FOREIGN POLICY/MIKE PENCE/NATIONAL SECURITY/NORTH KOREA/NUCLEAR: “Vice President Mike Pence will leave Washington on Saturday for an 11-day trip overseas with his first stop in South Korea as North Korea appears to prepare for another nuclear test.
White House officials said Pence’s trip is intended to reinforce that the U.S. is fully committed to its security alliances, especially in the face of North Korea’s nuclear threat, to facilitate economic engagement and reinforce that it’s fully committed to partnerships with key countries.
His trip comes as new satellite images show that North Korea may be preparing to conduct its sixth nuclear test, reports CBS News’ Ben Tracy. The country is ‘primed and ready,’ a U.S.-based watchdog group says, after it analyzed telltale signs of activity at the remote underground test site.
In an interview with Tracy, North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Han Song Ryol accused the Trump administration of wanting to ‘annihilate’ his country and blamed the escalating tension on the Korean Peninsula squarely on the U.S. and South Korea.”
-Rebecca Shabad, “Mike Pence heading to South Korea amid North Korea tensions,” CBS News, April 14, 2017