looks like north korea went and did it..

[SEEDYNONO]

first nuclear test is supposedly done with.. underground. will be an interesting week..

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/10/08/korea.nuclear.test.ap/index.html

 

[minds_I]

My God have mercy on us all

 

[Laxpunker]

You know Bush started humming the Mighty Mouse theme as soon as he heard.

 

[Closet Funk]

What a Joke!

 

[Allusive]

I doubt this is true. North Korea loves to claim this, and has been claiming to conduct a visible nuclear test for some time. This was underground, because they most likely don't have the capability. Though they do have some nuclear technology and questionable enriched plutonium. The thing is, with this kind of sultanistic dictatorship, it is common to claim all sorts of things. Just like with Stalin, nobody wanted to say "no, we can't do that sir" because you got tortured and killed. Kim Jong-il has surrounded himself with an administration of "yes-men", and because of this many of these claims are merely threats. He is either greatly ignorant of his actual limited military capability like Stalin was (in terms of China or the US, not South Korea), or is either knowledgable of this and doesn't care, lol. However, the consensus among political scientists is that they don't take many of his larger claims very seriously. The US doesn't either, though they may make all kinds of public statements inline with their public political agendas (such as 'the war on terror').

Don't let their large number of troops fool you, a large percentage are inactive, and poorly equipped. The large troop-level is due to the fact that young men are either intimidated to join the military or the military is most often the only way to get fed.

I doubt this will be confirmed, but who knows? even if they did develop the capability it's not really a threat to anyone but maybe themselves. The entire regime will collapse once Kim Jong-il dies. He is North Korea.

 

[Laxpunker]

I also like how North Korea got pissed when SK fired off warning shots. Uh no shit, if I saw enemy troops sneaking into my country I probably wouldn't be aiming to miss...that's just not something you do.

 

[mriko]

I doubt this is true.

This is true. NK called China Gov. (who then called US, Japan and SK) to tell them half an hour before the test. Confirmed by several seismic reports as well.
you right seedynono, gonna be an interesting week ! Taepodong anyone ?

Irie !

 

[Nikijad4210]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061009/ap_on_re_as/koreas_nuclear_108
North Korea says nuclear test successful
By BURT HERMAN, Associated Press Writer


SEOUL, South Korea -

North Korea said Monday it had performed its first nuclear weapons test, an underground explosion that defied international warnings but was hailed by the communist nation as a "great leap forward" for its people.

The reported test drew harsh condemnation from world powers and some warned it would destabilize the region. The U.N. Security Council was expected to discuss North Korea on Monday, and the United States and Japan were likely to press for a resolution imposing additional sanctions on the impoverished country.

The U.S. Geological Survey said it recorded a seismic event with a preliminary magnitude-4.2 in northeastern North Korea that coincided with the announced test. But the Colorado-based agency was unable to tell whether it was the result of an atomic explosion or a natural earthquake, USGS official Bruce Presgrave said.

Australia and South Korea said there was seismic confirmation that pointed to a nuclear test. A top Russian military officer confirmed the device tested was a nuclear weapon, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.

However, Japan said it could not immediately confirm a nuclear test had been conducted.

The magnitude of the tremor could indicate the test was equivalent to the force of 550 tons of TNT, said Park Chang-soo, spokesman at the Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources, a state-run South Korean geological institute.

That is relatively small compared to the World War II atomic bomb the United States dropped on Hiroshima, Japan on Aug. 6, 1945, which was equivalent to 15,000 tons of TNT.

Although North Korea has long claimed it had the capability to produce a bomb, the reported test, if confirmed, would be the first proof of its membership in a small club of nuclear-armed nations. It would dramatically alter the strategic balance of power in the Pacific region and seriously undermine global anti-proliferation efforts.

The test Monday morning came a day after the ninth anniversary of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il's appointment as head of the Korean Workers' Party. Tuesday will be the 61st anniversary of the party's founding.

Condemnation of North Korea from world powers came swiftly after the test was announced.

"A North Korean nuclear test would constitute a provocative act in defiance of the will of the international community and of our call to refrain from actions that would aggravate tensions in Northeast Asia," White House spokesman Tony Snow said.

