North Korean Leader Vows ‘High-Profile’ Retaliation

Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, has vowed to take “substantial and high-profile important state measures” and ordered his top military and party officials of what to do to retaliate against American-led United Nations sanctions on the country, the North’s official media reported on Sunday.

North Korea did not clarify what those measures might be, but it referred to a series of earlier statements in which Mr. Kim’s government has threatened to launch more long-range rockets and conduct a third nuclear test to build an ability to “target” the United States.

Mr. Kim threw his weight behind his government’s escalating standoff with Washington when he called a meeting of top security and foreign affairs officials and gave an instruction in his name. He inherited the supreme party and military leadership from his father, Kim Jong-il, who died in December 2011.

By calling such a meeting and having it reported in state news media, Mr. Kim seemed to assert his leadership in what his country called an “all-out action” against the United States, as opposed to his father, who tended to remain reclusive during similar confrontations.

“At the consultative meeting, Kim Jong-un expressed the firm resolution to take substantial and high-profile important state measures in view of the prevailing situation,” said the North’s Korean Central News Agency, or K.C.N.A. “He advanced specific tasks to the officials concerned.”

The K.C.N.A. dispatch, which was distributed on Sunday, was dated Saturday, indicating that the meeting in Pyongyang took place then. That was the same day on which the North’s main party newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, said that the United Nations Security Council’s resolution last Tuesday calling for tightening sanctions against the North left it with “no other option” but a nuclear test.

“A nuclear test is what the people demand,” it said in a commentary.

The resolution was adopted unanimously — with the support of the North’s traditional protector, China — as punishment for its Dec. 12 rocket launching. The Security Council determined that the launching was a cover for testing intercontinental ballistic missile technology and a violation of its earlier resolutions banning North Korea from such tests.

The North rejected the old resolutions, as well as the latest, insisting that launching rockets to put satellites into orbit was its sovereign right. Its successful rocket launching in December, coming after a failure last April, was the most visible achievement Mr. Kim’s government could present for its people, who have suffered decades of poverty and isolation. In North Korean propaganda, defending its rocket program is likened to protecting national pride and independence — even if it has to pay economic prices.

Last Thursday, North Korea said that its drive to rebuild its moribund economy and its rocket program, until now billed as a peaceful space project, would be adjusted into efforts to foil United States hostilities. On Sunday, it said the Security Council’s action “has thrown a grave obstacle” to its efforts to focus on “economic construction so that the people may not tighten their belts any longer.”

Still, it said it had to “defend its sovereignty by itself” because “different countries concerned” failed to “fairly solve the problem.” In the past few days, North Korea, without citing China by name, expressed bitterness and defiance against its long-time Communist ally for endorsing the American-led Security Council resolution. On Saturday, Rodong reaffirmed its dislike of “sadae,” or toadying big countries, including China.

China provides all of North Korea’s fuel and remains its biggest trade partner, but analysts believe that its influence is limited on the recalcitrant government in Pyongyang. Beijing has been thus far reluctant to use its economic leverage, fearing it could only drive its neighbor into more provocations and harming China’s interest in keeping stability in the region.

International attention has focused on the Punggye nuclear test site in northeastern North Korea, where the country conducted its two previous underground nuclear tests, in 2006 and 2009. Enough preparations have been made there recently that a third test could happen on short notice from the Pyongyang leadership, South Korean officials said.

In a report issued on Sunday, the Institute for National Security Strategy, a research organization affiliated with South Korea’s main intelligence service, said that North Korea may use provocations this year to tame the incoming government of President-elect Park Geun-hye, who will be sworn in next month.

“It will wait and see until the new government’s North Korea policy shapes up,” it said. “If the policy is not favorable, the North may lash out with provocations.”

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'Argo' wins Producers Guild Awards

LOS ANGELES (AP) — "Argo" continues to shake up the Oscar race by taking the top honor at the Producers Guild Awards on Saturday.

Ben Affleck, coming off winning Golden Globe Awards for best motion picture drama and director for the real-life drama, received the award handed out at the Beverly Hilton Hotel.

"I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that I'm still working as an actor," he said in his acceptance speech.

Affleck also stars in "Argo" as the CIA operative who orchestrated a daring rescue of six American embassy employees during the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis. George Clooney and Grant Heslov share the producer award with Affleck as "Argo" beat out the Civil War saga "Lincoln," which has a leading 12 Academy Awards nominations.

