Rescued hiker talks of hallucinations, fending off animals

Days after her dramatic rescue from a brush-covered ledge, Kyndall Jack -- the 18-year-old hiker who was missing for four days -- said memories of her time lost in the south Orange County hills are fleeting, with only recollections of hallucinations, fending off animals and crying when she and her parents reunited.

"I honestly didn't know I was missing," she told reporters Monday outside UC Irvine Medical Center in Orange, from which she said she is being released later in the day.

 "I didn't know I was gone. I thought it was a dream."

In front of the hospital, resting in a wheelchair with her hair pulled up and wearing a hooded gray sweatshirt and black sweatpants, she explained she had injured her hand during the ordeal.  She held up her hand to demonstrate its limited mobility and  lifted her sweatpants to show her left leg, covered in scrapes, cuts and bruises.

She said she was "still in a lot of pain, but it's getting better."

Jack and her friend, 19-year-old Nicolas Cendoya, went to the Holy Jim Canyon area on Easter Sunday for what was to be a day hike.

They became lost after they wandered from the trail and the darkness set in. The pair, she said, had only brought with them three small water bottles. She said she carried a backpack that had a lighter, her cellphone, glasses and keys.

After getting lost, she said she began having panic attacks and vomited. By the first evening, she said the two of them began hallucinating, presumably because of dehydration. At one point, she said she believed she was being attacked by a python.

When Cendoya was going in and out of consciousness, she said she was scared. "I told him not to close his eyes," she said.

Her only memories from that point were fighting off an animal (she could not say what kind), trying to use her lighter to "light the sky" and signal for help, and finding her way to the rock where she nested herself until she was found.

She said she was grateful for those who rescued her and hoped to thank them in person. They offered the help, she said, she feared would not come.

"I definitely gave up hope," she said. " There were definitely sometimes I didn't think I was going to make it."

She said she has talked to Cendoya since the rescue, hoping to piece together their recollections, but the effort had proved futile.

"We told each other we were in different dreams," she said.

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rick.rojas@latimes.com

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Long lines as Powerball arrives in California

Many asked friends in other states to buy tickets, and some even drove to the Arizona border when the jackpot for the multistate game reached $587.5 million.

On Monday, Californians no longer had to worry about crossing state lines, because Powerball finally came to the state. Lottery die-hards lined up all across California for their 1-in-175-million chance to win.

John Apodaca, 62, of Hawthorne, was part of one line. The veteran said that after he returned from Vietnam, a woman read his palm and said he would be a rich man — so he goes to the Bluebird Liquor store every day at the same time and plays the same numbers. He's there so often that an employee welcomed him with a salute.

Apodaca has played Powerball before — in New York, while visiting his daughter. The game's arrival in California was all he needed to feel a little extra luck Monday.

"The Powerball came to me," he said. "I didn't go to the Powerball this time."

Powerball marks a further effort by the state lottery to go beyond Scratchers to larger games with much higher jackpots. Last year, the state lottery got a taste of possibilities when its Mega Millions multistate game grew to a $656-million prize. That game alone added $300 million in sales for the lottery over two months, resulting in a 27% increase in total revenues for the year.

Powerball is even larger than Mega Millions, with a starting jackpot that is more than three times as large. The games are similar — requiring players to match up to six numbers — and the odds of hitting the jackpot in each of the games are almost exactly the same: 1 in about 175 million.

"It sounds ridiculous to say, but if the jackpot is $56 million, it just doesn't motivate people the way a $656-million jackpot does," said Alex Traverso, a spokesman for the state lottery.

The typical lottery player is loyal and plays as part of a routine. With their huge jackpots that generate news and online buzz, Powerball and Mega Millions can draw large numbers of people who rarely play, as well as lottery regulars.

Lottery revenues flattened at the start of the recession. But last year, sales jumped from $3.4 billion to $4.4 billion, with much of the increase due to new customers who came for that $656-million jackpot. The lottery sent $1.2 billion of that revenue to California schools, as required by law.

