Tag Archives: Kim Jong

News, Politics, Government

North Korea's War of Words

Leave a comment

By dkirk, Contributor Word that North Korea‘s got new missile launchers on its east coast shows the fragility of the standoff on the Korean peninsula. No, no one thinks the North Koreans are about to fire on a “live” target — whether U.S. bases in Japan or South Korea or at some more distant target. The fact is, however, the ongoing moves orchestrated by the North Korean ruling elite in the name of the young leader Kim Jong-un show the unlikelihood if not the impossibility of arriving gracefully at a conclusion to the standoff.

From: http://www.forbes.com/sites/donaldkirk/2013/04/22/north-koreas-war-of-words/

News, Politics, Government

What The FBI Should Have Asked Dennis Rodman

Leave a comment

By Monte Burke, Forbes Staff

You remember that former NBA star, Dennis Rodman, traveled to North Korea in February and met with the country’s leader, Kim Jong-un, right? The two of them took in a basketball game together. Afterwards, Rodman called Kim a “good guy” and “a friend.” The White House was initially not too happy with Rodman’s jaunt, which was sponsored by Vice Media, but the U.S. government as a whole didn’t seem too interested in the event.

From: http://www.forbes.com/sites/monteburke/2013/04/17/what-the-fbi-should-have-asked-dennis-rodman/

Articles of Interest

Pulitzer Prize Fiction 2013: ‘Orphan Master’s Son’ By Adam Johnson

Leave a comment

By The Huffington Post News Editors

“The Orphan Master’s Son” by Adam Johnson won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 2013. The book, set in North Korea, is about a young man who rises to become a threat to the dictator Kim Jong-il, and then tries to get his wife and step children out of the country.

The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction is one of the most prestigious awards in American literature. Previous fiction winners have included Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, Jennifer Egan and Philip Roth. Publishers submit works according to published guidelines; winners for the literary categories must be U.S. citizens, except for the History category, where the subject of the book must be U.S. History. 1,327 books were submitted by publishers this year.

The other fiction finalists this year were What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank by Nathan Englander, and Eowyn Ivey’s The Snow Child.

Read More…

From: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/15/pulitzer-prize-fiction-2013_n_3086514.html

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

North Korea and the Fear of Total Destruction

Leave a comment

By Eric Bleeker, CFA, The Motley Fool

Filed under:

Days after warning that it couldn’t assure diplomats’ safety in the event of war, the news of the day is that North Korea is preparing for a missile test on April 10. Another day, another act set to raise the stakes in a standoff that heated up with surprising ferocity across the past month.

The stakes on the Korean peninsula are enormous. North Korea has a reported 13,000 artillery pieces at its disposal, the majority of which are close to the thin demilitarized zone that separates the two countries. While South Korea‘s capital of Seoul may not be “flattened” within the first 30 minutes of conflict, as past reports have concluded, the scale of destruction to a modern global metropolis would be unlike anything most have witnessed in their lifetimes if a full-scale war broke out.

How unique and dangerous of a situation is this? Imagine a 30-year-old despot sitting across a small 2-mile-wide zone in White Plains N.Y., ready to shell Midtown and move more than a million troops south to attempt occupying the remainder of the Tri-State area, and you essentially have the situation playing out in Korea.

The recent elevated bluster from the North is commonly dismissed as showmanship. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is still a new “Supreme Leader” of the country and the youngest head of state in the world. The thought is that his saber-rattling builds credibility with a military establishment that’s one of the few functioning establishments in the country.

Every few years, tensions rise on the Korean peninsula, such as in late 2010, when the two countries briefly traded artillery fire, only to settle back. The stakes of war are too high, and even Kim Jong-un and his father didn’t want to risk a full-fledged war and the total destruction it would cause to the Korean peninsula.

Yet in a world that’s recently been obsessed with “financial weapons of mass destruction” that led to the financial crisis of 2008, it’s important to remember that we live in a world with real weapons of mass destruction. The financial crisis of 2008 came about because financial models deeply underestimated the risk inherent in their construction. In hindsight, many of the risks seemed obvious; of course insuring hundreds of billions in poorly constructed home mortgages for pennies on the dollar was riskier than believed!

So far, world markets have largely ignored the situation playing out in Korea. We’ve been there, done that. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is still up more than 11% on the year. Yet you can’t help wondering if the risks in Korea are being miscalculated. Would it be such a stretch of the imagination that in five years the common refrain was “of course a 30-year-old unelected ruler of an impoverished country was likely to act out a bit too strongly and start a war”?

