[AmericanInTokyo]

One request (and I don't expect everyone to respect this, but it's worth a try), but this is a serious topic. Please report in news, comments, data, etc.

As said earlier, and the FR moderators I believe agree, enough of the jokes about the name of the North Korean missile, as silly as it sounds. This joke is way old. Take that to a humor thread if you have to, please. Or if you want to freepmail yourself with it, have a grand time.

Serious comments to this thread, and the efforts made to find and translate these articles before they appear in the domestic US press; thanks. --AIT

[LiberalsWorstNightmare]

Bump! Thanks. Good stuff.

[ambrose]

I wonder just how bad the domestic situation has to be in NK for them to be doing this. They're literally crying out for attention (and cash)... I wonder if Kim Jong-Il could go the way of Ceausescu...

[El Conservador]

It's to allow Japan to have an offensive military and do away with her ragtag JDA.

Full military for Japan!!!

[phasma proeliator]

BIG BUMP. Personally agree that it would be DAMN nice to have serious comments only.

[Constitution Day]

I agree, although I have been guilty of making "No Dong" jokes before.

I even think this should be in Breaking News, but I guess that's a moderator call.

[Gunslingr3]

Hope the rocket gets past Japan before it fails...

[kaylar]

As said earlier, and the FR moderators I believe agree, enough of the jokes about the name of the North Korean missile, as silly as it sounds. This joke is way old. Take that to a humor thread if you have to, please. Or if you want to freepmail yourself with it, have a grand time.

Agreed, and I for one can't believe there are still people posting,"All your ____ are belong to us." That's how many years old now?

And thank you for getting this information from the local media to us . It's good that FR has such global reach and so many members that cnn/ap/up/reuters can be bypassed.

[Normal4me]

The Japanese AEGIS warship, Myoko, is steaming toward the Sea of Japan. The Japanese Maritime Self Defense force is increasing it's alert level.

If NK issues a maritime warning and Japan has a ship in the area, would that constitute a 'Hostile' act of aggression by NK?

[skeeter]

I'm sure Mr Kim feels emboldened by all the anti-American rhetoric coming out of the UN, US press and idiot local protestors.

Another potential holocaust made possible by our friends on the left.

[judicial meanz]

AIT:

Washington Times is reporting the same thing, except they think it may be a Tae-Po-Dong 2. An article excerpt is below:



North Korea prepares new test of missile
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES


North Korea is preparing another missile test, which would break Pyongyang's moratorium on long-range ballistic missile flights, U.S. intelligence officials said. Top Stories
Meanwhile, a separate test Monday of a new anti-ship cruise missile, the second in two weeks, was a failure, with the 100-mile-range missile failing to fly properly because of a guidance system problem, the officials told The Washington Times.
Recent satellite photographs of a North Korean base showed activity that appeared to be flight-test preparations, said officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
"There aren't indications of an imminent launch, but it is something they might well do," one U.S. official said. "It's certainly a possibility."
A second official said the activity is being watched closely and that there are concerns that the flight test, which would be North Korea's third in recent weeks, will be of the Taepo-Dong 2 ballistic missile.
A third official at the Pentagon said, "Clearly, the potential is there for a launch with little or no notice."
U.S. officials said the missile tested Monday was a North Korean version of the Chinese-made HY-2 Silkworm anti-ship missile that has an estimated range of up to 100 miles.
The second flight test of the new missile failed because of problems with the guidance system, U.S. officials said. The missile flew about 80 miles over the East Sea/Sea of Japan.
The preparations and the cruise-missile flight tests come amid growing tensions on the Korean Peninsula.
The Pentagon is dispatching six F-117 Stealth fighter bombers to South Korea for exercises to begin next week, said Defense Department spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Jeff Davis. It will be the first time since 1993, when the first crisis developed concerning North Korea's nuclear-weapons program, that the radar-evading aircraft are moved to South Korea.
Earlier this month, 24 B-1 and B-52 bombers were sent to Guam to deter any North Korean military action.
North Korean jets also threatened an unarmed U.S. reconnaissance aircraft March 2, locking targeting radar on a U.S. Air Force RC-135 flying in international airspace 150 miles from North Korea's coast.
South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun yesterday called for maintaining a strong alliance with the United States.
"The staunch Korea-U.S. combined defense arrangement is greatly contributing to our national security," Mr. Roh said in a speech at the Korean Military Academy. "The solid ... alliance should be maintained even more so."
North Korea, meanwhile, repeated its call for direct talks with the United States.
"If the U.S. turns to a military option in the end, persistently turning down the [North´s] principled proposal for direct talks, it will lead to a catastrophic situation," North Korea's official Rodong Sinmun newspaper said in a commentary.
In Tokyo, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi sought to play down the cruise-missile test on Monday, telling reporters that it was "not an emergency." He said Japan would work with the United States to prevent Pyongyang from taking reckless action.
Stocks in Tokyo fell to a 20-year low after reports in the Rodong Sinmun that the test was more than a simple military drill.
Defense officials said North Korea's first two missile tests were directed at the United States. Pyongyang is trying to force the United States to negotiate directly with its communist government, something President Bush has ruled out.
North Korea's government is expected to announce a warning of the next missile test soon, perhaps as early as today, the officials said.
Pyongyang released an official notice in advance of the missile tests that happened Feb. 24 and Monday.
A major worry among U.S. officials is that the upcoming test, which would be the third in recent weeks, will be a second flight test of its new long-range Taepo-Dong 2 ballistic missile, which was flight-tested for the first time in August 1998.
The CIA said in a report made public in December 2001 that North Korea is improving the Taepo-Dong 2. The missile can carry a warhead weighing several hundred pounds up to 6,200 miles, "sufficient to strike Alaska, Hawaii and parts of the continental United States."


