The North Korean boat

US announced increased sanctions against North Korea. By now, the result of this kind of policies, in terms of efficiency, remains highly unclear - it was the case for Eastern Europe during communism, for Middle Eastern dictatorships or other rogue states. As it is also unclear what chances for a new beginning as long as the idea of a possible leadership is non-existent.

Why?

A very candid and innocent question. Maybe more than one.

I am watching these days the last "evolutions" in the case of Iran. I previously watches what happened during the post-electoral unrest. As well as the moves from the nuclear camp.

Thus: why the usual anti-atomic movements are silent in this case? It is more than pollution here, it is a thread regarding the regional stability in the Middle East. A similar questio regarding the North Korea nuclear program, in a country were people are starving, but their regime is strengthening the atomic profile.

And: when people demonstrating against their government and are killed in the street, it is more than human to reject such an attitude. It is not about the clash of civilisations or the autonomy to take decisions. But, about human rights and the right of these people to refuse to be burried under the commitments an undemocratic power is asking them. Is their right to tell the world they are alive. Where are those are worried about the human rights in the Middle East? Iran is a proud member of the UN. It is a matter of credibility and accountability of the international institutions. And to let people being killed because a religious institution decided to, is a deep misunderstanding of the multiculturalism.

N Korea talks

the emergency call.

Mission accomplished

Clinton and the two American journalists are back home from North Korea.

Bill Clinton in North Korea

seeking the release of two American journalists.

Another journalist, Maziar Bahari, working for Newsweek, is detained for six weeks in Iran.

Update: North Korean authorities annnounced the two journalists will be freed.

Highlights of North Korea Resolution

AP

A look at some key points in the U.N. Security Council resolution imposing new sanctions on North Korea for its second nuclear test in defiance of an earlier ban.
The resolution:
_ "Condemns in the strongest terms" North Korea's second nuclear test on May 25 "in violation and flagrant disregard of its relevant resolutions."
_ Demands that North Korea "not conduct any further nuclear test or any launch using ballistic missile technology."
_ Orders North Korea to suspend all activities related to its ballistic missile program and re-establish a moratorium on missile launches.
_ Demands that North Korea immediately retract its withdrawal from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and return "at an early date" to the International Atomic Energy Agency's nuclear safeguards regime.
_ Orders North Korea to "abandon all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs in a complete, verifiable and irreversible manner."
_ Calls on North Korea "to return immediately to the six-party talks without precondition."
_ Bans North Korea from exporting all arms and weapons-related material and providing technical training, advice, services or financial assistance related to such arms and material.
_ Bans countries from selling or supplying arms and weapons-related material to North Korea except for small arms and light weapons, and orders states to notify the U.N. committee monitoring sanctions at least five days before any transfer.
_ Calls on all states to inspect, consistent with national and international law, all cargo to and from North Korea at their airports, seaports and on land if the state has "information that provides reasonable grounds to believe the cargo contains" banned items.
_ Calls on all states to inspect vessels on the high seas, with consent of the country whose flag the vessel is flying, if there are reasonable grounds to believe the cargo contains banned items.
_ Orders member states to prohibit the supply of bunkering services such as providing fuel or supplies to North Korean vessels if there are reasonable grounds to believe they are carrying banned items.

North Korea's bomb test seen as troubling progress

Pamela Hess

AP

May 27

Based on what appears to be a successful test of an atomic bomb more powerful than the one North Korea detonated in 2006, former U.S. government and independent analysts say the North's technical skills are improving slightly.

Of greater concern, according to national security adviser James L. Jones, is the possibility that North Korea could sell or share its nuclear technology with others. He would not say whether the U.S. intelligence community judged the test to be a significant step forward.

"The fact that they have this kind of technology and are obviously willing to export it is very troubling," Jones told reporters Tuesday.

The U.S. government remains officially mum on technical details about the underground blast that took place Monday in North Korea. It could be days or weeks before radioactive gases from the underground test are detected and analyzed by U.S. and allied intelligence.

North Korea appears to be marginally closer to having both a nuclear warhead and the means of delivering it to the United States or U.S. allies in the Pacific. In April, Pyongyang launched a long-range missile in what represented a modest improvement over earlier missile tests. The government reported launching a series of short-range missiles on Tuesday.

The nuclear test proves that North Korea's basic warhead design works, said Charles Vick, a missile expert with Global Security.org. The next challenge is reducing its weight by about half, and then integrating the warhead onto a missile.

