South Korean oil imports from Iran continues to rile US

What a difference half a decade makes. In the mid-2000s, the K-blogosphere frequently characterized Seoul as a bad ally of Washington. I believe it was One Free Korea that had a posting category entitled "the end of an alliance," which highlighted the eventual parting of ways between the ROK and the US.

(This despite Roh Moohyun's political capital-eroding decision to send what was the third largest contingent of troops to the highly unpopular Iraq War (even if they saw little fighting) and his efforts to push for a free-trade agreement that would bring South Korea closer to the United States economically, while also giving the green light for a naval base on Cheju-do that would make South Korea's military, particularly its navy, a more effective military partner with the United States.)

But Roh Moohyun and George W. Bush were, to some degree, ham-handed political figures without a sense of the big picture, who had stumbled into the Blue and White Houses almost by accident and happenstance. Where there was a great deal of common ground, Roh's efforts to also make nice with China and North Korea riled a Washington that had a philosophy that "you're either for us or you're against us" on all matters.

When both presidents, and their respective parties, were gone from their respective color houses, we got pragmatic heads-of-state who saw the need and opportunity to bring their countries back in line with each other. Both see China as a potential threat that is easier to mitigate by closing ranks, both see North Korea's brinkmanship as something that needs to be addressed head on, and both worked hard to do what their predecessors could not do with the aforementioned FTA.

The result of this and other actions and factors is that Seoul is now seen by Obama's Washington as the reliable ally that Tokyo once was (the Japanese leadership seems to be going through it's own Roh Moohyun phase). I think this will likely continue even if we see a Romney or Santorum administration, regardless of who is elected in South Korea at the end of this year (since both left and right have growing concerns about China and even North Korea).

That is a very long introduction to a short article on what's in the title up there. Despite three decades of its military and political patron having an extremely adversarial relationship with Iran, South Korea has continually engaged Iran economically, both as an exporter of electronic goods, cars, heavy machinery, and even construction, and as an importer of oil.

The irony is palpable if you take the short jaunt from the US military's Yongsan Garrison, across the river to Teheran-no Boulevard, long one of the major streets cutting across Seoul's affluent south bank of the Han River.

It has come to a head with the Obama administration's aggressive diplomatic efforts to isolate Iran over its assumed nuclear weapons development, which is itself meant to preclude a military attack by Israel or even the United States. In short, Washington needs Tehran to feel the pain if it doesn't abide by its international agreements and put an end to its nuclear brinkmanship (dang, used that word twice now).

But South Korea, like neighboring Japan, is a prosperous country that is energy-poor. The disaster at Fukushima has meant a reduction in nuclear output in Japan that may carry over to South Korea, while putting pressure on the two countries to import more energy resources. For them, the pain of cutting off Iranian oil supplies is perhaps too great.

According to the Washington Post, the Obama administration seems to be getting South Korea's (and Japan's) predicament and may offer an exemption, but it hasn't so far:

South Korean officials said Saturday that they will continue working with the U.S. to reduce oil imports from Iran after President Barack Obama greenlighted potential sanctions against countries that continue to buy Iranian oil.

South Korea is one of several major importers of Iranian oil that have not received exemptions from the U.S. sanctions.

Obama announced Friday that he is plowing ahead with the potential sanctions, which could affect U.S. allies in Asia and Europe, as part of a deepening campaign to starve Iran of money for its disputed nuclear program.

The sanctions aim to further isolate Iran’s central bank, which processes nearly all of the Iran’s oil purchases, from the global economy. Obama’s move clears the way for the U.S. to penalize foreign financial institutions that do oil business with Iran by barring them from having a U.S.-based affiliate or doing business here.

Obama’s goal is to tighten the pressure on Iran, not allies, and already the administration exempted 10 European Union countries and Japan from the threat of sanctions because they cut their oil purchases from Iran. Other nations have about three months to significantly reduce such imports before sanctions would kick in.

Foreign Ministry officials in South Korea said Saturday that they expect to reach an agreement with Washington by late June on reducing oil imports from Iran. The officials declined to be named because discussions were still under way.

South Korea has already restricted financial dealings with more than 200 groups and individuals with suspected links to Iran’s nuclear program. Seoul relies on Iran for up to 10 percent of its oil.

Like it or not, Washington tends to look at Europe and Asia separately, so with Japan having already received an exemption, it looks like South Korea can, too, but the cuts will be painful. I haven't had to fill up the Kia with gas lately, but I suspect this isn't helping keep energy prices down lately.

