THE Territory’s Pine Gap military intelligence base just outside Alice Springs is reportedly on standby as North Korea warns it is ready for “war” amid escalating tensions with the US.

The NT News understands the US has notified Australia that it is prepared to shoot down any missiles launched, potentially putting the Central Australian spy base in the firing line as a target in the event of a major conflict.

The top secret military facility plays a key role in US intelligence and military operations throughout the world.

It plays a vital role in collecting a wide range of signals intelligence as well as providing information on early warning of ballistic missile launches.

America announced on Monday that the USS Carl Vinson, loaded with fighter jets, had been pulled from its planned military exercises in Australia and ordered towards the Korean Peninsula.

Three guided-missile destroyers and cruisers joined the armada, which left from Singapore on Saturday.

In its response to America’s naval movements, the North Korean foreign ministry said the US’s “reckless moves for invading the DPRK have reached a serious phase,” and issued the warning that it was ready for war, AFP reported.

Professor Richard Tanter from the School of Political and Social Studies at the University of Melbourne has conducted years of research into the facility and says Pine Gap’s importance to the US military is enough to make Australia a target in any major war our American ally is involved in.

At a recent conference in Alice Springs he said rather than protecting the town from a potential enemy attack, Pine Gap’s existence makes it an ideal target.

He said in recent years Pine Gap had taken on a far more strategic role, including forming part of the controversial US missile defence system.

He says the early warning defence system was vital in detecting a potential North Korean missile “Pine Gap is used for nuclear war planning,” he said. “Today it is used for signals intelligence and as an early warning system.

“I’m not saying Pine Gap has no benefit. But when the benefits are far outweighed by dangerous consequences then that has implications for us.”

North korea hints, USA threatens.

THE US is strengthening a network of secretive military bases across Australia that could be used for waging wars against our interests, it was claimed at a weekend summit.

Instead of fostering crucial relationships, we are allowing the US to create enemies for us with its growing strategic presence on our soil, say the academics, politicians and campaigners who gathered for the Independent and Peaceful Australia Network (IPAN) conference attended by news.com.au in Alice Springs this weekend.
Under a burning hot sun in the red centre, experts and citizens shared their fears over what is happening in the most remote parts of the country. These mysterious bases may be invisible to the majority of us living in the most populated regions along the coast, but could threaten the fabric of all our lives. Here’s what you need to know:

NORTH WEST CAPE — SPACE WARFARE
Perhaps the most frightening of all the bases, North West Cape is at the cutting edge of warfare — in space.
The monstrous structure sits on the northwest coast of Australia, where kilometres of wire surround a soaring central tower and others fanning off it, sucking up huge amounts of electricity.

DARWIN — TROOPS ON THE GROUND
In 2011, President Barack Obama visited Darwin to announce US troops would begin making regular visits to the Northern Territory as part of the country’s “pivot” to the Asia-Pacific region.
The Gillard government agreed to the “permanent rotation of US marines and US air force aircraft”, meaning we have a constant flow of US soldiers on the ground in Australia. There are currently 1500, but this could rise to 2500.
It was this development that triggered the establishment of IPAN in 2012 as onlookers became alarmed at the move from “the invasion of nerd and computer freaks” to actual “troops in uniform with rifles”

PINE GAP — ‘THE POISONED HEART OF AUSTRALIA’
Pine Gap was established in Alice Springs in 1966 when the CIA came up with the idea of putting satellites 36,000 kilometres above the earth’s surface. These had giant antennae that could listen to very weak signals from Soviet missiles testing, allowing the agency to work out the capability of enemy weapons.
The spy base was placed in isolated Alice in the NT because at the time, the massive amount of data had to be collected over 130km of land.

OTHER BASES
The Defence Satellite Communication Station at Geraldton in Western Australia, along with Kojarena 20km inland, was one of Australia’s spy bases. It is now shared with two large American operational military communication systems that pull down information on Indonesian and Chinese satellites from the sky. This is part of the Five Eyes surveillance system used in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Kojarena is creating “battlefield conditions”, says Mr Doherty, providing data a soldier in Iraq can use to ascertain what’s behind a hill — the visual, weather and so on — making it “an American war fighting base”.
Australia paid $800 million for one of the satellites used by this system. But if America does not approve of an operation the Australian Defence Force requests, for example in Timor, it can turn off our access, says Prof Tanter.

