North Korea demolishes nuclear reactor

With a little fanfare and in front of a collection of international diplomats and journalists, North Korea blew up the cooling tower of their Yongbyon nuclear reactor on Friday. The explosion put a symbolic end to their nuclear weapons program. The Yongbyon reactor is believed to have produced enough plutonium for up to a half dozen bombs.

Reaction so far has been positive. The United States has agreed to lift some of the economic sanctions in place against North Korea and will begin the process of removing North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism. In other words, if all goes well, the "axis of evil" will soon lose a charter member.

The US (along with China, Russia, South Korea and Japan) has been negotiating with North Korea for years over their nuclear weapons program. For years though it seems like little progress has been made.

While blowing up the Yongbyon reactor is a good step, critics have said that the agreement made with North Korea leaves a lot to be desired - that negotiators could have made this same deal years ago and that it goes easy on North Korea. For example, the Koreans did not have to disclose just how many nuclear weapons they have made (the best guess is between six and eight, but there is no hard evidence that the Koreans have built any bombs at all). Some also worry that while the destruction of the Yongbyon site puts an end to North Korea's plutonium bomb program, that a second program making nuclear weapons out of uranium may still exist.

What this all means is that there will be more negotiations and more verification trips in the future. But it is the first solid sign of progress in a long time.