Korean War 2010

[Guest faze]

China calls for emergency talks amid Korea crisis

The US is carrying out military exercises with the South

China has called for an emergency meeting of key nations amid tension in Korea over the North's deadly shelling of a Southern island.

It proposed that members of the six nations that have been taking part in talks on North Korean nuclear disarmament should meet in December.

The two Koreas, the US, China, Japan and Russia are involved in the talks.

Correspondents say South Korea's response has been non-committal and that it will consult other countries.

Tension remains high on the peninsula, with the US and South Korea undertaking joint military exercises the North has denounced as a provocation.

Angry protests

The six-party North Korea talks have been stalled since April 2009, and South Korea and the US say they should not resume until the North has made a genuine offer on halting its nuclear programme.

Some analysts think North Korea is trying to raise tensions in order to strengthen its negotiating position and force a resumption of the talks.

Wu Dawei, China's representative to the talks, said on Sunday: "The Chinese side, after careful study, proposes to have emergency consultations among the heads of delegation to the six-party talks in early December in Beijing to exchange views on major issues of concern to the parties at present."

Continue reading the main story

North Korea: Timeline 2010

26 March: South Korean warship, Cheonan, sinks, killing 46 sailors

20 May: Panel says a North Korean torpedo sank the ship; Pyongyang denies involvement

July-September: South Korea and US hold military exercises; US places more sanctions on Pyongyang

29 September: North holds rare party congress seen as part of father-to-son succession move

29 October: Troops from North and South Korea exchange fire across the land border

12 November: North Korea shows US scientist new - undeclared - uranium enrichment facility

23 November: North shells island of Yeonpyeong, killing at least four South Koreans

He said this was not a proposal to resume formally the six-nation negotiations.

Mr Wu said "complicated factors" had arisen on the peninsula, adding: "The international community, particularly the members of the six-party talks, is deeply concerned."

The BBC's Chris Hogg in Seoul says the response of South Korea and its allies to China's move has been less than enthusiastic.

A South Korean foreign ministry statement said the proposal would be "reviewed very carefully".

South Korea's Yonhap news agency said President Lee Myung-bak had told visiting senior Chinese foreign policy adviser Dai Bingguo that Seoul was not interested in the early resumption of the six-party nuclear talks themselves, as it was more urgent to deal with Pyongyang's belligerence.

Japan's Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Tetsuro Fukuyama said that Tokyo would "deal with the issue cautiously while cooperating with South Korea and the United States".

The Korea crisis began when the North launched a sudden barrage of shells at Yeonpyeong island, close to the maritime border between the two countries, on Tuesday.

Two South Korean civilians and two marines were killed, sparking the resignation of the South's defence minister and angry protests in the South.

Pyongyang insists it was provoked into the shelling by military exercises, which were being carried out by the South close to Yeonpyeong.

'Unpredictable'

The US and South Korea on Sunday began new, pre-arranged military exercises in the Yellow Sea, about 125km (77 miles) south of the disputed maritime border between the two Koreas.

The aircraft carrier the USS George Washington and four other US navy vessels are being joined by South Korean destroyers, patrol vessels, frigates, support ships and anti-submarine aircraft.

Shortly after the exercises began, North Korea again vowed to hit back if its waters were violated.

"We will deliver a brutal military blow on any provocation which violates our territorial waters," the North's state-controlled KCNA news agency said.

Yonhap reported that Pyongyang had placed surface-to-surface missiles on launch pads in the Yellow Sea and had also moved surface-to-air missiles to frontline areas, but the South's defence ministry could not confirm the deployment.

Residents of Yeonpyeong were ordered to shelter in bunkers when artillery fire was heard on Sunday, but the order was lifted 40 minutes later. Only about 20 of the 1,700 residents remain on the island.

The South Korean defence ministry has also now instructed journalists to leave by the end of Sunday as it cannot guarantee their safety.

