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A South Korean presidential body guard carries an umbrella in front of the Asian Airlines plane that carried South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun and his wife Kwon Yang-sook after their arrival at Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington June 9, 2005. Roh will meet U.S. President George W. Bush in Washington on Friday at a time when the two allies are cautiously weighing signs that North Korea could end a year-long boycott of six-country diplomatic talks on its nuclear ambitions. REUTERS/Hyungwon Kang

Bush, S. Korean Leader Differ on N. Korea

By TOM RAUM, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - President Bush's efforts to draw North Korea back to disarmament talks are being complicated by U.S. diplomatic strains with South Korea and China. Boasts by the North of its atomic bomb capability and harsh rhetoric by American officials aren't helping, analysts suggest.

Pyongyang's nuclear program tops the agenda for a White House meeting on Friday between Bush and South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun.

China-led international negotiations over the North's nuclear ambitions have been deadlocked for close to a year, and both Bush and Roh are putting a high premium on getting them restarted.

But the two leaders have different views on how. The South is trying to coexist peacefully with its communist neighbor, and relations between the two Koreas have warmed.

That has created strains with a U.S. administration that views the North as a dangerous regime capable of producing and proliferating weapons of mass destruction.

Ties between Washington and Seoul are further stressed by disagreements over how to reshape their 50-year-old military alliance. The U.S. has about 32,500 troops in South Korea but is reducing that number to about 24,500 in the coming years.

Bush has been prodding China and South Korea to lean harder on North Korea to abandon its nuclear ambitions.

Roh was expected to press Bush to reaffirm a commitment to ending the showdown with a diplomatic resolution, calling any military option unacceptable.

Bush also has said seeking U.N. sanctions against Pyongyang "is an option down the road." But it's a course neither China nor South Korea want to pursue.

The North gave confusing signals ahead of Friday's White House meeting.

North Korean officials told U.S. diplomats in New York on Monday that the North was committed to rejoining the six-nation talks at some unspecified date. Then, on the eve of Roh's visit, North Korea boasted that it was building more nuclear bombs and was capable of putting them on missiles.

North Korea is widely believed to have enough weapons-grade plutonium for a half-dozen nuclear bombs. Asked by ABC News if it was building more, Vice Foreign Minister Kim Gye Gwan said, "Yes."

"As for specifically how many we have, that is a secret," he said.

The North also issued a statement saying new talks are "entirely dependent" on whether Washington creates a favorable environment for negotiations.

"Such steps and comments only further isolate North Korea from the rest of the international community," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said on Thursday.

But some critics suggested that harsh words from American officials were giving the North an excuse to shun the talks.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said during a visit to Asia last week that North Korea was "a living hell" for all but its elite. A week earlier, Vice President Dick Cheney called North Korean leader Kim Jong Il "one of the world's most irresponsible leaders," drawing scathing protests from Pyongyang.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has called North Korea one of the world's remaining "outposts of tyranny," a phrase that echoes Bush's 2002 depiction of the reclusive regime as a member of an "axis of evil."

"Part of our problem is we need to stop giving them excuses for not returning to the talks," Rep. Curt Weldon (news, bio, voting record), R-Pa., vice chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said in an interview. "We just have to tone down the rhetoric completely."

"We all know what the feelings are toward the regime and leader there. But we don't have to talk about it publicly. We don't have to spit in their face," said Weldon, who led a delegation to North Korea earlier this year.

China has expressed frustration with caustic U.S. rhetoric as it tries to coax North Korea back to the talks, which also include the United States, South Korea, Japan and Russia.

U.S.-Chinese ties have also been strained in recent weeks by trade and currency disputes.

In first signaling a willingness to return to the bargaining table, then boasting of their nuclear weapons, "the North Koreans are probably playing multiple games. And it confuses all of us. It probably confuses them too," said Michael O'Hanlon, a foreign policy scholar at the Brookings Institution.

The "underlying dilemma," said O'Hanlon, "is that they want their nuclear weapons, or at least want a very high price to buy them out. And we refuse to accept the validity or legitimacy of these weapons."

