More news is trickling out about the recently made public Tongch’ang-dong missile base near Pongdong-ni, North Korea.
Some of the feature upgrades over their older Musudan-ni facility includes a movable launch pad, a 10-story tall tower , a new rocket motor test pad for better reliability testing and more hills for better privacy.
According to AP reports, engine testing occurred several months ago.
According to U.S. government officials, U.S. intelligence has known about this new base for some years. But, it took a report from Jane’s Defense Weekly to publicly reveal the details of the capabilities of the new base.
The timing is curious as it comes at a time of heightened speculation about the leadership in the DPRK and amid a stall in the six-party nuclear disarmament talks.
In what appears to be a response to the North Korean missile threats, Korea Times reports that advanced Patriot missile defence systems from Germany has been deployed at unidentified locations throughout South Korea.
Today, North Korea (DPRK) marks it’s 60th anniversary of it’s founding on Sept 9, 1948. To cap the celebrations, the North holds a large-scale military parade to display unity and military might.
We are all familiar with those menacing-looking, goose-stepping soldiers marching in incredible unison. What many people don’t know is that these guys have been practicing those high steps since Spring. I watched on with fascination at their dedication and the droning of their incessant cadence. Everyone had a number and whoever was out-of-line or out-of-step was rebuked.
It’s interesting the timing of a barrage of news coverage on rumors of the health of the “Dear Leader”. There was one from the left-field, as a Japanese “expert” opined that the “Dear Leader” had died in 2003. Then another more plausible one from South Korea stating Chinese doctors were in the North to treat high-level officials. CNN and many other reliable sources are starting to pick up on this chatter. Undoubtedly, there will be many eyes scouring the videos of today’s military parade for any clues.
My personal guess is that he won’t show.
What will the next 60 years hold?
Many people have said that perhaps more than one generation on both the North and the South would have to pass away before there is a true reconciliation and possible re-unification.
Since an average generation (time between generations) should be about 30 years, we should already be into our 3rd generation after the Korean War. Those born around 1948 (1st gen) would likely have kids around 1978 (2nd gen) who will likely be starting to have kids around 2008 (3rd gen).
As for the old-farts that still remember the war - they are fading fast. If you were fighting age in 1948, you would be well past 75 years old now. Remember, Kim Jong-Il was only about 7 years old at the founding of DPRK.
One could take a cynical view and wonder if, after generations apart, the Korean people could ever re-unite. I prefer to take the optimistic point of view and think that we are long over due for a breakthrough. I’m all in for something big to start happening in the near future.
North Korea accused US and South Korea of engaging in “aggressive” spy flights.
We know US and SK perform routine spy flights, so there’s not much new news here.
But, what’s interesting to me is that they called out 110 were from the US and 70 were from South Korea. I wonder how they know? Trajectories? Aircraft types?
It seems to be the 10th anniversary of the test-firing of a Taepodong-1 which DPRK claims is a satellite rocket launch platform. Here’s the text of the official radio broadcast.
Despite claims of success in the broadcast text, on September 1, 1998, the rocket launch apparently failed and the satellite called Kwangmyŏngsŏng (”Bright Light Star”) has never been seen in orbit.
The satellite appears to have been a clone of a circa 1970 Chinese Dong Fang Hong 1 satellite. Which itself was a clone of a circa 1962 US Telstar satellite.
The launch platform was a Taepodong-1, which is a heavily modified three stage SCUD-based missile.