swine flu, skirmishes with North Korea, etc...

So, my school has closed its doors until Friday. 3 days off mid week. I'm certainly not complaining.
I wonder though how affective this is. A couple of students got the flu and the result is the school closing. So what happens if a couple more students end up with the flu next week or the following week or such? Do we close the school again? Korea has free flu shots for school children (grade 1 and up, but not kindergarten age because it is not part of mandatory education) that will be given in public schools across the country. The parents can opt out of having their child immunized if they want. Any children younger than that can be taken to family doctors for their shots. Public school teachers are next on the list (or at the same time?) for the shots. Foreigners have to wait, or so I've been told. I figure all of the hagwons should provide shots for the teachers. Why not? We see just as many kids as the regular teachers!
In an attempt to make kids remember to wash their hands and be careful, I think some parents are telling their children that if you get the flu, you will definitely die. I've been told that by several students. Interesting. I then explain to the kids that no, getting the flu doesn't mean you will die. Some will just not understand my explanations, though, or accept them if they do, since it's all in English, a foreign language to them, and of course, if it contradicts what their mommy tells them, what are they to believe? I suppose they will learn soon enough since all of them will at some point encounter someone who has had it, or will catch it themselves.
Today there was a bit of a fight between North and South Korean ships to the west. Sounds almost the same as the one that happened my first year in Korea, in 2002. A North Korean ship crossed the Northern Limit Line, that is the internationally agreed upon demarcation line in the Yellow Sea. North Korea doesn't agree with NLL and so every now and then crosses it. The incident in 2002 was a bit more serious, though, as it involved 2 North Korean ships, one of which was on fire on its way back up, and a South Korean ship sank as it was being towed back to shore. Several South Koreans died during the skirmish. I didn't really hear much about it, though, other than the first couple of reports.
There have been other incidents as well.
I wonder how much attention this newest fight will get with all of the attention being put on the swine flu.

ummm.

Scary?

N Korea 'will turn South to ash'
MONDAY, MARCH 31, 2008 Al Jazeera
North Korea has threatened to turn its southern neighbour to "ashes" after South Korea's military chief said he would conduct a pre-emptive strike if the North tried to carry out a nuclear attack.
The warning is the latest outburst in an escalating war of words since South Korea's new president took office last month pledging a tougher line on relations with the North.
An unidentified military commentator was quoted as saying in the North's official Korean Central News Agency: "Our military will not sit idle until warmongers launch a pre-emptive strike.
"Everything will be in ashes, not just a sea of fire, once our advanced pre-emptive strike begins."
The warning comes as a South Korean newspaper said on Monday that North Korean fighter jets had been testing South Korean nerves by flying close to southern air space.
The report in the Chosun Ilbo newspaper said South Korean fighters had been scrambled at least 10 times in the past month in response to near incursions.
Last week, Kim Tae-young, the chairman of South Korea's joint chiefs of staff, told a parliamentary hearing that the military would strike a suspected North Korean nuclear weapons site if it believed the North was about to launch a nuclear attack.
In reports on state television on Monday North Korea's military said Kim's remarks would be seen as "tantamount to a declaration of war" if Seoul did not apologise.
North Korea has become increasingly angry over the tougher line taken by Lee Myung-bak, the South Korean president, since assuming office last month.
Lee's predecessors had sent billions of dollars in aid to the North, getting little in return, according to critics.
But the new president has said that if Pyongyang wants to keep receiving aid, it should improve its human rights record, abide by an international nuclear disarmament deal and start returning the more than 1,000 South Koreans captured or held since the 1950-53 Korean war.
The war ended in a truce rather than a peace treaty, leaving the two sides still technically at war.
Its latest comments come just before parliamentary elections next week in South Korea that could strengthen Lee's hand if conservative allies win control of the legislature.
The North has made similar statements in the past, usually in response to joint South Korean-US military drills. In 1994, a North Korean official threatened to turn Seoul into a "sea of fire".
Its comments also came ahead of a visit to South Korea by the chief US negotiator in stalled North Korean nuclear disarmament talks.
Christopher Hill was due to arrive in Seoul on Tuesday to speak at a forum and talk with South Korean officials.
On Thursday North Korea expelled South Koreans working at a joint factory park in the North after South Korea said it would hold off expanding the joint industrial zone until the dispute over Pyongyang's nuclear programmes was resolved.
The Kaeson industrial park, located on North Korean territory, had been hailed as a model of economic co-operation,
South Korea's defence ministry has said it will consider whether to send a response to the North over its demand for a retraction of Kim's pre-emptive strike statement.
A senior officer at the defence ministry said officials were working "to ensure the public would not worry about" the North's recent actions and statements, but did not elaborate.

and

North Korea warn of pre-emptive nuclear strike against neighbour
Leo Lewis In Tokyo March 31, 2008
An escalating war of words across the world’s last Cold War, nuclear-armed border spiraled dramatically yesterday when North Korea threatened to wreak total destruction on its neighbour to the south.
“Our military will not sit idle until warmongers launch a pre-emptive strike,” the official news agency in Pyongyang reported a senior military commander as saing, “everything will be in ashes, not just a sea of fire, if our advanced pre-emptive strike once begins.”
The threat was among the most direct and bellicose statements from Pyongyang since North Korea test-fired an atomic device in late 2006. International efforts since then to persuade the country’s enigmatic dictator, Kim Jong il, to abandon his weapons programme have repeatedly stalled.
The threat also marked a fourth day of rapidly deteriorating relations on the Korean peninsula, which remains technically still at war despite more than 50 years of often uncomfortable armistice.
The two countries – the prosperous, modern South and the unpredictable Stalinist Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) – continue to glare at one another across the world’s most heavily armed border.
A note sent by a North Korean military delegation to its South Korean counterpart on Saturday, said that “these outbursts are the gravest challenge ever in the history of the inter-Korean relations and a reckless provocation little short of a war declaration against the DPRK.”
Sunday’s warning followed remarks in Seoul earlier in the weekend in which the head of South Korea’s military vowed to conduct a pre-emptive strike on the suspected North Korean nuclear weapons site if Pyongyang tried to attack with atomic weapons.
The office of the chairman of the South’s joint chiefs of staff later explained that it was a statement of general principles, rather than a hint that the South was planning any unprovoked attack on the North. Pyongyang said that it would suspend all cross-border dialogue unless the remarks were withdrawn and an apology issued.
Although the communist regime of Kim Jong Il has regularly used this form of extreme language in the past, long-term North Korea experts said that its renewed appearance of the past few days should be treated with some caution.
The row, which has already seen 11 South Korean officials expelled from a joint economic “friendship” zone by the North, is thought to be a test by Pyongyang of the mettle of the new president in Seoul.
On Friday the DPRK test-fired a salvo of short-range missiles, reprising an act that has traditionally provoked outrage in Seoul and placed South Korean leaderships under immense domestic strain.
Lee Myung Bak was elected to the South Korean presidency in December last year on promises of a stronger economy. But he made little secret that his view towards North Korea and Kim Jong il would be far less conciliatory than his predecessor’s.
His response to the current escalation of tensions will be closely scrutinised on both sides of the demilitarized zone that splits the peninsula.
In addition to the deeper conflict over Pyongyang’s atomic weapons programme, the most recent row has ignited an argument over a line in the Yellow Sea that has never been recognised by North Korea: officials in Pyongyang said on Friday that “armed conflict may break out at any moment” over the boundary.

China might move in on North Korea!??

This doesn't sound so good, but I suppose it kinda sounds like something the US has in its plans for North Korea and other such countries on their list.

