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North Korea Threatens Nuclear Attack

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North Korea Agrees to Give Up Nukes

North Korea agrees to give up nuclear programs

CTV.ca News Staff
Mon. Sep. 19 2005 2:21 AM ET

In a stunning development at the six-party international talks, North Korea has
Pechorin is at least the ninth prominent Russian businessmen to have reportedly died by suicide or in unexplained accidents since late January, with six of them associated with Russia's two largest energy companies.

Four of those six were linked to the Russian state-owned energy giant Gazprom or one of its subsidiaries, while the other two were associated with Lukoil, Russia's largest privately owned oil and gas company.

Earlier this year, the company took the unusual public stance of speaking out against Russia's war in Ukraine, calling for sympathy for the victims, and for the end of the conflict.
agreed to give up all its nuclear programs and rejoin the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as soon as possible.

In return, the secretive communist country will get energy aid and security guarantees.

"This is the most important result since the six-party talks started more than two years ago,'' said Wu Dawei, China's vice foreign minister, in Beijing on Monday.

The talks' participants include China, Russia, Japan, the United States and North and South Korea.

The North "promised to drop all nuclear weapons and current nuclear programs ... as soon as possible and to accept inspections" by the International Atomic Energy Agency, according to the unanimous agreement reached by the countries at the talks being held in Beijing.

"All six parties emphasized that to realize the inspectable denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula is the target of the six-party talks,'' the statement said.

The United States and North Korea pledged to respect each other's sovereignty and right to peaceful coexistence.

"The United States affirmed that is has no nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula and has no intention to attack or invade (North Korea) with nuclear or conventional weapons,'' according to the statement, in assurances echoed by South Korea.

A door was left open to North Korea resuming a civilian nuclear program at some future point if it regains international trust.

During negotiations, North Korea had asked for a light-water reactor -- which is less able to be used for producing nuclear weapons -- but the U.S. and other countries weren't prepared to meet that request.

Further talks will be held in November to work on the details of what was agreed upon in these talks.

There are some sticking points.

North Korea doesn't want to totally disarm without getting concessions. Washington has said it wants the weapons programs completely gone before rewarding North Korea.

The statement includes a clause saying the agreement will be implemented "in a phased manner in line with the principle of `commitment for commitment, action for action'."

Background

In 1993, North Korea announced it would withdraw from the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), designed to halt the spread of nuclear weapons.

The U.S. and North Korea reached a deal in 1994 in which the North Koreans would get its graphite-moderated reactors -- which can easily produce weapons-grade plutonium for nuclear bombs -- replaced with light-water reactors.

In return, the U.S. was to provide fuel oil to compensate for lost electricity output during the switchover period.

However, the deal was more of a memo of understanding than a formal treaty.

By 1999, cracks started to grow between the two countries, and in 2002, relations had mostly disintegrated. That year, U.S. President George W. Bush declared in his State of the Union speech that North Korea, along with Syria and Iraq, were part of an "axis of evil."

North Korea restarted a reactor and kicked international nuclear inspectors out of the country.

In January 2003, North Korea formally withdrew from the NPT. In April, the U.S. said North Korea admitted it had nuclear weapons.

But then the six-party talks started in August of that year. However, North Korea dropped out of the talks in August 2004, only rejoining them in late July.

Before the talks restarted, South Korea offered North Korea huge amounts of electricity in a mid-July proposal.

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20050919_nkorea_nukes_050915/?hub=TopStories
 
Re: North Korea Agrees to Give Up Nukes

free reactors and trade and no nukes in US hands in the south as well as non-aggression/mutual sovereignty agreements are worth much more to Ill
the south already wants shit to be better and to link up in many if not all ways

Bush just made a deal with the guy he hates so much supposedly

this shit does nothing to the crazy 1984 on crack lifestyle that many in NKorea are living
 
Re: North Korea Agrees to Give Up Nukes

Whoa. I'm surprised. Who's next. Iran too!

Hey, nobody want some Nukes!!???
 
Re: North Korea Agrees to Give Up Nukes

Makkonnen said:
... Bush just made a deal with the guy he hates so much supposedly...
Click to expand...
Is that a good or bad thing ??? :eek:

QueEx
 
Re: North Korea Agrees to Give Up Nukes

QueEx said:
Is that a good or bad thing ??? :eek:

QueEx
Click to expand...
dont seem too good for the people in NKorea that are living with Kim Jong Ill superstar

that muthafucka is just gonna buy some bigger sunglasses

maybe he's gonna put chavez in the axis of evil lmao
 
Re: North Korea Agrees to Give Up Nukes

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
White House shift on North Korea
Compromise engineered by China appears to have salvaged the nuclear talks
- James Sterngold, Chronicle Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 20, 2005


National security experts were divided Monday over the wisdom of the deal by the Bush administration to provide aid in return for North Korea abandoning its nuclear weapons program, but they were united on one point: The initiative, however it turns out, represents a major philosophical concession by the White House.

The document, even though highly vague and preliminary, was a startling breakthrough in the tense standoff, given that the 2-year-old talks on persuading North Korea to abandon its nuclear program appeared to be near collapse.

A higher level of diplomatic engagement by China, which helped draft the terms, bolstered by secret meetings over the weekend, helped open the door to the compromise, a deal that puts off for now the even more difficult negotiations over the terms of compliance.

Perhaps most important, though, a number of experts said, was that the Bush administration abandoned its hard-line position toward the insular communist government in Pyongyang and took several steps it had long refused to consider.

The White House said it was prepared to normalize relations with a government the president had earlier condemned as a member of "the axis of evil"; it agreed to consider construction of a civilian power reactor in North Korea; and it dropped its earlier insistence that North Korea had to completely dismantle its nuclear program before the United States would offer any economic aid or other benefits.

Without this new posture, which many described as a potentially shrewd way for the White House to buy time, the two sides would not even have gotten to this preliminary stage.

"Since earlier this year, the administration has shifted from an ideological approach toward North Korea, which produced nothing but counterproductive results, to a realistic, pragmatic approach with interesting results," said Graham Allison, a senior Defense Department official in the Clinton administration and now the director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.

Under the terms of the agreement, the United States and the other members of the talks are to provide economic aid and investment, normalize relations and sign a peace treaty. In return, North Korea is to re-enter the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, allow U.N. nuclear inspectors to return and abandon its weapons programs. When each step is to be taken, and who is to go first, was left unclear.

Fred Ikle, a veteran arms negotiator and a well-known hard-liner toward North Korea, condemned the deal. He described it as a trick by North Korea that allows it to add to its existing nuclear arsenal, which is believed to consist of a half-dozen warheads. He doubts, he said, that anything positive can be achieved until there is regime change in Pyongyang.

But he agreed with one part of Allison's assessment.

"He's just bowing to the pressure that we had to be negotiating with the North Koreans, and so there was some loosening," Ikle said of President Bush.

Ikle called Kim Jong Il, North Korea's leader, "appallingly nutty" and someone the United States could never trust. His well-known eccentricities include a taste for fast cars in the deeply impoverished country, elevator shoes to lift his modest stature and such a strong interest in cinema that he has written a book on directing and kidnapped some Asian film stars to make movies in North Korea. Other experts have called Kim eccentric but also rational and shrewd.

Since he took office, Bush's policy toward North Korea has been guided by hard-liners who have regarded any agreement with the Kim government as a prescription for deceit and disappointment. North Korea, they believe, is inherently unreliable and cannot be trusted to adhere to any agreement.

There were still some hints of that skepticism Monday. The president offered only a hesitant endorsement of the draft accord.

"They have said -- in principle -- that they will abandon their weapons programs," Bush said. "And what we have said is, 'Great. That's a wonderful step forward.' But now we've got to verify whether that happens."

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice also indicated that the United States needed more confidence. "The proof, so to speak, will be in the pudding," she said.

Pyongyang responded with its own rhetorical salvo, insisting early today that it would abandon its nuclear weapons program only after the United States and its negotiating partners supplied North Korea with a civilian nuclear power reactor. The agreement had merely stated that the parties would discuss this reactor issue "at an appropriate time," but today, Pyongyang appeared to make it a precondition for further compliance.

The State Department deflected the new statement and said the focus would remain on the Beijing document.

Such differences of view are familiar to the United States. In 1994, the Clinton administration signed what was called the Agreed Framework, a deal that promised to provide North Korea with fuel oil, food assistance and, eventually, two civilian power reactors in return for a halt to its weapons activities.

