News Report: Latest US Sanctions on North Korea Will Result in Full Trade Embargo

Eunjung Cho, Jenny Lee

WASHINGTON — The latest executive order signed by President Donald Trump would, in effect, amount to a full trade and financial embargo, squeezing all the revenue channels North Korea maintains to finance its weapons programs, a former senior counterterrorism official said.

On Sept. 21, less than two weeks after the U.N. Security Council approved new sanctions, Trump turned up the heat on the Kim Jong Un regime with an executive order that widens U.S. authority to sanction any bank and company that finance or facilitate trade with the communist country or any individual involved in the North Korean industries, ports and trade.

“To prevent sanctions evasion, the order also includes measures designed to disrupt critical North Korean shipping and trade networks,” said Trump, in reference to a 180-day ban on ships that have visited North Korea or have been involved in a ship-to-ship transfer with a vessel that has visited North Korea from entering the United States. “For much too long, North Korea has been allowed to abuse the international financial system to facilitate funding for its nuclear weapons and missile programs.”

News Story: Trump budget proposal kills Obama's counterterrorism partnerships fund

By: Joe Gould

WASHINGTON — President Trump’s budget announced Tuesday proposes an end to President Obama’s signature counterterrorism training program, long criticized on Capitol Hill as too broad to be effective. 

The White House proposal would zero out the Counterterrorism Partnerships Fund, from $1.8 billion in fiscal 2017. CTPF, billed as a means to provide security assistance to moderate allies fighting extremists in Africa and the Mideast, endured successive cuts in Congress and criticism Obama was too light on strategy and specifics for Congress's liking. 

The Trump administration does propose $1.8 billion for a Counter-Islamic State of Iraq and Syria Train and Equip Fund — a continuation of three accounts consolidated in the 2017 budget Congress passed earlier this month. That fund is meant to support Iraqi government forces as they retake Mosul, Iraq, and vetted Syrian forces as they retake Raqqa, Syria, from the Islamic State group. The proposed funding is under the off-budget overseas contingency operations (OCO) account.

Obama, in 2014, announced the CTPF in a speech at U.S. Military Academy at West Point commencement, as a means to “more effectively partner with countries where terrorist networks seek a foothold.” He envisioned a fund of up to $5 billion, to “allow us to train, build capacity, and facilitate partner countries on the front lines” of Yemen, Somalia, Libya, Mali and beyond, he said.

Read the full story at DefenseNews

News Story: Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu lose voting rights in UN general assembly

SYDNEY, Feb. 24 (Xinhua) -- Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu have lost their right to vote in the United Nation's General Assembly for failing to make compulsory payments to the organization, it has been revealed on Friday.

Papua New Guinea owes the United Nations 139,000 U.S. dollars, while Vanuatu's bill stands at 19,000 U.S. dollars.

Papua New Guinea Prime Minister Peter O'Neill told local media the money was in a trust account and "someone in the Department of Foreign Affairs needs to explain why they did not pay."

Read the full story at Xinhua

News Story: Russia's Middle East power play

By: Matthew Bodner

Moscow — A week after concluding its combat mission in Syria, Russia’s flagship Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier had one final mission in the Mediterranean. It was, perhaps, a mission for which the ship was most capable: impressing Third-World strongmen.  

On Jan. 11, Russian news agencies reported that East Libyan general Khalifa Haftar was flown aboard the Kuznetsov for a personal tour from the ship’s captain and a video conference with Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu. The publicized comments were vague and predictable.  

“They discussed pressing issues in the fight against international terrorist groups in the Middle East,” the Defense Ministry was quoted by the RIA Novosti news agency as saying. It was the latest evidence that Moscow is courting Haftar as part of a broader effort across the region.  

In November, Haftar visited Moscow to meet with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Details of that meeting, too,  were scant. But Haftar reportedly asked the Kremlin to assist him in fighting Islamic terrorists in Libya.   

Read the full story at DefenseNews

News Report: Sanctions Reinforce North Korea Siege Mentality

Brian Padden

SEOUL — North Korea’s recent responses to international sanctions and criticisms offer a key insight into how the isolated leadership in Pyongyang views itself as a nation under siege.

