ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

Timeline of recent events in Northeast Asia shows major increase in threats between Pyongyang and its adversaries.

Planned trip by officials from South Korean firms with factories at Kaesong complex hangs in balance. North Korea has ignored a plea by South Korean businessmen to visit a joint industrial zone on Tuesday for talks on its future, an official in Seoul said, amid fears of a permanent closure. About 10 leaders of the group of South Korean firms with factories at the Kaesong complex sought to visit the site, the last remaining point of contact between the two Koreas. But the North has not responded to the request, making the trip impossible for Tuesday, an official at Seoul's unification ministry handling cross-border affairs told the AFP news agency. The complex, built 10km north of the tense border in 2004 as a rare symbol of inter-Korean cooperation, has fallen victim to a recent surge in military tensions. Pyongyang banned entry by southerners and pulled out all its 53,000 workers from the complex in early April. 'Mean-spirited trick' Seoul last week ordered all remaining

The Japanese government on Sunday for first time commemorated the day that the country ended the U.S. occupation and recovered its sovereignty in 1952 after its defeat in the World War II. The government held a ceremony, in which the Japanese Imperial Couple, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe as well as about 390 lawmakers, prefectural governors and government officials participated. On April 28, 1952, Japan recovered its sovereignty, except Okinawa Prefecture, as the San Francisco Peace Treaty took effect, putting an end to a seven-year occupation by the U.S.-led forces. Okinawa, Japan's southernmost island prefecture that was returned by the United States in 1972, consider April 28 as "day of insult" and oppose the central government's sovereignty recovery ceremony. The prefecture's governor Hirokazu Nakaima skipped the ceremony and local assembly members also staged protests in the city of Ginowan in the prefecture, according to reports.

At least 15 people were killed and 64 others injured in attacks across Iraq on Monday, mostly in the southern Shiite provinces, an Interior Ministry source said. Two people were killed and 12 others wounded when a car bomb exploded in Karbala, some 110 km south of the capital Baghdad, the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity. Earlier on Monday, two cars bombs exploded in a market in Amarah, some 300 km southeast of Baghdad, killing nine people and wounding 30 others, the source said. Another car bomb struck Diwaniyah, some 160 km southeast of Baghdad, killing two people and wounding 20 others. In the northern town of Yathrib, some 40 km north of the capital, two soldiers were killed and two others wounded when unidentified gunmen attacked a check point of the Iraqi army. Violence is still common in Iraq despite the dramatic decrease since its peak in 2006 and 2007 when the country was engulfed in sectarian killings.

A four-part series that reveals how a secret pact formed a cartel that controls the world's oil. On August 28, 1928, in the Scottish highlands, began the secret story of oil. Three men had an appointment at Achnacarry Castle - a Dutchman, an American and an Englishman. The Dutchman was Henry Deterding, a man nicknamed the Napoleon of Oil, having exploited a find in Sumatra. He joined forces with a rich ship owner and painted Shell salesman and together the two men founded Royal Dutch Shell. The American was Walter C. Teagle and he represents the Standard Oil Company, founded by John D. Rockefeller at the age of 31 - the future Exxon. Oil wells, transport, refining and distribution of oil - everything is controlled by Standard oil. The Englishman, Sir John Cadman, was the director of the Anglo-Persian oil Company, soon to become BP. On the initiative of a young Winston Churchill, the British government had taken a stake in BP and the Royal Navy switched its fuel from coal to oil.

At least 20 vehicles loaded with anti-aircraft guns block road as 200 armed men demand removal of Gaddafi-era staff. Armed men have surrounded Libya's foreign ministry in the capital, Tripoli, to push demands that officials who had worked for deposed leader Muammar Gaddafi's government be banned from senior positions in the new administration. At least 20 pickup vehicles loaded with anti-aircraft guns blocked the roads on Sunday, while men armed with AK-47s and sniper rifles directed the traffic away from the building, witnesses said. Esaam al-Naas, a Libyan military official, said there were at least 200 armed men surrounding the ministry building. He said negotiations with the protesters were under way and that no one had entered the building. Ali Zeidan, Libyan prime minister, said armed groups also tried to storm the ministry of interior and a state news agency on Sunday. Zeidan urged people to help the government in resisting such armed groups. "There are people who

(Reuters) - Tens of millions of U.S. dollars in cash were delivered by the CIA in suitcases, backpacks and plastic shopping bags to the office of Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai for more than a decade, according to the New York Times , citing current and former advisers to the Afghan leader. The so-called "ghost money" was meant to buy influence for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) but instead fuelled corruption and empowered warlords, undermining Washington's exit strategy from Afghanistan, the newspaper quoted U.S. officials as saying. "The biggest source of corruption in Afghanistan", one American official said, "was the United States." The CIA declined to comment on the report and the U.S. State Department did not immediately comment. The New York Times did not publish any comment from Karzai or his office. "We called it ‘ghost money'," Khalil Roman, who served as Karzai's chief of staff from 2002 until 2005, told t

Country holds day of mourning after collapse of clothing factory in Dhaka that has killed at least 160 people. Rescuers in Bangladesh have continued to hunt for survivors in a collapsed building as the death toll rose to 161 and criticism mounted of foreign firms that source cheap clothes from the country. More than 1,000 people were injured when the site housing five garment factories on the outskirts of Dhaka imploded on Wednesday, allegedly after managers ignored workers' warnings that the building had become unstable. Flags flew at half-mast on Thursday as the shell-shocked country declared a day of mourning for the victims of the nation's worst factory disaster, which highlighted anew safety concerns in Bangladesh's vital garment industry. Army Brigadier General Mohammed Siddiqul Alam Shikder said many people are still trapped in the building, which housed a number of garment factories employing hundreds of people. Workers had warned a day earlier that large cracks