And over here, we're feeling the pinch with gas prices as well. Hawaii, as many of you may be aware, routinely has the highest gas prices in the country, so it is a collective pain we're all feeling. Will South Koreans feel the need to join the American effort to curb Iran's nuclear ambitions? Were enough people paying attention to the recent summit in Seoul about that very issue?

Hopefully the ROK leadership will stay focused on that issue no matter who is in power come next February, but I imagine the left is torn a bit: on the one hand, supporting American efforts to aggressively fight nuclear proliferation seems like gross hypocrisy given the 1000+ nuclear weapons the US has in its arsenal (even if Obama is trying to work out a deal with Russia to reduce this further), while on the other hand, nukes are to leftists one of the worst things imaginable. Since even the most ardent leftist leaders in South Korea still look to Washington as a protective military ally and an economic partner, I'm guessing they'll fall in line.

But it's that feeling of "falling in line" amidst so much pain (been there, done that many times) that has the power to agitate the populace and erode the Seoul-Washington alliance at least a little on the edges.

Aloha Gas in Waikiki at $4.469 yesterday. I had lent my car to a friend and decided to walk to my doctor's appointment in Waikiki, passing this station, which is typical. Costco may be about 20¢ cheaper, but for the most part, we're at four and a half bucks per gallon here in the islands. And that has me feeling not a lot of aloha, but it's still way cheaper than what I've routinely paid in Seoul (but there I had a full time job or two). 

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Picture of the day: Obama seeing red at the DMZ

US President Barack Obama is visiting South Korea for the nuclear summit, and he has decided to take a side trip to the demilitarized zone, aka the DMZ, his first trip to the de facto border between the two Koreas.

From the Los Angeles Times:

The visit was Obama's first to the demilitarized zone that has divided North and South Korea for nearly 60 years, and comes at yet another tense point in relations with the secretive nuclear power in the north.

Obama met with South Korean and U.S. troops, and like presidents before him, stood in a camouflaged bunker peering through binoculars to inspect the rough, wooded mountains of a nation that has frustrated the West for decades.

The president is in South Korea to attend a global summit on securing loose nuclear weapons. But as his Sunday schedule shows, the status of the rogue nuclear program in North Korea is likely to outshine the formal agenda. The DMZ visit was his first stop. ...

But first the president headed north about 25 miles from Seoul, beyond the roadblock, mine field and barbed wire fencing to a windswept watch station 25 meters from the demarcation line. Obama looked out from behind bulletproof glass at the two small villages on each side of the line -- Tae Sung Dong, the tiny South Korean town dubbed Freedom Village and Gi Jong Dong, known as Propaganda Village for its fake buildings and speakers that once blared messages trying to lure soldiers to the north.

The messages no longer play. And Sunday, Obama looked out in cold quiet as a North Korean flag flew over the village, lowered to mark the end of the 100-day mourning period for the late leader.

"There's something about this spot in particular," Obama said in his remarks to U.S. troops. "where there's such a clear line and there's such an obvious impact that you have for the good each and every day that should make all of you proud."

The DMZ has long made a dramatic backdrop for a presidential visit, as a rare reminder of Cold War anxiety and America's continued reach. The trip has been one that all of Obama's recent predecessors have made. (President George H.W. Bush visited as vice president.)

President George W. Bush visited the DMZ in February 2002, at another tense time in relations. Bush had just included North Korea in the "axis of evil," a remark that unnerved South Koreans worried about the increasingly bellicose rhetoric. Bush then delivered a toned-down speech and expressed sympathy for the plight of North Koreans.

Obama arrived on much better terms with South Korean leaders. During his three-day visit, he's expected to emphasize solidarity with Seoul and make his first comments on the status of the food aid pact.

I've been to the DMZ probably a half dozen times at least. It's a very sobering trip, and a must-see for any American visiting South Korea.

One thing, though, I wouldn't describe the surrounding hills of North Korea as "rough, wooded mountains." Rough, yes. Mountains, sure. But wooded? Not really. You can see from the southern side how denuded the terrain is on that side. I'm not sure if that's by design (don't give an invading military any cover) or if it's because things have been so tough up north for so long that they have burned away any potential fuel source, including the once numerous trees. We certainly saw something like that across Korea during the deprivation of the late Imperial Japanese colonial area.

Anyway, I like how Obama has his name on his badge, lest we not be able to figure out who he is.

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Obama in Seoul for nuclear summit

His major task will be reminding skeptical naysayers why it's okay for the United States to have nukes but not North Korea and Iran.

From CNN:

President Barack Obama arrived in South Korea on Sunday for a three-day trip centered on an international nuclear security summit in Seoul.

