Category Archives: Koreas

IAEA says foreign expertise has brought Iran to threshold of nuclear capability

Posted on by

H/T Richard.

Nov 6 2011

Washington Post:

  By , Published: November 6

Intelligence provided to U.N. nuclear officials shows that Iran’s government has mastered the critical steps needed to build a nuclear weapon, receiving assistance from foreign scientists to overcome key technical hurdles, according to Western diplomats and nuclear experts briefed on the findings.

Documents and other records provide new details on the role played by a former Soviet weapons scientist who allegedly tutored Iranians over several years on building high-precision detonators of the kind used to trigger a nuclear chain reaction, the officials and experts said. Crucial technology linked to experts in Pakistan and North Korea also helped propel Iran to the threshold of nuclear capability, they added.

The officials, citing secret intelligence provided over several years to the International Atomic Energy Agency, said the records reinforce concerns that Iran continued to conduct weapons-related research after 2003 — when, U.S. intelligence agencies believe, Iranian leaders halted such experiments in response to international and domestic pressures.

The U.N. nuclear watchdog is due to release a report this week laying out its findings on Iran’s efforts to obtain sensitive nuclear technology. Fears that Iran could quickly build an atomic bomb if it chooses to has fueled anti-Iran rhetoric and new threats of military strikes. Some U.S. arms-control groups have cautioned against what they fear could be an overreaction to the report, saying there is still time to persuade Iran to change its behavior. Continue Reading →

Video of testimony by North Korean prison camp survivor

Posted on by

This is dedicated to the spoiled, lying, entitled and thieving, yes thieving because they make artificially high incomes and benefits for the jobs they do because they extort the money from the tax payer, CUPE workers who are at Occupy (city) ‘faux-tests’ claiming that Stephen Harper is as bad as Kim Jong Il and those like him.

Found at Brietbart and this video is a CBN production

NKorean Prison Camp Survivor: Starving Women Cooked & Ate Their Own Children

Posted on by

I post this for two reasons.

1. North Korea is the worlds biggest story that still goes untold. People just have no idea. And North Korea hires, or better put, forces people to be on internet chat rooms and forums and try and argue with and contradict the facts on the ground about North Korea. Look for them here in the comments within a few days written in fairly classic East Asian bad syntax.

2. Because of a spoiled, stupid, entitled, lefty colostomy bag ‘protesting’ at the Occupy Ottawa thing on behalf of the union of Postal workers, people who make more for doing less with better job security than pretty much any other unskilled worker in Canada, who claimed that Stephen Harper was worse than Kim Jong Il or at least as bad as him.

Below is part of the article. Please click the link below to see the whole thing.

From The Blaze.

Kim Hye Sook suffered unbearable pain and emotional suffering when she was detained for 28 years in a secretive North Korean concentration camp. Brutal executions, starvation — even mothers killing and eating their children to ensure their own survival — were regular occurrences.

Kim — who miraculously escaped from the Bukchang prison camp back in 2003 – granted CBN News with the first American television news interview to discuss these horrendous conditions. She now lives in South Korea, with the details of her escape remaining classified for security reasons. This summer, she released a memoir entitled, “A Concentration Camp Retold in Tears.”

When she was 13-year-old, her tragic tale began. The year was 1975 and in the blink of an eye the young girl was captured alongside her entire family. After years of suffering, she didn’t taste freedom until she was 41-years-old. Kim explains:

“My entire family went to prison. Some were taken to the mountains; others were put in different labor camps all because of my grandfather’s one mistake: he escaped to South Korea during the Korean War.”

Two women are watched by a North Korean guard (Photo Credit: AP)

Today, Kim wears dark glasses to ensure that her identity remains concealed. While she lost seven family members in the re-education camp, she currently has two sisters and a brother who are still imprisoned. She described a typical day at the camp:

“I attended indoctrination classes in the morning. In the afternoon the children were sent to push trolleys in the coal mines, often without any safety gear.

 

People were dying in the mines. There were numerous mine collapses, so many injuries, people who lost their legs, many who were buried alive. It was horrible.

