Hunger Coming To Korea

There has been an outbreak of foot and mouth disease in South Korea.

The severe foot and mouth epidemic that started in South Korea at the end of November could have even more serious repercussions for public health. Some 3m head of livestock have already been slaughtered but now the environment ministry is concerned about burial of the carcasses.

Under the pressure of events some cattle were buried alive and the authorities sometimes failed to take the necessary precautions: digging pits four or five metres deep and lining them with two layers of plastic sheeting. Farm animals were buried at more than 4,000 sites, often in easily accessible spots, for instance beside rivers.

As spring temperatures rise the corpses will start to rot. Rainfall leaching through the pits, above all during the June monsoon, could contaminate rivers and aquifers. This could be a hazard for drinking water with the risk of another outbreak of foot and mouth disease. To prevent "an unprecedented environmental disaster" the environment minister Lee Maanee last week called for "a full, detailed study of all the [burial] sites before spring".

According to a survey carried out in the eastern province of North Gyeongsang, where the epidemic started, more than one in 10 burial sites needs to be reinforced. New pits may be dug and lined with concrete.

The new problem comes on top of those posed by the epidemic itself, which has already cost South Korea 2,000bn won ($1.75bn) and pushed up food prices. The price of pork rose by nearly 12% in January alone. With about 5% of beef and dairy cattle having been destroyed the authorities are afraid there may be milk shortages, production having dropped by as much as one-fifth in some places.

Could it infect humans? Yes but it is rare.

Because FMD rarely infects humans, but spreads rapidly among animals, it is a much greater threat to the agriculture industry than to human health. Farmers around the world can lose huge amounts of money during a foot-and-mouth epizootic, when large numbers of animals are destroyed and revenues from milk and meat production go down.

And there are animal vaccines. It is looking bad for South Korea. But at least they have resources to buy their way out of the problem.

North Korea is in worse shape although the infection has not spread so far there.

SEOUL—A swiftly moving disease that has decimated South Korean livestock and damaged the country's food production now appears to be out of control in North Korea.

It is unclear where or when the latest outbreak of the airborne, easily transported illness known as foot-and-mouth disease began on the Korean peninsula. But in a sign of the pressure North Korea is facing over the issue, its state media on Tuesday reported that the outbreak originated in the South and that other countries, including Malaysia and Mongolia, have been hit with outbreaks in the past.

North Korea, which faces chronic food shortages and whose authoritarian government resists interaction with outsiders, hasn't taken any apparent steps to cull animals infected with the disease, as South Korea did.

Visitors to North Korea reported as far back as December they suspected the country was battling foot-and-mouth disease, but North Korea's state news agency didn't officially confirm the outbreak until Thursday when it said "more than 10,000 head of draft oxen, milk cows and pigs have been infected" and "thousands of them died."

In addition to reducing the North's already-constrained food supply, the disease's spread to oxen, widely used in place of tractors there, will limit the ability of North Korean farmers to carry out planting and other tasks.

And of course China, which borders North Korea is at risk. This is going to cause a spike in food prices world wide.

The rich countries will be stressed. Many of the poor countries of the world will be broken. Add in the recent freezes in in the US and Mexico and the world food supply is going to be strained severely. And yet the Delta Smelt has shut down a lot of food production in California (brilliant that) and we are using vast acreage to turn corn into alcohol. You have to wonder if the people running the show in America were born stupid or did they have to take classes?

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Wars And Rumors Of War

Will there be a reopening of the war between North and South Korea soon? Some people think so.

In Moscow's bleakest assessment of the situation on the Korean peninsula yet, Russian deputy foreign minister Alexei Borodavkin said tensions between the two countries were running at their highest and most dangerous level in a decade.

"Tensions on the Korean Peninsula could not be any higher. The only next step is a conflict," he told foreign policy experts at a round table on the subject in Moscow.

His prediction came two months after North Korea vowed to wage "a sacred war" against South Korea and its biggest backer, the United States.

And that is not the only hot spot that could erupt. Japan and China are not exactly on the friendliest of terms these days.

The USS Hawaii, a nuclear-powered attack submarine, arrived earlier this month at Yokosuka, home port of the U.S. Seventh Fleet, one more asset in America’s naval buildup in Northeast Asia, which can be viewed as a direct result of Chinese assertions of hegemony over the East China and South China Seas.

In July three Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines surfaced more or less simultaneously at Pusan, South Korea, Subic Bay in the Philippines and Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. The three are converted Trident missile submarines, having been stripped of their intercontinental ballistic missiles and stuffed with Tomahawk cruise missiles - 140 per sub – armed with conventional warheads.

The Hawaii is part of new class of attack submarines that are configured to operate in shallow, near-shore waters. As the submarine’s captain was happy to tell the Pacific Stars and Stripes newspaper on arrival, the sub has the ability to maintain a “persistent presence off shallow waters.”

It is nice to have a strong American President in office during these troubled times. Ah. Oh? Well never mind. Which reminds me: Miss Me Yet?

Don't forget to put up your down payment for the next gang of rascals come this November. And do not forget. If you choose unwisely in November you will have another chance to correct your error in 2012. Because, we are Americans and we can vote them out.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Panic In Iran

I think it is time to digest the results of the Israeli air raid on Syria that happened on September 6th and see how it has affected Iran. Let us start with an early report from the Guardian.

Syrian air defences opened fire on Israeli aircraft that violated Syrian airspace overnight, a Syrian military spokesman said today.

The Israeli planes broke the sound barrier and "dropped ammunition" over deserted areas of northern Syria, the official Syrian Arab news agency quoted the official as saying.

"We warn the Israeli enemy government against this flagrant aggressive act, and retain the right to respond in an appropriate way," the spokesman said.

Syria said the Israeli aircraft entered its territory through the northern border, coming from the Mediterranean and then heading east. "Air defence units confronted them and forced them to leave after they dropped some ammunition in deserted areas without causing any human or material damage," the spokesman said.

Witnesses said they heard five planes or more above the Tal al-Abiad area on Syria's border with Turkey, around 100 miles north of the Syrian city of Rakka. They said the planes then headed south.

We can see from the report that the Israeli planes covered quite a bit of Syrian territory. We also know that none of the planes were shot down. In addition there are unconfirmed reports of Israeli commandos on Syrian territory.

LONDON (Reuters) - A British newspaper said on Sunday Israeli commandos seized North Korean nuclear material in Syria to help secure U.S. approval for an Israeli air strike that destroyed a suspect weapons plant on September 6.

The Sunday Times report, citing Israeli and U.S. sources, was the latest version of an incident shrouded by contradictory accounts from officials and diplomats and by Israeli military censorship of media operating in the country, including Reuters.

As with previous such reports in foreign media, Israel's own public broadcaster led bulletins with the Sunday Times account.

Elements of the story, which did not say when the commando raid took place, coincided with what political sources in the Middle East told Reuters on September 6 and subsequently -- that an air strike reported by Syria that day was linked to a covert Israeli ground raid and that this was linked to Israeli fears its neighbor was developing "weapons of mass destruction".

About a week after the attack some North Koreans visited Syria.

ROME (AP) - A senior U.S. nuclear official said yesterday that North Koreans were in Syria and that Damascus might have had contacts with "secret suppliers" to obtain nuclear equipment.

Andrew Semmel, acting deputy assistant secretary of state for nuclear nonproliferation policy, did not identify the suppliers but said North Koreans were in the country and that he could not exclude that the network run by the disgraced Pakistan nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan might have been involved.

He said it was not known whether the contacts had produced any results. "Whether anything transpired remains to be seen," he said.

Interesting. However not only were North Koreans in Syria, but also Syrians were meeting with the North Koreans in North Korea about a week after that.

SEOUL, South Korea, Sept. 22 (AP) — North Korea’s No. 2 leader met with a Syrian delegation in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, on Saturday, the North’s media reported, amid growing international concerns about weapons technology cooperation between the countries.

Kim Yong-nam, head of the North’s rubber-stamp legislature, had “a friendly talk” with the Syrian delegation, led by Saaeed Eleia Dawood, director of the organizational department of Syria’s Baath Arab Socialist Party, the official Korean Central News Agency reported.

The Syrian official expressed satisfaction that the “friendly and cooperative ties” between the countries were growing under President Bashar al-Assad of Syria and Kim Jong-il of North Korea, the news agency said.

On Friday, the Syrian official held talks with Choe Tae-bok, a senior official of the North’s ruling Workers’ Party.

Just hangin' with the homies I guess discussing the plans for the next partay.

Some people have a different idea about what might have been discussed.

