North Korea (Superthread)

[Sonnyjim]

North Korea hails 'invincible' army, possible war

North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il has hailed his troops as "invincible" yesterday as state media warned of a possible military conflict with South Korea amid heightened tensions between the neighbors.
Kim expressed confidence in his soldiers' ability to "shatter any surprise invasion of the enemy at a single blow" as he inspected an army unit, the North's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said.

"The KPA (Korean People's Army)... has grown to be the invincible revolutionary ranks, all members of which devotedly defend the Party and the leader," it quoted Kim as saying, without giving a date for the visit.

The KCNA dispatch came days after North Korea scrapped all political and military agreements with the South, further raising tensions between the two sides, which technically remain at war as the 1950-1953 Korean War ended without a peace treaty.

"In Korea in the state of armistice confrontation means escalated tension and it may lead to an uncontrollable and unavoidable military conflict and a war," Rodong Sinmun, the North's ruling communist party paper, said yesterday......

Full Link:
http://www.taiwannews.com.tw/etn/news_content.php?id=853522&lang=eng_news&cate_img=logo_world&cate_rss=WORLD_eng



I know that there have been threats thrown around for the past decades, and specifically since 2002, but with the ailing health of Kim Jong would he be willing to throw his entire Army at the South on his deathbed? After reading a few books on this guy, I wouldn't leave it out of the equation.

 

[old medic]

N. Korea gearing up to fire missile, says official
Tue. Feb. 3 2009
The Associated Press

SEOUL, South Korea -- North Korea appears to be preparing to test-fire a ballistic missile that could be capable of striking the western United States, a South Korean official and reports said Tuesday.

The move comes amid heightened tensions on the Korean peninsula, with the North declaring last week that it was abandoning pacts designed to prevent hostilities with the South.

The two Koreas technically remain at war because their three-year conflict ended in 1953 with a truce, not a peace treaty. Relations have been tense since President Lee Myung-bak took office a year ago with a tough new policy on Pyongyang, and rhetoric from the North Korean capital has escalated in recent days.

Analysts say the communist regime is trying to attract President Barack Obama's attention as he formulates his North Korea policy. Obama told Lee that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would visit Seoul in mid-February.

South Korean intelligence has spotted a train carrying a long, cylinder-shaped object -- believed to be a long-range missile -- heading to Dongchang-ni, a new missile launch site on North Korea's west coast, the Yonhap news agency reported.

Intelligence indicates the missile is likely a long-range Taepodong-2 model, Yonhap said. The North could complete preparations for a missile launch within one or two months, the report said, citing unidentified officials.

South Korea's Defense Ministry declined to comment on Yonhap's report. But an intelligence official confirmed there are indications Pyongyang may test-fire a missile.

"There are signs North Korea is preparing for a missile launch," the official told The Associated Press. He declined to give any further details and spoke on condition of anonymity, citing the sensitivity of the issue.

The Taepodong-2 -- considered the North's most advanced rocket -- has a range of more than 6,700 kilometres, putting Alaska in range.

However, the missile being readied for a launch may be an upgrade of the Taepodong-2 missile, said Koh Yu-hwan, a North Korea expert at Seoul's Dongguk University. The North reportedly has been trying to develop an advanced version of Taepodong-2 capable of striking the west coast of the mainland United States.

Japanese government officials also cited preparations for the launch of an upgraded Taepodong-2, the Sankei newspaper reported in Tokyo. Officials at Japan's Defense and Foreign ministries could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

Any missile launch would be aimed at drawing Washington's attention as well as pressuring Seoul into softening its policy on Pyongyang, said Park Jung-chul, a North Korea expert at the government-funded Korea Institute for National Unification.

"It's designed to draw U.S. interest at a time when the North's nuclear program is being sidelined by the global financial crisis and the conflict in the Gaza Strip," Park said.

Koh said he doubted Pyongyang would fire a missile anytime soon because such a test could derail its goal of establishing relations with the Obama administration.

"North Korea has nothing to gain" from a missile launch right now -- but could fire off a missile if negotiations with Washington do not go well, Koh said.

North Korea's clandestine missile program has been a key regional concern, along with its nuclear weapons program. In 2006, the North launched a Taepodong-2 missile from its east coast site in Musudan-ni. The test was considered a failure because the rocket plunged into the ocean shortly after liftoff.

