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The North Korean Grinch Saturday, December 17, 2011 Looking for a clone of Dr. Seuss' "Grinch Who Stole Christmas"? Meet North Korea's bantam "Dear Leader" Kim Jong-il. While his pompadour haircut and platform shoes are oversized, his latest threat to South Korea suggests that his heart is at least two sizes too small. There is even reason to question whether he has one at all. Witness Mr. Kim's warning that, if the South puts up its traditional display of Christmas lights, he will consider it "psychological warfare." He promises "unexpected consequences."

Nowhere on earth does the contrast between freedom and tyranny, and their corollary prosperity and poverty, reveal itself more vividly than on the Korean Peninsula. South Korea has boomed, producing an ultramodern high tech society whose corporate giants vie for leadership in global industry after industry, and whose popular culture is consumed all over East Asia. In the North, under the hereditary Stalinist Kim dynasty, a million or more citizens died in a famine, and widespread malnutrition has made the younger generation inches shorter than their Southern neighbors, on average, and the people have no access to foreign media or...

DMZ infiltration units...? Backwards and broke, Pyongyang long-ago abandoned any idea of winning a conventional war with the South and their American allies... that is, ever since they saw US forces cut Saddam's armor into tinsel with shock-n-awe back in 2003. So to remain a credible threat, the Norks rely on a three-pronged strategy of heavy artillery at the DMZ to pound Seoul into smithereens along with missiles that can menace the rest of the ROK... this while building the world's largest special forces, fiercely-loyal and highly-trained in asymmetrical warfare and infiltration strategies including Islamic-terrorist-inspired car bombs, roadside explosives, etc.  The ambitious plans...

Christmas tree at centre of Korea dispute * From: AFP * December 21, 2010 7:04PM SOUTH Korean marines are guarding a Christmas tree, the latest focus of tensions with North Korea following Seoul's artillery drill near the disputed sea border a day earlier. A South Korean church was planning to switch on Christmas lights in the shape of a tree atop a military-controlled hill near the tense land border today - the first such display for seven years. The ceremony will come a day after South Korea staged a live-fire exercise on the border island of Yeonpyeong, which was bombarded...

THE crisis in the Yellow Sea, which was set off by the North Korean shelling of South Korea’s Yeonpyeong Island last month, is probably mystifying to many Americans. Why did the North fire a deadly artillery barrage at a sparsely inhabited, relatively insignificant island? Why has the United States dispatched an entire aircraft-carrier group to the scene? Enlarge This Image Joon Mo Kang But things make more sense if you look at recent events as merely the latest in a decades-long series of naval clashes between the two Koreas resulting from a disputed sea boundary that was hastily imposed by...

This writer was 11 years old when the shocking news came on June 25, 1950, that North Korean armies had crossed the DMZ. Within days, Seoul had fallen. Routed U.S. and Republic of Korea troops were retreating toward an enclave in the southeast corner of the peninsula that came to be known as the Pusan perimeter. In September came Gen. MacArthur's masterstroke: the Marine landing at Inchon behind enemy lines, the cut-off and collapse of the North Korean Army, recapture of Seoul and the march to the Yalu. "Home by Christmas!" we were all saying. Then came the mass intervention...

N. Korea fires artillery towards S. Korean island, official says SEOUL, Nov. 23 (Yonhap) -- North Korea on Tuesday fired several rounds of artillery towards South Korean waters and an island near the tense west sea border, the South's military said. The North's artillery shells fell at 2:34 p.m. in the South's waters off the island of Yeonpyeong, some of them landing directly on the island, said Col. Lee Bung-woo, spokesman at the South's Joint Chiefs of Staff. The South's military responded with its artillery firing.

(Reuters) - North Korea on Tuesday fired dozens of artillery shells at a South Korean island, setting buildings on fire and prompting a return fire by the South, Seoul's military and media reports said.

/begin my translation N. Korea Fired Shots at a Guard Post under 15th Division in Kangwon Province This afternoon N. Korea fired shots at a frontline guard post under the Command of (ROK) 15th Division in Kangwon Province. /end my translation

(CNN) -- North Korean leader Kim Jong Il is visiting China, the South Korean JoongAng Daily reported Thursday, citing a South Korean government official.

Security along the DMZ has gone high-tech, as South Korea has quietly installed a number of machine gun-armed robots to serve as the first line of defense against the potential advance of North Korean soldiers. The stationary robots — which look like a cross between a traffic signal and a tourist-trap telescope — are more drone than Terminator in concept, operated remotely just outside the southern boundary of the DMZ by humans in a nearby command center. Officials refuse to say how many or where the robots have been deployed along the heavily fortified border between the two Koreas, but...

