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LISA MULLINS:  At the United Nations today, it seems all the attention was on the Palestinian bid for UN membership.  President Obama spoke against the move in his speech before the UN General Assembly.  He also hit on other subjects, including nuclear disarmament.

PRESIDENT OBAMA:  To lift the specter of mass destruction, we must come together to pursue the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.

MULLINS:  The US and Russia signed the so-called New START Treaty, last year in Prague.  They pledged to continue shrinking their arsenals, down to a combined total of about 3,000 active warheads.  But there are an estimated 20,000 nuclear warheads out there.  Most of them are not actively deployed.  Ron Rosenbaum wrote the book How the End Begins: The Road to a Nuclear World War Three.  We asked him what sway the UN and Washington actually have over the non-active nuclear warheads.

RON ROSENBAUM:  Well, very little.  We’ve been negotiating with North Korea for six years.  And they’re always calling it off and going back to their nuclear weapons production, and then saying they’ll stop if we’ll talk some more.  And then we’ll talk.  The talks go nowhere, and they continue to build nuclear warheads.  Pakistan, you’ve heard of the nuclear arms bazaar, that was run by A.Q. Khan, who was the nuclear scientist who gave Pakistan the bomb.  We don’t even know whether he sold nuclear weapons to nations we may not even be aware of.  And everyone knows that these unstable nations are the ones that are the greatest threat, but still the existence of that many warheads, even in the hands of stable nations, poses the threat of an accidental war, or who knows what kind of relations, hostile or not, we might have in the future.

MULLINS:  What is the best solution that you have heard, given the underlying interests here?

ROSENBAUM: I’m not sure that there is a good solution.  I’ve given attention to the minimal deterrence, or the minimalist deterrence theories of the Federation of American Scientists, who believe that we can reduce arsenals, particularly those nations that have large ones, to less than 100, maybe carried on submarines where we wouldn’t have to worry about a surprise attack taking out our deterrent.  And perhaps some decades, or maybe sooner in the future, we’ll get down from thousands to hundreds.  Whether we’ll ever be able to get from hundreds to dozens, or from dozens to zero, is an open question.

MULLINS:  What about not a nuclear war, but a nuclear crisis?  I mean, take the civilian power plant, the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan.  How does that fit into the overall concerns about not just nuclear weaponry, but nuclear power?

ROSENBAUM:  Well, I’d say it fits in this way.  For years, we’ve gradually grown more used to nuclear power.  It’s kind of safe, no emissions, nothing’s happened since Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, maybe it’s all OK.  Same with nuclear weapons.  We’ve gradually, since the end of the Cold War, almost forgotten about them.  But they’re there, underneath the prairies of the Midwest, and in the steppes of Russia.  And so far we’ve been lucky, just as the Japanese were, and all of the nuclear power plant operators were, but they turned out to be wrong.  But I guess we have to cross our fingers and hope that our luck holds with nuclear weapons.

MULLINS:  Has President Obama himself – give him a grade, since he first started talking the talk in 2009.

ROSENBAUM:  He gets A+ for putting it on the agenda initially, and for getting that treaty through, even though he was tortured by Republican senators.  And the treaty was marred by all their unilateral additions.  I wouldn’t blame him for saying oh God, do I have to get back to that again?  But he does.  I think he could do a lot more to put the nation’s attention, focus the nation’s attention on nuclear weapons.  Why not open up the White House and give a televised demonstration of what it would be like to launch a nuclear weapon?  He’d have to open the black briefcase, pick up the phone, dial in his code, and give people a sense that this is real, this is not just something from novels and movies.  This is something the President himself, this nuclear briefcase, carries with him every moment of the day.  I think he could do more to focus the nation on this danger.

MULLINS:  Author Ron Rosenbaum wrote the book How the End Begins: The Road to a Nuclear World War Three.  He writes a column for Slate as well.  Thanks a lot, Ron.

ROSENBAUM:  Thank you.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

We say farewell to 2010 with a quintessential episode of The World’s Technology Podcast. In other words, we circle the globe and bring you the tech stories you don’t hear anywhere else. Our highlight this week is a look at some new robotic technologies out of Japan that are assisting the disabled. One is a kind of exo-skeleton that is allowing a stroke victim to walk again. Another is a robot that will help the blind take a walk. The BBC’s Rolad Buerk reports from Japan. You can see a video version of Roland’s story, or read more about the robots he profiled. Also, we will return to Haiti almost a year after a devastating earthquake to hear about a plan to use banking via mobile phone as a way to assist in the ongoing recovery. And you can read more about Mercy Corps’ pilot mobile banking program in Haiti. Then, we’ll set off to Cuba to hear about the island nation’s homegrown answer to Wikipedia, called EcuRed. Along the way, we’ll also hear about efforts to make networks of both computers, and humans, a bit smarter when it comes to making decisions. Hint: it involves something called human-agent collectives, not SkyNet.

And finally, we’ll take a look at some inspector gadgets. The inspectors in question are a class of new recruits at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna. And the gadgets are designed to help them detect weapons. You can even check out a slideshow of the gadgets.

