Seoul: North Korea successfully tested its multiple-warhead missile capability, state media said Thursday, as dozens more trash-laden balloons from Pyongyang landed in the South.
Relations between the two Koreas are at one of their lowest points in years, with Pyongyang ramping up weapons testing while bombarding the South with balloons full of trash it says are in retaliation to similar missives sent northwards by activists in the South.
The balloons briefly forced Seoul’s major hub Incheon Airport to close on Wednesday, and in response to the successive launches, South has fully suspended a tension-reducing military treaty and re-started propaganda loudspeaker broadcasts and live-fire drills near the border.
North Korea claimed it had “successfully conducted the separation and guidance control test of individual mobile warheads,” the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Thursday.
The “separated mobile warheads were guided correctly to the three coordinate targets” during the test, carried out the day before, it said.
“The test is aimed at securing the MIRV capability,” KCNA added, referring to multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle technology — or the ability to fire multiple warheads on a single ballistic missile.
South Korea’s military had previously said the North’s test on Wednesday appeared to be of a hypersonic missile, but that the launch ended in a mid-air explosion.
More smoke than usual appeared to emanate from the missile, raising the possibility of combustion issues, the official said, adding it may have been powered by solid propellants.
According to KCNA, the test “was carried out by use of the first-stage engine of an intermediate-range solid-fuel ballistic missile within a 170-200 kilometer (105 to 124-mile) radius.”
“The effectiveness of a decoy separated from the missile was also verified by anti-air radar,” it said.
Acquiring multiple-warhead missile technology is an ultimate goal for nations seeking ICBM-level missiles to carry nuclear warheads, said Hong Min, a senior research fellow at the Korea Institute for National Unification.
It appears the North is “testing such technology step by step over the long haul,” he told AFP.
“They appear to be making technological advancements in the early development stages of multiple-warhead missiles.”
For three consecutive days, North Korea has floated hundreds of trash-carrying balloons southward in a tit-for-tat propaganda campaign.
Seoul’s military said around 70 balloons had landed by Thursday morning, mainly in northern Gyeonggi province and the Seoul area, with the contents found to not be hazardous.
“The payload is about 10 kilograms (22 pounds), so there is a risk if the balloons descend rapidly,” it said, adding the military was ready to respond.
The response to the latest balloons “will be flexible depending on the strategic and operational situation. This depends on North Korea’s actions,” it added.
South Korea’s Marine Corps resumed live-fire exercises on islands near the western inter-Korean border on Wednesday, marking the first such exercises since the 2018 tension-reducing military deal with the North was fully suspended this month.
South Korea and the United States also staged joint air drills Wednesday involving around 30 aircraft, including Washington’s advanced stealth fighter jet, F-22 Raptor.
President Yoon Suk Yeol visited a US aircraft carrier on Tuesday that arrived in South Korea for joint trilateral military drills this week aimed at countering North Korean threats.
The drills, which run from Thursday to Saturday, involve Washington’s nuclear-powered aircraft carrier the USS Theodore Roosevelt, Tokyo’s guided missile destroyer JS Atago, and Seoul’s fighter jet KF-16s, among other assets.
Pyongyang has routinely criticized such exercises as rehearsals for an invasion.
North Korea says successfully tested multiple-warhead missile
https://arab.news/8q2j2
North Korea says successfully tested multiple-warhead missile
- South Korea’s military had previously said the North’s test on Wednesday appeared to be of a hypersonic missile
- Acquiring multiple-warhead missile technology is an ultimate goal for nations seeking ICBM-level missiles to carry nuclear warheads
Epstein files reveal links to cash, women, power in Africa
- Documents attest to Epstein’sclose ties with Karim Wade, son of former Senegalese president Abdoulaye Wade
- They also reveal his ties to Nina Keita, niece of Ivorian president Alassane Ouattara
PARIS: Jeffrey Epstein built close ties with powerful figures in Senegal and Ivory Coast, files released by the US government last month show, detailing the late sex offender’s influence network across Africa.
Emails, scheduled meetings, investment projects, and loans reviewed by AFP attest to the disgraced New York financier’s close relationship with Karim Wade, son of former Senegalese president Abdoulaye Wade.
