U.S. officials have said that a huge explosion in northern North Korea last week was probably not a nuclear test (AFP). Huge Blast Detected in North Korea; Nuclear Test Apparently Ruled Out A massive explosion on North Korea’s northern border with China Thursday was apparently not a nuclear test, U.S. and South Korean officials said yesterday (see GSN, Sept. 10). Some in U.S. intelligence circles had expressed increasing concern in recent weeks that North Korea was preparing to conduct a nuclear test, the Washington Post reported. South Korean officials, however, said they did not record seismic activity that would accompany a nuclear test...Full Story

IAEA Board Meeting Opens in Vienna; Iran Seeks Security Deal With Europe The International Atomic Energy Agency today opened its Board of Governors meeting during which the agency is expected to consider draft resolutions on Iran’s nuclear activities, including a European proposal to set a November deadline for halting all such work, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Sept. 10)...Full Story

South Korea Enriched Uranium to a Higher Level Than Iran During 2000 Experiments, Diplomats Say Diplomats have said that South Korea was more successful than Iran has been in producing highly enriched uranium, the Washington Post reported yesterday (see GSN, Sept. 9)...Full Story

	Monday, September 13, 2004

Seoul to Replace U.S. Decontamination Team South Korea has established a military unit to respond to a potential North Korean biochemical attack in the southern part of South Korea, in preparation for taking over that duty from U.S. forces, a military source said yesterday (see GSN, Dec. 15, 2003). The U.S. 23rd Chemical Battalion, responsible for decontamination activities from Seoul to the southern tip of the peninsula, is expected to relinquish its duties to the South Korean 19th Chemical Battalion, the Korea Times reported. The official refused to say whether the transfer of duties, scheduled to take place in 2005, would be implemented sooner. The new unit appears in line with U.S. plans to remove about 12,500 troops from South Korea by the end of next year. The only U.S. chemical battalion in the world deployed in a forward position, its primary wartime duty is to decontaminate highways, airfields, supply depots and other “fixed sites,” according to the Times (Joo Sang-min, Korea Herald, Sept. 13). Back to top

