Showing posts with label north Korea nuclear test. Show all posts

Friday, April 4, 2014

North Korea tells world 'wait and see' on new nuclear test

I guess the secret is out. Now the north knows. I want to know if "hell bent" describes ways or means in strategy!

"The U.S. is hell bent on eliminating the DPRK politically, isolating DPRK economically and annihilating the DPRK militarily," Ri told reporters. "There is a great question mark why the U.S. is hell bent on increasing the tension, ignoring the DPRK proposals, very important for peace and security."

North Korea tells world 'wait and see' on new nuclear test

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/04/us-northkorea-usa-un-idUSBREA331IG20140404

BY MICHELLE NICHOLS

UNITED NATIONS Fri Apr 4, 2014 7:22pm EDT

10 COMMENTS

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North Korean leader Kim Jong Un addresses commanding officers of the combined units of the Korean People's Army (KPA) in this undated photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in Pyongyang April 2, 2014.

CREDIT: REUTERS/KCNA

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

How Satellite Pics Are Used to Learn About N.Korea

I think some in our intelligence community rightly might take exception to this statement.

38 North, a website operated by the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University, had warned of an impending rocket launch based on analysis of commercial satellite images before even the U.S. and South Korean intelligence agencies found out about it.

I think the more accurate statement might be that 38 North "found out about it" before the US and South Korean intelligence agencies publicly disclosed knowledge of it. But important open source analysis is being done by 38 North and NGOs such as HRNK.

V/R

Dave

How Satellite Pics Are Used to Learn About N.Korea

http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2013/02/27/2013022701180.html

Think tanks and NGOs in the U.S. have increasingly been monitoring North Korea through satellite pictures. Since access to the isolated communist country is tightly restricted, commercial satellite pictures are virtually the only way to obtain hard data.

This satellite photo shows a North Korean military parade in Pyongyang marking the 100th birthday of regime founder Kim Il-sung on April 15, 2012. /AP

The Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, an NGO based in the U.S., analyzed pictures taken by a commercial satellite image provider which it said confirms that a notorious labor camp in Chongjin, North Hamgyong Province has been expanded.

The size of the camp increased 72 percent from 580 sq. m to 1,000 sq. m over recent years, according to the group, suggesting that the camp, which earlier had an estimated 5,000 inmates, now houses a lot more people. The number of guard posts also doubled compared to 2003.

(Continued at the link below)

http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2013/02/27/2013022701180.html

A broader reading of seismic waves from North Korea

For all of you "techies" who look at the data.
V/R
Dave

A broader reading of seismic waves from North Korea

BY JEFFREY PARK | 26 FEBRUARY 2013

HTTP://WWW.THEBULLETIN.ORG/WEB-EDITION/FEATURES/BROADER-READING-OF-SEISMIC-WAVES-NORTH-KOREA

Article Highlights

Based on seismic data, the explosion North Korea detonated on February 12 was consistent with a successful test of a crude, Nagasaki-type bomb.
No regional nuclear power has conducted an explosive test that demonstrates its ability to deploy nuclear-tipped missiles.
With only one nation still conducting nuclear tests, the time is ripe to place the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty into force.

A few minutes short of noon, local time, on February 12, an underground blast in a remote corner of North Korea sent seismic waves worldwide, leaving clear recordings on thousands of seismometers. Some of these seismological recorders belong to clandestine intelligence-gathering networks in the service of individual nations. You and I will probably never see the data gathered by these networks, but we don't need to. Primarily to monitor earthquakes within active fault zones, thousands of seismometers around the globe record ground motion and distribute that information to the public. And in the scramble to determine North Korea's nuclear capabilities and intentions, one important implication of these seismological networks has been largely overlooked: This event demonstrated once again how effectively the international community can monitor a comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty, as soon as it is ratified by the United States and placed into force.

Station MDJ of the IC subnetwork of the Global Seismographic Network (GSN) lies in Mudanjiang, China, just across the border with North Korea and less than 400 kilometers from that country's nuclear test site. Seismic waves from the North Korean nuclear blast exceed the background noise at station MDJ by a factor of 200 in the raw unprocessed data, revealing the wave motion in all its detail. Seismic waves from a man-made explosion contain much high-frequency energy, because most of such an explosion's force is transmitted to the surrounding rock in hundredths of a second or less. An earthquake as large as the most recent North Korean test would rupture a fault a few kilometers from end to end, a process requiring a half-second or more. Explosions exert more compressional force on the surrounding rock, while earthquakes exert more shear force. As a result, the seismic P wave – that is, a wave that compresses in and out, in line with the direction the wave is moving -- typically predominates in an explosion signal; the seismic S wave, which shakes back and forth perpendicularly to the wave's travel, is typically larger in an earthquake signal. The P wave dominates the seismic signals from the North Korean nuclear test; no experienced observer could mistake it for an earthquake.

How large was the test? Estimates for the Richter magnitude of the event, determined mainly from its P wave amplitudes, cluster around 5.1. This exceeds the Richter magnitude of North Korea's May 2009 test by roughly 0.4, and its October 2006 test by roughly 0.9. The relationship between Richter magnitude and explosive yield is described well by a logarithmic equation. With it we can conclude that the yield of the 2013 nuclear test was more than three times larger than the yield of the 2009 test, and more than 15 times larger than the yield of the 2006 test. We can estimate the relative sizes of the North Korean tests with better confidence than we can estimate their absolute sizes, because the relation between Richter magnitude and explosive yield depends on the local geologic setting. Past research has shown that, at a test site similar to the US site in Nevada, a seismic event of magnitude 5.1 would imply a yield of 25 kilotons. At the Semipalatinsk test site of the former Soviet Union, now located in eastern Kazakhstan, the same magnitude would imply a yield of 7.4 kilotons. This wide range arises from extremes of local geology. Earth's crust and mantle beneath Nevada are actively deforming and warmer than average, a situation in which seismic waves lose amplitude more rapidly as they travel through it. Earth's crust and mantle are stable and cool beneath Semipalatinsk, so seismic waves lose less amplitude. The North Korean test site has few earthquakes locally, like Semipalatinsk, but is surrounded by actively-deforming crust in China and Japan. It seems reasonable to say that the yield of the 2013 nuclear test lies between the calibration extremes of 7.4 and 25 kilotons.

There is no question that the February North Korean "seismic event" was a nuclear explosion. Attempting to determine the precise type of nuclear explosion is a more ambiguous undertaking. A first-generation fission device, similar to the plutonium bomb detonated in 1945 over Nagasaki, would have a yield in the estimated range. A first-generation fission device based on enriched uranium, similar to the 1945 Hiroshima bomb, would yield in this range as well. A second-generation device designed to boost fission efficiency via the use of tritium, the radioactive isotope of hydrogen, could generate explosions over a larger range of yields, depending on the technical goals of the test. A second-generation nuclear device is necessary for missile-launched nuclear weapons. The nuclear-weapon designs utilized in World War II are too heavy and bulky to deliver without a large airplane, truck, or boat.

(Continued at the link below)

HTTP://WWW.THEBULLETIN.ORG/WEB-EDITION/FEATURES/BROADER-READING-OF-SEISMIC-WAVES-NORTH-KOREA

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

FEARS RISE ABOUT IRAN – NORTH KOREA NUCLEAR CONNECTION

I received the following very perceptive speculation about the north's next move in response to the article below. My response to him follows:

I wonder if this is a high-stakes scam? N.K. reportedly told China yesterday that they intended to conduct two more nuclear tests in 2013 if direct talks with the U.S arent't held. Suppose Iran did pay NK for witnessing this previous test. NK threatens to conduct two more in 2013 without direct talks. The U.S. or China, etc. pay them not to and NK/Iran split the proceeds.

I think the mafia-like crime family of the Kim regime is all about high stakes scams. I think your assessment is entirely plausible. The missile and nuclear tests have advanced their programs and demonstrated their will to act in the face of sanctions and international condemnation. Now just the threat of another test could lead to some kind of concessions (and remember one of the fundamental reasons for provocations is to gain political and economic concessions) in order to prevent another test. Ironically there are some that will be patting themselves on the back if some kind of agreement is reached that will prevent a 4th test because they will believe that diplomacy has prevailed when instead we could be feeding right into the regime's hands. I think the north knows how to give us what we think we want and is surely masterful at trading away nothing of their own in return for concessions. They probably have no need to conduct further tests at the moment but the threat of such tests could cause us to act in exactly the way they want. And we would not do so had they not conducted the missile and nuclear tests. I think the Iran connection is also extremely useful in increasing our sense of urgency and the desire to do something to prevent further nuclear tests (and also advancing the Iranian regime's nuclear program). I think that what this could indicate is that the north knows us better than we know the north.

