Wouldn't that be "The Black"?Quote:
This was released yesterday and today the White is saying "North Korea doesn't have a nuke"???
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Wouldn't that be "The Black"?Quote:
This was released yesterday and today the White is saying "North Korea doesn't have a nuke"???
snicker... yeah, what you sez!
LMAO!
(I forgot "House" apparently.)
Japan vows response to 'any scenario' after nuclear threat
Last Updated: Friday, April 12, 2013, 23:20
Tokyo: Japan on Friday vowed it would respond to "any scenario" after a threat by North Korea that Tokyo would be "consumed in nuclear flames".
"We are aware of the remarks made by North Korea, through the media and other channels. We cannot comment on our reaction to the remarks for operational reasons," a defence ministry official said.
"All we can say is we will take every possible measure to respond to any scenario." Japan, the only country ever to have suffered a nuclear attack, has authorised its armed forces to shoot down any North Korean missile headed towards its territory.
This week Patriot missile batteries were stationed around Tokyo to protect the 30 million people who live there.
In addition to the Patriots, Aegis destroyers equipped with sea-based interceptor missiles have been deployed in the Sea of Japan (East Sea) and on Friday the government said it would be permanently installing missile defences in Okinawa.
Tokyo's comments came after the Korean Central News Agency said any attempt to shoot down its missile would result in war.
"Japan is always in the cross-hairs of our revolutionary army and if Japan makes a slightest move, the spark of war will touch Japan first," KCNA said in a commentary.
"Japan must come to its senses and behave rightly," it added.
As to the Black and White of it... (Malsua! LOL):
Source: White House Wanted DIA Finding on N. Korean Nukes Under Wraps
Apr. 12, 2013 - 01:36PM |
By JOHN BENNETT | Comments
http://cmsimg.defensenews.com/apps/p...es-Under-Wraps
North Korea launched Unha-3 rocket Dec. 12 allegedly carrying the satellite Kwangmyongsong-3. The photo was taken by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency. (KCNA via Getty Images)
- Filed Under
WASHINGTON — A U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency finding that North Korea possesses nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles was thrust into public by a senior U.S. House staff member who was merely doing his job, congressional sources say.
In a new twist, a House source tells Defense News that a DIA congressional liaison told a senior House Armed Services Committee aide that while the finding was unclassified, the Obama administration wanted to keep it under wraps.
House Armed Services Committee member Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colo., sent ripples around the world Thursday when he read this passage from a sensitive DIA intelligence report: “DIA assesses with moderate confidence the North currently has nuclear weapons capable of delivery by ballistic missiles. However, the reliability will be low.”
Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was visibly unsettled and shocked after Lamborn shared the finding during a public hearing about the Pentagon’s 2014 budget request. Dempsey told Lamborn, “I haven’t seen it,” and added that since the report had not been publicly released, he did not feel comfortable discussing it in an open session.
Dempsey’s admission that Lamborn’s reading was the first he had heard of the DIA finding, which Lamborn and congressional sources say was unclassified, raised several questions.
How did House members receive such a potentially game-changing finding that the Joint Chiefs chairman had not received from a leading U.S. intelligence agency as the Korean Peninsula — and perhaps the entire region — teeters on the brink of war? Did someone inside the Pentagon or DIA purposely leak the finding? If it was leaked, what are the motivations of any leaker(s)?
As described by multiple congressional sources, the circumstances under which the DIA finding, which senior U.S. officials say does not reflect the beliefs of the entire intel community, wound up in Lamborn’s hands were not nearly as dramatic as such questions imply.
“Finished intelligence reports are a part of our routine oversight,” a senior House Armed Services Committee aide said Friday.
Another House aide offered more detail in a separate conversation with Defense News.
Many professional staff members who work for committees that perform oversight of national security agencies have access to what the aide described as “a secure network” where intelligence reports are posted.
A senior professional staff member on the House Armed Services Strategic Forces subcommittee “was looking through those recently and came across that sentence in the conclusion of a report,” the House aide said.
“He then immediately emailed the DIA legislative affairs contact and asked if that sentence was classified or unclassified,” said the House aide, who has reviewed the email exchange. “The legislative affairs contact wrote back, in all capital letters, that it was unclassified.”
Defense officials have since said the sentence was mistakenly unclassified.
Congressional sources say it is common for some parts of a single intelligence report to be marked classified and other parts marked unclassified.
A senior Pentagon official referred a reporter to DIA’s public affairs office. That office has yet to respond to a reporter’s telephone call seeking more information.
During the email exchange with the senior House Armed Services subcommittee professional staffer, the DIA legislative liaison told him, in the House aide’s words: “The administration didn’t want this getting out.”
A White House National Security Council spokeswoman declined to comment. DIA’s public affairs office had yet to respond to a second telephone message, this one specifically about that charge.
On Thursday evening, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper issued a statement declaring the DIA finding is not shared by the other U.S. intelligence agencies.
“North Korea has not yet demonstrated the full range of capabilities necessary for a nuclear-armed missile,” Clapper said.
Also on Thursday, Pentagon Press Secretary George Little said in a statement, “It would be inaccurate to suggest that the North Korean regime has fully tested, developed, or demonstrated the kinds of nuclear capabilities referenced in the passage.”
Still, the DIA finding set off alarm bells on Capitol Hill and in the region. Some lawmakers are pressing the White House to be more aggressive in its efforts to defuse North Korea’s increasingly bellicose actions and rhetoric.
Steve Herman @W7VOA 18s
KCNA: If #Japan shoots down any #DPRK missiles the result will be a nuclear attack against it.
