North Korea could test-fire missile this month

The Associated Press , Seoul | Fri, 02/13/2009 5:11 PM | World

North Korea's most advanced long-range missile is being assembled at a launch site for a possible test-firing later this month, a newspaper said Friday. The South responded by preparing "for all situations."

The Taepodong-2 missile has recently been moved to Musudan-ni site on the North's eastern seaboard, but has not yet been seen near the launch pad, South Korea's mass-circulation Chosun Ilbo reported.

"We assume that they are currently assembling the first and second-stage rockets," the newspaper quoted an unidentified South Korean government official as saying.

South Korean and American intelligence authorities believe that the North could test-fire the missile, potentially capable of reaching the western U.S., around Feb. 25, the first anniversary of South Korean President Lee Myung-bak's inauguration, the paper said.

The National Intelligence Service, Seoul's top spy agency, said it could not confirm the report, citing the sensitivity of intelligence matters.

North Korea's saber-rattling has been interpreted as an attempt to grab President Barack Obama's attention, though his defense secretary, Robert Gates, has played down reports of possible North Korean missile launch preparations, noting Tuesday that Pyongyang's last such test in 2006 was a failure.

But Seoul and Washington have issued repeated warnings to North Korea over a possible launch, with South Korea's new Unification Minister Hyun In-taek telling lawmakers Friday that the North should not fire a missile.

Hyun, a key architect of South Korean President Lee Myung-bak's hard-line policy on North Korea, said Seoul was "closely watching the movements of North Korean troops and making thorough preparations for all situations."

South Korea is pushing to establish a missile defense system to counter the threats posed by the North's missiles, Prime Minister Han Seung-soo said at a parliamentary session.

On Thursday, Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan said a test launch would threaten stability on the Korean peninsula, isolate the North and trigger punitive measures, citing U.N. Security Council resolutions condemning the country's missile tests in 1998 and 2006.

Late last month, Pyongyang declared it would scrap peace accords with South Korea and warned of a war on the divided peninsula.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is scheduled to visit South Korea next week and will no doubt address the deteriorating ties on the peninsula. Also on the agenda will be stalled international disarmament talks on North Korea's nuclear programs.

While the reports of missile launches raise particular concern given North Korea's nuclear arsenal, Obama's top intelligence official said Thursday that North Korea probably would not use nuclear weapons against U.S. forces unless Pyongyang thought it was on the verge of "military defeat and risked an irretrievable loss of control." North Korea is not believed to have the technology to mount a nuclear weapon on a missile head.

National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair told lawmakers that North Korea probably views its nuclear arsenal more as a means of deterrence and a source of prestige and "coercive diplomacy" than as a military tool.

Ties between the Koreas have soured since the conservative Lee took office one year ago and broke with the two previous administrations' policy of providing unconditional aid to the North. Pyongyang has responded by cutting off ties, halting inter-Korean projects and restricting the number of South Koreans who can cross the border.

The rival states are still technically at war since the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty.

76 dead, towns destroyed in Australia's 'hell'

Monday, February 9, 2009 5:31 PM

76 dead, towns destroyed in Australia's 'hell'

Tanalee Smith , The Associated Press , Healesville, Australia | Sun, 02/08/2009 3:48 PM | World

Wall of flame: A fire truck moves away from out of control flames from a bushfire in the Bunyip Sate Forest near the township of Tonimbuk, 125 kilometers west of Melbourne, Saturday. Walls of flame roared across southeastern Australia, razing scores of homes, forests and farmland in the sunburned country's worst wildfire disaster in a quarter century. AP

Towering flames razed entire towns in southeastern Australia and burned fleeing residents in their cars as the death toll rose to 76 on Sunday, making it the country's deadliest fire disaster.

At least 700 homes were destroyed in Saturday's inferno when searing temperatures and wind blasts produced a firestorm that swept across a swath of the country's Victoria state, where all the deaths occurred.

"Hell in all its fury has visited the good people of Victoria in the last 24 hours," Prime Minister Kevin Rudd told reporters as he toured the fire zone on Sunday. "It's an appalling tragedy for the nation."

Thusands of exhausted volunteer firefighters were still battling about 30 uncontrolled fires Sunday in Victoria, officials said, though conditions had eased considerably. It would be days before they were brought under control, even if temperatures stayed down, officials said.

Government officials said the amy would be deployed to help out, and Rudd announced immediate emergency aid of 10 million Australian dollars ($7 million).

