Six years his junior, the sprightly 75-year-old nun has watched from abroad as her cousin transforms from the “shy” kid she grew up with in Buenos Aires to a global figurehead, unafraid to speak his mind and wade into treacherous political waters.

That boldness will be tested next week when the pontiff visits first Myanmar and then Bangladesh — countries reeling from a Rohingya refugee exodus sparked by ethnic and religious hatreds.

While the pontiff will not have time for a face-to-face reunion, Sister Ana Rosa will be closely watching her pen pal from her home in Thailand, where she first arrived as a Salesian missionary more than 50 years ago.

“He is coming for the Myanmar people, not for us,” the fluent Thai-speaker said from the schoolyard in Nakhon Pathom, where pupils buzz around her white robes and playfully grab onto her cross as she passes through the lunch area.

“It is the right time for him to come to Asia. These two places, Myanmar and Bangladesh, they are in conflict….he sees the need to encourage people, to build a bridge of peace.”

The cousins, whose grandfathers were brothers, have not seen each other in three years but exchange letters funnelled through the Vatican Embassy in Bangkok.

“I keep everything,” Sister Ana Rosa said as she pulled out an envelope of notes from the pontiff — written in tight, miniscule black script and signed with a simple “Francisco”.

As for the political sensitivities hanging over his Myanmar trip, the nun says her cousin is “not afraid at all”.

The Pope has been outspoken about his sympathy for the Muslim Rohingya — a stance that could trigger protests in mainly Buddhist Myanmar where the minority is vilified.

“He is not afraid of saying ‘you should look after these people’,” she told AFP, saying she expected him to talk tough with Myanmar’s government leaders over their treatment of the persecuted Muslim minority.

As for his interlocutors: “They cannot be the same after meeting him.”

‘Shy and reserved’

That wasn’t always the case.

She chuckles as she recalls Francis, born Jorge Mario Bergoglio, as a younger priest who didn’t always have such a silver tongue.

“Listening to him I thought, he was so boring,” she said of a mass he gave back in the 1990s.

Sister Ana Rosa now turns to his sermons as a source of solace, tracking his every move across the world stage.

“His words are really profound, and practical.”

Francis’ trademark smile is also a new development, she explains.

“He was very shy person, reserved. He didn’t smile before. Now he smiles a lot. He likes to be with people.”

The other nuns at her school in Nakhon Pathom province often grab onto Sister Ana’s wrists, just to feel closer His Eminence.

But she says it is still strange to see Francis as anything other than her big cousin.

Their last chat in the Vatican several years ago was friendly and familiar, she said, spanning family affairs and their shared line of work.

“I thought to myself — I’m talking to the pope?” she said with a hearty laugh.

Japanese and American forces scrambled to reach the downed C2-A “Greyhound” aircraft in waters off the remote uninhabited Japanese reef of Okinotori.

The US Navy said the rescued personnel were transferred to USS Ronald Reagan for medical evaluation and were in good condition.

“Search and rescue efforts for three personnel continue with US Navy and Japan Maritime Self-Defence Force ships and aircraft on scene,” the US Navy said in a statement, adding that the incident will be investigated.

US President Donald Trump tweeted: “The @USNavy is conducting search and rescue following aircraft crash. We are monitoring the situation. Prayers for all involved.”

The search was ongoing as of about 12 hours after the crash. US authorities told Japan that engine trouble was the suspected cause of the accident.

“The aircraft was conducting a routine transport flight carrying passengers and cargo from Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni to USS Ronald Reagan,” the statement said.

The C2-A is a re-supply workhorse for US aircraft carriers, routinely ferrying cargo, mail and people onto and off the globally deployed vessels.

With backward-facing seats, the planes are known for their short and jarring landings and fast, catapulted takeoffs aboard the huge ships.

The aircraft carrier was in the Philippine Sea as part of an exercise with Japanese forces.

In Tokyo, Defence Minister Itsunori Onodera said a joint operation had been launched to look for the missing three.

“Currently a search-and-rescue mission is being conducted in the area by the US side as well as the Japan Maritime Self Defence Force,” he told reporters.

“From the US military, we have received an initial report that engine trouble might be the cause,” he said.

US Chief of Naval Operations Admiral John Richardson said the rescued personnel were “safe and sound”.

– Previous incidents –

The US military has a heavy presence in the western Pacific, with tens of thousands of troops and billions of dollars’ worth of hardware stationed throughout Japan and South Korea.