Other nominees in the PGA movie category were "Les Miserables," ''Zero Dark Thirty," ''Beasts of the Southern Wild," ''Django Unchained," ''Life of Pi," ''Moonrise Kingdom," ''Silver Linings Playbook," and Skyfall."

Along with honors from other Hollywood professional groups such as actors, directors and writers guilds, the producer prizes have become part of the preseason sorting out contenders for Academy Awards.

The big winner often goes on to claim the best-picture honor at the Oscars on Feb. 24.

Disney's "Wreck-It Ralph" won the guild's animation category, beating "Brave," ''Frankenweenie," ''ParaNorman" and "Rise of the Guardians."

"Searching for Sugar Man" took the documentary prize, beating "A People Uncounted," ''The Gatekeepers," ''The Island President," and "The Other Dream Team."

Showtime's "Homeland" won the producer's award for television drama series, which beat out "Breaking Bad," ''Downton Abbey," ''Game of Thrones," and "Mad Men."

The ABC sitcom "Modern Family" took the prize for best comedy series for the third straight year, beating "30 Rock," ''The Big Bang Theory," ''Curb Your Enthusiasm," and "Louie."

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Well: Ask Well: Squats for Aging Knees

You are already doing many things right, in terms of taking care of your aging knees. In particular, it sounds as if you are keeping your weight under control. Carrying extra pounds undoubtedly strains knees and contributes to pain and eventually arthritis.

You mention weight training, too, which is also valuable. Sturdy leg muscles, particularly those at the front and back of the thighs, stabilize the knee, says Joseph Hart, an assistant professor of kinesiology and certified athletic trainer at the University of Virginia, who often works with patients with knee pain.

An easy exercise to target those muscles is the squat. Although many of us have heard that squats harm knees, the exercise is actually “quite good for the knees, if you do the squats correctly,” Dr. Hart says. Simply stand with your legs shoulder-width apart and bend your legs until your thighs are almost, but not completely, parallel to the ground. Keep your upper body straight. Don’t bend forward, he says, since that movement can strain the knees. Try to complete 20 squats, using no weight at first. When that becomes easy, Dr. Hart suggests, hold a barbell with weights attached. Or simply clutch a full milk carton, which is my cheapskate’s squats routine.

Straight leg lifts are also useful for knee health. Sit on the floor with your back straight and one leg extended and the other bent toward your chest. In this position, lift the straight leg slightly off the ground and hold for 10 seconds. Repeat 10 to 20 times and then switch legs.

You can also find other exercises that target the knees in this video, “Increasing Knee Stability.”

Of course, before starting any exercise program, consult a physician, especially, Dr. Hart says, if your knees often ache, feel stiff or emit a strange, clicking noise, which could be symptoms of arthritis.

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J. Richard Hackman, an Expert in Team Dynamics, Dies at 72

J. Richard Hackman, a Harvard psychology professor whose fieldwork sometimes took him to the cockpit of an airliner to observe the crew in a nearly five-decade quest to determine the dynamics of teamwork and effective leadership, died on Jan. 8 in Boston. He was 72.

The cause was lung cancer, his wife, Judith Dozier Hackman, said.

Dr. Hackman, the author or co-author of 10 books on group dynamics, was the Edgar Pierce professor of social and organizational psychology at Harvard.

In one of his best-known books, “Leading Teams: Setting the Stage for Great Performances” (2002), he replaced the popular image of the powerful “I can do it all” team leader with that of someone who, as he wrote, had the subtle skills “to get a team established on a good trajectory, and then to make small adjustments along the way to help members succeed.”

The conditions for a successful team effort — among them “a compelling direction, an enabling team structure, a supportive organizational context and expert team coaching” — “are easy to remember,” Dr. Hackman wrote.

“The challenge,” he continued, “comes in developing an understanding of those conditions that is deep and nuanced enough to be useful in guiding action, and in devising strategies for creating them even in demanding or team-unfriendly organizational circumstances.”

Besides tracking the interplay of pilots, co-pilots and navigators aboard civilian and military planes, Dr. Hackman observed corporate boards, sports teams, orchestra players, telephone-line repair crews, hospital workers and restaurant kitchen staff members.

And in recent years, for his 2011 book, “Collaborative Intelligence,” he was allowed to observe interactions within the American intelligence, defense, law-enforcement and crisis-management communities.

“Although my main aspiration has been to provide guidance that will be useful to team leaders and members,” he wrote, “there are no ‘one-minute’ prescriptions here — creating, leading and serving on teams is not that simple.”

