North Korea has nuclear bomb, would-be defector claims: report

[-Cp]

North Korea has nuclear bomb, would-be defector claims: report

A defector claiming to have been in the North Korean parliament said the communist state has produced a nuclear bomb and attempted to sell missiles to Taiwan, a South Korean magazine reported.

South Korean intelligence authorities declined to comment on the report in the Monthly Chosun, which said that the defector, a man believed to be in his 70s using the alias Kim Il-Do, defected to the South in May.

"North Korea has built a one-tonne nuclear bomb by using four kilogrammes of plutonium," he was quoted as telling the National Intelligence Service (NIS), South Korea's spy agency.

The North was now seeking to miniaturize the bomb to make it more reliable as a weapon, he reportedly said. The man claimed he had been in the North's parliament and had worked for the Marine Industrial Institute.

"We interview escapees from the North to verify their IDs and check their motives but we don't comment on any other specifics about them," an NIS spokesman said.

But a spokesman for North Korea's foreign ministry dismissed the report, according to Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

"The fiction is a sheer fabrication as there is no such institution in the north as the marine industrial institute to which he allegedly belonged. The statement allegedly made by him was full of lies," the spokesman said.

The United States says North Korea may possess one or two crude nuclear bombs and may have reprocessed enough plutonium for half-a-dozen more, from spent fuel rods at its Yongbyon nuclear complex.

More than 4,000 North Koreans have defected to the South since 1953. The number has shot up in the past four years, with more than 1,000 having reached South Korea last year.

Many defectors have arrived in South Korea, mostly via China, to escape famine caused by natural disasters and failed economic policies in their Stalinist homeland.

Professor Kim Young-Soo of Sogang University, an expert on defectors from the North, said he could not confirm the existence of the defector.

"However, the allegation that North Korea has produced a one-tonne nuclear bomb sounds plausible," he said.

A new round of six-nation talks aimed at bringing about the dismantling of North Korea's nuclear programs is due to be held in Beijing next week.


http://sg.news.yahoo.com/050720/1/3tm49.html

 

[Gabriella84]

Well DUH!!
North Korea has had nuclear weapons for a couple of years. They have told us so in rather blatant language. But we are too busy destroying Iraq to care.

 

[freeandfun1]

Well DUH!!
North Korea has had nuclear weapons for a couple of years. They have told us so in rather blatant language. But we are too busy destroying Iraq to care.

If Clinton had made adhere to the original agreement, they never would have gotten them. And how does our forays into Iraq have anything to do with our attitude toward NK? I give it to you for at least trying to act like you know what you are talking about.

 

[waltky]

No. Korean defector has parasites likely due to poor diet...

Injured defector's parasites and diet hint at hard life in North Korea
November 17, 2017 - Parasitic worms found in a North Korean soldier, critically injured during a desperate defection, highlight nutrition and hygiene problems that experts say have plagued the isolated country for decades

At a briefing on Wednesday, lead surgeon Lee Cook-jong displayed photos showing dozens of flesh-colored parasites - including one 27 cm (10.6 in) long - removed from the wounded soldier’s digestive tract during a series of surgeries to save his life. “In my over 20 year-long career as a surgeon, I have only seen something like this in a textbook,” Lee said.

The parasites, along with kernels of corn in his stomach, may confirm what many experts and previous defectors have described about the food and hygiene situation for many North Koreans. “Although we do not have solid figures showing health conditions of North Korea, medical experts assume that parasite infection problems and serious health issues have been prevalent in the country,” said Choi Min-Ho, a professor at Seoul National University College of Medicine who specializes in parasites.

The soldier’s condition was “not surprising at all considering the north’s hygiene and parasite problems,” he said. The soldier was flown by helicopter to hospital on Monday after his dramatic escape to South Korea in a hail of bullets fired by North Korean soldiers.

He is believed to be an army staff sergeant in his mid-20s who was stationed in the Joint Security Area in the United Nations truce village of Panmunjom, according to Kim Byung-kee, a lawmaker of South Korea’s ruling party, briefed by the National Intelligence Service. North Korea has not commented on the defection.

Injured defector's parasites and diet hint at hard life in North Korea

 

[Bleipriester]

Sure thing. The next horror story for the dumb cattle.

 

[waltky]

North Korea defector video shows getaway under fire...

North Korea defector regains consciousness, video shows getaway under fire
November 21, 2017 - North Korean border guards were only steps behind a fellow North Korean soldier when they opened fire and one briefly crossed the border pursuing the wounded defector as he dashed to the South Korean side, a video released on Wednesday by the U.N. Command (UNC) in Seoul showed.

The defector was critically wounded, having been hit at least four times in the hail of bullets as he made his desperate escape on Nov.13. He was flown by a U.S. military helicopter to a hospital in Suwon, south of Seoul. Doctors announced on Wednesday that he had regained consciousness, having had two operations to extract the bullets, and his breathing was stable and unassisted. “He is fine,” lead surgeon Lee Cook-Jong said at a press conference in Suwon. “He is not going to die.” A UNC official said North Korea had been informed on Wednesday that it had violated the 1953 armistice agreement, which marked the cessation of hostilities in the Korean War.

