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(Reuters) – North Korea could hit almost anywhere on earth with a ballistic missile, analysts say, a capability it has honed alongside a wide variety of shorter-range weapons with comprehensive testing that includes a record-setting number of launches in 2022.

In March and November, North Korea sent ballistic missiles soaring more than 6,000 km (3,700 miles) into space. The high-flying trajectories showed a weapon designed to hit another continent, or even deliver multiple warheads.

Pyongyang has also test-fired at least three intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBMs) over Japan, including an Oct. 4 flight where the missile – possibly a variant of the intermediate-range Hwasong-12 – landed about 3,200 km beyond Japan in the Pacific Ocean.

There are many questions over just how reliable and capable the North’s biggest missiles are: it has yet to fully demonstrate some key technologies for ensuring a nuclear warhead survives its fiery decent through the atmosphere and at least some launches appear to have ended in failure.

But analysts say North Korea’s flurry of testing shows it is fine-tuning missiles that could be used in a war, and that it has little interest in giving them up.

North Korea says its ballistic missile development is a legitimate exercise of its right as a sovereign state to defend itself from external threats, including hostile U.S. policy

It has said it rejects U.N. Security Council resolutions banning missile and nuclear programmes as an infringement of its sovereign rights. It has also said it has the right to space exploration as a sovereign country.

Although long-range weapons get more attention, North Korea has been pouring resources into shorter-range systems too, analysts say.

After historic denuclearisation talks between leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump fell apart in 2019, Pyongyang rolled out new and increasingly capable short-range ballistic missiles (SRBMs), many of which can manoeuvre to confound missile defences.

Short-range weapons help it prepare for a potential confrontation with its neighbours, especially South Korea, analysts say, which hosts about 28,500 American troops. In North Korea’s testing programme, short-range missiles seem to have been the most successful.

The North has also tested other advanced weapons, including “hypersonic” missiles, SRBMs for “tactical” nuclear attacks and new submarine launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs).

South Korea and the United States have warned since early 2022 that North Korea may resume nuclear testing for the first time since 2017. Analysts say that could help it perfect smaller nuclear warheads that can fit on a range of missiles.

“Kim announced plans to develop weapons systems ranging from tactical nuclear weapons to a nuclear-powered submarine and is ticking the boxes on his weapons wishlist through a series of tests,” Hwang Ildo, of Seoul’s Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security, said in a recent report.

The warheads of tactical nuclear weapons have less explosive power but are meant for battlefield use, attacking specific targets relatively close to the launch point.

Targeting U.S. bases in South Korea with such weapons makes sense because the North Korean military does not have enough conventional warheads to meaningfully damage such facilities and prevent a conventional U.S. strike on North Korea, said Duyeon Kim, a North Korea expert at the U.S.-based Center for a New American Security.

“It would now be able to do so, while reserving its ICBMs and thermonuclear bombs to deter the United States from retaliatory annihilation of North Korea,” she said.

More mundane technology such as rocket fuel is also undergoing intense testing in North Korea. Solid fuel – which would allow missiles, including ICBMs – to be launched with little warning, is a particular focus.

On Dec. 16, scientists in North Korea tested what they called a “high-thrust” solid-fuel motor that appeared aimed at perfecting a large engine for an ICBM.

“One of Kim Jong Un’s objectives… is to develop an ICBM propelled by solid-fuel engines, and if North Korea succeeds, it will become difficult for the U.S. to defend against Pyongyang’s nuclear arsenal, as signs of an ICBM launch using solid-fuel engines are hard to detect early,” Hwang wrote.

U.S. lawmakers early Tuesday included a proposal to bar federal government employees from using Chinese app TikTok on government-owned devices in a key spending bill.

The Senate last week voted on a bill sponsored by Republican Senator Josh Hawley to bar federal employees from using the ByteDance-owned short video app on government-owned devices. It was the latest action by U.S. lawmakers to crack down on Chinese companies amid national security fears.

The ban is in a massive omnibus measure to fund U.S. government operations that is expected to be voted on this week. The bill gives the White House Office of Management and Budget 60 days “to develop standards and guidelines for executive agencies requiring the removal” of TikTok from federal devices.

Reuters reported the proposed ban’s expected inclusion in the legislation earlier.

The proposal last week won the backing of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy.

TikTok has said the concerns are largely fueled by misinformation. The legislation would not impact the more than 100 million Americans who use TikTok on private or company-owned devices.

Many federal agencies, including the White House and the Defense, Homeland Security and State departments, already ban TikTok from government-owned devices.

Also Monday, state agencies in Louisiana and West Virginia became the latest to ban the use of TikTok on government devices over concern that China could use it to track Americans and censor content.

Some 19 of the 50 U.S. states have now at least partially blocked access on government computers to TikTok. Most of the restrictions came within the past two weeks.

In 2020, Republican then-President Donald Trump attempted to block new users from downloading TikTok and to ban other transactions that would have effectively blocked the app’s use in the United States but lost a series of court battles.

The U.S. government Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), a national security body, has for months sought to reach a national security agreement to protect the data of U.S. TikTok users, but it appears no deal will be reached before year’s end.

