Experts Say North Korea Nuclear Test Shows Advancement in Technology

foxnews

Experts say North Korea's successful detonation of a miniaturized nuclear device is concerning because it indicates the country may be getting closer to the ability to put a nuclear device on a missile.
North Korea drew worldwide condemnation Tuesday after it announced it had successfully conducted its third nuclear test, in direct defiance to U.N. Security Council orders to shut down its atomic activity or face more sanctions and international isolation.
It claims the test was its "first response" to perceived U.S. threats and warns it will continue with unspecified "second and third measures of greater intensity" if the United States maintains its hostility.
North Korea expert Andrei Lankov tells Fox News that possession of such a "miniaturized" device would be necessary to create a nuclear warhead.
"It shows they are advancing their nuclear technology," Lankov said.
He also noted the significance of the timing of the test, which came just months after North Korea's successful intercontinental ballistic missile test.
"It seems they are very close to being able to put a device on a missile," Lankov said.
Peter Beck, an expert for Asia Society, tells Fox News the blast appears to be "significantly greater" than North Korea's past nuclear tests. He, too, said the test "...shows a greater commitment by North Korea to marry the missile and nuclear programs."
President Obama was one of many world leaders to speak out against the test early Tuesday, calling it a "highly provocative act" and warning that the international community would act in response.
"These provocations do not make North Korea more secure," the president said in a statement. "Far from achieving its stated goal of becoming a strong and prosperous nation, North Korea has instead increasingly isolated and impoverished its people through its ill-advised pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery."
North Korea's official state media said the test was conducted in a safe manner and is aimed at coping with "outrageous" U.S. hostility that "violently" undermines the North's peaceful, sovereign right to launch satellites. North Korea faced sanctions after a December launch of a rocket that the U.N. and Washington called a cover for a banned missile test. Pyongyang said it was a peaceful satellite launch.
Earlier Tuesday, South Korean, U.S. and Japanese seismic monitoring agencies said they detected an earthquake in North Korea with a magnitude between 4.9 and 5.2.
Annika Thunborg, who works for the Vienna-based U.N. nuclear monitoring agency the CTBTO, confirms to Fox News the blast was larger than past tests, measuring 4.9 seismically on the Richter scale. The country's 2006 test, which was widely seen as a failure, measured 4.1 and the 2009 test measured 4.5.
Thunborg also says they are trying to find out if enriched uranium was used in this test. This would be significant as the first two tests used North Korea's plutonium stocks which are being depleted. Uranium could be derived from a new nuclear method and those supplies could be renewed.
The North said it used a "lighter, miniaturized atomic bomb" that still has more explosive force than past tests. North Korea is estimated to have enough weaponized plutonium for four to eight bombs, according to American nuclear scientist Siegfried Hecker. However, it is not known whether North Korean scientists have found a way to miniaturize warheads.
The timing will be seen as significant. The test came hours before President Obama was scheduled to give his State of the Union speech, a major, nationally televised address. It's also only days before the Saturday birthday of Kim Jong Un's father, late leader Kim Jong Il, whose memory North Korean propaganda has repeatedly linked to the country's nuclear ambitions. This year also marks the 60th anniversary of the signing of the armistice that ended the 1950-53 Korean War.
The nuclear test is North Korea's first since Kim Jong Un took power of a country long estranged from the West.
Experts say regular tests are needed to perfect North Korea's goal of building nuclear warheads small enough to be placed on long-range missiles. This atomic test is North Korea's third since 2006.
The test will likely be portrayed in North Korea as a strong move to defend the nation against foreign aggression, particularly from the U.S., North Korea's longtime enemy.
North Korea's rocket launches and nuclear tests largely are seen by analysts as threats designed to force the United States to confront the issue of military tensions between the foes 60 years after the end of the Korean War.
Following the announcement of the nuclear test, North Korean state television played a song with lyrics bragging that the country always carries out what it is determined to do. In the background were scenes of a North Korean long-range rocket blasting off and short-range missiles being fired into the sky.
The United States and its allies have been on edge since North Korea announced last month that it would conduct a nuclear test to protest toughened sanctions over the December rocket launch.
North Korea's National Defense Commission said Jan. 23 that the United States was its prime target for a nuclear test and long-range rocket launches. North Korea accuses Washington of leading the push to punish Pyongyang for its December rocket launch.
Last October, a spokesman from the commission told state media that the country had built a missile capable of striking the United States, but did not provide further details.
The decision to push ahead with a test will be a challenge to the U.N. Security Council, which recently punished Pyongyang for launching the long-range rocket. In condemning that launch and imposing more sanctions on Pyongyang, the council had demanded a stop to future launches and ordered North Korea to respect a ban on nuclear activity -- or face "significant action" by the U.N.
U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon condemned Tuesday's nuclear test in a statement. The Security Council met later to discuss its response.
The test will likely draw harsh censure and more sanctions from the United States and other countries at a time when North Korea is trying to rebuild its moribund economy and expand its engagement with the outside world.
North Korea cites the U.S. military threat in the region as a key reason behind its drive to build nuclear weapons. The two countries fought on opposite sides of the Korean War, which ended after three years on July 27, 1953, with an armistice, not a peace treaty. The U.S.-led U.N. Command mans the Demilitarized Zone dividing the two Koreas, and Washington stations more than 28,000 troops in South Korea to protect the ally.
Fox News' Greg Palkot and The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/02/12/experts-say-north-korea-nuclear-test-important-step-towards-weaponization/#ixzz2Khe7lCLd