'Merciless punishment of the enemies'
N. Korea shuts down primary source of foreign revenue
http://www.wnd.com/files/2012/12/F.-...oof_avatar.jpg F. Michael Maloof About | Email | Archive F. Michael Maloof, staff writer for WND and G2Bulletin, is a former senior security policy analyst in the office of the secretary of defense.
http://www.wnd.com/files/2013/04/kim...rs-340x226.jpg
WASHINGTON – North Korea has threatened to shut down the Kaesong Industrial Zone which has been its primary source of foreign revenue, claiming that the “South Korean group of traitors are kicking up a confrontation racket over the DPRK’s important step concerning the situation in the (KIZ).”
This action comes as North Korea again has warned that “war can break out any moment and what remains to be done is merciless punishment of the enemies.”
A North Korean statement added, “Belated regret will be useless and not a single man will be able to survive to regret for his doing.”
The Hermit Kingdom had barred all South Korean employees from entering the KIZ where some 123 South Korean enterprises are located, using the cheap labor of some 50,000 North Koreans who also work there.
The DPRK refers to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the formal name for North Korea.
In turn, Pyongyong also has withdrawn all of its employees from the KIZ and is suspending operations in the zone altogether.
North Korea said that it will “examine the issue of whether it will allow the existence of the zone or close it in view of the grave situation prevailing in the zone due to the U.S. and the South Korean puppet group’s hostile acts and their war moves against the DPRK.
“The step is a resolute answer and natural decision of the DPRK against the puppet group (South Korea) seeking to use KIZ, symbolic of reconciliation, cooperation, peace and reunification, as a theater of confrontation between compatriots and a hotbed of war against the DPRK,” a North Korean statement said.
Discover the terrifying way North Korea could strike at the heart of the U.S. in F. Michael Maloof’s latest book, “A Nation Forsaken.”
Pyongyang’s action comes as it continues to threaten the United States with a pre-emptive nuclear strike and, as WND has reported, now has threatened military action against Japan.
It also comes as the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency, or DIA, has made a somewhat belated assessment that North Korea in fact has the capability to mount a nuclear weapon on its missiles.
WND previously has reported this capability, raising the prospect that threats of a pre-emptive nuclear strike on the United States could include the ability to launch a multistage nuclear missile toward the U.S. and orbit the warhead – to be deorbited on command to explode the nuclear device at a high altitude.
North Korea is assessed to be able to orbit a satellite which is a prelude to the capability of orbiting a nuclear device to, in effect, far extend the initial range of its missiles.
While North Korea is keenly aware that it cannot defeat the U.S. in a nuclear confrontation, it can engage the U.S. in an asymmetrical warfare scenario by orbiting a nuclear warhead and detonating it on command at a high altitude over the U.S.
This nuclear detonation would create an electromagnetic pulse, or EMP, that could damage or destroy the already vulnerable U.S. electrical grid system and any unprotected electronic components and automated control systems on which all of America’s critical infrastructures depend.
In addition to the grid itself, those critical infrastructures include telecommunications, energy, transportation, banking and financial systems, means of food and water delivery, emergency services and space systems.
In revealing the fact that North Korea has the means of delivering a nuclear device, DIA assessed that it was a crude device. However, U.S. intelligence officials have told WND that there are concerns that such a device still could create such an EMP impact over the U.S.
These officials indicated that U.S. policymakers have been briefed on this potential.
North Korea began to make its threats initially of a pre-emptive nuclear strike against the U.S. after its February nuclear test which was described to be for miniaturization – meaning to detonate a warhead capable of fitting on a missile.
That test apparently was a success, given the bellicose rhetoric and threats of a pre-emptive nuclear strike that followed.
North Korea has been waging this war of words ever since the United Nations recently voted in favor of sanctions against North Korea for conducting its missile test in December and the nuclear test in February.
Even China, said to be closest to North Korea, voted in favor of the sanctions, signaling its frustration with the new leadership of 29-year-old Kim Jong-un.
The bellicose rhetoric became louder after the U.S. and South Korea began annual military maneuvers, with a flight of B-52s and B-2 nuclear-capable bombers doing practice bomb drops just 50 miles from the Demilitarized Zone which separates North Korea and South Korea.
Pyongyang immediately seized on this event to say that the U.S. had intentions of conducting a nuclear attack on North Korea, which has added to the brinkmanship North Korea is conducting now through threats of a missile attack against not only the U.S. but South Korea and now Japan.
As WND reported, North Korea may conduct a missile launch on April 15 in commemoration of the 101st birthday of North Korea’s founder, Kim Il-sung, who also is Kim Jong-un’s grandfather.
Concern has mounted that the test could be either downrange away from any land, in which case there will be no U.S. reaction, or over Japan, whose officials have promised to shoot down the missile in that case.
The U.S. has placed Aegis anti-ballistic missile ships in the area, as well as reinforced Japan with Aegis systems and sophisticated tracking radars, including Patriot missiles, which will act as a backup, or second line of anti-ballistic missile defense for Tokyo and U.S. military bases on Japan proper and on its island of Okinawa.
Meantime, Pyongyang has signaled a further escalation of the situation leading up to Kim Il-Sung’s birthday commemoration with the shutdown of the vital revenue-generating industrial park at Kaesong, which is located some six miles inside North Korea.
“The South Korean regime is trying to avoid the blame for the grave situation in KIZ and shift it onto the DPRK,” the North Korean statement said. “It is a ridiculous act to distort the truth, avoid public criticism and lay the blame at the door of the DPRK.
“As known, KIZ is a crystal of leader Kim Jong-il’s love for the nation and people and ardent will for reunification…”
The statement went on to say that that South Korea had totally nullified and “ditched the north-south agreements, put the inter-Korean relations at a state of war and is kicking up the frantic anti-DPRK racket under the pretext of DPRK’s satellite launch whose legitimacy is recognized by international law.”
