US intelligence not certain NK has nuclear arms

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States cannot say for certain that North Korea possesses any nuclear weapons but believes Pyongyang has continued to produce plutonium from its 5-megawatt Yongbyon reactor, top intelligence officials said on Tuesday.

In a marked departure from precedent, U.S. intelligence chief John Negroponte declined to estimate the number of nuclear devices North Korea might have assembled, despite repeated questioning by Democrats at a hearing by the Senate Committee on Armed Services.

“I’ve been very reluctant to get into numbers,” Negroponte told the panel’s annual public hearing on worldwide threats.

“We assess that they probably have nuclear weapons, as they claim that they do. But we don’t know for a fact that they’ve got such weapons … So to then say with precision the number they’ve got, I think, would be difficult to do with our level of knowledge,” he added.

“But there’s no question that there’s a potential there for a number of weapons,” Negroponte said.

The acknowledgment that U.S. intelligence has been unable to confirm North Korea’s status as a declared nuclear power came as Pyongyang said it has successfully made nuclear weapons with its own technology and cash.

TimeAsia’s review of Jun Chang and Jon Holliday’s Mao: The Unknown Story contains this claim

Chang and Halliday also connect a few dots. While 38 million Chinese were starving to death during 1958-61, much of the grain they produced was being shipped to the Soviet Union, where it accounted for two-thirds of all food imports. It was a weapons-technology-for-food program, a demonic bargain to make China a military superpower even at the cost of its own citizens’ lives. “Half of China may well have to die,” Mao said of this deal to his inner circle in 1958, according to Party documents. China’s acquisition of the atom bomb, the authors calculate, “caused 100 times as many deaths as the ones dropped by the U.S. on Japan.”

Which makes me wonder how many people died for NK’s nuclear program. It a reminder that the nuclear issue may be linked to human rights, so please do not dismiss it.

As LiNK enters its 2nd year, Chapters throughout the nation will see another batch of LiNK Coordinators and other leadership folks graduate. So I’m wondering how does your chapter recruit folks. And how do you train them to replace you when you graduate?

The Koreas adopt early 19th century labor laws. What does the average North Korean get?

At Kaesong, the minimum wage for the 48-hour week is $57.50. But $7.50 is deducted for “social charges” paid to the North Korean government. The remaining $50 is paid to a North Korean government labor broker. None of the South Korean factory managers interviewed would guess how much of the $50 salary ends up in the pockets of workers.

“The exact amount is determined by North Korean authorities,” said Kim Dong Keun, a South Korean who chairs the Kaesong Industrial District Management Committee.

Under labor contracting arrangements in Russia and Eastern Europe, North Korea’s government often withholds half of their workers’ salaries.

Attempts to interview seamstresses at the Shinwon, factory elicited evasive responses and intervention by South Korean guides.

“No interviews with North Korean officials or employees are allowed,” Mira Sun, the foreign press aide to South Korea’s president, Roh Moo Hyun, lectured reporters by loudspeaker in one bus after reporters tried to interview seamstresses.

So the average worker gets around $1.20/hr. $.17 get deducted for the DPRK version of payroll taxes (probably doesn’t go to Social Security), and if the previous contracts are any indication, $.51 or $.60 are withheld by the government (union dues for the Worker’s Party I guess). The average North Korean worker in Kaesong will get around $.60/hr, lower than the average wages of places like Bangladesh or India, great for South Korean companies and consumers, not so great for North Koreans.

This probably is not so bad for North Koreans relative to many other places throughout Asia. One cannot criticize North Korean labor laws without seeing what’s wrong with a lot of labor laws in other 3rd world countries. Though one wonder what the heck do South Koreans mean when they call the North Koreans their brothers? Come to think of it, I think the Sunshine Policy can be translated as the South treats the North as more of a distant relative, someone you really don’t care about until the family reunion once a year.

At this rate of such “economic reform”, it would take many generations before it is “ready” for reunification.

As a member LiNK, I ask, “how many more millions are going to die before that happens?”

Update: Time to redo some math. The average North Korean will get $57.50 a month, not a week. After the deduction of a $7.50 North Korean payroll tax (probably goes to KJI’s Social Security account in Switzerland), the salary gets further deducted by the government to around $8 a month. Then again, it’s North Korea, what the do you need currency for?

Here’s an additional link from the LATimes describing Kaesong. If anyone has seen The Island, it’s kind of like that, probably including the organ harvesting.