In a rare display of concern for their citizens, the North Korean government have authorised a television commercial for its local beer: ' “Pride of Pyongyang“- the beer that will help ease stress. '

see BBC for video.

Washington | July 1

AFP - A North Korean ship tracked by the US Navy and suspected of transporting weapons or military know-how in violation of UN sanctions has turned around, a Pentagon official said.

The official declined to provide details, including where the Kang Nam 1 ship -- reportedly originally bound for Myanmar -- could now be headed, but news reports out of South Korea suggested the ship may be returning home two weeks after it set sail June 17.

Justin McCurry | Tokyo | June 25

The Guardian - North Korea today threatened to retaliate with a nuclear "fire shower" if it is attacked by the US and warned it would expand its nuclear arsenal, a month after it carried out a controlled nuclear explosion in defiance of the UN security council.

The regime used the 59th anniversary of the outbreak of the Korean war to step up its threats against the US, whose navy is tracking a North Korean vessel off the Chinese coast that is suspected of carrying weapons.

Earlier this month the UN banned all weapons exports from North Korea in response to the May 25 nuclear test, its second in three years.

The latest warning came as speculation mounted that Pyongyang is preparing to test launch short- and medium-range missiles.

North Korea has banned ships from the waters off its east coast until July 10 for "military exercises", but South Korean and US intelligence officials do not believe the tests will involve a long-range Taepodong-2 missile, which is theoretically capable of reaching Hawaii.

Seoul | June 24

AFP - A South Korean newspaper said Wednesday that the youngest son of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il has taken control of the secret police as a first step towards succeeding his father.

Dong-A Ilbo, citing sources, said Kim told key Department of State Security officials to treat 26-year-old Jong-Un as their boss when father and son visited the headquarters in Pyongyang around March.

"You should treat comrade Kim Jong-Un as agency chief. Protect comrade Kim Jong-Un with your lives as you did to me in the past," Kim Jong-Il was quoted as saying.

Kim then awarded agency officials five imported luxury cars worth some 80,000 dollars each, it said.

The agency, which cracks down on dissidents and conducts overseas spy operations, has been under the control of Kim senior since 1987, the paper said.

It said the office of director is vacant and chief deputy director U Tong-Chuk is formally in charge, but agency officials see Jong-Un as effectively in control.

** North Korean 'heir apparent' appointed military chief

June 23

Reuters/AP - Japanese coast guard officials say North Korea has banned ships from sailing off its east coast for 16 days starting this Thursday.

Coast guard officials say the North Korean government sent them an e-mail warning that it will hold military drills off its eastern port of Wonsan between Thursday and July 10.

The e-mail did not say what consequences ships would face if they violated the ban.

The dates fall within a time frame mentioned last week by Japanese media for a possible launch of a long-range missile toward Hawaii. The message comes at a time of heightened tension between Pyongyang and the international community.

Tokyo | June 20

AFP - (Alleged pictures of Kim Jong-Un)

Kim Jong-Il's third son, the likely successor to the North Korean leader, has been appointed acting defence chief under his ailing father, a Japanese newspaper reported on Saturday.

Kim Jong-Un started supporting his father as acting chairman of North Korea's National Defence Commission, the evening edition of the Mainichi Shimbun said, quoting unnamed sources close to North Korean leadership.

Kim Jong-Il has ruled the reclusive country, and held its two highest posts of defence commission chairman and secretary general of the Workers' Party of Korea, since his father, Kim Il-Sung, died in 1994.

As acting chairman, which is still considered informal, the 26-year-old son appears to be securing his succession to his father, 67, who reportedly suffered a stroke last August, the newspaper said.

Ewen MacAskill | Washington | June 19

The Guardian -

Kang Nam vessel suspected of transporting weapons, a violation of UN sanctions imposed last week

Tension was growing in the Pacific today as the US navy prepared to intercept a North Korean cargo ship suspected of carrying weapons in defiance of a United Nations ban.

