Story 1: President Trump Negotiating Deal With North Korea Communist Dictator Kim Jong Un — Destroy Missiles and Nuclear Weapon or Face The Consequences — Total Trade Embargo with Communist China Starting January 1, 2019 For Enabling North Korea Nuclear Weapons and Missile Programs Proliferation — The Big Squeeze of Kim By Trump and Xi — Videos
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What does Kim Jong Un’s China visit mean for the U.S.?
Why Xi Jinping May Be The World’s Most Powerful Leader
Trump should increase the sanctions against North Korea: Gordon Chang
China demanded that Kim Jung Un visit Beijing: Gordon Chang
White House Sees Kim Jong Un Visit to China as Positive Step
Kim Jong Un met Xi Jinping, Chinese and North Korean state media report
Ingraham: Trump gets his team, media goes berserk
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Kim Jong Un’s surprise announcement
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Story 1: Commander in Chief Trump Orders National Guard To Secure The Mexican/United States Border in 2018 As Bush Did In 2006 and Obama in 2010 — Election Year Politics? — Enforce Immigration Law By Deporting All 30-60 Million Illegal Aliens in U.S. — Videos —
Where’s the Fence
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Obama Sends Troops to the Border
Texas Border Security
DHS Secretary Nielsen On Deploying National Guard To Mexico Border – Full Q & A
Kirstjen Nielsen is TOO SMART For White House Reporters
Trump ramps up illegal immigration fight
President Donald Trump To Send National Guard To U.S.-Mexico Border | NBC Nightly News
Analysis: Trump’s plan to send National Guard troops to secure the southern border
President Trump signed a proclamation Wednesday night to send the National Guard to the southern border immediately, a senior White House official told Fox News, in response to what the administration described as an “unacceptable” flow of drugs, criminal activity and illegal immigrants.
Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said at the White House press briefing that the signing would be done in conjunction with governors and that the administration hoped the deployment would begin “immediately.”
“Despite a number of steps this administration has taken…we continue to see unacceptable levels of illegal drugs, dangerous gang activity transnational criminal organizations and illegal immigration flow across our border,” she said.
“The president has directed that the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security work together with our governors to deploy our National Guard to our southwest border to assist the border patrol,” she said. “The president will be signing a proclamation to that effect today.”
Details about what the National Guard would do and how many would be deployed and for how long were not immediately disclosed.
Under the George W. Bush administration, deploying the National Guard to the border cost $415 million dollars.
Donald J. Trump
✔@realDonaldTrump
Our Border Laws are very weak while those of Mexico & Canada are very strong. Congress must change these Obama era, and other, laws NOW! The Democrats stand in our way – they want people to pour into our country unchecked….CRIME! We will be taking strong action today.
Nielsen pointed to what she described as increasing fraud and exploited loopholes among arrivals on the southern border, saying traffickers have been advertising that if migrants have children with them, then they are more likely to be released into the U.S. She also said that almost 50 percent of arriving aliens are from Central America.
“Traffickers and smugglers know that these individuals cannot under U.S. law be easily removed in an expeditious way back to their country of origin and so they exploit the loophole,” she said, adding that the ability to game the system acts as a magnet for more migrants.
She said that the administration has drafted legislation and will ask Congress to provide legal authority and resources to address the problem.
“We will not allow illegal immigration levels to become the norm,” she said. “More than 1,000 people a day, 300,000 a year violating our sovereignty as a nation will never be acceptable to this president.”
Trump had tweeted earlier Wednesday that he would “be taking strong action today” on the Mexico border, a day after he said that he wants to send the military to secure it until a wall is built.
Arguing that the U.S. border laws “are very weak” compared to Mexico and Canada, he accused Democrats of wanting immigrants “to pour into our country unchecked.”
Former Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush had deployed the National Guard to the border in response to security issues.
The Associated Press reported that the White House was considering a model similar to a Bush-era operation, where in 2006 6,000 National Guard troops were sent to assist the border patrol with non-law enforcement duties while additional border agents were hired and trained.
Trump’s recent focus on illegal immigration appeared to have been partly motivated by a caravan of more than 1,000 Central American migrants heading toward the U.S. border.
Trump had threatened to end the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and to cut foreign aid to countries such as Honduras, from where many of the migrants originate, if the caravan was not stopped.
Trump said Tuesday that he believes the caravan is being broken up after he had a conversation with Mexican officials.
Nielsen said on Tuesday that she had been advised by Mexican officials that “the caravan is dissipating” and that several hundred migrants had been repatriated.
“We will not accept the lawlessness of these types of efforts and those who choose to violate our laws, and those who conspire to assist others to violate our laws, will face criminal prosecution,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions said. “The Department of Justice fully supports the efforts of the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security announced today to secure our border. I will soon be announcing additional Department of Justice initiatives to restore legality to the southern border.”
Fox News’ Brooke Singman, Serafin Gomez, Jennifer Griffin, Jake Gibson and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Congress should make sure our border patrol has the manpower, equipment, funds, and authority to do what is needed.
(AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
About 1,100 Central Americans are marching toward the U.S.-Mexico border. Word from this “caravan,” organized by a group called Pueblo Sin Fronteras, which translates as “peoples without borders,”* is that these migrants plan to turn themselves over to U.S. immigration officers and apply for asylum.
(Note, Pueblos sin Fronteras is not connected to a U.S. nonprofit named “People without Borders.”)
It’s worth noting some interesting math, among other things. If the caravan tried to evade the U.S. Border Patrol but was caught, it would be about equal to the number of illegal entrants caught every day at the southern border.
The border patrol caught 310,531 in fiscal 2017. In the first five months of fiscal 2018, apprehensions are up a bit, to about 900 a day. These are people caught trying to sneak into the U.S. between checkpoints.
It’s a huge problem.
At least 10 million people are in here illegally. Many snuck in. Many others overstayed visas. Nearly 1,000 more are caught every day trying to cross. And another 2,000 a day overstay their visas.
We aren’t a “people without borders,” and we never should be. President Trump has ramped up border enforcement, but there is more work to do, and Congress should make sure our border patrol has the manpower, equipment, funds, and authority to do what is needed.
Border enforcement isn’t any old aspect of law enforcement. Democratic self-determination and the rule of law hinge on it.
A country without borders, Trump says repeatedly, is no country at all. This is true, and it’s important. National democracy is the biggest form that democracy takes in today’s world. In a democratic nation, self-determination includes determining who is part of the nation.
If we really believe in the ideas of the Enlightenment, then we have to believe in self-determining, democratic nations. That means we have to believe in immigration control.
How much immigration to have, and of what sort, is a live debate. We support something more open than Trump’s rhetoric would prescribe. We don’t favor cuts in the level of legal immigration, but we agree with the president’s tilt toward high-skilled newcomers.
If we have laws and don’t enforce them, while so many of our business and political elites cheer the lax enforcement, we are trading democracy for oligarchy.
Illegal immigration corrodes the rule of law more than most lawbreaking. It creates subcultures and neighborhoods where families and communities live in the shadows. This means they’re less likely to call the police or operate above board, leaving their families vulnerable to the worst among them.
Trump’s critics blame this on aggressive deportation efforts. That can be debated, but we should all agree that the best place to enforce immigration law is at the border.
The Pueblo Sin Fronteras people want asylum status. This country has always welcomed genuine refugees, which is to say, people who have a well-founded fear of persecution in their own country. But migrants are not the same thing as asylum seekers. And anyway, why is the U.S. responsible for people from Guatemala tramping across a huge country such as Mexico, simply because this is where they would prefer to live? Asylum seekers, properly defined, are fleeing for their lives. They have the right to safety, not to residence in the land of milk of honey.
Imagine there’s no countries. It may sound nice in a John Lennon song, but it is facile and ill-considered. In reality, a land without a border is inhabited by a people without the rule of law or democracy.
—-
* UPDATE/CLARIFICATION: The original version of this editorial apparently left many readers believing that the caravan group, Pueblos Sin Fronteras was the same as a U.S.-based nonprofit with the name “People Without Borders.” They are not connected in any way.
Can President Trump breathe easy? The Washington Post reported Tuesday night that Trump is a subject of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, but not a target of the investigation.
There’s something there for both sides—Trump supporters can argue that the president isn’t a target, and his critics can point out that the president remains under investigation. Trump is not in the clear, but neither are criminal charges necessarily imminent. Trump might never become a target of the investigation, or he could change from subject to target at any time.
“It’s not comforting to be a ‘subject’ of an investigation. Most white-collar criminal defendants started out as subjects of a grand jury investigation,” said Bruce Green, a former federal prosecutor and a law professor at Fordham. “Calling President Trump a ‘subject’ rather than a mere ‘witness’ generally means that his conduct is still being investigated, he is still suspected of having acted criminally, but no conclusion has yet been reached that he is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.”
The media’s Mueller speculation has reached a new level of lunacy
MatthewWalther
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
April 5, 2018
Did you hear the news? On Wednesday an obscure Dutch lawyer who is “tied” — one of my favorite journalistic weasel words, along with “linked” and “blasted” — to the deputy chairman of Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign has been sentenced to 30 days in jail for initially failing to forward all of his emails to Bob Mueller. I have heard of stiffer sentences for jaywalking in Manhattan and failing to register a cocker spaniel, but I’m sure it’s a very big deal.
It has to be because the sentencing of Alex van der Zwaan immediately inspired another round of lunatic speculation about the state of the investigation into collusion between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin. The sentence was announced the day after TheWashington Postreported that Trump is currently not a “target” of the investigation.
Cue the takes! “Mueller told Trump he’s not a criminal target in the Russia probe. That may not mean what you think,” one of the approximately 1,700 persons employed full-time by the Post to produce algorithmically generated electronic high-pitched noise sounding not unlike the president’s last name insisted. “Mueller’s assurances that Trump is not a ‘target’ don’t mean much,” Politicoyodeled. “The report that Trump is not a target of the Mueller probe is actually terrible news for the president,” saidSlate, which still maintains its idiotic Trump Impeach-o-Meter, something I wish I had thought of when I was working at a right-wing magazine during Obama’s second term. I spent Wednesday morning reading dozens, possibly as many as a hundred, of these pieces without learning anything.
Here is what it all really means: nothing.
Nothing at all except that among a certain segment of our supposedly educated upper-middle-class there is apparently an endless appetite for therapy-tainment. The Mueller investigation has seemingly nothing to do with collusion between Trump and Moscow, of which there is still as much evidence as there was in January 2017, i.e., none. It’s Bircherism for people who know what “green juice” is, a way to explain how the wealthiest political campaign in history lost to a quasi-literate lowbrow TV star and cope with this ongoing reality. This is why some recent takes don’t even make a pretense of mentioning Russia. Long ago the whole thing morphed from being an investigation of treasonous election meddling to one of supposed obstruction of an investigation into the aforementioned non-event. People are still clicking.
Trump is not safe from Mueller. Not by a long shot.
It is easy to understand why journalists cater to their readers’ appetite for this stuff. When there is news, even news that makes the whole thing seem stupid and pointless, it’s bad news for Trump; when there isn’t news, the absence of news is also bad news for Trump. If a rando volunteer on the campaign admits that he lied about once emailing another rando overseas, it’s the second gunman on the grassy knoll. If Mueller shows no sign of being even remotely interested in a conspiracy theory about Trump, Russia, and the release of emails that showed irrefutable evidence of actual collusion between the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s campaign, it’s actually proof that this is probably what is going to bring down the administration sooner or later. For people who have convinced themselves that all of this is hugely significant anything can be evidence of everything — even nothing.Let’s summarize the things we actually know. Paul Manafort worked for the Ukrainian government from before the release of Star Wars on DVD until roughly the day that Beyoncé won a Grammy for “Single Ladies.” He also lied about it and about some or perhaps nearly all of his earnings. Several other people, including the president’s former national security advisor, have told lies about, among other things, an utterly unremarkable post-election conversation with a Russian ambassador. Thirteen technically real Russian people also LARPed as Tea Party types on Facebook. I mean, really. What bank did Putin use to cash the golf-style novelty oversized check from Trump and how many digital copies of the pee tape are on Mueller’s MacBook Pro?
In the spirit of paschal charity I would like to offer up my very first contribution to the vast literature of Mueller “what’s next” takes. In two or six or eight months, President Trump, as tired as the rest of us of hearing about this non-story, will finally agree to sit down with our very special prosecutor to clear his name. Because Trump is a hyperbolic charlatan, he will proffer some ridiculous falsehoods — “I have never met a Russian, okay? I don’t — does anybody, does anybody even know where Russia is?” — under oath. Bingo, Mueller will say, you lied. You’re done.
And maybe he will be. No one whose habit or job it is to read the news on a daily basis would disagree at this point that it would be worth having President Michael Pence in exchange for the drawing of a curtain over these tedious revels. I would go a great deal further than that: I would rather see Hillary Clinton cackling from the Oval Office than read another spodomantic opinion column about the former star of The Apprentice and the largest sovereign republic in Eurasia.
Story 1: Communist Chinese Connection To Trade Nuclear Proliferation and Terrorism (TNT) — Peace or War — Destroy North Korea Nuclear Weapons and Missiles or Face The Consequences of Overthrow of Communist Party — Total Complete Embargo on All Chinese Trade and Investment —
Donald Trump arrives in Beijing President to tell China ‘get tough on North Korea threat’
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Trump in Beijing and US-China trade
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WHY & HOW CHINA HELPED NORTH KOREA IN DEVELOPING ITS NUCLEAR ARSENAL?
‘THE BOMB” NEW PBS Documentary about the history of nuclear weapons!!
Published on Jul 23, 2017
The Bomb is a 2015 American documentary film about the history of nuclear weapons, from theoretical scientific considerations at the very beginning, to their first use on August 6, 1945,to their global political implications in the present-day.The two-hour PBS film was written and directed by Rushmore DeNooyer, who noted the project took a year and a half to complete, since much of the film footage and images was only recently declassified by the United States Department of Defense. According to DeNooyer, “It wouldn’t take very many bombs to really change life on Earth, … The idea that there are thousands of them sitting around is pretty scary. I don’t think people today realize that. They don’t think about it. I don’t think they are scared. But in a way, they should be. Mark Dawidziak, of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, summarized the film as follows: “The Bomb moves swiftly to cover Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Cold War, the arms race, the Red Scare, the witch hunt, the Cuban Missile Crisis, test-ban treaties, the “Star Wars” initiative, the anti-nuke movement, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the rise of new nuclear threats. According to historian Richard Rhodes, “The invention [of ‘The Bomb’] was a millennial change in human history: for the first time, we were now capable of our own destruction, as a species…
How Does China’s Government Work?
TED – China’s Political System
Eric X. Li: A tale of two political systems
It’s a standard assumption in the West: As a society progresses, it eventually becomes a capitalist, multi-party democracy. Right? Eric X. Li, a Chinese investor and political scientist, begs to differ. In this provocative, boundary-pushing talk, he asks his audience to consider that there’s more than one way to run a succesful modern nation. TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world’s leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes (or less). Look for talks on Technology, Entertainment and Design — plus science, business, global issues, the arts and much more. Find closed captions and translated subtitles in many languages at
Xi Jinping: Why are we called Communist Party of China?
