KEPCO eying stakes in uranium enrichment firms -sources

State-run utility Korea Electric Power is looking to invest in uranium-enrichment operations and natural gas reserves outside of South Korea as a way to ensure raw materials for nuclear plants, a source at the company said. "We have discussed internally that acquiring stakes in overseas uranium-enrichment facilities and securing fuel will help us win overseas power plant bids," the source said. A 1991 agreement bars South Korea from owning a uranium-enrichment facility

N. Korea could soon pose threat to US: Gates

http://www.spacewar.com/reports/N_Korea_could_soon_pose_threat_to_US_Gates_999.html Beijing (AFP) Jan 11, 2011 US Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned Tuesday that North Korea could have long-range ballistic missiles within five years that would pose a direct threat to the United States, reflecting growing concerns over Pyongyang's arsenal. His comments represented a shift in the US view of North Korea's military power, describing the hardline regime in Pyongyang as making headway in its efforts to develop missiles that could potentially carry nuclear warheads.
"I think North Korea will have developed an intercontinental ballistic missile within that timeframe (five years)," Gates told reporters during a visit to Beijing, where he discussed tensions on the Korean peninsula.
Gates, who met Chinese President Hu Jintao on Tuesday, said he had conveyed to the Communist leaders in Beijing that their allies in Pyongyang would soon present a danger to the United States.
"With the North Koreans' continued development of nuclear weapons and their development of intercontinental ballistic missiles, North Korea is becoming a direct threat to the United States and we have to take that into account," he said.
North Korea has test-fired three ICBMs, most recently in April 2009 when one flew over Japan and landed in the Pacific.
Gates said the North could have a "limited" number of such missiles in five years, placing the US Pacific coast under potential threat.
The Pentagon chief said the United States appreciated the "helpful role" played by Beijing in recent months in containing the Korean crisis, after Pyongyang shelled a South Korean island in November, killing four people.
But he also said there had been a "sea change" in attitudes in South Korea, with the country's population outraged over Pyongyang's recent "provocations."
"Their tolerance for not responding has changed," he said.
Apart from the November 23 attack on Yeonpyeong island

, the North stands accused by the South of torpedoing a warship last March with the loss of 46 lives. Pyongyang denies the charge.
The angry public reaction in South Korea had changed the "status quo" and it was vital that North Korea took actions to resolve the crisis, he said.
"Rhetoric is not enough at this point. There need to be some concrete actions by the North to demonstrate that they're truly serious about negotiation and engagement," he said.
Positive steps might include the North implementing a freeze on further missile or nuclear tests, he said.
US officials have sometimes expressed impatience with China's approach to North Korea, but Gates made a point of praising Beijing's diplomatic efforts during his visit.
However, his grave assessment of the situation on the divided peninsula and the North's weapons projects amount to renewed US pressure on China to rein in Pyongyang's leadership.
Gates said he expected the issue to come up in meetings later this week in Tokyo and Seoul, and when Hu visits Washington next week.
Pyongyang has expressed conditional willingness to return to six-nation nuclear disarmament talks that it abandoned in April 2009, a month before staging its second nuclear test.
But it fuelled regional fears in November by disclosing a uranium enrichment plant which could potentially give it a second route to a bomb.
The communist state this week officially proposed "unconditional" dialogue with Seoul, less than two months after the shelling assault.
The South rejected the offer, saying it was willing to hold government

-level talks but only if the North admits responsibility for a series of provocations and confirms a commitment to scrapping its nuclear programme.
North Korea on Tuesday criticised South Korea's response, insisting it was sincere in trying to mend relations after months of tensions.

Related articles

• N.Korea could pose direct threat to US: Gates (alternet.org)
• Gates: N. Korea will be threat to U.S. in 5 years (msnbc.msn.com)
• Gates warns on N Korea missiles (bbc.co.uk)
• You: North Korea will pose direct threat to US: Gates (nation.com.pk)
• North Korea is direct threat to US, says defence secretary Robert Gates (guardian.co.uk)
• Gates sees North Korea 'on a path to becoming a direct threat' (cnn.com)

Redefining Denuclearization in Korea - Bulletin of Atomic Scientists

Article Highlights

• The extent and sophistication of North Korea's centrifuge program demonstrates how poorly export controls limit a determined proliferator. Its current cooperation with the likes of Iran and Burma raise the specter of Pyongyang operating an A.Q. Khan-style import-export proliferation network.
• Pyongyang would greatly increase the current nuclear threat if it expands HEU production at undisclosed sites, increases the size of its nuclear arsenal substantially, or conducts more tests to enhance its sophistication.
• Not only must the international community work to limit Pyongyang's nuclear buildup, but the United States must conduct a thorough review of its policies on Northeast Asia security.

