***************************************************************** 10/15/06 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 14.244 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** Send News Stories to news@energy-net.org with title on subject line and first line of body NUCLEAR POLICY 1 [NYTr] Bush's diplomatic failure: Iran to pursue atomic work despite 2 IRIB PERSIAN NEWS: EU reaffirms negotiations with Iran 3 AFP: Iran president vows no surrender on nuclear programme - 4 AFP: Israel calls for tough UN action on 'demented' Iran 5 AFP: Iran threatens to limit nuclear inspection if sanctioned - 6 [southnews] UNSC slaps sanctions on North Korea 7 SIGNS OF DISCORD OVER NKOREA SANCTIONS 8 [southnews] NAM Debates Korean Nuclear Test 9 [NYTr] Non-Aligned Nations Statement on DPRK Nuclear Test 10 Korea Herald: Seoul to execute resolution 11 Korea Herald: Ambassadors gather info on nuke tests 12 Korea Herald: [NEWS FOCUS] U.N. action unlikely to affect N.K. proje 13 Korea Herald: Heavier sanctions to increase tension 14 INSIDE JoongAng Daily: Mass weapons: Where did the North get cash? 15 INSIDE JoongAng Daily: Hu, Roh say they back ˇ®proper' UN sanctions 16 Guardian Unlimited: Security Council OKs N. Korea Sanctions 17 INSIDE JoongAng Daily: Resolution may include embargo on some armame 18 INSIDE JoongAng Daily: [EDITORIALS]Time for harmony with U.S. 19 INSIDE JoongAng Daily: [EDITORIALS]Agreement is fragile 20 SF Chron: Cold War diplomacy may be best way to handle Korea, 21 AFP: US fights to hammer out N.Korea sanctions 22 AFP: UN imposes sanctions on NKorea 23 AFP: World hails NKorea sanctions vote, but China still wary - 24 AFP: UN presses NKorea with sanctions after test 25 AFP: Canada endorses UN sanctions against North Korea - 26 AFP: World hails NKorea sanctions vote, but China still wary 27 AFP: Signs of discord over NKorea sanctions 28 AFP: North Korea considering return to six-party talks - Russian env 29 AFP: Japan hails UN resolution, considers more NKorea sanctions - 30 AFP: Unbowed US puts financial squeeze on NKorea 31 AFP: China ready for refugee rush after NKorean nuclear test - 32 AFP: US Rice denies rift with China over enacting UN sanctions on No 33 AFP: UN presses NKorea with sanctions after test 34 Japan Times: Rice to visit Tokyo, Beijing, Seoul 35 Japan Times: Japan makes it official: more punitive steps kick in 36 AFP: SKorea says it treats NKorean nuclear test claim as genuine - 37 UPI: Ban: Rice should head talks with N. Korea 38 UPI: Rice says U.N. defeated North Korea 39 UPI: S. Korea pledges support for sanctions 40 UPI: Koreans say U.S. basis for nuclear test 41 UPI: Prelim air samples show radioactivity 42 UPI: Japanese port city to feel sanction pinch 43 A Beginner's Guide to Creating a 'Crisis' 44 US: Guardian Unlimited: Bush Keeps Revising War Justification 45 [NYTr] And Now... A Nuclear Japan? 46 BBC NEWS: UK | Trident debate to top CND agenda 47 Independent: 'Nuclear bosses must go' - union NUCLEAR REACTORS 48 Sydney Morning Herald: PM backs 'clean' nuclear energy - 49 US: La Crosse Tribune: Change is coming at Dairyland facility 50 NEWS.com.au: Nuclear power 'ready for take-off' | 51 Popular Science: A Floating Chernobyl? - 52 US: POAC: Saxton says I don't trust NRC' on Oyster Creek 53 US: APP.COM: Let NRC hearing proceed | 54 US: Rutland Herald: Energy is crucial political issue 55 US: Dallas Morning News: U.S. may speed approval of nuclear plants 56 Japan Times: Ehime reactor gets go-ahead to go pluthermal NUCLEAR SECURITY 57 Japan Times: Mitutoyo admits illegal nuclear-linked exports 58 Japan Times: Japan may support high seas inspections 59 UPI: Nuclear capabilities growing worldwide NUCLEAR SAFETY 60 [v911t] YOUTUBE VIDEOS: DEPLETED URANIUM ALERT! 61 US: [Radbull] Bush signing statement damages DOE worker compensation 62 US: Deseret News: Fallout from the new fallout study 63 IAEA: A Rich and Radioactive Past Haunts a Factory Town 64 US: Boston Globe: Kingston wants to simplify emergency evacuation pl NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 65 [NYTr] Panama Canal's Rad Waste Cargoes Pose Grave Threat 66 US: Nevada Appeal: Nuclear waste route runs on sensitive lands 67 US: Sydney Morning Herald: Never sell uranium to China: Keating - 68 US: Bradenton Herald: Tallevast finds more time for appeal 69 US: Deseret News: No more nuclear waste 70 Sunday Herald: Cardboard boxes used to transport nuclear materials - 71 Pahrump Valley Times: Commission rebuffs choice for nuclear waste di 72 reviewjournal.com: How about $1 billion? Now that's real money 73 News &Star: Thorp: A failure worthy of Homer Simpson 74 reviewjournal.com: Yucca public meetings slated PEACE US DEPT. OF ENERGY 75 Knox News: Money wasted on Y-12 mix-ups 76 SF New Mexican: Small-business funding: LANL might slow spending on ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 [NYTr] Bush's diplomatic failure: Iran to pursue atomic work despite pressure Date: Sun, 15 Oct 2006 23:27:44 -0500 (CDT) X-Sender-Host-Name: chumbly.math.missouri.edu X-Spam-Class: HAM Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit Reuters - Oct 15, 2006 http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=worldNews&storyid=2006-10-15T185548Z_01_L14352733_RTRUKOC_0_US-NUCLEAR-IRAN.xml Iran to pursue atomic work despite pressure: agency TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's president said Tehran would keep up its nuclear activities despite Western countries' mounting threats and pressures, the student news agency ISNA reported on Sunday. Barring a change of heart by Iran, the European Union's 25 foreign ministers want to agree at a meeting on Tuesday to ask the U.N. Security Council to impose sanctions, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said on Saturday. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was defiant at a meeting with a group of conservative officials on Saturday, saying Iran was determined to press on with its nuclear work. "The threats and pressures against Iran's nuclear activities will not tarnish the will of the Iranian nation to continue its way (of achieving nuclear technology)," Ahmadinejad said. "The nation will not be intimidated by the threats and will continue on its path vigorously," ISNA quoted Ahmadinejad as saying. Iran's case has been sent back to the Security Council after it failed to halt uranium enrichment, a process the West fears Iran is using to develop atomic bombs despite Tehran's denials. Iran has shrugged off the threat of sanctions in the past. Analysts say the world's fourth largest oil exporter, which is enjoying an oil revenue windfall, may feel it can cope with the modest penalties likely to be imposed initially. Ahmadinejad said the request by Western countries for Iran to suspend uranium enrichment was illegal. "If they succeed in imposing their illegal demand on us they will increase the pressure to impose extra demands," Ahmadinejad said. "By God's grace they will not be able to stand against the Iranian nation," he said. Iran has proposed forming a consortium for uranium enrichment with other countries, saying it would be a way for them to monitor its atomic work to prove it was peaceful. Iran has said it opposes atomic weapons and, in previous statements, has called for nuclear disarmament by all countries. ) Reuters 2006. * ================================================================ .NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems . Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us . .339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org .List Archives: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/ .Subscribe: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr ================================================================ ***************************************************************** 2 IRIB PERSIAN NEWS: EU reaffirms negotiations with Iran 2006/10/13 The European Union foreign ministers' council meeting in Luxembourg on Monday is expected to reaffirm the 25-member European bloc's commitment to a negotiated solution to Iran's nuclear programme. According to a draft conclusion seen by IRNA, the ministers say that the door to negotiations remained open. "The council recalled that the proposals presented by the High Representative (Javier Solana) on 6 June as a basis for a long-term agreement are far reaching and would give Iran everything it needs to develop a modern civil nuclear power industry," say s the draft statement expected to be adopted by the ministers on Monday. "They would open the way for a new relationship with Iran based on mutual respect and expanded cooperation in political and economic fields," it noted. "The EU ministers stress that a negotiated settlement "would contribute to the development of the EU's relations with Iran" and urged the Islamic Republic to take the "positive path on offer." M.H.Z Copyright 2004, All Rights Reserved By Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting News Network Sponsored By IRIB News Computer Center. E-Mail: Info@IRIBNEWS.ir ***************************************************************** 3 AFP: Iran president vows no surrender on nuclear programme - October 15, 08:46 [Mahmoud Ahmadinejad] TEHRAN (AFP) - President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has pledged that Iran will make no concessions to Western-led pressure over its nuclear program, whatever sanctions are threatened by the international community. "Pressure and threats against Iran's nuclear programme will not affect Iran in any way," the student news agency ISNA quoted Ahmadinejad as telling an Iranian engineers' association meeting Saturday evening. "Iran and its people will not be scared off their wishes and will continue on their path with determination," he said. "The insistance by certain countries on a suspension (of uranium enrichment), even for a short period, is unlawful," the president said, taking up Iran's repeated insistance that it has a right to master the technology for peaceful ends under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Uranium enrichment lies at the heart of Western concerns over Iran's nuclear programme. The process can be used to make the fuel for civil reactors but in highly extended form can also produce the fissile core of an atom bomb. Iran insists its nuclear programme is solely for civilian energy purposes, but arch-foe Israel and its US ally say they suspect the real aim is a covert weapons programme. After four rounds of unsuccessful talks aimed at securing an enrichment suspension, the European Union is set to return the Iranian nuclear file to the UN Security Council Tuesday for possible enforcement action. AFP ***************************************************************** 4 AFP: Israel calls for tough UN action on 'demented' Iran Sun Oct 15, 4:53 AM ET JERUSALEM (AFP) - Israel" /> Israel's ambassador to the United Nations" /> United Nationsurged the Security Council to take tough measures against "demented" Iran" /> Iranfor its nuclear program in the wake of North Korea" /> North Korea's declared atomic test. "The international community should learn the lessons of what occurred in North Korea," Danny Gillerman told army radio. "North Korea was only the preview. Iran will be the feature film, which, if no one takes serious action, will be projected throughout the whole world." Gillerman called for "much harder sanctions to be imposed on a demented Iranian regime that seeks to destroy a UN member state (Israel), and totally denies the Holocaust, while preparing to perpetrate a second Holocaust." But, "I do not anticipate more significant and firmer sanctions against Iran than those being considered for North Korea." Opening the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the situation in Iran and North Korea would dominate his visit this week to Russia, which is helping Tehran build its first atomic power plant at Bushehr. "The Iranian threat and the developments in the nuclear issue in North Korea will without any doubt be at the center of our talks," Olmert said. On Tuesday Israel said it feared North Korea could transfer nuclear technology to Iran, after Pyongyang announced it had carried out its first nuclear test. Israeli leaders called for the North Korean test to serve as a wake up call to the international community on the risks of nuclear proliferation and prompt a zero-tolerance policy with Tehran. The Islamic republic says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes but the West fears it is a cover for obtaining atomic weapons. The six countries involved in talks over the Iranian nuclear file, the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China, on Wednesday sent their UN representatives proposed sanction regimes for Iran following Tehran's refusal to suspend uranium enrichment. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice" /> Condoleezza Rice, warned Tuesday however that the resolution on Iran would likely take more time to draft than the one now being considered for North Korea. Israel considers Iran its arch-enemy for President Mahmud Ahmadinejad's repeated threats to wipe the Jewish state "off the map" and for his comments questioning the Holocaust. Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 5 AFP: Iran threatens to limit nuclear inspection if sanctioned - Sun Oct 15, 8:27 AM ET TEHRAN (AFP) - A heavyweight Iranian lawmaker has warned Tehran would limit inspections by the UN of its nuclear sites if slapped with sanctions over its atomic program. "Taking such a step (UN sanctions) will undoubtedly limit the space for International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors and they will be denied the current opportunities," said Alaeddin Borujerdi, head of the parliamentary national security commission, the student ISNA agency reported Sunday. His comments come as the five UN Security Council permanent members plus Germany discuss imposing sanctions against Iran over its failure to halt enrichment, which the West fears could be diverted to making a nuclear bomb. As a member of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Iran insists it has a right to enrichment, which it says will be used for peaceful energy ends. Iran allows visits to nuclear facilities under the NPT but in February it stopped applying the additional protocol to the treaty, which allows extensive access to atomic sites, after the UN Security Council adopted a resolution calling on Iran to freeze enrichment. The European Union is expected to announce in the coming week that it will leave it up to the UN Security Council to consider punitive action after four rounds of talks between the EU and the Islamic republic failed to reach agreement. The Europeans "will miss a valuable opportunity if they leave the talks and they will suffer more losses than Iran by this decision," Borujerdi said. He said that Iran's top nuclear official Ali Larijani and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana had reached an "11 point accord and negotiations could go on this basis to reach a result satisfying both sides". Solana said last week that talks with Iran had broken down. Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 6 [southnews] UNSC slaps sanctions on North Korea Date: Sun, 15 Oct 2006 02:26:24 -0500 (CDT) X-Sender-Host-Name: chumbly.math.missouri.edu X-Spam-Class: HAM The UN Security Council has voted unanimously in favour of a resolution imposing sanctions on North Korea over its claimed nuclear test. Resolution 1718 imposes weapons and financial sanctions but is not backed by the threat of military force. UN slaps sanctions on North Korea BBC Saturday, 14 October 2006, 21:27 GMT 22:27 UK The UN Security Council has voted unanimously in favour of a resolution imposing sanctions on North Korea over its claimed nuclear test. Resolution 1718 imposes weapons and financial sanctions but is not backed by the threat of military force. North Korea's UN envoy said he totally rejected the resolution and walked out. After hours of talks, China agreed to back the resolution but said it had "reservations" about provisions for cargo checks on North Korean ships US President George W Bush said the UN had taken a "swift and tough" step to show its determination to keep the Korean Peninsula free of nuclear weapons. North Korea's UN envoy, Pak Gil Yon, left the UN chamber after rejecting the "unjustifiable" resolution and accusing the Security Council of neglecting US pressure on North Korea. He warned that any increase in US pressure would be considered as a "declaration of war". The resolution: * Demands North Korea eliminate all its nuclear weapons, weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles North Korea's envoy walked out of the chamber * Requires all countries to prevent the sale or transfer of materials related to Pyongyang's unconventional weapons programmes, as well as large-sized military items such as tanks, missiles and helicopters * Demands nations freeze funds overseas of people or businesses connected with North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile programs * Allows nations to inspect "as necessary" cargo moving in and out of North Korea to check for banned items * Bans export of luxury goods to North Korea * Calls on Pyongyang to return "without precondition" to stalled six-nation talks on its nuclear programme. 'Not indefinite' John Bolton, the US envoy to the UN, warned the Security Council that stronger measures might be required if North Korea did not comply. Russian Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov said that both Moscow and Beijing believed the sanctions should not be viewed as indefinite. "If North Korea returns to six-party talks and these talks achieve progress, sanctions... should be automatically lifted," he said. China and Russia have been concerned that the cargo inspections permitted in the resolution could spark naval confrontations with North Korean boats. China's UN envoy Wang Guangya called on UN member states to adopt a "prudent and responsible attitude" to the checks and refrain from "provocative steps". The BBC's Laura Trevelyan at the UN says China has taken the slightly confusing position of apparently disagreeing with something to which it has signed up. She says the test of the resolution will be in the implementation of the sanctions. Revised resolution The US proposed the initial draft resolution but revised it to remove the threat of imminent military action and dilute a blanket ban on defence exports in an effort to allay Chinese and Russian concerns. US officials say they may have detected radioactive gas consistent with a nuclear explosion near the site of North Korea's claimed nuclear test on Monday. Throughout the week there has been uncertainty about whether North Korea carried out a nuclear test, tried to but failed, or made a false claim. White House officials cautioned that this result alone did not confirm a successful test but it could mean that a nuclear test had been attempted. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6051704.stm ***************************************************************** 7 SIGNS OF DISCORD OVER NKOREA SANCTIONS Date: Sun, 15 Oct 2006 23:18:42 -0500 (CDT) X-Sender-Host-Name: chumbly.math.missouri.edu X-Spam-Class: HAM http://sg.news.yahoo.com/061015/1/442f0.html Agence France Presse --Monday October 16, 7:13 AM The United States sought to play down signs of discord with China over how to enforce UN sanctions imposed on North Korea over its nuclear weapons program. A day after the UN Security Council voted unanimously to slap weapons and financial sanctions against North Korea for its declared nuclear test, questions loomed about whether the measures would be fully enforced amid reservations from China. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice insisted China would work to enforce the sanctions against North Korea despite Beijing's stated objections to cargo inspections. "China is signed on to a resolution that pledges cooperation in stopping the proliferation trade with North Korea," Rice said on the Fox News Sunday program. "I'm quite certain that China has no interest in seeing the proliferation of dangerous materials from North Korea," she said. Rice, who was due to meet Asian leaders starting Tuesday to discuss the enforcement of the sanctions, acknowledged that there were "many details to be worked out, particularly about how this embargo and interdiction might work." The blunt-speaking US ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, said Beijing bore a "heavy responsibility" to carry out the sanctions. "The burden is on China to comply with the resolution," Bolton said on CNN's Late Edition. The resolution adopted by the Security Council on Saturday bans trade with North Korea in dangerous weapons, bars the export of heavy conventional weapons to the Stalinist state, calls for a freeze on financial assets and imposes a travel ban on those linked to the country's nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction programs. The most hotly contested measure was the call for cargo inspections, which aims to prevent the cash-strapped North Korean regime from selling material for an atomic bomb to terrorists or rogue states. Bolton said the measure could be carried out mainly by inspecting North Korean cargo once it reached foreign shores but he did not rule out risky high-seas search operations. China, Pyongyang's main trade partner and which shares a long land border with North Korea, said immediately after the vote that it would not carry out intrusive inspections Washington says are called for in the resolution. In a Sunday statement, the Chinese foreign ministry said the UN resolution demonstrated international resolve while offering a way to defuse the crisis peacefully. "We advocate that the UN Security Council's action has to show the firm position of the international community, but on the other hand it also should be conducive towards resolving the problems through peaceful dialogue," said ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao. Russia has shared China's reluctance to back punishing sanctions favored by Japan and the United States. Moscow described the negotiations before the vote as "tense" and had favored time limits on any sanctions. In a concession, the United States agreed to drop any reference to a threat of military force. While it remained unclear how the sanctions would be carried out, China and other world powers were in agreement in condemning North Korea for its nuclear test and its boycott of negotiations. The resolution urged Pyongyang to give up its nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction in a verifiable manner and return to international negotiations that it has boycotted for nearly a year. In Seoul, Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Alexeyev said the North Koreans had appeared willing to return to the bargaining table in talks last week. "The North Korean side several times returned to the point that the six-sided process should continue," said Alexeyev, according to Russian news agencies. The Russian met Sunday with Chun Yung-Woo, South Korea's main nuclear negotiator, who said it was too early to be confident the talks could be revived. "We have to see how North Korea will respond to the sanctions. After then, we can confidently talk about the diplomatic process," Chun said. North Korea's UN ambassador Pak Gil Yon angrily rejected the Council action. "It is gangster-like for the Security Council to have adopted today a coercive resolution," Pak said after the vote before walking out of the hall. One of the world's most impoverished and isolated nations, communist North Korea has insisted that it needs nuclear arms to deter an attack by the United States, which it says is plotting to topple the regime. The six-nation talks -- involving China, Japan, Russia, North