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Video: This Elephant Really Speaks Korean

November 2, 2012/1 Comment/in The Offbeat /by News Editor

Granted, Koshik the elephant doesn’t have a large vocabulary. But scientists have confirmed that the 5.5-ton behemoth can imitate five Korean words by speaking through his trunk.

Koshik can say “annyong” (“hello”), “anja” (“sit down”), “aniya” (“no”), “nuo” (“lie down”), and “choah” (“good”). (Don’t think that’s much? Well, how much Korean can you speak?)

The researchers, in a report posted in Current Biology, note that imitating speech is not unheard-of across species. Mockingbirds routinely mimic other creatures and mynahs and parrots can reproduce entire human phrases with enough training. (A number of apes, including a gorilla named Koko, have learned to communicate in sign language.)

Koshik, a male Asian elephant, was the only elephant living at Yongin’s Everland Zoo when his talent was discovered… Read more from this story HERE.

Here’s quick video of the elephant “speaking”:

North Korean jamming of GPS shows critical system’s weakness

August 24, 2012/0 Comments/in Featured, International /by Shaun Waterman

Photo credit: kalleboo

U.S. and South Korean military commanders will be on the lookout for North Korean efforts to jam GPS signals as they take part in exercises on the divided peninsula this week and next.

North Korea repeatedly has jammed GPS signals in South Korea, which has “very serious implications” because U.S. and South Korean military system rely on the navigation system, said Bruce Bennett, a North Korea scholar for the California think tank Rand Corp.

The jamming also underscores the vulnerability of a satellite-based tool on which civilian systems from car navigation to air traffic control rely upon.

North Koreans have used Russian-made, truck-mounted jamming gear near the border to disrupt low-power GPS signals in large swaths of South Korea. By broadcasting powerful radio signals on the same frequencies as the satellites, the jammers drown out the GPS signals.

Mr. Bennett said the jamming has occurred three times in the past two years and has coincided with joint U.S.-South Korean military exercises.The timing strongly suggests the jamming was “an experiment … a test … to let [the North Koreans] see what effect it would have and maybe disrupt the exercises,” he said.

North Korea preparing for ‘sacred war’ during US-South Korea exercises

August 18, 2012/1 Comment/in International /by CNN.com

Photo credit: Retlaw Snellac

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un told his troops to be vigilant during upcoming training exercises between South Korea and the United States, saying they should be ready to lead a “sacred war,” state media reported Saturday.

Kim’s comments came during a visit on Mu Island with troops who participated in the 2010 shelling of South Korea’s Yeonpyeong Island, an attack that North Korea at the time said South Korea provoked by holding war games off their shared coast.

“He ordered the service persons of the detachment to be vigilant against every move of the enemy and not to miss their gold chance to deal at once deadly counter blows at the enemy, if even a single shell is dropped on the waters or in the area where the sovereignty of (North Korea) is exercised,” the state-run KCNA news agency reported.

The warning followed an announcement by the United States and South Korea that their joint “Ulchi Freedom Guardian” training exercises would begin Monday and conclude by August 31.

North Korea was informed of the dates of the exercises by the U.N. armistice commission.

New Evidence of North Korea’s EMP weapon; now developing nuclear “super-EMP bombs”

July 19, 2012/3 Comments/in Featured, Foreign Policy /by Bill Gertz

Recent satellite navigation jamming by North Korea’s military near the demilitarized zone and a report in a Chinese journal are raising new fears that Pyongyang is developing electromagnetic pulse weapons.

A communist-owned monthly journal in Hong Kong reported last month that the GPS jamming of aircraft navigation systems that was traced to North Korea is part of asymmetric warfare capabilities of the reclusive communist state.

The Bauhinia journal article, by military commentator Li Daguang said the new capabilities threaten South Korea’s information and electronic warfare capabilities.

“North Korea has always planned to develop small-scale nuclear warheads,” the article said. “On this foundation, they could develop electromagnetic pulse (EMP) bombs in order to paralyze the weapons systems of the South Korean military — most of which involve electronic equipment — when necessary.”

In fact, Chinese analysts believe North Korea is working on small nuclear warheads that could produce “super-EMP bombs,” the report said. “Once North Korea achieves the actual war deployment of EMP weapons, the power of its special forces would doubtlessly be redoubled,” the report said.

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