(Arnulfo Franco/AP) - Panamanian workers stand atop sacks of sugar inside a container of a North Korean-flagged ship at the Manzanillo International container terminal on the coast of Colon City, Panama, on Tuesday.

In dramatic scenes described by Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli, officers were met with violent resistance from the 35-strong crew during efforts to redirect the vessel to port and the ship’s captain subsequently tried to commit suicide. He is hospitalized in stable condition after slitting his throat with a knife, according to wire reports.

Martinelli, who used his Twitter account to post a photograph, taken in the ship’s hold, of a long green missile-shaped object, told local radio that “sophisticated missile equipment” had been discovered.

“That is not allowed,” he said. “The Panama Canal is a canal of peace, not war.”

The ship’s concealed cargo appears to be in breach of U.N. sanctions that prevent North Korea from exporting weapons and from importing all but small arms.

Officials arrested the crew Monday after making the discovery and are removing 250,000 bags of sugar so they can thoroughly inspect the ship, a process they say may take up to a week.

Javier Caraballo, Panama’s top anti-drug prosecutor, told local television that the ship had been heading to North Korea, and the United States said it “strongly supports” the decision to intercept the freighter.

Cuba and North Korea have not commented on the incident.

Security experts said the image posted by Martinelli may show SNR-75 ‘Fan Song’ fire control radar equipment for the SA-2 family of surface-to-air missiles.

Neil Ashdown, an analyst for IHS Jane’s Intelligence, said in a statement that North Korea may have been planning to service and repair the equipment before returning it to Cuba. Alternatively, the isolated communist state may have purchased the equipment to augment Pyongyang’s air defenses, Ashdown said.

The 450-foot-long Chong Chon Gang was tracked leaving the Russian port of Vostochnyy on April 12 and entered the Panama Canal at the start of June with Havana as its stated destination, the maritime company Lloyd’s List Intelligence said.

Crew members appear to have turned off the ship’s automatic tracking system for the voyage. The ship did not reappear until July 11, when it was diverted to Manzanillo, Panama.

Hugh Griffiths, a maritime arms trafficking expert based at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, said in an interview Tuesday that he had been monitoring the vessel since 2010, when it was detained by Ukrainian authorities who discovered small-arms ammunition, light weapons and narcotics on board.

Before the most recent incident, Griffiths said, the freighter had last used the Panama Canal in 2002 and had not sailed in the Western Hemisphere since then.

“Until April of this year it was being logged in Chinese ports, and before that it traveled to places in the Indian Ocean like Bangladesh, Iran and Pakistan,” he said.

Griffiths said the Chong Chon Gang’s voyage was highly unusual. “The North Korean fleet is on a safety watch list, so they’re inspected very frequently, and they’re also, of course, on arms trafficking watch lists,” Griffiths said. “. . . It’s pretty crazy, sending a ship to Cuba. It’s very obvious.”

The discovery follows recent signs that North Korea is attempting to foster a closer relationship with Cuba. This month, the head of the North Korean armed forces visited Cuba and met with President Raúl Castro.

5-18-13 -

SEOUL, South Korea -- North Korea fired three short-range guided missiles into its eastern waters on Saturday, a South Korean official said. It routinely tests such missiles, but the latest launches came during a period of tentative diplomacy aimed at easing tensions.

The North fired two missiles Saturday morning and another in the afternoon, South Korean Defense Ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok said by phone. He said the North's intent was unclear. His ministry said it is watching North Korea carefully in case it conducts a provocation against South Korea.

In March, North Korea launched what appeared to be two KN-02 missiles off its east coast. Experts believe the country is trying to improve the range and accuracy of its arsenal.

North Korea recently withdrew two mid-range "Musudan" missiles believed to be capable of reaching Guam after moving them to its east coast earlier this year, U.S. officials said. The North is banned from testing ballistic missiles under U.N. Security Council resolutions.

Earlier this year, North Korea threatened nuclear strikes on Seoul and Washington because of annual U.S.-South Korean military drills and U.N. sanctions imposed over its third nuclear test in February. The drills ended late last month. This past month, the U.S. and South Korea ended another round of naval drills involving a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier off the east coast. North Korea calls such drills preparation to invade the North.

