Via TheAntiMedia.org,
The U.S. and South Korea announced Friday they will conduct a massive air force exercise over the Korean Peninsula next month as a notable show of force targeting North Korea - despite warnings that the Trump administration’s decision earlier this week to add North Korea to the United States’ list of state sponsors of terrorism could further provoke the isolated country.
A day after China’s state-run airline closed its last remaining routes to North Korea – a decision the airline’s executives blamed on a sharp decline in business travelers due to restrictive UN Security Council sanctions – Communist Party spokespeople slammed new US sanctions targeting Chinese traders doing business with North Korean businessmen, calling them “wrong” while reminding the US that China has vigorously enforced the UN sanctions.
Following comments by the White House last week that the administration would soon bring more pressure on North Korea, President Donald Trump has confirmed as much to a crowd of reporters, adding that, as of today, that North Korea would once again be designated a terror sponsor.
Trump cited the killing of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un's estranged half brother in a Malaysian airport earlier this year, as well as the North’s horrific treatment of Ohio college student Otto Warmbier, as justifications for the sanctions.
More than two months have passed since North Korea held one of its missile tests - the longest period of tranquility this year, although it may be ending soon: South Korea’s National Intelligence Service warned on Monday that it has detected suspicious activity at the North’s missile research facility – the latest sign that another test may occur by the end of the year. South Korean intelligence has on more than one occasion captured spy satellite images of the North Korean military transporting equipment from the North’s missile facility near Pyongyang.
According to the latest analysis of satellite imagery taken at North Korea's Sinpo South Shipyard on November 5 conducted by the 38 North website, Pyongyang is pursuing an “aggressive schedule” to build its first operational ballistic missile submarine.