tagged w/ North Korea
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* More Images at link as well as informational sources*
http://mybloggityblog.com/wordpress/2010/06/kim-jong-il-secret-4-billion-kingpin/
North Korean Dictator Kim Jong-il preaches to his people mass propaganda denouncing the west, its politics and the western world in general. Kim I’m sure does not mention his affection for Lincoln automobiles or American movies in these speeches and certainly fails to discuss his personal wealth estimated at over $4 billion. For a man who hates the western civilized world; he sure does love a lot of the amenities that come directly from it especially the United States.
Kim has a love for western cars and his collection is vast, just like his collection of 20,000 movies from all over the world (twice as many movies than an average Blockbuster store). Now Kim does not watch these films tucked away in some typical North Korean shack; oh no. He watches these movies and parks his cars in a very American-style luxury home (one of over a dozen homes) with his yacht parked out back. Did I mention that when Kim needs a ride through the countryside he does it on one of his luxury armored trains but that’s an article for another time.
In a country where masses are starving; especially during the winter months, Kim eats lavishly. Kim has a healthy appetite for gourmet pizza, minus anchovies of course, and it cannot be too salty. He also eats the customary rice, but it must be uniform in size and shape. Kim enjoys his fish as well but it must be sashimi and it must be carved while alive. Now of course a man who eats needs a drink. Kim’s wine cellar is no exception, and he has reportedly over 10,000 bottles to wash down his pizza.
Now with all of that grand eating Kim, like many, would become overweight. The leader knows this and of course goes to the extreme by having a sole institute in Pyongyang dedicated to his health. This lavish facility has the best doctors money can buy from around the world constantly assessing the health of the North Korean leader and his food intake. According to Seok Young Hwan; a physician who worked directly with Kim, over 200 professionals alone focus on Kim’s diet. All of this for a man who leads the world’s most impoverished country. But the question remains – in an impoverished country where does all of Kim’s wealth originate?
According to South Korean intelligence Kim can best be summed up as a hard-drinking playboy smitten with race cars and beautiful blonds. The juicy tidbits that filtered out read like a novel: that he was the world’s No. 1 customer for Hennessy cognac reportedly spending over $600,000 a year in the 1990s to fill his glass, that he and his cronies partied with female “pleasure teams,” that he was too incoherent to rule for long.
Kim is literally bleeding the wealth out of his citizens; and stuffing it all in his pockets but that isn’t how he’s amassed billions in personal wealth tucked away in foreign banks. His wealth is on the rise, and so is his collection of cars, homes, chefs, alcohol and anything that you would see on Rodeo Drive. The people continue to stand by and starve while giving everything to their leader who needs nothing. Kim preaches to the world and the United Nations cold war rhetoric yet he himself lives the life better than the President of the United States.
I’m sure by now you’re wondering; how does a leader in a country with no economy afford all of this? Well Kim and his family are the biggest drug dealers in all of Asia. They use their private jets and other UN protected cars and the like to import the drugs without being caught. Drug sales certainly do not account for all of his money, so what else is Kim doing? Kim is also one of the biggest arm’s dealers in all of Asia, reaping the sales of illegal firearms. His eldest son was detained in Japan for supposedly wanting to see Disney Land, however it has been widely suspected that he was there to negotiate a large drug deal. Beyond drugs and firearms the Kim family is also highly involved in illegal counterfeiting, gambling and the export of fake Viagra and reindeer antler (an Asian aphrodisiac). The man cannot live an honest life in-front of his people and the world and he certainly cannot make an honest buck.* More Images at link as well as informational sources*... more
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"Reporting from Beijing —
China formally protested on Tuesday that three of its citizens were killed and a fourth wounded by North Korean border guards who opened fire last week in an apparent attempt to crack down on smuggling.
The Chinese were from the border city of Dandong, site of the Friendship Bridge, across the Yalu River, commemorating China's support for the North during the Korean War. According to reports in the South Korean media, the Chinese were suspected of smuggling copper wire out of the North Korean city of Sinuiju, which is on the other side of the bridge. The reports said they were on a boat on the river when they were shot Friday.
"In the aftermath of the incident, China has paid a lot of attention to this issue and has made a formal diplomatic protest to North Korea," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said, reading an official statement at a regular news briefing in Beijing.
