Blue Crab Boulevard

This is a strange story. Remember the sneak attack by Israel on a site in Syria last year? Well, it seems that the Israelis showed Washington a video of North Koreans inside the facility - which just happens to be almost identical to the North Korean reactor facility at Yongbyon, right down to the number of holes for fuel rods.

The officials said the video of the remote site, code-named Al Kibar by the Syrians, shows North Koreans inside. It played a pivotal role in Israel's decision to bomb the facility late at night last Sept. 6, a move that was publicly denounced by Damascus but not by Washington.

Sources familiar with the video say it also shows that the Syrian reactor core's design is the same as that of the North Korean reactor at Yongbyon, including a virtually identical configuration and number of holes for fuel rods. It shows "remarkable resemblances inside and out to Yongbyon," a U.S. intelligence official said. A nuclear weapons specialist called the video "very, very damning."…..

…..David Albright, president of Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) and a former U.N. weapons inspector, said the absence of such evidence warrants skepticism that the reactor was part of an active weapons program.

"The United States and Israel have not identified any Syrian plutonium separation facilities or nuclear weaponization facilities," he said. "The lack of any such facilities gives little confidence that the reactor is part of an active nuclear weapons program. The apparent lack of fuel, either imported or indigenously produced, also is curious and lowers confidence that Syria has a nuclear weapons program."

Now that is one weird statement. The absence of fuel in the presence of what certainly appears to be a reactor should not lead one to conclude that there is no weapons program. Rather, it should lead one to believe that the Syrians hadn't fueled the reactor yet. Albright's statement is akin to claiming that a man carrying a machine gun isn't armed if he doesn't have bullets in it. (One doubts such a defense would work in a court.) Wikipedia had a picture of the top of the reactor at Yongbyon. Perhaps Mr. Albright could explain what in the world the Syrians could have been planning to use such a facility for if not for plutonium production.

Side note: This paints Nancy Pelosi's visit to Syria in an even worse light. And kind of points to the silliness of Barack Obama's grasp of how to deal with thugs.

This article from the Weekly Standard made a bell go off about something I had seen earlier today. Reuben F. Johnson writes that there are some indications that the North Korean government may be imploding.

Intelligence sources and other observers both here in the capital of the PRC and elsewhere in Asia are stating that they project a possible collapse of the North Korean regime within six months time.

Although there have been similar dire predictions made in the past, those analyzing the current situation point to several factors that indicate that the regime may finally be unraveling.

Recent activity by both Kim Jong-Il and other DPRK officials suggest that the Dear Leader is in the process of moving around the financial resources of Pyongyang’s international banking empire in order to make sure he is taken care of should he have to go into exile. This includes a recent visit to the United States by North Korean finance officials who were visiting to learn about the international financial circulation network.

Ostensibly, this visit was preparatory work that would allow the country to re-join the international financial system. This is the next, anticipated step for Pyongyang once the regime has negotiated its removal from the US list of state sponsors of terrorism. The DPRK are also seeking an end to their being subject to the U.S. Trading with the Enemy Act first imposed during the Korean War by President Harry Truman.

But, there are others who suggest that this is also part of a contingency plan in order to make Kim’s assets “portable.”

While the Dear Leader is engaged in financial matters, other reports state that there are movements of U.S. and South Korean military units and equipment to the DMZ in what appears to be a pre-positioning exercise in anticipation of some internal upheavals in the north.

Johnson says that the key indicator is the number of people who are getting out of North Korea by bribing border guards. The number has risen steadily in recent years and may indicate that more guards are less fearful of the regime. But what made the bells ring is this information, coming from Pravda of all sources. It seems that the government has recently begun public executions of officials:

Public executions had declined since 2000 amid international criticism but have been increasing, targeting officials accused of drug trafficking, embezzlement and other wrongdoing, the Good Friends aid agency said in a report on the North's human rights.

In October, the North executed the head of a factory in South Pyongan province for making international calls on 13 phones he installed in a factory basement, the aid group said. He was executed by a firing squad in a stadium before a crowd of 150,000 people.

Six people were also crushed to death and 34 others injured in an apparent stampede as they left after the execution, said the aid group.

Most North Koreans are banned from communicating with the outside world, part of the regime's authoritarian policies seeking to prevent any challenge to the iron-fisted rule of Kim Jong Il.

The North has carried out four other similar public executions by firing squad against regional officials and heads of factories in recent months, said the aid group.

If Kim's government is having to off officials in a public way, the system may, indeed, be unraveling. Very interesting, isn't it? And if the North Korean government does implode, how much information that the United Nations Development Program is not providing will come out?

What’s happened to the trove of documents that the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) promised to hand over to prove—or disprove— its innocence in funneling millions of dollars in hard currency to the North Korean dictatorship of Kim Jong Il?