China congress: Xi Jinping declares ‘new era’ for China – BBC News
China’s Communist party enshrines Xi Jinping ideology in constitution
Published on Oct 24, 2017
China’s ruling Communist Party has voted to enshrine Xi Jinping’s name and ideology in its constitution, elevating him to the level of founder Mao Zedong. The unanimous vote to incorporate “Xi Jinping Thought” happened at the end of the Communist Party congress, China’s most important political meeting. Mr Xi has steadily increased his grip on power since becoming leader in 2012. This move means that any challenge to Mr Xi will now be seen as a threat to Communist Party rule. More than 2,000 delegates gathered in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People for the final approval process to enshrine “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for the New Era” into the Communist Party constitution of China. At the end of the process, delegates were asked if they had any objections, to which they responded with loud cries of “none”, reported journalists at the scene.
How Xi Jinping Went From Feeding Pigs to Ruling China
China Just Sent a Chilling Warning to North Korea About The United States
North Korea Is SCREWED After China Issues Brutal Threat Of What Will Happen If They Hit U.S.
China Just Sent a Chilling Warning to North Korea About The United States
The threat of a North Korean nuclear attack is Trump’s biggest test of leadership yet – but another country might actually end up calling the shots. And Trump, to be fair, has been warning us about China for years. But I’m willing to bet that even he didn’t see this coming.
Fact is, aside from being deadly, brutal, and destructive, war is also expensive. And if you can’t afford to do it, you probably shouldn’t start it.
Or join it, for that matter. It’s why China has unofficially leaked a government policy for the world to see – that if North Korea attacks the US, China will remain neutral.
But if the US attacks first, China will join the war. Which means, put bluntly, that the only way World War III doesn’t start is for North Korea to hit us first. Which is unacceptable. About as unacceptable as World War III.China really put Trump in a bind.
Breitbart reports:
The Communist Party organization Global Times [published] an editorial declaring that China would remain neutral if North Korea starts a war but intervene on North Korea’s behalf if the U.S. and South Korea attempt a preemptive strike.
The Chinese government may eventually seek some diplomatic wiggle room by insisting the Global Times is but a newspaper printing an editorial, and the piece is written in the style of newspaper editors lecturing officials about what they “should” do, but China’s state-run media is a mouthpiece for its authoritarian government.If it sounds complicated, it’s really not. The Chinese government is run by the Chinese Communist Party. The Chinese Communist Party owns and runs the Global Times. Therefore, whatever the Global Times prints is what the Communist Party wants it to print.
But it’s still a newspaper, of course, which means that, if the world – or, sometimes, the Chinese themselves – really don’t like a policy, the government can pretend that the newspaper just got the story wrong.
It’s an easy way to test a policy before you pass it. Or, in this case, an easy way to tell the world what you’re going to do, without all the trouble of officially telling the world what you’re going to do.
Fact is, China can’t really afford this war – Breitbart lists off several reasons, including tensions with India, Japan, and all the work securing the South China Sea. The Korea thing is just one more brick on an already heavy pile. But their way out of it forces Donald Trump to let the US get hit first.
‘Welcome to China! I love you!’: Beijing schoolchildren thrill Trump with Peking opera performance after private tour of the Forbidden City and tea with China’s Xi and Madame Peng
Trump landed Wednesday in China for meetings with President Xi Jinping
School children waving American flags greeted him at the airport in Beijing
President and first lady took in an extra special performance of Peking opera during a grand tour of the Forbidden City put on for him by Xi
President has touted his close relationship with Xi, calling it ‘outstanding’
But he says that won’t stop him from getting tough with China over trade
North Korea is expected to dominate the agenda as it did when pair met in April
Last year when he visited China, Obama was prevented from using his stairs to deplane Air Force One in a major snub
Trump didn’t have that problem: Chinese authorities had a rolling staircase tall enough to reach the front door of the plane
By Francesca Chambers, White House Correspondent In Beijing, China and David Martosko, Us Political Editor For Dailymail.com In Seoul, South Korea
PUBLISHED: 21:20 EST, 7 November 2017 | UPDATED: 12:59 EST, 8 November 2017
President Donald Trump took in an extra special performance of Peking opera on Wednesday evening in Beijing during a grand tour of the Forbidden City put on for him by China‘s Xi Jinping.
Xi had the production staged in the former imperial palace that is now a museum just for Trump’s visit.
‘Welcome to China! I love you!’ a group of children who were part of the performance told the U.S. president when it was finished.
The president and first lady Melania Trump ended their evening with a dinner in another section of the Forbidden City with the Chinese leader and his wife, Madame Peng Liyuan.
‘Welcome to China! I love you!’ a group of children who were part of a Peking opera performance told the U.S. president this evening in Beijing
Trump took in an extra special performance of Peking opera on Wednesday during a grand tour of the Forbidden City put on by Chinese President Xi Jinping. President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump are seen here in the Forbidden City with Xi and his wife Madame Peng Liyuan
The Trumps are at a private dinner now with Xi and his wife, Madame Peng Liyuan
SPECIAL MOMENT: The president and first lady share a fond moment after their arrival in the Forbidden City
President Trump tours the Conservation Scientific Laboratory of the Forbidden City with his wife, Xi and Peng
Trump viewed a clock on a “musical clock with country scene,” a “gourd-shaped clock with rotating flowers,” and a “clock with lifting tower,” according to a placard bearing an English and Chinese-language descriptions of the items
After the tour, the presidents and the first ladies of the US and China watched a special performance of Peking opera that was staged for Trump’s visit
A military honor guard and flag-waving schoolchildren greeted Trump when he arrived Wednesday afternoon in China, the third country in his 12-day Asia tour.
U.S. ambassador to China Terry Branstad met Trump and his secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, after Air Force One stopped on the tarmac in Beijing.
Trump deplaned from Air Force One without incident, avoiding the embarrassment Barack Obama suffered a year ago as he landed in China during the annual Group of 20 summit.
Obama was humiliated when he had to exit from the belly of the aircraft because authorities didn’t approve a staircase tall enough for him to walk out of the front exit of the plane.
Chinese officials rolled a large set of stairs to the aircraft’s door on Wednesday.
WARM REUNION: Trump and Xi greeted each other like old friends on Wednesday in the Forbidden City
Trump was especially interested in a clock with lifting tour during his tour of an artifacts restoration center in the Forbidden City. ‘Unbelievable,’ he said
Trump and Xi watch the Peking opera from the Hall of Character Cultivation in the Forbidden City
The U.S. president was delighted as children in yellow and red costumes danced on stage with peacock feathers
As Trump left the performance, the told inquiring reporters, ‘We’re having a great time, thank you’
Trump hopped in his motorcade and sped through Beijing to the Forbidden City, where he had tea with his Chinese counterpart, whom he had entertained at his Florida Mar-a-Lago club in April, and the first lady of sprawling Asian country that is home to 1.4 billion people.
After a warm reunion over tea, Chinese president Xi Jinping led the Trumps to the Conservation Scientific Laboratory of the Forbidden City to participate in an artifact restoration.
Trump was intrigued by a ‘musical clock with country scene’ and a ‘gourd-shaped clock with rotating flowers,’ according to English-language placards.
Viewing a ‘clock with lifting tower, Trump said it was ‘unbelievable.’
Once Trump had moved on to another room, Tillerson entered with the rest of the U.S. delegation, including Branstad. The diplomat was eager to know more about the artifacts, asking many questions as White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, senior adviser Jared Kushner and National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster milled about the room.
The two first couples next watched a performance of Peking opera, a distinctively Chinese art form that combines music, mime, dance and acrobatics.
Posing for pictures with the cast when the opera had concluded, Trump told them the extravagant show was ‘beautiful!’
Children waving American flags greet the Trumps as they arrive at the Beijing airport
President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump arrived on Air Force One in Beijing, China on Wednesday
Trump left Osan Air Base in Pyeongtaek, South Korea on his way to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping to talk about global trade and the North Korean nuclear menace
A U.S and Chinese honor guard met the Trumps, along with a cadre of schoolchildren waving the flags of both nations
Chinese officials rolled a large set of stairs to the aircraft’s door on Wednesday, avoiding any appearance of the kind of insult that greeted former president Barack Obama in 2016
Obama was denied use of an airport staircase when he deplaned Air Force One last September as he arrived in China for the annual Group of 20 summit – a move that was seen globally as a major snub
The Forbidden City, now a major tourist attraction, has its roots in the 15th Century and was the Chinese imperial palace from the Ming dynasty through 1912.
On the agenda for Trump during his Beijing visit are requests for a hardline approach to economically paralyzing North Korea, and talks aimed at shrinking America’s massive trade deficit with China.
Last year the Chinese sold $347 billion more in goods to the U.S. than America sold into the world’s largest communist nation.
Trump is on a five-country trip through Asia traveling to Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines
Trump roared with approval as he waded through a sea of children on the tarmac Wednesday in China
Trump said Monday in Japan that he’s fond of Xi Jinping, the newly-elevated communist party chair of China, and the foreign leader likes him too
Trump left South Korea on Wednesday after delivering a speech to the country’s National Assembly. He said in a tweet Wednesday morning that he was looking forward to again seeing Xi, ‘who is just off his great political victory.’
He said Monday inJapan that he’s fond of Xi, the newly-elevated communist party chair of China, and the foreign leader likes him.
But he won’t allow their mutual affection to cloud his judgement, Trump asserted, as he pledgedto take ‘very, very strong action’ against China and other countries that have been treating the United States ‘unfairly’ in the trade arena.
‘He represents China. I represent the United States,’ Trump said at a news conference in Tokyo.
On the way to Beijing, a senior White House official told reporters that the president plans to keep up his habit of tweeting while he’s in China, even though Chinese citizens can’t do it.
‘The president will tweet whatever he wants,’ the official said. ‘That’s his way of communicating directly with the American people. Why not?’
‘So long as he can access his Twitter account – because Twitter is banned in China along with Facebook and most of the other social media. I’m sure we’ve got the gear aboard this airplane to make it happen. But it is noteworthy that none of the major western platforms for social media are even allowed to operate in China.’
On Tuesday in Seoul, Trump pressured Xi’s government to totally isolate Kim Jong-un, the 33-year-old despot across the border, during remarks in Seoul.
Trump tweeted Wednesday that he was looking forward to renewing his bond with Xi, whom he welcomed to his Florida Mar-a-Lago private resort in April
Trump has touted his relationship with Xi Jinping calling it ‘outstanding’, but says he still intends to get tough with the Chinese leader over trade in Beijing
In this photo taken on October 31, 2017, Chinese paramilitary guards walk in The Forbidden City in Beijing
All responsible nations must cut off North Korea’s cash flow by imposing and enforcing international sanctions on Kim and his government, Trump declared, singling out China and Russia, two permanent members of the United Nations Security Council.
‘It’s time to act with urgency and with great determination,’ the U.S. president said in a joint press conference with South Korean leader Moon Jae-in.
Beijing is the third destination on a five-nation hustle across eastern Asia.
As with every other stop on this trip, North Korea is expected to dominate Xi and Trump’s discussions.
But in Beijing, more than anywhere else during the visit, Trump – a former titan of real estate – is also under pressure to address the regional trade practices that he said as a candidate he would fix.
Trump pounded China for alleged currency manipulation in the presidential election last year that unexpectedly put him in power. He’s said as recently as February that the Chinese were ‘grand champions’ at the economic trick.
By artificially devaluing its currency, the yuan, Beijing has been able to been able to lower the price of its exports, ‘stealing’ American jobs, Trump has said.
Trump will tour a famous imperial palace and take in the opera today today with first lady Melania Trump as he brings his high-wire circuit of Asia to Beijing
His assessment was rejected by the International Monetary Fund last year, and Trump’s own administration has shied away from shackling China with the designation.
Since his April summit with Xi, the U.S. president has also backed off his verbal assault.
‘The relationship developed by President Xi and myself I think is outstanding,’ Trump said after less than a day of talks with the Chinese president and his representatives.
‘We look forward to being together many times in the future. And I believe lots of very potentially bad problems will be going away.’
Days later Trump was still gushing about his weekend in Florida with Xi in what amounted to a total about-face of his previous criticisms.
‘Now what am I going to do? Start a trade war with China while in the middle of him working on a bigger problem, frankly, with North Korea?’ he asked rhetorically in an interview with Fox & Friends.
Trump said later that month that it wouldn’t make sense to label Xi’s country a currency manipulator after the Chinese leader offered to assist the U.S. in its efforts to constrain North Korea.
‘Why would I call China a currency manipulator when they are working with us on the North Korean problem? We will see what happens!’ Trump tweeted.
China’s stepped up efforts to choke off Kim Jong-un’s finances has not kept Trump from complaining about the gross trade deficit between the two countries, nor has it had an immediate effect on the United States’ enforcement of freedom of navigation in the South China Sea.
Trump told Fox News host Maria Bartiromo late last month that the U.S. loses ‘hundreds of billions a year’ a year to China.
Trump singled out China on Tuesday in South Korea as a country that needs to do more to cripple North Korea’s nuclear aggression
Trump is due in Beijing on Wednesday where he will meet Chinese leader Xi Jingping on his home soil for the first time (the two are pictured at the G20 summit in Germany in July)
‘We lose with almost every country, we have massive deficits,’ the billionaire president insisted. ‘We can’t allow the world to look at us as a whipping post. Not gonna happen, anymore.’
Monday, at a joint press conference with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Tokyo, Trump told a reporter who asked how his administration plans to enforce its mandate of a ‘free and open’ Indo-Asia Pacific without riling up China, a major power on the continent, that he would not allow the communist country to take advantage of the U.S.
‘You will be seeing things of countries that have been treating the United States and the United States worker and companies…our country, and our workers very unfairly, you will be seeing that the United States will take very, very strong action,’ Trump said.
The legal work is mostly finished, he revealed. ‘And you’re going to see a very big difference, and it’s going to happen very soon. Because the United States, by many countries, has been treated very, very unfairly when it comes to trade.’
Trump has not shied away from attacking China on Twitter, both before and after his first meeting with Xi at Mar-A-Lago back in April
The administration believes that China is behind as much as $600 million in IP theft through forced technology transfers.
China’s Commerce Ministry has called the probe ‘irresponsible’ and ‘not objective.’ Beijing would almost certainly bring additional U.S. action before the World Trade Organization.
But Trump could unilaterally impose tariffs on Beijing through Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 if USTR determines that China is engaging in ‘unfair trade practices’ – a powerful weapon if he decides to use it.
Trump has been hesitant to act against Beijing so long as Xi goes along with his plans to suffocate North Korea’s nuclear ambition.
The resident left Seoul on Wednesday after meeting with Moon Jae-in, the newly elected leader of South Korea
Trump visited Japan earlier this week and after stopping in Beijing he is due to visit Vietnam and the Philippines before heading back to the US
At a briefing with reporters on Sunday evening in Tokyo, a senior White House official insisted that the economic and security concerns of the Trump administration are wholly separate issues when it comes to North Korea and trade with countries in the Indo-Pacific.
This article is about the main ideology of the People’s Republic of China and its ruling party, the Communist Party. For the socialist ideology of the Republican era of China under Kuomintang rule, see Socialist ideology of the Kuomintang.