The arrival of Powerball in California came with an $8.4-million marketing campaign and "launch events" at the Grove in Los Angeles and the Embarcadero Center in San Francisco.

But it also sparked fresh criticism from those who believe the government should not be in the gambling business.

While Powerball generates bigger jackpots, critics say multistate lotteries are even harder to win. They also expressed concern about the $2 ticket price, double the price of a Mega Millions ticket.

"Expanding the lottery is bad for individuals," said the Rev. James B. Butler of the California Coalition Against Gambling Expansion, adding that many of the customers are lower-income people looking to hit it big. "It will exploit those who can afford it least."

Still, registers rang nearly nonstop Monday at Hawthorne's Bluebird Liquor, considered a hot spot by lottery regulars. "Powerball to the people," read the headline of one of the newspapers sold outside.

The store began selling Powerball tickets at 7 a.m. and by noon, employee Eduardo Duran said, about 8,000 had been purchased. "As far as business, you can see it's good," he said, gesturing to a line that snaked out the door.

As Duran and two others tried to help customers quickly, the phone rang. "Thank you for calling the lucky Bluebird," Duran answered.

A woman asked how long the wait was to buy a ticket.

"All day," Duran told her. "We're going to have a line all day."

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In contest for black support, Greuel wins Maxine Waters' backing

When Los Angeles mayoral rivals Wendy Greuel and Eric Garcetti started scrambling last month to line up key supporters for the May runoff, Maxine Waters was near the top of the list for both — well worth any wining, dining or flattery that might be required.

On Monday, Greuel reveled in her success in winning over the Democratic congresswoman from South Los Angeles at a joint appearance outside City Hall. It was the latest testament to the power of the black vote in the race to replace Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

The growth of the city's Latino and Asian populations since Tom Bradley left office in 1993 after 20 years as the city's first black mayor has left African Americans facing an inevitable decline in political power. In the May 21 election, an African American could lose a South Los Angeles council seat for the first time in 50 years.

But in this mayoral contest, at least, South Los Angeles remains a major battleground, and — if the candidates' attention to the community is a fair gauge — black voters could hold the key to selecting the city's next chief executive.

Their political power may be on the wane, said political scientist Jaime Regalado of Cal State L.A., but "they're counted on heavily to make a difference with their feet, at the polls, in this mayoral election."

"In some ways, it seems like a contradiction," he said.

African Americans were pivotal in choosing the city's last two mayors. In 2001, they were a pillar of support for James K. Hahn, the son of South Los Angeles political icon Kenneth Hahn, a Los Angeles County supervisor for 40 years.

But by 2005, black voters were instrumental in bouncing Hahn from office, switching loyalties to Villaraigosa after Hahn pushed for the ouster of a black police chief, Bernard C. Parks.

Blacks made up 17% of the mayoral vote in 2001 and 15% in 2005. Much of that vote could be up for grabs in the Greuel-Garcetti contest because African Americans make up a large share of the electorate in South Los Angeles, an area that went heavily for defeated candidate Jan Perry in the March primary.

Greuel, who lives in Studio City, won most of the San Fernando Valley, while Garcetti swept the Eastside and central Los Angeles.

Now that Waters has taken sides, Greuel, the city controller, and Garcetti, a Hollywood-area councilman, have largely completed their contest of one-upmanship in rolling out endorsements by African Americans. Garcetti landed all three African American council members: Parks; Perry, who represents much of South Los Angeles; and Council President Herb Wesson.

On Monday, just before Waters and Greuel stepped before news cameras at City Hall, Garcetti announced that he had captured the support of a younger-generation black congresswoman from South Los Angeles: Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles).

But Greuel won the bigger political names for African American voters: former President Bill Clinton and basketball superstar Magic Johnson, along with such black religious luminaries as Bishop Charles E. Blake of West Angeles Church of God in Christ and Cecil "Chip" Murray, former pastor of First African Methodist Episcopal Church.

