In his usual monosyllabic way, President Donald Trump tweeted late this morning that, 'South Korea is finding, as I have told them, that their talk of appeasement with North Korea will not work, they only understand one thing!' Leaving the tweet with a blank ending can only mean one thing, he is considering his options with his South Korean allies.
Another bomb
In the early hours of this morning, North Korea exploded an underground hydrogen bomb, a blast so ferocious that it registered a 6.3 earthquake on the Richter scale in China - while shaking buildings in Russia, and certainly strong enough to seriously damage a fair size city.
This, a defiant act, the young leader of the rogue state showed his defiance to the West, yet again. It has become abundantly clear over the past few weeks that Kim is going to do what Kim is going to do, and nothing or no one is going to stop him. He will not talk to America under any circumstances and it appears he will certainly not listen to words of sense from his only friend China, so the immediate future for the world looks decidedly bleak.
A father again
In an altogether unrelated incident, it was confirmed this week that Kim's wife, ex-singer, Ri Sol-ju had in fact given birth to a baby boy in February of this year, bringing his tally of children to three. The new arrival joins a girl of an unknown age, and a boy - his much-needed and one can only presume feted heir, in his male centric world - thought to be now about seven years-old.
The boy will carry on the tradition of "Juche," implemented by his great grandfather, a symbol of dynasty and self-reliance and conferring on him god-like status. Unfortunately, with his continuing actions, Kim is unlikely to hand much on to him apart from a damaged legacy and a destroyed country, at the very best!
The United Nations, as usual, seems utterly helpless in its feeble responses, and the world's leaders can only condemn collectively the moves, as, in truth, there is little else they can do.
One thing is clear the nerves of those who live in the shadow of the DMZ, and certainly, the Japanese islands will feel this escalation long before anyone else will!
In a series of press releases the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, have said that they would 'show their powerful response through action,' of course failing to spell out what that action might entail. But they have made at least one thing the clear...the world will not have to wait too long until it finds out.
