Nations condemn NK nuke test

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea’s claim to have tested a nuclear weapon drew widespread condemnation Monday, with the United States calling it potentially a “provocative act” and even close ally China strongly opposing it.

North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency said the communist country’s first-ever nuclear test, an underground explosion, was successfully performed Monday “with indigenous wisdom and technology 100 percent.”

The U.S. and Australia called for immediate U.N. Security Council action. British Prime Minister Tony Blair said the reported test was “completely irresponsible.”

The White House, saying U.S. and South Korean intelligence had detected a seismic event at a suspected nuclear test site in North Korea, cautioned that a confirmed test would be a provocation detrimental to regional security.

“A North Korean nuclear test would constitute a provocative act in defiance of the will of the international community and of our call to refrain from actions that would aggravate tensions in Northeast Asia,” White House spokesman Tony Snow said in Washington.

“We expect the U.N. Security Council to take immediate actions to respond to this unprovoked act,” Snow said. “The United States is closely monitoring the situation and reaffirms its commitment to protect and defend our allies in the region.”

A Security Council resolution adopted in July after a series of North Korean missile launches imposed limited sanctions on North Korea and demanded the country rejoin international nuclear talks. The North immediately rejected the plea.

Beijing — a longtime supporter of the North but also the host of international talks aimed at persuading the fellow communist country to give up its nuclear ambitions — strongly criticized the move.

“China resolutely opposes the North Korean nuclear test and hopes that North Korea will return to the six-nation talks,” according to a Chinese Foreign Ministry statement read out on state television news. “Upholding the stability of Northeast Asia is in the interests of all parties.”

China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States have held intermittent talks with North Korea since 2003 in hopes of getting Pyongyang to abandon nuclear weapons in exchange for aid and security guarantees.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard said his government would call on the U.N. Security Council to take “swift and effective action” against North Korea, including financial, trade and travel sanctions.

“But if the United Nations fails to act effectively against this outrage from North Korea, it will represent a further diminution of its authority,” Howard said.

In London, Blair criticized the North for defying the international community.

“I condemn this completely irresponsible act by the government of the DPRK,” Blair said in a statement issued by his office, referring to the North by the abbreviation of its official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

“The international community has repeatedly urged them to refrain from both missile testing and nuclear testing,” he said. “This further act of defiance shows North Korea’s disregard for the concerns of its neighbors and the wider international community.”

Strong criticism also came from South Korea, which shares the world’s most heavily armed border with the North.

“The North’s nuclear test is a provocative act and the North must clearly assume all responsibility,” said Kim Geun-tae, head of the ruling Uri Party, according to the party.

South Korea’s presidential spokesman, meanwhile, said Seoul will “sternly respond.”

Seoul’s Defense Ministry said the military’s alert level had been raised in response to reports of the test.

North and South Korea have faced off at the heavily armed demilitarized zone separating them since the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a truce, not a peace treaty.

Japan’s new Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was in South Korea Monday for the first summit between the neighbors in a year, called for a coordinated and level-headed response.

“Although the test still needs to be confirmed, there must be a calm yet stern response,” Abe said at a luncheon just prior to the summit. “It is important for Japan and South Korea, along with the United States and China, to work together and send a message to the world.”

Abe, who assumed office just two weeks ago, was in Seoul after a summit in China, where he and President Hu Jintao agreed that a test by North Korea would be “intolerable” and vowed to work to persuade Pyongyang to return to multilateral talks aimed at getting it to abandon its nuclear ambitions.

Indonesia, Southeast Asia’s largest country, condemned North Korea over its announced test, saying such a move would add to regional tensions and threaten stability.

“The Government of Indonesia reiterates its position that the recent nuclear test conducted by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is unacceptable under any justifiable reason,” a Foreign Ministry statement said.

Written by CNN.

Texas volunteers welcome home the troops

Reporter Janet Shamlian brings a very heart-warming article that I just have to share with you. This constant welcoming home occurs in Dallas, and she reports as it is. A very rare quality to be found in reporters these day. That is why this is so refreshing. You get to read the article, not what she thinks about it! lol.

To be honest, I have no idea what she thinks about the war, but I can bet she supports our Troops. Good on you, Janet.

If that link has moved and you may no longer be able to use it, please try this one.

