In 2004, the rival Koreas ended decades of propaganda campaigns as relations warmed following a landmark summit in 2000. However, South Korea resumed radio broadcasts to the North last month and installed a dozen propaganda loudspeakers along the border. The resumption of psychological warfare was part of punitive steps taken against the North over the deadly sinking of a South Korean warship.

South Korean Defense Minister Kim Tae-young told a parliamentary hearing Friday that loudspeaker broadcasts would begin after the U.N. Security Council decides on any new measures against the North, Yonhap news agency reported.

South Korea has officially asked the Security Council to punish North Korea for what Seoul says was a North Korean torpedo attack on the 1,200-ton Cheonan warship that killed 46 sailors.

A multinational investigation led by South Korea concluded last month that North Korea was responsible. North Korea has denied responsibility and threatened to respond to South Korean retaliatory measures with war.

The General Staff of the Korean People’s Army said in a statement Saturday that North Korea would launch an “all-out military strike” to blow up any propaganda facilities along the border, and that its retaliation would be “a merciless strike foreseeing even the turn of Seoul … into a sea of flame.”

The statement was carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.

After discussions in Tokyo, Clinton planned to consult with counterparts in Beijing and Seoul on appropriate measures to take after an international investigative team on Thursday blamed North Korea for firing a torpedo that sank the South Korean ship in March, killing 46 sailors.

“This will not be and cannot be business as usual. There must be an international — not just a regional, but an international — response,” she told a press conference in Tokyo, flanked by Japanese Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada. The subject has come to dominate her three-nation tour through Japan, China and South Korea.

The Chinese have the most leverage over the reclusive regime, and Beijing’s support for any international response to Pyongyang will be critical to its success. But China, North Korea’s main ally and a veto-wielding permanent member of the Security Council, has thus far remained neutral.

While it was “premature” to discuss exact options or actions that will be taken, Clinton said it was “important to send a clear message to North Korea that provocative actions have consequences.”

U.S. officials have refused to call the North’s attack on the ship an act of war or state-sponsored terror, warning that an overreaction could cause the Korean peninsula to “explode.” Instead, they said they would explore diplomatic steps through the U.N. or increase Washington’s unilateral sanctions against North Korea’s Soviet-style state.

Economic dialogue with China was supposed to be the main thrust of Clinton’s Asia trip, but with Thursday’s report blaming Pyongyang for sinking the Cheonan, her main task in Beijing will now be to try to persuade China to support U.N. Security Council action against North Korea.

In Shanghai, where Clinton traveled after her brief visit to Tokyo, two senior U.S. officials said she would try to persuade the Chinese to “acknowledge the reality” of what happened and support measures that would help persuade North Korea to change its behavior. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity due to the delicacy of the diplomacy.

Investigators from the five-nation team said a detailed analysis of the wreckage, as well as fragments recovered from the waters where the ship went down, point to North Korean involvement. Clinton described the examination as “thorough” and “scientific.”

“The evidence is overwhelming and condemning. The torpedo that sunk the Cheonan … was fired by a North Korean submarine,” Clinton said.

North Korea denies it was responsible and has threatened to retaliate against any attempt to punish it with “all-out war.”

North Korea “will regard the present situation as the phase of a war and handle all problems in inter-Korean relations accordingly,” Ri Chung Bok, deputy director of the Secretariat of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea, said in an exclusive interview with broadcaster APTN in Pyongyang.

Later, a spokesman for North Korea’s Foreign Ministry denounced the U.S. for “absurdly” blaming Pyongyang.

“It is the intention of the present U.S. administration to suffocate (North Korea) politically and economically” with sanctions, he said, according to the state-run Korean Central News Agency.

Meanwhile, in Seoul, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak convened an emergency national security meeting, where he said the country was caught in a “perfect military ambush” but called for a cautious response to the sinking. Lee said the attack violated the U.N. Charter as well as the truce that ended the 1950-53 Korean War.

South Korea is expected to announce what actions it will take on Monday, two days before Clinton arrives in Seoul, the U.S. officials said. Analysts believe the international response will come from the U.N. Security Council.

U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon, a former South Korean foreign minister, said Friday in Turkey that it is up to Seoul to decide what action to take. Ban said he received the report on the incident “with very heavy heart and with very deep concern.”

After the Tokyo meeting with Okada, Clinton said Japan and the U.S. were seeking to resolve a dispute over the relocation of a key Marine base on the southern island of Okinawa by the end of May — a deadline set by Japan’s prime minister.

