Headlines Friday 21st May 2010

=== Todays Toon ===

David Andrew Campbell was elected as a member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly for the district of Keira. A former Lord Mayor of Wollongong, Campbell was Minister for Transport in the NSW Government from 8 September 2008 until his resignation on 20 May 2010. - It doesn't matter to me that he is bisexual, but if it was the case that he was missing during the time the state was in crisis in his portfolio and it was because of his sexual adventures then I think the state deserves to know. - ed.

=== Bible Quote ===

“May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus, so that with one heart and mouth you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”- Romans 15:5-6

=== Headlines ===

Mexican President Felipe Calderon denounces Arizona's immigration law during lecture to Congress, while urging lawmakers to pass immigration overhaul.

Intel Director to Resign
National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair to resign, Fox News has confirmed — as early as Friday

Nuke Bad Boys Playing by Rogue Rules
Standoff over who sank S. Korean ship is example of why rogue states want nukes — nobody messes with them

Officials: Replica Mojave Cross Must Go
National Park Service says war memorial cross that replaced the one stolen is illegal and must come down

Lone masked intruder caught on CCTV carting off five masterpieces, including works by Picasso and Matisse, in what could be the world's biggest art theft

Sex scandal 'final nail in coffin'
STATE Government braces for backlash after minister quits over exposure of his secret gay life.

Police shoot peak-hour bus hijacker
COMMUTER terror as a knife-wielding man is shot in the chest after attacking a bus driver.

Spooked investors smash Aussie dollar
TRAVELLERS and shoppers face higher prices after biggest five-day slide in our currency's history.

TV repair job leads to dramatic rescue
TWO kidnapped girls held captive in a cellar for months are rescued after TV man finds hidden note.

Get Lilo! Arrest warrant issued for star
JUDGE snaps after actress claims she couldn't get to court because she was stranded in Cannes.

'I'm a Marxist' says Dalai Lama, but agrees capitalism has helped China
TIBETAN spiritual leader the Dalai Lama says he's a Marxist, yet credits capitalism for bringing new freedoms to China, the communist country that exiled him. "Still I am a Marxist," the exiled Tibetan Buddhist leader said in New York, where he arrived today with an entourage of robed monks and a heavy security detail to give a series of paid public lectures. "(Marxism has) moral ethics, whereas capitalism is only how to make profits," the Dalai Lama, 74, said. However, he credited China's embrace of market economics for breaking communism's grip over the world's most populous country and forcing the ruling Communist Party to "represent all sorts of classes". "(Capitalism) brought a lot of positive to China. Millions of people's living standards improved," he said.

Ex-marine 'stalked' nurse, police claim
DETECTIVES allege suspect followed Michelle Beets for six days before killing her on her doorstep.

MPs continue taunting 'Princess' Piccoli
TOUGHEN up, it's the Bear Pit not the teddy bear pit - that was Premier Kristina Keneally's response to claims she "sexualised" a MP Adrian Piccoli in Parliament.

'Depressed' mafia boss released from jail
GODFATHER who dissolved boy in acid begged he be set free on compassionate grounds.

Pornography link to school assaults
SCHOOLS are battling a growing problem of sexual harrassment in which students and teachers are subject to sex-based taunts, explicit text messages and even physical assaults. Education and parenting experts have been inundated with calls for help from high schools to deal with the behaviour, which is blamed partly on the easy access children have to pornography on the internet. Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research figures show that 68 sexual assaults and 265 indecent assaults or other sexual offences occurred on school grounds in the year to September, 2009. Dannielle Miller from Enlighten Education, who works with adolescent girls, said sexual harassment in schools was on the rise but many had not grasped the seriousness of it. "We are on the brink of a disturbing new reality here -- boys are being exposed to a pornification of our culture in music, on TV, in films and on the net," Ms Miller said.

=== Journalists Corner ===

With protests, political fights & boycotts, Arizona's governor sticks to her guns on her immigration law and now fires back!
Jan Brewer goes 'On the Record'!
Help Wanted!
As the dems go full force on their spending agenda, why is the focus off the job market?
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A 'Factor' Debate!
Did a dance team of 7-year-olds go too far in their ballyhooed Beyonce performance?
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Blumenthal Bombshell
He admits to lying about his war record. Now, challenger Linda McMahon reveals her smackdown plan to Sean!

