After weeks of silence, the sister of one of the two American journalists imprisoned in North Korea finally got a phone call.

“It was only the first time I had heard her voice in weeks. … I was so relieved but I feel so helpless,” Lisa Ling, a CNN contributor, told affiliate KOVR in an interview Wednesday. “Because as an older sister, a best friend, a self-professed ‘doer,’ it’s just difficult to know I cannot do anything to bring her home.”

Ling said she spoke to her sister, Laura Ling, over the phone Tuesday night. Laura Ling and Euna Lee were sentenced in June to 12 years in prison on charges of illegally entering the country to conduct a smear campaign.

Lisa Ling is hoping the arrests will push the United States and the reclusive communist nation to engage in diplomatic talks.

“I know that our government has been working behind the scenes very hard trying to bring the girls back home,” she said. But she added, “Our countries don’t talk, and perhaps this could be a reason.”

She said her sister “was very specific about the message that she was communicating, and she said, ‘Look, we violated North Korean law and we need our government to help us. We are sorry about everything that has happened, but we need diplomacy.’ “  [CNN]

What is significant about this phone call is that Laura Ling admits to breaking North Korean law, however that doesn’t mean she didn’t make the statement under duress.  We won’t know for sure until they come back or the camera man talks.  However, the fact that she said diplomacy is needed makes me wonder if the North Koreans are not trying to send a signal that they are wanting to start negotiations sometime soon?  Like anything with North Korea, who knows?

The president of South Korea Lee Myung-bak poses in front of aircraft for a group photo at Osan Air Base on June 6. During his visit he recieved a tour of the base and briefings from Air Force and Republic of Korea service members. This is the first time the President Lee has visited Osan AIr Force Base. U.S. AIr Force photo by Senior Airman Stephenie Wade

Via USFK.

The notion that the United States could somehow outsource most of this DPRK stabilization mission to its South Korean ally falls apart the minute one begins to consider the immediate stakes and the long-term strategic nature of some of the challenges listed above—and the possible degree of uncertainty, confusion, and violence that could accompany many collapse scenarios.

If the main task were to simply restore order in North Korea, rather than defeat a combined air-armor offensive by DPRK forces, it might seem logical to defer to Seoul as much as possible. South Korea may have the numerical capacity to handle North Korean stabilization. North Korea is a mid-sized country, slightly smaller than Iraq or Afghanistan demographically. Its population is estimated at just under 25 million. That implies a stabilization force of 500,000. South Korea has that many soldiers in its active Army, and eight million more between its reserves and its paramilitary. Such reassuring arithmetic may help explain DoD’s apparent inclination to view this problem as manageable largely by ROK forces themselves.  [Michael O'Hanlon]

O’Hanlon goes on to explain his support for a US occupation of North Korea this way:

The problem is more complex than a peacekeeping mission, however. To begin, some significant fraction of North Korea’s million-strong army may fight against South Korea even in an apparent collapse scenario. Collapse is likely to imply a contest for power among multiple North Korean factions rather than a literal, complete, and immediate dissolution of authority nationwide. Some significant amount of the South Korean army could therefore be in effect on war footing, fighting from village to village and city to city.

Okay and why would US soldiers fighting from village to village and city to city be better than Korean soldiers that speak the same language and share similar cultures that would better be able to communicate with the North Korean civilian population in these cities and villages?  Mr. O’Hanlon is making one big miscalculation and that is ignoring the regime’s propaganda directed towards its population.  Since the day they were born North Koreans are taught that the South Koreans are nothing more then the puppets of the Imperialist Yankees.  If the big nosed Americans come walking into North Korea with the ROK Army in tow, that would only validate that propaganda and increase the animosity against an occupation by ROK forces.

That is why it is critical that South Korea quickly deploys it’s forces throughout North Korea and implement martial law and immediately begin humanitarian assistance to exert a sense of authority.  It is critical that the South Koreans have to be viewed early on as the legitimate occupiers of North Korea by the North Korean population.  Everything done in the early days of a collapse has to be viewed in the context of building the legitimacy of the South Korean government in the eyes of the North Korean population.  If the South Korean military is not immediately prepared to act the Chinese will.

Here is another reason O’Hanlon gives for wanting US forces in North Korea:

But even for this scenario, the role of American special forces in helping search for nuclear weapons could be quite significant (assuming they could be flown across the ocean quite quickly). They might team up with not only ROK forces, but even an element of a North Korean unit that had possession of the materials and was under siege by larger parts of the DPRK army; Seoul and Washington might strike a deal with any such DPRK unit holding nuclear weapons if that was the only viable way to secure the dangerous materials.

