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China-Japan-Koreas
North Korea says it has restarted its nuclear facilities
2015-09-16
As the Instapundit says, Nobel Peace Prize Update...
SEOUL — North Korea announced Tuesday that it has restarted its Yongbyon nuclear reactor and was ready to use nuclear weapons “any time” against the United States. The announcement came less than a day after North Korea said it was preparing to launch a long-range rocket.

All of the nuclear facilities at Yongbyon, including a uranium-enrichment plant and five-megawatt reactor, are now in “normal operation," the unidentified director of North Korea’s Atomic Energy Institute said, according to a report published Tuesday by the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
Yongbyon is the reactor the Norks have closed. Several times. And always reopened...
North Korean scientists have been “steadily improving the levels of nuclear weapons with various missions in quality and quantity as required by the prevailing situation,” the report said, adding that North Korea is ready to face American hostility with "nuclear weapons any time.”

Analysts William Mugford and Jack Liu, writing last week on 38 North, a respected Web site devoted to North Korea, said that recent commercial satellite imagery indicated new activity was underway at the five-megawatt reactor and at a radiochemical laboratory complex at Yongbyon. Both are key to the production of plutonium for building nuclear weapons.

“While international attention has recently been focused on North Korea’s Sohae satellite launching station and the possibility of a fourth long-range rocket test . . . developments at Yongbyon are cause for concern and should be monitored closely by the international community to determine their purpose,” they wrote. Yongbyon is thought to be the source of the plutonium used in North Korea’s nuclear tests, as well as the site of a uranium-enrichment facility.

The Yongbyon reactor was shut down in 2007 in a deal brokered through “six-party” talks involving the United States, China, Russia, Japan and the two Koreas. However, after North Korea conducted its third nuclear test in February 2013, it threatened to restart the reactor. In Tuesday’s report, North Korea said it had indeed restarted its main nuclear facility at that time.

On Monday, North Korea said it was preparing to launch a long-range rocket for space research, a provocative move that would be seen by the outside world as a part of its efforts to test an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of hitting the U.S. mainland.

The National Aerospace Development Administration said it was “pushing forward in the final phase the development of a new earth observation satellite for weather forecast.”
You guys could just turn to the Weather Channel...
“The world will clearly see a series of satellites of [North] Korea soaring into the sky at the times and locations determined by the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea,” KCNA quoted the director of the agency as saying.

North Korea has previously launched “rockets” as part of its ostensible space program and it denies contravening any international missile bans by doing so.

“Space development for peaceful purposes is a sovereign state’s legitimate right recognized by international law, and the party and the people of [North Korea] are fully determined to exercise this right no matter what others may say about it,” the report said.

But the tests are widely viewed as part of a missile-testing program. If carried out, they would spark new tensions on the peninsula just weeks after North Korea threatened military action against the South.
Tension with who? Champ? He doesn't care...
That standoff was resolved with a deal in which the North promised not to stage any more provocations, and the South warned it would restart anti-North propaganda broadcasts in the event of an “abnormal” provocation.

South Korean government officials have declined to say whether a missile launch would count as “abnormal,” suggesting it would depend on which way the rocket was heading.

In a report to the National Assembly last week, South Korea’s Defense Ministry said satellite imagery showed that North Korea had completed building a 220-foot-tall tower at its Sohae rocket launch facility in Dongchang-ri, on the west coast not far from the border with the South. A tower of that size could be used to launch long-range missiles twice the size of the nearly 100-foot Unha-3 that supposedly was launched into orbit in December 2012, the South’s Yonhap News Agency reported.

In Washington, State Department spokesman John Kirby said the department was aware of North Korea’s statements and that any launch using ballistic missile technology would be “a clear violation” of international resolutions.
For which Jahwn Kerry himself will utter a stern word or two...
Posted by:Steve White

#3  I look for the Norks to start supplying the Iranians with the enriched product they need to violate the Obama/Kerry deal. The only people who liked this deal are the Donks and many of them didn't like it either--they just held their noses and voted for the Obama/Kerry deal. See the following for a summary of the deal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNvHAjcHAvs&feature=youtu.be



Posted by: JohnQC   2015-09-16 07:46  

#2  Don't give Kimmie any ideas, CF!
Posted by: Raj   2015-09-16 00:28  

#1  We want an Iran like deal too!
Posted by: CrazyFool   2015-09-16 00:03  

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