"North Korea may already possess one or two nuclear weapons, but U.S. policy correctly calls for the Korean Peninsula to be free of all nuclear weapons. In a matter of months, the six to eight bombs' worth of plutonium Pyongyang could then possess would be enough to support an offensive military strategy -- and to export. North Korea has announced the restart of its existing nuclear reactor, and it could finish construction of two larger reactors that were frozen under the 1994 Agreed Framework. Within a few years it could be churning out dozens of bombs' worth of plutonium each year. By then, its secret enrichment program could be producing bomb-grade uranium, too.

Under those circumstances, intense pressure would build in South Korea and Japan to acquire nuclear weapons. The reverberations would quickly extend to Taiwan and China, then India and Pakistan.

If North Korea continues to view unconventional weapon exports as its chief cash crop, it will find numerous customers with adequate means and motive. Access to plutonium could shave years off the efforts of al Qaeda and other terrorists to obtain the weapon of ultimate destruction."

George H W Bush wants his son to wake up.  So he sent his former National Security Advisor and a former member of his National Security Council, message in hand, to the op-ed pages at the Washington Post. 

[via Talking Points Memo] 

"Iranian-backed Iraqi opposition forces have crossed into northern Iraq from Iran with the aim of securing the frontier in the event of war, according to senior Iranian officials.

The forces, numbering up to 5,000 troops, with some heavy equipment, are nominally under the command of Ayatollah Mohammad Baqir al-Hakim, a prominent Iraqi Shia Muslim opposition leader who has been based in Iran since 1980 and lives in Tehran."

Well, this is an interesting development. 

[via Drudgereport]

"I know it's easy to read our latest financial filings and assume, as some correspondents have, that Salon's tragic fate is already a done deal.

Here's the situation: We are a public company, I am an executive of the company, and as such there is no way I can sit here and go into detail about all the steps we're taking to secure Salon's future. Our SEC filing, upon which all the coverage has been based, specifically stated that Salon would run into trouble if it fails to raise new funds. Somehow that conditional clause seemed to drop away from most of the press reports. Sure, nothing in business is certain, but Salon also has a long history of raising the money it needs to survive.

This is the quote from our CEO, Mike O'Donnell, in our press release:

"We are in active, continuing discussions with potential investors to complete an equity financing that would give the company financial stability for 2003. Salon has reported the issuance of notes with equity conversion features in recent months and believe these will become part of a significant round."

Unlike the AP, which didn't even bother to call us for comment before running its imminent-death notice, this CBS Marketwatch report tells more of the story from our side."

Scott weighed in on the Salon blogger's mailing list yesterday reassuring everyone that the end was not so nigh.  Today he reiterates on his blog.