"We expect the U.N. Security Council to take immediate actions to respond to this unprovoked act," he added. "The United States is closely monitoring the situation and reaffirms its commitment to protect and defend our allies in the region."

China, the North's closest ally, said Beijing "resolutely opposes" the test and hopes Pyongyang will return to the six-party nuclear disarmament talks.

Japan's new prime minister, Shinzo Abe, said a nuclear test by North Korea was unpardonable, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported. Abe was in Seoul for a summit. Japan's top government spokesman said if confirmed, the test would pose a serious threat to the stability in the region and a provocation.

South Korean presidential spokesman Yoon Tae-young said: "Our government will sternly react under the principle that it cannot tolerate the North's possession of nuclear weapons." South Korea suspended an aid shipment scheduled Tuesday to the North.

South and North Korea, which fought the 1950-53 Korean War, are divided by the world's most heavily armed border.

South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun was holding an emergency meeting Monday of top security officials, and Seoul was consulting with allies on intelligence about the reported test, the presidential spokesman said. Roh was also to speak later with President Bush, his office said.

South Korea's Defense Ministry said the alert level of the military had been raised.

The North's official Korean Central News Agency said the underground test was performed successfully and there was no dangerous radioactive leakage as a result.

This is "a stirring time when all the people of the country are making a great leap forward in the building of a great prosperous powerful socialist nation," KCNA said.

"It marks a historic event as it greatly encouraged and pleased the ... people that have wished to have powerful self-reliant defense capability," it said. "It will contribute to defending the peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and in the area around it."

If a nuclear test is confirmed, North Korea would be the eighth country in the world known to have atomic weapons along with the United States, Russia, France, China, Britain, India, and Pakistan. Israel also is believed to have nuclear bombs but does not confirm it.

The North is believed to have enough radioactive material for about a half-dozen bombs, using plutonium from its main nuclear reactor located at Yongbyon, north of the capital Pyongyang. It insists its nuclear program is necessary to deter a U.S. invasion.

The North also has active missile programs, but it is not believed to have an atomic bomb design small and light enough to be mounted on a long-range rocket that could strike targets as far as the U.S.

The announcement sent the international community scrambling to try to verify whether it was an actual nuclear test.

Russian military monitoring systems "detected the test of a nuclear weapon in North Korea," the ITAR-Tass news agency quoted Lt. Gen. Vladimir Verkhovtsev as saying. "It is 100 percent (certain) that it was an underground nuclear explosion," the agency quoted Verkhovtsev, the head of a Defense Ministry department, as saying.

South Korean intelligence officials said the seismic wave had been detected in North Hamkyung province, according to South Korea's Yonhap news agency. It said the test was conducted at 10:36 a.m. (9:36 p.m. EDT Sunday) in Hwaderi near Kilju city on the northeast coast, citing defense officials.

An official at South Korea's seismic monitoring center confirmed a tremor was felt at the time North Korea said it conducted the test and said it was not a natural occurrence. The official spoke to The Associated Press on condition his name not be used, because he was not authorized to talk about the sensitive information to the media.

Australia also said there was seismic confirmation that North Korea conducted a nuclear test.

The Japanese prime minister was skeptical as he arrived for the summit in South Korea.

"We must collect and analyze information to determine whether a test was actually held," Abe said.

The North has refused for a year to attend six-party international talks aimed at persuading it to disarm. The country pulled out of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in 2003 after U.S. officials accused it of a secret nuclear program, allegedly violating an earlier nuclear pact between Washington and Pyongyang.

South Korea's Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon was expected later Monday to be nominated as the next secretary-general of the United Nations by the Security Council. Ban has said he would use the post, which he would assume after Kofi Annan's term expires at the end of the year, to press for a resolution of the North Korean nuclear standoff.

A U.N. Security Council resolution adopted in July after a series of North Korean missile launches imposed limited sanctions on North Korea and demanded that the reclusive communist nation suspend its ballistic missile program — a demand the North immediately rejected.