Pyongyang signaled, however, that the KIZ closure was “temporary and what will happen in the days ahead entirely depends on the attitude of the South Korean authorities.”
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2013/04/merciless...IS3Xb0WFR8C.99
Ex-spy Kim Hyun-Hee says Kim Jong-Un is battling to control troops
- AFP
- April 11, 2013 11:41AM
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Former North Korean spy Kim Hyun-Hee says Kim Jong-Un is using threats to try and shore up support from his military. Source: AFP
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Alert level at 'vital threat' over NK
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A FORMER North Korean spy who bombed a South Korean airliner said that the North's leader Kim Jong-Un is struggling to control his military.
Kim Hyun-Hee, who said she was ordered by Jong-Un's father Kim Jong-Il to bomb the airliner in 1987 killing 115 people, said she believes the son is still trying to establish himself following his father's death in December 2011.
"Kim Jong-Un is too young and too inexperienced," she told Australia's ABC television in an exclusive interview from Seoul, where she lives at an undisclosed location surrounded by bodyguards.
South Korea raises surveillance alert level
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"He's struggling to gain complete control over the military and to win their loyalty. That's why he's doing so many visits to military bases, to firm up support."
The North has been turning up the rhetoric for weeks and on Tuesday reiterated a warning that the Korean peninsula was headed for "thermo-nuclear" war, advising foreigners to consider leaving South Korea.
Kim Hyun-Hee told ABC there was method in the North Koreans' madness in threatening thermo-nuclear war.
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A North Korean soldier looks on from the banks of the Yalu River at the North Korean town of Sinuiju across from the Chinese city of Dandong.
"North Korea is using its nuclear program to keep its people in line and to push South Korea and the United States for concessions," said Ms Kim, who was captured after boarding the doomed 1987 plane in Baghdad.
She got off during a stopover in the Gulf, leaving a time bomb in an overhead compartment, but was arrested with another agent when they tried to leave Bahrain using fake Japanese passports.
Both immediately swallowed cyanide capsules. The man died almost instantly but Ms Kim survived and was brought to Seoul, where she confessed and was eventually pardoned.
Ms Kim published a book entitled Tears of My Soul describing her training at a North Korean spy school, and donated the proceeds to families of victims of the bombing.
She married one of her security guards and now lives in Seoul, still fearful that North Korean assassins could strike at any time, ABC said.
It came as South Korea has raised its military watch alert to "vital threat" before an expected North Korean missile launch, as UN chief Ban Ki-moon warned the Korean peninsula may be slipping out of control.
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U.S. Army soldiers prepare for an exercise during their annual military drills with South Korea in Yeoncheon, South Korea, near the border with North Korea.
South Korean intelligence says the North has prepared two mid-range missiles for imminent launch from its east coast, despite warnings from ally China to avoid provocative moves at a time of soaring military tensions.
South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-Se told parliament the launch could take place "anytime from now on" and warned Pyongyang it could trigger a fresh round of UN sanctions.
On Tuesday, the North reiterated a warning that the peninsula was headed for "thermo-nuclear'' war and advised foreigners to consider leaving South Korea.
In a further sign of rising nuclear tensions, a key border crossing between North Korea and China has been closed to tourist groups, a Chinese official said Wednesday.
An official at the Dandong Border Office, who declined to give his name, told media: "Travel agencies are not allowed to take tourist groups to go there, since the North Korean government is now asking foreign people to leave. As far as I know, business people can enter and leave North Korea freely."
The South Korea-US Combined Forces Command raised its "Watchcon" status from 3 to 2 to reflect indications of a "vital threat", Yonhap news agency said, citing a senior military official.
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A South Korean soldier walks along barricades on the road leading to North Korea at a military checkpoint in the border city of Paju.
Watchcon 4 is in effect during normal peacetime, while Watchcon 3 reflects indications of an important threat. Watchcon 1 is used in wartime.
In a separate report, Yonhap quoted a government source as saying Pyongyang might be preparing "multiple" launches, after other launch vehicles were reportedly detected carrying shorter-range SCUD and Rodong missiles.
Although the North's warnings to embassies in Pyongyang and foreigners in the South were both largely shrugged off, there is growing global concern that sky-high tensions might trigger an incident that could swiftly escalate.
UN warns of 'dangerous' tension
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said during a visit to Rome that he had spoken to the Chinese leadership to try to calm tensions, and would discuss the issue with US President Barack Obama on Thursday.
"The current level of tension is very dangerous, a small incident caused by miscalculation or misjudgement may create an uncontrollable situation," Mr Ban said.
White House spokesman Jay Carney, meanwhile, criticised Pyongyang for more "unhelpful rhetoric" that only served to create more uncertainty.
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A North Korean soldier, centre top, looks at the southern side as South Korean soldiers stand guard at the border village of Panmunjom, which has separated the two Koreas since the Korean War.
North Korea has wielded the "thermo-nuclear war" threat several times in recent months - most recently on March 7 - despite expert opinion that it is nowhere near developing such an advanced nuclear device.
The current crisis on the Korean peninsula has been intensifying almost daily since the North's nuclear test in February, which drew toughened UN sanctions.
Incensed by ongoing South Korean-US military exercises, Pyongyang has accused Washington and Seoul of preparing an invasion and threatened dire military actions from artillery barrages to nuclear strikes.
South Korea last went to Watchcon 2 around the time of the North's nuclear test, and its long-range rocket launch last December.
The Watchcon system solely relates to surveillance levels and is separate from the Defcon system of military preparedness.
