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North Korea Claims Successful Hydrogen Bomb Test

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On Tuesday, North Korea claimed it had successfully tested its first hydrogen bomb.

They made the announcement about an hour after detection services around the world recorded a 5.1 seismic event off its northeast coast.

NYTimes reports:

“This is the self-defensive measure we have to take to defend our right to live in the face of the nuclear threats and blackmail by the United States and to guarantee the security of the Korean Peninsula,” a female North Korean announcer said, reading the statement on Central Television, the state-run network.

There is always some level of skepticism because of how isolated North Korea is.

However, if the claim is found to be accurate, this is its most significant threat to date.

NYTimes continues:

Outside analysts took the claim as the latest of several hard-to-verify assertions that the isolated country has made about its nuclear capabilities. But some also said that although North Korea did not yet have H-bomb capability, it might be developing and preparing to test a boosted fission bomb, more powerful than a traditional nuclear weapon.

Weapon designers can easily boost the destructive power of an atom bomb by putting at its core a small amount of tritium, a radioactive form of hydrogen.

Lee Sang-cheol, the top nonproliferation official at the South Korean Defense Ministry, told a forum in Seoul last month that although Mr. Kim’s hydrogen bomb boasts might be propaganda for his domestic audience, there was a “high likelihood” that North Korea might have been developing such a boosted fission weapon.

And according to a paper obtained by the South Korean news agency Yonhap last week, the Chemical, Biological and Radiological Command of the South Korean military “did not rule out the possibility” of a boosted fission bomb test by the North, although it added it “does not believe it is yet capable of directly testing hydrogen bombs.”

The Associated Press reports:

The White House says the U.S. government’s early analysis of underground activity in North Korea “is not consistent” with that country’s claim of having conducted a successful hydrogen bomb test.

 

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These Eight Sketches of Life Inside a North Korean Prison Camp Will Leave You Terrified

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These chilling sketches depict life inside a North Korean prison camp. These haunting images show people being forced to stand for hours, people being forced to crawl on their hands and knees, and people being forced to feed off of rats and snakes.

The sketches included in the report, which come by way of Kim Kwang-il, a North Korean who claims he spent six years in a prison camp.

North Korean 'Pigeon Torture"
(Image source: United Nations)
North Korean Prison Torture
(Image source: United Nations)
Life in a North Korean prison camp
(Image source: United Nations)
North Korean prison camp transportation
(Image source: United Nations)
North Korean prison camp cell
(Image source: United Nations)
North Korean prisoners eating snakes and rats
(Image source: United Nations)
North Korean prisoners sleeping with rats
(image source: United Nations)
North Korean prisoners being forced to crawl
(Image source: United Nations)

 

Here is a copy of the UN report which further describes the sketches in detail:

North Korea Executes Uncle of Kim Jong-Un

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The uncle of Kim Jong Un, leader of North Korea, has been executed as a ‘traitor.’

Jang Song Thaek, uncle of North Korea leader Kim Jong Un
photo credit: AP/XINHUA (File photo from Aug. 14, 2012)

North Korean news is reporting that second in command, Jang Song Thaek has been purged for crimes that included faction-building, corruption, drug use and womanizing.

While all the details of this execution continue to come out, two things are on the minds of those on the Korean Peninsula: 1) it signals a turn in direction for the North, or 2) Kim Jong-Un is growing confident in his rule.

CNN reports:

For Jasper Kim, the founder of the Asia-Pacific Global Research Group, North Korea remains for analysts a “Rubik’s Cube that no one can solve.”

He said North Korea is a master at carefully choreographing the way it releases news events to cloak its real intentions. Nevertheless, he said a careful reading between the lines of North Korean new agency KCNA sometimes reveals glimpses of the state of the regime.

He said that far from asserting the leadership of Kim, recent events suggest that his position has been seriously eroded by the execution of his uncle.

“My guess is that these events happened some time ago and they are only now being released,” Kim told CNN. “The fact is that we don’t know what’s going on in North Korea but what we are seeing coming through on KCNA is very concerning.

“When you look at the language used in these KCNA reports it is particularly hawkish and it’s much more reflective of the military than it is of Kim Jong Un.

“Basically we are seeing the hardline faction reassert itself. For Kim Jong Un, Jang Song Thaek was the bridge between him and his father, and now he will have very little protection.”

 

North Korea Threatens South Korea; Again

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Tensions on the Korean Penninsula continue as North Korea offers new threats toward its neighbor to the south, again. And as always, when there is little to no attention being given to Kim Jong-Ill, he puts himself in the spotlight.

Saying that if South Korea continues to hold joint military drills during the next few days with the United States, there would be “merciless counteraction.” This comes as the North accuses South Korean activists of sending balloons with leaflets and DVDs that criticize the communist government.

Certainly, this doesn’t help the idea of unification as the last year of events have kept tensions high.

Mr. Fix-It

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by Oliver North

The Obama administration has replaced an old axiom, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” with one of its own: “If it ain’t broke, fix it till it is.” That’s certainly what the O-Team is doing to the U.S. military.
       
While campaigning for the presidency, then-Sen. Barack Obama repeatedly promised to “end discrimination against gays and lesbians” by the U.S. military’s so-called “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. Last October, he told supporters at a Human Rights Campaign dinner here in Washington, “I’m working with the Pentagon, its leadership and the members of the House and Senate on ending this policy. … I will end ‘don’t ask, don’t tell.’ That’s my commitment to you.”
       
Of course, it’s not a matter of “policy”; it’s the law — and it’s been on the books since 1993. Section 654 of Title 10 of the U.S. Code clearly states: “The presence in the armed forces of persons who demonstrate a propensity or intent to engage in homosexual acts would create an unacceptable risk to the high standards of morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion that are the essence of military capability.” Notably, this language became the law of the land — not just “policy” — while American troops were engaged in Somalia.

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