USA news on Youtube Aug 28 2017

Thailand's Ex-Leader Leaves Supporters in Limbo After Disappearing During Trial

BANGKOK — For two years, Yingluck Shinawatra, the former prime minister of Thailand, battled criminal charges of negligence and claims that she had cost the country billions of dollars.

She appeared in court regularly and assured her supporters that she would fight until the end. "You need to wait and see," she told The Bangkok Post last month. "I'll be there in court to the last day. We will meet there.".

But on Friday, when the time arrived for the Supreme Court to render its verdict, Ms. Yingluck was nowhere to be found.

She sent word to the court that she was ill. But senior members of her party say they believe she slipped out of the country rather than face the prospect of spending up to 10 years in prison.

Her whereabouts remained a mystery on Sunday. Officials of her party, Pheu Thai, said they had not heard from her and had no idea where she was.

Yingluck's decision not to appear in court was costly. She forfeited $900,000 in bail and left her political movement in disarray, with no clear agenda or plan for moving forward. Continue reading the main story.

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"It is now difficult for us to analyze what to do next," said Chaturon Chaisang, who served as education minister in her cabinet. "We want to hear from her and what her role will be now.".

Yingluck appears to be following the path of her brother, Thaksin Shinawatra, into self-imposed exile. He was ousted as prime minister in a military coup in 2006 after five years in office and left Thailand rather than face corruption charges.

A wealthy businessman who once owned the English soccer club Manchester City, Mr Thaksin has a private jet and homes in several countries, including in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. Some speculate that Ms. Yingluck has joined him in the emirate.

Yingluck's departure is the end of an era, when the populist siblings ran the country with the backing of the rural poor, who repeatedly voted them into office only to see the military take power twice.

Since Mr Thaksin's election in 2001, the country has been split between the rural poor and the urban elite. Yingluck, who was elected prime minister in 2011, street protests by both groups paralyzed Bangkok for months.

A court forced her from office in May 2014, and the military seized power 15 days later. The military leadership brought calm to the country, but many of its actions have favored the elite over the poor.

The leadership won passage of a new constitution last year that would give the military more power and minimize the chance that another populist could win. New elections have yet to be called.

"Thailand has been stuck for two decades now," said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a political-science professor at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok. "The country remains divided and polarized.".

Mr Thitinan said that Ms. Yingluck's disappearance benefited the authorities by validating the charges against her and the takeover. He said he would not be surprised if some of the people in power had helped her leave the country.

"Yingluck's flight was a victory of sorts for the generals," he said.

"Her running away reinforces their rationale for the coup that the rice-management scheme was corrupt and that she knew about it," he added, referring to a central issue in her trial.

As prime minister, Ms. Yingluck lifted the minimum wage by up to 40 percent. She also adopted a rice-management plan, which was supposed to help poor farmers by paying them above market value for their rice.

The government stockpiled the rice in the hope of making a profit, but world prices fell instead. Millions of tons ended up rotting in warehouses, and the government lost billions of dollars.

Last year, a government committee ordered her to pay $1 billion in compensation. She protested last month that the country's leaders had seized money in her bank accounts before her trial had concluded.

In the criminal case, she is charged with negligence, accused of allowing corrupt officials and businessmen to benefit from the rice subsidy.

Mr Thitinan, the political-science professor, said that Thailand's future would depend on whether the military reached out to her supporters and tried to boost their living standards. If not, the political stalemate is likely to continue, he said.

"The key will be what the military regime takes away from all of this," he added. Yingluck, 50, is 18 years younger than her brother, who is widely believed to have helped run her government from Dubai.

She is barred from participating in politics until 2020 after her impeachment by the military-appointed Parliament in 2015.

On the day she was scheduled to hear the verdict, the same court found 20 others guilty of illegally profiting from the rice deal. Five of them were officials in Ms.

Yingluck's administration, and they received sentences of 24 to 42 years in prison. Yingluck notified the court that she was suffering from dizziness and headaches shortly before her hearing.

