North Korea’s Kim Jong Il has starved his own people in various ways for a long time (while obviously eating very well himself). So, in order to do something about it, Jimmy Carter went to North Korea and later had some stern words… for the US and South Korea. Carter accused both the US and one of its allies of human rights violations. Yeah, that sounds about right:

(RTTNews) – Ex-US President Jimmy Carter has flayed the US and South Korea for withholding food aid to North Korea which he said amounted to violation of human rights, reports said on Thursday.

Briefing reporters in South Korean capital, Seoul, after wrapping up his three-day visit to Communist North, Carter said Pyongyang badly needed food imports.

“One of the most important human rights is to have food to eat, and for South Korea and the US and others to deliberately withhold food aid to the North Korean people is really a human rights violation,” he said.

Leave it to Jimmy Carter to go to a place called “Communist North” and conclude the misery there is somebody else’s fault. Saddam Hussein had Baghdad Bob, so it’s only fair that Kim Jong Il has Pyongyang Jimmy. What’s even sadder is that Kim Jong Il refused to meet with Carter’s group, but that didn’t prevent Jimmy from shilling for the communist regime.

This is just embarrassing… even for Carter. Somewhere Billy is saying “and they called me the embarrassing one?”

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

Nothing to see here, move along:

Yonhap news agency says that North Korea has fired two short-range missiles off its east coast. Yonhap quoted an unidentified South Korean government official as saying that the North test-fired the missiles on Monday afternoon…The report came hours after South Korea proposed two sets of working-level talks with North Korea. But Seoul also said it had no plan to resume high-level dialogue with its communist neighbor — amid lingering tensions over the North’s nuclear weapons programs.

Via Google News/AP.

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Meanwhile, Iran blows off the Nobel Appease Prize-winning Obama administration and plays beat the clock:

Iran dismissed on Monday a U.S. warning that major powers would not wait forever for Tehran to prove it was not developing nuclear bombs, saying any threats or deadlines would have no impact on the Islamic Republic.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Hassan Qashqavi, speaking a week before talks on a proposal to send Iranian uranium abroad for further processing, also reiterated Iran’s refusal to discuss its “nuclear rights” with the six world powers.

“We have announced several times that we have nothing to discuss regarding that,” he told a Tehran news conference in comments translated by Iran’s state Press TV.

“That means continuation of our activities within the framework of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the safeguards agreement of the IAEA and enrichment on that basis,” he said, referring to the U.N. nuclear watchdog.

Such comments were likely to fan Western suspicions that Iran is seeking to win time by stringing out inconclusive talks while mastering nuclear technology and stockpiling enriched uranium of potential use for atomic energy or weaponry.

I’m glad they are home. I’ll leave you with this passage from the wire report preceding their arrival:

Their expected arrival was a jubilant conclusion to a more than four-month ordeal for the women, who were arrested near the North Korean-Chinese border in March while on a reporting trip for Current TV, the media venture founded by former Vice President Al Gore.

Gore was expected to be at the Burbank airport to greet the women, who were sentenced in June for illegal entry and engaging in “hostile acts.”

Hillary Clinton had urged North Korea last month to grant them amnesty, saying they were remorseful and their families anguished.

The release also amounted to a successful diplomatic foray for the former president, who traveled as an unofficial envoy, with approval and coordination from the administration. He was uniquely positioned for it as the only recent president who had considered visiting North Korea while in office, and one who had sent his secretary of state, Madeleine Albright.

But the backchannel genesis of the mission was not immediately clear, whether Obama called on him, North Korea asked for him or his wife suggested him.

His landmark visit to Pyongyang to free the Americans was a coup that came at a time of heightened tensions over North Korea’s nuclear program.

Hillary Clinton also rejected an official report by the North Korean news agency that said Bill Clinton had delivered an apology about the incident to the country’s ailing leader.

“That is not true,” she said. “That did not occur.”

South Korea says North Korea has fired a fourth missile off its eastern coast.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff says three missiles were fired early Saturday and the fourth at about noon.

The launches come two days after North Korea fired four short-range missiles.

Yonhap says they’re Scuds.

Did President Obama’s phone ring yet?

Please pick up the red courtesy phone (Photoshop credit: Redhotphones.com)

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Update: 7 total.

North Korea test-fired two short-range missiles on Thursday, further stoking tension in the region that was already high due to Pyongyang’s nuclear test and threats to boost its nuclear arsenal in response to U.N. sanctions.

North Korea fired two surface-to-ship missiles off its east coast that flew about 100 km (60 miles) and splashed into the sea, a South Korean defense official said.

