"E=mc2" - Documental de Eliecer Jimenez sobre que pudo haber ocurrido en la central nuclear de Juraguá, Cuba

Maria Elvira Salazar

Emergency shutdown at Ukraine’s largest nuclear power plant

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http://rt.com/news/218199-ukraine-nuclear-reactor-shut/

One of the reactors at the Zaporizhia Nuclear Power Plant was automatically shut down after a glitch. This was the second halt in operations in recent weeks at the plant in Ukraine’s southeast, which covers at least one fifth of the country’s power needs.

“Unit 6 at Zaporizhzhya NPP was disconnected from the network by the automatic system that prevents damage to the generator. The reactor is running at 40 percent of nominal power,” the plant’s official website says stressing that radiation at the facility is equal to the natural background, which is 8-12 microroentgen/hour.

This accident took place on Sunday morning at 05:59 am local time (03:59 GMT). Causes are still being investigated, while the Energy Ministry hopes to restart the unit in the coming days. The remaining five reactors continue to generate an estimated 4,530 MW.

Late on Sunday, the problem had been fixed and the power plant’s sixth power block had been plugged back into the network, the plant said on its website.

“Unit №6 was plugged back in after an error was corrected…At this moment all six power blocks are working,” the statement said.

The previous incident at Zaporizhia NPP happened on November 28, but the fact went public five days later, when Ukraine’s Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk revealed it during the first session of his new cabinet.

Cuba's Soviet Legacy: Inside the Caribbean island's unfinished nuclear power station that lays just 180 miles off the Florida coast

Daily Mail Online

Cuba is an nation full of 1950s automobiles but at one time the Caribbean island was almost a nuclear power, less than 100 miles from the United States coastline.

It was 1976 when Cuba’s revolutionary government, headed by Fidel Castro, was began looking for a solution to create a reliable and stable form of energy.

After talks between Cuba and the USSR, an agreement was reached to construct a twin-reactor nuclear plant near the southern town of Juragua.

Built with Russian money, it was suggested that just one of the reactors would provide enough energy to cater to 15% of Cuba. A new city was built in 1983 to house the site’s workers known as Ciudad Nuclear.

The United States were horrified at the idea of two 440-megawatt Soviet-built nuclear power reactors within 30 minutes flying time of the Florida coastline.

In the end, they need not have worried and it's unlikely that Cuba's nuclear power station will ever be completed. When the Soviet Union began to crumble in 1991, the completion date got pushed back to the mid-90s and the money began to dry up.

Now all that remains are the ruins of bigger political ambitions to provide true power to the people. 

Photographer Darmon Richter managed to sneak in and take some revealing photos. 

See the full collection here: http://www.thebohemianblog.com or www.facebook.com/TheBohemianBlog

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Cuba’s revolutionary government, headed by Fidel Castro, had long been looking for a solution in the form of nuclear energy

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The solution seemed to arrive in 1976, after talks between Cuba and the USSR resulted in an agreement to construct a twin-reactor nuclear plant

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The plant near the southern town of Juragua, was funded with Soviet money, with early projections suggesting that the completion of the first reactor alone would cater to over 15% of Cuba’s energy needs

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Construction began in 1983, as the foundations were lain for the two reactors along with a sizeable turbine hall at a site close to the Caribbean

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The United States, however, opposed Cuba’s nuclear program from the get-go. The Juragua site lays just 180 miles south of Florida

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The US was less than enthusiastic about having two 440-megawatt Soviet-built nuclear power reactors at their back door

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The fall of the Soviet Union had a crippling effect on the project. The money from Moscow dried up, and in September 1992, Fidel Castro announced the Juragua project temporarily suspended

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The first reactor was estimated somewhere around 90-97% complete, with 37% of equipment fully installed; the second reactor had not reached more than 30% completion

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There have been numerous talks about bringing the Cuban nuclear program back to life

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In 1995, the Russian Federation granted Cuba a $50 million loan for support work at the Juragua site. It still fell a long way short though, of the estimated $800 million required to complete the two reactors

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In 1997, an official from the Ministry of the Russian Federation stated their intention to resume construction of the Cuban nuclear power station

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President Vladimir Putin visited Cuba in 2000, and supposedly offered Fidel Castro $800 million with which to finish the project… which Castro refused

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in October 2013 Cuba’s new president, the younger brother Raúl Castro, accepted Russia’s gesture of ‘brotherly love’: and Putin cancelled $32 billion of debt owed by Cuba to the Soviet Union

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The building twisted in on itself, a labyrinthine knot of winding passages and worn stairvases

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The building contains various chambers including some with half-furnished with half-built apparatus, others open and bare

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A narrow alley runs between the security wall and the back of the turbine hall. Photographer Darmon Richter spotted a gap in the brickwork – a hole large enough to climb through, that had been hastily patched up with a few clinging strands of barbed wire

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The view from the top of the reactor on the sixteenth floor provides an overview of the doomed containment structure

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The bare chamber was riddled with deep holes and square pits that dropped away into darkness. According to some of the local stories the reactor went as far beneath the ground as above

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Other rooms contained pillars, festooned in switch boxes and wires… others with arms and frames presumably designed for holding something delicate

Fuel of the future produced at Russia’s high-tech underground plant

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http://rt.com/news/188332-mox-nuclear-fuel-production/
Russia’s ‘Breakthrough’ energy project enables closed a nuclear fuel cycle and a future without radioactive waste. The first batch of MOX nuclear fuel has been manufactured for the world’s only NPP industrially power generating breeder reactors.
The first ten kilograms of the mixed-oxide fuel (MOX) – a mixture of plutonium and uranium dioxides (UO2 and PuO2), have been industrially produced by Russia’s nuclear monopoly, Rosatom, at the Mining & Chemical Combine (GKhK) in the Krasnoyarsk region.
A world first, tablets of the fuel of the future have been put on serial production and are destined for Russia’s next generation BN-800 breeder reactor (880 megawatts), currently undergoing tests at the Beloyarskaya nuclear power plant.
The production line, now undergoing start-up and adjustment, was assembled in a mine 200 meters underground and will become fully operational by the end of 2014.
Fast fission reactors solve the problem of depleted uranium nuclear fuel on the planet. They can ‘burn’ not only ‘classic’ uranium-235, (scarce and already coming to an end), but also uranium-238, which is abundant, and expands the world’s nuclear fuel capacity by an estimated 50 times.
Fuel for breeder reactors could even be made from nuclear waste, which from an ecological point of view is a priceless advantage.
The GKhK facility will be equipped with a unique dissolvent reactor that will break down nuclear waste containing plutonium and extract plutonium dioxide to be used in MOX-fuel production.
Also, while producing electric energy, breeder reactors actually generate more fissile material, and that one also can be used as nuclear fuel.
The GKhK plant is Russia’s leading full nuclear fuel cycle complex, processing nuclear waste from power generating nuclear reactors to establish future nuclear fuel ring closure.
MOX-fuel for previous versions of fast breeder reactors in the USSR and Russia had limited production at Russia’s oldest Mayak nuclear processing facility.
Starting from 2016, industrial-level MOX-fuel production in Russia will run at full capacity.
“Produced MOX-fuel tablets fully conform to the technical specifications,” Rosatom’s statement said, adding that the fuel will now be thoroughly tested.

Cuba: Marasmo y abandono de la Ciudad Nuclear de Cienfuegos

Martí Noticias

ALERT: U.S. has accepted country's nuclear enrichment program

Mary Greeley

Bolivia announces the construction of a nuclear reactor

Mary Greeley

Does US have good reason to fully trust Iran?

Cuba Supports Nuclear Iran

capitolhillcubans

From Iran's Tasnim:

Cuba Stresses Iran’s Right to Use Peaceful N. Energy

The Cuban foreign minister, in a meeting with visiting Iranian deputy foreign minister in Havana, said Iran has inalienable rights to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.

The issue was raised by Bruno Eduardo Rodríguez Parrilla in his Wednesday evening meeting with the Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for the European and Latin American Affairs Majid Takht Ravanchi.

