Fatty Spoonbanger sabre rattling again - fires missile into Sea of Japan

N Korea missile launch fails day after military parade.

North Korea has failed to launch a missile on its east coast, South Korean and US military officials say, a day after Pyongyang warned the US amid rising tension in the region.

The US said a ballistic missile exploded within seconds of the launch.

Hours earlier, North Korea paraded what appeared to be long-range ballistic missiles at a major military display.

It has already conducted five nuclear tests and a series of missile launches in contravention of UN resolutions.

The latest development comes as US Vice-President Mike Pence heads to the South Korean capital, Seoul, where he is expected to discuss the best way to deal with North Korea's missile and nuclear programmes.

"North Korea attempted to test an unidentified type of missile from [its eastern port of] Sinpo," the South Korean defence ministry said, adding that the launch on Sunday had "failed".

The ministry said that it was investigating for further details.

The US Pacific Command later confirmed the failed test, adding that it had detected and tracked what it believed to be a North Korean ballistic missile.

"The missile blew up almost immediately," said US Navy Commander Dave Benham, quoted by Reuters.

One unnamed US official said it was unlikely to have been an intercontinental missile, but investigations were continuing. Link.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-39612095

OK.....right.....well, that's face saved all round, though I wouldn't want to be in the shoes of one or two NK technicians today.

He's awake:

Donald J. Trump‏Verified account @realDonaldTrump 49m49 minutes ago
More
Why would I call China a currency manipulator when they are working with us on the North Korean problem? We will see what happens!

And, pray tell, what is this?   LL

Exclusive: Trump calls Chinese 'grand champions' of currency manipulation.
President Donald Trump declared China the "grand champions" of currency manipulation on Thursday, just hours after his new Treasury secretary pledged a more methodical approach to analyzing Beijing's foreign exchange practices.

In an exclusive interview with Reuters, Trump said he has not "held back" in his assessment that China manipulates its yuan currency, despite not acting on a campaign promise to declare it a currency manipulator on his first day in office.

"Well they, I think they're grand champions at manipulation of currency. So I haven't held back," Trump said. "We'll see what happens."

During his presidential campaign Trump frequently accused China of keeping its currency artificially low against the dollar to make Chinese exports cheaper, "stealing" American manufacturing jobs.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-china-currency-exclusive-idUSKBN1622PJ

Trump's North Korea sabre-rattling has a flaw: Kim Jong-un has nothing to lose.

Strategy of sending in the US navy and attacking Syria and Afghanistan likely only to boost Pyongyang’s nuclear resolve.

In the lead-up to North Korea’s latest missile test, Donald Trump had battled to convince Kim Jong-un he was picking a fight with the wrong guy.

The US president pounded Syria with 59 Tomahawk missiles and then ordered a naval “armada” into the waters around the Korean peninsula. He dropped the “mother of all bombs” on eastern Afghanistan and used Twitter to hammer home his message.

“North Korea is looking for trouble,” the US president tweeted last week as Kim’s technicians made the final preparations for Sunday’s botched but nevertheless defiant test.

But experts say Pyongyang’s latest act has underlined the futility of the billionaire’s efforts to bully Kim Jong-un into abandoning his nuclear ambitions.

“There is a problem with playing the military threat [card] with North Korea because they are inclined to call the bluff,” said John Delury, a North Korea expert from Yonsei University in Seoul. “I’m not saying they tested because of the threats. But bringing a naval strike group doesn’t help if your goal is to put off a test. If anything you are increasing the odds.”

Trump supporters claim his apparent strategy of using spectacular shows of military might to cow the North Korean dictator and convince the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, to crack down on his ally is paying off.

“Displays of American power matter. A lot,” Daniel Blumenthal, a China specialist from the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative thinktank, argued on Twitter, describing the strikes on Syria and Afghanistan as “very much messages to Xi and Kim”.

Some observers point to a recent editorial in a Communist party-controlled newspaper, the Global Times, as proof that Trump has finally convinced Beijing to rein in Kim Jong-un by dramatically tightening sanctions.

Delury, however, said there was no evidence to suggest Xi was prepared to do anything more than “increase some sanctions here and there”. “The Global Times can write all the editorials it wants but China’s approach on this is consistent”. Beijing’s message to Trump was crystal clear, he said: “Cool down.”

In fact, Delury claimed Trump’s sabre-rattling rhetoric and erratic use of force would only strengthen Kim’s determination to develop an effective nuclear deterrent that might spare him the fate of Saddam Hussein or Muammar Gaddafi.

“It’s really just playing Pyongyang’s game. It is a waste of time and the Trump administration should move onto a more promising avenue to solve the problem ... Since they have nothing to lose and we have everything to lose, they win every game of chicken.”

Leonid Petrov, a North Korea specialist at the Australian National University, said that with its latest missile launch “the message from North Korea is that despite US posturing they are not going to abandon their missile programme”.

Petrov said he was not surprised Kim Jong-un had chosen not to commemorate the 105th anniversary of the birth of the founder of North Korea, his grandfather Kim Il-sung, with an anticipated sixth nuclear test.