That arrangement was produced under intense pressure; the Clinton administration was so worried about the weapons program that, officials have said, it drew up preliminary plans for a military strike against North Korea.

With the deal, tensions eventually cooled. But then the arrangement collapsed in acrimony early in the Bush administration, with each side claiming the other had reneged.

North Korea withdrew from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty -- which seeks to prevent the spread of weapons technology -- threw U.N. weapons inspectors out of the country and declared that it had restarted its reactors and constructed warheads. Pyongyang even invited a team of American experts to confirm that it had reprocessed spent fuel rods from a reactor and stockpiled plutonium, a fuel for warheads.

U.S. hard-liners used that as justification for refusing further talks with Pyongyang, and some hinted that military action was called for.

Arms control supporters argued, on the other hand, that North Korea's aggressive steps showed why the United States needed to at least attempt to negotiate a halt to Kim's nuclear program, not just out of fear North Korea might use atomic bombs itself, but out of concern it might sell them to other countries or to terrorist groups.

North Korea is regarded by the Bush administration as one of the worst proliferators of advanced weapons and missile technology, and it is believed to have acquired nuclear technology earlier from a rogue Pakistani nuclear scientist, Abdul Qadeer Khan.

The new agreement, which is a statement of principles that calls for detailed negotiations in the future, is little more than a tentative first step toward a breakthrough deal.

Even so, experts said, it prevents a complete breakdown at a time when the White House is already facing a nuclear crisis over Iran's weapons program. The new deal could not have happened without an ideological change, if subtle, in Washington.

"The administration has said some things in this that six months ago would have been heresy," said Robert Einhorn, who was an arms control expert in the Clinton administration.

He said the changes were evident not in the substance of the accord, but simply in acknowledging that the United States would be prepared to normalize relations with the North Korean government, a giant ideological leap..

The sides agreed to resume negotiations toward the goals expressed in the agreement in November. But the document leaves open the precise sequence of what each side is expected to do before receiving a concession from the other.

"This set the real issues aside, it did not solve them," Einhorn said. "But it prevents gridlock and a collapse of the talks. ... I see it as a positive but not a big substantive move, but it took some movement in the administration to make this happen."



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Key points in the accord
Highlights of agreement issued by participants in North Korean nuclear talks:

North Korea to give up nuclear weapons and nuclear programs, return at an early date to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and submit to International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards.

The United States declares it has no nuclear arms on the Korean Peninsula, and no intention to attack or invade North Korea.

South Korea reaffirms it won't deploy nuclear weapons, affirms it has none in its territory.

China, Russia, South Korea, the United States and Japan agree to discuss "at an appropriate time" giving North Korea a light-water nuclear reactor. (North Korea early today demanded the reactor as a condition of going forward with the pact.)

North Korea and the United States pledge to respect each other's sovereignty, coexist peacefully and work to normalize relations.

North Korea and Japan agree to work to normalize ties.

China, Russia, South Korea, Japan and the United States to give North Korea energy assistance, including electric power from South Korea.

Source: Associated Press



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nuclear North
Chronology of North Korea's nuclear weapons development:

1993: North Korea shocks world by saying it will quit the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, later suspends its withdrawal.

1994: North Korea, United States sign agreement in Geneva. North pledges to freeze, eventually dismantle, nuclear weapons program in exchange for help building two power-producing nuclear reactors.

Sept. 17, 1999: President Bill Clinton agrees to first major easing of economic sanctions against North Korea since 1953 Korean War truce.

July 2000: North Korea threatens to restart nuclear program if Washington does not compensate for loss of electricity due to delays in building nuclear power plants.

June 2001: North Korea warns it will reconsider missile test moratorium if Washington doesn't resume contacts aimed at normalizing relations.

July 2001: U.S. State Department reports North Korea is developing long-range missile.

December 2001: President Bush warns that Iraq and North Korea will be "held accountable" if they develop weapons of mass destruction.

Jan. 29, 2002: Bush labels North Korea, Iran and Iraq an "axis of evil."

Oct. 4, 2002: North Korea tells visiting U.S. delegation it has a second covert nuclear weapons program.

Nov. 11, 2002: The United States, Japan and South Korea halt oil supplies to North Korea promised in 1994 deal.

Jan. 10, 2003: North Korea says it will withdraw from Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

April 16, 2003: U.S., Chinese and North Korean officials announce talks in Beijing aimed at ending nuclear standoff.

April 24, 2003: North Korea says it has nuclear weapons and may test, export or use them depending on U.S. actions.

Aug. 27-29, 2003: North Korea joins first round of six-nation nuclear talks in Beijing, which include China, the United States, Japan, Russia and South Korea.

Feb. 25-28, 2004: Second round of six-nation talks.

June 23-26, 2004: Third round of six-nation talks.

September 2004: North Korea refuses to attend fourth-round talks, accusing the United States of "hostile" policies.

Feb. 10, 2005: North Korea says it has nuclear weapons.

July 26, 2005: Fourth round of six-nation talks begins, ends in recess after 13 days with no agreement.

Sept. 13, 2005: Talks resume.

Sept. 19, 2005: North Korea pledges to dismantle nuclear programs in exchange for pledges of energy assistance; the United States pledges not to invade and to respect North Korea's sovereignty in an agreement ending talks.

Source: Associated Press

E-mail James Sterngold at jsterngold@sfchronicle.com.

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URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/09/20/MNGS5EQNGT1.DTL
 
Re: North Korea Agrees to Give Up Nukes

Bush loves to bash Clinton's "mistakes" re No Korea.... looks like he's giving them damn near the same deal Clinton gave em. Fuckin' Bush = self-righteous bitch
 
Re: North Korea Agrees to Give Up Nukes

<font size="5"><center>Six-Party Talks: Compromise Is Only a First Step</font size></center>

STRATFOR
Enhanced Global Intelligence Brief
Sepember 19, 2005

Summary

The fourth round of six-party Korean nuclear talks ended Sept. 19 with a joint statement in which North Korea committed to "abandoning all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs." The announcement of the agreement followed not far on the heels of seemingly unyielding remarks from North Korea via Radio Pyongyang that, "To compromise and to beg [for U.S. favor] is not a way of preventing a war, but heightens its yearning for invasion and expediting a war." Although a compromise has been reached by all sides, this is only the first step in a long implementation process.

Analysis

The fourth round of six-party North Korean nuclear talks ended in Beijing on Sept. 19 with an agreement for Pyongyang to completely dismantle its nuclear program, for the other parties to make energy and economic agreements with the North, and for the establishment of a separate forum to discuss a "permanent peace regime" on the Korean Peninsula. This round of talks began with a seemingly intractable North Korean demand for light-water nuclear reactors -- and apparently was no nearer to an actual solution on its final day than on its first. Despite the joint statement coming from hard-fought negotiations, the agreement is only the start of a longer process of implementation.

North Korea entered the latest round of talks by promoting an apparent deal-breaker -- the completion of light-water nuclear reactors for North Korea before Pyongyang dismantled its own nuclear program. And just hours before a final compromise was inked, North Korea's Radio Pyongyang was saying that a compromise with the United States would only "heighten [Washington's] yearning for invasion and expediting war," adding, "The sovereign right of a people can be only in safe protection by the means of their own guns."

Despite this rough start and stubborn finish, North Korea had no intention of letting the talks simply collapse, and had used the delay to both ensure that its actual compromise position was achieved and to see what deals it could receive from bilateral talks with Seoul that overlapped the six-party talks. The wording of the joint statement offers insight into what each party expects to receive and where future sticking points might lie.

There are six points in the joint declaration:

1. North Korea commits to "abandoning all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs" and return to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards. The United States and South Korea confirm there are no nuclear weapons in South Korea, and Seoul recommits to a weapons-free Korea and the 1992 joint declaration on the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. All parties agree to Pyongyang's right to a civilian nuclear program, and will discuss providing light-water reactors to North Korea "at an appropriate time."

2. The six parties agree to abide by the U.N. charter (suggesting they will not threaten or attack one another). Washington recognizes North Korea's sovereignty and will take steps to normalize relations with Pyongyang. Japan will also take steps, under the 2002 Pyongyang Declaration, to normalize relations and settle "the unfortunate past and the outstanding issues of concern," i.e. the question of Japan's historical aggression and North Korea's kidnapping of Japanese citizens.

3. The six parties agree to economic cooperation in energy, trade and investment, either bilaterally or multilaterally. All parties agree to supply energy assistance to the North, and South Korea reconfirms its offer to provide 2 million kilowatts of electricity to Pyongyang.

4. The six parties agree to discuss in a separate forum a "permanent peace regime" for the Korean Peninsula and discuss promoting security cooperation in Northeast Asia.

5. Implementation of the previous points will take place in line with the principle of "commitment for commitment, action for action."

6. A fifth round of six-party talks will be held in Beijing in November.

The first three points are the core of the immediate agreement. North Korea gives up its nuclear programs, retains the right to future programs and gets energy and economic aid with the prospect of diplomatic ties with Japan and the United States. Pyongyang gains the security assurances (abiding by the U.N. charter, Washington's recognition of North Korean sovereignty), economic and energy assistance, and potential international recognition. This is what Pyongyang has periodically spawned nuclear crises to achieve.

Washington gains the dismantling of North Korea's nuclear program under IAEA oversight before there is progress on other points (though other nations might choose to interpret this timing issue differently). North Korea's right to a future nuclear program may be recognized, but talks on actually supplying nuclear reactors to the North only come at an "appropriate" time -- far in the future. U.S. President George W. Bush also gains a foreign policy victory, something useful amid the continued Iraq insurgency, the political fallout from Hurricane Katrina and the ongoing Iranian nuclear issue.

As for the other participants, Japan gained a line item on the kidnapping issue (even if it is euphemistically worded) and a boost for Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's promise to resume normalization talks with Pyongyang. South Korea is the only listed nation to promise a specific energy deal, giving Seoul a central role in the future process. Russia retains a low profile, but has already demonstrated its ability to impact the process when it deems necessary. And China returns as host of the next round of talks, showing Washington that Beijing can be a trusted partner.

But China gains something else as well. The fourth point is a Chinese proposal to expand the six-party talks into a true regional security dialogue. This is not new -- Beijing suggested something like this in September 2004. While this agreement calls for a separate forum for such a dialogue and couches it in terms of peace on the Korean Peninsula, it is nonetheless China's desired regional forum. Beijing is seeking to multilateralize regional security discussions in order to counter the impression of U.S. encirclement of China.

Beijing sees a rising Japan -- one more open in its calls for not only economic but also political and military influence -- and is seeking to gain U.S. assistance in keeping Japan in check. Tensions between China and Japan are rising, particularly as each explores for energy reserves in or near contested maritime borders, and the chances for an accidental clash are growing. Just as Beijing has used fear and promises to encourage Washington to dial back independence calls from Taiwan, it hopes to use similar tactics to check Japan and impact Washington's security decisions in the region. The development of regional security talks, which could go far beyond potential nuclear threats to conventional military programs and activities, could in the long run prove more significant than the actual nuclear agreement.

As for the nuclear agreement, there is still much to be done. But after nearly three years, this stage of the nuclear crisis is over and Beijing and Washington will bask in the glow of a political victory, even knowing that declaring such a victory is premature. This statement is one of principles -- it is a guidance document, but has no implementation details -- thus the resumption of talks in November.

The ambiguous wording allows for various interpretations and more room for bickering down the road. It also allows the economic and energy deals with North Korea to be bilateral, rather than multilateral, leaving the six-party process at risk of bilateral intents, but also insulating the six-party agreement from bilateral issues. Thus, on the one hand, South Korea may continue to pursue energy and economic cooperation with the North even if Pyongyang reneges on some other part of the agreement, whereas Japan could bilaterally decide to cut some economic deals with Pyongyang in spite of what North Korea does in regard to implementing the six-party agreement.

The next phase of the talks is more complicated, will take longer and will receive much less fanfare as the technical details and timing of converting commitments into actions takes place. All parties have an interest in seeing the deals work, but none (having seen the 1994 Agreed Framework and subsequent nuclear agreements fall short) are so naïve as to assume they have achieved peace in our time.
Send questions or comments on this article to analysis@stratfor.com.
 
Re: North Korea Agrees to Give Up Nukes

<font size="5"><center>Kim prepares to anoint his mistress’s son as successor</font size></center>

Michael Sheridan, Far East Correspondent
Sunday Times
October 9, 2005


A DEFIANT affirmation of North Korea’s dynastic dictatorship is to unfold after days of parades through Pyongyang to celebrate its confrontation with America and cement the power of hardliners set on keeping their nuclear weapons.

Reports in Moscow and Tokyo suggest that the nation’s leader Kim Jong-il is preparing to anoint his second son, Kim Jong-chol, 24, as heir apparent to the clan that has ruled North Korea since 1948.



Jong-chol is the son of Kim’s favourite mistress who died of breast cancer last year aged 51. A leaked military document in 2004 glorified her as the “respected mother” in terms that left little doubt that Kim intended Jong-chol to inherit his personality cult.

Jong-chol was educated under an alias at an international school near Geneva. The only recent gossip about him is that he is a passionate basketball fan, prompting his father to order the construction of basketball courts at state villas.

Since his return to Pyongyang, Jong-chol has held a nominal post in the Korean Workers party, whose 60th anniversary provides the reason for tomorrow’s expected display of mass loyalty.

Diplomats in the Stalinist state’s capital say that Kim may convene a seventh party congress soon to set the stage for his son’s ascent. Reports by Russia’s Itar-Tass news agency say party officials have been prepared for the move.

Exiles claim there have been gunfights between Kim’s extended family over the succession. South Korean intelligence is certain that Kim long ago decided to disinherit his eldest son, Kim Jong-nam.

Much more than sibling rivalry is at stake inside Pyongyang’s palaces. Kim has deftly thrown American policy into disarray by signing up to an agreement to dismantle his nuclear programmes then, one day later, putting impossible conditions on the deal. Talks to break this deadlock will resume in China next month.

The regime has ordered international aid workers to leave the country, saying it has sufficient food to feed its malnourished people. Richard Ragan, head of the United Nations World Food Programme in Pyongyang, is negotiating to allow its work to continue.

Travellers from the North’s countryside tell of soldiers standing guard over grain and searching vehicles around collective farms to stop peasants selling the harvest. This month the state once again took charge of the sale of grain, reversing reforms that had allowed private food markets to develop.

The reversion to Stalinist economics, the glorification of the dynasty and the decision to purge foreign influence help to explain the negotiating tactics by which Kim has confounded the Bush administration’s efforts to end the nuclear crisis.

Leaks from the last round of talks indicate that Chris Hill, America’s negotiator, seized on a North Korean statement that it would dismantle “all” its nuclear programmes in exchange for security guarantees, aid and the provision of two light water nuclear reactors at an “appropriate” time. The North Koreans waited for the euphoria to subside before saying the “appropriate” time to get the reactors was, well, now.


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-1817610,00.html
 
<font size="5"><center>Ominous Warning From North Korea</font size>
<font size="4">Threatens "Annihilating Strike And Nuclear War" If U.S. Attacks</font size></center>

SEOUL, South Korea, July 3, 2006

(CBS/AP) North Korea is ready to answer a pre-emptive U.S. military attack with an "annihilating strike and a nuclear war," the state-run media said Monday.

The Korean Central News Agency, citing an unidentified Rodong Sinmun newspaper "analyst," accused the United States of increasing military pressure on the isolated communist state.

The North Korean threat of retaliation, which is often voiced by its state-controlled media, is the latest chapter in ongoing tensions between the U.S. and North Korea which escalated recently when Pyongyang showed signs of preparing for a test of a long-range missile.

Last week, President Bush warned North Korea not to test-fire a long-range missile, saying Pyongyang must tell the world its intentions for any launch.

"Launching the missile is unacceptable," Mr. Bush said in an East Room news conference alongside Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.

Mr. Bush said that he and the Japanese leader discussed concerns about what is loaded onto the missile and where North Korea intends to aim it. He asked for "a full briefing" from the North Koreans about their intentions.

"There have been no briefings as to what's on top of the missile. He hasn't told anybody where the missile's going," the president said in a reference to North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. "He has an obligation, it seems like to me and to the prime minister, that there be a full briefing to those of us who are concerned about this issue as to what his intentions are."

Said Koizumi, through a translator: "Should they launch a missile, that will cause various — we would apply various pressures. ... I believe it is best that I do not discuss what specific pressures we were talking about."

Mr. Bush said the situation with Pyongyang presents an opportunity to increase global cooperation on missile defense systems.

In related news, South Korea is considering buying U.S. shipborne SM-2 missiles to bolster its missile-defense system, a South Korean government official said Monday.

The move is the latest by South Korea and Japan to strengthen their defenses amid the signs that North Korea could test a long-range missile. Seoul announced last week the purchase of Patriot interceptor missiles from Germany.