The odds are: that North Korea continues acting out for attention over the next few weeks, the …read more

Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

News, Politics, Government

Asia's Week: Kuroda Speaks Louder Than Kim

Leave a comment

By Tim Ferguson, Forbes Staff

Chevrolet Code 130R concept - front three-quarter view

Asia’s action really picked up in April as the electoral ground began to shake in Malaysia, President Thein Sein sought to calm the troubled sectarian waters of Burma/Myanmar and the spectre of bird flu grew more ominous in southeastern China. But, even more prominent than those developments, two aggressive players in North Asia sought to achieve shock and awe: North Korean dictator Kim Jong-eun and Japanese central banker Haruhiko Kuroda. …read more

Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest

Computers

Hack attack by Anonymous vandalizes North Korea's Twitter and Flickr accounts

Leave a comment

While North Korea has made some serious-sounding threats about military action against the United States and South Korea lately, the country’s looking a bit silly after several of its online accounts were hacked.

North Korea‘s official Flickr and Twitter pages have been vandalized, with hacker collective Anonymous taking credit. The hackers also gained access to a North Korean music and book store and the country’s news and information site, both of which have both been taken down, The Next Web reports.

The Flickr page now includes an image of North Korea‘s leader, Kim Jong-un, with pig ears and a Mickey Mouse tattoo on his stomach. The image says Kim is “wanted” for “Threatening world peace with ICMBs and Nuclear weapons,” among other things. That same image now appears aindf.com, a South Korean political group with ties to North Korea.

The images on North Korea‘s Flickr account.

Other images include a “We are Anonymous” logo and a pair of other photos with Guy Fawkes masks—a popular symbol among Anonymous hackers. North Korea‘s Twitter feed links to several of the hacked pages.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

…read more

Source: FULL ARTICLE at PCWorld

Articles of Interest

Kim Jong Un, North Korean Leader, Calls Nuclear Weapons A ‘Reliable War Deterrent’

Leave a comment

By The Huffington Post News Editors

SEOUL, April 2 (Reuters) – North Korean nuclear weapons act as a deterrent to potential aggressors and as a foundation for its prosperity, the country’s leader said in a speech delivered on Sunday and published in full by the country’s KCNA news agency on Tuesday.
“Our nuclear strength is a reliable war deterrent and a guarantee to protect our sovereignty,” Kim Jong-un said in a speech delivered to the central committee meeting of the ruling Workers Party of Korea.
The speech appeared to emphasize a shift to economic development and accused the United States of seeking to drag North Korea into an arms race in a bid to create obstacles to economic improvement. (Reporting by David Chance; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)

Read More…
More on North Korea

…read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Huffington Post

Articles of Interest

Russia Urges Restraint On North Korea’s Threats

Leave a comment

By The Huffington Post News Editors

* Moscow urges parties not to “cross the point of no return”
* Senior diplomat says war is unacceptable
* Moscow says U.S. statements are “a bit reassuring” (Adds diplomat’s quotes)
SCOW, March 30 (Reuters) – Moscow urged restraint in the Korean peninsular on Saturday, after North Korea said it was entering a “state of war” with South Korea in a further escalation of its bellicose rhetoric against Seoul and its main ally, the United States.
“We hope that all parties will exercise maximum responsibility and restraint and no one will cross the point of no return,” senior Russian Foreign Ministry official Grigory Logvinov told Interfax news agency.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on Friday put missile units on standby to attack U.S. military bases in the South and the Pacific, after two nuclear-capable U.S. stealth bombers flew over the Korean peninsula in a rare show of force.
“We expect that everyone understands that a recurrence of the war on the peninsula is definitely unacceptable,” Logvinov told news agency RIA.
When asked by reporters if Pyongyang had the same understanding, Logvinov said: “Of course. We were in contact with the North Korean side”.
U.S. officials said the B-2 bombers were on a diplomatic sortie aimed at reassuring allies South Korea and Japan and were also aimed at trying to nudge Pyongyang back to dialogue.
“At least at this point, we see that the statements (of Washington) are rather restrained. The position of the American side is a bit reassuring,” Logvinov told RIA.
Russia warned on Friday that the heightened military activity was slipping into a “vicious cycle” that could get out of control.
Tension has been high since North Korea conducted a third nuclear weapons test in February in breach of U.N. sanctions and despite warnings from China for it not to do so. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Huffington Post