Cities across China scrambled to install hospital beds and build fever screening clinics on Tuesday as authorities reported five more deaths and international concern grew about Beijing’s surprise decision to let the virus run free.

China this month began dismantling its stringent “zero-COVID” regime of lockdowns and testing after protests against curbs that had kept the virus at bay for three years but at a big cost to society and the world’s second-largest economy.

Now, as the virus sweeps through a country of 1.4 billion people who lack natural immunity having been shielded for so long, there is growing concern about possible deaths, virus mutations and the impact on the economy and trade.

“Every new epidemic wave in another country brings the risk of new variants, and this risk is higher the bigger the outbreak, and the current wave in China is shaping up to be big,” said Alex Cook, vice-dean for research at the National University of Singapore’s Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health.

“However, inevitably China has to go through a large wave of COVID-19 if it is to reach an endemic state, in a future without lockdowns and the economic and political damage that results.”

U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price said on Monday the potential for the virus to mutate as it spreads in China was “a threat for people everywhere”.

Beijing reported five COVID-related deaths on Tuesday, following two on Monday, which were the first fatalities reported in weeks. In total, China has reported just 5,242 COVID deaths since the pandemic emerged in the central city of Wuhan in late 2019, a very low toll by global standards.

But there are rising doubts that the statistics are reflecting the true impact of a disease ripping through cities after China dropped curbs including most mandatory testing on Dec. 7.

Since then, some hospitals have become inundated, pharmacies emptied of medicines, while many people have gone into self-imposed lockdowns, straining delivery services.

“It’s a bit of a burden to suddenly reopen when the supply of medications was not sufficiently prepared,” said Zhang, a 31-year-old delivery worker in Beijing who declined to give his full name. “But I support the reopening.”

Some health experts estimate 60% of people in China – equivalent to 10% of the world’s population – could be infected over coming months, and that more than 2 million could die.

In the capital, Beijing, security guards patrolled the entrance of a designated COVID-19 crematorium where Reuters journalists on Saturday saw a long line of hearses and workers in hazmat suits carrying the dead inside. Reuters could not establish if the deaths were due to COVID.

In Beijing, which has emerged as the main infection hot spot, commuters, many coughing into their masks, were back on the trains to work and streets were coming back to life after being largely deserted last week.

Streets in Shanghai, where COVID transmission rates are catching up with Beijing’s, were emptier, and subway trains were only half-full.

“People are staying away because they are sick or scared of getting sick, but mostly now, I think it’s because they are actually sick,” said Yang, a trainer at a nearly empty Shanghai gym.

Top health officials have softened their tone on the threat posed by the disease in recent weeks, a U-turn from previous messaging that the virus had to be eradicated to save lives even as the rest of the world opened up.

They have also been playing down the possibility that the now predominant Omicron strain could become more virulent.

“The probability of a sudden large mutation … is very low,” Zhang Wenhong, a prominent infectious disease specialist, told a forum on Sunday in comments reported by state media.

Nevertheless, there are mounting signs the virus is buffeting China’s fragile health system.

Cities are ramping up efforts to expand intensive care units and build fever clinics, facilities designed to prevent the wider spread of contagious disease in hospitals.

In the past week, major cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, and Wenzhou announced they had added hundreds of fever clinics, some in converted sports facilities.

The virus is also hammering China’s economy, expected to grow 3% this year, its worst performance in nearly half a century. Workers and truck drivers falling ill are slowing down output and disrupting logistics, economists say.

A World Economics survey showed on Monday China’s business confidence fell in December to its lowest since January 2013.

Weaker industrial activity in the world’s top oil importer has capped gains for crude prices and driven copper lower.

China kept benchmark lending interest rates unchanged for the fourth consecutive month on Tuesday.

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Boeing Co (BA.N) early on Tuesday won backing from Congress for an extension of a looming deadline imposing a new safety standard for modern cockpit alerts for two new versions of the U.S. plane maker’s best-selling 737 MAX aircraft.

The company has been heavily lobbying for months to convince lawmakers to waive the Dec. 27 deadline that affects its MAX 7 and MAX 10 airplanes which was imposed by Congress in 2020 after two fatal 737 MAX crashes killed 346 people in Indonesia and Ethiopia.

Congressional leaders attached the extension to a bill to fund U.S. government operations and to require new safety enhancements for existing MAX aircraft proposed by U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell, chair of the Senate Commerce Committee, according to the text made public early on Tuesday.

Reuters first reported the plan on Monday.

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(Reuters) – Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Vershinin said that more than 60 Russian “hostages” are serving prison sentences in the U.S., Russian state-owned news agency RIA reported on Tuesday.

In excerpts from an interview with RIA, Vershinin said: “The total number of Russian citizens, who have been in effect taken hostage, exceeds 60.”

Vershinin provided no evidence that the Russians’ sentences were politically motivated or otherwise unfair.

Earlier this month, the United States released convicted Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, who had been serving a 25-year sentence in a prisoner swap for Brittney Griner, an American basketball star jailed in Russia for drug offences.

U.S. media have reported that Russia refused to include Paul Whelan, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran convicted of espionage in 2020, in the exchange.