The Cuban official expressed satisfaction with the achievements made by Iran, specially during Tehran’s negotiations with the Group 5+1 (the five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany), and said based on the international laws, Iran is entitled to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.

He also voiced Cuba’s support for Iran’s stance on the nuclear issue.

Iran Celebrates American 'Surrender'; Obama Says 'Give Peace a Chance'

breitbart

By Joel B. Pollak 

Our relationship w/ the world is based on Iranian nation's interests. In #Geneva agreement world powers surrendered to Iranian nation's will
— Hassan Rouhani (@HassanRouhani) enero 14, 2014

Iran's "moderate" president, Hassan Rouhani, tweeted this morning that "world powers," including the U.S., had "surrendered" to the "Iranian nation's will" in confirming a six-month interim nuclear deal that will allow the Iranian regime to continue its advanced centrifuge program and develop a new nuclear facility at Arak. President Barack Obama, meanwhile, implored Americans to "give peace a chance" with the Iran deal.

Though the Obama administration claims that the interim deal--which includes a secret side deal--will lead Iran to give up any ambitions of becoming a nuclear power, the regime has publicly declared that the agreement reached in Geneva last November is the first step in removing all sanctions, and that it virtually recognizes Iran's "right" to enrich uranium. All agree that it contradicts a decade of UN Security Council resolutions banning such enrichment.

Obama has threatened to veto new sanctions currently under consideration by Congress as a risk to the nuclear deal, even though the sanctions would not take effect until after the interim deal is over, and are designed to act as a deterrent against Iranian efforts to cheat on the agreement. The sanctions enjoy bipartisan support, though most support comes from Republicans: it enjoys 59 co-sponsors in the Senate, near a veto-proof majority.

Iranian Lawmakers Introduce Bill To Allow Production Of Weapons Uranium

Pat Dollard

Excerpted from The Jerusalem Post: Iran’s hardline lawmakers are seeking to increase uranium enrichment under the country’s nuclear program to a level that can produce bomb-grade material, a state-run website said on Wednesday.

The bill could bring Tehran into direct conflict with the major powers that reached an interim agreement with Iran in Geneva last month, requiring Tehran to suspend its enrichment of higher grade uranium.

However, Iran’s most powerful authority Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has so far backed the accord.

The hardliners, irked by the foreign policy shift since moderate President Hasan Rouhani was elected in June, oppose the Geneva deal.

The bill introduced on Wednesday, “if approved, will oblige the government to … enrich uranium to 60 percent level in order to provide fuel for submarine engines if the sanctions are tightened and Iran’s nuclear rights are ignored (by major powers),” said hardline lawmaker Mehdi Mousavinejad, according to the English language Press TV website.

It was not immediately clear whether or when the parliament might discuss the bill but the official IRNA news agency said it was introduced by some 100 lawmakers and had been tagged with a “double urgency” status, meaning it could be discussed in parliament within a week.

“The bill is aimed at giving an upper hand to our government and the negotiating team … It will allow the government to continue our nuclear program if the Geneva deal fails,” IRNA quoted Hossein Taghavi Hosseini, spokesman for parliament’s National Security and Foreign Affairs committee, as saying.

DISSUADING FURTHER SANCTIONS

The November 24 accord is meant to give the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain, Germany and Iran a period of six months to negotiate a final settlement of the decade-old standoff, easing worries over a new war in the Middle East.

“Iran’s parliament lacks power and particularly after Rouhani’s election win, the hardline lawmakers do not have the upper hand,” a senior western diplomat in Tehran said.

“Iran’s Supreme Leader backs the deal and ultimately, lawmakers have to follow his path.”

The Iranian government would have no choice but to obey such a bill if passed by parliament. But diplomats and analysts believe Iran could be using parliament as a bargaining tool in the talks.

“This draft bill has been prepared in reaction to America’s hostile measures,” Mousavinejad told the official IRNA news agency on Tuesday.

Despite opposition by President Barack Obama’s administration, 26 US senators introduced legislation on Thursday to impose new sanctions on Iran if the country breaks the Geneva interim deal.

