NATION/WORLD
Wednesday, November 29, 2017
East Oregonian
Page 9A
NKorea launches ICBM in possibly its longest-range test yet
SEOUL, South Korea (AP)
— After 2 ½ months of relative
peace, North Korea launched its
most powerful weapon yet early
Wednesday, a presumed intercon-
tinental ballistic missile that could
put Washington and the entire
eastern U.S. seaboard within range.
Resuming its torrid testing pace
in pursuit of its goal of a viable
arsenal of nuclear-tipped missiles
that can hit the U.S. mainland
had been widely expected, but the
apparent power and suddenness of
the new test still jolted the Korean
Peninsula and Washington. The
launch at 3:17 a.m. local time and
midday in the U.S. capital indicated
an effort to perfect the element of
surprise and to obtain maximum
attention in the United States.
The firing is a clear message
of defiance aimed at the Trump
administration, which had just
restored the North to a U.S. list
of terror sponsors. It also ruins
nascent diplomatic efforts, raises
fears of war or a pre-emptive U.S.
strike and casts a deeper shadow
over the security of the Winter
Olympics early next year in South
Korea.
A rattled Seoul responded by
almost immediately launching
three of its own missiles in a show
of force. The South’s president,
Moon Jae-in, expressed worry that
North Korea’s growing missile
threat could force the United
States to attack the North before
it masters a nuclear-tipped long-
range missile, something experts
say may be imminent.
“If North Korea completes a
ballistic missile that could reach
from one continent to another, the
situation can spiral out of control,”
Moon said at an emergency
meeting in Seoul, according to his
office. “We must stop a situation
where North Korea miscalculates
and threatens us with nuclear
weapons or where the United States
considers a pre-emptive strike.”
Moon, a liberal who has been
forced into a more hawkish stance
by a stream of North Korean
weapons tests, has repeatedly
declared that there can be no U.S.
attack on the North without Seoul’s
approval, but many here worry that
Washington may act without South
Korean input.
The launch is North Korea’s
first since it fired an intermedi-
ate-range missile over Japan on
Sept. 15, and may have broken any
efforts at diplomacy meant to end
the North’s nuclear ambitions. U.S.
officials have sporadically floated
the idea of direct talks with North
AP Photo/Lee Jin-man
A man watches a TV screen showing a local news program reporting North Korea’s missile launch
at the Seoul Train Station in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday. North Korea abruptly ended a 10-week
pause in its weapons testing by launching what the Pentagon said was an intercontinental ballistic
missile, apparently its longest-range test yet, a move that will escalate already high tensions with
Washington. The Korean letters read “Fired ballistic missile.”
“Diplomatic options
remain viable and
open, for now.”
— Rex Tillerson,
U.S. Secretary of State
Korea if it maintained restraint.
The missile also appears to
improve on North Korea’s past
launches.
If flown on a standard trajectory,
instead of Wednesday’s lofted
angle, the missile would have a
range of more than 8,100 miles,
said U.S. scientist David Wright,
a physicist who closely tracks
North Korea’s missile and nuclear
programs. “Such a missile would
have more than enough range to
reach Washington, D.C., and in fact
any part of the continental United
States,” Wright wrote in a blog
post for the Union for Concerned
Scientists.
Japanese Defense Minister
Itsunori Onodera said the missile
landed inside of Japan’s special
economic zone in the Sea of Japan,
about 155 miles west of Aomori,
which is on the northern part of
Japan’s main island of Honshu.
Onodera says the missile could
have been an upgraded version of
North Korea’s Hwasong-14 ICBM
or a new missile.
A big unknown, however, is the
missile’s payload. If, as expected,
it carried a light mock warhead,
then its effective range would have
been shorter, analysts said.
An intercontinental ballistic
missile test is considered particu-
larly provocative, and indications
that it flew higher than past launches
suggest progress by Pyongyang
in developing a weapon of mass
destruction that could strike the
U.S. mainland. President Donald
Trump has vowed to prevent North
Korea from having that capability
— using military force if necessary.
