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."
Showcasing phallus-shaped portable shrines and pink penis candies, Japan’s annual fertility festival yesterday teemed with tourists, couples and families elated by its open display of sex. The spring Kanamara Matsuri near Tokyo features colorfully dressed worshipers carrying a trio of giant phallic-shaped objects as they parade through the street with glee. The festival, as legend has it, honors a local blacksmith in the Edo Period (1603-1868) who forged an iron dildo to break the teeth of a sharp-toothed demon inhabiting a woman’s vagina that had been castrating young men on their wedding nights. A 1m black steel phallus sits in the courtyard of
HIGH HOPES: The power source is expected to have a future, as it is not dependent on the weather or light, and could be useful for places with large desalination facilities A Japanese water plant is harnessing the natural process of osmosis to generate renewable energy that could one day become a common power source. The possibility of generating power from osmosis — when water molecules pass from a less salty solution to a more salty one — has long been known. However, actually generating energy from that has proved more complicated, in part due the difficulty of designing the membrane through which the molecules pass. Engineers in Fukuoka, Japan, and their private partners think they might have cracked it, and have opened what is only the world’s second osmotic power plant. It generates
JAN. 1 CLAUSE: As military service is voluntary, applications for permission to stay abroad for over three months for men up to age 45 must, in principle, be granted A little-noticed clause in sweeping changes to Germany’s military service policy has triggered an uproar after it emerged that the law requires men aged up to 45 to get permission from the armed forces before any significant stay abroad, even in peacetime. The legislation, which went into effect on Jan. 1 aims to bolster the military and demands all 18-year-old men fill out a questionnaire to gauge their suitability to serve in the armed forces, but stops short of conscription. If the “modernized” model fails to pull in enough recruits, parliament will be compelled to discuss the reintroduction of compulsory service, German
Hundreds of Filipinos and tourists flocked to a sun-bleached field north of Manila yesterday, on Good Friday, to witness one of the country’s most blood-soaked displays of religious fervor, undeterred by rising fuel prices. Scores of bare-chested flagellants with covered faces walked barefoot through the dusty streets of Pampanga Province’s San Fernando as they flogged their backs with bamboo whips in the scorching heat. Agence France-Presse (AFP) journalists said they saw devotees deliberately puncturing their skin with glass shards attached to a small wooden paddle to ensure their bleeding during the ritual, a way to atone for sins and seek miracles from
RSS