“Given the physical damage that would cause to nearby areas, it would have been unusual for a loyal, filial grandson to order a nuclear test on such an auspicious day,” he said.

But when that test does come it would prove the day of reckoning for Trump’s more aggressive approach towards North Korea. “If the US responds with an attack, that would confirm Kim’s claims that he is surrounded by hostile forces that are determined to carry out a pre-emptive strike,” Petrov said.

“The moment of truth for the US will be whether it strikes [in response to a nuclear test] and provokes a resumption of the Korean war at the expense of South Korean security, or stands down and betrays its weakness.”

“What would the US do? Withdraw, hang around or strike?” Petrov asked. “The ball is in the Americans’ court.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/16/north-korea-missile-test-donald-trump-kim-jong-un-has-nothing-to-lose

Well, there is sort-of a precedent for this. Yes, Fattie is sufficiently deranged to decide that if he is going down, everyone else is going to burn with him.

However....Hitler did similar when he ordered the destruction of Paris and was ignored, and later ordered the destruction of anything left standing in Germany itself- Speer ignored that.

One chance is that the generals around Fattie may not be all that keen on dying pointlessly for the fatherland, when they could overthrow Fattie and live comfortably under the benign eye of China.

I would suggest it's better if China and the US can keep Fattie contained, while China tries to overthrow him in some sneaky way.

China and Russia dispatch ships to shadow Donald Trump’s 'armada' as it approaches North Korean waters - Japanese media report.

China and Russia have dispatched spy vessels to shadow a US aircraft carrier group heading to North Korean waters, Japanese media said, amid rising tensions over Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions.

Beijing sought Russian help in averting a crisis over North Korea last week, as concerns grow in China that Donald Trump is seeking to confront North Korea over its weapon’s program.

The US president sent a navy group led by the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson into the region, in what is being seen as a signal to Pyongyang.

Mr Trump described the force as an “armada” and said that submarines were being sent which were “far more powerful than the aircraft carrier.”

Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
Our military is building and is rapidly becoming stronger than ever before. Frankly, we have no choice!
3:41 PM - 16 Apr 2017

The Yomiuri Shimbun, citing “multiple sources of the Japanese government”, said China and Russia had “dispatched intelligence-gathering vessels from their navies to chase the USS Carl Vinson”.

The ships are “strengthening warning and surveillance activities in the waters and airspace around the area,” Japan’s largest daily newspaper said, according to its English language sister publication, The Japan News.

It comes amid reports that tour companies in China have stopped arranging tour groups to North Korea, which had previously been a popular destination for Chinese tourists.

Media outlet thepaper.cn said several agencies had ceased organising package tours, including travel website Lumama and Ctrip – China’s biggest tour agency – which stopped group trips to North Korea at the end of 2016.

Ctrip told the Shanghai-based website that it did not know when it would resume trips to North Korea.

However, travel agencies told thepaper.cn that there had not been a notice from authorities forcing them to cancel trips to the reclusive state.

Media reported last week that China’s national carrier, Air China, suspended flights from Beijing to Pyongyang because of dwindling passengers.

Tensions have been escalating in recent weeks. A North Korean missile "blew up almost immediately" on its test launch on Sunday, US officials said.

But despite the apparent setback for Pyongyang, experts in Asia believe Mr Trump has little room for manoeuvre over North Korea, given the military deterrent Kim Jong-un’s regime has at its disposal.

Arthur Ding, a military expert based at Taiwan’s National Chengchi University, said North Korea used a military parade on Saturday to show the world that “there is no way to reverse its bomb and missile program now, because, like India and Pakistan, North Korea is a de facto nuclear state.”

Mr Ding said: "Politically, it somewhat implies that the DPRK should be treated fairly - if not equally - with that of other nuclear states.”

But despite the apparent setback for Pyongyang, experts in Asia believe Mr Trump has little room for manoeuvre over North Korea, given the military deterrent Kim Jong-un’s regime has at its disposal.

Personally, I suspect doing NOTHING beyond keeping Fatty contained may be the wisest option. It's being widely rumoured that Fattie's latest rocket blew up because of electronic wizardry, in which case he can't actually damage much beyond NK.

Seems as good an idea as any, Lily.

I could think of NOTHING else.  

Certainly a better idea than this:

http://news.sky.com/story/donald-trump-said-he-was-sending-an-armada-to-north-korea-but-it-was-heading-the-other-way-10842738

A fleet of warships President Donald Trump claimed he had deployed into waters near the Korean Peninsula were in fact heading in the opposite direction.

The move was designed as a show of force against North Korea's "reckless" nuclear threat and prompted fears of an imminent war.

"We are sending an armada. Very powerful. We have submarines. Very powerful, far more powerful than the aircraft carrier, that I can tell you," said Mr Trump.

But the "armada", headed by the supercarrier USS Carl Vinson, was in fact steaming the other way to take part in military exercises with the Australian Navy in the Indian Ocean.

