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Myanmar-DPRK collaboration

Monday, September 27th, 2010

There is an interesting article in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists:

Article Highlights
1. The idea that North Korea and Myanmar are collaborating on a nuclear weapons programs represents only one possible scenario among several that deserve closer examination.

2. Myanmar’s goal might be to improve its missile program or trade in illicit technology rather than build nuclear weapons.

3. Myanmar’s receipt of illegally-exported or questionable dual-use items should cause the international community to reexamine export controls and policies specific to trade with the Southeast Asian country.

Article Text:

Is Myanmar developing nuclear weapons, perhaps with the help of North Korea? That worrisome possibility, prompted by Myanmar’s receipt of dual-use technology via an illegal North Korean procurement network, has garnered considerable speculation. Compelling evidence amassed in reports published this year by the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB), Jane’s Intelligence Review, and Al Jazeera indicates that, as the ISIS report put it, “There remain sound reasons to suspect that the military regime in Burma [Myanmar] might be pursuing a long-term strategy to make nuclear weapons.”1

The possible existence of such a program cannot and should not be discounted, but it is far from the only explanation that can account for Myanmar’s unusual imports. The dual-use technology sent to Myanmar — including a cylindrical grinder and magnetometer — are considerably beyond the country’s current technical capabilities, according to the DVB report. Such sophisticated devices, which could be used to produce nuclear- or missile-related parts, may point to a well-planned, long-term nuclear weapons program, perhaps assisted by North Korea.

However, alternate explanations also warrant consideration to better understand the nature of DPRK-Myanmar trade in such technologies. Plausible alternative scenarios include the use of Myanmar as a transshipment hub for items ultimately destined for North Korea, an evolving conventional missile program, procurement errors or other planning missteps, or some combination of these possibilities.

Myanmar as a transshipment hub. In late 2009, the Yokohama District Court in Japan found the president of Toko Boeki (a small Tokyo-based trading company) guilty of coordinating illegal WMD-related exports to Myanmar.2 Investigators determined that Toko Boeki had acquired cylindrical grinders and a magnetometer at the behest of New East International Company, a North Korean front company based in Hong Kong.3 Although New East International directed Toko Boeki to deliver the equipment to Myanmar, it is possible that the devices were not intended to remain there; Myanmar may have been a transfer point before the goods were shipped to another location — perhaps even North Korea.

Indeed, Myanmar has distinct advantages to North Korean procurement networks that want to circumvent sanctions and illegally divert dual-use equipment to Pyongyang. (See Editor’s Note.) Although it is also subject to sanctions, Myanmar is not as isolated as North Korea, and legitimate shipments originating from Japan, for example, can provide suitable cover for WMD-related deliveries.

In addition, Myanmar’s flourishing illegal trade networks — including drug and human trafficking — represent a familiarity with the kind of knowledge required to covertly transship deliveries to countries with more advanced WMD programs (such as North Korea). The rampant corruption associated with the military regime further enables illicit trade.

The revival of diplomatic and military relationships between Myanmar’s ruling junta and Pyongyang is another reason to consider whether North Korea, and not Myanmar, may have been the final destination for the dual-use equipment.4 Chartered or diplomatic air transport, necessary to ferry officials between capitals, is less susceptible to interdiction, offering an ideal conduit for the transfer of some types of dual-use equipment from Myanmar to North Korea. A UN panel of experts on Resolution 1874 (which strengthened sanctions on North Korea after its second nuclear test) highlighted such a scenario in a May 2010 report PDF, suggesting that Pyongyang may turn to illicit air cargo shipments as a preferred mode of transport for its illegal trade.

A conventional missile program. Myanmar may be an ideal transshipment hub, but reports from ISIS and DVB indicate that dual-use machine tools from Japan and Europe are not simply being stored in Myanmar, but also used there. This could indicate that the devices may actually be intended for use in Myanmar’s indigenous missile program.

Although Myanmar’s overall technological development appears limited in comparison with North Korea, the majority of the questionable dual-use items received by Myanmar may truly be for its own missile development effort. Acquisition of conventionally armed short- and medium-range ballistic missiles would provide the junta with a significant strategic advantage over regional and domestic rivals, and short-range missiles could be useful to fight insurgent groups that challenge the junta’s authority.5

Further, Myanmar’s defense industry already produces artillery and mobile rocket launchers, and the country reportedly has spent more than a decade improving its missile production capabilities.6 This practical experience could facilitate Myanmar’s eventual creation of larger missiles, such as Scarabs or early Scud derivatives. Myanmar cannot yet produce these missiles, but the equipment identified in the Toko Boeki case and in the DVB report could be used to help it develop more advanced missile designs.

Alternative scenarios. It is also possible that, after some of the questionable dual-use equipment had already been received, a North Korea-Myanmar proliferation relationship fell into disarray due to the enormous complexity that plagues all WMD programs. Payment disputes (similar to those PDF that held up Myanmar’s negotiations with Russia for a 10 megawatt research reactor) could be one cause.7 Myanmar’s acquisition of equipment beyond its technical capabilities could also be explained by a procurement error or an overestimation of indigenous know-how, as the DVB report acknowledges. In 2002, Myanmar expressed interest in buying a mini-submarine from Pyongyang, according to Jane’s, but abandoned the idea due in part to its lack of expertise.8

The transfer of such advanced equipment could also be an example of aggressive sales of unsuitable technology to a naïve junta, similar to Geoffrey Forden’s suggestion that North Korea has been selling subpar missile technology to states in the Middle East. It is also plausible that a core group of scientists has the ear of the junta — as well as its funding — and may have over-promised deliverables. These scientists might include U Thaung, the pro-nuclear energy minister of science and technology, and Ko Ko Oo, who is director general of the Department of Atomic Energy and former director of the Department of Technical and Vocational Education (DTVE). The two departments shared the same address, phone number, and fax number until Myanmar’s capital was moved to Naypidyaw, and the DTVE is an end-user of some of the questionable dual-use equipment that Myanmar has acquired, according to ISIS.9