Last year, North Korea tested the engine of a long-range missile, indicating progress in developing a new missile, U.S. and South Korean officials said.

North Korea is not believed to have acquired the technology to develop a nuclear warhead light enough to be mounted on a missile, another South Korean intelligence official said. He did not give his name, citing department policy.

 

[CougarKing]

So Pyongyang has been cheating on its so-called disarmament initiatives the whole time that it was making a big show of blowing up that tower last year? Hopefully US/Allied intelligence services were already aware of this.

N. Korea Running Secret Nuclear Plant: Paper
By AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Published: 17 Feb 21:38 EST (02:38 GMT) 

SEOUL, - North Korea is operating a secret underground plant to make nuclear bombs from highly enriched uranium (HEU) despite denying that such a program exists, a South Korean newspaper said Feb. 18.

Dong-A Ilbo, quoting an unnamed senior government source, said South Korea and the United States have shared intelligence on the plant in Yongbyon district.

Seoul's National Intelligence Service refused comment on the report.

"Despite North Korea's denial that uranium enrichment programs exist, South Korea and the United States have shared information that North Korea has built an uranium enrichment plant which is in operation," the source told Dong-A.

Dong-A said both countries believe the facility can produce HEU for nuclear bombs. It said the plant is located at Sowi-ri in Yongbyon, North Pyongan Province, where the North's plutonium-based nuclear complex is situated.

The source was quoted as declining to give further details such as the technological level and the output of highly enriched uranium.

The North in 1994 signed a deal with the United States to shut down its admitted plutonium-producing reactor complex at Yongbyon in return for various incentives.

Washington's claims in 2002 of a secret HEU program torpedoed the 1994 deal and sparked a new nuclear crisis. Pyongyang rejected the U.S. allegations and restarted its reactor in protest.

A fresh round of nuclear disarmament talks began in 2003, involving both Koreas, the U.S., China, Japan and Russia. The talks focused on more pressing concerns about the plutonium program, which fuelled a 2006 atomic bomb test.

Yongbyon has been shut down in return for energy aid as part of a 2007 pact. But talks on the next stage - full denuclearization in return for diplomatic ties with Washington and a formal peace pact - are stalled by disputes over verifying the North's acknowledged nuclear activities.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who visits Seoul on Feb. 19 and 20, told a Senate confirmation hearing last month Washington is still concerned about the HEU program.

"Our goal is to end the North Korean nuclear program - both the plutonium reprocessing program and the highly enriched uranium program, which there is reason to believe exists, although never quite verified," she said.

 

[Rifleman62]

And, only reported by FOX News  http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,495264,00.html  so far:

Report: N. Korea Plans to Launch Long-Range Missile Within 2 Weeks
Wednesday, February 18, 2009

North Korea plans to test a missile capable of reaching the continental U.S. within the next two to three weeks, Seoul's defense chief reportedly said Wednesday, as South Korea and the U.S. warned Pyongyang of sanctions and other consequences.

Defense Minister Lee Sang-hee made the prediction during a closed-door report to ruling Grand National Party leaders, Yonhap news agency said, citing unnamed participants.

The ministry said it cannot confirm the report. GNP spokeswoman Cho Yoon-sun was not available for comment.

North Korea is believed to be gearing up to test-fire its longest-range missile, the Taepodong-2, moving the rocket and other equipment to a launch site on the country's northeast coast. South Korean media have said a firing could come this month.

"They appear to be serious. This is no bluff," a senior U.S. Defense official told FOX News. "It could look like an attack on the U.S., but it won't be."

The U.S. Navy has put its Aegis radar anti-missile defense system on alert but has stopped short of putting the interceptor missiles on high alert. U.S. intelligence has seen North Koreans move the components for a missile launch into place in recent days.

Earlier Wednesday, Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan warned the North that a missile launch will "inevitably" entail sanctions because it would be a violation of a 2006 U.N. Security Council resolution banning Pyongyang from pursuing missile or nuclear programs.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, while visiting Japan as part of her Asian trip, warned Tuesday that a missile launch "would be very unhelpful in moving our relationship forward."

Amid growing international pressure to drop the plan, Pyongyang said earlier this week that it has the right to "space development" — a term it has used in the past to disguise a missile test as a satellite launch.

