SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korea's military believes a torpedo fired from a North Korean submarine sank its navy ship last month, based on intelligence gathered jointly with the United States, a news report said on Thursday.

The Yonhap news report appears to be the clearest sign yet that Seoul blames Pyongyang for what would be one of the deadliest incidents between the rivals since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War. It puts more political pressure on President Lee Myung-bak, but analysts do not see it triggering a war.

The military's intelligence arm sent the report of "certain" North Korean involvement to the presidential Blue House soon after the incident, Yonhap quoted a high-ranking military source as saying.

Lee's government has come under criticism for what many see as its overly cautious handling of possible links to North Korea. It has called for a thorough investigation of the sinking, thought to have killed 46 sailors.

Market players have been calmed by the South's measured response, seeing Seoul as unlikely to take aggressive moves that would escalate into armed conflict and harm the export-driven economies of North Asia, responsible for about one-sixth of the global economy.

South Korea's defense ministry had no comment on the report.

"North Korean submarines are all armed with heavy torpedoes with 200 kg (441 lb) warheads," the military source was quoted as saying by Yonhap. "It is the military intelligence's assessment that the North attacked with a heavy torpedo.

"The military intelligence has made the report to the Blue House and to the Defense Ministry immediately after the sinking of the Cheonan that it is clearly the work of North Korea's military," the source was quoted as saying.

South Korea plans to soon raise the front half of the 1,200-tonne Cheonan, which went down near a disputed sea border with North Korea, and will issue its verdict on the cause of the explosion that sank the warship after that.

Analysts said there is little South Korea can do even if Pyongyang is found to be the culprit, because a military response was likely to hurt its own quickly recovering economy and bolster North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's standing at home.

Lee ended a decade of no-questions-asked aid to the destitute North and called for a hardline push for Pyongyang to disarm.

"The nuclear issue has still not been resolved. This and the Cheonan incident all serve to inflict a negative impact on the Lee administration," said Lee Nam-young, a political analyst at the Sejong University in Seoul.

The reclusive North has denied it had anything to do with the sinking near the disputed sea border off the west coast that has been the scene of two deadly naval battles in the past decade.

It accused Lee of using the incident for political gains ahead of crucial local elections in June.

South Korea has few economic options left to hurt the North. It has already suspended its unconditional handouts that once were worth more than $1 billion to the North, which has an estimated yearly GDP of $17 billion.

The greatest risk to the region is a brief armed conflict where North Korea fires tens of thousands of artillery shells into the Seoul area, home to about half of the South's 49 million people, and fires its hundreds of missiles at major cites in the South and Japan.

Yonhap said the South Korean and U.S. military suspected the North was stepping up drills to infiltrate a submarine south of the naval border, hidden among Chinese fishing boats, and wage a surprise attack against the South.

Why Did
North Korea Do It?

— By Kevin Drum

Wed May. 26, 2010

 

I haven't been posting about the North Korean situation, but I've been following it with considerable interest ever since the start. And the biggest question all along has been: Why? Even by North Korean standards, torpedoing a South Korean ship is nuts. What on earth were they thinking? In the Financial Times today, Christian Oliver runs down the theories:

1. Revenge
2. To smooth the succession
3. An internal power struggle
4. A reversion to hardline ideology
5. Breakdown of command in North Korea
6. To distract from economic woes at home
7. Bitterness about G20 meeting in Seoul

I have to say that I find all of these unsatisfactory, and I haven't read anything better anywhere else. It's just weird as hell. Even granted that North Korea acts like a mental case much of the time, this doesn't make sense. There's simply nothing good that can conceivably come out of this incident from their point of view.

So: my guess is that it was an accident. Or perhaps some combination of #3 and #5, a rogue commander who fired the shot because of some kind of chaos in the chain of command. Then, once the deed was done, we got all the usual North Korean bluster and delusion that we've come to know and loathe over the past few decades.