The incident comes in the midst of a furor over the March 26 sinking of a South Korean naval ship that killed 46 sailors. At least publicly, China has refused to take sides, angering South Korean and U.S. officials who say there is overwhelming evidence that an unprovoked North Korean torpedo attack caused the ship to go down.
The irony of China's protest over last week's shooting was not lost on South Korea.
"This time it is their citizens who are killed, and they show they are not so naive after all about North Korea," said Kim Tae Jin, a North Korean defector and human rights activist in Seoul. However, he applauded China's protest of the shooting. China needs to show North Korean leader Kim Jong Il "that he can't get away with whatever he wants," Kim said.
China's public protest is unusual in that relations between China and North Korea are normally shrouded in secrecy, to be discussed only in the politburos of the longtime communist allies.
"It is rare for China to publicly complain. Usually there is a private apology or money paid," said Kim Heung Gwang, a former North Korean college professor and head of Seoul-based North Korea Intellectuals Solidarity.
The stretch of the Yalu just south of Dandong is frequently trafficked by smugglers, some of them bringing North Korean-made drugs into China or banned Chinese products, such as DVDs or cellphones, into North Korea.
The North Korean government is especially strict about the export of copper, which has been looted from factories, electrical and telecommunications facilities by Northerners desperate for money. But the North's border guards do not normally shoot to kill — at least not when the smugglers are Chinese."
Read the full article in the link below:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-north-korea-shoot-20100609,0,3547123.story"Reporting from Beijing —
China formally protested on Tuesday that three... more
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WMR's intelligence sources in Asia suspect that the March attack on the South Korean Navy anti-submarine warfare (ASW) corvette, the Cheonan, was a false flag attack designed to appear as coming from North Korea.
One of the main purposes for increasing tensions on the Korean peninsula was to apply pressure on Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama to reverse course on moving the U.S. Marine Corps base off Okinawa. Hatoyama has admitted that the tensions over the sinking of the Cheonan played a large part in his decision to allow the U.S. Marines to remain on Okinawa. Hatoyama's decision has resulted in a split in the ruling center-left coalition government, a development welcome in Washington, with Mizuho Fukushima, the Social Democratic Party leader threatening to bolt the coalition over the Okinawa reversal.
The Cheonan was sunk near Baengnyeong Island, a westernmost spot that is far from the South Korean coast, but opposite the North Korean coast. The island is heavily militarized and within artillery fire range of North Korean coastal defenses, which lie across a narrow channel.
The Cheonan, an ASW corvette, was decked out with state-of-the-art sonar, plus it was operating in waters with extensive hydrophone sonar arrays and acoustic underwater sensors. There is no South Korean sonar or audio evidence of a torpedo, submarine or mini-sub in the area. Since there is next to no shipping in the channel, the sea was silent at the time of the sinking.
However, Baengnyeong Island hosts a joint US-South Korea military intelligence base and the US Navy SEALS operate out of the base. In addition, four U.S. Navy ships were in the area, part of the joint U.S-South Korean Exercise Foal Eagle, during the sinking of the Cheonan. An investigation of the suspect torpedo's metallic and chemical fingerprints show it to be of German manufacture. There are suspicions that the US Navy SEALS maintains a sampling of European torpedoes for sake of plausible deniability for false flag attacks. Also, Berlin does not sell torpedoes to North Korea, however, Germany does maintain a close joint submarine and submarine weapons development program with Israel.
The presence of the USNS Salvor, one of the participants in Foal Eagle, so close to Baengnyeong Island during the sinking of the South Korean corvette also raises questions.
The Salvor, a civilian Navy salvage ship, which participated in mine laying activities for the Thai Marines in the Gulf of Thailand in 2006, was present near the time of the blast with a complement of 12 deep sea divers.
Beijing, satisfied with North Korea's Kim Jong Il's claim of innocence after a hurried train trip from Pyongyang to Beijing, suspects the U.S. Navy's role in the Cheonan's sinking, with particular suspicion on the role of the Salvor. The suspicions are as follows:
1. The Salvor engaged in a seabed mine-installation operation, in other words, attaching horizontally fired anti-submarine mines on the sea floor in the channel.
2. The Salvor was doing routine inspection and maintenance on seabed mines, and put them into an electronic active mode (hair trigger release) as part of the inspection program.