N. Korea Calls for Peace, Warns of "Nuclear Holocaust"

N. Korea Calls for Peace, Warns of "Nuclear Holocaust"
Tom Lasseter, McClatchy Newspapers: "North Korea on Saturday called for dialogue and peace on the Korean Peninsula in a state-issued New Year’s Day editorial, warning that a breakout of war with the South 'will bring nothing but a nuclear holocaust'.... While the statement also characterized South Korea’s government as a 'minion of war' beholden to 'pro-U.S. war hawks,' the document’s repeated calls for more cooperation suggest that the North might be moving, for now, away from a pattern of attacks against the South."
Read the Article

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N.Korea can build a nuclear bomb a year: ex US defence chief

Report: N.Korea increases flight drills despite fuel pinchSeoul (AFP) Dec 29, 2010 - A North Korean jet has crashed as the country intensified air force exercises following its attack last month on a South Korean frontline island which sent tensions soaring, a newspaper said Wednesday. A MiG fighter disappeared off radar screens last week as the impoverished communist state held unusually extensive winter flight drills, the Korea JoongAng Daily said, quoting a military source. North Korea usually keeps flight drills to a minimum because of severe fuel shortages. The paper said there had been a 150 percent increase in the number of military drills involving all three services compared to December 2009. "It shows that the North Korean military has been very tense after the attack on Yeonpyeong Island," it quoted the source as saying. A defence ministry spokesman declined to comment on military intelligence matters. The North also carried out a corps-scale live-fire drill in response to a joint live-fire exercise by South Korea's army and air force last Thursday, Yonhap news agency said earlier this week. The news agency said the North has test-fired artillery and multiple-rocket launchers five times this month alone. The Korea JoongAng Daily said there have been frequent sightings of North Korean submarines near the disputed Yellow Sea border and artillery was moved nearer to the coast. The South has staged a series of military exercises, including one with the United States, since the North shelled the island near the Yellow Sea border on November 23 and killed four people, including two civilians.

http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/NKorea_can_build_a_nuclear_bomb_a_year_ex_US_defence_chief_999.html Tokyo (AFP) Dec 29, 2010 Former US defence chief William Perry said North Korea was capable of producing one nuclear bomb a year and that Washington should consider high-level talks to defuse tension, in an interview published Wednesday. Perry, who served as defence secretary under president Bill Clinton, told the Nikkei daily that the US government should review its policies towards North Korea and impose economic sanctions to reiterate its stance against Pyongyang's nuclear programmes.
Then, Washington should coordinate policies with Seoul and Tokyo before eventually sending a special envoy for direct talks with Pyongyang, Perry told the Nikkei.
Perry suggested former secretary of state Madeleine Albright and former US senator Sam Nunn, an expert on nuclear arms reduction, as possible candidates for such talks, the Nikkei said.
The interview was released in Japanese, with no original English text immediately available.
If North Korea dedicated all of its recently unveiled uranium enrichment facility to making weapons-grade fuel, it could build one nuclear bomb a year, Perry told the paper.
Perry said he had been briefed by American scientist Siegfried Hecker, who recently toured a new uranium enrichment plant with 2,000 uranium-enriching centrifuges at North Korea's Yongbyon nuclear complex.
The facility is likely designed for making fuel for a civilian reactor and not bombs, but there is no way to confirm whether North Korea has another facility to build nuclear weapons, Perry said.
The former defence chief said he still believed in diplomatic solutions to the North Korean crisis.

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N.Korea may stage atom test to boost heir: think-tank

