# four. Greek People.
I just don't know how one's sleep at night after instigating such racial hate. Golden Dawn?Your country has too much financial issues mainly because of citizens not paying taxes, corruption and the government doctoring the budget.Don't take it out on immigrants. Every country has issues with immigrants but the solution is never violence you stupid Greeks.Get a clue.
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
Monday, April 30, 2012
Top ten crap list of the week
#10 is the president of Sudan Mr Bashir.
stop violence and killing innocent people in South Sudan.
#9 Lord resistance army commander Joseph Kony
your days are numbered
#8 Tanzanian Parliament
you really couldn't hold a vote of no confidence to the prime minister
#7 Pep Gourdiola
for quitting Barcelona
#6 Manchester United Football club.
just because!!!
#5 King of Bahrain
Abdulhadi al-Khawaja has no intention of overthrowing the government just let him free.
The last five is still being sorted out.
stop violence and killing innocent people in South Sudan.
#9 Lord resistance army commander Joseph Kony
your days are numbered
#8 Tanzanian Parliament
you really couldn't hold a vote of no confidence to the prime minister
#7 Pep Gourdiola
for quitting Barcelona
#6 Manchester United Football club.
just because!!!
#5 King of Bahrain
Abdulhadi al-Khawaja has no intention of overthrowing the government just let him free.
The last five is still being sorted out.
Monday, January 2, 2012
South Sudanese flee to escape deadly ethnic vendetta
Tens of thousands of South Sudanese are fleeing their homes after inter-ethnic clashes around the town of Pibor.
The UN is warning villagers to run for their lives as some 6,000 fighters advance on their ethnic rivals.
Fighters from the Lou Nuer ethnic group are pursuing members of the Murle community, reports say, as a deadly vendetta over cattle raiding continues.
A UN official told the BBC that peacekeepers and government troops are heavily outnumbered.
The government is sending additional police and troops in a bid to quell the violence.
About 1,000 people have been killed in recent months as reprisal attacks over cattle raids have escalated.
Tens of thousands of Murle fled Pibor after it came under attack from the Lou Nuer on Saturday.
BBC East Africa correspondent Will Ross says the Lou Nuer are attacking villages and burning homes and that it could take a week for the Murle to walk to an area of safety.
Deputy UN deputy humanitarian coordinator in South Sudan Lise Grande told the BBC that several hundred UN peacekeepers and government troops were "far outnumbered" by about 6,000 Lou Nuer fighters.
"Several flanks of the attackers have moved in a south-easterly direction [from Pibor], almost certainly looking for cattle," she said.
She said the main part of Pibor had been held but that a clinic belonging to the charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) had been "overtaken".
Ms Grande said the UN was tracking the movement of the Lou Nuer and warning others in their path to "disperse into the bush for their safety".
'Mother and sister missing'
Our correspondent says many of the Lou Nuer fighters were now believed to be in pursuit of the Murle who had fled Pibor.
The BBC has learnt that some of the displaced - mainly women, children and the elderly - have been killed although it has not been possible to verify how many.
A resident of Pibor who fled to the capital Juba told the BBC that the Lou Nuer were still occupying parts of the town.
Continue reading the main story
Audio slideshow: Cattle country
"The UN troops are there but they are not fighting the fighters who entered the town," said Rev Orozu Lokine Daky of Pibor's Presbyterian Church.
"They are just trying to protect the city centre only, the rest of the town is now under [the control of] the fighters.
"The situation is deteriorating. My own mother and my own sister are now missing. I don't know where they are. I assume they are dead," he added.
South Sudan's President Salva Kiir has called on the Lou Nuer to stop their advance and return to their traditional areas.
The government said it was deploying more troops and an additional 2,000 police to Pibor.
Military spokesman Col Philip Aguer said on Sunday: "The 2,000 police are being sent within the next 24 hours. Troops will be deployed as soon as possible."
MSF said it had lost contact with some 130 of its staff in Pibor and was "extremely worried" about their safety.
The MSF workers were believed to have fled into the bush when Pibor came under attack.
The medical charity's head in the country, Parthesarathy Rajendran, told the BBC they had only been able to get in touch with 13 members of the MSF team in the town.
The Lou Nuer fighters have arrived in Pibor after marching through Jonglei state in recent weeks, setting fire to homes and seizing livestock.
The entire town of Lukangol was burnt to the ground last week. About 20,000 civilians managed to flee before the attack, but dozens were killed on both sides.
The governor of Jonglei state and the vice-president of South Sudan have been trying to mediate between the rival ethnic groups.
South Sudan became independent on 9 July 2011 following decades of civil war with the north.
One legacy of the conflict is that the region is still flooded with weapons.
These are now being used in ethnic power-struggles, which often focus on cattle because of the central role they play in many South Sudanese communities.
From BBC
The UN is warning villagers to run for their lives as some 6,000 fighters advance on their ethnic rivals.
Fighters from the Lou Nuer ethnic group are pursuing members of the Murle community, reports say, as a deadly vendetta over cattle raiding continues.
A UN official told the BBC that peacekeepers and government troops are heavily outnumbered.
The government is sending additional police and troops in a bid to quell the violence.
About 1,000 people have been killed in recent months as reprisal attacks over cattle raids have escalated.
Tens of thousands of Murle fled Pibor after it came under attack from the Lou Nuer on Saturday.
BBC East Africa correspondent Will Ross says the Lou Nuer are attacking villages and burning homes and that it could take a week for the Murle to walk to an area of safety.
Deputy UN deputy humanitarian coordinator in South Sudan Lise Grande told the BBC that several hundred UN peacekeepers and government troops were "far outnumbered" by about 6,000 Lou Nuer fighters.