3. A SEALS diver attached a magnetic mine to the Cheonan, as part of a covert program aimed at influencing public opinion in South Korea, Japan and China.
The Korean peninsula tensions have conveniently overshadowed all other agenda items on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's visits to Beijing and Seoul.
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_5930.shtmlWMR's intelligence sources in Asia suspect that the March attack on the South... more
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Apparently for China when push comes to shove, they run away; as they do not want to side with anyone on the ever more dangerous Korea issue.Apparently for China when push comes to shove, they run away; as they do not want to... more
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The people gathered on the front lawn of Seoul City Hall were chomping at the bit to fight North Korea, eager to retaliate for the March 26 sinking of a South Korean warship.
They shook their fists, waved their paper South Korean flags and cheered in a thunderous roar as a speaker called for action to "knock off the mastermind, Kim Jong Il."
But where the spirit was willing, the body was perhaps less able. The crowd at the anti-North Korea rally on Thursday was made up almost entirely of people in their 60s and 70s. There were wizened veterans in full-dress uniform, their medals sparkling from sunken chests, retirees hobbling on crutches and canes.
Barely 100 yards away, in a Starbucks, some younger South Koreans were oblivious to the clamor for revenge.
"There's a demonstration going on? Really, I hadn't heard," said Kim Hyeong-seon, a 26-year-old law student who was hunkered over his MacBook and an expresso Frappuccino. "I don't think my generation is too interested in North Korea."
The competing reactions to the sinking of the warship Cheonan, which killed 46 sailors, slip easily into the twin currents of South Korea's political divide. One stream sees the event as the nation's 9/11, a shocking reminder of the unpredictable danger posed by North Korea that requires an end to any business-as-usual coddling of Kim Jong Il's regime. It's a view shared in Washington. During a visit to Seoul on Wednesday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called the attack an "unacceptable provocation" for which "the international community has a responsibility and a duty to respond."
But other South Koreans — generally younger and another generation removed from the horrors of the 1950-53 Korean War — see the Cheonan incident in less threatening terms. They contend that for all its bluster, North Korea is not an existential threat to their country. And they are suspicious of the motives of a conservative government they regard as descendants of the military regimes that ruled South Korea before it became a democracy in the 1980s.
"The government is lying," said a 17-year-old high school student, Kim Da-yeon, wearing a Beatles T-shirt over her plaid school uniform, as her friends nodded with enthusiasm.
The girls had stumbled on the demonstration in front of City Hall on a day off from school and picked Korean flags, but they said in unison that they didn't agree with the anti-North Korean sentiment. "The North Koreans are our friends, our family," they said. "We don't want to fight them."
The divide in public opinion is evident in the lack of widespread passion for a showdown with North Korea. Thursday's demonstration in the capital drew a relatively small crowd of 10,000 people, and other gatherings have been insipid by South Korea's normally raucous standards. By comparison, demonstrations in 2008 over the government's decision to import U.S. beef they feared was infected with mad cow disease brought crowds of up to 60,000 people into the streets — for weeks.
"My friends don't take this [Cheonan] issue very seriously," said Kim Hae-young, 30, one of the youngest people at Thursday's demonstration. Although she was holding an anti-North Korea banner, she acknowledged that she had come only because she worked for a nongovernment organization of veterans that was in attendance. "It's only because of my job that I'm here."
.....more at linkThe people gathered on the front lawn of Seoul City Hall were chomping at the bit to... more
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This is a great objective report on the sinking of the ROKS Cheonan--no fluff, just a fact-based intel report on the ship's history, the incident, rescue/salvage efforts, and a little backgrounder.
The above is a picture of the corvette itself.
http://www.militaryfactory.com/ships/detail.asp?ship_id=ROKS-Cheonan-PCC772This is a great objective report on the sinking of the ROKS Cheonan--no fluff, just a... more
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Gunmen kidnapped two American tourists in Yemen. They’ve apparently just been released. But who goes “touring” in Yemen? Did they not hear about this dude named Anwar Al-Awlaki, who is behind many recent Islamic terrorist attacks and attempted attacks on U.S. soil. His call to kill Americans might be a hint: Don’t. Go. To. Yemen. Dummies. These people are idiots. And I bet they’re either Muslims, themselves, or really, really delusional left-wingers who still see world-class armpits like Yemen as “exotic” locales for touring, and still romanticize Islam (while they hate all other religions except Buddhism). “Oh, look, Amber. Check out those charming headscarves. How quaint. Ditto for that ornate beheading knife, which I’m sure is only used on sheep.”