On September 6, 2007, something very important may have happened in northern Syria near the Turkish border. It is believed that Israeli Air Force (IAF) F-16s and F-15s attacked a site in Syria that may have had nuclear material. What is alarming is not the increase in tensions from Syria and Israel, but the silence that exists on both sides. Complicating matters is the contention that North Korea is involved in Syrian nuclear ambitions.

There are scattered and unverifiable reports that Israel carried out a strike against a Syrian target. What exactly the target was and what was struck is not yet clear; however, something very important may have occurred, akin to the strike on Osirak in Iraq in 1981. Global Security has constructed a timeline of the events and news reports that have leaked out since the incident occurred.

An unnamed source stated four days after the incident that a pilot nuclear enrichment operation was the target of the strike. The next day, a U.S. government official stated that the target was a Syrian weapons shipment destined for Hezbollah militants in Lebanon. On September 13, 2007, Washington Post reporter Glenn Kessler wrote that "...a former Israeli official said he had been told that it was an attack against a facility capable of making unconventional weapons." On September 15th, Kessler reported that an Israeli official provided the U.S. with evidence of Syrian-North Korean cooperation on a nuclear facility.

Well, well, well. Most interesting. Most interesting indeed.

Even more interesting is the Russian connection.

Military experts conclude from the way Damascus described the episode Wednesday, Sept. 6, that the Pantsyr-S1E missiles, purchased from Russia to repel air assailants, failed to down the Israeli jets accused of penetrating northern Syrian airspace from the Mediterranean the night before.

Looks like all the old gang is back together again, eh comrades?

Evidently Iran is none too happy about the failure of the Russian eqipment to defend Syrian airspace.

September 28, 2007:
Information coming out of Iran indicates that the military there is very dismayed at how ineffective new Russian anti-aircraft systems were during the Israeli September 6th air strike on a Syrian weapons development facility near the Iraqi border. Syria and Iran have both bought billions of dollars worth of the latest Russian anti-aircraft missile systems. Apparently the Israelis were able to blind these systems electronically. Syria isn't saying anything, nor are the Israelis, but Iranian officers are complaining openly that they have been had by the Russians. The Iranians bought Russian equipment based on assurances that the gear would detect and shoot down Israeli warplanes.

Over the Summer Russia delivered the first dozen or so (of 50) Pantsir-S1 anti-aircraft systems to Syria. It is believed that some of these systems are going to Iran, if only because Iran is apparently paying for them. Russia made the sale to Syria, despite $13.4 billion still owned for past purchases. Russia forgave most (73 percent) of the old debt, and is taking some of the balance in goods. In return, Syria is able to buy $400 million worth of anti-aircraft systems, mainly the self-propelled Pantsir-S1. This is a mobile system, each vehicle carries radar, two 30mm cannon and twelve Tunguska missiles. The missiles have a twenty kilometer range, the radar a 30 kilometer range. The missile can hit targets at up to 26,000 feet. The 30mm cannon is effective up to 10,000 feet. The vehicle carrying all this weighs 20 tons and has a crew of three.

We now come to the heart of the story. The reaction of the Iranian government and their military.

"Everyone in the government and military can only talk of one thing,' he reports. 'No matter who I talked to, all they could do was ask me, over and over again, 'Do you think the Americans will attack us?' 'When will the Americans attack us?' 'Will the Americans attack us in a joint operation with the Israelis?' How massive will the attack be?' on and on, endlessly. The Iranians are in a state of total panic.'

And that was before September 6. Since then, it's panic-squared in Tehran. The mullahs are freaking out in fear. Why? Because of the silence in Syria. On September 6, Israeli Air Force F-15 and F-16s conducted a devastating attack on targets deep inside Syria near the city of Dayr az-Zawr. Israel's military censors have muzzled the Israeli media, enforcing an extraordinary silence about the identity of the targets. Massive speculation in the world press has followed, such as Brett Stephens' Osirak II? in yesterday's (9/18) Wall St. Journal. Stephens and most everyone else have missed the real story. It is not Israel's silence that 'speaks volumes' as he claims, but Syria's.

Why would the Syrian government be so tight-lipped about an act of war perpetrated on their soil? The first half of the answer lies in this story that appeared in the Israeli media last month (8/13): Syria's Antiaircraft System Most Advanced In World. Syria has gone on a profligate buying spree, spending vast sums on Russian systems, 'considered the cutting edge in aircraft interception technology.' Syria now 'possesses the most crowded antiaircraft system in the world,' with 'more than 200 antiaircraft batteries of different types,' some of which are so new that they have been installed in Syria 'before being introduced into Russian operation service.' While you're digesting that, take a look at the map of Syria: Notice how far away Dayr az-Zawr is from Israel. An F15/16 attack there is not a tiptoe across the border, but a deep, deep penetration of Syrian airspace. And guess what happened with the Russian super-hyper-sophisticated cutting edge antiaircraft missile batteries when that penetration took place on September 6th. Nothing.

