Found the site here:
Last Update November 6, 2002
Posted on 12/27/2002 12:22:48 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
North Korea has begun to put action to words about the restart of its previously abandoned nuclear reactors, moves the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency on Thursday called "tantamount to nuclear brinkmanship."
According to the IAEA, North Korean technicians have moved some 400 fresh fuel rods out of storage and into a mothballed nuclear facility about 90 kilometers north of Pyongyang. Actually installing them would take at least a day's work and bringing the 5-megawatt Yongbyon reactor online several more weeks after that, nuclear experts said.
Earlier this month North Korea declared it would reactivate its nuclear facilities, saying it needed the energy sources after the United States suspended heavy oil shipments to the famine-stricken country. Washington halted the energy aid after North Korea admitted in October it was pursuing a program to enrich uranium, which can be used to make nuclear weapons.
"Moving toward restarting its nuclear facilities without appropriate safeguards, and toward producing plutonium raises serious non-proliferation concerns and is tantamount to nuclear brinkmanship," said Mohamed El Baradei, director general of the Vienna-based IAEA.
The nuclear watchdog agency announced earlier this week that two inspectors remain at the Yongbyon site, but Pyongyang had disrupted safeguards equipment at three facilities there, including its reprocessing plant.
It is North Korea's abilities to reprocess fuel rods that has the international community most worried. The Soviet-style reactors produce a form of nuclear waste that can be converted to weapons-grade plutonium for nuclear warheads. In fact, their design is "essentially similar" to those used by Britain in the 1950s to produce its own first plutonium-based warheads and nuclear electricity, according to the IAEA.
At only 5 megawatts, Yongbyon's reactor is more a small research facility than a full-blown production reactor, and would need to operate roughly a year before producing enough spent rods to reprocess into a nuclear bomb.
However, North Korea still has thousands of spent fuel rods in storage from its previous nuclear program. About eight to 10 kilograms of weapons-grade plutonium is enough to make one nuclear bomb.
"The reprocessing facility at Yongbyon is irrelevant to the DPRK ability to produce electricity," said El Baradei. "The DPRK has no current legitimate peaceful use for plutonium, given the status of its nuclear fuel cycle."
Friction on the Korean peninsula rose to dangerous heights in 1993 when North Korea announced it would withdraw from the international Non-Proliferation Treaty and pursue its nuclear program. A year of tense negotiations eventually garnered the so-called 1994 Agreed Framework, in which Pyongyang agreed to shut down and eventually dismantle its plutonium-generating reactors and accept international monitors in exchange for 500,000 tons of heavy oil annually to carry its energy needs in the short term.
Furthermore, in a victory heavily criticized by opposition groups from the framework's other signatory, the United States, North Korea received promises to build -- at international expense -- two 1000-megawatt reactors of light-water design.
Those two modern reactors, which do not produce plutonium, are currently at least five years behind schedule. That, combined with the suspension of oil shipments, puts the United States in violation of the framework, according to the North Koreans.
Washington has dismissed such arguments, saying Pyongyang's enriched uranium program violates the spirit, if not the actual structure, of the 1994 framework.
On Thursday, state-run Radio Pyongyang defended the decision to restart its plutonium program as "a fair move intended to protect our sovereignty and our right to exist."
Russia's news agency reported from Pyongyang that electricity in several sectors of the North Korean capital is available only in the evening since the United States suspended oil shipments. Many residential houses and civil buildings lack heat and none have hot running water, Itar-Tass said.
Radio Pyongyang also denied North Korea has aspirations for a weapons program, saying, "The United States is trying to stir up public opinion internationally in an effort to make people believe that it is a sign of the development of nuclear weapons."
The United States is hardly alone in its concern, however. On Thursday South Korean President Kim Dae-jung repeated in no uncertain words that his country would not tolerate a nuclear weapons program by their northern neighbor.
"Despite the international community's efforts for a peaceful solution of the nuclear issue, North Korea moved to restart frozen nuclear facilities, further aggravating the situation," Kim was quoted by Yonhap news agency as saying.
South Korea's deputy foreign minister reportedly flew to Japan Thursday for a lunchtime tete a tete with his counterpart in Tokyo. At the same time Japan's chief cabinet secretary, Yasuo Fukuda, called North Korea's transfer of the fuel rods "a provocation action," according to Kyodo News Service, and "we have expressed our regret."
The Russian Foreign Ministry, which was cautious in its condemnation of North Korea when news of its uranium program broke in mid-October, described the situation Thursday as "provoking concern in many countries." A U.S. State Department official told United Press International that its head, Colin Powell, had spoken with Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov on Thursday and "is involved in outgoing discussions with other countries."
Both ruling and opposition parties in South Korea agreed to meet Friday to discuss the stand-off within National Assembly committees on trade and defense, foreign affairs and also national unification.
"It is urgently needed to ask related ministers questions on the North Korean nuclear issue during the parliamentary plenary session on Dec. 30," said Rhee Q-taek of the opposition Grand National Party told Yonhap.
Blast here and blast 'em good.
I believe thats exactly what we have in the works - and without warning. Those reactors need to be destroyed very soon, along the the N. Korean "leadership." We need to take the position that it's better to get forgiveness than permission." After all, we didn't start this round of brinkmanship - they did.
Among the rumors I have picked up in Japan, this is actually an elite, underground training site for terrorists and guerillas, some 2000 being trained there with living facilities, TVs, hot food. It is also rumored from a defector (female) out of that location that Osama bin Laden paid North Korea a considerable amount of cash and has sent al-Qaida terrorists there to train (outside of the view of satellites).
First I have heard of that!
Any published reports?
Interesting and one more reason we should not give that bunch of wacko monsters one more dime. Hot steel mixed with explosives is all they should get from us - and the sooner the better.
Found the site here:
Last Update November 6, 2002
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