http://www.spacewar.com/reports/NKorea_may_stage_atom_test_to_boost_heir_think-tank_999.html Seoul (AFP) Dec 24, 2010 North Korea may carry out another atomic test next year to bolster the status of leader-in-waiting Kim Jong-Un, a Seoul state think-tank said Friday, a day after the North threatened a nuclear attack. Tensions remain high on the peninsula a month after the North bombarded a South Korean border island and killed four people including civilians.
The North may stage a third test "to demonstrate Kim Jong-Un's military prowess, to improve plutonium-based nuclear weapons and ratchet up military tensions", the Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security said.
A new test is needed to improve its plutonium-based bombs using data from the second test in May 2009, the institute, which is affiliated to the foreign ministry, said in a report.
The North has been working for decades to build plutonium-based weapons and last month also disclosed a new uranium enrichment complex -- a potential new way to make bombs.
The report said the North is likely to build up its atomic arsenal next year and might test a uranium-based weapon "to maximise the shock to the outside world".
While six-party nuclear disarmament talks may well resume next year, chances of any progress are slim, it said.
The North is thought to have enough plutonium for maybe six to eight weapons but it is not known whether it can fit them to missile warheads. Nevertheless, it frequently raises the prospect of nuclear war.
On Thursday the North vowed readiness for a "sacred war" using its nuclear weapons.
"The revolutionary armed forces... are getting fully prepared to launch a sacred war of justice of Korean style based on the nuclear deterrent at any time necessary to cope with the enemies' actions deliberately pushing the situation to the brink of a war," said armed forces minister Kim Yong-Chun.
The North accuses the South of provoking its November 23 bombardment of Yeonpyeong island, near the disputed Yellow Sea border, by holding a firing drill there.
The South Monday staged another drill on Yeonpyeong but the North did not follow through with threats of a new and deadlier attack.
On Thursday Seoul deployed tanks, artillery and jet fighters in a show of force on the mainland.
And the South's defence ministry announced Friday that a giant Christmas tree near the North Korean border would stay lit until January 8.
The move is likely to anger Pyongyang since the date marks the birthday of Jong-Un, youngest son of leader Kim Jong-Il. The communist North sees the tree topped with a glowing cross as a provocative propaganda symbol.
The ministry said it hoped to send "a message of peace to the North" and the timing was just a coincidence.
An international think-tank urged the two Koreas to accept international arbitration to redraw the flashpoint sea border and lessen the possibility of all-out war.
The International Crisis Group, like many other analysts and the Seoul government, said the North's attacks are linked to moves to install Jong-Un as eventual successor.
They are an apparent attempt "to give the inexperienced heir some appearance of military and strategic prowess", the ICG said in a report.
"They also signal to potential rivals among North Korean elites that Kim Jong-Il is willing to take on the South to promote his son and he would therefore have no problem confronting domestic opponents."
There is "a real danger" the North will continue its attacks, it said.
The South's military, accused of a feeble response to last month's attack, has vowed to hit back harder next time by using air power.
The North offered apparent nuclear concessions to US politician Bill Richardson, who ended a visit to Pyongyang this week.
Richardson said it agreed to readmit UN atomic inspectors and negotiate the sale of nuclear fuel rods to a third party.
The New Mexico governor said Thursday a resumption of six-nation talks -- grouping the two Koreas, the United States, China, Russia and Japan -- could help prevent a new escalation of tensions.
If "they don't react militarily again to this recent drill, then maybe the time has come for the six-party talks," he told CNN, referring to the South Korean exercise staged Thursday.
The North's news agency blamed the United States for the "alarming developments" on the peninsula this year.
It said Washington had orchestrated clashes to test a new military alliance it was forging with Japan and South Korea "to hold hegemony in the Asia-Pacific".

Israel destroyed Syria nuclear reactor: WikiLeaks

  Jerusalem (AFP) Dec 24, 2010 Israel destroyed a Syrian nuclear reactor in an air raid just weeks before it went online in 2007, said a US diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks and published on Friday in an Israeli daily. "On September 6, 2007, Israel destroyed the nuclear reactor built by Syria secretly, apparently with North Korea's help," then US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice wrote in the cable published in Yediot Aharonot newspaper.
"Our intelligence experts are convinced that the attack targeted by the Israelis is in fact an atomic reactor of the same type built by North Korea in Yongbyon," she wrote in the message dated April 2008.
"We have good reason to believe that the reactor was not built for peaceful purposes," she said, adding the attack came only weeks before the reactor was to become operational.
Rice also noted the secrecy surrounding the construction of the nuclear facility, with the Syrian authorities refusing to invite the International Atomic Energy Agency or any media to inspect the site.
Syria has always denied that the structure targeted by Israeli warplanes was a nuclear reactor, although it has admitted it was a "military site under construction."
Israel has for its part never denied that its air force attacked a target in Syria, without ever officially claiming responsibility for the action.
Former US president George W. Bush recounted in his memoirs that he resisted Israeli pressure to bomb the site.
In 2008, current US President Barack Obama said when he was a Democratic hopeful for the White House that Israel was right to bomb the suspected nuclear facility in Syria.

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• Bush book: Israel asked us to bomb Syria reactor (seattletimes.nwsource.com)