Bill Carrick, Garcetti's senior strategist, argued that the mayoral rivals had essentially reached a draw, reflecting a more contested battle over African Americans than Hahn or Villaraigosa faced.

"This is a competitive situation, where you have popular African Americans supporting both candidates," he said. "That's something very different than what we've had in the past."

As a practical matter, one of Greuel's most important black supporters is Los Angeles County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, presuming he brings the full weight of his campaign operation to the race.

Waters doesn't command the political machine she once did. But after more than 22 years in Congress, she remains a popular figure in South Los Angeles. Her endorsements are coveted by most Democrats, and some others, in part because they can pay to appear on slate mailers promoting candidates Waters is backing.

"I look forward to working wherever they want me to work," Waters told reporters outside City Hall. "I will be happy to walk precincts, to make telephone calls, to do planning, to raise money."

Waters recalled — as Greuel invariably does when speaking to black audiences — that Greuel started her career as an aide to Bradley in the mayor's office. But her emphasis was on what she described as the importance of electing a woman as mayor of Los Angeles for the first time.

On the City Hall steps behind Waters and Greuel, several dozen supporters chanted lyrics from Helen Reddy's 1970s hit, "I Am Woman": "I am woman, hear me roar, in numbers too big to ignore."

michael.finnegan@latimes.com

Times staff writer Ben Welsh contributed to this report.

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Film critic Roger Ebert dies at 70

Roger Ebert, the Pulitzer Prize-winning movie critic whose gladiatorial "thumbs up, thumbs down" assessments turned film reviewing into a television sport and whose passion for independent film helped introduce a new generation of filmmakers to moviegoers, has died. He was 70.

Ebert, who had battled cancer in recent years, died Thursday in Chicago, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. He had undergone several surgeries to remove cancerous tumors from his thyroid and salivary glands, ultimately losing his jaw to the disease, and was hospitalized in December for a broken leg.

While his cancer diagnosis and the resulting treatments forced him to pull back from criticism in 2006, he remained active as a writer and maintained a powerful presence on social media sites that included his award-winning blog, Roger Ebert's Journal.

RELATED: Fans, celebrities react to death of film critic Roger Ebert 

Earlier this week he had announced that he would be stepping back from writing reviews.

In May 2008, he had returned to writing movie reviews for the Chicago Sun-Times but essentially said goodbye to the TV show that made him famous. Cancer had robbed him of his voice, and Ebert refused to face another surgery that could restore it.

As the longtime and prolific critic for the Sun-Times, he wrote reviews while co-hosting -- originally with Gene Siskel of the rival Chicago Tribune -- a popular nationally syndicated TV show that, in the 1980s, was known as "At the Movies."

PHOTOS: Notable deaths of 2013

Ebert was the first movie critic to win journalism's most prestigious award, collecting his Pulitzer in 1975, but he had the greatest impact through his TV forum, which began that same year on Chicago public television.

A complete obituary will follow at latimes.com/obits.

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12.18 | 0 komentar | Read More

Lilly Pulitzer dies at 81; socialite became a fashion designer

Lilly Pulitzer, a socialite turned fashion designer whose tropical print dresses became a sensation in the 1960s and later a fashion mainstay, died Sunday in Palm Beach, Fla. She was 81.

Her death was confirmed by Gale Schiffman of Quattlebaum Funeral and Cremation Services in West Palm Beach, Fla. The cause was unknown.

Pulitzer, who married into the famous newspaper family, got her start in fashion by spilling orange juice on her clothes. A rich housewife with time to spare and a husband who owned orange groves, she opened a Palm Beach juice stand in 1959 and asked her seamstress to make dresses in colorful prints that would camouflage fruit stains.