Anita Woolley, a professor of organizational behavior and theory at the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, said, “The key thing about Dr. Hackman’s work is that it stands in contrast to some of the more popular models of leadership that focused very much on style or how leaders behave, versus what they do.”

Rather than viewing pay as a prime motivator for good performance, she continued, “he focused on features of people’s jobs that made them more intrinsically satisfied: the freedom to determine how they conduct their work, having a variety of tasks, having knowledge of the ultimate outcomes of their work, knowing how their work affects or is received by other people.”

He also liked to overturn some of the received wisdom about teamwork. In a 2011 article for The Harvard Business Review, Dr. Hackman listed “Six Common Misperceptions About Teamwork.” Among them was this:

“Misperception No. 2: It’s good to mix it up. New members bring energy and fresh ideas to a team. Without them, members risk becoming complacent, inattentive to changes in the environment, and too forgiving of fellow members’ misbehavior.

“Actually: The longer members stay together as an intact group, the better they do. As unreasonable as this may seem, the research evidence is unambiguous. Whether it is a basketball team or a string quartet, teams that stay together longer play together better.”

John Richard Hackman was born in Joliet, Ill., on June 14, 1940, the only child of J. Edward and Helen Hackman. His father was an oil pipeline engineer, his mother a schoolteacher.

Dr. Hackman received a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from MacMurray College in Jacksonville, Ill., in 1962, and a doctorate in psychology from the University of Illinois in 1966. He soon joined the psychology and administrative sciences department faculties at Yale, where he taught until 1986, when he moved to the psychology and business departments at Harvard.

Besides his wife, who is an associate dean at Yale, he is survived by two daughters, Julia Beth Proffitt and Laura Dianne Codeanne, and four grandchildren.

After Dr. Hackman died, The Harvard Crimson wrote that for years he had “devoted countless hours to improving one team in particular — the Harvard women’s basketball squad, for which he volunteered as an honorary coach.”

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Death Penalty for Some in Egypt Soccer Violence

CAIRO (AP) — An Egyptian court has handed down death sentences for 21 people accused of taking part in soccer violence last year that killed 74.

In the courtroom, families of the deceased wailed in disbelief and raised their hands in the air shouting "Allahu Akbar", Arabic for God is great.

The judge said in his statement read live on state TV that he would announce the verdict for the remaining 52 defendants on March 9.

Among those on trial are nine security officials. The soccer melee on Feb. 1, 2011 between Port Said's Al-Masry fans and Cairo's Al-Ahly fans was the world's deadliest soccer violence in 15 years.

As is customary in Egypt, the death sentences will be sent to a top religious authority, the Grand Mufti, for approval.

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Huawei is now the world’s third largest smartphone vendor, but still far behind Samsung and Apple

Research firm IDC released the latest numbers from its Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker this week and found that a total of 482.5 million mobile phones were shipped in the fourth quarter of 2012, an increase from 473.4 million in 2011. Smartphones accounted for nearly half, or 45.5%, of all mobile phone shipments, the highest percentage ever. Samsung (005930) and Apple (AAPL) remained the two top vendors with market shares of 29% and 21.8% respectively. The report did include some surprises, however.

[More from BGR: Sony’s PS Vita: Dead again]

“The high-growth smartphone market, though dominated by Samsung and Apple, still presents ample opportunities for challengers,” said Kevin Restivo, senior research analyst with IDC. “Vendors with unique market advantages, such as lower-cost devices, can rapidly gain market share, especially in emerging markets”

[More from BGR: Unlocking your smartphone will be illegal starting next week]

The remaining top five smartphone vendors are very different now, however — they no longer include LG (006570), HTC (2498) or Motorola, all of which have been replaced by Huawei (002502), Sony (SNE) and ZTE (0763).

Huawei, a company previously known for its telecom equipment, spying scandals and low-end smartphones, is in the midst of a major transition. Rather than focusing on cheap and carrier-branded phones, the Chinese company has begun to compete with high-end manufacturers such as Samsung and Apple with its new flagship devices.

Huawei experienced unprecedented growth in the fourth quarter of 2012 with shipments increasing 89.5% year-over-year for a 4.9% market share. Close on the company’s heels are both Sony and Chinese rival ZTE with 4.5% and 4.3% shares of the market respectively.

“The fact that Huawei and ZTE now find themselves among the Top 5 smartphone vendors marks a significant shift for the global market,” noted Ramon Llamas, research manager with IDC’s Mobile Phone team. “Both companies have grown volumes by focusing on the mass market, but in recent quarters they have turned their attention toward higher-end devices. In addition, both companies have pushed the envelope in terms of industrial design with larger displays and smaller form factors, as well as innovative applications and experiences.”

