North Korea set to test Obama’s resolve: analysts

[Malsua]

Don't worry. Obama will send some tankers of fuel oil over and that'll be that.

[vector7]

Analysis: Few details on US North Korea policy, despite Pyongyang's increasing hostility

By FOSTER KLUG | Associated Press Writer
10:04 AM EST, February 6, 2009

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama already has senior envoys working on crises in South Asia and the Middle East. The new administration has said little, however, about how it will handle a standoff with an increasingly hostile, nuclear-armed North Korea.

The North does not like being ignored by the United States, which the Bush administration was reminded of in 2006 when Pyongyang quickly moved itself up the list of top U.S. foreign policy problems by staging nuclear and missile tests.

North Korea is again showing signs of restlessness, and its belligerence toward its Asian neighbors could escalate should Pyongyang see a lack of U.S. attention or urgency.

In recent days, the North has pledged to scrap pacts designed to prevent hostilities with South Korea and apparently is preparing to test-fire a ballistic missile capable of striking the western United States.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is expected to name a special representative for North Korea, but the timing is uncertain. She also has not yet named other top officials for Asia.

An absence of U.S. leadership is potentially risky, according to John Bolton, George W. Bush's U.N. envoy and a strident critic of what he sees as lenient U.S. policy toward North Korea.

"Neglecting North Korea is a dangerous gamble with very high stakes," Bolton wrote in a recent opinion piece.

So far, the State Department has provided few details about the future of North Korean nuclear efforts. Clinton has praised the Bush administration's use of six-nation disarmament talks, which are now stalled over North Korea's refusal to agree to a nuclear verification process, but she has said little else.

Still, Clinton will be sending an important message by making her first visit abroad to Asia. She will travel this month to Japan, South Korea and China — three nations that, along with the United States and Russia, are pressing the North to abandon its bombs. Although North Korea will feature prominently in Clinton's meetings, it will be one of many topics, including climate change and tensions over natural resources, trade and Taiwan.

The naming of an envoy would be a break from the Bush administration, which called upon the heads of the State Department's East Asian affairs bureau to negotiate with the North. The Clinton administration used special envoys.

The return of a high-level special envoy dedicated to the time-consuming nuclear talks would allow the assistant secretary of state for East Asia to deal with parts of the region that have often felt neglected during Washington's push to settle a North Korean deal.

Michael Green, a former Bush administration Asia adviser, said the assistant secretary for East Asia has "become the North Korea desk officer. It's too much to ask one person to do both jobs."

The current top diplomat for East Asia, Christopher Hill, in a recent interview with The Associated Press, defended the focus on North Korea.

"In this line of work, when you're confronted with an urgent problem versus an important problem, you focus on the urgent," said Hill, the leading candidate to become the next U.S. ambassador to Iraq. "So I can't say I would do it differently, but, certainly, any time you spend a lot of time on an urgent problem, you're not spending time on other problems."

Clinton has yet to name her assistant secretary for East Asia but is expected to choose an Asia adviser from her husband's administration, Kurt Campbell.

The delay in naming a special envoy for North Korea could be because of a need to make sure the person chosen can work well with Campbell, especially if the envoy should be ordered to report to Clinton and Obama, and not to Campbell. Any friction between the assistant secretary and the envoy could complicate diplomatic efforts.

Ralph A. Cossa, president of the Pacific Forum CSIS think tank, said Campbell has close ties with Clinton and, therefore, will feel free "to walk into her office and say we need to coordinate a little better."

Any North Korea envoy, Cossa said, "will know Kurt has that special relationship with Clinton."

[Toad]

Of all the Nations in the World, N. Korea actually scares me the most. For a fairly small poverty striken nation, they (the Gov & 'lil Kim) are the most brazen, belligerant, fear-mongering, bully-ish SOBs who have an amazingly well established history of lies, deciet, and broken promises yet demand to be treated like they're not spoiled brat bullies with little man syndrome. I have no doubt N. Korea leadership is more than willing to destroy their own nation just to get a good devistating punch in to S. Korea, the US, or Japan. I equate them to a teenager with a bad F-it attitude. Like the assholes who did Colombine. Willing to die just to make a mark. That's N. Korea.

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Commander of US Forces in S. Korea Warns North to 'Act Responsibly'
By Kurt Achin
Seoul
09 February 2009

The commander of American forces in South Korea is warning North Korea "all options" are open, if Pyongyang proceeds with apparent preparations for a long-range ballistic missile test. South Korea's president is renewing his call for dialogue with the North and appealing for calm.

North Korean soldier looks at General Walter L. Sharp during visit to border village of Panmunjom in demilitarized zone (File) General Walter Sharp, commander of U.S. Forces in Korea, responded Monday to signs of a possibly imminent North Korean missile test by calling on Pyongyang for restraint.

