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TOKYO — When President Bill Clinton signed a 1994 agreement promising to “respect” the territorial integrity of Ukraine if it gave up its nuclear weapons, there was little thought then of how that obscure diplomatic pact — called the Budapest Memorandum — might affect the long-running defense partnership between the United States and Japan. But now, as American officials have distanced themselves from the Budapest Memorandum in light of Russia’s takeover of Crimea, calling promises made in Budapest “nonbinding,” the United States is being forced at the same time to make reassurances in Asia. Japanese officials, a senior American military...

Japan will strike any North Korean ballistic missile that threatens to hit Japan in the coming weeks after Pyongyang recently fired medium-range missiles, a government source said on Saturday. Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera issued the order, which took effect on Thursday and runs through April 25, the day that marks the founding of North Korea's army, the source told Reuters on condition of anonymity. Following the order, meant "to prepare for any additional missile launches," a destroyer was dispatched to the Sea of Japan and will fire if North Korea launches a missile that Tokyo deems in danger of striking...

Japan has ordered a destroyer in the Sea of Japan to strike any ballistic missiles that may be launched by North Korea in the coming weeks after Pyongyang fired a Rodong medium-range missile over the sea, a government source said on Saturday.

(Reuters) - A Mongolian-flagged cargo ship with 16 North Korean crew members has sunk off the southern coast of South Korea, a South Korean coast guard official said on Friday.

North Korea appears to ape Nasa with space agency logo Design looks remarkably similar to that of US space agency, right down to the blue globe, lettering and swooshed ring The choice of a globe as the emblem for North Korea's space agency expresses the country's ideal of peaceful exploration, explains the Korean Central News Agency. The blue rings, it adds, represent satellites, and the constellation of stars shows the desire to "glorify Kim Il-sung's and Kim Jong-il's Korea as a space power". However, the state news agency neglects to mention one glaring thing: the new logo looks a lot...

<p>A South Korean newspaper has reported that the North Korean regime of Kim Jong-un will execute 200 high-ranking government officials believed to be loyal to Jang Song-thaek, Kim's once-powerful uncle who was shockingly deposed and executed last December.</p> <p>The Chosun Ilbo reported the pending executions Tuesday, citing a source who said that North Korea's State Security Department had conducted a sweep to root out Jang's remaining supporters in the government. Under Pyongyang's brutal "guilty blood" system of criminal sentencing, the Chosun Ilbo's source told the paper that up to 1,000 more people, all family members of the condemned, could be sent to North Korea's infamous prison camps.</p>

South Korean Marines fired artillery shells across a disputed sea border Monday after North Korean shells from a live fire drill conducted by Pyongyang fell into the water south of the frontier, Seoul officials told the Associated Press. No shells from either side were fired at any land or military installations, an official with South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said. He provided no other details and spoke on condition of anonymity because of office rules. There were no immediately reports of any injuries. However, residents of a South Korean island near the border said that they had been moved...

Residents of a south Korean Border Town have taken shelter after the North began firing on them.

N.K. leader's sister serving as chief of staff: source Published : 2014-03-30 15:12 Updated : 2014-03-30 15:14 (Yonhap) The younger sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has been assisting her brother as his chief of staff since last year, a source familiar with North Korean affairs said Sunday. Kim Yo-jung, 27, was appointed chief secretary of the ruling Workers' Party in the first half of last year, a post equivalent to South Korea's presidential chief of staff, the source said, asking that he not be identified. The chief secretary does not take part in policy decisions but is in...

Council on Foreign Relations Caught Lying about Cuba-North Korea Arms Smuggling Posted By Humberto Fontova On March 28, 2014 @ 12:04 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | No Comments Back in July a North Korean ship trying to sneak military contraband through the Panama Canal after leaving Havana was stopped by Panamanian authorities on a tip it was carrying illegal drugs. Instead the ship, named the Chon-Chon Gang, was found to be crammed with missiles, MIGS and mucho military contraband from terror-sponsoring Cuba en route to North Korea. Nuke-rattling North Korea, by the way, has been under a UN arms embargo...

