Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke speaks during the National Rifle Association's annual meeting in Nashville, Tennessee, in this April 10, 2015 file photo. REUTERS/Harrison McClary/Files

By Brendan O'Brien

MILWAUKEE (Reuters) - David Clarke, the African-American sheriff of Milwaukee County, is a man on a mission - to rebut allegations that U.S. police have been too quick to use deadly force against blacks in a spate of killings from New York to Ferguson, Missouri.

The 38-year law enforcement veteran has become one of the most polarizing black critics of the "Black Lives Matter" movement that grew out of protests against the police killings of unarmed black men, which he describes as anomalies in an otherwise effective criminal justice system.

"My mission right now is defending cops. It's a full-time mission," the 59-year-old, cowboy hat-wearing, sheriff said during a recent interview. "I've got to defend this profession, because no one else is or very few are."

Clarke has taken on the national movement in appearances on Fox News and on Twitter, often calling the group "Black Lies Matter," and labeling its members "subhuman creeps" and calling for the movement's eradication "from American society." His stance has drawn the ire of black activists.

"If there was a white sheriff making those statements, they would have demanded his resignation by now," said Fred Royal, president of the Milwaukee chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

"His remarks have racist overtones to them. He's in total denial of the condition the average citizen in this community is being subjected to," Royal said.

Black Lives Matter contends black Americans are more likely to face violence at the hands of police than their white counterparts. A 2015 study by Britain's Guardian newspaper found that U.S. blacks were killed by police at a rate roughly 2.5 times higher than whites.

Clarke, who joined the Milwaukee Police Department as a patrol officer in 1978 and was appointed county sheriff in 2002, is unmoved by such criticism.

"It's not going to work with me," Clarke said. "I'm on the side of the law-abiding public. I'm on the side of victims of crime."

CONNECTING WITH VOTERS

Clarke's tough-talking stance has resonated with voters both inside Milwaukee, one of the nation's poorest and most segregated cities, and in the more affluent suburbs, which have lower crime rates.

He has won four elections as sheriff with more than 70 percent of the vote in Milwaukee County, where 65 percent of the population is white. In the city, which is 39 percent black and 63 percent minority, he won 80 percent of the vote in 2014.

Clarke has run as a Democrat to the dismay of state Democratic leaders. He declined to say whether he was interested in running for higher office.

"The things that Sheriff Clarke says are not only truthful, but people are shocked to hear it come out of the mouth of a black man," said County Board Supervisor Deanna Alexander, a white supporter of Clarke.

Long before the Black Lives Matter movement rose to prominence, Clarke was known for admonishing residents of Milwaukee's inner city to take responsibility for their lives and take up arms to defend themselves against criminals.

"The heavy lifting has to be done by the individual and not government," Clarke said. "Government does not put enough pressure on people."

While Clarke has strong views regarding the residents of Milwaukee's inner city, his department does not have primary responsibility for policing their streets, a job performed by the city police department. The sheriff's department patrols highways, provides security at the airport and on county land and oversees the county jail system.

That fact is not lost on Clarke's rivals.

"Even though he tries to play one on TV, he is not a street cop," said Angela Walker, a Black Lives Matter member who is black and ran against him in 2014. "He's an administrator."

(Editing by Scott Malone, Ben Klayman and Peter Cooney)

Soldiers of China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy patrol at Woody Island, in the Paracel Archipelago, which is known in China as the Xisha Islands, January 29, 2016. REUTERS/Stringer

By Simon Webb

VIENTIANE (Reuters) - Southeast Asian nations expressed serious concern on Saturday about growing international tension over disputed waters in the South China Sea.

China claims most of the sea but Southeast Asian countries Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei and Vietnam have rival claims. Friction has increased over China's recent deployment of missiles and fighter jets to the disputed Paracel island chain.

"Ministers remained seriously concerned over recent and ongoing developments," the 10-members Association of Southeast Asian Countries (ASEAN) said in a statement after a regular meeting of the group's foreign ministers in Laos.

Land reclamation and escalating activity has increased tensions and could undermine peace, security and stability in the region, ASEAN said in the statement.

The United States has criticized China's building of artificial islands and facilities in the sea and has sailed warships close to disputed territory to assert the right to freedom of navigation.

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Chinese dredging vessels are purportedly seen in the waters around Mischief Reef in the disputed Spr …

On Friday, the United States urged China's President Xi Jinping to prevent the militarization of the region.

Vietnam, which accused China of violating its sovereignty with the missile deployment, echoed the U.S. call on Saturday.

"We call for non-militarization in the South China Sea," Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh told reporters after meeting his ASEAN colleagues.

"We have serious concerns about that," he said, when asked about China's increasing military activity in the region.