North Korea gives John Kerry his first "3 AM" call

security

By Elise Labott, with reporting by Barbara Starr

North Korea's nuclear test set off a diplomatic scramble for America's new Secretary of State as the U.S. national security community began working with other countries to try and determine what North Korea truly achieved. The test was was not a total surprise, senior administration officials said. North Korea warned the United States and China on Monday that it would be undertaking a nuclear test, two senior administration officials tell CNN. The warning came in the form of a message through the “NY channel,” which is the U.S. mission to the United Nations. This is the typical way North Korea passes messages to the United States. The warning was not specific on timing, but the officials said the U.S. took it to mean the test could happen at any moment. After the test was detected late Monday night, Secretary of State John Kerry spoke with South Korea's foreign minister. He is also expected to talk with Chinese, Japanese, Russian ministers. The U.S. began coordinating its own response with inter-agency calls between Washington and Seoul, Tokyo, Moscow and Beijing. US Ambassador to South Korea Sung Kim and General James Thurman, Commander of the US-ROK Combined Forces Command, met with the South Korean defense minister. The U.S. intelligence community and military began the process of assessing the test and North Korea's claims and by morning concluded an underground nuclear test had probably been conducted. World reaction to the test "The explosion yield was approximately several kilotons. Analysis of the event continues." according to a statement released Tuesday by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Nuclear monitoring by the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization will calculate what was released by the explosion. The U.S. will likely try to get additional readings from aircraft equipped with sensors and satellites and attempt to match with seismic data to calculate what the explosion was. Officials said it will be several days before the US has a handle on the actual size of the explosion, payload and the success, or lack thereof, of the test. Bottom line, successful or not, these tests do help North Korea learn and continue to perfect the technology. North Korea's rocket-fueled obsession Senior administration official says one of the the things the U.S. will be trying to determine, is whether the North Koreans tested a uranium weapon for the first time. The past two tests were plutonium. The U.S. and its allies will also be trying to figure out what type of technology and engineering was used to pull off the test and what, if any, help and materials North Korea may have received from other countries, like Iran. In addition to the analysis of data, the U.S. is currently analyzing North Korea's statement. At first glance, the part about using a “miniaturized” nuclear weapon is concerning, because that would mean the North Koreans may have mastered the technology to fit a nuclear weapon on a long range missile which could possibly reach the U.S.. North Korea successfully demonstrated it could launch a long range missile through its rocket launch last December, but questions remain about its ability to aim it towards a long range target or even repeat the launch success. United Nations Security Council members meet Tuesday morning and officials say the American playbook will be pretty familiar. The officials all said Washington will seek a “tough, swift reaction” from the UNSC. Obviously what comes out of the council will depend on what China and Russia will sign on to. But one official said “there is a pretty strong commitment to go with a seriousness of purpose” to the UN. How does the test work? Officials said administration is also looking at what other kinds of sanctions can be slapped on North Korea, probably the most sanctioned entity in the world. They are looking at the playbook for Iran sanctions – shipping, insurance, more sanctions against financial transactions, designations of individuals. “There is plenty to do,” another senior official said.

North Korea says it successfully conducts nuclear test

Kim Kwang Hyon / AP

On a large television screen in front of Pyongyang's railway station, a North Korean state television broadcaster announces Tuesday that North Korea has conducted a nuclear bomb test.

By Ian Johnston, Eric Baculinao and Arata Yamamoto, NBC News

North Korea declared Tuesday that it had carried out a test of a nuclear bomb after the detonation was detected by the U.S. Geological Survey.

The explosion was registered as a 5.1-magnitude seismic event by the USGS at 9:57 p.m. ET Monday.

The U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence said in a statement that the "intelligence community" was aware of "a seismic event with explosive characteristics in North Korea and we are evaluating all relevant information."

In a statement, President Barack Obama described the test as a "highly provocative act."

He said that -- following a "ballistic missile launch" by North Korea on Dec. 12 -- the test "undermines regional stability, violates North Korea's obligations under numerous United Nations Security Council resolutions, contravenes its [international] commitments … and increases the risk of proliferation."

"North Korea's nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs constitute a threat to U.S. national security and to international peace and security," Obama said. "The United States remains vigilant in the face of North Korean provocations and steadfast in our defense commitments to allies in the region."

He said North Korea's "provocations do not make North Korea more secure" and the communist state had "increasingly isolated and impoverished its people through its ill-advised pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery."

"The danger posed by North Korea's threatening activities warrants further swift and credible action by the international community," Obama said, adding the U.S. would work with the international community to "pursue firm action."

'Unacceptable threat'South Korea's government said in a statement that "the nuclear test poses a direct challenge to the whole international community as well as an unacceptable threat to the peace and security of the Korean Peninsula and Northeast Asia."

"Standing firm on its consistent principle that it will not tolerate a nuclear North Korea, the [South Korean] Government … will cooperate closely with the international community and seek all necessary measures including actions by the United Nations Security Council in order to have North Korea abandon its nuclear ambition,” it added.

South Korea is president of the Security Council this month.

The statement added that South Korea would maintain "a high readiness posture against any possible provocation by North Korea."

It said the government would "also accelerate expanding its military capability, including deploying at an early stage its extended-range missiles, currently being developed, which cover all of North Korea."

Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said the test was "extremely regrettable and we strongly protest this act."

Japan launched several planes to test for nuclear particles in the air, Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera said. He described the test as a "major provocation not only towards the safety of our country but also against the international community."

