North Korea appears to have stopped jamming satellite signals in an apparent attempt to disrupt air and maritime traffic navigation systems in parts of South Korea, a high-ranking government source in Seoul said Tuesday.

The North has been blamed for global positioning system (GPS) disruptions that affected hundreds of commercial flights and ships in and out of South Korea since April 28, although no damage was caused as all had backup navigational systems.

“GPS jamming signals from North Korea have not been detected since May 14,” the source said on condition of anonymity, adding the South’s military is keeping “close watch” on the North’s activities.

The source did not rule out the possibility North Korea could send such signals again.

The South’s military is analyzing why North Korea sent the GPS jamming signals from its western border city of Kaesong, officials said.  [Yonhap News]

North Korea has continued to jam satellite signals to try to disrupt air and maritime traffic navigation systems in South Korea, a government official said Sunday, in defiance of Seoul’s warning to take the issue to a U.N. communications agency.

The North’s global positioning system (GPS) jamming signals originating from its western border city of Kaesong since April 28 have not caused damage to airplane flights or ship navigations in South Korea’s border areas, the official said.  [Yonhap]

I think the South Koreans really should force this as a big issue with the United Nations and make nations like China on the UN Security Council that enable behavior like this to vote on sanctioning North Korea for the GPS jamming.

Seoul notified Pyongyang yesterday of the approaching maturity of “food loans” given by two previous liberal governments to the Kim Jong-il regime, and said it was almost time to pay up.

The Seoul-based Export-Import Bank of Korea reminded its North Korean counterpart, Chosun Trade Bank, of its obligation to make its first payment of part of the principal and interest for food loans by June 7, according to the Ministry of Unification, a South Korean agency overseeing inter-Korean affairs. The loans were made in the form of food and are supposed to be repaid in cash.

In September 2000, the two Koreas signed the “Agreement on Provision of Food Loans” as a follow-up to the first-ever inter-Korean summit in June 2000 between then-South Korean President Kim Dae-jung and then-North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.

Under the agreement, the South provided the North with 2.4 million tons of rice and 200,000 tons of corns, worth $720 million in total, in six batches until 2007, throughout President Roh Moo-hyun’s term. The deal stipulates that the North will pay the loans back over the course of 20 years beginning June 7, 2012, the bank said.

The bank is the operator of Seoul’s inter-Korean Cooperation Fund, through which the loans were provided. The first batch of food loans in October 2000 was worth $88 million and the principal and interest the North should pay next month is $5.83 million, the bank said. The interest rate on the food loans was 1 percent per year, the ministry said.   [Joong Ang Ilbo]

The liberal governments when they made these loans likely knew that the North Koreans would never pay them back but that would be someone else’s problem to deal with since they would be long out of office.

Jamming signals thought to be from North Korea have affected GPS navigation on at least 250 flights, South Korean officials say.

Nine South Korean and nine foreign airlines have been affected since Saturday, the Transport Ministry said.

The flights had to rely on alternative navigation systems but were in no danger, the ministry added.

The South has accused the North – with which it remains technically at war – of similar incidents in the past.

“We’ve confirmed the GPS [global positioning system] jamming signals have been stemming from the North,” Lee Kyung-woo, deputy director at Seoul’s Korea Communications Commission, was quoted by Agence-France Presse news agency as saying.

The transport ministry has not set out who was to blame. But director Kim Choon-oh told the agency the GPS disruption was noticeable at Incheon international airport.

He said there was “no serious threat to the safety of flights because planes are using other navigation devices”.

South Korea has accused Pyongyang of jamming before, in August 2010 and March 2011.  [BBC]

This is nothing new with reports about the North Korean GPS jammers going back to 2008 and them using them to cause trouble as recently as this past September.  The North Koreans are probably just looking for a simple way to make some headlines while at the same time marketing their GPS jamming technology that they have reportedly been interested in trying to export in the past.

I am really not concerned about the GPS jammers posing a safety threat to aircraft landing at Incheon International Airport, but something I have been concerned about is possibly North Korea launching some kind of provocation against the airport in order to disrupt airline traffic into Korea thus damaging the South’s economy.  The most extreme provocation would be them attempting to shoot down an airliner with the excuse that it flew over their airspace near the disputed West Sea border.  However, imagine what would happen if they launched an artillery attack against the airport?

Google Earth measurements show that the airport is roughly about 38 kilometers which makes it a long shot for conventional artillery but well within the range of the rocket artillery that North Korea has.  Even if such an attack did little damage and didn’t even kill anyone it would probably be many weeks before the airlines get air traffic back to normal at Incheon.  I doubt the North Koreans would do something as provocative as this without manufacturing an excuse why they did it.  So such a provocation would likely only happen after some kind of border incident that they created and then can use to say they launched the airport attack in response to some sort of aggression from South Korea.

I would think that something as strategically important as Incheon International Airport being attacked that South Korea would have no choice but to respond strongly against the provocation with some kind of limited military response.  So what does everyone else think, should the ROK be concerned about a North Korean provocation directed towards the airport?  If so how should they respond?

