Note: The following text is a quote:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2258887/posts
N. Korea Threatens To Sieze Or Attack US/S. Korean Commercial Vessels in the Yellow Sea (Breaking)
Jiji Tsushin via Yahoo Japan (in Japanese) ^ | 27 April 2009 | AmericanInTokyo
Posted on May 27, 2009 1:23:59 AM PDT by AmericanInTokyo
Begin my translation:
From a dispatch in Seoul per Japanese JIJI wire services, North Korea’s Central News Agency [KCNA] on Wednesday, May 27th said that with South Korea’s threatened “total” participation in the PSI Initiative (which allows North Korean ships to be stopped and checked by various nations for nuclear weapons being exported) that it amounts to a “declaration of war against North Korea”.
The statement was released by the North Korean military representative in Panmunjom military armistace area. He iterated that from now on, South Korean and American vessels traveling in the Yellow Sea (West Sea, just off the West Coast of North Korea), cannot be guaranteed as safe. In the statement, the names of ROK President Lee and Obama of the USA were singled out, and said they are responsible for a “furthering a war situation on the Korean peninsula”. It threatened military action due to the decision by South Korea to participate full-fledged in the PSI initiative.
End translation (on web just now)
Note: The following text is a quote:
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=54510
Verifying North Korean Nuke Test Will Take Time, Official Says
By Gerry J. Gilmore
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, May 26, 2009 – It will take time before U.S. and international officials can know with some certitude whether North Korea conducted an underground nuclear-device test yesterday, a senior Defense Department official said here today.
Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told reporters that it’s too early to have definitive knowledge regarding yesterday’s purported North Korean underground nuclear test.
“I suspect that some of the details that you’re looking for that more tightly define the characteristics of the event will come out like they did a couple of years ago, but that takes some time,” Whitman said. “If you go back to 2006, I think the [Director of National Intelligence] did something after there was sufficient time to collect the necessary evidence to be able to make a definitive statement.”
North Korea’s nuclear device and ballistic-missile activities “pose a great threat to the peace and security of the world and I strongly condemn their reckless action,” President Barack Obama told reporters yesterday at the White House.
The United States and international organizations are working together to construct an assessment of North Korea’s most-recent purported nuclear test, Whitman said.
It’s believed that North Korea carried out its first underground nuclear test in October 2006. North Korea also has conducted several missile and rocket tests over the past decade; the most-recent was a long-range rocket shot conducted in April.
Whitman didn’t comment on news reports saying North Korea conducted short-range missile tests today.
North Korea has conducted several missile tests over the past decade. In a highly publicized incident, North Korea fired a missile that passed over Japan in August 1998.
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President, Top U.S. Military Officer Denounce North Korean Nuclear Test