The US navy has been tracking the Kang Nam since its left a North Korean port on Wednesday.

It would be the first ship to be intercepted since the UN last week imposed sanctions on North Korea as punishment for conducting an underground nuclear test last month. The sanctions ban the import and export of nuclear material, missiles and all other weapons other than small arms.

A USS destroyer, the John McCain (named after the father of the Republican senator, who was an admiral), was awaiting orders to intercept the ship off the Chinese coast.

The UN sanctions only allow the US to hail a North Korean ship and demand to be allowed to conduct a search, but not forcibly board it. North Korea has said a forcible search would be regarded as an act of war.

This has the ability to tremendously backfire

June 19

BBC - The US is "in a good position" to protect its territory from a potential North Korean missile strike, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates has said.

His comments came in response to a report that North Korea was considering launching a missile towards Hawaii.

"We do have some concerns if they were to launch a missile to the West, in the direction of Hawaii," Mr Gates said.

The US has approved the deployment of missiles and radar to "provide support" in the event of an attack, he added.

Washington | June 16

AFP -

South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak on Monday started a visit to the United States to plan action on North Korea, which staged a giant rally in a defiant show of support for its nuclear drive.

The US Congress approved a resolution supporting Lee against the North hours after he arrived. Lee was due to meet late Monday with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton before a summit on Tuesday with President Barack Obama.

Lee was expected to ask Obama for explicit security guarantees after North Korea tested a nuclear bomb, stormed out of a six-nation disarmament accord and scrapped six decades of accords with the South.

The North's ruling party newspaper Rodong Sinmun said Monday that Lee's request was "intolerable" and said that such commitment would be "virtually formalising a provocation for nuclear war."

Dennis Blair, the US intelligence chief, said on Monday that a scientific analysis concluded that North Korea "probably" carried out its second-ever nuclear test in May with a yield of "a few kilotons."

June 13

The Independent -
They are known as the grass-eaters: effeminate young Japanese men more interested in perfecting their looks than finding a job or starting a family.

In Japan some call them herbivores, and on Saturday nights they come out to graze: a perfumed army of preening masculinity. Groomed and primped, hair teased to peacock-like perfection and bodies wrapped in tight-fitting clothes, their habitat is the crowded city where they live in fear of commitment, and the odd carnivorous female who preys on them.

For much of this decade, the older men who drove this country to the top of the economic league tables have looked on in bewilderment at the foppish antics of the generation below.

Japan's twenty- and thirtysomething males seem disinterested in careers and apathetic about the rituals of dating, sex and marriage. They spend almost as much on cosmetics and clothes as women, live with their mums and sit down on the toilet when they pee. Some have even been known to wear bras. "What is happening to the nation's manhood?" wonders social critic Takuro Morinaga.

Now they have their answer: Japanese males are transforming into grass-eaters.

Coined by columnist Maki Fukasawa, the term soshoku-danshi (herbivorous male) has become one of those cultural buzzwords that hijacks the Japanese media every couple of years. With its implied disdain for vegetarians, the term has been popularised in a bestselling new book called The Herbivorous Ladylike Men (who) are Changing Japan by Megumi Ushikubo, president of Tokyo marketing firm Infinity. Her company claims that roughly two-thirds of all Japanese men aged 20-34 are now partial or total grass-eaters, and a very long way from the classic twin stereotypes of 20th-century Japanese masculinity: the fierce, unyielding warrior and the workaholic salary-man.

Previous articles and comments here.

Miyoung Kim & Jon Herskovitz | Seoul | June 13

Reuters - * North Korea threatens to boost nuclear program
* Pyongyang says to take military action if isolated
* U.N. widens sanctions, China joins in

North Korea said on Saturday it would start a uranium enrichment program and weaponize all its plutonium in response to fresh U.N. sanctions, prompting the United States to demand that Pyongyang stop its "provocative" actions.

