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Two Asian Americans Among NASA’s New Astronaut Candidates

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The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has announced their 12 candidate picks for their astronaut corps on Wednesday, and among their choices are two Asian American candidates. Dr. Jonny Kim and Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Raja Chari were chosen from a record 18,300 applicants to undergo astronaut training at the Johnson Space Center and one day fly with NASA. 

A congratulatory ceremony was held at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, where Vice President Mike Pence was in attendance. The vice president congratulated candidates and assured NASA that the American government would continue to support their endeavors into and around space.

 

Kim and Chari will report for training in August and then await their chance to join the ranks of NASA’s astronauts and follow in the footsteps of names like Ellison Onizuka, a Japanese American who was the first Asian American to explore space aboard the shuttle Discovery in 1985.

NASA hasn’t launched a shuttle since 2011, making the future somewhat unclear for candidates, but, as Kim told reporters at the ceremony, they are all just “happy to be here.” 

Get to know Kim and Chari by reading a short biography of each below, and find out more from NASA’s website:

Korean American Dr. Jonny Kim was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. He has a Bachelor’s degree in mathematics from the University of California, San Diego, where he graduated summa cum laude in 2012. He went on to earn a doctorate in medicine from the Harvard School of Medicine in 2016. He enlisted in the Navy as a seaman recruit after high school and served as a combat medic, sniper, navigator and point man over the course of two deployments to the Middle East. When he was chosen by NASA to be an astronaut candidate, he was working as a resident physician at the Massachusetts General Hospital.

Indian American Lt. Col. Raja Chari is from Cedar Falls, Wisconsin, and has a Bachelor’s degree in aeronautical engineering and engineering science from the U.S. Air Force Academy, who also named him a distinguished graduate of the Class of 1999. He served as commander of the 461st Flight Test Squadron and has over 2,000 hours of flight time under his belt accumulated over combat missions in Operation Iraqi freedom and deployments to the Korean peninsula. He is the second Indian American chosen by NASA for the astronaut training program.


To Post Or Not To Post: Internet Tips For College Hopefuls

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Google yourself. Curate your online photos. The general rule of thumb, as one private high school advises its students: Don’t post anything you wouldn’t want your grandmother to see.

Guidance counselors have warned college applicants for years to mind their social media posts but can now cite a high-profile example at Harvard University, which revoked offers of admission to 10 students for offensive Facebook posts.

Colleges rarely revoke admission for online offenses, but social media’s role in the college admission process is a growing reality. Here are some experts’ tips on what to post — and not post — if you’re trying to get into college.

WHAT RESEARCH SHOWS

Research from Kaplan Test Prep suggests online scrutiny of college applicants is increasing. Of 365 admissions officers surveyed, 35 percent said they check Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites to learn more about applicants, according to a poll released in February. Kaplan Test Prep has conducted annual surveys on the subject since 2008, when 10 percent of admissions officials said they checked applicants’ social media pages.

The Harvard case highlights that “admissions doesn’t necessarily end at the acceptance letter,” says Yariv Alpher, executive director of research for Kaplan, the test-preparation company.

The case included jokes about the Holocaust and sexual assault that were shared on a private Facebook group for incoming Harvard freshmen, according to The Harvard Crimson, which broke the news earlier this month. Harvard has declined to comment but says it tells new students that admission offers can be withdrawn if their behavior calls into question their maturity or moral character.

THE GRANDMOTHER RULE

San Francisco University High School seniors are given a warning each fall to clean up their online presence — and nix any posts they wouldn’t show Grandma, said Jon Reider, director of college counseling at the elite private school.

“The mythical grandmother is held up as an icon of moral standards,” Reider said.

Another word of wisdom: Don’t make jokes online.

“Unless you are certified as being the funniest kid in the class, don’t be funny,” Reider said. “A sense of humor can be dangerous online.”

DON’T BRAG, ESPECIALLY ABOUT WRONGDOING

Colgate University admissions officers don’t routinely cruise prospective students’ social media sites, says dean of admissions Gary L. Ross.

“However, there are occasions, very rarely, were something might be brought to our attention, and it would be foolish for us, if the matter is serious enough, not to check that out,” Ross said.

He cited a case from a few years ago where a student bragged on social media that she applied early to Colgate and another institution, which violates an agreement students sign to apply early to only one school.

“That was brought to our attention. I was in touch with the other dean of admission, and we both agreed it was in violation of each institution’s rules, and the student was denied at both.”

EDIT ONLINE USERNAMES

Make sure your email address is appropriate, says Nancy Beane, associate director of college counseling at The Westminster Schools in Atlanta, and president of the National Association for College Admission Counseling.

Silly, vulgar or otherwise unprofessional usernames might look good to teenagers but send the wrong message to adults.

Beane also advises students to be mindful of how they treat others online, including comments and trolling of other accounts.

MORE DO’S AND DON’TS

The Princeton Review offers social media tips for college applicants, including “Google yourself” to see what turns up.

“Maybe you’ve made a comment on a blog that you’d rather not have show up, or a friend has tagged you in an unflattering photo,” Princeton Review says in a tip sheet on its website.

It also advises students to check their privacy settings to know what can be seen publicly, and to edit their online photo galleries.

“A picture is worth a thousand words, so make sure you’re OK with what those words might be.”

By Jocelyn Gecker

UN Says World Population Will Reach 9.8 Billion In 2050

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A new U.N. report forecasts that the current world population of 7.6 billion will reach 9.8 billion in 2050 and 11.2 billion in 2100.

The report by the Department of Economic and Social Affairs’ Population Division released Wednesday said roughly 83 million people are being added to the world’s population every year.

According to new U.N. projections, India’s population is expected to surpass that of China by about 2024. India now has 1.3 billion people and China 1.4 billion.

The U.N. said that among the 10 largest countries, Nigeria is growing the fastest.

Nigeria is currently the world’s 7th most populous nation but it’s projected to surpass the United States and become the third largest country in the world shortly before 2050.

Supreme Court Rules In Favor Of The Slants

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WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday struck down part of a law that bans offensive trademarks, ruling in favor of an Asian-American rock band called the Slants and giving a major boost to the Washington Redskins in their separate legal fight over the team name.

The justices were unanimous in saying that the 71-year-old trademark law barring disparaging terms infringes free speech rights.

“It offends a bedrock First Amendment principle: Speech may not be banned on the ground that it expresses ideas that offend,” Justice Samuel Alito said in his opinion for the court.

Slants founder Simon Tam tried to trademark the band name in 2011, but the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office denied the request on the ground that it disparages Asians. A federal appeals court in Washington later said the law barring offensive trademarks is unconstitutional.

The Redskins made similar arguments after the trademark office ruled in 2014 that the name offends American Indians and canceled the team’s trademark. A federal appeals court in Richmond put the team’s case on hold while waiting for the Supreme Court to rule in the Slants case.

Tam insisted he was not trying to be offensive, but wanted to transform a derisive term into a statement of pride. The Redskins also contend their name honors American Indians, but the team has faced decades of legal challenges from Indian groups that say the name is racist.

Despite intense public pressure to change the name, Redskins owner Dan Snyder has refused, saying in the past that it “represents honor, respect and pride” for Native Americans. Snyder issued a quick response to the decision on Monday: “I am THRILLED. Hail to the Redskins.”

Redskins attorney Lisa Blatt said the court’s decision effectively resolves the Redskins’ longstanding dispute with the government.

“The Supreme Court vindicated the team’s position that the First Amendment blocks the government from denying or cancelling a trademark registration based on the government’s opinion,” Blatt said.

Trademark office spokesman Paul Fucito said officials are reviewing the court’s ruling and plan to issue further guidance on how they will review trademark applications going forward.

While the justices all agreed on the outcome, they split in their rationale for the decision. Alito rejected arguments that the government has an interest in preventing speech that is offensive to certain groups.

“Speech that demeans on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, religion, age, disability, or any other similar ground is hateful; but the proudest boast of our free speech jurisprudence is that we protect the freedom to express the thought we hate,” Alito said in a part of his opinion joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas and Stephen Breyer.

Writing separately, Justice Anthony Kennedy said ban on disparaging trademarks was a clear form of viewpoint discrimination that is forbidden under the First Amendment.

“A law that can be directed against speech found offensive to some portion of the public can be turned against minority and dissenting views to the detriment of all,” Kennedy said in an opinion joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonya Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.

In the Slants case, government officials argued that the law did not infringe on free speech rights because the band was still free to use the name even without trademark protection. The same is true for the Redskins, but the team did not want to lose the legal protections that go along with a registered trademark. The protections include blocking the sale of counterfeit merchandise and working to pursue a brand development strategy.

A federal appeals court had sided with the Slants in 2015, saying First Amendment protects “even hurtful speech that harms members of oft-stigmatized communities.”

The section of the law at issue bars the trademark office from registering a name that may “disparage or falsely suggest a connection with persons, living or dead, institutions, beliefs or national symbols, or bring them into contempt, or disrepute.”

Critics of the law said the trademark office has been wildly inconsistent over the years in deciding what terms are too offensive to warrant trademark protection. The government has in the past rejected trademarks for the terms “Heeb” and “Injun,” but allowed those for companies such as Baked By A Negro bakery products, Midget Man condoms, and Dago Swagg clothing.

