Korean Peninsula On The Brink Of War

[BRVoice]

To all, what do you think about the "postponement" of today's drill?

[BRVoice]

(LEAD) Weather likely to postpone live-fire drill off border island

SEOUL, Dec. 18 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's live-fire drill that was expected to start as early as this weekend off a front-line island will likely be moved back a day or two because of bad weather, a military source said Saturday, following North Korea's warning of a fresh attack.

Tensions spiked high in the Yellow Sea after North Korea warned Friday that it will strike back with "deadlier" firepower if the South goes ahead with its planned exercise off Yeonpyeong Island. The North bombarded the island on Nov. 23, killing two civilians and two marines.

South Korea's military had planned to hold the one-day drill between Saturday and Tuesday, but a military source, requesting anonymity, told Yonhap News Agency that the exercise is not likely to happen during the weekend, citing weather conditions.

"Given that the maritime weather conditions around Yeonpyeong Island are expected to worsen from this afternoon, we decided that it'd be difficult for the military to hold a live-fire drill," the source said.

The military, however, will still go ahead with the exercise on Monday or Tuesday, the source added.

"Weather conditions are the most important factor in deciding the time for a drill. Early next week will be the most likely time to hold it because the weather should improve," he said.

In a statement carried by the Korean Central News Agency, the North said it will "deal the second and third unpredictable self-defensive blow" if the drills are carried out.

"It will be deadlier than what was made on Nov. 23 in terms of the power and range of the strike," the unnamed head of the North Korean general-level military delegation said. The North issued a similar warning on Saturday.

Neighboring countries and allies closely watched the situation on the Korean Peninsula. The United States supported South Korea's planned drill, while calls for restraint came from China and Russia.

Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Zhijun summoned South Korean Ambassador to China Yu Woo-ik in Beijing on Friday to urge Seoul to refrain from the drill, a high-level diplomatic source in Seoul said, requesting anonymity.

Also, in a statement posted on the Chinese Foreign Ministry Web site, ministry spokesperson Jiang Yu said China "opposes any activity that will deteriorate the situation of the Korean Peninsula and destroy peace and stability in the region."

Russia's Foreign Ministry also issued a statement calling on Seoul to refrain from artillery practice, noting the Nov. 23 attack occurred while a similar drill was under way.

But Washington called on China and Russia to pressure Pyongyang to stop its provocation. The North should not use the South Korean exercise as an excuse for further provocation, said U.S. State Department spokesman Philip Crowley.

"We want to see other countries, including China and Russia and others, send a clear message to North Korea to cease its provocations," Crowley told a daily briefing. "It is certainly understandable that South Korea is making sure that its military is properly prepared in the face of North Korea's ongoing provocations."

A senior U.S. politician and a top U.S. nuclear envoy were each visiting Pyongyang and Seoul amid the tensions. New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson arrived in Pyongyang earlier this week on a private mission to defuse the tensions, while Sung Kim, U.S. envoy to six-nation nuclear talks on North Korea, met with his South Korean counterpart in Seoul on Friday.

South Korean political parties were sharply divided, with the opposition calling for the exercise to be canceled.

"Not only China and Russia but also U.S. experts are deeply concerned that this live-fire drill could cause a chain reaction from North Korea, which would be another bombardment," Cha Young, spokesperson of the main opposition Democratic Party, said.

But the ruling Grand National Party called for "strong and stern action" from the military.

Some 20 military personnel from the U.S. forces in South Korea are expected to provide medical, communications and intelligence support for the drill. Members of the Military Armistice Commission of the U.S.-led United Nations Command, which supervises the armistice agreement that ended the 1950-53 Korean War, will also observe the upcoming drill.

In preparation for a possible provocation by the North, the South's military will keep fighter jets on standby. The Joint Chiefs of Staff has also deployed surface-to-air missiles, more K-9 self-propelled howitzers and 130-millimeter multiple-launch rocket systems to the island.

In last month's attack, North Korea fired about 170 artillery shells onto Yeonpyeong, and South Korean marines stationed on the island managed to fire just 80 rounds in return.

