 Hello and welcome to Newsweek. A quick update on North Korea and the US sanctions or the United Nations sanctions which have been imposed on Korea again. North Korea recently fired a missile and that missile went over Hokkaido and from its range it is clear that it can reach Guam. The second missile test which has gone over Hokkaido, there is a lot of criticism of North Korea that you know why are they sending missiles which overfly Japan. The problem that North Korea has that given the kind of coastline it has and the way it is surrounded by Japanese islands, it's very difficult for it to fire in any direction except either over Japan or send it towards Guam. Now sending over towards Guam even if it's a short flight it doesn't go the full distance would be rather dangerous at the moment and the United States could perhaps consider it an attack on Guam and retaliate. Therefore for them the lesser of the options is to really overfly Hokkaido and it's a small northern tip of Hokkaido that overfly when they do this missile test. It's clear the latest missile test has shown that North Korea can certainly reach Guam and that is within its missile reach. With the hydrogen bomb test it's also quite possible they have been able to miniaturize their bombs and therefore they are quite capable of mounting it within the missiles that they are now testing. It's possible that the other missiles that they have tested earlier which seem to have the range to reach the United States shores that could also be armed with nuclear bombs and therefore could reach United States. The response of the United States has been this time to focus on the Security Council. Security Council resolution has been to impose further sanctions on North Korea. The problem that the world faces is unless United States recognizes that without getting into negotiations with North Korea there is really no chance of these kind of sanctions being able to create what they think is a desirable outcome which is a disarmament of North Korea. North Korea clearly sees the US as a country which is not in favor of North Korean government continuing. It believes that it is a target of regime change and quite conceivably after the kind of vitriol that has been fought against them starting from calling them a part of axis of evil to what Trump has recently said. It's very difficult for North Korea to see that it is not facing an existential challenge. Given an existential challenge which is what North Korea thinks it is facing it's very unlikely the sanctions will work unless there is also a move towards negotiations. Both China and Russia have asked that along with sanctions there should also be negotiations but at the moment United States is asking for a unilateral surrender of North Korea and that is unlikely to succeed. So I think taking all of these taken together means continuing crisis in North Korea. Hopefully both sides are backing off from the edge of war which appeared might be there about two weeks back North Korea threatening Guam and United States threatening outright attack on North Korea. So let's see where it goes. It's also the interest of South Korea and Japan to work out a peaceful transition for North Korea's program and also a peaceful transition of the Korean Peninsula. In the case of any war it's obvious that South Korea and Japan would be as much damaged as North Korea would be. So given this I think it's important that all the countries come back to the negotiating table and continue with what was the six party negotiations which it started about 10 years back which United States really abandoned. I think the stages come for the world to pressurize all of them to come to the negotiating table and start the negotiations again. Last but not the least is I think also the time has come for the world to recognize that nuclear weapons if they are not something which North Korea should have. It's also nuclear weapons is not something any country should have and the global nuclear disarmament should be back on the agenda not simply what is called non-proliferation. Non-proliferation is an agenda is some states have the right to keep nuclear weapons and not others and it is increasingly seeing its breach more and more countries coming up with proliferation quote unquote proliferation agenda. The root of it is this nuclear asymmetry that some countries are safe with nuclear weapons and others are not. I think that is something that we need to re-examine again including countries like India which have embarked on the nuclear weapons part as well. Thank you.