For North Korea, next step is a nuclear test

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea's next step after rattling the world by putting a satellite into orbit for the first time will likely be a nuclear test, the third conducted by the reclusive and unpredictable state.

A nuclear test would be the logical follow-up to Wednesday's successful rocket launch, analysts said. The North's 2009 test came on May 25, a month after a rocket launch.

For the North and its absolute ruler Kim Jong-un, the costs of the rocket program and its allied nuclear weapons efforts - estimated by South Korea's government at $2.8-$3.2 billion since 1998 - and the risk of additional U.N. or unilateral sanctions are simply not part of the calculation.

"North Korea will insist any sanctions are unjust, and if sanctions get toughened, the likelihood of North Korea carrying out a nuclear test is high," said Baek Seung-joo of the Korea Institute of Defense Analyses.

The United Nations Security Council is to discuss how to respond to the launch, which it says is a breach of sanctions imposed in 2006 and 2009 that banned the isolated and impoverished state from missile and nuclear developments in the wake of its two nuclear weapons tests.

The only surprise is that the Security Council appears to believe it can dissuade Pyongyang, now on its third hereditary ruler since its foundation in 1948, from further nuclear or rocket tests.

Even China, the North's only major diplomatic backer, has limited clout on a state whose policy of self reliance is backed up by an ideology that states: "No matter how precious peace is, we will never beg for peace. Peace lies at the end of the barrel of our gun."

As recently as August, North Korea showed it was well aware of how a second rocket launch this year, after a failed attempt in April, would be received in Washington.

"It is true that both satellite carrier rocket and (a) missile with warhead use similar technology," its Foreign Ministry said in an eight-page statement carried by state news agency KCNA on August 31.

"The U.S. saw our satellite carrier rocket as a long-range missile that would one day reach the U.S. because it regards the DPRK (Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea) as an enemy."

CASH IN EXCHANGED FOR COLDER WAR

The end-game for the North is a formal peace treaty with Washington, diplomatic recognition and bundles of cash to help bolster its moribund economy.

"They might hope that the U.S. will finally face the unpleasant reality and will start negotiations aimed at slowing down or freezing, but not reversing, their nuclear and missile programs," said Andrei Lankov, a North Korea expert at Kookmin University in Seoul.

"If such a deal is possible, mere cognition is not enough. The U.S. will have to pay, will have to provide generous 'aid' as a reward for North Koreans' willingness to slow down or stop for a while."

Recent commercially available satellite imagery shows that North Korea has rebuilt an old road leading to its nuclear test site in the mountainous northeast of the country. It has also shoveled away snow and dirt from one of the entrances to the test tunnel as recently as November.

At the same time as developing its nuclear weapons test site, the North has pushed ahead with what it says is a civil nuclear program.

At the end of November, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said the construction of a light water reactor was moving ahead and that North Korea had largely completed work on the exterior of the main buildings.

North Korea says it needs nuclear power to provide electricity, but has also boasted of its nuclear deterrence capability and has traded nuclear technology with Syria, Libya and probably Pakistan, according to U.S. intelligence reports.

It terms its nuclear weapons program a "treasured sword".

The missile and the nuclear tests both serve as a "shop window" for Pyongyang's technology and Kookmin's Lankov adds that the attractions for other states could rise if North Korea carries out a test using highly enriched uranium (HEU).

In its two nuclear tests so far, the North has used plutonium, of which it has limited stocks. However it sits on vast reserves of uranium minerals, which could give it a second path to a nuclear weapon.

"An HEU-based device will have a great political impact, since it will demonstrate that North Korean engineers know how to enrich uranium, and this knowledge is in high demand among aspiring nuclear states," Lankov said.

(Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)

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A look at North Korea's missile arsenal

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea's missile program is a point of national pride, with state TV regularly broadcasting past liftoffs set to rousing military anthems. But Pyongyang provides precious few details about its program's inner workings, leaving outside analysts to squeeze details from satellite photos and comparisons with other countries' missiles. Here's a look at the painstaking picture outsiders have drawn of the North's secretive missile program:

TAEPODONG: This group of rockets represents North Korea's highest level of missile technology, according to experts in the U.S., South Korea and elsewhere. Taepodong missiles essentially use the same technology as Unha and Paektusan rockets, according to those experts. The North says they are space launch vehicles (SLVs) designed to send satellites into orbit. Taepodong is the name given by foreign experts after a village near North Korea's east coast launch site, according to the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies.

— TAEPODONG-1: Estimated range of 2,500 kilometers (1,550 miles), twice as far as the earlier Rodong missile, according to South Korea's Defense Ministry. North Korea calls its model the Paektusan-1, a carrier rocket named after the highest mountain on the Korean Peninsula, Mount Paektu.

North Korea launched the Paektusan in 1998 and claimed to have successfully placed a satellite into orbit, but South Korean and U.S. officials say the launch ended in failure. Still, the launch shocked the world because it went well beyond North Korea's known capability at the time.

Both lower stages are liquid-fueled, with a potential solid-fuel third stage, according to the Federation of American Scientists, which estimates the payload at about 500 kilograms (1,100 pounds). Accuracy is reportedly poor, with no meaningful strike capability.