The communist country does not honor the Northern Limit Line, just above the Yeonpyeong island, that has served as a de facto maritime border between the Koreas because it was unilaterally drawn by a U.S. general at the end of the Korean War.

hkim@yna.co.kr
(END)

[BRVoice]

China warns possible Korea clash could hurt region
Reuters
December 18, 2010 - 26 minutes ago


South Korean marines patrol Yeonpyeong island. North Korea said on Friday it would strike again at the South if a live-fire drill by Seoul on the disputed island of Yeonpyeong went ahead, with an even stronger response than last month's shelling that killed four people. –Reuters Photo



BEIJING: China warned on Saturday that a possible fresh clash between North and South Korea could shake regional stability and it urged both governments to avoid moves that it said would stoke tensions.

Reflecting Beijing’s hands-off stance towards the volatile rift between the two sides of the Korean Peninsula, the statement from Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu neither directly criticised Seoul’s plans to stage a live-fire military drill nor Pyongyang’s threat to strike if the drill goes ahead.

But Jiang’s statement, issued on the Ministry’s website (www.mfa.gov.cn), made plain that Beijing fears a repeat of the confrontation that erupted last month, when North Korea shelled a South Korean island after Seoul staged a military drill.

“The situation on the Korean peninsula is now particularly complex and sensitive, and China is highly concerned,” Jiang said.

“If a bloody clash breaks out on the peninsula, the first to suffer will be the people on both sides of the peninsula, and it would also certainly wreck regional peace and stability, harming surrounding countries.”

Jiang renewed China’s call for talks to defuse the confrontation between Seoul and its long-time ally Pyongyang.

“China resolutely opposes, without the least ambiguity, any actions that could lead to a deterioration and escalation in the situation and wreck regional peace and stability.”

[American Patriot]

DPRK demands withdrawal of US troops from South Korea - paper

PYONGYANG, December 17 (Itar-Tass) - The newspaper Rodong Shinmun, which expresses the opinion of the DPRK leadership, demanded that the United States withdraw its troops from South Korea and conclude with Pyongyang a peace treaty instead of the agreement on armistice which is in force now. The article stresses that the situation in the Korean Peninsula "has extremely aggravated through the fault of the United States which tries by all means to stifle the people's republic."

wait.. ROTFLMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is their idea of kicking out the Americans so they can attack South Korea. LOL!


Fuck them

[American Patriot]

To all, what do you think about the "postponement" of today's drill?

A way to put it off a day longer to give DPRK a moment to chill perhaps.



Honestly, if it were me, I'd go with the drills and if North Korea bombed me, I'd fucking nuke them into oblivion and atoms.

Good think I am not the President of the United States right now, or of South Korea. I'd personally flip the fuckers off.

[BRVoice]

Chinese fishing boat poaching in South Korean waters capsizes

GUNSAN, South Korea, Dec. 18 (Yonhap) -- Two Chinese fishermen were missing and another in critical condition after their trawler capsized after colliding with a South Korean Coast Guard boat Saturday, officials said.

Four South Korean coast guard officers were also injured as they tried to arrest the crew of the Chinese fishing boat poaching 120 kilometers off South Korea's Eocheong Island, said the Coast Guard officials.

[BRVoice]

Sam Kim (egalite_twitted):

In intensifying rhetoric, NKorea threatens "brutal consequences beyond imagination" if SKorea violates its "sky, soil or sea even 0.001 mm." 37 minutes ago via twtkr

[BRVoice]

Island residents worried over planned live-fire drill after N. Korean warning

YEONPYEONG ISLAND, South Korea, Dec. 18 (Yonhap) - Fears of a fresh North Korean attack resurfaced Saturday among residents of South Korea's Yeonpyeong Island, which the North bombarded last month, as the South prepared to stage a live-fire drill in the coming days.

Scores of residents who stayed on Yeonpyeong despite last month's attack were anxious and worried that the drill would trigger a new attack, as North Korea warned it would strike back with "deadlier" firepower if the South went ahead with its exercise off the front-line island.

