N. Korea threatens to shoot down Japanese planes in its air space

Does this sound as though another world war is about to erupt. Imagine the magnitude of such an event. In 1919 WWI ended. This was called the Great War and the War to End All Wars. Indeed, no one could have guessed that WWII was just lurking around the corner. If history is to teach us anything, then in this case we should take threats very seriously, for as we have seen in the past, they end up, in many cases, coming true. I suppose some might argue for a preemptive strike. This is not what I am calling for. Rather, we need to figure some diplomatic way, not via the UN, to deal with this oncoming threat. I know not what, but we must take such things to heart.

USA TODAY

North Korea threatened Saturday to shoot down any Japanese planes that enter its airspace, accusing Tokyo of spying near one of its missile launch sites.
The North has designated a no-sail zone off its eastern coast from June 25 to July 10for military drills, raising concerns that it might test-fire short- or mid-range missiles in the coming days, in violation of a U.N. resolution.

North Korea's air force said Japan's E-767 surveillance aircraft conducted aerial espionage near the Musudan-ri missile site on its northeast coast Wednesday and Thursday.

The country's official Korean Central News Agency said the air force "will not tolerate even a bit the aerial espionage by the warmongers of the Japanese aggression forces but mercilessly shoot down any plane intruding into the territorial air of the (North) even 0.001 mm."

An official from Japan's defense ministry said the country's planes regularly gather information on North Korea but declined to comment on the types of planes used or the locations monitored. He spoke on condition of anonymity, citing government policy.

The threat against alleged Japanese aerial espionage is rare, though the North has regularly complained of U.S. spy missions in its airspace.

Japan is very sensitive to North Korea's missile programs, as its islands lie within easy range. In 1998, a North Korean missile flew over Japan's main island. Tokyo has since spent billions of dollars on developing a missile shield with the United States and has launched a series of spy satellites primarily to watch developments in North Korea.

But in April, another rocket flew over Japan's main island, drawing a strong protest from Tokyo. Pyongyang claims it put a satellite into orbit, while the U.S. and its allies say it was really a test of the country's long-range missile technology.

The launch was one of a series of missile tests in recent months, and the communist regime further raised tensions by conducting a second underground nuclear test in May. Its actions have drawn harsh international condemnation and new U.N. sanctions.

NKorea vows nuke attack if provoked by US

By KWANG-TAE KIM
Associated Press Writer

SEOUL, South Korea—Punching their fists into the air and shouting "Let's crush them!" some 100,000 North Koreans packed Pyongyang's main square Thursday for an anti-U.S. rally as the communist regime promised a "fire shower of nuclear retaliation" for any American-led attack.

Several demonstrators held up a placard depicting a pair of hands smashing a missile with "U.S." written on it, according to footage taken by APTN in Pyongyang on the anniversary of the day North Korean troops charged southward, sparking the three-year Korean War in 1950.

North Korean troops will respond to any sanctions or U.S. provocations with "an annihilating blow," one senior official vowed—a pointed threat as an American destroyer shadowed a North Korean freighter sailing off China's coast, possibly with banned goods on board.

A new U.N. Security Council resolution passed recently to punish North Korea for conducting an underground nuclear test in May requires U.N. member states to request inspections of ships suspected of carrying arms or nuclear weapons-related material.

In response to the sanctions, the North pulled out of nuclear talks and has ramped up already strident anti-American rhetoric. And the isolated regime may now be moving to openly flout the resolution by dispatching a ship suspected of carrying arms to Myanmar.

While it was not clear what was on board the North Korean-flagged Kang Nam 1, officials have mentioned artillery and other conventional weaponry. One intelligence expert suspected missiles.

The U.S. and its allies have made no decision on whether to request inspection of the ship, Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said Wednesday in Washington, but North Korea has said it would consider any interception an act of war.

If permission for inspection is refused, the ship must dock at a port of its choosing so local authorities can check its cargo. Vessels suspected of carrying banned goods must not be offered bunkering services at port, such as fuel, the resolution says.

A senior U.S. defense official said the ship had cleared the Taiwan Strait. He said he didn't know whether or when the Kang Nam may need to stop in some port to refuel, but that the Kang Nam has in the past stopped in Hong Kong's port.

Another U.S. defense official said he tended to doubt reports that the Kang Nam was carrying nuclear-related equipment, saying information seems to indicate the cargo is banned conventional munitions. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity in order to talk about intelligence.