The resolution bans all U.N. member states from selling material or technology for missiles or weapons of mass destruction to North Korea — and it bans all countries from receiving missiles, banned weapons or technology from Pyongyang.

Impoverished and isolated North Korea has relied on foreign aid to feed its 23 million people since disclosing in the mid-1990s that its state-run farming system had collapsed following decades of mismanagement and the loss of Soviet subsidies.

Beijing is the North's main source of food and fuel aid, and is under intense U.S. pressure to use its leverage to get Pyongyang to return to the disarmament talks.

The South had scheduled to ship 4,000 tons of cement to the North on Tuesday, but decided to delay it Yonhap reported, quoting an unidentified Unification Ministry official.

The delayed shipment was part of emergency assistance that Seoul promised the North after the it was hit by massive floods in July. South Korea has said the one-time aid is separate from the regular humanitarian aid to the North it has halted since missile launches by the North in July.

Speculation over a possible North Korean test arose earlier this year after U.S. and Japanese reports cited suspicious activity at a suspected underground test site.

But it was the North's warning last week that it would conduct a nuclear test that sparked frantic diplomatic efforts to head it off.

Japan's prime minister arrived Monday in Seoul for meetings with Roh that had been intended to address strains in relations between Japan and South Korea over territorial and historical disputes, but was overshadowed by news of the nuclear test.

On Sunday in Beijing, Abe and Chinese President Hu Jintao met and pledged to work together to avert a North Korean test

The repercussions of North Korea's announcement were also felt in the financial markets.

South Korean stocks plunged Monday following North Korea's announcement of the test. The South Korean won also fell sharply. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index, or Kospi, fell as much as 3.6 percent after the announcement but recovered some of those losses by the close of the trading session.

Markets in South Korea, the world's 10th-largest economy, have long been considered vulnerable to potential geopolitical risks emanating from the North.

In Pyongyang, there were no signs of unusual activity Monday as North Koreans went about their lives as usual. The red flag with the yellow hammer, sickle and pen of the North's Korean Workers' Party draped buildings and lampposts to mark Tuesday's 61st anniversary of the party's founding, and there were no signs of heightened alert by security forces.

 

[Nikijad4210]

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/10/09/nkorea.test.kcnatext.reut/index.html

Full text of North Korea's claim
POSTED: 2:43 a.m. EDT, October 9, 2006

SEOUL, South Korea (Reuters) -- Following is the full text of the announcement carried by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in English:

"The field of scientific research in the DPRK (North Korea) successfully conducted an underground nuclear test under secure conditions on October 9, Juche 95 (2006) at a stirring time when all the people of the country are making a great leap forward in the building of a great prosperous powerful socialist nation.

"It has been confirmed that there was no such danger as radioactive emission in the course of the nuclear test as it was carried out under a scientific consideration and careful calculation.

"The nuclear test was conducted with indigenous wisdom and technology 100 percent. It marks a historic event as it greatly encouraged and pleased the KPA (Korean People's Army) and people that have wished to have powerful self-reliant defence capability.

"It will contribute to defending the peace and stability on the Korean peninsula and in the area around it."

 

[Nikijad4210]

And in response to Lax-----


http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/10/07/nkorea.shotsfired.ap/index.html

Korea tension: 60 shots fired
POSTED: 10:10 a.m. EDT, October 7, 2006

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- Gunfire rang out Saturday along the heavily armed no man's land separating the divided Koreas, as regional tensions mounted in anticipation of communist North Korea's plan to test its first atomic bomb.

South Korean soldiers fired 60 shots as a warning after five North Korean soldiers crossed a boundary in the Demilitarized Zone separating the two country's forces, South Korean military officials said.

It was unclear whether the North Korean advance was intended as a provocation, or was rather an attempt to go fishing at a nearby stream, an official at South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said on condition of anonymity, citing official policy.

Four of the North Koreans were unarmed and the fifth carried a rifle, the official said. No one was hurt, and the North Koreans retreated.

While such border skirmishes are not unheard of, they are relatively rare. Saturday's incursion was only the second this year, the official said. The North sometimes orchestrates border skirmishes to jack up tensions at sensitive moments in international standoffs.

Earlier in the day, North Korea's neighbors applauded a U.N. Security Council statement warning the country not to follow through on its threats to test its first nuclear weapon, perhaps as early as Sunday. Japan said it will push for punitive measures if Pyongyang doesn't heed international opinion.

The statement adopted by the council on Friday also called on North Korea to return immediately to talks on scrapping its nuclear weapons program or face unspecified consequences.

South Korea's Foreign Ministry issued a statement Saturday saying it supported the appeal and also urging its isolated, communist neighbor to resume the long-stalled six-nation talks.

"North Korea must clearly recognize that a nuclear test would not help the North itself in any way," South Korea said. "North Korea should be held responsible for any consequences that could be caused by a test."

Stepping up shuttle diplomacy, South Korea's nuclear envoy said he will visit Beijing on Monday for two days of talks with Chinese officials about the nuclear test.

Separately, Japan's Foreign Ministry said it sees a nuclear test by North Korea as "a grave threat to the peace and security of northeast Asia and the world" and welcomed the Security Council statement.

"If North Korea conducts a nuclear weapons test despite the concerns expressed by international society, the Security Council must adopt a resolution outlining severely punitive measures," the ministry said in a statement.

The statement adopted unanimously on Friday expresses "deep concern" over North Korea's announcement Tuesday that it planned a test, a move that would confirm strong suspicions it is a nuclear power.

The warning was read at a formal meeting by the council president, Ambassador Kenzo Oshima of Japan, who indicated that the North could face sanctions or possible military action if it detonates a nuclear device.

The council acted amid speculation that a nuclear test could come on Sunday, the anniversary of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il's appointment as head of the Korean Workers' Party in 1997. Japanese Vice Foreign Minister Shotaro Yachi, currently in Washington, told Japan's TV Asahi, "Based on the development so far, it would be best to view that a test is possible this weekend."

With tensions rising, Kim met hundreds of top North Korean top military commanders and urged them to bolster the nation's defenses, as officers cheered, "Fight at the cost of our lives!" the North's official Korean Central News Agency reported Friday.

A North Korea expert in China, the North's closest ally, said only the removal of American economic sanctions against Pyongyang could dissuade the country from carrying out a nuclear test.

"North Korea has already made a decision to carry out a test," said Li Dunqiu, of China's State Council Development Research Center, a Cabinet-level think tank. But "if the U.S. removes sanctions ... then tensions can be eased. Otherwise launching a nuclear test is unavoidable for North Korea."

The United States imposed economic restrictions on North Korea last year to punish it for alleged counterfeiting and money laundering. Since late last year, North Korea has boycotted six-nation talks aimed at dismantling its nuclear ambitions.

North Korea said Tuesday it decided to act in the face of what it claimed was "the U.S. extreme threat of a nuclear war," but gave no date for the test. Washington has repeatedly said it has no intention of invading North Korea.

Both China and Russia have urged the United States and North Korea to hold talks.

But Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said U.S. Ambassador John Bolton told the council that there would be no North Korean-U.S. talks except in the margins of resumed six-party talks.

Bolton said the Security Council needs to adopt a long-term strategy to deal with North Korea but the top U.S. priority now is to stop a nuclear test.

Oshima, the Japanese U.N. ambassador, had pressed to have the statement adopted before Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe travels to China on Sunday and South Korea on Monday with a message that the North should stop testing.

 

[Nikijad4210]

****This is from last week****

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/10/04/nkorea.kim/index.html

Mysterious leader of the hermit state
POSTED: 6:01 a.m. EDT, October 4, 2006
By Peter Walker for CNN

(CNN) -- North Korea is notable in the modern world for a number of reasons. It is perhaps the planet's most repressive regime, certainly its most secretive, and its most heavily militarized. Oh yes, and it might soon become the latest to test nuclear weapons.

In a terse announcement on Monday, North Korea's official news agency said that due to the "extreme threat" from the United States the country would conduct a nuclear test, not specifying a date.