The mid-range missiles mobilised by the North are reported to be untested Musudan models with an estimated range of anywhere up to 4000 kilometres.
That would cover any target in South Korea and Japan, and possibly even US military bases on the Pacific island of Guam.
Japan, where the armed forces have been authorised to shoot down any North Korean missile headed towards its territory, said Tuesday it had deployed Patriot missiles in its capital as a pre-emptive defence measure.
In addition to PAC-3 batteries, Aegis destroyers equipped with sea-based interceptor missiles have been deployed in the Sea of Japan.
But a top US military commander, Admiral Samuel Locklear, said he favoured shooting down a North Korean missile only if it threatened the United States or Washington's allies in the region.
If North Korea pushes ahead with the launch, the UN Security Council will convene immediately, Foreign Minister Yun said.
"It's hard to predict what kind of action the Security Council might take, as the nature of such a launch would have to be analysed first," he said, adding fresh sanctions were a possibility.
Satellites find 'missing' NK missiles
The move to Watchcon 2 comes after it was revealed United States spy satellites had found two 'missing' North Korean nuclear-capable missiles.
CNN reported US officials were expecting a launch by North Korea "at any time".
Any such "test" launch would be seen as a further escalation of already high tensions in and around the Korean peninsula.
Things could be made worse if North Korea does not issue a "standard warning" of a missile test firing to commercial aviation and maritime shipping.
"We hope they issue a notification but at this point we don't expect it. We are working on the assumption they won't, " the official said.
US officials have confirmed that satellites have been kept over the suspected launch areas for the past week in order to locate - and monitor - the launch vehicles. Bad weather has made their job harder, they said.
The launchers are said to be about half-way down the North Korean east coast and about 20km inland. Satellite imagery shows the missiles have been fuelled and positioned for launch.
The Pentagon has announced it is ready to respond to any missile aimed at America or its allies.
The commander of US forces in the Pacific sought to reassure Congress that the Pentagon would be able intercept a missile. US satellites and radars in the region will be able to detect and quickly calculate the missiles' trajectory.
This would help determine if the launch was hostile - or a test.
The missiles would be shot down by land or sea based anti-missile weapons if they were to track over South Korea or Japan.
Navy Admiral Samuel J. Locklear said: "We have a credible ability to defend the homeland, to defend Hawaii, to defend Guam, to defend our forward deployed forces, and to defend our allies,'' Locklear told the Senate Armed Services Committee.
The US has never sought to shoot down a North Korean missile, and it's unclear if such a move would escalate the tension that has roiled the region. The Obama
administration has moved additional military forces into the Pacific, but has sought to calibrate its response in the matter to avoid fueling the crisis.
A "counter-provocation plan" drawn up by US and South Korean officials calls for their combined military forces to respond proportionally to a North Korean attack, but to avoid any step that could set off an escalation of hostilities.
Direct attack on South unlikely
Analysts see a direct attack on Seoul as extremely unlikely, and there are no overt signs that North Korea's 1.2 million-man army is readying for war, let alone a nuclear one.
South Korea's military has reported missile movements on North Korea's east coast but nothing pointed toward South Korea.
Still, North Korea's earlier warning that it won't be able to guarantee the safety of foreign diplomats after April 10 has raised fears that it will conduct a missile or nuclear test today, resulting in US retaliation.
The United States and South Korea have raised their defence postures, and so has Japan, which deployed PAC-3 missile interceptors in key locations around Tokyo yesterday as a precaution against possible North Korean ballistic missile tests.
"The situation on the Korean Peninsula is inching close to a thermonuclear war due to the evermore undisguised hostile actions of the United States and the south Korean puppet warmongers and their moves for a war against" the North, said a statement by the North Korean Asia-Pacific Peace Committee, an organisation that deals with regional matters.
The statement is similar to past threats that analysts call an attempt to raise anxiety in foreign capitals. Observers say a torrent of North Korean prophecies of doom and efforts to raise war hysteria are partly to boost the image of young and relatively untested leader Kim Jong-un at home, and to show him as a decisive military leader.
Another reason could be to use threats of war to win Pyongyang-friendly policy changes in Seoul and Washington. Last week, North Korea told foreign diplomats in Pyongyang that it will not be able to guarantee their safety as of Wednesday. It is not clear what the significance of that date is.
Tourists continued to arrive in Pyongyang despite the war hysteria.
Australian Mark Fahey of Sydney said he was not concerned about a possible war.
"I knew that when I arrived here it would probably be very different to the way it was being reported in the media," he told The Associated Press at Pyongyang airport. He said his family trusts him to make the right judgment but "my colleagues at work think I am crazy."
Chu Kang Jin, a Pyongyang resident, said everything is calm in the city.
"Everyone, including me, is determined to turn out as one to fight for national reunification ... if the enemies spark a war," he said, in a typically nationalist rhetoric that most North Koreans use while speaking to the media.
In Seoul, South Korean Presidential spokeswoman Kim Haing told reporters that the North Korean warning amounted to "psychological warfare."
"We know that foreigners residing in South Korea as well as our nationals are unfazed," she said.
South Korean President Park Geun-hye, who has sought to re-engage North Korea with dialogue and aid since taking office in February, expressed exasperation with what she called the "endless vicious cycle" of Seoul answering Pyongyang's hostile behaviour with compromise, only to get more hostility.
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Yesterday North Korea said it was suspending work at the Kaesong industrial park near its border, which is combines South Korean technology and know-how with North Korea's cheap labour. North Korea pulled out more than 50,000 workers from the complex, the only remaining product of economic cooperation between the two countries that started about a decade ago when relations were much warmer.
