Amateur spies put North Korea on the map

Living large ... one of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il's
palatial mansions with expansive gardens.

By Asher Moses

(SMH) -A group of amateur spies has used Google Earth to provide a rare glimpse inside North Korea, one of the world's most secretive countries.

By default the Google Earth map of North Korea is completely bare, with no roads or landmarks labelled.

Over two years, US doctoral student Curtis Melvin and other volunteers pored over news reports, images, accounts, books and maps painstakingly identifying and locating thousands of buildings, monuments, missile-storage facilities, mass graves, secret labour camps, palaces, restaurants, tourist sites, main roads and even the entrance to the country's subterranean nuclear test base.

The result, North Korea Uncovered, is one of the most detailed maps of North Korea available to the public today. The small file, which can be installed on top of Google Earth, has been downloaded more than 47,000 times since an updated version was released last month.

"We have portrayed things about which they are most proud and ashamed," Melvin said in an email interview.

Among the most notable findings is the site of mass graves created in the 1990s following a famine that the UN estimates killed about 2 million people.

"Graves cover entire mountains," Melvin said.

Also visible is the stark contrast between the living conditions of North Korea's elite and the general population.

The palaces housing dictator Kim Jong Il and his inner circle, clearly shown on the maps, contain Olympic-size swimming pools with giant waterslides and golf courses.

Conversely, much of North Korea's population is reliant on foreign food aid, ironic given the authoritarian regime is built around the ideology of self-reliance.

Analysing the satellite maps allowed Melvin to plot the country's transport and electricity network, revealing that many towns have no power supply at all.

Melvin and his team also believe they have discovered the Vinalon complex that has been connected with chemical warfare experiments.

The project highlights the collaborative power of the internet, which allows disparate groups of amateur sleuths to work together to uncover state secrets and shine new light on previously hidden countries.

North Korea is of particular interest to diplomats, analysts and the public of late because the communist regime has ramped up its nuclear tests, launched a series of short-range missiles and threatened possible attacks on South Korea.

Melvin said he notified two North Korean embassies of his project but received no response.

"This project is a terrific record of their 'revolution' so I would love to have more of their input for historical purposes," he said

Melvin, who began the project as a way of mapping places in North Korea that he had visited, said he pored over books, maps, pictures and news reports to identify locations on the Google satellite map. But he received significant help from collaborators, some of whom have studied North Korea professionally.

For instance, The Wall Street Journal reported that Joshua Stanton, a Washington attorney who has served in the US military in South Korea, identified one of the country's most notorious prisons, Camp 16, by combing the map for structures identified in sketches created by defectors.

A US senator then used Stanton's information to criticise North Korea's human rights record, saying "Google has made a witness of all of us ... we can no longer deny these things exist".

North Korea's own publicity of the movements of Kim Jong Il have also been invaluable to Melvin. Media reports from the country allowed him to identify locations the dictator has visited, such as a hydroelectric dam and power station he toured in April.

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North Korea's Next Kim: Dad's Favorite, Kim Jong Un

By Bill Powell

(Time.com) -In his memoir recounting the days he spent as Kim Jong Il's personal chef in Pyongyang, Kenji Fujimoto calls Kim Jong Un, the third son of the North Korea dictator, the "Prince." "When Jong Un shook hands with me," Fujimoto writes, "he stared at me with a vicious look. I cannot forget the look in the Prince's eyes: it's as if he was thinking, 'This guy is a despicable Japanese.'" Jong Un, Fujimoto also writes, is "a chip off the old block, a spitting image of his father in terms of face, body shape and personality."

For all those reasons, presumably, Kim Jong Un, thought to be 26 years old now, has apparently been designated, by his father and the upper echelons of Pyongyang's secretive Workers Party, as the one who will continue the dynastic regime in the North. He is indeed the Prince, destined to be the ruler of the country founded by his grandfather, Kim Il Sung. (Read about Kim Jong Il's secret family.)

