A related color photo ran on the front page of the newspaper.
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The warning comes after two USA supersonic bombers flew over South Korea on Tuesday in a show of force following North Korea’s fifth and largest-ever nuclear test last week.
He said it’s urgent that the council unite, “show firm resolve” and commitment, and not lose time in sending a strong message to North Korea that their nuclear tests and ballistic missile launches are unacceptable and must stop.
That project, believed to have been expanded significantly, is likely the source of up to 150 kilograms (330 pounds) of highly enriched uranium a year, said Siegfried Hecker, a leading expert on the North’s nuclear program.
The UN Security Council is also planning fresh sanctions against the North after it staged its fifth nuclear weapons test last week.
The propaganda exercise, organized by North Korean defector-turned-activist Park Sang-Hak, came amid surging military tensions on the divided peninsula following North Korea’s fifth and largest nuclear test last week. “The fact that the warheads are ‘standardized” is, I think, meant to convey that they are being produced in quantity”, Lewis wrote in the article.
North Korea is ready to launch a fresh attack on the South against ‘US provocations, ‘ Pyongyang has warned. In theory, North Korea could have at least 20 nuclear bombs by the end of the year and produce at least seven nuclear weapons each year. Divide by four, that’s 10 bombs.
Impoverished North Korea is vulnerable to natural disasters, especially floods, as mountains and hills that have always been stripped bare for fuel or turned into terraced rice fields allow rainwater to flow downhill unchecked.
After these intense expressions of concern, the question is what the United States and its allies will do to deter a North Korean regime that, under President Kim Jong Un, keeps upping the stakes in its nuclear brinkmanship. “That means there might be as little as 2 kilograms of plutonium in each device”.
Mineral resources account for about half of North Korea’s exports. Ministry officials refused to say what specific evidence pointed to another possible nuclear test.
North Korea has a stockpile of around 32 to 54 kilograms of plutonium presently.
Also of interest is the fact that as far as the development of these missile and nuclear-deterrence capabilities are concerned, North Korea is virtually fully self-sufficient. As a outcome, more American experts are calling for a move away from the current policy focus on sanctions. However in 2009 they broke up as North Korea resumed nuclear tests.
Meanwhile, huge government resources are swallowed up by a missile and nuclear weapons programme that Pyongyang says is essential to deter what it considers United States aggression.
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Kim also said the US would work with China to close loopholes in existing resolutions, according to Reuters.