North Korea has said it has begun harvesting plutonium from spent fuel rods at its main nuclear plant to build up its atomic arsenal. It is thought to have enough weaponized plutonium to make more than a half-dozen atomic bombs.

In its official announcement of the test, North Korea said the explosion was larger than its 2006 test. Publicly available information supports that.

The U.S. Geological Survey recorded a seismic event — equivalent to an earthquake with a roughly 4.6 on the Richter scale — near the test site. The 2006 test registered roughly 4.1, according to the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization, an arms control group.

Martin Kalinowski, a Hamburg University professor, says that corresponds to an explosive yield of about 3 to 8 kilotons of TNT, with a yield most likely of 4 kilotons.

That would be considerably higher than the half-kiloton yield in 2006. One kiloton is the equivalent of exploding 1,000 tons of TNT. For comparison, the U.S. nuclear bombs detonated in Japan during World War II ranged between 15 to 21 kilotons.

Jeffrey Lewis, director of nuclear strategy initiative at the New America Foundation, a think tank in Washington, cautioned that "it's really hard to know what the yield actually is." He said it might be as low as 1.5 kilotons.

Lewis described the range as "somewhere between what you wouldn't want dropped on your neighborhood, but it's nowhere near what was dropped on Hiroshima."

Discussions about yield and capability are somewhat beside the point, he added. The fact that North Korea has a weapon, and its intentions for it are unclear, are the true concerns.

"What's frightening is that they have a nuclear weapon, the uncertainty that comes from having a nuclear weapon, not the capability itself," said Lewis.

North Korea's nuclear test forced the Pentagon to scrap much of its planning for a meeting Saturday in Singapore among Defense Secretary Robert Gates and his Japanese and South Korean counterparts.

"Undoubtedly, the developments in North Korea over the weekend will be a focus of that conversation," Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell told reporters. He said it was believed to be the first discussion among the three nations' defense chiefs.

Associated Press writers Robert Burns and Lara Jakes contributed to this report.

U.S. wants Israel, India in anti-nuclear arms treaty

Louis Charbonneau
Reuters
May 5

India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel should join the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the global pact meant to limit the spread of atomic weapons, a senior U.S. official said on Tuesday.

Speaking on the second day of a two-week meeting of the 189 signatories of the pact, Assistant Secretary of State Rose Gottemoeller also defended a U.S.-India civilian nuclear deal, which developing nations have complained rewards New Delhi for staying outside the NPT.

"Universal adherence to the NPT itself, including by India, Israel, Pakistan and North Korea ... remains a fundamental objective of the United States," Gottemoeller told the meeting, which hopes to agree on an agenda and plan to overhaul the treaty at a review conference next year.

Speaking to reporters later, she declined to say whether Washington would take any new steps to press Israel to join the treaty and give up any nuclear weapons it has. Israel neither confirms nor denies whether it has what arms control experts assume to be a sizable atomic arsenal.

The administration of President Barack Obama was encouraging all holdouts to join the treaty, she said.

Nuclear-armed India and Pakistan have never signed the treaty. North Korea withdrew from it in 2003 and tested a nuclear device in 2006.

At the NPT meeting, developing countries have criticized the endorsement of the U.S.-India nuclear agreement by the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group, an informal club of the world's top producers of nuclear-related technology.

The group agreed in September to lift a ban on nuclear trade with India, imposed after New Delhi's first nuclear test in 1974.

Delegates from poor nations complain that the endorsement was tantamount to rewarding India for remaining outside the treaty and secretly developing nuclear weapons. In contrast, they say, developing states are denied access to sensitive technology because they are often deemed proliferation risks.

No mention of Iran

Gottemoeller defended the agreement. "India is coming closer to the non-proliferation regime," she said.

She cited India's willingness to work with Washington in pushing for a binding international treaty that would prohibit the further production of bomb-grade nuclear material and by improving its nuclear export controls.

Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Mohammad Ali Hosseini on Monday railed against the United States and what he said was its continued nuclear support for the "Zionist regime" (Israel). Western diplomats called this an attempt to divert attention away from its own nuclear program.

In failing to mention Iran even once in her speech, Gottemoeller broke from a tradition established by the administration of former President George W. Bush, which had used NPT meetings to criticise Iran and North Korea.

Gottemoeller said that Iran came up indirectly in her statement when she spoke of the need for "consequences for those breaking the rules or withdrawing from the treaty."