Remember, you can follow us on Twitter and Facebook

• In pictures: Korea’s day of tension
• FAQ Korean crisis
• North Korea affects US-South Korea relations

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The text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

LISA MULLINS: I’m Lisa Mullins and this is The World.  The Korean peninsula was heating up again this past weekend.  South Korea was planning to conduct a military exercise near the disputed border with the North.  Today, it made good on that threat.  But, North Korea did not make good on its threat to retaliate.  Not only that, officials in the Communist state told visiting New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson that they have agreed to allow international inspectors to resume monitoring North Korea’s nuclear facilities.  The World’s Mary Kay Magistad in Beijing says the North Korean response comes as a surprise.

MARY KAY MAGISTAD: It sort of begs the question of, is this yet another, very dramatic example of North Korea making big threats, saying, you know, “We can make your lives very difficult.  We have the weapons.  We have the potential to, you know, turn the whole peninsula into an island of fire.  You need to deal with us.”  Bill Richardson comes in, they talk and they agree to move forward in a new direction.  And then it’s really interesting the way the Chinese media are spinning this.  They’re basically saying, “Look, North Korea is emerging as the great statesman here.”  They’re quoting the North Korean high command saying, “We don’t need to respond to South Korea’s provocations.  You know, we’re going to see here who’s the real peacemaker and who’s the provocateur.”

MULLINS: So, as you say, North Korea has sometimes been willing to play ball, sometimes it hasn’t in the past.  So, who’s to say now that even though we’re told that they will allow in U.N. weapons inspectors once again that they will actually do that and give them unfettered access?

MAGISTAD: Excellent question.  North Korea has in the past played ball but it hasn’t always been the same game of ball that those on the other side would like it to play, and it doesn’t always play all the innings.  It might agree to a package of things that it’s going to do in exchange for aid that it’s going to get and it will do some of those things, get a lot of the aid and then, perhaps, the aid doesn’t come in on schedule and so it stops or, perhaps, it just decides it’s going to stop.  It feels that there’s bad faith on the other side or so it says in its official media, and so changes its policy.  You know, at this stage, North Korea has every incentive to … the North Korean government has every incentive to try to get more aid in.  It’s been a bad harvest this year.  The economy is in a shambles and there’s a succession coming up where the father Kim Jong Il is trying to pass on power to his son Kim Jong Un over time, and he would like to, you know, be able to resolve the differences that North Korea has long had with the United States and get North Korea into a sustained position of more power than it has at the moment.

MULLINS: And just to be clear, Kim Jong Il, presumably, is still the one calling the shots, not his son who is going to be taking power?

MAGISTAD: Right. I mean it’s certainly assumed that Kim Jong Il will be the leader of North Korea until he dies.

MULLINS: Mary Kay Magistad, The World’s Beijing Correspondent speaking to us from Beijing, China.  Thanks, Mary Kay.

MAGISTAD: Thank you, Lisa.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

Destroyed home on the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong (Photo: Jason Strother)

Only about 30 of Yeongpyeong Island’s 1,500 inhabitants have stayed behind. Houses are abandoned and shops are closed. It’s a virtual ghost town with the occasional sound of military helicopters flying overhead. Walking around some of the damaged areas, its easy to see why so many have left. In one alleyway, broken glass is everywhere.

Several buildings have collapsed in on themselves, others have been gutted by fire. Just one block away is the home of Ahn Gwang-hun. He’s lived on the island for 50 years. When I met him, he and his wife were washing cabbage to make kimchi.

Ahn is a fisherman, like many here. But the military has kept him shore-bound. He says that’s no problem for now. Ahn says “we were actually making kimchi when the attack happened. But we are not ready to leave the island, there are still many things we need to do here”

Another fisherman, Kim Young Su, 51, is also keeping busy. Driving by in his flatbed truck, he says .he’s been driving people around the island, but he doesn’t charge anyone. Crews have been stringing new power lines in damaged neighborhoods. One electrician says that the repair work is almost done.

And in what was the playground for Yeonpyeong’s elementary school, construction crews are assembling small shelters. Crew Manager Kim Sam Yeol says they’re building 15 temporary houses for the people whose homes were completely destroyed during the attack. So when they return they will have a place to stay. The government is picking up the tab, but Kim says he doesn’t know when people will start coming back.

Yeonpyeong district director Choi Cheol Young says, this island has a long history and I don’t think it will ever be completely abandoned. But the government will have to encourage people to move back. He says it may take more than a little encouragement. Many are worried that North Korea will strike again.

