SEOUL, South Korea -- Fourteen South Korean Marines and two South Korean civilians were injured after North Korea fired dozens of shells at a South Korean border island today. The attack comes only days after it was discovered that North Korea was pressing ahead with its illegal nuclear program.

South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak scrambled jet fighters, moved civilians into shelters and called an emergency security meeting with his advisors, a presidential spokesman told reporters. In light of North Korea's admission of having built a new uranium enrichment facility, which violates its international obligations, tensions have escalated across the globe.

Scientists who were allowed to visit the reactors at Yongbyon eight days ago called the control room "astonishingly modern."

Members of South Korea's intelligence community also found that Kim Jong Il's policy of incrementally eliminating food for his citizens -- a move to help pay for war machines and nuclear weapons -- had yielded unexpected benefits for the world's littlest despot.

U.S. State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said, "According to the reports from Seoul, when the North Korean people chew on bark and dirt -- their primary sources of sustenance -- they end up separating the uranium from the soil with their saliva, which accelerates the process of enriching it to weapons-grade."

Although the attack on South Korea appears unprovoked, officials at the United Nations believe it may be related to one of several likely events: the cancellation of the Jonas Brothers television show, the ruler's inability to make his Fushigi toy defy gravity, or the cast of "Jersey Shore" refusing an invitation from Kim Jong Il to perform in one of his original musical extravaganzas. It is well known within the ranks of the State Department that Kim Jong Il has sent several unrequited marriage proposals to Snooki, having given up hope of wooing Madeleine Albright some years ago.