S Korea to crack down on Internet users praising N Korea

South Korea is stepping up its investigation into Internet users that are praising North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and performing other “anti-state acts”.

South Korea operates strict laws with up to seven years in prison for any citizen that supports or encourages anti-state entities. North Korea is as anti-state as they come in South Korea, and the number of positive mentions of the country’s close neighbour has increased across the web in South Korea .

Officials leading the investigation claim that comments have gone “beyond what can be tolerated within the freedom of expression”.

Asia One details recent North Korea-related Internet activity.

According to a KCC report, the number of pro-North websites detected that were based overseas was 122. Forty-four are still operating while the rest have been shut down.

The number of those who were caught producing pieces of writing with expressions praising the North has steadily increased in recent years. The figure, which stood at 13 in 2003, increased to 22 in 2009 and 64 last year, according to the prosecution.

Despite the focus on fighting Internet users promoting North Korea, the South Korean government is planning a media campaign to promote the benefits of reunifying with its neighbour.

The crackdown comes after a boy rumoured to be North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il’s 17 year old grandson made waves across the Internet. His activity on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, blogs and other sites was picked by news organisations in South Korea and beyond, after his identity emerged after he joined a new school in Bosnia.

The teenage has since reduced his online profile, restricting access to and deleting a number of accounts that had been publicly available.

Source: The Next Web

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North Korea threatens to attack South Korea, US

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea threatened Sunday to enlarge its nuclear arsenal and mercilessly attack South Korea and the United States, as the allies prepared to start annual joint military drills which the North says are a rehearsal for an invasion.

North Korea routinely issues similar threats against South Korea and the U.S. over any joint military drills. The latest warning, however, could rekindle tensions on the Korean peninsula which sharply rose last year after two deadly incidents blamed on the North.

North Korea fired artillery at a front-line South Korean island in November, killing four people. The barrage came eight months after the sinking of a South Korean warship which killed 46 sailors. North Korea has denied firing a torpedo at the ship.

FILE - In this Feb. 25, 2011 file photo, South Korean marines on an inflatable boat aim their machine guns during a military exercise to prepare for a possible North Korea's surprise attack on the Han River in Gimpo, South Korea. North Korea's military threatened Sunday, Feb. 27, 2011 to fire at South Korea, as Seoul prepared to start annual joint drills with U.S. troops, maneuvers Pyongyang says are a rehearsal for an invasion. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon, File)

North Korea called the planned South Korea-U.S. drills a "dangerous military scheme."

"The army and people of (North Korea) will return bolstered nuclear deterrent of our own style for the continued nuclear threat by the aggressors," North Korea's military said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.

It accused South Korea and the U.S. of plotting to topple the North's communist government. It said if provoked, North Korea would start a "full-scale" war, take "merciless counteraction" and turn Seoul into a "sea of flames."

North Korea also warned it will take "our own missile striking action" against what it called moves by the U.S. and South Korea to eliminate the North's missiles. The statement didn't elaborate.

Earlier Sunday, the North's military warned that it would destroy South Korean border towns if Seoul continues to allow activists to launch propaganda leaflets toward the communist country.

In a separate statement carried by KCNA, it accused South Korean activists and lawmakers of flying balloons carrying hundreds of thousands of leaflets and DVDs critical of North Korea's government on the North's most important national holiday, an apparent reference to leader Kim Jong Il's 69th birthday, which was Feb. 16.

It was unclear whether activists have launched more balloons since then.

A South Korean Defense Ministry official said his ministry was aware of the North's warning and was keeping a close watch on its military movements. The official spoke on condition of anonymity, citing ministry rules.

Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin told parliament Friday that North Korea may launch new attacks this spring and that South Korea's military is ready to cope with any hostilities.

The joint South Korean-U.S. drills will rehearse responses to any potential emergency on the Korean peninsula.

About 12,800 U.S. troops and some 200,000 South Korean soldiers and reservists are to take part in the drills, which will last 11 days and involve computer war games, live-firing exercises and other field training, according to the U.S. and South Korean militaries.

