Word: pyongyang
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...North Korea is expected to test-launch a ballistic missile that could finger the very outer edges of America. Which isn't to say that anyone thinks Pyongyang will blast Anchorage anytime soon, but just testing that kind of missile--and then putting it up for sale on the international arms market--is enough to make huge swaths of the world very nervous. It's a perfect setup for high-priced extortion, and last week diplomats were struggling: Do we let the North Koreans launch, or can we buy them off? On the brink of collapse and with its people...
...diplomats still hope they can scuttle this launch at the negotiating table. They've done it before. Pyongyang agreed to abandon plans to convert nuclear-reactor fuel into nuclear weaponry when the U.S. and Japan agreed to pay for oil imports and build two new reactors. And South Korea's President Kim Dae Jung has embarked on a policy of engagement, offering food and investment from South Korean companies. As thanks, North Korea has sent fishing boats into South Korean waters and provoked a naval clash (Seoul's forces sank one ship), dispatched a suspected spy vessel into Japan...
...Pyongyang's missiles hit a target? Probably not for a long time. But, says Gill Jung Il, a North Korean specialist at Seoul's Yonsei University, "accuracy is not the issue here. Perhaps the fact that Taepo Dong lacks accuracy makes it a more potent weapon. No one would know where it would hit." It's hard to think of a more perfect weapon for North Korea: unpredictable and potentially dangerous...
...North Korea?s primary leverage in dealing with the world," says TIME Tokyo correspondent Tim Larimer. "It?s crippled by famine and the decline of its industrial base, so its military might and reputation for irrationality are its strongest cards in any negotiations." As if to underline the point, Pyongyang warned Tuesday that "the further the United States escalates pressure on us, the stronger our reaction will become to bring unpredictable consequences...
...Since 1994, offers of energy and food assistance by the U.S. and its allies had succeeded in curbing North Korea?s nuclear program and its missile exports, but strong warnings against the latest planned test -- and military maneuvers by its regional enemies -- may goad Pyongyang into pressing the button. "By making so much of it we may have turned this missile firing into a test of North Korean manhood," says TIME Pentagon correspondent Mark Thompson. "Being more discreet may give Pyongyang more of a way out." Which may be why, despite the threats of harsh economic retaliation, Washington is arguing...