The group agreed to seek a meeting between China and ASEAN's foreign ministers to discuss the South China Sea and other issues, Cambodian Minister Hor Namhong said.

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Taiwan Coast Guard patrol ships and helicopters from National Airborne Service Corps are seen during …

China's maritime claims are ASEAN's most contentious issue, as its members struggle to balance mutual support with their growing economic relations with Beijing. China is the biggest trade partner for many ASEAN nations.

Neighbors Vietnam and China compete for influence over landlocked Laos, which has no maritime claims but finds itself in the difficult position of dealing with neighbors at odds over the South China Sea. Laos is tasked with finding common ground on the issue as the ASEAN chair in 2016.

"The South China Sea issue is a headache that Laos would really rather not have to deal with," said one Western diplomat in Vientiane.

Thongloun Sisoulith, Laos Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, played down the challenge.

"We are a close friend of Vietnam and China, we try to solve the problems in a friendly way," he told Reuters on Saturday. "We are in the middle, but it's not a problem."

Barack Obama is set to become the first U.S. president to visit the country in September to attend an annual summit hosted by the ASEAN chair.

(Editing by Catherine Evans)

When it comes to deterring an attack by North Korea or other potential adversaries, the missile is the message, and for the second time this month the United States has launched a Minuteman 3 nuclear missile out over the Pacific.

Like a giant pen stroke in the sky, the unarmed Minuteman 3 roared out of its underground bunker on the California coastline on Thursday, reported The Associated Press, inscribing the signature of American power amid growing worry about North Korea's pursuit of nuclear weapons capable of reaching U.S. soil.

The Minuteman missile, toting a payload of test instruments rather than a nuclear warhead, arced toward its test range in the waters of the Kwajalein Island chain about 2,500 miles southwest of Honolulu.

The missile test, dubbed "Glory Trip 218," was the second this month and the latest in a series designed to confirm the reliability of the Cold War-era missile and all its components. The Minuteman 3, first deployed in 1970, has long exceeded its original 10-year lifespan. It is so old that vital parts are no longer in production.

The Air Force operates 450 Minuteman missiles – 150 at each of three missile fields in Wyoming, Montana and North Dakota. A few times a year, one missile is pulled from its silo and trucked to Vandenberg, minus its nuclear warhead, for a test launch.

Aside from confirming technical soundness, Minuteman test launches are the U.S. military's way of sharpening the message that forms the foundation of U.S. nuclear deterrence theory – that if potential attackers believe U.S. nuclear missiles and bombs are ready for war at all times, then no adversary would dare start a nuclear fight.

The credibility of this message can be damaged by signs of weakness or instability in the nuclear weapons force. In 2013-14 the Associated Press documented morale, training, leadership and equipment problems in the Minuteman force, and in January the Air Force acknowledged to the AP that errors by a maintenance crew damaged an armed Minuteman in May 2014.

Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work said in an interview ahead of Thursday's launch that he sees good progress in fixing the problems in the nuclear missile corps. He also said the Vandenberg test launches are critically important.

"It is a signal to anyone who has nuclear weapons that we are prepared to use nuclear weapons in defense of our country, if necessary," he said.

Air Force officials say the test launches are a morale booster because they give launch crews and others a chance to leave their usual duties and participate in an actual launch. They otherwise do 24-hour shifts, year-round, in underground missile command posts, hoping the call to combat never comes.

Constance Baroudos, a defense analyst at the Lexington Institute think tank, sees great deterrent value in the Minuteman test launches.

"Deterrence basically doesn't work unless the threat is deemed credible," she said. "So every time we test ICBMs we demonstrate not only that the weapons work but also that they are ready to be launched. When those tests are conducted, the Russians, the Chinese and other international actors are watching, and they send a message to a potential aggressor that they not do anything they would regret."

Together, the United States and Russia control the vast majority of the world's nuclear weapons, and both countries regularly conduct ICBM test launches. The Russians generally do them more often, at least in part because they have new missiles in development whereas the Minuteman 3 is the only U.S. ICBM. The U.S. Air Force is planning a new-generation ICBM, but it is not scheduled to begin entering the force until about 2030.

Pavel Podvig, an independent analyst of Russian nuclear forces and publisher of the RussianForces.org blog, said in an interview that Moscow puts less stock in the public messaging aspect of missile test launches than does Washington.

"They (the Russians) do want to make sure the missiles are still functioning," he said, "But the message is as much for themselves as for the outside world."

North Korea, on the other hand, aims for maximum political impact when it conducts missile test launches or detonates a nuclear device, as it did Jan. 6. The potential for North Korea to field a nuclear warhead small enough to fit atop an intercontinental missile is among the worries American officials cite as justification for investing tens of billions of dollars in a new fleet of U.S. ICBMs and other types of nuclear weaponry.

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