North Korea Vs South Korea: A War in the making?

Kimsingi hawa north na South ni ndugu haswaa, kinacho wakoroga ni interest za USA kule south, baasi!!:bump:
 
Another surviving breed of Cold War is still a threat to world peace and fraternity. North and South Korea were once a single nation before their divisions arose as fueled by Cold War....It amazes me that to this day these two fraternal nations are still caught up in the historical madness that no longer exists.

The division of Korea into North Korea and South Korea stems from the 1945 Allied victory in World War II, ending Japan's 35-year colonial rule of Korea. In a proposal opposed by nearly all Koreans, the United States and the Soviet Union agreed to temporarily occupy the country as a trusteeship with the zone of control demarcated along the 38th parallel. The purpose of this trusteeship was to establish a Korean provisional government which would become "free and independent in due course." Though elections were scheduled, the two superpowers backed different leaders and two states were effectively established, each of which claimed sovereignty over the whole Korean peninsula.

The Korean War (1950–53) left the two Koreas separated by the DMZ (Korean Demilitarized Zone) through the Cold War to the present day. North Korea is a communist state - though the last instances of the word Communism were removed from its constitution in 2003 -, often described as Stalinist and isolationist. Its economy initially enjoyed substantial growth but collapsed in the 1990s, unlike that of its Communist neighbor China. South Korea emerged, after decades of authoritarian rule, as a capitalistliberal democracy.
Since the 1990s, with progressively liberal South Korean administrations, as well as the death of North Korean founder Kim Il-sung, the two sides have taken small, symbolic steps towards a possible Korean reunification


It is high time now for the Koreans to wake up and get matters off the ground!!! Fostering talks for peace and tranquility in the region should be the subject matter for the Leaders of the two nations.
 
Maundumula said:
hatuna section ya International issues?
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Section, forum? Sidhani kama hii iko misplaced. Anyway nakushauri uangalie content zaidi bila kujali sana kua iko correctly posted to forum or not, hicho ndiyo nilicho-intend zaidi!
 
Nini kitatokea iwapo Marekani( yenye vikosi 28,000 Korea Kusini) wataiunga mkono Korea Kusini na pia China ( mshirika mkuu wa Korea Kaskazini) kuisaidia Korea Kaskazini?
 
By HYUNG-JIN KIM and KWANG-TAE KIM, Associated Press

INCHEON, South Korea – North and South Korea exchanged artillery fire Tuesday after the North shelled an island near their, killing at least two South Korean marines, setting dozens of buildings ablaze and sending civilians fleeing for shelter.

The clash, which put South Korea's military on high alert, was one of the rivals' most dramatic confrontations since the Korean War ended, and one of the few to put civilians at risk, though no nonmilitary deaths were immediately reported. Sixteen South Korean soldiers and three civilians were injured and the extent of casualties on the northern side was unknown.

The skirmish began when Pyongyang warned the South to halt military drills in the area, according to South Korean officials. When Seoul refused and began firing artillery into disputed waters, albeit away from the North Korean shore, the North retaliated by bombarding the small island of which houses South Korean military installations and a small civilian population.

"I thought I would die," said Lee Chun-ok, 54, an islander who said she was watching TV in her home when the shelling began. Suddenly, a wall and door collapsed.

"I was really, really terrified," she told The Associated Press after being evacuated to the port city of Incheon, west of Seoul, "and I'm still terrified."

South Korea responded by firing K-9 155mm self-propelled howitzers and dispatching fighter jets. Officials in Seoul said there could be considerable North Korean casualties.

The entire skirmish lasted about an hour.

Each side has threatened the other against another attack.

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, who convened an emergency security meeting shortly after the initial bombardment, said that an "indiscriminate attack on civilians can never be tolerated."

"Enormous retaliation should be made to the extent that (North Korea) cannot make provocations again," he said.

Meanwhile, the supreme military command in Pyongyang threatened more strikes if the South crossed their maritime border by "even 0.001 millimeter," according to the North's official.

A statement from the North said it was merely "reacting to the military provocation of the puppet group with a prompt powerful physical strike," and accused Seoul of starting the skirmish with its "reckless military provocation as firing dozens of shells inside the territorial waters of the" North.

Government officials in Seoul called the bombardments "inhumane atrocities" that violated the 1953 armistice halting the Korean War. The two sides technically remain at war because a peace treaty was never signed, and nearly 2 million troops - including tens of thousands from the U.S. - are positioned on both sides the world's most heavily militarized border.

The exchange represents a sharp escalation of the skirmishes that flare up along the disputed border from time to time. It also comes amid high tensions over the north's apparent progress in its quest for nuclear weapons - Pyongyang claims it has a new uranium enrichment facility - and six weeks after North Korean leader Kim Jong Il anointed his youngest son, , as the heir apparent.

"It brings us one step closer to the brink of war," said Peter Beck, a research fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations, "because I don't think the North would seek war by intention, but war by accident, something spiraling out of control has always been my fear."

Columns of thick black smoke could be seen rising from homes on the island, footage aired by YTN cable television showed. Screams and shouts filled the air as shells rained down on the island just south of the disputed sea border.

Yeonpyeong lies a mere seven miles (11 kilometers) from - and within sight of - the North Korean mainland.

The United States, which has more than 28,000 troops stationed in South Korea, condemned the attack. In Washington, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs called on North Korea to "halt its belligerent action," and said the U.S. is committed to China, the North's economic and political benefactor, which also maintains close commercial ties to the South, appealed to both sides to remain calm and "to do more to contribute to peace and stability on the peninsula," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said.

Stephen Bosworth, the Obama administration's special envoy to North Korea, said he discussed the clash with the Chinese foreign minister and that they agreed both sides should show restraint. He reiterated that the U.S. stands firmly with its ally, South Korea.

Yeonpyeong, famous for its crabbing industry and home to about 1,700 civilians as well as South Korean military installations. There are about 30 other small islands nearby.

North Korea fired dozens of rounds of artillery in three separate barrages that began in the mid-afternoon, while South Korea returned fire with about 80 rounds, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said.

Two South Korean marines were killed and 16 injured, it said. Island residents escaped to some 20 shelters on the island and sporadic shelling ended after about an hour, according to the military.

The Koreas' 1950s war ended in a truce, but North Korea does not recognize the drawn unilaterally by the United Nations at the close of the conflict, and the Koreas have fought three bloody skirmishes there in recent years.

South Korea holds military exercises off the west coast like Tuesday's about every three months.

In March, a South Korean warship went down in the waters while on a routine patrolling mission. Forty-six sailors were killed in what South Korea calls the worst military attack on the country since the war.
Seoul blamed a North Korean torpedo, but Pyongyang denied responsibility.
___
Kwang-Tae Kim reported from Seoul. AP writers Seulki Kim, Kelly Olsen and Foster Klug in Seoul contributed to this report.
(This version CORRECTS that three civilians were injured.)
 
Jamaa wana uhasimu wa kitambo kweli yaani mpaka sasa!
Nakumbukaga mapigano ya zama zile kati ya machief enzi za Tanganyika kama Wanyaki na Wangoni kule lake nyasa
Jamaa bado wana izo
 
Heheh dogo anataka kuwaonyesha jirani na ulimwengu naye wamo, si unajua mambo ya kutunisha misuli.
 
South Korea to bolster island force against Pyongyang​


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South Korea is to strengthen its military force on five islands close to North Korea, amid tensions over a clash that left four people dead.

It will also review military policy on the use of force, amid concerns it had become "rather passive".

North Korean shelling of a South Korean island on Tuesday killed two civilians and two marines, and prompted an increase in regional tension.

China, which has not apportioned blame, urged both sides to show "restraint".

North Korea, meanwhile, has threatened further military action if South Korea continues on what it called a "path of military provocation", the North's official KCNA news agency reported.

Pyongyang has blamed Seoul for this week's incident. The South was holding military exercises near the island at the time, and returned artillery fire following the North Korean shelling.

The North also accused the United States of stoking tensions - saying the US helped draw up the "illegal" western maritime border between the two Koreas.

About 28,000 US forces are stationed in South Korea.

Troop increase

The clash was one of the worst incidents between the two Koreas, who remain technically at war following the 1950-53 Korean War.

The shelling set alight numerous houses on a South Korean island very close to the disputed western maritime border, killed four people and injured several more.

After holding an emergency cabinet meeting, South Korea announced it would dramatically increase its military capability in the area.

"[The government] has decided to sharply increase military force, including ground troops, on the five islands in the Yellow Sea and allocate more of its budget towards dealing with North Korea's asymmetrical threats," the presidential senior public affairs secretary, Hong Sang-pyo, told reporters.

He said the government had also decided to make new rules of engagement "to change the paradigm itself of responding to North Korea's provocation", describing the current rules as "rather passive".

The BBC's Chris Hogg says the cabinet had decided that in the existing rules of engagement there was too much emphasis on preventing a military incident escalating into something worse.
There is now an awareness that this thinking had to change, our correspondent says.

In future the South would implement different levels of response depending on whether the North Koreans attacked the military in the South or civilian targets, the spokesman said.

Chinese role

Beijing, Pyongyang's main ally, has been under pressure to use its influence over the North to ease tensions.

In the Chinese leadership's first statement on the issue, Premier Wen Jiabao, who is in Moscow, described the situation on the peninsula as "grim and complicated".

"Relevant sides should maintain the utmost restraint and the global community should do more to relax the tense situation," he said.

The Chinese foreign ministry later expressed "concern" over plans for joint US-South Korean military exercises in the wake of this week's incident.

"We oppose any act that undermines peace and stability on the peninsula," the ministry said.

Mr Wen repeated his view that six-nation talks on the North's nuclear programme should be resumed as soon as possible, a position shared by North Korea.

South Korea, the US and Japan have said the six-nation talks should not restart until the North stops uranium enrichment work and apologises for its alleged torpedoing of a South Korean warship in March, at the cost of 46 lives.

A visit by Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi to South Korea, which had been due on Friday, has also been postponed. The delay was put down to "scheduling" issues.

BBC News - South Korea to bolster island force against Pyongyang
 
wanatishiana tuu,pande zote cant afford this kind of war na Americans/chinese hawana hamu kabisa na vita ya aina hii,border za nchi hizo kuna wanajeshi zaidi ya millioni mbili waliotenganishwa kwa 8 miles tuu,atomic bombs,most dangerously chemical/biological weapons bila kusahau 50,000 american soldiers full equiped with their aircraft carrier nasikia juzi wametuma lingine...incase ikifumuka vita hapo nimesikia wanasema pyongyang will not last 15 seconds lakini Seoul nayo will cease to exist na America/Chinese will wipe their wealth in trillions of $$$,lakini incase North korea wakijaribu Chinese will finish them kabla hata US hawajajibu,hapa kuna interest kubwa sana ndio maana juzi baada ya hii news market zote kuanzia Shanghai,New york,London etc zilianguka kwa zaidi ya 100 points,Americans/Chinese will never allow these labda sijui iweje maana ikitokea wao ndio watakuwa losers na uchumi wa dunia utaanguka big time...North Korea wanajua hii game vizuri sana lakini itafika time itakuwa enough is enough.
 
Hawa Wamerekani hawa aminiki aminiki, inawezekana kabisa wenyewe ndio wameshambulia ili wapate kisingizio cha kuanza vita!
 
Koba said:
wanatishiana tuu,pande zote cant afford this kind of war na Americans/chinese hawana hamu kabisa na vita ya aina hii,border za nchi hizo kuna wanajeshi zaidi ya millioni mbili waliotenganishwa kwa 8 miles tuu,atomic bombs,most dangerously chemical/biological weapons bila kusahau 50,000 american soldiers full equiped with their aircraft carrier nasikia juzi wametuma lingine...incase ikifumuka vita hapo nimesikia wanasema pyongyang will not last 15 seconds lakini Seoul nayo will cease to exist na America/Chinese will wipe their wealth in trillions of $$$,lakini incase North korea wakijaribu Chinese will finish them kabla hata US hawajajibu,hapa kuna interest kubwa sana ndio maana juzi baada ya hii news market zote kuanzia Shanghai,New york,London etc zilianguka kwa zaidi ya 100 points,Americans/Chinese will never allow these labda sijui iweje maana ikitokea wao ndio watakuwa losers na uchumi wa dunia utaanguka big time...North Korea wanajua hii game vizuri sana lakini itafika time itakuwa enough is enough.
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Mkuu Koba umeianalyse vizuri sana hii habari, kama ulivyosema hii vita iko kimaslahi ya Wamarekani na Wachina zaidi ingawa hapo mwanzo ilikuwa ni ya Warusi na Wachina,
Licha ya anguko la Uchumi ambalo linategemewa hii vita ikitokea, lakini N.Korea pia wana uwezo wa kutuma Missiles mpaka Marekani na hicho ndicho kitu kikubwa anachokiogopa Marekani, Jamaa wapeshatengeneza Silahaa za Nuclia na ziko Tayari kwa kuipiga America
Wachina kwa upande wao ndio wanaowasaidia jamaa kwa Chakula na huduma zingine huku wao (China) wakifaidika kwa Mafuta, Kwa kweli hii vita itakuwa ni vita ya HAtari sana na kama ikipiganwa nadhani baada ya mwezi itakuwa imekwisha na hilo eneo litakuwa full sumu, maana weapons zitakazotumika hapo itakuwa ni balaa
 
AP – In this Wednesday Nov. 24, 2010 photo, the U.S. military aircraft carrier USS George Washington sets …






BEIJING – This weekend's arrival of a U.S. aircraft carrier in the poses a dilemma for Beijing: Should it protest angrily and aggravate ties with Washington, or quietly accept the presence of a key symbol of American military pre-eminence off Chinese shores?

The accompanied by escort ships, is to take part in military drills with South Korea following North Korea's shelling of a South Korean island Tuesday that was one of the most serious confrontations since the Korean War a half-century ago.

It's a scenario China has sought to prevent. Only four months ago, Chinese officials and military officers shrilly warned Washington against sending a carrier into the Yellow Sea for an earlier set of exercises. Some said it would escalate tensions after the sinking of a blamed on North Korea. Others went further, calling the carrier deployment a threat to Chinese security.

Beijing believes its objections worked. Although Washington never said why, no sailed into the strategic Yellow Sea, which laps at several Chinese provinces and the Korean peninsula.

This time around, with outrage high over the shelling, the U.S. raising pressure on China to rein in wayward ally North Korea, and a Chinese-American summit in the works, the warship is coming, and Beijing is muffling any criticisms.
"One of the results of North Korea's most recent belligerence has been to make it more

difficult for China to condemn U.S. naval deployments in the East ," said Michael Richardson, a visiting research fellow at Singapore's Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. "I think China must be quietly cursing North Korea under their breath."
China's response has so far been limited to expressing mild concern over the exercises. A

Foreign Ministry spokesman on Friday reiterated Beijing's long-standing insistence that foreign navies obtain its permission before undertaking military operations inside China's exclusive economic zone, which extends 230 miles (370 kilometers) from its coast.
It wasn't clear where the drills were being held or if they would cross into the Chinese zone.

The statement also reiterated calls for calm and restraint but did not directly mention the Yellow Sea or the planned exercises.
State media have been virtually silent. An editorial in the nationalistic tabloid Global Times worried that a U.S. carrier would upset the delicate balance in the Yellow Sea, ignoring the fact that the George Washington has taken part in drills in those waters numerous times before.

North Korea, by contrast, warned Friday that the U.S.-South Korean military drills were pushing the peninsula to the "brink of war."
A more passive approach this time helps Beijing raise its credibility with Washington and trading partner South Korea, and puts North Korea on notice that its actions are wearing China's patience thin.

"The Chinese government is trying to send Pyongyang a signal that if they continue to be so provocative, China will just leave the North Koreans to themselves," said Zhu Feng, director of Peking University's Center for International and Strategic Studies.

Sending signals is likely to be as far as Beijing goes, however. China fears that tougher action — say cutting the food and fuel assistance Beijing supplies — would destabilize the isolated North Korean dictatorship, possibly leading to its collapse. That could send floods of refugees into northeastern China and result in a pro-U.S. government taking over in the North.

"What China should do is make the North Koreans feel that they have got to stop messing around," Zhu said.
China may also be mindful of its relations with key trading partner Seoul, strained by Beijing's reluctance to condemn Pyongyang over the March ship sinking. Raising a clamor over upcoming drills in the wake of a national tragedy would only further alienate South Korea.

Beijing's mild tone also shows its reluctance to spoil the atmosphere ahead of renewed exchanges with Washington. President Hu Jintao is scheduled to make a state visit to Washington in January hosted by President Barack Obama — replete with a state dinner and other formal trappings that President George W. Bush never gave the Chinese leader.
Before that Gen. Ma Xiaotian, one of the commanders who objected to the George

Washington's deployment earlier this year, is due in Washington for defense consultations. Those talks are another step in restoring tattered defense ties, a key goal of the Obama administration.

Chinese fixations about aircraft carriers verge on the visceral. U.S. carriers often figure in Chinese media as a symbol of the American government's ability to project power around the world. The Chinese navy is building a carrier, and keeping U.S. ones out of China's waters is seen as rightful deference to its growing power.

The U.S. is worried about a key principle: the U.S. Navy's right to operate in international waters.
While China doesn't claim sovereignty over the entire Yellow Sea, it has become assertive about its maritime territorial claims and sensitive to U.S. Navy operations in surrounding waters. In the , which China claims in its entirety, China has seized foreign

fishing boats and harassed U.S. Navy surveillance ships.
In light of such trends, China's protests of the September drills virtually compelled the U.S. Navy to send the George Washington this time, said Alan Romberg of the Stimson Center think tank in Washington, who met with Chinese military commanders in the summer.

"The People's Liberation Army thinks it achieved an initial victory in keeping the U.S. from deploying the George Washington in that first exercise. That guarantees that the George Washington will go there at some point, probably sooner rather than later," Romberg said in an interview in September.

Even if China's reticence holds this time, Beijing is not likely to cede the U.S. Navy carte blanche to range throughout the Yellow Sea.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei has stated that China's stance on U.S. naval action in the Yellow Sea remains unchanged. The politically influential and increasingly vocal military is also likely to keep the pressure on the leadership to take a firm stand.

Any affront to Beijing's authority or intrusion into Chinese territorial waters would inflame the Chinese public and require a government response, said Fang Xiuyu, an analyst on Korean issues at Fudan University's Institute of International Studies in Shanghai.
"We hope that the U.S. can exert restraint and not cross that line," Fang said.
___
EDITOR'S NOTE — Christopher Bodeen has covered Chinese foreign policy in Beijing and Shanghai since 2000.

Source: Analysis: US carrier visit a dilemma for China - Yahoo! News
 
The US Aircraft carrier USS George Washington approaching the Korean Waters for 'miltary games' with South Korea....


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