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SINGAPORE: A 54-year-old woman suffered burns after a fire broke out at the building opposite the IMM shopping centre in Jurong on Thursday morning (May 4).
The woman, a tenant of the building at 30 Toh Guan Road, was taken to Ng Teng Fong General Hospital. She later died from her injuries.
Fifty people were evacuated from the building, and firefighters took 40 minutes and used three water jets to put out the fire, which involved the contents of a warehouse.
Firefighters putting out the fire at 30 Toh Guan Road on May 4, 2017. (Photo: Loke Kok Fai)
The eight-storey building comprises offices and an adjoining two-storey warehouse, according to building owner Cambridge Industrial Trust’s website.
Ms Nancy Tan, Cambridge Industrial Trust’s (CIT) head of real estate, told Channel NewsAsia that the company is monitoring the situation.
“Our top priority at this point is the safety of our tenants. We will provide an update as the situation progresses,” she said. It is understood that the casualty is a tenant, CIT added.
The police said on Twitter that they were alerted to the fire at 7.38am. The left and centre lanes of Toh Guan Road towards Boon Lay Way are closed, and only the right lane is passable, they said, adding that members of the public should avoid the area.
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A California-based company is selling to China’s vast middle class, the fastest-growing consumer segment in the world, through Alibaba.
In the process, it’s helping Jack Ma, the chairman and founder of the e-commerce giant, to realise his pledge to create 1 million jobs in the US over five years, report Chang Jun in San Francisco and Linda Deng in Seattle
American small and medium-sized businesses such as retailers of cosmetics, apparel, maternal and baby products, and health supplements and even farmers are cashing in on the huge purchasing power of China’s vast and fast-growing middle class through e-commerce while creating jobs for the Americans.
A prime example is 100 per cent Pure, a San Jose, California-based company with a 15,000-square-foot complex from which Chinese consumers can buy organic cosmetics and other beauty products directly through Tmall.com, e-commerce giant Alibaba’s business-to-consumer or B2C platform.
Ric Kostick, founder and CEO of 100 per cent Pure, said that when he and his two business partners started their business, they were concerned that the hefty service fee they had to pay to brokers and middlemen for packaging and ingredients would impede their company’s growth.
Then, in that same year, “I found a packaging store through browsing Alibaba and couldn’t wait to share that with my partners,” recalled Kostick.
“Why wouldn’t we just go to this website and contact suppliers directly?”
They became adept at using Alibaba’s search mechanism and rating system to find reputable suppliers worldwide without wasting time travelling or vetting vendors. “We can spend our time and money more wisely on developing our products and, ultimately, benefit our customers,” said Kostick.
On June 20-21, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd will host a conference in Detroit to teach US businesses what Kostick has learned: How to sell to the company’s 443 million customers in China on the world’s biggest e-commerce site.
Ma’s promise
It’s a move by Alibaba chairman and founder Jack Ma to fulfil a promise he made to the US President-elect Donald Trump: Get 1 million small and medium-sized US businesses enrolled on his Alibaba online platforms to sell their products to China’s growing middle class and create 1 million jobs in the US.
With 12 retail stores in the US and about 150 employees, 100 per cent Pure is a $20-million wholesale business that sells about 600 different products worldwide.
Kostick said the next target market is China, where the company has a subsidiary in the city of Tianjin, about a one-hour drive from Beijing. He has hired a Chinese general manager to lead a 10-member team to launch sales through Tmall.
“We will ship from Portland (Oregon),” said Kostick, adding that the company initially will only offer top-selling products to Chinese consumers.
To continue to use Tmall’s marketing channels and to take advantage of sale opportunities like 11.11 Singles Day shopping, 100 per cent Pure will be competing against local and international competitors, but Kostick said his company will succeed. “We did our solid market research, and noticed that China is surpassing Japan to become the second-largest spender in the cosmetics and beauty products sector,” he said.