and South Korea, and the US -- appeared to have won agreement from Pyongyang last year to give up its nuclear ambitions. But the talks fell apart when the North withdrew after Washington imposed sanctions on a Macau bank that it said was laundering money from North Korea. ***************************************************************** 8 [southnews] NAM Debates Korean Nuclear Test Date: Sat, 14 Oct 2006 03:37:39 -0500 (CDT) X-Sender-Host-Name: chumbly.math.missouri.edu X-Spam-Class: HAM The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), a group of 118 nations including North Korea, issued a communique from Havana urging Pyongyang to halt nuclear tests and not transfer nuclear weapons-related material or technology. The communique said NAM supports the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and that affected countries should find a peaceful solution through dialogue. _______________________________________________ NAM Debates Korean Nuclear Test United Nations, Oct 13 (Prensa Latina) The Non-Aligned Movement countries expressed concern over the nuclear test announced by the People4s Democratic Republic of Korea and ratified its opposition to the proliferation of that kind of weapon Friday. NAM reaffirmed its principles for nuclear disarmament, which continues to be its major priority, and on issues related to non-nuclear proliferation, in a declaration of that influential group of countries. The document, endorsed by the Coordinating Board of the Non-Aligned Countries in the United Nations Friday morning, expresses the wish of those nations for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. It insists on resumption of talks among the six parties (US, China, Russia, RPDC, South Korea and Japan) on the matter as soon as possible. "The Movement fully believes that diplomacy and dialogue by peaceful means must continue searching for a durable solution on the Korean nuclear issue." Similarly, the declaration highlights that the nuclear test on the Korean Peninsula ratifies the need to work harder to achieve the Movement s goals in terms of disarmament, including the elimination of nuclear weapons. Finally, the group called on the related parties in that region to act with intelligence in stopping nuclear tests and not to transfer material, technologies or devices related to nuclear weapons. ef ccs isn tgj PL-32 http://www.plenglish.com/article.asp?ID=%7BBE0DB259-6927-4441-BC28-02F436B72017%7D&language=EN ***************************************************************** 9 [NYTr] Non-Aligned Nations Statement on DPRK Nuclear Test Date: Sat, 14 Oct 2006 18:11:50 -0500 (CDT) X-Sender-Host-Name: chumbly.math.missouri.edu X-Spam-Class: HAM Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit Granma International - Oct 14, 2006 http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2006/octubre/sabado14/43nam.html Non-Aligned Nations Issues Statement on DPRK Nuclear Test At midday on Friday, October 13, 2006, the Coordination Bureau of the Non-Aligned Movement, meeting in the UN headquarters in New York under the presidency of Cuba, approved the following statement on the nuclear test effected on October 9 by the People's Democratic Republic of Korea. Statement from the Non-Aligned Movement on the nuclear test in the PDRK 1. The Coordination Bureau of the Non-Aligned Movement has expressed its concern at, while acknowledging the complexities derived from the nuclear test in the Korean Peninsula, which underscores the need to work even more vigorously to achieve the Movement's disarmament objectives, including the elimination of nuclear weapons. The Movement exhorts the implicated parties in the region to exercise moderation, which will contribute to regional security; to discontinue nuclear tests; and not to transfer materials, equipment and technology related to nuclear weapons. 2. The Movement expresses its desire to for the de-nuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and continues to support the renewal of Six-Party Talks as soon as possible. The Movement firmly believes that diplomacy and dialogue via peaceful means must continue with a view to achieving a long-term solution to the Korean nuclear question. 3. In the light of this action, the Movement reaffirms its principled position in relation to nuclear disarmament, which continues being its maximum priority, as well as issues related to nuclear non-proliferation in all its aspects, and emphasizes its concern at the threat that the permanent existence of nuclear weapons and their potential use or threat of use supposes for humanity. At the same time, it reiterates its profound concern at the slow advance toward nuclear disarmament and the lack of progress on the part of states possessing nuclear weapons in the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals. It highlights the need for states possessing nuclear weapons to fulfill the unequivocal commitment that they contracted in 2000 in matters referring to obtaining the total elimination of nuclear weapons and, in this context, stresses the pressing need to begin negotiations without delay. 4. The Movement stresses its principles and priorities on the issue of disarmament and international security, as adopted at the 14th Conference of Heads of State or Government of the Non-Aligned Movement that took place in Havana, Cuba, from September 11 to 16, 2006. * ================================================================ .NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems . Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us . .339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org .List Archives: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/ .Subscribe: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr ================================================================ ***************************************************************** 10 Korea Herald: Seoul to execute resolution The South Korean government has welcomed the United Nation's latest resolution which lists a raft of sanctions against Pyongyang in punishment for last Monday's reported test of a nuclear device, and says it will continue close diplomatic contacts with relevant countries to coordinate measures. "The government will respect and diligently execute the decision of the U.N. Security Council," Foreign Ministry spokesman Choo Kyu-ho said in an official statement. "We urge North Korea to fully understand the position of the international community represented by the UNSC resolution, and accept the demands made in it by abandoning all nuclear weapons and nuclear programs, and to return to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty," Choo said. South Korea also called for the North to promptly return to the six-party talks to implement the Joint Statement agreed on Sept. 19. 2005. The UNSC on Saturday unanimously approved wide-ranging sanctions on North Korea that include inspections of N.K. cargoes to prevent the illicit trafficking in nuclear, chemical or biological weapons. Senior ministers from the Seoul government gathered early Sunday morning to discuss future measures and to gauge the impact it will have on inter-Korean relations. "The government is determined to achieve the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. We will deal with the situation with a calm and collected position and by closely coordinating with the United Nations," Prime Minister Han Myeong-sook told reporters while participating at a local event. Suh Choo-suk, senior presidential secretary for national security, presided over a meeting of vice ministers yesterday morning. A higher-level meeting under the lead of the Presidential Office at Cheong Wa Dae was set to convene in the afternoon. South Korea declared last week it will take "coordinated steps" to solve the latest nuclear crisis on the Korean peninsula. Meanwhile, a task force led by First Vice Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan also convened a meeting. In the international front, President Roh Moo-hyun is set to hold a telephone discussion with Russian President Vladimir Putin later today. Roh held summit talks with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on the day of the nuclear test on Monday. He held a telephone conversation with U.S. President George W. Bush soon after the test. He flew to Beijing on Friday last week and met Chinese leader Hu Jintao. Vice Foreign Minister of Russia, Alexander Alexeyev arrived in Seoul yesterday for meetings with Cheong Wa Dae's chief presidential adviser on security affairs, Song Mon-soon, and South Korea's chief nuclear negotiator, Chun Yung-woo. Alexeyev has recently returned from Pyongyang. He withheld any information of his visit but said it was highly useful. South Korean officials describe Alexeyev's visit here as the beginning of the working-level shuttle meetings that will be employed to tackle the nuclear crisis. South Korea has been working with China and Russia for the U.N. resolution to exclude military measures that could prompt an outbreak of hostilities on the Korean peninsula. Government sources also said the flagship inter-Korean businesses of Mount Geumgang and the Gaeseong Industrial Park are likely to continue daily operations for the time being. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is set to visit Japan, South Korea and China from Tuesday. She is likely to urge South Korea's full participation in the Proliferation Security Initiative that is aimed at preventing and investigating the transportation of WMDs. Reports said Rice was also considering proposing ministerial-level talks among the United States, South Korea, China, Japan and Russia. (angiely@heraldm.com) By Lee Joo-hee 2006.10.16 ***************************************************************** 11 Korea Herald: Ambassadors gather info on nuke tests It's been a busy week for foreign ambassadors in Seoul in the wake of the North Korean nuclear test. Once ambassadors returned from Chuseok vacations last week, they had to report back to their foreign ministries and home governments about the local climate. Every ambassador polled from every region in the world has been working overtime, filing reports from information gathered by the South Korean government, media and organizations. Media plays a big role in an ambassador's information gathering process, no matter the size of the embassy. Large embassies in Seoul have a department translating reports from vernacular papers while smaller embassies, or embassies on a tighter budget, rely solely on English papers like The Korea Herald as part of their information gathering process. Another important part of the information gathering process is the daily meetings by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, where foreign ambassadors are briefed about the local government's stand on different issues regarding the North Korean nuclear test. Once information has been gathered from different sources, ambassadors then pool the information they gathered with other ambassadors. While most charge d'affaires - accredited diplomats representing an embassy in lieu of an ambassador - do not have to offer their home government opinions regarding any issue, ambassadors on the other hand are generally expected to offer an opinion from the information gathered. Information gathered by foreign embassies in Pyongyang is also valuable. Most ambassadors said that their counterparts in North Korea are at times less informed about ongoing events, but what they do offer is an eyewitness account of the mood and atmosphere of the people in the capital. To help put everyone on the same page, ambassadors from both sides of the DMZ are constantly communicating via e-mail, knowing that what they say may be monitored by the North Korean government. (yoav@heraldm.com) By Yoav Cerralbo 2006.10.16 ***************************************************************** 12 Korea Herald: [NEWS FOCUS] U.N. action unlikely to affect N.K. projects A resolution by the U.N. Security Council over North Korea's claimed nuclear test is unlikely to have a direct impact on key inter-Korean economic projects, Seoul officials said yesterday. The South Korean government seems determined to continue the joint ventures - the Gaeseong industrial complex and the Mount Geumgang tours - which have been a symbol of its policy of engagement with its communist neighbor. The two projects are said to be major sources of hard currency for the impoverished North. Conservatives say they could be used to fund the North's nuclear programs. The resolution, which was adopted yesterday, requires countries to freeze any financial resources related to Pyongyang's missiles or weapons of mass destruction programs and ban the transfer of those assets. Seoul officials and analysts said the resolution would not affect the two biggest pillars of inter-Korean projects because it does not ban economic exchanges with North Korea in general. But depending on the interpretation of the resolution and the nature of inter-Korean cooperation, some cooperation and aid programs may suffer somewhat, analysts say. Washington may construe the resolution to include a ban on inter-Korean projects on the grounds that they are sources of hard currency needed to fund the North's weapons programs. "The United States is likely to interpret the resolution in a positive and an extensive way, while Seoul would understand it in a narrow context. Seoul says there is no proof that the cash funneled to the North through the projects were used for its weapons programs, while Washington would counter that there is no evidence that it was not used for weapons," Nam Sung-wook, a North Korean studies professor at Korea University, told The Korea Herald. Hyundai Asan, an arm of the South Korean company which runs both projects, has invested 1.5 trillion won ($1.56 billion) in the two ventures. It has also remitted $451 million to North Korea from Mount Geumgang since tours began in late 1998. The Gaeseong industrial park, where thousands of North Koreans work for South Korean companies, also earns North Korea nearly $700,000 a month from salaries, rent and other sources. The government's plan to maintain the joint projects already hit a snag because of opposition by the United States and conservative circles. U.S. ambassador to South Korea, Alexander Vershbow, told reporters last week that all economic aid programs for North Korea should be reconsidered. The main opposition Grand National Party also demanded the government end the bilateral economic projects. They sided with Washington, saying the aid and trade with North Korea helped the North build its nuclear weapons programs. But the ruling Uri Party's leader said yesterday the government and private sectors should continue economic cooperation and aid programs with the North. Seoul halted shipments of rice and fertilizer to the impoverished nation following the North's nuclear test last week. Furthermore, inter-Korean businesses have suffered setbacks in the wake of the reported test. There has been a sharp decrease in the number of South Korean tourists to the scenic Mount Geumgang resort. Korea Land Corp., the developer of the Gaeseong industrial park, has also indefinitely postponed a plan to sell lots for more companies to move in. Government funding also may face a cut as opposition political parties want to slash the billions of won earmarked for inter-Korean business deals. Out of the 1.7 trillion won ($1.7 billion) allocated toward unification expenses next year, some 400 billion won is meant to support the inter-Korean economic cooperation projects. (hjjin@heraldm.com) By Jin Hyun-joo 2006.10.16 ***************************************************************** 13 Korea Herald: Heavier sanctions to increase tension After days of wrangling, the U.N. Security Council unanimously voted on a resolution slapping heavier sanctions against North Korea for defying international warnings against conducting a nuclear test on Oct. 9. The inevitable choice of sanctioning the North could either work to pressure the communist regime to bring up a more sensible negotiating card, or push it further into isolation, barricaded by its nuclear program. Using the strongest words, the resolution called upon member states to prevent supply and transfer, any means of transportation, items and technology that could contribute to nuclear or ballistic missile-related programs, in addition to luxury goods and the freezing of financial assets related to WMD programs. It, however, left out the possibility of taking military measures, an obvious outcome of a compromise between China and the United States. "It is questionable, however, how well the U.N. members would oblige to the binding economic sanctions," said Paik Hak-soon of the Sejong Institute. "The Arabs have constantly protested to the unilateralism of the United Nations and to power diplomacy. China, Russia and South Korea have different circumstances. The execution of the sanctions in real life can be much more complicated," he said. With North Korea vowing to retaliate against the resolution and South Korea stuck in between, tension is likely to continue engulfing the peninsula, the observers said. While succeeding in augmenting pressure against the North, the latest resolution has also left the question on how to view North Korea as a nuclear state. "This resolution is highly symbolic in a way that the United States succeeded in passing it at an early date to apply pressure against the international community," Paik said. Paik added that Washington's policy towards North Korea could face a drastic change depending on the outcome of the November election and that the Seoul government must watch the election and re-gauge the pressure against North Korea. The U.S.-led Proliferation Security Initiative ia most likely to become a key issue for South Korea. The resolution, apparently pointing to the PSI, states, "All member states are called upon to take in, in accordance with their national authorities and legislation and consistent with international law, cooperative action including thorough inspection of cargo to and from North Korea, as necessary." The United States views proliferation of missiles and nuclear material as the main threat coming from North Korea. PSI is a product of such concerns, conceived by Washington in 2003 to build an international network of forces to monitor North Korean ships and aircrafts, with the authority to intercept and inspect suspicious cargoes. Although there are no formal announcements, more than a dozen interdictions have taken place under the PSI, according to reports. The initiative is supported by about 70 countries. South Korea and China have remained hesitant to join the move due to concerns that it could provoke North Korea into a collision course in the region. The United States has openly demanding South Korea join the PSI. Experts were doubtful whether South Korea would be able to change its mind. "I think that one set of questions is how strictly China and South Korea are going to choose to implement it," Richard Bush, an expert at the Brookings Institution, was quoted as saying by AFP. He said the phrase "as necessary" in a key passage of the resolution was the loophole that will allow each country to make their circumstantial decisions. South Korean officials fear that any attempt to intercept a North Korean vessel could lead to a physical skirmish. The two countries have engaged in several sea clashes in the past over their vaguely drawn maritime border in the West Sea. The two countries remain technically at war since the 1953 ceasefire treaty. "The U.N. resolution and the PSI have no direct link," a South Korean government official said on condition of anonymity. The officials had said they would decide what to do with the PSI after watching the U.N. resolution. "We have already been participating in international activities against the proliferation of WMD. It is a decision that must be made carefully." The case of North Korea and the swift passage of the resolution have turned the attention to other states with nuclear programs like Iran. "I think we may need to make sure it works for North Korea and I think we need to look ahead for other examples as well," U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill said, referring to Iran. Observers said it was highly unlikely for China and Russia to give the same level of cooperation to take any punitive action against Iran. "Russia will point out that Iran's case is far less egregious than North Korea's and may well argue that if (the Security Council) takes a confrontational approach," Karim Sadjadpour, an analyst at the International Crisis Group was quoted as saying by AFP. Both China and Russia have diverse energy and economic exchanges with Iran. For the time being, the countries, especially South Korea, have not given up hope in reviving the six-party talks. The Seoul government remained resolute that it will be pressuring the North along with the international community but also keep up diplomatic efforts. (angiely@heraldm.com) By Lee Joo-hee 2006.10.16 ***************************************************************** 14 INSIDE JoongAng Daily: Mass weapons: Where did the North get cash? Octorber 16, 2006 KST October 14, 2006 ¤Ń Funds used by South Korea to pay for North Korean sand have been given to front companies operated by the North Korean Ministry of the People's Armed Forces with the knowledge of Seoul, a Grand National Party lawmaker claimed yesterday. Citing data from the Korea Customs Service, Choi Kyung-hwan complained that from 2002 until June of this year, Seoul had paid Pyongyang $42 million for 11.3 million tons of sand. The lawmaker said his office has confirmed that the companies that received the payment are operated by the military bureau. An aide to the lawmaker said yesterday that individual contacts at those companies have confirmed the lawmaker's claim. The Unification Ministry agreed in a statement released yesterday that Mr. Choi had the numbers right. But it said the amount he cited included transportation costs, which were not paid to the North, and that only $10 million actually went there. But it said all North Korean entities in the deal are civilian companies under the North's National Economic Cooperation Federation. The ministry added that sand does not need a separate import permit; trade is allowed under a broad commercial agreement with the North. It said imports had helped stabilize the domestic gravel and sand market. The particulars of the dispute aside, however, a question remains about how a country said to be one of the poorest in the world could claim to have spent the huge sums of money necessary to conduct a nuclear test. Where did the money come from? A separate analysis by the Defense Ministry estimated that North Korea has spent between $290 million and $760 million to build the infrastructure that supported the presumed test. It spent between $57 million and $170 million on building a nuclear reactor at Yongbyon that began operating in 1986. In order to extract plutonium from this reactor, Pyongyang spend an additional $20 million-$59 million to build such facilities. In addition, the cost of producing the six to eight kilograms of plutonium that experts say is necessary to produce one nuclear weapon would have cost the North $23 million to $73 million, the ministry estimates. The cost of building an underground tunnel and testing facility would add perhaps $100 million to $300 million to the cost. In 2004, Pyongyang's total government budget was $2.5 billion. Lee Jong-seok, the unification minister, put the official financial aid given by Seoul to Pyongyang at $1.7 billion during the Kim Dae-jung administration and his successor's to date. by Brian Lee africanu@joongang.co.kr> Copyright by Joins.com, Inc. Terms of Use | ***************************************************************** 15 INSIDE JoongAng Daily: Hu, Roh say they back ˇ®proper' UN sanctions Octorber 16, 2006 KST 14:28 (GMT+9) October 14, 2006 ¤Ń BEIJING ˇŞ President Roh Moo-hyun and his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao, reportedly found common ground in dealing with North Korea's announced nuclear test yesterday. The two leaders said they would support United Nations measures that they deemed "necessary and proper" and would "make joint efforts for necessary diplomatic measures" to resolve the problem through the six-nation denuclearization talks. The Blue House senior security advisor, Song Min-soon, discussed the meeting with reporters yesterday. One of the most sensitive issues is whether the eventual UN resolution will include any reference to military enforcement of the world body's demands if necessary and if so, how Beijing and Seoul would react. It was not clear yesterday just what form the UN resolution would take; wire service reports Wednesday said the then-current draft included language identical to that in the UN Charter on collective military action. Mr. Song said the two leaders did not discuss the draft resolution in detail, but suggested that they both assumed that references to force would not be included. Speaking after the meeting, Mr. Hu said he and Mr. Roh had reached an "important agreement" and described South Korea-China relations as a "complete cooperative partnership." Mr. Roh responded in kind, calling China a "special neighbor" and described the meeting as a "very important opportunity for serious dialogue" over North Korean nuclear issue. Mr. Song added to the emphasis on harmony: "The two leaders never had a disagreement throughout the meeting," he said. The two leaders, Mr. Song continued, said they "firmly opposed" the North Korean nuclear test, calling it "unpardonable." They urged North Korea to return to the stalled six-party talks and called for a "stable denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula." Mr. Hu and Mr. Roh met for an hour, somewhat longer than planned, and continued their discussions at a wider meeting and a lunch. According to the Korean security adviser, Mr. Roh complained about China's historical assertions about the nature of a thousand-year old Manchurian kingdom, which Koreans see as "hijacking their history." Mr. Hu pledged that China would "certainly carry out the verbal accord." He was referring to an agreement by the two governments in 2004 to keep historical claims in the region from becoming a political issue. Mr. Roh also met with Prime Minister Wen Jiabao and the chairman of the National Peopleˇ®s Congress, Wu Bangguo, in the afternoon. He returned to Seoul yesterday evening. by Chun Su-jin, Park Sung-hee sujiney@joongang.co.kr> Copyright by Joins.com, Inc. Terms of Use | ***************************************************************** 16 Guardian Unlimited: Security Council OKs N. Korea Sanctions From the Associated Press [UP] Sunday October 15, 2006 5:46 AM AP Photo UNDK104 By EDITH M. LEDERER Associated Press Writer UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously on Saturday to impose punishing sanctions on North Korea including ship searches for banned weapons, calling Pyongyang's claimed nuclear test ``a clear threat to international peace and security.'' North Korea immediately rejected the resolution, and its U.N. ambassador walked out of the council chamber after accusing its members of a ``gangster-like'' action which neglects the nuclear threat posed by the United States. The U.S.-sponsored resolution demands that the reclusive communist nation abandon its nuclear weapons program, and orders all countries to prevent North Korea from importing or exporting any material for weapons of mass destruction or ballistic missiles. It orders nations to freeze assets of people or businesses connected to these programs, and ban the individuals from traveling. The resolution also calls on all countries to inspect cargo leaving and arriving in North Korea to prevent any illegal trafficking in unconventional weapons or ballistic missiles. The final draft was softened from language authorizing searches, but was still unacceptable to China - the North's closest ally and largest trading partner - which said it would not carry out any searches. U.S. Ambassador John Bolton said North Korea's proclaimed test ``poses one of the gravest threats to international peace and security that this council has ever had to confront.'' ``Today, we are sending a strong and clear message to North Korea and other would be proliferators that there will be serious repercussions in continuing to pursue weapons of mass destruction,'' he said, in what appeared to be a clear warning to Iran whose nuclear ambitions come before the Security Council again next week. North Korea's U.N. Ambassador Pak Gil Yon countered by blaming the United States for forcing the country to conduct a test because of its ``nuclear threat, sanctions and pressure.'' ``The Democratic People's Republic of Korea is ready for talks, dialogue and confrontation,'' Pak said. ``If the United States increases pressure upon the Democratic People's Republic of Korea persistently, the DPRK will continue to take physical countermeasures considering it as a declaration of war.'' North Korea has made similar threats in the past, and has also said it might conduct a second nuclear test in response to U.N. sanctions. The vote came after the United States, Britain and France overcame last-minute differences with Russia and China during what the Russian ambassador called ``tense negotiations.'' The resolution demands North Korea eliminate all its nuclear weapons but expressly rules out military action against the country, a demand by the Russians and Chinese. Bolton warned Pyongyang, however, that if it continues pursuing nuclear weapons, the U.S. would seek further measures. The Security Council condemned the nuclear test that North Korea said it conducted on Oct. 9. It demanded that North Korea immediately return to six-nation talks aimed at persuading Pyongyang to dismantle its weapons program without precondition. It also imposed sanctions for the North's ``flagrant disregard'' of the council's appeal not to detonate a nuclear device and demanded that North Korea ``not conduct any further nuclear test or launch of a ballistic missile.'' ``This action by the United Nations, which was swift and tough, says that we are united in our determination to see to it that the Korean peninsula is nuclear-weapons free,'' President Bush said. South Korea's Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon, who was chosen on Friday to become the next U.N. secretary-general, said in an interview with The Associated Press that the council's resolution ``sends a very strong, clear and unified message to North Korea.'' ``I hope that North Korea will comply with this resolution,'' he said. ``I hope that all member states of the United Nations will fully implement this resolution.'' Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Japan was considering additional sanctions against North Korea in line with the resolution, following its move Friday to ban trade with the North and close its ports to North Korean ships. ``We were able to send a strong message that the international community will not tolerate North Korea's owning nuclear weapons,'' Abe told reporters Sunday. In a measure aimed at North Korea's tiny elite, the resolution also bans the sale of luxury goods to the country. The North's reclusive leader, Kim Jong Il, is known for his love of cognac and lobster and collection of thousands of bottles of vintage French wine. To meet Russian and Chinese concerns, the Americans eliminated a complete ban on the sale of conventional weapons. Instead, the resolution limits the embargo to major hardware such as tanks, warships, combat aircraft and missiles. The council's go-ahead for the inspection of cargo gave broader global scope to the U.S.-led Proliferation Security Initiative launched in 2003 which urges countries to stop banned weapons from suspect countries including North Korea and Iran. China's U.N. Ambassador Wang Guangya said Beijing allowed the cargo provision to be included in what he called a ``watered-down'' resolution even though the government is opposed to it. ``China strongly urges the countries concerned to adopt a prudent and responsible attitude in this regard and refrain from taking any provocative steps that may intensify the tensions,'' he said. Wang said he did not consider the North Korean ambassador's response the official reply from Pyongyang, which he awaits. ``The important thing is not what they say here,'' Wang said. The overriding issue, he said, is ``how we work together for peace and security in the region.'' Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said Moscow got what it wanted - a strong resolution but one that is also aimed at ``prevention of a further escalation of tension.'' North Korea's Pak told the Security Council that the nuclear test was not inconsistent with the country's goal of a denuclearized Korean peninsula. ``The DPRK clarified more than once that it would feel no need to possess even a single nuke when it is no longer exposed to the United States' threat, after it has dropped its hostile policy to the DPRK and confidence has been built between the two countries,'' he said. Following Pak's speech, Bolton took the floor again saying ``I'm not going to waste any of our time responding.'' But he noted that North Korea had done Saturday exactly what it did in July after the council adopted limited sanctions for its ballistic missile tests - immediately reject the resolution and walk out. ``It is the contemporary equivalent of Nikita Khrushchev pounding his shoe on the desk,'' Bolton said, referring to the Soviet leader's legendary act of protest at the U.N. General Assembly in 1960. Bolton later told reporters that the next step is to start work on implementing the resolution. ``Hopefully on saner reflections perhaps they'll begin to accept that if they don't change course, the only future for them is continued isolation,'' he said. On Friday, U.S. officials said an air sampling after North Korea's claimed nuclear test detected radioactive debris consistent with an atomic explosion. However, the Bush administration and congressional officials said no final determination had been made about the nature of Monday's mystery-shrouded blast. The U.S. and other nations trying to persuade the North to give up its atomic program continued a flurry of high-level diplomatic visits, including a trip to Asia by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice meant to present a unified front to North Korea. The resolution invokes Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter, which the U.S. views as a necessary because it makes economic and diplomatic sanctions mandatory. China and Russia normally object to the Chapter 7 provision because it carries the possibility of military enforcement. The Bush administration used the same provision to justify its invasion of Iraq, and Moscow and Beijing worry the U.S. might do the same eventually with North Korea - even though Bush has said the U.S. has no plans to attack. But in a compromise also used in July to unanimously vote on a resolution condemning North Korean missile launches, the text added mention of Article 41 of the chapter, which permits only ``means not involving the use of military force.'' A Russian nuclear envoy who visited North Korea said Saturday he pressed the North to return to six-nation nuclear disarmament talks. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Alexeyev said he had a ``very useful'' meeting Friday with Kim Gye Gwan, the North's nuclear negotiator, but did not say how Kim responded. Pyongyang has boycotted the six-nation talks for the past 13 months to protest financial measures imposed by Washington for alleged counterfeiting and money-laundering. --- Associated Press writers Ed Harris at the United Nations, Robert Burns and Anne Gearan in Washington, and Chisaki Watanabe in Tokyo contributed to this report. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 ***************************************************************** 17 INSIDE JoongAng Daily: Resolution may include embargo on some armaments Octorber 16, 2006 KST October 14, 2006 ¤Ń The United Nations Security Council is reportedly close to agreement on a resolution responding to North Koreaˇ®s purported nuclear test. Adoption of the resolution could come as early as today in New York, sources familiar with the circumstances said yesterday. Washington's representative at the UN, John Bolton, told reporters yesterday, "I donˇ®t want to say we've reached agreement yet, but many, many of the significant differences have been closed, very much to our satisfaction." The current draft, based on a Washington proposal, would condemn North Koreaˇ®s action, order Pyongyang to halt all missile and nuclear weapons tests and prohibit UN members from providing any technology or financial assistance related to weapons of mass destruction. Reuters reported yesterday that the revised draft did not call for a blanket arms embargo, as originally envisaged, but bans the sale to North Korea of heavy conventional weapons such as armored combat vehicles, attack helicopters, warships and missiles. According to Reuters, the draft also includes a provision that allows nations to inspect cargo coming in and out from North Korea to prevent trafficking in nuclear, chemical or biological weapons. While the UN worked, the debate here on Seoul's engagement policy toward the North continued. Administration officials continued to be vague in discussing what it would do after a UN resolution was adopted. A senior administration official yesterday defended Seoul's engagement policy against charges that it was one-sided, with no corresponding actions by North Korea. "We never sent a single grain of rice for free," he asserted. Lee Jong-seok, Seoul's unification minister, asserted on Thursday that the assistance Seoul has provided to Pyongyang has not been excessive. "From 1995 until last year, we provided 2.45 million tons of rice while the United States provided 2.05 million tons during the same period. When you look at this, itˇ®s true that we have supported the North, but it's not too much." Separately, 77 Uri Party lawmakers issued a statement yesterday opposing Seoulˇ®s broader participation in a U.S.-led program to curb international trafficking in weapons of mass destruction. That program, the Proliferation Security Initiative, has obvious links to the draft UN resolution's call for inspections of North Korean cargo ships. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is expected to visit Seoul, Beijing and Tokyo next week, and the chief Russian and U.S. negotiators at the six-party talks are also to visit Seoul. by Brian Lee africanu@joongang.co.kr> Copyright by Joins.com, Inc. ***************************************************************** 18 INSIDE JoongAng Daily: [EDITORIALS]Time for harmony with U.S. Octorber 16, 2006 KST 14:35 (GMT+9) The United Nations Security Council yesterday adopted a resolution to sanction North Korea. The resolution is softer than a U.S. draft resolution but still covers very stern measures. The question is how the South Korean government will respond to it. The government says it will abide by the resolution. But by looking at the atmosphere surrounding the governing party, one wonders whether the administration will implement the resolution as required. Some politicians blame the United States for the North's nuclear test and some make attempts to lower the level of sanctions. Kim Keun-tae, Uri party chairman, opposes joining the Proliferation Security Initiative. He also said he would visit the Kaesong Industrial Complex over which Seoul and Washington are debating whether to end or continue business cooperation between South and North Korea. Another big problem is that the government and the ruling party have revealed their intention to continue business cooperation in the Kaesong Industrial Complex and Mount Kumgang tourism project. Washington believes that cash which is funneled to the North through these businesses is used by North Korea for developing weapons of mass destruction. The South Korean government should consult closely with Washington to make an agreement on this, whether it halts or continues those projects. Measures which can overly intensify tension on the Korean Peninsula should be avoided. South Korea should have dialogue with North Korea, if needed. However, now is not the right time because North Korea has passed the line by conducting a nuclear test. The most urgent thing to do for now is to make North Korea feel that tremendous punishment is being made against it in return for its nuclear test. It is not too late to have dialogue with Pyongyang after implementing stern sanctions. In this way, the odds in having dialogue become higher. North Korea does not care about South Korea. The North's statement regarding its nuclear test is for the United States. It is clear which path South Korea should take. South Korea should know that a resolution cannot view the North's nuclear crisis as an issue between the two Koreas. The North's nuclear crisis is an international matter that the United Nations Security Council has intervened in. Thus, perfect cooperation with Washington is needed more than anything else. The ruling party should bear in mind that this is the most crucial time for national security and should drop dangerous ideas. 2006.10.13 Copyright by Joins.com, Inc. Terms of Use | ***************************************************************** 19 INSIDE JoongAng Daily: [EDITORIALS]Agreement is fragile Octorber 16, 2006 KST 14:35 (GMT+9) Yesterday's South Korea-China summit had the same importance as the UN Security Council meeting on North Korea's nuclear test. The two countries have borders with North Korea, and give it the most economic support. In particular, China is North Korea's closest ally, and the chair country of the six-party talks. Thus the policies of China and South Korea are a key variable in the UN's dealings with Pyongyang. The two countries confirmed that the nuclear test was unacceptable and that North Korea must abide by its promise to denuclearize. They also urged North Korea to avoid any action that could aggravate the situation and return to the six-party talks. This means that China and South Korea have established a strong framework for working together; neither will acknowledge North Korea as a nuclear power and each demanded North Korea abandon its nuclear programs. This agreement was desirable; it meant the two countries stayed in step with the UN and the current position of the UN Security Council. Yet, the two countries left open the possibility of friction with the UN in the future, if the UN intensifies its actions against the North. Both South Korea and China attached the condition that their support will only be given to "necessary and proper" measures; which seems to imply that the two countries will oppose military sanctions. It also appears that two will carefully monitor financial sanctions. As a South Korean official put it, "We will participate if the financial sanctions are effective and if they are in concert with what the two leaders confirmed to be necessary and proper." When the UN Security Council presents its first draft resolution on financial sanctions, South Korea and China will submit it to careful scrutiny to make sure it suits their own interests. South Korea has the Kaesong Industrial Complex to protect. More crucially, China supplies 90 percent of North Korea's oil and they exchange thousands of truckloads of goods every month. Yesterday's summit meeting was only the start. Soon, when the UN resolution is enforced, there is the risk of more conflict between the nations involved. In that case, the UN Security Council's sanctions are bound to lose their impact and North Korea wil try to make use of that. If South Korea again takes an ambiguous attitude toward North Korea, differences between South Korea and the United States are bound to deepen. In that case, how can we guarantee the protection of the nuclear umbrella? 2006.10.13 Copyright by Joins.com, Inc. Terms of Use | ***************************************************************** 20 SF Chron: Cold War diplomacy may be best way to handle Korea, Iran / Bush seen as signaling possible change in policy to strategy of containment, deterrence [San Francisco Chronicle] Matthew B. Stannard, Chronicle Staff Writer Sunday, October 15, 2006 An ideological rival is rushing to develop a nuclear arsenal. Threats and entreaties from the international community fall on deaf ears. Military options may be unacceptably risky. In the end, America is forced to accept the inevitable and deal with the consequences. That's the path the United States may have to follow with North Korea and Iran, in the view of many analysts. But the United States has been down this road before, with the old Soviet Union, and with communist China. The road was long and often dark, but in each case the United States emerged safely -- the Soviets are no more, and China is seen as more of an economic rival than a nuclear threat. There are differences, of course, but there also are lessons that the Cold War can offer today's White House -- lessons some analysts say the White House seems to be taking to heart. Marina Ottaway, a senior associate at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, cites what she calls a "telling quote" in President Bush's news conference last Wednesday: "Stay the course means keep doing what you're doing. My attitude is, don't do what you're doing if it's not working; change." Bush was referring specifically to Iraq, but Ottaway saw it -- more fundamentally -- as "the closest he has ever come to preparing the public for a change in policy." That change, Ottaway and other foreign policy analysts suggest, could entail a shift away from unilateral force and back to the hallmarks of Cold War diplomacy: containment and deterrence. Those strategic concepts -- containing an aggressive power's expansionist tendencies while encouraging internal reform and using the threat of military reprisal to deter the opponent's use of force -- guided U.S. foreign policy for much of the past seven decades. They clearly are not the Bush administration's first choice. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said late last month that for Iran, at least, U.S. policy is to arrest that nation's nuclear program in infancy rather than to deter it in maturity. But a number of analysts say the idea is worth revisiting. "The experience of the Cold War suggested that deterrence works," said Andrew Bacevich, a professor of history and international relations at Boston University. "The great dilemma that we face now is trying to determine if deterrence will work against North Korea and Iran, and the dilemma hinges on our ability to determine whether or not those two regimes are rational." Many have said they are not, in part because of the public antics of their leaders: Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's religious visions and Holocaust denials, and North Korea's Kim Jong Il with his passion for Hollywood movies and Dr. Evil-style leisure suits. But the leaders of the Soviet Union and China seemed similarly erratic when they first sought nuclear weapons, said Dan Reiter, a political scientist at Emory University. "People thought that Mao Zedong was an ideologue, and people thought (Josef) Stalin was an ideologue," Reiter said. "Mao was talking about the acceptability of nuclear war. He was talking about the acceptability of losing hundreds of millions of people." But the fire-breathing rhetoric that regularly came out of the old Soviet Union and Maoist China did not translate into action. While North Korea's true intentions are something of a mystery, Iran's top mullahs, who hold the real power in the Islamic Republic, are far less adventurist than Ahmadinejad. "The rationality of the Soviets and the Chinese is easier to see in retrospect than it was at the time," Bacevich said. "Stalin was a paranoid lunatic in the clinical sense. But that didn't make the Soviet regime in the '40s and '50s irrational." Yet there are important differences between the Cold War nuclear states and the rogue powers of today. Like the Soviets and Chinese before them, most analysts believe, Iran and North Korea are seeking a bomb at least in part to defend themselves against a U.S. military assault. But they are developing their arsenals in a very different era. "In the Cold War, the world was divided neatly," said William Potter, director of the Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. "Both the Soviet Union and the United States, even though they disagreed on everything else, didn't want anybody else to acquire nuclear weapons." Neither was there the fear that, for example, a medium-size power like Iran might be tempted to share nuclear secrets or devices with non-state actors such as Hezbollah, or that North Korea might contemplate selling its technological know-how for desperately needed hard currency. There are reports that the Pentagon is at least gaming a pre-emptive attack -- an idea that Air Force leaders contemplated against the Soviets in the '50s. But even conservative analysts shudder at that prospect, especially if it involves nuclear weapons. "Preventative war is just not legal. You can't just attack somebody because someday they might be a threat to you," said James Jay Carafano, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation. The United States, then, is faced with a familiar dilemma: While diplomatic efforts to halt nuclear proliferation continue, few analysts are optimistic they will succeed, and the available military options seem similarly unlikely. Supporters of a return to an older playbook point to specific examples -- such as John F. Kennedy's warning to the Soviets during the Cuban Missile Crisis that a nuclear attack on the United States from Cuba would be treated as an attack by the Soviet Union. The Soviets ultimately blinked first. "That was wonderfully clarifying," said Graham Allison, director of Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. "The analogue to that now needs to be ... a very clear and credible articulation of a principle for North Korea that says if a bomb originates in North Korea, no matter whoever delivers it to the U.S. -- Osama -- or however they get it here, North Korea will be held accountable precisely as if North Korea attacked the U.S. with a nuclear-armed missile." At the same time, the threat posed by the new nuclear powers is far below the scale of the Cold War, noted Richard Betts, director of the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University -- giving the United States more flexibility than recent rhetoric might suggest. "Back in the Cold War, we were worried about World War III, in which in the space of a few hours, six or seven hundred million people would be dead," he said. "The current threats are really piss-ant threats compared to that." The United States also has tools available to it today that didn't exist in the Cold War era, Carafano noted, such as sole superpower status, surveillance technology, anti-missile systems under development and diplomatic tools such as the Proliferation Security Initiative, an agreement between 66 countries to intercept illicit arms shipments. However, modern deterrence and containment needs one more crucial element, analysts say. "You want a strong, unified, diplomatic effort," Carafano said. "The results of that may not necessarily be that you influence the behavior of the bad guys, but ... you show a unified face to them, and that's an equally important part of the deterrence." That element, a number of analysts said, may be part of the most important area of overlap between the Cold War and the modern era: the need for diplomacy, for talking, not only to American allies, but to American enemies. "Again, go back to the Cold War and what we did. There was a lot more than just hoping it would not happen. There was a lot of diplomacy involved," Ottaway said. What's more, Ottaway noted, the Cold War often involved the United States making concessions to its rivals -- from permitting cultural exchanges to negotiating reductions in arsenals -- despite fears of rewarding bad behavior that were debated then and have returned today in discussions over whether directly engaging Tehran and Pyongyang endorses their intransigence and repeats Europe's failed appeasement policies of the 1930s. "It's an idea which at times has been invoked, that ... you have to hold off talks until that group essentially has surrendered," Ottaway said. "I think, in the end, we have always been forced to talk to those people." While talking is anathema to advocates of "regime change," Richard Haass, the former director of policy planning for the State Department during President Bush's first term, notes that such a goal is not necessarily incompatible with the Cold War strategy of containment. "Advocates of regime change generally reject most, sometimes any, dealings with the regime in question, lest the process of interaction or engagement somehow buttress the offending government," Haass wrote in the August 2005 issue of "Foreign Affairs." "Diplomacy is therefore marginalized, as it has been in U.S. Cuba policy for 40 years, and as it has been more recently in U.S. policy toward both North Korea and Iran. ... Regime evolution, however, accepts the need for give-and-take. ... In the end, the Soviet regime did change." The White House and others have noted the many efforts at dialogue in the past decades that led to naught, accusing Iran and especially North Korea of walking away from dialogue and their own commitments. But in the absence of good options, it's a strategy worth embracing, Betts said. "I would rather bank on deterrence and containment as long as necessary," he said. "It took us over 40 years with the Soviet Union, and nobody until the very end of the Cold War believed the Soviet Union was going to crack up and collapse -- but it did." What's more, reducing the hostility between the United States and its newly nuclear rivals can, paradoxically, put those regimes on the defensive, Carafano said. "In a sense, they need an enemy. That's the problem here," he said. "If North Korea has no enemies, how do they justify having a garrison state? ... How do the radical elements in the Iranian government justify not giving people liberty, not growing the economy?" That does not mean, of course, that success is guaranteed, the experts said -- but then, it never has been. "This is a long-term competition," Carafano said. "We need to think about it in terms of a competition, not a crisis. "The weird thing about these regimes is they can hang on forever. ... On the other hand, they could make a critical internal error and the whole thing will fall apart in a New York minute." E-mail Matthew Stannard at mstannard@sfchronicle.com. Page A - 15 The San Francisco Chronicle] ***************************************************************** 21 AFP: US fights to hammer out N.Korea sanctions by Gerard Aziakou Sat Oct 14, 7:57 AM ET UNITED NATIONS (AFP) - The United States is scrambling to hammer out a consensus to impose sanctions on North Korea" /> for its nuclear test, still hoping for a UN Security Council vote later in the day. China and Russia raised last-minute objections to the latest US proposals, scuppering Washington's bid to get the Council to decide by Friday to punish the North after it said it had successfully tested an atom bomb. The Council's five permanent members -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States -- were set to meet along with Japan on Saturday morning in New York before the entire 15-nation Council re-convened. Any vote could be delayed as the United States waited to hear what new instructions had come from Moscow and Beijing, traditional allies of North Korea that generally oppose the use of international sanctions. The United States had already abandoned a blanket arms embargo on North Korea in an earlier draft resolution and given up the possibility that the final Council resolution would allow the use of military force. "I thought we had agreed to go to a vote (Saturday) morning," said the US ambassador to the United Nations" /> , John Bolton. "The vast majority of members want to vote as soon as possible." The latest US draft demands the elimination of all North Korean nuclear weapons as well as any weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles, and provides for a travel ban on officials who work on such programmes. It calls for a ban targeting missiles, tanks, large artillery systems, warships and combat aircraft, as well as for inspection of cargo to and from North Korea to prevent any illegal trafficking. In addition to an array of financial and other sanctions, it also calls on Pyongyang to return "without precondition" to the six-nation talks on its nuclear programmes that it has boycotted for nearly a year. China's UN ambassador Wang Guangya was non-committal when asked if the Council would vote Saturday, while Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the US draft "contains elements that should be discussed and clarified." Still, there appeared to be no doubt that some form of sanctions was on the way, and officials said US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice" /> would go to China, Japan and South Korea" /> next week to discuss how to implement them. "I think the key part of her trip will be to make sure that the resolution when passed will really have teeth to it and really function properly," said Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian affairs Christopher Hill. Hill, who has been the lead US negotiator in the six-way talks, said the United States was in "considerable, extensive discussions already with partners in anticipation" of the resolution's adoption. The United States has tried in vain to convince North Korea to abandon its atomic ambitions, even though non-proliferation has been a keystone of US President George W. Bush" /> 's foreign policy. The six-nation talks, which appeared to lead to a breakthrough deal with the North last year, collapsed when Pyongyang withdrew after the United States put sanctions on a Macau bank that it said was laundering the North's money. Communist North Korea -- one of the most impoverished and isolated nations in the world -- has repeatedly insisted that it needs nuclear weapons to deter an attack by the United States, which it says wants to topple its regime. Because it is almost entirely cut off from the rest of the world, claims made by the North Korean regime are difficult to verify, and there has been some doubt over whether it did carry out a nuclear test. CNN television, citing a US government source, reported Friday that the US military had detected traces of radioactivity in North Korea that provided some evidence a nuclear test had occurred. But a US official stopped short of confirming the report and said additional tests were being conducted. In contrast, Japan and South Korea have not found any unusual levels of radioactivity to support the claim of the test. Amid the 11th-hour diplomatic haggling at the Council, the man confirmed Friday to take over as UN secretary general at the end of the year, South Korea's Foreign Minister Ban Ki-Moon, wasted no time in urging it to take action. "I hope the Security Council will adopt a clear and strong resolution," Ban said. Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 22 AFP: UN imposes sanctions on NKorea by James Hossack Sat Oct 14, 6:02 PM ET UNITED NATIONS (AFP) - The UN Security Council unanimously agreed to impose sanctions on North Korea" /> , less than a week after Pyongyang defied the world by saying it had tested an atomic bomb. North Korea immediately said it "totally rejects" the resolution and its UN ambassador walked out of the council chamber. The agreement followed hours of intensive negotiations to find consensus on the international community's response to the test after Russia and China raised last-minute objections to the draft US proposals. The United States had led the calls for a strong international response to Pyongyang's test and welcomed the unanimous adoption of the resolution. Reacting to the vote, President George W. Bush" /> said the world had sent a "clear message" to Pyongyang. "It's a unanimous resolution sending a clear message to the leader of North Korea regarding his weapons programs," he said. Bush praised the Security Council for "swift and tough" action against the Stalinist nation. At the United Nations" /> , US ambassador John Bolton said that the world had made it clear to Pyongyang and other would-be proliferators that there will be "serious repercussions in continuing to pursue weapons of mass destruction." North Korea "unquestionably poses one of the greatest threats to international peace and security that this council has ever had to confront," he said. "This is an important moment, the question now is how North Korea responds." North Korea's UN ambassador Pak Gil Yon lashed back. "It is gangster-like for the Security Council to have adopted today a coercive resolution while neglecting the nuclear threat and moves for sanctions and pressure of the United States," he said. The resolution demands North Korea dismantle its nuclear weapons program and abandon all weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles, and provides for a travel ban on officials working on such programmes. It calls for a ban targeting exports of missiles, tanks, large artillery systems, warships and combat aircraft to North Korea. It also permits inspection of cargo to and from North Korea to prevent any illegal trafficking. In addition to an array of financial and other sanctions, the measure calls on Pyongyang to return "without precondition" to the stalled six-nation talks on its nuclear programme that it has boycotted for nearly a year. Ambassador Kenzo Oshima of Japan described the resolution as "one of the most important decisions this council has taken in recent times." On Friday, Beijing and Moscow had raised last-minute objections to the draft US proposals. Russian ambassador to the UN Vitaly Churkin described the Saturday talks to hammer out agreement as "tense negotiations." North Korea's two traditional allies, Russia and China, objected to any hint of the use of force, while Russia also wanted any sanctions to have time limits. Both China and Russia emphasized that the text made it clear that the sanctions would be lifted should North Korea comply with all the terms of the resolution. France and Britain said the sanctions reflected international unity and determination over the issue and urged North Korea to return to negotiations. "Confronted by the defiance of North Korea and in a context where we have to face other proliferation crises, it was essential that the international community be united and show exemplary firmness," French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said in a statement. British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett praised the "strong and united response" international response. Six party talks "are the only viable means of achieving lasting peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula," she said. Since the announced nuclear test on Monday, the United States had abandoned a blanket arms embargo on North Korea in an earlier draft, and had given up the possibility that the final council resolution would allow the use of military force. US officials said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice" /> would go to China, Japan and South Korea" /> next week to discuss how to implement the sanctions. "I think the key part of her trip will be to make sure that the resolution when passed will really have teeth to it and really function properly," said Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian affairs Christopher Hill. Hill has been the lead US negotiator in the six-nation talks, which appeared to lead to a breakthrough deal with the North last year but collapsed when Pyongyang withdrew after the United States slapped sanctions on a Macau bank that it said was laundering the North's money. Communist North Korea -- one of the most impoverished and isolated nations in the world -- has repeatedly insisted that it needs nuclear weapons to deter an attack by the United States, which it says wants to topple its regime. Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 23 AFP: World hails NKorea sanctions vote, but China still wary - Sun Oct 15, 12:38 PM ET WASHINGTON (AFP) - The international community has broadly welcomed United Nations" /> sanctions against North Korea" /> over its announced nuclear test, but the consensus was fractious. US President George W. Bush" /> said the unanimous Security Council resolution sent a clear message to North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il, a statement echoed in London, Paris, Tokyo and Seoul. But signs of the intense diplomatic haggling over the scale and nature of the sanctions were evident even after the text was approved in New York, with China -- Pyongyang's closest ally -- voicing reservations about provisions for inspecting cargo entering and leaving North Korea. In contrast, Japan, which had pushed for even tougher measures, said it was considering further action of its own to ratchet up the pressure on Pyongyang. In Washington, Bush said the world was united against Kim's atomic programme after its shock October 9 announcement. "This action by the United Nations, which was swift and tough, says that we are united in our determination to see to it that the Korean peninsula is nuclear weapons-free," the US president said Sunday. North Korea's UN ambassador Pak Gil Yon condemned the resolution and said the Security Council had ignored the nuclear threat posed by Washington. "It is gangster-like for the Security Council to have adopted today a coercive resolution while neglecting the nuclear threat and moves for sanctions and pressure of the United States," he said before storming out. The UN text demands elimination of all North Korean programmes related to weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles, a ban targeting missiles, tanks, large artillery systems, warships and combat aircraft, and provides for the inspection of cargo to and from the state. It further allows a travel ban on officials working on such programmes and the freezing of funds and economic assets linked to them, as well as slapping an embargo on luxury goods. But it specifically does not include any reference to military action. China's UN ambassador, Wang Guangya, voiced reservations about provisions for cargo inspections, saying Beijing did not approve. In a Sunday statement, the Chinese foreign ministry said the UN Security Council resolution should be firm but help to peacefully solve the crisis the test caused. "We advocate that the UN Security Council's action has to show the firm position of the international community, but on the other hand it also should be conducive towards resolving the problems through peaceful dialogue," said ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao. "We urge all sides to be restrained and calm and to take a prudent and responsible attitude to jointly prevent the escalation of the situation, as well as to try ending the stalemate and resume the six-party talks," he said. Xinhua news agency reported Liu as saying that China was "resolutely opposed" to the North's declared atom bomb test and "determined to achieve a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula peacefully through dialogue and consultation." Japan hailed the UN decision as a "great step forward". Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Tokyo was considering further measures after slapping a sweeping ban on North Korean imports before the UN vote. "With the resolution, the international community has been able to send a strong message that we do not tolerate possession of nuclear weapons," he told reporters. South Korea" /> urged the North to recognise the international community's "firm stance", abandon its weapons programme and return to six-party talks. The foreign ministry said Seoul, one of the communist state's main economic benefactors, welcomed and supported the resolution and would "sincerely implement" it. The European Union" /> welcomed the sanctions, saying a united stand augured well for any showdown with Iran" /> over its disputed nuclear programme. European Commission" /> President Jose Manuel Barroso told BBC television the EU fully backed the sanctions. "They are really important for the credibility of the international community because what's happening in North Korea is not only very bad and very dangerous for the region, but for the world," he said. The development in Pyongyang "raises the question of proliferation of nuclear technology and (the) possibility of North Korea selling that technology to terrorist groups," Barroso said. "We are very happy for instance with the tough position taken by China," Barroso said. "That was good because this is also important for Iran. "So the signal that we give now with North Korea can be also important for the Iran issue," he said. Iran has been under growing pressure since missing an August 31 UN deadline to suspend uranium enrichment. Britain said the six-nation talks, which Pyongyang has boycotted since last November, were the only viable means of creating lasting peace and stability on the Korean peninsula. France, like Britain a nuclear power, said the united global response was essential because the world faced other proliferation crises. Australia -- one of the few nations with diplomatic ties to North Korea -- also welcomed the sanctions. Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said Canberra was considering its own ban on all visits by North Korean ships and whether naval ships should take part in the cargo inspections. "I think they are surprisingly tough, it's a very robust Security Council resolution," he said. A number of Asian nations welcomed the UN sanctions and called for North Korea to return to talks. "Thailand supports the UN resolution. We wish to see real and constructive action from North Korea to reach a peaceful solution to the crisis," said Thai foreign ministry spokesman Kitti Wasinond. Cambodia described the sanctions as "an appropriate step". But a government spokesman added: "we hope that the sanctions will not seriously affect the people of North Korea." Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 24 AFP: UN presses NKorea with sanctions after test by Marc Carnegie Sun Oct 15, 10:56 AM ET SEOUL (AFP) - North Korea" /> North Koreahave come under new pressure to resume international talks on its atomic programme after the UN Security Council imposed sanctions on Pyongyang for its declared nuclear test. Despite lingering disagreements on how to handle the crisis, the Council voted unanimously Saturday to punish the North, which said it "totally rejects" the measure and warned earlier that sanctions could be a "declaration of war." The Security Council resolution calls on the North to give up whatever atomic and other mass-destruction weapons it has in a verifiable way and come back to the bargaining table it has boycotted for nearly a year. Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Alexeyev, after meeting his North Korean counterpart, said Pyongyang had reiterated it wanted to return to talks and pledged not to transfer its nuclear know-how to any other nation. "They said that only after analysing the UN resolution would they plan the subsequent character of their actions and set the outlines of the steps and measures that will be taken," he said, according to Russian news agencies. "The North Korean side several times returned to the point that the six-sided process should continue," said Alexeyev. The Russian met Sunday evening with Chun Yung-Woo, South Korea" /> South Korea's main nuclear negotiator, who said it was too early to be confident the talks could be restarted. "We have to see how North Korea will respond to the sanctions. After then, we can confidently talk about the diplomatic process," Chun said. The United States led the push for sanctions against the North after its first ever nuclear test on October 9 but ran into some opposition from China and Russia, veto-wielding Council nations that are traditional allies of Pyongyang's communist regime. Even after the 15-0 vote, China's UN ambassador Wang Guangya expressed reservations about provisions in the resolution for inspecting cargo going in and out of North Korea, saying Beijing did not approve. "China strongly urges the countries concerned to adopt a prudent and responsible attitude in this regard and refrain from taking any provocative steps that may intensify the tension," Wang said. The resolution demands North Korea dismantle its nuclear weapons programme and abandon all weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles. It provides for a travel ban on officials working on such programmes. It calls for a ban targeting exports of missiles, tanks, large artillery systems, warships and combat aircraft to North Korea. It also permits cargo inspection to prevent any illegal trafficking. It was not immediately clear how the sanctions would be enforced or how the North would react to them, but North Korea's UN ambassador Pak Gil Yon made it clear that the regime rejected the Council action. "It is gangster-like for the Security Council to have adopted today a coercive resolution," Pak said. Communist North Korea, one of the world's most impoverished and isolated nations, has repeatedly insisted that it needs nuclear weapons to deter an attack by the United States, which it says wants to topple its regime. The six-nation talks -- between China, Japan, Russia, North and South Korea, and the US -- appeared to have won agreement from Pyongyang last year to give up its nuclear ambitions. But the negotiating process fell apart when the North withdrew after the US imposed sanctions on a Macau bank that it said was laundering the money of the North, which is believed to be strapped for cash. The United States was to send Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice" /> Condoleezza Riceto China, Japan and South Korea this week to discuss implementing the resolution, which President George W. Bush" /> President George W. Bushpraised for "swift and tough" action. "It's a unanimous resolution sending a clear message to the leader of North Korea regarding his weapons programs," Bush said. The last round of UN sanctions against Pyongyang, imposed after it test-fired seven missiles in July, failed to prevent the declared nuclear test and some analysts believe another test is still on the way. "They can probably survive the sanctions being considered at present but a second test would push the international community further to take aggressive action," said John Harrison of the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies in Singapore. The test sparked initial fears of an arms race in Asia, where nations such as South Korea and Japan have overcome traditional differences to find common cause in trying to rein in the Pyongyang regime. Foreign Minister Taro Aso of Japan, which had already imposed its own sanctions including cutting off trade with the North, said his nation should help the US military in inspecting North Korean cargo. Aso said it was "only natural" for Japan to help prevent military shipments. Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 25 AFP: Canada endorses UN sanctions against North Korea - Sun Oct 15, 2:46 PM ET OTTAWA (AFP) - Canada strongly supports UN Security Council sanctions against North Korea" /> after the Stalinist state announced it had carried out a nuclear test, the foreign minister said. "Canada is pleased that the UN Security Council has responded to the provocative action of the nuclear test by North Korea on October 9 and approved Resolution 1718, which we strongly support," Foreign Minister Peter MacKay said in a statement released late Saturday. MacKay said Canada would fulfill its obligations under the resolution and "urges North Korea to return to the six-party talks, without condition, as the best forum to address its economic, political and security goals." The resolution demands North Korea dismantle its nuclear weapons and abandon all weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs, and provides for a travel ban on officials working on such programs. It calls for a ban targeting exports of missiles, tanks, large artillery systems, warships and combat aircraft to North Korea. It also permits inspection of cargo to and from North Korea to prevent any illegal trafficking. Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 26 AFP: World hails NKorea sanctions vote, but China still wary Sun Oct 15, 6:38 AM ET WASHINGTON (AFP) - World leaders have broadly hailed UN sanctions on North Korea" /> North Koreaover the reclusive country's announced nuclear test, but the consensus was fractious and China said it still had objections. US President George W. Bush" /> President George W. Bushsaid the unanimous Security Council resolution sent "a clear message" to its reclusive leader Kim Jong-Il, a statement echoed in London, Paris, Tokyo and Seoul Sunday. But signs of the intense diplomatic haggling over the scale and nature of the sanctions were evident even after the text was approved in New York, with China -- Pyongyang's closest ally -- voicing "reservations" about provisions for inspecting cargo going in and out of North Korea. In contrast, Japan, which had pushed for even tougher measures, said it was considering further action of its own to ratchet up the pressure on Pyongyang. In Washington, Bush said the world was united against Kim's atomic programme after its shock October 9 announcement that it had tested a nuclear weapon. "This action by the United Nations" /> United Nations, which was swift and tough, says that we are united in our determination to see to it that the Korean peninsula is nuclear weapons-free," the US president said. North Korea's UN ambassador Pak Gil Yon condemned the resolution and said the Security Council had ignored the nuclear threat posed by Washington. "It is gangster-like for the Security Council to have adopted today a coercive resolution while neglecting the nuclear threat and moves for sanctions and pressure of the United States," he said before storming out. The UN text demands elimination of all North Korean programmes related to weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles, a ban targeting missiles, tanks, large artillery systems, warships and combat aircraft, and provides for the inspection of cargo to and from the state. It further allows a travel ban on officials working on such programmes and the freezing of funds and economic assets linked to them, as well as slapping an embargo on luxury goods. But it specifically does not include any reference to military action. China's UN ambassador, Wang Guangya, voiced "reservations" about provisions for cargo inspections, saying Beijing did not approve. But Japan hailed the UN decision as a "great step forward". Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Tokyo was considering further measures after slapping a sweeping ban on North Korean imports before the UN vote. "With the resolution, the international community has been able to send a strong message that we do not tolerate possession of nuclear weapons," he told reporters. Asked what further specific measures Japan had in mind, he replied: "We are already considering them. We will make our final decision." South Korea" /> South Koreaurged the North to recognise the international community's "firm stance", abandon its weapons programme and return to six-party talks. The foreign ministry said Seoul, one of the communist state's main economic benefactors, "welcomes and supports" the UN resolution and would "sincerely implement" it. Britain said the six-nation talks, which Pyongyang has boycotted since last November, were "the only viable means" of creating lasting peace and stability on the Korean peninsula. France, like Britain a nuclear power, said the united global response was essential because the world faced "other proliferation crises," a likely reference to the long-standing standoff over Iran" /> Iran's nuclear programme. Australia -- one of the few nations with diplomatic ties to North Korea -- welcomed the sanctions as "surprisingly tough." Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said Canberra was considering a ban of its own on all visits by North Korean ships and whether naval ships should take part in the cargo inspections. "I think they are surprisingly tough, it's a very robust Security Council resolution," he said. A number of Asian nations welcomed the UN sanctions and called for North Korea to return to talks. "Thailand supports the UN resolution. We wish to see real and constructive action from North Korea to reach a peaceful solution to the crisis," said Thai foreign ministry spokesman Kitti Wasinond. Singapore called on the Stalinist state to abandon its nuclear weapons programme and return to six-party talks without preconditions, saying it would be in North Korea's "own best interests" to do so. Cambodia, one of the few nations with diplomatic ties to North Korea, said it supported the sanctions and described them as an "an appropriate step". But Cambodian government spokesman Khieu Kanharith added "we hope that the sanctions will not seriously affect the people of North Korea." Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 27 AFP: Signs of discord over NKorea sanctions Sun Oct 15, 7:15 PM ET WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States sought to play down signs of discord with China over how to enforce UN sanctions imposed on North Korea" /> North Koreaover its nuclear weapons program. A day after the UN Security Council voted unanimously to slap weapons and financial sanctions against North Korea for its declared nuclear test, questions loomed about whether the measures would be fully enforced amid reservations from China. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice" /> Condoleezza Riceinsisted China would work to enforce the sanctions against North Korea despite Beijing's stated objections to cargo inspections. "China is signed on to a resolution that pledges cooperation in stopping the proliferation trade with North Korea," Rice said on the Fox News Sunday program. "I'm quite certain that China has no interest in seeing the proliferation of dangerous materials from North Korea," she said. Rice, who was due to meet Asian leaders starting Tuesday to discuss the enforcement of the sanctions, acknowledged that there were "many details to be worked out, particularly about how this embargo and interdiction might work." The blunt-speaking US ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, said Beijing bore a "heavy responsibility" to carry out the sanctions. "The burden is on China to comply with the resolution," Bolton said on CNN's Late Edition. The resolution adopted by the Security Council on Saturday bans trade with North Korea in dangerous weapons, bars the export of heavy conventional weapons to the Stalinist state, calls for a freeze on financial assets and imposes a travel ban on those linked to the country's nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction programs. The most hotly contested measure was the call for cargo inspections, which aims to prevent the cash-strapped North Korean regime from selling material for an atomic bomb to terrorists or rogue states. Bolton said the measure could be carried out mainly by inspecting North Korean cargo once it reached foreign shores but he did not rule out risky high-seas search operations. China, Pyongyang's main trade partner and which shares a long land border with North Korea, said immediately after the vote that it would not carry out intrusive inspections Washington says are called for in the resolution. In a Sunday statement, the Chinese foreign ministry said the UN resolution demonstrated international resolve while offering a way to defuse the crisis peacefully. "We advocate that the UN Security Council's action has to show the firm position of the international community, but on the other hand it also should be conducive towards resolving the problems through peaceful dialogue," said ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao. Russia has shared China's reluctance to back punishing sanctions favored by Japan and the United States. Moscow described the negotiations before the vote as "tense" and had favored time limits on any sanctions. In a concession, the United States agreed to drop any reference to a threat of military force. While it remained unclear how the sanctions would be carried out, China and other world powers were in agreement in condemning North Korea for its nuclear test and its boycott of negotiations. The resolution urged Pyongyang to give up its nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction in a verifiable manner and return to international negotiations that it has boycotted for nearly a year. In Seoul, Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Alexeyev said the North Koreans had appeared willing to return to the bargaining table in talks last week. "The North Korean side several times returned to the point that the six-sided process should continue," said Alexeyev, according to Russian news agencies. The Russian met Sunday with Chun Yung-Woo, South Korea" /> South Korea's main nuclear negotiator, who said it was too early to be confident the talks could be revived. "We have to see how North Korea will respond to the sanctions. After then, we can confidently talk about the diplomatic process," Chun said. North Korea's UN ambassador Pak Gil Yon angrily rejected the Council action. "It is gangster-like for the Security Council to have adopted today a coercive resolution," Pak said after the vote before walking out of the hall. One of the world's most impoverished and isolated nations, communist North Korea has insisted that it needs nuclear arms to deter an attack by the United States, which it says is plotting to topple the regime. The six-nation talks -- involving China, Japan, Russia, North and South Korea, and the US -- appeared to have won agreement from Pyongyang last year to give up its nuclear ambitions. But the talks fell apart when the North withdrew after Washington imposed sanctions on a Macau bank that it said was laundering money from North Korea. Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 28 AFP: North Korea considering return to six-party talks - Russian envoy by Nick Coleman Sun Oct 15, 7:48 AM ET MOSCOW (AFP) - North Korea" /> North Koreastill hopes six-party talks on its nuclear programme will continue and will decide on returning to the negotiating table after studying sanctions set out in a UN resolution, a Russian envoy said after visiting Pyongyang. Speaking in Beijing, Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Alexeyev told the RIA-Novosti news agency that the reclusive North Korean leadership was still interested in returning to negotiations. "They said that only after analysing the UN resolution would they plan the subsequent character of their actions ... including in relation to the resumption of the six-sided process," said Alexeyev Sunday. He was to fly on to Seoul for further consultations, after the UN Security Council unanimously voted on Saturday to impose punitive sanctions on North Korea for its declared nuclear test while avoiding the threat of military force. Saturday's resolution called on North Korea to return immediately to the six-party talks on the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula without precondition. The talks, which began in 2003, but stalled in November 2005, involve Russia, North Korea, South Korea" /> South Korea, China, Japan and the United States. "The North Korean side several times returned to the point that the six-sided process should continue, that it is not rejecting six-sided negotiations," Alexeyev said, although he did not have high hopes that would happen. Alexeyev met his North Korean counterpart Kim Ky-kwan and other officials earlier in Pyongyang -- a reflection of the relatively close ties between Russia and North Korea. The North Koreans insisted on the unthreatening nature of their weapons programme, Alexeyev said. Pyongyang "is ready to discuss in a constructive manner" steps to create a Korean peninsula free from nuclear weapons, he said. Officials had promised North Korea would "under no circumstances pass on its nuclear capabilities to another country or use them against anyone," he said. Communist North Korea -- one of the most impoverished and isolated nations in the world -- has repeatedly insisted that it needs nuclear weapons to deter an attack by the United States, which it says wants to topple its regime. Russia, along with its neighbour China, had been cautious on US proposals for sanctions on North Korea, insisting that the UN resolution should carry no threat of force and should be time-limited. Russia has an 18-kilometre (11-mile) border with North Korea in the far eastern coastal province of Primorsky, where a demonstration by students took place in the city of Vladivostok last week against the North Korean test. On Saturday, Russia's influential Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov called the test a "disgrace" and said that while no ecological damage had been caused to Russia or China, that provided no reassurances about any future tests. Besides Alexeyev's comments, reaction in Moscow to the sanctions was low key -- in contrast with the praise that came from other countries around the world. The deputy head of the lower house of parliament's foreign affairs committee, Leonid Slutsky, called the resolution "objective and timely... with the accents in the right places". "North Korea's activities in the area of nuclear weapons testing are dangerous for the whole region and for global security," he said. The North's tests "only whip up the self-importance of the United States, which as global gendarme has placed North Korea in an axis of evil," Slutsky was quoted by RIA-Novosti as saying. Saturday's Security Council meeting saw a resurfacing of US-Russian tensions, as Russian envoy Vitaly Churkin complained about comments by his US counterpart John Bolton. Bolton had likened a decision by North Korea's envoy to walk out of the session to an incident in 1960 when Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev banged his shoe on a UN desk. Churkin asked the acting Japanese president of the Security Council to use his influence to ensure that Bolton "even in an emotional state not use inappropriate analogies". Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 29 AFP: Japan hails UN resolution, considers more NKorea sanctions - by Hiroshi Hiyama Sun Oct 15, 2:41 AM ET TOKYO (AFP) - Japan on Sunday hailed the UN Security Council's decision to impose wide-ranging sanctions on North Korea" /> as a "great step forward" and said it was considering more measures to ramp up the pressure. Japan has championed a tough line on its communist neighbor and has already slapped a sweeping ban on North Korean imports in response to its declared nuclear test. "With the resolution, the international community has been able to send a strong message that we do not tolerate possession of nuclear weapons" by North Korea, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told reporters. "We will take measures to stop the possession of any nuclear capability and nuclear proliferation," said Abe, who took office last month and rose to popularity by taking a hardline stance against Pyongyang. Abe said Japan was looking at additional sanctions it can take in line with the Security Council resolution, which demands the elimination of all North Korean nuclear weapons, weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles. Asked what specific measures Japan had in mind, Abe said only: "We are already considering them. We will make our final decision." Japan has already imposed most sanctions at its disposal. It last week banned all North Korean imports and ships and the entry into Japan by most North Korean nationals. Japan had already suspended a ferry link with North Korea in response to Pyongyang's test-firing of seven missiles in July. In 2004, it cut off food aid to the impoverished state. Foreign Minister Taro Aso, who made a round of appearances on television talk shows following the UN vote, praised the swift action by the Security Council. "It was good that the UN Security Council spent only six days to unanimously agree on the resolution that invokes Chapter VII of the UN Charter," which opens the door to mandatory sanctions, Aso said. "This is a great step forward. A nuclear test is absolutely different from missile tests. As a crime, this is more serious, and the world recognizes that," he said. Japan is particularly sensitive as North Korea fired a missile over its main island in 1998 and has admitted kidnapping Japanese civilians in the 1970s and 1980s. Aso said it was increasingly important for Japan, South Korea" /> and the United States to form a united front in dealing with a nuclear North Korea. Abe last week visited South Korea and China, which have backed a softer approach on North Korea, in a bid to repair relations and form a consensus on how to deal with the regime of Kim Jong-Il. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice" /> is set to tour China, Japan and South Korea this week. Earlier in the day, Aso issued a written statement, saying the UN Security Council resolution "sends out a resolute message of the international community condemning this act" -- a message Pyongyang "must take very seriously". "Japan strongly urges North Korea to sincerely implement this resolution. For its part, Japan intends to make its utmost efforts for the steady implementation of this resolution, in cooperation with other countries." The resolution bans the sale or transfer to North Korea of missiles, tanks, large artillery systems, warships and combat aircraft. It also provides for inspection of cargo to and from the communist state. Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 30 AFP: Unbowed US puts financial squeeze on NKorea by by Jitendra Joshi Sat Oct 14, 6:46 PM ET WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States is unrepentant over a financial offensive that North Korea" /> North Koreasays drove it to test a nuclear bomb -- and is fighting to tighten the noose on the Stalinist state. Kim Jong-Il's hardline regime claims that 11-month-old US banking sanctions were one of the principal triggers for its declared test detonation of an atomic device last week. But US officials are unapologetic, and are pursuing a similar financial track against Iran" /> Iran, which stands accused of leading its own covert drive to manufacture nuclear arms. The US drive predates and is independent of action at the United Nations" /> United NationsSecurity Council, which Saturday imposed sanctions including new financial restrictions related to North Korea's drive for weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Stuart Levey, the US Treasury's undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, described North Korea's access to global banking as now "significantly constrained." "It's certainly going to be our policy to continue to try to keep the global financial system free from money-laundering, terrorism and (weapons) proliferation," he told AFP. "That does make those who engage in this activity feel the stress." North Korea's UN ambassador, Pak Gil Yon, lashed back Saturday after last-minute objections from China and Russia were overcome to allow the UN resolution to pass. "It is gangster-like for the Security Council to have adopted today a coercive resolution while neglecting the nuclear threat and moves for sanctions and pressure of the United States," he said. North Korea has boycotted international talks designed to defuse its nuclear ambitions since November 2005, after the US Treasury blacklisted Macau's Banco Delta Asia. Washington said the bank in the tiny Chinese territory was one of several across Asia that were being used by North Korea to launder millions of dollars towards WMD development. The Macau bank was thrown into receivership and other lenders in the region have frozen accounts linked to Pyongyang, fearful of displeasing the US government and so losing access to US banking. Alan Romberg, a former State Department official who is now director of East Asia studies at the Henry L. Stimson Center, said North Korea was hurting from the US financial pressure. "I think that freezing or a threat to freeze North Korean-related bank accounts has had a very widespread effect in closing down the North's access to international finance," he said. The US government has stressed to banks that funds "can be diverted from a presumably legitimate purpose to WMD programmes, and so we can't have any dealing financially with North Korea on anything". Since the September 11 attacks of 2001, the United States has waged financial war as a central part of its global offensive against terrorism. By all accounts, it has struggled to sever the informal channels that funnel money to Osama bin Laden" /> Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network. But it has more confidence in going after state regimes that rely on regular banking flows. The Treasury Department" /> Treasury Departmentlast month shut out Bank Saderat, one of Iran's largest lenders, from doing any business with US-owned banks on the grounds that it supports terrorism. Treasury officials including Levey have fanned out across Europe, the Middle East and Asia to warn foreign lenders of the risks of doing business with seemingly legitimate companies from Iran. "They're asking themselves, do we want to be the banker for this regime? That is a similar dynamic to what we saw, much more dramatically, with respect to North Korea," Levey said. As one of its reasons for invading Iraq" /> Iraq, the Bush administration argued that sanctions had failed to contain Saddam Hussein" /> Saddam Hussein's regime. It appears to be taking a different tack to the two other countries on Bush's "axis of evil." Michael Green, who was the National Security Council senior director for Asia before leaving the Bush administration last year to join the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the sanctions had bite this time. For North Korea, the financial pressure "will hit the regime elite hard" by denying it access to components for nuclear and missiles development. "And they do need to buy dual-use technologies on the international market. They don't have most of this at home," Green said. Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 31 AFP: China ready for refugee rush after NKorean nuclear test - by Robert J. Saiget Sun Oct 15, 4:51 AM ET TUMEN, China (AFP) - In this border town in remote northeast China, 200 kilometers (120 miles) from where North Korea" /> conducted its first nuclear test, locals are preparing for another influx of refugees from across the Tumen River. Up to 300,000 North Korean refugees are already believed to live illegally in the Yanbian region of Jilin province, many of whom risked torture, jailings or execution to escape starvation and oppression in their homeland. "I think there will be more and more sneaking over the border, already a lot of North Koreans have come over," said a Tumen businessman named Piao. "China has reduced its grain aid to North Korea and if the aid drops off more because of the nuclear test then there will be even less food to eat and more reason to flee." Piao, 43, a Chinese-born ethnic Korean who worked to smuggle his grandmother out of North Korea in the 1990s, said many people like him are willing to help refugees to a better life in China despite Beijing's harsh repatriation policy, which has seen countless others sent back across the border to an often brutal fate. During the autumn months when the water on the Tumen River is low, and in winter when it freezes, little groups of North Koreans -- mostly young people and increasingly female -- can be seen sneaking across unguarded areas. "These young people are Koreans like us, how can we not help them?" Piao asked. "If they ask for help, we will give them food and help them locate their relatives over here. "If we can locate their relatives, the relatives will reimburse us for the costs." Half of the 2.18 million people in Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture are ethnic Koreans, who like many of the Han Chinese still have relatives in North Korea. Not all steal over the border. Others come via family visits that can last up to six months. These too are becoming increasingly regular as impoverished North Koreans rely more and more on richer China, locals say. For refugees, Yanbian's Christian groups are crucial in providing shelter and aid, both from state-approved and unsanctioned "underground" churches. "Our church is state-sanctioned ... so sometimes it is difficult for us to help the refugees," said an ethnic Korean woman named Kim at Tumen Protestant Church, the biggest in the city. "But we can't turn them away empty-handed and we will never turn them over to police." At one of nearby Yanji city's many Christian churches, a minister called on Beijing to reverse a repatriation policy many see as unjust. "The Chinese government should recognize these North Koreans as refugees and allow us to offer them aid in accordance with the United Nation's charter," the minister told AFP on condition of anonymity. "We hope the government will show more leniency to these people now that North Korea has tested a nuclear bomb." The UN charter says refugees have a right to stay in the country where they have sought refuge if they have a genuine and well-founded fear of persecution in their homeland. Beijing's insistence that fleeing North Koreans are just seeking economic benefits has been key in allowing it to label them "illegal immigrants." According to the minister, Yanbian's many unregistered church groups, which often get South Korean donations to help refugees, are becoming more active in helping North Koreans. But members of such churches risk arrest, and blatant violation of Beijing's rules often ends up with the government imposing greater religious controls on the entire community, he said. Nevertheless, even if the government does not welcome the refugees, Chinese nationals in the region seem to. "The North Koreans are smart people, they are willing to work hard and they learn Chinese quickly," said a Chinese taxi driver surnamed Ji from Yanji. "A lot of the North Korean women who come over the border can easily marry local Chinese men," said Ji, whose ethnic Chinese grand aunt visits every few years from her home in North Korea. Although such marriages cannot be legally registered, fake identification papers can be procured, while local civil affairs departments can be paid to turn a blind eye, he said. Those sent back to North Korea, or caught at the border, are destined for stints in labor camps, torture and even executions, according to international human rights groups. "These people who come over are viewed (by Pyongyang) as traitors who are selling out their motherland," said an ethnic Korean medical worker called He in Kaishantun, a border village just south of Tumen. Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 32 AFP: US Rice denies rift with China over enacting UN sanctions on North Korea - by David Millikin Sun Oct 15, 2:49 PM ET WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States urged China to fully implement unprecedented UN sanctions adopted this weekend against its ally, North Korea" /> North Korea, following Pyongyang's announced nuclear weapons test. But US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice" /> Condoleezza Rice, who heads to the region this week, admitted that the key sanction measure allowing for the seizure of cargo going in and out of the reclusive communist nation will have to be enacted prudently due to reservations by neighboring states. China joined the 14 other members of the UN Security Council on Saturday in voting for broad sanctions designed to force North Korea to give up its nuclear arms and return to six-nation talks on ending the state's isolation. The sanctions range from a prohibition on exports of luxury products for use by North Korea's ruling elite and a partial arms embargo to travel bans on officials involved in weapons development and financial moves to starve the country's military programs of cash. But the central measures, pushed hard by the United States and Japan and accepted only reluctantly and in a watered-down form by China and Russia, aim to prevent the cash-strapped North Korean regime from selling a nuclear bomb to terrorists or rogue states. "The guts of the resolution is to prohibit trade in weapons of mass destruction-related materials," John Bolton, the US ambassador to the United Nation who led negotiations on the UN move, said Sunday. Bolton said the measure would primarily involve inspecting North Korean cargo when it reach foreign shores, although he did not rule out risky high-seas search and seizure operations. China, Pyongyang's main trade partner and which shares a long land border with North Korea, immediately expressed its unwillingness to carry out the kind of invasive inspections Washington says are called for in the resolution. "Our political position is, we're not in favor of inspections because ... as a general principle we felt that it will lead to negative consequences," said China's UN ambassador, Wang Guangya. Both Rice and Bolton expressed confidence that China would meet its responsibilities under the resolution, while admitting that delicate negotiations on exactly how to proceed lay ahead during the secretary of state's tour later this week to China, South Korea" /> South Koreaand Japan. "The burden is on China to comply with the resolution," Bolton said on CNN Sunday in one of a series of television interviews in which he repeatedly spoke of Beijing's "heavy responsibility" to carry out the mandatory sanctions. "It will take some work to talk about the implementation of the resolution, that's part of what I will do when I go out to the region on Tuesday," Rice added in an interview on CBS television's Face the Nation program. "There will be details to work out, there will be differences in emphasis, but the North Koreans now face a united front that will not allow them to continue to pursue their nuclear programs without consequence, and that's an extremely important step," she said. "I think you're going to find China carrying out its responsibilities." China and South Korea in particular have expressed deep concerns that aggressively trying to interdict ships and aircraft travelling to or from North Korea could spark a war with the erratic regime of Kim Jong-Il. North Korea's ambassador to the United Nations" /> United Nations, Pak Gil Yon, fueled such fears this weekend by warning his country would take "physical counter-measures" in response to continued pressure on it. While insisting Washington will press ahead with inspections of North Korean ships and planes under an informal multinational arrangement called the Proliferation Security Initiative, US officials recognized the need to proceed cautiously. "We want to have a very serious discussion about how to use this interdiction provision," Rice said. "This is a powerful tool, but it's also a tool that needs to be used carefully," she said. Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 33 AFP: UN presses NKorea with sanctions after test by Marc Carnegie Sun Oct 15, 6:11 AM ET SEOUL (AFP) - North Korea" /> has come under new pressure to resume international talks on its atomic programme after the UN Security Council imposed sanctions on Pyongyang for its declared nuclear test. Despite lingering disagreements on how to handle the crisis, the Council voted unanimously Saturday to punish the North, which said it "totally rejects" the measure and warned earlier that sanctions could be a "declaration of war." Diplomats were set to hold intensive talks Sunday on how to convince the North to return to negotiations and ease the stand-off over its nuclear weapons programme after its announcement of a first test on October 9. The Security Council resolution calls on the North to give up whatever atomic and other mass-destruction weapons it has in a verifiable way and come back to the bargaining table it has boycotted for nearly a year. Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Alexeyev, after meeting his North Korean counterpart, said Pyongyang had reiterated it wanted to return to talks and pledged not to transfer its nuclear know-how to any other nation. "They said that only after analysing the UN resolution would they plan the subsequent character of their actions and set the outlines of the steps and measures that will be taken," he said, according to Russian news agencies. "The North Korean side several times returned to the point that the six-sided process should continue," said Alexeyev, who headed to Seoul for talks with South Korean officials Sunday evening. The United States led the push for sanctions but ran into some opposition from China and Russia, veto-wielding Council nations that are traditional allies of Pyongyang's communist regime. Even after the 15-0 vote, China's UN ambassador Wang Guangya expressed reservations about provisions in the resolution for inspecting cargo going in and out of North Korea, saying Beijing did not approve. "China strongly urges the countries concerned to adopt a prudent and responsible attitude in this regard and refrain from taking any provocative steps that may intensify the tension," Wang said. The resolution demands North Korea dismantle its nuclear weapons programme and abandon all weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles. It provides for a travel ban on officials working on such programmes. It calls for a ban targeting exports of missiles, tanks, large artillery systems, warships and combat aircraft to North Korea. It also permits cargo inspection to prevent any illegal trafficking. It was not immediately clear how the sanctions would be enforced or how the North would react to them, but North Korea's UN ambassador Pak Gil Yon made it clear that the regime rejected the Council action. "It is gangster-like for the Security Council to have adopted today a coercive resolution," Pak said. Communist North Korea, one of the world's most impoverished and isolated nations, has repeatedly insisted that it needs nuclear weapons to deter an attack by the United States, which it says wants to topple its regime. The six-nation talks -- between China, Japan, Russia, North and South Korea" /> , and the US -- appeared to have won agreement from Pyongyang last year to give up its nuclear ambitions. But the negotiating process fell apart when the North withdrew after the US imposed sanctions on a Macau bank that it said was laundering the money of the North, which is believed to be strapped for cash. The United States was to send Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice" /> to China, Japan and South Korea this week to discuss implementing the resolution, which President George W. Bush" /> praised for "swift and tough" action. "It's a unanimous resolution sending a clear message to the leader of North Korea regarding his weapons programs," Bush said. The last round of UN sanctions against Pyongyang, imposed after it test-fired seven missiles in July, failed to prevent the declared nuclear test and some analysts believe another test is still on the way. "They can probably survive the sanctions being considered at present but a second test would push the international community further to take aggressive action," said John Harrison of the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies in Singapore. The test sparked initial fears of an arms race in Asia, where nations such as South Korea and Japan have overcome traditional differences to find common cause in trying to rein in the Pyongyang regime. Foreign Minister Taro Aso of Japan, which had already imposed its own sanctions including cutting off trade with the North, said his nation should help the US military in inspecting North Korean cargo. Meanwhile South Korea pledged to help enforce new UN sanctions for its "unpardonable and provocative" test. Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 34 Japan Times: Rice to visit Tokyo, Beijing, Seoul Saturday, Oct. 14, 2006 WASHINGTON (Kyodo) U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will probably visit Japan next Tuesday, sources close to Japan-U.S. relations said Thursday. Japan and the United States are making arrangements for Rice's visit, the sources said. She is expected to visit China and South Korea after Tokyo. The trip is aimed at sending a strong message to Pyongyang by boosting the four nations' cooperation toward getting the U.N. Security Council to adopt a resolution to impose sanctions on North Korea over the nuclear test it claims to have carried out Monday, the sources said. Rice had originally planned to visit Tokyo, Seoul and Beijing next month as part of her Asian tour to attend the Nov. 15-16 ministerial meeting in Hanoi of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum. But given North Korea's move, Rice decided to visit the three nations earlier, the sources said. Rice is expected to stay in Tokyo until Wednesday and will have talks with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Foreign Minister Taro Aso, they said. Rice is expected to hold talks with Chinese leaders, including Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing, and seek China's agreement to carry out such measures, the sources said. In Tokyo and Seoul, Rice will directly convey the U.S. commitments repeatedly stated by President George W. Bush to defend and protect Japan and South Korea against the threat posed by North Korea, they said. Since Pyongyang announced that it had carried out a nuclear test, the U.S. has pressed for efforts by the five other parties to press North Korea to return to the negotiating table, stressing the need for China to join the punitive measures sought in the proposed U.N. resolution. Given its influence as a longtime ally and major supplier of food and energy to North Korea, China is seen as holding the key for effectively implementing the proposed sanctions. The Japan Times (C) All rights reserved ***************************************************************** 35 Japan Times: Japan makes it official: more punitive steps kick in Saturday, Oct. 14, 2006 By HIROKO NAKATA Staff writer The Cabinet on Friday approved additional economic sanctions on North Korea, following Pyongyang's reported underground nuclear test, underscoring Japan's firm stance on the issue ahead of the U.N. Security Council's expected vote on a resolution to impose multilateral sanctions as well. Crewmen on a North Korean freighter docked here reflect sunlight toward reporters and photographers Friday as they prepare to leave. KYODO PHOTO Japan's measures include a ban on all North Korean ships entering Japanese ports, a ban on North Korean imports, and barring entry by North Korean nationals other than those living in Japan. The import ban will hinder Pyongyang's efforts to gain foreign currency and is aimed at disrupting its pursuit of nuclear weapons. The ban on the entry by North Korean citizens took effect Wednesday after the steps were approved by the government's top security panel. The ban on port entries and imports were effective from midnight Friday. The sanctions will last for six months. According to the Cabinet Office, of the 14.54 billion yen in Japanese imports from North Korea in 2005, seafood made up the largest product category, at 4.05 billion yen. Sea urchin, short-necked clams and snow crabs accounted for more than half that amount. Coal and charcoal briquettes were North Korea's second-largest export to Japan, worth 1.93 billion yen, followed by fruit, vegetables and mushrooms -- mostly "matsutake" -- worth 1.67 billion yen. As of Friday, 22 North Korean vessels were docked at four ports in Japan -- Otaru, Hokkaido; Maizuru, Kyoto Prefecture; Sakaiminato, Tottori Prefecture; and Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi Prefecture. Some Japanese traders have already been refusing to offload shipments from North Korea to protest its nuclear test, despite the cost to their business. Japan also came up with emergency measures Friday to support domestic industries that would be hurt by the sanctions. The farm ministry will open counters for counseling services for processors and distributors of marine products from North Korea that are expected to suffer from the sanctions. State-owned Agriculture Forestry and Fisheries Finance Corporation will extend loans to parties planning to change business or shift to other products for trade, the government said. Small and medium-size companies that would be affected can also receive counseling and borrow similar loans from governmental institutions at low rates. The government will require commercial banks to take appropriate action for companies that are hit hard by the sanctions by extending loans and not pressing for prompt repayment. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuhisa Shiozaki said the government will be ready to hold more emergency meetings to discuss more steps in the future, if needed. The latest set of punitive measures is the third imposed by Tokyo since Pyongyang test-fired seven missiles over the Sea of Japan on July 5. The Japan Times (C) All rights reserved ***************************************************************** 36 AFP: SKorea says it treats NKorean nuclear test claim as genuine - Saturday October 14, 05:52 AM [Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (R) with visiting South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun in Beijing] SEOUL (AFP) - South Korea has said that news of preliminary US findings of radioactivity near North Korea only confirmed its assumption that the communist regime had tested an atom bomb as claimed. "The government has been mapping out measures on the assumption that the announced nuclear test was genuine," said Yoon Tae-young, a spokesman for President Roh Moo-Hyun. "Therefore, there is no change in the way the government is handling the situation just because radioactivity was detected," (Advertisement) [ src=] he told the national news agency Yonhap. On Monday North Korea sparked worldwide condemnation with its announcement it had carried out its first atom bomb test, heightening tensions on the Korean Peninsula which has been divided since the 1950-53 Korean War. Seismic readings in South Korea and elsewhere confirmed an earthquake-strength blast had taken place, but by Friday there had not been independent verification it was a nuclear device. However, a US official later told AFP that "there is a preliminary analysis that suggests that the event in North Korea was consistent with a nuclear explosion." The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that US intelligence was doing additional tests of collected samples to make a final determination, expected within days. CNN and news agencies in South Korea and Japan earlier reported that US officials had informed Seoul and Tokyo they had detected radioactive particles, suggesting the underground nuclear explosion had taken place. "This morning we were informed by the US side that radioactivity was detected after analyzing the air near the site of the nuclear test," Yonhap quoted a South Korean intelligence source as saying. A South Korean intelligence source confirmed the information had been passed along to Seoul from the United States. The news about the preliminary US test results, all quoting unnamed US government officials, came hours after UN discussions on how North Korea should be punished for the tests. Last-minute Chinese and Russian objections to a compromise draft resolution on mandatory sanctions against North Korea cast doubt on prospects for a vote Saturday, diplomats said. If confirmed, the radioactivity finding would reverse earlier media reports that suggested air samples collected by a US military aircraft on the day after the October 9 explosion showed "no evidence of nuclear debris." Japan also said last Tuesday no unusual radiation levels had been detected in dust samples collected by its military planes. South Korea said Saturday it had still measured no fallout from the test so far on its own territory, an official told AFP. "We examined air and water samples, but we have not detected any radioactive contamination in South Korea following the nuclear test," said senior researcher Yun Ju-Yung of the Korea Institute of Nuclear Safety. The government-run institute operates 12 monitoring stations across the country, including two close to the heavily fortified border with the North. AFP ***************************************************************** 37 UPI: Ban: Rice should head talks with N. Korea United Press International - NewsTrack - 10/15/2006 2:15:00 PM -0400 NEW YORK, Oct. 15 (UPI) -- Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General designate of the United Nations, said that U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice should lead talks with North Korea. Speaking with Bill Weir on Sunday's "Good Morning America Weekend Edition," Ban said that Rice should lead diplomatic talks with the Asian country in the wake of Saturday's unanimous U.N. resolution imposing international sanctions because of North Korea's nuclear program. "If possible, it would be a good opportunity," said South Korea's current minister of foreign affairs and trade. "The United States has expressed on many occasions that they will be prepared to talk with North Korea if and when they return to six-party talks. ... I hope North Korea will take this opportunity to discuss all their concerns." The resolution passed by the Security Council threatened North Korea with economic sanctions if the country continues its controversial nuclear weapons program. Ban added that any diplomatic talks initiated by Rice or other U.S. officials would likely begin with North Korea's Chairman of the National Defense Commission, Kim Jong Il. © Copyright 2006 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved ***************************************************************** 38 UPI: Rice says U.N. defeated North Korea United Press International - NewsTrack - 10/15/2006 6:33:00 PM -0400 WASHINGTON, Oct. 15 (UPI) -- U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said North Korea has been defeated by the United Nations' unanimous vote to approve sanctions on the rogue state. "It will be enforced because member states have an obligation to enforce it," Rice told CBS's Bob Schieffer on "Face The Nation" Sunday. The sanctions approved on a 15-0 Security Council vote Saturday are aimed at preventing North Korea from importing and exporting nuclear materials as well as luxury items. "I think there are some matters that will need to be worked out ... But this is a really resounding defeat for North Korea. And it's a resounding victory, really, for the international community and its efforts to deal with proliferation matters," Rice said. © Copyright 2006 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved ***************************************************************** 39 UPI: S. Korea pledges support for sanctions United Press International - NewsTrack - 10/15/2006 9:59:00 AM -0400 SEOUL, Oct. 15 (UPI) -- South Korea's government Sunday pledged support of the U.N. Security Council's resolution on North Korea, but said inter-Korean relations must be maintained. The United Nations Security Council approved the resolution that ruled out military measures, but called for inspections of cargo entering and leaving North Korea. The resolution also bans supplying, selling or transferring items such as armored vehicles or military goods to North Korea, as well as anything that could contribute to the country's nuclear programs and luxury items. The sanctions followed North Korea's claim to have conducted a nuclear weapon test last week. South Korea's Choo Kyu-ho, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade spokesman, urged North Korea to return to the six-party talks and fulfill its promise to dismantle its nuclear weapons program, The Korea Times said Sunday. South Korea will seek diplomatic means to resolve the nuclear issue by coordinating policies with others in the six-party talks, he said. South Korean officials said nothing in the U.N. resolution appeared to conflict with inter-Korean business programs and it was important they continue. © Copyright 2006 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved ***************************************************************** 40 UPI: Koreans say U.S. basis for nuclear test United Press International - NewsTrack - S. 10/15/2006 10:49:00 AM -0400 SEOUL, Oct. 15 (UPI) -- Four in 10 South Koreans blamed the United States more than any other country for North Korea's test of a nuclear weapon, a survey said. Of 500 adults questioned by South Korea's Research Plus research firm, 43 percent selected the United States over other countries as the one most responsible for the test North Korea performed Monday, the Korea Times said Sunday. North Korea was chosen second with 37 percent, followed by South Korea with almost 14 percent, China with about 2 percent and Japan with 1 percent. About 20 percent of the respondents said they were not particularly worried by the test and nearly 30 percent said panic buying was unnecessary and another 35 percent said they didn't engage in panic buying because they were desensitized to the issue. Panic buying is an indicator of people's attitudes, the Times said. About 12 percent of those questioned said the lack of panic in South Korea was attributable to improved relations between the two countries. The telephone survey conducted Tuesday and Wednesday has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percent, the Times said. © Copyright 2006 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved ***************************************************************** 41 UPI: Prelim air samples show radioactivity United Press International - NewsTrack - 10/14/2006 7:42:00 AM -0400 WASHINGTON, Oct. 14 (UPI) -- Preliminary analysis of air samples from North Korea show radioactive content consistent with a nuclear test, U.S. intelligence officials say. CNN Saturday said received from a congressional source the statement saying an assessment of air samples initially found debris consistent with a nuclear test "in the vicinity of Punggye." The assessment will be completed in the next few days, said the statement, which was sent to members of Congress, but not released to the public, CNN said. The information in the statement conflicts with earlier U.S. government reports indicating air sampling over North Korea did not find evidence of radioactive debris. The White House said it has not confirmed that a nuclear test was conducted. The U.N. Security Council was expected to vote Saturday on whether to impose sanctions on North Korea over the as-yet unconfirmed nuclear test. If confirmed, the nuclear weapon test that North Korea claimed to have conducted Monday would be the first since Pakistan's underground testing in 1998. © Copyright 2006 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved ***************************************************************** 42 UPI: Japanese port city to feel sanction pinch United Press International - NewsTrack - 10/14/2006 10:53:00 AM -0400 MAIZURU, Japan, Oct. 14 (UPI) -- A Japanese port city will be hard hit by Japan's economic sanctions against North Korea for its reported nuclear test. Maizuru is one of Japan's key centers with North Korea, handling $38 million in bilateral trade in 2005, The Japan Times reports. Exports to North Korea amounted to $15 million in 2005, or about 24 percent of Japan's export total to the country. Used bikes accounted for about 40 percent of the total, with electronics, clothing, mining equipment, construction materials and work tools among the other major exports. Maizuru was also the port of entry for $24 million in imports from the North in 2005, or 20 percent of all the state's exports to Japan. The main items were inexpensive suite, electronic goods, fruits and vegetables, and live and frozen seafood. Japan announced sanctions against North Korea Wednesday, severing most trade and transportation links and banning North Korean ships from its ports. © Copyright 2006 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved ***************************************************************** 43 A Beginner's Guide to Creating a 'Crisis' Date: Sun, 15 Oct 2006 08:41:16 -0500 (CDT) X-Sender-Host-Name: chumbly.math.missouri.edu X-Spam-Class: HAM www.williambowles.info October 15, 2006 A BEGINNER'S GUIDE TO CREATING A 'CRISIS' by William Bowles Each party shall in exercising its national sovereignty have the right to withdraw from the Treaty if it decides that extraordinary events, related to the subject matter of the Treaty, have jeopardized the supreme interests of its country. Article X of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Poor old North Korea, the latest bogeyman, its leader variously described as a tyrant, psychopath etc, etc. is once more the focus of Western ire. Now in all likelyhood the reason is because things aint going too well in Iraq or Afghanistan and the Iranians have told the West to shove it, so isnt it real convenient to have North Korea, waiting in the wings as it were, to frighten the kids with. Now whether youre keen on the kind of system North Korea (DPRK) has or not, an examination of history shows that it has threatened no one. Instead it has been blasted back into the proverbial stone age, blockaded, starved and demonised into its current predicament, and all because it refused to bow to the demands of the US that it abandon its autonomy and independence and open up its economy to the ravages of US capitalism. With regard to the current crisis, its not at all clear whether they have actually exploded a nuke or whether its a giant bluff on the part of Kim Jong II. One thing is clear, the US has backed the DPRK into a corner, leaving them little choice but to act the way they do. Once more we need to look to history in order to get a handle on what the US and its allies are up to and why the DPRK acts the way it does. When the USunder the cover of the UNinvaded the DPRK in 1950 and slaughtered 4 million of its people, it set the scene for the next fifty-plus years. Without understanding how this event shaped the thinking of the DPRKs people, it is impossible to make sense of its current actions. The corporate and state-run media would prefer of course that you remain ignorant of these events. Instead, it reduces everything to cartoon-like stereotypes that paints a picture of the country as some kind of gigantic concentration camp with its demented leaders bent on attacking the US in some kind of insane suicide mission. Why they should act this way is not explained but the actions of the US give us some insight into why the DPRK views the outside world as it does. In the first year of the war, General Douglas MacArthur ordered the destruction of every means of communication, every installation, factory, city and village Mass fire bombings systematically levelled one town after another and by 1952 almost no town in North Korea was left standing. Not content with flattening the country, toward the end of the war in 1953, the US deliberately destroyed North Koreas irrigation system that supplied 75% of its agricultural production causing tsunamis that killed thousands of people and swept away everything in their path causing starvation on an unimaginable scale. But the US was to add to its list of war crimes as its troops were pushed southwards out of the DPRK by North Korean and Chinese troops. As they went, [they] systematically burned down villages and destroyed food stocks Razing of villages along our withdrawal routes and destruction of food staples became the order of the day records the war diary of the U.S. 24th Infantry Division. The US scorched earth programme left virtually nothing standing in the DPRK. One result was that most of the DPRKs industrial capacity was relocated into underground facilities (an event which, as we shall see, had repercussions for US actions today). In 1993 President Clinton announced the resumption of war games in South Korea that had been suspended under George HW Bush. Understandably, the DPRK was displeased and indicated that it planned to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). But following talks with the US, the DPRK agreed to stay a signatory to the NPT. But under the instigation of the US, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) demanded complete access to the DPRK, something it had hitherto never demanded from any signatory to the NPT. The intention was obvious; the US wanted to gather as much intelligence as it could about the DPRKs military capacity (again, the IAEA also acted as an intelligence gathering agency for the US prior to the invasion of Iraq through the use of agents planted in the inspection teams). And, just as with the IAEAs actions in Iraq, the DPRK discovered that the IAEA was passing on data to US intelligence agencies. Subsequently, the Clinton administration went on a propaganda offensive, charging that the DPRK was developing nuclear weapons, a charge without any foundation in fact. And, just as with the allegations against Iraq and Iran, these accusations were accepted by an uninformed public by virtue of endless repetition relayed through a complicit and compliant MSM. In 1994 the Clinton administration broke off talks with the DPRK and attempted to get the UN Security Council to implement sanctions and at the same time readied its plans for an invasion utilising nuclear weapons, which had it come to pass would have exterminated millions on the Korean Peninsula and beyond. Alarmed over the drift toward war, former President Jimmy Carter flew to Pyongyang on an unofficial mission to find a way to open negotiations he [Kim Il-Sung] was willing to freeze their nuclear program and to consider a permanent freeze if their aged reactors could be replaced with modern and safer ones. President Kim [also] asked for a guarantee from the U.S. that it would not attack his country with nuclear weapons North Korea [also agreed] not to reprocess spent fuel at Yongbyon [the site of its nuclear reactor]. Thus there were no longer any obstacles to the US and the DPRK concluding an agreement following negotiations. Carter, aware that this was not what the White House wanted to hear, arranged for a CNN crew to transmit a live broadcast following his phone call to Clinton from Pyongyang about the positive outcome of his talks. Incensed at the scuttling of their plan for war, Clinton Administration officials were left with no other option than to respond to the proffered diplomatic opening. Predictably however, the US upped the anti by making additional demands even before talks started. The shocking thing about the Carter visit wasnt that people were disappointed that someone was going. It was that when he got the freeze, people here were crestfallen, commented a State Department official. With US plans for war foiled, on July 8, 1994 talks started in Geneva between the US and the DPRK that resulted in the Agreed Framework being signed on October 21. Under the Agreed Framework the DPRK agreed to freeze work on its graphite-moderated reactor at Yongbyon and to stop work on two other reactors. In return the US agreed to making available a light water reactor (LWR) by 2003. LWRs do not produce weapons-grade materials. In addition the US agreed to supply the DPRK with half a million tons of oil for heating and electricity production annually until the new reactor was completed and also to make up for the loss of electrical generating capacity from the closure of the Yongbyon reactor. But signing an agreement and implementing it are not the same thing. Newly elected president Bush was openly hostile to the Agreed Framework Agreement and work on the replacement reactor didnt even begin until 2002 and work wouldnt be completed until 2008 at the earliest, fourteen years after the Agreement was signed. Article 2 of the Agreement called for a move toward full normalisation of political and economic relations Article 3 stated that The U.S. will provide formal assurances to the DPRK, against the threat or use of nuclear weapons by the U.S. The US complied with neither article and in fact in 1997 the US carried out mock nuclear attacks on the DPRK. We simulated fighting a war in Korea, using a Korean scenario based on a decision by the National Command Authority about considering using nuclear weapons. Brigadier General Randall K. Bigum. Declassified documents show that the US plans called for dropping as many 30 nuclear bombs on the DPRK and following George Bushs infamous axis of evil address, Bush ordered a more flexible approach to the use of nuclear weapons. Henceforth the US envisaged using nuclear weapons under three scenarios: One, in retaliation for attack with nuclear, biological or chemical weapons; two, against targets able to withstand non-nuclear attack, an obvious reference to the DPRKs underground industrial plants and three, the vague, in the event of surprising military developments, a catch-all phrase that implies the use of nuclear weapons under ANY circumstances deigned surprising by the US. In line with the create a crisis approach to its relations with countries which dont toe the line, after Bush assumed office, he broke off all contacts with the DPRK, then, eighteen months later he sent Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs James Kelley to North Korea who adopted an arrogant, a racist, imperial approach to the North Koreans, accusing them of violating the Agreed Framework. According to the North Koreans, Kelly was very rude and presented his demands in an extremely threatening and arrogant manner. Kelly presented an ultimatum: There would be no dialogue between the two nations until North Korea abandoned its uranium enrichment program. Not unconnected to the US approach to the DPRK was the fact that relations between the DPRK, South Korea and Japan were improving, something the US was determined to sabotage. The North Koreans responded to US demands by offering to settle US security concerns if the US dropped its hostile attitude to the DPRK. The US responded by accusing the DPRK of developing nuclear weapons, an allegation the North Koreans vehemently denied. In a television broadcast, the North Korean government said We just explained our basic position that we are entitled to possess nuclear weapons if the United States violates their nuclear agreement [with the DPRK] and forces the country into a nuclear war. However, the Bush Administration made use of this to argue that we are developing nuclear weapons. Such a fabrication will not be accepted. The US chose to interpret this as an admission that the DPRK was in fact developing nuclear weapons (pointing to one extremely important aspect of diplomatic relations, namely that you have to be absolutely precise in the wording of any public statement). Ultimately it came down to the simple fact that no matter what the North Koreans offered, the US was determined to dump the Agreed Framework. South Korean and Russian observers all agreed that the DPRK not only did not have a nuclear weapons programme but it was technically and economically incapable of producing nuclear weapons, nor did it have the means of delivery (the smallest bomb it could have possibly have developed at the time would have weighed between 2-3 tons). At every step in its dealings with the DPRK, the US extended its demands, eventually demanding that This time we must also address other problems missile transfer, the conventional forces the North has, and the abominable way it treats its people We control [North Koreas] hopes for the future, and we can hold these hopes hostage. [my emph. WB] Reuters, October 20, 2002. Desperate to produce an agreement with the US, the North Koreans made concession after concession but all to no avail. In November 2002, Kim Jong II delivered a letter to Bush which contained the following, If the United States recognizes our sovereignty and assures non-aggression, it is our view that we should be able to find a way to resolve the nuclear issue in compliance with the demand of a new century. If the United States makes a bold decision, we will respond accordingly. The US did not respond. Instead, it increased its pressure on the DPRK, forcing South Korea and Japan to join with the US in halting oil shipments to the DPRK and eventually the US abandoned the Agreed Framework, stopped work on the light water reactors knowing full well that such actions would impact on the young, the old and the sick, indeed, step by step forcing the North Korean economy to its knees, effectively returning it to a pre-industrial level. Without power and oil it could not produce fertiliser, nor maintain its agricultural machinery, nor even deliver food crops. From a country with a highly mechanised agricultural system, the DPRK was forced to rely on manual labour for the production and distribution of food. US actions toward North Korea are an object lesson in imperial strategy and are typical of the way it treats any country which does not bow to to its will and, without the complicity of the mass media in selling the imperial line, especially in the way US policy has impacted on the population of North Korea through the US use of food as a weapon, demonstrates how the media effectively works in lockstep with the state. So instead of reporting that the reason North Koreas population is living in poverty is because of US policies (sanctions, reneging on agreements etc), we are fed the line that its because of the DPRKs Stalinist system. Political repression is one thing but what would the North Korean leadership gain from deliberately starving its population except resentment and resistance? The US relies on a media establishment that embraces the imperial ideology in its totality, which for countries such as North Korea is a deadly embrace. The objective is obvious; to create a climate that justifies US actions by obscuring and misreporting not only the facts but also the reasons behind its actions. Given such a history, is it any wonder that North Korea behaves the way it does? Humiliated and isolated by US actions and driven by