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Published online 17 November 2006 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news061113-19

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North Korea's nuclear factory hits snags

American scientist reports setbacks at plutonium plant.

North Korea's plutonium production facilities are facing problems, says a prominent US weapons scientist who visited the country earlier this month.

The country's existing reactor can manufacture "at most" one bomb's worth of plutonium a year, says Siegfried Hecker, a metallurgist and former director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, now at Stanford University in California.

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