North Korea Gearing Up For Power Transition

North Korean Leader Promotes Son to 4-star General, Now in Position to Succeed Him – Chico Harlan in The Washington Post [link]

• North Korean leader Kim Jong Il has promoted his youngest son, Kim Jong Eun, to four-star general, the country's state-run media reported early Tuesday, affirming the Kim family's plans for a second hereditary power transfer.
• Coming hours before the state holds its biggest political conference in three decades, Kim Jong Eun's ascendancy probably marks the start of widespread leadership change within the Stalinist dictatorship.
• Kim Jong Il also named his sister, Kim Kyong Hui, as general. The promotions, taken together, reinforce the extent to which the ailing 68-year-old leader will depend on his immediate family for stability during the succession.
• Experts and government officials in Washington and Seoul had largely expected that the Workers' Party conference, beginning Tuesday in Pyongyang, would coincide with a formal sign about succession.
• Experts believe that the greatest threat to Kim Jong Eun's rise will come from within the Workers' Party or the military, where high-ranking officials could second-guess the wisdom of an untested twenty-something.

Zeal for Dream Drove Scientist in Secrets Case – William Board in The New York Times [link]

• Dr. Mascheroni, 75, is a nuclear scientist who has spent the 22 years since he left the Los Alamos National Laboratory trying to sell Congress, the scientific community, journalists — anyone who would listen, really, including this reporter — on his plan to build a giant laser for the achievement of nuclear fusion.
• His plan earned respect and high-level endorsements, but the government chose a different path. Rather than give up, Dr. Mascheroni redoubled his campaign, sending out lengthy technical documents from his home in New Mexico to try to coax Washington to finance his laser.
• Dr. Mascheroni’s world began to crumble last October, when federal agents raided his home in Los Alamos, hauling away his computers and hundreds of paper files.
• Federal prosecutors have charged Dr. Mascheroni with trying to sell nuclear secrets to Venezuela as part of a complicated scheme to have that country bring his laser to life.
• Dr. Mascheroni’s fixation on the giant laser transformed him into “a gullible nut,” one who readily stumbled into the F.B.I.’s trap, Dr. DeWitt said, adding: “He has dug his own grave.”

Stop Holding onto Dangerous Nuclear Material - Alan Kuperman and Miles Pomper in The Hill [link]

• After depending for decades on imported medical radio-isotopes – produced in foreign facilities that use bomb-grade, highly enriched uranium (HEU) – the United States recently acquired medical isotopes made with safer, low enriched uranium (LEU), a move that holds great potential for reducing the risk of nuclear terrorism.
• In November of last year, the House approved the American Medical Isotopes Production Act (co-authored Reps Edward Markey (D-MA) and Fred Upton (R-MI), designed to ensure the U.S. supply of medical isotopes and reduce the global use of HEU to produce them.
• Despite support for the Markey-Upton legislation from leading medical isotope producers, physician organizations, nonproliferation experts, and fellow lawmakers, Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO) has blocked Senate consideration of the legislation by placing a “hold” on it. He alone claims that the legislation would cause a domestic shortage of isotopes.
• By blocking the Markey-Upton bill, Sen. Bond inhibits domestic production of medical isotopes to address shortfalls of imported isotopes, and he paves the way for continued exports of bomb-grade uranium. That not only puts at risk the vital medical procedures of millions of U.S. patients, but also perpetuates unnecessary and unacceptable risks of nuclear terrorism.
• Note: Miles Pomper is a senior research associate at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies and a Ploughshares grantee.

The Lighter Side

Tinfoil Tuesdays: UFOs Neutered Nukes, Officers Claim - Spencer Ackerman in Wired's "Danger Room" [link]

• Seven elderly retired Air Force officers called a news conference at the National Press Club in Washington on Monday afternoon — covered, improbably, by CNN — to disclose that they witnessed the UFOs rendering U.S. nuclear missiles temporarily inoperable during the Cold War.
• “Whoever are aboard these craft are sending a signal to both Washington and Moscow, among others, that we are playing with fire,” announced longtime UFO researcher Robert Hastings, who convened the gathering. “The possession and threatened use of nuclear weapons potentially threatens the human race and the integrity of the planetary bargain.”
• Some of the officers Some confessed that they didn’t see the ships themselves, but heard reliable accounts from trustworthy comrades. In most cases, though, when the aliens approached, the missiles stopped being responsive to technicians’ controls. But the aliens didn’t actually zap the missiles. They just flew over the bases, worked their advanced-technological magic and disappeared into the night.
• “If these guys are telling the truth, an entire flight of ten sorties dropping into no-go status is a pretty significant event from a deterrence perspective,” said a Washington-based foreign policy wonk and former Minuteman targeting officer who chose note to be named. It might also explain how little green men might look like a compelling theory of what went wrong.