When Pyongyang conducted a ballistic missile test in 1998, it claimed it put a satellite into orbit. The regime carried out its first-ever nuclear test blast in 2006, and claims it has atomic bombs.

"If the North launches a missile or a satellite, it would be a violation of the U.N. Security Council resolution," Yu told a forum organized by the Korea Foundation, a government agency that promotes exchange with foreign countries. "It can't help but inevitably bring sanctions."

Yu said the North's nuclear capabilities make its missile program all the more worrisome.

"If nuclear capabilities are combined with long-range missile capabilities, it would have a very serious effect on international peace and security and pose decisive threats to neighboring countries and South Korea as well," he said.

North Korea has not shown any direct reaction to the warnings from Seoul and Washington.

But Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency said Tuesday the country won't give in to "threat and blackmail from the U.S.," accusing Washington of planning to invade the North — an allegation that Washington and Seoul have long denied.

International talks to rid the North of nuclear programs are stalled over Pyongyang's refusal to verify its past atomic activities. The negotiations bring together China, Japan, the two Koreas, Russia and the United States.

On Wednesday, South Korea's Dong-a Ilbo newspaper reported that the North has been secretly running an underground uranium enrichment facility near the country's main nuclear complex in Yongbyon, north of Pyongyang. The paper cited an unnamed senior South Korean government official.

Yu said he "knows of nothing" regarding the report, and declined further comment, citing the sensitivity of intelligence matters.

The current nuclear standoff flared in late 2002 after Washington raised allegations that Pyongyang had a clandestine nuclear program based on enriched uranium in addition to a separate one based on plutonium.

North Korea has strongly denied the allegations.

Amid the tensions, South Korea and the United States plan to conduct an annual military exercise next month.

The drill, dubbed Key Resolve and Foal Eagle, is to run from March 9-20 and involve about 26,000 American and 20,000 South Korean soldiers and a U.S. aircraft carrier, officials from both sides said Wednesday.

North Korea calls such drills a rehearsal for invasion, despite repeated assurances from the U.S. and South Korea that the exercises are purely defensive.

FOX News' Jennifer Griffin and Justin Fishel and the Associated Press contributed to this report.


If the "missile capable of reaching the continental U.S." drops short, will it land Dawn Blacks riding (even if she goes Provincial)? Plenty of people in Canada seem to often forget that we share the continent with the USA.

 

[old medic]

Clinton says North Korea's Kim Jong Il may step down soon

The secretary of State says the U.S. and allies are trying to figure out how to respond to a change of power. Experts fear a new regime could be even more belligerent.
By Paul Richter
6:40 PM PST, February 19, 2009
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-clinton-korea20-2009feb20,0,6959609.story

Reporting from Seoul -- Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Thursday that U.S. officials and allies were scrambling to prepare for the possible departure from power of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, a development she said threatened increased turbulence in one of the world's most heavily armed regions.

Arriving in Seoul for security talks, Clinton said persistent signs within the secretive Pyongyang government suggested that a change of leadership might be at hand. She said the South Korean government had been especially concerned about possible developments inside its impoverished northern neighbor.

"Everybody's trying to read the tea leaves about what's happening and what's likely to occur," Clinton told reporters on her plane during a flight from Jakarta, Indonesia, to Seoul, broaching a topic that has rarely been discussed publicly by U.S. officials.

Clinton said that even a peaceful succession "creates more uncertainty, and it could create conditions that are even more provocative" as the ascendant leadership tries to consolidate power.

The comments from the top American diplomat are certain to provoke a sharp reaction from Pyongyang. Hours earlier, the North Korean regime stepped up its confrontational rhetoric, saying its forces were "fully ready" for war with South Korea.

Clinton was on the fifth day of a weeklong trip to East Asia focused in part on what to do about North Korea, which is believed to have a handful of nuclear weapons.

U.S. intelligence agencies reported in August that the 67-year-old "Dear Leader," who has led the country since 1994, may have suffered a stroke or another serious health setback. Some observers played down the report and some U.S. officials have said since then that they believed Kim was once again in charge, if not at full capacity.

But Clinton's comments suggested that there is now a widespread conviction that Kim is on the way out, and that the South Koreans, Chinese, Americans and others are formulating plans on how to deal with the successor regime.

