In a US presidential race dominated by national security, what some see as the world's biggest nuclear danger -- North Korea -- is only now emerging as a hot political topic.
It's a difficult subject for Republicans and Democrats alike. North Korea doesn't dominate the news the way Iraq does, making it an unlikely issue for winning votes. Moreover, both parties are vulnerable to criticism on their handling of the North Korean threat.
President George W. Bush has said that he will not tolerate nuclear weapons in North Korea. Yet North Korea, long believed to have possessed one or two nuclear weapons, has restarted its weapons program and could soon have several more, if it doesn't have them already. Multinational negotiations appear to have produced little.
Republicans argue actions of the Clinton administration led to the current standoff.
They say a 1994 agreement for North Korea to freeze its nuclear program in exchange for food and energy assistance lacked safeguards to prevent cheating. That allowed North Korea to develop a secret uranium-based weapons program, they say, even while the older plutonium program was stopped as promised.
Although North Korea hasn't been at the forefront for most of his campaign, Senator John Kerry has accused Bush repeatedly of being so fixated on Iraq that he ignored the danger posed by Kim Jong-il's government.
Kerry stepped up the criticisms after an explosion last Thursday that raised fears Pyongyang had conducted a nuclear test. The North Koreans say the explosion was the result of the demolition of a mountain for a hydroelectric project. US officials say they do not believe it was a nuclear blast, accidental or otherwise.
"The mere fact that we are even contemplating a nuclear weapons test by North Korea highlights a massive national security failure by President Bush," Kerry said on Sunday.
In a telephone call to The New York Times, Kerry accused the administration of letting "a nuclear nightmare" develop in North Korea.
Bush spokesman Scott McClellan accused Kerry of wanting to return to "the failed Clinton administration policy" on North Korea.
"That failed policy let North Korea dupe the United States. It would be the wrong approach to go down that road again," he said on Monday aboard Air Force One en route to a Bush campaign stop.
Bush has stressed that the US will work with the negotiating partners -- South Korea, Japan, China and Russia -- toward a verifiable dismantling of Pyongyang's nuclear weapons programs.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
RSS