"Several flanks of the attackers have moved in a south-easterly direction [from Pibor], almost certainly looking for cattle," she said.
She said the main part of Pibor had been held but that a clinic belonging to the charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) had been "overtaken".
Ms Grande said the UN was tracking the movement of the Lou Nuer and warning others in their path to "disperse into the bush for their safety".
'Mother and sister missing'
Our correspondent says many of the Lou Nuer fighters were now believed to be in pursuit of the Murle who had fled Pibor.
The BBC has learnt that some of the displaced - mainly women, children and the elderly - have been killed although it has not been possible to verify how many.
A resident of Pibor who fled to the capital Juba told the BBC that the Lou Nuer were still occupying parts of the town.
Continue reading the main story
Audio slideshow: Cattle country
"The UN troops are there but they are not fighting the fighters who entered the town," said Rev Orozu Lokine Daky of Pibor's Presbyterian Church.
"They are just trying to protect the city centre only, the rest of the town is now under [the control of] the fighters.
"The situation is deteriorating. My own mother and my own sister are now missing. I don't know where they are. I assume they are dead," he added.
South Sudan's President Salva Kiir has called on the Lou Nuer to stop their advance and return to their traditional areas.
The government said it was deploying more troops and an additional 2,000 police to Pibor.
Military spokesman Col Philip Aguer said on Sunday: "The 2,000 police are being sent within the next 24 hours. Troops will be deployed as soon as possible."
MSF said it had lost contact with some 130 of its staff in Pibor and was "extremely worried" about their safety.
The MSF workers were believed to have fled into the bush when Pibor came under attack.
The medical charity's head in the country, Parthesarathy Rajendran, told the BBC they had only been able to get in touch with 13 members of the MSF team in the town.
The Lou Nuer fighters have arrived in Pibor after marching through Jonglei state in recent weeks, setting fire to homes and seizing livestock.
The entire town of Lukangol was burnt to the ground last week. About 20,000 civilians managed to flee before the attack, but dozens were killed on both sides.
The governor of Jonglei state and the vice-president of South Sudan have been trying to mediate between the rival ethnic groups.
South Sudan became independent on 9 July 2011 following decades of civil war with the north.
One legacy of the conflict is that the region is still flooded with weapons.
These are now being used in ethnic power-struggles, which often focus on cattle because of the central role they play in many South Sudanese communities.
From BBC
Police: Park gunman may have fled to area to hide
MOUNT RAINIER NATIONAL PARK, Wash. (AP) — Police officers with dogs trudged across the frigid, snow-covered slopes of Mount Rainier National Park Monday in their hunt for an armed Iraq War veteran suspected in the killing of a park ranger.
Authorities also dispatched teams to reach and evacuate three groups of campers in the backcountry who may be unaware about the search for Benjamin Colton Barnes, 24, wanted in the Sunday morning killing of Margaret Anderson.
Law enforcement officials are particularly concerned about a group near where the gunman may travel.
Barnes, who is believed to have survivalist skills, is also a suspect in a 3 a.m. New Year's Day shooting at a house party near Seattle that left four people wounded, two critically.
"The speculation is he threw some stuff in the car and headed up here to hide out," parks spokesman Kevin Bacher said.
Bacher wouldn't guess whether Barnes survived the night in snowy, cold conditions as officers tried to track him down using planes, dogs, trackers in snowshoes and an aircraft with heat-sensing capabilities.
With the proper gear and training, he said, it was possible for someone to survive.
"It can be very deadly if you're unprepared," he said. "Somebody who knows what they're doing out there could certainly survive the night. If he had those skills and had some of that gear, he could be very comfortable.
"I don't think any of us would be sorry if he was not in a condition to fire on our searchers," he said.
Barnes has had a troubled transition to civilian life, with accusations he suffers post-traumatic stress disorder and is suicidal.
Barnes was involved in a custody dispute in Tacoma in July, during which his toddler daughter's mother sought a temporary restraining order against him, according to court documents.
The woman told authorities he was suicidal and possibly suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder after deploying to Iraq in 2007-2008, and had once sent her a text message saying "I want to die."
She alleged that he gets easily irritated, angry and depressed and keeps an arsenal of weapons in his home. She wrote that she feared for the child's safety.
Undated photos provided by police showed a shirtless, tattooed Barnes brandishing two weapons, a large rifle and a smaller firearm with a large clip.
In November 2011, a guardian ad litem recommended parenting and communication classes for both parents and recommending Barnes be allowed to continue supervised visits with the child, two days a week.
That visitation schedule was to continue until he completed a domestic violence evaluation and mental health evaluation and complied with all treatment recommendations.
On New Year's, there was an argument at a house party in Skyway, south of Seattle, and gunfire erupted, police said. Barnes was connected to the shooting, said Sgt. Cindi West, King County Sheriff's spokeswoman.
Two of the three people who fled the scene were located. West said authorities were trying to find Barnes and had been in contact with his family to ask them to convince him to step forward and "tell his side of the story."
At Mount Rainier around 10:20 a.m. Sunday, the gunman had sped past a checkpoint to make sure vehicles have tire chains, which are sometimes necessary in snowy conditions, Bacher said.
One ranger began following him while Anderson, a 34-year-old mother of two young children who was married to another Mount Rainier park ranger, eventually blocked the road to stop the driver.
Before fleeing, the gunman fired shots at both Anderson and the ranger that trailed him, but only Anderson was hit.
Anderson would have been armed, as she was one of the rangers tasked with law enforcement, Bacher said. Pierce Co. Sheriff's spokesman Ed Troyer said she was shot before she had even got out of the vehicle.
About 150 officers, including from the Washington State Patrol, U.S. Forest Service and FBI, were on the mountain Sunday.
Tactical responders wearing crampons and snowshoes pursued what appeared to be the gunman's tracks in the snow, Troyer said. Those tracks went into creeks and other waterways, making it more difficult for crews to follow.
"He's intentionally trying to get out of the snow," Troyer said.
Authorities recovered his vehicle, which had weapons and body armor inside, Troyer said.
About 125 people slept overnight at the visitors center amid fears that they could be hurt as they manhunt unfolded. In the middle of the night, authorities evacuated them over several hours, Troyer said.
Evacuee Dinh Jackson, a mother who came to the mountain to sled with family and friends, said officials ordered people to hurry into the lodge after the shooting.
Jackson said officials had everyone get on their knees and place hands behind their heads as they went through the building, looking at faces to make sure the gunman was not among them.
"That was scary for the kids," she said.
Michael Wall, an elementary school teacher, spent the morning hiking with his son. They didn't find out about the violence until returning.
Wall said he was impressed by how staff members and visitors kept each other comfortable with food and conversation.
"It was calm, cool, easygoing," Wall said. "I didn't notice any tenseness or terseness."
The park would remain closed Monday.
Park superintendent Randy King said Anderson had served as a park ranger for about four years. King said Anderson's husband also was working as a ranger elsewhere in the park at the time of the shooting.
"It's just a huge tragedy — for the family, the park and the park service," he said.
Adam Norton, a neighbor of Anderson's in the small town of Eatonville, said the ranger's family moved in about a year ago. He said they were not around much, but when they were, Norton would see Anderson outside with her girls.
"They just seemed like the perfect family," he said.
The shooting renewed debate about a federal law that made it legal for people to take loaded weapons into Mount Rainier. The 2010 law made possession of firearms in national parks subject to state gun laws.
Bill Wade, the outgoing chair of the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees, said Congress should be regretting its decision to allow loaded weapons in national parks.
He called Sunday's fatal shooting a tragedy that could have been prevented. He hopes Congress will reconsider the law that took effect in early 2010, but doubts that will happen in today's political climate.
____
Associated Press writer Donna Gordon Blankinship contributed from Seattle.
Authorities also dispatched teams to reach and evacuate three groups of campers in the backcountry who may be unaware about the search for Benjamin Colton Barnes, 24, wanted in the Sunday morning killing of Margaret Anderson.
Law enforcement officials are particularly concerned about a group near where the gunman may travel.
Barnes, who is believed to have survivalist skills, is also a suspect in a 3 a.m. New Year's Day shooting at a house party near Seattle that left four people wounded, two critically.
"The speculation is he threw some stuff in the car and headed up here to hide out," parks spokesman Kevin Bacher said.
Bacher wouldn't guess whether Barnes survived the night in snowy, cold conditions as officers tried to track him down using planes, dogs, trackers in snowshoes and an aircraft with heat-sensing capabilities.
With the proper gear and training, he said, it was possible for someone to survive.
"It can be very deadly if you're unprepared," he said. "Somebody who knows what they're doing out there could certainly survive the night. If he had those skills and had some of that gear, he could be very comfortable.
"I don't think any of us would be sorry if he was not in a condition to fire on our searchers," he said.
Barnes has had a troubled transition to civilian life, with accusations he suffers post-traumatic stress disorder and is suicidal.
Barnes was involved in a custody dispute in Tacoma in July, during which his toddler daughter's mother sought a temporary restraining order against him, according to court documents.
The woman told authorities he was suicidal and possibly suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder after deploying to Iraq in 2007-2008, and had once sent her a text message saying "I want to die."
She alleged that he gets easily irritated, angry and depressed and keeps an arsenal of weapons in his home. She wrote that she feared for the child's safety.
Undated photos provided by police showed a shirtless, tattooed Barnes brandishing two weapons, a large rifle and a smaller firearm with a large clip.
In November 2011, a guardian ad litem recommended parenting and communication classes for both parents and recommending Barnes be allowed to continue supervised visits with the child, two days a week.
That visitation schedule was to continue until he completed a domestic violence evaluation and mental health evaluation and complied with all treatment recommendations.
On New Year's, there was an argument at a house party in Skyway, south of Seattle, and gunfire erupted, police said. Barnes was connected to the shooting, said Sgt. Cindi West, King County Sheriff's spokeswoman.
Two of the three people who fled the scene were located. West said authorities were trying to find Barnes and had been in contact with his family to ask them to convince him to step forward and "tell his side of the story."
At Mount Rainier around 10:20 a.m. Sunday, the gunman had sped past a checkpoint to make sure vehicles have tire chains, which are sometimes necessary in snowy conditions, Bacher said.
One ranger began following him while Anderson, a 34-year-old mother of two young children who was married to another Mount Rainier park ranger, eventually blocked the road to stop the driver.
Before fleeing, the gunman fired shots at both Anderson and the ranger that trailed him, but only Anderson was hit.
Anderson would have been armed, as she was one of the rangers tasked with law enforcement, Bacher said. Pierce Co. Sheriff's spokesman Ed Troyer said she was shot before she had even got out of the vehicle.
About 150 officers, including from the Washington State Patrol, U.S. Forest Service and FBI, were on the mountain Sunday.
Tactical responders wearing crampons and snowshoes pursued what appeared to be the gunman's tracks in the snow, Troyer said. Those tracks went into creeks and other waterways, making it more difficult for crews to follow.
"He's intentionally trying to get out of the snow," Troyer said.
Authorities recovered his vehicle, which had weapons and body armor inside, Troyer said.
About 125 people slept overnight at the visitors center amid fears that they could be hurt as they manhunt unfolded. In the middle of the night, authorities evacuated them over several hours, Troyer said.
Evacuee Dinh Jackson, a mother who came to the mountain to sled with family and friends, said officials ordered people to hurry into the lodge after the shooting.
Jackson said officials had everyone get on their knees and place hands behind their heads as they went through the building, looking at faces to make sure the gunman was not among them.
"That was scary for the kids," she said.
Michael Wall, an elementary school teacher, spent the morning hiking with his son. They didn't find out about the violence until returning.
Wall said he was impressed by how staff members and visitors kept each other comfortable with food and conversation.
"It was calm, cool, easygoing," Wall said. "I didn't notice any tenseness or terseness."
The park would remain closed Monday.
Park superintendent Randy King said Anderson had served as a park ranger for about four years. King said Anderson's husband also was working as a ranger elsewhere in the park at the time of the shooting.
"It's just a huge tragedy — for the family, the park and the park service," he said.
Adam Norton, a neighbor of Anderson's in the small town of Eatonville, said the ranger's family moved in about a year ago. He said they were not around much, but when they were, Norton would see Anderson outside with her girls.
"They just seemed like the perfect family," he said.
The shooting renewed debate about a federal law that made it legal for people to take loaded weapons into Mount Rainier. The 2010 law made possession of firearms in national parks subject to state gun laws.
Bill Wade, the outgoing chair of the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees, said Congress should be regretting its decision to allow loaded weapons in national parks.
He called Sunday's fatal shooting a tragedy that could have been prevented. He hopes Congress will reconsider the law that took effect in early 2010, but doubts that will happen in today's political climate.
____
Associated Press writer Donna Gordon Blankinship contributed from Seattle.
Monday, December 26, 2011
UK's Prince Philip remains in hospital
LONDON (AP) — Britain's Prince Philip spent a third night in the hospital as he recovers after treatment for a blocked coronary artery.
The 90-year-old husband of Queen Elizabeth II is in good spirits and will remain under observation for "a short period," Buckingham Palace officials said Monday. There are no details of when he may be released.
The prince underwent a successful coronary stent procedure at Papworth, a specialist heart hospital in Cambridgeshire, where he was taken on Friday after complaining of chest pains.
It was the most serious health scare suffered by Philip, who is known to be active and robust. He has continued to appear at many engagements, most recently taking a 10-day tour of Australia with the queen.
He is likely to miss the Royal Family's traditional Boxing Day shooting party on Monday at the queen's private Sandringham estate in Norfolk, an event he usually leads.
Six of Philip's grandchildren, including Princes William and Harry, visited him Sunday in the hospital.
The 90-year-old husband of Queen Elizabeth II is in good spirits and will remain under observation for "a short period," Buckingham Palace officials said Monday. There are no details of when he may be released.
The prince underwent a successful coronary stent procedure at Papworth, a specialist heart hospital in Cambridgeshire, where he was taken on Friday after complaining of chest pains.
It was the most serious health scare suffered by Philip, who is known to be active and robust. He has continued to appear at many engagements, most recently taking a 10-day tour of Australia with the queen.
He is likely to miss the Royal Family's traditional Boxing Day shooting party on Monday at the queen's private Sandringham estate in Norfolk, an event he usually leads.
Six of Philip's grandchildren, including Princes William and Harry, visited him Sunday in the hospital.
Kim Jong Il's son strengthens power with new post
PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — North Korea identified Kim Jong Il's son as head of a top ruling party body Monday, a post that gives him authority over political matters in addition to the military control attributed to him in recent days.
Kim Jong Un has rapidly gained prominence since the death of his father on Dec. 17, with the state media showering new titles on him almost daily.
On Saturday, state media referred to the younger Kim as "supreme leader" of North Korea's 1.2 million-strong armed forces and said the military's top leaders had pledged their loyalty to him. On Monday, the Rodong Sinmun newspaper described him as head of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party — a post that appears to make him the top official in the ruling party.
Kim Jong Il, who ruled North Korea for 17 years, wielded power as head of three main state organs: the Workers' Party, the Korean People's Army and the National Defense Commission. His father, North Korea founder Kim Il Sung remains the nation's "eternal president" long after his 1994 death.
The Kim family has extended its control over the country of 24 million people to a third generation with Kim Jong Un, who is in his late 20s and was revealed last year as his father's choice among three sons for successor.
He was named a vice chairman of the Central Military Commission of the Workers' Party, but was expected to ascend to new military and political posts while being groomed to become the next leader.
Monday's reference to his new title was in commentary in the Rodong Sinmun newspaper, the mouthpiece of the Workers' Party, urging soldiers to dedicate their lives "to protect the party's Central Committee headed by respected Comrade Kim Jong Un." Rodong Sinmun has also called on the people to become "eternal revolutionary comrades" with Kim Jong Un, "the sun of the 21st century."
The language echoed slogans used years ago to rally support for Kim Jong Il, and made clear the son is quickly moving toward leadership of the Workers' Party, one of the country's highest positions, in addition to the military.
North Korea refers to Kim Il Sung as the "sun" of the nation and his birthday is celebrated as the "Day of the Sun," and state media have sought to emphasize Kim Jong Un's role in carrying out the Kim family legacy throughout his succession movement.
His titles are slight variations of those held by his father, but appear to carry the same weight. It was unclear whether the nation's constitution had been changed to reflect the transfer of leadership as when Kim Jong Il took power after his father's death.
A day earlier, state TV showed footage of Kim Jong Un's uncle and key patron, Jang Song Thaek, in a military uniform with a general's insignia. It was the first time that Jang, who is a vice chairman of the powerful National Defense Commission, was shown on state TV in military garb.
Mourning continued, meanwhile, despite frigid winter weather, in the final days before Kim Jong Il's funeral is set to take place Wednesday and a memorial Thursday.
People continued lining up Monday in central Kim Il Sung Square, where a massive portrait that usually features Kim Il Sung has been replaced by one of Kim Jong Il, to bow before his smiling image and to lay funereal flowers. Heated buses stood by to give mourners a respite from the cold, and hot tea and water were distributed from beverage kiosks.
South Koreans were among the mourners in Pyongyang. The widow of former President Kim Dae-jung, who held a landmark summit with Kim Jong Il in 2000, and Hyundai Group Chairwoman Hyun Jeong-eun, whose late husband had ties to the North, each led delegations that drove across the heavily fortified border to Pyongyang.
They were greeted by North Korean officials during a stop at a factory park in the North Korean border town of Kaesong, according to footage from AP Television News in North Korea. North Korea sent delegations to Seoul when the women's husbands died.
Meanwhile, a South Korean activist was also in Pyongyang to pay respects to Kim Jong Il but without South Korean government permission, her colleagues said in a statement. For South Koreans, making unauthorized trips to North Korea is punishable by up to three years in prison, according to Seoul's Unification Ministry.
The Korean peninsula remains in a technical state of war because the three-year Korean war ended in a truce in 1953, not a peace treaty.
___
Associated Press writers Foster Klug, Hyung-jin Kim and Jiyoung Won in Seoul, South Korea, and AP Korea bureau chief Jean H. Lee, contributed to this report. Follow AP's Korea coverage at twitter.com/newsjean and twitter.com/APKlug.
Kim Jong Un has rapidly gained prominence since the death of his father on Dec. 17, with the state media showering new titles on him almost daily.
On Saturday, state media referred to the younger Kim as "supreme leader" of North Korea's 1.2 million-strong armed forces and said the military's top leaders had pledged their loyalty to him. On Monday, the Rodong Sinmun newspaper described him as head of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party — a post that appears to make him the top official in the ruling party.
Kim Jong Il, who ruled North Korea for 17 years, wielded power as head of three main state organs: the Workers' Party, the Korean People's Army and the National Defense Commission. His father, North Korea founder Kim Il Sung remains the nation's "eternal president" long after his 1994 death.
The Kim family has extended its control over the country of 24 million people to a third generation with Kim Jong Un, who is in his late 20s and was revealed last year as his father's choice among three sons for successor.
He was named a vice chairman of the Central Military Commission of the Workers' Party, but was expected to ascend to new military and political posts while being groomed to become the next leader.
Monday's reference to his new title was in commentary in the Rodong Sinmun newspaper, the mouthpiece of the Workers' Party, urging soldiers to dedicate their lives "to protect the party's Central Committee headed by respected Comrade Kim Jong Un." Rodong Sinmun has also called on the people to become "eternal revolutionary comrades" with Kim Jong Un, "the sun of the 21st century."
The language echoed slogans used years ago to rally support for Kim Jong Il, and made clear the son is quickly moving toward leadership of the Workers' Party, one of the country's highest positions, in addition to the military.
North Korea refers to Kim Il Sung as the "sun" of the nation and his birthday is celebrated as the "Day of the Sun," and state media have sought to emphasize Kim Jong Un's role in carrying out the Kim family legacy throughout his succession movement.
His titles are slight variations of those held by his father, but appear to carry the same weight. It was unclear whether the nation's constitution had been changed to reflect the transfer of leadership as when Kim Jong Il took power after his father's death.
A day earlier, state TV showed footage of Kim Jong Un's uncle and key patron, Jang Song Thaek, in a military uniform with a general's insignia. It was the first time that Jang, who is a vice chairman of the powerful National Defense Commission, was shown on state TV in military garb.
Mourning continued, meanwhile, despite frigid winter weather, in the final days before Kim Jong Il's funeral is set to take place Wednesday and a memorial Thursday.
People continued lining up Monday in central Kim Il Sung Square, where a massive portrait that usually features Kim Il Sung has been replaced by one of Kim Jong Il, to bow before his smiling image and to lay funereal flowers. Heated buses stood by to give mourners a respite from the cold, and hot tea and water were distributed from beverage kiosks.
South Koreans were among the mourners in Pyongyang. The widow of former President Kim Dae-jung, who held a landmark summit with Kim Jong Il in 2000, and Hyundai Group Chairwoman Hyun Jeong-eun, whose late husband had ties to the North, each led delegations that drove across the heavily fortified border to Pyongyang.
They were greeted by North Korean officials during a stop at a factory park in the North Korean border town of Kaesong, according to footage from AP Television News in North Korea. North Korea sent delegations to Seoul when the women's husbands died.
Meanwhile, a South Korean activist was also in Pyongyang to pay respects to Kim Jong Il but without South Korean government permission, her colleagues said in a statement. For South Koreans, making unauthorized trips to North Korea is punishable by up to three years in prison, according to Seoul's Unification Ministry.
The Korean peninsula remains in a technical state of war because the three-year Korean war ended in a truce in 1953, not a peace treaty.
___
Associated Press writers Foster Klug, Hyung-jin Kim and Jiyoung Won in Seoul, South Korea, and AP Korea bureau chief Jean H. Lee, contributed to this report. Follow AP's Korea coverage at twitter.com/newsjean and twitter.com/APKlug.
Decades later, a Cold War secret is revealed
ANBURY, Conn. (AP) — For more than a decade they toiled in the strange, boxy-looking building on the hill above the municipal airport, the building with no windows (except in the cafeteria), the building filled with secrets.
They wore protective white jumpsuits, and had to walk through air-shower chambers before entering the sanitized "cleanroom" where the equipment was stored.
They spoke in code.
Few knew the true identity of "the customer" they met in a smoke-filled, wood-paneled conference room where the phone lines were scrambled. When they traveled, they sometimes used false names.
At one point in the 1970s there were more than 1,000 people in the Danbury area working on The Secret. And though they worked long hours under intense deadlines, sometimes missing family holidays and anniversaries, they could tell no one — not even their wives and children — what they did.
They were engineers, scientists, draftsmen and inventors — "real cloak-and-dagger guys," says Fred Marra, 78, with a hearty laugh.
He is sitting in the food court at the Danbury Fair mall, where a group of retired co-workers from the former Perkin-Elmer Corp. gather for a weekly coffee. Gray-haired now and hard of hearing, they have been meeting here for 18 years. They while away a few hours nattering about golf and politics, ailments and grandchildren. But until recently, they were forbidden to speak about the greatest achievement of their professional lives.
"Ah, Hexagon," Ed Newton says, gleefully exhaling the word that stills feels almost treasonous to utter in public.
It was dubbed "Big Bird" and it was considered the most successful space spy satellite program of the Cold War era. From 1971 to 1986 a total of 20 satellites were launched, each containing 60 miles of film and sophisticated cameras that orbited the earth snapping vast, panoramic photographs of the Soviet Union, China and other potential foes. The film was shot back through the earth's atmosphere in buckets that parachuted over the Pacific Ocean, where C-130 Air Force planes snagged them with grappling hooks.
The scale, ambition and sheer ingenuity of Hexagon KH-9 was breathtaking. The fact that 19 out of 20 launches were successful (the final mission blew up because the booster rockets failed) is astonishing.
So too is the human tale of the 45-year-old secret that many took to their graves.
Hexagon was declassified in September. Finally Marra, Newton and others can tell the world what they worked on all those years at "the office."
"My name is Al Gayhart and I built spy satellites for a living," announced the 64-year-old retired engineer to the stunned bartender in his local tavern as soon as he learned of the declassification. He proudly repeats the line any chance he gets.
"It was intensely demanding, thrilling and the greatest experience of my life," says Gayhart, who was hired straight from college and was one of the youngest members of the Hexagon "brotherhood".
He describes the white-hot excitement as teams pored over hand-drawings and worked on endless technical problems, using "slide-rules and advanced degrees" (there were no computers), knowing they were part of such a complicated space project. The intensity would increase as launch deadlines loomed and on the days when "the customer" — the CIA and later the Air Force — came for briefings. On at least one occasion, former President George H.W. Bush, who was then CIA director, flew into Danbury for a tour of the plant.
Though other companies were part of the project — Eastman Kodak made the film and Lockheed Corp. built the satellite — the cameras and optics systems were all made at Perkin-Elmer, then the biggest employer in Danbury.
"There were many days we arrived in the dark and left in the dark," says retired engineer Paul Brickmeier, 70.
He recalls the very first briefing on Hexagon after Perkin-Elmer was awarded the top secret contract in 1966. Looking around the room at his 30 or so colleagues, Brickmeier thought, "How on Earth is this going to be possible?"
One thing that made it possible was a hiring frenzy that attracted the attention of top engineers from around the Northeast. Perkin-Elmer also commissioned a new 270,000-square-foot building for Hexagon — the boxy one on the hill.
Waiting for clearance was a surreal experience as family members, neighbors and former employers were grilled by the FBI, and potential hires were questioned about everything from their gambling habits to their sexuality.
"They wanted to make sure we couldn't be bribed," Marra says.
Clearance could take up to a year. During that time, employees worked on relatively minor tasks in a building dubbed "the mushroom tank" — so named because everyone was in the dark about what they had actually been hired for.
Joseph Prusak, 76, spent six months in the tank. When he was finally briefed on Hexagon, Prusak, who had worked as an engineer on earlier civil space projects, wondered if he had made the biggest mistake of his life.
"I thought they were crazy," he says. "They envisaged a satellite that was 60-foot long and 30,000 pounds and supplying film at speeds of 200 inches per second. The precision and complexity blew my mind."
Several years later, after numerous successful launches, he was shown what Hexagon was capable of — an image of his own house in suburban Fairfield.
"This was light years before Google Earth," Prusak said. "And we could clearly see the pool in my backyard."
There had been earlier space spy satellites — Corona and Gambit. But neither had the resolution or sophistication of Hexagon, which took close-range pictures of Soviet missiles, submarine pens and air bases, even entire battalions on war exercises.
According to the National Reconnaissance Office, a single Hexagon frame covered a ground distance of 370 nautical miles, about the distance from Washington to Cincinnati. Early Hexagons averaged 124 days in space, but as the satellites became more sophisticated, later missions lasted twice as long.
"At the height of the Cold War, our ability to receive this kind of technical intelligence was incredible," says space historian Dwayne Day. "We needed to know what they were doing and where they were doing it, and in particular if they were preparing to invade Western Europe. Hexagon created a tremendous amount of stability because it meant American decision makers were not operating in the dark."
Among other successes, Hexagon is credited with providing crucial information for the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks between the United States and the Soviet Union in the 1970s.
From the outset, secrecy was a huge concern, especially in Danbury, where the intense activity of a relatively small company that had just been awarded a massive contract (the amount was not declassified) made it obvious that something big was going on. Inside the plant, it was impossible to disguise the gigantic vacuum thermal chamber where cameras were tested in extreme conditions that simulated space. There was also a "shake, rattle and roll room" to simulate conditions during launch.
"The question became, how do you hide an elephant?" a National Reconnaissance Office report stated at the time. It decided on a simple response: "What elephant?" Employees were told to ignore any questions from the media, and never confirm the slightest detail about what they worked on.