The trademark office for years had raised no concerns about the Redskins, agreeing to register the name in 1967, 1974, 1978 and 1990. But the office canceled the registrations in 2014 after finding the name disparaged Native Americans.

By Sam Hananel

US-South Korea Summit Exposes Spat On Trade, Resolve On North Korea

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WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump took South Korea to task over its trade surplus with the United States on Friday, demanding renegotiation of a bilateral pact, even as the close security allies voiced joint resolve against the nuclear weapons threat from North Korea.

Trump talked tough on North Korea, vowing to defend America and its allies against its “reckless and brutal regime,” as he concluded two-day of talks with South Korea’s new President Moon Jae-in.

But he also spoke bluntly about the 2012 free trade agreement between the two nations that he said was a “rough deal” for America. He called for the lifting of barriers to U.S. auto sales in South Korea and accused Seoul of enabling exports to the U.S. of dumped steel — apparently referring to steel made in China.

“I’m encouraged by President Moon’s assurances that he will work to create a level playing field so that American workers and businesses and especially auto makers can have a fair shake at dealing with South Korea,” Trump said in comments alongside Moon in the Rose Garden of the White House.

Trump said the U.S. trade deficit with South Korea had grown sharply since the pact took effect. The deficit in goods and services totaled $17 billion last year.

Moon glossed over the differences in trade in his comments. He described the U.S.-South Korean economic partnership as a pillar of the alliance — traditionally rooted in the bond forged during the 1950-53 Korean War and the continued presence of 28,000 U.S. forces in South Korea.

Moon said that Trump has accepted his invitation to visit South Korea with the first lady Melania Trump later this year.

Trump called for “fair burden-sharing” by Seoul in paying for the U.S. military presence in South Korea. But there was little divergence apparent between the two leaders on the issue of North Korea. There had been concern that Moon’s pro-engagement stance toward Pyongyang could clash with Trump’s effort to crank up pressure and deepen North Korea’s isolation.

In a sign of the Trump administration’s hardening stance on that issue, the Treasury Department on Thursday blacklisted a Chinese bank accused of conducting millions in illicit business with North Korea.

On Friday, Trump called on all nations to join the U.S. in implementing sanctions that are intended to starve North Korea of resources for its nuclear and missile programs. He demanded North Korea “choose a better path and do it quickly and a different future for its long-suffering people.”

“Our goal is peace, stability and prosperity for the region — but the United States will defend itself, always will defend itself — always,” Trump said. “And we will always defend our allies.”

Moon said that the two leaders agreed to strengthen their deterrence, and that provocations from would meet with a “stern response.” He said they agreed to coordinate closely, including on sanctions and dialogue.

“The North Korean nuclear issue must be resolved without fail. North Korea should be no means underestimate the firm commitment of Korea and the U.S. in this regard,” he said, urging Pyongyang to return to negotiations on denuclearization.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un shows no sign of doing of negotiating away his nuclear deterrent which he considers as a guarantee against an invasion to topple his totalitarian regime. Washington regards North Korea as one of its most pressing national security threats as it moves closer toward acquiring a nuclear-tipped missile that could strike the continental U.S.

Moon’s conservative predecessor, who was impeached in a bribery scandal, took a hard line toward North Korea. Moon’s stance is softer. He has said sanctions alone cannot solve the problem of North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs, but the “right conditions” are needed for dialogue.

Before Friday’s talks at the White House, Moon laid a wreath at the Korean War Memorial monument near the Washington Mall. He was accompanied by Vice President Mike Pence, whose father served in the U.S. Army during the Korean War. Under the pale blue morning sky, they observed a moment of silence as a lone trumpeter played “Taps.”

It was the second occasion during Moon’s four-day visit that he has paid tribute to American veterans of that conflict. On Wednesday, he visited a memorial to Marines who in 1950 enabled a mass evacuation of Korean civilians, including Moon’s parents.

By Matthew Pennington

Trump Expresses Frustration With China Over North Korea Support

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WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump chastised China on Wednesday for doing too little to starve North Korea of funds and exert pressure over its nuclear pursuits, as his administration searched for new ways to confront Pyongyang after its unprecedented test of a missile capable of hitting the U.S.

North Korea’s launch this week of an intercontinental ballistic missile demonstrated a dangerous new reach for weapons it hopes to top with nuclear warheads one day. As the U.S. demands global action to counter the threat, the Trump administration is finding that some of the most obvious tools to increase pressure on the North have already been tried and failed.

Trump, since entering the White House, has placed a particular focus on pushing China — North Korea’s biggest trading partner — to use its influence and ramp up economic pressure. Trump expressed optimism after his first meeting with China’s President Xi Jinping that the two would work together effectively on the issue, but in recent days Trump has increasingly conceded the strategy has not produced fast results.

“Trade between China and North Korea grew almost 40% in the first quarter,” Trump wrote on Twitter on Wednesday, moments before departing for a trip to Poland. “So much for China working with us — but we had to give it a try!”

As he flew to Poland on Air Force One, Trump spoke by phone about the North Korean threat with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, emphasizing the need for countries to implement U.N. Security Council resolutions. The White House said Trump also discussed the need for nations to “stop hosting North Korean guest workers” — an issue Secretary of State Rex Tillerson also mentioned in his response a night earlier to the missile launch.

Restricting guest workers is one way the U.S. and other countries could try to reduce North Korea’s access to foreign currently. There are some 50,000-60,000 North Korean workers abroad, mostly in Russia and China, South Korea’s spy service has said, including at about 130 restaurants North Korea operates overseas. The workers’ mission involves earning money to bring into North Korea.

In his initial response to the launch on Monday evening, Trump urged China on Twitter to “put a heavy move on North Korea and end this nonsense once and for all!” But he also said it was “hard to believe” that South Korea and Japan, the two U.S. treaty allies most at risk from North Korea, would “put up with this much longer.”

North Korea conducts about 90 percent of its trade through China. In April, Chinese customs data said total two-way trade between China and North Korea increased 36.8 percent in the first quarter of this year compared with the same period a year earlier.

Raw data from the first quarter of this year, however, showed that total two-way trade between the sides increased by only a 7.4 percent in this first quarter. It was not immediately clear why the customs agency reported a higher growth rate.

China has long resisted intensifying economic pressure on neighboring North Korea, in part out of fear of the instability that could mount on its doorstep, including the possibility of millions of North Koreans fleeing into China. China has also been concerned that a reunited, democratic Korea — dominated by South Korea — would put a U.S. ally, and possibly U.S. forces, on its border.

U.S. officials joined South Korea and Japan in requesting an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council, scheduled Wednesday afternoon. And in a show of force directly responding to North Korea’s provocation, U.S. and South Korean soldiers fired “deep strike” precision missiles into South Korean territorial waters on Tuesday, U.S. military officials in Seoul said.

Until this week’s launch, North Korea had demonstrated missiles of short and medium range — but not an intercontinental missile. The prime danger from the U.S. viewpoint is the prospect of North Korea managing to put a nuclear warhead atop an ICBM. The latest US intelligence assessment is that the North probably does not yet have that capability.

The launch was not wholly unexpected. Daniel Coats, director of national intelligence, testified to Congress in May that the U.S. anticipated an ICBM test before the end of this year.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, in a statement late Tuesday released as most Americans were celebrating the Fourth of July holiday, vowed “stronger measures” to hold the North accountable, and said: “Global action is required to stop a global threat.” He said any country helping North Korea militarily or economically, taking in its guest workers or falling short on Security Council resolutions “is aiding and abetting a dangerous regime.”

Notably, Tillerson’s statement did not mention China.

The Pentagon has spent tens of billions of dollars developing a missile defense system tailored to the North Korean ambition of attaining the eventual capability to attack the U.S. with a nuclear-armed missile. On May 30 the Pentagon successfully shot down a mock warhead designed to replicate the North Korean threat.

Pentagon spokeswoman Dana W. White said the U.S.-South Korea missile exercise Tuesday was meant to show “our precision fire capability.”

“We remain prepared to defend ourselves and our allies and to use the full range of capabilities at our disposal against the growing threat from North Korea,” she said in a statement. “The United States seeks only the peaceful denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. Our commitment to the defense of our allies, the Republic of Korea and Japan, in the face of these threats, remains ironclad.”

By Josh Lederman and Catherine Lucey

Danielle Kang Wins KPMG Women’s PGA Championship

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OLYMPIA FIELDS, Ill. — From a young age, Danielle Kang’s parents instilled in her the belief that anything was possible.

Even major championships.

Kang birdied the final hole to win the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship on Sunday for her first LPGA Tour title, edging defending champion Brooke Henderson.

Kang bogeyed the tricky par-3 17th, and Henderson closed with two birdies to move into a tie for the lead, coming up just short on a 30-foot eagle putt on the par-5 18th. But Kang responded with two solid shots to get to the green in two, and then two-putted for the victory.

“I just told myself it was my week. It was my day,” Kang said.

Kang lost her father, K.S., to cancer in 2013, but her mother, Grace Lee, was one of the first people to congratulate her on the victory. She also face-timed with brother Alex, an instrumental figure in her performance at Olympia Fields, after the trophy presentation.

Kang’s father caddied for her when she won the U.S. Women’s Amateur in 2010 and 2011. She keeps a journal where she writes messages to her father.