The tragedy echoed across Australia. Leaders in other states - most of which have been struck by their own fire disasters in the past - pledged to send money and volunteer firefighter. Funds for public donations opened Sunday quickly started swelling.

Witnesses described seeing trees exploding and skies raining ash on Saturday as temperatures of up 117 F (47 C) combined with blasting winds to create furnace-like conditions.

Police said they were hampered from reaching burned-out aras to confirm details of deaths and property loss. The official toll climbed higher in steps during the day, reaching 76 at 20 locations by Sunday evening, according to a police statement. It was expected to keep rising.

Australia's previous worst fires were in 1983, when blazes killed 75 people and razedmore than 3,000 homes in Victoria and South Australia state.

Police said charred bodies had been found in cars in at least two places - suggesting people were engulfed in flames as they tried to flee.

At least 80 people were hospitalized with burns. Dr. John Coleridge of Alfred Hospital, one of the lagest in the fire zone, said injuries ranged from scorches on the feet of people who fled across burning ground to life-threatening burns. At least three would probably die, he said.

The fires were so massive NASA took satellite photographs of the smoke cloud.

Deputy Commissioner Kieran Walshe said polce suspected some of the fires were set deliberately.

Victoria Country Fire Authority official Stuart Ord told Sky News some 460 square miles (1,190 square kilometers) had been burned by Sunday.

Marysville, a former gold rush town that was home to about 800 people 80 miles (130 kilometers) north of Mebourne, was almost completely wiped out.

"Marysville is no more," Senior Constable Brian Cross told The Associated Press as he manned a checkpoint Sunday in nearby Healesville on a road leading into the town. No deaths were reported in Marysville, but police sealed it off because they feared bodies wou be found there.

Television footage from Marysville showed a scene of utter devastation: house after house was a smoking ruin, with wooden beams in cinders, piles of blackened bricks and iron roofing sheets twisted in the heat. The police station, schoolhouse and pub were gutted. Burned-out cars littered he streets.

Townships in the Kinglake nearby district, a normally sleepy region of farms and weekend-getaway spots where at least a dozen people died, were also ruined.

Victoria Country Fire Service spokesman Hayden Lane said 640 houses had been confirmed destroyed - 550 in the Kinglake district - andthat tally was expected to rise.

"This is our house here - totally gone," Wayne Bannister told Sky News, standing with his wife Anita amid a tangle of blackened timber and bricks in Kinglake.

Another man, who was not named, described to Sky battling the flames with a garden hose until he heard first his car gas tank, then a house propane gas tank, explode. He and his wife fled through a window.

"It rained fire," he said. "We hid in our olive grove for an hour and watched our house burn."

Residents reported the fire tearing through the region at high speed, burning everything before it.

Temperatures in the area dropped to about 77 F (25 C) on Sunday, but along with cooler conditions came wind changes that officials said could push fires in unpredictable directions.

Dozens of fires were also burning in New South Wales state, where temperatures remained high for the third consecutive day. Properties were not under immediate threat.

Wildfires are common during the Australian summer. Government research shows about half of the roughly 60,000 fires each year are deliberately lit or suspicious. Lightning and people using machinery near dry brush are other causes.

Australians survey fire damage

Wildfires raging across parts of south-eastern Australia

Israeli ambassador targeted in shoe attack

Israeli ambassador targeted in shoe attack

(02-05) 09:09 PST STOCKHOLM, (AP) --

Swedish police arrested two protesters after they hurled a shoe and books at Israel's ambassador while he gave a speech at a university seminar, a police official said Thursday.

Ambassador Benjamin Dagan was not injured in Wednesday night's attack at Stockholm University, police spokeswoman Petra Sjolander said.

"The shoe only brushed his leg, and the books didn't hit him," she said.

Dagan was participating in a seminar on Israel's upcoming elections and the situation in the Middle East, when a man and a woman in the audience started throwing objects at him.

Grainy video of the incident posted on YouTube showed how a group of protesters in the audience started shouting while books were tossed toward the front of the room.

Sjolander said both suspects, who were not identified, were released after questioning. She said a prosecutor had launched an investigation and that the two were suspected of attempted assault and disturbing public order.

An Israeli Embassy spokesman declined to comment on the attack.

The incident echoed similar attacks in recent weeks. An Iraqi journalist threw his shoes at President George W. Bush during a news conference in December and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao was attacked by a shoe-throwing protester in Britain on Monday.