Following the latest round of United Nations Security Council sanctions imposed on North Korea for conducting its fifth nuclear test in September, Ja Song Nam, the U.N. Ambassador from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), defended his country’s efforts to strengthen its nuclear deterrence against the “ceaseless hostile moves” by the United States.

In a letter to the Security Council Ja said the U.S. is intent on the “political suffocation and system collapse” of the Kim Jong Un government, and alleged that following the 2012 death of North Korea leader Kim Jong Il, the U.S. “began to openly pursue the objective” of overthrowing the government in Pyongyang.

Also attached was a North Korean Foreign Ministry memorandum detailing an extensive list of alleged military provocations made by the U.S. including:

• Increasing the number of U.S. troops participating in joint military exercises with South Korea from 3,500 in 2013 to 27,000 in 2016.

• Deploying nuclear powered aircraft carriers and submarines as well as nuclear strategic bombers into the region.

• Practicing preemptive strike exercises to simulate taking control of the North’s nuclear facilities.

• Deployment of the U.S. THAAD missile defense shield in South Korea.

The U.S and its allies do not deny those actions, but argue they are taking stronger conventional military measures to counter the increasing North Korean nuclear threat that this year included two nuclear tests and numerous launches of ballistic missiles.

News Story: 2016, the year the IS 'caliphate' buckled

By Jean Marc Mojon with Tony Gamal-Gabriel in Beirut

Multiple ground assaults and a deluge of air strikes shrank the Islamic State group's "caliphate" to a rump and decimated its fighters in 2016 but the organisation remains a potent threat.

The jihadists have squandered close to half of the land they controlled in 2014 and many of their losses came this year, which saw major operations by myriad forces and countries.

The loss of symbolic bastions such as Fallujah in Iraq or Dabiq in Syria dented IS's aura, revealing it could not defend places it once vowed were impregnable and central to its own mythology.

The jihadists were driven out of Ramadi, the capital of Iraq's vast western province of Anbar, as well as Manbij in Syria -- strategic areas crucial to the caliphate's territorial continuity.

Earlier this month, they also lost Sirte, their last major bastion in Libya, a country the jihadists had hoped could drive the expansion of the caliphate.

In October, tens of thousands of Iraqi forces backed by air strikes from a US-led coalition launched a massive operation to retake Mosul, the city where IS supremo Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi proclaimed his "state" in June 2014.

The going has been tough for the security forces in the booby-trapped and sniper-infested streets of Iraq's second city but there is little doubt the vastly outnumbered jihadists will eventually lose their stronghold.

Shaping operations for a similar assault on Raqa, the only other major urban centre in IS hands, were subsequently launched in Syria setting up a battle that could be the caliphate's last stand.

"The loss of Raqa will mean the end of IS's state-building project and would leave the group with no territorial symbol justifying its name of Islamic State," said Mathieu Guidere, a Paris-based professor of Middle East geopolitics.

Western powers, Turkey, Iran, Iraqi and Syrian Kurdish forces and militias and paramilitary outfits have played a part in the surge against IS in 2016.

Read the full story at SpaceWar

News Story: Fight To The End, Daesh Boss Baghdadi Urges Mosul Jihadists

Jihadist leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi called on his fighters to resist as Iraqi forces were poised Thursday to enter the city of Mosul where he declared a "caliphate" two years ago.

The appeal was made in an audio recording released on the Internet and purported to be by the elusive leader of the Daesh group, his first message this year.

"Do not retreat," he said. "Holding your ground with honor is a thousand times easier than retreating in shame."

"To all the people of Nineveh, especially the fighters, beware of any weakness in facing your enemy," Baghdadi said, referring to the northern Iraqi province of which Mosul is the capital.

In June 2014, days after jihadist fighters swept across swathes of Iraq, he made a rare public appearance in Mosul and announced the creation of an Islamic "state" straddling Iraq and Syria.

The "caliphate" has been shrinking steadily since last year and Iraqi forces earlier this week reached Mosul, the jihadists' last major stronghold in Iraq.

Tens of thousands of Iraqi forces, backed by the U.S-led coalition and its warplanes, launched a massive offensive on Mosul on October 17.