"Many, many countries around the world are watching North Korea, right now, to see if it will act responsibly or not," Sharp said. "We call on North Korea to stop provocations and act like a responsible country."

American and South Korean defense analysts say there is evidence North Korea is preparing a site for a test launch of its most advanced missile - capable, in theory, of reaching U.S. territory.

The United States deploys about 28,000 military personnel here in South Korea to help deter or defeat any repeat of the North's 1950 invasion of the South.

Sharp warned that the United States is fully capable of responding to any provocation from the North.

"We have all available options open to us," Sharp said. "That includes everything from diplomatic to economic sanctions to military options."

Despite recent sharp rhetoric from Pyongyang few, if any, analysts believe impoverished North Korea has the resources to sustain a major war effort against the South. What the North does have is hundreds of artillery and missile positions along the North-South border, capable of striking the South's territory within minutes.

Sharp warned that any potential conflict with the North would result in some degree of destruction in the South's capital, Seoul. However, he added that U.S. high-tech weaponry would quickly disable the North's ability to strike.

"Even as North Korea continues to improve their missile system, we outpace them and improve our ability to find and kill those systems as quickly as possible," Sharp said.

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak said, in a radio address Monday, he is ready to sit down with North Korea "at any time to resolve every issue." He urged South Koreans to be calm.

He says he is aware many are concerned about recent threats from the North but says South Koreans "do not need to worry too much."

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Clinton makes offer to N.Korea, appeals to China

Clinton makes offer to N.Korea, appeals to China

Fri Feb 13, 2009 4:01pm EST

By Arshad Mohammed

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Friday offered North Korea a peace treaty, normal ties and aid if it eliminates its nuclear arms program and stressed her desire to work more cooperatively with China.

Speaking ahead of a trip to Japan, Indonesia, South Korea and China next week, Clinton also said North Koreans deserved political rights, urged Myanmar to free opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and, in a comment that may irk Beijing, said Tibetans and all Chinese deserved religious freedom.

Searching for a way to end North Korea's nuclear programs is likely to be one of the main topics on Clinton's week-long trip to Asia that will also cover the global financial crisis and climate change.

"If North Korea is genuinely prepared to completely and verifiably eliminate their nuclear weapons program, the Obama administration will be willing to normalize bilateral relations, replace the peninsula's long-standing armistice agreements with a permanent peace treaty, and assist in meeting the energy and other economic needs of the North Korean people," Clinton said at New York's Asia Society.

She also said she hoped North Korea, which is reported to have made preparations for a long-range missile test, would not engage in what she called "provocative" actions that would make it more difficult for the United States to work with Pyongyang.

"So much of it depends upon the choices that they make," she said.

Talks to end North Korea's nuclear arms program have been stalled for months. Pyongyang complains that aid given in return for crippling its nuclear plant at Yongbyon is not being delivered as promised in a six-party deal it struck with China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States.

The secretive North has balked at a demand by the other powers that it commit to a system to verify claims it made about its nuclear program, leaving the talks in limbo.

U.S. analysts believe that part of Clinton's mission is to reassure Tokyo and Seoul that it will not bargain over their heads in talks with North Korea.

In a potent gesture toward Japan, Clinton said she would meet family members of the so-called "abductees" -- Japanese citizens kidnapped by North Korean agents decades ago to help train spies.

MILITARY TALKS

Clinton, who openly criticized China's human rights record in a 1995 speech in Beijing, also aims to cultivate a constructive relationship with the Chinese leadership.

"It is in our interest to work harder to build on areas of common concern and shared opportunities," Clinton said.

Later this month, she added, the United States and China would resume military-to-military talks that Beijing suspended last year after U.S. arms sales to Taiwan.

"As part of our dialogues we will hold ourselves and others accountable as we work to expand human rights and create a world that respects those rights," Clinton said.

"One where Nobel Prize-winner Aung San Suu Kyi (of Myanmar) can live freely in her own country, where the people of North Korea can freely choose their own leaders, and where Tibetans and all Chinese people can enjoy religious freedom without fear of prosecution," she said.

Opposition leader Suu Kyi has been under house arrest in Myanmar since May 2003 and has been detained for 13 of the last 19 years. Her National League for Democracy won a landslide victory in the 1990 elections but was denied power by the military that runs the country.

Clinton said that she and Chinese officials would also discuss how to revive the world economy, saying she applauded Chinese stimulus efforts and would be discussing "what more we can do together in order to cooperate."

How to tackle climate change will be a key topic during her trip, and Clinton said she would press the use of "clean" energy in all the countries she visited.