He flew into Seoul, where he is expected to hold a bilateral meeting with his South Korean counterpart Lee Myung-bak.

Top officials from 54 countries, including China and Russia, will attend the summit meeting on Monday and Tuesday.

But its message of international cooperation has been overshadowed by North Korea's announcement last week that it is planning to carry out a rocket-powered satellite launch in April.

South Korea has said it considers the satellite launch an attempt to develop a nuclear-armed missile, while the United States has warned the move would jeopardize a food-aid agreement reached with Pyongyang in early March.

President Lee has already said he will use the summit to drum up international support against the actions of his northern neighbor.

North Korea says it has a right to a peaceful space program and has invited international space experts and journalists to witness the launch.

Nuclear non-proliferation is a major reason (but by no means the sole reason) for continued US military support of South Korea and Japan, two countries which have foregone their building their own nuclear arsenal in exchange for a robust alliance with the United States.

Hemming in a virally expansionist China is another major reason, but even China doesn't want North Korea to get nukes because (a) it makes it more likely that historical adversary Japan will get them and (b) rogue nukes could end up in the hands of Muslim separatists along China's western frontier. Ditto with Russia on Pyongyang having nukes.

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Stop me if you've heard this one

The Puk-mi talks between Washington and Pyongyang appear to have come to some fruition, with North Korea agreeing to put the brakes on its nuclear development program, for now at least.

I'm highlighting the "curbed nukes story" from the New York Times, since the Los Angeles Times looks like it's about to go into "paid premium" mode:

North Korea agreed to suspend nuclear weapons tests and uranium enrichment and allow international inspectors to monitor activities at its main nuclear complex, the North’s official news agency and the State Department announced on Wednesday. The promises could end years of a standoff that has allowed the North’s nuclear program to continue with no international oversight and are part of a deal that included an American pledge to ship food aid to the isolated, impoverished nation.

Although the Obama administration called the steps “important, if limited,” they signaled a potential breakthrough in the impasse over North Korea’s nuclear weapons program following the death late last year of the country’s leader, Kim Jong-il.

The US's apparent decision to start connecting food aid to progress on the nuke talks (mentioned in the top story here) may have had something to do with forcing North Korea's hand.

On the other hand, maybe this is what it looks like when a new regime is walking a fine line between trying to reach out to past adversaries without looking like a wuss (to external players or internal factions).  

Like anything with North Korean promises, I'll believe it when I see it (Puk-mi indeed!). In the meantime, while I'm happy we may have slowed or stopped production of uranium, I'm less thrilled about the moratorium on nuclear tests, since I'd like to see North Korea deliberately and purposefully test their entire arsenal away.

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Has North Korea actually done double the number of tests we've thought?

That's the suggestion being made in Nature, based on isotope readings found around the region:

North Korea may have conducted two covert nuclear weapons tests in 2010, according to a fresh analysis of radioisotope data.

The claim has drawn scepticism from some nuclear-weapons experts. But if confirmed, the analysis would double the number of tests the country is known to have conducted and suggest that North Korea is trying to develop powerful warheads for its fledgling nuclear arsenal.

It might also explain a bizarre statement issued by North Korea's state news agency in May 2010, which said that the country had achieved nuclear fusion. The news was largely ridiculed in the South Korean and Western media — but it was not so quickly dismissed by the small circle of experts who devote their careers to identifying covert nuclear tests. South Korean scientists had detected a whiff of radioactive xenon at around that time, hinting at nuclear activity in its northern neighbour, which had already tested nuclear devices in 2006 and 2009.

While I'm not terribly happy they're developing nuclear fusion, I'm pleased as punch they're depleting their nuclear arsenal through repeated nuclear tests. In fact, in the past, I have advised Western powers to mock them into eliminating their entire stockpile in this manner:

North Korea's preparing for a third nuclear test, supposedly. And I say let 'em! Then taunt them that we thought that was just a bunch of TNT detonated in a mine shaft, so they'll detonate another one to prove us wrong. Lather, rinse, repeat, and eventually all their nukes will be gone. I should be president.

That is, of course, why I keep getting passed over for Assistant Secretary of State of Northeast Asian Affairs.

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Daily Kor for Mon/Tuesday, June 13-14, 2011

If they do successfully miniaturize,
I'd start checking out lipstick tubes.

I've noticed a ramping up of news lately about the danger posed by North Korea. While the likes of out-going US Defense Secretary Robert Gates is bluntly saying the US's NATO partners need to do far more to pull their own weight, his designated successor Leon Panetta tell us North Korea is a "growing and direct threat to the US."