Keep reading on Nbcnews >>

North Korea and Cuba: Not so different

babalublog

By Alberto de la Cruz

Sophie Schmidt, the daughter of Eric Schmidt, one of Google's founders, accompanied her father and Gov. Bill Richardson on a trip to North Korea. She took some amazing photographs and amongst her many observations documented on a site she created, this one in particular sounds eerily familiar:

It's impossible to know how much we can extrapolate from what we saw in Pyongyang to what the DPRK is really like. Our trip was a mixture of highly staged encounters, tightly-orchestrated viewings and what seemed like genuine human moments. We had zero interactions with non-state-approved North Koreans and were never far from our two minders (2, so one can mind the other).
The longer I think about what we saw and heard, the less sure I am about what any of it actually meant.

Sounds a lot like those "people-to-people" contact Cuba vacations made possible by the Obama administration, doesn't it?

Here's another observation:

Looks great, right? All this activity, all those monitors. Probably 90 desks in the room, all manned, with an identical scene one floor up.
One problem: No one was actually doing anything. A few scrolled or clicked, but the rest just stared. More disturbing: when our group walked in--a noisy bunch, with media in tow--not one of them looked up from their desks. Not a head turn, no eye contact, no reaction to stimuli. They might as well have been figurines.
Of all the stops we made, the e-Potemkin Village was among the more unsettling. We knew nothing about what we were seeing, even as it was in front of us. Were they really students? Did our handlers honestly think we bought it? Did they even care? Photo op and tour completed, maybe they dismantled the whole set and went home.

Of course, the communist propaganda favorite; The Potemkin Village. We have plenty of those in Cuba as well.

Read Sophie Schmidt's entire report HERE.

Kim Jong-Un and the Mysterious Smartphone

foxnews

Bet the Hardy Boys couldn’t solve this one.
A picture of North Korea’s leader holding a lit cigarette with a black smartphone near to hand has the tech world in a tizzy -- but the mysterious maker of the phone remains an enigma.
South Korean smartphone giant Samsung has distanced itself from the gadget, according to AFP, denying any connection to the device.
"It's not a Samsung phone," a company spokesman told AFP, adamantly denying that one of its flagship Galaxy models had turned up across the border.
South Korea's Chosun Ilbo newspaper suggested politics was behind the brand choice.
"It must have been politically uncomfortable for Kim Jong-Un to use products made by the U.S. ... and he can't publicly endorse the fact that the South is more technologically advanced," the daily said.
But it’s not even clear whether Kim Jong-Un himself owns the phone or is merely near it. South Korean government officials said they believe it his, but did not confirm that fact.
"It's believed that the smartphone belonged to Kim given that the device was placed right next to the documents he was looking at," a Seoul government official told AFP.
The Seoul government official said the picture had been analyzed by the South's intelligence agency, which concluded that HTC was the likely manufacturer.
But the Taiwanese firm declined to identify the device, saying in a statement that the company appreciated the "support of all users."
For more information on Kim Jong-Un’s mysterious phone, read the full story on news.com.au.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2013/02/05/kim-jong-un-and-mysterious-smartphone/#ixzz2K3k8Wdmg

North Koreans among 40 dead at Iran nuke plant

WND/ Reza Kahlili

The explosions at Iran’s Fordow nuclear facility Jan. 21 killed at least 40 people, including two North Koreans, WND learned Sunday.

Meanwhile, the Islamic regime is labeling WND a “mouthpiece of the CIA” for its exclusive reporting of the blasts.

The bodies of 11 of the technicians and scientists are beyond recognition, a member of the security forces at the facility told WND. According to the source, 60 others are in critical condition and have been transferred to the central base of the 27th Division of Mohammad Rassool Allah. The base, between Tehran and Qom, is equipped with a modern medical facility.

At the time of the explosions, the source said, 203 Iranian scientists and technicians along with 16 North Koreans had been logged in at the site, though the initial report listed 240 people.

The day before the explosions, the North Koreans had brought in new equipment, described by the source as touch-screen monitors the size of TVs that were installed in the monitoring room and some new parts that were installed in the centrifuges before the start of the enrichment process.

Get the inside story in Reza Kahlili’s “A Time To Betray” and learn how the Islamic regime “bought the bomb” in “Atomic Iran.”

The explosions were reported exclusively by WND Jan. 24, with updates Jan. 27, Jan. 29, Jan. 30 and Jan. 31.  WND previously reported the trapped workers included 16 North Koreans: 14 technicians and two military attaches.

The source said many of the centrifuges have been destroyed and rescuers have still not accessed the reserves of the stock of 20-percent enriched uranium to assess the level of radiation.

The International Atomic Energy Agency has not visited the site since the explosions despite media rumors, the source said. Because the regime’s Ministry of Defense covers the project at Fordow, officials of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization were allowed to visit it Jan. 5.

In an unusual move, the IAEA issued a brief statement Jan. 29: “We understand that Iran has denied that there has been an incident at Fordow. This is consistent with our observations.”

IAEA spokeswoman Gill Tudor emailed that response to reporters. However, when pushed by WND, Tudor could neither confirm nor deny the incident had taken place and did not say whether inspectors had visited the site after the explosions, despite media reports.

Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi, representatives of the supreme leader and intelligence officers from both the Ministry of Intelligence and the Revolutionary Guards have visited parts of the site that have been cleared as secure. A counterintelligence committee has been formed to investigate the incident, which already has been called an act of sabotage, with Israel the prime suspect.

The regime is debating how to explain the incident at a later date depending on the level of destruction, the source said. But because of internal rifts among President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the Majlis (parliament), Ahmadinejad or others connected to his team will soon reveal the incident.