Analysts say the recent North Korean threats were partly an attempt to push Washington to agree to disarmament-for-aid talks.

This past week, Glyn Davies, the top U.S. envoy on North Korea, ended trips to South Korea, China and Japan. On Friday, an adviser to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe returned from North Korea but didn't immediately give details of his talks with officials there.

On Monday, North Korean state media showed that the country's hard-line defense minister had been replaced by a little-known army general. Outside analysts said it was part of leader Kim Jong Un's efforts to tighten his grip on the powerful military after his father Kim Jong Il died in December 2011.

The United States and Japan are participants in six-nation nuclear disarmament talks along with the Koreas, Russia and Japan. North Korea walked out of the talks in 2009 after the United Nations condemned it for a long-range rocket launch.

North Korea possesses an array of missiles. U.S. and South Korean officials do not believe the North's claim that it has developed nuclear warheads small enough to place on a missile. Last week in Washington, South Korean President Park Geun-hye and President Barack Obama warned North Korea against further nuclear provocations.

Tension between the two Koreas remains high after both sides pulled out their workers from a jointly run factory complex earlier this year. The countries remain technically at war after the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a truce instead of a peace treaty.

4-16-13

North Korea prepares to test medium-range ballistic missile as it closes border with China

By wmw_admin on April 10, 2013

News.com.au — April 10, 2013

SOUTH Korea has raised its military watch alert to “vital threat” before an expected North Korean missile launch, as UN chief Ban Ki-moon warned the Korean peninsula may be slipping out of control.

South Korean intelligence says the North has prepared two mid-range missiles for imminent launch from its east coast, despite warnings from ally China to avoid provocative moves at a time of soaring military tensions.

South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-Se told parliament the launch could take place “anytime from now on” and warned Pyongyang it could trigger a fresh round of UN sanctions.

On Tuesday, the North reiterated a warning that the peninsula was headed for “thermo-nuclear” war and advised foreigners to consider leaving South Korea.

In a further sign of rising nuclear tensions, a key border crossing between North Korea and China has been closed to tourist groups, a Chinese official said Wednesday.

An official at the Dandong Border Office, who declined to give his name, told media: “Travel agencies are not allowed to take tourist groups to go there, since the North Korean government is now asking foreign people to leave. As far as I know, business people can enter and leave North Korea freely.”

The South Korea-US Combined Forces Command raised its “Watchcon” status from 3 to 2 to reflect indications of a “vital threat”, Yonhap news agency said, citing a senior military official.

Watchcon 4 is in effect during normal peacetime, while Watchcon 3 reflects indications of an important threat. Watchcon 1 is used in wartime.

In a separate report, Yonhap quoted a government source as saying Pyongyang might be preparing “multiple” launches, after other launch vehicles were reportedly detected carrying shorter-range SCUD and Rodong missiles.

Although the North’s warnings to embassies in Pyongyang and foreigners in the South were both largely shrugged off, there is growing global concern that sky-high tensions might trigger an incident that could swiftly escalate.

UN warns of ‘dangerous’ tension

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said during a visit to Rome that he had spoken to the Chinese leadership to try to calm tensions, and would discuss the issue with US President Barack Obama on Thursday.

“The current level of tension is very dangerous, a small incident caused by miscalculation or misjudgement may create an uncontrollable situation,” Ban said.

North Korea has wielded the “thermo-nuclear war” threat several times in recent months — most recently on March 7 — despite expert opinion that it is nowhere near developing such an advanced nuclear device.

The current crisis on the Korean peninsula has been intensifying almost daily since the North’s nuclear test in February, which drew toughened UN sanctions.

Incensed by ongoing South Korean-US military exercises, Pyongyang has accused Washington and Seoul of preparing an invasion and threatened dire military actions from artillery barrages to nuclear strikes.

South Korea last went to Watchcon 2 around the time of the North’s nuclear test, and its long-range rocket launch last December.

The Watchcon system solely relates to surveillance levels and is separate from the Defcon system of military preparedness.

The mid-range missiles mobilised by the North are reported to be untested Musudan models with an estimated range of anywhere up to 4,000 kilometres.

That would cover any target in South Korea and Japan, and possibly even US military bases on the Pacific island of Guam.

