North Korea vows to cancel '53 Korean War cease-fire
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - North Korea's military is vowing to cancel the 1953 cease-fire that ended the Korean War, straining already frayed ties between Washington and Pyongyang as the United Nations moves to impose punishing sanctions over the North's recent nuclear test.
Without elaborating, the Korean People's Army Supreme Command boasted of having "lighter and smaller nukes" and warned late Tuesday of "surgical strikes" meant to unify the divided Korean Peninsula.
The statement cited ongoing U.S.-South Korean joint military drills that Pyongyang propaganda considers invasion preparation, and a U.S.-led push to secure a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for sanctions in response to North Korea's Feb. 12 nuclear test. A U.S.-China draft resolution is expected to be circulated at the U.N. this week.
Heated military rhetoric is common from North Korea when tensions rise on the Korean Peninsula and during U.S.-South Korean war drills, and Pyongyang has previously threatened to tear up the cease-fire. But this latest statement is unusually specific in its details and is seen as noteworthy by officials in Seoul because a senior North Korean military official issued the threats on state TV.
The North's statement threatens to block a communications line between North Korea and the United States at the border village separating the two Koreas, and to nullify the 60-year-old Korean War armistice agreement on March 11, when two weeks of U.S.-South Korean military drills will draw 10,000 South Korean and 3,500 U.S. forces. Another round of drills between the allies began earlier this month.
Pyongyang's recent nuclear test and rocket launches, and the subsequent call for U.N. punishment, have increased already high animosity between the North and Washington and Seoul.
The United States and others worry that North Korea's third nuclear test takes it a big step closer toward its goal of having nuclear-armed missiles that can reach America, and condemn its nuclear and missile efforts as threats to regional security and a drain on the resources that could go to North Korea's largely destitute people.
North Korea says its nuclear program is a response to U.S. hostility that dates to the 1950-53 Korean War, which ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty, leaving the Korean Peninsula still technically in a state of war.
Even amid the tension, however, North Korea has recently welcomed high-profile American visitors, including former basketball star Dennis Rodman, known for his piercings and tattoos as much as his Hall of Fame career with the Detroit Pistons and Chicago Bulls.
Rodman met the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un, called him an "awesome guy" and said Kim wanted President Barack Obama to call him. The trip was criticized for giving the authoritarian leader a propaganda boost, but Rodman suggested "basketball diplomacy" could warm relations. Google's executive chairman, Eric Schmidt, made a four-day trip in January, but did not meet Kim.
North Korean propaganda regularly cites decades-old, Cold War-era American threats as the reason for its nuclear efforts and holds that the North remains at risk of an unprovoked nuclear attack. Washington and others say brinksmanship is the North's true motive for the nuclear push.
The North's statement called U.S.-South Korean military drills a "dangerous nuclear war targeted at us."
"We aim to launch surgical strikes at any time and any target without being bounded by the armistice accord and advance our long-cherished wish for national unification," the statement said.
The U.S.-China draft resolution at the U.N. would impose some of the strongest sanctions ever ordered by the United Nations, diplomats said. It reflects the U.N. Security Council's growing anger over the country's defiance of three previous rounds of sanctions aimed at halting all nuclear and missile tests.
The draft resolution would make it significantly harder for North Korea to move around the funds it needs to carry out its illicit programs.
It would also strengthen existing sanctions that bar North Korea from testing or using nuclear or ballistic missile technology and from importing or exporting material for these programs. It would strengthen the inspection of suspect cargo bound to and from the country.
Many analysts believe that the success of this new round of sanctions depends largely on how well China enforces them. Most of the companies and banks that North Korea is believed to work with are based in China.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said President Barack Obama and the American people want to see North Korean leader Kim Jung Un engage in peace talks.
Kerry also stressed that the United States will continue "to do what is necessary to defend our nation and the region together with our allies."
___
Associated Press writers Youkyung Lee, Hyung-jin Kim and Sam Kim in Seoul and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.
Without elaborating, the Korean People's Army Supreme Command boasted of having "lighter and smaller nukes" and warned late Tuesday of "surgical strikes" meant to unify the divided Korean Peninsula.
The statement cited ongoing U.S.-South Korean joint military drills that Pyongyang propaganda considers invasion preparation, and a U.S.-led push to secure a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for sanctions in response to North Korea's Feb. 12 nuclear test. A U.S.-China draft resolution is expected to be circulated at the U.N. this week.
Heated military rhetoric is common from North Korea when tensions rise on the Korean Peninsula and during U.S.-South Korean war drills, and Pyongyang has previously threatened to tear up the cease-fire. But this latest statement is unusually specific in its details and is seen as noteworthy by officials in Seoul because a senior North Korean military official issued the threats on state TV.
