North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un inaugurated a new cemetery for heroes of the Korean War on Thursday, watched by thousands of veterans and their families gathered in Pyongyang for the 60th anniversary of the 1950-53 conflict. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News
U.S., Chinese and North Korean war veterans have joined leader Kim Jong Un at an event marking the 60th anniversary of the end of the Korean War. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News
Japan‘s government is looking into re-opening official talks with North Korea to resolve questions over the abductions of Japanese citizens decades ago, raising concerns among allies who fear Tokyo‘s focus on that issue might weaken efforts to reign in Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program.
Chief Cabinet spokesman Yoshihide Suga said Wednesday that high-level talks with the North are possible if they would lead to a breakthrough on the abductions. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe indicated earlier this week he is open to holding a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un if such a breakthrough could be made.
Abe dispatched a senior adviser to Pyongyang last week, catching Seoul and Washington off guard. Both said they were not given prior notice.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News
After weeks of fiery rhetoric, military posturing and threats that it’s willing to strike back hard if provoked, North Korea appears to be taking a bit of a breather. The U.S.-South Korea war games it despises are winding down, and feelers are out in diplomatic circles that it might be best to open up some avenue for dialogue. If that sounds familiar, it should — it’s a pattern that has been repeated for decades.
So here’s the question: Can we talk?
From back-door channels to multinational conferences, dialogue has repeatedly been tried in a long-running effort to get North Korea to put the brakes on its development of nuclear weapons. Generally, hopes sputter and fade when North Korea‘s talking partners are presented with what they consider impossible demands. North Korea, meanwhile, has moved slowly but surely ahead with its nuclear program.
The current crisis has played out with the added uncertainty of just how far North Korea‘s new leader, Kim Jong Un, is willing to take the brinksmanship.
Amid continued fears it may test-launch a mid-range missile, North Korea two weeks ago opened the door, just a tiny crack, to talks. First it laid out a list of conditions for dialogue. Then it eased up on the near-daily war threats that had characterized its public statements, possibly signaling a willingness to dial the tensions back, particularly after the U.S.-South Korea drills, which were set to end Tuesday.
In a subtle shift in tone, North Korea issued these preconditions on April 16 for resuming talks: the lifting of U.N. sanctions, the end of the U.S.-South Korea military drills, the withdrawal of U.S. nuclear strike capabilities from the region and a halt to criticism of North Korea. It then reiterated a demand to South Korea to apologize for offending its leadership before any talk of dialogue to defuse tensions.
South Korea‘s Foreign Ministry called North Korea‘s demands illogical, but U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said it was “at least a beginning,” though “not acceptable, obviously.” The U.S. remains open to “authentic and credible negotiations,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters soon afterward, but he noted that the U.S. has not seen any commitment from North Korea that it is willing to end its nuclear program.
Getting North Korea to do that seems highly unlikely, especially now that it is claiming nuclear weapons are an essential part of its national defense. But advocates of diplomacy say it still must
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News
Asked if there might be war, the 40ish woman with the spangly purple shirt laughed out loud. She waved her hands back and forth, as if whisking away a pesky insect.
She fled North Korea late last summer, pushing her way at night through the chest-deep waters of the Amnok River, following a guide into China and, eventually, to South Korea. The journey cost her $5,000, a fortune back home.
She comes from a part of rural North Korea where electricity is a rarity, and the punishing winters seem to last forever. She came to a city of two-story-tall TV screens that light up the night, a city stalked by armies of financial analysts in well-tailored suits.
Now, amid international fears that North Korea may be preparing for another missile test, and relentless over-the-top rhetoric from Pyongyang that it will destroy its enemies, she simply scoffs. The exiles have seen life in both Koreas, and are unimpressed with what they left behind.
“It’s not even possible for North Korea to have a war,” said the woman, who spent years arranging black market deals for bronze smuggled to China. She asked that her name and other identifying details not be used, to protect relatives still living in the North.
“They don’t have fuel. They don’t have electricity,” she said. “Even if they yell to the world that they’ll go to war, it’s all just talk.”