The North shelled Yeonpyeong on Nov. 23, killing two civilians and two marines.

"The situation makes me too nervous to stay, since North Korea may fire artillery at any time in the near future," Kang Yeong-gil, a 67-year-old farmer, said. "As soon as this rice crop gets sold in the government procurement, I will leave."

Residents closely monitored television news for further developments, bracing for any sign of a possible North Korean provocation.

"I couldn't sleep last night. The day-to-day situation is so unstable I can't live here anymore," a resident, who identified himself by his surname Kim, said.

Some were angry over the South Korean military's decision to hold the one-day exercise despite North Korea's warning of a full-scale war. The drill was expected to start as early as this weekend but the military decided to move it back a day or two because of bad weather, a military source said Saturday.

The residents demanded the military try putting itself in their shoes.

"Honestly I don't want our military to go ahead with the drill. It seems as if our government is watching the fire on the other side of the river," a resident surnamed Ko said.

A skirmish briefly erupted between some of the jittery Yeonpyeong residents and several North Korean defectors who had sailed to the island to send anti-North Korean propaganda fliers across the border. Pyongyang finds such propaganda fliers highly provocative.

hkim@yna.co.kr
(END)

[BRVoice]

N. Korean defectors send anti-Pyongyang fliers amid growing tensions on border island
The Korea Herald
2010-12-18 16:00

A group of North Korean defectors flew propaganda leaflets toward the North on Saturday denouncing the communist state's attack on this border island last month, as tensions spiked over a planned South Korean live-fire drill.

North Korea warned of a deadlier attack should the South proceed with its exercise off Yeonpyeong, just below the Yellow Sea border. Its earlier attack on Nov. 23 followed a similar South Korean exercise in the region, killing two marines and two civilians.

Several activists from North Korean defectors' organizations, including the Seoul-based Fighters for Free North Korea, sent 10 balloons from Yeonpyeong that carried about 200,000 leaflets critical of the North Korean attack and its regime. The balloons also contained 500 CDs that hold the footage of the shelling and, in a bid to encourage North Korean citizens to pick them up, 1,000 U.S. one-dollar bills.

North Korea finds such propaganda fliers highly provocative and has repeatedly condemned the South Korean government for failing to prohibit such activities.

"While the (South Korean) people's anxiety had yet to subside after the Cheonan incident, North Korea indiscriminately bombarded South Korean territory again," Park Sang-hak, a North Korean defector and head of Fighters for Free North Korea, said, referring to the March sinking of a South Korean warship blamed on a North Korean torpedo attack. "We flew the leaflets in order to tell the North Korean people of this provocative behavior."

The leaflets carry such messages as "Let's bring down the third-generation hereditary succession" or "Rise up, North Korean compatriots," Park said.

Judging from the wind blowing from the southwest, they forecast the fliers would end up in Pyongyang or the western port city of Nampo in the coming days.

A skirmish erupted between the defectors and some Yeonpyeong residents, who feared the fliers may further provoke the North. But no casualties occurred.

The island residents were anxious and worried that the drill would trigger a new attack, as North Korea warned it would strike back with "deadlier" firepower if the South went ahead with its exercise.

"The situation makes me too nervous to stay, since North Korea may fire artillery at any time in the near future," Kang Yeong-gil, a 67-year-old farmer, said. "As soon as this rice crop gets sold in the government procurement, I will leave."

Residents closely monitored television news for further developments, bracing for any sign of a possible North Korean
provocation.

"I couldn't sleep last night. The day-to-day situation is so unstable I can't live here anymore," a resident, who identified
himself by his surname Kim, said.

Some were angry over the South Korean military's decision to hold the one-day exercise despite North Korea's warning of a full-scale war. The drill was expected to start as early as this weekend but the military decided to move it back a day or two because of bad weather, a military source said Saturday.

The residents demanded the military try putting itself in their shoes.

