Forecast for war clouds over Korean peninsula

The three-stage rocket North Korea tested in December is considered capable of delivering a warhead to Alaska. It is unlikely Pyongyang has perfected a nuclear device to place at the tip of the Taepodong-2 rocket ... yet. /Image via AP


The BBC has outstanding coverage of the increasing bellicose rhetoric and military maneuvers on the Korean peninsula. In addition to the breaking news from Moscow, where Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned this week that "we may simply let the situation slip out of our control and it will slide into a spiral of a vicious circle," there are several links to the following:

• Andrea Berger, a research fellow in nuclear analysis at the Royal United Services Institute, gives her assessment of the motivations behind Pyongyang's latest round of dire threats, including Thursday's announcement in the North Korean state-run media that leader Kim Jong-un has "judged the time has come to settle accounts with the U.S. imperialists."
• A report from Seoul detailing the heightened anxiety in the South Korean government and citizenry over North Korea's saber rattling.
• An analysis of the effectiveness of measures taken so far to constrain Pyongyang such as U.N. sanctions and joint U.S.-South Korean military exercises that have included flights of nuclear-capable U.S. warplanes this month over South Korea.
• And a dissection of North Korea's military capabilities to carry through on its threats against the United States and South Korea.

U.N. seeks to 'neutralize' armed groups in Congo

At the beginning of 2012, more than 1.7 million people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo were internally displaced persons, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. About 72,000 of those refugees were living in "spontaneous camps" where they received UNHCR assistance. /Truls Brekke photo via Global Knowledge

 

With an unprecedented vote in the United Nations Security Council on Thursday, the international organization has authorized a U.N. peacekeeping force to conduct offensive military action for the first time ever to neutralize armed groups in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The "intervention brigade" will be deployed in eastern Congo, where armed groups have been killing and terrorizing civilians since the 1994 genocide in neighboring Rwanda. Ethnically fueled warfare that has raged in Congo since 1998 and has claimed as many as 5 million lives is widely considered one of the legacies of the Rwandan genocide.

The intervention brigade's first target will likely be fighters of the March 23 Movement. In November, M23 rebels took control of Goma in eastern Congo but they retreated under international pressure.

The new U.N. force, which will establish its headquarters in Goma, will have upto 3,000 troops. There are already about 17,700 U.N. peacekeepers and 1,400 international police officers in the central African country.

If the slaughter of millions isn't enough to draw your attention to the Democratic Republic of the Congo's fate, consider its vast natural resources:

• The DRC has some of the richest mineral deposits in the world. The country produces about half of the world's cobalt and huge quantities of tin and tungsten. IHC, a global market and economic information research firm, estimates the total value of the DRC's mineral wealth at $24 trillion.
• About two-thirds of the Congo basin rain forest is within the DRC's borders, according to Greenpeace. Only the Amazon is larger than the Congo basin rain forest, which is home to a wide range of animal and plant species including elephants, gorillas, chimpanzees and medicinal flora. Greenpeace fears a "catastrophic" impact on the global climate if uncontrolled logging in the Congo basin rain forest continues.

Reality check on gun background checks

The Duck Dynasty boys are armed to the teeth. During a recently aired episode of the reality show that celebrates American "redneck" culture, a Robertson clan hunting party deployed to the forest with assault rifles, shotguns and at least one pistol in search of giant rats called nutria. /Image via Tumblr.com


Attention U.S. gun rights advocates: You win! Game over! The fat lady has sung! The gun-toting genie is out of the bottle and even a federal army of jack-booted thugs could not collect the 310 million guns in private hands.

Gun makers and their political mouthpiece at the National Rifle Association have fought tooth and nail for the right of every American to possess a firearm. Now there are enough guns to arm every man, woman and child in the country. Regardless of your opinion about private gun ownership, firearms have established a permanent presence in American culture.

The question about whether U.S. citizens should be allowed to possess guns has been settled. The United States is a society that cherishes democracy and freedom. The right to bear arms is written into to country's constitution. The only way the government could confiscate everybody's guns is through a military coup that turned the country into a totalitarian dictatorship. If that ever comes to pass, which is highly unlikely, the condition of the country and the world will be so dire that gun ownership will be among the last of our worries.

The only question now is how do Americans keep guns out of the hands of violent criminals and people suffering from severe mental illness. To achieve that goal, strengthening background checks for gun purchases and laws against the transfer of guns to criminals should be a matter of common sense.

Most U.S. employers require new hires to undergo background checks. The federal government requires background checks for anyone working in a job related to national security. Political parties conduct background checks on candidates for public office. Reputable organizations that work with young children do background checks on employees and volunteers.

What's the problem with requiring background checks for possession of devices that can kill and maim dozens of our fellow citizens in minutes literally with the pull of a trigger?

Here are some of the justifications being put forward against universal background checks for gun purchases:

• "Republican opponents of the new background-check law (in Colorado) said it would make criminals of hunters lending each other weapons for weekend hunting trips. In response, Democrats changed the bill to give people a 72-hour grace period to share guns without triggering background-check requirements. Republicans then said the bill would imperil weeklong hunting trips." The Washington Post
• "Opponents including the National Rifle Association say background checks are easily sidestepped by criminals and threaten creation of a government file on gun owners, which is illegal under federal law." heraldnet.com
• "Mass shootings would continue to occur despite universal background checks. Criminals will continue to steal guns and buy them illegally to circumvent the requirements. When that happens, we will be back here debating whether gun registration is needed. And when registration fails, then the next step is gun confiscation." U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa

It's apparent that gun rights advocates are not satisfied with their overwhelming victory.

Knox story example of crack cocaine journalism

An Italian appellate court has reversed the murder acquittal of American college student Amanda Knox and ordered a new trial, prompting a self-serving frenzy of media coverage. /Image via wbtw.com


There are a lot of people who like crack, but handing it to addicts on a silver platter has been deemed harmful to the common good. There is profit in peddling crack, but dealing the dope has been deemed illegal.