Are they under UNDP safekeeping in North Korea? Or are they being picked over in a UNDP safe house in Beijing, before a sanitized version is offered up for inspection? And is that just part of a wider destruction of evidence?

Those questions became the subject of a storm of Internet accusations over the past week, as an anonymous blog associated with UNDP dissidents charged coverup, and then offered up photos of UNDP documents that it claimed were proof.

To see the accusations, go to undpwatch.blogspot.com.

For its part, UNDP has flatly denied the accusations.

The documents lie at the heart of a controversy that has reached boiling point several times since last January, when a U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., Mark Wallace, used the conclusions of a series of UNDP audits to charge that the U.N.’s flagship development agency had funneled the hard currency to Kim regime officials in March in violation of its own rules, along with a variety of other major infractions. UNDP subsequently announced it had closed its office in March. A preliminary audit by the U.N. panel, without benefit of the documents, validated many of the U.S. charges last June.

This could be very educational. Mark Malloch Brown, former head of UNDP and current member of the British Labor government (and good buddy to George Soros) might have a bit of 'splaining to do. Popcorn, anyone?

A team of experts from the United States has arrived in North Korea to oversee the process of disabling North Korea's nuclear reactor used for plutonium production. The process should begin by the end of the week. They will also oversee the dismantling of North Korea's plutonium extraction facility.

The team of U.S. experts arrived in Pyongyang on Thursday to oversee disabling the secretive state's Soviet-era nuclear reactor, a plant that makes nuclear fuel and another that turns spent fuel into plutonium.

Christopher Hill, the top U.S. envoy to six-way talks to end Pyongyang's nuclear arms program, said the U.S. team had "a specific list of measures" and would arrive at the nuclear complex to begin the dismantling process on Friday or Saturday.

"The first actual physical acts of disablement will probably be at the end of the week," Hill told reporters. "We are satisfied that we have an overall plan that will be effective and that will provide the disablement that we need."

The moves follow a breakthrough February deal under which North Korea, which tested a nuclear device last year in defiance of international warnings, is to shut down its Yongbyon nuclear plant and admit U.N. nuclear monitors.

Hill met his North Korean counterpart, Kim Kye-gwan, on Wednesday to discuss steps to disable Yongbyon.

This is actually very good news. Under the agreement that was put in place by the Clinton administration, the facilities remained intact, allowing rapid restarting of the program. In fact US experts help stabilize the spent fuel storage. This sounds like a much more thorough job. I think this is a step in the right direction. Pyongyang is also going to surrender all reprocessed plutonium - the article does not say what is being done with spent fuel, however. I remain suspicious of North Korea, but still believe this is a good start.

The Opinion Journal takes a look at the long, strange trip negotiators have been on in dealing with North Korea. They do not like what they are seeing.

Granted, diplomacy requires some confidentiality, but transparency and verification are crucial to disarmament, especially when dealing with a regime like Kim Jong Il's. The February 13 six-party accord called for Pyongyang to deliver a comprehensive accounting of its nuclear program and arsenal within 60 days. We're still waiting.

Transparency is all the more essential given recent news reports about likely North Korean nuclear proliferation in Syria. Washington says the main goal of the six-party talks is to prevent proliferation, and North Korea promised to cease and desist. Yet Pyongyang seems to have been caught in the act in Syria only months after making that promise. The Israelis were worried enough to risk a confrontation with Syria by bombing the site, not to mention flying over Turkish air space. Notably, the Turks didn't object.

Syrian President Bashar Assad finally got around to confirming the air raid in an interview with the BBC yesterday, claiming the Israelis hit an "unused military building." North Korea had publicly denounced the bombing even before anyone had mentioned its involvement, and its chief nuclear negotiator last week referred to those who suspect a Pyongyang-Damascus connection as "lunatics." This is protesting a little too much.

President Bush dodged three questions on the issue two weeks ago, except to warn North Korea one more time not to proliferate, which sounds suspiciously like a confirmation. Meanwhile on September 21, the Washington Post quoted government sources as saying that "Israel shared intelligence with President Bush this summer indicating that North Korean nuclear personnel were in Syria."

Then there's the not-so-little matter of North Korea's continuing missile proliferation. Last week the State Department's Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation announced new sanctions against a North Korean company for spreading missile technology. The company–Korean Mining and Development Corp., or Komid–is a long-time offender. The U.S. Treasury last year called it "Pyongyang's premier arms dealer and main exporter of goods and weapons related to ballistic missiles and conventional weapons."

The State Department's quiet issuance of new sanctions is a troubling indicator. Especially since they were announced the day before the last round of talks kicked off. Given that North Korea has also missed every deadline for disclosure that they agreed to, there would appear to be a real problem. I've pointed out that unless there is meaningful verification and inspection that any agreement with North Korea is useless. The Opinion Journal is saying the same thing.