Iran Seeks Foreign Nuclear Scientists, Former Diplomat Asserts

A former Iranian envoy to Norway said his country has pursued scientists from North Korea and other nations to help support a nuclear-weapon program, the London Telegraph reported yesterday (see GSN, Dec. 22).
Defector Mohamed Reza Heydari recounted facilitating the entry of dozens of North Koreans into Iran as a Foreign Ministry operative based at Imam Khomeini International Airport in Tehran.
"Our mission was to coordinate with a team from the Ministry of Intelligence in checking the visas of the foreign diplomatic and trade delegates who visited Iran, with special attention to VIPs," Heydari said.
"We had the instructions to forgo any visa and passport inspections for Palestinians belonging to Hamas and North Korean military and engineering staff who visit Iran on regular basis.
"The North Koreans were all technicians and military experts involved in two aspects of Iran's nuclear program. One to enable Iran to achieve nuclear bomb capability, and the other to help increase the range of Iran's ballistic missiles," Heydari said.
"In all our embassies abroad, especially in the African countries, the staff of [Iran's] Foreign Ministry were always looking for local scientists and technicians who were experts in nuclear technology and offered them lucrative contracts to lure them into Iran.
"The facade of the nuclear program is that it is for peaceful purposes, but behind it they have a completely different agenda," he said. The United States and other world powers have sought for years to negotiate curbs on Iran's uranium enrichment program, which can generate civilian nuclear fuel as well as weapons material.
Signs have emerged that Iran is working on centrifuges based on a North Korean design at facilities not revealed to the International Atomic Energy Agency, one Western official told the Telegraph (see GSN, Sept. 25, 2009). The North Korean centrifuges were said to be more technically advanced and greater in size than Iran's standard machines.
"Iran finances North Korea's missile program in exchange for access to technologies; North Korea's Nodong missile series is the basis for Iran's flagship Shahab missile project," former U.S. Defense Department adviser Christina Lin said.
It is necessary to "reassess" the status of Iran's nuclear program while taking North Korea's alleged assistance into account, Washington Institute for Near East Policy analyst Simon Henderson added (Damien McElroy, London Telegraph, Dec. 22).
Meanwhile, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev yesterday called on Tehran to bolster its nuclear transparency, Bloomberg reported.
“Iran must allow IAEA officials on its territory and make it possible to bring the situation under control,” Medvedev said. “This is why there are issues with Iran and sanctions against it.”
Iran has stonewalled certain efforts by the agency to clarify its nuclear intentions. For example, Tehran has refused to elaborate on its contention that Western powers falsified documents, provided to the U.N. nuclear watchdog, that suggest the Middle Eastern state studied nuclear-weapon design in the past (Arkhipov/Meyer, Bloomberg, Dec. 22).

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• North Korea and Iran cooperated on nuclear weapon development: Defector - Christian Science Monitor (news.google.com)

Japan, S.Korea seal civilian nuclear pact

Japan, S.Korea seal civilian nuclear pact
http://www.nuclearpowerdaily.com/reports/Japan_SKorea_seal_civilian_nuclear_pact_999.html Tokyo (AFP) Dec 20, 2010 Japan and South Korea sealed a civilian nuclear pact on Monday, paving the way for the Asian neighbours to share nuclear-power technologies and equipment, Japan's foreign ministry said. Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara and South Korean ambassador to Japan Kwon Chul-Hyun signed the agreement in Tokyo, the ministry said in a statement.
"Japan and South Korea are good partners to promote peaceful use of nuclear power while ensuring nuclear non-proliferation, nuclear energy safety and security," Maehara told the ambassador, quoted in the statement.
Japan and South Korea have been rivals in international biddings for nuclear power plants in emerging nations.
In October Japan secured a contract for building two nuclear reactors in Vietnam while South Korea won a deal in December to build four reactors in the United Arab Emirates.
But under the pact, which will take effect after parliaments of both countries endorse it, mainly Japanese firms with a longer history of developing nuclear power plants are expected to start exporting technologies and equipment to South Korea.
Japan, which was eclipsed this year by China as Asia's biggest economy and has a shrinking population because of its low birth rate, is searching for new markets to export infrastructure technologies, including power plants.
Japan has concluded a bilateral nuclear energy pact with six countries and the European Union while South Korea has a similar deal with 14 states, the Japanese foreign ministry said.