They also reveal his ties to Nina Keita, niece of Ivorian president Alassane Ouattara.
Wade and Epstein met in 2010 through Emirati businessman Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, who recently resigned as CEO of port giant DP World after mounting pressure over his close friendship with Epstein.
The pair quickly struck up a rapport.
“Thanks for coming. I think there are many things to consider... I feel confident that we will have fun,” Epstein wrote to Wade on November 15, 2010 after their first meeting in Paris.
“Have a safe trip back to your paradise Island,” Wade replied.
While Wade’s exchanges show no link to Epstein-related sex trafficking crimes, they do reveal conversations on potential business ventures in various sectors, such as finance and energy.
Nicknamed the “Minister of Heaven and Earth” for the multiple portfolios he held including international cooperation, energy, and air transport, Wade was a powerful figure in Senegal until April 2012, when his father’s bid for a third term sparked deadly riots.
Epstein saw him as “one of the most important players in africa” and invited him to meet close contacts such as Ehud Barak, then Israel’s defense minister.
He also put him in touch with Chinese businessman Desmond Shum to discuss “offshore banking.”
The US Department of Justice documents show Shum and Wade met in Beijing on May 9, 2011.
That same month, Wade planned an African tour through Senegal, Mali, and Gabon for Epstein.
‘You will not suffer’
Epstein and Wade’s relationship became even more apparent after the latter’s fortunes reversed when his father left office in 2012.
That autumn, Epstein proposed that his “friend” — under the Dakar authorities’ scrutiny over his assets — use his house in Florida.
“You and your family are welcome to use my house in palm beach, staff is there, pool etc. you will not suffer,” Epstein wrote.
“Txs a lot Brother for the advise,” Wade replied a few weeks later to another email, in which Epstein urged him to “stay mentally strong.”
Numerous files suggest Epstein became financially involved on Karim Wade’s behalf after his arrest in 2013 and his 2015 sentencing to six years in prison for corruption.
Karim Wade’s lawyer, Mohamed Seydou Diagne, sent two invoices in May 2014 and July 2015 of $500,000 to one of Epstein’s companies.
Contacted by AFP on Monday, Diagne said he “did not consider it useful to comment.”
Other archives suggest that Epstein covered at least $50,000 in fees for the US lobbying firm Nelson Mullins, hired by Wade’s entourage to secure his release.
Epstein regularly exchanged emails with Robert Crowe, a partner at the firm who kept him informed of their efforts in the US and Senegal.
In a June 16, 2016 email thread where Epstein and Crowe discussed whether then Senegalese president Macky Sall would pardon Wade, Crowe writes: “He has told my friends high up at State that he was going to do it. They have been putting pressure on him!“
Karim Wade was released from prison eight days later, on June 24, and went into exile in Qatar, which he credited for efforts toward his release.
Jeffrey Epstein was told by Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem and Nina Keita.
‘A very interesting person!’
The DOJ documents show Nina Keita was close to both Epstein and Karim Wade and that she acted as a regular intermediary while Wade was in prison.
Keita also helped put Epstein in contact with her uncle, president of Ivory Coast since May 2011, and his team.
“He thought you were a very interesting person! ... they were all very happy to have you here,” she wrote on January 20, 2012, after the financier’s visit to Abidjan.
She had booked him the “ministerial suite” of the luxury Hotel Ivoire for that trip.
Ahead of the visit, Epstein had said he hoped to see “very pretty girls there, as well as interesting places.”
“You will!” Keita replied.
Emails show Keita, a former model, at least once sent photos and the phone number of a young woman to Epstein.
He then met this woman at the Ritz hotel in Paris on August 31, 2011.
“ask sadia to send pictures of her sister. i prefer under 25,” Epstein wrote to Keita after the meeting.
Now the deputy general director of Ivorian petroleum stocks company GESTOCI, Keita also appears in a February 2019 will in which Epstein requested that debts owed to him by a number of people be canceled upon his death.
AFP received no response to its requests for comment from both Keita and the Ivorian presidency, or from Karim Wade, who was contacted through his entourage.
The mere mention of a person’s name in the Epstein files does not in itself imply wrongdoing.
