North Korea is threatening to nuke Guam — here’s what the US military has there

President Donald Trump on Tuesday threatened North Korea with "fire and fury" unlike the world had ever seen, and shortly thereafter, Pyongyang responded by saying it might strike Guam.

More specifically, Pyongyang said that it was considering hitting Andersen Air Force Base with medium or long-range ICBMs to "to send a serious warning signal to the US," according to CNN. 

Guam, which is a US territory in the Pacific Ocean, is home to Joint Region Marianas, a US military command that includes Andersen Air Force Base. 

Residents of Remote Guam Fear Attack After Threat From North Korea

(HAGATNA, Guam) — Residents of the tiny Pacific island of Guam say they're afraid of being caught in the middle of escalating tensions between the U.S. and North Korea after Pyongyang announced it was examining plans for attacking the strategically important U.S. territory.

Though local officials downplayed any threat, people who live and work on the island, which serves as a launching pad for the U.S. military, said Wednesday they could no longer shrug off the idea of being a potential target.

"I'm a little worried, a little panicked. Is this really going to happen?" said Cecil Chugrad, a 37-year-old bus driver for a tour bus company in Guam. "If it's just me, I don't mind, but I have to worry about my son. I feel like moving (out of Guam) now."

Tiny island of Guam is key U.S. military outpost now in North Korea's cross hairs

A major U.S. military presence on the tiny western Pacific island of Guam has long existed in obscurity, but now it is suddenly in the cross hairs of a bellicose North Korean regime.

The U.S. territory in the western Pacific Ocean is home to 7,000 American military personnel, strategic bombers and Navy ships within striking range of Pacific hot spots, including the Korean Peninsula. 

That prompted North Korea to warn Wednesday it was reviewing plans to strike Guam with a ballistic missile in the wake of President Trump's threat to respond to provocative actions by the North with "fire and fury."

Why Guam?

GUAM FOR BEGINNERS

The island of Guam is suddenly in the news because it is said to be within range of ballistic missiles from North Korea. A U.S. territory located in the western Pacific, Guam is the largest of the Marianas Islands, roughly halfway between Japan and New Guinea. It is also approximately the same distance from Sydney, Australia, as it is from Hawaii: 3,300 miles. The island is 32 miles long and 4 to 9 miles wide and has a population of 162,000. Nearly 30% of the island’s territory is controlled by the U.S. military, which has some 6,000 military personal stationed there. The military and tourism are the prime economic drivers on the island.

The U.S. took bloodless possession of Guam during the Spanish American War in 1898. Unlike in the Philippines, there was no rebellion against U.S. control. The U.S. Navy administered the island until the Japanese invaded on December 7, 1941. After two and a half years of brutal occupation, the Japanese were repulsed by U.S. forces.

Guamanians, Voiceless and Exploited US Citizens, Now In Bomb-Sights Of North Korea

GUAM — Tensions rose yet again earlier this week between North Korea and the United States as President Donald Trump issued his strongest threat yet to the rogue nation on Tuesday, stating at a press conference that “North Korea best not make any more threats to the U.S. They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen.” However, North Korea’s “threats”, which Trump referenced, have consistently been responses to overt provocations by the Trump administration.  Twitter Ads info and priv

In addition, Trump’s statements came just days after National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster hinted that the Trump administration was considering a “preventative war” targeting North Korea.

North Korea, ever defiant, responded with a new threat of its own. Just hours after Trump’s promise of “fire and fury,” North Korea’s state-run KCNA news agency reported that the country’s military could carry out “pre-emptive operations once the U.S. shows signs of provocation,” and that it is “seriously considering a strategy to strike Guam with mid-to-long range missiles.”

Why North Korea Is Threatening Guam

North Korea said Wednesday it was considering using intermediate-range ballistic missiles near Guam, the U.S. territory that is home to strategic military installations, dramatically raising tensions with the United States.

The country’s military said it was “carefully examining the operational plan for making an enveloping fire at the areas around Guam with medium-to-long-range strategic ballistic rocket Hwasong-12,” according to a statement carried by the the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

The news agency reported that Kim Jong Un was reviewing the plan. Yonhap, the South Korean news agency, reported that a separate North Korean statement vowed an all-out war if the U.S. launched a “preventive war” against the North.

North Korea, Trump trade threats as tensions rise over nuclear program

By KIM GAMEL | STARS AND STRIPESPublished: August 8, 2017

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea and President Donald Trump issued dueling threats, with the communist state saying Wednesday that it’s “examining” a plan to strike Guam and Trump warning such threats “will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen.”