CNN: North Korea agrees to return of UN nuclear inspectors

CNN: North Korea agrees to return of UN nuclear inspectors

N.Korea says S.Korea, US trying to spark warSeoul (AFP) Dec 20, 2010 - North Korea Monday accused the United States and South Korean "puppet warmongers" of pushing the peninsula to the brink of war, as Seoul prepared to hold a live-fire drill despite Pyongyang's threat of retaliation. "It is a vital task for defusing the ever-increasing danger of a war and protecting the nation's destiny to avert a war and defend peace," said ruling communist party newspaper Rodong Sinmun, referring to Koreans on both sides of the border. The North last month bombarded Yeonpyeong island near the contested Yellow Sea border, killing two marines and two civilians and damaging dozens of homes. It says it acted in response to a South Korean artillery drill, and has vowed to hit back harder if a new exercise is held on the island this week. The response "will be deadlier than what was made on November 23 in terms of the powerfulness and sphere of the strike", its military said Friday. Rodong Sinmun Monday repeated allegations that the South had provoked last month's shelling. "Only when all the Koreans get united as one and wage a bold struggle for defending peace against war, can they surely check and frustrate the moves of outside forces and the puppet warmongers to provoke a new war," it said. S.Korea launches crackdown on illegal Chinese fishingSeoul (AFP) Dec 20, 2010 - South Korea's coastguard Monday announced a new crackdown on illegal fishing in the Yellow Sea following a deadly clash with Chinese fishermen last week. The three-day exercise involves 18 ships, two helicopters and about 200 personnel, a coastguard spokesman told AFP. "We are taking strong steps as illegal fishing by Chinese boats is rampant despite our persistent crackdowns," he said. A 63-tonne Chinese boat capsized after ramming into a 3,000-tonne South Korean coastguard ship Saturday, leaving one Chinese crew member dead and another missing. Eight other Chinese fishermen were rescued, five of them by nearby Chinese boats. "Three fishermen rescued by our side are in our custody for questioning," the spokesman said. He said the Chinese crew brandished iron pipes, clubs and shovels when two South Korean small boats from the 3,000-tonne ship approached their trawler, injuring four officers. The trawler then suddenly rammed into the coastguard ship and capsized, causing 10 Chinese sailors to fall into the sea, he said. The trawler's 28-year-old captain was in a coma after the incident and died in hospital. Illegal fishing by Chinese vessels is common in South Korean waters. The coastguard said 332 Chinese boats were caught last year. In 2008 a South Korean officer drowned while trying to inspect a Chinese boat, and 10 officers have been injured this year.

Seoul (AFP) Dec 20, 2010 North Korea has agreed with US troubleshooter Bill Richardson to permit the return of UN nuclear inspectors as part of a package of measures to ease tensions on the peninsula, CNN reported Monday. CNN correspondent Wolf Blitzer, who is travelling with Richardson in Pyongyang, said the North Koreans had agreed to let inspectors from the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency go back to its Yongbyon nuclear facility.
They had also agreed to allow fuel rods for the enrichment of uranium to be shipped to an outside country, and to the creation of a military commission and hotline between the two Koreas and the United States, Blitzer said.
A veteran negotiator with the reclusive communist state, New Mexico Governor Richardson was due to brief reporters in Beijing later Monday after concluding his five-day visit to Pyongyang.
The former US ambassador to the UN was said by Blitzer to be "disappointed" at the UN Security Council's failure late Sunday to agree a statement on the Korean situation.
Richardson believed that such a statement would have given the South Koreans "political cover" to cancel a planned live-fire military exercise on a flashpoint border island bombarded by North Korea last month, Blitzer said.
North Korea in April 2009 pulled out of six-nation nuclear disarmament talks and ordered US and IAEA nuclear inspectors out of the country, after the UN Security Council condemned Pyongyang for an April 5 rocket launch.
It staged its second nuclear test a month later.
Tensions have soared anew since last month's North Korean artillery attack on the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong, which killed four people including civilians and damaged dozens of homes.
The South's forces were due to start the live-fire drill on Yeonpyeong later Monday, despite North Korean threats of deadly retaliation. But heavy fog had caused the drill to be delayed, South Korean officials said.
Richardson had urged top North Korean leaders to show "maximum restraint" over the planned South Korean drills.
In Pyongyang over the weekend, Richardson met top nuclear negotiator Kim Kye-Gwan and Major General Pak Rim-Su, who leads North Korean forces along the tense border with the South.
Pak told Richardson that North Korea had recovered the remains of several hundred US servicemen killed during the 1950-1953 Korean War and offered to help secure their return to the United States, CNN said.

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Was Obama’s Asian tour a formation of a new nuclear alliance? Analysis by Hasbullah Shafi'iy

The glaring geopolitical significance of Obama’s well-planned strategic Asian tour last month has been deliberately or otherwise ignored by the mainstream media. India, Indonesia, South Korea and Japan. It cannot be by coincidence that these nations are encircling China (which has nuclear weapons) and secondly that they are all connected to a larger picture of nuclear alliances that are being formed. India is a nuclear power directly facing Pakistan, which is the only Muslim nation in the world that has nuclear weapons. Indonesia is the largest Muslim nation with strong ties with Pakistan and Iran. South Korea faces North Korea, which has nuclear weapons. North Korea is not only a strong political as well as military ally of Iran, but also strong bilateral trade ties with China too; and Japan is situated next to both North Korea and China and is crucial to the containment policy against Russia, which is a nuclear power as well. Has the United States begun a containment policy for China as well?

North Korea 'Enriching Weapons-Grade Uranium At A Number Of Sites' -- The Telegraph

North Korea has been enriching potentially weapons-grade uranium at up to four sites outside its main nuclear complex, South Korean intelligence has claimed.

