North Korea's communist regime has warned of a nuclear war on the Korean peninsula while vowing to step up its atomic bomb-making program in defiance of new U.N. sanctions.

The North's defiance presents a growing diplomatic headache for President Barack Obama as he prepares for talks Tuesday with his South Korean counterpart on the North's missile and nuclear programs.

Nuclear bombs are humankind's most powerful weapon, but their destructive impact would unlikely alter the spinning of the Earth on its axis.

One way to see this is to compare the energy of a nuclear blast to that of the rotational motion of the Earth. The largest nuclear bombs have an explosive energy of several tens of megatons, or about 10^17 Joules, whereas the Earth's rotational energy is around 10^29 Joules.

So even if all the force of a nuclear explosion was used to push the Earth in a particular direction, the energy in this push would be less than a trillionth that of the rotational energy.

It would be like trying to divert a speeding car with the energy of a flying mosquito.

Even the largest earthquakes have only a miniscule effect on our planet's spinning. Scientists calculated that the colossal tsunami-causing 2004 Sumatra earthquake caused a slimming of the Earth that shortened the day by a few millionths of a second and shifted the North Pole by an inch.

Interfax quoted an unnamed security source as saying a stand-off triggered by Pyongyang's nuclear test on Monday could affect the security of Russia's far eastern regions, which border North Korea.

"The need has emerged for an appropriate package of precautionary measures," the source said.

The test comes less than two months after the North enraged the US and its allies by test firing a long-range ballistic missile.

The KNCA news agency, the regime's official mouthpiece, said: "We have successfully conducted another nuclear test on 25 May as part of the republic's measures to strengthen its nuclear deterrent."

THE TEST...
'ON A PAR WITH HIROSHIMA'...
GAVE USA LESS THAN HOUR'S NOTICE...
Could carry out more...
Fires 3 short-range missiles...

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This is NOT a religious debate.

Religion has always shaped politics. In the Middle Ages religion made the laws and government enforced them by judgement and punishment.

Even today, religion propels politics; the right wing and the left wing are on the same bird.

Religious institutions hold more wealth than governments. They own hospitals, real estate, colleges, universities, private schools, and have their hands in most every commercial venture through their stock portfolios.

He who controls the wealth rules the world.

Research polls show that over the past several years, many people who followed the traditions of various religions have left the churches. They have lost a greater number than ever before and new converts are few. This poses a danger to the structure of our society; churches are beginning to loose both their wealth and control of the masses.

Many of these drop-outs have started to ask real questions for the first time. They are realizing that their religions are based on mysticism and superstition. They have been lied to and duped.

The accessibility of information through the internet has had a lot to do with the re-education of these mesmerized crowds.

Now, these people face a greater danger.

This excerpt was copied from a church sermon. It seems to be a threat to the defectors. And why not? Because they are afraid of these people who can influence the others. Never mind that there are many published sources of information to find truth; they fear that personal relationships are more influential. They do not want defectors spilling the beans and enlightening others to their tricks.


There is a plan in place to silence the educators. The sheep must be kept dumb. Religions are now seeing a great threat to their finances and power. The great depopulation plan will take place soon.

There is no sky daddy directing this. It is a body of evil psychopaths who have manipulated this plan for a long time. It will soon come to fruition.

This has nothing to do with any local preachers; many are deluded themselves. Many ministers are unaware that they themselves, are being used to accomplish this.

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After years of conjecture, details have begun to emerge of a "kill weapon" developed by the Chinese to target and destroy U.S. aircraft carriers.

First posted on a Chinese blog viewed as credible by military analysts and then translated by the naval affairs blog Information Dissemination, a recent report provides a description of an anti-ship ballistic missile (ASBM) that can strike carriers and other U.S. vessels at a range of 2000km.

