N. Korea Preparing For Another Nuke Test?

U.S. Intelligence Suggests North Koreans Might Test Again

(CBS/AP) 
North Korea remained defiant, with its No. 2 ranking leader, Kim Yong Nam, saying the country would strengthen its military and "achieve a final victory in the historic standoff with the U.S." His televised remarks didn't touch directly on the sanctions.

U.S. officials were preparing a diplomatic swing through Asia to address divisions over how to impose the new sanctions. The measures, approved Saturday, also include an embargo on major weapons to Pyongyang and the freezing of the assets of businesses linked to the North's weapons programs.

The top U.S. envoy on North Korea's nuclear program, Christopher Hill, met on Monday with his Japanese counterpart, Kenichiro Sasae, and said the two agreed to implement the sanctions swiftly.

Hill told reporters in Tokyo that the common threat from North Korea has helped unite the regional powers, particularly China.

"I feel that we have a great deal of similar thinking with China. I think this nuclear test has brought China much closer to us," Hill said.

The U.S. diplomatic campaign was to continue Wednesday when Rice was to arrive in Japan before traveling to South Korea and China. She was expected to have a three-way meeting with the Japanese and South Korean foreign ministers Thursday in Seoul, Japanese officials said.

Meanwhile, Russia's top negotiator on the North Korean nuclear issues says Pyongyang may be willing to return to six-party talks on its nuclear weapons program, reports CBS News' Don Kirk (audio).

Amid the diplomacy, Iran — which has also attracted global criticism for its nuclear program — issued its first official reaction to the U.N. sanctions. The country's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, rejected the American-initiated measures, accusing the United States of using the U.N. Security Council as a "weapon to impose its hegemony."

Japan has taken the hardest line against the North. On Friday, the Cabinet approved closing ports to North Korean ships and banning trade with the North.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told reporters Monday that his country was considering more sanctions that might be drawn up after it takes "into consideration actions by international society."

Australia announced that it would go beyond the U.N. resolution by banning the North's ships from entering its ports, except in dire emergencies.

"I think that will help Australia make a quite clear contribution to the United Nations sanctions regime," Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said.

China — North Korea's biggest trading partner — had balked at the cargo inspections, saying they would increase tensions.

But on Monday, customs inspectors examined cargo trucks bound for the North in the border city of Dandong. The officers opened the back of each truck and looked at its cargo, though they did not open individual containers.

Last week, reporters who visited the border post did not see inspectors open any trucks.

"The inspections are routine and conducted by quarantine officials," said Li Canhao, an officer at the Nanping crossing, in an eastern valley surrounded by mountains.

In a further sign of fraying ties between China and North Korea, the Chinese have been building a massive barbed wire and concrete fence along parts of its border with the North.

Although the project was approved in 2003, the fence-building appears to have picked up since the test was announced. Scores of soldiers have descended on farmland near the border-marking Yalu River to erect concrete barriers 8 to 15 feet tall and string barbed wire between them, farmers and visitors to the area said.

The sanctions should not cut off the flow of basic foodstuffs to the North, which has endured years of famine caused by bad harvests and poor economic policies.

But the U.N.'s food agency said Monday that millions of North Koreans face "real hardship" this winter due to reduced food aid from foreign donors.

Mike Huggins, a WFP spokesman who just returned from a five-day visit to North Korea, told reporters in Beijing, "If that food aid is not there, then there is going to be very real hardship."

[laurieleemoo]

by the way phil fin---i feel sorry for you ---you sound so doomed---so defeated--so pessimistic. Gawd ---you must be miserable. I guess it is all the matter of the way you look at things.

[laurieleemoo]

phil fin-- i will tell you who is childish--you and your liberal friends who DO NOTHING but call our President names. Do bad that is the only thing they do seem to be productive in---SPREADING THE HATE FOR OUR PRESIDENT. And frankly----if you call stating my opinion and displeasure---pushing people around---so be it---but i call it freedom of speech and telling people like it is---no political correctness bull involved here. I call it as i see it-------No matter who you are or who you think you are. And frankly if you and all your liberal friends CAN'T TAKE IT-----THEN DON'T DISH IT OUT. "DON'T CROSS THE RIVER, IF YOU CAN'T SWIM THE TIDE". By the way---your last comment----sounds CHILDISH to me!!!