Japan, where the armed forces have been authorised to shoot down any North Korean missile headed towards its territory, said Tuesday it had deployed Patriot missiles in its capital as a pre-emptive defence measure.

In addition to PAC-3 batteries, Aegis destroyers equipped with sea-based interceptor missiles have been deployed in the Sea of Japan.

But a top US military commander, Admiral Samuel Locklear, said he favoured shooting down a North Korean missile only if it threatened the United States or Washington’s allies in the region.

If North Korea pushes ahead with the launch, the UN Security Council will convene immediately, Foreign Minister Yun said.

“It’s hard to predict what kind of action the Security Council might take, as the nature of such a launch would have to be analysed first,” he said, adding fresh sanctions were a possibility.

Satellites find ‘missing’ NK missiles

The move to Watchcon 2 comes after it was revealed United States spy satellites had found two ‘missing’ North Korean nuclear-capable missiles.

CNN reported US officials were expecting a launch by North Korea “at any time”.

Any such “test” launch would be seen as a further escalation of already high tensions in and around the Korean peninsula.

Things could be made worse if North Korea does not issue a “standard warning” of a missile test firing to commercial aviation and maritime shipping.

“We hope they issue a notification but at this point we don’t expect it. We are working on the assumption they won’t, ” the official said.

US officials have confirmed that satellites have been kept over the suspected launch areas for the past week in order to locate – and monitor – the launch vehicles. Bad weather has made their job harder, they said.

The launchers are said to be about half-way down the North Korean east coast and about 20km inland. Satellite imagery shows the missiles have been fuelled and positioned for launch.

The Pentagon has announced it is ready to respond to any missile aimed at America or its allies.

The commander of US forces in the Pacific sought to reassure Congress that the Pentagon would be able intercept a missile. US satellites and radars in the region will be able to detect and quickly calculate the missiles’ trajectory.

This would help determine if the launch was hostile – or a test.

The missiles would be shot down by land or sea based anti-missile weapons if they were to track over South Korea or Japan.

Navy Admiral Samuel J. Locklear said: “We have a credible ability to defend the homeland, to defend Hawaii, to defend Guam, to defend our forward deployed forces, and to defend our allies,” Locklear told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

The US has never sought to shoot down a North Korean missile, and it’s unclear if such a move would escalate the tension that has roiled the region. The Obama administration has moved additional military forces into the Pacific, but has sought to calibrate its response in the matter to avoid fueling the crisis.

A “counter-provocation plan” drawn up by US and South Korean officials calls for their combined military forces to respond proportionally to a North Korean attack, but to avoid any step that could set off an escalation of hostilities.

Direct attack on South unlikely

Analysts see a direct attack on Seoul as extremely unlikely, and there are no overt signs that North Korea’s 1.2 million-man army is readying for war, let alone a nuclear one.

South Korea’s military has reported missile movements on North Korea’s east coast but nothing pointed toward South Korea.

Still, North Korea’s earlier warning that it won’t be able to guarantee the safety of foreign diplomats after April 10 has raised fears that it will conduct a missile or nuclear test today, resulting in US retaliation.

The United States and South Korea have raised their defence postures, and so has Japan, which deployed PAC-3 missile interceptors in key locations around Tokyo yesterday as a precaution against possible North Korean ballistic missile tests.

“The situation on the Korean Peninsula is inching close to a thermonuclear war due to the evermore undisguised hostile actions of the United States and the south Korean puppet warmongers and their moves for a war against” the North, said a statement by the North Korean Asia-Pacific Peace Committee, an organisation that deals with regional matters.

The statement is similar to past threats that analysts call an attempt to raise anxiety in foreign capitals. Observers say a torrent of North Korean prophecies of doom and efforts to raise war hysteria are partly to boost the image of young and relatively untested leader Kim Jong-un at home, and to show him as a decisive military leader.

Another reason could be to use threats of war to win Pyongyang-friendly policy changes in Seoul and Washington. Last week, North Korea told foreign diplomats in Pyongyang that it will not be able to guarantee their safety as of Wednesday. It is not clear what the significance of that date is.

Tourists continued to arrive in Pyongyang despite the war hysteria.

Australian Mark Fahey of Sydney said he was not concerned about a possible war.