China 'plans to send troops into North Korea'
By Richard Spencer in Beijing Last Updated: 2:10am GMT 10/01/2008
China is planning to send troops into North Korea to restore order and secure its nuclear arsenal in the event of the regime’s collapse.
According to a new report, Beijing would send in the People’s Liberation Army if it felt threatened by a rapid breakdown in Kim Jong-il’s rule over the country.
China would seek to win the backing of the United Nations first, but would be prepared to act unilaterally if necessary.
“If the international community did not react in a timely manner as the internal order in North Korea deteriorated rapidly, China would seek to take the initiative in restoring stability,” said the report by two Washington think-tanks.
Based on extensive interviews conducted in China, including with PLA academics, the report’s findings back up previous indications of China’s major change in attitude to Kim Jong-il after the North Korean nuclear test of October 2006, and also demonstrate its willingness to assert itself in international affairs.
Separately, Beijing today announced its ambitions in space for the coming year, including the launch of 15 rockets and 17 satellites as well as its first space walk.
According to PLA academics quoted by the report, which was written by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies and the US Institute of Peace, the army has three “missions” in a failing North Korea.
One would be humanitarian — to deal with refugees or the consequences of natural disaster.
The second is peacekeeping and maintaining order, and the third requires it to deal with contamination from a military strike on North Korea’s nuclear facilities, and to secure nuclear weapons and materials to prevent them getting into the “wrong hands”.
The report said that there were disagreements among its sources as to whether China still wished to preserve its “special relationship” with North Korea, the only country with which it has a formal, mutual defence alliance.
But they agreed that Beijing would neither intervene to replace Kim Jong-il, nor to prevent him being replaced by others.
The Chinese government’s prime concern was stability, though there was thought to be no immediate danger of a breakdown.
China’s foreign ministry spokesman said she had “no knowledge” of the plan, but did not deny its existence.
Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations at Beijing’s People’s University, said the plan might have been drawn up when the North Korean regime was under greater pressure than now.
It was still unclear how it would react in future, though. “China, as with other powers, is a little confused about this,” he said.

by the end of the year...

South Korea will withdraw its troops from Afghanistan, and North Korea will disarm its nuclear program.

Peace Dam

[photo from Ibike Korea People-to-People Program at www.ibike.org]

