N. Korea restores nuke reactor, border worries

Restoring reactor
Song Young-sun, an opposition lawmaker who served as a senior research fellow at the state-run Korea Institute for Defense Analyses, said a 1999 plan envisioned worst-case scenarios for the North: mass defections, revolt sparked by famine, a nuclear leak or weapons of mass destruction, and civil war among military factions or between the military and the ruling Workers' Party.

Liberal South Korean governments that favored conciliatory stances toward the North shelved the plan. But an ex-government official with knowledge of the plan said it's likely conservative President Lee Myung-bak's administration is working on a new emergency outline based on the earlier draft. He agreed to discuss the sensitive matter only if not quoted by name.

Defense Ministry spokesman Won Tae-jae denied there is an emergency plan, but refused to say whether the South and the U.S. are working on reviving one.

Amid the reports about Kim's health, North Korea confirmed Friday that it is restoring the Yongbyon reactor, backtracking on promises to disable the facility as part of a disarmament-for-aid deal hashed out during six-nation talks.

South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-whan said the North's motives remain unclear, noting Pyongyang often uses provocation as a bargaining chip.

"They're obstructionists," White House national security adviser Stephen Hadley told reporters in Washington. "They try to divide, and if we stand firm, they come back into a negotiating cycle."

'Tenacious' tunnel
For now, at Infiltration Tunnel No. 2 just south of the Demilitarized Zone, tourists don yellow helmets for a dark descent.

The mile-long tunnel, discovered in 1975 and one of four such infiltration tunnels found in the years since a 1953 armistice ended the three-year Korean war, would have allowed North Korean soldiers and vehicles to pour under the Demilitarized Zone for a surprise attack.

Wiping his brow, Dave Fujikawa of Vallejo, Calif., marveled at the effort put in by the North Koreans to blast through granite: "Tenacious — that's what comes to mind."

Fujikawa said he had no worries about being so close to the border, with North Korean troops just on the other side.

"I'm not nervous about it. There's a military presence all around us. As long as the military's on our side, of course."

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