SM-2 missiles, however, are reportedly effective against cruise missiles and at striking aircraft but would not be able to hit a long-range missile.

"I understand that we have requested information" on the missiles for purchase, said Park Sung-soo, an official at the Defense Acquisition Program Administration, without elaborating.

The U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency notified Congress of the possible sale last week, according to its Web site. The order would be for 48 SM-2 Block IIIB tactical standard missiles and associated equipment and training.

The agency estimated the cost at $111 million.

South Korea would use the missiles to defend its new KDX-III AEGIS destroyer, and already uses SM-2 Block IIIA missiles in its ship combat systems, the agency said. The prime contractor will be Raytheon Systems Company of Tucson, Ariz., the agency said.

In early June, the Pentagon notified Congress that the U.S. could sell Japan nine upgraded SM-3 missiles and related equipment for use on their AEGIS destroyers. The price tag was put at up to $438 million.

Japan already has four AEGIS destroyers operating with SM-2 missiles, and two more are under construction, the Pentagon said.

Last week, officials said that South Korea had notified Germany of its interest in buying Patriot interceptor missiles, with the aim of replacing the country's outdated Nike-Hercules missiles by 2010.

The Nike-Hercules missiles have served as South Korea's main anti-aircraft weapons for some 40 years, but the Patriot missiles are more advanced at intercepting and destroying incoming ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and enemy aircraft.

South Korea's military as yet has no Patriots, although some are already deployed on U.S. air bases in the country, where about 29,500 U.S. troops are stationed as a deterrent against North Korea.



©MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/07/03/world/main1773966.shtml
 
<font size="5"><center>
At Least 220 Cases of U.S. Aerial Espionage
Committed against DPRK in June</font size></center>

Korean Central News Agency of DPRK (North Korea)
via Korea News Service (KNS)
Pyongyang, June 30 (KCNA)

-- The U.S. imperialists committed at least 220 cases of aerial espionage against the DPRK in June by mobilizing strategic and tactical reconnaissance planes with different missions, according to military sources. They illegally infiltrated an RC-135 based in Okinawa, Japan, into the air above the economic waters of the DPRK east of Musudan and Hamhung again on June 28 to intensively spy on its strategic targets for hours.

More than 20 cases of aerial espionage were conducted by such type planes after illegally intruding into the air above the economic waters off the east coast of the DPRK in June and over 30 planes were involved in them.

Aerial espionage was perpetrated by U-2 almost everyday during the month.

On June 27 U-2 made a shuttle flight in the air above areas west of Tokjok Islet and east of Phochon and Sokcho to commit such espionage as photographing major targets and military movements of the DPRK and intercepting communications, etc.

At least 140 tactical reconnaissance planes with different missions including RC-7B and RC-12 flew in the air above areas along the Military Demarcation Line almost every day in June to spy on major military targets on the forefront of the DPRK.

15 planes of such types were involved in the spy missions on June 14.

The reality requires the revolutionary armed forces of the DPRK to give further spurs to bolstering its military deterrence in order to cope with the war moves of the U.S. imperialists and proves that nobody has the right to take issue with this.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/library/news/2006/intell-060701-kcna01.htm
 
**^**North Korea Is Next...2 All u Young Folk Will U Choose Da Draft Or Prison?**^**

I was watching cnn, and The government has said north korea is a serious terror threat............just feel jus the way iraq attacked us on 911 :confused: :confused: :confused: :confused: North korea is next to do the do...................since da American Government is making a habit out of killing Americans and then blaming others..........it seems we will be having a world war 3 in no time......North korea has the 3rd largest Military in the world...........way more than the US mainly because of the population, idiocy, and loyalty.
and its people say they dont hate americans, but if we come over there fucking with them, they will not fold like iraq.........they said everybody will fight grandparents, kids, etc.......and they wil fight until there is no korean left.

now we may be the strongest because of our weapons.
but everybody know we lack the bodies...............
as far as the best trained, i dont know.
we basicallly just the shit because of our weaponry and a few other things.
but if bush sends us to korea lets say around the end of his term or sooner..America will definitely need a draft.
ive already decided that i will go ahead and do the time in prison 5 - 10 years i think. i know i will have a better chance of surviving in there than in north korea.
but before i make that decision , i will make sure i have all my money stacked away, so when i get out i can work for myself when i get out
Which will u choose? Cause a draft is coming!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
Re: **^**North Korea Is Next...2 All u Young Folk Will U Choose Da Draft Or Prison?**^**

Let me change your facts, slightly. Lets say North Korea has successfully tested and perfected the Tay-Po-Dud missile and have also figured out how to place a lightweight nuke on it. A couple of the missiles are being assembled/fueled, Kim Ill has said fuck it, he's tired of sleepness nights with his hungry ass people, he's just gonna send a couple of Tay-Po-Duds on their way to Seattle.

Lets say we have no more than a fiddy/fiddy of knocking them down before they lay waste to half of Seattle or more; the best we can do really is to destroy them on the ground, which means a direct strike on N. Krazea and -- we need to put boots on the ground in N. Krazea to deal with the aftermath. We've got about 90 days before its too late to do anything but rely on the fiddy/fiddy shoot down theory. And, of course, a draft has to be instituted, quickly, because we need another 100K troops build-up starting immediately and over the next year or two/three.

<u>You've been drafted</u>! You might end up in N. Krazea, you might simply end up at some supply in depot in Anyplace, U.S.A., or you might get sent to another hot or warm spot to cover for troops that will be drawn from those arena to do the damn thing in N. Krazia.

What do you do? Trust your ass with the pussyless prisoners, LOL, and take it like a man? Or, take your chances in uniform?

QueEx
 
Re: **^**North Korea Is Next...2 All u Young Folk Will U Choose Da Draft Or Prison?**^**

I don't know about anyone else's situation, but I plan on being in school by that time, and they won't take you if you're in school. At least, they didn't before. Who the fuck knows, now.
 
Re: **^**North Korea Is Next...2 All u Young Folk Will U Choose Da Draft Or Prison?**^**

BlackSamurai said:
I don't know about anyone else's situation, but I plan on being in school by that time, and they won't take you if you're in school. At least, they didn't before. Who the fuck knows, now.
Click to expand...

Haven't you heard? Brother Charles Rangel, Dem NY. is working to make sure your ass is ready to put boots on the ground in North Korea. But hey look at the bright side. You'll get your education under the G.I. bill.

-VG
 
<font size="5"><center>North Korea Vows First Nuclear Test</font size></center>

New York Times
By CHOE SANG-HUN and JOHN O’NEIL
Published: October 3, 2006

SEOUL, Oct. 3 — North Korea announced today that it plans to conduct its first nuclear test, sharply escalating its standoff with the United States and setting off ripples of alarm in Japan and South Korea.

Also today, an Iranian official proposed a new solution to the standoff over its nuclear program, suggesting that France create a consortium that would oversee a uranium enrichment plant in Iran.

A statement released by the North Korean state-run news agency declared that “the U.S. extreme threat of a nuclear war and sanctions and pressure” compel the country “to conduct a nuclear test, an essential process for bolstering nuclear deterrent, as a corresponding measure for defense.”

Until now, North Korea has never acknowledged having nuclear weapons, although intelligence officials have assumed for several years that it had produced enough plutonium to build a bomb. Analysts have said in the past that a test could destabilize the balance of power in the region, perhaps pushing Japan to develop its own nuclear weapons, and could raise the risk of a military clash between North Korea and the United States.

The statement gave no indication of when such a test might occur. Last month, Kim Seung Kyu, director of South Korea’s National Intelligence Service, told his country’s parliament that North Korea is capable of conducting an underground nuclear test at any time.

Japan’s new prime minister, Shinzo Abe, called a test unacceptable and said that it would “worsen” North Korea’s position, Reuters reported. The Japanese foreign minister, Taro Aso, said that Tokyo would respond harshly to a test.

South Korea expressed “deep regret and concern” over the announcement and raised its security level. Yang Chang-Seok, who leads the government’s unification efforts, said the planned test “poses a grave threat to peace” and “will have a decisively negative impact” on relations between the two countries, according to Agence France-Presse.

John R. Bolton, the United States ambassador to the United Nations, told The Associated Press that a nuclear test would be “extraordinarily serious.”

American officials have said that if North Korea were to conduct nuclear tests, the United States would seek Security Council sanctions through a procedure that carries the threat of military action.

