STORY FOLLOWS TIMELINE: Monday NOV 22...
Story # 1 South seeks Nukes
South Korea seeks Nuclear Missle protection from USSA!
South Korea's defense minister says his country may consider having U.S. tactical nuclear weapons deployed on its soil for the first time in 19 years.
Defense Minister Kim Tae-young raised the possibility Monday during talks with a parliamentary committee about North Korea's latest nuclear escalation. He said the issue could be raised when a joint U.S.-South Korean military committee meets next month to discuss North Korea's nuclear programs.
The United States removed its last tactical nuclear weapons from South Korea in December of 1991. A Defense Ministry spokesman told VOA that until now, the country had not considered having them reintroduced.
The Associated Press quoted a ministry spokesman saying the effect of the weapons would be mainly psychological since South Korea is already protected by the American nuclear umbrella.
The Seoul government was prompted to consider the step by reports that North Korea has a sophisticated uranium enrichment program and claims to have 2,000 working centrifuges. A U.S. scientist who visited the facility said it appears to be designed to produce fuel for electricity-making reactors but could be adapted to make fuel for nuclear weapons.
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TUESDAY, November 23---STORY 2, then the NK'S supposedly open fire after learning about the nukes.
North-South open fire on each other
By HYUNG-JIN KIM and KWANG-TAE KIM, Associated Press Hyung-jin Kim And Kwang-tae Kim, Associated Press – Tue Nov 23, 6:20 pm ET
INCHEON, South Korea – North and South Korea exchanged artillery fire Tuesday along their disputed frontier, raising tensions between the rivals to their highest level in more than a decade. The communist nation warned of more military strikes if the South encroaches on the maritime border by "even 0.001 millimeter."
The skirmish began when North Korea warned the South to halt military drills near their sea border, according to South Korean officials. When Seoul refused and began firing artillery into disputed waters — but away from the North Korean shore — the North retaliated by shelling the small island of Yeonpyeong, which houses South Korean military installations and a small civilian population.
Seoul responded by unleashing its own barrage from K-9 155mm self-propelled howitzers and scrambling fighter jets. Two South Korean marines were killed in the shelling that also injured 15 troops and three civilians.
Officials in Seoul said there could be considerable North Korean casualties.
The confrontation lasted about an hour and left the uneasiest of calms, with each side threatening further bombardments.
North Korea's apparent progress in its nuclear weapons program and its preparations for handing power to a new generation have plunged relations on the heavily militarized peninsula to new lows in recent weeks.
South Korea's military was put on high alert after the shelling — one of the rivals' most dramatic confrontations since an armistice halted the Korean War in 1953 and one of the few to put civilians at risk.
"I thought I would die," said Lee Chun-ok, 54, an islander who said she was watching TV in her home when the shelling began. Suddenly, a wall and door collapsed.
"I was really, really terrified," she told The Associated Press after being evacuated to the port city of Incheon, west of Seoul, "and I'm still terrified."
The attacks focused global attention on the tiny island and sent stock prices down worldwide. The dollar and gold rose as investors sought safe places to park money. Hong Kong's main stock index sank 2.7 percent, while European indexes fell between 1.7 and 2.5 percent. The Dow Jones industrial average lost 142 points, or 1.3 percent.
South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, who convened an emergency security meeting shortly after the initial bombardment, said an "indiscriminate attack on civilians can never be tolerated."
"Enormous retaliation should be made to the extent that (North Korea) cannot make provocations again," he said.
The United States, which has more than 28,000 troops stationed in South Korea, condemned the attack. The White House said President Barack Obama was "outraged" by North Korea's actions.
Top national security aides planned to meet later Tuesday to discuss the situation. The White House said it would work with its international partners to determine the appropriate next steps.
Gen. Walter Sharp, commander of U.S. forces in South Korea and the U.S.-led U.N. Command, said in a Facebook posting that the U.S. military is "closely monitoring the situation and exchanging information with our (South Korean) allies as we always do."
China, the North's economic and political benefactor, which also maintains close commercial ties to the South, appealed for both sides to remain calm and "to do more to contribute to peace and stability on the peninsula," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned North Korea's artillery attack, calling it "one of the gravest incidents since the end of the Korean War," his spokesman Martin Nesirky said. Ban called for "immediate restraint" and insisted "any differences should be resolved by peaceful means and dialogue," the spokesman said.
The clash "brings us one step closer to the brink of war," said Peter Beck, a research fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations, "because I don't think the North would seek war by intention, but war by accident, something spiraling out of control has always been my fear."
South Korea holds military exercises like Tuesday's off the west coast about every three months, and they typically provoke an angry response from North Korea, but Tuesday's confrontation was far from typical.