This article was originally published on BGR.com

Wireless News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Disney says JJ Abrams to direct next 'Star Wars'

LOS ANGELES (AP) — It's official. The force is with J.J. Abrams.

The Walt Disney Co. issued a statement Friday night confirming reports that had been circulating for two days that Abrams, Emmy-award-winning creator of TV's "Lost" and director of 2009's "Star Trek" movie, has been pegged to direct the seventh installment of the "Star Wars" franchise.

"J.J. is the perfect director to helm this," said Kathleen Kennedy, the movie's producer and president of Lucasfilm, which was acquired by Disney last month for $4.06 billion.

"Beyond having such great instincts as a filmmaker, he has an intuitive understanding of this franchise. He understands the essence of the Star Wars experience," Kennedy said in the statement.

The movie will have a script from "Toy Story 3" writer Michael Arndt and a 2015 release.

Lawrence Kasdan, who wrote "The Empire Strikes Back" and "Return of the Jedi" in the original trilogy, will work as a consultant on the new project.

Abrams has already headed the reboot of another storied space franchise, "Star Trek," for rival studio Paramount Pictures. The next installment in that series, "Star Trek: Into Darkness," is set to hit theaters May 17.

But he has long been known as a "Star Wars" devotee. Abrams spoke about the plot of the original "Star Wars" in the lecture series "TED Talks" in March 2007, and reportedly became enamored of "Lost" co-creator Damon Lindelof partly because Lindelof was wearing a "Star Wars" T-shirt when they first met.

In 2009, Abrams told the Los Angeles Times: "As a kid, 'Star Wars' was much more my thing than 'Star Trek' was."

In Friday night's statement he called it an "absolute honor" to get the job.

"I may be even more grateful to George Lucas now than I was as a kid," Abrams said.

Lucas himself said in the statement that "I've consistently been impressed with J.J. as a filmmaker and storyteller. He's an ideal choice to direct the new Star Wars film and the legacy couldn't be in better hands."

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40 Years After Roe v. Wade, Thousands March to Oppose Abortion

Drew Angerer/The New York Times

Pro-life activists made their way down Constitution Avenue toward the Supreme Court during the March for Life in Washington on Friday.

WASHINGTON — Three days after the 40th anniversary of the decision in Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court case that legalized abortion, tens of thousands of abortion opponents from around the country came to the National Mall on Friday for the annual March for Life rally, which culminated in a demonstration in front of the Supreme Court building.

On a gray morning when the temperature was well below freezing, the crowd pressed in close against the stage to hear more than a dozen speakers, who included Tony Perkins, the president of the Family Research Council; Representative Diane Black, Republican of Tennessee, who recently introduced legislation to withhold financing from Planned Parenthood, and Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky; Cardinal Seán Patrick O’Malley of Boston; and Rick Santorum, the former senator from Pennsylvania and Republican presidential candidate.

Mr. Santorum spoke of his wife’s decision not to have an abortion after they learned that their child — their daughter Bella, now 4 — had a rare genetic disorder called Trisomy 18.

“We all know that death is never better, never better,” Mr. Santorum said. “Bella is better for us, and we are better because of Bella.”

Jeanne Monahan, the president of the March for Life Education and Defense Fund, said that the march was both somber and hopeful.

“We’ve lost 55 million Americans to abortion,” she said. “At the same time, I think we’re starting to win. We’re winning in the court of public opinion, we’re winning in the states with legislation.”

Though the main event officially started at noon, the day began much earlier for the participants, with groups in matching scarves engaged in excited chatter on the subway and gaggles of schoolchildren wearing name tags around their necks. Arriving on the Mall, attendees were greeted with free signs (“Defund Planned Parenthood” and “Personhood for Everyone”) and a man barking into a megaphone, “Ireland is on the brink of legalizing abortion, which is not good.”

The march came two months after the 2012 campaign season, in which social issues like abortion largely took a back seat to the focus on the economy. But the issue did come up in Congressional races in which Republican candidates made controversial statements about rape or abortion. In Indiana, Richard E. Mourdock, a Republican candidate for the Senate, said in a debate that he believed that pregnancies resulting from rape were something that “God intended,” and in Illinois, Representative Joe Walsh said in a debate that abortion was never necessary to save the life of the mother because of “advances in science and technology.” Both men lost, hurt by a backlash from female voters.