In London, a spokesman for Britain’s foreign ministry said a test would be “a highly provocative act with serious consequences.”

North Korea has a history of making provocative declarations meant to get attention for its demands. But this summer it set off similar alarms around the region when it followed through on threats to test-fire a long-range ballistic missile and several shorter-range missiles, defying calls by China, its chief ally in the region, and other countries to cancel the tests.

Intelligence officials have been unsure whether North Korea actually possesses nuclear weapons. The country kicked out international inspectors after being accused by the United States in 2001 of cheating on an earlier agreement to rein in its nuclear program.

China, South Korea, Russia and Japan have joined the United States in what are known as six-party talks with North Korea since then, but for almost a year, North Korea has boycotted those negotiations, citing a crackdown led by the United States on what the Bush administration calls widespread counterfeiting and money laundering by the North.

North Korea lashed out at the moves, saying Washington had left “no dastardly means and methods untried in a foolish attempt to isolate and stifle it economically and bring down the socialist system chosen by its people themselves.”

It called the crackdown a “de facto declaration of war.”

The North Korean statement today said that its ultimate goal is “to settle hostile relations” between it and the United States and remove nuclear threats from the vicinity, according to the A.P.

If it follows through on its threat, it could leave the Security Council struggling to resolve two nuclear crises at once, as talks drag on over Iran’s program.

Today, the deputy chief of Iran’s atomic energy agency, Muhammed Saeedi, told French radio in an interview from Tehran of a new proposal to end the standoff, according to news services.

“To be able to arrive at a solution, we have just had an idea,” he said. He suggested that France work through two of its state-controlled nuclear companies to create a consortium that would build a nuclear enrichment facility in Iran. That way, he said, France “could control in a tangible way our enrichment activities.”

Javier Solana, the European Union’s foreign minister, called the idea “interesting” but said it needed more study.

Mr. Solana is leading negotiations on behalf of Europe over a package of incentives meant to persuade Iran to shut down its nuclear program, which it calls peaceful but many countries see as a prelude to the development of nuclear weapons.

American officials have supported the current round of negotiations, mostly because Russia and China would block any move now to have the United Nations Security Council impose sanctions. But they have also worried that Iran is seeking to buy time for its program through endless talks, and trying to split what had been a solid international coalition against it.

The French president, Jacques Chirac, has taken a softer line than the leaders of Great Britain and Germany, suggesting last month that the threat of sanctions be dropped if Iran agrees to a temporary halt to nuclear enrichment.

But today French officials rejected the idea that they might reach a separate deal with Iran on Mr. Saeedi’s enrichment plan, saying the “channel of dialogue” must go through Mr. Solana, according to A.F.P.

French officials also reminded Iran that Mr. Solana is still waiting to hear whether it will offer to halt enrichment.

Last year Moscow proposed a similar idea for internationally supervised enrichment, but at a plant located in Russia. That idea won the support of the United States and other nations, but was rejected by Tehran, which insisted on retaining the right to conduct enrichment work on its own soil.

The United States has said it hopes that Mr. Solana’s discussions conclude early this month, and say it will push quickly for sanctions if no deal is reached.

North Korea’s intentions now will likely play a role in a number of planned meetings on nuclear issues.

Its statement about nuclear testing coincided with announcements in Japan that Mr. Abe will visit Beijing and Seoul next week. Mr. Abe, a hawk on North Korea, was expected to make North Korea a high priority in the talks.

“A nuclear test by North Korea will shake up the military balance between North Korea, Japan and South Korea, which has been based on conventional weapons,” said Nam Sung Wook, a North Korea expert at Korea University in Seoul. “The sense of insecurity will spike in South Korea, and calls could mount in Japan for nuclear armament.”

But he noted that North Korea has made many threats that it has not followed through on. “Right now, there is a 50-50 chance of North Korea testing a nuke,” Mr. Nam said. “Much of the decision will depend on what China and South Korea say after their summits with Abe.”

He said that North Korea could finish preparations for a test within three weeks, and would “wait for a timing with a maximum impact.”

In recent weeks, there have been sporadic news reports in Washington, Tokyo and Seoul that North Korea may be preparing for an underground nuclear test. The reports cited activities around underground facilities near the border with China or on the North’s remote northeast coast.

North Korea plans to step up production of fuel for nuclear weapons unless the United States drops financial sanctions, according to an American scholar, Selig S. Harrison, a longtime Korea specialist based in Washington who visited Pyongyang last month.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/03/world/asia/04nukecnd.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1
 
<font size="5"><center>Shots Fired Along Tense Korean Border</font size></center>

Oct 7, 9:13 AM (ET)
Associated Press
By KWANG-TAE IM

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - Gunfire rang out Saturday along the heavily armed no man's land separating the divided Koreas, as regional tensions mounted in anticipation of communist North Korea's plan to test its first atomic bomb.

South Korean soldiers fired about 40 shots as a warning after five North Korean soldiers crossed a boundary in the Demilitarized Zone separating the two country's forces, South Korean military officials said.

It was unclear whether the North Korean advance was intended as a provocation, or was rather an attempt to go fishing at a nearby stream, an official at South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said on condition of anonymity, citing official policy.

http://apnews1.iwon.com//article/20061007/D8KJQFV8P.html
 
<font size="5"><center>China on alert over a nuclear neighbour</font size></center>

London Times
Michael Sheridan, North Korean/Chinese border
October 8, 2006

THE North Korean refugee had one request for her captors before the young Chinese soldiers led her back across the steel-girdered bridge on the Yalu River that divides two “socialist allies”.

“She asked for a comb and some water because she said that if she was going to die she could not face going to heaven looking as dirty and dishevelled as this,” recounted a relative of one soldier who was there.

What happened next is testimony to the rising disgust in Chinese military ranks as Beijing posts more troops to the border amid a crisis with North Korea over its regime’s plan to stage a nuclear test.

The soldiers, who later told family members of the incident, marched the woman, who was about 30, to the mid-point of the bridge. North Korean guards were waiting. They signed papers for receipt of the woman, who kept her dignity until that moment. Then, in front of the Chinese troops, one seized her and another speared her hand — the soft part between thumb and forefinger — with the point of a sharpened steel cable, which he twisted into a leash.

“She screamed just like a pig when we kill it at home in the village,” the soldier later told his relative. “Then they dragged her away.”

Such stories are circulating widely among Chinese on the border, where wild rumours of an American attack on nuclear test sites have spread fears of a Chernobyl-type cloud of radiation and sparked indignation at the North Koreans. “I’ve heard it a hundred times over that when we send back a group they stab each one with steel cable, loop it under the collarbone and out again, and yoke them together like animals,” said an army veteran with relatives in service.

As international tensions over North Korea have soared, China has deployed extra combat units of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to man the border from the Yalu River in the south to the Tumen River near Russia - evidently fearing the risk of chaos and collapse.

The troop trains were rolling even on the Chinese mid-autumn festival on Friday. Civilian traffic on a main line was halted to allow one train to pass, with carriages jammed with glum soldiers in camouflage uniforms and flat cars carrying olive-green military vehicles.

And while a few off-duty men strolled with their sweethearts under the full moon along the banks of the Yalu, others watched from outposts at the silent, darkened shores of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

“All visits by Chinese have recently been stopped,” said a local official. “They gave us no reason for it.”

The bomb test could come as early as today, the eighth anniversary of Kim Jong-il’s ascent to the top of the North Korean Workers’ party and one day before South Korea’s foreign minister, Ban Ki-moon, seeks election as secretary-general of the United Nations.

Last Friday, North Korea’s traditional allies, Russia and China, joined in a UN security council warning that a weapons test - likely to be in a disused mine 6,000ft underground in Shijung district near the Chinese border -would attract “universal condemnation”. It has put the Chinese under maximum pressure to restrain Kim. Japan’s new prime minister, Shinzo Abe, is due in Beijing today to urge on the effort and the leader of South Korea is coming to make the same plea on Monday.

China’s dilemma is that its ruling elites are still bound to those of North Korea by a like-minded political authoritarianism. President Hu Jintao has even praised North Korea for keeping to its Stalinist politics, a view he may be repenting now that Kim has brought China to the brink of a nuclear crisis.

Beijing’s main fear is that if Kim tests a bomb - the CIA believes he has enough plutonium for four; other US experts think more - then Japan will feel it has no choice but to acquire its own atomic arsenal. That would destroy the balance of power in northeast Asia that has kept the peace since the end of the second world war.