V/R

Dave

FEARS RISE ABOUT IRAN – NORTH KOREA NUCLEAR CONNECTION

DID IRAN PAY NORTH KOREA MILLIONS OF DOLLARS TO ATTEND TEST FOR RESEARCH REASONS?

HTTP://WWW.NKNEWS.ORG/2013/02/FEARS-RISE-ABOUT-IRAN-NORTH-KOREA-NUCLEAR-CONNECTION/

February 18, 2013

Iran paid North Korea tens of millions of dollars to witness the most recent nuclear test, Japanese news agency Kyodo reported this weekend.

According to Kyodo’s source, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad approved the payment in November after a meeting of his national security team. The pay-to-view request was reported to have come from the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, Fereydoon Abbasi-Dabani, an individual who was also present at the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on cooperation in science, technology and education between North Korea and Iran last September.

Despite the allegation, Kyodo said it is unclear whether the Iranian scientists actually witnessed the test. However, the unnamed diplomatic source was quoted as saying the proposal casts further doubt on Iran’s claims that its nuclear program is peaceful. He added it would be “very worrying” if Iran got nuclear test knowhow from North Korea.

Separate reports in The Sunday Times said the test was allegedly witnessed by the “father of Iran’s nuclear program” Mohsen Fakhrizadeh-Mahabadi. That the Iranian payment was supposedly made through the Bank of Kunlun in Beijing may bolster American calls for increased sanctions related to North Korea’s financial transactions, along the lines of measures taken against Banco Delta Asia in 2005.

(Continued at the link below)

HTTP://WWW.NKNEWS.ORG/2013/02/FEARS-RISE-ABOUT-IRAN-NORTH-KOREA-NUCLEAR-CONNECTION/

Monday, February 18, 2013

Making Sense of North Korea

Excerpt:

The North Koreans are staunchly resolved to build a nuclear arsenal. We may entertain fantasies that we can stop them. But they know better.

The north Korea with the Kim Family Regime is like an illness – the international community is trying to treat only symptoms rather than curing the disease. Policy and strategy to deal only with the nuclear program are bound to fail (as they have failed for the past 19 years since the 1994 Agreed Framework).

V/R

Dave

Making Sense of North Korea

Steve Chapman|Feb. 18, 2013 7:00 am

http://reason.com/archives/2013/02/18/making-sense-of-north-korea/print

The old definition of insanity is doing the same thing again and again and expecting a different result. The new definition, which applies only in the case of North Korea, is: doing something different and expecting a different result.

The North Koreans have been pursuing a nuclear arsenal for a couple of decades. We have tried negotiating; we've tried cutting off negotiations; we've tried threatening them; we've tried ignoring them, and we've tried whistling "Camptown Races" while standing on our heads. Nothing has made any visible difference. Come rain or come shine, they keep pursuing a nuclear arsenal.

So it should have come as no surprise when the Pyongyang government conducted a nuclear test, the third it has done. Given the regime's record, it was not a matter of if it would light the fuse but only a matter of when.

Maybe it was significant that the explosion took place the same day as President Barack Obama's State of the Union address. Maybe it was significant that it occurred before rather than after the inauguration of a new South Korean president. Maybe it was an auspicious day in the eyes of the regime's astrologers and Tarot card readers. Or maybe none of this stuff played any role whatsoever.

(Continued at the link below)

http://reason.com/archives/2013/02/18/making-sense-of-north-korea/print

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

All you need to know about North Korea

Dr. Lee's succinct explanation of the north (as well as the South) is very instructive. I do think we should attack the "palace economy" while at the same time we (the RoK/US Alliance) should conduct aggressive influence operations (PSYOP/MISO) to prepare the north for a post Kim Family Regime world. The operation against Banco Delta Asia was a very good example of what can be done and now after the 3d nuclear test perhaps the Chinese will be more willing to support such actions. More sanctions are unlikely to work. We have tried the full range of diplomacy and the regime has failed to respond like a responsible member of the international community. Now it is time to put real pressure on the regime.