=== Comments ===

Speaking in shades of geldof nonsense
Piers Akerman
SOMETIME Irish rocker and global media tart Sir Bob Geldof has again shown his inner-seagull during a quick trip to Australia. Fly-in, squawk, defecate, fly-out, squawk. - Geldof is a celebrity but not an informed one. He knows a few things about being emo .. which landed him a role in “The Wall” but nothing about important things like administration. He has made the choice to follow the populist culture and this is where it leads him .. to opposing things that support opportunity and proclaiming that which debases us all. - ed.
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The Wun and Super Tuesday
By Bill O'Reilly
The Obama administration has been pretty much silent about the vote, perhaps because there is little good news for the Democratic machine.

The anti-Obama forces are saying that Tuesday's election was a huge defeat for the president, but that may be overstating things. So let's run it down.

In Arkansas, Sen. Blanche Lincoln will probably be the Democratic nominee. However, she's going to lose to the Republican next November unless there's a scandal or something.

In Pennsylvania, Joe Sestak beat Arlen Specter big time. But Sestak is even more liberal than Specter, so the Obama administration does not suffer there. It is possible Mr. Sestak will lose in November. The race should be competitive.

Also in Pennsylvania, Democrat Mark Critz took the late Congressman John Murtha's seat. Critz is a conservative Democrat, but he should pretty much toe the party line.

It is in Kentucky where the Obama administration suffered its biggest defeat, but the Republican Party lost as well.

Rand Paul, an eye doctor and son of Congressman Ron Paul, won in a landslide. Mr. Paul was backed by the Tea Party, and he is a shoo-in for Sen. Jim Bunning's seat next November. So you're trading one conservative Republican for a kind of libertarian Republican.

The importance of the vote Tuesday is that President Obama is no longer a force in electoral politics. He's pretty much on the sidelines now. If he shows up to support a candidate, that candidate could very well lose, as we saw in Massachusetts.

If a sitting president does not have any power to sway voters, that's big. So the Democratic Party is going to have to run on its record, and what is that? Record spending, enormous deficits and high unemployment.

Can you say uh-oh?

This is not a partisan analysis. The GOP got its butt kicked in Kentucky as well. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell backed the losing candidate, but the voters said, "Hey, Mitch, blank you. We're going for the Tea Party guy." Not good for the Republican establishment.

It's clear Americans are angry and want big change in Washington. It's also clear that the Republicans have an opportunity next November if they can put forth solutions to complicated problems.

As for the Democrats, right now it's midnight at the oasis.
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Why hasn’t commercial TV explained Labor’s bungling like this?
Andrew Bolt

A brilliant explanation by Topher of the deceits behind the Victorian Government’s “solution” to Melbourne’s water crisis - a crisis caused by Labor’s bungling.

Left unsaid is that Brumby’s desalination plant will cost three times as much as a dam for a third of the water.
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Oiled birds wanted
Andrew Bolt
Green groups hungry for cash just love those iconic pictures of sea birds covered with oil - the classic image of Nature vs Man.

But, as I’ve written recently, oil spills turn out to be less dangerous to wildlife than is usually hyped, even when the spills are as big as the Exxon Valdez disaster. Which proved embarrassing for Barack Obama:

Barack Obama’s media advisers were quite distressed when the President travelled down to the Louisiana coastline last week to make his first on-the-spot statement about the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Their distress was caused by what they didn’t discover, rather than what they did. Despite their frantic requests, no photogenic dying oil-covered birds could be found to form a backdrop for the Presidential tirade as he weighed into BP.

Even a month after the great Gulf of Mexico spill, the wildlife toll is pathetically small:

Government officials said Tuesday that they have documented 156 dead sea turtles, 12 dead bottlenose dolphins, and 35 oiled birds—23 of them dead—since the spill.

The number of dead sea turtles is significantly above historical levels, they said, though they haven’t yet determined whether the deaths resulted from the oil spill, which started April 20.

How disappointing for the usual suspects:

In a region teeming with wildlife, so far there have been few signs of significant animal die-offs attributed to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.. Federal officials acknowledged in a conference call Tuesday that the numbers of affected wildlife appeared low so far, with the exception of sea turtles.