But recent months have taken their toll on the Seventh Fleet, which is headquartered at Yokotsuka, near Tokyo, and US military vessels have been involved in a number of accidents.

The USS John S. McCain collided with a tanker off Singapore in August, killing 10 sailors and injuring five others.

Two months earlier in June, the USS Fitzgerald and a cargo ship smashed into each other off Japan, leaving seven sailors dead.

There were also two more, lesser-known incidents. In January USS Antietam ran aground near its base in Japan, and in May, USS Lake Champlain collided with a South Korean fishing vessel.

The nuclear-powered Reagan is one of 10 Nimitz class supercarriers, which the US Navy describes as the largest warships in the world. The Reagan has a crew of 4,225 and is 333 metres (1,092 feet) long.

Last week it was one of three American aircraft carriers that held rare joint drills in the region, joined separately by Japanese navy and South Korean warships over the weekend.

The drills come as tensions persist between Washington and North Korea over its missile and nuclear programme.

There are new birds at the Jurong Bird Park and they have come a long way from home. The Brazilian natives – the Spix’s macaw and the Lear’s macaw – are members of the blue macaw family and facing the threat of extinction.

But the Singapore park is doing its part to help conserve these blue-feathered creatures.

Last year, the park signed a memorandum of understanding with five other conservation institutions to conserve the Spix’s macaw – which is most at risk of extinction of all the existing blue macaw species – by establishing a breeding-and-release facility in Brazil.

The park has also committed funding over five years for the Spix’s macaw reintroduction project at a site in Curaca, Brazil.

“The funds go towards the development of a secure facility that will comprise a veterinary hospital, a number of breeding-and-release aviaries, and will also go into supporting the running of the facility once it is built,” said a spokesman.

From next Wednesday, visitors to Jurong Bird Park will get to learn more about this conservation effort when its new Parrot Paradise exhibit opens.

With their arrival, Jurong Bird Park has become the only zoological park in the world where visitors can see all three existing species of the blue macaw family.

The glaucous macaw – the last member of the blue macaw family – is believed to be extinct.

The Lear’s and hyacinth macaws have feathers in similar shades of bright blue, although their yellow eye patches are of different shapes.

The Spix’s macaw, on the other hand, is cloaked in feathers of a dusty blue hue.

Jurong Bird Park received a Spix’s macaw and two Lear’s macaws from Al Wabra Wildlife Preservation in Qatar, and the same from the Germany-based Association for the Conservation of Threatened Parrots.

In the wild, however, the Lear’s and Spix’s macaws can be found only in Brazil, while the hyacinth macaws can be found only in three countries in South America.

The Lear’s and Spix’s macaws are here in Singapore on a 10-year loan, and are making their debut in Jurong Bird Park as part of the golden jubilee of diplomatic relations between Brazil and Singapore.

They will be moved to Mandai when the bird park is relocated there by 2021, to join the other wildlife parks, including the Singapore Zoo.

To prepare for their arrival, the Jurong Bird Park in July sent two animal care staff to the Association for the Conservation of Threatened Parrots to learn about the care and husbandry of the blue macaws.

Refurbishment works for the new Parrot Paradise exhibit also started in August this year.

But even as the birds are welcomed in Singapore to much fanfare, their very existence is threatened in the wild, due to factors such as habitat loss and poaching.

For one thing, parrots mate for life, and produce small clutches of one to three eggs each time, said Ms Angelin Lim, assistant curator at the Jurong Bird Park and one of two trained handlers of the blue macaws.

“They also do not build nests, but make homes out of holes in the trees. That is another reason why the loss of natural habitats could affect them negatively.”

The Spix’s macaw, which inspired the Rio movie series, depends on specific trees to nest and roost. So when natural groves of Tabebuia caraiba were cleared in Brazil’s arid north, it drove the species to the brink of extinction.

The Spix’s macaw is now believed to be extinct in the wild, with about 150 of them left under human care in the world.

Lear’s macaws, on the other hand, are dependent on the seed of licuri palm trees, and roost and nest in the sandstone cliffs in Bahia, Brazil. The loss of habitat affects their main source of food – the licuri palm trees.

Similarly, the hyacinth macaw is naturally found in savannah-like habitats and feeds on specific palms found only in the area.

The Lear’s macaws are here in Singapore as part of a conservation breeding programme.

The two female Spix’s macaws on display, however, are here as “conservation ambassadors” to highlight how poaching and the illegal pet trade could decimate a species. Eggs and chicks of the Lear’s macaw, for example, are often poached and sent as pets to Europe and Asia.

