Just a quick reminder, please come to the SPAANK event on Wednesday.  It is going to be phenomenal!!!  We are not allowed to let more than 310 people in so come early and grab your seat!  [Covel Grand Horizon doors open 6:30].  

But anyways, if you haven’t heard :  North Korea confirms second nuclear test

SEOUL, South Korea (CNN) – North Korea has conducted its second nuclear test, the country’s state news agency announced Monday.  

The announcement came little more than an hour after the U.S. Geological Survey reported a magnitude 4.7 seismic disturbance at the site of North Korea’s first nuclear test — in October 2006.

North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency said Monday’s test was conducted “as part of the measures to bolster up its nuclear deterrent for self-defense in every way.”

“We are gravely concerned by North Korea’s claims,” the U.S. State Department said in a statement.

The State Department said it was analyzing the data, but that the Geological Survey’s report of a seismic event was “consistent with a test.”

The White House — which less than three weeks ago announced a new diplomatic effort to restart stalled talks with North Korea about its nuclear program — said the test was in “blatant defiance” of the U.N. Security Council.

The six-party talks are aimed at persuading North Korea to dismantle its nuclear program. Along with North Korea and the United States, the participants are: China, Japan, Russia and South Korea.

“The danger posed by North Korea’s threatening activities warrants action by the international community,” the White House said in a statement early Tuesday.

North Korea threatened to conduct a second bomb test in response to U.N. Security Council criticism of its April 5 test of a long-range rocket. The isolated communist state expelled international inspectors from its nuclear sites and announced plans to restart the reactor that produces plutonium for its nuclear weapons.

“The current nuclear test was safely conducted on a new higher level in terms of its explosive power and technology of its control, and the results of the test helped satisfactorily settle the scientific and technological problems arising in further increasing the power of nuclear weapons and steadily developing nuclear technology,” KCNA announced.  Watch how the test may have taken world by surprise »

U.S. intelligence estimated that the first North Korean test produced an explosion equal to less than 1,000 tons of TNT — a fraction of the size of the bombs the United States dropped on Japan at the end of World War II. There was no immediate information on the yield of the weapon used in Monday’s test.

Jim Walsh, an international security analyst at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told CNN that the North Korean test was not a surprise, but the timing was “faster than expected.” But the real questions raised by the test are “less military” and more political, he said.  Watch how Pyongyang has used nuclear tests to gain concessions »

“We know so little about this country,” Walsh said. “We don’t have good relations with them, they’re going through a leadership transition and on top of that, they test a nuclear weapon. So the problem with this is we’re not going to have military action, but it’s all the uncertainty and political consequences.”

The test came less than three weeks after the United States announced a new diplomatic effort to restart the stalled North Korean nuclear talks. The Obama administration’s designated point person on North Korea, Stephen Bosworth, visited the region for talks with China, Japan, Russia and South Korea.

In July 2008, negotiators reached agreement with Pyongyang on a timetable for North Korea to resume disabling its nuclear facilities. But the North balked, demanding the United States first take it off its list of state sponsors of terrorism.  Watch South Korea’s reaction to the nuclear test »

The Bush administration lifted that designation in October, but plans to push for an agreement allowing the other parties to check whether Pyongyang has revealed all of its nuclear secrets stalled.

There was no immediate response to the test from Beijing.

In Seoul, South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak’s office said the country was investigating the reported test and would hold an emergency meeting of its national security council. And in Tokyo, Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso’s office said it had set up a task force to look into the test and how to respond.

In June 2008, North Korea acknowledged producing roughly 40 kilograms of enriched plutonium — enough for about seven nuclear bombs. But Walsh said North Korea remains “years and years” away from having a weapon it can put atop a long-range missile like those in the United States, Chinese or Russian arsenals.

“Nothing good” can come from Monday’s test, he said, “but it doesn’t mean they’re going to have a real working nuclear weapon tomorrow or next year.”  

For the real article:   http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/05/24/nkorea.nuclear/index.html

 

Hey kids! Im really sorry its been a while since we’ve been in touch.  SPAANK has got a lot of stuff brewing so be on the look out.  First I would like to inform you guys about a Crossing screening going on tomorrow:  

Information: This Thursday, May 7th, 2009. seven o’clock at the Mosele
Salvatori Conference Center (adjecent to the Good Samaritan Hospital).
637 South Lucus Ave. Los Angeles, CA 90017

If you guys missed out on seeing the screening before, or if you want to see it again che-che-che che-che-check it out, wha-wha-wha-whats it all about!!  [For more information, holla at James Yi at han.byol.yi@gmail.com]

Also, Thanks to Johnny Lee from BBQ Chicken Robot, I bring to your attention this article.  You should really che-che-che, che-che-check it out!!  Absolutely atrocious….

North Korea Bride Trafficking: When Escape Becomes Bondage

Kristin Butler

Crosswalk.com Contributing Writer

May 7, 2009

The translator could never capture the experience behind Young-Ae Kim’s emotional words, but he tried.