A young Palestinian covers his ears from a sound, launched by a new weapon of the Israeli army, during a demonstration against the construction of Israel's separation barrier at the West Bank village of Bil'in Friday, June 3, 2005. Israel is considering using an unusual new weapon against Jewish settlers who resist this summer's Gaza Strip evacuation, a device that emits penetrating bursts of sound that send targets reeling with dizziness and nausea. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

Israel May Use Sound Weapon on Settlers

By AMY TEIBEL, Associated Press Writer

JERUSALEM - Israel is considering using an unusual new weapon against Jewish settlers who resist this summer's Gaza Strip evacuation — a device that emits penetrating bursts of sound that leaves targets reeling with dizziness and nausea.

Security forces could employ the weapon to overcome resistance without resorting to force, their paramount aim. But experts warn that the effects of prolonged exposure are unknown.

The army employed the new device, which it dubbed "The Scream," at a recent violent demonstration by Palestinians and Jewish sympathizers against Israel's West Bank separation barrier.

Protesters covered their ears and grabbed their heads, overcome by dizziness and nausea, after the vehicle-mounted device began sending out bursts of audible, but not loud, sound at intervals of about 10 seconds. An Associated Press photographer at the scene said that even after he covered his ears, he continued to hear the sound ringing in his head.

A military official said the device emits a special frequency that targets the inner ear. Exposure for several minutes at close range could cause auditory damage, but the noise is too intolerable for people to remain in the area for that long, he said.

Another official, also speaking on condition of anonymity because of his sensitive position, said the device hasn't been tested on subjects for hours at a time, so he couldn't discuss effects from prolonged exposure.

He said there was no direct connection between the recent introduction of "The Scream" and the forcible removal of settlers who resist evacuation orders, which is to begin in mid-August. But he didn't rule out the possibility of using it to root out settlers if persuasion fails.

The other official said "The Scream" could be used if protesters march on Gaza settlements or take up military positions.

"The whole issue of non-lethal is viewed from a desire not to get into a situation where soldiers are in distress and the consequences would be harsher than expected," he explained.

He said the military is still evaluating the device's debut performance in the field.

John Pike, director of the GlobalSecurity.org think tank in Alexandria, Va., said he believed last Friday's demonstration was the first case of such technology making it out of the laboratory and into the field. He said the U.S. and possibly China and Russia are developing acoustic weapons.

"I'm not aware of any other agency that is actively using it at this point," Pike said.

The military offered few details on the device, but Pike said he assumed it worked on very low frequencies that set off resonance in the inner ear. He said he was unaware of potential damage besides possible hearing loss.

Though the military refused to comment, Pike said the device probably sends its sound waves out in a specific direction, protecting the soldiers behind it.

"Most governments don't face large-scale demonstrations with a potential for lethal violence," he said. "So I think I would look to Israeli security forces to be an innovator in the non-lethal arena, simply because of the unique challenges it faces in the crowd control arena."

The military officials said Israel is constantly trying to bring new non-lethal weapons into the field but wouldn't disclose details. Its current arsenal includes tear gas as well as rubber-coated steel bullets, which have caused dozens of Palestinian fatalities.

Critics say Israel, with all its military technology savvy, should have done more in the years since the first Palestinian uprising began in 1987 to develop non-lethal weapons for use against hostile Palestinian masses.

Troops often turn to live fire, sometimes against teenage Palestinian stone-throwers. Police, too, used deadly force in October 2000 to put down rioting by Israeli Arabs at the start of the second Palestinian uprising. Thirteen Israeli Arabs were killed in those riots, and a commission of inquiry found that police used excessive force.

Israel's B'Tselem human rights group says Israeli security officers don't come equipped to police protests. "Although they could have anticipated they would have to disperse crowds, they didn't equip themselves with non-lethal means," spokeswoman Sarit Michaeli said.

Weapons they do have, such as rubber-coated bullets, are misused — fired, for example, at too close a range, Michaeli said. The rubber-coated bullets can be lethal from close range.

Pike said the reason there aren't more non-lethal weapons available worldwide is because it is difficult to achieve both safety and effectiveness.

"The number of things that are genuinely effective at crowd control and substantially less lethal than lethal weapons — it's a pretty short list," he said.

Weapons like pepper gas wouldn't put off a determined crowd, Pike said. Something like sticky foam might keep people out of a building, "but if I'm talking about controlling a mob in a city square, it just doesn't enter into play," he said.

Israel's past efforts to develop non-lethal crowd dispersal weapons included a gravel-spewing machine introduced and quickly abandoned during the first Palestinian uprising.