Excerpted: original article below:

http://www.washtimes.com/national/20030312-477649.htm


I think that the NK government is rapidly approaching that smackdown line they want so bad. I also read somewhere they are poised to do an underground nuclear test quite soon.

Good luck and keep your head down AIT!

[Centurion2000]

In reading this and the Japanese reaction, I wouldn't surpised that if that missile was shot down.

[bonesmccoy]

AIT-
No Dong missiles are not thought to have the range to hit US targets (unless you count islands in the Aleutians).

The issue is the upper stage of the booster rocket.

They have a two stage vehicle. Like China ten years ago, they're missing the third stage.

Let's hope LORAL/LOCKHEED doesn't get unpatriotic ideas.

[SauronOfMordor]

Sounds like a good place to field-test our ABM systems

[Rain-maker]

JONG is a NUT : ALERT

[Iron Eagle]

Perhaps we can test some anti-missle tracking systems on all this launches. I don't purport to know our capabilities, but if we have confidence in them, this might be an opportunity tio demonstrate that we can kill missles launched by N. Korea.

What Freeper knowledge do we have about shooting down such surface to surface missles?

[John Valentine]

Hi AIT!

Do you have any idea what the throw weight of the Nodong is? It isn't mentioned in the technical details.

If I assume that it is 300 kg or so (subject to correction), then with a CEP of 190 meters this think would be a very expensive delivery vehicle for a fairly ineffective TNT explosive warhead.

It would seem that it is only useful as a nuclear delivery system.

Also, is there any grit in Japan for an action against a launch at this time, either ship launched, or (dare I hope) a surreptitious use of the American airborne laser?

[John Valentine]

My money is on a crash acceleration of this program.

Dawn of the Airborne Laser: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/860620/posts

[Robert_Paulson2]

Posted on 04/06/2002 9:33 AM PST by maui_hawaii

TOKYO (Reuters) - The leader of Japan's opposition Liberal Party, Ichiro Ozawa, said on Saturday it would be a simple matter for Japan to produce nuclear weapons and surpass the military might of China if its neighbour got "too inflated".

Inviting a sharp response from Beijing, which is sensitive to any signs of militarism in Japan, Ozawa told a seminar in the southern city of Fukuoka that "China is applying itself to expansion of military power".

"If (China) gets too inflated, Japanese people will get hysterical," Kyodo news agency quoted him as saying.

"It would be so easy for us to produce nuclear warheads. We have plutonium at nuclear power plants in Japan, enough to make several thousand such warheads," he said.

Ozawa said his statements, coming just days before Japanese Prime Minster Junichiro Koizumi visits China, were meant to encourage stronger ties between China and Japan, the only country to have suffered a nuclear attack.

He said he made similar comments recently to a person he described as being affiliated with the Chinese intelligence agency.

"I told that person that if we get serious, we will never be beaten in terms of military power," he said.

Ozawa said Japan found itself in a difficult position.

"Northeastern Asia, in which both China and North Korea (news - web sites) are located, is the most unstable region in the world," he said.

"China is applying itself to expansion of military power in the hope of becoming a superpower...following the United States."

Koizumi will visit China for three days from April 11 to attend an economic conference on Hainan island, although he is also expected to meet Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji.

Li Peng, chairman of China's parliament, who is on a visit to Japan, said in an interview published in a regional newspaper on Saturday he was optimistic about Japan-China relations.

Li said Japan and China, long resentful over its treatment at the hands of Japanese invaders, may encounter difficulties on the path to closer ties because the countries were so different.

"Even in such cases, the two nations can solve any problems with effort and foresight," Li said in an interview with the Kitanippon Press, a newspaper in western Japan.

Li's visit is one of several high-level exchanges between China and Japan to mark the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties in September 1972.

Ties have been strained in recent times by Koizumi's visit last year to a shrine honouring Japan's war dead, including convicted war criminals, and Japan's approval of a history textbook that China and other Asian countries say downplays Japan's wartime aggression.

[OXENinFLA]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=516&ncid=716&e=5&u=/ap/20030312/ap_on_re_as/us_north_korea

U.S. to Resume North Korea Reconnaissance

WASHINGTON - The Air Force prepared Wednesday to resume reconnaissance flights off the coast of North Korea (news - web sites), 10 days after Korean fighter jets intercepted an Air Force plane equipped to monitor missile tests, a senior U.S. official said.

[mass55th]

North Korea better hope that one of these missiles doesn't go astray. It's lights out if that happens.