But it was impossible to conceal the launches at Vandenberg Air Force base in California, and aviation magazines made several references to "Big Bird." In 1975, a "60 Minutes" television piece on space reconnaissance described an "Alice in Wonderland" world, where American and Soviet intelligence officials knew of each other's "eyes in the sky" — and other nations did, too — but no one confirmed the programs or spoke about them publicly.
For employees at Perkin-Elmer, the vow of secrecy was considered a mark of honor.
"We were like the guys who worked on the first atom bomb," said Oscar Berendsohn, 87, who helped design the optics system. "It was more than a sworn oath. We had been entrusted with the security of the country. What greater trust is there?"
Even wives — who couldn't contact their husbands or know of their whereabouts when they were traveling — for the most part accepted the secrecy. They knew the jobs were highly classified. They knew not to ask questions.
"We were born into the World War II generation," says Linda Bronico, whose husband, Al, told her only that he was building test consoles and cables. "We all knew the slogan 'loose lips sink ships.'"
And Perkin-Elmer was considered a prized place to work, with good salaries and benefits, golf and softball leagues, lavish summer picnics (the company would hire an entire amusement park for employees and their families) and dazzling children's Christmas parties.
"We loved it," Marra says. "It was our life."
For Marra and his former co-workers, sharing that life and their long-held secret has unleashed a jumble of emotions, from pride to nostalgia to relief — and in some cases, grief.
The city's mayor, Mark Boughton, only discovered that his father had worked on Hexagon when he was invited to speak at an October reunion ceremony on the grounds of the former plant. His father, Donald Boughton, also a former mayor, was too ill to attend and died a few days later.
Boughton said for years he and his siblings would pester his father — a draftsman — about what he did. Eventually they realized that the topic was off limits.
"Learning about Hexagon makes me view him completely differently," Boughton says. "He was more than just my Dad with the hair-trigger temper and passionate opinions about everything. He was a Cold War warrior doing something incredibly important for our nation."
For Betty Osterweis the ceremony was bittersweet, too. Not only did she learn about the mystery of her late husband's professional life. She also learned about his final moments.
"All these years," she said, "I had wondered what exactly had happened" on that terrible day in 1987 when she received a phone call saying her 53-year-old husband, Henry Osterweis, a contract negotiator, had suffered a heart attack on the job. At the reunion she met former co-workers who could offer some comfort that the end had been quick.
Standing in the grounds of her late husband's workplace, listening to the tributes, her son and daughter and grandchildren by her side, Osterweis was overwhelmed by the enormity of it all — the sacrifice, the secrecy, the pride.
"To know that this was more than just a company selling widgets ... that he was negotiating contracts for our country's freedom and security," she said.
"What a secret. And what a legacy."
___
Helen O'Neill is a New York-based national writer for The Associated Press. She can be reached at features(at)ap.org.
They wore protective white jumpsuits, and had to walk through air-shower chambers before entering the sanitized "cleanroom" where the equipment was stored.
They spoke in code.
Few knew the true identity of "the customer" they met in a smoke-filled, wood-paneled conference room where the phone lines were scrambled. When they traveled, they sometimes used false names.
At one point in the 1970s there were more than 1,000 people in the Danbury area working on The Secret. And though they worked long hours under intense deadlines, sometimes missing family holidays and anniversaries, they could tell no one — not even their wives and children — what they did.
They were engineers, scientists, draftsmen and inventors — "real cloak-and-dagger guys," says Fred Marra, 78, with a hearty laugh.
He is sitting in the food court at the Danbury Fair mall, where a group of retired co-workers from the former Perkin-Elmer Corp. gather for a weekly coffee. Gray-haired now and hard of hearing, they have been meeting here for 18 years. They while away a few hours nattering about golf and politics, ailments and grandchildren. But until recently, they were forbidden to speak about the greatest achievement of their professional lives.
"Ah, Hexagon," Ed Newton says, gleefully exhaling the word that stills feels almost treasonous to utter in public.
It was dubbed "Big Bird" and it was considered the most successful space spy satellite program of the Cold War era. From 1971 to 1986 a total of 20 satellites were launched, each containing 60 miles of film and sophisticated cameras that orbited the earth snapping vast, panoramic photographs of the Soviet Union, China and other potential foes. The film was shot back through the earth's atmosphere in buckets that parachuted over the Pacific Ocean, where C-130 Air Force planes snagged them with grappling hooks.
The scale, ambition and sheer ingenuity of Hexagon KH-9 was breathtaking. The fact that 19 out of 20 launches were successful (the final mission blew up because the booster rockets failed) is astonishing.
So too is the human tale of the 45-year-old secret that many took to their graves.
Hexagon was declassified in September. Finally Marra, Newton and others can tell the world what they worked on all those years at "the office."
"My name is Al Gayhart and I built spy satellites for a living," announced the 64-year-old retired engineer to the stunned bartender in his local tavern as soon as he learned of the declassification. He proudly repeats the line any chance he gets.
"It was intensely demanding, thrilling and the greatest experience of my life," says Gayhart, who was hired straight from college and was one of the youngest members of the Hexagon "brotherhood".
He describes the white-hot excitement as teams pored over hand-drawings and worked on endless technical problems, using "slide-rules and advanced degrees" (there were no computers), knowing they were part of such a complicated space project. The intensity would increase as launch deadlines loomed and on the days when "the customer" — the CIA and later the Air Force — came for briefings. On at least one occasion, former President George H.W. Bush, who was then CIA director, flew into Danbury for a tour of the plant.
Though other companies were part of the project — Eastman Kodak made the film and Lockheed Corp. built the satellite — the cameras and optics systems were all made at Perkin-Elmer, then the biggest employer in Danbury.
"There were many days we arrived in the dark and left in the dark," says retired engineer Paul Brickmeier, 70.