Obama has offered Iran's leaders direct talks on a wide range of issues, including its nuclear program. Tehran has reacted coolly to the U.S. overtures nearly three decades after Washington severed ties with Tehran during a hostage crisis.

The West suspects Iran is developing weapons under cover of a civilian atomic energy program, a charge Tehran denies.

Gottemoeller also reiterated commitments to disarmament that Obama made in a speech in Prague last month. She said the United States would continue its two-decade long moratorium on testing nuclear explosives and urged others to follow suit.

Nuke talks useless, NKorea tells Russia: report

AFP
April 24

North Korea has told Russia's visiting foreign minister that it has no further use for international nuclear disarmament talks, according to the communist state's official media.

Sergei Lavrov is trying to persuade Pyongyang to return to the six-nation negotiations, but reported tough going after talks with his counterpart Pak Ui-Chun Thursday.

Pyongyang's foreign ministry, in a statement on the Korean Central News Agency, said Lavrov's team had "paid attention to the DPRK's (North Korea's) position that it no longer needs six-party talks."

The Russian is the first high-level official to visit the North since it announced it was quitting the talks and would restart a programme to make weapons-grade plutonium.

The North was reacting angrily to United Nations condemnation of its April 5 rocket launch, which it says put a satellite in orbit. Other nations saw it as a disguised missile test.

Russia and China, which have traditionally had friendly ties with North Korea, resisted pressure for a binding UN resolution in response to the launch.

But they supported a statement which condemned Pyongyang and tightened existing sanctions.

According to the foreign ministry, Lavrov in his talks with Pak reaffirmed Russia's position that it opposes UN sanctions against the North.

"Both sides recognised a satellite launch as the sovereign right of each country," it added.

Russia is involved in the six-nation talks, which also include the two Koreas, China, Japan and the United States.

"So far we do not expect any immediate breakthroughs," Russian news agencies quoted Lavrov as saying after meeting his counterpart.

"It is a difficult situation but one does not need to succumb to emotions and should concentrate on the foundation we already have."

He flies to South Korea later Friday to brief Foreign Minister Yu Myung-Hwan.

The North's military believes the six-party talks failed to ease the threat posed by the US military, according to Chosun Sinbo, a pro-Pyongyang newspaper published in Japan which generally reflects official thinking.

Tensions caused by the rocket launch proves its stance was right, it said.

From now the army will exercise a greater influence over nuclear policies, the paper said, suggesting there could be another nuclear test.

Chosun Sinbo said the Obama administration must try to eradicate the distrust of the North's army if it wants to avoid following in the footsteps of its predecessor, which drove North Korea to conduct a nuclear test.

Pyongyang will further cement its status as a nuclear state, the paper said, recalling that the first test in 2006 followed UN sanctions.

See also:

Russian Centre opens in North Korean Capital

American journalists face up to 10 years in labour camps

Reporters Without Borders
Press Release
March 31

Reporters Without Borders urges the North Korean authorities not to go ahead with their announced intention to try two American journalists of Asian origin, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, on charges of entering the country illegally and carrying out “hostile” activities.

The two journalists, who work for San Francisco-based online television station Current TV, were arrested by the North Korean authorities on 17 March after travelling through northern China to the North Korean border to do a story on trafficking in North Korean women. According to an email which one of them sent to a Reporters Without Borders contact, they wanted to investigate the networks organising the smuggling of women out of North Korea and their sale in China.

The state-owned North Korean news agency KCNA announced on 30 March that they have been charged with “illegal” entry. “The illegal entry of US reporters into the DPRK [North Korea] and their suspected hostile acts have been confirmed by evidence and their statements,” the news agency said. If convicted, they could be sentenced to between five and 10 years of forced labour.

A Swedish diplomat has been allowed to visit them in Pyongyang.

It is by no means clear that Ling and Lee were arrested on North Korean territory. Several sources on the Chinese side of the frontier told Reporters Without Borders that the North Korean border guards probably crossed the Tumen (the river that forms the border) while Ling and Lee were filming on the Chinese bank. In a documentary made by South Korean journalists called “On the border,” North Korean border guards can be seen crossing the river and landing on the Chinese side without running into any problems.

“There is an urgent need for North Korea’s neighbours, especially China, to apply diplomatic pressure to obtain the release of Ling and Lee as soon as possible,” Reporters Without Borders said. “It would be unacceptable if North Korea used the two journalists for diplomatic blackmail at a time when it has stepped up tension in the peninsula by announcing a missile launch.”