PHOTOS: Notable deaths of 2013

The dresses peddled at her juice stand soon outsold her drinks. The company's garments, developed with the help of partner Laura Robbins, a former fashion editor, soon caught on. Simple sleeveless shifts that were fully lined and zipped up the back, the dresses were described in 1962 by Time magazine as "somewhere between a chemise and a muumuu."

Jacqueline Kennedy, who attended boarding school with Pulitzer, wore one of the sleeveless shifts in a Life magazine photo spread.

The signature Lilly palette features playful jungle and floral prints in blues, pinks, light greens, yellow and orange — the colors of a Florida vacation.

"I designed collections around whatever struck my fancy … fruits, vegetables, politics, or peacocks!" Pulitzer told the Associated Press in 2009.

The line of dresses that bore her name was later expanded to swimsuits, country club attire, children's clothing, a home collection and a limited selection of menswear.

"Style isn't just about what you wear, it's about how you live," Pulitzer said in 2004. "We focus on the best, fun and happy things, and people want that. Being happy never goes out of style."

But changing tastes brought trouble. Pulitzer closed her original company in the mid-1980s after filing for bankruptcy protection. The label was revived about a decade later after being acquired by Pennsylvania-based Sugartown Worldwide Inc. Pulitzer was only marginally involved in the new business and retired from day-to-day operations in 1993, although she remained a consultant for the brand.

Sugartown Worldwide was bought by Atlanta-based Oxford Industries in 2010. Sales of the Lilly Pulitzer brand remain strong.

Pulitzer was born Lilly McKim on Nov. 10, 1931, to a wealthy family in Roslyn, N.Y.

In 1952, she married Pete Pulitzer, the grandson of newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer, whose bequest to Columbia University established the Pulitzer Prize. They had three children before divorcing in 1969. Her second husband, Cuban rancher and lawyer Enrique Rousseau, died in 1993.

Pulitzer, who was known for hosting parties barefoot at her Palm Beach home, also published two guides to entertaining.

"That's what life is all about: Let's have a party. Let's have it tonight," she said.

news.obits@latimes.com

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Jackson lawsuit against AEG expected to take over 4 months

The lawsuit filed by Michael Jackson's mother and children blaming entertainment giant AEG for the singer's death is expected to take more than four months to try, the judge said last week.

The length of the trial was the court's first concern as jury selection began April 2 in a downtown courtroom where Jackson's towering legacy will be pitted against a business enterprise that has had a profound influence on the entertainment scene in Los Angeles.

Thirty-five potential jurors were brought into Superior Court Judge Yvette M. Palazuelos' courtroom and given a questionnaire to see who could take that much time from their personal and work lives. A second panel of 35 was scheduled to be given the same questionnaire.

Groups of jurors will continue to be brought in each day until a pool of 80 to 100 people has been chosen. From that group, attorneys will select 12 jurors and five alternates who will decide the case.

Attorneys estimate that jury selection alone could take two to three weeks.

More than 60 news organizations from countries including Japan, France, Germany and Australia have asked for seats to cover the trial, according to Pat Kelly, a court spokeswoman. There is space for roughly 10 reporters in the courtroom.

Last week, Palazuelos heard a motion from CNN asking that the cable network be allowed to broadcast the trial live. The judge has not ruled on the motion.

The suit filed by Katherine Jackson, Michael Joseph Jackson Jr., Paris-Michael Katherine Jackson and Prince Michael Jackson II, alleges that AEG negligently hired and supervised Dr. Conrad Murray, who — in an attempt to help the singer sleep — gave him a fatal dose of the anesthetic propofol. They say that AEG pushed Jackson to prepare for a tour that he was not physically up to.

AEG says that it was Jackson's decision to hire Murray and that the company recommended a British doctor.

Jackson died in 2009, two weeks before his "This Is It" tour was scheduled to begin in London.

Murray was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in 2011.

jeff.gottlieb@latimes.com

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U.S. moves to protect Guam amid 'clear danger' from North Korea

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon said Wednesday that it was sending a mobile missile defense system to Guam as a "precautionary move," as Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said North Korea posed a "real and clear danger" to the U.S. military base on the western Pacific island, as well as to allies and other U.S. territory.