Then, there are Shane Bauer, Sarah Shourd, and Josh Fattal–the three faux-journalists stuck in jail in Iran. The three are really pan-Islamist, anti-Israel far-lefties living in Damascus, Syria. One of them, Fattal, is supposedly Jewish. What kind of dumbass Jew from America goes hiking in Iran? Only an imbecile-owitz. Fattal and the other two knew better. If they’re living in the torturistan of the Assads (Syria), they knew full well not to go “hiking” in Iran. But they did anyway. Now, Iran and the mothers of these three Islamo-pandering stooges are pushing a “prisoner exchange deal” with the U.S. The Sarkozy idiots in France just did one, last week, releasing an Iranian arms dealer and refusing to extradite him to the U.S. for his criminal nuclear parts purchases (on behalf of Iran), in exchange for some far left French academic who went to Iran (another “tourist” who should have been left to rot there).
And finally, there are Laura Ling and her sister, Lisa Ling. They’ve written a book about Laura Ling’s imprisonment in North Korea. Who told her to go there? If you go to Kim Jong-Il’s antithesis of Wonka World, you know what to expect. You’re gonna be imprisoned and tortured. She chose to go. But, instead of saying: you went at your own risk and you knew the consequences, so there’s nothing we can do, the U.S. did biz with Kim. Bill Clinton was interrupted from his position as Chief Justice of the Hawaiian Tropic bikini contest to negotiate and rescue these two faux-heroines. Now Laura and Lisa Ling’s book is all the rage on Oprah (for whom Lisa Ling reports regular propaganda), People Magazine, and everywhere else.
My favorite headline is the People Magazine blare: “ESCAPE FROM NORTH KOREA.” Um, here’s a tip, People: no one escaped. The U.S. State Department and Bill Clinton repeatedly cajoled and posed to get these two spoiled, whiny women out of North Korea.Gunmen kidnapped two American tourists in Yemen. They’ve apparently just been... more
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"Reporting from Beijing A defiant North Korea said late Tuesday that it would sever all ties with South Korea, cut off communications and expel workers from a jointly run industrial park in a bellicose response to the South's efforts to seek redress for the sinking of one of its ships.
Although South Korea has said it will not retaliate with force, instead seeking sanctions before the U.N. Security Council, Pyongyang earlier in the day accused Seoul of making a "deliberate provocation aimed to spark off another military conflict."
In Beijing, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the United States stood firmly behind South Korea and urged China to join in condemning North Korea's behavior, as Beijing did last year when the North tested a nuclear weapon.
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"We expect to be working together with China in responding to North Korea's provocative action, and promoting stability in the region," said Clinton at the conclusion of two days of talks with Chinese officials that were supposed to concentrate on economics, but ended up being overshadowed by the Korean crisis.
Clinton flies Wednesday to Seoul for meetings with Japanese and South Korean officials. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao is also headed to Seoul to meet Friday with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak.
After Clinton's meetings with the Chinese, U.S. officials could claim no progress in convincing Beijing to support U.N. deliberations on North Korea's alleged attack, but said talks would at least continue.
Philip J. Crowley, the chief State Department spokesman, said North Korea's decision to sever ties with the South was "odd," given the potential benefits to the impoverished state of stronger ties to its wealthier neighbor.
The South Korean naval vessel Cheonan was on patrol in the Yellow Sea on March 26 when an explosion ripped apart the hull, killing 46 crew members. Investigators last week declared what was already widely believed in South Korea: that the sinking was the result of an attack by a North Korean torpedo.
The Chinese already have signaled their reluctance to punish North Korea, infuriating both the South Koreans and the Americans.
"It is disgusting the way the Chinese just sit on their hands and do nothing. This backward and clumsy behavior is not fitting their supposed place as the predominant power in Asia," said Victor Cha, a former National Security Council Asia director now at a Washington think tank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
China's cooperation is important because it can block or water down any U.N. resolution by virtue of its permanent seat on the Security Council and because virtually everything North Korea imports or exports has to cross China's borders.
