* Korea Atomic Industrial Forum

October 25, 2006

* Reactors may face suspension: nat'l assembly
hani.co.kr (South Korea)

Two South Korean nuclear reactors are on the brink of being suspended for 6 months and one year, respectively, after the process to extend their usage period ...

* Tiny sample of xenon confirms nuclear test
JoongAng Daily

* Pyongyang threatens war if S.Korea joins sanctions
ABC News

... The North issued a similar warning in September before it conducted a nuclear test earlier this month, prompting the UN Security Council to impose financial ...

* SKorea forms task force to carry out UN resolution on NKorea ...
Leesville Daily Leader (LA)

... Oct. 9 nuclear test, both South Korea and China have been reluctant to impose stern measures against their volatile neighbor. The ...

* N. Korea warns South against sanctions
Jae-Soon chang, AP/Times Picayune (LA)

... saying Wednesday that its neighbor would 'pay a high price' if it joins the US-led drive to punish the reclusive communist nation for its nuclear test. ...

* North Korea warns South over sanctions
UPI

* Seoul rethinking unification strategy as Pyongyang continues to ...
AsiaNews.it (Italy)

... South Korean Unification Minister Lee Jong-seok handed in his resignation today to President Roh Moo-hyun after 'North Korea's recent nuclear test, [which ...

* N. Korea lets South search for Russian sailors in its waters
RIA Novosti (Russia)

* Seoul Confirms North's Nuke Test
Kim Tae-kyu, Korea Times (South Korea)

... Ministry said yesterday that a radioactive material has been detected in South Korea, officially confirming that the communist nation conducted a nuclear test. ...

* SKorea Officially Confirms North Nuke Test
Guardian

* S. Korea reportedly has cruise missile
Market-Day.net (AZ)

... and successfully. It has enough range to hit nuclear targets in North Korea or even Beijing or Tokyo, the report said. Defense Minister ...

* Pyongyang warning to South Korea
BBC News

* SK preparing sanctions report for U.N.
UPI

* North warns against Seoul sanctions
JoongAng Daily

* Seoul drafting measures against N.K.
Lee Joo-hee, Korea Herald

* Silent Response to Nuclear Threat--People Have Stronger Fear Than Government
Korea Times

June 20, 2006

* South Korea expected to join Multinational Design Approval Program (MDAP) for Gen III and IV reactors

* [2006-03-25] U.S., S.Korea Begin Military Exercises
Kwang-tae Kim, Guardian

* [2006-03-24] Emergency Response Problems Found in Three Nuclear Power Plants
Korea Times

* [2006-03-07] KEPCO Strengthening Global Reach
Choi Kyong-ae, Korea Times

* 2005-05-17: KNEF promotes benefits of nuclear energy
Kim Tong-hyung, Korea Herald

April 16, 2005

* S. Korea Rejects Response With U.S. to N. Korea Collapse
Barbara Demick, Los Angeles Times

President Bush says he has no plans to invade North Korea but has made no secret of his loathing for Kim Jong Il and his preference for a change of regime. South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun is anxious to avoid a collapse that could send North Korean refugees streaming across the border. "The possibility of North Korea's collapse is very low," Roh said Wednesday during a visit to Germany, according to comments released by his office here. "And we don't have any intention to encourage it either."

In January, Seoul rejected a contingency plan for the possible collapse of Kim Jong Il's regime. Code named Op-Plan 5029, the plan mapped out allied military responses in the event that Kim suddenly lost power and the Communist country started to come apart. South Korean officials apparently feared that the United States wanted to take command in case of a power vacuum and would send its troops hastily marching toward Pyongyang, perhaps under the flag of the same U.N. command that waged the 1950-1953 Korean War. South Korea, which considers all of the Korean peninsula to be rightfully its territory, wants to take the lead if North Korea collapses. "The plan could be a serious obstacle to exercising South Korea's sovereignty," South Korea's National Security Council said Friday in a terse statement confirming that the plan had been scrapped.

* 2005-03-28: Editorial: Nuke dump site nearer?
Korea Herald

* 2005-03-24: Nuclear energy key to growth, stability
Yoo Soh-jung, Korea Herald

* 2005-03-23: Nuclear-Powered US Submarine Enters Chinhae Port
Moon Gwang-lip, Korea Times

* 2005-03-22: Selection of Nuke Dump Site Due by September
Seo Jee-yeon, Korea Times

* 2005-03-18: Teamwork Getting Shaky in Nuclear Game
Ryu Jin, Korea Times

...[F]or South Koreans, [North Korea] is an object of engagement for peace and co-prosperity though it is as impenetrable as unpredictable. Hence inevitable it is for South Korea to try to get along with the "brethren" of North Korea as well as the "blood-tied" ally of the U.S., struggling to go between the trust-lacking enemies across the Pacific... Most Koreans heap scorn on the Japanese, who react to a dozen of their citizens so extravagantly, while turning a deaf ear to hundreds of thousands of Koreans that fell victim to the brutal Japanese colonialism last century, political observers said... Japan's recent provocation over the Tokto islets and a history textbook reminded the people of deeply harbored patriotism, thereby unifying not only the ideologically split people in the South but also the two Koreas, divided by heavily fortified border, the observers said.