North Korea also threatened military action if the United States and its allies tried to isolate it.

The U.N. Security Council approved a resolution on Friday which banned all weapons exports from North Korea and most arms imports into the state. It authorized U.N. member states to inspect North Korean sea, air and land cargo, requiring them to seize and destroy goods shipped that violate the sanctions.

In Washington, a U.S. State Department official said, "(North Korea) needs to cease provocative actions and rhetoric, and return unconditionally to the six-party process." The six-party nuclear disarmament talks involve the two Koreas, the United States, Russia, Japan and China.

June 12

AFP -

The UN Security Council was expected to adopt tougher sanctions targeting North Korea's atomic and ballistic missile programs in response to the Stalinist state's nuclear defiance.

The 15-member body was to meet at 15:00 GMT for a likely vote on a draft resolution agreed by its five veto-wielding permanent members - Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States - plus Japan and South Korea.

The text calls on UN member states to slap biting sanctions on North Korea.

They include tougher inspections of cargo suspected of containing banned items related to North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile activities, a tighter arms embargo with the exception of light weapons and new financial restrictions.

Passage is a foregone conclusion - nine votes in favor are required with no veto - after more than two weeks of intensive bargaining among the seven sponsors.

The compromise text seeks to punish Pyongyang for its May 25 underground nuclear test and subsequent missile firings in violation of UN resolutions.

_{** S.Korea sends more troops to N.Korea border
** No signs of another N. Korea nuke test -- Seoul''s DM
** US fears third nuclear test in North Korea
** Pyongyang puts squeeze on enemy
** Bosworth Offers Olive Branch to NK}

Laura Ling and Euna Lee were given 12-year sentences for unspecified "grave crimes" and for crossing the border near China, according to the court.

The White House said the two are "innocent" and Secretary Clinton is calling for their release.

"Obviously we are deeply concerned about the length of the sentences and the fact that this trial was conducted totally in secret," said Secretary Clinton.

June 9

VOA - North Korea says it will use its nuclear weapons both to defend itself and as an offense against those who seek to attack the regime.

An editorial published Tuesday in North Korea's state-run Minju Joson newspaper says its nuclear arsenal will be a strong deterrent against any enemies, and will also be used to carry out a "merciless offensive" against those who violate its dignity and sovereignty.

The latest salvo from the reclusive communist regime comes as the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council (United States, Britain, France, China and Russia), plus Japan and South Korea, negotiate on a new resolution to impose tougher sanctions against Pyongyang for last month's underground nuclear test.

The latest draft includes new restrictions on North Korea's trade and financial dealings with the outside world, as well as an expanded arms embargo and tighter inspections of its ship-based cargo.

Choe Sang-Hun | Seoul | June 7

NYT - North Korea on Monday sentenced two American journalists to 12 years of hard labor in a case widely seen as a test of how far the isolated Communist state was willing to take its confrontational stance toward the United States.

The Central Court, the highest court of North Korea, held the trial of the two Americans, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, from Thursday to Monday and convicted them of “committing hostilities against the Korean nation and illegal entry,” the North’s official news agency, KCNA, said in a report monitored in Seoul.

Ms. Ling and Ms. Lee have been held since they were detained by North Korean soldiers patrolling the border between China and North Korea on March 17.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has called the charges “baseless.”

The United States government had demanded that the North forgo the legal proceedings and release the two women.

Like our demands mean anything to NK. I wonder if this sealed the ladies fate: U.S. Weighs Intercepting North Korean Shipments. Is there some reason why they couldn't have made this announcement after NK sentenced them?

David E. Sanger | Washington | June 7

NYT - The Obama administration signaled Sunday that it was seeking a way to interdict, possibly with China’s help, North Korean sea and air shipments suspected of carrying weapons or nuclear technology.

The administration also said it was examining whether there was a legal basis to reverse former President Bush’s decision last year to remove the North from a list of states that sponsor terrorism.