“The birds are conservation ambassadors, which help to bridge conservation institutions with members of the public, who may otherwise not have much exposure to the birds or their threats,” said Dr Jessica Lee, conservation and research manager at Wildlife Reserves Singapore, which runs Jurong Bird Park.

Mr Cromwell Purchase, director and blue macaw co-ordinator from the Al Wabra Wildlife Preservation, said Jurong Bird Park is one of the larger wildlife parks in the world dedicated to birds.

“Having the Spix’s macaws in Singapore as conservation ambassadors will help to increase public awareness of the efforts and steps being taken to bring them back from the brink of extinction.”

Monetising it, meanwhile, is another thing entirely.

In recent years, a new crop of Cambodian virtual dating agencies have sprouted to pair up lovelorn singles, and operators are confident that demand for the services exists. But in a market rife with free competitors, local entrepreneurs are still trying to find the right chemistry to make the business sustainable.

Social media is riddled with pages offering matchmaking and dating services that have either gone belly-up or never quite got off the ground at all.

According to Beth Ceaorn, who manages the iDatingCambodia Facebook page, the majority of similar pages were initially created by entrepreneurs in an attempt to gauge local interest in the fledgling matchmaking businesses.

“This is called a trial period,” he said, noting that his venture was similarly testing the waters, and has yet to finalise a revenue making strategy.

“I now have my own Facebook page, but do not yet have a website. We are hoping interest will be high enough for us to launch sometime next month.”

The page for iDatingCambodia promises basic matchmaking services, along with speed dating events and relationship advice. For potential users interested in joining the service, a signup button is situated in the top right corner of the page, but nowhere is it made clear that services are not yet available.

“Our website will be free for users. But we will charge for additional services,” Ceaorn said, adding that he hopes the venture will become profitable sometime in the next two years.

Ad dealsBut if past efforts’ experience is any indication, success is far from certain. A former operator of a site called KhmerFriendly, who declined to be named, has stopped pursuing a profit model for the business and now allows the website to run for free, claiming that the venture was not able to generate revenue.

Most businesses in the online dating world chase profits by selling other datingrelated services, but some have had marginal success by securing advertising deals.

David Wilkie, who established the Chatterbox Dating Mobile application in 2011 to connect rural singles, said that the app was initially able to make a profit through revenuesharing partnerships with local telecom operators. This worked for a time, with Chatterbox getting a cut of the revenue from the data users burned while using the app, but as the price of data fell, the cut got increasingly small.

“This worked in the beginning, but it was difficult for us to get the operators to update their pricing model to a subscription based service,” he said in an email.

“Once mobile data became cheaper and more mainstream, the service was just too expensive to [keep up] in the end.”

Ultimately, Chatterbox’s dating service failed, and the company pivoted to using the same app’s opensource technology software to find humanitarian solutions with backing from the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef).

Meet Mister MatchWhile online dating platforms are relatively new to the Kingdom, a handful of traditional dating services have been active and profitable for years. Hash Veasna, better known as Mister Match, began offering more traditional offline dating consulting services in 2007 and claims to be the first certified matchmaker in Cambodia.

In a recent interview, he proudly held up his certificate from the New Yorkbased Matchmaking Institute and explained how his career in finance abruptly shifted to one in the love industry.

“I was getting older and didn’t want to find love by myself, and I thought, I just want to give someone a resume and have them find my love match for me,” he said. “So I established my consulting agency.”

Noticing the growth of online sites, Veasna has recently reorganised his business according to an increasingly virtual model.

“I tell people that this is not different from an arranged marriage – it is just another tool to find the right match,” he said.

Be a VIPThere are five services available on Veasna’s website, DaiKouChivit, which means “life partner”. The first, which provides only a basic free digital profile, was only recently launched and already has 9,000 registered users.

“I think it is good to have online dating – you can find love under your blanket,” Veasna said. “Many people using this free service choose to upgrade, and I interview each person who is interested in joining our VIP group.”

The VIP group, currently stocked with about 200 singles, costs about $30 annually, and is where Veasna hopes the real revenue will start to trickle in. Members are required to post exhaustive resumes that cover not only education and work experience, but also achievements, annual income and a list of foreign countries visited.

DaiKouChivit also promotes speed dating services conducted online or at mixer events, which are routinely stocked with 60 eligible bachelors and bachelorettes, each paying $100 per session.