Articles of Interest

North Korea Rockets On Standby To Hit U.S. Bases On Kim Jong Un’s Orders, KCNA Reports

Leave a comment

By The Huffington Post News Editors

By David Chance and Phil Stewart
SEOUL/WASHINGTON, March 29 (Reuters) – North Korea put its rocket units on standby on Friday to attack U.S. military bases in South Korea and the Pacific, after the United States flew two nuclear-capable stealth bombers over the Korean peninsula in a rare show of force.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un signed off on the order at a midnight meeting of top generals and “judged the time has come to settle accounts with the U.S. imperialists in view of the prevailing situation”, official KCNA news agency said.
On Thursday, the United States flew two radar-evading B-2 Spirit bombers on practice runs over South Korea, responding to a series of North Korean threats. They flew from the United States and back in what appeared to be the first exercise of its kind, designed to show America’s ability to conduct long-range, precision strikes “quickly and at will”, the U.S. military said.
The news of Kim’s response was unusually swift.
“He finally signed the plan on technical preparations of strategic rockets of the KPA, ordering them to be standby for fire so that they may strike any time the U.S. mainland, its military bases in the operational theaters in the Pacific, including Hawaii and Guam, and those in south Korea,” KCNA said.
The North has an arsenal of Soviet-era Scud missiles that can hit South Korea, but its longer-range missiles are untested. Independent assessments of its missile capability suggest it may have theoretical capacity to hit U.S. bases in Japan and Guam.
The North has launched a daily barrage of threats since early this month when the United States and the South, allies in the 1950-53 Korean War, began routine military drills.
The South and the United States have said the drills are purely defensive in nature and that no incident has taken place in the decades they have been conducted in various forms.
The United States also flew B-52 bombers over South Korea earlier this week. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Huffington Post

Articles of Interest

North Korea Threats: Pyongyang Steps Up Rhetoric Against U.S. Bases In Japan And Guam

Leave a comment

By The Huffington Post News Editors

SEOUL, March 21 (Reuters) – North Korea said it would attack U.S. military bases on Japan and the Pacific island of Guam if provoked, a day after leader Kim Jong-un oversaw a mock drone strike on South Korea.
The North also held an air raid drill on Thursday after accusing the United States of preparing a military strike using bombers that have overflown the Korean peninsula as part of drills between South Korean and U.S. forces.
North Korea has stepped up its rhetoric in response to what it calls “hostile” drills between South Korea and the United States. It has also been angered by the imposition of fresh U.N. sanctions that followed its Feb. 12 nuclear test.
Separately, South Korea said a hacking attack on the servers of local broadcasters and banks on Wednesday originated from an IP address in China, raising suspicions the intrusion came from North Korea.
“The United States is advised not to forget that our precision target tools have within their range the Anderson Air Force base on Guam where the B-52 takes off, as well as the Japanese mainland where nuclear powered submarines are deployed and the navy bases on Okinawa,” the North’s supreme military command spokesman was quoted as saying by the KCNA news agency.
Japan and U.S. Pacific bases are in range of Pyongyang’s medium-range missiles.
It is not known if North Korea possesses drones, although a report on South Korea‘s Yonhap news agency last year said it had obtained 1970s-era U.S. target drones from Syria to develop into attack drones.
“The (drone) planes were assigned the flight route and time with the targets in South Korea in mind, Kim Jong-un said, adding with great satisfaction that they were proved to be able to mount (a) super-precision attack on any enemy targets,” KCNA reported.
It is extremely rare for KCNA to specify the day on which Kim attended a drill. It also said a rocket defence unit had successfully shot down a target that mimicked an “enemy” Tomahawk cruise missile. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Huffington Post

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

Obama Steps Up to the Plate Against North Korea's Nuclear Threats

Leave a comment

By Katie Spence, The Motley Fool

Filed under:

For a while now, I’ve written about how the threats coming from North Korea are a benefit for missile defense, and defense companies. On Friday, that theory was proved correct as the Obama administration announced that it’s beefing up missile defense, even though sequestration has gone into effect. Here’s what you need to know. 

Launch of a Standard Missile-3, 2008. Source: Missile Defense Agency.

