Important Takeaways:
- North Korea released images of its uranium enrichment facility on Friday, showing leader Kim Jong Un touring the site.
- Kim urged the facility to “push forward the introduction of a new-type centrifuge… so as to further strengthen the foundation for producing weapon-grade nuclear materials”.
- The country, which conducted its first nuclear test in 2006 and is under rafts of UN sanctions for its banned weapons programs, has never publicly disclosed details of its uranium enrichment facility.
- Such facilities produce highly enriched uranium — which is needed to produce nuclear warheads — by spinning the original material in centrifuges at high speeds.
- North Korea’s nuclear weapons programs are banned by UN sanctions, but the country has long flouted the restrictions, thanks in part to support from allies Russia and China.
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Important Takeaways:
- North Korean leader Kim Jong-un oversaw suicide drone tests over the weekend, an emerging vector of arms development for the fortress state, state media reported Monday.
- Drones represent a near-perfect weapons solution for North Korea in its war of nerves against the South, experts say. They are an economical means of destroying expensive manned fighting platforms, have proven ability to penetrate air-defense nets and take advantage of Seoul’s innate geographical vulnerability.
- Given that one of the drones shown resembles Russia’s Lancet, the new Unmanned Aerial Vehicles may be the fruits of a defense agreement the isolated state signed with Russia in June – an agreement that Seoul, Tokyo and Washington have lambasted, but have been unable to impact.
- “It is necessary to develop and produce more suicide drones of various types to be used in tactical infantry and special operation units, as well as strategic reconnaissance and multi-purpose attack drones,” Mr. Kim was quoted as saying during Saturday’s tests by the state-run Korean Central News Agency.
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Important Takeaways:
- A possible impending visit by Russian President Vladimir Putin to North Korea could deepen military ties between the two countries in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions, officials of South Korea and the United States warned on Friday.
- On Wednesday, a senior official at Seoul’s presidential office said Putin was expected to visit North Korea “in the coming days”.
- North Korea and Russia have denied arms deals but vowed to deepen cooperation across the board, including in military relations.
- The U.S. intelligence community assesses, however, that these relationships – including that between Moscow and Pyongyang – will remain “far short” of formal alliances because parochial interests and wariness of each other will most likely limit their cooperation, Haines said.
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Important Takeaways:
- North Korean leader Kim Jong Un led a tactical drill on Monday to simulate a nuclear counterattack, the country’s state media said on Tuesday, a day after neighboring militaries reported the launch of multiple ballistic missiles off the Korean Peninsula’s eastern waters.
- The official Korean Central News Agency said Kim’s regime tested for the first time a nuclear force command and control mechanism known as “Haekbangashoe”—literally “nuclear trigger”—a combined management system it described as Pyongyang’s “greatest nuclear crisis alarm.”
- KCNA blamed sky-high tensions on the peninsula on the “extreme war fever” of the United States and its ally South Korea, which are in the middle of their own combined air drill.
- Images published by KCNA showed four missile launches for what it said were 600-millimeter “super-large multiple rocket units,” which the agency said would “play an important role” in any potential future nuclear counterstrike ordered through the Haekbangashoe system.
- The projectiles accurately hit a ground target at a range of 352 kilometers, roughly 218 miles, the report said.
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Important Takeaways:
- North Korea’s Kim orders military to accelerate war preparations – state media
- Speaking on the policy directions for the new year at a key meeting of the country’s ruling party on Wednesday, Kim also said Pyongyang would expand strategic cooperation with “anti-imperialist independent” countries, news agency KCNA reported.
- North Korea has been expanding ties with Russia, among others, as Washington accuses Pyongyang of supplying military equipment to Moscow for use in its war with Ukraine, while Russia provides technical support to help the North advance its military capabilities.
- “He (Kim) set forth the militant tasks for the People’s Army and the munitions industry, nuclear weapons and civil defense sectors to further accelerate the war preparations,” KCNA said.
- On Thursday, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol visited a frontline military unit in the eastern county of Yeoncheon to inspect its defence posture and called for an immediate retaliation if there was any provocation from North Korea.
- “I urge you to immediately and firmly crush the enemy’s will for a provocation on the spot,” Yoon told troops
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Important Takeaways:
- North Korea’s Dictator Kim Jong-Un Sends a Dire Threat: ‘We Will Nuke America if It Makes Wrong Decision’
- North Korean Communist leader Kim Jong-un announced via state media on Wednesday that firing an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) was essential to “clearly show what action the DPRK [North Korea] has been prepared and what option the DPRK would take when Washington makes a wrong decision against it.”
- Kim’s comments were paraphrased in an article by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), the main propaganda channel of the North Korean government.
- … The missile in question was identified as the “Hwasong-18,” North Korea’s most recent publicly disclosed model. Pyongyang introduced the Hwasong-18 in July, asserting its capability to precisely target any location in the continental United States with a nuclear payload.
- On the very day, North Korea proudly announced Deputy Foreign Minister Pak Myong Ho’s visit to Beijing, the country also fired off an ICBM. According to reports, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi warmly welcomed Pak and pledged ongoing support from the Chinese Communist Party for the neighboring rogue regime.
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Important Takeaways:
- The country’s state newspaper Rodong Sinmun reported that Kim presided over the Central Military Commission meeting personally, ousting his chief of general staff, General Pak Su-il and replacing him with a deputy, Vice Marshal Ri Yong-gil. Pak was purged among several other “leading commanding officers,” which Rodong Sinmun did not name.
- Kim’s command to prepare for war follows a year of rapidly escalating tensions between North and South Korea that began with Kim demanding an “exponential increase” in the number of nuclear weapons North Korea possesses and has led to South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol threatening to “end” Kim’s regime while onboard an American nuclear submarine in July.
- Yoon, a conservative, took office in May and has since prioritized undoing leftist predecessor Moon Jae-in’s concessions to the communist North, including limiting military cooperation with the United States and preventing South Koreans from sending humanitarian aid balloons across the border.
- According to Rodong Sinmun, Kim Jong-un is seeking for his officers to prepare for full-scale war. The Central Military Commission meeting, it claimed, had as its “major agenda item the issues of making full war preparations to neutralize at a blow the enemy attack with overwhelming strategic deterrence and launch simultaneous offensive military actions in contingency.”
- The dictator demanded that the army “more thoroughly gird for a war given the grave political and military situation prevailing in the Korean peninsula.”
- Kim also did not reportedly specifically mention which enemies North Korea should prepare for war against, but images published in Rodong Sinmun showed Kim pointing at a map, apparently highlighting Seoul.
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Important Takeaways:
- Kim pointed at the South Korean capital, Seoul, and its surrounding area on a map at a meeting with generals, in pictures released by state media.
- Kim held a meeting of the central military commission in the country’s capital, Pyongyang, on Wednesday and discussed plans against its enemy, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported. It did not say who the enemy was.
- Pak Su Il was also removed from his post as chief of the general staff after just seven months.
- North Korea has launched several missiles since the start of this year, and last month it launched the Hwasong-18 intercontinental ballistic missile, which officials said could reach the U.S. mainland.
- It also threatened to shoot down American spy planes after what it said were incursions into its airspace.
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Revelations 6:3-4 “when he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” 4 And out came another horse, bright red. Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people should slay one another, and he was given a great sword.
Important Takeaways:
- North Korea reportedly fires 130 artillery rounds, violating inter-Korean agreement
- The latest demonstration of military might from leader Kim Jong-un saw shells land in a buffer zone near the sea border, according to a report.
- In the middle of November, the hermit kingdom fired a ballistic missile that splashed down in waters due east of the Korean Peninsula.
- Even more recent, South Korea was forced to scramble jets without warning after multiple Chinese warplanes (and six Russian) were found entering its air defense identification zone (KADIZ).
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Revelations 6:3-4 “when he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” 4 And out came another horse, bright red. Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people should slay one another, and he was given a great sword.
Important Takeaways:
- Kim Jong Un says North Korea is at ‘full preparedness for actual war’ and boasts ‘tactical nuke’ cruise missiles have been deployed to multiple military units
- North Korea tested two long-range cruise missiles on Wednesday that flew 1,270 miles into the Yellow Sea
- Rockets airborne for three hours, drawing oval and figure eight patterns before hitting targets, North said
- Kim Jong Un oversaw the tests, saying afterwards that it shows nuclear forces are ‘prepared for actual war’
- Kim also attended 75th anniversary celebrations for two of country’s most elite schools and met students
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