Foreign analysts have long said that North Korea‘s desperate shortages are, in part, because Pyongyang channels so much of its resources to the military and into weapons development. But in a country where many soldiers have to spend months every year working on farms or construction projects, and where bicycles remain a status symbol for most people, the exiles say North Korea is so poor and undeveloped that it knows it would lose any fight. And lose badly.
North Korea‘s most recent round of over-the-top threats, including warnings of pre-emptive nuclear attacks on the United States, come in the wake of U.N. sanctions approved after Pyongyang’s February nuclear test. They also come during annual U.S.-South Korea military maneuvers, which Pyongyang has long seen as a provocation.
For weeks, foreign governments and analysts have been debating Pyongyang’s threats: Is war looming? Are the threats nothing but theater; a search for attention and foreign aid? Is North Korea‘s new young leader, Kim Jong Un,
From: http://feeds.foxnews.com/~r/foxnews/world/~3/USn_h1cc1pw/
Don’t worry, one popular argument goes, we’ve seen this before. Just ignore Pyongyang’s unlikely threats of nuclear holocaust as you would, say, a child throwing a tantrum.
Others, equally well credentialed, say the prospect of another Korean War has never been higher, with a massive, proud North Korean army incensed by propaganda specialists pumping up an already supercharged atmosphere with increasingly violent threats.
Who’s right? That depends on how you read the country’s young leader, Kim Jong Un. In his 16 months on the job, Kim’s government has raised fears with unusually aggressive threats against Seoul and Washington, and it’s not clear whether he will pull back, a feat perfected by his late father, considered a master at brinkmanship.
The mystery surrounding Kim Jong Un‘s intentions has some outsiders predicting nightmare scenarios.
“What makes this different from past ‘normal crises’ is our lack of insight into … Kim’s mind,” David Shlapak, a U.S.-Asia security analyst at RAND Corp., said last week in a transcript of comments released by the think tank.
The threats have continued, even amid U.S. and South Korean offers of dialogue. On Tuesday, the North’s military Supreme Command warned that unspecified retaliatory actions would happen at any time.
Figure out Kim, analysts say, and you may determine what’s happening in North Korea.
If he follows the playbook of his father, Kim Jong Il, he will tighten the screws just enough, in an attempt to push his adversaries to negotiations meant to win aid. Grandfather Kim Il Sung, on the other hand, gambled everything early in his leadership on a surprise attack on South Korea that resulted in three years of carnage that had U.S. officials dropping hints about the use nuclear weapons to force a resolution.
Some see the North’s sustained outburst as part of a long-established pattern meant to solidify loyalty at home, while also pushing Seoul and Washington to adopt more Pyongyang-friendly policies. Since the Korean War ended in 1953, they say, the rivals have experienced many cycles of hostility, often punctuated by bloodshed, without things spiraling out of control.
“There are no good reasons to think that Kim Jong Un, North Korea‘s young dictator, would want to commit suicide,” Andrei Lankov, a professor at Kookmin University in Seoul, wrote last week in a New York Times op-ed
From: http://feeds.foxnews.com/~r/foxnews/world/~3/Xrtxfvbh19E/
After weeks of war cries, North Korea has options to dial down tensions with the U.S. and South Korea, but it’s unlikely to be tempted by Washington’s offer to restart negotiations on its nuclear program.
Despite Pyongyang‘s threats of attack, South Korea‘s new government has offered it talks on the joint industrial park shut by the North during the latest standoff. And a U.S. decision to postpone a long-range missile test this month could provide a pretext for the North to declare a symbolic victory.
Through it all, the U.S. has made clear the door remains open for talks — a point hammered home by Secretary of State John Kerry on every stop on his just-completed trip to Northeast Asia.
The problem is the offer of talks has a precondition the government of Kim Jong Un won’t swallow.
The U.S. is adamant that North recommit itself to giving up nuclear weapons, as it did in a 2005 agreement arising from the so-called six-party talks: aid-for-disarmament negotiations hosted by China, and also joined by Japan, Russia and South Korea, that have been suspended for four years.