When Barack Obama took office in 2009, he stopped the deployment of intercontinental ballistic missile interceptors, which left the total number at 30. However, with escalating threats from North Korea, and the report that North Korea it has advanced its missile capabilities, the Obama administration has reinstated the Bush administration’s missile defense plan. That means missile interceptors will grow to a total of 44.  

The additional interceptors are projected to boost the United States‘ missile defense capabilities by 50% and cost an estimated $1 billion. James Miller, defense undersecretary for policy, said that when North Korea launched a satellite into space, it demonstrated “its mastery of some of the same technologies required for development of an intercontinental ballistic missile.” He also stated: “Our concern about Pyongyang’s potential ICBM capability is compounded by the regime’s focus on developing nuclear weapons. North Korea‘s third nuclear test last month is obviously a serious concern for all nations.” 

Miller also said the increase in interceptors is meant to keep ahead of the growing threat coming from North Korea, and Iran, as the U.S. has to be able to counter multiple missile threats. Furthermore, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced that the U.S. is looking to add a second ballistic missile radar instillation in Japan and that the U.S. will be shifting “resources” to boost funding to Lockheed Martin‘s Aegis Missile defense system. 

The Obama administration and the Pentagon are taking the threats from North Korea and Iran seriously. Along with Lockheed, this is welcome news for Northrop Grumman , the prime contractor on the Missile Defense Agency’s Joint National Integration Center, a simulating and war-gaming center that provides answers for America’s missile defense capabilities. It’s also good news for Boeing , which makes ground-based interceptors — our first line of defense against missiles — and for Raytheon , which builds the SM-3, a defense weapon used to destroy incoming ballistic missiles.  

Kim Jong-un isn’t backing down, and what he’ll do in the future is anyone’s guess. Luckily, America has the ability to defend itself and is increasing its ability to counter further threats. We can hope that’ll be enough to persuade North Korea not to fire at America. But in the meantime, the emphasis on increased defense capabilities is welcome news for defense contractors, and it shows, once again, why they’re essential and great long-term investments.

Boeing operates as a major player in a multitrillion-dollar market in which the opportunities and responsibilities are absolutely massive. However, emerging competitors and the company’s execution problems have investors wondering whether …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

SecDef Promises to Defend Against N. Korean Missiles

Leave a comment

By Rich Smith, The Motley Fool

Filed under:

Laugh if you like, but America is taking seriously North Korean threats to “nuke” the continental United States. On Friday, newly installed Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel held a press conference in which he outlined serious, urgent measures the Obama Administration is undertaking, just in case North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un isn’t joking.

Specifically, Hagel announced that “in order to bolster our protection of the homeland and stay ahead of this threat,” the U.S. is taking several steps. Chief among them, the Defense Department plans to purchase and deploy 14 additional ground-based interceptor missiles under the Missile Defense Agency’s Ground-Based Midcourse Defense program.

Boeing manages this program, in which Raytheon AN/TPY-2 radar systems detect ballistic missile launches, which are then hit-to-killed by Raytheon warheads launched atop Orbital Science -built missiles. The U.S. currently has 30 such interceptor missiles in its arsenal. Adding 14 more is expected to cost $1 billion. Hagel confirmed that the U.S. will probably draw funds away from Raytheon’s SM-3 Block IIB missile, and the European missile defense project for which it was designed, to fund improvements in missile defense on the U.S. West Coast. Other measures announced by the SecDef include purchasing and deploying an additional AN/TPY-2 radar systems to Japan.

The net effect of all these changes, says Hagel, will be “to add protection against missiles from Iran sooner while also providing additional protection against the North Korean threat.”

The article SecDef Promises to Defend Against N. Korean Missiles originally appeared on Fool.com.

Fool contributor Rich Smith has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Orbital Sciences and owns shares of Raytheon. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools don’t all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Copyright © 1995 – 2013 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

