Right before Thanksgiving the Chinese Government wouldn’t allow the USS Kitty Hawk to dock on the shores of Hong Kong. It’s only been a nearly 50 year tradition for the ship and its crew to meet up with family members in Hong Kong for some R&R. Now Red China says that the reason the American ship was turned away cause it gave them “grave concern” when the ship changed course to avoid an oncoming storm.

From the AP:

BEIJING (AP) – China said Tuesday it expressed “grave concern” over the USS Kitty Hawk’s passage through the politically sensitive Taiwan Strait on its return to Japan.

The U.S. aircraft carrier had been barred by China from entering Hong Kong for a Thanksgiving port call.

Mainland Chinese authorities reversed their decision, but by then the ships were too far out to sea and did not turn back.

“U.S. officials informed China at that time that it took the route because of a storm,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said at a briefing. “China expressed grave concern to the U.S. and requested the U.S. to take prudent moves in this highly sensitive area.”

Hmm.. from USA Today.

A
North Korean official has warned that the communist nation could fire a
nuclear-tipped missile unless the US acts to resolve its standoff with
Pyongyang, the South Korean Yonhap news agency has reported.

“We hope the situation will be resolved before an unfortunate
incident of us firing a nuclear missile comes,” the unnamed official
said on Monday, according to a Yonhap report from Beijing.

“That depends on how the US will act.”

Of course, what North Korea wants is bilateral talks with the United States.

Update: Some reports are covering this story without the first two paragraphs. Hmmm.

According to Drudge’s sources the nuclear testing by North Korea wasn’t nuclear at all.

GERTZ: U.S. doubts Korean test was nuclear; Readings fall short of atomic explosion… MORE…

U.S. intelligence agencies say, based on preliminary indications, that North Korea did not produce its first nuclear blast yesterday, WASHINGTON TIMES star reporter Bill Gertz is set to report in Tuesday editions.

U.S. officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that seismic readings show that the conventional high explosives used to create a chain reaction in a plutonium-based device went off, but that the blast’s readings were shy of a typical nuclear detonation.

The underground explosion, which Pyongyang dubbed a historic nuclear test, is thought to have been the equivalent of several hundred tons of TNT, far short of the several thousand tons of TNT, or kilotons, that are signs of a nuclear blast, the official said. Developing…

Original story from WashingtonTimes

Here we go again…

North Korea Plans to launch a nuclear test, from NYtimes:

(WASHINGTON, Oct. 3) North Korea announced Tuesday that it intended to conduct its first nuclear test, prompting warnings from Tokyo to Washington that an underground explosion would lead to a sharp response and could undermine the security balance in Asia.

What if North Korea tests a nuclear bomb?

(CSMonitor) “At a minimum, a test would be a clarifying moment,” says Jonathan Pollack, director of the Strategic Research Department at the Naval War College in Newport, R.I.

In addition, a test would hold geopolitical ramifications for the northeast Asian region, experts say, and for international efforts to keep the proliferation genie in its bottle. “The political effects of a nuclear test would be at least as consequential – and destabilizing – as any technological leap it might provide the North Korean nuclear program,” says Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association in Washington.

A test would shake up northeast Asia, sending shock waves through South Korea and possibly inciting a regional arms race – causing Japan and even South Korea to consider it a necessity to reverse course and develop their own nuclear deterrents. That, experts say, would very likely mean that the international nonproliferation regime is dead. (More)

“Happy Birthday Puti!”

(JPost)North Korean leader Kim Jong Il has sent a birthday greeting to Russian President Vladimir Putin, the North’s official Korean Central News Agency said Saturday, amid mounting tensions over a possible nuclear weapons test by the reclusive communist country.

In a brief message, Kim extended congratulations to Putin on his 54th birthday and wished him success in accomplishing Russia’s socio-economic development, KCNA said.

Japan wants North Korea to halt the tests… or they can continue to test and they will ask the Anti-Security Council to slap the North Koreans on the wrist.

(news1130) Japan sees a possible nuclear test by North Korea as “a grave threat to the peace and security of Northeast Asia and the world” and welcomed the statement, a Japanese Foreign Ministry statement said.

“If North Korea conducts a nuclear weapons test, despite the concerns expressed by international society, the Security Council must adopt a resolution outlining severely punitive measures,” the ministry said.

Blowing up a coal mine…

(BEIJING) North Korea is ‘more or less ready’ to conduct a nuclear test deep inside an abandoned coal mine but might hold off it can win concessions from the United States, a Chinese source briefed by Pyongyang said on Friday.

The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said a device would be detonated about 2,000 metres (6,500 feet) inside a mine near the border with China in the north of the country.

I’ve been pondering the “Postwar Findings About Iraq” Phase II report from the United States Senate. The report states that there was no known link between Saddam Hussein and the terror organization Al Qaeda. I think we were played.

Now here me out on this. I’m not going to be placing blame on President Bush or anyone in our government. They were simply acting on the intelligence that we and other nations had gathered prior to 2003. Since then Bush has repeatedly confirmed that the intelligence was faulty. As White House press secretary Tony Snow said, there is “nothing new” here.