North Korea has named Guam and Hawaii as potential targets in bellicose statements in recent weeks, which have increased tension on the Korean peninsula and prompted a series of U.S. military moves aimed at beefing up the American presence in the region and reassuring allies that the United States will come to their aid in the event of an attack. In its latest statement, issued early Thursday, the North Korean military said it was ready to attack the United States using "smaller, lighter and diversified" nuclear weapons.

The decision to send a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system to Guam came after Pentagon officials were questioned in recent days about whether the island — a U.S. territory — has been covered by the U.S. missile defense system. The system includes ground-based interceptors in Alaska and California as well as warships capable of shooting down missiles.

North Korea has "ratcheted up their bellicose, dangerous rhetoric, and some of the actions they've taken over the last few weeks present a real and clear danger and threat," Hagel said Wednesday in a speech at the National Defense University in Washington.

Areas at risk include South Korea and Japan, as well as Guam, Hawaii and the West Coast of the United States, he said. "We have to take those threats seriously."

Despite the concern, North Korea has not demonstrated that its missiles have the range to hit Guam or Hawaii, much less the U.S. mainland. Nor is it known to have a nuclear warhead small enough to be carried on its missiles.

But a senior U.S. official said the decision to send the interceptors to Guam came because of growing concern that North Korea improved the range of its ballistic missiles, possibly giving them the ability to hit the island. He asked not to be identified because he was discussing sensitive intelligence assessments.

Asked about Guam last month, Undersecretary of Defense James Miller said the U.S. missile defense system "provides coverage of not just the continental United States, but all the United States." But some analysts note that the U.S. military's own maps show that Guam is not within the geographic reach of the ground-based interceptor.

Guam, in the Pacific between the Philippines and Hawaii, is home to Andersen Air Force Base and U.S. Naval Base Guam.

Defense officials said Guam was still covered by U.S. warships in the Pacific equipped to shoot down ballistic missiles. Sending the ground-based system to Guam beefs up the U.S. defense. The so-called THAAD system, which the Pentagon said would arrive in Guam "in coming weeks," includes a truck-mounted launcher, interceptor missiles, a tracking radar and a fire-control computer system.

The system shoots interceptors designed to hit ballistic missiles in the final phase of their flight as they descend toward their targets.

"I hope the North will ratchet this very dangerous rhetoric down," Hagel said. "There is a pathway that's responsible for the North to get on a path to peace." But, he added, "you don't achieve that responsibility and peace and prosperity by making nuclear threats and taking very provocative actions."

david.cloud@latimes.com

Special correspondent Jung Yoon Choi in Seoul contributed to this report

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Radar shows U.S. border security gaps

WASHINGTON — A sophisticated airborne radar system developed to track Taliban fighters planting roadside bombs in Afghanistan has found a new use along the U.S. border with Mexico, where it has revealed gaps in security.

Operated from a Predator surveillance drone, the radar system has collected evidence that Border Patrol agents apprehended fewer than half of the foreign migrants and smugglers who had illegally crossed into a 150-square-mile stretch of southern Arizona.

The number of "gotaways," as the Border Patrol calls those who escape apprehension, is both more precise and higher than official estimates.

RELATED: Is the border secure?

According to internal reports, Border Patrol agents used the airborne radar to help find and detain 1,874 people in the Sonora Desert between Oct. 1 and Jan. 17. But the radar system spotted an additional 1,962 people in the same area who evaded arrest and disappeared into the United States.

In contrast, the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, estimated in January that the Border Patrol had caught 64% of those who illegally crossed into the Tucson sector in 2011.

The new tally of unlawful border crossings could complicate White House efforts to pass comprehensive immigration reform after Congress returns from recess next week.