(Thanks to reader Owen.)
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The rise of green terror
Andrew Bolt
The green movement is the home of the modern totalitarian - and saving the planet sure excuses a little terrorism:

Until last month the small market town of Langnau in the rolling Swiss hills had two claims to fame; it was both a centre for the production of Emmental cheese and also one of the sunniest places in Switzerland. Today, thanks to a routine police traffic inquiry, it has the dubious honour of being the location where one of Europe’s biggest alleged acts of eco-terrorism was foiled.

On the night of 15 April local officers pulled over a car on one of the town’s quiet streets. Inside the vehicle they found a large cache of explosives, primed and ready to detonate. The three people in the car are alleged to have been members of the murky Italian anarchist group Il Silvestre, who were reportedly on a mission to blow up the nearby unfinished £55m IBM nanotechnology facility.
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The more dangerous he is, the more chance he can stay
Andrew Bolt
Abid Naseer says he’ll be in danger if returned to Pakistan. Britons are in danger if he isn’t.

So who gets to win in the British courts?

An Al Qaeda operative arrested in a high profile terror swoop won the right to stay in Britain today because he would be in danger if he returned to his native Pakistan.

Abid Naseer, the alleged ringleader of an alleged plot to bomb Manchester, won an appeal against deportation alongside fellow Pakistani national Ahmad Faraz Khan despite a court accepting that both are a threat to the country.

Mr Justice Mitting, in a written ruling, said: “For the reasons stated, we are satisfied that Naseer was an al-Qaeda operative who posed and still poses a serious threat to the national security of the UK and that… it is conducive to the public good that he should be deported.”

He added that the Special Immigration Appeals Commission in London was allowing the appeal because “the issue of safety on return” made it impossible to deport Mr Naseer to Pakistan.

(Thanks to reader Alan RM Jones.)
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Hide the plateau
Andrew Bolt
Tom Quirk is puzzled. Why, in its State of the Climate report, did the CSIRO leave out the last 20 years of data of methane concentrations?

Is it because the concentration of this greenhouse gas has barely increased since, against the warmists’ theory?
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Dutton proves Abbott right
Andrew Bolt
When Liberal frontbencher Peter Dutton punted $2000 on BHP Billiton shares three weeks ago, the gloating began:

NAOMI WOODLEY: The Government has seized on the purchase as evidence that the Opposition’s attack on the proposed tax is hollow.

Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard in particular had a question for Dutton:

“I’m calling on Mr Dutton to come out of hiding. To explain why he bought these mining shares,” Ms Gillard said today in Queensland.

“To explain why he believes that these mining shares are going to gain in value and particularly to explain how it is that he, his leader Mr Abbott and the Liberal party generally can possibly be taken seriously and viewed as fair dinkum when they’re out trying to tell Australians mining companies are going to be going out of business.”

Fairfax writer Peter Martin sneered:

Coalition frontbencher Peter Dutton bought BHP on Tuesday May 4 when it closed $38.59

Friday it closed $38.64

He was better share trader than he was a politician.

In fact, Martin is wrong: Dutton turns out to be an even worse share trader than a politician. And he cannot answer Gillard’s question, because his shares have sunk today to just $35.97 each, giving him a loss on his $2000 investment of $131. He should have listened to Abbott.

And Gillard’s question should be turned right back at her: explain, please, why you think the BHP shares will recover in values. Hundreds of thousands of Australian shareholders are desperate to know.
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Drawing a line
Andrew Bolt

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

There is a serious purpose to this. The more targets there are, the less risk each individual cartoonist has of being the victim of today’s new fascists.

UPDATE

Exactly Mark Steyn’s point, although he puts it better:

I’m bored with death threats. And, as far as I’m concerned, if that’s your opening conversational gambit, then any obligation on my part to “cultural sensitivity” and “mutual respect” is over. The only way to stop this madness destroying our liberties is (as Ayaan Hirsi Ali puts it) to spread the risk.

(Thanks to reader Mike.)
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How’s Rudd planned surplus looking now?
Andrew Bolt
How shaky is the Rudd Government’s projection of a $1 billion surplus - and its plans for a great new “super profits” tax - now looking, just two weeks after the Budget?

THE Australian sharemarket lost more than 1.5 per cent at the close today as local equities were described as “risky”, and the sentiment dragged heavily on the local currency…

The Australian dollar was in freefall as international investors became risk-adverse on fears that the European sovereign-debt crisis would worsen and dampen the global economic recovery.

