The B-1B bombers, escorted by US and South Korean jets, were seen by an Associated Press photographer as they flew over Osan Air Base, which is 120 kilometers (75 miles) from the border with North Korea, the world’s most heavily armed.
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The facility is 77km from the demilitarized zone border with the North and about 40km from the South’s capital Seoul.
Recently, the Institute for Science and International Security claimed to have identified the location of one of North Korea’s preliminary uranium enrichment plants that they suspected could have played a vital role in the country’s nuclear programme in the 1990s.
“People have reason to doubt whether Washington is willing to make the effort to push the North Korea issue in the direction of a resolution”, the paper said.
A USA intelligence official said North Korea is the only country in the world that threatens others with a nuclear attack, and that Pyongyang shows no signs of backing off its nuclear programme.
“We believe that it is necessary for the Security Council to further respond to the nuclear test by the DPRK, and their response should be focused on nuclear activities”, Chunying said.
“We see North Korea’s provocative acts as not only a threat to the Korean peninsula but to our region and globally”, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop told reporters on Wednesday in Canberra. Let us not fool ourselves – North Korea is not on a war path to attack South Korea or Japan, contrary to what her propaganda organisations may hint at.
Beijing also argues that Washington should talk to Pyongyang, but whether that is even a possibility depends on the outcome of the USA presidential election in November. Punggye Village is the site where the North has carried out all five of its nuclear tests. Some say the North is ramping up its nuclear and missile capabilities now to use as a negotiating chip with the next US leader, who will take office in January.
The host of the show launches into a tirade declaring: “Scared by the South Koreans” series of demonstrations against the deployment of the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system, Park Geun-hye (South Korea’s president) is rampaging like a mad dog and purging those who are anti-American cells.
A U.S. special envoy for North Korea, Sung Kim, met Japanese officials on Sunday and said the United States may launch unilateral sanctions against North Korea, echoing comments by U.S. President Barack Obama last Friday.
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U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida pose for a photo during a trilateral meeting in NY on September 30, 2015.