Pyongyang has made it increasingly clear it won’t negotiate away its atomic arsenal, which it views as a guarantee that Kim’s authoritarian regime won’t go the same way as those in Iraq and Libya that were toppled in U.S.-backed invasions.
For now, it’s still far from clear whether the security crisis on and around the Korean Peninsula has abated.
The belligerent rhetoric pumped out by North Korea has subsided a little in recent days, as the country commemorates the 101st birthday anniversary of founding leader Kim Il Sung.
But it has rejected Seoul’s offer of talks, and could yet rock the boat by test-firing two medium-range missiles reportedly readied on its east coast that could be launched over Japan. That would risk another round of condemnation in the U.N. Security Council, which last month approved its toughest sanctions yet on the North in response to its latest nuclear test.
Even in the feverish climate stoked by North Korea‘s threats, some policy experts are urging the Obama administration to show more flexibility in its dealings with the Kim regime.
Michael O’Hanlon, director of foreign policy
From: http://feeds.foxnews.com/~r/foxnews/national/~3/O8yHBXb4L3U/
North Korea quietly marked a second day of celebrations for its first leader’s birthday and issued prickly new rhetoric Tuesday threatening retaliation for what it sees as provocations by South Korea and the United States, who have been watching closely for signs the North may go ahead with a suspected medium-range missile launch.
State media said the Supreme Command of the Korean People’s Army issued an ultimatum demanding an apology from South Korea for “hostile acts” and threatening that unspecified retaliatory actions would happen at any time. The statement followed a day of festivities in North Korea‘s capital that featured art performances, public dances and crowds thronging to giant bronze statues to pay homage to the late leader Kim Il Sung.
The angry ultimatum, relayed through the Korean Central News Agency, was sparked by a small protest in downtown Seoul, where effigies of Kim Il Sung and his son and successor, late leader Kim Jong Il, were burned. Such protests are not unusual in South Korea and this one was likely more of a pretext for the North to react to calls that it join in dialogue with its neighbors than an actual cause for retaliation.
The North’s statement said it would refuse any offers of talks with the South until it apologized for the “monstrous criminal act.” North Korea often denounces such protests, but rarely in the name of the Supreme Command, which is headed by Kim Il Sung‘s grandson and North Korea‘s new leader, Kim Jong Un.
“If the puppet authorities truly want dialogue and negotiations, they should apologize for all anti-DPRK hostile acts, big and small, and show the compatriots their will to stop all these acts in practice,” the statement said, referring to North Korea‘s official name.
South Korea‘s Defense Ministry said Tuesday it had received no such ultimatum, noting that there is no communications line between the two Koreas.
Pyongyang launched a rocket ahead of the last anniversary of Kim Il Sung‘s birth, which was the centennial, but the holiday this year has been much more low-key, with Pyongyang residents gathering in performance halls and plazas and taking advantage of subsidized treats, like shaved ice and peanuts, despite unseasonably cold weather.
The calm in Pyongyang has been a striking contrast to the steady flow of threats North Korea has issued over ongoing military exercises between South Korea and the United States. Though the maneuvers, called Foal Eagle, are held regularly, North Korea was particularly
From: http://feeds.foxnews.com/~r/foxnews/world/~3/gvTRSimTeRY/
By The Huffington Post News Editors
The mounting tensions in North Korea have produced relatively few optimists of late, but rest assured that Dennis Rodman can be counted among them.
In an interview with Gossip Extra, the star rebounder made clear his plans to return to North Korea in August, so that he and “supreme leader” Kim Jong Un can you know, “just hang and have some fun.”
It’s an all-but-sure thing that any unofficial sojourns to North Korea would be precluded by say, nuclear conflict, but at the moment it appears that, in the mind of the Worm, international sanctions and threats of war stand aside for “basketball diplomacy.” Although, seeing how he reportedly leaked confirmation that Kim Jong Un has a daughter, a major state secret in North Korea, Rodman still has a bit to learn about being diplomatic.