V/R

Dave

All you need to know about North Korea

Posted By Daniel Blumenthal Monday, February 11, 2013 - 1:34 PM Share

http://shadow.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/02/11/all_you_need_to_know_about_north_korea

North Korea is yanking the world's chain yet again, sending all relevant parties hither and yon. As we contemplate what to do and the Kim clan perfects its ability to deliver its growing nuclear arsenal to targets in South Korea, Japan and the United States, we could do worse than turn to a rising star of Korea analysis: Sung-Yoon Lee of Tufts University. Dr. Lee provides a much-needed dose of reality about what exactly we are dealing with. The basics are not a bad place to start in thinking or rethinking how to deal with the criminal-nuclear enterprise that we call North Korea. Here is an edited version of what he said at a conference in Seoul last week (my commentary is in italics and the final thoughts are my own).

1. North Korea is "uniquely unique." It is the world's sole communist hereditary dynasty, the world's only literate-industrialized-urbanized peacetime economy to have suffered a famine, the world's most cultish totalitarian system, and the world's most secretive, isolated country -- albeit one with the world's largest military in terms of manpower and defense spending proportional to its population and national income. The result is an exceptional state, perhaps the world's most influential regional power commensurate with its territorial and population size and economic and political power.

That is, North Korea has managed some seemingly impossible feats. It has remained a cultish communist dictatorship even though all its like-minded brethren have been relegated to the ash heap of history. It has managed to produce a spate of famines despite the fact that its population is urbanized and literate. And through its combination of supremely disproportionate spending on military forces, its nuclear program, and its unique ability to outfox, out-negotiate, and outplay the world's industrialized powers, it has become a regional nuclear power with disproportionate influence in Northeast Asia despite its poverty and privation.

2. The other Korea, the one south of the 38th parallel, is a global leader in trade, shipping, automobiles, and electronics. It is also a free democratic polity. And on December 19, South Korea elected Park Geun-hye as president. Park is the first elected female leader in Korea and also in Confucian civilization, which consists of China, Japan, the two Koreas, Taiwan, Singapore, and Vietnam and makes up nearly a quarter of the world's population. The contrast between the two Koreas could not be starker -- beyond the obvious, you have a cultish male hereditary dictatorship in the North, and a freely elected female leader in the South.

Development experts and theorists of democratization take note. South Korea has the same culture, historical legacies, and so on as its neighbor to the North. And yet it is an advanced industrial economy and a thriving democracy that has just, despite its Confucian culture, elected a woman as president. It has managed to reach this high point of prosperity and human dignity because of -- to reduce a complex set of phenomena to its minimal essence -- different institutions than those in the North: democratic and capitalist ones. (I realize that I may be violating some tenet of doctrinaire realism with this observation. For the less doctrinaire, the contrast between the two Koreas is a useful reminder of why we try and favor and even push for democratic capitalism). Given the stark contrast between the two countries one can safely draw at least one conclusion: There is nothing inherent in culture or history that ipso facto should keep a country poor and enslaved.

(Continued at the link below)

http://shadow.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/02/11/all_you_need_to_know_about_north_korea

Sunday, February 10, 2013

N. Korea says world mistakenly interprets its "important measures" as nuclear test

I think we need to assess this from the north's denial and deception history.

Will they or won't they? Are they trying to give the appearance of "walking back" from a nuclear test and when every let's out a sigh of relief that there is not going to be a test they will go ahead and conduct one? Or maybe they are not technically ready to conduct one? Or maybe they think they have gained sufficient attention and will delay to a more opportune time (though I think the closer they conduct one to the Dec 12 ballistic missile test launch the less international pressure will be brought on them – but day that goes by increases the likelihood that there will be a stronger reaction - though it is doubtful there will be anything really stronger than the delayed reaction to the Dec 12 test).

V/R

Dave

2013/02/10 14:08 KST

N. Korea says world mistakenly interprets its "important measures" as nuclear test

http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/news/2013/02/10/91/0200000000AEN20130210000700315F.HTML

SEOUL, Feb. 10 (Yonhap) -- North Korea's planned important measures may not refer to a third nuclear test, a state propaganda outlet has suggested, adding to the confusion over Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions.

"The U.S. and hostile forces jumped to conclusions that the republic is planning the third nuclear test, citing their hypothesis and argument," the propaganda weekly Tongil Sinbo said Friday in an article posted on a Web site operated by the North.

The weekly said the U.S. and other countries know little about what important state measures North Korea will take and whether the measures involve a nuclear test or anything worse.

The report came days after North Korean leader Kim Jong-un vowed to take "substantial and high-profile important state measures," amid tensions with the international community over its Dec. 12 long-range rocket launch.

