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North Korea announced plans Friday to blast a satellite into space on the back of a long-range rocket, a provocative move that could jeopardize a weeks-old agreement with the U.S. exchanging food aid for nuclear concessions. The North agreed to a moratorium on long-range launches as part of the deal with Washington, but it argues that its satellite launches are part of a peaceful space program that is exempt from any international disarmament agreements. The U.S., South Korea and other critics say the rocket technology overlaps with belligerent uses and condemn the satellite program as a disguised way of testing...

Reports that Iranian scientists have received help on nuclear weapons development in North Korea have strained ties between Teheran and Pyongyang. Japan’s Sankei Shimbun reported last week that the rift arose after Iran suspected that North Korea had leaked top-secret information about the Iranian scientists who visited that country. The report said that the differences surfaced after “blackmail documents” were sent by an Iranian exile group to several scientists engaged in Teheran's nuclear programs. “The group demanded that they stop participating in the nuclear programs and threatened to kill them if they refused to do so,” the newspaper reported. “Moreover,...

South Korea has been digging into North Korean weapons smuggling efforts, and has found an elaborate, and widespread network of organizations and people that make it all work. What gave South Korea an opportunity to penetrate this web of deception was the recent seizure of an Il-76 transport carrying 40 tons of North Korean weapons. The weapons laden Il-76 jet transport seized in Thailand last December turned out to be the third such aircraft to pass over Thailand recently. U.S. intelligence has been tracking cargo transports flying out of North Korea, and an increasing number of these flights take the...

Japanese researchers announced their discovery that the North Korean Taepodong 2 missile that was tested last April, was eight times more accurate than the Taepodong 1 that was tested in 1998. No precise figures were given, but it's likely that accuracy for the Taepodong 2 is several hundred meters (the radius of the circle the missile warhead is likely to land in). North Korea has been working on Taepodong 2 for over a decade. The earlier model Taepodong 1, launched in1998, went about 1,500 kilometers. A 2006 Taepodong 2 test barely got off the ground before crashing. Last Aprils test...

North Korea has completed work on a new west coast site capable of launching improved intercontinental ballistic missiles, according to senior South Korean officials quoted by Yonhap news agency. The Dongchang-ri base has been under construction for several years despite long-running international efforts to shut down the communist state's missile and nuclear programmes. "The construction is as good as finished," one South Korean official told Yonhap on condition of anonymity. "The necessary facilities are all there." Another official said the North has been testing missile parts such as boosters at the site about 200 km (125 miles) northwest of Pyongyang....

Czechs are used to betrayal by their Western allies. It was at Munich in 1938 that British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain sealed their doom in exchange for a piece of paper promising "peace in our time." The fact that this further gutting of missile defense came on the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland on Sept. 17, 1939, is an eerie coincidence. "Just after midnight I was informed in a telephone call by President Barack Obama that (his) administration had decided to pull out from the planned missile defense shield installations" in the Czech Republic and Poland, the...

Strategic Defense: With Iran on the verge of a deliverable nuke, the administration tells our allies in the dead of night that we will scuttle missile defense plans in Eastern Europe to please the Russians.Czechs are used to betrayal by their Western allies. It was at Munich in 1938 that British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain sealed their doom in exchange for a piece of paper promising "peace in our time." The fact that this further gutting of missile defense came on the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland on Sept. 17, 1939, is an eerie coincidence. "Just after...

As Defense Secretary Gates tours our missile defense site at Fort Greely, Alaska, Gov. Sarah Palin calls for restoration of the missile defense cuts. Meanwhile, North Korea points another missile at the U.S. Robert Gates' visit to our missile defense facility at Fort Greely on Monday was a pointed reminder to the North Koreans that while we have been talking softly, we still have a few big sticks in the ground ready to turn the North Korean missile program into so much scrap metal.

Defense: As we prepare to celebrate our independence, North Korea wants to remind us of Pearl Harbor. Fortunately, we can make use of assets dreamed of by Reagan and deployed by Bush to defend our 50th state. Japan's Yomiuri newspaper reported Thursday that North Korea would launch a long-range Taepodong-2 missile at Hawaii on or about July 4. This would be the anniversary of the first Taepodong-2 test on July 4, 2006. It would also mark the 15th anniversary of North Korean President Kim Il Sung's death.Those who know have stopped laughing at North Korea's increasingly credible nuclear and global...

DPRK blasts S. Korea's intention to participate in PSI www.chinaview.cn 2009-03-30 22:30:43 Print PYONGYANG, March 30 (Xinhua) -- The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) blasted the intention of the South Korea to participate in the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) on Monday, warning "resolute countermeasure" against it. "We solemnly declare that should the Lee group participate in the 'PSI,' oblivious of this reality, the DPRK will consider this as a declaration of a war and promptly take a resolute countermeasure against it," the official KCNA news cited a spokesman for the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea as saying....

America's top military officer said on Friday that a rocket North Korea plans to launch next month has a range that could possibly reach Hawaii. Asked if the North Korean rocket could reach the US states of Hawaii or Alaska, Admiral Mike Mullen told CNN: "In some cases, yes, they could probably get down to Hawaii." International concern has been mounting about North Korea's announcement it would launch a communications satellite between April 4 and 8. The United States, Japan and other allies believe Pyongyang is using the launch to test a ballistic missile that could, in theory, cross the...

An armada of air, sea and space intelligence assets are being deployed above and around North Korea in anticipation of the imminent test of a 105 ft. Taepo-Dong-2 Intercontinental Ballistic Missile disguised as a satellite launch vehicle. The timing of the test is unknown, but expected soon. Key North Korean support hardware has been spotted moving into place around the launch site and North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il visited the launch facility February 25. Iranian hardware, including possible satellite components, are part of the North Korean test. Many of the same flight test objectives for demonstrating ICBM flight and guidance...

N.Korea 'Could Test Missile During Clinton's Asia Visit' An expert on East Asian relations has suggested that North Korea could test-fire its inter-continental ballistic missile during U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's four-nation Asian tour. Secretary Clinton leaves the U.S. Sunday to visit Korea, Japan, Indonesia and China. She is scheduled to stay in Seoul on Thursday and Friday. The prediction came at a seminar in Washington D.C. on Thursday by Georgetown University scholar Balbina Hwang. She is a former senior special advisor to ambassador Christopher Hill, who worked as Washington's chief nuclear envoy to North Korea under the George...

N.Korea 'Transports Missile to Launch Site' North Korea has transported a missile to a launch site in Musudan-ri on the east coast using a special covered cargo carriage to make it difficult to track, intelligence agencies claimed Thursday. This 40m-long special cargo carriage is double the length of an ordinary carriage and said to be capable of carrying the first and second-stage rockets and components of the Taepodong-2. But South Korean and U.S. intelligence agencies cannot say how large the missile is. They assume that North Korea is now assembling the missile at the launch site in Musudan-ri, North Hamgyong...

U.S. official: North Korea might be making missile preparations From Barbara Starr CNN Pentagon Correspondent WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A U.S. spy satellite snapped an image within the last several days of preparations at a North Korean missile site previously used for Taepodong-2 missile launch operations, a senior U.S. official told CNN Tuesday. North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, right, in an undated photo that the state news agency released Saturday. The photograph shows North Korea assembling telemetry equipment at the site -- equipment that would be needed for a launch to take place, the official said, adding that so far,...

Gates jokes about North Korean missile test /snip "Since the first time that they launched the missile it flew for a few minutes before crashing, the range of the Taepodong-2 remains to be seen," Gates told reporters during a Pentagon news conference. "So far, it's very short." /snip

North Korea preparing for ballistic missile launch: media By Jon Herskovitz 48 mins ago SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea appears to be preparing to test-launch its longest range ballistic missile, media reports said on Tuesday, stoking tensions just days after the reclusive state warned that the Korean peninsula was on the brink of war. North Korea, which typically carries out missile tests in times of political friction, last week said it was scrapping all agreements with South Korea in a move analysts said was aimed at pressuring Seoul and grabbing the attention of new U.S. President Barack Obama. The North,...

Excerpt - SEOUL, April 8 (Yonhap) -- North Korea is preparing for a mass military parade to showcase its weaponry, possibly including its long-range Taepodong-2 missile, a move expected to heighten tension in the region, a South Korean source said Sunday. South Korean intelligence authorities have detected the North covering missiles, army trucks and other military hardware with camouflage blankets, which are to be used in a military parade to mark the 75th anniversary of the founding of its Korean People's Armed Forces, the source said, on condition of anonymity. The anniversary falls on April 25. "We are focusing on...

The U.S. missile defense system yesterday shot down an incoming dummy warhead simulating the last-stage trajectory of a North Korean Taepodong-2 missile, a milestone that U.S. officials expect to counter critics of earlier tests. It was the first time a dummy North Korean missile was intercepted, and the sixth successful intercept since 1999, said officials from the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency. "What we did today is a huge step in terms of our systematic approach to continuing to field, continuing to deploy and continuing to develop a missile defense system for the United States, for our allies, our friends, our...