North Korea Attacks South Korea - Latest Update

[Lankan Ranger]

North Korea Attacks South Korea - Latest Update

Thick plumes of black smoke were rising from a South Korean island on Tuesday afternoon after an unexpected attack by North Korea, killing several people.

The attack began around 2.30 p.m. local time when North Korea fired more than 200 artillery shells near the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong, which has a population of nearly 1,200. As many as 70 houses were reported to be on fire, sending huge plumes of black smoke into the air.

The Korean Broadcasting System (KBS) reported that at least several people had been killed in the attack, while the South Korean Yonhap news agency reported that at least 14 South Korean soldiers had been injured, including four who were seriously injured. At least four civilians were also injured.

Seoul confirmed it responded with artillery fire and scrambled F-16 fighter jets to respond to the sudden attack, which comes days after North Korea unveiled a vast new facility it secretly and rapidly built to enrich uranium.

South Korean government officials, including President Lee Myung-bak, were meeting at an underground bunker in Seoul to discuss how to respond to the attack. Lee said he was trying to prevent a greater conflict, although his spokesman said he was still considering how to respond.

The Bank of Korea said it has scheduled an emergency meeting of senior officials in wake of the attack, which has lowered the Won against the Dollar.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told reporters in wake of the attack that both sides should do things conducive to peace and stability. “We are concerned about the issue and the real situation needs to be confirmed,” he said.

Several killed, others hurt after North Korea attacks South Korean island Breaking News | Wire Update News | News Wires -

 

[Lankan Ranger]

South Korea Scrambles jets, Returns Fire After North Shells Island

South Korea scrambled fighter jets and returned fire after North Korea lobbed dozens of shells into its territory, injuring four soldiers, Yonhap News reported.

A South Korean Defense Ministry official, who declined to be identified, confirmed the shelling, without giving any further details. The military has been put on high alert and will “respond strongly” to further provocation, he said.

Tensions with nuclear-armed North Korea have risen this year following the sinking of a South Korean warship in March that the U.S. and its allies blamed on a torpedo attack. President Barack Obama dispatched his envoy on the country, Stephen Bosworth, to Asian capitals this week after reports by a U.S. scientist that North Korea had revealed to him a “stunning” new uranium-enrichment plant.

The yen and Korean won weakened against the dollar, U.S. stock futures fell and Treasury futures rose as investors sought safe-haven investments following the report.

South Korean President Lee Myoung Bak called an emergency meeting, his office said.

The visit by to the nuclear plant this month by Stanford University professor Siegfried S. Hecker showcased technological advances that highlight the failure of sanctions to force Kim Jong Il’s regime back to disarmament talks.

“The control room was astonishingly modern,” Stanford University professor Siegfried S. Hecker wrote in his Nov. 20 report of the visit eight days earlier to the main reactor site at Yongbyon. “We saw a modern, clean centrifuge plant of more than a thousand centrifuges,” he said, a reference to the high- speed spinning devices that enrich uranium.

No Crisis

While the uranium program is “another in a series of provocative moves,” it doesn’t pose a crisis, Bosworth said yesterday in Seoul. Obama in a Nov. 10 speech in Seoul repeated his call for North Korea to cease acts of violence against the South if it wants to end its diplomatic and economic isolation.

“The U.S. is now at the crossroads of engagement and pressure, and sanctions are clearly not working,” said Yang Moo Jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul. The Obama approach to North Korea “has done nothing but bolster North Korea’s nuclear capabilities,” he said.

North Korea’s reported progress in developing its nuclear energy industry casts doubt on the effectiveness of tougher United Nations sanctions imposed for its second nuclear test in May 2009. The U.S. is pushing for a global effort to choke off funds to the regime in a bid to squeeze military-related industries and force Kim back to six-party disarmament talks that also include China, Russia, South Korea and Japan.

Backpedaling

North Korea has backpedaled on steps to dismantle its nuclear weapons program since the six-party forum last convened in December 2008. In April 2009, the regime said it would restore its main reactor for making weapons-grade plutonium at Yongbyon, which had been disabled under a February 2007 accord.

It denied having a separate uranium-enrichment program, the second means of creating a nuclear device, until September 2009 when it told the UN Security Council it was “weaponizing” plutonium and had almost succeeded in highly enriching uranium.

Satellite images of the Yongbyon site taken on Nov. 4 by the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security showed North Korea was also building a light-water reactor. Hecker, who visited the site with colleagues John W. Lewis and Robert Carlin, confirmed the construction of an “experimental” 25-30 megawatt reactor.

North Korea has 2,000 centrifuges already installed and running at the Yongbyon facility, and making low-enriched uranium, Hecker said he was told on what was his fourth visit to the facility since January 2004. Hecker headed the state-run Los Alamos National Laboratory from 1986 to 1997.

The North Korean facility, which he described as “stunning,” appeared to be designed for civilian nuclear power, although it could be readily converted to produce highly enriched uranium for bombs, he wrote on the website of Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation.

Multiple centrifuges are spun at high speeds to increase the concentration of uranium that can be used in nuclear plants or, in a richer form, in bombs.

