Kerry in China to Seek Help in Korea Crisis

Secretary of State John Kerry flew to China on Saturday and sought to elicit China’s help in dealing with an increasingly recalcitrant nuclear armed North Korea by saying that American missile defenses could be cut back if the North abandoned its nuclear program.

Mr. Kerry’s trip to China, his first since taking office, is part of an intensive three-day push to try to calm tensions on the Korean Peninsula that have threatened to spiral out of control and rattled world leaders.

In a news conference, Mr. Kerry suggested that the United States could remove some newly enhanced missile defenses in the region, though he did not specify which ones. Any eventual cutback would address Chinese concerns about the buildup of American weapons systems in the region.

After back-to-back meetings between Mr. Kerry and China’s top leaders, the two countries announced that they endorsed the principle of ridding the Korean Peninsula of nuclear weapons, though China did not state publicly what steps it might take to achieve that goal after years of reluctance to crack down on Pyongyang.

“We also joined together in calling on North Korea to refrain from provocations and to abide by international obligations,” Mr. Kerry said.

Worries spiked last week as the South Koreans predicted the North could launch a new missile test any day and after the disclosure that an American intelligence agency concluded for the first time with “moderate confidence” that North Korea learned how to make a nuclear warhead small enough to be delivered by a ballistic missile. The administration has since said that it was premature to conclude that Pyongyang had a fully tested weapons system.

Mr. Kerry’s stance on newly fortified missile defenses appeared to be a selling point to get China, the only country presumed to have any real influence over North Korea, to do what it has long resisted — crack down hard enough that North Korea’s leaders will give up an increasingly sophisticated nuclear program.

In recent weeks, the administration has dispatched two ships outfitted with Aegis antimissile defenses to the region and said it will speed up the positioning of land-based missile defenses on Guam to protect allies in the region after North Korea’s threats to rain missiles on United States troops there and on South Korea.

Many Chinese believe the antimissile systems are part of a containment strategy against them at a time when the United States is pursuing a “pivot” to Asia.

In the past, China has been motivated by a different fear: that any move to destabilize the North would lead to a collapse of the regime and deliver the entire peninsula to the United States’ sphere of influence, possibly bringing American troops in South Korea closer to its border.

China’s cooperation is essential to the Obama administration’s strategy of holding a tough line on Pyongyang in an attempt to achieve the type of long-lasting solution on the nuclear program that has eluded a string of United States presidents. Previous administrations responded to North Korean provocations by eventually offering aid to tamp down tensions, only to see the North’s promises to relinquish its nuclear program evaporate once the aid had been delivered.

Mr. Kerry said he explained to China why the United States felt it needed more missile defenses in the region.

“Obviously if the threat disappears — i.e. North Korea denuclearizes — the same imperative does not exist at that point of time for us to have that kind of robust forward leaning posture of defense,” he said. “And it would be our hope in the long run, or better yet in short run, that we can address that.”

Mr. Kerry’s remarks are likely to stir concern among staunch advocates of missile defense in the United States, who also see antimissile systems as a means of responding to China’s growing military might. His aides say any changes would require the input of the Pentagon.

Even if China were to take a strong position with its longtime ally, possibly cutting back essential aid and fuel, North Korea might not fall into line. Under its new leader, Kim Jong-un, the North has snubbed China several times, including refusing Chinese entreaties to cancel the recent nuclear test that set off the war of words on the Peninsula.

At the core of the issue is the United States’ inability to draw North Korea into a serious round of nuclear talks. North Korea’s apparent determination to expand its nuclear weapons program and the American demand that it commit up front to eventually relinquishing those arms have raised the question of whether there is even any basis for negotiations. “China has an enormous ability to help make a difference here,” Mr. Kerry said on Friday in Seoul.

The Chinese stance on North Korea has never been a simple one. On one hand, the Chinese prize stability and are eager to avoid a crisis that would spawn a flood of refugees or prompt the United States to shift more forces to the Pacific. On the other hand, that same concern for stability has meant that it is reluctant to take steps that would undermine the North Korean government’s hold on power and eliminate a friendly buffer between Chinese territory and South Korean and American forces.