Maybe I could support the deployment of US Special Forces into North Korea for an operation like this, but when you think about it, why can’t ROK Special Forces do this?  Why would it take US forces to do this?

Mr. O’Hanlon goes on:

Due to the importance of stopping DPRK vehicles that could be carrying nuclear materials, it would be crucial to coordinate U.S. and ROK forces to avoid friendly fire incidents and other tragedies. Otherwise, in attempts to stop North Koreans from moving about, allied forces could wind up firing frequently on each other.

Once again if US soldiers are not present in North Korea you would not have to worry about this issue.

This is where O’Hanlon left me totally scratching my head:

Even more crucial would be how to handle coordination with China. If the United States could position some forces in the general theater before the North Korean state truly failed, perhaps on Okinawa, it might be better equipped than the ROK to help secure northern North Korea. With its amphibious and air assault capabilities, the United States might be able to handle such deployments more rapidly than South Korea could.

Is there anyone out there that thinks that the Chinese will just stand by and let a US amphibious & air assault forces land on their border?  Does anyone remember the lessons from the Korean War the last time we tried this?  What if the Chinese military has units that crossed the border to seal it from North Korean refugees trying to cross and these US military soldiers air assaulting in mistakenly fire at them thinking they are North Korean soldiers?  This proposal has wishful thinking written all over it.

Even more perplexing is that O’Hanlon thinks that the US should get the United Nations to issue a resolution legitimizing a US occupation of North Korea:

We would have to know that China was not itself moving into northern North Korea to create a buffer zone and handle humanitarian issues there rather than on its own territory—requiring rapid and clear communications with Beijing at a minimum. Or, to avoid that potentiality, we might have to develop a legal basis—and if not, a U.N. Security Council resolution—explaining why American forces had the right to occupy part of North Korea while Chinese forces did not.

Does anyone think that the Chinese and Russians as well will actually allow this resolution to go through without vetoing it?

Like I said before Michael O’Hanlon does good work, but I think he is off the mark on this issue.  For a better read on what should be done in a post-collapse North Korea I offer these two articles.  The first one from a ROK Army perspective and the second one from a US Army perspective on why the ROK Army is best equipped to occupy North Korea:

The ROK Army’s Role When North Korea Collapses Without A War With the ROK

Finding America’s Role In A Collapsed North Korean State

South Korea’s Military Law imposing the duty of national defense solely on men has been challenged in a court hearing.

A man filed a complaint with the Constitutional Court, claiming the law conflicted with the right to equality, which is protected under the Constitution.

The court had a public hearing on this issue Thursday, with the date of a ruling yet to be fixed.

Lawyer Chae Hyeong-seok representing the petitioner said, “The Constitution stipulates the duty of national defense is comprehensively applied to men and women alike. But the Conscription Act mandates only men to undertake military service, which is unconstitutional.”

Chae said physical strength had been a key factor imposing the duty solely on men, while exempting women from the obligation, but this was no longer applicable.

“The physical strength of soldiers was important in conventional wars. However, state-of-the-art weaponry is much more valuable these days, meaning it’s unnecessary to limit conscription to men,” he said.  [Korea Times]

I think the guy has a point that a woman could be conscripted to do non-physically demanding jobs.  However, if you conscripted every female in Korea there would literally be too many soldiers that are not needed and would increase costs.  Plus the ROK government is already trying to down size their military and are not looking for a massive increase that conscripting women would bring.  I did find it amusing that lawyers for the Korean Defense Ministry are defending not conscripting women by saying they need women to stay home and make babies.

However, I think the bigger picture being missed here which is does Korea still need the mandatory service requirement in the first place?  There has been movements before to professionalize the force.  South Korea is a wealthy and modern country that is for all intents and purposes using forced labor to man their military force.  Professionalizing the ROK Army would come at a large cost due to increased pay and benefits to recruit soldiers.  These costs are likley why the ROK Army will not be fully professionalized anytime in the near future thus continuing the increasing amount of antagonism within Korean society against conscription.

The nation’s spy agency yesterday pinpointed North Korea as the mastermind of the latest cyber attack on key administrative websites both here and in the United States.

The National Intelligence Service, while briefing lawmakers, said the reclusive communist state seemed to have unleashed the “Distributed Denial of Service” virus.

Experts said despite its impoverishment, the North is likely to have attained a crude level of such hacking expertise.

“We have heard that North Korea has been training its people over the past several years, and was biding its time before experimenting on the rest of the world,” said professor Yang Moo-jin of the University of North Korean Studies here.  [Korea Herald]

This news comes as yet a second round of cyber attacks have hit various websites:

Sixteen high-profile Web sites, including those of the National Intelligence Service and antivirus software provider Ahnlab, have been hit by a second round of denial-of-service attacks.