Ukraine’s military said Russia had pulled some troops from towns on the opposite bank of the Dnipro River from Kherson city, the first official Ukrainian report of a Russian withdrawal on what is now the main front line in the south..

* Spain has stepped up security at public and diplomatic buildings after a spate of letter bombs, including one sent to Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and another to the Ukrainian embassy in Madrid, where an official suffered minor injuries.

* Air raid alerts were issued across all of Ukraine following warnings by Ukrainian officials that Russia was preparing a new wave of missile and drone strikes. “An overall air raid alert is in place in Ukraine. Go to shelters,” country’s border service wrote on Telegram messaging app.

* Ukraine’s military said it had found fragments of Russian-fired nuclear-capable missiles with dud warheads in west Ukraine, and that their apparent purpose was to distract air defences.

* The recently liberated Ukrainian city of Kherson has lost its power supply after heavy shelling by Russian forces, the regional governor said.

* European Union governments tentatively agreed on a $60 a barrel price cap on Russian seaborne oil, with an adjustment mechanism to keep the cap at 5% below the market price, an EU diplomat said.

* Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on that big problems had accumulated in the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), accusing the West of spurning the chance to make it a real bridge with Russia after the Cold War.

* Lavrov said that discussions with Washington about potential prisoner exchanges were being conducted by the two countries’ intelligence services, and that he hoped they would be successful.

* The European Union needs patience as it sanctions Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, as most measures will only have an impact in the medium and long term, Lithuania’s prime minister said in an interview at  the  Reuters NEXT conference.

* Switzerland has frozen financial assets worth 7.5 billion Swiss francs ($7.94 billion) as of Nov. 25 under sanctions against Russians to punish Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine, the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) said.

* Russia said the German parliament’s move to recognise the 1932-33 famine in Ukraine as a Soviet-imposed genocide was an anti-Russian provocation and an attempt by Germany to whitewash its Nazi past.

* Ukraine sacked a top engineer at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, accusing him of collaborating with Russian forces, and urged other Ukrainian staff at the plant to remain loyal to Kyiv.

* Russia must withdraw its heavy weapons and military personnel from the Zaporizhzhia plant if the U.N. atomic watchdog’s efforts to create a protection zone are to succeed, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said.

* In a grim sign of the energy crisis caused by Russian attacks on Ukraine’s electricity grid, nine people have been killed in fires over the past 24 hours as Ukrainians resorted to emergency generators, candles and gas cylinders in violation of safety rules to try to heat their homes after power outages.

* “Remember one thing – the Russians are afraid. And they are very cold and no one will help them, because they do not have popular support,” – Andriy Yermak, chief of Ukrainian presidential staff.

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A $1.7 trillion government-wide funding bill for the fiscal year ending on Sept. 30, 2023, was unveiled on Monday, as Congress races against a midnight Friday deadline when current stop-gap money expires.

The bill includes $44.9 billion in new emergency aid for Ukraine and NATO allies.

Elon Musk has instituted sweeping changes at Twitter since buying over Twitter for $44 billion.

Susan Walsh/AP

• Twitter users on Monday voted in a public poll to oust Elon Musk as the social media company’s CEO.
• Following that, Musk said henceforth only paying Twitter Blue subscribers will be able to vote on policy-related matters.
• He  was responding to a suggestion that only paid members should be allowed to vote in such polls.

Hours after a public poll on Twitter voted to oust Elon Musk as the CEO of the company, he said only paying subscribers — that’s Twitter Blue members — will be able to vote on policy-related matters.

The Twitter CEO was responding to a Blue member‘s suggestion that only paying members should be allowed to vote in policy-related polls because “we actually have skin in the game.”

“Twitter will make that change,” Musk tweeted on Monday.

—Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 19, 2022

Twitter Blue is a paid subscription service that charges users for a blue checkmark next to their account names and offers early access to certain features. The program costs $8 a month for web users in the US and is one of Musk’s strategy to monetize the platform — which he said was losing $4 million a day. 

Over 10 million, or 57.5% of 17.5 million Twitter users who participated in the poll voted for Musk to step down as the CEO. 

“Should I step down as head of Twitter? I will abide by the results of this poll,” Musk had tweeted on Sunday while posting the poll.

—Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 18, 2022

 

Musk’s roller-coaster leadership of Twitter

Since acquiring Twitter for $44 billion in late October, Musk has instituted sweeping changes at the company — including mass layoffs and reinstating the account of former President Donald Trump after taking a poll.

The last week has been especially tumultuous for Twitter users after a series of snap changes at the platform.

Last Wednesday, Twitter suspended accounts that tracked private jets — including Musk’s own private plane — using publicly available information. Musk cited safety concerns behind the move.

On Friday, Twitter suspended the accounts of several journalists, after Musk accused them of doxxing him. Some of the accounts have since been reinstated. 

Twitter also announced last week users would no longer be able to promote their accounts on other social media platforms — although it has since removed the page that detailed the policy.

On Monday, the Twitter Safety team polled users on whether it should have a policy that prevents “the creation of or use of existing accounts for the main purpose of advertising other social media platforms.”

Twitter did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment sent outside regular business hours.