Ahn Gwang-hun has lived on the island for 50 years (Photo: Jason Strother)

And many headed straight to the ferry dock. On the boat was Park Myung Jae who lives on a nearby island that was also shelled. He says people are used to military skirmishes but after the two civilians were killed, many realized this was more than that. Park says, I don’t know when it will become peaceful enough for me to return to my home. Over the years North Korea has made many attacks near the island. I think the South Korean government should have had more missiles or soldiers stationed here, he says. “They could have prevented this attack.”
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• BBC North Korea coverage
• America’s role in South Korea
• More warning signs on Korean peninsula

• Latest updates from the BBC
• Pictures of the artillery clash
• What behind the exchange of fire

• The Iconography of Kim Jong II
• BBC coverage
• On The World: North Korea’s next leader
• Family tree of North Korea’s first family

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This text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

LISA MULLINS: I’m Lisa Mullins and this is The World. North Korea’s ruling party is holding a once-in-a-generation meeting. The official media in North Korea reporting that Kim Jong-un has been named a member of the central committee of the Workers’ Party and the Central Military Commission. Kim Jong-un is the youngest son of North Korea’s ailing leader, Kim Jong-Il, and today’s move is part of a gradual transfer of power. It’s now quite clear how people in North Korea feel about these developments, but Jason Strother was able to ask North Korean defectors, now in South Korea, what they think.

JASON STROTHER:  Lee Sae Yul has been getting calls throughout the day from family and contacts back in North Korea. They call on Chinese cell phones smuggled in across the border.  They share information about what’s happening inside his former homeland. Lee, a 13-year veteran of North Korea’s army, used to design war simulation programs before he defected to the South in 2008. He says most of the people he’s been talking to back home had never heard the name Kim Jong-un before today. But they’ve known about him for months, thanks to a song that’s been getting a lot of play.

SPEAKING KOREAN

STROTHER: Lee says it’s a propaganda song about Kim Jung-un called Footsteps. Kim isn’t named in the song. He’s just called the Young General. Now Kim Jung-un has been made a four-star general. Lee, who belongs to a group of military defectors called the North Korea Liberation Front, says that’s no surprise. Lee doubts that Kim or his aunt, Kim Kyong Hui, who was also promoted to general, has any military experience. But any future leader has to have military credentials, real or manufactured, says Kim Myoung Ha, head of the North Korea Liberation Front.

SPEAKING KOREAN

STROTHER: He says if anyone wants a job in North Korea they must have two things, an education and military experience. The whole nation is based on the military. Kim says there’s almost no way for current North Korean soldiers to find out that their new general is really a fraud.  Although his organization does try to slip them information by sending DVDs and other media across the border. But Kim says in the end, most North Koreans don’t really care who their next leader will be. Park Gun Ha agrees. He belongs to another defector organization of former government officials.

SPEAKING KOREAN

STROTHER: North Koreans lost hope when Kim Jong-Il took over and the economy went bad, he says. Now they don’t really care about who the successor is. They’re more concerned with how they will survive. Park says that during this week’s conference, North Korean officials will discuss ways to improve their nation’s tattered economy. And they’re using Kim Jong-un to sell their plans to the citizens.

SPEAKING KOREAN

STROTHER: Park says, the North Korean regime has created this image of Kim Jong-un, that he can make the economy better, but no one really believes that. And Park says when the economy fails to improve, Kim Jong-Il or Jong-un, will just do what North Korea has always done, blame South Korea and the United States. For the World, I’m Jason Strother in Seoul.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

It is common to use words like “reclusive” and “secretive” when writing about North Korea.

But last Thursday, the North Koreans created a Twitter account – @uriminzok, a shortened version of a Korean word that translates as “our people”.

It already has more than 4,500 followers.

The move to Twitter follows last month’s launch of a North Korean YouTube channel, which now hosts close to 80 videos.

“The North Koreans are technologically literate,” says Hazel Smith, a long-time North Korea researcher at Cranfield University in Britain.

Ms Smith says that the North Koreans have been investing heavily in information technology now for more than 20 years.

“They have a cadre of people who can use modern social networking sites. But the problem for them is the content,” she said.

On the North Korean YouTube channel, that content includes a lot of propaganda laced with bombastic rhetoric; the United States and South Korea are often called “warmongers”.

In a recent Twitter post, the North Koreans said the current administration in South Korea was “a prostitute” of the US.

“As far as content goes, there’s nothing new as far as I can tell,” says Sung-Yoon Lee, professor of International Politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in Boston.

Mr Lee says that the agency responsible for the videos and the tweets is a major arm of the country’s ruling communist party.

“They’ve been putting out stuff like this for years now,” said Mr Lee.

‘Government’s voice’

The irony is that the vast majority of North Korea’s 23 million people have no Internet access, and therefore cannot follow their own government’s social networking sites.

And even if they could follow, they would not be allowed to use social media to criticize the regime, says Gilles Lordet, chief editor of Reporters without Borders in Paris.

“There is absolutely no press freedom at all in North Korea, no independent media,” Mr Lordet said. “There is only the government, the voice of the regime.”

For now, North Korea’s online offerings are only in Korean.

But Professor Lee thinks that they might soon expand their offerings to include video clips and posts in English.

“The North Koreans already produce propaganda material in English, through the Korean Central News Agency,” he said. “They have the wherewithal to do it.”

He added: “It will just take them a little more time and effort.”

• North Korea’s Twitter feed
• North Korea on YouTube
• The World team on Twitter

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KATY CLARK: North Korea these days seems to be reaching out in a variety of ways. With art, as we just heard. And perhaps shockingly, through the world’s most popular social networking site. North Korea now has a presence on Twitter and its own channel on YouTube. But don’t expect to be trading tweets with Kim Jong-il anytime soon. The World’s technology correspondent Clark Boyd has our story.