Envoys to the six-party talks trying to dismantle North Korea's nuclear program have reportedly reached a tentative agreement on the draft of the plan.

BEIJING - Negotiators at North Korea's disarmament talks tentatively agreed to a draft plan Sunday on disabling the country's nuclear facilities by year's end, though they said the detailed blueprint required further consideration by their governments.

The four days of talks, which began on an optimistic note after North Korea earlier agreed to a Dec. 31 deadline, were supposed to set specifics for the disabling, among other issues. Envoys described the talks as being in recess, with host China saying that they may reconvene in 48 hours depending on what the six governments — China, the United States, Japan, Russia and North and South Koreas — decide.

The draft "lays out an entire roadmap until the end of the year" for the North's nuclear disarmament, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill told reporters before boarding a plane for New York.

"We're into the nuts and bolts now of implementing de-nuclearization," Hill said. He said the level of detail, which he declined to discuss, made it necessary for him to return to Washington for consultations.

Whatever agreement is finally reached will be meaningless if it does not include provisions for inspections and verification. North Korea has a long history of cheating on agreements. Still, it is at least hopeful that they have gotten this far. Keep in mind that the North Korean government was forced to return to the table when Washington managed to hit them in the wallet with real sanctions on their money. The only way to force tyrannies to talk meaningfully is to act in such a way that they are forced to do so.

North Korea has agreed to full disclosure of all of its nuclear programs and an end to them all by the close of this year.

"One thing that we agreed on is that the DPRK (North Korea) will provide a full declaration of all of their nuclear programmes and will disable their nuclear programs by the end of this year, 2007," Christopher Hill told journalists after two days of talks in Geneva.

North Korea has already shut down a key nuclear reactor at Yongbyon under an agreement reached on February 13.

Under the deal, North Korea agreed to dismantle its nuclear programme in return for aid and security and diplomatic guarantees, notably normalising ties with the United States.

The US suspects the North, which conducted its first atomic weapons test in October, of running a secretive highly enriched uranium programme in addition to the programmes it has already admitted to.

When asked whether the declaration would have to include the suspension of all uranium activities to be satisfactory to Washington, Hill replied: "Full means full."

Three words, borrowed from a great American: Trust but verify. One hopes the government is working on that aspect as well. So that is today's good news in the nuclear area. The bad news is from Iran. Mad Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is rattling his sabre with all his might.

TEHRAN (AFP) - President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Sunday Iran had achieved a key target in its atomic drive by operating more than 3,000 uranium-enriching centrifuges in defiance of world powers.

His boast came as Iran answers questions over its nuclear programme to the UN atomic agency under a plan the watchdog's chief Mohamed ElBaradei warned could be a "last chance" for the Islamic republic.

"They (world powers) thought that by issuing any resolution Iran would back down," Ahmadinejad told Islamist students, referring to the two previous sanctions resolutions imposed against Tehran by the UN Security Council.

"But after each resolution the Iranian nation took another step along the path of nuclear development," he said, according to the website of state broadcasting.

"Now it has put into operation more than 3,000 centrifuges and every week we install a new series" of centrifuges, he said.

The installation of 3,000 centrifuges has always been earmarked by Iran as the key medium-term goal of its nuclear programme, a milestone it had originally hoped to reach by March.

Gas is fed into the centrifuges to produced enriched uranium, which can be used to make nuclear power and, in highly enriched form, the fissile core of a nuclear bomb.

However a UN atomic energy agency report obtained by AFP last week said that Iran was still well short of 3,000 centrifuges.

AFP is still cheerily providing cover for the rogue state, but it is a singularly bad idea to discount what Ahmadinejad is boasting about. Nicolas Sarkozy sees the real dangers here and has spoken openly about them. A nuclear armed Iran is a menace to the entire region. Period. The idiots trying to water down sanctions on Iran are making a general war much more likely. The failure to present a unified front against this man and the mullahs is dragging the world to the brink.

IAEA inspectors have confirmed that North Korea has shut down the reactor at Yongbyon.

SEOUL, South Korea - United Nations inspectors have verified that North Korea has shut down its sole functioning nuclear reactor, the chief of the watchdog agency said Monday, confirming the isolated country had taken its first step in nearly five years to halt production of atomic weapons.

South Korea sent more oil to the North on Monday to reward its compliance with an international disarmament agreement.

"Our inspectors are there. They verified the shutting down of the reactor yesterday," said Mohamed ElBaradei, chief of the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency.

"The process has been going quite well and we have had good cooperation from North Korea. It's a good step in the right direction," ElBaradei said in Bangkok, where he was to attend an event sponsored by Thailand's Ministry of Science.

This is a good sign - especially if the existent fissile material is also a part of the deal.