"At this stage, it is unpredictable what kind of a provocative action North Korea will take using the South Korean-US joint drills as a justification," the ministry said.

Yonhap also reported that South Korean troops on Sunday accidentally fired an artillery round into the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) that divides the nations. Seoul quickly sent the North a message saying it was an accident, the news agency said.

Earlier, Mr Dai had told President Lee that Beijing would try to prevent the situation deteriorating any further.

Mr Lee had urged China to take what he called a more fair and responsible position on the relationship between the two Koreas.

The chairman of North Korea's parliament, an official known to be a close confidant of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, has been invited to visit Beijing next week..

[MrJibbles]

Fox News:

North Korea threatening mercilessly attack on South Korea

[Guest Waka Flocka Dave]

everytime i see the name fox nesws i just laugh

[Guest faze]

Pick up the guardian today for all the korea wiki leaks

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(Reuters) - Secretive North Korea boasted advances in its nuclear program Tuesday, making sure it held the world's attention, saying it had thousands of working centrifuges, as pressure built on China to rein in its ally.

Nuclear-armed Pyongyang's revelations about its uranium enrichment, which gives it a second route to make a nuclear bomb, came a week after it fired an artillery barrage at a South Korean island, killing four people, including two civilians.

Experts have voiced surprise at the sophistication of a uranium enrichment plant and light-water reactor at the North's main nuclear complex, which were shown to a U.S. scientist earlier this month. There has been no way to verify the North's claims.

The North is also seen as a proliferation risk, accused by the West of supplying Syria, and possibly Iran, with nuclear know-how.

"Currently, construction of a light-water reactor is in progress actively and a modern uranium enrichment plant equipped with several thousands of centrifuges, to secure the supply of fuels, is operating," the Rodong Sinmun newspaper reported.

"Nuclear energy development projects will become more active for peaceful purpose in the future," added the paper, according the state news agency KCNA.

New revelations by whistle-blower Wikileaks, meanwhile, suggested that some Chinese officials did not view North Korea as a useful ally and would take no action if it collapsed.

By staging provocations and flexing its nuclear muscle, analysts say the isolated North is seeking to increase its leverage as it pushes for a resumption of talks with regional powers, which it walked out of two years ago, in return for aid.

Andrei Lankov, a North Korea expert at Seoul's Kookmin University, said Pyongyang was simply following a typical pattern.

"For the last two years, both Washington and Seoul have tried to ignore them, so now they use both artillery and centrifuges to say: 'we are here, we are dangerous, and we cannot be ignored. We can make a lot of trouble, but also we behave reasonably if rewarded generously enough'," Lankov wrote on the East Asia Forum website.

North Korea has conducted two nuclear tests to date and is believed to have enough fissile material from its plutonium-based program to make between six and 12 bombs.

It is impossible to verify the North's uranium enrichment program, which it first announced last year. International inspectors were expelled from the country last year, but Washington has said since 2002 that it suspected Pyongyang had such a program.

Analysts say its actions are also linked to family politics, as ailing leader Kim Jong-il seeks to burnish a military image for his inexperienced son and chosen successor Kim Jong-un.

THREE-WAY MEETING

South Korea's Foreign Ministry said Tuesday the North's nuclear program, last week's attack on Yeonpyeong island and a Chinese proposal for emergency talks would be raised at meeting of foreign ministers in Washington in early December.

South Korea, Japan and the United States, three of the six countries involved in the on-off disarmament talks, will attend.

Talks host China has proposed a summit meeting of the six parties that have been trying to rein in North Korea's nuclear program. Russia and North Korea are also part of that group.

"Returning to consultation and talks is in the interests of all sides," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said at a regular news briefing.

"Ensuring the peace and stability of the Korean peninsula is the shared responsibility of all sides. We call on all sides to do more to stabilize the situation."

Japan's Kyodo news agency quoted diplomatic sources in Beijing as saying that Chinese State Councilor Dai Bingguo, who advises leaders on foreign policy, would visit North Korea as early as Wednesday.