North Korea, Iran, ‘Super EMP weapon’

Posted on by

From Front Page Magazine:

h/t Richard

The United Kingdom is accusing Iran of testing nuclear-capable ballistic missiles in violation of U.N. Resolution 1929. At the same time, North Korea is moving full speed ahead with its weapons programs. It is well-known that the two collaborate on their WMD efforts, and it must be assumed that any progress will be shared. Recent advances by the two members of the Axis of Evil show that the West’s strategy against them is failing to stop their pursuit of the world’s deadliest weapons.

Iran launched its second satellite into orbit this month, which “demonstrated Iranian engineers’ growing skill and contrasted with the repeated failures endured by North Korea in trying to place payloads into orbit.” The New York Times said the rocket did not resemble an intercontinental ballistic missile, but the technology is still related enough to raise concern that the space program has a hidden purpose. Iran has also announced that it is installing new, more advanced centrifuges to triple its production of enriched uranium.

The Iranians have made “dramatic progress” in their ballistic missile programs in the past year, carrying out three tests of nuclear-capable missiles in defiance of the United Nations. The International Atomic Energy Agency has confirmed that it possesses evidence that Iran has worked on developing a miniaturized nuclear warhead. It has also tested advanced short-range missiles that have been called a “game-changer” because of the threat they pose to aircraft carriers. Reza Kahlili, a former member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, reports that two nuclear-capable warheads with a range of 2,000 miles are now in the hands of the Revolutionary Guards. He said eight more are to be delivered within the next nine months.

Kahlili’s report does not necessarily mean that Iran has manufactured the actual nuclear warhead. However, the South Korean defense minister says North Korea may have successfully made a miniaturized nuclear warhead. The director of the Defense Intelligence Agency likewise says that North Korea may have several plutonium-based warheads. To make matters worse, Larry Niksch of the Center for Strategic and International Studies says that North Korea could have ICBMs capable of reaching the U.S. in 2012. If North Korea has overcome the obstacles to warhead creation, then that means it is in a position to help Iran do the same for a price.

Dr. Peter Vincent Pry, president of EMPact America, says that Western analysts erred in describing North Korea’s last nuclear test in May 2009 as a failure. He says that the U.S. expected North Korea to detonate an implosion device with the power of 10 to 20 kilotons. The explosion was only three kilotons strong, giving the impression that the device was defective. In reality, Dr. Pry says, North Korea was likely testing a “super-EMP” weapon, referring to an Electro-Magnetic Pulse that destroys electronic components for potentially hundreds of miles.

There is more over at the source, FPM:

 

WTF? Kim Jong-il appointed to UN Conference on Disarmament. Canada reacts.

Posted on by

Frankly, I think Trey Parker and Mat Stone really had it all figured out some time ago.

 

Is Canada’s denouncement of North Korean UN appointment enough?

korea-north_.jpg

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il waves upon his visit to the Songlin Steel Complex in North Korea, in this undated picture released by North Korea’s official news agency KCNA on April 25, 2011. Reuters/KCNA

Jun 30, 2011 – 6:12 PM ET

By Tobi Cohen

OTTAWA — Canada ought to go a step beyond simply denouncing the ironic appointment of North Korea to the United Nations Conference on Disarmament, a leading foreign policy expert said Thursday.

Fen Hampson, the director of Norman Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University in Ottawa, suggested Canada temporarily withdraw from the conference as a symbol of dissent.

Given North Korea’s track record on nuclear proliferation, at the very least Canada should launch an internal review of the conference which he described as a “Mad Hatter’s Tea Party” under the leadership of So Se Pyong.

“This is kind of beyond the pale,” Hampson said. “North Korea has clearly shown that it doesn’t play by the rules when it comes to arms control and the obligations of member states.” Continue Reading →

North Korean players struck by lightning, coach claims

Posted on by

From The Local

North Korea’s women’s football coach has claimed several players played in the opening 2-0 World Cup loss to the United States on Tuesday suffering from the effects of being struck by lightning at a training camp.

“Frankly speaking, when we were having training and test matches before we left for this tournament, five of the players were hit by lightning and were in hospital,” said coach Kim Kwang Min, through an interpreter in the post-game press conference. Continue Reading →

North Korea issues threat to South ahead of joint talks

Posted on by

From the BBC:

By Lucy Williamson BBC News, Seoul

South Korean officials and businessmen arrive at the inter-Korean transit office in Goseong, 170 km NE of Seoul, on June 29, 2011 to leave for Mount Kumgang Government and business representatives from South Korea gathered at the Mount Kumgang resort

North Korea has threatened to launch “a retaliatory sacred war” against its southern neighbour, as the two countries prepare to meet for talks.