— TAEPODONG-2: A three-stage rocket with a potential range of more than 6,700 kilometers (4,100 miles), putting Alaska within striking distance, according to South Korea's Defense Ministry. The first two stages are liquid-fueled while the third is believed to be solid-fueled, according to FAS.

Iranian engineers reportedly observed a secret 2006 launch that the U.S. and South Korea say fizzled soon after liftoff; North Korea has never acknowledged the launch.

U.S. officials say North Korea's cooperation with Iran is extensive. Iran's Safir space launch vehicle is based on the same North Korean ballistic technology used for the Taepodong, Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Theodore Postol wrote in 2009.

— ADVANCED TAEPODONG-2: Experts in the U.S. and South Korea have dubbed the missile version of the Unha rocket that North Korea launched on Wednesday an "advanced" Taepodong-2. South Korean defense officials call it a long-range missile with a potential range of about 10,000 kilometers (6,200 miles), putting the U.S. West Coast, Hawaii, Australia and eastern Europe within striking distance. However, experts question whether North Korea has mastered the technology needed to shrink and mount a nuclear warhead on the missile.

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KN-08: North Korea unveiled this long-range missile at a military parade in April 2012. However, Markus Schiller and Robert Schmucker of Germany's Schmucker Technologie dismissed it as a poorly made mockup. They took issue with casings that appeared too thin to withstand flight, and discrepancies among the missiles of the same make on display. South Korea media reports said in April that the missile's range was up to 6,000 kilometers (3,730 miles).

The missile was transported on a large mobile launch vehicle in a parade that capped weeks of celebrations marking the 100th anniversary of the birth of the country's founder, Kim Il Sung. KN-08 is a NATO code name; its North Korean name is unknown.

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MUSUDAN: North Korea has deployed this intermediate range ballistic missile since 2007, according to South Korea's Defense Ministry. Unveiled in 2010, it has a range of 3,000 kilometers (1,800 miles). Parts of the Philippines are within the far end of its striking range. North Korea is believed to have used Russian SS-N-6 submarine-launched ballistic missile technology for the mobile, land-based missile, according to the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. It reportedly is liquid-fueled with one or two stages. Accuracy is unknown. The United States calls the missile the Musudan, naming it after a village near its test site, according to Jane's Information Group. Its North Korean name remains unknown.

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RODONG: U.S. bases in Japan are the likely target of this medium-range missile, according to Seoul's Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security. Reportedly known in North Korea by the name Hwasong, Rodong is closely related to Iran's Shahab-3 and Pakistan's Ghauri II (Hatf V), according to the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. The similarity is considered strong evidence of the countries' collaboration, and of North Korean sale of technology and missile equipment to others.

All three countries continue to refine the design. This missile is believed to be capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, according to the Center for Arms Control and Non-proliferation. It has an estimated range of 1,300 kilometers (800 miles) and payload of 700 kilometers (1,500 pounds), according to South Korea's Defense Ministry. They are single-stage, liquid-fuel missiles on mobile launchers, according to FAS and GlobalSecurity.org. Most reportedly have fairly poor accuracy, though some may have been fitted with warhead separation and more modern guidance systems. Foreign experts named the missile Rodong after the North Korean village where it first was spotted.

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SCUD: Single stage, liquid-fueled missile with a range of up to 800 kilometers (500 miles). Some versions of this missile are also called Hwasong in North Korea. The SCUD B and SCUD C have estimated ranges of 300 and 500 kilometers (180 and 310 miles), respectively, putting South Korea within their range, according to Seoul's Defense Ministry. The SCUD D has an extended range of 700 kilometers (430 miles) with a decreased payload compared to SCUD C, and could target Japan, according to Missilethreat.com. Accuracy is reportedly considered extremely poor. Ballistic missile programs in Pakistan and Iran were built on SCUD technology, Postol said in 2009.

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Sources: Federation of American Scientists, MIT professor Theodore Postol, Jane's Information Group, the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, GlobalSecurity.org, Missilethreat.com, South Korea's Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security, South Korea's Defense Ministry and Associated Press reports. AP writer Hyung-jin Kim contributed to this report from Seoul.

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Pope Benedict offers blessings with his first tweet

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – After weeks of anticipation, Pope Benedict sent his first tweet on Wednesday.

“Dear friends, I am pleased to get in touch with you through Twitter. Thank you for your generous response. I bless all of you from my heart.”

The tweet was sent when the 85-year-old pope tapped on a touch screen at the end of his weekly general audience in the Vatican before thousands of people.

(Reporting By Philip Pullella, editing by Paul Casciato)

Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Indian sitar virtuoso Ravi Shankar dies at 92

NEW DELHI (AP) — With an instrument perplexing to most Westerners, Ravi Shankar helped connect the world through music. The sitar virtuoso hobnobbed with the Beatles, became a hippie musical icon and spearheaded the first rock benefit concert as he introduced traditional Indian ragas to Western audiences over nearly a century.

