N Korea places Armed Forces on alert as US, S Korea start war games

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PYONGYANG, August 17 (Itar-Tass) - Government of the Democratic People'
s Republic of Korea has placed the national Armed Forces on combat alert
in the wake of the beginning of U.S.-South Korean war games.
Pyongyang believes that the military exercise, which the South Koreans
and Americans hold every year, is a simulation of a preventive strike at
the North of the Korean Peninsula.
Korean Central News Agency /KCNA/ said the order to put the Army and
the entire Korean people on combat alert as of August 17 had been taken by
the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces.
If the U.S. imperialist and their South Korean marionettes venture a
smallest military provocation and make an attempt at the DPRK's
sovereignty, the Revolutionary Army will make an immediate and merciless
strike at the aggressors with the use of all the offensive and defensive
armaments at its disposal, including the nuclear ones, the KCNA said.
The Ulchi Freedom Guardian exercise begins Monday and is due to
continue for ten days. It engages some 56,000 South Korean servicemen and
about 10,000 American servicemen.

.Russian factories of Toyota, Nissan resume production after recess.

St PETERSBURG, August 17 (Itar-Tass) - Russian factories of the
Japanese corporations Toyota and Nissan resume the manufacturing process
Monday after the collective summer recess that lasted from August 3
through August 16.
"Summer vacations at Toyota's factory in St Petersburg in the first
half of August have become a tradition and the normal production process
resumes as of Monday," a spokesman for Toyota Motor Manufacturing Russia
told Itar-Tass.
"The corporation's plants in different countries annually suspend the
manufacturing for brief periods of time in the first half of August just
to give the workers an opportunity to have holidays during the summer,"
Tatiana Natarova, a public relations manager at Nissan Motor Rus told
Itar-Tass.
"This is global practice /of the Nissan corporation/ and the Russian
factory is by no means an exception," she said.
Natarova said that a summer recess at the St Petersburg factory will
be held annually.
She indicated that scheduled troubleshooting and maintenance works had
been held at the factory during the recess.
A total of three international car manufacturers - Toyota, Nissan and
General Motors - have factories in St Petersburg. They produce Chevrolet
Captiva, Opel Antara, Toyota Camry, and Nissan Teana.
Another two brands - Chevrolet Cruise and Nissan X-Trail - will be
added to the product line in September

.Investigators looking into causes of Sun jet crash near Moscow.

MOSCOW, August 17 (Itar-Tass) - Investigators are scrutinizing all the
versions of Sunday's midair collision of two Sukhoi-27 fighter jets near
Moscow, "but any causes of the crash will be possible to discuss only
after the study of information from the jets' flight recorders that have
been found at the site of the crash," a source in the law enforcement
system told Itar-Tass.
The crash occurred near the town of Zhukovsky near Moscow when two
Sukhoi-27 jets of the Russkiye Vityazi /Russian Knights/ aerobatic group
were exercising in the run-up the Moscow International Aerospace Show MAKS'
2009.
The accident killed the chief pilot of the aerobatic group, Colonel
Igor Tkachenko.
Several more people were severely injured, including residents of a
countryside cooperative, where the falling debris of one of the falling
jets destroyed several buildings b.
The investigators now face the task of restoring the picture of what
happened on the basis of evidence to be provided by surviving pilots, the
decoding of information from flight recorders, and data from eyewitnesses,
the source said.
"It's not ruled out that a number of expert studies will be ordered to
find out the objective causes of the tragedy," he said.
As both jets were piloted by pilots of the highest professional
qualification, technical experts have already raised the possibility of
factors other than human error, like the physical runout of the jets or
the trapping of a bird in a jet turbine, which might have led to
instantaneous problems with controlling the jet.
"Simultaneously, the investigators will have to assess the resulting
damage and the exact number of people affected by the crash," the source
said.
The two jets, a one-seat combat Sukhoi-27 and a two-seat training
Sukhoi-27UB, collided at the moment when a group of five jets was
performing a change of formation over the floodplain of the Moskva River
outside the zone of the Ramenskoye airdrome where major preparations for
MAKS'2009 are underway.
Earlier information suggested the jets had touched each other while
performing an aerial stunt.
One of the jets fell on a farm field in the Ramenskoye district and
the other collapsed on buildings in a gardening cooperative, destroying
two buildings and setting another two ablaze.
Four men and a woman received burns. Four people were rushed to
hospital.
The two surviving pilots who managed to catapult were also
hospitalized.
Col Tkachenko catapulted, too, but his parachute caught fire. It was
found later near the pilot's body and the catapult chair was found there,
too.
The colonel, 45, graduated from an aviation cadet school in 1985 and
started specializing in aerobatics since 1989. He took the position of the
chief pilot in Russkiye Vityazi in 2002.
Military prosecutors have instituted a criminal case citing
infringement on the regulations for safe air navigation and operation of
an aircraft.
In spite of the tragic accident, the program of demonstration flights
at MAKS'2009 will not change, Vladimir Borisov, the director general of
the show said.
He did not rule out that the Russian Air Force might still introduce
some changes in the programs of aerobatic groups but Chief of Staff of the
Air Force, Colonel-General Alexander Zelin, said the accident will not
affect the Air Force's participation in the show.
-0-kle