Both leaders land in Singapore as US seeks to manage expectations, Ft.com Bryan Harris and Stefania Palma in Singapore and Demetri Sevastopulo in Los Angeles
Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump landed in Singapore on Sunday in preparation for their historic summit, even as US officials sought to manage expectations for Tuesday’s much-heralded meeting. Once pitched as the final stage of a landmark denuclearisation deal, the meeting is increasingly being spun as just the beginning of a process of engagement between the two bitter adversaries. “I feel that Kim Jong Un wants to do something great for his people,” said Mr Trump as he departed Canada en route for the south-east Asian city state. “There’s a good chance it won’t work out. There’s probably an even better chance it will take a period of time.” The aim of the summit on Tuesday is to see if Mr Kim and Mr Trump could establish a level of chemistry and trust that would provide impetus for further negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang, according to one senior US official.
Joseph Yun, the state department’s former point-man on North Korea, echoed the sentiment, saying it was clear that high-level meetings between US and North Korean officials in recent days had reduced expectations on the American side. “Gone is the talk of all-in-one big bang and denuclearisation. The magic word seems to be process and progress,” said Mr Yun, adding that it would still be important to have a “substantive result” from the summit. Mr Trump said in advance of his arrival that he would know “within the first minute” of the meeting whether Mr Kim was “serious”. He added that he could make such a judgment based on “my touch, my feel — that’s what I do”……….
Washington is seeking CVID — the complete, verified and irreversible dismantlement of the North’s nuclear programme — a process that experts believe could take years, potentially even a decade. https://www.ft.com/content/99901e74-6c5b-11e8-92d3-6c13e5c92914
For once, ministers have put their money where their mouth is – into taking another stab at nuclear power. This week the business secretary, Greg Clark, announced plans to pump £5bn into a new nuclear power station at Wylfa in north Wales. It was a reversal of a longstanding Conservative policy not to underwrite nuclear construction. So why the sudden enthusiasm? And what does Clark know that the rest of the world does not?
For almost everywhere else, governments and corporations are pulling the plug on nuclear. Even in a world fearful of climate change, in which nations have promised to wean themselves off fossil fuels by the mid-century, almost no one wants to touch nuclear.
Germany will be nuclear-free by 2022. France – once Europe’s great nuclear advocates – is backtracking. President Macron is committed to cutting nuclear’s contribution to grid power from the 75% to 50%. Seven years after the Fukushima accident, all but a handful of Japan’s 54 nuclear power plants remain closed.
US utilities are shutting reactors fast too, even those with years of their operating licences yet to run. In America’s deregulated energy markets, nuclear cannot compete. Last week President Trump called for the utilities to suspend closures, citing national energy security. He may resort to the law to get his way, but even Trump is not demanding new reactors.
Meanwhile, the state-sponsored nuclear enthusiasm of China, recently the world’s premier builder, has dimmed. Beijing has issued no new construction approvals for over two years. Only Russia keeps up the momentum – which puts Britain in an embarrassing club.
Britain hasn’t completed a new nuclear power station for 23 years. …… renewable sources like solar and wind are both now cheaper, and are becoming cheaper still, while nuclear costs only rise.
Some who call themselves “eco-modernists” argue that nuclear and renewables would make a great mix: nuclear could fill in when the sun goes down and the winds drop. But there is a problem. Any effective stand-in for fickle renewables needs to be available at the flick of a switch. Hydropower or natural gas can do the job, but not nuclear. Its forte is to deliver constant baseload power
If nuclear ticked enough other boxes, it might still have a role to play in keeping the lights on. But it has always been a bad neighbour and troublesome citizen. Some of our fears about radiation may be exaggerated, but they are real fears nonetheless. And nuclear power’s links to nuclear weapons are not just about shared technology – at least not while Britain remains home to the world’s largest stockpile of plutonium.
We are sitting on 130 tonnes of a human-made element that lies at the heart of most nuclear weapons. The stockpile is at a warehouse at Sellafield in Cumbria, in defiance of warnings from scientists at the Royal Society a decade ago that in its present form it poses a major security risk, whether diverted for weapons or breached by terrorists.
The plutonium was manufactured over decades from used power-station reactor fuel. Britain wanted to be at the forefront of a new global industry using plutonium to fuel new designs of reactors. But production continues even though there is no sign of a world market for plutonium. And neither the new Hinkley Point reactor under construction in Somerset, nor the proposed plant at Wylfa, will burn the stuff.
The government seems determined to pursue a nuclear dream, even though it has palpably failed to come to terms with the toxic legacy of the country’s nuclear past.
Next to the site of the planned Wylfa plant sits the shell of an old nuclear power station. It was shut in 2015, but is not scheduled for demolition for almost another century, in 2105. It is one of 11 former plants that sit abandoned around our coastlines, from Dungeness in Kent to Trawsfynydd in Snowdonia, and Sizewell in Suffolk to Hunterston in south-west Scotland.
