April 02, 2013: North Korea vowed Tuesday to restart a nuclear reactor that can make
one bomb's worth of plutonium a year, escalating tensions already raised by near daily
warlike threats against the United States and South Korea. The North's plutonium reactor
was shut down in 2007 as part of international nuclear disarmament talks that have
since stalled. The declaration of a resumption of plutonium production - the most
common fuel in nuclear weapons - and other facilities at the main Nyongbyon nuclear
complex will boost fears in Washington and among its allies about North Korea's timetable
for building a nuclear-tipped missile that can reach the United States, technology
it is not currently believed to have.