Author: Chin@Strategy

Sydney, Australia —  The death toll from Cyclone Gabrielle in New Zealand climbed to 11 on Sunday as thousands of people remained missing a week after the storm struck the country’s North Island. The cyclone hit the island’s northernmost region on Feb. 12 and tracked down the east coast, inflicting widespread devastation. Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has called Gabrielle New Zealand’s biggest natural disaster this century. On Sunday, police said two more people had died in hard-hit Hawke’s Bay in circumstances related to the cyclone. More fatalities are possible, Hipkins…

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA —  North Korea has confirmed that the intercontinental ballistic missile it fired Saturday was the Hwasong-15, which it said was part of a “surprise” exercise to test its war readiness with a “mobile and mighty counterattack.” According to a Sunday morning report by the state-run Korean Central News Agency, a mock “emergency firepower combat standby order” was issued at dawn Saturday. Guided by North Korea’s Missile General Bureau, the “high angle” ICBM launch was conducted at Pyongyang International Airport by afternoon, it said. Authorities in South Korea…

WASHINGTON —  The little-noticed program that led to a Chinese spy balloon drifting across the United States this month has been discussed in China’s state-controlled media for more than a decade in articles extolling its potential military applications. The reports, dating back to at least 2011, focus on how best to exploit what is known as “near space” – that portion of the atmosphere that is too high for traditional aircraft to fly but too low for a satellite to remain in orbit. Those early articles may offer clues to…

BERLIN, GERMANY —  South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin said Saturday that Russia’s attack on Ukraine and the global attention on that war had emboldened North Korea, which launched a long-range ballistic missile into the sea off Japan’s west coast earlier in the day. The missile launch — North Korea’s first since January 1 — clearly signaled “its intent to conduct additional provocations,” Park said at a panel during a global security conference in Munich, Germany. “Going further, if North Korea conducts the seventh nuclear test, which could happen at…