Stadium Goods, a retailer and marketplace in New York City founded in 2015, specializes in collectible sneakers and also has connected with Alibaba.
It started when a Chinese shopper walked into its Manhattan bricks-and-mortar store and paid $10,000 in cash for about 50 pairs of Nike Air Jordans to resell to basketball enthusiasts in China.
That purchase, together with several similar transactions made by visiting Chinese shoppers, gave co-founders John McPheters and Jed Stiller of Stadium Goods a clue as to just how strong the Chinese market might be.
Selling sneakers
Statistics show that basketball fans pump up annual sneaker sales in the US to approximately $1.2 billion and $6 billion worldwide. “Within China, there’s such a desire to get these products that the path forward was very clear,” McPheters, the CEO, said.
The duo decided in August 2016 to launch a flagship store on Alibaba’s cross-border platform Tmall Global. They took advantage of Alibaba’s annual 11.11 Global Shopping Festival in November, the world’s largest online sale by transactions and trade volume.
They used a combination of coupons and gifts to attract Chinese consumers instead of relying solely on large discounts. The result was a spike in transactions that day.
McPheters acknowledges that entering the Chinese market via Tmall Global has helped drive growth: “Obviously, Alibaba was big for us. We’ve seen a big jump in sales from it.”
Five months after the partnership, Stadium Goods announced that it had raised $4.6 million led by Forerunner Ventures and the Chernin Group, and will use part of the investment for international expansion, including the Chinese market.
Besides hiring two full-time and one part-time staffer in New York dedicated to online China sales, Stadium Goods said it is “in a position now where we can add as it grows.”
Jennifer Kuperman, head of International Corporate Affairs at Alibaba, told China Daily in a recent interview that Ma’s pledge to create 1 million jobs in the US is nothing but “conservative,” based on what has the company has achieved already in China.
“If you think about the number of businesses on our platform, if they even hire one person to help with the demand from Chinese consumers, that gets you to a million jobs; so that’s very simple. And we think it’s realistic because we have seen 30 million direct and indirect jobs created from the success of our ecosystem in China,” she said.
Alibaba will keep functioning as a gateway to China and continue to help American businesses of all sizes access the tremendous Chinese market, and especially meet the increasingly sophisticated needs of the growing middle class, she said.
“Whether they are big brands or small- or medium-sized businesses or farmers (in the US), we help them sell to the swelling population of middle class in China－300 million Chinese consumers now and a half billion five years from now－they are looking for quality international products especially in certain categories. And where are they looking for these international products? The United States is one of those markets,” said Kuperman.
Cross-border e-commerce imports into China grew about 30 per cent to $182 billion (1.25 trillion yuan) in 2016 and will grow at a similar pace in 2017, said research firm iResearch.
3,700 categories
According to Chinese research firm CBN Data and Alibaba Group, Chinese consumers in 2016 can buy products on Tmall Global in 3,700 categories from big brands or retailers from 63 countries. Among the 14,500 brands now available on Tmall Global, 80 per cent are newcomers to China’s market.
Best-selling are foreign cosmetics products and food. Milk powder, baby food and dietary supplements are some of the most popular items on Tmall Global.
Since 2014 when Alibaba initiated collaborations with the US Department of Agriculture and local farm produce organisations, Chinese consumers have been able to purchase directly through Tmall seasonal American fruits such as cherries and apples, and wild seafood caught from Alaska.
Keith Hu, director of international operations at Northwest Cherry Growers, an organisation that represents growers in Washington, Oregon, Utah, Montana and Idaho, said Chinese shoppers consumed about 10 per cent of the 200,000 metric tons of cherries from those states’ in past years.
“China is the largest overseas market for the Northwest cherry industry and will continue to be a key market,” he said.
Hu works with major supermarket chains and specially fruit chains in China to market cherries from his organisation, and he also teams with Tmall to promote the Northwest cherry brand.
China is also one of the top five export markets for Washington apples: It consumed roughly $30 million worth of Washington Red Delicious and Gala, two main varieties, between September 2015 and August 2016.
