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Salvage crews have raised the stern or rear portion of a South Korean Navy ship that mysteriously sunk in the Yellow Sea on March 26th. The bodies of 36 crew members were also recovered. Initial reports suggested a North Korean torpedo may have been responsible. But just as tensions between the two rivals were escalating, the cause of the incident became murkier. What is clear is some sort of explosion caused the Cheonan to split in two and then sink. Many of the crew members were rescued by South Korean ships that rushed to the scene, but at least 44...

U.S. 'Won't Seek Talks with N.Korea Until Shipwreck Is Explained' The U.S. will start discussions on the resumption of six-party nuclear talks with North Korea once it is known what caused the South Korean Navy corvette Cheonan to sink in the West Sea on March 26, a senior U.S. official said Wednesday. Kurt Campbell, the U.S. assistant secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, made the remarks when he met reporters after a seminar hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. When asked about the resumption of the six-party talks, he said, "Let's find...

Military authorities on Tuesday revealed video footage showing the moment the Navy corvette Cheonan sank in the West Sea last Friday. The one-minute-20-second clip was filmed by a marine stationed on nearby Baeknyeong Island using a thermal observation device. This makes it possible to observe objects at night by detecting temperature differences. The clip shows the moment the bow of the Cheonan started to sink with the stern already broken off three minutes after an explosion broke the ship in two on March 26 and a naval fleet of high-speed boats approached the sinking ship at 9:56 p.m. In the...

N.Korea Reinforces Coastal Artillery North Korea is reinforcing artillery bases along the west coast in the lead-up to the first anniversary of the shelling of Yeonpyeong island on Nov. 23. The coastal artillery base that indiscriminately fired at Yeonpyeong Island on Nov. 23, 2010 is on the stretch of coast that is now being reinforced. A South Korean government source on Thursday said intelligence forces have detected signs that the North is building new coastal artillery bases in Kaemori and on Jangsan cape across from the island. "It seems that they were either relocating the artillery base because last year's...

Noteworthy in this short FNN Network News (Japanese) clip located at this page.Click on white triangle on the Japanese text page, after going to the link, to stream (on most systems, up for another day or so). Approximately one minute long clip, from Japanese evening news a few hours ago here in Tokyo.a) Footage of Pyongyang, North Korean TV female announcer spitting bile and filth towards innocent South Korea saying that they deserved the attacks because they started it and more would be on the way. b) Japanese and South Korean reporters today apparantly caught and cornered the envoy...

The National Assembly's Defense Committee on Wednesday passed a resolution accusing North Korea of torpedoing the South Korean Navy corvette Cheonan. It took 89 days since the ship sank in the West Sea on March 26. Both the U.S. Congress and European Parliament were quicker to react by passing relevant resolutions on May 14 at the Senate and May 26 at the House of Representatives and on June 17 in Strasbourg. The resolution is now expected to pass a full session of the National Assembly on June 28. The main opposition Democratic Party is expected to make no attempt to...

PYEONGTAEK, South Korea — Investigators let media have a look at the wreckage of the Cheonan on Wednesday, the day before South Korea was to formally announce that a North Korea torpedo sank the South Korean patrol ship. The wreckage of the March 26 sinking was retrieved from the Yellow Sea near the maritime border between the two Koreas and hauled to South Korea’s Second Fleet Command base in Pyeongtaek. Yoon Duk-yong, an investigator with the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, told reporters Wednesday that evidence from the recovered pieces of the ship points to a torpedo attack....

An "external explosion" is likely to have caused a South Korean naval ship to sink near the sea border with North Korea, a chief investigator said Friday after experts examined the ship's wreckage retrieved a day earlier. "Rather than an internal explosion, the possibility of an external explosion is very high," said Yoon Duk-yong, co-head of the state investigation team looking into the March 26 sinking of the 1,200-ton patrol ship Cheonan. "But for a final conclusion, it is necessary to make a detailed analysis while leaving all possibilities open." Yoon, a renowned scientist named to lead the investigation along...