Analysts who have studied photos of a half-dozen ominous new North Korean missiles showcased recently at a lavish military parade say they were fakes, and not very convincing ones, casting further doubt on the country’s claims of military prowess.

Since its recent rocket launch failure, Pyongyang’s top military leaders have made several boastful statements about its weapons capabilities. On Wednesday, Vice Marshal Ri Yong Ho claimed his country is capable of defeating the United States “at a single blow.” And on Monday, North Korea promised “special actions” that would reduce Seoul’s government to ashes within minutes.

But the weapons displayed April 15 appear to be a mishmash of liquid-fuel and solid-fuel components that could never fly together. Undulating casings on the missiles suggest the metal is too thin to withstand flight. Each missile was slightly different from the others, even though all were supposedly the same make. They don’t even fit the launchers they were carried on.

“There is no doubt that these missiles were mock-ups,” Markus Schiller and Robert Schmucker, of Germany’s Schmucker Technologie, wrote in a paper posted recently on the website Armscontrolwonk.com that listed those discrepancies. “It remains unknown if they were designed this way to confuse foreign analysts, or if the designers simply did some sloppy work.”

The missiles, called KN-08s, were loaded onto the largest mobile launch vehicles North Korea has ever unveiled. Pyongyang gave them special prominence by presenting them at the end of the parade, which capped weeks of celebrations marking the 100th anniversary of the country’s founding father, Kim Il Sung.

The unveiling created an international stir. The missiles appeared to be new, and designed for long-range attacks.  [Associated Press]

You can read the rest at the link.

North Korea may be preparing to carry out a third nuclear test that would be “somehow different and bigger” than its previous two tests, a former chief U.S. nuclear envoy said Wednesday, suggesting Pyongyang would try an atomic device using highly enriched uranium for the first time.

Christopher Hill, who served as a chief U.S. negotiator in the six-party talks to rid North Korea of its nuclear weapons, also called on China’s top leadership to wield more influence over the North to prevent it from conducting such a test.

Signs have emerged that North Korea may be readying for a nuclear test following its failed launch of a long-range rocket this month, which drew swift condemnation from the United Nations Security Council, of which China is a member.

Pyongyang’s previous unsuccessful launches of long-range rockets in 2006 and 2009 were followed by nuclear tests of plutonium devices.

“I think it is correct to be concerned that the next nuclear test will be somehow different and bigger than previous nuclear tests,” Hill told Yonhap News Agency in an interview in Seoul.

If North Korea conducts a third nuclear test, Hill said it would be “an effort to really be belligerent” and hostile to its neighbors.

Hill urged China, North Korea’s sole major ally, to have a sense of urgency in dissuading the isolated state from doing so, but partly admitted that Beijing may have a limited influence over Pyongyang.

“I hope the Chinese to come to understand that they have been a big loser in this whole process,” Hill said on the sidelines of a security forum in Seoul.  [Yonhap]

From the Chinese perspective the North Koreans are doing what they like them to do, be provocative and keep the US tied down on the peninsula while giving the Chinese added diplomatic importance because people like Chris Hill keep crawling back to them asking that they do something.  The Chinese have also shown that they can violate United Nations sanctions by selling North Korea missile components and nothing happens to them.  So if the North Koreans conduct a third nuclear test what is going to happen to China?  Absolutely nothing, it will be same thing all over again.

South Korea has asked China to verify claims that a missile launcher displayed by North Korea last weekend is of Chinese origin, in a potential violation of United Nations sanctions against Pyongyang, a senior Seoul official said Friday.

North Korea unveiled a new long-range ballistic missile on Sunday during a mass military parade, carried aboard the 16-wheel transporter-erector-launcher (TEL). Some analysts believe the new vehicle is based on a design from a Chinese truck factory that produces such launchers.

If confirmed, China’s technology assistance could violate U.N. Security Council resolutions passed in 2006 and 2009, which ban states, including China, from supplying any arms-related materials to North Korea. China has denied any wrongdoing.
“We are asking the Chinese side to verify the claims with regard to the North Korean truck launcher through a diplomatic channel,” the foreign ministry official said on the condition of anonymity.

South Korean officials have been studying the images of the North’s new truck launcher, but the claims “have not been verified yet,” the official said.

Leading defense journal IHS Jane’s Defense Weekly reported this week the U.N. Security Council “will pursue inqury” into the suspected involvement by China in North Korea’s missile program, citing an official close to a Council committee established to monitor North Korean sanction breaches.

The defense journal said the North’s truck launcher is apparently based on a design from the 9th Academy of the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation, or the Chinese truck factory.  [Yonhap]

US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has also called out the Chinese for their assistance of North Korea’s missile program:

China has provided some assistance to North Korea’s missile program, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said on Thursday, a week after the hermit state’s failed rocket launch triggered international condemnation.

Under United Nations Security Council resolutions from 2006 and 2009, states, including China, are banned from helping North Korea with its ballistic missile program, its nuclear activities as well as supplying heavy weapons.