As North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un led a huge show of military strength - parading the country's new submarine-based ballistic missiles and carrying out a failed missile test - the flotilla of US warships was about 3,500 miles away.

On the bright side, at least the tubs are in no danger of being sunk by one of Fatty's subs.

US 'sends two more aircraft carriers to Korean Peninsula' after Trump warns that Kim Jong-un has 'got to behave'.

The US is sending two more aircraft carriers towards the Korean Peninsula, it has been claimed.

Donald Trump has already dispatched the USS Carl Vinson, powered by nuclear reactors, carrying almost 100 aircraft and accompanied by destroyers, a cruiser, and a submarine to the region.

Reports in South Korea claim the US President is bolstering the deployment by sending the USS Ronald Reagan and the USS Nimitz to the Sea of Japan next week.

It comes as Trump warned North Korea that it needs to keep its nuclear ambitions in check, telling dictator Kim Jong-un he has 'got to behave'.

USS Ronald Reagan is currently stationed in Yokosuka, Japan, according to Yonhap News Agency while the USS Nimitz is undergoing 'final pre-deployment assessment' off Oregon.

Like the USS Carl Vinson, both vessels are more than 1,000ft long, and capable of carrying more than 90 aircraft.

News of their possible deployment comes days after North Korea staged a huge military parade as part of a day of celebrations to mark the 105th anniversary of the birth of the country's founder Kim Il Sung. More at link.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4420726/US-sends-two-aircraft-carriers-Korean-Peninsula.html

Now, did anyone tell the Nimitz and R Reagan exactly where they were supposedly going? LL

Really, you don't know whether to laugh or cry, LL. Sky:



The USS Carl Vinson transits the Sunda Strait, Indonesia, on 15 April

It's all Kabuki theatre - or the US military as a Potemkin village.

North Korea expert Joel Wit, at the 38 North monitoring group, said it raised questions about the Trump administration's credibility.

"If you threaten them and your threat is not credible, it's only going to undermine whatever your policy toward them is," he said.



This, on top of the botched, illegal attack on Syria. Please, Pentagon, just take them all back to the US and defend your own borders - it'll be less embarrassing.

Incidentally, this isn't the 1940's, entire fleets can't go missing, and China, Russia and NK will have known perfectly well that the 'Armada' was thousands of miles away from the Korean peninsula. The only person who doesn't seem to have known was, er, the US President....

I swear something's wrong with him; I am starting to wonder if he's in the early stages of dementia.

    Maybe.

Current score is Fatty 1 - Trump 0, due to an F-18 splashing into the Pacific at a cost of about $30,000,000. He shouldn't have called it an Armada.

Thanks for the good laugh Bonny.

Not much else you can do except laugh when faced with such a stunning display of incompetence Winning.

Noooooooo  please.  

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-04-23/north-korea-arrests-us-citizen-threatens-sink-us-aircraft-carrier-japan-deploys-wars

A third US citizen has been arrested and remains in custody in North Korea, according to South Korean news agency Yonhap. A man, a Korean-American professor in his 50s, identified by the surname Kim, had been in North Korea for a month to discuss relief activities and was detained at Pyongyang International Airport just as he was leaving North Korea, the agency reported.

The man was a former professor at Yanbian University of Science and Technology (YUST), Yonhap said, citing unnamed sources. YUST, a university in neighboring China, has a sister university in Pyongyang. An official at South Korea's National Intelligence Service said it was not aware of the reported arrest. The reason for his arrest is still unclear, and there has been no comment from the US authorities so far. South Korea’s spy agency, the National Intelligence Service, said it “was not aware” of Kim’s arrest, according to Yonhap.

North Korea, which has been criticized for its human rights record, has in the past used detained Americans to extract high-profile visits from the United States, with which it has no formal diplomatic relations. North Korea already holds two Americans. Ahn Chan-il, director of the World North Korea Research Center in Seoul, said that the North "seems to be intending to use professor Kim as leverage in negotiations" amid the current bad relations between the two countries.

Why on EARTH do US citizens insist on going to NK?

What would happen if Trump went to war with North Korea?

As the totalitarian state says it is ready to sink a US aircraft carrier, experts assess whether this is a battle the US can afford to wage.

“Now that we possess mighty nuclear power to protect ourselves from US nuclear threat, we will respond without the slightest hesitation with full-out war and to nuclear war with our style of nuclear strike, and we will emerge victor in the final battle with the US.”

That is just one of the latest statements from North Korea’s interior ministry as tensions continue to rise over its continued missile tests and nuclear weapons programme, while today the ruling Workers' party newspaper said the country's forces were "combat-read to sink a US nuclear powered aircraft carrier with a single strike". The editorial further likened USS Carl Vinson to a "gross animal".
Full report at link,

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/north-korea-nuclear-world-war-donald-trump-kim-jong-un-south-missile-weapons-tests-moab-mop-a7697076.html

Hmm, don't think he should be turning his back on one or two of them, the smiles look decidedly fake.