A South Korean daily said that the secretive North may also test fire mid-range missiles in a matter of days.

Washington said this week it had tightened its crackdown on firms linked to the North’s lucrative proliferation of missiles, a major source of cash for the destitute state, and has sent the U.S. point man for sanctions to Asia for discussions.

The youngest son of North Korea’s authoritarian leader has been given the title of “Brilliant Comrade,” a newspaper reported Friday, a sign the communist regime is preparing to name him as successor to the ailing Kim Jong Il.

The report came shortly before the U.N. Security Council approved tough new sanctions Friday against North Korea for its recent nuclear test.

U.S. and South Korean intelligence authorities disclosed during a meeting this week that 26-year-old Kim Jong Un is now being referred to in the secretive regime as “Yongmyong-han Dongji,” which translates roughly as “Brilliant Comrade,” South Korea’s mass-circulation JoongAng Ilbo newspaper reported.

Because “Special Master” was already taken.

And yes, this will make you chuckle:

Grandiose titles are part of a tradition to stimulate public support in a nation where the media is tightly controlled and little information about the inner workings of the government is available. The leader is given credit for most national projects. The state media carry endless flattering reports about Kim, repeatedly referring to him with his various titles of which “Dear Leader” is the most prominent.

I blogged back in March about the plight of Laura Ling and Euna Lee, two American journalists working for Al Gore’s Current TV who were seized by NoKo soldiers after crossing the border illegally into the country from China while on assignment.

The Yonhap news agency just published an urgent bulletin tonight that the two reporters have been sentenced to 12 years in labor camp. AP says Ling and Lee were sentenced for committing an unspecified “grave crime” in addition to the illegal border-crossing. Keep them in your prayers.

They are pawns in a much bigger chess game, of course.

How’s that “Smart Power” working out, Hillary?

North Korea threatened on Monday to retaliate with “extreme” measures if the United Nations punished it for last month’s nuclear test, with Washington saying it may put Pyongyang back on its list of states that sponsor terrorism.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Sunday North Korea’s recent activities were being scrutinized for evidence of “support for international terrorism,” a designation that could subject the impoverished state to more financial sanctions.

The U.N. Security Council may adopt a new resolution as early as this week, but there is clear division among some members over how tough the measures against the reclusive state should be.

“Our response would be to consider sanctions against us as a declaration of war and answer it with extreme hardline measures,” the North Korea’s official Rodong Sinmun newspaper said in a commentary.

An increasingly aggressive North indicated it was gearing up for fresh moves, issuing a no-sail warning off its east coast up to 260 km (160 miles) off the Wonsan area from where it launched a missile in May and a barrage of short-range missiles in 2006.

All together now: Gird your loins.

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Where’s Al Gore, anyway?

Maybe Maddy Albright can help:

Where’s President Obama? Here:

On Saturday, Obama grumbled about his busy schedule during a stop in Caen.

“I would love nothing more than to have a leisurely week in Paris, stroll down the Seine, take my wife out to a nice meal, have a picnic in Luxembourg Gardens. Those days are over, for the moment,” Obama said to laughter.

Obama called French President Nicholas Sarkozy a friend and said the pair can pick up the phone and chat anytime.

“I think you guys are reading too much into my schedule,” Obama said.

The president flew back to Washington on Sunday afternoon. On Monday, he planned to join Vice President Joe Biden at a Cabinet meeting on reviving the economy.

Joe Biden said our unseasoned Dear Leader would soon be tested. The time is here and now. North Korea tonight has abandoned a 1953 ceasefire and is preparing the peninsula for war in the wake of South Korea’s decision to side with an anti-proliferation coalition led by the U.S.

Wonder if that red phone woke him and Hillary up yet. Brrrrrr–ing. Brrrr–ing:

North Korea’s military says it considers South Korea’s participation in a U.S.-led program to intercept ships suspected of spreading weapons of mass destruction tantamount to a declaration of war against the North.

The communist North’s military said in a statement Wednesday that it will respond with “immediate, strong military measures” if the South actually stops and searches any North Korean ships under the Proliferation Security Initiative.

The statement, carried by the North’s Korean Central News Agency, said North Korea no longer considers itself bound by the armistice that ended the Korean War, as a protest over the South’s participation.

Flashback October 2008:

“Mark my words,” the Democratic vice presidential nominee warned at the second of his two Seattle fundraisers Sunday. “It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We’re about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here if you don’t remember anything else I said. Watch, we’re gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy.”