Recent polls show that while a majority of Americans do not want Roe v. Wade to be overturned entirely, many favor some restrictions. In a Gallup poll released this week, 52 percent of those surveyed said that abortions should be legal only under certain circumstances, while 28 percent said they should be legal under all circumstances, and 18 percent said they should be illegal under all circumstances. In a Pew poll this month, 63 percent of respondents said they did not want Roe v. Wade to be overturned completely, and 29 percent said they did — views largely consistent with surveys taken over the past two decades.

“Most Americans want some restrictions on abortion,” Ms. Monahan said. “We see abortion as the human rights abuse of today.”

Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio, who spoke via a recorded video, called on the protest group, particularly the young people, to make abortion “a relic of the past.”

“Human life is not an economic or political commodity, and no government on earth has the right to treat it that way,” he said.

The crowd was dotted with large banners, many bearing the names of the attendees’ home states and churches and colleges. Gary Storey, 36, stood holding a handmade sign that read “I was adopted. Thanks Mom for my life.” Next to him stood his adoptive mother, Ellen Storey, 66, who held her own handmade sign with a picture of her six children and the words “To the mothers of our four adopted children, ‘Thank You’ for their lives.”

Mr. Storey said he was grateful for the decision by his biological mother to carry through with her pregnancy. “Beats the alternative,” he joked.

Last week, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America started a new Web site, and on Tuesday, its president, Cecile Richards, released a statement supporting abortion rights.

“Planned Parenthood understands that abortion is a deeply personal and often complex decision for a woman to consider, if and when she needs it,” she said. “A woman should have accurate information about all of her options around her pregnancy. To protect her health and the health of her family, a woman must have access to safe, legal abortion without interference from politicians, as protected by the Supreme Court for the last 40 years.”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: January 25, 2013

A summary that appeared on the home page of NYTimes.com with an earlier version of this article misstated the day of the march. It took place on Friday, not Thursday.

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Labor Relations Board Rulings Could Be Undone

By ruling that Mr. Obama’s three recess appointments last January were illegal, the federal appeals court ruling, if upheld, would leave the board with just one member, short of the quorum needed to issue any rulings. The Obama administration could appeal the court ruling, but no announcement was made on Friday.

If the Supreme Court were to uphold Friday’s ruling, issued by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, it would mean that the labor board did not have a quorum since last January and that all its rulings since then should be nullified.

Many Republicans and business groups applauded Friday’s ruling. They often assert that the appointments Mr. Obama made to the board have transformed it into a tool of organized labor. But many Democrats and labor unions say Mr. Obama’s appointments restored ideological balance to the board after it was tipped in favor of business interests under President George W. Bush

Mark G. Pearce, the board’s chairman, issued a statement saying the board disagreed with the ruling and suggested that other appeals courts hearing cases about the constitutionality of Mr. Obama’s appointments could reach a different conclusion.

“In the meantime, the board has important work to do,” said Mr. Pearce, whose agency oversees enforcement of the laws governing strikes and unionization drives. “We will continue to perform our statutory duties and issue decisions.”

Unless the Senate confirms future nominees to the board — Senate Republicans have blocked several of Mr. Obama’s board nominees — Mr. Pearce will be the only member left if Friday’s ruling is upheld. The board has five seats.

Representative Darrell Issa, a California Republican who is the chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, issued a statement that urged the recess appointees to “do the right thing and step down.” He added, “To avoid further damage to the economy, the N.L.R.B. must take the responsible course and cease issuing any further opinions until a constitutionally sound quorum can be established.”

The three disputed recess appointees included two Democrats, Sharon Block, deputy labor secretary, and Richard Griffin, general counsel to the operating engineers’ union; and one Republican, Terence Flynn, a counsel to a board member. Mr. Flynn resigned last May after being accused of leaking materials about the group’s deliberations. Another Republican member, Brian Hayes, stepped down when his term expired last month.

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North Korea Turns Its Ire on South Korea

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea threatened on Friday to take “physical countermeasures” against South Korea if it takes part in enforcing sanctions against the besieged North, calling the United Nations-endorsed penalties a “declaration of war” and warning of a prolonged chill in the relations between the two Koreas.

In a statement issued in the name of its Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland, which manages relations with South Korea, North Korea gave no hint on what those countermeasures might be. While its earlier pronouncements more often than not turned out to be a bluster, North Korea does have a history of following up some with unexpected military attacks — most recently, its shelling of a border island in 2010 that left four South Koreans dead. It was also blamed for the sinking of a South Korean warship the same year that left 46 sailors dead.