China’s secondary fear is that if Kim’s regime collapses, hundreds of thousands of desperate, hungry North Koreans, some armed, will flood across its border to sow unrest and instability.

The Chinese regularly round up small groups of escapees. But uncounted thousands have slipped into the towns and villages inhabited by ethnic Koreans in the border provinces, building gleaming new towers and labouring in fields of fat corn.
China’s prosperity lures the poverty-stricken but has failed to convince North Korea’s leaders to deviate from their course of rigid state control.

“Why are they poor?” asked a local official, who was drinking heavily in a bar at festival time. “Because that gangster Kim Jong-il spends all the money on nuclear weapons!” Several Chinese soldiers have died in clashes with rogue North Korean soldiers who have crossed the border, shot up buildings and, in one case, robbed a bank with their AK-47s.

A PLA platoon leader was killed last year while catching five North Koreans who had attacked a hotel, robbed guests and kidnapped the manager, according to state media. Shots were fired yesterday as five North Korean troops crossed into the southern side of the demilitarised zone that separates the two countries.

The Chinese authorities are also irate over an influx of counterfeit US dollar bills and vast quantities of fake Viagra from North Korea. Some 50,000 Chinese gamblers a year are estimated to cross the other way to squander their money, much of it suspected to be the fruits of official corruption, in a North Korean casino.

The sense that Kim’s regime is losing control lies behind the Chinese military buildup. But some South Korean MPs fear China could grab territory from the north in the event of a collapse.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2393599_1,00.html
 
not much fun when the rabbit has the gun.

north korea is obviously responding to american's malignant imperialism.

not much fun when the rabbit has the gun, and this story has cia written all over it.
 
NK ain't attacking nobody.
Today's world is the far west and
Nukes are the guns.
If don't have them...
you're just settign yourself up for
some serious bitchslapping.

Neo
 
You know that there seems to be more and more Enemies that America has to watch out for, ever seen the movie "Red Dawn" I think America's setting itself up for a very rude awakening, pretty soon, we're gonna run out of Soldiers and few friends we have a backing away. what's next, Canada gonna fucking drop some shit from the North or Mexico really gonna "Reconquistar' America?
 
news
160_korea_nuclear_gfx.jpg



<font size="5"><center>North Korea Tests Nuclear Weapon</font size></center>
Updated Mon. Oct. 9 2006 12:26 AM ET

CTV.ca News Staff
Mon. Oct. 9 2006 12:26 AM ET


North Korea has claimed to carry out what its neighbours have long feared -- the test of a nuclear weapon.

"The nuclear test is a historic event that brought happiness to our military and people," said a quote carried Monday by the Korean Central News Agency, the communist state's official agency.

"The nuclear test will contribute to maintaining peace and stability in the Korean peninsula and surrounding region."

The agency said there had been no radioactive leakage from the test site and that it was carried out with "with indigenous wisdom and technology 100 per cent."

Yonhap, the South Korean news agency, reported that South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun is huddling with his security advisers to plan a response.

The test occurred at 9:36 p.m. EDT Sunday night (10:36 a.m. local time on Monday), it said, citing defence officials as a source.

An official at South Korea's seismic monitoring centre told The Associated Press that they measured a 3.6-magnitude event about the time of the alleged test, and that the event wasn't a natural one. The U.S. Geological Survey claims to have detected a 4.2-magnitude tremor about that time.

If the claim is true, North Korea would become the ninth member of the world's nuclear weapons club.

The North had been threatening such a test as part of its deterrent against what it claims is a possible U.S. invasion. The U.S. has said it has no plans to invade the country it once called part of an "axis of evil."

The United States, South Korea, Japan and China have all warned North Korea, a secretive communist state, against the test.

The UN Security Council added its voice to the mix on Friday.

For the past year, the North has boycotted six-party talks aimed at getting it to end its attempt to develop a nuclear arsenal.

In 2003, North Korea pulled out of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty when the U.S. accused it of a secret nuclear program.

Earlier this year, worry over a possible test escalated when the U.S. and Japan reported suspicious activity at a suspected test site.

The international community became further alarmed when North Korea carried out missile tests this summer. One missile, the Taepodong-2, is reportedly capable of reaching some parts of the United States. However, that missile's test is believed to have failed.

Implications

"This is the nightmare scenario that the international community had wanted to avoid," CTV's Steve Chao told Newsnet from Beijing. "However, North Korea's leader, Kim Jong Il, has been threatening all weekend long that the tests would proceed."

Everyone is now scrambling to confirm the report, he said.

"It's been known for some time that North Korea has had the capability. It's believed they had enough plutonium to make at least five bombs."

Spy satellite imagery had shown work at a coal mine near the border with China, Chao said.

This alleged test was carried out by a country that is considered an economic basket case. Chao said some analysts it's for that reason that North Korea pushed ahead. "Many people say the nuclear option is an example of a regime fighting for survival. The fact is its people are starving ... its economy is failing. So North Korea wanted to make sure it is respected and that no one would invade them at this time."

While North Korea publicly frets about the U.S., Chao said the nation that might react most strongly is Japan, which has made it clear that a nuclear-armed North Korea is unacceptable to them.

This event will also be seen as a major diplomatic failure for China, because it has been unable to rein in North Korea, he said.

With files from The Associated Press

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20061008/korea_nuclear_061008/20061008?hub=World
 
<font size="5"><center>North Korea's success is diplomacy's failure</font size></center>

Mercury News
By Tim Johnson
McClatchy Newspapers

BEIJING - In the end, every strategy failed to slow North Korea's nuclear march.

The United States used bullying as much as diplomacy, only to let a weapons program incubate and grow, leading to Monday's nuclear test.

South Korea's "sunshine policy" provided the North with aid, but got nothing in return on nuclear policy.

China, a big brother to North Korea, thought Pyongyang would heed its advice not to roil the waters of East Asia, but it didn't.

"Everybody's a loser," said Moon Chung-in, a political scientist at Yonsei University in Seoul and a frequent adviser to South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun.

North Korea trumpeted its new deterrent as "a great leap forward," casting itself as victorious. But analysts say pressure on the Hermit Kingdom will build, making Pyongyang a likely loser as well.

"North Korea succeeded in gaining nuclear weapons, but now it will get all kinds of sanctions from neighboring countries," Moon said.

In China, some analysts flayed Washington for not engaging Pyongyang directly in talks, and said North Korea had slid irreversibly into the global nuclear club.

"North Korea has succeeded in its nuclear ambition. The U.S. can do nothing at all now," said Shen Dingli, director of the U.S. Study Center at Fudan University in Shanghai.

Under the watch of the Bush administration, North Korea dropped out of the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, booted nuclear monitors, strengthened its missile capabilities, reprocessed nuclear fuel, and built what experts say is an arsenal of at least half a dozen nuclear bombs, maybe more.

North Korea now joins Russia, China, the United States, France, Britain, India and Pakistan in wielding nuclear weapons. Israel, though not an admitted nuclear power, is also believed to have hundreds of nuclear weapons.

In Seoul, President Roh publicly wrung his hands over the failure of policies toward North Korea, admitting that appeasement is unlikely to last in its present form.

"It could be said that the engagement policy has not been effective in resolving the North Korean nuclear crisis," South Korea's Yonhap news agency quoted Roh as saying.

Beijing issued a firm statement condemning North Korea for "brazenly" ignoring the worldwide opposition to its nuclear test, and demanded that it "abide by its pledges on denuclearization."

China in 2003 offered to host talks with the two Koreas, Russia, the United States and Japan on the nuclear crisis. It hosted five rounds of talks before they hit deadlock last year.

The nuclear test highlighted the fact that China, as a major supplier of energy and food to North Korea, never wanted to exercise its leverage to forestall the test. Indeed, some analysts say top Chinese leaders have a greater stomach for a nuclear-armed North Korea, with the turmoil it brings, than for the collapse of the Kim Jong Il regime, which could take away a key friendly buffer state and send refugees into China.

"Many people believe a nuclear North Korea is not necessarily a bad thing for China," said Jin Linbo of the China Institute of International Studies.

But China's public posture was different. It has long called for a nuclear-free peninsula, and its inability to achieve that goal will tie its hands as Washington and Tokyo push for severe sanctions against Pyongyang in the U.N. Security Council.

"China's efforts to solve the nuclear problem by peaceful talks has failed, the mechanism of the six-party talks has failed, and China's attempt to maintain security in the region has failed," said Zhang Liangui, a North Korea expert at the school for senior Communist Party officials in Beijing.