He recalls the very first briefing on Hexagon after Perkin-Elmer was awarded the top secret contract in 1966. Looking around the room at his 30 or so colleagues, Brickmeier thought, "How on Earth is this going to be possible?"
One thing that made it possible was a hiring frenzy that attracted the attention of top engineers from around the Northeast. Perkin-Elmer also commissioned a new 270,000-square-foot building for Hexagon — the boxy one on the hill.
Waiting for clearance was a surreal experience as family members, neighbors and former employers were grilled by the FBI, and potential hires were questioned about everything from their gambling habits to their sexuality.
"They wanted to make sure we couldn't be bribed," Marra says.
Clearance could take up to a year. During that time, employees worked on relatively minor tasks in a building dubbed "the mushroom tank" — so named because everyone was in the dark about what they had actually been hired for.
Joseph Prusak, 76, spent six months in the tank. When he was finally briefed on Hexagon, Prusak, who had worked as an engineer on earlier civil space projects, wondered if he had made the biggest mistake of his life.
"I thought they were crazy," he says. "They envisaged a satellite that was 60-foot long and 30,000 pounds and supplying film at speeds of 200 inches per second. The precision and complexity blew my mind."
Several years later, after numerous successful launches, he was shown what Hexagon was capable of — an image of his own house in suburban Fairfield.
"This was light years before Google Earth," Prusak said. "And we could clearly see the pool in my backyard."
There had been earlier space spy satellites — Corona and Gambit. But neither had the resolution or sophistication of Hexagon, which took close-range pictures of Soviet missiles, submarine pens and air bases, even entire battalions on war exercises.
According to the National Reconnaissance Office, a single Hexagon frame covered a ground distance of 370 nautical miles, about the distance from Washington to Cincinnati. Early Hexagons averaged 124 days in space, but as the satellites became more sophisticated, later missions lasted twice as long.
"At the height of the Cold War, our ability to receive this kind of technical intelligence was incredible," says space historian Dwayne Day. "We needed to know what they were doing and where they were doing it, and in particular if they were preparing to invade Western Europe. Hexagon created a tremendous amount of stability because it meant American decision makers were not operating in the dark."
Among other successes, Hexagon is credited with providing crucial information for the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks between the United States and the Soviet Union in the 1970s.
From the outset, secrecy was a huge concern, especially in Danbury, where the intense activity of a relatively small company that had just been awarded a massive contract (the amount was not declassified) made it obvious that something big was going on. Inside the plant, it was impossible to disguise the gigantic vacuum thermal chamber where cameras were tested in extreme conditions that simulated space. There was also a "shake, rattle and roll room" to simulate conditions during launch.
"The question became, how do you hide an elephant?" a National Reconnaissance Office report stated at the time. It decided on a simple response: "What elephant?" Employees were told to ignore any questions from the media, and never confirm the slightest detail about what they worked on.
But it was impossible to conceal the launches at Vandenberg Air Force base in California, and aviation magazines made several references to "Big Bird." In 1975, a "60 Minutes" television piece on space reconnaissance described an "Alice in Wonderland" world, where American and Soviet intelligence officials knew of each other's "eyes in the sky" — and other nations did, too — but no one confirmed the programs or spoke about them publicly.
For employees at Perkin-Elmer, the vow of secrecy was considered a mark of honor.
"We were like the guys who worked on the first atom bomb," said Oscar Berendsohn, 87, who helped design the optics system. "It was more than a sworn oath. We had been entrusted with the security of the country. What greater trust is there?"
Even wives — who couldn't contact their husbands or know of their whereabouts when they were traveling — for the most part accepted the secrecy. They knew the jobs were highly classified. They knew not to ask questions.
"We were born into the World War II generation," says Linda Bronico, whose husband, Al, told her only that he was building test consoles and cables. "We all knew the slogan 'loose lips sink ships.'"
And Perkin-Elmer was considered a prized place to work, with good salaries and benefits, golf and softball leagues, lavish summer picnics (the company would hire an entire amusement park for employees and their families) and dazzling children's Christmas parties.
"We loved it," Marra says. "It was our life."
For Marra and his former co-workers, sharing that life and their long-held secret has unleashed a jumble of emotions, from pride to nostalgia to relief — and in some cases, grief.
The city's mayor, Mark Boughton, only discovered that his father had worked on Hexagon when he was invited to speak at an October reunion ceremony on the grounds of the former plant. His father, Donald Boughton, also a former mayor, was too ill to attend and died a few days later.
Boughton said for years he and his siblings would pester his father — a draftsman — about what he did. Eventually they realized that the topic was off limits.
"Learning about Hexagon makes me view him completely differently," Boughton says. "He was more than just my Dad with the hair-trigger temper and passionate opinions about everything. He was a Cold War warrior doing something incredibly important for our nation."
For Betty Osterweis the ceremony was bittersweet, too. Not only did she learn about the mystery of her late husband's professional life. She also learned about his final moments.
"All these years," she said, "I had wondered what exactly had happened" on that terrible day in 1987 when she received a phone call saying her 53-year-old husband, Henry Osterweis, a contract negotiator, had suffered a heart attack on the job. At the reunion she met former co-workers who could offer some comfort that the end had been quick.
Standing in the grounds of her late husband's workplace, listening to the tributes, her son and daughter and grandchildren by her side, Osterweis was overwhelmed by the enormity of it all — the sacrifice, the secrecy, the pride.
"To know that this was more than just a company selling widgets ... that he was negotiating contracts for our country's freedom and security," she said.
"What a secret. And what a legacy."
___
Helen O'Neill is a New York-based national writer for The Associated Press. She can be reached at features(at)ap.org.
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