The U.S. Navy has canceled planned port calls in Australia for the USS Carl Vinson and is instead sending the aircraft carrier toward the Korean Peninsula amid concerns about possible new weapons tests by North Korea, military officials said.

Speaking on Fox News on Sunday, U.S. National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster said the president has ordered him to prepare “a full range of options” to the nuclear and missile threats North... </s> SEOUL, South Korea — The USS Carl Vinson — the U.S. Navy's massive, nuclear powered aircraft carrier — arrived in Vietnam on Monday, marking the first time such a ship has docked in the country since the Vietnam War.

The Nimitz-class supercarrier, accompanied by a carrier and a destroyer, anchored off the coast of Da Nang — the city where 3,500 Marines landed in March 1965 as the first American ground troops in a conflict that would eventually leave 58,000 Americans and millions of Vietnamese dead.

The USS Carl Vinson, with more than 6,000 crew members, is more than 1,000 feet long and weighs more than 100,000 tons. The port call will mark the largest U.S. military presence in Vietnam since the almost two decade-long war ended in 1975. The U.S. sailors are scheduled to visit a treatment center for victims affected by the chemical defoliant Agent Orange during the war. A U.S. Navy band will also perform a concert in Da Nang.

More: U.S. carrier not near North Korea after all

The ship's arrival is the latest step forward in improving military and economic ties since the two former adversaries normalized relations in 1995. Former president Barack Obama lifted a decades-old ban on the sale of military equipment to Vietnam during a 2016 visit and last year, the U.S. transferred a decommissioned Coast Guard cutter to Vietnam and signed a three-year plan for defense cooperation.

Analysts say the USS Carl Vinson's landmark visit also sends a signal to China, whose aggressive land reclamation and military buildup activities in the South China Sea have alarmed smaller regional neighbors and represent an increasing challenge to U.S. naval dominance in the Pacific.

“The USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier is the epitome of modern naval power,” wrote Carl Thayer, professor of politics at the Australian Defense Force Academy, in a note. “The message the USS Carl Vinson sends is that the U.S. will maintain its naval presence in the South China Sea and that Vietnam supports the presence of the U.S. Navy as long as it contributes to regional peace and stability.”

Vietnam Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Le Thi Thu Hang said the visit will “continue to promote bilateral relations within the framework of the two countries' comprehensive partnership and contribute to maintaining peace, stability, security, cooperation and development in the region.”

China claims sovereignty over almost all of the South China Sea, where more than $5 trillion of goods are shipped each year through some of the world’s busiest waterways. Vietnam has overlapping claims on some islands in the sea’s Spratly and Paracel chains, and tensions have flared between the two neighbors over these disputes. In 2014, Beijing deployed an oil rig in disputed waters near Vietnam, which led to a standoff between naval vessels and sparked violent anti-China demonstrations in Vietnam.

Historical animosity towards China runs deep in Vietnam, which was occupied by its much larger neighbor for much of the first millennium AD. However, China remains Vietnam’s largest trading partner, and its rising role as the dominant superpower in the region requires a careful balancing act for Vietnam.

The United States hasn’t taken any official position on South China Sea territorial claims but conducts “freedom of navigation” operations in the waterways by sailing ships without notice through disputed areas. China has condemned the operations and has responded in the past by scrambling fighter jets to monitor the U.S. vessels. </s> The nuclear-powered submarine USS Michigan approaches to join the U.S. aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson in drills near the Korean Peninsula, at Busan port in Busan, South Korea, Tuesday, April 25, 2017. North Korea marks the founding anniversary of its military on Tuesday, and South Korea and its allies are bracing for the possibility that it could conduct another nuclear test or launch an intercontinental ballistic missile for the first time.

Start the conversation, or Read more at The Gazette. </s> USS Michigan, an Ohio-class guided missile submarine, has reached South Korea’s Busan port. Although the submarine is reportedly on a “routine deployment,” it may have been deployed as a show of force to North Korea. Amidst rising tensions in the region, the advanced submarine with precision strike capabilities will remain in the port for “hull check,” confirmed military sources.

The USS Michigan, a nuclear-powered Ohio class submarine with a slew of precision-guided Tomahawk cruise missiles, has reached Busan, a bustling port in South Korea. Although the submarine, which was originally designed to safely carry and launch nuclear missiles, is expected to make a routine port call, the timing indicates it may have been deployed in the region to act as subtle but powerful statement to North Korea.

According to Fox News, which confirmed the deployment, as well as the scheduled arrival of USS Michigan in Busan, the Ohio-class submarine will initially make a port call to the South Korean port city and then will head to the Sea of Japan. The sub will reportedly join the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier strike group for advanced naval exercises. The official description of these exercises hasn’t been confirmed yet, but the aircraft carrier is currently in the Philippine Sea. Moreover, the U.S. Navy vessels will be joined by those belonging to the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force. Together, the two forces are expected to travel north to the Korean peninsula.

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When asked about the deployment of USS Michigan, Lieutenant Commander Matt Knight with U.S. Pacific Fleet, said, “U.S. Navy ships and submarines routinely make port calls in a variety of locations. As a matter of routine, we do not discuss future operations or the details regarding the operations of our submarines. USS Michigan is currently on a routine deployment to the Indo-Asia-Pacific.” The Lt. Commander had previously mentioned that the submarine was “on an independent deployment.”

Once designed to deliver a nuclear payload, the converted ballistic missile tubes in USS Michigan can hold as many as 154 Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles. However, it may be currently stacking about two dozen of the precision missiles. Part of the land attack and SOF (Special Operation Forces) platform, USS Michigan is one of four Ohio-class guided-missile submarines. The four submarines can collectively haul and fire up to 616 Tomahawk missiles. These submarines are manned by more than 250 specially trained marine forces that include the elite and deadly Navy SEALs.

Currently ruled by Kim Jong Um’s dictatorship, North Korea recently demonstrated several new missile systems and configurations at a military parade. Although the country claims to possess several powerful missile technologies, they haven’t been independently verified, and their strike capabilities have not been proven yet. However, the lack of credible and verifiable information hasn’t stopped the country from hinting at long range strike capabilities. The military parade was held on April 15 to commemorate the anniversary of the birth of the country’s founder, Kim Il-sung. Interestingly, North Korea’s calendar lists the current year as Year 106 because it reportedly started on the day the Kim Il-sung was born.

Military experts on North Korea have predicted that the tiny country may choose to carry out its sixth underground nuclear test soon. Its current leader has reportedly threatened North America several times through the tightly controlled regional news publications. Hence, the USS Michigan could be on a routine mission, but its presence in the Korean peninsula may be a show of force. </s> PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — North Korea is vowing tough counteraction to any military moves that might follow the U.S. Navy’s decision to send the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier and its battle group to waters off the Korean Peninsula.

The statement from Pyongyang comes as tensions on the divided peninsula are already high because of U.S.-South Korea wargames now underway and recent ballistic missile tests by the North. Pyongyang sees the annual maneuvers as a dress rehearsal for invasion, while the North’s long-range missile launches are a violation of U.N. resolutions.

“We will hold the U.S. wholly accountable for the catastrophic consequences to be entailed by its outrageous actions,” a spokesman for its Foreign Ministry was quoted as saying by the state-run Korean Central News Agency in a report late Monday. </s> Tensions high as US forces in South Korea announce activation of missile defence system while Kim regime condemns ‘aggression and hysteria’

North Korea has vowed to accelerate its nuclear weapons programme to “maximum pace” and test a nuclear device “at any time” in response to Donald Trump’s aggressive stance towards the regime.



The warning came as US military officials said a controversial missile defence system was now “operational” after being installed at a site in South Korea last week. The Terminal High Altitude Area Defence system – or Thaad – is designed to locate and intercept North Korean missiles in mid-flight, but its deployment has been met with opposition by China and confusion over who should foot the billion-dollar bill.

US Forces Korea said Thaad was “operational and has the ability to intercept North Korean missiles and defend [South Korea]”. But a US defence official told AFP the system had only “reached initial intercept capability” and more hardware would be added later this year to make it fully functional.

North Korea vowed to continue its nuclear tests in the face of what it called US “aggression and hysteria” – a reference to joint US-South Korean military drills that the North said were taking the peninsula “to the brink of nuclear war”.

Operation Foal Eagle has just ended but the USS Carl Vinson carrier group, sent to waters off the Korean peninsula, has held exercises with the Japanese and South Korean navies in recent days.

Under controversial security laws passed in 2015, Japan on Monday sent its biggest warship to escort a US supply vessel that will later join up with the carrier group.

The Izumo, whose flight deck can accommodate up to nine helicopters, left Yokosuka port near Tokyo on Monday and will accompany the supply ship for two days as far as waters off Shikoku island in western Japan, according to the Kyodo news agency.

The US vessel is then expected to deliver fuel to the Carl Vinson and other American vessels in the region.

Tensions on the Korean peninsula have been running high, with speculation last month that North Korea would test a nuclear weapon or long-range ballistic missile – provocations that Trump warned could be met with a military response.

Using the official name for the country, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), a North Korean foreign ministry spokesman said in a statement carried by the official KCNA news agency that unless Washington ended its “hostile policy” North Korea “would continue to bolster its military capabilities for self-defence and pre-emptive nuclear attack”.

The spokesman added: “Now that the US is kicking up the overall racket for sanctions and pressure against DPRK, pursuant to its new DPRK policy called ‘maximum pressure and engagement’, the DPRK will speed up at the maximum pace the measure for bolstering its nuclear deterrence.”

The statement said “measures for bolstering the nuclear force to the maximum will be taken in a consecutive and successive way at any moment and any place decided by its supreme leadership”.

What threat does North Korea pose to South Korea? The North may have found a way to make a nuclear warhead small enough to put on a missile, but firing one at the South is likely to provoke retaliation in kind, which would end the regime. Pyongyang has enough conventional artillery to do significant damage to Seoul, but the quality of its gunners and munitions is dubious, and the same problem – retaliation from the South and its allies - remains. In the event of a non-nuclear attack, Seoul's residents would act on years of experience of civil defence drills, and rush to the bomb shelters dotted around the city, increasing their chances of survival.





In Washington, White House spokesman Sean Spicer played down the prospect of a meeting between Trump and Kim Jong-un after the president said in an interview with Bloomberg that he would be “honoured” to hold talks with the North Korean leader under the right circumstances.

“Clearly conditions are not there right now,” Spicer said. “I don’t see this happening anytime soon.”

Senior US officials have declared an end to the era of “strategic patience” with North Korea and have not ruled out a military response if Pyongyang conducts another nuclear test or test-fires an intercontinental ballistic missile.

In the past few days, however, Trump has said in interviews that he would prefer to solve the standoff through diplomacy and repeated calls for China to apply more pressure on its neighbour.

On Monday a US state department spokeswoman said Washington was “open to credible talks on the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula. However, conditions must change before there is any scope for talks to resume.” </s> Alwaght- North Korea has test fired a ballistic missile which landed in the sea of Japan after flying over 700 kilometers, says South Korea.

"North Korea launched a ballistic missile at 5:27 am this morning in Pyongan Province," said the South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The US military tracked the launch, but said it was unlikely an intercontinental ballistic missile, calculating that the missile landed in water 60 miles south of Russia's port city of Vladivostok, CNN reported. Vladivostok is home to the Russian Pacific Fleet.

Following the launch, Yoshihide Suga, Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary, stressed that it was a violation of UN resolutions and that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had severely condemned it. "North Korea's repeated missile launches are a grave threat to our country and a clear violation of UN resolutions," said Abe.

Japan's Defense Minister Tomomi Inada said that the projectile may be a new type of missile, which reached an altitude of more than 2,000 kilometers before falling in the Sea of Japan.

The US Pacific Command has also confirmed that Pyongyang has carried out another missile launch. "US Pacific Command detected and tracked a North Korean missile launch," said an official statement, adding that the tested missile has still not been determined.

Newly elected South Korean President Moon Jae-In also condemned the launch as a "reckless provocation.” "The president... expressed deep regret over the North's reckless provocation staged only days after the beginning of the new administration in the South," said spokesman.

Tensions have been on the rise on the Korean Peninsula over the past weeks.

Unsettled by North Korean missile and military nuclear programs, the United States has adopted a war-like posture, sending a strike group and conducting joint military drills with North Korea’s regional adversaries Japan and South Korea.

Pyongyang defends its missile and nuclear programs as a means of protecting the country from US hostility.

This US Navy handout photo obtained April 25, 2017 shows the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70) as it transits the Philippine Sea while conducting a bilateral exercise with the Japan Maritime Self Defense Force in the Philippine Sea.

In addition to a naval strike group, which includes the large USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier, Washington deployed two supersonic bombers over the peninsula during a joint exercise with South Korea’s air force on Monday. The USS Michigan nuclear submarine joined the strike group earlier this week.

In April, the US also deployed a THAAD missile system in South Korea rising tensions over North Korea’s ballistic and nuclear tests. </s> A US nuclear submarine armed with guided missiles has made a port call in South Korea, while Pyongyang is reportedly holding massive long-range artillery drills amid muscle-flexing in the region and rising tensions between Washington and North Korea.

The USS Michigan nuclear submarine arrived in South Korea on Tuesday “during a regularly scheduled deployment to the Western Pacific,” according to a statement issued by the US Pacific Fleet.

The submarine is one of the four Ohio-class nuclear vessels, one of the largest in the world “measuring more than 560 feet long and weighing more than 18,000 tons when submerged.”

The US military praises the sub as a weapon to “provide the Navy with unprecedented strike and special operation mission capabilities.”

The move comes at a tense time in relations between Washington and Seoul on one side and North Korea on the other.

On Tuesday, Pyongyang celebrates the 85th anniversary of the foundation of its Korean People’s Army. The jubilee was marked by massive – yet conventional – drills, which featured some 300-400 long-range artillery pieces and were supervised by North Korean leader Kin Jong-un, according to Yonhap News agency citing South Korean Army sources.

In a fresh stage of escalation between the US and North Korea, President Donald Trump early in April promised to send a “very powerful armada,” led by the aircraft carrier ‘USS Carl Vinson,’ to press Pyongyang into abandoning its nuclear and missile programs.

Despite the threats, North Korea went on to test new ballistic missiles, although the launch failed.

The “armada” should arrive in the waters surrounding the peninsula “within days,” US Vice President Mike Pence said on Saturday, without giving specific details.

Pyongyang has repeatedly urged Washington stop its “military hysteria” and come to its “senses” – or face a “merciless response.”

North Korea called the deployment of the ‘Carl Vinson’ carrier group “an extremely dangerous act by those who plan a nuclear war to invade,” and even vowed to sink the carrier with a “single strike.”

Kim In Ryong, North Korean ambassador to the UN, accused the US of using “gangster-like logic” and being “hell-bent on dangerous saber-rattling in South Korea,” while speaking at a press conference in New York last week.

“The United States [is] introducing in South Korea, on the Korean Peninsula, the world’s biggest hotspot, huge nuclear strategic assets, seriously threatening the peace and security of the peninsula and pushing it to the brink of war,” Kim told reporters.

While Pence last week announced an “end of strategic patience” from the US towards North Korea, stating that “all options are on the table,” US envoy to the UN Nikki Haley said Monday that they were not “trying to pick a fight with him [Kim Jong-un].”

“We are not going to do anything unless he gives us reason to do something,” she said.

“But right now, we're saying, 'don't test, don't use nuclear missiles, don't try and do any more actions,' and I think he's understanding that,” Haley added.

“And China's helping really put that pressure on him.”

Pyongyang was alarmed by the US deployment of the THAAD anti-missile system in South Korea earlier this year, warning that such actions might lead to further escalation and ultimately to a nuclear war.

Russia and China have also opposed the deployment, which Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov described as “disproportionate.” </s> (PYONGYANG, North Korea) — North Korea is vowing tough counteraction to any military moves that might follow the U.S. move to send the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier and its battle group to waters off the Korean Peninsula.

The statement from Pyongyang comes as tensions on the divided peninsula are high because of U.S.-South Korea wargames now underway and recent ballistic missile launches by the North. Pyongyang sees the annual maneuvers as a dress rehearsal for invasion, while the North's missile launches violate U.N. resolutions.

"We will hold the U.S. wholly accountable for the catastrophic consequences to be entailed by its outrageous actions," a spokesman for its Foreign Ministry was quoted as saying by the state-run Korean Central News Agency late Monday.

The statement comes just after U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said U.S. missile strikes against a Syrian air base in retaliation for a chemical weapon attack carry a message for any nation operating outside of international norms.

He didn't specify North Korea, but the context was clear enough.

"If you violate international agreements, if you fail to live up to commitments, if you become a threat to others, at some point a response is likely to be undertaken," Tillerson told ABC's "This Week."

The North has long claimed the U.S. is preparing some kind of assault against it and justifies its nuclear weapons as defensive in nature.

"This goes to prove that the U.S. reckless moves for invading the DPRK have reached a serious phase of its scenario," the North's statement said. "If the U.S. dares opt for a military action, crying out for 'preemptive attack' and 'removal of the headquarters,' the DPRK is ready to react to any mode of war desired by the U.S."

North Korea's formal name is the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

U.S. Navy ships are a common presence in the Korean region and are in part a show of force. On Saturday night, the Pentagon said a Navy carrier strike group was moving toward the western Pacific Ocean to provide more of a physical presence in the region.

President Donald Trump's national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, described the decision to send the carrier group as "prudent."
The United States Pacific Command deploys warships, including the USS Carl Vinson, to move towards the Korean Peninsula following North Korea's recent tests with weapons of mass destruction and opposition to the Sharyat missile strike. North Korea is also reclassified as a state sponsor of terrorism.