The concept of a primary stage of socialism was conceived before China introduced economic reforms.[1] When discussing the necessity of commodity relations at the First Zhengzhou Conference (2–10 November 1958) Mao Zedong—the Chairman of the CPC’s Central Committee—said that China was in the “initial stage of socialism” [1] Mao never elaborated on the idea; his successors were left to do this.[1]
After Mao’s death
On 5 May 1978, the article “Putting into Effect the Socialist Principle of Distribution According to Work”, elaborated on the idea that China was still at the first stage of reaching pure communism[2] and that it had not become a truly socialist society.[2] It is said[by whom?] that the article was written on the orders of Deng Xiaoping, so as to “criticize and repudiate” the beliefs of the communist left.[3] The term reappeared at the 6th plenum of the 11th Central Committee on 27 June 1981 in the document, “Resolution on Certain Questions in the History of our Party since the Founding of the PRC”.[4]Hu Yaobang, the CPC’s general secretary, used the term in his report to the 12th CPC National Congress on 1 September 1982.[4] It was not until the “Resolution Concerning the Guiding Principle in Building Socialist Spiritual Civilization” at the 6th plenum of the 12th Central Committee that the term was used in the defense of the economic reforms which were being introduced.[4]
At the 13th CPC National Congress, acting CPC General Secretary Zhao Ziyang, on behalf of the 12th Central Committee, delivered the report “Advance Along the Road of Socialism with Chinese characteristics”.[5] He wrote that China was a socialist society, but that socialism in China was in its primary stage;[5] a Chinese peculiarity which was due to the undeveloped state of the country’s productive forces.[5] During this phase of development, Zhao recommended introducing a planned commodity economy on the basis of public ownership.[5] The main failure of the communist right, according to Zhao, was that they failed to acknowledge that China could reach socialism by bypassing capitalism. The main failure of the communist left was that they held the “utopian position” that China could bypass the primary stage of socialism, in which the productive forces are to be modernized.[6]On 25 October 1987, Zhao further expounded on the concept of the primary stage of socialism, and said that the Party line was to follow “One Center, Two Basic Points”; the central focus of the Chinese state was economic development, but that this should occur simultaneously through centralized political control (i.e., the Four Cardinal Principles) and upholding the policy of reform and opening up.[4]
CPC General Secretary Jiang Zemin further elaborated on the concept ten years later; first during a speech to the Central Party School on 29 May 1997 and again in his report to the 15th CPC National Congress on 12 September 1997.[4] According to Jiang, the 3rd plenum of the 11th Central Committee correctly analyzed and formulated a scientifically correct program for the problems facing China and socialism.[4] In Jiang’s words, the primary stage of socialism was an “undeveloped stage”.[4] The fundamental task of socialism is to develop the productive forces, therefore the main aim during the primary stage should be the further development of the national productive forces.[4] The primary contradiction in Chinese society during the primary stage of socialism is “the growing material and cultural needs of the people and the backwardness of production”.[4] This contradiction will remain until China has completed the process of primary stage of socialism, and because of it, economic development should remain the CPC’s main focus during this stage.[4]
Jiang elaborated on three points to develop the primary stage of socialism.[7] The first—to develop a socialist economy with Chinese characteristics—meant developing the economy by emancipating and modernizing the forces of production while developing a market economy.[7] The second—building socialist politics with Chinese characteristics—meant “managing state affairs according to the law”, developing socialist democracy under the CPC and making the “people the masters of the country”.[7] The third point—building socialist culture with Chinese characteristics—meant turning Marxism into the guide to train the people so as to give them “high ideals, moral integrity, a good education, and a strong sense of discipline, and developing a national scientific, and popular socialist culture geared to the needs of modernization, of the world, and of the future.”[7]
When asked how long the primary stage of socialism would last, Zhao replied, “[i]t will be at least 100 years … [before] socialist modernization will have been in the main accomplished.”[8] The state constitution states that “China will be in the primary stage of socialism for a long time to come”.[9] As with Zhao, Jiang believed that it would take at least 100 years to reach a more advanced stage.[4]
“What is socialism and what is Marxism? We were not quite clear about this in the past. Marxism attaches utmost importance to developing the productive forces. We have said that socialism is the primary stage of communism and that at the advanced stage the principle of from each according to his ability and to each according to his needs will be applied. This calls for highly developed productive forces and an overwhelming abundance of material wealth. Therefore, the fundamental task for the socialist stage is to develop the productive forces. The superiority of the socialist system is demonstrated, in the final analysis, by faster and greater development of those forces than under the capitalist system. As they develop, the people’s material and cultural life will constantly improve. One of our shortcomings after the founding of the People’s Republic was that we didn’t pay enough attention to developing the productive forces. Socialism means eliminating poverty. Pauperism is not socialism, still less communism.”
”
— Deng Xiaoping, on 30 June 1984 at a Central Committee plenum, in a speech discussing Marxist theory[10]
Deng Xiaoping, the architect of the Chinese economic reforms, did not believe that the market economy was synonymous with capitalism or that planning was synonymous with socialism.[11] During his southern tour, he said, “planning and market forces are not the essential difference between socialism and capitalism. A planned economy is not the definition of socialism, because there is planning under capitalism; the market economy happens under socialism, too. Planning and market forces are both ways of controlling economic activity”.[11]
Ideological justification
In the 1980s it became evident to Chinese economists that the Marxist theory of the law of value—understood as the expression of the labor theory of value—could not serve as the basis of China’s pricing system.[12] They concluded that Marx never intended his theory of law of value to work “as an expression of ‘concretized labor time’ “.[12] Marx’s notion of “prices of production” was meaningless to the Soviet-styled planned economies since price formations were according to Marx established by markets.[13] Soviet planners had used the law of value as a basis to rationalize prices in the planned economy.[14] According to Soviet sources, prices were “planned with an eye to the … basic requirements of the law of value.”[14] However, the primary fault with the Soviet interpretation was that they tried to calibrate prices without a competitive market since, according to Marx, competitive markets allowed for an equilibrium of profit rates which led to an increase in the prices of production.[15] The rejection of the Soviet interpretation of the law of value led to the acceptance of the idea that China was still in the “primary stage of socialism”.[14] The basic argument was that conditions envisaged by Marx for reaching the socialist stage of development did not yet exist in China.[14]
Mao said that the imposition of “progressive relations of production” would revolutionize production.[16] His successor’s rejection of this view has, according to A. James Gregor, thwarted the ideological continuity of Maoism—officially “Mao Zedong Thought“.[16] Classical Marxism had argued that a socialist revolution would only take place in advanced capitalist societies, and its success would signal the transition from a capitalist commodity-based economy to a “product economy” in which goods would be distributed for people’s need and not for profit.[16] If because of a lack of a coherent explanation in the chance of failure this revolution did not occur, the revolutionaries would be forced to take over the responsibilities of the bourgeoisie.[16] Thus Chinese communists are looking for a new Marxist theory of development.[16] Party theorist Luo Rongqu recognized that the founders of Marxism had never “formulated any systematic theory on the development of the non-Western world”, and said that the Communist Party should “establish their own synthesized theoretical framework to study the problem of modern development.”[17] According to A. James Gregor, the implication of this stance “is that Chinese Marxism is currently in a state of profound theoretical discontinuity.”[18]
Private ownership
The concept of private ownership is rooted in classical Marxism.[19] Because China adopted socialism when it was a semi-feudal and semi-colonial country, it is in the primary stage of socialism.[19] Because of this, certain policies and system characteristics—such as commodity production for the market, the existence of a private sector and the reliance of the profit motive in enterprise management—were changed.[19] These changes were allowed as long as they improve productivity and modernize the means of production, and thus further develop socialism.[19] According to this perspective, Mao’s leftist belief that China could advance to full socialism immediately by bypassing capitalism is considered false.[19]
The CPC still considers private ownership to be non-socialist.[20] However, according to party theorists, the existence and growth of private ownership does not necessarily undermine socialism and promote capitalism in China.[20] It is argued that Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels—the founders of communism—never proposed the immediate abolishment of private ownership.[20] According to Engel’s book Principles of Communism, the proletariat can only abolish private ownership when the necessary conditions have been met.[20] In the phase before the abolishment of private ownership, Engels proposed progressive taxation, high inheritance taxes and compulsory bond purchases to restrict private property while using the competitive powers of state-owned enterprises to expand the public sector.[20]Marx and Engels proposed similar measures in the Communist Manifesto in regards to advanced countries, but since China was economically undeveloped, party theorists called for flexibility regarding the CPC’s handling of private property.[20] According to party theorist Liu Shuiyuan, the New Economic Policy program initiated by Soviet authorities in the aftermath of the war communism program is a good example of flexibility by socialist authorities.[20]
Party theorist Li Xuai said that private ownership inevitably involves capitalist exploitation.[20] However, Li regards private property and exploitation as necessary in the primary stage of socialism, claiming that capitalism in its primary stage uses remnants of the old society to build itself.[20] Sun Liancheng and Lin Huiyong said that Marx and Engels, in their interpretation of the Communist Manifesto, criticized private ownership when it was owned solely by the bourgeoisie but not individual ownership in which everyone owns the means of production and hence cannot be exploited by others.[21] Individual ownership is consistent with socialism since Marx wrote that post-capitalist society would entail the rebuilding of “associated social individual ownership”.[22]
According to writer and researcher Huang Yasheng and many others, the economic theory in China is not socialism with Chinese characteristics but the opposite—capitalism with Chinese characteristics.[23]
Story 2: President Trump Meets With Japanese Prime Minster Shinzo Abe and President Moon Jai-in As U.S. Navy Flexes Air Power — All Options Are On The Table — Let’s Make A Deal North Korea — Video —
Trump’s South Korea speech, in 3 minutes
Trump’s speech to South Korea’s parliament (full)
Is Trump softening his stance on North Korea?
Trump urges N Korea to ‘come to the table’
Trump Calls On North Korea To “Make A Deal” – Full News Conference In Seoul
President Trump Receives a Military Briefing on North Korea from Top Generals 11/7/17
President Trump Has Lunch with U.S. Troops in South Korea (Camp Humphreys) 11/6/17
Donald Trump in South Korea, Gives hint of Handling North Korea in Some different way.
President Trump meeting with President Moon Jae In of the Republic of Korea. Nov 7, 2017
President Trump participates in a bilateral meeting with President Moon Jae In of the Republic of Korea
Trump arrives in South Korea amid tensions with North
President Trump and first lady Melania Trump is officially welcomed to Seoul, Republic of Korea.
President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump arrives in South Korea. November 7, 2017.
Is Melania Trump’s coat for South Korea fashion hit or miss?
Warning: China Russia Saudi Arabia & Iran To Use Yuan For Trading Oil Next Step Is WW3
High Alert: For The First Time In 13 Years, U.S. Deploys 7 Aircraft Carriers Simultaneously
For The First Time In 13 Years, U.S. Deploys 7 Aircraft Carriers Simultaneously
The US has simultaneously deployed 7 of the 11 U.S. nuclear aircraft carriers for the first time in over a decade according to the US Naval Institute. The three aircraft carriers with full air wings and strike groups positioned in the Western Pacific are the following: USS Ronald Reagan (CVN-76); USS Nimitz (CVN-68); USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71). Another four are conducting “short training missions as part of training operations or workups ahead of deployment”. Two out of four are operating in Eastern Pacific – USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70) and USS John C. Stennis (CVN-74) – and the remaining two are operating in the Atlantic, the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) and USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78).
What 3 US Supercarriers in the Asia-Pacific Means for N. Korea
High Alert: 3 US Carrier Strike Groups Enter Asia-Pacific Ahead of Trump Visit
President Trump Joint Press Conference with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Japan. Tokyo. Nov 6, 2017.
President Trump attends state banquet hosted by Japanese PM. President Trump in Japan.
President Trump Participates in a Working Lunch with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan
Trump and Abe meet at a golf course in Japan
President Trump Plays Golf with Prime Minister Abe in Japan 11/5/17
Trump abruptly talking negotiations, not threats in Korea
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Softening his aggressive rhetoric, at least for the moment, President Donald Trump stood on South Korean soil Tuesday and urged North Korea to come to the negotiating table. It’s time, he said, for the North to “make a deal” to rein in its nuclear weapons program.
It was a striking shift in tone for the president, who for months has issued increasingly dire threats to answer any hostile North Korean action with “fire and fury.” On Tuesday, his first day on the Korean Peninsula as president, Trump said he’d seen “a lot of progress” in dealing with Pyongyang, though he stopped short of saying whether he wanted direct diplomatic talks.
“It makes sense for North Korea to come to the table and make a deal that is good for the people of North Korea and for the world,” Trump said at a news conference with South Korean president Moon Jae-in. “I do see certain movement.”
Trump was winding down his visit to Seoul on Wednesday with an address to South Korea’s National Assembly, where he was expected to outline his view of dangers posed by North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. The next stop on his five-nation Asian tour: Beijing, where he will press China to constrict the North’s economic lifeblood.
President Donald Trump says he believes he sees a lot of progress on the North Korean issue. Trump also urged North Korea to ‘come to the table and make a deal.’ He spoke during a news conference with South Korean President Moon Jae-in. (Nov. 7)
Ever the showman, Trump teased that he had a surprise in store for Wednesday, saying at a Tuesday evening banquet that he had an “exciting day” planned — “for many reasons that people will find out.” He did not elaborate.
Overall, the president sounded an optimistic note on disagreements with the North, saying confidently, if vaguely: “Ultimately, it’ll all work out.” Whether the shift in rhetoric signaled a change in policy or diplomatic strategy remained uncertain.
Mark Fitzpatrick, executive director in Washington for the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said it could simply be Trump projecting “what he most recently heard” from Moon and Japan’s Shinzo Abe.
“I expect he heard from both Prime Minister Abe and President Moon the need to give diplomacy a chance,” Fitzpatrick said. “Of course, it’s not the first time he has talked about engaging with North Korea. The issue has been one of timing. Now is a good time, during a pause in missile testing.”
North Korea has fired off more than a dozen missiles this year but none in nearly two months. But analysts caution against reading too much into the pause.
There’s no public sign of any diplomatic progress between Washington and Pyongyang. U.S. officials say the back channel between the State Department and the North Korean mission at the United Nations in New York remains intact, but contacts have not been substantive other than achieving the release of American college student Otto Warmbier in June. He died days after his repatriation to the U.S.
Still, Trump’s conciliatory comments would be welcome in South Korea, where both the government and the wider population have been unnerved by the president’s threats against the North.
Trump did note the United States’ military options, mentioning that three aircraft carrier groups and a nuclear submarine had been deployed to the region. But he said “we hope to God we never have to use” the arsenal. And he accused North Korea’s Kim Jong Un of “threatening millions and millions of lives, so needlessly.”
Moon, who has been eager to solidify a friendship with Trump, said he hoped the president’s visit would be a turning point in the standoff with North Korea.
The president began his day with a visit to Camp Humphreys, a joint US-Korean military base where he shook hands with American and Korean service members and ate lunch with troops in a large mess hall. The visit was intended to underscore the countries’ ties and South Korea’s commitment to contributing to its own defense.
When he leaves South Korea, Trump flies to Beijing for what the White House sees as the centerpiece of his five-nation Asia trip.