They are currently being put into what the industry terms “care and maintenance” – mothballed while their radioactivity decays, and until the government’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority can find somewhere to put their remains.
On present form, that day may never come. Britain is today no nearer agreeing a final resting place for its most dangerous and long-lasting radioactive wastes than it was back in 1976, when the royal commission on environmental pollution said we should build no more nuclear power plants until that problem was resolved. Absurdly, the most recent plan has been to bury the waste in tunnels to be dug beneath the Lake District national park.
Nuclear power today is a largely friendless industry: uneconomic without heavy government support, uninsurable, stuck with a military heritage from hell, overtaken by cleaner competitors, beset by waste problems that no one has resolved, and always vulnerable to public panic after the Chernobyl or Fukushima accidents.
Some believe it may have a future when the waste problems are resolved and if radical new reactor designs emerge. That may be so. But the truth is that in the 60 years since the bomb-makers first promised us “atoms for peace”, nuclear power has gone from a sunrise to a sunset industry. Only the British government seems not to realise it.
Donald Trump Is Reportedly Skipping The G7 Climate Meeting & It’s No Surprise, Elite Daily By Hannah Golden 9 June 18, The annual Group of 7 (G7) summit of world leaders was just kicking off on Friday afternoon, but for the U.S. president, the conference will be cut short. President Donald Trump is reportedly skipping the G7 climate meetings, the White House announced, per CNN. The announcement came Thursday amid a contentious series of exchanges on trade with his foreign counterparts on Twitter.
The summit — this year held in Canada — begins June 8 and continues through the weekend. This year’s program includes working sessions on oceans, climate change, and clean energy.
The G7 summits began in the 1970s as an informal meeting of the world’s most advanced economies to discuss issues facing them. The U.S. has always been a central fixture in the event, making the president’s decision to forego the meetings a notable one.
Trump reportedly pulled out of the climate meeting following a day of salty Twitter exchanges with French President Emmanuel Macron and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. “The American President may not mind being isolated, but neither do we mind signing a 6 country agreement if need be,” tweeted Macron on June 7, referring to recent international policy moves by Trump. “Because these 6 countries represent values, they represent an economic market which has the weight of history behind it and which is now a true international force.”
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un provides guidance on a nuclear weapons program in this undated photo released by North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in Pyongyang September 3, 2017. KCNA via REUTERS
Why Donald Trump should stay wary about North Korea’s nuclear plans – even if Kim Jong-un promises to allow inspections
Experts say that the level of know-how and stock of easily concealed materials would make it easy for Pyongyang to start making bombs again, SCMP, Liu Zhenzhen.liu@scmp.com, 08 June, 2018, Experts believe that North Korea has the capability and knowledge to hide hundreds of kilograms of nuclear material from inspectors and could quickly resume its bomb-making programme, even if it agrees to start the denuclearisation process at next week’s summit between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un.
A recent report by a team led by Siegfried Hecker, a former director of the America’s Los Alamos weapons laboratory, calculated that at the end of last year North Korea’s inventory contained between 250 and 500kg (550-1,000lb) of highly enriched uranium-235 (HEU) and 20 to 40kg of plutonium-239 (Pu-239), the two most important materials for making a bomb.
A single atomic bomb needs about 4-10kg of weapons-grade plutonium, or about 15kg of HEU. With additional fusion materials that are much easier to produce, more powerful hydrogen bombs can be assembled.
“With the material, the knowledge, the experienced scientists, North Korea will be able to make the weapons again,” said an expert with Chinese Academy of Engineering Physics (CAEP), the country’s nuclear weapons research and manufacturing institution, speaking on condition of anonymity. “A system of knowledge is difficult to eliminate.”
Pyongyang’s nuclear programme will be a primary topic of discussion when the US president and the North Korean leader meet in Singapore on Tuesday. Although they may disagree on what “denuclearisation” actually means, from the US perspective, it would likely require the inspection and surrender of all the fissile materials.
However, no one knows exactly how much material North Korea holds, in particular how much HEU, and enrichment facilities are easy to conceal.
“Enrichment of uranium is one capability that can be most easily hidden and made almost impossible to inspect and verify,” said Zhao Tong, a Beijing-based fellow in the nuclear policy programme at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
He said the credibility of North Korea’s “denuclearisation” could be built only on mutual trust and confidence because 100 per cent transparency was impossible.
“Centrifuges can be built underground and covered up in unknown corners of the country,” he said.
Next week’s summit between President Kim Jong-un and President Donald Trump will help determine the fate of a decades-long international effort to stop the spread of nuclear weapons – and prevent the sort of nuclear annihilation that the inventors of the atomic bomb greatly feared.
