N. Korea is not under POTUS's spell

It's a good thing that North Korea's technology is as up to date as their fashion. It looks like politically, POTUS isn't really able to get them to back off. Of course, if the result is always going to be with North Korean technology falling apart and sinking into the ocean like an ACME product bought by Wile E. Coyote, then it's probably okay. However, that's a pretty big if, to me...Read the original here.

Obama engagement policy 'in tatters' after North Korean rocket defiance
Chris McGreal in Washington
guardian.co.uk

Friday 13 April 2012 12.56 EDT
US officials expect Pyongyang to carry out third nuclear test in near future, respresenting significant policy failure for president

Barack Obama's policy of engagement with North Korea lies "in tatters" after it was effectively shot down by Pynongyang's defiant but failed attempt to launch a long-range rocket.

Former US officials closely involved with North Korea policy said Washington's attempt to win agreement from Pyongyang to abandon its development of nuclear weapons and rockets in exchange for desperately-needed food aid has failed. They now expect North Korea to try and overcome the embarrassment caused at the rocket breaking into pieces over the Yellow Sea by carrying out a third nuclear test in the near future.

If that goes ahead, it will represent a significant foreign policy failure for Obama and prove a severe political embarrassment in an election year.

In February, the Washington and Pyongyang reached an agreement under which the communist regime would halt its missile testing and uranium enrichment, and agree to the resumption of international monitoring of its nuclear sites, in return for Washington providing 240,000 tonnes of food to the North Korea which has faced widespread shortages and famine.

The US says it warned North Korea that the rocket launch – which Pyongyang said was intended to carry a satellite but which the Obama administration claimed was a ballistic missile test – would violate the agreement.

Charles Pritchard, a special envoy for negotiations with North Korea in the Bush administration and a special assistant to Bill Clinton on national security, said Obama's policy of engagement has now failed.

"It is essentially in tatters. They made a calculation. They reached out to North Korea and it fell apart," he said. "I think the US will be essentially regrouping on an international basis. They're not going to go back to a bilateral engagement with the North Koreans any time soon."

Pritchard said that the regime's young new leader, Kim Jong-un, is likely to attempt to restore Pyongang's credibility – and possibly also his own with North Korea's military – by pressing ahead with development of a nuclear weapon.

"The failure of the rocket makes it much more likely that there will be a third nuclear test. This has been a huge public and domestic embarrassment for North Korea. A brand new, untested, inexperienced regime that has gone out on a limb to really have a spectacular successful celebration, and now it'll be a dark shadow over all of their celebrations. They need some new achievement."

That view was backed by Christian Whiton, a US state department deputy special envoy to North Korea in the Bush administration.

"It looks pretty likely. The way this usually comes out is that South Korean intelligence starts leaking information to the South Korean press. That has happened and it looks like preparations are underway," he said. "If you step back and look at this it looks like a failure by North Korea with its rocket but actually what you're seeing is more of a power move by the regime."

One of Obama's deputy national security advisers, Ben Rhodes, denied that the administration's dealings with North Korea have been a failure. He argued that the president has taken a tougher stand with Pyongyang than the Bush administration because Washington will not now deliver the promised food aid.

"What this administration has done is broken the cycle of rewarding provocative actions by the North Koreans that we've seen in the past. Under the previous administration, for instance, there was a substantial amount of assistance provided to North Korea. North Korea was removed from the terrorism list, even as they continued to engage in provocative actions. Under our administration we have not provided any assistance to North Korea," he said. "The message that we've been delivering is that North Korea is wasting its money on these weapons as many of their people starve and as their economy is one of the most backward in the world."

Asked if it is proper to leave ordinary North Koreans to go hungry or even starve because the actions of their government, Rhodes said that it is the regime in Pyongyang "that is holding its own people hostage".

He said he would not be surprised if Pyongyang now attempts a nuclear test.
"The North Koreans have tended to pursue patterns of provocative actions to include missile launches, nuclear tests as they undertook in 2006, 2009. And so we're certainly concerned about the pattern of provocative behaviour that the North Koreans engage in. What we want to make clear to them is that each step that they take in terms of provocations will only lead to a deeper isolation, increase consequences. And frankly, that's not just a message they're hearing from us, they're hearing it from the Chinese and the Russians as well," he said.

The US was expected to lead the condemnation at a UN security council meeting on the crisis on Friday. The White House warned of new sanctions.
Obama's domestic critics swiftly accused him of creating the crisis through weakness. Some have contrasted the president's stand against Iran with his more cautious approach on North Korea.

Mitt Romney, the likely Republican presidential candidate, said Obama was incompetent and naive in handling North Korea.