China is North Korea’s largest trade partner, and Trump is expected to press its leaders to curtail their dealings with Pyongyang and to expel North Korean workers from its borders. Trump has praised China for adopting tough United Nations sanctions against North Korea but has urged it to do more.
“I want to just say that President Xi — where we will be tomorrow, China — has been very helpful. We’ll find out how helpful soon,” Trump said. “But he really has been very, very helpful. So China is out trying very hard to solve the problem with North Korea.”
Trump and first lady Melania Trump on Wednesday will meet and have dinner with Xi Jinping and his wife and receive a private tour of The Forbidden City, Beijing’s ancient imperial palace. White House officials point to the leaders’ successful summit in Florida this spring, an event in part defined by Trump telling his Chinese counterpart about the missile strike he had ordered on Syria while the two men enjoyed chocolate cake. But experts in the region suggest that Xi will have the advantage over Trump.
“Trump keeps portraying his relationship with XI as great pals but that’s wildly naive,” said Mike Chinoy, a non-resident senior fellow at the US-China Institute at the University of Southern California. “The Chinese have figured out how to play Trump: flatter him. And there’s nothing the Chinese do better than wow foreign diplomats.”
___
Associated Press writers Matthew Pennington, Ken Thomas and Catherine Lucey contributed from Washington.
EXCLUSIVE: We are ready for anything – don’t mess with our Hornets. Admiral in charge of supercarrier which will sail for North Korea’s doorstep sends message to Kim Jong-Un as Trump touches down in Seoul
DailyMailTV joined the Rear Admiral and crew of the USS Carl Vinson as the huge warship left its port in San Diego for a series of exercises ahead of its deployment
The Vinson will sail for the Western Pacific to relieve the USS Ronald Reagan and be one of two carrier strike groups in the region amid ongoing tensions with North Korea
Rear Admiral John Fuller, Commander of Carrier Strike Group 1, will lead the vessel and its ferocious armament of planes and escort of Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyers and a guided missile cruiser
Aboard the 95,000 ton vessel are fighter aircraft such as the $70million F/A-18 Super Hornet – capable of reaching Mach 1.8 (1,190mph) with a massive armament of bombs and missiles
In a message to Kim Jong-Un Rear Admiral Fuller said: ‘He needs to think very carefully on how he works with us, he needs to understand that we have capabilities that no other country has.’
The supercarrier has more than 3,500 crew which swells to 5,300 when the air wing is on board – the warship was used to transport Osama bin Laden’s body for its burial at sea in 2011
President Trump embarked on his 12-day trip to Asia, arriving on Sunday in Tokyo, where he met with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe amid heightened tensions over Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile tests
By Ryan Parry West Coast Correspondent For Dailymail.com On Board Uss Carl Vinson In The Pacific Ocean
PUBLISHED: 14:05 EST, 6 November 2017 | UPDATED: 18:50 EST, 6 November 2017
The twin engines of the F/A-18 Super Hornet build into a roar and the $70million supersonic jet is catapulted from the deck of the USS Carl Vinson with an ear-splitting blast.
The aircraft disappears off the bow of the enormous nuclear-powered super carrier in a haze of steam, the bright glow of its engines disappearing into the distance.
This is one of the planes the man in charge of the supercarrier wants Kim Jong-Un to fear – because the Vinson is due to set sail for waters close to North Korea.
President Trump arrives in South Korea Monday night putting him on Kim’s doorstep as tensions mount over the ‘little Rocket Man’s’ escalating nuclear threat.
Now one of the president’s most important commanders tells DailyMailTV that his sailors are ready for anything – and that Kim needs to ‘think carefully’ when Carrier Strike Group One is in his waters.
Rear Admiral John Fuller, Commander of Carrier Strike Group 1, will lead the Vinson, its ferocious armament of planes, and its escort of Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyers and a guided missile cruiser.
Don’t mess with our Hornets: DailyMailTV witnessed the incredible sight of hundreds of sailors and airmen on board the 1,092ft long, 117,000 sq ft USS Carl Vinson as they put its four aircraft catapults through their paces. Its aircraft include the Hornet and Super Hornets and the EA-18 Growler (pictured) electronic attack aircraft, which jams enemy radar systems
Aboard the 95,000 ton vessel, the twin engines of the F/A-18C Hornet were heard roaring off as the $70 million aircraft was catapulted off the deck. The strike fighter aircraft, which can reach Mach 1.8 (1,190mph), disappeared off the bow of the super carrier in a haze of steam
Preparation: Before liftoff, Navy crew work diligently to ensure the aircraft is ready and the flight deck clean and clear of foreign objects. Mini tractors tow the F/A18s into place and the Top Gun pilots ready the jets for take off
Commander Brian ‘Convict’ Felloney gets ready for take-off. The decorated pilot has more than 620 carrier landings on his record, and was a Top Gun instructor on a previous deployment
This is how the Vinson deploys: In May the supercarrier was photographed from the air as it and the whole strike group got an escort from two South Korean destroyers, the Sejong the Great and the Yang Manchun. The Carl Vinson’s U.S. Navy escorts were the USS Lake Champlain, a Ticonderoga-class cruiser, and the Arleigh Burke-class destroyers the USS Michael Murphy and the USS Stethem
In an exclusive interview with DailyMailTV Rear Admiral Fuller says his strike group is ‘ready and in a direct message to Kim says: ‘He knows the capabilities we have.
‘Right now there are three aircraft carriers there, when we go through there – if we go off the coast [of North Korea] depending on our operations – he needs to think very carefully on how he works with us, he needs to understand that we have capabilities that no other country has.’
Standing on the deck of the Vinson, those capabilities are in no doubt.
DailyMailTV joined the Rear Admiral and crew of the Vinson as the huge warship left its port in San Diego for a series of exercises ahead of its deployment.
The ship raised its two 60,000lb anchors and set sail from Naval Air Station North Island, in Coronado.
Capable of reaching more than 30 knots (35mph) the Nimitz-class supercarrier – one of ten nuclear-powered aircraft carriers in the US Fleet – headed out into the Pacific Ocean.
DailyMailTV witnessed the awesome sight of hundreds of sailors and airmen on board the 1,092ft long, 117,000 sq ft warship put its four aircraft catapults through their paces.
Four giant elevators brought aircraft up from the hangar deep below the 4.5 acre flight deck as Super Hornets lined up on deck to be catapulted into the air – just like in a real war.
The USS Ronald Reagan and the USS Theodore Roosevelt are both in the region amid ongoing tensions with North Korea. The Vinson will relieve the USS Ronald Reagan, keeping two carrier strike groups in the Western Pacific.
The ship is the same vessel that was used to transport Osama bin Laden’s body for its burial at sea in 2011.
Last week it was reported that the USS Nimitz had left the Middle East and is also heading to the Pacific to join the US Navy’s 7th Fleet area of operations.
Rear Admiral John Fuller (pictured above in the flag bridge aboard the ship) Commander of Carrier Strike Group 1, will lead the Vinson. He said his strike group is ‘ready’ and in a direct message to Kim said: ‘He knows the capabilities we have’
All hands on deck: One of the most important men on the flight deck is Lieutenant Commander Erick Stroud (left) who serves as the Aircraft Handling Officer (ACHO) – also called the handler or mangler and manages the movement and positioning of aircraft. Jet blast deflector (JBD) operator ABE3 Jasper Evans’s (right) job is to raise the JBD to protect his shipmates from getting ‘burnt or blown away off the flight deck’
President Trump will visit Asia for the first time when he leaves Washington D.C. on Friday for a 12-day trip which will include China, Japan, the Philippines, South Korea and Vietnam.
The might of the Vinson is part of his message to the region’s leaders – that America has its allies’ backs, and its enemies should be afraid.
The Rear Admiral said: ‘There happens to be three carriers there that are gonna be working together for a while. This is good timing for us.
‘We’re going to go out to provide presence, stability, we’re going to go work with our partners and allies, we’re going to try to foment rules, laws and norms of theater.’
North Korea has not test-launched a missile in over a month, but has continued its threats on Guam and last week even threatened to detonate a nuclear weapon above ground.
Fuller, 52, the son of a retired Army colonel, said the ‘scheduled short cycle’ deployment is the Vinson’s ‘opportunity’.
‘I just know the Carl Vinson strike group is going to do the training to be ready to do what we’re called to do,’ he said.
Petty Officer 3rd class Joseph Newman, a 42-year-old nine-year veteran of the US Navy from Evansville, Indiana, is in charge of communications on the flight deck
‘We’re gonna go prepare our forces and our team to make sure that whatever missions they call us to do, so this provides perspective, Korea is one possible contingency plan that the aircraft carrier strike group is supposed to support.’
The Rear Admiral said the ‘beauty’ of what a carrier strike group brings is to project ‘awesome’ power at sea.
‘We don’t have to ask permission to go to some other land to operate our forces, we have the opportunity to use the seas to maneuver freely and we have the capability to project power from the sea as required.
‘But it is also a very stabilizing thing for our friends and allies that this capability is there as needed, we have the will power to use it and we have the proficiency to use it well.’
The Rear Admiral insists, however that the Navy’s first line of defense is to ‘promote peace’, adding: ‘My job is to make sure if they decide to use the capabilities an aircraft carrier and a strike group has, that we’re prepared to deliver those.
‘The civilian policy maker will do what they feel is in the best interests.
‘But I owe it to the parents of my sailors to make sure we’re ready.’
On deck getting ready is a complex task. Mini tractors tow the F/A18s into place and the Top Gun pilots ready the jets for take off.
Commanding Officer of the Vinson, Captain Doug ‘V8’ Verissimo gives the order and the jets roar into action.
Jet blast deflector (JBD) operator ABE3 Jasper Evans, who is known as a ‘Green Jersey’ describes the ‘intense’ moment a F/A-18 takes off.
His job is to raise the JBD to protect his shipmates from the searing heat of a jet engine.
‘Whenever the aircraft is getting ready to launch they throttle up and I raise the JBD so that no one behind can get burnt or blown away off the flight deck,’ he explained.
‘It gets really hot up here, really intense. But we’re fully protected, we wear float coats, flight deck pants and jersey, and a helmet and goggles.’
Evans, 27, is in his fourth year with the US Navy. Originally from Lawrenceville, Georgia, he has just one year left to complete his service.
Donald Trump kicked off his 12-day Asian trip in Japan on Sunday. The President met with Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe amid heightened tensions over Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile tests
He has been on two long deployments overseas and is used to the strict routine of life at sea.
‘Everything is routine on a ship, you wake up at a certain time, go eat breakfast and get ready for when they call flight operations and we come upstairs on the flight deck, we suit up and get ready to launch the aircraft.
‘A work day ends at 10 or 11 o’clock and it repeats – very long days.’
The flight deck is awash with dedicated crewmen like Evans wearing different colored jerseys.
Green jerseys operate the JBDs, aircraft handlers wear yellow jerseys, blue jerseys work in the hangar bay and purple jerseys refuel the aircraft, while red jerseys handle aviation ordinance and crash and salvage.
The whole manic scene is watched over by white jerseys.
Interior Communications Electrician Petty Officer 3rd Class Joseph Newman from Evansville, Indiana is in charge of communications on the flight deck.
Everyday is routine on the ship as Navy crew are expected to wake up early in the morning, eat breakfast, get ready, arrive on the flight deck, suit up, and prepare to launch the aircraft. A typical work day ends at 10pm or 11pm
The flight deck is awash with dedicated crewmen wearing different colored jerseys. Green jerseys (center) operate the jet blast deflectors, and aircraft handlers wear yellow jerseys (right)
‘I take care of all the maintenance of the cameras, the comms systems and the deck lighting as well as the lights up on the island,’ he explains.
Blue jerseys work in the hangar bay and purple jerseys refuel the aircraft, while red jerseys handle aviation ordinance and crash and salvage. The Hornets, Super Hornets and Growlers are moved up to the flight desk on huge aircraft elevators
Four giant elevators brought aircraft up from the hangar deep below the 4.5 acre flight deck as Super Hornets lined up on deck to be catapulted into the air – just like in a real war
‘I also take care of the ‘meat ball’, [a gray boom that displays lights that pilots use to help during the final seconds of landing].
‘You’ll hear the pilots say they’re on the ball as they come in to land. We also take care of all the sound power headsets that the crew use to communicate, we keep things running.
‘It’s a big job, up here in V2 and air department and we also have ICs downstairs in combat systems.’
Newman is a 42-year-old nine-year veteran of the US Navy and has served on the Vinson for six years.
‘I joined late, I did apartment maintenance before this.’
But perhaps the most important man on the flight deck is Lieutenant Commander Erick Stroud.
Stroud is the Aircraft Handling Officer (ACHO) – also called the handler or mangler and manages the movement and positioning of aircraft.
Stroud, 42, a married father of four from Griffin, Georgia, said the most important part of the preparations is keeping his flight deck clean and free of foreign objects.
‘I don’t want to be associated with damaging a $70million aircraft so we go to the extreme to make sure we’re prepared,’ he said.
The ship operates four squadrons of F/A-18 Hornet and Super Hornets, one squadron of EA-18G Growlers, and Seahawk helicopters for transportation and maritime patrols
Also on board is a squadron of E-2C Hawkeye early warning aircraft – designed to detect jets, ships and other vehicles from long distances
There are more than 3,500 crew on the Vinson which swells to 5,300 when the full air wing is on embarked, as it was in this 2011 photograph. The warship – call sign ‘Gold Eagle’ – can operate for up to 20 years without refueling since it is nuclear-powered
Speaking from his control room – a buzz of phone calls and radio chatter – just off the flight deck, he added: ‘This is the nucleus of aviation and flight operations, I control the entire flight deck as well as movement in the hangar bay and all the people involved, we have about 600 people working in those two areas and we integrate with the squadrons, that’s about 500 people.
‘That’s 1,100 people working together seamlessly to make this all happen.’
DON’T MESS WITH OUR SUPER HORNETS
The twin-engine strike fighter aircraft were first introduced to the US Navy in 1999 to replace the F-14 Tomcat, made famous in the hit movie Top Gun.
The F/A-18 Super Hornet can reach Mach 1.8, which is equivalent to 1,190mph at 40,000 ft.
On the Vinson they operate alongside the older Hornet and the related Growler.
The Super Hornets’ armament includes:
One M61A1/A2 Vulcan 20mm cannon
The strike fighter has 11 hard points on its wings and under the main fuselage which can carry a mixture of:
Missiles: Four AIM 9 Sidewinder air-to-air missiles
Two AIM 7 Sparrow/ (2) AIM-120 AMRAAM
One Standoff Land Attack Missile
One AGM-84 Harpoon anti-ship missile
One HARM (Anti-Radiation Missile) – designed to destroy enemy radar systems
Maverick air to ground missiles: Joint Stand-Off Weapon (JSOW); Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM).
Stroud keeps an eye on two large digital status boards showing the movements of aircraft on the flight deck but he also uses an old school ‘Ouija Board’ – a scaled replica of the flight deck on which templates of aircraft are moved around based on messages radioed in from spotters.
The lieutenant commander, a 25-year veteran, has four catapults to launch aircraft at his disposal as well as four arresting cables to recover the aircraft.
He moves the aircraft up from the hangar bay in the guts of the ship on four giant elevators.
