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Category: Proliferation

May 17, 2010

North Korea Calls Israeli Foreign Minister an “Imbecile”

North Korea has reacted, and predictably, to the allegations of the Israeli Foreign Minister that it’s arming terrorists: A spokesman for Pyongyang’s Foreign Ministry described Lieberman as an “ultra-rightist” and “an imbecile in diplomacy.” The spokesman, quoted by the North’s official news agency, said Israel was itself being criticized for its nuclear program and the expansion of settlements in the West Bank. He also said it would never pardon Israel for “daring slander the dignified (North) by faking up sheer...

Categories Axis of Evil/Diplomacy/Proliferation/Terrorism (NK)/WMD
May 12, 2010

North Korea Arms Terrorists, State Department Dozes

The Foreign Minister of Israel has become the first government official to openly accuse North Korea of arming terrorists since the U.S. government removed North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism in 2008: The Israeli foreign minister said on Wednesday that North Korean weapons seized in Thailand last year were headed for Islamist groups Hamas and Hezbollah. [….] “With huge numbers of different weapons … (it had the) intention to smuggling these weapons to Hamas and to...

Categories Axis of Evil/Proliferation/Sanctions/Terrorism (NK)/WMD
April 20, 2010

Another Nuke Test in North Korea?

North Korea is preparing for a third atomic test that may come in May or June, South Korean broadcaster YTN reported on Tuesday, an act that could further isolate Pyongyang and complicate already troubled nuclear diplomacy. South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan dismissed the report, saying Seoul had seen no evidence, and the U.S. State Department also voiced doubts about its accuracy. “If North Korea was making such preparations, there would be related circumstances that can be detected … there...

Categories Six-Party Talks/WMD
April 5, 2010

Will South Korea Go Nuclear Next?

For more than a year, the Lee Administration has been talking about “closing the nuclear fuel cycle” with respect to the uranium it currently uses to produce electricity. Denials notwithstanding, I had concluded that President Lee had given up on dismantling North Korea’s nuclear program, and worried that the limitations of America’s will weakened the sufficiency, in his mind, of the U.S. nuclear umbrella over which South Korea frets so much. But now, calls for South Korea to go nuclear...

Categories Proliferation/ROK Military/WMD
March 20, 2010

Axis? What Axis?

In the wake of reports that North Korea shipped raw uranium to Syria just before the al-Kibar strike, North Korea is now suspected of exporting yellowcake to Iran: Leonard Spector, a deputy director of the Monterey Institute of International Studies’ James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, made the remarks Tuesday. Spector quoted reports as saying the 45 tons of what is known as “yellowcake” were then delivered to Iran via Turkey. The material would be sufficient for several nuclear weapons...

Categories Axis of Evil/Proliferation/WMD
March 7, 2010

Purported Video of Kim Jong Il Commemorating Reopening of Suspected Chemical Weapons Plant

Starting yesterday, several news outlets had reported that North Korea had released recent video of Kim Jong Il appearing in Hamhung to mark the re-opening of a textile factory in Hamhung, but to my intense aggravation, none provided a link to the actual video. YouTube, however, does not disappoint: The video shows Kim waving to an assembled crowd with his right arm, and moving his left arm slightly to applaud … himself, presumably. Heil me. There are no shots showing...

Categories Kim Jong Il/WMD
March 2, 2010

Did North Korea Ship Yellowcake to Syria?

Say it with me: thank God Chris Hill came along in time to keep us safe: Syria in 2007 received approximately 45 tons of raw uranium from North Korea for use in producing fuel for a secret nuclear reactor, informed military and diplomatic sources told Kyodo News on Saturday (see GSN, Feb. 26). An Israeli air assault destroyed the undeclared reactor not long after Syria received shipment of the material and the “yellowcake” uranium is thought to have been sent...

Categories Axis of Evil/Proliferation/WMD
February 13, 2010

Axis of Evil Watch

South Korea has told the Security Council that it seized garments “deemed to have military uses for chemical protection,” according to a report from Turkish Ambassador Ertugrul Apakan, chairman of a committee that monitors implementation of UN sanctions against North Korea. The incident was one of four brought to the attention of the Security Council because of possible violations of sanctions intended to halt North Korea’s missile and nuclear programs. Apakan also reported on Italy’s seizure of two luxury yachts...