“I alone can fix it,” Mr. Trump declared two summers ago at the Republican National Convention. Applied to nuclear weapons, that belief is delusional and potentially catastrophic. International co-operation, through mechanisms like the NPT, offers the only real hope of survival.
Eric Schlosser’s books include Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety.
At first, the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by atomic bombs in August, 1945, was celebrated in the United States. The new weapon had seemingly ended the war with Japan, eliminating the need for a protracted and bloody invasion. But the celebratory feeling was short-lived. That same month, General Henry H. Arnold, commander of the United States Army Air Forces, publicly warned that nuclear weapons might soon be placed atop missiles and aimed at American cities. Once launched, such weapons would be impossible to stop and “destructive beyond the wildest nightmares of the imagination.” Nuclear proliferation – the spread of this lethal technology to other countries – could lead to nuclear wars that threatened the survival of mankind. A few months later, J. Robert Oppenheimer, the “father of the atomic bomb,” gave a farewell speech to his fellow Los Alamos scientists that described how easily proliferation might occur. Nuclear weapons “are going to be very cheap if anyone wants to make them,” he said, “they are not too hard to make … they will be universal if people wish to make them universal.” The invention of the atomic bomb, Oppenheimer thought, marked no less than “a change in the nature of the world.”
Almost 73 years have passed since Oppenheimer’s speech – and a great many apocalyptic predictions have proven wrong. No other cities have been destroyed by a nuclear weapon. No nuclear wars have been fought. And only nine countries now possess nuclear arsenals, not dozens. The absence of nuclear catastrophes has multiple causes, among them: sober national leadership, wise crisis management, military professionalism, technical expertise and a remarkable amount of good luck. The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and the guiding spirit behind it also deserve a prominent place on that list. The NPT is essentially a bargain struck between nations that have nuclear weapons and those that don’t. Former president Barack Obama once explained its three pillars: “Countries with nuclear weapons will move toward disarmament, countries without nuclear weapons will not acquire them and all countries can access peaceful nuclear energy.” But as the NPT approaches its 50th anniversary next month, the treaty faces unprecedented assaults and the prospect of nuclear arms races in Asia and the Middle East. Of the 190 countries that have signed the NPT, North Korea is the only one that’s withdrawn from it and developed nuclear weapons. Next week’s summit between President Kim Jong-un and President Donald Trump will help determine the fate of a decades-long international effort to stop the spread of nuclear weapons – and prevent the sort of nuclear annihilation that the inventors of the atomic bomb greatly feared.
The NPT began as a 1958 push by Ireland to dissuade the United States from sharing nuclear weapons with its NATO allies, especially West Germany. At the time, four countries had nuclear weapons: the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain and France. After a slow, uneven start, the non-proliferation movement gained momentum in 1964 when China detonated its first nuclear device. U.S. intelligence estimates had warned the previous year that eight other countries – Australia, Egypt, West Germany, India, Israel, Japan, South Africa and Sweden – could produce nuclear weapons within a decade. An additional six – Argentina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Yugoslavia – might have them by the early 1980s. The Cuban Missile Crisis had demonstrated that a confrontation between two nuclear powers could inadvertently start a nuclear war. And numerous nuclear-weapon accidents suggested that disasters could be caused by simple mistakes and miscalculations. It seemed obvious that if more countries possessed nuclear weapons, the danger would increase. Working closely with the Soviet Union, the United States played a large role in drafting the NPT. On July 1, 1968, the first day that the treaty was open for signature, 66 countries signed it, and less than two years later, the NPT went into effect. It seemed a triumph of international co-operation on behalf of world peace.
During the next quarter-century, the NPT was more successful at preventing the spread of nuclear weapons than at achieving disarmament. The five nuclear-weapon states recognized by the treaty (the United States, Britain, France, China and the Soviet Union) had promised to seek “cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date … and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.” And yet, none of those things happened during the 1970s and ‘80s. Meanwhile, the other NPT signatories had kept their side of the bargain and forsworn nuclear weapons. The four additional countries that eventually did obtain them – Israel, India, Pakistan and South Africa – had never signed the treaty.
During the early 1990s, the threat of nuclear war finally seemed to be diminishing. South Africa not only gave up its nuclear weapons but also signed the NPT. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Ukraine had the world’s third-largest nuclear arsenal. Nevertheless, it surrendered the weapons, as did Belarus and Kazakhstan, two other former Soviet republics with nuclear stockpiles, and all three signed the NPT. The end of the Cold War led the United States and Russia to make enormous cuts in their nuclear arsenals, reducing the number of weapons by about 80 per cent. But grand hopes that the 21st century would see the end of the nuclear threat were illusory.
