N Korea Approves Nuclear Strike On US

The latest statement from North Korea has informed Washington it has ratified a US nuclear strike.

NORTH Korea says it has approved nuclear attack on the United States in its latest threat as US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel warned Pyongyang to back down.

The White House and Pentagon would be notified that "reckless operations" using nuclear weapons had been approved, North Korea's supreme military command said in a statement quoted by South Korean news agency Yonhap.

"The moment of explosion is approaching fast," the North Korean military said, warning that war could break out "today or tomorrow".

Analysts have said North Korea is not technologically capable of carrying out a strike on the US mainland but could target US troops stationed in South Korea or Japan.

The North Korean announcement came shortly after the US said it will deploy a ballistic missile defence system on its Pacific island of Guam as part of Washington's efforts to beef up its military presence in the region.

The land-based Terminal High Altitude Area Defense System (THAAD) "will strengthen defence capabilities for American citizens in the US territory of Guam and US forces stationed there," the Pentagon said.

Hagel called on Wednesday on Pyongyang to back down from its "dangerous rhetoric."

"We take those threats seriously. We have to take those threats seriously," Hagel said at the National Defence University in Washington.

The US had taken measured, reasonable steps in response to North Korea's recent moves, he said, noting the danger of being wrong about the seriousness of the threats.

"It only takes being wrong once, and I don't want to be the secretary of defence who was wrong once," Hagel said.

North Korea on Wednesday blocked South Korean employees from entering an industrial complex operated jointly by the two countries, only allowing workers to leave, a Seoul official said.

In recent days, Pyongyang has threatened to close the Kaesong facility, which lies at the western end of the border inside its territory, amid heightened tension on the peninsula.

It notified Seoul that it would block entry to Kaesong for South Koreans, a spokesman for the South Korean Unification Ministry was quoted as saying by the Yonhap News Agency. Workers were waiting on the south side of the checkpoint, a ministry spokeswoman said.

Workers would be allowed to leave normally, Pyongyang reportedly said.

The Kaesong complex, 10km north of the border, opened in 2004 as part of reconciliation agreements between the once-warring neighbours. The park is one of isolated North Korea's only sources of hard currency, earning an estimated $US80 million ($A76.90 million) a year.

South Korean Defence Minister Kim Kwan Jin told legislators from the conservative ruling Saenuri Party that using military force to free hundreds of workers at the industrial area was a possibility if they were held hostage, Yonhap said.

Officials in Seoul said the likelihood of North Korea holding South Korean workers hostage was slim, according to the report.

North Korea last week cut the hotline with the South used to co-ordinate traffic movements in and out of Kaesong, after previously cutting another hotline between the countries' Red Cross offices on March 11.

Tensions have been rising since Pyongyang's third nuclear test in February led to a tightening of international sanctions against it.

The isolated communist regime has said its recent threats against the South and the US were in response to the sanctions and to recent US-South Korean military drills.

North Korea was the topic of a phone call on Wednesday between the defence chiefs of the US and China, North Korea's chief ally.

Hagel told Chinese Defence Minister Chang Wanquan that the two nations should co-operate to halt North Korea's "growing threat," Pentagon press secretary George Little said.

Unease and irritation toward North Korea has risen internationally. Australia has condemned its "belligerent behaviour" and said it was considering further sanctions against Pyongyang.

Germany called for "utmost prudence" from both sides and urged China to use its influence to help quell North Korean aggression.

Pyongyang said that it would restart a nuclear plant with the capacity to produce weapons-grade plutonium, after it shut down and partly demolished the facility in 2007 in return for promises of international aid.
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North Korea to target U.S. with nuclear, rocket tests

By Ju-min Park and Choonsik Yoo | Reuters – 5 hrs ago SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea said on Thursday it would carry out further rocket launches and a nuclear test that would target the United States, dramatically stepping up its threats against a country it called its "sworn enemy". The announcement by the country's top military body came a day after the U.N. Security Council agreed to a U.S.-backed resolution to censure and sanction North Korea for a rocket launch in December that breached U.N. rules. North Korea is not believed to have the technology to deliver a nuclear warhead capable of hitting the continental United States, although its December launch showed it had the capacity to deliver a rocket that could travel 10,000 km (6,200 miles), potentially putting San Francisco in range, according to an intelligence assessment by South Korea. "We are not disguising the fact that the various satellites and long-range rockets that we will fire and the high-level nuclear test we will carry out are targeted at the United States," North Korea's National Defence Commission said, according to state news agency KCNA. North Korea is believed by South Korea and other observers to be "technically ready" for a third nuclear test, and the decision to go ahead rests with leader Kim Jong-un, who pressed ahead with the December rocket launch in defiance of the U.N. sanctions. China, the one major diplomatic ally of the isolated and impoverished North, agreed to the U.S.-backed resolution and it also supported resolutions in 2006 and 2009 after Pyongyang's two earlier nuclear tests. Thursday's statement by North Korea represents a huge challenge to Beijing as it undergoes a leadership transition, with Xi Jinping due to take office in March. China's Foreign Ministry called for calm and restraint and a return to six-party talks, but effectively singled out North Korea, urging the "relevant party" not to take any steps that would raise tensions. "We hope the relevant party can remain calm and act and speak in a cautious and prudent way and not take any steps which may further worsen the situation," ministry spokesman Hong Lei told reporters at a regular press briefing. North Korea has rejected proposals to restart the talks aimed at reining in its nuclear capacity. The United States, China, Russia, Japan and the two Koreas are the six parties involved. "After all these years and numerous rounds of six-party talks we can see that China's influence over North Korea is actually very limited. All China can do is try to persuade them not to carry out their threats," said Cai Jian, an expert on Korea at Fudan University in Shanghai. Analysts said the North could test as early as February as South Korea prepares to install a new, untested president or that it could choose to stage a nuclear explosion to coincide with former ruler Kim Jong-il's Feb 16 birthday. "North Korea will have felt betrayed by China for agreeing to the latest U.N. resolution and they might be targeting (China) as well (with this statement)," said Lee Seung-yeol, senior research fellow at Ewha Institute of Unification Studies in Seoul. U.S. URGES NO TEST Washington urged North Korea not to proceed with a third test just as the North's statement was published on Thursday. "Whether North Korea tests or not is up to North Korea," Glyn Davies, the top U.S. envoy for North Korean diplomacy, said in the South Korean capital of Seoul. "We hope they don't do it. We call on them not to do it," Davies said after a meeting with South Korean officials. "This is not a moment to increase tensions on the Korean peninsula." The North was banned from developing missile and nuclear technology under sanctions dating from its 2006 and 2009 nuclear tests. A South Korean military official said the concern now is that Pyongyang could undertake a third nuclear test using highly enriched uranium for the first time, opening a second path to a bomb. North Korea's 2006 nuclear test using plutonium produced a puny yield equivalent to one kiloton of TNT - compared with 13-18 kilotons for the Hiroshima bomb - and U.S. intelligence estimates put the 2009 test's yield at roughly two kilotons North Korea is estimated to have enough fissile material for about a dozen plutonium warheads, although estimates vary, and intelligence reports suggest that it has been enriching uranium to supplement that stock and give it a second path to the bomb. According to estimates from the Institute for Science and International Security from late 2012, North Korea could have enough weapons grade uranium for 21-32 nuclear weapons by 2016 if it used one centrifuge at its Yongbyon nuclear plant to enrich uranium to weapons grade. North Korea has not yet mastered the technology needed to make a nuclear warhead small enough for an intercontinental missile, most observers say, and needs to develop the capacity to shield any warhead from re-entry into the earth's atmosphere. North Korea gave no time-frame for the coming test and often employs harsh rhetoric in response to U.N. and U.S. actions that it sees as hostile. The bellicose statement on Thursday appeared to dent any remaining hopes that Kim Jong-un, believed to be 30 years old, would pursue a different path from his father, Kim Jong-il, who oversaw the country's military and nuclear programs. The older Kim died in December 2011. "The UNSC (Security Council) resolution masterminded by the U.S. has brought its hostile policy towards the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (North Korea) to its most dangerous stage," the commission was quoted as saying. (Additional reporting by Christine Kim in SEOUL, Ben Blanchard and Sui-Lee Wee in Beijing; Writing by David Chance; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan and Ron Popeski)

A NORTH Korean official has apparently told Chinese authorities that the communist state is planning to conduct a third nuclear test in the coming week, a news report said.

AFP
    January 12, 2013 11:09PM

A NORTH Korean official has apparently told Chinese authorities that the communist state is planning to conduct a third nuclear test in the coming week, a news report said.

"We've heard a North Korean official in Beijing told the Chinese side that the North planned to carry out a nuclear test between January 13-20," the Joongang Ilbo daily quoted an unidentified Seoul official as saying.

South Korean officials have a policy of not commenting on intelligence matters.

"We're now stepping up surveillance over the Punggye-ri nuclear test site," the official said in reference to the North's only nuclear test site, where tests were carried out in 2006 and 2009.

With the UN Security Council still debating possible sanctions against the North following the launch of a long-range rocket last month, there has been widespread speculation that Pyongyang may carry out a third nuclear test.

However, Professor Yang Moo-Jin of the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul said there were "no signs of a nuclear test being imminent".

"Chances are slim that the North might push ahead with a nuclear test in this winter season, especially when China is insisting on a moderated response to the rocket launch to prevent a third nuclear test taking place," said Mr Yang.

Last month a US think-tank citing satellite photos said the North had repaired extensive rain damage at the nuclear test site in the northeast of the country and could conduct a detonation on two weeks' notice.

The US-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University said satellite photos as recent as December 13 showed Pyongyang was determined to maintain a state of readiness at Punggye-ri.

South Korea's Unification Minister Yu Woo-Ik told a parliamentary committee last month it was "highly probable" the North would likely follow up the successful rocket launch with another nuclear test.

"Judging from analysis of intelligence, significant preparations have been made," he said.

North Korea had a track record of conducting nuclear tests following missile launches, which were aimed at developing a delivery system for nuclear warheads, Mr Yu said.

The North's previous nuclear tests were both carried out within months of long-range rocket launches.

Pyongyang insists the launch was a purely scientific mission aimed at placing a polar-orbiting earth observation satellite in space, but most of the world saw it as a disguised ballistic missile test.

http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/world/n-korea-tells-china-it-is-planning-nuclear-test-report/story-e6frfkui-1226552775205