"There aren't many cards for China to play right now," Zhang added, saying he believes China will go along with U.N. sanctions against the North.

East Asia, unlike Europe, has no security architecture that links nations. In East Asia, countries only have bilateral alliances with the United States.

"It plays into the hands of (recently installed Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo) Abe, who can justify greater defense spending," said Peter M. Beck, a Northeast Asia expert for the International Crisis Group, which advocates peaceful crisis resolution.

"It also plays into the hands of hard-liners in Seoul, who say, 'What do we have to show for nine years of sunshine policy?'" he said.

The already-battered Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which limits nuclear development and calls for global disarmament, also took a new hit, Beck said. It is under the NPT cloak that Western powers are trying to curb Iran's nuclear program.

Pyongyang's nuclear test, Beck said, "sends a signal to the world that even the most failed regime can defy the will of the United Nations and the United States."

The director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, said in a statement that the breaking of an international moratorium on nuclear testing, which had lasted for nearly a decade, and the emergency of another country with

nuclear weapons capacity was "a clear setback to international commitments to move towards nuclear disarmament."

He said the test added new urgency to the need for a legally binding universal ban on nuclear testing. The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty has not been ratified by enough countries to bring it into force. The United States and North Korea are among those who have not ratified it.

(McClatchy special correspondent Fan Linjun contributed to this report.)

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/world/15717290.htm
 
<font size="4">Did North Korea actually explode a nuclear device ???</font size>


<font size="5"><center>Low Yield Of Blast Surprises Analysts</font size></center>

Washington Post
By Dafna Linzer
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 10, 2006; Page A12

The explosion set off by North Korea yesterday appears to have been extremely small for a nuclear blast, complicating U.S. intelligence efforts to determine whether the country's first such test was successful or signaled that Pyongyang's capabilities are less advanced than expected, several senior U.S. and foreign government officials and analysts said.

A variety of seismic readings around the world yesterday appear to have resulted from no more than a half-kiloton explosion, three officials said -- equivalent to 500 tons of TNT and far smaller than the 21- to 23-kiloton plutonium bomb the U.S. military dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, in August 1945.

A senior intelligence official called it a "sub-kiloton" explosion detonated inside a horizontal mountain tunnel and said its low yield caught analysts by surprise. "For an initial test, a yield of several kilotons has been historically observed," the official said.

A U.S. government official said the North Koreans, in a call to the Chinese shortly before the test was conducted, said it would be four kilotons. The official said it is possible the explosive yield was as low as 200 tons. France and South Korea both issued sub-kiloton estimates, and officials dismissed as inaccurate an early Russian estimate that the blast resulted from a five-to-15-kiloton explosion.

President Bush said early yesterday that U.S. experts were "working to confirm North Korea's claim." By the end of the day, intelligence officials were still piecing together data and waiting to review intercepted communications that might shed light on what exactly the North Koreans set out to accomplish in the test and how it was conducted.

If confirmed, North Korea's ascension into a growing nuclear club -- joining the United States, Britain, France, Russia, China, India and Pakistan -- would likely have a major impact on efforts to halt the spread of nuclear weapons. (Israel is widely believed to have nuclear weapons, although it apparently has never conducted a test.) It is the only country to walk away from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and then violate its central tenet -- a commitment to refrain from building nuclear weapons.

Intelligence and administration officials said yesterday they believed North Korea had managed a nuclear test of some sort, but because of the secrecy of the Pyongyang regime and the lack of scientific data, some observers would not eliminate the possibility that the blast was created by conventional explosives.

The relatively small size of the explosion, along with North Korea's public statement that the test did not produce any radioactive leakage, led some to question how well the test had gone. Small amounts of leakage are normal during nuclear tests, though it can take several days for the ventilation to register. One U.S. official said radiation detectors in the region were being monitored for any signs in the air from the nuclear test.

One analyst, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the topic, said North Korea's statement on leakage may have been political, rather than technical: "It could be their way of showing that they are a member of the nuclear club, as advanced, responsible and capable as other states." Another said the statement may have been intended to lessen environmental concerns in neighboring countries.

Intelligence officials were looking at four possibilities to explain the size of the blast, the most likely of which appeared to be that only a fraction of the device's core exploded. If that were the case, the test would still be considered successful, officials said, because some plutonium was exploded. But it may also lead the North Koreans to conduct additional tests to determine what went wrong.

It is also possible, two analysts said, that Pyongyang used less plutonium because it has less stockpiled than U.S. intelligence believed. Considered more unlikely by experts were theories that the North Koreans had succeeded in manufacturing a smaller, more sophisticated nuclear device or that engineers had set out to test the device's design rather than its yield.

"A low yield can be a failure in design or it can be bad luck," said Michael A. Levi, a nuclear expert at the Council on Foreign Relations. "Anything is possible," he said, including simulating a low-yield nuclear explosion by using large quantities of TNT, as the U.S. military had planned to do last summer.

"But you don't hear anyone who thinks it's a conventional [explosives] test," he said.

One senior government nuclear specialist said it is hard to discern a nuclear detonation from a conventional one just by looking at seismic data. "Explosions are explosions," the analyst said. "They push equally out in all directions and that's what you see at a distant seismic station; you just see the explosion force and you can't tell."

To discriminate between the two, intelligence experts also rely on a string of gas and radiation detectors.

The Bush administration had been expecting a nuclear test for months and was briefly relieved after a set of North Korean ballistic missile tests failed in July. Intelligence analysts in the U.S. government think Pyongyang is still years away from being able to marry a nuclear device to an advanced delivery system.

"I don't think we perceive a great threat that North Korea will attack anyone with nuclear weapons," said Robert J. Einhorn, who was assistant secretary of state for nonproliferation until 2001. "One of the main threats is that in desperation, it might sell its nuclear assets. Another danger is that eventually the government might collapse into chaos, and then we won't know who is in control of those assets."

Staff writer Peter Baker and staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.



http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/09/AR2006100901246.html
 
<font size="5"><center>North Korea Threatens War Against U.S.</font size></center>

Oct 11, 8:07 AM (ET)
Associated Press
By HANS GREIMEL

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - North Korea is threatening war against the United States for its "hostile attitude." As North Korea warned of physical retaliation for increased U.S. pressure over its reported atomic test, South Korea discussed preparations for a nuclear attack that could include an expanded conventional arsenal.

North Korea said in its first formal statement since the test that it could respond to U.S. pressure with "physical" measures.

"If the U.S. keeps pestering us and increases pressure, we will regard it as a declaration of war and will take a series of physical corresponding measures," the North's Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency. The statement didn't specify what those measures could be.

North Korea's No. 2 leader threatened in an interview with a Japanese news agency that there would also be more nuclear tests if the United States continued its "hostile attitude."

Unfazed by North Korea's latest statements, Japan planned to impose a total ban on North Korean imports and prohibit its ships from entering Japanese ports, a news report said.

The sanctions will also expand restrictions on North Korean nationals entering Japan, the country's public broadcaster NHK said.

Even along the razor-wired no-man's-land separating the divided Koreas, communist troops on the North's side were more boldly trying to provoke their Southern counterparts: spitting across the demarcation line, making throat-slashing hand gestures, flashing their middle finger and trying to talk to the troops, said U.S. Army Major Jose DeVarona of Fayetteville, N.C., adding that the overall situation was calm.

But it appeared to be business as usual on the streets of North Korea's capital. Footage taken by AP Television News showed people milling about Kim II Sung square and rehearsing a performance for the 80th anniversary of the "Down with Imperialism Union."

Kim Yong Nam, second to North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, said in an interview with Kyodo News agency that further nuclear testing would hinge on U.S. policy toward the communist government.

"The issue of future nuclear tests is linked to U.S. policy toward our country," Kim was quoted as saying when asked whether Pyongyang will conduct more nuclear tests.

South Korea's defense minister said that Seoul could enlarge its conventional arsenal to deal with a potentially nuclear-armed North Korea.

"If North Korea really has the (nuclear) capabilities, we will improve and enlarge the number of conventional weapons as long as it doesn't violate the principle of denuclearization," Defense Minister Yoon Kwang-ung told parliament.

"We will supplement (our ability) to conduct precision strikes against storage facilities and intercept delivery means, while also improving the system of having military units and individuals defend themselves," he said.

Scientists and other governments have said Monday's underground test has yet to be confirmed, with some experts saying the blast was significantly smaller than even the first nuclear bombs dropped on Japan during World War II.

North Korea appeared to be trying to refute that Wednesday, saying in its statement that it "successfully conducted an underground nuclear test under secure conditions."