what it calls juche sasang, or self-reliance, it does what any sovereign nation would do under such circumstances, assert its right to defend itself by whatever means it has at its disposal including the development of nuclear weapons. Whether the DPRK has or has not developed them is neither here nor there, what is important is that the DPRK has every right to take whatever steps it considers appropriate when faced with a country armed to the teeth, and whose actions over the past fifty-plus years has been invasion, destruction and threats. Note: All quotes are taken from Strange Liberators Militarism, Mayhem and the Pursuit of Profit by Gregory Elich. Llumina Press, 2006. ***************************************************************** 44 Guardian Unlimited: Bush Keeps Revising War Justification From the Associated Press [UP] Saturday October 14, 2006 5:46 PM AP Photo WX106 By TOM RAUM WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush keeps revising his explanation for why the U.S. is in Iraq, moving from narrow military objectives at first to history-of-civilization stakes now. Initially, the rationale was specific: to stop Saddam Hussein from using what Bush claimed were the Iraqi leader's weapons of mass destruction or from selling them to al-Qaida or other terrorist groups. But 3 years later, with no weapons found, still no end in sight and the war a liability for nearly all Republicans on the ballot Nov. 7, the justification has become far broader and now includes the expansive ``struggle between good and evil.'' Republicans seized on North Korea's reported nuclear test last week as further evidence that the need for strong U.S. leadership extends beyond Iraq. Bush's changing rhetoric reflects increasing administration efforts to tie the war, increasingly unpopular at home, with the global fight against terrorism, still the president's strongest suit politically. ``We can't tolerate a new terrorist state in the heart of the Middle East, with large oil reserves that could be used to fund its radical ambitions, or used to inflict economic damage on the West,'' Bush said in a news conference last week in the Rose Garden. When no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq, Bush shifted his war justification to one of liberating Iraqis from a brutal ruler. After Saddam's capture in December 2003, the rationale became helping to spread democracy through the Middle East. Then it was confronting terrorists in Iraq ``so we do not have to face them here at home,'' and ``making America safer,'' themes Bush pounds today. ``We're in the ideological struggle of the 21st century,'' he told a California audience this month. ``It's a struggle between good and evil.'' Vice President Dick Cheney takes it even further: ``The hopes of the civilized world ride with us,'' Cheney tells audiences. Except for the weapons of mass destruction argument, there is some validity in each of Bush's shifting rationales, said Michael O'Hanlon, a foreign policy scholar at the Brookings Institution who initially supported the war effort. ``And I don't have any big problems with any of them, analytically. The problem is they can't change the realities on the ground in Iraq, which is that we're in the process of beginning to lose,'' O'Hanlon said. ``It is taking us a long time to realize that, but the war is not headed the way it should be.'' Andrew Card, Bush's first chief of staff, said Bush's evolving rhetoric, including his insistence that Iraq is a crucial part of the fight against terrorism, is part of an attempt to put the war in better perspective for Americans. The administration recently has been ``doing a much better job'' in explaining the stakes, Card said in an interview. ``We never said it was going to be easy. The president always told us it would be long and tough.'' ``I'm trying to do everything I can to remind people that the war on terror has the war in Iraq as a subset. It's critical we succeed in Iraq as part of the war on terror,'' said Card, who left the White House in March. Bush at first sought to explain increasing insurgent and sectarian violence as a lead-up to Iraqi elections. But elections came and went, and a democratically elected government took over, and the sectarian violence increased. Bush has insisted U.S. soldiers will stand down as Iraqis stand up. He has likened the war to the 20th century struggles against fascism, Nazism and communism. He has called Iraq the ``central front'' in a global fight against radical jihadists. Having jettisoned most of the earlier, upbeat claims of progress, Bush these days emphasizes consequences of setting even a limited withdrawal timetable: abandonment of the Iraqi people, destabilizing the Middle East and emboldening terrorists around the world. The more ominous and determined his words, the more skeptical the American public appears, polls show, both on the war itself and over whether it is part of the larger fight against terrorism, as the administration insists. Bush's approval rating, reflected by AP-Ipsos polls, has slid from the mid 60s at the outset of the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003 to the high 30s now. There were light jumps upward after the December 2003 capture of Saddam, Bush's re-election in November 2004 and each of three series of aggressive speeches over the past year. Those gains tended to vanish quickly. With the war intruding on the fall elections, both parties have stepped up their rhetoric. Republicans, who are also reeling from the congressional page scandal, are casting Democrats as seeking to ``cut and run'' and appease terrorists. Democrats accuse Bush of failed leadership with his ``stay the course'' strategy. They cite a government intelligence assessment suggesting the Iraq war has helped recruit more terrorists, and a book by journalist Bob Woodward that portrays Bush as intransigent in his defense of the Iraq war and his advisers as bitterly divided. Democrats say Iraq has become a distraction from the war against terrorism - not a central front. But they are divided among themselves on what strategy to pursue. Republicans, too, increasingly are growing divided as U.S. casualties rise. ``I struggle with the fact that President Bush said, `As the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down.' But the fact is, this has not happened,'' said Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., a war supporter turned war skeptic. The Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. John Warner of Virginia, said after a recent visit to Iraq that Iraq was ``drifting sideways.'' He urged consideration of a ``change of course'' if the Iraq government fails to restore order over the next two or three months. More than 2,750 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the war, most of them since Bush's May 2003 ``mission accomplished'' aircraft carrier speech. Tens of thousands of Iraqis have died. Recent events have been dispiriting. The United States now has about 141,000 troops in Iraq, up from about 127,000 in July. Some military experts have suggested at least one additional U.S. division, or around 20,000 troops, is needed in western Iraq alone. Dan Benjamin, a former Middle East specialist with the National Security Council in the Clinton administration, said the administration is overemphasizing the nature of the threat in an effort to bolster support. ``I think the administration has oversold the case that Iraq could become a jihadist state,'' said Benjamin, now with the Center for Strategic and International Studies. ``If the U.S. were to leave Iraq tomorrow, the result would be a bloodbath in which Sunnis and Shiites fight it out. But the jihadists would not be able to seek power.'' Not all of Bush's rhetorical flourishes have had the intended consequences. When the history of Iraq is finally written, the recent surge in sectarian violence is ``going to be a comma,'' Bush said in several recent appearances. Critics immediately complained that the remark appeared unsympathetic and dismissive of U.S. and Iraqi casualties, an assertion the White House disputed. For a while last summer, Bush depicted the war as one against ``Islamic fascism,'' borrowing a phrase from conservative commentators. The strategy backfired, further fanning anti-American sentiment across the Muslim world. The ``fascism'' phrase abruptly disappeared from Bush's speeches, reportedly after he was talked out of it by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Karen Hughes, a longtime Bush confidant now with the State Department. Hughes said she would not disclose private conversations with the president. But, she told the AP, she did not use the ``fascism'' phrase herself. ``I use `violent extremist,''' she said. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 ***************************************************************** 45 [NYTr] And Now... A Nuclear Japan? Date: Sun, 15 Oct 2006 15:57:28 -0500 (CDT) X-Sender-Host-Name: chumbly.math.missouri.edu X-Spam-Class: HAM Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit Prensa Latina, Havana http://www.plenglish.com And Now... a Nuclear Japan? Tokyo, Oct 15 (Prensa Latina) After new sanctions were imposed to Korea Popular Democratic Republic (RPDC) for making a nuclear test recently Japan is ready to be equipped of atomic weapons as part of its "strategy of defense." The government Democratic Liberal Party (PLD) insisted on a TV debate the country could be provided with this type of armament to avoid a possible attack. In this sense Nuclear weapons are a choice, told Shoichi Nakawaga president of PLD Political Council. Nakawaga said it is necessary to find a way to make Japan a nuclear power. I mean, I'm not the one in charge to say it and Tokyo supports the denuclearization principle, he expressed. A few days ago, on the fringes of the UN Security Council, the Nippon government imposed new measures against the RPDC because of the nuclear test made last Monday. The prohibition of importations and entrance of North Korean ships in Nippon ports is included in the six-month unilateral punishment ln abo dor PL-27 * ================================================================ .NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems . Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us . .339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org .List Archives: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/ .Subscribe: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr ================================================================ ***************************************************************** 46 BBC NEWS: UK | Trident debate to top CND agenda Updated: Saturday, 14 October 2006, 07:26 GMT 08:26 A White Paper is expected on the Trident issue Plans to try and stop the Trident weapons system being replaced are to be discussed at the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament's (CND) annual conference. CND said its membership had risen since Prime Minister Tony Blair and Chancellor Gordon Brown revealed their support for a new weapons programme. Kate Hudson, CND chairwoman, admitted there was not much time left to stop a new programme getting the go-ahead. Mr Blair has said an independent nuclear deterrent was "essential". Ms Hudson said: "We know that the government said in June that a decision would be taken by the end of the year on this crucial issue, so we're hard at our campaign currently and we're going to be working out this weekend how we can advance it. " Weapons She said 59% of the public opposed a replacement for Trident and added that the conference would focus on how to force the government to have a full public and parliamentary debate. The CND's two-day conference is being held at Bradford University this weekend. A replacement system for Trident would need many years of development, which is why it is debated now. At this moment the government is committed only to "retain" the weapons system, not to replace it. Earlier this year Mr Blair said: ""It is important that Britain makes sure that we defend our country properly. I believe an independent nuclear deterrent is an essential part of that." ***************************************************************** 47 Independent: 'Nuclear bosses must go' - union Amicus fears 'tension' is harming clean-up industry By Tim Webb Published: 15 October 2006 Amicus has called on the Government to sack the two men who run the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), the body responsible for the UK's state-owned nuclear sites. The demand was put to Alistair Darling, the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, in a private meeting last week and was prompted by the protracted sale of Government-owned nuclear clean-up group BNG. Sir Anthony Cleaver and Dr Ian Oxburgh are chairman and chief executive respectively of the NDA. Dougie Rooney, the national energy officer for Amicus, told Mr Darling that he believed tensions between the two men had contributed to the "shambolic" sale process of BNG, which operates the NDA's sites. Mr Rooney also blamed BNG's parent company, BNFL, for the mess. The NDA is responsible for creating a competitive market for the estimated Ł70bn of decommissioning work needed in the UK. But Amicus fears that the proposed sale of BNG - which Mr Darling has yet to approve - would stifle competition by, in effect, excluding UK companies. "Mr Darling must ... replace the chief executive and chairman of the NDA," Mr Rooney said. "At least one of these positions has to be changed immediately. They should be replaced by a commercial person with a clear remit to perform the NDA role, which is to encourage competition." The original plan was to sell BNG whole. Then in August, after disagreements between the boards of NDA and BNFL about how to proceed with the sale, they decided to sell its project services contracting division separately. Last month, the two boards also decided to sell BNG's Magnox reactor division. An NDA spokesman said that suggestions of a rift between Sir Anthony and Dr Roxburgh were "completely untrue". He added: "The NDA consulted widely on the competition timetable for decommissioning and incorporated many of the comments of stakeholders including the unions." © 2006 Independent News and Media Limited ***************************************************************** 48 Sydney Morning Herald: PM backs 'clean' nuclear energy - smh.com.au October 15, 2006 - 8:12PM Prime Minister John Howard has given his strongest support yet to the use of nuclear power in Australia, backing the local development of the "clean" energy industry. An expert taskforce is due to release a draft report next month on the merits of nuclear power and whether Australia should be thinking of value-adding options, such as enrichment, for its vast uranium stores. But before the experts have even had their say, Mr Howard has indicated he believes nuclear power is an industry Australia should be developing. Mr Howard has previously suggested nuclear power was something Australia should consider if economically viable. "I'm in favour of Australia developing nuclear power for peaceful purposes," he told the Nine Network. "It's clean and green and, in an age where we're worried about global warming, we should be looking seriously at nuclear power as an option because it's clean and it doesn't emit greenhouse gases. "I can't understand why the extreme greenies oppose it." Mr Howard's one-time adversary, former prime minister Paul Keating, sees the issue completely differently. "Nuclear energy is a bad fuel, a dirty fuel, a dangerous fuel," he told Sky News. "Nuclear is a no-no generally in my opinion - it is a bad business." Instead Mr Keating would prefer to focus on alternative strategies to reduce Australia's reliance on fossil fuels, options such as hybrid cars and hydrogen fuel cells. Labor has pledged there will be no nuclear power if it wins government, but it does plan to re-examine its policy of no new uranium mines at its national conference next year. Opposition Leader Kim Beazley wants the policy changed but faces a difficult job convincing some sections of Labor that it is the way to go. Mr Keating thinks a change in the Labor policy would be a mistake. "I think I would stay with the existing policy," he said. "This is not a good industry to encourage, and anyone that has an electricity program, ipso-facto ends up with a nuclear weapons capability." AAP ***************************************************************** 49 La Crosse Tribune: Change is coming at Dairyland facility By REID MAGNEY / La Crosse Tribune . GENOA, Wis. — Workers at Dairyland Power Cooperatives Genoa facility are getting ready to start dismantling the closed nuclear reactor on site. The La Crosse Area Boiling Water Reactor opened in 1969 and shut down in 1987. Since then, Dairyland has been working on plans to decommission the plant, which involves taking it apart and safely disposing of its radioactive parts. The biggest part is the reactor pressure vessel, a large steel container where nuclear rods boiled water to create steam for the 50 megawatt generator. Its a huge project because its such a large item, said plant manager Roger Christians. The vessel is considered to be low-level nuclear waste, and it will be buried in a nuclear waste facility in South Carolina. Already, workers inside the plant have filled the vessel with concrete grout, increasing its weight to about 200 tons, Christians said. The next step, which is now visible from the outside, is to cut a hole in the reactor building wall. Workers are removing the outer skin of insulation from part of the reactor building, and will soon start cutting a hole large enough to remove the vessel through. The walls of the building are just over 10 inches thick — nine inches of concrete and 1.16 inches of metal. Workers will first drill through the walls, then use a diamond-studded wire saw to cut out sections. Once the hole is cut, probably in November, workers will install rolling doors that can be closed. In March, theyll erect a crane strong enough to lift the 200-ton vessel 20 feet in the air and slide it outside the building. Outside, the vessel will be lowered into a steel container, which also will be filled with concrete grout, Christians said, and sealed shut. It will then weigh about 360 tons. Theres nothing to leak, Christians said. This is a low-level waste shipment, just a bigger one. The vessel will be laid on two special railroad cars with 20 axles, and shipped south from Genoa to South Carolina in mid-May. The exact route is not being disclosed, Christians said. Gail Vaughn, an anti-nuclear activist who lives in Vernon County near Genoa, has mixed feelings about the decommissioning. Vaughn said shed feel better if Dairyland didnt ship out the reactor vessel and other parts. Theyre going to have to write off parts of South Carolina as a dead zone because of nuclear waste disposal there, she said. However, Vaughn believes it was more important to keep the spent fuel rods from being shipped to Utah. Dairyland is part owner of Private Fuel Storage, a consortium of utilities that wanted to temporarily store nuclear waste on the Goshute Indian Reservation in Utah. Recent federal government rulings have all but killed those plans. Christians said Dairylands plan now is to store the spent fuel rods at the Genoa plant in dry casks until the government lives up to its obligation to come and get it. The governments Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada still isnt done, and if it is approved it wouldnt be able to accept waste until at least 2017. Christians said a consultant is evaluating the best spot on the Genoa site for storing the casks. Those same casks could be used for shipping if Yucca Mountain opens. Vaughn described the situation at Genoa as the best a person could hope for. Eventually, the entire nuclear reactor facility at Genoa will be torn down, Christians said. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has estimated the cost of decommissioning the plant at $79.5 million. Reid Magney can be reached at (608) 791-8211 or . . DB wrote on October 15, 2006 8:40 PM:"Here's a thought. How was the highly radioactive material transported to Genoa in the first place? Send the low level waste back to where it came from in the same manner it was shipped here." just the facts please wrote on October 15, 2006 5:09 PM:"The quotes from Gail Vaughn, a "nuclear activist," are made without any scientific knowledge regarding radiation and nuclear waste. She is not identified as having any expertise in this area yet the Tribune quotes her as if she is a reliable source. Her inflammatory remarks are incorrect, as even the most cursory research into the subject shows, and serve only to play upon the fears of the public. Shame on the Tribune!" The real deal wrote on October 15, 2006 1:40 PM:"Ship it to IOWA, it is closer and there is plenty of land to use. Might give the folks down there something to talk about. Olie: Is your garden ready? Swen: Should be, its been glowing all winter." re: Guy Wolf wrote on October 15, 2006 12:28 PM:"You people need to make up your minds. You suffer from "not in my backyard" syndrome. Nobody wants it in their "backyard", yet when somebody proposes to move it, the other backyard owners complain. When you finally find someone that wants it in their backyard (for the right price) you complain about how to get it there. This material will be transported as safely as it possibly can. There is far less chance of radiation exposure than there is chemical exposure from chemical tanks driving down our highways. Those white capsule shaped tanker trucks aren't hauling milk you know. Milk is in the shiny ones. Hazardous materials are just that, but if handled properly they aren't any more dangerous than any other cargo traveling by road or rail. Besides when was the last radioactive leak from a train derailment that killed hundreds of people? Never, it never happened. WBW" Guy Wolf wrote on October 15, 2006 10:23 AM:"What is discouraging is that Dairyland Power promised at the ONLY PUBLIC HEARING, more tha n a year ago, to start a citizens committee to assist Dairyland Power in the decision process. To date, not a single meeting has been held, no information to those living near the reactor has been sent, and the project moves ahead. "Radioactive materials are only dangerous when they get into the wrong hands...mishandled or leaked." Putting casks on the railroad and transporting them across country, running across TENS OF THOUSANDS of railroad crossings is safe? Let's look at train safety. Quit the smoke and mirrors. Let's the democratic process begin and encourage citizens (consumers) participate." to Gail Vaughn wrote on October 15, 2006 1:47 AM:"What would you rather see, leave it be? There is a lot about nuclear radiation you obviously don't undertand. In the way it will be shipped and stored, it will not create "dead zones" in South Carolina any more than Genoa and the Mississippi River are "dead zones" from the reactor. Radiation is naturally occuring. The biggest natural ractor is the sun. That is filtered through tons of atmosphere of course. Radioactive materials are only dangerous when they get into the wrong hands and intentionally used as a weapon or mishandled and accidently leaked. Neither of those are likely to happen in this case. WBW" PLEASE NOTE: Comments on stories that frequently update through the day disappear with each update. The comments above are from readers. In no way do they represent the views of the La Crosse Tribune. Copyright © 1997 - 2006 The La Crosse Tribune. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 50 NEWS.com.au: Nuclear power 'ready for take-off' | By Matthew Warren October 16, 2006 01:20am Article from: *****************************************************************