Regime media have solely based their denial that the explosions occurred on a statement by White House spokesman Jay Carney, who told reporters Jan. 28: “We have no information to confirm the allegations in the (WND) report, and we do not believe the report is credible.”

However, the Islamic regime’s official news agency, IRNA, in a report Jan. 30, called WND a “mouthpiece of the CIA” and its reporting mere propaganda by the West before the start of renewed negotiations between Iran and the 5-plus-1 powers – the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China, plus Germany.

IRNA’s report said: “WND, which publishes under the direct control of the CIA, on Thursday, Jan. 24, reported that an explosion took place at Fordow that destroyed much of the facility and trapped 240 personnel. WND in its report interestingly touches on the previous sabotage at Fordow and in a coordinated effort, the White House denies having information and the Israelis state their happiness of such an event. The propaganda by the West continues with the BBC reporting that Iran has denied the report put out by Reza Kahlili, a former CIA spy in the Revolutionary Guards.”

IRNA, in its extensive report, covered all the recent WND revelations about Iran’s nuclear program and Russia’s involvement. It said, “Two days prior to the publication of the explosion report, WND reported that an Iranian spy in the Israeli intelligence service, Mossad, has informed the Islamic republic that Tel Aviv and certain Western countries have plans on covert ops for the destruction of Iranian nuclear sites. This news agency (WND) in another report states that the recent negotiations between the IAEA and the Iranian counterparts for the inspection of the Parchin military site was a failure and that Iran will resort to publication of documents from the Shah era to further pressure the U.S.”

IRNA concluded that “the West knows this is psychological warfare (and it) will not disrupt the goals of (Iran) in the negotiations, but it tries to fill that void with propaganda against clear and logical policies of the Islamic Republic, which is the result of their hatred against the government of Iran.”

The regime media have also attacked Hamidreza Zakeri, the former officer of Iran’s ministry of intelligence, now living in Europe, who has provided information on the Fordow explosion and other valuable insights into the regime’s illicit activities.

The Fordow nuclear site was central to the regime’s nuclear bomb program, built 300 feet under the belly of a mountain where over 2,700 centrifuges were enriching uranium to the 20 percent level. That level could within weeks be further enriched to nuclear-weapons grade.

In a letter to the IAEA two days after the reported explosions, Iran said it planned to install thousands of its upgraded centrifuges at the Natanz facility. The source stated the move was a direct result of the explosions at Fordow.

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2013/02/north-koreans-among-40-dead-at-iran-nuke-plant/#pVZh2MwCyYfmQDQl.99

Cannibalism in North Korea

globalpost

A customer reads the menu on the "Pyongyang Express" food truck in Los Angeles, Calif., July 16, 2010. (Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images)

Emily Lodish

Just when you thought North Korea couldn't get any more disturbing.

A leaked official police document reportedly details at least one case of cannibalism.

Photos: Daily life in Pyongyang

If true, the report would validate what has been rumored in the North for quite some time: that people are so hungry they are eating other people.

According to the Korea Herald:

"The report, later obtained by South Korea's Caleb Mission, provided a rare look into the alleged cannibalism and other crimes, but it did not say whether cannibalism has become a widespread practice.

In one account, a male guard who could not bear his hunger killed his colleague using an ax, ate some of the human flesh and sold the remainder in the market by disguising it as mutton, the report said, without giving any further details such as when the alleged crime occurred."

The confidential, 791-page document, called a "Manual for workers in law enforcement," chronicles 721 criminal cases. The majority of cases involved food.

Five of the cases, according to the International Business Times, involved cannibalism.

While there is some doubt as to the veracity of everything described in the report, its official nature leads experts to believe most of its contents can be taken as fact.

“I have been studying North Korean laws for the last forty years and have never seen anything like this inner document of the North Korean law enforcement unit,” said Jang Myung-bong, a specialist in North Korean laws.

“It is a very critical resource in which we can take a peek on important changes of North Korean law and vividly depict the real life within the society.”

There can be no doubt that much of North Korea is hungry. But a recent report suggests the famine may not be widespread.

Read More: North Korea isn't alone: 6 infamous cases of cannibalism

The findings of a U.S. team led by Robert King, U.S. special envoy on North Korean human rights, apparently say that there isn't a full-blown crisis, though some parts of the country are experiencing drastic shortages, according to the South Korean publication, Dong-a Ilbo.

Based on this assessment, Washington is likely to recommend that food assistance is necessary for certain regions in the North where food is in particularly short supply.

But those places in need, according to the North Korean report of cannibalism, are perhaps worse off than anyone thought.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has issued a secret order to put the country under martial law..irony

seeker401

http://en.rian.ru/military_news/20130131/179151454/NKorea-Imposes-Martial-Law-Ahead-of-Nuclear-Test–Media.html

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has issued a secret order to put the country under martial law in preparation for a third nuclear test in its history, a South Korean newspaper reported on Thursday.

Kim Jong-un convened an emergency meeting with top defense and security officials last Saturday and supposedly said: “The country will be under martial law starting from midnight on January 29, and all the frontline and central units should be ready for a war,” Korean Joongang Daily reported, citing an unidentified source.

The paper also speculated that the new nuclear test could be held either on February 16, the birthday of former leader Kim Jong-il, or February 25, the inauguration day of South Korean President-elect Park Geun-hye.

North Korea vowed on January 23 to strengthen its military capabilities and step up its controversial nuclear program shortly after the UN Security Council imposed new sanctions on the country over the December rocket launch.

Pyongyang also pledged to end any efforts at denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula and to withdraw from six-party talks.

Satellite images have shown that the reclusive communist regime has been digging a new underground tunnel at the Punggye-ri nuclear test site in the country’s northeast, where it conducted two previous nuclear tests, first in 2006 and then in 2009.

North Korea has been subjected to several rounds of UN Security Council sanctions since it declared itself a nuclear power in 2005.

Sucesion: Conclusion

Google releases detailed map of North Korea

By Chico Harlan/

Until Tuesday, North Korea appeared on Google Maps as a near-total white space — no roads, no train lines, no parks and no restaurants. The only thing labeled was the capital city, Pyongyang.

This all changed when Google, on Tuesday, rolled out a detailed map of one of the world’s most secretive states. The new map labels everything from Pyongyang’s subway stops to the country’s several city-sized gulags, as well as its monuments, hotels, hospitals and department stores.

Screenshot: Washington Post

(See a before and after map comparison of North Korea.)

According to a Google blog post, the maps were created by a group of volunteer “citizen cartographers,” through an interface known as Google Map Maker. That program — much like Wikipedia — allows users to submit their own data, which is then fact-checked by other users, and sometimes altered many times over. Similar processes were used in other once-unmapped countries like Afghanistan and Burma.

In the case of North Korea, those volunteers worked from outside of the country, beginning from 2009. They used information that was already public, compiling details from existing analog maps, satellite images, or other Web-based materials. Much of the information was already available on the Internet, said Hwang Min-woo, 28, a volunteer mapmaker from Seoul who worked for two years on the project.

Screenshot: Washington Post

North Korea was the last country virtually unmapped by Google, but other — even more detailed — maps of the North existed before this. Most notable is a map created by Curtis Melvin, who runs the North Korea Economy Watch blog and spent years identifying thousands of landmarks in the North: tombs, textile factories, film studios, even rumored spy training locations. Melvin’s map is available as a downloadable Google Earth file.

Google’s map is important, though, because it is so readily accessible.  The map is unlikely to have an immediate influence in the North, where Internet use is restricted to all but a handful of elites. But it could prove beneficial for outsider analysts and scholars, providing an easy-to-access record about North Korea’s provinces, roads, landmarks, as well as hints about its many unseen horrors.

Screenshot: Washington Post

In the country’s northeast, for instance, Google has labeled what it calls the “Hwasong Gulag.” One street, called Gulag 16 Road, cuts through it. And at the end of Gulag 16 Road is a train station. Beyond that, little else around the gulag is marked.

The map’s publication comes just weeks after the visit to North Korea of Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt, who toured the country in a series of highly staged encounters that included a stop at a computer library, which Schmidt’s daughter later described in a blog post as the “e-Potemkin Village.” Schmidt’s visit was unrelated to the map roll-out, a Google spokesman said.

Google, in its blog post about the new North Korea map, acknowledged that the information is “not perfect.”

Keep reading on washingtonpost >>

North Korea says it is bolstering its war defenses

foxnews

m.cbsnews.com

North Korea vowed Monday to strengthen its defenses amid concerns the country may conduct a nuclear test as a follow-up to last month's long-range rocket launch.

Citing U.S. hostility, Pyongyang's Foreign Ministry said in a memorandum that North Korea will "continue to strengthen its deterrence against all forms of war."

The memorandum carried by state media did not say what action North Korea would take to defend itself. However, North Korea has claimed the right to build atomic weapons to protect itself from the United States, which stations more than 28,000 troops in South Korea.

North Korea sent a satellite into space on Dec. 12 aboard a long-range rocket, a launch that the U.S. and its allies have criticized as a test of banned ballistic missile technology.

In 2006 and 2009, Pyongyang conducted atomic tests after being slapped with U.N. Security Council condemnation and sanctions for similar launches of long-range rockets.

North Korea's Foreign Ministry urged the Washington to dismantle the U.S.-led U.N. Command, which oversees an armistice signed at the close of the Korean War in 1953. It accused the U.S. of trying to turn the U.N. Command into a NATO-like regional military bloc.

"Whether the U.S. immediately dismantles the U.N. Command or not will serve as the acid stone in deciding whether the U.S. will maintain or not its anti-(North Korea) hostile policy," said the memorandum, which was carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.

The Korean War armistice was never replaced with a peace treaty, leaving the Korean Peninsula in a technical state of war 60 years later.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/01/14/north-korea-says-it-is-bolstering-its-war-defenses/?test=latestnews#ixzz2Hxr8UDKE

Google Bamboozled by North Korea?

pjmedia/ Claudia Rosett

huffingtonpost.com

As if there isn’t enough trouble in the world, the executive chairman of Google Inc., Eric Schmidt, has taken it into his head to visit North Korea. Schmidt is touring the world’s leading totalitarian state as a member of a private group led by a former U.S. congressman, cabinet secretary, United Nations ambassador and New Mexico governor rolled into one, Bill Richardson — whose previous trips to North Korea have served mainly to dignify the Pyongyang regime.

Richardson’s current roadshow, with Google’s Schmidt in tow, seems to have generated some excitement at North Korea’s state propaganda organ, the Korean Central News Agency, or KCNA. KCNA has revamped its web site, including a new gmail contact address (though the address apparently doesn’t work) and more colorful variations on the same old propaganda, including a special section on North Korea’s recent
ballistic missile test   “Successful Satellite Launch.” The site also features such classics as an account of the launch in Ecuador of the works of third-generation dictator Kim Jong Un, glorifying the revolutionary accomplishments of his late father, tyrant Kim Jong Il, and his grandfather, the Stalin-installed founder of the North Korean state, Kim Il Sung. On this same retooled KCNA web site, the private visit led by Richardson is heralded as “Delegation of Google Corp. of U.S. Arrives.”

