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UNU Update | |
The newsletter of United Nations
University and its network of research and training centres and programmes |
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Issue 26: July-August 2003 |
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Accident is North Korea's big
A UN University expert has warned that poverty and a low level of technology in North Korea make a nuclear accident a more imminent threat than a deliberate missile attack. "I would be very worried about a nuclear accident, rather than a nuclear planned missile," said Dr. Hazel Smith, a senior academic programme officer and North Korea expert with UNU's Peace and Governance Programme in Tokyo. Last October, Washington said Pyongyang had admitted to a covert program to enrich uranium for nuclear arms in addition to a plutonium program frozen under a 1994 U.S.-North Korea pact. But in a speech to the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan reported by Reuters, Dr. Smith said said that after recent discussions with North Korea experts at the U.S. State Department she did not believe there was any evidence that North Korea possesses nuclear weapons, saying much of the population is struggling for survival. She estimated that North
Korea budgets around $20 a year per member of its 1 million strong
military for defense, including clothing, food, and shelter. |
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