Progressives will argue, it’s simply a matter of “protocol.”

North Korea’s state news agency weighed in on the Occupy Wall Street protests Thursday, highlighting the “stern judgment” of “millions of people” against a capitalist system that “brings exploitation, oppression, unemployment and poverty to the popular masses.”

The Korean Central News Agency’s daily dispatches usually contain a few accounts of the woes of the rest of the world, so KCNA’s editors were probably rubbing their hands with glee at the chance to play up the Occupy movement, which the report says is “sweeping across the capitalist world.”

“Ros, man representing the U.S. conservative hard-liners, is human scum as he earned ill-fame as an anti-communist fanatic,” the KCNA wrote. “He is a political illiterate ignorant of the background against which the nuclear issue cropped up on the Korean Peninsula and the processes to settle it.

“It is natural to hear such rubbish from him.”

North Korea said it was concerned that Ros-Lehtinen is taking the helm of Foreign Affairs as “it is quite clear that he would escalate the anti-DPRK campaign in Congress and political arena.”

Sounds a lot like MSNBC or any of the American alphabet media to me. Progressives, communists, socialists. They are all the same no matter what part of the world they are in.

North Korea has deployed SA-2 surface-to-air missiles near the border. The report suggested that the missiles appear to be in place to target the South’s jets flying close to the frontier. These Soviet-designed missiles have a range of between 8 and 30 kilometres.

Pyongyang has sent a consistent message that during direct talks with the United States, it is ready to conclude an agreement to end its nuclear programs, put them all under IAEA inspection and conclude a permanent peace treaty to replace the “temporary” cease-fire of 1953. We should consider responding to this offer.

The missiles were fired between 8 a.m. (2300 GMT) and 8:30 a.m. (2330 GMT), South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement. It did not say the range of the missiles.

“Our military is fully ready to counter any North Korean threats and provocations based on strong South Korea-U.S. combined defense posture,” the statement said.

An American destroyer has been shadowing the North Korean freighter sailing off China’s coast, possibly on its way to Myanmar.

Defense Undersecretary Michele Flournoy met with South Korean officials in Seoul on Friday as the U.S. sought international support for aggressively enforcing a U.N. sanctions resolution aimed at punishing Pyongyang for its second nuclear test last month. The North Korean-flagged ship, Kang Nam 1, is the first to be tracked under the U.N. resolution.

The Korean Central News Agency says the Central Court tried American journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee from June 4 to 8. It said Monday the trial confirmed an unspecified “grave crime” against the nation, and of illegally crossing into North Korea. The report says the court sentenced each of them to 12 years of reform in labor camps.

Today, North Korea said that it has conducted a nuclear test in violation of international law. It appears to also have attempted a short range missile launch. These actions, while not a surprise given its statements and actions to date, are a matter of grave concern to all nations. North Korea’s attempts to develop nuclear weapons, as well as its ballistic missile program, constitute a threat to international peace and security.

By acting in blatant defiance of the United Nations Security Council, North Korea is directly and recklessly challenging the international community. North Korea’s behavior increases tensions and undermines stability in Northeast Asia. Such provocations will only serve to deepen North Korea’s isolation. It will not find international acceptance unless it abandons its pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery.

The danger posed by North Korea’s threatening activities warrants action by the international community. We have been and will continue working with our allies and partners in the Six-Party Talks as well as other members of the U.N. Security Council in the days ahead.

North Korea says it has successfully conducted a nuclear test. The country’s official Korean Central News Agency reported that the test was carried out Monday. Lee Dong-kwan, a spokesman for the South Korean president, says that a nuclear test may have been carried out in the North. President Lee Myung-bak has called an emergency security session.

The New York Times also is now confirming the story:

North Korea announced on Monday that it had successfully conducted its second nuclear test, defying international warnings and drastically raising the stakes in a global effort to get the recalcitrant Communist state to give up its nuclear weapons program.

U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice said the 15-member council agreed that work on the new resolution will begin Tuesday. Surely the North Koreans and Lil Kim Jong Ill must be shaking in their boots by now, doncha think?

Update 5/26/09 – North Korea launched 3 more missiles today! First, North Korea fired two short-range missiles along its east coast, according to South Korea’s Yonhap news agency. Later on Tuesday US time, and Wednesday in North Korea, North Korea launched another missile into the Sea of Japan. Looks like those tough words from the UN and Obama are really scaring the North Koreans huh?

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UNITED NATIONS — Key Security Council nations reached agreement Saturday on a statement that would condemn North Korea’s rocket launch and toughen U.N. sanctions against the reclusive communist nation.

The five permanent veto-wielding members — the U.S., China, Russia, Britain and France — and Japan reached agreement after Tokyo backed down from a demand that the Security Council adopt a new resolution, the strongest response the U.N.’s most powerful body can give.

They distributed the text of the proposed presidential statement to the nine other council members, who must now consult their capitals. Libya’s deputy U.N. ambassador Ibrahim Dabbashi said he expects the council to meet again Monday.

A presidential statement is considered a weaker reaction by the council, and while the U.S. insists it is legally binding, others do not.

North Korea defiantly carried out a provocative rocket launch Sunday that the U.S., Japan and other nations suspect was a cover for a test of its long-range missile technology.

Liftoff took place at 10:30 p.m. EDT Saturday from the coastal Musudan-ri launch pad in northeastern North Korea, the South Korean government said. In Washington, the State Department also confirmed the launch.

“We look on this as a provocative act,” U.S. State Department spokesman Fred Lash said

Now, considering we are so arrogant according to big ears Obama, what will he do about this?

Laura Ling and Euna Lee, reporters working for Al Gore’s San Francisco-based Current TV, were seized at 3 a.m. March 17 after walking from China across the shallow Tumen River into North Korea, according to a report in JoongAng Ilbo, a newspaper in Seoul.

The newspaper, citing intelligence sources in the South Korean government, said the two women have been moved to Pyongyang, North Korea’s capital, where they were being interrogated as possible spies.

Missile experts from Iran are in North Korea to help Pyongyang prepare for a rocket launch, according to reports.

Amid increasing global concern over the launch, which the US and its allies consider to be illegal, Japan’s Sankei Shimbun newspaper claimed today that a 15-strong delegation from Tehran has been in the country advising the North Koreans since the beginning of March.

The experts include senior officials from the Iranian rocket and satellite producer Shahid Hemmat Industrial Group, the newspaper said.