He is likely to urge North Korea to take part in the talks, Kyodo reported.

The new Wikileaks revelations, purporting to be from U.S. State Department cables and published by several Western papers, raised questions about the future of the relationship between China and North Korea described in the past as being as close as "lips and teeth."

In one cable by the U.S. ambassador to Seoul, a top South Korean official is described as saying in February that some Chinese officials would not intervene if North Korea collapsed.

U.S. Ambassador Kathleen Stephens wrote that Chun Yung-woo, then the vice foreign minister for South Korea, said the younger generation of Communist leaders in China would not risk new armed conflict on the Korean Peninsula, the Guardian reported.

Some analysts were skeptical.

"My personal advice is that the report has been misplaced," said Wang Dong, a professor at Peking University. "North Korea is a strategic question for China, not a financial or economic one. They've made a mistake about China's viewpoint."

The United States wants Beijing to use its leverage to restrain its ally North Korea, whose shelling of Yeonpyeong last week was the first attack on civilians on South Korean soil since the end of the Korean war in 1953.

The U.S. and South Korean militaries started a third day of large-scale joint exercises off the peninsula's west coast on Tuesday in a show of force they say is meant to deter Pyongyang from staging further provocations.

(Additional reporting by Yoo Choonsik in Seoul; Chris Buckley in Beijing; and Patrick Worsnip in New York; Editing by Nick Macfie and Ron Popeski)

[Guest Waka Flocka Dave]

CNN

Breaking News: The House votes to overturn "don't ask, don't tell," which bans gays and lesbians from serving openly in the military.

[Guest Waka Flocka Dave]

North Korea 'ready for sacred war' with the South

North Korea is ready for a "sacred war of justice" using the nuclear deterrent, its armed forces minister has said.

Kim Yong-chun said exercises conducted by South Korea near the border were a preparation for war with the North.

The drill is one of the largest in South Korea's history, involving tanks, helicopters and fighter planes.

Tension has been high since North Korea shelled the South's Yeonpyeong island last month, killing four South Koreans.

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak has promised immediate retaliation to any further Northern attack.

The South Korean army acknowledged that the drill was aimed to display its firepower.

Although the South has conducted 47 military drills this year, this is the largest winter live-fire exercise ever conducted on land.

'Military provocation'

The North earlier branded Seoul's exercises "warmongering" but until now had not threatened the South with any retaliation.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12067735

guys sayin theyll use nuclear weapons

[JOHN DOE]

i find the idea behind these drills quite funny

its like u got beef with some guy and u each turn up with ur boys -each 'crew' brandishing a myriad of weapons to see whose knife is sharper/ whose carrying the most straps

/ hope the war dnt happen obv -who is allies with who??

[Guest Waka Flocka Dave]

China is a North Korean ally nt sure about any others no idea where Russia stands

but North Korea has the largest army, China has the second largest army, but the US seems to be the most advanced

would be interesting still

obv by this time id be in the deep jungles of Africa incase a nuke goes stray, bt ill be there for the evaluation

[Mr. Martinez]

no offence but you wouldn't survive 5 mins in a deep jungle in Africa mate

Russia sympathises with North Korea, but wouldn't go as far as as saying they're allies. Media recently reported how China's not really that much on backing North Korea, which if taken further IMO could be used by US to be like yea, North Korea needs to be stopped, China's not backing them, we're going in.

Really though, the above will never happen cos North Korea don't have anything like millions of litres of oil or tonnes of precious metals to really strike the US's appetite, so it'll never ever happen UNTIL North Korea and China are fully ready and Russia gives the nod.

[Guest Waka Flocka Dave]

lol @ not surviving like man aint lived in them deep African villages with dirty wells and mud huts for a significant portion of my life

obv that was sarcasm, bt ive lived more in jungle than you man

[Skola]

COUNTER

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so it was a master plan all along to hit them weight gainers. preparing for hard times and all that.