Government and business representatives from South Korea are due to meet North Korean officials at the tourist site of Mount Kumgang.

The immediate aim is to discuss stalled tourism operations there.

Relations between the two countries have deteriorated since two fatal attacks on South Korea last year.

The tourist resort at Mount Kumgang, which was run by a South Korean company, has been suspended since a South Korean tourist was shot dead near the site three years ago.

North Korea, which is believed to be struggling economically, said recently it would seize South Korean assets at the resort if operations did not resume.

Target practice

North Korea has issued both an invitation and a threat to South Korea.

The invitation was to come and talk about a joint tourism project at Mount Kumgang in the North, which has been stalled since a dispute erupted three years ago.

South Korea sent a group of government officials and business people across the demarcation line between the two countries on Wednesday, to meet North Korean representatives and hear what they had to say.

As the talks were to begin, North Korean state media published comments from an unnamed spokesman, accusing soldiers in the South of using slogans that slandered North Korea’s army and dignity.

These actions, it said, were “little short of a declaration of war”.

A series of incidents recently have prompted similar rhetoric from the North, including the discovery that some South Korean army reserve units were using pictures of North Korea’s ruling family as target practice.

More at the BBC

 

N.Korea likely can miniaturize nuclear device: Seoul

Posted on by

ReutersBy Jack Kim | Reuters – 2 hours 6 minutes ago

SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea has probably succeeded in miniaturizing a nuclear device, South Korea’s defense minister said on Monday, an advance that would in theory allow the hermit state to place an atomic warhead on a rocket.

Regional powers have for years tried — with a mix of aid offers and punitive sanctions — in vain to stop Pyongyang pressing ahead with a nuclear weapons program it argues is a necessary defense against a hostile United States and South Korea with which it still has no peace treaty to formally end the 1950-53 Korean War.

Kim Kwan-jin offered no evidence to back his assertion but said the North had had enough time for such a development.

“It has been quite a while, enough time for them to have succeeded in miniaturization,” he told a parliamentary defense committee.

If true, it would mark a key advance in the North’s drive to develop a functioning nuclear weapon though that threat appears to be potential rather than actual. Continue Reading →

Joint Iran/NORK nuclear weapons test

Posted on by

The following post is from a former CIA agent who’s area of operations was Iran. I had the priveledge of speaking at length recently to someone who knows him fairly well. He correctly published information on the arrests of opposition leaders in Iran well before CNN or any major news source did. Now he predicts the following:

North Korea and Iran’s Joint Nuclear Bomb Test

On December 30 of 2010, I revealed in my article, “Is Iran About to Test a Nuclear Bomb In North Korea?” that according to reports from inside Iran, a team of Iranian nuclear scientists have been sent to North Korea and that the two governments have agreed to a joint nuclear test in North Korea with a substantial financial reward for the Kim Jong-Il government. Also, that in order to avoid a possible military reaction by the West, Iran is working covertly with North Korea until such a time they are capable of weaponizing their ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads.

Reports today in The Korean Times suggest that North Korea is preparing for its third nuclear bomb test by digging additional tunnels at the Musudan-ri Launch Facility. “It’s obvious that North Korea is preparing for a third nuclear test,” the source said on condition of anonymity, adding that multiple tunnels are being dug so that Pyongyang can choose the best one to conduct the test. The facility, located in Punggye-ri in the country’s northwest corner, is the site of the North’s previous tests in 2006 and 2009.

It is no secret that Iran and North Korea are collaborating in a ballistic missile program. The North Koreans provided Iran with the technology and know-how to build the Shahab-3 medium-range ballistic missile, which is a copy of the Nodong-1 missile. The Shahb-3 missile has a range of 2,000 kilometers (1,240 miles), which covers all of the U.S. military bases in the Middle East and the entire country of Israel.

Most alarming, recent WikiLeaks releases reveal that Iran obtained a cache of advanced missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads (based on a Russian design) from North Korea. Now, for the first time, Iran has the capability to target every capital in Western Europe.

