ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

SEOUL (AFP) - North Korea appears to be preparing for a fourth nuclear test, South Korea said on Monday, following intelligence reports of heightened activity at its main atomic test site. "There are such signs," Unification Minister Ryoo Kihl-Jae told a parliamentary committee hearing when lawmakers asked him to confirm the reports. It was the North's third nuclear test in February and subsequent UN sanctions that kickstarted the cycle of ongoing escalating military tensions that the international community is desperate to break. The JoongAng Ilbo daily said South Korean intelligence had detected unusually busy personnel and vehicle movements at the North's Punggye-ri nuclear test site since last week. "We are trying to figure out whether it is a genuine preparation for a nuclear test or just a ploy to heap more pressure on us and the US," it cited an unnamed South Korean government official as saying. Intelligence reports also suggest Pyongyang has readied

BEIRUT (AFP) - Nine children were among at least 15 people killed in an air strike on a mainly Kurdish district of the northern Syrian city of Aleppo on Saturday, a watchdog said. "The number of people killed in an air strike on the western edges of Sheikh Maksoud has risen to 15 ... Among them were nine children aged under 18 years and three women," said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. It was not immediately clear if any of the casualties were fighters from the Democratic Union Party (PYD), Syria's branch of Turkey's outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), the Britain-based Observatory said. After the strike, Kurdish fighters killed five soldiers in an attack on an army checkpoint, the watchdog added. Up until now, Syria's Kurds have been split over their country's anti-regime uprising, with most trying to maintain neutrality. Amateur video distributed by the Syrian Revolution General Commission, an activist network, showed burnt bodies lying in

Azerbaijan, Baku, Apr.7/ Trend G.Mehdi/ Iran will unveil five new domestically produced radioisotopes by the end of the current calendar month of Farvardin (April 20), ISNA quoted Iranian Vice President for Scientific and Technological Affairs Nasrin Soltankhah as saying. Soltankhah also said that Iran would unveil 28 science-based products in the near future. In October 2012, ISNA quoted Iran's National Security Committee spokesman Hossein Naqavi Hosseini as saying that Iran will become self-sufficient in producing radioisotope drugs in the current calendar year which began on March 21. Once the first phase of the Arak nuclear power plant comes on stream, the country will be self-sufficient in producing radioisotope drugs for over one million patients suffering from various types of cancers and brain tumors, he noted. In a landmark pharmaceutical progress, the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran (AEOI) announced in January that Iranian scientists have managed to synthesise two new

Test launch of a Minuteman 3 intercontinental missile next week delayed until next month to avoid exacerbating crisis An unarmed Minuteman 3 intercontinental ballistic missile leaves a contrail through the sky in California. The test has been rescheduled for next month. Photograph: Greg Vojtko/AP The US has attempted to ease rising tensions with North Korea by postponing a missile test scheduled to take place in California next week, lest this be interpreted by Pyongyang as deliberately provocative. The US defence secretary, Chuck Hagel, decided to delay the long-planned test launch of a Minuteman 3 intercontinental missile from an airbase until next month over concerns it could exacerbate the crisis, officials briefed reporters anonymously. "This is the logical, prudent and responsible course of action to take," a senior defence official was quoted as saying by Reuters. The test had no connection to North Korea and could be rescheduled for next month, the official said, m

Former soldier tells trial that Otto Pérez Molina ordered soldiers to burn and pillage during 1980s war By Associated Press April 06, 2013 "Information Clearing House" - A former soldier has implicated the Guatemalan president, Otto Pérez Molina , in civil war atrocities during the trial of the former US-backed military strongman Efraín Ríos Montt, proceedings that have heard witnesses recount a litany of horrors. Hugo Reyes, a soldier who was a mechanic in an engineering brigade in the area where atrocities were carried out, told the court that Pérez Molina, then an army major, ordered soldiers to burn and pillage during Guatemala 's dirty war with leftist guerrillas in the 1980s. "The soldiers, on orders from Major 'Tito Arias', better known as Otto Pérez Molina … co-ordinated the burning and looting, in order to later execute people," Reyes told the court by video link. Pérez Molina, who retired as a general, was elected president for the

By Eric Margolis April 06, 2013 "Information Clearing House" - The intensifying war of words between North Korea, the United States and ally South Korea could ignite a major conflict. The likely trigger would be a small clash at sea, in the air, or along the Demilitarized Zone dividing the two Koreas. What would a war in Korea look like? First, nuclear conflict is unlikely. North Korea is not believed to have any long or medium-ranged nuclear weapons, certainly none that could hit North America. North Korea might be able to strike South Korea with a nuclear device. But then US nuclear weapons would wipe North Korea off the map. North Korea’s military strategy would be to launch a surprise attack on the south to occupy Seoul and Inchon. The vital US Air Force bases at Osan and Kunsan, and eight South Korean air bases, would be primary targets. North Korea’s elite 88,000 special forces units are tasked to attack and neutralize these air bases as well as headquarters, communica

By Dennis J. Bernstein April 06, 2013 " Information Clearing House " - In early March, the U.S. and South Korea launched an expanded set of war games on the Korean Peninsula, prompting concerns in some circles that the military exercises might touch off an escalation of tensions with North Korea. Christine Hong, a professor at the University of California at Santa Cruz, worried that the U.S. “was lurching towards war” since “the military exercises that the U.S. and South Korea just launched are not defensive exercises” but rather appear to promote a “regime change” strategy. Those military pressures have, indeed, led to threats of escalation from North Korea’s young leader, Kim Jong Un, and have set the Korean security situation at “hair-trigger dangerous,” Professor Hong said in the following interview with Dennis J. Bernstein. DB: There’s a lot of disinformation and patriotic reporting coming out of the U.S. Why don’t you tell us what is going on right now. What is the sit

Today, North Korea urged a number of foreign embassies in Pyongyang to evacuate their staffs because the country would, according to the U.K.’s reading of the warning it received, “be unable to guarantee the safety of embassies and international organizations in the country in the event of conflict from April 10.” In other words, North Korea is telling foreign diplomats, including that of nominally friendly Russia, “war might be coming, so you better skip town.” North Korea is known for issuing threats it doesn’t see through and warning about wars that never come. Still, this move, potentially a first for North Korea, came as a big surprise. But it wouldn’t have been so surprising if you’re a regular reader of the JoongAng Daily, a major South Korean broadsheet newspaper with a sizable readership and a reputation for leaning a touch to the right. Three weeks ago, JoongAng ran a story, citing a single, anonymous official with South Korean intelligence, predicting that this is exact