At 1617 AEST, the Australian dollar was trading at US82.85 cents, down US3c from yesterday’s close of US85.85c… The Australian dollar is down nearly 10c in one month…

The sudden bout of risk-aversion on world markets has been blamed for the dramatic falls, but analysts have also linked it to the current selling on the Australian equities markets.

Nomura chief economist Stephen Roberts said international investment funds were currently rebalancing portfolios and moving out of “risky markets”, such as Australia.

The government’s contentious Resource Super-Profit Tax (RSPT) is thought to have prompted some funds to judge that Australia’s sovereign risk had now increased, because of the uncertainty caused by the proposed legislation.

Has Rudd created the downturn he once boasted he’d averted?

UPDATE

How are the super funds now going?

Share values are now down more than 6 per cent this week and 10 per cent for the month. More than $130 billion have been wiped from the value of the market since the start of May on escalating worries that global growth will be tepid as long as European governments are forced to cut back spending…

Among the major miners, BHP Billiton was down 22 cents, or 0.6 per cent, at $36.75 and rival Rio Tinto fell 63 cents, or 1 per cent, to $62.25. Fortescue fell 30 cents, or 7.8 per cent, to $3.57, after the miner said yesterday it had put two new projects on hold due to the government’s proposed mining tax.

I really can’t see Rudd toughing out his new tax. Unless his colleagues really want to sacrifice the country for his pride.

UPDATE 2

Fromer Hawke Government minister Barry Cohen:

We are told that the tax will not deter future investment in mining. Really? It may not stop every project but I’ll wager it will stall quite a few…

I can’t believe that a 40 per cent tax on profits won’t affect an industry that provided us with such benefits during the global financial crisis and promises future benefits in the years ahead, and I am far from being alone.

(Thanks to reader Nonna.)

UPDATE 3

The Rudd Government had Treasury send three officials to its global warming guru, Professor Ross Garnaut, to get his public endorsement of its new “super profits” tax. Instead:

ECONOMIST Ross Garnaut has called on the Rudd government to consider changing its proposed resource super-profits tax after questioning Treasury’s key assumptions on guarantees for project losses and the cost of financing new projects.

Professor Garnaut, Australia’s leading public economist and the federal government’s chief adviser on the emissions trading scheme, last night said it would be in the public interest for Treasury and the government to be “prepared to listen to the debate and to contemplate variations to their approach"…

Professor Garnaut’s queries about the tax go to the heart of two of the mining industry’s key concerns: the prospect of governments refusing to pay companies’ losses in the future and the cost of finance being set far too low at the government bond rate of 6 per cent before the profits tax kicks in. He also raised a general query on the retrospective nature of the tax.

UPDATE 4

And another state government warns investment may be driven away:

WEST Australian Treasury officials have warned that the Rudd government’s planned 40 per cent tax on mining profits would have a “significant negative impact” on the state’s economy, contradicting federal Treasury chief Ken Henry’s claim that it would boost investment…

Delivering his first budget as Treasurer, (Premier Colin) Barnett ... told parliament ... WA’s recovery from the global financial crisis, would be jeopardised by the planned resource super-profits tax. “The prospect of this new tax on businesses . . . has already impacted the outlook for Western Australia’s growth and will inevitably impact jobs growth,” he said.

As I’ve said in my column today, we have a stand-off: Rudd cannot afford to give in on his tax, but it seems the country cannot afford for him not to.

UPDATE 5

Robert Gottliebsen

Australian currency and share dealers are being hit by a wall of selling from European and Japanese investors as it becomes clear that the government’s horrendous mining tax mistake is affecting the sovereign risk of Australia. Australia’s currency and shares would have been expected to decline in line with the drop in commodity prices, but we are seeing panic selling of considerable proportions.

UPDATE 6

Another bad day on the stock market:

By early afternoon the benchmark S&P/ASX 200 had fought back to be 99.4 points (2.3 per cent) down at 4217.1, after plunging 3 per cent in early trading. The All Ordinaries also pared steep losses but was still down 106 points (2.45 per cent) at 4236.

The sharemarket was at its lowest level since July 2009.

