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'Matter of time' before N.Korea miniaturises nuke: report

Suspected N.Koreans hack war plan for S.Korea
Seoul (AFP) Dec 18, 2009 - Computer hackers who may be from North Korea have gained access to a secret US-South Korean plan to defend the peninsula in case of war, the defence ministry said Friday. The hackers used an Internet Protocol address in China to access some military data related to Operation Plan 5027, a spokesman told AFP. "Authorities are trying to find whether North Korea was involved," he said, adding the leaked data contained crucial information such as slide and power point displays explaining the plan. OPLAN 5027 was drawn up jointly by South Korea and the US which stations 28,500 of its troops in the South. It allows for the dispatch of nearly 700,000 US troops to the peninsula should a full-scale war break out.

The plan also sets wartime operational guidelines for the troops of the two countries. South Korea has remained technically at war with the North since the 1950-53 war ended in a truce and not a peace treaty. "A probe is under way to figure out how much the leakage will affect our military plan," the spokesman said. "The officer concerned will be disciplined." Chosun Ilbo newspaper said the officer with the Combined Forces Command had used an unsecured USB memory stick to download the plan. South Korea believes the North has military personnel who specialise in overseas hacking and will set up its own military cyber command on January 1. South Korea's spy chief has blamed North Korea's telecommunications ministry for cyber attacks that briefly crippled unclassified US and South Korean government and commercial websites in July.

N.Korea says ties with Seoul not linked to nuke dispute
Seoul (AFP) Dec 19, 2009 - North Korea said Saturday the nuclear standoff should not impede efforts to improve relations with South Korea, accusing the Seoul government of using the issue as an excuse to block warmer ties. The sanctions-hit communist state has criticised Seoul in recent weeks for maintaining its ban on cross-border tourism projects which earned the North tens of millions of dollars a year. South Korea wants six-nation nuclear disarmament negotiations to resume before it makes any such major moves. "The nuclear issue has nothing to do with North-South relations and therefore, it cannot become an obstacle to improving inter-Korean relations," the North's ruling party newspaper Rodong Sinmun said in a commentary carried by the state news agency.

The North tested its second atomic weapon in May, a month after quitting the six-party talks. It wants direct negotiations with the United States on its nuclear programme. This month US envoy Stephen Bosworth went to Pyongyang for the first official dialogue since Barack Obama took office. He said the two sides reached a "common understanding" on the need to resume the six-party talks, which also involve South Korea, China, Japan and Russia, but set no date. The newspaper criticised South Korean Unification Minister Hyun In-Taek, who said recently that "clamouring for better relations while holding on to nuclear weapons is like searching for fish while up a tree."

Hyun's remarks were an "insult to even our will to improve inter-Korean relations," Rodong said. Seoul Friday delivered its first government-to-government aid to Pyongyang for almost two years -- medicine worth 15 million dollars to treat swine flu. But it is maintaining a ban on tour projects, including a programme to Mount Kumgang on the North's east coast. This was suspended after the North's army shot dead a female South Korean tourist in July 2008. The Mount Kumgang tours have earned some 487 million dollars in tour fees for the North since they began in 1998.
by Staff Writers
 Seoul (AFP) Dec 20, 2009
 North Korea will eventually be able to make a nuclear warhead small enough to fit in a missile, a news report said Sunday.

Seoul's Yonhap news agency, citing the state-run Korea Institute for Defence Analyses (KIDA), said Pyongyang developing the technology to achieve miniaturisation was inevitable.

"It is believed that North Korea has not completed the technology for the miniaturisation... of nuclear warheads," KIDA said in a report to be issued in January, according to Yonhap.

But KIDA said it is "just a matter of time", noting the country has a high-explosives test site and an estimated 3,000 nuclear scientists and researchers.

The North has 28 state organisations for nuclear development led by the powerful National Defence Commission and the ruling communist party, the KIDA report said, according to Yonhap.

It has conducted nuclear tests twice -- in October, 2006, and in May this year.

KIDA officials were not immediately available for comment.

The North quit six-party nuclear disarmament talks with the United States, China, South Korea, Russia and Japan in April, after the UN Security Council's censure of its long-range rocket launch.

This month US envoy Stephen Bosworth went to Pyongyang for talks -- the first official dialogue since Barack Obama took office -- aimed at persuading the North to return to the six-nation process.

The two sides reached a "common understanding" on the need to resume the six-party talks but set no date.

Experts have said the North's continued nuclear weapons development and missile capability make a dangerous combination.

The North has about 600 Scud missiles capable of hitting targets in South Korea, and possibly also of reaching Japanese territory.

There are another 200 Rodong-1 missiles which could reach Tokyo.

In addition the North has three times test-launched long-range Taepodong missiles, most recently in April, with an advanced model which could theoretically hit Alaska and parts of the US west coast.

The North has test-fired 22 short-range missiles since May, KIDA said.

NKorean weapons were bound for Mideast: US spy chief
Washington (AFP) Dec 18, 2009 - An illicit North Korean arms shipment seized in Thailand last week was destined for the Middle East, the head of US intelligence said Friday.

About 30 tonnes of sanctions-busting weapons were confiscated in Bangkok on Saturday but it had remained unclear where the North Korean shipment was headed.

"Teamwork among different agencies in the United States and partners abroad just last week led to the interdiction of a Middle East-bound cargo of North Korean weapons," Dennis Blair, the director of national intelligence, wrote in a commentary in the Washington Post.

Blair's reference marked the first public comment by the administration on the destination of the arms and the first official confirmation on the US role in the case.

Thai officials had said they seized the cargo plane carrying missiles, rocket-propelled grenades and other weapons on a tip from the United States.

The cache was discovered after the plane landed for refueling on Friday.

The plane began its journey in Pyongyang and Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said the weapons came from a North Korean company.

Thai officials said they were enforcing United Nations Resolution 1874 passed in June following North Korean missile and nuclear tests.

It was the first known airborne arms cargo from Pyongyang to have been seized since the resolution banned all its weapons exports.

Blair cited the seizure in a commentary touting improved cooperation among the country's 16 intelligence agencies.

After the attacks of September 11, 2001 revealed botched coordination among US spy services, Congress launched a sweeping reorganization with the goal of ensuring information would be shared among intelligence and law enforcement agencies.

"While many successes must remain classified, there are things the public can and should know about changes that have been made and how we are directing our efforts and America's resources," Blair wrote.

He said close cooperation among US analysts drawing on "human, satellite and signals intelligence" had helped reveal plans by Iran for a covert uranium enrichment facility.

But he said the shootings at Fort Hood army base, in which an Army psychiatrist has been charged, showed "we must go even further in our efforts to turn intelligence into the knowledge needed to protect Americans."

The Defense Department has launched an elaborate investigation into the shootings to determine whether warning signs were missed after revelations that authorities knew the suspected gunman, Major Nidal Hasan, had exchanged emails with a radical cleric.

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NUKEWARS
N.Korea leader receives letter from Obama: state media
 Seoul (AFP) Dec 18, 2009
 North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il was given a letter from Barack Obama during a trip by the US president's envoy last week, state media said Friday. Obama's personal letter was delivered when US envoy Stephen Bosworth met North Korea's first vice foreign minister Kang Sok-Ju on December 9, the official Korean Central News Agency said in a brief dispatch. The agency gave no further details. ... read more






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