The North's statement threatens to block a communications line between North Korea and the United States at the border village separating the two Koreas, and to nullify the 60-year-old Korean War armistice agreement on March 11, when two weeks of U.S.-South Korean military drills will draw 10,000 South Korean and 3,500 U.S. forces. Another round of drills between the allies began earlier this month.
Pyongyang's recent nuclear test and rocket launches, and the subsequent call for U.N. punishment, have increased already high animosity between the North and Washington and Seoul.
The United States and others worry that North Korea's third nuclear test takes it a big step closer toward its goal of having nuclear-armed missiles that can reach America, and condemn its nuclear and missile efforts as threats to regional security and a drain on the resources that could go to North Korea's largely destitute people.
North Korea says its nuclear program is a response to U.S. hostility that dates to the 1950-53 Korean War, which ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty, leaving the Korean Peninsula still technically in a state of war.
Even amid the tension, however, North Korea has recently welcomed high-profile American visitors, including former basketball star Dennis Rodman, known for his piercings and tattoos as much as his Hall of Fame career with the Detroit Pistons and Chicago Bulls.
Rodman met the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un, called him an "awesome guy" and said Kim wanted President Barack Obama to call him. The trip was criticized for giving the authoritarian leader a propaganda boost, but Rodman suggested "basketball diplomacy" could warm relations. Google's executive chairman, Eric Schmidt, made a four-day trip in January, but did not meet Kim.
North Korean propaganda regularly cites decades-old, Cold War-era American threats as the reason for its nuclear efforts and holds that the North remains at risk of an unprovoked nuclear attack. Washington and others say brinksmanship is the North's true motive for the nuclear push.
The North's statement called U.S.-South Korean military drills a "dangerous nuclear war targeted at us."
"We aim to launch surgical strikes at any time and any target without being bounded by the armistice accord and advance our long-cherished wish for national unification," the statement said.
The U.S.-China draft resolution at the U.N. would impose some of the strongest sanctions ever ordered by the United Nations, diplomats said. It reflects the U.N. Security Council's growing anger over the country's defiance of three previous rounds of sanctions aimed at halting all nuclear and missile tests.
The draft resolution would make it significantly harder for North Korea to move around the funds it needs to carry out its illicit programs.
It would also strengthen existing sanctions that bar North Korea from testing or using nuclear or ballistic missile technology and from importing or exporting material for these programs. It would strengthen the inspection of suspect cargo bound to and from the country.
Many analysts believe that the success of this new round of sanctions depends largely on how well China enforces them. Most of the companies and banks that North Korea is believed to work with are based in China.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said President Barack Obama and the American people want to see North Korean leader Kim Jung Un engage in peace talks.
Kerry also stressed that the United States will continue "to do what is necessary to defend our nation and the region together with our allies."
___
Associated Press writers Youkyung Lee, Hyung-jin Kim and Sam Kim in Seoul and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.
NK can already hit the US. Portland is one easy target. All they need is the guidance system.
Well, since we are technically still at war with North Korea, lets just 'glass' them and call it a day. I think that even China is getting tired of them, so I don't think they would mind if North Korea went away.
Otherside of the world and we can pick which window in your house we want to put a bomb through. How about you just shut up jr. And realize we're not scared of you.
How about we decimate every missile they put on a launch pad with a conventional cruise missile. No more testing, no more program. Tired of these chuckle heads making threats. We will be able to brush them off for only so long. At some point they will become a serious threat.
'As of the year 2000, there were seven countries without a Rothschild-owned Central Bank:
Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan, Libya, Cuba, North Korea, Iran
Then along came the terror of 9-11 and soon Iraq and Afghanistan had been added to the list, leaving only five countries without a Central Bank owned by the Rothschild Family:
Sudan, Libya, Cuba, North Korea, Iran
We all know how fast the Central Bank of Benghazi was set up.Â
The rebel group known as the Transitional National Council announced that they have designated the Central Bank of Benghazi as a monetary authority competent in monetary policies in Libya, and that they have appointed a governor to the Central Bank of Libya, with a temporary headquarters in Benghazi, according to Bloomberg.
Is this the first time a revolutionary group has created a central bank while it is still in the midst of fighting the entrenched political power? It certainly seems to indicate how extraordinarily powerful central bankers have become in our era.
Robert Wenzel thinks the central banking initiative reveals that foreign powers may have a strong influence over the rebels.
This suggests we have a bit more than a ragtag bunch of rebels running around and that there are some pretty sophisticated influences. âI have never before heard of a central bank being created in just a matter of weeks out of a popular uprising,â Wenzel writes.
The only countries left in 2011 without a Central Bank owned by the Rothschild Family are:
Cuba, North Korea, Iran.
w w w .davidicke.com/headlines/55804-rothschild-owned-central-banks-in-al-lbut-three-countries-in-2011-
w w w .cnbc.com/id/42308613/Libyan_Rebels_Form_Their_Own_Central_Bank
"Let me issue and control a nation's money and I care not who writes the laws."