CLARK BOYD:  North Korea’s Twitter handle is “uriminzok,” a shortened Korean word that translates at “our people.” More than 4,500 people are now following. Not bad considering it only launched last Thursday. The move to Twitter follows last month’s creation of an official North Korean YouTube channel, now with almost 80 videos to choose from. Hazel Smith is a professor at Cranfield University in Britain. She’s studied North Korea for more than two decades and lived in the country from 1998 to 2001. She’s not at all surprised at the North Korean’s seemingly new-found tech prowess. After all, she says, they’ve been investing heavily in science and IT for the past 20 years.

HAZEL SMITH:  They are technologically literate and they have a big cadre of people who can use information technology in the modern sense and would know fairly easily how to physically use a social networking site. But the problem, of course, with them is content.

BOYD: Yeah, content. No cute videos of cats on the North Korean YouTube channel, that’s for sure. But you do get a fairly excited presenter talking about the recent sinking of a South Korean military vessel.

KOREAN SPEAKING

BOYD: There’s also a series of clips condemning the United States and South Korea as warmongers. And in one video the South Korean Foreign Minister is called a pro-American flunkie who should make his living by “mopping the floors of the Pentagon.” On the Twitter feed this morning, the North Koreans called the South Korean president’s administration a “prostitute of the United States.” In other words, while the media have changed, the message hasn’t.

SUNG-YOON LEE: There’s nothing new as far as I can tell.

BOYD: Sung-Yoon Lee is a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.

LEE: The government agency that is putting these out is an arm of a major committee of the Korean Workers Party, the North Korean Communist Party. And they have been putting out stuff like this, propaganda denouncing South Korean, criticizing the United States, denouncing Japan, for years now.

‘

BOYD: And there’s a great irony here. The vast majority of North Korea’s 23 million people can’t access the internet. Can’t even follow their government via social networking sites. And certainly wouldn’t be able to criticize or respond. Again, Hazel Smith.

SMITH:  The internet globally is associated with the ability for individuals to engage in freedom of expression. Because that’s not permitted in North Korea, the use the social networking sites to get their message over is really not going to be very productive for them. In fact, obviously it’s going to be counterproductive.

BOYD: One things for sure, the North Korean’s take their propaganda very seriously. For now, it’s all in Korean, but that might change. The Fletcher School’s Sung-Yoon Lee says he wouldn’t be surprised if he started to see some English language videos and Twitter messages in the coming months. For The World, this is Clark Boyd.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

• The New START Treaty and Protocol
• Council on Foreign Relations

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MARCO WERMAN:  I’m Marco Werman and this is The World.  The U.S. capital is taking some extraordinary security measures for an extraordinary meeting.  More than 40 heads of state and foreign ministers from around the world are coming to town for a summit on nuclear security.  The big idea is to prevent terrorist groups from ever getting a hold of materials to build a nuclear weapon.  The summit is the latest in a series of moves by the Obama administration on nuclear issues.  The World’s Matthew Bell reports.

MATTHEW BELL:  Barack Obama is seen as the polar opposite of George W. Bush when it comes to national security.  But the two men actually agree that the most dangerous of all threats facing the United States would be a terrorist group, especially Al Qaeda, getting hold of a nuclear weapon.  Rolf Mowatt-Larson has spent his career thinking about nuclear terrorism.  He was with CIA operations for more than 30 years.  Mowatt-Larson says you don’t need access to classified information to understand that Al Qaeda and its ilk has tried to get the bomb and would be willing to use it.

ROLF MOWATT-LARSON:  That evidence is there, it’s clear, it’s compelling that not just that they were thinking about it, but that they were actively trying to obtain nuclear related materials.  Hopefully we’ll avoid the second part of that which is to have to actually respond to an event that’s either in the process of occurring or has occurred.

BELL: During the Cold War the doctrine of mutually assured destruction kept the major powers and their massive nuclear arsenals in check.  In a sense, Mowatt-Larson says things have become more complicated.

MOWATT-LARSON: Now we sit in a world where the U.S. President talks about nuclear terrorism as being the day when a single bomb is detonated that destroys any city in the world and that’s a very high standard, to prevent that from happening.

BELL: And that’s the goal for next week’s nuclear summit in Washington.  A lot has been done already to secure nuclear materials around the world.  In recent years facilities have been modernized, security has been improved.  Jacqueline Schire is an expert with the Institute for Science and International Security.  Shire says securing nuclear materials in Russia and the former soviet states is a top priority for next week’s summit.  But beyond that, she says, nuclear rogue states like Iran and North Korea show that it takes a village to develop nuclear weapons.  Shyer says cracking down on the international black market for nuclear know-how and components is also a multinational effort.

JACQUELINE SHIRE:  By gathering everybody together or the key countries at least, you give everybody a stake in protecting this technology and in advancing the export controls, improving them, thinking about how they maintain their own nuclear materials.  So it’s all important and I think it’s vital that as many countries as possible be a part of this discussion.

