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U.S. officials are closely monitoring an ongoing meeting between senior North Korean and Iranian officials that comes on the heels of a nuclear test by Pyongyang, according to senior Trump administration officials and other sources who expressed concern that North Korea is helping to put the Islamic Republic back on the pathway to a functional nuclear weapon. Sources told the Washington Free Beacon that Pyongyang continues to stockpile illicit nuclear material on Iran's behalf in order to help the Islamic Republic skirt restrictions implemented under the landmark nuclear deal. North Korea's latest nuclear test of a hydrogen bomb has roiled...

THE United States has carried out a second test of a bomb, described as the most dangerous nuclear weapon ever produced, as tensions with North Korea escalate. US authorities confirmed the test was successful and the B61-12 gravity bomb is expected to go into production within three years. The B61-12 gravity bombs were 'inert' but they were dropped from F-15E fighter jets at Tonopah Test Range in Nevada on August 8, the National Nuclear Security Administration said. The tests were intended to check the bomb’s “non-nuclear functions and the aircraft’s capability to deliver the weapon.” Despite the weapons' nuclear capability...

South Korea's air force has staged a live-fire drill simulating the destruction of North Korea's leadership, hours after Pyongyang launched a missile over Japan. Just before 6 a.m. South Korea time Tuesday, North Korea fired an unidentified missile from near the capital Pyongyang, towards the northeast. It flew over the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido, making it the first North Korean projectile to successfully pass over Japanese territory since 1998. It subsequently broke up and fell into the Pacific Ocean. Just hours after the launch, South Korea's Presidential Office announced four F-15K jetfighters had dropped eight MK 84 bombs on...

North Korea launched at least one missile (and possibly more) over North Japan, specifically, the island of Hokkaido. Here, in red, is Hokkaido, a very populated island (5+ million) almost directly connected to mainland Japan:This is a belligerent Act of War. To put it in more relatable terms, it is if I pulled a pistol, aimed it in the general direction of your head, and fired -- purposefully missing by twelve inches.There are rumors that FatBody Jong-un is having some internal power struggles, and is purging his capitol city of people.But whatever the situation in Pyongyang, the truth of the...

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said that a “projectile” had been fired into the sea between the Korean Peninsula and Japan on Saturday morning. It was not immediately clear what kind of missile it was. The launch comes during joint exercises between the U.S. and South Korean militaries, exercises that North Korea always strongly protests, considering them preparation for an invasion. This is a developing story. It will be updated.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said on Monday that the United States would know the trajectory of a missile fired by North Korea within moments and would "take it out" if the missile looked like hitting the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam. U.S. officials and South Korea's president in recent days have played down the risk of an imminent conflict after Washington and Pyongyang exchanged fiery rhetoric last week. But Mattis told reporters that war could break out if North Korea were to fire a missile at the United States. "If they fire at the United States, it...

Bill Clinton, GW Bush, and Obama have one thing in common -- they had a chance to take out North Korea's nuclear threat with minimal risk to the US. Politically speaking, I believe it is really that simple. No matter how Trump handles this, he is trying to solve a crisis that NEVER should have arisen. There was no ounce of prevention, but the future cure could be unspeakable not only in terms of human lives, but also the worst environmental disaster in human history.

Therefore, it was critical for North Korea to appear irrational. Only apparent irrationality, meticulously managed, could convince the Americans, the South Koreans, the Japanese, the Russians, and the Chinese that North Korea was utterly dangerous. But the regime's apparent irrationality had to be calibrated in such a way that North Korea's dangerousness was never so credible or imminent that someone would preemptively attack it.

On the surface, the conflict between the US and North Korea looks simply like the world’s superpower trying to quell the dangerous power of a dictatorial madman. However, after examining the details of this conflict more closely, a much more complex and dangerous situation is revealed. The origins of this conflict began during the time of World War II. Up until the end of the great war, Korea was ruled by Imperial Japan. After the US and Soviet Union defeated Japan, they came to an agreement to where they would both share the land for military purposes. The Soviet and...

The Pentagon said Wednesday that the ICBM fired by North Korea was a first-of-its-kind missile that the U.S. had not seen before and represented a dangerous escalation of the threat posed by the regime of Kim Jong Un. "This act demonstrates that North Korea poses a threat to the United States and our allies, and we remain prepared to defend ourselves and our allies and to use the full range of our capabilities at our disposal against the growing threat from North Korea," said Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman.

