Word: plutonium
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...might not look that way at first. North Korea's 60-page declaration of its nuclear capabilities is probably only mildly helpful. It may contain new information on how much plutonium it has produced for its weapons arsenal, or shed light on other aspects of its program. But unpacking North Korea's lies from any strands of truth is a lifetime's work...
...What the U.S. did get, though, was real progress on a long-standing aim - the destruction of the Yongbyon nuclear facility, where North Korea's plutonium has been produced. The 1994 deal agreed by the Clinton Administration required that nuclear work at Yongbyon be verifiably frozen, but the new deal requires that the plant be incapacitated. On Friday the North Koreans blew up the facility's cooling tower and they have also committed to destroying, under international monitoring, the other functioning parts of the plant...
...promises. In early 2007, for example, the U.S. agreed, over its own Treasury Department's objections, to unfreeze millions of dollars of North Korean assets then held in a bank in Macau. Once it did so, North Korea slowly began dismantling its nuclear reactor at Yongbyan, which provided the plutonium for the 8 to 16 nuclear bombs U.S. intelligence agencies now believe North Korea has - including the nuke it tested in October of 2007. On Friday, June 27, Pyongyang says it will blow up the cooling tower of the nuclear facility at Yongbyan - the most visible symbol of North Korea...
...negotiations is big victory for their diplomacy with the North. "There's no question that the end of Yongbyan is significant," says Ralph Cossa, President of the Pacific Forum, a think tank affiliated with the Center for Strategic and International Studies. It eliminates the source of the plutonium that Kim has used to build his bombs...
...that to happen. They believe North Korea 3.0 - the "shame on you" policy - may pay off. "I doubt they're walking away," says one diplomat involved in the talks. Yes, they say, North Korea's serial proliferation is a huge problem. That's why getting Pyongyang to stop making plutonium-based nuclear weapons has already been a significant accomplishment...