North Korea is suspected to have transported banned goods to Myanmar before on the Kang Nam, said Bertil Lintner, a Bangkok-based North Korea expert who has written a book about leader Kim Jong Il.

Pyongyang also has been helping the junta in Yangon build up its weapons arsenal, a South Korean intelligence expert said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

The two countries have not always been on good terms. Ties were severed in 1983 after a fatal bombing during the South Korean president's visit to Myanmar blamed on North Korean commandoes.

NKorea threatens US; world anticipates missile

HYUNG-JIN KIM
Associated Press

SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea threatened Wednesday to wipe the United States off the map as Washington and its allies watched for signs the regime will launch a series of missiles in the coming days.

Off China's coast, a U.S. destroyer was tailing a North Korean ship suspected of transporting illicit weapons to Myanmar in what could be the first test of U.N. sanctions passed to punish the nation for an underground nuclear test last month.

The Kang Nam left the North Korean port of Nampo a week ago with the USS John S. McCain close behind. The ship, accused of transporting banned goods in the past, is believed bound for Myanmar, according to South Korean and U.S. officials.

The new U.N. Security Council resolution requires member states to seek permission to inspect suspicious cargo. North Korea has said it would consider interception a declaration of war and on Wednesday accused the U.S. of seeking to provoke another Korean War.

"If the U.S. imperialists start another war, the army and people of Korea will ... wipe out the aggressors on the globe once and for all," the official Korean Central News Agency said.

See Full Article Here

U.S. Military Set to Intercept North Korean Ship Suspected of Proliferating Missiles, Nukes

FOX News
Jennifer Griffin
Justin Fishel

The U.S. military is planning to intercept a flagged North Korean ship suspected of proliferating weapons material in violation of a U.N. Security Council resolution passed last Friday, FOX News has learned.

The USS John McCain, a navy destroyer, will intercept the ship Kang Nam as soon as it leaves the vicinity off the coast of China, according to a senior U.S. defense official. The order to inderdict has not been given yet, but the ship is getting into position.

The ship left a port in North Korea Wednesday and appears to be heading toward Singapore, according to a senior U.S. military source. The vessel, which the military has been tracking since its departure, could be carrying weaponry, missile parts or nuclear materials, a violation of U.N. Resolution 1874, which put sanctions in place against Pyongyang.

The USS McCain was involved in an incident with a Chinese sub last Friday - near Subic Bay off the Philippines.

The Chinese sub was shadowing the destroyer when it hit the underwater sonar array that the USS McCain was towing behind it.

That same navy destroyer that was being shadowed by the Chinese is now positioning itself for a possible interdiction of the North Korean vessel.

This is the first suspected "proliferator" that the U.S. and its allies have tracked from North Korea since the United Nations authorized the world's navies to enforce compliance with a variety of U.N. sanctions aimed at punishing North Korea for its recent nuclear test.

The ship is currently along the coast of China and being monitored around-the-clock by air.

The apparent violation raises the question of how the United States and its allies will respond, particularly since the U.N. resolution does not have a lot of teeth to it.

The resolution would not allow the United States to board the ship forcibly. Rather, U.S. military would have to request permission to board -- a request North Korea is unlikely to grant.

North Korea has said that any attempt to board its ships would be viewed as an act of war and promised "100- or 1,000-fold" retaliation if provoked.

The U.S. military may also request that the host country not provide fuel to the ship when it enters its port.

The Kang Nam is known to be a ship that has been involved in proliferation activities in the past -- it is "a repeat offender," according to one military source. The ship was detained in October 2006 by authorities in Hong Kong after the North Koreans tested their first nuclear device and the U.N. imposed a subsequent round of sanctions.

The latest tension follows a Japanese news report that North Korea may fire a long-range ballistic missile toward Hawaii in early July.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday the military is "watching" that situation "very closely," and would have "some concerns" if North Korea launched a missile in the direction of Hawaii. But he expressed confidence in U.S. ability to handle such a launch.

Gates said he's directed the deployment of the Theater High Altitude Area Defense, a mobile missile defense system used for knocking down long- and medium-range missiles.

"The ground-based interceptors are clearly in a position to take action. So, without telegraphing what we will do, I would just say ... I think we are in a good position, should it become necessary, to protect the American territory."

N Korea nuclear crisis taken to new level

Press TV
Tuesday
June 9, 2009

Stepping up its rhetoric amid growing US pressure against the country, North Korea says it could use nuclear weapons “as a merciless offensive” if provoked.