“If I could wish anything, I would wish that my dad saw me won,” said Kang, wiping tears from her eyes. “I think that it’s been a really difficult road for me the past four or five years. It’s life, though, you pick yourself up and you have to keep working hard at it, and then believe in what you’re doing, and not letting yourself down.

“I just know that he’s here for it. What are the odds that my first win is a major? Pretty sure he had something to do with it. It’s just incredible. But I know that he was there, because I felt — I felt him with me every day, and I still do.”

It was another great finish for the LPGA Tour’s second major of the season. Henderson beat Lydia Ko in a playoff last year at Sahalee in Washington.

The 24-year-old Kang trailed Henderson and Chella Choi by one after she bogeyed the par-4 10th. But Kang moved in front with four straight birdies on Nos. 11-14, getting hot with her putter at the right time.

Kang also had a clutch 21-foot par putt at 16 on her way to a 3-under 68 and the winner’s check of $525,000. Her previous best finish in a major was a tie for 14th in the 2012 U.S. Women’s Open.

Henderson closed with a 66 to finish a stroke back. Choi, who was tied with Kang for the lead coming into the day, was third at 10 under after a 71.

“Really, she won this, and I was just trying to make it a little bit closer and maybe force a playoff but like I said, I played great and I wouldn’t really take anything back,” Henderson said.

Mi Hyang Lee (67), Amy Yang (68) and Sei Young Kim (68) tied for fourth at 9 under, and Lexi Thompson (69) and Inbee Park (68) were another two strokes back.

Kang’s first victory in her 144th LPGA start was a popular one in some high-profile circles. Michelle Wie, one of Kang’s closest friends on tour, followed her around right after the win. Dustin Johnson texted “That’s how you’re supposed to play, congrats,” and Wayne Gretzky and Caitlyn Jenner — two buddies from her days at Sherwood Country Club in California — also reached out.

While she got some great support from her friends this weekend, it was some sage advice from brother that set the tone for her breakthrough win. Feeling overwhelmed after her last practice round, Kang called Alex, who plays on the Web.com Tour, to help formulate a game plan. He told her to “just blast it down.”

“Alex is the one that I called to map out the golf course. He’s one of the people that I lean on for everything,” Kang said.

Worked out quite well. Kang posted four rounds in the 60s. She had just five bogeys, with each of them coming in the final two rounds.

Thompson looked ready to make a charge, beginning with three birdies and no bogeys on her front nine. But she sputtered down the stretch.

Thompson contended for the first major title of the year, but was penalized for a controversial rules violation and lost to So Yeon Ryu in a playoff in the ANA Inspiration. The top-ranked Ryu shot a 72 in the final round at Olympia Fields and tied for 14th.

“The back nine, I think I honestly got really tired,” Thompson said. “I don’t really know what hit me. Overall the whole week, I played very well. Just missed a few putts that I needed to make, and kind of my wedges let me down a little bit.”

By Jay Cohen

Pyeongchang Olympics Are Icy Path To Warmer Korean Relations

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SEOUL — Tears and hugs after North and South Korean women won the 1991 team table tennis world championships. A standing ovation when athletes from the two Koreas marched together to open the 2000 Sydney Olympics. A selfie taken by a South Korean gymnast with her North Korean opponent that went viral at last year’s Rio de Janeiro Games.

Seven months ahead of the Pyeongchang Olympics, South Korea’s new liberal President Moon Jae-in hopes the first Winter Games on Korean soil could produce more of these feel-good sparks of seeming reconciliation and pave the way for deep engagement to ease the rivals’ 72-year standoff.

In a good development for Moon, IOC President Thomas Bach on Monday expressed his support for Moon’s overture while North Korea recently allowed its taekwondo demonstration team to perform in the South in the Koreas’ first sports exchanges since Moon’s May 10 inauguration.

But there is also plenty of skepticism about Moon’s efforts because of a serious escalation in North Korean nuclear and missile arsenals — North Korea on Tuesday test-fired a missile likely capable of striking Alaska — and a weak North Korean winter sports program that sent only two athletes to the 2010 Vancouver Games and none to the 2014 Sochi Games. Sydney and Rio were both Summer Olympics.

North Korea’s only IOC member, Chang Ung, said last week that cooperation on the Pyeongchang Games could prove hard considering the shortage of time and difficult politics.

What follows is an examination of South Korea’s attempt to make North Korea a key part of the Olympics set for Feb. 9-25.

MOON’S PLAN

During a speech at the world taekwondo championship in the South that drew Chang and North Korean athletes, Moon appealed for North Korea’s Olympic participation while talking about the power of sports and citing the historic “pingpong diplomacy” between the United States and China in the 1970s.

“I think (North Korea’s Olympic attendance) would greatly contribute in realizing Olympic values, which are about bringing humanity together and promoting world peace,” Moon said during the event’s opening ceremony on June 24.

Moon has previously said he wants North Korean athletes to visit the South by crossing over the heavily fortified land border between the Koreas — a deeply symbolic event that would excite frenzied media coverage. He has also proposed holding a pre-Olympic celebratory event at the North’s scenic Diamond Mountain, where the two Koreas once ran a tourism program.

Moon’s sports minister, Do Jong-hwan, told lawmakers recently that South Korea was also studying a joint women’s ice hockey team with North Korea for the Pyeongchang Games. Other ideas: using a recently built North Korean ski resort as a training site and adding North Korea to the Olympic torch relay route.

During their meeting at Moon’s presidential palace in Seoul on Monday, Bach said he actively supports Moon’s push for Korean peace and said it’s in accordance with the Olympic spirit, according to Moon’s office. But some of the measures floated by the Moon government require formal IOC approvals, and Pyeongchang organizers say nothing has been officially determined yet.

Chang suggested it may be too late to try to field a single Olympic team, saying it took five to six months or 22 rounds of inter-Korean talks before fielding a single women’s table tennis team in 1991. He also questioned how much sports could impact relations between the Koreas.

“Did table tennis improve relations between the United States and China? Pingpong was able to work as a catalyst because a political foundation had already been created. The world was saying pingpong made things work, but that wasn’t the case,” Chang told South Korean reporters last week. “Politics are always above sports.”

THE SPORTS OBSTACLES

North Korea is not strong in winter sports.

The only North Korean athletes who are thought to have a realistic shot at making the 2018 Olympics are a North Korean pairs figure skating team. Even if they qualify, it will mean less than 10 North Koreans — two athletes plus coaches and officials — would come to Pyeongchang.

This small squad — or no athletes at all — could make it difficult to create a mood of reconciliation. Still, South Korean officials are looking at other ways to get North Korea involved.

Pyeongchang’s organizing committee said it’s discussing with South Korean government officials whether to ask the IOC and other international sports bodies to give North Korea special entries if no North Korean athletes qualify for the Olympics.

South Korea is also reviewing whether to hold out-of-competition matches during the Olympics that would allow North Korean athletes to compete, according to Moon’s Unification Ministry.

The South’s organizing committee said special entries and extra games have not been allowed at past Winter Games.

THE NUCLEAR OBSTACLES

Relations between the Koreas are dismal as the North pursues its nuclear ambitions.

Since taking power in late 2011, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has conducted three atomic test explosions and ordered a raft of ballistic-missile launches as part of his stated goal of building nuclear missiles capable of reaching the continental United States. Moon’s conservative predecessors responded by suspending major aid shipments and cross-border cooperation projects.

Moon has pledged to improve ties and promised to use the Pyeongchang Games to ease cross-border animosities. But any big North Korean weapon test close to the Pyeongchang Games could trigger strong anti-North sentiments both at home and abroad and make it hard for Moon to press ahead with his overtures.

“What’s most important is that North Korea not act in a way that earns President Moon criticism when he makes a gesture of reconciliation,” said Jung Moon-hyun, a sports science professor at Chungnam National University in South Korea.

SPORTS DIPLOMACY

At the height of the Cold War, sports were another battlefield between the Koreas. North Korea boycotted the 1986 Asian Games and the 1988 Olympics, both held in Seoul.

But sports exchanges briefly flourished in the early 1990s before a nuclear crisis erupted. This cooperation included the North-South women’s table tennis team championship over China in 1991, and a unified world youth boys’ soccer team that reached the quarterfinals later that year.

These were the last unified Korean sports teams, but the rivals found other ways to cooperate.

After the leaders of North and South Korea met for landmark summit talks in Pyongyang in June 2000, athletes from the Koreas walked behind a blue-and-white “unification” flag for the first time at the opening ceremony of the Sydney Summer Games. This happened at other major international sports events, but the practice stopped after the 2007 Asian Winter Games in Chuangchun, China.

Despite terrible political ties amid the nuclear standoff, cross-border sports exchanges between the Koreas did not disappear entirely.

North Korea attended the 2014 Asian Games held in Incheon, South Korea. At the close of the games, three top Pyongyang officials made a surprise visit and held the Koreas’ highest-level face-to-face talks in five years.

This spring, North Korea’s women’s ice hockey team came to the South to take part in the group rounds of the world championships, while the South’s national women’s soccer team traveled to the North for an Asian Cup qualifying match.

One of the feel-good highlights of the Rio Games last year came when a 17-year-old South Korean gymnast named Lee Eun-ju took a selfie with North Korea’s Hong Un Jong as they trained for competition. The photo captured global headlines, and Bach described it as a “great gesture.”

