Tag: nuclear weapons

According to civilian satellite imagery it appears that the Kim regime is preparing the Pungye Nuclear Test Site for future nuclear tests:

North Korea’s Punggye-ri site in Kilju County, North Hamgyong Province, is active and could be ready for new nuclear tests, according to 38 North, as Pyongyang continues to ignore United Nations resolutions and threaten further nuclear and ballistic missile tests.

The website 38 North, which specializes in North Korean affairs and is run by the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), said Friday that satellite imagery from March 6 and March 14 show active maintenance at the Punggye-ri nuclear test site.

The activity “does not appear directed at further tunnel excavation,” it said, but rather to maintain existing tunnels as well as to clean up after the nuclear test in January.

“It is highly likely that site is capable of supporting additional tests at any time,” the website continued.   [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read the rest at the link, but just because they are cleaning up the test site I would think does not necessarily mean there will be a test in the near term.  However, I do have to wonder who in North Korea cleans up these test sites?  Do they send some of their political prisoners into the tunnels to do the work?

Not that I endorse this, but if there ever was a case for regime change North Korea is making the strongest case for such to happen.  How would China for instance react if a country was threatening to nuke Beijing and other cities in China?  Probably not with the restraint the US is constantly told to keep:

North Korea claimed Sunday that it could wipe out Manhattan by sending a hydrogen bomb on a ballistic missile to the heart of New York City, the latest in a string of brazen threats.

Although there are many reasons to believe that Kim Jong Un’s regime is exaggerating its technical capabilities, the near-daily drumbeat of boasts and warnings from North Korea underlines its anger at efforts to thwart its ambitions.

“Our hydrogen bomb is much bigger than the one developed by the Soviet Union,” DPRK Today, a state-run outlet, reported Sunday. DPRK stands for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, North Korea’s official name.

“If this H-bomb were to be mounted on an intercontinental ballistic missile and fall on Manhattan in New York City, all the people there would be killed immediately and the city would burn down to ashes,” the report said, citing a nuclear scientist named Cho Hyong Il.  [Washington Post]

You can read more at the link.

I would not be surprised if this is a mock up intentionally published to get the international reaction it is getting:

North Korea on Wednesday caused a new stir by publicizing a purported mock-up of a nuclear warhead for the first time, with leader Kim Jong Un saying his country has developed miniaturized atomic bombs to be placed on missiles.

The North’s Rodong Sinmun newspaper carried photos on its front page that showed Kim and nuclear scientists standing beside what outside analysts say appears to be the model warhead — a small, silverish globe presented on a low table in a hangar with a ballistic missile or a model ballistic missile in the background.

The newspaper said Kim met his nuclear scientists for a briefing on the status of their work and declared he was greatly pleased that warheads had been standardized and miniaturized for use on ballistic missiles.  [US News & World Report]

You can read more at the link.

I wonder what China would be saying if another country threatened to nuke Beijing?

BEIJING, March 4 (Yonhap) — China called for calm and restraint on Friday after North Korean leader Kim Jong-un ordered his military to be ready to use its atomic weapons at any time.
The order by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un marked a further escalation of tensions, a day after the North fired short-range projectiles into the East Sea in an apparent show of defiance following the U.N. Security Council’s adoption of new sanctions against Pyongyang over its fourth nuclear test and rocket launch.

“We hope that relevant countries can exercise restraint, speak and act prudently,” China’s foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei said. [Yonhap]

How Kim Jong Un bankrolls his nuclear ambitions https://t.co/v8nQUhYe9I

— Victor Cha (@VictorDCha) February 26, 2016

I guess all the Kim regime’s threats of turning South Korea into a “Sea of Fire” does not count:

North Korea said Friday it has never threatened to attack South Korea with its nuclear weapons, claiming that its possession of nuclear bombs is for self-defense against the United States.

The North has called on the U.S. to abandon its hostile policy toward North Korea, saying that its four nuclear tests were an act of deterrence against what it calls Washington’s attempt at nuclear attacks.

