According to CNN, the imagery offers evidence the Yeongjeo-dong missile base and a nearby, previously unreported site remain active and have been continuously upgraded.
Researchers at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey say the evidence of construction at a new facility 7 miles from the Yeongjeo-dong base has not been previously publicly identified, CNN reported.
"Satellite images show that the base remains active," an institute report states, CNN reported. "Moreover, in the past year North Korea has significantly expanded a nearby facility that appears to be another missile base." " The images indicate North Korea was building a large underground facility in 2017 and it was still under construction in August 2018.
"Construction on the previously unidentified site has continued even after the Singapore Summit" between Kim and President Donald Trump in June, Jeffrey Lewis of the Middlebury Institute, one of the analysts that identified the site, told CNN.
"Whatever Kim says about his desire for denuclearization, North Korea continues to produce and deploy nuclear armed missiles." The site's location makes it a strong candidate to receive North Korea's newest long-range missiles, including those that can carry nuclear weapons, according to Lewis and colleague David Schmerler, CNN reported. https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/denuclearization-missiles-sanctions-summit/2018/12/05/id/893328/
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11-13-2018 President Bill Clinton became the first world leader to call for landmine elimination on a global scale, but when it came time to formally ban them the United States government refused (as it had since the ban-the-landmines campaign by Vietnam War vets from 1975 on) ….
In the 1970s the Army spent millions of dollars on what it called “scatterable mines” — cluster bombs and artillery shells containing antipersonnel and antivehicle land mines designed to self-destruct after a preset amount of time. These more advanced mines were supposed to be safer than older generations and not leave behind duds, or munitions that have the potential to detonate. Their combat debut in 1991 did not bear that out. At $39,000 per bomb, they were three times as expensive as any other airdropped cluster munition the American military had in its inventory. On Jan. 30, 1991 three howitzer units from Fifth Battalion, 11th Marine Regiment, fired the first and possibly only artillery-delivered scatterable mine mission in history, spreading more than 850 mines between a series of observation posts located along the Saudi-Kuwaiti border. Although those mines were supposed to self-destruct, contract deminers found hundred of their duds in Kuwait after the war. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/13/magazine/army-landmines.html
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While an international humanitarian movement in the 1990s led most countries away from antipersonnel mines and cluster munitions, the United States has never formally banned them and is now investing in newer models of both weapons. In October I reported on how the Army plans to buy two foreign-made cargo projectiles for its 155-millimeter howitzers, each carrying two explosively formed penetrator warhead submunitions — even though the service already built a very similar weapon in the 1980s that was ultimately canceled because it was unreliable. I also looked at a relatively quiet effort by the Army to develop a new generation of scatterable antivehicle land mines that the service says will cause less harm to civilians. The Army has spent $106 million on it since 2016, and it has yet to produce a prototype or even nail down the specifics of how it will operate and function. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/23/magazine/land-mines-cluster-munitions.html
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11-7-2018 “According to an annual report Landmine Monitor in 2016 Ukraine is ranked fifth after Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen and Syria in terms of the number of victims,” the bill’s explanatory note reads. “Every month the death toll (caused by landmines) exceeds the number of those suffering from the open hostilities… Landmine blasts, as well as unexploded ordnance and munitions, were the most common reason of the death of children in 2017, constituting approximately third part of all registered incidents, as result of which many children were disabled for life.” https://www.kyivpost.com/ukraine-politics/bill-on-landmine-sweeping-passes-first-reading-cites-tremendous-civilian-death-toll-in-donbas.html
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Around Africa more than 30 million land mines are thought to lie underground in 19 countries.
Farther east, in Afghanistan (where ISIS has appeared) there are some 10 million land mines, affecting residential and commercial areas, agricultural territory, and roads. The capital, Kabul, is the world's most heavily mined capital city, according to the International Campaign to Ban Landmines.
Colombia, only recently emerging from a 52-year civil conflict with the FARC, a left-wing rebel group, is the second-most-mined country on the planet, behind Afghanistan.
