American officials charged that an alleged plot by Iran to blow up the Saudi ambassador as he dined in Washington marks a radical shift by Tehran toward direct confrontation with the United States.

The FBI said Tuesday that it had broken up a conspiracy orchestrated by a secretive unit of Iran’s military with close ties to the country’s senior leadership. In addition to criminal charges against two alleged perpetrators, the U.S. announced sanctions against five people, including two described as senior officials of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard who were accused of overseeing the plot to kill Ambassador Adel Al-Jubeir.

The high-profile nature of the administration’s statements, featuring the secretary of state, attorney general and director of the FBI, appeared to reflect the White House’s determination to hold Iran responsible for the incident.  [Stars & Stripes]

Has anyone read any good articles about why the Iranians would want to assassinate this guy?

A South Korean fishing boat sank in the Antarctic Ocean’s frigid waters Monday, with 22 sailors feared killed in the open sea where vessels trawl for deep-water fish.

Five sailors were confirmed dead and 20 survivors were rescued shortly after the 614-ton vessel went down some 1,400 miles (2,250 kilometers) south of New Zealand, about halfway to Antarctica, South Korea’s Foreign Ministry and coast guard said. Seventeen sailors were missing.

Anyone who fell into such waters would typically be dead in 10 minutes without special suits or lifejackets, though nearby fishing boats searched frantically in hopes that some may be in a life raft, New Zealand’s rescue coordination center said.

“We were fortunate that there were a number of vessels in the general area (where the boat sank), so they were able to provide assistance,” said Ross Henderson, a spokesman for the center.

It was unclear why the vessel sank in light winds and a relatively mild 3-foot (1-meter) swell.- Associated Press

It is unlikely more survivors will be found but miracles do happen occasionally.

INCHEON, South Korea – North and South Korea exchanged artillery fire Tuesday after the North shelled an island near their disputed sea border, 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 Yeonpyeong, 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.- Associated Press

I don’t have much to say about this news. Is this just another one of the periodic border clashes between the two Koreas, or is it time to panic like this blogger seems to think? My opinion- This is nothing more worrisome than any of the previous clashes. The leaders in Pyongyang have to know that if a real shooting war breaks out, they will all be doomed.  Self preservation is almost always the most dominant trait in politicians.

A French woman who killed three of her babies, burning one corpse and hiding the others in the family freezer, has been freed after spending four years behind bars.

Veronique Courjault was sentenced in June last year to eight years in jail after admitting to smothering two baby boys born in secret at her home in South Korea in 2002 and 2003, and a third child born in France in 1999.

Now 42 and with two sons aged 13 and 15, Ms Courjault was released on Friday, having served half her sentence after the time she spent in remand since her arrest in October 2006 was taken into consideration.

Ms Courjault hid two pregnancies from her husband after he moved the family to the South Korean capital Seoul to take a job as an engineer for the US car parts company Delphi.

Mr Courjault found the infants’ bodies in the family freezer in July 2006. [ABC News]

I think this lady should have been sent to a mental institution for life instead of a short prison term.

People on a skiff shot at the USS Ashland approximately 330 nautical miles off the coast of Djibouti.

The Ashland shot back, the U.S. Fifth Fleet said. The skiff caught fire and the people abandoned the skiff.

The Ashland deployed rigid-hull inflatable boats to assist the six suspected pirates in the water near their skiff. They were brought on board the Ashland and received medical care.

There were no injuries to the Ashland crew and no apparent damage to the ship, the U.S. Fifth Fleet said.  [CNN]

Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was admitted to a hospital in Seoul, South Korea, on Saturday with a stomach virus, a doctor told CNN.

“He is getting hydration and holding his food down,” Dr. John Linton of Yonsei Severance Hospital said. “All his signs are normal. We hope to send him on his way tomorrow, but he is an elderly gentleman, so we are watching him like a hawk.”

