North Korean envoy warns war could erupt soon

GENEVA (Reuters) – A North Korean envoy said on Thursday that war could erupt at any time on the divided Korean peninsula because of tension with Seoul over the sinking of a South Korean warship in March.

"The present situation of the Korean peninsula is so grave that a war may break out any moment," Ri Jang Gon, North Korea's deputy ambassador in Geneva, told the United Nations-sponsored Conference on Disarmament.

North Korea's troops were on "full alert and readiness to promptly react to any retaliation," including the scenario of all-out war, he told the forum.

Ri, departing from his prepared remarks, said that only the conclusion of a peace treaty between the two countries would lead to the "successful denuclearization" of the peninsula. The 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice but no formal peace treaty.

Communist North Korea, hit with U.N. sanctions after testing nuclear devices in 2006 and 2009, is still under international pressure to dismantle its nuclear programme.

Ri repeated Pyongyang's assertion that North Korea had nothing to do with the sinking of the Cheonan warship which killed 46 sailors -- the deadliest military incident since the Korean War.

South Korea has accused North Korea of firing a torpedo at the vessel and said it will bring the case to the U.N. Security Council. A report by international investigators last month also accused North Korea of torpedoing the vessel.

Ri accused South Korea of trying to create a shocking incident in order to ignite a campaign against the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), North Korea's official name.

South Korean ambassador Im Han-taek took the floor at the Geneva forum to voice regret at Ri's remarks, adding: "We believe it is only for propaganda purposes."

U.S. disarmament ambassador Laura Kennedy also rejected Ri's accusations that Washington had backed Seoul in "groundlessly" blaming the sinking on a North Korean submarine.

"I agree that the situation on the Korean peninsula is very grave but I disagree with the statement made and reject those allegations against my country," Kennedy said.

"The investigation carried out was scrupulous and painstaking and we certainly accept without doubt the results which clearly indicated where the blame lay," she added.

(Editing by Jonathan Lynn and Angus MacSwan)

Giuliani Rips Obama’s Handling of Oil Spill

Former New York City Mayor Rudolph Guiliani, whose tireless leadership in the days and weeks after 9/11 made him a national hero, has accused President Obama of doing everything wrong in his handling of the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

“It couldn’t be worse,” Guiliani said Wednesday when asked by Fox News’ Sean Hannity to rate Obama’s performance.

“I mean, this would be an example, if you’re taught ‘Leadership 101,’ of exactly what not to do: minimize it at first; two days after or three days after it happened, go on vacation,” said Giuliani, who ran for the Republican nomination for president in 2008.

“He’s been on vacation more often than he has, by far, been to Louisiana or Mississippi, or any of the places affected,” Giuliani added.

And in a particularly stinging comment, the Empire State’s best-known Republican alluded to the criticism President Obama has been getting from one of the Democratic Party’s best-known strategists.

“He gives the sense that he’s very nonchalant and very lackadaisical about it – which I think are the words of Jim Carville, ‘lackadaisical,’” Giuliani said. Louisiana native Carville, famed as the “Ragin’ Cajun,” was the architect of Bill Clinton’s successful 1992 quest for the presidency.

Carville went into a near frenzy last week during an appearance on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” angry about Obama not spending more time in the Gulf Coast areas affected by the spill, which the White House concedes is the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history.

“I have no idea of why their attitude was so hands-offy here,” Carville said. “The President of the United States could’ve come down here,” he charged. “He could’ve been involved with the families of these 11 people” killed in the rig explosion on April 20 that triggered the massive oil gusher.

“He could be commandeering tankers and making BP bring tankers in and clean this up. They could be deploying people to the coast right now,” Carville said. “He could be with the Corps of Engineers and the Coast Guard...doing something about these regulations.”

An exasperated Carville, whose wife is Republican strategist Mary Matalin, said of Louisianans, “These people are crying. They’re begging for something down here, and he just looks like he’s not involved in this.”

Apparently addressing Obama directly, Carville exclaimed, “Man, you gotta get down here and take control of this! Put somebody in charge of this thing and get this thing moving! We're about to die down here!”

According to Giuliani, the president’s nonchalance delivers a “signal right into the entire bureaucracy, that they’re also very lackadaisical about it. But one of the things you understand as a leader is: your actions are going to energize your bureaucracy to do the best it can.”

The ex-NYC mayor charged that Obama exhibited a similar lack of leadership in the case of the Christmas Day botched airliner bombing last year, with a negative ripple effect as the result.

“He did the same thing on the Christmas Day bombing,” Giuliani told Hannity. “He stays on vacation for 11 days. So the other guys go on vacation.” That’s a clear reference to National Counterterrorism Center director Michael Leiter not cutting short a ski trip after the December 25 near-destruction of a Detroit-bound passenger jet.

“The reality is that the administration has made every mistake it could possibly make, right down to this criminal investigation of BP,” Giuliani complained.

“Why are you criminally investigating them until this is over?” he asked “Are you gonna distract them from the job of what they’re supposed to be doing? And if they’re being criminally investigated, then why are we allowing them to do it? If we’ve got a bunch of criminals doing it, they why are we allowing them to do it?” Giuliani wondered.

So far, as much as 45 million gallons of oil may now be in Gulf waters, already contaminating 125 miles of Louisiana’s coast, as well as coastline in Alabama and Mississippi, and currently within seven miles of the beaches of Pensacola, Florida.

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US Officials: US Might Send Carrier to Korea

The U.S. is considering dispatching the massive aircraft carrier USS George Washington to the waters where North Korea allegedly sank a South Korean warship, defense officials said Wednesday.

The deployment of the nuclear-powered carrier, one of the world's largest warships, would represent a major show of force by the U.S., which has vowed to protect South Korea and is seeking to blunt aggression from North Korea.

An international investigation last month blamed North Korea for torpedoing a South Korean navy vessel, the Cheonan, in March, killing 46 sailors.

Two U.S. defense officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the decision had not been made, said that a decision on deployment was likely by week's end.

Last week, the Pentagon announced that it was planning two major military exercises with South Korea to take place in the "near future." The exercises were to focus in part on anti-submarine operations.

The officials said the George Washington's deployment would be separate from the upcoming exercises.

The latest plans to bolster military cooperation in the Yellow Sea was aimed specifically at sending a message to North Korea that the U.S. would help defend South Korea if necessary.

The deployment of the aircraft carrier would be seen as a particularly aggressive move by the United States because of its sheer size. According to a Navy website, the carrier is 244 feet high from keel to mast and can accommodate some 6,250 crew members.

Built in the 1980s, the carrier uses two nuclear reactors that would allow it to steam almost 18 years before needing to refuel.

The sinking of the Cheonan was South Korea's worst military disaster since the Korean War, which started 60 years ago and ended in a cease-fire in 1953. No formal peace treaty was ever signed, and more than 28,000 U.S. troops remain stationed in the south, a critical regional ally.

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U.S. to Join South Korean Military Exercise Off North Korea Coast

The U.S. aircraft carrier USS George Washington will participate in a joint naval exercise with South Korea next week in the Yellow Sea, the same waters west of the Korean peninsula where North Korea is accused of sinking a South Korean warship last March, ABC News has learned.

A U.S. official said the carrier, which operates from its home port in Japan, “will be sent to the waters off South Korea within coming days to participate in joint exercises” with the South Korean navy.

Slated to begin June 8, the official said this exercise will be “separate and distinct” from an upcoming anti-submarine warfare exercise that Pentagon officials had said recently would be occurring “in the near future.” The upcoming exercise was first reported by South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency.

Another U.S. official says additional U.S warships will be participating in the exercise, including a Japan-based Aegis destroyer and a Hawaii-based nuclear submarine. South Korea will also deploy a destroyer, a submarine and F-15 fighter jets to participate in the exercise.

Full article here

Lies, damned lies, and Israeli propaganda‎

Following Israel’s murderous attack on the Freedom Flotilla taking humanitarian aid to Gaza, it is hard not to conclude that sections of the media in Britain and other Western countries have been desperate to find ways to justify the crime. On the BBC and Sky News, a frequent argument has been that Israel feels “isolated” by the international community and is in a “war” situation, and therefore feels that it has to take extraordinary measures to defend itself. To shore up this argument, these media outlets have, once again, repeated two tired fabrications; Hamas is committed to Israel’s destruction and Israel’s blockade of Gaza was imposed in response to Hamas rocket attacks.

The reality is, of course, very different. Israel is not isolated by the rest of the world. On the contrary, unlike, say, Iran and Syria (and before 2003, Iraq) in the Middle East, Israel has not been subject to sanctions in any way by the international community. It remains the largest recipient of US financial, political and military aid, despite the much-hyped rift between the Obama administration and the right-wing Netanyahu government and was recently co-opted to the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development with the blessing of the European Union Nations. Nor is Israel in a war situation. None of Israel’s Arab neighbours pose a military threat to its existence and two of them, Egypt and Jordan, have full diplomatic relations with the Jewish state; Egypt cooperates actively with Israel in the siege of Gaza.

Israel’s blockade of Gaza is usually said to have started in June 2007, when Hamas took control of the territory after pre-empting a coup by a faction within political rivals Fatah, but Israel had been limiting the movement of goods and people into Gaza long before that. The rockets fired from Gaza are not a threat to Israel and are not the reason for the blockade. Israel conducts frequent and deadly raids into the Gaza Strip and the rockets are fired in response to these raids. These rockets are very basic and inaccurate, capable of causing limited damage; they are very rarely lethal and are the only “serious” weapon available to a desperate people who have been brutalised by Israel for years. What about the claim that Hamas is committed to Israel’s destruction? Hamas has offered Israel an open-ended ceasefire if it withdraws from the West Bank and lifts the blockade of Gaza; Israel has refused. The very fact that this “hudna” has been offered is de facto recognition of the state of Israel.

It is still not known exactly how many fatalities there were during Israel’s assault on the flotilla. Most news reports claim that nine or ten of the passengers were killed by the Israeli commandos, but other sources suggest that the figure could be as high as nineteen. Israel has imposed an information blackout designed to make sure that only its version of events comes out. As part of this “hasbara” campaign, the Israeli military issued a grainy black and white video, labelled helpfully, showing some of its soldiers being attacked with iron bars and chairs, with one being thrown from one deck to another, as they stormed it from their helicopters. This film has been played without comment on Sky News, the BBC and other channels. In addition, Israeli claims that the activists were carrying knives and stun grenades on their ship have been taken at face value and reported without comment all too frequently. The Israelis would have us believe that helpless commandos were attacked by unarmed “terrorists” masquerading as activists and the main news channels in Britain and other countries have been more than willing to repeat this message.

In this way, the murder of at least nine unarmed people by soldiers armed to the teeth is made to look natural and justifiable. The Israeli video is so surreal and unbelievable that it is barely worth commenting on. Apart from the fact that there is another, better quality video of an announcement made by an activist to his fellow passengers telling them not to resist because there is nothing they can do against the Israelis’ live ammunition, suffice to say that Israel has used this tactic before. During the war on Gaza, in order to justify its attacks on civilians, the Israeli army posted videos of rockets being loaded or fired, which later turned out to be faked. Even if we suppose that the latest “attack” video is authentic, isn’t it natural for people under attack to defend themselves? And yet the activists are being portrayed as thugs, hooligans and terrorists for doing so.

Israel has called the Freedom Flotilla an “Armada of Hate” and said that the activists on board are linked with Hamas, al-Qaeda, and “global jihad”; again, these absurd claims have been taken at face value by sections of the media. The Turkish humanitarian organisation, IHH, which has played a leading role in the flotilla, has been smeared in the Daily Telegraph as a front organisation for al-Qaeda, without any evidence being proffered. This charitable society operates legally around the world apart from Israel where it is banned, as are many other legitimate charities which support Palestinians in the midst of a desperate humanitarian catastrophe; no credible evidence is ever provided for these bans. They are seen by many as just another tool used by Israel to deny Palestinians much-needed aid.

The same DailyTelegraph story mentions that the flotilla has been endorsed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the British Green Party MP Caroline Lucas. On board the flotilla were the Swedish bestselling author Henrig Mankell, the former United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq, Dennis Halliday and the founder of Northern Ireland’s “Peace People”, Mairead Corrigan Maguire. Did the Telegraph bother to ask why all these people endorsed and took part in a project organised by IHH if it was indeed an al-Qaeda front organisation?

One very important aspect has been played down amidst all this hostile media coverage – the dire need of the people of Gaza for the items on board the ships of the flotilla. Among other things the flotilla carried cement, building materials, school supplies and medical equipment. The admittedly limited quantity of aid on the convoy would still have been of immense value to the people of Gaza. The homes and buildings that Israel destroyed in its December 2008 assault on the territory are still in ruins because Israel has since blocked the import of building materials. In fact, there is a long and arbitrary list of items that cannot be imported: pencils, computers and other educational items, for example, are banned, as are many food items, such as canned fruit. The volume and category of goods permitted to be imported into Gaza are kept at a level low enough to create poverty, malnourishment and suffering but not too low to create a humanitarian catastrophe that will make Israel look bad in front of the cameras. Despite this, the statement by Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman that there is “no humanitarian crisis in Gaza” and that Israel is allowing thousands of tons of food and equipment in has been reported without comment. The organisers of the Freedom Flotilla have also been criticised by some for not accepting Israel’s offer to unload their ships in Ashdod so that the Israelis can deliver their cargo “through the usual channels”. They were, of course, supposed to believe that the same “channels” which have made the people of Gaza suffer for so many years would suddenly and willingly help to alleviate that suffering.

Media complicity in Israel’s crimes has long been accepted by analysts, and Israel has spent a great deal of money on promoting its side of the long-running conflict narrative through a sophisticated propaganda machine. This latest episode, however, has exposed the double-standards and lack of genuine objectivity by the compliant sections of the media. On BBC Radio 5′s “Up all Night” programme on 2 June, Bruce Shapiro, the executive Director of the Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma at the Columbia University in New York City, said that in most cases, the “facts” which emerge within the first 24-48 hours of incidents like Israel’s hijacking of the flotilla are usually shown to be false with the passage of time. Should this happen in this case (and it has already been admitted by an Israeli military spokesperson that none of the passengers had any weapons on them prior to the assault), a lot of media outlets will be left with egg on their faces because they have allowed the Israeli side of the story to be pushed almost unchallenged. How long will it be before members of the public grasp the fact that they are being duped, say enough is enough, and demand a balanced media approach to this conflict?

Blagojevich subpoenas Rahm Emanuel, Valerie Jarrett

Rahm Emanuel and Valerie Jarrett have received subpoenas from defense lawyers in the corruption trial of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, joining a long list of federal officials who could be called to testify in the closely watched trial.

A White House official confirmed that Emanuel, President Barack Obama’s chief of staff, and Jarrett, one of Obama’s senior advisers, received the subpoenas, the existence of which were first reported by the Chicago Sun-Times Wednesday afternoon.

Blagojevich faces charges ranging from corrupt practices on the state level to trying to sell his power to appoint a successor to then-Sen. Barack Obama when Obama won the presidency in late 2008.

In addition to Emanuel and Jarrett, Blagojevich’s defense team has issued subpoenas to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), Sen. Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.

The trial is set to begin Thursday in Chicago.

Emanuel could shed light on the accuracy of two charges against Blagojevich: that he tried to sell the Senate seat and that he attempted to extort campaign money from Emanuel in exchange for state support of a school project that Emanuel backed when he was a congressman in the same 5th District Blagojevich once represented.

Blagojevich is accused of trying to trade the appointment of Jarrett to the Senate seat for the post of secretary of Health and Human Services or other jobs in the administration. According to a report issued by Obama’s transition team in late 2008, a union official who acted as a conduit for Blagojevich and Jarrett discussed Blagojevich’s interest in the HHS job with Jarrett but not in terms of a quid pro quo. Jarrett later removed her name from consideration and joined the administration.

BP paid for officials’ meals, airfare and polar bear trip

The embattled oil and gas giant BP paid for a slew of travel and dining arrangements for senior government officials in the years leading up to the massive oil leak in the Gulf. Critics say BP got too close with regulators, neutering the government's safety watchdogs.

The Washington-based newspaper The Hill revealed a series of BP-funded trips after a review of files at the Office of Government Ethics.

Among the more notable was a BP-sponsored trip to Alaska for officials of the Food and Wildlife Service, which involved “maintenance of video surveillance at polar bear den” and a “polar bear study.”

The paper adds:

In June 2004, BP paid for meals and airfare for a trio of Interior Department officials, including then-deputy secretary J. Steven Griles, while they visited an offshore oil rig off New Orleans, La. BP split the cost with the National Ocean Industries Association.

Griles later pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice for his involvement in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal, and was sentenced to 10 months in prison.



In February 2005, then-Interior Secretary Gale Norton and then-Minerals Management Service (MMS) Director Johnnie Burton attended a dedication ceremony for BP’s Thunder Horse oil rig off the coast of Texas. BP paid for travel and meals for the officials.

BP also paid for airfare and lodging in 2006 and 2007 for a trip by officials from the Fish and Wildlife Service to Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, for “maintenance of video surveillance at polar bear den” and a “polar bear study,” according to documents. 



In August 2004, six EPA officials attended a meeting on Alaska’s North Slope near Prudhoe Bay, where they stayed at BP facilities. In 2006, BP was responsible for a large oil spill in Prudhoe Bay.



Former government officials are also an important part of BP's efforts to keep regulators and Congress at bay.

"In the first three months of this year alone, the company at the heart of the current crisis, BP, has hired at least 27 lobbyists who formerly worked in Congress or the executive branch," Huffington Post's Sam Stein noted Wednesday. "The revolving door between the oil giant and elected office is spinning fast -- so much so that good government officials are hard-pressed to name a comparable organization with that much institutional clout on tap."

"In the first three months of 2010 -- the three months that immediately preceded the explosion of its Deepwater Horizon offshore oil rig -- BP spent more than $3.8 million dollars on lobbying the federal government," Stein added. "The cash was spread around seven prominent lobby shops within the D.C. area (including BP's own internal operation), who in turn employed 39 lobbyists to help the company push its legislative interests. That nearly 70 percent of those hired guns have experience in elected office doesn't surprise good government officials because those are after all the most sought-after hires on K Street."

BP also hired a spokeswoman this week who served in the Bush Administration.

Anne Womack Kolton, former head of public affairs at the Department of Energy and Cheney's onetime campaign press secretary, took over BP's public relations message this week.

While at Cheney's side, Kolton defended the secrecy of the Vice President's Energy task force, a group which held secretive meetings with energy company executives. When the General Accounting Office -- the research arm of Congress -- sued the Administraton for records relating to Cheney's meetings, Kolton (then Womack) was at his side.