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The United Nations Security Council on Thursday condemned North Korea's latest missile test and demanded Pyongyang not conduct any more nuclear tests in a statement that was delayed as the United States and Russian Federation sparred over its language. North Korea has been under United Nations sanctions aimed at impeding the development of its nuclear and missile programs since 2006.
U.S. Vice President Mike Pence and Australia's prime minister swept aside any lingering tensions Saturday over an Obama era agreement on the resettlement of refugees, joining forces to urge China to take a greater role in pressuring North Korea to scuttle its nuclear weapons and missile program. Pence and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull repeatedly praised the decades-long American-Australian alliance following a meeting in Sydney, with the vice president passing along President Donald Trump's "very best regards" and thanking Turnbull for calling on Beijing to be more assertive in the international effort to de-escalate Pyongyang's nuclear threat.
U.S. Vice President Mike Pence waves to the audience after delivering remarks to the CEOs of Australian-based companies in Sydney, Australia, on April 22, 2017. Photo - Reuters U.S. Vice President Mike Pence waves to the audience after delivering remarks to the CEOs of Australian-based companies in Sydney, Australia, on April 22, 2017.
President Trump at a press conference in the East Room of the White House, on April 20, 2017. Baby boomers like me fondly remember the Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons of childhood .
U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, left, meets with Australia's Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull at Admiralty House in Sydney, Saturday, April 22, 2017. . U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, right, receives the gift of a book called Rendezvous with Destiny by Michael Fullilove, left, as Australian Governor General Peter Cosgrove looks on during a lunch reception.
Geopolitical tensions flare every spring on the Korean peninsula, but analysts say the anxiety of recent weeks has been magnified by the unpredictable new player in the annual drama: Donald Trump. North Korea always intensifies its rhetoric when Seoul and Washington stage annual large-scale joint military drills that it condemns as rehearsals for a potential invasion.
A senior North Korean official then accused the United States of bringing the countries to the brink of thermonuclear war. The North conducted two nuclear tests and 24 ballistic missile tests last year, defying six UN Security Council sanctions resolutions banning any testing, and it has launched more missiles this year including a failed attempt at the weekend.
From the wind-swept deck of a massive aircraft carrier, Vice-President Mike Pence on Wednesday warned North Korea not to test the resolve of the U.S. military, promising it would make an "overwhelming and effective" response to any use of conventional or nuclear weapons. Pence, dressed in a green military jacket, said aboard the hulking USS Ronald Reagan that President Donald Trump's administration would continue to "work diligently" with allies like Japan, China and other global powers to apply economic and diplomatic pressure on Pyongyang.
Vice President Mike Pence doubled down on the US commitment to Asia Pacific with a stern warning for North Korea, which he called the "most dangerous and urgent threat" to the region. Speaking aboard the USS Ronald Reagan in Japan Wednesday, Pence reiterated the US and its allies were prepared to respond to potential North Korean attack with "overwhelming" force.
Vice President Mike Pence, center, speaks to U.S. servicemen and Japanese Self-Defense Forces personnel on the flight deck of U.S. navy nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan at the U.S. Navy's Yokosuka base in Yokosuka on April 19, 2017. Vice President Mike Pence, center, speaks to U.S. servicemen and Japanese Self-Defense Forces personnel on the flight deck of U.S. navy nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan at the U.S. Navy's Yokosuka base in Yokosuka on April 19, 2017.
U.S. Vice President Mike Pence looks at the North side from Observation Post Ouellette in the Demilitarized Zone , near the border village of Panmunjom, which has separated the two Koreas since the Korean War, South Korea, Monday, April 17, 2017. Viewing his adversaries in the distance, Pence traveled to the tense zone dividing North and South Korea and warned Pyongyang that after years of testing the U.S. and South Korea with its nuclear ambitions, "the era of strategic patience is over."
President Donald Trump is keeping his plans for North Korea close to the vest amid escalating tensions over Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program, insisting he doesn't want to "telegraph" any U.S. action. In an interview Monday with Fox News aired on "The O'Reilly Factor," the president reiterated his oft-stated belief that it's foolish to give away too much strategy, especially on foreign affairs and took a swipe at previous Democratic administrations for doing exactly that.
The White House displayed a tough and unyielding approach to North Korea and its nuclear ambitions Monday, with President Donald Trump warning that Kim Jong Un has "gotta behave" and Vice President Mike Pence sternly advising Kim not to test America's resolve and military power. Trump, in Washington, and Pence at the tense Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea, signaled a forceful U.S. stance on North Korea's recent actions and threats.
Only at a North Korean press conference at the United Nations, can you hear a diplomat say he hoped journalists had a good holiday weekend and then warn of possible thermonuclear war. North Korea has consistently issued threats of war toward the United States in recent decades, but the Trump administration's announced end of a "strategic patience" policy with Pyongyang has upped the ante in terms of warnings and bellicose rhetoric.
Despite North Korea's failed missile test this weekend , the crisis appears to be speeding up. From The New York Times : All the elements of the North Korean nuclear crisis - the relentless drive by Kim Jong-un to assemble an arsenal, the propaganda and deception swirling around his progress, the hints of a covert war by the United States to undermine the effort, rather than be forced into open confrontation - were on vivid display this weekend.
Vice President Pence will spend Monday in Seoul for meetings with the acting president and the staff of the U.S. Embassy. He'll also hold a news conference, where he's expected to issue a strong warning to North Korea to stop its aggressive behavior.
North Korea's big day, the anniversary of the birth of its founding leader, Kim Il Sung, came and went with no underground nuclear test by the North, and no pre-emptive strikes off the deck of the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier sent to waters off the Korean Peninsula by President Donald Trump. Just hours before Vice President Mike Pence began his visit to Seoul on Sunday, Pyongyang fired off a ballistic missile - but it appears to have exploded seconds after it got off the ground.
SEOUL/PYONGYANG: A North Korean missile "blew up almost immediately" on its test launch on Sunday, the U.S. Pacific Command said, hours before U.S. Vice President Mike Pence was due in South Korea for talks on the North's increasingly defiant arms programme. The failed launch from North Korea's east coast, ignoring admonitions from major ally China, came a day after North Korea held a military parade in its capital, marking the birth anniversary of the state founder, displaying what appeared to be new long-range ballistic missiles.
Concern has grown since the US Navy fired Tomahawk missiles at a Syrian airfield last week in response to a deadly gas attack. That raised questions about US President Donald Trump's plans for North Korea, which has conducted several missile and nuclear tests in defiance of UN and unilateral sanctions.
When North Korea decided to go nuclear, it committed to a huge investment in a program that would bring severe sanctions and eat up precious resources that could have been spent boosting the nation's quality of life. North Korea's nuclear and missile development programs have without doubt come at a high cost, but the North has managed to march ever closer to having an arsenal capable of attacking targets in the region and - as demonstrated by its July 4 test launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile - the United States' mainland.