Asian shares were mostly lower Monday, on investor jitters shaken up by a North Korean nuclear test over the weekend that raised fears about risks to regional stability.
TOKYO (AP) – Asian shares were mostly lower Monday, on investor jitters shaken up by a North Korean nuclear test over the weekend that raised fears about risks to regional stability.
KEEPING SCORE: Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 edged down 0.9 percent to finish at 19,508.25, while Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.4 percent to 5,702.00. South Korea’s Kospi dipped 1.1 percent to 2,332.01. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng slipped 0.8 percent to 27,736.67, but the Shanghai Composite was little changed, inching up 0.1 percent to 3,371.77.
NORTH KOREA: North Korea has said it had tested a hydrogen bomb. U. S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis responded by saying that the U. S. will answer any threat from the North with a “massive military response – a response both effective and overwhelming.” President Donald Trump threatened to halt all trade with countries doing business with the North, a veiled warning to China, and faulted South Korea for its “talk of appeasement.”
THE QUOTE: “Korean tensions are elevated again, ” said Chang Wei Liang, Singapore Treasury Division at Mizuho Bank. “While US Defense Secretary Mattis warned of a ‘massive military response’ if the U. S. or its allies are threatened, risk-off sentiment this morning is not unduly excessive, largely because markets still do not expect any military escalation in the near-term.”
U. S. JOBS: The Labor Department said U. S. employers added 156,000 jobs in August. That was a bit less than analysts expected, but investors were pleased that the economy kept growing at a steady pace while inflation remains weak. They bet that will keep the Federal Reserve from raising interest rates too quickly.
WALL STREET: The Standard & Poor’s 500 index rose 4.90 points, or 0.2 percent, to 2,476.55. The Dow Jones industrial average gained 39.46 points, or 0.2 percent, to 21,987.56. The blue chip index had its first change in more than two years on Friday, as longtime Dow component DuPont combined with former rival Dow Chemical to form DowDuPont. The Nasdaq composite added 6.67 points, or 0.1 percent, to 6,435.33. It was the best week this year for the Nasdaq as technology and health care companies surged. The index is at record highs.
ENERGY: Benchmark U. S. crude gained 4 cents to $47.33 a barrel. It added 6 cents to $47.29 a barrel in New York late Friday. Brent crude, which is used to price international oils, fell 49 cents to $52.26 a barrel in London.
CURRENCIES: The dollar fell to 109.43 yen from 110.04 yen late Friday. The euro slipped to $1.1893 from $1.1907.
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AP Markets Writer Marley Jay contributed to this report.
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South Korea sent a message to the North with a series of live-fire drills Monday that it said were a “show of its willingness” to wipe out Kim Jong Un’s regime.
Jang also said South Korea plans to carry out another strike drill to show its “strong will and ability to respond.”
Here are the latest developments:
— South Korea’s Defense Ministry said it has spotted “continuous signs” that Pyongyang is preparing to test another intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) , Maj. Gen. Jang said.
— Leaders of Japan, South Korea held a 20-minute phone call Monday to discuss tougher sanctions.
— The United Nations Security Council to meet in New York Monday at 10 a.m. ET.
— China said it hadn’t detected any extra radiation from the test along its border.
— US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said he’s drafting tough sanctions against North Korea.
— US Defense Secretary James Mattis said House that any threat to the United States, its allies or its territories “will be met with a massive military response, a response both effective and overwhelming.” He said “we are not looking to the total annihilation of a country, namely North Korea, but as I said, we have many options to do so.”
— Trump took to Twitter after the announcement and said North Korea had become a “great threat and embarrassment to China.” He also warned South Korea their “talk of appeasement with North Korea will not work.”
— Pyongyang on Sunday claimed it has the ability to place a miniaturized nuclear weapon atop a missile with intercontinental capability, making it a direct threat to the United States.
South Korea military drills
The South Korean joint military drill was carried out by the Army and Air Force.
It involved multiple F-15K fighter jets and surface-to-surface ballistic missiles hitting targets off the country’s east coast to simulate a strike on North Korea’s nuclear test site, according to a statement from the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff.
“The joint exercise between the Army and the Air Force was a show of its willingness not only to wipe out the origin of the enemy attack but also the leadership and its supporting groups, ” said Moon Sang-gyun, a spokesman for South Korea’s Defense Ministry.