BELL: And there’s a lot to discuss.  For example, no inventory exists for the global supply of highly enriched uranium and plutonium which are used to make atomic bombs.  The stockpile is growing, with at least 17 nations either building or planning to build dozens of new reactors.  Experts say security precautions at too many nuclear sites around the world are still far from adequate and the black market for nuclear materials is still in business.  Between 1993 and 2008 the International Atomic Agency counts 15 confirmed incidents of unauthorized possession of highly enriched uranium or plutonium.  Still, there’s plenty of skepticism about the threat of nuclear terrorism, especially when American politicians talk about it.  That’s in no small part because of missing Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.  Rolf Mowatt-Larson says it’s up to President Obama to overcome that skepticism and make the case to world leaders that their cooperation is essential.

MOWATT-LARSON:  Why nuclear terrorism matters to begin with is the magnitude of the event and the consequences it would create as opposed to where it will happen.  So one can speculate it might be New York or Washington, but it might also be Moscow, it might also be Mumbai or it might be another city in Pakistan or elsewhere.  So I think the recognition that this problem has the potential to change everything for everyone is really the starting point for taking it seriously.

BELL: The fact that the heads of state and high level diplomats from more than 40 countries are flying into Washington this weekend is one measure of seriousness.  What they produce at the end of the two day conference could be another.  For The World, I’m Matthew Bell.

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• See satellite images from GeoEye
• Kevin Pomfret’s blog
• GeoEye website

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This text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

MARCO WERMAN:  One way to keep nuclear materials safe is to monitor them 24/7.  Satellite technology comes in handy for that.  Satellite images also help to verify compliance with nuclear treaties like the one Russia and the U.S. signed this week.  Kevin Pomfret is Executive Director of the Center for Spatial Law and Policy.  He also helped develop the way the U.S. government uses satellite imagery to monitor arms control agreements.  Pomfret says the images are used in a variety of ways.

KEVIN POMFRET:  One way is to monitor what is going on at facilities that the other party in the agreement has said is going to go on there.  Another way is to look at facilities that haven’t been identified and to see what’s going on there, to see if they’re doing things outside the terms of the agreement.

WERMAN: And so for verifying the terms of agreements, I’ve seen pictures of B-52 bombers in the Mojave Desert where their wings are chopped off and it’s an aerial shot.  Is that the kind of thing we’re talking about where both sides get to see these images and literally count up the weapons that have been destroyed on the picture?

POMFRET: That’s part of it.  Part of it is under the terms of the agreement that the parties are required in the open to make sure that they destroy missiles or destroy aircraft or whatever is covered by the terms of the agreement so that the other party can use their national technical means, as it’s called, their satellites to verify what has been done.  But another part of it is to look at places where they have not identified and to see, for instance, if they’re mobile missiles, where they may be hiding them if you’re looking for those types of things.

WERMAN: So this doesn’t rule out human inspections or some kind of documentation of weapons stockpiles?

POMFRET: Not at all.  We’ll have inspectors on the ground, we’ll exchange images or we’ll exchange data about particular missiles and we’ll also have imagery that we can go and look to see that they’re complying with the terms, whether it’s destructing missiles, whether it’s moving missiles and technology to a certain facility, those types of things.

WERMAN: What are the technological limitations, the pitfalls of using satellite imagery instead of other methods for this kind of work?

POMFRET: That’s a good question.  I think one of the pitfalls is that you can rely too much on national technical means, but I think that can be overcome by understanding what it is that you can and can’t do with satellites.  So for instance, resolution is an important limitation, but the quality of the imagery has now gotten to a level where, I’m sure, inside the government agencies, as compared to commercial satellite images that you can get high quality imagery to see what is done.  Revisit has been another limitation, although between the commercial satellites that out there and the government satellites, I’m sure that they’re getting a good deal of coverage and pretty frequent revisit of these facilities.  So although there are limitations, I don’t think that they are as significant as they were say even 10 or 15 years ago.

WERMAN: Now all of this monitoring effort is, of course, to ensure that countries do comply with agreements like yesterday’s START agreement.  How much of a problem, though, is compliance generally when it comes to arms reduction agreements?

POMFRET: It’s an issue.  If we’re not just talking about the START treaty, but if we’re talking about other sorts of treaties having to do with arms control and nuclear proliferation, compliance is an issue.  And I think particularly with countries that we don’t have the access, for instance Iran and South Korea, excuse me, North Korea, imagery, satellite imagery is very critical to understanding what’s going on and understanding what it is that they may be doing or not doing.

WERMAN: Lawyer Kevin Pomfret is on the Board of Directors of the Open Geospatial Consortium, thank you very much for joining us.

POMFRET: Thank you Marco.

WERMAN: By the way, we have some pretty fascinating and detailed satellite pictures of facilities in North Korea and Iran along the lines of what Kevin Pomfret and I just spoke about.  They’ve just gone live at the world dot org where you can check them out.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

North Korea walked away from six-party nuclear talks earlier this year, but then said it could return.
These discussions – involving the US, China, Russia, Japan and the two Koreas – are aimed at getting rid of the North’s nuclear capabilities.

