North Korea can likely revive reactor in six months, needs years for more bombs

By Louis Charbonneau

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - North Korea can probably restart a mothballed plutonium-producing reactor in six months if it is determined to do so and the site has suffered no major structural damage, but it may take years to produce significant new atom bomb material.

Pyongyang announced on Tuesday that it would revive the aged Yongbyon five-megawatt research reactor that yields bomb-grade plutonium, but stressed it was seeking a deterrent capacity.

Several nuclear experts familiar with North Korea's program said it would probably take the North Koreans about half a year to get the Yongbyon research reactor up and running, provided it has not suffered significant damage from neglect.

The decision to restart the reactor was the latest chapter in an escalating crisis that erupted after Pyongyang was hit with U.N. sanctions for conducting a third nuclear test in February, and the United States and South Korea staged military drills that North Korea viewed as "hostile."

The Yongbyon reactor has been technically out of operation for years. But Siegfried Hecker - a Stanford University nuclear scientist who is believed to have been the last Westerner to visit the Yongbyon nuclear complex - said the Yongbyon research reactor has been on standby since July 2007.

"If they restart the reactor, which I estimate will take them at least six months, they can produce about six kilograms of plutonium (roughly one bomb's worth) per year," Hecker said in an interview published on Tuesday on a Stanford website.

He said that it would take the North approximately three to four years before it could get another 12 kg (26 lbs) of plutonium, which would suffice for two more weapons.

Satellite images published by 38North, a specialist North Korea website, showed new construction activity at the reactor site from early February until the end of March. It said the imagery indicated that construction had begun along a roadway and toward the back of the reactor building.

(http://38north.org/2013/04/yongbyon040313/)

NO FOREIGN HELP NEEDED, EXPERTS SAY

Isolated North Korea occasionally lets nuclear experts like Hecker into the country, most likely to persuade them that its nuclear capabilities are not imaginary, U.N. diplomats and officials say.

Hecker added that when he last visited North Korea in 2010, he estimated that the country had a stockpile of 24 to 42 kg (53 to 93 lbs) of plutonium, roughly four to eight bombs worth. If the country's February nuclear test used plutonium - which is not clear - the stocks would be about five to six kg lower, he said.

North Korea has repeatedly threatened to use nuclear weapons to attack the United States and its bases in South Korea, but Hecker said he was skeptical about Pyongyang's ability to hit targets on U.S. or South Korean territory.

Olli Heinonen, former head of the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) safeguards department, told Reuters he had a similar prediction, though he said it was possible North Korea could have the research reactor running in less than six months.

"We don't know how much preparatory work they've done," said Heinonen, who is currently at Harvard University and has visited North Korea and met with North Korean scientists.

Both Hecker and Heinonen said North Korea could most likely restart the reactor without any foreign assistance, despite U.N., U.S. and other sanctions aimed at curtailing its ability to purchase nuclear and missile technology.

A U.S. official concurred with Hecker and Heinonen.

"North Korea's assertion that it intends to bring Yongbyon back on line can't be easily written off as an insurmountable hurdle," the official said on condition of anonymity.

Mark Fitzpatrick of the International Institute for Strategic Studies think tank in London, however, said there was a possibility that the Yongbyon reactor has been rendered inoperable for unknown reasons.

"It's been a mystery to me why they haven't started it up before this," he said. "The most logical answer is that they couldn't ... But there's no certainty here."

If the reactor is functional, Fitzpatrick said, the half-year timeline for restarting it made sense.

URANIUM ENRICHMENT

IAEA spokeswoman Gil Tudor said North Korea's decision to restart Yongbyon was "another deeply regrettable development, which is in clear violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions."

The Security Council has repeatedly sanctioned North Korea for its nuclear tests and repeated missile launches, and ordered it to abandon both its nuclear and missile programs.

Heinonen said North Korea has already mothballed and restarted the five-megawatt graphite-moderate research reactor before. It shut down the plant after signing the "Agreed Framework," a 1994 deal with the United States under which Pyongyang agreed to freeze Yongbyon in exchange for heating oil and construction of newer light-water reactors.

Pyongyang began to restart the reactor in late 2002 after Washington accused it of secretly developing a parallel uranium enrichment program in violation of the 1994 deal. Washington ceased aid to the North and Pyongyang accused it of reneging on its promise to build the light-water nuclear reactors.