But without a medical certificate, the court rejected that claim, issued a warrant for her arrest and ordered the forfeiture of her bail, 30 million Thai baht.

Yingluck's niece and spokeswoman, Chayika Wongnapachant, said she knew nothing about her aunt's whereabouts. An assistant to Mr Thaksin in Dubai said she, too, had no information.

Party leaders in Thailand said they were not looking for Ms. Yingluck because they were afraid of putting her in jeopardy.

"We believe she left on Wednesday, but we don't know how," said Mr Chaturon, who also held top posts in Mr Thaksin's government. "We haven't tried to find out what happened. It is better to let her inform the public.".

A spokesman for the government, Weerachon Sukondhapatipak, said that the authorities were investigating Ms. Yingluck's disappearance but that they had not established whether she had left Thailand. Allegations that the government had helped her flee were only speculation, he said.

"We haven't heard from a government official or from Khun Yingluck herself," he said, using a Thai honorific term. "We have to wait a little bit longer to be sure that she is actually leaving the country.".

Yingluck's repeated promise to fight the criminal case to the end, many of her supporters said they had initially been shocked and dismayed when they learned that she had skipped the hearing.

One supporter, Kamol Suksawat, expressed his disappointment on Ms. Yingluck's Facebook page an hour after she failed to appear in court.

"Madam, you should have fought to the end," he wrote. "They issued an arrest warrant against you. They announced they took your bail money of 30 million Thai baht. This is like stepping on my heart.".

But a day later, he had changed his mind. "I am happy," he posted on her page Saturday. "You decided it right.".

For more infomation >> Thailand's Ex-Leader Leaves Supporters in Limbo After Disappearing During Trial |News General - Duration: 9:22.

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North Korean missile test does not mean we are close to war |News General - Duration: 6:04.

North Korean missile test does not mean we are close to war

North Korea once again chose to ratchet up tensions with the Trump administration Saturday by firing three short-range missiles about 155 miles into the Sea of Japan.

That was a disappointing development, but doesn't mean we're drawing close to a nuclear or conventional war with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.

Kim's missile test Saturday appears to be a response to twice-yearly war games that U.S. forces are conducting with the South Korean military to prepare for a possible North Korean attack.

But despite a war of words between President Trump and Kim that's been going on for weeks, Kim is not crazy.

He is well-aware that he would be committing national suicide if he launched a nuclear attack against the U.S., South Korea, Japan or one of our other allies because we would respond with a devastating nuclear retaliatory strike that would wipe North Korea off the map.

So even if North Korea could send a nuclear warhead to the continental United States with its current technology, as it claims – an idea that some highly acclaimed nuclear weapons experts doubt – such an attack is extremely unlikely.

And Kim also knows that a conventional war would be very costly for both North and South Korea and would claim an enormous number of lives.

In fact, the potential for these high costs has contributed to the peace on the Korean peninsula for more than 60 years, long before the North developed a small stockpile of atomic bombs.

The rhetoric between the U.S. and North Korea is hot.

President Trump famously promised to meet North Korea's threats of war with "fire and fury." And as the U.S.-South Korean military exercises began last Monday, North Korea vowed "merciless retaliation and unsparing punishment" against America.

But the verbal hostility between the two nations is nothing new, even if the fresh rhetoric is troubling.

It's important to note that North Korea, which launched what it claimed were two intercontinental ballistic missiles in July, could have taken far more provocative action than the test of three shorter range missiles Saturday.

The North threatened last month to fire four ballistic missiles around the U.S. territory of Guam, surrounding the island that is home to two U.S.

military bases with a "ring of fire." The U.S. would have been forced to respond in some way to such a provocation.

To understand why a nuclear or conventional war is not likely to break out between the U.S. and North Korea, let's make a sober analysis of North Korea's nuclear threat.

During the Cold War, the idea of nuclear deterrence created a tense but non-apocalyptic stalemate between the United States and the Soviet Union.

