U.S. military will conduct an anti-submarine warfare exercise with South Korea early next month

The U.S. military will conduct an anti-submarine warfare exercise with South Korea early next month, sending a message to the North that Washington is committed to defending its ally, the Pentagon said on Wednesday.Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the joint exercise, which is likely to annoy regional power China, would be conducted off the western coast of the Korean Peninsula and was aimed at defending against “sub-surface” attacks, particularly following the sinking of one of the south’s warships in March.

“This exercise certainly sends a clear message to North Korea that the U.S. is committed to the defense of the Republic of Korea,” Whitman told reporters. “Our commitment is unequivocal.”Asked about China’s likely negative reaction, Whitman said Beijing had no reason to view the joint series of exercises as a threat to its security.

“These exercises are intended to deter North Korea from future destabilizing attacks such as that which occurred with Cheonan,” he said, referring to the sinking of the South Korean warship earlier this year, which was blamed on Pyongyang.The North has denied involvement in the sinking of the Cheonan, which killed 46 sailors, and sees the latest string of joint exercises as a provocation by its neighbor and Washington.After Seoul competed drills near a disputed maritime border off the west coast this month, the North retaliated by firing a barrage of artillery shells in the same area.

SUCCESSION JITTERS

Relations across the divided peninsula have become more fraught following the attack on the Cheonan and there also is growing concern in Washington over the North’s increasingly unpredictable behavior.U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said last week that recent provocations by the North should be seen in the context of tensions surrounding the succession of leader Kim Jong-il, who is expected to hand over power to his youngest son.

Gates said Kim’s youngest son was probably seeking to “earn his stripes” with the North Korean military and he was concerned that there were more attacks ahead.The latest military exercise, planned for early September, followed a visit by Gates and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Seoul last month, Whitman said.The exercise will focus on anti-submarine warfare tactics, techniques and procedures and was designed specifically to improve the readiness and proficiency of U.S. and South Korean forces against potential sub-surface attacks, he said.Whitman said the exercise was still in the planning stages and declined to provide details on which U.S. ships might be involved or the scope or length of the exercise.As the North’s only major ally, China has called the U.S. drills a threat to both its security and regional stability.After a joint U.S.-South Korea naval drill in the Sea of Japan last month, China conducted its own heavily publicized military exercises.(Reuters)

Kim Jong Il An American Christian missionary for South Korea,seoul

Kim Jong Il

SEOUL, South Korea  An American Christian missionary slipped into isolated North Korea on Christmas Day, shouting that he brought God’s love and carrying a letter urging leader Kim Jong Il to step down and free all political prisoners, an activist said.Robert Park, 28, crossed a poorly guarded stretch of the frozen Tumen River that separates North Korea from China, according to a member of the Seoul-based group Pax Koreana, which promotes human rights in the North. The group plans to release footage of the crossing Sunday, he said.”I am an American citizen. I brought God’s love. God loves you and God bless you,” Park reportedly said in fluent Korean as he crossed over Friday near the northeastern city of Hoeryong, according to the activist, citing two people who watched Park cross and filmed it. The activist spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation.No information has emerged about what happened next to Park, who is of Korean descent. The communist country’s state-run media was silent. The State Department and the U.S. Embassy in Beijing said they were aware of the incident but had no details.

“The U.S. government places the highest priority on the protection and welfare of American citizens,” said State Department spokesman Andrew Laine.The illegal entry could complicate Washington’s efforts to coax North Korea back to negotiations aimed at

its nuclear disarmament. Park’s crossing also comes just months after the country freed two U.S. journalists, who were arrested along the Tumen and sentenced to 12 years of hard labor for trespassing and “hostile acts.” They were released to former President Bill Clinton on a visit to the isolated country in August. North Korea and the United States do not have diplomatic relations.

Park, from Tucson, Ariz., carried a letter to North Korean leader Kim Jong Il calling for major changes to his totalitarian regime, according to the activist from Pax Koreana.”Please open your borders so that we may bring food, provisions, medicine, necessities, and assistance to those who are struggling to survive,” said the letter, according to a copy posted on the conservative group’s Web site. “Please close down all concentration camps and release all political prisoners today.”North Korea holds some 154,000 political prisoners in six large camps across the country, according South Korean government estimates. The North has long been regarded as having one of the world’s worst human rights records, but it denies the existence of prison camps.

The activist said Park, who he described as not belonging to Pax Koreana, also carried a separate written appeal calling for Kim to immediately step down, noting starvation, torture and deaths in North Korean political prison camps.North Korea’s criminal code punishes illegal entry with up to three years in prison. But that could be the least of the missionary’s problems in a country where defectors say dissent is swiftly wiped out and the regime sees all trespassers as potential spies.

Kim wields absolute power in the communist state of 24 million people where he and his late father – the country’s founder Kim Il Sung – are the object of an intense personality cult.Other activists said Park had become known over the last year in Seoul human rights circles. They suggested that his passion for helping North Koreans may have blinded him to the consequences of his actions.