Another possible scenario is that Myanmar could be “warehousing” devices for North Korea under a barter agreement that allows Myanmar to train personnel on the dual-use equipment (and thereby gain valuable hands-on experience with the devices) before it is ultimately moved to North Korea. It is possible that Myanmar may even be viewed as an offshore production hub for transfer of items to North Korea or other interested parties. Sanctions make it nearly impossible for Pyongyang to acquire controlled, technically advanced equipment that requires installation and maintenance by foreign technicians; North Korea and Myanmar may have therefore collaborated to purchase the equipment, install it in Myanmar, and use the machines to produce advanced missile or nuclear parts that could then be more easily routed via air cargo to North Korea (or elsewhere).

Conclusion. The possibility that Myanmar is pursuing a nuclear weapons program is just one of many potential explanations for its importation of technologically advanced dual-use items. The alarming prospect of a nuclear-armed Myanmar cannot be ignored, but neither should it prevent the assessment of other feasible scenarios. More research is needed to determine precisely why Myanmar received questionable dual-use items and to discover their final destination, if Myanmar is a transshipment point. Export control regimes should take note of the potential for diversion of dual-use items through Myanmar, and to protect regional stability, governments in Asia should reexamine their trade policies toward the Southeast Asian country.

Read the full article here:
North Korea and Myanmar: A match for nuclear proliferation?
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
Catherine Boyle, Melissa Hanham, Robert Shaw
9/27/2010

Posted in Korean People's Army, Military, Myanmar, Nuclear | Comments Closed

Janes Intelligence Review confirms Myanmar nuke program

Sunday, July 25th, 2010

According to Bloomberg:

Allegations by a Myanmar defector that the military-run country is pursuing a nuclear program are corroborated by newly available commercial satellite images, Jane’s Intelligence Review said in an article released yesterday.

The photos of buildings and security fences near the country’s capital, Naypyidaw, confirm reports by Major Sai Thein Win of machine tool factories and other facilities alleged to be part of a nascent program to build nuclear weapons, the magazine reported from London.

“They will not make a bomb with the technology they currently possess or the intellectual capability,” Jane’s analyst Allison Puccioni said in an interview. “The two factors do make it possible to have a route to one.”

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressed concern about reports that North Korea and Myanmar are expanding military ties and sharing nuclear technology at a meeting of Southeast Asian foreign ministers in Thailand last year.

Clinton said the U.S. would remain “vigilant” against any military cooperation between the two countries. Yesterday, Clinton announced further sanctions against North Korea in an effort to halt the country’s nuclear-weapons program.

Sai said he worked at two factories involved in the nuclear program. His report to a Burmese opposition news website, Democratic Voice of Burma, based in Norway, included documents and color photographs of the interior of the installations.

The satellite imagery reviewed by Jane’s showed only the exterior of the buildings, Puccioni said.

‘Overly Ambitious’

Jane’s said Myanmar’s nuclear program is “overly ambitious with limited expertise,” in a statement yesterday. While Myanmar is a signatory to international agreements to control nuclear weapons use, it hasn’t agreed to more recent changes in the treaties and therefore isn’t subject to international inspections, the magazine said.

“With Myanmar’s current freedom from sanctions and relative economic prosperity, the junta may be able to outsource the technical know-how and tools to reach its goals far sooner than expected,” Christian Le Mière, editor of Jane’s Intelligence Review, said in a statement.

“Someone had to be assisting them, that’s the frightening thing,” said David Kay, a former United Nations weapons inspector and now a fellow at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies in Arlington, Virginia, in an interview. “Myanmar is uniquely incapable of carrying this through.”

North Korea could be the country providing aid, said Michael J. Green, an adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and former senior director for Asia on the National Security Council under President George W. Bush.

North Korea

During the Bush administration, North Korea discussed delivering short-range missiles and nuclear capability to Myanmar, Green said.

“We worry about the transfer of nuclear technology” and indications of clandestine military cooperation between two of Asia’s most secretive regimes, Clinton said last year. “I’m not saying it is happening, but we want to be prepared to stand against it.”

State Department spokesman Philip J. Crowley said on July 12 that the U.S. continues “to have concerns about Burma’s relationship with North Korea. It’s something that we watch very, very carefully and consistently.”

Last year, the U.S. Navy followed the Kang Nam I, a North Korean freighter headed in the direction of Myanmar with unknown cargo. The ship turned around and returned home.

The evidence points to a method of uranium enrichment, laser enrichment, that the North Koreans have never used, Kay said. “If it is laser enrichment the finger points more toward Chinese assistance or some place in the former Soviet Union,” he said.

Read the full story here:
Myanmar Nuclear Weapon Program Claims Supported by Photos, Jane’s Reports
Bloomberg
Peter S. Green
7/21/2010

Posted in Military, Myanmar, Nuclear | Comments Closed

Burma-North Korea Ties: Escalating Over Two Decades

Wednesday, July 7th, 2010

According to the Irrawaddy:

A recent New York Times op-ed article by Aung Lynn Htut, formerly a high-ranking Burmese military intelligence officer who defected in 2005 while he served as an attaché at the Burmese embassy in Washington, shed new light on the history of the still murky relationship between Burma and North Korea, two of the world’s most isolated, secretive and oppressive regimes.

Burma broke diplomatic relations with North Korea in 1983, when North Korean agents attempted to assassinate the South Korean president on Burmese soil. But according to Aung Lynn Htut, shortly after current junta-chief Snr-Gen Than Shwe assumed power in 1992, he surreptitiously moved to renew ties with Pyongyang.