For those who cannot see the multi-dimensional strategy here, an approach assembled for years in the aggregate and fine-tuned in the last several weeks, President Trump is reinforcing our prior analysis of his strategy: A day before he meets face-to-face with Xi Jinping, President Trump is highlighting the enabler to North Korea. President Trump is smartly setting up a spotlight for the entire world to see who is creating the problem, China. President Trump will never start a military war because it’s antithetical to his entire constitution. However, within the field of economic combat – watch out. Not only will...

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Tuesday confirmed and condemned North Korea's test launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile and called for "global action" to cut off the rogue regime. The United States will take the issue to the U.N. Security Council and press for stronger sanctions to hold North Korea accountable, Tillerson said in a written statement.

Russia and China joined diplomatic forces on Tuesday and called on North Korea, South Korea and the United States to sign up to a Chinese de-escalation plan designed to defuse tensions around Pyongyang's missile program. The plan would see North Korea suspend its ballistic missile program and the United States and South Korea simultaneously call a moratorium on large-scale missile exercises, both moves aimed at paving the way for multilateral talks.

Full Title..........................Coroner grants request from Otto Warmbier's family NOT to perform autopsy on the student who died after being held captive in North Korea for 17 month - as US government calls for three more Americans to be freed.........................An autopsy will not be performed on Otto Warmbier's body, after a coroner granted his family's request not to do so. The Hamilton County Coroner's Office released a statement Tuesday after conferring with doctors at the Cincinnati hospital where the 22-year-old student died just days after he was returned from North Korea. Warmbier had been held captive in the country for 17...

Washington (CNN)For months, President Donald Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and top aides have staked any progress dealing with North Korea's burgeoning nuclear program on China's involvement. On Tuesday, Trump upended much of that works in 140 characters, tweeting that Chinese efforts have "not worked out." While I greatly appreciate the efforts of President Xi & China to help with North Korea, it has not worked out. At least I know China tried! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 20, 2017 "While I greatly appreciate the efforts of President Xi & China to help with North Korea, it has not...

Former President Barack Obama has issued a statement about ( Otto Warmbier), American college student who died this week, days after being released from (North Korea) in a coma after more than a year in captivity. “During the course of the Obama Administration, we had no higher priority than securing the release of Americans detained overseas,” Obama spokesman Ned Price said in the statement. “Their tireless efforts resulted in the release of at least 10 Americans from North Korean custody during the course of the Obama administration.”

BEIJING — The organizers of a trip to North Korea by an American college student who died after being released from prison in a coma say they will no longer take U.S. citizens to the country. Young Pioneer Tours said Tuesday on its Facebook page that the death of 22-year-old Otto Warmbier shows that the risk American tourists face in visiting North Korea "has become too high

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Preparing for North Korea's growing threat, the Pentagon will try to shoot down an intercontinental-range missile for the first time in a test next week. The goal is to more closely simulate a North Korean ICBM aimed at the U.S. homeland, officials said Friday The American interceptor has a spotty track record, succeeding in nine of 17 attempts since 1999. The most recent test, in June 2014, was a success, but that followed three straight failures. The system has evolved from the multibillion-dollar effort triggered by President Ronald Reagan's 1983 push for a "Star Wars" solution to...

North Korea's state media published a rare criticism of China on Wednesday, saying Chinese state media commentaries calling for tougher sanctions over Pyongyang's nuclear program were undermining relations with Beijing and worsening tensions. A commentary carried by the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) referred to recent commentaries in China's People's Daily and Global Times newspapers, which it said were "widely known as media speaking for the official stand of the Chinese party and government." "A string of absurd and reckless remarks are now heard from China every day only to render the present bad situation tenser," it said. "China...

North Korea 'fired missile at Russia before blowing it up mid-flight' North Korea intentionally blew up its own missile during a test fire on the weekend over fears it had accidentally been fired towards Russia, South Korean media reports. The Seoul Economy Daily said the rocket made it 48 kilometres from the launch site before North Korea decided to abort. “If the ballistic missile that flew to the northeastern region had not failed, it would have been heading to a harbour point or a Russian territory,” the paper said. “It is for this reason that North Korea intentionally destroyed the...