Home | The Axis of Evil is nuclear.
North Korea has conducted a nuclear explosion.
The next thing we'll see is a nuclear test explosion in Iran.
Would you agree that nothing has really changed, since the USSR has done that too in it's aera and the threat is gone today?
Do you think any reaction of the international audience would exceed writing diplomatic notes in either case?
Not sure why so much fuss. They acknowledged having nukes years ago. We just need to wait until the old guard of their leadership passes away, so that new leaders would open up the country to reforms.
As a youth I used to weep in butcher's shops.
28,000 athletes - 36 million visitors hope to attend the 2008 Beijing Oympics.
The nuclear test sites were (according to the CIA) centered at 40.81-N, 129.101-E, some 15 km from Sangpyeong-ri in Kimchaek City, North Hamgyeong Province (but Punggye-ri in Gilju or Hwadae in the province have not been ruled out).
That's just 740 kilometers from the swimming venues at Shenyang and 900 kms from Beijing itself. A nuclear cloud from a detonation in the summer of 2008 will float over much of northern/central China......in about 16 hours.
In the interest of public safety, isn't it time to cancel the Oympics?
^_^
In the interest of public safety, isn't it time to kill the Kim?
As a youth I used to weep in butcher's shops.
New event: 10km fallout run.
From the slate : http://www.slate.com/id/2151270/fr/rss/
By Daniel Engber
Posted Tuesday, Oct. 10, 2006, at 4:46 PM ET
Download the MP3 audio version of this story here, or sign up for The Explainer's free daily podcast on iTunes.
The nuclear weapons test in North Korea may set off a regional arms race, warns Slate's Fred Kaplan. A new military threat could help Japan's new prime minister revise his country's pacifist constitution and make a push toward nuclear armament. What are the exact limits on Japan's armed forces?
They're not supposed to have any. According to Article 9 of the country's post-World War II constitution—which was drafted by American lawyers—"the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation." Furthermore, "land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained."
Article 9 doesn't apply to nuclear weapons. The Japanese government has always maintained the right to develop a defensive stockpile of nukes under the constitution, and the country's Supreme Court would likely go along. But there is an informal policy against the introduction, storage, and use of nuclear weapons. These "three principles" are firmly entrenched, even though they're not codified in the constitution or in any laws.
As a youth I used to weep in butcher's shops.
What about an army? Japan has maintained a pseudo-army—called the "Self-Defense Forces"—for decades, arguing that it's an extension of the national police and therefore doesn't violate the country's constitution. According to Japanese law, the Self-Defense Forces can only be used for, well, "self-defense." Until the last few years, that meant they would defend the islands from enemy attacks. The scope of their mission began to widen after North Korea tested a long-range missile over Japan in 1998.
First, the government signed a deal with the United States to help develop a missile-defense system. A long-standing ban on arms exports was later relaxed so the country could start shipping off missile parts to the Americans. Old-line pacifists say the program has also run afoul of a 1969 law restricting the use of space flight for military purposes, since Japan now has three intelligence satellites in orbit.
Meanwhile, Japanese troops have joined in military operations overseas. The war on terrorism has been deemed exempt from Article 9's specific ban on the "use of force as a means of settling international disputes," since it can be viewed as a form of individual self-defense. Former Prime Minister of Japan Junichiro Koizumi persuaded the parliament to pass temporary laws allowing for overseas deployment. The "Anti-Terrorism Special Measures Law" sent supply ships to help U.S. forces in Afghanistan, and another law from 2003 permitted a limited ground presence in southern Iraq.
More-recent debates have focused on whether the Self-Defense Forces can order emergency missile intercepts without first consulting the prime minister, and if it might be possible to launch a pre-emptive strike under certain conditions. The ruling party has also been considering a rewrite of the constitution that would make it easier for the SDF to deploy overseas. To get such an amendment passed, the government would need a two-thirds majority in both houses of parliament, plus a majority vote in a national referendum. While there's a lot of support for the reforms right now, it looks like the doves still have enough votes to scuttle the plan in one of the houses.
Got a question about today's news? Ask the Explainer
Explainer thanks Ellis Krauss of the University of California at San Diego.
It's all about keeping up with the Jones'
As a youth I used to weep in butcher's shops.
I think it's not such a bad devellopment, now the regime is safe from any foreign aggression, and can stop being paranoid and concentrate on economic devellopment and reform. Same for Iran or any country wich is under threat from US-aggression. MAD was the most important reason why the cold war never really turned into a hot one.