It’s far from certain whether Pyeongchang will have any similar gestures.

By Hyung-jin Kim


South Korea’s President Seeks Talks With North’s Kim Jong Un

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SEOUL — South Korea’s president reiterated he’s willing to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un even as he condemned the North’s first intercontinental ballistic missile test-launch this week as a “reckless” move that incurred punishment by the international community.

During a speech Thursday ahead of the Group of 20 summit in Germany, President Moon Jae-in also proposed the two Koreas resume reunions of families separated by war, stop hostile activities along their heavily fortified border and cooperate on the 2018 Winter Olympics to be held in Pyeongchang, South Korea.

But it’s unclear that North Korea would accept any of Moon’s overtures as South Korea is working with the United States and others to get the country punished for its ICBM launch Tuesday. It’s not the first time Moon has talked about a summit with Kim, but repeating that idea two days after the North’s most successful missile test to date clearly indicates he prefers dialogue to applying more pressure or sanctions on the North.

“The current situation where there is no contact between the relevant officials of the South and the North is highly dangerous,” Moon said. “I am ready to meet with Chairman Kim Jong Un of North Korea at any time at any place, if the conditions are met and if it will provide an opportunity to transform the tension and confrontation on the Korean Peninsula.”

President Donald Trump said Thursday he’s considering unspecified “pretty severe things” in response to the North’s ICBM launch. While a pre-emptive military strike may be among Trump’s potential options, analysts say it’s one of the unlikeliest because the North Korean retaliation would cause massive casualties in South Korea, particularly in Seoul, which is within easy range of North Korea’s artillery.

Moon said he and Kim could put all issues on the negotiating table including the North’s nuclear program and the signing of a peace treaty to officially end the 1950-53 Korean War. An armistice that ended the war has yet to be completed with a peace treaty, leaving the Korean Peninsula in a technical state of war.

Since taking office in May, Moon has been trying to improve ties with North Korea, but his efforts have produced little, with the North testing a series of newly developed missiles.

“I hope that North Korea will not cross the bridge of no return,” Moon said in Thursday’s speech. “Whether it will come out to the forum for dialogue, or whether it will kick away this opportunity of dialogue that has been made with difficulty is only a decision that North Korea can make.”

The North’s ICBM launch has stoked security worries as it showed the country could eventually perfect a reliable nuclear missile capable of reaching anywhere in the United States. Analysts say the reach of the missile tested Tuesday could extend to Alaska.

After the launch, Kim said he would never put his weapons programs up for negotiation unless the United States abandons its hostile policy toward his country. Kim’s statement suggested he will order more missile and nuclear tests until North Korea develops a functioning ICBM that can place the entire U.S. within its striking distance.

In a show of force against North Korea, South Korea and the United States staged “deep strike” precision missile firing drills on Wednesday. In North Korea’s capital, thousands of people rallied Thursday in Kim Il Sung square to celebrate the launch.

By Hyung-jin Kim

Chinese Nobel Laureate Liu Xiaobo Dies At Age 61

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SHENYANG, China — Imprisoned for all the seven years since he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, Liu Xiaobo never renounced the pursuit of human rights in China, insisting on living a life of “honesty, responsibility and dignity.” China’s most prominent political prisoner died Thursday of liver cancer at 61.

His death — at a hospital in the country’s northeast, where he’d been transferred after being diagnosed — triggered an outpouring of dismay among his friends and supporters, who lauded his courage and determination.

“There are only two words to describe how we feel right now: grief and fury,” family friend and activist Wu Yangwei, better known by his penname Ye Du, said by phone. “The only way we can grieve for Xiaobo and bring his soul some comfort is to work even harder to try to keep his influence alive.”

The 1989 pro-democracy protests centered in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, by Liu’s account, were the “major turning point” of his life. Liu had been a visiting scholar at Columbia University in New York but returned early to China in May 1989 to join the movement that was sweeping the country and which the Communist Party regarded as a grave challenge to its authority.

When the government sent troops and tanks into Beijing to quash the protests on the night of June 3-4, Liu persuaded some students to leave the square rather than face down the army. The military crackdown killed hundreds, possibly thousands, of people and heralded a more repressive era.

Liu became one of hundreds of Chinese imprisoned for crimes linked to the demonstrations. It was only the first of four imprisonments.

His final prison sentence was for co-authoring “Charter 08,” a document circulated in 2008 that called for more freedom of expression, human rights and an independent judiciary.

“What I demanded of myself was this: Whether as a person or as a writer, I would lead a life of honesty, responsibility, and dignity,” Liu wrote in “I Have No Enemies: My Final Statement,” which he was prevented from reading aloud in court at his sentencing in 2009. He was sent to prison for 11 years on charges of inciting subversion by advocating sweeping political reforms and greater human rights in China.

A year later, he was awarded the Nobel Prize. The Norwegian committee lauded Liu’s “long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China.”

The award enraged China’s government, which condemned it as a political farce. Within days, Liu’s wife, the artist and poet Liu Xia, was put under house arrest, despite not being convicted of any crime. China also punished Norway, even though its government has no say over the independent Nobel panel’s decisions. China suspended a bilateral trade deal and restricted imports of Norwegian salmon, and relations only resumed in 2017.

Dozens of Liu’s supporters were prevented from leaving the country to accept the award on his behalf. Instead, Liu’s absence at the prize-giving ceremony in Oslo, Norway, was marked by an empty chair. Another empty chair was for Liu Xia.

On Thursday, the Nobel Committee said Beijing bore a heavy responsibility for Liu’s death. But it also leveled harsh criticism at the “free world” for its “hesitant, belated reactions” to his serious illness and imprisonment.

“It is a sad and disturbing fact that the representatives of the free world, who themselves hold democracy and human rights in high regard, are less willing to stand up for those rights for the benefit of others,” said the organization’s chairwoman, Berit Reiss-Andersen.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Liu Xiaobo was a “courageous fighter for civil rights and freedom of opinion.” U.S. Senator John McCain lauded Liu as “a champion for human rights” whose death was “an egregious violation of fundamental human rights.” U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, meanwhile, urged Beijing to release Liu’s wife from house arrest and allow her to leave the country if she wishes.

Liu was born on Dec. 28, 1955, in the northeastern city of Changchun, the son of a language and literature professor who was a committed party member. The middle child in a family of five boys, he was among the first to attend Jilin University when college entrance examinations resumed following the chaotic 1966-76 Cultural Revolution.

After spending nearly two years in detention following the Tiananmen crackdown, Liu was detained for the second time in 1995 after drafting a plea for political reform. Later that year, he was detained a third time after co-drafting “Opinion on Some Major Issues Concerning our Country Today.” That resulted in a three-year sentence to a labor camp, during which time he married Liu Xia.

The couple’s friends and supporters described the dissident and his soft-spoken wife as being deeply in love. In the same statement Liu had prepared for his trial, he addressed his wife.

“Your love is the sunlight that leaps over high walls and penetrates the iron bars of my prison window, stroking every inch of my skin, warming every cell of my body, allowing me to always keep peace, openness, and brightness in my heart, and filling every minute of my time in prison with meaning,” he said.

“But my love is solid and sharp, capable of piercing through any obstacle. Even if I were crushed into powder, I would still use my ashes to embrace you.”

Yu Jie, a longtime friend and a biographer, said Liu frequently gathered a small group of friends for frequent dinners at his favorite local Sichuan hot-pot restaurant, where he regaled younger intellectuals on literature and philosophy before returning home to write until dawn, as was his habit.

“No one was as active as he was, and no one had so much social interaction with the young people,” Yu said. “He was a bridge for generations of thinkers.”

Liu was only the second Nobel Peace Prize winner to die in prison, a fact pointed to by human rights groups as an indication of the Chinese Communist Party’s increasingly hard line against its critics. The first, Carl von Ossietzky, died from tuberculosis in Germany in 1938 while serving a sentence for opposing Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime.

“Hitler was wild and strong and thought he was right — but history proved he was wrong in imprisoning a Nobel Peace Prize winner,” said Mo Shaoping, an old friend and Liu’s former lawyer. “The authorities consider Liu Xiaobo guilty, but history will prove he is not.”

By Christopher Bodeen, Gillian Wong, Han Guan Ng

Liu Xiaobo’s Death Turns Focus To Widow’s Fate

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BEIJING — Friends of the dissident who would become China’s first Nobel Peace Prize laureate had for decades urged him to leave the country that sent him to prison time and again. Liu Xiaobo always said no.

When Liu had a chance to seek asylum abroad after the 1989 Tiananmen pro-democracy protests, he declined. Urged again in the 2000s to leave after needling the government with his essays, he again said no. He might be safer overseas, Liu told friends, but he would sacrifice the moral authority of a campaigner who persisted under one-party authoritarian Communist rule.

Then in March, one development finally broke the resolve of China’s most famous political prisoner: his wife’s declining health.

“For the person he loved, he changed his mind,” said Wu Yangwei, a close family friend who writes under the name Ye Du.

Forcibly sequestered in her home by state security agents for seven years because of her husband’s alleged crimes, Liu Xia had become severely depressed and was suffering heart attacks. Once Liu, serving an 11-year prison sentence, found out about her condition, he decided he would be willing to leave if it would save the soft-spoken poet and artist, friends said.

