North Korea Puts Two U.S. Journalists On Trial
North Korea put two U.S. journalists on trial on Thursday on charges of illegally entering the state with “hostile intent”, in a case that could worsen tension with Washington after Pyongyang’s nuclear test last week.
The journalists, Euna Lee and Laura Ling of the U.S. media outlet Current TV, were taken into custody in March near the border between China and North Korea while working on a story. The TV network was co-founded by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore.
North Korea’s KCNA news agency said in a one-sentence dispatch that the trial would begin at 0600 GMT (3 p.m. local time) at one of the country’s highest courts.
Experts say the pair could face a sentence of 10 years or more of hard labour in the reclusive state. They add a guilty verdict is almost certain in a North Korean justice system that protects the unquestioned rule of leader Kim Jong-il.
via North Korea puts two U.S. journalists on trial | Reuters.
Fears Mount North Korea Preparing To Attack The South
June 2, 2009 by national
Filed under World Report
It was obvious that something was up when the Chinese scarpered. One day there were scores of their fishing boats hoovering up the valuable crabs from the richest of the fishing grounds in the Yellow Sea.
Overnight all but a handful were gone.
Anywhere else the locals would have been glad to have the crabs to themselves but this is no ordinary fishing ground. A few yards from here is the maritime boundary between South and North Korea. “The Chinese fish here because the North Koreans allow them,” a coastguard official said. “If they’ve gone it’s because they’ve had some kind of warning.”
An imminent missile launch into the sea? An armed incursion of North Korean ships? A full-scale invasion of Yeonpyeong, the small South Korean island hard up against the maritime boundary? Too much blood has already been shed in these waters for anyone to risk taking any chances, and for the past week South Korea has been dispatching reinforcements.
No one will discuss numbers for security reasons but sailors and marines, as well as members of the Sea Special Attack Team, the coastguard’s commando force, have been arriving to join the several hundred troops already on Yeonpyeong.
These waters, around the Northern Limit Line, have become the most tense and dangerous patch of sea in Asia.
The rest of the world is pondering what to do about North Korea’s underground test of a nuclear bomb eight days ago. Yesterday fresh reports emerged that the nation was transporting its most advanced missile, capable of reaching Alaska, to a launch site. David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, said that Britain and other members of the UN Security Council were drafting new sanctions against Pyongyang.
In South Korea the most pressing question is: what next? The nuclear test was just the most alarming in a series of growing North Korean provocations. In April the North launched a long-range rocket over the Pacific, and last week half-a-dozen short-range missiles were fired from launch sites across the country.
Iran Warns Any Attack Would Start World War
August 31, 2008 by national
Filed under Homeland Security News
Iran Warns Any Attack Would Start World War
A senior Iranian military commander has warned that any US or Israeli attack on the Islamic republic would start a new world war, the state news agency IRNA reported on Saturday.
“Any aggression against Iran will start a world war,” deputy chief of staff for defence publicity, Brigadier General Masoud Jazayeri, said in a statement carried by the agency. Read more
