US vows punishment for North Korea over ship sinking

US Vows Punishment for North Korea Over Ship Sinking

The shattered wreck of the Cheonan was winched to the surface in two pieces

The US state department says there "will definitely be consequences" for North Korea following the sinking of a South Korean warship in March.

The North is facing international condemnation after investigators blamed it for the sinking of the ship, in which 46 sailors died.

Pyongyang has rejected the claim as a "fabrication" and threatened war if sanctions were imposed.

China urged restraint and did not criticise the North.

The report - by a team including experts from the US, Australia, Britain and Sweden - concluded that a torpedo had sunk the Cheonan corvette.

The investigators said parts of the torpedo found on the sea floor had lettering that matched a North Korean design.

READ THE REPORT IN FULL

Continue reading the main story

PDF downloadInvestigation result on the sinking of Cheonan_[72KB]

Most computers will open PDF documents automatically, but you may need Adobe Reader

Excerpts: Ship sinking report

"Clearly this was a serious provocation by North Korea and there will definitely be consequences," said US State Department spokesman PJ Crowley.

The US has some 28,000 troops stationed in the South following the 1950-53 Korean War.

Defence Secretary Robert Gates said the US was in "close consultation" with South Korea, which would decide what action to take.

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak has pledged to take "stern action".

Britain, Australia and Japan also expressed anger at North Korea. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said the report was "deeply troubling".

'All-out war'

Pyongyang has said it would send its own inspection team to the South, to "verify material evidence" behind the accusation.

NORTH KOREAN ATTACKS

Continue reading the main story

• Jan 1967 - attacks South Korean warship near border, killing 39 sailors
• Jan 1968 - commandos storm presidential palace in Seoul in a failed attempt to kill President Park Chung-hee
• Jan 1968 - captures USS Pueblo - one crew member dies and 82 held hostage for 11 months
• Dec 1969 - hijacks South Korean airliner taking dozens of passengers hostage
• Oct 1983 - bombs hotel in Rangoon, Burma in failed attempt to kill South Korean President Chun Doo-hwan - 21 people die
• Nov 1987 - bombs South Korean airliner, killing 115
• Sept 1996 - North Korean submarine crew land in South, sparking deadly manhunt
• Mar 2010 - torpedoes Cheonan warship, 46 sailors killed

Attack leaves no easy optionsHow the ship was sunkTimeline: North Korean attacksQ&A: Cheonan sinkingSend us your comments

A North Korean defence spokesman said the country would "respond to reckless counter-measure with an all-out war of justice", the state KCNA news agency reported.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said Beijing had "noted" the report and would also make its own assessment, but called on both sides to exercise restraint.

South Korea's Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs, Chun Young-woo, said Seoul was considering taking the matter to the UN Security Council.

"The Security Council will consider what is necessary as a response to North Korea's act of aggression," he told the BBC. "North Korea cannot get away from this."

The Cheonan went down near the disputed inter-Korean maritime border, raising tension between the two nations which technically remain at war.

Earlier, a number of explanations had been suggested for the sinking - including an accidental collision with an unexploded sea mine left over from the Korean War.

Stories

Obama To Replace Intelligence Chief Dennis Blair

by CARRIE JOHNSON

Lauren Victoria Burke/AP

Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair, seen here in 2009, could resign as early as Friday.

May 20, 2010

Dennis Blair, director of national intelligence, is resigning after a series of high-profile clashes with the CIA and a damaging report from Congress on intelligence failures, three sources told NPR News.

No official confirmation has emerged from the White House, but one U.S. official said an announcement could come Friday.

Blair, a retired admiral, has had troubled relations with CIA Director Leon Panetta about who has authority over U.S. intelligence operations. The two butted heads over the appointment of a CIA station chief, a battle Panetta ultimately won.

There's no word on who would replace Blair. The administration already has "been interviewing several strong candidates to be his replacement," the U.S. official said Thursday.

Congress created the DNI in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, expressly to help the intelligence community better share and analyze information about terrorist threats.

Word of Blair's departure comes the same week that the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence issued a report that sharply criticized the Obama administration for intelligence lapses surrounding the botched Christmas Day bombing.

The report, signed by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Sen. Christopher Bond (R-MO), cited 14 failures to connect the dots within U.S. intelligence circles. Some of the information would have prevented Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian, from boarding an airplane bound for Detroit with explosives in his underwear, the lawmakers said.

Abdulmutallab was taken into custody and is cooperating with U.S. prosecutors. President Obama has said the episode could have cost the lives of 300 passengers and crew.