(function(c,a){window.mixpanel=a;var b,d,h,e;b=c.createElement(“script”);
b.type=”text/javascript”;b.async=!0;b.src=(“https:”===c.location.protocol?”https:”:”http:”)+
‘//cdn.mxpnl.com/libs/mixpanel-2.2.min.js’;d=c.getElementsByTagName(“script”)[0];
d.parentNode.insertBefore(b,d);a._i=[];a.init=function(b,c,f){function d(a,b){
var c=b.split(“.”);2==c.length&&(a=a[c[0]],b=c[1]);a[b]=function(){a.push([b].concat(
Array.prototype.slice.call(arguments,0)))}}var g=a;”undefined”!==typeof f?g=a[f]=[]:
f=”mixpanel”;g.people=g.people||[];h=[‘disable’,’track’,’track_pageview’,’track_links’,
‘track_forms’,’register’,’register_once’,’unregister’,’identify’,’alias’,’name_tag’,
‘set_config’,’people.set’,’people.increment’];for(e=0;e<h.length;e++)d(g,h[e]);
a._i.push([b,c,f])};a.__SV=1.2;})(document,window.mixpanel||[]);
mixpanel.init("9659875b92ba8fa639ba476aedbb73b9");

function addEvent(obj, evType, fn, useCapture){
if (obj.addEventListener){
obj.addEventListener(evType, fn, useCapture);
return true;
} else if (obj.attachEvent){
var r = obj.attachEvent("on"+evType, fn);
return r;
…read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

What Do Dennis Rodman, North Korean Nukes, and Sequestration Have in Common?

Leave a comment

By Katie Spence, The Motley Fool

Filed under:

Great news, America! Dennis Rodman met North Korea‘s Communist dictator, Kim Jong-un and said, “He’s a really good guy.” Well, that’s a relief. Now we can all forget about the rampant human-rights violations, the mass famine, and the fact that North Korea‘s supreme military body just announced that it wants to launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike against the U.S. and turn D.C. into “a sea of fire.”

You read that right. Instead of backing down because of new sanctions, North Korea has retaliated by issuing more threats against the U.S. and South Korea. While this news may appear to be coming at exactly the wrong time, specifically because of sequestration and defense cuts, there are a few things you should know.

Northrop Grumman Media Resources Photo Gallery-RQ-4 Block 10 Global Hawk flying over mountains. 

First, North Korea has successfully tested intercontinental ballistic missiles, has carried out nuclear tests, and has moved mobile missile launchers into strategic positions. The nation has done all of this in spite of condemnation from the UN, the U.S., and even ally China. North Korea isn’t playing around. It wants the U.S. dead and gone, and it has since 1950.

Second, if push comes to shove, America could squash North Korea like a bug. America spends a lot of money on defense. We have a state-of-the-art Missile Defense Agency, or MDA, which includes the following names:

  • Northrop Grumman , the prime contractor on the MDA‘s Joint National Integration Center, a simulating and war gaming center that provides answers for America’s missile defense capabilities.
  • Boeing‘s Ground-based Interceptors — our first line of defense against missiles.
  • Raytheon‘s SM-3, a defense weapon used to destroy incoming ballistic missiles.
  • Lockheed Martin‘s Aegis Missile Defense System, the primary sea-based component of the missile defense system.

Because of sequestration, defense is facing significant cuts. But here are some important points to consider.

On March 1, President Obama signed across-the-board cuts into law. Somewhat shockingly, the markets, and the aforementioned defense giants in particular, responded with a yawn.

I think there are three main reasons for that type of reaction:

  • America is getting used to Washington’s shenanigans.
  • The cuts haven’t been felt yet.
  • People still expect a resolution.

But here’s the thing: It’s almost guaranteed that a resolution will include cuts. America can’t keep spending as if the bill will never come due. It’s irresponsible, and it will end up hurting us more than Kim Jong-un’s tantrums.

Most lawmakers know that, so if a budget resolution is ever reached, the Department of Defense will probably still face painful cuts. Nevertheless, the escalating threats coming from North Korea bring into sharp focus why a strong missile defense network is imperative, and why the MDA and its key players aren’t going anywhere. Conversely, budget constraints also point to the need for smarter, modern, and more affordable defense systems. Enter the unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs — otherwise known as drones.

Over the past few years, drones have become the fastest-growing segment in the Air …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Computers

The Pirate Bay admits to North Korean hosting hoax

Leave a comment

You’ve got to hand it to the IT wizards at The Pirate Bay—they certainly know how to have fun with their infrastructure set-up. Echoing a prank from 2007, the Pirate Bay on Monday claimed the site was now being hosted in North Korea at that government‘s invitation. News outlets soon reported the announcement, although many did so with a healthy dose of skepticism.