Other projects from previous eras of cooperation such as reunions of families separated by war and tours to a scenic North Korean mountain stopped in recent years.
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Forces deployed on the Korean Peninsula.
North Korean crisis halts foreign investment
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Published: April 12, 2013 at 2:31 PM
SEOUL, April 12 (UPI) -- The escalating crisis in North Korea has led Chinese companies to put their investments on hold.
Chinese businesses are North Korea's most significant investors.
The freeze extends to tourism.
An informed Chinese source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that Chinese tourist traffic across the border from Dandong to North Korea came to a halt on Thursday, as "authorities told travel agencies in Dandong on Tuesday to temporarily halt visits to North Korea in view of the tensions on the Korean peninsula." For the present, single day bus tours from Dandong in China to North Korea's Sinuiju along with train tours that go as far south as Pyongyang and Kaesong have been suspended, Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported on Friday.
South of the demilitarized zone separating North and South Korea, foreign investor confidence remains strong in both the stock market and direct investment.
Yanbian University lecturer Yoon Seung-hyun remarked, "As North Korea halts production at the inter-Korean Kaesong Industrial Complex and issues war threats every day, Chinese businesses and regional governments are halting all investments and taking a wait-and-see attitude."
Why Is North Korea Acting Out?
Two members of Congress discuss John Kerry's trip to the Korean Peninsula, what China can do to help, and the Kim Jong Un relatives who seem to be guiding the rogue leader.
By Matthew Cooper
Updated: April 12, 2013 | 2:44 p.m.
April 12, 2013 | 2:34 p.m.
http://cdn-media.nationaljournal.com...page_fullwidth (AP Photo/KCNA via KNS)
About the same time that Secretary of State John Kerry was landing in Seoul in an effort to defuse tensions on the Korean Peninsula, two members of Congress—one Democrat and one Republican, who declined to be identified so that they could speak more freely—were raising warnings about North Korea’s recent bellicose actions and addressing key concerns with a small group of reporters. Among them:
Does North Korea have the ability to put a nuke on a ballistic missile? The members echoed an intelligence estimate showing that North Korea has made strides in ballistic-missile technology and miniaturization of nuclear weapons that could allow it to threaten its neighbors soon, if not now. The assessment came from the Defense Intelligence Agency and was revealed on Thursday. The members seemed to indicate this was a view shared throughout the Obama administration. “There is a growing body of analytical product that says if they’re not there, they’re getting there," said the GOP member, adding that getting the weapon light enough and coming up with a reliable system of detonation is the hardest part for North Korea—or any aspiring power—to achieve as it seeks the capacity to fire medium and long-range missiles equipped with nuclear weapons.
What is Kim Jong Un up to? The Democratic member echoed the familiar point that Kim Jong Un is untested, but he offered hints of a complex family situation that may help explain why Pyongyang has been so provocative. Kim Jong Un is “a young leader who is immature and is probably being controlled by relatives and he is attempting to not only show that he’s a leader throughout the world but to show his people that he’s a leader," the Democratic member said. "You have to look at the people advising him, an uncle and an aunt,” the Democratic member said, without elaborating on the aforementioned kin. The Republican added, “If I were China, I’d be talking to that group of hard-liners. [China] could have tremendous influence with them”
What about South Korea? Both members said they believed South Korea probably couldn't resist responding militarily to any attack from the North. “This time they’re not going to stand by like they did last time and do nothing,” the Republican member said, referring to the North’s sinking of a South Korean naval vessel and its attack on a remote South Korean island. This makes the situation even more dangerous and explains, in part, why Kerry is eager to "ramp down" tensions.
Can China help? Both members emphasized that it was in China’s interest to reduce tensions on the Korean Peninsula, lest it face a refugee problem or a war that would result in the end of the North Korean regime and a unified Korea under the South’s control and backed by the United States. But they said that China has yet to step up and take an active role in defusing tensions—at least as far as they could see. One of the most helpful things that China could do would be to halt the black market on the Chinese-North Korean border, they said, because of its effect on the Pyongyang elite, which lives lavishly while the larger populace faces abject poverty and even starvation. The Republican member noted that Kim Jong Un’s father had “an on-again, off-again relationship with China, but the big concern here is that the son doesn't know when he’s gone too far.”
Is Obama doing a good job? The Republican member said the administration had done a “great job” in its military and diplomatic response to North Korea’s bellicose statements and action. Those moves include flying B-2 stealth bombers to the Peninsula and moving antiballistic missile technology to the Pacific.
Arms Race!
In U.S., South Korean Makes Case for Nuclear Arms
By DAVID E. SANGER
Published: April 9, 2013
WASHINGTON – On a day when North Korea warned expatriates in the South to evacuate because the country was on the brink of nuclear war – a statement the American Embassy in Seoul dismissed as hyperbole – a prominent member of South Korea’s Parliament argued in Washington on Tuesday that the time had come for the South to build its own nuclear weapons.
The argument was made by Chung Mong-joon, a son of the founder of the Hyundai industrial group and a former leader of the governing party. In an interview and a speech to the Carnegie International Nuclear Policy Conference, Mr. Chung argued that the time had come for South Korea to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and “match North Korea’s nuclear progress step by step while committing to stop if North Korea stops.
“The only thing that kept the cold war cold was the mutual deterrence afforded by nuclear weapons,'’ Mr. Chung said.
Mr. Chung’s position is a fairly lonely one: South Korea’s new president, Park Geun-hye, has not endorsed any effort by the country to become a nuclear power. The South did attempt to develop its own weapon 40 years ago, but was stopped by the United States before it got very far. And while international nuclear inspectors later found evidence of laboratory experimentation with some fuel technology needed to produce a nuclear weapon, there is no evidence the South has seriously sought a weapon since then.