S. Korea Scrambles Jets, Returns Fire After North Shells Island - BusinessWeek

 

[Lankan Ranger]

 

[SpArK]

This is getting out of hand. Hope US dont mess things up and everything gets back well and fine..

 

[xenia]

the ruling junta in N.korea is just insane!!
whats the point of inviting trouble?he thinks hez too smart..idiot!

 

[Lankan Ranger]

North Korea bombs South Korean island

North Korea has bombarded a South Korean island with artillery shells, injuring civilians and soldiers and setting more than 60 properties ablaze.

The attack, which comes days after it emerged that North Korea was pressing ahead with its illegal nuclear programme, marks a serious further escalation of tensions on the Korean Peninsular.

South Korea officials said dozens of rounds had landed on Yeonpyeong Island in the Yellow Sea, 50 miles off the South’s northwest coast in an area close a disputed sea border. Other reports suggested as many as 200 shells were fired.

As South Korean forces returned fire, Civilians were evacuated to emergency bunkers, according witnesses quoted by the Seoul-based cable news television channel YTN. Fighter jets were scrambled and an emergency cabinet meeting was called in Seoul.

ictures from the TV channel showed at least four plumes of smoke rising from the island which is the largest in a clutch of smaller islands, with a population of less than 2,000 people.

A South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff official, quoted anonymously by the Associated Press, said dozens of rounds of artillery landed on Yeonpyeong island and confirmed that South Korea had returned fire.
The islands were the scene of two skirmishes between the navies of North and South Korea in 1999 and 2002.

The attack comes after nearly two years of deteriorating relations between the two Koreas, which reached a nadir last March after the sinking of a South Korean corvette, the Cheonan, with the loss of 46 lives.

South Korea has since cut off almost all humanitarian aid to the North, a near bankrupt-state that has been under tight international sanctions since conducting a second nuclear bomb test in 2009 in defiance of UN agreements.

The North has also been facing a degree of political turmoil this year as their ailing leader Kim Jong-il prepares the ground for a dynastic succession that will see power being handed to his youngest son, Kim Jong-un.

North Korea bombs South Korean island - Telegraph

 

[Lankan Ranger]

South Korea has scrambled its F-16 & F-15 jets, North Korea will pay the price for this attack

 

[Lankan Ranger]

 

[Lankan Ranger]

China expresses concern over Korean peninsula fire

China expressed concern over Tuesday's exchange of fire between North and South Korea and urged the two sides to work toward peace and stability on the Korean peninsula.

China said on Tuesday it was "imperative" that six-nation talks aimed at ending North Korea's atomic ambitions be restarted, after Pyongyang's latest nuclear claims sparked international alarm.

North Korea attacks South Korea: reports - Emirates24|7

 

[Lankan Ranger]

 

[Fact_ur_mine]

I think N.Korea has understood that considering their economy position their heavy defense arsenal would get junk and outdated and eventually turn incomparable with their foe. Aggression is their survival policy.

 

[Gold1010]

wow is this new? dude sorry for my unintelligent post but this is big news , how the **** can south korea take this ****?

 

[SpArK]

North Korea attack may be response to drills - Seoul​

10:54 23/11/2010



North Korea’s artillery attack on a South Korean island earlier on Tuesday may have been triggered by military exercises being held in the area, a spokesman for the South Korean presidential administration said.
“Our army was carrying out military training, and there was a telegram from North Korea with a protest and questioning whether this was an attack,” the spokesperson was quoted as saying by South Korea’s Yonhap news agency.
He did not rule out that subsequent artillery fire from the North was a response to the drills.
The training took place on an island not far from Yeonpyeong Island, which was hit by scores of North Korean artillery rounds. The island is home to some 1,200 people.
One South Korean serviceman is reported to have died during the attack, with three seriously injured.
A spokesman for South Korea's joint chief of staff, Lee Bung-woo, told the Xinhua news agency that "South Korea fired some 30 artillery shells back in response."
The attack is the second by North Korea this year against its neighbor in the tense Yellow Sea border area. In March, a North Korean submarine was alleged to have torpedoed a South Korean naval ship, the Cheonan.
The warship sunk near the disputed Northern Limit Line in the Yellow Sea, causing the loss of 46 lives. An international investigation said the North was to blame, but the reclusive regime denied involvement.
North and South Korea remain technically at war, since no peace treaty was signed following the Korean War in 1953. The Demilitarized Zone between the countries is the most heavily armed border in the world.

The latest attack comes after the revelation that the North has created a new uranium enrichment facility.
MOSCOW, November 23 (RIA Novosti)


North Korea attack may be response to drills - Seoul | World | RIA Novosti

 

[CardSharp]

wow is this new? dude sorry for my unintelligent post but this is big news , how the **** can south korea take this ****?

North Korea has a history of doing crazy sht. You guys probably just don't remember it, it blow up part of the SK cabinet in Thailand, it sent commandos to assault the SK presidential palace, it sent suicide missions to start uprisings in SK. Kim J blew up a SK airliner just before the 86 SK Olympics.

Just crazy stuff.

 

[Gold1010]

and theres no response:S? i dont get it