From George Harrison to John Coltrane, from Yehudi Menuhin to David Crosby, his connections reflected music's universality, though a gap persisted between Shankar and many Western fans. Sometimes they mistook tuning for tunes, while he stood aghast at displays like Jimi Hendrix's burning guitar.

Shankar died Tuesday at age 92. A statement on his website said he died in San Diego, near his Southern California home with his wife and a daughter by his side. The musician's foundation issued a statement saying that he had suffered upper respiratory and heart problems and had undergone heart-valve replacement surgery last week.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh also confirmed Shankar's death and called him a "national treasure."

Labeled "the godfather of world music" by Harrison, Shankar helped millions of classical, jazz and rock lovers discover the centuries-old traditions of Indian music.

"He was legend of legends," Shivkumar Sharma, a noted santoor player who performed with Shankar, told Indian media. "Indian classical was not at all known in the Western world. He was the musician who had that training ... the ability to communicate with the Western audience."

He also pioneered the concept of the rock benefit with the 1971 Concert For Bangladesh. To later generations, he was known as the estranged father of popular American singer Norah Jones.

His last musical performance was with his other daughter, sitarist Anoushka Shankar Wright, on Nov. 4 in Long Beach, California; his foundation said it was to celebrate his 10th decade of creating music. The multiple Grammy winner learned that he had again been nominated for the award the night before his surgery.

"It's one of the biggest losses for the music world," said Kartic Seshadri, a Shankar protege, sitar virtuoso and music professor at the University of California, San Diego. "There's nothing more to be said."

As early as the 1950s, Shankar began collaborating with and teaching some of the greats of Western music, including violinist Menuhin and jazz saxophonist Coltrane. He played well-received shows in concert halls in Europe and the United States, but faced a constant struggle to bridge the musical gap between the West and the East.

Describing an early Shankar tour in 1957, Time magazine said. "U.S. audiences were receptive but occasionally puzzled."

His close relationship with Harrison, the Beatles lead guitarist, shot Shankar to global stardom in the 1960s.

Harrison had grown fascinated with the sitar, a long-necked string instrument that uses a bulbous gourd for its resonating chamber and resembles a giant lute. He played the instrument, with a Western tuning, on the song "Norwegian Wood," but soon sought out Shankar, already a musical icon in India, to teach him to play it properly.

The pair spent weeks together, starting the lessons at Harrison's house in England and then moving to a houseboat in Kashmir and later to California.

Gaining confidence with the complex instrument, Harrison recorded the Indian-inspired song "Within You Without You" on the Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," helping spark the raga-rock phase of 60s music and drawing increasing attention to Shankar and his work.

Shankar's popularity exploded, and he soon found himself playing on bills with some of the top rock musicians of the era. He played a four-hour set at the Monterey Pop Festival and the opening day of Woodstock.

Though the audience for his music had hugely expanded, Shankar, a serious, disciplined traditionalist who had played Carnegie Hall, chafed against the drug use and rebelliousness of the hippie culture.

"I was shocked to see people dressing so flamboyantly. They were all stoned. To me, it was a new world," Shankar told Rolling Stone of the Monterey festival.

While he enjoyed Otis Redding and the Mamas and the Papas at the festival, he was horrified when Hendrix lit his guitar on fire.

"That was too much for me. In our culture, we have such respect for musical instruments, they are like part of God," he said.

In 1971, moved by the plight of millions of refugees fleeing into India to escape the war in Bangladesh, Shankar reached out to Harrison to see what they could do to help.

In what Shankar later described as "one of the most moving and intense musical experiences of the century," the pair organized two benefit concerts at Madison Square Garden that included Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan and Ringo Starr.

The concert, which spawned an album and a film, raised millions of dollars for UNICEF and inspired other rock benefits, including the 1985 Live Aid concert to raise funds for famine relief in Ethiopia and the 2010 Hope For Haiti Now telethon.

Ravindra Shankar Chowdhury was born April 7, 1920, in the Indian city of Varanasi.

At the age of 10, he moved to Paris to join the world famous dance troupe of his brother Uday. Over the next eight years, Shankar traveled with the troupe across Europe, America and Asia, and later credited his early immersion in foreign cultures with making him such an effective ambassador for Indian music.

During one tour, renowned musician Baba Allaudin Khan joined the troupe, took Shankar under his wing and eventually became his teacher through 7 1/2 years of isolated, rigorous study of the sitar.

"Khan told me you have to leave everything else and do one thing properly," Shankar told The Associated Press.

In the 1950s, Shankar began gaining fame throughout India. He held the influential position of music director for All India Radio in New Delhi and wrote the scores for several popular films. He began writing compositions for orchestras, blending clarinets and other foreign instruments into traditional Indian music.

And he became a de facto tutor for Westerners fascinated by India's musical traditions.

He gave lessons to Coltrane, who named his son Ravi in Shankar's honor, and became close friends with Menuhin, recording the acclaimed "West Meets East" album with him. He also collaborated with flutist Jean Pierre Rampal, composer Philip Glass and conductors Andre Previn and Zubin Mehta.