Since last autumn, when Kim Jong Il suffered a stroke, the question of succession in North Korea has become paramount. Though Kim, according to intelligence reports, has resumed most of his duties, his own obvious frailty led even him, analysts believe, to begin preparing for the inevitable. Since becoming ill, as TIME revealed last month, Pyongyang has effectively been run by Kim Jong Il's brother-in-law, Chang Sung Taek, who is married to the dictator's younger sister, the sibling Kim is reportedly closest to. (The fluid, unpredictable nature of politics around the ruler can never be underestimated: in 2003, Kim, suspicious that Chang was building up a power base of his own, had him placed under house arrest for a year, relenting only after Kim's sister pleaded her husband's case.) (See a story about the five important women in Kim Jong Il's life.)

Now, according to North Korea watchers in Seoul, Chang has effectively taken the youngest Kim under his wing, acting as a sort of regent to the Prince. "He is the bridge from Kim Jong Il to Kim Jong Un," says Baek Seung Joo, who watches North Korea at the Korea Institute for Defense Analysis.

Little speaks more to what a freakishly closed society North Korea is than the scarcity of information about Jong Un, even among foreign intelligence agencies. Almost nothing was known about him until Fujimoto's book was published in 2003. Fujimoto is also the source for the only known photograph of Jong Un to circulate outside the North, a snapshot the chef took when the boy was about 11. He is the son of Kim Jong Il's third wife — reportedly his favorite — Ko Young Hee, a former dancer who died in 2004 from breast cancer. Ko was born in Japan but moved back to North Korea with her father in the 1960s.

In the 1990s Jong Un studied, as did one of his older brothers, at the International School of Berne, in Switzerland, using a pseudonym to hide his identity as a member of North Korea's ruling family. But several North Korea watchers in Seoul dispute that, and believe Jong Un has never been outside North Korea. From 2002 to 2007 he attended the Kim Il Sung military academy in Pyongyang. He's said to be about 5 ft. 9 in. (175 cm) tall, is overweight (nearly 200 lb., or 90 kg) and may suffer from diabetes, according to South Korean press reports.

Jong Un, according to Fujimoto's book, is his father's favorite in part because, more so than the two other male Kim offspring, he has a take-charge personality. Kim regards Jong Chul, Jong Un's older brother, as being "girlish." And their older half brother, Kim Jong Nam, appears to be a flake, having been detained and deported in Japan in 2001 after traveling on a phony passport and claiming he wanted to visit Disneyland. Jong Un, Fujimoto writes, is different. He and his brother Jong Chul enjoyed playing basketball — but after the games, Jong Chul would just say goodbye to their friends and leave. Jong Un would then gather up his teammates and, like a coach, analyze the game they just played: "You should have passed the ball to this guy, you should have shot it then." According to various, usually unsourced South Korean press reports since Fujimoto's book came out, Jong Un is said to be "ambitious" and a "take-no-prisoners" type — again, in contrast to his older brothers.

That he is also now North Korea's Kim-in-waiting has become apparent in the past month, analysts believe. In late April, he was named to the country's all-powerful National Defense Commission, a sign to North Korea analysts that he indeed is being groomed as his father's successor. There has been widespread speculation that uncertainty about a possible transition in the North is part of the reason for Pyongyang's recent, dramatic acts of defiance: a long-range rocket launch in early April, and last week's underground nuclear test and multiple missile launches. North Korea's politically powerful military is thought to have no interest in ever bargaining away the country's nuclear deterrent — the ultimate guarantee of the regime's security — and Jong Un's new posting on the Defense Commission may be a way for him to be educated on this issue, one East Asian intelligence analyst says.

The analyst adds that "that's just speculation, of course." As is pretty much everything when it comes to Kim Jong Il's favorite son, the "chip off the old block" apparently destined to pay the price of inheritance if he becomes leader of one of the world's most impoverished, insular and repressive regimes.

— With reporting by Stephen Kim / Seoul

Continue read North Korea's Next Kim: Dad's Favorite, Kim Jong Un...

Kim Jong-Il names next Dear Leader -Kim Jong-Un

(News.com-Reuters)-NORTH Korean leader Kim Jong-Il has asked his country's overseas missions to pledge loyalty to his youngest son, signalling he has been anointed as next leader of the communist dynasty.

Kim, 67, is thought to have suffered a stroke in August.