There is profit to be made in peddling stories about a beautiful young woman caught up in a sex game gone bad that ended in murder. But playing the latest twist in the sordid Amanda Knox saga among the top stories in the world is the journalistic equivalent to waving a packed crack pipe in front of a roomful of strung out junkies.

The U.S. and European media is going gaga over the Knox story yet again, drawn as irresistibly to the college student hottie's plight as an addict is drawn to his sugar daddy. The latest development -- the reversal of Knox's murder acquittal in Italy -- has generated more than 550 news stories over the past 24 hours.

It's a classic case of shameless pandering to the most base desires of media consumers. Given the hallowed principle of double jeopardy in the U.S. legal system, it is highly unlikely that American officials would allow Knox to be extradited to face a second trial for the 2007 murder of her British college student roomate in Perugia, Italy, Meredith Kercher. And Knox and her attorneys have made it clear that she will not return to Italy willingly to participate in a new trial.

So, other than the opportunity to cash in on Knox yet again, there's little justification to make the acquittal reversal a top story. Based on a Google news search, here are other stories of the day that deserved more attention but fell far short of the Knox case reporting:
- The U.S. gun control debate, including reports of school districts arming administrators in response to the Newtown, Conn., elementary school massacre: 97 stories.
- This week's meeting of leaders from the world's fastest emerging economics, the so-called BRICS nations Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa: 499 stories.
- North Korea's issuing of a new round of threats against U.S. military bases: 358 stories.
- Studies showing that fewer hours of doctor training in the United States is leading to more medical
errors: 22 stories.

Murder cases are inherently interesting, and even this nearly meaningless twist in the Knox case deserves a measure of media coverage. But is it really more important than the 10,000 Americans on average who are killed in gun violence every year? Is it more important than fundamental changes in the global economy? Is it more important than the potential of North Korea sparking a nuclear war that would claim the lives of millions? Is it more important than an increase in the number of patients suffering death and disability in U.S. hospitals?

Iran is biggest winner in the Iraq War

In the cold, hard world of geopolitics, the increasingly cozy relationship between Iraq and Iran does not bode well for U.S. interests in the region. In the eyes of many American officials, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are working hand-in-hand. /Image via pbs.org


Of all the terrible consequences of the misguided U.S.-led war in Iraq, Americans are likely to regret the strengthened standing of Iran in the region most of all.

Those Americans with a conscience will beg to differ, given the more than 110,000 Iraqi civilians killed in the war and the 4,800 coalition troops lost in the fighting, among them 4,486 U.S. Armed Services members who never came home to their families. But for far too many of my fellow citizens, war is nothing more than the cost of doing business because the American way of life is non-negotiable.

Those millions of Americans who bow at the altar of self-interest have much to bemoan with the passing of Saddam Hussein, who was a brutal dictator but served as a powerful counterweight to hold Iran in check. Let us count the ways:

- Iraq's nascent dictator, Nouri al-Maliki, is walking a fine line between Washington and Tehran. During his visit to Iraq over the weekend, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry scolded al-Maliki for allowing Iran to use Iraqi airspace to deliver arms and ammunition to Syrian despot Bashar al-Assad. After meeting with the Iraqi leader, Kerry said he had told al-Maliki that the Iranian overflights were "helping to sustain President Assad and his regime" along with a warning that members of the U.S. Congress were puzzled over "how it is that Iraq can be doing something that makes it more difficult to achieve our common goals."

- With Tehran no longer worried about the possibility of an Iraqi invasion, the country's theocratic regime is free to throw its considerable military muscle around the region. Iranian leaders have been making threats to close down the Strait of Hormuz for decades, which would choke off a crucial shipping route for Persian Gulf oil exports. Those threats are now more credible than ever and can throw global financial markets into turmoil instantaneously.

- Saudi Arabia and other U.S. allies in the Persian Gulf are nervous about Washington's policies in the region, particularly when it comes to restraining Iran's military and nuclear weapons ambitions. "Kerry is not tough enough on Iran," Dubai-based strategy analyst Mustafa Al Alani recently told gulfnews.com. "They think the United States should leave the military option on the table in case the policy of sanctions fails."

- And with less need to throw resources into conventional weaponry with Iraq on its knees in more ways than one, Iran can accelerate its nuclear weapons program. In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee earlier this month, the commander of the U.S. Central Command said a nuclear-armed Iran would spark an arms race in the region. Gen. James Mattis said Iranian possession of nuclear weapons would be the "most destabilizing event that we could imagine for the Middle East."

North Korea: Inaction in the face of genocide

This image was drawn by a concentration camp internee who escaped North Korea with help from Life Funds for North Korean Refugees, a nongovernmental organization based in Tokyo. /Image via robpongi.blogspot.com


The admissions of regret are as inevitable as the spring following the winter. Once the hideous enormity of genocide is laid bare for the entire world to see, international leaders who chose to do little or nothing at all to stop it emerge from their secure locations to explain their inaction and make shrill pronouncements of "never again."

Although few people outside Pyongyang know the exact figure, about 250,000 political prisoners are suffering and dying in North Korea's concentration camps. The handful of the doomed who have escaped these hell holes report that starvation, brutal living conditions and torture are the genocidal instruments of choice employed in the camps.

The day will come when the totalitarian regime that has governed North Korea for the past half century will be held to account for its crimes against humanity. After the survivors bear what is left of their souls, after the images of emaciated human forms flood the media, after a museum is erected in the vain hope that such cruelty can be averted for all time, politicians will step forward to ease our collective conscience with a slathering of well-chosen words.

One of the masters of apologetically explaining inaction in the face of genocide is President Bill Clinton.

During a visit to Rwanda in 1998, Clinton offered the following artfully crafted rhetoric in describing why he and other world leaders failed to answer the call when hundreds of thousands of Rwandans were slaughtered over the course of 100 days in 1994:

"The international community, together with nations in Africa, must bear its share of responsibility for this tragedy, as well. We did not act quickly enough after the killing began. We should not have allowed the refugee camps to become safe haven for the killers. We did not immediately call these crimes by their rightful name: genocide. We cannot change the past. But we can and must do everything in our power to help you build a future without fear, and full of hope.

