Listening in on a nuclear test

The challenge of nuclear proliferation in the Korean peninsula since 2006 with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea’s (DPRK) first nuclear test had not only drawn the global attention but created a perilous situation on the peninsula. Further the Hwasong-15 Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) of DPRK that was tested in February 2023 and thereafter has heightened tensions between Washington and Japan with Pyongyang. The United States’ (U.S.) diplomatic efforts to engage North Korea through bilateral means in recent times resulted in the first historic summit in Singapore (2018) and later in Vietnam (2019). Though these are undoubtedly positive developments, however, in the absence of any tangible deal after the Hanoi summit, the big question remains will the U.S. and North Korea end their mutual misperceptions, and work towards a viable solution. At the moment, the very fact that since 2019, the U.S. and North Korea have had no official dialogues is evident that misperceptions and distrust continues and finding any sort of solution is going to be a very difficult task now that North Korea has closed its borders since the COVID-19 pandemic started. The more isolated Pyongyang is, the more belligerent it will become in testing its missiles.

Making Sanctions Smart Again:Why Maritime Sanctions Have Worked against North Korea Robert Huish (bio) Following a period of escalating tension between the United States and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), in which the Kim regime conducted a series of ballistic missile and nuclear tests and the Trump administration pursued a policy of maximum pressure, Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un met for a historic summit in Singapore on June 12. What changed to bring the two leaders together? The main reason North Korea sat down at the bargaining table was not sports diplomacy at the Winter Olympics or Trump's Twitter barrages. It was that the country is out of resources as a result of the international maritime sanctions.1 These sanctions have worked, and worked well, by targeting the environment on which the Kim regime depended to acquire belligerent materials. The 2017 maritime sanctions against North Korea, particularly U.S. Executive Order 13810 and UN Security Resolution 2397, worked for three reasons.2 First, owing to its unique geography, North Korea was almost entirely dependent on illicit maritime trade for its weapons programs, which stands in contrast to long-held claims that most military hardware came overland from China.3 Second, some argue that North Korea's already hollowed-out, authoritarian economy created an "inner isolation" among most of the country's nearly 26 million inhabitants.4 Sanctions are often responsible for increased suffering; however, most North Koreans survive through limited self-sufficiency or black markets that are often unaffected [End Page 42] by formal sanctions or the country's international economic environment. Third, sanctions that targeted foreign companies, in particular maritime insurance companies that may have provided protection and indemnity (P&I) insurance to North Korean vessels, provoked a swift reaction by the insurers to absolve themselves from dealings with North Korea. The important message of the sanctions imposed in 2017 is that this focus on pressuring the maritime industry led to a noticeable behavioral change in North Korea. The remainder of this essay examines what lessons about the efficacy of smart sanctions can be drawn from the case of maritime sanctions against North Korea. The next section will describe the 2017 sanctions from a maritime standpoint and analyze why they worked. The essay concludes by considering the potential to effectively apply similar sanctions to other targets. Have You Been to Sea? To understand why maritime sanctions worked so well against North Korea, two issues must be discussed. First, what are effective sanctions? And second, what role does China play in enabling North Korea to outsmart sanctions? For years, the international community made two major errors in dealing with North Korea. Many experts believed, first, that any sort of sanction would be a good measure against the Kim dynasty and, second, that China is the sole provider of resources, including military resources, to North Korea. Both of these claims are problematic. Sanctions aim to encourage a behavioral change of a target nation or its leadership. Traditional, or "dumb," sanctions either prohibit the target from any financial dealings with the issuer's market or seize the target's assets in the issuer's territory. Such ham-fisted sanctions often do more to further the suffering of the population than apply pressure on the leadership. In the 1990s, then secretary-general of the United Nations Kofi Annan encouraged the use of "smart" sanctions in order to overcome such blunders. Speaking in hindsight of the tragedies in Iraq, the Balkans, and East Africa, Annan argued that economic policy could be crafted so that despotic leaders are pushed toward behavioral change given that their own personal assets were at risk.5 In the 1990s this logic made sense because many dictators had offshore assets that could be directly targeted. Even so, many tyrants, including members of the Kim dynasty, managed to acquire [End Page 43] luxury goods and odious resources through shady networks involving fake currency production, narcotics trafficking, weapons smuggling, and insurance scams. Moreover, sanctions did not deter the Kims from pursuing nuclear tests or overseeing brutal human rights violations. One of the faultiest assumptions about North Korea in the international relations literature was that North Korea...