The US sure looked at India differently once her nuclear warheads started to develop.Originally Posted by takeo
As a youth I used to weep in butcher's shops.
China cancels troops' leave after N Korea nuclear test
[..CHINA has cancelled leave of soldiers along the North Korean border following its neighbour and former ally's controversial nuclear weapon test.
Beijing revealed today that troops would be "conducting anti-nuclear drills", although it did not say what this would entail. ..]
DPRK nuclear detonations would probably wreck China's (the world's fastest growing) economy..... but going on alert?
"How rude"
What ever to that old "comrade" thing among commies?
China invaded Vietnam ("comrades" heh?) in Feb. 17-Mar. 16, 1979 -- the Chinese People's Liberation Army lost almost 200,000 men because of inept leadership and outdated equiptment -- now it wants to teach another fellow "comrade", another lesson.
heh!
Japan has the largest commerical nuclear fuel reprocessing industry in the region if not the world.
Japan is in fact allowed to complete near total development of a nuclear gadget - up to the point where it is approx 30 days from a completed unit. The would be a non weaponized gadget. Weaponization would entail a few more years of work. (The same is true of Germany BTW)
Japan has one of the 5 largest defence budgets in the world.
Japan has a large indigenous weapons industry including aircraft, missiles, warships, tanks.
By Melinda Liu and George Wehrfritz
Newsweek
Updated: 8:26 p.m. ET Oct. 10, 2006
Oct. 10, 2006 - Kim Jong Il's big bang may not have been so big after all. North Korea's nuclear detonation sent enormous diplomatic shock waves through international capitals, to be sure, and governments are still scrambling to respond. But technical experts from Beijing to the Beltway observe that it was small by traditional standards and could have been a failure, or at least less than an unalloyed success. The explosive yield of Pyongyang's test apparently was little more than half a kiloton, just a fraction of the explosive yield range that wanna-be nuclear powers historically have aspired to. No first-time test by any of the seven previous declared nuclear powers is thought to have been less than nine kilotons.
North Korean authorities expected to conduct a nuclear test in the four-kiloton range, and told Chinese counterparts so in a 20-minute warning before the imminent detonation, according to Washington reports quoting an unnamed U.S. official. But American experts say what actually took place was a "sub-kiloton explosion". Although Beijing officials declined to confirm or deny that report, a Chinese source close to the government—who requested anonymity because he was not cleared to talk to the media—suggested to NEWSWEEK that the blast conducted by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) was less than a complete triumph. "DPRK authorities said it was successful, but then why haven't they declared their data? The yield in kilotons has been announced by Japan, South Korea, and Australia," said the source, "But not by Pyongyang. This makes people suspect [that] it wasn't a total success."
If the first explosion went partly awry, or was intentionally small, experts say it might be followed by an additional test or tests designed to generate more extensive data. As a precedent, on May 11, 1998, India first announced the detonation of three underground nuclear explosions and then the following day conducted two more tests for which the explosive yield was very low, in the range of 0.2 to 0.6 kilotons. India insisted the last two were higher-yield than reported, while some Western experts interpreted them to be fizzles instead.
How much does size matter? American, South Korean, and French scientists placed the yield of Pyongyang's blast at around 0.55 kilotons, possibly less. (The Russian Defense Minister's declaration that North Korea had successfully detonated a nuclear blast equivalent to between 5 and 15 kilotons of TNT has largely been dismissed). If the low Western estimates are accurate, that means the yield of North Korea's explosion was much weaker than the 22-kiloton bomb that the United States dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, in 1945.
Western experts point to a number of possible explanations for Pyongyang's low explosive yield. It could mean that only a portion of the device's core exploded. Or that a modest amount of plutonium was used, possibly because North Korea wanted to conserve its supplies. A third possibility is that North Korean scientists had intended to test the device's design rather than its yield. Or, fourth, that they'd succeeded in manufacturing a small, more sophisticated nuclear device—a possibility seen as alarming but less likely.
Kim Taewoo, a senior research fellow at the Korea Institute for Defense Analysis and one of South Korea's top nuclear policy specialists, rules out another line of speculation currently making the rounds: that the blast was actually due to conventional explosives. Instead, he believes North Korea possesses at least five nuclear "bombs"—by which he means weapons, not simply devices—but that it probably tested an n-device built specifically to display a capability, in order not to waste one of his precious weapons.