El blanko. Silence. The systems didn't even light up, gave no indication whatever of any detection of enemy aircraft invading Syrian airspace, zip, zero, nada. The Israelis (with a little techie assistance from us) blinded the Russkie antiaircraft systems so completely the Syrians didn't even know they were blinded. Now you see why the Syrians have been scared speechless. They thought they were protected - at enormous expense - only to discover they are defenseless. As in naked. Thus the Great Iranian Freak-Out - for this means Iran is just as nakedly defenseless as Syria.

I can tell you that there are a lot of folks in the Kirya (IDF headquarters in Tel Aviv) and the Pentagon right now who are really enjoying the mullahs' predicament. Let's face it: scaring the terror masters in Tehran out of their wits is fun. It's so much fun, in fact, that an attack destroying Iran's nuclear facilities and the Revolutionary Guard command/control centers has been delayed, so that France (under new management) can get in on the fun too. On Sunday (9/16), Sarkozy's foreign minister Bernard Kouchner announced that 'France should prepare for the possibility of war over Iran's nuclear program.' All of this has caused Tehran to respond with maniacal threats. On Monday (9/17), a government website proclaimed that '600 Shihab-3 missiles' will be fired at targets in Israel in response to an attack upon Iran by the US/Israel.

Now comes the speculation part. By showing that the Russian equipment can't defend Iran, American and Israeli forces have tipped their hand. Iran is probably scrambling madly with Russian assistance to fix what ever the problem was. This means that if American or Israeli forces are going to attack Iran, their attacks must come soon. Probably within the next month or two.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

22 August

The President of Iran, who I refer to as Ahmadinnerjacket, has been going on for months now with dire threats to Israel and warnings of a special surprise on 22 August of this year. He promises to light up the night sky over Israel. I wonder what the Iranians have in mind?

These threats have reader Kelly Brown worried. She has asked me a number of questions which I will try to answer.

Neither the Norks nor the Iranians have intercontinental missiles capable of delivering a nuke of Iranian design (unless the Iranians have perfected a plutonium bomb). The missiles they have are 3,000 mi max. range or less. They are not very accurate either.

These rockets are fear weapons not militarily useful (they can't hit designated targets within the lethal range of the war heads - even with a nuclear warhead).

If the missiles spewed a bunch of lethal gas or radioactive material over a city that is not very dangerous. If spewed over a neighborhood its danger is limited. If confined to a city block a few hundred people are at risk.

So keep your fears within rational bounds.

Suppose the Iranian missiles are pretty good and have an accuracy of .5% (without stelar or GPS course correction) with just plain old inertial navigation. The range from Iran to Israel is about 1,000 miles. That means an error of about 5 miles. It makes a big difference if you hit on the edge of a city or in the center. Even with a nuke.

So what kind of attack with a nuke would be useful with that kind of accuracy?

An emp attack. It destroys electronics but not people.

A small nuke (10kt to 100kt) in the center of a city (detonated around 2,000 feet above it) would kill 50,000 to 200,000. Too high or too low and the death toll goes down.

How accurate does the timing need to be for a missile traveling at 2,000 mph? Say we allow +/- 1,000 ft. At 2,000 mph the missile is traveling at about 3,000 ft per second. That means detonation within 1/3 of a second - not too bad if the missile knows exactly where it is at or it has some kind of height above ground radar. Well a ballistic missile at the end of a 1,000 mile run has no idea of where it is at within the required accuracy. So that won't work. So how about a height above ground radar? Could work. But it adds another complication. Another point of failure. Could the Iranians build and test and certify that the electronics would be 99.99% reliable? Since a dud is of no use even as a terror weapon. Difficult to do. How do I know? Well I have assisted in building just such an item.

If the Iranians were any good at building such devices they would be using them on the larger missiles they shoot into Israel. I have seen no evidence of such an item.

The way to go for Iran is an air burst 1 to 10 miles in the air to create an emp pulse.

Such an attack is an act of war and would get Israeli and American retaliation.