North Korea has called the drills a preparation for an invasion, although South Korean and U.S. officials have repeatedly said they are purely defensive.

After weeks of high tension following its November bombardment of the island, North Korea pushed for dialogue with South Korea and expressed a desire to return to stalled international talks on its nuclear program.

Military officers from the two Koreas met earlier this month but failed to make progress, with both sides accusing the other of rupturing the dialogue. North Korea later threatened not to hold any more military talks with Seoul.

The two Koreas are still technically at war because the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty. About 28,500 U.S. troops are stationed in South Korea to help deter potential aggression by the North.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Risky SKorean raid saves entire crew from pirates

At dawn, South Korean special forces packed into a small boat approached a hijacked freighter in the Arabian Sea. Commandos scrambled up a ladder onto the ship, aboard which Somali pirates were armed with AK assault rifles and anti-tank missiles. A South Korean destroyer and hovering Lynx helicopter provided covering fire.

CORRECTS SOURCE - In this photo released by South Korean navy via Yonhap, South Korean naval special forces approach the South Korean cargo ship Samho Jewelry in a military operation in the Arabian Sea Friday, Jan. 21, 2011. In the daring and rare raid, South Korean special forces stormed the hijacked freighter, rescuing all 21 crew members and killing eight assailants in a rare and bold raid on Somali pirates, South Korea said. (AP Photo/South Korean navy via Yonhap) KOREA OUT, EDITORIAL USE ONLY

When Friday's operation ended five hours later, 21 hostages had been rescued, eight Somali pirates killed and five assailants captured. Pockmarks from artillery fire blanketed the ship's bridge. One of the hostages was wounded, but all were alive - a remarkable ending for a risky rescue. Only a handful of rescues in recent years have involved such peril to the crew.

A wife of one of the South Korean crew cried in gratitude as the weeklong hijacking came to an end.

"Family members couldn't sleep or eat well and prayed for a safe return. I am very relieved," she said, according to Yonhap news agency.

The daring and rare raid - what the South's president called a "perfect operation" - handed South Korea a stunning success in the battle against pirates who have long tormented shipping in the waters between Africa and the Arabian peninsula.

It was also a triumph for President Lee Myung-bak, whose government suffered harsh criticism at home in the weeks following a North Korean attack in November on a South Korean island near disputed waters. Critics said Lee's military was too slow and weak in its response to the attack, which killed two marines and two civilians.

Friday's operation in waters between Oman and Africa came a week after the Somali attackers seized the Samho Jewelry, a 11,500-ton chemical carrier, as it was sailing from the United Arab Emirates to Sri Lanka.

During the rescue, the South Korean captain was shot by a pirate. He was taken by a U.S. helicopter to a nearby country for treatment, but the wound is not life-threatening, Lt. Gen. Lee Sung-ho told reporters. The 20 other crew members - seven South Koreans, two Indonesians and 11 citizens from Myanmar - were rescued unharmed and were in good condition, he said. South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said the destroyer was accompanying the vessel to a safe area; it didn't elaborate.

"We will not tolerate any behavior that threatens the lives and safety of our people in the future," President Lee said in a brief televised statement.

Other countries' special forces have launched several raids to rescue pirated ships in the past few months, but only once they were assured the crew was locked in a safe room, commonly referred to as a "citadel." Those rescues happened just hours, not days, after capture; they were launched as soon as the crew's safety was confirmed.

The raid on the South Korean Samho Jewelry was rare because it happened a week after the ship was seized; it was not clear if the crew was in a citadel on Friday, but at least the wounded captain was not. Militaries are usually reluctant to launch such raids because of the risk of harm to hostages. A French rescue in 2009 that came two days after a sailboat was taken left one hostage dead.

Friday's raid marked the first rescue operation by a South Korean navy vessel that has been deployed in the Gulf of Aden to help fight piracy since 2009.

"This operation demonstrated our government's strong will to never negotiate with pirates," Gen. Lee said.