Last month, the U.N. Security Council toughened sanctions on the North for carrying out a long-range rocket launch in December in violation of U.N. resolutions.

(Continued at the link below)

http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/news/2013/02/10/91/0200000000AEN20130210000700315F.HTML

Saturday, February 9, 2013

Analysts: China Likely to Support New Sanctions Against N. Korea

I hope China's hand will not be called on this but the way the Kim Family Regime is acting I am afraid we are going to see if things play out the way the analysts assert.

V/R

Dave

Analysts: China Likely to Support New Sanctions Against N. Korea

Mike Richman

February 09, 2013

http://www.voanews.com/content/china-likely-to-support-new-sanctions-against-north-korea/1600524.html

WASHINGTON — China is under pressure from the international community to support new sanctions against North Korea if Pyongyang follows through on its threat to carry out its third nuclear test.

Following North Korea's long-range rocket launch in December, China backed a new U.N. resolution (2087) that strengthened existing sanctions aimed at punishing Pyongyang for its nuclear weapons program.

The resolution, in part, urges U.N. members to monitor the activity of North Korean financial organizations within their countries. It also calls for travel bans on people suspected of involvement with the North's nuclear program.

So how will China react if North Korea carries out another nuclear test? The U.N. Security Council, of which China is a permanent member, is expected to respond quickly, possibly with new economic sanctions that expand asset freezes and travel bans on North Korean entities.

(Continued at the link below)

http://www.voanews.com/content/china-likely-to-support-new-sanctions-against-north-korea/1600524.html

Pursuing the Trust of the 23 Million (north Korea)

Key excerpt:

Without this threat, there would be no other way for Pyongyang to obtain Washington’s attention. A North Korea without nuclear weapons is just a regime burdened by economic woes, inflicting human rights abuses on its people, suffering defections and battling with bottom-up marketization. Only with nuclear weapons are they able to maintain their regime, hidden away from the world. This is how they keep their people in chains: through military tension.

But beyond this, the North Korean regime’s ultimate goal is to “eat” South Korea. The final winner of the inter-Korean game will be he, or she, who gains control of the 75 million people on the Korean Peninsula. Until the game is over, the inter-Korean power struggle is sure to continue. This is the very essence of the past 60 years of inter-Korean relations.

In truth, the only thing that is stopping the North Korean regime “eating” South Korea is the U.S., which is why they want the U.S. to leave and are trying to make that happen via a U.S.-North Korea peace treaty and the abrogation of the ROK-U.S. military alliance. Whether this is realistic or not, it is their only survival strategy.

Therefore, North Korea needs to directly or indirectly negotiate with the U.S. Their statements have recently changed: the National Defense Commission revealed on the 24th that its missile and nuclear tests are aimed at the U.S. No more secrets, they said.

V/R

Dave

Pursuing the Trust of the 23 Million

[Sohn Gwang Joo Column]

By Sohn Gwang Joo, Chief, Daily NK Unification Strategy Research Institute

[2013-02-08 21:45 ]

http://www.dailynk.com/english/read.php?cataId=nk03600&num=10287

There are two key points to make regarding the third North Korean nuclear test.

The first is that, as I have said a number of times in previous columns, North Korea’s nuclear strategy is now in its third stage. The first was to develop nuclear weapons, and the second was their mass production. The third, and last, is to mount a lightweight nuclear warhead on a missile. The successful launch of the ICBM ‘Unha-3’ has secured North Korea the means of delivery, and while they do not know how to achieve atmospheric reentry yet, it is incumbent upon us to prepare for that to happen as well.

Yet, interestingly, many nuclear experts seem to think that North Korea’s overall capability is still at an “elementary” stage. However, the truth is that it is not at all “elementary” where South Korea is concerned.

As ROK Minister of Foreign Affairs Kim Sung Hwan told a National Assembly committee on the 4th, “In 2010 the [uranium enrichment] facility [at Yongbyon] was made public, and if we speculate based on that then it appears they have extracted a certain amount of weapons-grade enriched uranium.”