In Beijing, Mr. Kerry met with the new president, Xi Jinping, Foreign Minister Wang Yi, Premier Li Keqiang and State Councilor Yang Jiechi.

Mr. Yang said at a dinner with Mr. Kerry on Saturday night that China was committed to “the denuclearization process on the Korean Peninsula.” But the Chinese state councilor also stressed that the “issue should be handled and resolved peacefully through dialogue and consultation.”

To encourage the Chinese to deal with the North Korean nuclear problem, Mr. Kerry said that he had shared “very in-depth” information illustrating the danger of how a nuclear North Korea could promote the proliferation of nuclear arms in Asia and the Middle East.

Mr. Kerry said his aim was to find a way to revive the goals of the six-party talks on the North’s nuclear program, which have been stalled since 2009 when North Korea withdrew. The talks have included North and South Korea, China, Russia, Japan and the United States.

He also portrayed cooperation on North Korea as just one element of a “model partnership” the United States hoped to build with China on diplomatic, economic and environmental issues.

Mr. Kerry said there would be additional discussions in the weeks ahead with the Chinese that would involve American intelligence experts including Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The two sides also called on North Korea to refrain from provocations, an apparent allusion to a potential missile test the South Koreans said could happen soon.

Bonnie S. Glaser, a senior adviser for Asia at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said China was very frustrated with Mr. Kim and was taking some action, like cracking down on the flow of illicit North Korean funds through Chinese banks. At the same time, she noted, the Chinese fear the United States’ recent actions, including a test flight of B-2 bombers over South Korea, would further incite the North.

The United States “keeps sending more fighter bombers and missile defense ships to the waters of East Asia and carrying out massive military drills with Asian allies in a dramatic display of pre-emptive power,” the state-run news agency Xinhua said Saturday.

 Jane Perlez contributed reporting.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: April 13, 2013

 An earlier version of this article misidentified the Chinese official who stressed that “the denuclearization process on the Korean Peninsula” should be “handled and resolved peacefully through dialogue and consultation.” It was State Councilor Yang Jiechi, not Foreign Minister Wang Yi.

By MICHAEL R. GORDON

North Korea tells China of fresh nuclear tests

North Korea has told its key ally, China, that it is prepared to stage one or even two more nuclear tests this year in an effort to force the United States into diplomatic talks with Pyongyang, said a source with direct knowledge of the message.

Further tests could also be accompanied this year by another rocket launch, said the source who has direct access to the top levels of government in both Beijing and Pyongyang.

The isolated regime conducted its third nuclear test on Tuesday, drawing global condemnation and a stern warning from the United States that it was a threat and a provocation.

“It’s all ready. A fourth and fifth nuclear test and a rocket launch could be conducted soon, possibly this year,” the source said, adding that the fourth nuclear test would be much larger than the third at an equivalent of 10 kilotons of TNT.

The tests will be undertaken, the source said, unless Washington holds talks with North Korea and abandons its policy of what Pyongyang sees as attempts at regime change.

North Korea also reiterated its long-standing desire for the United States to sign a final peace agreement with it and establish diplomatic relations, he said. The North remains technically at war with both the United States and South Korea after the Korean war ended in 1953 with a truce.

Initial estimates of this week’s test from South Korea’s military put its yield at the equivalent of 6-7 kilotons, although a final assessment of yield and what material was used in the explosion may be weeks away.

North Korea’s latest test, its third since 2006, prompted warnings from Washington and others that more sanctions would be imposed on the isolated state. The UN Security Council has only just tightened sanctions on Pyongyang after it launched a long-range rocket in December.

The North is banned under UN sanctions from developing missile or nuclear technology after its 2006 and 2009 nuclear tests.

North Korea worked to ready its nuclear test site, about 100 km from its border with China, throughout last year, according to commercially available satellite imagery. The images show that it may have already prepared for at least one more test, beyond Tuesday’s subterranean explosion.