“Than Shwe secretly made contact with Pyongyang. Posing as South Korean businessmen, North Korean weapon experts began arriving in Burma. I remember these visitors. They were given special treatment at the Rangoon airport,” Aung Lynn Htut said in his June 18 article.

The junta kept its renewed ties with North Korea secret for more than a decade because it was working to establish relationships with Japanese and South Korean businesses, Aung Lynn Htut said. By 2006, however, “the junta’s generals felt either desperate or confident enough to publicly resume diplomatic relations with North Korea.”

In November 2008, the junta’s No 3, Gen Shwe Mann, visited North Korea and signed a memorandum of understanding, officially formalizing military cooperation between Burma and North Korea. Photographs showed him touring secret tunnel complexes built into the sides of mountains thought to store and protect jet aircraft, missiles, tanks and nuclear and chemical weapons.

According to Aung Lynn Htut, Lt-Gen Tin Aye, the No.5 in the Burma armed forces and the chief of Military Ordnance, is now the main liaison in the relationship with Pyongyang. Tin Aye has often traveled to North Korea as well as attended ceremonies at the North Korean embassy in Rangoon.

In September 2009, The New Light of Myanmar reported that Tin Aye went to the anniversary celebration of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), held in a hotel in Rangoon. In February, Tin Aye, along with other senior officials, attended the birthday event of the Dear Leader of North Korea at the embassy.

Flights and ships from North Korea to Burma have been carrying more than just Burmese generals. Analysts, including Burma military expert Andrew Selth, say that for years Burma and North Korea have used a barter system whereby Burma exchanges primary products for North Korean military technologies.

In June 2009, a North Korean ship, the Kang Nam I, was diverted from going to Burma after being trailed by the US navy. Then in April, another North Korean ship, the Chong Gen, docked in Burma carrying suspicious cargo, allegedly in violation of the UN Security Council Resolution 1874, which restricts North Korea from arms deals and from trading in technology that could be used for nuclear weapons.

In May, the seven-member UN panel monitoring the implementation of sanctions against North Korea said in a report that Pyongyang is involved in banned nuclear and ballistic activities in Iran, Syria and Burma with the aid of front companies around the world.

According to the UN report, a North Korean company, Namchongang Trading, which is known to be associated with illicit procurement for Burma’s nuclear and military program and is on the US sanctions list, was involved in suspicious activities in Burma.

The report also noted three individuals were arrested in Japan in 2009 for attempting to illegally export a magnetometer—a dual-use instrument that can be employed in making missile control system magnets and gas centrifuge magnets—to Burma via Malaysia allegedly under the direction of another company known to be associated with illicit procurement for North Korea’s nuclear and military programs.

The UN experts also said that the Korea Kwangson Banking Corporation has handled several transactions involving millions of dollars directly related to deals between Burma and the Korea Mining Development Trading Corporation.

With this string of events and the suspicions surrounding them as a dramatic lead in, on June 4, Al Jazeera aired a news documentary prepared by the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) which was written by Robert Kelley, a nuclear scientist and former director of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The DVB report claimed that the ruling military junta in Burma is “mining uranium, converting it to uranium compounds for reactors and bombs, and is trying to build a reactor and/or an enrichment plant that could only be useful for a bomb.”

The IAEA wrote to Burma’s agency representative, Tin Win, on June 14 and asked whether the information provided in the DVB report was true. Burma, which is a member of the IAEA, a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and a signatory to the Southeast Asia Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone Treaty, responded with a letter stating that the DVB report allegations are “groundless and unfounded.”

“No activity related to uranium conversion, enrichment, reactor construction or operation has been carried out in the past, is ongoing or is planned for the future in Myanmar [Burma],” the letter said.

The letter also noted that Burma is a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the agency’s so-called safeguards agreement. “As stated in the safeguards agreement, Myanmar will notify the agency if it plans to carry out any nuclear activities,” the letter said.

The regime, however, has not signed the IAEA’s Additional Protocol, meaning that the agency has no power to set up an inspection of Burma’s nuclear facilities under the existing mechanism known as the Small Quantities Protocol.

Previously, on June 11, Burma’s state radio and television news had reported the Foreign Ministry’s denial of the allegations in the DVB report. The denial claimed that anti-government groups in collusion with the media had launched the allegations with the goal of “hindering Burma’s democratic process and to tarnish the political image of the government.”

The Foreign Ministry denial also addressed Nyapyidaw’s relationship with Pyongyang. “Following the re-establishment of diplomatic relations, Myanmar [Burma] and the DPRK, as independent sovereign states, have been engaging in promoting trade and cooperation between the two countries in the same way Myanmar is dealing with others,” the ministry said in its statement.

The regime did acknowledge that the Chong Gen docked at Thilawa Port near Rangoon in April. But the statement said the North Korean vessel was involved in importing cement from North Korea and exporting rice from Burma.

But in an article for Asia Times online, Burma analyst Bertil Linter noted that, “if carrying only innocuous civilian goods, as the statement maintains, there would seemingly have been no reason for authorities to cut electricity around the area when the Chong Gen, a North Korean ship flying the Mongolian flag of convenience, docked on the outskirts of Yangon.”

“According to intelligence sources, security was tight as military personnel offloaded heavy material, including Korean-made air defense radars. The ship left the port with a return cargo of rice and sugar, which could mean that it was, at least in part, a barter deal. On January 31 this year, another North Korean ship, the Yang M V Han A, reportedly delivered missile components also at Yangon’s Thilawa port,” Linter said.