The proposed legislation would require reductions in Iran’s petroleum production and apply new penalties to Iran’s engineering, mining and construction industries if Iran violated the interim agreement or if negotiators failed to reach a final comprehensive deal.

Washington earlier this month also blacklisted 19 more Iranian companies and individuals under sanctions aimed at Iran’s nuclear program.

Keep reading >>

Iran Delegates Break Off Nuclear Talks

breitbart

VIENNA, Dec. 13 (UPI) --

An Iranian delegation broke off talks with six world powers over implementing a landmark nuclear deal to return to Tehran, Iran's news agency said Friday.

The so-called expert-level delegates, meeting since Monday at the Vienna headquarters of U.N. nuclear watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency, halted the talks on enforcement mechanisms to return to Tehran for consultations, the official Islamic Republic News Agency said in a report monitored by United Press International.

The report did not say why the delegation, led by Iranian Foreign Ministry political and legal affairs Director General Hamid Baeidinejad, suspended the talks Thursday night.

Stephen Clement, leading the talks for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton on behalf of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany, had no immediate comment.

The suspension of the talks came hours after the Obama administration, facing growing pressure from Congress to maintain or increase economic sanctions on Iran, blacklisted more than a dozen companies and individuals for allegedly helping Tehran evade international oil sanctions.

At the same time, House and Senate lawmakers agreed Thursday not to vote on new sanctions this year, following a White House campaign to stall legislative action for at least six months while the United States, Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany negotiate a comprehensive deal over Tehran's nuclear program.

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif told Time magazine in an interview published Monday any new sanctions would kill a comprehensive deal.

The talks in the Austrian capital were part of an interim six-month deal reached Nov. 24 in Geneva, Switzerland, calling for Iran to halt production of near-weapons-grade nuclear fuel in exchange for some relief from economic sanctions amounting to $6 billion to $7 billion.

Obama: Iran Deal Better than 'All-or-Nothing' Approach

breitbart

By William Bigelow 

Barack Obama, speaking at the Saban Forum of the Brookings Institute on Saturday, insisted that the deal he struck with Iran allowing Iran to keep its uranium enrichment while the West relaxed sanctions will “eliminate the incentive” for Iran to build nuclear weapons. Obama lambasted those, including Israeli prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who favor what he called an “all-or-nothing” approach in which Iran would dismantle its entire nuclear program before the West relaxed sanctions, saying:

You’ll hear arguments, including potentially from the prime minister, that said we can’t accept any enrichment on Iranian soil, period, full stop, end of conversation. One can envision an ideal world in which Iran said, ‘We’ll destroy every element and facility and you name it, it’s all gone.’ I can envision a world in which Congress passed every one of my bills that I put forward. There are a lot of things that I can envision that would be wonderful.”

Obama said there is no way to stop Iran from enriching uranium: “Theoretically, they will always have some capability because technology here is available to any good physics student at pretty much any university around the world. And they have already gone through the cycle to the point where the knowledge we are not going to be able to eliminate. But what we can do is eliminate the incentive for them to want to do this.”

He continued, “When I hear people criticize the Geneva deal say it’s got to be all or nothing, I would just remind them that if it’s nothing, if we did not even try for this next six months to do this, all the breakout capacity we are concerned about would accelerate in the next six months. They’d be that much closer to breakout capacity six months from now. And that’s why I think it’s important for us to test this proposition.”

Obama said that despite the fact that Netanyahu publicly denounced the deal, they share the same goals: “Bibi and I have very candid conversations and there are occasionally significant tactical disagreements. But there is a constancy in trying to reach the same goal, and in this case that goal is to make sure that Iran does not have a nuclear weapon.”

Then Obama loaded his argument, insisting that sanctions were ineffective in turning the Iranians from their nuclear ambitions and cunningly making the opposition to the deal look as if it only came from Israel and its American supporters, ignoring the Arab states who are nervous about Iran’s nuclear ambitions: “The idea that Iran, given everything that we know about their history, would just continue to get more and more nervous about more sanctions and military threats and ultimately just say, ‘We give in,’ I think does not reflect an honest understanding of the Iranian people and the Iranian regime. I think even the so-called moderates or reformers inside of Iran would not be able to simply say, ‘We will cave and do exactly what the U.S. and the Israelis say.’”