The attention is being focused on Northeast Asia, and stories (see #1 below) of North Korea's possible nuke miniaturization capabilities or its potential for a surprise attack only bolster this impression. Ditto with story #2, about Pyongyang's on-going efforts to earn hard capital through weapons sales to rogue regimes.

1. ROK Defense Minister Kim Kwanjin tells National Assembly committee there is "possibility" North Korea has the miniaturization technology to mount a nuclear warhead (AP via WaPo, Reuters)
• Def Min Kim says chance of "surprise provocation" by DPRK is on the rise (Yonhap)
2. US Navy says two weeks ago in the South China Sea it forced back a North Korean vessel carrying missile technology bound for Myanmar (CSM, VOA, NYT, AP via WaPo, WSJ, Reuters)
• US sought permission to board vessel but was denied (CNN)
3. South Korea announces major push of pay-by-phone services that will include upgrade or installment of 300,000 payment checkouts (Reuters)
4. Seoul says its invitation to North Korean leader Kim Jong-il to attend next year's international security summit remains on the table (Yonhap)
5. Kim Jong-il meets Chinese Communist Party's organization department chief in Pyongyang (AP via WaPo)
6. Special National Assembly committee tasked with reforming South Korean judicial system ceases operations in the face of division and strong opposition from prosecutors (Yonhap)
7. Lim Sanggyu, president of Sunchon National University and former Agriculture Minister, found dead in an apparent suicide following reported corruption investigation (AP via WaPo, Yonhap, Korea Times, Joongang Daily)
8. President Lee Myungbak calls for calm approach to college tuition issue (Yonhap)
9. Orion Group chairman Tam Cheolgon indicted on charges of embezzlement (Yonhap)
10. Sweden-based Electrolux renews talks with South Korea's Daewoo Electronics on acquisition of bankrupt appliance maker (Bloomberg)
11. North Korean authorities reportedly in panic mode as they try to find out who these giant condoms belong to (Yonhap)

Kim Jong-il going south?

Ah, the beauty of ambiguous language. The title could be wondering if (a) Kim Jong-il's health is deteriorating, (b) the Dear Leader may be heading for a lower latitude, (c) or KJI will be joining OBL in the ninth circle of hell.

The answer is (b), though (a) and (c) remain future possibilities.

My attempt to Google Image search appropriate artwork
depicting KJI suffering in Hades has failed.
You'd think it'd be a popular theme.

ROK President Lee Myungbak has said he will invite North Korean strongman Kim Jong-il to a summit if the Dear Leader pledges to give up atomic weapons.

From Bloomberg:

Lee said he would extend an invitation to North Korean leader Kim Jong Il to a security meeting next March if the communist government agrees to the condition. The South Korean president will host the summit next year as part of a global initiative championed by President Barack Obama to secure nuclear stockpiles. ...

The North Korean leader told visiting former U.S. President Jimmy Carter last month that he is ready to meet Lee any time and over any issue. The South has resisted talks with North Korea until Kim’s regime shows a “responsible attitude” toward attacks last year that killed 50 South Koreans.

My goodness, that's a lot of ifs. If he gives up nukes... If he's willing to travel to a place where he might encounter angry opposition and he's not in total control of his security... If he's still alive next March (and I think he will be)...

One must also remember that Kim Jong-il goes through more pledges than a horny frat boy at a sorority mixer during Orientation Week. (Too long and too obscure for the meager payoff, I know.)

Frankly, I doubt KJI will actually end up coming to Seoul, but I think Pyongyang will make like he is planning to go up until the very end.

Can you imagine Kim Jong-il being pelted with eggs? His handlers are probably horrified at the prospect. And after what's gone on in Libya, they're horrified by the thought of giving up nukes as well. Let's not also forget that Kim Jong-il getting a whiff of free-wheeling capitalism is not the best way to get him to reform.

And then, if KJI does leave the country, there's always the chance of a brown parade back home.

"Nuclear Boy has a stomachache"

This is how the on-going nuclear crisis at Fukushima (aka "Fu¢k You Island") is being explained to kids who have already been rattled by the earthquake and tsunami.

Three Mile Island Boy looks suspiciously like a drunken partygoer with a lampshade on his head. That would explain a lot.

(HT to "M," who first showed me this in Japanese and then alerted me when she found it with English subtitles. She notes that it's a bit of a whitewash, but that the animator-artist was going by what the Japanese government had been revealing at the time.)

