By HYUNG-JIN KIM, Associated Press Writer Hyung-jin Kim, Associated Press Writer – 2 hrs 49 mins ago

SEOUL, South Korea – Tens of thousands of North Koreans rallied in Pyongyang on Monday to condemn the U.N. rebuke of the country's latest nuclear test amid concern the communist regime could conduct another one.

The U.S. and South Korea are scrutinizing 11 underground sites across North Korea where it could conduct a third nuclear test, based on intelligence it may do so in protest of the U.N. Security Council sanctions, Seoul's JoongAng Ilbo newspaper reported earlier Monday.

Tension on the Korean peninsula spiked after the North declared Saturday it would accelerate its nuclear bomb-making program by producing more plutonium and uranium, two key ingredients.

The North also threatened war with any country that tries to stop its ships on the high seas as part of new Security Council sanctions passed in response to Pyongyang's May 25 nuclear test. It conducted its first test in 2006.

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak departed for summit talks in Washington on Tuesday with President Barack Obama that are expected to be dominated by the North's nuclear and missile programs.

In Pyongyang, a massive crowd of North Koreans packed the capital's main square in a rally to condemn the U.N. resolution, footage from APTN in North Korea showed. The isolated, totalitarian regime often organizes such rallies at times of tension with the outside world.

APTN North Korea estimated the crowd at about 100,000.

"We strongly condemn and wholly reject the U.N. Security Council's resolution on sanctions, fabricated at the instigation of U.S. imperialism hell-bent on its attempt at stifling" the North, Kim Ki Nam, a top Workers' Party official, told the crowd.

Participants clapped and chanted "Condemn! Reject!" in unison, pumping clenched fists into the sky.

The North is believed to have enough weaponized plutonium for at least half a dozen atomic bombs, and a U.S. government official said last week that Pyongyang may be preparing for another nuclear test, its third.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss the unreleased information and provided no details.

Also Monday, Yonhap news agency quoted an unidentified intelligence official as saying the North may have already built two to three underground test sites near its known Punggye-ri site in the remote northeast, where it conducted its first and second tests.

South Korea's Defense Ministry and National Intelligence Service said they could not confirm the reports.

A news report from Moscow quoted an official in the Russian military general staff as saying there has been a decrease in visible activity around North Korea's nuclear facilities in recent days.

This could either indicate that the North has prepared for a new underground nuclear test or is taking a break, according to the state-owned RIA-Novosti news agency. It did not name the official, and the general staff could not immediately be reached for comment.

North Korea has also been preparing to fire an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of striking the United States, U.S. officials have said. The North says the nuclear and missile programs are a deterrent against the United States.

Washington fears that cash-strapped North Korea will sell its nuclear technology to rogue nations, spreading the atomic threat.

The regime has also warned it cannot guarantee the safety of South Korean and U.S. navy ships sailing near the disputed western sea border, raising the specter for a maritime confrontation. The area is the scene of two bloody maritime skirmishes between the Koreas in 1999 and 2002.

South Korea's navy chief of staff said a maritime skirmish could occur "at any time" and that his forces were prepared.

"We will cut off the enemy's wrist even if they touch the tip of our finger," Jung Ok-keun said at a ceremony marking a deadly naval clash with North Korea in 1999.

But the Defense Ministry said Monday it has spotted no unusual moves by the North's military.

The strong ties between South Korea and the United States are a thorn in the side of wartime foe North Korea, which accuses the two countries of plotting an attack to topple the communist regime. The allies deny harboring any such intention.

But President Lee said his country's ties with the United States are "key" at a time of "intensifying" security crisis because of North Korea's nuclear and missile tests.

"I will use this summit to reconfirm the strong Korea-U.S. alliance," Lee said in a radio speech before his departure for Washington.

The two Koreas remain technically at war because their three-year conflict ended in a truce, not a peace treaty, in 1953, and they remain divided by a heavily fortified border. The U.S. has 28,500 troops in South Korea.

The two Koreas signed an accord to ease military tensions and promote economic cooperation nine years ago Monday. However, ties have significantly frayed since Lee, a conservative who advocates a hard-line approach, took office last year. The North responded by cutting off ties and halting joint business projects.

___

Associated Press photographer Young-joon Ahn contributed to this report from Imjingak, South Korea.

shaking head emoticon

It says there were 100,000 North Koreans at the rally- let me just say this, for whatever amount of time it would take to deprogram them from the lies they've been fed, let's say 2 months just as an example, if you put them in South Korea to live for those 2 months, not a single one of them would return to that rally.

I think this is Jim's best headline yet!

I agree Cathy! I came in to this thread to comment on the title!

Cathy and Jamie, don't encourage him! Because of Jim's "headlines", this forum is probably already flagged by the C.I.A. as belonging to a group of non-registered foreign agents of a subversive enemy government, under the guise of "Korean drama lovers".

All of our backgrounds are probably being investigated right now without our knowledge!! One by one, we will probably be dragged off to Guantanamo or wherever, and interrogated for our subversive activities, and it will all be Jim's fault! And even though you are in Wales, that includes you too, Jamie.

So when you start noticing that people are dropping off the forum, you'll known why. See you all in federal prison!

muscovy_2000 wrote:

this forum is probably already flagged by the C.I.A. as belonging to a group of non-registered foreign agents of a subversive enemy government, under the guise of "Korean drama lovers".

You mean that I sat through 130+ episodes of "Dae Jo Young" for nothing?
And I memorized all those important facts about Korean adoption rules,
mothers-in-law, and humidifiers, too.