North Korea shows no signs of flinching in what is increasingly a battle of nerves with South Korea.
Pyongyang issued a flurry of threats during the day. It accused South Korea of dispatching "dozens" of warships across the maritime border and said that it would "put into force practical military measures to defend its waters.'"
North Korea said it had given permission for its soldiers to shoot at South Korean loudspeakers — a response to an announcement Monday that Seoul would resume broadcasting propaganda across the demilitarized zone that divides the peninsula.
The strongest measure, announced late in the day, was the severing of all relations and communications with South Korea. As a practical matter, that would mean closing an industrial park in Kaesong, just north of the DMZ, which was once the showcase for cooperation between the Koreas. More than half a century after the 1950-53 Korean War, there is still no telephone or postal service between the countries.
The threats looked like a tried-and-true North Korean maneuver — escalating the tensions to remind South Korea how vulnerable its economy is to any hint of renewed conflict on the peninsula. The Korean won dropped to its lowest level in 10 months and stocks throughout Asia sunk in part on fears of war.
"The North Koreans have an advantage here in that the South Koreans have a greater fear of war,'' said Scott Snyder, an Asia Foundation expert who co-wrote a book about North Korea's negotiating behavior.
Although the South Korean public is outraged about the sinking of the ship, it has no appetite for a military response to the North."
Read the full article in the link below:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-koreas-20100526,0,7545974.story"Reporting from Beijing A defiant North Korea said late Tuesday that it would... more
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North Korea declared Tuesday that it would sever all communication and relations with Seoul as punishment for blaming the North for the sinking of a South Korean warship two months ago.
North Korea also announced it would expel all South Korean government officials working at a joint industrial park in the northern border town of Kaesong, the official Korean Central News Agency said in a dispatch monitored in Seoul late Tuesday.
Tensions were rising on the divided Korean peninsula in the wake of an investigation report blaming North Korea for a torpedo attack that sank the Cheonan warship on March 26, killing 46 South Korean sailors.
South Korea's military restarted psychological warfare operations – including blaring radio broadcasts into the North and placing loudspeakers at the border to blast out propaganda – to punish the North for the provocation. The South is also slashing trade and denying permission to North Korean cargo ships to pass through South Korean waters.
North Korea struck back by declaring it would cut all ties with the South until President Lee Myung-bak leaves office in early 2013. South Korean ships and airliners will be banned from passing through its territory and the North will start "all-out counterattacks" against the South's psychological warfare, the North's Committee for the Peaceful Reunification said in a statement carried by KCNA.
The North's committee called the moves "the first phase" of punitive measures against South Korea, suggesting more action could follow.
South Korea's Unification Ministry said it had no immediate comment on the North Korean statement. However, spokeswoman Lee Jong-joo noted the statement referred only to eight South Korean officials staying at the Kaesong complex, not some 800 South Korean company managers and workers.
Yonhap news agency said that suggested the North had no intention of completely shutting down the Kaesong park, as South Korea also decided to keep the complex intact.
Earlier, one Seoul-based monitoring agency reported that North Korea's leader ordered its 1.2 million-member military to get ready for combat. South Korean officials could not immediately confirm the report.
The North flatly denies involvement in the sinking of the Cheonan, one of the South's worst military disasters since the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice, and has warned that retaliation would mean war. It has threatened to destroy any propaganda facilities installed at the heavily militarized border.
A team of international investigators, however, concluded last week that a torpedo from a North Korean submarine tore apart the Cheonan.
North Korea is already subject to various U.N.-backed sanctions following earlier nuclear and missile tests, and the steps announced by Seoul were seen as among the strongest it could take short of military action.
The U.S. has thrown its full support behind South Korea's moves and they are planning two major military exercises off the Korean peninsula in a display of force intended to deter future aggression by North Korea, the White House said. The U.S. has 28,500 troops in South Korea.
South Korea also wants to bring North Korea before the U.N. Security Council over the sinking. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Monday he expects the council to take action against North Korea, but China – North Korea's main ally and a veto-wielding council member – has so far done little but urge calm on all sides.
In Beijing, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said she had "very productive and very detailed" discussions with Chinese officials but could not say if any progress had been made in convincing the Chinese to back U.N. action.
