TFN Country Alert

North Korea: Pushing the Nuclear Envelope
by Ian Cooper, Editor, Extreme Volatility Speculator/Early Alert Trader, Gressor
October 18, 2006

North Korea has long sought global attention. Now that it has the spotlight, the country’s unscrupulous leader is successfully digging an inescapable hole for the regime.  Desperate, isolated, living in the squalor of human existence, how do hundreds of North Koreans thank Kim Jong-Il for plunging them deeper into depressed conditions?  They praise the communist leader with dance and songs like “Love of Comrades” and “Always Looking up to the Leader.” 

Already declaring sanctions an “act of war,” the North Koreans have allegedly informed China of plans to conduct more underground nuclear tests.  In response, Condoleeza Rice is working with Japan to coordinate a response.  Japan is expected to offer naval support for U.S. military searches of North Korean ships, stands behind sanctions, and has plans to expand those sanctions by banning “automobiles, liquor and cigarettes,” according to the Jerusalem Post.

Any attack on Japan, and all hope for a nonmilitary resolution could be tossed.  Condoleeza Rice, according to UK newspaper Telegraph, “warned North Korea today that America would use the ‘full range’ of its military powers.”

The secretary of state was quoted as saying, “I want to make sure that everybody understands that the US will fully act on our defence obligations under the mutual defence treaty… The United States has the will and the capability to meet the full range, and I underscore the full range, of its deterrence and security commitment to Japan.”

While Japan should reverse its nuclear policy and acquire nuclear weaponry, the Japanese government has already said, it has “no intention of pursuing a nuclear weapons program, despite North Korea’s detonation of a nuclear device,” according to The New York Times.  Japan has been against a nuclear arsenal since the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

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