Collaboration on clean energy offered a real opportunity to develop a good relationship with China, she said, adding she would visit a "clean" thermal plant while in Beijing that was built with U.S. and Chinese technology.

(Reporting by Arshad Mohammed, Claudia Parsons, Sue Pleming and John Whitesides; Writing by Arshad Mohammed; Editing by David Storey and Eric Beech)

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From Times Online
February 17, 2009
Hillary Clinton adopts softer line with North Korea

Richard Lloyd Parry in Tokyo

Hillary Clinton set a new tone of conciliation in the United States’s foreign relations today by promising humanitarian aid, diplomatic recognition and security guarantees for North Korea if it gives up its nuclear weapons programme.

At the beginning of her first overseas trip as Secretary of State, she also spoke of the importance of “balance” and “harmony” in international relations - a striking contrast with the tough and sometimes confrontational language of the Bush administration.

In a press conference in Tokyo with the Japanese Foreign Minister, Hirofumi Nakasone, she urged North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons programme, which climaxed in 2006 with an underground nuclear test. But, in contrast with the stern and often moralistic tone of her predecessors, her emphasis was firmly on the benefits to North Korea and the potential for future co-operation with the US.

“North Korea should in no way be mistaken,” she said. “President Obama in his inaugural address said that the US will reach out a hand to those with whom we have differences, as long as they unclench their fists. But the decision as to whether North Korea will co-operate in the Six Party Talks, end provocative language and actions, is up to them – and we are watching very closely. If North Korea abides by the obligations it has already entered into and verifiably and completely eliminates its nuclear programme, then there will be a reciprocal response, certainly from the United States. There will be a chance to normalise relations, to enter into a peace treaty rather than an Armistice and to give assistance for the people of North Korea.”

Related Links

• Clinton faces Korean challenge on Asia trip
• North Korea hints at missile launch
• Clinton has chance to make up for US neglect

Even on the question of the long range missile which North Korea, according to intelligence agencies, is preparing to test fire from its east coast, Mrs Clinton’s language was relatively mild. “The possible missile launch that North Korea is talking about would be very unhelpful in moving our relationship forward,” she said.

The contrast with the first days of President Bush, who categorised North Korea as part of the “axis of evil” and denounced its leader, Kim Jong Il, as a “pygmy”, could not be stronger. After a U-turn two years ago, the Bush Government began to negotiate face to face with Pyongyang through the dovish Assistant Secretary of State, Christopher Hill, who is travelling with Mrs Clinton. But everything about her inaugural visit so far suggests that such an approach will be treated as a positive goal of the Obama administration, rather than a reluctant necessity.

“We need to be looking to create more balance, more harmony,” she said after a visit to the Meiji Shrine in Tokyo. “We're going to be listening but we're also going to be asking for more partnerships to come together to try to work with us to handle the problems that none of us can handle alone.”

Mrs Clinton’s choice of Tokyo as her first overseas stop has been widely taken as a compliment to Japan; an impression that was strengthened yesterday when she invited the country’s Prime Minister, Taro Aso, to Washington next week to become the first foreign leader received by President Obama. The flattering attention has done much to allay an atmosphere of mild mistrust which arose in the last months of the Bush administration.

Japan’s policy towards North Korea has been driven by public anger over the fate of a number of Japanese citizens who were abducted by North Korea in the 1970s and 1980s. Five were allowed back to Japan, but at least ten are unaccounted for. Pyongyang says that they died of natural causes, but the Japanese Government has demanded a full investigation into their deaths, before any broader aid to North Korea is considered.

Many Japanese were dismayed when the Bush administration removed North Korea from a list of terrorist nations last year as a reward for partial progress in the nuclear negotiations. Yesterday Mrs Clinton met with parents of the missing abductees, but made no response to their appeal to designate North Korea a terrorist state once again.

"I'm a daughter, I'm a sister, I'm a mother,” she told Japanese television. “And I really cannot even imagine the pain they must feel every day. So I reassured them that the abduction issue is a part of the Six Party talks. It is a very important matter to President Obama and myself.”

[American Patriot]

North Korea warns of war as Clinton heads for Seoul

Thu Feb 19, 2009 8:56am EST


By Jon Herskovitz


SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea accused the United States on Thursday of planning a nuclear attack in a report which came as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton flew to Seoul for talks on defusing Pyongyang's military threat.


It was the latest in increasingly angry rhetoric by the reclusive state, which earlier in the day said it was ready for war with South Korea.


"The U.S. bellicose quarters are pushing ahead with the moves for rounding off the preparations ... in a bid to make a pre-emptive nuclear strike," the North's official media said.