Skirmishes flare up along the disputed border from time to time, but this clash follows months in which tensions have steadily risen to their worst levels since the late 1980s, when a confessed agent for North Korea bombed a South Korean jetliner, killing all 115 people aboard.
The communist regime in Pyongyang has sought to consolidate power at home ahead of a leadership transition and hopes to gain leverage abroad before re-entering international talks aimed at ending its nuclear weapons programs.
In March, North Korea was blamed for launching a torpedo that sank the South Korean warship Cheonan while on routine patrol, killing 46 sailors. South Korea called it the worst military attack on the country since the war. Pyongyang denied responsibility. South Korea did not retaliate for the sinking of the Cheonan.
Six weeks ago, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il anointed his youngest son, Kim Jong Un, heir apparent. This week, Pyongyang claimed it has a new uranium enrichment facility, raising concerns about its pursuit of atomic weapons.
South Korea faces an uphill struggle if it wants the U.N. Security Council to condemn North Korea for the attack or to impose a third round of sanctions.
While Seoul can count on strong support from the U.S. and other Western powers on the council, it is likely to face opposition from China, a veto-wielding member.
China agreed to two rounds of sanctions against Pyongyang after its nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009, and Seoul wanted the U.N.'s most powerful body to condemn North Korea for the Cheonan sinking. But North Korea warned that its military forces would respond if the council questioned or condemned the country over the sinking, and China opposed direct condemnation or a third round of sanctions.
Yeonpyeong lies a mere seven miles (11 kilometers) from — and within sight of — the North Korean mainland. Famous for its crabbing industry, it is home to about 1,700 civilians as well as South Korean military installations. There are about 30 other small islands nearby.
North Korea fired dozens of rounds of artillery in three separate barrages that began in midafternoon, while South Korea returned fire with about 80 rounds, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said. Naval operations had been reinforced in the area, the military said early Wednesday, declining to elaborate.
Columns of thick black smoke rose from homes on the island, video from YTN cable TV showed. Screams and shouts filled the air as shells rained down on the island just south of the disputed sea border.
Island residents fled to some 20 shelters on the island and sporadic shelling ended after about an hour, according to the military.
A North Korean statement said it was merely "reacting to the military provocation of the puppet group with a prompt powerful physical strike," and accused Seoul of starting the skirmish with its "reckless military provocation as firing dozens of shells inside the territorial waters of the" North.
The supreme military command in Pyongyang threatened more strikes if the South crossed their maritime border by "even 0.001 millimeter," according to the North's official Korean Central News Agency.
Government officials in Seoul called North Korea's bombardments "inhumane atrocities" that violated the 1953 armistice halting the Korean War. The two sides technically remain at war because a peace treaty was never signed, and nearly 2 million troops — including tens of thousands from the U.S. — are positioned on both sides of the world's most heavily militarized border.
North Korea does not recognize the western maritime border drawn unilaterally by the U.N. at the close of the conflict, and the Koreas have fought three bloody skirmishes there in recent years.
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Kwang-Tae Kim reported from Seoul. AP writers Seulki Kim, Kelly Olsen and Foster Klug in Seoul and Anita Snow and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.
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Artillery opens UP!
OPEN FIRE!
The BBC's John Sudworth in Seoul explains how events developed
North and South Korea fired dozens of artillery shells across their tense western sea border, in one of the most serious incidents since the Korean War ended without a ceasefire in 1953. Two South Korean soldiers were killed on Yeonpyeong island and more than a dozen people were hurt.
All times are in GMT
1600: That ends our live coverage following the exchange of fire between North and South Korea. For the latest developments, please go to our main news page.
1547: Robert Kelly, an assistant professor at Pusan National University in South Korea, tells the BBC World Service that Seoul's increasing global stature may have provoked Pyongyang. "My primary guess is that this is a response to the recent international prestige taken by South Korea at the G20. The G20 highlighted North Korean backwardness in the same way that it highlighted that South Korea was a partner of this global elite organisation, setting international rules and the North Korean's don't like this," he says.
1538: US defence department spokesman Col David Lapan says no additional US military assets would be moved into the region following Tuesday's incident in South Korea. It is also "too soon" to discuss ways the US might deter North Korea from another attacks, he adds.
1535: UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is "deeply concerned by the escalation of tension on the Korean peninsula caused by today's artillery attack", his office says in a statement. "The secretary-general condemns the attack and calls for immediate restraint. The secretary-general regrets the loss of life and expresses sympathy to the victims and their families. The secretary-general insists that any differences should be resolved by peaceful means and dialogue."
1524: The UK's permanent representative to the United Nations, Sir Mark Lyall Grant, says there will be no meeting of the UN Security Council in New York on Tuesday. "No meeting has been requested," he is quoted as saying by the AFP news agency, apparently contradicting earlier comments by a French diplomat.