Huge Blast Detected in North Korea; Nuclear Test Apparently Ruled Out A massive explosion on North Korea’s northern border with China Thursday was apparently not a nuclear test, U.S. and South Korean officials said yesterday (see GSN, Sept. 10). Some in U.S. intelligence circles had expressed increasing concern in recent weeks that North Korea was preparing to conduct a nuclear test, the Washington Post reported. South Korean officials, however, said they did not record seismic activity that would accompany a nuclear test. “We are investigating the size and the reason of the accident, but we do not believe North Korea conducted a nuclear test,” said South Korean presidential spokesman Kim Jong-min (Failoa/Cho, Washington Post, Sept. 13). North Korean Foreign Minister Paek Nam Sun reportedly explained the blast as the “deliberate demolition” of a mountain as part of a hydroelectric project, according to the Korea Herald. His remarks were in response to a call for information by British Foreign Office minister Bill Rammell, who is visiting the country for nuclear talks, according to the Herald. North Korea’s official news agency announced yesterday that a groundbreaking ceremony took place on Sept. 7 for the “Samsu hydroelectric plant in Yanggang Province to help their electricity crisis in the region, using the water that runs in Huchon river of the Samsu county,” the Herald reported. Intelligence officials from South Korea and China, however, were still investigating and seeking individuals who may have witnessed the explosion in Weoltanri village in Kimhyongik Country in northernmost North Korea, according to the Herald (Korea Herald, Sept. 14). U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said there was no indication that the explosion was the result of a nuclear test, the Washington Post reported. “We don’t think, at this point, it was a nuclear event, but we’re looking at it and will get further analysis,” Rice told CNN’s Late Edition yesterday.  Powell acknowledged that U.S. officials have been studying reports of suspicious activity at a possible nuclear test site in North Korea. That activity, however, was at a different location than that of Thursday’s explosion, according to the Post. “We’re monitoring this,” Powell said on ABC’s This Week. “We have been watching it.  We can’t tell whether it’s normal maintenance activity or something more. So it’s inconclusive at this moment.” The date of the blast, which commemorates the 1948 founding of North Korea, raised concerns among U.S., South Korean and Japanese officials, according to the Post. North Korea is known to place emphasis on historic dates, using them to conduct high-profile military exercises and parades (Washington Post, Sept. 13). Larger than the April explosion involving oil and chemical railcars in the North Korean border town of Ryongcheon that killed 161 people, Thursday’s blast sent a plume of smoke more than six kilometers wide into the air in a mushroom shape, the Herald reported. Officials in both Seoul and Washington, however, said it was unlikely that Pyongyang would conduct a nuclear test in an area bordering key ally China, according to the Herald (Choi Soung-ah, Korea Herald, Sept. 14). Back to top       IAEA Board Meeting Opens in Vienna; Iran Seeks Security Deal With Europe The International Atomic Energy Agency today opened its Board of Governors meeting during which the agency is expected to consider draft resolutions on Iran’s nuclear activities, including a European proposal to set a November deadline for halting all such work, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Sept. 10). The United States, however, is pushing to have Iran’s case put before the Security Council, a move which Russia said it opposed. “We think it is premature for the U.N. Security Council to discuss this issue,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Yury Fedotov told the Interfax news agency in Moscow. Hossein Mousavian, Iran’s chief delegate to the IAEA, said that “at the moment” a partial freeze on assembling and manufacturing centrifuge components was in effect. IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei, however, said talks with Tehran were still underway on the issue. In a confidential draft resolution prepared by France, Germany and the United Kingdom and acquired by the AP, the European powers indicated that possible “further steps” could be taken by November, the next time the Board of Governors is scheduled to meet. “Further steps” probably means referring Iran’s case to the Security Council, according to diplomats. ElBaradei suggested he did not consider November a deadline, AP reported. “It’s an open process and we will finish when I believe we are finished,” he said. However, the United States was seeking to define what Iranian actions would “trigger” the board to refer the matter to the Security Council, according to a U.S. official. U.S. officials were not happy with the word “probably” in the European text, according to a diplomat familiar with the draft, which says the board will “probably” make a “definite determination on whether or not further steps are required.” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi yesterday said his country would not abandon uranium enrichment. Mousavian said any suspension of enrichment-related activities “would not last forever.” U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton said Security Council sanctions were “not inevitable,” but suggested they were likely, according to AP. “We’re determined that they’re not going to achieve a nuclear-weapons capability,” said Bolton, adding that the United States and Europe were moving toward synchronizing their approaches to Iran (George Jahn, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, Sept. 13). Back to top       South Korea Enriched Uranium to a Higher Level Than Iran During 2000 Experiments, Diplomats Say Diplomats have said that South Korea was more successful than Iran has been in producing highly enriched uranium, the Washington Post reported yesterday (see GSN, Sept. 9). In interviews with the Post last week, diplomats said that South Korean scientists had enriched uranium during experiments in 2000 to levels four times higher than Iranian scientists have been able to achieve. They also said, though, that the South Korean experiments involved smaller amounts of uranium than Iranian efforts and that there is no indication that South Korea invested the same level of resources as has Iran, the Post reported. In addition, diplomats said that South Korea blocked International Atomic Energy Agency inspections of the site where the uranium experiments occurred for months and provided the agency with false information.  “In 2001, the IAEA asked to conduct a regular inspection and was denied. That happened at least twice before the South Koreans, under some protest, allowed the inspectors in two years later,” one diplomat said. According to diplomats, South Korea could not produce documentation on the 2000 experiments or several of the scientists who participated in them during an IAEA inspection last week. For its part, Seoul has said that it is cooperating fully with the IAEA, the Post reported (Dafna Linzer, Washington Post, Sept. 12). Meanwhile, IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei said today that the revelations of the 2000 uranium enrichment experiments and earlier plutonium separation activities by South Korea were an issue of “serious concern” to the agency. In an opening address to the IAEA Board of Governors meeting, ElBaradei said that he plans to ask South Korea “to continue to provide active cooperation and maximum transparency” to aid the agency’s efforts in investigating the previously undisclosed nuclear activities (International Atomic Energy Agency release, Sept. 13). Back to top       ElBaradei Calls on Iran to “Accelerate” Cooperation With IAEA Investigation of Nuclear Program International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohamed ElBaradei today called on Iran to “accelerate its cooperation” with the agency’s efforts to investigate the remaining outstanding issues related to its nuclear program (see related GSN story, today). In an opening address to a meeting of the IAEA Board of Governors, ElBaradei said the agency is “making steady progress in understanding the nature and extent of Iran’s nuclear program.” He also said that the IAEA’s investigation has resolved the outstanding issues of Tehran’s declared laser enrichment activities and uranium conversion experiments to the point where “any further follow-up needed will be carried out as part of a routine safeguards implementation.” According to ElBaradei, though, questions remain surrounding the origin of traces of enriched uranium found at various Iranian sites. The IAEA has determined, he said, that “it appears plausible that this HEU [highly enriched uranium] contamination may not have resulted from enrichment of uranium by Iran at these locations.” ElBaradei also said that the IAEA was still working to confirm Iran’s claims of having conducted no work involving P-2 uranium enrichment centrifuges between 1995 and 2000. To bring these remaining issues to conclusion “within the next few months,” ElBaradei called on Iran to increase its cooperation with the IAEA and to “pursue a policy” of transparency and confidence building. “This is clearly in the interest of both Iran and the international community and should trigger a broad dialogue on many of the underlying issues,” he said (International Atomic Energy Agency release, Sept. 13). Back to top       Pakistani Government to Reintroduce Nuclear Export Control Legislation The Pakistani government is expected today to introduce reintroduce nuclear export control legislation in the country’s National Assembly, according to HiPakistan.com (see GSN, June 23). The bill would impose penalties of up to 14 years in prison, a fine of more than $85,000 and confiscation of property for those found to have illegally exported nuclear-related material and technology. The Pakistani government plans to ask lawmakers to approve the bill — which had been submitted earlier, but failed to advance for procedural reasons — without any changes, HiPakistan.com reported (HiPakistan.com, Sept. 13).  Back to top       Kerry Criticizes Bush Administration Approach to North Korea The Bush administration has allowed a “nuclear nightmare” to develop by focusing more on Iraq than North Korea, Democratic presidential nominee Senator John Kerry (Mass.) told the New York Times yesterday (see related GSN story, today). “They have taken their eye off the real ball,” Kerry said in an interview. “They took it off in Afghanistan and shifted it to Iraq. They took it off in North Korea and shifted it to Iraq. They took it off in Russia, and the nuclear materials there, and shifted it to Iraq.” Kerry also criticized the administration’s efforts to seek a resolution of the North Korean nuclear issue through multilateral talks also involving China, Japan, Russia and South Korea, calling such talks “basically a cover.” “If you want to make them work, that’s one thing,” he said. “But they haven’t made it work, they haven’t put anything real on the table.” In response, White House press secretary Scott McClellan yesterday said that Kerry wanted to return to the North Korean policy of the Clinton administration — a policy that McClellan said resulted in the United States being “duped.” “We’ve been down that road before and we have no intention of letting it happen again,” McClellan said (David Sanger, New York Times, Sept. 13). Back to top       Congress to Weigh Nuclear Weapons Research In its autumn session, the U.S. Congress is expected to consider a Bush administration plan to fund initial research and development activities for tactical nuclear weapons that could be used against terrorist enclaves and hostile nations, the Chicago Tribune reported (see GSN, Aug. 12). The plan calls for $27.6 million for the “robust nuclear earth penetrator” or “bunker buster” bomb in the new fiscal year, $9 million for tactical nuclear weapons research and $30 million to enable the Energy Department to resume nuclear testing more quickly, if necessary, the Tribune reported. Congressional authorization for these programs was approved by both houses, but because the Energy Department runs the nuclear weapons programs, spending bills must be passed by the two energy appropriations subcommittees. The plan has met with criticism from Rep. David Hobson (R-Ohio), head of the House appropriations subcommittee, which has eliminated all funding for the program (see GSN, June 10). Instead, the panel increased allocations for nuclear lab security and for dismantling of nuclear weapons, according to the Tribune. “What worries me most about the robust penetrator is that some idiot might try to use it,” said Hobson. The Senate subcommittee, led by Senator Pete Domenici (R-N.M.), however, has approved the funding. A conference committee is set to debate the issue and potentially forge a compromise, according to the Tribune (Michael Kilian, Chicago Tribune, Sept. 11). Back to top

NIH Awards Grant for Ricin Vaccine Research The National Institutes of Health awarded a $5.2 million grant to DOR BioPharma, Inc. for further development of its ricin vaccine RiVax, the company announced today in a press release (see GSN, Aug. 5). DOR’s BioDefense Division has been developing the vaccine, which has proven to be safe and effective in multiple animal models, in collaboration with the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.  “We have made substantial progress with the vaccine, and the funding validates not only the product, but the future development path,” said DOR Chief Scientific Officer Robert Brey. “The next steps include conducting an investigator-sponsored phase I pilot study in humans with vaccine previously produced at UT Southwestern, and, with the current grant award, transitioning the manufacturing process into a facility capable of producing commercial doses of the vaccine” (DOR BioPharma, Inc. release/BusinessWire, Sept. 13).   Back to top

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