Seoul: North Korea warned Tuesday that the US mainland is within range of its missiles, saying Washington’s recent agreement to let Seoul possess missiles capable of hitting all of the North shows the allies are plotting to invade the country.

Seoul announced Sunday it reached a deal with Washington that would allow it to nearly triple the range of its missiles to better cope with North Korean missile and nuclear threats.

On Tuesday, North Korea called the South Korea-US missile deal a “product of another conspiracy of the master and the stooge” to “ignite a war” against the North. An unidentified spokesman at the powerful National Defense Commission said the North will subsequently bolster its military preparedness and warned it has missiles capable of striking South Korea, Japan, Guam and the US mainland.

“We do not hide … the strategic rocket forces are keeping within the scope of strike not only the bases of the puppet forces and the US imperialist aggression forces’ bases in the inviolable land of Korea but also Japan, Guam and the US mainland,” the spokesman said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.

It’s unusual for the North to say its missiles are capable of striking the US but North Korea has regularly issued harsh rhetoric against Seoul and Washington.

Still, the North’s statement could suggest the country has been working on miniaturising a nuclear bomb to mount on a long-range rocket, though experts believe the country has yet to acquire such a technology.

It could also back up what experts have been suspecting about the range of North Korean long-range rockets. In April, the country conducted a rocket test that Washington, Seoul and others called a cover for a test of long-range missile technology.

North Korea says the rocket, which broke apart shortly after liftoff, was meant to launch a satellite. North Korea conducted underground nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009.

Koh Yu-hwan, a North Korean studies professor based in Seoul, said the North had no choice but to respond to South Korea’s extended missile range but it won’t likely launch a provocation as it is waiting for the results of US and South Korean presidential elections.

South Korea’s Defense Ministry said Tuesday it has no official comments on the North’s statement, but Seoul and Washington have repeatedly said they have no intention of attacking North Korea.

US has more than 20,000 troops stationed in the South in defence of its ally against the North.

North Korea is under heavy UN sanctions that have cut off its previously lucrative arms trade and further isolated the state after its failed 2009 missile test drew sharp rebukes, even from its one major ally, China.

In April, under its new leader Kim Jong-un, North Korea again launched a rocket that flew just a few minutes covering a little over 100 km before blowing up over the sea between South Korea and China. (AP)

STOCKHOLM: A French and an American scientist won the 2012 Nobel Prize for Physics on Tuesday for finding ways to measure elusive quantum particles without destroying them, something researchers previously thought impossible.

Their work could lead to the building of a new kind of super fast computer based on quantum physics, according to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which awarded the 1.2 million dollar prize to French scientist Serge Haroche and American David Wineland.

Physics is the second of this year’s crop of awards. The prizes, which reward achievements in science, literature and peace, were first awarded in 1901 in accordance with the will of Swedish dynamite millionaire Alfred Nobel. (Reuters)

Washington: Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney criticised Barack Obama’s handling of threats in the Middle East, saying the incumbent president’s lack of leadership has made the region more dangerous place than it was when he took office nearly four years ago.

Promising to restore America’s foreign policy to its traditional role, Romney said, “Unfortunately, this president’s policies have not been equal to our best examples of world leadership. And nowhere is this more evident than in the Middle East.”

In the major foreign policy speech at the Virginia Military Institute, Romney cited the recent protest and violence in the Middle East, the relationship with Israel to prove his point. He accused Obama of a hasty troop withdrawal from Iraq, saying hard-fought gains there are being eroded by rising violence and a resurgent al-Qaeda.

Romney said that Obama failed to offer support to America’s partners and allies. He said the president also failed to lead in Syria, where more than — more than 30,000 men, women, and children have been massacred by the Assad regime over the past 20 months.

“Violent extremists are flowing into the fight. Our ally Turkey has been attacked. And the conflict threatens stability in the region,” he said. At the same time, he said, America can take pride in the blows that the military and intelligence professionals have inflicted on al-Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan, including the killing of Osama bin Laden.

Referring to the current situation in the Middle East, Romney said: “It is time to change course in the Middle East”.

“That course should be organised around these bedrock principles: America must have confidence in our cause, clarity in our purpose and resolve in our might. No friend of America will question our commitment to support them. No enemy that attacks America will question our resolve to defeat them, he said. “And no one anywhere, friend or foe, will doubt America’s capability to back up our words.”

