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☆ North Korea says its latest satellite launch exploded in flight
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-27 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

North Korean technicians check the Unha-3 rocket at the Sohae Satellite Launch Station in Tongchang-Ri on April 8, 2012. North Korea said its attempt to launch a new military reconnaissance satellite ended in failure on Monday when a newly developed rocket engine exploded in flight. North Korea fired the projectile on a southern path off its west coast at around 10:44 p.m. (1344 GMT), the South's Joint Chiefs of Staff said. The launch appeared to originate from Dongchang-ri, a northwestern area of the country where North Korea's main space flight centre is based, JCS said. Japan said over its J-Alert broadcasting system that North Korea appeared to have fired a missile, sending out the warning to residents in southern prefecture of Okinawa.

Persons: Yoshimasa Hayashi, Hayashi Organizations: North Korea's National Aerospace Technology Administration, South's, Chiefs, Staff, North, NHK Locations: Tongchang, North Korea, Pyongyang, North, South Korea, Japan, China, Dongchang, Korean, Korea, Okinawa

☆ North Korea fires two missiles after U.S. submarine arrives in S.Korea
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-18 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

The U.S. military said it was aware of the missile launches and was consulting closely with its allies and partners. The firing comes nearly a week after North Korea tested its latest Hwasong-18 intercontinental ballistic missile, a launch Pyongyang said was a warning to the United States and other adversaries. Also on Tuesday, a U.S. soldier facing disciplinary action fled across the inter-Korean border into North Korea. The soldier is believed to be in North Korean custody, Washington said, creating a fresh crisis between the two foes. North Korea "undoubtedly opposes" a new U.S.-South Korea nuclear war planning group that met for the first time on Tuesday, as well as the visit of the U.S. nuclear ballistic missile submarine, he said.

Persons: Yasukazu Hamada, Washington, Leif, Eric Easley, Rami Ayyub, Kiyoshi Takenaka, Nobuhiro Kubo, Josh Smith, Doina Chiacu, Eric Beech, Sandra Maler, Sonali Paul Organizations: Japanese Defence Ministry, Korea's, Chiefs of Staff, Pacific Command, Japanese Defence, Japan, North, Ewha University, U.S, Thomson Locations: TOKYO, North Korea, Japan's, South, Korean, U.S, United States, Pyongyang, North, American, Seoul . North Korea, Korea, Washington, Tokyo, Seoul

☆ China aircraft monitored US, France, Canada, Japan navy drill - media
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-12 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

BEIJING, June 12 (Reuters) - China deployed a reconnaissance aircraft over Pacific waters east of Taiwan last week that Chinese media said monitored and gathered intelligence on an exercise involving the navies of the United States, Japan, France and Canada. The islands separate the East China Sea from the Philippine Sea, and dot the West Pacific between Japan and Taiwan, which China claims as its territory. The Japanese defence ministry reported a sighting of a Y-9 reconnaissance variant in the Pacific on Thursday. A spokesperson for the Japanese ministry said on Monday it was analysing a piece of equipment attached to the undercarriage of the Y-9 variant that had not been seen before. Days before the quadrilateral exercise, the coast guards of the Philippines, United States and Japan held their first trilateral exercise off the coast of a western Philippine province.

Persons: USS Nimitz, Ronald Reagan, Albee Zhang, Ryan Woo, Tim Kelly, Gerry Doyle, Robeert Organizations: Global Times, U.S, USS, U.S ., U.S . 7th Fleet, Military, South China, Thomson Locations: BEIJING, China, Taiwan, United States, Japan, France, Canada, Ryukyu, Philippine, Beijing, East, Pacific, U.S, South, Philippines, Tokyo

[1/2] Ukrainian artillery fires towards the frontline during heavy fighting amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, near Bakhmut, Ukraine, April 13, 2023. Following Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's visit to Japan during the Hiroshima G7 leaders summit last month, Kishida agreed to donate jeeps and trucks. Japan is one of dozens of friends and allies that Washington is asking to help arm Ukraine as it wrestles with stretched military supply chains. Reuters contacted 22 explosives makers listed on the Japan Explosives Industry Association's website. The only one that said it made industrial TNT was Chugoku Kayaku, an Hiroshima-based firm that supplies Japan's military.

Persons: Kai Pfaffenbach, Lloyd Austin, Washington, Fumio Kishida, Volodymyr Zelenskiy's, Kishida, Tsuneo Watanabe, Austin, Akihisa Nagashima, Tim Kelly, Nobuhiro Kubo, Yukiko Toyoda, Kaori Kaneko, Idrees Ali, David Crawshaw Organizations: REUTERS, TNT, Russian, Reuters, Panasonic, Defense, U.S, Japan's Ministry of Trade, Industry, Technology, Logistics Agency, U.S . State Department, Ukraine, TNT Washington, Japan Explosives Industry, Liberal Democratic Party, Thomson Locations: Ukraine, Bakhmut, TOKYO, United States, Japan, Washington, U.S, Tokyo, China, Taiwan, East Asia, Kyiv, Hiroshima, Sasakawa, South Korea, Chugoku, Japan's, Russia, Seoul

Landing of aircraft at night and in bad weather, for instance - crucial to regular offshore carrier operations - remain far from routine, several of the attaches and analysts said. "Carrier operations are a very complicated game, and China's got to figure this out all by itself. A new plane, the KJ-600, designed to perform a similar role to the E-2C/D Hawkeye launched from U.S. carriers, is still in testing, according to the Pentagon's latest annual report on China's military. Several countries operate aircraft carriers but the U.S. remains the most dominant, running 11 carrier battlegroups with global reach. A September editorial published in a magazine run by a PLA weapons manufacturer, titled "Four great advantages the PLA has in attacking Taiwan", did not mention the role of Chinese carriers.