'Peace Dam' symbolizes divide between North, South Korea
By Choe Sang-hun NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE, HWACHEON, SOUTH KOREA Sunday, Sep 02, 2007, Page 9
'After South Korea rushed to complete the first phase of the Peace Dam in time for the 1988 Olympics, it became clear that Seoul had misjudged the North's intention.'
In 1986, as South Korea was busy preparing for its largest ever international event -- the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul -- North Korean soldiers broke ground on a gigantic dam just above the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ).
As South Koreans wondered what their unpredictable communist neighbors were up to, the military dictator of South Korea, Chun Doo-hwan, offered his own terrifying possibility: a killer flood.
In response to the so-called water-bomb scare, South Korean television networks broadcast artists' conceptions of monstrous walls of water unleashed by the North Korean dam, wiping out most of Seoul, 190km downstream, with the impact of a nuclear explosion during the Olympics.
So South Korea built a dam of its own. Even schoolchildren joined the fundraising campaign to construct a protective bulwark against the threat.
Today, South Korea's "Peace Dam" -- begun in 1987, abandoned halfway through as a misguided Cold War scheme, then revived and completed in 2005 -- stands here, a 125m-high, 1,970m-wide rock and concrete hulk. There is no reservoir; the dam's only function is to contain a possible deluge, by accident or design, from North Korea's Imnam Dam, 35km up the northern tributary of the Han River.
"Like the two Koreas, the two dams are twin brothers, born at the same time, facing each other across the DMZ," said Lee Tae-ik, an official at Korea Water Resources, which maintains the South Korean dam.
"The Peace Dam is an inevitable child of a divided nation," he said.
The Peace Dam is a US$429 million monument to the politics on the divided peninsula -- its massive wall evocative of the challenge South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun faces at a three-day summit meeting between the nations' leaders from Oct.2 to Oct. 4 in Pyongyang. At the meeting, Roh plans to urge North Korean leader Kim Jong-il to scale down the tension and mistrust along the 240km border in return for economic incentives.
In few places is the South Korean desire for peace, and the sometimes surreal manifestations of inter-Korean hostility, on better display than here in Hwacheon.
"With 24,000 civilians versus 36,000 soldiers, we are the most `military intensive' county in South Korea," said Choi Moon-soon, a Hwacheon official. "People here are very anti-communist."
Here in Hwacheon, suspicion of North Korea is etched both into the landscape, which is dotted with minefields and tank traps and monuments built at some of the Korean War's bloodiest battle sites, and in the minds of residents, who remember when North Korean commandos crossed the border in 1992, killing three South Korean soldiers and eluding manhunts before escaping back to the North.
A few kilometers northwest of the Peace Dam, an asphalt road, hacked into hillsides so remote that local residents claim to have sighted supposedly extinct tigers, winds past military outposts carrying slogans like "If we fight, we will win" before coming to a dead end at the southern boundary of the DMZ.
There, the South Korean army's Seven Star Guard Post looms atop a mist-shrouded hill, part of the nearly 2-million-strong military forces on both sides of the border prepared to resume the war that was suspended with a cease-fire in 1953.
When the war halted, the two sides agreed to create a demilitarized zone 4km wide. But at Seven Star, the DMZ is only one-fifth that, the result of the armies inching in over the years to get a better vantage point against their adversaries.
"If the enemy comes within 50 meters of the borderline at the center of DMZ, we broadcast a warning three times," Captain Kwon Seong-ho said. "The moment the enemy steps on the borderline, we fire warning shots. The moment the enemy crosses it, we are licensed to kill."
Here the temperature soars to 36℃ in summer and plunges to minus 36℃ in winter. Off-duty soldiers play a form of soccer with a ball attached to a rope.
As Kwon explained, they don't want to wade into a minefield to retrieve a ball.
Even along this time-frozen frontier, there are abundant signs of how the two sides have diverged after decades of pursuing different ideologies and policies. The South Korean barracks are outfitted with satellite TV, karaoke machines and showers. At night, the fence on South Korea's side is lighted, while the energy-starved North Korean side sinks into darkness.
After the first summit meeting between the Koreas, in 2000, former South Korean president Kim Dae-jung declared that there would be "no more war" in Korea, beginning an unprecedented mood of reconciliation.
But two years later, in the middle of the World Cup soccer finals, which took place in South Korea and Japan, the North and South Korean navies engaged in a bloody skirmish on their disputed western sea border.
After South Korea rushed to complete the first phase of the Peace Dam in time for the 1988 Olympics, it became clear that Seoul had misjudged the North's intentions.
The so-called water offensive never came. North Korea used the Imnam Dam to reroute water to a hydroelectric power plant on its east coast.
In 1993, government auditors concluded that Chun had exaggerated the dam's threat to mute political discontent at home.
The Peace Dam became a symbol of Cold War hysteria.
Then, in early 2002, only months before the World Cup finals, satellite pictures showed cracks in the clumsily built North Korean dam.
"It was terrifying when, out of the blue, a huge wall of muddy water and chunks of ice tumbled down from the North," Choi said.
The North repaired its dam. But South Korea resumed construction on its own dam and finished it in 2005.
When the North-South summit meeting was announced, the mayor of Hwacheon, Chung Kap-chol, wrote to Kim urging that the two sides address a growing water dispute between the two Koreas.
Imnam Dam has reduced water inflow in the Han River by 12 percent, threatening its ecosystem and contributing to water shortages in the Seoul metropolitan area.
Some suggest that South Korea shut the Peace Dam's four sluice gates, to fill up a reservoir for drinking water. But this could cause flooding on the North Korean side. The Peace Dam, like its Northern counterpart, could be a potent weapon.
"Once peace finally comes to Korea, the Peace Dam will function like a normal dam," a public relations video at a Peace Dam museum says. "Until then, the Peace Dam stands here, silently suffering the burden of national division."