North Korea then expelled all inspectors from the IAEA and in 2003 withdrew from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. In 2006, it tested its first nuclear device, using plutonium from Yongbyon, followed by two more in 2009 and earlier this year.

Certain technical challenges await the North Koreans. In 2008 they destroyed the Yongbyon reactor's cooling tower as a confidence-building step in U.S.-led multilateral negotiations aimed at reducing tensions on the Korean peninsula.

But the reduction in tensions was short lived. Six-nation aid-for-disarmament talks between the two Koreas, China, Russia, Japan and the United States have been stalled for years.

Heinonen said that either North Korea must build a new cooling tower or create an underground cooling plant, like one that was under construction at a site in Syria that Israel bombed in 2007. Western intelligence sources have said North Korea helped build the Syrian reactor, which the government of President Bashar al-Assad has said was not a nuclear site.

David Albright, a former weapons inspector and head of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security think tank, said it was important not to underestimate the nuclear capabilities of the North Koreans or their determination to live up to their word.

"North Korea huffs and puffs a lot, but underneath that they pretty much do as they say," said Albright, who met with North Korean nuclear scientists in Pyongyang in 2011. "They have been saying they want to improve the quality of their nuclear weapons and they may very well do that."

As well as reviving the reactor at Yongbyon, the North's only known source of plutonium for its nuclear arms program, Pyongyang's official KCNA news agency said a uranium enrichment plant would be put back into operation.

Hecker, who visited the enrichment plant in 2010, said North Korea has a good safety record for its five-megawatt research reactor, but he voiced concerns about the new plant it intends to construct.

"I am much more concerned about the safety of the new light-water reactor they are building," he told Reuters without elaborating.

(Reporting by Louis Charbonneau; Additional reporting by Paul Eckert and Tabassum Zakaria in Washington; Editing by Warren Strobel, Mary Milliken and Eric Beech)

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Obama needs to charm skeptical Israelis in visit

JERUSALEM (AP) — Barack Obama's vow to take his message straight to the public during his first presidential visit to Israel will be a tough sell with many Israelis who consider him naive, too soft on the nation's enemies and cool to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Overcoming this perception will require a major charm offensive and an uncompromising U.S. pledge to stand behind Israel, especially when it comes to stopping Iran's suspect nuclear program. Without a major initiative in his pocket for making peace between Israel and the Palestinians, the U.S. president will use his three-day visit, which begins on Wednesday, primarily as a means to convey a close alliance with Israel.

Rather than address Israeli leaders in parliament, as his predecessor George W. Bush did, Obama will deliver his main speech at a Jerusalem auditorium packed with university students. Tickets for Obama's speech on Thursday at a 1,000-seat convention center are much in demand, and students are entering ticket raffles across the country.

"He could have spoken to politicians or tycoons, but instead he chose to speak to us," said Lotem Cazes, a 25-year-old political science student at Ben-Gurion University in the southern city of Beersheba. "It's very moving. Even though he knows that not everyone likes him here he is still coming and trying to help."

In another effort to woo the Israeli public, Obama granted an exclusive interview with Channel 2 TV at the White House.

"What this trip allows me to do is once again to connect to the Israeli people and there is no substitute to that. The bonds between our two countries are so strong, not just shared values but shared families, shared businesses," he said in the interview, which aired Thursday. "And for me to be able to directly speak to the Israeli people and talk about our unshakable commitment to Israel, but also to talk about hopefully a shared vision of a more peaceful and prosperous future during a time when we know there is a lot of tumult in the area, it is a great opportunity for me. I'm really looking forward to it."

Throughout the interview, he referred to Netanyahu by his nickname "Bibi."

The U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv launched a Facebook competition for 20 tickets to hear the president and thousands applied. The embassy also has unveiled a life-sized cutout of the president so people can pose for photos with his likeness.

American flags are lining Israeli highways and an enthusiastic embrace of Obama would start a new chapter in his relations with Israel.

Disappointment has marked Obama's previous visits to the region. On those trips, he passed over Israel and stopped in Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, where he delivered a landmark speech aimed at improving ties with the Muslim world. The speech, in which he criticized Israeli West Bank settlements, was seen in Israel as overly appeasing to the Arabs at their expense.

"I don't feel like he's done anything special for Israel," said Oshri Biton, a 40-year-old Jerusalem merchant. "As president, he has to be a friend of Israel's. But he's a friend who pats you on the shoulder. He doesn't give you a hug."