Growers, through an arrangement with the Washington Apple Commission and Alibaba, have launched e-commerce promotion for their apples.
“This past fall, they were able to show Tmall customers a Washington apple orchard and take them on a live tour of an apple-packing facility on the day before Singles Day,” said Rebecca Lyons, international marketing director at the Washington Apple Commission.
She said that more than 62,000 consumers watched the live broadcast at 2 am China time on Nov 10, and more than 245,000 saw the video on the Tmall website during the promotion.
Chinese consumers are very quality-conscious and care about the origin and safety of their food, which makes the Tmall market a perfect fit for Washington apples, said Lyons.
Apples fit
Exports for the current season, which will end on Aug 30, are projected to increase by 25 per cent from last season.
“We anticipate that China will continue to be a major market for the 2017 Washington apple harvest season (Sept 1, 2017－Aug 31, 2018),” said Lyons.
Kostick of 100 per cent Pure echoed Kuperman’s comments about creating jobs in the US.
“I need people to work here to manufacture the products. I need people to communicate with customers, to talk to Chinese factories. You also need to pay rent somewhere in the US, that creates jobs because someone has to build the building and hire people to work. The bigger the company grows, the bigger the responsibility it has for job creation.”
McPheters saidss: “As they (Alibaba) look to bring on small businesses (in the US), that’ll be a huge asset to drive their success.”
In the US, Alibaba makes a very small minority investment in companies for one reason.
“We want to support innovation and entrepreneurship here and we want to learn,” said Kuperman, adding that Alibaba is offering educational assistance to US companies to promote “the integrated shopping experience”, which she said is in much better shape in China.
Update: The woman who suffered burns in the fire at Cambridge Industrial Trust building in Toh Guan Road has died. The 54-year-old victim, who was pronounced dead at Ng Teng Fong Hospital, was a tenant of the building.
SINGAPORE: A woman in her 50s who suffered burns was rescued while about 50 people had to be evacuated after a fierce fire broke out at a building opposite the IMM mall in Jurong East on Thursday morning (May 4).
Two fire engines plus support vehicles rushed to the scene after the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) was alerted to the fire at Cambridge Industrial Trust building at 7.40am.
Smoke at the building opp IMM? 😬 pic.twitter.com/ljSIaQ5UUo
— H. Boey (@zroyboey) May 3, 2017
Fire engine is extinguishing at opp IMM 🚒 バス停🚏の近くで火事💦 pic.twitter.com/DqLyhR0Kte
— まさみちsinfuka1957 (@sinfuka1957) May 4, 2017
Motorists were alarmed when they saw plumes of smoke in the distance, thinking it was IMM which caught fire. A video taken from a passing car shows the fire raging on several storeys of the facade of the 8-level warehouse building.
The fire, which involved contents in a warehouse and was burning the external facade of the building, was put out within 40 minutes, said the SCDF on their Facebook page. But firemen continued to spray water on scorched areas to prevent rekindling of flames.
Pictures on the page show firemen on a gondola lift spraying water on blackened surfaces of the building facade. Fallen debris could also be seen on the ground.
The injured woman was sent to the nearby Ng Teng Fong Hospital. SCDF is investigating the cause of the fire.
chenj@sph.com.sg
chenj@sph.com.sg
SINGAPORE: A woman in her 50s who suffered burns was rescued while about 50 people had to be evacuated after a fierce fire broke out at a building opposite the IMM mall in Jurong East on Thursday morning (May 4).
Two fire engines plus support vehicles rushed to the scene after the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) was alerted to the fire at Cambridge Industrial Trust building at 7.40am.
Smoke at the building opp IMM? 😬 pic.twitter.com/ljSIaQ5UUo
— H. Boey (@zroyboey) May 3, 2017
Fire engine is extinguishing at opp IMM 🚒 バス停🚏の近くで火事💦 pic.twitter.com/DqLyhR0Kte
— まさみちsinfuka1957 (@sinfuka1957) May 4, 2017
Motorists were alarmed when they saw plumes of smoke in the distance, thinking it was IMM which caught fire. A video taken from a passing car shows the fire raging on several storeys of the facade of the 8-level warehouse building.
