Rex Tillerson Says There Is Evidence That Sanctions Are ‘Really Starting to Hurt’ North Korea
January 18, 2018 by admin
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U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Wednesday the United States is getting evidence that international sanctions are “really starting to hurt” North Korea, even as he accused Russia of not implementing all of the measures.
U.S. President Donald Trump told Reuters in an interview earlier on Wednesday that Russia was helping North Korea evade international sanctions and that Pyongyang was getting closer every day to being able to deliver a long-range missile to the United States.
Tillerson told reporters the Russian failure to comply with the U.N. measures “primarily” concerned fuel “but some other areas potentially as well.” He did not provide details.
Nevertheless, Tillerson said he was confident the pressure would eventually bring North Korea to the negotiating table over its nuclear and missile programs. Pyongyang has carried out nuclear and missiles tests in defiance of U.N. and other sanctions.
“We are getting a lot of evidence that these sanctions are really starting to hurt,” Tillerson said, citing intelligence and anecdotal evidence from defectors.
He said Japan told a conference on North Korea in Vancouver on Tuesday that more than 100 North Korean fishing boats had drifted into its waters and two-thirds of those aboard them had died.
“What they learned is that they are being sent out in the winter time because there’s food shortages and they are being sent out to fish with inadequate fuel to get back,” he said.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in had attributed North Korea’s recent willingness to talk to South Korea to the pain of sanctions, Tillerson told an event at Stanford University in California.
But he later said he suspected Russia may not only be failing to implement some sanctions but “frustrating” some of the effort to press the North.
“It’s apparent to us that they’re not implementing all the sanctions and there’s some evidence they may be frustrating some of the sanctions,” Tillerson said aboard his aircraft while returning from Vancouver.
Chinese Pressure
China did not attend the Vancouver meeting, where 20 nations agreed to step up sanctions pressure on the North, but Tillerson highlighted Beijing’s role.
“We have never had Chinese support for sanctions like we’re getting now,” he said. “Russia’s a slightly different issue, but the Chinese have leaned in hard on the North Koreans.”
Asked whether there was a humanitarian concern that sanctions were hurting ordinary North Koreans, he said: “That’s a choice the regime’s making. The regime gets to decide how they allocate their available resources.”
“We are not going to take any responsibility for the fact that he (North Korean leader Kim Jong Un) is choosing to make his own people suffer,” Tillerson said.
Asked if he was concerned that South Korea might resume some humanitarian aid to North Korea as part of the resumption of North-South talks this month, thereby weakening sanctions, Tillerson said: “Countries will have to make their own choice, but we would be very skeptical that aid that goes into the country will necessarily relieve the suffering of the people.”
Tillerson said that, while North Korea had a record of seeking to drive a wedge between the United States and its allies through “charm offensives,” Washington was supportive of the North-South dialogue.
Tillerson said of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un: “He knows how to reach me, if he wants to talk. But he’s got to tell me he wants to talk. We’re not going to chase him.”
He said he was confident the sides would eventually get to the negotiating table and he wanted North Korea to know that, when that happened, the United States had “very, very strong military options standing behind me.”
The Trump administration has said repeatedly that all options are available, including military ones, in forcing North Korea to give up its development of nuclear missiles capable of reaching the United States, although it prefers a diplomatic solution.
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California torture house where 13 starving ‘kids’ found had not been inspected, officials say
January 18, 2018 by admin
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There is no record that the horror house in California where 13 starving siblings were found was ever inspected by the fire department as required by law, a city official confirmed Thursday.
That could explain why Perris city officials had no idea that David Allen Turpin and his wife, Louisa Anna Turpin, were allegedly torturing their children until Sunday, when their 17-year-old daughter escaped and used a cellphone she found in the house to call 911.
The revelation came a day before the couple were expected to make their first court appearance to face possible torture and child endangerment charges.
The tan stucco house that the Turpins called home was required to have annual fire inspections because David Allen Turpin had gotten state approval to run a private school called Sandcastle Day School on the site and he was listed as the principal.
But when The Associated Press asked for the inspection records, Perris Assistant City Clerk Judy Haughney said there weren’t any. And city Fire Marshal Dave Martinez did not return a call from NBC News seeking an explanation.
No state agency regulates or oversees private schools in California, but they are subject to an annual inspection by the state or local fire marshal.
“We are sickened by this tragedy and relieved the children are now safe and authorities are investigating,” the California Board of Education said in a statement. “Private schools are required to register with the state to record their students’ exemption from compulsory attendance at public schools. Under current California law, the CDE does not approve, monitor, inspect, or oversee private schools, but we will gladly work to make changes in the law that would prevent this type of tragedy from occurring in the future.”
A spokesman for the city of Perris, however, said the state was supposed to have let it know that the Turpins were operating a school out of their home but never did.
“The Turpins failed to contact the City of Perris regarding the operation of the school and never sought a business license from the City,” the spokesman said, adding that the state recommends that “private home-based school operators check with local authorities regarding local business licenses but does not mandate fire inspections.”
All 13 of the Turpin children, ages 2 to 29, have been admitted to hospitals for treatment for severe malnutrition.
The Turpins had little contact with their family back in West Virginia, and shocked relatives have told NBC News that they had no idea what they were allegedly doing.
“We always thought she was living the perfect life,” Teresa Robinette, Louisa Anna Turpin’s sister, said in an interview conducted in Knoxville, Tennessee. “She would tell us they went to Disneyland all the time, they would go to Vegas.”
The secret of the house on Muir Woods Road began to spill out on Sunday when the Turpins’ 17-year-old daughter escaped through a window and called 911, the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department reported.
“Further investigation revealed several children shackled to their beds with chains and padlocks in dark and foul-smelling surroundings, but the parents were unable to immediately provide a logical reason why their children were restrained in that manner,” the statement read.
It was only after freeing them that deputies discovered that seven of who they thought were severely emaciated kids were actually adults “ranging in age from 18 to 29.”