“I knew that when I arrived here it would probably be very different to the way it was being reported in the media,” he told The Associated Press at Pyongyang airport. He said his family trusts him to make the right judgment but “my colleagues at work think I am crazy.”

Chu Kang Jin, a Pyongyang resident, said everything is calm in the city.

“Everyone, including me, is determined to turn out as one to fight for national reunification … if the enemies spark a war,” he said, in a typically nationalist rhetoric that most North Koreans use while speaking to the media.

In Seoul, South Korean Presidential spokeswoman Kim Haing told reporters that the North Korean warning amounted to “psychological warfare.”

“We know that foreigners residing in South Korea as well as our nationals are unfazed,” she said.

South Korean President Park Geun-hye, who has sought to re-engage North Korea with dialogue and aid since taking office in February, expressed exasperation with what she called the “endless vicious cycle” of Seoul answering Pyongyang’s hostile behaviour with compromise, only to get more hostility.

Yesterday North Korea said it was suspending work at the Kaesong industrial park near its border, which is combines South Korean technology and know-how with North Korea’s cheap labour. North Korea pulled out more than 50,000 workers from the complex, the only remaining product of economic cooperation between the two countries that started about a decade ago when relations were much warmer.

Other projects from previous eras of cooperation such as reunions of families separated by war and tours to a scenic North Korean mountain stopped in recent years.

Source

By BRADLEY KLAPPER 04/12/13

John Kerry

Pentagon says North Korea does not have nuclear capability - yet!

SEOUL, South Korea — U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry delivered a stark warning to North Korea on Friday not to test-fire a mid-range missile, while rejecting a new U.S. intelligence report suggesting significant progress in the communist regime's nuclear weapons program.

Kicking off four days of talks in an East Asia beset by increasing North Korean threats, Kerry told reporters in Seoul that Pyongyang and its enigmatic young leader would only increase their isolation if they launched the missile that American officials believe has a range of some 2,500 miles – or enough to reach the U.S. territory of Guam.

"If Kim Jong Un decides to launch a missile, whether it's across the Sea of Japan or some other direction, he will be choosing willfully to ignore the entire international community," Kerry told reporters. "And it will be a provocation and unwanted act that will raise people's temperatures."

Kerry said the test would be a "huge mistake" for Kim.

"It will further isolate his country and further isolate his people who are desperate for food and not missile launches," he warned. "They are desperate for opportunity and not for a leader to flex his muscles."

Kerry's diplomatic tour, while planned long in advance, is unusual in that it brings him directly to a region of escalated tensions and precisely at a time when North Korea is threatening action. The North often times its military and nuclear tests to generate maximum attention, and Kerry's presence on the peninsula alone risked spurring Pyongyang into another provocation. Another key date is the 101st birthday of the nation's founder, Kim Il Sung, on April 15.

After meeting South Korean President Park Geun-hye and Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se, Kerry also weighed in on an intelligence report that rocked Washington on Thursday and suggested that North Korea now had the knowhow to arm a ballistic missile with a nuclear warhead – even if the weapons would lack reliability. Citing the Pentagon's assessment, Kerry rejected the finding and said that Pyongyang still hadn't developed or fully tested the nuclear capacities needed for such a step.

Kerry offered strong words of solidarity for South Korea, praising Park's "bright vision" of a prosperous and reunified Korean Peninsula without nuclear weapons. By contrast, he said North Korea's Kim, by estimates only 29 or 30 years old, has a choice to make between provocation and returning to talks to de-escalate tension and lead to the end of its nuclear program.

"It's up to Kim Jong Un what he decides to do," Kerry said

A missile launch, he said, "is not going to change our current position which is very clear: We will defend our allies. We will stand with South Korea and Japan against these threats. And we will defend ourselves."

Speaking beside Kerry, South Korea's Yun called for more United Nations action against Pyongyang if it commits another provocation.

He refused to comment specifically on the U.S. intelligence report, saying only that the North has "high nuclear and missile capabilities" but that it is still some time away from a nuclear bomb that is "small, light and diversified."

Both Yun and Kerry kept the door open for future negotiations with Pyongyang.