For those especially thirsty for love, the company also offers a “secret” package that provides anonymity and costs $200 per arranged date. With this service, Veasna personally reviews resumes, inquires about desired physical traits and conducts a financial background check.

“I interview all of these confidential clients, take notes and set them up with who I think best suits them,” he said.

It’s good to have a day jobFor an unlimited number of arranged dates, clients can pay $500 or a month’s salary, whichever is higher, in their quest to find a match.

Though Veasna declined to offer detailed financials, he said DaiKouChivit is currently profitable – sometimes. While the site earns several hundred in profits some months, he says, in others slow business forces him to take back up his sideline as a translator.

While Veasna is still unmarried himself, some of his clients have had better luck, despite their initial hesitation to use matchmaking services.

Toch Chariya was one such client who was reluctant to try the online dating service.

“I thought it might be bad to sign up for dating services because it goes against Cambodian culture, but I did it because I was too busy to find a husband,” she said. “I met a man [on an arranged date] who lived close to my work, and we liked each other.

“We’re both not very young anymore so we thought it was about time,” she added. She said she will be getting married on December 1.

Mount Agung belched smoke as high as 700 metres (2,300 feet) above its summit late Tuesday afternoon, sparking an exodus from the settlements near the mountain.

Nearly 1,600 people died when Mt. Agung last erupted in 1963.

It stirred to life again in September, prompting about 140,000 people to leave the area. Many returned home after the volcano’s activity waned, but thousands are now fleeing again.

Some 30,000 people remain displaced, officials said.

“There are 13 of us and we’re afraid. Our neighbours have also fled,” said Nyoman Sadi, a local resident who said she was leaving with her family.

Disaster officials have warned that fresh activity at Mt. Agung could see it blow its top.

But the head of Indonesia’s volcanology centre urged people to remain calm and said the mountain’s alert level has not yet been raised.

“Yesterday there was smoke and steam as high as 700 metres, and last night there were tremors for quite a while — around three hours,” Kasbani, who like many Indonesians goes by one name, told AFP on Wednesday.

“The mountain continues to spew smoke, but there hasn’t been any big eruption so far.”

Mt. Agung lies some 75 kilometres (45 miles) from Bali’s tourist areas, which attract millions of tourists every year.

Flights have not been affected so far, but officials have estimated that concerns about an eruption over the past few months have cost the island at least $110 million in lost tourism and productivity as many locals moved to shelters.

Indonesia lies on the Pacific “Ring of Fire”, where tectonic plates collide, causing frequent volcanic and seismic activities.

In 2010, Mount Merapi on the island of Java — considered one of the most active and dangerous volcanoes in the world — erupted after rumbling since 2006, killing more than 300 people and forcing 280,000 to flee.

Mount Sinabung on Sumatra island — which is currently at its highest alert level — has been active since 2013.

He said the centre in Kuala Kangsar and the existing Counter-Messaging Centre could complement the work of the King Salman Centre For International Peace in enhancing the nation’s role in countering terrorism and extremism at the international level.

“Besides the military aspect, the centre will also focus on academic elements with the main role of combating terrorist threats and the spread of extremist and terrorist propaganda and ideologies.Whatever intellectual discourse that are generated can lead us to solutions that can be shared with the world,” he told reporters after closing the 4th World Conference on Islamic Thought and Civilisation (WCIT) here yesterday.

“The purpose of the centre is to monitor social media for any suspicious activities and information related to the Islamic State, whether it is perpetrated by Malaysians, foreign fighters or extremist organisations in the country. The centre’s purpose is for that alone and not to tamper with anyone’s personal data or information,” he added.

At another function here, Dr Ahmad Zahid pledged to bring up to the Cabinet the issue of standardising the grades of headmasters and senior assistants at primary and secondary schools.

He was responding to Perak Headmasters Council president Rustam Affandy Abdul Aziz, who said that there was a big gap in allowances paid to a headmaster and senior assistant of a secondary school compared to those at the primary level.

He said a teacher made a senior assistant at primary school still received a RM60 monthly allowance.

“But when a teacher is appointed senior assistant at a secondary school, the grade changes from DG44 to DG48 with a RM120 allowance,” he said at the close of the 30th Perak Headmasters Confe­rence.

The defector, who ran across the border at the Panmunjom truce village on November 13, was shot at least four times and has been recovering in a South Korean hospital.

The footage released by the US-led United Nations Command (UNC) showed one soldier pursuing him across the military demarcation line (MDL) for several meters, before hesitating and turning back to the North.

