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Politics : Canadian Political Free-for-All -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DeplorableIrredeemableRedneck who wrote (1291)	10/25/2002 6:52:28 PM
From: DeplorableIrredeemableRedneck	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 37549

Did North Korea steal Canada's nuclear secrets? Asian Post Vancouver, British Columbia (October 24, 2002) asianpacificpost.com By Asian Pacific News Service A French-Canadian nuclear engineer who was working on Canadian Candu reactors in South Korea was befriended by North Korean agents seeking western technological and scientific secrets. The meetings at the Nashville Restaurant and Bar in the Itewon district of Seoul was observed and reported by a contract intelligence operative working for the U.S. government, the Asian Pacific Post has learned. A second unidentified Canadian, who was working on the Candu reactors in South Korea also met with the North Korean spies. The startling revelations that Canadian nuclear secrets may have been compromised come in the wake of North Korea's stunning admission that it is trying to develop nuclear weapons. "The French-Canadian was targetted...he was married but the North Koreans wined and dined him and gave him women," said the U.S. agent in a telephone interview with the Asian Pacific Post. "I reported this to my U.S. bosses and later to CSIS (the Canadian Security Intelligence Service)," said the agent, whose primary role was to monitor North Korean spies making contact with American soldiers. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the U.S. agent said he was stationed in South Korea from 1988 to 1996. The first meeting with the French Canadian nuclear engineer, he said, was around 1996. "The Nashville Bar was a popular hangout for westerners and I was tracking a North Korean agent who was trying to make contact with American soldiers....They were after information on troop movements and weapons systems like Patriot missile batteries. "The North Korean agent approached the engineer at the bar...after the initial contact at the bar the North Korean agents took him on luxury vacations with several women. "There is no doubt that they were trying to elicit sensitive information about the nuclear reactors from the engineer," he said. Government officials in Ottawa said they are aware of the reports by the U.S. agent but refused to comment officially. The French-Canadian engineer is believed to be an employee of Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. (AECL) which has built and operated four Candu reactors at Wolsong, South Korea since 1983. AECL, a 40-year-old Crown corporation that employs 3,500 in Canada and around the world, calls itself the third-largest global supplier of nuclear energy systems. The company has received Canadian taxpayer subsidies totalling at least $5-billion over its lifespan. Last year it lost a C$4.7 billion bid to build two more heavy water reactors in South Korea. "AECL may have good security at home but it needs to improve surveillance of its employees overseas," said the U.S. agent. He also warned that the North Korean security apparatus primed to steal industrial, technological and state secrets is active in Canada. Two years ago after Ottawa granted diplomatic recognition to North Korea despite strong objections by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the same U.S. agent provided information about a high-ranking spy from the communist state operating in Montreal. The man, according to the U.S. agent, had entered Canada in the early 1990s as an investor under a much-maligned immigration program that allowed thousands of people to obtain visas quickly if they could invest some money in Canada. "He opened a corner store in a building in Montreal and later bought the whole building for over a million dollars," said the U.S. agent. "He also bought a large house in the posh Beaconsville area." The U.S. agent said the North Korean spy owns a large computer business in Mapo, South Korea, that employs hundreds of people. "He makes millions of dollars a year so what would he want with a corner store in Montreal...We believe he is a key player in a elaborate espionage network operating in Canada and the U.S.," said the agent. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service office in Toronto is aware of the North Korean man in Montreal. Meanwhile, North Korea's acknowledgement two weeks ago it was pursuing a covert nuclear weapons program would likely prevent it from receiving economic aid from Canada, said Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham. Graham said the surprising development will make it difficult for the reclusive communist state to get the kind of financial help it requires from the international community in order to rebuild its ravaged economy. "None of us are going to be willing to help if the financial aid or otherwise will be diverted into weapons procurement programs," Graham told reporters. "We're going to need a clear signal from North Korea that it's abandoning its pursuit of weapons of mass destruction before we'll be in a position to possibly help them rebuild their economy, which they desperately need." North Korea's covert nuclear weapons program violates a 1994 international agreement for the energy-starved rogue communist state to abandon its then suspected nuclear weapons program in exchange for two modern, light-water reactors and 500,000 tons of fuel oil a year until the reactors are completed. But North Korean officials said recently they considered the 1994 agreement invalid because the reactors were not expected to be finished by 2003 as promised. The project has been delayed by funding problems and tension on the Korean Peninsula. South Korea on the weekend presented its demand that the North abandon its nuclear weapons program, but was met with silence, South Korean officials said. Now grave concerns are being raised not only over that country's potential ascension into the ranks of nuclear powers but also about whether North Korea will spread the technology. "The concern is North Korea becoming a nuclear Kmart, complete with blue-light specials," said Jon Wolfsthal, a nuclear proliferation expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.