Categories Axis of Evil/Missiles/Proliferation/Sanctions/WMD
February 13, 2010

Thailand Deports Crew of Axis of Evil Express

Brokedown Palace is about to lose a few tenants. Thailand has decided to deport the Boratistani crew of the Il-76 caught carrying weapons from North Korea to Iran instead of prosecuting them. The crew may face prosecution in their home countries instead. The plane and the cargo will stay in Thailand for the time being: “We are waiting for the United Nations to recommend what to do with the weapons,” Mr. Panitan said in a telephone interview. “The plane is...

Categories Axis of Evil/Missiles/Proliferation/Sanctions/Terrorism (NK)
February 2, 2010

DNI Releases Annual Threat Assessment

And it’s more bad news for the usual suspects — David Albright, Selig Harrison, and Mike Chinoy: After denying a highly enriched uranium program since 2003, North Korea announced in April 2009 that it was developing uranium enrichment capability to produce fuel for a planned light water reactor (such reactors use low enriched uranium); in September it claimed its enrichment research had “entered into the completion phase”. The exact intent of these announcements is unclear, and they do not speak...

Categories NK Military/Proliferation/Washington Views
January 9, 2010

ROK Foreign Minister: North Korea Began Uranium Enrichment Program in Mid-1990’s

South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan said North Korea likely began its controversial uranium enrichment program for nuclear weapons development in 1996, soon after it had agreed to halt its nuclear program in a deal with the United States. In an interview with Yonhap, Yu said much remains unknown about the North’s uranium program and how advanced it is. But he said it is clear that the program was launched “quite early. “It seems to me that the North began...

Categories Proliferation/WMD
January 8, 2010

The Indictments Are Coming! The Indictments Are Coming!

Why do I blog? Because of stories like this: U.S. authorities plan to indict a New Zealand company allegedly involved in selling North Korean arms to Iran, sources linked to the investigation say. They are trying to track down shadowy figures using a labyrinth of thousands of Auckland companies registered to an office on Queen Street, Auckland’s main street. [Sydney Morning Herald] The significance of indicting the company is that the feds will probably tack on some criminal forfeiture counts,...

Categories Axis of Evil/Iran/Missiles/Money Laundering/Proliferation/Sanctions/U.S. Law
January 6, 2010

Yes, Selig Harrison, North Korea Cheated

The revelations about North Korea’s highly enriched uranium program had already been falling like the snow on Seoul this week, and then I saw this: North Korea appears to have started a uranium enrichment program soon after it agreed in a 1994 deal with the U.S. to dismantle its existing plutonium nuclear weapons program, South Korea’s foreign minister said Wednesday. Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan’s remark, if accurate, suggests North Korea had no intention of giving up its atomic ambitions when...

Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/Proliferation/Useful Idiocy
December 28, 2009

Iran Rises Again

I confess that I’d written off the Iranian protest movement for this year, but I was wrong: the movement actually appears to be spreading to new places and attracting support beyond its traditional base among the students. Large-scale protests spread in central Iranian cities Wednesday, offering the starkest evidence yet that the opposition movement that emerged from the disputed June presidential election has expanded beyond its base of mostly young, educated Tehran residents to at least some segments of the...

Categories Axis of Evil/Iran/Proliferation
December 17, 2009

North Korean Arms Shipment Linked to Iran and China

Did I call it or what? Weapons seized in Thailand from an impounded plane traveling from North Korea were likely destined for Iran, a high-ranking Thai government security official was quoted by Reuters as saying regarding the findings of a team investigating the arms. “Some experts believe the weapons may be going to Iran, which has bought arms from North Korea in the past,” said the official. The official was quoted as saying the Thai investigating team considered Iran the...

Categories "United" Nations/Axis of Evil/China & Korea/Iran/Missiles/Proliferation/Sanctions/WMD
December 12, 2009

(Updated) North Korea, Which Was Removed from the List of State Sponsors of Terrorism Last Year …

… has been caught smuggling weapons again, in flagrant violation of UNSCR 1874. Update: The AP reports that the cargo included surface-to-air missile components, causing me to write a long, screedy update. Update 2: More updates at the link above. More information suggests that the destination was Iran, and one major newspaper misreads UNSCR 1874, though the confusion is excusable. This appears to be the largest shipment of North Korean weapons intercepted since the passage of UNSCR 1874.

Categories Axis of Evil/Proliferation/Terrorism (NK)