The Australian dollar, which has fallen as much as 13 per cent in the past four weeks, also recovered some ground after this morning falling below US81 cents, to as low as US80.77c—a 10-month low…

In Australia the big miners led the falls, with mining giant BHP Billiton down 78 cents lower, or 2.12 per cent, at $35.97 and Rio Tinto $1.85, or 2.97 per cent, lower at $60.40.

It was trading around US82.30c by early afternoon.
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The creation of life
Andrew Bolt
Venter is God:

FLAMBOYANT geneticist Craig Venter has delivered on a pledge he made 15 years ago: to create the first artificial life, a cell controlled by DNA built from scratch in the laboratory.

“This is an important step, we think, both scientifically and philosophically,” Dr Venter said. “It’s certainly changed my views of the definitions of life and how life works.”

The advance - reported overnight in the journal Science - is, literally, living proof that designer microbes can be built for special jobs, such as producing biofuels and pharmaceuticals or removing pollutants from water or air.

A threshold has been crossed. I find it both exhilarating - and frightening. - atheist Bolt is overstating the issue. It is an impressive achievement, but nothing compared to creation or god. - ed
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What fool takes the government car? UPDATE: Cancel that
Andrew Bolt
The betrayal and the misuse of government property is one thing:

A NSW Labor MP has been accused of using a taxpayer-funded government car to visit a gay sex club in the state premier’s eastern suburbs electorate.

Channel Seven tonight aired footage of David Campbell allegedly visiting the club in Kensington.

Mr Campbell had resigned earlier today as the state’s Minister for Transport and Roads, citing personal reasons.

“I apologise to my wife, family, colleagues, staff and the community for letting them down,” he said in a short statement.

But what really disqualifies him as a politician is the stupidity. I haven’t heard anything so dumb since the case of the frontbencher who, while in Paris....

UPDATE

I’m wrong about the misuse of property:

The television report claimed Mr Campbell spent two hours at the club on Tuesday night, following a Parliament sitting day. He was reported to have driven himself to the club after excusing his government driver.

If accurate, it would appear Mr Campbell has not broken any rules governing use of official cars, which put no restrictions on personal use.

This strikes me as the only really relevant issue - Campbell’s mysterious disappearance when commuters were caught for many hours in a traffic jam:

In parliament this week, the opposition claimed that Mr Campbell had gone missing during the F3 fiasco, leading to speculation last night that there was foreknowledge of his double life.

The reporter’s role in this seems particularly grubby:

Channel Seven reporter Adam Walters broke the story that the NSW Minister for Transport, David Campbell, had used a government car to drive to a gay bathhouse in Kensington, known to be a sex-on-premises venue....

The Diary cannot help but note the irony inherent in Walters’ central accusation - that Campbell had abused ministerial privilege by driving himself to the bathhouse in a taxpayer-funded vehicle. Look beyond, for a moment, the fact that ministers are actually allowed to give their drivers the night off and drive the car themselves. The very same issue of the appropriate use of ministerial cars and drivers was at the heart of a controversy involving Walters himself.

In August 2008, he and his then lover Reba Meagher, the then health minister, partied hard at a city bar to help celebrate Walters’s birthday. They left together in a taxi, but failed to tell Meagher’s ministerial driver that he could go home. Instead the driver, with a pregnant wife at home, waited for her all night in the basement of Governor Macquarie Tower.

Walters, it is alleged, believes he was dobbed in at the time by Campbell and staked out gay clubs for this evidence against him.

This seems very, very grubby.

It seems to me, in fact, that Campbell did nothing to merit his resignation, and this intrusion in his private life crosses way, way over a line. - Bolt is too forgiving. In fact, it is important to know if the meeting was with a regular or with a casual. The implied compromise is a substantial risk to any minister, particularly a police minister. - ed.
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Rudd is told what he does not want to hear about his broadband
Andrew Bolt
Henry Ergas warns that the Rudd Government’s study on its $43 billion broadband plan does not endorse this white elephant at all:

THE recently released McKinsey/KPMG study on the National Broadband Network is 534 pages long. How many times does it say the NBN is worth doing? Not once. As postmodernists say, read the silence.

What the study shows is that the NBN will earn a rate of return that fails to cover the project’s risk-adjusted cost of capital.’’