"The U.S. is talking about what it called 'dialogue' and 'peace' on the Korean peninsula but, in actuality, seeking to escalate the military confrontation," the KCNA news agency quoted a commentary in the state's communist party newspaper as saying.


The prickly North, which has repeatedly threatened in recent weeks to reduce the South to ashes, is thought to be readying its longest-range missile -- which could reach U.S. territory -- for launch in what analysts say is a bid to grab the new U.S. administration's attention and put pressure on Seoul.


Clinton said in Tokyo on Tuesday, at the start of her first foreign trip since taking office, that a North Korean missile launch would be "very unhelpful." [ID:nSP261436]


The South's foreign minister warned a launch would be met by sanctions and further isolation. The two Koreas are technically still at war, never having reached a formal peace treaty to end their 1950-53 conflict.
Seoul has all but cut off aid to its neighbor because Pyongyang has been dragging its heels over ending its nuclear weapons program.


In a reminder of the North's dire plight, the South's unification minister told parliament the state fell about 20 percent short of producing the minimum food needed to feed its 23 million people despite having one of its best harvests in years.


MISSILE TESTS


Reports in the South said North Korea has been assembling its Taepodong-2 missile, which is designed to carry a warhead as far as Alaska. The same missile fizzled and blew apart seconds after it was launched for the first and only time in 2006.


South Korea's defense minister was quoted by local media as saying the North could test-launch the missile in about two or three weeks. A leading local daily quoted intelligence sources as saying it could be as early as next week.


South Korean officials have said they are also worried about North Korea holding a short-range missile test toward a contested Yellow Sea border off the west coast of the peninsula which has been the scene of deadly naval fights between the rival Koreas.


Analysts said the North may provoke a minor skirmish but did not expect a major conflict because Pyongyang's huge but ill-equipped army is little match for South Korea and its major ally the United States, which positions about 28,000 troops on the peninsula.


Just before Clinton touched down in Tokyo this week, North Korea issued a fresh missile threat by saying it had the right to launch its longest-range rocket, which Pyongyang contends is at the center of its peaceful space program. Continued...

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NKorea warns against US-SKorean war drill

19 February 2009 1046 hrs (SST)

SEOUL: North Korea on Thursday warned the United States and South Korea against holding joint military exercises, saying the two allies would pay a "high price" for conducting what it described as war preparations.

The warning came a day after the US-South Korean combined forces command announced the annual "Key Resolve/Foal Eagle" drill would take place from March 9-20 across the peninsula.

"The war preparations by the US and South Korean authorities that bring in the fiery winds of war to the Korean peninsula will exact a high price as they are against peace and the times," the North's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said in its Korean dispatch.

A spokesman for the North's army General Staff also accused South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak's government of raising cross-border tension, repeating a threat that Pyongyang is ready for an "all-out confrontation".

"Traitor Lee and his group... are more frantically inciting hostility toward the DPRK (North Korea) and kicking up anti-DPRK war hysteria under that pretext," the spokesman told KCNA in a separate English dispatch.

"But they will only meet the merciless and stern punishment by the army and people of the DPRK for the above-said acts as already warned by it."

The South Korean-US command said Wednesday that the "defence-oriented" joint military exercise would involve "all available (South Korean and US) service members and equipment in the peninsula."

Officials in Seoul said a US aircraft carrier and 26,000 US troops -- 12,000 in South Korea and 14,000 from overseas -- and an undisclosed number of South Korean troops would be taking part.

Communist North Korea regularly denounces joint military exercises as a preparation for an attack on it, a claim denied by Seoul and Washington.

The two Koreas are still technically at war as the 1950-1953 Korean conflict ended only in an armistice rather than a formal peace deal.

- AFP/yt

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North Korea says it's prepared for war with South Korea

Agence France-Presse
February 18, 2009 8:05 PM

SEOUL - North Korea said Thursday it was "fully ready" for war with South Korea, stepping up its rhetoric just hours before US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was scheduled to arrive in Seoul.

"The Lee Myung-Bak group of traitors should never forget that the Korean People's Army is fully ready for an all-out confrontation," a spokesman for the army General Staff said.

The statement to the North's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) was the latest in a series of increasingly strident threats against President Lee's conservative government, which have raised cross-border tensions.

South Korean Defence Minister Lee Sang-Hee has said a limited naval clash may break out around the two countries' disputed border in the Yellow Sea.

Lee and other officials also say the North is preparing to test its longest-range missile, which could theoretically reach Alaska. Minister Lee said Wednesday it could be ready for launch within two or three weeks.

Clinton, who is scheduled to arrive at 10.45 pm (1345 GMT), has said any missile test would be "very unhelpful" for US-North Korean relations and has urged Pyongyang to drop its harsh rhetoric.

