International

North Korea seeks to break into the US presidential elections with its uranium centrifuges

By showing for the first time its facilities to manufacture fuel for nuclear bombs this Friday, North Korea is positioned to acquire prominence in the campaign for the presidential elections in the United States while the fear increases that it will soon carry out a large-scale weapons test.

It is a forceful gesture on the part of the regime of Kim Jong-un, which these days visited a plant full of cascades of uranium centrifuges – apparently more advanced than initially estimated by the experts – and ordered to increase the number of these devices “to exponentially increase the number of nuclear weapons.”

These are some keys to try to decipher this calculated message that Pyongyang – which since 2019 has refused to resume the dialogue on disarmament – has decided to issue with just over seven weeks to go for the Americans to elect a new president.

A gloomy uranium enrichment program

Few details are known about how, where and how much uranium is capable of enriching North Korea, as well as the level of concentration of isotopes of the resulting material (the higher the concentration of uranium-235, the more fligible the fuel of the pump).

Until now, North Korea had only shown in 2010 some facilities at the Yongbyon Nuclear Research Center (about 100 kilometers north of Pyongyang) to the American scientist Siegfried Hecker, who estimated that the place housed about 2,000 gas centrifuges – a more outdated model than the one shown on Friday – to produce low-enrichment uranium.

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Intelligence services and analysts assume that the regime has at least another processing center in Kangson, on the outskirts of the North Korean capital.

It is this Kangson enclosure that is believed to have been shown by the North Korean media (which do not mention the location of the plant), since they claim that Kim Jong-un visited the surface under construction for new centrifuges, something that agrees with a recent report from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that warns that an annex is being built in this complex located southwest of Pyongyang.

The chosen moment

The vast majority of experts believe that North Korea has chosen to show its centrifuges a few weeks before the US elections to regain prominence at a time when its weapons programs did not come to light even once in this week’s debate between candidates Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, as they did not do in June between Trump and Joe Biden.

Although North Korea is not an issue that currently conditions the vote of the Americans, the message that Pyongyang has sent today is that it will be an issue that will require attention from those who inherit the presidency from Biden.

“For Trump the message is ‘after the fiasco of (the summit of) Hanoi our atomic program goes ahead. If you want to stop it, you will have to sit down and negotiate.’ And for Harris it’s a bit the same; ‘Biden’s policy has failed, you’ll see if you want to sit down and negotiate,’” Ramón Pacheco Pardo, director of the chair on politics on the Korean peninsula at the Free University of Brussels, explains to EFE.

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Pacheco Pardo is one of those who believe that Pyongyang is willing to resume dialogue to lower sanctions or achieve a security agreement, but in terms different from those of 2019 in Hanoi, since today’s announcement endorses what Pyongyang has been saying in recent years: that there is no longer any possibility of him abandoning nuclear weapons.

What to expect in the coming weeks

Seoul and Washington and different experts have warned in recent weeks about the possibility of Pyongyang choosing to carry out just – before or after the presidential elections in the US – important weapons of mass destruction tests to get the attention of the new tenant of the White House.

It could be the launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), possibly equipped with a multiple and independent re-entry vehicle (like the one tested in June), to show once again that North Korea can theoretically reach the US. This possibility charges integers after Pyongyang showed a new and impressive 12-axle mobile erector shuttle (TEL) last week.

A nuclear test now seems a little more unlikely, not only because it is something that can always anger China and Russia (which support the lifting of sanctions on Pyongyang), but because the damage caused by the monsoon in the accesses to the remote test center of Punggye-ri (northeast of the country) and recently detected by the satellites will require important repairs in the coming weeks.

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International

Marco Rubio warns Venezuela against military action against Guyana

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned Venezuela on Thursday that a military attack on Guyana would be “a big mistake” and “a very bad day for them,” expressing his support for Georgetown in its territorial dispute with Caracas.

“It would be a very bad day for the Venezuelan regime if they attacked Guyana or ExxonMobil. It would be a very bad day, a very bad week for them, and it would not end well,” Rubio emphasized during a press conference in Georgetown alongside Guyanese President Irfaan Ali.

International

Ecuador oil spill worsens as containment dam collapses

The collapse of a containment dam holding back part of the 25,000+ barrels of oil spilled from a pipeline rupture nearly two weeks ago has worsened the environmental crisis in northwestern Ecuador, contaminating rivers and Pacific beaches.

The Ecuadorian government attributed the March 13 pipeline rupture—which led to the spill of 25,116 barrels of crude—to an act of sabotage. The spill affected three rivers and disrupted water supplies for several communities, according to authorities.

On Tuesday, due to heavy rains that have been falling since January, a containment dam on the Caple River collapsed. The Caple connects to other waterways in Esmeraldas Province, a coastal region bordering Colombia, state-owned Petroecuador said in a statement on Wednesday.

Seven containment barriers were installed in the Viche River, where crews worked to remove oil-contaminated debris. Additional absorbent materials were deployed in Caple, Viche, and Esmeraldas Rivers, which flow into the Pacific Ocean.

Authorities are also working to protect a wildlife refuge home to more than 250 species, including otters, howler monkeys, armadillos, frigatebirds, and pelicans.

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“This has been a total disaster,” said Ronald Ruiz, a leader in the Cube community, where the dam was located. He explained that the harsh winter rains caused river levels to rise, bringing debris that broke the containment barriersthat were holding the accumulated oil for extraction.

International

Federal court blocks Trump’s use of Enemy Alien Act for deportations

A federal appeals court upheld the block on former President Donald Trump’s use of the Enemy Alien Act on Wednesday, preventing him from using the law to expedite deportations of alleged members of the transnational criminal group Tren de Aragua.

With a 2-1 ruling, a panel from the Washington, D.C. Court of Appeals affirmed previous decisions by two lower court judges, maintaining the legal standoff between the White House and the judiciary.

On March 14, Trump invoked the 1798 Enemy Alien Act, a law traditionally used during wartime, to deport hundreds of Venezuelans whom he accused of belonging to Tren de Aragua, a criminal organization that originated in Venezuelan prisons.

The centuries-old law grants the president the power to detain, restrict, and expel foreign nationals from a country engaged in a “declared war” or an “invasion or predatory incursion” against the United States, following a public proclamation.