North Korea's claim that a huge and mysterious explosion was caused by a civil engineering project might be true, South Korea's intelligence agency said yesterday.
The National Intelligence Service (NIS) told the National Assembly that last week's explosion, which reportedly kicked up a huge mushroom cloud, could be earth-removing work to build a dam.
PHOTO: AP
Pyongyang said the blast was a controlled explosion to prepare for construction of a hydro-electric project in Kimhyungjik county in Ryanggang Province.
"There might have been a blast to build a hydro-electric power dam near Kimhyungjik county or there might have been natural clouds with a peculiar [mushroom-like] shape," NIS said.
"We will continue checking on the incident," Yonhap news agency quoted NIS as telling the assembly's intelligence committee.
The state-financed Korea Aerospace Research Institute released satellite pictures of the scene but these were too unclear to give any clues about the cause of the blast, which sparked initial fears of a nuclear test.
A Unification Ministry official said the images taken by South Korea's Arirang No.1 satellite were of low resolution.
"We need some high-resolution images," he said.
No abnormal radiation levels have been detected in the region, but questions remain.
"Why energy-stricken North Korea would conduct a project at night cannot be understood," an editorial in Chosun Ilbo said Tuesday. "Why it took place when the whole nation were supposed to have a day of rest remains a question."
The area where the explosion took place is North Korea's main center for launching ballistic missiles, Im Young Sun, a North Korean defector who has visited the area, said on Tuesday.
He theorized that on the night of Sept. 8, a missile launching was being prepared to celebrate the nation's 56th birthday. The explosion of liquid nitrogen fuel could have happened when the missile was being fueled on a launching pad.
In other developments, the North is waiting out the US presidential election in order to bargain with the winner over its nuclear weapons program, according to a British diplomat who left Pyong-yang on Tuesday.
"The North Koreans were saying they were still committed to the six-party talks process, but weren't prepared to commit to a date," Foreign Office minister Bill Rammell told reporters at the Beijing airport on Tuesday.
At the last round of six-party talks on the North's nuclear crisis, the countries agreed to hold the next round by Sept. 30.
One factor "is the timing of the American presidential election," Rammell said. "I made clear to them my view that whoever wins the presidential election -- whether it's President Bush or Senator Kerry -- North Korea will be faced with broadly the same strategic policy from the United States, and this isn't just about the United States."
Asian perspectives of the US have shifted from a country once perceived as a force of “moral legitimacy” to something akin to “a landlord seeking rent,” Singaporean Minister for Defence Ng Eng Hen (黃永宏) said on the sidelines of an international security meeting. Ng said in a round-table discussion at the Munich Security Conference in Germany that assumptions undertaken in the years after the end of World War II have fundamentally changed. One example is that from the time of former US president John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address more than 60 years ago, the image of the US was of a country
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
BLIND COST CUTTING: A DOGE push to lay off 2,000 energy department workers resulted in hundreds of staff at a nuclear security agency being fired — then ‘unfired’ US President Donald Trump’s administration has halted the firings of hundreds of federal employees who were tasked with working on the nation’s nuclear weapons programs, in an about-face that has left workers confused and experts cautioning that the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE’s) blind cost cutting would put communities at risk. Three US officials who spoke to The Associated Press said up to 350 employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) were abruptly laid off late on Thursday, with some losing access to e-mail before they’d learned they were fired, only to try to enter their offices on Friday morning
CONFIDENT ON DEAL: ‘Ukraine wants a seat at the table, but wouldn’t the people of Ukraine have a say? It’s been a long time since an election, the US president said US President Donald Trump on Tuesday criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and added that he was more confident of a deal to end the war after US-Russia talks. Trump increased pressure on Zelenskiy to hold elections and chided him for complaining about being frozen out of talks in Saudi Arabia. The US president also suggested that he could meet Russian President Vladimir Putin before the end of the month as Washington overhauls its stance toward Russia. “I’m very disappointed, I hear that they’re upset about not having a seat,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida when asked about the Ukrainian
RSS