The press freedom organisation added: “South Korean journalists and foreign journalists have been briefly arrested in the past while doing reports in North Korea, but this is the first time that foreign journalists have been held for any length of time since Japanese reporter Takashi Sugishima’s detention from December 1999 to February 2002.”

North Korea is one of the hardest countries in the world for the foreign media to cover. The North Korean authorities occasionally issue press visas for cultural or sports events or for visits by foreign officials. Once inside North Korea, journalists are closely watched by the North Korean authorities, who prevent them from interviewing members of the public. Entire regions of the country are completely closed to the international media.

It is also very difficult for the foreign press to operate freely in the Chinese provinces adjoining the North Korean border. South Korean and North Korean journalists who often work in the border region say trying to cover refugees and trafficking there is still very risky. “Chinese police raids and the presence of many undercover North Korean agents make working on the border very complicated,” Reporters Without Borders was told by a journalist working for an independent North Korean radio station based in Seoul.

North Koreans take an enormous risk if they provide information to the news media. Reporters Without Borders has documented the case of Kim Sung Chul, a member of the armed forces who has been held since October 2006 after the Kukka Anjon Bowibu (state security) identified him as the person who clandestinely filmed the video of a public execution that was broadcast on the Japanese television station Asahi TV. He is now in a concentration camp.

A North Korean TV journalist, Song Keum Chul, has been detained in a camp since 1996 for questioning the official version of certain historic events.

International human rights organisations estimate that at least 200,000 people are detained in North Korea’s concentration camps and reeducation camps.

Reporters Without Borders and the International Women’s Media Foundation (http://www.blogger.com/www.iwmf.org) have launched a petition for the immediate release of Ling and Lee. Their guide, an ethnic Korean with Chinese citizenship, is reportedly being held by the Chinese authorities. A third American journalist, cameraman Mitch Koss, was deported after being held by the Chinese police. Sign the petition: http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=30691

We urge Koss to lose no time in clarifying the circumstances in which Ling and Lee were arrested.

Japan prepares crisis steps for NKorea missile

The Associated Press, International Herald Tribune

March 26

TOKYO: Cities on the northern Japanese coast are setting up hot lines and emergency headquarters and conducting safety drills to prepare for possible falling debris from North Korea's planned rocket launch, officials said Thursday.

North Korea has said it will launch a communications satellite between April 4-8, and has designated waters off northern Japan as a risk zone for falling fragments.

Japan and its allies have said the launch is intended to also test long-range ballistic missile technology. The government is readying an order to deploy a missile shield, including interceptors, to protect against debris that might fall short and hit Japan. The order is expected Friday.

"We are preparing to do everything we can to protect the safety and lives of the people," said Chief Cabinet Secretary Takeo Kawamura.

Japan is also set to shift some of the batteries of PAC-3 land-to-air missiles, now in around Tokyo, to the north coast and send a pair of destroyers carrying missile interceptors to nearby waters.

In the meantime, locals are getting ready.

Pyongyang has designated the waters off northern Akita and Iwate prefectures (states) as a risk zone for falling fragments, and officials in Iwate have set up hot lines connecting town offices and increased overnight staffing before and during the scheduled launch dates.

They have also reviewed contingency measures to deal with possible damage.

Some said there was little they could do.

"The problem is that we have no idea if it will hit us or where it will land until it happens," said prefectural disaster management official Shuzo Koshino. "We won't have time for evacuation or to do anything. Where do we evacuate to, anyway? We don't have underground shelters."

Koshino said many people are concerned about safety, as the launch dates overlap with the beginning of the country's school year, when many ceremonies are planned for new students.

"We must be prepared, but we don't want to incite fear among citizens or restrict their activity," he said. "We just have to believe that the chance of being hit by missile debris is smaller than getting hit by a car. Otherwise, you can't leave your house."

In Tottori on Japan's northwestern coast, officials held an emergency drill Wednesday.

Japan has also warned of additional sanctions against North Korea if the country went ahead with a launch, and the Japanese parliament is set to issue a statement Friday urging the North to scrap the launch, which Japan says violates a U.N. Security Council resolution barring North Korea from any ballistic missile development activity.

Japan imposed tight trade sanctions against Pyongyang in 2006 after it tested ballistic missiles in waters between the two countries and conducted an atomic test. Japan's current sanctions, which have been extended every six months, are set to expire April 13.