Signs of disarray in the North have included the firing this year of the defense minister and the military chief of staff. The promotion of one of Kim's three sons was announced and then withdrawn, U.S. officials noticed.

Some observers see another clue in the sudden breakdown of multinational talks over dismantlement of Pyongyang's nuclear program, and believe the regime's belligerent new tone may reflect the influence of emerging leaders.

Analysts have offered various possibilities about what the new leadership might look like. Some say that Kim's brother-in-law, or one of his three sons, could be a part of a new ruling group, but perhaps only as a figurehead.

Many experts fear that the successor regime, which will control the world's fifth-largest army, could be even more intractable than Kim's has been.

Clinton said the United States and its allies were trying to determine how to form a "common front" to restart the stalled nuclear negotiations, but pointed out that North Korea "has shown very little willingness to get back on track."

The fact the north's leadership is now "somewhat unclear" has compounded other difficulties of working with the regime, making diplomacy "a difficult undertaking," Clinton said.

The dangers of dealing with North Korea have been highlighted in recent weeks by reports that the regime is preparing to test a Taepodong 2 missile that some believe is potentially capable of striking U.S. territory. North Korea isn't yet able to mount a nuclear weapon on the tip of its missiles, experts say.

The regime has made a series of threats against South Korea and the United States through its official news agency. Michael Green, a top Asia expert in the Bush administration who is now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said this month that the chances for violence between North and South Korea were increasing in the disputed waters west of the peninsula.

Obama administration officials have acknowledged that the outlook for dealing with North Korea is not encouraging. Advisors have said that the general gloom surrounding the issue has made it more difficult for the administration to find a special envoy to seek solutions. Clinton said the administration was also thinking about how to formulate a new international effort to deal with North Korea's ballistic missile program. The North continues to make progress on longer-range missiles, and secret sales of its missile technology to other governments is a major worry for world powers.

Clinton said the missile issue was one of "great concern." She said she wanted to work with other countries to decide whether it would best be handled through the existing six-country forum or through a new approach.

One of Clinton's goals in her one-day visit to Seoul is to convince the beleaguered government of President Lee Myung-bak that the United States intends to stand up to the North, despite its promises that it will seek greater diplomatic engagement with adversary regimes.

Lee, a conservative, has incurred the wrath of the North by cutting off cash aid on grounds that Pyongyang is not living up to its commitments to the North-South peace effort. Many analysts believe that the North's recent threatening behavior has been aimed at undermining Lee, who is also in trouble politically at home because of the damaging effects of the world economic crisis in South Korea.

Clinton will fly to Beijing on Friday for talks with the Chinese government. She is interested in broadening the U.S.-Chinese diplomacy to put new emphasis on noneconomic issues, including climate change. But her comments Thursday underscored that discussions about North Korea will also be central in China.

U.S. officials believe the Chinese have influence with their smaller neighbor, and want Beijing to try to force more cooperation.

 

[Blackadder1916]

Kim Jong Il anoints next leader of North Korea - his youngest son
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article5766802.ece
Richard Lloyd Parry in Tokyo From The Times February 20, 2009

It is one of the most powerful and dangerous jobs in the world and, for decades, foreign politicians, academics and spies have speculated over who will one day succeed to it. It brings with it absolute power over 24 million people, the command of a fanatical, nuclear-equipped army of a million men and a brutal state security apparatus. And yesterday the man who is likely to inherit it emerged from the shadows – a little-known 25-year-old with a European education and fondness for sushi, German cars and baseball.

Reports from North and South Korea yesterday appeared to confirm what until now has been only rumour – that Kim Jong Un, the youngest son of the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il, is being lined up to inherit his father’s title. It would be the second hereditary succession in the last remaining totalitarian communist dictatorship – and sets the scene for a period of extreme instability in one of the world’s most unpredictable countries.

One of his closest and most hardline generals yesterday promised the army’s loyalty to the “bloodline” of the senior Mr Kim, a virtual guarantee that one of his children will succeed him.“We will firmly carry on the blood-line of Mangyongdae and Mount Paektu with our guns, faithfully upholding the leadership of our supreme commander,” Pak Jae Kyong, a senior general of the North Korean Defence Ministry, was quoted in the state media as having said at a recent rally for Kim Jong Il’s birthday. Mount Paektu is the sacred mountain where Kim Jong Il, according to the cult of personality which surrounds him, was born 67 years ago. Mangyongdae was the family home of his late father, the founder of North Korea, Kim Il Sung.