The fire, which involved contents in a warehouse and was burning the external facade of the building, was put out within 40 minutes, said the SCDF on their Facebook page. But firemen continued to spray water on scorched areas to prevent rekindling of flames.
Pictures on the page show firemen on a gondola lift spraying water on blackened surfaces of the building facade. Fallen debris could also be seen on the ground.
The injured woman was sent to the nearby Ng Teng Fong Hospital. SCDF is investigating the cause of the fire.
chenj@sph.com.sg
chenj@sph.com.sg
THAILAND – A prominent Thai human rights lawyer faces a prison term of up to 150 years if convicted on 10 counts of royal defamation under Thailand’s harsh royal insult law, the legal watchdog Thai Lawyers for Human Rights said on Thursday.
Prawet Prapanukul, 57, provided legal assistance to members of a political opposition group, the United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship, and served as legal counsel in a high-profile royal insult case.
He was detained in a raid on his home by police and troops on the weekend.
Prawet appeared in a Bangkok court on Wednesday and was charged with 10 counts of royal insult and three counts of breaking Section 116 of Thailand’s criminal code, the equivalent of sedition.
“Prawet faces 10 counts of breaking Article 112, so that works out to up to 150 years in prison if he is found guilty,”Anon Nampha of Thai Lawyers for Human Rights told Reuters.
“He also faces three separate charges of breaking Article 116 which carries a maximum sentence of seven years in prison for each offence.”
It was not immediately clear what Prawet might have written or said that led to his arrest and charges.
A spokesman for the military government said he was unable to comment on the case.
Thailand’s military seized power from an elected civilian government in a May 2014 coup.
Since then, the junta has detained hundreds of politicians, activists, journalists and others accused of being involved in anti-junta protests and activities.
Some have been held incommunicado in unofficial places of detention, such as military camps.
It has also taken a hardline stance against alleged transgressors of Article 112 of the criminal code which makes anyone found guilty of insulting the monarchy liable to imprisonment for up to 15 years.
The lawyers’ group said Prawet was charged along with five others, who also faced charges under the royal insult law.
He is in pre-trial detention at a Bangkok remand prison after being held incommunicado at the 11th Army Circle base in Bangkok, a facility the military uses as a temporary prison.
Lese majeste laws have an impact on what any news organisation, including Reuters, can report about issues relating to Thailand’s monarchy.
When it comes to innovation, there is no such thing as status quo – you either improve or decline relative to everyone else, and sitting in a comfort zone for too long could prove costly. That is the philosophy of Steve Leonard, the CEO of SGInnovate, the government entity that supports entrepreneurs leading Singapore’s innovation efforts.
While it may not be on par with Silicon Valley, widely considered the heart of global innovation, Singapore has been punching above its weight for several decades now.
Last year, a joint study from Cornell University, INSEAD and the World Intellectual Property Organisation ranked Singapore as the sixth most innovative country in the world, behind the likes of the United Kingdom and the United States – countries much bigger, and with more resources, than the city-state.
Singapore’s innovation journey so far had been necessitated by the need for survival.
The country has had to tackle some big macro problems: long-term potable water supply; food security; affordable housing; infrastructure; and talent acquisition, among others. Today, with one of the highest global standards of living, the urgency to innovate may not appear to be as high at first glance.
But appearances can be deceiving and the need for innovation has never been higher as Leonard noted.
“You sort of slip into this comfort zone and there’s this idea that as soon as you are too comfortable, that’s when things slip away from you because somebody across the street, across the continent is working harder,” Leonard told CNBC at the side-lines of the Innovfest Unbound conference in Singapore.
