Word: plutonium
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...Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, lamented that the world now has "no clue" what Pyongyang might try to develop in coming months. In fact, it does have a clue: North Korea, which the CIA believes already has enough fissile material for one or two bombs, is poised to extract enough plutonium from the spent fuel to produce four to eight more within a matter of months. It is unknown whether North Korea has ever actually constructed a nuclear weapon. But given the relative simplicity of making a crude device, some U.S. analysts suspect that it has a bomb, albeit an untested...
...draw a distinction between Iraq and North Korea by pointing to their record of defiance: though Saddam refused for four years to allow the world to check whether he was trying to obtain nuclear weapons, North Korea, until this recent bout of truculence, had at least frozen its plutonium process. That argument glides over the reality that while Pyongyang has submitted to nominal international oversight since 1994, it cheated on its agreements and consistently restricted inspectors' access to key nuclear sites. Whatever its reasons, the Administration's strategy is to talk tough but give North Korean leader Kim Jong...
They were just getting started. The next day, North Korean scientists began removing seals and surveillance cameras from a cooling pond where spent fuel rods had been lying untouched. They reopened a nearby facility designed to extract plutonium, which can be used to fashion nuclear bombs, from the spent fuel. Appearing at the door of the Yongbyon guesthouse accommodating the two U.N. inspectors, a smiling North Korean official read aloud a letter informing them it was time to leave--immediately. The official volunteered that there were in fact two seats on the next Air Koryo flight from Pyongyang to Beijing...
...member Council of Europe, which includes all NATO members except the U.S. and Canada, understands the risk posed by DU. The documentary reports that the Council “called for a ban on the manufacture, testing, use and sale of weapons using depleted uranium and plutonium,” and concluded that the “use of such weapons during the war in Yugoslavia would have ‘long-term effects on health and quality of life...affecting future generations.’” The United States stands alone among its allies in condoning...
...detection systems," costing $100,000 to $150,000 apiece, will supplement current technology, which consists of radiation "pagers" worn on the belts of customs personnel. Containers and vehicles will pass through the devices, which can pick up a wider variety of radioactive emissions than the pagers, from weapons-grade plutonium to medical waste that could be used as shrapnel in a "dirty bomb." And unlike the pagers, which only check containers singled out for inspection, the new portal devices will be routinely applied to all cargo, not just the high-risk kind. Customs is installing the devices at the exit...