North Korea Bans Border Crossing for 2nd Day

VOA News March 14

Gateways to North Korea are shut down at Inter-Korean Transit Office in Paju, South Korea, 14 Mar 2009

North Korea has barred border crossings with South Korea for a second straight day Saturday, stranding hundreds of people in the North.

Pyongyang banned border traffic on Friday, preventing more than 400 people who work at a joint industrial complex at Kaesong from returning South.

Seoul's Unification Ministry says five people were allowed to cross, including four foreigners and a bride-to-be.

Earlier this week, North Korea switched off military military phones to the South to protest annual military exercises being conducted jointly by the United States and South Korea.

North Korea routinely accuses the United States and South Korea of having aggressive intentions when they carry out the joint military drills.

The maneuvers include a U.S. aircraft carrier, 26,000 U.S. troops and more than 30,000 South Korean soldiers.

The drills are expected to conclude on March 20.

Frenetic Clinton hits Asia running

Matthew Lee

AP

February 20

Dashing through a kaleidoscopic tour of the far East in her first outing as U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton is back in full campaign mode.

But instead of selling herself as presidential candidate, Clinton is pitching the still-emerging foreign policy of her former rival, President Barack Obama.

While cautiously projecting Obama's careful diplomatic stances in her official meetings with diplomats and foreign leaders, Clinton has unleashed the ebullient public persona she showed in the final giddy stages of her unsuccessful 2008 campaign.

Clinton has appeared unabashedly delighted soaking up affectionate, sometimes gushing reactions that she evoked among foreign officials and onlookers.

At the Jakarta airport in Indonesia, she beamed as she was serenaded by rows of singing, swaying schoolchildren. Later, she visited the headquarters of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, waving and smiling broadly when hundreds of employees chanted "Hee-ler-ry," Hee-ler-ry" as she entered.

The bloc's secretary general, Surin Pitsuwan, appeared smitten and spoke in glowing terms about the former first lady, presenting her with an arrangement of 32 yellow flowers.

The tone of Clinton's diplomatic charm offensive was a significant departure from the traditional approach of some previous secretaries of state, who were on the road a great deal but tended to be more comfortable in private settings than out in public.

Her predecessor, Condoleezza Rice, an academic, was far more reserved and less effusive, while Colin Powell, a retired general and President George W. Bush's first secretary of state, was a portrait in stoic, genteel statesmanship.

But midway through her weeklong tour of Asia, it is clear Clinton has brought the urgent showmanship of an election season politician to the patient practice of diplomacy.

She has adopted a grueling public schedule with gusto.

In visits to Japan, Indonesia and South Korea — China is still to come — Clinton has kept busy late until night, seemingly unaffected by jet lag as she crams in official meetings, local media appearances and visits to cultural sites, such as the venerable Meiji shrine in Tokyo.

Some of her appearances have mirrored the countless town halls of her campaign days. But instead of gymnasiums crowded with American voters, Clinton showed up at college auditoriums in Tokyo and South Korea, plying audiences with anecdotes and fielding questions on topics from motherhood to politics.

"Wow, I feel more like an advice columnist than a secretary of state today," she said to loud laughter when asked about the subject of love by one of several thousand students who gathered to hear her speak at Ewha Womans University in Seoul.

"We could be here for hours!" she said in response to the next questioner who asked Clinton to describe her relationship with her daughter Chelsea.

She has waded into crowds despite nervous glances from her security detail, worked rope lines and happily taken time to pose for photos with pretty much anyone who has gotten close enough to ask for one.

And the enthusiastic responses, much like those she got at rallies on the campaign trail, seem to have energized her while the grueling pace has exhausted her traveling staff and local embassy employees, not to mention the reporters accompanying her on the trip.

There have been so many news conferences and interviews that the State Department's efficient team of transcribers has been overwhelmed and unable to produce transcripts of her appearances, sometimes for days.

Yet Clinton is clearly relishing the limelight, and not even natural disasters can stop her.

On her first morning abroad as America's top diplomat, Clinton was jolted awake by one of Japan's frequent minor earthquakes.

"It woke me up. It was like I was in one of those hotel vibrating beds and accidentally dropped in some quarters," she said, recalling the shaking in her 10th floor suite that roused her in Tokyo's pre-dawn hours on Tuesday after the long flight from Washington.

The early wake-up call did not, however, slow her down. That day, Clinton had at least 12 official events, beginning at the Shinto shrine at 8 a.m. and ending with a 9 p.m. post-dinner meeting with Japan's main opposition leader.

In between, she greeted staff at the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo, met the Japanese foreign and defense ministers, signed a military agreement, held a news conference, had tea with Empress Michiko, gave interviews to three television networks and several Japanese newspapers, spoke to university students at a town hall meeting and ate dinner with the prime minister.

Arriving in Jakarta the next afternoon after a seven-and-half hour flight, Clinton crammed in what might normally be an entire day's worth of meetings in the remaining daylight and evening. Then, she had dinner with a group of civic leaders.

Early the next morning, she was at it again, appearing on Indonesia's most popular youth television program, an MTV-style show, telling the audience about her surprise when Obama asked her to become secretary of state, opining about her favorite bands and joking about her inability to sing.

See also:

Korea Times - Clinton's warnings for North Korea and Hillary got her Korean name

Hillary Clinton's remarks on the Asia-US relations, February 13

South Korea on Alert as Clinton Prepares Trip to Region

Voice of America

South Korean anti-missile defense systems are on alert, bracing for a possible North Korean test of a long-range missile capable of hitting the western United States.

South Korean Prime Minister Han Seung-soo told lawmakers Friday the country is closely monitoring North Korean movements and that it will be ready for any situation.

A South Korean newspaper reported Friday, Pyongyang is assembling the Taepodong-2 missile at a launch site along the North Korea's east coast.

The newspaper quotes sources saying the missile could be test-fired by the end of the month to coincide with the anniversary of South Korean President Lee Myung-bak's inauguration.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

The rising tensions come as U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton prepares to visit the region.

She is scheduled to give a major foreign policy address in New York Friday, before arriving in Asia Sunday for her first overseas trip as the top U.S. diplomat.

The tour will take Clinton to Japan, Indonesia, South Korea, and China and State Department officials say she will discuss North Korea's nuclear program.

Clinton has called North Korea's recent behavior unacceptable.

But U.S. officials say it is in North Korea's power to bring about a positive outcome by keeping its commitments to disable nuclear facilities and verify information about its nuclear activities.

Clinton will be traveling to the region with the chief U.S. negotiator to the six-party talks on Pyongyang's nuclear program, Christopher Hill, who has been nominated as the new U.S. ambassador to Iraq.

The State Department has not confirmed media reports that a former ambassador to South Korea, Stephen Bosworth, will be named as Hill's replacement. Bosworth just returned from a five-day visit to North Korea, where he says officials told him they are willing to talk to the Obama administration.

Intelligence director says global crisis is top threat to U.S.

Mark Mazzetti

February 13
International Herald Tribune

The new director of national intelligence told Congress that global economic turmoil and the instability it could ignite had outpaced terrorism as the most urgent threat facing the United States.

The assessment underscored concern inside America's intelligence agencies not only about the fallout from the economic crisis around the globe, but also about long-term harm to America's reputation. The crisis that began in American markets has already "increased questioning of U.S. stewardship of the global economy," the intelligence chief, Dennis Blair, said.

Blair's comments Thursday were particularly striking because they were delivered as part of a threat assessment to Congress that has customarily focused on issues like terrorism and nuclear proliferation. Blair singled out the economic downturn as "the primary near-term security concern" for the country, and he warned that if it continued to spread and deepen, it would contribute to unrest and imperil some governments.

"The longer it takes for the recovery to begin, the greater the likelihood of serious damage to U.S. strategic interests," he said.

Blair also used his testimony to deliver a withering critique of the Afghan government's inability to halt the spread of the Taliban, and he said corruption in Kabul and throughout the country had bolstered support for the Taliban and warlords.

The stark assessment of the security picture in Afghanistan laid bare the obstacles facing the Obama administration as it aims to direct more U.S. troops and attention toward quelling the violence in the country.

Blair delivered his assessment to the Senate Intelligence Committee, in what was the new administration's first public recitation of the national security challenges facing the United States.

In a departure from recent years, when the heads of several intelligence agencies joined the director of national intelligence to deliver the testimony on the threats facing the nation, Blair faced the committee alone, a sign that the Obama administration plans for him to take on a more public role at the top of the intelligence pyramid.

Blair reiterated the oft-stated idea that no significant improvement in Afghanistan was possible unless Pakistan gained control of its own border areas, but he said that Pakistan's government was losing authority over that territory and that even more developed parts of Pakistan were coming under the sway of Islamic radicalism.