“Based on satellite imagery that showed there were the same activities in two tunnels, they have one tunnel left after the latest test,” said Kune Y Suh, a nuclear engineering professor at Seoul National University in South Korea.

Analysis of satellite imagery released on Friday by specialist North Korea website 38North showed activity at a rocket site that appeared to indicate it was being prepared for an upcoming launch.

NORTH ‘NOT AFRAID’ OF SANCTIONS

President Barack Obama pledged after this week’s nuclear test “to lead the world in taking firm action in response to these threats” and diplomats at the UN Security Council have already started discussing potential new sanctions.

The North has said the test this week was a reaction to what it said was “US hostility” following its December rocket launch. Critics say the rocket launch was aimed at developing technology for an intercontinental ballistic missile.

“(North) Korea is not afraid of (further) sanctions,” the source said. “It is confident agricultural and economic reforms will boost grain harvests this year, reducing its food reliance on China.”

North Korea’s isolated and small economy has few links with the outside world apart from China, its major trading partner and sole influential diplomatic ally.

China signed up for sanctions after the 2006 and 2009 nuclear tests and for a UN Security Council resolution passed in January to condemn the latest rocket launch. However, Beijing has stopped short of abandoning all support for Pyongyang.

Sanctions have so far not discouraged North Korea from pursuing its nuclear ambitions, analysts said.

“It is like watching the same movie over and over again,” said Lee Woo-young, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul.

“The idea that stronger sanctions make North Korea stop developing nuclear programmes isn’t effective in my view.”

The source with ties to Beijing and Pyongyang said China would again support UN sanctions. He declined to comment on what level of sanctions Beijing would be willing to endorse.

“When China supported UN sanctions … (North) Korea angrily called China a puppet of the United States,” he said. “There will be new sanctions which will be harsh. China is likely to agree to it,” he said, without elaborating.

He said however that Beijing would not cut food and fuel supplies to North Korea, a measure that it reportedly took after a previous nuclear test.

He said North Korea’s actions were a distraction for China’s leadership, which was concerned the escalations could inflame public opinion in China and hasten military build-ups in the region.

The source said that he saw little room for compromise under North Korea’s youthful new leader, Kim Jong-un. The third Kim to rule North Korea is just 30 years old and took over from his father in December 2011.

He appears to have followed his father, Kim Jong-il, in the “military first” strategy that has pushed North Korea ever closer to a workable nuclear missile at the expense of economic development.

“He is much tougher than his father,” the source said.

– Reuters

NASA’s “Black Marble” Photos of Earth At Night

NASA just published some lovely photos of planet Earth at night, showing the many ways night images can be used for science, including seeing where people live, monitoring black-outs, viewing natural events, and even watching the Aurora lights. The images are made possible by a new sensor, the day-night band of the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS), which can detect even the dim glow of a single ship in the middle of the ocean.

Scroll through to see these beautiful, interesting images and learn about the technology used to capture them.

“Nighttime light is the most interesting data that I’ve had a chance to work with. I’m always amazed at what city light images show us about human activity.” says Chris Elvidge, who leads the Earth Observation Group at NOAA’s National Geophysical Data Center, on NASA’s Flickr set titled “Black Marble”.

NASA states that Elvidge’s research group “has been approached by scientists seeking to model the distribution of carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels and to monitor the activity of commercial fishing fleets. Biologists have examined how urban growth has fragmented animal habitat. Elvidge even learned once of a study of dictatorships in various parts of the world and how nighttime lights had a tendency to expand in the dictator’s hometown or province.”

This image of the area near Delhi, India shows how NASA’s satellite technology has progressed and just how excellent the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) really is. “For comparison,” writes NASA, “the lower image shows the same area one night earlier, as observed by the Operational Line Scan (OLS) system on a Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) spacecraft.”

While the OLS has been a successful sensor, it uses older technology and, as is made clear by the image, has a much lower resolution than VIIRS. VIIRS is 10 to 15 times better than OLS.

It is incredible to see exactly where we live when the maps are illuminated by our homes and street lights. Here, the Nile River Valley and Delta is aglow. Approximately 97% of Egypt’s population lives along this section of the Nile, made obvious by the sparkling lights.