One of the compromises that made the NPT possible now threatens to make it irrelevant. Article IV of the treaty guarantees its signatories “the inalienable right” to obtain nuclear technology for peaceful uses. Without strict monitoring and enforcement, however, the possession of civilian nuclear-power facilities can enable the development of military nuclear technology. Weapons-grade uranium and plutonium can be made at enrichment and reprocessing plants ostensibly built to make fuel for nuclear reactors. India developed its atomic bomb with civilian nuclear technology obtained from Canada and the United States; Israel got its bomb with civilian technology from France. Despite having signed the NPT, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea and Syria secretly launched nuclear-weapon programs under the guise of seeking the peaceful use of nuclear energy.
Today, all three pillars of the NPT are in grave jeopardy. Instead of disarming, the five nuclear states recognized by the treaty are modernizing their arsenals. The renewed arms race between the United States and Russia is especially dangerous. Thanks to the “inalienable right” to civilian nuclear power, perhaps 20 to 30 NPT signatories have the latent ability to develop nuclear weapons. Japan has stockpiled about 10 tonnes of plutonium, enough to produce thousands of nuclear warheads, and could probably manufacture some within a year. The nuclear threat posed by North Korea may encourage South Korea, as well as Japan, to become a nuclear weapon state. Last year, an opinion poll found that about 60 per cent of South Koreans would like their country to have its own nuclear weapons. Henry Sokolski, executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center in Washington, thinks that the Middle East now stands on the brink of a volatile and chaotic nuclear arms race. “If Iran resumes its nuclear weapons program,” Mr. Sokolski recently wrote in Foreign Policy, “the Saudis will certainly pursue their own – and Algeria, Egypt and Turkey might well follow.” Given the large petroleum and natural-gas supplies in Saudi Arabia, as well as the ample sunlight available there for solar power, the current Saudi proposal to spend more than $80-billion on nuclear technology suggests that future energy needs aren’t the sole reason for the investment.
To ensure that a treaty written to halt the proliferation of nuclear weapons isn’t transformed into one that facilitates their spread, a number of important steps can still be taken. The United States and Russia possess about 90 per cent of the world’s nuclear weapons, and those two countries must be pressured to reduce the size of their arsenals and minimize the risk of nuclear war. Frustrated with the slow pace of disarmament by the NPT’s five nuclear states, a few years ago the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) began to seek a treaty to ban nuclear weapons. The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons was adopted by the United Nations last year, and ICAN was subsequently awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Ray Acheson, a Canadian who serves on ICAN’s steering committee, supports the goal of non-proliferation but strongly defends the group’s strategy of focusing their criticism on the NPT’s five nuclear states. “The nuclear weapons that already exist are more dangerous,” she says, “than the ones that don’t.”
As for the other NPT signatories, Scott Sagan, a nuclear-weapon expert who’s a professor of political science at Stanford University, thinks that an “unalienable right” to the peaceful use of nuclear energy doesn’t mean the right to hedge your bets and develop a latent nuclear-weapon capability. The NPT allows a country to leave the treaty simply by giving 90 days notice. Prof. Sagan argues that violating the treaty should lead to much stronger punishments by the United Nations and that leaving the treaty should be made more difficult. Contracts for the sale of civilian nuclear facilities and technology should have a “return to sender” clause – a requirement that any country that leaves the NPT must return all the nuclear equipment it bought.
The issue of nuclear proliferation is hardly inconsequential for Canada. Although Canada has never formally been a nuclear weapon state, its deployment of American weapons during the Cold War was precisely the sort of arrangement that inspired Ireland to seek a non-proliferation treaty. Between 1963 and 1984, hundreds of American nuclear weapons were assigned to Canadian forces. Two squadrons of BOMARC anti-aircraft missiles, carrying a total of 56 warheads, were based at North Bay, Ont., and La Macaza, Que. About 100 Genie anti-aircraft rockets with nuclear warheads were stationed at Royal Canadian Air Force bases, and Canadian fighter planes assigned to NATO carried low-yield Mark 28 hydrogen bombs. The weapons were technically in the custody of the United States, but Canadian officers were granted the authority to turn one of the two keys that launched the BOMARC missiles – and sole control over firing the Genies and dropping the Mark 28s. A Soviet bomber attack on the United States would have prompted nuclear warfare in the skies over Canada, as BOMARCS and Genies sought their targets. And the three nuclear-weapon systems operated by Canadian forces had serious safety defects that could have caused accidental nuclear detonations. Canada, like the United States, was fortunate to survive the Cold War without nuclear devastation. The effects of nuclear blasts, the electromagnetic pulses and deadly fallout, show little regard for national borders. Even if you don’t have nuclear weapons, having a neighbour who does can pose a considerable threat.
