North Korea Restarts Plutonium Production For Nuclear Bombs (arstechnica.com)

New submitter ReginaldBryan45 quotes a report from Reuters: North Korea has restarted production of plutonium fuel, a senior State Department official said on Tuesday, showing that it plans to pursue its nuclear weapons program in defiance of international sanctions. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAE) said on Monday that it had seen signs based on satellite imagery that show that the secretive country had re-activated the nuclear fuel production reactor at Yongbyon. The analysis by the IAEA pointed to "resumption of the activities of the five megawatt reactor, the expansion of centrifuge-related facility, [and] reprocessing -- these are some of the examples of the areas [of activity indicated at Yongbyon]." U.S. Intelligence tried to infect the Yongbyon site with a variant of the Stuxnet malware last year but ultimately failed. Experts at the U.S.-Korea Institute at John Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies in Washington predicted last year that the country's nuclear arsenal could grow to as many as 100 bombs within five years, from an estimated 10 to 16. Naturally, this news is a cause for concern as North Korea had four (failed) test launches in the last two months.

Comments

Tread Carefully

[n3r0.m4dski11z]

Everything in history sets a precedent. As fun as destroying this country sounds, that should not be the defacto way of humanity. Someone needs to come up with a better solution because feature generations will use this as an example. Doing nothing is also not an option even though they are assuredly 98% hype. There's a real crime against humanity going on over there and no one really seems to be able to stop it..

Re:Tread Carefully

[Duhavid]

And China has no real desire to stop them.

Re:Tread Carefully

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

And China has no real desire to stop them.

I have posted on this before. People who care about the subject should read _The Impossible State: North Korea, Past and Future_ by Victor Cha. It would be fair to say that many in the west, particularly Republicans (and by the way, Cha worked for the George W. Bush administration) overestimate the amount of influence that China has, but it is fair to say that China rarely uses what influence it does have.

Basically China can't really make North Korea do anything. They can influence them, but that's about it. China really doesn't want instability in the region and it knows that the Kim family is crazy and China is telling the truth when they say that they want North Korea to be denuclearized. But North Korea learned from the experiences of Libya and Iraq in particular some lessons that the US wishes they hadn't. Namely that cooperating with the West is in no way a guarantee that they won't turn on you any way (Gaddafi in Libya) and that if you don't have nukes, the US may remove you from power any way (Saddam in Iraq). Survival of the Kim regime is paramount so the current Kim will never give up nukes. And North Korea has a Stalinist state where people are both brainwashed and unwilling to fight the big guy in charge because if they stand up they may be the only ones, so everybody cooperates in keeping him alive even though they fear him and know that doing so may be a really bad idea for their own livelihood.

Basically China views all post-North Korea scenarios as really really bad for them and unacceptable. They know it is inevitable that the regime will eventually fall, but they want that to be the problem of the next generation to deal with. China deeply fears a united pro-US Korea that will have US troops stationed on its borders and they will not do anything to enable that outcome. Plus, they are raping the North Korea countryside for rare earths (the only thing of any real value in North Korea - the land there is very poor for agricultural purposes when you know what you are doing, let alone under Communism) at cut rate prices and they have a big economic interest in keeping that business going. So China has basically zero incentive to do anything that will result in the Kim regime leaving. Note too that North Korea borders a part of China with a relatively large ethnic Korean population because China basically stole this part of Korea many hundreds of years ago from an old Korean kingdom and never kicked out the people who lived there. So China fears any regime change because the border is somewhat porous and they could be overwhelmed with North Korean refugees once the government falls. So you can see how from China's side they view all North Korean regime changes as a lose-lose scenario for them even though they are beyond being tired of the North Koreans being troublesome. You have to give old Boris Yeltsin some credit as he stopped all aid there over 20 years ago and left China holding the bag for 100% of North Korea's aid because China didn't want the regime to fall.

Completely impossible

[Anonymous Coward]

in 1994 President Bill Clinton signed a deal with North Korea which he bragged would prevent North Korea from going nuclear. He promised his deal would "does not rely on trust. Compliance will be certified by the International Atomic Energy Agency."

North Korea cannot possibly go nuclear. This Clinton deal to prevent it was made by the same Democrat party hack turned expert international negotiator who negotiated Obama's deal to guarantee Iran will not go nuclear.

The next thing you know, the Democrats will tell us that preventing these two countries from going nuclear is what qualifies Hillary Clinton to move back into the White House bringing Bill back as her first lady. After all, she was first lady when the Korea deal was done, so she's an expert on that one and she was appointed Sec State in time to be actually involved in the second, so we can be certain she's "well qualified" to negotiate a lot more like these. Or not.

What else could she do?

[jcr]

Keep in mind, Hillary isn't a diplomat. She had the Department of State tossed to her as a consolation prize to shut her idiot fans up. She has no negotiation skills, and waltzing into a meeting with the Norks with her usual "Qbey me, you fucking peasants!" attitude would be worse than doing fuck-all.

-jcr