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| China-Japan-Koreas |
| North Korea raises nuclear stakes |
| 2005-05-11 |
| North Korea has moved to "increase its nuclear arsenal" by removing fuel rods from a nuclear reactor at Yongbyon, according to an official statement. The rods can be treated to produce plutonium for use in nuclear weapons. The statement comes amid an escalating stand-off between North Korea and the US, after reports that Pyongyang may be preparing a nuclear test. South Korea expressed "serious concern" about the North Korean statement, while China urged restraint from all sides. "We have been taking steps necessary to increase our nuclear arsenal for defence purposes," the North Korean Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried by the official KCNA news agency. There has been mounting speculation about the Yongbyon reactor since South Korea reported last month that it appeared to have been shut down, presumably in order to remove spent fuel rods. Recent satellite images are reported to also suggest possible preparations for a nuclear test in North Korea's remote north-east. The BBC's correspondent in Seoul, Charles Scanlon, says this latest announcement will be seen by the US as more provocation. The row over North Korea's nuclear programme first flared between Pyongyang and the Bush administration in 2002, when North Korea allegedly admitted to having a secret uranium programme. North Korea responded by expelling International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) monitors and restarting its plutonium reactor at Yongbyon - frozen under an agreement with the Clinton administration. Six-party international talks were set up to address the stand-off, but the North pulled out of them last June. The US envoy to North Korea, Christopher Hill, was in Beijing recently to try and persuade China to use its influence over the North and draw Pyongyang back to the talks. The US and Japan have been hinting at more coercive measures in recent weeks, but China and South Korea oppose sanctions and say more diplomacy is needed. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said at the weekend that North Korea already has enough weapons-grade plutonium for five or six nuclear weapons from its last harvest of spent fuel rods, begun in 2003. Analysts estimate that the latest extraction of rods could give the North at least another two atomic bombs, once the fuel has cooled down in about three months time. There is a sense in the region that tensions are again coming to the boil, says our correspondent. |
| Posted by:Steve |
| #8 http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/pakistan/nuke.htm Pakistan Foreign Minister Yakub Khan was present at the Chinese Lop Nor test site to witness the test of a small nuclear device in May 1983, giving rise to speculation that a Pakistani-assembled device was detonated in this test. Note Pakistan assembled not Pakistan designed As I mentioned before, Pakistan simply lacks the scientific and engineering talent to design nuclear and missile systems. During the first 40 years, all the universities and research institutions in Pakistan produced only 128 PhDs in scientific disciplines. Of these 89 were produced in 1982-86. Most of these PhDs were in chemical and biological sciences. Physics, a subject essential for developing a nuclear energy programme, has been a neglected science in Pakistan. In the first 40 years, Pakistani universities and research institutions produced less than a dozen PhDs in this field A directory of Pakistani scientists and technologists with a PhD degree (mostly from abroad) produced in the late 90s listed just over 2,000 names. Ten per cent of these had already retired. The situation has improved little since then. http://www.mshel.com/book00079.html |
| Posted by: john 2005-05-11 20:53 |
| #7 Benazir Bhutto, mother of the Taliban, has practically admitted that Pakistan, under her watch, traded nuclear warhead technology (originally obtained from China) for North Korean missiles. There seems to have been trade with China as well. AQK (who is a metallurgist not a physicist) stole the centrifuge plans from URENCO in Europe. This is technology that the Chinese would have been interested in. There is also the matter of the single F-16 transferred to Beijing (for reverse engineering attempts) by Pakistan. |
| Posted by: john 2005-05-11 20:29 |
| #6 Note that there are TWO weapon producing agencies in Pakistan - KRL and PAEC. A.Q. Khan runs one (KRL) and the other was run by his rival Munir Ahmad Khan. AQK's bomb was Uranium but the PAEC weapon (also Chinese in origin) was plutonium based and more sophisticated. |
| Posted by: john 2005-05-11 20:19 |
| #5 http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/dprk/nuke-test.htm A Test in Pakistan? In the autumn of 1998 a report leaked from Los Alamos Nuclear Laboratory indicated that air samples acquired from the Kharan Desert test by US intelligence aircraft contained traces of plutonium. Pakistan, at the time of the tests, had not had time to develop a warhead from the minimal quantities of plutonium generated by the research reactor at PINSTECH. The most plausible explanation was that North Korea had participated in a joint test of an atomic weapon. |
| Posted by: john 2005-05-11 20:13 |
| #4 Mmmmmm, stakes... |
| Posted by: Homer Simpson 2005-05-11 13:16 |
| #3 Interesting question ... and a related one is what China got from Russia or elsewhere. |
| Posted by: too true 2005-05-11 10:09 |
| #2 Khans was a U bomb? Didn't know that. RB's John asserts all of the designs in question NORK and Paki are baseline Chinee designs. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2005-05-11 10:06 |
| #1 Khan's bomb and plans are suppose to be for a U-bomb. A P-bomb is a different and more complicated animal. Where did the Norks get that design? |
| Posted by: 3dc 2005-05-11 09:48 |