Were we all, including President Bush, played by our enemies? Were we unknowingly duped into ousting Saddam? I’m beginning to believe that this is the likely case. Al Qaeda’s leadership is a ragtag fleet of strategist and war gamers who have a very clear endgame. They want to put an end to the western culture, destroy non-believers, and create a world government based on Islam, known as a caliphate. Is it at all possible that Saddam Hussien was the lesser of two evils in the Middle East?

According to wikipedia Saddam believed in spreading Pan-Arabism, which is a secular movement for unification among the Arab peoples and nations of the Middle East. In other words he wanted to become the person who controlled the entire region. Al Qaeda and Iran have similar ambitions, but they want to spread Pan-islamism, the religious movement of reunification among all muslims in the world. Both movements were opposed to each other because they basically had the same goal.

Did Al Qaeda have the resources to plant false information about its own involvement in Iraq? Is it possible that Al Qaeda, not President Bush tugging at the American people’s emotions when we learned there might have been a possible link between Al Qaeda and Iraq? Isn’t that what a terror organization does?  What better way for someone to lie about Al Qaeda’s involvement if it were coming directly from the mouth of an Al Qaeda informant.

This entire post deals with conspiracy theories and I have no information to back up my claims. Though it surely seems plausible…

Glenn Beck seems to be the only guy on TV who has a highlighter and is taking notes. On tonight’s “Real Story” segment Glenn quoted President Bush’s speech from Tuesday. In the speech the President linked together the war on terror and the war in Iraq using Osama Bin Laden’s own words.

These terrorists hope to drive America and our coalition out of Afghanistan, so they can restore the safe haven they lost when coalition forces drove them out five years ago. But they’ve made clear that the most important front in their struggle against America is Iraq — the nation bin Laden has declared the “capital of the Caliphate.” Hear the words of bin Laden: “I now address… the whole… Islamic nation: Listen and understand… The most… serious issue today for the whole world is this Third World War… [that] is raging in [Iraq].” He calls it “a war of destiny between infidelity and Islam.” He says, “The whole world is watching this war,” and that it will end in “victory and glory or misery and humiliation.” For al Qaeda, Iraq is not a distraction from their war on America — it is the central battlefield where the outcome of this struggle will be decided.

The reason we need to stay in Iraq and defeat the enemy from Bin Laden’s mouth. They want to establish a world government based on Islam and Iraq is going to be the caliphate’s Washington.

Drudge Reports:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is to attend the summit of Non-Aligned Movement countries in the Cuban capital Havana in mid-September, an official said Wednesday.

“The president will take part in the summit of Non-Aligned countries in Havana,” said the official from the president’s office, who asked not to be named.

The summit of the 116-nation grouping is to take place between September 11-16, and Ahmadinejad is also expected to attend the UN General Assembly in New York that starts on September 12, the official said.

There was no indication as to when Ahmadinejad would be arriving in Havana and New York.

Flashback a few days ago Iran stated that the U.N. should relocate away from NYC.

(Tehran, Iran, Sep. 04)– Iran suggested on Monday that the United Nations headquarters be relocated from New York to a country other than the United States.

“The U.S. tries to pressure Iran in any way possible. We are convinced that considerations should be made regarding the United Nations which is based in this country”, government spokesman Gholam-Hossein Elham told reporters during his weekly press conference.

“Either the UN must be relocated from the U.S. and set up in a different country or the U.S.’s provisions in this regard must be limited so that the UN plays a more serious role”, Elham said

More from Drudge…

Ahmadinejad said in Tehran Wednesday that his attendance of the UN General Assembly would be a “suitable opportunity” to challenge Bush in a television debate.

“My forthcoming visit to New York for the UN General Assembly would be a suitable opportunity to hold the debate and all world people, especially the Americans, could hear and watch it without censorship,” the news agency ISNA quoted the Iranian president as saying in a cabinet session.

More quotes from President Ahmadinejad

(The Peninsula Online) “I hope that the Americans will not hide from such a debate which is the best way to create peace,” Ahmadinejad said in a statement. “We are ready to make suggestions to help the world better to install justice, calm, wellbeing, peace, friendship and kindness and destroy the climate of violence, threats and bad humour,” he added.

In a fiercely religious speech to a conference in Tehran, Ahmadinejad had earlier said Bush was “nothing” compared to God and was struggling against a current that was inexorably taking the world towards divinity. “I am telling him (Bush) that all the world is threatening you since the general path that the world is taking is towards worshipping God and divinity,” Ahmadinejad said.

Why let all the official countries have all the fun when you too can have your very own air defense system? Not available in the United States, Canada, or Northern Ireland.

(TEHRAN, Iran) “Iran said on Monday it had tested a new air defense system to counter missiles and aircraft during large-scale military exercises throughout the country, state-run television reported.

“The upgraded missiles successfully destroyed the presumed enemies‘ missiles in low altitude simultaneously in several points,” said Gen. Amir Amini, deputy commander of Iran’s Air Force.

The television footage showed at least four surface-to-air missiles being fired from mobile launching pads. The report did not say if the missile is equipped with a guidance system.

During maneuvers dubbed “The Blow of Zolfaghar,” which began in August 19, Iran test fired short range surface-to-surface and sub-to-surface missiles.

Iran’s military test-fired a series of missiles during large-scale war games in the Persian Gulf in March and April, including a missile it claimed was not detectable by radar that can use multiple warheads to hit several targets simultaneously.