Iran testing nuclear bomb in North Korea?

The South Korean Foreign Ministry Institute submitted a report on December 24th, that North Korea was planning to test another nuclear weapon at the beginning of the year. Since the artillery attack last month between the two Korean nations, South Korea has also reported that North Korea is digging a tunnel for that specific purpose of carrying out nuclear testing.

But there is more fun nuclear news! The cozy relationship of the Kim Jong-Il dictatorial government and the equally insane Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has become more closer than ever before. It has been no secret that Iran and North Korea have developed relations with one another to accomplish their nuclear ambitions, including selling Iran nuclear technology, which includes ways to build Shahab-3 ballistic missiles. In fact, several scientists from Iran have recently headed to North Korea to agree to a nuclear test and have apparently paid money to its government to do so.

What should make this situation even more important to the people in Washington? Well, Fox News had a rather alarming report today that WikiLeaks has released cables that indicate Iran has advanced missiles that could carry nuclear warheads, enough to target every single capital city in Western Europe.

Now, we have two of former President Bush's"axis of evil", which by the way that the United States chose not to deal with years ago, and now for the first time they've been working on nuclear collaboration and quite frankly, very public about it. The enriched uranium in North Korea and their more violent approaches as of late, should give everyone a very clear indication that something bad is going to most likely happen on the horizon. It is quite clear that North Korea's uranium will also help Iran in the long term, which explains why Iran is wanting to test its nuclear bombs in North Korea.

Iran as it continues to defy the United Nations over its nuclear project and it does not seem to be bothered at all over the sanctions the UN has imposed against it. Any country in the Middle East that has a nuclear weapon which they can turn around and sell to a terrorist group, should set off alarm bells everywhere, and this upcoming nuclear test that Iran wants to hold in North Korea should be the final wake up call.

North Korea backing off... for now

Despite constant warnings to cease South Korean military drills, North Korea has apparently demonstrated a sudden change of heart.

Last month, North Korea opened fire on the island of Yeonpyeong, which killed several South Korean civilians and military personnel, resulting in an intensified military response by the South. North Korea warned South Korea that if they continued their military drills, they would not hesitate in attacking.

But it seems all of that changed today when North Korea stated that they would not attack, instead going back to the negotiating table with the South, China and the U.S, after a visit from New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, who is also a former envoy to North Korea and former Ambassador to the United Nations.

While Governor Richardson believes that there have been positive developments between North and South Korea, there is still some speculation as to whether this is just another farce from North Korea, by telling the world that they will not retaliate, letting the tensions cool for a while and then orchestrating a devastating attack on the South. The North is also in a regime change from its supreme leader Kim Jong-il, handing over the dictatorship to his son, Kim Jong-un.

The top concern of North Korea is of course their nuclear program. Enriched uranium was discovered in one of North Korea's plants last month after a shocking visit by an American scientist. The uranium is of course for their nuclear bombs, which are to be used against South Korea. The efforts to stop North Korea's nuclear ambitions has been met with failure over and over again, and UN sanctions are not doing anything either.

But in the interim, the good news is that North Korea will back down from retaliation against South Korea. But the real lingering question is any surprise future attack from the North?

Maybe this time, it will be a nuclear bomb.

Tension between North and South Korea

Just two days after the discovery of its enriched uranium for its nuclear program, the hostile dictatorship of North Korea fired artillery against South Korea earlier today, for about an hour on the island of Yeonpyeong. The attack left two South Korean marines dead, and left 16 wounded including soldiers and civilians. It is probably the deadliest attack between the two discontent countries in over fifty years.

In a country where people are brainwashed, shut off from the rest of the world, cell phones and computers banned, no economy, no food, citizens are thrown in concentration camps and suffer from disease and starvation, one would wonder how North Korea is so powerful? One of those factors is primarily its communist dictatorship run by Supreme Leader Kim Jong-Il, and their ability to have acquired technology from the now-defunct Soviet Union, and have grown its men into the fourth largest standing army in the world.

The more friendly, U.S. backed South Korea has responded to the attacks by putting its military on high alert, while North Korea has indicated that if any further retaliation, serious consequences will follow. The situation between the two Koreas seems to be tittering on the brink of getting very out of hand. For one, South Korea knows that North Korea is not exactly a country to fool around with and will be destroyed, prompting intervention from American forces; and secondly, if another Korean war does occur, most likely China will cease from providing food and investment to North Korea, since they have relayed heavily on China due to Kim Jong-Il’s dictatorial leadership.

The United States has condemned the attacks, and President Obama is apparently ‘outraged’ and the six party talks between the U.S., North Korea, South Korea, Russia, Japan and China, have stalled. But why he is outraged, remains unclear, since it should not be any surprise to anyone that North Korea has been secretly planning assaults against South Korea since basically the end of World War II, and there have been minor attacks taken place several times over the last fifty years.

Most likely, as violence increases from North Korea, the United States will enforce sanctions against North Korea, which of course, will do absolutely nothing.

APEC moves forward on expanding free trade in Asian Pacific Region

President Obama, as part of his visit to Asia earlier this week, participated in the two day Asia-Pacific Economy Cooperative summit in Japan this weekend which focused on an effort to call for more ‘liberalized free trade’ in the Asian Pacific Region.

Some leaders in the region however, are not buying this. Apparently, President Obama was unable to come to an agreement with South Korea, which the United States anticipated on completing during the summit, known as the U.S.-South Korea trade deal. This has left many questions and concerns with other countries based in the region. The trade deal with South Korea was to become a catalyst for a more open and less restrictive regional trade deal called The Transpacific Partnership in the Asian Pacific Region.

Despite the fact that the United States’ trade deficit has diminished in the last few years, now to the tune of about $400 billion for fiscal year 2010, Obama seems to show a great deal of heavy dependency on establishing these trade agreements as he views Asia being one of the greatest priorities for solving diplomacy and importing jobs back into the United States. Again, it comes back to the notion of not only China, but now other countries based in the Asian Pacific Region, as to whether the United States can remain committed to such free trade proposals, while trying to stabilize our monetary supply and inflation

There is no question that the United States has, and will continue to feel the heat from China, since their currency is devalued, they can export production for far less, than what it would cost the United States to do the same job. This same week, President Obama at the G-20 summit failed to try to get garner support to influence China to undervalue their currency to the U.S. dollar, and believe that it was free trade. They can say it is free trade, while the United States continues to get murdered by such exports, but when it comes to correcting the imbalances, well, then that is not called free trade.

At the height of forging ahead with free trade throughout the Asian Pacific Region is one thing, but to basically continue to criticize China’s currency in relation to free trade, for the idiocy of our own monetary policies, is absurdly irresponsible.