"Honestly I don't want our military to go ahead with the drill. It seems as if our government is watching the fire on the other side of the river," a resident surnamed Ko said. (Yonhap News)

[BRVoice]

This will only make things more difficult:


China fishing boat capsizes in scuffle; 1 dead

(AP) – 4 hours ago

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - A Chinese fishing boat capsized in a maritime scuffle with a South Korean coast guard ship trying to curb its illegal fishing activities Saturday, killing one fisherman and leaving two others missing, South Korea's coast guard said.

About 50 Chinese fishing boats were illegally fishing in western South Korean waters off Gunsan city, about 170 miles (270 kilometers) south of Seoul, when the South Korean ship approached them, coast guard spokesman Ji Kwan-tae said. One of the boats intentionally hit the larger coast guard ship to allow fellow Chinese vessels to sail back to their waters, and then capsized, he said.

Eight people from the capsized boat were plucked from the sea, but one was unconscious and later died at a Gunsan hospital, the coast guard said in a statement. Coast guard boats and helicopters were dispatched to the area to locate the two missing Chinese sailors, it said.

Coast guard officers fought with fishermen on other Chinese boats who wielded steel pipes, shovels and clubs, and four of the officers suffered fractured arms and other injuries, the statement said. None of the injuries were life-threatening, Ji said.

Chinese fishing fleets have been going farther afield to feed growing domestic demand. A collision between a Chinese fishing boat and Japanese coast guard vessels in September led to a nasty diplomatic spat between the two countries over disputed islands in the East China Sea. The incident soured what had been improving relations between China and Japan.

More than 300 Chinese fishing boats are captured for fishing illegally in South Korean waters every year, according to South Korea's coast guard. In 2008, one South Korean coast guard officer was killed and six others injured in a maritime scuffle with Chinese fishermen fishing in South Korean waters.

A senior South Korean Foreign Ministry official expressed regret over the death of the Chinese fisherman in a phone call to the Chinese consul general in Seoul, Yonhap news agency reported. Calls to the South Korean Foreign Ministry went unanswered.

A man answering the phone at the China Maritime Search and Rescue Center in Beijing confirmed that a Chinese fishing boat capsized Saturday in the Yellow Sea and two Chinese fishermen were missing. But another man at the center - reached by phone an hour later - said nine fishermen had been rescued and only one was missing. South Korea's coast guard couldn't immediately explain the discrepancy in the number of missing fishermen.

Both men - who didn't give their names, as is common with Chinese officials - said China dispatched a rescue boat to the area.

Calls to the Chinese Embassy in Seoul went unanswered.


Associated Press writer Cara Anna and researcher Henry Hou in Beijing contributed to this report.

[BRVoice]

Steve Herman from Twitter:

Kyodo: China summons ambassadors of both #Koreas to urge restraint amid war fears. about 1 hour ago via TweetDeck

[BRVoice]

Steve Herman from Twitter:

1. Fresh threat via KCNA: "We will settle thoroughly with the U.S. for the extreme crisis & its consequences that arise on Korean Peninsula." 22 minutes ago via TweetDeck
2. RT @YonhapNews: #DPRK accuses U.S. of providing 'human shield' for planned #ROK artillery drill http://bit.ly/hc0BPj #Koreas 41 minutes ago via TweetDeck
3. kaedotcom North Korea complains about balloons carrying leaflets and "waste paper" US dollar bills. http://bit.ly/hu1lg4 about 1 hour ago via bitly Retweeted by W7VOA and 5 others

[Toad]

Since the schedule of the drills are between 18-21, to me this is NOT a postponement.

Same here.

[BRVoice]

South Korea's patience with North running out
Mark MacKinnon
PAJU, SOUTH KOREA— From Saturday's Globe and Mail - Canadian Newspaper
Published Friday, Dec. 17, 2010 10:00PM EST
Last updated Saturday, Dec. 18, 2010 9:47AM EST

Patrons at the “DMZ” tofu restaurant don't need the muted television set in the corner to tell them when tensions are high between the two Koreas. They just need to peek out the window at the parking lot to see if there are soldiers in the trenches and pillboxes that surround their cars.

