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North Korea has resumed the construction of two nuclear reactors suspended under a 1994 agreement with the United States, a Japanese newspaper reported Thursday. North Korea restarted building a 50,000-kilowatt reactor in Yongbyon and a 200,000-kilowatt reactor in Thaechon _ both are plutonium-producing graphite-based _ Japanese economic daily Nihon Keizai said, quoting unidentified U.S. government and other sources. Japan's Foreign Ministry said it couldn't confirm the report. North Korea had suspended the construction of the two reactors under the 1994 deal in exchange for energy aid and two light-water reactors that are less likely to be used in nuclear...

US might find Pyongyang strike 'tempting' By Hamish McDonaldBeijingMay 21, 2005   South Korean electronics giant Samsung has launched a unilateral initiative to improve relations with the North. It has signed North Korean dancer Cho Myong-ae to promote its mobile phones. Cho will be the first North Korean to appear in an advertisement in the South.Photo: Reuters A nuclear arms control expert has warned that the United States might be tempted to carry out a strike on the reactor that is North Korea's source of bomb-making plutonium.The warning comes as North Korean moves suggest it may soon carry out a nuclear...

North Korea said Wednesday it had completed removing spent nuclear fuel rods from a reactor at its main nuclear complex. A North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman said they had "successfully completed" removing 8,000 fuel rods from the reactor at Yongbyon, in a statement carried by the North's official Korean Central News Agency. Removing the rods would allow the North to reprocess them to extract weapons-grade plutonium. But the North didn't say Wednesday it would take such a step.

U.S. reconnaissance aircraft detect krypton 85 in the atmosphere near the country. WASHINGTON--U.S. spy planes flying near North Korea have detected traces of a radioactive gas emitted during the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel rods, which could be a possible sign of a secret nuclear facility, sources here said. U.S. intelligence analysts are still trying to determine the significance of finding krypton 85, a radioactive isotope that is a byproduct of reprocessing nuclear fuel rods to extract plutonium, in the atmosphere near North Korea last December. Krypton 85 was also detected in July 2003 when North Korea announced it...

WASHINGTON (AP) - North Korean officials told an American expert on Korea that they see no urgency in ending the impasse over its nuclear weapons programs because delays will give the country more time to expand its nuclear arsenal. Charles Pritchard, a former State Department official, met with the North Koreans last week as part of a private visit that included a trip with American colleagues to the country's main nuclear site at Yongbyon, north of Pyongyang. Pritchard said he was told by North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan: "Time is not on the U.S. side. Lapses of...

SEOUL -- North Korea said on Saturday that it showed its 'nuclear deterrent' to an unofficial US delegation that visited the communist country's disputed Yongbyon nuclear facility. Members of the delegation, which included John W. Lewis, a Stanford University professor emeritus of international relations, said on Saturday they saw the nuclear facility but couldn't give details until information about their trip is reported to Washington. The visit came amid efforts to arrange a new round of six-nation talks on ending a standoff over the North's suspected nuclear weapons program, which Pyongyang says is necessary to defend the country against a...

Members of a US delegation that visited North Korea said here Saturday that North Korean officials had allowed them to visit the secretive Yongbyon nuclear facility and had "honoured" all their requests. "We did go to Yongbyon," Stanford University scholar John Lewis said at Beijing airport on his return from a five-day trip to North Korea. "We were invited by the foreign ministry. We sent them a list of all our requests and they honoured all of those requests and we made additional ones, they honoured all of those," he said. Lewis and another member of his delegation, nuclear...

N. Korea to Let U.S. Experts See Nuke Site 2 minutes ago BY SANG-HUN CHOE, Associated Press Writer SEOUL, South Korea - North Korea (news - web sites) has agreed to allow a U.S. delegation to visit its main nuclear complex next week, a South Korean official said Friday. The trip would mark the first time outsiders have been allowed to inspect North Korea's main nuclear facilities at Yongbyon, north of Pyongyang, since the communist country expelled U.N. nuclear monitors in late 2002. USA Today first reported Friday that Washington approved the trip and it was scheduled for Jan. 6-10....

AP News Alert SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- North Korea says it has processed all of its 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods and is using plutonium to make bombs. Copyright 2003 Associated Press. All rights reserved. MORE

Shutdown of Nuclear Complex Deepens North Korean Mystery By DOUGLAS JEHL WASHINGTON, Sept. 12 — American intelligence agencies are puzzling over evidence that North Korea has halted operations at its nuclear complex in Yongbyon, according to senior United States officials. The Yongbyon site is the only one in North Korea known to produce plutonium that can be used in nuclear weapons. The American officials said there was a debate among intelligence officials about whether the shutdown, which some described as fairly recent, reflects a technical problem, a goodwill gesture by the North, or a shift to another site. The uncertainty...

