North Korea reached the half way mark on the process of pulling out the 8,000 odd nuclear fuel rods from the Yongbyon reactor. The step was one of the last steps to ensure that the facility was rendered difficult to restart1.

In other news, US Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill stated that the US had proposed a mechanism for verifying North Korea's claims about its nuclear past at the meeting of the top nuclear envoys in Beijing. Ambassador Hill noted that the Six-Party members were waiting to hear specific responses from the North Korean side. Hill also said that Pyongyang had been asked to come back with specific comments on the draft verification mechanism2.

• 1. “N. Korea pulls half of fuel rods from key reactor,” AOL News, July 16, 2008, at http://news.aol.com/story/_a/n-korea-pulls-half-of-fuel-rods-from-key/n2...
• 2. Jae-Soon Chang, “US offers nuclear proposal to NKorea,” Washington Post, July 22, 2008, at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/21/AR200807...