"No one is more concerned about peace and stability in this region as the Chinese," she told reporters. "We know this is a shared responsibility, and in the days ahead we will work with the international community and our Chinese colleagues to fashion an effective, appropriate response."
Chinese State Counselor Dai Bingguo, speaking at a news conference with Clinton, called for "relevant parties" to "calmly and properly handle the issue and avoid escalation of tension."
As part of its propaganda offensive, South Korea's military resumed radio broadcasts airing Western music, news and comparisons between the South and North Korean political and economic situation late Monday, according to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The military also planned to launch propaganda leaflets by balloon and other methods on Tuesday night to inform North Koreans about the ship sinking.
In coming weeks, South Korea also will install dozens of loudspeakers and towering electronic billboards along the heavily armed land border to send messages urging communist soldiers to defect to the South.
On Tuesday, North Korean state media cited the powerful National Defense Commission as saying the North's soldiers and reservists were bracing to launch a "sacred war" against South Korea.
The North's military also claimed Tuesday that dozens of South Korean navy ships violated the countries' disputed western sea border earlier this month and threatened to take "practical" military measures in response.
North Korea often issues fiery rhetoric and regularly vows to wage war against South Korea and the U.S. It put its army on high alert following a November sea battle with South Korea near where the Cheonan went down in March. The Koreas also fought bloody maritime skirmishes in the disputed area in 1999 and 2002.
Seoul-based North Korea Intellectuals Solidarity said Tuesday that North Korean leader Kim Jong Il last week ordered his military to get ready for combat.
The group, citing unidentified sources in North Korea, said the order was read by Gen. O Kuk Ryol, a Kim confidant, and broadcast on speakers installed in each house and at major public sites throughout the country last Thursday, hours after the multinational report blaming North Korea for the sinking was issued in Seoul.
The South Korean military said it had no indication of unusual activity by North Korea's military.North Korea declared Tuesday that it would sever all communication and relations with... more
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What I wrote on April 23. Our military intelligence already knew about North Korea firing on that boat...What I wrote on April 23. Our military intelligence already knew about North Korea... more
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Is the U.S. wasting it's time in diplomatic talks with China if this is how they are going to continue to treat North Korea? I am confused.....Is the U.S. wasting it's time in diplomatic talks with China if this is how they... more
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"BEIJING — In the best of times, Chinese foreign-affairs scholars here say, Beijing grits its teeth while playing best friend to Kim Jong-il, North Korea’s ailing and erratic 68-year-old leader. South Korea’s charge last week that North Korea sank one of its warships, killing 46 crewmen, makes that role exponentially harder.
With Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and about 200 other American officials here for high-level security and economic talks, Chinese leaders face two unpalatable options. One is to mollify North Korea, and risk undermining its efforts to persuade Washington, South Korea and Japan that China is a stabilizing force in east Asia.
The other is to join those nations and the United Nations Security Council in condemning North Korea for the attack, which North Korea denies, and risk a wholly unpredictable response from a volatile neighbor.
So far, China has sought to straddle the two, saying only that both Koreas should show restraint in the midst of a brewing crisis. But Mrs. Clinton, who has publicly cited “overwhelming” evidence that North Korea torpedoed the South Korean corvette, the Cheonan, is pressing Chinese officials to take an unequivocal stance. South Korea, which China has assiduously courted as a major trading partner and diplomatic friend, is making the same case.
The incident has reignited much the same debate that took place last year, after North Korea test-fired a long-range missile in April and conducted an underground nuclear test less than two months later. After balking at first, China eventually agreed to a unanimous Security Council resolution condemning the nuclear test and tightening existing sanctions.
The United States, Japan and South Korea are uniting behind a similarly strong response this time. South Korea is expected to ask the United Nations Security Council on Monday to condemn the sinking of the 1,200-ton warship, which it says caused one of the largest losses of military personnel since the end of the Korean war. Mrs. Clinton is pushing Beijing to back it.
“The North Koreans will be more easily dissuaded from further attacks like this if they don’t get cover from China, “ said Michael J. Green, an Asia specialist with the Center for International Studies in Washington. “So it absolutely critical to Korea and the United States that China send that signal.”
But in discussions that began Sunday, China was resisting, and it has been skeptical of the claim that the North was responsible for sinking the ship. Scholars say such misgivings are typical when China is asked to side against North Korea.
