Free Republic

China bans trip sales to Korea 2017/03/02 23:08 SHANGHAI/SEOUL, March 2 (Yonhap) -- China has instructed travel agencies in the country to stop selling trips to South Korea, sources said Thursday, in what is seen as another retaliatory move against Seoul's decision to deploy an advanced U.S. anti-missile defense system. According to industry sources in China, the China National Tourism Administration (CNTA) called travel agencies in Beijing for a meeting on Thursday and gave them verbal instructions to suspend sales of all travel packages, both online and offline, to South Korea. It means that any package tours or free trips...

Korea’s Conservatives Fight Back South Korea’s democracy gets a strong defense against those who would impeach the president and imperil U.S.-Korea relations. By DONALD KIRK Feb. 13, 2017 12:31 p.m. ET As South Korea’s constitutional court weighs whether to ratify the impeachment of Park Geun-hye, her allies are starting to fight back. The conservative leader’s approval rating may have dropped to 4% in November, yet right-wingers are belatedly organizing to defend her against accusations of corruption and, more plausibly, to block the left from walking to victory in the next presidential election. A prime issue is the future of U.S.-South...

(2nd LD) U.S. defense chief in Seoul for talks over North Korea (ATTN: ADDS Mattis' meetings in 4th para, USFK Commander Gen. Vincent Brooks comment in last 2 paras) SEOUL, Feb. 2 (Yonhap) -- U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis on Thursday began his two-day visit to South Korea in his first overseas trip aimed at underscoring the U.S. security commitment to the Asian ally amid growing threats from North Korea. After landing at Osan Air Base in Pyeongtaek, 70 kilometers south of Seoul, at 12:30 p.m., Mattis headed to the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) headquarters in Yongsan, Seoul, according to...

S. Korea to remain firm against China's non-tariff barriers 2017/01/17 SEJONG, Jan. 17 (Yonhap) -- South Korea said Tuesday that it will take a firm stance against China's recent hostile movements against its businesses in apparent retaliation for welcoming a U.S.-owned missile system. "We will continue to object to the Chinese measures," Vice Trade Minister Woo Tae-hee said at a task force meeting to discuss pending trade issues between South Korea and China. His comments came as Beijing is heightening non-tariff barriers against South Korea as the Seoul government decided to deploy the U.S.-led missile system called Terminal High Altitude...

China remains opposed to unilateral sanctions against North Korea taken without the approval of the U.N. Security Council, the country’s chief negotiator on the North’s nuclear program was quoted Saturday as saying. Wu Dawei also told his South Korean counterpart in talks Friday that China is “adamantly opposed” to the South’s deployment of an advanced U.S. missile defense system that China says poses a threat to its own security, China’s foreign ministry said in a statement. […] China demands that South Korea “give weight to China’s concerns” about the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, missile system, which is intended...

Lam Hang-chi Aug 1, 2016 3:25pm Business with Beijing can’t make Seoul feel safe, but THAAD can All the developments following the international tribunal’s ruling in the Hague that disavowed Beijing’s “historical right” to disputed waters and islands in the South China Sea have actually affirmed Beijing’s accusation that Washington is behind all this. As tensions rise in the region, US Vice President Joe Biden has kept himself busy with a high-profile trip to the Asia-Pacific. After a meeting with Japanese and Korean deputy foreign ministers during a brief layover in Hawaii, he visited Australia and New Zealand and delivered...

Myth or Reality? Russian Missiles on Kurils in Response to THAAD in S Korea Military & Intelligence 16:03 09.07.2016(updated 12:48 10.07.2016) Russia may deploy additional missile systems to the Far East, including on the Kuril Islands, in response to the plans of the United States to deploy missile defense complexes in South Korea, Leonid Ivashov, president of the Academy of Geopolitical Problems, told RIA Novosti. The expert commented on recent reports citing a source in the Russian Foreign Minister. In particular, the source said that Russian military planning will take into account Seoul’s decision to deploy US THAAD missile systems...

South Korea, U.S. to deploy THAAD missile defense, drawing China rebuke South Korea and the United States said on Friday they will deploy an advanced missile defense system in South Korea to counter a threat from North Korea, drawing sharp and swift protest from neighboring China. The Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system will be used only as protection against North Korea's growing nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities, the South's Defence Ministry and the U.S. Defence Department said in a joint statement. Beijing said on Friday it lodged complaints with the U.S. and South Korean ambassadors over the...

China FM voices 'serious concern' over possible deployment of U.S. shield in Korea Published : 2016-02-12 16:13 Updated : 2016-02-12 16:15 Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi expressed "serious concern" over a decision by South Korea to begin formal talks with the United States to adopt an advanced U.S. missile defense system, according to China's foreign ministry on Friday. Wang conveyed the concern to South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se during their meeting in Munich on the sidelines of international talks on Syria on Thursday, the Chinese ministry said in a statement. "Minister Wang Yi expresses serious concern," the statement said....