Rethinking nuclear power in South Korea

The events in northern Japan have led a number of people in the ROK to reconsider whether it is wise to rely so much on nuclear power to meet the country's energy needs:

Following the disasters in Fukushima, the first reaction was for environmentalists to demand that the country’s older reactors be closed down. Then the partisan divide arose, with the opposition criticizing the pro-business, conservative government for over-reliance on nuclear energy, and the government defending itself by saying a growing industrial economy like Korea’s can’t be chintzy about power.

But now the argument is broadening, with people asking more questions about a wider range of issues nuclear and non. How safe are Korea’s reactors compared to those in Japan or other countries? Do Korean consumers and industries use too much power - and is electricity too cheap here? Are investments in nuclear power crowding out alternatives, such as wind and solar energy?

The ultimate fate of the Fukushima Daiichi plant won’t be known for weeks or months. But as in many countries around the world, its travails have started a debate in Korea on nuclear power that is destined to go on for a long time.

With twenty-one nuclear reactors providing 32 percent of the country's electricity, the debate is warranted. Some say South Korea has the world's best nuclear safety record, but until recently Japan was number one or number two as well.

"Wolsong Nuclear Plant is Fukushima #2!"

Frankly, though I think we should never take our eye off constant safety at South Korea's nuclear plants, when it comes to nuclear risks I am more concerned about what's happening in China or even North Korea.

North Korea's take-away message

A lot of people have asked me if I think the Jasmine Revolution will affect North Korea. Tentatively, I would say no, not really. Just as Beijing has such a tight control over information flow within its own borders, most North Koreans are hermetically sealed from the day-to-day news events happening in the rest of the world.

On the other hand, if two characters in a South Korea drama love story talk about Egypt's successful uprising while they're dining at some posh café in Kangnam, the North Korean peasantry might eventually hear about it when the DVDs are smuggled into Shinŭiju in early 2012.

In the meantime, the Pyongyang regime is taking a look at what's going on and they are coming to two conclusions. First, don't let the people know anything. Second, once they give up their nukes (or the threat of nukes) then the Americans can invade.

From the New York Times:

A North Korean statement that Libya’s dismantling of its nuclear weapons program had made it vulnerable to military intervention by the West is being seen by analysts as an ominous reinforcement of the North’s refusal to end its own nuclear program.

North Korea’s official news agency carried comments this week from a Foreign Ministry official criticizing the air assault on Libyan government forces and suggesting that Libya had been duped in 2003 when it abandoned its nuclear program in exchange for promises of aid and improved relations with the West.

Calling the West’s bargain with Libya “an invasion tactic to disarm the country,” the official said it amounted to a bait and switch approach. “The Libyan crisis is teaching the international community a grave lesson,” the official was quoted as saying Tuesday, proclaiming that North Korea’s “songun” ideology of a powerful military was “proper in a thousand ways” and the only guarantor of peace on the Korean Peninsula.

You'll have to take that nuclear trigger out of the Dear Leader's cold, dead hands.

In Orange County, the Japanese nuclear meltdown focuses attention on San Onofre

There are three things you notice when you drive I-5 between San Diego and Orange County: the beautiful coastal scenery, the signs warning of illegal aliens crossing the freeway as they flee ICE, and the nuclear power plant that is shaped like two perky boobs pointing upward. Hmm... make that four things.

That plant is San Onofre.

When I was a kid, I took a tour of the plant. That adventure was a half day break from camping at San Onofre State Beach. Yup, we would boogie-board and bodysurf in the shadow of a giant nuclear facility. Good times.

Anyhoo, the problems in Miyagi Prefecture with the still on-going disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi plant there have prompted questions about how well Orange County's own neighboring nuke plant could withstand an earthquake and tsunami.

Rest assured, we are told, that we can rest assured:

As crews in Japan struggle with shutting down nuclear reactors affected by Friday's earthquake and tsunami, Southern California Edison officials say the nuclear plant in San Onofre is prepared to handle the area's seismic threats.

"A design (for a nuclear plant) is only approved by regulators if it's shown to match all the environmental challenges in that particular region," said Gil Alexander, a spokesman for Southern California Edison.

A surfer heads for the water at San Onofre State Beach in the shadow of the San Onofre Nuclear power plant in this 2006 file photo. Edison officials say San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station is built to withstand up to a 7-magnitude earthquake and a tsunami more than 25 feet high.

The 8.9-magnitude earthquake off the coast of Japan and the resulting tsunami have caused problems at six nuclear reactors there by preventing coolant from reaching the hot reactor cores, according to The Associated Press.

That leaves the question: How would San Onofre handle a large earthquake or tsunami generated closer to home?

