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In December of 2002, a number of new revelations have kept the non-proliferation teams busy. On December 11, 2002, a Spanish military ship patrolling as part of the Gulf Coalition stopped a suspicous ship. The ship was found to be carrying a number of SCUD type missiles from North Korea to Yemen. Since there is no interdiction authority, the ship was eventually released upon a promise by the Yemeni government not to sell or forward the missiles to any other country.
On December 12, 2002, the North Korean government stated that they would be restarting operations at their two nuclear materials plants. The statement is widely thought to be just another provocation as North Korea thumbs its nose at the non-proliferation community. North Korea had promised in 1994 to cease all such activity, however in November of 2002, North Korea admitted they had not stopped their development programs as promised -- the promise being taken by negotiators at its face value with little probing or substantitive program to confirm action on the promise.
On December 12, 2002, the U.S. government said that Iran was continuing construction of two nuclear materials facilities, one a nuclear fuel production plant and research lab at Natanz and a heavy water production plant at Arak.
On December 12, 2002, the U.S. announced that it had reliable evidence from an informant that Iraq has sold VX nerve gas to Al Qaeda. The story was first reported in The Washington Post, that Islamic extremists from the Al Qaeda-linked Asbat al-Ansar group took chemical weapons from Iraq last month or in late October.
Here's the original chart from the earlier report, the only thing missing is the Yemen connection to North Korea.
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