North Korea says it cancels 1953 armistice

Owner says SUV in fatal Ohio crash was stolen

Lisa Williamson holds up a self-portrait of her son Brandon Murray, Monday, March 11, 2013, in Warren, Ohio. Investigators spent Monday trying to piece together why eight teenagers were crammed into a speeding SUV without the owner's permission when it flipped over into a pond, killing six of them, including Murray. (AP Photo/Tony Dejak)

This undated photo provided by the Murray family, Monday, March 11, 2013, shows Brandon Murray. Investigators spent Monday trying to piece together why eight teenagers were crammed into a speeding SUV without the owner's permission when it flipped over into a pond, killing six of them, including Murray. (AP Photo/Courtesy of Murray Family)

WARREN, Ohio (AP) — Investigators Monday tried to piece together what eight teenagers crammed into an allegedly stolen SUV were up to before the vehicle flipped over into a pond, killing six of them.

Authorities gave few details on where the group of friends had been and why they were out around daybreak Sunday, speeding down a two-lane road. On Monday, the SUV's owner met with police and filed a stolen-car report; police said none of the teens were related to the owner or had asked to use the vehicle.

While the father of one of the dead said the teenagers were coming home from a sleepover at a friend's house, the mother of another boy killed said that her son and his best friend had lied about staying over at each other's homes that evening. She said she thinks they went to a party.

"If only he had listened," said Lisa Williamson, mother of 14-year-old Brandon Murray. "I told him, 'Don't you go nowhere.' But they're kids."

The SUV hit a guardrail in an industrial section of town and landed upside down in about 5 feet of water, filling up within minutes, State Highway Patrol Lt. Brian Holt. Five boys and a young woman, ages 14 to 19, were killed.

Two boys smashed a rear window, wriggled out of the wreckage and swam away, then ran a quarter-mile to a home to call 911, authorities said. Brian Henry, 18, and Asher Lewis, 15, suffered only minor injuries.

Investigators said they believe excessive speed was a key factor in the crash, which took place in a 35 mph zone alongside a steel mill near what's known in the neighborhood as "Dead Man's Curve." Authorities did not say how fast the SUV was going. They were also awaiting the results of drug and alcohol tests.

All eight teenagers were from Warren, a mostly blue-collar city of 41,000 near the Pennsylvania line, about 60 miles east of Cleveland.

Friends and family members described the teens as good kids who weren't troublemakers. Williamson said many of them would hang out and stay overnight in her basement to play video games, listen to music and watch movies.

She said her son called late Saturday night and said he was staying at the home of his best friendRamone White. She said it wasn't until after the accident that she found out that wasn't true.

"It's what we did when we were growing up, too," said Williamson, who was wearing a rubbery "Jesus Loves You" bracelet that she took off her dead son's wrist.

Andre Bennett Sr., whose son Andrique was among those killed, said that his son and the others had all stayed over at a friend's house and that a girl offered them a ride home.

Chris Jones, 16, said he used to see most of the victims every day at school and in their neighborhood. He knew all but two in the crash.

"They're not always the best kids. They're not out there looking for straight A's," he said. "But none of these kids should be where they are today. This should have never had happened."

Five of the dead were trapped inside the sunken SUV. A sixth was thrown from the vehicle and was found underneath it when it was taken out of the water.

State police identified them as the 19-year-old driver, Alexis Cayson; Andrique Bennett, 14; Brandon Murray, 14; and Kirklan Behner, Ramone White and Daylan Ray, all 15. Cayson, Murray and Ray drowned, the coroner said. Autopsies on the others were incomplete.

"All I know is my baby is gone," said Derrick Ray, who came to the crash site after viewing his 15-year-old son Daylan's body at the morgue. He said he knew that his son, a football player who was looking forward to playing in high school, was out with friends, but didn't know their plans.

None of the teens in the five-seat 1998 Honda Passport were wearing seat belts, state police said.

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Associated Press writers Tom Sheeran in Warren, John Seewer in Toledo, Dan Sewell in Cincinnati and Kantele Franko in Columbus contributed this report.

NKorea's Kim visits front-line troops amid tension

By HYUNG-JIN KIM and FOSTER KLUG | Associated Press – 6 hrs ago

South Korean protesters hit a huge banner with a picture of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during a rally denouncing North Korea's recent threat and supporting South Korean President Park Geun-hye near the presidential Blue House in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, March 11, 2013. South Korea and the United States began annual military drills Monday despite North Korean threats to respond by voiding the armistice that ended the Korean War and launching a nuclear attack on the U.S. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea's young leader urged front-line troops to be on "maximum alert" for a potential war as a state-run newspaper said Pyongyang had carried out a threat to cancel the 1953 armistice that ended the Korean War.

Kim Jong Un told artillery troops stationed near disputed waters that have seen several bloody clashes in past years that "war can break out right now," according to a report by North Korean state media.

Kim's visit and the armistice claim are part of a torrent of angry North Korean rhetoric that has followed last week's U.N. sanctions over Pyongyang's Feb. 12 nuclear test. Pyongyang has also vowed to strike the United States with nuclear weapons.

It is unclear, however, what will come next and whether North Korea will match its words with action. South Korea's Defense Ministry said Tuesday there were no signs that North Korea would attack or conduct more nuclear or missile tests anytime soon and that Pyongyang was merely trying to apply "psychological pressure" on the South.

A U.N. spokesman said that Pyongyang cannot unilaterally dissolve the armistice, which is still valid. Pyongyang is also years away from acquiring the smaller, lighter nuclear warheads needed to pose a credible nuclear missile threat to the United States.

Indeed, several signs pointed to business as usual between the Koreas — despite the bluster.

North Korea apparently cut one telephone and fax hotline at a village straddling the Demilitarized Zone between the countries, but otherwise there have been no substantial operational changes, Seoul's Unification Ministry and Joint Chiefs of Staff said Tuesday.

There are at least two other working communication channels between the Koreas. As they did Monday, the two Koreas used a separate military hotline Tuesday to allow hundreds of South Koreans to cross the border to a jointly run factory park in the North Korean border town of Kaesong, according to the South's Unification Ministry.

Much of the bellicosity is seen as an effort to shore up loyalty among citizens and the military for Kim Jong Un.

Still, North Korea's anger, and Seoul's stern rebuttals, is boosting animosity and causing worries on an already tense Korean Peninsula. The rivals this week are also holding dueling military drills.

U.S. National Security adviser Tom Donilon told the Asia Society in New York that Pyongyang's claims may be "hyperbolic," but the United States will protect its allies.

"There should be no doubt: We will draw upon the full range of our capabilities to protect against, and to respond to, the threat posed to us and to our allies by North Korea," Donilon said.

Aside from the nuclear threats, Pyongyang has so far only made a somewhat mysterious promise to strike its enemies at a time and place of its own choosing. This alarms many, however, as two sudden attacks blamed on North Korea killed 50 South Koreans in 2010.

Seoul has responded to North Korean threats with tough talk of its own and has placed its troops on high alert.

The North Korean government made no formal announcement on its repeated threats to scrap the 60-year-old armistice, but the country's main newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, reported that the armistice was nullified Monday as Pyongyang had said it would.

The North has threatened to nullify the armistice several times before, and in 1996, after one such vow, it sent hundreds of armed troops into a border village. The troops later withdrew.

Despite the Rodong Sinmun report, U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky said the armistice is still valid and still in force because the armistice agreement had been adopted by the U.N. General Assembly and can't be dissolved unilaterally.

Nesirky added that officials at U.N. headquarters in New York were unaware of any operational changes on the ground on the Korean Peninsula.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said the U.S. was "certainly concerned by North Korea's bellicose rhetoric. And the threats that they have been making follow a pattern designed to raise tension and intimidate others."

The angry words from both Koreas haven't stopped them from communicating about the only remaining operational symbol of joint cooperation, the Kaesong industrial complex. It is operated in North Korea with South Korean money and know-how and a mostly North Korean workforce — and provides a badly needed flow of hard currency to a country where many face food shortages.

"If South Koreans don't go to work at Kaesong, North Korea will suffer" financially, said analyst Hong Hyun-ik at the private Sejong Institute in South Korea. "If North Korea really intends to start a war with South Korea, it could have taken South Koreans at Kaesong hostage."

The 11-day U.S.-South Korean joint military drills that started Monday involve 10,000 South Korean and about 3,000 U.S. troops. Those coincide with two months of separate U.S.-South Korean field exercises that began March 1.

Also continuing are large-scale North Korean drills that Seoul says involve the army, navy and air force. The South Korean Defense Ministry said there have been no military activities it considers suspicious.

The North Korean rhetoric escalated as the U.N. Security Council on Thursday approved a new round of sanctions over Pyongyang's nuclear test.

"This is part of their brinksmanship," said Daniel Pinkston, a Seoul-based expert on North Korea with the International Crisis Group think tank. "It's an effort to signal their resolve, to show they are willing to take greater risks, with the expectation that everyone else caves in and gives them what they want."

Part of what North Korea wants is a formal peace treaty to end the Korean War, instead of the armistice that leaves the peninsula still technically in a state of war. It also wants security guarantees and other concessions, direct talks with Washington, recognition as a nuclear weapons state, and the removal of 28,500 U.S. troops stationed in South Korea.

Pinkston said there is little chance of fighting breaking out while war games are being conducted, but he added that he expects North Korea to stage some sort of provocation in the future.

North Korea was responsible for an artillery attack that killed four South Koreans in 2010. A South Korean-led international investigation found that North Korea torpedoed a South Korean warship that same year, killing 46 sailors. Pyongyang denies sinking the ship.

South Korean and U.S. officials have been closely monitoring Pyongyang's actions and parsing its recent rhetoric, which has been more warlike than usual.

Under new President Park Geun-hye, South Korea's Defense Ministry, which often brushes off North Korean threats, has looked to send a message of strength in response to the latest comments fromPyongyang.

The ministry has warned that the North's government would "evaporate from the face of the Earth" if it ever used a nuclear weapon.

While outside scientists are still trying to determine specifics, the North's rocket test in December and third nuclear test last month may have pushed the country a step closer to acquiring the ability to hit the U.S. with weapons of mass destruction.

Analysts have also said that more missile and nuclear tests are possible reactions from North Korea.

North Korea has a variety of missiles and other weapons capable of striking South Korea. Both the warship sinking and island shelling in 2010 occurred near a western sea boundary that North Korea fiercely disputes. It has been a recurring flashpoint between the rivals that has seen three other bloody naval skirmishes since 1999.

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Associated Press writers Peter James Spielmann at the United Nations, and Nedra Pickler, Matthew Pennington and Bradley Klapper in Washington contributed to this report.

China wrestles with cost of cleaner environment

In this Friday, March 8, 2013 Chinese paramilitary policemen march across Tiananmen Square on a hazy day in Beijing, China. Facing public outrage over smog-choked cities and filthy rivers, China's leaders are promising to clean up its neglected environment, a pledge that sets up a clash with political pressures to keep economic growth strong. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)

An array of possible initiatives discussed by officials and state media ahead of this week's meeting of China's legislature include tightening water standards and taxing carbon emissions. No change is expected at the National People's Congress, which will be dominated by the installation of a new Cabinet under Communist Party leaders who took power in November. But the meeting offers a platform to try to appease the public by discussing possible changes.

Pollution and public frustration about it are hardly new to China. But now, the ruling party is under pressure from entrepreneurs and professionals who are crucial to its development plans and want cleaner living conditions. Pressure intensified after this winter's record-shattering smog in Beijing and other cities left office workers wheezing.

For industry, pollution controls could cause a costly upheaval after three decades of breakneck growth with little official concern about damage to China's air, water and soil. Party leaders have given no timetable and have yet to make clear how far they are willing to go if such measures wipe out jobs or force factories and power plants to close.

"Economic interests are one of the biggest stumbling blocks to real progress on the environmental front," said Melanie Hart, a specialist in Chinese energy and climate policy at the Center for American Progress in Washington, in an e-mail.

Skepticism about Beijing's commitment rose in February when the Ministry of Environmental Protection refused to publish results of a five-year survey of soil pollution. Some consumers worry food is tainted by toxin-laced farmland, and activists questioned whether the ministry found that problems were even worse than expected.

Party leaders have promised to balance economic needs with environmental protection but could face resistance from industry and local officials whose promotions depend on meeting growth targets.

The party's latest five-year development plan calls for cleaner, energy-efficient growth. Outgoing Premier Wen Jiabao last week promised more spending on renewable energy, pollution control and cleaning up lakes and rivers. The environment ministry is getting a 12 percent budget increase. The Cabinet's economic planning agency promised to change pricing and taxes for water, oil and other resources to curb waste and pollution.