Some academics have argued that nuclear proliferation might make the world safer, suggesting that countries with nuclear weapons are less likely to fight one another. That argument makes about as much sense as the contention that having more guns will reduce the number of people killed by gunfire. A single switch prevented the accidental detonation of an American hydrogen bomb in North Carolina during January, 1961. The following year the vote of a single officer on a Soviet submarine prevented the launch of a nuclear torpedo that would have turned the Cuban Missile Crisis into a thermonuclear war. The number of close calls during the arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union is terrifying. Multiply that number by multiple arms races and, short of divine intervention, you have a recipe for disaster.
Mr. Trump has an extraordinary opportunity in Singapore to reassert the principles guiding the NPT. If North Korea can be persuaded to give up its nuclear weapons, it will be a tremendous victory for the cause of non-proliferation. But lasting success will never be attained by the kind of unilateral American action that has lately started a trade war with longstanding allies, pulled out of the Iran deal and withdrawn from the Paris agreement on climate change. “I alone can fix it,” Mr. Trump declared two summers ago at the Republican National Convention. Applied to nuclear weapons, that belief is delusional and potentially catastrophic. International co-operation, through mechanisms like the NPT, offers the only real hope of survival. Robert Oppenheimer recognized that fact in his farewell speech to the Los Alamos scientists, at the dawn of the nuclear age. He told them: “I think it is true to say that atomic weapons are a peril which affect everyone in the world, and in that sense a completely common problem.”
Kim, the economy and why UN sanctions did not bring North Korea to the summit table
Although UN sanctions have limited growth, North Korea’s financial health – and the physical health of its people – seem to be stabilising, SCMP, Lee Jeong-ho, 03 June, 2018 If top officials in Washington and Tokyo are to be believed, the application of “maximum pressure” through United Nations sanctions was decisive in bringing North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to the summit table.
Pyongyang has been the target of a string of UN bans from trade to travel for more than a decade, the toughest coming in September when they were expanded to cover crude oil.
Just six months later Kim sent a message offering to meet US President Donald Trump with no strings attached.
Senior US and Japanese officials credited the offer in large part to the international sanctions, which they maintained had battered the already beleaguered North Korean economy.
But there is evidence – anecdotal and data – that North Korea’s economy has stabilised over the past few years, and while UN sanctions are limiting its growth, the country is far from famine or total collapse.
Reliable data on North Korea is hard to get. But information from various sources suggests that it has been making noticeable improvement since Kim came to power in December 2011 – at least before a new round of United Nations sanctions began taking effect this year.
Park En-na, South Korea’s ambassador for public diplomacy, said the general picture was that North Korea’s economy was getting better.
“Kim has introduced many new elements to the economy. To some extent, they even allowed privatisation,” Park said.
Kim has rolled out various measures to accelerate his country’s economic development and loosen the government’s grip on business and industry. In 2012, he offered factories and companies incentives to improve productivity and a year later, he established 13 new economic development zones to try to attract foreign investment. More market-oriented reforms were adopted in 2014 to further liberalise the economy. On top of that, improving living standards is now a national priority.
TICKING OVER
Although the direct effect of these decisions is hard to measure, there are some economic indicators of progress.
The Bank of Korea, the central bank in Seoul, estimated the North Korean economy had grown 1.24 per cent on average since Kim took power, expanding by 4 per cent to US$28.5 billion in 2016, the fastest growth in 17 years.
Pyongyang’s trade figures also reveal signs of economic expansion since 1996.
North Korea’s main exports are minerals, metallurgical products and manufactured goods including armaments, according to the latest Central Intelligence Agency’s World Factbook. Its main imports are petroleum, coking coal and machinery.
………
ON THE GROUND
International observers also report that conditions in North Korea appear stable.
David Beasley, executive director of the World Food Programme (WFP), made an official trip to North Korea last month, visiting Pyongyang, Sinwon county in South Hwanghae province and Sinuiju city in North Pyongan province.
Beasley said signs of hunger and malnourishment in the country had diminished.
“What I did not see was starvation. In the 1990s, there was famine and starvation, but I saw none of them,” he said…….
NUCLEAR CONFIDENCE
North Korea’s economy-first focus emerged in April when Kim said he would start moving away from the “byungjin” policy, which calls for developing nuclear weapons and the economy simultaneously, to adopt a new strategy focusing on improving the economy.
That message was reinforced – albeit indirectly – during Kim’s talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping in the northeastern Chinese city of Dalian in May. In that meeting, Kim said he anticipated taking “phased and synchronous measures” to “achieve denuclearisation and lasting peace on the Korean peninsula”. That process would involve step-by-step eradication of nuclear weapons in return for economic sweeteners and a gradual lifting of sanctions.
Many analysts said Kim was simply using the weapons as a bargaining chip for aid to offset the effect of the sanctions and thereby realise his much-needed economic goals.
But Chung Jae-heung, a researcher at the Sejong Institute in Seoul, said North Korea was emboldened by its nuclear strength rather than bowed by a sanctions-hit economy.
“It’s Pyongyang’s confidence as a nuclear state that brought Kim to the negotiating table, not solely UN sanctions, as its economy is not as bad as many of us think,” Chung said.