The forum reached deals in 2005 and 2007, under which the North shut down its plants at Yongbyon and began disabling them in return for aid and security guarantees. But the last talks were in December 2008, and in April this year North Korea said the negotiations were over for good, following widespread condemnation of its long-range missile launch. A month later, tensions rose still further when the North conducted an underground nuclear test.

New sanctions

In June, the United Nations Security Council voted unanimously to impose tougher sanctions on communist North Korea following the nuclear test carried by Pyongyang in defiance of previous UN resolutions.

The sanctions include the inspection of North Korean ships, a wider ban on arms sales and other financial measures. The U.S. deputy ambassador at the UN, Rosemary DiCarlo, said the new vote was a strong and united response to North Korea’s “unacceptable behavior”.

The Chinese ambassador, Zhang Yesui, said the resolution showed the “firm opposition” of the world to North Korea’s nuclear ambitions. “We strongly urge the DPRK (North Korea) to honor its commitment to denuclearization, stop any moves that may further worsen the situation, and return to the six-party talks,” the ambassador said. North Korea carried out a nuclear test – its second – on May 25th. It then launched a number of short-range missiles.

President Barack Obama described the North Korean action in May as a threat to international peace. President Obama on North Korea

On May 27th, North Korea announced it is abandoning the truce that ended the Korean war, amid rising tension in the region. It blamed its decision on South Korea joining a US-led initiative to search ships for nuclear weapons. It said the South’s actions were a “declaration of war”, and pledged to attack if its ships were stopped. The move is part of an increasingly hard line being taken by North Korea, and came two days after it conducted an underground nuclear test.

North Korea abandons international talks

North Korea's "satellite" launch

In April North Korea walked out on international talks to end its nuclear program, and said it would restore its disabled nuclear reactor. The unusually strong statement followed criticism by the UN Security Council of a recent rocket launch, which critics say was a long-range missile test. North Korea said the launch in April was part of a peaceful space program, designed to put a satellite into orbit. China and Russia have appealed for the North to return to negotiations.

Pyongyang also ordered UN nuclear inspectors to leave the country and told the International Atomic Energy Agency to remove seals and equipment from the Yongbyon reactor and said that it would reactivate all its nuclear facilities, the watchdog said.

Pyongyang said it launched a satellite on April 5 but its neighbors said it was testing missile technology. The U.S., South Korea and Japan have all condemned the launch from the Musudan-ri base in the north-east of the communist country. They say it violates a UN Security Council resolution adopted in October 2006 which bans North Korea from carrying out ballistic missile activity. Susan Rice, the American envoy to the UN, called Pyongyang’s move a “clear-cut violation of [resolution] 1718″, while her Japanese counterpart said Tokyo was seeking a “clear, firm and unified” response.

Undated North Korean missile test

When North Korea tested its Taepodong-1 missile in 1998, it claimed to have put a satellite in orbit. In July 2006 it test-fired the three-stage long-range Taepodong-2, but the missile failed shortly after launch. North Korea’s move comes amid heightened tensions with South Korea, and with Pyongyang pushing for a top spot on the agenda of the new U.S. administration.

American nuclear inspector in North Korea

In October 2008, the Washington finally removed North Korea from a terrorism blacklist, and in return Pyongyang agreed to provide full access to its nuclear program. The two sides now differ on the terms of verification that were agreed as part of the deal. North Korea insists it never said samples of atomic material could be taken away for examination, but the U.S. asserts that the North did consent to the procedure.

For years, the North has been locked in discussions over its nuclear ambitions with five other nations – the U.S., South Korea, China, Russia, and Japan. In June 2008 the regime blew up the cooling tower of its Yongbyon facility in a symbolic gesture of its commitment to the process.
Video: Demolition of Yongbyon cooling tower

Also in June 2008 North Korea handed over a long-awaited account of its nuclear program to China. President George W Bush cautiously welcomed the move at the time but said the U.S. still had “serious concerns” about Pyongyang. North Korea had previoulsy blamed the deadlocked nuclear talks on the U.S., accusing it of raising “unjust demands”.

North Korea successfully tested a nuclear device on October 9th, 2006, and analysts believe it may have any a number of atomic bombs ranging from one to eight or more. However, it is not believed that the country has yet succeeded in building a nuclear weapon that could be fitted on to a missile.

North Korean missiles

Despite the nuclear agreement Pyongyang tested another ballistic missile in June 2007. The White House said it was “deeply troubled” by the move, which happened at a “delicate time” in international negotiations over North Korea’s nuclear decommissioning.

In May 2007 North Korea conducted a series of missile test after previously having test-fired missiles in July 2006. World powers have condemned the North Korean tests – the test in 2006 is believed to have included a long-range Taepodong-2, but according to U.S. assessments at the time, that missile failed shortly after take-off.

North Korea’s nuclear weapons program along with its missile development, has been a major source of concern in the region. North Korea is estimated to have more than 800 ballistic missiles. The communist regime first obtained tactical missiles from the Soviet Union, as early as 1969, but its first Scuds reportedly came via Egypt in 1976.

