THE LASER WAR | BEYOND 2012

THE LASER WAR| Towards Armageddon | BEYOND 2012

North Korea “To Launch Missile Tomorrow”! |North Korea Warns Foreigners To Leave South Korea.

North Korea “To Launch Missile in a day or two “!

The worrying warning came as speculation heightened that North Korea is planning to pull its ambassador out of the UK after a shipping container was pictured outside the London embassy.  Boxes were seen being loaded onto a large lorry parked outside the pariah state’s embassy – an ordinary home in Ealing, west London.Seoul revealed today that foreign nationals in South Korea were told by the North to evacuate in case of a “merciless” war.  “We do not wish harm on foreigners in South Korea should there be a war,” said the KCNA news agency, citing its Korea Asia-Pacific Peace Committee.  “The situation on the Korean Peninsula is inching close to a thermo-nuclear war,” said the statement.  “Once a war is ignited on the peninsula, it will be an all-out war, a merciless, sacred, retaliatory war waged by the DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea),” it went on to say.  The remarks come as the communist country has repeatedly said it will turn Seoul and Washington into a “sea of fire” and launch pre-emptive nuclear attacks against its enemies.  South Korean forces have been on high alert for an imminent missile launch by the communist nation, which was seen moving two Musudan missiles to its east coast last week and mounting them on mobile launchers.  Speculation had been building that North Korea could carry out a missile test as early as this week after dictator Kim Jong-un warned he could not “guarantee the safety of foreigners” after April 10.

Kim Jyong with his Generals

Speculation has grown that the North would launch some sort of provocative action this week — perhaps a missile launch or a fresh nuclear weapons test.  A government source in Seoul said a North Korean medium-range missile, reported to have been shunted to the east coast, had been tracked and was believed to be ready for launch.  “Technically, they can launch it as early as tomorrow,” the source said.  But a U.S. embassy official in Seoul said a directive issued last week saying there was no imminent threat to Americans in South Korea remained valid. “Our workers are in all our offices today,” he said. “We have not evacuated anyone.”  A Philippine foreign ministry spokesman quoted diplomats at its Seoul embassy as saying the situation “remains normal and calm”.  Stocks, which had fallen 4 percent over the past four days, edged higher on Tuesday despite the warning to foreigners.

The won currency moved little, dipping slightly after the North Korean statement.  Employers at the Kaesong complex faced uncertainty as the 53,000-strong North Korean workforce stayed away. A spokesman for textile company Taekwang Industrial and at least two other firms said production had stopped.  About 475 South Korean workers and factory managers remain in Kaesong, which generates $2 billion in trade for the impoverished North. The Seoul government said 77 would return on Tuesday.  North Korean workers at the park have appeared increasingly agitated in recent days, refusing to talk to their colleagues.

Many Southerners connected with the park bedded down at budget hotels in a nearby South Korean town in the hope that an order would come from the North to re-open.  “I have been feeling anxious now and then. Now it’s really preposterous facing this,” said Shing Dong-chul, 55, a South Korean worker who transports wire made in Kaesong.  “North Korean workers didn’t talk a lot, but they appeared to have complaints about Kaesong being closed. They worried whether they would be working or not.”  Addressing a cabinet meeting, South Korean President Park Geun-hye described the suspension of Kaesong as “very disappointing” and said investors would now shun the North.  Few experts had expected Pyongyang to jeopardize Kaesong, which employs more than 50,000 North Koreans making household goods for 123 South Korean firms.

Warns The United States Of “Great Losses”| 

U.S. Navy Deploying Laser Weapons 

April 09, 2013

U.S. Navy Deploying Laser Weapon Prototype Near Iran; Iran Lines Up Behind North Korea

The Navy is going to sea for the first time with a laser attack weapon that has been shown in tests to disable patrol boats and blind or destroy surveillance drones. A prototype shipboard laser will be deployed on a converted amphibious transport and docking ship in the Persian Gulf, where Iranian fast-attack boats have harassed American warships and where the government in Tehran is building remotely piloted aircraft carrying surveillance pods and, someday potentially, rockets.

