{Intelligence chief accuses Pyongyang of restarting a plutonium reactor and developing more ballistic missiles.}<\/p>\n
North Korea has allegedly expanded its nuclear programme and restarted a plutonium reactor at its main nuclear facility, the United States’ intelligence chief said.<\/p>\n
“Pyongyang continues to produce fissile material and develop a submarine-launched ballistic missile,” Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told a US Senate committee late on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
North Korea’s recent missile and nuclear activity has alarmed its regional neighbours, in particular South Korea and Japan, and provoked warnings from the US, China, and the United Nations.<\/p>\n
Clapper also told the senators during his report on the annual Worldwide Threat Assessment that Pyongyang is supposedly trying to develop a mobile, long-range, nuclear missile system – though it had “not been flight-tested”.<\/p>\n
The restart of the plutonium reactor at the Yongbyon facility meant that Pyongyang “could begin to recover plutonium from the reactor’s spent fuel within a matter of weeks to months”, the threat assessment said.<\/p>\n
It would take a year to recover enough plutonium to make a bomb, South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency reported.<\/p>\n
On Sunday, North Korea, led by leader Kim Jong Un, launched a long-range ballistic missile and sent a satellite into orbit.<\/p>\n
On January 6 it detonated a nuclear device in its fourth nuclear test since 2006.<\/p>\n
On Monday, the South Korean military fired warning shots at a military vessel from the North that crossed their maritime border.<\/p>\n
Source:Al Jazeera:[US: North Korea expanding its nuclear programme->http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2016\/02\/north-korea-expanding-nuclear-programme-160210034255346.html]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{Intelligence chief accuses Pyongyang of restarting a plutonium reactor and developing more ballistic missiles.} North Korea has allegedly expanded its nuclear programme and restarted a plutonium reactor at its main nuclear facility, the United States’ intelligence chief said. “Pyongyang continues to produce fissile material and develop a submarine-launched ballistic missile,” Director of National Intelligence James […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2000072080,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[101],"byline":[2474],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-23112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics-48","tag-internationl","byline-al-jazeera"],"bylines":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":{"id":2000072080,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton23112.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton23112.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton23112.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton23112.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton23112.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton23112.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23112"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23112\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000072080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23112"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=23112"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=23112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}