Seoul, South Korea (CNN) -- High-level military officers from the U.S.-led U.N. Command and North Korea are slated to meet Tuesday in the village of Panmunjom in the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea, the United Nations said Monday.

(2nd LD) N. Korea says it will bolster nuclear deterrent in a 'newly developed way' By Chang Jae-soon and Sam Kim SEOUL, June 28 (Yonhap) -- North Korea said Monday it will bolster its nuclear arsenal "in a newly developed way" to counter what it calls U.S. hostile policy and military threats toward the communist nation. The North also claimed in a separate statement that the U.S. has brought "heavy weapons" into a truce village that straddles the divided Koreas, warning of strong military action if they are not quickly withdrawn. North Korea has stepped up its fiery rhetoric against...

Amid growing military tensions between the North and South, Seoul mobilised troops and police early on Thursday after a resident of Ansan, 22 miles south-west of the South Korean capital, reported that 40 to 50 flying objects resembling parachutes had fallen on a mountain the previous night. Upon inspection, the objects were identified as helium balloons released by children at a nearby school. Tensions on the Korean peninsular have been high since the sinking of the South's warship earlier this year. Seoul has said that the ship was torpedoed by Pyongyang. Earlier this month, an explosion Yeonpyeong Island, near the...

Tensions in the Korean Peninsula are at their worst point in decades after a North Korean submarine ambushed a South Korean warship, killing scores of sailors. Although North Korea has made violent provocation a cornerstone of its foreign and domestic policy for years, there is always the chance that this kind of brinksmanship will spark a major war. With an isolated and paranoid regime like North Korea holding some of the world's most terrifying weapons, any reaction from the South or the United States could be seen as the first phase of a larger war. After all, part of the...

N. Korean Guard's More Threatening Look N. Korean guards at JSA before the Cheonan crisis (top right) After the crisis (top left & bottom ) Difference: battle helmet, calluses on the knuckles of both hands, wound on the right hand near wrist

USUALLY, there is a familiar cycle to Korea crises. Like a street gang showing off its power to run amok in a well-heeled neighborhood, the North Koreans launch a missile over Japan or set off a nuclear test or stage an attack — as strong evidence indicates they did in March, when a South Korean warship was torpedoed. Expressions of outrage follow. So do vows that this time, the North Koreans will pay a steep price. SNIP The White House betting is that the latest crisis, stemming from the March attack, will also abate without much escalation. But there is...

In the duel between North and South Korea, the question now is who will pull the trigger first? The answer may be neither, but don't count on it. The dueling now focuses on two quite different flashpoints. The first is the West or Yellow Sea, where North Korea has vowed to open fire against any South Korean vessel intruding in its waters. One issue there is how to define which waters are North Korean. The North refuses to recognize the Northern Limit Line, set by the United Nations Command after the Korean War (1950-1953) and challenged by North Korea in...

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/begin my translation N. Korea Brought Anti-aircraft Guns into Guard Post inside DMZ 2010-05-27 07:49 N. Korea has brought anti-aircraft guns into their guard post inside DMZ in Cholwon area, and deployed them, according to a report. Military authorities said that they observed N. Koreans brought in 14.5mm heavy anti-aircraft guns(quad) to their guard post in Cholwon area on May. 25. They said that it is a violation of Armistice Agreement which bans heavy weaponry inside DMZ, and they are monitoring it carefully. In another development, a flash of light was detected in the sky above Paju and S. Korean...

"A symphony of death." That's the chilling phrase that Kurt Campbell, who is now Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs in the Obama Administration, once used to describe the likely outcome of any military encounter on the Korean peninsula between the U.S., its ally South Korea and their mutual enemy across the 38th parallel in the North. The possibility of war breaking out once again in Korea is so unthinkable that a lot of people in various military establishments - the Pentagon, South Korea's armed forces and China's People's Liberation Army - actually spend a lot...

PYEONGTAEK, South Korea — Investigators let media have a look at the wreckage of the Cheonan on Wednesday, the day before South Korea was to formally announce that a North Korea torpedo sank the South Korean patrol ship. The wreckage of the March 26 sinking was retrieved from the Yellow Sea near the maritime border between the two Koreas and hauled to South Korea’s Second Fleet Command base in Pyeongtaek. Yoon Duk-yong, an investigator with the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, told reporters Wednesday that evidence from the recovered pieces of the ship points to a torpedo attack....

