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☆ North Korea launches 23 missiles as Kim Jong Un climbs the 'escalation ladder'
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-02 | by ( Stella Kim | Jennifer Jett | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +7 min

North Korea's provocations on Wednesday, while highly symbolic, are "more for show than for military escalation," he told NBC News. Hours before firing its first missiles, North Korea threatened the United States and South Korea over joint military exercises continuing this week that the North considers a rehearsal for invasion. Yoon's office said the timing of the North Korean launches "clearly showed the nature of the North Korean government." Over the course of the day, North Korea fired at least 23 ballistic missiles toward the sea. But Russia and China are also wary of North Korea and its unpredictability, Foster-Carter said.

SEOUL, South Korea — The South Korean government will conduct a thorough investigation into the Halloween crowd crush that killed more than 150 people in the capital over the weekend, officials said Monday, as the country mourned its worst disaster in years. Tens of thousands of people had gathered on Saturday in Itaewon, a nightlife district of Seoul that is popular with foreigners, when a crowd surge began in a sloped and narrow alleyway, setting off a deadly panic. South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol pays tribute in front of City Hall in Seoul on Monday. The crowd surge is the country’s deadliest peacetime accident since the 2014 sinking of the Sewol ferry. Stella Kim and Thomas Maresca reported from Seoul, and Jennifer Jett reported from Hong Kong.

HONG KONG — Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s first two terms in power were marked by intensifying competition and tensions with the United States. The United States does not seek conflict with China, Biden told a meeting of his top military advisers Wednesday. “China stands ready to work with the United States to find the right way to get along with each other in the new era,” he said. But China under Xi has a “superficial stability,” Johnson said. Hulton Deutsch / Corbis via Getty ImagesAt 69, Xi has appointed no obvious successor, indicating he may plan to stay in power indefinitely.

HONG KONG — A Hong Kong court found media tycoon Jimmy Lai guilty of fraud on Tuesday, the latest in a myriad of cases against Lai and other pro-democracy activists that critics say officials are using to stamp out dissent in the Chinese territory. Lai, 74, the founder of defunct pro-democracy tabloid Apple Daily, is among the most prominent activists to be prosecuted in the wake of anti-government protests that swept Hong Kong for months in 2019. Lai and co-defendant Wong Wai-keung, a former senior executive at Next Digital who was also convicted, both pleaded not guilty. Critics of the national security law say it has greatly eroded civil liberties in Hong Kong, the preservation of which had been promised for 50 years when the former British colony was returned to Chinese rule in 1997. An annual survey by the Committee to Protect Journalists found that the number of Hong Kong journalists it considers unjustly imprisoned for their work rose from zero to eight in 2021.

HONG KONG — Xi Jinping secured a historic third term as leader of China on Sunday, cementing his status as the country’s most powerful figure in decades and extending his authoritarian rule over the world’s second-largest economy. The Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping introduced the limit in 1982 to prevent a return to a Mao-style cult of personality. The Chinese leader reiterated the goal of peaceful “reunification,” without renouncing the possible use of force. “Xi still promises no specific timeline on unification.”But the Chinese leader did put greater emphasis on warning “external forces” to stay out of the Taiwan issue. A telecast of Chinese President Xi Jinping plays on a screen in Hong Kong on Monday.

HONG KONG — Chinese President Xi Jinping is set to obtain a historic third term in power as the twice-a-decade congress of his ruling Chinese Communist Party wraps up this weekend. Since Xi took power in 2012, the country's GDP has more than doubled, from $8.53 trillion to $17.73 trillion. Much of that growth was based on manufacturing, turning China into the world’s second-largest economy after the United States since 2010. The government attributes 100 million of them to Xi, who made poverty alleviation one of his signature initiatives. Last February, he proclaimed that he had eliminated extreme poverty altogether, though experts have questioned how China defines it.

But the theme of the event is continuity — of President Xi Jinping as leader, and with that the likelihood of friction with the U.S.-led West. Xi, China’s most powerful leader in decades, is poised to secure an unprecedented third term at this week’s twice-a-decade National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in Beijing. “Those achievements have certainly strengthened the president’s leadership.”Under Xi, China’s gross domestic product has more than doubled to $17.7 trillion. Born in Beijing in 1953, Xi enjoyed a privileged youth as the second son of Xi Zhongxun, a Chinese communist revolutionary. “The long-term goals of President Xi, as well as general attitudes in the West, will make it very difficult for us to have more cooperation during his third term,” she said.

HONG KONG — At least 27 people were killed when a bus in southwest China crashed while transporting them to a Covid-19 quarantine facility, local authorities said, drawing outrage from a public growing weary with the country’s strict “zero-Covid” policies. Three officials in Yunyan District, where the bus originated, have also been suspended pending an investigation. Epidemic prevention personnel disinfect an area in Guiyang, China, on Thursday. Future Publishing via Getty Images file“Actually, 1.4 billion people are all on this same bus, the bus of Covid prevention and control,” one comment read, referring to China’s total population. It was unclear whether those on the bus had Covid-19, or were there because cases had been detected among their close contacts or neighbors.

U.S. forces would defend Taiwan if China invaded, President Joe Biden said Sunday, his clearest statement yet on the issue and one that is likely to infuriate Beijing. In a “60 Minutes” interview broadcast on CBS, Biden was asked whether the U.S. would defend Taiwan against an attack from Beijing, which claims the self-ruling island democracy as its territory. It is at least the fourth time since last year that Biden has made comments that appear to alter longtime U.S. policy on Taiwan. “The president has said this before, including in Tokyo earlier this year,” the spokesperson said, referring to comments Biden made in May. “He also made clear then that our Taiwan policy hasn’t changed.

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