Plus to be a significant emp attack you would need at minimum a 100kt warhead. Likely the Iranian war head (even if it was a stolen Russian warhead) is likely to be 1/10th that size. So I would say it was unlikely. Not impossible.

In addition such an attack would hurt Syria (maybe that is why they are opening their shelters) and Jordan.

Again, it would be very annoying but not dangerous. At worst you might lose 1/3 of the electronics in proximity to the blast. The military of course would lose very little eqpt. It is designed to withstand such effects.

So what about a nuclear or terrorist attack on a nuke plant designed to cause a meltdown? I'm a former Naval Nuke. In America, a reactor meltdown like Chernobyl is very difficult. In fact Chernobyl was difficult. They had to disconnect a safety system and seriously violate procedures to get a meltdown. American reactors unlike Russian models have containment buildings designed to handle pressure differences on the order of 8X atmospheric pressure. They can withstand a direct hit from a jumbo jet. A terrorist attack or even nuking a plant (the nuke would have to land on top of the containment vessel) probably couldn't cause a melt down.

As to fears of death. We are all front line troops in this war.

read this: Sacrifices.

Some of us may have to die to defeat this enemy. Make up your mind and be ready to do your part.

So what do I expect? A small nuclear explosion done as a threat and a warning.

Well we have 11 days to go. I have to tell you. If I start thinking about this too much my fears start to rise. What can an individual do? Other than being prepared to do your best and get your survival kit together. Not much.

Some resources:

Iraq the Model asks: Is Hezbollah launching Iran's Armageddon?

Some people are wondering if the plan to blow up the airplanes was set for 22 August? Could be. The initial step was to be a dry run. Then they have to return to the starting point. Get ready then do it for real. It is 11 days to the 22nd. For the record the plan I'm refering to was the one busted on August 10th.

Iran's Day of Terror?

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has frustrated Western officials by refusing to reply to their offer of various incentives in exchange for Iran’s discarding its nuclear program until August 22. The Western governments had asked Ahmadinejad to reply by June 29; why would Tehran need two extra months?

Farid Ghadry, the president of the Reform Party of Syria, has offered a provocative explanation for this delay. He asserts that the Supreme National Security Council of Iran chose the August 22 date “for a very precise reason. August 21, 2006 (Rajab 27, 1427) is known in the Islamic calendar as the Night of the Sira’a and Miira’aj, the night Prophet Mohammed (saas) ascended to heaven from the Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem on a Bourak (Half animal, half man), while a great light lit-up the night sky, and visited Heaven and Hell also Beit al-Saada and Beit al-Shaqaa (House of Happiness and House of Misery) and then descended back to Mecca.…”

The Night Journey, or Miraj, is central to Islam’s claim to Jerusalem as an Islamic holy city. According to Islamic tradition, Muhammad was carried on a Buraq, a miraculous horse with a human head, from Mecca to Jerusalem, where he ascended into heaven and met the other prophets.

Interesting.

Bernard Lewis - Does Iran have something in store?

It seems increasingly likely that the Iranians either have or very soon will have nuclear weapons at their disposal, thanks to their own researches (which began some 15 years ago), to some of their obliging neighbors, and to the ever-helpful rulers of North Korea. The language used by Iranian President Ahmadinejad would seem to indicate the reality and indeed the imminence of this threat.

Would the same constraints, the same fear of mutual assured destruction, restrain a nuclear-armed Iran from using such weapons against the U.S. or against Israel?

The short answer? No.

Armageddon Cocktail Hour

In a keynote speech on Wednesday to senior clerics, Ahmadinejad spoke of his strong belief in the second coming of Shi’ite Muslims’ “hidden” 12th Imam.

According to Shi’ite Muslim teaching, Abul-Qassem Mohammad, the 12th leader whom Shi’ites consider descended from the Prophet Mohammed, disappeared in 941 but will return at the end of time to lead an era of Islamic justice.

“Our revolution’s main mission is to pave the way for the reappearance of the 12th Imam, the Mahdi,” Ahmadinejad said in the speech to Friday Prayers leaders from across the country.

“Therefore, Iran should become a powerful, developed and model Islamic society.”

“Today, we should define our economic, cultural and political policies based on the policy of Imam Mahdi’s return. We should avoid copying the West’s policies and systems,” he added, newspapers and local news agencies reported.

Well if you want to get more depressed Google - August 22 Iran.

These are not happy times. May they lead to better days.