“There’s not much more that can be done to sanction North Korea,” said Shen Jiru, a strategic studies expert at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing. “China basically feels that sanctions or other tough measures only serve to escalate conflict with North Korea, and others tend to agree.”
Still, a small but influential group of Chinese scholars insist that accommodating North Korea has not worked, and China needs to take a new and tougher tack."
Read the full article in the link below:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/24/world/asia/24china.html?partner=rss&emc=rss"BEIJING — In the best of times, Chinese foreign-affairs scholars here say,... more
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"(Reuters) - The United Nations Command (UNC) has launched an investigation into whether North Korea violated the Korean War armistice by sinking one of the South's naval ships, the U.N. body said on Saturday.North Korea denounced the probe as a "bogus mechanism."
On Thursday, the South announced the results of an investigation which concluded a North Korean submarine had in March fired a torpedo that sank the Cheonan corvette, killing 46 sailors.
The UNC said in a statement it had convened a special team to review the findings of the investigation and to "determine the scope of the armistice violation" that occurred with the sinking of the Cheonan.
The team, which includes 11 countries -- Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, New Zealand, the Republic of Korea, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States, Sweden and Switzerland -- would report their findings to the United Nations, it added.
North Korea has denied the sinking accusation and said it is ready to tear up all agreements with the South, with which it remains technically at war under a truce that ended fighting in the 1950-53 Korean War."
North Korea has also made threats towards the Southern part of the Peninsula. Threatening war should any sanctions be put into place against the DPRK (North Korea)
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE64L1AG20100522"(Reuters) - The United Nations Command (UNC) has launched an investigation into... more
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TOKYO – U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday the evidence is "overwhelming" that a North Korean submarine sank a South Korean warship and the communist country must face international consequences.
Speaking in Tokyo at the outset of a three-nation Asian trip, Clinton said the U.S., Japan, South Korea and China are consulting on an appropriate reaction after an international investigation blamed North Korea for the deadly attack.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100521/ap_on_re_as/as_clinton_asiaTOKYO – U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday the evidence... more
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North Korea has threatened “all out war” if there is any retalation from Seoul for the torpedo attack which sank the South Korean warship Cheonan in March.
Pyongyang made the threat as it dismissed as ‘fabrication’ a report by an international team of investigators which concludes that a torpedo fired by a North Korean submarine was responsible for the explosion that ripped the 1,200 tonne corvette in two, killing 46 sailors in one of South Korea’s worst naval tragedies.
In an escalating war of words, President Lee Myung-Bak, the South Korean president vowed to take “resolute counter-measures” against North Korea for the torpedo attack on the Cheonan, which happened near the disputed border between the two countries.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article7131533.eceNorth Korea has threatened “all out war” if there is any retalation from... more
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Journalist Laura Ling provides harrowing details of how she and producer Euna Lee were apprehended and held in North Korea while on assignment covering human trafficking in Asia. Personal accounts, letters and never-before-seen footage from Ling, Lee and producer Mitch Koss reveal the team's experiences at the center of a widely publicized international standoff.
"Vanguard," airing weekly on Current TV Wednesdays at 10/9c, is a no-limits documentary series whose award-winning correspondents put themselves in extraordinary situations to immerse viewers in global issues that have a large social significance. Unlike sound-bite driven reporting, the show's correspondents, Adam Yamaguchi, Kaj Larsen, Christof Putzel and Mariana van Zeller, serve as trusted guides who take viewers on in-depth real life adventures in pursuit of some of the world's most important stories.
For more Vanguard, visit http://current.com/vanguard.Journalist Laura Ling provides harrowing details of how she and producer Euna Lee were... more
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An investigation, conducted by US, Australian, British, Swedish and South Korean experts, concluded that the South Korean Naval warship, the Cheonan, was sunk by a North Korean torpedo, shot from a submarine.
Forty-six sailors were killed when the Cheonan sunk on March 26.An investigation, conducted by US, Australian, British, Swedish and South Korean... more
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In this special Vanguard episode journalist Laura Ling revealed details about the human trafficking story she and producer Euna Lee were investigating before being apprehended and then held in North Korea.
What was your reaction to hearing their story?
http://current.com/shows/vanguard/team/laura-ling/In this special Vanguard episode journalist Laura Ling revealed details about the... more
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