Even if it wasn't a total success, North Korea's blast has to be taken seriously. Bigger isn't always better. A-bombs that implode a ball of plutonium are easiest to create in the 12- to 18- kiloton range. Bombs smaller than that require greater sophistication and more precise designs. Smaller is actually scarier, says Kim. "Some will say [North Korea's test] was a small blast and therefore a failure. But small may be more deadly because if the North has mastered doing small blasts it means they can make small bombs—and terrorist groups prefer small bombs. In the world of global terror, it's the small bombs that we should be worried about."
Indeed, Washington's biggest worry is not that North Korea is poised to launch a nuclear attack, but rather Pyongyang's habit of sharing its weaponry with regimes unfriendly to the United States, says Robert Einhorn, former assistant secretary of State for nonproliferation. Despite Pyongyang's reported threat Tuesday to "fire a nuclear missile" at the United States if Washington doesn't move to resolve the current crisis, North Korea is not believed to possess the accurate long-range missiles required to hit U.S. territory, even in the Pacific. In July, North Korea's test launch of a long-range Taepodong missile which could theoretically reach Alaska or Hawaii failed after 40 seconds.
Ever since the birth of the atomic bomb, scrutinizing each new test for clues about the ambitions and arsenal of the government that just went nuclear have been part of the international fallout. In 1950 the first American officer of the newly formed CIA to be killed in the line of duty was Douglas Mackiernan, an "atomic spy" in China's remote western region who, among other things, had been in Central Asia to monitor the first Soviet nuclear test. (Because he had worked under diplomatic cover, he was named at the State Department as a U.S. diplomat who died in the line of duty, but at CIA headquarters Mackiernan's death is marked by an anonymous star on the Wall of Honor.)
Getting and analyzing test data isn't always easy. Seismic waves triggered by Monday's detonations were detected by sensors across the globe. (In contrast to natural earthquakes, explosions usually have a telltale wave pattern, with a strong initial spike and up-and-down 'raleigh waves' signifying a shallow event). But the precise yield, or force, is difficult to determine without specific knowledge of the geological composition and mineshaft structure at the test location, since these factors affect the size of the shockwave, and hence any estimate of yield, according to Kim Taewoo. A more precise assessment of Pyongyang's blast could take days, awaiting input from airborne monitoring devices—including "sniffer" systems which analyze particles and gases in the atmosphere.
Just because a sub-kiloton blast may suggest a partial test failure doesn't mean small, crude bombs can't inflict great damage. Even without a long-range delivery system, a modest nuclear bomb could be transported by conventional means to any of North Korea's frontiers. Consider this disturbing scenario: The North Korean dictator tries to blackmail the world's wealthiest nations, threatening to detonate a two-kiloton atomic bomb hidden inside a shipping container somewhere in the teeming port city of Hong Kong ... He declares that any attempt to disarm the device would result in "a nuclear holocaust for Hong Kong and the crippling of the world trading system."
Simulations of this scenario, using Pentagon-designed software, were conducted by Matthew McKinzie of the Natural Resources Defense Council. The calculation was that a two-kiloton bomb detonated on the ground in Hong Kong (pop. seven million) would kill some 87,000 people and destroy more property than the far bigger bomb that devastated Nagasaki at the end of World War II and killed an estimated 70,000 civilians. Now, just substitute for Kim a non-state rogue player such as Al Qaeda, and that's when the scenario gets really believable—and scarier still.
As a youth I used to weep in butcher's shops.
.....the Japanese military went on alert said it had detected tremors
North Korea has conducted a second nuclear test?
Magnitude 5.8 - OFF THE EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
or maybe it was Godzilla, who'll attack N.Korea and eat Kim Jung Mentally Ill.
The biggest threat of course is for the N. Koreans to export nukes to the various anti-Western forces in the world.
They could ship a nuke that could be loaded on a freighter, train or truck. This could then be shipped to various factions.
Let's say that the French Muslims grow weary of the attrocities, torture, unemployment and abuse they receive from the French.
Picture a large truck pulling up to Takeo's home....
Two disaffected French Muslims put out their cigarette...look at each other, and then hop out ofthe truck. Two motorcycles pull up and wisk them away.
Two hours later. Booooom!!!!
Iran says they had nothing to do with it.
N. Korea says the same thing.
The French papers get a call from the "Islamic Jihad against French Bad Manners" claiming credit.
Who do you retaliate against??
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