“The reason why we’ve had the nuclear deterrence is not for dropping nuclear bombs on people in the South,” the Rodong Sinmun, North Korea’s main newspaper, said in a commentary. “Our nuclear weapons program is aimed at crushing Washington’s bid to stage a nuclear war and securing peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula.”  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

It would not be surprising if this facility is in fact being built to manufacture hydrogen bomb ingredients considering the Kim regime’s state goal of building a hydrogen bomb.  With that said I think the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) may want to get a different acronym to describe themselves with:

North Korea is forging ahead with construction of a new nuclear facility believed to be designed to separate isotopes from spent fuel, such as tritium, a key ingredient for hydrogen bombs, a U.S. research institute said.

The Institute for Science and International Security said in a report released Monday that satellite imagery taken on Jan. 25 of the North’s Yongbyon nuclear complex shows “external construction signatures” at the new facility site, such as vehicles, construction material, and earth displacement activities.

“The precise purpose of this site remains unknown. However, it is of interest because the signatures visible through a historical analysis of satellite imagery are consistent with an isotope separation facility, including tritium separation,” ISIS said.

“This assessment is shared not only by an expert ISIS consulted but also by a government expert we consulted who has long experience in assessing activities at the Yongbyon site,” it said.

In September, ISIS first raised the possibility that the new facility could be an isotope separation plant.

If confirmed as such, the facility would separate isotopes from spent nuclear fuel rods from the 5-megawatt reactor, the North’s main plutonium-producing reactor, the institute said at the time. Though the reactor is not an ideal producer of isotopes, it can be used in that way, it added.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

It appears that the US and South Korea has finally come to the conclusion that the country they need to be negotiating with to halt the Kim regime’s nuclear program is not North Korea, but instead China:

Since President Park Geun-hye expressed skepticism over the efficacy of the long-stalled six-party talks and called for five-party talks — excluding North Korea — last Friday, the allies and China seem to be split with Beijing in favor of keeping the six-party format intact.

The talks involving the two Koreas, the U.S., China, Japan and Russia have not been held since late 2008. Park thus proposed exploring “various and creative ways” including holding the five-party talks to tackle the North’s nuclear conundrum, her aides said.

Washington has offered support for Park’s proposal for the five-party talks, while Beijing urged the early resumption of the six-party talks that it has hosted — a move that observers say displayed its disapproval of the five-way formula.

“The United States supports President Park’s call for a five-party meeting. We believe coordination with the other parties would be a useful step in our ongoing efforts to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula through credible and authentic negotiations,” a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Seoul said in a statement to the local media.  [Korea Herald]

You can read the rest at the link.

Scott Snyder from the Council on Foreign Relations has an article published that advocates what many in the think tank establishment have been saying that banks and companies doing business with the Kim regime have to be targeted for sanctions to work.  Snyder also calls for a nuclear freeze strategy before negotiating for a denuclearization deal:

To show the North Koreans that nuclear development is indeed a dead-end option, the United States must work with its allies to expand sanctions to target businesses and banks that refuse to cease cooperation with North Korea. North Korea must bear a tangible cost for its defiance of repeated warnings from its neighbors to desist from further nuclear and missile tests. Such a course is a necessary self-defensive step short of regime change to contain North Korea’s continuing nuclear and missile development efforts and to impose a de facto freeze on its program.

China’s cooperation toward this end is an essential litmus test of Beijing’s willingness to work together on a clear and present common threat to regional and global security. Only if the international community can impose a freeze on North Korea’s nuclear and missile development will there be a prospect that Kim might move back to denuclearization.  [Washington Examiner]

You can read more at the link.

More threats from North Korea being made against the US:

North Korea said Tuesday that it is ready to detonate hydrogen bombs capable of wiping out the United States “all at once,” claiming that it has succeeded in developing miniaturized nuclear weapons.

North Korea’s latest nuclear test helped the North “get fully armed with smaller and standardized H-bombs for ballistic rockets and get possessed of ultra-modern strike means for delivering nuclear bombs of various kinds,” the Korean Central News Agency said in its commentary.

The North threatened that its nuclear scientists and technicians are “in high spirits” to detonate hydrogen bombs capable of “wiping out” the whole U.S. territory all at once as Washington moves to stifle the North. [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.