Schmidt has been secretive about what exactly he hopes to accomplish on this trip. Richardson, who wants to meet with an American that North Korea, as part of its chronic shakedown racket, is now holding hostage in its prison system, has hinted to the press that Schmidt is tagging along to North Korea because he is “interested in some of the economic issues there, and the social media aspect.”

If anything here sounds like the beginning of some glorious new era in which North Korea is about to throw open its digital gates to the world wide web, and invite the starving inmates of Kim’s gulag to post their personal opinions on Facebook, think again. North Korea’s regime loves technology — but on its own terms, for carefully restricted use, for specially selected purposes, which boil down to keeping the Kim regime in power. North Korean officials are expert at hornswoggling American dreamers who arrive in Pyongyang hoping to promote some peace-loving bargain, from former president Jimmy Carter in 1994, to the New York Philharmonic, which, between North Korea’s 2006 and 2009  nuclear tests, serenaded the Pyongyang elite in 2008.

Keep reading >>

Detained American, Internet freedom on agenda as Google boss visits North Korea

Kim Kwang Hyon / AP

Former New Mexico governor Bill Richardson is interviewed by journalists after arriving at Pyongyang International Airport in North Korea on Monday.

By NBC News staff and wire reports

Google Executive Chairman Eric E. Schmidt and former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson arrived in North Korea on Monday to begin a controversial private mission that includes an effort to secure the release of an imprisoned American tourist.

The prisoner, Kenneth Bae, is a 44-year-old Korean-American who was detained last month. He was in a group of five tourists who visited the northeast city of Rajin, South Korea's Yonhap news agency said last month, citing a report by the Kookmin Ilbo newspaper. Bae entered North Korea on Nov. 3.

North Korea: Detained tourist 'admitted his crime'

Richardson, a former ambassador to the United Nations, has made numerous trips to North Korea. Before Monday's trip, he said: "We are going to ask about the American who's been detained -- a humanitarian private visit."

David Guttenfelder / AP

Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt, center, arrives at Pyongyang International Airport in North Korea for a controversial visit on Monday.

"We'll meet with North Korean political leaders," Richardson told The Associated Press. "We'll meet with North Korean economic leaders, military. We'll visit some universities. We don't control the visit. They will let us know what the schedule is when we get there."

The former governor also said the delegation would try to "lay the groundwork for him coming home," the AP reported. "We're going to try to inquire about the status. ... I heard from his son who lives in Washington state, who asked me to bring him back. I doubt we can do it on this trip."

US cool to Schmidt's trip to North Korea

Schmidt did not respond to requests for comment. But Richardson gave at least a hint about Schmidt's purpose for the trip to the country where the Internet, like most other things, is strictly regulated.

"This is not a Google trip, but I'm sure he's interested in some of the economic issues there, the social media aspect," Richardson told the AP. "So this is why we are teamed up on this." He did not elaborate on what he meant by the "social media aspect."

The trip comes a month after North Korea launched a rocket to put a satellite into space. The reclusive state continues work on its nuclear testing facilities, according to satellite imagery, potentially paving the way for a third nuclear bomb test.

Keep reading on NBC >>

Little Hope for Change in Pyongyang/ Hudson Institute

Hudson Institute

Wall Street Journal Asia

By John Lee

In the first public New Year's Day address by a North Korean supreme leader for 19 years, Kim Jong Eun declared that improving living standards and building the economy will be his top two priorities. He urged a "radical turn in the building of an economic giant with the same spirit and mettle as were displayed in conquering space."

How seriously should we take this pronouncement? The focus on economic growth rather than military might is certainly encouraging, and it follows on from a "Ten Year State Strategy Plan for Economic Development" announced last January.

However, it's telling that there were no details about what form reform will take. The role of the military in North Korean politics and economics has not changed significantly over the first year of Kim's rule. Until that happens, one should remain skeptical that change is coming.

It's worth recalling that North Korea was not always an economic basket case. When China began its reforms in 1978, North Koreans were better educated than their Chinese counterparts and had a similar GDP per capita to South Koreans. The country's economy was more open than China's when measured by international trade per capita.

Of course, some portion of the North's prosperity was due to subsidies from the Soviet Union. But after the death of Kim Il Sung, the turn toward even more radical autarkism in the form of the "military first" policy created calamity. Up to 3.5 million people out of a population of around 24 million people died of hunger from 1994-98.

To prevent mass starvation, Pyongyang now depends on foreign aid attained through a combination of bluster, threats and subsequent (always dishonored) promises to play by international rules. Its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs are closely linked with this extortionist strategy.

Since 1995, North Korea has received more than $1 billion in aid from America and $4 billion from South Korea. Although Beijing is opaque about its relations with the hermit kingdom, Chinese trade statistics suggest that Pyongyang has benefited from net transfers of approximately $10 billion over the same period. To put all this in context, North Korea's GDP (measured by purchasing power parity) is around $40 billion each year.

Despite all these transfers, the tragic joke about the North Korean economy is that it remains a planned economy without a plan. At the least, the drive for production is subordinated to the requirements of the regime whose first priority is to remain in power.