In the fall of 1996 North Korea signed a secret agreement with Pakistan to import its uranium enrichment technology. This was revealed in the testimony of the late Hwang Jang Yop, and Pakistani nuclear scientist Dr. Kahn also later confirmed it, saying that Pyongyang’s enriched uranium technology is the same as that used by Pakistan. That being the case, we can assume that North Korea has been developing enriched uranium nuclear weapons for almost twelve years. Their reserves of high quality uranium are well regarded in technical circles, and, moreover, because the Kim regime emphasizes military-first politics so heavily, there is no doubt that a vast amount of the nation’s wealth has been put into their development.

(Continued at the link below)

http://www.dailynk.com/english/read.php?cataId=nk03600&num=10287

Friday, February 8, 2013

Why North Korea Is Testing Nuclear Weapons Now

If you do not read anything else, I recommend Dr. Natsios' conclusion:

The North's upcoming test and threats to bomb the United States are a crude attempt to intimidate the South Korean, Japanese, U.S., and Chinese governments into making economic concessions to resuscitate their sclerotic economy or provide food aid. All four governments have at varying times provided assistance to the North, three of them in exchange for ending the weapons programs. Pyongyang took the aid and continued to build their arsenals. By connecting aid to the weapons programs we have trained the North to continue building missile and nuclear bombs, since it is the one way the North can capture their neighbor's attention and get help. North Korea has resolutely avoided any major economic reforms to build a market economy, because the leadership believes reform poses too many risks to the continuity of the Kim dynasty. So they let their population starve, while they use their scarce revenues to build weapons of mass destruction to threaten their neighbors. The one bottom line the North Korean ought to consider when they make their threats: One or two nuclear weapons does not pose any real threat to the United States or its allies, because should they attempt to use them, the United States will turn North Korea, as former Secretary of State Condeleezza Rice so famously put it, into "a parking lot." Threats must be creditable and the North Korean threats simply aren't. The bigger issue has always been the North Koreans selling their technology to a nonstate actor (read: terrorist groups) against which the deterrence principle is less effective. In any case it's time the United States tell Pyongyang that we aren't playing their games any longer—the game is over and it time for them to accept the risk implicit in any political and economic reform strategy and end their contemptible threats.

Why North Korea Is Testing Nuclear Weapons Now

By ANDREW NATSIOS

February 8, 2013 RSS Feed Print

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/world-report/2013/02/08/why-north-korea-is-testing-nuclear-weapons-now

Andrew Natsios is an executive professor at the George H.W. Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, and the author of Sudan, South Sudan and Darfur: What Everyone Needs to Know. Natsios served as administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development and as President George W. Bush's special envoy to Sudan.

The first test of the Obama administration's second term foreign policy team is shaping up to be North Korea's upcoming nuclear explosion. Korean President Kim Jong Un last week declared martial law in anticipation of the country's third nuclear test that Un has reportedly ordered be conducted before the middle of February, which will coincidentally occur on his late father's (and former leader of North Korea) birthday. This week a bellicose and belligerent North Korean government put on its official website a bizarre and provocative video of the bombing of what appears to be New York City with the caption: "Somewhere in the United States, black clouds of smoke are billowing... It seems that the nest of wickedness is ablaze with the fire started by itself." The video includes the launch of a North Korean missile, implying that if the United States puts too much pressure on them the consequence will be a nuclear response. The Chinese foreign minister on Wednesday issued a stern public warning to North Korea against the test, and the Chinese Communist Party official party newspaper published an unprecedented editorial saying, "If North Korea insists on a third nuclear test despite attempts to dissuade it, it must pay a heavy price." North Korea is in no position to anger its only remaining patron and ally, and yet it may go ahead with the nuclear test anyway.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has said that he regards the North Korean nuclear threat to be greater than that of Iran, which has yet to test its first nuclear bomb. Kerry's statement may reflect the growing concern of U.S. intelligence officials and members of Congress that North Korea now has both nuclear weapons and the means—intercontinental ballistic missiles—to deliver them.

[See a collection of political cartoons on North Korea.]

The nuclear test will come at a politically sensitive moment. The Obama administration's new foreign policy team is not fully in place. Three new heads of government in the countries most affected by North Korea's threats have recently taken office: Chinese President Xi Jinping who took office late last year as did Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, and South Korean President Park Geun-hye who will be sworn in shortly. President Park is the daughter of former South Korean President Park Chung-hee, who the North Koreans bungled an attempt to assassinate in 1974, but ended up killing his wife, and mother of the new president, instead. All three leaders have one thing in common, they all face domestic problems requiring their attention and do not want to be distracted by a foreign policy crisis their first few months in office orchestrated by the ever-troublesome North Korea. All three new leaders face diplomatic challenges with each other. China and Japan are quarreling over control of a small, uninhabited island in the China Sea. Debates in Japan about the need to rearm in the face of rising Chinese military power have unnerved South Korea which suffered under Japanese abuses in the first half of the last century when Korea was a Japanese colony.