"Any player on any instrument with any ears would be deeply moved by Ravi Shankar. If you love music, it would be impossible not to be," singer Crosby, whose band The Byrds was inspired by Shankar's music, said in the book "The Dawn of Indian Music in the West: Bhairavi."

Shankar's personal life, however, was more complex.

His 1941 marriage to Baba Allaudin Khan's daughter, Annapurna Devi, ended in divorce. Though he had a decades-long relationship with dancer Kamala Shastri that ended in 1981, he had relationships with several other women in the 1970s.

In 1979, he fathered Norah Jones with New York concert promoter Sue Jones, and in 1981, Sukanya Rajan, who played the tanpura at his concerts, gave birth to his daughter Anoushka.

He grew estranged from Sue Jones in the 80s and didn't see Norah for a decade, though they later re-established contact.

He married Rajan in 1989 and trained young Anoushka as his heir on the sitar. In recent years, father and daughter toured the world together.

The statement she and her mother released said, "Although it is a time for sorrow and sadness, it is also a time for all of us to give thanks and to be grateful that we were able to have him as part of our lives."

When Jones shot to stardom and won five Grammy awards in 2003, Anoushka Shankar was nominated for a Grammy of her own.

Shankar himself won three Grammy awards and was nominated for an Oscar for his musical score for the movie "Gandhi." His album "The Living Room Sessions, Part 1" earned him his latest Grammy nomination, for best world music album.

Despite his fame, numerous albums and decades of world tours, Shankar's music remained a riddle to many Western ears.

Shankar was amused after he and colleague Ustad Ali Akbar Khan were greeted with admiring applause when they opened the Concert for Bangladesh by twanging their sitar and sarod for a minute and a half.

"If you like our tuning so much, I hope you will enjoy the playing more," he told the confused crowd, and then launched into his set.

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Nessman reported from Bangkok. Associated Press writer Julie Watson in San Diego contributed to this report.

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DA investigating Texas' troubled $3B cancer agency

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Turmoil surrounding an unprecedented $3 billion cancer-fighting effort in Texas worsened Tuesday when its executive director offered his resignation and the state's chief public corruption prosecutor announced an investigation into the beleaguered agency.

No specific criminal allegations are driving the latest probe into the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas, said Gregg Cox, director of the Travis County district attorney's public integrity unit. But his influential office opened a case only weeks after the embattled agency disclosed that an $11 million grant to a private company bypassed review.

That award is the latest trouble in a tumultuous year for CPRIT, which controls the nation's second-largest pot of cancer research dollars. Amid the mounting problems, the agency announced Tuesday that Executive Director Bill Gimson had submitted his letter of resignation.

"Unfortunately, I have also been placed in a situation where I feel I can no longer be effective," Gimson wrote in a letter dated Monday.

Gimson said the troubles have resulted in "wasted efforts expended in low value activities" at the agency, instead of a focused fight against cancer. Gimson offered to stay on until January, and the agency's board must still approve his request to step down.

His departure would complete a remarkable house-cleaning at CPRIT in a span of just eight months. It began in May, when Dr. Alfred Gilman resigned as chief science officer in protest over a different grant that the Nobel laureate wanted approved by a panel of scientists. He warned it would be "the bomb that destroys CPRIT."

Gilman was followed by Chief Commercialization Officer Jerry Cobbs, whose resignation in November came after an internal audit showed Cobbs included an $11 million proposal in a funding slate without a required outside review of the project's merits. The lucrative grant was given to Dallas-based Peloton Therapeutics, a biomedical startup.

Gimson chalked up Peloton's award to an honest mistake and has said that, to his knowledge, no one associated with CPRIT stood to benefit financially from the company receiving the taxpayer funds. That hasn't satisfied some members of the agency's governing board, who called last week for more assurances that no one personally profited.

Cox said he has been following the agency's problems and his office received a number of concerned phone calls. His department in Austin is charged with prosecuting crimes related to government officials; his most famous cases include winning a conviction against former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay in 2010 on money laundering charges.

"We have to gather the facts and figure what, if any, crime occurred so that (the investigation) can be focused more," Cox said.

Gimson's resignation letter was dated the same day the Texas attorney general's office also announced its investigation of the agency. Cox said his department would work cooperatively with state investigators, but he made clear the probes would be separate.

Peloton's award marks the second time this year that a lucrative taxpayer-funded grant authorized by CPRIT instigated backlash and raised questions about oversight. The first involved the $20 million grant to M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston that Gilman described as a thin proposal that should have first been scrutinized by an outside panel of scientific peer-reviewers, even though none was required under the agency's rules.

Dozens of the nation's top scientists agreed. They resigned en masse from the agency's peer-review panels along with Gilman. Some accused the agency of "hucksterism" and charting a politically-driven path that was putting commercial product-development above science.

The latest shake-up at CPRIT caught Gilman's successor off-guard. Dr. Margaret Kripke, who was introduced to reporters Tuesday, acknowledged that she wasn't even sure who she would be answering to now that Gimson was stepping down. She said that although she wasn't with the agency when her predecessor announced his resignation, she was aware of the concerns and allegations.

"I don't think people would resign frivolously, so there must be some substance to those concerns," Kripke said.