Last month the North announced it is scrapping all peace accords with the South including a 1991 pact that recognised the sea border as an interim frontier.

The border was the scene of deadly naval clashes in 1999 and 2002.

Seoul's unification ministry, which handles cross-border relations, said the 1991 pact should be respected. It urged the North to halt its "denunciations and provocative behaviour" and accept an offer of dialogue.

In a separate dispatch, KNCA blasted plans for a regular joint exercise by South Korean and US forces, saying they would pay a "high price" for conducting what it described as war preparations.

The warning came a day after the US-South Korean combined forces command announced that the annual "Key Resolve/Foal Eagle" drill would take place from March 9-20 across the peninsula.

"The war preparations by the US and South Korean authorities that bring the fiery winds of war to the Korean peninsula will exact a high price as they are against peace and the times," it said.

The command has told North Korea the exercise is purely defensive. It will involve a US aircraft carrier, 26,000 US troops and an undisclosed number of South Korean troops.

President Lee has angered Pyongyang by abandoning his predecessors' policy of engagement and virtually unconditional aid to the North.

He says major economic aid should be linked to denuclearisation and pledges to review summit pacts reached between Pyongyang and his predecessors.

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Thursday, February 19, 2009
‘North Korea operating secret nuclear plant’

* Seoul warns Pyongyang it will face UN sanctions if it tests missile

SEOUL: North Korea is operating a secret underground plant to make nuclear bombs from highly enriched uranium (HEU) despite denying that such a programme exists, a South Korean newspaper said Wednesday.

Dong-A Ilbo, quoting an unnamed senior government source, said South Korea and the United States have shared intelligence on the plant in Yongbyon district. Seoul’s National Intelligence Service refused comment on the report. “Despite North Korea’s denial that uranium enrichment programmes exist, South Korea and the United States have shared information that North Korea has built an uranium enrichment plant which is in operation,” the source told Dong-A. Dong-A said both countries believe the facility can produce HEU for nuclear bombs.

It said the plant is located at Sowi-ri in Yongbyon, North Pyongan Province, where the North’s plutonium-based nuclear complex is situated. The source was quoted as declining to give further details such as the technological level and the output of highly enriched uranium. Washington’s claims in 2002 of a secret HEU programme torpedoed the 1994 deal and sparked a new nuclear crisis. Pyongyang rejected the US allegations and restarted its reactor in protest.

A fresh round of nuclear disarmament talks began in 2003, involving both Koreas, the US, China, Japan and Russia. The talks focused on more pressing concerns about the plutonium programme, which fuelled a 2006 atomic bomb test. Yongbyon has been shut down in return for energy aid as part of a 2007 pact. But talks on the next stage - full denuclearisation in return for diplomatic ties with Washington and a formal peace pact - are stalled by disputes over verifying the North’s acknowledged nuclear activities.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who visits Seoul on Thursday and Friday, told a Senate confirmation hearing last month Washington is still concerned about the HEU programme. “Our goal is to end the North Korean nuclear programme - both the plutonium reprocessing programme and the highly enriched uranium programme, which there is reason to believe exists, although never quite verified,” she said.

Missile test: South Korea’s foreign minister warned North Korea on Wednesday that it will face UN sanctions if it goes ahead with a long-range missile test that would be seen as a threat to the region, “Whether the North launches a missile or a satellite, it is still a violation of a UN Security Council resolution,” Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan told a group of diplomats and journalists. “It will inevitably be followed by sanctions.”

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in Tokyo on Tuesday such a launch would be “very unhelpful” and Washington was watching the North’s moves very closely. The North appears to be readying a launch of the Taepodong-2, its longest-range missile, which experts said is designed to strike US territory but has never flown successfully. The North contends the rockets is the key to its peaceful space programme and said this week it had the right to launch it.

The Security Council in 2006 imposed sanctions on the North after it last launched the Taepodong-2, which fizzled just seconds into flight and destructed. Unfazed by the UN action, the North conducted its first nuclear test with a plutonium-based device three months later and was hit with more sanctions. The UN sanctions that ban arms and financial transactions with the North still remain in place. A missile test by Pyongyang could invoke further penalties, the foreign minister indicated. agencies

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Thursday19/2/2009
February, 2009, 12:34 AM Doha Time

North Korea faces sanctions if tests missile: Seoul

SEOUL: North Korea will face UN sanctions if it goes ahead with a long-range missile test that would be seen as a threat to the region, South Korea’s foreign minister said yesterday.

“Whether the North launches a missile or a satellite, it is still a violation of a UN Security Council resolution,” Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan told a group of diplomats and journalists. “It will inevitably be followed by sanctions.”