As in the most brutal dictatorships, the military enjoys too central a role. This is evident in an official military budget of about $6 billion each year, with international analysts putting the figure closer to $9 billion—at least one-third of government spending. At almost 1.2 million active personnel, the People's Army is the fourth largest in the world.

But the primary role of the military in the economy itself poses the most formidable barrier to reform. The People's Army is the largest, best funded and most capable institution in North Korea. For example, it supervises and controls the country's 3,000 cooperative farms. It reserves one quarter of the country's annual agricultural output for itself, sending out trucks periodically to carry away as much of the country's produce as it deems appropriate.

The military has also earned hundreds of millions of dollars selling missiles and other weapons to Iran, Pakistan and Syria. It now manages almost all of the country's major mines, with most of the magnesite, zinc, iron and tungsten going to China. The export of minerals to China has increased to around $250 million today from $15 million in 2003.

Reform, and a general uplift in living standards, would require the military to relinquish control of the country's agricultural and mineral resources. Even returning control over these resources to a planned economy with some room for citizens to engage in profitable commercial activity could yield growth and a substantial increase in living standards.

But with an enormous and hungry army to feed before its own people, and with the country's mineral reserves worth an estimated $5.4 trillion at current prices, Kim will find it difficult to change the "military first" policy. It is also unlikely that North Korea can exploit its cheap and willing labor and pursue the East Asian export-dependent approach to development as long as the military uses lowly paid soldiers as workers and crowds out non-military enterprises. There is even emerging evidence that a designated percentage of all revenues from commercial activity goes straight to the military, possibly explaining the discrepancy between the official military budget and estimated spend by outside experts.

On balance, the military seems to have acquired even greater economic relevance since Kim Jong Eun's ascension in December 2011. So while there are glimmers of hope that the supreme leader means what he says about reform, such as activity in the special economic zones and the North-South joint venture Pyonghwa Motors, until we see signs that the economic role of the military is weakening, 2013 doesn't augur well for the North Korean people.

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John Lee is a Hudson Institute Visiting Fellow and an Adjunct Associate Professor and Michael Hintze Fellow for Energy Security at the Centre for International Security Studies, Sydney University. He is the author of Will China Fail? (CIS, 2008).

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un offers olive branch to South in rare address

By NBC News wire services

SEOUL, South Korea -- North Korean leader Kim Jong Un called for an end to confrontation between the two Koreas, technically still at war in the absence of a peace treaty to end their 1950-53 conflict, in a surprise New Year speech broadcast on state media.

The address by Kim, who took over power in the state after his father, Kim Jong Il, died in 2011, appeared to take the place of the policy-setting New Year editorial published in leading state newspapers.

But North Korea has offered olive branches before and Kim's speech does not necessarily signify a change in tack from a country that vilifies the United States and U.S. ally South Korea at every chance it gets.

North Korea raised tensions in the region by launching a long-range rocket in December that it said was aimed at putting a scientific satellite in orbit, drawing international condemnation.

North Korea, which considers North and South as one country, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, is banned from testing missile or nuclear technology under U.N. sanctions imposed after its 2006 and 2009 nuclear weapons tests.

Keep reading on NBC >>

Along the Chinese border, defectors say North Korean province is quietly liberalizing

Max Fisher

 A North Korean soldier stands guard along the Chinese border. (GOH CHAI HIN/AFP/Getty Images)

On the northeastern fringe of North Korea, a place so remote that Korea’s medieval monarchy once exiled out-of-favor officials there, a province now known as North Hamgyung may be experiencing a degree of relative wealth and freedom unknown in the rest of the country.

To be clear, the operative word here is “relative”; the accounts make clear that North Hamgyung is still primarily defined by North Korea’s poverty and totalitarian rule. But, based on defector accounts gathered by North Korea-focused news site New Focus International, the province appears to be experiencing an upsurge in wealth and personal freedoms. “North Hamgyung province seems a much better place for life than the city of Pyongyang,” one defector said, a surprising statement given that the government has long cultivated capital city Pyongyang as the height of wealth and development.

New Focus International says that one defector was “shocked” on seeing the relative wealth and prosperity in North Hamgyung. Another said that “as long as you have the trust of relevant authorities, you can lead a decent life,” relatively unfettered, whereas life in Pyongyang requires constant vigilance from watchful state security.

Residents in North Hamgyung are said to have regular access to rice. This might seem like a small thing, but it’s difficult to overstate the cultural value of rice in Korea, its importance to families, and the pain many North Koreans feel at being deprived of this cherished staple. In Pyongyang, a rice allowance is seen as a reward for status and loyalty, as well as a sign of the city’s stature. That North Hamgyung residents would have rice, and acquire it by means other than as a reward from the government, would be a big deal to North Koreans. Residents can even buy bread imported from nearby China. It’s no wonder that, according to New Focus International, some North Koreans talk about “defecting” from their home province to North Hamgyung.

The Onsong market in North Hamgyong/ english.chosun.com

Assuming that these defector accounts are true, the changes would seem to be a result of North Korea’s increasingly porous border with China. North Korea began allowing freer cross-border travel several years ago because it needed the black market to bring in food and keep the economy from collapsing. China still regularly imprisons and deports any defectors it finds, but the border is left conspicuously more open than North Korea’s other borders, allowing some North Koreans to travel back and forth. This trade has brought with it, among other things, bootleg video CD movies that allow North Koreans a glimpse into the outside world, which it turns out is not as terrible as their government tells them.