The drill was announced after Trump’s warning on Twitter to South Korea that “talk of appeasement” won’t work. The phrase invites a comparison to negotiations with Hitler prior to World War II, and was likely not well received by the South Korean government.
President Moon Jae-in’s office responded by reiterating the government would “pursue the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula through peace with our allies.” Moon was elected in May and has long campaigned for more cooperation with Pyongyang.
Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, said he didn’t see the point of calling out South Korea at this time.
“I’m sure that Pyongyang enjoys seeing us fight with our own ally in the region, ” Schiff said. “We need to be working hand in hand with South Korea and with Japan… why we would want to show divisions with South Korea makes no sense at all.”
Neither Washington nor Seoul has said if Moon and Trump have spoken over the phone, though US and South Korean military advisers have been in touch.
US threat on trade partners
In his series of tweets, Trump also called out China, saying that Pyongyang’s actions are a “great threat and embarrassment to China, which is trying to help but with little success.”
Beijing is currently hosting an international economic summit, and experts say the nuclear test could have been timed to coincide with that.
North Korea has timed missile tests this year to coincide with other important Chinese events, pointing to the missile test during the May “One Belt One Road Summit.”
Trump also tweeted that the US was considering cutting off all trade with “any country doing business with North Korea.” That would include China, which is long viewed as North Korea’s only real regional ally and economic lifeline.
Critics worry Trump’s threat could be perceived as an empty one — China is the largest US trading partner in terms of goods, and a trade war could be devastating.
Emergency session
Concerned parties will be watching closely what happens at the United Nations emergency meeting Monday.
It’s the second meeting of its kind in just days — ambassadors met last week to respond to North Korea’s launch of a missile that flew over the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido.
The UN issued a strongly-word statement but stopped short of announcing additional restrictions on top of tougher sanctions passed in early August.
The August sanctions are some of the most stringent to date, and the Trump administration has started punishing companies for doing business with North Korea — so-called “secondary sanctions.”
Sanctions have long been a tactic the international community has employed to punish and isolate Pyongyang, but in many ways they have failed.
The Kim regime developed its weapons and nuclear program despite the international measures designed to cripple the economy and which exacerbated periods of mass starvation.
‘Primed and ready’
North Korea claimed the device tested Sunday was a hydrogen bomb, a much more powerful type of nuclear weapon that uses fusion instead of fission to increase the blast yield, or destructive power. It is also known as a thermonuclear bomb.
While it’s nearly impossible to verify the North Korean claim that the weapon was small enough to be put on a missile, the tremors that followed the blast can help scientists calculate how powerful the explosion was.
NORSAR, a Norway-based group that monitors nuclear tests, estimated it had an explosive yield of 120 kilotons, which means the power of 120,000 tons of TNT. South Korean officials gave a more modest estimate of 50 kilotons.
The country has for years worked on miniaturizing a nuclear warhead so it can be fitted atop a long-range missile and survive the heat-intensive process of re-entering the earth’s atmosphere.
“The fact is the North Koreans have now done sixth nuclear tests … it’s not surprising that they’ve gotten here, ” said Jeffrey Lewis, the director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies.

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South Korea’s defence ministry said in a parliament hearing on Monday it was still seeing signs that North Korea planned to stage more ballistic missile launches.
South Korea’s defense ministry said in a parliament hearing on Monday it was still seeing signs that North Korea planned to stage more ballistic missile launches, possibly including an intercontinental ballistic missile. “We have continued to see signs of possibly more ballistic missile launches. We also forecast North Korea could fire an intercontinental ballistic missile, ” said Chang Kyung-soo, a defense ministry official. The defense ministry was called by parliament on Monday to answer questions about North Korea’s sixth and largest nuclear test that was carried out a day earlier.

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The Sox’s plan was to have their ace pitch in all three August series vs. the Yanks, but it wasn’t enough to keep the division rivals off their heels.
NEW YORK — It was Aug. 3, the day after a rainout at Fenway Park, and Boston Red Sox manager John Farrell was outlining his plans for arranging the starting rotation around an unusually high number of days off in the schedule.
“You look ahead, ” Farrell said, “and there’s three series against New York. Chris [Sale] is mapped out to be in every one of them.”
