Category: north korea

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From One Success to Another

From the genius who brought you the Bush Administration’s stem cell policy … comes our North Korea policy: The architect of [the Bush Administration’s policy on stem cell research], navigating ethically and politically treacherous terrain, was a litigator named Jay…

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NORKS Gave Beijing 20 Minutes Warning

A new IISS Strategic Comment—“North Korea’s Nuclear Test: Continuing Reverberations”—confirms statements by US and South Korean officials that the NORKs gave the Chinese all of twenty minutes notice before the nuclear test: Chinese sources confirm that North Korea informed Beijing…

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North Korean Missile Exports

So, I am thumbing through Richard Grimmett’s CRS report Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations, 1998-2005 to find this phrase: Other non-European suppliers [ahem, North Korea] … delivered [to Near East region during the 2002-2005 period] 40 surface-to-surface missiles, a…

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NORK Nuke Missile?

So, my initial speculation about the cause of failure for North Korea’s nuclear test—remember that I thought the NORKS tried to reduce the size of the warhead with fancy implosion techniques—seems to have gained some credibility. (See So, Like, Why…

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End of the World: Still Hot

Apparently, Kim Jong Il and Marvin Gaye have a little something in common: Motel Bookings, Condom Sales Surge Post Nuke Test Chosun Ilbo, October 26, 2006 As tends to be the case in disasters and crises, sales of condoms and…

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Buster

If Arms Control Wonk.com had a mascot, it would be Mark Fiore’s Buster, the friendly nuke. (That or maybe Nick Neutron. Tough call.) Anyway, Fiore’s Axis of Oops is brilliant. He joins the The Onion in using satire to better…

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Nuclear Volleyball

Normally I don’t bother with Gertz, but this is priceless: Nuclear volleyball Intelligence photographs of North Korea’s nuclear test site showed technicians playing volleyball this week near the tunnel where a nuclear device was unsuccessfully set off on Sunday. The…

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So, like, why didn't it work?

One possible explanation for a failed test is that the North Koreans attempted to skip directly to an operational weapons design (say 1000-2000 lbs like the US Mk 7). Indeed, this was precisely what was reported in the press in…

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Dropping the F-Bomb on the NORKS

Well, the French are the first to drop the F-bomb on North Korea—failure. Speaking to reporters, French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie (right) said “it was an explosion with a force of about half a kiloton, which is not an extremely…

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NORK DATA: It was a DUD

HA HA HA HA. I love the US Geological Survey. They’ve published lat/long (41.294°N, 129.134°E) and Mb estimates (4.2) for the North Korean test. There is lots of data floating around: The CTBTO called it 4.0; The South Koreans report…