* 2005-03-14: Korea and the Two Alliances
Chosun Ilbo

* 2005-03-14: Three Types of Radioactive Waste
Kim Tae-gyu, Korea Times

* 2005-03-11: S. Korea Plans to Extend Service Life of Aging Nuclear Reactors
Yonhap News

September 17, 2004

* IAEA Inspection Team Arrives Sunday
Korea Times

The IAEA inspectors will focus on finding out details of the uranium conversion activities conducted in South Korea in the 1980s that produced 150 kilograms of uranium metal. They will also attempt to determine why only 134 kilograms of the metal remain, officials said. In addition, inspectors will try to gain a clear picture of where the 2.5 kilograms of irradiated depleted uranium came from and why the scientists involved in the 1980s experiments separated a small amount of plutonium from the irradiated material. South Korea recently admitted to the enrichment of uranium in 2000 through a laser separation method as well as the plutonium extraction in 1982 that may have violated international law. Even though the Seoul government has claimed that it didn't authorize the tests, some IAEA member countries are suspicious of its explanation that those scientists had conducted experiments out of "scholastic curiosity".

* IAEA starts ROK probe
Korea Herald/China Daily

The dispatch of another team in less than three weeks is evidence of how seriously the UN agency regards the recently disclosed plutonium extraction and uranium enrichment, no matter how small their amounts may have been. On Monday, Mohamed ElBaradei, IAEA director general, termed the failure to report them immediately as a "matter of serious concern".

* 'IAEA will confirm Seoul's innocence'
Choi Soung-ah, Korea Herald

Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon yesterday reiterated Seoul's innocence: "The experiments with nuclear substances has nothing to do with the enrichment or reprocessing necessary in producing nuclear weapons, and we firmly believe our government's determination to fully support non-proliferation will be proven to the world through results of the IAEA inspection," he said at his weekly news conference. "It is regrettable that some quarters of the international community, including the foreign media, did not base reports on facts and raised suspicions about the transparency of our peaceful nuclear activities", Ban said.

* Seoul Mulls Separate Dump For High-Exposed Nuclear Waste
Yonhap/Asia Pulse (subscription required)

The government plans to come up with a new plan for the construction of a nuclear waste storage facility by October after no local city or county applied to be a candidate site through Thursday. None dared to apply after witnessing five months of violence in Wido. "The current system stores high-and low-exposed nuclear waste materials alike, but we are looking at a fundamental change on the system," Jo Seok, chief of the nuclear reactor project department at the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy, said in a radio program.

* Ministry hard pressed to find nuke-waste dump
Kim Ji-hyun, Korea Herald

"For 18 years since 1986, one administration after another has been pushing the job to their successors. It's time for the government to step up and take responsibility to build this crucial dump site for spent nuclear fuel," said Kim Tae-woo, a senior research fellow at the state-run Korea Institute for Defense Analysis. He also called on the government to be more generous with its incentives and reassure the country on the safety of the waste dump. "We need to have provinces and cities jumping for a chance to become home to a safe dump site," Kim said.

August 6, 2003

* South Korea - Wido islet slated for LLRW/ILRW repository by 2008; spent fuel by 2016

August 1, 2003

* [Korea] Puan Residents Stage Naval Protests
Yonhap/Korea Times --
Two hundred boats, five hundred people in Thursday protest, follows Wednesday's three-hour candlelight vigil which drew 2,500. Now folks are riled up not just because government picked local islet -- Wido -- for radwaste dump, but also because government reversed a related plan to pay cash compensation to residents of coastal towns facing Wido. A committee formed by villagers to oppose the project said that some 10,000 people, including local residents and anti-nuclear activists, will hold a massive candlelight street protest on Friday. The committee was quoted: "We must ensure that the government withdraws its plan to build the nuclear waste dump, which threatens the peoples right to live."

July 24, 2003

* South Korea: West Sea islet confirmed as site for nuclear waste dump
Yonhap news agency, Seoul 0650 GMT
By 2008, storage for low-and medium-grade nuclear plant wastes will be built, while an interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuels will be completed by 2016. A screening committee appointed by the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy has decided to approve an application by Buan County of North Cholla Province to host South Korea's first permanent nuclear waste storage facility on Wido, a 14.12m-sq.-metre islet 14.4 km off the coast, about 280 km southwest of Seoul. The application was received on July 14. "Wido has satisfied all geological, oceanographic and geophysical conditions to house storage facilities for mid-and low-grade nuclear plant waste and spent nuclear fuels," according to a ministry press release. "Above all, a preliminary geological probe has not found any active dislocation under Wido, which is one of the most important considerations for becoming a nuclear waste dump." The press release noted that in addition to the geology, the screening committee, composed of 14 experts from government, academia and state-run research labs, checked 16 other categories, including investment efficiency, availability of land, easiness in port construction and access to power and water infrastructure.

Since 1986, consecutive governments in South Korea have been unable to build a permanent waste dump due to extreme resistance from residents of candidate areas. The central government has promised enormous cash subsidies and redevelopment projects for Buan and Wido. Buan County's application triggered fierce protests from residents fearing environmental and health disasters. Buan residents have staged a series of violent street rallies, vowing to thwart any government attempt to build the nuclear waste dump in their backyard.

* South Korea 1998

[Source: Nuclear Energy Agency (2000), as presented by THE ECONOMIC FUTURE OF NUCLEAR POWER: A Study Conducted at The University of Chicago, August 2004, p. 2-5]