Us Arming Guam Against North Korean Threat

As the United States prepares to send a missile defence system to Guam to defend it from North Korea, David Cameron warns it would be "foolish" to abandon Britain's nuclear deterrent Trident.

The Pentagon said it was deploying a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system to the Pacific island of Guam in the coming weeks. The THAAD system includes a truck-mounted launcher, interceptor missiles and a tracking radar.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said North Korea presented a "real and clear danger", making threats that he has had to take seriously, with the United States in recent weeks revamping its missile defence plans and positioning two guided-missile destroyers in the western Pacific.

 

 

  British arms

David Cameron said today it would be "foolish" to abandon Britain's Trident nuclear deterrent in the face of growing nuclear threats from North Korea and Iran.
The prime minister said the "highly unpredictable and aggressive" regime in North Korea was devloping ballistic missiles which could eventually threaten Europe.

Writing in The Daily Telegraph, Mr Cameron said: "Last year North Korea unveiled a long-range ballistic missile which it claims can reach the whole of the United States. If this became a reality it would also affect the whole of Europe, including the UK."
He added: "Does anyone seriously argue that it would be wise for Britain, faced with this evolving threat today, to surrender our deterrent?

Market jitters
Events on the Korean peninsula have begun to unnerve global financial markets long used to the rhetoric North Korea routinely hurls at Seoul and Washington.
"The assumption remains that this is more bluster ...," said Rob Ryan, a strategist with RBS in Singapore. "But from here, we've reached a level of tensions that say things can't get too much worse without an actual exchange of fire."

The broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was down 0.6 percent, dragged down by a 2 percent slump in South Korean shares, while the South Korean won slid 0.7 percent against the US dollar.US stocks sank on Wednesday after Hagel's comments and the Guam deployment news.

US threat
North Korea repeated its threat to launch a nuclear attack on the United States. Pyongyang said it had ratified a potential strike because of US military deployments around the Korean peninsula that it claimed were a prelude to a possible nuclear attack on the North. Washington had been informed of the potential attack by North Korea, a spokesman for its army said in a statement carried by the English-language service of state news agency KCNA. It was unclear how such a warning was given since North Korea does not have diplomatic ties with Washington. The report from KCNA appeared to re-state many of the month-long fusillade of threats emanating from Pyongyang.

Experts say North Korea is years away from being able to hit the continental United States with a nuclear weapon, despite having worked for decades to achieve nuclear-arms capability. North Korea has previously threatened a nuclear strike on the United States and missile attacks on its Pacific bases, including in Guam, a US territory in the Pacific.

South Korea's Yonhap news agency said North Korea had moved what appeared to be a mid-range Musudan missile to its east coast on Thursday. The missile is believed to have a range of 3,000 km (1,865 miles) or more, which would put all of South Korea and Japan in range and possibly also Guam. North Korea is not believed to have tested the Musudan mid-range missiles, according to most independent experts

Border ban
For a second day, North Korea barred entry to a joint industrial complex it shares with the South on Thursday and said it would shut the zone if Seoul continued to insult it. The South Korean government said the North would allow 222 South Korean workers to leave the Kaesong industrial zone on Thursday. That would leave another 606 South Koreans in the complex. Seoul has urged its citizens to get out.

North Korea has threatened to shut the complex, one of the impoverished North's few sources of ready cash. The industrial park, just inside the border with North Korea, has not formally stopped operations since it was inaugurated in 2000. It houses 123 companies and employs 50,000 North Koreans making cheap goods such as clothing.

Meteorite used as ham press, worth millions

Okay, it's time for everyone to check all the rocks they've ever collected. A farmer in Spain just found out that lump of metal he's been using as a ham press for the past 30 years is actually an iron meteorite worth over $5-million!

Asensio Lopez found the 100kg rock, which measures just 45x31x20 cm, as he was tending to livestock with his father in a field near Ciudad Real in 1980. Believing it to be military scrap from the country's civil war, it sat on his patio for more than three decades — its weight used by family members to cure meat.It was only in 2011 when Lopez saw a TV report on meteorite sightings over Spain that he got in touch with geologist Juan Carlos Gutierrez Marco.