When planes make an arrested landing, pilots aim to hit the No 3 cable of four arrested cables numbered 1-4 from aft to forward.
Their performance goes up on a board so it gets competitive.
But crew safety is of utmost importance.
Stroud explains: ‘There’s a red and white foul line, which is said to be drawn in blood, because you have to judge where the aircraft is coming in and everybody has to stand on the opposite side of the line.
‘If an aircraft is coming in and you get one of the tall guys level with the wing on the wrong side of the line, it’ll take his head off and we’ll have a body to clean up.
‘When we get into that level of complacency, where we get into the same routine every day, launching planes and recovering planes, that one second of being inattentive is dangerous.
‘You have to keep your head on a swivel no matter what.’
Everyone on the Vinson seems on point inside the 3,000 room hull underneath the flight deck.
There are several cafeterias, nine gyms, a Starbucks-style coffee shop and ‘luxury’ state rooms for ‘Distinguished Visitors’.
Since it is nuclear-powered, the Vinson – call sign ‘Gold Eagle’ – can operate for up to 20 years without refueling. It also has anti-submarine capabilities.
The seal of the ship is an eagle with extended wings, carrying a banner in its beak.
The Latin phrase ‘Vis Per Mare’ -‘Strength through the Sea’ – is inscribed on the banner.
The ship operates four squadrons of F/A-18 Hornet and Super Hornets, one squadron of EA-18G Growlers – which disrupt enemy radar – one squadron of E-2C Hawkeye early warning aircraft, as well as a compliment of C2-A Greyhound transport planes and Seahawk helicopters.
There are more than 3,500 crew on the Vinson, which swells to 5,300 when the air wing is on board, which means working seven days a week with shifts often lasting 12 hours or more. But few complain about living on the floating city.
The massive warship has a 3,000-room hull below the flight deck which includes several cafeterias, nine gyms, a Starbucks-style coffee shop and ‘luxury’ state rooms for ‘Distinguished Visitors’
On a daily average, the Navy spends around $60,000 feeding sailors and on Sunday, they serve a special brunch meal which includes Belgian waffles or some shrimp
‘On a daily average we spend around $60,000 to feed the crew, which is roughly about 15-20 pallets worth of food.
‘A special day for us is Sunday, we do a brunch we serve things like Belgian waffles, some shrimp, a special chance to give the sailors a chance to refresh for the next week.’
After filling up a lot of the sailors like to keep fit. Dan Larrell is in charge of putting them through their paces in the ship’s nine gyms.
‘I am a fitness director, if you imagine this warship as a large 24 hour fitness, we have 4,500 sailors and we treat them all as our clients,’ he explains.
Larrell says as well as running and maintaining the gyms he puts together the fitness schedule and offers Zumba and spin classes, weight-lifting and functional fitness classes and even rowing club.
‘Any sailor on any watch on any schedule can come to our classes,’ he added.
‘What’s really incredible is that we not only get the younger sailors at our classes but we get the captain of the ship, the XO [executive officer] of the ship and the admiral of the ship, when I train them… it’s the first time in a very long time someone is telling them what to do. It’s my time to make them work a little bit harder.’
Running the Vinson, let alone a whole Carrier Strike Group, is a huge undertaking and one that Fuller doesn’t take lightly.
He says he’s incredibly ‘honored and humbled’ to be in the position he’s in.
‘I never expected that I would have the opportunity to lead such an awesome fighting force and such an awesome group of sailors. It hasn’t even really sunk in, I’m just amazed I get this chance here. I am exceptionally proud of that.’
And the commander says America should be equally proud of the US Navy’s achievements.
He said: ‘The most awesome thing we have is some of the best people in America who volunteered to help protect and promote prosperity for our American citizens and then with those great people we have fantastic equipment and systems that allow us to project power from the sea for sustained periods of time in ways no other country can.’
Soon the Vinson will be in Kim’s waters – and those people and equipment could be tested as never before.
Story 3: Saudi Arab On The Brink of Proxy War With Lebanon Paritally Controlled By Iran-backed Lebanese Shi‘ite group Hezbollah — Saudi Arab Blames Iran For Yemen Missile Attack — Purge and Roundup of Royal Prince Continues — Videos —
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Published on Nov 7, 2017
A senior Saudi minister has accused Lebanon of declaring war against the kingdom. The minister for Persian Gulf Affairs, Thamer al-Sabhan also accused the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah of committing acts of aggression and attacking the Saudi kingdom without further elaborations. He then urged the Lebanese government to realize the risks of Hezbollah actions. Al-Sabhan made the comments in reaction to criticism Riyadh has been facing over the resignation of Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri. Hariri made the announcement in a statement broadcast on Saudi-owned al-Arabiya TV. On Sunday, Hezbollah chief Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah and other Lebanese officials accused Riyadh of forcing Hariri to quit in a bid to create tensions in Lebanon.
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Hariri’s resignation came as a surprise. The fact that he did it from Riyadh, accusing Iran and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah of sowing strife in the Arab world, sent shockwaves through the region. His resignation shatters a delicate deal that put him in a coalition government after a two-year political vacuum. It is not the first time a Lebanese government has collapsed- it happened in 2005, 2011 and 2013. The country’s political structure requires that the President must be a Maronite Christian, the Prime Minister a Sunni Muslim, and the Speaker of Parliament a Shia Muslim. Last year Lebanon’s parliament swore in a new cabinet dominated by Hezbollah and its allies – in a major victory for the Shia, Iran-backed group. Add to that, Hezbolllah’s military wing has been racking up victories in Syria, building up its arsenal, and steadily increasing its influence at home, and that’s upset some, including Saudi Arabia So, what’s next? And will Lebanon again become the battleground for other peoples’ wars?
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From the conflicts in Iraq and Syria to the tension between Iran and Saudi Arabia, the struggle between Sunni and Shi‘a groups for hegemony is tearing apart the region and shows no signs of abating. But for all the religious discourse permeating the conflict, much of its roots are political, not religious. How does sectarianism fit into a larger narrative of the Middle East? How have governments manipulated sectarian differences? And finally, what is the U.S. doing about it? Full episode from the Great Decisions PBS series: http://www.greatdecisionsonpbs.com/ Visit our website for more information: http://www.fpa.org/ Narrated by Academy Award nominated actor David Strathairn and produced by the Foreign Policy Association, each half-hour episode of the Great Decisions documentary series tackles a different challenge facing America today. This episode first aired in January 2015.
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Published on Nov 6, 2017
In the name of fighting corruption in Saudi Arabia, Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman announced over the weekend the government would hold trials for 11 princes, stamping out opposition and cementing his rule. Special correspondent Nick Schifrin is joined by Bilal Saab of the Middle East Institute and Aaron David Miller of the Wilson Center to discuss the potential fallout of the crackdown.
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PBS NewsHour
Published on Nov 5, 2017
Saudi Arabia Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman ordered the arrest of four government ministers and 11 royal princes hours after he was named the head of a new anti-corruption committee. Billionaire prince Alwaleed bin Talal, who has stakes in major U.S. companies like Apple and Twitter, was among those arrested. Gary Sick, a senior research scholar at Columbia University, joins Hari Sreenivasan.
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Saudi prince killed in helicopter crash near Yemen border – BBC News
Published on Nov 6, 2017
A senior Saudi prince and seven other officials have been killed in a helicopter crash near the country’s border with Yemen, state media report. Prince Mansour bin Muqrin, the deputy governor of Asir province, was returning from an inspection tour when his aircraft came down near Abha late on Sunday, the interior ministry said. It did not give a cause for the crash. But it came hours after a major purge of the kingdom’s political and business leadership. An anti-corruption body led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, 32, ordered the detentions of dozens of people, including 11 princes, four ministers and dozens of ex-ministers. Analysts see the unprecedented move as an attempt to cement the power of the heir to the throne.
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Saudi Arabia says Lebanon declares war, deepening crisis
Tom Perry, Lisa Barrington
BEIRUT (Reuters) – Saudi Arabia accused Lebanon on Monday of declaring war against it because of aggression by the Iran-backed Lebanese Shi‘ite group Hezbollah, a dramatic escalation of a crisis threatening to destabilize the tiny Arab country.
People walk next to a poster depicting Lebanon’s Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri, who has resigned from his post, along a street in the mainly Sunni Beirut neighbourhood of Tariq al-Jadideh in Beirut, Lebanon November 6, 2017. REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir
Lebanon has been thrust to the center of regional rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran since the Saudi-allied Lebanese politician Saad al-Hariri quit as prime minister on Saturday, blaming Iran and Hezbollah in his resignation speech.
Saudi Gulf affairs minister Thamer al-Sabhan said the Lebanese government would “be dealt with as a government declaring war on Saudi Arabia” because of what he described as aggression by Hezbollah.
Faulting the Hariri-led administration for failing to take action against Hezbollah during a year in office, Sabhan said “there are those who will stop (Hezbollah) and make it return to the caves of South Lebanon”, the heartland of the Shi‘ite community.
In an interview with Al-Arabiya TV, he added: “Lebanese must all know these risks and work to fix matters before they reach the point of no return.”
He did not spell out what action Saudi Arabia might take against Lebanon, a country with a weak and heavily indebted state that is still rebuilding from its 1975-90 civil war and where one-in-four people is a Syrian refugee.
There was no immediate comment from the Lebanese government.
Hezbollah is both a military and a political organization that is represented in the Lebanese parliament and in the Hariri-led coalition government formed last year.
Its powerful guerrilla army is widely seen as stronger than the Lebanese army, and has played a major role in the war in neighboring Syria, another theater of Saudi-Iranian rivalry where Hezbollah has fought in support of the government.
Lebanese authorities said on Monday the country’s financial institutions could cope with Hariri’s resignation and the stability of the Lebanese pound was not at risk.
But the cash price of Lebanon’s U.S. dollar-denominated bonds fell, with longer-dated maturities suffering hefty losses as investors took a dim view of the medium- to longer-term outlook for Lebanon.
A poster depicting Lebanon’s Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri, who has resigned from his post, hangs along a street in the mainly Sunni Beirut neighbourhood of Tariq al-Jadideh in Beirut, Lebanon November 6, 2017. The Arabic on the poster reads, “With you forever”. REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir
HARIRI FREE TO TRAVEL, SAUDI FM SAYS
Hariri cited a plot to assassinate him during his unexpected resignation speech broadcast from Saudi Arabia which caught even his aides off guard. He also slammed Hezbollah and Iran, accusing them of sowing strife in the Arab world.
Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has said he will not comment on Hariri’s speech, calling it a “Saudi statement” and saying Riyadh had forced Hariri to resign.
The sudden nature of Hariri’s resignation generated speculation in Lebanon that his family’s Saudi construction business had been caught up in an anti-corruption purge and he had been coerced into resigning.
Slideshow (3 Images)
Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Jubeir said it was “nonsense” to suggest Hariri had been coerced into quitting in a CNN interview on Monday. Hariri had quit because Hezbollah had been “calling the shots” in the government, he said. Hariri, a Saudi citizen, was free to leave the country at any time, he said.
Interior Minister Nohad Machnouk, a senior member of Hariri’s political party, said he was under the impression Hariri would return to Beirut within days.
A meeting between Saudi King Salman and Hariri in Riyadh on Monday proved “rumors” wrong, he said – an apparent reference to speculation that Hariri was detained or forced to quit.
Earlier on Monday, President Michel Aoun, a political ally of Hezbollah, appealed for national unity.
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Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, another political ally of Hezbollah, said in a televised statement after meeting Aoun it was too early to talk about forming a new government.
The crisis could re-aggravate tensions between Sunni and Shi‘ite Muslims and afflict Lebanese government with paralysis once again. All of the sides have called for calm and there has been no sign of unrest since Hariri’s resignation.
The Hariri-led government took office last year in a political deal that made Aoun president. The deal ended years of deadlock, and last month it produced Lebanon’s first budget since 2005.
Hariri flew to Saudi Arabia on Friday after meeting in Beirut the top adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader, who described the coalition as “a victory” and “great success” afterwards.
Yemeni rebels’ missile attack on the Saudi capital on Saturday could be considered an Iranian act of war, Saudi Arabia said, in a statement likely to intensify tensions between the archrivals.
Saudi Arabia intercepted the ballistic missile east of Riyadh’s main airport after it flew more than 500 miles from Yemen. It was fired by Houthi rebels, who are seen by Saudi Arabia as proxies of Iran.
The Saudi-led military coalition that has been at war with the Houthis in Yemen for more than 2½ years “considers this a blatant act of military aggression by the Iranian regime and could rise to be considered as an act of war against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” according to a statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency.
Debris from the missile showed it was made in Iran, the statement said, adding that the coalition “reserves its right to respond to Iran in the appropriate time and manner, in accordance with international law and based on the right of self-defense.”
Maj. Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari, the commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, dismissed the claim.
“We are not basically capable of transferring missiles to Yemen,” he said Sunday, according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency. Houthi missiles, he said, are homegrown.
Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman, Bahram Ghasemi, on Monday called Saudi accusations against Iran “unfair, irresponsible, destructive and provocative,” according to a state television news website. He advised the kingdom to stop its assault on Yemen to pave the way for peace talks.
Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif tweeted that Saudi Arabia was bombing Yemen and killing thousands of innocent people and spreading famine.
The kingdom “is engaged in wars of aggression, regional bullying, destabilizing behavior and risky provocations,” he said. “It blames Iran for the consequences.”
Saudi foreign minister Adel al-Jubeir tweeted that Iranian intervention in the region was undermining security and repeated that Saudi Arabia had the right to respond.
The range of some, like the “Volcano H2” the group fired Saturday, has increased markedly in 2017, putting significant Saudi population centers and energy infrastructure within range.
Saudi Arabia, which controls Yemeni airspace and oversees shipping traffic through its ports, said all land, sea and air borders with the country would be closed temporarily to address the missile threat, although humanitarian supplies would still be allowed in.
Tensions between Saudi Arabia, the leading Sunni Muslim power in the region, and Iran, its main Shiite rival, have risen in recent days. Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri, a close Saudi ally, resigned Saturday, blaming Iran for destabilizing the region and saying his life was under threat.
Saudi Arabia has more aggressively confronted Iran under 32-year-old Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who orchestrated Saudi involvement in Yemen.
Saudi Crackdown Targets Up to $800 Billion in Assets
Authorities detain more prominent businessmen, freeze bank accounts
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, left, has said tackling corruption is necessary to overhaul Saudi Arabia’s oil-dependent economy.PHOTO: SAUDI PRESS AGENCY/REUTERS
By Margherita Stancati in Beirut and
Updated Nov. 7, 2017 5:38 p.m. ET
The Saudi government is aiming to confiscate cash and other assets worth as much as $800 billion in its broadening crackdown on alleged corruption among the kingdom’s elite, according to people familiar with the matter.
The country’s central bank, the Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority, said late Tuesday that it has frozen the bank accounts of “persons of interest” and said the move is “in response to the Attorney General’s request pending the legal cases against them.”
The purge is the most extensive of the kingdom’s elite in recent history. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the son of King Salman, was named heir to the throne in Juneand has moved to consolidate power. He has said that tackling corruption at the highest level is necessary to overhaul what has long been an oil-dependent economy.