"Instead of approaching Pyongyang from a position of strength, President Obama sought to appease the regime with a food-aid deal that proved to be as naive as it was short-lived," said Romney. "This incompetence from the Obama administration has emboldened the North Korean regime and undermined the security of the United States and our allies."

Jon Kyl, the Republican whip in the US Senate, called on the White House to "abandon its naive negotiations with North Korea".

Pritchard said the crisis now threatens to become an election issue.

"In a presidential election year, the president can't afford a spectacular loss on the foreign policy side over North Korea where he's been very cautious over the last three years. It will essentially erase all the good things he can point to in other areas of his foreign policy," he said. "So I think Obama steps back. You're not going to see any bilateral engagement on the part of the United States for the remainder of this term."

The former officials now expect the White House to abandon bilateral negotiations with Pyongyang and to attempt to build on collective international pressure.

Pritchard said that will be made difficult by China's dual role of attempting to pressure North Korea while also shielding it. That, he said, will give Pyongyang a relatively free hand.

"This regime (in North Korea) cannot afford to negotiate away, to be seen to be knuckling under to pressure from others to stop what they are doing. They have nothing else going on for them. They are going to march forward and there's very little the international community can do," he said.

Whiton said he regards that as very dangerous.

"There's a cost to doing nothing with North Korea because North Korea proliferates nearly every weapons system it has. In 2007, one of the reasons the last round of talks fell apart was because we caught the North Koreans helping the Syrians build a carbon copy of the North Korean nuclear reactor.

"They were building it in Syria. There were North Koreans on the site. Thankfully the Israelis blew it up," he said.

N. Korean Rocket launch is a failure...

Anyone surprised? No? Anyways....read the original here.

NKorea launch draws anger as failure wounds pride
Apr 13, 6:20 AM (ET)
By JEAN H. LEE

PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) - North Korea's widely condemned rocket splintered into pieces over the Yellow Sea soon after takeoff Friday, an embarrassing end to a launch that Pyongyang had infused with national pride during a week of high-level political meetings and celebrations.

Within minutes of the early morning launch, the United States and South Korea declared it a failure. North Korea acknowledged that hours later in an announcement broadcast on state TV, saying the satellite that the rocket was carrying had been unable to enter into orbit.

World leaders were swift to denounce the launch, calling it a covert test of missile technology and a flagrant violation of international resolutions prohibiting North Korea from developing its nuclear and missile programs.

The rocket's destruction suggests the country has yet to master the technology needed to build long-range missiles that could threaten the United States. Still, worries remain about North Korea's nuclear program amid reports that it may be planning an atomic test soon.

The launch is also a setback for the government of new leader Kim Jong Un, which had projected the satellite as a show of strength amid persistent economic hardship while he solidifies power following the death of his father, longtime leader Kim Jong Il, four months ago.

The foreign ministers of the Group of Eight industrialized nations meeting in Washington, including Russia, condemned the launch. The U.N. Security Council, meanwhile, scheduled an emergency meeting for later Friday, and Washington said it was suspending plans to contribute food aid to the North in exchange for a rollback of its nuclear programs.

North Korea had announced weeks earlier that it would launch a long-range rocket mounted with an observational satellite, touting it as a major technological achievement to mark the upcoming 100th anniversary of the birth of Kim Il Sung, the country's founder and current leader's grandfather.

The failure "blows a big hole in the birthday party," said Victor Cha, former director for Asia policy in the U.S. National Security Council. "It's terribly embarrassing for the North."

Experts say the Unha-3 carrier was the same type of rocket that would be used to strike the U.S. and other targets with a long-range missile.

Greg Thielmann, a former intelligence officer with the U.S. State Department, said it now appears the North Koreans haven't mastered the technology they need to control multistage rockets - a key capability if the North is to threaten the United States with intercontinental ballistic missiles.

North Korea has tested two atomic devices but is not yet believed to be able to build a nuclear warhead small enough to be mounted on a long-range missile.

Cha, who was an Asia adviser for former President George W. Bush, said the next step would be to watch whether North Korea conducts a third nuclear test, as has been speculated by the South Korean intelligence community.

State media said the Kwangmyongsong-3 satellite was fired from the Sohae Satellite Launching Station in the hamlet of Tongchang-ri along the west coast but "failed to enter its preset orbit."

"Scientists, technicians and experts are now looking into the cause of the failure," the state-run Korean Central News Agency said.

Kim Jong Un, who has been given several important titles this week meant to strengthen his rule, was named Friday as first chairman of the powerful National Defense Commission, while Kim Jong Il became "chairman for eternity." The announcement came during a meeting of the Supreme People's Assembly in Pyongyang, state media said.

Kim Jong Il, who died in December, ruled the country in his capacity as chairman of the National Defense Commission.

At a massive gathering Friday in Pyongyang, Kim Jong Un and other senior officials watched the unveiling of an enormous new statue of Kim Jong Il, which stood beside an equally large statue of Kim Il Sung.

North Korean space officials said the Unha-3, or Galaxy-3, rocket was meant to send a satellite into orbit to study crops and weather patterns - its third bid to launch a satellite since 1998. Officials had earlier brought foreign journalists to the west coast site to see the rocket and the Kwangmyongsong-3 satellite Sunday in a bid to show its transparency amid accusations of defiance.

The acknowledgment of the rocket's failure - both to the outside world and to North Koreans - was a surprising admission by a government that in the past has kept tight control over information. In Pyongyang, dozens of foreign journalists invited to cover the launch were not allowed to view the liftoff live.

"The failure, which was impossible to hide from the North Korean people given the advance publicity and presence of international media, will be a major source of domestic and international embarrassment for the Kim Jong Un regime," said Ralph Cossa, president of Pacific Forum CSIS, a Hawaii-based think tank.

Attempts to put satellites into orbit often pose problems even for developed nations. In 2010, a South Korean rocket carrying a climate observation satellite exploded 137 seconds into its flight. An earlier 2009 attempt, Seoul's first from its own territory, also failed.

The Unha-3's launch was monitored by a host of U.S., Japanese and South Korean military assets, which were expected to capture vital data on North Korea's ballistic missile capabilities.

U.S. Navy minesweepers and other ships in the area were expected to begin scouring the seas for debris from the rocket, which can offer evidence of what went wrong and what rocket technology North Korea has.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, speaking for the Group of Eight, said earlier that all the members of the bloc agreed to be prepared to take further action against North Korea in the Security Council.

---

Associated Press writers Hyung-jin Kim, Foster Klug, Sam Kim and Eric Talmadge contributed to this report from Seoul, South Korea; Mari Yamaguchi and Malcolm Foster contributed from Tokyo; Matthew Pennington contributed from Washington.

UPDATED: A Coup in North Korea? Kim Jong-Un possibly assassinated?

UPDATE:
US says there is no evidence this is true...


Completely unsubstantiated so far, but the internet is abuzz. Because of course, everything is true on the internet. Read the original here via Reuters.

Twitter, Weibo Spread Rumors of North Korean Leader Kim Jong-un's Assassination
By Lucas Shaw at TheWrap

Fri Feb 10, 2012 1:53pm EST

Did social media just prematurely kill off the leader of North Korea?

Rumors that Kim Jong-un, the country’s supreme leader, has been assassinated just months after he took power originated on Chinese microblogging service Weibo and have now spread all over Twitter.

Others are reporting that Jong-un, believed to be 28 years old, may be on the run rather than dead, but both reports claim that some kind of coup is taking place.

One person on Weibo wrote (loose translation): "north korea's biggest leader kim jung un, this morning in beijing time 2:45 am, had his residence broken into and was assassinated by unidentified people, who were shot dead by his bodyguards in korea's embassy in beijing, vehicles are rapidly increasing in number, and have surpassed 30 of them, this sort of battle formation hasn't been seen in over two years. please verify this."

The rumors remain unsubstantiated. However, the reports are beginning to attract a great deal of attention, especially now that a couple of American news outlets including the Atlantic Wire have reported on them.

Weibo is in many ways the Chinese equivalent of Twitter, and disseminates news at a rapid pace. People were tipped off that there was something happening that involved Jong-Un, who succeeded his late father Kim Jong-Il, because of the mass of cars parked outside of his resident.

For good reason, many Twitter users are exercising caution, aware that news like this can spread without much to sustain it.

A sample of the dubious tweeters:

“Kim Jong Un apparently assasinated in Beijing. Source: 'Chinese Twitter'. What does that even mean? One Chinese person's account? or @China?” AdamThompson1 tweeted.

“Wait for confirmation on Kim Jong Un death rumors. Twitter is also reporting that ‘Jonas Brothers are the best band,’” Matt Binder wrote.

“Rumors from Chinese twitter that Kim Jong Un assassinated this morning in Beijing. pretty unlikely,” Dan Bennett posted.

So did social media spread the news or cause unnecessary hysteria? We will update when the news develops.

Michelle Ong contributed to this report.

Experiments in Irony....

First Syria leads the UN Human Rights Commission, now this? Anything else required to prove the UN is a joke now? Why do we pay for them? Read the original here.

North Korea To Head U.N. Conference On Disarmament
3:26 PM, JUN 29, 2011 • BY ANNE BAYEFSKY

On Tuesday, the United Nations again made itself an international laughing stock – except perhaps to the American taxpayers who continue to foot 22 percent of the bill – by appointing North Korea chair of the U.N. Conference on Disarmament. That would be the same North Korea that, according to an article this week by Senator John Kerry, head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has “twice tested nuclear weapons…is developing missiles to carry them…has built facilities capable of producing highly enriched uranium for more nuclear weapons” and has defied a U.N. arms embargo by exporting weapons and sensitive technologies to rogue regimes.
Alas, Senator Kerry is also one of the lead champion of the United Nations in the Senate. According to the U.N., "The Conference is funded from the UN regular budget, reports to the General Assembly and receives guidance from it."

North Korea assumes the Conference chairmanship by being the next state in the alphabetical rotation of the 65 members, which include five nuclear weapons states and 60 other countries such as Iran and Syria. North Korea will preside over the Conference for a four working-week period.

North Korea’s representative, So Se Pyong, was enthusiastic about his new job. He announced that he was “very much committed to the Conference” and that during his presidency he “welcomes any sort of constructive proposals that strengthened the work and credibility of the Conference on Disarmament.” He also said that “he would do everything in his capacity to move the Conference on Disarmament forward.”

That might make sense, if by “forward” he means toward a nuclear winter, or by “constructive,” he means steering clear of anything that might impede North Korea. The official mandate of the Conference looks a bit different and includes “all multilateral arms control and disarmament problems” with the following “main areas of interest”: “cessation of the nuclear arms race and nuclear disarmament; prevention of nuclear war, including all related matters.”

North Korea’s chairmanship was heralded by other U.N. aficionados, including the Iranian delegate to the Conference. Iran’s Mohammad Hassan Daryaei told the Conference meeting: “I would like to congratulate the distinguished ambassador of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea for the assumption of the presidency and assuring him of my delegation’s full support and cooperation.”

Iran’s support is telling. Just yesterday Iran's Revolutionary Guards tested 14 long-range missiles that could carry a nuclear weapon, with the express purpose of hitting U.S. interests and Israel, according to the head of their aerospace division.

Congratulations also poured in from such upstanding world citizens and U.N. fans as China. China’s Wang Qun “welcomed the presidency of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.”

It was left to the Canadian delegate to speak plainly. Canada’s Marius Grinius said: “[I]n the last 13 years the Conference has failed to move forward on its core disarmament responsibilities, including the negotiation of a Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty…[T]he Conference on Disarmament is on life support because it no longer is the sole multilateral negotiating forum for disarmament. Indeed, it is not negotiating anything and has not been for a very long time.”

Why not just put it out of its misery and pull the plug?

Anne Bayefsky is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, a professor at Touro College, and the editor of EYEontheUN.org. 

More info about Israel's strike on Syria's nuclear facility

Fox News has more information regarding the recent Israeli bombing of a Syrian nuclear site. Apparently, Israeli special forces infiltrated the site and obtained nuclear material of North Korean origin prior to the strike. Things are looking rather damning for the Syrians.

Report: Israeli Forces Seized Nuclear Material During Syrian Raid
Fox News

Israeli commandos seized nuclear material of North Korean origin during a daring raid on a secret military site in Syrian before Israel bombed it this month, according to Sunday Times report citing informed sources in Washington and Jerusalem.

The attack was launched with American approval on September 6 after Washington was shown evidence the material was nuclear, the well-placed sources say.

They confirmed that samples taken from Syria for testing had been identified as North Korean. This raised fears that Syria might have joined North Korea and Iran in seeking to acquire nuclear weapons.

Israel special forces had been gathering intelligence for several months in Syria, according to Israeli sources. They located the nuclear material at a compound near Dayr az-Zwar in the north.

Is he serious?

If Kim Jong Il is serious about this meeting, this could potentially be a historic time. A summit is occurring in Pyongyang between Kim Jong Il and Roh Moo-hyun. Although I am generally doubtful that anything Kim Jong Il does will have even the slightest bit of honor, this is coming close on the heels of him keeping his promise to the United Nations to close down his nuclear reactor. Hopefully, this summit will provide a peek behind the curtain and the world will see what's really going on. Is this just politically posturing? I'm sure I'm not the only one who will be watching and hoping that this summit signals a fundamental shift in North Korea's attitude toward the South.

Koreas 'to hold historic summit'
BBC News

North and South Korea are to hold only their second-ever summit, officials have announced.

President Roh Moo-hyun will visit the North Korean capital of Pyongyang for a meeting with the North's leader Kim Jong-il between 28-30 August.

The summit comes seven years after the first one, when Mr Kim met then-South Korean President Kim Dae-jung.

Correspondents say the meeting will be a boost to Mr Roh, who is approaching the end of his presidential term.