North Korea: U.S. Expert Says Uranium Capacity Seems to Be Increasing, Possibly for Nuclear Weapons

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/13/world/asia/north-korea-us-expert-says-uranium-capacity-seems-to-be-increasing-possibly-for-nuclear-weapons.html

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North Korea appears to be expanding its capacity to produce uranium, which could be used to increase its stockpile of nuclear weapons, an American nuclear expert said Wednesday. In a report on the website 38 North, which monitors North Korea, the expert, Jeffrey Lewis, said recent satellite imagery showed that in the last year, North Korea had begun to refurbish a major uranium mill in Pyongsan, a county in the southern part of the country. “The renovation suggests that North Korea is preparing to expand the production of uranium from a nearby mine,” Mr. Lewis, the director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, said in the report. North Korea might intend to enrich the uranium to expand its stockpile of nuclear weapons, he said, or it might use the uranium to produce fuel for an experimental light water reactor.