Blair told the Senate Homeland Security Committee in February that the administration should have sent a High Value Detainee Interrogation Group unit to Detroit to question Abdulmutallab. But at the time of his remarks, the group was not yet in operation -– the White House had not signed off on its charter.

Later that day, Blair issued a statement saying his remarks had been "misconstrued."

NPR's Tom Gjelten contributed to this report

 

Nuclear Factor Complicates Korean Standoff Over Sunken Ship

Updated May 20, 2010 by FOXNews.com

A South Korean military officer shows torpedo parts salvaged from the Yellow Sea during a press conference in Seoul May 20. (AP Photo)

The delicate standoff on the Korean peninsula over charges that North Korea sank a South Korean ship -- killing 46 sailors -- stands as a compelling example of why rogue states want nuclear weapons. 

Nobody wants to mess with them. 

"No other state their size on Earth has that kind of military capability," said Bruce Bechtol, author of "Red Rogue: The Persistent Challenge of North Korea." 

South Korean and U.S. officials are now weighing their options for how to handle the findings of an investigative report that formally blamed a North Korean torpedo attack for sinking the frigate Cheonan on March 26. Defense Secretary Robert Gates stressed Thursday that the South Koreans are calling the shots and "we will be consulting very closely with them as we move ahead." The State Department said there would be "consequences."

But the early response is almost certain to come in the form of public condemnation and economic sanctions rather than military action, observers say. Administration officials would not go so far as to label the attack an act of war -- White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said he would not get into "hypotheticals" when asked if the dispute could lead to war. Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the United States is focused on supporting its "strong ally" while at the same time considering "stability in that region." 

But Bechtol, a professor at the U.S. Marine Corps Command and Staff College, said North Korea holds a major "deterrent" in its hands with its nuclear arsenal. While delivery methods are limited, he said the North is capable of using aircraft or ships to attack the South with a nuclear weapon and could also use a medium-range missile to hit countries as far away as Japan. The nuclear arsenal isn't necessarily the biggest worry, since the regime is incapable of delivering those weapons on a long-range missile that could hit, say, the United States. The country's sizable military and arsenal of conventional weapons -- which are well in range of Seoul -- make the prospect of all-out war on the peninsula terrifying. That's what North Korea is threatening as it accuses South Korea of fabricating evidence. 

All this inevitably factors in as South Korea and its allies consider a response. And it demonstrates why the Obama administration is so keen on halting the development of nuclear weapons. 

The administration has been on a high-profile campaign over the past several months to reduce nuclear arsenals around the world and keep nations like North Korea and Iran from developing them. The United Nations this week reviewed a proposal for new sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program, which the country's government insists is for peaceful purposes. 

Doug Bandow, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, said it's unlikely Kim Jong Il would try to deploy a nuclear weapon, but the danger of the country's weapons getting loose should the regime fall apart in the throes of a military conflict is what worries officials. 

In the near-term, he said North Korea's ability to inflict major damage on South Korea with conventional weapons is what will lead nations like the United States to urge restraint. 

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said in a written statement Wednesday that the United States "strongly condemns the act of aggression," but left open the door to what options the United States is considering. 

"This attack constitutes a challenge to international peace and security," he said. "It reinforces the resolve of its neighbors to intensify their cooperation to safeguard peace and stability in the region against all provocations." 

But Bandow said that if the South Korean's investigative findings are correct, "This suggests the North committed an act of war." 

He said the challenge is to punish North Korea without triggering a military conflict. 

"To sink a South Korean ship is a major provocation," he said. "There are no good answers here." 

A U.S. official told FoxNews.com that the United States is waiting until South Korean President Lee Myung-bak meets with his government on Monday and will take its cues from there. 

"South Koreans have the lead on this issue. Obviously we support them," the official said. 

Bechtol said that while South Korea has probably not taken military action off the table, such a response is unlikely. 

He added: "If North Korea conducts another provocation then all bets are off."

South Korea: North responsible for torpedo attack on warship

By John Pomfret and Blaine Harden

Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, May 18, 2010; 2:47 PM

South Korea will formally blame North Korea on Thursday for launching a torpedo at one of its warships in March, causing an explosion that killed 46 sailors and heightened tensions in one of the world's most perilous regions, U.S. and East Asian officials said.

South Korea reached its conclusion that North Korea was responsible for the attack after investigators from Australia, Britain, Sweden and the United States pieced together portions of the ship at the port of Pyongtaek, 40 miles southwest of Seoul. The Cheonan sank on March 26, following an explosion that rocked the vessel as it sailed in the Yellow Sea off South Korea's west coast.
The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because South Korea has yet to disclose the findings of the investigation, said that subsequent analysis determined that the torpedo was identical to a North Korean torpedo that had previously been obtained by South Korea.
South Korea's conclusion underscores the continuing threat posed by North Korea and the intractable nature of the dispute between the two Koreas. South Korean President Lee Myung-bak must respond forcefully to the attack, analysts said, but not in a way that would risk further violence from North Korea, whose artillery could -- within minutes -- devastate greater Seoul, which has a population of 20.5 million.
South Korea's report will also present a challenge toChina and other nations. China waited almost a month to express its condolences to South Korea for the loss of life, and, analysts and officials said, has seemed at pains to protect North Korea from criticism.
South Korea will request that the U.N. Security Council take up the issue and is looking to tighten sanctions on North Korea, the officials said. The United States has indicated it would support such an action, U.S. officials said. Japanese Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada told his South Korean counterpart on Monday that Japan would do the same, the Japanese news media reported Tuesday.
Another consequence of the report, experts predicted, is that Lee will request that the United States delay for several years a plan to pass operational control of all forces in South Korea from the United States to the South Korean military. Approximately 28,500 U.S. forces are stationed in South Korea.
South Korea's conclusion that North Korea was responsible for the sinking of the Cheonan also means it is unlikely that talks will resume anytime soon over North Korea's nuclear weapons program. North Korea has twice tested what is believed to be a nuclear weapon. China has pushed for an early resumption of those talks, but South Korean officials said they will return to the table only after there is a full accounting for the attack against the Cheonan and a policy response.
The sinking -- and the reluctance of the South to respond with an in-kind attack -- is the latest example of the raw military intimidation that North Korea has practiced for decades. With 1.19 million troops on active duty, the Korean People's Army has positioned about 70 percent of its fighting forces and firepower within 60 miles of the border with the South.
David Straub, a former director of the State Department's Korea desk who is now at Stanford University, said that while the Cheonan's sinking was horrendous, it marked more of a return to "normal" behavior for North Korea than a new direction.
"We tend to look at this as shocking because things have been relatively quiet for a decade or two," he said. But North Korea killed 30 sailors aboard a South Korean warship in the 1970s; in 1983, its agents are believed to have been behind a fatal bombing in Rangoon that narrowly missed then-South Korean President Chun Doo-hwan.
What has changed, Straub said, is the Western view of North Korea. In the past, North Korean misbehavior was often rewarded with Western attention and aid from Japan and South Korea. But after North Korea conducted its second nuclear test in May 2009, "opinion changed in a fundamental way," he said.
"Before there was a tendency of government officials to say, 'Well, maybe if we try hard enough to persuade the North Koreans to give up the bomb, they will,' " he said. "Now the conclusion of most people, including in the Obama administration, is that they can't see the North Koreans giving up their nuclear weapons on terms that would be acceptable to anyone."
Harden reported from Tokyo.

US Sends Iran Sanctions Draft to UN

US Sends Iran Sanctions Draft to UN

David Gollust18 May 2010

Photo: AP

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, 18 May 2010, before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on the new START Treaty

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says the United States and other major world powers have agreed on a draft resolution that could impose a fourth round of United Nations sanctions on Iran. 

Clinton made the announcement in testimony to a Senate committee Tuesday, a day after Iran announced a plan to send some of its enriched uranium to Turkey in exchange for nuclear fuel.

The Security Council is set to hold consultations on the sanctions draft Tuesday. 

Clinton said the plan followed talks among the five permanent Security Council members - the United States, Britain, China, France and Russia, as well as Germany.   

She noted the agreement had been reached in cooperation with China and Russia - two nations that have previously resisted imposing more sanctions on Tehran.

On Monday, Iran signed an agreement with Turkey and Brazil to send 1,200 kilograms of low-enriched uranium to Turkey in exchange for higher-enriched nuclear reactor fuel to be used in a medical research reactor in Tehran.

Both Turkey and Brazil are non-permanent members of the Security Council.

Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast accused Western nations Tuesday of  "seeking excuses" to avoid resolving the nuclear dispute with his country.

Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said talk of sanctions could "spoil the atmosphere" and lead to an "escalation" of statements that might "provoke" Iranian public opinion.

The United States and its Western allies accuse Iran of working to make a nuclear weapon.  Iran says its atomic program is for peaceful purposes.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with top Cabinet members Tuesday to consider a response to the Iranian plan. 

Israel views a nuclear-armed Iran as a threat to its existence because of repeated calls by Iranian leaders for the demise of the Jewish state.  

Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.

Dealing with Iran...

Iran's nuclear programme

The Tehran tango

The Turkish-Brazilian deal leaves Iran enriching uranium and is unlikely to satisfy the West

May 17th 2010 | From The Economist online

TWO leaders from two big regional powers, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil and Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, took a risk in travelling to Iran and negotiating over the country's contentious nuclear programme. Many said they would fail. Instead the two announced triumph on Monday 17th May, clutching hands with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's president. But will Western leaders, pressing for new sanctions on Iran, see it as enough?

Under the new deal, Iran says it would send 1,200 kg of its stockpile of low-enriched uranium to Turkey. In exchange it wants 120 kg of uranium enriched to a higher level (around 20%) for a research reactor which produces isotopes that can be used in medicine (typically for the treatment of cancer), within a year.

If this sounds familiar, it is because the outlines of the deal are close to those struck last October between France, Russia, Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), with American support. Under that plan, 1,200kg of uranium would have been sent to Russia for enrichment to 20%. The material would then have been sent on to France to be turned into fuel rods.

Iran backed out of this deal, demanding higher-enriched uranium immediately, and insisting the swap take place in Iran. Details of the new deal have yet to be hammered out, but Messrs Lula and Erdogan seem to have convinced Iran to give some ground on where and how quickly the enrichment would be done. With Iran’s apparent concessions in hand, the two mediating presidents now say there is no need for further sanctions from the UN Security Council (where both countries currently sit among the 15 members).

Leaders in other Western capitals are unlikely to see things that way. Until Turkey and Brazil got involved, Iran’s negotiations had primarily been with the five permanent members of the Security Council—America, Britain, France, Russia and China—as well as Germany and the IAEA. The Turkish-Brazilian deal must now go to them for their approval.

France's foreign ministry and the European Commission both faintly praised the deal, while noting that it did nothing to solve the underlying impasse between an Iran that has carried on enriching and the countries that want it to desist. The British government said it would continue to work towards a resolution on sanctions in the Security Council.

The thinking behind the failed October deal was to take most of Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium out of play, in order to create time for negotiations. But because Iran has carried on enriching uranium since it turned down the October deal, it has quite a lot more of the low-enriched stuff sitting around than it would send to Turkey under the new deal (some 1,100 kg according to Jacqueline Shire of the Institute for Science and International Security). Getting uranium from 20% enriched to the 90% or so needed for a bomb takes a lot less effort than getting to the original 3.5% in the first place. So even if the new deal with Brazil and Turkey sticks it is unlikely to buy Iran much time to avoid a vote on sanctions.

Word at the UN had it that a sanctions deal (a full arms embargo, financial and shipping sanctions and restrictions on the Revolutionary Guard) was near. Russia has recently joined America in sending a stronger signal that Iran must stop enrichment, as the UN Security Council has demanded, and answer the IAEA's increasingly pointed questions about activities that appear to indicate an interest in weapons development. This would have left only China in a position to veto sanctions, and China has traditionally not liked to veto alone.

The case against sanctions, in other words, seemed to be crumbling. But Turkey and Brazil might just succeed in swinging other temporary members of the Security Council against sanctions. Lebanon is already publicly sceptical, and Gabon has called for a negotiated solution. Mexico may feel caught between its important American relationship and its regional partner and rival, Brazil. Even if none of the veto-wielders bolts, the Western coalition could have to scrape for the nine votes needed, sending a weak signal.

Unless details of the new deal (a letter is to be sent to the IAEA this week) contain pleasant surprises, it appears Iran may have successfully repeated its old trick of widening divisions between the countries preparing to tighten the sanctions net around it. Israel has already said that Brazil, inexperienced in Middle East diplomacy, may have been manipulated, and more scepticism is certain in the days to come. Messrs Erdogan and Lula may not have long to savour their achievements.

The China Model for Economic Development

The China model

The Beijing consensus is to keep quiet

In the West people worry that developing countries want to copy “the China model”. Such talk makes people in China uncomfortable

May 6th 2010 | BEIJING | From The Economist print edition

CHINESE officials said the opening of the World Expo in Shanghai on April 30th would be simple and frugal. It wasn’t. The display of fireworks, laser beams, fountains and dancers rivalled the extravagance of Beijing’s Olympic ceremonies in 2008. The government’s urge to show off Chinese dynamism proved irresistible. For many, the razzmatazz lit up the China model for all the world to admire.

The multi-billion-dollar expo embodies this supposed model, which has won China many admirers in developing countries and beyond. A survey by the Pew Research Centre, an American polling organisation, found that 85% of Nigerians viewed China favourably last year (compared with 79% in 2008), as did 50% of Americans (up from 39% in 2008) and 26% of Japanese (up from 14%, see chart). China’s ability to organise the largest ever World Expo, including a massive upgrade to Shanghai’s infrastructure, with an apparent minimum of the bickering that plagues democracies, is part of what dazzles.

Scholars and officials in China itself, however, are divided over whether there is a China model (or “Beijing consensus” as it was dubbed in 2004 by Joshua Cooper Ramo, an American consultant, playing on the idea of a declining “Washington consensus”), and if so what the model is and whether it is wise to talk about it. The Communist Party is diffident about laying claim to any development model that other countries might copy. Official websites widely noted a report by a pro-Party newspaper in Hong Kong, Ta Kung Pao, calling the expo “a display platform for the China model”. But Chinese leaders avoid using the term and in public describe the expo in less China-centred language.

Not so China’s publishing industry, which in recent months has been cashing in on an upsurge of debate in China about the notion of a China model (one-party rule, an eclectic approach to free markets and a big role for state enterprise being among its commonly identified ingredients). In November a prominent Party-run publisher produced a 630-page tome titled “China Model: A New Development Model from the Sixty Years of the People’s Republic”. In January came the more modest “China Model: Experiences and Difficulties”. Another China-model book was launched in April and debated at an expo-related forum in Shanghai. Its enthusiastic authors include Zhao Qizheng, a former top Party propaganda official, and John Naisbitt, an American futurologist.

Western publishers have been no less enthused by China’s continued rapid growth. The most recent entry in the field is “The Beijing Consensus, How China’s Authoritarian Model Will Dominate the Twenty-First Century” by Stefan Halper, an American academic. Mr Halper, who has served as an official in various Republican administrations, argues that “just as globalisation is shrinking the world, China is shrinking the West” by quietly limiting the projection of its values.

But despite China’s status as “the world’s largest billboard advertisement for the new alternative” of going capitalist and staying autocratic, Party leaders are, as Mr Halper describes it, gripped by a fear of losing control and of China descending into chaos. It is this fear, he says, that is a driving force behind China’s worrying external behaviour. Party rule, the argument runs, depends on economic growth, which in turn depends on resources supplied by unsavoury countries. Politicians in Africa in fact rarely talk about following a “Beijing consensus”. But they love the flow of aid from China that comes without Western lectures about governance and human rights.

The same fear makes Chinese leaders reluctant to wax lyrical about a China model. They are acutely aware of American sensitivity to any talk suggesting the emergence of a rival power and ideology—and conflict with America could wreck China’s economic growth.

In 2003 Chinese officials began talking of the country’s “peaceful rise”, only to drop the term a few months later amid worries that even the word “rise” would upset the flighty Americans. Zhao Qizheng, the former propaganda official, writes that he prefers “China case” to “China model”. Li Junru, a senior Party theorist, said in December that talk of a China model was “very dangerous” because complacency might set in that would sap enthusiasm for further reforms.

Some Chinese lament that this is already happening. Political reform, which the late architect of China’s developmental model, Deng Xiaoping, once argued was essential for economic liberalisation, has barely progressed since he crushed the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989. Liu Yawei of the Carter Centre, an American human-rights group wrote last month that efforts by Chinese scholars to promote the idea of a China model have become “so intense and effective” that political reform has been “swept aside”.

Chinese leaders’ fear of chaos suggests they themselves are not convinced that they have found the right path. Talk of a model is made all the harder by the stability-threatening problems that breakneck growth engenders, from environmental destruction to rampant corruption and a growing gap between rich and poor. One of China’s more outspoken media organisations, Caixin, this week published an article by Joseph Nye, an American academic. In it Mr Nye writes of the risks posed by China’s uncertain political trajectory. “Generations change, power often creates hubris and appetites sometimes grow with eating,” he says.

One Western diplomat, using the term made famous by Mr Nye, describes the expo as a “competition between soft powers”. But if China’s soft power is in the ascendant and America’s declining—as many Chinese commentators write—the event, which is due to end on October 31st, hardly shows it. True, China succeeded in persuading a record number of countries to take part. But visitor turnout has been far lower than organisers had anticipated. And queues outside America’s dour pavilion have been among the longest.