The new hypersonic cruise missiles with increased range are designed to strike "aircraft carriers of the potential enemy if they pose a direct threat to Russia's security," the ministry said. It added that the missiles are also capable of hitting land targets. Russia has increasingly relied on nuclear weapons to compensate for the decline of its conventional forces. In December, the chief of the Russian general staff, General Nikolai Makarov, said Russia will keep its arsenal of tactical nuclear weapons , which he said were necessary to counter a massive Nato advantage in conventional weapons. Tactical nuclear weapons have a much shorter range compared to strategic nuclear weapons. They are intended for use within a theatre of battle. Earlier this week, the Russian navy's deputy chief of staff said the role of tactical nuclear weapons in the Russian navy may grow. Vice-Admiral Oleg Burtsev said the increasing range and precision of tactical nuclear weapons makes them an important asset. - Independent

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith highlighted the danger posed by new technologies and failed states around the world as she published an updated counter-terror strategy.

The report - known as Contest Two - is the first unclassified document to contain a detailed account of UK officials' assessment of the underlying causes of the terrorist threat and its likely future direction.  It contains a stark warning about the likelihood of an attack involving a "dirty bomb".

The study by leading international conservation scientists compared major conflict zones with the Earth's 34 biodiversity hotspots identified by Conservation International (CI). The hotspots  are considered top conservation priorities because they contain the entire populations of more than half of all plant species and at least 42 percent of all vertebrates, and are highly threatened.

The researchers also suggested they were open to increased oversight to prevent misuse of research in the life sciences, but that governmental intervention would not be welcome.

The council, working with the American Association for the Advancement of Science, sent surveys in 2007 to 10,000 AAAS members to assess their thoughts on "dual-use" biological research that produces vaccines and other clear benefits but also expertise, tools and procedures that could be misused. A total of 3,524 scientists submitted full or partial responses.

Egypt hosted talks aimed at ending the violence.

Flames and smoke rose over Gaza City amid heavy fighting. The Israeli threat to launch a "new phase" in its two-week-old offensive that has already killed more than 800 Palestinians came in defiance of international calls for a cease-fire.

Israeli tanks and troops launched a ground offensive in the Gaza Strip Saturday night with officials saying they expected a lengthy fight with Hamas militants in the densely populated territory after eight days of punishing airstrikes failed to halt rocket attacks on Israel.

Hamas vowed that Gaza would be a "graveyard" for Israelis forces.

The IDF is drawing up options for a strike on Iranian nuclear facilities that do not include coordination with the United States, The Jerusalem Post has learned. While its preference is to coordinate with the US, defense officials have said Israel is preparing a wide range of options for such an operation.

"It is always better to coordinate," one top Defense Ministry official explained last week. "But we are also preparing options that do not include coordination." Israeli officials have said it would be difficult, but not impossible, to launch a strike against Iran without receiving codes from the US Air Force, which controls Iraqi airspace. Israel also asked for the codes in 1991 during the First Gulf War, but the US refused.

"Any aggression against Iran will start a world war," deputy chief of staff for defence publicity, Brigadier General Masoud Jazayeri, said in a statement carried by the agency.

Iran is under international pressure to halt uranium enrichment, a process which lies at the core of fears about Iran's nuclear programme as it can make nuclear fuel as well as the fissile core of an atom bomb.

 Source : Breitbart / AP News

Instead, such an assault may be carried out in cyberspace by shadowy hackers half a world away. And Internet security experts believe that it could be just as devastating to the U.S.'s economy and infrastructure as a deadly bombing.

Experts say last week's attack on the former Soviet republic of Georgia, in which a Russian military offensive was preceded by an Internet assault that overwhelmed Georgian government Web sites, signals a new kind of cyberwar, one for which the United States is not fully prepared.

Georgia launched a major military offensive today to retake the breakaway province of South Ossetia. Rebel leaders said about 1,400 had been killed.

The offensive prompted Moscow to send tanks into the region in a furious response that threatens to engulf Georgia, a staunch US ally, and Russia in all-out war.

It was by far the worst outbreak of hostilities since the province won de-facto independence in a war against Georgia that ended in 1992. Witnesses said the South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali was devastated.

 Source : Independent UK

A typical Trident nuclear missile contains three to six warheads, and some submarines carry up to 24 missiles, meaning the potential for disaster could be huge.  Defence companies try to prevent accidental explosions of warheads by designing them to be "singlepoint safe" which means that a sudden knock at a single point should not  detonate the plutonium core.