Strategypage.com, a military affairs website covering armed forces worldwide, said, “Indications are that the North Korean ship that delivered a mysterious cargo four months ago, was carrying air defense radars (which are now being placed on hills up north) and ballistic missile manufacturing equipment. Dozens of North Korean technicians have entered the country in the last few months, and have been seen working at a military facility outside Mandalay. It’s unclear what this is for. Burma has no external enemies, and ballistic missiles are of no use against internal opposition.”

In his Asia Times online story, Lintner noted that on June 24, the DVB reported that a new radar and missile base had been completed near Mohnyin in Myanmar’s northern Kachin State, and he reported that work on similar radar and missile bases has been reported from Kengtung in eastern Shan State,160 kilometers north of the Thai border town of Mae Sai.

“Since Myanmar is not known to have imported radars and missile components from any country other than North Korea, the installations would appear to be one of the first visible outcomes of a decade of military cooperation,” Lintner said.

Lintner also reported that Western intelligence sources know that 30 to 40 North Korean missile technicians are currently working at a facility near Minhla on the Irrawaddy River in Magwe Division, and that some of the technicians may have arrived overland by bus from China to give the appearance of being Chinese tourists.

North Korea has also issued adamant denials with respect to allegations regarding its relationship with Burma.

According to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), on June 21 Pyongyang said, “The US is now making much fuss, floating the sheer fiction that the DPRK is helping Myanmar [Burma] in its nuclear development.”

The KCNA often highlights the close relationship between North Korea and Burma.

On June 20, the Pyongyang news agency reported that ex-Col Than Tun, deputy chairman of the Union of Myanmar Economic Holding Ltd., sent a statement cheering Kim Jong Il’s 46th anniversary at the Central Committee of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea.

On April 18, Korean state-run- media reported that Than Tun also issued a statement cheering the 17th anniversary of Kim Jong Il’s chairing of North Korea’s National Defense Commission.

“Kim Jong Il’s field inspection of KPA [Korean People’s Army] units served as a main source that helped bolster [North Korea’s] self-reliant defense capability in every way,” the statement noted.

Military sources said the Union of Myanmar Economic Holding Ltd, managed by the junta, is responsible for purchasing imported weapons for Burma’s armed forces, including transferring money to overseas banks such as Korea Kwangson Banking Corporation.

Meanwhile, in addition to its escalating relationship with North Korea, the Burmese military regime has recently boosted ties with Iran, which according to the UN report is also allegedly receiving nuclear and missile technologies from North Korea.

In recent years, Burmese and Iranian officials visited their counterparts homeland for the purported purpose of improving economic ties. Observers, however, said Than Shwe has made a tactical decision to develop relationships with other “pariah states,” particularly enemies of the US, to relieve Western pressure on his regime.

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Mohammad Ali Fathollahi met Burmese Foreign Minister Nyan Win and Minister of Energy Lun Thi during his trip to Burma on June 15-17.

“The two sides reiterated their desire to further expand the ties of friendship and economic cooperation and to increase cooperation in the regional international forums such as [the] United Nations and Non-Aligned Movement,” The New Light of Myanmar reported on June 18.

Fathollahi’s visit came three months after Maung Myint’s visit to Iran on March 8-11, when he met Iranian Foreign Minister Manochehr Mottaki and Deputy Minister of Petroleum H. Noghrehkar Shirazi.

Read the full story below:
Burma-North Korea Ties: Escalating Over Two Decades
Irrawaddy
Wai Moe
7/7/2010

Posted in Arms shipment, Energy, Illicit activities, Korea Kwangson Banking Corp., Korea Mining Development Trading Corporation (aka Kapmun Tosong, KOMID), Military, Mining/Minerals, Myanmar, Namchongang Trading Corporation, Nuclear, Sea shipping, UN Security Council | Comments Closed

UN accuses DPRK of viloating sanctions

Tuesday, June 1st, 2010

According to the BBC:

A United Nations panel has accused North Korea of continuing to export nuclear and missile technology in defiance of a UN ban.

The experts said North Korea has used front companies and intermediaries to sell weapons and provide illegal assistance to Iran, Syria and Burma.

The preliminary report was compiled by a seven-member group that monitors Pyongyang’s compliance with sanctions.

…

The 47-page report outlined a broad range of techniques used by North Korea to evade sanctions imposed by the UN after the North’s nuclear tests of 2006 and 2009, the Associated Press reports.

The report said North Korea had moved quickly to replace banned individuals and entities with others to enable it to continue the nuclear trade.

Among a number of “masking techniques”, it said the North describes exports falsely, mislabels shipping container contents, falsifies information about the destinations of goods and uses “multiple layers of intermediaries, shell companies, and financial institutions”.

The report said North Korea has a range of legitimate trade offices but also sustains links with international criminal organisations to pursue the banned trades.

An unnamed diplomat told Reuters the findings were “not entirely surprising”.

“The point is that North Korea has been providing that kind of aid to Iran, Syria and Burma,” he said.

The report comes before a crucial day of talks in New York about the future of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

It also comes at a time of increased tension surrounding what international investigators say was a deadly North Korean torpedo attack on a South Korean warship in March.

Read the full article here:
North Korea ‘trading nuclear technology’ says UN panel
BBC
5/28/2010

Posted in Arms shipment, Illicit activities, International trade, Nuclear, UN Security Council | Comments Closed

DPRK declares fusion reaction

Sunday, May 16th, 2010

UPDATE 2: Gordon Chang offers another theory in Forbes:

And the North’s ability to surprise gets us back to the mysterious release of the xenon. We know its technicians can make nuclear weapons with plutonium cores. After all, they detonated two of them–in 2006 and 2009–and Kim has a half dozen more in his arsenal.

Did he set off one of his stock in May? Because there was no artificial seismic activity at the time, Seoul ruled out a third North Korean underground nuclear test. Xenon is also released during a nuclear accident, a possibility.