The theory held then, as it does now, that the credible threat of nuclear retaliation keeps one country from launching nuclear weapons against another.

Nuclear deterrence is the reason why nuclear war is unlikely between the United States and Russia, or between the United States and China.

Kim Jong Un is a terrible dictator whose desire to maintain power and control has led him to continue North Korea's decades-long atrocities, human rights violations, and collectivist economic policies that have led to widespread poverty.

He has kept North Korea from flourishing like its neighbor to the south. But the abuses that show Kim as being the top enemy of the North Korean people also show why he isn't an imminent threat to the United States.

Kim and the members of his regime loyal to his family want to maintain power and authority, along with the benefits that go along with it. This is why they go to such great lengths to remain in office.

It's highly doubtful that Kim would give up all of his power through the act of war with the United States. He does not have a death wish for himself or his country.

His father, Kim Jong Il, was similarly tyrannical and sounded just as crazy But on nuclear matters, he was coldly rational and thus could be deterred.

As long as the United States properly signals a credible commitment to retaliate and the capability to act on it, Kim has an incentive to avoid war, whether nuclear or conventional.

The horrible specter of nuclear war – or the more likely and yet still quite awful consequences of a conventional fight – is why we should all hope that President Trump and Kim will keep cool, avoid more fiery rhetoric, and focus on diplomatic attempts to resolve the tension between their two countries.

William Ruger is vice president for research and policy at the Charles Koch Institute and vice president for research at the Charles Koch Foundation.

For more infomation >> North Korean missile test does not mean we are close to war |News General - Duration: 6:04.

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North Korea has completed preparations for a nuclear test says South Korea's spy agency - Duration: 3:36.

North Korea has completed preparations for a nuclear test says South Korea's spy agency

NORTH Korea has completed preparations for a nuclear test, according to South Korea's spy agency. South Korea's largest news agency Yonhap has reported the troubling development, sure to further heighten tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

South Korea's Intel Service said it had detected activity at the Punggye-ri test site. There is speculation the test is scheduled to occur on September 9.

Last year North Korea conducted a test on that date, which marks North Korea's Day of the Foundation of the Republic. US President Donald Trump has repeatedly warned North Korea about continuing its nuclear program. As has Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.

The US has issued a travel ban on its citizens vacationing in the rogue state. That ban begins on September 1. CNN reported today, the ban has prompted many daring American travellers to fast-track a visit to the communist state.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson declared on Sunday that North Korea's latest missile test was a "provocative act" but said he still hopes to persuade Pyongyang to come to the negotiating table.

Earlier this month, Washington's top diplomat suggested a diplomatic opening might be close after North Korea reacted to a new round of United Nations sanctions with what he termed "some level of restraint.

And on Tuesday US President Donald Trump seized upon the lack of immediate North Korean missile tests as evidence that the country's leader Kim Jong-Un "is starting to respect us.

But on Saturday, true to recent form, North Korea test-fired three short-range ballistic missiles, with Kim apparently thumbing his nose at calls for him to send Washington a signal that he is serious about nuclear disarmament.

"The firing of any ballistic missile is a violation of UN Security Council resolutions," Tillerson told Fox News Sunday.

"We do view it as a provocative act, a provocative act against the United States and our allies. " But he added, "We continue to want the Kim regime to understand (there) is a different path that he can choose.

Asked whether he and Trump had been too quick to imagine that Kim might be ready to show restraint, Tillerson said: "I don't know that we are wrong. I think it's going to take some time to tell.".

"Clearly they are still messaging us as well that they are not prepared to completely back away from their position," he said.

"Having said that, we are going to continue our peaceful pressure campaign as I have described it," Tillerson said, "working with allies, working with China as well, to see if we can bring the regime in Pyongyang to the negotiating table, begin a dialogue on a different future for the Korean peninsula and for North Korea.

For more infomation >> North Korea has completed preparations for a nuclear test says South Korea's spy agency - Duration: 3:36.

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