There are at least two side deals, which Susan Rice admitted to. One dealing with the IAEA and the other of the PMD’s (possible military dimension) sites with particular emphasis on Parchin and Fordow.

Fordow is protected by the Russian-made, S-300 advanced air defense system at the Fordow underground uranium enrichment facility.

So, what is going on now?

• Europe Works to Save the JCPOA | The P5+1 and Iran Nuclear Deal Alert, April 25, 2018 
  April 25, 2018 
  As time winds down to the May 12 deadline President Trump set for negotiating a “fix” to the nuclear deal with Iran, Washington’s P5+1 partners are warning Washington of the consequences if the deal collapses.
• The P5+1 and Iran Nuclear Deal Alert, March 22, 2018 
  March 22, 2018 
  The JCPOA Joint Commission met for its first full meeting since Trump’s threat to pull out of the deal unless so-called “flaws” are corrected. Director General Yukiya Amano reports that the IAEA has access to all needed locations. Russia vetoed a resolution condemning Iran for failing to implement an arms embargo on Yemen, and more in this issue.

For some historical context on the deal…

When the Obama administration decided to launch this effort, he even called on the Catholic Bishops? Are we to assume there was some confab at the Vatican? Yup!

Back in March 2014, a delegation of US bishops made a historic visit to Qom, Iran and held a meeting with Iranian religious leaders. On November 17, an audience at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, DC will have the chance to hear firsthand what they discussed in Qom, and during a subsequent meeting in Rome in June of this year.

The first meeting focused on the need for a world free of nuclear weapons. Following up on opportunities presented by this visit, in July 2014, Ploughshares Fund provided a $50,000 grant to the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) to build a sustainable and effective channel of communication between US and Iranian religious leaders. Supporting such ‘Track II’ dialogues can indirectly aid official negotiations around tough issues, in this case, talks around Western sanctions and Iran’s nuclear program.

Although purely a people to people moral dialogue, the sensitive political situation made it difficult for a reciprocal delegation of Muslim clerics from Iran to visit the US, so the two parties met in Rome. The June 5-10 encounter focused on the moral tenets of each faith, especially as they relate to human rights, weapons of mass destruction, and terrorism. Keeping this constructive dialogue open remains important – even though the Iran nuclear agreement has entered into effect and is working, relationships between Iranians and Americans remain fragile.

Ayatollah Mahdi Hadavi Moghaddam Tehrani and Ayatollah Abolghasem Alidoost headed the five-member Iranian delegation. Representatives from the USCCB participating in the dialogue included Bishop Oscar Cantú of Las Cruces, New Mexico, chair of the bishops’ Committee on International Justice and Peace; Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, archbishop emeritus of Washington; Bishop Richard Pates of Des Moines, Iowa; and Bishop Denis Madden, auxiliary bishop of Baltimore. Bishops Cantú, Madden and Pates will report out on the Qom and Rome meetings during the November 17^th Washington, DC event.

Following the dialogue, a joint declaration was issued by US Catholic bishops and Iranian religious leaders calling for developing a culture of encounter, tolerance, dialogue and peace that respects the religious traditions of others. The leaders emphasized that they regard the development and use of weapons of mass destruction and acts of terrorism as “immoral.”

“Together,” Bishop Cantú said on the occasion, “we commit ourselves to continued dialogue on the most pressing issues facing the human family, such as poverty, injustice, intolerance, terrorism, and war.” He called the joint declaration “the fruit of sincere dialogue between two religions that are united in their concern for the life and dignity of the human person.”

Ploughshares Fund is proud to support these extraordinary dialogues, which aid in fostering cross-border understanding around the thorniest problem we face today: the risks associated with nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons proliferation.

*** Who is Ploughshares? It was founded by Sally Lilienthal.

Instead of getting ready for a quiet life of retirement, the 62 year-old sculptor, human rights activist and mother decided to take on nuclear weapons.

“I thought that if a lot of people felt the same way I did but didn’t know what to do about it, we might get together and search for new ways together to get rid of nuclear weapons that were threatening us all,” she later told the San Francisco Chronicle.

With a little help from her friends and a lot of grit and determination, Sally founded Ploughshares Fund in her San Francisco living room in 1981, the same year IBM announced its first Personal Computer.

Sally was ahead of her time in many ways. After college, she moved to Washington, DC during World War II to work in the Office of War Information when few women held office jobs. Later, she co-founded the California chapter of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, served on the regional ACLU board and was national vice chairwoman of Amnesty International.

*** Where did the 35 year-old organization get its war chest to support a major media organization’s coverage of the negotiations and contribute so generously to one of the most prominent campaigns championing the deal?

Mostly through other large-scale grant-making foundations and philanthropic organizations, some of the largest in the world, such as The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, The Hewlett Foundation, Open Society Foundations and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, each of which gave more than $100,000 to Ploughshares in 2015, according to its latest financial report. The craigslist Charitable Fund, of the classified advertisement website company, chipped in with between $25,000 and $99,000.

Ploughshares also received its share of support from members of the Hollywood community, particularly Jewish ones. It received a donation of between $10,000 and $24,999 from actor Michael Douglas, and between $5,000 and $9,999 from the Streisand Foundation, which was established by the Jewish singer-actress Barbra Streisand.

Through the rest of its donors, Ploughshares received $6,980,384 last year, much of which went toward pushing the nuclear accord, which was struck between the P5+1 world powers and Iran last July and then defeated congressional scrutiny. In September, a bill to reject the deal ultimately failed to receive the required backing to override President Obama’s veto power.

Mr. Kang is likely under protection of the West and has offered key intelligence that has aided the United States, Japan and South Korea in the talks with the Kim regime.