“The city lights resemble a giant calla lily, just one with a kink in its stem near the city of Luxor. Some of the brightest lights occur around Cairo, but lights are abundant along the length of the river. Bright city lights also occur along the Suez Canal and around Tel Aviv. Away from the lights, however, land and water appear uniformly black. This image was acquired near the time of the new Moon, and little moonlight was available to brighten land and water surfaces,” writes NASA.

NASA notes that while city lights at night help to track where people live, it’s not the be-all-end-all method, as evidenced by this image showing the contrast between a glowing South Korea and a dark North Korea. Even though North Korea has about half the number of people that South Korea has, it has just a tiny fraction of lights.

“Worldwide, South Korea ranks 12th in electricity production, and 10th in electricity consumption, per 2011 estimates. North Korea ranks 71st in electricity production, and 73rd in electricity consumption, per 2009 estimates,” states NASA.

Not only are the satellites useful for tracking the lighted activity of humans, but it can also track the lights of natural phenomena like the aurora australis, or southern lights. Here is a night view of the aurora over Antartica’s Queen Maud Land and the Princess Ragnhild Coast.

The satellites help scientists researching the Arctic as well, taking images during the polar darkness of the autumn of 2012 so scientists could see the behavior of sea ice after summer melts.

To do this, NASA states, “Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on the Suomi NPP satellite can see in the dark. The VIIRS “day-night band” detects light in a range of wavelengths from green to near-infrared and uses filtering techniques to observe signals such as gas flares, auroras, wildfires, city lights, and reflected moonlight. The day-night band takes advantage of moonlight, airglow (the atmosphere’s self-illumination through chemical reactions), zodiacal light (sunlight scattered by interplanetary dust), and starlight from the Milky Way. By using these dim light sources, the day-night band can detect changes in clouds, snow cover, and sea ice. The VIIRS day-night band offers a unique perspective because once polar night has descended, satellite sensors relying on visible light can no longer produce photo-like images. And although passive microwave sensors can monitor sea ice through the winter, they offer much lower resolution.”

The satellites can also track occurrences like wild fires, such as these burning in Siberia, helping to track the progress of the blazes even through the night.

 

Ryugyong Hotel North Korea

The pyramid-shaped structure Ryugyong Hotel is not in New York, Hong Kong or Dubai. Instead, it is in Pyongyang, capital of one of the most impoverished countries in the world.The 105-storey structure has been blighted by construction delays, ridiculed by the west as ostentatious, and proved an embarrassment to the North Korean regime.

India: Living with a Fragile Nuclear Safety System

India along with China, North Korea and Israel has low levels of transparency on nuclear materials and security, an independent report has said.

“Four countries have particularly low levels of transparency, specifically Israel, North Korea, India and China, on materials and materials security,” said Page Stoutland, Vice President for nuclear materials at the Washington-based independent Nuclear Threat Initiative .

The Nuclear Threat Initiative, in a project led by former US senator Sam Nunn and the Economist Intelligence Unit, aims to draw attention to steps that nations can take to ensure the safety of the world’s most destructive weapons.

Yesterday it released first of its kind 32-nation index and country-by-country assessment of the status of nuclear material security conditions around the world.

At a news conference, along with Nunn, Stoutland said low level of transparency of countries like India most directly affects the scores in the global norms category.

“For example, if India were as transparent as the United Kingdom, its rank in the global norms category would move from 26th to sixth overall,” he said.

Related articles

• Australia Tops in Securing Nuclear Weapons; US only on the 13th (ibtimes.com)
• Pakistan’s nuclear safety better than North Korea only (nation.com.pk)
• REPORT: Nuclear Materials Still Far From Secure (thinkprogress.org)

India Got Nuclear Tech Through AQ Khan: U.S. Arms

A scandalous claim has been made by a U.S. arms control that AQ Khan, Pakistan‘s notorious nuclear engineer may have passed on nuclear energy to India. Joshua Pollack, a U.S. policy wonk (a person who studies or develops strategies and policies) who has worked on nuclear proliferation commented that India might be the fourth country along with Iran, Libya and North Korea, to which a shortcut to nuclear weapons were provided by A Q Khan.