And then there's another obvious question: just how long is China willing to put up with all this? Sharon LaFraniere had a pretty good rundown of the Chinese dilemma a few days ago in the New York Times, and their unwillingness to put serious pressure on North Korea mostly seems to come down to a combination of inertia and a fear of massive refugee flows across the border if North Korea collapses. This, again, is something I've never quite bought: refugee flows can be managed with international help, and in any case they wouldn't be any kind of existential threat to China. Propping up North Korea hardly seems to be in China's self-interest any longer, and if that's the case I'll bet they eventually overcome their inertia and decide that the refugee problem can be managed after all. The only question is just how long "eventually" is.



http://motherjones.com/ke...hy-did-north-korea-do-it

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il (C) visits the Namheung Youth Chemistry Combination Company in North Korea in this picture released by North Korea's official news agency KCNA June 7, 2010.

Kim Jong-il consolidates power

By Jack Kim Jack Kim – Mon Jun 7, 2010.

South Korea's President Lee Myung-bak, left, hands out citations to foreign veterans during a ceremony marking the 60th anniversary of the outbreak of the Korean War, at a gymnasium in Seoul, South Korea Friday, June 25, 2010.

By KELLY OLSEN, Associated Press Writer

SEOUL, South Korea – The two Koreas commemorated the 60th anniversary Friday of the outbreak of the Korean War, promoting vastly different views of the origins of the conflict that still divides their peninsula.

The war started in the early hours of June 25, 1950, with an attack by North Korean troops. The Korean peninsula had been divided in 1945 after colonial ruler Japan's defeat in World War II.

The United States and 15 other countries sent troops to aid South Korea under the fledgling United Nations, while Chinese soldiers came in to fight with the North and the Soviet Union provided air support and advisers. Three years of combat devastated both sides. The fighting ended with an armistice, not a permanent peace treaty, leaving the peninsula in a technical state of war.

In Seoul, South Korea held an official ceremony to remember the war, widely known as "6/25" for the date it began. President Lee Myung-bak presented plaques of appreciation to representatives of countries that sent soldiers or supplies to aid the war effort.

"Sixty years ago today, North Korea's communists opened fire on all fronts of the 38th parallel on a weekend's dawn when all people were sleeping peacefully," Lee said in a speech. The gathering was attended by South Korean and foreign veterans of the conflict, foreign ambassadors and serving South Korean and U.S. soldiers. The U.S. stations about 28,500 troops in South Korea as a deterrent against North Korea.

North Korea's view of the conflict, which it calls the Fatherland Liberation War, is vastly different. Under the headline "U.S., Provoker of Korean War," the country's state news agency on Tuesday accused Washington of starting the war with a surprise attack.

"All the historical facts show that it is the U.S. imperialists who unleashed the war in Korea and that the United States can never escape from the responsibility," the Korean Central News Agency said.

On Thursday, KCNA followed up with a massive 4,300-word article listing damage done by the United States to North Korea since 1945.

KCNA cited the "Committee for Investigation into Damage Done by the U.S. to the Northern Half of Korea" as finding the total monetary cost for North Korean suffering came to a staggering $65 trillion. That amount is five times the U.S. national debt of about $13 trillion.

A commemorative rally was expected to take place Friday in Pyongyang's Kim Il Sung Square, named after North Korea's founder and wartime leader who died in 1994.

The mood surrounding the 60th anniversary is far different than during the 50th in June 2000, which came just days after the conclusion of the first-ever summit between the Koreas.

This time relations are tense following the sinking of a South Korean warship in March off the west coast of the peninsula near waters contested by the two countries.

South Korea and the United States accuse North Korea of firing a torpedo to sink the 1,200-ton Cheonan, killing 46 sailors. North Korea denies any role in the sinking and has vowed war if it is punished.

Lee used the occasion of the anniversary to urge Pyongyang to own up to the sinking.

"North Korea should clearly and frankly admit and apologize for its wrongdoing over its provocation," Lee said. He called on the country to assume a responsible attitude in the international community.

At a separate ceremony at the War Memorial of Korea in Seoul, the commander of U.S. and U.N. forces in South Korea issued a warning to Pyongyang.

"The North Korean leadership must know that further provocations will be dealt with swiftly and decisively," Gen. Walter Sharp said in a speech.

China, which remains North Korea's closest ally, called the war an event of the past and emphasized it maintains good relations with both Koreas.

"History is already history," Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang told reporters Thursday, adding the war "has taught us to cherish the hard-won peace and tranquility and stability."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/a...s_korean_war_anniversary

North Korea threatens to launch
'immediate physical strikes' as South Korea
stages anti-submarine drills off coast

By Mail Foreign Service

28th May 2010

Feuding between South and North Korea heightened yesterday as the South carried out a major naval exercise.

A fleet of ten warships fired guns and dropped anti-submarine bombs - despite the North's warnings that drills will drive the peninsula to the brink of war.

Tension between the two has risen dramatically since investigators said last week that a torpedo fired by a North submarine sank a South warship on March 26, killing 46 sailors.

Tensions: A South Korean soldier hits an effigy of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il during a rally in Seoul

The country's military said in a statement released by the official Korean Central News Agency: 'Immediate physical strikes will be launched against any South Korean ships that intrude into North Korean waters.'

It said it will also start a review to possibly ban South Korean personnel and vehicles from entering a joint industrial park in Kaesong - the last remaining major inter-Korean reconciliation project.

The military said the measures are its first-phase reaction to 'the reckless moves of the group of traitors and confrontation maniacs'.

A South Korean defence ministry official said the country would 'resolutely' deal with its neighbour's measures.

Defiant: South Korean sailors manning the guns on a warship during 2nd Fleet training

Drills: The South Korean navy has been carrying out anti-submarine exercises off the coast, despite warnings from the north

It said it will scrap an accord aimed at preventing accidental naval clashes with South Korea.

The South is planning two joint military drills with the U.S. by July in a display of force intended to deter aggression by the North.

Russia, which maintains ties with the North , has issued repeated calls for calm and restraint from both sides.

Anger: More than 10,000 protesters gather at a rally today after the sinking of a South Korean warship in March

The two Koreas are still technically at war because their 1950-53 conflict ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty.

As a result of the Korean War, the U.S. stations 28,500 troops in South Korea.

The JoongAng Ilbo newspaper, citing a Seoul official, reported that the South Korean and U.S. combined forces raised its surveillance level - known as Watch Condition - up a level from three to two. Level one is the highest.

North Korean Major General Pak Chan Su said: 'We will never tolerate the slightest provocations of our enemies, and will answer to that with all-out war.

'This is the firm standpoint of our People's Army.'

http://www.dailymail.co.u...orea-threatens-physical-
strikes-South-Korea-stages-anti-submarine-drills.html?ito=feeds-newsxml#ixzz0uZknEdgD

By JIM GOMEZ, Associated Press Writer

HANOI, Vietnam – North Korea threatened Saturday to mount a powerful nuclear response to upcoming joint U.S.-South Korean military drills, calling the exercises an "unpardonable" provocation on top of wrongly blaming Pyongyang for the sinking of a South Korean warship.

North Korea's powerful National Defense Commission, led by leader Kim Jong Il, warned that its troops would counter the move to hold military maneuvers involving a nuclear-armed U.S. supercarrier with a "retaliatory sacred war."

"The army and people of the DPRK will legitimately counter with their powerful nuclear deterrence the largest-ever nuclear war exercises to be staged by the U.S. and the south Korean puppet forces," North Korea's official news agency in Pyongyang quoted an unnamed commission spokesman as saying, referring to the country by its official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

Pyongyang routinely threatens war when South Korea and the U.S. hold joint military drills, which North Korea sees as a rehearsal for an attack on the North. The U.S. keeps 28,500 troops in the South to deter against aggression, but says it has not intention of invading the North.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and South Korean Defense Minister Kim Tae-young announced earlier this week in Seoul that the allies would stage a massive four-day military show of force starting Sunday to send a "clear message" to North Korea to stop its aggressive behavior.