Read More…
More on North Korea
North Korea‘s increasing hostility toward the rest of the world doesn’t seem to faze dictator Kim Jong Un‘s newest best friend Dennis Rodman, who reiterated his plans to return to the communist nation in August.
The former U.S. basketball star said at a charity event in Miami Beach over the weekend that he’s keeping plans to visit North Korea again in late summer to have “fun” with the country’s dictator, the website “Gossip Extra” reported.
“I’m going back August 1,” he told the website. “We have no plans really, as far as what we’re going to do over there, but we’ll just hang and have some fun!”
Rodman raised eyebrows when he became the first American to meet the reclusive young leader in a visit to Pyongyang in February.
Weeks after the controversial visit, Rodman, 51, described Kim as a friend.
“I don’t condone what he does, but he’s my friend,” Rodman said in a March interview with North Dakota’s KXJB. Rodman continued to say he will be “vacationing” with Kim in August.
Rodman’s remarks come amid rising tensions between North Korea and the United States, after the Asian nation threatened to launch a preemptive nuclear attack on the U.S. that would engulf Washington in a “sea of fire.”
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry last week wrapped up a tour to coordinate Washington’s response with Beijing, North Korea‘s most important ally, as well as with Seoul and Tokyo.
In Seoul, South Korean Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin told a parliamentary committee Monday that North Korea still appeared poised to launch a missile from its east coast, though he declined to disclose the source of his information.
Kerry warned North Korea not to conduct a missile test, saying it would be provocation that “will raise people’s temperatures” and further isolate the country and its impoverished people. He said Sunday that the U.S. was “prepared to reach out,” but that Pyongyang must first bring down tensions and honor previous agreements.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
From: http://feeds.foxnews.com/~r/foxnews/national/~3/H1wG5pOhggA/
Oblivious to international tensions over a possible North Korean missile launch, Pyongyang residents spilled into the streets Monday to celebrate a major national holiday, the birthday of their first leader, Kim Il Sung.
Girls in red and pink jackets skipped along streets festooned with celebratory banners and flags and parents pushed strollers with babies bundled up against the spring chill as residents of the isolated, impoverished nation began observing a three-day holiday.
There was no sense of panic in the North Korean capital, where very few locals have access to international broadcasts and foreign newspaper headlines speculating about an imminent missile launch and detailing the international diplomacy under way to try to rein Pyongyang in, including a swing through the region by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to try to tamp down emotions and coordinate Washington’s response with Beijing, North Korea‘s most important ally.
Foreign governments have been struggling to assess how seriously to take North Korea‘s recent torrent of rhetoric — including warnings of possible nuclear war — as it expresses its anger over continuing U.S.-South Korea military maneuvers just across the border. Officials in South Korea, the United States and Japan say intelligence indicates that North Korean officials, fresh off an underground nuclear test in February, are ready to launch a medium-range missile.
North Korea‘s own media gave little indication Monday of how high the tensions are.
The Rodong Sinmun, the Workers’ Party newspaper, featured photos and coverage of current leader Kim Jong Un‘s overnight visit to the Kumsusan mausoleum to pay respects to his grandfather. There was only one line at the end of the article vowing to bring down the “robber-like U.S. imperalists.”
Kim Jong Un‘s renovation of the memorial palace that once served as his grandfather’s presidential offices was opened to the public on Monday, the vast cement plaza replaced by fountains, park benches, trellises and tulips. Stretches of green lawn were marked by small signs indicating which businesses — including the Foreign Trade Bank recently added to a U.S. Treasury blacklist — and government agencies donated funds to help pay for the landscaping.
Braving the cold, gray weather, people lined up in droves to lay bouquets of fake flowers at the bronze statues of Kim and his son, late leader Kim Jong Il, in downtown Pyongyang, as they do for every major holiday in the highly militarized country, where loyalty to the Kims and to the state are drummed in citizens from an early age. They queued at roadside snack stands for rations of peanuts, a holiday tradition. Cheers and screams from a soccer match filled the air.