U.S. dismisses Russian concern about THAAD system in S. Korea 2014-07-25 10:44 The United States said Thursday an advanced missile defense battery it plans to deploy to South Korea is not aimed at Russia, after Moscow expressed concern that the system would negatively affect the regional situation and provoke an arms race. The U.S. military plans to bring a Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defense battery into South Korea to help deter threats from North Korea. The U.S. has conducted a site survey for the system, though no decision has been announced as to where to put it. Russia's...

Defense: Beijing tests a mobile missile capable of hitting the continental U.S. and prepares to deploy ballistic missile submarines that can do the same, while our commander-in-chief slashes our missile defenses. In a speech before the Space and Missile Defense Symposium in Huntsville, Rep. Mike Rogers, R.-Ala., chairman of the House armed services subcommittee on strategic forces, warned that the Obama administration has cut $6 billion from U.S. missile defense programs at a time of growing missile threats from potential adversaries. According to Rogers, Obama cut $1.16 billion from missile defense — a 10% reduction — in his first budget...

National Security: The administration moves an advanced missile defense system to Guam because it knows a single low-yield nuke detonated at high altitude could send America back in time a hundred years. The announcement Wednesday by the Defense Department that it would soon deploy the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense System (THAAD), a missile defense system inherited from the Bush administration, to Guam underscores the seriousness of the threat from North Korea, whose actions, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel rightly said, "present a real and clear danger." This move comes after the Obama administration reversed its previous scuttling of Bush administration...

The way the Department of Defense does math, two plus two never equals four. Take this simple equation. Add the growing threat from theater ballistic missiles to the Army’s search for relevance in the post Iraq/Afghanistan world and the answer should come up: expand the Army’s role in missile defense. What does the Pentagon/Army do? They have decided to cut the number of batteries of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system that will be acquired in the near-term by a third, from nine to six batteries. The THAAD is an extremely capable, mobile, land-based system that can perform...

The American island of Guam is getting bomb proof shelters for aircraft, fuel and ammo supplies and vital equipment. Apparently believing that China and North Korea could, and under the right conditions, would, fire ballistic missiles, using conventional (non-nuclear) warheads, the concrete protection is being discreetly constructed on military bases. This hardening also provides protection against typhoons (Pacific hurricanes) and less frequent earthquakes. This is all part of a larger construction effort. This is because the United States is in the process of moving 8,000 marines from Okinawa to Guam, which means new facilities to house these troops and their...

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates says he has ordered the deployment of a new missile defense system and a sophisticated tracking radar to respond to any North Korean missile launch that threatens Hawaii. Meanwhile, America's top military officer says the U.S. Navy is prepared to try to stop North Korean ships suspected of carrying weapons banned by a new United Nations Security Council resolution. Secretary Gates says the United States is watching North Korea's missile launch preparations "very closely" and he has ordered a new high-altitude missile interceptor system deployed to Hawaii, along with a floating radar system to provide...

If you check in regularly with the Drudge Report, you probably remember the mysterious light spiral over Norway last year, and the multitude of explanations offered for it (I think we were finally told that it was a Russian missile experiment gone awry). Now there's a new light spiral in Australia, that isn't getting so much attention - and there aren't any Russian missile tests anywhere near there. So what gives? A quick visit to the website of Share International, a creepy, occultist, messianic New Age group headed by Benjamin Creme, says these light spirals in the sky are a...

National Security: The administration is ready to sign a treaty stripping us of our ability to defend ourselves against enemy nuclear missiles, including Iran's and North Korea's. In space, no one can hear you surrender. On Monday, the ground-based Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, part of the U.S. missile defense shield, successfully shot down a ballistic missile launched from a ship's deck off Kauai, Hawaii. The test simulated an Iranian SCUD launched from the deck of a ship off the U.S. coast, which, if armed with a nuke, could devastate the American heartland. The simulated Scud was launched from...

The Missile Defense Agency and Lockheed Martin conducted a successful flight test of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) Weapon System at the Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kauai, HI. This flight test was THAAD's seventh intercept to date and proved the system's ability to intercept a unitary target in the low endo-atmosphere. There were many THAAD flight test program "firsts" accomplished during FTT-14, including the lowest endo-atmospheric intercept to date; use of fielded THAAD ground segment hardware and software from the THAAD production program; and the first live mission to demonstrate automatic engagement coordination between THAAD and Patriot....

The United Arab Emirates expects to finalize a $7 billion contract to buy Lockheed Martin's high-altitude missile defense system in the next few months, officials of the U.S. defense giant say. The deal would mark the first time that the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system has been sold to a foreign state and underlines Washington's efforts to establish a Persian Gulf-wide shield against Iranian ballistic missiles among U.S. allies in the region. These states, including oil-rich Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, are within easy missile range by Iran, lying as they do across the gulf, and...

The House Armed Services Committee today added $362 million to the Obama administration’s 2011 defense authorization bill for missile defense, including $50 million for further tests of Boeing’s Airborne Laser, a program the Obama administration had sought to wind down. “I am particularly pleased that the Mark increases funding for directed energy research. It was clear that the budget request was not sufficient to support further flight testing using the Airborne Laser Test Bed as well as mature innovative directed energy technologies,” Rep. Michael R. Turner R-Ohio, top Republican on the Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces, said in a...