Analysts have said the North's recent military actions, including a nuclear test last week, may be aimed at helping him solidify power so that he can name a successor.

"It has been confirmed through various channels that North Korea sent emails to legations overseas, asking them to pledge their loyalty to (youngest son) Kim Jong-Un," the South Korean daily Dong-A Ilbo reported an "informed source" as saying.

Analysts have said succession is one of the most closely guarded secrets in the highly secretive North, with Kim's plans only known to his small inner circle.

The paper quoted another informed source as saying: "North Korean leadership is educating senior officials at major security authorities with an emphasis on the justification of father-to-son succession over three generations."

The sources concluded these signs pointed to Jong-Un being officially anointed.

Kim Jong-Il, groomed for decades to take over the country from his father and state founder Kim Il-sung, has three sons but they are unknown to most North Koreans.

Jong-Un, born either in 1983 or early 1984, was educated in Switzerland and intelligence sources have said he appears to be the most capable of the three.

Even by North Korea's opaque standards, very little is known about the son, whose youth is also a potential problem in a society that adheres closely to the importance of seniority.

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South Korea fortifies Yellow Sea

(News.com-AAP) -SOUTH Korea has bolstered its defence of a disputed naval border with an increasingly belligerent North Korea, deploying a guided-missile naval vessel to Yellow Sea waters off the west coast.

North Korea last week threatened to attack the South and said it would not guarantee the safety of its vessels in waters near a border that has been the site of two deadly clashes between the rival states in the past 10 years.

South Korea typically does not announce specific deployments related to defence against the North, with which it is still technically at war because their 1950-53 conflict ended with a ceasefire and not a peace treaty.

But in a signal it will stand firm over the disputed sea border, South Korea sent the 440-tonne vessel named Yun Yeong Ha, equipped with anti-ship missiles and heavy guns, to reinforce its fleet of high-speed naval vessels there, the navy said.

North Korea has stepped up its military training, stockpiled ammunition and imposed a no-sail order off its west coast waters to prepare for a possible fight with the South, the South's biggest newspaper Chosun Ilbo reported a South Korean military source as saying.

North Korea has stoked tension in the past days with a nuclear test on May 25 and firing a barrage of short-range missiles off its east coast.

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Despot dynamics: the dirty secret to survival

By Peter Hartcher

(SMH) -How will we know when the world is finally serious about disciplining Kim Jong-il's regime? Nobody wants a war, but there are three specific non-military steps that the big powers of North Asia could take to sever the regime's most important lifelines and bring it to its knees.

And the dirty secret of the North Korea debate is that nobody in officialdom's polite circles will discuss them openly. We certainly know the ritual signs that nothing serious is going to happen to hold North Korea accountable for its nuclear belligerence - we are seeing them now.

The United Nations Security Council wrings its hands over Kim's latest outrage. Special envoys fly about from one city to another. And experts debate whether to negotiate with Pyongyang or to apply sanctions.

Since 1994 the world has offered Pyongyang carrots and sticks in a giddying alternation of incentives and sanctions. And Kim pushes on relentlessly with his nuclear program regardless.

We'll know when the world has truly had enough of Kim's nuclear brinkmanship. The three steps to seriously disciplining North Korea? One is for Japan to take, another is for South Korea, and third is for China.

Japan would shut down the flow of hard currency that it allows its residents to send to North Korea.

Every year, the 100,000 or so members of Japan's North Korean community, organised through a group called Chosen Soren, send remittance money home.

How much is impossible to know, but in 1994 Japanese police estimated that it was about $US600 million ($739 million) annually. For perspective, a sum of $US600 million would make up a third of North Korea's declared annual shortfall of foreign exchange. The regime makes up the rest by smuggling out drugs, counterfeit US dollars, fake Viagra, weapons and other contraband.

Tokyo has taken a sterner approach to Pyongyang in recent years and has clamped down on bank transfers, but large volumes of cash still cross the Sea of Japan (also known as the East Sea) in the 1000 or so vessels that ply the route in any year.

Second, South Korea would shut down its trade with North Korea.

For Seoul, the $US1.8 billion annual two-way trade with its badly behaved northern neighbour is a trifling amount. North Korea makes up a lousy 0.2 per cent of South Korea's trade and there is nothing that Seoul buys from Pyongyang that it couldn't buy elsewhere.

But for Kim Jong-il, this would represent a third of his country's total trade. It would be a serious loss for the country and a body blow to the regime.

Third, China would cut off its trade with North Korea. This is the big one. Beijing is by far the biggest trading partner and biggest source of foreign exchange to Pyongyang.

And because much of China's export to its communist ally is provided on concessionary terms, this would be tantamount to shutting off its aid to Pyongyang as well. Among other things, China supplies some 90 per cent of North Korea's oil, most at friendship prices.

But rather than reduce its trade and aid to North Korea, China in recent months has actually increased it.

Why? Because the US and South Korea have been cutting aid to the recalcitrant country. China stepped in and more than offset the loss. As long as Kim Jong-il has China, he can probably survive the punishments that the rest of the world might attempt to mete out. So for any discipline to work, it's not enough for Japan or South Korea to act. China must act, too. And the world would need to support it with equivalent sanctions.

Keep in mind that North Korea is already on the economic equivalent of life support. Kim gets much criticism for starving his people to feed his army. And it's true that his people are starving - a third of the population is so desperately short of food that it is suffering from malnutrition, according to the UN World Food Program.

But visitors to the hermit kingdom in the last couple of years report that there isn't even enough to money to supply basics to the army. Close inspection of soldiers around Pyongyang shows that some have no socks and carry painted wooden guns. The country's total economy is estimated to produce between $US20 billion and $US30 billion a year, about the same as Tasmania's but for a country of 22 million.

Concerted action by its big three neighbours could reduce Kim to powerlessness. So why don't they act? For Japan it would be administratively and politically messy. For South Korea it would be politically tough - most South Koreans favour a conciliatory approach to their kinfolk across the demilitarised zone.

For China, keeping Kim's regime alive is a strategic priority. Worse than having Kim Jong-il next door would be not having Kim Jong-il next door.

If Kim's regime were to collapse, China would expect to be mobbed by millions of starving North Koreans. Even more troubling for Beijing is the likelihood Seoul would quickly assume control of Pyongyang. China would lose the buffer state that sits between it and a US treaty ally. That's why the world is not about to get serious about making Kim behave.

Presuming he succeeds in making deliverable nukes, Kim is not mad enough to attack anyone with them. And the world is not going to effectively deter him from trying.

Perhaps the best approach is to recall the wisdom of the Peter Sellers Cold War movie classic, Dr Strangelove Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb.

Peter Hartcher is the Herald's international editor.

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ASEAN nuclear ambitions alarm the West

(Jakarta Post) -Lilian Budianto

As North Korea's recent nuclear test raises tensions in Asia, ASEAN members' nuclear programs are ringing alarm bells in the Western world already irritated by Myanmar's military junta.

Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines have already notified the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) of their intention to operate nuclear power plants in the near future as an alternative to non-renewable energy resources.

Indonesia relies on coal, oil and gas to generate electricity for its population of 240 million. Along with the rise in industrial production, the government has sought to develop four nuclear plants that could support 2 percent of its electricity demands by 2017.

Similarly, Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam all aim to either build or operate nuclear power plants by 2020, while the Philippines has plans to revive its closed Bataan nuclear power plant.

Myanmar’s notorious junta, which has been subject to Western economic sanctions because of its poor human rights record, has attracted the most criticism over its plan to develop nuclear reactors. In 2002 it was reported that the Russian government had agreed to help the military junta build a nuclear research facility that would be used to develop reactors for medical and electricity resources.

The US has shunned Myanmar's nuclear plans, saying Yangon has neither the legal framework nor the provisions that would safeguard its nuclear program from posing a security threat.

“Nuclear power and nuclear arms are different sides of the same coin. Every nuclear-power-wielding state can turn into a nuclear-armed nation,” said Tessa de Ryck, an anti- nuclear campaigner from Greenpeace Southeast Asia.

“North Korea is an example. Once a country possesses a nuclear power plant, it is hard for the international community to restrict ambitions to develop nuclear weapons.”

The global community has failed to persuade North Korea from nuclear testing, and big powers like China have ensured economic support for Pyongyang. China has also provided economic support for Myanmar undermining economic sanctions imposed by the West.

Ten ASEAN members signed the 1995 Bangkok Treaty that outlined a nuclear-free zone and an agreement not to abuse nuclear technology. However, precedents have shown the bloc has no leverage in meddling in the domestic affairs of member countries in case of any standoffs.

Myanmar has become the center of attention recently over the fresh trial of opposition leader and Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been under house arrest for 13 out of the 19 years since her party won a landslide victory in 1990. ASEAN leaders have come under fire for their leniency toward Myanmar at a time when the West has been considering imposing yet more sanctions on Myanmar.

“No one can ask Myanmar to adhere to the human rights commitment they have made under the ASEAN Charter that entered into force last year,” said Bantarto Bandoro, the chairman of the Indonesian Institution for Strategic Studies. “If Myanmar later abuses the nuclear plant to produce arms, there would be no one that could ask them to stop.”

Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Thailand and Malaysia have signed the United Nations’ Non-Proliferation Treaty, but so far, only Jakarta has ratified it.

Greenpeace has predicted that nuclear power plants in the ASEAN region would be able to produce up to 200 nuclear bombs a year, considering it takes only 5 kilograms of plutonium to make a nuclear warhead.

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PM joins condemnation of North Korea

(Bangkok Post) -South Korea and Thailand have criticised North Korea, saying the country's latest nuclear test threatens world peace and stability and harms efforts to prevent atomic proliferation.

The two nations' leaders yesterday discussed Pyongyang's nuclear blast on the sidelines of a summit between South Korea and Southeast Asian countries being held amid heavy security.

The summit was planned months ago, but North Korea's underground nuclear test and a series of short-range missile launches last week threaten to steal the limelight from economic matters, the main focus of the agenda.

South Korean President Lee Myungbak and Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva agreed the test went against international efforts to prevent nuclear proliferation and "undermines peace and stability not only in East Asia but also in the whole world", said Lee Dong-kwan, the South Korean president's chief spokesman.

They also agreed to exert diplomatic pressure to ensure North Korea complies with UN Security Council resolutions and "promptly returns to six-party talks" aimed at ridding it of nuclear weapons.

The summit venue of Seogwipo, on the island of Jeju off the southern coast, is the South Korean city farthest away from the North. Still, the nervous South Korean government is taking no chances, positioning a surface-to-air missile outside the venue aimed towards the North.

About 5,000 police officers, including 200 commandos and special vehicles that can analyse sarin gas and other chemicals, have been deployed nearby, security authorities said. Marines, special forces and air patrols also kept watch on the island.

Leaders of the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations began arriving for the two-day summit, which officially begins today and commemorates 20 years of relations between South Korea and the bloc. South Korea's president planned to use yesterday for individual meetings with Asean leaders.

But concerns about North Korea's most recent bout of sabre-rattling loomed. South Korean officials said spy satellites had spotted signs the North might be preparing to transport a longrange missile to a launch site.

The North has attacked South Korean targets before, bombing a Korea Air jet in 1987 and trying to kill then-president Chun Doo-hwan in Burma in 1983.

The UN Security Council is still weighing up how to react to the North's belligerent moves that have earned Pyongyang criticism from the US, Europe, Russia and even the North's closest ally, China.

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said North Korea's progress on nuclear weapons and long-range missiles was "a harbinger of a dark future" and had created an urgent need for more pressure on the reclusive communist government to change its ways.

Mr Gates, speaking at an annual meeting of defence and security officials in Singapore, said Pyongyang's efforts pose the potential for an arms race in Asia that could spread beyond the region.

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Asean-Korea summit to highlight Seoul's soft power

By: THITINAN PONGSUDHIRAK

(Bangkok Post) -The summit between Asean and the Republic of Korea on Jeju Island today and tomorrow is a major national event for South Koreans as much as it is a muted affair for their Thai counterparts.

While Thais hardly know about this summit, South Koreans have been exposed to widespread media coverage. Asean members' flags have been raised all over the island. Jeju's international conference centre has frequently been featured on television news coverage. Academics and diplomats have promoted Track Two policy-related conferences ahead of the top-level powwow.

At issue will be South Korea's growing role as a middle power and the decade-long efforts to construct an East Asia Community. For Thailand, the summit will be the first Asean plus meeting since the aborted summits in Pattaya in April.

To be sure, domestic politics will loom large. Thailand's political turmoil has effectively forced the 16 members of the East Asia Summit - Asean plus China, Japan and South Korea, along with India, Australia and New Zealand - to skip a year for their fourth summit. Previous EAS meetings took place in Kuala Lumpur in December 2005, Cebu in January 2007 and Singapore in November 2007. But the Thailand-hosted fourth EAS, which was postponed from December 2008 to February 2009 in Pattaya has now been rescheduled for Phuket in October. This means that the annual EAS will now take two years to stage its fourth gathering.

Apart from Thailand's domestic political setbacks to the EAS meeting, Burma's latest crisis over the likely extension of Aung San Suu Kyi's confinement will complicate Asean's intramural dealings and its relationship with the broader Plus Three and other EAS members. The Asean-RoK summit will be the first opportunity for Asean to address the problems posed by Burma's military junta on the grouping's standing in the regional neighbourhood and the world at large.

In addition to Thailand and Burma, Malaysia's internal political game also has raised new concerns about the constraining effects of domestic politics on regional cooperation and integration. Burma's ongoing retardation of democratic rule, Thailand's and Malaysia's apparent and potential democratic setbacks, and the lack of democratisation elsewhere in Asean have cast dark clouds over the 10-member regional organisation in view of its much-advertised pro-democracy charter.

South Korea does not suffer the same constraints. Its democratic consolidation is so pronounced as to have claimed the life from apparent suicide of a former leader who was linked to a corruption scandal. Adept at influence-peddling and outright graft, politicians and leaders in Asean have routinely avoided accountability and jail time. Taking their own lives out of shame and guilt has been unthinkable. Such is the testimony of how far South Korea's democratic rule has progressed from years of military authoritarianism.

Increasingly confident of its democratic credentials and strong economy, Seoul as one of two Asian members in the developed-world Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) club, is charting a new course to befit its new-found status at the forefront of East Asia. The Asean-RoK summit that commemorates 20 years of bilateral relations will showcase a brand new Asean-Korea Centre based in Seoul to promote South Korea's trade and investment ties with Asean countries and to highlight the Asean-Korea free trade agreement.

Moreover, South Korea will announce a considerable increase in its official development assistance for developing Asean countries in line with its developed-country status. The development assistance has long been a cornerstone of Japan's soft power in the region. But South Korea is now poised to flex some soft power projection of its own to the benefit of poorer Asian countries and to help reduce the income gaps among Asean members in particular.

As it views itself as a benign and benevolent middle power, South Korea's "green" strategy warrants attention. It transcends immediate security concerns on the Korean peninsula with a forward-looking role for Seoul on the international stage. Its efforts to tackle global warming and other ecological concerns as a national strategy on a long-term basis are unrivalled in the region.

Yet a broader backdrop at the Asean-RoK summit will be the East Asian Community building. The EAC's impetus is rooted among the Asean Plus Three (APT) countries in the aftermath of the Asian economic crisis during 1997-98. The Chiang Mai Initiative that built on bilateral swap agreements has now been expanded to the tune of US$120 billion (4.2 trillion baht) to promote exchange rate stability in the region, with equal contributions from China and Japan. This is East Asia's most tangible financial cooperation to date, and could have the makings of an Asian monetary fund that was earlier denied by the US and IMF.

But the EAC is challenged by the rapid rise of the EAS with its wider geographical scope. If East Asia is to coalesce and integrate, the EAS is a less promising vehicle than the APT. On this dilemma, Seoul has not made up its mind.

Asean, too, is divided over whether to prioritise the APT over the EAS or the other way around. Security concerns in the region favour the EAS whereas trade and investment trends reinforce the APT. Whichever vehicle gains more weight will determine community-building efforts in East Asia.

While Asean and South Korea are the pivots of East Asia, Seoul is in a much stronger position to nudge the region forward. Asean and its current chair should beware other emerging region-building schemes that are not Asean-centred, such as Australia's Asia-Pacific Community. For Asean, failure to put its house in order will risk it being bypassed and loss of its self-entitled "driver's seat".

Thitinan Pongsudhirak is director of the Institute of Security and International Studies, Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University.

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Korea calls for close ties with Asean

Seogwipo (Bangkok Post)- South Korea imposed heavy security on Sunday for a summit with Asean leaders following North Korean nuclear and missile tests that frayed nerves across the region.

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak called on Sunday for closer business and cultural ties with Southeast Asia to create a common economic community that is a leader in green growth.

Lee, who invited leaders from the Association of Southeast Asian nations to commemorate 20 years of relations between the Seoul and the bloc, hailed the expansion of their economic ties.

Total trade has grown 11 times over the past two decades to $90.2 billion last year, he said, and is expected to increase to $150 billion by 2015.

"We must strengthen our economic partnership, expand cultural exchange and become partners in our common goal of taking the lead in the new era of green growth," Lee told business executives ahead of a summit on Monday and Tuesday. "We have the vast potential for future growth."

The two sides have concluded free trade agreements in goods and services and plan to sign an investment accord at the summit.

The summit was planned months ago, but North Korea’s underground nuclear test and a series of short-range missile launches last week threatens to steal the limelight from economic and diplomatic matters.

The summit venue of Seogwipo - on the island of Jeju off the southern coast - is the city farthest away from the North. Still, the nervous South Korean government is taking no chances, positioning a surface-to-air missile outside the venue aimed toward the north, amid signs Pyongyang was preparing to stage a new long-range missile exercise.

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva was among the leaders of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) attending the two-day summit, which begins Monday and commemorates 20 years of relations between South Korea and the bloc.

Some 5,000 police officers, including approximately 200 commandos, and special vehicles that can analyse sarin gas and other chemicals have been deployed near the venue of the Seogwipo summit.

Marines, special forces and air patrols also kept watch on the island.

South Korean officials said Saturday that spy satellites had spotted signs that the North may be preparing to transport a long-range missile to a launch site.

The North has attacked South Korean targets before, bombing a Korea Air jet in 1987 and trying to kill then-President Chun Doo-hwan in Burma in 1983.

On Saturday in Singapore, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates warned at an annual meeting of defense and security officials that the United States would not accept a nuclear-armed North Korea, while China called for calm.

Gates said North Korea’s defiant acts could spark an arms race with serious consequences for Asia.

“Our goal is complete and verifiable denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula, and we will not accept North Korea as a nuclear state,” Gates said.

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N Korean missile arrives for launch

(Press Ass) -North Korea has moved its most advanced long-range missile to a new launch site and has banned ships from the waters off its west coast until the end of July, it is reported.

The missile, which arrived at the Dongchang-ni launch site on the north-west coast, is believed to be a version of the Taepodong-2 rocket that the North fired on April 5.

On that occasion it claimed it had been a satellite launch.

The North could fire the missile as early as June 16 when South Korean president Lee Myung-bak and US president Barack Obama hold a summit in Washington, the South Korean Dong-a Ilbo newspaper said.

The North has also designated a large area off its west coast as a "no-sail" zone to the end of next month, an indication Pyongyang could stage armed provocations around the disputed sea border.

Seoul's defence ministry said it did not comment on intelligence matters. But late last week South Korean officials said US satellites had detected apparent preparations to transport a missile for a test launch.

A new missile launch would significantly increase the tensions running high after the North's April rocket launch and its second-ever nuclear test last week. World powers have been discussing at the United Nations how to punish Pyongyang for the atomic blast.

The North's Taepodong-2 rocket flew about 2,000 miles on April 5. The missile being readied for a new launch is believed to be an intercontinental ballistic missile or ICBM with a range of up to 4,000 miles. That would put Alaska within striking range.

North Korea has been building the new launch site at Dongchang-ni for years. Last year, Seoul's defence minister Lee Sang-hee told parliament that its construction was about 80% complete.

The North's missile and nuclear programmes have been considered a top security concern for the region, though the regime is not yet believed to have mastered the technology to make a nuclear warhead small enough to mount on a missile.

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