Those two incidents brought the two Koreas closer to waging a full-scale war than ever in recent decades, dispelling Washington’s desire to engage North Korea for a serious negotiation. In the last few days, while calling for a vigorous enforcement of U.N. sanctions, U.S. officials also appealed to the North’s new leader, Kim Jong-un, not to overreact and miss the opportunities for a new beginning.

Pyongyang’s threat against South Korea was the latest in a verbal barrage it has launched since the United Nations Security Council on Tuesday unanimously adopted a resolution condemning North Korea’s Dec. 12 rocket launching as a violation of earlier U.N. resolutions banning it from testing ballistic missile technology. The resolution called for tightening sanctions to cut off the procurement activities for North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs, while the North accused Washington of masterminding the Security Council to “stifle” the already impoverished country.

“If the puppet group of traitors takes a direct part in the U.N. ‘sanctions,’ the D.P.R.K. will take strong physical countermeasures against it,” North Korea said on Friday, using the nickname it often uses for the South Korean government and the acronym of its official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. “‘Sanctions’ mean a war and a declaration of war against us.”

The U.N. resolution was the fifth to be slapped on the North for its rocket and nuclear programs since 1993. It calls for the tightening of existing sanctions, such as expanding a travel ban on North Korean officials and the freezing of assets of North Korean banks and other agencies accused of engaging in shipments and financing for the North’s missile and nuclear programs. It also broadened the means for U.N. member nations to intercept and confiscate cargo headed for the North.

Since the Security Council resolution, North Korea has said it would conduct a nuclear test and launch more long-range rockets and that there would be no more talks on the “denuclearization” of the Korean Peninsula, a main goal of Washington’s thus-far unsuccessful diplomacy on the Korean Peninsula for the last two decades.

With Friday’s threat against the South, North Korea, under the young Mr. Kim, appeared to be following a well-worn track established under his late father, Kim Jong-il, before his death in December 2011: a cycle of North Korean provocation such as a rocket launching, U.N. condemnation, North Korean warnings of “physical countermeasures,” which were sometimes followed by provocative actions, such a nuclear test.

While this familiar cycle repeated itself in recent years, North Korea also steadily boosted its nuclear and missile capabilities. The North Korean nuclear crisis began in the early 1990s with nothing but a tiny amount of fissile material North Korea was suspected of gleaning from its experimental research reactor. It has since accumulated enough plutonium for an estimated half dozen nuclear bombs, built a full-scale uranium-enrichment program, conducted two nuclear tests and made strides toward building intercontinental ballistic missiles that U.S. officials feared could one day be tipped with nuclear warheads.

On Thursday, North Korea said it felt no need to hide its intention of building rockets and nuclear weapons with the United States as a “target” because Washington had intensified its “hostile” policy against the North.

On Friday, North Korea directed its ire at its neighbor, South Korea, warning that Seoul should expect a continuing confrontation and even potential military clashes on the Korean Peninsula if the hard-line policy of the outgoing President Lee Myung-bak was inherited by his successor, President-elect Park Geun-hye, who will be sworn in next month.

“Now that the South Korean puppet conservative group is more desperately kicking up a racket against the D.P.R.K. over its nuclear and missile issues with the U.S., there will be no more discussion on denuclearization between the north and the south in the future,” North Korea said. “As long as the South Korean puppet group of traitors persistently pursues a hostile policy toward the D.P.R.K., we will never negotiate with anyone.”

In its statement, the North also said that a 1992 joint declaration in which the two Koreas committed themselves not to purse nuclear weapons was now completely invalid. It was not the first time North Korea has called its deals with Seoul and Washington nullified. Still, analysts said, the North’s posture significantly limits room for Ms. Park’s overtures toward the North; like Mr. Lee and President Obama in the United States, Mr. Park considers the dismantling of the North’s nuclear program the premise in all South Korea’s diplomacy toward the North.

The U.N. sanctions and the North’s angry reactions dissipated early hopes that changes of leadership in Pyongyang, Seoul and Washington might open the way for easing tensions. But some analysts said that North Korea was just escalating tensions ahead of dialogue to increase its leverage.

North Korea, which has lived through U.S.-led trade embargoes throughout its existence, considers itself a small yet proud nation struggling for independence in the face of an “imperialist” plot to erase its from the earth. It has typically called any new round of American-inspired sanctions a declaration of war.

Washington says North Korea is one of the leading threats to global efforts for nuclear and missile non-proliferation.

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