SUMMARY: A/S State EAP nominee Kurt Campbell will have his confirmation hearing before SFRC Asia subc. chair Jim Webb next Tuesday morning, 6/10. Rumors of "issues" are dispelled.

That pesky rumor about N. Korean nuclear assistance to Burma has been around for a couple of years, but lately it's been coming around a lot.

Informed folks can't talk explicitly, but do say they've not been shown evidence of direct NK-Burma nuclear plant activity, such as happened with Syria. Nuclear technology discussion? Ummm...another matter.

So confirmation would add further pressure on China, Russia to really cooperate with "containing" the DPRK nuclear threat, currently defined by the US as proliferation.

But after hearing for the umpteenth time lately that we should check-out what N. Korea is doing in the nuclear arena with the charmers in Burma, we did, asking a senior government official about it just this morning, in fact.

The response, brief and to the point, was that this is an "unsubstantiated rumor".

Now would Sherlock Holmes think he was actually being told it might be true, because, after all, said senior government official didn't reply that the whole thing is balderdash, don't make a fool of yourself?

We will confess to the temptation, but were saved, for today, at least, with an informed source who said that while the facts which HAVE been briefed cannot be discussed, it would be accurate to say that no facts have been briefed on any DPRK nuclear plant (a la Syria) to Burma.

And, the source added, while one would "highly doubt" the DPRK has done that, WERE any such facts to be briefed, that would indeed be a very big deal.

Having carefully led us through the briar patch, however, the source went on to note that it's long been on public record that Burma and N. Korea have extended military ties and sales, including a military cooperation agreement, and, of course, that Russia has supplied Burma with a nuclear power plant.

Accordingly, "it's not hard to imagine North Korean nuclear technology talks with Burma."

Oh oh...wait...what are you trying to tell us?

Sigh...

Seoul | June 4

Reuters - North Korea put two U.S. journalists on trial on Thursday on charges of illegally entering the state with "hostile intent", in a case that could worsen tension with Washington after Pyongyang's nuclear test last week.

The journalists, Euna Lee and Laura Ling of the U.S. media outlet Current TV, were taken into custody in March near the border between China and North Korea while working on a story. The TV network was co-founded by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore.

North Korea's KCNA news agency said in a one-sentence dispatch that the trial would begin at 0600 GMT (3 p.m. local time) at one of the country's highest courts.

Experts say the pair could face a sentence of 10 years or more of hard labour in the reclusive state. They add a guilty verdict is almost certain in a North Korean justice system that protects the unquestioned rule of leader Kim Jong-il.

previous thread: N.Korea guards detain U.S. journalists

Tokyo | June 4

AFP - The defence panel of Japan's ruling party on Wednesday said that despite its pacifist constitution, it should be able to launch a pre-emptive strike against North Korea to stop any imminent attack.

The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP)'s defence policy committee also argued Japan should develop new spy satellites to provide advance warning of a missile launch without having to rely on US or other allies' intelligence.

The defence debate - sensitive in Japan and East Asia because of Japan's past wartime aggression - follows communist North Korea's latest nuclear and missile tests, which have sharply heightened tensions in the region.

Japan faces elections by October, and Prime Minister Taro Aso's conservative LDP has indicated it plans to make security a key campaign issue.

"North Korea may obtain nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles," former defence chief Gen Nakatani said after the meeting.

"Naturally, we need to be able to strike enemy bases within the realm of the self-defence of our country."

Jonathan Thatcher | Seoul | June 2

Reuters - South Korean media reports on Tuesday said North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has anointed his youngest son to continue the family dynasty that has ruled the impoverished communist state since it was founded.

Speculation over the succession has grown after reports that Kim, who took over from his father in 1994, suffered a stroke last year.

Many analysts believe the North's internationally condemned nuclear test a week ago and increasingly belligerent tone was partly aimed at boosting the 67-year-old leader's standing at home to give him more leverage in naming an heir.