The article contains the final materials of a comprehensive study conducted by the author in the field of the concept of constitutional and legal regulation in the Democratic People›s Republic of Korea using the latest author›s methodology and research technology (estological analysis of constitutional and legal regulation). The paper proposes a differentiated approach to the definition of system-structural and functional characteristics of interests in the constitutional law of the DPRK by subjects and objects. In addition to monitoring the subjects, owners of interests and objects of interest, the study attempts to state the patterns of existence of the interests of constitutional law and the interests of constitutional and legal regulation, as an independent social phenomenon. When conducting an estological study of the form and content of positive constitutional law, its legal and technical features in the state under consideration, the presence of a phenomenology of the interests of constitutional legal and general legal regulation is revealed. Signs of the interests of legal regulation differ from the political interests of subjects of constitutional law. These signs correspond to the signs of the most positive law and the signs of the mechanism of state power of the DPRK. The generalized materials allow us to consider constitutional values and anti-values in relation to each other, defining the interests of positive constitutional law, legal features of the development of the political system of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the mechanism of state power and objective signs of the mechanism and process of legal regulation in the state in question. When conducting an estological study, the presence of a phenomenology of the interests of constitutional and legal and legal regulation, corresponding to the signs of positive law and the mechanism of state power, is revealed. Signs of positive law determine the specifics of legal regulation and determine the features of the functioning of the mechanism of state power. The subjects and their interests, legalized in constitutional law, individualize the specifics of the objective legal and administrative reality of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, defining its unique outlines and manifestations.

Research Article| September 12, 2018 Triggered Seismicity after North Korea’s 3 September 2017 Nuclear Test Jiayuan Yao; Jiayuan Yao aLaboratory of Seismology and Physics of Earth’s Interior, School of Earth and Space Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026, China, kakayao@mail.ustc.edu.cndongzhi@mail.ustc.edu.cnluzhou@mail.ustc.edu.cn Search for other works by this author on: GSW Google Scholar Dongdong Tian; Dongdong Tian aLaboratory of Seismology and Physics of Earth’s Interior, School of Earth and Space Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026, China, kakayao@mail.ustc.edu.cndongzhi@mail.ustc.edu.cnluzhou@mail.ustc.edu.cn Search for other works by this author on: GSW Google Scholar Zhou Lu; Zhou Lu aLaboratory of Seismology and Physics of Earth’s Interior, School of Earth and Space Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026, China, kakayao@mail.ustc.edu.cndongzhi@mail.ustc.edu.cnluzhou@mail.ustc.edu.cn Search for other works by this author on: GSW Google Scholar Li Sun; Li Sun bChina Earthquake Networks Center, Beijing 100045, China, sunli@seis.ac.cn Search for other works by this author on: GSW Google Scholar Lianxing Wen Lianxing Wen cDepartment of Geosciences, State University of New York at Stony Brook, Stony Brook, New York 11794 U.S.A., lianxing.wen@stonybrook.edudAlso at Laboratory of Seismology and Physics of Earth’s Interior, School of Earth and Space Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026, China. Search for other works by this author on: GSW Google Scholar Author and Article Information Jiayuan Yao aLaboratory of Seismology and Physics of Earth’s Interior, School of Earth and Space Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026, China, kakayao@mail.ustc.edu.cndongzhi@mail.ustc.edu.cnluzhou@mail.ustc.edu.cn Dongdong Tian aLaboratory of Seismology and Physics of Earth’s Interior, School of Earth and Space Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026, China, kakayao@mail.ustc.edu.cndongzhi@mail.ustc.edu.cnluzhou@mail.ustc.edu.cn Zhou Lu aLaboratory of Seismology and Physics of Earth’s Interior, School of Earth and Space Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026, China, kakayao@mail.ustc.edu.cndongzhi@mail.ustc.edu.cnluzhou@mail.ustc.edu.cn Li Sun bChina Earthquake Networks Center, Beijing 100045, China, sunli@seis.ac.cn Lianxing Wen cDepartment of Geosciences, State University of New York at Stony Brook, Stony Brook, New York 11794 U.S.A., lianxing.wen@stonybrook.edudAlso at Laboratory of Seismology and Physics of Earth’s Interior, School of Earth and Space Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026, China. Publisher: Seismological Society of America First Online: 12 Sep 2018 Online Issn: 1938-2057 Print Issn: 0895-0695 © Seismological Society of America Seismological Research Letters (2018) 89 (6): 2085–2093. https://doi.org/10.1785/0220180135 Article history First Online: 12 Sep 2018 Cite View This Citation Add to Citation Manager Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Search Site Citation Jiayuan Yao, Dongdong Tian, Zhou Lu, Li Sun, Lianxing Wen; Triggered Seismicity after North Korea’s 3 September 2017 Nuclear Test. Seismological Research Letters 2018;; 89 (6): 2085–2093. doi: https://doi.org/10.1785/0220180135 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Refmanager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentBy SocietySeismological Research Letters Search Advanced Search ABSTRACT The 3 September 2017 nuclear test conducted by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea was followed by a series of small seismic events. In this study, we conduct a survey of small seismic events from 1 May 2017 to 25 April 2018 near North Korea’s nuclear test site. We report 88 seismic events, including the 2017 nuclear test, the collapse event 8.5 min later, and 86 earthquakes afterward. Among the 86 earthquakes, 11 are well constrained to be distributed along a near north–south direction within a region of 2 km, ∼8.4 km north of the test site. The null detection before the 2017 test and the intense seismicity after the test, along with the predicted normal tensile stress the 2017 test applied on the fault, provide strong evidence that the 2017 test triggered these earthquakes. Some characteristics (the distance to the nuclear test center, depth, and magnitude) of these triggered aftershocks fit the general characteristics of the aftershocks in the Nevada National Security Site and the Semipalatinsk test site after nuclear tests, but the aftershocks of North Korea’s 2017 test exhibit a different evolution lasting at least eight months with two bursts occurring on early December 2017 and early February 2018 and an otherwise general low occurrence rate, possibly caused by a different geological setting of the test site. You do not have access to this content, please speak to your institutional administrator if you feel you should have access.