Leonard has been at the cutting edge of Singapore’s innovation story for years – he was formerly the CEO of the Infocomm Development Authority, which was restructured in 2016 to become the Government Technology Agency. Prior to that, he held Asia Pacific leadership roles based out of Singapore in some top tech companies.
“I am a big believer that there’s no such thing as status quo. You’re either always improving or you are declining,” he said.
Other Voices
Becoming an innovation hub is an ambition for many cities because it attracts investments and talent and Singapore is no exception. There are three parameters – culture, ecosystem and the urban environment – that work together to make a successful innovation hub, according to Yossi Vardi, a veteran Israeli entrepreneur and investor.
Culture affects the willingness among innovators to take risks and can foster a more collaborative environment. A vibrant ecosystem allows people with similar mindsets to discuss ideas and help each other.
“You always have to reach out outside of the boundaries of your five, six, seven or 20 people,” Vardi told CNBC, adding today meetups, hackathons, industry conferences, such as Innovfest, facilitate people to expand their network within an ecosystem.
He added because of globalisation, innovators can move around more freely. Cities, Vardi said, need to offer a comfortable standard of living to attract or retain talented individuals.
While Singapore can attract talent, and build an ecosystem of entrepreneurs, investors, corporations and research institutes, experts say the city-state generally lags in the culture of risk taking.
Leonard pointed out the challenge is in convincing people at every level to buy into an innovative idea, where not all the variables are known from the start. Giving an example, he explained that in the 1940s, a big innovation to cars was padding the dashboards to offer some protection in accidents. That ushered in more features, including seat belts, airbags and electronics for anti-lock brakes.
“The point is it’s not like we kept vehicles off the road while we figured all these things out,” said Leonard. But he acknowledged winning over skeptics is difficult. “I don’t pretend to have the answer. I think there’s just this good, old fashioned will which says if this is important enough, we commit to it.”
Singapore’s leadership appears to understand the necessity to constantly innovate and take risks. Last year, the government committed 19 billion Singapore dollars to support research and developments over the next five years. On Wednesday, it announced more than $100 million will be invested into local efforts in artificial intelligence – which is still at its nascent, experimental stages -over the next five years.
Tan Kiat How, CEO of the Info-communications Media Development Authority of Singapore (IMDA), the government statutory board that looks after Singapore’s information, communication and media (ICM) sector, told CNBC IMDA was focused on several areas to help Singapore in its push to be an innovation hub and a smart nation.
They include looking at how technology will disrupt various sectors and the new opportunities created in areas of finance, retail, restaurants, manufacturing and others; keep a steady talent pool for the ICM sector; investing in building more infrastructure; and lastly making regulations pro-business and pro-innovation but also ensuring sustainability.
The Sandbox Approach
While Singapore understands that risk taking and leaping into the unknown is a part of innovation, it has played smart, from the regulatory perspective, to ensure risk taking in a controlled environment before making a particular solution or process mainstream.
As a result, it has rolled out what is called regulatory sandboxes where a particular solutions can be trialed and its positives as well as negatives can be analysed. This cushions against failures while allow a certain degree of risk taking.
For example, the government recently introduced a “Data Sandbox Programme” where companies and agencies can exchange and analyse big data.
Previously, the Monetary Authority of Singapore set up a regulatory sandbox that allowed fintech players to experiment new financial products and services within a controlled environment which mitigated risks in case of failure.
But at the cutting edge of innovation, there is no playbook to go by, IMDA’s Tan told CNBC.
“There’s no precedence or useful examples. What we do is try, experiment, start small, start fast (and) if you have to fail, fail fast. And learn those lessons and apply them again.”
Style was what director Byun Sung-hyun wanted to focus on when filming “The Merciless,” which has been invited to the midnight category at the 70th Cannes Film Festival, taking place from May 17-28.
“The reason I paid so much attention to mise-en-scene is because in Korean cinema in recent years, there have been, and there will continue to be, so many crime movies led by two male characters,” said Byun at a press preview of the film in Wangsimni, Seoul, Tuesday.