China's PITBULL puppet state North Korea(A powerful distraction)
China's Pet "Pit Bull"....North Korea
Is Beijing Using North Korea again?
Apparently out of the blue, Stalinist regime in northern Korea shelled Yeonpeyong Island in the democratic part of the country (a.k.a. South Korea). The rest of world is trying to come to terms with the shock. There are at least two death as of 8AM EST. The White House "strongly condemned" (MSN India) the attack, but hasn't had much time to react beyond posturing.
Analysts are fishing for explanations, but the most popular one is that this has something to do with the power struggle within the regime. As Iain Martin put it, shelling a South Korean island is "what passes for a campaign ad in North Korean politics."
I'm not so sure, or to be more precise, I don't think that's the only reason. As much as people would like to think the regime in charge of northern Korea is a lone wolf unable to control or even understand, that regime is wholly dependent on the Chinese Communist Party for its survival. Moreover, the CCP prefers its allies and satellites take full blame or credit for their antics, as it turns Beijing into the "good police state" and enable them to extract more concessions from the democratic world (this is why the ChiComs' closest ally in the Middle East is the Iranian mullahcracy, but I digress).
In fact, there's almost no way a move like this wouldn't get green-lighted by the CCP; keep in mind, the Communists have even gone so far as to make a historical claim to northern Korea as Chinese territory, in part to make it clear who's boss and in part to lay the groundwork for a possible annexation if the Stalinist regime becomes more trouble than its worth.
So, this begs the question: why did the CCP let this happen? For that, we have to look at the last year in eastern Asia.
Amidst the European bailouts, the bizzare "reset" with Russia, the war in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the numerous domestic issues the decided the November elections, little attention has been paid to the western Pacific. However, events there have been dramatic, and dramatically unexpected.
It began when the CCP tried to declare the South China Sea as its own lake. As expected, numerous nations in Southeast Asia cried foul. Not so expectedly, the United States - led by the American apologist President and the Secretary of State whose husband was arguably the Communists' best friend in the White House - responded, essentially, "No."
One can only imagine the shock in Zhongnanhai from that.
Perhaps the Communists believed that this was mere posturing for the voters. That notion disappeared with the President's post-election tour of Asia (India, Indonesia, South Korea, and Japan). It could have been called the China Containment Tour. Now we're hearing elected officials inside and outside the Administration slanging the CCP for their deliberately devalued currency, and while the criticisms stem from economic confusion rather than geopolitical clarity, that's a distinction without a difference to Hu Jintao et al.
In short, the Chinese Communist regime has watched, likely in subdued horror, as Barack Obama's government moved - haltingly, and with some stumbles, but unmistakably - towards the most anti-Communist Asia policy in twenty years. It has been, almost literally, Nixon-goes-to-China in reverse.
So, now the CCP - and the rest of us - will see if the Administration's newfound and quasi-accidental policy will come with newfound resolve. It won't be as easy as it sounds initially. In Southeast Asia, the President's backbone was widely applauded, especially in Indonesia (in an even more painful irony for the CCP, Obama's time there may be driving his policy in the region). Japan, by contrast, has a center-left government with a more accomodationist policy towards Beijing (although South Korea does not).
This is a critical moment. If Obama follows precedent, i.e., comes hat-in-hand to the CCP to enlist its help in "controlling" Kim Jong-il and his would-be successors, then things will come back to normal in East Asia (and that's not good). However, if the President follows his instincts from Southeast Asia, it could dramatically alter the global balance - and in America's favor.
Nixon's fervent anti-Communist history made him practically the only American politician who could reach out to the CCP. Conversely, Obama's left-wing history may make him the best-equipped American leader to take the CCP on. I believe the ChiComs condoned this incident in the hope to prevent the above from happening. Time will tell if they were right; if not, the Chinese people may get a surprising boost in their fight to take their country back from the Communist regime that enslaves them.
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conclusion...just teasing the paper tiger U.S.A.
they won't, and can't do shit because they don't have the MONEY, MAN-POWER, and will to fight a real ARMY, and also because the PTB are in the final stages of destroying America's Military might around the world.
U.S.A./South Korea=PAPER TIGERS
ANALYSIS
North Korea is determined never to be ignored. This dramatic escalation - firing shells across the border - fits a pattern of aggression over the past year by the Pyongyang regime.
There was the sinking of a South Korean warship in March, with 46 sailors killed. Then there was the calculated disclosure of what appears to be a massive North Korean plant to enrich uranium, a further sign of its determination to build a nuclear arsenal.
Advertisement: Story continues below The purpose of this aggression appears threefold.
First, to keep South Korea permanently focused on its erratic northern neighbour, at a time when Seoul is seeking to expand its influence in the world.