Israelis also will be looking for reassurance from Obama over his stance on Iran's suspect nuclear program.

Israel views a nuclear armed Iran as a threat to its existence, and Netanyahu has hinted at launching a pre-emptive military strike on the Islamic Republic. Obama has said that while he prefers using diplomacy over force, all options remain on the table. Tehran denies it is seeking atomic weapons, insisting its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.

Relations during Obama's first term in office were mostly characterized by high-profile spats with Netanyahu, over peacemaking efforts with the Palestinians, Israeli settlement building in the West Bank and Iran. In public appearances together, the two have shown little personal chemistry and looked uncomfortable with one another.

Eytan Gilboa, an expert on Israel-U.S. relations at Bar-Ilan University near Tel Aviv, said most Israelis made a distinction between the United States, Obama the person and Obama the president.

A survey Gilboa conducted last year found that more than 90 percent of Israelis polled had a favorable opinion of America and Americans. More than two-thirds liked Obama personally, but fewer than 50 percent approved of his Mideast policies and his treatment of Netanyahu. When asked about specific policies, only one-third approved of Obama's approach to Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking and even fewer approved of his policies toward Iran, Gilboa added.

The survey of 500 Israelis had a margin of error of 4 percentage points.

"The most powerful explanation is that Israelis think he cares less about Israel and more about other countries," Gilboa said.

Under the Obama administration, Israel has enjoyed its greatest security cooperation ever. The president and his team have been lauded by Israeli defense officials, particularly for backing the "Iron Dome" anti-missile defense system that recently shot down hundreds of rockets during a round of fighting against Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip. But the goodwill hasn't filtered down to the public.

Obama's visit, at the start of his second term and just as a new Israeli government takes shape, looks to open a new page and send a message to Israel — as well as its adversaries — that the U.S.-Israel bond is unshakable.

While policy issues are sure to dominate Obama's meetings with Netanyahu and President Shimon Peres, he is not expected to exert major pressure and most of his visit is expected to be centered on ceremonial events and his efforts to seek public appeal.

Obama is scheduled to visit the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial and lay a wreath on the grave of the slain Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. He is to tour the Israel Museum and an exposition of products from the country's booming high-tech sector.

Ben Rhodes, Obama's deputy national security adviser, said Thursday that the president would reinforce U.S. support for the Palestinian Authority and would meet with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas during a trip to the West Bank city of Ramallah.

The Palestinians aren't too giddy about the president either. Early in his administration, Obama T-shirts were a big seller on Palestinian streets after he pushed Netanyahu to curb the construction of settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, where the Palestinians hope to build their state. That, however, gave way to disappointment, especially after the White House refused to support the Palestinian's bid for independence at the United Nations. In recent days, posters of Obama have been vandalized in the Palestinian territories.

Obama sought to restart peace talks in 2010, but the effort collapsed within weeks. The Palestinians refuse to resume negotiations unless Israel stops building settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem. Netanyahu says talks should resume without preconditions, and says the Palestinians didn't return to the table even when he imposed a 10-month construction slowdown. He has allowed stepped-up construction in the territories since the United Nations moved to recognize a de facto state of Palestine in November.

Amnon Cavari, an expert in American presidential politics at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, a college near Tel Aviv, said he didn't think Obama would try to use the Israeli outreach effort as a way to pressure the government into concessions.

If anything, he said it had more to do with domestic American issues. Obama's shunning of Israel in the first term did not sit well with Jewish-American voters and a show of friendship could go a long way for Democrats in 2014 midterm elections.

"In the next four years there are going to be major changes in the Middle East, one way or the other," he said, referring primarily to issues over Iran. "Coming to Israel conveys the following message: The situation is not simple. The United States is behind you.'"

____

Follow Heller on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/aronhellerap

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Analysis: EU needs "who lost Italy" debate on austerity

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European policymakers should be asking themselves "who lost Italy" after a grassroots revolt against austerity, unemployment and the political elite caused an electoral earthquake in the euro zone's number three economy.

Instead, most are insisting that their policy mix to fight the currency area's debt crisis is right, even though the latest EU forecasts have pushed any prospect of meaningful economic recovery in southern Europe back into the middle distance.

A surge in support for anti-euro populist Beppe Grillo and the surprise resurrection of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi on an anti-austerity platform in last week's election have plunged Rome into political deadlock.

