The U.S. is communicating with North Korea about its nuclear program and testing Pyongyang’s appetite for negotiations, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in the first public acknowledgment by a senior administration official of direct contact on the matter. As Bloomberg reports,Tillerson, speaking to reporters on Saturday after meeting Chinese officials in Beijing, insisted that the U.S. would never accept a nuclear-armed North Korea.
Submitted by Elijah Magnier, Middle East based chief international war correspondent for Al Rai Media
High-ranking sources in Kurdistan (Erbil) said that the Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani “expected the sanctions already announced by Baghdad and expects many more sanctions to come in the future”. Nevertheless, “the referendum was an essential step to undertake,” otherwise Barzani would no longer be considered the Kurdish leader.
Even as Europe's political establishment professes its liberal ideals by accepting - or in the case of the ongoing spat between Brussels and Central Europe, forcing others to accept - as many refugees as humanitarian virtue signalling will require, the true face of Europe is gradually emerging behind the scenes, and according to The Local.de, starting today armed soldiers from the Danish Armed Forces (Forsvaret) will replace police officers at both Denmark’s southern border to Germany and at potential terror targets in Copenhagen.
A scientist tasked with monitoring the proliferation of nuclear weapons has published what he described as a “rough simulation” of what would happen if North Korea follows through with threats to test a hydrogen bomb over the Pacific Ocean.
The upshot of the simulation – which was published by Lassina Zerbo, the head of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization - is that such an “atmospheric burst” could spread a “radio-isotope cloud” of radiation across the planet, potentially leading to the catastrophic loss of life.
Submitted by South Front