It was not immediately possible for AFP to authenticate the recording, entitled "This is what God and his messenger have promised us", but leading experts of the jihadist organization did not appear to doubt it.

Read the full story at TOLOnews

News Report: North Korea Sends Expensive Message With Missile Tests

Brian Padden

SEOUL — North Korea has spent close to $100 million on more than 30 missile tests since Kim Jong Un assumed power in 2011, nearly double the number of missiles launched in the previous 18 years when his father Kim Jong Il ruled the country.

The South Korean newspaper the Chosun Ilbo estimated the cost of North Korea’s missiles based in part on what it said were the prices Middle Eastern countries had paid for these weapons.

Over the past two decades North Korea has reportedly sold hundreds of missiles, materials, and technology to Egypt, Iran, Libya, Pakistan, Syria, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.

Think Tank: Sea, air and land updates (14-Jun-2016)

Image: Flickr User - max chow

Dione Hodgson, Ashleigh Sharp and Lachlan Wilson

Sea State

In a sign of Russia’s growing strategic interest in the Arctic region, the country floated its new icebreaker last Friday—the first new icebreaker in almost 45 years. The Ilya Muromets—which will join the Northern Fleet in 2017—is an electric-diesel powered icebreaker designed to assist the Russian Navy in icy conditions, escort and tow other ships, and deliver supplies to remote military installations. The 85-metre long ship can cut through one-metre-thick ice and is capable of travelling the entire 5,600km length of the Northern Passage. The Arctic has become a priority for Russia in recent years, having built several bases and conducted war games in the area in addition to filing a claim in the UN over a significant part of the region. The country is also building two Arctic corvettes—which will be able to act as icebreakers and armed with cruise missiles—and three nuclear-powered icebreakers, the largest of which—Arktika— will be floated next week.

During a Defence Committee hearing last week, British MPs were told that six British Type 45 destroyers had experienced repeated power outages because the waters of the Persian Gulf were too warm. Representatives from Rolls-Royce and BAE Systems Maritime told the hearing that the failings occurred because the equipment was being operated in more arduous conditions than envisaged—with waters in the Persian Gulf reaching 32 degrees Celsius. A spokesperson from Britain’s Ministry of Defence has denied this, telling CNN that the Type 45 was designed for world-wide operations and is effective in the Gulf and South Atlantic all year round. The £1 billion apiece warships are among the world’s most advanced missile destroyers and are the backbone of the Royal Navy’s air defence capability.

News Story: Islamic State seen shifting to more international attacks - UN

By Carole LANDRY

The Islamic State group is moving into a new phase of warfare that is likely to lead to more attacks on international civilian targets, according to a new report by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

In the last six months, IS has been linked to attacks in 11 countries that have killed over 500 people, in Bangladesh, Belgium, Egypt, France, Germany, Indonesia, Lebanon, Pakistan, Russia, Turkey and the United States.

"Recent international attacks perpetrated by members of ISIL demonstrate that the terrorist group is now moving into a new phase, with the increased risk that well-prepared and centrally directed attacks on international civilian targets may become a more frequent occurrence," said the report obtained by AFP on Wednesday.

UN member-states are reporting a marked increase in the number of foreign fighters returning from Syria and Iraq where IS has suffered military setbacks, Ban said in the report to the Security Council.

The Paris and Brussels assaults demonstrate the jihadist group's "ability to mount complex, multi-wave attacks" that were coordinated by foreign fighters returning from Syria, with some direction from IS leaders.

Read the full story at SpaceWar

News Story: G7 foreign ministers agree to strengthen cooperation on countering terrorism, other global issues

HIROSHIMA, Japan, April 11 (Xinhua) -- The two-day G7 Foreign Ministers' Meeting closed here on Monday, with the foreign ministers of the seven industrialized countries issuing a joint communique, reaching consensus on a variety of global and regional issues including terrorism, refugees, and the DPRK nuclear problem.

Countering terrorism was placed ahead of other challenges in the communique. The communique condemned recent terrorist attacks in Turkey, Belgium and other regions and said a concrete G7 action plan on countering terrorism would be adopted at the G7 Ise-Shima Summit in May.