Flashback February 2008:

North Korea launched another missile into the Sea of Japan early Wednesday, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported, citing an official at Seoul’s presidential office. The action marked the third straight day the nation has tested missiles and came as members of the U.N. Security Council met to discuss a punitive resolution against North Korea for its apparently successful nuclear-weapon test Monday.

And more feckless declarations in the works:

Ambassadors of the five permanent U.N. Security Council members plus Japan and South Korea met Tuesday to draft a resolution on North Korea’s second nuclear test, U.N. diplomatic sources said.

The seven countries have already agreed to issue a resolution on Monday’s North Korean action, which sparked global condemnation as violating Resolution 1718 banning the country from all ballistic missile and nuclear activity.

The ambassadors from the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China, as well as Japan and South Korea, apparently tried to coordinate their stance on the draft resolution, being prepared by Japan and the United States.

The 15-member Security Council is believed to be aiming for the resolution’s adoption by the end of the week, when Russia’s monthly council presidency expires, the sources said.

They’ll get around to expressing official “grave concern” for today’s launch…next week, I guess.

Fetch the comfy chair!

It is Monty Python’s world, and we are all just living in it. Fetch the comfy chair!

We all know the answer, but William A. Jacobson has an excellent post asking the inconvenient question:

Will the Left apologize to John Bolton?

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Update: In the wee hours of the morning comes another set of test launches. Wow. Those new resolutions really showed Kim Jong Il! Via Marketwatch:

North Korea fired two short-range missiles along its east coast Tuesday, according to South Korea’s Yonhap news agency. The reported launch came a day after similar launches and the apparently successful test of a nuclear weapon. Yonhap had reported earlier in the day that North Korea had declared parts of its coast off-limit to ships, signaling that a new launch was imminent.

Gird your loins, as they say:

North Korea staged a “successful” underground nuclear test, the communist state’s official media said.

The North “successfully conducted another underground nuclear test on May 25 as part of its measures aimed at strengthening its self-defence nuclear deterrent in every way,” the Korean Central News Agency said.

The test will “contribute to safeguarding our sovereignty and socialism and guaranteeing peace and safety on the Korean peninsula and the surrounding region,” it said. The four-paragraph story gave no details of the location. South Korea’s presidential office earlier said that North Korea had appeared to have conducted a nuclear weapons test. The government received a report on the possibility of a nuclear test having been conducted, presidential spokesman Lee Dong-Kwan told a briefing.

He said President Lee Myung-Bak called an emergency National Security Council meeting for Monday afternoon. “Both South Korea and US intelligence authorities are analysing and closely monitoring the situation,” the spokesman said.

(via AFP)

Earthquake sensors picked up the activity. Asian markets are down. Tensions are high:

The North’s official news agency, KCNA, said the country had conducted an “underground “ nuclear test.

The announcement came moments after the South Korean government geological sensors had detected an artificially triggered earth tremor emanating from Gilju, northeast North Korea, said Lee Dong-kwan, spokesman of the office of President Lee Myung-bak of South Korea.

The spokesman said “intelligence officials of South Korea and the United States are analysing the data and closely monitoring the situation.”

Word of the nuclear test sent a shudder through Asian financial markets, with Korea’s stock index plunging four percent within minutes.

North Korea conducted its first nuclear test on Oct., 9, 2006, and had given some advance notice of its intention to test a device. That initial test also was in the northeast.

North Korea recently threatened to conduct a second nuclear test, citing what it called Washington’s “hostilities” against the isolated Communist regime.

The test came against a backdrop of heightened tensions between North Korea and the United States, which keeps a heavy military deployment in South Korea and remains technically at war with the north 56 years after an armistice that halted the Korean War.Two American journalists are due to be tried June 4 in North Korea, charged with illegal entry into the North and “hostile acts.” That case in particular has aggravated tensions between Pyongyang and Washington, which were already strained after the North launched a long-range rocket on April 5.

Related reading: What is Obama cutting from defense? Why, missile defense, natch!

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Japan to request an emergency U.N. Security Council meeting.

Emergency wrist-slap to follow.

***

Update 2:42am Eastern. This will have Kim Jong Il quaking in his boots!

Text of statement by President Barack Obama on nuclear and short-range missile tests conducted by North Korea.

Today, North Korea said that it has conducted a nuclear test in violation of international law. It appears to also have attempted a short range missile launch. These actions, while not a surprise given its statements and actions to date, are a matter of grave concern to all nations…

…Such provocations will only serve to deepen North Korea’s isolation. It will not find international acceptance unless it abandons its pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery.

The danger posed by North Korea’s threatening activities warrants action by the international community. We have been and will continue working with our allies and partners in the Six-Party Talks as well as other members of the U.N. Security Council in the days ahead.