These days, the parking lot is seeing an unnerving amount of action. Late last month, troops were deployed there as the entire border went on high alert after North Korean artillery shelled a South Korean island, killing two soldiers and two civilians. On Wednesday, patrons and staff at the DMZ restaurant (which is named after the nearby Demilitarized Zone between the two Koreas) were sent scrambling for cover along with the rest of the country when air-raid sirens screamed and fighter jets conducted mock bombing raids, roaring over Seoul and other cities as South Korea carried out its largest civil-defence exercise since 1975.

Kim Dong-jo has been selling tofu here long enough to have seen countless such states of heightened alert in his parking lot. But this time is different, he says. A one-time supporter of Seoul's former “sunshine policy” of showering the North with aid and kindness, the Nov. 23 attack on Yeonpyeong Island crossed a red line for him. After years of believing his country should turn the other cheek to such provocations, he now wants to see South Korea punch back hard.

“Our retaliation [the day of the Yeonpyeong attack] was not enough,” Mr. Kim said, referring to the belated return of artillery fire that day. “Even if war results, we have to give North Korea a lesson.”

Such talk is suddenly the rule among South Koreans. After years of stoically going about their lives as Pyongyang staged provocation after provocation, television images of burned-out homes and stores on Yeonpyeong Island revealed that the patience South Koreans have shown toward their unpredictable neighbour actually does have a limit.

After White House envoy Bill Richardson landed in Pyongyang Thursday for talks with Kim Jong-il's regime, the rhetoric ratcheted. If South Korea proceeds with a military drill on Yeonpyeong, “second and third unpredictable self-defensive strikes will be made,” an unnamed senior North Korean military official said in comments carried by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency. The Communist regime's official website, Uriminzokkiri, also warned Friday that “if war breaks out, it will lead to nuclear warfare and not be limited to the Korean Peninsula.”

At the same time, restraint is not a popular option in the South. Polling shows that more than two-thirds of South Koreans say they favour “limited military retaliation” to the latest attack by the North, even though any counterattack could trigger unforeseeable results.

The angry mood is driving a newly confrontational South Korean policy toward its neighbour. Since the Yeonpyeong attack, President Lee Myung-bak has replaced his defence minister and, earlier this week, his army boss. The media slammed both of them over what was seen as the country's tepid response to the artillery assault. It took the South Korean military 13 long minutes to return fire after the North Korean shelling began, and then only lighter self-propelled artillery was used in reply.

Kim Kwan-jin, the country's new Defence Minister, immediately promised at his confirmation hearing that South Korea would “definitely” retaliate with air strikes to the next North Korean provocation. Some believe the peninsula is closer to all-out war than it has been in decades.

“If they provoke us again, we'll strike back. That's a national consensus formed between the people and the government … even the UN or the U.S. wouldn't stop us,” said Baek Seung-joo of the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses, a think tank run by the Ministry of Defence.

When I visited Seoul earlier this year after the sinking of the warship Cheonan (an incident that killed 46 South Korean sailors), I was stunned at how blasé most people were about the tragedy, and how many were willing to believe North Korea's claim that it had nothing to do with the torpedo attack. Today, it's equally amazing how many South Koreans think it's time to start shooting at their nuclear-armed neighbour.

“South Koreans believe now that we need to take at least some form of military measures versus North Korea. This kind of thinking was taboo in the past,” said Jeong Han-wool, who oversees public-opinion research at the Seoul-based East Asia Institute.

Polling conducted by the East Asia Institute shows that the number of South Koreans who felt “insecure” about the situation on the peninsula was less than 30 per cent as recently as March, 2009. The number who were “concerned” or “slightly concerned” about national security steadily rose through last year's nuclear test and the sinking of the Cheonan in March, soaring to 81.5 per cent – by far the highest level since the institute started tracking the sentiment a dozen years ago.

Mr. Jeong said that while the latest spike in the polling results was driven by “emotional anger” over the island attack, he didn't expect the new willingness to hit back at North Korea to fade any time soon. “This time around, the gap between political and ideological stances has narrowed. A new social consensus has been formed because this was the first time North Korea attacked South Korean soil and killed civilians,” he said.