“The North Korean regime is not likely to collapse due to UN sanctions, as Beijing is unlikely to cut down its oil supply to the extent that may threaten the survival of the Kim regime.”
Park, the South Korean ambassador, said that having acquired nuclear technology, Kim could next turn his focus to economic development.
“It is difficult to assess how much impact UN sanctions have on North Korea,” she said. “But it is obvious that under the sanctions, they can’t make meaningful economic development as there is no investment from the outside.”
Lim Eul-chul, a North Korea expert at the Institute for Far Eastern Studies in Seoul, said that while the recent UN sanctions may have caused the North Korean economy harm, their implications were limited, and they paled in the context of recent history.
The measures taken by the UN “will never be as bad as the great North Korean famine of the 1990s”, he said.
Trump: ‘I don’t think I have to prepare very much’ for North Korea nuclear summit
It’s about ‘attitude’ not ‘preparation,’ the president said of upcoming talks on Tuesday with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore. by Jonathan Allen and Dartunorro Clark / Jun.08.2018
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Thursday that he doesn’t need to study for his upcoming nuclear summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
“I think I’m very well prepared. I don’t think I have to prepare very much,” Trump told reporters at the White House Thursday as he posed for photos with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. “This isn’t a question of preparation. It’s a question of whether or not people want it to happen, and we’ll know that very quickly.”
Trump is planning to travel to Canada on Friday for a two-day meeting with the Group of Seven industrial nations that is likely to focus heavily on trade issues before heading to Singapore for his historic sit-down with Kim…….
the president said he has not removed the U.S. sanctions against North Korea going into the meeting and is willing to walk out of the talks if they aren’t going well.
“All I can say is I’m totally prepared to walk away,” Trump said. “If you hear me saying we’re going to use maximum pressure, you’ll know the negotiation did not do well.”
Trump added that he is also prepared to ramp up sanctions on North Korea if the negotiations fall apart.
……..Pompeo downplayed comments made by Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, earlier this week, that Kim had gotten “on his hands and knees and begged” for the summit after Trump abruptly canceled it last month. “I think it was a bit in jest,” Pompeo said of those remarks. “We’re moving forward and focused on the serious issues…Rudy doesn’t speak for the administration when it comes to this negotiation.”
How Kim Jong Un and Trump Differ on Denuclearization. Bloomberg , By David Tweed and Kanga Kong
Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un are preparing to meet face-to-face in Singapore on June 12, a prospect that seemed unthinkable just a year ago when the leaders of the U.S. and North Korea were exchanging insults and threats. The main topic will be denuclearization, but they appear to have different ideas of what that means and how long it might take. Overcoming those differences will be key to reaching a historic outcome.
1. What is the U.S. stance on denuclearization?
The U.S. wants to see “complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization” of the Korean Peninsula. Known in the arms-control world as “CVID,” this would involve dismantling North Korea’s nuclear program and stripping Kim of the ability to make nuclear bombs in the future.
2. What does denuclearization mean for North Korea?
North Korea in April committed to work toward “complete denuclearization,” without elaborating on what that meant. In 2016, a government spokesman called for “the denuclearization of the whole Korean peninsula and this includes the dismantlement of nukes in South Korea and its vicinity.” More recently, North Korea has framed its willingness to get rid of nuclear weapons in more of a global context, implying that it will do so in concert with established nuclear powers like the U.S., China and Russia.
3. Does the U.S. have nuclear weapons on the peninsula?
The U.S. hasn’t stationed them in South Korea since 1992, but it does provide a so-called nuclear umbrella that guarantees the safety of allies South Korea and Japan. Kim may ask the U.S. to remove the nuclear bombers it has stationed in Guam and cease patrols by its nuclear-armed submarines. The U.S. would be unlikely to agree to any measures that would leave its allies vulnerable.
4. What about the time frame for removing nuclear weapons?
Speed is crucial for the U.S. to avoid a lengthy process that provides sanctions relief for North Korea as well as time to advance its nuclear program even further. Even so, North Korea has made it clear it will not accept the so-called Libya model proposed by U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton under which the regime ships its nuclear arsenal out of the country in return for security guarantees and sanctions relief. ……….https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-04/how-kim-jong-un-and-trump-differ-on-denuclearization-quicktake
Iran informs UN of increase in nuclear enrichment capacity, Iran’s Ayatollah had ordered the increase in capacity in a speech Monday, CBC ,The Associated Press
Iran has informed the UN nuclear watchdog that it will increase its nuclear enrichment capacity within the limits set by the 2015 agreement with world powers.
The modest steps announced Tuesday appeared to be mainly aimed at signalling that Iran could resume its drive toward industrial-scale enrichment if the nuclear accord comes unraveled.