“She was raised with the idea that you have one lasting marriage – never did she imagine that she would be married three times by the age of 30, and treated like an animal.”

North Korean defector Young-Ae Kim’s told her story publically on April 29, along with Mi-Sun Bang, another woman whose account bears tragic resemblance to hers. Both women told reporters at the National Press Club a story that is becoming all too common among North Korean women. Both women were victims of “Bride Trafficking” – being bought and sold as wives for single Chinese men along the border between North Korea and China.

Mark Lagon, former U.S. Ambassador at Large for Combating Trafficking and now executive director of the Polaris Project on Human Trafficking, says that these women are “thrice victimized” – starved in North Korea, sexually exploited once they escape to China and tortured if they are repatriated to their home country.

Brides for Sale

Human trafficking “the fastest growing criminal industry in the world,” according to the Polaris Project. In China, years of the one child policy combined with centuries of disregard for girl-children has led to a literal market for refugee women.

Back in the mid-nineties, Tom Hilditch’s article, “A Holocaust of Little Girls,” captured the essence of a country where girls don’t matter.

“The birth of a girl has never been a cause for celebration in China,” he wrote, “and stories of peasant farmers drowning new born girls in buckets of water have been commonplace for centuries. Now, however, as a direct result of the one-child policy, the number of baby girls being abandoned, aborted, or dumped on orphanage steps is unprecedented.”

It’s not hard to connect the dots to where all of this has ended. The shortage of women in China is nothing less than a national disaster – in some rural areas Chinese men outnumber women by a 14 to 1 ratio, according to the U.S. Committee on Human Rights in North Korea. It is into these rural border areas that North Korean women, desperate to escape the starvation in their homeland, are arriving. For human traffickers, the situation could not be more ideal.

Translating Tears

Mi-Sun Bang cries as she tells of the day that she and her son and daughter attempted an escape from North Korea. The Tumen River ends the lives of many refugees – numerous bodies have been found along the shore. But for Mi-Sun Bang, there was no choice. Her husband had starved to death in 2002, and making the river escape to China was her only hope for survival. “We entered holding hands,” she recalls, “but we were all separated.” Miraculously, they survived the crossing.

But her troubles were far from over. Upon entry into China, Mi-Sun Bang fell prey to human traffickers operating on the border. She was sold for $585 to an older, disabled Chinese man, the first of several “husbands” that she would be sold to. The string of abuses and heartache that followed would be enough to crush anyone’s spirit. Her final husband, fourteen years her junior, demanded that she bear him a son. Soon afterwards, Mi-Sun Bang was turned into the authorities and arrested. She was sent back to North Korea, to the horrors of a labor camp.

Mi-Sun pauses at this point in her story, reflecting, trying to restrain her emotions. “There, people gave up on being human,” she says finally. She was beaten severely. She asks through her translator, “Would anyone like to see my wounds?” Small person that she is, Mi-Sun stands on a chair in the front of the room. She pulls up her skirt, revealing where literal chunks of flesh have been ripped from her leg. She walks with a limp today.

Driven by Desperation

A new report released by the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea captures the firsthand accounts of over 70 trafficking victims. “The women who cross the border, more often than male refugees, tend to do so in the company of others,” the Lives for Sale report states, “Eighteen percent of those interviewed crossed the border with people whom they later came to realize were traffickers.”

But what about the women who made their escape without the “aid” of a trafficker? The Committee’s report emphasizes the likelihood that these women will be solicited immediately. “Almost from the moment they cross the border – and sometimes beginning in North Korea – refugee women are targeted by marriage brokers and pimps.”

The report concludes with a host of recommendations for China, North Korea, the United States and the international community. While calling on China to cease the repatriation of North Korean refugees, and North Korea to “undertake economic and agricultural reforms” and “decriminalize movement across the border,” the report urges the United States to “launch new initiatives to provide protection and assistance to North Korean women” along the border.

The plight of North Korean women sheds light on the larger issue of trafficking around the world. According to the U.S. Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, over 800,000 people are trafficked across international borders every year. Trafficking occurs in 170 countries, all of which are profiled and ranked in the Office’s annual report. And in many cases, the victims themselves have recommendations. Mi-Sun Bang pleads for President Obama to ensure that no more North Korean women are sold like she was, “sold like livestock in China.”

With trafficking – modern day slavery – claiming nearly a million victims a year, each woman, man, and child has a story to tell. And the plight of North Korean brides-for-sale is no different. Each one has a unique and tragic tale of enslavement.

“They would not allow me to leave the house,” recounts one North Korean woman, “then someone from Yanji came to take me to Heilongjiange Province by train. Only when we arrived in a village in Heilongjiang did I hear I was going to be married.”

For the original article, go to: http://www.crosswalk.com/news/religiontoday/11603283/

Until next time, stay real.