Is North Hamgyung’s improved status just a temporary blip until Pyongyang reverses the changes, a possible model for North Korea’s future, or a unique system that can only work here? The region is an unusual mix of internal exiles (people who said or did the wrong thing and were sent away to this remote province) and loyal political elites, according to Barbara Demick’s excellent book, Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives of North Koreans.

Keep reading on washingtonpost >>

Obama's indifference to North Korea = nuclear danger

Fox/ By Amb. John Bolton 

North Korea’s successful missile launch, purportedly to orbit a weather satellite, highlights President Obama’s sustained indifference to this repressive regime. While Pyongyang’s rocket tests have had decidedly mixed results, its nuclear weapons program has proceeded apace during four years of U.S. inattention, increasing the risks in northeast Asia and globally. 

Mr. Obama’s quiescence on North Korea is unfortunately symptomatic of his inability or unwillingness to acknowledge, let alone confront, threats to America’s interests, and those of its friends and allies.

In 2009, the Obama administration’s approach to Pyongyang appeared unexpectedly realistic. The White House initially seemed to abandon the Clinton-Bush obsession with making deals involving tangible economic and political concessions to North Korea in exchange for yet more promises to terminate its nuclear weapons program. Mr. Obama rightly believed that avidly pursuing such negotiations, offering one “compromise” after another, simply reinforced the North’s craving for attention without producing results.

Mr. Obama’s quiescence on North Korea is unfortunately symptomatic of his inability or unwillingness to acknowledge, let alone confront, threats to America’s interests, and those of its friends and allies.

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So transparent was its mendacity, par for its history of diplomacy with America since the Korean War, that even former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice’s chief negotiator came to admit it. Christopher Hill said in January of 2011 that there was “absolutely no value” in resuming the failed six-party talks because of sustained North Korean duplicity. Better late than never.

But Mr. Obama’s reluctance to engage the North, simply abandoning the misguided Clinton-Bush diplomacy, is nothing to write home about. Not making unforced concessions that have the political or economic effect of propping up the regime, which repeatedly promises to give up its nuclear program but never does, avoids one erroneous path but follows another. In fact, administration passivity simply permitted the North to proceed essentially unimpeded.

United Nations Security Council sanctions after Pyongyang’s second nuclear test in 2009 only marginally tightened those imposed in 2006 after the first detonation and repeated missile tests; unfortunately, none of the sanctions have been stringently enforced. Before long, the Obama administration reverted to its predecessors’ approach, failing as they did. (On Wednesday, the Security Council condemned the latest missile launch, saying it will urgently consider “an appropriate response.”)

Just because North Korea’s nuclear weapons program hasn’t been on the front pages or at the center of political debate doesn’t mean the uranium-enrichment centrifuges haven’t been spinning. In fact, the North brazenly revealed an extensive new centrifuge facility in 2010, asserting that its enrichment program had begun only two years before. Nor can we conclude that the North’s extensive network of underground facilities hasn’t been manufacturing new nuclear weapons, improving warhead designs by reducing their size and weight, or expanding its nuclear infrastructure. Lack of news about the North isn’t good news; it’s simply bad news we haven’t yet heard.

North Korea thus provides a paradigm of the dangers of a hands-off approach to international threats. Unfortunately, for four years, national security matters have generally sunk into obscurity, except where incidents such as the murder of the U.S. ambassador to Libya has slapped America back into awareness. Mr. Obama’s lack of interest because of his near-total concentration on domestic priorities has been a major factor: When a president abjures his bully pulpit, no one else can comparably focus the national attention. But Republicans are also complicit; reticence in critiquing the administration’s policy errors and offering workable options has significantly contributed to the national blindness to foreign threats.

Shortly after Kim Jong-un assumed leadership of the world’s only hereditary communist dictatorship, the North’s failed April missile launch provided an opportune moment to weaken the regime and hasten its ultimate collapse. Indeed, Kim Jong-il’s death and the ensuing succession process was an opening to destabilize the North Korean police state, and work toward reunifying the Korean Peninsula, America’s declared objective since 1945.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/12/13/obama-indifference-means-nuclear-danger/#ixzz2FKYephH4

Kim Jong Un's year as 'Dear Leader'

Read >>

Reports: American tourist detained in North Korea

Photos of orphans may be the reason behind one man’s detention

By NBC News staff and wire reports

SEOUL -- An American tourist who visited North Korea last month for what was to have been a five-day trip has been detained by police there, associates of his family and activists in Seoul said.

Kenneth Bae, 44, was in a group of five tourists who visited the northeast city of Rajin, South Korea's Yonhap news agency said, citing a report by the Kookmin Ilbo newspaper. Bae, who is Korean-American, entered North Korea on Nov. 3.

"What we know is that he is a person who wants to help poor children, kotjebis (homeless children), and he took pictures of them to support them later," said Do Hee-youn, a North Korean human rights activist and head of the Citizens' Coalition for Human Rights of Abductees and North Korean Refugees.

'Fluttering swallows'There are said to be thousands of homeless, starving children in the North after a famine in the 1990s. Kotjebis translates into English as "fluttering swallows."

It was impossible for NBC News to confirm Bae's arrest in one of the world's most secretive states and there has been no formal announcement on North Korean media. More on NBC >>
Read more at http://goodmenproject.com/good-feed-blog/american-citizen-held-captive-in-north-korea/#weE48ElhSBFYMqk2.99 

North Korea releases photos of rocket launch

This Just In

North Korea's state news agency has put out some photos of the rocket launch earlier this week that is believed to have put a satellite into orbit.

This image from KCNA shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un celebrating with troops.

And here's a shot of the launch.