The badly injured defector was then pulled to safety by three South Korean soldiers who crawled to reach him just south of the dividing line.

It is very rare for the North’s troops to defect at Panmunjom, a major tourist attraction and the only part of the border where forces from the two sides come face-to-face.

The footage began by showing the defector’s vehicle travelling at speed along an empty road leading to the truce village before stopping near the heavily armed border.

He then got out of the jeep and ran, pursued by North Korean soldiers with their weapons drawn and firing.

UNC spokesman Colonel Chad Carroll told journalists that the footage showed one of the border guards “run across the MDL a few seconds before returning back to the north side of Panmunjom”.

The UNC has “requested a meeting to discuss our investigation and measures to prevent future such violations,” he added of the incursion which contravenes a 1953 armistice agreement.

The UNC has conducted a “thorough” investigation of the incident, he said.

“The key findings of the special investigation team are that the KPA (North Korean army) violated the armistice agreement by 1) by firing weapons across the MDL and 2) by actually crossing the MDL temporarily,” he added.

Thai Extra-Territorial Obligations Working Group and Chulalongkorn University held a forum yesterday to determine measures to develop good governance for transboundary investments for sustainable development in the Mekong River region spanning multiple countries.

Many direct investments by Thai investors have been found to ignore good governance and violate human rights.

The forum concluded that individual states could not force investors to follow principles of good governance, so there should be international measures to control transboundary investments alongside strong participation from the public sector and class-action lawsuits if companies negatively affect local people and the environment.

Apichai Sanchindah, former director of the Asean Foundation, suggested that issues affecting local people and the environment due to direct investments in the Mekong River region was a very big issue. He compared the issue as similar to the problem of transboundary haze and the conflict in the South China Sea.

Apichai added that Asean had issued declarations regarding transboundary haze and the South China Sea, so the issue of investment projects in the Mekong River region should also be discussed at the same level.

He added that there should be an international obligation at the regional level to force investors to follow good governance principles and protect local people from the impacts of various development projects.

“Despite that cooperation at the Asean level is based on the consensus of each member state, it is better to have a regional agreement to control investment in the region,” he said.

He also suggested that people who faced impacts from the transboundary investments should jointly file class-action lawsuits against companies in the courts of the companies’ origin, following the example of Australia, as fishermen in Indonesia filed a lawsuit against an Australian company for a major oil spill from Montara oil ridge.

Project Sevana coordinator Premrudee Daoroung agreed with the idea, adding that many big Thai conglomerates that invest in many countries have transformed to become international conglomerates and have larger influence and power than the government, so the individual states could not control their operations.

“We need cooperation at the regional level to control and enforce good governance of these investments together with a strong public sector movement to fight the influence of these conglomerates. We should start with strengthening the power of local people,” Premrudee said.

Niwat Roikaew, chairman of the Rak Chiang Khong Group, also said the past record of investment showed that people’s movements had been left out of the development of their regions. Moreover, local people faced difficulties getting information about development projects.

Niwat urged that local people should be included in project monitoring and decision-making, as they could not rely on governments or international organisations such as the Mekong River Commission to ensure the protection of people’s rights.

The success that officials and residents have enjoyed in curbing waste in the waters of the Phang Nga park will be outlined at the Asean and China Sea Waste Reduction Meeting to be held in Phuket on Wednesday and Thursday (November 22-23).

A 2010 survey of 192 countries cited in a 2015 issue of a US-based science journal named Thailand as the world’s sixth-largest contributor of plastic waste in the sea, accounting for 1.03 million tonnes.

But Department of Marine and Coastal Resources chief Jatuporn Burutpat points out the success achieved in Ao Phang Nga National Park, which covers seven tambon administrative organisations and one municipality.

The park is an example of cooperative efforts to reduce the amount of garbage in the sea, based on a model designed by Thon Thamrongnawasawat, deputy dean of the Faculty of Fisheries at Kasetsart University.

“About 80 per cent of the sea waste was actually produced on land, while the rest came from activities at sea,” Jatuporn said this week. “Since most of the garbage comes from human activities, the success of such programmes depends on people’s awareness of the problem and their willingness to cooperate.”

Public cooperation in a waste management plan, local authorities handling the collection and removal of trash efficiently, and proper means of disposal are all key factors, Jatuporn said.

The park earns Bt400 billion annually through spending and fees paid by some six million visitors per year.

