http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7859671.stm
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Communist North Korea has said it is scrapping all military and political agreements signed with the South, accusing Seoul of hostile intent.

The South's government had pushed relations "to the brink of a war", the North's cross-border relations body said on state media.

One agreement scrapped is that covering the maritime border in the Yellow Sea.

The two countries' navies fought bloody skirmishes in the area of the de facto border in 2002 and 1999.

"All the agreed points concerning the issue of putting an end to the political and military confrontation between the North and the South will be nullified," the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea said.

It said that the situation on the Korean peninsula had reached a point where there was "neither way to improve [relations] nor hope to bring them on track".

The North has stepped up rhetorical attacks on the administration of South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, who has promised to stop the free flow of aid to the North unless it moves to end its nuclear weapons programme.

The BBC's John Sudworth in Seoul says some analysts believe that Pyongyang is trying to build up tensions with the South in order to give itself more negotiating power with the new US administration.

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global package right now. Let's see, that pretty much engages the whole damned world one way or another in everything going on, right?

India and Pakistan are in a shouting match? Check.

Russia, Ukraine, Europe are all in a gas/pipeline snit (Bulgaria called Russia's action the equivalent of terrorism - nice)? Check.

Israelis in the process of killing every Palestinian within their reach? Check.

The Obama saying that Iran is a trouble maker? Check.

The Obama bombing and killing civilians (and kids) in Pakistan and Afghanistan? Check.

Turkey walking out of the Davos talks? Check.

Almost all of Latin America boycotting Davos? Check.

Is this just the tip of the I-berg? Check...

We are on the brink of war with the South, says North Korea

Bellicose words seen as bid to attract Obama's attention

By Jonathan Thatcher in Seoul
Saturday, 31 January 2009

North Korea said yesterday it was scrapping all accords with South Korea, a move the South's prime minister said could be timed to coincide with Barack Obama taking office in the US.



The US State Department said the North Korean comments were "distinctly not helpful" but the US would keep pursuing a 2005 multilateral deal under which North Korea agreed to abandon its nuclear programs.

Analysts said the rise in tension made a military clash on the strongly-defended border more likely.

"There is neither way to improve (relations) nor hope to bring them on track," North Korea's KCNA news agency quoted the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea as saying.

"The confrontation between the North and the South in the political and military fields has been put to such extremes that the inter-Korean relations have reached the brink of a war."

KCNA also criticised the South Korean President, Lee Myung-bak, over the appointment of a new minister in charge of relations on the peninsula, saying he was an architect of the government's "undisguised policy for confrontation" with North Korea.

The North has repeatedly warned of war in the past few months and threatened to destroy the conservative government in Seoul that has ended a decade of free-flowing aid to Pyongyang since taking office a year ago.

South Korea's presidential Blue House largely ignored the rhetoric. "There is no need to react sensitively or get happy or sad over every single statement issued with some political motive," a presidential official said.

The South Korean Prime Minister, Han Seung-soo said from the World Economic Forum in Davos that he hoped the North would embrace dialogue. "We hope that instead of threats of this kind, North Korea would come out to talk to us on matters of mutual concern and interest.

"I am sure that the inauguration of the Obama administration must have had some impact on the thinking of North Korea on global issues, as well as the issue of the Korean peninsula."

The US State Department said the Obama administration was still reviewing its policy toward North Korea.

Masao Okonogi, a Korea expert at Keio University in Tokyo, said the North hoped by cutting ties with the South and Japan, it could more quickly push itself on to Mr Obama's agenda.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/we-are-on-the-brink-of-war-with-the-south-says-north-korea-1521694.html

[hr]

US, Koreas Trade Warnings as Tensions Escalate
Posted October 9, 2008

With South Korean General Kim Tae-Young accusing the North Koreans of working on a new nuclear warhead, the reported North Korean missile test firings earlier in the week, and the announcement that the North is barring IAEA inspectors from all portions of its Yongbyon nuclear facility it is unsurprising that tensions on the Korean Peninsula are at one of their highest levels in recent memory, but the situation seems to be taking a turn for the worse as the US and North Korea have both issued public warnings today.

North Korea’s naval command has accused South Korean ships of violating its territorial waters in the Yellow Sea recently, and has warned that a “naval clash may break out due to such military provocations.” They also warned that they may take “decisive action” if the incursions continue. The Yellow Sea border between the two nations was set unilaterally by the United Nations forces after the Korean War, and North Korea claims a different border further south. The Yellow Sea was also the site of this week’s test firings of short range missiles.

Meanwhile, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack has warned the North Koreans that “missile related activities are prohibited under UN Security Council Resolution 1718,” and cautioned them “to avoid any steps that increase tension on the peninsula.”

