Word: pyongyang
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...while hurling provocative invective at the U.S. Kim's government acknowledges it has been carrying out a clandestine program to make bombs from enriched uranium. North Korea is believed to have enough fissile material for at least two N-bombs already, and since abrogating the Agreed Framework, Pyongyang officials claim to have extracted enough plutonium from spent nuclear-reactor fuel rods to make five or six more bombs...
...Pyongyang says it needs nukes to protect itself from American warmongers. But its defensive weapon of choice is destabilizing to Asia. It risks touching off an arms race as technologically advanced countries, including Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, hasten to build nuclear equalizers of their own. Pyongyang is under immense pressure to deal, and a look around the region offers a snapshot of how stressful life will be for the Kim regime if this week's talks founder. Russia, an old cold war ally, is currently staging a massive military exercise near the North Korean border, together with...
...rounds to complete; current talks have not begun, yet already the North has set the process back by threatening to export nuclear bombs. "These are people who believe in letting 20% of their people starve if necessary," says Adrian Buzo, an Australian scholar who was a diplomat in Pyongyang in the 1970s. "They already have missiles. They have rudimentary nuclear devices. What can the world offer them...
...South Korean Foreign Minister Yoon Young Kwan has said he is expecting "a long process for settlement, rather than being too optimistic or pessimistic about the outcomes of the first round of talks." Because of the antipathy between Washington and Pyongyang, negotiations could last years. But some believe they might be over before they even begin. "I worry the Americans are only negotiating to show they tried diplomacy but wouldn't mind seeing the talks break down," says Zhang Tuosheng, director of research at the Foundation for International Strategic Studies in Beijing. Ultimately, Zhang fears, the Bush Administration wants...
...favored unification formula is a glacial process of investment and economic exchanges that slowly develop the North's economy, leading to peace, then a common constitution and parliament, and ultimately formal unification. Even if the Kim regime suddenly collapses, the think tankers favor installing an interim government in Pyongyang until the North can catch up economically...