Written by Reza Kahlili on February 22nd, 2011

Please click here for the rest of this important article:

Report: N. Korea digging tunnels for likely nuclear-test

Posted on by

h/t Richard.

updated 2/19/2011 11:51:59 PM ET 2011-02-20T04:51:59

SEOUL — North Korea is digging tunnels at a site where it has launched two nuclear tests, suggesting it is preparing a third, the South’s Yonhap news agency said on Sunday, a development which would trigger concern across the region.

Tensions rose on the divided peninsula when 46 sailors were killed in an attack in March on a South Korean naval vessel. North Korea, which has denied responsibility, shelled the southern island of Yeonpyeong in November, killing four people and sparking fears of possible all-out war.

The North was excavating several tunnels before picking the most suitable, Yonhap said, citing an unnamed South Korean government source.

“South Korean and U.S. intelligence authorities have spotted North Korea building several other underground mines at Punggye-ri where it had run two nuclear tests,” the unidentified source was quoted as saying.

“It is judged to be clear evidence of preparing for a third nuclear test.”

Military talks broke down between the two sides this month, dealing a setback to the resumption of six-party aid-for-disarmament negotiations, which North Korea walked out of over two years ago.

While the two sides are not talking, the risk of what both sides calls a “provocation” increases. Analysts have said acts of brinkmanship by the North could include military drills or attack, or the testing of a missile or nuclear device. Continue Reading →

STRATFOR: South Korea: Government Ordered To Resolve Issue Over Hijacked Freighter

Posted on by

January 16, 2011 Stratfor:

South Korean President Lee Myung Bak on Jan. 16 instructed his government to take all possible measures to resolve the hijacking of the Samho Jewelry, an 11,500-ton South Korean chemical freighter that was seized by Somali pirates in the Arabian Sea on Jan. 15, presidential aides said, Yonhap reported. The Samho Jewelry, carrying 21 crewmembers, was en route to Sri Lanka from the United Arab Emirates when it was hijacked in waters between Oman and India. The Choi Young, a 4,500-ton destroyer belonging to South Korea’s Cheonghae unit, has set sail toward the Samho Jewelry and is expected to reach the waters where it was hijacked within two days, according to sources in Seoul.

S. Korean military begins live-fire artillery drill near N. Korea

Posted on by

SEOUL, Dec. 20 (Yonhap) — South Korea on Monday fired artillery into waters near the western sea border with North Korea, an official said, amid Pyongyang’s threat to strike back if the drill goes ahead.

The drill began at around 2:30 p.m. from Yeonpyeong Island, with artillery rounds landing in a 40 kilometer-by-20 kilometer area south of the maritime border, an official at the South’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said.

F-15K fighter jets have scrambled and are on standby over the Yellow Sea, and about 10 naval ships, including an Aegis-equipped destroyer, have been deployed to the waters off the west coast, officials said.

“It won’t last long,” he said on condition of anonymity without providing details, such as how many artillery rounds were fired and whether North Korea shot back as it has warned.

North Korea used a similar firing exercise from the same island last month to justify launching a deadly artillery attack that killed four people, including two civilians, on the fishing village. It was the first time the North has shelled a civilian area since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War.

In the run-up to Monday’s drill, Pyongyang has warned that it will respond to the South’s artillery drill on Yeonpyeong Island with “unpredictable self-defensive blows,” sparking fears of a recurrence of last month’s deadly shelling.

Earlier in the day, officials said that the North’s military appeared to be making preparations for a counterattack, removing covers from coastal artillery guns and forward-deploying some artillery batteries, a military source said. Ahead of last month’s attack, the North had forward-deployed four artillery batteries and uncovered 14 coastal artillery guns.

“Our military would look into all possible countermeasures should North Korea provoke,” Seoul’s Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin said.
Continue Reading →

STRATFOR: SITREP North Korea prepares for war

Posted on by

From Stratfor:

November 27, 2010
North Korean workers departed the Russian town of Nakhodka following increased tensions on the Korean peninsula, Vladnews agency stated, The Independent reported Nov. 27. Traders left the kiosks and markets, workers abandoned building sites, and North Korean secret service employees working in the region have all departed the area, according to Vladnews.