He linked Pakistan's problems, in part, to the fact that it was among the countries most badly hurt by the economic crisis. Already, he said, roughly a quarter of the world's nations have experienced "low-level instability such as government changes" as a result of the current slowdown in the economy.

U.S. officials say Pakistan's tribal areas remain home to the core leadership of Al Qaeda, though Blair said that its leadership had been battered in recent months by what he called "a succession of blows as damaging to the group as any since the fall of the Taliban in 2001." The attacks have been carried out by CIA drone aircraft, which Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, the Intelligence Committee's chairwoman, said were operating out of a base in Pakistan.

Still, U.S. intelligence officials have long said that dismantling Qaeda's haven in Pakistan would take more than a campaign of airstrikes against the group's leadership.

But Blair also spread around the blame for Afghanistan's problems.

A day after a brazen attack by Taliban gunmen in Kabul, the Afghan capital, Blair named the U.S.-backed government of President Hamid Karzai as part of the problem in Afghanistan.

"Kabul's inability to build effective, honest, and loyal provincial and district level institutions capable of providing basic services and sustainable, licit livelihoods erodes its popular legitimacy and increases the influence of local warlords and the Taliban," Blair said.

Speaking about North Korea, he cited renewed concern among U.S. intelligence officials that the country could be using a covert uranium enrichment program to produce fissile material that could be used to build nuclear weapons. U.S. intelligence officials have previously estimated that the North has harvested enough plutonium for six or more bombs, although it has never been clear whether the North built the weapons.

Officials in Washington believe that North Korea is preparing for another long-range missile test, in an attempt to demonstrate an ability to threaten cities along the West Coast of the United States.

Iran is another nation that Blair cited as getting closer to mastering advanced missile technology, one aspect of what he called Iran's "dogged development of a deliverable nuclear weapon."

He repeated the assessment made by Bush administration officials that Iran was likely to be using thousands of centrifuges to enrich uranium to produce material for a nuclear weapon. (Iran says its nuclear program is for energy generation.) But he said that a political decision ultimately awaited Iranian leaders about whether or not to turn Iran into a full-fledged nuclear power.

"I don't think it's a done deal either way," he said.

Blair's focus on the world economy was a surprise to some members of the Senate panel. At one point, Blair assured one senator that he had no plans to turn the focus of U.S. intelligence agencies away from threats that include Iran, Afghanistan and North Korea. "I won't be turning satellites to look at GDP accounts," he said.

See also:

Foreign Policy - Counterinsurgency Field Manual: Afghanistan Edition

The Economist: In the Court of King Kim

Trying to decipher the North Korean dictatorship.

N. Korean leader names third son as successor: sources

By Kim Hyun
SEOUL, Jan. 15 (Yonhap) -- North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has recently designated his third son, Kim Jong-un, as his successor and delivered a directive on the nomination to the Workers' Party leadership, sources well-informed on North Korea said Thursday.

The decision by the elder Kim comes earlier than expected and was likely driven by his poor health condition after suffering a stroke last August, multiple intelligence sources said. Kim's 68th birthday is next month.

If actualized, the junior Kim's succession would be the second father-to-son power transfer in the communist country, unprecedented in modern history.

"(Kim) delivered a directive around Jan. 8 that he has named Jong-un as his successor to the leadership of the Workers' Party," one of the sources told Yonhap News Agency on condition of anonymity.

Jong-un, now 25, was born to Kim's third wife, Ko Yong-hi, who died of breast cancer at the age of 51 in 2004. The youngest of Kim's three sons, Jong-un was educated at the International School of Berne and is known to be a fan of NBA basketball. After his return to Pyongyang in his late teens, the North has kept him under a shroud of secrecy and very little is known about his character.

Kim Jong-il was 32 when he was tapped as successor by his father and the nation's founder Kim Il-sung in a general meeting of the Workers' Party in February 1974. He took over after his father's death in 1994.

Jong-un's nomination was completely unexpected in the North, even among party leaders, multiple sources said.

"The sudden nomination caught even senior members of the leadership by surprise," another source said. "The power elite who have learned of Jong-un's designation are rushing to line up behind the junior Kim and this climate will rapidly spread across North Korean society," the source said.

The elder Kim is known to have shunned talks of a power transfer out of fear that the communist country would be subjected to mockery and that he would immediately become a lame duck.