The report of the secret additional enrichment facilities outside its Yongbon complex, first published by a South Korean newspaper, was confirmed by Seoul's foreign minister Kim Sung-hwan on Tuesday.

"It is a report based on what is still intelligence and let me just say that we have been following this issue for some time," Mr Kim said.

Read more ....http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/northkorea/8201078/North-Korea-enriching-weapons-grade-uranium-at-a-number-of-sites.html

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China, North Korea stand fast despite US anger

China, North Korea stand fast despite US anger
Seoul (AFP) Dec 9, 2010 Communist allies North Korea and China proclaimed their unity Thursday as the North's leader Kim Jong-Il held his first meeting with a senior Chinese envoy since the region's worst crisis in years erupted. China's most senior foreign policymaker Dai Bingguo visited Pyongyang as pressure intensifies on Beijing to rein in its neighbour, after North Korea's deadly shelling of a South Korean island inflamed tensions on the peninsula.
The top US military officer, Admiral Mike Mullen, accused China of aiding and abetting the hardline Kim regime's "reckless behaviour".
Pyongyang and Beijing, allies during the Korean War, stand firmly together, their official media said.
"The two sides reached consensus on bilateral relations and the situation on the Korean peninsula after candid and in-depth talks," said a brief report from China's Xinhua news agency, datelined Pyongyang, after Kim and Dai met.
North Korea's official news agency said the delegations discussed "issues of mutual concern" and efforts to improve friendly relations.
It marked the first time that Kim has met a senior foreign official since the North's shock artillery attack on the border island, and since his regime startled the world by showing off a sophisticated new nuclear programme.
China is North Korea's sole major ally and sustains its shaky economy with fuel and food aid. More at link.

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WikiLeaks: Fears Myanmar building nuclear program

Pakistan media retract fake WikiLeaks story lambasting IndiaIslamabad (AFP) Dec 10, 2010 - Leading Pakistani newspapers on Friday retracted an explosive story that used fake US diplomatic cables to brand Indian generals "genocidal" and accuse New Delhi of sponsoring militants. The News claimed on Thursday that cables released by WikiLeaks showed Indian spies were supporting Islamist militants in Pakistan's northwest tribal region of Waziristan and the southwestern province of Baluchistan. Datelined from Washington, the newspaper told how US diplomats thought of one Indian general as "incompetent" and a "geek", and of another as "self-obsessed, petulant and idiosyncratic" and "barely tolerated" by subordinates. It likened another to late Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic "with regard to butchering Muslims through war crimes" in Indian-held Kashmir. But on Friday The News wrote that "on further inquiries, we learnt from our sources that the story was dubious and may have been planted." The News said the report originated from some local websites "known for their close connections with certain intelligence agencies". A variety of Pakistani newspapers carried the report on Thursday, crediting the story to the Islamabad-based Online news agency, where a receptionist on Friday refused to put through telephone calls from AFP to senior editors. English-language newspaper The Express Tribune also published a front-page retraction, saying it "deeply regrets publishing this story without due verification and apologises profusely for any inconvenience". India and Pakistan have fought three wars since independence from Britain in 1947 and Pakistan's powerful military establishment continues to see India as its primary threat, despite a Taliban insurgency along the Afghan border.

http://www.spacewar.com/reports/WikiLeaks_Fears_Myanmar_building_nuclear_program_999.html Washington (AFP) Dec 9, 2010 Dockworkers and foreign businessmen have seen evidence of alleged secret nuclear and missiles weapons sites being built deep in the Myanmar jungle, a leaked US diplomatic cable said Thursday. "The North Koreans, aided by Burmese workers, are constructing a concrete-reinforced underground facility that is '500ft from the top of the cave to the top of the hill above'," according to the cable, published by the British daily The Guardian.
The cable from the US embassy in Rangoon was among those released Thursday by the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks, and quoted a Myanmar officer who said he had witnessed the North Korean technicians helping the construction work.
One foreign businessman told the embassy that he had seen reinforced steel bar, larger than for just a factory project, being shipped on a barge. While dockworkers also told of seeing suspicious cargo.
A cable dating from August 2004 revealed information from a Myanmar officer in an engineering unit who said surface-to-air missiles were being built at a site in a town called Minbu in west-central Myanmar.
He said some 300 North Koreans were working at the site, although the US cable noted this was improbably high, The Guardian said.
The military junta in Myanmar has dismissed reports of its nuclear intentions and brushed aside Western concerns about possible cooperation with North Korea.
But in July US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressed worries about military ties between the two countries saying a ship from Pyongyang had recently delivered military equipment to Myanmar, formerly known as Burma.
"We continue to be concerned by the reports that Burma may be seeking assistance from North Korea with regard to a nuclear program," she said.
A June documentary by the Norwegian-based news group Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) said Myanmar was trying to develop nuclear weapons, citing a senior army defector and years of "top secret material."
The DVB documentary gathered thousands of photos and defector testimony, some regarding Myanmar's network of secret underground bunkers and tunnels, which were allegedly built with the help of North Korean expertise.
According to another leaked US cable from 2009, a well-placed source in the Myanmar military government said General Thura Shwe Mann had visited North Korea in 2008.
But the source backtracked later insisting the talks were only exploratory.