Whatever the wider arguments about nuclear proliferation, you would be hard-pressed to find anyone who thinks the world is a safer place with a nuclear-armed North Korea.

Why? Simply because the country officially known as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and its leader, Kim Jong-Il, are so secretive and unpredictable.

For example, no one outside the country even knows for sure whether North Korea has a nuclear weapon, or is simply engaged in a massive game of bluff with the wider world. Experts suspect North Korea has a handful of warheads, but only a test would confirm this.

At the center of this mystery stands the diminutive, bouffant-haired figure of Kim, all 5ft 3in (1.60m) of him, slightly more in the stack heels he reputedly favors, who inherited sole rule of the hermetic Stalinist state when his father, Kim Il-Sung, died in 1994.

Who is the man in the trademark tunic-style jacket and owlish glasses? To outsiders, even the basic facts of his life are an impenetrable mixture of myth and reality.

According to official biographies, Kim was born at Mount Paektu, a sacred Korean site, in 1942, an event supposedly marked by a double rainbow and a new star in the night sky.

The reality is that Kim was born a year earlier in Siberia, where his father commanded a brigade of exiled Koreans. North Korea did not itself exist until seven years later, when the Korean peninsula was split in two by the Soviets and Americans.

At times, the younger Kim can seem a ridiculous figure, especially given the ludicrous stories in North Korea's state-run media. One famously recounted Kim's first and only round of golf -- supposedly including 11 holes in one.

But for many of North Korea's 23 million people it is no joke.

Millions are thought to have died during a terrible famine in the 1990s, caused in part by gross economic mismanagement and the divergence of resources to the military. Thousands of others languish in prison camps. Torture and ill-treatment is "widespread," according to Amnesty International.

Much of what is known comes from exiles. North Korea is defiantly solitary, run on a principle known as "Juche", a home-grown brand of Stalinism emphasizing national self-reliance.

A small number of foreign journalists have been allowed into North Korea in recent years, witnessing a bleak society with little apparent economic activity, centered mainly around a slavish worship of the two Kims.

This personality cult is mixed with constant denunciations of the West, particularly the "imperialist" United States.

So, if North Korea has nuclear weapons, what will it do with them? No one knows.

One hopeful sign is that the few outsiders who have met Kim Jong-Il report he is informed and seemingly rational.

In late 2000, then-US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright traveled to North Korea during what turned out to be a fairly brief thaw in relations and held lengthy talks with Kim.

"He listened very carefully," Albright said later. "He didn't lecture me. I went through all my talking points with him. And he gave rational answers. And he seems pragmatic."

Kim also shares something else with millions of Americans -- a love of the NBA. So much so, indeed, that Albright presented the delighted Kim with a basketball signed by Michael Jordan.

 

[persianp]

The US administration is really worried about nukes, evidenced by our emminent attack of Iran, which is 10 years away from producing nukes...wait...North Korea HAS nuclear weapons and Iran is 10 years away...huh

 

[Guest]

i dont see the big deal...

i mean, nuclear weapons = bad.. true....

but, the same is true of our government.. minus the open media about our illicit activities.

Korea said this is for totally different reasons other than killing anyone...
so who are we(the US) to be the judge and jury?


edit: no i dont read much "news"
id rather stay in a good mood.

 

[Artie Lange]

Lets blast these niggas yo. holla at gdub .

 

[SEEDYNONO]

hmm.. reactions are pretty weak all around..
just as i thought.

this really does put the rest of the eastern asia in a pickle. everyone has to have nuclear weapons now. and it looks like thats just the way the world will be?
http://www.time.com/time/asia/news/article/0,9754,1544026,00.html?cnn=yes


of course bush say's the world "will respond." emergency UN meeting for expediting 'sanctions'
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/10/09/korea.nuclear.test/index.html




....holy shit this is crazy too.. 13 year old at school with ak47! but no one died thank god.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/10/09/missouri.school.ap/index.html

 

[Guest]

India and Pakistan did the same in 1998, granted that the North Koreans are a little crazier. I heared it created a 4.1 magnitude earthquake. I bet they'd hit South Korea and Japan first though if they did drop it...