“Although the situation is tense, people have got bright faces and are very happy,” said Han Kyong Sim, a drink stand worker.
Monday marked the official start of the new year according to North Korea‘s “juche” calendar, which begins with the day of Kim Il Sung‘s birth in 1912. But unlike last year, the centennial of his birthday, there are no big parades in store this week, and North Koreans were planning to use
From: http://feeds.foxnews.com/~r/foxnews/world/~3/DKP8XgCDmiU/
The United States and Japan opened the door Sunday to new nuclear talks if North Korea lowered tensions and honored past agreements, even as the saber-rattling government rejected South Korea‘s latest offer of dialogue as a “crafty trick.”
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters in Tokyo that North Korea would find “ready partners” in the United States if it began abandoning its nuclear program.
Japan‘s foreign minister, Fumio Kishida, also demanded a resolution to a dispute concerning Japanese citizens abducted decades ago by North Korean officials.
The diplomats seemed to point the way for a possible revival of the six-nation talks that have been suspended for four years.
China long pushed has for the process to resume without conditions. But the U.S. and allies South Korea and Japan fear rewarding North Korea for its belligerence and endless repetition of a cycle of tensions and failed talks that have prolonged the crisis.
Kerry’s message of openness to diplomacy was clear, however unlikely the chances appeared that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un‘s government would meet the American’s conditions.
“I’m not going to be so stuck in the mud that an opportunity to actually get something done is flagrantly wasted because of a kind of predetermined stubbornness,” he told U.S.-based journalists.
“You have to keep your mind open. But fundamentally, the concept is they’re going to have to show some kind of good faith here so we’re not going to around and around in the same-old, same-old,” he said.
Tensions have run high on the Korean Peninsula for months, with North Korea testing a nuclear device and its intercontinental ballistic missile technology.
The reclusive communist state hasn’t stopped there. It has issued almost daily threats that have included possible nuclear strikes against the United States. Analysts and foreign officials say that is still beyond the North Koreans‘ capability.
While many threats have been dismissed as bluster, U.S. and South Korean say they believe the North in the coming days may test a mid-range missile designed to reach as far as Guam, the U.S. territory in the Pacific where the Pentagon is deploying a land-based missile-defense system.
Japan
From: http://feeds.foxnews.com/~r/foxnews/national/~3/uIvMs4NcgdM/
As North Korea prepares a potential missile test and issues threats almost daily, the Obama administration is hoping yet again that China can force its unruly neighbor to stand down.
It’s a strategy that has produced uneven results over decades of American diplomacy, during which Pyongyang has developed and tested nuclear weapons and repeatedly imperiled peace on the Korean peninsula.
But with only the counterthreat of overwhelming force to offer the North Koreans, the U.S. has little choice but to rely on Beijing to de-escalate tensions in a peaceful manner.
The question of how Washington can persuade Beijing to exert real pressure on Korean leader Kim Jong Un‘s unpredictable regime is front and center as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry conducts a series of meetings Saturday with Chinese leaders in Beijing.
Kerry is expected to discuss how to defuse the situation with President Xi Jinping, Premier Li Keqiang and other top members of China‘s communist leadership.
The immediate crisis: a North Korean test of a mid-range missile with a range of up to 2,500 miles that the U.S. believes could happen any day. The long-term problem: a nuclear program that may soon — or already — include the capability to deliver a warhead on a missile.
China is the only country with significant leverage over North Korea, a regime that like few in the world actually cherishes its isolation.
The Chinese have dramatically boosted trade ties with their neighbors and maintain close military relations some six decades after they fought side by side in the Korean War. They provide the North with most of its fuel and much of its food aid.
But Beijing, which values stability in its region above all else, clearly has different priorities than Washington.
China‘s greatest fear is the implosion of North Korea‘s impoverished state and the resulting chaos that could cause, including possibly millions of refugees fleeing across the border into China.
For that reason, China has in many ways looked past North Korea‘s bellicose rhetoric and activity, prioritizing the security of Kim’s regime — like his father’s and grandfather’s previously — over nuclear proliferation concerns.