One of North Korea’s most senior intelligence officials, who played a major role in building Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program, has disappeared and is believed to have defectedto France or Britain, according to sources. South Korean media identified the missing official as “Mr. Kang”, and said he is a colonel in North Korea’s State Security Department (SSD), also known as Ministry of State Security. Mr. Kang, who is in his mid-50s, enjoyed a life of privilege in North Korea, because he is related to Kang Pan-sok (1892-1932), a leading North Korean communist activist and mother to the country’s late founder, Kim Il-sung.

According to South Korean reports, Kang was in charge of North Korea’s counter-espionage operations in Russia and Southeast Asia, including China. He is also believed to have facilitated secret visits to Pyongyang by foreign nuclear scientists, who helped build North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. In recent years, Kang was reportedly based in Shenyang, the largest Chinese city near the North Korean border, which is home to a sizeable ethnic Korean population. According to reports, Kang led Unit 121, an elite North Korean hacker group based in Shenyang, with the aim of carrying out cyber-attacks without implicating North Korea. The South Korean-based DailyNK website said on Wednesday that Kang had been based at the Zhongpu International Hotel in Shenyang (until recently named Chilbosan Hotel), which has historically been operated through a joint Chinese-North Korean business venture and is known to host numerous North Korean government officials.

But according to DailyNK, Kang disappeared from Shenyang in February and is now believed to have defected, possibly “to France or Great Britain”. The Seoul-based website said Kang took “a lot of foreign currency with him” as well as “a machine capable of printing American dollars”. Following Kang’s disappearance, the government in Pyongyang launched a worldwide manhunt for him, sending at least 10 agents to assassinate him before he is given political asylum in the West, said DailyNK. Pang’s family, including his wife and children, are believed to still be in Pyongyang.

***

While it is reported that North Korea has released 3 Americans from a labor camp to detention at a hotel from observation and deprogramming. There is no word on full release however, there is more going on with behind the scenes and that includes this defection along with the unit this Colonel worked for while living and stationed in China.

***

The North Korean hackers hit the systems of the Israeli energy company to attempt to penetrate the best electronic protection systems, South Korea’s newspaper Naver reported. According to the company’s experts, the North Korean cyber actors have real capabilities to damage the infrastructure of the United States, Japan and other countries.

Last year, experts warned that the North Korean cyber army could be far more dangerous to global security than its nuclear missiles. “North Korean cyberattacks and other malicious cyber activities pose a risk to critical infrastructure in countries around the world and to the global economy,” the statement said.

Since 2011, Pyongyang has been scaling up its cyber capacities. The North Korean regime is suspected to be exploiting its cyber weapons for political purposes to intimidate its opponents as well as to steal crypto-currency.

North Korean hackers are involved in major cyber offensives

In 2013, the three largest broadcasting companies and two banking institutions of South Korea suffered a massive attack against their systems. According to Shinhan Bank and Nonghyup Bank representatives, about 32,000 computers were infected while internet banking and ATMs stopped working. While Pyongyang still denies any involvement, cybersecurity experts pointed to North Korean group Lazarus.

In August 2014, North Korea hacked the Channel 4 to prevent the production of a drama depicting the fictional story of a nuclear scientist kidnapped in the country.

However one of the most advanced attacks was the intrusion into the network of Sony Corporation in September 2014. The malware destroyed 70% of information stored in the company’s computers. According to Jim Lewis, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the attack turned out to be the worst of its type on a company on U.S. soil.

North Korean hackers raise funds for regime

International sanctions forced Kim Jong-un to look for alternative and illegal sources of financing. By late 2015, the North Korean hackers shifted their attention to the global financial system, according to researchers at BAE Systems, FireEye and Symantec.

In 2016, they were about to commit the most astonishing bank robbery in history. The cybercriminals were close to stealing a billion dollars from the Federal Reserve of New York and only a misprint in the word “foundation” kept them from it.

North Korean state-backed hackers have been also accused of the WannaCry ransomware attack that affected hundreds of thousands of computers worldwide in 2017. Taking into account large amounts of stolen money, it becomes clear that despite the growing political and economic pressure Pyongyang will be able to stay afloat for long.

“Winter is coming”

According to the commander of the US forces in South Korea, General Brooks, the North Korean military forces are currently capable of carrying out the most efficient and well-prepared cyber-attacks in the world.

Robert Hannigan, former director of the Center for Government Communication of Great Britain says that as of June 2017, North Korea had 1,700 state-sponsored hackers and more than 5,000 support staff personnel. They all operate under the Main Intelligence Department of North Korean Armed Forces, known as Unit 586. The so-called Bureau 121 is the main unit conducting cyberattacks abroad. The US Department of Homeland Security refers to this structure as Hidden Cobra, while private companies gave the common name Lazarus to all North Korean hackers. But no one exactly knows how many different subdivisions the North Korea’s cyber-army has.

Earlier this year, cybersecurity firm McAfee reported that hackers have targeted organizations involved in the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, which are set to start this week.  The malicious actors attempted to obtain passwords and sensitive financial data. Speculations have risen that the North could be responsible amid anti-North Korean demonstrations in the Korean Republic and increasingly hostile rhetoric between Pyongyang and Washington.

Some analysts believe that the ongoing talks between Pyongyang and Seoul are Kim Jong-un ruse aimed to distract attention from the North Korea’s nuclear program and its malicious activities in cyberspace. But even if talks go smoothly, Pyongyang will never give up further development of its cyber weapons.

North Korea’s advanced cyber warfare capabilities could be truly scaring and risk escalating the crisis. As international bodies consider enforcing sanctions, Pyongyang continues its campaign of outright theft. Korean Olympic detente won’t last forever.

Next time when Kim Jong-Un feels trapped or insulted his cyber army will be ready to wreak havoc.