“Our nuclear deterrent will be a strong defensive means … as well as a merciless offensive means to deal a just retaliatory strike to those who touch the country’s dignity and sovereignty even a bit,” the official Korean Central News Agency quoted Pyongyang’s state-run Minju Joson newspaper as saying.

The tough talk came as the US has been pushing for tougher measures against North Korea in recent weeks in response to the communist nation carrying out nuclear and short-range missile tests.

US President Barack Obama has said that “North Korea’s actions over the last couple of months have been extraordinarily provocative”, adding that Washington was not “intending to continue a policy of rewarding provocation”.

On Sunday, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) briefed President Lee Myung-Bak on plans for a counter-attack on North Korea should Pyongyang fire missiles at ships controlled by the South.

“North Korea’s firing of ground-to-ship missiles at our navy ships would prompt counter-attacks simultaneously from surface, air and sea,” JCS chairman Kim Tae-Young said.

N.Korea agrees to talks with S.Korea: officials

AFP
Friday, June 5, 2009

North Korea on Friday agreed to hold talks with South Korea next week, Seoul officials said, amid high tensions between the two nations. Related photos / videos

The North has accepted a proposal for working-level talks on June 11 at the Kaesong joint industrial complex just north of the border, according to South Korea's unification ministry.
South Korean and US troops have gone on heightened alert since the North staged a nuclear test in late May, renounced the armistice that ended the Korean war in the 1950s and threatened the South with possible attack.

South Korean officials say they fear the North will stage a border provocation on land or at sea.
Next week's talks will focus on operations at Kaesong.

The two sides held their first government-level talks in more than a year on April 21. The North demanded pay rises for its workers and land-use fees at the Seoul-funded estate.
Seoul said the fate of a South Korean manager at Kaesong who has been detained since March 30 must be settled before any other negotiations. Pyongyang alleges the man criticised its communist system and tried to persuade a local worker to defect.

Last month the North announced it had scrapped all wage and rent agreements in force at the estate. It told the 101 South Korean companies to pack up and leave if they cannot accept the new terms.

The announcement cast doubt on the future of the estate, opened in December 2004 as a symbol of reconciliation but frequently hit by political tensions.
The Seoul government and South Korean businesses have invested 730 billion won (548 million dollars) into the venture since construction began in 2002.

Kim Yong-Hyun, professor of North Korea studies at Seoul's Dongguk University, said the agreement to hold talks "should not be seen as a sign that North Korea is willing to ease its stance on relations with South Korea."

Kim told AFP it was expected to make specific proposals on wage rises and other matters next week. "It may deliver proposals unilaterally and shun talks on the detainee," he said.
The North would keep inter-Korean relations strained while seeking dialogue with the United States, Kim said, possibly by using two detained US journalists as bargaining chips.
The women went on trial Thursday in Pyongyang but there has been no word on their fate.
More than 38,000 North Koreans work at South Korean firms at Kaesong, producing items such as garments, kitchenware and watches.

They are paid around 75 dollars a month including insurance. The money goes directly to the North's state bodies, which return a portion to the workers.

North Korea’s Kim moves to anoint youngest son as heir

Jon Herskovitz
Reuters
Tuesday, June 2, 2009

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has signaled the anointment of his youngest son as heir to the ruling family dynasty as the rival Koreas bolstered their militaries along a disputed sea border on Tuesday.

North Korea, whose increasingly military posturing after last week’s nuclear test has prompted U.S. and South Korean forces to raise the alert level, is readying mid-range missiles for test launches, the South’s Yonhap news agency reported a lawmaker as saying after a defense briefing.

The news rattled financial markets in Seoul, adding to worries over reports the impoverished state is preparing to test fire a long-range missile that could fly as far as U.S. territory. The main Seoul index closed slightly down.

Analysts believe that Kim Jong-il, whose power base stems from his support for the military, may be using the growing tension to give him greater leverage over power elites at home to nominate his own successor.

It has raised alarm in the region over how far iron ruler Kim, 67 and thought to have suffered a stroke last year, may be prepared to take his latest military grandstanding.

Full article here

Ron Paul on N. Korea

US ready for ‘conventional’ war with N. Korea

Press TV

Friday, May 29, 2009

The US is “prepared” to engage in a ‘conventional’ war with North Korea but it requires time to adjust to the new front, says the military.

