The Star Online: World Updates
The Star Online: World Updates |
- U.S. to send missile defences to Guam over North Korea threat
- Desmond Tutu wins $1.7 million Templeton Prize
- China promises swift reporting on bird flu outbreak
| U.S. to send missile defences to Guam over North Korea threat Posted: 03 Apr 2013 09:30 PM PDT SEOUL/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States said it would soon send a missile defence system to Guam to defend it from North Korea, as the U.S. military adjusts to what Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel called a "real and clear danger" from Pyongyang.
Hours later, South Korea's Yonhap news agency said North Korea had moved what appeared to be a mid-range Musudan missile to its east coast. It was not clear if the North planned to fire the rocket or was just putting it on display as a show of force, one South Korean government source was quoted as saying. North Korea also barred entry to a joint industrial complex it shares with the South for a second day on Thursday and said it would shut the zone if Seoul continued to insult it. Events on the Korean peninsula have begun to unnerve global financial markets long used to the rhetoric North Korea routinely hurls at Seoul and Washington. "The assumption remains that this is more bluster ...," said Rob Ryan, a strategist with RBS in Singapore. "But from here, we've reached a level of tensions that say things can't get too much worse without an actual exchange of fire." The broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was down 0.6 percent, dragged down by a 2 percent slump in South Korean shares, while the South Korean won slid 0.7 percent against the U.S. dollar. U.S. stocks sank on Wednesday after Hagel's comments and the Guam deployment news. North Korea also repeated its threat to launch a nuclear attack on the United States. Pyongyang said it had ratified a potential strike because of U.S. military deployments around the Korean peninsula that it claimed were a prelude to a possible nuclear attack on the North. Washington had been informed of the potential attack by North Korea, a spokesman for its army said in a statement carried by the English-language service of state news agency KCNA. It was unclear how such a warning was given since North Korea does not have diplomatic ties with Washington. The report from KCNA appeared to re-state many of the month-long fusillade of threats emanating from Pyongyang. Experts say North Korea is years away from being able to hit the continental United States with a nuclear weapon, despite having worked for decades to achieve nuclear-arms capability. North Korea has previously threatened a nuclear strike on the United States and missile attacks on its Pacific bases, including in Guam, a U.S. territory in the Pacific. Those threats followed new U.N. sanctions imposed on the North after it carried out its third nuclear test in February. "Some of the actions they've taken over the last few weeks present a real and clear danger," Hagel told an audience at the National Defense University in Washington. Despite the rhetoric, Pyongyang has not taken any military action and has shown no sign of preparing its 1.2 million-strong armed forces for war, the White House said on Monday. That indicates its threats are partly intended for domestic consumption to bolster young leader Kim Jong-un ahead of celebrations marking the anniversary of the April 15 birthday of Kim Il-sung, the state's founder and the younger Kim's grandfather. Caitlin Hayden, spokeswoman for the White House National Security Council, criticised the latest North Korean statement. "It is yet another offering in a long line of provocative statements that only serve to further isolate North Korea from the rest of the international community and undermine its goal of economic development," Hayden said. HAGEL: TAKE THREATS SERIOUSLY Hagel said he had to take the threats seriously, language he has used in recent weeks as the United States has revamped its missile defence plans and positioned two guided-missile destroyers in the western Pacific. The United States has also flexed its muscles during annual military drills with South Korea, flying two radar-evading stealth bombers on a first-of-its-kind practice bombing run over South Korea. In the latest move, the Pentagon said it was deploying a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system to Guam in the coming weeks. The THAAD system includes a truck-mounted launcher, interceptor missiles and an AN/TPY-2 tracking radar. Last month, Hagel said the Pentagon would add 14 new anti-missile interceptors in Alaska and move ahead with the deployment of a second missile-defence radar in Japan. Yonhap quoted multiple government sources privy to intelligence from U.S. and South Korean authorities as saying North Korea had moved what appeared to be a Musudan missile to its east coast. The missile is believed to have a range of 3,000 km (1,865 miles) or more, which would put all of South Korea and Japan in range and possibly also Guam. North Korea is not believed to have tested the Musudan mid-range missiles, according to most independent experts South Korea's defence ministry declined to comment. The missile was moved to the coast by train. The North has a missile launch site on its northeastern coast, which it has used to unsuccessfully test-fire long-range rockets in the past. The Yonhap report did not say if the missile had been moved to the missile site. The South Korean government said the North would allow 222 South Korean workers to leave the Kaesong industrial zone on Thursday. That would leave another 606 South Koreans in the complex. Seoul has urged its citizens to get out. North Korea has threatened to shut the complex, one of the impoverished North's few sources of ready cash. The industrial park, just inside the border with North Korea, has not formally stopped operations since it was inaugurated in 2000. It houses 123 companies and employs 50,000 North Koreans making cheap goods such as clothing. (Additional reporting by Christine Kim in SEOUL, Ju-min Park in PAJU, David Alexander in WASHINGTON and Vidya Rangananthan in SINGAPORE; Writing by Dean Yates; Editing by Paul Tait)
North Korea again blocks access to industry zone, Southerners remain North Korea tells South firms in Kaesong to pullout by April 10 Copyright © 2013 Reuters | ||
| Desmond Tutu wins $1.7 million Templeton Prize Posted: 03 Apr 2013 09:04 PM PDT LONDON (Reuters) - South African anti-apartheid campaigner Desmond Tutu has won the 2013 Templeton Prize worth $1.7 million (1.1 million pounds) for helping inspire people around the world by promoting forgiveness and justice, organisers said on Thursday.
