Word: yongbyon
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...have converted enough plutonium from spent nuclear fuel rods for at least five or six bombs. The U.S. and South Korea say the North has conducted recent tests to perfect high-explosive detonators used to trigger a nuclear explosion. Ongoing work at the North's nuclear plant at Yongbyon is well known. But over the weekend, the New York Times reported that American and Asian officials say there is strong evidence that the North has built a second, secret plant for producing weapons-grade plutonium. If left unchecked, Pyongyang could test a nuclear weapon by the end of this year...
...development before it offers Pyongyang much of anything. A diplomatic solution seems in some ways even more unattainable with North Korea than it was with Iraq. And trying to impose regime change on a nuclear-armed rogue state seems unthinkable. A quick, clean surgical strike to take out the Yongbyon nuclear facility would not end the weapons threat - the North is thought to have a separate nuclear program hidden away in underground facilities. Besides, any military move would invite massive retaliation, and Kim has better hostages than Saddam. The capital of South Korea, the world's 12th-largest economy...
...MILITARY FORCE The U.S. hasn't ruled out the use of force to strip North Korea of its nukes. Clinton considered a strike on North Korea's nuclear facilities at Yongbyon. But the risk remains that a smart-bomb attack will spark a war that won't be as neat as Gulf War II. Estimates of casualties in South Korea from even a short conflict run to 1 million. The U.S. would again risk international censure for unilateral military action. In April, China and Russia scuttled a U.N. Security Council resolution merely condemning North Korea for pulling...
...three-day talks, Li, true to his script, informed Kelly that North Korea indeed possesses nuclear weapons, might well choose to export or "demonstrate" them and would base its decision on whether Washington meets a slew of demands, including lots more aid. Li added that the plutonium from the Yongbyon reactor?material that $400 million in U.S. heavy-fuel-oil payments was meant to keep "frozen"?was now almost completely reprocessed. North Korea then called off the third day of talks, explaining that the Americans "had nothing...
...Starting up the reprocessing facility at the Yongbyon nuclear plant has been widely viewed as dangerously provocative because it might allow the North to produce several A-bombs in a matter of months. But so far, Washington's reaction has been muted. U.S. State Department officials quickly saw that the original Korean version of the statement was less definitive than suggested in initial news reports. "There is some discrepancy over the language," a senior State official said Friday, "We're not convinced they have started reprocessing and we're going to wait...