nuclear strike threat to a new level, allowing deployment far beyond the Korean Peninsula and the potential to retaliate in the event of a nuclear attack.
The North has conducted a number of what it says were successful tests of a SLBM.
However, experts have questioned the veracity of those tests, suggesting Pyongyang had gone little further than a “pop-up” test from a submerged platform.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was