But following Liu Xiaobo’s death Thursday after a brief battle with advanced liver cancer, friends and supporters are now concerned that Liu Xia may never regain her freedom. Foreign officials including the U.S. ambassador to China, European Council leaders and others have called on Beijing to release Liu Xia, who was never convicted of any crimes.

Back in March, before his cancer diagnosis, Liu Xiaobo’s change of heart prompted a round of talks between Chinese authorities and the German government in an effort to get Liu Xia out of China, possibly to Germany, for treatment of a heart problem, said Liao Yiwu, a close family friend and Berlin-based writer.

“We were encouraged by the negotiations’ progress,” Liao said. “But then Liu Xiaobo’s situation exploded suddenly in June.” Liao said he and the couple thought they could argue that some cancer treatments could only be performed in Germany. The German Embassy in Beijing declined to comment.

Beijing rejected the Lius’ requests and the appeals from foreign governments, saying Liu Xiaobo was receiving the best possible care in China. Friends now fear Beijing may restrict Liu Xia’s movements and prevent her from communicating with the outside.

“Liu Xiaobo surely shared with her his thoughts, which can be expressed through Liu Xia,” said Wu, the writer. “Imagine the consequences if Liu Xia should be free and accept the Nobel Peace Prize on his behalf?”

After Liu Xiaobo was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2010, Beijing placed tight controls over Liu Xia, banning her from using a cellphone or the internet, effectively cutting her off from the outside world. After she was diagnosed with depression, she was allowed to visit with a small number of friends. Guards remained outside her door 24 hours a day, sleeping on a cot at night.

“This kind of isolation is (a form of) torture, and it’s been seven years for her,” said Yu Jie, a family friend who has written a biography of Liu Xiaobo.

Born in 1961 into the family of a senior financial sector official in Beijing, Liu Xia quit her post at a publishing house in her 20s and pursued poetry and painting instead of the tax bureau job that her father arranged for her.

By the time they met, Liu Xiaobo had gained considerable notoriety for his bold criticisms of heavyweight authors. During the 1980s, a period of relative freedom and intellectual foment in China, he gave popular talks at Beijing Normal University and traveled to New York and Norway to lecture.

In later years, Liu Xia, an accomplished poet, would bristle at the suggestion she was subordinate to Liu Xiaobo. But on Tiananmen Square in the heady early months of 1989, she gazed from afar on the charismatic literature professor — her future husband — who was organizing a hunger strike days before the tanks rolled in.

“I didn’t have a chance/to say a word before you became a character in the news/ everyone looking up to you as I was worn down/ at the edge of the crowd,” she wrote.

Liu Xiaobo’s first marriage dissolved after his arrest and first stint in prison for his role in the Tiananmen protests. He and Liu Xia became close and fell in love after he was freed in 1991. He told his friends he was captivated by her free-spirited, singular beauty. She told prison authorities who tried to persuade her not to marry Liu that she would only marry one man: “that enemy of the state.”

They wed in 1996, after Mo Shaoping, Liu Xiaobo’s lawyer and long-time friend, convinced prison officials to allow the marriage in the labor camp where Liu was spending one of his four terms in detention.

During Liu Xiaobo’s three-year stint, Liu Xia made the train ride 36 times — once a month — to visit her husband. A poem she wrote during the 10-hour trip says: “The train heading for the concentration camp / Sobbingly ran over my body / But I could not hold your hand.”

In the years between 1999 and 2008 when he was free and continued to write prolifically, Liu Xiaobo told friends he saved what money he earned so Liu Xia could survive in case something happened to him. The times when he did splurge, Mo said, he bought her bottles of expensive red wine.

Then in 2009, Liu Xiaobo was convicted of inciting subversion of state power after he co-authored Charter 08, a document calling for the end of one-party rule. In a final statement that he prepared to give in court but was never allowed to deliver, he paid a loving tribute to Liu Xia.

“Your love is the sunlight that leaps over high walls and penetrates the iron bars of my prison window, stroking every inch of my skin, warming every cell of my body,” he said in his statement, which was read a year later at the Nobel ceremony in Oslo.

That year was when Liu Xia’s isolation began. In a rare interview, she told The Associated Press in 2010 that she did not believe she would be kept in captivity forever.

But the pressure never eased.

In 2014, Liu Xia was hospitalized for a heart attack. Friends said that when she visited Liu Xiaobo in prison she was forbidden from discussing her health or house arrest on pain of losing her visitation rights.

During one visit, Liu Xiaobo suggested that Liu Xia could take a vacation to Europe if she felt bored. She laughed bitterly but said nothing, according to Yu, the biographer.

It was only this year that she brought up her health condition.

When Liu Xiaobo learned about his wife’s dire situation in March, “he changed his mind about staying in China,” said Wu Renhua, a close family friend. He “wanted to use the remainder of his life for Liu Xia’s freedom, but in the end that did not happen.”

By Gerry Shih and Didi Tang

Sung Hyun Park Wins US Women’s Open

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BEDMINSTER, N.J. — After weeks of uncertainty, the U.S. Women’s Open stopped being about President Donald Trump, his course and his views toward women and it turned out to be what the USGA wanted: a good tournament on a good course.

Not surprisingly, the best player this week won, making up for a bad weekend in this event a year ago.

Sung Hyun Park shot her second straight 5-under 67 on Sunday and won a final-round battle with front-running Shanshan Feng and teenage amateur sensation Hye-Jin Choi at Trump National Golf Club for her first LPGA Tour victory.

The 23-year-old Park birdied the 15th to move into a tie for the lead and the 17th to open a two-shot edge after Choi made a double bogey to squander her chance of becoming the second amateur to win the event.

Park finished with an 11-under total of 277, two shots better than Choi, who shot a final-round 71.

It was a far cry from a year ago when Park hit into the water on the 18th hole at CordeValle in California and missed a playoff with eventual winner Britanny Lang and Anna Nordqvist by two shots.

“The experience was definitely worth it, because based on that good experience that I had last year, I think I was able to garner the championship this year,” Park said through an interpreter.

The USGA was criticized for not moving the event from Trump National after comments made by the president about women came to light during the election campaign. There were threats of protests, especially after Trump decided to attend the tournament after his trip to Paris on Thursday and Friday.

Trump arrived Friday and became the first sitting president to attend a Women’s Open, seeing parts of the final three rounds. There was a small protest after he arrived at his box near the 15th green shortly after 3 p.m., but it was peaceful.

It ended up being a quiet week of politics at the course. The golf was excellent.

Park needed a fine chip from over the green on the par-5 18th hole to save par and win the $900,000 top prize from the $5 million event.

진짜 했다. 안믿기는데 했다. #감사합니다

A post shared by 박성현 SUNG.HYUN.PARK (@xxndl) on

Walking to the scoring tent to sign her card, she got a thumps-up from Trump from his box.

“Well, to be honest with you, I still cannot believe that it is actually happening,” said Park, who is the leading rookie on the LPGA Tour. “It’s almost feel like I’m floating on a cloud in the sky. Of course, I did have many winnings in other tournaments, but winning here at U.S. Open means so much more.

Choi was the low amateur for the second straight year. She was 38th in 2016. The only drawback was she could not pocket the $540,000 second-place prize.

“I mean it will be nice if I could get the money but I think my primary goal was to come here and compete so, to me, getting this second place in runner-up actually means more to me,” the 17-year-old said.

Top-ranked So Yeon Ryu (70) and fellow South Korean Mi Jung Hur (68) tied for third at 7 under. Feng, from China, had a 75 to drop into a tie for fifth at 6 under with Spain’s Carlota Ciganda (70) and South Korea’s Jeongeun6 Lee (71).

South Koreans Sei Young Kim (69), Mirim Lee (72) and Amy Yang (75) tied for eighth at 5 under. Marina Alex of nearby Wayne, New Jersey, was the best of the American at 4 under after a 70. It was the worst finish in the Open for the top American since Paula Creamer was seventh in 2012.

Choi was the story for most of the final round. She had a two-shot lead with nine holes to play and needed a 5-foot birdie at 15 to regain a piece with Park, who had made a 20-footer in the group in front of her.

The 139-yard, par-3 16th over water ended Choi’s hopes. Her 7-iron landed in the water to the right of the hole. She ended with a double bogey and basically lost her chance of winning.

“At the time I felt that all this work, hard work I put together was going to disappear so I was bit disappointed but I had to refocus,” said Choi, who birdied the final hole.

Choi’s 279 was the best by an amateur in the Open, four shots better than the old mark by Grace Park in 1999. Catherine Lacoste remains the only amateur to win the Open, doing it in 1967.

Feng, who was the leader after the first three rounds and carried a one-shot edge into the final 18 holes, triple bogeyed the final hole.

“I think overall, before the last hole I did pretty well,” said Feng, who had only two birdies in the last two rounds. “I mean I did a good job hanging in right there because my putting was not really that great.”

It was not her first professional win for Park, who won seven times on the KLPGA Tour in 2016 and three times the year before.

“She’s young and long so she hits the ball very long and very straight, very accurate and has very good short game, also,” Feng said about Park. “I don’t see any weak part in her game.”