Kripke also acknowledged the challenge of restocking the peer-review panels after the agency's credibility was so publicly smeared by some of the country's top scientists. She said she took the job because she felt the agency's mission and potential was too important to lose.

Only the National Institutes of Health doles out more cancer research dollars than CPRIT, which has awarded more than $700 million so far.

Gov. Rick Perry told reporters in Houston on Tuesday that he wasn't previously aware of the resignation but said Gimson's decision to step down was his own.

Joining the mounting criticism of CPRIT is the woman credited with brainstorming the idea for the agency in the first place. Cathy Bonner, who served under former Texas Gov. Ann Richards, teamed with cancer survivor Lance Armstrong in selling Texas voters in 2007 on a constitutional amendment to create an unprecedented state-run effort to finance a war on disease.

Now Bonner says politics have sullied an agency that she said was built to fund research, not subsidize private companies.

"There appears to be a cover-up going on," Bonner said.

Peloton has declined comment about its award and has referred questions to CPRIT. The agency has said the company wasn't aware that its application was never scrutinized by an outside panel, as required under agency rules.

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Follow Paul J. Weber on Twitter: www.twitter.com/pauljweber

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Defiant North Korea launches long-range rocket

United States officials confirm that North Korea appears to have carried out the successful launch of a long-range rocket.

The move comes as a surprise to the international community, which has consistently called on North Korea to abandon its efforts.

Less than 24 hours earlier, the North Koreans had indicated they were grappling with "technical uncertainties" that forced them to extend the launch window to Dec. 29.

The secretive regime insists its efforts are part of a peaceful space program intended to place a satellite into orbit. But the U.S. and key Asian allies believe it is a thinly disguised attempt to test an intercontinental ballistic missile aimed at furthering development of the technology needed to mount a nuclear warhead on a long-range rocket that could one day reach the U.S.

National Security Council spokesman Tom Vietor called the launch a "highly provocative act that threatens regional security."

In recent weeks even China, North Korean's only remaining ally, sent a high level delegation into Pyongyang to convey a message of constraint. Today, China expressed "regret" over the incident. In the past, China has supported North Korea's right to develop its space program.

"The action is yet another example of North Korea's pattern of irresponsible behavior," read the National Security Council statement. "The United States remains vigilant in the face of North Korean provocations and is fully committed to the security of allies in the region."

North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) acknowledged the launch initiated at 9:49 a.m. local time and followed its intended trajectory, traveling south between Korea and Japan.

"At no time was the missile or the resultant debris a threat to North America," said NORAD.

Japan's emergency alert system – M-NET – recorded the rocket's flight path directly over Okinawa just after 10:00 a.m. Officials say they have located three points of debris: One in South Korea's Yellow Sea, a second location further down the country's west coast and the third point 180 miles north of the Philippines.

A South Korean military official confirmed that one of their three warships, equipped with the Aegis radar system, detected the launch. The first stage fell just below Byeonsanbando, southwest of the Korean peninsula, exactly where it was supposed to, according to the official.

Increased attention focused on North Korea in recent weeks as satellite images showed action at the Tongchang-ri launch site. But on Monday, a statement from the Korean Committee of Space Technology claimed that scientists and technicians "found a technical deficiency in the first-stage control engine module of the rocket carrying the satellite." Satellite images also revealed that a new third-stage booster was delivered to the launch pad on Saturday.

A key issue is how far the rocket traveled and whether it was able to successfully separate its second and third stage rockets. If so, the capacity to travel long distances would be greatly enhanced.

The type of rocket is believed to be the Taepodong 2 missile. The North Koreans refer to it as the Unha-3, which in Korean translates as "Galaxy-3." The same type of missile has been previously tested three times in 2006, 2009 and 2012. Each time, the rocket failed soon after launch. It is believed to have the capacity to travel a minimum of 3,400 miles. That puts it well within striking range of the western U.S.

The U.S. had mobilized four warships in the Asia-Pacific region to monitor the launch. The guided missile destroyers the USS John S. McCain, the USS Benfold and the USS Fitzgerald joined the guided missile cruiser the USS Shiloh to "reassure allies in the region" according to officials.

South Korea's president Lee Myung-bak called an emergency security meeting in response. The timing is particularly sensitive for this country which is still officially at war with North Korea.

In just one week, South Korea holds key elections and will choose a new president. North Korea's successful launch could potentially sway voters favoring either a harsher line or a return to the "Sunshine Policy" of past administrations.

Current ruling party candidate Park Geun-hye has indicated a willingness to hold talks with North Korea.

Her father, Park Chung-hee, served as the South Korean president for 16 years. He was the target of multiple assassination attempts by North Korea. One of those efforts killed his wife, Chung-hee's mother.

Park took over her mother's duties as first lady until her father was assassinated by the chief of security in 1979. She re-emerged in 1997 as an active politician and is the first female candidate to be seriously considered for president.

Her party, the Saenuridang, is a traditionally conservative group that adapts a somewhat stricter policy towards North Korea that her opponent, Moon Jae-in. As head of the Democratic United Party, he champions a more lenient approach to the South's belligerent neighbor.