Beijing has denied it has broken any rules, although a modern missile transporter seen in Sunday’s military parade to celebrate the founder of North Korea was said by some western military experts to be of Chinese design and possibly origin.

“I’m sure there’s been some help coming from China. I don’t know, you know, the exact extent of that,” Panetta told members of the House Armed Services Committee when asked whether China had been supporting North Korea’s missile program through “trade and technology exchanges”  [Reuters]

Some how I doubt the UN, South Korea, or the US will do anything other than make statements showing their displeasure with the Chinese which once again shows what little use these UN resolutions are.

North Korea rolled out what appeared to be a new ballistic missile, Sunday, as the impoverished state marked the 100th anniversary of the birth of its founder Kim Il-sung with a massive military parade.

The unveiling came after the North’s young and untested leader Kim Jong-un vowed to proceed with his late father Kim Jong-il’s “military-first” policy in his first public speech.

A South Korean military official said the missile is presumed to have a range of up to 6,000 kilometers and capable of hitting Alaska, and that Seoul and U.S. intelligence authorities were looking into whether it had been deployed.

Reports said the missile appeared to have several stages and was bigger than its mid-range Musudan missile unveiled in October 2010.

The speech by Kim and the showcasing of the missile were seen as efforts to mark the North’s self-proclaimed arrival as a “strong and prosperous” state on the landmark 100th anniversary of the birth of the late Kim Il-sung, the founder of the country and Jong-un’s grandfather, despite a failed satellite launch two days earlier.

“Let’s move on toward to our final victory!” Kim Jong-un said, addressing tens of thousands of people and members of the North’s armed forces gathered at Kim Il-sung Square. The young Kim is believed to be in his late 20s or early 30s, and was hastily groomed to lead the Stalinist country after his father died of heart failure.   [Korea Times]

This is probably the missile that Defense Secretary Panetta disclosed to Congress last December.  The recent failed Taepodong-2 launch I think shows that the North Koreans have great ability to roll out new long range missiles but whether or not they work is a whole different story.

 South Korea’s navy made little progress in recovering North Korean rocket debris on its third straight day of attempts Sunday, officials said.

About 10 South Korean navy vessels were searching international waters of the Yellow Sea off the country’s west coast, but did not find anything presumed to be rocket fragments, a military official said.

The official said the recovery operation could take time as there is much floating waste in the area.

“No major progress has been made in recovering” any debris, said another official at the Joint Chiefs of Staff, adding that no Chinese or Russian vessels had been spotted near the site of the fallen rocket fragments.  [Yonhap]

The White House denied Friday that North Korea’s rocket launch showed that President Barack Obama’s efforts to engage the isolated country’s secretive Stalinist regime had been a failure.

“Absolutely not,” Ben Rhodes, the deputy national security adviser for strategic communications, told reporters aboard Air Force One as Obama headed from Washington to Florida, on his way to a summit in Colombia.

Mitt Romney said Thursday that the rocket launch, which Washington said was actually an attempt to test an intercontinental ballistic missile, reflected Obama’s “incompetence” in dealing with the North Korean regime. Romney accused the president of having “emboldened the North Korean regime and undermined the security of the United States and our allies.”

“First of all, what this administration has done is broken the cycle of rewarding provocative actions by the North Koreans that we’ve seen in the past,” Rhodes countered, arguing that President George W. Bush had provided “a substantial amount of assistance” to the Hermit Kingdom and noting that Bush had removed Pyongyang from the list of state sponsors of terrorism.

“Under our administration we have not provided any assistance to North Korea,” Rhodes said, adding that the Obama administration had imposed “unprecedented sanctions” on the isolated regime and made clear to that it would lose planned food aid if it went ahead with the launch. White House officials said late Thursday that the food aid was now on hold.  [Yahoo News]

Compared to the George Bush North Korea policy that started out very good with crippling sanctions and then sold out to the North Koreans in his second term, the Obama administrations North Korea policies haven’t been bad.  I do find it interesting though that they are criticizing the Bush administration for taking North Korea off the State Sponsors of Terrorism List when they have done nothing to put them back on the list despite numerous incidents that could be considered terrorism during the Obama administration’s first term in office.  Let’s also not forget what President Obama promised one of his constituents to ultimately renege on when it was politically advantageous to do so.

Also the Obama administration agreed to the February food aid deal without specifying in writing that space launches were forbidden.  This was something that gave the North Koreans a plausible excuse to conduct their rocket test despite the aid deal.  Unlike the Bush administration at least they didn’t give the North Koreans free goodies before reneging on the deal.  With this all said the Obama administration’s North Korea policies have been better than Bush’s though they do have the advantage of hindsight.  Basically their policy is to mortgage off the North Korea problem as long as possible with giving them as little free stuff as possible and then let the next guy deal with them.  This is better than Bush who mortgaged off the North Korea problem by paying them off and letting the next guy deal with them.

If the Obama administration wants to implement a bold North Korea policy that may actually begin to change the nature of the regime instead of just mortgaging off the problem to the next guy they may want to start implementing One Free Korea’s proposed Contain, Constrict, & Collapse policy instead.