Laser Weapons deployed near Iran by US

The laser will not be operational until next year, but the announcement on Monday by Adm. Jonathan W. Greenert, the chief of naval operations, seemed meant as a warning to Iran not to step up activity in the gulf in the next few months if tensions increase because of sanctions and the impasse in negotiations over the Iranian nuclear program. The Navy released video and still images of the laser weapon burning through a drone during a test firing.

The laser is designed to carry out a graduated scale of missions, from burning through a fast-attack boat or a drone to producing a nonlethal burst to “dazzle” an adversary’s sensors and render them useless without causing any other physical damage.

The Pentagon has a long history of grossly inflating claims for its experimental weapons, but a nonpartisan study for Congress said the weapon offered the Navy historic opportunities.

“Equipping Navy surface ships with lasers could lead to changes in naval tactics, ship design and procurement plans for ship-based weapons, bringing about a technological shift for the Navy — a ‘game changer’ — comparable to the advent of shipboard missiles in the 1950s,” said the assessment, by the Congressional Research Service, a branch of the Library of Congress.

Readying for the laser war

The study found that the new high-energy laser “could provide Navy surface ships with a more cost-effective means of countering certain surface, air and ballistic missile targets.”

Among the limitations, according to the research service, is that lasers are not effective in bad weather because the beam can be disturbed or scattered by water vapor, as well as by smoke, sand and dust. It is also a “line of sight” weapon, meaning that the target has to be visible, so it cannot handle threats over the horizon. And enemies can take countermeasures like coating vessels and drones with reflective surfaces.

Navy officials acknowledge that the first prototype weapon to be deployed is not powerful enough to take on jet fighters or missiles on their approach. That capability is a goal of researchers.

Among the advantages cited in the study for Congress was the low cost — less than $1 per sustained pulse — of using a high-energy laser against certain targets. By comparison, current short-range air-defense interceptor missiles cost up to $1.4 million each.

The laser weapon also has a limitless supply of ammunition — pulses of high energy — so long as the ship can generate electricity. The beam can reach its target at the speed of light and can track fast-moving targets.

Ready to go the laser way

Rear Adm. Matthew L. Klunder, the chief of naval research, said the high-energy laser system was developed as part of the Navy’s search for “new, innovative, disruptive technologies.” In essence, the Navy is trying to harness technological advances in battling adversaries that are thinking of inventive ways to counter American power.

Admiral Klunder said the weapon had destroyed targets in all 12 of its field tests.

The laser prototype cost just under $32 million, officials said. But if the weapon proves itself during its sea trials, and the order is given to buy the laser system for service across the fleet, the price per unit is expected to drop.

Rear Adm. Thomas J. Eccles, the deputy commander for naval systems engineering, said the first laser device would be deployed on the Ponce, which serves as a floating base for military operations and humanitarian assistance in the waters of the Middle East and southwestern Asia.

Laser Attacks

As of now Iran has two navies: a traditional force of large older ships and a rival one run by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps that consists of fast-attack speedboats with high-powered machine guns and crews that employ guerrilla tactics, including swarming perilously close to American warships.

A significant confrontation between the United States and the Revolutionary Guards occurred in 2008, when five of Iran’s armed speedboats made aggressive maneuvers as they approached three American warships in international waters in the Strait of Hormuz. Pentagon officials said the commander of a Navy destroyer was on the verge of issuing an order to fire when the speedboats pulled away; no shots were fired. – NY Times.

WATCH: Laser Weapon System.

Iran Lines Up Behind North Korea, Warns The United States Of “Great Losses”.

