North Korea: Uranium Program Near Completion

North Korea in Final Stages of Enriching Uranium –

North Korea said Friday (9-4-09) that it is in the final stages of enriching uranium, a process that could give it a second way to make nuclear bombs. ONWARD TO COMMUNISM!

 

Hit them where it hurts

What will happen when communication breakdowns in bourgeois pig-town U.$.A. moves from three-to-four day “July 4th” shutdowns of U.S. government websites (and their imperialist-lackey counterparts in south Korea) to nightmares such as the above, when the bourgeois brats of the decadent Amerikan middle-class won’t be able to discuss their latest super-exploitative expenditures? What will happen when that inconvenience is denied? The answer is simple: MASS SOCIAL CHAOS.

(In the article below note that the bare statistics of the facts of the initial results of the computer shutdown have been subtly downplayed within the media report – news articles closer to the date of the initial breakdown in U.S. government websites are more information intensive.)

Report: North Korean Army suspected over cyberattacks

By HYUNG-JIN KIM, Associated Press Writer

SEOUL, South Korea – A North Korean army lab of hackers was ordered to “destroy” South Korean communications networks — evidence the isolated regime was behind cyberattacks that paralyzed South Korean and American Web sites — news reports said Saturday, citing an intelligence briefing.

Members of the parliamentary intelligence committee have said in recent days that the National Intelligence Service has also pointed to a North Korean boast last month that it was “fully ready for any form of high-tech war.”

The spy agency told lawmakers Friday that a research institute affiliated with the North’s Ministry of People’s Armed Forces received an order to “destroy the South Korean puppet communications networks in an instant,” the mass-circulation JoongAng Ilbo newspaper reported.

The paper, citing unidentified members of parliament’s intelligence committee, said the institute, known as Lab 110, specializes in hacking and spreading malicious programs.

The Ministry of People’s Armed Forces is the secretive nation’s defense ministry.

The NIS — South Korea’s main spy agency — said it couldn’t confirm the report. Calls to several key intelligence committee members went unanswered Saturday.

The agency, however, issued a statement late Saturday saying it has “various evidence” of North Korean involvement, though has yet to reach a conclusion.

South Korea’s Yonhap news agency carried a similar report, saying the NIS obtained a North Korean document issuing the June 7 order. The report, quoting an unidentified senior ruling party official, said the North Korean institute is affiliated with the North Korean People’s Army.

The state-run Korea Communications Commission said Friday that it had identified and blocked five Internet Protocol, or IP, addresses in five countries used to distribute computer viruses that caused the wave of Web site outages, which began in the U.S. on July 4.

The addresses point to the computers that distributed the virus that triggered so-called denial of service attacks in which floods of computers try to connect to a single site at the same time, overwhelming the server.

They were in Austria, Georgia, Germany, South Korea and the U.S., a commission official said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media on the record.

Speculation over who was responsible for the attacks that targeted high-profile Web sites, including those of the White House and South Korea’s presidential Blue House, has centered on North Korea.

And though such finger-pointing has been trickling out since the attacks began, the identity of the IP addresses themselves provides little in the way of clarity.

That’s because it is likely the hackers, whoever they are, used the addresses to disguise themselves — for instance, by accessing the computers from a remote location. IP addresses can also be faked or masked, hiding their true location.

South Korean media reported in May that North Korea was running an Internet warfare unit that tries to hack into American and South Korean military networks to gather confidential information and disrupt service. The Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported Friday that the North has between 500-1,000 hacking specialists.

The fact that some of the attacked sites — such as the ruling party and the office of President Lee Myung-bak — have links to the South Korean government’s hard-line policies toward the North was cited as further reason why Pyongyang might attack them.

The North has drawn repeated international rebuke in recent months for threats and actions seen as provocative by the international community. Those include a nuclear test in May and short-range ballistic missile launches on July 4.

North Korea has not responded to the allegations of its involvement in the Web site outages.

The assaults appear to be on the wane. No new similar cyberattacks have been reported in South Korea since Friday evening, according to the state-run Korea Information Security Agency.

 

DPRK “marks American holiday”: fires seven ballistic missiles

Democratic People’s Republic of Korea test-fired seven ballistic missiles yesterday on the July 4th holiday. In a press response U.S. vice-president Joe Biden claims this is “no big deal” and that North Korea is just trying to “seek attention” and that he isn’t going to “give them the attention they seek.” We wonder how well Americans on the side of imperialism really think that this reasoning works, along the lines of “My house is burning down, but I am not going to let that ruin my day.”

As inevitable showdown approaches between the forces of the world’s masses and imperialism we would encourage American communists to get their heads out of the sand, step outside the confines of their colleges for once (and we don’t mean for one of the “revolutionary tourism” vacations that persons associated with the sectarian Monkey Smashes Heaven Journal like to take) and eschew the American non-logic (which doesn’t even work in America) of Biden and embrace practical action, elsewise you are all just “whistling dixie.”

 

DPRK Threatens ‘Nuclear Fire Shower’ against US Imperialist Aggressors

SEOUL, South Korea — Punching their fists into the air and shouting “Let’s crush them!” some 100,000 North Koreans packed Pyongyang’s main square Thursday for an anti-U.S. rally as the communist regime promised a “fire shower of nuclear retaliation” for any American-led attack.

Several demonstrators held up a placard depicting a pair of hands smashing a missile with “U.S.” written on it, according to footage taken by APTN in Pyongyang on the anniversary of the day North Korean troops charged southward, sparking the three-year Korean War in 1950.

North Korean troops will respond to any sanctions or U.S. provocations with “an annihilating blow,” one senior official vowed — a pointed threat as an American destroyer shadowed a North Korean freighter sailing off China’s coast, possibly with banned goods on board.

A new U.N. Security Council resolution passed recently to punish North Korea for conducting an underground nuclear test in May requires U.N. member states to request inspections of ships suspected of carrying arms or nuclear weapons-related material.

In response to the sanctions, the North pulled out of nuclear talks and has ramped up already strident anti-American rhetoric. And the isolated regime may now be moving to openly flout the resolution by dispatching a ship suspected of carrying arms to Myanmar.

While it was not clear what was on board the North Korean-flagged Kang Nam 1, officials have mentioned artillery and other conventional weaponry. One intelligence expert suspected missiles.

The U.S. and its allies have made no decision on whether to request inspection of the ship, Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said Wednesday in Washington, but North Korea has said it would consider any interception an act of war.

If permission for inspection is refused, the ship must dock at a port of its choosing so local authorities can check its cargo. Vessels suspected of carrying banned goods must not be offered bunkering services at port, such as fuel, the resolution says.

A senior U.S. defense official said the ship had cleared the Taiwan Strait. He said he didn’t know whether or when the Kang Nam may need to stop in some port to refuel, but that the Kang Nam has in the past stopped in Hong Kong’s port.

Another U.S. defense official said he tended to doubt reports that the Kang Nam was carrying nuclear-related equipment, saying information seems to indicate the cargo is banned conventional munitions. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity in order to talk about intelligence.

North Korea is suspected to have transported banned goods to Myanmar before on the Kang Nam, said Bertil Lintner, a Bangkok-based North Korea expert who has written a book about leader Kim Jong Il.

Pyongyang also has been helping the junta in Yangon build up its weapons arsenal, a South Korean intelligence expert said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

The two countries have not always been on good terms. Ties were severed in 1983 after a fatal bombing during the South Korean president’s visit to Myanmar blamed on North Korean commandoes.

They held secret talks in Bangkok in the 1990s to discuss the lone survivor among the three North Korean commandos involved in the bombing, and since have forged close relations.

The two regimes, among Asia’s most repressive, restored diplomatic ties in 2007. Not long after that, in April 2007, the Kang Nam docked at Thilawa port saying it needed shelter from bad weather.

But one expert said reports show the weather was clear then, and two local journalists working for a foreign news agency who went to write about the unusual docking were arrested.

“The Kang Nam unloaded a lot of heavy equipment in 2007,” Lintner said. “Obviously, the ship was carrying something very sensitive at that time as well.”

North Korea has also helped Myanmar dig tunnels in recent years, said Lintner, adding that the cash-strapped North may have received rice, rubber and minerals in return for its military and other assistance.

“North Korea appears to have exported conventional weapons to Myanmar in exchange for food,” another expert said.

Pyongyang is believed to have transported digging equipment to Myanmar, which is seeking to make its new capital a fortress with vast underground facilities, he said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence.

North Korea has been locked in a tense standoff with Washington and other regional powers over its nuclear program. In April, the regime launched a rocket widely seen as a cover for a test of long-range missile technology — a move that drew U.N. Security Council condemnation.

The North responded by abandoning six-nation disarmament talks and threatening to carry out nuclear tests and fire intercontinental ballistic missiles. The North is believed to be developing a long-range missile designed to strike the U.S. but experts say it has not figured out how to mount a bomb onto the missile.

On Thursday, Pyongyang vowed to enlarge its atomic arsenal and warned of a “fire shower of nuclear retaliation” if provoked by the U.S.

North Korea’s “armed forces will deal an annihilating blow that is unpredictable and unavoidable, to any ‘sanctions’ or provocations by the US,” Pak Pyong Jong, first vice chairman of the Pyongyang City People’s Committee, told the crowd gathered for the Korean War anniversary rally.

In Seoul, some 5,000 people — mostly American and South Korean veterans and war widows — also commemorated the anniversary at a ceremony.

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak said the nation is prepared to counter any type of threat or provocation.

“The South Korean government is firmly determined to defend the lives and wealth of its people and will do its utmost to find the remains of troops killed in the Korean War,” he said at the ceremony.

The two Koreas technically remain in a state of war because the conflict ended in a truce, not a peace treaty.

Associated Press writers Hyung-jin Kim and Jae-soon Chang in Seoul, and Pauline Jelinek in Washington, contributed to this report.

 

WATCH YOUR ASS, YANKEE!: DPRK threatens to launch pre-emptive strike against U.S.

PYONGYANG, June 15 (Xinhua) — The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) has warned it would launch a pre-emptive attack against the United States.

Pak Jae Gyong, vice-minister of the DPRK People’s Armed Forces, made the remark at a mass rally that attracted some 10,000 people to denounce a newly endorsed U.N. Security Council Resolution, the official KCNA news agency said Monday.

“Under the present situation where the Korean People’s Army (KPA) is technically at war with the U.S. imperialists, and as the Armistice Agreement has lost its legal binding force, the KPA will promptly exercise the right to a pre-emptive strike to beat back the enemies’ slightest provocation,” Pak said.

He threatened to deliver blows to the “vital parts of the U.S.” and “wipe out all its imperialist aggressor troops no matter where they are in the world.”

Meanwhile, Kim Ki Nam, secretary of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea, told the rally that the U.N. resolution was “another grave provocation.”

“This is, in essence, a wicked pressure offensive launched by the U.S. imperialists to disarm the DPRK, strangle its economy and undermine its ideology and system,” Kim said.

The DPRK will respond to any attempt to blockade it with “resolute and deadly blows,” he said.

The U.N. Security Council on Friday unanimously approved wider sanctions against the DPRK over its May 25 nuclear test.

The resolution bans all weapons exports from the DPRK and most arms imports into the country. It authorizes U.N. member states to inspect the DPRK’s sea, air and land cargoes, requiring them to seize and destroy any goods transported in violation of the sanctions.

 

RPP Message to Bosworth

RE: NKorea may be prepping new nuclear test/6/11/09 AP

AP source: NKorea may be prepping new nuclear test

By PAMELA HESS, Associated Press Writer Pamela Hess, Associated Press Writer – 1 hr 42 mins ago

WASHINGTON – North Korea may be preparing for its third nuclear test, a show of defiance as the United Nations considers new sanctions on the dictatorship for conducting an underground nuclear explosion in May, according to a U.S. government official.

North Korea conducted an underground explosion on May 25, its first since a 2006 atomic test. The official, who spoke Thursday on condition of anonymity in order to discuss the unreleased information, would not provide details regarding the assessment.

A draft U.N. resolution proposed Wednesday would impose tough sanctions on North Korea’s weapons exports and financial dealings and allow inspections of suspect cargo in ports and on the high seas. North Korea has threatened to retaliate if new sanctions are adopted.

North Korea already is a pariah to many countries and has been under tough economic sanctions for years. Last month’s reported test defied a Security Council resolution adopted after the North’s first underground atomic blast in October 2006.

The White House National Security Council would not comment on the assessment of a possible third nuclear test in the works.

“We have come to expect North Korea to act recklessly and dangerously,” NSC spokesman Mike Hammer said in a statement. “But while the world unites to pass a strong new Security Council resolution, it is clear that North Korea’s behavior is succeeding only in further isolating itself.”

President Barack Obama‘s special envoy on North Korea, Stephen Bosworth, said Thursday that the United States is determined to make sure the North faces serious consequences for its growing missile and nuclear threat.

Bosworth told lawmakers at a hearing that the Obama administration is considering freezing North Korean accounts at banks outside the country. Similar action by the George W. Bush administration infuriated the North and effectively severed it from the international financial system and led to a breakdown in nuclear talks.

But Bosworth also said Obama wants to talk to Pyongyang, either through the six-nation mechanism or directly.

North Korea has so far spurned the administration’s attempts at engagement, Bosworth said. The North will come back to disarmament talks eventually, he said, but not soon.

For now, Bosworth said, North Korea will “suffer consequences if it does not reverse course.”

Also on Thursday, CIA Director Leon Panetta said U.S. intelligence agencies are watching North Korea very closely in hopes of detecting or preventing North Korea’s sale of nuclear and missile expertise and technology “to anyone willing to pay.”

North Korea is a hard target to spy on but “we are making good progress,” Panetta said.

The administration’s approach to confronting North Korea will be an “important signal” for how it will deal with Iran if it continues to pursue nuclear weapons, he said.

The United States accuses Iran of secretly trying to develop atomic weapons. Iran denies the allegation.

In Brussels, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said there are no indications North Korea is making preparations for a military strike.

Gates says the Pyongyang regime is unpredictable, however, so he does not dismiss the threats.

___

Associated Press writer Foster Klug contributed to this report.

 

North Korea: “We Hold the Winning Hand”

“North Korea threatened a military response to South Korean participation in a U.S.-led program to seize weapons of mass destruction, and said it will no longer abide by the 1953 armistice that ended the Korean War.

‘The Korean People’s Army will not be bound to the Armistice Agreement any longer,’ the official Korean Central News Agency said in a statement today. Any attempt to inspect North Korean vessels will be countered with ‘prompt and strong military strikes.’ South Korea’s military said it will ‘deal sternly with any provocation’ from the North.”

On follow-up after another successful underground nuclear test, this time with a 20 kiloton atomic bomb, multiple missiles have been tested and the armistice agreement of 1953 has been renounced from Pyongyang. The flame of Juche is burning brighter than ever, illuminating a path of untold resistance to U.S. Hegemonic Imperialism and it’s cronies. The photographs above should be quite elucidating for anyone to intimate just who holds the winning hand. All glories to the illustrious army-first militant Songun communist policy of Marshall Kim Jong Il! Onward to communism!

“DPRK declares to tear up truce agreement”

PYONGYANG, May 27 (Xinhua) — The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) announced Wednesday that it will no longer stand by the ceasefire agreement ending the 1950-53 Korean War, in response to South Korea’s participation to the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI).

South Korea’s full participation to the U.S.-led program, aimed at stopping the trafficking of weapons of mass destruction “dragged the Korean peninsula into the state of war,” the DPRK said in a three-point statement.

The DPRK saw the participation as “declaration of war” and if DPRK’s ships were intercepted or checked by the PSI members, it would immediately strike back, the official KCNA news agency quoted the statement as saying.

The DPRK accused Washington of “indulging South Korea to participate the PSI,” and announced that the armistice was invalidated and Korean peninsula restored to state of war. The DPRK army would take “military actions,” said the statement.

The statement also said the DPRK would not guarantee the safety of warships of U.S. and South Korea and civil ships sailing in the region.

The retaliation from the DPRK would be “beyond-imagination” and “merciless,” the statement added.

Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) was designed to interdict the trade of weapons of mass destruction. South Korea became its 95th member one day after DPRK said it bombed its second nuclear explosive device Monday.

South Korea announced on Tuesday that it will fully participate in the U.S.-led nonproliferation campaign, one day after the DPRK conducted its second nuclear test.

The DPRK launched an additional short-range missile from its east coast Tuesday night, South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency reported Wednesday.

Pyongyang had launched two short-range missiles from its east coast earlier Tuesday, following firing two missiles on Monday after its claimed nuclear test the same day.

 

U.S. Hegemonic Imperialism is “a grave concern to all nations”

In an amazing act of sophistry, President Barack Obama of the United States has called the recent North Korean nuclear test “a grave concern to all nations.” The hypocrisy of this speaker for the American labor aristocrat and “middle classes” (read: bourgeois and those who wish to become more bourgeois) is quite laughable on it’s face. The United States, through brutal imperialist intervention in other countries, has been a “grave concern to all nations” for quite sometime. This is why, like a two-bit gangster, U.S. Hegemonic Imperialism has traditionally and still does (in increasing quantity) subjugate foreign peoples through the most crude and brutal of techniques.

When the United States utilized biological weapons and germ warfare in the initial war to destroy Korea helmed by Kim Il Sung many years ago (a war which we underline that the U.S. lost in the end) the U.S. was certainly acting as a “grave concern to all nations.” Additionally, when the United States lowers the entire consciousness of it’s citizenry en masse into the most demonic levels by turning them into supporters of the most brutal forms of torture such as water-boarding, extreme humiliation, sexual molestation, genital mutilation, sensory deprivation and turning it’s sons and daughters into ready and willing racist, fascist automatons ready to trample upon the human dignity and freedom of anyone, anywhere that is certainly a “grave concern to all nations.”

Although pathetic attempts have already been made by “unknown officials,” specifically “U.S. administration officials” (being domestic operators we have never heard of such a broad and ill-defined officers as “U.S. administration officials” – which government branch exactly are they referring to?) to question the potency of the recent atomic explosion, verifiable sources in the Russian Defense Ministry have already stated that the weapon was at least between 10 to 20 kilotons – i.e. the same timbre of weapon that the United States utilized against Japan at the end of World War II. This information having been retained and duly noted, the United States should keep in mind that their intended “firm response” will be executed at their peril.