By Tom Canavan

US To Ban Americans From Traveling To North Korea

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WASHINGTON — American citizens will be barred from traveling to North Korea next month following a prohibition on using U.S. passports to enter the country, the State Department said Friday.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson decided to impose a “geographical travel restriction” on North Korea following the death last month of American university student Otto Warmbier, who fell into a coma while in North Korean custody.

“Due to mounting concerns over the serious risk of arrest and long-term detention under North Korea’s system of law enforcement, the secretary has authorized a Geographical Travel Restriction on all U.S. citizen nationals’ use of a passport to travel in, through or to North Korea,” department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement.

The restriction will take effect in late August, 30 days after it is published as a legal notice in the Federal Register sometime next week.

Once it takes effect, Americans wanting to travel to North Korea may do so legally only with a “special validation passport,” which will be granted by the State Department on a case-by-case basis for “certain limited humanitarian or other purposes,” the statement said.

It did not elaborate on what “other purposes” the department would consider to be legitimate for travel to North Korea.

It wasn’t clear how many Americans the move will effect, as figures about how many Americans go to North Korea are difficult for even the U.S. government to obtain. The U.S. strongly warns Americans against traveling to North Korea, but has not until now prohibited it despite other sanctions targeting the country. Americans who venture there typically travel from China, where several tour groups market trips to adventure-seekers.

Barring Americans from setting foot in North Korea marks the latest U.S. step to isolate the furtive, nuclear-armed nation, and protect U.S. citizens who may be allured by the prospect of traveling there. Nearly all Americans who have gone to North Korea have left without incident. But some have been seized and given draconian sentences for seemingly minor offenses.

The travel ban comes as the Trump administration searches for more effective ways to ramp up pressure on North Korea over its nuclear weapons program. Pyongyang’s recent successful test of an intercontinental ballistic missile — the first by the North — has created even more urgency as the U.S. seeks to stop North Korea before it can master the complex process of putting a nuclear warhead atop a missile capable of hitting the United States.

President Donald Trump has expressed frustration that his initial strategy — enlisting China’s help and influence to squeeze the North economically and diplomatically — has not yielded major results. Trump’s administration is also considering other economic steps including “secondary sanctions” that could target companies and banks — mostly in China — that do even legitimate business with North Korea, officials said.

Under U.S. law, the secretary of state has the authority to designate passports as restricted for travel to countries with which the United States is at war, when armed hostilities are in progress, or when there is imminent danger to the public health or physical security of United States travelers. Geographical travel restrictions are rare but have been used by numerous administrations in the past for countries where it has been determined to be unsafe.

Since 1967, such bans have been imposed intermittently on countries such as Algeria, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Sudan, Cuba and North Vietnam. But the U.S. doesn’t currently prohibit its passports from being used to travel to any countries, even though financial restrictions limit U.S. travel to Cuba and elsewhere.

Americans who violate the restriction could face a fine and up to 10 years in prison for a first offense.

Warmbier, who died after being medically evacuated in a coma from North Korea last month, suffered a severe neurological injury from an unknown cause while in custody. Relatives said they were told the 22-year-old University of Virginia student had been in a coma since shortly after he was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor in North Korea in March 2016. He had been accused of stealing a propaganda poster while on a tour of the country.

The United States, South Korea and others often accuse North Korea of using foreign detainees to wrest diplomatic concessions. At least three other Americans remain in custody in the North.

Tillerson had been weighing a North Korea travel ban since late April, when American teacher Tony Kim was detained in Pyongyang, according to a senior State Department official. Those deliberations gained even more urgency after Warmbier’s death. Lawmakers in Congress have also pushed their own, legislative solutions to try to ban travel to the North.

Two tour operators that organize group trips to North Korea said they had already been informed of the decision by officials from Sweden, which represents U.S. interests in North Korea because the two countries do not have diplomatic relations.

Simon Cockerell, Beijing-based general manager of the Koryo Group, one of the leading organizers of guided tours to North Korea, said the ban would affect 800-1,000 Americans who visit North Korea annually. Although Pyongyang does not publish exact figures, Americans are thought to account for a mere 1 percent of all foreign visitors. Westerners make up 5 percent of total visitors, Americans about 20 percent of the Western contingent, according to statistics.

Cockerell said the ban would likely have a tangible impact on business for his and similar outfits, and said that would turn back the clock on engagement with the North.

“It’s unfortunate because we criticize North Korea for being isolationist and now we’re helping isolate them,” Cockerell said. “That’s not what soft power is about.”

By Matthew Lee and Josh Lederman

Explained: India and China Face Off In Border Standoff

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NEW DELHI — It was the tiny Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan that sounded the alarm: Chinese soldiers had arrived with bulldozers and excavators, and were building a high-mountain road near India’s border — in an area the two nuclear-armed Asian giants have disputed for decades.

India responded to the call by sending troops last month to evict the Chinese army construction party from the Doklam Plateau. Within a few days, Indian media were running leaked video footage of soldiers from both sides shoving one another atop a grassy flatland.

The tense standoff has only escalated since then, raising concerns in both capitals of an all-out military conflict. Both sides have made threats while simultaneously calling for negotiations. The U.S. State Department has urged the two sides to work together toward a peaceful resolution.

India told China last week that it was ready to hold talks if both sides pulled their forces back from the disputed border area. But China countered on Monday by insisting the road was being built on its sovereign territory, and warned India not to “push your luck.”

India, taken aback by the escalation, has said the two governments reached an agreement in 2012 that the status of the Doklam area — which falls between China and India on a Bhutanese plateau — would be finalized only through joint consultations involving all parties.

A look at the key background of the dispute:

AN OLD QUARREL

India and China have faced off frequently since fighting a bloody 1962 war that ended with China seizing control of some territory. Troops from both sides still regularly patrol other unmarked territories, though neither side has fired any shots in decades. Negotiations since 1985 to settle the boundary dispute have seen little success.

The land they’re currently arguing over spans 269 square kilometers (104 square miles) on a sparsely populated plateau in western Bhutan, which has no diplomatic ties with China and coordinates its relations with Beijing through New Delhi.

But India and China have rival claims to other Himalayan areas as well, including 90,000 square kilometers (35,000 square miles) in what India considers its state of Arunachal Pradesh and China refers to as “Southern Tibet,” as well as 38,000 square kilometers (15,000 square miles) of another plateau called Aksai Chin.

Bhutan said the road China has been building would run from the town of Dokola to the Bhutanese army camp at Zompelri.

Bhutan’s foreign ministry called it a “direct violation” of agreements reached in 1988 and 1998 to maintain peace and refrain from unilateral action in the area pending a final border settlement. “Bhutan hopes that the status quo in the Doklam area will be maintained,” it said in a June 29 statement.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang said last week that India’s border guards, in responding to Bhutan’s call for help, had “illegally trespassed the boundary into Chinese territory” when they confronted the Chinese army construction team.

A STRATEGIC AREA

For India, securing the Doklam Plateau is seen as essential to maintaining its control over a land corridor that connects India’s mainland with its remote northeastern states.

India has said the Chinese road project threatens its access to the corridor, while China has questioned why India should even have a say in a matter that concerns only Beijing and Bhutan.

India’s army chief warned earlier this month that India’s army was capable of fighting “2 1/2 wars” if needed to secure its borders.

Indian analysts said China appeared to be trying to pre-empt settlement negotiations by establishing a Chinese presence in Doklam.

“China has been trying for a long time to gain a tactical advantage in this sector,” having already established dominance along the Indian borders at Ladakh and Arunachal Pradesh, said security expert Uday Bhakar, a retired Indian navy officer. “The Chinese did not expect this resolute Indian response, and that’s why the standoff has continued.”

The dispute was discussed briefly without resolution by Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the sidelines of the G-20 summit earlier this month in Hamburg, Germany. It is expected to be taken up again when Indian National Security Adviser Ajit Doval visits Beijing for another security forum on Thursday and Friday.

UNEASY NEIGHBORS

The Doklam standoff is just the latest of many irritants dogging relations between the world’s two most populous nations.

For years, India has watched uneasily as China vigorously wooed Bhutan and other, smaller countries in India’s traditional sphere of influence, including Nepal, Sri Lanka and Myanmar.

“This is not the first time that we have a standoff with China,” said foreign affairs analyst and retired Indian diplomat G. Parthasarthy, predicting there would likely be a period of stalemate followed by a political compromise if the current tensions follow past patterns.

“China is in an ultra-nationalist mood of establishing a hegemony power in Asia,” he said. “The best thing for China is to sit down and talk.”

China, meanwhile, has been frustrated with India’s refusal to sign onto a massive effort to build railways, ports and roads reaching from Asia to Europe and the Middle East. The project includes a China-Pakistan economic development program aimed at absorbing as much as $46 billion in investment, most of it from Chinese banks.

China also has complained bitterly for decades over India’s accepting the Dalai Lama as a refugee in 1959. The Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader has kept his headquarters in northern India since fleeing Chinese-ruled Tibet.

Despite their disagreements, India and China entered a trade agreement in 1985 and have stepped up cooperation in agriculture, science and cultural exchange. But a $46.6 billion trade deficit favoring China has irked Indian members of parliament, who call regularly for more balance.