The South Korean news agency Yonhap quoted sources in Beijing saying that Jong Un has registered as a candidate in elections on March 8 for North Korea’s Supreme People’s Assembly – the precursor to his public emergence as his father’s successor.

 

[OldSolduer]

So what will his nickname be?
If Daddy was the Dear Leader, will he be the Dear Leader Junior?
>

 

[CougarKing]

So what will his nickname be?
If Daddy was the Dear Leader, will he be the Dear Leader Junior?
>

Nahh..he will just be the next RONREY leader.

 

[OldSolduer]

Nahh..he will just be the next RONREY leader.

I'm so ronry, I'm so ronry!

I'm hoping Dear Leader Junior wears those hideous glasses too.

 

[CougarKing]

It appears that the US could shoot down that soon-to-be-launched-North Korean missile if so ordered by Obama, according to the links in the quoted post from another forum below:

http://closingvelocity.typepad.com/closing_velocity/


This ABC News report is certainly a milestone --- I believe that is the first time I've seen the high success rates of our missile defense system reported so matter-of-factly by the MSM. Why just yesterday it seems, the MSM was still in the knee-jerk missile defense skepticism mode it had adopted long ago during the dark Reagan years.

One day missile defense is a wasteful relic of the Cold War, and the next it's on alert ready to save the world. Funny, that:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBGYWcw3X1s

 

[tomahawk6]

The Japanese are considering a shoot down. They dont like these tests and would like to send a message to Dear leader.

 

[CougarKing]

post deleted. wrong thread.

 

[CougarKing]

So Kim Jong Il finally allowed some freedoms or is this just another jury-rigged election to give the appearance of legtitimacy?  :

From: Agence France-Presse - 3/8/2009 12:10 PM GMT

NKoreans vote in election seen as clue to succession
North Koreans voted on Sunday in elections for a new parliament which analysts say could pave the way for an eventual transition of power in the impoverished communist nation.

The vote is also being closely monitored around the world for clues as to whether the state, which tested an atomic weapon in October 2006, will soften its stance in international negotiations and dismantle its nuclear arsenal.

Voting to the rubber-stamp parliament did not take place in 2008 when its five-year term expired amid fevered speculation over the health of reclusive leader Kim Jong-Il .

The North's television showed soldiers in uniform using both hands to politely raise and drop a ballot into a box at a Pyongyang polling station where Kim was standing. It said they were "voting for" Kim.

Kim himself "voted for" an army officer at a different district in Pyongyang, said the official Korean Central News Agency which reported a 93.1 percent turnout of registered voters at 2:00pm (0500 GMT).

Polling stations stayed open from 9:00am to 6:00pm, with election results likely to be announced Monday, Seoul officials said.

"All the voters are going to the polls to consolidate the people's power as firm as a rock," the agency said, quoting the Central Election Commission.

"I am filled with joy to think that I am able to contribute to the strengthening of the revolutionary sovereign power through my vote," Park Mi-Hyang, a 22-year-old worker in Pyongyang, told Kyodo news agency.

Seoul and Washington say Kim Jong-Il has recovered well from a stroke he suffered in August and is in control, but his health and age have inevitably led to talk abroad about who will succeed him.

He inherited power from his father, Kim Il-Sung, in the communist world's only dynastic succession. But it is unclear whether he wants one of his three sons to succeed him -- and if so, which one.

"Kim Jong-Il will turn 72 when the next election comes, and given his ageing, it is likely that an idea about a post-Kim era will be reflected in the elections this time," Kim Yong-Hyun, a North Korea expert and professor at Dongguk University in Seoul, told AFP.

Seoul's Yonhap news agency has said the leader has named his youngest son, Jong-Un, as his successor and that the 25-year-old is running in the election.

The outcome is not in doubt -- candidates are picked by the government or ruling party, and only one stands in each district.

The incoming assembly will re-elect Kim, 67, who is standing in a military district, as chairman of the National Defence Commission.

The commission, which supervises the 1.2 million-strong military, is the North's most powerful organ, and its new line-up will be seen as an indicator of who is moving up the ladder of power and influence.

A new parliament is often the prelude to a cabinet reshuffle.