Plutella xylostella and Pieris rapae are the key components of a pest complex that attacks Brassica crops in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). We examined the spatial distributions of these insects within crops both as individual species and when combined as a standard insect that was derived from their relative feeding rates. The influence of standard co‐operative management practice and an integrated pest management (IPM) strategy on the dispersion of the standard insect was tested. Iwao's m* − m relation was then used to describe the distribution of standard insects by management categories and of Pieris rapae using all data. Pest management practices only affected the distribution of the species when they were combined into standard insects. Enumerative sampling plans were therefore designed for standard insects based on population data derived from IPM‐managed fields and for Pieris rapae from population data from all experimental fields. The presented plans have the potential to make a significant contribution to managing lepidopteran pests in the DPRK. The approach will be useful in the design of sequential sampling plans for other geographical regions where these pests co‐occur and can also contribute to the development of sequential sampling plans for other pest complexes for which standard insects can be derived.

The aim was to compare the change in dental caries status in two different intervention groups of the Children's Oral Health Promotion Programme (COHPP). A longitudinal study among 500 children who had participated into the COHPP for 6 years was conducted in Pyongyang, Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). Children in Group I received intensified school-based intervention and were clinically examined at the age of 7 years in 2007 (n = 250), 10 years in 2010 (n = 250) and 13 years in 2013 (n = 242). Children in Group II (n = 250) joined the programme at the age of 4 years in kindergarten in 2007, were provided with early preschool-based intervention and were clinically examined at the age of 7 years in 2010 and 10 years in 2013. Both the prevalence and the mean number of dt + DT decreased significantly in both groups during the follow-up. This was due to decrease in the number of dt, whereas the number of DT remained relatively constant. Poisson regression showed that the association between the group status and the change in the number of dt + DT was statistically significant when adjusted for gender but disappeared when the school was included in the analysis. The decrease in dental caries may be partly due to the exfoliation of deciduous teeth and dental treatment received. However, the study gave some reference emphasizing the early starting of the prevention.

A nationwide nutrition survey began when the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) requested assistance from international relief organizations in 1997 due to flooding in 1995-1996, followed by the worsening food shortage peak in 1997. According to reported data for the 15 years since the active intervention and assistance from international societies, the malnutrition and mortality rates of children in the DPRK have improved. However, the prevalence of the stunting reported in the latest 2012 report is 27.9%, which is still a moderate-severe level, and worrisome in terms of international standards. In particular, the prevalence in Ryangangdo, which is regarded as the worst region in the DPRK, is 39.6%, which is a very high level of stunting. To alleviate such regional deviation will be a major task for future assistance. In addition, one cannot emphasize too highly the importance of early nutritional assistance for pregnant women and infants, considering that the recovery from stunted growth is low after two years of age, and the aftereffects would continue for the rest of their lives.