Little credibility was offered by Pollack to back up his content, apart from some similarities between the centrifuges used by India in its uranium-enrichment program and Pakistan’s centrifuges engineered by Khan. South African court documents have been cited by him, which claims that a member of Khan “association” supplied India’s centrifuge program with specialized equipment, starting in the late 1980s.

It was through the plutonium route in 1972 that India went nuclear, several years before Pakistan, according to Pollack.

Pakistan’s notorious nuclear scientist AQ Khan may have passed on nuclear technology to India, cited newspaper ads in 2006 demanding centrifuge parts claimed a U.S. arms control expert.

“India’s enrichment program progressed slowly… In 2006 the Washington DC-based Institute for Science and International Security revealed that the Indian government had used newspaper ads to solicit bids for centrifuge parts. The details of these advertisements, along with documents Indians gave potential suppliers, provide strong clues about where New Delhi’s supercritical centrifuge technology came from,” Joshua Pollack said in a commentary in Playboy. “Despite some changes, the design is recognizable to the trained eye: It almost mirrors the G-2 centrifuge, a design Khan stole from URENCO in the 1970s and reproduced as Pakistan’s P-2 centrifuge,” as quoted by TOI

Gerhard Wisser,a German in South Africa was in collaboration with Gotthard Lerch in Switzerland to supply specialized equipments to both Pakistan and its proliferation partners, starting in the late 1980s, to India said Pollack.

Pollack speculates despite the fact Khan never mentioned having a fourth customer ever, “Could Khan have been ignorant about Wisser’s dealings with India? His own guilty conscience says otherwise.” Two conflicting cover stories were published as Khan answered his Pakistani interrogators which explain how Pakistan’s enrichment technology could have ended up in “enemy hands”.

Earlier, the overseas network was claimed autonomous by Khan to supply both India and Pakistan. Later an allegation made by Khan said that he was exploited by Indian connection hidden inside Farooq’s Dubai operation. But Musharaff’s biography cited, “the network based in Dubai had employed several Indians, some of whom have since vanished.”

Related articles

• AQ Khan gave India nuclear tech: US expert (ibnlive.in.com)
• Nuclear smugglers who aided AQ Khan face trial in Switzerland (guardian.co.uk)

Ten places in the world you can’t enter..

The world is full of secret and exclusive places that we either don’t know about, or simply couldn’t visit if we wanted to. This list takes a look at ten of the most significant places around the world that are closed to the general public or are virtually impossible for the general public to visit.

1. RAF Menwith Hill

RAF Menwith Hill is a British military base with connections to the global ECHELON spy network. The site contains an extensive satellite ground station and is a communications intercept and missile warning site and has been described as the largest electronic monitoring station in the world. The site acts as a ground station for a number of satellites operated by the US National Reconnaissance Office, on behalf of the US National Security Agency, with antennae contained in a large number of highly distinctive white radomes, and is alleged to be an element of the ECHELON system. ECHELON was reportedly created to monitor the military and diplomatic communications of the Soviet Union and its Eastern Bloc allies during the Cold War in the early 1960s, but since the end of the Cold War it is believed to search also for hints of terrorist plots, drug dealers’ plans, and political and diplomatic intelligence. It has also been involved in reports of commercial espionage and is believed to filter all telephone and radio communications in the nations which host it – an extreme violation of privacy.

2. Mount Weather Emergency Operations Center

This is a place that is not only closed to the public, but it is a place that the public hope to never have to enter! In most “end of the world” films we see these days, there is always a highly classified area where US government officials and a chosen few get to go in the hopes that they can escape the impending doom. The Mount Weather Emergency Operations Center is the real thing. It was set up in the 1950s due to the cold war but continues to operate today. It is a “last hope” area. For obvious reasons its operations are highly classified. It is run by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The center is already functioning and even in small local disasters in the US, much of the telecommunications traffic is routed through it.