Watch.......somebody's gonna' turn the new t-shirts upside down and inside out,
and held up to a strong light.....there's probably a water-mark of the lovely leader
that shows right through. And as they frequently say in a Chinese restaurant:
our Peking duck is cooked!

I never trusted that Theresa person at the get-together lunch.
She always looked suspicious to me; probably a CIA plant.
Selling t-shirts to make money for this web site.......my foot.


*

How do guys read the entire topic title?
I get tired half way through & click on something else.

Chris, you are a mind reader.

Future posts regarding the extremely dangerous situation developing on the Korean peninsula will be founf here:
http://www.thebgb.net/forum_12.html

So you were going easy on us with the thread titles, huh?

Certain people found my titles to be objectionable.

Jim wrote:

.......the extremely dangerous situation developing on the Korean peninsula

You know, when I read today's reports that a North Korean missile
has the range to reach Hawaii, I instantly thought........

Could it be possible that this nutcase "leader" is planning another Pearl Harbor,
deliberately, so that North Korea gets melted in retaliation, and he dies "in glory?"
With the thinking of the French king Louis XV, of "After me, the deluge."

Or "the thinking" of an ill, elderly man, who can't bear the thought of his own death,
and then being followed by a successor? A case of you can take it with you?

Somebody please tell me that I'm wrong.



*

I think he believes we'll do nothing, no matter what he does. He's probably right.

Jim wrote:

Certain people found my titles to be objectionable.

Really? WHY?

There's a difference between being 'fuzzy and fluffy' and being insanely 'politically correct'.

I thought your titles were portraying a serious situation, but in a funny/ironic manner.

Surely the only person they could insult would be Lil Kim?

Anyway, yeah, it is serious, and I'm interested, so I'm glad you're continuing this on the BGB, where we can still post about Bush and Obama too

AND SERIOUSLY, I'M NOT INTENDING ON STIRRING THINGS IN THIS POST

Jamie! So glad to see you are still here. Since you were gone for the past day or two, I thought you were already under interrogation by British Intelligence. Bad, bad Jim with those bad, bad "headlines" is going to get us all thrown in jail!

(I hope you all realize my posts are in jest--I'm trying to make light of a very serious subject, just like Jim is doing with his headlines).

haha, yeah, I realise you are!

Yeah, I'm only currently online every other day, more or less.

The day I'm NOT online, I'm reporting back to my leaders on what intelligence on you all I've gathered.

(and in the case of Greg, no intelligence whatsoever ..boom.boom... Damn I miss Greg when I have an insult to make!)

jamie wrote:

(and in the case of Greg, no intelligence whatsoever ..boom.boom... Damn I miss Greg when I have an insult to make!)

Well, since you've all managed to scare Greg away from the forum, and since it wouldn't do for you young'uns to insult any of us "older" ladies of the forum, you'll need to find another young man that you can all insult instead of Greg. Let's see now, who's the youngest member of this forum? Paul? Will? Lucas? (Not Dan, because he might get mad and mess up the forum for us, so definitely not Dan). Shall we all vote for a new "insultee" to replace Greg?

muscovy_2000 wrote:

jamie wrote: (and in the case of Greg, no intelligence whatsoever ..boom.boom... Damn I miss Greg when I have an insult to make!) Well, since you've all managed to scare Greg away from the forum, and since it wouldn't do for you young'uns to insult any of us "older" ladies of the forum, you'll need to find another young man that you can all insult instead of Greg. Let's see now, who's the youngest member of this forum? Paul? Will? Lucas? (Not Dan, because he might get mad and mess up the forum for us, so definitely not Dan). Shall we all vote for a new "insultee" to replace Greg?

Sorry but no one will ever replace Gregglea

I wasn't upset by Jim's funny titles. If I understand it, Jim's just mocking the Communist Propaganda Machine at work in North Korea, not the people of North Korea. Most of us Baby Boomers probably get Jim's joke, since we remember hearing the same sort of stuff from East Germany, Russia and the rest of the Communist Bloc nations during the Iron Curtain Days.

It is a scary situation but I believe we will see China issuing a warning to North Korea very shortly. While China does not want a democratic government supported by the USA in North Korea, I do not think they will continue to tolerate nuclear armament in North Korea. I heard on CNN tonight that North Korea's military is believed to be 1,000,000 soldiers. I wonder how many of them joined the military just to get food on a regular basis or have decent living conditions?

I think China would rather deal with a democratically elected government rather than the current regime in NK. If the North's government collapses, what would fill the vacuum? Would SK assume control, as was the case in Germany? That might be acceptable to China if our military presence on the Peninsula was eliminated. Even if it wasn't, a united Korea would naturally gravitate toward China in the long run, given their long history of interaction. The problem is, quickly getting rid of the current NK regime before they provoke a war.

I deeply regret if what I have written above has offended anyone...

Chris wrote:

How do guys read the entire topic title? I get tired half way through & click on something else.

Yea - what she said.

 

muscovy_2000 wrote:

Cathy and Jamie, don't encourage him! Because of Jim's "headlines", this forum is probably already flagged by the C.I.A. as belonging to a group of non-registered foreign agents of a subversive enemy government, under the guise of "Korean drama lovers".

This is not true. As photographic evidence here is a snapshot from our recent clandestine ... I mean
dinner meeting (funny though the photo was taken by a man in dark glasses with an earpiece):


 

I just have a short attention span.

Bob!


Where's the secret agent giraffe?

catburt28 wrote:

Bob! Where's the secret agent giraffe?

curses, you are too clever for the naughty Northerner people.
he has been found out!

 

The story unfolds! Too bad you can't read THE TRUTH here, but you can here: http://www.thebgb.net/topic_with_post_114965.html#114965