Assembly members commonly hold key posts in the ruling communist party as well as in the military and government, Seoul officials say.

Dongguk University's Kim said the outcome of the election would not necessarily manifest a father-to-son succession but could see "a generation change" in the top ranks.

"The North will likely bring in the young to replace the elderly with a future possible power transition in mind," he said, adding Pyongyang's power elite was overhauled in the 1998 and 2003 polls.

Kim Jong-Il last month called the elections "significant" in terms of reviving the economy by 2012, the 100th anniversary of the birth of his father, the nation's founding president.

Seoul's state-backed Institute for National Security Strategy says it expects the North to use the polls to promote people with specialist knowledge in an attempt to save the economy.

(...)

 

[The Bread Guy]

Seems airlines (including Air Canada) are re-routing flights over N.Korea because Dear Leader "could not guarantee aircraft safety when in North Korean air space because of a joint military exercise by the US and South Korea due to begin this week."  This, from the Dear Leader's news service (5 Mar 09, highlights mine):

.... Under the touch-and-go situation where the north and the south are in full combat readiness and level their rifles and artillery pieces at each other, no one can guess what will trigger off a war .... Under the situation prevailing in the Peninsula no one knows what military conflicts will be touched off by the reckless war exercises of the U.S. and the puppet clique for a war of aggression against the DPRK. It is, therefore, compelled to declare that security cannot be guaranteed for south Korean civil airplanes flying through the territorial air of our side and its vicinity, its territorial air and its vicinity above the East Sea of Korea, in particular, while the military exercises are under way ....

More here and here.

 

[OldSolduer]

You know it really puzzles me why we let people like Kim Jong Il, Sadaam Hussein (although he got what he deserved) and a few other tin pot dictators stay around.
We let Pol Pot murder 3 million Cambodes, Karadic et al murder Bosnians and Croatians, and various other ne'er do wells murder, pillage and rape at will, including Darfur and Zimbabwe.. Yet many people in the West have this idea that to intervene is wrong and when things go sour, they whine and belly ache we are doing nothing!
I'm shaking my head.... am I the only one who thinks that sometimes you have to take a stand and say "STOP...this is wrong!!"
I realize we do not have the means necessary to help everyone....but where are the sheepdogs? Have they retired and been replaced by lapdogs?

 

[a_majoor]

While I agree in principle, Old Soldier, just look at the reaction in the United States to actually taking a stand in Iraq (and the silence following their victory there) or how Canadians are being told about our efforts in Afghanistan; while each death is obsessively covered by the MSM, little or no mention is made about building Route Summit, micro loans, supporting education, health care, professionalizing the government bureaucracy with the SAT-A, etc. etc.

Frankly, it seems that most people want to proclaim their moral superioraty (i.e. "Free Tibet" stickers, or protesting the genocide in Darfur) without having to actually do something. Where is the new "Mac-Pap" battalion of volunteers going to wage war against the Janjaweed, for example?

No, far easier and safer to talk about it, but heven help those people who actually go and do something about it (Governments and their armed forces).

 

[OldSolduer]

While I agree in principle, Old Soldier, just look at the reaction in the United States to actually taking a stand in Iraq (and the silence following their victory there) or how Canadians are being told about our efforts in Afghanistan; while each death is obsessively covered by the MSM, little or no mention is made about building Route Summit, micro loans, supporting education, health care, professionalizing the government bureaucracy with the SAT-A, etc. etc.

Frankly, it seems that most people want to proclaim their moral superioraty (i.e. "Free Tibet" stickers, or protesting the genocide in Darfur) without having to actually do something. Where is the new "Mac-Pap" battalion of volunteers going to wage war against the Janjaweed, for example?

No, far easier and safer to talk about it, but heven help those people who actually go and do something about it (Governments and their armed forces).

You are preaching to the choir here my learned colleague. ( I learned the word "learned" in court..ahhhh)
It seems that sheepdogs are not in favor in North America. You are right...it's far safer to moan and whine about the sad state of affairs than actually DO anything to help. And now I see Brad Pitt pressing the US government over Hurricane Katrina.
Question...and I know we are off the topic, so move this if you feel necessary:

Question: Have those "superstars" (Bono, PItt, Clooney) donated any of the exhorbitant sums of money they receive for ACTING to their causes?