Romney said he will put the leaders of Iran on notice that the US and its allies will prevent them from acquiring nuclear weapons capability. “I will not hesitate to impose new sanctions on Iran and will — and will tighten the sanctions we currently have. “I will restore the permanent presence of aircraft carrier task forces in both the Eastern Mediterranean and the Gulf. And I’ll work with Israel to increase our military assistance and coordination. “For the sake of peace, we must make clear to Iran through actions, not just words, that their nuclear pursuit will not be tolerated,” he said.

Romney said he will champion free trade and restore it as a critical element of US strategy, both in the Middle East and across the world.

On Libya, Romney said he will support the Libyan people’s efforts to forge a lasting government that represents all of them. “I’ll vigorously pursue the terrorists who attacked our consulate in Benghazi and killed our fellow Americans,” he said.

“In Syria I’ll work with our partners to identify and organize those members of the opposition who share our values and then ensure they obtain the arms they need to defeat Assad’s tanks helicopters and fighter jets,” he said.

“Iran is sending arms to Assad because they know his downfall would be a strategic defeat for them. “We should be working no less vigorously through our international partners to support the many Syrians who would deliver that defeat to Iran, rather than sitting on the sidelines. It’s essential that we develop influence with those forces in Syria that will one day lead a country that sits at the heart of the Middle East,” Romney said. (PTI)

AMMAN: Suicide bombers attacked a security compound on the edge of Syrian capital Damascus overnight, in the latest assault by rebels against units loyal to President Bashar al-Assad, insurgents said.

Al-Nusra, a militant Islamist group, claimed responsibility for the attack on the Air Force Intelligence complex in the suburb of Harasta, saying officials working there had played a major role in the government’s crackdown on an 18-month-old revolt.

“The decision was taken to hit Airforce Intelligence because it is one of the most notorious security divisions, and a citadel of repression whose extent is known only to God,” said the statement from Al-Nusra, posted on Facebook.

Opposition activists said hundreds of Assad’s opponents have been imprisoned without charge and tortured in the Harasta complexes. Human rights groups have also accused rebel forces of torturing prisoners. (Reuters)

6 killed, 35 injured in China expressway

Beijing: At least six people were killed and 35 others injured in a series of vehicle pile-ups caused by heavy fog in central China on Tuesday.

The accidents occurred on an expressway in Henan province that links northeast and south China and were blamed on low visibility caused by the heavy fog.

One of the accidents involved more than 10 vehicles, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

Three people died on the spot, while another three died after being taken to hospital. All of the injured have been sent to two nearby hospitals. Their condition is not yet known.

An investigation into the accidents was under way. (PTI)

Islamabad: A 14-year-old Pakistani girl, who emerged as an unlikely champion of peace in the former Taliban stronghold of Swat, was seriously injured when a suspected militant attacked her car in the country’s restive northwest on Tuesday.

Malala Yousufzai, the first recipient of Pakistan’s National Peace Award for Youth, was hit by at least two bullets when the gunman fired at her car in Swat, located 160 km from Islamabad. Two other children were injured in the attack that occurred outside Yousufzai’s school. Yousufzai was rushed to a hospital in Saidu Sharif town where doctors performed an emergency surgery, TV news channels reported. Security forces cordoned off the hospital.

The attack occurred as the girls were leaving the school after it closed early due to a protest by government employees. The gunman asked people in the area to point out Yousufzai and then fired at her car, witnesses said.

No group claimed responsibility for the attack. Yousufzai received several threats after she began writing about the excesses of the Taliban in a blog.

In March, Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan spokesman Ihsanullah Ihsan said Yousufzai and social worker Shad Begum were on the militants’ ‘hit list’. Shad Begum was among 10 women conferred the International Women of Courage Award by the US.

Yousufzai received the first National Peace Award for Youth from former premier Yousuf Raza Gilani in December last year for her “courageous and outstanding services for the promotion of education and peace under extremely hostile conditions” in Swat.

The teenage girl was a victim of the ban imposed by the Taliban on education for girls after the Swat region was overrun by the militants in 2008. Yousufzai had encouraged her fellow students to continue their studies despite the threats before the military launched an operation to flush out the Taliban from Swat in 2009. (PTI)