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The cooling tower of the Yongbyon nuclear complex being demolished in North Korea in 2008. Gao Haorong

North Korea appears to have resumed nuclear reactor operation - UN atomic agency

The reactor referred to in a report produces plutonium, one of the two key ingredients used to build nuclear weapons.

NORTH KOREA APPEARS to have restarted the operation of its main nuclear reactor used to produce weapons fuels, the UN atomic agency said.

The annual report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) refers to a 5-megawatt reactor at the country’s main nuclear complex in Yongbyon, north of Pyongyang.

The reactor produces plutonium, one of the two key ingredients used to build nuclear weapons along with highly enriched uranium.

The report said: “Since early July 2021, there have been indications, including the discharge of cooling water, consistent with the operation of the reactor.”

It added there were indications of the operation of Yonbyon’s radiochemical laboratory from mid-February to early July this year.

The report said this period of operation is consistent with previous reprocessing campaigns announced by North Korea of irradiated fuel discharged from the reactor.

The laboratory is a facility where plutonium is extracted by reprocessing spent fuel rods removed from reactors.

The IAEA said: “(North Korea’s) nuclear activities continue to be a cause for serious concern. Furthermore, the new indications of the operation of the 5-megawatt reactor and the radiochemical laboratory are deeply troubling.”

The IAEA has not had access to Yongbyon or other locations in North Korea since the country kicked out IAEA inspectors in 2009. The agency said it uses satellite imagery and open source information to monitor developments in North Korea’s nuclear programme.

The Yongbyon complex also produces highly enriched uranium, the other key nuclear fuel.

The IAEA report said “there were indications, for a period of time, that the reported centrifuge enrichment facility was not in operation” though regular vehicular movements were observed.

The complex, which North Korea calls “the heart” of its nuclear programme and research, has been at the centre of international concerns for decades.

It is not clear exactly how much weapons-grade plutonium or highly enriched uranium has been produced at Yonbyong and where North Korea stores it.

In early 2019, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un offered to dismantle the entire complex if he won extensive sanctions relief during a summit with then-US President Donald Trump.

But the US rejected his offer because it would only be a partial surrender of his nuclear capability.

North Korea is believed to be running multiple other covert uranium enrichment facilities. According to a South Korean estimate in 2018, North Korea might already have manufactured 20-60 nuclear weapons as well.

In recent months, North Korea has warned it would expand its nuclear programme if the United States does not withdraw its “hostile” policy on the North, in an apparent reference to US-led sanctions and regular US-South Korean military drills.

Earlier this month, Kim Jong Un’s powerful sister, Kim Yo Jong, said North Korea would bolster “absolute deterrence” to cope with intensifying US threats.

Lee Jong-joo, from South Korea’s Unification Ministry, has said that South Korea is closely monitoring North Korea’s nuclear and missile activities along with the United States.

But she declined to comment on whether Seoul is seeing signs that the North is reactivating its nuclear facilities.

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    Mute Willy Malone
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    Apr 5th 2017, 8:00 AM

    Euro has been an unmitigated disaster .
    Certainly from wee Paddy’s perspective, bailing out this disaster .

    197
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    Mute 8bitplebian
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    Apr 5th 2017, 8:04 AM

    @Willy Malone: Are you even old enough to remember the punt and what the economy was before the bubble? Newsflash! For almost all the time we had our own currency the country was in recession or close to bankrupt.

    211
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    Mute Bennythekid
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    Apr 5th 2017, 8:24 AM

    @8bitplebian: totally agree with you there.in fact can’t see why there can’t be a single world currency.it might cut out all this fluctuation and maybe even some of the corruption.Le Pen fluffed her chances when she misused European Parliament funds.

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    Mute 8bitplebian
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    Apr 5th 2017, 8:34 AM

    @Bennythekid: We had big self inflicted recessions in the 30s and 80s. The first was long before the concept of the EU. You can destroy an economy with (Greece) or without (Venezuela) a currency union.

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    Mute Lepanto
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    Apr 5th 2017, 8:50 AM

    @8bitplebian:

    So we needed the Euro to bail us out, and in turn we end up bailing it out, bit of a disaster all round.

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    Mute Lepanto
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    Apr 5th 2017, 8:52 AM

    @8bitplebian:

    Socialism destroyed Venezuela.. https://youtu.be/WCUq0V-3mgo

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    Mute Barry Somers
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    Apr 5th 2017, 8:54 AM

    @8bitplebian: interest rates were also insane back when we had to punt, 18 percent in early eighties. 12 percent in early 90s. Yep, Things were far from better!

    It’s funny that people pay no attention to what previously happened in this country.

    We also bailed out banks back then too, AIB was bailed out back in the days of the punt.