“I wanted to differentiate my film through style.”
Meticulous camerawork is prominent in the director’s snazzy piece, starring veteran actor Seol Kyung-gu (“Lucid Dream,” 2017) as criminal gang leader Han Jae-ho and Im Si-wan (“One Line,” 2016) as the reckless young delinquent Jo Hyun-soo.
Scenes are shot from the perspective of the characters as they lie on the floor after being shot, or kidnapped and stifled with a bag over the head.
The lens peers down from the sky into a red convertible where the characters sit, at one point in ecstasy and at another in a painful stupor.
Violence is depicted in flat pictures, created through the use of walls and symmetry.
“I worked very closely with the art director,” said Byun. “Instead of writing the plot separately, we had lengthy discussions and I would say what kind of spaces I wanted.”
The film dashes back and forth in time tracing the two characters as they meet in prison, team up after their release to smuggle drugs, and are followed by a covert police operation that is revealed in the most sudden of twists.
“The highlight of an undercover movie is the anxiety of whether (the undercover character) will get caught or not,” said Byun. “But I decided to skip that part.”
Jeon Hye-jin plays the detective in charge, a charismatic female figure who chases criminals.
Seol plays the role of Jae-ho with a gusto reminiscent of the actor’s 2000s heyday, infusing the maniacal drug smuggler with pathos. Jae-ho stares at his victims in the eyes when murdering them and lets out a high-pitched cackle, but manages to remain intensely human.
He first sees Hyun-soo pummeling an opponent twice his size in a prison cafeteria brawl, and enjoying himself in the process. Thinking the reckless young inmate to be as psychopathic as himself, Jae-ho naturally approaches him.
The criminal Hyun-soo is vulnerable, intelligent and multifariously portrayed by actor Im. The two characters begin a criminal partnership that is at times precarious and at times almost heartfelt, based on both suspicion and a yearning to trust one another.
Though packaged as a prison crime action flick, the film’s heart is in the relationship between the two characters. Director Byun went so far as to call it not just a “bromance,” but an actual romance.
“I kept telling the actors during filming that this is a romance, more melodrama than noir.”
A Seoul Institute of Arts graduate, director Byun’s focus so far has been Korea’s youth lifestyle and culture. His films include 2010 hip-hop-themed “The Beat Goes On” and 2012 romantic comedy “Watcha Wearin’?”
“The Merciless” additionally stars Kim Hee-won, who will be attending the Cannes festival along with Seol and director Byun. It remains to be seen whether Im will be able to leave the country to attend the event due to his yet unserved military obligations.
The film will open in local theatres May 18.
TAIPEI, Taiwan — In the aftermath of the suicide of Lin Yi-han. a young writer haunted by an alleged rape by her cram school tutor, Taiwan is reexamining its prevalent cram-school culture.
In a reaction to the alleged offence, New Power Party (NPP) Legislator Hung Tzu-yung on Wednesday called for an amendment to the law to mandate that all cram school teachers register with their real names.
A rising sentiment of agitation and grievance among the public has led to a wave of reflection on the wide-spread cram school culture after the suicide of the 26-year-old novelist.
Lin was best known for her acclaimed novel about a high school girl enticed into sexual relations by her cram-school tutor.
After her death, the novelist’s parents wrote on social media claiming that their daughter died not just because of the major depressive order she had struggled with since she was 16 years old, but also because she had been traumatized by a similar offence allegedly committed by her cram school instructor when she was in high school.
Lin’s name had been withheld by local Chinese-language media upon the request of authorities in Tainan as it is illegal to reveal the names of victims according to the Sexual Assault Prevention Act.
The late novelist’s death and the subsequent revelations about her alleged rape have become one of highest profile stories in Taiwan, prompting others to come forward to share their experiences with predatory cram school teachers.
The NPP’s Hung demanded on Wednesday that the Supplementary Education Act be amended to require that every cram school owner and teacher hired is registered under their real names for the protection of students.