Thon said his model for a park was part of a national reform strategy. He said there are measures in place to reduce garbage at the origin, such as a ban on plastic within the park and an awareness campaign at 30 local schools, at “midstream” – members of the Koh Panyee community collect trash systematicall so it wouldn’t be spilled onto the sea’s surface – and “downstream”, included removing garbage from canals.

“The focus is on plastic waste, which has the greatest impacts on marine life and corals,” Thon said. “There’s even micro-plastic – broken-down pieces as small as half a millimetre that marine creatures consume.”

Natural Resources and Environment Minister General Surasak Karnjanarat will on Thursday formally launch Pracha Rath Khajad Khaya Thalay, a public-private partnership project to eradicate sea waste, at the Andaman Centre in Muang Phang Nga.

A memorandum of understanding will be signed and bins and garbage-collection equipment will be presented to local officials and volunteers, after which trash will be picked up at five locations around the park.

Trump promised a rapid ramp-up of US Treasury sanctions against the isolated pariah state, after adding its name to a terror blacklist previously led by Iran and Syria.

“Should have happened a long time ago. Should have happened years ago,” Trump declared, citing the death of a US student who had been held in a North Korean jail and the assassination by nerve agent of Kim’s elder brother on foreign soil as reasons for the move.

But, speaking to reporters after the cabinet meeting, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Washington has not given up hope that sanctions and diplomacy can pressure Kim into agreeing to sit down and discuss his nuclear disarmament.

Tillerson said that punitive measures were already having a “significant effect” on Pyongyang’s economy — even if China has yet to cut off oil supplies to its sole refinery — and said: “We still hope for diplomacy.”

‘Maximum pressure campaign’

Both Trump and Kim have previously raised fears of open conflict erupting over the North’s banned nuclear missile program, with both insulting and threatening the other with a devastating military response.

But US officials have also been clear that their main hope is that what Tillerson described as an inexorable increase in economic and diplomatic pressure — backed by China — will force Pyongyang to back down.

“We know that there are current shortages of fuel based upon what we can gather anecdotally and also from certain intelligence sources,” Tillerson said.

“We know that their revenues are down,” he said. “So I think it is having an effect. Is this the reason we haven’t had a provocative act in 60 days?”

North Korea is already under a crushing package of United States and United Nations sanctions, and Monday’s terror designation will not have much immediate economic impact.

But Trump said his declaration would kick off a two-week period of announcements — starting on Tuesday with a “very large” US Treasury sanctions measure — that would eventually amount to a “maximum pressure campaign.”

And US officials see the designation — which was removed by then-president George W. Bush in 2008 — as a way of ratcheting up pressure on other states and foreign banks that may be failing to fully enforce the sanctions already in place.

“In addition to threatening the world by nuclear devastation, North Korea repeatedly supported acts of international terrorism including assassinations on foreign soil,” Trump said.

In February, Kim’s potential rival and elder brother Kim Jong-Nam died after he was sprayed with a nerve agent in Kuala Lumpur airport, in an assassination blamed on Pyongyang.

Tortured in custody?

US officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that other murders have been linked to North Korea, but the State Department said information about them “remains classified.”

“As we take this action today, our thoughts turn to Otto Warmbier,” Trump continued, underlining the legal case for the designation.

Warmbier died this year aged 22 after he was repatriated from detention in North Korea in a coma. US officials allege he was tortured in custody.

The White House has declared it will not tolerate Kim’s regime testing or deploying an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead to US cities.

Experts believe Pyongyang is within months of such a threshold, having carried out six nuclear tests since 2006 and test-fired several types of missiles, including multi-stage rockets.

Kim’s government insists that, in spite of international sanctions to develop a capability it believes is essential to defending itself from the threat of US and South Korean invasion.

Washington is also pressuring the North’s key trade partner and traditional ally China to turn up the sanctions pressure and force Kim to come to the table to discuss his disarmament.

Japan said it “welcomes and supports” the US move to relist Pyongyang as a state sponsor of terrorism, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told reporters Tuesday.

US officials would not say what new sanctions might be announced, but an expert predicted secondary measures against Chinese banks, and an Asian diplomat said there could be action against individual North Korean traders working in China.

The diplomat said that Washington would like to impose a total oil embargo on the North but China is not yet ready to accept a move that could cause Kim’s regime to topple, thereby unleashing chaos on its border.

Tillerson said Washington’s message to China was: “You control the pipeline that feeds their refinery. You know, you can do that unilaterally if you want to increase that pressure.”