N Korea to restart its nuke reactor

North Korea yesterday said it would restart a nuclear reactor to feed its atomic weapons programme, in its clearest rebuff yet to UN sanctions at the heart of soaring tensions on the Korean peninsula.
After the announcement, UN chief Ban Ki-moon warned that the Korean peninsula crisis could spiral out of control.
"Nuclear threats are not a game," Ban said, responding to a series of aggressive statements by Pyongyang that have prompted the deployment of nuclear-capable US B-52s, B-2 stealth bombers and a US destroyer to South Korea.
The North's announcement earlier that it would reopen Yongbyon reactor -- its source of weapons-grade plutonium -- triggered international alarm, with Pyongyang's only major ally China voicing regret and calling for restraint.
A Pyongyang government nuclear energy spokesman said the aim of the move was to "bolster the nuclear armed force both in quality and quantity.
The Korean peninsula has been caught in a cycle of escalating tensions since the North's February nuclear test, which followed a long-range rocket launch in December.
Subsequent UN sanctions and annual South Korea-US military exercises have been used by Pyongyang to justify a wave of increasingly dire threats against Seoul and Washington, including warnings of missile strikes and nuclear war.
The UN secretary general called for calm.
"The current crisis has already gone too far," the former South Korean foreign minister told a press conference in Andorra.
The North shut down the Yongbyon reactor in July 2007 under a six-nation aid-for-disarmament accord, and destroyed its cooling tower a year later.
It was the sole source of plutonium for the nuclear weapons programme.
Experts say it would take six months to get the reactor back up and running, after which it would be able to produce one bomb's worth of weapons-grade plutonium a year.
Kim Yong-Hyun, a North Korea expert at Seoul's Dongguk University, said the nuclear initiative was in a different league from the military bluster of recent weeks.
"This goes beyond mere provocation. It's a strong, tangible move and perhaps the one that will force the US into the direct dialogue Pyongyang wants," Kim said.
The prospect of North Korea on a joint plutonium and uranium enrichment path is a hugely worrying one for the international community.
The North has substantial uranium ore deposits which provide a quick route to boosting reserves of fissile material, while plutonium has the advantage of being easier to miniaturise into a deliverable nuclear warhead.
Many observers believe the North has been producing highly-enriched uranium in secret facilities for years, and that the third nuclear test it conducted in February may have been of a uranium bomb.
Its previous tests in 2006 and 2009 were both of plutonium devices.
The Korean peninsula has been caught in a cycle of escalating tensions since the February test, which followed a long-range rocket launch in December.
Subsequent UN sanctions and annual South Korea-US military exercises have been used by Pyongyang to justify a wave of increasingly dire threats against Seoul and Washington, including warnings of missile strikes and nuclear war.
But the tough talk has yet to be matched by action.
"Despite the harsh rhetoric we're hearing from Pyongyang, we are not seeing changes to the North Korean military posture, such as large-scale mobilisations," said White House spokesman Jay Carney.