The Obama administration contends America's borders are more strictly policed than ever, with nearly 365,000 apprehensions last year. Republicans have demanded more guards, drones, fencing and other security measures before legal status is granted to the estimated 11 million people believed to have entered America illegally or overstayed their visas.

President Obama is scheduled to visit Mexico in early May, and efforts to maintain rigorous border security — to stop economic migrants moving north and American-made weapons flowing south — are likely to be among his priorities in discussions with Mexico's newly elected president, Enrique Peña Nieto.

The new system is called Vader, for Vehicle Dismount and Exploitation Radar. It was borrowed from the Army's Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland and has been deployed in Arizona since March 2012.

PHOTOS: Securing the border with Mexico

Michael Friel, a spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, said the Vader remained in a "preliminary testing phase." He also said the method used in the agency's internal reports to compare apprehensions to arrests was flawed because it didn't include people who were detained after the airborne radar had left the area.

Officials warn that the radar would not work well near border towns and areas where migrants and smugglers can quickly load into a car and blend into highway traffic.

"There is no silver bullet in border technology," Friel said.

The tests have gone well enough that the agency has asked Congress to allocate money to purchase two more Vader systems. Each system costs about $5 million per year to maintain and operate.

The Pentagon's internal research and development group, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, helped design the Vader to aid U.S. forces in spotting insurgents burying improvised explosive devices in Afghanistan. Two of the systems are in use there.

The radar is sharp enough to detect and track individuals on foot from a Predator five miles overhead. It uses a synthetic aperture radar to collect high-contrast black-and-white images and to follow scores of moving targets in real time. The processed signals are transmitted from the drone to a ground station, where the figures are displayed as moving dots on a detailed map.

"It's a match made in heaven for border security," said a former U.S. law enforcement official.

He said the radar had helped Border Patrol agents watch migrants and smugglers gathering on the Mexican side of the border before they start trekking north. But not all of the agents are happy to get a precise head count for the first time of how many people they are missing.

"The rank-and-file guys are afraid it will make them look bad," the official said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because details of the program are not public.

The system is being tested along with military-grade camera towers and surveillance blimps developed for use in Iraq and Afghanistan in an effort to provide more accurate coverage of remote border areas.

Most of the Vader flights have focused on a stretch of border flanked by desert and the craggy Baboquivari Mountains west of Nogales, Ariz. The radar is used three or four days a week, for eight to 12 hours a day.

"That is the kind of technology we would like to see all across the border," Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), who chairs the House Committee on Homeland Security, said in a telephone interview.

McCaul said he was briefed on the Vader during a visit to the border in Arizona on Feb. 18. He is writing a bill that would compel the Department of Homeland Security to write a national strategy that accurately measures the effectiveness of border security efforts.

"You can't measure what you can't see," he said. "There is an awful lot we're not seeing."

Marshall Fitz, director of immigration policy for the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank in Washington with close ties to the White House, said linking immigration policy to illegal border crossings is a "political gimmick" designed to delay any real reforms.

No matter how many border agents or high-tech systems are deployed on the border, Fitz said, "you are never going to get to the point where you can raise the 'Mission accomplished' banner."

brian.bennett@latimes.com

12.18 | 0 komentar | Read More

Film critic Roger Ebert dies at 70

Roger Ebert, the Pulitzer Prize-winning movie critic whose gladiatorial "thumbs up, thumbs down" assessments turned film reviewing into a television sport and whose passion for independent film helped introduce a new generation of filmmakers to moviegoers, has died. He was 70.

Ebert, who had battled cancer in recent years, died Thursday in Chicago, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. He had undergone several surgeries to remove cancerous tumors from his thyroid and salivary glands, ultimately losing his jaw to the disease, and was hospitalized in December for a broken leg.

While his cancer diagnosis and the resulting treatments forced him to pull back from criticism in 2006, he remained active as a writer and maintained a powerful presence on social media sites that included his award-winning blog, Roger Ebert's Journal.

RELATED: Fans, celebrities react to death of film critic Roger Ebert 

Earlier this week he had announced that he would be stepping back from writing reviews.

