Kerry to NKorea: New Missile Launch Would Be ‘Huge Mistake’
[Newsmax.com]
Friday, 12 Apr 2013 12:15 PM
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US Navy shifts destroyer in wake of North Korea missile threats
[NBCNews]
April 1, 2013
Most people in Seoul, South Korea think North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is bluffing, but the question is “why?” Experts say Jong-un is in the process of consolidating power and planning to eliminate his rivals. NBC’s Richard Engel reports from Seoul, South Korea.
The U.S. Navy is shifting a guided-missile destroyer in the Pacific to waters off the Korean peninsula in the wake of ongoing rhetoric from North Korea, U.S. defense officials said.
The USS McCain is capable of intercepting and destroying a missile, should North Korea decide to fire one off, the officials said.
Still, U.S. defense officials insist that there is nothing to indicate that North Korea is on the verge of another launch.
North Korea fuels rocket as nation names Kim Jong Un top political official
[FoxNews.com]
Associated Press
Published April 11, 2012
April 10, 2012: In this photo North Korean guide Kim Won Ho, right, speaks to a foreign journalist near a photo depicting the 2009 satellite rocket launch at the Three Revolutions exhibition hall in Pyongyang, North Korea. (AP)PYONGYANG, North Korea – Defiant North Korea fueled up a rocket Wednesday in preparation for what appeared to be an imminent liftoff while the country’s young leader strengthened his power with a new title making him the nation’s top political official.Kim Jong Un was named first secretary of the ruling Workers’ Party, a new post, while his late father, longtime leader Kim Jong Il, was given the posthumous title of “eternal general secretary” at a special Workers’ Party conference, the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported.
Kim Jong Un’s formal ascension, nearly four months after the death of his father, comes during a week of events leading up to celebrations Sunday marking the 100th anniversary of the birth of his grandfather, late President Kim Il Sung.
North Korea vows to go ahead with planned rocket launch
[FoxNews.com]
Associated Press
Published March 18, 2012
Dec. 24, 2011: Kim Jong Un, center, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il’s youngest known son and successor, with military officials, stand in front of his father’s body displayed in a glass coffin, not in photo, at Kumsusan Memorial Palace in Pyongyang, North Korea.
PYONGYANG – North Korea says it will go ahead with plans to launch an observation satellite into space and that criticism of it is provocative.
North Korea said Friday it would launch the satellite on a rocket next month. The U.S., South Korea and Japan condemn the plan as a disguised test of military missiles because the same type of rocket is used to launch long-range missiles.
Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency said Sunday such criticism is a “sinister” provocation by “hostile forces.” It says North Korea has a right to peaceful development in space. The North says the hostile forces are “sadly mistaken” if they think it will cancel the launch plans.
Many are the Armies of Darkness [Reader Post]
In August 2011 the U.S. and Republic of Korea (ROK) held annual war games.
Below my hotel window on Yongsan army base, cabbies salute the dusk with glowing cigarettes. Their mismatched plaids make them perfect extras for a Caddyshack remake; not at all far-fetched in this golf crazed country. Above, Namsan Hill fills a quarter of the horizon, and Seoul Tower looks like a space age, aqua-blue flag stick on the back of a monstrous, terraced green. It’s a rare night without smog, so I walk the course.
It’s a brisk 45 minutes to the top. Dodging busloads of Japanese and Chinese women who come to Seoul to shop, I make it to the base of the tower.
From the observation deck looking west, the skyline undulates as if floating on frozen swells destined to never crest. To the south, apartments line the north bank of the Han River; a kilometer wide ribbon of fast water that bisects a city of twelve million souls, and a formidable obstacle to north-south movement, were it not for its twenty-seven bridges.
Obama Urges Hu to Pressure North Korea, Warns of Increased U.S. Military Presence
FoxNews.com
Published January 21, 2011
AP -Chinese President Hu Jintao speaks during a State Dinner hosted by President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama Jan. 19 at the White House.
President Obama has warned Chinese President Hu Jintao that the United States would be compelled to redeploy its military forces in Asia if China does not take a firmer stance against North Korea, a senior administration official confirmed to Fox News.
The president warned that, unless China steps in, the United States would need to increase its military presence to defend against a possible strike from the rogue North Korean regime. The New York Times first reported that Obama made the warning to Hu last month during a phone conversation and again on Tuesday during a White House dinner. This reportedly led China to apply the screws to its ally, opening up new defense talks between North and South Korea.
The Chinese president, after being the guest of honor at the state dinner Wednesday, is traveling Friday to Chicago. Hu’s visit has been met with both calls for increased economic cooperation and criticism of China’s human rights record and diplomatic dealings.
Stalled From The START
PersonalLiberty.com
December 28, 2010 by Ben Crystal
If there were any doubts as to President Barack Obama’s religious affiliations, then this past Wednesday ought to roast them like chestnuts in an open fire. With assistance from the more pliable Republican spines in the Senate, Obama handed the Russian military machine one whopper of a Christmas gift.
Carrying through on his campaign promise (for once), Obama managed to push the New START treaty through the just-ended lame-duck session of the Senate. To hear Obama and the treaty’s backers tell the tale, New START will ensure a lasting peace across the planet. However, a perusal of the treaty’s provisions reveals that peace remains far from guaranteed; and may have gotten a lot more expensive — for us.