[laurieleemoo]

once again phil n fin----SOUNDS LIKE *** TO ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[laurieleemoo]

oh alpha--about the spending---how can you just totally disregard 9/11 and see that we now live in a world where we WILL be spending more money for our National Security. We have had deficits before---but for not as good of a reason. You can not JUST DISREGARD THE REASON WE HAVE A DEFICIT.

[laurieleemoo]

it will kill two birds with one stone---stop the spread of nuclear weapons and get rid of the slave labor abuse in China----How can that be a bad thing?

[laurieleemoo]

alpha10---okay, lets look at this a different way if you would like---don't look at it as a boycott to the China Product---look at it as 'spreading the wealth' or how about this 'not putting all your eggs in one basket'! What good is the WTO if americans are brainswashed into believing we have NO CHOICE but to buy the chinese product. Look buying from other countries is good for everyone. In the end--it is better for us if these countries can start thriving on their own---and with a little spreading of the business---they just might. We should not be doing business with China anyway as they are one of the top HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSERS. Have you seen the Richard Gere documentary put out a few years back? Those child slave labors are locked in cells at night and then the guards come in and rape them----these are the children we are also taking advantage of due to CHEAP LABOR in CHINA. You can argue all the reasons in the world WHY we have to continue doing business in China------but rather why don't you spend your time better, BY DOING WHAT IS RIGHT--not buy China products and let the pieces fall where they may. It is not always easy doing what is right-----but in the end----you will find it works out for the best. Sometimes doing what is right does require initial sacrifice---but it will pay off in the end.

[bluestardad]

Bush and Rove's October Suprise is another War! Stay the Course, Vote Republican and pick up that soap.

[alphaa10-2009]

laurieleemon said, "Further, we can never bring about change if we do not even try---if we continue to listen to people brainwash us and tell us that we have no choice but to buy China's products... [we need] to have a message sent to the Chinese government LOUD AND CLEAR from the AMERICAN PEOPLE... its called BOYCOTT CHINA."
-------
Actually, a trade war does not rebuild US infrastructure wasted by NAFTA. And the PRC holds a title to the US money market, as well. Paul Volker is pessimistic about this situation and attributes the problem, not to the Chinese, but to intoxicating influence of lobby and campaign money on our congress, which refuses to rouse itself for anything but its own reelection campaigns.

Volker says the US is indeed in trouble because of its imbalance in payments, rendering us a debtor nation failing to produce even as much as it consumes. This attitude has become institutionalized, he says, by an administration which has no more concern for overspending than the Democrats it once condemned. Pointedly, Clinton left office with a budget surplus and Bush simply wasted it, compounding the deficit he created with reckless "tax cuts" for the upper five percent which did not jump start the economy. Under Bush, the US economy toys with a condition not seen since the days of staglation.

[peterbaldwin-2009]

Weeks prior to the US invasion of Iraq Bush asserted that he wasn't going to fall for Kim Jong's nuclear weapons claims(New York Times). Bush essentially said North Korea was bluffing, dispite the intelligence community making the opposite assessment at the time. Today with the scientific verification that the explosion was in fact nuclear, we have proof once again that Bush had it all wrong. Think about it. Bush said Saddam had nuclear (pronounced nucular) weapons and he didn't, and he said Kim Jong didn't have them and they did. Then he launched an unnecessary war and started calling himself a war president (landing on aircraft carriers dressed up as a pilot and donning Star Trek attire). Why isn't this guy in a mental institution yet?

[phil-in-fin]

To laurieleemoo:

"So the fact, that they hate us-----REALLY DOES NOT SAY MUCH!!!!!"

I can really see why the world is closer to obliteration than ever before.

No one cares what people think about Americans, so it is as if this gives America the right to push everybody else around because, well, they already hate us, so what difference does it make ...

That is except to "other" everybody and everything, to make it easier to hate, no one cares: you are either a liberal, a conservative, a Democrat, a Republican, evil, saintly, ally, axis, for the terrorists, against the terrorists, a this, a that ... the list is endless.