By Ashok Sharma and Christopher Bodeen

A Talk With Trump On North Korea? After Vacation, Seoul Says

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SEOUL — South Korea’s latest leader took office at an uneasy moment in his country’s history, inheriting the wreckage left by an ousted and excoriated predecessor. Among his lesser-noticed promises was a vow to improve quality of life in a society of long hours and hard work — to help break the chains to people’s desks, to let them take a breath and relax a bit.

And what Moon Jae-in preaches, it seems, he also practices. Even if, in the aftermath of North Korea launching its second ICBM, that means telling the leader of the free world: I’ll get back to you. I’m going on vacation for a week.

So while U.S. President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had an emergency phone call Monday, the South Korean leader’s office said Moon and Trump will likely talk after Moon enjoys some previously scheduled R&R, which ends this weekend.

It might seem an odd decision by a relatively new president in the midst of arguably the world’s biggest crisis, and certainly South Korea’s: Namely, North Korea’s march toward an arsenal of nuclear missiles, highlighted by its second ICBM test late Friday night.

But it fits nicely into Moon’s efforts to show South Koreans that it may actually help their work, not to mention the economy, to take a break from it — even if that work takes place at the highest levels of statesmanship.

It’s also part of Moon’s desire to draw, whenever possible, a clear line between himself and his currently jailed predecessor, conservative former President Park Geun-hye, who was seen as stiff, even imperial, and who now faces a corruption trial.

Moon, for instance, recently adopted a shelter dog rescued from possible slaughter, and last week orchestrated a carefully staged photo op that featured him in shirt sleeves hoisting beers with businessmen.

When Park’s dictator father led the country’s economic rise in the 1960s and ’70s after the destruction of the Korean War, working long hours and sacrificing time with family were seen as necessary to national success.

Even now, South Korea is near the top of the list of rich countries working the longest hours, and South Koreans reportedly only use about half of their annual paid leave days. Despite the long hours, however, the country’s reported labor productivity is relatively low.

Moon vowed to use all his vacation this year to set an example. He may also just want to take a break when everyone else does — or inspire those who don’t. The last week of July and first week of August, when schools are out, are when many South Koreans take holidays.

Though attitudes are changing, it is still considered taboo by many to leave work before your boss. A vacation by Moon, arguably the boss of bosses, amid all the pressures of his job, sends a powerful message.

“It has long been a habit to regard as a virtue burying oneself in work without going on a vacation,” the Seoul-based liberal Hankyoreh newspaper said in an editorial Sunday. “A president going on a summer vacation and using annual holiday can create an atmosphere where ordinary people rightfully go on their own vacations.”

The decision hasn’t been universally admired.

“The Korean Peninsula currently faces its worst-ever (security) situation,” Lee Jong-chul, a spokesman for the conservative opposition Bareun Party, said, according to the Yonhap news agency. “I wonder whether our people can understand why President Moon went on a vacation only a day after he responded to the North Korean provocation.”

U.S. presidents are also often criticized for going on vacation in the midst of the near-constant stream of crises they face. Golf is often the lure.

In Moon’s case, it’s not as if he’ll be sailing his way through some distant tropical archipelago. His holiday spot of choice is a military-run vacation facility in southern South Korea, where he can be debriefed and communicate with officials by teleconference in the event of North Korean provocations, his office says.

So, like so many of his fellow South Koreans — and their counterparts elsewhere — he’ll be going on vacation and bringing his work along with him, too.

By Foster Klug


Asian Art Museum Sets Guinness Record For Largest Human Flower

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Just in case you’re ever on a televised quiz show and are asked who holds the Guinness World Record for Largest Human Flower, let it be known that the record belongs to the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, California.

The museum held an event called Lotus Live on July 15, and with more than 2,400 people made a massive lotus flower. The record was previously held by the Rochester Lilac Festival on May 9, 2014, when 2,297 people gathered to make a human flower.

The event was a celebration of the museum’s Flower Power art exhibition, a work of art with human participation and a public demonstration all at once. The museum chose the lotus as the event’s symbol because the flower has been a symbol of transcendence and incorruptibility in Asian art for centuries and represents the values that have long united the San Francisco Community.

The Asian Art Museum’s Flower Power exhibition showcases works of art that feature botanical, and especially floral, imagery and themes. This exhibition will show through Oct. 1.

See a video of the LOTUS LIVE event below!

Philippine President On Human Rights: Don’t Go There

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MANILA, Philippines — Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte met Monday with America’s top diplomat, where he voiced solidarity with the U.S. amid global concerns over North Korea’s nuclear program and angrily dismissed media questions about human rights abuses by his government.

Duterte and U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson met in Manila at a regional Asia gathering. It was the highest-level interaction to date between a member of President Donald Trump’s administration and Duterte, accused by human rights groups of flagrant abuses in his bloody war against illegal drugs.

If the two leaders discussed those or other U.S. concerns about Duterte’s government, they didn’t do so in public. Instead, the two focused on the alliance between the two countries and on the North Korea issue as reporters were allowed in briefly for the start of their meeting.

Entering an ornate, wood-paneled hall in the Philippine leader’s palace, Tillerson was introduced to members of Duterte’s Cabinet, shaking hands with each. Duterte welcomed the American and said he said he knew the U.S. was concerned about Pyongyang’s missile program.

“You come at a time when I think the world is not so good, especially in the Korean Peninsula,” Duterte said.

Earlier, as they shook hands, the two ignored a shouted question about whether they’d discuss human rights. And at a news conference after their meeting, Duterte bristled but didn’t answer directly when asked whether human rights had come up.

“Human rights, son of a bitch,” Duterte said, arguing he shouldn’t be questioned about alleged violations given the challenges he’s facing. “Policemen and soldiers have died on me. The war now in Marawi, what caused it but drugs? So human rights, don’t go there.”

But ahead of the meeting, Duterte’s presidential spokesman, Ernesto Abella, said the topic would indeed come up, along with other pressing matters such as global terrorism threats, economic cooperation and security in Marawi, the city that has been under siege by pro-Islamic State group militants for more than two months.

“We also welcome the opportunity to address concerns such as human rights if and when raised,” Abella said in a statement. “We have always included this issue in our discussions and engagements with foreign governments, particularly Western democracies.”

The U.S., too, said ahead of the meeting that human rights would be among the topics on the agenda.

Human rights groups have questioned the Trump administration’s willingness to engage with Duterte. But Tillerson argued there’s no contradiction presented by the U.S. decision to help his country fight the militants, whose insurgency in the Philippines has stoked global fears about the Islamic State group exporting violence into Southeast Asia and beyond.

Nearly 700 people have died in the intense fighting, including 528 militants and 122 soldiers and policemen, since hundreds of black flag waving gunmen stormed into buildings and homes in the business district and outlying communities of mosque-studded Marawi, a center of Islamic faith in the southern third of the predominantly Roman Catholic nation.

“I see no conflict — no conflict at all in our helping them with that situation and our views of the human rights concerns we have with respect to how they carry out their counter narcotics activities,” Tillerson told reporters before the meeting. He added that it appeared the Philippines was “beginning to get that situation under control.”

To that end, Tillerson said the U.S. has been providing the Philippines with surveillance capabilities, training, information and aircraft to help it fight the militants. He said the equipment includes a few Cessna aircraft and a few drones.

“The real challenge is going to come with once they have the fighting brought to an end how to deal with the conditions on the ground to ensure it does not re-emerge.”

By Josh Lederman

Trump, North Korea Trade Escalating Threats Of Fire

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SEOUL, South Korea — In an exchange of threats, President Donald Trump warned Pyongyang of “fire and fury like the world has never seen” and the North’s military claimed Wednesday it was examining plans for attacking Guam.

The high-level tit-for-tat follows reports that North Korea has mastered a crucial technology needed to strike the United States with a nuclear missile.

Despite regular North Korean threats against Guam, a U.S. territory in the Pacific about 2,100 miles (3,400 kilometers) from the Korean Peninsula, it is extremely unlikely that Pyongyang would risk the assured annihilation of its revered leadership with a pre-emptive attack on U.S. citizens. It’s also not clear how reliable North Korea’s mid-range missiles would be in an attack against a distant target given the relatively few times they’ve been tested.

Even so, the competing threats and Trump’s use of North Korea-style rhetoric — Pyongyang has long vowed to reduce Seoul to a “sea of fire” — raise already high animosity and heighten worries that a miscalculation might spark conflict between the rivals.

The North Korean army said in a statement that it is studying a plan to create an “enveloping fire” in areas around Guam with medium- to long-range ballistic missiles. The statement described Andersen Air Force Base on Guam as a “beachhead” for a potential U.S. invasion of North Korea it needed to neutralize. It was unlikely the North’s threat was a direct response to Trump’s comments to the camera at his golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey.

South Korea’s Unification Ministry, which deals with matters related to North Korea, said the North’s army statement hurts efforts to improve inter-Korean relations. Ministry spokesman Baek Tai-hyun said Seoul remains committed to both dialogue and sanctions for solving the North Korean nuclear problem and called for Pyongyang to stop its provocations. Baek did not mention Trump’s comments.

Trump spoke hours after reports indicated North Korea can now wed nuclear warheads with its missiles, including its longest-range missiles that may be able to hit the American mainland. The North has strived for decades to have the ability to strike the U.S. and its Asian allies, and the pace of its breakthroughs is having far-reaching consequences for stability in the Pacific and beyond.

