STORIES

Page 22 ISSUE 123 Friday 25th SEPTEMBER, 2015
NORTH KOREA WARNS U.S:
IT’S READY TO USE NUCLEAR
In its latest bout of saber
rattling, North
Korea says it is ready
to use nuclear weapons
against the United States
and other foes if they pursue
“their reckless hostile
policy” toward Kim Jong
Un’s regime.
In a statement carried by
the North’s state-run Korean
Central News Agency last
Tuesday, an atomic energy
official said Pyongyang is
improving its nuclear weapons
arsenal “in quality and
quantity.”
“If the U.S. and other
hostile forces persistently
seek their reckless hostile
policy towards the DPRK
and behave mischievously,
the DPRK is fully ready to
cope with them with nuclear
weapons at any time,” the
director of the North Korean
Atomic Energy Institute
said, using an abbreviation
of the country’s official
name, the Democratic People’s
Republic of Korea.
North Korea’s main nuclear
complex at Yongbyon,
which includes a uranium
enrichment plant and a plutonium
production reactor,
is operating normally, the
official told the news agency.
Notorious for issuing
WEAPONS ‘ANY TIME’
alarming and attention-grabbing
statements, Pyongyang
has repeatedly threatened to
use nuclear weapons against
the United States. But strong
with Seoul “to ensure that
other allies in the region as
well as the U.S. homeland
are protected from threats
posed by North Korea.”
doubts remain over whether “We’ve moved, over
it has the missile technology
to target the U.S. mainland.
In an indication it wants
to advance its missile capabilities,
North Korea said
Monday it was planning
time, a good deal of missile
defense capability to
the region,” Lippert said before
North Korea issued the
statement about its nuclear
program. “Ground-based interceptors
more satellite launches.
to Alaska, surface
Prohibited by U.N. Security
Council resolutions, such
launches are widely seen
as a way of testing ballistic
missile technology.
Kim’s regime didn’t say
when the next launch would
take place, but observers
combatants to the Western
Pacific, a THAAD battery
on Guam, another radar in
Japan in order to be ready
and vigilant for anything the
North Koreans may or may
not do.”
THAAD, which stands
have speculated that it could for Terminal High Altitude
launch a long-range rocket Area Defense, is a ballistic ning comes as little surprise.
carrying a satellite in October
around the 70th anniver-
After the North Korean ened tensions in the region
missile defense system. During a period of heightsary
of North Korea’s ruling statement, U.S. State Department
spokesman John announced it would revamp
in spring 2013, Pyongyang
party.
The atomic energy official Kirby told a regular news and restart the facilities at
on Tuesday reiterated the briefing that the United the site.
North Korean stance that its
nuclear weapons program is
a self-defense measure “in
the face of the U.S. extremly
hostile policy and nuclear
threats towards it.”
States continues “to call on
North Korea to refrain from
irresponsible provocations
that aggravate regional tensions,
and instead focus on
fulfilling its international
In February of this year,
U.S. Director of National
Intelligence James Clapper
said he believed that “North
Korea has followed through
on its announcement by expanding
In an interview with CNN obligations and commitments.richment
its Yongbyon en-
earlier Tuesday, U.S. Ambassador
facility and restart-
to South Korea
Mark Lippert said Washington
is constantly working
The North’s announcement
that the Yongbyon nuclear
complex is up and runing
the reactor.”
But some North Korea
watchers have questioned
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
To: ALL MY FELLOW CITIZENS OF
TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO
We just came
through a very
bitterly contested
general election
without any violence,
however, some “diehard”
political supporters
from the PNM and
the UNC continue to
make “SILLY SEASON”
dotish remarks such as:
• “Dat man doh like Indian
people, I going Canada
as soon as I get my
papers fix-up.”
• “The UNC Cabal feel
we stupid, dey empty
the Treasury before their
‘Safe-seat’ campaign manager
leave we with the big
headache of running we
country, you see how dey
start burning tires already.”
I am respectfully appealing
to our new Prime Minister,
the honourable Dr. Keith
Rowley, and the new leader
of the Opposition, Mrs. Kamla
Persad Bissessar, to bury
their real or perceived political
differences and work together
to solve the problems
of Trinidad and Tobago.
JOHNNY CHONG SING
ST.AUGUSTINE
PM Dr. KEITH
ROWLEY
Former PM KAMLA
PERSAD-BISSESSAR
whether the reactor is operating
at full power.
A July article on 38 North,
a website that specializes in
analysis of North Korea,
said satellite imagery suggested
the reactor may not
have been operating or was
only functioning at low
power levels.
The report’s authors also
identified rapid construction
at the uranium enrichment
plant of a building
they theorized could be
used “to assemble or store
conventional high explosive
components of a nuclear
weapon.”
The North Korean atomic
energy official said Tuesday
that the Yongbyon facilities
were being employed for
both economic development
and “the building of a nuclear
force.”
Expert says nuclear
arsenal is growing
Kim Jong Un’s regime
may already have 10 to 15
nuclear weapons, according
to David Albright, a former
U.N. weapons inspector
who now heads the nonprofit
Institute for Science and
International Security.
In a report in February,
Albright predicted that
Pyongyang could increase
its stockpile to anywhere
between 20 and roughly 100
nuclear weapons by 2020.
The growing nuclear arsenal
poses a serious strategic
challenge for the United
States.
The U.S. government has
repeatedly called on North
Korea to commit to denuclearization
as a condition
of any future negotiations,
but Kim’s regime has repeatedly
dismissed such an
idea, demanding to be recognized
as a nuclear power.
Pyongyang’s statement
last Tuesday provided few
details about its specific
grievances with U.S. policy,
which it accused of “openly
seeking the downfall” of
North Korea’s “social system.”
The combative rhetoric
comes just three weeks after
North and South Korea
reached a deal to dial down
tensions in the region that
were inflamed by landmine
blasts and artillery fire in
the Demilitarized Zone that
separates the two countries.
South Korean President
Park Geun-hye issued a
joint statement with EU
leaders after a summit in
Seoul on Tuesday in which
they strongly condemned
the North’s “continued development
of its nuclear and
ballistic missile programs.”
The leaders urged North
Korea to abandon all its
nuclear weapons and existing
nuclear program in a
“complete, verifiable, and
irreversible manner,” and
to “refrain from any further
provocation.”