When San Onofre was designed several decades ago, scientific studies showed that the largest tsunami likely to strike the San Onofre area would measure about 25 feet. The wall was built 30 feet high for extra protection, Alexander said.

As for earthquakes, the facility was built to survive a nearby earthquake with a magnitude 7.0, Alexander said.

During the plant's planning stages, "the best science suggested that the nearest earthquake fault, which is five miles from the plant, could produce an earthquake something less than a magnitude 7 in the plant vicinity," Alexander said.

Um, okay, then. Never mind that since they built it forty-two years ago, loads of new fault lines have been discovered in Southern California. The thing with that is that sometimes they discover them after seismic activity occurs on them. But, we are told, there is no evidence of major seismic activity there for the past 120,000 years. All those greater-than-7.0 earthquakes happen elsewhere in California.

Besides, our best calculations are that a tsunami generated there would be no higher than twenty-five feet, but just to be sure, we built a thirty-foot wall to protect it.

Hmm... echoes of Katrina, methinks.

Actually, I think their description of the safety fallbacks are more reassuring than their reassurances that we're prepared for a pretty good sized quake that is smaller than what other parts of California gets:

"The plant is designed so that if ground-motion sensors on the plant property detect even slight movement, an automatic mechanism will shut the two reactors down," Alexander said, by inserting control rods into the reactor cores to slow and stop the nuclear process. If need be, those rods also can be lowered manually. A total shutdown would take several hours.

That actually does make me feel better (though I hope that problems with construction of the facility didn't muck up those safety features). Nuclear plants of the future need to be designed with the idea that they should be physically incapable of causing a Chernobyl or Three Mile Island, even if everything goes wrong.

San Onofre is actually not in Orange County, but just adjacent to the beachside OC community of San Clemente, home of the Western White House when OC homeboy Richard Nixon was president (earning The Big Orange the nickname "The Land of Tricky Dicky and Mickey"). It's in San Diego County, but it is isolated from the populated part of metro San Diego and even Oceanside by the vast Camp Pendleton, so it's typically considered part of the OC sphere.

My mom, who has lived in California for more than half a century, frequently tells me the San Onofre plant always worries her. If something goes seriously wrong, it could make Interstate-5 impassable for days, weeks, months, or even years. That blocks off a major escape route to Mexico for when the North Koreans eventually invade.

North Korea promises to dismantle one of its nuke programs?

Meanwhile, amidst North Korea showing off its latest nuke initiative and then shelling a South Korean island, DPRK officials supposedly said they'd scrap one of their nuclear programs in exchange for an American promise not to attack them.

From the Washington Post:

The North Korean government told a team of visiting American experts last week that it would effectively dismantle one of its nuclear weapons programs if the United States again pledged that it had "no hostile intent" toward the government of Kim Jong Il, a member of the delegation said.

Leon Sigal, director of the Northeast Asia Cooperative Security Project at the Social Science Research Council, said North Korean officials told him and other visitors that the government in Pyongyang is willing to transfer all of its nuclear fuel rods, which can be used to produce weapons-grade plutonium, to a third country. In exchange, North Korea wants to have the United States reiterate its commitment to a joint communique issued by the two countries in October 2007, which included a statement that the United States bears no ill will toward North Korea.

Frankly, I don't know what to make of this, but then Washington couldn't help Seoul kick your asses over what you pulled on Yŏnpyŏng-do Island. More and more, maybe the revelations to Hecker were just a bargaining tool.

North Koreans admit to show off new uranium enrichment facility

More nuclear brinksmanship from the masters of brink.

From the New York Times:

North Korea showed a visiting American nuclear scientist earlier this month a vast new facility it secretly and rapidly built to enrich uranium, confronting the Obama administration with the prospect that the country is preparing to expand its nuclear arsenal or build a far more powerful type of atomic bomb.

Whether the calculated revelation is a negotiating ploy by North Korea or a signal that it plans to accelerate its weapons program even as it goes through a perilous leadership change, it creates a new challenge for President Obama at a moment when his program for gradual, global nuclear disarmament appears imperiled at home and abroad. The administration hurriedly began to brief allies and lawmakers on Friday and Saturday — and braced for an international debate over the repercussions.

The scientist, Siegfried S. Hecker, a Stanford professor who previously directed the Los Alamos National Laboratory, said in an interview that he had been “stunned” by the sophistication of the new plant, where he saw “hundreds and hundreds” of centrifuges that had just been installed in a recently gutted building that had housed an aging fuel fabrication center, and that were operated from what he called “an ultra-modern control room.” The North Koreans claimed 2,000 centrifuges were already installed and running, he said.

