Pyongyang on Sunday warned Washington that it won’t hesitate to sink the nuclear-powered submarine the US deployed to South Korean waters if it “tries to budge even a little.”
According to a post to the North Korean propaganda portal Uriminzokkiri, Pyongyang will destroy the underwater vessel stationed in the Korean peninsula waters if military threats toward the regime continue.
"The moment the USS Michigan tries to budge even a little, it will be doomed to face the miserable fate of becoming an underwater ghost without being able to come to the surface," the post read, according to the Korea Times.
"Whether it's a nuclear aircraft carrier or a nuclear submarine, they will be turned into a mass of scrap metal in front of our invincible military power centered on the self-defense nuclear deterrence."
The Ohio-class nuclear submarine USS Michigan, armed with cruise missiles, sailed into South Korea's port of Busan earlier this week, followed by the deployment of the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson, for joint exercises with ships from the Maritime self-defense force of Japan near the Korean Peninsula.
- Kim Jong Un has threatened to destroy an American naval submarine if it gets any closer to North Korean waters
- Nuclear sub USS Michigan is docked at naval base in Busan, South Korea
- It has recently been joined by the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier group
- Move is a show of force after North Korea fired a mid-range KN-17 ballistic missile in the early hours of Saturday local time
- Launch came hours after North Korea announced it was 'on the brink of nuclear war' as the United States staged military drills with South Korea
- President Donald Trump said the missile test 'disrespected the wishes of China'
Kim Jong Un has threatened to destroy an American naval submarine if it gets any closer to North Korean waters.
The USS Michigan, an Ohio-class nuclear-powered submarine, is currently docked at a naval base in Busan, South Korea, where it was recently joined by the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier group.
North Korea's propaganda website Uriminzokkiri warned that if the USS Michigan 'tries to budge even a little, it will be doomed to face the miserable fate of becoming a underwater ghost'.
'The urgent fielding of the nuclear submarine in the waters off the Korean Peninsula, timed to coincide with the deployment of the super aircraft carrier strike group, is intended to further intensify military threats toward our republic,' the website claimed.
The propaganda website warned they were also willing to sink the USS Carl Vinson if it edged any closer to the dictatorship.
'Whether it's a nuclear aircraft carrier or a nuclear submarine, they will be turned into a mass of scrap metal in front of our invincible military power centered on the self-defense nuclear deterrence.'
Former prime minister Matteo Renzi won the leadership of Italy's ruling Democratic Party (PD) in a primary election Sunday, propelling him back to the forefront of the national political scene.
Renzi, 42, resigned as prime minister in December after Italians overwhelmingly rejected a constitutional referendum aimed at streamlining the parliamentary system.
Some two million people voted and Renzi himself had set the bar for success at one million voters.
Renzi's win was announced by him and his two rivals -- Justice Minister Andrea Orlando and Michele Emiliano -- well ahead of the end of counting.
According to preliminary estimates, Renzi bagged 70 percent of the vote.
"It is a huge responsibility. I thank from the bottom of my heart those men and women who believe in Italy," he tweeted.
"This is not the second half of the same match, it's a new match," he said in a victory speech. "This is the beginning of a completely new story."
When he first took over the leadership in December 2013, Renzi won the backing of close on 68 percent of 2.8 million voters.
He managed to deliver significant labour market reforms and modest growth, while overseeing the granting of legal recognition to gay relationships for the first time.
But the recovery was not strong enough to pay any real political dividends, and alienated many on his party's far left, who broke away in February to form the Progressive and Democratic Movement (DP).
Renzi then stepped down as party leader with the aim of regaining legitimacy in a future vote.
The winner of Sunday's vote will lead the party during legislative elections slated for spring 2018, unless parliamentarians come to an agreement on electoral reforms before then and call for early elections.
Russia has come up with proposals to ease tensions in Syria, appearing to show itself as a "guarantor of a political process," a representative of the Syrian armed opposition said Sunday.
Fatih Hassoun, a representative of the Syrian armed opposition told Sputnik, that Russia has made proposals aimed at reducing tensions in the conflict zones of Syria and at respect of the ceasefire regime.
"There are Russia's proposals, useful in their realism, about respect of the ceasefire regime, about creation of zones of de-escalation of tensions and about involvement of new international actors in these agreements," Hassoun said Sunday.
He added that Moscow's proposal implied that the troops deployed at such zones would be sent by countries not involved in the ongoing military activities in the crisis-torn country.
According to Hassoun, the proposal means that Russia "has started activities as a guarantor of a political process" and that's why the international community would be involved in the Astana settlement talks to a greater extent.
The nationwide Syrian ceasefire regime was introduced on December 30, 2016, with Russia and Turkey serving as its guarantors. The UN Security Council passed a resolution in December supporting the effort. Terrorist organizations operating in the country are not part of the ceasefire.
If you want to know how Venezuela went from one of the richest nations in South America to a basket case of 4-digit inflation, the answer is “chavistas.” Chavistas are the people who voted for former President Hugo Chavez on the promise that the government would provide for them. That worked for a while, so long as oil prices were sky high, but once global oil prices dropped the government’s ability to pay also collapsed. Now the Washington Post reports even the chavistas have had enough of the country’s socialist rulers:
“Maduro is so different,” said Irene Castillo, 26, who lives in El Guarataro, a tough neighborhood not far from the presidential palace. She voted for Maduro in 2013 when Chávez died after 14 years in power. But no one on Castillo’s block supports the government anymore, she said. “Now, those who remain ‘chavistas’ are just the radicals.” …
“The base of the chavista movement has eroded, and the situation is growing more explosive,” said Margarita López Maya, a political analyst in Caracas. “There’s no bread, but the government continues to insist it has the majority of Venezuelans on its side, so it looks increasingly dissociated from the reality of people’s lives.”
Where the chavistas once supported the socialist government on the promise of a better life, they are now being threatened by the same government. With food increasingly difficult to find (to the point that people are eating dogs, cats, and pigeons), the government began distributing food through party representatives in each neighborhood. That means anyone who protests the ruling party or even fails to show up for pro-socialist rallies is in danger of having their food supply cut off:
The ruling party also has a paramilitary wing known as colectivos. These are the guys in red on motorcycles who are seen at anti-government events. The government (and its media supporters) maintain they have no association with these people but everyone on the street knows better.
But President Maduro isn’t just relying on the stick approach, i.e. threats to cut off food. As the ruling socialists have done for years, he is also trying to buy support through government handouts. The Associated Press reports Maduro just raised the minimum wage 60% in a vain attempt to keep up with inflation:
This will fail of course. Maduro can order the presses to print more money to distribute to the population but that only increases the rate that inflation spirals out of control. Nothing will change until Venezuela abandons its failed socialist system and makes long-overdue market reforms.
Meanwhile, every time I hear Maduro speak I can’t help but notice how much his rhetoric sounds like Bernie Sanders. Here’s Bernie last year in a piece for the Washington Post: “What do we want? We want to end the rapid movement that we are currently experiencing toward oligarchic control of our economic and political life.” About half the Democratic party is ready to make the same devil’s bargain the chavistas made in Venezuela. If only they were paying attention to what is happening in Venezuela right now, maybe they’d feel differently.
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