Washington and Seoul blame Pyongyang for the deadly sinking of a South Korean warship in the waters off Korea's west coast. Forty-six sailors were killed in what Seoul calls the worst military attack on South Korea since the 1950-53 Korean War.

North Korea vehemently denies any involvement, and has warned that any punishment would trigger war.

In Vietnam for a Southeast Asian regional security forum, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and a North Korean official traded barbs over the sinking, the military drills and the imposition of new U.S. sanctions against the North.

Also Friday, the U.S.-led military command monitoring the cease-fire on the Korean peninsula confronted the North about the March 26 sinking of the Cheonan, calling it a violation of the armistice signed in 1953. Colonels from the U.N. Command, who met at the border with counterparts from the North's army, reminded them of the U.N. Security Council order to honor the truce. Officers also proposed a joint task force to discuss armistice violations, the military commission said in a statement.

A team of international investigators concluded in May that a North Korean submarine fired the torpedo that sank the Cheonan. The U.N. Security Council approved a presidential statement this month condemning the sinking, but did not directly blame Pyongyang.

The U.N. Command, however, blames North Korea and considers the sinking a violation of the cease-fire, a command official said Friday, speaking on condition of anonymity because the results of the command's own investigation have not been released.

At the Association of Southeast Asian Nations meeting in Hanoi, North Korean spokesman Ri Tong Il repeated Pyongyang's denial of responsibility for the sinking. He said the upcoming military drills — to be conducted in the Sea of Japan off Korea's east coast and in the Yellow Sea closer to China's shores — were a violation of its sovereignty that harkened back to the days of 19th-century "gunboat diplomacy."

The exercises will be "another expression of hostile policy against" North Korea. "There will be physical response against the threat imposed by the United States militarily," Ri told reporters.

Clinton responded by saying the U.S. is willing to meet and negotiate with the North, but that this type of threat only heightens tensions. She added that progress in the short term seems unlikely.

"It is distressing when North Korea continues its threats and causes so much anxiety among its neighbors and the larger region," she told reporters. "But we will demonstrate once again with our military exercises ... that the United States stands in firm support of the defense of South Korea and we will continue to do so."

Shortly before Ri spoke, Clinton had lashed out against belligerent acts by the North, warning Pyongyang must reverse a "campaign of provocative, dangerous behavior" if it wants improved relations with its neighbors and the United States.

She said stability in the region, particularly on the Korean peninsula, depends in large part on persuading an "isolated and belligerent" North Korea to alter course and return to nuclear disarmament talks which it pulled out of last year.

Members of the U.S. and North Korean delegations did not meet at the annual ASEAN Regional Forum, which has in the past been a venue for talks between the two sides. The 27-member bloc — 10 members of ASEAN and countries with major interests in the area like the U.S., China, Japan, North and South Korea and Russia — expressed "deep concern" over the Cheonan's sinking in a joint statement, a weakened version of an earlier ASEAN statement.

On Wednesday, Clinton announced in the South Korean capital that the U.S. would slap new sanctions on the North to stifle its nuclear ambitions and punish it for the ship sinking. The penalties will target the country's elite by taking aim at illicit activities, such as counterfeiting cigarettes and cash and money laundering.

On Friday, the European Union said it will also consider imposing new sanctions on the North.

In addition to North Korea's behavior and its nuclear program, Clinton raised concerns about potential atomic collaboration between the North and Myanmar, also known as Burma, which is restricted by U.N. agreements.

Numerous reports in past months have suggested that Myanmar's military rulers are attempting to develop nuclear weapons with North Korean help.

Clinton lambasted Myanmar for its dismal human rights record and called on its military junta to hold free and fair elections this year and release political prisoners, including Nobel Peace laureate and democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi.

