North Korea

Authored by Adam Garrie via TheDuran.com,

While a full scale oil embargo against North Korea is unlikely, the reality is that North Korea would be able to survive such a measure with comparative ease.

The United States has recently suggested a global oil embargo against North Korea, something both China and Russia oppose. The DPRK’s neighbours to the north support UN sanctions against Pyongyang, but have firmly opposed unilateral US sanctions against North Korea.

All day Saturday, South Korea braced for a possible new missile test by North Korea as the provocative northern neighbor marked its founding anniversary, just days after its sixth and largest nuclear test rattled global financial markets and further escalated tensions in the region. Throughout the week, South Korean officials warned the North could launch another intercontinental ballistic missile, in defiance of U.N. sanctions and to further provoke the US. As Reuters reports, Pyongyang marks its founding anniversary each year with a big display of pageantry and military hardware.

Authored by Doug Bandow via The National Interest,

North Korea staged its sixth nuclear test. It was probably a boosted atomic rather than hydrogen bomb, as claimed by Pyongyang, and there’s no evidence that the weapon has been miniaturized to fit on a missile. But the test was the North’s most powerful yet. And it follows steady North Korean progress in missile development.

With North Korea expected to launch another ballistic missile as soon as September 9, a local holiday, a statement carried on North Korea’s state-run KCNA news service warned that Washington's UN Ambassador Nikki Haley’s remarks that Pyongyang was “begging for war” would not be left unanswered and that the US will “pay dearly” for this provocation..

On Friday, a news broadcast from the official state-run Korean Central News Agency described Haley as a “political prostitute” whose “hysteric fit” would have dire consequences for the United States.

European stocks dropped, Asian and EM market rose, and S&P were lower by 0.3% as investors assessed the latest overnight carnage in the USD which plunged to the lowest level since the start of 2015, sending the USDJPY tumbling to 107, the euro extending gains to just shy of $1.21 and a slowdown in China’s export growth which however did not prevent the Yuan from posting its best weekly gain on record.