An ultra-modern control room in an aging factory that had been gutted? I'm picturing the lair of a James Bond villain.

One wonders if the North Koreans really were able to put together such a facility so secretly and so rapidly (with the ascension of Kim Jong-un as a distraction?), or if Professor Hecker was shown the Ikea Showroom of uranium nuclear plants (i.e., display after display of expensive-looking stuff that is just carefully crafted boxes designed to appear very real but is ultimately nothing more than show).

And since North Korea's on-again, off-again nuclear development is a bit confusing to follow, I'll leave you with this handy-dandy Reuters "factbox" on the subject.

And speaking of construction in North Korea...

It looks like a couple buildings are in the works at the controversial Yŏngbyŏn [영변/녕변/寧邊; Nyŏngbyŏn] nuclear site.

From AFP:

North Korea is restoring facilities at its Yongbyon nuclear reactor, the source of weapons-grade plutonium in the past, South Korea's defence ministry said Tuesday.

"North Korea is restoring nuclear facilities and continuing maintenance activities at Yongbyon," a spokesman quoted Defence Minister Kim Tae-Young as telling parliament on Monday. "It is engaged in new construction and large-scale excavation."

The foreign ministry said the South is closely monitoring the work.

"There are some activities going on but we have no information on what these are for," said spokesman Kim Young-Sun. "The government is watching closely the activities there and exchanging information with other countries."

An unidentified government official was quoted by Dong-A Ilbo newspaper as saying that two rectangular buildings were being built next to the site of a cooling tower demolished in 2008.

My money's on two competing Starbucks, but I've been wrong before. Maybe they're blowing stuff up and then rebuilding it just to keep the economy going.

Thanks for the heads-up, Pyongyang.

North Korea, according to Xinhua, is warning that it will use its nuclear arsenal if it is attacked by the US or South Korea:

"If Washington and Seoul try to create a conflict on the Korean Peninsula, we will respond with a holy war on the basis of our nuclear deterrent forces," said [North Korean ambassador to Cuba Kwon Sung Chol] at a ceremony marking the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Cuba and the DPRK.

"Our government will strive for the denuclearization of the peninsula and the establishment of a lasting peace as the beginning of the reunification process of the two Koreas," the diplomat said.

Despite obstacles created by the United States and South Korea, reunification will be achieved with the support of peace-loving peoples, like Cubans, he said.

I don't know if it's bad journalism or just a bad speech, but none of those three paragraphs sounds like they are coming from the same person. Certainly, committing to the use of nukes in response to a conventional conflict (first paragraph) doesn't really go hand in hand with striving for denuclearization (second paragraph), while the third paragraph, no doubt meant as a local crowd-pleaser, just sounds delusional.

Anyhoo, this kind of sentiment is why I'm always happy to hear of North Korea testing another nuclear weapon. Test them all, I says! It's the only way to know they all work.

Seriously, though, with North Korea gearing up for yet another dynastic succession, there may be disgruntled generals and apparatchiki, enough that the inner circle is anticipating dissent and they want to warn Washington and Seoul off of taking advantage of that.

That's my read, anyway. Of course, Nork politicos may just like talking about their nukes.

In the only picture I could find of Ambassador Kwon, he is seen giving Guyana President Bharrat Jagdeo a letter of credence. [source]

A hub of hosting and mecca of meetings

It just made me laugh this morning when I saw this news... here we have this very serious meeting of world leaders and their deputies converging on Washington to discuss nuclear security around the world, the biggest such gathering, we are told, since World War II and the formation of the United Nations. And what Korea-related news comes out of it? Wait for it... Wait for it... Korea will host the next one!

So says l'AFP:

US President Barack Obama on Tuesday announced that South Korea would host the next nuclear security summit in 2012, in an implied rebuke to North Korea over its nuclear defiance.

"I am so pleased to announce that President Lee has agreed to host the next nuclear security summit in South Korea in two years," Obama said, as he opened a plenary session of global leaders at the inaugural nuclear security summit.

"This reflects South Korea's leadership regionally and globally."

President Lee Myung-Bak said that South Korea, which will likely see the award of the meeting as a diplomatic coup, would do its best "to make this summit a success."

That last paragraph... do you think? Seriously, though I see no problem with Korea giving the smug Swiss and bothersome Belgians a run for their money when it comes to diplomatic assemblies. And with that title, I'm poking just as much fun at the folks in the K-blog who get their panties in a bunch every time they see "hub" or "mecca" written somewhere.

UPDATE:
This is also being carried by AP, Yonhap, and the Joongang Daily, among others.

