Scud parts

The Hermit Kingdom
and the Brotherhood

North Korea sending Scud parts to Egypt via China

North Korea April Military Parade Satellite Image / AP

BY: Bill Gertz
December 13, 2012 5:34 pm
United States intelligence agencies recently uncovered a covert deal between North Korea and Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood government to ship Scud missile parts from North Korea through China to Egypt.
Intelligence reports from mid-November were circulated to senior officials in the State Department, Pentagon, and intelligence agencies. The shipment would be the first by the North Korean regime to the new Egyptian regime headed by Mohammed Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood-backed president.
The shipment of Scud components is scheduled to be sent by air cargo transport through China and on to Egypt, according to U.S. officials familiar with intelligence reports.
The arms deal, if it goes through, would further violate United Nations sanctions imposed on North Korea since the early 2000s for its nuclear and missile tests.
China has repeatedly violated the U.N. sanctions on North Korea by providing goods and technology to the communist regime in Pyongyang, according to U.S. intelligence officials.
The Obama administration so far has failed to challenge either Beijing or Pyongyang for the violations. freebeacon.com

Wires Ignore Bad News in Raw Unemployment Claims Data

By: Tom Blumer | December 13, 2012 | 16:24

Today's news from the Department of Labor on initial weekly unemployment claims was supposedly good -- as long as one doesn't scratch beneath the surface. Journalists used to do that. Today they didn't.
All one had to do is reach the third paragraph of DOL's release to realize that today's seasonally adjusted claims number of 343,000, touted as the lowest in two months in several news reports, was suspect. That paragraph told us that the 428,814 actual claims filed during the week ended December 8 were barely lower than the 435,863 claims seen in the week ended December 10, 2011, last year's comparable week; today's result only occurred because this year's seasonal adjustment factor was significantly different from last year's. I believe that this year-over-year drop of less than 2% in raw claims is the smallest weekly difference in a week not affect by storms or holidays this year. In other words, it really is news -- but not in the business press, which runs with the government's seasonally adjusted data and almost never looks any further. Examples follow the jump.

Read more: http://newsbusters.org/#ixzz2EzNewTBo

AP Fails to Tell Readers November's $172 Billion Deficit Is Worst November Ever

By: Tom Blumer | December 12, 2012 | 23:41

Back in the days when journalists practiced journalism, they would be on the alert for record-breaking news, whether positive or negative. These days, at least when it comes to the economy, it seems that they struggle to find positive records and ignore obvious negative ones right in front of their faces.
 
A case in point is today's Associated Press report on November's Monthly Treasury Statement. The government's report came in with a deficit of $172.1 billion, the highest November shortfall ever (the runner-up: last year's $137.3 billion). 

The AP's Christopher Rugaber either failed to recognize the reported amount as a record -- doubtful in my view given its size -- or didn't think its recordbreaking status was newsworthy. To be fair, unlike colleague Martin Crutsinger's typical monthly attempts, Rugaber got to almost all of the requisite monthly and year-to-date facts on receipts, spending, and the deficit itself, including comparisons to last year. Excerpts, including the all too familiar historical revisionism on how we got to where we are, follow the jump (bolds and numbered tags are mine):

Read more: http://newsbusters.org/#ixzz2EzPEUqF7