The heated rhetoric underscored a dangerous turn in the long-running standoff with Pyongyang after it test-fired two intercontinental ballistic missiles last month.

Del. Madeleine Bordallo says Jim Mattis assured her military would keep Guam safe

The U.S. representative from Guam, Madeleine Bordallo said Tuesday evening that top figures in the Pentagon have "recently" assured her that the U.S. military will keep Guam safe, even as North Korea escalates its aggressive military provocations.

During an appearance on CNN, Bordallo, a Democrat and nonvoting delegate in Congress, said that both Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Adm. Harry Harris, commander of U.S. Pacific Command, "always" tell her not to worry about the security of the small U.S. territory in the western Pacific Ocean.

"We're going to take good care of Guam," she said they told her.

Still, Bordallo told host Anderson Cooper that both she and the people of Guam are "concerned" about the North Korean threat.

Flights from Guam base 'provoked' North Korean threats

Known as the 'Tip of the Spear', Guam, just a speck in the Pacific Ocean, is vital to the US military's presence in the region and is home to thousands of American service members and key bases.

It’s little wonder that the airbase, which allows the US to project its vast military presence across the Asia-Pacific, “gets on the nerves” of Kim Jong-un, whose regime today threatened to attack the atoll.

North Korea's statement came shortly after Donald Trump threatened to visit upon the rogue state "fire and fury like the world has never seen" early this morning. 

North Korean Army Threatens To Hit U.S. Island Of Guam

The North Korean army said in a statement that its Strategic Force -- a nuclear and missile warfare unit -- was "carefully examining" a plan to fire a ballistic rocket at Guam, a Pacific territory administered by the United States. The statement was read out by an unidentified anchorwoman on North Korean state television on August 9. Later, an unidentified anchorman on the same channel warned the United States that "an all-out war" might strike "the U.S. mainland." (KRT via Reuters)

Why North Korea threatened Guam, the tiny U.S. territory with big military power

North Korea is reviewing plans to strike U.S. military targets in Guam with its medium-range ballistic missiles to create “enveloping fire,” according to the state media Korean Central News Agency.

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KCNA: "The nuclear war hysteria of the U.S. authorities including Trump has reached an extremely reckless and rash phase for an actual war."

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The message came hours after President Trump warned North Korea on Tuesday that it will be “met with fire and fury and frankly power, the likes of which this world has never seen before,” if it does not stop threatening the United States. The threats also follow a unanimous vote by the U.N. Security Council to impose strict new sanctions on North Korea.

Guam high school students to learn more about decolonization

HAGATNA, Guam — Education leaders in Guam have their sights set doing a better job teaching high school juniors and seniors about the concept of decolonization and what it would mean for the U.S. territory.

Officials met on Thursday to determine what decolonization topics should be integrated into the Department of Education’s curriculum, the Guam Pacific Daily News reported (http://bit.ly/2wv1XZS ). The program will be geared toward older high school students so they can be better informed to decide on a plebiscite vote for Guam’s political status.

Guam currently is under the control of the U.S. Congress. The plebiscite could help Guam residents decide how they want to govern themselves.

Mainstream, VOL LV No 33 New Delhi August 5, 2017

Reinventing Eqbal Ahmad’s Thoughts on Middle East

Saturday 5 August 2017

by Ahmad Zaboor

Introduction

Following the death of Eqbal Ahmad in 1999, Palestine lost a sincere friend. His insightful analysis, revolutionary writings, ideas “woke up the Americans’ conscience” as the New York Times put it. But his ideas still remain unexplored. He was neither a Palestinian nor an Arab, but his humanism propelled him to be the champion of the rights of the Palestinian people which at times earned him academic isolation. His biographer, Stewart Schaar, captures Ahmad as the ‘quint-essential oppositional intellectual, one who crosses boundaries, speaks truth to power, remained loyal to his cultural roots and Islamic traditions’. Eqbal along with Edward Said represented an alliance for the promotion of peace, social justice and liberation of Palestine. Below are some of his insightful thoughts on different aspects of the Palestine-Israel dispute that assumes significances in the present context.

UN imposes tough new sanctions on North Korea

UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. Security Council unanimously approved tough new sanctions Saturday to punish North Korea for its escalating nuclear and missile programs including a ban on coal and other exports worth over $1 billion — a huge bite in its total exports, valued at $3 billion last year.

U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley called the resolution "the single largest economic sanctions package ever leveled against the North Korean regime" and "the most stringent set of sanctions on any country in a generation."