Farrell might as well have been wearing a pinkie ring, holding a cat on his lap and cackling fiendishly, for this was a plot straight out of the Dr. Evil playbook. The division-leading Red Sox would use one of the days off to give Chris Sale extra rest before an Aug. 8 start at Tampa Bay, then line up their ace to pitch in each of the three series that remained against the New York Yankees, their closest pursuer in the American League East.
Genius, right?
Well, not exactly.
Sale dominated the Yanks for seven innings and took a no-decision in a 10-inning, 3-2 Sox win on Aug. 13 in the Bronx. No shame in that, certainly. But he allowed four runs in seven innings of a 4-3 loss six days later at Fenway. And on Sunday night at Yankee Stadium, he gave up three solo homers — including back-to-back shots for the first time in his career — and lasted only 4⅓ innings in a 9-2 loss that shaved the division lead to 3½ games.
So much for burying the Yankees under an avalanche of Sale fastballs and sliders.
“We’ve got plenty of time left. Now is definitely not the time to panic, ” Sale said. “We know where we’ re at. We know what we need to do.”
Here’s where Sale is at: In his past six starts, including seven shutout innings last Tuesday night in Toronto, he has a 4.57 ERA. He has gotten knocked around twice by both the Yankees and Cleveland Indians, teams that are likely bound for the postseason. Once the clear-cut favorite to win the Cy Young Award, Sale now appears to be in a dead heat with Indians ace Corey Kluber.
And here’s where the Red Sox are at: After getting swept by the red-hot Baltimore Orioles and sweeping the last-place Toronto Blue Jays, they dropped three out of four games to the Yankees. They scored nine runs on 22 hits in the series and went 1-for-27 with runners in scoring position, continuing a season-long trend over 19 games against the Yanks in which they went 20-for-140 (.143) with runners on second or third base.
“It’s probably historic, ” Farrell said, “when you look at it.”
Fortunately for the Red Sox, they won’t have to see more of the Yankees during the regular season. The teams played 10 games in a span of 24 days but won’t face one another again unless they meet in the postseason.
It stands to reason, then, that this series was more important to the Yankees, who played with far greater urgency. Entering Sunday night, the Red Sox had an 87.8 percent chance of winning the AL East, according to FanGraphs, and those odds aren’t likely to change much after one loss.
But if Sale had overwhelmed the Yankees as the Red Sox envisioned when they aligned their rotation last month, the division would be all but wrapped up by now. Instead, the Yankees are still hanging around, just like the concern over whether Sale is fatigued or, even worse, headed for another September struggle.
“Don’t worry about me, ” Sale said. “I’m doing all right.”
But is he? For the second consecutive game against him, the Yankees ran up Sale’s pitch count early, making him throw 24 pitches in the first inning, 22 in the second and 36 in the fourth. They fouled off 26 of the 109 pitches he threw. Chase Headley ‘s third-inning homer came on an 0-2 pitch, only the fifth time that has happened to Sale in his career.
“Hung a breaking ball that Headley hit. Same thing with [Todd Frazier in the fourth inning] , ” Sale said. “Holliday hit a homer on a fastball. Just got to be better than that, especially knowing the ballpark we’re playing in. Just got to be better at executing two-strike pitches than I did tonight.”
Perhaps it was the familiarity of facing the Yankees three times in four weeks that doomed Sale?
“It could be, but at the same time, they’ve got to adjust to me just like I got to adjust to them, ” he said. “They were putting long at-bats together, fouling some pitches off, taking some good pitches. So, it was up to me to make an in-game adjustment, and clearly I didn’t.”
Or maybe the workload is catching up to Sale? After all, he leads the majors in innings (189 2/3) and strikeouts (270) and has thrown at least 100 pitches in all but three of his 27 starts.
“I feel real good, ” Sale said. “We’ve done a lot of things over the course of the year, even dating back to spring training, to get over this hump right here.”
The hump has tended to be larger in September. Since he became a full-time starter in 2012, Sale’s ERA in the last month of the season entering Sunday night was 3.86, nearly a full run higher than his 2.97 career mark.
“He’s set such a high bar for himself, not only this year, but throughout the course of his career and certainly this season, the way he’s pitched, ” Farrell said. “We’ve got a couple of off days that we’ll take advantage of to get him some extra rest.”
The Red Sox will hope that plan with Sale works better than the last one did.

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