These are the key weapons of its missile program:

Taepodong-2 (long range)

Taepodong 2

Taepodong-1 (intermediate range)

The Taepodong-1 is a two-stage missile comprising Nodong and Scud parts and has a estimated range of 1,300 miles (2,200km). It could reach US bases in Okinawa, Japan. North Korea tested a Taepodong-1 in August 1998, firing a missile over northern Japan. But it is said to be even less accurate than the Nodong (see below) and it must be fired from a fixed location and has a long preparation time. That means potential launches could be detected relatively early on.

Another Taepodong missile, the Taepodong-X, is also said to be under development but has not yet been tested. Based on a Soviet submarine-launched ballistic missile, it is a land-based missile, thought to have a range of up to 2,400 miles (4,000km), able to reach US bases on Guam. Unlike the Taepodong-1, it could be fired from mobile launch systems hidden from view.

Nodong Missile (medium range)

The Nodong missile is thought to have a range of around 600 miles (1,000km) and could potentially carry a nuclear warhead. But it too is not very accurate. The Nodong could strike most of Japan but not with any accuracy. If it were fired on a military target, its inaccuracy could lead to high levels of civilian casualties. The missile was test fired in May 1993.

Short Range Missiles

North Korea has a variety of short-range missiles. The KN-02 is thought to be the most accurate, but its range – around 60 miles – is the shortest. The Scud-B and C have ranges of 200 and 300 miles respectively, while the Scud-D is believed to have a range of over 400 miles. It is thought that these missiles could deliver conventional warheads. The Scud-B, C and D have all been tested and deployed. These missiles would enable North Korea to strike any area in South Korea. The KN-02 missile, currently in the testing stage, could be aimed at key targets in South Korea such as military installations south of the border.

Musudan-ri launch site

Musudan-ri is the main launch site in the country’s North Hamgyong province, on the country’s northeastern coast. The area was formerly known as Taepodong, which gave the Taepodong rockets their name. Since 1984 Hwasong, Nodong and Taepodong rockets have been launched from the site. The facilities at Musudan-ri are reported to be modest, consisting of a launch pad, an engine test stand, a missile assembly building, and a missile control center. In 1998, North Korean media reported the successful launch of a satellite by a Taepodong rocket from Musudan-ri. North Korea says the satellite successfully reached orbit, but no independent sources have confirmed this.

Iran’s decision to build a secret facility represented a “direct challenge to the basic compact” of the global non-proliferation regime, President Barack Obama said, making a statement in Pittsburgh, where he is hosting a G20 summit. Despite Iran’s assertions that the facility was for peaceful purposes, the new plant was “not consistent” with that goal, the President said. Katy Clark reports.

• BBC coverage
• Iran’s key nuclear sites
• BBC Special Report: Iran crisis
• Background Brief: Nuclear Standoff with Iran

• BBC coverage of today’s UN resolution
• FAQ: Nuclear disarmament

Read the Transcript
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MARCO WERMAN: There’s something striking about all the anti-nuclear talk this week.  It’s coming from world leaders, not anti-nuclear protestors.  The call for a nuclear-free world used to come from the grassroots, not the halls of power.  So, whatever happened to the nuclear disarmament movement?  The World’s Jeb Sharp takes a look.

JEB SHARP: The dangers of nuclear weapons can seem so overwhelming, they could just as well produce passivity as activism.  Jonathan Schell is author of The Seventh Decade: The New Shape of Nuclear Danger.

JONATHAN SCHELL: I think people love not to think about nuclear weapons.  They’re just horrible things that do horrible things.  They oppress the mind, they oppress the spirit.  And especially if you don’t have a belief that they might be gotten rid of it’s very hard to dwell on that. It’s very disagreeable.

SHARP: And yet, Schell says, during the Cold War, the fear of nuclear confrontation was powerful enough to mobilize people.

SCHELL: There was just something about that ever present immediate threat of something like the end of the world, the end of civilization, that concentrated the mind on occasion and brought out a public movement.  When the Cold War ended, that movement ended with it.  And it was just never reconstituted in force.  The public seemed to act for a couple of decades as if the nuclear dilemma had just gone away with the Cold War.  Of course, that was a terrible illusion as we know now.

SHARP: The first people to protest the atomic bomb were actually the scientists who developed it.  Historian Lawrence Wittner is author of Confronting the Bomb, a history of the disarmament movement.

LAWRENCE WITTNER: They had built the bomb as a deterrent to Nazi Germany’s use of the bomb and they were therefore were concerned when they realized that Nazi Germany had been defeated and the US government was moving forward with the bomb program, and apparently planning to bomb Japan.

SHARP: The scientists couldn’t stop the United States from using the atomic bomb against Japan.  But after the war, they were instrumental in forging a growing movement against nuclear weapons. Wittner says those early protests paid off during the administration of President Harry Truman.

WITTNER: During the early Cold War there was an upsurge of protest against nuclear weapons and this led Truman to back off from further use of nuclear weapons.  The movement declined thereafter, but it began to revive with the testing of the hydrogen bomb—the H bomb—and protests against nuclear testing grew to become very powerful and to influence public opinion against testing.

SHARP: Wittner’s book traces how the movement ebbed and flowed over time as it responded to world events and the politics of the day.  He credits the disarmament movement with creating the pressure necessary to bring about the arms control treaties of the 1960s, 1970′s and 1980s.   Wittner says the movement peaked when Ronald Reagan was president.