An official at the Korea Information Security Agency said Thursday that a second round of cyber attacks began at six p.m. Wednesday on ten Web sites, including that of Ahnlab, and six Web sites that were subject to the first round of attacks earlier on Tuesday.

The official said that out of 26 Web sites that were crippled on Tuesday, six of them, including Web sites of the presidential office and the Chosun Ilbo daily, were disrupted for a second time starting late Wednesday.

The Defense Ministry reportedly was able to eliminate dangerous data traffic after installing equipment to counter denial-of-service attacks on Wednesday, but difficulties are still in place in getting access to the ministry’s Web site due to an error made in the process of setting up the equipment.

Meanwhile, the prosecution and police found three additional “zombie computers” on Wednesday and are currently analyzing a total of four such computers.

Zombie computers are computers that come under the control of hackers without the knowledge of their owners. Such “zombies” are activated to run software that automates routine, repetitive tasks.  [KBS Global]

What I find most troubling about this is that if North Korea is able to pull off these attacks with such success, could you imagine what the Chinese could do?

The world has warmed by an average of 0.76 degree Celsius since pre-industrial times and the temperature rise is accelerating, according to the 2007 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change which gathers the world’s leading scientists under a United Nations umbrella. The report also shows that climate change caused by man-made emissions of greenhouse gases is already having strong effects on ecosystems, water resources and coastal zones across the world. It is affecting people in many ways, including higher mortality during heat waves, water scarcity and changes in the distribution of diseases like malaria.

Without action to limit future emissions, the global average temperature is likely to increase further by 1.8 degrees to 4 degrees Celsius this century and in the worst case scenario by as much as 6.4 degrees Celsius.

We cannot allow this to happen. United Nations negotiations on an international climate agreement are due to be concluded in Copenhagen in December 2009. This agreement must be ambitious, global and comprehensive. Climate change can be addressed effectively only through a global effort.  [Korea Herald]

First of all the increase in temperatures is not even one degree and the accuracy of this number is highly disputed.  Temperatures have without a doubt increased but they have been overall increasing since the last ice age and it has actually been hotter before than it is now and driving SUV’s had nothing to do with it back then.  Notice how the article deals with effects of global warming, with many of them not true, but lets say they are true this article does not provide one fact to support CO2 caused global warming. Instead it uses the typical global warming scaremongering to drive a emotional reaction with no facts.  Also keep in mind this article does not provide one mention that none of these vaunted computer models predicting eternal fiery damnation for all of us predicted the drop in temperatures from this past decade.

What else I found interesting was the EU propaganda in the article. The Europeans have been demanding that countries cut 40% of greenhouse gases based off of 1990 levels because they would not have to do anything themselves.  The Kyoto Protocol was agreed upon in 1997, why did they decide to base emission cuts off of 1990 levels when the agreement was signed in 1997?  Likewise why are the Europeans still demanding cuts be based off of 1990 levels today?  Think about it, what happened in 1990?  The Soviet Union collapsed along with the entire industrial based economies of Eastern Europe. The Europeans have cleverly grouped themselves together into one big European block for emissions targets because Western Europe’s continuing rise in greenhouse gases is offset by the collapse of the Eastern European economies after the fall of the Soviet Union.  If Western Europe was their own block they would not meet the Kyoto Protocol’s requirements because of their rising greenhouse gas emissions.  That is why they are demanding the 1990 level for cuts.  This allows them to continue with their rising greenhouse gases and then play the holier than thou card against the United States.  Canada and Japan foolishly signed the original Kyoto Protocol just to see both of their countries’ greenhouse gases rise and are not able to meet the treaty’s requirements.  That is why both these nations have joined the United States in renegotiating the treaty’s requirements.

If the EU was serious about cutting their greenhouse gases to save the world from eternal fiery damnation then why don’t they base it off of 2000 levels?  Maybe because cutting greenhouse gases has nothing to do with saving the world from fiery damnation?

KUNSAN AIR BASE, Republic of Korea - Gary Sinise the bassist for Lt. Dan Band plucks the base guitar June 24, 2009. Lt. Dan Band put on a show for the members station at Kunsan Air Base. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Jonathan Steffen)

More pictures can be viewed here.