Colombian soldiers who were land-mine victims receive routine therapy at an army hospital in Medellin, August 26, 2015. REUTERS/Fredy Builes
Excavating and deactivating them are intensely time-consuming. To place one can cost as little as $3 (mass production in China), but removal costs can reach $1,000 each. US, Russia, China, India, Pakistan and Egypt won’t sign the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty. The US State Department believes 60 million to 75 million unexploded land mines remain in the ground, affecting one-third of the world's countries.
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11-9-2018 Speaking to Sputnik Serbian, commission head Dr. Darko Laketic explained that in the course of visits to cities, towns and municipalities affected by the NATO bombings, the commission has been able to establish what appears to be evidence of a link between the depleted uranium rounds dropped in these areas and a rise in cancer incidence.
According to the physician, in the city of Vranje, southern Serbia, out of 40 people who came into direct contact with soil contaminated by depleted uranium, ten have died, with "the majority of the deaths caused by malignant neoplasms."
"Many people who have been to the affected areas suffer from the symptoms of erythema and ulcerous eruptions of an unknown etiology on their skin," Dr. Laketic added. https://sputniknews.com/europe/201811091069672556-depleted-uranium-serbia-medical-commission-results/
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“One may smile and smile and be a villain.” -Hamlet
5-14-2018 It is unknown if the Air Force will stick with 30mm depleted-uranium (DU) bullets or if it will switch to a tungsten round. "There's a lot of discussion of whether we're going to use depleted uranium again or the tungsten penetrator," DuPont said before a live-fire exercise here at the base May 4. ...
In 2015 the Defense Department said it was not using depleted uranium bullets in the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. But months later during an offensive strike dubbed Operation Tidal Wave II mission planners changed their minds and used the slightly radioactive weapon against ISIS oil trucks in the Syrian desert, according to a report from The Washington Post. https://www.military.com/dodbuzz/2018/05/14/air-force-debates-replacing-depleted-uranium-rounds-10.html
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Depleted uranium1 is a highly toxic and radioactive by-product of the uranium enrichment process used in nuclear reactors and the manufacture of nuclear weapons. Natural uranium, with a half-life of 4.5 billion years, is comprised of three isotopes: 99.27 percent U238, 0.72 percent U235, and .0057 percent U234. DU is uranium with the U235 isotope-the fissionable material-reduced from 0.7 percent to 0.2 percent-thus, "depleted." The Pentagon says DU is relatively harmless, emitting "only" 60 percent the radiation of non-depleted uranium. But Dr. Ernest Sternglass, Jay Gould and Benjamin Goldman have shown that even low-level radiation emitted during the "normal" functioning of nuclear power plants creates havoc with people's immune system as well as the surrounding environment.(4) And, according to independent scientists, "a DU antitank round outside its metal casing can emit as much radiation in one hour as fifty chest X-rays."(5) A tank driver receives a radiation dose of 0.13 mrem/hr to his or her head from overhead DU armor,(6) which may seem like a very low dose. However, after 32 continuous days, or 64 12-hour days, the amount of radiation a tank driver receives to his head will exceed the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's standard for public whole-body annual exposure to man-made sources of radiation.(7) Unfortunately, U.S. tank crews were not monitored for radiation exposure during the Gulf war.(8)
George HW Bush systematically attacked the civilian infrastructure in Iraq. He turned hospitals into death rows for infants. He widely used depleted uranium, causing cancer rates to skyrocket. He made Iraq a mass graveyard. And the killing hasn’t stopped since.
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at twitter.com
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6-19-2014 Coordinates revealing where US jets and tanks fired nearly 10,000 DU rounds in Iraq during the Gulf War in 2003 have been obtained by the Dutch peace group Pax. This is the first time that any US DU firing coordinates have been released, despite previous requests by the United Nations Environment Programme and the Iraqi government.
According to PAX's report, which is due to be published this week, the data shows that many of the DU rounds were fired in or near populated areas of Iraq, including As Samawah, Nasiriyah and Basrah. At least 1,500 rounds were also aimed at troops, the group says.
This conflicts with legal advice from the US Air Force in 1975 suggesting that DU weapons should only be used against hard targets like tanks and armoured vehicles, the report says. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/19/us-depleted-uranium-weapons-civilian-areas-iraq
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