Nation & world briefing
U.S. says North Korea
has restarted reactor
Warren P. Strobel
Knight Ridder Newspapers (KRT)
WASHINGTON — North Korea
has restarted a mothballed reactor
capable of making plutonium for
nuclear weapons in the latest chal
lenge to President Bush’s refusal to
talk directly with the communist
state, senior U.S. officials con
firmed Wednesday.
The reactor at Yongbyon, frozen
since 1994 under a now-defunct
deal with the United States, began
operations recently, said the offi
cials, speaking on condition of
anonymity.
The officials called the develop
ment provocative but cautioned
that it would take the reactor rough
ly a year to produce enough plutoni
um for a single nuclear weapon.
It would be far more worrisome,
they said, if the reclusive North
Korean leadership restarted a sep
arate reprocessing facility that can
quickly extract plutonium from
thousands of spent nuclear fuel
rods now in storage.
The move underlined the
North’s ability to continue raising
the stakes with the United States
on the eve of a possible U.S.-led
war with Iraq.
“Certainly it demonstrates a de
sire to continue their nuclear
weapons development program and
their intent to apply pressure on the
United States,” said a U.S. official.
News that the reactor was back in
operation — a fact that one official
said was captured by U.S. spy satel
lites — came little more than a day
after the inauguration of South Ko
rean President Roh Moo-hyun.
It also came hours after Secre
tary of State Colin Powell returned
from a trip to Japan, China and
South Korea in which he garnered
little support for a tough stance to
ward the North.
White House National Security
Council spokesman Sean McCor
mack said North Korea isolates it
self further from the international
community with each step it takes
to advance its nuclear capability.
“I think this is another example
of the regime of North Korea taking
escalatory actions in order to gain
concessions,” he said. “We seek a
peaceful diplomatic solution, but all
options remain on the table.”
U.S. allies in East Asia, particu
larly South Korea, have urged the
administration to begin negotia
tions with North Korean leader
Kim Jong II.
The North has taken a series of
steps in recent months to ratchet up
tensions, most recently firing a short
range missile into the Sea of Japan
the day before Roh’s inauguration.
Restarting the Yongbyon reactor
“would be another step in a series of
provocative actions North Korea has
taken to challenge the international
community,” State Department
spokesman Louis Fintor said.
It is “a very serious step, but it’s
not an unexpected one,” Fintor said.
The United States is consulting
with its allies but remains commit
ted to a peaceful solution to the
crisis, Fintor said.
© 2003, Knight Ridder/Tribune
Information Services.
Protesters flood lawmakers
with calls in ‘virtual march’
Dana Hull
Knight Ridder Newspapers (KRT)
SAN JOSE, Calif. — Opponents
of a U.S.-led war against Iraq bom
barded Senate offices and the
White House on Wednesday by fax,
phone and e-mail in what organiz
ers billed as the first “virtual
march” on Washington.
Time constraints, child care,
commuting conflicts and work
schedules make attending demon
strations difficult for many people.
But the “virtual march,” coordinat
ed by the Win Without War coali
tion, was accessible to anyone with
a phone or a modem.
“I started at 7 a.m. and I finally
got through to (Sen. Dianne) Fein
stein’s office at 10 a.m.,” said Lin
da Carmichael, 57, who lives in
Willow Glen, Calif. “I haven’t gone
to any of the anti-war marches,
mostly out of laziness. This seemed
to be a wonderful way to have my
voice heard without having to do a
lot of work. But it ended up taking
more time then I thought. I had to
keep hitting redial.”
Fax-blasting members of Con
gress and making phone calls about
a partieular issue is nothing new,
and indeed scores of citizens have
contacted their representatives in
recent months on everything from
tax cuts tp prescription drug cover
age. But Wednesday’s anti-war ef
fort highlights how technology con
tinues to influence the way protests
are orchestrated.
“In the Gulf War, people did not
use e-mail that much, and cell
phones were rare,” said Howard
Rheingold, author of “Smart Mobs:
The Next Social Revolution.”
“Now there’s the possibility of war
at a time when the Internet is part
of popular culture, and people are
increasingly sophisticated about e
mail and cell phones. Text messag
ing is big in a lot of places outside
of the U.S. A year from now, that
will be different.”
Rheingold predicts sending text
messages by cell phone, which is
popular in many countries outside
the United States, will spread here
and become yet another tool for
organizing protests.
Virtual protest organizer Win
Without War is a coalition of 32
liberal organizations that includes
the National Council of Churches,
the Sierra Club, the NAACP and
MoveOn.org. The coalition sup
ports rigorous United Nations
weapons inspections but believes
that a pre-emptive military inva
sion of Iraq will increase the likeli
hood of terrorist attacks and dam
age the economy.
It’s impossible to determine how
many people took part in Wednes
day’s virtual march, and the White
House declined to comment when
asked about call volume to the
White House switchboard. Orga
nizers estimate that more than
one million phone calls were
made, in part because 400,000
people pre-registered their intent
to participate on Win Without
War’s Web site.
© 2003, San Jose Mercury News (San
Jose, Calif.). Distributed by Knight
Ridder/Tribune Information Services.
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