China Confidential
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
North Korean Nuclear Test Threat Confirms China Confidential Exclusive, Spoils Obama's 100th Day
On Wednesday, April 22, China Confidential reported--exclusively--that North Korea was planning another nuclear test. Click here for our report, which said: "China Confidential analysts believe the North is moving toward an early July detonation--three years after the North's provocative launch of a long-range rocket, and three months after the most recent North Korean rocket launch, which took place on April 5.
"The 2006 test-firing of the Taepodong-2 missile was followed by Pyongyang's first nuclear device detonation on October 9 of that year.
"China Confidential accurately predicted both events.
"North Korea also plans to launch several medium-range rockets before the end of 2009."
The Times reports:
North Korea has threatened to carry out a second nuclear test unless the United National Security Council apologises for criticism of its rocket launch earlier this month.
The threat raises the stakes in Pyongyang’s strategy of brinkmanship with the international community, coming days after the isolated Stalinist state announced that it had restarted extracting plutonium from spent fuel rods at its nuclear plant.
North Korea’s Foreign Ministry said that the country would be compelled to take additional "self-defensive measures" unless the Security Council apologised immediately. “The measures will include nuclear tests and test-firings of intercontinental ballistic missiles," it said.
China Confidential analysts say the North Korean threat was deliberately timed to upstage President Obama's symbolic 100th day in office. Similarly, the North will make every effort to mar U.S. independence day celebrations on July 4.
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