Another possibility–the most disturbing one, actually–is that the North Koreans had been telling the truth when on May 12, just two days before South Korea detected the high levels of xenon, they announced they had created a nuclear fusion reaction, a step necessary to the building of a thermonuclear device. At the time everyone thought the claim was “sheer mystical flapdoodle,” as one American expert termed it. Maybe the boast was a fantastic fabrication, but any possibility that Kim’s regime was closer to the world’s most destructive weapon is obviously of concern.

To find out what really happened, we have to think like North Koreans. So here’s a theory: Pyongyang made the hard-to-accept claim about fusion so that we would be distracted from what it is really doing. Xenon is released whenever uranium is enriched, such as when it is enriched for the core of a nuclear weapon.

The North Koreans started to obtain Chinese-Pakistani enrichment technology in the early 1990s from the black-market ring headed by Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan. They first boasted of a uranium enrichment program in October 2002. Most analysts think the North has not gotten very far even if it has been trying to build a nuclear weapon with a uranium core. The release of xenon gas in May throws the conventional view into doubt.

Bruce Bechtol of the Marine Corps Command and Staff College will deliver, next Monday at Brookings in Washington, a paper contending that North Korea is now or will soon be capable of building a uranium-core bomb. Not every analyst agrees with Bechtol’s conclusion, but doubters need to come up with a plausible explanation why xenon was wafting over the North Korean countryside last month. At least for now, he seems the one closest to the truth.

UPDATE 1: According to the Associated Press (6/21/2010):

Abnormal radiation was detected near the inter-Korean border days after North Korea claimed last month to have achieved a nuclear technology breakthrough, South Korea’s Science Ministry said Monday.

The ministry said it failed to find the cause of the radiation but ruled out a possible underground nuclear test by North Korea. It cited no evidence of a strong earthquake that must follow an atomic explosion.

On May 12, North Korea claimed its scientists succeeded in creating a nuclear fusion reaction — a technology necessary to manufacture a hydrogen bomb. The technology also one day could provide limitless clean energy because it produces little radioactive waste, unlike fission, which powers conventional nuclear power reactors.

South Korean experts doubted the North actually made such a breakthrough. Scientists around the world have been experimenting with fusion for decades, but it has yet to be developed into a viable energy alternative.

On May 15, however, the atmospheric concentration of xenon — an inert gas released after a nuclear explosion or radioactive leakage from a nuclear power plant — on the South Korean side of the inter-Korean border was found to be eight times higher than normal, according to South Korea’s Science Ministry.

South Korea subsequently looked for signs of a powerful, artificially induced earthquake — something that should have been detected if North Korea had conducted a nuclear test. Experts, however, found no signs of a such a quake in North Korea, a ministry statement said.

“We determined that there was no possibility of an underground nuclear test,” it said. The ministry did not mention any possible health hazard from the release.

Earlier Monday, South Korea’s mass-circulation Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported that North Korea may have conducted a small-sized nuclear test, citing the abnormal radioactivity. The paper cited an atomic expert it did not identify.

North Korea — which is believed to have enough weaponized plutonium for at least a half-dozen nuclear weapons, conducted two underground nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009, drawing international condemnation and U.N. sanctions.

The news of the detected radiation comes as tension is running high on the Korean peninsula over the deadly sinking of a South Korean warship blamed on a North Korean torpedo attack. North Korea flatly denies the allegation and has warned any punishment would trigger war, with the U.N. Security Council reviewing Seoul’s request to punish Pyongyang over the sinking.

A Science Ministry official said the wind was blowing from north to south when the xenon was detected.

But the official — speaking on condition of anonymity, citing department policy — said xenon could have come from Russia or China, not necessarily from North Korea, as South Korea was unable to find the reason for the high-level of the gas.

The official also said that there was no possibility that the xenon could have originated from any nuclear power plants in South Korea.

ORIGINAL POST: According to KCNA (May 12):

DPRK Succeeds in Nuclear Fusion
Pyongyang, May 12 (KCNA) — Scientists of the DPRK succeeded in nuclear fusion reaction on the significant occasion of the Day of the Sun this year, according to Rodong Sinmun Wednesday.

It goes on:

The successful nuclear fusion marks a great event that demonstrated the rapidly developing cutting-edge science and technology of the DPRK.

The nuclear fusion technology is called “artificial solar” technology as it represents a field of the latest science and technology for the development of new energy desired by humankind.

The nuclear fusion technology for obtaining safe and environment-friendly new energy the source of which is abundant draws great attention of world science at present.

Scientists of the DPRK have worked hard to develop nuclear fusion technology their own way.

They solved a great many scientific and technological problems entirely by their own efforts without the slightest hesitation and vacillation even under the conditions where everything was in short supply and there were a lot of difficulties, thus succeeding in nuclear fusion reaction at last.

In this course, Korean style thermo-nuclear reaction devices were designed and manufactured, basic researches into nuclear fusion reaction completed and strong scientific and technological forces built to perfect the thermo-nuclear technology by their own efforts.

The successful nuclear fusion in the DPRK made a definite breakthrough toward the development of new energy and opened up a new phase in the nation’s development of the latest science and technology.

According to NTI Global Security Newswire:

Aspiring nuclear power North Korea claimed today that it was able to conduct a nuclear fusion reaction, a process that could be used to produce energy or a hydrogen bomb, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, May 11).

The state-run Rodong Sinmun did not say whether the fusion reaction, which no other nuclear program has yet successfully turned toward energy production, would be put to use in the country’s nuclear weapons program.

“The successful nuclear fusion marks a great event that demonstrated the rapidly developing cutting-edge science and technology of the D.P.R.K.,” the report asserted.

To achieve the reaction, “Korean-style thermonuclear reaction devices were designed and manufactured, basic researches into nuclear fusion reaction completed and strong scientific and technological forces built to perfect the thermonuclear technology,” said the report (Agence France-Presse I/Australian, May 12).

South Korea was skeptical today of the North’s nuclear fusion claim, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

An anonymous Foreign Ministry official told the Yonhap News Agency that Pyongyang’s assertion was “absurd” and said there was no evidence that the impoverished nation possessed the expensive nuclear infrastructure required to conduct fusion tests.

Should North Korea be telling the truth, though, it would have breached U.N. Security Council Resolution 1874, which prohibits Pyongyang from carrying out additional missile or nuclear tests, the official said (Xinhua News Agency, May 12).

The Stalinist regime, which is severely lacking in electricity generation capacity, compared the fusion reaction to an “artificial sun,” Reuters reported.

“Maybe if two suns show up in the sky tomorrow, then people could believe the claim,” Seoul National University nuclear expert Kune Suh said.

“This seems highly inaccurate and grossly exaggerated,” he said. “They probably conducted some small-scale experiment” (Herskovitz/Kim, Reuters, May 11).

The reaction was said to be conducted in honor of the April birthday of North Korea’s founder, Kim Il Sung, which is now a holiday known as the “Day of the Sun.” Pyongyang regularly makes questionable claims on days recognizing Kim or his son and successor, Kim Jong Il, the Associated Press reported.

Hyeon Park, a physics professor who works on fusion research in the South, said North Korea could have successfully built a plasma device and generated a hot mass of supercharged particles, which is one of the first steps n to create a nuclear fusion reaction.

To judge the validity of the assertion, foreign scientists would require information on the scope of the North’s fusion test and the steps it took to create the plasma, Park said (Kwang-Tae Kim, Associated Press/Google News, May 12).

Meanwhile, Washington’s lead negotiator for the multilateral talks aimed at ending the North’s nuclear weapons work, Sung Kim, was in South Korea today for talks with his South Korean counterpart, AFP reported. The talks also involve China, Japan and Russia.

Seoul’s deputy foreign minister and deputy defense chief are set to travel to Washington tomorrow for talks about matters on the Korean Peninsula and nuclear concerns, the South Korean Foreign Ministry said (Agence France-Presse II/Google News, May 12).

Posted in Energy, Nuclear | Comments Closed

Aminex sells half Korean interests

Monday, May 10th, 2010

UPDATE 2: (5/19/2010) According to Offshore-mag.com:

LONDON — Aminex says a delegation from North Korea is in London negotiating a new production-sharing agreement (PSA) covering activity in the East Korea Bay basin.

Chosun Energy has become a 50% shareholder in Korex, Aminex’s subsidiary for the region, and will become increasingly involved in management of this project.

Assuming agreement for the PSA can be reached with the government of North Korea, work will start as soon as possible on the next phase of exploration in the area.

UPDATE 1: A reader passes along a very helpful comment (Thanks!):

I think that some lazy journalism on behalf of the Irish paper has mistakenly linked Colin McAskill of the UK to this.

If you do a background check on Chosun Energy via Singapore Companies House, you will see that it is controlled by a.o. James Passin (an American) of Firebird. McAskill is not on the board and, as far as I can see, there is no connection to McAskill’s Chosun fund.

Interesting to see the Americans preparing to invest in NK!

DYOR of course, I may be entirely wrong of course:)

ORIGINAL POST: According to the Independent (Ireland):

Brian Hall’s AIM-listed resources firm Aminex has agreed to sell a 50 per cent stake in its North Korean interests to a fund fronted by one of the few westerners to have dealt with its erratic leader Kim Jong II.

Aminex received close to €600,000 for a 50 per cent stake in its Korex vehicle, which is currently trying to develop oil assets in the sea around North Korea.

Its new partner, Chosun Energy, is controlled by a fund backed by British businessman Colin McAskill.

Mr McAskill is one of the few westerners with access to the dictator, having advised the country on debt and banking issues.e a prisoner in some re-education camp”.

Read the full story here:
Aminex sells half Korean interests
Independent
Nick Webb
5/9/2010

Posted in Aminex, Chosun Fund, Energy, Foreign direct investment, Nuclear | 1 Comment »

Earthquake in North Korea-Russia-China border area (interesting follow-up at the bottom)

Sunday, February 21st, 2010

According to the Choson Ilbo:

A strong underground earthquake registering a magnitude of 6.9 on the Richter scale occurred about 21 km from the Russian border with North Korea around 10:13 a.m. on Thursday, the Korea Meteorological Administration announced based on data by the U.S. Geological Survey.

The epicenter was 42.7 degrees northern latitude and 130.9 degrees eastern longitude 110 km southwest of Vladivostok near the border of North Korea, China and Russia.

The KMA said the quake was strong but the actual surface wave magnitude was a mere 2 because it happened 562.5 km below from the surface. “It’s the kind of situation where objects hanging from the ceiling swing a little and parked cars shake slightly, so almost no damage seems to have been done to people or buildings in North Korea and elsewhere,” a spokesman said. “The quake was a natural result of the subduction of the Pacific plate under the Eurasian plate. There always exists the possibility of strong quakes occurring on the Korean Peninsula as quakes stronger than magnitude 6 occur in the region every two years.”

Quakes are becoming more frequent. According to Chosun Ilbo’s analysis of the KMA data, 157 quakes occurred in both Koreas in the 1980s, but the frequency soared to 259 in the 1990s to 436 in the 2000s. Sixty quakes were reported last year, the most in the 31 years since the KMA began observation. Eight already occurred this year, similar to last year’s monthly average of five.

South Korea has far outdistanced North Korea both in frequency and magnitude of quakes. A total of 279 quakes have been reported on the peninsula since 1978, with 199 in the South and 80 in the North. Of the five quakes stronger than magnitude 5 since 1978, four occurred in South Korea. The South also led in terms of frequency of quakes with magnitudes between 4 and 5 with 28 of all 33.