A leading human rights activist of the late 20th century, the former Anglican archbishop of Cape Town played a pivotal role in the downfall of apartheid and subsequently worked to heal wounds in South Africa's traumatised society. Tutu, 81, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for standing up against white-minority rule. He remains a prominent campaigner for peace and human rights. The Templeton award was announced as his friend and fellow Nobel laureate Nelson Mandela was fighting pneumonia in a third health scare in four months for South Africa's first black president. Established in 1972 by the late American-born investor and philanthropist John Templeton, the annual prize - worth more, in monetary terms, than the Nobel - honours a living person "who has made an exceptional contribution to affirming life's spiritual dimension". "When you are in a crowd and you stand out from the crowd it's usually because you are being carried on the shoulders of others," Tutu was quoted as saying in a statement released by the U.S.-based foundation. "I want to acknowledge all the wonderful people who accepted me as their leader at home and so to accept this prize in a representative capacity." Last year's Templeton Prize went to the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader. Other recent winners include British astrophysicist Martin Rees and Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor. The foundation, whose first award went to Mother Teresa in 1973, praised Tutu as a moral voice for people around the world". "Desmond Tutu calls upon all of us to recognise that each and every human being is unique in all of history and, in doing so, to embrace our own vast potential to be agents for spiritual progress and positive change," it said. "Not only does he teach this idea, he lives it." Born in Klerksdorp, Transvaal in 1931, Tutu was ordained in 1960 just as the government began resettling black Africans and Asians from areas designated as "whites only". His position in the church gave him a prominent platform from which to criticise the system. Angry with his activism, the government revoked his passport, prompting a global outcry. With pressure on South Africa growing, talks between politicians and the African National Congress led to the release in 1990 of Nelson Mandela and the dismantling of apartheid laws. After elections, President Mandela appointed Tutu as chairman of a commission examining the human rights abuses of the apartheid years. After his retirement Tutu continued to work as a global campaigner for democracy and human rights. Copyright © 2013 Reuters | ||
| China promises swift reporting on bird flu outbreak Posted: 03 Apr 2013 08:25 PM PDT BEIJING (Reuters) - China will swiftly communicate to the outside world and its own people details of a new strain of deadly bird flu, the health ministry said, following complaints it had been too slow to report on the outbreak and suspicion of a SARS-like cover-up. A total of nine people in China have been confirmed to have contracted the new bird flu strain, H7N9, all in the east of the country. Three infected people have died.
Chinese internet users and some newspapers have questioned why it took so long for the government to announce the new cases, especially as two of the victims first fell ill in February. The government has said it needed time to correctly identify the virus. In 2003, authorities initially tried to cover up an epidemic of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), which emerged in China and killed about a 10th of the 8,000 people it infected worldwide. In a statement issued late on Wednesday, China's National Health and Family Planning Commission said it was mobilising resources nationwide to fight the outbreak, and would be open and transparent. "Maintain regular communications about the virus and preventative work with agricultural and forestry authorities in a timely manner, and report to the World Health Organisation, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau and the world," it said in a statement on its website (www.moh.gov.cn). "Report on the virus in a timely way to the population and spread scientific knowledge via experts and issuing question and answer (statements)," the ministry added. China has a chequered record when it comes to tackling disease outbreaks, which some officials have previously sought to cover up, fearing attracting unwanted attention from the central government. While the official Xinhua news agency said it was unfair to compare SARS with H7N9, as the new bird flu virus has yet to show signs of human-to-human transmission, it did warn the government's credibility was on the line. "If there is anything that SARS has taught China and its government, it's that one cannot be too careful or too honest when it comes to deadly pandemics. The last 10 years have taught the government a lot, but it is far from enough," it said in a commentary. The World Health Organization said it was "following the event closely" and was in contact with Chinese authorities, which it said were actively investigating the cases amid heightened disease surveillance. Flu experts in laboratories across the world are picking through the DNA sequence data of samples isolated from the patients to assess its pandemic potential. In Hong Kong, authorities said they were stepping up monitoring but assured the public that the live chickens imported from the mainland were safe. "We have a registration system for all farms on the mainland which supply live chickens to Hong Kong," said Secretary for Food and Health Ko Wing-man, according to the South China Morning Post. "If there's any bird flu outbreak at the farm or at any place within 13 kilometres (eight miles) of the farm, we'll stop imports from that particular chicken farm." China has yet to find any animals infected with H7N9. (Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Additional reporting by Clare Baldwin in HONG KONG; Editing by Michael Perry) Copyright © 2013 Reuters |
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