Peace Dam Protects South Korea (you can see a Google sattelite images of the dam at this site or here)
S. Korea completes 'Peace Dam' to block flood attack from North (Special to World Tribune.com Thursday, October 27, 2005)

the Northern Limit Line - South vs North

I remember the skirmish. It was during my first year in Korea. They didn't make a big deal about it here. It was on the news, of course, but it was over as fast as it began. I was told that basically, a fight broke out between a South Korean ship and a North Korean ship. Korean friends told me that the South Korean ship was sunk, or something like that, and the North Korean ship was towed off in flames (I don't think it was that drastic).

North Limit Line
A June 29, 2002, skirmish between Northern and Southern ships killed four South Koreans here. The fight broke out after two Northern patrol vessels accompanying fishing boats crossed this maritime border and one opened fire after ignoring warnings to retreat, South Korean officials said. North Korea, however, accused Southern boats of provoking the battle by entering communist territory.
North Korea has never accepted the Northern Limit Line, which was drawn up by the U.S.-led U.N. Command to avert possible clashes after the armistice that ended the 1950-53 Korean War. The communist nation wants the sea border to be moved further south, which would allow it access to rich crab and fishing waters. [CBSNews.com]

Sea Border Hot Issue at Koreas Summit
By JAE-SOON CHANG The Associated Press Wednesday, August 29, 2007; 5:25 AM
SEOUL, South Korea -- Half a dozen South Korean sailors died in a gunbattle with North Korea five years ago defending what Seoul's top minister on relations with Pyongyang now suggests could be changed: the sea border between the Koreas.
Unification Minister Lee Jae-joung's suggestion earlier this month left the country badly divided ahead of a rare summit with the North _ stoking conservatives' anger that is already simmering over allegations that simply holding the meeting itself is yet another capitulation to North Korean leader Kim Jong Il by the liberal government.
At issue is how to view the disputed western sea border and how to react if Kim raises it at his October talks with President Roh Moo-hyun in Pyongyang, as many analysts predict.
The two Koreas have yet to agree on their sea border more than 50 years after the end of their 1950-53 war. Instead, they rely on a line that the then-commander of U.N. forces, which fought for the South, drew unilaterally at the end of the conflict.
Conservatives in South Korea have long considered the Northern Limit Line, or NLL, an unquestionable sea border. But liberals have increasingly viewed it as a major source of military tension on the divided peninsula, and an obstacle impeding true reconciliation with Pyongyang.
The division came to the fore when Lee said earlier this month that he believed the sea border was not formally set, and that the nation should "reflect on" a 2002 naval skirmish with the North in terms of how best to maintain security.
His point was that the NLL's main purpose is to prevent maritime clashes and, therefore, if the line itself is a source of tension, the country should reconsider how it is demarcated _ an argument unacceptable to conservatives who view the NLL as something to be defended at any cost.
Further enraging them was Lee's choice of a Korean word to mean "reflect." The word, "banseong," could also mean "repentance," which gave the impression that Lee suggested South Korea was wrong to defend the border in the 2002 clash that left six South Korean soldiers dead and 18 others wounded.
"Our young heroes, who died glorious deaths while trying to safeguard the NLL, would be weeping in heaven," said Na Kyung-won, spokeswoman of the opposition Grand National Party.
Among those shocked was even South Korea's defense chief.
"I can't understand it either," Defense Minister Kim Jang-soo was widely reported in local media as saying in response to Lee's comments. Kim's ministry refused to confirm the remark, out of apparent concern it may publicize the row with the Unification Ministry.
It has been considered a near taboo in South Korea even to suggest having talks with the North on the sea border issue.
However, Lee and other ministry officials have openly called for flexibility on the issue recently, prompting suspicions in the media that the government is trying to soften an expected backlash it would draw from the public if it discusses the matter at the summit.
The president's office has given no clear-cut answer on whether the issue would be discussed at the summit, only saying: "The NLL is a de-facto maritime borderline that we have defended for the past 50 years."
The country's main opposition party, mass-circulation newspapers and other conservatives demand the government promise not to put the matter on the summit agenda.
The two Koreas agreed in a 1992 pact to continue talks to demarcate the sea border while respecting the NLL until a new border is set.
South Korea has rebuffed the North's demand for sea border talks so far, saying it can discuss the issue only after the two sides take substantial military confidence-building measures.
Liberal analysts say Seoul cannot leave the issue unresolved any longer if it wants to pursue further reconciliation with Pyongyang.
"This issue has become a key to overall South-North relations," said Kim Geun-shik, a North Korea expert at South Korea's Kyungnam University. "We need to at least discuss it with North Korea to find a compromise."
Conservatives argue the South Korea must remain firm.
"Why don't we then pull back the land border by about 100 kilometers? That would make North Korea very pleased," one military official quipped, speaking on condition of anonymity citing the issue's sensitivity.