But talking about creating another nuclear power — the world’s 10th — is virtually taboo in Washington, where President Obama has made limiting proliferation and securing nuclear fuel a signature element of his national security policy.
Mr. Chung’s call is likely to give Washington more pause over a recent South Korean government push for the right to produce its own nuclear fuel to feed its civil nuclear program.
The United States has resisted the South Korean effort, saying that this is a moment to restrict the spread of uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing – the two paths to building a bomb – rather than expand it. Giving South Korea the right would violate an agreement it signed more than 20 years ago with the North to denuclearize the peninsula. The North has violated that agreement, both producing nuclear fuel and conducting nuclear tests, but the Obama administration fears that if the South follows suit, it would provide justification to the North to hold on to its program.
Secretary of State John Kerry said recently that the United States was seeking a diplomatic solution to the differences.
Mr. Chung, whose father ran unsuccessfully for president of South Korea two decades ago, argued in an interview that the North will never voluntarily give up its weapons. “Diplomacy has failed,'’ he said. “Persuasion has failed. Carrots and sweeteners have all failed.'’
He also argued that the United States should reintroduce tactical nuclear weapons to the Korean Peninsula as a deterrent, a step the Obama administration has rejected out of hand. “It’s ridiculous,'’ one senior administration official said recently. “We can deliver a nuclear weapon to North Korea from anywhere in the world,'’ something the United States demonstrated last week when it flew a B-2 bomber from Missouri to South Korea for a military exercise, and announced the flight to make a point to the North.
But Mr. Chung argues that in the end, the South cannot depend on the United States to back it up. “The lesson of the cold war,’’ he said, “is that against nuclear weapons, only nuclear weapons can hold the peace.’’
Oren Dorell, USA TODAY3:24 p.m. EDT April 12, 2013
The North has threatened to turn the capital of South Korea into "a sea of fire" and to launch nuclear weapons at the USA.
Secretary of State John Kerry 's insistence Friday that the United States "would not accept" a North Korea with nuclear weapons laid out no new policy on how to stop it from happening.
The long-standing U.S. demand that the North cease its nuclear activity predates the Obama administration and is no closer to being adhered to than it was two decades ago, analysts say.
Actions he did announce, such as President Obama's scaling back of military exercises with U.S. ally South Korea in the face of North Korean threats, are likely to embolden North Korea, says Bruce Klingner, a former director of the CIA's Korea Desk who's at the Heritage Foundation.
"With North Korea taking several steps forward and you take a step back, it only confirms in their mind that the United States will back down," Klingner said.
STORY: Kerry: 'U.S. will defend its allies'
STORY: N. Korean missile threats worry some on Guam
Kerry is on his first stop of a four-day visit to Asia, which is to include stops in China, the North's greatest ally, and Japan. It comes as the North's dictatorial regime led by Kim Jong Un, 30, prepared to celebrate the birthday of his grandfather, Kim Il Song, founder of the North Korean state.
The North has threatened to turn the capital of South Korea into "a sea of fire" and to launch nuclear weapons at the USA. The North does have nuclear weapons technology and has fired long-range missiles in tests.
This week, North Korea moved a missile into position that is capable of reaching U.S. forces in Guam. Japan's Kyodo news agency cited a Japanese defense official saying the North Korean Masudan missile launcher was seen in an upright position near the North Korean east coast.
The United States has said the North cannot reach the continental USA but is getting closer to producing an intercontinental missile capable of reaching the U.S. homeland.
Kerry said, "We will defend our allies," South Korea and Japan, "and we will defend ourselves."
He said President Obama had ordered several military exercises "not be undertaken," and "we have lowered our rhetoric significantly" in an effort to "find a way for reasonableness to prevail here."
Klingner says that kind of talk is counterproductive.
"North Korea will look back at its history and see that any time it attacked, the United States and South Korea tended to back down," he said. "In the past, by not responding militarily to North Korean attacks, the United States and South Korea usually tried to get back to negotiations or offered benefits to reduce tensions that North Korea has raised."
John Bolton, who served as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under President George W. Bush, says the only way to prevent North Korea from getting nuclear weapons it can use to threaten and blackmail the region is for the United States to work with China to bring about the collapse of the North Korean regime and reunification of the two Koreas.
China, which provides North Korea 90% of its fuel and much of its food and is its only ally except for Iran, has viewed North Korea as a useful buffer separating U.S. troops from the Chinese border.
It fears a collapse of the North Korean state would cause an flood of millions of hungry refugees into China. Yet recent articles in Chinese government-controlled media and think-tank publications have raised the idea of cutting off aid to North Korea, Bolton said.
U.S. diplomats should work with China to reassure it on security, promise aid for refugees and encourage civilians to stay in North Korea, Bolton said. It's in China's interests for the North Korean regime to collapse, he said.
"The difference now is a nuclear North Korea really does cause a problem for China," he said. "It's said for years it doesn't want a nuclear North Korea because it causes instability on the peninsula and economic disruption in Northeast Asia. They're right. North Korea is ready to test a missile which the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency thinks is capable of carrying a nuclear warhead."
Klingner said the United States should respond to the threats with a pledge to protect its allies and an expansion of more comprehensive sanctions to further damage and isolate the North Korean regime.
Lawmakers in South Korea and Japan are increasingly expressing an interest in developing their own nuclear defenses.
China does not want that, Bolton said. Once the North has nuclear weapons of its own, China's other neighbors may have no choice but to go nuclear, and the North will probably behave even worse.