In response to the launch, Trump
said the United States will “take
care of it.” He told reporters after
the launch: “It is a situation that we
will handle.” He did not elaborate.
Pentagon spokesman Col. Rob
Manning said the missile was
launched from Sain Ni, North
Korea, and traveled about 620
miles before landing in the Sea of
Japan within 200 nautical miles
of Japan’s coast. It flew for 53
minutes, Japan’s defense minister
said.
South Korea’s responding
missile tests included one with a
620-mile range, to mimic striking
the North Korea launch site, which
is not far from the North Korean
capital.
The U.N. Security Council
scheduled an emergency meeting
for Wednesday afternoon at the
request of Japan, the U.S. and
South Korea.
Italy’s U.N. Ambassador Sebas-
tiano Cardi, the current Security
Council president, told reporters
late Tuesday that “it’s certainly
very worrying. Everybody was
hoping that there would be restraint
from the regime.”
He said the latest and toughest
sanctions resolutions against North
Korea “are working, having an
effect on the situation ... on the
capacity of the regime to obtain
hard currency because to go along
with the military programs or
missile or nuclear (programs) you
need money, and that’s the objec-
tive.”
“There is still room for new
measures, but for the moment ...
we don’t know what the council
decision will be,” he said.
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis
said the missile flew higher than
previous projectiles.
“It went higher, frankly, than any
previous shot they’ve taken,” he
told reporters at the White House.
“It’s a research and development
effort on their part to continue
building ballistic missiles that can
threaten everywhere in the world.”
A week ago, the Trump admin-
istration declared North Korea a
state sponsor of terrorism, further
straining ties between govern-
ments that are still technically at
war. Washington also imposed
new sanctions on North Korean
shipping firms and Chinese trading
companies dealing with the North.
North Korea called the terror
designation a “serious provoca-
tion” that justifies its development
of nuclear weapons.
Kim Dong-yub, a former South
Korean military official who is
now an analyst at Seoul’s Institute
for Far Eastern Studies, said the
early flight data suggests the
North Korean missile was likely
a Hwasong-14, which the North
fired twice in July. The North is
likely trying to further evaluate the
weapon’s performance, including
the warhead’s ability to survive
atmospheric re-entry and strike the
intended target, before it attempts
a test that shows the full range of
the missile.
South Koreans are famously
nonchalant about North Korea’s
military moves, but there is worry
about what the North’s weapons
tests might mean for next year’s
Winter Olympics in the South.
President Moon told his officials
to closely review whether the
launch could in anyway hurt South
Korea’s efforts to successfully host
the games in Pyeongchang, which
begin Feb. 9.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo
Abe, who spoke with Trump, said
Japan will not back down against
any provocation and would maxi-
mize pressure on the North in its
strong alliance with the U.S.
Trump has ramped up economic
and diplomatic pressure on the
North to prevent its nuclear and
missile development. So far, the
pressure has failed to get North
Korea’s government, which views
a nuclear arsenal as key to its
survival, to return to long-stalled
international negotiations on its
nuclear program.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson
said in a statement that North
Korea was “indiscriminately
threatening its neighbors, the
region and global stability.” He
urged the international community
to not only implement existing
U.N. sanctions on North Korea
but also to consider additional
measures for interdicting maritime
traffic transporting goods to and
from the country.
“Diplomatic options remain
viable and open, for now,”
Tillerson said, adding the U.S.
remains committed to “finding a
peaceful path to denuclearization
and to ending belligerent actions
by North Korea.”
BRIEFLY
More pressure on Conyers to
resign after new accusations
Obama re-emerges to world
with trip to Asia, France
WASHINGTON (AP) — A former
staffer to John Conyers says the Michigan
congressman made unwanted sexual
advances that included partially undressing
in front of her in a hotel room and
inappropriate touching, prompting more calls
for the longest-serving member of the House
to resign.
