The North Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday said a new US alliance in the Indo-Pacific and Washington’s recent submarine contract with Australia could trigger a “nuclear arms race” in the region.
The US last week announced a new three-way security pact with Australia and the UK, as part of a strategic partnership under which US nuclear submarines would be supplied to Canberra.
“These are extremely undesirable and dangerous acts which will upset the strategic balance in the Asia-Pacific region and trigger off a chain of nuclear arms race,” the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) quoted a ministry official as saying.
Photo: AP
“This shows that the US is the chief culprit toppling the international nuclear non-proliferation system,” the official added.
Nuclear-armed North Korea fired two missiles into the sea on Wednesday, with Seoul successfully test-firing a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) hours later, becoming only the seventh country in the world with the technology.
South Korea’s test is a strategic advance for Seoul. It has been strengthening its military capabilities to counter the threat posed by the North, which is under international sanctions for its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs.
However, in a separate statement carried by the KCNA yesterday, the head of North Korea’s Academy of National Defense Science called Seoul’s newly developed SLBM a “clumsy piece of work” lacking key technology.
“The homegrown SLBM unveiled by South Korea will not be able to serve as an effective means of attack at war,” he said.
The spate of missile tests and bumper defense deals in the Pacific have highlighted a regional arms race that is intensifying as a China-US rivalry grows.
“It is quite natural that neighboring countries, including China, condemned these actions as irresponsible ones of destroying the peace and stability of the region,” the North Korean foreign ministry official said.
US President Joe Biden’s new Australia-US-UK defense alliance is widely seen as aimed at countering the rise of China.
His administration’s relationship with North Korea has marked a change in tone from his predecessor, former US president Donald Trump, who engaged in an extraordinary diplomatic bromance with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
“The US double-dealing attitude getting all the more pronounced after the emergence of the new administration ... seriously threatens the world peace and stability,” the official said.
The official added that North Korea “will certainly take a corresponding counteraction in case it has even a little adverse impact on the security of our country.”
When a hiker fell from a 55m waterfall in wild New Zealand bush, rescuers were forced to evacuate the badly hurt woman without her dog, which could not be found. After strangers raised thousands of dollars for a search, border collie Molly was flown to safety by a helicopter pilot who was determined to reunite the pet and the owner. A week earlier, an emergency rescue helicopter found the woman with bruises and lacerations after a fall at a rocky spot at the waterfall on the South Island’s West Coast. She was airlifted on March 24, but they were forced to
HIGH HOPES: The power source is expected to have a future, as it is not dependent on the weather or light, and could be useful for places with large desalination facilities A Japanese water plant is harnessing the natural process of osmosis to generate renewable energy that could one day become a common power source. The possibility of generating power from osmosis — when water molecules pass from a less salty solution to a more salty one — has long been known. However, actually generating energy from that has proved more complicated, in part due the difficulty of designing the membrane through which the molecules pass. Engineers in Fukuoka, Japan, and their private partners think they might have cracked it, and have opened what is only the world’s second osmotic power plant. It generates
Hundreds of Filipinos and tourists flocked to a sun-bleached field north of Manila yesterday, on Good Friday, to witness one of the country’s most blood-soaked displays of religious fervor, undeterred by rising fuel prices. Scores of bare-chested flagellants with covered faces walked barefoot through the dusty streets of Pampanga Province’s San Fernando as they flogged their backs with bamboo whips in the scorching heat. Agence France-Presse (AFP) journalists said they saw devotees deliberately puncturing their skin with glass shards attached to a small wooden paddle to ensure their bleeding during the ritual, a way to atone for sins and seek miracles from
Chinese dissident artist Gao Zhen (高兟), famous for making provocative satirical sculptures of former Chinese leader Mao Zedong (毛澤東), was tried on Monday over accusations of “defaming national heroes and martyrs,” his wife and a rights group said. Gao, 69, who was detained in 2024 during a visit from the US, faces a maximum three-year prison sentence, said his wife, Zhao Yaliang (趙雅良), and Shane Yi, a researcher at the Chinese Human Rights Defenders group which operates outside the nation. The closed-door, one-day trial took place at Sanhe City People’s Court in Hebei Province neighboring the capital, Beijing, and ended without a
RSS