In repeated breaking news announcements throughout the day North Korean state-run television celebrated the launch. "We are proud of the glorious success of our satellite technology," said the presenter. "This is a landmark achievement."

Dec. 17 marks the one year anniversary of the country's Dear Leader Kim Jong-il's death. Analysts believe his son and successor, Kim Jong-Un, is under pressure to show the world he is intent on continuing his father's "Military First" policy and demonstrate a show of strength.

While experts do not believe North Korea currently has the technology to mount a nuclear warhead, today's launch is a significant development for the closed country's new leader.

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Experts: Station's royal hoax call may be illegal

SYDNEY (AP) — The Australian radio station behind a hoax phone call to the London hospital where the pregnant Duchess of Cambridge was being treated could face criminal charges for airing the conversation, legal experts said Tuesday.

Last week's prank was widely condemned days after it aired, after the still-unexplained death of a nurse who answered the phone and helped two DJs get confidential information about the former Kate Middleton's health. But when it comes to a potential criminal case, the question is not about the death; it's whether a private conversation was broadcast without the permission of the participants.

Violators could be sentenced to prison, but it's unclear who at radio station 2DayFM or its parent company, Southern Cross Austereo, made the decision to air the call. The DJs have said executives above them made the decision, but a former 2DayFM host who orchestrated many pranks for the station said DJs were always involved in such decisions while she was there.

Southern Cross Austereo has said the station had tried five times to contact the hospital, but privacy law expert Barbara McDonald said that could prove to be an inadequate defense.

"Seems to me that saying, 'We tried to call,' shows that they knew they should, and they've made a decision to go ahead knowing that they have not got permission," said McDonald, a law professor at the University of Sydney. "I don't know whether it makes the situation better, or worse."

The New South Wales state Surveillance Devices Act prohibits the broadcast of recorded private conversations without participants' permission, with violations punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of up to 55,000 Australian dollars ($58,000).

McDonald said the Commercial Radio Code of Practice has a similar ban, but she added that even if Australia's media watchdog found violations, the most extreme punishment — loss of license — is almost unheard of.

Australian authorities have said little about any possible investigation. State police have said only that they've been in contact with their London counterparts and are ready to assist them in any British investigation.

Radio hosts Mel Greig and Michael Christian called London's King Edward VII Hospital last week. Pretending to be Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Charles, they asked for word on the Duchess of Cambridge, who had been suffering from severe morning sickness. Jacintha Saldanha, the nurse who answered the phone, put them through to the ward, and the duo received confidential information on the duchess' condition that was later aired.

The radio station trumpeted the prank call until Friday, when Saldanha was found dead. Police have not disclosed the cause of Saldanha's death, but many have assumed it was related to the stress from the call. An autopsy was to be held Tuesday.

Grieg and Christian tearfully apologized for the prank in televised interviews Monday, after days of condemnation in countless Internet posts around the world.

Southern Cross Austereo also has apologized, and stopped running any advertising on 2DayFM following Saldanha's death. On Tuesday it issued a statement announcing that ads would resume Thursday, with all profits for the rest of December to be donated to "an appropriate fund that will directly benefit" Saldanha's family. The company said it would donate at least 500,000 Australian dollars ($525,000).

Austereo has repeatedly insisted that it followed the law. The company said in a statement Monday that the segment underwent an internal legal review before it was broadcast.

The company "does not consider that the broadcast of the segment has breached any relevant law, regulation or code," Austereo said, adding it would cooperate with any investigation.

On Monday, Austereo CEO Rhys Holleran said 2DayFM had tried five times, without success, to contact the London hospital to discuss the prank before it aired. The King Edward VII Hospital denied its management had been contacted by 2DayFM.

Media law expert Mark Pearson said that even if the station had tried to contact the hospital, that isn't enough under the law. He said permission must be granted by the person involved.

If the case went to court, it is possible that a judge could decide that an attempt at getting permission was sufficient, but only if the lawyers could prove that any "reasonable person" would agree that enough was done, said Pearson, a journalism professor at Bond University in Queensland state. He considered such a ruling to be a longshot.

"I think lawyers would be hard-pressed to argue that a few unprovable phone calls was enough to show that there had been a reasonable attempt to get permission," he said.

The case also could be investigated by the Australian Communications and Media Authority, the country's media watchdog. McDonald, the University of Sydney professor, said that stations found in violation generally are given warnings or told to train staff in proper procedures.

The authority has said it has received complaints about the hoax call and is looking into the case, but has not yet launched an official investigation.

Greig and Christian's comments Monday about higher-ups making the decision to air the call only raised more questions for Wendy Harmer, who hosted a morning show at 2DayFM from 1993 until resigning in late 2003.

Harmer said that when she was a DJ, she played an integral role in those decisions, and personally approved the many on-air pranks that she was responsible for.

The program producer, program manager and station manager needed to approve segments as well, Harmer said. She added that some segments were brought even higher to the group station manager for approval.