A Unification Ministry official said, “We’re checking what effects the latest quake had on North Korea alongside related agencies.” Nothing has been reported yet by North Korean media, he added.

Sources in Najin Sonbong in North Korea and Hunchun in China, which are near the epicenter, said they have not been informed. Kim Sung-min, the director of Radio Free North Korea said their source in Hoeryong in North Hamgyong Province heard nothing about the quake.

Commenting on rumors that it was an artificial earthquake caused by a nuclear test, a South Korean government official said, “It would be realistically impossible for them to have dug 562 km down. Chances that it was caused by a nuclear test are extremely slim.” He said it was also unlikely that the North would conduct a test in a place close to the border plus the quake was too strong to be caused by an explosion.

Further information:

Here is the USGS data on the quake.

Here is the quake’s epicenter.

On October 22, 2008, a 4.8 earthquake struck off the coast of Chongjin.

And the fun–The US Geological Service has earthquake readings for both of the DPRK’s nuclear tests:

*Here is the USGS earthquake report for the DPRK’s October 09, 2006, test – a 4.3.

*Here is the USGS earthquake report for the DPRK’s May 25, 2009, test – a 4.7.

Posted in Nuclear | Comments Closed

US intelligence chief: North Korea military crumbling

Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010

According to the AP (Via Boston Herald):

President Barack Obama’s top intelligence official said Tuesday that North Korea relies on its nuclear weapons program because of a crumbling military that cannot compete with South Korea.

Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair described in testimony before the U.S. Congress a North Korean army that struggles with aging weapons, poorly trained, out-of-shape soldiers, inflexible leaders, corruption, low morale and problems with command and control.

North Korea, Blair said, has little chance of reversing a huge gap in military capabilities with South Korea and so “relies on its nuclear program to deter external attacks on the state and to its regime.”

…

Officials from South Korea, the U.S., Japan, Russia and China have been working to get North Korea back to nuclear disarmament talks after Pyongyang walked away from the negotiations last year. For more than a decade, the North has gained energy and aid concessions from the talks and then backed away from nuclear agreements.

Blair said the United States does not know whether the North had made nuclear weapons but that it has that capability. He said that while a 2006 nuclear test was a “partial failure,” the May test of last year was more successful.

Blair said North Korea has shipped missiles to Iran and Pakistan and helped Syria build a nuclear reactor.

The North is thought to have enough weaponized plutonium for at least half a dozen atomic bombs. North Korea argues that it was compelled to develop nuclear weapons to cope with a military threat from the United States, which has about 28,500 troops in the South.

Blair said North Korean leader Kim Jong Il wants recognition of his country as a nuclear weapons power, something he said the United States will not do.

Dennis Blair’s Annual Threat Assesment of the US Intelligence Commuity can be read here. Here is what it had to say about the DPRK:

North Korean WMD and Missile Programs

Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons and missile programs pose a serious threat to the security environment in East Asia. North Korea’s export of ballistic missiles and associated materials to several countries including Iran and Pakistan, and its assistance to Syria in the construction of a nuclear reactor, exposed in 2007, illustrate the reach of the North’s proliferation activities. Despite the Six-Party October 3, 2007 Second Phase Actions agreement in which North Korea reaffirmed its commitment not to transfer nuclear materials, technology, or know-how we remain alert to the possibility North Korea could again export nuclear technology.

The North’s October 2006 nuclear test was consistent with our longstanding assessment that it had produced a nuclear device, although we judge the test itself to have been a partial failure based on its less-than-one-kiloton TNT equivalent yield. The North’s probable nuclear test in May 2009 supports its claim that it has been seeking to develop weapons, and with a yield of roughly a few kilotons TNT equivalent, was apparently more successful than the 2006 test. We judge North Korea has tested two nuclear devices, and while we do not know whether the North has produced nuclear weapons, we assess it has the capability to do so. It remains our policy that we will not accept North Korea as a nuclear weapons state, and we assess that other countries in the region remain committed to the denuclearization of North Korea as has been reflected in the Six Party Talks.

After denying a highly enriched uranium program since 2003, North Korea announced in April 2009 that it was developing uranium enrichment capability to produce fuel for a planned light water reactor (such reactors use low enriched uranium); in September it claimed its enrichment research had “entered into the completion phase”. The exact intent of these announcements is unclear, and they do not speak definitively to the technical status of the uranium enrichment program. The Intelligence Community continues to assess with high confidence North Korea has pursued a uranium enrichment capability in the past, which we assess was for weapons.

Pyongyang’s Conventional Capabilities. Before I turn the North Korean nuclear issue, I want to say a few words regarding the conventional capabilities of the Korea People’s Army (KPA). The KPA’s capabilities are limited by an aging weapons inventory, low production of military combat systems, deteriorating physical condition of soldiers, reduced training, and increasing diversion of the military to infrastructure support. Inflexible leadership, corruption, low morale, obsolescent weapons, a weak logistical system, and problems with command and control also constrain the KPA capabilities and readiness.

Because the conventional military capabilities gap between North and South Korea has become so overwhelmingly great and prospects for reversal of this gap so remote, Pyongyang relies on its nuclear program to deter external attacks on the state and to its regime. Although there are other reasons for the North to pursue its nuclear program, redressing conventional weaknesses is a major factor and one that Kim and his likely successors will not easily dismiss. Six Party Talks and Denuclearization. In addition to the TD-2 missile launch of April 2009 and the probable nuclear test of May 2009, Pyongyang’s reprocessing of fuel rods removed from its reactor as part of the disablement process appears designed to enhance its nuclear deterrent and reset the terms of any return to the negotiating table. Moreover, Pyongyang knows that its pursuit of a uranium enrichment capability has returned that issue to the agenda for any nuclear negotiations. The North has long been aware of US suspicions of a highly enriched uranium program.