The communique also condemned "in the strongest terms" the nuclear test and missile launches by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea(DPRK), and demanded the DPRK not to conduct any further nuclear tests or launches that use ballistic missile technology, nor engage in any other destabilizing or provocative actions.

Read the full story at Xinhua

News Story: IS lost a fifth of its territory since January 2015 - analysts

The Islamic State group has lost 22 percent of the territory it held at the start of 2015, military analysts IHS Jane's said Wednesday, as US and Russian air strikes have helped the jihadists' opponents advance.

IS controls swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria but lost 14 percent of it last year and a further eight percent this year, according to the IHS Conflict Monitor.

IHS Jane's said the jihadists controlled 73,440 square kilometres (28,360 square miles) of ground as of Monday, an area equivalent to around half the size of England.

The Syrian government has made gains in the west of the country and is now five kilometres outside the ancient city of Palmyra, which was overrun by IS fighters in mid-2015.

"The Islamic State is increasingly isolated, and being perceived as in decline," said IHS senior analyst Columb Strack.

Read the full story at SpaceWar

News Report: Australian Commander - IS Changing Tactics

An Australian Soldier training an Iraqi Army Unit

Sharon Behn

As part of VOA's ongoing reporting on Iraq, correspondent Sharon Behn interviewed Air Vice Marshal Tim Innes, national theater commander for all Australian forces deployed to the Middle East region, including Afghanistan. Innes assumed command of Australia's Joint Task Group 633 on January 25, 2016. The following article is based in part on that interview.

Islamic State extremists fighting in Iraq and Syria have proven themselves experts in modern warfare. They create diversionary fronts, use suicide bombers with devastating effect, and constantly change their offensive and defensive tactics.

Countering and defeating those tactics is one of the main objectives of thousands of U.S. and coalition soldiers currently training Iraqi forces — not only in bases, but walking alongside them as they enter the battleground.

"[IS militants] are definitely changing tactics," Air Vice Marshal Tim Innes, the national theater commander for all Australian forces deployed to the Middle East region, told VOA, using an acronym for Islamic State. "We try to stay inside their adaptation loop."

Despite those efforts, Iraqi and coalition forces have been caught off guard.

Editorial: The New China-Africa Relations - 4 Trends to Watch

By Shannon Tiezzi

The first China-Africa summit since 2006 provides clues about the future of China’s role on the continent.

This week, the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) convened its first summit since 2006. Chinese President Xi Jinping joined more than 40 leaders of African countries for the massive meeting in Johannesburg, South Africa.

The typical highlights of FOCAC are all about the numbers: how much in aid and loans China pledges to the African continent (this year, Xi announced the jaw-dropping figure of $60 billion, although as usual there’s no timetable and no clarity on whether that includes projects already previously announced). But it’s also worth acknowledging that China and African countries have changed greatly in the nine years since the last summit. These new realities, both locally and globally, are changing the way they cooperate. With that in mind, here are four areas that have blossomed in the past few years — four trends to watch that may end up defining the future of China-Africa relations.

Read the full story at The Diplomat

Editorial: Paris, the EU, and China’s Foreign Policy

By Shi Zhiqin, Lai Suetyi, Vasilis Trigkas

Why China must stand with the EU at this moment of reckoning.

In January 2015, Chinese President Xi Jinping foresaw the rising complexity of China’s international environment. Almost a year later his assessment seems valid. Accelerated geopolitical competition with the United States in Asia, the drama of the eurozone crisis and its adverse effects on Chinese exports, and turbulence in the Middle East (China’s main source of oil) could create new condundrums for economic growth and social harmony in the Middle Kingdom. Meanwhile, the rise of Islamic fundamentalism could exacerbate Chinese internal security issues in Xinjiang.

The terrorist attacks in Paris on November 13 have now added even more complexity to China’s international environment, for they could influence both the political identity of France and, most importantly, the vision of the European integration project. An increasingly insulated “fortress Europe” with rising nationalistic demagogy could disrupt Chinese economic growth and undermine Beijing’s grand vision for a Eurasian economic space sponsored in the One Belt, One Road mega-initiative.