Deanna Maher, 77, who ran a Michigan
office for Conyers from 1997 to 2005, told
The Associated Press Tuesday that the
first incident occurred in 1997 during a
three-day Congressional Black Caucus event
in Washington, which she said she “felt
honored” to attend.
Maher said while she was in the bedroom
of a hotel suite, Conyers walked in, called
room service and ordered sandwiches.
“I had my nightclothes on,” said Maher,
who now lives in the Holland area in western
Michigan. “I was just scared to death. I was
married at the time. He sat in the bedroom
taking his clothes off. I didn’t say anything
and he didn’t say anything.”
WASHINGTON (AP) — Now a private
citizen, former President Barack Obama
re-emerged on the global stage Tuesday as
he opened a three-country tour that includes
meetings with the leaders of China and India,
just as President Donald Trump courts those
same world powers.
During a five-day trip, Obama will mix
paid speeches with foreign leader meetings
and even a town hall event for young people,
the signature event that Obama became
known for around the world during his eight
years in office. He’ll finish the trip in France,
where he’ll give one of several speeches
planned during the trip.
The tour continues a longstanding
tradition of former U.S. presidents traveling
overseas after leaving office, especially as
they work to attract donations and other
support for their foundations, libraries and
presidential centers. But Obama’s trip may
garner particular attention, given that many
foreign countries are still uncertain about
Trump’s foreign policy and may look to
his predecessor to help explain America’s
current direction.
Judge sides with Trump’s
pick to take over agency
WASHINGTON (AP) — President
Donald Trump scored a victory Tuesday
when a federal judge refused to block the
president’s choice to temporarily run the
nation’s top consumer financial watchdog
and, for the moment, ended a two-way battle
for leadership of the agency.
Judge Timothy Kelly declined to stop
the Republican president from putting Mick
Mulvaney in place as the acting director of
the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
In doing so, Kelly ruled against Leandra
English, the bureau’s deputy director, who
had requested a restraining order to stop
Mulvaney from becoming acting director.
Mulvaney and English had claimed to
be the rightful acting director, each citing
different federal laws. The leadership
crisis developed over the weekend after
the bureau’s permanent director, Richard
Cordray, resigned and appointed English as
his successor. Shortly afterward, the White
House announced that Mulvaney, currently
budget director, would take over the bureau
on an interim basis.
The judge’s ruling Tuesday is not the
final decision in the case. But in making his
decision, the judge said that English had
not shown a substantial likelihood that she
eventually would succeed on the merits of
her case.
The judge was nominated by Trump and
was confirmed by the majority-Republican
Senate in September.
Powell says he favors
loosening bank regulations
WASHINGTON (AP) — Jerome
Powell, President Donald Trump’s pick to
be chairman of the Federal Reserve, told
senators at his confirmation hearing Tuesday
that he believes some bank regulations
can be rolled back — something the
administration and Wall Street favor. But
he stressed that he will protect the central
bank’s political independence, calling it vital
for the Fed’s role.
Powell also strongly hinted in his
appearance before the Senate Banking
Committee that the Fed would hike rates
again in December.
Powell said he believed that the
Dodd-Frank Act, passed in the wake of
the devastating 2008 financial crisis, had
succeeded in making the financial system
stronger, including ensuring that no major
institution now is too big to fail.
But in some areas such as regulation
of smaller banks, the law had imposed
unnecessary burdens that should be eased,
he said.
Powell’s comments pleased many GOP
senators, who have complained for years
that Dodd-Frank was hurting the economic
recovery by making it harder to get bank
loans. Democratic senators, however,
pressed Powell to say whether he would cut
key consumer protections in the 2010 law, a
measure that Trump often attacked.
49
GO HOME THIS HOLIDAY! $
PRICES START AT
BOUTIQUE AIR
DAILY ROUND TRIP
FLIGHTS FROM
PENDLETON
PORTLAND
PDT
PDX
www.boutiqueair.com | info@boutiqueair.com | 1-855-BOUTIQUE