That doubt was well founded, as the proclamation turned out to be a massive prank. The scallywags at the world’s most infamous BitTorrent site admitted to their shenanigans on Tuesday morning. “We hope that yesterday’s little hack proved that we know the internet better than our enemies,” The Pirate Bay said on its Facebook page, along with a few more paragraphs of colorful bravado. The site also posted a photograph of what appears to be several North Korean military figures glad hanging out with the country’s leader Kim Jong-un along with two of The Pirate Bay’s co-founders Peter Sunde and Per Gottfrid Svartholm Warg.

Technical trickery

When The Pirate Bay announced it had moved to North Korea at the behest of that country’s leader to “fight our battles from their network,” it certainly seemed plausible. Performing a traceroute on the site confirmed that The Pirate Bay was indeed accessing the Internet via North Korea. In fact, at the time of this writing, the prank was still in action and you could observe it for yourself. Just open up a command prompt in Windows and type in “tracert piratebay.se.” Then watch as your computer traces a route through servers around the world to land at The Pirate Bay’s virtual dock in North Korea at the IP address 175.45.177.217.

The Pirate Bay
The Pirate Bay posted this satirical image on its Facebook page on Tuesday.

But what The Pirate Bay was actually doing was using some IT trickery to make it appear that the site was residing inside the notoriously Net-unfriendly nation. If you want the technical details, check out the blog of a German blogger, going by the name Will, who first reported on the pirate prank. It’s not clear where The Pirate Bay’s sever access is currently coming from, but the best guess appears to be Western Europe, probably somewhere in Germany.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

…read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at PCWorld

News, Politics, Government

How One Writer Is Using Kickstarter To Resurrect Kim Jong-il

Leave a comment

By Seth Porges, Contributor

It’s no secret: the late North Korean leader Kim Jong-il was a bit of an oddball, known as much for his self-produced monster movies as the iron fist that he used to rule his nation. But what kind of man lies behind the caricature made popular in movies such as Team America: World Police and TV shows such as 30 Rock?  …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest

Articles of Interest

North Korea Defies With Nuclear Test

Leave a comment

By Breaking News

North Korea flag SC North Korea Defies with Nuclear Test

Pyongyang again disobeyed international efforts to rein in the recalcitrant regime by conducting its third nuclear test. North Korea announced it successfully conducted a test of a “miniaturized and lighter nuclear device with greater explosive force than previously.” Coupled with its successful launch of a long-range missile in December 2012, Pyongyang has achieved another breakthrough in its decades-long quest to threaten the United States with nuclear weapons.

The nuclear test comes less than a month after the United Nations again demanded North Korea “comply fully with its obligations [to] abandon all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs” and not conduct any further nuclear tests. Chinese resistance prevented more meaningful punishment for North Korea’s missile launch, though the U.N. meekly “expresse[d] its determination to take significant action in the event of a further DPRK launch or nuclear test.”

Details of the nuclear test remain unknown, but seismic detection agencies confirmed “the event shows clear explosion-like characteristics and its location is roughly congruent with the 2006 and 2009 DPRK nuclear tests.” The detected 4.9 magnitude of the test is larger than North Korea’s two previous nuclear tests. The South Korean Ministry of Defense preliminarily concluded the test may have been 6 to 7 kilotons, larger than the 2006 and 2009 tests, which were 1 kiloton and 4 kilotons, respectively.

It is yet unknown whether the test used plutonium (as in previous tests), uranium, or boosted plutonium (thermonuclear). A uranium test would show that Pyongyang has achieved a second path to nuclear weapons program, while a boosted plutonium weapon could provide significantly greater explosive yields or an expanded nuclear arsenal, since less plutonium is required per weapon.

What is clear is that North Korea has again defied the U.N. Security Council as well as recent efforts by China to prevent its troublesome neighbor from ratcheting up tension on the Korean Peninsula. Kim Jong-un has shown himself to be no less belligerent and dangerous than his predecessors. Kim is also clearly willing to risk incoming South Korean President Park Geun-hye’s nascent efforts to re-engage North Korea, just as Kim Jong-il rejected President Obama’s similar attempts in 2009.

Read More at heritage.org . By Bruce Klingner.

Related posts:

  1. US Journalists Will Stand Trial In North Korea, According To Report Associated Press        Two American journalists detained at…
  2. Detained US Journalists Moved To North Korean Capital As Tensions Rise Stephen Bates and agencies   Two American journalists arrested last…

…read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Western Journalism