However, a more strategically inclined EU, drawing on its state-of-the-art technology and educated manpower to secure the Middle East and neutralize the influence of opportunistic “state building” actors, could complement China’s vision for a peaceful, multipolar world. For that reason, China must stand with the EU at this moment of reckoning and proactively participate in the debate about the European future.

Read the full story at The Diplomat

Editorial: Is China Ready to Be a Global Power?

By Xie Tao

China has the tools of global power, but not the willingness to use them.

China is fast becoming a global actor, as its economic and diplomatic presence is felt nearly everywhere around the world.

It is also viewed by many as a global power in the making. In economic and military terms, China surely has the trappings of a global power. It is the world’s the second largest economy and the top trading nation; it also boasts the world’s largest foreign exchange reserve. Meanwhile, China’s military budget is second only to that of the United States, and its arsenal of advanced weapons is quickly expanding.

Nevertheless, there is much more to a global power than simply economic and military might. It is one thing to have power resources, and it is another to translate these resources into preferred outcomes. The latter requires — among other things — strategic vision, political willingness and psychological readiness. Leaders in Beijing appear to have a sophisticated vision for China’s role in international affairs, as exemplified by “a new model of major-power relations,” “major country foreign policy with Chinese characteristics,” and “One Belt, One Road.” But it is highly questionable that they are also politically wiling and psychologically ready to turn that vision into reality.

Read the full story at The Diplomat

Editorial: India's Infatuation With the UN Security Council

By Kabir Taneja

Permanent membership of the increasingly anachronistic body would offer prestige, but little else.

While on a recent visit to Paris, France, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, made a clear pitch for the country’s bid for a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). The UNSC is one of the world’s most prestigious “big boys group,” in which all permanent members (the U.S., U.K., China, Russia and France) combine the organization’s collective elitism with questionable results leading the biggest multilateral forum for peace, justice and prosperity in the world.

Certainly on some levels, India’s aspiration makes sense. The country represents more than 1.2 billion people, has the economic might to back its bid, and is now relevant enough in all aspects of global politics to hold its own in the UNSC. The point of distinction here is not to question if and why India should become a member, but rather to ponder the relevance of the UNSC in today’s world.

Headquartered in New York, the UN was constituted in 1945 to replace the ineffective League of Nations (1919), with the aspiration of avoiding another armed conflict on the scale of World War II. However, over the past decade and more, the UN has succumbed to the agenda-driven workings of its main financiers in the West. The past few years have shown the UN less as an organization that prevents armed conflict – its raison d’être – than as one that tries to pick up the pieces. Today, the UN is largely home to an enormous bureaucracy, a parking spot for political appointees working alongside a minority of diligent idealists who still believe in the organization’s original goals.

India, however, has been a champion of almost all causes and workings of the United Nations and New Delhi has maintained an excellent commitment to the organization and its various arms. The hallmark of this is seen in the commitment that India (and other South Asian nations) have made to UN peacekeeping missions in various conflict zones around the world.

Read the full story at The Diplomat

Editorial: How Sri Lanka Won the War

By Peter Layton

Lessons in strategy from an overlooked victory

How to win a civil war in a globalized world where insurgents skillfully exploit offshore resources? With most conflicts now being such wars, this is a question many governments are trying to answer. Few succeed, with one major exception being Sri Lanka where, after 25 years of civil war the government decisively defeated the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and created a peace that appears lasting. This victory stands in stark contrast to the conflicts fought by well-funded Western forces in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last decade. How did Sri Lanka succeed against what many considered the most innovative and dangerous insurgency force in the world? Three main areas stand out.

First, the strategic objective needs to be appropriate to the enemy being fought. For the first 22 years of the civil war the government’s strategy was to bring the LTTE to the negotiating table using military means. Indeed, this was the advice foreign experts gave as the best and only option. In 2006, just before the start of the conflict’s final phase, retired Indian Lieutenant General AS Kalkat in 2006 declared, “There is no armed resolution to the conflict. The Sri Lanka Army cannot win the war against the Lankan Tamil insurgents.”

Indeed, the LTTE entered negotiations five times, but talks always collapsed, leaving a seemingly stronger LTTE even better placed to defeat government forces. In mid-2006, sensing victory was in its grasp, the LTTE deliberately ended the Norwegian-brokered ceasefire and initiated the so-called Eelam War IV. In response, the Sri Lankan government finally decided to change its strategic objective, from negotiating with the LTTE to annihilating it.