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    Mute Juan Venegas
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    Apr 5th 2017, 9:44 AM

    @8bitplebian: Not quite as black or white. Ireland’s celtic tiger began in the mid 90s when we still had the punt, 2000-2001 were great, once the Euro came into effect in 2002 it kept going, but the economy was already performing well. The unemployment and economics of the past were die to failed policies. It was the change to corporate tax and economic measures from the 90s that gave us a boom and a recession. The Euro just made it more difficult to come out of that recession. Look at Iceland, no Euro, hot rock bottom in 2008 and they are on the top of the world now and has been for a while already.

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    Mute 8bitplebian
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    Apr 5th 2017, 10:34 AM

    @Juan Venegas: Couple of points there. The “real” boom appears to have lasted for no more than a few years at best from around 97 to 2001 with the rest being property inspired madness. I’d be hesitant to call that as having anything to do with currency. Also the comparison to Iceland is not a fair one. It has the population of Limerick county and could make a nice enough living just selling fish to the rest of the world.

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    Mute Jorge Thompson
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    Apr 5th 2017, 10:46 AM

    @8bitplebian: Or old enough to remember the Pound?

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    Mute Gary Purcell
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    Apr 5th 2017, 8:53 AM

    Let’s hope Le Pen wins outright
    It will be the best thing for France

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    Mute Barry Somers
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    Apr 5th 2017, 8:56 AM

    @Gary Purcell: yeah, nothing like starting a economic war to make things better for everyone.

    58
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    Mute Diarmuid
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    Apr 5th 2017, 10:11 AM

    @Gary Purcell: A brainless populist thug, clearly melting under any form of adult scrutiny.

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    Mute Lepanto
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    Apr 5th 2017, 10:32 AM

    @Diarmuid:

    Coming from you that’s a bit rich, wasn’t it you who hoped the EU would give the UK ‘a good hiding’ over Brexit? What did you mean exactly? An invasion? Sanctions? Punishing the voters for actually voting and winning, is a bit sick.

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    Mute 8bitplebian
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    Apr 5th 2017, 8:11 AM

    Cue all the comments about how terrible the euro is followed by the usual verbiage about printing our own currency again. Countries like Ireland who grossly mismanage and inflate their economies as in the early 2000′s will eventually experience a crash, irrespective of them being constrained by the rules of a single currency union or not.

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    Mute Ben McArthur
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    Apr 5th 2017, 8:31 AM

    @8bitplebian: There’s some truth in that, but being in a single currency removes much of the ability to do the management necessary. FF made an unholy mess of the public finances, but there was very little they could do to prevent the mad accumulation of private debt that was fuelled by the euro.

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    Mute 8bitplebian
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    Apr 5th 2017, 8:39 AM

    @Ben McArthur: I think that’s an unknown. When FF faced down the economic crisis in the 80s (created in part by their own 1977 budget) the approach they took made the situation progressively worse even with all the tools they had available. We also had very high inflation and a currency devaluation to worry about. So there’s no reason to think the 2008 crash would have been handled any better.

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    Mute Maurice Bourke
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    Apr 5th 2017, 9:09 AM

    @8bitplebian:
    Correct me if I misunderstand your position but your arguing that our politicians are inept whether in the Euro or not, so its better to stay in it?

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    Mute 8bitplebian
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    Apr 5th 2017, 10:29 AM

    @Maurice Bourke: No, more that blaming the single currency for the 2008 crash and subsequent recession is inaccurate. Economic mismanagement can happen with or without the euro. If Ireland had properly regulated its banks and controlled the property bubble, the impact of the then financial crisis would have been much less severe.

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    Mute kingstown
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    Apr 5th 2017, 8:30 AM

    Le Pen is as damaged as her father -

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    Mute Diarmuid
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    Apr 5th 2017, 10:12 AM

    @kingstown: The fake fight with her daddy is the most cynical political move in decades. And transparent as hell.

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    Mute Fred Jensen
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    Apr 5th 2017, 9:31 AM

    The thing about Le Pen is she could win if she pledged a tough crackdown on non-EU migration, while maintaining the status quo economically and pledging to keep the euro.

    If she just stuck to that issue, she would win.

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    Mute Neil Mcdonough
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    Apr 5th 2017, 10:41 AM

    @Fred Jensen: Le Pen might not even get to the 2nd round and there are absolutely no poll results that even suggest that she will win.

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    Mute Fred Jensen
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    Apr 5th 2017, 10:43 AM

    @Neil Mcdonough:

    I know. I’m saying she is shooting herself in the foot with her anti-euro rhetoric. Peoples savings would be wiped out. She should just stick purely to the non-EU migration issue if she wants to win.