Italy, which had been governed by respected technocrat Mario Monti for 15 months since Berlusconi's last government fell, is far from the worst affected by the three-year-old debt crisis.

Unemployment there stands at 11.7 percent, less than half the rate of Greece and Spain, where one of every two young people is without a job.

If a milder recession and less severe spending cuts and tax rises can cause such a social and electoral revolt in Italy, the risks of an explosion in Greece and Spain ought to be greater.

Yet the official reaction from Brussels and Frankfurt is to act as if nothing, or almost nothing, had happened.

"The crisis is not yet over and efforts must not be relaxed," European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said in a joint statement with Monti two days after the election.

At a Reuters Summit on the future of the euro zone, Barroso appealed to European leaders to stay the course and "not give in to populism". Despite the bleak growth forecasts, structural reforms were starting to bear fruit, he said.

Barroso reeled off figures showing current account deficits in Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece were shrinking and Ireland was back in surplus. Exports from Spain and Portugal were rising and the labor competitiveness gap between northern and southern Europe was narrowing.

Those numbers have a flipside. Payments imbalances are down mostly because those countries' imports have shrunk due to sinking demand. The labor cost gap has declined largely due to mass layoffs in southern states rather than productivity gains.

Exports account for less than 20 percent of the Iberian countries' output, less than half Germany's ratio and too little to offer a fast track to recovery.

SOCIAL CRISIS

While the European Central Bank removed the danger of a financial meltdown of the euro zone with its bond-buying plan, there is now a growing risk of a social crisis that could lead to one or more southern countries leaving the currency area.

"I absolutely think it can get a lot worse," said Clemens Fuest, the incoming chief of Germany's respected ZEW economic research institute.

"There is really the current plausible scenario for a break-up of the currency union. It may very well be that in these countries at some point the population will say 'we don't believe things will get better'," he told the Reuters Summit.

The degree of despair would have to be high to risk leaving the euro area, "but if things continue, if unemployment goes up to 30 percent... in Spain, there certainly is a danger that might happen".

Zsolt Darvas of the Bruegel think-tank in Brussels said southern European countries were trapped in a downward spiral of economic contraction and rising debt for an unknown duration but had no alternative to fiscal consolidation.

The only way out was to alter Europe's fiscal policy mix by stimulating demand in northern Europe, notably with tax cuts in Germany, and giving the European Investment Bank a huge capital increase to lend to companies in southern Europe, he said.

Using the EIB to inject the equivalent of 2-3 percent of gross domestic product a year into south European economies for a limited number of years would be the most effective and politically feasible way to revive growth, Darvas said.

No such plans are under consideration in the European Union, and German, Dutch and Finnish voters remain deeply hostile to any fiscal transfers to southern Europe.

With Germany facing its own general election in September, followed by the usual period of coalition negotiations, it is hard to imagine any major policy shift this year.

EU growth initiatives so far have been on a far more modest scale, including a small boost to EIB capital last year and a recently created 6 billion euro youth employment fund due to take effect next January to support job training and mobility.

Monti warned repeatedly last year that anti-European populists would gain ground in the south unless the euro zone did more to support his efforts and those of Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy by bringing down borrowing costs.

Those costs did fall significantly after the ECB announced its bond-buying initiative in September, but Monti's appeal for more financial solidarity from Germany fell on deaf ears.

Whether his election debacle, after European leaders encouraged him to enter the race, will sway minds in the EU remains to be seen.

For the moment, their key priority is to help Ireland and Portugal return to capital markets later this year to demonstrate success for their bailout and adjustment programs.

French Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici, also speaking at the Reuters Summit, was one of the rare voices to say the Italian voter backlash showed that austerity had gone far enough and it was time to strengthen growth.

His German counterpart, Wolfgang Schaeuble, a leading advocate of austerity during the crisis, drew no such lesson, saying European policies were not to blame for greater inequality and economic divergence between north and south.

"We need to continue on this path, but we will have setbacks," Schaeuble said.

It may take another, bigger jolt than Italy's election to spur euro zone leaders to change course, if they ever do.

(Writing by Paul Taylor; Editing by Jeremy Gaunt)

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Analysis: EU needs "who lost Italy" debate on austerity

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European policymakers should be asking themselves "who lost Italy" after a grassroots revolt against austerity, unemployment and the political elite caused an electoral earthquake in the euro zone's number three economy.