Mr. Baek, the military analyst, said more cross-border incidents were expected in the coming months. As North Korea's ailing leader, Kim Jong-il, transfers power to his youngest son, Kim Jong-un, the heir apparent is believed to need “victories” to beef up his scant military record. At the same time, all South Korean units have been instructed that the country's right to self-defence now supersedes the military's usual rules of engagement that stress the avoidance of full military engagement. “Some people in the opposition party and some military analysts say that if we strike back it will lead inevitably to full-scale war. But our stance is not to be afraid of the North Korean response because it is Kim Jong-il who should be most afraid of full-scale war,” Mr. Baek said.

Fresh live-fire exercises on Yeonpyeong Island are planned for the coming days, a move that North Korea will certainly view as a provocation since Pyongyang considers the island and the surrounding waters to be its territory. North Korea says the Nov. 23 attack was a response to similar live-fire exercises being conducted on Yeonpyeong.

The soaring rhetoric on the peninsula is unsettling even to veteran analysts who have seen many previous crises come and go without the doomsday scenarios ever playing out. The two countries have remained officially at war since the 1950-53 conflict, which ended in a ceasefire.

“Until recently, I answered with 100-per-cent certainty that there would be no new Korean war because neither side wants it and the South Koreans never overreacted,” said Andrei Lankov, a North Korea expert who teaches at Seoul's Kookmin University. “But now the South Koreans are in battle mode and their bellicosity could be very, very bad. The next time the North Koreans stage some provocation – and they will – the South Koreans will have to react in a mighty way or they will look silly. So the North Koreans will stage a counter-counterstrike and we will see a spiral of escalation in no time.”

[BRVoice]

North Korea warns South not to hold drill
December 19, 2010 - 1:14AM
The Sydney Morning Herald
AFP

North Korea says the situation on the Korean peninsula will "explode" if South Korea goes ahead with a planned live-drill artillery exercise on a border island.

The North rained a deadly bombardment on Yeonpyeong island after a similar drill last month. It has threatened a deadlier attack if the one-day drill scheduled sometime between December 18 and 21 goes ahead.

A foreign ministry statement on Saturday, quoted by the official news agency, accused US troops of providing a "human shield" for the upcoming drill but repeated threats to attack it.

About 20 US soldiers are to provide back-up assistance to South Korean marines during the exercise.

Pyongyang disputes the Yellow Sea border drawn after the 1950-53 war and claims the waters around Yeonpyeong and other South Korean frontline islands as its own maritime territory.

It says the last drill, on November 23, dropped shells into its waters.

Hours later that day, the North's bombardment killed two marines and two civilians on Yeonpyeong and damaged dozens of homes.

"If the South Koreans dare to carry out the live-fire drill and cross the line, the situation in the Korean peninsula will explode and a disastrous outcome cannot be avoided," the statement said.

"We have already declared that we will punish mercilessly without hesitation provokers who invade our sovereignty and territory. Our military does not speak empty words."

The North accused the United States of stirring up South Korea to stage a provocative act.

It said the plan for the drill was reached during a visit to Seoul by a US Joint Chiefs of Staff official -- an apparent reference to Admiral Mike Mullen, the JCS chief.

The North said the US defence department "has threatened us not to forget that Americans and foreign correspondents are at the site of the drill. America is providing the human shields.

"This shows America will not hesitate to bring one country's peace and stability into chaos," the foreign ministry statement said.

"We will deal and calculate with America accurately on all extreme incidents and consequences on the Korean peninsula," it added, without elaborating.

[Ryan Ruck]

China fishing boat capsizes in scuffle; 1 dead

I can guarantee not all of those Chinese boats were there fishing. I'd bet good money there was at least one ELINT/SIGINT boat in there spying just like the Russians like to do.

[American Patriot]

I can guarantee not all of those Chinese boats were there fishing. I'd bet good money there was at least one ELINT/SIGINT boat in there spying just like the Russians like to do.

I completely agree.

Fishing vessels don't ram war ships to let their buddies escape. military personnel do that to protect the messages though....

OMG this is going to get out of hand.

Ladies and Gentlemen... if the shelling starts, I expect to see folks pop up in the flash chat. Everyone jump ino the channel when the shit hits the fan.

I don't have any cable here, so I'm getting news off our site.

BR, keep up the good work my friend. We appreciate it. Unfortunately, I can't sit here all day, I've got cleaning I'm doing to start the house prep. I don't know if the world is going to end tomorrow, but I'll be damned if I am going to let my house be vaporized without at least having a Christmas tree up.

Wife is off shopping for Christmas food with daughter and I promised to get the living room cleared out... as we have guests dropping in Christmas Eve. And I want to prep for painting anyway.

I'll check in probably in an hour (and might take my netbook up stairs with me to keep it going).

Later my friends.

[American Patriot]

they chickened out...

[American Patriot]

U.N. Security Council to hold emergency meeting on Korean crisis

By the CNN Wire Staff
December 19, 2010 -- Updated 0134 GMT (0934 HKT)




New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson is welcomed by an unidentified North Korean official upon his arrival at the Pyongyang Airport on December 16.



STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• NEW: The U.N. Security Council will meet Sunday morning about the Korean crisis
• NEW: Russia's U.N. ambassador says it wanted to conduct the meeting on Saturday
• NEW: Bill Richardson, who is not a U.S. envoy, meets Sunday with a top N. Korean general
• Planned South Korean military exercises have been delayed due to bad weather

Pyongyang, North Korea (CNN) -- At Russia's urging, the U.N. Security Council will hold an emergency meeting Sunday morning aimed at defusing simmering tensions in the Korean peninsula.
The meeting will take place at 11 a.m. ET on Sunday, a day after Russia had originally wanted to meet, its ambassador to the United Nations Vitaly Churkin said in a statement. Churkin blamed the U.S. delegation -- which this month heads up the security council -- for the one-day delay, adding, "We assume that nothing will happen in the interim that would bring about further aggravation."
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a former prominent U.S. diplomat now in the middle of an unofficial four-day trip meeting with high-level Pyongyang officials, applauded the development as something that could help skirt further military escalation.
"It's a very, very tense situation, a crisis situation," Richardson told CNN's Wolf Blitzer from Pyongyang. "This is when the U.N. Security Council can be most effective."
The former U.S. energy secretary and ambassador to the United Nations said that Russia's leadership on the issue was a positive -- saying he hoped that the council might issue a statement "urging all sides to exercise maximum restraint (and to) cool things down."