 

[The Bread Guy]

Question: Have those "superstars" (Bono, PItt, Clooney) donated any of the exhorbitant sums of money they receive for ACTING to their causes?

Especially given their grasp of the situation
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QjOI7bj5ks
right?

 

[old medic]

An Associated Press article - disclaimer SIC: US troop numbers appear to be a typo-error

copy at: http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20090308/korea_satellite_090309/20090309?hub=World

N. Korea threatens 'war' if satellite is shot down
Mar. 9 2009
The Associated Press

SEOUL, South Korea -- North Korea put its armed forces on standby for war Monday and threatened retaliation against anyone seeking to stop the regime from launching a satellite into space in the latest barrage of threats from the communist regime.

Pyongyang also cut off a military hot line with the South, causing a complete shutdown of their border and stranding hundreds of South Koreans working in an industrial zone in the North Korean border city of Kaesong.

Monday's warning came as U.S. and South Korean troops kicked off annual war games across the South, exercises the North has condemned as preparation for an invasion. Pyongyang last week threatened South Korean passenger planes flying near its airspace during the drills.

Analysts say the regime is trying to grab President Barack Obama's attention as his administration formulates its North Korea policy.

The North also indicated it was pushing ahead with plans to fire a communications satellite into space, a provocative launch neighboring governments believe could be a cover for a missile test.

U.S. and Japanese officials have suggested they could shoot down a North Korean missile if necessary, further incensing Pyongyang.

"Shooting our satellite for peaceful purposes will precisely mean a war," the general staff of the North's military said in a statement carried Monday by the official Korean Central News Agency.

Any interception will draw "a just retaliatory strike operation not only against all the interceptor means involved but against the strongholds" of the U.S., Japan and South Korea, it said.

The North has ordered military personnel "fully combat ready" for war, KCNA said in a separate dispatch.

Obama's special envoy on North Korea again urged Pyongyang not to fire a missile, which he said would be an "extremely ill-advised" move.

"Whether they describe it as a satellite launch or something else makes no difference" since both would violate a UN Security Council resolution banning the North from ballistic activity, Stephen Bosworth told reporters after talks with his South Korean counterpart.

South Korea's Defense Ministry spokesman Won Tae-jae downplayed the North's threats as "rhetoric" but said the country's military was ready to deal with any contingencies.

Analysts say a satellite or missile launch could occur late this month or in early April when the North's new legislature, elected Sunday, is expected to convene its first session to confirm Kim Jong Il as leader.

Ties between the two Koreas have plunged since South Korean President Lee Myung-bak took office a year ago halting aid unless the North fulfills an international promise to dismantle its nuclear program.

An angered North Korea suspended the reconciliation process and key joint projects with Seoul, and has stepped up the stream of belligerence toward the South.

Severing the military hot line for the duration of the 12-day joint U.S.-South Korean military exercises leaves the two Koreas without any means of communication at a time when even an accidental skirmish could develop into a full-blown battle.

The two Koreas use the hot line to exchange information about goods and people crossing into Kaesong. Its suspension halted traffic and stranded about 570 South Koreans who were working in Kaesong.

About 80 had planned to return to the South on Monday but were stuck there overnight since they cannot travel after nightfall. Earlier, some 700 South Koreans who intended to go to Kaesong on Monday were unable to cross the border, the Unification Ministry said.

All South Koreans in Kaesong are safe, the ministry said as it called on Pyongyang to restore the hot line immediately.

The two Koreas technically remain in a state of war since their three-year conflict ended in a cease-fire, not a peace treaty, in 1953. Hundreds of thousands of troops are amassed on each side of the Demilitarized Zone separating the two Koreas, making the Korean border one of the world's most heavily armed.

The United States, which has 28,5000 troops in South Korea, routinely holds military exercises with the South. Pyongyang routinely condemns them as rehearsals for invasion despite assurances from Seoul and Washington that the drills are defensive.

The exercises, which will involve some 26,000 U.S. troops, an unspecified number of South Korean soldiers and a U.S. aircraft carrier, are "not tied in any way to any political or real world event," Gen. Walter Sharp, commander of the U.S. troops, said Monday.

 

[OldSolduer]

After reading some comments on another thread not associated with army.ca,k I can only conclude some people learned international relations from Sesame Street or Romper Room. ;D