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in Tokyo on Tuesday such a launch would be “very unhelpful” and Washington was watching the North’s moves very closely.

The North appears to be readying a launch of the Taepodong-2, its longest-range missile, which experts said is designed to strike US territory but has never flown successfully.

The North contends the rockets is the key to its peaceful space programme and said this week it had the right to launch it.

In addition, South Korea’s Dong-a Ilbo newspaper, quoting a government source, yesterday said North Korea had been running a uranium enrichment plant near its main nuclear complex in Yongbyon, about 100 km north of the capital, Pyongyang, albeit on a small scale.

South Korean officials declined to comment on the report.

The possible existence of an uranium enrichment programme,which could offer an effective way of developing nuclear arms, has been a persistent sticking point in diplomacy.

A US accusation that Pyongyang was clandestinely operating such a plan led to the breakdown of a 1994 disarmament deal and the start of new, six-way nuclear talks in 2003.

The Security Council in 2006 imposed sanctions on the North after it last launched the Taepodong-2, which fizzled just seconds into flight and destructed.

Unfazed by the UN action, the North conducted its first nuclear test with a plutonium-based device three months later and was hit with more sanctions.

The UN sanctions that ban arms and financial transactions with the North still remain in place. A missile test by Pyongyang could invoke further penalties, the foreign minister indicated.

Washington last year dropped some of its trade sanctions against the North for progress it made in nuclear disarmament but scores of other international measures remain in place that ban trading with North Korean entities.

The North has been assembling the Taepodong-2 and could launch it by as early as next week, South Korea’s biggest newspaper, Chosun Ilbo, quoted intelligence sources as saying.

But South Korea’s defence minister was quoted as telling lawmakers in a closed-door briefing it could be another two or three weeks at the earliest for the North to finish preparations for a launch, Yonhap news agency reported.
Financial analysts have said that if the North goes ahead with the launch, it will add a bit of further downward momentum to already battered markets in the region.

North Korea has sharply raised tensions in recent weeks by threatening to destroy its wealthy southern neighbour in anger at the hardline policies of its President Lee Myung-bak.

Another move that should raise tension is an annual joint US and South Korean military exercise, announced by US Force Korea yesterday, that will be held from March 9 to 20.

North Korea has previously called the drills a prelude to invasion and nuclear war. – Reuters

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I think they really want Hillary to write them a large check so they can get a bailout too.

North Korea 'fully ready for war' with South

North Korean leaders have said the country is "fully ready" for war with South Korea, stepping up its rhetoric just hours before US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was scheduled to arrive in Seoul.

Last Updated: 4:46AM GMT 19 Feb 2009

"The Lee Myung-Bak group of traitors should never forget that the Korean People's Army is fully ready for an all-out confrontation," a spokesman for the army General Staff said.

The statement to the North's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) was the latest in a series of increasingly strident threats against President Lee's conservative government, which have raised cross-border tensions.

South Korean Defence Minister Lee Sang-Hee has said a limited naval clash may break out around the two countries' disputed border in the Yellow Sea.

Mr Lee and other officials also say the North is preparing to test its longest-range missile, which could theoretically reach Alaska. He said it could be ready for launch within two or three weeks.

Mrs Clinton, who is scheduled to arrive at 10.45 pm (1345 GMT), has said any missile test would be "very unhelpful" for US-North Korean relations and has urged Pyongyang to drop its harsh rhetoric.

Last month the North announced it is scrapping all peace accords with the South including a 1991 pact that recognised the sea border as an interim frontier.

The border was the scene of deadly naval clashes in 1999 and 2002.

Seoul's unification ministry, which handles cross-border relations, said the 1991 pact should be respected. It urged the North to halt its "denunciations and provocative behaviour" and accept an offer of dialogue.

In a separate dispatch, KNCA blasted plans for a regular joint exercise by South Korean and US forces, saying they would pay a "high price" for conducting what it described as war preparations.

[New Guy]

N. Korea Threatens War if 'Satellite' Is Shot Down


PrintShareThis
AFP

File: A Taepodong-2 missile is seen during a test firing in North Korea.

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea put its armed forces on standby Monday and threatened "a war" if anyone tries to shoot down what regional powers suspect is an imminent test-firing of a long-range missile.

Pyongyang also cut off a military hot line with the South, causing a complete shutdown of their border and stranding hundreds of South Koreans working in an industrial zone in the North Korean border city of Kaesong.

Monday's warning — the latest barrage of threats from the communist regime — came as U.S. and South Korean troops kicked off annual war games across the South, exercises the North has condemned as preparation for an invasion. Pyongyang last week threatened South Korean passenger planes flying near its airspace during the drills.