Behrouz Kamalvandi, the spokesman for Iran’s nuclear agency, was quoted by state TV as saying a letter was submitted to the International Atomic Energy Agency detailing the move.
Kamalvandi said Iran is “providing infrastructure and arrangements for high-speed and capacity in production of UF4 and UF6 gases as well as rotor of centrifuges.”
Spinning centrifuges convert the gases into enriched uranium that can be used for reactor fuel and medical isotopes. If enriched to higher levels, the material can be used for weapons.
“The Agency received a letter from Iran on 4 June informing the Agency that there is a tentative schedule to start production of UF6,” a spokesperson for the IAEE confirmed on Tuesday, referring to uranium hexafluoride, the feedstock for centrifuges.
JCPOA set enrichment levels
The head of Iran’s nuclear agency, Ali Akbar Salehi, said Iran is prepared to resume work on advanced centrifuges that would dramatically increase its capacity for enrichment. But he said that so far the work is limited to building a new facility for assembling the centrifuges.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had ordered the increase in capacity in a speech Monday, in which he vowed that Iran would preserve its nuclear program despite the U.S. withdrawal from the landmark 2015 accord, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and also signed by France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the European Union, Russia and China.
Another nuclear crisis in the making? Great power competition and the risk of war in South Asia, BAS, Moeed Yusuf 5 June 18, In May 1998, India and, later, Pakistan conducted multiple nuclear tests to become the first pair to go nuclear in the post-Cold War era. Two decades on, these South Asian rivals remain locked in a deeply antagonistic relationship that constantly threatens to boil over.
The US-North Korea showdown, the upcoming summit, and the fate of the Iranian nuclear deal have consumed the global nuclear debate over the past year. During this time, India and Pakistan have slipped into an active low-level confrontation largely unnoticed.Violence on the Line of Control (LoC) that divides the Indian and Pakistani controlled parts of the disputed territory of Kashmir has been at its highest level since the two sides agreed to a ceasefire in 2003. In 2017, the bloodiest year since, there were nearly 3,000 ceasefire violations. Persistent tit-for-tat military shelling across the LoC has caused significant casualties and damage. Civilians have been targeted and killed at an unprecedented rate, as well.
Previous wars and major crises between the two sides were triggered by miscalculated military maneuvers in Kashmir or, in more recent years, by terrorist attacks. Neither can be ruled out in the current context; either could unleash a deadly escalatory spiral.
The risks involved in such a scenario would quickly remind the world why US President Bill Clinton dubbed the LoC as “the most dangerous place” on Earth at the turn of the century. India and Pakistan lack robust bilateral escalation control mechanisms. In the past, they have depended heavily on the United States and other strong third-party states with influence in the region to mediate crisis outcomes. These third parties have responded eagerly and acted with remarkable coordination in pursuit of de-escalation.
The next crisis may demand the same—but the global powers may be found wanting. The antecedent conditions that previously drove their positive engagement have already eroded. Never since South Asia’s nuclearization has global politics been so uncertain, great power relations so fraught, and competing global priorities so distracting. This reality combined with the continued absence of alternative tested crisis management experiences in South Asia may force a break from the successful crisis management patterns of the past.
A look at the past. South Asia’s nuclearization in 1998 not only ushered in a new era of regional nuclear competition but it also forced a rethink of the established norms of nuclear crisis management. The Cold War was dominated by the two superpowers. No stronger third parties able to readily influence their crisis behavior existed. Virtually all examination of nuclear contests therefore assumed bilateral contexts. While the United States and Soviet Union regularly intervened in regional crises in support of their allies, they used these moments primarily to compete and advance their global interests vis-à-vis the other.
The advent of regional nuclear dyads fundamentally altered the incentives for the United States and other strong powers to compete through regional proxies. The worry of second-age nuclear powers like India and Pakistan stumbling into nuclear war on their own proved overbearing. Crisis moments were now marked by the urge to ensure the absence of catastrophic escalation—above all prior policy preferences, no matter how important or urgent.
India and Pakistan are no strangers to crises. Since 1998, they have experienced at least three major and several modest bouts of high tension. ……
A future different from the past? The importance of third party crisis management in South Asia has only grown over time. India and Pakistan have been unable to agree on dependable risk reduction and escalation control mechanisms with a direct bearing on crisis moments. Simulation exercises continue to point to their likely inability to terminate escalated crises. In fact, as reluctant as India and Pakistan are to admit this, they have learned from previous crisis iterations and internalized third-party roles as part of their crisis planning. Worryingly, some of their doctrines and crisis strategies assume the option of third-party bailouts.