From: http://feeds.foxnews.com/~r/foxnews/national/~3/4X60hv2glxc/
To the outside world, the talk often appears to border on the lunatic, with the poor, hungry and electricity-starved nation threatening to lay waste to America’s cities in an atomic firestorm, or to overrun South Korea in a lightning attack.Enemy capitals, North Korea said, will be turned “into a sea of fire.” North Korea‘s first strikes will be “a signal flare marking the start of a holy war.” Pyongyang’s nuclear arsenal is “mounted on launch pads, aimed at the windpipe of our enemies.”
And it’s not all talk. The profoundly isolated, totalitarian nation has launched two rockets over the past year. A February nuclear test resulted in still more U.N. sanctions. Another missile test may be in the planning stages.
But there is also a logic behind North Korea‘s behavior, a logic steeped in internal politics, one family’s fear of losing control and the ways that a weak, poverty-wracked nation can extract concessions from some of the world’s most fearsome military powers.
It’s also steeped in another important fact: It works.
At various points over the past two decades, North Korea‘s cycles of threats and belligerence have pressured the international community into providing billions of dollars in aid and, for a time, helped push South Korea‘s government into improving ties.
Most importantly to Pyongyang, it has helped the Kim family remain in power decades after the fall of its patron, the Soviet Union, and long after North Korea had become an international pariah. Now the third generation of Kims, the babyfaced Kim Jong Un, is warning the world that it may soon face the wrath of Pyongyang. If the virulence of Kim Jong Un‘s threats have come as a surprise, he appears largely to be following in his father’s diplomatic footsteps.
“You keep playing the game as long as it works,” said Christopher Voss, a longtime FBI hostage negotiator and now the CEO of the Black Swan Group, a strategic advisory firm focusing on negotiation. “From their perspective, why should they evolve out of this? If it ain’t broke, don’t’ fix it.”
Like hostage-takers, the North Koreans find themselves backed into a corner of their own creation, surrounded by heavily armed foes and driven by beliefs that seem completely illogical to everyone else. “From the outside, it makes no sense,” said Voss. “From the inside it makes all the sense in the world.”
But the
From: http://feeds.foxnews.com/~r/foxnews/world/~3/cdDZaNyUjpo/
As the world waits and watches for an expected North Korean ballistic missile test, the U.S. and its allies are prepared to respond if necessary. U.S. officials are conceding North Korea may be increasing its nuclear capabilities but don’t expect a nuclear strike. They suggest that other military moves by Pyongyang involving artillery attacks or shelling of nearby South Korean islands could actually present a more serious threat in triggering a conflict.
WHY ALL THE HUBBUB
Since the 1950-53 Korean War, North Korea has feared that Washington is intent on destroying the regime. The U.S. worries that Pyongyang will re-ignite the conflict with South Korea, and is uneasy because little is known about Kim Jong Un, the North’s new, young leader, and considers him unpredictable. Both sides have ratcheted up the rhetoric and military muscle moves in recent weeks. North Korea threatened a pre-emptive strike against the U.S., and conducted an underground nuclear test in February and a rocket launch in December. The threats are seen as an effort to pressure Washington and Seoul to change their North Korean policies and convince the North’s people that their new leader is strong enough to stand up to its foes. U.S. and South Korean troops have been conducting annual joint military drills in the region since early March, including bringing out nuclear-capable stealth bombers and fighter jets in what the Air Force acknowledged was a deliberate show of force.
NORTH KOREAN MISSILES
North Korea has been steadily working to display an increasing capability to launch missiles. Last year it failed in an attempt to send a satellite into space aboard a long-range rocket. A subsequent launch in December was successful, and that was followed by the country’s third underground nuclear test on Feb. 12. U.S. officials believe the North is preparing to test fire a medium-range “Musudan” missile. And a section in a new Defense Intelligence Agency assessment concludes with “moderate confidence” that the North could deliver nuclear weapon by ballistic missiles. The report notes that the delivery system is still not considered reliable.