Such a childish attitude.

No one is allowed to be objective anymore.

You know nothing, except the few cubic inches inside you skull - and even that is questionable.

[radiob-2009]

to newster1 you are telling like it is,laurieleemoo is a bit young I beleive and has no understanding of the WTO or the tax breaks that were in the middle class tax cut Bush supposedly gave us.It is funny I made more money during Clinton and paid less in taxes.I never owed the goverment money until Bush took office.I have been a CPA for years and I do not get a real tax break.

[wordland]

And yes it`s true we made a mistake
with dealing with China in trade...
We were pretty stupid allowing our enemies to make all of our products.

But SELECTIVE sanctions may work.

[wordland]

It looks like alot of the comments are about China.
And I think that`s a good sign!
I`m writing this from Japan, where I live
and I have a real interest in this issue because
we may have a war...here in Japan.
I essentially agree more or less with everybody on this site anyway...
DO SOMETHING about China.
I really doubt that China will do anything constructive..so maybe the sanctions should be placed on China as well...
Time to stand up and deal with North Korea before they test another bomb...and perhaps
sanctions that will really matter will only come through sanctions on China which is feeding the North Koreans...with food and oil!
If china will put pressure on the North Koreans we may be able to solve this problem without a war.
If it gets any worse however I predict a war within 6 months to 2 years...after North Korea tests their next bomb.
We definitely need to do something...
overt or covert...

[nothappyatall]

aurieleemoo: oh YEAH, boycott China!1 RIIIIIGHT, you ever look at the labels of anything you buy miss?
Do it some time, EVERYTHING you buy, from parts in your car, stereos, tv sets, computers, consumer goods, clothes etc you will find the "Made in China" labels.
Coat I bought from LL Bean and hat- Made in China, EVERYTHIN I bought at Wal-mart a month ago- MADE IN CHINA.
If we boycott China the shelves would be bare.

[nothappyatall]

Sanctions dont work they are a LAUGH, even NK is laughing.
CHances are good they have stockpiled a LOT, knowing full well once they revealed they had the bomb we would do sanctions, knowing that would come they almost certainly stockpiled as much material as they could for more bombs. SO the upshot is while BUSH and his regime hit the WRONG country- Iraq and pittered away half a trillion dollars and our military resources, NK has been building nukes, now it's TOO LATE to do a dam thing about it cauise sanctions wont work and BUSH refuses to talk to them.

Get ready for WW111

[d33pthroat]

China and North Korea go way back. And, China knows that the Americans hawks don't like the Chinese much either.

So, to think that sanctions are going to chnage anything is utter naivete.

Hill says "I think this nuclear test has brought China much closer to us". Yeah right!!

Sure the Chinese will lift a few truck tarps and open a few tailgates but wait a few days.. it will be back to business as usual.

Sanctions won't do much. It is time the Americans stop thinking that the Muslims and North Koreans are irrational beasts who should be killed like vermin. They are humans like us who just want what is their due in this world. Engaging in dialog that respects the other nations' citizens sovereign rights is what will end all the lunacy in the world.

[laurieleemoo]

I have to go now---love and god bless to all----even though we disagree.

[laurieleemoo]

so i guess we actually agree ha!ha!

[laurieleemoo]

okay will i guess we agree that we disagree as GW would say

[laurieleemoo]

hey hey big al---okay lets see, first, of course you can not LITERALLY smell a democrat---it was a figure of speach. However, as I said, the pessimism of the person I was referring to WAS distinctive and undeniable as i said before. Pessimism is a natural part of being a liberal I guess. Oh, and i WILL stop with the criticism of the liberals JUST AS SOON AS THEY STOP THE CRITICISM OF OUR PRESIDENT. until then, what is good for the goose is good for the gander!! Oh and the nuke issue---well i would say that is a little more serious than the child's play you described---but i understood where you were coming from anyway.. However, i do disagree that just because you have nuclear weapons makes your economy okay-----because RUSSIA blows that theory right out of the water! Their economy sucks and thats all their is to it