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Category: WMD

September 4, 2009

North Korea’s Uranium Enrichment: Raising the Stakes

Umm, about that North Korean uranium enrichment program the Bush Administration made up …. North Korea said Friday that it is in the final stages of enriching uranium, a process that could give the nation a second way to make nuclear bombs in addition to its known plutonium-based program. North Korea informed the U.N. Security Council it is forging ahead with its nuclear programs in spite of international calls to abandon its atomic ambitions, the official Korean Central News Agency...

Categories Proliferation/Propaganda/Subversion/WMD
August 19, 2009

Is This Really The Time or the Place to Launch Rockets?

For a variety of reasons, apparently not. Look, I’m the last person on Earth to subscribe to the morally equivalent view of the Koreas as a north-going zax and a south-going zax. South Korean leaders don’t profit politically from international extortion and provocations — well, OK, there is this — but objectively, the world isn’t threatened by South Korea launching satellites or making advances in the nuclear fuel cycle, something President Lee’s people have personally told me they’re keen to...

Categories Missiles/Proliferation/South Korea/WMD
July 20, 2009

Sanctions Upates

The big headline this week is the U.N.’s agreement on a list of entities to be sanctioned under UNSCR 1718 and 1874 (see links on my sidebar for the texts).  Frankly, I think that’s a story that’s getting a great deal more attention than it merits.  The sanctioned entities have largely been sanctioned under Executive Order 13,382 for years.  I doubt that the U.N. imprimatur is going to fend off many of North Korea’s WMD clients that the Treasury Department’s...

Categories "United" Nations/Axis of Evil/China/Missiles/Money Laundering/Proliferation/Sanctions/WMD
July 14, 2009

The HEU Debate Is Officially Over

From December 2002 until March 2009, it was the shared narrative of the shrill left, mainstream Democrats, and much of the spin circus in tow behind them that Kim Jong Il’s successful development of nuclear weapons was really George W. Bush’s fault.  This narrative held as infallible dogma that Agreed Framework I was successfully containing Kim Jong Il’s nuclear programs until Bush showed up to wreck it with suspect claims about WMD programs — specifically, the accusation that North Korea...

Categories Appeasement/Proliferation/Six-Party Talks/WMD
July 6, 2009

The Nukings Will Continue Until Morale Improves

It must not be easy being the tyrannical overlord of a country you’ve single-handed transformed into a famished, backward prison yard while trying to persuade your subjects that they’re still the envy of the world. There’s always soul-crushing brainwashing, smothering isolation human civilization, extra meat rations for people who rat their your neighbors, the timeless dark arts of racism and xenophobia, and the fear of public execution or a prolonged death in the gulags. Did I mention isolation and brainwashing?...

Categories NK Military/WMD
July 6, 2009

Malaysian Bank Linked to North Korean WMD; Happy 5th to GI Korea (Updated)

GI Korea explains what Philip Goldberg was doing in Malaysia. By the way, let me add my belated good wishes to GI Korea on the fifth anniversary of the founding of his blog.  The fact that it’s one of two with feeds on my sidebar should be some testament to my high regard for the amount and quality of information he posts (NKEconWatch would be the third if its RSS worked there).  It’s one of my daily reads, and the...

Categories Blogs & Blogging/Money Laundering/Proliferation/Sanctions/WMD
July 1, 2009

ROK Defense Minister: N. Korea Steps Up Uranium Enrichment

I can only thank God for Chris Hill, whose Jedi mind tricks completely, verifiably, and irreversibly disarmed these people in the nick of time … not: North Korea appears to be enriching uranium, potentially giving the state that has twice tested a plutonium-based nuclear device another path to making atomic weapons, South Korea’s defense minister said on Tuesday. “It is clear that they are moving forward with it,” Defense Minister Lee Sang-hee told a parliamentary hearing, adding such a programme...

Categories Proliferation/WMD
July 1, 2009

Plan B Watch: Treasury Sanctions Iranian, N. Korean Companies for WMD Financing

Treasury has sanctioned an Iranian company under Executive Order 13382 for its dealings with previously sanctioned North Korean entities suspected of involvement in WMD development and proliferation.  It has also designated a new North Korean entity, Namchongang Trading Company.  Treasury’s full announcement itself is interesting and worth reading.  I’ve posted the full text below the jump, interlaced with a few editorial comments of my own.

Categories Axis of Evil/Money Laundering/Proliferation/Sanctions/WMD
June 29, 2009

WaPo on China’s Trade with North Korea, and Its Rulers’ Darkest Fears

China, which the unmitigated chutzpah we’ve come to expect of it, reassures us that it is “deeply committed” to the enforcement of UNSCR 1874.  Today, Blaine Harden of the Washington Post reports the facts that shatter that mendacious claim.  In a new report, he provides fresh evidence of China’s economic colonization of North Korea, which fits neatly with its agenda of undermining U.N. sanctions against the North.  It’s a must-read, but here’s a money quote: As U.N. sanctions mount and...