But both seemed to suggest that they were unlikely in light of the North's increasingly bombastic threats, including nuclear strikes on the United States. Most experts say those are unfeasible based on the North's current capacity and would never be explored seriously because the U.S. response would be overwhelming against a regime focused primarily on survival.

Kerry said any talks with North Korea have to lead toward denuclearization.

They have to be really serious," Kerry said. "No one is going to talk for the sake of talking and no one is going to play this round-robin game that gets repeated every few years, which is both unnecessary and dangerous."

John Kerry and his plane

By SAM KIM 03/30/13

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea warned Seoul on Saturday that the Korean Peninsula had entered "a state of war" and threatened to shut down a border factory complex that's the last major symbol of inter-Korean cooperation.

Analysts say a full-scale conflict is extremely unlikely, noting that the Korean Peninsula has remained in a technical state of war for 60 years. But the North's continued threats toward Seoul and Washington, including a vow to launch a nuclear strike, have raised worries that a misjudgment between the sides could lead to a clash.

North Korea's threats are seen as efforts to provoke the new government in Seoul, led by President Park Geun-hye, to change its policies toward Pyongyang, and to win diplomatic talks with Washington that could get it more aid. North Korea's moves are also seen as ways to build domestic unity as young leader Kim Jong Un strengthens his military credentials.

On Thursday, U.S. military officials revealed that two B-2 stealth bombers dropped dummy munitions on an uninhabited South Korean island as part of annual defense drills that Pyongyang sees as rehearsals for invasion. Hours later, Kim ordered his generals to put rockets on standby and threatened to strike American targets if provoked.

North Korea said in a statement Saturday that it would deal with South Korea according to "wartime regulations" and would retaliate against any provocations by the United States and South Korea without notice.

"Now that the revolutionary armed forces of the DPRK have entered into an actual military action, the inter-Korean relations have naturally entered the state of war," said the statement, which was carried by Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency, referring to the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

Provocations "will not be limited to a local war, but develop into an all-out war, a nuclear war," the statement said.

Hours after the statement, Pyongyang threatened to shut down the jointly run Kaesong industrial park, expressing anger over media reports suggesting the complex remained open because it was a source of hard currency for the impoverished North.

"If the puppet group seeks to tarnish the image of the DPRK even a bit, while speaking of the zone whose operation has been barely maintained, we will shut down the zone without mercy," an identified spokesman for the North's office controlling Kaesong said in comments carried by KCNA.

South Korea's Unification Ministry responded by calling the North Korean threat "unhelpful" to the countries' already frayed relations and vowed to ensure the safety of hundreds of South Korean managers who cross the border to their jobs in Kaesong. It did not elaborate.

South Korean Defense Ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok said the country's military remains mindful of the possibility that increasing North Korean drills near the border could lead to an actual provocation.

"The series of North Korean threats – announcing all-out war, scrapping the cease-fire agreement and the non-aggression agreement between the South and the North, cutting the military hotline, entering into combat posture No. 1 and entering a `state of war' – are unacceptable and harm the peace and stability of the Korean Peninsula," Kim said.

"We are maintaining full military readiness in order to protect our people's lives and security," he told reporters Saturday.

The two Koreas remain technically at war because the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a truce, not a peace treaty. Naval skirmishes in the disputed waters off the Korean coast have led to bloody battles several times over the years.

But on the streets of Seoul on Saturday, South Koreans said they were not worried about an attack from North Korea.

"From other countries' point of view, it may seem like an extremely urgent situation," said Kang Tae-hwan, a private tutor. "But South Koreans don't seem to be that nervous because we've heard these threats from the North before."

The Kaesong industrial park, which is run with North Korean labor and South Korean know-how, has been operating normally, despite Pyongyang shutting down a communications channel typically used to coordinate travel by South Korean workers to and from the park just across the border in North Korea. The rivals are now coordinating the travel indirectly, through an office at Kaesong that has outside lines to South Korea.

North Korea has previously made such threats about Kaesong without acting on them, and recent weeks have seen a torrent of bellicose rhetoric from Pyongyang. North Korea is angry about the South Korea-U.S. military drills and new U.N. sanctions over its nuclear test last month.

Dozens of South Korean firms run factories in the border town of Kaesong. Using North Korea's cheap, efficient labor, the Kaesong complex produced $470 million worth of goods last year.

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