Related articles

• US suspects secret Myanmar nuclear sites: cables (alternet.org)
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• WikiLeaks: Burma 'building nuclear site with North Korea's help' (telegraph.co.uk)
• More WikiLeaks: Cables suggest Burma is building secret nuclear sites - Guardian (guardian.co.uk)
• Burma 'building nuclear and missile sites' (independent.co.uk)
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North Korea’s Newest Weapon: Nuke Torpedo?

• By Spencer Ackerman  
• http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/12/is-north-korea-developing-undersea-nukes/

Just when you thought it was safe to take a dip in the West Sea, a report from North Korean dissidents claims that Pyongyang has already developed sea-borne nuclear weapons.
If you read Korean, you can find their report here, but if not, Bill Gertz at the Washington Times has the gist. Citing a Pyongyang government official, the defectors claim that in March 2009, North Korean military units called “Thunder” and “Lightning” began technical nuclear torpedo and mine research to blunt the superiority of U.S. and South Korean naval weaponry. They claim that the “nuclear mines are technologically at a stage of completion, and the plan [is] to finish [developing] nuclear torpedoes by 2012.” North Korea is believed to have fewer than ten nuclear bombs.
Now the caveats. U.S. intelligence officials have yet to check out the claim, Gertz reports, and Gertz’s reporting can be rather alarmist about east-Asian threats. The North’s record at testing nuclear weapons is spotty at best. Defectors have been known to inflate the threat from their home regimes. According to the defectors, one of the reasons Pyongyang wants the deep-sea nukes is to deter the U.S. from interfering in a potential Korean war. But it hasn’t boasted about developing them — even as U.S. warships recently drilled with the South Koreans after the North’s artillery attack three weeks ago, and the top U.S. military officer just left Kim Jong-il’s backyard on a trip to bolster the anti-Nork coalition. Hard to see how the U.S. could be deterred by something it doesn’t know about.

Still, over at the U.S. Naval Institute’s blog, Raymond Pritchett observes that a recent WikiLeaked cable cited a Chinese diplomat’s claim that Pyongyang kept “critical information about secret underwater nuclear facilities located on North Korea’s coast” hidden from Kim’s big Chinese patron. (Although that cable is from 2008, from 2008, seemingly before the supposed launch of the North’s nuke torpedo and mine program.)
These weapons are familiar to the U.S. Starting in the 1960s, its subs carried the Mark 45 and Mark 48 nuclear torpedoes, 19-foot-long weapons designed to take out Soviet nuclear subs with 11-kiloton yields. Moscow’s family of countermeasures, known as the Type 53-68 HWT, had 20-kiloton yields. Gertz notes that the Chinese navy has been intrigued by nuclear torpedoes lately, leading him to collect this awesome quote from defense wonk Richard Fisher: “China’s strategy is simply to have us negotiate with North Korea and Iran until its nuclear weapons start to kill us.”
OK then. It’s possible we may get some clarity on the alleged nuclear torpedo and mine programs. New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, a frequent diplomatic backchannel to the North Koreans, is headed to Pyongyang at “the invitation of key people in the nuclear crowd over there,” according to the Washington Post Presumably they’ll want to talk about the North’s recent declaration of a new uranium-enrichment facility, but it’s the perfect opportunity to make additional nuclear boasts.

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• You: North Korea 'destabilising region' (guardian.co.uk)
• More WikiLeaks: Cables suggest Burma is building secret nuclear sites - Guardian (guardian.co.uk)
• North Korea and Iran cooperated on nuclear weapon development: Defector - Christian Science Monitor (news.google.com)
• China must do more to restrain N. Korea, Mullen says - Washington Post (news.google.com)
• Top U.S. military official blasts China for failing to curb North Korea (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• U.S. and S. Korea navies send a message (cnn.com)
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• Top Chinese envoy meets with Kim Jong Il about peninsula tension - CNN International (news.google.com)
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• China, Kim Jong Il reach 'consensus' (edition.cnn.com)