North Korea has been "lashing out," without nukes, Bolton said. "Do you think they'll be better behaved with nuclear weapons?"
In Seoul, Kerry said calming the situation is his first priority.
"The greatest danger here, we all agree, is for a mistake," he said. "The greatest danger is that something happens and there's a response to that something, and then things somehow inadvertently were to get out of control. "
He called on Kim Jong Un "to recognize that this is a moment for responsible leadership, and it's a moment to try to reach for the good possibilities, not try to guarantee the bad ones."
N. Korean missile threats worry some on Guam
Brett M. Kelman, USA TODAY 3:26 p.m. EDT April 12, 2013
Those old enough are reminded of Cold War duck-and-cover drills as schools prepare.
Becky Weingartner was playing with her kids, ages 2 and 5, when the wail of an air raid siren pierced her living room, sending them racing outside in a panic.
The television had been on too loud, so she hadn't heard a megaphone announce minutes before that the Air Force was testing the sirens.
"I ran outside, just praying that after the siren goes off that they would say, 'This was just a test,' and I could breathe easy again," said Weingartner, reached by phone in Yigo, Guam. "It's nerve-wracking to think that they would even still have to do that. And if you don't hear that it is 'just a test' before the sirens go off, the sound just chafes you to the core."
Weingartner's air raid scare was about a month ago, when tensions between the United States and North Korea had begun to bubble but not yet started to boil. Since then, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has threatened three times to attack the island of Guam, an American territory in the Pacific since 1898.
Weingartner, 30, a military spouse, lives on Andersen Air Force Base on the island's north end. Like many island residents, her life has grown more tense as threats from North Korea have escalated.
In late March, the North Korean military started threatening Andersen by name. Weingartner considered packing her bags, saying goodbye to her husband and home, and flying back to the mainland with the kids — just in case.
"It's now to the point where you don't know what to prepare for," Weingartner said Friday as news spread that North Korea might have a missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. "At what point does it become time to go? When is it time to get out of here before you can no longer leave?"
Although most of the USA sits safely outside of North Korea's missile range, this slice of American soil — home to about 155,000 residents and two military bases — is a little more than 2,000 miles away from Pyongyang. That means Guam potentially could be in range of the unproven Taepodong-2 missile.
In response to the growing threats, the U.S. military has moved additional missile-defense forces to the island. The military has said truck-mounted interceptor missiles are being sent to the island bases, and two warships, each with their own missile-defense systems, have moved to Pacific waters.
Surrounded by this ring of invisible protection, the island remains wary but ready, Guam Gov. Eddie Calvo said. If an attack is launched, the island expects to get no more than 15 minutes' notice.
Island police have been outfitted with vehicle-mounted megaphones in case the island moves to "code red," which means an attack is imminent, the governor said. Island schools have held shelter-in-place drills, which aren't so different from the duck-and-cover drills Baby Boomers Calvo remember from the Cold War.
"If there is any American community of this size that has had firsthand experience in emergencies … it is this island called Guam," Calvo said, pointing to a population that has survived typhoons, earthquakes and the Japanese occupation of World War II. "As a whole, this island knows how to live their lives and go ahead to their jobs and schools while always understanding preparedness."
Guam residents might live every day knowing they could be a target, but that doesn't mean the threat has ever felt more real than it does now, said Ana Marie Gayle, 47, a lawyer who lives in the central village of Agana Heights, midpoint between the island's two military bases.
Wednesday, Gayle woke before dawn for an early morning workout but stopped in her tracks when she saw a strange light in the sky.
For a brief second, she thought it might be a North Korean missile.
The light turned out to be a low-flying plane, but in that dreadful moment, a fear from the depths of her mind had surfaced. It won't go back below.
"This is not anyone playing games anymore," Gayle said Friday. "This is real for us. And it's scary."
Joshua Wood, 31, who manages the popular Mermaid Tavern in the island's capital of Hagåtña, said most of his customers dismiss the looming threats with a joke.
Wood says North Korean is bluffing so its new leader can enjoy the international spotlight. If the nation does launch an attack, Wood is confident that the military scattered through the Pacific could intercept the missile before it struck the island.
And if they can't, well, he can't do much about it.
"I just don't see any point in worrying about it," Wood said. "I can't do anything to prevent it. We are kind of in the hands of a crazy man, and I just think he is trying to remind the world that he matters."
I'm sorry for not coming here for so long. Real world have their importance too.
I'm looking to this situation on the Korean Peninsula and, at least to me, is very worring.
Anyway, I just want to say hello to all of you.
Diego
Also, there are some links that I follow that I want to share to you all.
Here they are:
Steve Herman - Journalist from Voice of America, He is on the South Korea - https://twitter.com/W7VOA
and
Nathan J. Hunt - specialist in Space and missile Defense - https://twitter.com/ISNJH
China Sides with North Korea
by
Gordon G. Chang
April 12, 2013 - 12:27 am
“No one should be allowed to throw a region and even the whole world into chaos for selfish gains,” said President Xi Jinping on Sunday at a regional forum hosted by Beijing.
Immediately, global media interpreted the remarks as a rebuke of North Korea. The New York Times, for instance, called Xi’s words “an indirect but clear criticism of China’s longtime ally.”
Has Beijing finally made the switch from supporting Pyongyang to siding with the international community?
Most everyone thinks so. After all, who else could Xi have been referring to on Sunday? The North Koreans in recent weeks repudiated the armistice that ended fighting in the Korean War, announced they were ready to launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike on the United States, and talked almost daily in apocalyptic terms.
They also effectively closed the last cooperative project been the two Koreas and deployed two intermediate-range ballistic missiles on their mobile launchers, getting them into position for firing. No wonder White House spokesman Jay Carney welcomed the comments from China’s new leader.