"If you're a DJ, and you're in front of the microphone, this is a very powerful medium and you should be absolutely apprised of all your responsibilities and all the rights of the audience," Harmer said. "And so to hear a couple of DJs who didn't seem to understand what those were was, I must say, alarming."

She added the company's statements that it had sought permission five times, and that the hoax call underwent legal review, are signals that the company knew "there's something big going down."

"I would say, 'If we have to bring the lawyers in, I'm not going to do it.' But I can say that with hindsight," she said.

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Luke Bryan cleans up at ACAs with 9 awards

Luke Bryan didn't want the American Country Awards to end.

He cleaned up during the fan-voted show, earning nine awards, including artist and album of the year. His smash hit "I Don't Want This Night To End" was named single and music video of the year.

Miranda Lambert took home the second most guitar trophies with three. Jason Aldean was named touring artist of the year. Carrie Underwood won female artist of the year, and a tearful Lauren Alaina won new artist of the year.

Bryan, Aldean, Keith Urban, Lady Antebellum and Trace Adkins with Lynyrd Skynrd were among the high-energy performances.

The third annual ACAs were held at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas Monday night.

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Online: http://www.theACAs.com

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Follow http://www.twitter.com/AP_Country for the latest country music news from The Associated Press.

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New tests could hamper food outbreak detection

WASHINGTON (AP) — It's about to get faster and easier to diagnose food poisoning, but that progress for individual patients comes with a downside: It could hurt the nation's ability to spot and solve dangerous outbreaks.

Next-generation tests that promise to shave a few days off the time needed to tell whether E. coli, salmonella or other foodborne bacteria caused a patient's illness could reach medical laboratories as early as next year. That could allow doctors to treat sometimes deadly diseases much more quickly — an exciting development.

The problem: These new tests can't detect crucial differences between different subtypes of bacteria, as current tests can. And that fingerprint is what states and the federal government use to match sick people to a contaminated food. The older tests might be replaced by the new, more efficient ones.

"It's like a forensics lab. If somebody says a shot was fired, without the bullet you don't know where it came from," explained E. coli expert Dr. Phillip Tarr of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns that losing the ability to literally take a germ's fingerprint could hamper efforts to keep food safe, and the agency is searching for solutions. According to CDC estimates, 1 in 6 Americans gets sick from foodborne illnesses each year, and 3,000 die.

"These improved tests for diagnosing patients could have the unintended consequence of reducing our ability to detect and investigate outbreaks, ultimately causing more people to become sick," said Dr. John Besser of the CDC.

That means outbreaks like the salmonella illnesses linked this fall to a variety of Trader Joe's peanut butter might not be identified that quickly — or at all.

It all comes down to what's called a bacterial culture — whether labs grow a sample of a patient's bacteria in an old-fashioned petri dish, or skip that step because the new tests don't require it.

Here's the way it works now: Someone with serious diarrhea visits the doctor, who gets a stool sample and sends it to a private testing laboratory. The lab cultures the sample, growing larger batches of any lurking bacteria to identify what's there. If disease-causing germs such as E. coli O157 or salmonella are found, they may be sent on to a public health laboratory for more sophisticated analysis to uncover their unique DNA patterns — their fingerprints.

Those fingerprints are posted to a national database, called PulseNet, that the CDC and state health officials use to look for food poisoning trends.

There are lots of garden-variety cases of salmonella every year, from runny eggs to a picnic lunch that sat out too long. But if a few people in, say, Baltimore have salmonella with the same molecular signature as some sick people in Cleveland, it's time to investigate, because scientists might be able narrow the outbreak to a particular food or company.

But culture-based testing takes time — as long as two to four days after the sample reaches the lab, which makes for a long wait if you're a sick patient.

What's in the pipeline? Tests that could detect many kinds of germs simultaneously instead of hunting one at a time — and within hours of reaching the lab — without first having to grow a culture. Those tests are expected to be approved as early as next year.

This isn't just a science debate, said Shari Shea, food safety director at the Association of Public Health Laboratories.

If you were the patient, "you'd want to know how you got sick," she said.

PulseNet has greatly improved the ability of regulators and the food industry to solve those mysteries since it was launched in the mid-1990s, helping to spot major outbreaks in ground beef, spinach, eggs and cantaloupe in recent years. Just this fall, PulseNet matched 42 different salmonella illnesses in 20 different states that were eventually traced to a variety of Trader Joe's peanut butter.

Food and Drug Administration officials who visited the plant where the peanut butter was made found salmonella contamination all over the facility, with several of the plant samples matching the fingerprint of the salmonella that made people sick. A New Mexico-based company, Sunland Inc., recalled hundreds of products that were shipped to large retailers all over the country, including Target, Safeway and other large grocery chains.

The source of those illnesses probably would have remained a mystery without the national database, since there weren't very many illnesses in any individual state.

To ensure that kind of crucial detective work isn't lost, the CDC is asking the medical community to send samples to labs to be cultured even when they perform a new, non-culture test.

But it's not clear who would pay for that extra step. Private labs only can perform the tests that a doctor orders, noted Dr. Jay M. Lieberman of Quest Diagnostics, one of the country's largest testing labs.