The reality is: Sanctions brought Iran to the table. The Saudis and others in the Arab world don’t want a nuclear Iran. The deal does nothing to inspect the dangerous nuclear work done in Parchin.

But for Barack Obama, vilifying the Israelis and tacitly encouraging Iran to go forward with its deadly ambitions are the reality he has chosen.

Report: IAEA Stats Show Iranian Centrifuges Jumped 400% Under Obama

breitbar

www.thisismoney.co.uk

According to a new report from the International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran’s nuclear enrichment capabilities skyrocketed under President Obama’s administration. According to Fox News’ analysis of IAEA documents, “the vast majority of Iran’s enrichment capability came online during the Obama administration.” In 2007, Iran had 3,000 centrifuges. By 2009, Iran likely had 5,000. Today, Iran has 19,000 centrifuges according to Secretary of State John Kerry.

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters that the administration wasn’t attempting to blame anyone for the development of Iranian centrifuges; instead, she said, they were focused on “the fact that we're now at a point where we are halting and rolling back the progress of their program and we're working towards a comprehensive agreement to bring an end to it."

The Obama administration has been trumpeting its sanctions as both effective, and conversely unable to stop Iranian nuclear development. President Obama suggested during the 2012 campaign that he had been dramatically harsh on Iran via sanctions, but Kerry recently stated, “sanctions came in, and today there are 19,000 centrifuges and growing.”

White House Says Uranium Enrichment Still on the Table in Iran Talks

breitbart

By AWR Hawkins 4 Dec 2013

On December 3rd, White House National Security Council spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan said that while the U.S. is not prepared to recognize Iran's right to enrich uranium, the Obama administration is "prepared to negotiate a strictly limited enrichment program."

According to The Jerusalem Post, Meehan said the administration is willing to do this because "Iranians have indicated for the first time" that they are willing to accept "rigorous monitoring and limits on level, scope, capacity, and stockpiles" of nuclear material.

Meehan says the administration believes that under such terms, it is possible to allow "a very modest amount of enrichment" while also eliminating "any near-term breakout capability."

Israel is opposed to "permanent enrichment capacity" for Iran at any level. They argue that leaving the infrastructure for enrichment in place necessarily gives Iran "the ability to manufacture a weapon."

Hezbollah Leader: America Surrendered

breitbart

By William Bigelow 4 Dec 2013

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, absolutely giddy after Iran bamboozled the P5+1 nations into signing a one-sided nuclear agreement, is clear that two of his dreams have been realized: the U.S. has seen its global power reduced and Israel cannot bomb Iran because America would prevent it.

On Tuesday, Nasrallah, speaking on Lebanon’s OTV, said the agreement prevented a Middle Eastern war: "The number one winner in this deal is the people of this region ... I can not say that this agreement has annulled the choice of war permanently but I can say it has pushed it away for a long time." He continued without American permission, Israel would not bomb Iran, as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has asserted that America was against any war in the region. Nasrallah chortled of America’s demise: "The wars they fought in Iraq have failed, in Afghanistan they reached a dead end and the wars on Lebanon and Gaza foiled the New Middle East scheme, and now they have failed in Syria. They were not able to topple the regime in Iran, but I cannot claim that they did not succeed in shaking its economic situation."

Nasrallah claimed that not only has U.S. monopoly on power waned, but Iran rebuffed the American attempt to discuss issues outside the nuclear program. He also ripped Saudi Arabia for its hostility to Iran, saying the Saudis won’t talk to Iran because of American pressure and are committed to unseating the Assad regime in Syria. He said, "There is a Saudi decision to try and change the events on the ground until January 22 ... they will fail … If you monitor all the Saudi-financed media outlets, the Saudi war against Iran has never stopped. The Saudis waged wars against the Iranians in Pakistan, Afghanistan, the Gulf, Iraq and Syria, and of course through its proxies, because it does not dare to wage a direct war."

Nasrallah protested that Hezbollah does not take marching orders from Iran, asserting, "Right now, Iran is the most important state in the region and it is consulting with us and it sometimes endorses our viewpoint on certain issues.”

Truck carrying ’extremely dangerous’ radioactive material stolen in Mexico

CNSNS via AFP - Getty Images

Photo released by Mexican authorities shows the radiotherapy device, containing radioactive material, being loaded for transport before it was stolen.

By Pete Williams and Alexander Smith, NBC News

A truck carrying "extremely dangerous" radioactive material has been stolen in Mexico, authorities said Wednesday.

The vehicle was transporting radiotherapy equipment containing the radioactive isotope cobalt-60 from a hospital to a waste storage center, the International Atomic Energy Agency said.

"At the time the truck was stolen, the source was properly shielded," the IAEA said in a statement. "However, the source could be extremely dangerous to a person if removed from the shielding, or if it was damaged."

The vehicle was a 2.5-ton Volkswagen truck with an integrated crane, Mexico's National Commission of Nuclear Safety and Safeguards (CNSNS) said. The truck was stolen on Monday at a gas station in Tepojaco, near Mexico City.

Mexico's federal, state, and local authorities are now involved in a widespread and coordinated hunt for the vehicle across several states, the CNSNS said.

U.S. officials say it's not at all clear why it was stolen.

“It could be,” one federal official said, “that whoever stole the truck had no idea what was inside and was more interesting in getting a truck.” 

A Homeland Security official says the U.S. Border Patrol has been notified of the stolen truck. Border crossing points are also equipped with devices that can detect the kind of radiation the stolen material would emit.

One law enforcement official says the radioactive material the truck was carrying is a thumb-sized amount of cobalt-60, used in medical treatments.

“It would be extremely dangerous to anyone who tried to grind it up for use in a dirty bomb,” the official said.

More at worldnews >>

The Nuclear Deal With Iran Was About Trust, Not Verification | Foreign Affairs

By Kenneth Pollack

An Iranian boy holds the national flag with a plastic gun with in central Tehran, March 31, 2008. (Morteza Nikoubazl / Courtesy Reuters)

It is difficult to judge the nuclear agreement forged last weekend in Geneva as anything other than a good deal. The Iranians will be no closer to having a nuclear breakout capability when the deal concludes than they are today. The amount of money that the Iranians will get is paltry -- about $7 billion total over six months -- especially compared to the roughly $30 billion that Tehran will lose during that period as a result of the sanctions on oil sales and financial transactions, all of which remain firmly in place. The objections that have been raised to the deal so far are either specious or tautological, or require the kind of tenuous conspiracy thinking that we typically disparage when it comes from the Iranians. 

But the deal is only a small step in the right direction. Iran will end up somewhat farther away from developing a nuclear breakout capability, but it is hard to go much beyond that. There are so many ways for Iran to acquire the fissile material for a nuclear weapon that it is impossible to assess whether it will set Iran back by a week, a month, or a year. (Any such claims tend to reflect what the claimant wants you to believe much more than objective reality.) Moreover, the interim agreement will last for only six months and says nothing about what will happen at the end of that period. The hope is that the two sides will use the time to craft a comprehensive follow-on agreement; but the interim deal contains only the broadest signposts for such an agreement. Three years from now, if there is no comprehensive agreement, this interim deal is going to look irrelevant -- not bad, just immaterial. 

In that sense, the interim deal is only important to the extent it helps to produce that ultimate, comprehensive agreement. Fortunately, the deal has real value as a confidence-building measure.

