Much has been written about the rise of Chinese nationalism and its implications for the stability of Northeast Asia. But Korean nationalism could prove to be just as destabilizing.
The two Koreas, even combined, are no match for China’s economic and military might. But the latent intensity of nationalism on both sides of the peninsula’s demilitarized [...]

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One day, when North Korean leader Kim Jong Il’s secret diary comes to light, historians will know for sure whether he genuinely tried to make peace with his neighbors to the south. North Korea has promised to reveal its nuclear military secrets by the end of the year, and Kim recently told visiting South Korean [...]

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A few years ago, Chris Devonshire-Ellis, a Beijing-based business and tax consultant, was in the bar at Pyongyang’s Koryo Hotel when he ran into another foreigner. “The guy’s name was Vlad,” Devonshire-Ellis says. “He’d come from Moscow on a train to sell tractors to the North Koreans. He had all these guys around him. Turns [...]

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US Wary of Summit to End Korean War
Chosun Ilbo, South Korea - 12 hours ago
… armistice — which also include China — to declare the war formally over at a time when North Korea has yet to start disabling its nuclear facilities …
Koreas Look Down Tricky Road to Peace The Associated Press
Neighboring Countries React Differently [...]

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While the United States has hailed the latest deal to end North Korea’s nuclear weapons programmes as a big step forward, analysts warned Thursday that total disarmament remained a very dim prospect. Doubts remain over whether the secretive regime in Pyongyang is genuinely prepared to give up its atomic ambitions, or whether it is [...]

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Former Undersecretary of State for Arms Control John Bolton told The Washington Times yesterday that Yongbyon “is an old facility at or near the end of its useful life.” Therefore, North Korea’s decision to give up that reactor “doesn’t amount to much of a concession.” The real issue, he said, is whether Yongbyon is the [...]

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Kim Jong-il’s nuclear retreat
Telegraph.co.uk, United Kingdom - 4 hours ago
… Japan, South Korea and Russia. While Mr Roh is soon to become political history, the protracted struggle to eliminate the North’s nuclear capabilities …
document.write(NVF_generateVideoLink(’”javascript:NVF_toggleBox(\’4294967295101\’, \’http://www.youtube.com/v/8vKOqdBktmo\’,\’v-10-1_1121318451\’, \’n\’);” ‘,’zippy4294967295101′,’va4294967295101′,’Video: Korean leaders close summit talks - 03-September-07′));Video: Korean leaders close summit talks - 03-September-07<a href=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vKOqdBktmo”><img src=”images/video_icon_gray.png” class=”zippy-icon”>Video: Korean leaders close [...]

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NKorea agrees to declare all nuclear programmes
AFP - 19 minutes ago
The text was only finalised Wednesday and unveiled by host China once the six nations gave the go-ahead. South Korea welcomed the deal, saying it paved the …
North Korea to disable key nuclear plants Bangkok Post
US backs plan to disable North Korean nuclear sites Los [...]

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While we can’t describe with any certainty what happened with Israel’s reported bombing of the Syrian nuclear facility, FSM Contributing Editor Joel Himelfarb observes what we do know about the North Korean regime…and what we should do about it.
…
North Korea has long been involved in helping Syria develop and improve its Scud missile force. For [...]

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South Korea’s Roh Moo-hyun plays down expectations for an historic summit
GLIDING across the border in a 30-limousine convoy, Roh Moo-hyun, South Korea’s president, will on October 2nd visit Pyongyang and meet North Korea’s capo, Kim Jong Il, for three days of talks. It is only the second summit between the two sides since their estrangement [...]

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Gary Samore, an arms control official in the Clinton National Security Council and CFR’s director of studies, says it remains a mystery whether Syria was working with North Korea to receive nuclear technology. He adds, however, that it would make sense that Syria would be interested to develop some kind of deterrent, given that its [...]

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Shortly after North Korea blasted its way into the ranks of the “nuclear club” last October, President Bush issued a stern warning about the prospect of Pyongyang as a proliferator: “The transfer of nuclear weapons or material by North Korea to states or non-state entities would be considered a grave threat to the United States, [...]

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Caroline Glick points out alarming implications of the September 6 Israeli raid on a claimed North Korean nuclear materials site in Syria. If official leaks about the IAF raid are true, the North Koreans have again reneged on their solemn promises to the Six-Nation Group to retreat on their own [...]

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An interactive guide to the dispute between North and South Korea.
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What the raid exposed is that the free world faces a cohesive alliance of enemy forces that collaborate closely in their joint and separate offensives against their common foes. Whether or not it is called the axis of evil, after the IAF raid it is undeniable that its members - North Korea, Iran and Syria [...]

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North Korea has told the United States that it procured aluminum pipes, which can be used to build uranium-enriching centrifuges, from a third country, a report said Monday. But Pyongyang stopped short of admitting that it had begun the process of uranium enrichment, Japan’s Kyodo News said quoting unnamed diplomatic sources. The revelation was [...]

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WASHINGTON — The United States has determined that Syria has been seeking nuclear weapons from North Korea.
“We do know that there are a number of foreign technicians that have been in Syria,” Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Andrew Semmel said. “We do know that there may have been contact between Syria and some secret [...]

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Israel had been mulling an airstrike against Syrian targets since late spring, after Mossad chief Meir Dagan presented Prime Minister Ehud Olmert with evidence that Damascus was seeking to buy a nuclear device from North Korea, the London Sunday Times reported.
An Israeli official told the newspaper that the spy chief feared the device could be [...]

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Secret raid on Korean shipment.
IT was just after midnight when the 69th Squadron of Israeli F15Is crossed the Syrian coast-line. On the ground, Syria’s formidable air defences went dead. An audacious raid on a Syrian target 50 miles from the Iraqi border was under way.
At a rendezvous point on the ground, a Shaldag air force [...]

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The Scud-C is strategically worrying to Israel because Syria has deployed it with one launcher for every two missiles. The normal ratio is one to 10. The conclusion: Syria’s missiles are set up for one devastating first strike.
The second cause for concern is that the Scud-C is a notoriously inaccurate weapon. It is better for [...]

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Amid reports in the American media that the alleged Israeli raid into Syria 10 days ago targeted a North Korean-Syrian nuclear facility, John Bolton, the former US ambassador to the UN, told The Jerusalem Post over the weekend that “simple logic” suggested North Korea and Iran could have outsourced nuclear development “to a country that [...]

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