Countries have different criteria for deciding whether to launch raids, said Graeme Gibbon-Brooks, the head of Dryad Maritime Intelligence, which provides information about piracy to shipping companies. Some countries are aggressive, but others consider that the risk of hostages being caught in a crossfire was greater than the risk of waiting out the hijackers.

But he said it's unlikely the pirates would try to retaliate by harming other crews.

That "would be spectacularly unwise. Somalis are known for being good business people and I think that that would lead to very a quick collapse of their business model," he said.

Somalia has not had a functioning government since 1991, during which time piracy has flourished off its coast, sometimes yielding multimillion-dollar ransoms. The ransoms the pirates get are among the few sources of income for small businesses that supply the pirates with food and other goods.

There are now 29 vessels and 703 hostages being held by pirates off the coast of Somalia. The country lies next to one of the world's most important shipping routes, which connects the Indian Ocean to the Suez Canal and the Mediterranean Sea beyond.

The Bahrain-based U.S. 5th Fleet referred all questions to South Korea, although it said the U.S. Navy was aware of the rescue. Samho Shipping did not respond to a request for comment Friday.

The Samho Jewelry was the second vessel from South Korea-based Samho Shipping to be hijacked in the past several months.

In November, Somali pirates freed the supertanker Samho Dream and its 24 crew - five South Koreans and 19 Filipinos - after seven months of captivity. A company official said a ransom was paid that local media said was around $9 million.

In April 2009, a French navy commando team stormed the yacht Tanit. The shootout killed two pirates and one French hostage and freed four French citizens. The order for the rescue came after the pirates threatened to kill the hostages.

In the same year, U.S. navy snipers also shot three pirates who were holding an American captain hostage in a lifeboat after they had abandoned a larger ship, the Maersk Alabama.

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US envoy Bill Richardson warns of Korea tinderbox

Tensions have risen over planned military exercises on Yeonpyeong island

An unofficial US envoy visiting North Korea has warned that the situation on the peninsula is a "tinderbox".

The envoy, Bill Richardson, made the comments after talks with officials in Pyongyang, whom he asked to exercise "extreme restraint".

He said he had urged them to let South Korea go ahead with planned live-firing exercises on an island which was shelled by the North last month.

Pyongyang has been threatening to strike back if the drill goes ahead.

On Friday, Russia - which shares a border with North Korea - summoned US and South Korean envoys to urge them to cancel the exercises, saying Moscow was "deeply concerned" about rising tensions in the region.

New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson is visiting Pyongyang in a private capacity, but he has in the past acted as a go-between with North Korea - with whom the US has no formal diplomatic ties.

He told CNN he had made "a little headway" in his talks with North Korean officials.

"I am urging them extreme restraint... Let's cool things down. No response. Let the exercises take place," he said.

"My sense from the North Koreans is they are trying to find ways to tamp this down. Maybe that will continue today, that's my hope," he said.

He suggested that the two sides consider holding a summit to seek ways of avoiding future confrontation.

"Right now this is a tinderbox. What we need to do right now is not just tamp things down, but look at steps that can be taken by the North Koreans, especially such as perhaps allowing the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) to come in and look at the nuclear arsenal."

China 'concerned'

North Korea has warned it will launch "unpredictable self-defensive strikes" if the drill goes ahead on the island of Yeonpyeong, which lies close to the disputed inter-Korean western maritime border.

But the South insists the one-day exercises will be held some time between Saturday and Tuesday.

Local news reports say they are likely to take place on Monday or Tuesday, when the weather is expected to be better.

Four South Koreans - two marines and two civilians - died in the 23 November attack on the island.

China has warned that any new clash between the North and South could shake regional stability, and it has urged both governments to avoid moves that could stoke tensions.

But the statement by Foreign Ministry spokesman Jiang Yu neither directly criticised Seoul's plans to stage the exercises, nor Pyongyang's threat to retaliate.

"The situation on the Korean peninsula is now particularly complex and sensitive, and China is highly concerned," Jiang said.

"China resolutely opposes, without the least ambiguity, any actions that could lead to a deterioration and escalation in the situation and wreck regional peace and stability," the statement said.

Source: BBC

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