According to Senator John Kerry:
“…we move the world a little out of the dark shadow of nuclear nightmare…”
Outside Chernobyl — to which nuclear nightmare might the distinguished gentleman from Massachusetts be referring? The reason huge swaths of the planetary rabble have never been subjected to a nuclear nightmare is that one nation — the United States — has been willing and able to invest in and maintain a deterrent arsenal.
Examination of New START calls to mind the warnings at some national parks: “Please don’t feed the bears.” In the case of the Russians, Obama has made what he considers a diplomatic gesture. The problem is that the Russians look at diplomatic gestures the way ursines look at roast beef sandwiches: “Nice sandwich. I wonder if we can get the whole arm.”
Obama’s Fantasy World – START Will Make Us Safer
FloppingAces.net
Posted by: Curt @ 4:57 pm, December 23, 2010
This START treaty is bad bad bad….for one very important reason. It reduces our ability to defend ourselves.
Ariel Cohen, a Senior Research Fellow in Russian and Eurasian Studies at The Heritage Foundation, notes that the Russians have repeatedly stated they have to right to back out of the treaty if the U.S. missile defense systems is deemed a threat to them.
When has it not been a threat?
This constraint on our missile defense system was the main reason this treaty should never have happened:
Washington has agreed to limitations on its ballistic-missile-defense options (something the administration’s representatives vehemently deny); ambiguous language on rail-mobile ballistic missiles; vague limitations on conventional global-strike systems and a significant degradation of the START verification regime from 1991. All these measures limit U.S. defense options not vis-à-vis Russia, but North Korea, China, and in the future, Iran; and provide the Russian Federation’s Strategic Rocket Forces with unfair advantages.
U.S. warned China: We won’t hold South Korea back if the North provokes again
HotAir.com
posted at 8:16 pm on December 23, 2010 by Allahpundit
That’s according to this report that was being passed around on Twitter earlier. In the spirit of the season, and since his vacation’s off to a, er, bad start, I’ll raise a glass of eggnog to The One for this.
The delegation that visited Beijing included Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg and Jeff Bader, senior director for Asian Affairs of the National Security Council. They were said to have delivered a “very tough message” to China. China is North Korea’s closest ally and has been under rising pressure from the U.S. to rein in the North after the shelling of Yeonpyeong Island on Nov. 22.
U.N. Security Council Tries to Diffuse Korea Tensions
FoxNews.com | Associated Press
Published December 19, 2010
AP
Dec. 19: A South Korean fishing boat sails by a South Korean navy facility and navy ship near Yeonpyeong island, South Korea.
UNITED NATIONS – World powers trying to defuse tensions between North and South Korea met in an emergency session of the U.N. Security Council on Sunday, but diplomats said China objects to the North being singled out for criticism over two deadly attacks this year that have helped send relations to their lowest point in decades.
China and Russia, the countries with the closest ties to North Korea, have expressed concern about the South Korean military’s plans to conduct one-day, live-fire drills by Tuesday on the same front-line island the North shelled last month as the South conducted a similar exercise.
The United States supports South Korea, a staunch ally, and says any country has a right to train for self-defense.
The North warned of a “catastrophe” if South Korea goes ahead with the drills. The reclusive communist government in Pyongyang said it would strike back harder than it did last month, when two South Korean marines and two civilians were killed on Yeonpyeong Island.
Lawmakers Call on Administration to Prosecute WikiLeaks, Designate as Terror Group
FoxNews.com
Published November 29, 2010
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is shown on Capitol Hill in Washington Nov. 17. (AP Photo)
A top Republican congressman is calling on the State Department to designate WikiLeaks a “foreign terrorist organization,” as he and several other lawmakers demand the Obama administration find a way to prosecute founder Julian Assange in the wake of the group’s latest document dump.
WikiLeaks’ weekend release of more than 250,000 classified State Department documents has outraged Washington officials. The spilling of secrets this time deals with a trove of candid diplomatic cables and other missives spanning everything from Pakistan to Iran to North Korea and could jeopardize the United States’ sensitive foreign policy dealings.
‘57 States’: Palin Fires Back on Facebook at MSM’s Gaffe Hypocrisy
TheBlaze.com
Posted on November 26, 2010 at 10:49am by 
Scott Baker
You would expect the liberal blogs to do it. And they did. They took a minor verbal gaffe by Sarah Palin and blew it up in big headlines. But then the MSM started to hit it too. We posted an AP report yesterday that did just that:
Sarah Palin is drawing criticism from around the world after declaring that the United States has to stand with “our North Korean allies.”
Palin’s gaffe, made Wednesday during an interview on Glenn Beck’s syndicated radio show, was quickly corrected by her host. But it drew immediate fire from liberal bloggers, who cited it as an example of the 2008 vice presidential candidate’s lack of foreign policy expertise.
Newspapers in Asia and Europe are repeating the criticism. The Times of India says Palin “did it again,” while London’s Daily Mail says she “may want to brush up on her geography.”
I was incredulous that they believed this to be a story. At the very end they had to begrudgingly acknowledge that it was clearly no big deal:
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