Mayer Amschel Rothschild, 1790
 "When a government is dependent upon bankers for money, they and not the leaders of the government control the situation, since the hand that gives is above the hand that takes... Money has no motherland; financiers are without patriotism and without decency; their sole object is gain."
Napoleon Bonaparte, 1815Â
"Whosoever controls the volume of money in any country is absolute master of all industry and commerce... And when you realise that the entire system is very easily controlled, one way or another, by a few powerful men at the top, you will not have to be told how periods of inflation and depression originate."Â James Garfield, 1881 (Within weeks of releasing this statement President Garfield was assassinated.)
 "History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling money and its issuance." James Madison
"I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the civilized world - no longer a Government by free opinion, no longer a Government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men."- Woodrow Wilson
"To cause high prices all the federal reserve board will do will be to lower the re-discount rate..., producing an expansion of credit and a rising stock market; then when... business men are adjusted to these conditions, it can check... prosperity in mid-career by arbitrarily raising the rate of interest.
It can cause the pendulum of a rising and falling market to swing gently back and forth by slight changes in the discount rate, or cause violent fluctuations by greater rate variation, and in either case it will possess inside information as to financial conditions and advance knowledge of the coming change, either up or down.
This is the strangest, most dangerous advantage ever placed in the hands of a special privilege class by any Government that ever existed.
The system is private, conducted for the sole purpose of obtaining the greatest possible profits from the use of other people's money.
They know in advance when to create panics to their advantage. They also know when to stop panic. Inflation and deflation work equally well for them when they control finance..."Â Rep. Charles Lindbergh (R-MN)
"Most Americans would object if they knew. The Federal Reserve is the largest single creditor of the United States Government, and they are also the people who decide how much the average persons car payments are going to be, what their house payments are going to be, and whether they have a job or not. The three people who passed the Federal Reserve Act in 1913, knew exactly what they were doing when they set up this private bank, modelled on the Bank of England and the fact that THE BANK OF ENGLAND had been operating independently unopposed since 1694 must have given them a great deal of confidence."Â Sen. Barry Goldwater (R-AZ)
They better hope they have China on their side again.
Not a great time for defense cuts.
Gee, what did you say Rodman?
So the son is just as crazy and nuts as the old man. Maybe we should use some more Dennis Rodman diplomacy. A dumb stupid screwball negotiating with another dumb stupid screwball. What else do they have in common?? BAD HAIR !!!
The only reason that North Korea exists is that the Chinese swept over the border during the Korean War with such numbers that we couldn't stop all of them. Were it to come to war again, the Chinese will stay put. I hope it doesn't - we don't need any more wars, but North Korea is nuts if it thinks that breaching the 1953 agreement is a good idea.
@Max Quinn ....wonder what would have happened if Truman hadn't stopped Mac Arthur?
@Rob C 503 @Max Quinn All of Korea would be under the Kim regime. MacArthur lost the war before Truman removed him.
We would have had WW III.
@Max Quinn It's a great idea. We can finally finish this once and for all.
@TreeWizard @Max Quinn What are you suggesting?
@Max Quinn Crap happens. We are still friends.
@TreeWizard @Max Quinn Apologies. Work put me in a bad mood. You have plenty of original ideas - no sarcasm. I tried to delete the comment after I wrote it, but the delete function doesn't work on an iPad.
@Max Quinn Pretty sure he was talking to me.
@Max Quinn Who is this us?
@TreeWizard @noneofyourbizzness When you have an original idea, let us know...
@noneofyourbizzness I'm not suggesting anything other than this sort of thing can spiral out of control rapidly. A good analogy is WWI - not that I think we are headed toward a similar war if any war at all - but many historians look at that war and ask not why it happened but why it wasn't prevented.
@noneofyourbizzness Who knows.
Like so many before, things are slowing down in Afghanistan, America needs a new enemy to fight to keep our fears up. Â
This is a tickler story, presented long before N Korea becomes a mainstream media frenzy and the "new" focus of Americas propaganda-media fed fears.
Naahh. Bush and his buddies are out of office now. Oh, but wait! There are Santorum, Paul, Gingrich, the irrepressible Romney, and another Bush!!
I don't trust North Korea any more than I trust the White House. Â In my opinion both are dysfunctional. Â China holds the key and China hates our guts. Â They, like most other countries only want our money and since most of that is borrowed from China, they have very little use for us now. Â
@Shadow War with china would erase the debt. War - Chicaga style ..... Drone-by.... better than a drive-by Gangsta politics
its almost sad that the leaders of this country are this suicidal, but it will make for great TV ratings when we strap cameras to our bombs and retaliate.
Just give china a reason