hypocrites

They are saying the SOUTH is violating basic rights??????? I'd say they have nothing to say about that issue unless they take a good look at their own country. Just a tad hypocritical, don't you think???

N.Korea says South's Web ban violates freedom
North Korea said on Friday the South Korean government was violating the public's basic right to information by blocking access to Web sites sympathetic to the North.
South Korea has denied access to more than 30 Web sites that it has designated "pro-North Korea" since 2004, including the North's official KCNA news agency's Web service and sites operated outside.
"This is a fascist action against democracy and human rights as it infringes upon the South Koreans' freedom of speech and deprives them of even their right to enjoy the civilization offered by the IT age," the North's official Rodong Sinmun newspaper said.
"The above-said actions are as rude as blindfolding people's eyes and stopping their ears and mouths," Rodong Sinmun said in a commentary carried by KCNA news agency.
The ban showed South Korea was against reconciliation with the North, the newspaper said.
South Korea's unification ministry said earlier this month that it had no plans to lift the ban.
Most North Koreans have limited or no access to computers let alone the Internet, refugees from the North and human rights activists in Seoul have said.
South Korea is one of the world's most wired countries. Three-quarters of the population have access to the Internet.
[ScientificAmerican.com]

They "CLAIM" to have it.

N. Korea May Have Anti-Bird Flu Vaccine
North Korea has claimed it developed a poultry vaccine against the deadly H5N1 type of bird flu and is inoculating chickens as part of stepped-up efforts to prevent the disease following outbreaks in South Korea.
"The production of H5N1 vaccine locally developed recently in our country is increased and the compulsory vaccination of it to whole poultry flocks is being done," said Ri Kyong Gun, director of the North's Veterinary and Anti-Epidemic Department, in an interview with AP Television News in Pyongyang.
Ri did not say when the vaccine was developed or how effective it is.
[Forbes.Com]

Carter Says...

Carter Says Claim That North Korea Cheated Is `False' (Update1)
By Judy Mathewson
Nov. 3 (Bloomberg) -- The Bush administration claim that North Korea cheated or reneged on a 1994 agreement with the U.S. to freeze its nuclear program is "completely false and ridiculous,'' former U.S. President Jimmy Carter said.
Carter, a Democrat who helped broker the agreement with the North Koreans on behalf of then-President Bill Clinton, said the pact was "observed pretty well by both sides'' for eight years.
"It lasted until 2002 when the United States in effect abandoned that agreement and branded North Korea as an axis of evil,'' Carter, 82, said in an interview to be broadcast this weekend on "Conversations with Judy Woodruff'' on Bloomberg Television. Carter also said the U.S. further undermined the agreement by condemning summit meetings that took place in 2000 between North Korea and South Korea.
President George W. Bush said on Oct. 11, two days after North Korea tested a nuclear bomb, that the 1994 agreement "just didn't work.'' Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Oct. 10 said the North Koreans "cheated'' on that agreement.
...
Jon B. Wolfsthal who lived on a North Korean nuclear reservation in 1995 and 1996 as a U.S. monitor, said the reality of how the deal unraveled is more nuanced than either the Carter or Rice account.
"There's plenty of blame to go around for both sides,'' said Wolfsthal, who is now a fellow at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. In North Korea, his job had been to ensure that North Korea was complying with the 1994 agreement.
...
Fuel Oil
To begin with, the U.S. didn't keep to its required schedule under the agreement for delivering fuel oil to the North Koreans. The reason was because in 1995 the Republican-controlled Congress exercised its constitutional right not to fund such shipments, Wolfsthal said in a telephone interview.
While the agreement didn't explicitly forbid the North Koreans from enriching uranium, Wolfsthal said "the spirit of the agreement was that they shouldn't do that, though.''
"Eventually there was a breakdown in both momentum and trust on both sides,'' he said, with another reason being the U.S. failure to recognize North Korea in the same way that China and Russia had officially recognized South Korea.
...
"The North Koreans can rightly argue that they didn't get what they were promised,'' he said in a telephone interview. "North Korea is accused of cheating by the United States, but the United States wanted the deal dead anyway.''
...