Based on a rough translation of the original source, and a bit of sleuthing about meteorite types, tests conducted on slices of the meteorite apparently confirmed that it was an octahedrite iron IAB meteorite. The 'octahedrite' part is the meteorite's structural classification, based on the crystal structure seen inside. The 'IAB' (that's roman numeral I, with the subclass AB) is the chemical classification, based on nickel content, and the proportions of trace elements found inside the meteorite.

These iron meteorites are thought to have come from the cores of planetesimals — small planet-like bodies that formed in the early solar system, but didn't survive to become full-fledged planets (or even dwarf planets).
Lopez and his family are apparently taking some time to decide if they want to sell their prize. While they do that, I'll be off checking through my rock collection.

Has the North Korean Crisis Gone Too Far?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon: ''I am deeply troubled... nuclear threats are not a game''

UN chief Ban Ki-moon has said the North Korea "crisis has gone too far" after Pyongyang announced plans to restart its main Yongbyon nuclear complex. Speaking at a news conference during a visit to Andorra, Mr Ban called for urgent talks with the North.

The move by Pyongyang is the latest in a series of measures in the wake of its third nuclear test in February. North Korea has been angered by the resultant UN sanctions and joint US-South Korea annual military drills.

North Korea's announcement effectively undoes international efforts to constrain its nuclear programme. But restarting the reactor at Yongbyon will take time. Cooling systems have to be re-installed, the reactor fuelled and so on. It could be six months to a year before the reactor is up and running. This will open up a new source of plutonium for North Korea's nuclear weapons programme. The complex offers Pyongyang two ways of making nuclear bombs - a uranium enrichment facility, and a nuclear reactor, from which the spent fuel can be turned into plutonium.

Restarting it gives the regime several cards to play: it secures more material for its nuclear programme, and also re-focuses world attention on how to stop it.  The reactor at Yongbyon - which was the source for plutonium for North Korea's nuclear weapons programme - was closed in July 2007 as part of a disarmament-for-aid deal.

The cooling tower at the facility was later destroyed, but then the disarmament deal stalled. Part of the reason the agreement fell apart was because the US did not believe Pyongyang was fully disclosing all of its nuclear facilities - a suspicion later bolstered when North Korea unveiled a uranium enrichment facility at Yongbyon to US scientist Siegfried Hecker in 2010.

While it appeared to be for electricity generation purposes, Mr Hecker said the facility could be readily converted to produce highly-enriched uranium for bombs. In a November 2010 report following his visit to Yongbyon, Mr Hecker said based on what he saw he believed North Korea could "resume all plutonium operations within approximately six months" at Yongbyon if so inclined.

Pyongyang's references to its highly-enriched uranium activities are puzzling experts. This provides an alternative basis for a nuclear weapon. But nobody knows how many secret enrichment plants North Korea may have or the level to which they may already be enriching nuclear material.
So in many ways its back to square one in terms of nuclear diplomacy. But six years have passed since 2007 and in the intervening period North Korea's missile capabilities - the means by which it might eventually seek to deliver a nuclear warhead - have improved significantly.

"Things must begin to calm down, there is no need for the DPRK [North Korea] to be on a collision course with the international community. Nuclear threats are not a game," Mr Ban said.
Earlier, a South Korean foreign ministry spokesman said that if true, the North Korean move - which includes reactivating a reactor mothballed for six years - would be "highly regrettable". Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei called for restraint from all sides to resolve the "complex and sensitive" situation. Weeks of rhetoric and almost daily threats by the North have raised tensions on the Korean Peninsula to their highest levels for years.

Seoul and the US had warned of a "swift and strong response" to any military provocation.  White House spokesman Jay Carney said the decision to reopen the Yongbyon reactor was "another indication" of North Korea "violating its international obligations". The US has urged China and Russia to apply pressure on Pyongyang to change its Yongbyon plans.

Russia's foreign ministry, meanwhile, warned against escalating tensions on the Korean peninsula.
"The main objective is to avoid the forceful military scenario. It is not acceptable to use the situation there (on the Korean peninsula) to try to reach someone's specific military and political aims," said ministry spokesman Grigoriy Logvinov.

Aurora Mass Killer James Holmes Should be Executed, Say Prosecutors

 

Defence lawyers for Mr Holmes are expected to argue he is not guilty because he was legally insane at the time of the shootings

Prosecutors have said they will seek the death penalty for the man accused of killing 12 people last July at a theater  in Colorado. On Friday, prosecutors rejected an offer from James Holmes to plead guilty in order to avoid execution. The 25-year-old is charged with multiple counts of murder and attempted murder in the attack in Aurora, one of the worst mass shootings in US history. Dozens were wounded in the attack at a midnight showing of a Batman film.

