also in our world lead today, troubling new signs that north korean dictator, kim jong-un, may have restarted his country s efforts to make a nuclear bomb. let s go to cnn pentagon correspondent, barbara starr. experts are saying they re seeing new activity at north korea s nuclear testing site? that s right, jake. intelligence services are seeing indications. u.s. officials telling us they see indications of construction activity, digging at the underground test site in the northern part of the country where in the past north korea has conducted underground nuclear tests. now, their last test was in 2017, and you ll remember the next year in 2018, they invited the world press to watch them blow up the site as part of president trump s now failed denuclearization initiative.
u u.s. ally japan. president trump warned kim jong-un once again that all options are on the table. let s go to cnn pentagon correspondent barbara starr. barbara, we always go down this path here. how realistic are the military options, and is the military response any more likely today in response to this missile launch than it was a week ago, a month ago? reporter: not that we re seeing so far, jim. the reaction by the state department and the pentagon are diplomatic options. that said, that doesn t seem to be moving the ball here, and with this flyover to japan and al qaeda island, the president says all options are on the table, but what we re seeing is a show of force. it is the south koreans that responded quickly this time, flying their own fighter jets, dropping bombs on a range in south korea, making a show of force that they say demonstrates they can take out the north korean regime. they are messaging very heavily,
middle east where hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians are potentially caught in the cross-hairs of isis 350,000 people in a syrian city are currently under siege from the terrorists according to a human rights group. but if you hop across the border to iraq you can see progress against these brutal terrorists. overnight the iraqi military and shia militias liberated a town on the outskirts of tikrit. the fighters there are taking on isis and they look stronger and better prepared than we have seen in quite some time. the opposite of the overmatched soldiers who tucked tail and ran away from isis last summer. a possible reason why is most of them are not iraqi military. they are shia militias and they are being commanded by iranian generals. let s go to cnn pentagon correspondent barbara starr. is the pentagon concerned about this change in the makeup of who is leading this war against isis in iraq? reporter: well jake the
new york city too. let s talk about that nationally. president obama addressing the doj report said he doesn t think what happened in ferguson is typical, but he also said it s also not isolated. how prevalent do you think it is institutional racism in police departments? it s absolutely prevalent. institutional racism permeates just about every system that we have in this country but especially is it clear in the criminal justice system and especially in the police community relationship. we have seen many many examples of officers who act on bias and racism from the position of power on citizens who have no power to respond. the president of my academy class when i graduated police academy, afterward some years later in 2008 when president obama was elected, sent out an e-mail that said he can t believe he lives in a nation full of n-lovers. he said the actual word in his e-mail and accidentally hit send on it to people who weren t supposed to receive it but he policed in black c
u.s. isn t sending in troops to combat positions, shouldn t we be grateful that somebody s doing it? i don t know if grateful s the word i would use. this is the organization that murdered people americans, backed hezbollah to murder americans in lebanon 30 years ago. the point is you asked the right question. what s the reality here. the reality is if we leave this situation in a shia-led government run by a shia administration looks across the border and says there s somebody that s not only going to provide weaponry they will provide expertise on the front lines, not a surprise about what you get at the end here. that is iranians in the battlefield which is what we just saw. let s talk about the other battlefield, cyber. a new study mapped out the isis presence over social media. anywhere from 46,000 to 70,000 accounts supporting isis terrorists. what do you do? not much you can do. to me this is so striking because when i started in the world of terrorism decades ago, the cau