But she warned that it is not enough and "we should not fool ourselves into thinking we have solved the problem — not even close."

"The threat of an outlaw nuclearized North Korean dictatorship remains ... (and) is rapidly growing more dangerous," Haley told council members after the vote.

Search called off for 3 US Marines who crashed off Australia

SYDNEY -- U.S. military officials called off a search and rescue operation on Sunday for three U.S. Marines who were missing after their Osprey aircraft crashed into the sea off the east coast of Australia while trying to land.

The U.S. Navy and Marine Corps suspended the rescue operation and launched a recovery effort instead, the Marine base Camp Butler in Japan said in a statement, essentially confirming the military does not expect to find the missing Marines alive.

The Marines' next of kin had been notified, and Australia's defense force was assisting the Americans with the recovery effort, the statement said.

Consultant: Guam can be ‘launching point’ to fight ISIS

The world’s attention on North Korea ratcheting up threats against the United States, and ISIS gaining entry in the Philippines present Guam with an opportunity, said Ginger Cruz, who co-owns a consulting firm that focuses on the Middle East and a former official in the Bush II and Obama administrations.

“Guam can absolutely leverage its ability as a U.S. territory to become a stronger launching point for the efforts against ISIS in the Philippines and in North Korea,” Cruz said. Ginger Cruz is from Guam, a 1982 graduate of the Academy of Our Lady of Guam and once a familiar face on Guam’s KUAM news in the 1990s before she left for Washington, D.C. She worked her way up to some of the highest circles in the federal government, including the U.S. Defense Department, before starting her consulting firm and being based in Lebanon for the past five years.

Prutehi Litekyan rally set for today

The group Prutehi Litekyan: Save Ritidian calls on the community to join them in Tamuning across from the ITC building at 4:30 p.m today.

The group will hold a wave in order to call attention to the impending construction of the live-fire training range at Northwest Field. According to the group, the wave is “an urgent call to our community to save our endangered species from extinction, our water resource from contamination, and our ancient burials from desecration.”

Litekyan, an area of Yigo also known as Ritidian, is the sight of an ancient CHamoru latte village complex. The area also holds Guam’s only adult Hayun Lagu tree, a plant species found only on Guam and Rota.

Commission stumped on decolonization curriculum

The Commission on Decolonization still is unsure how to proceed with the implementation of decolonization education in Guam’s schools.

Commissioners produced a lengthy debate Tuesday on whether or not the commission should be in charge of managing the curriculum, which would mandate teaching students topics ranging from colonial history to Guam’s political status.

The debate started when a request for a curriculum writer was brought up. Commission members Lisa Natividad and Michael Bevacqua, who are in the subcommittee addressing decolonization education, said the commission should set the scope and framework for a curriculum writer to integrate the information.

Feds Offer An Additional $3 Million To Help Ease Impact Of Micronesian Migration

The U.S. Department of the Interior announced Tuesday that it will provide more money to places like Hawaii that have growing Micronesian populations, on top of the $30 million already allotted annually.

But the additional $3 million in what’s known as “compact impact” aid is a fraction of the funding the state and other islands say they need to provide educational, health care and social service support to the recent arrivals.

Acting Interior Assistant Secretary Nikolao Pula made available $3 million in discretionary impact funding for the current federal fiscal year that ends Sept. 30.

Hawaii received $1.27 million, Guam $1.49 million, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands $231,000 and American Samoa $2,000.

“The governors of the affected jurisdictions have reported that the federal government is not providing sufficient funds to cover the costs they bear for the impact of migrants from the freely associated states on social services,” Pula said in a press release. “Both Guam and Hawaii have each reported costs exceeding $100 million a year.”

The erasure of Indigenous thought in foreign policy

I spent some of the best days of my childhood on the West Beach of the Anishinaabe community Gchi’mnissing, an Island First Nation in southern Georgian Bay, Ontario.

The thrill of jumping into the back of a pick-up truck and bouncing over bumpy dirt roads, dodging the outstretched birch and maple branches to get to what I remember as a magical spot is something that I roll over in my mind on days I think about the Island. There was another beach, arguably more beautiful, but it was primarily for the cottagers who spent their summers on our reserve.

Then when I was a teenager my Dad bought a little boat, white with a red stripe and a tiny cabin for sleeping. He named it “Bad Apples” and my family would load it up with groceries, sometimes a pig to roast, and we'd spend our summer weekends camped on the shores of one of the reserve’s uninhabited outer Islands, a place called Beckwith.