Title: "Let's Send Human Shields of Anti-War and Peace to North Korea: Proposal to Peace Activists and NGOs of South Korea, The U.S. and Japan" By Kim Seung-kuk Chairperson of the Solidarity of Korea Reunification Peace Committee British Prime Minister Tony Blair has publicly said that North Korea will be the next target for the U.S. military attack. North Korea is on the top of the countries targeted in the "war program" pushed by the United States with the help of Britain and Japan. That is why the establishment of peace and reunification has been delayed in the Korean...

North Korea threatens to attack US By Shane GreenTokyo March 8 2003 North Korea would launch a ballistic missile attack on the United States if Washington made a pre-emptive strike against the communist state's nuclear plant, the man described as Pyongyang's "unofficial spokesman" said yesterday. Kim Myong-chol, who has links to the Stalinist regime, told foreign reporters in Tokyo that a US strike on the nuclear plant at Yongbyon "means nuclear war"."If American forces carry out a pre-emptive strike on the Yongbyon facility, North Korea will immediately target, carry the war to the US mainland," he said, claiming that New York,...

Satellite photograph taken 15 January 2003 of Yongbyon Nuclear Power Plant, North Korea (White smoke from facility in the "Radiation Sciences Research Laboratory" (in Japanese: hosha kagaku kenkyusho") at Yongbyon

Huge Pro-USA Rally to Be Held March 1 in Seoul, South Korea by Choi Hyung-seok (cogito@chosun.com) The organizing committee for the 'March 1 People's Rally' held a press conference Monday and announced that they will hold an "Anti-nuclear, Anti-Kim (Jong il), Free Unification" rally on March 1 in front of City Hall in Seoul with one million participants. The committee consists of 33 representatives including former Prime Minister Kang Young-hun, Korea-United States Friendship Association chairman Park Keun, and Korean Veterans’ Association chairman Lee Sang-hoon. They declared that the current administration gave Kim Jong Il billions of dollars in secret...

<p>WASHINGTON - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has put 24 long-range bombers on alert for possible deployment within range of North Korea to deter "opportunism" while Washington is focused on Iraq, and to give President Bush military options if diplomacy fails to halt North Korea's effort to produce nuclear weapons, officials said Monday.</p>

[Images from S. Korean TV last night] News agencies throughout Asia are reporting this morning (afternoon/pm Monday US Time) of the incremental building of US Pacific Command military forces in and around the Korean Peninsula.SBS-TV from Seoul, South Korea confirms the Pentagon move to fortress up more US forces around the area including one US aircraft carrier, increased mobilization of F-15s and B-1/B-52 bombers (with support from US Forces Japan and increasing force in Guam of long range bombers), cancellation of transfer orders from Korea, increasing by nearly 3000 US Airforce personnel. (Moderator note: Open Source Info). Top story...

YTN-TV, one of the major South Korean TV networks (and all South Korean TV stations tonight, along with South Korean daily press on the web) have done urgent, top stories on the The New York Times report today that indicate United States intelligence espionage satellites have picked up the movement of many North Korean trucks at Yongbyon, North Korea (nuclear processing facility) pointing to the removal and transfer (to where? for what purpose?) of nearly 8,000 nuclear fuel rods for possible plutonium reprocessing in an effort to produce up to nearly SIX nuclear weapons. The other intent discussed is...

North Korea's expulsion of inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the removal of IAEA monitoring devices and the startup of plutonium-producing operations at its Yongbyon nuclear facility have been cited by Bush administration critics as the result of allegedly bellicose rhetoric by President George W. Bush. But according to documents obtained by Insight, and confirmed by highly placed sources, North Korea already had operational nuclear devices in 1994 when the Clinton administration signed its controversial "oil-for-peace" agreement. Indeed, North Korea had no intention of abiding by the so-called "Agreed Framework" prohibiting it from developing nuclear weapons that it...

GOTTA SEE THIS - War for Enduring Freedom 10/19/02 - Kandahar, Tarnak Farm, Garmawak, Sulaymaniyah, Seyed Sadeq BREAKING: North Korean "Uranium" tests BREAKING: South Korean protests, Sungnam BREAKING: North Korea, Yongbyon nuclear plant BREAKING: Japan 5 North Korean captives freed after 24 years Busan, South Korea Kumho, Light Water Reactor Project BREAKING: Baghdad, Iraq, swearing in ceremony Technology in New York ========= South Korea ========= BREAKING - South Koreans this morning are reading in their newspapers that North Korea undertook a nuclear test in the last three months. This may be the reason for the admission of breaking the Agreement...