please don't

US 'steps up' plans for N Korea strike
THE Pentagon has stepped up planning for attacks on North Korean nuclear facilities and is bolstering US nuclear forces in the region, The Washington Times reported overnight, citing officials familiar with the process.
The officials said the planning includes detailed programs for using special operations commando raids or Tomahawk cruise missile strikes to disable North Korea's plutonium-processing facility at Yongbyon.
"Other than nuclear strikes, which are considered excessive, there are several options now in place. Planning has been accelerated," a Pentagon official was quoted as saying.
A Pentagon spokesman said that while the military always plans for a variety of contingencies, the story "mischaracterised the approach (to North Korea) within the department."
"The president has made it clear we are pursuing a diplomatic approach through the six party talks and with the international community to reach a peaceful and diplomatic solution," said Major David Smith.
The Times said the military planning was given new impetus by North Korea's October 9 nuclear test, and by growing opposition to its nuclear program by China and South Korea.
A second senior US defence official quoted in the article said the United States had recently assured Japan and South Korea that it would use nuclear weapons to deter North Korea.
"We will resort to whatever force levels we need to have, to defend the Republic of Korea. That nuclear deterrence is in place," the senior official said.
The official declined to say what nuclear forces the United States has in the region, but the report said other officials said they include bombs and air-launched missiles stored in Guam that could be delivered by B-52 and B-2 bombers.
Nine nuclear-missile submarines regularly deploy to Asian waters from Washington state, the report said.

the prophecy

So... It was all foretold.... And according to this prophecy, the North will soon invade the South.

Prophecy given to Raymond Aguilera on 6 September 1994 at 3:08 PM. in Spanish.
...
Korea's eyes are going to radiate, the Korea of the Chinese. The country of Korea, it's going to radiate with all that there is of the devil. For the flame of the devil is strong in the north, and the north doesn't want to hear the things of God. For their mind is pointed. Their mind is pointed to all the things of the world, the filthy things, the things of power, the things that are of the devil. But it has arrived the day of North Korea.
It has arrived. For the flame that you believe is high now, it isn't. It hasn't even started. It's going to radiate, and it's going to become hotter. Then all that you believed of the wars is going to begin in North Korea. Yes! I have told you with My Lips, the Lips of the Father, the Lips of the Son, the Lips of the Holy Spirit.
The things of Korea are going to become hotter with the force of the devil, with the force of the bomb. Yes!, the bomb. Remember that I told you about the bomb of North Korea. For they are very wise, and they are very pointed to the things of the devil. Yes! It has arrived, the point of the bomb, of North Korea.
For they are going to move toward the south. Yes! They are going to move with hunger, with the hunger of the force that they have. For they have arrived at the point that they want to do something, with their power, with their soldiers, with all that is of the devil. Look at North Korea for many people are going to die in the south, and in the north. For the men that run the north want the power. They want all that is filthy, and they don't care how many die for all that they want is power.
Yes!, mark it on your calendar. Here comes North Korea. It coming to the south, and South Korea won't be able to stop the north.
...

What to say... ???
interesting.

nukes and condoms

South Koreans seem to be using sex as a way to deal with their worries.