Over the years, inappropriate behaviour by popular cram-school teachers had been allowed to go unpunished with the help of the institutions they serve in, Hung said, because the schools did not want to risk damaging their reputation by reporting their teachers.
Secretly Fired
Those who were secretly fired by schools were free to use other aliases and work at other schools as if nothing had happened, she said.
A real-name system required by law would help increase cram schools’ responsibility to report on problematic teachers, she added.
With all schools and teachers being registered under real names, authorities could go as far as revoking the school’s business license should there be any form of inappropriate or illegal behaviour, Hung said.
Varied Opinions
Dai Juan, director of the Country Prep Institute cram school, said on Wednesday that the main reason cram-school teachers tended to be unwilling to reveal their real names was because they also worked in the public service sector or at public schools.
The law currently forbids employees in the public sector from taking another job at a private business.
Sometimes, cram schools ask teachers to use aliases because they have also worked at other cram schools. Some just use aliases because they are sound better, or they were given by a fortune-teller in the hope of bringing better business or luck.
Kuo Fong-chi, director of Ju Xian cram school said that larger cram schools, especially those that target public service exam takers, will feel a bigger hit if a real-name system is implemented, as a lot of teachers worked part time there.
The Taipei City Educational Association wrote in a statement late on Wednesday that they believed that a compulsory real-name system would do little to prevent sexual assaults in cram schools.
The association suggested increasing punishments for those found guilty of the crime instead of a real-name system, but added that should the law be amended, it would fully co-operate.
North Korea’s official news agency leapt into overdrive Wednesday, accusing Chinese politicians and journalists of fomenting trouble and outright “betrayal.”
“China should no longer recklessly try to test the limitations of our patience,” said the commentary released by the rogue state’s Korean Central News Agency.
KCNA added, “We have so devotedly helped the Chinese revolution and suffered enormous damage.” It said China has regularly “infringed upon the strategic interests” in becoming closer to the US and thus committed a “betrayal” in the process.
The rare rebuke from Pyongyang’s official mouthpiece follows President Donald Trump’s warming ties to Chinese President Xi Jinping. The Trump administration is hoping the Chinese can convince the North Koreans to abandon a nuclear weapons programme and cease development of intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching North America.
Still, the North’s official news agency reiterated Wednesday it has no plans to end its nuclear programme.
“For us, nuclear is an absolute symbol of dignity and power, and it is the highest interest,” said KCNA. “If we give up nuclear weapons, we will not only intensify economic sanctions, but also military intervention.”
Beijing indicated Wednesday that Pyongyang was taking a dangerous course and should reconsider.
“It is reasonable for the DPRK to pursue its own security, but its nuclear and missile ambitions have put itself and the whole region into dire peril,” People’s Daily, the official newspaper of China’s Communist Party, said in a commentary. “The DPRK must not be obsessed in a wrong path of repeated nuclear tests and missile launches that resulted in rounds of sanctions.”
DPRK is a reference to North Korea’s formal name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
Meantime, the US early Wednesday announced it launched an unarmed ICBM missile from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. It was the second such test in a week and comes as the Air Force works to improve the Minuteman III missile’s reliability and demonstrate to North Korea the US nuclear deterrent capability.
At the same time, the US is beefing up its military resources in the Asian region as a show of force with tensions still remaining high over the North Korean threat.
The US Pacific Command said Tuesday it sent the Los Angeles-class attack submarine USS Cheyenne to the US Navy base at Sasebo, Japan. The US also activated its THAAD anti-missile defence system in South Korea this week at a former golf course.
Last week, a carrier strike group led by the USS Carl Vinson held drills off the Korean Peninsula and there’s also been recent training in the Asia-Pacific region involving F-35 stealth fighters and bomber aircraft. The US military confirmed Wednesday two B-1B bombers left Guam’s Andersen Air Force Base on May 1 to hold training missions with forces from Japan and South Korea.