A few first-generation non-culture tests are already available. When private labs in Wisconsin use them, they frequently ship leftover samples to the state lab, which grows the bacteria itself. But as more private labs switch over after the next-generation rapid tests arrive, the Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene will be hard-pressed to keep up with that extra work before it can do its main job — fingerprinting the bugs, said deputy director Dr. Dave Warshauer.

Stay tuned: Research is beginning to look for solutions that one day might allow rapid and in-depth looks at food poisoning causes in the same test.

"As molecular techniques evolve, you may be able to get the information you want from non-culture techniques," Lieberman said.

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Follow Mary Clare Jalonick on Twitter at http://twitter.com/mcjalonick

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Can Obama avoid the 'second-term curse'?

By Jeff Greenfield

Poor Barack Obama. After fighting and spending his way to a close but clear re-election, he’s doomed to four years of agony thanks to that “second-term” curse, which afflicts just about every president who has had the misfortune to win another four years.

The litany appears compelling: the martyred Lincoln; Grant mired in scandal; FDR suffering big political setbacks; Nixon’s disgrace; Reagan’s Iran-Contra scandal; Clinton’s impeachment; George W. Bush’s collapsing popularity. A second term sounds so unappealing, it’s almost surprising Obama didn’t ask for a recount.

Except…there are two things worth remembering about this “curse.” First, it doesn’t really afflict every second-term president. Second, for many presidents, the woes are rooted in actions and decisions taken during the first term—which raises a dicey question about what might come to afflict this president.

Theodore Roosevelt was enormously popular throughout his “second” term (his “first” term was finishing the assassinated William McKinley’s second). The only reason he did not win an actual second term was that, just after his 1904 landslide, he’d declared he would not run again—a decision he regretted almost immediately. (He ran again in 1912 as a third-party candidate, finishing second.)

Calvin Coolidge, elected in a landslide after assuming the presidency when Warren Harding died, presided over four years of peace and prosperity. He stepped down after, declaring, “I do not choose to run for president in 1928.”

Dwight Eisenhower’s Republican Party did suffer serious election reversals in the 1958 mid-terms, but Ike’s personal popularity remained very high in his second term; he left with a 59 percent job approval rating, and his vice president came within a whisker of succeeding him.

What about more recent examples? Reagan’s popularity took a hit when the Iran-Contra story surfaced at the end of 1986, but by the time he left office, he had a robust 63 percent job approval rating, and his vice president won a solid popular vote victory and an electoral college landslide.

And the disgraced Clinton? It’s certainly plausible that his year-long fight to survive scandal and impeachment seriously weakened him. His dependence on his base may have made it impossible for him to reach across the aisle on entitlement reform. But he left office with a 66 percent job approval, and his vice president did win the popular vote.

It’s often said that a second-term victory gives a president an exaggerated sense of his own power, leading him to commit the sin of “hubris” that is always the precursor to tragedy. And history offers examples, from FDR’s attempt to pack the Supreme Court, to George W. Bush’s attempt to partially privatize Social Security.

But take a step back and you’ll find a surprisingly neglected aspect of this history: In many cases, it was what a president did before re-election that planted the seeds of disaster.

Look at Vietnam. The escalation of that conflict began early in 1965, with the bombing of the North and the infusion of large numbers of U.S. troops. But the foundation of that escalation came in the summer of 1964, in the Gulf of Tonkin, when an (almost certainly phantom) attack on U.S. ships led LBJ to win, from a credulous Congress, the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, authorizing the president to use “all necessary force”—which Johnson interpreted as a virtual blank check.

Watergate? The story exploded early in Nixon’s second term, in the courtroom of Judge John Sirica. But the Watergate break-in and the allied sins of the White House “plumbers’ unit” all took place in the president’s first term—in large measure, to ensure that he’d win again.

The Clinton impeachment? Monica Lewinsky came to the White House as an intern pressed into service because of the government shutdown of 1995. Her affair with the president ended before his second inauguration.

For Bush, the central disaster of his second term was the descent of Iraq into civil war and chaos, and the collapse of the rationale for going into Iraq in the first place—those non-existent weapons of mass destruction. That invasion and the breathtaking failures of intelligence and strategy were rooted in the decisions made in 2002-03.

So, if we’re wise to look at first-term decisions that may come to haunt a second term, what’s the most likely source of future Obama nightmares?

They come, I think, mostly from abroad, where the potential for instability, violence and anti-American hostility could make presidential decisions look very bad. Imagine Egypt turning increasingly Islamist, with a besieged President Morsi—or a successor—repudiating the peace treaty with Israel that has kept the region free of all-out war for 40 years.

Imagine Iraq exploding into a new civil war, or aligning itself with a still-governing Assad in Syria, or with Iran. How would that make Obama’s decision to withdraw from the country look? Pakistan—America’s permanent “frenemy”—is always a step away from turning into a hostile, terrorist-friendly, nuclear power. That step would throw a harsh light on U.S. policy toward that nation.

Should any of those events transpire, expect to hear renewed cries that “the curse of the second term” has struck again. But before joining the chorus, take a hard look at where the trouble really began.

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