N. Korea Shuts Down Nuke Reactor (more bombs)

[Gloria]

From the new World Media Watch up now at http://www.zianet.com/insightanalytical
Tomorrow at Buzzflash.com


3//The Asahi Shimbun, Japan 04/18/2005

http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200504180102.html



N. KOREA SHUTS DOWN NUKE REACTOR

By Nobuyoshi Sakajiri



WASHINGTON-North Korea has stopped operations at a nuclear reactor at Yongbyon north of Pyongyang, several sources here have confirmed.



The stoppage is likely in preparation for extracting spent fuel rods to reprocess into plutonium, they said.



North Korea resumed operations about two years ago at the nuclear facility, which Pyongyang in 1994 agreed with Washington to halt.



Pyongyang has said it completed the reprocessing of 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods, and in February, a senior North Korean official said it had become a ``nuclear power.''



If the 8,000 spent fuel rods are reprocessed, they could produce enough plutonium for about five more nuclear weapons, experts said.



That could double the amount Pyongyang likely already has, which is enough to make four to six weapons, according to some estimates.



Washington confirmed this month that the reactor stopped, based on satellite images of the Yongbyon facility and surrounding areas and on temperature estimates of the facility's concrete walls and of steam emissions, sources said.

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