These South Asian rivals have not ruled out conflict under the nuclear umbrella. India now boasts an operational limited war doctrine, Cold Start, that envisions swift military action against Pakistan—before international actors can pressure India to forego aggression
……….. The aura of unpredictability that presently surrounds US foreign policy has brought America’s willingness to act as that leader into question. Simultaneously, the precipitous decline in US relations with surging competitors like China and Russia and increasing difficulties in transatlantic relations has tempered global confidence in the ability of the great powers to operate collectively as agents of peace. ……..https://thebulletin.org/another-nuclear-crisis-making-great-power-competition-and-risk-war-south-asia11876
Clapper says Kim’s regime doesn’t feel like a ‘supplicant’ now
Ex-DNI chief says he backs Trump’s decision to attend summit
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s decision to sit down with the U.S. was fueled by his regime’s view that it made significant achievements in its nuclear weapons program and would no longer be a “supplicant” in talks, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said.
Clapper said it may not matter whether North Korea actually has the technology to launch an intercontinental ballistic missile with a nuclear warhead that can successfully hit a U.S. target. That’s less important to the regime than the psychological boost it received from demonstrating its prowess in testing ICBMs and more powerful nuclear bombs.
U.K. Reaches Draft Deal to Ensure Nuclear Supply After Brexit, Bloomberg , By Jonathan Tirone,
The U.K. reached an accord with international inspectors that will help keep the flow of nuclear materials going after the country leaves the European Union.
The International Atomic Energy Agency’s board of governors could approve the U.K.’s draft safeguards this week in Vienna, according to a statement. The IAEA deal will “replace existing agreements” between the U.K. and European Atomic Energy Community, or Euratom, that are needed for the import and export of fuel used in nuclear power plants.
SA no longer has agreement with Russians on nuclear, says Radebe, Fin 24, Jun 04 2018 Khulekani Magubane Cape Town –Minister of Energy Jeff Radebe told eNCA on Sunday evening that South Africa no longer had an agreement with the Russians to procure for the development of nuclear energy for the country.
Speaking to journalist and political analyst Karima Brown on the news network’s show The Fix, Radebe said he was of the view that government did not appeal the court ruling in 2017 which invalidated the nuclear deal at that time.
The energy portfolio in national government has seen unparalleled instability with at least five ministers of energy in the past eight years, and a subsequent lack of clarity as to whether the Intergovernmental Framework Agreement which mentions nuclear would still be pursued and what role nuclear would play in the energy mix…….https://www.fin24.com/Economy/sa-no-longer-has-agreement-with-russians-on-nuclear-says-radebe-20180604
KL: All nuclear powers must denuclearise, Straits Times,Reme Ahmad, South-east Asia Editor , 3 June 18
Malaysia’s Defence Minister Mohamad Sabu said yesterday that his country supports the move to denuclearise the Korean peninsula, but that all the nuclear powers should be stripped of their nuclear arsenal in the future.
Malaysia is also hopeful for a good outcome for the June 12 summit in Singapore between United States President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Mr Mohamad said in a media interview on the sidelines of the 17th Shangri-La Dialogue security conference.
“Malaysia is fully supportive of any commitment towards the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula. The problem is why only Korea? Why only Iran?
“Why not America, China, Russia, India, Pakistan? So that is monopoly.
“We hope that denuclearisation must be (for) all.”
He said that it was “dangerous for the world” to have the US or North Korea threatening each other with their nuclear weapons.
He described the Trump-Kim summit as a good start towards denuclearisation.
“Whether the meeting will be successful or not, that is another matter, than the fact they would even meet,” said Mr Mohamad, who was sworn in as Defence Minister two weeks ago.
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense Khalid Al Attiyah told an international security conference in Singapore that Qatar has “a lot of differences” with Iran but it does not mean “we go and fuel a war” in the region.
“Is it wise to call the United States and to call Israel to go and fight Iran? … Whether any third party is trying to push the region or some country in the region to start a war in Iran, this will be very dangerous,” he said.
He did not name any party but could be referring to Iran’s rival Saudi Arabia, which has also led a blockade of Qatar with its Persian Gulf allies since June last year, accusing Doha of supporting extremists and refusing to cut ties with Tehran.
“Iran is next door. We should call Iran, put all the files on the table and start to discuss to bring peace rather than war,” he said in a speech.
Responding to a question whether Qatar’s air bases could be used to launch airstrikes on Iran, al-Attiyah said that his country was not a “fan of war” and supported engagement and dialogue.
Qatar is hosting 10,000 U.S. troops stationed at sprawling al-Udeid Air Base as part of its campaign against the Islamic State group and the war in Afghanistan.
Al Attiyah called for salvaging a 2015 nuclear accord between world powers and Iran that offered Tehran sanctions relief for curbs on its nuclear program. The U.S. withdrew from the deal last month.
“Everyone should keep holding on to this and advance with this. In my own judgement, I think the United States is wiser than to enter in a war with Iran,” he said.
He also said Qatar is “firmly aligned” against terrorism and has implemented U.N. resolutions and penalties targeting militants.
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