Analysts say the regime is trying to grab President Barack Obama's attention as his administration formulates its North Korea policy.

The North also indicated it was pushing ahead with plans to send a communications satellite into space, a provocative launch neighboring governments believe could be a cover for a long-range missile capable of reaching Alaska.


U.S. and Japanese officials have suggested they could shoot down a North Korean missile if necessary, further incensing Pyongyang.

"Shooting our satellite for peaceful purposes will precisely mean a war," the general staff of the North's military said in a statement carried Monday by the official Korean Central News Agency.

Any interception will draw "a just retaliatory strike operation not only against all the interceptor means involved but against the strongholds" of the U.S., Japan and South Korea, it said.

The North has ordered military personnel "fully combat ready," KCNA said in a separate dispatch.

Obama's special envoy on North Korea again urged Pyongyang not to fire a missile, which he said would be an "extremely ill-advised" move.

RELATED STORIES
Intelligence Officials: North Korea's 'Satellite' Is Long-Range Missile
Official Says North Korea is Month Away From Launching Missile or Rocket
North Korea Bans IAEA From Yongbyon Nuclear Facilities
Reports: North Korea Fires Short-Range Missile Into Yellow Sea
PHOTO ESSAYS
North Korea Missiles
"Whether they describe it as a satellite launch or something else makes no difference" since both would violate a U.N. Security Council resolution banning the North from ballistic activity, Stephen Bosworth told reporters after talks with his South Korean counterpart.

South Korea's Defense Ministry spokesman Won Tae-jae downplayed the North's threats as "rhetoric" but said the country's military was ready to deal with any contingencies.

Analysts say a satellite or missile launch could occur late this month or in early April when the North's new legislature, elected Sunday, is expected to convene its first session to confirm Kim Jong Il as leader.

Ties between the two Koreas have plunged since South Korean President Lee Myung-bak took office a year ago halting aid unless the North fulfills an international promise to dismantle its nuclear program.

In retaliation, North Korea suspended the reconciliation process and key joint projects with Seoul, and has stepped up the stream of belligerence toward the South.

Severing the military hot line for the duration of the 12-day joint U.S.-South Korean military exercises leaves the two Koreas without any means of communication at a time of heightened tensions.

The two Koreas use the hot line to exchange information about goods and people crossing into Kaesong. Its suspension halted traffic and stranded about 570 South Koreans who were working in Kaesong.

About 80 had planned to return to the South on Monday but were stuck there overnight since they cannot travel after nightfall. Earlier, some 700 South Koreans who intended to go to Kaesong on Monday were unable to cross the border, the Unification Ministry said.

All South Koreans in Kaesong are safe, the ministry said as it called on Pyongyang to restore the hot line immediately.

The two Koreas technically remain in a state of war since their three-year conflict ended in a cease-fire, not a peace treaty, in 1953. Hundreds of thousands of troops are amassed on each side of the Demilitarized Zone separating the two Koreas, making the Korean border one of the world's most heavily armed.

The United States, which has 28,5000 troops in South Korea, routinely holds military exercises with the South. Pyongyang routinely condemns them as rehearsals for invasion despite assurances from Seoul and Washington that the drills are defensive.

The exercises, which will involve some 26,000 U.S. troops, an unspecified number of South Korean soldiers and a U.S. aircraft carrier, are "not tied in any way to any political or real world event," Gen. Walter Sharp, commander of the U.S. troops, said Monday.

[Toad]

Man. I would just love to see an "accident" occur to that launch.

[New Guy]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,510504,00.html

Report: North Korea Prepares to Move Long-Range Missile to Launch Pad
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
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AFP

File: A Taepodong-2 missile is seen during a test firing in North Korea.

North Korea is expected to move its highly controversial Taepodong-2 missile to the launch pad this weekend in anticipation of an early April firing, the AFP quoted a South Korean report Wednesday.

The isolated country has said it intends to launch a communications satellite over Japan some time between April 4 and April 8, but the U.S. and South Korea believe the launch will be a long-range ballistic missile test.

"It is highly likely that the rocket will emerge between March 28 and 31," AFP quotes a South Korean military source, adding it will take more time to add fuel. The source also said South Korea would start a crisis management operation as soon as the rocket is set up.

Tokyo media reports say Japan's military may shoot down the rocket if it threatens the country.

North Korea warned the United States, Japan and their allies on Tuesday not to interfere with its plan to launch the satellite into space next month.

A 2006 U.N. Security Council resolution prohibits North Korea from engaging in ballistic activity, which Washington and its allies say includes firing a long-range missile or using a rocket to send a satellite into space.

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The North warned that any sanctions would violate the spirit of the disarmament-for-aid pact Pyongyang signed in 2007 with five other nations: the U.S., South Korea, China, Japan and Russia.