Seoul has just hosted the G20 summit and next year representatives of major countries will head to South Korea for talks on nuclear security.
Lowy Institute executive director Michael Wesley, who visited Seoul in July, said last night many local security analysts were expecting the worst after Seoul's recent diplomatic success.
Positive international attention on the South appears to enrage the North. Shortly before Seoul hosted the Olympics in 1988, North Korean agents bombed a Korean airliner, killing 115 passengers and crew. In 2002, around the time South Korea shared the soccer World Cup with Japan, another naval clash with the North cost the lives of 19 sailors.
The second purpose appears to be a show of strength by the regime to bolster the assumed handover of power from the ailing Kim Jong-il to his son, Kim Jong-un.
Finally, and most crucially, this appears designed to test the influence of the Obama administration. A senior US diplomatic delegation is in the region, looking to find the next steps for the six-party talks on the North's nuclear program.
Beijing is the only patron of the North Korean regime. What China now does in response will be seen as a signal of US influence in the region.
But it's a dangerous game of brinkmanship with a very uncertain outcome.
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THEN BOTH RUSSIA and CHINA SAY ADIOS TO AMERICAN DOLLAR WORLWIDE CURRENCY STANDARD....
CHINA AND RUSSIA DUMP U.S. DOLLAR STANDARD
China, Russia quit dollar
Wed, Nov 24, 2010
China Daily/Asia News Network
By Su Qiang and Li Xiaokun
St. Petersburg, Russia - China and Russia have decided to renounce the US dollar and resort to using their own currencies for bilateral trade, Premier Wen Jiabao and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin announced late on Tuesday.
Chinese experts said the move reflected closer relations between Beijing and Moscow and is not aimed at challenging the dollar, but to protect their domestic economies.
"About trade settlement, we have decided to use our own currencies," Putin said at a joint news conference with Wen in St. Petersburg.
The two countries were accustomed to using other currencies, especially the dollar, for bilateral trade. Since the financial crisis, however, high-ranking officials on both sides began to explore other possibilities.
The yuan has now started trading against the Russian rouble in the Chinese interbank market, while the renminbi will soon be allowed to trade against the rouble in Russia, Putin said.
"That has forged an important step in bilateral trade and it is a result of the consolidated financial systems of world countries," he said.
Putin made his remarks after a meeting with Wen. They also officiated at a signing ceremony for 12 documents, including energy cooperation.
The documents covered cooperation on aviation, railroad construction, customs, protecting intellectual property, culture and a joint communiqu. Details of the documents have yet to be released.
Putin said one of the pacts between the two countries is about the purchase of two nuclear reactors from Russia by China's Tianwan nuclear power plant, the most advanced nuclear power complex in China.
Putin has called for boosting sales of natural resources - Russia's main export - to China, but price has proven to be a sticking point.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin, who holds sway over Russia's energy sector, said following a meeting with Chinese representatives that Moscow and Beijing are unlikely to agree on the price of Russian gas supplies to China before the middle of next year.
Russia is looking for China to pay prices similar to those Russian gas giant Gazprom charges its European customers, but Beijing wants a discount. The two sides were about $100 per 1,000 cubic meters apart, according to Chinese officials last week.
Wen's trip follows Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's three-day visit to China in September, during which he and President Hu Jintao launched a cross-border pipeline linking the world's biggest energy producer with the largest energy consumer.
Wen said at the press conference that the partnership between Beijing and Moscow has "reached an unprecedented level" and pledged the two countries will "never become each other's enemy".
Over the past year, "our strategic cooperative partnership endured strenuous tests and reached an unprecedented level," Wen said, adding the two nations are now more confident and determined to defend their mutual interests.
"China will firmly follow the path of peaceful development and support the renaissance of Russia as a great power," he said.
"The modernization of China will not affect other countries' interests, while a solid and strong Sino-Russian relationship is in line with the fundamental interests of both countries."
Wen said Beijing is willing to boost cooperation with Moscow in Northeast Asia, Central Asia and the Asia-Pacific region, as well as in major international organizations and on mechanisms in pursuit of a "fair and reasonable new order" in international politics and the economy.
Sun Zhuangzhi, a senior researcher in Central Asian studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said the new mode of trade settlement between China and Russia follows a global trend after the financial crisis exposed the faults of a dollar-dominated world financial system.
Pang Zhongying, who specializes in international politics at Renmin University of China, said the proposal is not challenging the dollar, but aimed at avoiding the risks the dollar represents.
Wen arrived in the northern Russian city on Monday evening for a regular meeting between Chinese and Russian heads of government.
He left St. Petersburg for Moscow late on Tuesday and is set to meet with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Wednesday.
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Asian disputes for Oil/Territory
Cheonan Incident
Asia-China,North Korea,South Korea,Russia,India,Japan, Vietnam
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