3. Ise Grand Shrine

The Ise Grand Shrine in Japan (which is actually a series of over 100 shrines) is the most sacred shrine in Japan. It is dedicated to Amaterasu (the Sun goddess) and has been in existence since 4BC. The main shrine is alleged to hold the most important item in Japan’s imperial history: the Naikū (the mirror from Japanese mythology which eventually ended up in the hands of the first emperors). The shrine is demolished and rebuilt every 20 years in keeping with the Shinto idea of death and rebirth (the next rebuilding will be in 2013). This ranks very high on the list of places you will never go because the only person who can enter is the priest or priestess and he must be a member of the Japanese imperial family. So unless we have a Japanese prince or princess reading the site, no one here will ever see anything more than the thatched roof of the Ise Grand Shrine.

4. Room 39

Room 39 or Bureau 39 is arguably one of the most secretive organizations in North Korea that seeks ways to obtain foreign currency for Kim Jong-il, North Korea’s Chairman of the National Defense Commission. Room 39 was established in the late 1970s. It has been described as the lynchpin of the North’s so-called “court economy” centered on the dynastic Kim family. It is unknown how the name originated. Very little is known about Room 39 due to the secretive nature surrounding the organization, but it is widely speculated that the organization uses 10 to 20 bank accounts in China and Switzerland for the purposes of counterfeiting, money laundering, and other illicit transactions. It is also alleged that Room 39 is involved in drug smuggling and illicit weapon sales. It is known, however, that the organization has 120 foreign trade companies under its jurisdiction and is under the direct control of Kim Jong-il. North Korea has denied taking part in any illegal activities. Room 39 is believed to be located inside a ruling Workers’ Party building in Pyongyang, the capital city of North Korea.

5. Area 51

I have put this so high on the list because it is the one place most readers are likely to expect to see. Area 51 is a nickname for a military base that is located in the southern portion of Nevada in the western United States, 83 miles (133 km) north-northwest of downtown Las Vegas. Situated at its center, on the southern shore of Groom Lake, is a large secretive military airfield. The base’s primary purpose is to support development and testing of experimental aircraft and weapons systems. The intense secrecy surrounding the base, the very existence of which the U.S. government barely acknowledges, has made it the frequent subject of conspiracy theories and a central component to unidentified flying object (UFO) folklore. The sign above states that deadly force can be used if people enter the Area 51 zone.

6. White’s Gentlemen’s Club

White’s is the most exclusive English gentlemen’s club. It was founded in 1693 by Italian Francesco Bianco (Francis White) to sell the newly discovered hot chocolate but eventually became a typical (but extremely private) gentlemen’s club. The club is famous for its “betting book” in which members make bizarre gambles. The most famous of which is a 3,000 pound bet on which of two raindrops would slide down the window first. So why is this club on the list? Women are excluded completely from membership, so that is half our audience out. Secondly, men who want to join this exclusive club can only do so if invited by a sitting member who has the support of two other members. Unless you are a member of royalty, or are extremely powerful in politics or the arts, you are unlikely to ever see the exclusive White’s invitation.

7. Moscow Metro-2

Metro-2 in Moscow, Russia is a purported secret underground metro system which parallels the public Moscow Metro. The system was built supposedly during (or from) the time of Stalin and codenamed D-6 by the KGB. Russian journalists have reported that the existence of Metro-2 is neither confirmed nor denied by the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB) or the Moscow Metro administration. The length of Metro-2 is rumored to exceed even that of the “civil” (i.e. public) Metro. (It is said to have 4 lines and lie 50 to 200 m deep. It is said to connect the Kremlin with the FSB headquarters, the government airport at Vnukovo-2, and an underground town at Ramenki, in addition to other locations of national importance. Needless to say, the fact that no one confirms its existence makes it pretty difficult to visit.