We judge Kim Jong-Il seeks recognition of North Korea as a nuclear weapons power by the US and the international community. Pyongyang’s intent in pursuing dialogue at this time is to take advantage of what it perceives as an enhanced negotiating position, having demonstrated its nuclear and missile capabilities.

…

North Korea and Venezuela possess more limited intelligence capabilities focused primarily on regional threats and supporting the ruling regime. North Korea continues to collect information on US technologies and capabilities. Venezuela’s services are working to counter US influence in Latin America by supporting leftist governments and insurgent groups.

Posted in Military, Nuclear, USA | 1 Comment »

US scientists pinpoint location of DPRK’s second nuclear test

Sunday, January 10th, 2010

According to Yonhap:

Lianxing Wen, a geophysics professor at the State University of New York in Stony Brook, and his graduate student, Hui Long, located the epicenter of the second nuclear test on May 5 last year with a margin of error of only 140 meters, compared with 3.8 kilometers achieved by the U.S. Geological Survey.

“We locate the 2009 test at 723 meters north and 2,235 meters west of the 2006 test,” the scientists said in the study, which was published in the January-February edition of Seismological Research Letters of the Seismological Society of America.

Identifying the coordinates of the 2009 test site as 41°17′38.14″N latitude and 129°4′54.21″E longitude, the scientists said their findings should help Asian monitors to pinpoint the location of another nuclear test should North Korea ever decide to go ahead with one.

“The location of any future nuclear test around this particular test site will be pinpointed in real time, with a similar precision,” Wen said in a separate email interview. “With its exact location known, the wave propagation effects due to location geology can be accurately accounted for, leading to a more accurate determination of yield.”

North Korea conducted its first underground nuclear test in Oct. 9, 2006 in Punggye-ri in its northeastern county of Kilju, according to U.S. and South Korean officials.

Wen and Long said they analyzed the seismic waves from the first nuclear test to understand the geological complexities of the earth in the region, and used the data to reduce the uncertainty involved in determining the ground zero of the second test.

“The strategy is not to try to fully understand the complexities of the jungle (earth), but to take advantage of the forensic evidence of the jungle complexities that are imprinted in the recordings” of the first nuclear test, the scientists said in a separate introduction to their thesis.

The waveforms from the first test were obtained from nine seismic stations based in Japan, South Korea and China, the study said.

North Korea conducted its second nuclear test amid a deadlock in international talks aimed at stripping it of its nuclear ambitions, raising tensions and inviting harsh U.N. sanctions.

“High-precision location would reveal, in real time and at great accuracy, an increasingly complete view of the geographic network of a nation’s nuclear test infrastructure,” the paper said.

“Logistically and economically, it is convenient to use the same facilities to do multiple tests. Environmentally, it would confine nuclear wastes in a particular site,” Wen said in the email.

Their paper, “High-precision Location of North Korea’s 2009 Nuclear Test,” can be found here PDF.

Here is the location on Wikimapia.

Posted in Military, Nuclear | Comments Closed

DPRK appropriating KEDO equipment

Friday, January 1st, 2010

According to the Joong Ang Ilbo:

North Korea has reused equipment and materials left from the halted construction work on light-water reactors, breaking a prior agreement with a multinational organization that oversaw the botched construction project.

According to the Unification Ministry and other sources, North Korea has taken 190 vehicles from the site in Kumho, South Hamgyong Province, and 93 pieces of heavy equipment, including cranes and excavators, and is likely using them for military purposes.

Sources said thousands of tons of steel bars and cement and communication devices are also being used by the North.

In late 2005, the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization, also known as KEDO, stopped construction of non-military nuclear reactors in the North. The work had begun in August 1997 as part of the 1994 Agreed Framework between the United States and North Korea. Under the terms of the agreement, Washington said it would build two reactors in the North in exchange for Pyongyang’s agreement to freeze all nuclear weapons activities.

But in October 2002, the United States said it had obtained intelligence that the North had been operating a clandestine program to produce highly enriched uranium to develop weapons and the U.S. State Department said North Korea admitted to doing so. By January 2003, the North withdrew from the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. KEDO suspended its construction in November 2003.

Two years later, the KEDO’s board decided to terminate the construction project, which was about 30 percent complete. In December 2005, North Korea asked KEDO workers to leave the country and said they would not be allowed to repatriate equipment and construction materials.

At the time, KEDO and North Korea had agreed to leave materials at the site. Most belonged to South Korean subcontractors, and they had planned to sell off some of it to make up for financial losses stemming from the halted work.

In 2003, after the KEDO first suspended construction, the North said it would not allow the transfer of equipment unless it received compensation. A government official here said, “The North moved the equipment before we could even address the compensation issue, and that’s clearly in violation of our agreement. It can even be regarded as stealing.”

In January 2006, the Roh Moo-hyun administration in Seoul said the North had pledged to store the materials and that it expected the North to honor its word. Despite suspicions that the North had used some of the equipment in preparation for their second nuclear test this year, the current Lee Myung-bak administration has also remained silent.

But intelligence sources tell a different story.

They said the North started using equipment almost immediately after KEDO’s withdrawal and that the North Korean military was involved.

“North Korea is trying to keep South Koreans or KEDO officials from going near the construction base,” one source said. “Recent satellite photos of the site show that hundreds of the black covers that were used to conceal materials are mostly gone.”

Sources estimate equipment and materials are worth about 46 billion won ($39 million). South Korea, one of the founding members of the KEDO, spent $1.1 billion on the construction project.

Here is a satellite image of the KEDO reactors. Here is an image of the KEDO residential compound.

Posted in Construction, Energy, KEDO, Nuclear | 1 Comment »

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