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Pyongyang thumbs nose at enemies

SOURCE BBC News – Inside North Korea

North Korea says it is proceeding with plans for a third nuclear test, two days after the UN Security Council condemned its rocket launch.

SOURCE BBC News – Inside North Korea

Google Maps has begun to fill in the blanks on North Korea, using crowd-sourced geography data to add roads and city data about the secretive country. The new information has been gathered though Google Map Maker, the search giant’s tool to allow road names, points-of-interest, new routes, and cartographical errors to be manually added and amended by users themselves. The North Korean data has been several years in the making, Google says.

As the comparison photos of Pyongyang above show, the new data being added is considerable. Where previously there was little beyond the river system, now there are highways, district information, and green spaces all marked on the crowd-sourced map.

Nonetheless, there’s still plenty of work to be done, something Google is the first to concede. “We know this map is not perfect” Jayanth Mysore, senior product manager for Google Map Maker says of the updated information. “One of the exciting things about maps is that the world is a constantly changing place.”

Mysore argues that keeping the North Korean maps updated is about more than just Google’s hunger for data, or catering to public fascination with the country. Many citizens in South Korea have “ancestral connections or still have family living there,” for instance.

Future approved changes to the North Korean mapping in Google Map Maker will also be rolled out to Google Maps. Google’s efforts in the country have been in the headlines earlier this month, too, after chairman Eric Schmidt travelled there to discuss the importance of internet openness.

Google Maps opens North Korea is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

SOURCE SlashGear

After the U.N. Security Council unanimously approved new sanctions against North Korea, the country’s new leader called for all out action against America. Renee Montagne talks to Georgetown professor Victor Cha about North Korea’s latest possible threat.

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SOURCE Asia

Responding to tightened sanctions and a new United Nations Security Council resolution condemning their December rocket launch, North Korea has threatened a new nuclear test, explicitly warning that the North Korean weapons program will target the United States.

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SOURCE Asia

North Korea issues another warning – this time to Seoul – a day after announcing plans for a third nuclear test.

SOURCE BBC News – Asia

As reported by Reuters, The New York Times, and Fox News, among others, North Korea’s nuclear saber-rattling has reached a new peak. North Korean officials have made clear their intent to conduct a third nuclear test (earlier tests were in 2006 and 2009), as well as further rocket launches specifically designed to demonstrate missile reach extending to the U.S. From Reuters’ story: “North Korea is not believed to have the technology to deliver a nuclear warhead capable of hitting the continental United States, although its December launch showed it had the capacity to deliver a rocket that could travel 10,000 km (6,200 miles), potentially putting San Francisco in range, according to an intelligence assessment by South Korea. ‘We are not disguising the fact that the various satellites and long-range rockets that we will fire and the high-level nuclear test we will carry out are targeted at the United States,’ North Korea’s National Defence Commission said, according to state news agency KCNA.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

SOURCE Slashdot

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SOURCE North Korea

The threat follows the U.N. Security Council’s condemnation Tuesday of North Korea’s rocket launch in December. A U.S. official in Seoul said any such step by Pyongyang would be a “mistake.”

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SOURCE Asia

North Korea reacts angrily to a UN resolution condemning its rocket launch and expanding sanctions, pledging to strengthen nuclear capabilities.

SOURCE BBC News – Asia