8. Club 33​

Contrary to popular belief, Disneyland has a full liquor license which is used when the place closes down to the general public to accommodate private parties. But there is one place in Disneyland that is always open to sell booze: Club 33. Club 33 is a private club located in the heart of the New Orleans Square section of Disneyland. Officially maintained as a secret feature of the theme park, the entrance of the club is located next to the Blue Bayou Restaurant at “33 Royal Street” with the entrance recognizable by an ornate address plate with the number 33 engraved on it. Fees for joining range from 10 – 30 thousand US dollars and membership comes with a car park. If you want to join the club, you have to go to the end of the fourteen year waiting list.

9.  Vatican Secret Archives

This has been mentioned on a previous list – the archives are not secret despite their names. You can view any document you wish. But you cannot enter the archive. You must submit your request for a document and it will be supplied to you. Despite the foolishness of the recent junk from Ron Howard​ and Dan Brown​ (Angels and Demons) the documents are all available and there are no copies of suppressed scientific theories or great works that were banned. The only documents you can’t access are those which are not yet 75 years old (in order to protect diplomatic and governmental information). Indexes are available for people who want to see if a document exists in the archives. The Vatican Secret Archives have been estimated to contain 52 miles (84 km) of shelving, and there are 35,000 volumes in the selective catalog alone

10. Mezhgorye

Mezhgorye is a closed town in Russia which is believed to house people working on the highly secret Mount Yamantaw​. The town was founded in 1979. Mount Yamantaw stands at 1,640 metres (5,381 ft) and is the highest mountain in the southern Urals. Along with Kosvinsky Mountain (600 km to the north), it is suspected by the United States of being a large secret nuclear facility and/or bunker. Large excavation projects have been observed by U.S. satellite imagery as recently as the late 1990s, during the time of Boris Yeltsin​’s pro-Western government after the fall of the Soviet Union. Two garrisons, Beloretsk-15 and Beloretsk-16, were built on top of the facility. Repeated U.S. questions have yielded several different responses from the Russian government regarding Mount Yamantaw. They have said it is a mining site, a repository for Russian treasures, a food storage area, and a bunker for leaders in case of nuclear war.

Related articles

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Interesting Facts About The Nuclear Weapons

Nuclear weapon is hanging over the world population like a Damocles sword and whole of the world is in danger. Although, using nuclear technology man has also produced electricity and accomplished numerous human welfare tasks but its threat cannot be ignored at the same time. Recently, a decade long war of USA and Iraq was based on an allegation that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction and USA intended to neutralize their nuclear facilities. It all came to a naught when they found nothing there but just imagine the magnitude of devastation word “nuclear weapon” lead to. Anyways, here I am going to tell you 10 Interesting Facts About The Nuclear Weapons

Since the advent of Nuclear weapon, humans are among the endangered species list. There are around 26,000 nuclear warheads in the world, enough to destroy civilization many times.
Two states possess more than 95% of all nuclear weapons and those two states are USA and Russia.
Currently, there are nine countries with nuclear weapons namely; US, Russia, UK, France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea.
The total number of nuclear missiles built in USA since 1951 up till now are 67,500 (U.S. Nuclear Weapons Cost Study Project).
The total number of nuclear bombers built in USAA since 1945 up till now are 4680. (U.S. Nuclear Weapons Cost Study Project).
It is very horrifying to know that there are up to 2,000,000 kilograms of Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) in global stockpiles. Only 15-24 kg of HEU is used to make a nuclear weapon. Just imagine the magnitude of nuclear warhead already stockpiled in the world.
The total area which is occupied by the USA nuclear bases and facilities is 15,654 square miles.
The 1970 Non-Proliferation Treaty, approved by nearly every country in the world, demands all the nuclear weapon states to engage themselves in good faith negotiations for nuclear disarmament.
The Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT) between the US and Russia, a treaty which required both the countries to reduce their r deployed strategic warheads to between 1,700 and 2,200 by December 31, 2012, was terminated on the following day and allowing each country to redeploy as many nuclear warheads as possible. They couldn’t even wait for a day to cancel this treaty and again involve themselves into this horrendous race of deploying the nuclear warheads.
We can assess the devastating effect of the nuclear weapon from the fact that Money and non-monetary compensation paid by the United States to Marshallese Islanders since 1956 to make for the damages from nuclear testing is at least $759,000,000.

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