The crackdown could also help replenish state coffers. The government has said that assets accumulated through corruption will become state property, and people familiar with the matter say the government estimates the value of assets it can reclaim at up to 3 trillion Saudi riyal, or $800 billion.
“They reckon that they could get around 2 to 3 trillion riyals from these people. That’s the number they are talking about,” said a person close to the government.
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Much of that money is abroad, which will complicate efforts to reclaim it, people familiar with the matter said. But even a portion of that amount could help Saudi Arabia’s finances. A prolonged period of low oil prices forced the government to borrow money on the international bond market and to draw extensively from the country’s foreign reserves, which dropped from $730 billion at their peak in 2014 to $487.6 billion in August, the latest available government data.
Who Has Been Promoted, Who Has Been Detained in Saudi Arabia
Under King Salman, many senior princes have been sidelined from power or detained, according to people familiar with the matter. Here are a few of the important moves.
King Abdulaziz Ibn Saud
The founder of modern Saudi Arabia, who ruled from 1932
to 1953
Detained
Promoted
Other direct descendant
LINE OF SUCCESSION
King Salman bin
Abdulaziz
King 2015-present
He is the sixth brother in a row to assume the throne. He became king in 2015 and in June appointed his own son, Prince Mohammed bin Salman, as his heir.
Prince Miteb bin Abdullah
Prince al-Waleed
bin Talal
Prince Mohammed bin Nayef
Crown Prince
Mohammed bin Salman
He is one of the world’s richest men. Through his firm Kingdom Holding Co., he has invested in Apple, Twitter, and Citigroup. He was detained on Nov. 4.
Previous head of the elite Saudi Arabian National Guard
Previous crown prince
The 32-year-old prince has ascended to a position of unrivaled power since his father became king, and oversees most key policy areas in the country, from the economy to defense. He is the architect of the ambitious plan to end the kingdom’s dependence on oil. As minister of defense, he launched Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen. He became crown prince in June.
Prince Mohammed, a former powerful minister of interior, was removed from the position of crown prince in June and replaced by Prince Mohammed bin Salman, a younger cousin. His ouster faced some resistance within the royal family
He is the politically influential son of the previous monarch, King Abdullah. He was fired and detained on Nov. 4.
Prince Abdulaziz bin
Saud bin Nayef
New minister of interior
He was appointed as minister of interior in June. He belongs to the same branch of the royal family as Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, the ousted crown prince.
Note: not all descendants represented
Sources: Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia; staff reports.
The arrests were ordered by a newly established anticorruption agency headed by Prince Mohammed.
The crown prince “needs cash to fund the government’s investment plans,” political risk advisory firm Eurasia Group said in a note on Monday. “It was becoming increasingly clear that additional revenue is needed to improve the economy’s performance. The government will also strike deals with businessmen and royals to avoid arrest, but only as part of a greater commitment to the local economy.”
Spokespeople for the Saudi government didn’t respond to requests for comment on Tuesday.
Saudi Arabia’s minister of commerce, Majid al Qasabi, on Tuesday sought to reassure the private sector that the corruption investigation wouldn’t interfere with normal business operations.
The procedures and investigations undertaken by the anticorruption agency won’t affect ongoing business or projects, he said.
Running LowSaudi Arabia is heavily dependent on oilexports, and government revenues havetaken a hit as crude prices have tumbled inrecent years.THE WALL STREET JOURNALSource: Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority
In its statement on Tuesday, the Saudi central bank said that individual accounts had been frozen, not corporate accounts. “It is business as usual for both banks and corporates,” the central bank said.
The central bank sent a list of hundreds of names to lenders, asking them to freeze any accounts linked to them, according to people familiar with the matter.
“These are just the initial stages of either asset freezes or arrests. More people are expected to be impacted as the investigation unfolds,” said a Saudi official.
The government earlier this week vowed that it would arrest more people as part of the corruption investigation, which began around three years ago.
As a precautionary measure, authorities have banned a large number of people from traveling outside the country, among them hundreds of royals and people connected to those arrested, according to people familiar with the matter.
Prince al-Waleed bin Talal, a Saudi billionaire and founder of Kingdom Holding Co., spoke at a conference in Chicago in 2013. PHOTO: DANIEL ACKER/BLOOMBERG NEWS
The government hasn’t officially named the people who were detained.
They include billionaire Prince al-Waleed bin Talal, one of the most widely known members of the Saudi royal family and a major investor in companies including Apple Inc., Twitter Inc. and Citigroup Inc. He faces allegations of money laundering, bribery and extortion, according to a senior Saudi official. A representative of Prince al-Waleed didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
According to people familiar with the investigation, those detained over the weekend also include Bakr bin Ladin, the chairman of the construction giant Saudi Binladin Group. A spokesman for Saudi Binladin didn’t respond to request for comment.
Saudi Binladin, the biggest construction firm in the Gulf region, flourished as one of the government’s preferred builders during the boom years in the oil-rich country, winning a high-profile contract to expand the grounds of the Great Mosque in Mecca, Islam’s holiest site. The people familiar with the investigation said Mr. bin Ladin faces allegations of bribery in connection with that project.
A resignation, detentions and missiles: 24 hours that shook the Middle East
By Tamara Qiblawi, CNN
Updated 12:44 PM ET, Mon November 6, 2017
When 32-year-old Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman rose to power two years ago, many predicted that change was afoot. The events of November 4 have shown that change would not just be swift, but also seismic, extending unremittingly beyond the kingdom’s boundaries.
A 24-hour sequence of political bombshells began on Saturday afternoon, when Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri announced his resignation from the Saudi capital of Riyadh, blindsiding his country’s political establishment. Hours later, Saudi Arabia’s official news agency reported that the country’s military had intercepted a Yemen-borne ballistic missile over Riyadh. Even as images of the blast were flashing on TV sets around the region, similarly dramatic news began to trickle in: Some of Saudi Arabia’s most high-profile princes and businessmen were being sacked and detained in an anti-corruption drive led by bin Salman.
The events serve as an opening salvo for a new period in the region’s crisis-ridden history, analysts say. They represent an escalation in a yearslong proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran, threatening to activate new fronts in the region, with the Saudi show of force beginning with a sweeping consolidation of power from within.
On Friday, ISIS’ last strongholds in Iraq and Syria fell. It marked a major milestone in a fight that saw archrivals converge on the extremist group until its so-called caliphate was on its last legs. On Saturday, regional powerhouses appear to have trained their sights on one another.
“I think the end of ISIS, the so-called Islamic State, does not really mean the end of geostrategic struggles,” London School of Economics Professor Fawaz Gerges told CNN’s George Howell.
“On the contrary, the dismantling of the so-called caliphate will basically intensify the geostrategic struggles between the pro-Iranian camp led by Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and its allies in the region, including the United States.”
On Friday evening, Lebanon’s Saad Hariri was summoned to the Saudi capital. It was his second visit to the country in a week. Hariri is a dual Saudi-Lebanese citizen and the regional powerhouse is widely seen as his political patron.
Just a week before, it appeared the Prime Minister had averted a major crisis between Lebanon and Saudi Arabia. He had met with the Crown Prince and outspoken Saudi Minister Thamer al-Sabhan, appeasing their fears about the Iran-backed Hezbollah, which has members in his Cabinet.
“A long and fruitful meeting with my brother Prime Minister Saad Hariri. We’ve agreed on many issues that concern the good people of Lebanon. God willing, the best is yet to come,” Sabhan wrote in a tweet.
The meeting came on the heels of a series of tweets in which Sabhan chastised the Lebanese government for its inclusion of Hezbollah. Hariri appeared to have defused tensions with his visit.
Independent Lebanese MP Yassin Jaber, a member of a pro-Hezbollah parliamentary bloc, told CNN that he met with Hariri just as he returned from Saudi Arabia, and described the premier as cheery and in a “joking” mood.
But when Hariri returned to Saudi Arabia the second time, it was an altogether different matter.
It would be the first time a Lebanese premier submitted his resignation from outside the country. Multiple local media reported that nearly all Hariri’s closest aides were caught unawares.
“Over the past decades, Hezbollah has unfortunately managed to impose a fait accompli in Lebanon by the force of its weapons, which it alleges is a resistance weapon,” Hariri said in his resignation speech.
“I want to tell Iran and its followers that they are losing their interferences in the Arab nation affairs. Our nation will rise just as it did before and the hands that want to harm it will be cut,” he said in remarks apparently aimed at Hezbollah, which he shared a coalition government with.
Hariri’s resignation spells the collapse of a 30-member government of national unity that saw Saudi-backed Hariri fill the post of prime minister, and Hezbollah-backed Michel Aoun occupy the presidency. That government, analysts say, was one of the byproducts of the Obama administration’s landmark Iran nuclear deal.
“With this arrangement, we saw some sort of appeasement where we saw mutual steps from the US and Iran in improving relations and lowering tensions in various areas,” said Riad Kahwaji, director of Institute for Near East and Gulf Military.
The period marked a brief time of stability, in which Lebanon seemed to have steered clear of regional fault-lines.
“With (Hariri’s) resignation yesterday, this arrangement has come to an end and we are back to an escalation between Iran and Saudi Arabia on the Lebanese front. Lebanon is back in the arena of the showdown between Iran and Saudi Arabia.
“Everyone in Lebanon is holding tight and worried … we’re seeing now that we may again be engulfed in conflict,” said Jaber.
Hariri’s resignation triggered a crescendo of war drums. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the remarks were a “wake-up call” to “take action” against Iran. Saudi Minister Sabhan promptly tweeted: “The hands of treachery and aggression must be cut off,” echoing Hariri’s threats against Hezbollah.
Just hours later, Yemen’s Houthi rebels launched a ballistic missile targeting King Khalid International Airport in the Saudi capital. Saudi forces intercepted the missile over northeast Riyadh, the Saudi Ministry of Defense said, but the Houthis hailed it as a “success” that “shook the Saudi capital.”
The attack was conducted using a Yemeni-made, long-range missile called the Burqan 2H, the rebels said. The missile launch was the first time the heart of the Saudi capital has been attacked.
The Saudi-led coalition accused a regional state of providing material support to the Houthi rebels, saying the firing of a ballistic missile at Riyadh “threatens the security of the Kingdom and regional and international security,” according to a statement carried by Saudi state-TV al-Ekbariya.
The coalition didn’t name the country. Saudi Arabia has been fighting a proxy war in Yemen against Iran, which it accuses of arming the Houthi rebels.
Analysts dubbed this a “major escalation” in the Yemeni war.
“This is a major escalation and will have tremendous implications on the situation in Yemen itself, because Saudi Arabia now feels extremely the urge to retaliate against the Houthi movement that controls the government in Sanaa,” said Gerges.
Gerges added that combined with the political rupture in Lebanon, the ballistic missile attack spells an outbreak of tensions “throughout the region.”
Saudi Arabia was still putting out the fires caused by the missile attack when state TV announced the onset of an anti-corruption crackdown led by the crown prince. Over 17 princes and top officials were arrested on graft charges, according to a list obtained by CNN and cited by a senior royal court official.
The list includes billionaire business magnate Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, who owns 95% of Kingdom Holding, which holds stakes in global companies such as Citigroup, Twitter, Apple and News Corp.
The list also includes formal head of the royal court Khaled Al-Tuwaijri, Saudi media mogul Waleed Al-Ibrahim and Prince Turki Bin Nasser.
“Some of the wealthiest figures in the Arab world are in apprehension today,” said military analyst Riad Kahwaji.
“This is unprecedented. We’re seeing it for the first time and it’s definitely causing shockwaves across the region.”
A picture taken on November 5 of the closed Ritz Carlton hotel in Riyadh.
Reportedly, the detainees are being held at the lavish Ritz-Carlton hotel. “I think there’s a lovely irony in that many of these corrupt deals happened at the Ritz-Carlton and now these guys are locked up there,” said historian Robert Lacey, who wrote two books about the kingdom.
“In historic terms, what we’ve seen in the last few months is nothing short of revolutionary,” said Lacey. “I’ve been waiting for 40 years for these things to happen, and they happened in four months.”
Mohammed bin Salman’s campaign of “two fronts,” as analysts have dubbed it, is being met by cheers and apprehension. But there is near consensus that these are uncharted waters, and the results will be dramatic.
CNN’s Becky Anderson, Chandrika Narayan and Sarah El Sirgany in Riyadh contributed to this report.
Trump voices ‘great confidence’ in Saudi Arabia amid royal purge
BY JORDAN FABIAN – 11/06/17 06:18 PM EST 363
President Trump on Monday gave a vote of confidence to the leadership of Saudi Arabia amid a royal family purge that has rocked the Middle East.
“I have great confidence in King Salman and the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, they know exactly what they are doing,” Trump tweeted while traveling in Asia. “Some of those they are harshly treating have been ‘milking’ their country for years!”
The president appeared to lend his endorsement to this weekend’s arrests of 11 members of the Saudi royal family, which authorities there described as a crackdown against corruption.
The mass arrests amounted to the most sweeping purge of the Saudi ruling elite in the country’s modern history. Advisers, ministers and businessmen were also taken into custody on orders from a newly formed anti-corruption committee.
Regional observers see the round-up as one of the most dramatic moves yet by Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman to consolidate power.
The crown prince, 32, has taken over several key government posts over the past two years while pushing aside rivals as he seeks to position himself as the next leader of the oil-rich kingdom.
He also heads the anti-corruption panel.
Among those arrested were Prince Mutaib bin Abdullah, a son of the late King Abdullah and head of the National Guard, and the kingdom’s wealthiest investor, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal.
Mohammad bin Salman has pushed the hidebound kingdom to implement reforms while cozying up to the U.S., a top Saudi ally.
The crown prince, who is a son of King Salman, has also formed a relationship with President Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
Kushner made an unannounced visit to Saudi Arabia last month, where U.S. officials said he intended to discuss Middle East peace.
Saudi Arabia was the site of Trump’s first trip abroad as president, a visit Mohammad bin Salman was said to have helped arrange.
Trump also has ties to bin Talal, who helped bail him out of financial trouble in the 1990s. The investor was part of a group that purchased New York’s Plaza Hotel from Trump as well as the real-estate mogul’s yacht.
No one should ever have to negotiate between getting lifesaving care or accessing their prescriptions.
Their relationship took a turn for the worse in 2015, when bin Talal bashedTrump’s campaign rhetoric and called on him to drop out of the presidential race.
“Dopey Prince @Alwaleed_Talal wants to control our U.S. politicians with daddy’s money,” Trump responded on Twitter. “Can’t do it when I get elected. #Trump2016”
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Hurricane Irma an Extreme Storm Surge Threat to the U.S. and Bahamas
Above: Radar image of Irma from the Puerto Rico radar at 9 pm EDT September 6, 2017.
After clobbering the Lesser Antilles islands of Barbuda, Saint Barthelemy, Anguilla, and Saint Martin/Sint Maarten early Wednesday morning, Hurricane Irma carried its march of destruction into the British Virgin Islands on Wednesday afternoon, still packing top winds of 185 mph. As of 5 pm EDT Wednesday, Irma had spent a remarkable 1.5 days as a Category 5 hurricane, which is the 7th longest stretch on record in the Atlantic, according to Dr. Phil Klotzbach.
Figure 1. MODIS image of Irma on Wednesday afternoon, September 6, 2017. The eye of the storm was over the British Virgin Islands. Image credit: NASA.
Longer-range outlook for Irma: Cuba, The Bahamas, and Southeast U.S.
The 12Z Wednesday runs of our top four track models—the European, GFS, HWRF, and UKMET models—were in strikingly close agreement that Irma will continue on a west-northwest track till Saturday, then arc sharply to the north-northwest. All four model runs placed the center of Irma within roughly 50 miles of Miami on Sunday morning; the latest 18Z GFS was also there. The average track error in a 4-day forecast is 175 miles, but this remarkable agreement among the models lends additional confidence to the NHC forecast track, which brings Irma over or very near southeast Florida on Sunday. All four models move Irma northward along or near Florida’s east coast, with landfall in Georgia or South Carolina on Monday.
Bahamas: From late Thursday into Friday, Irma will be moving through or just south of the Southeast Bahamas, which are under a Hurricane Warning along with the Central Bahamas. Irma has the potential to be a devastating storm for The Bahamas, especially its southern islands, and residents should rush any needed preparations to completion.
Cuba: From Friday into Saturday, Irma will be paralleling the north coast of Cuba, and it is possible Irma’s center will move just inland along the coast for some period of time. Parts of central Cuba are within the “cone of uncertainty” in the official NHC forecast. Residents of Cuba will need to pay very close attention to Irma’s track. The eastern two-thirds of Cuba was under a Hurricane Watch as of Wednesday afternoon. Irma is not expected to cross Cuba and move into the Caribbean.
Florida: Where and when Irma makes its right-hand turn will largely determine its track with respect to the Florida peninsula. Based on recent ensemble models (in which a large number of parallel runs are carried out to simulate uncertainty in the atmosphere), it is still possible that Irma could take a south-to-north inland track across the Florida peninsula, or a track that stays just east of Florida’s East Coast. However, it appears most likely that Irma will hug the state’s East Coast from south to north, potentially moving inland over some sections. This type of track is far different from those of Hurricane Andrew (1992) and Katrina (2005), which moved from east to west across the Miami metro area. A south-to-north track would affect a much larger part of this elongated metroplex. In an interview published in Capital Weather Gang in August, Bryan Norcross touches on the many issues that a hurricane like Irma could bring to South Florida, which has not experienced a storm this strong in 25 years.
Depending on Irma’s track, hurricane conditions could extend well inland, as well as northward along the length of the peninsula. The entire Florida peninsula is within the five-day cone of uncertainty in the official NHC forecast, and all residents of these areas should pay close attention to the progress of Irma, especially along Florida’s East Coast. NHC may issue Hurricane Watches for parts of South Florida and the Keys on Thursday.
Irma’s intensity will likely undergo fluctuations over the next couple of days, but intensity models show only gradual weakening, and NHC maintains Irma as a Cat 5 storm through Friday. Wind shear is predicted to remain low to moderate along Irma’s path until Saturday, and Irma will be passing over waters that are as warm or slightly warmer than its current environment (see discussion in our Tuesday PM post). Land interaction with Cuba could weaken Irma somewhat, but we must assume that Irma will be at least a Category 4 as it nears South Florida on Sunday, as predicted by NHC.
Georgia/South Carolina/North Carolina: The GFS, European, and UKMET models from 12Z Wednesday track Irma from just off the northeast Florida coast inland near the Georgia/South Carolina border on Monday. The official NHC forecast places Irma near the Georgia coast on Monday afternoon at Category 3 strength. Even if Irma’s winds weaken and its Saffir-Simpson category drops, Irma could still be capable of extreme storm surge, depending on its track and the geography of its landfall location(s). Storm surge expert Dr. Hal Needham noted in a blog postWednesday: “The region from northeast Florida (St. Augustine) through all of the Georgia coast and southwest South Carolina is particularly vulnerable to storm surge, whether or not Irma makes a direct landfall in that region.”
Figure 2. The 20 track forecasts for Irma from the 12Z Wednesday, September 6, 2017 GFS model ensemble forecast. Image credit: CFAN.
Figure 3. The 12Z September 6, 2017, track forecast by the operational European model for Irma (red line, adjusted by CFAN using a proprietary technique that accounts for storm movement since 12Z Wednesday), along with the track of the average of the 50 members of the European model ensemble (heavy black line), and the 50 track forecasts from the 12Z Wednesday European model ensemble forecast (grey lines). Image credit: CFAN.
Figure 4. The 12Z September 6, 2017, track forecast by the operational European model for Irma (red line, adjusted by CFAN using a proprietary technique that accounts for storm movement since 12Z Wednesday), along with the track of the average of the 50 members of the European model ensemble (heavy black line), and the track forecasts from the “high probability cluster” (grey lines)—the four European model ensemble members that have performed best with Irma thus far. Image credit: CFAN.
Irma’s storm surge
Irma is a medium-large hurricane, and is expected to grow in size as it progresses west-northwest over the next four days. As of 5 pm EDT Wednesday, the diameter of hurricane-force winds surrounding Irma was up to 105 miles wide, and the diameter of tropical storm-force winds was up to 310 miles. The official NHC forecast predicted that these diameters would grow to 115 miles and 345 miles, respectively, by Friday, when Irma will be pounding the central Bahamas. This increase in size will be due to eyewall replacement cycles, which spread out the wind field over a larger area, and due to the fact that storms moving towards the pole get more spin from the Earth’s spin.
Irma’s large wind field is putting in motion a vast amount of water, which is spiraling into the center of Irma and creating a large mound. In the open ocean, that water is forced downward, pushing deeper water outward, and the sea surface is not elevated more than a few feet. However, once the hurricane drives that mound of water into a shallow area near land, the water cannot flow downwards, and instead piles up and is forced on land, creating a storm surge. In the Turks and Caicos Island and in the southeastern and central Bahamas, a highly destructive storm surge of 15 – 20 feet above ground is expected near the coast to the right of where the eyewall hits.
A potentially catastrophic storm surge for Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina
If Irma makes a trek up the East Coast from Miami to southern South Carolina as a Category 3 or 4 hurricane, as the models currently suggest, the portions of the coast that the eyewall touches will potentially see a massive and catastrophic storm surge, breaking all-time storm surge records and causing many billions of dollars in damage. Even areas up to a hundred miles to the north of where the center makes landfall could potentially see record storm surges. The area of most concern is the northern coast of Florida, the coast of Georgia, and the southern coast of South Carolina, due to the concave shape of the coast, which will act to funnel and concentrate the storm surge to ridiculous heights. If we look at wunderground’s storm surge maps for the U.S. East Coast, we see that in a worst-case Category 3 hurricane hitting at high tide, the storm tide (the combined effect of the storm surge and the tide) ranges from 17 – 20’ above ground along the northern coast of Florida, and 18 – 23 feet above ground along the Georgia coast. If Irma is a Cat 4, these numbers increase to 22 – 28 feet for the coast of Georgia. This is a Katrina-level storm surge, the kind that causes incredible destruction and mass casualties among those foolish enough to refuse to evacuate.
Figure 5. Maximum of the “Maximum Envelope of Waters” (MOM) storm tide image for a composite maximum surge for a large suite of possible mid-strength Category 3 hurricanes (sustained winds of 120 mph) hitting at high tide (a tide level of 3.5’) along the coast of Georgia. What’s plotted here is the storm tide–the height above ground of the storm surge, plus an additional rise in case the storm hits at high tide. Empty brownish grid cells with no coloration show where no inundation is computed to occur. Inundation of 19 – 23’ will occur in a worst-case scenario along most of the coast. Note that not all sections of the coast will experience this surge level simultaneously.
The image was created using the National Hurricane Center’s Sea, Lake, and Overland Surge from Hurricanes (SLOSH) model. This model divides the U.S. coast up into 20 or so separate grids (called basins) that storm surge simulations are performed for. If one takes the maximum the water reaches at any point in time at every grid cell in a SLOSH basin, a composite “Maximum Envelope of Water” (MEOW) plot can be made. MEOW plots are created for every category of storm moving in a particular direction, usually stratified by forward speed and tide elevation. Simulations are run using a variety of storm sizes. If one takes the maximum storm surge height for all the MEOW plots at every grid cell, one can generate a worst-case storm surge for the coast for each Saffir-Simpson hurricane category: 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. These so-called “Maximum Of the MEOWs”, or “MOMs” are what are plotted in the SLOSH storm surge images on wunderground, and are the composite worst-case scenario storm surges from about 15,000 different hypothetical hurricanes for each SLOSH basin. All of the MOM images we provide are for high tide, and were performed using the 2009 version of the SLOSH Display Package provided to wunderground by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Interstate highways are the thick grey-green lines, and smaller highways are shown as dark green and light green lines. If a road is inundated by storm surge, it will not appear. County boundaries are shown in red.
Figure 6. Maximum of the “Maximum Envelope of Waters” (MOM) water depth image for a composite maximum surge for a large suite of possible mid-strength Category 3 hurricanes (sustained winds of 120 mph) hitting at high tide (a tide level of 2.5’) along the coast of South Carolina near Charleston. If Irma is a Cat 3 in South Carolina, a worst-case 17 – 21’ storm tide can occur. Not all sections of the coast will experience this surge level simultaneously.
Figure 7. South Florida is not at as great of a risk of a high storm surge, since there is deep water offshore, and the mound of water the hurricane piles up can flow downward into the deep ocean instead of getting piled up on land. The worst-case storm tide from a Category 4 hurricane for the coast from Miami Beach to West Palm Beach is 7 – 9 feet. However, that deep water allows much larger waves to build up, and Irma will create big waves that will pound the coast and cause heavy damage. There is a region of the coast from downtown Miami southwards, including Biscayne Bay, where the water is shallow, and the storm tide can be up to 15 feet in a Category 4 hurricane. The Great Miami Hurricane of 1926, a Category 4 storm, brought a 10 – 15’ storm surge to the coast of Miami along Biscayne Bay.
Shown here is the Maximum of the “Maximum Envelope of Waters” (MOM) storm tide image for a composite maximum surge for a large suite of possible mid-strength Category 4 hurricanes (sustained winds of 140 mph) hitting at high tide (a tide level of 2.0’) along the coast of South Florida. Not all sections of the coast will experience this surge level simultaneously.
Figure 8. The Atlantic (Florida Straits) side of the Florida Keys also has deep water offshore, limiting the maximum storm surge in a Cat 4 to 8 – 10 feet. The risk is higher on the west (Florida Bay) side of the Keys, where the water is shallower; a worst-case storm tide of 12 – 15 feet can occur there. Any storm tide over six feet is extremely dangerous in the Florida Keys, due to the low elevation of the land. The greatest risk in the Keys, if the current NHC forecast verifies, would be on the Florida Bay (west) side of the Upper Keys, after the center of Irma moves just to the north. The counter-clockwise flow of air around the hurricane will then bring winds out of the southwest that will drive a large storm surge into the west side of the Upper Keys.
Shown here is the Maximum of the “Maximum Envelope of Waters” (MOM) storm tide image for a composite maximum surge for a large suite of possible mid-strength Category 4 hurricanes (sustained winds of 140 mph) hitting at high tide (a tide level of 2.0’) affecting the Florida Keys. Not all sections of the coast will experience this surge level simultaneously.
Two more hurricanes: Jose and Katia
Forecasters at the National Hurricane Center have their hands full with two new hurricanes joining Irma on Wednesday afternoon. Not since 2010 has the Atlantic had three hurricanes at once, as noted by David Roth (NOAA/NWS) on Twitter. The Atlantic record for simultaneous hurricanes is four, set in 1893 and 1998. The 2017 hurricane season to date is more than twice as active as usual—we’ve had a season’s worth of named storms, hurricanes, and intense hurricanes before even getting to the climatological halfway point of the season (September 10). Phil Klotzbach noted on Twitterthat only one other Atlantic season, 1893, has seen this many hurricanes (six) forming between Aug. 7 and Sept. 6.
Rapidly strengthening Hurricane Jose was located about 1040 miles east of the Lesser Antilles at 5 pm EDT Wednesday, with top sustained winds at 75 mph. Jose is headed at 16 mph on a steady west to west-northwest track, steered by the same ridge that is helping to direct Irma. Jose is just far enough east of Irma for the two storms to coexist without one impeding the other. Jose is traveling over warm SSTs of 28-29°C (82-84°F) in a moist atmosphere (mid-level relative humidity around 65%), and wind shear is predicted to remain around 10 knots for the next day or so. This should allow Jose to strengthen at a rapid clip, and NHC predicts Jose will be a major Category 3 hurricane by Friday. Increasing wind shear from that point on should tamp down the rapid intensification and may weaken Jose over time. On its current track, Jose would reach the northern Leeward Islands by Saturday, but the ridge is predicted to weaken enough by Saturday to allow Jose to arc just northeast of the islands.
Only a tropical depression early Wednesday, Hurricane Katia has also intensified quickly, with estimated top winds of 75 mph as of 5 pm EDT. Located in the Bay of Campeche about 185 miles north-northeast of Veracruz, Mexico, Katia is embedded in a very moist environment with numerous showers and thunderstorms along and south of a frontal zone. Wind shear will decrease to 5-10 knots by Thursday, and with help from the bay’s very warm waters (30-31°C or 86-88°F), Katia could continue to strengthen dramatically. The SHIPS model’s rapid intensification index indicates a near-even chance that Katia’s top sustained winds will increase by 45 mph by late Thursday, although the official NHC forecast at 5 pm EDT Wednesday brings Katia only to top-end Cat 1 intensity. Our top track models are unanimous in drifting Katia for a couple of days before driving it southwestward into the Mexican coast this weekend. Extremely heavy rains of 10 – 20” are possible along and near parts of the northeast Mexican coast, especially in the state of Veracruz, as Katia approaches and moves inland.
Figure 9. Triple trouble: three simultaneous hurricanes in the Atlantic for the first time in 7 years.
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South Asia floods kill 1,200 and shut 1.8 million children out of school
Hundreds dead in India, Nepal and Bangladesh, while millions have been forced from their homes and 18,000 schools shut down across the region
Heavy monsoon rains have brought Mumbai to a halt for a second day as the worst floods to strike south Asia in years continued to exact a deadly toll.
More than 1,200 people have died across India, Bangladesh and Nepal as a result of flooding, with 40 million affected by the devastation. At least six people, including two toddlers, were among the victims in and around India’s financial capital.
The devastating floods have also destroyed or damaged 18,000 schools, meaning that about 1.8 million children cannot go to classes, Save the Children warned on Thursday.
The charity said that hundreds of thousands of children could fall permanently out of the school system if education was not prioritised in relief efforts.
“We haven’t seen flooding on this scale in years and it’s putting the long-term education of an enormous number of children at great risk. From our experience, the importance of education is often under-valued in humanitarian crises and we simply cannot let this happen again. We cannot go backwards,” said Rafay Hussain, Save the Children’s general manager in Bihar state.
“We know that the longer children are out of school following a disaster like this the less likely it is that they’ll ever return. That’s why it’s so important that education is properly funded in this response, to get children back to the classroom as soon as it’s safe to do so and to safeguard their futures.”
On Wednesday, police said a 45-year-old woman and a one-year-old child, members of the same family, had died after their home in the north-eastern suburb of Vikhroli crumbled late on Tuesday, and a two-year-old girl had died in a wall collapse.