The United States has been informed that the North Korean reactor at Yongbyon has been shut down by the North Korean government. The news came just hours after oil was delivered to the Stalinist state. The shutdown has not been independently confirmed by the IAEA yet, however.

"The US has been informed Saturday that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea shut down its nuclear facilities at Yongbyon," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said in a statement.

"We welcome this development and look forward to the verification and monitoring of this shutdown by the International Atomic Energy Agency team that has arrived in the DPRK," he said.

A US official said that Washington was informed of the shutdown through North Korea's mission to the United Nations.

The announcement came after UN inspectors, carrying 100 cases of equipment weighing about one ton, arrived in Pyongyang to supervise the reactor shutdown.

Their arrival was the first step in the February 13 deal under which Pyongyang agreed to scrap its nuclear program in exchange for aid and security guarantees, including 50,000 tons of fuel oil aid from South Korea. The first 6,200-ton shipment arrived early Saturday.

McCormack said Saturday the United States, together with all the partners in the six-party talks on Pyongyang's nuclear program — the two Koreas, Japan, China and Russia — look forward further progress.

"We, along with all our other Six-Party partners, remain firmly committed to achieving the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula through the implementation of the September 2005 Joint Statement," McCormack said in reference to a prior declaration before talks broke off two years ago.

Hopefully there are plans to have the North Koreans hand over their weapons grade fuel as well, but I have not seen any mention of that at this point. But that stuff needs to be accounted for and stored safely or disposed of.

The International Atomic Energy Agency and North Korean officials have reached an agreement on how to monitor the shutdown of the reactor at Yongbyon to ensure compliance with the agreement North Korea has reached with the US and allies.

A team from the International Atomic Energy Agency returned Friday to the North Korean capital from a two-day trip to the Yongbyon nuclear complex, broadcaster APTN reported. It was the first IAEA visit to the facility since U.N. monitors were expelled from the country in 2002.

"We have concluded this understanding, what our monitoring and verification activities are in principle," IAEA Deputy Director Olli Heinonen said in footage shot by APTN. He did not provide specifics of the agreement.

Heinonen said his team, which was scheduled to leave Pyongyang for Beijing on Saturday, was preparing to report to the IAEA board of governors within one week, but noted that the timing of the shutdown was up to the six countries involved in North Korea nuclear talks.

"This is for the six parties to decide," he said in the APTN footage. "You have to ask them the time scale. When they do (decide), we will be ready."

An IAEA official in Vienna, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment to media, said that a board meeting would likely take place July 9, with the 35 member nations expected to approve sending the first inspection team to the North as quickly as possible.

North Korea pledged to close and seal Yongbyon in exchange for economic aid and political concessions in an agreement with the U.S., China, Japan, Russia and South Korea. The purpose of the IAEA trip was to discuss how the agency's inspectors would monitor and verify a shutdown.

Not that anyone should be naive enough to trust the North Koreans not to cheat if they think they can get away with it, but it is at least a step in the right direction.

Jeremy Bernstein, writing in the New York Times, offers a concise history of how uranium centrifuges and other nuclear weapons technologies proliferated since the end of of the Second World War. As he says at the end of his piece, if someone had written the real story as a novel, nobody would have believed it.

A third group, headed by a physicist named Max Steenbeck, investigated the centrifuge. Dr. Steenbeck, who had been arrested by the Soviets and put in a concentration camp in Poland, had previously been in charge of research for the division of Siemens that dealt with aircraft. While in captivity he wrote a letter to the Soviet secret police, the N.K.V.D., explaining his scientific background; he also ended up in Sukhumi. Dr. Steenbeck began with a small group and some antiquated Soviet centrifuges that certainly could not have been used to separate uranium isotopes.

In the summer of 1946 they were joined by an Austrian physicist named Gernot Zippe. Dr. Zippe had been in the Luftwaffe during the war and, after having been taken prisoner in the summer of 1946, he went from a prison camp to the relative luxury of Sukhumi, thanks to the initiative of Dr. von Ardenne. Neither Dr. Zippe nor Dr. Steenbeck had ever worked on centrifuges, but within two years they created the best centrifuge in the world — although at the time they did not know it. (To give some idea of its capacity, a typical laboratory centrifuge makes a few thousand rotations a minute. The Zippe centrifuge — this is the common name, although Dr. Zippe himself refers to it as the “Russian centrifuge” — can do 90,000 rotations a minute.)

Read the whole thing. It is impossible to know exactly how much, if any, involvement the Pakistani government itself had in the spread of the technologies. But certain official factions may well have been involved. We can't find out because Pakistan will not allow Abdul Qadeer Khan to be interviewed. But both North Korea and Iran got their centrifuge technology from Pakistan at Khan's nuclear flea market.