[above: After being moved to the adults' table, President Lee thanked President Obama for helping make South Korea the hub of hubbery. He also asked Obama to let the Korus FTA out of its locker.]

Welcome to Washington, Mr President. Now go BOOM!

After blogging for four years, you start running out of pithily clever title ideas.

Anyhoo, John Glionna of the Los Angeles Times is reporting that South Korean President Lee Myungbak's visit to Washington to talk with US President Barack Hussein Obama (Own it! Own it!):

North Korea has positioned its most sophisticated long-range ballistic missile at a launch site for a test firing that could come within weeks, a newspaper here reported today.

Pyongyang, which last month raised tensions worldwide by conducting a nuclear test, could even fire its missile June 16, when South Korean President Lee Myung-bak meets with President Obama in Washington, according to the report.

That sounds exactly like something Kim Jong-il would do. And this is why they should do their best to ignore him, as seems to be the popular idea these days. 

KJI is like me when I was, like, six. We were walking through Lucky's, a Compton-area grocery store back then (the last time I looked, a few years ago, it was abandoned and boarded up; apparently Comptonites don't eat groceries anymore). As we were walking down the cereal aisle, I spotted the Froot Loops that evil corporate America* had deliberately placed at my eye level. 

I wanted those Froot Loops.

"No," said my mother. "They're full of sugar and they encourage bad spelling." She reached instead for heart-healthy Cheerios, despite my insistence that they should be spelled Cheery O's. 

She held her ground: "That's a tu quoque argument that does nothing to counter the demerit against Froot Loops, which is that they're full of sugar and they'll have you bouncing off the walls and cracking the plaster."

Mother controlled the cash and the cart, but I had several aces up my sleeve (though I was actually wearing a tank top — full disclosure): I was in a very crowded supermarket full of people who would probably give disapproving looks and I had lungs that could produce sounds so loud that even the Caucasians who had left Compton in the early stages of White flight would still be able to hear me. ("Oh, is the Kushibo boy coming for a visit all the way out here in Yucaipa? Let's make fresh cookies.")

I let loose on the screamingest, loudest, kickingest, most gawdawful tantrum ever performed by a grammar school student. 

My mother furrowed her brow, looked around at all the disapproving looks (point: Kushibo) and then she left her cart, walked at a normal pace right out the sliding doors at the front of the store, got into the station wagon, and drove off. 

When I paused to open my eyes and saw my mother had gone, I stopped making any noise, stood up, looked around, and quickly took note that the money-providing maternal unit was gone. She had taken off.

"Holy sh¡t!" My foul-mouthed inner voice said to myself, "Mom left me alone in the middle of a grocery store in fuçking Compton!" 

I looked to and fro in a panic (heh heh... fro), with genuine tears starting to ooze from my eyes. "I'm screwed!"

And she didn't come back. Not five minutes later, not ten. Not even half an hour (I actually had no sense of time; I'm judging based roughly on how long a cartoon was). 

After what seemed like an eternity (two, possibly three episodes), my dad came in, went over to the manager's desk, pulled out my picture and asked if they had this kid anywhere in the store (my dad and I look nothing alike, a fact I may or may not have exploited once in a shopping mall at the age of ten when I yelled that some stranger was kidnapping me because I didn't want to leave the video arcade). 

The manager indicated where I was, at check-out counter 1, nervously clutching the leg of a friendly-looking cashier who had agreed to watch me until my "I'd do the same thing if my kid pulled that kinda stunt" mom showed up again. 

Dad said thank you, firmly took my arm (and I his), and marched me to the Volkswagen. I never, ever, ever, ever, ever asked for Froot Loops again (though I did go through a "Ha! I can eat whatever I want now!" period during freshman year of college... my parents were sort of food Nazis).

And this is how we should deal with North Korea. If they want to have a pants-sh¡tting temper tantrum in the middle of Aisle 6, let them. Just walk away.

Sure, stories from Kushibo's emotionally scarring childhood aren't always perfect substitutes for learned punditry on important political issues, but they do provide good parables. I'm like a non-divine modern-day Jesus in this way. And if I don't post anything over the next few days, you know the Good Lord has struck me down for blasphemy. And possibly profanity. 

And the story itself may not be entirely true. But at the very least, though, we were in Compton and I was six. Or five. And whatever else went down, I know I didn't get the Froot Loops.

* Lucky's being part of evil corporate America is not really pertinent to this story. In fact, it's kinda distracting.

Requisite picture of threatening-looking images from 
North Korea that must accompany any article on North Korea. 
In this photo: North Korean MILDs (military I'd like to disarm).