Kyiv and the West accuse Russian forces of committing war crimes in occupied Ukrainian territory, which Moscow denies. Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Luhansk and Donetsk are the four regions that Putin proclaimed annexed last September following what Ukraine said were sham referendums. Russian forces only partly control the four regions. HEAVY ARTILLERYFighting has raged in and around Bakhmut in Donetsk region for months, with Ukrainian forces holding out despite regular claims by Russia to have taken the city. "Any use of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons by Russia would be met with severe consequences," they said.

☆ Factbox: What's on the table for the Kishida-Yoon summit?
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-15 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

[1/2] South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol speaks at an interview with Reuters in Seoul, South Korea, November 28, 2022. Kishida is considering visiting South Korea as early as this summer, Kyodo has reported. G7 INVITATIONKishida may extend an invitation to Yoon to attend the G7 summit set to take place in Hiroshima in May, several media reported. EXPORT CURBSThe two leaders could confirm their countries' intention to resolve Japan's high-tech material export curbs against South Korea. Japan tightened restrictions on the export of high-tech semiconductor materials to South Korea in 2019 as a row over how to compensate wartime labourers flared.

The summit is the same week as major South Korea-U.S. military drills that routinely anger Pyongyang, and North Korea has already staged multiple missile launches - a backdrop for the message that Japan, South Korea and the United States need to close ranks. In November South Korea and Japan agreed to exchange real-time intelligence on North Korea's missile launches, which experts say will help both countries better track potential threats. "South Korea is already taking a side and entering the Cold War," said Kim Joon-hyung, a former chancellor of the Korean National Diplomatic Academy. Yoon said high-tech cooperation on supply chains between Japan and South Korea would contribute significantly to economic security. 'SHARED INTERESTS'Washington had pressed for reconciliation, but a State Department spokesperson said the recent arrangements were the result of bilateral discussions between Japan and South Korea.

"As the United States deepens its relationship with the Philippines, it's important for regional security that Japan join in," a Japanese defence ministry source with knowledge of internal discussions on national security told Reuters. At a press briefing last week, Neil Imperial, the Philippines Assistant Secretary for Asian and Pacific Affairs, said Marcos wanted to "facilitate closer defence, security, political, economic and people-to-people ties" while in Japan. That sentiment is shared in Tokyo, which has been deepening security ties with nations that view China with concern. Those deals provide a framework for how Marcos and Kishida could also forge deeper military ties to counter their common adversary, say experts. "The Philippines is a critical security partner for Japan," said Narushige Michishita, a professor at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS) in Tokyo.

Kishida, who will host a summit of the Group of Seven (G7) industrial powers in May, will meet leaders of the United States, Britain, France, Italy and Canada this week. "As leader of the G7 chair this year, I'll be making this visit to reaffirm our thinking on a number of issues," Kishida told a Sunday news programme. "With the United States, we'll discuss deepening our bilateral alliance and how to maintain a free and open Indo-Pacific." On semiconductors, Japan and the United States are deepening cooperation on advanced chip development amid growing trade tension with China. "Holding a successful G7 summit would bring him maximum political points - and this trip is preparation for that," said Airo Hino, a political science professor at Waseda University.

TOKYO/LONDON, Dec 9 (Reuters) - Japan, Britain and Italy are merging their next-generation jet fighter projects in a bridge between Europe and Asia that marks Japan's first major industrial defence collaboration beyond the United States since World War Two. Britain also wants Japan to improve how it provides security clearances to contractors, sources with knowledge of the discussions told Reuters. The two new platforms would compete head-on with each other and the United States in the global fighter market. "There is going to be a Battle Royal in the next 10-15 years in positioning the various players," said UK defence analyst Francis Tusa. The United States, which has pledged to defend all three countries through NATO and a separate security pact with Japan, welcomed the new Europe-Japan agreement.

By pointing to 2027 as the moment when East Asia's power balance may tip in China's favour, Japan's government can rally support for greater defence spending, he added. At a congressional hearing last year, U.S. Indo-Pacific commander Admiral Philip Davidson said that China's threat against Taiwan could "manifest" that year. Japanese defence ministry officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In July, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida won national upper house elections with a pledge to "substantially" increase defence spending. The splurge of defence spending should also benefit U.S. suppliers such as Lockheed, Boeing Co (BA.N) and Northrop Grumman Corp (NOC.N).

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