"It's my determination and my intention that in this case for James Eagan Holmes justice is death," Arapahoe County District Attorney George Brauchler said at Monday's hearing, which the accused attended.

Mr Holmes' parents sat holding hands in the public gallery. Prosecution and defence lawyers have agreed that it will take longer to bring Mr Holmes' case to trial, now that the suspect could face the death penalty. The trial had been scheduled for August; now a judge has pushed it back to February 2014. But defence lawyers urged the court not to rush to trial.
"They are trying to execute our client and we will do what we need to do to save his life," defence lawyer Tammy Brady exclaimed. "We are asking the court not to rush this."

Last week, prosecutors argued that the defence motion for a guilty plea was not valid as a plea deal, but correspondents say such an agreement could still be reached before the case goes to trial. Mr Holmes' defence lawyers were expected to argue he is not guilty because he was legally insane at the time of the July 20th shooting. But investigators say the former neuroscience graduate student had stockpiled weapons and ammunition ahead of the attacks.  He allegedly also booby-trapped his apartment to explode, in an apparent bid to distract police from responding to the theater during the shooting.

Victims and their families said they did not welcome the thought of a lengthy trial. Pierce O'Farrill, who was shot three times in the attack, told the Associated Press news agency: "All of us victims would be dragged along potentially for years. It could be 10 or 15 years before he's executed.
I would be in my 40s and I'm planning to have a family, and the thought of having to look back and reliving everything at that point in my life, it would be difficult."

Bryan Beard, whose best friend Alex Sullivan was killed in the attack, spoke of his joy at the prosecutors' announcement.
"I had a huge adrenaline rush,'' he told the Associated Press at the courthouse. "I love the choice, I love it, I love it... I hope I'm in the room when he dies."

In March, Colorado introduced new gun legislation to impose limits on the size of ammunition magazines and expand background checks for gun buyers. The law bans the type of magazine investigators say was used to fire dozens of bullets in just a few seconds during the Aurora shooting.

President Obama is scheduled to visit Denver, Colorado, on Wednesday to highlight the bill as part of a campaign for national gun control measures in the wake of the mass shooting at the primary school in December, in  Newtown  Connecticut.

Shakespeare Was a Ruthless Business Man

Story from Daily Finance
LONDON -- Hoarder, moneylender, tax dodger -- it's not how we usually think of William Shakespeare. But we should, according to a group of academics who say the Bard was a ruthless businessman who grew wealthy dealing in grain during a time of famine.

Researchers from Aberystwyth University in Wales argue that we can't fully understand Shakespeare unless we study his often-overlooked business savvy.
"Shakespeare the grain-hoarder has been redacted from history so that Shakespeare the creative genius could be born," the researchers say in a paper due to be delivered at the Hay literary festival in Wales in May.

Jayne Archer, a lecturer in medieval and Renaissance literature at Aberystwyth, said that oversight is the product of "a willful ignorance on behalf of critics and scholars who I think -- perhaps through snobbery -- cannot countenance the idea of a creative genius also being motivated by self-interest."

Archer and her colleagues Howard Thomas and Richard Marggraf Turley combed through historical archives to uncover details of the playwright's parallel life as a grain merchant and property owner in the town of Stratford-upon-Avon whose practices sometimes brought him into conflict with the law.
"Over a 15-year period he purchased and stored grain, malt and barley for resale at inflated prices to his neighbors and local tradesmen," they wrote, adding that Shakespeare "pursued those who could not [or would not] pay him in full for these staples and used the profits to further his own money-lending activities."

He was pursued by the authorities for tax evasion, and in 1598 was prosecuted for hoarding grain during a time of shortage. The charge sheet against Shakespeare was not entirely unknown, though it may come as shock to some literature lovers. But the authors argue that modern readers and scholars are out of touch with the harsh realities the writer and his contemporaries faced.

He lived and wrote in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, during a period known as the "Little Ice Age," when unusual cold and heavy rain caused poor harvests and food shortages.

