nuclear-news

North Korea developing uranium tipped missiles

North Korea closer to nuclear-tipped missile: US expert Business Recorder DECEMBER 29, 2011 North Korea likely is closer to mounting nuclear warheads on its ballistic missiles than generally reported, possibly only one or two years away, the US Congress’s former top expert on the issue has concluded.

Larry Niksch, who tracked North Korea for the non-partisan US Congressional Research Service for 43 years, concludes in a new paper that the North probably would need as little as one to two years to miniaturise and mount a nuclear warhead atop its medium-range Nodong
missile once it has produced enough highly enriched uranium as the warhead’s core fuel.

A North Korea armed with nuclear-tipped missiles would rattle East Asia and present new policy and military challenges to the United States and its allies….. Its nuclear and missile capabilities are once again in the spotlight as power passes to North Korea’s designated young leader, Kim Jong-un, after the December 17 death of his father, Kim Jong-il.

Pyongyang already may have produced enough highly enriched uranium (HEU) for a warhead or be close to doing so, Niksch and experts such as Siegfried Hecker, the former head of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, said in interviews with Reuters….. http://www.brecorder.com/general-news/single/599/172/1265893/

December 30, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | depleted uranium, North Korea