Texas volunteers welcome home the troops

Thankful citizens greet every flight at the airport

By Janet Shamlian
Correspondent
NBC News

DALLAS – A shower of affection and thunderous cheers.

“Oh my God, it’s unbelievable! Welcome to Texas, welcome home!” says a man to a soldier at the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.

For troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan on a two-week leave, this is their first taste of home. But it isn’t home, and most offering hugs and handshakes are neither family nor friends. “It’s the first thing we see after customs, and it’s awesome,” says Army Lt. Anthony Iannuccilli.

Flights from the battlefield arrive daily in Dallas. Every one, for two years, has been met by volunteers who leave jobs, pack up children and drive to the airport. By comparison, it’s a small sacrifice.

“Who wants to call home?” one volunteer asks the troops while holding up a cell phone.

“I got off the plane and saw everybody clapping and everything, and I got a little choked up,” says Army Spc. Sam Gill.

Though some here oppose the war, this is sacred ground: free of politics and full of understanding that the warrior is separate from the war.

“Being a Vietnam veteran, we weren’t received very well when we came back and we’re going to make sure it doesn’t happen to these guys,” says Wayne Trevathan.

“You don’t want me to hug and kiss you?” jokes one volunteer to a soldier. “Well, I can stand that, I think.”

They meet hundreds of flights and thousands of troops. It’s hard, they say, not to be moved by seeing a soldier back safely and closer to loved ones, if only for two weeks.

NK testing of Nuke not confirmed

– A South Korean government official says North Korea appears to have conducted a nuclear test, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reports. (BN: CNN)

Could this be a bluff? There is zero radiation magnified or sufficient to leave a mark. The Asian markets are plummeting. Everyone should just take a deep breath until more is confirmed.

I just heard on KFI news (9pm PCT) that there is an indication of seismic activity.

It has been confirmed by the USGS that some ‘activity’ caused a 4.2 magnitude earthquake type reaction.

Darfur rebels and Sudan army clash at Chad border

Darfur rebels and Sudan army clash at Chad border

KHARTOUM, Sudan (Reuters) — Sudanese rebels opposed to a recent peace deal in Darfur clashed with government troops near Sudan’s border with Chad, officials on both sides said on Sunday, and rebels said they had captured a Sudanese officer.

The violence sent scores of injured fighters from both sides streaming across the border for treatment, and 77 combatants were at a civilian hospital in Chad on Sunday morning, a humanitarian source in Chad’s eastern city of Abeche said.

Both sides blamed each other for initiating hostilities on Saturday in Sudan’s war-ravaged west, and rebels reported heavy fighting. There were no confirmed reports on the overall number of casualties.

“The government attacked our positions at Kari Yari dam on the Sudan-Chad border,” Khalil Ibrahim, head of the rebel Justice and Equality Movement told Reuters by phone from Paris.

“We completely defeated them and captured their commander Brigadier Abdel Rahman Mohamed Abdel Rahman,” he added.

A Sudanese army spokesman blamed the rebel group for the attack, saying: “This is a government camp and the rebels attacked the camp. We have not got complete information to be able to confirm if Brigadier Abdel Rahman Mohamed Abdel Rahman was captured or not.”

The fighting came as Khartoum resists intense international pressure to allow some 20,000 U.N. troops to replace a poorly funded, ill-equipped African Union force of 7,000 that has been unable to stem violence and whose mandate expires at the year’s end.

Roughly 200,000 people have been killed in Darfur since the conflict flared in 2003 and more than 2.5 million have been displaced by fighting between Darfur rebel groups, government forces and militias. The Justice and Equality Movement is part of a new rebel alliance called the National Redemption Front, which declared renewed hostilities with the government after a May peace deal was signed by only one of three negotiating rebel factions.

Rebel commander Jar el-Naby in north Darfur told Reuters by telephone the rebels had captured around 70 vehicles and more than 100 prisoners in Saturday’s fighting.

The May peace deal was meant to end three years of heavy fighting that erupted when rebel groups of impoverished Darfur took up arms against the central government in Khartoum, charging it with neglect.

But a top U.N. envoy has described the deal as comatose. Since it was signed in May, violence has escalated in Darfur with tens of thousands more forced to flee their homes and U.N. and AU reports of the government bombing villages once more.

Written by CNN.

NK: U.S. gearing up for ‘war of aggression’

NK: U.S. gearing up for ‘war of aggression’

(CNN) — North Korea’s official news agency reported that the United States is conducting a “reorganization” of its forces in South Korea in preparation for a “war of aggression” just days after North Korea announced that it would test a nuclear weapon.

The report on Saturday came from a spokesman for North Korea’s Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland, according to the Korean Central News Agency.

“The ‘reduction’ and ‘reorganization’ of troops in South Korea being carried out by the United States are prompted by its sinister design to accelerate arms buildup and war preparations in the Korean peninsula by reorganizing the forces into a task force and use South Korea as a shock force in carrying out a new war,” KCNA reported.

“Due to such moves, the situation is getting tenser and the danger of a nuclear war is further increasing on the Korean Peninsula as the days go by,” the report said.

There had been speculation that the hard-line communist regime could conduct a nuclear test as early as Sunday, the anniversary of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il’s appointment as head of the Korean Workers’ Party in 1997. (Watch North Korean weapons and nuclear facilities — 3:37)

The speculation began Tuesday after North Korea announced it “will in the future conduct a nuclear test” on an unspecified date, citing American belligerence and pressure in the region. (Text of statement)

It was the first time North Korea has made an official announcement that it would conduct nuclear tests. Previously, it has said it had the right to conduct such tests. (Watch how the world changes if North Korea tests a nuke — 2:09)

But on Sunday the North reportedly denied speculation that a nuclear test was imminent and said the regime has not raised the alert level of the country’s military, according to a former South Korean lawmaker quoted by The Associated Press. (Full story)

Calls for U.S. pullout

Saturday’s report said the U.S. preparation in the region “drives the inter-Korean relations to a phase of catastrophe and war.

“The South Korean warlike forces are bound to face punishment by the nation and self-destruction as they are hellbent on the war moves bringing the nation to ruin, serving the U.S. in its moves to stifle [North Korea]. The U.S. should pull its aggression forces out of South Korea and its vicinity at once.”

On Friday, the U.N. Security Council warned North Korea against testing a nuclear weapon, citing unspecified action if it should do so. It also called on North Korea to return immediately to the six-party talks with China, Japan, South Korea, Russia and the United States.

The North has said it would boycott the nuclear talks until the U.S. lifts financial restrictions imposed for its alleged counterfeiting and money laundering, according to AP.

However, the South Korean lawmaker quoted by AP said Sunday that North Korea informed China it may drop its plan to conduct a test if the United States holds bilateral talks with the communist country. (Full story)

Pyongyang claims it has nuclear weapons and needs them to deter a U.S. attack, but hasn’t performed any known test to verify that, AP reported. Many experts believe the North has enough radioactive material to build at least a half-dozen or more nuclear weapons, according to AP.

Japanese officials said they may step up pressure and sanctions on North Korea if a test is conducted. Shoichi Nakagawa, Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party’s policy chief, said on public broadcaster NHK that Japan may consider stopping imports and exports and implementing naval inspections.

Warning shots fired

On Saturday in the demilitarized zone between South and North Korea, South Korean troops fired 60 warning shots when North Korean soldiers crossed the line of demarcation. The soldiers retreated behind the line after the shots were fired, a South Korean official said. (Full story)

Earlier this week, the U.S. envoy to the stalled North Korea talks said the United States would not tolerate a nuclear North Korea and warned Pyongyang not to test a nuclear weapon. “We are not going to live with a nuclear North Korea,” Assistant Secretary of State Chris Hill told the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University on Wednesday.

“We are not going to accept it.” North Korea “can have a future, or it can have these weapons. It cannot have both,” Hill said. The U.S. and its allies “are in a very tense time” in dealing with Pyongyang, Hill added.

A nuclear weapons test by North Korea would significantly set back diplomatic efforts with the communist nation and have serious implications for regional security, according to a U.S. House Intelligence Committee report released Tuesday. (Watch potential North Korean nuclear weapons test sites — 1:31)

Coming on the heels of North Korea’s test firing of seven missiles, including a long-range ballistic missile in July, a nuclear test would bring Pyongyang’s relations with its neighbors to a new low, the report found.

The tests might prompt not only Japan, but also Taiwan and possibly South Korea to begin their own nuclear weapons programs, the report found.