The Associated Press and AFP contributed to this report.

[AGEUSAF]

Back in 1998 I was on the neighbor island with the cobra ball when the TD-1 took flight waited around for 30 days just for that thing to rainbow into the pacific. Pretty much a scud on top of a no-dong I believe.

[American Patriot]

Your take then? Will they succeed in launching this missile into space, or will the Japanese freak and blow it out of the sky?

[vector7]

US: North Korea Appears Set for Missile Launch
By VOA News 25 March 2009

U.S. officials say that North Korea is loading what is believed to be a long-range ballistic missile on a launch pad.

The unnamed officials said Wednesday that the Taepodong missile is being positioned at the Musudan-ri launch facility in the northeastern province of North Hamkyong.

A Taepodong-2 ballistic missile is believed to have the capability of reaching Alaska.

Earlier Wednesday, a spokesman for the U.S. State Department Gordon Duguid told reporters that he had no information on the subject.

The news comes on the same day that a top Chinese military official, General Chen Bingde visited Seoul to meet with his South Korean counterpart about the issue.

Ahead of Wednesday's meeting, an unidentified South Korean defense official told the Yonhap news agency that Seoul planned to ask China to pressure North Korea to stop the launch.

North Korea says it plans to launch a communications satellite between April 4 and April 8.

The United States, Japan and South Korea have said Pyongyang intends to use the launch to test its missile capability.

North Korean officials warned the international community not to interfere with its plans, saying any attempts to punish Pyongyang could cause six-nation talks about its nuclear program to collapse.

South Korea's delegate to those talks, Wi Sung-lac, downplayed any connection between the possible rocket launch and ongoing negotiations.

He said a launch would elevate tensions in the near term, but that there would be opportunities for talks to resume.

The United States has said North Korea's latest warning is not helpful.

Some information for this report was provided by AP.

[vector7]

US: North Korea loading rocket on launch pad

This undated black-and-white handout image provided by DigitalGlobe shows a aerial view of a North Korean rocket launch site. North Korea is loading a Taepodong rocket on its east coast launch pad in anticipation of the launch of a communications satellite early next month, U.S. officials say. (AP Photo/DigitalGlobe)

By Pamela Hess Associated Press Writer / March 25, 2009

WASHINGTON—North Korea is loading a Taepodong rocket on its east coast launch pad in anticipation of the launch of a communications satellite early next month, U.S. officials say. U.S. counterproliferation and intelligence officials have confirmed Japanese news reports of the expected launch between April 4 and 8.

North Korea announced its intention to launch the satellite in February. Regional powers worry the claim is a cover for the launch of a long-range missile capable of reaching Alaska. National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair said earlier this month that all indications suggest North Korea will in fact launch a satellite.

North Korea faked a satellite launch in 1998 to cloak a missile development test. In 2006, it launched a Taepodong-2 that blew up less than a minute into flight.

Both the satellite launch rocket and long-range missile use similar technology, and arms control experts fear even a satellite launch would be a test toward eventually launching a long-range missile.

South Korea, the U.S. and Japan have urged North Korea to refrain from launching a satellite or missile, calling it a violation of a U.N. Security Council resolution barring the country from ballistic activity.

North Korea insists it bears the right to develop its space program and on Tuesday warned the U.S., Japan and its allies not to interfere with the launch.

Officials at the South Korea's National Intelligence Service and the Defense Ministry were not available for comment early Thursday in Seoul.

South Korea's chief nuclear envoy, Wi Sung-lac, said Wednesday after returning from talks with his Beijing counterparts, that a launch would trigger a response.

"If North Korea launches rocket, certain countermeasures are unavoidable," he said. He refused to elaborate, saying the measures, including any sanctions, would be discussed among U.N. Security Council member nations.

It probably won't be clear if the latest launch is a satellite or a missile test until footage can be analyzed after the event; the trajectory of a missile is markedly different from that of a satellite.

Analysts have been watching for signs of a satellite or missile on the launch pad in Musudan-ni, the northeast coastal launch site. Satellite imagery from March 16 showed progress toward mounting a rocket, with a crane hovering over the launch pad, said Christian LeMiere, an editor at Jane's Intelligence Review in London.

He said that once mounted, scientists would need at least a week to fuel and carry out tests before any launch. Images from earlier this month did not indicate the rocket or missile had been mounted, he said Wednesday.
------
Associated Press Writer Jean H. Lee in Seoul contributed to this report.
© Copyright 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

[AGEUSAF]

Rick that is a really good question. If Iran can get one up into space then North Korea should be able too. Would be interesting to see what would happen if Japan pulled the trigger on this thing.