North Korea yesterday announced a detailed plan to send a salvo of four missiles over Japan and toward the US territory of Guam, raising the stakes in a stand-off with US President Donald Trump, who it said was “bereft of reason.”
The scheme to target the island, a key US military stronghold, was intended to “signal a crucial warning,” as “only absolute force” would have an effect on the US leader, Pyongyang said.
The declaration came after Trump said that the US’ nuclear arsenal was “far stronger and more powerful than ever before.”
Photo: Reuters
The region was facing “a mini Cuban Missile Crisis,” said John Delury, a professor at Yonsei University in Seoul.
Trump’s remarks were “a load of nonsense,” said General Kim Rak-gyom, the commander of the North’s missile forces, according to Pyongyang’s Korean Central News Agency. “Sound dialogue is not possible with such a guy bereft of reason.”
The military would complete the Guam plan by the middle of this month and submit it to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un for consideration, he said.
The statement said the four missiles would be launched simultaneously and overfly the Japanese prefectures of Shimane, Hiroshima and Kochi.
They would have a flight time of 17 minutes, 45 seconds, travel 3,356.7km and come down 30km to 40km from Guam, it said, which would put the impacts just outside US territorial waters.
Japan, which has in the past warned it would shoot down any missiles that threaten its territory, said that it could “never tolerate” provocations from North Korea.
Japanese Minister of Defense Itsunori Onodera told a Japanese parliamentary session that a missile attack on the US territory would breach the US deterrence against an attack on Japan.
He said that would be a Japanese national emergency, because it would threaten its existence as a nation.
Japan in that case can exercise the right to “collective” self-defense and activate its Aegis missile defense system, he said.
CIVIL DEFENSE: More reservists in alternative service would help establish a sound civil defense system for use in wartime and during natural disasters, Kuma Academy’s CEO said While a total of 120,000 reservists are expected to be called up for alternative reserve drills this year, compared with the 6,505 drilled last year, the number has been revised to 58,000 due to a postponed training date, Deputy Minster of the Interior Ma Shih-yuan (馬士元) said. In principle, the ministry still aims to call up 120,000 reservists for alternative reserve drills next year, he said, but the actual number would not be decided later until after this year’s evaluation. The increase follows a Legislative Yuan request that the Ministry of the Interior address low recruitment rates, which it made while reviewing
As eight basketball-playing international students appealed to the Taiwanese basketball industry after they were excluded from the draft of an upcoming new league merging the P.League+ and the T1 League, the new league’s preparatory committee spokesperson Chang Shu-jen (張樹人) yesterday said the committee would tomorrow discuss the supplementary measures and whether the international students can join the draft. The students on Tuesday called for support on their right to play in the upcoming new league, after a merger involving the two leagues impacted their eligibility for the draft. The international players from the University Basketball Association (UBA), led by first pick prospect
WARNING: China has stepped up harassment of foreign vessels after its new regulation took effect last month, an official said, citing an incident in the Diaoyutai Islands The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) yesterday linked China’s seizure of a Taiwanese fishing vessel illegally operating in its territorial waters to Beijing’s new regulation authorizing the China Coast Guard to seize boats in waters it claims. Chinese officials boarded and then seized a Taiwanese fishing vessel operating near China’s coast close to Kinmen County late on Tuesday and took it to a Chinese port, the CGA said. The Penghu-registered squid fishing vessel Da Jin Man No. 88 (大進滿88) was boarded and seized by China Coast Guard east-northeast of Liaoluo Bay (料羅灣), 17.5 nautical miles (32.4km) from Taiwan’s restricted waters off Kinmen,
Some foreign companies are considering moving Taiwanese employees out of China after Beijing said it could impose the death penalty on “die-hard” Taiwanese independence advocates, four people familiar with the matter said. The new guidelines have caused some Taiwanese expatriates and foreign multinationals operating in China to scramble to assess their legal risks and exposure, said the people, who include a lawyer and two executives with direct knowledge of the discussions. “Several companies have come to us to assess the risks to their personnel,” said the lawyer, James Zimmerman, a Beijing-based partner at the Perkins Coie law firm. He declined to identify