The UNC official told a news conference that a soldier from the North Korean People’s Army (KPA) had crossed the Military Demarcation Line (MDL), the border between the two Koreas, for a few seconds as others fired shots at the defecting soldier. “The key findings of the special investigation team are that the KPA violated the armistice agreement by one, firing weapons across the MDL, and two, by actually crossing the MDL temporarily,” Chad Carroll, Director of Public Affairs for the UNC, told reporters. The incident comes at a time of heightened tensions between North Korea and the international community over its nuclear weapons program, but Pyongyang has not publicly responded to the high-profile defection at the sensitive border.

DESPERATE ESCAPE

The dramatic video begins with a lone 4x4 army jeep speeding along empty, tree-lined roads toward the border. At one checkpoint, a North Korean guard marches impassively toward the approaching vehicle, but then runs in pursuit as it races by. After passing a memorial to North Korea founder Kim Il Sung, where tourists often gather for tours of the Joint Security Area (JSA) inside the demilitarized zone, the jeep ran into a ditch just meters from the border with the South. For several minutes the driver tried to try to free the vehicle, but the wheels spun uselessly in fallen leaves. The driver finally abandoned the vehicle and sprinted for his life, pushing tree branches out of his way and sending leaves flying. He scrambled up slightly rising ground to cross the border just seconds before at least four of the guards appear, their guns blazing as they ran. One pursuing guard slid into a pile of dead leaves to open fire before running forward and appearing to briefly cross the dividing line between the two countries before turning around.

The video does not show the moment when the defector was hit, but he is seen lying motionless in a pile of brush next to a concrete wall in one of the later edited clips in the video. Carroll said the position was still exposed to North Korean checkpoints across the border. The allied troops operating the CCTV cameras that captured the incident had by then notified their commanders and a quick reaction force had assembled on the South Korean side of the border, according to Carroll, though the video did not show this force. Infrared imagery shows two South Korean troops crawling through undergrowth to drag the wounded North Korean to safety, while the deputy commander of the border security unit oversees the rescue from a few meters away.

LONG RECOVERY

See also:

Once inside Kim Jong Un's inner circle, top aide's star fades
November 21, 2017 - When Kim Jong Un sat down in September to order the sixth and largest of North Korea’s nuclear tests, Hwang Pyong So sat by his side, his khaki military uniform conspicuous among the suits at the table, photos released by state media at the time showed.

Now Hwang, once one of Kim’s most-trusted advisers, is facing unspecified punishment on the orders of another man who also sat at that exclusive table in September, Choe Ryong Hae, South Korean intelligence officials believe. Information on North Korea is often difficult to obtain, and with few hard details and no official confirmation from Pyongyang, analysts said it was too soon to draw any firm conclusions from the unspecified punishments. But the moves, which appear to involve two of Kim’s top four advisers, are being closely watched for indications of fractures within his secretive inner circle, and come as North Korea faces increasing international pressure over its nuclear weapons program.

Having his advisers compete with each other suits Kim just fine, said Christopher Green, an analyst with the Crisis Group. “It is hardwired into autocracy to have underlings in competition,” he said. Hwang, a shy, bespectacled general in his mid-60s, is a close confidant of Kim Jong Un and has had an unprecedented rise to the top rungs of North Korea’s leadership in the space of a few years. In 2014, he became one of the most powerful people outside the ruling Kim family when he was named chief of the General Political Bureau of the army, a powerful position that mobilizes the military for the leader. His apparent punishment takes on additional meaning as it was orchestrated by Choe who has competed with Hwang in the past and stands to gain from any demotion, according to South Korea’s spy agency.

TEA WITH THE ENEMY

The two men were last seen in public together early last month as they watched a gymnastics gala, according to state media. Hwang has since faded from public view, whereas Choe was the ranking official who met with a senior envoy from China in Pyongyang last week. Kim has not shied away from removing or punishing even favored leaders who could become powerful enough to threaten his grip on power, said Michael Madden, an expert on the North Korean leadership at 38 North, a project of the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced Studies in Washington. “Vice Marshal Hwang Pyong So could not have continued in the capacity that he was operating in, without it coming back to bite him,” he said. Both Hwang and Choe came to South Korea during the Asian Games in 2014 - the highest such visit by North Korean officials to the rival South.

Dressed in a drab, olive army uniform and his large officer’s cap, Hwang, who had been promoted to the No.2 spot behind Kim just one week earlier, had tea and lunch with Choe and South Korean officials and waved to crowds at the games’ closing ceremony. The trip had been announced just one day in advance and took many South Korean observers by surprise. Some suggested there may have been a power struggle between the two men, neither wanting to yield the high-profile visit to the other. Choe, who was subjected to political “reeducation” himself in the past, now appears to be gaining more influence since he was promoted in October to the party’s powerful Central Military Commission, according to South Korean officials. The National Intelligence Service indicated Choe now heads the Organisation and Guidance Department (OGD), the secretive body which oversees appointments within North Korea’s leadership.

‘CLIPPING WINGS’

 

[K9Buck]

A defector claiming to have been in the North Korean parliament said the communist state has produced a nuclear bomb and attempted to sell missiles to Taiwan

I have obviously NO IDEA if that statement is correct but, if it is, the Chinese would be PISSED! Wouldn't it be fitting justice if the North Koreans sold ballistic missile AND nuclear weapons technology and materials to Taiwan? LOL.