North Korea's Kim orders more rocket launches

[webfact]

North Korea's Kim orders more rocket launches
HYUNG-JIN KIM, Associated Press

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has praised scientists involved in the country's recent rocket launch that he said struck a "telling blow" to enemies and ordered them to press ahead with more launches, state media reported Monday.

Earlier this month, North Korea ignored repeated international warnings and launched what it said was an Earth observation satellite aboard a rocket. Washington, Seoul and other view the launch as a prohibited test of missile technology and are pushing hard to have Pyongyang slapped with strong sanctions.

The North's official Korean Central News Agency said the ruling Workers' Party on Saturday gave a banquet in honor of scientists, officials and others who it said contributed to the Feb. 7 rocket launch. Kim and his top deputies were present.

In a speech, Kim said the launch gave confidence and courage to his people and dealt a "telling blow to the enemies seeking to block the advance of our country," KCNA said, in an apparent reference to Seoul and Washington.

Kim said the North's launch decision was made when "the hostile forces were getting evermore frantic to suffocate" North Korea, and called for launching more working satellites in the future.

The launch, which followed the North's fourth nuclear test last month, aggravated already-strained ties between the rival Koreas. Last week, Pyongyang expelled all South Korean workers from a jointly run factory park in the North and put the area in charge of the military in retaliation for Seoul's decision to suspend operations there.

Seoul on Sunday accused North Korea of having channeled about 70 percent of the money it received for workers at the Kaesong park into its weapons programs and to buy luxury goods for the impoverished nation's tiny elite.

North Korea was able to divert the money because the workers in Kaesong were not paid directly. Instead, U.S. dollars were paid to the North Korean government, which siphoned off most of the money and paid only what it wanted to the employees in North Korean currency and store vouchers, according to a statement from Seoul's' Unification Ministry.

The South Korean government estimate did not detail how it arrived at that percentage. North Korea has previously dismissed such views.

The jointly run park, which was the Koreas' last major cooperation project, employed about 54,000 North Koreans who worked for more than 120 South Korean companies, most of them small and medium-size manufacturers. The project, which began during an era of relatively good relations between the Koreas, combined cheap North Korean labor with the capital and technology of wealthy South Korea.

While the Kaesong closure will hurt North Korea, it is not critical to that nation's economy. North Korea gets the vast majority of its earnings from trade with China.


-- (c) Associated Press 2016-02-15

[Pimay1]

"the hostile forces were getting evermore frantic to suffocate" North Korea,

Don't you just love North Korea's command of English?

[Mot Dang]

When is the fat boy with the dreadful hair cut going to realize that just one smallish nuclear confrontation will turn his dreadful little country into a car-park. He is just as ignorant as Castro was in regards to the effect of a nuclear war, immediately after and in the future. The USSR pushed Castro into the Cuban missile crisis, who is pushing the fat boy, other than his paranoid mind ?

Even if North Korea is occupied by saner minds after a confrontation, it will take generations to "re-educate" the populace as to how crazy their Dear Leader (and his ancestors), really were.

One does not hear much as to what China is actually discussing with North Korea, to avert a nuclear confrontation, but I am sure China is getting very nervous about this lunatics saber rattling. If I was a rice farmer close to the border I would be moving further inland.

Edited February 15, 2016 by Mot Dang

[arjunadawn]

Obama's "Strategic Patience" now has the US between Iraq and a hard place (sorry, seemed darkly funny to me); nuclear North Korea testing joint ballistic missiles is a hard place for certain. The problem with strategic patience is not only the willful effort our enemies to take advantage of their adversary's attention being directed elsewhere but also the "telegraphed" messages such aloofness deports at the same time we are patient.

An example might be the diplomatic mixed messages US policy sent to Saddam leading up to his strategic decision to invade Kuwait. Lost to topical history is that the US' diplomatic behavior/'telegraphing' leading up to Iraq's folly directly influenced Saddam's decision to invade. Likewise, the US' strategic patience has set up the circumstances where the untried, unknown boy-despot in North Korea consolidated his power by initially, gently, pushing the envelope around him- deposing dissenters, firing at South Korea, etc., to earn his bona fides, but then it became more. Over time Strategic Patience has validated Kim's legitimacy, and his provocations pushed even further. Strategic Patience directly empowered Kim locally, then internationally (See Iran).

The previous grave threat of the young Kim 'making his bones' to earn respect has now evolved fully into a despot with no appreciable opposition at home, regionally, or internationally. Kim would have always been what he is, but Obama's Strategic Patience has made him the threat he is to his neighbors. Kim and North Korea had always been an object lesson in failed foreign policy. Watching this phase of its evolution and its ballistic marriage to Iran we can begin to actually measure the injury "Strategic Patience" has wrought.

[elgordo38]

I think this would make a good satire movie akin to Dr. Strangelove. The other satire movie went over pretty well.

[chilli42]

Not again!

[hawker9000]

A child playing with nuclear weapons... Where's the IMF when we really need them?