North Korea has deployed about 50,000 commandos along the inter-Korean border in an apparent show of force with the threat of rapid infiltration "suicide missions" against South Korea, a military source in Seoul said. The North "has completed the frontline deployment of seven light infantry divisions over the past two or three years," the source said, citing a joint study by South Korean and U.S. militaries. Each division consists of about 7,000 troops. A South Korean soldier keeps watch northwards on the south side of the truce village of Panmunjom in the demilitarised zone separating the two Koreas, north of...

South Korea is considering resuming loudspeaker propaganda broadcasts along the border with North Korea if the communist nation is found to be behind the deadly sinking of a naval ship, a military official said Monday. The two Koreas had blasted propaganda messages across the border for decades before suspending them under a 2004 accord as part of reconciliation efforts. Loudspeakers and other propaganda facilities along the 248-kilometer long border have also been dismantled. But ties between the two sides have frayed badly since South Korean President Lee Myung-bak took office in early 2008. The North has protested his hard-line stance...

South Korea's military believes a torpedo fired from a North Korean submarine sank its navy ship last month, based on intelligence gathered jointly with the United States, a news report said on Thursday. The Yonhap news agency report appears to be the clearest sign yet that Seoul blames Pyongyang for the sinking, thought to have killed 46 sailors in what would be one of the deadliest incidents between the rivals since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War.

North Korea accused South Korea's military of opening fire Sunday towards its side of the tense land border, in what it termed a "grave armed provocation". It said the South's military fired 90 mm recoilless guns towards a civil police post in the North on the eastern sector of the border in the early afternoon. The firing, "seriously threatening the safety of civil policemen of the north side on routine duty", was designed "to deliberately aggravate the situation" in the border buffer zone, the official Korean Central News Agency said. A "touch-and-go situation" prevails along the border due to such...

(LEAD) N. Korea accuses South of armed provocation in DMZ (ATTN: UPDATES throughout with S. Korea's response) SEOUL, April 4 (Yonhap) -- North Korea claimed Sunday that the South Korean military "committed grave armed provocation" in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) dividing the two countries, but military officials here denied the accusation. The North's official news agency, KCNA, reported that a group of South Korean soldiers intruded into the eastern section of the DMZ around 2:07 p.m. and fired 90mm recoilless guns toward a civil police post in the North, "thus seriously threatening the safety of civil policemen of the north...

Almost a year has passed since he began spending night after sleepless night observing North Korea from a cramped sentry box, but Sgt. Yu Geon-hee still grows tense at the smallest rustle. Standing near the heavily fortified border fence at the general outpost, or GOP, the young South Korean soldier says he never forgets the fact that he is less than 2 kilometers away from the closest North Korean guard post -- and must shoot at anything that crosses the border.We are on higher alert since a North Korean soldier crossed the military demarcation line earlier this month (to defect),"...

South Korea's military says several North Korean soldiers crossed the border into the South this week, apparently to pursue a defecting soldier. Military spokesman Park Sung-woo said Thursday the North Korean soldiers crossed the border about an hour after a fellow soldier fled to the South on Tuesday. He says they retreated after South Korean soldiers fired warning shots. Park says North Korean soldiers did not return fire. He says the defector is being questioned. More than 18,000 North Koreans have defected to South Korea since the 1950-53 Korean War. They rarely cross the heavily armed border and instead defect...

Korea and the United States plan to conclude bilateral talks this year on the method and procedures for possible overseas redeployment of American troops stationed here, sources in Korea said yesterday. An informed source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the sides were seeking to conclude negotiations before the annual defense ministerial talks, known as the Security Consultative Meeting, slated for October. “Talks are being held between the two sides to conclude the details and procedures of strategic flexibility of the U.S. Forces Korea,” the source said. Seoul had opposed the flexibility of U.S. troops as it earlier believed the...

The number of U.S. troops in South Korea will remain unchanged after Seoul takes back the wartime operational control of its troops from Washington, the top U.S. commander here said Wednesday, strongly denying speculation of weakened U.S. military support after the transition. "The U.S. troop numbers will stay the same as we fight side-by-side. The transition does not mean the United States will reduce its commitment," Gen. Walter Sharp told a group of graduating cadets of the Korea Military Academy. "We will never reduce our responsibility to defend Korea. It will always be our No. 1 responsibility." The U.S. Forces...

DEMILITARIZED ZONE, Korea — Every week for the past 15 years, an armistice-monitoring group on the South Korean side of the DMZ has placed communications in a mailbox here for North Korean officials to read. And every week for those 15 years, no one from the North has picked up the documents. The wooden box — on a wall in a conference building on the Military Demarcation Line that divides the two Koreas — serves as a symbol of a quiet battle of wills being waged by North Korea and the Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission. North Korea has refused since...

The South Korean military said Monday it has removed some 1,300 land mines this year from the country's rural areas bordering North Korea, a reminder of the tense 1950-53 Korean War that ended in a truce. In the operations that lasted from April to November, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) mobilized 3,300 personnel to remove mines from a total of 100,000 square meters of land south of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), it said in a release. Since starting the operations in 1999, JCS has cleared 65,000 mines. "It was a rewarding operation as we moved carefully not to disrupt...

CAMP RED CLOUD, South Korea — After a long run or grueling workout, U.S. servicemembers around South Korea will now be able to reach for a refreshing bottle of “DMZ” brand natural mineral water. That’s right, bottled water named after the Demilitarized Zone — one of the most dangerous places on the planet, known for its land mines and the ongoing tension between North and South Korea. Chun Woo-chul, spokesman for the Lotte Chilsung Co., which distributes the water nationwide, conceded that company officials “had fears and concerns about the negative image many people have of the DMZ, such as...

A South Korean navy ship has rescued a North Korean soldier whose boat drifted into southern waters across the Yellow Sea border, officials said Monday. Security authorities have been questioning the soldier since he was rescued Sunday, a defence ministry spokesman told AFP. The outcome of the investigation would be disclosed later. The soldier said his boat went adrift while he was fishing and asked investigators to send him back to North Korea, Yonhap news agency reported. He will be returned later this week through the truce village of Panmunjom in the Demilitarised Zone which bisects the peninsula, it said....

You stand atop an elevated tee box on the first and only hole of the world's most dangerous golf course. And you consider your chances. This deadly little par 3 measures 192 yards but plays more like 250 in the face of the vicious winds that often blow out of North Korea across an exclusive piece of real estate called the DMZ just a few yards away. Underneath your feet and off to the right are bunkers. The military kind. To the left, over an 18-foot-high security fence topped by concertina wire, are hazards that make high rough, deep water...

DEMILITARIZED ZONE, Korea — The water deer nibbled away on the vegetation on the gently sloping bend along the Imjin River, seemingly unaware of the dozen people pointing and staring at it through a field scope from the opposite shoreline. Nearby, the group observed a family of white-naped cranes feeding, something the endangered species does when wintering in the relative solitude of the Demilitarized Zone that divides North and South Korea. While mention of the DMZ conjures images of stone-faced soldiers, barbed-wire fences, guns and guard towers, the area between North and South Korea has remained virtually untouched by humans...

Playing a 'round' near the DMZ By Drew Gallagher ESPN U.S. ARMY CAMP BONIFAS, South Korea -- We've all hit tee shots that could be described as "dangerous." Tight fairways. Intimidating water hazards. Thick fescue. All of these make for "dangerous" conditions. But I've never hit a tee shot with the North Korean army just a mulligan away. A soldier from the North Korean Army stands guard at the border. Such is golf at U.S. Army Camp Bonifas, South Korea, home to one of the world's most unique golf courses. The "course" consists of a single 192-yard, par-3 hole that...

DEMILITARIZED ZONE, Korea — You might call it a case of keeping up with the Joneses, or in this case the Kims. Work is under way on the South Korean side of the Demilitarized Zone to renovate three guard posts and two checkpoint buildings into bigger, more modern structures. The construction comes a year after North Korea finished work on the replacement of four guard posts on its side of the DMZ, and a decade after the two sides engaged in a tit-for-tat battle to see who could build the more impressive reception centers in the Joint Security Area —...

A senior US military officer said Tuesday that any North Korean attack on South Korea would be sudden and "extremely destructive", but would ultimately fail. Major General Johnny A. Weida, outgoing deputy chief of staff for the US Forces Korea, also said such an attack is highly unlikely because it would spell the end of Kim Jong-Il's regime. More than two-thirds of the North's forces are within 90 km (56 miles) of the border with South Korea, Weida said. "They could attack, if they were so inclined, with very little notice," he told a group of civilians touring the Demilitarised...

Japanese Held After Bid To Cross Border To North Korea SEOUL (AFP)--South Korean soldiers have detained a Japanese man who attempted to cross the heavily guarded border into North Korea, in what local media described as a one-man peace protest. The Japanese embassy in Seoul confirmed that a Japanese had tried to cross the frontier at the Demilitarized Zone, or DMZ, which divides the peninsula. Information official Satoshi Nishijima said he had no details and didn't know the man's motive. Yonhap news agency said the 40-year-old approached a barbed-wire fence in the Cheorwon area on Wednesday night but was detained...

SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea put its troops on alert and cut the last hot line to Seoul on Monday as the American and South Korean militaries began joint maneuvers. The communist regime warned that even the slightest provocation could trigger war.

SEOUL, South Korea - A North Korean soldier has defected to South Korea through the heavily fortified border dividing the two countries, an official from the South's spy agency said Tuesday, in only the second such defection in a decade. Meanwhile, North Korea warned it would turn South Korea into "debris" and break off all relations if Seoul does not halt "confrontational" activities against the communist country. "The puppet authorities had better remember that the advanced pre-emptive strike of our own style will reduce everything opposed to the nation and reunification to debris, not just setting them on fire," the...

DEMILITARIZED ZONE, Korea — Much like today’s incoming officers, members of the U.S. Military Academy class of 1966 knew what they were getting into when they left West Point. Arthur Bonifas and William McKinney each deployed to different units in Vietnam. They made it back, but 40 or so of their classmates did not, McKinney said Thursday. The tragedies took their toll, but after a while they were no longer shocking. "The numbness wore off, and then boom, 10 years later after Vietnam, out of the blue … it wasn’t supposed to happen after Vietnam," McKinney said. On Aug. 18,...

North Korea testing South with jet fighters: report Sun Mar 30, 2008 10:07pm EDT By Jon Herskovitz SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korean jet fighters have sortied close South Korea's airspace at least 10 times since conservative president Lee Myung-bak took office last month, prompting Seoul to scramble its own planes in response, the Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported on Monday The flights add to a list of provocative gestures from the North since Lee's government warned Pyongyang that if it wants to keep receiving aid, it should improve human rights, abide by an international nuclear deal and start returning the more...

DEMILITARIZED ZONE — When you grow up a few hundreds yards from North Korea, having armed guards at your elementary school graduation isn’t strange. Neither is having the senior member of the United Nations Command’s Military Armistice Commission as your guest speaker or throngs of newspaper and television journalists capturing your every move during the 90-minute ceremony. For the three graduating sixth-graders at the Dae Sung Dong Elementary School — Friday’s ceremony was just another day in the slightly surreal life in the only village located in the southern half of the demilitarized zone. And living, working, playing and studying...

PANMUNJOM, South Korea — Soldiers from the U.S. and South Korean militaries gathered in the Demilitarized Zone’s Joint Security Area on Wednesday to honor a fallen comrade. As they have every year since 1984, members of the United Nations Command Security Battalion gathered at a small memorial outside Freedom House to lay wreaths, play taps and conduct last roll call for South Korean army Cpl. Jang Myoung-ki. “The late Corporal Jang is one of our heroes, who have made it possible for the Republic of Korea to be in existence today,” said Lt. Col. Jeon Dong-jin, battalion deputy commander. “Thus...

Seoul - A North Korean general cracked a joke about US President George W Bush at the start of military talks on Tuesday with South Korea that takes aim at president's unpopularity for being mired in the Iraq war and other issues. "I read a political joke, called 'Saving the President,' on a US internet site a while ago," Lieutenant General Kim Yong Chol told his South Korean counterpart as they opened three days of meetings at the truce village of Panmunjom in the Demilitarized Zone dividing the Koreas, according to pool reports. "US President Bush, distressed by the Iraq...

Lost chapter - The DMZ War in Korea By KEVIN P. CRAVER - kcraver@nwherald.com Pvt. Robert Haynes awoke from his first night in his new post in South Korea to a nightmare. The hustle of men and the metallic clicks of loading rifles roused him from his sleep Nov. 2, 1966, before a truck pulled up with seven bodies. Six Americans and one South Korean on patrol were ambushed by North Korean troops. Their bodies, filled with grenade shrapnel and bullets, had been mutilated after death. One American survived. Haynes, an 18-year-old vehicle mechanic in the 2nd Infantry Division, witnessed...

Natural Selections: Roaming Free in the DMZ War can sometimes establish unexpected havens for wildlife. By Mary C. Pearl DISCOVER Vol. 27 No. 11 | November 2006 | Environment Strewn with mines and bordered with barbed wire, the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea extends in a narrow band about 150 miles long and two and a half miles wide. No permanent structures or settlements exist in the DMZ, and over the past 50 years, only occasional soldiers, observers, and the 225 residents of Daeseong-dong, a little village on the southern border, have been allowed in. Because of this...