U.S. RESPONSE
The North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD, which has responsibility for U.S. homeland defense, is watching the region via satellite and the USS Fitzgerald and the USS John S. McCain, Navy destroyers armed with sophisticated missile defense systems, have been positioned to best be able to detect and track a missile launch. The U.S. is confident it would be able to shoot it down, but would do so only if it appears to be a threat
From: http://feeds.foxnews.com/~r/foxnews/national/~3/jIAiD9JviCA/
On the brink of an expected North Korean missile test, U.S. officials focused on the limits of Pyongyang’s nuclear firepower Friday, trying to shift attention from the disclosure that the Koreans might be able to launch a nuclear strike. They insisted that while the unpredictable government might have rudimentary nuclear capabilities, it has not proven it has a weapon that could reach the United States.
A senior defense official said the U.S. sees a “strong likelihood” that North Korea will launch a test missile in coming days in defiance of international calls for restraint. The effort is expected to test the North’s ballistic missile technologies, not a nuclear weapon, said the official, who was granted anonymity to discuss intelligence matters.
Unless the missile unexpectedly heads for a U.S. or allied target, the Pentagon does not plan to try to shoot it down, several officials said. As a precaution, the U.S. has arrayed in the Pacific a number of missile defense Navy ships, tracking radars and other elements of its worldwide network for shooting down hostile missiles.
The tensions playing out on the Korean peninsula are the latest in a long-running drama that dates to the 1950-53 Korean War, fed by the North’s conviction that Washington is intent on destroying the government in Pyongyang and Washington’s worry that the North could, out of desperation, reignite the war by invading the South.
The mood in the North Korean capital, meanwhile, was hardly so tense. Many people were in the streets preparing for the birthday of national founder Kim Il Sung — the biggest holiday of the year. Even so, this year’s big flower show in Kim’s honor features an exhibition of orchids built around mock-ups of red-tipped missiles, slogans hailing the military and reminders of threats to the nation.
The plain fact is that no one can be sure how far North Korea has progressed in its pursuit of becoming a full-fledged nuclear power, aside perhaps from a few people close to its new leader, Kim Jong Un.
Concern about the North’s threatening rhetoric jumped a notch on Thursday with the disclosure on Capitol Hill that the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency believes with “moderate confidence” that the North could deliver a nuclear weapon by ballistic missile. The DIA assessment did not mention the potential range of such a strike, but it led to a push by administration officials to minimize the significance of the jarring disclosure.
Secretary of State John
From: http://feeds.foxnews.com/~r/foxnews/national/~3/H1RtzTh4jdU/
He’s more infulential than Barack Obama by far. More than Kim Jong Un, Sergey Brin, and Hilary Clinton. Even
Markus ‘Notch’ Persson is currently sitting in second position on the 2013 edition of the TIME 100 Poll, putting him ahead of the likes of Barack Obama, Kim Jong Un, Jennifer Lawrence, Beyoncé and controversial pop group Pussy Riot.
In fact, the only person beating the Minecraft creator is Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi, who attracted significant international attention after rising to power last year by decreeing his actions were immune from legal challenges (this has since been annulled).
Interestingly though, Morsi is only beating Notch in terms of “Absolutely” votes; the Egyptian currently has 172,770 to Notch’s 155,658. If you work out the net difference after subtracting the “No Way” votes though, Notch is actually currently sitting in first place with +137,352.
From: http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/04/12/markus-notch-persson-currently-second-most-influential-person
John Kerry had been secretary of state for little more than a week when North Korea tested a nuclear bomb.
He gathered top aides together for a morning meeting and asked for ideas, prompting a conversation about how to get China to join the United States in putting pressure on Pyongyang, according to a senior administration official who was present. The debate encapsulates America’s struggle to come up with a strategy — based on sticks, carrots or a combination of both — to convince China to police its own backyard.
As Kerry heads to East Asia for his first time as America’s top diplomat, some progress has been made in convincing Beijing, North Korea‘s biggest benefactor, to start getting tough with its neighbor. The question is whether it will make a difference.