In rare direct criticism of the communist regime from Seoul, South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun said that the security threat cited by North Korea is exaggerated or nonexistent.

"North Korea says the reason it is pursuing nuclear (weapons) is for its security, but the security threat North Korea speaks of either does not exist in reality, or is very exaggerated," Roh said, according to South Korea's Yonhap news agency.

He spoke even as South Korea's military was checking its readiness for nuclear attack, Yonhap said. The Joint Chiefs of Staff told Defense Minister Yoon Kwang-ung that the military needed an improved ability to respond to such an attack, including state-of-the-art weapons capable of destroying a nuclear missile, the report said.

The top U.S. general in South Korea said that American forces are fully capable of deterring an attack from the North despite the communist nation's claim of a nuclear test.

"Be assured that the alliance has the forces necessary to deter aggression, and should deterrence fail, decisively defeat any North Korean attack against" South Korea, U.S. Army Gen. B.B. Bell said in a statement to troops. "U.S. forces have been well trained to confront nuclear, biological and chemical threats."

About 29,500 U.S. troops are deployed in the South, a remnant of the 1950-53 Korean War that ended in a cease-fire that has never been replaced by a peace treaty.

Bell said the seismic waves detected after the claimed test were still being analyzed and that it had not been yet determined if they indicated a successful nuclear test.

A media report that North Korea may have conducted a second nuclear test rattled nerves Wednesday before the Japanese government said there was no indication that a test had taken place.

Japanese public broadcaster NHK reported around 8:30 a.m. that unidentified government sources were saying that "tremors" had been detected in North Korea.

South Korean and U.S. seismic monitoring stations said that they hadn't detected any activity indicating a second test, and White House spokesman Blair Jones said the United States had detected no evidence of additional North Korean testing.

At the United Nations, China agreed to punishment of North Korea but not severe sanctions backed by the U.S., which it said would be too crushing for its impoverished communist ally.

Beijing is seen as having the greatest outside leverage on North Korea as a traditional ally and top provider of badly needed economic and energy aid.

The United States asked the U.N. Security Council to impose a partial trade embargo including strict limits on Korea's weapons exports and freezing of related financial assets.

All imports would be inspected too, to filter materials that could be made into nuclear, chemical or biological weapons.

Pyongyang has demanded one-on-one talks with Washington and has threatened to launch a nuclear-tipped missile if the U.S. doesn't comply.

Washington insists on the so-called six-party format, where Russia, China, South Korea and Japan have joined the United States in talking to North Korea.



http://apnews1.iwon.com//article/20061011/D8KMDT681.html
 
<font size="5"><center>Kim Has Case of 'Malign Narcissism'</font size>
<font size="4">Far from being a fool, Kim Jong Il carefully
plotted his country's path to nuclear power.</font size></center>

Los Angeles Times
By Barbara Demick, Times Staff Writer
October 11, 2006

Kim Jong Il is neither insane nor stupid.

From the CIA's psychological profilers to his many biographers, experts who have studied the North Korean leader believe that beneath the glaring eccentricities — the bouffant hairdo and the oddball Mao suits — there is a shrewd operator at work.

Despite an image as a "nut with a nuke," as some bloggers have disparaged him, the 64-year-old Kim appears to have carefully orchestrated his country's path to nuclear sovereignty.

If the announced test is confirmed, one of the world's poorest and most dysfunctional countries will have become an unlikely gate crasher in the exclusive club of nuclear powers.

That is an achievement Kim apparently believes will ensure the top item on his agenda: maintaining power.

In Kim's eyes, a nuclear weapon should prevent the United States from attempting to topple him from his post in the manner of Iraq's Saddam Hussein. And the indomitable mystique of nuclear capability could in part substitute for the charisma that Kim, unlike his late father, Kim Il Sung, is lacking.

"In the eyes of the North Korean leaders, this was very calculated and rational behavior," said Paik Hak-soon, a political scientist at South Korea's Sejong Institute. "Nobody invades a nuclear power. People respect nuclear power."

Biographers over the years have frequently made the point that Kim Jong Il did not merely inherit power, he fought for it. Short, dumpy and lacking in charm, the younger Kim had to contend with other possible successors before taking over in 1994 upon the death of his father.

Far less popular domestically than Kim Il Sung, he also has had his hands full staying in control — especially given the economic basket case that North Korea became on his watch. It is unclear as well whether he will be able to pass on power to any of his three sons.

Jerrold M. Post, founder of the CIA's Center for the Analysis of Personality and Political Behavior who now teaches at George Washington University, says Kim has had a tough act to follow because of a North Korean propaganda machine that extolled his father as a god.

"You have other world leaders whose fathers led before them — King Abdullah of Jordan, Bashar Assad of Syria — but their job pales in comparison to Kim Jong Il…. He had to be the son of God and to sustain the charismatic cult of personality," Post said.

A psychiatrist by training, Post does not believe that Kim is psychotic but that he has a dangerous personality disorder that Post diagnoses as "malign narcissism." As such, Kim has loyalty only to himself and lacks the ability to consider other people's feelings.

Kim's blatant disregard for his own people allowed him to become one of the Asia's top gourmets at a time when up to 20% of North Korea's population was dying of starvation. To indulge his private whims, he is said to have imported a sushi chef from Japan and a pizza maker from Italy, both of whom later wrote "cook-and-tell" accounts of their experiences. He dispatched couriers to Europe to pick up epicurean treats and ordered each grain of his rice inspected, according to the chefs' accounts.

North Korea's leader apparently saw no hypocrisy in exiling people to prison camps for watching foreign media, while he personally amassed a collection of 20,000 foreign film titles. From the time that President Carter visited Pyongyang in 1994 with copies of "Gone With the Wind" and "The Godfather," foreign dignitaries have been bearing such gifts. The ABC television network, granted a visa to North Korea last year, is said to have brought in, on special request, the complete "Desperate Housewives" series.

Kim is known to love cinema. He once ordered the kidnapping of a South Korean actress and her director husband to run North Korea's film studio. He wrote a book, "On the Art of Cinema," on using film to instill socialist values in the masses. His first serious job, at 30, was with the Department of Propaganda and Agitation for the ruling Workers' Party.

He oversaw a propaganda machine that maintained the elaborate mythology about the ruling family, including the claim that his own birth (like that of Christ) was heralded by the appearance of a bright star.

But Kim was not so delusional to be fooled by his own propaganda, and he knew he would need more to keep himself in power. After 1980, he turned his attention from cinema to weapons of mass destruction.

"Big toys for big boys" is how his psychological profiler, Post, puts it.

Kim steered a nuclear energy program that had been launched in the 1960s more in the direction of weapons development. According to numerous accounts by defectors, he ordered nuclear research and missile development projects moved from the purview of the military to the Workers' Party Central Committee so he could be more intimately involved.

During the famine of the mid-1990s, rank-and-file soldiers were allowed to starve to death, while the regime poured millions into the development of weapons of mass destruction. He made personal visits to the research facilities and lavished scientists with gifts.

"Kim Jong Il didn't care if he bankrupted the rest of the country. He saw the missiles and nuclear weapons as the only way to maintain power," Kim Dok-hong, former deputy director of the Juche Institute, a Pyongyang think tank devoted to North Korean ideology, said in a July interview.

Michael Breen, a Kim biographer, believes that the leader has been following a long-nurtured plan to become a nuclear power and that nothing the United States could have done, short of an invasion, would have stopped him.

"From inside the Beltway, people will be talking about the failure of American policy, but I believe the North Koreans did what they always set out to do and became a nuclear state," Breen said. "They weathered the storm of international condemnation, the potential for a coup or invasion. The way the North Koreans see it, a lesser man might have caved to the pressure, but not Kim Jong Il."

Others say Kim merely wanted respect, particularly from the United States, and would have traded away his nuclear weapons in exchange for diplomatic recognition of his regime.

Post, who has also profiled Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, says it is no coincidence that both North Korea and Iran accelerated their development of nuclear weapons after President Bush lumped them in the "axis of evil" and proceeded with the invasion of Iraq. Both had reason to be fearful of a U.S. attack.

"Even if you say that Kim Jong Il is paranoid, it doesn't mean that someone was not out to get him," Post said.


http://www.latimes.com/news/nationw...1,0,1612349,full.story?coll=la-home-headlines
 
Definitely wondering why the US hasnt got the world together to make this move. ohhhhh we lost credibility with Iraq and have no way to get people behind us now that someone does have nukes.
 

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