Clinton's comments on Myanmar echoed those of previous U.S. administrations, but they come as President Barack Obama has made a push for expanded engagement with Southeast Asia.

In an indication of increased involvement, Clinton said "the United States has a national interest" in resolving conflicting claims over the Spratly and Paracel island chains in the South China Sea, particularly between China and Vietnam.

She said the disputes interfere with maritime commerce, hamper access to international waters in the area and undermine the U.N. law of the sea.

Her remarks are likely to anger China, which asserts sovereignty over the whole South China Sea, but Clinton said the U.S. did not support any country's sovereignty over the islands. She said the U.S. is willing to work with the all the parties, including Vietnam, Taiwan, Malaysia, Brunei, and the Philippines, to help negotiate an end to the disputes.



http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100724/ap_on_re_as/as_asean;_

By SANGWON YOON

SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea appears to have added Facebook to the social networking sites it recently joined to ramp up its propaganda war against South Korea and the U.S.

The account opened late Thursday under the Korean username "uriminzokkiri," meaning "on our own as a nation," an official at South Korea's Communications Standards Commission said Friday.

The account opened hours after the commission blocked North Korea's 1-week-old Twitter account from being accessed in the South for containing information that is illegal under South Korean security laws, the official said.

North Korea's government-run website, Uriminzokkiri, announced last week that it has a Twitter account and a YouTube channel created in July.

The Twitter account, under the name uriminzok ("our nation" in Korean), gained more than 8,500 followers in a week though it posted just 30 tweets linking to reports praising North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and lambasting South Korea and the U.S. over ongoing joint military drills.

Uriminzok has "content that praises, promotes and glorifies" North Korea that was confirmed to be "illegal information" under South Korea's National Security Law, a commission statement said Thursday. The commission said it has no immediate plan to block the North's YouTube channel.

A South Korean government warning saying "Illegal content" pops up when an attempt is made to access the Twitter account in South Korea.

Commission official Han Myung-ho said the new Facebook account could be subject to the same fate.

"We are aware of the Facebook account and the police and the National Intelligence Service are currently investigating the site to verify whether it is indeed run by the North Korean government," Han said Friday.

"If we find that this Facebook account also carries content violating the National Security Law, we will do our duty of shutting it down as well."

The Facebook account, which describes itself as male, says it is interested in men and is looking for networking. The account had 50 friends as of Friday.

Its profile picture is of the Three Charters for National Reunification Memorial Tower, a 100-foot (30-meter) monument in Pyongyang that "reflects the strong will of the 70 million Korean people to achieve the reunification of the country with their concerted effort," according to the official Korean Central News Agency.

The Facebook account calls itself "a page representing the intentions of North and South Koreas and compatriots abroad, who wish for peace, prosperity, and unification of our homeland."

There were over 50 posts on Uriminzokkiri's wall, including links to reports that criticize South Korea and the U.S. as "warmongers," photos of picturesque North Korean landscapes, and a YouTube video of a dance performance celebrating leader Kim Jong Il, "guardian of the homeland and creator of happiness."

More than 130 videos have been uploaded to North Korea's YouTube channel, including clips that condemn and mock South Korea and the U.S. for blaming North Korea for the sinking of a South Korean warship in March. The North has insisted it had nothing to do with the sinking, which killed 46 South Korean sailors.

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said Tuesday that the U.S. welcomed North Korea to the social media forums but challenged its authoritarian leaders to allow its citizens full access to the sites.

Crowley tweeted on Friday, "North Korea has joined Facebook, but will it allow its citizens to belong? What is Facebook without friends?"

North Korea, one of the world's most secretive countries, blocks Internet access for all but the elite among its 24 million citizens but is believed to have a keen interest in information technology.

The official North Korean Uriminzokkiri website, run by the North's Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland, has been blocked in South Korea alongside 64 other North Korean-run and pro-North Korean websites, says Shim Joo-hyung, a spokeswoman for the standards commission.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/a...hi_te/as_nkorea_facebook