The nuclear advances were detailed in an official Japanese assessment Tuesday and a later Washington Post story that cited U.S. intelligence officials and a confidential Defense Intelligence Agency report. The U.S. now assesses the North Korean arsenal at up to 60 nuclear weapons, more than double most assessments by independent experts, according to the Post’s reporting.

“North Korea had best not make any more threats to the United States,” said a stern-looking Trump, seated with his arms crossed and with his wife beside him. “They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen.”

“He has been very threatening beyond a normal state. And as I said they will be met with fire, fury and frankly power the likes of which this world has never seen before.”

The remarks appeared scripted, with Trump glancing at a paper in front of him. They evoked President Harry Truman’s announcement of the U.S. atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, in 1945, in which he warned of “a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this earth.”

But it wasn’t clear what Trump, who is prone to hyperbole and bombast in far less grave situations, meant by the threat. White House officials did not elaborate, but U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson downplayed Trump’s threat, saying the president intended to send a strong message “in language that Kim Jong Un can understand.”

Tillerson said Trump delivered the message the way he did because the North Korean leader “doesn’t seem to understand diplomatic language.” Trump wanted to make clear to North Korea that the U.S. has the “unquestionable ability to defend itself” and will protect itself and its allies, Tillerson said, adding Trump wanted to “avoid any miscalculation” by Pyongyang.

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer issued a statement saying, “We need to be firm and deliberate with North Korea, but reckless rhetoric is not a strategy to keep America safe.”

The Trump administration considers North Korea to be America’s greatest national security threat and tensions have steadily risen this year.

Pyongyang responded angrily to the U.N. Security Council’s adoption this weekend of new, tougher sanctions spearheaded by Washington. Tens of thousands packed Kim Il Sung Square in downtown Pyongyang on Wednesday for a rally that followed a familiar format of speeches from a balcony, with the crowd listening below, standing in organized rows interspersed with placards and slogans.

The sanctions followed intercontinental ballistic missile tests last month, the second of which was estimating as having a range that could reach more of the U.S. mainland. The newly revealed U.S. intelligence assessment indicates those missiles can carry nuclear warheads.

Denouncing the U.N. sanctions through state media, the North warned: “We will make the U.S. pay by a thousand-fold for all the heinous crimes it commits against the state and people of this country.”

For North Korea, having a nuclear-tipped missile that could strike America would be the ultimate guarantee against U.S. invasion.

It is an ambition decades in the making. North Korea began producing fissile material for bombs in the 1990s and conducted its first nuclear test explosion in 2006. Four subsequent nuclear tests, the latest a year ago, have accelerated progress on miniaturizing a device — something North Korea already claimed it could do. Over that span, multiple U.S. presidents have tried and failed to coax or pressure Pyongyang into abandoning its nuclear ambitions.

The secrecy of the North’s nuclear program and the underground nature of its test explosions make it very difficult to properly assess its claims. But the new assessments from Japan and the U.S. suggest that doubts over the North’s abilities are receding.

In an annual report, Japan’s Defense Ministry on Tuesday concluded that “it is possible that North Korea has achieved the miniaturization of nuclear weapons and has developed nuclear warheads.” Japan, a key U.S. ally, is a potential, front-line target of North Korean aggression.

The Post story, citing unnamed U.S. intelligence officials, went further. It said the Defense Intelligence Agency analysis, completed last month, assessed North Korea has produced nuclear weapons for ballistic missile delivery, including by intercontinental missiles.

Officials at the agency wouldn’t comment Tuesday. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence also wouldn’t discuss the report.

It’s unclear how North Korea’s new capabilities will immediately affect how the U.S. approaches the country’s regular missile launches and occasional nuclear tests. The U.S. military has never attempted to shoot a North Korean missile out of the sky, deeming all previous tests to pose no threat to the United States. The U.S. could weigh military action if the threat perception changes.

The calculation of North Korea’s nuclear arsenal at 60 bombs exceeds other assessments, which range from around one dozen to about 30 weapons. The assessments are typically an estimate of the amount of plutonium and enriched uranium North Korea has in its inventory rather than how much of that material has been weaponized. It’s unclear how many, if any, miniaturized warheads North Korea has built.

Last month’s ICBM tests highlighted the growing threat. Both missiles were fired at highly lofted angles and landed in the sea near Japan, but analysts said the weapons could reach Alaska, Los Angeles or Chicago if fired at a normal, flattened trajectory.

North Korea threatened to hit Guam with its Hwasong-12 missiles, which it says can carry a heavy nuclear warhead.

Not all technical hurdles have been overcome, however. North Korea is still believed to lack expertise to ensure a missile could re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere without the warhead burning up. And it’s still working on striking targets with accuracy.

By Foster Klug and Matthew Pennington

Couple Buys One Of SF’s Most Affluent Streets

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Is it possible to buy an entire city street?

The homeowners of Presidio Terrace, a privately owned and exclusive gated community in San Francisco’s Presidio just had a harsh wake-up call.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, a South Bay couple, investor/engineer duo Tina Lam and Michael Cheng, are now the proud owners of the oval-shaped street, on which 35 megamillion-dollar mansions stand, bought for just $90,000 in a city-run auction that stemmed from an unpaid tax bill.

Residents were unaware of the auction, sale and unpaid tax bill until earlier this year. The street fee that they failed to pay was less than $14 annually, according to Curbed SF.

It turns out that the Presidio Terrace Association had failed to pay taxes on their private pavement for 30 years. City Hall proceeded to put the actual street, sidewalks and public greenery up for auction in 2015 because of it.

According to the lawsuit the Presidio Terrace Association had filed against their new landlords last month: “The Association has not paid those taxes because the City has been sending the property tax bills to the Association at the following address: 47 Kearny Street. […] Which is not the address of the association or any member. […No] member of the Association was aware that property taxes has not been paid.”

The couple looks to earn from their investment by potentially charging residents to park on their streets. They snatched the offer back in 2015 when the city’s tax office put the offer up, hoping to acquire $994 back in unpaid taxes. Cheng and Lam jumped on the offer with their bid of $90,100, and have since kept quiet.

Before 1948, home buying was white-only in the Presidio Terrace. Lam, who was born in Hong Kong and Cheng from Taiwan, would not have been able to purchase the property until the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that lifted the ban on segregated neighborhoods.

 

Guam’s Tourism Popularity Unhurt By North Korea Threats

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HAGATNA, Guam — Tourists haven’t been deterred from visiting the tropical island of Guam even though the U.S. territory has been the target of threats from North Korea during a week of angry words exchanged by Pyongyang and Washington.

Chiho Tsuchiya of Japan heard the news, but she decided to come anyway with her husband and two children. “I feel Japan and Korea also can get danger from North Korea, so staying home is the same,” said the 40-year-old.

Won Hyung-jin, an official from Modetour, a large South Korean travel agency, said several customers called with concerns, but they weren’t worried enough to pay cancellation fees for their trips.

“It seems North Korea racks up tension once or twice every year, and travelers have become insensitive about it,” Won said. His company has sent about 5,000 travelers to Guam a month this year, mostly on package tours.

The U.S. territory has a population of 160,000, but it attracted 1.5 million visitors last year. One-third of Guam’s jobs are in the tourism industry.

Guam is a key outpost for the U.S. military, which uses it as a base for bombers and submarines.

The island’s sandy beaches and aquamarine waters make it a popular getaway for travelers from Japan and South Korea. Guam is only about three hours by plane from major cities in both countries.

The number of South Korean travelers in particular has been growing lately because five low-cost airlines started flying to Guam from South Korea, said Antonio Muna, the vice president of Guam Visitors Bureau. This helped boost arrival figures to a 20-year high in July, Muna said.

The threats came in a week in which longstanding tensions between the countries risked abruptly boiling over. New United Nations sanctions condemning the North’s rapidly developing nuclear program drew fresh ire and threats from Pyongyang. President Donald Trump responded by vowing to rain down “fire and fury” if challenged. The North then threatened to lob missiles near Guam.

Kenji Kikuchi, 39, arrived from Japan last week and planned to leave Tuesday as scheduled. He was aware of the threat from reading the local newspaper and was a little worried. But he said North Korea’s missiles would fall in the water not on Guam. His 8-year-old son and 4-year-old daughter weren’t concerned.

“They talk about it, but they don’t care about it. So they like the sea and the pool,” he said.

The Guam Visitors Bureau has heard reports of cancellations, but Muna said it doesn’t yet have any concrete figures on how many took place. Officials are still expecting a strong August, Muna said.

“Japan and Korea make over 90 percent of our arrivals. And they’re much closer to North Korea than Guam is,” Muna said.

The agency has been relaying assurances from the governor and defense officials that Guam is protected and safe, he said.

Trump told Guam’s Republican governor the global attention would send more tourists to the island.

“You’re going to go up like tenfold with the expenditure of no money,” he told Gov. Eddie Calvo in a telephone conversation Calvo posted Sunday on Facebook. Trump said he’d been watching scenes of Guam on the news, and “it just looks like a beautiful place.”

At a news conference Monday, Calvo said that Guam is in a “normal state of readiness and it’s business as usual.”

There is “no change in security threat levels.”

He told the reporters that “we are defended and will be protected.”

By Grace Garces Bordallo and Tassanee Vejpongsa

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