Condom sales and bookings at several of South Korea's pay-by-the-hour "love motels" surged in the aftermath of North Korea's nuclear test, according to statistics released Thursday.

seriously...

It is said that North Korea only possesses enough materials for something like 10 nuclear warheads. Regardless, even with the working technology, I don't think they are stupid enough to start firing them at the US. If they did, after the first shot, it is pretty likely that they would be flattened!!!

from Security Council imposes vicious sanctions on North Korea [Workers World]
The United Nations Security Council has voted 15-0 to impose draconian sanctions upon the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) in retaliation for its nuclear test of Oct. 9. The sanctions resolution was piloted through the Security Council by the U.S. government, which has 10,000 nuclear warheads and is the only power ever to use nuclear weapons in warfare.
The sanctions violate the United Nations Charter, which recognizes the right of nations to self-defense against aggression or intended aggression. Washington has been threatening the DPRK with nuclear attack since its 1950-53 war in Korea. The testing and development of a nuclear bomb by the DPRK has taken place strictly within the framework of unrelenting threats by Washington.
Most recently the Bush administration referred to the DPRK as part of an “axis of evil,” threatened the government of North Korea with “regime change,” and authorized the Pentagon in 2002 to develop “flexible plans” to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states, including the DPRK, as well as authorizing first-strike nuclear use. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld threatened the DPRK with nuclear attack in 2003. And the Pentagon also began developing a new generation of “bunker-buster” nuclear warheads aimed at underground facilities in the DPRK and Iran.
...
The Clinton administration twice threatened the DPRK with nuclear war—once in 1993 when the government in Pyongyang said it might leave the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in response to demands that it permit intrusive inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
The Clinton administration was only prevented from launching an attack on North Korean nuclear installations by last-minute negotiations between former President Jimmy Carter and then North Korean leader Kim Il Sung. Clinton carried out mock nuclear exercises against the DPRK in 1998.
Right now the Pentagon has nuclear-armed submarines and guided missile destroyers in the sea off the Korean peninsula and nuclear-capable bombers on the island of Guam. The U.S. carries out military exercises on a regular basis that are open practice for war against the DPRK.
The big business media has called the government of North Korea “paranoid” and “irrational.” Paranoid means seeing threats that are not there. Irrational means doing things that don’t make sense. The threat of nuclear attack from the U.S. government is clearly there and has been for years. Thus it makes sense to try to develop a deterrent against a known threat.
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The latest hysteria being drummed up by the Bush administration and the capitalist media is the so-called “threat” by the DPRK to conduct a second nuclear test. They are all acting as if the DPRK were threatening the people of the U.S.
Unlike the Bush administration, the DPRK has pledged not to be the first to use a nuclear weapon. In other words, the nuclear weapons program of the DPRK is strictly a retaliatory deterrent directed against a potential nuclear attack by Washington, and nothing else. It is also military logic that the DPRK is not going to initiate a nuclear war with the imperialist power that has enough nuclear weapons to wipe out a good part of the world.

Horrible!!!

North Korea practices eugenics.

from Nation under a nuclear cloud [Times Online]
THE North Korean regime’s obsession with racial purity has led to the killing of disabled infants and forced abortions for women suspected of conceiving their babies by Chinese fathers, according to a growing body of testimony from defectors.
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“There are no people with physical defects in North Korea,” Ri said. Such babies were put to death by medical staff and buried quickly, he claimed.
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But his account added to the evidence that the Kim family dictatorship is founded on mystical notions of Korean racial superiority rather than Marxism — a reality that explains its deepening estrangement from China.
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Threats???

So now North Korea is threatening the U.S. with the possibility of war. As if it is only the U.S. that is pressuring them to give up the fight. Being so close to North Korea, I am keeping up to date on what is going on, but I suppose I'm not really all that worried. Or at least, not enough to change what I am doing or where I am. I suppose it might be a good idea to register with the Canadian Embassy, though, just incase.

North Korea

NOT good news. It seems as though they have conducted their first nuclear test.