North Korea claims nuclear plant progress

[alp227]

Source: AP

North Korea says it is making rapid progress on work to enrich uranium and build a light-water nuclear power plant, increasing worries that the country is developing another way to make atomic weapons.

Pyongyang's foreign ministry said in a statement that the construction of an experimental light-water reactor and low enriched uranium were "progressing apace".

It added that North Korea had a sovereign right to the peaceful use of nuclear energy and that "neither concession nor compromise should be allowed".

Concerns about North Korea's atomic capability took on renewed urgency in November 2010 when the country disclosed a uranium enrichment facility that could give it a second route to manufacture nuclear weapons, in addition to its existing plutonium-based programme.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/30/north-korea-nuclear-plant-progress

[Diclotican]

1. alp227

alp227

The irony of it all, if that North Korea is a country, who are in need of acute food from the rest of the world - as the last couple of years have shown that the country can not, or are not willing to feed themself... It is USA, EU, South Korea, and Japan who pay for the food the north koreans consume basically..

If they had not been building nuclear reactors, and bombs, they might have had the resources to feed their own nation, and maybe, just maybe getting a better footing with the rest of the world in the proses

What North Korea are doing is playing with fire, a fire I'm pretty sure the North koreans are not willing to pay in full, if war ever was to start over again.. Even tho NK could give South Korea some deep rooted pains, and a ruined nation, it will be worse, far worse in the North as they have far less resources to repair what is damaged in a war..

Diclotican

[izquierdista]

2. It's not even that

North Korea is on the list of the top 10 deforested countries. Their people are harvesting whatever they can find for firewood and the government does nothing to replant or manage their forestry resources.

North Korea has plenty of coal, but they need pumps to pump out the water and keep the mines dry. Coal production has fallen sharply in the last 20 years because the government does nothing to manufacture or maintain water pumps.

South Korea has about the same amount of coastline as North Korea and up until about 2000 was a net exporter of seafood. North Korea may have some fishing ships and may sell the catch to foreign countries, but the average North Korean doesn't see any of it.

North Korea has valuable mineral deposits, but any mining activity is done only to put money in the government treasury, not for the benefit of the populace.

Agricultural production peaked in the '80s, but after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Union, they have done nothing to change their methods. Cuba has, and has improved their food security situation. North Korea still relies on vast plantings of corn and rice, neither crop the best suited for that climate. If they allowed peasants to grow potatoes and cabbage on small plots of land and sell them in the marketplace, their food problems would go away in a matter of months.