The typical scenario would see the weapon being dropped from a crane while being loaded on or off a submarine.

 Source : Telegraph UK

The blast from the 10-kiloton bomb — similar to the bomb dropped over Hiroshima during World War II — would kill up to one in 10 tourists visiting the Washington Monument and send shards of glass flying the length of the National Mall, in a scenario that has become increasingly likely to occur in a major U.S. city in recent years, panel members told a Senate committee yesterday.

"It's inevitable," said Cham E. Dallas, director of the Institute for Health Management and Mass Destruction Defense at the University of Georgia, who has charted the potential explosion's effect in the District and testified before a hearing of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. "I think it's wistful to think that it won't happen by 20 years."

The Senate committee has convened a series of hearings to examine the threat and effects of a terrorist nuclear attack on a U.S. city , as well as the needed response.

 Source : Washington Times

Rockets and mortars pounded Baghdad's U.S.-protected Green Zone Sunday and a suicide car bomber struck an Iraqi army post in the northern city of Mosul in a surge of attacks that killed at least 57 people nationwide.

The latest violence underscored the fragile security situation and the resilience of both Sunni and Shiite extremist groups as the war enters its sixth year and the U.S. death toll in the conflict approaches 4,000.

Attacks in Baghdad probably stemmed from rising tensions between rival Shiite groups - some of whom may have been behind the Green Zone blasts. It was the most sustained assault in months against the nerve center of the U.S. mission.

The deadliest attack of the day was in Mosul when a suicide driver slammed his vehicle through a security checkpoint in a hail of gunfire and detonated his explosives in front of an Iraqi headquarters building, killing 13 Iraqi soldiers and injuring 42 other people, police said.

 Source : AP / Myway News

The world faces a future of "water wars", unless action is taken to prevent international water shortages and sanitation issues escalating into conflicts, according to Gareth Thomas, the International Development minister.

The minister's warning came as a coalition of 27 international charities marked World Water Day, by writing to Gordon Brown demanding action to give fresh water to 1.1 billion people with poor supplies. "If we do not act, the reality is that water supplies may become the subject of international conflict in the years ahead," said Mr Thomas. "We need to invest now to prevent us having to pay that price in the future."

His department warned that two-thirds of the world's population will live in water-stressed countries by 2025. The stark prediction comes after the Prime Minister said in his national security strategy that pressure on water was one of the factors that could help countries "tip into instability, state failure or conflict".

 Source : Independent UK

Dick Cheney, the US vice-president, has triggered speculation that he has been using a tour of the Middle East to prepare Iran's neighbors for a possible war with Tehran.

Mr Cheney, whose nine-day tour has included stops in Turkey, the Gulf and Afghanistan, insisted that Iran must not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons.

"The important thing to keep in mind is the objective that we share with many of our friends in the region, and that is that a nuclear-armed Iran would be very destabilising for the entire area," Mr Cheney told ABC News before arriving in Kabul, the Afghan capital, after a visit to Oman.

 Source : Telegraph UK

The number of coalition military deaths in the war in Iraq has reached 4,000.

The gloomy milestone was reached as a U.S. general said there has been a rise in insurgents booby-trapping houses. Most of the fatalities throughout the Iraq war have been U.S. military service members, with 3,705 deaths. That number also includes seven civilians working for the Pentagon.

The nearly 300 others hail from countries, such as Italy, Poland and Ukraine, that have supported the U.S. effort, which began in March 2003. The numbers are based on a CNN Library count of official figures from the various countries involved in the Iraq war.

On Friday a roadside bombing killed a U.S. soldier in eastern Baghdad, the U.S. military said. Two others were wounded. They were all from Multi-National Division-Baghdad. Three U.S. soldiers died in Baghdad on Thursday, the U.S. military said. Two of the dead died from a "non-battle related cause." In addition, a Task Force Lightning soldier was killed by enemy gunfire in Baghdad province.

Forty-six U.S. troops have died this month. Britain, which has command of coalition troops in southern Iraq, has suffered 168 deaths, 132 of them in hostile circumstances. The United States has about 162,000 troops in Iraq; 11,500 are from other countries, the State Department says.

 Source : Yahoo News / CNN