Some analysts suggest that if Beijing keeps its promises, environmental protection could be a core element of the legacy of Xi Jinping, who took power as the party's general secretary in November in a once-a-decade transition.

"I see the last five years and the future five years are a turning point in China toward greener development," said Xu Jintao, director of Peking University's environmental economics program.

The government is looking at updating laws on vehicle emissions, other air pollution and overall environmental protection, according to Fu Ying, a deputy foreign minister who is spokeswoman for the legislative meeting.

"First, we must strengthen environmental protection legislation," said Fu. She gave no timeframe or other details but said new party leaders who took power in November "will definitely put this issue in a priority position to consider."

A cleaner environment is in line with the party's ambition to transform China into a creator of technology and reduce reliance on manufacturing and heavy industry. The World Bank and other advisers have urged Beijing to develop service industries, which could create more jobs and wealth with smaller inputs of fuel and raw materials.

China's first environmental law, a clean air act, was passed in 1987 but activists complain local authorities ignore controls if they conflict with business goals. They say filters on power plant smokestacks and other environmental technology that might reduce output is turned on only when inspectors from Beijing visit.

Rising incomes have given city dwellers higher expectations for quality of life and the confidence to make demands, even as they add to emissions by purchasing more cars and using more coal-fired electric power.

Smog reached a peak in January, when the Beijing city government reported levels of particles smaller than 2.5 microns in diameter — one of the most damaging pollutants — were as high as 700 micrograms per cubic meter. That was 28 times the World Health Organization's recommended safe level of 25 and the highest since the government began reporting PM2.5 numbers last year.

Chinese smog is so bad that officials in South Korean and Japan say pollutants are spreading to their countries. Last week, residents of Japan's Kumamoto prefecture were told to stay indoors or wear masks as protection against airborne particles from China.

The bulk of the smog choking Chinese cities is belched out by commercial trucks, but authorities have put off tightening emissions standards. Upgrading to cleaner engines would cost about 20,000 yuan ($3,200) per vehicle, adding about 8 percent to a typical sticker price.

Auto industry analysts say this winter's wave of smog is likely to prod authorities to speed up the introduction of tougher standards, at least in major cities.

The Internet has made it easy to publicize problems, adding to pressure on Chinese leaders.

In February, a businessman in the southeastern city of Rui'an attracted national attention when he posted pictures of a garbage-filled river online and offered an environmental official 200,000 yuan ($32,000) to swim in it. That prompted an anonymous offer of 300,000 yuan ($48,000) on a separate online forum for the environmental protection chief of the nearby county of Cangnan to swim in polluted rivers there.

Beijing has shut down antiquated power plants, steel mills and other facilities over the past decade to improve energy efficiency. Analysts say the easy gains have been made and further improvement will be tougher and more costly.

Some major Chinese companies have shifted with the political tide and embraced conservation.

The chairman of Sinopec, one of China's three major state-owned oil companies, announced in February the company will spend several billion dollars in the next few years to upgrade its refineries and produce cleaner gasoline.

At lower levels, though, communist leaders need to restructure a tangle of economic and political incentives if they want their orders to be obeyed.

They are likely to face resistance from local leaders who will be required to enforce rules but whose careers depend on meeting economic growth targets, said Peking University's Xu. He said mayors who change jobs as often as once a year are forced to aim for short-term gains and ignore the environment.

"There is still a lot of pressure not to do much about the environment," he said. "They need a change of incentive for local government."

The ministries of finance and environmental protection are looking at a possible shift to using taxes on fuel, carbon output or other pollution instead of administrative controls, according to Xu. He said that income could help offset losses to local governments from reduced business activity.

"That gives local governments an incentive to cooperate," he said.

The head of the Finance Ministry's tax division said in February on the ministry website that Beijingmight introduce a carbon tax. The official, Jia Chen, gave no details and the ministry did not respond to a request for further information.

Still, environmentalists are alarmed by one proposed amendment to the environmental law that would require plans to be reviewed by economic officials before they could be considered for Cabinet approval, according to Hart.

"That language would certainly send the signal that central leaders are still prioritizing growth over the environment," she said. "I hope that is not the case."