China has been quietly and gently pressuring North Korea to scrap plans for a third nuclear test, said two sources with knowledge of closed-door discussions between the countries, but there is no indication how Pyongyang will react.
If North Korea goes ahead with the test, China would consider taking some retaliatory steps, but they would not be substantive, a source with ties to Pyongyang and Beijing said.
North Korea has almost completed preparations for the test, Reuters had reported in late April, a step that would further isolate the impoverished state after last month’s failed rocket launch that the United States says was a ballistic missile test.
“China is unhappy … and urged North Korea not to conduct a nuclear test near Changbai Mountain,” said the source, who declined to be identified.
China feared a radiation leak and damage to the environment from a blast, the source added. “China also complained about the environmental damage to the area after the first two tests.”
When North Korea conducted nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009, it caused environmental damage to the mountain straddling the border with China. North Korea ceded part of the mountain to China in 1963.
It was unclear if the secretive North Korean government, typically unwilling to bow to outside pressure, would defer or drop the plans. China is the closest thing to an ally that North Korea has.
“The impact on China’s northeast would be huge,” the source said of a third test.
Chinese officials have discussed whether threats of diplomatic action would be effective, but any action might be restricted to some economic measures to signal China’s displeasure and would not affect vital food aid for North Korea, the source said.
Bethany Rawlins on 03 Oct 12"A Los Angeles man was sentenced to six years in prison last week for his role in a power wheelchair scam, topping what prosecutors say has been a series of Medicare fraud cases. David James Garrison, 50, a former physician assistant, was found guilty by a federal jury for his role in submitting $18.9 million in fraudulent Medicare claims for power wheelchairs and other equipment. The wheelchair case is the third time Garrison has been accused of Medicare fraud. In 2009, Garrison pleaded no contest to tax evasion for his role in what prosecutors described as a fraudulent medical clinic. He pleaded not guilty in October to charges that he forged prescriptions as part of an OxyContin ring that sold 1 million pills on the streets. That case is ongoing. Garrison's attorney did not return a call for comment about the cases. Garrison's physician assistant license lapsed in 2009, said Russ Heimerich, a spokesman for the Department of Consumer Affairs, which oversees many state licensing boards. He said the board examined the tax evasion case and did not see it as grounds for discipline. According to court documents, Garrison's cases involved the use of "cappers" or "marketers" who recruited Medicare beneficiaries to submit to unneeded care or hand over their personal information. That information was used to bill the program for medications, services or supplies that the patients didn't need. In the wheelchair case, prosecuted by the Los Angeles U.S. attorney's office, one witness testified that marketers had to recruit beneficiaries as far as 300 miles from Los Angeles because so many local people had already been used in other fraud schemes. In the first health fraud case linked to Garrison, he was described as an "at large" suspect in October 2007 when then-Attorney General Jerry Brown announced arrests in a $1.5 million health fraud scam. "The suspects create a fake healthcare clinic to line their own pockets rather than help the sick and elderly," a 20