Instead, most are insisting that their policy mix to fight the currency area's debt crisis is right, even though the latest EU forecasts have pushed any prospect of meaningful economic recovery in southern Europe back into the middle distance.

A surge in support for anti-euro populist Beppe Grillo and the surprise resurrection of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi on an anti-austerity platform in last week's election have plunged Rome into political deadlock.

Italy, which had been governed by respected technocrat Mario Monti for 15 months since Berlusconi's last government fell, is far from the worst affected by the three-year-old debt crisis.

Unemployment there stands at 11.7 percent, less than half the rate of Greece and Spain, where one of every two young people is without a job.

If a milder recession and less severe spending cuts and tax rises can cause such a social and electoral revolt in Italy, the risks of an explosion in Greece and Spain ought to be greater.

Yet the official reaction from Brussels and Frankfurt is to act as if nothing, or almost nothing, had happened.

"The crisis is not yet over and efforts must not be relaxed," European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said in a joint statement with Monti two days after the election.

At a Reuters Summit on the future of the euro zone, Barroso appealed to European leaders to stay the course and "not give in to populism". Despite the bleak growth forecasts, structural reforms were starting to bear fruit, he said.

Barroso reeled off figures showing current account deficits in Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece were shrinking and Ireland was back in surplus. Exports from Spain and Portugal were rising and the labor competitiveness gap between northern and southern Europe was narrowing.

Those numbers have a flipside. Payments imbalances are down mostly because those countries' imports have shrunk due to sinking demand. The labor cost gap has declined largely due to mass layoffs in southern states rather than productivity gains.

Exports account for less than 20 percent of the Iberian countries' output, less than half Germany's ratio and too little to offer a fast track to recovery.

SOCIAL CRISIS

While the European Central Bank removed the danger of a financial meltdown of the euro zone with its bond-buying plan, there is now a growing risk of a social crisis that could lead to one or more southern countries leaving the currency area.

"I absolutely think it can get a lot worse," said Clemens Fuest, the incoming chief of Germany's respected ZEW economic research institute.

"There is really the current plausible scenario for a break-up of the currency union. It may very well be that in these countries at some point the population will say 'we don't believe things will get better'," he told the Reuters Summit.

The degree of despair would have to be high to risk leaving the euro area, "but if things continue, if unemployment goes up to 30 percent... in Spain, there certainly is a danger that might happen".

Zsolt Darvas of the Bruegel think-tank in Brussels said southern European countries were trapped in a downward spiral of economic contraction and rising debt for an unknown duration but had no alternative to fiscal consolidation.

The only way out was to alter Europe's fiscal policy mix by stimulating demand in northern Europe, notably with tax cuts in Germany, and giving the European Investment Bank a huge capital increase to lend to companies in southern Europe, he said.

Using the EIB to inject the equivalent of 2-3 percent of gross domestic product a year into south European economies for a limited number of years would be the most effective and politically feasible way to revive growth, Darvas said.

No such plans are under consideration in the European Union, and German, Dutch and Finnish voters remain deeply hostile to any fiscal transfers to southern Europe.

With Germany facing its own general election in September, followed by the usual period of coalition negotiations, it is hard to imagine any major policy shift this year.

EU growth initiatives so far have been on a far more modest scale, including a small boost to EIB capital last year and a recently created 6 billion euro youth employment fund due to take effect next January to support job training and mobility.

Monti warned repeatedly last year that anti-European populists would gain ground in the south unless the euro zone did more to support his efforts and those of Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy by bringing down borrowing costs.

Those costs did fall significantly after the ECB announced its bond-buying initiative in September, but Monti's appeal for more financial solidarity from Germany fell on deaf ears.

Whether his election debacle, after European leaders encouraged him to enter the race, will sway minds in the EU remains to be seen.

For the moment, their key priority is to help Ireland and Portugal return to capital markets later this year to demonstrate success for their bailout and adjustment programs.

French Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici, also speaking at the Reuters Summit, was one of the rare voices to say the Italian voter backlash showed that austerity had gone far enough and it was time to strengthen growth.

His German counterpart, Wolfgang Schaeuble, a leading advocate of austerity during the crisis, drew no such lesson, saying European policies were not to blame for greater inequality and economic divergence between north and south.

"We need to continue on this path, but we will have setbacks," Schaeuble said.

It may take another, bigger jolt than Italy's election to spur euro zone leaders to change course, if they ever do.

(Writing by Paul Taylor; Editing by Jeremy Gaunt)

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