The sources said Kim's deteriorating health condition changed his mind. North Korean media has portrayed the leader as healthy and active in recent weeks, reporting on his visits to factories and military units and releasing photographs of the reported tours. But sources say Kim has remained mentally feeble ever since the stroke.

Observers have said Kim favored his youngest son the most among his children. In his bestselling memoir "I Was Kim Jong Il's Cook," Kenji Fujimoto, a former Japanese sushi chef for the North Korean leader, said Kim thought of his second son, Jong-chol, as too effeminate and unfit for leadership, mostly seating Jong-un next to him.

"He is the spitting image of his father. Even his body build is similar," Fujimoto said in the book.

Kim's first son, Jong-nam, is frowned upon due to his liberal Western tastes and prodigal behavior and was not interested in assuming power, they said. Jong-nam is 38 and Jong-chol is 28.

Jong-un refrained from socializing in Berne, spending most of his time outside of school at home, according to the wishes of his father, who did not want him to be influenced by the West. When he ate out, he was accompanied by Ri Chol, the North Korean ambassador to Switzerland, who is known to be the manager of Kim Jong-il's secret funds, sources said.

The youngest son is said to be 175 centimeters tall and weigh about 90kg due to a lack of exercise. He reportedly already has high blood pressure and diabetes. Unlike his brothers, no images of him have been captured by foreign media.

The sources said Pyongyang will soon launch a propaganda drive to officially raise Jong-un's public standing.

North Korea is scheduled to hold parliamentary elections on March 8, which Seoul experts forecast will promote young economic elite to lay the groundwork for the post-Kim era. The Institute for National Security Strategy, which is an arm of the National Intelligence Agency, said in a report in late December that economic pragmatism will emerge with the generational shift in the North.

Pyongyang has refrained from its usual anti-U.S. tirade in recent weeks and on Tuesday strongly urged Barack Obama's new U.S. administration to drop its "hostile policy" and normalize bilateral relations, a move that will also help lift economic sanctions on the North.

Kim Ho-nyoun, spokesman for Seoul's Unification Ministry that orchestrates inter-Korean policy, said, "Concerning the reported designation, we have not been able to confirm."

Koh Yu-hwan, a North Korea studies professor at Seoul's Dongguk University, said the alleged designation was a sensitive issue but acknowledged it is feasible. The notion of a father-to-son takeover has become an inveterate part of the secretive state, he noted.

"North Korea has talked a lot about its founder Kim Il-sung and his father, as well as the current leader Kim Jong-il. Hereditary succession has become for the country a kind of conventional constitution," he said.

"The leader's health has worsened and he might have wanted to nip in the bud those who are trying to reach for power," Koh said.

Stephen J. Hadley on Korea, Iran, Pakistan and Africa

Stephen J. Hadley, national security adviser of the Bush administration made his farewell speech:

- In the Middle East, Iran will be the biggest challenge for the new administration;

- The peace in this region have to continue to be on the top of the agenda - "a democratic Iraq, a free Lebanon and a democratic Palestinian state" are the key-elements of a substantial change;

- North Korea should accept a verification agreement;

- African countries need support in order to decrease the skepticism over the advantages of democracy;

News from the other world

They are still many places in the world where isolation and ignorance, fear and violence are the basic ingredients of the daily life. We are aware of their existence randomly, as the access of the foreign media is strictly prohibited, and the information is exclusively released by censorship and biased channels. Took for example North Korea, four weeks ago took off of a terrorist list by US. The Pyongyang authorities released these days exclusive coverage of the last activities of Kim Jong-il – who, among other things, “attended a concert where a state choir and opera groups performs numbers like “’Please Receive Our Salute’!” – being “healthy and in control”. (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/07/world/asia/07kim.html?_r=1&ref=asia&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin )
In Cuba, Brazilian president Lula de Silva met Fidel Castro, who, we are assured is “very lucid and active”. (http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jtG6AJe5yEBOoAlpU6xrKYt3Vlhw)
Lybian leader Moammar Ghaddafi met in Belarus his counterpart Aleksandr Lukashenko (http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/11/02/europe/EU-Belarus-Libya.php). Mid-October, EU ministers decided to lift, for six months only, the travel ban imposed to Lukashenko and another 41 associates, following 2006 presidential elections, judged not in compliance with the international norms. Their assets are still frozen.(http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5h8u0ElWuKMSPSp-iPF6o9YfURNqg)