North Korea‘s government agency said Thursday that it has “powerful striking means” on standby for a launch, amid speculation in Seoul and Washington that North Korea will test-fire a mid-range missile designed to reach the U.S. territory of Guam in the Pacific Ocean. It was the latest warning from the North, which launched a long-range rocket in December and conducted an underground nuclear test in February.
For years, Washington has been putting its hopes in Beijing to rein in the provocative behavior and combative rhetoric from North Korea. China has more leverage over the North than any other country, having massively boosted trade ties with the isolated regime in recent years and maintaining close military relations.
But the U.S. has been frustrated by the reaction from a government that in many ways has different priorities. China, analysts and officials often say, fears the implosion of North Korea‘s impoverished state and the regional instability that would cause far more immediate damage than the North’s nuclear proliferation and missile program. And China remains wary of any enhanced U.S. involvement in its backyard.
“If anyone has real leverage over the North Koreans, it is China,” U.S. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told Congress Thursday. “And the indications that we have are that China is itself rather frustrated with the behavior and the belligerent rhetoric of … Kim Jong Un.”
China‘s role in containing North Korea is expected to be front and center when Kerry arrives in Seoul on Friday. He then travels to Beijing and Tokyo.
At a meeting Wednesday in London, Kerry
From: http://feeds.foxnews.com/~r/foxnews/national/~3/gGc3zkDlRvo/
North Korea delivered a fresh round of rhetoric Thursday with claims it had “powerful striking means” on standby for a launch, while Seoul and Washington speculated that the country is preparing to test a medium-range missile during upcoming national celebrations.
On the streets of Pyongyang, meanwhile, North Koreans celebrated the anniversary of leader Kim Jong Un‘s appointment to the country’s top party post — one in a slew of titles collected a year ago in the months after father Kim Jong Il‘s death.
The Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland, a nonmilitary agency that deals with relations with South Korea, didn’t elaborate on its warning of a strike. The statement is the latest in a torrent of warlike threats seen outside Pyongyang as an effort to raise fears and pressure Seoul and Washington into changing their North Korea policy.
Officials in Seoul and Washington say Pyongyang appears to be preparing to test-fire a medium-range missile designed to reach the U.S. territory of Guam in the Pacific Ocean.
Such a launch would violate U.N. Security Council resolutions prohibiting North Korea from nuclear and ballistic missile activity, and mark a major escalation in Pyongyang’s standoff with neighboring nations and the U.S.
North Korea already has been punished in recent months for launching a long-range rocket in December and conducting an underground nuclear test in February.
Analysts do not believe North Korea will stage an attack similar to the one that started the Korean War in 1950. But there are concerns that the animosity could spark a skirmish that could escalate into a serious conflict.
“North Korea has been, with its bellicose rhetoric, with its actions … skating very close to a dangerous line,” U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said in Washington on Wednesday. “Their actions and their words have not helped defuse a combustible situation.”
The missile that officials believe Pyongyang is readying has been dubbed the “Musudan” by foreign experts after the northeastern village where North Korea has a launch pad. The missile has a range of 3,500 kilometers (2,180 miles) and is designed to reach U.S. military installments in Guam and Japan, experts say.
Bracing for a launch, officials said could take place at any time, Seoul deployed three naval destroyers, an early warning surveillance aircraft and a land-based radar system, a Defense Ministry official said in Seoul, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with department rules. Japan deployed PAC-3 missile interceptors around Tokyo.
But officials in Seoul played down security fears, noting that no foreign government has evacuated its citizens from either Korean capital.
“North Korea has continuously issued provocative threats and made efforts to raise tension on the Korean peninsula … but the current situation is being managed safely and our and foreign governments have been calmly responding,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Cho Tai-young told reporters Thursday.
The war talk is seen as a way for North Korea to draw attention to the precariousness of the security situation on the Korean Peninsula and to boost the military credentials of young leader Kim Jong Un.
The Korean War ended in
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