Compiled by Bill Gertz

The director of the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency said last week that the U.S. military will have a “robust” missile defense systems for use against Iranian medium-range missiles by 2020.

“The need for missile defense is growing, unfortunately,” said Army Lt. Gen. Patrick O’Reilly during a conference on missile defense.

The U.S. plans to set up a “comprehensive” missile defense system by 2020 that will include a new ground-based version of the Navy’s SM-3 ship-based interceptor, to be deployed in Europe, as well as ships in the Mediterranean Sea.

The Obama administration’s new missile defense plan is called the Phased Adaptive Approach (PAA) and will have four phases, the first underway this month.

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Kim regime’s intransigence, Japan nuclear crisis complicating China-N. Korea special relationship

By Willy Lam, East-Asia-Intel.com

The Libyan crisis has enhanced the resolve of the Kim Jong-Il regime to build nuclear weapons and adversely affected Beijing’s ability to persuade Pyongyang to return to the negotiation table.

Owing to the revolutions sweeping the Middle East and North Africa, the North Korean program to build weapons of mass destruction — and other shenanigans of the Stalinist dictatorship — has temporarily fallen out of the radar screen of global opinion.

The media in China, South and North Korea have carried little in the way of Dear Leader Kim’s latest reactions to pressure put to bear on Pyongyang by the United States, South Korea and China to return to the negotiation table.

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