The United States is not seeking a war with North Korea, US defence secretary Jim Mattis said Friday during a visit to the heavily-fortified border between the two Koreas.
Tension has flared on the Korean peninsula as US president Donald Trump and the North's ruler Kim Jong-un have traded threats of war and personal insults that sparked global alarm.
But Mr Mattis, visiting the Demilitarised Zone between North and South Korea, said the US was committed to a "diplomatic solution".
"As the US secretary of state Tillerson made clear, our goal is not war but rather the complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula," he said in the border village of Panmunjom, where a truce between the two Koreas was signed in 1953.
Mr Mattis said that he and the South Korean defence minister Song Young-moo had "made clear our mutual commitment to a diplomatic solution to address North Korea's reckless, outlaw behaviour".
The remarks came a day after he said Washington was "not rushing to war" and was looking for a "peaceful resolution".
Mr Mattis is to hold annual defence talks with Mr Song on Saturday during a two-day trip that comes ahead of a visit by the US president.
Mr Trump is scheduled to visit South Korea, a key US ally in Asia, from November 7 to 8, with all eyes on his message to the North and its leader.
North Korea carried out its sixth nuclear test last month and has launched several missiles in recent months that could reach the mainland of its "imperialist enemy" the US.
The moves, staged in violation of UN resolutions banning the North from any use of atomic and ballistic technology, prompted new US-led UN sanctions against the isolated state.
Pyongyang reacted angrily to the new sanctions, and Mr Trump's recent remark that "only one thing will work" with the North fuelled concerns of a potential conflict.
But even some Trump advisers say US military options are limited when Pyongyang could launch an artillery barrage on the South Korean capital Seoul — only about 50 kilometres from the border and home to 10 million people.
Mr Song said the nuclear devices and missiles that North Korea was developing were "unusable weapons", and that any use of them "will be strongly retaliated by the united forces of South Korea and the US".
"We strongly call for North Korea to stop its reckless provocations and come to the inter-Korean dialogue for peace as soon as possible," he said.
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Read more:
North Korea calls Trump ‘the rabid man in the White House’
North Korea kicks up smuggling to offset Chinese trade cuts
India defends ties with Iran and North Korea in talks with Tillerson
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In a rare gesture ahead of Mr Mattis’s visit, North Korea said it planned to return on Friday a South Korean fishing boat and crew captured last week. Pyongyang notified Seoul of its intention through a report carried by its official Korean Central News Agency as all inter-Korean communication lines have been cut off, South Korea’s unification ministry said.
If returned, this would be the first repatriation of South Korean citizens by North Korea since 2010, a ministry spokesman said. South Korea has returned North Koreans crossing maritime borders on seven occasions since President Moon Jae-in took power in May.
KCNA said the crew "deliberately intruded" into North Korean waters, but Pyongyang would return them "from the humanitarian point of view".
Separately, the US treasury department added seven individuals and three entities connected with the North Korean regime to its sanctions list.
“We also are targeting North Korean financial facilitators who attempt to keep the regime afloat with foreign currency earned through forced labour operations,” treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin said.
Farage on Muslim Brotherhood
Nigel Farage told Reform's annual conference that the party will proscribe the Muslim Brotherhood if he becomes Prime Minister.
"We will stop dangerous organisations with links to terrorism operating in our country," he said. "Quite why we've been so gutless about this – both Labour and Conservative – I don't know.
“All across the Middle East, countries have banned and proscribed the Muslim Brotherhood as a dangerous organisation. We will do the very same.”
It is 10 years since a ground-breaking report into the Muslim Brotherhood by Sir John Jenkins.
Among the former diplomat's findings was an assessment that “the use of extreme violence in the pursuit of the perfect Islamic society” has “never been institutionally disowned” by the movement.
The prime minister at the time, David Cameron, who commissioned the report, said membership or association with the Muslim Brotherhood was a "possible indicator of extremism" but it would not be banned.
SNAPSHOT
While Huawei did launch the first smartphone with a 50MP image sensor in its P40 series in 2020, Oppo in 2014 introduced the Find 7, which was capable of taking 50MP images: this was done using a combination of a 13MP sensor and software that resulted in shots seemingly taken from a 50MP camera.
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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The National's picks
4.35pm: Tilal Al Khalediah
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5.45pm: Raging Torrent
6.20pm: West Acre
7pm: Flood Zone
7.40pm: Straight No Chaser
8.15pm: Romantic Warrior
8.50pm: Calandogan
9.30pm: Forever Young
Islamophobia definition
A widely accepted definition was made by the All Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims in 2019: “Islamophobia is rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness.” It further defines it as “inciting hatred or violence against Muslims”.
Dr Amal Khalid Alias revealed a recent case of a woman with daughters, who specifically wanted a boy.
A semen analysis of the father showed abnormal sperm so the couple required IVF.
Out of 21 eggs collected, six were unused leaving 15 suitable for IVF.
A specific procedure was used, called intracytoplasmic sperm injection where a single sperm cell is inserted into the egg.
On day three of the process, 14 embryos were biopsied for gender selection.
The next day, a pre-implantation genetic report revealed four normal male embryos, three female and seven abnormal samples.
Day five of the treatment saw two male embryos transferred to the patient.
The woman recorded a positive pregnancy test two weeks later.
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