To succeed, a strategy needs to take into account the adversary. In this case it needed to be relevant to the nature of the LTTE insurgency. Over the first 22 years of the civil war, the strategies of successive Sri Lankan governments did not fulfill this criterion. Eventually, in late 2005 a new government was elected that choose a different strategic objective that matched the LTTE’s principal weaknesses while negating their strengths.

The LTTE’s principal problem was its finite manpower base. Only 12 percent of Sri Lanka’s population were Lankan Tamils and of these it was believed that only some 300,000 actively supported the LTTE. Moreover, the LTTE’s legitimacy as an organization was declining. By 2006, the LTTE relied on conscription – not volunteers – to fill its ranks and many of these were children. At the operational level some seeming strengths could also be turned against the LTTE, including its rigid command structure, a preference for fighting conventional land battles, and a deep reliance on international support. 

Read the full story at The Diplomat

Editorial: China Makes Its Case For a Global Military

By Shannon Tiezzi

China is using the successful Yemen evacuation to argue that a global PLA is good for the world.

As The Diplomat previously reported, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy spearheaded the evacuation of both Chinese citizens and foreign nationals from Yemen over the past week. On March 29 and 30, the Weifang, a PLAN frigate, and theWeishanhu supply vessel evacuated 571 Chinese citizens from Yemen; on April 2, another frigate, the Linyi, carried 225 foreign nationals from ten different countries (mostly Pakistan) from Yemen’s Aden pot to Djibouti.

As I wrote earlier, it’s rare for China to use its military to assist in evacuation operations halfway around the world. It’s even rarer for China’s military to assist foreign citizens in the same way. In a press conference last week, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying noted that the operation was “a special action” wherein China “evacuate[d] foreign nationals stuck in dangerous zones for the first time.” According to Hua, the evacuation embodied the principles of “internationalism and humanitarianism held by the Chinese government.”

A Xinhua commentary expanded more on that last point, turning the Yemen operation into an argument in favor of China’s increasingly global military presence. “The humanitarian nature of Chinese armed forces’ overseas missions indicated that China is willing to help when it is able and ready,” the piece said. “With an able and helpful China, the world will have more resources to maneuver through disasters and crisis.”

The piece also fired back at “those who felt threatened by China’s increasing national strength.” Xinhua declared that “China, with its size, strength and population, is never a destructive force and the world has more to gain than to lose if they embrace this fact.” 

Read the full story at The Diplomat

Editorial: Chinese Nationals Evacuate Yemen on PLA Navy Frigate

By Shannon Tiezzi

Amid increasing violence, China pulls over 500 citizens out of Yemen.

As the violence in Yemen worsens, with Saudi Arabia leading air strikes against Houthi forces, China has joined a number of countries in evacuating personnel from the country. China sent a PLA Navy frigate, the Weifang, to Yemen to assist in evacuations. According to Xinhua, 449 Chinese citizens, plus six citizens of other countries, left Yemen Monday aboard the Weifang. An additional 122 Chinese citizens left on Sunday from the port of Aden, where Chinese warships were also used to help carry evacuees to safety.

According to Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying, the navy vessels were diverted from their primary mission, conducting anti-piracy patrols in the Gulf of Aden, to conduct the evacuation. The 122 citizens who left Yemen on Sunday were taken to Djibouti, where the Chinese Embassy is helping arrange their return to China. The Chinese government “places great importance on the safety of Chinese citizens and entities in Yemen,” Hua said, noting that the evacuation operation began in earnest as the security situation “abruptly deteriorated” on Thursday.

As of Monday, “Chinese Ambassador Tian Qi and a necessary number of embassy staff are now holding their posts in Yemen,” Hua said, and were doing the work necessary to complete the evacuation of Chinese nationals. Xinhua noted that the embassy will remain open and “will continue to assist a small number of Chinese nationals who choose to stay in Yemen.” The U.S. and a number of other countries closed their embassies and evacuated staff back in February. 

Read the full story at The Diplomat