"We owe to those who died, and to those who survived who loved them, our every effort to increase our vigilance and strengthen our stand against those who would commit such atrocities in the future here or elsewhere.

"Indeed, we owe to all the peoples of the world who are at risk because each bloodletting hastens the next as the value of human life is degraded and violence becomes tolerated, the unimaginable becomes more conceivable. We owe to all the people in the world our best efforts to organize ourselves so that we can maximize the chances of preventing these events. And where they cannot be prevented, we can move more quickly to minimize the horror.

"So let us challenge ourselves to build a world in which no branch of humanity, because of national, racial, ethnic, or religious origin, is again threatened with destruction because of those characteristics, of which people should rightly be proud. Let us work together as a community of civilized nations to strengthen our ability to prevent and, if necessary, to stop genocide."

North Korea has been committing genocidal acts on thousands, possibly millions, of its own citizens for decades. World leaders have done little to nothing to stop these crimes against humanity.

When will we rise to the challenge? When will we save our North Korean brothers and sisters from the same fate the Jews endured in the gas chambers, the Cambodians experienced in the killing fields and the Rwandans bore at the hands of machete-wielding thugs?

What too-little-too-late apology will we offer for our inaction?

Iraq War vet: 'We have been abandoned'

 

The open letter below to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney from terminally ill Iraq War veteran Tomas Young was first published on Truthdig.com, and you can follow this link to read an interview with the 33-year-old conducted at his home earlier this month. /Claudia Cuellar photo


At the very birth of democracy in Greece more than 2,000 years ago, the Athenian leader Pericles stood before his fellow citizens to eulogize the dead from the first battles of the decades-long conflict known as the Peloponnesian War. Pericles proclaimed a truth that has been essential to every democracy ever since: It is sometimes necessary to lay lives on the line to preserve a democratic state and the citizenry owes a tremendous debt of gratitude to those lost in the struggle:

"You must yourselves realize the power of Athens, and feed your eyes upon her from day to day, till love of her fills your hearts; and then, when all her greatness shall break upon you, you must reflect that it was by courage, sense of duty, and a keen feeling of honor in action that men were enabled to win all this, and that no personal failure in an enterprise could make them consent to deprive their country of their valor, but they laid it at her feet as the most glorious contribution that they could offer."

If you are a U.S. citizen, you should find Iraq War veteran Tomas Young's letter below deeply disturbing. Regardless of your opinion about the war, a democracy is unlikely to survive if those who answer the call to defend it feel abandoned by their fellow citizens.

The Last Letter

To: George W. Bush and Dick Cheney
From: Tomas Young

I write this letter on the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War on behalf of my fellow Iraq War veterans. I write this letter on behalf of the 4,488 soldiers and Marines who died in Iraq. I write this letter on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of veterans who have been wounded and on behalf of those whose wounds, physical and psychological, have destroyed their lives. I am one of those gravely wounded. I was paralyzed in an insurgent ambush in 2004 in Sadr City. My life is coming to an end. I am living under hospice care.

I write this letter on behalf of husbands and wives who have lost spouses, on behalf of children who have lost a parent, on behalf of the fathers and mothers who have lost sons and daughters and on behalf of those who care for the many thousands of my fellow veterans who have brain injuries. I write this letter on behalf of those veterans whose trauma and self-revulsion for what they have witnessed, endured and done in Iraq have led to suicide and on behalf of the active-duty soldiers and Marines who commit, on average, a suicide a day. I write this letter on behalf of the some one million Iraqi dead and on behalf of the countless Iraqi wounded. I write this letter on behalf of us all – the human detritus your war has left behind, those who will spend their lives in unending pain and grief.

I write this letter, my last letter, to you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney. I write not because I think you grasp the terrible human and moral consequences of your lies, manipulation and thirst for wealth and power. I write this letter because, before my own death, I want to make it clear that I, and hundreds of thousands of my fellow veterans, along with millions of my fellow citizens, along with hundreds of millions more in Iraq and the Middle East, know fully who you are and what you have done. You may evade justice but in our eyes you are each guilty of egregious war crimes, of plunder and, finally, of murder, including the murder of thousands of young Americans – my fellow veterans – whose future you stole.

Your positions of authority, your millions of dollars of personal wealth, your public relations consultants, your privilege and your power cannot mask the hollowness of your character. You sent us to fight and die in Iraq after you, Mr. Cheney, dodged the draft in Vietnam, and you, Mr. Bush, went AWOL from your National Guard unit. Your cowardice and selfishness were established decades ago. You were not willing to risk yourselves for our nation but you sent hundreds of thousands of young men and women to be sacrificed in a senseless war with no more thought than it takes to put out the garbage.

I joined the Army two days after the 9/11 attacks. I joined the Army because our country had been attacked. I wanted to strike back at those who had killed some 3,000 of my fellow citizens. I did not join the Army to go to Iraq, a country that had no part in the September 2001 attacks and did not pose a threat to its neighbors, much less to the United States. I did not join the Army to "liberate" Iraqis or to shut down mythical weapons-of-mass-destruction facilities or to implant what you cynically called "democracy" in Baghdad and the Middle East. I did not join the Army to rebuild Iraq, which at the time you told us could be paid for by Iraq's oil revenues. Instead, this war has cost the United States over $3 trillion. I especially did not join the Army to carry out pre-emptive war. Pre-emptive war is illegal under international law. And as a soldier in Iraq I was, I now know, abetting your idiocy and your crimes. The Iraq War is the largest strategic blunder in U.S. history. It obliterated the balance of power in the Middle East. It installed a corrupt and brutal pro-Iranian government in Baghdad, one cemented in power through the use of torture, death squads and terror. And it has left Iran as the dominant force in the region. On every level – moral, strategic, military and economic – Iraq was a failure. And it was you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, who started this war. It is you who should pay the consequences.

I would not be writing this letter if I had been wounded fighting in Afghanistan against those forces that carried out the attacks of 9/11. Had I been wounded there I would still be miserable because of my physical deterioration and imminent death, but I would at least have the comfort of knowing that my injuries were a consequence of my own decision to defend the country I love. I would not have to lie in my bed, my body filled with painkillers, my life ebbing away, and deal with the fact that hundreds of thousands of human beings, including children, including myself, were sacrificed by you for little more than the greed of oil companies, for your alliance with the oil sheiks in Saudi Arabia, and your insane visions of empire.

I have, like many other disabled veterans, suffered from the inadequate and often inept care provided by the Veterans Administration. I have, like many other disabled veterans, come to realize that our mental and physical wounds are of no interest to you, perhaps of no interest to any politician. We were used. We were betrayed. And we have been abandoned. You, Mr. Bush, make much pretense of being a Christian. But isn't lying a sin? Isn't murder a sin? Aren't theft and selfish ambition sins? I am not a Christian. But I believe in the Christian ideal. I believe that what you do to the least of your brothers you finally do to yourself, to your own soul.

My day of reckoning is upon me. Yours will come. I hope you will be put on trial. But mostly I hope, for your sakes, that you find the moral courage to face what you have done to me and to many, many others who deserved to live. I hope that before your time on earth ends, as mine is now ending, you will find the strength of character to stand before the American public and the world, and in particular the Iraqi people, and beg for forgiveness.

Cyber warriors key asset in North Korean arsenal

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has reportedly strengthened the Hermit Nation's cyber warfare capability since his father's death in December 2011. Information technology security experts say cyber warfare is an attractive military and espionage option for North Korea because electronic attacks are difficult to trace and have the capacity to inflict widespread damage with a relatively low risk of retaliation. /Image via Reuters


The North Korean government has one of the strongest cyber warfare capabilities in the world, according to published reports over the past two years.

In June 2012, infosecisland.com reported:
- A North Korean defector revealed that the Hermit Nation had increased its cyber warfare personnel to 3,000 people
- Cyber warriors report directly to the country's top intelligence service, the General Reconnaissance Bureau
- U.S. Army Gen. James Thurman, commander of U.S. Forces in South Korea, believes North Korea is recruiting and forming highly skilled teams of hackers to engage in offensive cyber operations against hostile governments and conduct cyber espionage
- Lee Dong-hoon, a professor at the Korea University Graduate School of Information Security, ranks North Korea’s cyber warfare capabilities second only to Russia and the United States. "In North Korea, the state nurtures cyber (warfare) personnel to achieve military aims, and is capable of conducting various cyber attacks including denial of service and hacking," he said.
- In March 2011, a Pyongyang cyber warfare operation employed a South Korean operative to launch an electronic attack on computer systems at Incheon International Airport. The spy is accused of acquiring video games infected with malware from North Korean operatives during a trip to China

In May 2011, The Daily NK reported:
- A North Korean cyber warfare attack on Nonghyup Bank inflicted damage on "financial property of individual South Koreans"
- "It is possible and even likely that indiscriminate cyber attacks, which could cause more serious damage, may be launched in order to cause chaos in South Korean society. The reason for this is because the Internet is a much easier tool of attack" than more conventional military weapons
- A secret college North Korea formed in 1986 is churning out about 100 "world-class" hackers every year. Graduates are reportedly assigned as military officials at hacker units under the direction of the General Reconnaissance Bureau
- Pyongyang's cyber warriors are operating in China and other countries outside of the Korean peninsula to make it difficult to trace the true source of their electronic attacks
- Im Chae Ho, vice president of the KAIST Cyber Security Research Center in South Korea, told The Daily NK: "North Korea’s hackers apparently have ten times the strike capability of South Korea’s. North Korea is, furthermore, currently at a stage where it can directly attack South Korea's infrastructure through the use of cyber terrorism."

Pyongyang suspect in cyber attack on South Korea

A cyber attack has hit computer systems at television broadcasters and banks in South Korea. The TV broadcasters reported drawings of three skulls on a black background appeared on their computer screens after the attack. /Image via hdwpapers.com


A cyber attack this week on South Korean media companies and banks was likely launched from North Korea, according to several experts.

"This sort of mass scale attack is a planned organizational one, not by some hacker," Lim Jong-In, an information security professor at Korea University, told ABC News. "North Korea wants to show-off their strong arm without making human casualties. Their goal is to create instability here."

Computer networks at three South Korean television broadcasters and two banks were shut down in the cyber attack. It could take months to determine definitively whether North Korea was behind the hacking.

Last week, North Korean officials accused the United States and South Korea of attacking websites in Pyongyang.

Killer meteors: 'If it's coming in three weeks, pray'

On Feb. 15, a school bus-sized asteroid exploded several miles over Chelyabinsk, Russia, injuring more than 1,200 people. The B612 Foundation, which is led by former U.S. astronaut Ed Lu, estimates there are 10 million asteroids of similar size in the inner solar system. /Image via abc.go.com


Scientists testifying before Congress on Tuesday said the effort to find small killer asteroids is behind schedule and there is little that could be done if a large asteroid capable of destroying civilization were detected a few weeks before it collided with Earth.

NASA is leading a global push to find and track these "near-Earth objects." The U.S. space agency is confident it has found 90 percent of near-Earth objects capable of wreaking the kind worldwide catastrophe that occurred 60 million years ago, when scientists believe a large asteroid strike wiped out the dinosaurs as well as thousands of other animal and plant species on the planet. But if there's a mile-wide asteroid bearing down on Earth now, we're apparently doomed.

"The answer to you is, if it’s coming in three weeks, pray," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden told the House Science, Space and Technology Committee.

The effort to find smaller killer asteroids such as the one that exploded over Russia last month and injured more than 1,200 people is behind schedule, Bolden and President Obama's top science adviser testified. "Unfortunately, the number of undetected potential 'city killers' is very large," John Holdren said. "It’s in the range of 10,000 or more."

Congress has directed NASA to find 90 percent of near-Earth objects that are at least as big as a football field by 2020. But Bolden said more money and a new space-based telescope are needed to reach that goal. At the current rate of funding, he said the effort to detect "city killer" asteroids is about 10 years behind schedule.

The B612 Foundation says several years of advanced warning would be required to launch a mission to deflect an approaching killer asteroid: "In general, to deflect an asteroid we would need several years to decades of advance notice. That is because the amount (of energy) you need to deflect an asteroid greatly increases the closer it is to hitting you. In addition, we need a suitable launch window that allows a spacecraft to reach the asteroid."

B-52 flights send ominous signal to North Korea

The B-52 Stratofortress was a workhorse for the U.S. military during the Vietnam War, flying more than 126,000 bombing missions. The U.S. Air Force plans to fly updated versions of the long-range bomber until at least 2040. /Image via w3vietnam.org.nz


B-52 flights over the Korean peninsula and the strengthening of anti-missile defenses in Alaska are the latest steps in the deadly dance swirling around Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program.

Bloomberg and several other news agencies reported today that the U.S. bomber flights are intended to send a strong signal to North Korea that any nuclear strike launched from the Hermit Nation will be met with devastating force. "Just having the B-52 near the Korean peninsula and pass through means that the U.S. nuclear umbrella can be provided whenever necessary," a South Korean Defense Ministry spokesman told reporters in Seoul.

In service since 1955, the B-52 Stratofortress can be armed with a wide variety of conventional and nuclear weapons, including nuclear-tipped, air-to-ground missiles that have a range of more than 1,000 miles.

While Pentagon spokesman George Little called the B-52 flights "routine," he also said the Pentagon is sending a stern message to North Korea in response to its recent nuclear bomb test as well as threats against Washington and Seoul. "We are drawing attention to the fact we have extended deterrence capabilities that we believe are important to demonstrate in the wake of recent North Korean rhetoric," Little said.

In a clear sign that the ongoing showdown over Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions has far-reaching implications, China and Russia are bristling over U.S. plans to bolster the country's anti-missile defense capability in Alaska. On March 15, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced the shift of $1 billion from an anti-missile shield program in Europe to install 14 more missile interceptors in Alaska to address the growing nuclear threat from North Korea and Iran.

"Bolstering missile defenses will only intensify antagonism, and it doesn’t help to solve the issue," a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman said Monday.

Beyond stirring the pot of "antagonism" with North Korea, strengthening of the U.S. anti-missile capability in Alaska affects the global nuclear balance of terror. In the genocidal logic of superpower nuclear weapons strategy, the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction has been embraced in Moscow and Washington for decades. The MAD concept is as simple as it is horrific: You blow me up; I blow you up.

U.S. officials say missile interceptors are needed in Alaska to shoot down projectiles fired from North Korea and Iran. But they also could be used to shoot down Russian and Chinese nuclear missiles.

The B-52 Stratofortress was originally designed to drop nuclear bombs on the Soviet Union. It was the only aircraft capable of carrying the biggest nuclear bomb in the U.S. arsenal, a 10,000-pound thermonuclear device that could reduce an entire metropolitan area to rubble. The last B-53 bomb was built in 1962 and dismantled in 2011. /Image via AFP

Curiosity hits hole-in-one in search for life on Mars

The NASA Curiosity rover's first test drill hole in Martian rock apparently tapped an ancient lake bed. In an even more stunning discovery, the gray, clay-like rock bears traces of carbon that could be evidence of life from the Red Planet's disant past. /NASA images

A little luck sprinkled with a measure of NASA genius appears to have led to a major discovery on Mars.

In August, NASA's Curiosity rover landed close enough to a suspected ancient lake bed that mission leaders decided to take a detour away from their top objective, 14,000-foot-tall Mount Sharp, to collect a rock sample. In the Curiosity mission gameplan, the first use of the drill at the end of rover's robotic arm was planned to be only a test of the hardware and a "flushing" of the rover's rock dust collection and analysis system to make sure there was no contamination from Earth.

But photos of both the drill site and the rock dust collected from the drilling supported the lake bed theory, and an analysis of the rock dust was launched. Here are some excerpts from Curiosity chemistry instrumentation scientist David Blake's comments on NPR's Science Friday:

"We actually drove away from our primary destination, which is a place called Mount Sharp. It's a 5,000-meter, about 14,000-foot-tall, mountain in the middle of Gale Crater that has all these layered sediments from early Mars. So that's our ultimate destination. But it's about eight kilometers away. We kind of drove in the opposite direction because there was this real interesting area that many people on the team thought actually could be a lake bed. And so we're going to do one additional drill here to kind of make sure what we have and understand what it is, and then we'll take the long march to Mount Sharp. ...

"If we find (in the second drilling sample) what we think we've already found in the minerals, which tell us it's a habitable environment, and if the SAM instrument, which is a suite of instruments that do organic analyses, can find some organic compounds that clearly aren't from Earth, well, that would be a home run.

"And I'm not even suggesting it would be from organisms, just to know that there was carbon contained -- organic carbon -- contained inside this rock for three billion years that we could come there and analyze today."

'I am not only a pacifist but a militant pacifist'

Albert Einstein's theory of relativity became one of the scientific building blocks for atomic bombs. Five months before he died in 1955, Einstein offered the following observation about nuclear weapons: "I made one great mistake in my life ... when I signed the letter to President Roosevelt recommending that atom bombs be made; but there was some justification -- the danger that the Germans would make them."  /Image via hebus.org

Albert Einstein, who was born on March 14, 1879, is widely viewed as the greatest physicist of the 20th century. But his standing as a committed humanitarian and advocate for peace is less well known.

Here are a few of his comments about the human condition:

"The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it."

"We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them."

"Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile."

"Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding."

"If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed."

"There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle."

"Anger dwells only in the bosom of fools."

"It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity."

"Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind."

"An empty stomach is not a good political adviser."

"Our task must be to free ourselves by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty."

"Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts."

"The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives."

"In matters of truth and justice, there is no difference between large and small problems, for issues concerning the treatment of people are all the same."

"I am not only a pacifist but a militant pacifist. I am willing to fight for peace. Nothing will end war unless the people themselves refuse to go to war."

"Love is a better teacher than duty."

"Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism -- how passionately I hate them!"

"Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it."

"It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder."

America waking from long national nightmare

In February, the U.S. economy added 48,000 construction jobs, boding well for the country's housing market. The collapse of the U.S. housing market in 2008 is widely considered the trigger for the Great Recession. /Image via commons.wikimedia.org


Unemployment falling, housing market healing, stock market soaring, the dollar strengthening. Could this be morning in America?

The U.S. economy added 236,000 jobs in February, 70,000 more than forecast. Construction was a top job creator, with 48,000 new jobs last month, a strong indicator of the recovering housing market. The Dow Jones Industrial Average has posted gains for nine days in a row for the first time in 16 years. And the dollar is strengthening against other currencies based on several factors, including growing confidence about the U.S. economy around the world.

Before you start pouring mimosas to celebrate the dawn of hope in America, uncertainties remain:
- A hot war in Afghanistan as well as brewing conflicts with Iran and North Korea.
- The impact of $85 billion dollars in federal "sequester" budget cuts and continued dysfunctional leadership in Washington.
- Europe's ongoing debt crisis.
- And the potential for continued anemic job growth as employers rely on automation, outsourcing and productivity gains to avoid hiring full-time employees.

Fukushima: Still too hot to touch at two-year mark

On March 21, 2011, smoke rises from the devastated remains of the Fukushima nuclear plant's Reactor 3 building. /AFP image


After visiting the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant last week in Japan, BBC correspondent Rupert Wingfield-Hayes began his report on the two-year earthquake and tsunami catastrophe anniversary grimly:

"It would be reassuring to think that the world's worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl is contained, and the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is in stable shut-down. Unfortunately a look inside the Fukushima plant suggests otherwise. I was part of a group taken in to the Fukushima plant last week, only the second time foreign TV journalists have been allowed in since the disaster two years ago. Very little that we saw in our brief two-hour tour was reassuring."

Here's what he saw:
- A "race" to get 1,500 highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel rods out of the heavily damaged Reactor 4 building. The pool holding the spent fuel rods is on the third floor, and engineers fear another earthquake could collapse the weakened structure.
- Reactor 3, which sparked a massive hydrogen explosion that reduced its containment building to rubble, is buried under a pile of shattered concrete and twisted steel. No one knows what's happening inside the nuclear reactor -- the wreckage is too radioactive for workers to explore without risking a fatal dose. The Reactor 3 building also housed spent nuclear fuel rods before the disaster.
- The power plant is innundated with tens of thousands of tons of contaminated water. In addition to the millions of gallons of water plant workers poured on the reactors in the early months of the disaster, ground water and sea water are leeching into the plant through cracks in its foundation.
- The plant manager said the removal and safe storage of nuclear fuel rods at Fukushima's four damaged reactors will take 30 to 40 years.

My Internet identity thief

/Image via parentdish.com

 

I don't have much to go on, but I like the comic book stereotype that fits my Internet identity thief like a burglar's glove.

The Discover card has been getting a workout lately and someone not only swiped the card info but also my cellphone number. With that information in his not quite fully formed hands, my identity thief promptly called QVC and Staples trying to buy a laptop, then he bought a few volumes from an online comic books store.

The profile: male; age 13-19; computer proficient; gets low parental oversight, given belief that he can get away with having a new laptop shipped to his home; he's just getting started, going for laptops and comic books today will be swapped for wide-screen televisions and jewelry tomorrow.

North Korea: Heated rhetoric goes thermonuclear

In this image from North Korea's state-controlled Korean Central News Agency, troops train this week at an undisclosed location in the Hermit Nation. /Image via CNN


The North Korean leadership sounds like it's literally on the verge of going ballistic.

This week's U.N. Security Council vote to tighten sanctions against the Hermit Nation over the country's nuclear weapons program has unleashed a torrent of threats from Pyongyang. The global community has grown accustomed to the spitting of venon from North Korea, but this is different.

This is the newly nuclear-armed North Korea.

On Thursday, Kim Jong Un's regime threatened to unleash pre-emptive nuclear attacks on South Korea and the United States, vowing to turn Seoul and Washington into "seas of fire." Pyongyang's temper tantrum continued today, with breathless declarations on state-controlled media that a military hotline between the two Koreas was being severed and the 1953 armistice pact was being scrapped.

While few experts are predicting an imminent military confrontation, North Korea's possession of nuclear weapons has definitely changed the rules in the Korean Peninsula diplomacy playbook.

South Korea, which has historically tended toward restraint when responding to saber-rattling from the North, appears to be taking the threat of nuclear attack seriously. A South Korean Defense Ministry spokesman offered this blunt comment today: "If North Korea attacks South Korea with a nuclear weapon, Kim Jong-un's regime will perish from the Earth."

And seasoned North Korea experts seem unsettled, too. "I am taking this more seriously," said Daniel Snieder, a Korea specialist at Stanford University. "This is a notch up from anything we have seen before, really explicit threats that go beyond their normal overheated rhetoric."

Playing the fear card in Venezuela

Venezuelan Vice President Nicolas Maduro announces the death of President Hugo Chavez during a television address on March 5. /Image via www.washingtonpost.com


Promoting fear of a foreign enemy is one of the most worn pages in the dictatorship handbook.

The possibility that Hugo Chavez was assassinated is worthy of investigation, and the involvement of U.S. covert action wouldn't surprise me too much. But Venezuelan Vice President Nicolas Maduro's immediate playing of the U.S. bogeyman card raises an immediate red flag over Chavez's hand-picked successor. Rather than a sincere search for the truth, Maduro's call for a probe of "historical enemies" is more likely playing the politics of division to cement control of his mentor's governing coalition.

Fear is featured in the rogue political leader's toolbox. The North Korean leadership has been hammering its population with fear for decades, portraying the United States as a menacing foe. Iranian leaders have called the United States the Great Satan since the 1970s.

Where's the love in Venezuela?

Wall Street: Riding the 2013 bull market

 

The value of IBM stock has increased 80 percent over the past five years. The computer industry giant, which is the highest valued company traded on Wall Street, generates about half of its revenue outside of the United States.


U.S. stocks have hit an all-time high on Wall Street, with the Dow Jones market closing Tuesday's trading at 14,253.77.

A month ago, when the Dow rose above 14,000 points for the first time in five years, this blog predicted a bull run in 2013 as opposed to the stock market collapse that followed the Dow's previous all-time high, 14,164.53 on Oct. 9, 2007.

While Bullwork remains bullish on 2013 and the Dow has already gained 8.8 percent this year, economy watchers at home and abroad should remain cautious about Wall Street:
- Beware of irrational exuberance: The U.S. economy has come a long way in recovering from the Great Recession, but economic growth and the job market remain sluggish with no indication of brisk growth on the horizon.
- There is nowhere else for investors to go: With historically low interest rates driving down bond yields and the housing market still lifting itself off the floor, stocks are the best bet for investors looking for a significant rate of return in the U.S. economy. Even overseas markets look worse than Wall Street, with the European Union riding out its debt storm, growth uncertain in China and India, and corruption casting a shadow over the Russian economy.
- Watch out for Washington: The ongoing congressional gridlock over the U.S. federal budget is going to catch up with the national economy eventually. The longer the ineptitude and self-serving politicking continues, the higher the risk.
- Consumers remain key: Consumers drive the vast majority of U.S. economic activity. Most consumers have more money in their homes than in the stock market. Until the housing market is in full recovery, U.S. growth will be restrained.

Hanford: U.S. nuclear weapons legacy leaching into Columbia River basin

The "K-Basins" area of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington state is only 400 yards from the Columbia River. For more than two decades, thousands of spent nuclear fuel rods were stored in a pair of massive underground concrete structures at the riverside site. Millions of gallons of contaminated water leaked from one of the basins before it was razed in 2009. /U.S. Department of Energy image


The K-Basins, a pair of underground White House-sized reinforced concrete structures built in the 1950s near the banks of the Columbia River, are among the worst contaminated sites at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation.

When the plutonium factory closed down operations in the 1970s and 1980s, the basins became the depository of convenience for the most hazardous reactor material: Thousands of spent uranium fuel rods bearing plutonium that was never harvested. The "infamous" K East Basin was removed in 2009 but the full extent of the groundwater and river contamination from its faulty fuel rod storage may never be fully known.

GlobalSecurity.Org paints a grim picture of the storage of spent nuclear fuel in the K-Basins. Here are excerpts from a GlobalSecurity report on the K-Basins before fuel rods were removed from the site at the turn of the century:

"Nearly 80 percent (2,100 metric tons) of the DOE's nationwide inventory of spent nuclear fuel is in the K Basins, located adjacent to the K East and K West Plutonium Production Reactors, which were shut down in 1970 and 1971. The function of the K Basins is the safe storage of irradiated reactor fuel until it can be disposed or transferred to a safer location. The fuel in the K West Basin is encapsulated; the fuel in K East Basin is not. ...

"The indoor basins ... were built in 1951 and designed for a 20-year life. They were not designed for long term storage of spent reactor fuel, and they do not meet commercial nuclear or DOE safety and quality standards. The rectangular, reinforced concrete basins are 125 feet long, 67 feet wide, 21 feet deep and are divided into three sections. Each basin holds almost 1.2 million gallons of water. Nominal water depth above the fuel is 16 feet. The water provides a radiation shield for facility workers. ...

"The fuel was not designed for long term storage. It was to be stored for a short period of time (a maximum of 180 days) before being transported to PUREX, dissolved, and reprocessed to extract uranium and plutonium. The K West basin was drained, cleaned, and given an epoxy coating before spent fuel from N Reactor was placed there. The 1,000 metric tons of fuel in the K West basin were encapsulated in leak-proof canisters. ...

"Of greater concern is the 1,100 metric tons of spent N Reactor fuel in the K East Basin. K East Basin was not refurbished, and the fuel in K East Basin is stored in open canisters. Some of the fuel has been stored at the K East Basin since 1975. Thousands of the spent fuel assemblies have broken cladding, allowing the basin water to reach the uranium metal fuel, which contains plutonium and highly radioactive fission products. Water corrodes the fuel, and the corrosion products are released into the basin water. Many corrosion products have been distributed around the K East Basin as sediment. Enough sediment has accumulated over the years to form a sludge on the basin floor.

"Between 1974 and 1979, an estimated 15 million gallons of contaminated water from K East Basin leaked into the soil through a construction joint in the discharge chute area of the basin. The construction joint was repaired in 1980. Another leak of about 50 gallons per hour occurred in February 1993. It continued for several months and leaked an estimated 94,000 gallons of water before it stopped on its own."

Last month, The Daily Beast reported a lengthy update on the cleanup effort at Hanford. Here's the status of the K-Basins, according to the Beast: "Crews spent a decade removing the 2,100 tons of as-yet-undissolved rods, and then three more years vacuuming 47 cubic yards of sludge out of the more damaged East Basin and dumping it in the less-damaged, and now retrofitted, West Basin. Today, the rods are sitting in a building at Hanford, awaiting vitrification and eventual storage at a national repository to be determined."

Sea level rise: Global warming impact hits home

With a sea level 7.5 feet above standard high tides, a flood map shows large areas of Greater Boston under water, including Logan International Airport, half of South Boston, and most of Back Bay, East Cambridge and the South End. In October 2012, Hurricane Sandy brought 10-foot storm surges to New York City at high tide, inundating the metropolitan area, knocking out two airports and causing flood damage estimated in billions of dollars. /Boston Harbor Association image

A recent research effort attempted to forecast areas likely to experience the most severe impact from 21st century sea level rise linked to global warming. The primary finding of the research is that sea level rise will not be uniform around the globe.

The Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact report predicts the worst sea level rise in the next 100 years will hit coastal areas in low latitudes such as the Western Pacific Ocean and Indian Ocean, including India, Bangladesh, Japan, Argentina, Australia and South Africa.

There are variables that will affect the study's conclusions. A key factor will be the relative melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. For the North Atlantic Ocean, the rate of Greenland ice melt will largely determine the severity of sea level rise. Ironically, while Greenland is much closer to where I live in New England than Antarctica, the gravitational effect of losing the Greenland glaciers will partially offset the sea-level impact of ice melt pouring off Greenland into the North Atlantic.

Hurricane Sandy's pummeling of New York and New Jersey in October 2012 as well as Boston Harbor Association flood maps released in February 2013 illustrate a more stark reality: The sea level rise and increase in severe storms that we have already experienced from global warming pose an immediate threat to the vast majority of coastal cities.

Most of Boston's Inner Harbor neighborhoods would be underwater with a 7.5-foot increase in sea level above an average high tide. An increase in hurricanes and nor'easters makes this kind of flooding a prime climate change risk factor for cities along the U.S. East Coast. /Boston Harbor Association image

Curiosity rover mission faces first glitch on Mars

 The Curiosity rover scoops its first sample of Martian rock last month. /NASA image

Looks like NASA is having its first OMG moment since landing the Curiosity rover on Mars last year. Due to a flash memory problem last week, the rover's main computer has been switched into a "safe mode" and a backup computer has been activated while NASA engineers try to figure out what's wrong.

March 5 Update:
- NASA reported progress in the effort to overcome a problem in Curiosity's primary "A-Side" computer. The Mars rover came out of computer "safe mode" March 2 and reactivated its high-gain antenna March 3. Curiosity could return to full operation this weekend, after engineers program the one-ton rover's "B-Side" computer to carry the mission.
- Computerworld.com reported the switchover of the operational software to Curiosity's backup computer is nearly complete: "At this point, NASA engineers are looking to keep Curiosity running on the B-Side system, while repairing the A-Side so it can be on stand-by as the new backup. NASA is on a deadline to get the rover fully functional before April 4, when communication with all Mars rovers and orbiters will end for about a month.

NASA press release

Venezuela: Democracy vs. autocracy

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's ongoing health crisis is loosening his 14-year grip on power in Caracas. /Reuters photo


A new political era appears to be dawning in Venezuela.

Hugo Chavez's cancer battle has set off jockeying for the country's next election, which could come soon if illness claims the Latin American autocrat.

At the very least, the Chavez cult of personality will never be the same. In the former army paratrooper's last public address three month's ago, an emotional Chavez said he faced a mortal fight against cancer.

Although it was fascinating watching how a dictator operates, I will not miss hours-long television displays of Chavez lording over government officials and ordering tank deployments in front of a national audience. Whether or not Chavez can hold on much longer, it will be fascinating to watch whether change in Venezuelan politics will be democratic or autocratic.

Hanford: Mother of all toxic waste cleanups

A nuclear fuel rod disintegrates underwater during the ongoing environmental cleanup at Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington state. The radioactive sludge created in this incident is part of 53 million gallons of radioactive goo stored at the decommissioned plutonium factory. There are thousands of spent nuclear fuel rods stored at Hanford. /U.S. Department of Energy images

Shuttering the world's first plutonium factory is a deadly serious job. And it comes with a $112 billion price tag.

Plutonium, which was produced from uranium-fired reactors at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation during and after World War II to make nuclear weapons, is among the most toxic substances known to science.
- Plutonium is most dangerous when inhaled.
- Once lodged in lung tissue, plutonium particles can kill lung cells, leading to scarring and terminal cancer.
- Plutonium can enter the bloodstream through the lungs. Plutonium circulating in blood concentrates in the liver, spleen and bones, where it causes cancer.
- Plutonium is produced when an atom of uranium-235 is fissioned, or broken, in a nuclear power plant reactor.

Uranium is also hazardous. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control list the following symptoms from radioactive uranium exposure: "dermatitis; kidney damage; blood changes; [potential occupational carcinogen]; in animals: lung, lymph node damage. Potential for cancer is a result of alpha-emitting properties and radioactive decay products (e.g., radon and plutonium)."               

Here are some U.S. Department of Energy images from the ongoing cleanup effort at Hanford:

Racks for locked plutonium deliveries to U.S. nuclear bomb plants have been dismantled as part of the cleanup of the Vault, a complex of a half-dozen structures next to Hanford's Plutonium Finishing Plant (X marks the spot below). /Department of Energy images

An excavator places barrels for collection of toxic materials at "618-10 Burial Ground," one of the most hazardous sites at Hanford. /Department of Energy image

A welder installs a cap on one of the new radioactive waste storage cannisters at Hanford. Nearly 400 of the Multi-Cannister Overpacks are housing thousands of spent, fragmented or unused nuclear fuel rods. The cannisters are designed to hold the fuel rods until a U.S. nuclear waste depository is established. /Department of Energy images

The Mobile Arm Retrieval System is designed to help empty more than 100 single-hulled radioactive waste storage tanks at Hanford. MARS, shown above in a DOE test, uses pressurized water to loosen sludge and tar-like waste for removal, speeding the cleanup process. Tank T-111 is reportedly leaking as much as 300 gallons of material per year./Department of Energy images

 



As part of the cocooning effort at Hanford's N Reactor building, a new roof is installed to seal and waterproof the structure. The N Reactor produced plutonium and generated more the 65 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity from 1963 to 1987. The building will be sealed for 75 years, then radiation levels should be low enough for cleanup and dismantling work to continue. /Department of Energy image

In August 2011, the DOE removed "D10 Tank" from the U Plant, the first of Hanford's five plutonium processing plants slated to attain "remediated" status. The 7-foot-tall, 15,000-pound tank contained dangerously radioactive materials. A heavy-duty tractor-trailer removed D10 Tank from the U Plant building. /Department of Energy images

The D10 Tank was removed from the U Plant's "Canyon," a cavernous space designed at several Hanford plutonium processing buildings for harvesting plutonium from uranium fuel rods. The image above shows the U Plant Canyon before all processing equipment was removed. The image below shows the stripped facility. /Department of Energy images