Keep reading at Foreign Affairs >>

Emboldened by Iran Deal, North Korea May Have Restarted Nuclear Reactor

breitbart

By Frances Martel 

warnewsupdates.blogspot.com

It didn't take long for concerns that the Iranian nuclear deal could embolden other rogue nations to materialize. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) announced Thursday satellite footage strongly indicates that North Korea has restarted a formerly shut down plutonium plant.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, which governs regulations for nuclear activity internationally and works with and under the United Nations, said Thursday that it has seen images showing steam, water, and other signs of life over the Yongbyon nuclear complex that had closed years ago, its cooling tower destroyed in 2008 as part of a multilateral deal to slow North Korea's nuclear development. "I remain seriously concerned," said IAEA head Yukiya Amano of the situation, noting that they have only overhead images as North Korea removed any UN inspectors from the country in 2009. 

North Korea had indicated it had intentions of restarting Yongbyon last April, but this is the first evidence that it is actively seeking to carry out that threat.

The restart of the Yongbyon complex is not the only post-Iran deal red flag from Pyongyang this week. The Johns Hopkins research institute specializing in U.S.-Korea relations published a report this week that overhead activity also indicated movements at an old missile launch control center in the Korean city of Tonghae. This news comes after yet another report this week shows evidence of Iran sending missile technicians to North Korea, which is especially alarming given that American intelligence indicates North Korea and Iran are both two years away from building a missile that could reach the United States.

North Korea's rhetoric has aligned with these increasingly belligerent actions. The communist state has also reacted belligerently to comments by U.S. Special Envoy for North Korea Glyn Davies' comment that the rogue nation was "out of step" with the rest of the world on nuclear policy.

More than any other country on the globe, North Korea understands the benefits that come from haggling a sweet nuclear deal out of the West. From the 1990s through to the Obama administration, North Korea routinely signed onto and subsequently broke a number of agreements to stop its nuclear program in exchange for diminished sanctions and humanitarian aid. It milked the system to the best of its ability until, in 2009, it kicked UN inspectors out of the country and openly asserted its intention to develop nuclear weapons. 

Many have noticed the deal brokered with Iran bore some similarity to the deals with North Korea in the 1990s and have wondered whether Iran is following in North Korea's footsteps. It's possible, but what is irrefutable from the data on the table is that DPRK has taken the Iranian deal as a sign that it, too, can rekindle diplomatic fires long since diffused, restart nuclear plants, and ally with Iran to advance their agenda of mutually strengthening their military might against the West. 

The Iran deal did not just fail the West because of the impending threats to Israel's existence Benjamin Netanyahu so artfully articulated; it failed the civilized world because it expanded the scope of what is or isn't acceptable from unstable, aggressive states. It gave the green light to countries like North Korea to challenge the United States' authority on nuclear power and expect sanctions to be lowered and threats diminished if they agree to a meaningless diplomatic dance and ambiguous de-weaponization. 

That road is long, troubled, and riddled with danger for both negotiating Western nations and the neighboring states North Korea already has the technology to attack.

NKorea images suggest reactor testing: IAEA

spacewar
by Staff Writers Vienna (AFP) Nov 28, 2013

Activities observed at North Korea's Yongbyon site indicate testing ahead of a possible restart to a reactor that could provide it with weapons-grade plutonium, the UN atomic agency said Thursday.
"Activities have been observed at the site that are consistent with an effort to restart the... reactor," International Atomic Energy Agency head Yukiya Amano told a closed-door regular meeting of the agency's board of governors.
He told the board the IAEA "continues to monitor developments at the Yongbyon site, mainly through satellite imagery".
At a later news conference Amano said the reactor activities included the release of steam from two vents and the apparent discharge of cooling water.
"As we do not have inspectors on the ground we cannot draw a conclusion," Amano said.
North Korea kicked out IAEA inspectors in 2009.
Since 2006 it has carried out three nuclear tests, the last, and most powerful, in February this year.
Two months later, it boasted that it would restart all facilities at Yongbyon to bolster its atomic arsenal.
South Korea's spy agency the National Intelligence Service (NIS) said on October 8 in a report to parliament that the reactor had resumed operations.
This followed the release of satellite imagery by the US-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University and the Institute for Science and International Security showing activity at the site.

Yongbyon was shut down in July 2007 and Pyongyang began disabling key plants there, publicly demolishing the plutonium reactor's cooling tower in 2008.