US commander General Walter Sharp has said his forces “are prepared for any reaction up North, anything up North,” but that “we have not seen anything out of the normal.” The United States presently has 28,500 troops in South Korea.

http://news.antiwar.com/2008/10/09/us-north-korea-trade-warnings-as-tensions-escalate/

[hr]




Getting quite hot around here

Yep, I agree with you.

Things aren't looking good at all.

http://www.veteransforpeace.org/Korea_war_statement.vp.html
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By John H. Kim
Starting this June 2000 and continuing for the next three years, the Pentagon will be celebrating the 50th anniversary of the outbreak of the Korean War with special commemorative events in the U.S. and South Korea, spending seven million dollars of our tax money. At the same time, the Pentagon was forced to reinvestigate the AP news report concerning the U.S. killing of several hundreds of South Korean civilians at Nogun-ri in late July 1950, putting out a misleading and evasive report in January 2001. The Korean victims of the Nogun-ri massacre have called the report a "white-wash."

It’s about time that we, American people, take another look at the "Forgotten War" (a.k.a. "Unknown War") and try to understand the real nature of the War so that we could do something about to bring the War to an end. Many Americans erroneously believe that the war was over long time ago. But, in fact, the War is still going on there in less obvious ways: military build-ups, economic sanctions, propaganda war, nuclear crisis, etc. The sad truth is that the U.S. government has been fighting the longest, most ferocious, unauthorized war in its history.

Almost a half century after the Armistice, the U.S. still maintains about 37,000 U.S. troops spread over dozens of military bases in South Korea today. What we have in Korea is merely a precarious cease-fine agreement which can turn into another war at any time. We came very close to re-ignite the war in 1994 and 1999. How long are we going to stay in Korea, and at what cost? When are we going to bring our boys home at last? How long are we going to ignore our responsibility for the tragic division of Korea and the Korean War?

Division of Korea
For a full understanding of Korean War, it is necessary to understand something about the past history of the U.S. policy toward Korea prior to the outbreak of the War. Korea first emerged as a unified country in 668 A.D. when Silla annexed Paekche and Koguryo, ending the Three Kingdoms period. The U.S. first established its diplomatic relation with Korea when it signed the Treaty of Amity and Commerce with the Kingdom of Choson in 1882. However, the U.S. government soon proved to be not a real friend to the Korean people when Japan attempted to colonize Korea. Instead of restraining Japan’s imperialist ambition, President Theodore Roosevelt entered into a secret deal with Japan in 1905 (a.k.a. "Taft-Katsura Memorandum") by recognizing Japan’s domination of Korea in return for Japan’s recognition of U.S. hegemony in the Philippines.

This tendency of American government to betray Korean people’s interests repeats itself again at the end of the World War II. In order to stop the downward march of the Soviet Union troops and secure U.S. influence on the Korean peninsula, the U.S. State-War-Navy Coordinating Committee drew an arbitrary line across the 38th Parallel in Korea, asking the Soviet forces to stop at the 38th Parallel. Although the American forces were in Okinawa at the time, the Soviet Union somehow accepted the American demand meekly, thus paving the way for the establishment of two separate governments in Korea as the Cold war intensified.

In addition to the tragic division of Korea, the U.S. also refused to recognize the Korean People’s Republic (KPR), a nationwide, progressive, people’s government which had been organized by the anti-Japanese nationalist Koreans before the arrival of American troops in South Korea in September 1945. Instead of cooperating with KPR, the U.S. created a military government in its zone of occupation, outlawing the KPR and the popular People’s Committees under the control of KPR. This is the key to a full understanding of the origin of the Korean War.

Outbreak of the Korean War

The official American history is that the Korean War started on June 25, 1950 when the North Korean forces suddenly attacked the South under Stalin’s order. This is a gross misrepresentation of the origin of the War. For one thing certain now, according to the Russian documents declassified, is that Stalin did not order Kim Il Sung to start the War. On the contrary, it was Kim Il Sung who sought permission to attack the South in case the North was attacked. The truth is that the Korean War really started in 1945 when the U.S. suppressed the KPR government and imposed its military rule in the southern part of Korea.

During the American Military Government (1945-1948) and the period from the establishment of the Republic of Korea (ROK) in the South in August 1948 to the full-scale war in June 1950, the U.S. military and the fascist Rhee regime, allied with pro-Japanese Koreans, either imprisoned or killed hundreds of thousands of Korean nationalists and socialists in order to establish a separate, pro-American government in the South. This savage repression resulted in bloody armed struggle by the angry Korean peasants, workers, students, and soldiers all over southern Korea. Major armed uprisings took place in Daegu, Cheju Island, Yosu, and Sunchon. In Cheju island alone from 1948 to 1949, more than 30,000 Koreans were killed, out of 300,000 population, by the South Korean police/military forces and right-wing youth gangs under the direction of the American military officers.


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