The state-run Yonhap news agency reported that Kissinger, 86, arrived in the South Korean capital Wednesday for a security forum and met with President Lee Myung-bak on Friday.

A special medical team did a check-up and MRI scan and took X-rays, but found nothing serious, staff sources at the hospital said.

Kissinger will likely remain at the hospital overnight and will probably be released Sunday, they said.  [CNN]

____________________________________

It looks like parts of Asia to include Japan and Korea’s Cheju Island will need to be on a lookout for a tsunami in the aftermath of the huge 8.5 earthquake that struck Chile:

Wide swaths of the south Pacific, Asia and Australia braced for a tsunami after a devastating earthquake hit the coast of Chile on Saturday.

Officials in Japan and Australia warned a tsunami from the earthquake was likely to hit Asian shorelines within 24 hours. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii issued a tsunami caution for areas across the region.

“Sea-level readings confirm that a tsunami has been generated which could cause widespread damage,” the center said in a bulletin after the magnitude-8.8 quake. “Authorities should take appropriate action to respond to this threat.”

The center noted that the first waves after a quake are not necessarily the largest and said tsunami wave heights are difficult to predict because they can vary significantly along a coast due to the local topography.

Earthquakes across the Pacific have had deadly effects on Asia in the past.

A tsunami after a magnitude-9.5 quake that struck Chile in 1960, the largest earthquake ever recorded, killed about 140 people in Japan, 61 in Hawaii and 32 in the Philippines. That tsunami was about 3.3 to 13 feet (one to four meters) in height, Japan’s Meteorological Agency said.

The tsunami from Saturday’s quake was likely to be much smaller because the quake itself was not as strong.

Japanese public broadcaster NHK quoted earthquake experts as saying the tsunami would likely be tens of centimeters (inches) high and reach Japan in about 22 hours. A tsunami of 28 centimeters (11 inches) was recorded after a magnitude-8.4 earthquake near Chile in 2001.  [Associated Press]

So far only 78 people are reported dead in Chile, but it is sure to rise.  However, it is pretty amazing the difference in the death toll when compared to the smaller earthquake that hit Haiti.  Chile’s modern buildings are all retrofitted to survive a earthquake, which is what obviously makes an enormous difference.

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Federal immigration officials are expecting up to 200,000 undocumented Haitian immigrants to apply for a new federal immigration program that would allow the migrants to legally remain and work in the United States for 18 months.The estimated number of potential applicants for Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, is far larger than earlier predictions of about 30,000 Haitians nationwide, according to local immigrant organizations and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services officials.

The higher figures emerged Wednesday during a briefing with reporters by USCIS Director Alejandro Mayorkas. He was in Miami to meet with several South Florida immigrant aid organizations involved in assisting undocumented Haitian immigrants applying for TPS. Nearly 68,000 are expected to apply in South Florida.

His visit comes on the heels of the Obama administration’s announcement last week to grant TPS to undocumented Haitian immigrants who were in the United States on or before Jan. 12 — the day the earthquake struck Haiti. Those who arrive after the Jan. 12 deadline will be repatriated to Haiti.  [Stars & Stripes]

The article says the hope is that the illegals will find jobs in the US and send the money back to Haiti.  These people obviously have some form of making money if they are residing in the country illegally already.

I just find it interesting that the government is able to instantly grant amnesty to 200,000 Haitians who are breaking the law by illegally residing in the country and the wife and son of a US Marine who gave his life in combat serving his country gets deported after she legally entered the country.

The government yesterday said it was considering sending forces to Haiti on the request of the United Nations to help secure the island in the aftermath of a devastating earthquake.

There is currently some 9,000 multinational troops and police enforcement in Haiti including one Korean major.

The Foreign Ministry said the government is mulling over sending more troops to take part in peacekeeping operations on the quake-stricken island to make a “bigger contribution” to international efforts to stabilize Haiti.

The Foreign Ministry will be discussing the issue with the Defense Ministry.