Back in July a North Korean ship trying to sneak military contraband through the Panama Canal after leaving Havana was stopped on a tip by Panamanian authorities. Well, wha-da-ya know?! The ship, named the Chon-Chon Gang, was found to be crammed with missiles and mucho military contraband from terror-sponsoring Cuba. Nuke-rattling North Korea has been under a UN arms embargo since 2006, by the way. At first, Cuban terror-sponsoring dictator Raul Castro tried threatening the Panamanian authorities behind the scenes to keep the issue mum, or at least parrot their version of the scam. But Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli scoffed...

(Reuters) - What began late last year as a routine new assignment for Pakistani sea captain Mirza Noman Baig ended in a dramatic night-time rescue as U.S. special forces seized the ship his family said he was forced to operate by Libyan rebels. ... Baig's family say the captain received direct orders from Saud Al Anazi, the head of ZAD Group, to stop near a rebel-held eastern Libyan port. Here, according to Baig's family and Libyan officials, armed men boarded and loaded the ship with oil. ... ZAD's Anazi denied involvement in any plan to help the rebels sell oil....

In which we discuss Zack Snyder’s latest, liberal interpretation of the second Persian invasion of Greece, the pre-Islamic cultural history of Persia, Dear Reader, Michael Malice’s unauthorized autobiography of Kim Jong-il, the fickle nature of social media, and, naturally, comic books! Enjoy.

A platoon from SEAL team 2 boarded and retook a pirated oil tanker in the Mediterranean. Fox News reports this matter-of-factly, and even brought in former SEAL Chad Williams to explain it. Maybe I am living in a media-amped Jack Bauer kind of fog, but I can't help thinking there's more to this than meets the eye.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. State Department on Sunday called on North Korea to refrain from provocative actions following reports Pyongyang had fired 10 short-range missiles into the sea off the east of the Korean peninsula.

Former Libyan prime minister Ali Zeidan has fled to Europe after parliament voted him out of office on Tuesday over his failure to stop rebels exporting oil independently in a brazen challenge to the nation's fragile unity. Zeidan was in Malta for two hours late on Tuesday on a short stop before going to "another European country", Prime Minister Joseph Muscat told state-owned television TVM. Government sources in Malta said he had left via a private plane bound for Germany, but the German authorities could not confirm he had arrived. The standoff over control of oil exports runs across dangerous...

TRIPOLI/ES SIDER, Libya, March 11 (Reuters) - Libya's parliament voted Prime Minister Ali Zeidan out of office on Tuesday after a tanker loaded with oil from a rebel-held port escaped the navy, officials said. Zeidan, a liberal weakened for months by infighting with Islamists, will be temporarily replaced by Defence Minister Abdallah al-Thinni, parliament spokesman Omar Hmeidan told reporters. The news deepens the turmoil in the North African country, a member of the OPEC oil producer group, where the government has struggled to impose order and rein in militias that helped oust Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 but now defy state...

Dennis Rodman is patiently waiting for the moment when the West credits him for single-handedly opening up North Korea to the rest of the world. The former basketball star and failed vigilante-diplomat told ESPN's Mark Schwarz that he "hated" America's reaction to his trip to the country, but apologized "if I put anybody in harm's way." Rodman, who returned from the limelight after a hiatus and trip to rehab, told Schwarz that he had high hopes for North Korea. "It's so intriguing to hear him talk about sports," Rodman told Schwarz of the nation's dictator, Kim Jong-Un, the foremost violator...

Benghazi — Libyan authorities stopped a North Korean-flagged tanker as it left a rebel-held port on Monday with an "illegal" shipment of crude, a military source said. Former rebels calling for autonomy for eastern Libya have been blockading the port of Al-Sidra and other key export terminals in the region since July last year. On Saturday, they began loading crude onto the North Korean-flagged Morning Glory which docked in Al-Sidra. On Monday, the navy intercepted the ship as it left the terminal with orders to escort it "towards a port controlled by the state," a military source told AFP on...

Posted By Rick Moran On March 9, 2014 @ 1:06 pm In Politics | 34 Comments They’re being charged with attempting to overthrow the regime, but their real crime is that they were working with jailed South Korean Christian missionary Kim Jung-wook to set up 500 underground churches in North Korea.They are not being “executed.” Using that word would lend some legality and moral framework to Kim’s action. This is nothing less than a massacre of innocent human beings — a slaughter that should raise an outcry in every civilized nation of the world.The Daily Mail reports: Thirty-three North Koreans...