Wednesday, April 01, 2009
US HOSTAGES FACE 10 YEARS OF HARD LABOR
Two American reporters, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, could be sentenced to 10 years of forced labor after being captured by North Korean soldiers on the China-North Korea border. That could amount to a death sentence in the world's worst dictatorship, a hell on earth, where untold numbers of innocent people have perished in Nazi-like concentration camps (complete with gas chambers).
"The illegal entry of US reporters into the DPRK (North Korea) and their suspected hostile acts have been confirmed by evidence and their statements," said North Korean state media.
The two American citizens were captured on March 17 while working on a documentary about North Korean refugees in China.
Captured on Chinese Territory
North Korea claims the journalists were on the North Korean side of the border when they were taken into custody--which is a lie. Japanese and South Korean analysts assure China Confidential that North Korean military personnel crossed a river to the Chinese side of the border to capture Ling and Lee.
The cross-border kidnapping was ordered at the highest levels of North Korea's political leadership in order to provide the rogue regime with hostages ahead of its long-range rocket launch. (China Confidential broke the story--scroll to read it.)
American silence in the affair has been deafening. The mainstream media have shown striking indifference to the fate of the two hostages, even though they were working for former Vice President Al Gore's, experimental news service, Current TV.
The U.S. State Department is reportedly working "behind the scenes" to bring about the reporters' release; but North Korea is believed to be demanding a heavy price, including assurances that the U.S. and Japan will neither interfere with the missile launch nor refer the issue to the U.N. Security Council. A 2006 Security Council resolution bans North Korea from firing ballistic missiles.
EDITOR'S NOTE: China's failure to secure the release of the American hostages is inexcusable. China is North Korea's most important ally and trading partner and the North's main source of food, fuel, and arms.Appeasement Advocates Already Blaming America
Advocates of appeasing North Korea (and Iran) are working overtime.
Ahead of the menacing launch of a North Korean Taepodong-2 ballistic missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead and hitting Hawaii or Alaska, the blame-America-first crowd are downplaying the launch to sympathetic journalists and pundits.
The line goes like this: North Korea already can rain missiles down on South Korea and strike Japan; so the Taepodong-2 test doesn't mean that much. The most important thing, according to the appeasers, is to moderate ... the United States. Really. U.S. overreaction is the real threat, according to the appeasers. Shooting down the missile--even if it threatens Japan or approaches U.S. territory would be a terrible blunder, they contend, because that would kill six-nation negotiations aimed at ending North Korea's nuclear weapons program (a hopeless task).
Never mind that the talks are dead, that the Stalinist/Kimist regime has used them as a way to play for time while continuing to develop nuclear and missile technologies--and sharing these technologies with its Islamist ally, Iran. In the eyes of the appeasers, diplomacy and dialogue are ends, not means.UN Warns Killer TB Could Kill Millions
The world is on the cusp of an explosion of drug-resistant tuberculosis cases that could deluge hospitals and leave physicians fighting a nearly untreatable malady with little help from modern drugs, global experts said Wednesday.
Click here to continue.
"The situation is already alarming, and poised to grow much worse very quickly," said Dr. Margaret Chan, the director-general of the World Health Organization.
With Bill Gates at her side, Chan urged health officials from 27 countries at a three-day forum in Beijing on drug-resistant TB to recognize the warning signs of what looms ahead, saying that traditional drugs are useless against some strains of tuberculosis and health-care costs for treating those strains can be 100 to 200 times more than for regular tuberculosis. "This is a situation set to spiral out of control. Call it what you may: a time bomb or a powder keg. Any way you look at it, this is a potentially explosive situation," Chan warned.
Click here for a report on Hepatitis C infections from a hospital in China.North Korea Preparing to Blame US and Japan for Breakdown of Six-Way Nuclear Disarmament Talks
Ahead of North Korea's long-range rocket launch, the regime's propaganda machine is gearing up to blame the United States and Japan for the coming collapse of six-nation negotiations aimed at ending North Korea's nuclear weapons program. Pyongyang's twisted line is that Washington and Tokyo want the talks to collapse in order to justify development of atomic arms by Japan.Taliban to US: You're Nuts!
Taliban insurgents reject a U.S. offer of "honourable reconciliation", a top spokesman said on Wednesday, calling it a "lunatic idea" and saying the only way to end the war was to withdraw foreign troops.
Continue here.North Korea Threatens to Shoot Down US Aircraft
As if to confirm our analysis that the chances of a shooting war with North Korea are growing, the Stalinist/Kimist state is now threatening to shoot down U.S. spy planes and promising to put two American citizens on trial for "hostile acts." Click here for the story.
The Americans are hostages; attempts to appease North Korea are failing; the stalled six-nation, nuclear disarmament talks are dead.
China is doing nothing to moderate its rogue vassal; and Russia, with whom China is enjoying the warmest relations in decades, has so far shown no interest in supporting new U.N. Security Council sanctions against Pyongyang.
Iranian scientists, technicians, intelligence and political officials are visiting North Korea to observe the launch of a rocket capable of hitting Hawaii and Alaska, as China Confidential first reported. (We broke the story. Scroll to read.) The Iranians will also be discussing nuclear matters with their hosts.
Another North Korean nuclear test is in the planning stages.
Another Korean war--with nuclear weapons--is possible.
EDITOR'S NOTE: North Korea will try to steal the world stage from U.S. President Barack Obama during his European trip.
Thursday, 2 April 2009
Appeasement Camp Indifferent to Fate of Two Reporters Taken by North Korea
Tim Johnson reports from Beijing:
Sayed Salahuddin reports from Kabul:
Posts