The study does not gloss over the high risks the NBN, with its estimated $43 billion outlays, involves. But the best return it can find barely equals that on a deposit account. And even to come up with that gloomy forecast the study makes some brave assumptions.

First, it assumes wireless broadband will not be an effective competitor…

Second, the study assumes that even without an agreement with the government, Telstra will simply hand its customers to the NBN…

Third, and most surprising, the study assumes that NBN Co will get away with massive price increases.
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Too excited to be home
Andrew Bolt
How charmingly retro:

Australian customs officers have been given new powers to search incoming travellers’ laptops and mobile phones for pornography...
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How police hid the truth about ethnic crime
Andrew Bolt
NO wonder Victoria Police is furious that we yesterday published excerpts of a leaked police report on Asian gangs.

Some of the truth about Melbourne’s ethnic crime is out at last, you see.

Worse, police command must now talk about what it’s hidden for so long.

That leaked report in fact reveals little that a sharp-eyed reader wouldn’t have figured out over the years, with one news item after another about people chopped up outside nightclubs, stabbed in Springvale, arrested in their dozens for drug trafficking or chased to their deaths from Asian-themed events.

Let’s flick through its four brief pages.

As the Herald Sun reported, it says we have at least half a dozen Asian gangs with “extensive” membership. Check.

They can be incredibly violent, and favour machetes. Check.

They like to hang out at the “Asian” theme nights we increasingly see at inner-city nightclubs. Check again.

They’re getting worse and if police don’t crack down it’s “highly likely ... that a person will be murdered”.

Actually, more people will be murdered. But check again.

See? Nothing new, and we kept secret sensitive details of the policing operations recommended by the acting sergeant whose report this is.

So why is police command putting it about that we were reckless in publishing no more than this bleeding - and I do mean bleeding - obvious?

Here’s one clue. We did also say this report called for an Asian crime squad - which is just what former chief commissioner Christine Nixon scrapped four years ago.

Time to cut to the chase. It’s Nixon in particular who foolishly got police to play dumb about precisely the kind of thing this report discusses.
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Boat people don’t believe Rudd, either
Andrew Bolt
Like many of Kevin Rudd’s ideas, we get the opposite of what’s intended:

REFUGEE boat arrivals have surged by 19 per cent since the Federal Government froze processing of Afghan and Sri Lankan asylum claims.
Since the April 9 ban, 934 people, mostly Afghans and Sri Lankans, have arrived in Australian waters, the equivalent of 22.2 people a day. Before that boat people had been arriving at a rate of 18.7 a day.

And of those who’ve come since the changes:

Of these, 398 were Afghan and 142 Sri Lankan. Others who have arrived since April 9 and who will be processed normally include 68 Iranians, 80 Iraqis, 36 Burmese, and 40 stateless people (including Somalis, Kuwaitis and Yemenis).
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Playing Hockey while Rome burns
Andrew Bolt
THINK you can see things as clearly as the journalists who on Tuesday had such fun with Opposition shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey?

Here’s a quiz.

What is the most important of these issues raised by Hockey’s speech at the National Press Club in Canberra?

A: This country, which not three years ago had no debt at all, now has a Budget deficit of $57 billion.

B: Hockey and colleague Andrew Robb on Tuesday outlined brave savings of $47 billion over four years.

C: Hockey made journalists wait an hour before they were told by finance spokesman Robb exactly what those savings were, so he could speak on the philosophy behind the cuts before being nitpicked to death on the detail.

Let me guess. You’re most worried by the deficit, you’re most interested in a plan to cut it and you don’t care if journalists had to stand for that hour on their heads in water up to their waists.

Which makes you dumber than the average Canberra reporter, or a lot less puffed up. Because here are some of the sneering questions Hockey was asked by journalists who can forgive a record deficit but not a lost chance to grandstand.
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Uh oh
Andrew Bolt
North Korea puts the MAD into mutually assured destruction:

A North Korean submarine torpedoed one of South Korea’s warships near the disputed maritime border in March, investigators said on Thursday, prompting heated denials and threats of war from the North.

The South’s President Lee Myung-Bak promised “resolute countermeasures” and the United States, Britain, the United Nations, Japan and Australia strongly condemned the attack which claimed 46 lives.

The communist North said the report, by a multinational investigation team, was based on “sheer fabrication”.

It threatened “all-out war” in response to any attempt to punish it.