According to a 2006 agreement, the Marine Corps Air Station Futenma is to be moved to a less crowded part of Okinawa, which hosts more than half the 47,000 U.S. troops stationed in Japan. But the government of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama — who met with Clinton on Friday — has said it would like to move Futenma off the island, an idea widely supported by the local population who complain of base-related noise, pollution and crime.

Tokyo hasn’t found a viable alternative site that is acceptable to Washington, and Hatoyama earlier this month said it was likely that at least part of Futenma’s operations would remain on Okinawa. Washington has insisted that Tokyo stick with the original plan, and Hatoyama’s government appears to be moving in that direction.

Even on the issue of Tibetan independence, Obama practically sided with China by saying, “We recognize that Tibet is part of the People’s Republic of China.” Gone are criticisms of Beijing’s human rights abuses which previous U.S. presidents made during their visits to China. The U.S. and China both avoided any unpleasantness. “China’s partnership has helped the United States pull out of the worst recession in a generation,” Obama said.

The U.S. recorded a $1.4 trillion deficit over the last year starting in September of 2008, while the accumulated fiscal deficit amounts to 80 percent of its GDP. The U.S. government must continue issuing Treasury Bills in order to run the country. China is America’s largest creditor owning $800 billion worth of U.S. Treasury notes. The U.S. is no longer in a position to tell China what to do.

The North Korean nuclear standoff was the first issue where agreement was announced at the post-summit press conference. “We agreed on the importance of resuming the six-party talks as soon as possible,” Obama said. “Both of us remain committed to resolving the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula through dialogue and consultation,” Hu said. “Such a commitment serves the common interests of China and the United States and all other parties concerned.”

Matters concerning the Korean Peninsula will become staple items on the agenda of future U.S.-China talks. Both countries have deep interests on the peninsula. In July, the U.S. government even proposed strategic talks with China to deal with sudden and unexpected changes happening in North Korea. The North Korean nuclear problem, Korean reunification and other issues will be discussed between Washington and Beijing and that will to a large extent determine how the international community acts.

There is no guarantee that the solutions offered either independently or jointly by the U.S. and China will always be in line with South Korea’s interests and plans. As a new era dawns, Seoul’s diplomatic strategies must change. It is time to go beyond the single-track approach and come up with a multi-layered plan.

Obama reaffirmed Washington’s security commitment to South Korea, including through U.S. nuclear protection, after a meeting Tuesday in Washington with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak. Obama also said the U.N. sanctions will be aggressively enforced.
In its first response to the summit, North Korea’s government-run weekly Tongil Sinbo said that Obama’s comments only revealed a U.S. plot to invade the North with nuclear weapons.
“It’s not a coincidence at all for the U.S. to have brought numerous nuclear weapons into South Korea and other adjacent sites, staging various massive war drills opposing North Korea every day and watching for a chance for an invasion,” said the commentary published Saturday.
The weekly also said the North will also “surely judge” the Lee government for participating in a U.S.-led international campaign to “stifle” the North.
North Korea says its nuclear program is a deterrent against the U.S., which it routinely accuses of plotting to topple its communist regime. Washington, which has 28,500 troops in South Korea, has repeatedly said it has no such intention and has no nuclear weapons deployed there.
On Saturday, a South Korean Foreign Ministry official said Seoul has proposed five-way talks with the U.S., China, Russia and Japan to find a new way to deal with the North’s threats.
The U.S. and Japan have agreed to participate, while China and Russia have yet to respond, the official told The Associated Press, requesting anonymity because he was discussing a plan still in the works.
North Korea and the five countries began negotiating under the so-called “six-party talks” in 2003 with the aim of giving the communist regime economic aid and other concessions in exchange for dismantling its nuclear program. In April, however, the North said it was pulling out of the talks in response to international criticism of its controversial April 5 long-range rocket launch.