They said another three people had died after being swept away in the neighbouring city of Thane.
The rains have led to flooding in a broad arc stretching across the Himalayan foothills in Bangladesh, Nepal and India, causing landslides, damaging roads and electric towers and washing away tens of thousands of homes and vast swaths of farmland.
The International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) says the fourth significant floods this year have affected more than 7.4 million people in Bangladesh, damaging or destroying more than 697,000 houses.
They have killed 514 in India’s eastern state of Bihar, where 17.1 million have been affected, disaster management officials have been quoted as saying. In the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, about 2.5 million have been affected and the death toll stood at 109 on Tuesday, according to the Straits Times. The IFRC said landslides in Nepal had killed more than 100 people.
The IFRC – working with the Bangladesh Red Crescent Society and the Nepal Red Cross – has launched appeals to support almost 200,000 vulnerable people with immediate relief and long-term help with water and sanitation, health and shelter.
A passenger bus moves through a waterlogged road in Mumbai. Photograph: Shailesh Andrade
Streets in Mumbai have turned into rivers and people waded through waist-deep waters. On Tuesday, the city received about 12.7cm (5ins) of rain, paralysing public transport and leaving thousands of commuters stranded in their offices overnight.
Poor visibility and flooding also forced airport authorities to divert some flights while most were delayed by up to an hour.
The National Disaster Response Force has launched a rescue mission with police to evacuate people from low-lying areas but operations were thwarted by the continuous rain.
“The heavy rains, flooding, are delaying our rescue work. Even we are stranded,” said Amitesh Kumar, the joint police commissioner in Mumbai.
Images and video posted on social media showed the extent of the flooding.
Rainwater swamped the King Edward Memorial hospital in central Mumbai, forcing doctors to vacate the paediatric ward.
“We are worried about infections … the rain water is circulating rubbish that is now entering parts of the emergency ward,” said Ashutosh Desai, a doctor in the 1,800-bed hospital.
Although Mumbai is trying to build itself into a global financial hub, parts of the city struggle to cope during annual monsoon rains.
Floods in 2005 killed more than 500 people in the city. The majority of deaths occurred in shanty town slums, home to more than half of Mumbai’s population.
The meteorological department warned that the rains would continue for the next 24 hours.
Unabated construction on flood plains and coastal areas, as well as storm-water drains and waterways clogged by plastic garbage, have made the city increasingly vulnerable to storms.
Snehal Tagade, a senior official in Mumbai’s disaster management unit, said 150 teams were being deployed to help the population in low-lying residential areas.
Low-lying parts of the city with a population of more than 20 million people experience flooding almost every year but large-scale flooding of this magnitude has not been seen in recent years.
“We are mapping all the flooding zones to launch a project to build emergency shelters to make evacuation easy,” said Tagade.
Many businesses asked employees to leave early in expectation of worsening traffic jams. Rains and a high tide in the western coastal city threaten to overload an ageing drainage system.
People walk along a flooded street in Mumbai. Photograph: Punit Paranjpe/AFP/Getty Images
Several companies have arranged for food and resting facilities for employees stuck in offices. Temples and other Ganesh pandals have been offering food and water to people stranded on streets.
People on social media have been offering help to strangers who have been stuck at various locations.
The education minister has asked all schools and colleges in the city to remain shut on Wednesday.
The flooding led to some power outages in parts of the city and the municipal corporation warned of more such cuts if water levels continued to rise.
A spokeswoman for Mumbai international airport said flights in and out of the airport, India’s second busiest, were delayed while some had had to be diverted.
South Asia floods: Mumbai building collapses as monsoon rains wreak havoc
Flooding across India, Nepal and Bangladesh leaves parts of cities underwater as storm moves on to Pakistan
At least 21 people are dead and more than a dozen others trapped after monsoon downpours caused a building to collapse in Mumbai.
The four-storey residential building gave way on Thursday morning in the densely populated area of Bhendi Bazaar, after roads were turned into rivers in India’s financial capital. The city has been struggling to cope with some of the heaviest rainfall in more than 15 years.
Rescue workers, police and residents helped pull 13 people out of the rubble and were looking for those buried beneath. Authorities have advised people living in an adjacent building to evacuate after it developed cracks following the collapse.
The death toll could have been much worse, officials said, because the building, which houses a nursery school, collapsed half an hour before children were due to arrive at 9am.
Thousands more buildings that are more than 100 years old are at risk of collapse due in part to foundations being weakened by flood waters.
Vast swaths of land are underwater in the eastern part of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, where more than 100 people have reportedly died, 3,097 villages are submerged and almost 3 million villagers have been affected by flooding, according to officials. Army personnel have joined rescuers to evacuate people from the area.
The storm reached Pakistan on Thursday, lashing the port city of Karachi, where at least 14 people have died, and streets have been submerged by water. The country’s meteorological department forecast that the rains would continue for three days in various parts of Sindh province, where authorities closed schools as a precaution.
People make their way through flooded streets after a heavy downpour in Karachi on Thursday. Photograph: Rehan Khan/EPA
Up to 97mm (3.8in) of rain has been recorded in some areas of Karachi, filling the streets with muddy water, sewage and rubbish.
Among the dead was an eight-year-old boy who was crushed when a building belonging to the Federal Investigation Agency collapsed. Most of the dead were electrocuted, leading the city’s energy provider, K-Electric, to cut power to certain areas.
“Some feeders have been switched off in view of safety concerns in areas with waterlogging, and restoration work will be expedited in affected areas as soon as standing water is wiped out,” Sadia Dada, the director of marketing and communication for K-Electric, told Dawn newspaper.
About 6,000 villagers are threatened with flooding after the rains breached the Thado dam on the Malir river. The army has been called in to help with evacuation, and has also provided Karachi’s city administration with water extraction pumps.
Windstorms and rain are also expected in the Balochistan and Punjab provinces. The meteorological department said rains were also expected in the capital, Islamabad, and in Pakistan’s portion of Kashmir.
One third of Bangladesh was believed to be underwater and the UN described the situation in Nepal, where 150 people have died, as the worst flooding in a decade.
The floods have also destroyed or damaged 18,000 schools in the south Asia region, meaning that about 1.8 million children cannot go to classes, Save the Children said on Thursday.
The charity said hundreds of thousands of children could fall permanently out of the school system if education was not prioritised in relief efforts.
“We haven’t seen flooding on this scale in years and it’s putting the long-term education of an enormous number of children at great risk. From our experience, the importance of education is often undervalued in humanitarian crises and we simply cannot let this happen again. We cannot go backwards,” said Rafay Hussain, Save the Children’s general manager in the eastern Indian state of Bihar.
“We know that the longer children are out of school following a disaster like this the less likely it is that they’ll ever return. That’s why it’s so important that education is properly funded in this response, to get children back to the classroom as soon as it’s safe to do so and to safeguard their futures.”
Floods have caused devastation in many parts of India. Unprecedented rainfall in Assam in the north-east has killed more than 150 people. About 600 villages are still underwater even though the torrential rain began earlier this month.
Rhinos in Assam’s Kaziranga nature reserve had to flee to higher ground. “We get flooding every year but I have never seen anything quite like this in my life,” Ashok Baruah, a farmer, told journalists.
In Bihar, the death toll has reached 514, with people still living in makeshift huts days after the flooding started. However, the flood waters, which turned fields into lakes, appear to be receding.
In Mumbai, the rain forced nurses and doctors at the busiest hospital in the city to wade through wards knee-high in filthy water to move patients to the first floor. Outside the King Edward memorial hospital, a man going to visit his wife who was due to have a caesarean had to wade through flooded streets to reach her. Children swam or paddled down the streets lying on planks of wood.
Flood victims in the city included a doctor who fell down a manhole and another who died after being trapped in his car while waiting for the water to recede. Others living in the low-lying areas most affected by the flooding were swept away into the sea or died when walls collapsed.
As train services ground to a halt, hundreds of thousands of commuters were stranded, unable to go home.
TV commentators voiced the anger of those caught in the chaos. The TV personality Suhel Seth lashed out at the “scoundrels, rogues, villains, rascals, incompetents and useless fools” in the municipal authority for not being better prepared for the annual monsoon flooding.
The deluge brought back memories of the 2005 floods that killed more than 500 people in the city.
“Why does nothing change? Why are we left to fend for ourselves when they had weather forecasts warning them of extremely heavy rainfall?” asked the author and columnist Shobhaa De.
PUBLISHED: 03:30 EDT, 24 August 2017 | UPDATED: 07:45 EDT, 24 August 2017
The death toll from floods sweeping South Asia has climbed above 1,000, officials said Thursday, as rescue teams try to reach millions stranded by the region’s worst monsoon disaster in recent years.
The death toll from floods sweeping South Asia has climbed above 1,000, officials said Thursday, as rescue teams try to reach millions stranded by the region’s worst monsoon disaster in recent years.
Thousands of soldiers and emergency personnel have been deployed across India, Bangladesh and Nepal, where authorities say a total of 1,013 bodies have been recovered since August 10 when intense rainfall started falling.
All three countries suffer frequent flooding during the monsoon rains, but the Red Cross has termed the latest disaster the worst in decades in some parts of South Asia.
It says entire communities have been cut off and many are short of food and clean water.
“It has been a difficult year,” said Anil Shekhawat, spokesman for India’s national disaster response force.
“In the last few months there have been floods in western, eastern and northern parts of the country,” Shekhawat told AFP.
Twenty-six bodies were found Wednesday in Bihar, a hard-hit state in India’s east, taking the death toll there to 367, said Anirudh Kumar, a top state disaster management official.
“We still have nearly 11 million people affected in 19 districts of the state,” he told AFP, adding nearly 450,000 flood evacuees had taken shelter in government refuges.
In neighbouring Uttar Pradesh, floods have swamped nearly half the vast state of 220 million, India’s most populous.
Thousands of soldiers and emergency personnel have been deployed across India, Bangladesh and Nepal, where authorities say a total of 1,009 bodies have been recovered since August 10 when intense rainfall started falling.
Disaster management agency spokesman T.P. Gupta said 86 people had died and more than two million were affected by the disaster there.
The state borders Nepal, where 146 people have died and 80,000 homes destroyed in what the United Nations is calling the worst flooding in 15 years.
Nepal’s home ministry warned the death toll could rise as relief teams reach more remote parts of the impoverished country.
– Widespread destruction –
In India’s northwest, landslides caused by heavy rain have claimed 54 lives, the vast majority in one huge avalanche of mud that swept two buses off a mountainside.
The situation was slowly easing in West Bengal and Assam, two states in India’s east and northeast where 223 people have died.
Floods in Assam — the second wave to hit the state in less than four months — have wrought widespread destruction, killing 71 people and forcing animals in a local wildlife sanctuary to seek higher ground.
One Bengal tiger and 15 rare one-horned rhinos were found dead and conservationists feared there could be further loss of life as poachers sought to capitalise on the exodus.
In the low-lying state of West Bengal, where 152 people have died, hundreds of thousands have escaped submerged villages by boats and makeshift rafts to reach government aid stations.
Across the border in Bangladesh, water levels were slowly returning to normal in the main Brahmaputra and Ganges rivers.
The government’s disaster response body said Thursday the death toll stood at 137, with more than 7.5 million affected since flooding hit the riverine nation.
Every year hundreds die in landslides and floods during the monsoon season that hits India’s southern tip in early June and sweeps across the South Asia region for four months.
Last year nearly 1,500 people died and half a million homes were destroyed in floods across the country, according to India’s home ministry.
PUBLISHED: 03:46 EDT, 14 August 2017 | UPDATED: 03:52 EDT, 14 August 2017
GAUHATI, India (AP) – Heavy monsoon rains have unleashed landslides and floods that have killed at least 160 people and displaced millions of others across northern India, southern Nepal and Bangladesh.
Officials said Monday they were still trying to determine the scale of the disaster, with casualties and damage reported in multiple locations across the Himalayan foothills of South Asia.
The seasonal floodwaters damaged bridges, toppled power lines and washed away thousands of homes in the northeastern Indian state of Assam. Officials say people have been killed by drowning or being caught inside collapsing houses or beneath falling trees.
A Nepalese man looses his balance while crossing a flooded street in Birgunj, Nepal, Sunday, Aug. 13, 2017. An official said torrential rain, landslides and flooding have killed dozens of people in Nepal over the past three days, washing away hundreds of homes and damaging roads and bridges across the Himalayan country. (AP Photo/Manish Paudel)
In neighboring Nepal, police spokesman Pushkar Karki were searching for 85 people reported missing after rivers burst their banks and killed at least 75. Another 20 people died over the last few days in Bangladesh.
A Nepalese man sits on the wall of his house in a partially submerged village in Birgunj, Nepal, Sunday, Aug. 13, 2017. An official said torrential rain, landslides and flooding have killed dozens of people in Nepal over the past three days, washing away hundreds of homes and damaging roads and bridges across the Himalayan country. (AP Photo/Manish Paudel)
Army soldiers and rescue workers recover bodies of landslide victims even as they try to pull out two buses that were covered in mud after a landslide triggered by heavy monsoon rain in Urla village, Himachal Pradesh state, India, Sunday, Aug. 13, 2017. The landslide that occurred early Sunday buried part of a highway, trapping two buses and at least three cars. (AP Photo/Shailesh Bhatnagar)
People watch army soldiers and rescue workers recover bodies of landslide victims even as they try to pull out two buses that were covered in mud after a landslide triggered by heavy monsoon rain in Urla village, Himachal Pradesh state, India, Sunday, Aug. 13, 2017. The landslide that occurred early Sunday buried part of a highway, trapping two buses and at least three cars. (AP Photo/Shailesh Bhatnagar)
Nepalese villagers wade through flood waters in Ramgadhwa area in Birgunj, Nepal, Sunday, Aug. 13, 2017. An official said torrential rain, landslides and flooding have killed dozens of people in Nepal over the past three days, washing away hundreds of homes and damaging roads and bridges across the Himalayan country. (AP Photo/Manish Paudel)
Nepalese men carry children on their shoulders as they wade through flood waters in village Ramgadhwa in Birgunj, Nepal, Sunday, Aug. 13, 2017. An official said torrential rain, landslides and flooding have killed dozens of people in Nepal over the past three days, washing away hundreds of homes and damaging roads and bridges across the Himalayan country. (AP Photo/Manish Paudel)
People watch army soldiers and rescue workers recover bodies of landslide victims even as they try to pull out two buses that were covered in mud after a landslide triggered by heavy monsoon rain in Urla village, Himachal Pradesh state, India, Sunday, Aug. 13, 2017. The landslide that occurred early Sunday buried part of a highway, trapping two buses and at least three cars. (AP Photo/Shailesh Bhatnagar)
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Story 1: President Trump Negotiating Deal With North Korea Communist Dictator Kim Jong Un — Destroy Missiles and Nuclear Weapon or Face The Consequences — Total Trade Embargo with Communist China Starting January 1, 2019 For Enabling North Korea Nuclear Weapons and Missile Programs Proliferation — The Big Squeeze of Kim By Trump and Xi — Videos
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Donald Trump’s 7-point trade plan: No TPP, renegotiate NAFTA
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Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 84-87
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