The ROK-U.S. Alliance is currently in Phase 1. The U.S. has reduced the force by 8,000 personnel and closed 18 of 31 camps. The U.S. has expedited the return of 16 of the 18 closed installations, returning over 12,800 acres to the ROK. In turn, the ROK has completed the purchase of over 2,700 acres of land, directly supporting the U.S. relocation. The ROK government has granted an initial 912 acres of land at USAG Humphreys, enabling the ROKU. S. Alliance to begin designing, planning, and coordinating over $10B worth of construction. The majority of the funds required for land, facilities, moving services, and other expenses directly related to the YRP implementation will be provided by the ROK, while the costs of LPP are to be shared between the U.S. and ROK.  Approximately $335M of facilities and infrastructure are under construction at
USAG Humphreys with an additional $2B of facilities and infrastructure under design. The major facilities that will be constructed are: medical facilities (hospital, dental clinic, and troop medical clinics); headquarters facilities (KORCOM, EUSA, 2ID, Installation Management Command-Korea); family housing and schools;
communications center; and the operational and support facilities necessary to relocate the 2ID.  [USFK]

Here is a graph from the report that shows how the phases of the relocation will happen:

Something I have to wonder is if a railhead of some kind will be built to get equipment up north to the Joint Warrior Training Center?  Can you imagine the potential for accidents if heavy equipment from the 2nd Infantry Division has to routinely conduct convoys from Camp Humphreys all the way up to this training center?

A thin-looking Kim Jong Il made a rare public appearance Wednesday as North Korea paid solemn respects to his father, the country’s late founder, on the 15th anniversary of his death.

The memorial was the second major state event that the 67-year-old Kim has attended in person since reportedly suffering a stroke last summer. In early April, he presided over a parliamentary meeting where he was re-elected as leader.

Footage from broadcaster APTN showed Kim dressed in a khaki suit, looking more gaunt and with less hair than in April. As in April, he limped slightly while walking into the packed Pyongyang auditorium in what is believed to be an effect from the stroke.

Kim bowed his head during a moment of silence. A portrait of a giant red flag with an image of his father, a smiling Kim Il Sung, dominated the backdrop.

Kim’s health has sparked concerns about instability and a power struggle if he were to die without naming a successor. His third and youngest son, Kim Jong Un, has widely been reported as being groomed as heir, but the regime has made no announcement to the outside world.

Wednesday’s memorial came after the North conducted a number of banned ballistic missile tests last weekend, fueling tensions already running high after Pyongyang’s second nuclear test on May 25 led to punishing U.N. sanctions.

The regime used the memorial to criticize the United States and South Korea.

“We will sternly smash the U.S. imperialist forces and South Korea’s puppet regime anti-unification plot,” Kim Yong Nam, the North’s No. 2 leader, told the ceremony, according to footage broadcast on state television.

“We will achieve the historical mission of national unification by realizing” Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il’s policies for that, he added.

Kim Il Sung died of heart failure on July 8, 1994 at the age of 82. He ran the communist country with an iron grip and was the object of an intense personality cult.  [Associated Press]

South Korean intelligence officials believe North Korea or pro-Pyongyang forces committed cyber attacks that paralyzed major South Korean and U.S. government Web sites, aides to two lawmakers said Wednesday.

The sites of 11 South Korean organizations, including the presidential Blue House and the Defense Ministry, went down or had access problems since late Tuesday, according to the state-run Korea Information Security Agency. Agency spokeswoman Ahn Jeong-eun said 11 U.S. sites suffered similar problems. She said the agency is investigating the case with police and prosecutors.

In the U.S., the Treasury Department, Secret Service, Federal Trade Commission and Transportation Department Web sites were all down at varying points over the July 4 holiday weekend and into this week, according to American officials inside and outside the government.

Others familiar with the U.S. outage, which is called a denial of service attack, said that the fact that the government Web sites were still being affected three days after it began signaled an unusually lengthy and sophisticated attack. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the matter.  [Associated Press]

What is interesting about this is that this guy predicted these cyber attacks by North Korea in response to the UN sanctions imposed on them.  Notice that the attacks came after the US was able to get Malaysia to impose financial sanctions on North Korean accounts, which may or may not have been related to the turning around of the Kang Nam I and it returning to North Korea.  At any rate the attacks did come after the Kang Nam I was able to return to North Korean waters.

Reports of North Korea setting up a cyber warfare school actually goes all the way back to 1998, but was never taken seriously until Rebecca MacKinnon wrote about this school in Foreign Policy magazine back in 2005.  Since then the North Koreans have established a cyber warfare division known as Unit 121.  They have about 12,000 people in this unit with a sizable annual budget of about $56 million dollars.  North Korea is currently ranked 8th on the cyber capabilities threat matrix that was last updated in February 2009.

When news first came out about North Korea’s cyber warfare unit four years ago I actually speculated that it would be easier for the North Koreans to use members of their fifth column in South Korea to launch attacks and I would not be surprised if that is was the North Koreans did with these recent attacks in order to give themselves plausible deniability.