Categories China/NK Economics/NK Military/Proliferation/WMD
June 18, 2009

Why Do Journalists Still Quote Selig Harrison?

The Joongang Ilbo summarizes the history of North Korea’s denials, and America’s accusations, that it had a highly enriched uranium program. Although David Albright and Selig Harrison were understandably not available for comment, I’ll extend a hand of generosity — just because the North Koreans are admitting it again today doesn’t mean they won’t be back to denying it tomorrow.  Maybe in between all those interviews he’s giving to some of America’s most gullible reporters, Harrison will find time to...

Categories Media Criticism/Proliferation/WMD
June 16, 2009

Some Good Reads

Both appear in the Wall Street Journal, and both are too good to just graf and go.  Read them both in their entirety. Nicholas Eberstadt:  A New Plan for Pyongyang Paul Wolfowitz:  Resettle the North Korean Refugees Plus this from Melanie Kirkpatrick:  “I pray Ms. Lee and Ms. Ling will come home soon. But if the Americans’ ordeal raises international awareness of the horrors of North Korea’s gulag, it will not have been in vain.”

Categories Diplomacy/Human Rights/Refugees/Uncategorized/Washington Views/WMD
June 16, 2009

Selig Harrison: Obama Shouldn’t Say Mean Things to North Korea

Sometimes, a news organization’s selection of guests tells you almost everything you need to know about its biases.  In one corner, we have Balbina Hwang, formerly of the Heritage Foundation before she sold out and went to work for Christopher “Kim Jong” Hill.  In the other, Selig Harrison presents that valuable “from beneath contempt” perspective.  This interview is a little old — from just after the toothless U.N. presidential statement that served as North Korea’s perfectly suitable excuse to walk...

Categories Appeasement/WMD
June 16, 2009

Latest “New Ledger” Piece

Although the piece nods toward recent events, such as President Lee’s visit to Washington, its central theme is really the inescapable relevance of human rights and North Korea’s disinterest in the kind of coexistence that too many diplomats, academics, and grad students long for in much the same way that Borat longed for Pamela Anderson.  Also, I am not responsible for selecting the photo of that priceless pose by Mrs. Clinton, or for her choice of a pantsuit color.

Categories Blogs & Blogging/Human Rights/WMD
June 15, 2009

North Korea May Have More Nuke Test Sites

The ROK intelligence leak ticker reports: North Korea may have built more underground nuclear test sites in the northeastern district where it staged its first two tests, a news report has said. South Korean intelligence sources quoted by Yonhap news agency said the North could have built two or three such sites in and around Punggyeri in Kilju district near the coast. [AFP] I wonder how many concentration camp prisoners are entombed in those new sites.

Categories Human Rights/Proliferation/WMD
June 13, 2009

Impossible! They Don’t Have a Uranium Enrichment Program, No Matter What They Say!

North Korea vowed on Saturday to embark on a uranium enrichment program and “weaponize” all the plutonium in its possession as it rejected the new U.N. sanctions meant to punish the communist nation for its recent nuclear test. North Korea also said it would not abandon its nuclear programs, saying it was an inevitable decision to defend itself from what it says is a hostile U.S. policy and its nuclear threat against the North.  [AP, via WSJ] Selig Harrison and...

Categories Proliferation/WMD
June 12, 2009

Plan C: Disarm Kim Jong Il Just by Pissing Him Off!

U.S. intelligence officials have warned President Obama and other senior American officials that North Korea intends to respond to the looming passage of a U.N. Security Council resolution this week — condemning the communist country for its recent nuclear and ballistic missile tests — with another nuclear test, FOX  News has learned.  [Fox News] Could we be just six U.N. resolutions away from the complete nuclear disarmament of North Korea?  And you say the U.N. is worthless! If only it...

Categories Missiles/Proliferation/WMD
June 10, 2009

Sun Rises, Flowers Bloom, U.N. Fails to Pass Effective N. Korea Resolution

[Update:   I should clarify that this isn’t final and passed by the Security Council. This is leaked draft language from the agreed text.] My hopes that a long negotiation would mean tougher language were not realized.  China was more determined to shield North Korea from consequences than we were determined to impose them. Excerpts below the fold, with many thanks to a reader and friend. How is this weak?  In a nutshell, the language on sanctions and interdiction is...

Categories Missiles/Proliferation/Sanctions/WMD