Why, then, is the 28-year-old ruler of North Korea, Kim Jong Un—himself in office for just over a year—exploding a nuclear weapon right now? One reason may be to distract the attention of Communist Party cadres, the North Korean military, and its long suffering population to a fictional external threat. He has been purging its geriatric government and military officialdom to put in place younger men, loyal to him, but the change of leadership is not going well. Rising official dissent appears to be spreading across the country from those who have lost political and military power. Fabricating an external threat may be meant to suppress dissatisfaction among unhappy North Korean elite. The only product the North Korean economy now produces of any consequence are weapons, since it cannot feed itself or provide consumer products for its population (except through imports from China).

(Continued at the link below)

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/world-report/2013/02/08/why-north-korea-is-testing-nuclear-weapons-now

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

North Korea video shows 'US city' hit by missiles

The video is set to the tune of the song "We are the World." It shows a rocket launch and space shuttle like vehicle flying around the globe and then what looks like a city on US soil exploding. Interesting timing for the release of this piece of propaganda. Will have to get the rest of the Korean text translated in addition to this:

"Somewhere in the United States, black clouds of smoke are billowing," reads a caption. "It seems that the nest of wickedness is ablaze."

V/R
Dave

North Korea video shows 'US city' hit by missiles

From: AAP February 05, 2013 7:39PM
http://m.heraldsun.com.au/news/world/n-korea-video-shows-us-city-under-attack/story-fnd134gw-1226571107223

North Korea has posted a video on depicting a US city resembling New York engulfed in flames after an apparent missile attack.

NORTH Korea has posted a video on YouTube depicting a US city resembling New York engulfed in flames after an apparent missile attack.

The video was uploaded by the North's official website, Uriminzokkiri, which distributes news and propaganda from the state media.

The video is shot as a dream sequence, with a young man seeing himself on board a North Korean space shuttle launched into orbit by the same type of rocket Pyongyang successfully tested in December.

(Continued at the link below - video is also at the link)

http://m.heraldsun.com.au/news/world/n-korea-video-shows-us-city-under-attack/story-fnd134gw-1226571107223

Kerry warns of punishment for NKorea nuclear test

I am sure the new SECSTATE did not want to be dealing with this problem the first week. But it will be interesting to see what he and the ROK Minister of Foreign Affairs have in mind as far as punishment if (or when) the north conducts its nuclear test.

V/R

Dave

Kerry warns of punishment for NKorea nuclear test

	ASSOCIATED PRESS http://myrepublica.com/portal/index.php?action=news_details&news_id=49430 SEOUL, South Korea, Feb 5: New U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and his South Korean counterpart have agreed to make sure North Korea is punished if it carries out its threat to conduct a nuclear test. Amid signs that such a test is coming, South Korea´s president also speculated that Pyongyang may detonate multiple atomic devices simultaneously. Under a U.N. Security Council resolution last month condemning a North Korean long-range rocket launch that the U.N. and others call a disguised test of banned missile technology, Pyongyang is subject to new sanctions if it detonates its third nuclear device since 2006. North Korea announced last month that it will conduct a nuclear test to protest the toughened sanctions over its December launch, which delivered a satellite into orbit. During a phone conversation between Kerry and South Korean Foreign Minister Kim Sung-hwan, "there was agreement that ... if the DPRK continues its provocative behavior and takes further steps, that there must be further consequences," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Monday. DPRK is the acronym for North Korea´s official name, the Democratic People´s Republic of Korea. North Korea may simultaneously conduct multiple nuclear tests as it tries to create a warhead small enough to fit atop a long-range missile, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak told the South Korean newspaper, Chosun Ilbo, in an interview published Tuesday. Lee did not say whether his comments were based on intelligence findings. A North Korean nuclear test "seems to be imminent," South Korea´s U.N. Ambassador Kim Sook said Monday at a news conference at U.N. headquarters in New York. (Continued at the link below) http://myrepublica.com/portal/index.php?action=news_details&news_id=49430

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Friday, April 4, 2014