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    Mute David Fülöp
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    Apr 5th 2017, 11:35 AM

    @Fred Jensen: I don’t understand her point about the Euro. Some countries might do well to leave it, Greece for example ( mainly because they should have never adopted it in the first place ) but there is no way it would benefit France in any way anymore.

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    Mute Frantz Harband
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    Apr 5th 2017, 8:58 AM

    That was by far not the moment of that debate. Macron is the worst that could happen to France,worst than le pen.that guy agree with everyone and can never answer a question. The best moments of the debate came when the so called “petit candidates “started speaking specially Mr asselinaud. Mr poutou or Miss arthaud. Macron telling people that Tx to European Union we were not killing each other what a joke that guy is.

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    Mute Neil Mcdonough
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    Apr 5th 2017, 10:43 AM

    @Frantz Harband: “Macron is the worst that could happen to France …” Most people agree, yet the media always give him as favourite. Hmmm…

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    Mute Dave Kelly
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    Apr 5th 2017, 1:09 PM

    @Neil Mcdonough: Like Simon Coveney, he is backed by the bilderburgers

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    Mute Tony Daly
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    Apr 5th 2017, 10:21 AM

    Ireland cannot be trusted to manage its own independent currency. Look at what Charlie Haughey did when Ireland did a devaluation. he passed insider information to his cronies so that they could enrich themselves.

    It would be better, in light of the credit bubble from 2002 to 2007, had Ireland not joined the euro because it facilitated a massive credit expansion for non economically productive borrowing but exiting the euro would now be be very damaging.

    Public goverance and economic management in Ireland are very lacking. The Punch and Judy of FG andf FF does not help. It is a Lanigan’s Ball.

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    Mute Dave Kelly
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    Apr 5th 2017, 1:08 PM

    @Neil Mcdonough: Like Simon Coveney, he has the same bilderburgh backing

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    Mute Tony Daly
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    Apr 5th 2017, 10:23 AM

    Macron or Le Pen?

    Pragmatists will prefer Macron.

    Ideologues with far right sympathies, Brexit types, will prefer Le Pen.

    At least there is a choice but with choice comes adult responsibility.

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    Mute Neil Mcdonough
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    Apr 5th 2017, 10:38 AM

    @Tony Daly: Listened to the entire debate and some of the commentry this morning. Le Pen has her support but did herself no favours trying to convince anyone else last night. Macron, the candidate of the media did no better. The surprising thing is the media constantly make him favourite yet no-one I know, both from the left and right, can stand him. He’s seen as being more liberal than Fillon, thatcherite even, but mostly an empty vessel who tries to please everyone.
    Melenchon maybe but unlikely, and no-one should write off Fillon yet. If it wasn’t for his affairs with the law, he would stand head and shoulders above the rest in terms of stature and experience. Going to be an interesting few weeks!

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    Mute David Fülöp
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    Apr 5th 2017, 11:35 AM

    @Neil Mcdonough: all the French people I know will happily vote Macron.

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    Mute Neil Mcdonough
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    Apr 5th 2017, 11:41 AM

    @David Fülöp: Interesting. That would have been true also a while back for some of my acquaintances, but not anymore. Sound more and more like Vallsozy everyday.

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    Mute Frantz Harband
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    Apr 6th 2017, 2:53 PM

    @David Fülöp: your friends are blind . that guy is a joke. He will the continuation of what’s happening for the last 15 years in France.

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    Mute Rose Sandlewood
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    Apr 5th 2017, 12:58 PM

    I never liked when we switched from the punt to the euro. I found I could get very little with the euro. With the old currency you could get a litre of milk for a pound/punt. With the euro, out can but a bag of chrisps with a euro and then, that’s it. It’s gone. There was no value in the euro. The euro only benefitted those who dealt with mainland Europe often like for holidays or work.

    So I was never a fan of the euro. However we are stuck with it. I don’t like it when I read comments about ditching the euro and going back to the old currency. A new currency will be worthless for a long time and imports into the country would be very expensive and we rely a lot on imports.

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    Mute Guybrush Threepwood
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    Apr 5th 2017, 5:03 PM

    Debates will mean very little. Le Pen hasn’t got a hope. Even if she gets through the first round, she’ll get utterly demolished in the 2nd round of voting.

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    Mute ed w
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    Apr 5th 2017, 1:53 PM

    Another one with lots of rhetoric and no plan just like the brexiteers. Easy to knock something down very difficult to put in a credible alternative. But no one looks at that.

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    Mute Robert Nugent
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    Apr 5th 2017, 1:24 PM

    When Ireland had the punt it was like living in Mexico, there was always the risk of devaluation and currency shocks.

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    Mute Lepanto
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    Apr 5th 2017, 7:52 PM

    @Robert Nugent:

    Soros style devaluation?

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