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| Seoul names crisis chief to boost defence against North Posted: 30 Dec 2010 07:27 PM PST  South Korea K-1 tanks fire live rounds during air and ground military exercises on the Seungjin Fire Training Field, in mountainous Pocheon, December 23, 2010. — Reuters pic The office was set up this month in response to questions over whether the South was prepared to defend itself against surprise attacks by the North after it shelled a southern island last month, killing four people. Lee also named a trusted economic aide as minister for knowledge economy in charge of industrial and energy policy, and a political ally the minister for culture. Lee is about to start the final two years of his single five-year term. The head of the crisis management office is retired Major-General An Kwang-chan. He previously served as the Defence Ministry's policy planning chief, and at the Combined Forces Command made up of US and South Korean militaries that organise defensive operations against the North. South Korea said yesterday that the immediate threat from the North had grown, with Pyongyang deploying 20,000 more special warfare troops near the border and adding tanks to its mechanised divisions. South Korea reinstated its "enemy" designation for the North this year after having dropped it in 2000. South Korea and its allies blamed the North for torpedoing a South Korean navy ship in March killing 46 sailors. The November bombardment of a South Korean island by North Korean artillery units sharply escalated tension, and the South vowed to deal "a merciless counterattack" in the event of more North Korean aggression. Analysts said the chance of a wider conflict had grown as tension mounted, but many do not expect the rival Koreas to engage in an all-out war. The new minister for knowledge economy is Choi Joong-kyung, while Choung Byoung-gug is minister for culture. — Reuters |
| Cameron: UK must endure tough economic medicine in 2011 Posted: 30 Dec 2010 04:28 PM PST  Prime Minister David Cameron: "Tough but necessary steps." — Reuters pic The centre-right Conservative leader said his coalition government would focus relentlessly in 2011 on supporting growth and driving job creation, and again called for more bank lending, particularly to small businesses. "2011 is going to be a difficult year, as we take hard but necessary steps to sort things out," Cameron said in a New Year's message. "Together, we can make 2011 the year that Britain gets back on its feet." The Conservative-Liberal Democrat government is cutting spending by 19 per cent across most departments over the next four years to rein in a budget deficit of more than 10 per cent of national output. Britain, emerging from a banking crisis and deep recession, has yet to feel the full brunt of the cuts, which are expected to lead to the loss of about 330,000 public-sector jobs. Several student protests against higher tuition fees have ended in violence, and the head of Britain's largest trade union has raised the prospect of coordinated strikes. Despite the cuts, public-sector net borrowing hit a record in November, raising questions about the government's ability to keep its austerity programme on track. Cameron said the coalition had pulled Britain out of the deficit danger zone but a lot of the "heavy lifting" would happen in 2011. "We have a credible plan for restoring confidence in our economy. But we have to see it through," he said. "The plans we have in place are tough, in fact incredibly difficult, but we are clear that the alternative — indecision and delay — would mean taking unacceptable risks with our economy, our country and our people," he said. Opposition Labour leader Ed Miliband said in his New Year message that 2011 would be a year of consequences for Britain — "consequences of the decision taken to reduce the deficit at what I believe to be an irresponsible pace and scale". Cameron said Britain still faced a serious threat from international terrorism. Police and intelligence agencies were "working round the clock to foil plots that would do terrible harm to our people and our economy", he said. "We must ask ourselves as a country how we are allowing the radicalisation and poisoning of the minds of some young British Muslims who then contemplate and sometimes carry out acts of sickening barbarity," Cameron said. Britain has regularly been a focus of Islamist militant plots. In the worst attack in Britain, suicide bombers killed 52 people on the London transport network on July 7, 2005. British authorities charged nine men this week with conspiracy to cause explosions and preparing acts of terrorism. — Reuters |
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