US deploys more Patriot missiles in South Korea

North Korea responded by deporting South Korean citizens, seizing assets and vowing to militarise the park.

North Korea launched a rocket on Sunday carrying what it said was an Earth observation satellite into space. Five abductees and their families later returned to Japan but Tokyo wants to know the fate of the remaining eight, who Pyongyang has said are dead, and others that Japan believes were also kidnapped.

The legislation also authorizes $50 million to transmit radio broadcasts into North Korea, purchase communications equipment and support humanitarian assistance programs.

The one thing that might work – without dire consequences ranging up to possible nuclear war – would be for North Korea to see engagement and economic development as the only road to long-term survival and give up the game of brinksmanship that seems to have outlived its usefulness.

“Every single day we are watching that DMZ”, he said, referring to the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea.

Transactions with China accounted for more than 74 percent of North Korea’s trade in 2014, and more than 90 percent when excluding trade related to the Kaesong park, according to Statistics Korea, Seoul’s official statistics agency, which analyzed the central bank data and information from trade organizations.

North Korea’s successful satellite launch on February 7, following a test of a hydrogen-type nuclear weapon in January, has provided Obama with the excuse to massively build up strategic forces in South Korea and in the region, expanding its military “ring around China”, the so-called pivot to Asia.

South Korea and the USA have said that if a THAAD were deployed to South Korea, it would be focused exclusively on the North. But Chinese experts contend that the system has a radar that could penetrate deep into China and threaten its own missile deterrence system.

Ranking Democratic member Eliot Engel said several different US administrations, both Republican and Democratic, had tried in vain to curb North Korea’s nuclear ambitions.

In response to the launch Seoul is set to begin talks with Washington as early as next week on deploying an advanced US missile defense system.

More than 120 South Korean companies employed about 54,000 North Koreans at Kaesong, paying each about $150 a month to manufacture products such as clothing, wristwatches, cosmetics and electronics components.

North Korea’s “irresponsible and provocative” behavior also puts strain on its relationship with economic partners.

“First the Korean Pensinsula can not be nuclearised”. A number of lawmakers expressed concern that the global community is not moving fast enough to counter Pyongyang’s risky nuclear program, which has the potential to threaten the United States and its allies.

The document presented in US Congress stated that North Korea’s KN-08 ballistic missile “likely would be capable” of striking the continental United States if it were successfully designed and developed.