US Officials: North Korea poses serious threat
By Lara Jakes and Donna Cassata, Associated Press
March 12th, 2013 @ 11:07am
WASHINGTON (AP) - An unpredictable North Korea, with its nuclear weapons and missile programs, stands as a serious threat to the United States and East Asia nations, the director of National Intelligence warned Tuesday in a sober assessment of worldwide threats.
Testifying before a Senate panel, James R. Clapper delivered the U.S. intelligence community's overview of global threats posed by terrorism, cyber attacks, weapons of mass destruction, the months-long civil war in Syria and the unsettled situation in post-Arab Spring nations.
The outlook on North Korea comes as the communist regime announced that it was "completely scrapping" the 1953 armistice that ended the Korean War and has maintained peace on the peninsula for more than half a century. The Obama administration on Monday slapped new sanctions against North Korea's primary exchange bank and several senior government officials as it expressed concern about the North's "bellicose rhetoric."
"The Intelligence community has long assessed that, in Pyongyang's view, its nuclear capabilities are intended for deterrence, international prestige and coercive diplomacy. We do not know Pyongyang's nuclear doctrine or employment concepts," Clapper told the Senate Intelligence Committee. "Although we assess with low confidence that the North would only attempt to use nuclear weapons against U.S. forces or allies to preserve the Kim regime, we do not know what would constitute, from the North's perspective, crossing that threshold."
North Korea, led by its young leader Kim Jong Un, has defied the international community in the last three months, testing an intercontinental ballistic missile and a third nuclear bomb.
Pressed on North Korea, Clapper said he was "very concerned about the actions of the new young leader." He described the talk emanating from Pyongyang as "very belligerent."
U.S. Bolstering Missile Defense to Deter North Korea’s Threats
Win Mcnamee/Getty Images
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, center, after a Pentagon briefing where he said America was increasing its missile defenses.
By THOM SHANKER, DAVID E. SANGER and MARTIN FACKLER.
Published: March 15, 2013
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon will spend $1 billion to deploy additional ballistic missile interceptors along the Pacific Coast to counter the growing reach of North Korea’s weapons, a decision accelerated by Pyongyang’s recent belligerence and indications that Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, is resisting China’s efforts to restrain him.
The new deployments, announced by Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel on Friday, will increase the number of ground-based interceptors in California and Alaska to 44 from 30 by 2017.
The missiles have a mixed record in testing, hitting dummy targets just 50 percent of the time, but officials said Friday’s announcement was intended not merely to present a credible deterrence to the North’s limited intercontinental ballistic missile arsenal. They said it is also meant to show South Korea and Japan that the United States is willing to commit resources to deterring the North and, at the same time, warn Beijing that it must restrain its ally or face an expanding American military focus on Asia.
“There’s been a quickening pace of provocations,” said one senior administration official, describing actions and words from North Korea and its new leader, Mr. Kim. “But the real accelerant was the fact that the North Koreans seemed more unmoored from their Chinese handlers than even we had feared.”
Although American and South Korean intelligence officials doubt the North is close to being able to follow through on a nuclear strike, or that it would even try, given its almost certain destruction, analysts say the country’s aggressive behavior is an important and worrying sign of changing calculations in the North.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/16/world/asia/us-to-bolster-missile-defense-against-north-korea.html?_r=0
December 27, 2011 – KENTUCKY – There’s a bizarre scene in Montgomery County where dozens of birds are dead. More than 30 birds are lying dead on Indian Mound Drive at the intersection of Grassy Lick Road in Mt. Sterling. All the birds appear to be the same species, and seem to have died and landed at this spot all at once. No word yet about what caused their death. The strange sight was first spotted on Christmas morning by people who live nearby. “Yesterday morning around 9:30 am when I pulled out on to the bypass, and there was a whole slew of birds,” explains local resident Karen Williams. “I didn’t know where they came from. I didn’t know. I thought if someone shot them there was an awful lot of shooting going on but I don’t know,’ said Williams. –
December 15, 2011 – BLOOMFIELD, N.M. — A strange sight in Bloomfield where 40 to 50 dead birds were reportedly found along U.S. 64 last week. Some of the black and speckled birds were lying on their backs with their small feet sticking up in the air, and at least one was missing its head. The Daily-Times reports about 30 dead birds were north of the highway and about 20 additional piles of flattened feathers were on the highway. Wildlife biologist John Kendall with the Bureau of Land Management investigated the cluster. He thinks they likely roosted in shrubs north of the highway Wednesday night and died when they flew into the side of a large truck driving the highway late Wednesday or early Thursday. It’s also unlikely the birds died from environmental causes because they were so close together when they died. –
December 14, 2011 – UTAH – Thousands of migratory birds died on impact after apparently mistaking a Wal-Mart parking lot and other areas of southern Utah for bodies of water and plummeting to the ground in what one wildlife expert called the worst downing she’s ever seen. Crews went to work cleaning up the dead birds and rescuing the survivors after the creatures crash-landed in the St. George area Monday night. By Tuesday evening, volunteers had rescued more than 2,000 birds, releasing them into nearby bodies of water. “They’re just everywhere,” said Teresa Griffin, wildlife program manager for the Utah Department of Wildlife Resource’s southern region. “It’s been nonstop. All our employees are driving around picking them up, and we’ve got so many people coming to our office and dropping them off.” Officials say stormy conditions probably confused the flock of grebes, a duck-like aquatic bird likely making its way to Mexico for the winter. The birds tried to land in a Cedar City Wal-Mart parking lot and elsewhere. “The storm clouds over the top of the city lights made it look like a nice, flat body of water. All the conditions were right,” Griffin told The Spectrum newspaper in St. George. “So the birds landed to rest, but ended up slamming into the pavement. No human injuries or property damage have been reported. Griffin noted most downings are localized “but this was very widespread. I’ve been here 15 years and this was the worst downing I’ve seen,” she told the newspaper. Officials said they were continuing the rescue effort that started Tuesday afternoon and included an enthusiastic group of volunteers. The surviving grebes were released into bodies of water in southern Utah’s Washington County, including a pond near Hurricane. –
December 29, 2011 – ALASKA - Scientists in Alaska are investigating whether local seals are being sickened by radiation from Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear plant. Biologists at first thought the seals were suffering from a virus, but they have so far been unable to identify one, and tests are now underway to find out if radiation is a factor. Scores or multiples of twenty, ring seals have washed up on Alaska’s Arctic coastline since July. Their symptoms include: bleeding lesions on the hind flippers, irritated skin around the nose and eyes, and patchy hair loss on the animals’ fur coats. John Kelley, Professor Emeritus at the Institute of Marine Science at the University of Alaska Fairbanks said, “We recently received samples of seal tissue from diseased animals captured near St Lawrence Island with a request to examine the material for radioactivity. There is concern expressed by some members of the local communities that there may be some relationship to the Fukushima nuclear reactor’s damage.” Test results would not be available for several weeks. –
With just two weeks left to craft a deficit reduction package, members of the bipartisan Joint Committee on Deficit Reduction remain far from a deal, this according to both Democratic and Republican aides close to the negotiations.