"I think now we have a rather rarefied idea of writers and artists as people who are disconnected from the everyday concerns of their contemporaries," Archer said. "But for most writers for most of history, hunger has been a major concern -- and it has been as creatively energizing as any other force."

She argues that knowledge of the era's food insecurity can cast new light on Shakespeare's plays, including "Coriolanus," which is set in an ancient Rome wracked by famine. The food protests in the play can be seen to echo the real-life 1607 uprising of peasants in the English Midlands, where Shakespeare lived.

Shakespeare scholar Jonathan Bate told the Sunday Times newspaper that Archer and her colleagues had done valuable work, saying their research had "given new force to an old argument about the contemporaneity of the protests over grain-hoarding in 'Coriolanus.'" Archer said famine also informs "King Lear," in which an aging monarch's unjust distribution of his land among his three daughters sparks war.
"In the play there is a very subtle depiction of how dividing up land also involves impacts on the distribution of food," Archer said.

Archer said the idea of Shakespeare as a hardheaded businessman may not fit with romantic notions of the sensitive artist, but we shouldn't judge him too harshly. Hoarding grain was his way of ensuring that his family and neighbors would not go hungry if a harvest failed.
"Remembering Shakespeare as a man of hunger makes him much more human, much more understandable, much more complex," she said. "He would not have thought of himself first and foremost as a writer. Possibly as an actor -- but first and foremost as a good father, a good husband and a good citizen to the people of Stratford."

She said the playwright's funeral monument in Stratford's Holy Trinity Church reflected this. The original monument erected after his death in 1616 showed Shakespeare holding a sack of grain. In the 18th century, it was replaced with a more "writerly" memorial depicting Shakespeare with a tasseled cushion and a quill pen.

Connecticut lawmakers reach deal on tough gun laws after Newtown

04.01.2013 | HARTFORD, Conn. -- Relatives and supporters of Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims stand during a presentation at the Capital in Hartford, Conn., where they asked lawmakers to include a ban on existing high-capacity magazines in a legislation addressing gun control spurred by the massacre. Standing from left are: Jennifer Hensel, Jackie and Mark Barden, Sandy Hook Promise member Tim Makris, William Sherlach, Nelba Marquez-Greene and Nicole Hockley. (Mara Lavitt / New Haven Register via Associated Press)

 

By SUSAN HAIGH
HARTFORD, Conn. — Connecticut lawmakers announced a deal Monday on what they called some of the toughest gun laws in the country that were proposed after the December mass shooting in Newtown, including a ban on new high-capacity ammunition magazines like the ones used in the massacre that left 20 children and six educators dead.

The proposal includes new registration requirements for existing magazines that carry 10 or more bullets, something of a disappointment for some family members of Newtown victims who wanted an outright ban on the possession of all high-capacity magazines and traveled to the state Capitol on Monday to ask lawmakers for it.

The package also creates what lawmakers said is the nation's first statewide dangerous weapon offender registry, creates a new "ammunition eligibility certificate," imposes immediate universal background checks for all firearms sales, and extends the state's assault weapons ban to 100 new types of firearms and requires that a weapon have only one of several features in order to be banned.
The newly banned weapons could no longer be bought or sold in Connecticut, and those legally owned already would have to be registered with the state, just like the high-capacity magazines.
"No gun owner will lose their gun," said House Minority Leader Lawrence Cafero Jr., a Norwalk Republican. "No gun owner will lose their magazines." The bill also addresses mental health and school security measures.

The shooting Dec. 14 at Sandy Hook Elementary School reignited the gun debate in the country and led to calls for increased gun control legislation on the federal and state levels. While some other states, including neighboring New York, have strengthened their gun laws, momentum has stalled in Congress, whose members were urged by President Barack Obama last week not to forget the shooting and to capitalize on the best chance in years to stem gun violence.

Connecticut should be seen as an example for lawmakers elsewhere, said Senate President Donald E. Williams Jr., a Brooklyn Democrat.
"In Connecticut, we've broken the mold," he said. "Democrats and Republicans were able to come to an agreement on a strong, comprehensive bill. That is a message that should resound in 49 other states and in Washington, D.C. And the message is: We can get it done here and they should get it done in their respective states and nationally in Congress."