Not so fast. On Monday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei refused to confirm that Xi had North Korea in mind when he uttered those words.
And the following day, People’s Daily, the Communist Party’s flagship publication, issued a stinging commentary, leaving no doubt who Xi thought was the culprit.
“Some country has spent hundreds of billions of U.S. dollars creating a situation that cannot be resolved and has eventually withdrawn in a disorganized manner at the same time causing a financial crisis in its own country,” stated a commentary titled “Who Has the Intention to Create Chaos for the World for Selfish Gain?” “Look back on the world’s security situation to the beginning of the new century. There are many ‘hot spots’ and ‘chaotic spots.’ The first of them are Afghanistan and Iraq.”
The People’s Daily commentary not only clarifies Mr. Xi’s intent, it also puts the movement of Chinese forces on the border with North Korea in an ominous light. Since the middle of last month, the People’s Liberation Army has been mobilizing troops, planes, and ships there. The border forces once were — and may now still be — at the highest state of alert. There are also reports of Chinese live-fire drills in the area.
Analysts have assumed that the Chinese mobilization was intended to intimidate the North Koreans, but, in light of Xi Jinping’s comments on Sunday, perhaps the military movements are a warning to America and South Korea instead.
Why would Beijing back the world’s most ruthless regime? The answer lies in China’s fraying political system, which is allowing generals and admirals to cement control over policymaking.
Chinese flag officers gained influence last year as feuding civilians sought military support for their bids for promotion as the Communist Party retired Fourth Generation leaders, led by Hu Jintao, and replaced them with the Fifth, under the command of Xi Jinping. The People’s Liberation Army, which may now be the most powerful faction in the Party, has traditionally maintained its pro-Pyongyang views, and it is apparently using its enhanced standing to push Beijing closer to Pyongyang.
The rise of the military has had consequences. For instance, the PLA has sold the North Koreans at least six mobile launchers for their new KN-08 missile, which can hit the U.S. These launchers substantially increase Pyongyang’s ability to wage a nuclear war and are the primary reason the Obama administration decided last month to go ahead with the 14 missile interceptors in Alaska.
Today, in the Chinese capital there are many academics and Foreign Ministry professionals who know that supporting North Korea is not in China’s long-term interest. Yet where it counts — at the top of the political system — there is no consensus to change long-held policies supporting the Kim family regime.
The Chinese must do more than just begin a fundamental shift in their foreign policy. They must complete the process of both shedding the self-image as outsiders and ending their traditional role as adversaries of the existing global order. Such a change inevitably occurs when rising power matures, but it only happens after internal perceptions have shifted over time. The problem is that today, when we need China’s help, Chinese officials are not ready to act responsibly.
So don’t be surprised that Mr. Xi is blaming the United States for North Korea’s provocative behavior. Something is very wrong in Pyongyang — and in Beijing as well.
BRVoice, good to see you and thank you for your posts.
Yeah BRVoice!!!
Welcome back!!! :)
Phil Fiord and Vector7 thank you both! It's good to be back.
North Korea states 'nuclear war is unavoidable' as it declares first target will be Japan
NORTH KOREA has warned Japan that Tokyo would be the first target in the event of a war on the Korean Peninsula, as it increased threats of an attack.
By: Charlotte Meredith
109Comments
http://images.dailyexpress.co.uk/img...x/391376_1.jpg
Japan's Ground Self-Defense Force soldiers prepare its missile interceptor
In a commentary carried by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), the communist country lashed out at Tokyo's standing orders to destroy any missile heading toward Japan, threatening such actions will result in a nuclear attack against the island nation.
If Japan executes its threat to shoot down any North Korean missile, such a “provocative” intervention would see Tokyo — an enormous conurbation of 30 million people — “consumed in nuclear flames”, KCNA warned.
“Japan is always in the cross-hairs of our revolutionary army and if Japan makes a slightest move, the spark of war will touch Japan first,” the report added.
An official at Japan’s defence ministry said that the country “will take every possible measure to respond to any scenario”, while the US Secretary of State John Kerry warned that a North Korean missile launch would be a “huge mistake”.
“The rhetoric that we are hearing from North Korea is simply unacceptable by any standards,” he told a news conference in Seoul alongside South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-Se.
“The United States, South Korea and the entire international community… are all united in the fact that North Korea will not be accepted as a nuclear power,” Kerry added.
However, the North has declared it is "confident of final victory" against its enemies.
"The enemies should know that it is the era of the great Marshal Kim Jong Un, leader of the most powerful country and invincible great Paektusan nation," KCNA stated.
"The DPRK has won victories in confrontation with the U.S. in spirit and is waging an all-out action with it, with confidence in final victory."
The torrent of war cries is seen outside Pyongyang as an effort to raise fears and pressure Seoul and Washington into changing their North Korea policies, and to show the North Korean people that their young leader is strong enough to stand up to powerful foes.
South Korea fears Pyongyang could launch now launch multiple missiles after weeks of threats, according to local reports.
Observers believe a launch is most likely in the build-up to Monday’s anniversary of the birth of late founder Kim Il-Sung, for which celebrations are already well under way in Pyongyang.
The Korean Peninsula has "been reduced to the biggest nuclear hotspot in the world", the North said in more fiery rhetoric today, "making the outbreak of a nuclear war on this land unavoidable."
The reclusive state is dedicated to "defending the sovereignty and dignity of the country with its own strike mode and means," it said.
"No force on earth can block the just cause of the army and people of the DPRK," the chilling message concluded.
vector7 a question not only for you but to all. How bad this situation is?