This chapter presents first theories on legitimation and delegitimation, and then briefly reviews the history of the legitimacy struggles between the Koreas since they were established in 1948. It deals with the issue of the Koguryŏ tombs and the current historical debate - the borders and origin of the monarchy and the policy with which South Korea has decided to tackle the Koguryŏ issue. The chapter examines the background of the change in Republic of Korea (ROK) policy on this issue and its implications for the essence of relations between the Koreas today. In June 2004, United Nations educational, Scientific and cultural Organization (UNESCO) held a conference in china and approved the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK)'s application for recognition of the Koguryŏ tombs on its territory as World heritage Sites. Keywords: Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK); Koguryŏ tombs; Korea; legitimacy struggles; UNESCO

The Nevada Test Site became the nation`s continental nuclear weapons test site on January 11, 1951. Over the years, the Nevada Operations Office (Nevada) built an extensive infrastructure to support and conduct nuclear tests at the site and in Las Vegas. Roads, housing, test towers, electrical systems, and water systems are just a few of the construction projects that have been required by the Site`s nuclear testing mission. Nuclear testing continued through 1992. A presidential decision directive issued in October that year stopped testing but required Nevada to conduct and experimental program and maintain a readiness posture to resume nuclear testing within 6 months through fiscal year 1995. The directive further required that, beginning with fiscal year 1996, Nevada maintain a 2-3 year readiness posture. This change in Nevada`s mission coupled with Department downsizing requires that only cost effective projects with defined mission needs be undertaken. Although Nevada has changed and rescoped some construction projects in response to the changing Test Site mission, there are two projects, one underway and one planned, that contain unneeded overlap of capability. Specifically, the audit identified two electrical system projects that provided unnecessary duplicate capability at a cost of about $1.35 million. Management concurred with our finding and agreed to implement the recommendation. Details of management`s comments and our response are included.

This report presents a historical evaluation of the U16a Tunnel on the Nevada National Security Site in southern Nevada. The work was conducted by the Desert Research Institute at the request of the U.S. Department of Energy, National Nuclear Security Administration Nevada Site Office and the U.S. Department of Defense, Defense Threat Reduction Agency. The U16a Tunnel was used for underground nuclear weapons effects tests in Shoshone Mountain in Area 16 of the Nevada National Security Site. Six nuclear tests were conducted in the U16a Tunnel from 1962 to 1971. These tests are Marshmallow, Gum Drop, Double Play, Ming Vase, Diamond Dust, and Diamond Mine. The U.S. Department of Defense Threat Reduction Agency, with participation from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Las Alamos National Laboratory, sponsored the tests. Fifteen high explosives tests were also conducted at the tunnel. Two were calibration tests during nuclear testing and the remaining were U.S. Department of Defense, Defense Threat Reduction Agency tunnel defeat tests. The U16a Tunnel complex is on the top and slopes of Shoshone Mountain, encompassing an area of approximately 16.7 hectares (41.1 acres). Major modifications to the landscape are a result of three principal activities, road construction and maintenance, mining activities related to development of the tunnel complex, and site preparation for activities related to testing. Forty-seven cultural features were recorded at the portal and on the slopes of Shoshone Mountain. At the portal area, features relate to the mining, construction, testing, and general every day operational support activities within the tunnel. These include concrete foundations for buildings, equipment pads, and rail lines. Features on the slopes above the tunnel relate to tunnel ventilation, borehole drilling, and data recording. Feature types include soil-covered bunkers, concrete foundations, instrument cable holes, drill holes, and ventilation shafts. The U16a Tunnel complex is eligible to the National Register of Historic Places under criteria a and c, consideration g of 36 CFR Part 60.4 as a historic landscape. Scientific research conducted at the tunnel has made significant contributions to the broad patterns of our history, particularly in regard to the Cold War era that was characterized by competing social, economic, and political ideologies between the former Soviet Union and the United States. The tunnel also possesses distinctive construction and engineering methods for conducting underground nuclear tests. The Desert Research Institute recommends that the U16a Tunnel area be left in place in its current condition and that the U16a Tunnel historic landscape be included in the Nevada National Security Site monitoring program and monitored on a regular basis.

At the beginning of the year, most commentators would have predicted that the dominant themes in the foreign relations of the two Koreas in 2010 would be continued concerns over nuclear matters, and perhaps the anniversaries of the 1910 Japanese annexation of Korea and the 1950 outbreak of the Korean War. In the event, although the nuclear issue was never far away, it was the sinking of the Cheonan , a naval corvette of the Republic of Korea, in the West Sea in March and the shelling of the ROK island of Yeonpyeong in November, that led to diplomatic and military activity far beyond the peninsula. The Democratic People's Republic of Korea was held responsible for the sinking of the corvette, and widely condemned for both incidents, and there were claims that the peninsula was on the brink of a second Korean War. Keywords: Cheonan ; democratic people's republic of Korea; foreign relations; koreas; Yeonpyeong