Prioritizing Nuclear Nonproliferation By: Justin Alger | ISN Security Watch

Prioritizing Nuclear Nonproliferation

A warning sign at the Trinity site where the first nuclear explosion took place

With concerns about potential nuclear threats from Iran, North Korea and aspiring nuclear terrorists, nuclear weapons seem to have as much prominence on the security agenda as they did during the Cold War. Giving them such notoriety may, however, be doing more harm than good.More at:

http://www.isn.ethz.ch/isn/Current-Affairs/ISN-Insights/Detail?lng=en&ots627=fce62fe0-528d-4884-9cdf-283c282cf0b2&id=124751&contextid734=124751&contextid735=124750&tabid=124750

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• Iran Has 'Positive' View on Geneva Talks as Nuclear Issues Loom (businessweek.com)
• North Korea and Iran cooperated on nuclear weapon development: Defector - Christian Science Monitor (news.google.com)
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• Assessing Progress on Nuclear Nonproliferation and Disarmament 2009–2010 Report Card (bespacific.com)
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S.Korea to build 14 new nuclear reactors by 2024

Image via Wikipediahttp://www.nuclearpowerdaily.com/reports/SKorea_to_build_14_new_nuclear_reactors_by_2024_999.html Seoul (AFP) Dec 7, 2010 South Korea said Tuesday it plans to build 14 new nuclear reactors by 2024 to help meet growing energy needs and cut dependence on fossil fuel. South Korea, which currently has 20 operational nuclear reactors, will build 14 new facilities to make atomic power the biggest source of energy by 2024, state-run Korea Power Exchange said.
As a result, nuclear energy will provide 48.5 percent of the nation's energy consumption by the target year from the current 32 percent, KPE said in a long-term national energy development plan.
Coal is currently the biggest source of energy in South Korea that meets 42 percent of the nation's energy needs.
Renewable energy sources like solar and wind power will also provide 8.9 percent of the nation's energy needs by 2024 compared with the current 1.3 percent, it said.
Asia's fourth-largest economy imports 97 percent of its energy needs from overseas and has moved to cut dependence on fossil fuels and to diversify energy sources.
In October Seoul unveiled a five-year plan to spend 36 billion dollars developing renewable energy as its next economic growth engine, with a goal to become one of the world's five top players in the sector.

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French enrichment plant to close in 2012 from World Nuclear News by Warwick Pipe

The Eurodif gaseous diffusion uranium enrichment plant will operate until the end of 2012 under a newly concluded agreement between Areva and Electricite de France (EdF) that sets the operating conditions for a gradual transition from production at the old plant to the new Georges Besse II centrifuge enrichment plant. The long-awaited agreement, reached under a joint strategic framework between the two companies, will see the 10.8 million SWU Eurodif plant start operating at its minimum technical capacity as soon as possible. The agreement will see EdF supply the plant's electricity for the next two years and also enables EdF to supply an additional 1000 MW of electricity to its customers over that period and guarantees a further 2000 MW beyond that date. The first stage of the first unit of Georges Besse II began operating at the end of 2009 and the second is due to start production in 2011, although the two units are not scheduled to reach full capacity until 2015 and 2016 respectively. Both groups expressed their delight that "a solution has been found to ensure the smooth transition between Eurodif and the Georges Besse II enrichment plant."
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/IT-French_enrichment_plant_to_close_in_2012-0612107.html

Troubling birth of a nuclear plant By MICHAEL RICHARDSON

SINGAPORE — When U.S. nuclear scientist Siegfried Hecker was taken to a new uranium- enrichment facility in North Korea's nuclear complex at Yongbyon last month, he was stunned by what he saw.

From an "astonishingly modern" control room at the plant, he looked down on neatly ordered arrays of 2,000 gas centrifuges. These high-speed spinning machines, each nearly two meters high and 20 centimeters in diameter, can be used to produce uranium fuel for nuclear power plants that generate electricity. They can also be adjusted to make the fissile cores of the most powerful thermonuclear weapons.

North Korean technicians showing Hecker and two colleagues the industrial-scale enrichment cascades housed in a building about 100 meters long insisted that the facility was configured to make low-enriched fuel for a small nuclear power reactor being built nearby. More at: http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/eo20101205mr.html

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U.S. Sees Greater North Korea Nuclear Threat

By JAY SOLOMON

VIENNA—The Obama administration told the United Nations nuclear watchdog that North Korea likely has built more than one uranium-enrichment facility, significantly raising the proliferation threat posed by the secretive communist state.
U.S. and European officials are pressing the International Atomic Energy Agency to better scrutinize Pyongyang's potential role in sharing its nuclear technologies with third countries. But the U.N. agency's ability to monitor Pyongyang is limited: North Korea kicked out the IAEA's inspectors in 2009.http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704377004575650960600657360.html

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