The dispatch, unlike sending troops to a war or conflict area such as Afghanistan, does not require a National Assembly approval.  [Korea Herald]

Korea will probably end up making a large troop contribution since it is fellow South Korean UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon making the request to enlarge the peacekeeping force in Haiti.

While the UN is trying to enlarge their presence in Haiti the US is currently being criticized for its response to the disaster and of course the French is leading the way:

It says something about the United States’ reputation for being able to do things on a massive scale that the dispossessed Haitians and the overwhelmed relief workers already on the island seemed disappointed and angry that the U.S. had not arrived immediately and set things right.

Almost a week after the catastrophic earthquake, however, the U.S. had 12,000 members of its armed services on the ground or immediately offshore, with more ships and helicopters on the way.

The earthquake made a shambles out of the Haitian government, barely functional in the best of times, and decapitated the local U.N. office, the principal international humanitarian organization in Haiti.

The U.S., for lack of any alternatives, stepped into the leadership vacuum. The Haitian government turned over control of the Port-au-Prince airport, whose tower and terminal had been destroyed, to the American military.

The crush of arriving relief aircraft and chaos on the ground forced the airport to close to incoming traffic. U.S. military air-traffic controllers soon sorted out the mess, but not without bruised feelings.

A French government minister complained that the controllers had turned away a French relief flight. Indeed, the flight was rerouted to the neighboring Dominican Republic, resulting in a 24-hour delay in the arrival of a mobile hospital. But the alternative was to risk a runway collision that would have closed the only truly functional access to the capital.

The same French minister, Alain Joyandet, according to the Associated Press, is urging the United Nations “to investigate the dominant U.S. role in the relief operation, claiming that the international aid efforts were supposed to be about helping Haiti, not `occupying’ it.”  [Korea Times]

Here is where it is good to have Barack Obama as our President because could you imagine the vitriol that would be said if George Bush was still the President and this earthquake happened?

Anyway I think it is pretty clear that the US government is doing everything it can to help the Haitians and the only organization with the ability to meet the immediate aid relief needs of Haiti is the US military.  Think about it, the UN had thousands of soldiers on the ground and could not organize an immediate aid response.  It was only when American soldiers got there that an aid response was organized.

This is eerily similar to the Hurricane Katrina disaster where it wasn’t until the US military arrived that order was restored and aid able to flow in to help the survivors.  This is why I have always believed that the US military should organize a disaster relief brigade with personnel specially trained to respond to disaster like this.  Response times and the flowing of aid would likely be quicker thus saving more lives, but of course the usual suspects would still complain about the US military.

The government decided to send additional aid worth $10 million to earthquake-hit Haiti in cooperation with non-governmental organizations, a foreign ministry official said Monday.

The relief effort is seen to reflect South Korea’s determination to actively join the international efforts.

“The plan includes short-term emergency relief and long-term support for restoration work, which will be funded not only by the government but also by civic organizations,” ministry spokesman Kim Young-sun told reporters.

In a bid to discuss details regarding the size and distribution of the assistance, the government will hold a meeting of policymakers and NGO leaders today, he added.

The NGOs will include the Korean National Red Cross and the Federation of Korean Industries.  [Korea Times]

The Blue House is promising that more aid will be contributed to  the relief effort in the future as well.  Additionally 35 South Korean search and rescue personnel are currently in Haiti searching for survivors.  This is why I didn’t jump on the criticize Korea bandwagon because I figured it would take a little time to formulate their response plan.

This whole disaster is turning into a repeat of the Asian Tsunami crisis when countries were criticizing other countries for not donating more money, but then those holier than thou countries never ultimately donated as much money as pledged.  Likewise Korea is criticized for their foreign aid contributions, but when you break down the numbers as I have you see they are highly flawed.

Another similarity between the two disasters is that the fraud involving what relief funds do find its way to Haiti will probably be rampant.  Is it any surprise considering how flawed these international institutions are that pundits are already saying that the US military should solely take charge of the aid effort?