While Trump and Kim Talk, North Korea Appears to Expand Its Nuclear Arsenal

[brooklynite]

Source: Wall Street Journal

President Trump’s summit diplomacy has raised hopes around the world: Is North Korea now willing to surrender its nuclear arsenal?

Analysts who pore over satellite images of the isolated country paint a different picture: North Korea’s scientists have ramped up production of long-range missiles and the fissile material used in nuclear weapons.

Shipping containers, trucks and crowds of people moving materials and instruments at North Korea’s key weapons facilities like the Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Center and the Sanum-dong missile production site, suggest North Korea has continued producing fissile material and intercontinental ballistic missiles, according to analysts Jenny Town, a fellow at the Stimson Center, a think tank specialized on security issues, and Jeffrey Lewis, a researcher at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, a research center analyzing the spread of weapons of mass destruction.

Analysts at the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency say North Korea’s scientists may have produced 12 nuclear weapons since the first Trump-Kim meeting in Singapore last year. In total, Pyongyang could currently possess between 20 and 60 nuclear bombs, according to estimates by various security analysts.

Read more: https://www.wsj.com/articles/while-trump-and-kim-talk-north-korea-appears-to-expand-its-nuclear-arsenal-11564059627

[keithbvadu2]

1. That just 'cannot' be true about Trump's love, Kim.

That just 'cannot' be true about Trump's love, Kim.

[Ramsey Barner]

2. It's just more Fake Nukes. The media is So Dishonest.

[no_hypocrisy]

3. Kim's Great White Pigeon.

[soryang]

4. You can't get something for nothing

Jenny Town has also said after the Hanoi debacle, that Trump's negotiating technique shows "no learning curve."

If the hybrid warfare of unabated sanctions and increasing US demands continue, oh well.

[kimbutgar]

5. He wants a North Korea fat donnie tower

That us why he is kissing up to kim. It’s all about building the first branded vanity name hotel there. Nothing to further American interests. I wish someone would would expose the letter of intent.

[Everyman Jackal]

6. Nothing to worry about North Korea's latest short-range ballistic missiles test.

Trump says they were just "very standard" whatever that means.

[soryang]

7. Paragraph about DIA analysts false, had to be retracted by WSJ

Wall Street Journal Corrects ‘Bombshell’ Report On North Korea Nukes

The Wall Street Journal quietly added a massive correction to a story that, if accurate, would have had significant implications for nuclear talks between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

Wall Street Journal Corrects ‘Bombshell’ Report On North Korea Nukes
The National Interest
Chuck Ross
,The National Interest•July 28, 2019

https://news.yahoo.com/wall-street-journal-corrects-bombshell-194300434.html

But the reporting about DIA’s assessment is inaccurate, the newspaper now says. The article has been edited to remove the DIA reference, and a correction has been attached at the bottom of the piece.

“A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that analysts at the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency said North Korea could have produced 12 nuclear weapons since the Trump-Kim handshake in Singapore in June 2018. (July 27, 2019)”

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/wall-street-journal-corrects-%E2%80%98bombshell%E2%80%99-report-north-korea-nukes-69831