Several South Korean media reported on Tuesday that Kim had named the youngest of his three known sons, Kim Jong-un.

Justin McCurry | Tokyo | June 1

The Guardian - North Korea is poised to test launch its most advanced missile, reports said today, a week after it defied the international community and conducted its second nuclear weapons test in three years.

In a move that is certain to raise tensions in the region, the secretive state has transported an intercontinental ballistic missile, theoretically capable of striking the west coast of the US, to a newly-built launch site in Dongchang-ni on the country's north-west coast.

South Korea and Japanese media reports said US satellites and reconnaissance aircraft had recorded the missile arriving at the site, located about 35 miles from the Chinese border, after leaving a weapons research centre on the outskirts of Pyongyang on Saturday.

Choe Sang-Hun | May 28

UPDATE 5/29:

BBC - Chinese fishing boats are reported to be leaving the tense inter-Korean border in the Yellow Sea after North Korea's threat of military action.

On Friday it warned of "self-defence" measures if the UN Security Council imposed sanctions for the nuclear test.

"If the UN Security Council provokes us, our additional self-defence measures will be inevitable," the foreign ministry said in a statement carried by official media.

_{** North Korea slams Security Council as hypocrites
** Gates: No Need to Increase Troop Numbers in S. Korea After North's Threats
** US grapples with idea of permanent nuclear N.Korea:}

"I do believe that diplomacy still has a chance of success, but only if is robust and only if the robustness includes some meaningful coercion components," Perry said at the Council on Foreign Relations think tank on Thursday. ~ William Perry, a former U.S. defense secretary

Seoul | May 27

AFP - North Korea warned of a military response after South Korea joined an anti-proliferation exercise, and said it is no longer bound by the 1953 armistice which ended their war.

A military statement quoted by official media also said the North could no longer guarantee the safety of shipping off its west coast.

It repeated Pyongyang's position that Seoul's decision to join the US-led Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) is tantamount to a declaration of war.

South Korea announced Tuesday it will become a full member of the PSI initiative to curb trade in weapons of mass destruction, after the North tested a nuclear weapon the previous day.

"Any tiny hostile acts against our republic, including the stopping and searching of our peaceful vessels... will face an immediate and strong military strike in response," the statement said.

Tokyo | May 25

Reuters - A Japanese ruling party panel is to propose that pre-emptive strikes against enemy bases be allowed despite the country's pacifist constitution, Kyodo news agency said on Monday, weeks after a North Korean missile launch.

North Korea fired a ballistic missile in April that flew over northern Japan after warning that it planned to launch a satellite, prompting the government to deploy missile interceptors to the area .

" Japan should have the ability to strike enemy bases within the scope of its defence-oriented policy, in order not to sit and wait for death," Kyodo quoted the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) committee as saying in its proposal.

The committee also plans to call for Japan to develop early-warning satellites to detect the launch of missiles towards the country, Kyodo said. Japan currently depends on information from a U.S. early-warning satellite, the agency said.

Jonathan Thatcher | Seoul | May 25

Reuters - North Korea conducted an underground nuclear test on Monday, heightening tension in the economic powerhouse of East Asia and prompting U.N. Security Council members to call an emergency meeting.

Russia said the nuclear test was about equal in power to the atom bomb dropped on the Japanese city of Nagasaki in 1945 at the end of World War Two.

The test sparked condemnation from the international community, which has lurched from promises of massive aid to tough economic sanctions to try to stop the hermit state's efforts to build a nuclear arsenal.

"(North Korea) successfully conducted one more underground nuclear test on May 25 as part of the measures to bolster up its nuclear deterrent for self-defence in every way," its official KCNA news agency said.

The country's first test in October 2006 was considered to have been relatively weak, about 1 kilotonne, suggesting design problems. Russia's military said the latest test had a force of about 20 kilotonnes.

Arms Control Wonk analysis here

Reuters also reports:
**North Korea fires short-range missile
** Japan panel wants "first strikes" against enemies