Go inside North Korea



Blitzer: Everyone's trying to avoid war



Richardson meets N. Korean officials
RELATED TOPICS

• North Korea

The Security Council has five permanent members in China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States. There are also 10 rotating members, which are currently Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovinia, Brazil, Gabon, Japan, Lebanon, Mexico, Nigeria, Turkey and Uganda.
The United States, as well as Russia and Japan, have been key international players in the crisis, and Chinese officials have also conducted a series of high-level talks with North Korean and South Korean officials.
On Saturday, Chinese Foreign Minister Zhang Zhijun reiterated his nation's strong desire to avert war, which he said would be devastating for both Korean nations and the region as a whole, according to state-run news agency Xinhua.
Richardson came to North Korea at the invitation of its top nuclear negotiator as a private citizen -- with the knowledge of but not as a representative of the U.S. government -- amidst one of the region's most serious crises since the 1953 Korean War armistice.
North Korea says that its South Korean counterparts are instigating tensions with planned live military exercises on and around the disputed Yeonpyeong Island. Seoul cited bad weather as its reason for pushing back the drills a day or two, which were originally scheduled between December 18 and 21, South Korea's official Yonhap News Agency reported.
Saying the exercises would be in "the inviolable territorial waters" of North Korea, the North's state-run Korean Central News Agency warned Saturday that its forces "will deal the second and third unpredictable self-defensive blow" if the drills proceed.
Such strikes, according to the agency, would be "deadlier ... in terms of the powerfulness and sphere" than its November 23 shelling of Yeonpyeong Island that left four South Koreans dead.
Noting that North Korea is "very, very provoked by this potential incident," Richardson said he hoped that a strong statement from the United Nations council might spur Seoul to cancel the drills and "give both sides cover" to tamp down their rhetoric and actions.
Deescalating tensions is a main goal of his trip, the governor said. He planned to meet Sunday morning with Maj. Gen. Pak Rim Su, who heads North Korean forces in the demilitarized zone along the South Korean border.
Pak is the first non-political official to meet with Richardson, who earlier said he had a "good meeting" with the North's chief nuclear negotiator Kim Gye Gwan and also met with the vice minister of North Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Friday.
Richardson said he hoped to talk with Pak about setting up some sort of communication between North and South Korean forces. He said he wanted "some kind of mechanism, some kind of hotline (set up) that will hopefully cool things down."
He told Blitzer that he made a series of proposals in Saturday's meeting aimed at easing the crisis. Both Koreas have traded tough talk and conducted aggressive military drills in the weeks after the Yeonpyeong Island incident.
The U.S. military has said it is concerned that South Korea's scheduled exercises could spark an uncontrollable clash with the North, but the State Department said the exercises are not meant to be threatening or provocative.

[American Patriot]

Japan: Korea: Usa: Winds of War in the Far East. U.S. envoy calls for calm

Bill Richardson in unofficial visit to Pyongyang, stresses the importance of lowering tones and keep an eye open for any possibility on the part of the North Korean regime to prevent the outbreak of conflict. Meanwhile, Japan, concerned about China and North Korea, launches a new National Defense ...

Saturday, December 18, 2010
By Asia News

Tokyo - Threats of imminent war, military exercises and an arms race keep tensions high in the Far East, where the delicate balance obtained over recent years is likely to be upset. Today, Bill Richardson, governor of New Mexico returning from an unofficial visit to North Korea, described the situation in the peninsula like a "tinderbox" ready to explode.


The New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson went on a visit to Pyongyang in a private capacity, but in the past he has acted as a liaison with North Korea, a country with which the United States does not have official diplomatic relations. " What we need to do right now is not just tamp things down - he said -, but look at steps that can be taken by the North Koreans, especially such as perhaps allowing the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) to come in and look at the nuclear arsenal".


Last Friday, Russia - which shares a border with North Korea - summoned the envoys of the United States and South Korea to urge them to cancel the exercises, saying that Moscow is "deeply concerned" about the increased tensions in the region.


In response to the strategic imbalance of power in Asia, Japan has instead decided to rethink its defense system. About two decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Rising Sun is emerging from the Cold War era. The guidelines for the national defense program, which outlines the military policies of the next decade, indicates China and North Korea as the greatest threat: no longer, therefore, Russia.


Relations between Japan and China have worsened significantly after a territorial dispute over the Senkaky islands - which Beijing calls Diaoyu – contended by the two countries with neither having any intention to yield. The dispute was triggered in September, when the Japan Coast Guard stopped a Chinese ship. Toshiyuki Shikata, a retired Japanese officer, explains: "We have no problem with the Chinese ground forces. The problem is with the Navy".


Tokyo has long regarded Beijing's military buildup with concern. According to the new report "these movements, coupled with the total lack of transparency regarding the program of military and internal security, have become a problem for the region and the international community." As a first step, Japan has moved its troops from north of the country- where they were deployed in the event of a Russian attack - to the south.


However, the major change introduced by the report is the abandonment of "heavy" resources in favor of more flexible units. Instead of tanks and artillery pieces, Tokyo intends to focus on the fleet of submarines. This is explained by the other major threat, North Korea: after the attack on the South Korean island last month, in fact, Tokyo has also begun to rethink its program of deterrence against the regime.


To curb Korean military cravings, the Rising Sun has increased the number of Patriot missile batteries around the area and has equipped its military fleet with an anti-missile defense system, the Aegis, which has risen from 4 to 6 units .