WITTNER: Reagan was a strong supporter of the development of new nuclear weapons by the United States.  He certainly didn’t plan on supporting arms control and disarmament measures when he came to power and yet as he saw unprecedented protests against nuclear weapons as he saw the largest demonstration in American history in June of 1982.  When he saw that the nuclear weapons freeze campaign had support of 70 to 80 percent of the public, Reagan began to shift.

SHARP: Reagan became a believer in the end, but the breakthroughs he and his Soviet counterpart Mikhail Gorbachev made in the late 1980s still left huge arsenals on both sides when the Cold War ended.

SCHELL: The great tragedy of it all…

SHARP: That’s Jonathan Schell again…

SCHELL: …was that the end of the Cold War was at the same time the most golden opportunity to actually get hold of these weapons and drown them in the bathtub, get rid of them, but unfortunately interest in them dropped at exactly that moment of the greatest opportunity, and so we lost the chance for the time being.

SHARP: Schell points out though, that in the years since, the ideas of the movement have survived, and even seeped into mainstream national security policy.  The threat of nuclear terrorism and a growing number of nuclear states means that you now find presidents calling for a nuclear weapons-free world, not just the anti-nuclear demonstrators of old.  For The World, I’m Jeb Sharp.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

Read the Transcript
This text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

MARCO WERMAN: I’m Marco Werman and this is The World.  When Iran’s president Mahmood Ahmedinejad spoke before the UN General Assembly last night, he did not mention Iran’s nuclear program.  Still, it’s been a key topic of conversation at the UN all this week.  The US and its allies have given Iran an October 1st deadline to respond to demands to halt its nuclear pursuits.  Iran maintains its program is for producing energy—not weapons.  But that hasn’t stopped other countries in the Middle East from pursuing their own nuclear ambitions.  The world’s Aaron Schachter reports from Beirut.

AARON SCHACHTER: The list of Middle Eastern countries looking for nukes might give you pause:  Yemen, Syria, Sudan.  In the past few years these countries have publicly expressed interest in building nuclear reactors.  Some have actually signed contracts with western firms.  All say they’re pursuing only nuclear power.

GARY MILHOLLIN: In no case, I think, does it make sense for a country in the Middle East that does not have a reactor now to get one.

SCHACHTER: Gary Milhollin heads the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control based in Washington.  For him, what’s going on in the Middle East is clear; everyone’s afraid in one way or another of a nuclear Iran.

MILHOLLIN: Generally speaking, you can divide the countries in the Middle East into two groups: one group has oil and doesn’t need a reactor; and the other group doesn’t have oil and therefore cannot afford to pay for a reactor.  And unfortunately if you look at history, you see that many countries have tried to hide a nuclear weapon program under the guise of a civilian power program.

SCHACHTER: Milhollin puts Iran in that group.  He says unless Iran is stopped soon, nuclear proliferation in the Middle East will be impossible to contain.  But Kristian Alexander, a Political Scientist at Abu Dhabi’s Zayed University, says the so-called “nuclear arms race” in the Middle East is more puffery than fact.  He says outside of Iran, no one’s actually building anything.

KRISTIAN ALEXANDER: I really think it’s more for domestic consumption, to claim a status that you’re somewhat of a powerhouse in the region.  But there’s a lot of talk and not a lot of action.

SCHACHTER: But From Iran, there’s talk and action.  Its president is issuing hateful rhetoric and the country is developing nuclear power, possibly nuclear weapons.  Even so, Alexander doesn’t think Iran would actually use The Bomb, against Israel or anyone else.  Ronen Bergman agrees.  He’s an Israeli journalist and author of The Secret War with Iran.  He says Iran wants nuclear weapons for bargaining power.  That worries Israel and Sunni Arab countries, which wouldn’t want to kowtow to a nuclear-armed Shiite country and its proxies.  Bergman says this has already created some unlikely alliances.

RONEN BERGMAN: There has been an ongoing intimate connection between Israeli and Arab intelligence services trying to fight the support of the Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, Hamas and other militant groups and the attempts to acquire nuclear Armageddon weapons.  We are talking about Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Algeria and Morocco.

SCHACHTER: Lawrence Rubin, with the Dubai Initiative at Harvard’s Kennedy School, says he doesn’t know whether Iran is trying to acquire nuclear weapons or not.  But he thinks all sides of the debate need to stop and take a breath.  Rubin says there’s nothing inherently wrong with Iran or other countries pursuing nuclear technology, as long as the pursuit’s transparent.

LAWRENCE RUBIN: If they sign various international agreements regarding nuclear technology, then they’re entitled to the sharing of technology.  And these are agreements that the international community, and especially the United States supports.  And these are obviously some of the agreements the United States and the international community have been trying to work out with Iran for a long time.

SCHACHTER: But Rubin concedes even when everything’s on the up and up, you never know when a civilian nuclear program will lead to building a weapon.  For The World, I’m Aaron Schachter in Beirut.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

• FAQ nuclear disarmament
• Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons