After US Compromise, Security Council Strengthens North Korea Sanctions
September 12, 2017 by admin
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Either could have used their status as permanent members of the Security Council to veto the measure.
The original demands from the United States for a new resolution, made by the American ambassador, Nikki R. Haley, were toned down in negotiations that followed with her Russian and Chinese counterparts.
Late Sunday night, after a series of closed-door meetings, a revised draft emerged, setting a cap on oil exports to North Korea, but not blocking them altogether.
The resolution asks countries around the world to inspect ships going in and out of North Korea’s ports (a provision put in place by the Security Council in 2009) but does not authorize the use of force for ships that do not comply, as the Trump administration had originally proposed.
The resolution also requires those inspections to be done with the consent of the countries where the ships are registered, which opens the door to violations. Under the latest resolution, those ships could face penalties, but the original language proposed by the United States had gone much further, empowering countries to interdict ships suspected of carrying weapons material or fuel into North Korea and to use “all necessary measures” — code for military force — to enforce compliance.
The resolution also does not impose a travel ban or asset freeze on Mr. Kim, as the original American draft had set out.
And the new measure adds a caveat to the original language that would have banned the import of North Korean laborers altogether, saying that countries should not provide work authorization papers unless necessary for humanitarian assistance or denuclearization.
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The resolution does ban textile exports from North Korea, prohibits the sale of natural gas to North Korea and sets a cap on refined petroleum sales to the country of two million barrels per year. That would shave off roughly 10 percent of what North Korea currently gets from China, according to the U.S. Energy Information Agency.
Even so, American officials asserted that the resolution would reduce oil imports to North Korea by 30 percent.
China had long worried that an oil cutoff altogether would lead to North Korea’s collapse.
And even some British officials warned, in private, that if the original American proposal went forward, this winter the North Koreans would be showing photographs of freezing children, and portraying the West as architects of a genocide.
A recent analysis by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies suggested that an oil embargo would not have much impact in the long run anyway; Pyongyang, the analysis said, could replace oil with liquefied coal.
Despite the weakened penalties, Ms. Haley cast the resolution as a victory in her Security Council remarks.
Ms. Haley credited what she called President Trump’s relationship with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, in achieving the toughened sanctions — the second raft of United Nations penalties against North Korea since August.
Ms. Haley said the resolution demonstrated international unity against the regime in Pyongyang, and she claimed that the new sanctions, if enforced, would affect the vast majority of the country’s exports.
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But in contrast to her assertion last week that the North was “begging for war,” Ms. Haley said on Monday that Pyongyang still has room to change course. “If it agrees to stop its nuclear program it can reclaim its future,” she said. “If it proves it can live in peace, the world will live in peace with it.”
Ultimately, analysts said, diplomatic success would be measured not by the strictness of sanctions, but by the ability of world powers to persuade Pyongyang to halt its nuclear and ballistic missile tests.
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“There’s no only-sanctions strategy that will bring the North Koreans to heel,” said Daryl G. Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, a disarmament advocacy group based in Washington. “It has to be paired with a pragmatic strategy of engagement. But those talks are not yet happening.”
In a nod to Chinese and Russian arguments, the resolution also calls for resolving the crisis “through peaceful, diplomatic and political means.” That is diplomatic code to engage in negotiations.
In his remarks, the Chinese envoy, Liu Jieyi, warned the United States against efforts at “regime change” and the use of military force. “China will continue to advance dialogue,” he said.
China and Russia have jointly proposed a freeze on Pyongyang’s missile and nuclear tests in exchange for a freeze in joint military drills by South Korea and the United States. The Americans have rejected that proposal.
Russia’s envoy, Vassily A. Nebenzia, said it would be “a big mistake” to ignore the China-Russia proposal. “We will insist on it being considered,” he said.
Diplomats said the language in the new resolution, which was negotiated surprisingly swiftly after the North’s latest nuclear test, reflected a tough but balanced measure designed to address Chinese and Russian concerns.
The French ambassador François Delattre, told reporters that a unified Security Council position was “the best antidote to the risk of war.”
“By definition, this is a compromise in order to get everyone on board,” he said before the vote.
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“Everyone should be able to live with the resolution as it now stands,” said the Swedish ambassador, Olof Skoog.
There was no immediate reaction to the new resolution from North Korea. But on Sunday the North warned that it would inflict the “greatest pain and suffering” on the United States, in the event of tougher international sanctions.
The fact that Russia and China did not veto the resolution suggested that both are increasingly concerned about the behavior of Mr. Kim, who has often taunted his neighbors and suppliers. But the Chinese in particular were reluctant to pass any sanction that could destabilize Mr. Kim’s regime.
American intelligence agencies say they are expecting North Korea to test another intercontinental ballistic missile, building on two tests in July. But the new test, they speculate, will not be into a high launch into space, but will be flattened out to demonstrate how far the missile can fly.
Mr. Kim has said he would consider landing test missiles off the shore of Guam, the Pacific island where an American air base is used to fly practice bombing runs over the South Korean side of the Demilitarized Zone with the North.
In reality, the Trump administration has relatively low expectations for the new sanctions, American officials say.
But it is discussing how to use them, the officials say, with a mix of overt military pressure, covert action, and steps to punish any Chinese banks that do business with North Korea, by banning them from also doing business with the United States.
That is exactly the combination of actions that was used by the Obama administration to drive Iran into negotiations over its nuclear activities for what became the 2015 deal that Mr. Trump has often denounced as a giveaway.
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Floridians return to storm-shattered homes as Irma arrives in Georgia
September 12, 2017 by admin
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FLORIDA CITY/MARCO ISLAND, Fla. (Reuters) – Storm-shocked Floridians returned to their shattered homes on Monday as the remnants of once-powerful Hurricane Irma pushed inland, leaving well over half of residents without power and flooding cities in the state’s northeastern corner.
Downgraded to a tropical storm early on Monday, Irma once ranked as one of the strongest Atlantic hurricanes on record days before barreling into the Florida Keys on Sunday and plowing northward along the Gulf Coast to wreak havoc across a wide swath of the state.
Especially hard hit was the resort archipelago of the Keys, extending into the Gulf of Mexico from the tip of Florida’s peninsula and connected to the mainland by a single, narrow highway, Governor Rick Scott told a news conference on Monday.
“There’s devastation,” he said, adding that virtually every mobile-home park on the island chain was left upended. “It’s horrible what we saw.”
In Miami, which escaped the worst of Irma’s winds but experienced heavy flooding, residents in the city’s Little Haiti neighborhood returned to the wreckage of trailer homes that were shredded by the storm.
“I wanted to cry, but this is what it is, this is life,” Melida Hernandez, 67, who had ridden out the storm at a nearby church, said as she gazed at the ruins of her dwelling, split in two by a fallen tree.
Flooding was reported on Monday in northeastern Florida, including Jacksonville, where police were rescuing residents from waist-deep water.
“Stay inside. Go up. Not out,” Jacksonville’s website warned residents. “There is flooding throughout the city.” The city also warned residents to be wary of snakes and alligators driven into the floodwaters.
EVACUEES URGED TO STAY PUT
Still, the scope of Florida’s damage paled in comparison with the utter devastation left by Irma as a rare Category 5 hurricane in parts of the Caribbean, where the storm killed nearly 40 people – at least 10 of them in Cuba – before turning its fury on Florida.
The storm claimed its first known U.S. fatality over the weekend in the Keys – a man found dead in a pickup truck that had crashed into a tree in high winds, but there was no immediate word on further casualties.
The Keys were largely evacuated before the storm hit, and police established a checkpoint on Monday to keep residents from returning while authorities work to restore power, water, fuel supplies and medical service.
No timetable for reopening the Keys was given, but Miami-Dade County police detective Alvaro Zabeleta, speaking for local authorities, said the message for evacuees was: “Today, for sure, it’s not happening.”
Some 6.5 million people, about one-third of Florida’s population, had been ordered from their homes ahead of Irma’s arrival, and more than 200,000 people sought refuge in about 700 shelters, according to state data.
Scott urged evacuees all over the state to stay put for now rather than rush home, saying downed power lines, debris and other hazards abounded. “Don’t put any more lives at risk,” he said.
He noted, however, that damage to Florida’s west coast, which bore the brunt of the storm after Irma left the Keys, was less severe than had been feared.
WITHOUT POWER
One of the biggest lingering problems was widespread power outages, with utilities reporting 7.3 million homes and businesses without electricity in Florida and neighboring states. They said it could take weeks to fully restore service.
Scott said 65 percent of Florida was without power.
Travel into and out of the state likewise remained stymied. Miami International Airport, one of the busiest in the country, halted passenger flights through at least Monday.
Police in Miami-Dade County said they had made 29 arrests for looting and burglary. Fort Lauderdale police said they had arrested 19 people for looting.
With sustained winds of up to 60 miles per hour (100 kph), Irma had crossed into Georgia by midday, posing a threat of torrential rains and flooding there and other states in the U.S. Southeast.
Some residents who fled the Keys before Irma roared ashore with winds up to 130 mph (209 kph) grew angry as authorities barred them from returning to their homes on Monday. [L2N1LS13J]
A few dozen people argued with police who turned them away from the first of a series of bridges leading to the island chain.
“I would expect that the Keys are not fit for re-entry for regular citizenry for weeks,” Tom Bossert, a homeland security advisor to U.S. President Donald Trump, told a White House news briefing.
BILLIONS IN DAMAGE
Irma’s arrival in Florida came about two weeks after Hurricane Harvey claimed about 60 lives and caused property damage estimates as high as $180 billion after pummeling the Gulf Coasts of Texas and Louisiana with heavy rains and severe flooding.
Insured property losses in Florida from Irma are expected to run from $20 billion to $40 billion, catastrophe modeling firm AIR Worldwide estimated.
That tally, lower than earlier forecasts of up to $50 billion in insured losses, helped spur a relief rally on Wall Street as fears eased that Irma would cut into U.S. economic growth.
As shelters began to empty on Monday, some 7,000 people filed out of Germain Arena in Estero, south of Fort Myers. The crowd included Don Sciarretta, who rode out the storm with his 90-year-old friend, Elsie Johnston, who suffers from Alzheimer’s disease.
Sciarretta, 73, spent two days without sleep, holding up a slumped-over Johnston and making sure she did not fall out of her chair. He relied on other people in the shelter to bring the pair food, often after waiting in hours-long lines.
“For the next storm, I’ll go somewhere on my own like a hotel or a friend’s house,” Sciarretta said. “I‘m not going through this again.”
Additional reporting by Daniel Trotta in Orlando, Fla., Bernie Woodall, Ben Gruber and Zachary Fagenson in Miami, Letitia Stein in Detroit, Colleen Jenkins in Winston-Salem, N.C., Doina Chiacu and Jeff Mason in Washington, Scott DiSavino in New York and Marc Frank in Havana; Writing by Scott Malone and Steve Gorman; Editing by Paul Simao and Peter Cooney