SEOUL -- The stories emanating from the hermetically-sealed North Korea are the stuff of diplomatic legends. Described as one of the world's most closed societies, North Korea has always remained a political enigma.
Is Kim Jong-il, North Korea's "dear leader", incapacitated with a stroke? If so, are the military generals really running the country? How credible are rumours that his third and youngest son, Kim Jong-un, has been designated his anointed successor? And did the son graduate from an international school in Switzerland, under the assumed name of Park Choi?
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| South Korean protesters shout slogans while holding up mock North Korean missiles during a rally denouncing North Korea's nuclear test and its recent missile launches, at the War Memorial of Korea in Seoul on June 4. AFP |
The newspapers here in Seoul, the vibrant capital of South Korea, the southern neighbour, are full of speculative stories about the hermit kingdom. Is the son the chip of the old blockhead? Or unlike his father, is he more outgoing and also fluent in English, German and French? The answers are hard to come by in the continuing guessing game.
After it conducted an underground nuclear test last week, the economically ailing and food-starved North Korea has once again had its 15 minutes of infamy. North Korea's nuclear brinkmanship has rattled not only Seoul but also Tokyo and Washington.
US Defence Secretary Bill Gates vowed last week that Washington will prevent North Korea emerging as a nuclear weapon state. But that may be far too late in the day.
North Korea's nuclear test is also an attempt by Kim Jong-il to elevate the status of his country militarily -- and display his political and diplomatic clout in the international community which has continued to treat the North as a political pariah.
A former Pakistani Prime Minister was once quoted as saying that his country was determined to produce nuclear weapons even if the people in the country were forced to make sacrifices to the point of "eating grass". Perhaps in reality it was North Korea that symbolized the gravity of that statement. A tempting newspaper headline would read: Nuclear Weapons on an Empty Stomach?
Judging by reports from the UN and international humanitarian organizations, there is widespread hunger, and even starvation, in some of the villages and inner cities of North Korea. The North Koreans have been depending heavily on the US, Japan and the UN for food aid -- roughly about one million tons per year -- for its 23 million people.
Still, it is now staking its claims as one of the world's newest nuclear powers, ranking with the three other undeclared powers in the same league: India, Pakistan and Israel (while the five declared powers, the US, Britain, France, China and Russia, hold onto their undisputed rankings).
Mohamed ElBaradei, the outgoing director general of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), warns there may be another 10 or 20 "virtual weapons states" in the next few years, unless there are radical steps towards nuclear disarmamentAnd last week's nuclear test by North Korea, the second since October 2006, is threatening not only the security of Asia but also jeopardizing US President Barack Obama's far-reaching and highly ambitious plans for a "world without nuclear weapons."John Burroughs, executive director of the New York-based Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy, says a real danger is that the North Korean test, and also the ongoing Iranian nuclear programme, may bolster elements in the United States and other nuclear powers that oppose disarmament measures.
"The world is going to have to learn how to move urgently on the disarmament front regardless of the ups and downs with respect to preventing acquisition of nuclear weapons by new states," he added.
At a two week meeting of the preparatory committee for the 2010 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) review conference, Rose Gottemoeller, US assistant secretary of state for verification, compliance and implementation, said last month: "Universal adherence to the NPT itself -- including by India, Israel, Pakistan and North Korea -- also remains a fundamental objective of the United States."
She quoted Obama as saying: "Rules must be binding. Violations must be punished. Words must mean something. The world must stand together to prevent the spread of these weapons."
The North Koreans have been accused of violating some of the international commitments made earlier to dismantle their nuclear weapons programmes. Obama has called the nuclear test a "blatant violation of international law" and vowed to take action against the government in Pyongyang.
But taking strong punitive action may be an uphill task at the Security Council -- considering the track record of China and Russia, which are likely to water down any drastic sanctions against North Korea, one of their political and military allies.
At most, it will be a set of mild sanctions, and certainly not the type of rigid sanctions imposed on Iraq under Saddam Hussein, which proved embargoes devastate people, not political leaders.
Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, was quoted as saying: "I think we were all impressed with the fact that the Russians and the Chinese denounced this so strongly."
But when it comes to hard core sanctions, says one Asian diplomat, the two major powers in the Security Council are likely to be more restrained.
When the Security Council imposed sanctions about three years ago, it imposed a ban on luxury goods going into North Korea, including lobster, caviar and cognac. The North Korean leader apparently had a taste for good food and rare wines -- even while some of his countrymen were starving.
As one news report put it last week: what will the Security Council do for a sequel. "Put the Dear Leader on another diet?"
FACT SHEET
Moves NK could make to further
raise tensions
SEOUL, (Reuters) - A North Korean patrol boat beat briefly entered South Korean waters but retreated after a verbal warning, Yonhap news agency quoted South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff as saying.
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| Kim Jong-Un |
North Korea raised tensions by testing a nuclear device late last month and appears ready to test a long-range missile that could reach U.S. territory and mid-range missiles that can hit all of South Korea and most of Japan.
Following are other provocations North Korea could make, especially if the U.N. Security Council imposes new and tougher sanctions against the communist state over the nuclear test.
FIRE AN INTERCONTINENTAL
BALLISTIC MISSILE
North Korea threatened to do this in the same sentence that it warned of a nuclear test on April 29 unless the Security Council apologised for imposing earlier sanctions.
It test-fired a rocket in April in what was widely seen as a disguised test of a long-range missile it is developing that is capable of striking U.S. territory.
CONDUCT MORE NUCLEAR TESTS
North Korea needs more tests to develop a functioning nuclear weapon with warheads that would go off in a controlled manner and be compact enough to mount on a missile. It needs several more tests to be able to miniaturise a weapon that could be mounted on a warhead, but could shorten the development time if it acquired technology from others, experts say.
More testing is risky for North Korea because it depleted its meagre stockpile of fissile material and parts of its Yongbyon plant that makes plutonium were dismantled under a disarmament deal.
PICK A BORDER GUNFIGHT
A shoot-out along the Demilitarised Zone border with South Korea could easily ignite a broader battle involving many of the more than one million troops who are deployed on both sides of the buffer zone set up after the 1950-53 Korean War.
The possibility of North Korea picking a fight with the South has increased after Seoul announced on Tuesday it would join a U.S.-led initiative to intercept shipments suspected of trading in weapons of mass destruction.
North Korea has initiated deadly naval clashes off the peninsula's west coast before and could do it again. Naval conflict could now involve short-range missiles, more of which have been deployed on its west coast. | 
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