Tehran’s intercession in the Korean crisis on the side of its ally in Pyongyang was predictable, even though the US preferrs to ignore the close interrelations between the two allies.   And so, on Friday, April 5, Deputy Chief of Staff of Iran’s Armed Forces Brig. Gen. Masoud Jazayeri stepped forward to point the finger at Washington:  [“The presence of the Americans in [South] Korea has been the root cause of tensions in this sensitive region in the past and present. The US and its allies will suffer great losses if a war breaks out in this region,” he said, adding for good measure: “Independent countries will not submit to the US mischief. The time for Washington’s bullying and extortion is long past.”  debkafile’s Iranian sources: The second part of the statement was a perfect fit for Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s flat refusal to accept US demands on Iran’s nuclear program. The Korean crisis gave the Iranians the opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. As Kim Jong-Un moved two intermediate missiles to the east coast of North Korea, Gen. Jazayeri’s rhetoric landed on the latest round of talks the six powers were holding with Iran in Amaty, Kazhakstan for a diplomatic resolution of Iran’s nuclear challenge.

Washington hoped to spread some cheer over a diplomatic process that had long past proven futile by planting advance reports that Khamenei had ordered a slowdown of Iran’s nuclear program up to the June presidential election to avoid crossing a red line that would trigger a military response. But when the parties came to the table, Iran’s senior negotiator Saeed Jalili refused outright to respond to the proposals put before Tehran in the previous session. He seemed to have taken his cue from Kim Jong-Un, who too has stuck to his father’s rejectionism in the face of every American proposal for dismantling North Korea’s nuclear program. debkafile: The inevitable convergence of the Korean and Iranian crises confronts America’s three top officials, President Barack Obama, Secretary of State John Kerry and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, with their most challenging international test.  Kerry would be well advised to take a break from his Sisyphean efforts to crack the latest of umpteen Israel-Palestinian disputes, call off his weekend appointments with Israeli and Palestinians leaders and instead fly to Moscow and Beijing. There, he could start bargaining with Russian and Chinese rulers for preliminary understandings with Washington on Iran and Syria that would make it worth their while to use their leverage for bringing the out-of-control North Korean firebrand to heel.  So long as the Obama administration sticks to its current separate policies on Syria and Iran, Iran and Korea, Moscow and Beijing won’t lift a finger to apply the brakes to Kim Jong-Un before he drives the world to catastrophe. – DEBKA.

Japan also deployed missile-defense systems

Japan today deployed missile-defense systems at three sites around Tokyo ahead of the possible missile launch, officials confirmed.  The country’s defense minister has also reportedly put destroyers with missile interception systems on alert in the Sea of Japan.  “As North Korea keeps making provocative comments, Japan, co-operating with relevant countries, will do what we have to do,” Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said today.  “The government is making utmost efforts to protect our people’s lives and ensure their safety,” he added.  Japan’s armed forces are authorised to shoot down any North Korean missile headed towards its territory, a defence ministry spokesman said.  “We are doing all we can to protect the safety of our nation,” chief Cabinet spokesman Yoshihide Suga said, though he and Ministry of Defense officials refused to confirm reports of a naval alert, saying they do not want to “show their cards” to North Korea. Tensions have escalated further after North Korean authorities told embassies in Pyongyang they could not guarantee their safety from Wednesday – after saying conflict was inevitable amid joint U.S.-South Korean military exercises due to last until the end of the month.  However, no diplomats appear to have left the North Korean capital, despite a North Korean general reprotedly warning diplomats at the weekend that the situation remained “grave”.  Earlier today, North Korean labourers failed to turn up for work at a factory complex operated with South Korea, effectively shutting down the last major symbol of cooperation between the hostile neighbours.  Soaring tensions on the peninsula have been fuelled by North Korean anger over the imposition of U.N. sanctions after its last nuclear arms test in February, creating one of the worst crises since the end of the Korean War in 1953. – Express.

Watch Laser shot down

Related articles

• North Korea nuclear threat: Pyongyang warns foreigners to leave South Korea amid threats of war (independent.co.uk)
• North Korea warns foreigners to leave South (thegreatone22.wordpress.com)
• Video: Navy prepares deployment of laser weapons (cbsnews.com)

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