Gen. George Casey appearing at the Center for Strategic and International Studies on Thursday said the US was ready to enter an old-fashioned war with North Korea if necessary.
However, he said, “It would probably take us a little bit longer to shift gears” away from the type of counterinsurgency fighting that now occupies the Army. Casey was referring the US two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“We’d move forces as rapidly as we could get them prepared,” Casey insisted.
The US army’s chief of staff refrained from suggesting how long it would take to redeploy the army in the new front on the Korean peninsula, but said that the US army was “combat seasoned” and could move quickly.

“The mechanical skills of artillery gunnery and tank gunnery come back very, very quickly,” he said. “The harder part is the integration - that really brigade level and above of massing fires and effects in a very constricted period of time as opposed to what you do in a counterinsurgency over a much longer extended period of time.”

Full story here.

S. Korea, US troops on alert after North's threats

By ERIC TALMADGE


SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - South Korean and U.S. troops raised their alert Thursday to the highest level since 2006 after North Korea renounced its truce with the allied forces and threatened to strike any ships trying to intercept its vessels.

The move was a sign of heightened tensions on the peninsula following the North's underground nuclear test and its firing of a series of short-range missiles earlier this week.
In response, Seoul decided to join more than 90 nations that have agreed to stop and inspect vessels suspected of transporting banned weapons.

North Korea says South Korea's participation in the U.S.-led Proliferation Security Initiative is a prelude to a naval blockade and raises the prospect of a naval skirmish in its western waters.

(AP) South Korean soldiers look at the North Korean side through binoculars at Dora Observation Post in...

On Wednesday, it renounced the 1953 truce that halted fighting in the Korean War. It said Thursday through its official media that it was preparing for an American-led attack. The U.S. has repeatedly denied it is planning military action.

"The northward invasion scheme by the U.S. and the South Korean puppet regime has exceeded the alarming level," the North's main Rodong Sinmun newspaper said in a commentary carried by the official Korean Central News Agency. "A minor accidental skirmish can lead to a nuclear war."

The two Koreas remain technically at war since a peace treaty has never replaced the truce.

North Korea To Use Force Against S. Korea

A state of war officially exists again between North and South Korea for the first time since the end of hostilities in 1953 following North Korea’s announcement that they would henceforth refuse to abide by the terms of the peace armistice.

“The Korean People’s Army will not be bound to the Armistice Agreement any longer,” the official Korean Central News Agency said in a statement today. Any attempt to inspect North Korean vessels will be countered with “prompt and strong military strikes.” South Korea’s military said it will “deal sternly with any provocation” from the North, reports Bloomberg.

As we have highlighted, any North Korean attack on South Korea will be countered by the United States, which is allied with South Korea. North Korea is allied with China, and Chinese military forces will support North Korea in any conflict just as they did in the 1950’s before the armistice was signed.

Read full report here

North Korea Threatens to Attack U.S. Warships

Infowars
May 27, 2009

“Now that the South Korean puppets were so ridiculous as to join in the said racket and dare declare a war against compatriots,” North Korea is “compelled to take a decisive measure,” the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea said in a statement carried by state media.
The Stalinist regime said it could no longer promise the safety of U.S. and South Korean warships and civilian vessels in the waters near the Korea’s western maritime border, according to reports.

North Korea has bolstered its live artillery fire exercises and fighter jet training near the western sea border with South Korea since it declared an “all-out confrontational posture” against the South in January. North Korea is said to have deployed thousands of weapons hidden in mountain caves and tunnels near the inter-Korean border. The artillery puts South Korea’s capital area within target range, according to The Korea Times.

On May 25, North Korea conducted a nuclear test in violation of U.N. violation of Resolution 1718.

On March 9, South Korea and the United States kicked off their annual joint military exercises on despite strong oppositions by North Korea. According to the Chosun Daily, 26,000 U.S. troops and over 50,000 South Korean troops will participate in the Key Resolve and Foal Eagle exercise all over South Korea, according to the Xinhua News Agency.

It is unknown if the USS John C. Stennis aircraft carrier and a total of seven U.S. Aegis destroyers that participated in the joint exercise are still in the area.

Ruling Party Official: Japan Should Attack North Korea

This seems to be the coming of something large. They mention WWIII in this, and I wonder if such could take place?

Paul Joseph Watson

Prison Planet.com

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

A ruling party lawmaker today urged Japan to break the terms of its pacifist constitution and pre-emptively attack North Korea following the Stalinist state’s nuclear bomb test.
“North Korea poses a serious and realistic threat to Japan,” stated former defense chief Gen Nakatani in Tokyo at a meeting of Liberal Democratic Party officials. “We must look at active missile defense such as attacking an enemy’s territory and bases.”

Nakatani said the attack could be accomplished by equipping navy ships with cruise missiles.
The former defense minister’s warning arrives on the heels of an LDP panel proposal that Japan should change the terms of its pacifist constitution, written by the U.S. after world war two to prevent Japan using hostile force to settle geopolitical disputes, to enable a military attack on North Korea.

“The Japanese government has built a defense network since a North Korean Taepodong-1 missile flew over Japan in 1998 that includes anti-missile batteries around Tokyo and is expanding to other major cities. Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada in March ordered the shooting down of any North Korean missile or related debris that entered Japanese territory,” reports Bloomberg.

It’s not an exaggeration to conclude that any attack on North Korea could eventually lead to world war three. North Korea and China are allies and both have nuclear weapons. If North Korea is attacked by anyone, its first course of action would be to strike South Korea, a close ally of the United States. This would obligate the U.S. to retaliate, bringing American troops to the Chinese border and any escalation from that point would be a disaster.

As we reported yesterday, if you’re wondering how North Korea got its nukes in the first place, look no further than the U.S. government itself.

Two years before North Korea was included in the “axis of evil,” former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, during his time as executive director of ABB, signed off on a $200 million dollar contract to build light water nuclear reactors in North Korea.
Rumsfeld was merely picking up the baton from the Clinton administration, who in 1994 agreed to replace North Korea’s domestically built nuclear reactors with light water nuclear reactors.

According to Henry Sokolski, head of the Non-proliferation Policy Education Centre in Washington, “These reactors are like all reactors, they have the potential to make weapons. So you might end up supplying the worst nuclear violator with the means to acquire the very weapons we’re trying to prevent it acquiring.”

President George W. Bush provided another $95 million in April 2002 towards the construction of more reactors in North Korea, as well as a further $3.5 million in January 2003.
Construction of the reactors was eventually suspended, but North Korea had an alternative source through which they could obtain the nuclear secrets vital to building an atom bomb arsenal - CIA asset and international arms smuggler AQ Khan.
In 2004, Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan’s atom bomb program, admitted sharing nuclear technology via a worldwide smuggling network that included facilities in Malaysia that manufactured key parts for centrifuges.
Khan’s collaborator B.S.A. Tahir ran a front company out of Dubai that shipped centrifuge components to North Korea.

Despite Dutch authorities being deeply suspicious of Khan’s activities as far back as 1975, the CIA prevented them from arresting him on two occasions.

“The man was followed for almost ten years and obviously he was a serious problem. But again I was told that the secret services could handle it more effectively,” former Dutch Prime Minister Ruud Lubbers said. “The Hague did not have the final say in the matter. Washington did.”
Lubbers stated that Khan was allowed to slip in and out of the Netherlands with the blessing of the CIA, eventually allowing him to become the “primary salesman of an extensive international network for the proliferation of nuclear technology and know-how,” according to George W. Bush himself, and sell nuclear secrets that allowed North Korea to build nuclear bombs.

“Lubbers suspects that Washington allowed Khan’s activities because Pakistan was a key ally in the fight against the Soviets,” reports CFP. “At the time, the US government funded and armed mujahideen such as Osama bin Laden. They were trained by Pakistani intelligence to fight Soviet troops in Afghanistan. Anwar Iqbal, Washington correspondent for the Pakistani newspaper Dawn, told ISN Security Watch that Lubbers’ assertions may be correct. “This was part of a long-term foolish strategy. The US knew Pakistan was developing nuclear weapons but couldn’t care less because it was not going to be used against them. It was a deterrent against India and possibly the Soviets.”

In September 2005 it emerged that the Amsterdam court which sentenced Khan to four years imprisonment in 1983 had lost the legal files pertaining to the case. The court’s vice-president, Judge Anita Leeser, accused the CIA of stealing the files. “Something is not right, we just don’t lose things like that,” she told Dutch news show NOVA. “I find it bewildering that people lose files with a political goal, especially if it is on request of the CIA. It is unheard of.”
In 2005, Pakistani President Pervez Musharaf acknowledged that Khan had provided centrifuges and their designs to North Korea.

With this history in mind, the shock, condemnation and indignation being expressed by the U.S. government in response to North Korea’s second nuclear bomb test is tinged with hypocrisy to say the least. Through their policies in aiding North Korea to build light water reactors, and via the CIA asset AQ Khan who was protected at every step of the way while he helped provide North Korea with the means to build a nuclear arsenal, the U.S. government itself is directly complicit in providing North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il with the nuclear weapons that they are now condemning him for testing.