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China Holds Ethnic Koreans for Attempted Uranium Sale
Chosun Ilbo ^ | 10/24/06

Posted on 10/23/2006 6:33:43 PM PDT by TigerLikesRooster

China Holds Ethnic Koreans for Attempted Uranium Sale

Chinese police last month arrested two men on charges of trying to sell 1 kg of enriched uranium, an essential raw material for nuclear weapons, press reports said Monday. The two were ethnic Koreans living in China, police in Beijing confirmed. Press reports said Beijing police arrested the two men, identified as Chang and Chung, on charges of attempting to sell 969.03 grams of enriched uranium at a hotel there on Sept. 11.

Beijing police said initial investigations found the enriched uranium probably came from Russia, but sources there say the possibility that it came from North Korea can’t be ruled out. One source said a considerable number of ethnic Koreans in China are involved in smuggling with North Korea. “I actually met someone in a Chinese border town who asked me to find a buyer for the material and told me, ‘I have enriched uranium smuggled from North Korea.’”

Uranium naturally occurs in two isotopes: U-238 (99.3 percent), and U-235 (0.7 percent). When the latter is enriched at 3-4 percent purity, it can be used for nuclear power plants, and with more than 90 percent purity, it becomes a raw material for nuclear weapons. It is not known at what purity the seized uranium was enriched. Some 15-17 kg are needed to produce nuclear weapons, but the seized amount was less than 1 kg. When U.S. envoy James Kelly visited Pyongyang in 2002, the North allegedly admitted to having its own highly enriched uranium program.

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China launches two satellites with one rocket
People's Daily Online ^ | 10/24/06

Posted on 10/23/2006 8:09:51 PM PDT by bruinbirdman

China successfully launched two satellites into space with a Long March-4B carrier rocket early Tuesday morning.

The two satellites, which are intended for space environment exploration, were launched from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in north China's Shanxi province at 7:34 a.m.

One of the satellite was detached from the rocket after about 11 minutes of take-off, followed by the other about one minute later. Both have successfully entered preset orbits.

The two satellites, which form Group-02 of Shijian-6, were manufactured by the Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology and China's DFH Satellite Co., Ltd. respectively. Both have a designed life of more than two years.

They will replace two Shijian-6 satellites launched on Sept. 9, 2004, to conduct exploration of space environment, radiation in space and their influence, parameters of physical environment of the space, and carry out other related space experiments.