In May 2008, he had returned to writing movie reviews for the Chicago Sun-Times but essentially said goodbye to the TV show that made him famous. Cancer had robbed him of his voice, and Ebert refused to face another surgery that could restore it.

As the longtime and prolific critic for the Sun-Times, he wrote reviews while co-hosting -- originally with Gene Siskel of the rival Chicago Tribune -- a popular nationally syndicated TV show that, in the 1980s, was known as "At the Movies."

PHOTOS: Notable deaths of 2013

Ebert was the first movie critic to win journalism's most prestigious award, collecting his Pulitzer in 1975, but he had the greatest impact through his TV forum, which began that same year on Chicago public television.

A complete obituary will follow at latimes.com/obits.

ALSO:

Phil Ramone, pop producer to stars, dies

Latin world mourns Cuban film producer Carlos Vives

Paul Williams, pioneering chronicler of rock music, dies

12.18 | 0 komentar | Read More

U.S. moves to protect Guam amid 'clear danger' from North Korea

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon said Wednesday that it was sending a mobile missile defense system to Guam as a "precautionary move," as Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said North Korea posed a "real and clear danger" to the U.S. military base on the western Pacific island, as well as to allies and other U.S. territory.

North Korea has named Guam and Hawaii as potential targets in bellicose statements in recent weeks, which have increased tension on the Korean peninsula and prompted a series of U.S. military moves aimed at beefing up the American presence in the region and reassuring allies that the United States will come to their aid in the event of an attack. In its latest statement, issued early Thursday, the North Korean military said it was ready to attack the United States using "smaller, lighter and diversified" nuclear weapons.

The decision to send a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system to Guam came after Pentagon officials were questioned in recent days about whether the island — a U.S. territory — has been covered by the U.S. missile defense system. The system includes ground-based interceptors in Alaska and California as well as warships capable of shooting down missiles.

North Korea has "ratcheted up their bellicose, dangerous rhetoric, and some of the actions they've taken over the last few weeks present a real and clear danger and threat," Hagel said Wednesday in a speech at the National Defense University in Washington.

Areas at risk include South Korea and Japan, as well as Guam, Hawaii and the West Coast of the United States, he said. "We have to take those threats seriously."

Despite the concern, North Korea has not demonstrated that its missiles have the range to hit Guam or Hawaii, much less the U.S. mainland. Nor is it known to have a nuclear warhead small enough to be carried on its missiles.

But a senior U.S. official said the decision to send the interceptors to Guam came because of growing concern that North Korea improved the range of its ballistic missiles, possibly giving them the ability to hit the island. He asked not to be identified because he was discussing sensitive intelligence assessments.

Asked about Guam last month, Undersecretary of Defense James Miller said the U.S. missile defense system "provides coverage of not just the continental United States, but all the United States." But some analysts note that the U.S. military's own maps show that Guam is not within the geographic reach of the ground-based interceptor.

Guam, in the Pacific between the Philippines and Hawaii, is home to Andersen Air Force Base and U.S. Naval Base Guam.

Defense officials said Guam was still covered by U.S. warships in the Pacific equipped to shoot down ballistic missiles. Sending the ground-based system to Guam beefs up the U.S. defense. The so-called THAAD system, which the Pentagon said would arrive in Guam "in coming weeks," includes a truck-mounted launcher, interceptor missiles, a tracking radar and a fire-control computer system.

The system shoots interceptors designed to hit ballistic missiles in the final phase of their flight as they descend toward their targets.

"I hope the North will ratchet this very dangerous rhetoric down," Hagel said. "There is a pathway that's responsible for the North to get on a path to peace." But, he added, "you don't achieve that responsibility and peace and prosperity by making nuclear threats and taking very provocative actions."

david.cloud@latimes.com

Special correspondent Jung Yoon Choi in Seoul contributed to this report

12.18 | 0 komentar | Read More