The Republic of Korea(ROK) and the World Health Organization(WHO) have done many projects successfully from 1949, in which the government of First Republic joined the WHO. However the relation between the ROK and the WHO have not been studied very much so far. The main purpose of this research, which could be done by the support of WHO, is connected with three questions. First research point would be "how could the ROK joined WHO in 1949 and what's the meaning of it? And the what's the difference in the process for the WHO between the ROK of 1949 and the DPRK(Democratic People's Republic of Korea) of 1973?" The first president of the ROK, Rhee Syngman, who had received his Ph. D.(about international politics) from Princeton University in 1910, was strongly interested in joining international institutes like UN, WHO. The ROK that could join WHO on 17 August 1949, with the approval of Assembly on 25 May 1949, was one of the founder members of the Western Pacific Region. By joining WHO, the ROK could get chance to increase the level of public health and its administration in 1950's. But the DPRK manage to became a member of WHO on 19 May 1973 and joined the South-East Asia Region. The joining of DPRK was influenced by the easing of the cold war after the Nixon Doctrine and the joining of the China(People's Republic of China). Second research point would be "What kind of roll did the WHO take in the First Republic?" Yet the public health administration of the First Republic that had been made in the period of US army military government was been strongly influenced by USA, the roll of WHO was also important in the 1950's. Last research point would be "What kind of the projects did the ROK and the WHO take part in during the period of he First Republic? How could evaluate the results?" The ROK and the WHO handled the projects including health services, communicable disease prevention and control, control of noncommunicable diseases, and protection of health. Specially for the efforts to prevent communicable disease, the WHO focused on leprosy, malaria, measles, smallpox, tuberculosis in 1950's. The First Republic could overcome the bad health condition after the Korea War successfully, supported by WHO.

If 2006-07 was a period when relations between the two Koreas moved from hostility to a return to engagement, 2007-08 followed the reverse path. The government of the Republic of Korea (ROK - South Korea) under President Roh Moo-hyun pursued with considerable success a determined policy of engagement once the freeze in relations that followed the post-2006 nuclear test was lifted. Well before the ROK presidential election in December 2007, it was clear that ROK policies towards the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK - North Korea) would be in more critical hands from 2008. After the February 2007 breakthrough in the Six Party Talks, North- South relations gradually entered a new and more positive phase that lasted until the change of ROK president in February 2008. Most important of all, however, as proof of improving relations was the second North-South summit. Keywords: North Korea; North-South relations; North-South summit; President Roh Moo-hyun; Republic of Korea (ROK - South Korea); Six Party Talks

Recent radiochemical evidence from groundwater characterization and monitoring wells in the vicinity of the TYBO and BENHAM underground nuclear tests in Area 20 of the Nevada Test Site, suggests that migration of radionuclides within groundwater beneath this portion of Area 20 may be more rapid than previously thought. In order to gain a better understanding of the hydrogeologic conditions in the TYBO-BENHAM area for more accurate flow and transport modeling, a reevaluation of the subsurface geologic environment in the vicinity of the two underground tests was conducted. Eight existing drill holes provided subsurface control for the area. These holes included groundwater characterization and monitoring wells, exploratory holes, and large-diameter emplacement holes used for underground nuclear weapons tests. Detailed and consistent geologic descriptions of these holes were produced by updating existing geologic descriptions with data from petrographic, chemical, and mineralogic analyses, and current stratigraphic concepts of the region. The updated descriptions, along with surface geologic data, were used to develop a detailed geologic model of the TYBO-BENHAM area. This model is represented by diagrams that correlate stratigraphic, lithologic, and alteration intervals between holes, and by isopach and structure maps and geologic cross sections. Regional data outside the TYBO-BENHAM area were included in the isopach and structure maps to better evaluate the geology of the TYBO-BENHAM area in a regional context. The geologic model was then evaluated with regard to groundwater flow and radionuclide migration to assess the model's implications for flow and transport modeling. Implications include: (1) confirmation of the general hydrogeology of the area described in previous studies; (2) the presence of two previously unrecognized buried faults that could act as zones of enhanced permeability within aquifers; and (3) secondary alteration within tuff confining units that is much more complex than previously described.

I paid a two-week visit to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (or North Korea) in April–May last year. Being a Sinologist by training, the standards I used to evaluate what I saw there were those of a person steeped in the study of Mao's China. If I had brought with me a background in Soviet or Japanese and, most importantly, Korean studies, I would have had more insight into the distinctive characteristics of the Korean road to socialism. But the contrasts between North Korea and China are so startling in many fields and the implications for the wider study of socialist societies so important that I intend to couch this paper in terms of a comparison between the two systems.