The proposal was revealed to rank-and-file lawmakers Monday after weeks of bipartisan, closed-door negotiations among legislative leaders. A vote was expected Wednesday in the General Assembly, where Democrats control both chambers, making passage all but assured. The bill would then be sent to Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, who has helped lead efforts to strengthen the state's gun laws but has not yet signed off on the proposed legislation.

Earlier in the day on Monday, Malloy voiced support for the Newtown families and their desire to ban the possession of large-capacity magazines. Ron Pinciaro, executive director of Connecticut Against Gun Violence, said his group will live with the lawmakers' decision not to ban them as other states have done. He said the leaders made their decision based on what was politically feasible.
"We have to be satisfied. There are still other things that we want, we'll be back for in later sessions," he said. "But for now, it's a good thing."

Robert Crook, executive director of the Connecticut Coalition of Sportsmen, contended the bill would not have changed what happened at Sandy Hook Elementary School, where the gunman fired off 154 shots with a Bushmaster .223-caliber rifle within five minutes. He went through six 30-round magazines, though half were not completely empty, and police said he had three other 30-round magazines in addition to one in the rifle.

"They can register magazines and do all the rest of this stuff. It isn't going to do anything," he said.
Gun owners, who've packed public hearings at the state Capitol in recent months, voicing their opposition to various gun control measures, are concerned they've been showing up "for virtually nothing" after learning about the bill, Crook said.
"Clearly we've made our point," Crook said. "But I don't know what anybody can do at this point in time."

Six relatives of Newtown victims visited the Capitol on Monday, asking lawmakers to ban existing high-capacity magazines. Some handed out cards with photographs of their slain children.
Allowing magazines that carry 10 or more bullets to remain in the hands of gun owners would leave a gaping loophole in the law, said Mark Barden, whose 7-year-old son, Daniel, was killed in the shooting.
"It doesn't prevent someone from going out of the state to purchase them and then bring them back. There's no way to track when they were purchased, so they can say, 'I had this before,'" Barden said. "So it's a big loophole." Barden and other victims' family members who visited the statehouse earlier on Monday did not immediately respond to messages seeking their reactions to the agreement.

Jake McGuigan, a spokesman for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, which is based in Newtown, said he wouldn't comment on the proposal until he saw it in the writing, but he questioned the mechanics of a registry for magazines.
"How will they register a magazine? It seems a little weird," he said.

It's far too little folks and much too late.

Canadian Navy makes $100million drug bust on the high seas



HMCS Toronto

Fishing vessel carrying  drug cargo

$100 million drug haul

Canadian navy personnel recovered 500 kilograms worth of heroin from a ship in the Indian Ocean in one of the largest drug busts ever on the high seas, the Defence Department announced Sunday. A dozen crew members from HMCS Toronto, which is patrolling the Indian Ocean as part of continuous international anti-terrorism mission, boarded what was supposed to be a fishing vessel on Friday. During a search of the boat, the Canadians found few fish but a good deal of heroin, which has an estimated street value of more than $100 million, according to a Defence Department statemen

The heroin was seized and will be destroyed. No one was injured in the operation. It is believed that the ship was travelling from Pakistan. However, Conservative MP Chris Alexander, Parliamentary Secretary to Defence Minister Peter MacKay, said Sunday the Canadians were unable to determine the ship’s intended destination.

“Where they were going is almost certainly Africa,” Alexander told CTV News. “But (it was) difficult for them to confirm on the basis of the interviews they did exactly 100 per cent where they were headed.”

Usually, heroin from Afghanistan is shipped to Russia to be exported around the world. But drug cartels, and terror organizations that use drugs to fund their operations, are increasingly turning to maritime shipping routes to get their wares to market. Commander David Patchell, HMCS Toronto’s commanding officer, called the drug bust “the largest maritime interception of narcotics in the Combined Maritime Forces area of operations and one of the largest heroin seizures in the maritime environment.

"This seizure will have a sweeping impact on these organizations at all levels and demonstrates Canada's commitment to our allies and to ensuring the seas are used for legitimate purposes. It keeps the drugs off the streets and out of the hands of criminals, but it also has a massive impact on the finances of international terrorist organizations."

HMCS Toronto is patrolling the Indian Ocean as part of Combined Task Force 150, an international counter-terrorism operation in the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. The frigate set sail in January and is expected to return to Canada this summer.
"This massive narcotics seizure is an example of how our Canadian Armed Forces are making a difference in international security."