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NUKEWARS
NKorea nuclear reactor may be operating again: UN watchdog
by Staff Writers
Vienna (AFP) Sept 05, 2014


N. Korea fires missiles ahead of S. Korea holiday
Seoul (AFP) Sept 06, 2014 - North Korea on Saturday test-fired three short-range missiles off its east coast, putting the South's military on alert ahead of a traditional harvest holiday.

The missiles, launched from a location near the southeastern port of Wonsan early Saturday, flew 210 kilometres (131 miles) before splashing down in the Sea of Japan (East Sea), the South Korean military joint chiefs of staff said.

They are believed to be new tactical missiles which the North has been testing in recent weeks.

"In light of their ranges and trajectories, the missiles fired today are of the same kind" as the missiles fired on August 14 and September 1, a military official was quoted as saying by Yonhap news agency.

"The launches are apparently aimed at developing new missiles with a longer range than that of the existing KN-02 missiles", which have a range of 170 kilometres, he said.

The South's military is keeping a close watch over the North ahead of the Chuseok holiday, which begins on Monday and ends on Wednesday, he added.

During the holiday, one of the South's most celebrated traditions, Koreans visit relatives and pay their respects to ancestors.

North Korea has fired a total of 111 missiles, all short- or middle-range, in 19 launches this year alone, Yonhap said.

The hardline communist state often fires missiles and rockets as a show of force or to express anger at perceived provocations such as joint US-South Korea military exercises, but the frequency of the recent tests is unusual.

UN resolutions bar North Korea from conducting any launches using ballistic missile technology.

But the North has defended the missile launches as a legitimate exercise in self-defence and a response to US war manoeuvres.

North Korea's reactor at its main nuclear site, capable of giving the isolated regime plutonium for nuclear weapons, may be operational again, the UN atomic watchdog said in a report seen by AFP Friday.

"Since late August 2013, the agency has observed, through analysis of satellite imagery, steam discharges and the outflow of cooling water" at the reactor at Yongbyon, the International Atomic Energy Agency said.

It added that such activity is "consistent with the reactor's operation. However, since the agency has had no access to the five megawatt reactor since April 2009, it cannot confirm the operational status".

The reactor is capable of giving North Korea, which has carried out three nuclear tests, six kilos (13 pounds) of plutonium a year -- enough for one nuclear bomb, experts say.

It shut the reactor down in 2007 under an aid-for-disarmament accord, but began renovating it after its last nuclear test in 2013, and previous satellite images suggested renewed activities there.

The IAEA's comments, in a new annual report on North Korea, chime with an assessment by the US think-tank the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) last month, also using satellite images.

ISIS said however that "without more data, such as regular steam production, it is hard to determine the operational status of the reactor and thus to estimate the amount of plutonium produced".

The UN watchdog also noted "further renovations" at another new facility at Yongbyon that North Korea is thought to be building for enriching uranium, but that it "cannot confirm the purpose of these activities".

The North says the purpose is to produce low-enriched uranium for a new reactor it is constructing, but experts suspect that the real goal is weapons-grade uranium, an alternative to plutonium for a nuclear bomb.

The IAEA said that as of June 2013, external work on the building housing that new reactor "appeared completed" but that since then "little further activity" was observed, with "no indications of the delivery or installation of major components".

It reiterated that North Korea's activities were a "matter of serious concern". IAEA inspectors have not had access to North Korea since being kicked out in 2009.

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Seoul (AFP) Sept 04, 2014
South Korea said Thursday it would create a joint military unit with the United States, as a report suggested the contingent would target North Korea's weapons of mass destruction if a full-scale conflict broke out. The mechanised unit led by a US major general will be set up in the first half of next year, the South's defence ministry said, as part of elaborate preparations for any future w ... read more


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