Kim Yong-kyu, a spokesman at the U.S. military command in Seoul, called the latest accusation “baseless,” saying Washington has no nuclear bombs in South Korea. U.S. tactical nuclear weapons were removed from South Korea in 1991 as part of arms reductions following the Cold War.
South Korea’s Unification Ministry issued a statement Sunday demanding the North stop stoking tension, abandon its nuclear weapons and return to dialogue with the South.
On Saturday, North Korea’s Foreign Ministry threatened war on any country that dared to stop its ships on the high seas under the new sanctions approved by the U.N. Security Council on Friday as punishment for the North’s latest nuclear test.
It is not clear if the statements are simply rhetorical. Still, they are a huge setback for international attempts to rein in North Korea’s nuclear ambitions following its second nuclear test on May 25. It first tested a nuclear device in 2006.
In Saturday’s statement, North Korea said it has been enriching uranium to provide fuel for its light-water reactor. It was the first public acknowledgment the North is running a uranium enrichment program in addition to its known plutonium-based program. The two radioactive materials are key ingredients in making atomic bombs.
On Sunday, Yonhap news agency reported South Korea and the U.S. have mobilized spy satellites, reconnaissance aircraft and human intelligence networks to obtain evidence that the North has been running a uranium enrichment program.
South Korea’s Defense Ministry said it could not confirm the report. The National Intelligence Service – South Korea’s main spy agency – was not available for comment.
North Korea said more than one-third of 8,000 spent fuel rods in its possession has been reprocessed and all the plutonium extracted would be used to make atomic bombs. The country could harvest 13-18 pounds (6-8 kilograms) of plutonium – enough to make at least one nuclear bomb – if all the rods are reprocessed.
In addition, North Korea is believed to have enough plutonium for at least half a dozen atomic bombs.
North Korea says its nuclear program is a deterrent against the U.S., which it routinely accuses of plotting to topple its regime. Washington, which has 28,500 troops in South Korea, has repeatedly said it has no such intention.
The new U.N. sanctions are aimed at depriving the North of the financing used to build its rogue nuclear program. The resolution also authorized searches of North Korean ships suspected of transporting illicit ballistic missile and nuclear materials.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the new U.N. penalties provide the necessary tools to help check North Korea’s continued pursuit of nuclear weapons.
The sanctions show that “North Korea’s pursuit of nuclear weapons and the capacity to deliver those weapons through missiles is not going to be accepted by the neighbors as well as the greater international community,” Clinton said Saturday at a news conference in Canada.

Russian defense officials said the blast was roughly as strong as the bombs dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II and was stronger than North Korea’s first test in 2006.
In New York, U.N. diplomats said key nations were discussing a Security Council resolution that could include new sanctions against North Korea.
Ambassadors from the five permanent veto-wielding council members – the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France – as well as Japan and South Korea were expected to meet later Tuesday, the diplomats said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the meeting is private.
The Security Council met in emergency session Monday and condemned the nuclear test. Council members said they would follow up with a new legally binding resolution.
France’s deputy U.N. ambassador Jean-Pierre Lacroix said his government wants a resolution to “include new sanctions … because this behavior must have a cost and a price to pay.”
It was too early to say what those sanctions might be and whether China and Russia, both close allies of North Korea, will go along.
In an unusual step, China strongly reproached its close ally.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu reiterated that Beijing “resolutely opposed” the nuclear test and urged Pyongyang to return to negotiations under which it had agreed to dismantle its atomic program.
North Korea is “trying to test whether they can intimidate the international community” with its nuclear and missile activity, said Susan Rice, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
“But we are united, North Korea is isolated, and pressure on North Korea will increase,” Rice said.
Diplomats acknowledged, however, that there were limits to the international response and that past sanctions have had only spotty results.
“No one was talking about taking military action against North Korea,” John Sawers, the British ambassador to the United Nations, told the British Broadcasting Corp. “I agree that the North Koreans are recalcitrant and very difficult to hold to any agreement that they sign up to. But there is a limited range of options here.”
North Korea blamed the escalating tensions in the region on Washington, saying the U.S. was building up its forces, and defended its nuclear test as a matter of self-preservation.
An editorial in the North’s main newspaper, the Rodong Sinmun, called the United States “warmongers” and said Washington’s recent announcement about sending fighter planes to Japan “lay bare the sinister and dangerous scenario of the U.S. to put the Asia-Pacific region under its military control.”
At the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, An Myong Han, a diplomat from the North Korean mission, said his country “could not but take additional self-defense measures including nuclear tests and the test launch of long-range missiles in order to safeguard our national interest.”
North Korea fired at least five missiles this week. Yonhap, quoting an anonymous government official, said two missiles launched Tuesday – one ground-to-air, the other ground-to-ship – had a range of about 80 miles (128 kilometers). Yonhap later quoted another government official as saying an additional ground-to-ship missile was fired late Tuesday night.
Officials would not immediately comment on the reports.