North Korea plans to build another 5,000-ton destroyer
Leader Kim Jong Un has vowed to ramp up his country's naval capacities, and presided over the April launch of the country's first 5,000-ton destroyer-class naval ship, the Choe Hyon.
South Korea's military has said the ship could have been developed with Russian help, possibly in exchange for deploying thousands of troops to help Moscow fight in Ukraine.
Kim also presided over the botched launch of the destroyer Kang Kon in May, which was subsequently repaired and set afloat in June.
Workers at the Nampho Shipyard pledged Monday at a rally to complete the new warship by Oct 10 next year, according to Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency.
The date marks the anniversary of the founding of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea.
The North will now construct the "Choe Hyon-class Destroyer No. 3" which it described as "a powerful warship of our own type".
The Nampho dockyard manager urged workers to meet the construction deadline to uphold the party's "plan for building a powerful army" and "to firmly defend the inviolable maritime sovereignty and national interests," KCNA said.
South Korea's new president, Lee Jae-myung, elected last month in a snap election, has promised a more dovish approach towards Pyongyang, compared with that of his hawkish impeached predecessor Yoon Suk Yeol.
The Lee administration has halted loudspeaker propaganda broadcasts along the border, which Seoul began last year following a barrage of trash-filled balloons flown southward by Pyongyang.
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All the ASEAN countries are also looking into nuclear energy, though they are all looking into it in different ways since they have different systems and economies, he noted. 'All of them are saying, we want nuclear energy. How can we get it?' he said. 'And of course, Singapore with its technological base, with its institutional maturity, is ideally, I would say, prepared to host nuclear power relatively soon.' Mr Grossi highlighted one scenario where Singapore could collaborate with a neighbouring country on a nuclear power project. 'We have traditional, big nuclear power plants. Is this a good fit for Singapore? Perhaps Singapore in combination or in cooperation with another country in ASEAN, it's not impossible,' said Mr Grossi. Raising the example of the Krsko power plant in Slovenia that supplies energy to both Slovenia and Croatia, Mr Grossi noted that citizens from both countries work at the plant. 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It is not the defining factor overall,' said Mr Grossi. For example, a country like Singapore has less space for solar energy farms, and big economies like the US will not be able to sustain themselves on only renewable energy, he noted. There are also political factors when it comes to cost, said the IAEA's chief, highlighting that it is important to subsidise clean energy. 'But nuclear energy has never benefited from any subsidy. So you need levelised cost of energy before you start making calculations,' he said. SAFETY CONCERNS AND GEOPOLITICS Mr Grossi also addressed the safety concerns that came with nuclear technology and nuclear energy. Responding to a question about Russia targeting nuclear power plants in Ukraine and whether the IAEA is concerned about similar scenarios in the future, Mr Grossi said: 'Of course, the fact that a nuclear power plant is caught in the middle of a war or a conflict is something that greatly concerns us.' This is why the UN Security Council established principles about how nuclear power plants should not be attacked or become military bases, indicating clearly that both sides should exercise 'maximum restraint', he added. 'Whether this is a trend or not, I suppose not. I think the problem here is the war, it's not the technology,' said Mr Grossi. Inviting the audience to think about this 'in military terms', he stressed that a power plant – a big piece of infrastructure – has an impact on the economy of the countries involved. 'It's like in law, you establish jurisprudence, precedent … Thanks to the example we have in the Zaporizhzhia crisis, if in the future we have a similar situation, we will have the authority and the capacity to intervene, because we did it once and because it worked,' he said. The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in southeastern Ukraine, which is Europe's largest nuclear power plant, was captured by Russian forces in March 2022. Mr Grossi also addressed a question from Israel's Ambassador to Singapore Eli Vered Hazan about how a nuclear Iran can be prevented. This boils down to the inspection regime that should be put in place for parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), said the IAEA's chief. Iran is a party to the treaty, though it has threatened to pull out before. Noting that Israel is not a party to the treaty, Mr Grossi said that all the countries that signed the agreement subject their facilities to a 'very stringent regime of inspections'. In Iran's case, the IAEA has been doing this with 'some successes and some failures', Mr Grossi said, adding that there were areas that were 'not entirely clear' for 'quite some time'. Reiterating what he said in June, Mr Grossi stressed that Iran does not have nuclear weapons and does not have a programme aimed at having nuclear weapons. 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