So why is the US using our bases a problem? Well, we aren’t just passive bystanders. “Australia is very, very deeply involved,” says Prof Tanter. “At least we’re not locked out the way we were before, but with that comes culpability. The government seems to lack the ability to ask the question, ‘When do Australian and American interests coincide, and when do they not?’”

IT’S the top secret military facility in Central Australia that plays a key role in US intelligence and military operations around the world.


But rather than protecting us from a potential enemy attack, Pine Gap’s very existence makes us an ideal target.
That’s the view of Richard Tanter, a professor in the School of Political and Social Studies at the University of Melbourne, who told news.com.au the level of data collected from Pine Gap was beyond staggering.
Prof Tanter has conducted years of research into the facility with ANU colleague and leading authority on Pine Gap, Desmond Ball, and will next week deliver a keynote speech on the potential danger it brings to Australia.
Pine Gap will be just one of several topics discussed at the independent and Peaceful Australia Network (IPAN) national conference in Alice Springs on Saturday week.
Peace activists, academics and antimilitarism groups will all travel to the red centre to mark the 50th Anniversary of Pine Gap, aiming to illustrate the huge role it plays in US military activity.
Prof Tanter, a researcher with the Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainability, said Pine Gap remains one of the most important intelligence facilities outside of the United States today.

According to Prof Tanter, its importance to the US military is enough to make Australia a target in any major war our American ally is involved in.
He said Pine Gap allows access to satellites that could spy on every continent — except the Americas and Antarctica.

The data collected is used for drone attacks in places where Australia was not even at war, he said.
Pine Gap also plays a vital role in collecting a wide range of signals intelligence as well as providing information on early warning of ballistic missile launches.
Intelligence gathered here could be used to target nuclear weapons and is also used to support US and Japanese missile defence.

“In the centre of Australia we have Uluru and nearby its ‘evil twin’.”

Angry residents in a rural South Korean town threw eggs and water bottles at the prime minister and blocked him for more than six hours Friday to protest a plan to deploy an advanced U.S. missile defense system in their neighborhood.

Earlier this week, South Korea announced that the missile system called Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, will be placed in the southeastern farming town of Seongju by the end of next year to better cope with North Korean threats. Seongju residents launched protests, saying they fear possible health hazards from the missile system.

Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn, accompanied by the defense minister and others, visited Seongju to try to explain the decision to residents but was immediately disrupted by jeers.

Some hurled eggs and water bottles, shouting "We oppose (the THAAD deployment) with our lives," according to TV footage.
A senior police officer was injured on his forehead.

Hwang didn't appear to be directly hit by any objects as security guards and aides used umbrellas and bags to protect him. But his suit jacket was tainted by eggs and he evacuated to a town hall office.

When he and the others came out of the building into a minibus, they were surrounded by hundreds of protesters, some using tractors. Hwang was held in the bus for more than six hours.

South Korean officials have dismissed as groundless a belief that THAAD radar systems emit electromagnetic waves that can cause health problems. Defense officials say the U.S. system is harmless if people stay at least 100 meters (yards) away from it.

The United States has about 28,500 troops in South Korea as deterrence against potential aggression from North Korea.

Seongju residents criticized the government for unilaterally deciding on the deployment without consulting them. About 200 Seongju residents made a protest visit to Seoul's Defense Ministry on Wednesday, and some wrote letters of complaint in blood. A group of 13 local leaders went on a hunger strike.

The Abbott government pushed for Washington to request that Australia expand its air strikes against the Islamic State terror group from Iraq to its more dangerous neighbour Syria, Fairfax Media has learnt.

Government sources say it was Mr Obama who raised Syria as a topic and then made the first suggestion of Australia's expanded role.

But it is widely known in government circles that Mr Abbott has long been keen to do more in the fight against the Islamic State, which has taken swaths of territory stretching across Syria and Iraq and established affiliates in Libya, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

from humanitarian air drops to begging master to let us off the leash, in 12 months.