North Korea reportedly moves rocket-that may be ICBM-- amid tensions

[Teh One Who Knocks]

FOX News and The Associated Press


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North Korea has been spotted at night moving a possible intercontinental ballistic missile towards its west coast, Reuters reported, citing a South Korean paper.

The Asia Business Daily, citing an unnamed source, reported Tuesday that the rocket began its move on Monday. The report said that the rocket was being moved at night to avoid detection.

South Korea’s Defense Ministry said a day earlier that Pyongyang appeared to be planning a future launch.

An official with South Korea's Defense Ministry, told lawmakers that Seoul was seeing preparations in the North for an ICBM test but didn't provide details about how officials had reached that assessment.

The South Korean military and Fox News could not immediately confirm the report.

Meanwhile, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley on Monday asked the body’s Security Council to impose the strongest possible sanctions against North Korea in response to the rogue nation’s most recent nuclear test, saying “the time for half measures … is over.”

North Korea is “begging for war,” Haley also said Sunday. “The time for half measures by the Security Council is over.”

Her statements follow President Trump a day earlier condemned the test in the strongest terms.

“North Korea is a rogue nation which has become a great threat and embarrassment to China, which is trying to help but with little success,” Trump said in one of several tweets Sunday.

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The precise strength of the North’s underground nuclear explosion has yet to be determined. South Korea’s weather agency said the artificial earthquake caused by the explosion was five times to six times stronger than tremors generated by the North’s previous five tests.

Sunday’s detonation builds on recent North Korean advances that include test launches in July of two ICBMs. The North says its missile development is part of a defensive effort to build a viable nuclear deterrent that can target U.S. cities.

[Teh One Who Knocks]

Jack Encarnacao - The Boston Herald


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North Korea has threatened to launch an electromagnetic pulse attack that could shut down the United States’ power grid — causing months of blackouts that could bring society to a halt, with rampant crime and social chaos.

Experts say the threat posed by an EMP — the side effect of an atmospheric nuclear detonation — is significant, and New England is particularly vulnerable.

The rogue communist state announced yesterday it detonated what it described as a hydrogen bomb in an underground site, its sixth and by far most powerful nuclear test to date. It also released photos of dictator Kim Jong Un posing with the bomb, which could reach the U.S. when mounted on an intercontinental ballistic missile that North Korea also is developing.

North Korea released a statement saying the bomb “is a multi-functional thermonuclear nuke with great destructive power which can be detonated even at high altitudes for super-powerful EMP attack.”

An EMP attack would involve exploding a nuclear weapon high above the United States, creating high-amplitude currents that, like lightning, would race to any conductors within the weapon’s line of sight, such as electric transmission lines, causing power and telecom systems to malfunction or fail in a cascading fashion.

“EMP is one of a small number of threats that can hold our society at risk of catastrophic consequences,” reads a report by the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse Attack, established by Congress in 2001. “It has the capability to produce significant damage to critical infrastructures and thus to the very fabric of U.S. society, as well as to the ability of the United States and Western nations to project influence and military power.”

The commission estimates recovery from an EMP attack could take months or years, while failure of the power grid could “cripple critical infrastructures and hinder the delivery of day-to-day necessities.” Extended blackouts in major cities such as New York have been accompanied by outbreaks of crime.

“It’s a very significant threat to the population of the United States,” said Thomas Popik, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology-trained president of the New Hampshire-based Foundation for Resilient Societies. “We could be in a situation where it takes years to achieve some level of functioning government and society again.”

Popik added, “The New England grid is more susceptible to long-term electric outage than perhaps any other area of the United States.” He noted that 81 percent of the Bay State’s power is imported or generated using imported natural gas. “It makes the state of Massachusetts particularly vulnerable, because the state relies on a long-distance supply chain for energy.”

U.S. Sen. Edward J. Markey, the top Democrat on the Far East and Global Cybersecurity Subcommittee, said the grid’s “vulnerability to attack from terrorists and rogue states is one of the greatest threats to our nation’s security. ... Preventing such an attack that could cause untold damage to our defense, banking and health care systems should be a top priority in addressing the threat of a nuclear North Korea.”

There is disagreement over how likely North Korea would be to pursue such an EMP attack, considering how quickly the U.S. could counter with a nuclear strike of its own. Military systems are girded against the attacks through expensive enclosures that block electromagnetic fields.

Joshua Pollack, editor of The Nonproliferation Review, said an EMP attack doesn’t warrant more alarm than any other type of nuclear offensive because its efficacy is still uncertain — and it would have consequences for whichever nation launched it.

“It’s just an untested approach to trying to use a weapon, and just invites retaliation without doing a lot of damage,” Pollack said. “I’m much more concerned with blasting fire and radiation. Those will kill lots of people and destroy lots of stuff, and can do it very reliably.”

But Popik — whose group is working on a grant-funded project to estimate how much it would take to secure the grid against an EMP attack — countered, “If you take out the electric grid and the communications system, first of all, there may not be the capability of a response. And second of all, it may take away the threat of the United States forever.”

[RBP]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8ot2AS2biU

[Hal-9000]

Gee, hasn't hal been warning us about this for years? I think it's one of his fears...


"Experts say the threat posed by an EMP — the side effect of an atmospheric nuclear detonation..."


and it's about time - "North Korea is “begging for war,” Haley also said Sunday. “The time for half measures by the Security Council is over.”

[Teh One Who Knocks]

Does anybody actually still think diplomacy will work?

[Hal-9000]

I think a simply worded threat and tiny demonstration would work in NK's case.

Like a pinpoint strike on one of Jong-Un's pieces of real estate...

[Teh One Who Knocks]

I think it will have to be more than that. I think if it's just one small strike like you describe, Ol' Fatso will pull the trigger and rain down crap all over South Korea. I think that all known missile and artillery sites would need to be targeted and hit simultaneously.

[Hal-9000]

You gotta do something impressive for a twerp like him.

Pick a finite area...like his swimming pool...advise him to evacuate and then absolutely make a hole in the ground a 1/2 mile deep, but only 100' x 20', the size of his former pool.

[lost in melb.]

As Kim Jong-un reportedly prepares further missile launch, Russian president says further sanctions would be ‘useless’...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/05/south-korea-minister-redeploying-us-nuclear-weapons-tensions-with-north

[PorkChopSandwiches]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8ot2AS2biU

:lol: